Posted on 05/12/2005 3:23:28 PM PDT by mdittmar
Really? Then on what did you just spend five or six paragraphs worth of attempted rebuttal?
Again with an idiotic comment...
I am quite familiar with Frists background. Im also familiar with the fact that 7 judges sit in limbo. I feel he hasnt done enough. This upcoming week will prove me right or wrong. If I am proven wrong, and a judge is confirmed next week, I will be available here on FR for deserved "I told you so's". I just dont think that will be the case..
With your posts #200 & #201, you're just prattling on now. Buh bye.
Frist will bring a nomination to the floor, maybe Owen, maybe Brown. He will then give the Democrats days of debate in the vain hope of demonstrating to the media that the GOP is fair and is doing all it can to avert a battle. They don't care about that, they will continue to hammer the GOP.
Meanwhile, during those days of debate, the Dems will pick at the nominee with carefully orchestrated talking points, saying the same thing over and over and over. The media will repeat those talking points, over and over and over. After 2 or 3 days of this, RINOs will start getting picked off one by one. There will be statements to the press, unattributed quotes from GOP senators, and so on, all indicating that they are troubled by the nominee, and/or really concerned about changing Senate precedent to force a stop to the filibuster.
After we lose Chafee, Voinovich and a few others, on top of McCain who has already announced his position, we will be perilously close to losing the vote on the Constitutional option. When Frist loses confidence in the outcome, he will refrain from forcing the vote, and put it off to sometime in the future. They will issue another press release, and blame it on something, but the bottom line is that it won't happen. At that point, the RINOs and Harry Reid will be in charge of the agenda for the next 2 years, and they will run rampant. They don't know how bad 2006 will be if this happens, or if they know, they don't care because they're not really Republicans anyway.
Now, forget those of us who called this a long time ago, and who argued for a change in the rules going into this session, rather than relying on the faint hope that the Dems would change their strategy. We are where we are. What could be done?
As I said in another post, hold a caucus wide meeting at which the 40-45 conservative GOP senators make clear that they are willing to re-configure the entire committee makeup to punish Republicans that do not vote with the party. Make clear that we are willing to lose these people to the Dems, and lose the majority if necessary, rather than be a hapless and ineffectual majority. There will not be 5 GOP Senators willing to switch sides, and they will all want to keep their committee posts and chairmanships, etc. Only Chafee will leave, and the sooner the better as far as I am concerned.
The other thing that could be done, with or without option 1 above, is to set the vote for next Monday, allow 8 hours of debate, and vote on Tuesday. When the Dems filibuster, eliminate the filibuster rule. Have a vote on it, not 3 days of handwringing. With Cheney in his chair. If 6 RINOs defect, so be it. We'll know their names, and they will all be toast. Some of them won't last to the end of their terms, we will come down on them so hard. I doubt, when push comes to shove, we will lose more than 3 Senators.
Frist's offer of 100 hours of debate per filibuster was overly generous. In any event, the Dems rejected it. So, why would we give it to them anyway? 8 hours is more than enough. We have 10 judges to approve, we don't have time for this crap for each and every one. Get to work, you Senate weenies!
bulls eye.
Your post is spot on. After reading it, Im convinced thats what will happen. The GOP's track record is dismal. Im supposed to believe this is the time they get tough? Yeah, right..
couldn't be more accurate than your scenario.
so shall it be.
in addition.
10 x 100 = 1000
1000 hours of debate over these judges that frist is agreeable to, when divided by 40 hour work weeks, means that 25 full congressional work weeks would be required to get these judges through. Of course, they would be unable to work on ANY other business in the meanwhile, so a 20 hour per week schedule for judges would be the maximum. meaning 50 weeks. or a year.
Now add for the scheduled legislative breaks, and take away the typical legislative breaks, and you have almost two years of delay till the last of ONLY TEN judges are confirmed. Add in a natural disaster or two, emergency interruptions due to the war on terror... and the fact that 1/3 of the Senators will begin building their campaign run later in this years end... plus two supreme court justice vacancies, in this same period,
and you see the bottom line.
these judges will not all be confirmed or voted on, because of the 100 hours of debate, for another two or three years.
and we may very likely NOT have the senators in place to win the votes after the next election. the conservative base of anti illegal immigration, permanent tax cuts, smaller government, less government intrusion, islam is NOT peace, close our borders to illegals... 'conservatives' is just not that happy with our progress.
If we truly intended on governing, we would have cut the party of communism's balls off the day after the new Senate was sworn in. We didn't, and we don't have the desire to do so now.
Republicans are NOT conservatives, it appears.
Go nuclear NOW this weekend. REFUSE to recess until the dems are castrated politically... and make this Friday the 13th MEAN something to future generations of socialist democrats.
Finally, the Conservatives within the Senate need to assert themselves, the way they did when they almost kept Specter from getting the chair of the Judiciary Committee. Threaten to hold new caucus votes where the committee assignments are shuffled, based on party loyalty. They got Trent Lott out on such a vote last session. Why not do the same to Voinovich and Chafee and anyone else who joins with the Dems in blocking the agenda of a Republican President and a Republican House of Representatives.
I guess it's unfortunate, but 55 Republicans does not give us Conservatives a majority in the Senate. There is no party loyalty among the liberal wing (the "rump minority") of the GOP. We therefore need 50 Conservative Republicans, and we are about 5-8 Senators short. Until that day happens, hopefully within 2 election cycles, the liberal wing should not be treated as a part of the GOP, but as a separate party, with which we have a coalition in the Senate.
In other words, you can't hang when called to defend your position. Shocking!
No, in other words, you're boring. Debating you is like arguing with a drunk. Good bye.
You're not even very good at saying goodbye. :-D
You can rest assured if he had the votes, the issue would have been called up immediately on the floor this week as planned.......and I do mean immediately...in case someone dropped dead or sumpin next week.
Leni
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