Free Republic

The fact that a majority of senators has not been willing to override and change the filibuster rule merely means that the majority has prevailed, which is the constitutional plan. However, the real issue is whether a majority can change a Senate Rule. The answer to that is yes, because a majority (not super majority) of senators must adopt (or readopt) the rules by which a new Senate will govern its proceedings. This action, which in most instances is pro forma, is required because a prior Senate cannot bind a subsequent Senate to a set of rules without the agreement of the subsequent Senate. Thus, a new (subsequent) Senate can either approve or change its rules by simple MAJORITY vote. Therefore, if your point is that the current Senate will fail to change the filibuster rule because a MAJORITY of senators will not support the rule change, that could occur, and would be a constitutional exercise of power by a MAJORITY of the current Senate. However, if you are maintaining that the current Senate is without the power to change RULE XXII by a simple majority vote then your position is incorrect.

Your analysis is correct. The basic flaw in Will's "straw man" logic that the Senate is "required" to vote may be described as follows: The Constitution merely requires that if a vote is held, that it only takes a MAJORITY to confirm. However, if a majority does not vote to confirm, or (the answer to Will) if a majority chooses NOT TO VOTE that is the equivalent of a rejection of the nominee (a down vote by inaction by a MAJORITY of senators). But, if a majority wants to vote to confirm, then the filibuster (and cloture) rule becomes an extra-constitutional bar against the "will" of the Senate majority. That is why the filibuster (and cloture) rule is unconstitutional in the case of confirmation of judges. Therefore, a majority decision by the Senate to change the filibuster rule is a valid exercise of its constitutional authority.

Liberals, who could care less about the military in general and the army in particular, now are concerned about meeting recruiting goals. Since Liberals would only commit the military for "humanitarian" purposes, the only reason for their clucking is to raise the specter of a reactivation of the draft.

Ah, another reprise of the "Caine mutiny."

Why doesn't Harvard just fire Summers and replace him with Ward Churchill.

I thought we have told, time and time again, that the more educated and industrious people reside in the states that traditionally vote Democrat. So, it is only fair that the government "tax" those people more (by giving them less) than the less fortunate people who live in those poor "Republican" states.

You are absolutely correct. Summers' statements were considered inappropriate and he has already paid a price for making them, and may pay even more. In fact, the woman who was "offended" by his remarks chose not to debate him, but to take her complaint to the media. Yet, the setting in which Summers made them was informal and the intended purpose of the meeting was to elicit evocative comments.

For some time now universities have rejected free speech in favor of politically correct speech. There are myriad cases of students being reprimanded and worse for exercising their 1st Amendment rights only to be told that their particular speech violated the university's speech code. Therefore, it is hypocritical for UC to talk about free speech rights of a (tenured or not) professor. What does the UC speech code "say" about W. C.'s statements? Do his statements amount to "hate Speech" under that code? By the way, has anybody asked the liberal darlings, aka the Jersey Girls, what they think of W. C's. statements about their dead husbands?

Those who protested came not as artists but as antiwar demonstrators, while the marine came as an artist. Let those who would disagree with the marine's art present their own works as an alternative. By not doing so, and by protesting the marine's right to display his art, they reduce themselves to merely rabble rousing dissenters.

Until the Iraqi election, the MSM told us that because of various factors, not the least of which was that Iran was sending various terrorist groups into Iraq, there could be no election. Now, the MSM will inundate with the likely alliance between the Shia in Iraq with the Islamic radicals in Iran. So, first the Iranian government tried to reestablish the Hussein dictatorship, now (according to the MSM)Iran will simply cut a deal with the Shia who they (unsuccessfully) tried to make subservient to the Sunnis. When this gambit fails, the MSM will simply go to a new rallying cry in its attempt to discredit the president's Iraq policy.

Obama is wrong on two accounts. First, there is no presumption in the Constitution about who shall be a member of the president's cabinet. There is merely a requirement that the Senate shall provide its "Advice and Consent" to those the president nominates. Second, there is no constitutional requirement that the Attorney general is to be the "people's lawyer" and not the president's lawyer. In fact, the Constitution, if anything, says the opposite. In Art. II, Sec 2., 1st paragraph, it provides that the president "may require the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments, upon the subject relating to the Duties of their respective Offices, . . ." Thus, the principal Officers, represent the president, not the "people." And, if a principal Officer acts in a manner inconsistent with this responsibility (to the president), the president may remove him.Such was the case when Franklin Roosevelt recalled his Ambassador to Great Britain, one Joseph P. Kennedy, because of Kennedy's support for Hitler.

W C's (I think the use of his initials is appropriate) basic thesis is that the 9/11 victims weren't innocent, but rather Nazi's because they bought into the corrupt American capitalist system. However, if W. C.'s premise is correct (and I do not believe it is), doesn't it apply equally to him? After all, he is a tenured professor who chairs a department at the University of Colorado. The University receives funding from various capitalist sources (including the parents who pay their children's tuition). Therefore, it follows that W. C. himself benefits from the very system he both denigrates and has contempt for.

In effect, W. C. is a hypocrite. He takes benefits from a system he claims is essentially criminal in nature. He should forsake the benefits of our "corrupt, Nazi system" by giving up his tenure and pursuing his activism in the streets like a true revolutionary. Somehow I doubt that will ever be the case with W. C.

It appears that Kerry who usually can be counted on to do a 180 degree turn is now doing a 360 turn: "I was in favor of Saddam before I was opposed to him, and now I'm back to being for him." One could say he has twisted himself into a bagel; but it is a cruller that comes to mind.

An observation about Democrats and voting: there is a direct correlation between U.S. major cities and the number of votes Democrats cast and count. In our major cities as many votes as can be cast (by whatever means and whomever) are accepted and counted (usually more than once, they are so precious). As you move away from the cities, the number of votes to be cast and counted become less and less important. Our overseas votes (especially those cast by out military) are not important at all, and, therefore, every effort is made not to count them. The same holds true for today's voting in Iraq. Democrats, and their minions, are hoping fewer and fewer votes will be cast and counted.

This is the epitome of Liberal shtick. It was the substance of the event, not the apparel style of the attendees that was important. Clearly, to those for whom this commemoration had little or no importance it was alright to trivialize the event by focusing on the clothing worn by those who came to to pay their respects to the victims of the Holocaust.

As Ward Churchill (W C for short) is a professor at a university that receives funds (be they governmental appropriations or tuition received from students being supported by capitalist parents)from the system he abhors, he is as guilty (under his thesis) as those who died in the WTC and pentagon attacks. Therefore, he should be asked if he is more than willing to forfeit his life to the greater good of punishing America.

That was my point in referring to the perpetrator as a vandal and citing local law. However, the conclusion that the display, itself, was an exerciser of free speech (using the vandal's argument against him) raises the PLACING of the crosses to a level entitling that action to constitutional protection. A court may not agree: but, the argument advanced by the vandal now allows for the counter argument to be made in response.

If it is an exercise of "speech" to REMOVE the crosses, it follows that the placing of the crosses was an exercise of "speech." One cannot use the free speech argument to justify denying another's equal right of free speech. Therefore, the vandal's free speech argument fails under not only the local laws but the Constitution as well.

The article identifies Ward Churchill ("W C" for short) as the chairman of the ethics studies program at Colorado University. As CU receives funding from governmental sources, and as "W C" is part of the hierarchy of CU he is, in fact, a willing participant in the economic machinery of that school. Therefore, he is as much of a "little Nazi" as those he considers to be the same. As he is ethics professor, he bears a greater responsibility because , according to his thesis, he is ethically wrong, and therefore, nothing but a hypocrite as well as being a willing cog in the "fascist" profit machinery he so, apparently, despises.

The Libs are serious. I am being sarcastic.