If the Dems want to BLOCK Bush's picks, then they can do so CONSTITUTIONALLY: all they need to do is get a MAJORITY in the Senate.
If the Dems want to SELECT NOMINEES that's easy too: all they need to do is WIN THE WHITE HOUSE.
Every other gimmick they've used has been unconstitutional and dishonorable; the Dems behave like sore-sports.
ELECTIONS MATTER.
22 comments:
The Dems are worse than sore sports.
The voters elected President Bush --despite massive Dem vote-fraud in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Washington State-- because the voters want President Bush to nominate judges.
The voters elected a Republican Senate because they want a Republic Senate to confirm President Bush's nominees.
But an arrogant clique of anti-democratic elitist snobs wants to deny the American people the fruits of their electoral decisions.
The dems want a Soviet system where a nomenklatura of I-know-better-than-you elitists can lord it over the disenfranchised masses.
I say, if the dems want to threaten a filibuster, make them do it. Make them filibuster. Robert "Imperial Kleagle" Byrd may have been able to filibuster against the Republican-passed Civil Rights Act in 1965, but he's too old to really filibuster today. Call their bluff! See if they are really willing to bring the Federal government to a halt to prevent the Senate from voting on the President's nominees. Expose them for the anti-democratic elitists they are!
The last time I checked, the constitution actually guaranteed the houses' right to determine their own rules.
But don't let that little detail interrupt the "IT'S UNCONSTITUTIONAL!!!" hysteria that seems to have gripped the right. My goodness... a few weeks ago you were screaming about how liberals killed Terri Schiavo and now this lie? You conservatives keep this up and you'll hand the next election to the Democrats on a silver platter.
The Democrats have been able to put themselves on the winning side of popular opinion in the Schiavo case, social security, and the filibuster. Conservatives are being outmanuvered and it seems the only thing they can do is get more and more rabid (Dems and Soviet nomenklatura?!?!?). So by all means keep up this "Democrats are terrorists / communists / killers of the disabled / out wipe out God" song-and-dance. It makes for a nice self-inflicted wound.
McCoy, the Daschlecrats are only ahead in skewed and biased ppush-polls that are engineered to be used as Daschlecratic propaganda tools, not in scientific polls that actually measure what people actually think.
And that's wht the GRAND OLD PARTY comes out ahead in the only opinion polls that count" the elections.
The Presidency, the Senate, the House, 2/3 or 3/4 of the Governors and State legislatures.
Keep sending your money to George Soros; he's putting it to good use!
Ah, yes… the "lying-left-wing-MSM" and their misleading polls. Perhaps you might want to invest in some tinfoil. While you're at it, you should also consider researching what the term "scientific" means before tossing out a blanket accusation like that. Botht the Bush administration and FOX News have conducted some of the most un-scientific, biased, and leading polls/research there are. Bush and the right's anti-science bias is well documented.
Your country's founding fathers were intelligent enough to understand that the election isn't the only poll that counts. They understood the problems associated with the very "tyranny of the majority" that the far right wing is pushing for today. After winning (as you pointed out" the presidency and majorities in the Senate, House, and State legislatures, the power obsessed right still isn't content. Putting on their victim faces, they wail about the threat that "activist judges" present. The American public is witnessing how rabid the right has become in their attempts to undo the civil liberties that centuries of jurisprudence has worked towards. Hopefully, come next election, the "two steps backwards" that America is making will have an effect.
I've never sent any money to Mr. Soros, but I am going to purchase some popcorn to watch the show. Seeing the right self-implode while drunk on their "mandate" is proving to be quite amusing.
McCoy, The assertion that FOX News may have purchased a biased poll or two does not contradict the fact that the leftwing polls upon which your comments were based were biased push-polls that did not reflect reality. You can't really believe that you can make my observation disappear behind a simple smokescreen like that.
Your comment about the Founding Fathers and polls other than elections is opaque. Public-opinion polling did not exist when the Constitution was first adopted.
Moreover, despite what you think, the hard left is not mainstream, and the Republican party does not represent the "far right wing."
Today, hard-leftists control only institutions that are not democratically populated: university faculties, the judiciary, and the Democratic Party.
Whenever put to a vote, voters have resoundingly defeated the extremist social engineering the activist judges on the far left are seeking to impose on the American people.
Like you, I anticipate the next few elections with eagerness. But I will bet you a chocolate milkshake that we will not see a return to the failed policies of undemocratic socialism, but rather continuing progress towards more democracy and freedom, in the United States and around the world.
President Bush, Prime Minister Howard, and Prime Minister Blair were all re-elected. I wouldn't be betting on Schroeder, Chirac, or any of the other rats who are clinging to the failed rhetoric of the sinking ship of socialism.
World War II and the Cold War were for the free world a prolonged and momentous struggle against expansionist, militarized socialism -- the National Socialism of Germany, and the War Communism of Russia and her enslaved dominions. Much progress has been made, but the struggle against totalitarian tyranny continues today. And freedom is winning.
GANDALIN: BRAVO!
Next we'll be hearing that the President's low approval rating is "biased" and "not scientific". Activist judges… extremist socialist agenda… a vast left-wing media conspiracy… just listen to yourself. While you're at it, consider wiping that foam away from your mouth.
Yes, Blair and Howard were re-elected, but neither of them are pushing the hard right agenda in their own countries that Bush is pushing in the US. have acknowledged error in ways that Bush will never be able to bring himself to do. Both Howard and Blair are eloquent, well-spoken, and diplomatic. So let's not equivocate them with Bush or use their re-elections as evidence of a world-wide movement to the right. That's disingenuous if not intentionally decietful.
The truth of the matter is that present day politics in America is not moving in the ideological direction as their counterpart western democracies. This soap-box preaching about "freedom" is belied by America's support for some of the worst human rights violators out their, and America's unwillingness to push for reform in some of those countries because "they may be bastards, but they're America's bastards".
Most other countries out there recognize this and can see the pattern. America supported Osama's ilk in Afghanistan when it was convenient to do so and it came back to bite them. America supported Saddam when it was convenient and it came back to bite them. Under George II's rule, he's been off grandiosely slaying a toothless tiger while Osama's still at large, North Korea and Iran are reaching nuclear brinkmanship, and America still has gaping security problems.
Meanwhile at home, Bush has been pandering to the far right who wants (like Bolton) to see the UN disappear, and who wants (like Scalia) to undo jurisprudence like the right to privacy, the right to make one's own medical decisions, and the right not to have governmental endorsement of religion. The type of theocratic reforms that the Bush administration is aiming for are hardly representative of freedom or democracy, and certainly don't represent the way the rest of the developed world is moving. Freedom is winning, but isn't because of Bush.
UN reform isn't going to occur by brute force. The General Assembly and Security Council are somewhat democratically controlled bodies and changes require support from others. Convincing others to support reform isn't going to come about by suggesting that the UN doesn't exist, or by forcing resolutions that pin the UN into a corner (see Bolton's previous comments regarding the UN for details), slamming doors, or chasing secretaries up and down hallways. Screaming, yelling, chest-thumping… those things might go over well on Monday Night RAW, but (as evidenced by the UN's reaction to Bush's "with us or without us" rhetoric) it won't fly at the UN. What is the likelihood that Bolton will be able to lead others to support his efforts when his past comments have reflected a desire to see the UN gone, international law ignored, and America's treaty obligations not worth the paper they were written on? Having Bolton as an Ambassador is only likely to further marginalize America's influence on the UN. When that happens, everyone loses. The problem is that the "right" is so caught up in the "Bush can and never has done any wrong" that they'd rather toe the party line than admit to the obvious... Bolton is a bad choice, and one indicative of one who proclaimed to be a "uniter, not a divider".
The founding father's of America understood the concept of "tyranny of the majority" and the problems associated with having power consolidated with one body. The right's present efforts to effect exactly that might represent democracy in the literal sense of the term, but certainly not in the Plato/Madison/de Tocqueville meaning.
Of course, based on your above rants ("Daschlecrats!??!, I don't hold any misconceptions about being able to convince you. I can only pray that there are Americans out there that are a bit more level-headed. Bush's current approval rating provides some hope.
McCoy, Don't exaggerate. The Republicans don't want to consolidate power into one branch of the government, let alone into one House of the Legislature.
They simply want the ELECTED President to nominate judges, and the ELECTED Senate to confirm or reject them. Just as the Constitution says.
And yes, a tyranny of a majority is a bad thing. But a tyranny of a minority is WORSE.
And yes, it's the same filibuster that the Daschlecrats wanted to reform, in just the same way, ten years ago. At that time, of course, all of the liberal press clamored for filibuster reform. As I'm sure you did.
Now the shoe is on the other foot.
Don't forget that the last major filibuster that Imperial Kleagle Byrd participated in was against the Civil Rights bill --- which passed with a majority of Republican votes, but only a minority of Democratic votes.
The Republicans are working to remove any existing "check" to majority rule, and the filibuster is a prime example of how this "just as the Constitution says…" isn't entirely true. This very blog has examples of people calling the filibuster "unconstitutional", yet the constitution explicitly grants the houses the power to determine their own procedural rules, including the rule regarding ending debate. The right isn't happy that this rule is presenting a problem to simple majority rule, and are doing everything possible to eliminate it (with no consideration on how that will effect future senate sessions or congresses).
And the Democrats looking to employ the filibuster are certainly not asking for anything tyrannical, but rather that a handful of nominees (how many have been confirmed?) not be considered because their views are outside that of mainstream jurisprudence. Undoing Roe vs Wade? …Limiting the scope of Brown vs Education? …the Right to Privacy? …the Separation of Church and State? Hopefully the American people realize what the rights' plans will do to the civil liberties and freedoms that they enjoy.
The "Kleagle" Byrd business and the "Daschelecrat" comments are perfect illustrations of the Right's inability to debate without playing the "yeah, but so-and-so did X…" game. These actions should be evaluated on their own merit, and implying that Byrd's previous vote on the civil rights bill represents in any way the Democratic Party of today is simply disingenuous.
MCOOY - u r WRONG. The constituion is NOT silent on judicial appointments. The Constitution says that they shall be approved by the Senate.
It does NOTY specify a supermajority - meaniung that the Senate shall apporve nominees by a SIMPLE MAJORITY.
A Senate cloture rule which sets cloture at a SUPER-MAJORITY for nominees is subverting the intentions of the Constitution.
The Constitution does requrie SUPER-MAJORITIES for other things, so the Founding Fathers knew what they were requiring and when.
When the GOP blocked some of Clinton's nominees (BJ got over 350) the GOP were THE MAJORITY party in the Senate (well... for 6/8 of BJ's tinme in office). The GOP blocked them using their majority status.
That does NOT subvert the Constitution.
When a self-annointed elitist faction prevents the president - elected by the majority of Americans - from getting his nominees voted on AND THOSE NOMINEES HAVE A SIMPLE MAJORITY OF SUPPORT IN THE SENATE, thewn that DOES SUBVERT THE INTENTIOINS OF THE CONSTITUTION!
It is UNDEMOCRATIC for a minority to block the will of the majority.
40 senators might represent as few as 20 states and as little as 15% of the population. It is UNDEMOCRATIC for that small a minority to prevent the will of the majority from getting the judges appointed/confirmed that they want.
That's what elections are for.
MCCOY - what the dems are doing IS TYRANNY : TYRANNY OF the MINORITY.
It's clear that you understand the word "tyranny" about as poorly as you understand the constitution. The constitution not only says that the senate will advise and consent regarding judicial nominees, but it also explicitly protects the Senate's right to set its own rules on how to do so!
You seem to think you can just make things up in place of what the constitution actually sets out in plain writing. I suggest you try reading it.
While you're at it, you might consider reading the Federalist papers, Plato's "Republic", and Alexis de Tocqueville's "Democracy in America" before making claims like "it is UNDEMOCRATIC for a minority to block the will of the majority", as the authors of those works were intelligent enough to understand that it is sometimes necessary for minorities to block the will of the majorities in order for democracy to work in a benevolent manner.
As for this "tyranny" that you keep ranting and shouting about, the group attempting to create a situation in which absolute authority is vested in one ruler isn't the Democrats. And the reason that they're attempting to block a handful of nominees isn't for the purposes of oppressing the population, but to ensure that the current freedoms Americans enjoy continue to exist. Some of these nominees have expressed opinions or desires indicative of a drive to undo some of those rights and freedoms.
Simple majority rule without the protection of minority rights isn't "democracy" in the western sense of the word. Thank goodness the founding fathers understood this concepts a little better than some here. Bush's approval rating continually hanging below 50% seems to suggest that his administration isn't carrying out the will of a majority of the people.
mccoy: u r an ass!
the Constitution specifies super-majorities in some cases, BUT NONE on judges; therefore A SIMPLE MAJORITY IS ALL THAT IS REQIURED FOR CONFIRMATION.
Requiring a 60 vote total for cloture makes it necessary for the nominee to gather a de facto SUPER-MAJORITY and this INCONTROVERTIBLY subverts the Constitution.
Here is the relevant clause:
"Clause 2: He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments. "
You see, mccot, the Sonstitution SPECIFIES a super-majority for treaties, but NOT for judicial appointments.
In fact, the Consitution does not mention cloture or filibuster at all. These are merely "club" rules and cannot take precedence over the specific requirements of the Constitution.
You're correct that while the constitution explicitly requires the 2/3rds majority for treaties, it does not do the same for judicial appointments.
In fact, it doesn't explicitly spell out how the Senate is to arrive at their advise and consent for judicial nominees except to clearly protect the right of the Senate to determine their own procedural rules (See Article I, Section 5).
You're rant that acting within a procedural rule that the constitution itself explicitly protects is somehow "unconstitutional" is entirely without merit.
What you (and a handful of others) seem to think is that the absence of wording in Article 2, Section 3 somehow makes what the constitution actually says in Article 1, Section 5 somehow disappear. You want your interpretation of a lack of words to take precedence over the real words of the document.
Even the National Review (hardly part of the LYING LEFT that you constantly scream about on here) has said that the filibuster is within the bounds of the constitution.
But like I've said above… keep frothing at the mouth about how things are "unconstitutional", "undemocratic", "dishonourable"… not only does it illustrate how little you actually know about the constitution, it will continue to turn people away from a party whose inability to act diplomatically, whose thirst for absolute power, and whose subservience to the extremist right are far from appealing. And if and when Frist exercises the "nuclear option" it will only illustrate this to the voting public further.
Bush hasn't been a uniter. He's been as divisive as they come.
the Senate rules cannot subvert the Constitution.
The Senate rules are WHATEVER a majority of senators say they are; that doesn't change the FACT that the Consitution says judges are to be confirmed by a SIMPLE MAJORITY.
That's all it takes to confirm. PERIOD. When the senate uses a rule which PREVENTS a judge form being confirmed by a simple majority - a simple amjoirty which EXISTS - then they have acted in BAD faith, and UNCIONSTITUTIONALLY.
In a democracy, majorioty rules, NOT minorities.
and this FACT - that judges get confirmed with simple majorities - has been decided and UPHELD by the SCOTUS.
Lefties like you are ELITISTS who think that minorities (made up of them and their ilk) know better what's right for the nation than a majority of citizens. that's how hillarycare got formulated and why it was DESTROYED.
if you want minority rule, then go back in time and live in the USSR.
also: if the senate can by simople majority viote - change any rule, then maki9ng this change is haerdly "nuclear." that's just hysterical leftist nonsense.
Byrd (ands a majority of dem sens)changed the filibuster rule three times when he was majority leader.
so frist and the GOP sens have VERY right to change it too.
The Senate rules that you insists would subvert the Constitution are actually protected by it. This is what I meant by "not understanding the constitution": You claim " the Consitution says judges are to be confirmed by a SIMPLE MAJORITY"(sic) when in fact, the constitution says no such thing. What the constitution does say though is that "each house may determine the rules of it's proceedings". Again, you want to take an absence of words and have it override an actually existing words. It makes me wonder if you've even read the constitution in its entirety at all..
When members of the Senate act within the Constitutionally protected Senate rules, they are not acting unconstitutionally, nor in bad faith, nor dishonourable, nor in a manner deserving of any of the other baseless accusations you've hurled. They are simply acting within the rules that the constitution protects they houses' right to determine.
Anyone who's taken an entry level political science class or done even a little reading on the history of the constitution quickly learns that western democracy is not simple majority rule (as you keep asserting). In fact the very 2/3rds majority specified in the constitution regarding treaties is a perfect example where the minority (34%) actually does rule. The founding fathers of the constitution understood that unfettered majority rule would become tyrannical and would provide no protection for minority rights. They actually feared the type of "democracy" that you keep insisting should exist in America, and designed the Constitution accordingly. If you don't believe me, read some of Madison's works on the subject.
I (nor the democrats) want "minority rule" (file that one under "s" for "strawman argument", however I do think that that the concept of representation, is important, even for minority opinion. The fact that the that Republicans have been unwilling to compromise or work with the democrats in any way illustrates quite clearly that they are not interested in representation for all, but merely representation for 51% of the population: the very simple majority rule that America's founders understood would be disastrous.
Certainly the Republicans have the constitutional right to change the procedural rules regarding the filibuster (it might possibly also involve defeating a filibuster on changing the filibuster). I've never that Republicans didn't have that right. But But by doing so, they remove one of the last remaining checks that exist between representation of minorities at the Senate level and the tyrannical majority that many historical figures going back as far as Plato were intelligent enough to forewarn.
Hopefully the American people are able to see the power-lust that exists here, the threat that it poses to their freedoms and civil liberties, and that they will take that into consideration when they next head to the polls. I think the sort of misinformed and inaccurate yelling and screaming we've seen above, combined with things like the overuse of the hollow "Elitist" buzzword and "Go back to the USSR" histrionics are exactly the sort of things that will continue to turn more and more rational people away from the Republican Party.
Keep on Trucking!
MCCOY:
the senate could pass a rule prevent BLACKS from being appointed. that would be unconstitutional.
the filibuster has NEVER been tested in th federal courts.
but your last reply TACITLY implies that you realize that judges need only a simple majority to be confirmed and that the filibiuster is a senate rule that OBSTRUCTS that.
BTW: i havbe a MA from NYU and was a member of the History Hionors Society as an undergrad - I majored in Phil and Anth (a double and minored in Hist.
I'd guess that I (in my 50 years on Earth) have read more Am hist and poli sci books than u have seen telephones poles.
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