{"id":16310,"date":"2016-03-19T19:16:07","date_gmt":"2016-03-20T02:16:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/69.46.6.243\/?p=16310"},"modified":"2016-03-19T19:16:07","modified_gmt":"2016-03-20T02:16:07","slug":"weekly-address-president-obamas-supreme-court-nomination","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/?p=16310","title":{"rendered":"Weekly Address: President Obama\u2019s Supreme Court Nomination"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Washington, DC&#8230;Hi, everybody.  One of the most consequential responsibilities our Constitution grants a President is appointing a Supreme Court Justice.  The men and women who sit on the Supreme Court safeguard our rights.  They ensure that ours is a system of laws, not of men.  And they\u2019re given the essential task of applying the principles written into our founding documents to the most challenging questions of today. So this is a duty I take very seriously.  It requires me to set aside short-term politics in order to maintain faith with our founders.  And on Wednesday, after weeks of consultations with Republicans, Democrats, and leaders across the country, I selected a nominee whose unmatched experience and integrity have earned him the respect and admiration of both parties \u2013 Chief Judge Merrick Garland.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/e80jnW_TtGs\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Judge Garland grew up in my hometown of Chicago, with parents who taught him to work hard and deal fairly.  As a young lawyer, he left a lucrative private firm to work for half as much in public service.  Eventually, he oversaw the federal response to the Oklahoma City bombing, working side-by-side with first responders, victims, and their families to bring justice for an unspeakable crime.  And everywhere he went during that investigation, he carried with him in his briefcase the program from the memorial service with each of the victims\u2019 names inside.<\/p>\n<p>For the last 19 years, Judge Garland has served on what\u2019s known as \u201cthe second highest court in the land\u201d \u2013 the D.C. Circuit Court \u2013 including the last three years as Chief Judge.  On the bench, he\u2019s shown a dedication to protecting our basic rights.  A conviction that powerful voices must not be allowed to drown out those of everyday Americans.  An understanding that justice isn\u2019t simply abstract legal theory; it affects people\u2019s daily lives.  And a spirit of decency, modesty, and even-handedness in his work.  Judge Garland is admired for his courtesy, his devotion to family, and his civic-mindedness \u2013 for the past 18 years, he\u2019s served as a tutor for young students at a local D.C. elementary school. <\/p>\n<p>During my time as President, through three separate Supreme Court appointments, in conversations with Republicans and Democrats alike, one name came up more than any other \u2013 Merrick Garland. <\/p>\n<p>I understand that we\u2019re in the middle of an especially noisy and volatile political season.  But at a time when our politics are so polarized; when norms and customs of our political rhetoric seem to be corroding \u2013 this is precisely the time we should treat the appointment of a Supreme Court justice with the seriousness it deserves.  Because our Supreme Court is supposed to be above politics, not an extension of politics.  And it should stay that way. <\/p>\n<p>So I ask Republicans in the Senate to give Judge Garland the respect he has earned.  Give him a hearing.  Give him an up-or-down vote.  To deny it would be an abdication of the Senate\u2019s Constitutional duty.  It would indicate a process for nominating and confirming judges that is beyond repair.  It would make it increasingly impossible for any President, Republican or Democrat, to carry out their Constitutional function.  To go down that path would jeopardize our system of justice, it would hurt our democracy, and betray the vision of our founding. <\/p>\n<p>I fulfilled my Constitutional duty.  Now it\u2019s time for Senators to do theirs.  I hope that they take the time to reflect on the importance of this process to our country.  I hope that they\u2019ll act fairly.  And I hope they\u2019ll work in a bipartisan fashion to confirm Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court.  That\u2019s how we can uphold our pledge to liberty and justice for all \u2013 for our time and for generations to come. <\/p>\n<p>Thanks everybody.  Have a good weekend.<\/p>\n<p>###<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Washington, DC&#8230;Hi, everybody. One of the most consequential responsibilities our Constitution grants a President is appointing a Supreme Court Justice. The men and women who sit on the Supreme Court safeguard our rights. They ensure that ours is a system of laws, not of men. And they\u2019re given the essential task of applying the principles [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16311,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_cbd_carousel_blocks":"[]","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,5,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16310","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-government","category-news","last_archivepost"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/Fullscreen-capture-3192016-63442-PM.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16310","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16310"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16310\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/16311"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}