[Always Right]

Thanks everyone. I will be gone until Sunday, so keep this thread bumped and provide input. Have a great weekend!

[trustandobey]

Haven't had much time yet, but today is my day to Bork Specter and its gonna be fun!

[Always Right]

*****Specter is a Snake Ping!*******

Keep up the outstanding effort. I will be computerless until Sunday so help me out by bumping and responding. Thanks everyone, we are being heard and making progress!

[davidosborne]

Great job again !!

[The_Eaglet]

Thanks everyone. I will be gone until Sunday, so keep this thread bumped and provide input. Have a great weekend!

Done, and thank you!

[The_Eaglet]

From Carmon Friedrich of The Backwater Report:

Sunday, November 7, 2004

I hope that this week you will continue to put pressure on the Senate Republicans to keep Arlen Specter from taking over the Senate Judiciary Committee. I've been encouraged to see the grassroots support for this endeavor. President Bush won this election because of the perception of many people that he would defend traditional marriage and fight against abortion. Specter's probably kicking himself for his ill-timed words following so close on the heels of that victory. His attempt to "explain" himself and cover his tracks is transparent and feeble.

This story in WorldNetDaily details about the efforts of different groups to block Specter's appointment. Pray that he gets a taste of his own medicine.

[Henchman]

Email needs to be sent ASAP to ALL NON-FREEPERS. PLEASE get your friends and family involved. Let them be part of history! We are winning. No conservative Republican Committee Member will openly back Specter. SAMPLE EMAIL

Dear Senator: Thank you for serving. I am sure you have many more requests with which to deal. In summary, Bork Specter, NOW!

Please do not permit Sen. Specter to Chair the Judicial Comm. His view, that the US Constitution is a living changing document is in total conflict with our system of government. The Constitution must be strictly construed; not interpreted in accordance with Specter's erroneous opinion.

The basis of our laws, the Constitution, may not be changed by Judges, but by an Amendment, as stated in the Constitution. Specter's refusal to appoint BORK a Federal Judge speaks right to the point.

Thank you. I know you will do the right thing.

EMAIL ADDRESSES -

President@whitehouse.gov

SENATE MAJORITY LEADER:
FRIST, Bill - (R - TN) Class I 461 DIRKSEN SENATE OFFICE BUILDING WASHINGTON DC 20510 (202) 224-3344 Web Form:
frist.senate.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=AboutSenatorFrist.ContactForm

JUDICIAL COMMITTEE (current):
Sen. Orrin HATCH, UT, current Committee Chair PH: 202-224-5251 FX: 202-224-6331 104 HART SENATE OFFICE BUILDING WASHINGTON DC 20510 Web Form:
hatch.senate.gov/index.cfm?Fuseaction=Offices.Contact

Sen. Jon Kyl, AZ PH: 202-224-4521 FX: 202-224-2207
kyl.senate.gov/contact.cfm

Sen. John Cornyn, TX PH: 202-224-2934 FX: 202-228-2856
cornyn.senate.gov/contact/index.html

Sen. Charles Grassley, IA PH: 202-224-3744 FX: 319-363-7179
grassley.senate.gov/webform.htm

Sen. Mike DeWine, OH PH: 202-224-2315 FX: 202-224-6519
www.dewine.senate.gov

Sen. Jeff Sessions, AL PH: 202-224-4124 FX: 202-224-3149
sessions.senate.gov/contact.htm#form

Sen. Lindsey Graham, SC PH: 202-224-5972 FX: 202-224-3808
grassley.senate.gov/webform.htm

Sen. Larry Craig, ID PH: 202-224-2752 FX: 202-228-1067
craig.senate.gov/webform.html

Sen. Saxby Chambliss, GA PH: 202-224-3521 FX: 202-224-0103
chambliss.senate.gov/Contact/default.cfm?pagemode=1

The "Newbie" Senators
Well, there will be votes in January, 2005. Should you need to contact the newly elected Senators, here is how to contact them. PLEASE FEEL FREE TO ADD OR CORRECT.

FL -- Mel Martinez, 305-443-3611 fax: 407-897-8595

GA -- Johnny Isakson, 202-225-4501, 404-252-5239 email: ga06@mail.house.gov

LA -- David Vitter, 504-833-1163; fax: 202-225-0739

NC -- Richard Burr, 336-777-1170; email: richard.burrnc05@mail.house.gov

OK -- Tom Coburn, 918-684-4308, 405-721-4281, 580-353-2858; fax: 918-294-8380 or 580-353-1978 * There may be a problem with some of the numbers as they are from 2 sources. Better than -0- numbers

SC -- Jim DeMint, 866-546-2004; fax: 202-226-1177

SD -- John Thune, 605-221-1010, 605-718-7000; email: info@johnthune.com

Or email the Pro Abortion Devil Himself:
Subject:"Payback for BORK".
arlen_specter@specter.senate.gov

Specter does not want to hear the will of the people. His mind is closed and so are his ears. Lookup your Senator at www.senate.gov. If he / she is a Republican, let them know you participated in the BUSH Revolution for Regime Change from Leftist, Democratic obstructed Congresses.

[UnbelievingScumOnTheOtherSide]

Hold your friends close.
Hold your enemies closer.

[Elkiejg]

I didn't see this article posted - gives good answers to Hewitt's position.

http://www.nationalreview.com/ponnuru/ponnuru200411111526.asp

November 11, 2004
The Specter Campaign - A rejoinder to Hugh Hewitt.

I'm enjoying debating Hugh Hewitt about the wisdom of preventing Arlen Specter from becoming chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. This is not just for all the reasons Hewitt is always worth reading. It's because you never know what he's going to throw at you next. If you're on the anti-Specter side, at one moment you will be accused of plotting a coup. Next you will be told you are missing the lessons of the Roman republic. There may be a moral to be drawn from the battle of Lepanto, too; who knows?

Hewitt's latest thoughts on the Specter controversy can be found in posts on his website and in an article on The Weekly Standard's website. He insists that he has not shifted ground. If he appears to keep coming up with new arguments rather than defending his old ones against attempted refutations, it is only because there are just so many, many reasons for keeping Specter as chairman.

Let's go through some of our most important disagreements one by one.

What did Specter say last week? Specter, with the apparent support of Hewitt, claims that AP reporter Lara Jakes Jordan distorted his words. Specter didn't "warn" the president not to nominate judges who might vote to overturn Roe v. Wade. He merely predicted that such nominees would face filibusters.

This explanation will not wash. The senator said that Roe was "inviolate" in his view; that it was settled law, like Brown v. Board; that any nominee who disagreed would face a filibuster; and that he "would expect the president to be mindful of the considerations that I mentioned." Now it is true that Specter did not actually say the exact words, "I warn the president not to nominate anyone who might be against Roe," but his comments were not opaque. When senators want to warn presidents of their party not to do something, talking about what they "expect" or think will happen is the way they generally do it. In predicting a filibuster, Specter gave no indication that would resist it. The clear thrust of his comments was to advocate a preemptive surrender to it. That's what the man said, not spin from Lara Jakes Jordan. Specter's follow-up statement wasn't a clarification of his position; it was a way of backtracking. The press-conference remarks were spontaneous, the statement calculated. Conservatives shouldn't care about Specter's sincerity except insofar as it suggests his future course of action. I don't think that his follow-up statement is something conservatives can take to the bank.

Would passing over Specter amount to a "purge" of pro-choice Republicans? We should avoid overstatement here. Nobody is saying that Specter should be sent to Siberia, censured by the Senate, kicked out of the Republican party, or even removed from the Judiciary Committee. The anti-Specter forces are happy to see Specter get another committee chairmanship. They have said only that it would be unwise to put him in charge of one particular committee.

If keeping Specter from the judiciary chairmanship would be a purge, it wouldn't be a purge of pro-choicers. Nobody is saying that Specter should be removed because he supports legal abortion and cloning. Nobody is even saying that he should be removed because he doesn't want to let states that disagree with him on abortion ban it. Specter, however, has suggested that he might not even countenance the possibility that judges who recognize the unconstitutionality of Roe could get on the bench. Pro-lifers think that maybe someone with those views should not be running the Judiciary Committee. Other conservatives worry about placing someone with Specter's views on originalism, tort reform, and racial preferences in that position.

Maybe it would be helpful to separate a few issues here. If Specter weren't in line to be chairman of the Judiciary Committee, would a pro-lifer such as Hewitt be commending him for the job? That seems pretty doubtful. There are reasonable grounds for conservatives to think Specter unsuitable for the job. That leaves, I think, two further questions.

Do conservatives have a stake in a rigid application of the congressional custom of seniority? I don't think anybody has suggested that they do until Hewitt came up with this idea in the Specter debates. (In 1995, Newt Gingrich passed over several members on the House appropriations committee to get someone he thought would be tough on spending in the chair. No conservative complained.) In the not so distant past, Republicans modified the seniority rules by imposing term limits. Now they see that the new rules are capable, on rare occasions, of making committee chairmen out of members who are not just out of step with but intolerant of their own party's positions on the relevant issues. Why not modify the rules again? Actually, even that's an overstatement: The rules allow for Republicans to choose someone other than Specter. Why not exercise that discretion? If there's an argument in principle for conservatives to stick with seniority plus term limits in all cases, I haven't seen it.

Would passing over Specter have baleful political consequences? Two such consequences have been raised. One is that Specter, and possibly other moderate Republicans, would revolt by voting against conservative judicial nominees (or not helping them to get confirmed), or even leave the party. Hewitt's Standard piece ends with this reminder: "Jeffords. Jeffords. Jeffords." The second is that the Republicans will look intolerant.

I don't agree with Hewitt that Jeffords's defection was a "disaster." I think it worked out pretty nicely for the Republicans. I'm also not sure what the Jeffords parallel is supposed to mean. Was Bush supposed to give Jeffords the disability-funding entitlement he wanted to keep him in his camp? Wasn't the education bill government-heavy enough? But we can leave that for another day. I will agree that losing Senator Snowe et al is worth avoiding.

So let's consider the odds. Some of Hewitt's allies in this matter have speculated that dumping Specter as judiciary chairman could cause six Republicans — including the fairly conservative Judd Gregg — to leave the party and give the Senate to the Democrats. That is a risk. I would place its probability at about one times ten to the negative seventeenth power. Would even one of them switch, and give up his committee chairmanships? I doubt it. That includes Specter, who would after all still be chairman of something.

I also don't think that the moderate senators often vote out of pique at the conservatives, or do so almost ever as a bloc. Note, by the way, the psychological assumptions being made here. We are supposed to take Specter as a man of his (most recent) word, while also thinking that he is so petulant that he would reject a Supreme Court nominee on the basis of a personal slight; that Specter will hold his failure to get the chairmanship against President Bush but not give him credit for saving his Senate seat. Whether the moderate Republicans will vote against a conservative nominee is, I think, almost entirely a function of the way that nominee is portrayed in the press and the way the voters of their state regard him.

Hewitt is quite right to point out that passing over Specter would be portrayed in the press as an act of intolerance. He is also quite right to say that conservatives should not act in ways that gratuitously hand liberals their talking points. But whether this act is gratuitous is of course what is at issue. And I'm sure that Hewitt knows that liberals will have Republican intolerance among their talking points regardless. (For the press, conservatives can only "overreach" on social issues; they never just "reach," or underreach.) As the Specter debate plays out in the press, it may marginally increase the plausibility of that talking point. Conservatives may reasonably conclude that it is still worth trying to get a better chairman — and resolve to fight any misleading spin that results. That effort would be helped if Hewitt weren't loosely talking about "purges."

Like most political campaigns, the one against Specter's judiciary chairmanship has its upside and its downside potential. The downside is the risk that moderate Republicans will take retaliatory action and that Republicans will take a hit in the press. If the campaign is unsuccessful, it may yet force Specter to make concessions. It may also impress upon his colleagues that the party's base will not allow the issue of confirming conservative judges merely to be used against Democrats at elections: It also expects the senators to deliver between elections. is not just to be used against Democrats at elections but something that the base expects them to deliver. If, as now appears unlikely, the campaign is successful, we'll end up with a better chairman of the committee. (And really, any of the other Republicans on the committee would do.)

I'd say the balance of possibilities argues in favor of continued conservative opposition to Specter.

[Henchman]

BUMP!

[mississippi red-neck]

Thanks for your work. MRN

[Cedar]

Thanks so much for your continued hard work with this thread.

And everyone, your efforts are great!

[Lauren BaRecall]

I made my calls to Frist, Santorum, and the Judiciary Committee. Details to follow.

[Siobhan]

Bumping

[Cedar]

Just the fact that Soros donated money to help re-elect Arlen Specter should be enough to convince everyone that Arlen should NOT be Chairman.

Soros is anti-conservative and anti-Republican. Yet he supports Arlen.

How much clearer a picture of Arlen can you get?

[Henchman]

It took several days, but here is the reply from BILL FRIST. It is a standard message. Probably delayed by the press of business and the pressure we, the citizens, have placed on the system. I think the message is hopeful! I am starting to like Sen FRISK.

Dear Friend:

Thank you for contacting me regarding judicial nominations in the newly-elected session of Congress. It is an honor to serve in the United States Senate.

The Constitution's "advice and consent" clause clearly gives the Senate the prerogative to accept or reject any of the President's judicial nominations. Unfortunately, a minority of Senators have been using Senate rules to stop the confirmation of many of these nominees and thwart the will of the majority. Their unwise and dangerous efforts are unprecedented and must not be allowed to succeed. That is why I have taken several steps to address this attack on our Constitution and judicial system.

On June 5, 2003, I proposed a narrow change to Senate rules that would prohibit long term filibustering of judicial nominees. On November 12 - 14, 2003, I held the Senate in session for almost forty straight hours — the longest continuous debate in over 10 years — to force the minority to defend their actions.

I believe that the American voters sent a very clear and stunning message in the November 2, 2004, elections. That is why, as I begin work as Majority Leader in the 109th Congress, I will continue to work to ensure that President Bush's judicial nominees receive fair treatment. I am sure the President will continue to nominate judges who believe in protecting the rule of law, and I am confident that the Senate will be able to confirm these judges in the 109th Congress. Activist judges who make law instead of interpreting law undermine the rule of law. It is imperative that the Judiciary Committee approve the President’s judicial nominees and send them to the Senate floor for an up-or-down vote.

Rest assured, I will continue to fight for fair treatment of the President's judicial nominations. Anything less is unfair to the nominees, the President, the integrity of the judicial system and the American people.

Sincerely,
William H. Frist, M.D.
Majority Leader
United States Senate

[Cedar]

Just had to add these comments by "Vicomte13" to this thread--please read the following:

"We believe that abortion is infanticide, and that a holocaust of infants is taking place. We do not believe that there is any other issue on earth that compares with this one is moral import. And therefore, there is no policy or combination of policies, including perfect tax policies, tort reform, and every other thing that is near and dear to Republican hearts, that matters a damn if abortion is overlooked and slid by.

We know that this issue has to be settled in the Supreme Court, nowhere else. And we know that the opportunity to put new justices on the court comes once a decade, maybe, and that the current opportunity to alter the complexion of the court is not going to come for a generation. Therefore, the real possibility exists that abortion can finally be seriously curtailed, by the Supreme Court changing Roe v. Wade or eliminating it.
IF, and ONLY IF, we can get pro-life judges on that court.

To do that, we have trusted the Republicans for years.
We just came out and voted for you again this time, in unprecedented numbers, because we are not stupid and we know what is at stake. Not just evangelicals either. The religious CATHOLIC vote went Republican this time, and they didn't do it because of trade policy or even gay marriage. The issue is abortion.

And the overriding issue is abortion.

So, if the Republicans allow Specter on the committee and he blocks pro-life nominees. Or if the Republicans do not use the nuclear option to override Democrat filibusters of pro-life nominees, THIS TIME there is no place for Republicans to hide. WE KNOW that you have the power, now, because WE just voted to give it to you. We understand that you can block Specter. And we understand the nuclear option.

And therefore, we most certainly will understand that if you allow the pro-life judges to be blocked, that it will be by you political CHOICE to do so. You CAN put them on, if you expend a lot of political capital. This will offend some people. A lot of people. And that is the price you HAVE to pay to get our votes next time. You have to be willing to bet the whole house to end infanticide.

If not, we will not vote for you.
We won't go running to vote for the Democrats: they're pro-abortion.
We won't go out and form a third party: we're not stupid and know that won't work.
We'll just stay home, just like we did in 2000.
Except that in 2000 it was out of frustration and neglect, and the lack of belief that anything will change.

This time, it's different. We understand the system, and we know that you have the power. And we demand that you use the power straight down the line to fill the high court and the appellate courts with judges who will protect the lives of babies.
Period.
This is not negotiable. At all. This is why we voted for you.
You have nothing to bargain with with us, and if you screw us, we will stay organized and we will stay home purposely to destroy the Republican party. Because if you do not protect the babies when you have the power to do it, you are no better than the Democrats...and worse, you will have lied to us.

This means, in effect, that all of those things YOU care about: taxation, immigration, trade and business policy, deregulation - all of those core issues that come as a package, are held hostage to our issue: babies. If you will not protect the babies, we will stay home and let the Democrats destroy everything else that YOU believe in.

This is called "Chicken".
It is called a "Mexican Standoff".
And since we are fired up by the certitude that we are doing God's work in defending babies, we cannot be bought, and you cannot win so much as an election for dog catcher in this country without us.

Therefore, the solution is simple and obvious: give us what we voted for you for. Give us pro-life judges. Use all of your power to do it. Sweep Specter out of the way: is he worth losing all the rest of your issues - because we really will stay home and throw the country to the Democrats if you're no better than they are on abortion, just to punish YOU for having betrayed us.
When the filibusters come, and they will come, use the nuclear option to override them. That will poison the Senate, yes. So what? We are talking about babies here. And with our votes, militantly mobilized because we are winning, alongside of yours, in 2006 and 2008 and beyond, even if the Senate is poisoned, you will be able to replace it.

That there is even a debate going on as to what to do with Specter is alarming, but we have had our hearts broken before, so we'll sit and pray and trust President Bush and Senator Frist and the Republicans to do the right thing.

Screw us, though, and we will turn on you and your whole agenda will go down the drain with the blood of the babies you wouldn't put your power on the line to save.

The easy solution, the win-win solution, is to BE as pro-life as you campaigned as being.
Just do it.

I apologize for the length of this post.
But it needed to be said.
The Republicans do not seem to get it.
They need to understand that we are more committed to saving babies than we are to the fortunes of the Republican Party.
That Specter is still in play demonstrates that too many of them do not take this seriously.

Rather than test us, what you guys should do is simply cave, now, and give us what we want.
Do that, and you wont hear from us again, because this is about the only religious issue that Catholics and Orthodox and Evangelicals AGREE on."




87 posted on 11/12/2004 6:41:26 PM CST by Vicomte13 (Auta i Lome!)

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

Well, I've sent emails to Kyl and Craig encouraging them to challenge Specter. I just want to get clear on one thing, for my edification and the edification of people new to this series of threads:

Didn't Specter basically promise the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's Editorial Board that he would block the nominations of "extremist" judges? I assume "extremist" would refer to the strict constructionists we all desire?

[The_Eaglet]

The Specter of Bush by Janine Hansen

[Cedar]

Bump to help stop Specter

[mississippi red-neck]

Bump!