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Southerner
Citizen
Username: Southerner
Post Number: 574
Registered: 2-2004
| | Posted on Tuesday, January 24, 2006 - 10:40 pm: | 
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Well, I gotta say, the Dems on the committee have earned my respect. I figured they would cave, but they actually voted their convictions. I actually respect them a little more now. Although, I completely disagree with them and am glad they were powerless to stop Alito, at least for one time the Democrats actually backed up their words with a vote.
As for the overall topic of Alito, it looks like the Repubs and us conservatives are getting exactly what we wanted - a relatively young very conservative SC judge who will help reverse years of liberal rulings.
I also think the committee Dems vote on Alito has ushered in a new era for nominees. What will be real political intrigue is when one party controls Congress and the other party controls the White House. It will be like the Price is Right with nominee after nominee getting rejected and new ones coming on down.
Now for my partisan shot - And to think, all of this would be reversed if Gore would simply have won his home state! It doesn't get any better than this. |
sbenois
Supporter
Username: Sbenois
Post Number: 14481
Registered: 10-2001
| | Posted on Tuesday, January 24, 2006 - 11:04 pm: |
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Southerner
Citizen
Username: Southerner
Post Number: 588
Registered: 2-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, January 26, 2006 - 3:20 pm: |
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I am pulling out the one every 500 post mulligans for this thread (actually I just borrowed one of Foj's). This guy was all the poltical rave for months and now nothing but silence. I'd really like to know what you libs think of your Democratic Reps. Should they have handled this issue better? Should they filibuster? Or should they do what they always do and simply give up, lick their wounds, and move on to the next losing issue. I'm just curious. |
themp
Supporter
Username: Themp
Post Number: 2493
Registered: 12-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, January 26, 2006 - 3:58 pm: |
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You have a yucky personality. |
bettyd
Citizen
Username: Badjtdso
Post Number: 45
Registered: 12-2005
| | Posted on Thursday, January 26, 2006 - 5:57 pm: |
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Filibuster. Go down fighting to the end, solidify your base, and make some political noise. A no lose proposition for them in my book. |
bettyd
Citizen
Username: Badjtdso
Post Number: 46
Registered: 12-2005
| | Posted on Thursday, January 26, 2006 - 6:05 pm: |
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Southerner, don't get too confident about the status quo. Things have a way of changing. The Red Sox won the World Series in 2004 and Rutgers went to a bowl game in 2005. If those two events occurred, a return to democratic rule starting in 2006 is on the way. |
Eats Shoots & Leaves
Citizen
Username: Mfpark
Post Number: 2943
Registered: 9-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, January 26, 2006 - 6:13 pm: |
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Well, some of them are bailing already. Byrd, Johnson, and Nelson for now. Feinstein has said she will not support a filibuster. I am waiting for Conrad and maybe one other Dem to say they will support Alito. Thirty Dems and Jeffords have said they will vote no on Alito, and three have said they will vote yes. That leaves only 11 undecided, with probably Conrad and and one more voting for him.
Only Snowe, Chafee, and Stevens have not said they would vote for him on the GOP side, and we know Stevens will do so unless he thinks he can wrangle ANWR drilling somehow by holding out.
So, 52 Repubs plus 3 Dems is 55--add in Stevens and probably 2 more Dems you get 58. Not a filibuster-proof 60 votes, but pretty much a done deal. Landrieux and Feinstein will not support a filibuster, so even if Kerry tries, he may well get shot down by his own party. |
tulip
Citizen
Username: Braveheart
Post Number: 3119
Registered: 3-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, January 26, 2006 - 6:18 pm: |
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Here, here, Massachusetts!!
My favorite state.
Kerry and Ted, courage, and strength in the face of opposition from everyone.
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sbenois
Supporter
Username: Sbenois
Post Number: 14482
Registered: 10-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, January 26, 2006 - 6:33 pm: |
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Quote:Here, here, Massachusetts!!
My favorite state.
Kerry and Ted, courage, and strength in the face of opposition from everyone.
Except when it comes to Chappaquidick |
Southerner
Citizen
Username: Southerner
Post Number: 590
Registered: 2-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, January 26, 2006 - 7:32 pm: |
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bettyd,
What am I confident about? I am conservative no doubt, but I enjoy the game of politics and can take off the partisan blinders. I have often given Dems big props when they make good political decisions, and I have talked smack about the Repubs when they have fumbled. I try to be objective when dealing with political issues. It is just that over the time I have joined this board the Republicans have waxed the Dems on just about every issue (the Dems waxed them over Social Security Reform however). If the Dems sweep back in to power, I will still be here and will be first one congratulating them for a good game.
And Betty, I agree with you. I think no matter what the Dems do with Alito, they will lose. I'm on your side when I think they should lose in the best way possible and that means giving it a good fight thus showing their base they are up for the 2006 challenge. I've given the Dems huge props for taking it to the Repubs in 2005. They had their way all year long and made GW and Rove look pitiful. But the sizzle has fizzled and Rove and Company have come out fighting this year. That is why I think it is important for the Dems to take a hard philosophical stand on Alito. This could be the last "real" chance until November. But in typical fashion, they pinned their hopes on Fitzgerald last year and now they are pinning them on Abramoff. I think that is a terrible strategy since most Americans have never heard of Abramoff! |
Haight-Strawbury
Supporter
Username: Strawberry
Post Number: 6697
Registered: 10-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, January 26, 2006 - 7:33 pm: |
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Here's my favorite: Kerry and Kennedy demand a filibuster..Dem leaders including Reid then informing the 2 long time Senators they can't since they don't have the votes to do so..
Libs are morons.
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tulip
Citizen
Username: Braveheart
Post Number: 3120
Registered: 3-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, January 26, 2006 - 7:34 pm: |
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southerner,
You lose. |
Southerner
Citizen
Username: Southerner
Post Number: 592
Registered: 2-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, January 26, 2006 - 7:39 pm: |
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How do I lose when I'm not rooting for anyone. I just want an interesting game. I would personally like to see a filibuster attempt by the Dems because I'd really like to see what the Repubs would do in response. Would they actually fight or would they wimp out? It would make great theater and would energize the nuts in both parties that it would make for some great news clips. |
tulip
Citizen
Username: Braveheart
Post Number: 3122
Registered: 3-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, January 26, 2006 - 7:44 pm: |
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Scrotis Lo Knows
Citizen
Username: Scrotisloknows
Post Number: 519
Registered: 10-2005
| | Posted on Thursday, January 26, 2006 - 8:08 pm: |
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Tulip-
If Mass is your favorite state why don't you move there and start your own board? 
Today's WSJ Editorial:
The Roberts-Alito Court
Thank you, Ted Kennedy and Ralph Neas.
Thursday, January 26, 2006 12:01 a.m. EST
With at least 52 Senators already on record in support, it's clear that--short of some smear ex machina--liberal Democrats can't stop Samuel Alito from being confirmed to a seat on the Supreme Court. So it's a good moment to consider what this says about our politics and what it means for the Court as it enters a new era.
One conclusion is that the confirmation of both Chief Justice John Roberts and Judge Alito marks the most important domestic success for President Bush since his 2003 tax cuts. These look like legacy picks. Despite the Harriet Miers misstep, Mr. Bush has now fulfilled one of his campaign promises. And with two distinguished conservative jurists joining Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, the Court is closer than it's been in 50 years to having a majority that can restore Constitutional interpretation to its founding principles.
In this sense, the Alito-Roberts ascendancy also marks a victory for the generation of legal conservatives who earned their stripes in the Reagan Administration. The two new Justices are both stars of that generation--many others are scattered throughout the lower courts--and they are now poised to influence the law and culture for 20 years or more. All those Federalist Society seminars may have finally paid off. Call it Ed Meese's revenge.
The Roberts-Alito Court also represents a notable, and greatly satisfying, rebuke for the legal left and its "borking" strategy. They have long thought of the courts as their personal legislature, and they have shown they will do and say anything to keep control of it. But this time they lost, and on their own ideological terms.
Senator Chuck Schumer declared in 2001 that he wanted to turn judicial confirmations into battles over "ideology." The New York Democrat succeeded in doing so, but he ended up losing in a self-knockout. One reason Democrats couldn't defeat Chief Justice Roberts or Judge Alito, despite near party-line opposition, is that their filibuster strategy had made judges a top-line election issue in both 2002 and 2004.
The battle over their unprecedented filibuster of 10 appeals-court nominees helped to sweep Democrats out of the Senate in Bush-leaning states and give Republicans a larger majority. The Democrats who remain in red states--five of whom are up for re-election in November--saw all this and had no appetite for a repeat in 2006. The liberal interest groups that devised the filibuster strategy and wrote the anti-Alito talking points for Senators Ted Kennedy and Patrick Leahy thus contributed as much as anyone to Judge Alito's confirmation. Congratulations, Ralph Neas. It's your finest hour.
While it's impossible to know how any new Justice will vote on specific issues, every indication is that the new duo will fit somewhere along the Court's conservative-libertarian wing. With Judge Alito replacing Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who in her later years had moved markedly left on the culture, we can anticipate more skepticism toward both racial preferences and campaign-finance restrictions on free speech.
We can also expect more respect for the free exercise of religion clause in the First Amendment, as opposed to the rigid invocation of the establishment clause's "wall" of separation between church and state. We'd also hope for greater respect for property rights, including a revisiting of last year's egregious Kelo decision, as well as a revival of the Lopez line of commerce clause cases showing more respect for federalism. Roe v. Wade may survive, or not, but we'd expect that individual states would receive more leeway to enact restrictions on abortion as per the wishes of their citizens.
This does not mean this will be a "conservative" Court, however. Four reliable liberals remain, as well as the protean Justice Anthony Kennedy, who has been making his own migration to the cultural left and the make-it-up-as-you-go jurisprudence exemplified by Lawrence v. Texas (on state laws on homosexuality) and Roper v. Simmons (on the juvenile death penalty). You can bet the press corps and liberal politicians will now apply their carrot-and-stick strategy of praise and castigation to push Justice Kennedy further to the left and retain a five-vote liberal majority. This will be especially true on the polarizing cultural disputes that are better solved democratically.
All of which means that the political battles over the Courts will continue. It is possible Mr. Bush will get another Supreme Court nomination before his term ends. Even if he doesn't, there will be many crucial places on the appellate courts to fill. There are eight appeals-court nominees awaiting action and a total of 15 vacancies, excluding Judge Alito's slot on the Third Circuit.
The White House and Senate should move with confidence and dispatch to fill these openings with judges in the Thomas-Scalia and now Roberts-Alito mold, while they still have the votes to confirm them. One thing we've surely learned from the past six months of Supreme Court debate is that elections matter to the courts as much as they do to the other two branches of government.
Hip Hip Hooooray to that! 
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tom
Citizen
Username: Tom
Post Number: 4273
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, January 26, 2006 - 11:29 pm: |
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What a pantload. These guys are no more interested in "founding principles" than my dog. What they're interested in his conservative principles, and if they can summon up the Constitution to get them that's good; and if they can't they come up with something else.
That's why "states' rights" apply to discrimination issues but not medical marijuana. Why states' rights are perfect for voting rights but not perfect for eminent domain. And why "legislating from the bench" is bad when you legalize abortion, but not when you want to stop affirmative action.
A big, sloppy pantload. Time for a change. |
Steve R Jones
Citizen
Username: Sjthinker
Post Number: 61
Registered: 2-2005
| | Posted on Friday, January 27, 2006 - 5:14 am: |
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Kerry couldn't get the Votes to win the Presidency, what makes anybody think he can garnish enough to fillibuster. What a maroon...
Go back to your mansion and roll around in your wife's money, Senator Kerry |
Southerner
Citizen
Username: Southerner
Post Number: 599
Registered: 2-2004
| | Posted on Friday, January 27, 2006 - 9:34 am: |
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tom,
I totally agree with your previous post. Except for the "Time for a change". Are the Dems any better? Listen, the grass is always greener when your philosophy is running the show. I'm sure you were relatively happy during the decades of Democratic rule like I'm fairly happy with the past 10 years. I'll agree it's all a "pantload" but I'd rather smell my side than the opposite side. But please don't tell me that the Dems are a better alternative. Do you not rememer the Tip O'Neils and Jim Wrights of your party who were as enamored with power and greed as these current guys. |
Scrotis Lo Knows
Citizen
Username: Scrotisloknows
Post Number: 528
Registered: 10-2005
| | Posted on Friday, January 27, 2006 - 10:01 am: |
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Tom-
I wish BOTH sides begin respecting the Constitution again... |
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