WaxWorks
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Friday, February 28, 2003
Can you identify this speaker? (c/o www.dailykos.com)
Don't come here on the floor and tell me that if I want to block [these judges], somehow I am going down some new path. I am not going down any new path. I am following the tradition and precedent of this Senate. Those who did that in 1992 had every right to do it under Senate rules and under the Constitution, as I do today and as I intend to do on these nominations.
[...]
But don't pontificate on the floor of the Senate and tell me that somehow I am violating the Constitution of the United States of America by blocking a judge or filibustering a judge that I don't think deserves to be on the circuit court because I am going to continue to do it at every opportunity I believe a judge should not be on that court. That is my responsibility. That is my advise and consent role, and I intend to exercise it. I don't appreciate being told that somehow I am violating the Constitution of the United States. I swore to uphold that Constitution, and I am doing it now by standing up and saying what I am saying.
Schumer? Kennedy? Daschle? Reid?
Nope. It's Republican Senator Bob Smith of New Hampshire, on March 7, 2000, regarding the nominations of Marcia Berzon and Richard Paez to the Circuit Courts. (Whom, if I'm not mistaken, are both Hispanic.)
Here's another interesting tidbit:
On March 9, 2000, after cloture had been invoked in the nomination of Richard Paez to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), filed this motion:
Mr. President, I move, in a postcloture environment, to postpone indefinitely the nomination of Richard Paez in order for this body to get the answers I believe every Senator deserves with regard to the concerns I have raised about Judge Paez over the last several days.
The upshot is that Senate Democrats had broken the Republican filibuster (so named by Sen. Bob Smith (R-NH)), and Sessions tried to extend it even so, foreclosing any debate on the notion for more than three weeks. The motion died as there was no second.
Thursday, February 27, 2003
Luckily, the administration has reduced the terror alert to yellow (interestingly, they do so on the same day Fred Rogers dies? Coincidence? Hmmm. . .), but this is what we have to look forward to in the future.
Tuesday, February 25, 2003
Remember in 1998, all the talk by Republicans about the rule of law and the evils of President Clinton's alleged perjured testimony? Well, let's look at the laundry list of perjurers since then: Ted Olson denying he worked on the Arkansas Project during his confirmation hearing, John Ashcroft spinning ridiculous lies about Ronnie White during his confirmation hearing, Miguel Estrada saying some whoppers about Roe and about interviewing clerks for Justice Kennedy during his hearing, even Bush has engaged in some pretty fine perjury himself, in this little known case.
But today I read this article that the Big Brain, the Boy Genius himself may have gotten carried away in the perjury wave.
According to Dana Milbank in today's Washington Post, Rove took credit for introducing Bush to the subject of tort reform when Bush was Governor of Texas. Problem: this is at odds with his testimony under oath in a tobacco lawsuit:
Rove's claim of responsibility for the tort reform issue is somewhat at odds with a deposition he gave during the tobacco lawsuit. Asked whether he discussed overhauling civil liability law with then-Gov. Bush, he replied: "I can't say that I did. But I can't say that I didn't. I do not recall. I know that tort reform was a significant part of his legislative agenda but it was not my area."
Hmmm...
Monday, February 24, 2003
Sometimes, Ralph Nader be damned, the differences between the parties are really clear. FRIGHTENINGLY clear. First, conservatives recently argued that the poor who paid little in taxes were "lucky duckies" whose resentment towards the government needed to be sparked through higher taxes.
Now I've read this quote by a conservative at the American Enterprise Institute to justify cutting back food stamps and the school lunch program:
"We are feeding the poor as if they are starving, when anyone can see that the real problems for them, like other Americans, is expanding girth," said Douglas J. Besharov, director of the American Enterprise Institute's Project on Social and Individual Responsibility.
Excuse me? The real girth problem here is the expanding tax cut . . .
It's about time that the Democrats decide to challenge Bush's credibility. He's gotten a free ride of this subject for too long. The White House will continue to spin that Bush is a "popular" and decisive" and "bold" leader.
