Tuesday, April 19, 2005
Bush appoints 205 atheists to the federal courts!
Posted by:
Hammer / 10:20 AM
Shocking, but
apparently true:
Hoping to inform and energize Christians for the upcoming political battle, pro-family leaders are holding a "Justice Sunday" rally April 24 at Highview Baptist Church in Louisville, Ky. Scheduled speakers include Dobson, Family Research Council's Tony Perkins, Prison Fellowship's Charles Colson and Southern Baptist Theological Seminary's R. Albert Mohler Jr. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and retired judge Charles Pickering also are scheduled to speak. Pickering was one of the judges filibustered by Senate Democrats until Bush used a recess appointment to place him on the bench.
...
Perkins and other pro-family leaders assert that the filibuster has targeted people of faith -- an assertion that Democrats say is not true. ...
"We must break this filibuster against people of faith if we're going to be able to move forward in impacting this culture," Perkins said.
The Senate has approved
205 of Bush's nominees to the federal courts. Democrats have blocked 10. If Democrats are blocking "people of faith", then the 205 confirmed judges must not have been "people of faith". Ipso ergo cognito nullo latinum: Bush nominated -- and the Republican Senate has confirmed -- 205 atheists to federal judgeships. A shocking betrayal of the Republican base.
More from Salon, in case anyone wants to talk about bringing balance to the federal courts:
Republicans say the 10 who have been blocked matter a whole lot more than the 205 who have been confirmed. There's a little truth to the argument: While Bush enjoys a comparatively high approval rate for his District Court nominations, a smaller percentage of his nominees to the more powerful U.S. Court of Appeals have made it through the Senate. Bush has nominated 52 judges to the Court of Appeals; the 10 the Democrats have blocked are all in that group. But that doesn't mean that Democratic appointees are running the show in the federal appellate courts. At the moment, Republican appointees control the Supreme Court seven to two, and Republican appointees dominate 10 of the 13 appellate circuits. By the time Bush's second term ends, Republicans will almost certainly dominate 12 of the 13 circuit courts, leaving only the Ninth Circuit in Democratic control.