The Democrats on filibustering judges

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http://www.economist.com/agenda/displayStory.cfm?story_id=4006031

The Economist is saying the bipartisan deal averted a catastrophy which would have happened if arrogant Republicans had gone had with their power grab.

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Originally posted by Ned
Every right wing political commentator I heard today is hopping mad at what happened. They are saying they are going to take revenge on the Republican traitors who have now sabatoged the Bush presidency.

Yeah, what ever. This will bring to a total of 211 out of 213 judges that Bush will have gotten through. I'm just not seeing how they "sabotaged the Bush presidency". This is just more arrogance from some of the most arrogant people on Earth.

[Boris Godunov]

I certainly hope they try to take revenge on those moderate Republicans. If they're too stupid to see that if moderate GoOPers didn't hold those seats, Democrats would, then fine by me.

[DRoseDARs]

Democrats kow-towing to Republican Senate majority
Conservatives eating their own

[GePap]

We shall see how long this deal stands.

The Dems. really should pick their judge battles better- after listening to some of the debate, I could muster little passion for blocking some of these people (except Judge Roger's Brown- some of the things she has said are simply nuts)

That said, the minority, even for stupid and purely partisan reasons, has the power to keep debate open forever. This is what the rules of the Senate say, as they are currently writen. All the republican "constitutional" arguements were and are utter nonsense. The Senate makes its own rules, period, begining and end of the whole "constitutional" debate regarding this issue. The problem is that the attempt to change the rules with this simple mayority motion runs counter to the current rules of the Senate.

So what Frist wants to do is break the rules of the Senate in order to change them. Since I doubt any court would ever insert itself on an issue of a legislative majority breaking the rules of itself to manhandle the minority, once it was done, it would be a done deal, and from now on, any idiot could get it into their heads to just manhandle the rules that way in the future, as long as you had a solid party block of 50 Senators with you. If that does happen, it will change the Senate, probably in bad ways.

This compromise does nothing but move the date back-it may still get there, and it is a shame that only a handfull of republican senators would in the end stand up to a naked attempt to change the rules of the Senate in a way inconsistent with those very rules.

[Ramo]

This is a marginal victory for the Democratic agenda, and a devastating loss for the Presidential ambitions of both Frist and the moderate Senate Republicans (especially, McCain). Basically, they've postponed the real fight over ending the filibuster 'till there's a SCOTUS appointment. And when there's that SCOTUS appointment, the Dems will have a much lower apathy quotient among the general public regarding the actual nominee, and they'll have this agreement to hold over the Senate GOP's head if they decide to break it. And since this will likely take place much closer to the '06 election, there'll be more of a fear of electoral retribution if the agreement's broken to get a wingnut nominee into SCOTUS. OTOH, public retribution hasn't been all that powerful in the past four years, nor has it been that much of a deterrence to their reactionary agenda.

Frist may have lost the Majority Leadership, or he has some strong opposition, i.e. from Lott. A divided GOP caucus means a weaker GOP agenda. However, if Nelson et al. decide to reciprocate, and give on SS, etc., the GOP might be better off.

Frist is ****ed as a nominee in '08. Will that mean he'll rerun for the Senate, or take that now-futile shot at the Presidency? Ironically, TN was one of the better pickup opportunities in the next elections (after, PA, RI, MT, etc.), and Frist would've been an awfully weak Presidential candidate (and the pre-nuclear fiasco favorite to win the nomination), so this might marginally screw the Dems in the long term. So, who do the wingnuts latch onto next? Brownback? Allen?

OTOH, McCain, who never had much of a shot anyways, is totally ****ed wrt the nomination (despite being the GOP's best hope AND pretty damn conserative anyhow).

I'm skeptical about primary challenges against the moderate Senators. Snowe is invincible. McCain's invincible, and his term isn't up till 2010 IIRC. Warner's solid, and he's retiring anways. Don't know much about Collins, but I'd imagine that she'd be tough to beat (and isn't up in ´06). Chaffee is vulnerable, but odds are that he'd lose to the Dems. DeWine is the possible exception. His seat could be a Dem pickup if he were replaced by a wingnut, but the only strong Dem in the state, Strickland, is gunning for the Governorship.

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Here is a very interesting blog written by that most rare of birds... an honest conservative. You remember them don't you? Before Bush and the neo-cons they were people who ran the Republican party who actually practiced what they preached when it came to low taxes and small government. Instead we are stuck with religious zealots who attack science (with creationism and blocking stem cell research), who run massive deficits, who subsidizes every business under the sun in order to buy votes, and who never saw a spending bill they didn't like.

Yes, Prof. Stephen Bainbridge is a very rare type of conservative. He is a corporate law professor at UCLA and he writes a conservative blog at http://www.professorbainbridge.com/. I disagree with many of his conclusions but the man at least argues his points logically and he'll go after a Republican neo-con hack as quickly as he'll go after a socialist. So what does the Prof Bainbridge have to say about Frisk's arrogant grab for power? It isn't good.

[A]ny honest conservative must admit that the only reason we're having this debate over filibusters is because of Orin Hatch's changes to the Judiciary Committee rules and procedures on matters like blue slips, hearings, and so on, which deprived the Democrats of the tactics that the GOP used to bottle up a lot of Clinton nominees in committee.

There's plenty more where that came from and the good prof. is currently spending his time debunking the lies the religious extremists are using to attack the bipartisan agreement which prevented the Republicans from grabbing absolute power.

[Drake Tungsten]

Yes, Prof. Stephen Bainbridge is a very rare type of conservative.

You obviously don't read many blogs.

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Originally posted by Boris Godunov
I certainly hope they try to take revenge on those moderate Republicans. If they're too stupid to see that if moderate GoOPers didn't hold those seats, Democrats would, then fine by me.

Pride comes before the fall and the Christian Coalition's spokeswoman was so prideful and drunk on her own power that she was saying she'd take down every moderate Republican who disagreed with her.

Go for it *****woman. Self destruct and give us more seats.

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Originally posted by Drake Tungsten

Yes, Prof. Stephen Bainbridge is a very rare type of conservative.

You obviously don't read many blogs.

They are a rare beast if you look at most of the Republicans in office. Other then McCain there just aren't very many nonextremists in the Republican party.

[Drake Tungsten]

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I love how you can't come up with an argument.

[DinoDoc]

Is non-extremist code for people that agree with you?

[lord of the mark]

On the politics of this

1. Frist and the nomination - I frankly dont see how this hurts him with the right. He fought as long as could, adopted some pretty extreme positions and rhetoric, and then was undercut by McCain and the moderates. How can the right blame him for that? OTOH some of them prefer Brownback anyway. But then I dont think W was their first choice. Theyre quite capable of being swayed by their semi-insider leaders.

2. Frist and the general - I would think this whole affair hurts him, but of course so much depends on who the Dems nominate

3. McCain and the nomination - I dont see that McCain had any chance at the GOP nomination anyway.

4. Primary challenges - I cant see many succeeding. OTOH the Christian Coalition may have to do SOMETHING, "pour encourager les autres"

5. Frist and the leadership - Again, I cant see him losing it. He was pressured by the right, and the WH, onto a limb. I think the GOP Senators know that. Some of course may take the position of some on the left, and see it as a GOP win. Others that see it as a loss, can hardly blame Frist. I cant see Frist being dumped, particularly for Lott. OTOH if he fails on Social Security, etc that would be a bigger deal.

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Republicans believe the darndest things.