As we begin a new year, President Obama has re-nominated several dangerous individuals to federal posts – including some to lifetime posts on federal courts.
The nominees are:
- Dawn Johnsen, to the Office of Legal Counsel
- Christopher Schroeder, to the Office of Legal Policy
- Mary Smith, to the Tax Division
- Craig Becker to the NLRB
- Louis Butler to be a district court in Wisconsin
- Edward Chen to be a district judge in California
- Erroll Southers to be head of the Transportation and Safety Administration (TSA), charged with airport security.
Who are these people and why should we care?
Dawn Johnsen is an Indiana University Law School professor. If confirmed, she will serve as head of the Office of Legal Counsel at the Justice Department. TVC vigorously opposed her confirmation in 2009 – and was influential in helping stall a vote on her in the Senate.
In 1987, Johnsen joined the ACLU’s Reproductive Freedom Project in New York. She later became legal director for the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League (now, NARAL Pro-Choice America).
The Office of Legal Counsel provides the government with opinions about the constitutionality of proposed governmental acts. For eight years, the Democrats and the Left complained that this office, charged with providing the government with objective opinions about the constitutionality of acts it wishes to undertake (this is the office that opined on detainees and interrogation, for example), had been politicized in an unprecedented way.
While at NARAL, she advised Bill Clinton on abortion issues and served on his transition team. She is a defender of the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA), which will wipe out virtually all state laws dealing with abortion or parental consent/notification. She served in the Clinton Administration as Deputy Assistant Attorney General and the Office of Legal Counsel, where she advised Janet Reno. Johnsen has been a longtime critic of President George Bush’s handling of the war on terror and the interrogation of enemy combatants. Her writings on the law are frequently posted on Slate.com’s legal blog, Convictions.
Senate Republicans have requested a new nomination hearing for Johnsen.
Christopher Schroeder, to the Office of Legal Policy: Schroeder is a leader in the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy (ACS), which is a Washington, D.C. hard-left think tank. The goal of this group is to infiltrate far leftists into the legal profession. It was founded by Walter E. Dellinger III, who served in the Clinton Administration and Peter J. Rubin, who was counsel to Al Gore during the 2000 Florida election lawsuit.
The stated goal of ACS is to oppose the work of the conservative Federalist Society. ACS receives funding from the George Soros Open Society Institute, the [Barbara] Streisand Foundation, Ford Foundation, and others.
Christopher Schroeder is co-chair of the “Separation of Powers and Federalism” working group with the ACS. The goal of this group is to “promote the ability of government at all levels to pursue progressive [socialist] policies.” (Dawn Johnsen is a member of the ACS Board of Directors).
Mary Smith, to the Tax Division: Mary Smith is a former Clinton Administration attorney in the Department of Justice, and campaigned for Sen. John Kerry. During her previous confirmation hearing, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) said this about Smith: “You are nominated to be the assistant attorney general for the Tax Division, but you have a surprising lack of experience in tax law. I am very concerned about your lack of experience in this area.”
Smith is also member of the American Constitution Society, the leftist legal group funded in large part by George Soros. She is also a leader in the Native American Bar Association.
Craig Becker to the National Labor Relations Board: Becker served as associate general counsel for the AFL-CIO and currently serves as the associate general counsel for the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), a group that campaigned for Obama and has been involved in thuggish activities against anti-Obama protesters.
In a 1993 Minnesota Law Review article, Becker argued for a rewriting of union-election rules to favor labor. He suggested that the NLRB could do this by regulatory fiat, without a vote of the Congress.
Glenn Beck has aired numerous exposes on SEIU and its plans for imposing its will not only on all Americans, but upon the world by unionizing overseas. Becker will be threat to every business in America.
Louis Butler to be a district court judge in Wisconsin: Butler is a liberal activist judge who was twice rejected by Wisconsin voters for a place on the Wisconsin Supreme Court after serving 4 previous years on this court. Voters became outraged by his activist decision-making. This makes him a perfect choice for President Obama to serve in a lifetime post on the federal court in Wisconsin. Butler earned the name “loophole Louis” for his soft-on-crime decisions. He angered doctors for overturning the state’s limit on medical malpractice suits and angered businessmen when he permitted “collective liability” in lead paint cases – making any company a target regardless of whether they made the paint in question.
Butler is closely associated with the American Constitution Society, the leftist group that is filling the Obama Administration with liberal activist lawyers and judges.
Edward Chen to be a district judge in California: Chen was an ACLU lawyer and activist from 1979-2001 and has questioned the need for American patriotism. At a Hastings Public Interest Law Foundation graduation ceremony in 2005, he told the crowd of his “feelings of ambivalence and cynicism when confronted with appeals to patriotism – sometimes I cannot help but feel that there are too much [sic] injustice and too many inequalities that prevent far too many Americans from enjoying the beauty extolled in that anthem.”
Ten days after the 9/11 attack on our nation, Chen expressed concern about “irresistible forces of racism, nativism, and scapegoating” that might result in the oppression of American Muslims.
Chen saw racism in the aftermath of the Hurricane Katrina in 2005. At a California State Bar Convention in 2005, Chen stated: “Would the response have been different had the majority of victims been white and middle class rather than poor and black?”
What is Chen’s judicial philosophy? He laid it out in a 2003 article, “The Judiciary, Diversity, and Justice for All” in the California Law Review:
"...diversity enhances the quality of decision-making. . . . judges have to make determinations that draw not so much upon legal acumen, but on an understanding of people and of human experiences. Such experiences inform assumptions that affect legal decisions. At trial and in evidentiary hearings, judges have to assess the credibility of witnesses. A witness’ testimony may seem more credible if it is consistent with the judge’s knowledge or experience, and, conversely, less credible if it remains outside the judge’s experience. . . . Simply put, a judge’s life experiences affect the willingness to credit testimony or understand the human impact of legal rules upon which the judge must decide. These determinations require a judge to draw upon something that is not found in the case reports that line the walls of our chambers. Rather judges draw upon the breadth and depth of their own life experience, upon the knowledge and understanding of people, and of human nature. And inevitably, one’s ethnic and racial background contributes to those life experiences."
In essence, Chen rejects the idea of using the Constitution or the law to determine a case. He wants to use ethic and racial backgrounds and life experiences in his decision-making. He is the perfect Obama candidate: One who supports “empathy” as the highest goal of a judge and the use of “feelings” in making decisions.
Erroll Southershas been chosen by Obama to run the Transportation and Safety Administration (TSA). News reports show that Southers considers pro-life Christians and our support of Israel to be a bigger threat than Al Qaeda. In 2008, Southers said he was more worried about “Christian identity” groups inside America than Islamic terrorists.
Southers thinks America is to blame for terrorist attacks. According to Southers, “Some people might argue that U.S. foreign policy exacerbates terrorism.” He also rejects the idea that terrorists are all Middle-Eastern Muslims. No, they’re also pro-lifers and Christians.
Of course, already in place are such radicals as Kevin Jennings. Jennings has been hired to head up the US Department of Education’s “safe school” program. This drug free/safe schools program will be used as an ATM machine to provide millions of dollars in funds for the promotion of the gay agenda in our nation’s public schools. Jennings has previously used the “safe school” ploy to push the gay agenda and to promote anti-Christian bigotry while he ran GLSEN.
He will use federal tax dollars as a way of silencing criticism of the gay agenda as being “hate speech,” or “homophobia.” (This anti-Christian agenda was carried out during the Clinton years in the “Healing the Hate” curriculum and resources on government web sites.)
More recently, Obama picked his first she-male for a cushy appointment in the Commerce Department. Amanda Simpson is a gender confused man who had his sex organs removed and has had breast enhancements to make him look like a woman. Simpson is a long-time transgender activist. Simpson will be a technical advisor in the Commerce Department. His female colleagues at Commerce will be forced to share restroom facilities with a surgically mutilated man who pretends to be a woman.
In Obama’s distorted worldview, appointing someone with a Gender Identity Disorder is progress.
TAKE ACTION: Contact your U.S. Senators and ask that they vote NO on confirming the individuals listed above.
