Posted on 09/13/2005 5:01:31 AM PDT by OXENinFLA
Q&A with Roberts to Start
On Tuesday, the eighteen members of the Senate Judiciary Cmte. begin questioning Chief Justice nominee John Roberts. This will take all day, with the senators asking their questions, up to a half-hour for each member, in order of seniority, alternating by party.
The Schedule (media advisory)
Tentative Schedule for the Hearing: Schedule is subject to change
Tuesday, Sept. 13
9:30 am Chairman Specter begins 30 minute round of questioning (Round 1)
1:00 pm Break for lunch
2:00 pm Resume questioning
6:00 pm Break for dinner
7:00 pm Resume questioning
8:30 pm Round 1 questioning ends
The Dem playbook
The Hill newspaper gives us a peek at the Democratic playbook for the Roberts hearings. Below are the attack assignments for the Democratic members of the Committee:
Kennedy -- civil rights
Leahy -- Bybee torture memo
Biden -- privacy, personal autonomyand the 9th Amendment
Kohl -- Property rights and civil liberties
Feinstein -- "judicial activism" and Roe vs. Wade
Feingold -- limits of executive powers
Schumer and Durbin have wisely refused to show their hand.
Via FromTheBleachers
LIVE LINKS
Senate Judiciary Committee webcast.
I think you're right re Blanco's impeachment. I musta misspoke....to use a lib phrase. LOL
Lizarde: c-span 2 will reair the hearings in about an hour.
I got here late for hearing news after it went off the TV and don't want to search thru 2,800+ posts to find out where these hints that Matthews may be in trouble with MSNBC came from? Any info???
Here's an article explaining why. Maybe not as crazy, but just as corrupt.
Wright should quit. (House speaker Jim Wright) (column)
National Review; 6/16/1989; Buckley, William F., Jr.
A PROFESSOR OF American history writes to ask with exasperation "Why doesn't Jim Wright quit? On top of everything else, be's third in line for the Presidency." His failure to step down suggests an insensitivity that Wright-watcbers noticed way before be began to refashion the book business in order to beat the expenditure rules of the House over which he presides.
It was many years ago, early in Reagan's Presidency, and Jim Wright appeared on the Today show. I hadn't ever before seen a picture of him, and as he flashed on the screen with that avuncular smile and whitish hair I thought, truly this man must be in heavy demand every Christmas to play Santa Claus. So Bryant Gumbel asked the question, "Congressman Wright, how do you account for President Reagan's veto of the supplementary appropriations bill yesterday?" I looked up from my exercise bike to get the political reading of Mr. Reagan's motives from the Democratic majority leader. Jim Wright turned and smiled at Gumbel as though to answer a child's question ("Why do hot dogs cost money, Mummy?"). Mr. Wright explained it all, with a benign, fatalistic smile: "Dohne you unnerstan, Brann, President Reagan's declaired wah on students, ole folks, and cripples." I could only think that at least Congressman Wright had given us a satisfactory explanation for the sharp rise in our defense expenditures.
But that was the man who would a few years later be selected to succeed Tip O'Neill (who, at his best, could be just as bad). Granted, there was some relief when Wright was elected majority leader (stepping-stone to the Speakership) since his closest opponent (Wright beat him by only a single vote) was the late Congressman Phillip Burton of California, from whosespeeches one sometimes had difficulty in answering the question whether he was voting the interests of his constituency, or those of Leonid Brezhnev, even as we have the same difficulty today, surveying tbe activity of Congressman Ron Dellums, Burton's neighbor in Berkeley. But any politician who that early in the morning explains to ten million people the veto by the President of an inflationary money bill by announcing that it was merely another skirmish in the war Mr. Reagan had declared against students, old folks, and cripples should have stayed in bed.
But it isn't analytical simplemindedness that finally got Mr. Wright into trouble. And there are those who say tbat one cannot attribute simplemindedness to anyone who could devise such intricate arrangements as Mr. Wright was able to conclude, for instance, with his "publisher." The fact of it is that a committee, deeply inquiring into his affairs, decided unanimously that a formal hearing will be necessary on 69 of his alleged violations of the rules of the House of Representatives.
Now we may be talking about rules that ought never to have been made (is it really in the national interest to limit a congressman's campaign expenditures?). And there is not much there, that the eye can readily spot, that would escort Jim Wright from the Speakership to the local jail. But whatever the legal evolution of the case, we have here, surely, a classical situation that calls for a person holding a particular office to-step down.
It is instructive to compare British and American attitudes on the question of resignation. Here the habit has developed of holding on to a public office until, as with Sewell Avery, president of Montgomery Ward, the FBI comes in and lifts you out of your office while you continue sitting in your chair. A case can be made, as with Richard Nixon, that to pull out too early from the Presidency would be to destabilize the office. But the Speakership is not the Presidency; nor is a Cabinet officer the President, and tbe resignation in recent years of a Cabinet officer to document his disagreement with executive policy is all too rare. Cyrus Vance was a notable exception, resigning as Secretary of State for Jimmy Carter when the Carter Escadrille was dispatched to take over Iran with six helicopters in 1980. If resignations took place more often, it would diminish the presumption that only the guilty resign.
In the case of Mr. Wright it is certainly true that he would be resigning under fire. But the fire aimed at him has in fact mortally wounded him and he cannot be an effective Speaker to the extent that effectiveness is measured by disinterestedness. He will be observed as motivated entirely by his desire to survive. The day will almost surely come for him which came for Mr. Nixon, when three stalwarts from his own party arrived late one afternoon to tell him that his political support had terminally eroded . . . Mr. Wright should save himself that humiliation, and the United States those pains.
I think he may have one of the best judicial minds we have seen.
It's absolutely fascinating to have the honor of listening to Roberts demonstrate how bright he really is. All without any help from eager-to-please staffers. It is truly a great pleasure to watch a genuinely historic moment.
"More good news: a LA legislator said the other night that steps were already being taken behind the scenes for Blanco's resignation.
Actually, what I heard - perhaps on the Tony Snow show - was that the legislature was considering impeachment, not resignation."
Now that would be good news!! Would there be a new election or would that mean Mary Landrieu's brother would take over?
I don't know what it's about. I guess I'm gong to have to backtrack thru the posts to find the clues.
As long as he doesn't end up on Fox, I have had enough already.
Chris Matthews is one of those that both sides dislike for one reason or another. Same with Anderson Cooper.
Schumer came on around 6:00/6:30 p.m. here in New York.
Samadams knows someone in the business who confirmed that Crissy's last day is Friday.
You guys listening to Hatch on CSPAN3?
Maybe that's what this is all about: another Landrieu family power play.
Now THAT'S a scary thought!!
C-Span2 is scheduled to replay the hearings starting 9:00 pm Eastern time.
Thank you!! I'm guessing it's not political though. His ratings suck.
Well said. It was really wonderful to hear such a brilliant mind. Never referred to a single note, never had to hesitate to answer. Just knows exactly what the law is and his respect for the rule of law is evident in every question he answers. Truly awe-inspiring.
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