Whitey Bulger 'Deserves No Mercy,' Prosecutors Say

cheap uggs WASHINGTON -- Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) is plowing ahead trying to confirm President Barack Obama's nominees to the second-most powerful court in the country, even after Republicans blocked one nominee and signaled they'll do it again for others.

Reid filed a motion on Thursday that sets up a confirmation vote on Tuesday for Nina Pillard, one of Obama's three nominees for the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. Republicans last week filibustered the first nominee, Patricia Millett, who Reid has vowed to bring up again. Obama's third nominee, Robert Wilkins, is expected to soon get a vote. Republicans are expected to block him, too.

uggs on sale None of the D.C. Circuit nominations is contentious -- even the Republicans blocking them say it's nothing personal. Instead, GOP senators argue the 11-member court isn't busy enough to warrant filling its three empty seats, a charge contested by Democrats. Republicans also routinely, and falsely, charge Obama with "court-packing".

"He's trying to pack the court in order to affect the outcomes. I know my friends across the aisle don't like that term, court-packing," Senate Republican Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas) said last week, moments after filibustering Millett's vote. "But I don't know what else you would call this."

uggs outlet online Reid said Thursday that the GOP fight is all politics and that the real goal is to prevent Obama from filling slots on the D.C. Circuit bench, whose power is considered second only to the Supreme Court because it reviews federal agency rules and decisions.

"While Senate Republicans are blocking President Obama's nominees to this vital court, they were happy to confirm several judges to the D.C. Circuit when Presidents Reagan and Bush were in office," Reid said. "Pillard is incredibly qualified and dedicated. So it is truly a shame that Republicans would filibuster this nomination for unrelated political reasons."

uggs The fight over D.C. Circuit nominees has gotten so tense that some top Democrats, including Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), have called for invoking the "nuclear option," or changing Senate rules to strip Republicans of their ability to filibuster certain nominees. Meanwhile, frustrations over the level of GOP obstruction of Obama's nominees are simmering at the White House.

"It's basically the equivalent of the government shutdown," a senior administration official told The Huffington Post. "We're not going to do our business. We're not going to govern, by blocking."

uggs cyber Monday sales The official, who requested anonymity in order to speak freely, laughed at the GOP's court-packing argument, calling it "absurd." By definition, court-packing is when a president tries to increase the number of seats on a court for political gain. In the case of the D.C. Circuit, Obama is trying to fill empty seats, which he has a constitutional duty to do.

"There's no credibility to that argument whatsoever," said the official. "They just look like they're being completely disingenuous."

The official demurred when asked if it's time for Reid to go nuclear in order to get nominees moving, but said something has to change in the Senate. Democrats nearly moved forward with filibuster reform over the summer, but stopped at the 11th-hour after senators reached a bipartisan deal to let a select number of nominees get votes.

louis vuitton outlet "There's got to be some way to get this thing somewhere back to regular order," said the official. "You would think coming off of a government shutdown, Republicans are looking at their poll numbers. Just engaging in additional obstructive conduct, it's surprises me."

BOSTON, Nov 7 (Reuters) - Federal prosecutors on Thursday asked a judge to sentence convicted Boston mobster James "Whitey" Bulger to two consecutive life sentences plus five years, arguing that the man who was convicted of 11 murders "deserves no mercy."

louis vuitton outlet sale U.S. District Judge Denise Casper next week is due to sentence Bulger. The former leader of Boston's Winter Hill gang was convicted in August after a trial that featured graphic accounts of gang members machine-guning rivals, beating up extortion victims and burying bodies in the dirt-floored basement of a South Boston home.

"Bulger's horrific crimes and sadistic behavior (e.g., shooting Bucky Barrett in the back of the head at close range after hours of interrogation and then lying down on the couch to relax as his gang buried Barrett) demonstrate that he deserves no mercy at the time of sentencing," prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memo filed on Thursday.

louis vuitton outlet store Prosecutors called Bulger one of the "most violent and despicable criminals in Boston history."

Relatives of many of Bulger's murder victims are expected to testify in the sentencing hearing scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday about the emotional impact of his crimes.

During the trial, defense lawyers conceded that the 84-year-old Bulger was a violent "organized criminal" and focused much of their efforts on denying a government claim that Bulger served as an informant to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. factory louis vuitton outlet While being an FBI informant was not a crime, it was such a severe breach of Bulger's underworld code that it motivated several of the murders he carried out.

christian louboutin outlet Bulger ultimately was convicted of 31 of 32 criminal counts in a sprawling indictment that charged him with racketeering, extortion and 11 murders, including strangling the girlfriend of fellow gang member Stephen "The Rifleman" Flemmi, who testified at the trial.

The heated trial was interrupted several times when Bulger swore at witnesses and former gang mates swore back at him.

louboutin outlet The Winter Hill criminal gang ruled ruthlessly over the Boston underworld in the 1970s and '80s thanks in part to a relationship between Bulger and a corrupt FBI agent that was later the subject of the Hollywood feature film "The Departed." The agent shared Bulger's Irish ethnicity and South Boston upbringing, and turned a blind eye to his crimes in exchange for information the bureau could use against the Italian-American Mafia.

christian louboutin outlet online A tip from that agent allowed Bulger to flee Boston in 1994 shortly before he was due to be arrested. Bulger spent 16 years on the lam before the FBI caught up with him in 2011 in a seaside apartment in Santa Monica, California, where he was living.

christian louboutin outlet store Bulger declined to testify during his trial, at one point telling the judge, "This is a sham and do what you want with me."