Posted on 05/24/2005 6:55:47 AM PDT by AliVeritas
"Okay, so then why are we wasting time calling for Kerry to sign 180, if the records are available already"
Only the elite DC crowd can view them and have.
Not "We the People"
That is the worst hair dye job; I have ever seen. You can just see the dye coming down her face.
It sucks sometimes to just be "we the people", doesn't it?
If there was nothing to hide, he would be waving them in Tim Russert's face telling the whole world about his wonderful military records, now wouldn't he?
McCaine and the Dems were working sub rosa. Evidently many of that 14 had lied through their teeth to Frist. LIEberman was supposedly on board and there was at least 1 more Dem, who would have voted WITH Frist and the GOPers.
There is NO "proof" at all that any nominee, had the nuclear option been put into motion, won the vote. I never claimed that, unlike YOU, who has claimed that ALL THREE ON THE TABLE NOMINEES will win. Where is YOUR proof for saying that? It most assuredly is NOT in the compromise.
There is absolutely NO assurance, whatsoever, from any of the 14, that they will separately or together, follow, to the letter, what the compromise states. And since it appears that you not only trust the gang of 7, but believe deep in the recesses of your heart, that they will call for the nuclear option, if and when a single Dem counters the "agreement", then, I pity you.
The wind has been completely taken away from Frist's sails. He might call for the nuclear option, with cause; however, getting it passed now, is far from a certainty.It probably will fail. And THAT hands the Dems and the craven GOP gang of 7 another VICTORY.
As to "bloviating", I don't, you do, and FYI... I AM NOT A "SIR".
I was taught vote counting by the best, I don't wear rose colored glasses, and my grasp of reality is far better than yours.
True, very true.
I agree. I too have a feeling that there are many on the hill who still do not understand that the MSM does not have the same power it did...if Graham is not on the internet or listening to radio, he thinks he can ride this out with the base and gain MSM/"moderate" approval. He is wrong.
He was spouting polls and swayed by editorials. How about listening to "principles" sometime.
I'm not sure who's power is being usurped here.
The President can still nominate anybody he wants. He can consult with the senate if he likes, or not.
The Senate still has the power to confirm or reject nominees. That vote is still a simple majority.
The Senate still gets to set its rules as the majority sees fit. A majority can decide that it won't vote to confirm a nominee unless 10 other Senators agree at least to allow the vote. The Filibuster is just a formalization of an informal arrangement whereby a Senator who might otherwise vote yes will vote NO if there aren't enough other senators. The Filibuster codified this.
Whatever the situation is now, it is identical rules-wise to what was in place yesterday, and a year ago, and 10 years ago. The agreement does nothing more than spell out what 14 senators plan to do regarding judges. Any one of them can change their mind at any time. They enter the agreement voluntarily.
The 14 get the illusion of more power, simply because by banding together they can vote in a block and influence outcomes. That of course is also what political parties do, and also what voting coalitions do all the time.
So I don't believe there is a usurpation of power. I believe the Senate would love to grab the Nomination power from the President. But all they can use to get that power is the threat of not providing the 51 votes for confirmation. The President can take that to the people if he has to.
The President already does consultation on district judges, and the Senate rules allow home-state senators to block judges in their own district. Often the states SEND LISTS OF CANDIDATES to the President for him to pick from. He doesn't have to, but he almost always does. It's always been that way.
They can filibuster all they want without breaking the agreement, as long as they don't do it on Owens, Pryor, or Myles. Period. Any of slimy seven who goes back on the letter of the agreement will be pilloried in the media. They know that, and it will be a powerful incentive to keep the letter of the agreement. These "people" did what they did in part to get into the good graces of the MSM, they won't want to face being on the wrong side of that same MSM.
I just read an article on The HIll News that said that the cabal of 14 are calling themselves the Centrist Coaltion and that supposedly Graham has come up with a Social Security plan that they are looking at,
That one of Snowe's advisors said that there is no telling what the Centrists can do in the Senate...
The article says that they feel they are "the future of the Senate" and that all praised Lindsay Graham for his guidance and his ability to be independent...
It was disturbing to read that these people are really wanting to rule the country with their Centrist Coalition...
Scary, huh?
I try.
Sometimes I believe we get too much into our own talking points to see the big picture.
The constitution has hardly been shredded any more than usual. Blocking nominees by state holds or supressed committee hearings is just a matter of degree.
If you want the "bad view" spin, you could say that seven republicans decided today that they would not vote yes on nominees if they couldn't get at least 5 democrats to agree to at least allow a vote.
Any Senator has the constitutional right to base his or her voting decision on any criteria they wish.
Frist stood up for the proposition that because only a majority is needed to confirm a judge, it should only take a majority to change the rules if the majority wants to confirm.
But Seven of his own party decided they DIDN'T want to confirm the judges strongly enough to be willing to change the rules.
NOW, a better spin.
They didn't agree that the nuclear option was invalid, or violated the rules of the senate. In fact, you could say the agreement implicitly blesses the option, since it merely provides that seven republicans won't vote for it, without any statement that such a vote would be bad for the Senate.
But my point wasn't to spin again, it was to discuss the notion that the constitution has been destroyed by 7 republicans and 7 democrats deciding to vote as a block to preserve the rules the way they are. There is nothing unconstitutional about that.
IMO .. Lindsay Graham just ended his political career with all this BS
And he will take the 7 dwarfs down with him
You mean the one time, against Abe Fortas for Chief Justice? That was hardly comparable. Fortas did not have the support of a majority of senators, and his filibuster was a bipartisan affair, with Southern Democrats and Republicans joining forces.
From Infoplease
President Johnson nominated Fortas as chief justice of the United States; Republicans and Southern Democrats held a Senate filibuster against the nomination, causing President Johnson to withdraw Fortas's nomination. The following year, Fortas resigned from the court after it was revealed that he had, while on the bench, accepted $20,000 from a private foundation; the money was part of a life stipend to Fortas by the foundation. Although he returned the money, Fortas resigned from the court under public pressure, the first justice to do so.
Are you a Constitutional scholar ?
Mark Levin is. Mark Levin is also a fellow FREEPER of long standing. Are your credentials as good as his are?
He disagrees with every single statement you have made. I trust him far more, than I trust your words, newbie.
Under the agreement we don't, at least until 2007. The slimy seven pledged not to vote for a rules change. The MSM will apply lots of pressure to see that they keep to their agreement.
I would be honored if the great one would stoop down so low as to comment on anything I have written, much less lend his wealth of expertise to my amateur tome.
On the other hand, you aren't the first to essentially call me arrogant. I don't mean that in a bad way. I am an arrogant person. I believe that I have the capacity to read well-written documents and discern the clear meaning, without years of training in the field.
I once had a neurosurgeon argue with me about medicine for three or four e-mail iterations before he decided it just wasn't worth his time to argue with an amateur. I don't blame him, but I cannot be persuaded that I am incapable of having a cogent thought which may actually trump even the Great One himself.
I try not to get wrapped up in personality. I have my opinions. I believe that they are grounded in fact, but I am always looking for additional input and insite. I haven't managed to poke into what Levin is saying about this particular agreement. But I did read his book and find his writing to be excellent, so I will make the effort.
I will be fascinated to see what his legal argument is for the constitutionality or lack thereof of a non-binding agreement between senators.
I know that I shold simply concede the point to you because you invoked the Great One, but I simply can't bring myself to do that. He could well be correct, and I could well be mistaken, and that would be something I would want to learn, but the mere mention of the name does not in itself enable me to correct whatever errors I may have made in my analysis.
It would have helped me had you borrowed the appropriate lines from things Levin wrote to show me what mistakes I made in my analysis, but since you have given me at least a vague reference I suppose I can do my own legwork.
In the meantime, I will concede your point (because of lack of evidence on my part) that Mark Levin has a different view than mine, and there is a good probability that he is correct and I am therefore incorrect.
But I won't concede that we know that for a fact until I see exactly what Mark finds unconstitutional about this arrangement.
Thank you for the head's up. And I look forward to the day when I may have provided enough useful thoughts for you to consider me a source of information.
I can't do anything about my age, that's simply a function of when I learned this place existed (which was when Steffen lost his job, if you want to know).
On the contrary I think they will stand by the *words*. The words only require the 7 supposed "DINOs" (I suspect they were acting with permission and encouragement by their leadership) to vote for cloture on the 3 named nominees. They've already done so for Owens, they'll do it for the other two shortly. After that, they are free to do anything they want. If the 7 Repidiots appear to be wavering with respect to the Section II B ban on rules changes, then vote for the Nuclear option, they will the ones violating the *words* of the agreement, and you can be all an sundry, from the 7 "DINOs" to the talking heads, will very publicly remind them of that fact.
You give yourself far too much credit! I never called you arrogant; your far worse than that. You're a supercilious prig, verbose, and an egotist.
Mark will NEVER take you by the hand and show you the error of your ways here, point by point. He'll just eviscerate you! :-)
Here's a helpful hint...don't pretend to be an "expert" on things you aren't one on and don't talk about things you really ( and I mean REALLY!) know about. That'll save a lot of bandwidth and your ego. LOL
Case closed.
That is just not true under the agreement. The dems can filibuster Myers or Saad for any reason or no reason. They can filibuster any other nominees under "extraordinary circumstances", which are not defined in the agreement. In either event, under the agreement, the 14 (in reality the 7 Republicans) are committed to not vote for any rule changes, which most specifically includes the nuclear option. There are no exceptions similar to the "extraordinary circumstances" of the "no filibuster provision in the "no rules change" provision. The 7 RINOs either got snookered, or they are willful accomplishes in denying up or down votes to the President's nominees. If the agreement had said that they would not filibuster nominees for "ideological" reasons, then we'd be OK, at least from a PR standpoint, but as it is any breakdown in the agreement *will* be blamed on the Republicans, and that will be technically correct.
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