Posted on 11/09/2004 2:50:48 PM PST by USNA74
Reporting that AG Ashcroft and Commerce Sec Don Evans have resigned.
I agreed with everything you wrote up until the last sentence. Don't have my Con Law hornbooks handy, but the Supreme Court has had its jurisdiction limited several times, I believe. I don't think that's ever been challenged, at least not successfully.
Spectre already said they will give a vote to whoever bush sends. period.
We conservatives need to get over it.
Spectre it seems, has almost NOTHING to do with getting a guy confirmed. What has a lot to do with it, is the commitee ratio balance and rules for cloture in the Senate, and not much of anything else... It has been so since we won the first presidential election in 2000, by such a narrow margin. Winning by a larger ration does not alter the Senate rules, cloture thresholds or committee staff balance.
Spectre will very likely chair the judicial committee with an 11/8 split in our favor, so even IF he votes with the dems, we will get our floor vote. End of discussion. Fighting over Spectre is a useless waste of our finite amount of political capitol. With out a big traumatic confrontation, Bush will be able to nomimate, and the committee will both review background, make a recommendation, and send the guy or gal to the floor for an up or down vote.
If the dems block cloture, the nomination will fail, if they don't the nomination will pass. If we don't change the the threshold for cloture, it will be set as it is, sixty. If we do change it, it will go to 55 or so, and we might come to rue the day we do thus... Later... when WE are the minority party wanting to block a bill or nominee.
But that's our political system and unless we give Bush a 64 seat senate THAT is exactly how it will stay. Re-electing Bush did not give us enough power to overthrow the current numerical balance of power in the Senate. We now have a majority without having to send our Veep over there to take attendance and vote our will on matters.
I am still wondering if we should or should not, change the rules on cloture... a knife that can and will... cut both ways. I wish there was a way that we could make cloture different on nominees only, instead of both nominees and new legislation.
Regardless Spectre is NOT where we will win or lose this.
Rush Limbaugh talked about this for quite a while today and made it rather clear... Spectre won't be our problem on the nominee question...
committee ratios and cloture thresholds are where we will fight this battle and win, lose or draw... we will have to live with it.
I wish that changing one man would flip the turn of events... but it won't. The bush administration seems to be letting ol' Arlen... 'twist in the wind' for a while.
I guess we will get to test the new system first... on a new A.G.
Nice pick.
Off the radar.
Respected (and feared by dems) and a KNOWN quantity to the american people...
I do wonder if his arguing FOR W in the first prez election might not hinder his getting a successful vote on the floor of the US Senate.
SOME?
Especially with those ear-splitting shrieks and annoying laugh Sponge Bob has...
Only if there is someone to interpret.
And no, I don't mean Dan Rather!
"Perhaps you should actually gather some facts"
Perhaps you should read all of my posts (see 320), rather than make redundant responses.
"That's not true, quit listening to the Rat parodies."
See my post 320 and stop wasting my time telling me what I've already apologized for.
John Ashcroft would be an excellent SC Justice. I hope that whatever he does he is more visible and is more powerful than before.
His steadfastness has kept this nation safe for 4 years in the face of creepy rats like Shcumer, islamists, and assorted other traitorous demorats.
"Glad to see Ashcroft go"
May I disagree. Ashcroft is the main reason we have not had another attack since 9-11.
We cannot fight wars like the one we are fighting without strong measures and he was primarily responsible for implementing them.
God Bless John Ashcroft.
"I think Pete Coors, who barely lost in Colorado senate election would make a good Commerce Secretary."
Dunno 'bout that, but I'd definitely have him buy the drinks.
LOL....
"Reporting that AG Ashcroft and Commerce Sec Don Evans have resigned."
Does this mean we can break the law!
"Spectre will very likely chair the judicial committee with an 11/8 split in our favor, so even IF he votes with the dems, we will get our floor vote. End of discussion. Fighting over Spectre is a useless waste of our finite amount of political capitol. With out a big traumatic confrontation, Bush will be able to nomimate, and the committee will both review background, make a recommendation, and send the guy or gal to the floor for an up or down vote."
Hugh Hewitt is on your side.
Hopefully, we can 'win by losing' here, where we make the point and keep Specter in line rather than let him destroy things either from the inside or from the outside.
trouble is I dont trust Specter, and a committee chairman *does* have power to to things behind the scenes on nominations and other key issues wrt constitution. He is one of the worst possible choices to chair that committee.
That's why we should have dealt with it in the primary, by getting Toomey elected.
"Regardless Spectre is NOT where we will win or lose this.
Rush Limbaugh talked about this for quite a while today and made it rather clear... Spectre won't be our problem on the nominee question..."
Alas, Rush got the WH talking points memo.
WH would rather lose on conservative issues and keep 'power' than actually accomplish the most conservative things.
The problem is, you set yourself up for a Supreme Court test with a lot of chips on the table , and if you lose -- you lose everything.
Once the Supreme Court clears its throat and says that gays have a God-given right to marry people of the same sex, your political landscape changes, and now you are the Blue Meanies trying to take something precious away from people who the Supreme Court says are in the right, rather than defending marriage against the pretensions of a bunch of upstart minoritarian morality-flouters. Your degree of difficulty in getting a constitutional amendment passed and ratified instantaneously goes off the scale.
With a statute, you are putting yourself in a situation in which you only get one chance to get it right, and the other side is actively trying to screw you in a (we are on notice) biased court.
I prefer the amendment route, because that drives a stake through the challengers' hearts for all time. Get the amendment ratified, and It's Over, your way. Back to the peace and quiet we enjoyed before this Goebbelsian assault on our self-respect, moral hygiene, and common sense.
I think Bush is committed to Scalia getting CJ.
On other matters, the election's over and now I think his pragmatic side may re-emerge with squishy or MOR nominees. Business-wing types, brimming with RiNOtude, so Bush can save his political capital for other things, like Iraq.
Hope I'm wrong.
trouble is I dont trust Specter,
What kind of person typecasts the president by his socioeconomic group?????
Sure every weirdo in the world will want all their crackpot ideas to become law yesterday. I got news for you - they already do. So nothing will change. The mainstream media will just have something else to hyperventilate about. They already hyperventilate about everything else so nothing will change here too.
In this particular matter though, the legislatures of 38 states will have to adopt any proposed Constitutional amendments. We'll have enough of a task getting them to adopt sensible amendments. Do you really think any weird stuff that might come from a convention would have a ghost of a chance?
Gimmie a break. And you can do better than that. At least be funny - assure us that a convention would cause so much global warming from all the hot air that we'll all croak and die.
As a practical matter, the state legislatures would insist on appointing all delegates to such a convention. And it is far more likely that the slow enactment of state resolutions calling for a convention would inspire Congress to head it off by themselves passing the most pressing amendments and sending those to the states for ratification.
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