Posted on 11/04/2006 8:24:29 PM PST by FairOpinion
For weeks, commentators have speculated that significant numbers of conservatives, alienated by over-spending, the Iraq War, and other perceived GOP disappointments, will stay home on Election Day, giving one or both Houses of Congress to Democrats. But for those who care about reforming the Supreme Court, sitting this one out may soon look like a mistake of historic proportions.
For the past several weeks, there has been a rumor circulating among high-level officials in Washington, D.C., that a member of the U.S. Supreme Court has received grave medical news and will announce his or her retirement by year’s end. While such rumors are not unusual in the nation’s capital, this one comes from credible sources. Additionally, a less credible but still noteworthy post last week at the liberal Democratic Underground blog says, “Send your good vibes to Justice Stevens. I just got off the phone with a friend of his family and right now he is very ill and at 86 years old that is not good.”
(Excerpt) Read more at humanevents.com ...
Happy Birthday and many more to come.
"sitting this one out may soon look like a mistake of historic proportions."
CORRECT!!!!
"
Two words should be all it takes to get GOP faithful to flock to the polls: Samuel Alito.
I still can't believe that someone dedicated to nominating judicial conservatives was elected in 2000 and 2004, and that we expanded a good solid Republican Senate over the last few years -- and that as a result we have a line-up like Scalia, Thomas, Roberts, and Alito."
CORRECT!
We have gained so much since we got rid of Daschle and the democrats controlling congress as if it were 90 democrats to 10 republicans even when they only had 1 or 2 senators more than republicans
harold ford, junior has had to run hard to the right in order to try and fool us..we can only hope it backfires on him and his hard left base sits it out. We are expecting rain in Memphis, his home base.
My personal choice to replace either would be Janice Brown, formerly on the California Supreme Court, now on the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, which has often been a stepping stone for elevation to the Supreme Court. But control of the Senate, even by a slim majority, is essential to this effort.
I expect that whoever replaces Frist as Majority Leader in the Senate will have to use the constitutional option to force a vote on the floor. Keep in mind that that option requires only a majority vote to make it work, since it would be a vote on a ruling from the President of the Senate, Dick Cheney, ruling that a filibuster is illegal as applied to a judicial nominee.
The longest legacy that most Presidents have is their appointment of federal judges, since the judges serve for life and often outlast the Presidents who appointed them by a quarter century or more. Therefore, I second the opinions presented in this article.
Congressman Billybob
Latest article: "The Truth about the War"
Please see my most recent statement on running for Congress, here.
"While this election is still important for control of the Senate, have no fear: Bush and Rove already have "Plan B" in hand if Stevens (or perhaps Ginsberg) retires within the next two years. They will nominate a conservative Hispanic or African-American female for a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court. In other words, they'll employ the same strategy that put Clarence Thomas on the court.
Can you picture Schumer hysterically opposing an intelligent, conservative Hispanic or African-American female? "
Been there, done that...
Janice Rogers Brown. Brilliant, conservative, black - opposed by Schumer.
Manuel Estrada. Hispanic, well-qualified - opposed by Schumer.
Both were filibustered. Clarence Thomas himself was opposed by most Democrats. Sadly, liberal Democrats in blue states get no heat for this. Kennedy gets no opposition.
I don't think the strategy will work ... the *only* surefire strategy is 60 conservative Republican votes nnd/or 51 votes willing to pull the trigger to end nomination filibusters.
Unless and until we get liberals to quake in fear over their extremism, we will never truly have a free hand on these nominations like say Clinton did.
We are free of Daschle because someone lit a fire under the SD GOP and convinced them that they had to challenge the "unbeatable" Daschle with a *real* candidate, running a hard campaign -- a real campaign.
And now they're doing it again with Congressman Stephanie Herseth -- they are basically letting her have the seat this year, and she is going to be totally entrenched because of their stupidity in this regard.
The SD story is a perfect example of why we should never give up on a single Senate seat -- not one. We should always make the Dummycrats work for every seat. Sure, they're going to win in NY and CA -- big deal. Let's make sure they have to spend themselves into the ground to do it.
Let's force ND's GOP to get off their duff and put up serious challenges to that all-Dem Congressional delegation. Let's make MT's GOP put up a serious challenger against Baucus. Etc...
If there is one duty that people living in red states have, it is to make sure that they each send two GOP senators to Washington. If there is one duty that blue state Republicans have, it is to make the Dims keep their money in blue states.
Pro-abort son-of-check-bouncing pol Liberal Harold Ford Jr. better *NOT* be foolin' anybody with his campaign season bible thumpin' ... He will vote with Schumer to ban conservative judges...
"Schumer is reported to have assured Democrats that Bob Casey Jr. -- despite running as a moderate Senate candidate -- would be supportive of Democratic efforts to block constitutionalist judicial nominees. “There’s no worry on judges,” said Schumer. “And judges is the whole ball of wax.” Other supposedly centrist Democratic candidates including Harold Ford Jr. (Tenn.), Jon Tester (Mont.) and Jim Webb (Va.) have refused to rule out filibusters against judicial nominees."
LEARN FROM THE SALAZAR GAMBIT... He won in 2004 by running as a 'moderate' then helped oppose Alito and Roberts.
The senators running in 2006 did the duck-and-cover, but Salazar, not up until 2010, could vote liberal for a while.
Don't get fooled again, should be the motto.
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=17814
Yeah. And who needs to worry about those Supreme Court appointments, anyways?
I agree. There was a time to sort out the RINOs in the future once we gained a safe number of seats in both houses. We are not there yet. I hope we gain seats (not lose any) in both houses. The more seats we GAIN in 2006 the more options we CONSERVATIVES have to dump the RINOs
Thanks for the pings.
Several of us have been speculating abot Stevens for a good long time. Recall that he is reported to have said he would retire under a GOP president because he was nominated by a same.
We must hold the Senate and the House.
VOTE GOP.
There is no way that CA and NY (or, it seems, Maine) will ever elect truly conservative Senators, so I really don't expect anything but RINO's if we get anything at all. But there is no excuse for RINOs in states where a real conservative can be elected.
Those are the RINO's that need to be weeded out aggressively when we have the luxury of a nice majority.
The Club for Growth is a great organization that aims to do just that: make Republicans be fiscal conservatives -- or face stiff primary challenges.
If Stevens goes tango unit tomorrow and both houses go Democrat then there could be 28 months where there will be a lot of 4-4 decisions.
don't forget what they did to Miguel Estrada...and that wasn't even the USSC...
Exactly! I agree 100%! And with the luxury of a nice majority we could afford to make an example of an Olympia Snowe or Spector by replacing them even if with a liberal democrat. One example may be all we need for the other RINOs to get the message while still maintaining our nice majority.
I just dont think we are there yet and should be working on getting to that nice majority so we will have those options.
I hope the 2006 Election is not a fall down the mountain we worked so hard to climb. Next time we try to climb it wont be so easy with campaign finance reform.
my favorite example is John Marshall...the Federalist USSC Chief Justice served from 1801-1836...even though the Federalist party ceased to exist after 1817.
Read my tagline.
I was watching media whore Barack Obama rallying a crowd in Maryland saying that it didn't matter what color your skin was if the person didn't "share our values" he didn't deserve "our" support. Opposing conservative judges of minority race or ethnicity will never cost Dem senators.
hell, I'm willing to ask G-d himself for this one. And if it happens at the end of this year, the Dems won't have the ability to drag it out for two entire years to hold out for a new President. And even a one vote majority in the Senate is enough to ensure they can't filibuster the next Supreme.
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