Gotta love that Tiffany blue via minxlj. Nice shot!

What do you get when you cross political hacks, rules and regs that aren’t respected and a disregarded sense of ethics and the rule of law?

A big fat continuing headache at the DOJ, that’s what:

The eight named plaintiffs, who purportedly represent a class of hundreds of similarly situated plaintiffs, maintain Justice based hiring decisions on the candidates’ liberal political and professional affiliations. Justice officials found and printed information from web sites about the candidates. Hundreds of applicants were turned down in 2002 and 2006 by political appointees. A motion for class certification is pending.

The defendants, including former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, want the suit tossed. Judge John Bates of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia heard argument today for more than two hours. He did not rule from the bench.

This is a ginormous mess.  Not least of which because the Obama folks at DOJ are trying to simultaneously sort out and clean up the detritus leftover from the Bush years, while also having to defend the DOJ’s reputation.  All the while not condoning the prior craptastic behavior.

Which means current DOJ attorneys have to stand there in open court and apologize profusely, decrying actions taken not by them, but by their predecessors over whom they had no supervisory control.

And, in this case, also having a highly detailed OIG report (PDF) on each and every inappropriate action in hand.

Judge Bates, who presides over this mess, said outright in court that the political vetting by Bush DOJ appointees was "deplorable." Given that Judge Bates was a Deputy Independent Counsel with Ken Starr and a W appointee, that gives you a taste of how bad things really were at DOJ given the evidence presented thus far. (more…)

The stay is requested pending their appeal of that order to the SCOTUS. SCOTUSblog has helpfully posted the full brief in PDF form.

A response brief from DOJ is due today, and I’m hoping for something better than "the courts can’t compel us to release anyone, thank you very much." But I am, sadly, not holding my breath on that one.

Why?  Because of what the US government may or may not continue to do:

At issue in the case are several orders issued by District Court judges, temporarily limiting the government’s power to transfer individuals out of Guantanamo. The detainees’ lawyers sought those limits to give them a chance to challenge any possible transfer to another country where the prisoners were likely to be tortured, or detained further. Some of the orders require a 30-day notice before a detainee could be sent elsewhere. (more…)

Balancing justice via prodigaldog.

The vote on Sonia Sotomayor’s SCOTUS nomination is likely to come at 3 pm ET today.

Would that other legal positions were also a priority in the Senate.  This is what happens when you fail to make the rule of law a priority:

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), speaking at the start of a committee meeting, expressed frustration that the Senate has not confirmed any nominees to the federal judiciary this year. In all, he said, there are 17 nominations that the Judiciary Committee has sent to the full Senate and that are still awaiting confirmation.

"The Senate has to do better," Leahy said. "There’s actually no excuse for not having moved yet."

What’s the logjam, you ask? A failure on any number of fronts, including a big fat failure of leadership:

…senators haven’t come to agreement to bring them to a vote.

The nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court has contributed to the slowdown among legal nominations. She is likely to be confirmed next week, and the Office of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has said he hopes to break the backlog of other nominees before the Senate recess set to begin Aug. 7.

Who hasn’t yet been approved? We’re still waiting for Senate action on Dawn Johnsen.  That this is beyond irritating is no news to regulars here.

But there are also 5 USAtty positions, 3 other DOJ leadership positions [Thomas E. Perez (civil rights), Mary L. Smith (tax), and Christopher Schroeder (Office of Legal Policy)], 3 federal judges [David F. Hamilton (7th Circuit); Gerard Lynch (2nd Circuit); and Andre M. Davis (4th Circuit)] and other legal advisers peppered throughout the executive branch pending votes. 

The continued lack of political will on rule of law issues is unacceptable. Period. 

The Senate Judiciary Committee approved the Sotomayor SCOTUS nomination this morning, in a vote of 13 to 6.

This from Sen. Leahy’s speech covers the Democratic perspective for the most part: In her 17 years on the bench there is not one example, let alone a pattern, of her ruling based on bias or prejudice or sympathy.

The Senate Judiciary Committee is voting on the Sotomayor nomination this morning. It’s a full committee vote which will then send the nomination out to the Senate as a whole for a floor vote. Senators are giving a little colloquy on the reasons for their vote along with their actual vote.

Tree at sunset via joiseshowaa. Lovely!What are the duties of a judge in the federal courts? On the Supreme Court? Let’s go all the way back to Marbury v. Madison for an answer:’No person,’ says the constitution, ‘shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court.’

11:36 am ET: LEAHY gavelling back into session after the break. Yields to Coburn. COBURN SECOND ROUND: Read your speech on foreign law and want to ask you the same question I asked Alito and Roberts. Asks her to agree not to use foreign law. Sotomayor says that she will use American law, except in situation where American law directs courts to look at foreign law.

Liveblogging the Sotomayor confirmation hearings continues. The endless political posturing is getting on my last nerve. Who doesn’t know that whomever the president nominates for a seat on any federal bench is going to meet with right-wing pushback?