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Republican Senators May 'Go Nuclear'
expriest writes "In an attempt to confirm Bush's most conservative nominees to the federal bench, Senate Republican leaders are considering a nuclear option. Under this procedure, the person chairing the Senate rules that filibusters of judicial nominations are unconstitutional. Republicans claim a simple majority (51 senators) would be all that is necessary to uphold this ruling, and therefore give them the power to confirm judges. The problem with this procedure, however, is that the Supreme Court could still overrule the Senate, and the status of the then improperly confirmed judges would be unknown."
can a republican senator even say "nuclear" correctly?
My understanding is that democratic senators are preventing a vote from being called to confirm Bush's nominations via filibuster. Unless someone wants to add more, I think this is a pretty clear cut-and-dry case of the democrats getting tired of democracy.
Both sides suck. Vote third party. Like companies, politicians won't change until you take your support elsewhere.
Cheers
~Dalcius
Rome wasn't burnt in a day.
Have *all* judicial nominees require a 2/3 vote to confirm. Then no idealogues on either side would be affirmed.
Unless someone wants to add more, I think this is a pretty clear cut-and-dry case of the democrats getting tired of democracy.
Actually the system has worked the filibuster in as a way to let a small but substantial minority stop the dictatorship of a small majority. Republicans withheld most of Clinton's nominations using the exact same rule, as many other congresses have done.
What it would be unprecedented is to declare a 250 year old practice not valid. Because of this I suspect the Supreme Court would overrule in all of five minutes.
John McCain would never support this. They also won't get both Senators from ME. It won't happen because the GOP can't get 51 votes. This manuever is likely to be divisive like the Gay Marriage Ban, and while most Americans may not be concerned with these little intricacies of the Senate, Senators tend to take it seriously.
Santorum would turn this country into a Judeo-Christian version of Iran if given the chance. Frist is more timid and behind the scenes, but Santorum is a freaking pit-bull for the religious right. My fellow Florida citizens have managed to embaress me about a lot of things, but electing a theocratic loon to the Senate like Santorum takes the cake. I'd have a hard time admitting I was from Penn. every time that guy made the news.
Interesting thought experiment though.
Arrogance is Confidence which lacks integrity. -- me
Uhhh.... yeah it's the Democrats who came up with this horrible tactic.
It's the dems trying to keep insanely far-right wing judges off the bench, using the RULES of the Senate. If you'd read the fine article, you see that they had confirmed over 160 of Bushes nominees and that these 10 are the most extreme of the total bunch he nominated. The GOP used the same tactic against Clinton, but now it's the Dems who came up with this "crazy idea"?
Please explain how the Democrats are trying to get rid of democracy. I do love tinfoil hat inspired rants.
Arrogance is Confidence which lacks integrity. -- me
Government, at least the creation of laws, should be inefficient. It's another check against governmental power. Some of the worst legislation was very efficiently passed--right after some crisis prompted it (the PATRIOT act is the obvious example).
But that Hispanic judge was spectacularly conservative, and thus not especially representative of the Hispanic community.
It's sort of like Republicans and Clarence Thomas-- the Democrats can't fight his appointment without losing face, because he's black, even though underneath the skin he's about as conservative as your average white CEO.
Sneaky thing, that. And if you don't think the Republicans wanted that Hispanic judge so they could push the issue in the first place, you're pretty naive.
These folks believe the "rapture" is coming before that time...
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Right or left, Republican or Democrat -- those filibusters are an outrage and they damn well should be gotten rid of.
Yes, to hell with the Constitution and the founding fathers. To hell with over two centuries of legislative procedure. Make it so that a simple majority can appoint far-right or far-left leaning judges. Make it so that the Republicans can now stuff the courts with anti-choice, anti-environment, pro-big-business, anti-gay, bible thumpers.
If you don't have the votes for a block, show your constituents some damn respect and accept it.
If your constituents are liberal and the judge being proposed is a born-again-Christian who's an outspoken opponent against everything they believe in, then showing your constituents respect is using every legal means to prevent the confirmation of the judge.
If you don't understand the importance of the Constitution and why filibusters are such an integral aspect of the checks and balances, please don't post in this section.
Actually, they might.
One of the things done over the past 4 years was quite a bit of Gerrymandering to cement their Congressional districts and marginalize Democrats, where they held State majorities that would allow them to do so. Texas was the one we heard most about. Someone else commented about how the Senate is already Gerrymandered by state boundaries, and will proceed toward a 60/40 Republican majority over the next years.
The Democrats are going to HAVE to forget this treatment, if we are to be One Nation. Tit for tat will just make things worse.
Nor will the Democrats be able to do squat about the "Christian Coalition." The Republicans are going to have to clean their own house. I've heard stories about non-far-right Republicans getting pretty riled up about the present state of affairs. My own tinfoil-hat theory is that the Christian Coalition has taken over the Republican Campaign Funding Committee, and that's how they have such a strong hold on the party members. "Toe the line, or we fund someone else against you in the next Primary."
My personal favorite would be a (rather bizarre, I admit) McCain/Jeffords ticket. I fear it's too late to get on the ballots, though. Such a ticket could appeal to both conservative and liberal voters, and might actually be a third-party run that could take the office.
re: Spoiled Republican brats.
IMHO the biggest failing of the Republican Party, and the Business Community that backs them, is to fail to see the difference between what you NEED and what you WANT. For almost four years now, they have been getting what they WANT, almost without exception. (this topic being one) IMHO what we NEED right now is One Nation, working together. But that's not what's happening, and it doesn't look in the cards, either.
I seriously wonder if the Nation can survive another 4 years of this Administration without some sort of *internal* catastrophe. (like a Depression) I'm not singling out Bush here, rather the Whole Mess.
BTW, if we get a Constitutional Ban on abortion, watch birth control pills. I keep hearing that low-dosage birth control pills work by preventing implantation - and that's effectively chemically-induced abortion. (of a handful of undifferentiated and unstructured cells) Besides, there's only been on Constitutional Ammendment banning a specific action - Prohibition. It's also the only Ammendment to ever be repealed. It's also not the right way to do it. If you really want that end, talk about a Foetal Rights Ammendment. that would be in keeping with the Constitution.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
The Republicans realize that in todays society, that laws made by the states that limit peoples rights or take them away, are eventually going to go to court. If the Republicans stack the federal judges and supreme court with thier judges then suddenly they can take away people rights and the federal judges and supreme court with do nothing about it. The Democrates realize this too, which is why there is so much filubustering going on from BOTH sides.
The reality is that states should only be adding rights to people not taking them away. Also the states should be protecting the minority from the majority.
My problem with Republicans today is that they are more interested in using religion to justify hate and distruction of the environment. In 21 states it is unhealthy to eat the fish, because of the mercury levels. Bill Clinton was tring to pass an environment law ( which takes about 8 years to do ) to prevent the factories that dump mercury into the water supplies from doing this. This law ended up on GWB desk and he tossed it aside. If you live in one of those states then I hope you don't like fish or don't eat the fish from your state! This is just one example of what our Senators and Reps are doing to f*** over the common man ( me and you ) so that they can make more money.
Personally I hate both parties, however I see democrates as the lessor of two evils, but on some things I agree with the republicans thus I'm a registered independant.
Only 'flamers' flame!
Does slashdot hate my posts?
I agree that we are in a war. I don't agree with everything else you said.
Although the economy could ALWAYS be better, I think it is doing pretty well, especially considering the massive economic hit we took when two of our biggest centers of industry were destroyed on September 11. Plus, the economy started tanking pretty quickly after the end of the Clinton administration; far too quickly for that to be the result of any actions by Bush. Nothing about the crash of the dot-com boom, for example, can be blamed on President Bush.
As for civil liberties, I've actually read the Patriot Act, and I just don't believe it's the piece of demon-writing that its critics try to inflate it into. You may disagree with me, but let's debate the merits, not just proclaim that our civil liberties have vanished overnight. Besides, both candidates for President supported the Patriot Act - check and see, John Kerry voted for it. (Now, maybe he voted for it before he voted against it, but...)
As for the war, we were attacked. We had been attacked before; even those specific targets had been attacked before. The actions we took as a nation in response to those attacks did not work to reduce the threat; it continued to grow unabated (note that I do not fault President Clinton for what proved to be ineffective responses; the harm caused by the first WTC bombing, the Cole attack, and the various embassy bombings, while evidence of a growing problem, did not inflict enough harm on the country to support a war even if it were justified).
And no, I do not in any way believe that Saddam Hussein was connected to 9/11 (nor has President Bush or his administration ever said so). But I do believe he was a force of instability in a dangerously unstable region. He, like the Taliban, thumbed his nose at the international community and its very legitimate responses to his past and on-going horrific actions. His army routinely fired on United States pilots patrolling the No-Fly zones imposed by the United Nations itself.
For a very long time, the U.S. did not respond in any significant and effective way to any of this. Frankly, the time for the 2nd Iraq war was when he first threw out the weapons inspectors. But everybody said no, let's try diplomacy. And it didn't work. Saddam did not become more civilized. He did not accept that he had lost Kuwait and lost the support of the civilized world. He continued to try to hide his actions until the very precipice of war. And even then his final "cooperation" with the inspectors was reluctant and not 100% forthcoming. Allowing him to continue in power would have only emboldened other nations to act as he did, with little fear of serious repercussions.
Finally, not only do I agree with President Bush in the determination he has shown, I don't believe that Senator Kerry even knows what he would do at this point. I truly do not know whether he would remove the troops from Iraq within 6 months, or if he would leave them there for 3 or 4 more years. I don't know whether he would continue to provide the funds to rebuild the infrastructure we destroyed in the war, or whether he would yank them back to fund more social programs here. The latter, in my opinion, would be disatrous because it would leave us in that part of the region as having done a lot of damage and then cut and run before repairing it.
So, in a nutshell, that's why I support President Bush.
A real conversation. Wow. Thanks. (really)
/. - "The Dangers of One Party Rule." Give the article a read, please. That's one of the ways I feel marginalized. At the moment, Democrats may as well not be in the House. They're excluded from the meetings where the real work is done, and when the vote comes to the floor, they're nearly always defeated. I care deeply about our environment, and it's lost every time it has been in a legislative bout.
/. and you'll find that actually, the entire US is very much to the right. Our left is perhaps slightly to the right of the European center. IMHO, on a left-to-right scale, the politics of Clinton resembled those of Nixon or Ford - and I'm NOT talking about corruption. My brother maintains that he and I are the same Republicans we were raised as - it's just that the whole political spectrum has shifted to the right while we've remained in place.
A later topic popped up on
As for our society being far to the left, talk to the Europeans on
Actually, I disagree with both Reaganomics and the Great Society. Again, it's the spectrum shift. If you think Clinton was a social spender, you should have seen LBJ. I believe that the government needs to balance its books, (Clinton PLUS a Republican Congress did this - it took BOTH.) and has to walk a tightrope between providing a social safety net and a social hammock.
re: "which would be easier to do if the Democrats didn't choose to show..."
You find Michael Moore and Barbara Streisand offensive. OK, it's a matter of taste. I'm not terribly fond of Michael Moore, though I only find him a little offensive. Barbara Streisand can really sing.
But I do find Ashcroft and Rumsfeld terribly offensive. (to bring a 2-for-2 comparison)
Personally, I am not terribly concerned about either gay marriage or abortion. First off, marriage is a religious institution that has taken on civil aspects. In this respect, I believe Vermont cut a fine line with Civil Unions. But at any rate, the gay issue doesn't stop me from living with happily with my wife in a heterosexual relationship, and from a Public Health point of view, gays would be better off in stable relationships, instead of promiscuous parties.
As for abortion, I don't like it. I dislike even more the Pro-Life movement labeling others as Pro-Abortion. My opinion - abortion is BAD. But there are worse things than abortion. I get this ugly feeling that there are Pro-Life people that just LOVE the foetus, but once it's a baby and the woman is no longer pregnant, OUT THE DOOR, and stay off of welfare! I actually liked Clinton's take on the matter. Abortion should be safe, and seldom. Nor do believe it's an acceptable method of birth control. (That's actually what happens (or happened) in the Soviet Union. (I have inside knowledge on this one.))
In my opinion, the urgent issues in this election are:
* The role of the US in the world, and how it wishes to relate to other nations.
* Getting the US closer to a balanced budget.
* Finding the balance in the spectrum from wealthy to poor.
* Finding the balance in the rights between business and people.
* Finding a balance between the economy and the needs of the environment.
* Tackling the issue of health care reform. (No, I'm not advocating single-payer, or anything else. I merely assert that the current system is BROKEN. In the early Clinton years we had the opportunity for a national debate, and as a nation we plugged our ears and refused. I don't know what the plan or reform should be, I just want the debate to start.)
* Tackling Intellectual Property reform. (Health care is LONG past due. IP is only a little past due. But it's due.)
And no, I don't believe ANY of my hot issues are being correctly addressed, at the moment. Have I been sufficiently civil?
Oh, one minor diatribe: The Christian Coalition really frosts me. Christ's words: "It is easier for a camel to get through the Eye of the Needle than for a rich man to get into
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.