Posted on 05/24/2005 6:55:47 AM PDT by AliVeritas
LOL!!
Make no mistake, there are really great things to do around the City; excellent dining, sailing, the symphony and the museums...but if you're house-poor, well...you stay on the porch.
I'm just happy to have my 50-year old hut in Concord. Crazy thing is, I have neighbors with the same floorplan as mine and they converted their garage to living space to get up to 1200sq ft. Well, they just listed their house at $485,000!!
With the way the market is going, out here, I won't be surprised if they get over $500,000; almost every property gets bid up by competeing buyers.
It's almost enough to get me to sell, move to someplace like Kansas City, buy one house and an apartment building and become a landlord.
Probably right. In which case, of course, Brown, Owen, and Pryor will have been confirmed, a scenario not likely without the nuclear option. And there is reason to believe that it may have failed. Even in passing, it would have shifted the "high road" to the Dems by showing the Republicans as out for every ounce of power they could grab. If this works, then it is better for all parties, but especially the Republicans. If it fails, I don't see any lasting effect, and in fact, see a better chance of the nuclear option winning the votes of the reluctant 7.
Because the Democrats still have the ability under the Memorandum of Agreement to filibuster in extreme cases, they will do so for nominees who weren't specifically named in the agreement.
But when they do, they will at least now be under serious pressure not only to abide by the spirit of the agreement, but because the 3 previously mentioned nominees who were approved will establish a baseline upon which to compare the others with respect to the "extreme" definition.
We SHOULD have carved out language that we could STILL go to the Constitutional Option if the Democrats didn't operate in good faith.
I don't see anything in the agreement that would prevent Frist from scheduling the constitutional option vote at any time during a filibuster. And if the Dems are operating on bad faith, then substantial pressure will be on the Republicans to follow Frist.
It's a small point and perhaps I'm over-stating it, but it's my pretty firm belief that when the deal falls apart, we'll look like the bad guys.
Hopefully we'll be prepared for that eventuality, and put resources into telling the American public the truth about it. But it would have happened anyway, and at least now, we have a better chance of not looking like the bad guys, had we gone ahead with the vote and no agreement.
We'll know soon in either case, because Frist needs to schedule the two not agreed upon as soon as the first 3 are confirmed.
Absolutely PERFECT (with my one slight addition above), detailed, and I believe, clear and accurate analysis. I will be referring many people to this.
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As I don't live in these states I cannot vote against them.
I have already pledged to donate to their opponents when they become known.
I will never support another RINO for any office ever again. Liberal Republicans? Maybe. A RINO? Hell no. the two are distinct in that one can have honor, and the other has none. Though I'll be honest. The only Liberal Republican I know that seems to hold to honor Is Rudy Guilini. Ironically, the social Liberal has reached out more to the social conservatives in the base than the supposed "social conservatives" in the Party have (Mccain, DeWine(?)).
I also have pledged not a dime more to the RNC to use to be split to these people. I will donate on an individual basis.
Lastly, I don't hold grudges against those that aren't party to betrayal. Only the dwarfs and those that flirted with Dwarfdom (hagel, Murkowski, etc.) are on my list.
"" Frist said, on Hannity's radio show, that he was NOT in on this and I doubt that the president was. ""
I didn't listen to Hannity's show today. So Frist didn't know what the 7 RINO's were planning. Unbelieveable. I was hoping they at least had *some* decency left and would have told Frist, before going public. Geeezzz
Kathryn Lopez from National Review Online was just on Hugh Hewitt and said that the problem with the Senate and the House is that the Republicans, other than Bush, don't know how to act like winners, and don't know how to govern legislature...
She used the fetal stems cell bill as an example---she said the REp. House should have been able to keep that bill from being passed...
She did think that George Allen came out the biggest winner by NOT being the Majority Leader..that Frist is taking the fall, and Allen, who has been a steady conservative comes out smelling like a rose....
No, Graham didn't write it...he signed it and he has almost no grasp of what it says.
In the Dallas/Fort worth area, $500,000 would get you a humongous house w/at least an acre of land...or a lakeside plot with a boat house...
But, alas, there is no ocean, beaches, mountains ---it is quite a trade-off...
Before the agreement, 3 outstanding judges were tied up in filibuster with no chance outside of the nuclear option of confirmation. Now all 3 will be confirmed, and the Dems have agreed to not filibuster except in extraordinary circumstances, which now must mean more than the reasons given for Pryor, Brown, and Owen. If the Dems start filibustering again, the agreement's dead and the constitutional option invoked by Frist. And the 7 reuctant Republicans will now be under tremendous pressure to support Frist, a pressure they did not feel before the agreement. No downside to that. All of the pressure now appears to be on the Dems to pass on nominees in good faith. If not, we have the three most important ones confirmed and we are no worse off than before.
My son-in-law just got back from a business trip to Tokyo and said he has never seen a cleaner city in his life...
He said that if someone dropped a cigarette (most Japanese smoke, he says) on the ground, it wouldn't be there more than a minute before someone swept it up....
"Decency"? McLame has NEVER known the meaning of that word and I doubt that any of his fellow compatriots do either.
Like it or not, Graham claims certain knowledge that there were FIVE R NOs against Frist - and that there were 4-5 others uncommitted.
If this works as he honestly believes it will, there will be no more filibusters in the 109th, and seven of the eight will get approved, and one defeated, on an up or down vote. Meanwhile, the senate gets business done, like tomorrow's vote on Bolton, that wouldn't occur otherwise.
Where we would be today might well be wondering why Spectre and Voinovich voted with the D's, and Frist lost this vote 48-52. McCain and Chaffee can't be hated more than they already are, but we would have some new targets for hatred.
You don't know, and neither do I, where we would be today.
It is what it is now... and once these three "Neanderthals" get confirmed, the D's are going to have a really tough job fighting on the new ground of what is "too extreme" - I'm looking forward to their trying to satisfy their base, and the American people now.
I'm still NOT really happy about Graham's decision - but I will respect his reasoning
McCain can go off and rot somewhere.
Most of the people I have heard on the radio and TV have said that McCain and Graham came out looking like the losers...
Of course, they are talking about being losers to people like us that pay close attention to these judicial nominee votes...as far as momandpop America...who knows whether they realize yet what has happened...
They will though, when more bill to stop gay marriages are overturned by judges, and sex offenders are given slaps on the wrists, and illegal immigrants are given more "civil rights" than you and I...
You're completely right about the baseline of what represents "extreme" to the Democrats once those three get confirmed. I keep forgetting that point.
I heard George Allen on the Chris Matthews show this evening and he says that going into Sunday night, Frist had the votes to invoke the Constitutional Option, which is interesting, because we've all speculated it's likely he did not have the votes.
Allen also said that should the Democrats violate the agreement, he fully expects Frist to invoke the Constitutional Option. It was my concern we didn't carve out similar language that the Democrats did, but I guess your thinking is in line with Allen's ... that it wasn't really necessary to carve it out because it's always going to be an option.
Good taking with you, M.
Whats to say when this is all said and done that Bush/Rove may have put both scenarios into play...the one that gets done first is the one they play..with the other falling into the back up plan. Realize Bush comes from a business background...there is always a plan to fall back on, unless you want to go floundering looking for options.
And you actually give any credence to Graham's words?
Not to confuse the concepts of "trust" or giving credence with reporting what is said when and where in order to evaluate its weight, but that is exactly what DeWine and Graham explained at the press conference yesterday, right in front of the other signers.
He was in on the original discussions, he helped draft the wording but you know what it means and he doesn't. okie dokie
I've only seen Tokyo once. My memory of it (from a 15-y/o point of view) was that it was incredibly crowded.
With the nuclear option ( and yes, there WERE enough votes to pass it, prior to the "compromise" ! ), we would have been able to get an up or down vote on ALL of the stalled judicial nominations.
And as far as the Dems' promise, all I can say, is : YOU FELL FOR THAT CRAP ? Anyone and everyone of the president's nominations, from here on out, AS THEY WERE BEFORE THE DAMNED COMPROMISE, will be called EXTREME EXTREMISTS/EXTRAORDINARY CIRCUMSTANCES !
You're wearing rose colored glasses, blowing smoke, making excuses , spinning, and are damned, dead wrong in spades!
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