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WASHINGTON - Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito won commitments from a majority of senators Tuesday, assuring his eventual confirmation and making a rightward tilt of the court likely.  On the same day Alito won a 10-8 party-line approval from the Senate Judiciary Committee, five Republicans announced that they would vote for his confirmation in the full Senate, pushing him over 50 votes in the 100-member chamber. Fifty Senate Republicans, plus one Democrat, Ben Nelson of Nebraska, have publicly committed to vote for Alito through their representatives, interviews with The Associated Press or news releases. No Republicans have opposed him and...

From Fox News' "Fox News Live" January 24, 2006Former DNC Chairman, Governor Ed Rendell [D-PA]: "I Believe He's A Qualified Judge. He Sits On The Third Circuit Court Of Appeals In Philadelphia. I Don't Know If You Know This ... My Wife Is A Third Circuit Court Judge."Fox News' Bill Hemmer: "I'm Aware Of That, And Your History In Philadelphia Should Give You Pretty Good Knowledge Of Him."Rendell: "Right. She Has A High Opinion Of His Integrity And His Academic Standards. She Disagrees With Him On A Number Of Cases And Agrees With Him On Some. I Disagree With A...

Today, President Bush welcomed Pakistan Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz to the Oval Office where the two discussed the relationship between the two countries, and made a joint statement to the press. Later in the day, President Bush welcomed 2005 NASCAR Nextel Cup champion Tony Stewart to the South Lawn of the White House where they posed for a photo op with the Nextel Cup Champion team (and the winning Chevrolet !) He also met with West Virginia Governor Joe Manchin in the Oval Office, whose legislative proposals to improve mine safety have passed by the West Virginia Senate unanimously. Today,...

If Judge Samuel Alito Jr.'s confirmation hearings lacked drama, apart from his wife's bizarrely over-covered crying jag, it is because they confirmed the obvious. Judge Alito is exactly the kind of legal thinker President Bush wants on the Supreme Court. He has a radically broad view of the president's power, and a radically narrow view of Congress's power. He has long argued that the Constitution does not protect abortion rights. He wants to reduce the rights and liberties of ordinary Americans, and has a history of tilting the scales of justice against the little guy. As senators prepare to vote...

Hypocrisy, thy name is . . . Not an easy call in the first month of 2006. If you thought 2005 was a banner year for political hypocrisy — if you thought watching Democrats berate President Bush for lying about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction after they cited the same intel was one for the record books — well, get ready. Two old Democratic warhorses — OK, anti-warhorses — are in a red-hot race for this year's Golden Globe for Political Hypocrisy after this last week. First, there was Sen. Ted Kennedy's double-barreled offering in the hearings for Judge Samuel...

It didn't matter then—it shouldn't nowRemember all those news stories in 1993 about how the nomination of former ACLU lawyer Ruth Bader Ginsburg to replace conservative Justice Byron White on the United States Supreme Court would "tilt the balance of the court to the left?" Of course you don't. Because there weren't any. In the past three months, the major media have repeatedly hammered away at the theme that Judge Samuel Alito Jr. would "shift the Supreme Court to the right" if he replaced retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. According to Lexis/Nexis, major newspapers have used the phrase "shift the...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist told Republican Party activists on Friday night that U.S. Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito was the "worst nightmare of liberal Democrats." Frist, a Tennessee Republican, made the remark to fellow Republicans during a private tour he gave them of the Senate chamber when the Senate was not in session. Frist was not available for comment following his remarks. Asked about the senator's remark, Frist spokesman Bob Stevenson said that Alito "is a thoughtful mainstream conservative jurist who is well respected by his peers, by Democrats and Republicans alike." Stevenson added, "There are...

Senator Kennedy’s Speech Against Judge Alito The Last Gasp Of An Embarrassing Legislator For Immediate Release January 19, 2006 Contact: Amy Skeen (202) 547-8570 “Senator Ted Kennedy’s anti-Judge Alito speech today before the Center for American Progress is yet another display of how out of touch Kennedy is with American values and beliefs,” said TVC Executive Director Andrea Lafferty today. “Apparently Kennedy isn’t satisfied with his bullying and character assassination of Judge Alito during the Senate hearings. He seems determined to keep on mischaracterizing Alito’s record up until the moment the judge is confirmed in the Senate—and he will be...

A few days ago, Sen. Frist said that — if Democrats delay the Alito nomination past January 20 — then Frist would cancel the week-long recess that was scheduled to begin soon thereafter. Senate Democrats have now decided to delay past January 20 (contrary to a previous agreement), and so the Washington Post reports: Frist announced that … he would cancel a week-long Senate vacation next week — a step that he took yesterday, according to his chief of staff, Eric Ueland. Ueland said last night that Frist planned to start debate over Alito in the full Senate on Jan....

In his opening statement to the Judiciary Committee, Judge Samuel Alito told the senators where he comes from. First, Hamilton Township, N.J., the modest-income suburb of Trenton, where he grew up. "It was a warm, but definitely an unpretentious, down-to-earth community. Most of the adults in the neighborhood were not college graduates. I attended the public schools. In my spare time, I played baseball and other sports with my friends. And I have happy memories and strong memories of those days, and good memories of the good sense and the decency of my friends and my neighbors," he said. All...

The Senate confirmation hearings for Judge Samuel Alito told us more about the Senators than it did about Judge Alito.First, there were those long-winded preambles to "questions" for the judge. Then there were the Mickey Mouse maneuvers and insinuations, spiced here and there with outright lies.The ridiculousness of the charges was classically illustrated by Senator Joseph Biden's claim that Alito had been part of a group that was trying to keep minorities and women out of Princeton. Apparently wanting everyone to meet the same admissions standards is considered to be the same as being against minorities and women.To dramatize his...

ABOUT THE ALITO HEARINGS, one thing is certain: If it had been the Concerned Alumni of Princeton that was up for confirmation, the nomination wouldn't even make it out of the Judiciary Committee. Democrats led by Sen. Edward Kennedy portrayed CAP as hostile to minorities and to coeducation and thus to women. And Republicans weren't about to get into a fight over CAP, which was formed in 1972, shortly after Princeton went coeducational and the same year Samuel Alito graduated. CAP went out of business in 1986.CAP drew the interest of committee Democrats because Alito once identified himself as a...

ON THE MORNING PRESIDENT BUSH nominated Samuel Alito to become the fifth Catholic on the Supreme Court, I was sitting on an airplane next to a joke-teller, one of those people whose idea of travel is the chance to pass along to strangers all the latest gags. "So," he began, patting his jovial belly, "have you heard this one? A doctor, a lawyer, and a priest are on a ship when it hits a rock and begins to sink. 'What about the women and children?' the doctor worries as the three pile into the only lifeboat. 'Screw the women and...

Those who hold hands with the future at night and relay their divinations tell us that Judge Alito will be OK'd by the Senate Judiciary Committee by a party vote. Some reach even further and predict that he will be confirmed by a party vote, but that there might be a little maneuvering on the floor in the matter of a filibuster.One is told not to expect a filibuster because it is a weapon of last resort, and weapons of last resort should be kept for last-resort use. Several times, in the recent past, the question has been raised whether...

 Ladies and gentlemen, Democrats of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, welcome to this introductory tour of the North American federalist in his natural habitat. We hope that by getting to know the 10-toed American federalist a bit better this afternoon, you'll avoid, in the future, some of the errors and missteps that have thus far plagued your efforts to understand, question, and possibly impugn them at confirmation hearings. Sen. Feinstein, please do try to keep up with the tour. We ask that you listen carefully as we debunk some of the stereotypes and myths you may have heard about...

I'm BACK in near record time with ANOTHER edition of the DUmmie FUnnies. The reason for the quick return is that I am SAVORING the DUmmie angst over their political ApocAlito as you can see in this THREAD titled, "If no filibuster I'm leaving the Democratic party." I must admit that the DUmmie meltdown over the confirmation of Judge Alito to the Supreme Court is WAY BEYOND anything I previously envisioned. It is making me look forward to peering into my DUmmie Ant Farm when at least two MORE Supreme Court Justices are named by Bush before his term...

Please FORGIVE me, DUmmies! I have underestimated you. I thought that the impending Senate confirmation of Judge Alito to the Supreme Court would be merely a big disappointment to you. Little did I realize that his appointment would drive you COMPLETELY over the edge as can be seen in these two DUmmie Threads, SHUT IT DOWN! SHUT IT ALL DOWN NOW!! and Filibuster, Goddammit!! It is time to have some cojones! I guess even the DUmmies now realize that the Senate Blowhard Democrats have run out of steam as the Alito confirmation is firmly on the track to the...

WASHINGTON - Democratic efforts to block Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito flopped during three days of questioning before the Senate Judiciary Committee this week, but a document obtained by The New York Sun suggests that a strategy to delay confirmation for political purposes could be in the works. The language of the document, which is not signed, suggests it was prepared by a Republican staffer in response to a behind-the-scenes plan by Democrats. It notes that the committee's Republican chairman, Senator Specter, of Pennsylvania, already has given the minority party an additional month to consider Judge Alito's record and that...

Samuel Alito's nomination to the Supreme Court represents a grave threat to our fundamental liberties. His record makes it clear that he is a conservative activist who will put his personal ideology above the rule of law.If Alito replaces Sandra Day O'Connor, a moderate justice who represented the swing vote in many cases, some of our most fundamental rights are at risk. Alito won't stand up to a president's abuse of power. He has said that the Constitution does not protect a woman's right to choose. And he has consistently used the bench as a launching pad for his conservative...

You can watch Imus in the Morning for a couple of years before this will happen, Don Imus thinks a guest goes too far with a joke. Normally, the I-Man enjoys finding humor in the agony of public figures. On today’s program Craig Crawford tried to play along and tested his new Samuel Alito material at 6:44. Craig Crawford: "I actually think, you know, the wife leaving the room crying, that made all the evening news and, you know, it was the better video and made him look like a sympathetic figure. Although, you know, she started crying when Senator,...