Patrick Leahy

The Senate this afternoon confirmed Judge David Hamilton to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals by a vote of 59 – 39, despite Republican efforts to filibuster his nomination. Republicans had criticized Hamilton for his rulings in a couple of cases involving abortion and religion during his 15-year tenure as a judge on the federal [...]

“This is war,” said Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.). “I think the decision you’ve made to try these cases in federal court represents a policy and political decision.”

Former Acting Assistant Attorney General Daniel Levin, who headed the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel under President George W. Bush after the departure of Jack Goldsmith, said this morning that “I personally am not opposed to criminal investigation of my conduct and others during the period in question.” Levin was referring to the period [...]

Political candidates often invoke God and spirituality on the campaign trail, but Rev. Richard Killmer, executive director of the National Religious Campaign against Torture, would like more pols to live up to those professed beliefs once they’re in office. President Obama, for example, has spoken eloquently of his own religious awakening, and of the importance [...]

TWI reader ajm8127 wrote in this afternoon with a thought on the insurance industry: “For profit health care insurance providers are a conflict of interest.”
Well, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) agrees.

A group of 10 Democratic senators today reintroduced legislation designed to end the sentencing disparity between powder and crack cocaine — a long-standing push that never quite seems to get enacted.
In a statement, the lawmakers cite the reasoning behind the proposal.
Under current law, possession of five grams of crack cocaine (roughly the weight of two [...]

Reid called the insurers’ anti-trust exemption “anticompetitive and damaging to the American economy.”

Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) just gave a remarkable speech at the Senate Judiciary Committee markup session explaining why he’s voting against reauthorization of the Patriot Act provisions because the substitute Leahy-Feinstein bill, which I described earlier today, doesn’t adequately protect American civil liberties.
Responding to Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s (D-Calif.) assurances that the bill, as proposed, is [...]

Seven major civil rights and open government organizations today sent a letter to leaders of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees urging them to pass legislation to restrict the government’s ability to use the “state secrets” privilege to dismiss litigation charging government wrongdoing. Although the Obama administration yesterday announced a new policy in which it [...]

Although the Obama administration’s much-anticipated new policy on the use of the so-called “state secrets” privilege, announced this morning, has drawn some praise, civil liberties lawyers and other critics of the use of the privilege don’t think it solves the problem.