US Politics Mega-thread - Page 1531

On December 19 2014 02:53 Skilledblob wrote:
that's one thing I never understood about the US. at the core of a democracy should be the freedom of courts but at the same time you have the US government appointing judges and attorneys

On December 19 2014 03:01 Gorsameth wrote:

Same thing (more or less) happens is most countries. It happens in the Netherlands and it happens in Germany (unless wikipedia is wrong).
Your Bundesrad and Bundestag chose the judges who oversee the constitution (Bundesverfassungsgericht)

WASHINGTON -- The Justice Department will now interpret the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as protecting transgender government employees from discrimination, Attorney General Eric Holder announced Thursday.

In a memo, Holder wrote that the "best reading of Title VII's prohibition of sex discrimination is that it encompasses discrimination based on gender identity, including transgender status." Holder said that while Congress "may not have had such claims in mind when it enacted Title VII, the Supreme Court has made clear that Title VII must be interpreted according to its plain text."

In a statement, Holder called the move an “important shift" that "will ensure that the protections of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 are extended to those who suffer discrimination based on gender identity, including transgender status."

The Employment Litigation Section of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division enforces Title VII of the Civil Rights Act against state and local governments. DOJ does not file suit against private employers for discrimination claims.

On December 19 2014 04:02 Sub40APM wrote:

Federal judges decisions in general tend to be much more impartial than elected state judges precisely because judges have life tenure. Its true, its a very fascinating reality that the guardians of American democracy are essentially Platonic Philosopher King's whose career path is actually pretty narrow: to be a judge you first have to have graduated from a small elite circle of schools and then pursued a very specific trajectory. But the system works decently well, sometimes the court system drives the reforms -- Black freedom in the 1950s and 60s -- and sometimes it drives terribleness -- black legal re-enslavement under Jim Crow --. In general though the courts seem to reflect the zeitgeist of the America nation. So just as homosexuality became culturally accepted so the courts responded by striking down anti-gay laws.

On December 19 2014 01:25 oneofthem wrote:
sony etc are also making a statement of 'halp' to the government.

all corporations have dirty secrets, and media companies especially so because they deal with public celebrities and are very brutal with their IP territorial game.

On December 19 2014 02:53 Skilledblob wrote:
that's one thing I never understood about the US. at the core of a democracy should be the freedom of courts but at the same time you have the US government appointing judges and attorneys

On December 18 2014 12:04 oneofthem wrote:
can francis run for president?

On December 18 2014 03:23 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:
That I believe women in Cuba has allowed women to drive for well, since the invention of the car.

President Barack Obama can thank outgoing Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) for triggering the "nuclear option" in November 2013 and securing him one of the most robust judicial legacies of any modern president.

In six years, he has appointed a whopping 307 judges, who will shape the law for decades after he leaves office. The final 12 district judges were confirmed in the closing night of the Senate session on Tuesday, Reid's final move before Democrats surrender control of the chamber.

"The Obama Administration and the United States Senate have given Americans the best possible holiday present: the gift of justice," said Nan Aron, the president of the progressive law and policy group Alliance For Justice.

A total of 132 judges were confirmed in the 113th Congress — the most since the 1970s.

Perhaps most significant is his appointment of 53 judges on federal circuit courts, which have the last word on most matters of law. When Obama took office, just one of 13 appeals courts had a majority of Democratic-appointed judges on the active bench. Today, nine of 13 appeals courts have a majority of Democratic appointees.

"There has been an extraordinary onslaught of confirmations in the last year," said Russell Wheeler, an expert on federal courts at the Brookings Institution.

Obama has named the first-ever Native American woman and Indian-American federal judge. He has placed more female and Hispanic judges than any previous president, and more Asian-American and openly gay judges than all other presidents combined.

"Before Obama, 59 percent of the active judges were white males. Now it's down to 51 percent. That's quite a change in 6 years," Wheeler said. "You probably want to have a judiciary that looks like the people it's serving, and if they're all white males then you don't have that."

Until November 2013, Obama lagged behind his predecessors in confirming judges, facing unusual delays by the Senate Republican minority. Then Reid and 51 Democrats triggered the "nuclear option" to scrap the 60-vote threshold for all nominations other than the Supreme Court, advancing some stalled nominations and kicking the process into overdrive. Since then, Obama has outpaced his two predecessors in confirming appellate court judges.

In the last year, Democrats have confirmed 14 of Obama's circuit court nominees, half with fewer than 60 votes. The most salient impact of the "nuclear option" was to add three judges to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, widely described as the second most powerful federal court, and a feeder to the Supreme Court. Senate Republicans had refused to fill the three vacancies. The nuclear option also freed Obama to appoint some more liberal judges, including Nina Pillard to the D.C. Circuit, who drew comparisons to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg — and faced GOP opposition — for her work on gender equality.