Posted on 01/26/2006 7:33:35 AM PST by Grendel9
Judge Samuel Alito Jr., whose entire history suggests that he holds extreme views about the expansive powers of the presidency and the limited role of Congress, will almost certainly be a Supreme Court justice soon. His elevation will come courtesy of a president whose grandiose vision of his own powers threatens to undermine the nation's basic philosophy of government — and a Senate that seems eager to cooperate by rolling over and playing dead.
It is hard to imagine a moment when it would be more appropriate for senators to fight for a principle. Even a losing battle would draw the public's attention to the import of this nomination.
At the Judiciary Committee hearings, the judge followed the well-worn path to confirmation, which has the nominee offer up only the most boring statements and unarguable truisms: the president is not above the law; diversity in college student bodies is a good thing. But in what he has said in the past, and what he refused to say in the hearings, Judge Alito raised warning flags that, in the current political context, cannot simply be shrugged away with a promise to fight again another day. ***
An article EDITOR & PUBLISHER last November stated: Being bullish on newspapers is unusual these days, going contrary to the prevailing wisdom on Wall Street that the business is in overall decline as more advertisers and readers move to the Internet. To make matters worse, newsprint prices are rising and circulation has been falling steadily for years. As a result, newspaper stocks have suffered badly over the past year. Industry bellwether Gannett is down about 20% so far in 2005; The New York Times is down 31%; Tribune Co. is off 23%; and, until Tuesday's announcement, Knight Ridder's shares were down 20 percent. Which leads some to wonder -- with newspaper stocks so unpopular now, who would be interested in buying Knight Ridder? ______
IN addition, FORBES carried this article re the NYT cutting over 500 jobs last September:
http://www.forbes.com/home/feeds/ap/2005/09/20/ap2235115.html
Newspaper in need of a brain...
NY Times new motto: All that news that gives fits.
The New York Times is simply no longer relevant.
Who cares what they say about Alito?
No one.
They have become nothing more than a fart in a windstorm.
Dear New York Times staff,
If I just bought a disposable cell phone and,
If I am calling a Al Queda terrorist cell in Pakistan and,
If I am giving them a six-digit grid on your building's location...
Do you think the NSA has a right to monitor my phone call?
Who gives a F what the Times says.
What took them so long? During the Nixon years, they yammered on and on about the "imperial presidency." Then, when clinton was president, they yammered about those power-drunk Republicans in congress. But clinton could do no wrong, even though he issued more Executive Orders than any other president in history.
Now that a Republican is in the White House, we are back to liberal whining about presidents who exceed their authority. All power should be in the hands of congress.
No, wait. Congress is controlled by Republicans, isn't it? Well, then . . . all power should be in the hands of Robert Byrd and Teddy Kennedy.
Or, maybe . . . all power should be in the hands of David Souter. Or . . . Let's see . . . .
Maybe all power should be in the hands of Pinch Sulzberger and the mainstream media. They know best, after all. There. That's the solution.
There is a reason why the al Qaeda hijackers didn't crash their planes into the NYT building on 9/11.
After all, why would you attack your ALLIES?
The NYT will ultimately end up as the journalistic equivalent of American Motors(with the sole exception that there is nothing "American" about the NYT):
- declining market share
- questionable reliability and quality
- profits plummeting
- absorbed into a larger company
As the inevitable collapse approaches, you can bet that Pinch Sulzberger and his sock puppet Bill Keller will be selling off their NYT holdings and rushing to the lifeboats.
Hopefully, there will be icebergs and sharks awaiting them.
The NY Slimes is WAY out of the mainstream. This is kooky, tin foil hat, fascist DUer type of stuff.
I can't wait until the NY Times is indicted for the NSA "Terrorist Surveillance" story. --hope springs eternal-- Their editorials on that would be a hoot...
The Friday NYT's editorial topic will be about how elections matter.
That makes TimesSelect the AMC Gremlin of online subscriptions!
I'm sure you could do a search and come up with a NYT editorial during the Clinton years lamenting the shift in executive authority from the White House to the Congress.
Oh, yes. I couldn't help noticing.
You will also notice, if you read a few hundred ancient newspaper articles, that when the Republicans controlled congress, newspaper articles always referred to "the Republicans in congress" saying or doing this or that; whereas when the Democrats were in charge, they would always say that "congress" said this or did that.
Cast your mind back to the Iran-Contra affair. Reagan and Bush tried to help the Contras overthrow the Sandinistas, but congress (read the Democrats) cut off funding. All the newspapers were saying that congress should be running things if not for the imperial Republican presidents. They tried to say that Reagan was a criminal for taking on the Communists.
This was an unusually well written editorial for the NY Times. It had a certain cadence to it, and dramtic flair, building up to a rather catchy punch line at the end. It was quite well done indeed.
I think 3 Democrats have said they will vote for Alito and 3 more have said they would not filibuster (Salazar, Pryor, and Landrieu). I think the remaining questions are where Conrad, Menendez, Baucus, Dorgan fall - maybe others.
The only GOPer I can imagine possibly joining a filibuster is Snowe, but I doubt it. So looks like little remaining drama is over.
Snowe said no to a filibuster a week ago. That is what caused pundits to say Alito was a done deal.
oh, good.
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