Delroy Chuck has not even warmed the seat in the Justice Ministry and already he is acting like a Monarch . This is nothing new for Chuck who has a penchant for grandstanding and an over-sized impression of self.

According to Jamaican Media Chuck was speak­ing at a forum on the Justice Undertakings for Social Transformation (JUST) pro­gramme, held recent­ly, at the Pegasus Hotel in New Kingston. 
Delroy Chuck, is call­ing on judges to move to dis­miss cas­es that are in the sys­tem for five years and more by the end of 2016. He insists that cas­es must be dealt with with­in months, sim­i­lar to pro­ce­dures in oth­er jurisdictions. 
According to Chuck, unless there are rea­son­able grounds for them con­tin­u­ing, he would urge that this year, those cas­es be dis­missed for want of prosecution.Justice Minister Delroy Chuck says the con­sti­tu­tion pro­vides that a per­son charged should have their case dealt with by fair hear­ing with­in a rea­son­able time. He states that this can­not be years or decades. Chuck adds that it is not fair that any accused per­son, even if he is guilty, has to go to court for five years hop­ing that his inno­cence can be pronounced.

He is right regard­ing speedy tri­al but this is not an issue to be fixed by fiat. Delroy Chuck has no author­i­ty to make such demands.
If he is desirous of see­ing this issue addressed he should have his par­ty which is in Government table a bill on it and allow the issue to be debat­ed and vot­ed on by the house ..The peo­ple should also be allowed a say as they are the ones aggriev­ed by these crim­i­nal actions , .They are also the ones accused of these crimes .
Where does Chuck get the author­i­ty to make such demands?

Here’s the part that absolute­ly gets me with this guy, Quote : “It is not fair that any accused per­son, even if he is guilty, has to go to court for five years hop­ing that his inno­cence can be pronounced”.
Not a thought for the vic­tims of crime. “even if they are inno­cent”? Now does any­one won­der why I abhor this prick? The fact of the mat­ter is that he has nev­er been vic­tim­ized by crim­i­nal action.
He has nev­er been robbed , raped , shot , and he is here so he was nev­er mur­dered. Hence the reck­less talk about even if they are guilty.
Guilty peo­ple deserve no sym­pa­thy after they have com­mit­ted crimes. Arguing that the con­sti­tu­tion pro­vides that a per­son charged should have their case dealt with by fair hear­ing with­in a rea­son­able time in this con­text is a red herring.
Only in a crim­i­nal lov­ing soci­ety would a Minister of Government be advo­cat­ing for turn­ing crim­i­nals lose and absolv­ing them of the heinous crimes they have committed.
This argu­ment is disin­gen­u­ous and patron­iz­ing at best and at worse a crim­i­nal cod­dling attempt to cur­ry favor with crim­i­nal ele­ments which he nev­er shied from.
It’s the let­ter of the con­sti­tu­tion which speaks to a speedy tri­al based on the pre­sump­tion of innocence.
Arguing that even guilty par­ties should be absolved of cul­pa­bil­i­ty defies the intent or spir­it of that seg­ment of the constitution.
One does not have to be a lawyer to know bull­shit when he/​she sees it. Chuck’s decree is exact­ly that, a load of horse manure.

If such a move is to be adopt­ed the peo­ple’s rep­re­sen­ta­tives must be allowed to write that bill and vote it into law . Since these cas­es are already in the sys­tem, a for­mal leg­isla­tive review would be in order. Even then, in a coun­try like Jamaica I would not feel com­fort­able see­ing this done with­out over­sight, there are just far too many oppor­tu­ni­ties for corruption..
It’s incon­ceiv­able that a sin­gle Minister of Government would take it upon him­self to make such a sug­ges­tion which sounds more like a command.

Cuban President Castro on human rights: We have right to health, right to education, women get equal pay; let us work so that we can all comply with all human rights.

President Raul Casto: If Cuba is hold­ing polit­i­cal pris­on­ers, give him names and he will release them -

President Obama says he wel­comes crit­i­cism from President Castro on areas US is falling short ‘because we should not be immune or afraid of crit­i­cism;’ he adds that the issue of human rights is like­ly to still be an ‘irri­tant.’

US President Obama thanks Cuban President Castro; says despite the dif­fi­cul­ties, we will con­tin­ue to

move for­ward.

President Obama says moving ahead with more opportunities for Americans to travel to Cuba, assisting with more internet access for Cubans.

President Obama, in Cuba, says US will continue to speak up on democracy, human rights; says he welcomes constructive dialogue from President Castro as well.

President Obama says it is ‘a new day’ between US, Cuba; tells President Castro, ‘we have a half of cen­tu­ry of work to catch up on’.

President Castro says Cuba defends human rights; says will­ing to con­tin­ue dia­logue on topic.

A chance to talk directly to Cubans

President Obama’s his­toric trip to Cuba comes with all the trap­pings of an offi­cial vis­it. There’s the meet­ing with a country’s leader (President Raúl Castro), a friend­ly chat with a high-rank­ing reli­gious offi­cial (Cardinal Jaime Ortega), a pho­to op at a his­toric loca­tion (his­toric Havana) and even a state din­ner. But for the White House, the real­ly impor­tant work of the trip, which begins Sunday, will take place in between, in those moments when Obama has a chance to inter­act with every­day Cubans. This is a coun­try where the media is strict­ly con­trolled by the gov­ern­ment. So when Obama meets with a select group of Cuban entre­pre­neurs, talks with human rights activists and gives a broad address to the Cuban peo­ple, he’ll have a rare oppor­tu­ni­ty to send his mes­sage direct­ly to the country’s citizens.

“We see this speech as a unique moment obvi­ous­ly in the his­to­ry between our coun­tries,” Senior Advisor Ben Rhodes said ahead of the trip. “This is the first vis­it of a U.S. President in near­ly 90 years, cer­tain­ly the first speech giv­en by a President on Cuban soil in near­ly 90 years and an oppor­tu­ni­ty for the President to engage the Cuban peo­ple with his vision for the future.” The Cuba trip is also aimed at an audi­ence back home. The rap­proche­ment has only just begun, but many Republicans hope to delay or even reverse it, and there is lit­tle sup­port in Congress for end­ing the Cuban embar­go, which dates back to the 1960s. House Speaker Paul Ryan said last week that the embar­go remains the law despite Obama’s exec­u­tive actions on Cuba. (Current GOP front-run­ner Donald Trump, who is sup­port­ive of re-estab­lish­ing rela­tions, nonethe­lesssaid at the last debate that he would close the embassy until a bet­ter deal could be made.) “Part of the rea­son for going on the trip and for going on the trip ear­li­er in the year is to uti­lize it to accel­er­ate the process of nor­mal­iza­tion, to speak direct­ly to the Cuban peo­ple about what the President’s vision for nor­mal­iza­tion is, and to con­tin­ue to cre­ate open­ings for greater engage­ment between the American and Cuban peo­ple,” Rhodes said.

The First Family has a full sched­ule in Cuba, which kicks off a week-long trip to Latin America. After land­ing on Sunday after­noon, they’ll tour Old Havana and meet with Cardinal Ortega, a Catholic leader who worked with Pope Francis on the effort to bring the two coun­tries to the nego­ti­at­ing table. On Monday, the pres­i­dent will attend a bilat­er­al meet­ing with President Raúl Castro to dis­cuss the nor­mal­iza­tion process and strife in Colombia. Later that evening, the Obamas will attend a state din­ner. Before leav­ing the coun­try, Obama will watch a base­ball game between the Tampa Bay Rays and the Cuban nation­al team. President Obama Makes Historic Trip to Cuba

With the greatest of intentions and the support of Jamaicans of good faith and will, Jamaica’s new Prime Minister and his Administration will have a difficult time in carrying out it’s task of transforming the Island from Poverty to prosperity.

All Jamaicans have a vest­ed inter­est in the suc­cess of our coun­try yet at this point our coun­try is posi­tioned as a bar­rel at the edge of a clif­f’s being rolled uphill by the gov­ern­ing admin­is­tra­tion and Jamaicans hop­ing for a bet­ter nation. Unfortunately there is the lit­tle issue of huge swaths of peo­ple who sup­port the los­ing par­ty who are on the oth­er side of the bar­rel who are push­ing back hard, hop­ing to push the coun­try over the cliff to prove their par­ty is bet­ter. Pushing the bar­rel down-hill is always going to be an eas­i­er task and there­in lies the chal­lenge for our country.

It pains me to say it but there are Jamaicans who are active­ly cheer­ing for the fail­ure of the new admin­is­tra­tion. They do so with­out an con­sid­er­a­tion that fail­ure of the Administration means fail­ure of their country.
Is it fair to say that these Jamaicans favor par­ty over coun­try? If we answer yes we must exam­ine the rea­son why these peo­ple are so endued with their par­ty at the per­il of country.

Like many Jamaicans liv­ing in the dias­po­ra I hope and pray for a new Jamaica which will offer the Jamaican peo­ple oppor­tu­ni­ties to take care of their fam­i­lies and edu­cate their chil­dren with­out hav­ing to strug­gle against impov­er­ish­ment. It is fair to say that most Jamaicans in the dias­po­ra want a Jamaica not inun­dat­ed with crime. They see crime as the deal-break­er as it per­tains to their return and par­tic­i­pa­tion in the econ­o­my, I share that sentiment.

In 2008 Barack Obama made his­to­ry when he was elect­ed to the pres­i­den­cy of the United States of America.
In a scin­til­lat­ing book author Robert Draper detailed that on the night of January 20^th 2009 a group of Republicans gath­ered at the Caucus Room in Washington, an upscale restau­rant where a New York strip steak costs $51.
The pur­pose of the dinner/​meeting was to dis­cuss ways in which Republicans would obstruct the new pres­i­dent and bring him down , the idea was to obstruct on every bill.

They would take back the House in November 2010, which they did, and use it as a spear to mor­tal­ly wound Obama in 2011 and take back the Senate and White House in 2012, Draper writes.
According to Draper Congressman Kevin McCarthy told the group, “If you act like you’re the minor­i­ty, you’re going to stay in the minor­i­ty,” “We’ve got­ta chal­lenge them on every sin­gle bill and chal­lenge them on every sin­gle cam­paign.” On the more imme­di­ate future, they dis­cussed tar­gets such as Charlie Rangel, chair­man of the House ways and means com­mit­tee, who Gingrich said was vul­ner­a­ble over his per­son­al tax­es. They would also tar­get Treasury sec­re­tary Tim Geithner, demon­strate unit­ed and unyield­ing oppo­si­tion to the pres­i­den­t’s eco­nom­ic poli­cies, and release neg­a­tive ads against vul­ner­a­ble Democratic mem­bers of Congress.

Attending the din­ner were House mem­bers Eric Cantor, Jeb Hensarling, Pete Hoekstra, Dan Lungren, Kevin McCarthy, Paul Ryan and Pete Sessions. From the Senate were Tom Coburn, Bob Corker, Jim DeMint, John Ensign and Jon Kyl. Others present were for­mer House Speaker and future – and failed – pres­i­den­tial can­di­date Newt Gingrich and the Republican strate­gist Frank Luntz, who organ­ised the din­ner and sent out the invi­ta­tions. Democrats con­demn GOP’s plot to obstruct Obama as ‘appalling and sad’.

One of the neg­a­tives which arose from the strat­e­gy meet­ing is the total grid­lock in the Nation’s cap­i­tal and the rise of Donald J Trump. People’s National Party sup­port­ers are not the only polit­i­cal ani­mals who are more invest­ed in the suc­cess of their par­ty over the suc­cess of their coun­try. Neither are the Republicans in the United States. In twist­ed ways many peo­ple I have spo­ken to , includ­ing PNP and Republican sup­port­ers , argue that they hope that the par­ty in pow­er fail so their par­ty can take the reins and succeed.
It’s a con­vo­lut­ed rea­son­ing which defies ratio­nal thought or rea­son. If the par­ty in pow­er suc­ceeds , isn’t that a good thing, isn’t that the end game? Obviously not so for Republicans or many PNP supporters .

If suc­cess , regard­less of which par­ty’s poli­cies ensures it is not the endgame then obvi­ous­ly suc­cess of the nation is not para­mount to Republicans and it cer­tain­ly is not to PNP supporters.
Which brings us to the real issue which seem to be con­trol and pow­er over state resources. Over the last two or three elec­tion cycles less and less Jamaicans have lost their lives to polit­i­cal vio­lence. In fact polit­i­cal killings has dropped pre­cip­i­tous­ly when com­pared to pre­ced­ing cycles.

Some ana­lysts have con­tend­ed that this may be due to dimin­ished clout of politi­cians over tra­di­tion­al enforcers. They argue that mem­bers of par­lia­ment has less and less tax-pay­ers funds to dole out to con­stituents for their support.
Some have also con­tend­ed that many young men who would nor­mal­ly be out com­mit­ting vio­lent acts on behalf of their par­ties are engaged in more lucra­tive crim­i­nal activ­i­ties like scam­ming and robberies.
I am inclined to believe over­all that there are sim­ply not enough slush mon­ey in the hands of par­lia­men­tar­i­ans to inspire the kind of loy­al­ty that once exist­ed. That’s a good thing .

Shockingly though not sur­pris­ing­ly it appears that the gen­er­al con­sen­sus of the los­ing par­ty’s sup­port­ers is a fer­vent desire to see the new admin­is­tra­tion in Kingston fail.
How does this young new leader assure and con­vince those peo­ple that if he and the gov­ern­ment fail they fail? How does he con­vince them con­trary to what they were reared to believe, that polit­i­cal par­ties are tools to nation-build­ing and not the ulti­mate goal.
Could it be that the past ungra­cious behav­ior of the los­ing par­ty’s lead­er­ship has poi­soned the well of good­will which ought to exist when one par­ty leaves office and anoth­er take over?

If lead­ers lead the peo­ple will fol­low. Yet what appears to be hap­pen­ing is a sense of nit-pick­ing at the new admin­is­tra­tion which has­n’t yet ful­ly warmed the seats on the gov­ern­ment side of Gordon House.
I under­stand the Labor Party has always been held to a high­er stan­dard but the par­ty deserves the oppor­tu­ni­ty to set­tle into office and a chance to exe­cute it’s agenda.
The par­ty cam­paigned on a plat­form of “from pover­ty to pros­per­i­ty” , it must have a chance to execute.
If the peo­ple believe they can con­tin­ue busi­ness as usu­al with the sense of chaos which exist then that bat­tle is already lost.

One of the lure of the People’s National Party to the mass­es is it’s any­thing goes style of Governance.
That gov­er­nance style which has been in place and con­trolled pow­er for 32 of the last 44 years has seen a mas­sive rise in urban sprawl. Massive increase in pover­ty. A mas­sive increase in squat­ter com­mu­ni­ties which have encir­cled once pris­tine com­mu­ni­ties. Potentially most dam­ag­ing is the mass pro­lif­er­a­tion of vend­ing stalls which take over entire streets pre­vent­ing the free-flow of traf­fic plac­ing the lives of entire com­mu­ni­ties at risk.

There is a gen­er­al sense on the part of many Jamaicans that the rule of law is not impor­tant or at best it’s sec­ondary to their means of mak­ing a liv­ing. The People’s National Party main­tained a form of qua­si gov­er­nance amidst the chaos which nev­er addressed the rot but allowed it to metastasize.
No hig­gler believe he/​she should be removed from the streets, or in front of tra­di­tion­al busi­ness­es where they sell the same things inside the stores but pay no taxes.
No squat­ter believes the auto-repair shop he ille­gal­ly cob­bled togeth­er beside some­one’s home which depre­ci­ates that prop­er­ty own­ers home is a prob­lem. Moving him away is a major prob­lem, it demon­strates that the Government is against poor peo­ple. Such is the Jamaican men­tal­i­ty and the PNP thrives in that chaos.

Republican obstruc­tion pre­cip­i­tat­ed the rise of a fas­cist called Donald J Trump. The par­ty is now stuck in a quandary unsure how it will han­dle the threat Trump pos­es to it’s legit­i­ma­cy. Many argue the estab­lish­ment has already lost con­trol of the par­ty to the unsta­ble bigot.
The Leader of the Opposition par­ty has cre­at­ed a so-called Council of advis­ers which has turned some heads , this is a depar­ture from the role the oppo­si­tion par­ty tra­di­tion­al­ly plays in mon­i­tor­ing the activ­i­ties of Government and report­ing to the people.
We will be keep­ing an eye on this coun­cil to point out to the peo­ple whether or not we believe it is an organ of obstruc­tion instead of a legit­i­mate oppo­si­tion as is pro­vid­ed for in the constitution.

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid ripped Republican lead­ers Thursday for set­ting the con­di­tions for Donald Trump to thrive — and called on them to reject him.

“The Republican Party has become with­out ques­tion the par­ty of Trump,” Reid said. House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell should now say “enough” and “do it now,” the Nevada Democrat said. Trump’s rise has unset­tled many Republican lead­ers, par­tic­u­lar­ly on Capitol Hill, who remain deeply leery of the real-estate billionaire’s poten­tial for divi­sive and inflam­ma­to­ry state­ments. But they have been unable to uni­fy behind an alter­na­tive, which has left many Republicans in Congress try­ing to dis­tance them­selves from Trump while say­ing they will sup­port who­ev­er wins the nom­i­na­tion. Reid used his fiery speech at the Center for American Progress Action Fund in Washington to make the case that Republicans need to own up to their role in Trump’s suc­cess. “If Senator McConnell won­ders from where Donald Trump came from — he should look in the mir­ror,” said Reid.

Both Ways

Reid said that if McConnell dis­agrees with Trump’s “racist” state­ments, he should say so and reject him out­right. The Nevada Democrat accused Republican lead­ers of want­i­ng to have it both ways for too long. Reid argued that Republicans, with sev­en years of obstruct­ing President Barack Obama and refus­ing to reject the more extreme ele­ments of their par­ty, set the stage for Trump. “Republican lead­ers cre­at­ed the drought con­di­tions,” he said. “Trump sim­ply struck the match.” Reid said Republican lead­ers chose obstruc­tion and “scorched-Earth” tac­tics even before Obama took office. “What thrived in the waste­land Republican lead­ers cre­at­ed? Resentment, hatred,” Reid said.

Pattern Continues

He said that pat­tern con­tin­ues, as evi­denced by the Republican treat­ment of Obama’s Supreme Court nom­i­nee Merrick Garland. Republican lead­ers have said they will not con­sid­er any nom­i­nee for the high court from Obama. “That’s how they’ve treat­ed him for his entire pres­i­den­cy,” Reid said. Republicans also have reject­ed sci­ence and oth­er evi­dence that sup­port­ed Democratic poli­cies, such as on cli­mate change and gun vio­lence, he said. “Even basic facts about the state of the econ­o­my,” he said. “It’s no won­der Americans feel pow­er­less.” Reid added that he believes this all helped to fos­ter the rise of the Tea Party — a wave he said is dri­ven by “some of the dark­est forces in our culture.”

Birther Movement

And there have been oth­er byprod­ucts of Senate Republican actions, said Reid, that have helped kick off what he called “the Donald Trump move­ment.” Those includ­ed, he said, push­ing the idea that Obama’s pres­i­den­cy was some­how ille­git­i­mate, includ­ing through the birther move­ment, which pro­mot­ed the false sto­ry that Obama was born in Kenya. “And who was the most promi­nent Republican in the birther move­ment? Yeah, Donald Trump,” said Reid. “The Republican Party has become with­out ques­tion the par­ty of Donald Trump.” “If McConnell and Ryan think that Donald Trump’s racist, xeno­pho­bic dem­a­goguery is wrong, they should not sup­port him — peri­od,” Reid said. “If they refuse to revoke their sup­port for Trump, they should both put on ‘Make America Great Again’ hats, and stand behind Trump at his next press con­fer­ence.” But they haven’t reject­ed Trump, he said. “This is pre­cise­ly the type of moral cow­ardice” that led to Trump’s rise, he added.
See more her : Reid Says Republican Party Begat Trump and Should Reject Him

There is talk that despite directives given by Prime Minister elect Andrew Holness that vehicles assigned to outgoing Ministers not be sold to them, that some vehicles were indeed sold .

After the new PNP Administration took office in 2011 ‚Jamaica House respond­ed to queries sur­round­ing the pur­chase of new Sport Utility Vehicles for Ministers of Government to the tune of US$694.000 or J$60 mil­lion. According to pub­lished reports the vehi­cles pur­chased were a shade below or at the lev­el of the max­i­mum allow­able spend on gov­ern­ment vehi­cles. The max­i­mum amount allowed is US$35,000 per vehi­cle. The cheap­est vehi­cle pur­chased for new gov­ern­ment min­is­ters was a 2012 Audi for Finance Minister Dr Peter Phillips. The car cost US$32,327.96. The oth­er vehi­cles, all SUVs, were a shade under from the US$35,000 upper limit.

I am not in a posi­tion to say one way or the oth­er whether the sell-off was good pol­i­cy or whether the new admin­is­tra­tion over spent on pur­chas­ing new vehicles.

LEAVE THE KEYS ON YOUR WAY OUT AND DON’T LET THE DOOR HIT YOU WHERE …

On the face of it there does­n’t seem to be any­thing wrong with the deci­sion to pur­chase new vehi­cles for min­is­ters of Government. Practically speak­ing the prices quot­ed seemed con­ser­v­a­tive inso­far as the cost of vehi­cles go in today’s mar­ket. Neither would I chal­lenge the deci­sion of the then Government to pur­chase Sport Utility Vehicles when the qual­i­ty of the Island’s roads and ter­rain is considered.
It would be spec­u­la­tive and prob­a­bly disin­gen­u­ous to lit­i­gate those expen­di­tures then and could eas­i­ly be brushed aside as partisan.
Government Minister should have vehi­cles as one of the tools in their tool-box­es in order to do the jobs they are asked to do.

In the same breadth it is also with­in the purview and right of the new­ly elect­ed Administration to say even though we have ben­e­fit­ed from this prac­tice in the past we are going to dis­con­tin­ue this prac­tice. In light of this it is impor­tant that if true the Jamaican peo­ple are made aware of what for­mer Ministers was allowed to pur­chase the vehi­cles, and on whose author­i­ty the sales were car­ried out?
The JLP cam­paigned on it’s core prin­ci­ples of fis­cal con­ser­vatism, good stew­ard­ship of the pub­lic’s trust under the slo­gan “from pover­ty to pros­per­i­ty”. On that basis the Prime Minister elect was with­in his right to ask that no vehi­cle be sold as was cus­tom­ary. This was par­tic­u­lar­ly impor­tant when the crit­i­cal state of the Island’s econ­o­my is considered.
One of the fail­ures of the pre­vi­ous Administration was it’s refusal/​inability to com­mu­ni­cate with the Jamaican people.
It is crit­i­cal­ly impor­tant that Prime Minister Holness acquit him­self and his admin­is­tra­tion of that bag­gage before it becomes his and his admin­is­tra­tion’s crit­i­cism as well.

The People’s National Party is mas­ter­ful at cre­at­ing illu­sions and smear using lies and innu­en­dos. It is impor­tant that the new Administration speak with max­i­mum clar­i­ty and due dis­patch on the true state of the Jamaican economy>
With each pass­ing day the chance that the new admin­is­tra­tion can lay blame for prob­lems left by the PNP at the feet of the PNP becomes less doable, less credible.
That is why this medi­um sug­gest­ed a quick audit of each min­istry and a a full dis­clo­sure to the peo­ple as soon as the new admin­is­tra­tion takes office.
The new Government must have an open line of com­mu­ni­ca­tion with the Jamaican peo­ple, fail­ing which it must pre­pare itself to be del­uged with lies and claims that all of the fail­ures of the past admin­is­tra­tion are it’s own.
It’s not good enough to have good inten­tions and be work­ing for the com­mon good alone. It’s impor­tant that the peo­ple be made aware of the true sit­u­a­tion the new admin­is­tra­tion inherited.

There are rum­blings as well that monies avail­able to Ministries were deplet­ed rapid­ly as soon as it became clear that there would be a change in Government. We have heard no word from the new admin­is­tra­tion on whether there is any truth to these sto­ries or whether there was any­thing crim­i­nal or uneth­i­cal about this.
The JLP did a great job of com­mu­ni­cat­ing with Jamaicans at home and abroad while it was in cam­paign mode. It makes a crit­i­cal error if it fail to con­tin­ue to apprise the peo­ple of the facts now that it is in Government.
The peo­ple must feel this new admin­is­tra­tion is their admin­is­tra­tion or it won’t be long before it finds itself on the out­side look­ing in again.
The PNP is mas­ter­ful at reas­sign­ing blame for it’s incom­pe­tence and corruption.

The Constitution of the United States places into the hand of the President of the United States the responsibility to pick Supreme Court nominees . It also places the same responsibility in the Senate to advise and consent on the President’s pick. This means senators on the Judiciary committee meet with nominees have a chance to personally interview them and form an opinion on individual appointees.
The Judiciary committee is required to hold public hearings on nominees then vote in committee on said nominees . If the Nominee survives the Judiciary committee vote the full Senate then vote on that nominee.

A President of the United States is elect­ed to a four year term . His/​her duties are for the full four years, after which there is a han­dover of pow­er when a new President is inau­gu­rat­ed. The President of the United States has a respon­si­bil­i­ty to do the job and to exe­cute the man­date on which he campaigned.,
The sen­ate has a respon­si­bil­i­ty to do it’s job as well.
Much of the nar­ra­tive around Republican polit­i­cal phi­los­o­phy is it’s lip ser­vice to the Constitution.
Republican com­mit­ment to the Constitution is con­di­tion­al. Their com­mit­ment is con­tin­gent on what serves their nar­row polit­i­cal inter­ests. They lie inces­sant­ly and unashamed­ly. Republicans oper­ate as a mono­lith­ic enti­ty in their oppo­si­tion and obstruc­tion of President Obama agen­da. They also speak with the same mono­lith­ic lying tongue when it suits their interest.

It was no sur­prise that when the high­ly par­ti­san Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonin Scalia died that Republicans would imme­di­ate­ly indi­cate that Senators would­n’t even meet with any replace­ment of the President, regard­less of the nom­i­nee’s qualification.
Republican par­ty offi­cials across the board imme­di­ate­ly con­coct­ed a nar­ra­tive which sug­gest­ed that the deci­sion of who replaces the big­ot­ed Scalia should be left up to voters.
The Constitution has absolute­ly no require­ment for the peo­ple to appoint Supreme Court Justices through the process of elec­tions or otherwise.
That func­tion is reserved sole­ly for the President and the Senate to advise and consent.

Ted Cruz one of the Republican Candidates run­ning for pres­i­dent was among the first to sug­gest that the peo­ple should decide who the next jus­tice is.
Cruz argues some­one an icon­ic right-wing lumi­nary as Scalia should be decid­ed on by vot­ers. Cruz who fan­cies him­self the ulti­mate author­i­ty on con­sti­tu­tion­al law knows the peo­ple does not decide on Supreme Court nom­i­nees. What he is hop­ing for is a Republican President who will pick a right-wing ide­o­logue to replace Scalia.

Ted Cruz inci­den­tal­ly men­tions the American Constitution more than any liv­ing breath­ing human being. Yet when it comes to nar­row par­ti­san pol­i­tics Cruz indis­crim­i­nate­ly and expe­di­tious­ly ditch­es the con­sti­tu­tion in favor of rad­i­cal right-wing par­ti­san ideology.
So too has Marco Rubio, Chuck Grassley who heads the Judiciary Committee, Orrin Hatch, and even Donald Trump the cir­cus clown who now seem like­ly to head that party.

On Wednesday March 16^th President Barack Obama announced in the rose Garden his deci­sion to nom­i­nate Judge Merrick Garland to be the next Justice to serve on the Supreme Court.

Garland, a grad­u­ate of Harvard Law School, is the chief judge of the D.C. cir­cuit court. He was appoint­ed by President Bill Clinton. Garland was pre­vi­ous­ly con­sid­ered for the Supreme Court seat that Justice Sonia Sotomayor was select­ed for in 2010. At the time, Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah told Reuters that Garland was “a con­sen­sus nom­i­nee” who would win Senate con­fir­ma­tion with bipar­ti­san sup­port with­out a problem.“He would be very well sup­port­ed by all sides” as a Supreme Court nom­i­nee, Hatch said in 2010, accord­ing to Reuters, “and the pres­i­dent knows that.”.

Republicans argue that a fig­ure as con­se­quen­tial (my char­ac­ter­i­za­tion) as Antonin Scalia should be replaced by a deci­sion of the vot­ers. This is a most absurd the­o­ry , to begin with Antonin Scalia was con­se­quen­tial to the right only.
Scalia rep­re­sent­ed nar­row right-wing inter­est. He val­ued cor­po­ra­tions over peo­ple, the pow­er­ful over the pow­er­less and the Oligarchical struc­ture over the rights of individuals.
What they are say­ing is that the are unwill­ing to con­sid­er the President’s pick for the court because they want to play out their hand hop­ing for a Republican Presidential win in the fall, upon which they can place anoth­er rad­i­cal right-wing ide­o­logue on the court. This kind of bla­tant politi­ciz­ing of the process cre­ates a sit­u­a­tion in which judges do leg­is­late from the bench.

What makes this stance most hyp­o­crit­i­cal is that Republicans con­sis­tent­ly squeal about judges over­step­ping their con­sti­tu­tion­al respon­si­bil­i­ty by leg­is­lat­ing from the bench. Ironically this is exact­ly what they espouse by adopt­ing this intran­si­gent obstruc­tion­ism . They are hop­ing for a Republican win in November so they can stack the Court with right-wing ide­o­logues like Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas.

They argue that Democrats have advo­cat­ed for exact­ly the same thing, con­ve­nient­ly cit­ing the abstract Biden rule. The sup­posed Biden rule emanat­ed in 1992 when then Delaware Senator Joe Biden said .…

“Were there a vacan­cy, Biden argued, Bush should “not name a nom­i­nee until after the November elec­tion is com­plet­ed,” and if he did, “the Senate Judiciary Committee should seri­ous­ly con­sid­er not sched­ul­ing con­fir­ma­tion hear­ings on the nom­i­na­tion until after the polit­i­cal cam­paign sea­son is over.” “Senate con­sid­er­a­tion of a nom­i­nee under these cir­cum­stances is not fair to the pres­i­dent, to the nom­i­nee, or to the Senate itself,” he con­tin­ued. “Where the nation should be treat­ed to a con­sid­er­a­tion of con­sti­tu­tion­al phi­los­o­phy, all it will get in such cir­cum­stances is par­ti­san bick­er­ing and polit­i­cal pos­tur­ing from both par­ties and from both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue.”

According to the Washington post Biden defend­ed his com­ments by say­ing he was speak­ing about a hypo­thet­i­cal (there was no court vacan­cy at the time). He was also speak­ing in June of an elec­tion year — not February — which is around the time some­thing called the Thurmond Rule has tra­di­tion­al­ly kicked in. (Though con­gres­sion­al experts say the Thurmond Rule is less an actu­al rule and more of a guide­line that both par­ties call on when polit­i­cal­ly expe­di­ent on when the Senate can shut down the judi­cial con­fir­ma­tion process.)

Whatever hap­pens vot­ers with the abil­i­ty to sift through hyper­bole and bull should hold Republicans account­able come November . Many Republican Senators , Governors and Congressional Representatives are up for re-elec­tion in November .
There are far more vot­ers who iden­ti­fy as Democrats than there are vot­ers who iden­ti­fy as Republicans. The Republican par­ty should be penal­ized for this bla­tant obstruc­tion­ism for polit­i­cal expediency.
Voters elect a President to do a job , the sen­ate is also elect­ed to it’s job, the job of the sen­ate is not to obstruct a pop­u­lar twice elect­ed president.
Insisting that the peo­ple should be allowed to deter­mine which nom­i­nee is placed on the supreme court is right in one sense.
The peo­ple spoke deci­sive­ly and unequiv­o­cal­ly when they elect­ed Barack Obama to the Presidency of the United States, not once but twice.
The peo­ple have already spoken.
Decisively !!!

Marco Rubio the son of Cuban Immigrants could have used his tal­ents and edu­ca­tion to be a cham­pi­on for dis­ad­van­taged peo­ple across America and across the Globe even.
He could have used his perch to stand for the val­ues of a coun­try which took his par­ents in and made them a suc­cess so that he could become speak­er of the Florida State House , a US Senator and Presidential candidate.
Rubio did not do that, he chose instead to take the most hawk­ish path toward the pres­i­den­cy. He advo­cat­ed for wars across the globe and a build-up of the mil­i­tary which is already vast­ly supe­ri­or to all of the oth­er top Milatary combined.
According to (Politifact​.com) In 2014, the most recent year avail­able, the United States led the world in mil­i­tary spend­ing at $610 bil­lion, mark­ing 34 per­cent of the world total, SIPRI found. U.S. expen­di­tures were near­ly three times high­er than China, the sec­ond-high­est nation with an esti­mat­ed $216 bil­lion in mil­i­tary spend­ing. Russia was in third place at $84.5 bil­lion. But count­ing togeth­er mil­i­tary spend­ing from the eight coun­tries after the United States comes out to $646.4 bil­lion, sur­pass­ing the United States’ $610. Omitting No. 9 on the list, Japan, the cal­cu­la­tion comes out to about $601 billion.

Marco Rubio nev­er missed an oppor­tu­ni­ty to tell those would lis­ten that his moth­er was a maid and his father a bartender.Yet Rubio’s every action seemed

to sug­gest he has a dis­dain for immi­grants who come to this coun­try in search of a bet­ter life for their fam­i­lies the way his par­ents did. He nev­er advo­cat­ed for immi­grants, the poor, nor the oppressed.
Marco Rubio instead paid lip-ser­vice to the work­ing class while main­tain­ing a hell-bent rapa­cious desire to attain the high­est elect­ed office tear­ing down all in his quest to do so.
In a rapa­cious pur­suit for ulti­mate pow­er Rubio nev­er both­ered to do the job he was elect­ed to do, he nev­er both­ered show­ing up to cast votes in the senate.
He was too busy seek­ing the oth­er office.
That may have been his mis­take , he had no record to run on , . Rick Santorum a peren­ni­al Presidential con­tender who dropped out of the Republican pres­i­den­tial con­test and endorsed Rubio could not name a sin­gle leg­isla­tive accom­plish­ment of Rubio .
This despite the fact that Rubio served in the Florida state house and is a sit­ting mem­ber of the United States Senate.
Marco Rubio is still a US Senator a pow­er­ful and envi­able job , he may yet have a bright future , how­ev­er as soon as Rubio got to Washington DC he start­ed run­ning for President.
Many argue that Barack Obama did the very same thing . The fact is that Barack Obama is a twice elect­ed suc­cess­ful pres­i­dent. Marco Rubio is no Barack Obama , nev­er was , nev­er will be. 

He dis­re­spect­ed the hold­er of the offi­cer he craved the most , say­ing he has no class. Marco Rubio has no idea who he is and the par­ty he chose to rep­re­sent chewed him up and spat him out ., . Now Marco Rubio invokes God after los­ing his home state of Florida. I have nev­er been more thrilled to see some­one fail as I am tonight at see­ing Marco Rubio exit the repub­li­can race.Disrespect, self­ish­ness, and arro­gance are not Godly virtues Marco Rubio they are vices.
God is always look­ing down , bye bye, Marco Rubio. Barack Obama has a lot of class.

In less than twen­ty four hours Republican pri­ma­ry vot­ers will go to the polls in sev­er­al states in a crit­i­cal Super Tuesdayshowdown: 

This is the first day that states may begin to award del­e­gates on a win­ner-take-all basis. It is also a crit­i­cal day of reck­on­ing in Florida for Marco Rubio one of that state’s US Senator and John Kasich the sit­ting Governor of Ohio. It’s also the date at which a major­i­ty (56%) of del­e­gates will have been already bound — an impor­tant mile­stone that was reached near­ly a month lat­er in 2012.

• Florida Primary (99) — Winner take all
• Illinois Primary (69) — Statewide del­e­gates are win­ner take all, con­gres­sion­al dis­trict del­e­gates elect­ed direct­ly on bal­lot and bound as they declare
• Missouri Primary (52÷49) – Winner take all above 50%, oth­er­wise win­ter take all by con­gres­sion­al district
• North Carolina Primary (72÷69) – Proportional
• Northern Mariana Islands Caucuses (9) – Winner take all
• Ohio Primary (66) –Winner take all.

John Kasich said if he los­es Ohio he would be hard pressed to con­tin­ue his long-shot cam­paign for the pres­i­den­cy. Thus far today Kasich brought out Mitt Romney the last repub­li­can to lose to pres­i­dent Barack Obama to cam­paign on his behalf. Marco Rubio won rough­ly four states and my have accu­mu­lat­ed just over a hun­dred del­e­gates still con­tin­ue to cam­paign on some myth­i­cal notion that he still has a shot at win­ning his par­ty’s nomination.
It has become clear that Tuesday March 15^th will be Marco Rubio’s Waterloo. I am par­tic­u­lar­ly pleased that Marco Rubio’s cam­paign for the pres­i­den­cy may have floun­dered and ran aground. Rubio the polit­i­cal can­di­date is a far right tool of the most stri­dent forces in this country.
Normal peo­ple should shed no tear to see the dis­in­te­gra­tion of the Rubio campaign .
If for noth­ing else this writer will be par­tic­u­lar­ly thrilled to see Marco Rabio beat­en in his home state of Florida.
This should give lit­tle Marco a real­i­ty-check and a dose of respect.
Here’s my take regard­ing lit­tle Marco . Before you assume pow­er you must learn to sub­ject your­self to power.
Before you lead you must sub­ject your­self to be led. You dis­re­spect­ed the sit­ting pres­i­dent in the most despi­ca­ble and dis-respectable man­ner and by doing so you dimin­ished the office you yearn to occupy.
On that basis you are unwor­thy to occu­py that office.

I fun­da­men­tal­ly believe the far right wing zealotry of Ted Cruz and the dis­re­spect­ful Marco Rubio are just as destruc­tive as Donald Trump’s out­right Fascism.
I have a per­son­al stake in see­ing Donald Trump con­tin­ue on as the lead­ing can­di­date for the repub­li­can party.
It opens up to the world the true nature of what that par­ty has always rep­re­sent­ed and what it rep­re­sents after almost two terms of Barack Obama’s presidency.
The Republican Party is total­ly respon­si­ble for the lev­el of hatred and uncer­tain­ty in the coun­try today.
The Republican par­ty cre­at­ed Donald Trump and it cer­tain­ly must take respon­si­bil­i­ty for the lev­el of Fascist rhetoric com­ing out of Trump’s campaign>
As pres­i­dent Obama stat­ed recent­ly , why are they shocked ?
For the entire­ty of the Obama pres­i­den­cy AM-talk radio and the FOX Television Network has been ver­i­ta­ble twen­ty-four-hour organs of the far right belt­ing out hatred against Barack Obama.

Rush Limbaugh, Ted Nugent , Laura Ingram, Glen Beck, and a pletho­ra of oth­ers get out of bed each day and use the pub­lic’s air­waves to do pre­cious lit­tle but spread hate and white suprema­cy . No one should be sur­prised that these Trump sup­port­ers, many of whose lives have nev­er been bet­ter are con­vinced their lives are in sham­bles because of Barack Obama.
Trump is the hate which hate produces.