The real reason Democrats oppose Sessions for AG? They are crazed about wanting more illegal immigration he will enforce laws.

Jewish Senator the late Sen. Arlen Specter is instructive. He was among those who opposed Sessions’ nomination back in 1986. After serving with Sessions in the Senate, Specter acknowledged that there was nothing racist or otherwise personally objectionable about the Alabama man.

Why the Dems Are Hysterical About Jeff Sessions, and Why They Don’t Mean It

Posted: 20 Nov 2016 02:46 PM PST

(John Hinderaker)

The Democrats say that they will oppose confirmation of Senator Jeff Sessions as Attorney General, and will smear him with discredited race allegations from 30 years ago. This is rather pathetic: if they can’t come up with anything within the last 30 years, they don’t have much of a case, to say the least. So why are they hysterical about Sessions?

Byron York supplies much of the answer:

Sessions is the Senate’s highest-profile, most determined, and most knowledgeable opponent of comprehensive immigration reform. Democrats are particularly anxious about immigration because of the unusually tenuous nature of President Obama’s policies on the issue. Those policies can be undone unilaterally, by the new president in some cases, and by the attorney general and head of homeland security in other cases. There’s no need for congressional action — and no way for House or Senate Democrats to slow or stop it.

That is correct. As Byron points out, all President Trump and Attorney General Sessions need to do is start enforcing the law–discharging Trump’s Constitutional duty, in other words.

The Democrats’ fanatical commitment to preserving illegal immigration is a big part of the reason why they are demoralized at the thought of Jeff Sessions as AG. I think we can add this, too: Under Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch, the Department of Justice became the epicenter of Obama administration corruption. Legions of left-wing ideologues were brought in as DOJ lawyers. The Civil Rights Division became a partisan tool of the Democrats. Holder adopted racist policies, with enforcement of the law depending on the skin color of the victims. Cover-ups abounded, and corruption in other branches of the Obama administration was never prosecuted. Loretta Lynch had her famous tarmac meeting with Bill Clinton.

There are a great many skeletons in Barack Obama’s closet, and many of the bodies are buried–to mix a metaphor–at the Department of Justice. For eight years, Obama and his Justice Department shamelessly stiff-armed Congressional investigations, FOIA requests and court orders. So it is no wonder that Democrats blanch at the thought of the Department of Justice in the hands of a conservative as able and as incorruptible as Jeff Sessions.

So the Democrats have pulled out their old reliable, the race card. Which causes me to wonder: has the race card ever actually worked? The Democrats obviously think that false accusations of racism are political dynamite, but if that were true, why don’t they win more elections?

In the case of Jeff Sessions, we know that the Democrats’ racism charges are insincere. They don’t believe what they are saying about Sessions, they are just trying to smear him in a desperate attempt to deny him confirmation, or else diminish his effectiveness as Attorney General. How do we know that? Because when Sessions ran for re-election to the Senate in 2014, the Democrats didn’t run a candidate against him. They let him win, unopposed. Surely if the Democrats actually believed that Sessions was a racist, they would have tried to prevent his re-election to the Senate. Right? At a minimum, they would have run a candidate against him and tried to explain to the people of Alabama that Sessions is a racist and therefore unfit to be a senator. But they didn’t do this, because they know their smears are baseless. And, of course, the people of Alabama, whom Sessions has served for so long, wouldn’t have been easy to fool.

I don’t think the American people will be fooled, either.

Posted: 18 Nov 2016 07:48 PM PST

(Paul Mirengoff)

The left is going to make attacking Jeff Sessions the cornerstone of its early resistance to Donald Trump. Elizabeth Warren, a possible presidential contender in 2020, sounded the call almost immediately, asserting a moral imperative to block Sessions’ confirmation.

The alleged moral imperative is based on stale and, in some cases, disputed claims of mildly racist comments that were alleged 30 years ago when Sessions was denied confirmation for a federal judgeship. Warren stated:

Thirty years ago, a different Republican Senate rejected Senator Sessions’ nomination to a federal judgeship. In doing so, that Senate affirmed that there can be no compromise with racism; no negotiation with hate. Today, a new Republican Senate must decide whether self-interest and political cowardice will prevent them from once again doing what is right.

But did the Senate get it right 30 years ago? Arlen Specter, who cast the deciding vote against Sessions, later concluded it did not. Specter, who was never big on confessing error, called his vote a “mistake” that “remains one of my biggest regrets.”

Specter was right. Let’s look beyond disputed allegations about stray remarks to Sessions’ record.

Mark Hemingway points out:

As a U.S. Attorney, [Sessions] filed several cases to desegregate schools in Alabama. And he also prosecuted the head of the state Klan, Henry Francis Hays, for abducting and killing Michael Donald, a black teenager selected at random. Sessions insisted on the death penalty for Hays.

When he was later elected the state Attorney General, Sessions followed through and made sure Hays was executed. The successful prosecution of Hays also led to a $7 million civil judgment against the Klan, effectively breaking the back of the KKK in Alabama.

In Warren’s terms, Sessions refused to compromise with racism and negotiate with hate.

Sessions also voted across party lines to confirm Eric Holder as the first African-American U.S. Attorney General. If he were a racist, it would have been easy for Sessions to join the 21 of his conservative Republican colleagues who voted “no” on Holder’s confirmation.

At the time Sessions said he was sure Holder would be “a responsible legal officer and not a politician.” Even the best Senators make mistakes.

Opposition to Jeff Sessions isn’t a protest against racism. Even Sen. Warren must know that Sessions isn’t a racist.

The attack on this good man is in part an attempt to lash out at Donald Trump and in part an effort to rile up African-American voters who, collectively, weren’t sufficiently riled to deliver the votes Hillary Clinton needed in cities like Philadelphia, Milwaukee, and Detroit.

In Warren’s case, this probably is also an attempt to boost her credentials with civil rights leaders in case she runs for president. (Ironically, Sessions and Warren have something in common; both were elected to the Senate after failing to be confirmed by that body.)

The Democrats don’t have the votes to block Sessions’ confirmation. Thanks to rules changes pushed through by Harry Reid, it no longer requires 60 votes to confirm presidential appointees.

The filibuster is dead when it comes to such confirmations. Posturing is alive and well.

UPDATE: Watch Tucker Carlson take on Roll Call’s Jonathan Allen on the issue of alleged racism by Sessions.

Joe Biden: Growing “out of of office”

Posted: 11 Dec 2016 01:51 PM PST

(Paul Mirengoff)

Technically, Joe Biden isn’t out of office yet. But as a lame duck vice president, he might as well be.

With his political career at an end, Talkin’ Joe is finally talkin’ sense. Today, Biden indicated that he’s probably okay with Sen. Jeff Sessions as Attorney General. He did so during an interview with Jake Tapper.

After boasting about leading the fight not to confirm Sessions as a federal judge 30 years ago, Biden allowed that “people learn, people change.” He meant Sessions, not himself.

Biden went on to say, “my general rule is, the president gets to choose who he wants or she wants for their cabinet members unless either they are taking over the job with the express purpose of not enforcing the law in that area. . .” He then offered examples of nominees past and present whose willingness to enforce the law he has questioned. Sessions wasn’t among them.

The exchanged concluded with this:

TAPPER: Sounds like you think Senator Sessions will uphold the law.

BIDEN: I’m hoping he will. Let’s see what he says in his confirmation hearing and what commitments he makes.

Biden was a Senate colleague of Sessions for decades. They are still colleagues in a sense, given the vice president’s role in the Senate. Indeed, Biden told Tapper that he “was talking to Jeff on the floor yesterday.”

Biden knows that Sen. Sessions isn’t a bigot. Otherwise, he would have spoken out against the Alabama man on Tapper’s show, if not before.

Like Arlen Specter, Biden also knows that the decision not to confirm Sessions in 1986 based on charges of racism was an error (to give the decision its most innocent explanation). Biden can’t admit it, so he relies on the idea that “people learn, people change.”

The fact that Joe Biden, a slow learner, is now unwilling to join the Democratic mob that’s opposing the Sessions nomination suggests that, with his political career at an end and no more funds to raise, the vice president has finally changed.