Is 5th Time the Charm to Get Obama’s Leftist Activist on DC Circuit?
President Obama is for the fifth time trying to ram through the Senate confirmation of a radical pro-abortion, anti-gun rights activist to become a judge on the nation’s most important federal appellate court.
Previously, the candidate, a renowned leftist attorney who advocates for the rights of terrorists, has been blocked by Senate Republicans, but Obama refuses to give up. For the firth time, Caitlin J. Halligan’s nomination is up for Senate approval to fill a vacancy on the District of Columbia Court of Appeals. Halligan is currently general counsel for the Manhattan District Aattorney’s office in New York.
It’s hardly the first time Obama appoints an outspoken liberal activist to a lifelong judicial post. Two of the more memorable ones sit on the U.S. Supreme Court. The first, Sonia Sotomayor, has radical ties to the leftwing Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund and has expressly rejected the notion that courts should be impartial. Before becoming a Supreme Court justice Sotomayor expressed support for the use of international law in deciding questions arising under the U.S. Constitution and she supported a radical, judicial activist agenda that includes opposition to any restrictions on abortion rights and Second Amendment rights.
Obama’s second Supreme Court justice, Elena Kagan, is also a known liberal activist who had never been a judge when she got nominated to the High Court and had very little legal experience. When Kagan served as dean of Harvard Law School she accepted $20 million from members of the Saudi Royal Family to establish a Center for Islamic Studies and Sharia Law, the authoritarian doctrine that inspires Islamists and their jihadism.
Halligan, a former New York state solicitor general, is of the same mold and has quite a record as a legal activist, which is why her nomination has been rejected four times. Never the less, the commander-in-chief wants her on the crucial D.C. Circuit Court that plays a major role in interpreting federal statutes and regulations. The court also hears a lot of cases involving terrorists and Halligan has expressed that the president doesn’t have the legal authority to detain enemy combatants associated with al-Qaeda.
A nonprofit that investigates judicial candidates has published an in-depth research paper on Halligan outlining her positions on gun rights, terrorist war crimes, marriage, judicial pay and the U.S. Constitution. One U.S. Senator, who blocked her nomination in 2011, explains that on a host of issues, Halligan consistently came down on the side of the far left. “She consistently advocated an activist and extreme approach to the law,” said Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley.
This didn’t stop Obama from resubmitting her nomination again in January. The Senate Judiciary Committee subsequently cleared the nomination and is expected to vote on it this month, possibly in the coming weeks. Not surprisingly, the mainstream media loves Halligan and the editorial pages of her hometown newspaper, the New York Times, claims she’s “an excellent choice” and “there is no good reason to vote against her.”