i dare them. i recall that the last time the congress shut down (in 1994 i believe), blame was cast on the repubs.

re: the judicial nominations, the rules are stuctured so that the congress can reach a consensus, not majority rule as many repubs allege. hence, the 60 vote rule. its about time the dems had some backbone.

___________________
UnauthorizedTranceAddict Youtube Channel where I post older mixes from the TA DJ Promotion Forum

My mixes:

Still up:1:2

Down:3:4:5

I'm sure every single one of these nominees is a great choice, just like picking Paul Wolfowitz to head the World Bank.

That aside, there's really no way to say that a filibuster is wrong when Frist and others used the EXACT same tactics, even if you agree with the nominations.

If I had my way GODLESSCOMMIE and Electronicmaji would be on the court.

___________________
Download My Spring '08 Mix Here

Thurs May 15: Influence @ Tini Martini w/ Kris B. vs. Nosmo, Rikler & Mike Palmeri
Thurs June 5: Under the Influence @ Tini Martini w/Mathias Matthew, Jack Kim & more TBA

quote:

Originally posted by Spacey Orange i dare them. i recall that the last time the congress shut down (in 1994 i believe), blame was cast on the repubs. re: the judicial nominations, the rules are stuctured so that the congress can reach a consensus, not majority rule as many repubs allege. hence, the 60 vote rule. its about time the dems had some backbone.

There's a pretty big contrast to what Dole did back in '96 compared to what Reid is preparing to do now. Back in '96, Dole shut down the Senate completely (Did Gingrich shut down the House too? I can't remember.). What resulted was a total of some 700,000 people not going to work.

What Reid is proposing will slow down work to a crawl - so everyone will still work, albeit very very slowly.

IMO, Reid has no choice. Bush refuses to understand what the definition of "bipartisan" means, even though he gives that word lipservice to the public.

This is not a one party system. Filibustering is a means to give the minority party a slight bit of power. I say for them to bring it. Let's see the hypocricy of Frist and the Repubs. when they call it obstructionism for the Dems. to filibuster.

The GOP-led Congress isn't very popular right now:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washin...ress-poll_x.htm

I can't imagine the GOP-led Senate being too far from the fray either.

___________________
Whence September dusk grows crisper still,
with leaves all crimson conquered,
I yearn to shout,
and dance about,
and stick pickles in my honker...

No judge in the history of the United States has been filibustered. The dems have set a very bad precedent. It's ok though...I welcome their move to the fringe left. I guarantees a 3rd defeat for them at the ballot box next year. In the mean time, government will br frozen...no more laws passed...a double win for liberty

woot woot

quote:

Originally posted by Capitalizt No judge in the history of the United States has been filibustered. The dems have set a very bad precedent. It's ok though...I welcome their move to the fringe left. I guarantees a 3rd defeat for them at the ballot box next year. In the mean time, government will br frozen...no more laws passed...a double win for liberty woot woot

Hmmm, but it was OK for the Republicans to try it under Clinton just because they failed? I like how everything is the "fringe left" because they use a tactic that is used by both sides, which in this case is being used to prevent "fringe right" judges from getting positions. 6 times the number of judges were blocked under Clinton, but it's the "fringe left" that's doing something wrong here because they blocked 10 judges out of well over 200? Come on, you want your ideology to be put into place, but don't be hypocritical and call a move unconstitutional that your same party tried to use when the tables were turned. Frist himself wanted to use it!

Although you are right, it would be a win for liberty to slow down the legislature right now; hopefully no more items like that bankruptcy bill will be passed!

___________________
Download My Spring '08 Mix Here

Thurs May 15: Influence @ Tini Martini w/ Kris B. vs. Nosmo, Rikler & Mike Palmeri
Thurs June 5: Under the Influence @ Tini Martini w/Mathias Matthew, Jack Kim & more TBA

Last edited by wolverine16 on Mar-18-2005 at 03:36

The left is filibustering judicial nominees on the Senate floor. This NEVER happened under Clinton, or ever before in U.S. history. All of Clinton's nominees at least got the courtesy of a vote. They weren't confirmed because the GOP swept 200+ seats in 1994 and had the votes to win...but the republicans never prevented an up or down vote as the dems are doing now. I think these tactics do prove that the dems have shifted far left, and are desperate to keep a grip on the only branch of government where they have a chance of passing their agenda, the judiciary.

quote:

Originally posted by Capitalizt The left is filibustering judicial nominees on the Senate floor. This NEVER happened under Clinton, or ever before in U.S. history. All of Clinton's nominees at least got the courtesy of a vote. They weren't confirmed because the GOP swept 200+ seats in 1994 and had the votes to win...but the republicans never prevented an up or down vote as the dems are doing now. I think these tactics do prove that the dems have shifted far left, and are desperate to keep a grip on the only branch of government where they have a chance of passing their agenda, the judiciary.

quote:

U.S. Senate Roll Call Votes 106th Congress - 2nd Session as compiled through Senate LIS by the Senate Bill Clerk under the direction of the Secretary of the Senate Vote Summary Question: On the Cloture Motion (Cloture Motion RE: Nom. of Richard Paez to be U.S. Circuit Judge ) Vote Number: 37 Vote Date: March 8, 2000, 05:51 PM Required For Majority: 3/5 Vote Result: Cloture Motion Agreed to Nomination Number: PN44 Nomination Description: Richard A. Paez, of California, to be United States Circuit Judge for the Ninth Circuit, vice Cecil F. Poole, resigned... NAYs ---14 Allard (R-CO) Brownback (R-KS) Bunning (R-KY) Craig (R-ID) DeWine (R-OH) Enzi (R-WY) Frist (R-TN) Gramm (R-TX) Helms (R-NC) Hutchinson (R-AR) Inhofe (R-OK) Murkowski (R-AK) Shelby (R-AL) Smith (R-NH)

Source

quote:

First et al forget that Republicans used the same weapon to block several judicial nominees put forth by President Bill Clinton. They even forced Clinton to find a new nominee for surgeon general. In fact, the filibuster has served whichever party has been in the minority since the 18th century. Democrats fear that, if successful, Republicans will use the same tactic to avoid filibusters on other presidential nominees, as well as legislation.

Source

If John Kerry were president and had 51 Democratic senators to vote on someone like Ted Kennedy for the Supreme Court, you'd just let them automatically vote him in? I highly doubt it.

___________________
Download My Spring '08 Mix Here

Thurs May 15: Influence @ Tini Martini w/ Kris B. vs. Nosmo, Rikler & Mike Palmeri
Thurs June 5: Under the Influence @ Tini Martini w/Mathias Matthew, Jack Kim & more TBA

Here's one of the judges we're talking about.

quote:

Justice Priscilla Owen Nominated to: U.S. Court of Appeals, 5th Circuit, Status of nomination: Renominated 1/7/03; Pending Senate Floor Voted out of Committee on 03/27/2003 There have been four failed cloture votes: May 1, 2003: May 8, 2003; July 28, 2003; November 14, 2003 Brief Biography. Born 1954, Palacios Texas B.A. 1975, Baylor University J.D. 1977, Baylor University School of Law Andrews, Kurth, Campbell & Jones (became Andrews & Kurth) Associate 1978-84 Partner 1985-94 Justice, Texas Supreme Court 1995-present (elected in 1994). Party Affilliation. Priscilla Owen was appointed and has twice been elected to the Texas Supreme Court as a Republican. She was originally picked for the court by advisor to then-Governor Bush Karl Rove, who worked to make every one of Texas's elected seats Republican. General Information. Anchoring the far-right end of a very conservative court, Priscilla Owen consistently supports big business and special interests against the claims of ordinary Americans. Before joining the court, Owen was a partner at the Houston firm Andrews & Kurth, where she represented primarily large corporations, including oil and pipeline interests. On the Texas Supreme Court, she has tended to distort or rewrite the law to reach desired results, voting consistently to dismiss the claims of injured workers and consumers and citizens wishing to protect the environment. In addition, prior to her nomination to the Fifth Circuit, she never voted to grant a minor a judicial bypass under Texas' Parental Notification Statute. The Houston Chronicle wrote that her "interpretations [in these cases] were generally stricter and more conservative than the majority of her all-Republican colleagues" on the court. Indeed, White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales, then a fellow Justice, called one of her dissents in a bypass case "an unconscionable act of judicial activism."1 Owen is also notoriously slow at issuing opinions and has reportedly had cases taken away from her because of her backlog. Finally, the decision to renominate Owen, after her rejection by the Senate Judiciary Committee, is indicative of a strategy on the part of Bush and his advisor Karl Rove to pack the federal judiciary with right-wing judges who are prepared to implement the administration's anti-choice, pro-corporate, and anti-environment domestic agenda.2 Decisions Favoring Corporations over Injured Plaintiffs. In several recent cases, Owen has dissented from rulings by the Texas Supreme Court affecting the rights of injured individuals, and in other cases, she has written for or joined the court's right-wing majority to dismiss such claims. In some cases, her opinions had implications beyond leaving the specific plaintiff without a remedy; they were so broad as to threaten to leave entire classes of future plaintiffs with similar claims with no means of obtaining relief. For example, in Quantum Chemical Corp. v. Toennies, Owen issued a dissenting opinion that distorted a key Texas civil rights law to make it much more difficult for employees to prove a violation of their rights.3 Her position, had it been adopted by a majority of the court, would have required employees to prove that discrimination was the sole reason for a dismissal or other action, even though the statute clearly states that discrimination must simply be "a motivating factor." Although Toennies was an age discrimination case, Owen's view, if adopted, would have weakened protections against several other forms of employment discrimination, including discrimination on the basis of race, sex, and disability. In Hyundai Motor Co. v. Alvarado, Justice Owen authored a dissent joined by Justices Phillips, Hecht, and Enoch against awarding damages to the family of a teenager who was paralyzed when he was ejected through the car's sun roof in an accident.4 Owen took the position that the federal National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act of 1966 preempted the Alvarados' common law negligence claim for Hyundai's construction of the Excel's passenger restraint system without lap belts. Owen's argument would turn the federal law, which was designed to minimize injuries and deaths from car accidents,5 into a protective measure for negligent manufacturers and a barrier to stop people from persuading car makers to employ better safety methods. And in Enron Corp. v. Spring Independent School Dist., Owen authored the opinion for a unanimous court that held constitutional a Texas tax law that allowed companies to choose between two dates to evaluate their inventory for tax purposes.6 Owen's opinion saved Enron $225,000 and resulted in lost revenue for the school district, which had challenged the law that allowed companies to select the date on which their inventory would be valued, which minimized the company's tax burden. As reported in many papers, Owen had received $8,600 in campaign contributions from Enron prior to writing the opinion.7 Reproductive Rights.In every reported case to come before her prior to her nomination to the federal bench, Owen voted against permitting a minor to obtain an abortion without notifying her parents. In many of these cases, she tried to rewrite the Texas Parental Notification Statute to create additional barriers to young women's access to abortion services. For example, in her concurrence inIn re Jane Doe 2, Owen urged the adoption of a new, made-up criterion for granting judicial bypasses: "The Court has omitted any requirement that a trial court find an abortion to be in the best interest of the minor". This is the only reasonable construction of 33.003(i).8 The statute requires only that a court determine whether parental notification is in the minor's best interest, but Owen would rewrite the statute to add a requirement that the court determine whether theabortion itself is in the minor's best interest. Owen's Disregard For The Rights Of The Public In Environmental Cases. Owen's actions in two cases raise serious concerns about the priority she places on the government's responsibility to protect the environment and the health and safety of its citizens. In FM Properties Operating Co. v. City of Austin, Justice Owen strongly dissented from the court's decision to strike down a state law that had been tailored to allow a particular developer to bypass the city of Austin's municipal water-quality laws.9 The majority pointed out that the law illegally delegated a basic right - the right to pollute - to a private property owner. Owen's dissent was dismissed by the majority as "nothing more than inflammatory rhetoric" thus merit[ing] no response.10 Parties affiliated with the developer contributed more than $47,000 to Owen's campaign. In her Senate Judiciary Committee Questionnaire, Owen named In re City of Georgetown one of her ten "most significant opinions."11 Here, her decision resulted in the withholding of important information from the public regarding government decisions related to environmental protection. Texas Citizen Action identified this decision on its list of the state's "Terrible Ten," which it stated were cases that "stripped consumers of important protections." Owen's Ethically Questionable Actions On The Texas Supreme Court. Owen is part of a court notorious for accepting campaign contributions from parties appearing before it-including Enron and Halliburton-with its justices refusing to recuse themselves from those cases. Justice Owen has engaged in this practice, rendering decisions favorable to contributors. In 1994, Judicial Candidate Owen and Justices Hecht and Raul Gonzalez endorsed a pro-business PAC financed by many of the parties that argued before her in court. In addition, when the Travis County Attorney investigated the practice by Texas Supreme Court justices of allowing their law clerks to accept pre-employment bonuses from law firms with cases before them, Owen continued to condone such awards and dismissed the investigation as a "political issue that is being dressed up as a good-government issue."12 In addition, Owen voted in an egregious case to dismiss charges of malpractice against an attorney who, without informing his client, had rejected an offer on her behalf for full immunity, an offer that was later accepted by another of the same attorney's clients.13 The attorney at issue, who was a vocal supporter of Owen's nomination, is a partner at Hughes & Luce, a firm that donated generously to Owen's campaigns.14 Other. Priscilla Owen is a member of both the Austin and Houston chapters of the Federalist Society. Her nomination was rejected by the Senate Judiciary Committee on September 5, 2002, but President Bush announced her renomination, along with that of Charles Pickering and the nominees left pending at the end of the 107th Congress, on January 8, 2003.

Source

She's so moderate, obviously anyone who would oppose her must be "far left" right? Then there's Pickering...

___________________
Download My Spring '08 Mix Here

Thurs May 15: Influence @ Tini Martini w/ Kris B. vs. Nosmo, Rikler & Mike Palmeri
Thurs June 5: Under the Influence @ Tini Martini w/Mathias Matthew, Jack Kim & more TBA

Someone is mad that he lost the election





[sip]


sipape

quote:

Originally posted by johnny<3trance Someone is mad that he lost the election [sip] sipape

Yeah, you really nailed it The way it works in a democracy is the party in power does anything and everything it wants and anyone who disagrees is just bitter or too extreme...err wouldn't that be more like totalitarianism? It's absolutely wrong to point out hypocritical agendas with facts. Thanks for your deep, meaningful insight and smokeape impression.

___________________
Download My Spring '08 Mix Here

Thurs May 15: Influence @ Tini Martini w/ Kris B. vs. Nosmo, Rikler & Mike Palmeri
Thurs June 5: Under the Influence @ Tini Martini w/Mathias Matthew, Jack Kim & more TBA

thats how you did it back in the clinton days

[sip]

sipape