BTW, for all my fellow political junkies out there, here's a little tidbit for you. It's said by many talking heads and pundits that only recently has the level of anger, indeed political bitterness, risen to such levels in Congress..well, here's a gem of an except ( and one of MY all time fav political quotes) from Sen William Borah (R-Idaho) from his speech on the Senate floor during the 1940 debate of FDR's Lend-Lease bill...
Borah was passionately against American involvement in the war in Europe, and was convinced FDR was secretly scheming to get the USA involved. He said that Lend-Lease, if passed "..will PLOW UNDER every FOURTH American boy.." As pure political vitriol, it's hard to top that...
For those of you old enough to remember the great American political novel of the 60's.... Alan Drury's "Advise and Consent"....( and, sadly, the lousy movie they made of it) during the interminable quorum calls and Dem rants, it might be fun to see which characters from the book and movie have present-day namesakes. My take so far..
Sen Seabright B. Cooley ( played brilliantly by Charles Laughton in the film...this is an easy one...Robert "Sheets" Byrd
Sen Fred(erica) van Ackerman..the hard left, Senate troublemaker, and the evil villian in the book.......Barbara Boxer...and..
yes folks..one of the characters in the book is a senator from Utah named......"Orrin" Knox...who knew?
I'll be in a meeting for a few hours..(darn it!!)..will rejoin you all about noon...Rush should be a blast today..
One suggestion for those who miss it live. C-span will most likely rerun the debate several times tonight. Their practice, fortuitously, in re-showing long Senate sessions..they cull all the quorum calls,the extranious fluff, and even those speeches that are boring..( can you say Lautenberg, and Jeffords..Hello?) So you can probably catch the good stuff...
So, what to expect today?
Frist is playing his card close to the vest, and rightly so. Keep the Dems off balance. The tone of the debate will be set in the opening remarks by both leaders. Will Reid continue to be nasty? It's expected that Frist will call up the nomination of Owens, and allow for 100 hours of debate, then invoke cloture, ( which ytakes 2 additional days) and if that fails, then move to change the rule. However, if the dems are really petty and obstructionist, he may well move for the rules change immediately.
What I'd love to see today..first thing..a warning shot across Reid's desk...have Cheney in the chair today as presiding officer... the Dems would go bananas..
Enjoy....
Love it, C-SPAN soap operas!
How about Reid in "The Days of Our LIES"
Byrd, "The OLD and the SHEETLESS"
Boxer and Kerry, "The Bold and the BOTOXED"
The possibilities are endless.
If they do start the nuclear option, can someone ping me? I will be in the office all day and might miss it.
The only way that the Nuclear Option will actually go to a vote is if both sides believe they are going to win. The Dems are better off keeping the filibuster rule in place for at least awhile if it looks like they are going to lose the vote. The Pubbies would be fools to force a vote when they don't have the 50 Senators in their pocket. So if all 100 Senators are willing to tell both sides the truth about how they will vote their won't be any vote.
OTOH, look what happens if only a few and perhaps only one Senator witholds his/her position from one side or anther or from both. For example look what would happen if the Pubbies have 49 votes plus John Warner's vote and Warner has secretly told Frist he will reluctantly go along. The Dems, thinking they have Warner could let the vote proceed and they would lose. Or, Warner could withold the info from Frist, tell the Dems that he will vote with them and then the vote would proceed and the Pubbies would get killed. And if he told nobody then it would be a roll of the dice for both sides. Would Frist fold? Would Reid? Who knows?
Thanks for the thread.
Thanks for the pings. I do appreciate this.
Prayer to God for justice.
Wonder how long it will take and which R's will cave and screw the whole thing up so the D's can have their way. We don't want to make the D's mad at us, you know.
Frist: "Are 76% of Californians out of the mainstream?"
Probably Bill, but not because of this issue.
Incoming!
Bump to Ken
When is Frist going to grow a pair and simply say: "Listen, you anti-American anti-Constitution assholes, 51 votes seats a judge. You in the minority don't like? Go pound sand. It's been this way for 200 years. Stop trying to prove what idiots you are by trying to define a majority as 40 votes out of 100. The roll call is on, let the voting begin!"
This Dem talking point has come up before.
Historical Perspective:
The Founding Fathers provided that the Senators be chosen by State Legislatures rather than by the direct vote of the common people. By that provision, the Founding Fathers ensured that Senators would be chosen from among the aristocratic class rather than plucked out of the backwoods.
That was the "cooling effect" originally envisioned by the Founding Fathers: Aristocrats "cooling" the passions of the common man.
All that went by the wayside when the 17th Amendment to the US Constitution provided for the direct election of Senators in 1913.
Any mention of Scottish Law yet by Snarlin' Arlen?
OMG .. I hate being late to threads
over 500 posts to read ... marking spot
Gotta love it. I can almost smell the stink radiating off the demoncrats right through the tv.
Specter is carrying water for the demoncrats once again. You are insulting RINO!!
So Specter asked the parties to contact their senators regarding a jurist. How is that different than the commercials that ran in Pennsylvania which he said were unproductive. What an asshole!!
Take your 2 to 4 nominees with Republicans picking them, and stick them where the sunshine doesn't shine!
Does the sun rise in the East ?
I love Geriatric Hospital, one year Ted Kennedy had amnesia and no one could tell the difference.
President Clinton nominated 9 judges after the 107th had been seated but before he left office; never before had an outgoing President attempted this. President Bush withdrew those nominations (although he eventually renominated one of them, who was confirmed). Second, then-Majority Leader Daschle recessed the Congress in the summer of 2001 for sufficient time so as to trigger the following Senate standing rule:"If the Senate shall adjourn or take a recess for more than thirty days, all nominations not finally acted upon at the time of taking such adjournment or recess shall be returned by the Secretary to the President and shall not again be considered unless they shall again be made to the Senate by the President."
In so doing, he forced the return of all outstanding nominations. Each had to start from scratch, with President Bush having to renominate them. Between these two maneuvers, the number of nominations to the 107th Congress was artificially high by 29.
and
The Baseball Crank wonders about the fact that most of the returns from Bush's first Congress were renominated in his second Congress. Is this the norm, and does that change the interpretation of the numbers for the 108th Congress? To look at this, I through the 103rd through 106th Congress' actions by hand, to examine the effect of renominations after returns on President Clinton's nominations. I did same for President Bush and the 107th and 108th.
President Clinton nominated 22 people to the 103rd Congress to be Circuit Court justices. Three were returned, but all three were renominated and confirmed by the 104th Congress. The eventual confirmation rate for these nominees was 100%.
President Clinton nominated 17 new people to the 104th Congress to be Circuit Court justices, in addition to the three renominations. Of these 17 new nominations, 1 was withdrawn, 1 was returned and not renominated in the 105th, and one was renominated in the 105th, returned there, and then not renominated. The other 14 were eventually confirmed (although one had to wait until the 106th). The eventual confirmation rate for these new nominees was 82%.
President Clinton nominated 23 new people to the 105th Congress to be Circuit Court justices, in addition to seven who were renominations. Of the 23 new nominations, two were returned and not renominated. Two were renominated in the 106th only to be returned again and never confirmed. One was withdrawn. The other 18 were eventually confirmed. The eventual confirmation rate for these new nominees was 78%.
President Clinton nominated 28 new people to the 106th Congress to be Circuit Court justices, in addition to six renominations. 1 was withdrawn. 15 were returned and never renominated. 12 were eventually confirmed (including one who was renominated by President Bush). The eventual confirmation rate for these nominees was 43%.
In aggregate, President Clinton nominated 90 people to be Circuit Court justices during the four Congresses during his term. 66 were eventually confirmed. The eventual confirmation rate for his nominees was 73%. He had 13 nominees who were returned but eventually confirmed; 12 of those were confirmed by the subsequent Congress. Of the 20 returms that Clinton had during his first three Congresses (where he would be in term for a subsequent Congress), he renominated 16 (80%) of them. Over 80% of them were eventually confirmed, with a full three quarters confirmed in the very next Congress.
In the 107th Congress, President Bush nominated 31 new people to be Circuit Court justices. 19 have eventually been confirmed, for an eventual confirmation rate of 61.2%, compared to Clinton's 100% eventual confirmation rate for his first Congress' nominations. Only two of President Bush's renominations were confirmed by the subsequent Congress- 15.4%.
In aggregate, President Bush has nominated, for the first time, 52 distinct individuals to be Circuit Court justices. 34 have been confirmed, for an aggregate eventual confirmation rate of 65%, 8% lower than President Clinton's despite the fact that three quarters of Clinton's term had the Senate controlled by the Republicans.
I hope Harry Reid carries through with his threat to grind the Senate to a halt if the filibuster rules are changed. How many seats in Congress do you think that would change in the next election?