Obama to Senate: "Stop Asking So Many Questions About My Judicial Nominees"

Senator Rand Paul (KY) is making a very simple demand: You want to be a judge? Show us your legal opinions.

President Obama has nominated David Barron to be a judge.  Rand Paul correctly points out that Barron is tied to some very troubling legal memos -- the ones the administration uses to justify drone killings.

(See "Rand Paul threatens to derail Obama judicial nominee over drone memos: Republican senator demands release of legal memos written by David Barron that signed off on killing of US citizens" in The Guardian)

It seems likely that the Obama team is going to cough up the drones memo . . . and Rand Paul isn't going to back down . . . so add this to the other damaging incidents in what may amount to Barack Obama and the Democratic Party's mensis horribilis. ("Horrible month" -- sort of like annus horribilis, "horrible month," but more sudden.) The Schiff "Come Clean on Drone Killing Bill" . . . the Senate vote to release the torture report . . . nationwide demonstrations planned to emphasize the continued failure to close Guantanamo a year after the 5/23/2013 "National Security" speech . . . the chickens seem to be coming home to roost.

(About time.)

Related posts

Eric Holder addressed a group of Northwestern Law students and others. Afterward one audience member summed up the speech as he left: "He pretty much said he can kill anyone he wants." The details of that speech will turn you more topsy-turvy than anything Alice experienced when she ventured through the looking glass.

(See Eric Through the Looking Glass)


  

FIVE (5) additional co-sponsors were added last week to Schiff/Jones HR 4372: the Targeted Lethal Force Transparency Act:

Rep. Welch, Peter [D-VT-At Large]

Rep. McGovern, James P. [D-MA-2]

Rep. McDermott, Jim [D-WA-7]

Rep. Grijalva, Raul M. [D-AZ-3]

Rep. Speier, Jackie [D-CA-14]

(See SUPPORT the "Come Clean on Drone Killings" Act (Schiff/Jones HR 4372: the Targeted Lethal Force Transparency Act) )

On May 23rd of last year, President Obama again promised to close the detention facility at Guantánamo. His pledge came in response to the mass hunger strike by men protesting their indefinite detention and to the renewed, global condemnation of the prison. One year later, far too little has changed: few detained men have left the prison and hunger strikes and forced feeding continue. 



(See May 23 - Not Another Broken Promise! Not Another Day in Guantanamo! )