I further swear to always be seen in the presence of at least one "disadvantaged" person, and be seen carrying a bible or other religious icon and say "Jesus" or "God" whenever television cameras are within 100 feet of me.

I believe they're called "backdrops."

Good one, Jo!

Too funny! Harry Reid, Ted Kennedy, Barbara Boxer and others were all for scrapping the filibuster a mere 8 years ago!

Also, the fillibuster rules have been changes several times over the last 200 years. This is just another change.

STUDY YOUR HISTORY! Talk about ignorant know-nothings!

Flush Commander Cookoo Bananas and his 1600 Crew

Can we have a source on that, Gene?

This is Senator Edward Kennedy, as recorded by the Congressional Record on September 21, 1999:

“When the Founders wrote the Constitution and gave the Senate the power of advice and consent on Presidential nominations, they never intended the Senate to work against the President, as this Senate is doing, by engaging in a wholesale stall and refusing to act on large numbers of the President’s nominees.”

----------
In 1998, Kennedy said: "We owe it to Americans across the country to give these nominees a vote. If our Republican colleagues don't like them, vote against them. But give them a vote."

-------
"I make an appeal: If we vote to indefinitely postpone a vote on these two nominees or one of these two nominees, that is denying them an up-or-down vote. That would be such a twisting of what cloture really means in these cases. It has never been done before for a judge, as far as we know--ever. Again, it would undermine what Senator Lott said when he said these people deserve an up-or-down vote." (Senator Barbara Boxer, Congressional Record, March 9, 2000)
---
That took me a mere 2 minutes. I'm sure you know how to use Google. You'll find many other examples of Democratic hypocrisy--and LYING!

How utterly ironic. I guess Dems only require an up or down vote when one of their guys is the one doing the nominating.

The Republicans were wrong in the 90's for not voting up or down. But the Dems are guilty of the same thing today - and their blatant hypocrisy is laughable.

There seems to be both less then honest information supplied by the trolls ( the Catholic Church calls it the sin of ommission) and outright untruths.
-None of the examples provided of Boxer, Kennedy, or Reid suggest that Democrats were willing to end the filibuster rule, only that they thought it was unfair that it was being used. They're entitled to that opinion, which has been expressed by various political factions for 200 years.
--None of the examples provided even suggest that the "nuclear option" be used. The Senate is granted by the Constitution the right to create rules for its proceedings. The filibuster itself simply requires that a super majority of votes be made in the affirmative to confirm a judge for a lifetime appointment. A wise rule under the circumstances. The Senate rules also require that a super majority be required to change any Senate rule; Frist and his supporters want to go nuclear and ignore both the Senate rules and and how they are changed. Boxer, Kennedy, and Reid have never advocated trashing the Constitution in this manner, only Frist and his cadre have.

The Republican-controlled Senate of the Clinton era blocked approximately 60 Clinton nominees through means other then the filibuster. This included strict enforcement under Clinton of the "blue slip" policy, which at the time allowed a senator from a nominee's home state to block a nominee simply by failing to turn in the blue-colored approval papers required for the nomination process. While Judiciary Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-UT) strictly adhered to the "blue slip" policy to allow Republicans to block Clinton nominees, he relaxed the policy nearly to the point of elimination in his efforts to push through Bush's nominees. ( talk about laughable hypocrisy. Just change the rules whenever they don't suit you )

For example, Hatch held committee votes on the nominations of 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals nominee Carolyn B. Kuhl over the objections of Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), as well as four 6th Circuit nominees over their home state senators' objections.

Many Clinton nominees were even denied a committee hearing, mush less an up or down vote.
Furthermore, it appears that Frist and others on the extreme right need a copy of the Consitution, they keep getting it wrong; inexcuable in the Senate Majority leader.In response to a May 12 question from Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV) on the Senate floor, Frist acknowledged that the Constitution does not require an up-or-down vote for all judicial nominees: "To the question, does the Constitution say that every nominee of the President deserves an up-or-down vote, the answer is, no, the language is not there."

Any of the trolls care to get into the myth spread by Frist and the MSM that all Bush's nominees are considered "well qualified" by the ABA. All politicians fudge the truth at times, but this herd of right-wing extremists begs the question; are they even constitutionally capable of telling the truth

"I think we're dealing with the most closed, imperialistic, nastiest administration in living memory. They even put Richard Nixon to shame." General Wesley Clark. Apparently this apllies his extremists supporters as well.

Way to smack the piss outta them trolls, Madison. Save Our Courts has some great information on the nominees for the federal bench. In just a few clicks, I was able to pull up all sorts of dirt on Justice Owen and Justice Brown.

Letter amongst the founders and those who ratified the Constituion under the Articles of Confederation carry a common theme- all powers not stated are implied.

In fact what Congress could NOT do was as important as what they could do.

Congress could make NO LAW abridging the Freedom of Speech or the Establishment of Religion.

Persons, Property, and Belief cannot be have soverignty challenged.

To end filibusters would in essence render free speech mute on the halls of Congress' highest House. Such will not be tolerated.

Majority rule is a process most fit for the House of Representatives which encompasses the broadest proportional representation.
Minority rule is best fit for the Senate which has equal Representation per State.

In those terms the Senate actually guards States Rights at the legislative level.

Finally for only 44 Senators the Democrats registered 3.5 million more votes for their Senatorial seats that the republicans did as a whole. So Democrats are technically defending the right of the Majority(honest people) when they approach debate.

At best the closest argument for Confirmation could be one of direct proprtional representation in terms of total verified appointments. This would be 51% of the Bush nominations in real terms, or about 46% minus Diebold's skewered result of exit poll data from Electoral maps.

The greatest fear of the founders was of an Executive gaining too much power, especially one who inherited his position. George Bush is the embodiment of that nightmare.

The fact 3.5 million more people voted for Democratic senators means absolutely nothing. If you take out NY and CA, I'm sure that Republicans would have the "majority". And, if you're saying that NY and CA are representative of the entire country, then you're flat out wrong. Anybody can manipulate numbers in their favor - isn't that why Dems are so mad at Delay?

And to call Frist an "extreme right winger" is laughable. Just because he's threatening to implement a procedure that you people don't like doesn't make him an extremist.

It's also laughable to hear Democrats decry "changing the Constitution" after over 200 years. Tell me again where the Constitution grants the right to have an abortion. Here's a hint: It's not in the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause or the Equal Protection Clause. For that matter, somebody please point to me where the Constitution grants the right to privacy.

Democrats have changed the Constitution so many times over the years, it's funny that now they're finally crying about it.

Boy, how out to lunch are the frothing rightwingers on this line? It's really simple, tightasses...payback is a mofo.

None of the examples provided of Boxer, Kennedy, or Reid suggest that Democrats were willing to end the filibuster rule, only that they thought it was unfair that it was being used.

There was no filibuster when Kennedy et al. spoke. Clinton's appointees were being bottled up in committee. The Republicans had the votes, the Dems didn't. That's democracy. The Republicans again have the votes and the Dems don't, so they whine like crybabies.

The Senate is granted by the Constitution the right to create rules for its proceedings.
That's right, and the majority of Senators now want to change the rules. What's to cry about?

In response to a May 12 question from Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV) on the Senate floor, Frist acknowledged that the Constitution does not require an up-or-down vote for all judicial nominees
That's right. Frist can legally poll the Senators, determine that the majority favor the nominees--true in every case, by the way--and simply call the President and say they're approved.

Amendment to my first sentence: "There was no filibuster being used at the time ..."

So little time and so much ignorance from the Trolls that have desended from Wingerville.

Lets look at the constitutionality of the filibuster which certain neocons have assured us is unconstitutional.
This right to endless debate evolved in the Senate over the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It is now embodied in the Senate's own formal rules - particularly Rule XXII, which guarantees unlimited discussion absent cloture.
In fact one old Confederate, Senator Lott(R) said he was aware federal courts, including the Supreme Court, might well decline to resolve these, the question of judicial filibusters based on the "political question" doctrine, i.e. not susceptible for judicial review. The Constitution requires a 2/3 supermajority of each House to override a Presidential veto of legislation. In addition, it requires a 2/3 majority of the Senate to convict and remove an officer of the United States who has been impeached by the House. Some think that ordinary majority rule is the Constitution's baseline, and the Constitution is careful and explicit in detailing the situations in which super majorities are required. So that must mean that the Constitution's drafters plainly knew how to impose a supermajority rule when they wanted to. Yet, the other side of the coin is that they didn't **explicitly impose the supermajority requirement for ending debate in the Senate.
So goes the major part of the argument against the constitutionality of the filibuster: In failing to expressly include the Senate cloture rule, the Constitution implicitly excludes it. The Constitution, on this reading, gives an exhaustive, exclusive list of all supermajority rules that can be applied in the House or Senate. BUT wait, this is where, as usual the wing-nuts and their web sites commit the sin of omission as they usually do. The filibuster may be constitutional because its not as simple as some would have us believe. A long standing interpretive principle suggests that a list - such as the Constitution's list of supermajority vote situations is illustrative, not exclusive. ( quick example: the creation of a Majority Leader of any party that sets a legislative agenda is not explicitly provided for in the constitution, and thus may not have the Fristian power to end a 200 year old tradition or when SCOTUS decided that even though the Constitution did not explicitly give Congress the power to create a bank, Congress could do so under the Necessary and Proper Clause of the Constitution.) --- It gives a structured. but not exclusive framework. So here's a kind of a Catch-22. The Constitution, Art.I, sec. 5, anticipates that the House and Senate will make rules not explicitly laid out in the Constitution, and specifically gives them authority to do so: "Each House may determine the rules of its proceedings." And, aren't the filibuster rule and companion cloture vote rule just these types of procedural rules? Remember, when a filibuster is ongoing, the cloture rule technically requires a supermajority to end debate - a procedural occurrence - not a supermajority to enact the legislation or approve the nomination in question. Thus we have the call for an up or down vote, the new found mantra of the wing-nuttery, which they can have if they obey their own rules and out vote the filibuster with cloture.
Yes there's been plenty of hypocrisy on the filibuster over the last 50 years and the parliamentary tactics of the Lots, Frist, and Byrds, but only Frist-Bush want to nuke the Senates constitutionally mandated right to make and adhere to its own rules.
I guess the phoney strict constructionists here would repeal the 13th and 14th amendement as it wasn't penned by quill in 1776.
The filibuster is not the last word, because of cloture. Rules about
how the Senate closes debate -cloture- have withstood legal scrutiny for a hundred years under any and all compositions of political bent in the courts, the Whitehouse, and both Houses of Congress. The cloture vote is constitutional. Agree, disagree, site cases from 1806 or 1892 or whatever; no court is likely to strike the cloture vote rule down. End the cloture rule? Well, that would also require a supermajority, which is very unlikely. Its not just that at this juncture the democrats will not let that happen, but that vanishing and near extinct breed, moderate Republicans like Olympia Snow and John McCain will not vote to end the cloture rule. Realizing that hyperbole is free and plentiful in America, especially on the internet, to call what the Fristians are doing an attack on democracy
is no understatement. For those that like to base their arguments solely on the basis of majority this or majority that, remember this, a majority of the Senate passed the current version of Rule XXII, which requires 67 votes for any rule changes. If Frist succeeds and there are appeals by him to the SCOTUS later and the court finds in his favor, hey he's
almost free. Almost, the court could decide that the "nuclear option" ( a term coined by Republican Trent Lott by the way) was unconstitutional in violation of R22 or by the terms of the cloture rule, then all judicial appointments made after the "nuclear option" will be declared void, as will any other Senate business passed where the current filibuster, cloture, rule change provisions apply.
Chalenge to the trolls, stop being unamerican sheep and try being a patriot for a change.

Where to begin? Well, first of all, strict constructionists simply read the words of a statute or the Constitution - without "finding" hidden meanings. They don't, as Madison apparently believes, only read the Constitution and its first 10 Amendments. I think that maybe you are thinking of "originalists", but I'm not really sure exactly what you mean.
Your post is full of true and accurate statements - but it fails to make any point. If the Senate, per the Constitution, has the ability to make its own rules, why are Dems throwing such a temper tantrum about changing the rule regarding filibusters? The Republicans will have to deal with the repercussions in 5,10, or 20 years when they no longer have control of the Senate. Just wait a little bit, it will come back to bite the Republicans in the ass. Until then, though, quit bitching about it. Madison makes it pretty clear that the majority can change the rules of the Senate if they want to - notwithstanding 150 years of tradition.

What does "stop being unamerican sheep and try being a patriot for a change" mean? How is being a Republican make somebody an unamerican sheep? How does being a Dem make somebody a patriot? I don't really claim either party, but it certainly seems to me that Democrats and/or liberals almost without exception resort to name calling and/or yelling when trying to make a point. I don't really see that as much with Republicans/conservatives. In the 14 posts alone in this thread, Republicans are called "trolls", "tightasses", "fuckwit", and "unamerican sheep". To be fair, Gene did call you ignorant know-nothings.

But "ignorant know-nothings" was a perfectly descriptive term for the ... well, ignorant know-nothingism present in most of these posts.

And Madison simply proves the point that a whole lotta words can still add up to nothing. The filibuster may be a perfectly legitimate maneuver under the Constitution's allowing the Senate to set its own rules. But now the majority simply wants to change the rule, something allowed for under the very clause you're appealing to, Madison. And, most important, the cloture requirements have already been changed twice over the past 200 or so years, so there's nothing really radical about changing them now. (And, as an aside, the filibuster is supposed to be about unlimited debate. But no one's debating anything. It might be worth keeping if we made blowhards like Kennedy talk for 100 hours straight.)

Finally, beware of whom you call names. Maybe Lott harbors Confederate sympathies (and maybe he doesn't), but the Senate presently has only one former KKK Grand Kleagle--Sen. Robert "Spend the Taxpayers' Dollars to Glorify My Own Name" Byrd of W.V.

Senate Rules changes require a supermajority of 67 votes.

What part of that don't you understand, Gene?

1. Timely
   
2. Strategery
   
3. Webb wins
   
4. Huh?
   
5. Bunnypants in Bagdad
   
6. Outage
   
7. Filthy Lucre Watch
   
8. Playing the numbers
   
9. My letter to Countdown
   
10. Jefferson's Nigerian Scams