Centerblue.org

Conservatives are panicking that the federal 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, long a bastion of loony-Right ridiculousness lording it over Maryland, the Virginias, the Carolinas, may become more liberal in the wake of many vacancies occurring as the Democrats take over Congress.

This court has been the source of some really questionable rulings:

• it struck down a law allowing rape victims to sue their attackers in federal court;
• it prevented the FDA from regulating tobacco;
• in 1999 it overturned the Miranda Rights requirement for an interrogation (!), forcing the Supreme Court to overrule that decision;
• it has been the circuit of choice for Bush to push his national security agenda of detaining what it deems to be enemy combatants.

You’d think that after decades of stacking the federal courts with mostly conservative judges that the Right would be satisfied–but nope, they want nothing less than to dominate the legal discourse everywhere…and feel as threatened as cornered rats when more moderate common-sense voices might actually have a chance to be heard.