A Fair Up Or Down Vote?

[piasabird]

If the american people voted in the Conservative reps and senators, they they have a mandate from their voters to appoint judges who beleive in doing their job instead of writing new law opinions base on what Europe thinks.

 

[Deudalus]

Originally posted by: PELarson

Originally posted by: Jhhnn
I'm not claiming Roberts is too extreme a candidate, at all. Time will tell if a sufficient number of Dems end up believing that to be true.

The White House seems to be doing its best to make Democrats think Judge Roberts is to extreme. Anything to direct the nations attention somewhere else other than on Mr. Rove, Mr. Libby, etal..

Not sure what you mean by this.

Even if you know for a fact that Karl Rove leaked the name, no law was broken.

In order for a law to be broken it has to be maliciously leaked in order to cause harm to the person. It also has to be within 5 years of the leaked person's last covert assignment abroad.

Her last assignment abroad was over 5 years ago.
Her name was already well known around the beltway. Hell the CIA accidentally leaked her name quite some time ago.
Her neighbors, friends, and everyone else in the area knew who she was and who she worked for.

The fact that she posed for Vanity Fair and other magazines doesn't exactly scream "OMG MY COVER IS BLOWN" either.

 

[PELarson]

Originally posted by: Deudalus

Originally posted by: PELarson

Originally posted by: Jhhnn
I'm not claiming Roberts is too extreme a candidate, at all. Time will tell if a sufficient number of Dems end up believing that to be true.

The White House seems to be doing its best to make Democrats think Judge Roberts is to extreme. Anything to direct the nations attention somewhere else other than on Mr. Rove, Mr. Libby, etal..

Not sure what you mean by this.

Even if you know for a fact that Karl Rove leaked the name, no law was broken.

In order for a law to be broken it has to be maliciously leaked in order to cause harm to the person. It also has to be within 5 years of the leaked person's last covert assignment abroad.

Her last assignment abroad was over 5 years ago.
Her name was already well known around the beltway. Hell the CIA accidentally leaked her name quite some time ago.
Her neighbors, friends, and everyone else in the area knew who she was and who she worked for.

The fact that she posed for Vanity Fair and other magazines doesn't exactly scream "OMG MY COVER IS BLOWN" either.

Did you hit the top of your head when your knee jerked that radically? Where other than mantaining that the White House is attempting to shift focus from Rovegate did I make mention of the fact that Mr. Rove, Mr. Libby etal. are most likely guilty of treason.

By the way Mr. Rove through his lawyer has admitted enough to be fired according to President Bush's own rules of January 24th 2001.

Number 14

 

[digitalsm]

Originally posted by: dmcowen674

Originally posted by: zendari
Democracy is one of the foundations of America.

Clearly, not if you are Republican.

Who was recenelty responsible for taking away personal property rights? Who were to blame for the medical marijuana ruling? Thats fvcking right, democrats....

 

[Tsunami982]

filibustering be bad for both parties... it would make the dems look whiney and the repubs like bullies. i understand the dem reasoning for not wanting to confirm more conservatives onto the court but no one really knows how they will judge once appointed. 7 of the judges now were appointed by republicans... and some of them have consistently voted liberal; the justices are some of the most responsible people around, they tend to balance things out pretty well.

 

[Jhhnn]

Get Real, Zendari.

I quoted the pertinent part of Hatch's statement on the subject- "prevent the confirmation"- he certainly didn't draw the line short of filibuster. He put it in the usual absolutist terms so loved on the right. Judicial filibuster is merely a subset of the whole range of possible filibusters, which Hatch defended without qualification at the time... same for the rest of them. Some of the quotes are oblique, tis true, referring only to "delay", which of course, could last longer than the term of the President... rendering the nomination moot...

Smith's remarks were in direct reference to the filibuster of Paez, and Frist now leads the Repubs... Whining the loudest about tactics he attempted to use himself...

They hung Paez out on a limb for four years, and left over 60 Clinton nominees who never got into committee, let alone the up or down vote the Rightwing all seem to cherish so much at this point in time... Under Lott's leadership, party members had a lot more freedom to vote their consciences and constituencies, and also had a lot more tools available to stop Clinton nominees. The Judiciary committee wasn't convened for over six months as a stalling tactic, pushing nominees' consideration to within six months of the end of Clinton's term... Traditionally, of course, any nominees not confirmed prior to that date are dead ducks... and blue-slipping was used extensively, neither of which you seem willing to acknowledge...

All of this stuff is traditional Senate behavior, enshrined in the rules and procedures of that body, for good reasons cited by repubs in the quotes from my link, above... It all tends to lead to compromise, to a centrist consensus, to results not too extreme for either side. Too bad repubs have changed their minds, revealing that their previous principles will give way to ruthless opportunism when the occasion presents itself...

As for the question about Ginsberg, I'll have to study the subject to establish an opinion...

 

[zendari]

Denial isn't just a river in Africa Jhhnn.

Your 95% figure utterly ignores the level of the justice, but then again you've ignored that through the entire thread. I guess in your little world blocking a municipal judge is one and the same as blocking the Chief Justice of the SC. Republicans gave Clinton 2 of the easiest and fastest confirmation processes, guess it is too much to expect the same in return. And your idea that minority and majority parties play by the same rules is laughable.

Oh, and the Ginsberg precedent. Clinton and company grilled her on refusing to answer questions on many topics such as RvW. And she didn't. Not surprising really, considering if she opened her mouth she might have said something like, oh, that the sexual age of consent should be 12. :roll:

 

[Deudalus]

Originally posted by: PELarson

Originally posted by: Deudalus

Originally posted by: PELarson

Originally posted by: Jhhnn
I'm not claiming Roberts is too extreme a candidate, at all. Time will tell if a sufficient number of Dems end up believing that to be true.

The White House seems to be doing its best to make Democrats think Judge Roberts is to extreme. Anything to direct the nations attention somewhere else other than on Mr. Rove, Mr. Libby, etal..

Not sure what you mean by this.

Even if you know for a fact that Karl Rove leaked the name, no law was broken.

In order for a law to be broken it has to be maliciously leaked in order to cause harm to the person. It also has to be within 5 years of the leaked person's last covert assignment abroad.

Her last assignment abroad was over 5 years ago.
Her name was already well known around the beltway. Hell the CIA accidentally leaked her name quite some time ago.
Her neighbors, friends, and everyone else in the area knew who she was and who she worked for.

The fact that she posed for Vanity Fair and other magazines doesn't exactly scream "OMG MY COVER IS BLOWN" either.

Did you hit the top of your head when your knee jerked that radically? Where other than mantaining that the White House is attempting to shift focus from Rovegate did I make mention of the fact that Mr. Rove, Mr. Libby etal. are most likely guilty of treason.

By the way Mr. Rove through his lawyer has admitted enough to be fired according to President Bush's own rules of January 24th 2001.

Number 14

Are you serious?

You are the idiot that stated the conspiracy theory that Bush is trying to label Roberts as an extremeist so that he could take the heat off of Rove.

Rove isn't even important anymore. Bush has already won his second term and can't run for a third. That makes Rove much much less valuable to the Bush administration.

Appointing a Judge to the SCOTUS is the most long term effect a President can have. Thus appointing Roberts for Bush is much much more important than saving Karl Rove.

I simply stated that legally Rove had not committed a crime. That is fact.

As far as whether he should be fired or what not I don't know the details on what he exactly did and neither do you so who cares.

 

[Jhhnn]

You're now blathering, zendari... Repubs did, in fact, force Johnson to withdraw the nomination of Abe Fortas as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, by threatening filibuster...

Naturally, Bush proposed his most radical choices for the higher jobs, and probably couldn't back down very far, at all, given that it's tough to find qualified jurists who subscribe to Wingnut philosophy- he's pretty much nominated them all for appeals court positions...

Your reference to majority and minority parties not playing by the same rules only confirms what I said earlier- that the Repub leadership just couldn't wait to discard what they once represented as "Principle" in favor of an opportunistic power play... Whatever happened to "honor, dignity, morals and values"? Or were those just soundbite sloganeering all along?

Or would it be unfair for Dems to apply the same standards to Bush nominees that Hatch et al applied to Clinton's? You quoted the guy, something about the Senate not moving too quickly, iirc... activist judges aren't just on the left, either, so they'll have to proceed very, very carefully... you know, kinda like Hatch did for Paez... Probably not, Dems are usually better sports than their "conservative" counterparts...

One of the things that shows an astounding lack of character among modern "Conservatives" is that they whine even when they're winning... 95%+ isn't good enough, they've got to have it all...

edit-typo

 

[Jhhnn]

Oh, yeh, and there's this little bit of pontification and absolutism from Deudalus-

"I simply stated that legally Rove had not committed a crime. That is fact. "

No, it's not, it's merely your opinion. The facts of the matter may never be known, but it's up to Fitzgerald to determine if he believes there is sufficient evidence to charge Rove or anybody else with a crime, and up to a jury to make the final determination if that turns out to be the case...

You probably thought the case for WMD's in Iraq was a "fact", as well...

 

[Deudalus]

Originally posted by: Jhhnn
Oh, yeh, and there's this little bit of pontification and absolutism from Deudalus-

"I simply stated that legally Rove had not committed a crime. That is fact. "

No, it's not, it's merely your opinion. The facts of the matter may never be known, but it's up to Fitzgerald to determine if he believes there is sufficient evidence to charge Rove or anybody else with a crime, and up to a jury to make the final determination if that turns out to be the case...

You probably thought the case for WMD's in Iraq was a "fact", as well...

Read up on the law please.

There is a law that states the requirements for someone to be considered a covert operative. She does not meet any of those requirements.

Thus, given that fact, no law has been broken.

Now, I'm not excusing what was done in any way. I'm simply stating that no law was broken.


You libs need to get your brains around the fact that there is a difference between shady dealings and illegal. Take Guantanamo for instance. Its not a great thing that we are holding people down there indefinitely and doing god knows what to them.

But the fact remains, they are not protected by the Geneva Convention because of how they engage us. Thus legally, they are not protected in any way.

 

[Deudalus]

This is taken from the New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/16/opinion/16tierney.html?th&emc=th

Where's the Newt?
By JOHN TIERNEY

We are in the midst of a remarkable Washington scandal, and we still don't have a name for it. Leakgate, Rovegate, Wilsongate - none of the suggestions have stuck because none capture what's so special about the current frenzy to lock up reporters and public officials.

The closest parallel is the moment in "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" when members of a mob eager to burn a witch are asked by the wise Sir Bedevere how they know she's a witch.

"Well, she turned me into a newt," the villager played by John Cleese says.

"A newt?" Sir Bedevere asks, looking puzzled.

"I got better," he explains.

"Burn her anyway!" another villager shouts.

That's what has happened since this scandal began so promisingly two summers ago. At first it looked like an outrageous crime harming innocent victims: a brave whistle-blower was smeared by a vicious White House politico who committed a felony by exposing the whistle-blower's wife as an undercover officer, endangering her and her contacts in the field.

But if you consider the facts today, you may feel like Sir Bedevere. Where's the newt? What did the witch actually do? Consider that original list of outrages:

The White House felon So far Karl Rove appears guilty of telling reporters something he had heard, that Valerie Wilson, the wife of
Ambassador Joseph Wilson IV, worked for the C.I.A. But because of several exceptions in the 1982 law forbidding disclosure of a covert operative's identity, virtually no one thinks anymore that he violated it. The law doesn't seem to apply to Ms. Wilson because she apparently hadn't been posted abroad during the five previous years.

The endangered spies Ms. Wilson was compared to James Bond in the early days of the scandal, but it turns out she had been working for years at C.I.A. headquarters, not exactly a deep-cover position. Since being outed, she's hardly been acting like a spy who's worried that her former contacts are in danger.

At the time her name was printed, her face was still not that familiar even to most Washington veterans, but that soon changed. When her husband received a "truth-telling" award at a Nation magazine luncheon, he wept as he told of his sorrow at his wife's loss of anonymity. Then he introduced her to the crowd.

And then, for any enemy agents who missed seeing her face at the luncheon but had an Internet connection, she posed with her husband for a photograph in Vanity Fair.

The smeared whistle-blower Mr. Wilson accused the White House of willfully ignoring his report showing that Iraq had not been seeking nuclear material from Niger. But a bipartisan report from the Senate Intelligence Committee concluded that his investigation had yielded little valuable information, hadn't reached the White House and hadn't disproved the Iraq-Niger link - in fact, in some ways it supported the link.

Mr. Wilson presented himself as a courageous truth-teller who was being attacked by lying partisans, but he himself became a Democratic partisan (working with the John Kerry presidential campaign) who had a problem with facts. He denied that his wife had anything to do with his assignment in Niger, but Senate investigators found a memo in which she recommended him.

Karl Rove's version of events now looks less like a smear and more like the truth: Mr. Wilson's investigation, far from being requested and then suppressed by a White House afraid of its contents, was a low-level report of not much interest to anyone outside the Wilson household.

So what exactly is this scandal about? Why are the villagers still screaming to burn the witch? Well, there's always the chance that the prosecutor will turn up evidence of perjury or obstruction of justice during the investigation, which would just prove once again that the easiest way to uncover corruption in Washington is to create it yourself by investigating nonexistent crimes.

For now, though, it looks as if this scandal is about a spy who was not endangered, a whistle-blower who did not blow the whistle and was not smeared, and a White House official who has not been fired for a felony that he did not commit. And so far the only victim is a reporter who did not write a story about it.

It would be logical to name it the Not-a-gate scandal, but I prefer a bilingual variation. It may someday make a good trivia question:

What do you call a scandal that's not scandalous?

Nadagate.

As much as you want there to be a law broken, there just isn't one.

 

[Jhhnn]

If your last assertion were true, Deudalus, Fitzgerald wouldn't have pursued the matter for 2 years, and the CIA likely wouldn't have been compelled to refer it to the justice dept in the first place... Fitz is a seasoned prosecutor, and the CIA has their own lawyers, too... The whole thing would have gone away as fast as it popped up...

Yeh, I know it's a very convenient talking point, but that doesn't mean it's actually true, or that it even makes sense to anybody not susceptible to rightwing frames...

Leave Gitmo out of this, OK? Your assertions in that arena don't bear any relationship to the truth of that matter. Some of the Gitmo detainees were never in Afghanistan, or anywhere else that they could have possibly engaged American troops. They're being held to convince the public that the Admin is "tough on Terrar", nothing more...

 

[Deudalus]

Originally posted by: Jhhnn
If your last assertion were true, Deudalus, Fitzgerald wouldn't have pursued the matter for 2 years, and the CIA likely wouldn't have been compelled to refer it to the justice dept in the first place... Fitz is a seasoned prosecutor, and the CIA has their own lawyers, too... The whole thing would have gone away as fast as it popped up...

There is such a thing as ego. Did you know who Fitzgerald was before this fiasco? I sure didn't. But now I do.

Yeh, I know it's a very convenient talking point, but that doesn't mean it's actually true, or that it even makes sense to anybody not susceptible to rightwing frames...

So the New York Times is a right wing group now?

Leave Gitmo out of this, OK? Your assertions in that arena don't bear any relationship to the truth of that matter. Some of the Gitmo detainees were never in Afghanistan, or anywhere else that they could have possibly engaged American troops. They're being held to convince the public that the Admin is "tough on Terrar", nothing more...

I think there is a clear parallel here.

Many people object to Gitmo because they object to what is going on down there morally. That is fine. But those people are so quick to say its "illegal" when in fact it isn't illegal. It is simply against their moral fiber so they claim it is illegal.

Just because you, me, or anyone else disagrees with something on a personal level does not make it criminal on a legal level.

 

[zendari]

Originally posted by: Jhhnn
You're now blathering, zendari... Repubs did, in fact, force Johnson to withdraw the nomination of Abe Fortas as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, by threatening filibuster...

Naturally, Bush proposed his most radical choices for the higher jobs, and probably couldn't back down very far, at all, given that it's tough to find qualified jurists who subscribe to Wingnut philosophy- he's pretty much nominated them all for appeals court positions...

Your reference to majority and minority parties not playing by the same rules only confirms what I said earlier- that the Repub leadership just couldn't wait to discard what they once represented as "Principle" in favor of an opportunistic power play... Whatever happened to "honor, dignity, morals and values"? Or were those just soundbite sloganeering all along?

Or would it be unfair for Dems to apply the same standards to Bush nominees that Hatch et al applied to Clinton's? You quoted the guy, something about the Senate not moving too quickly, iirc... activist judges aren't just on the left, either, so they'll have to proceed very, very carefully... you know, kinda like Hatch did for Paez... Probably not, Dems are usually better sports than their "conservative" counterparts...

One of the things that shows an astounding lack of character among modern "Conservatives" is that they whine even when they're winning... 95%+ isn't good enough, they've got to have it all...

edit-typo

Text

Ginsberg: Nomination to confirmation in 20 days. Breyer took about 45. This is the fair treatment given by the Republicans. Roberts? Well so far were at 7 days, if they want to be "better sports" I'd expect his up or down vote in the next week!

Of course, the so called "progressive" party has become one of petty obstruction and bickering.

No, it's not, it's merely your opinion. The facts of the matter may never be known, but it's up to Fitzgerald to determine if he believes there is sufficient evidence to charge Rove or anybody else with a crime, and up to a jury to make the final determination if that turns out to be the case...

You're not one to subscribe to innocent until proven guilty I see, at least when it comes to this administration.

 

[Jhhnn]

The NYT, Deudalus, is a rather diverse publication- they even pay hacks like Tierney and Miller, virtual lapdogs to the Admin. It's not surprising in the least that Tierney could put the kind of spin on it that you'd appreciate, attacking the messenger and all, although he failed to mention the effect Plame's outing may have had on her ongoing sources of information... and, again, he's certainly no legal expert, just another guy with an opinion...

I haven't offered that anybody is guilty of anything wrt the Plame scandal, zendari, but that Deudalus' flat out assertion seems to fly in the face of the facts, and what we know of the circumstances and evidence so far. I'm entirely willing to let Fitzgerald play out the hand he's been dealt, however long that takes. He had a reputation as a no-nonsense stand-up prosecutor before the Plame investigation, and hasn't really shown any indications to the contrary to this point. He could have easily swept the whole thing under the rug and made his bones in the Party in a big way, a kinda reverse of Ken Starr, but hasn't done so. I believe I've stated the obvious rather clearly- he has the obligation and the authority to decide what charges, if any, to bring against anybody, if anybody at all, and if it comes to that, a jury will decide those parties' guilt or innocence. I doubt he would have carried it this far if there weren't some indications of criminal activity. It you believe that's somehow inaccurate, then you should elaborate.

Too bad that the Repubs didn't show the same respect for Paez, Berzon, and the 60+ Clinton nominees they left swinging in the wind that they showed Ginsberg and Breyer early on in Clinton's term. They've created the current climate, quite deliberately, so now they get to reap what they've sown. Their mock outrage would be humorous, if it weren't quite so sad. Tears in my eyes as big as horseturds, I tell ya...

 

[Deudalus]

Originally posted by: Jhhnn
The NYT, Deudalus, is a rather diverse publication- they even pay hacks like Tierney and Miller, virtual lapdogs to the Admin. It's not surprising in the least that Tierney could put the kind of spin on it that you'd appreciate, attacking the messenger and all, although he failed to mention the effect Plame's outing may have had on her ongoing sources of information... and, again, he's certainly no legal expert, just another guy with an opinion...

Well if that didn't.

Her numerous public appearances from her newfound fame sure did. Vanity Fair comes to mind.

As far as Tierney being a lapdog, you maybe right. But he is only a pundit. Joe Wilson, Plame's husband, is documented as a lapdog to the Democratic party and worked for the Kerry campaign.

That puts this so called scandal into a whole different light doesn't it?

The simple fact is, everyone knows she wasn't a covert operative and hasn't been for years.

Link

Here's what you poor dense libs are missing in this whole case that makes what you are arguing simply ridiculous.

The same newspapers which are telling you that Karl Rove broke laws filed a brief to the court a short time ago in defense of Judith Miller and Matthew Cooper, the two reporters from the New York Times and Time Magazine respectively that are currently under comptempt of court for not devulging their sources, are arguing that no law was broken in front of the court.

The brief states that Miller and Cooper cannot be held liable for anything that they wrote because no crime had been committed. They state this because Plame's identity had been accidentally revealed to both the Russians and the Cubans in the mid 1990's.

If you don't believe me read the brief that ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, AP, Newsweek, Reuters America, the Washington Post, the Tribune Company (which publishes the Los Angeles Times and the Baltimore Sun, among other papers) and others submitted to the court.

Link

You are being brainwashed. What's worse is you almost seem to enjoy it.

 

[Jhhnn]

Tell me that I'm brainwashed as you link the NRO and Clifford May, no less... Who merely echoes the RNC line, atacking the messenger, Wilson, and a real journalist, Corn. Wilson is a Democratic partisan? After the fact, for sure- prior to this whole imbroglio, he contributed to both parties...

You're jumping to conclusions all over the place, as does May. That particular behavior is quite common among the Rightwing Faithful, such gullibility having been ruthlessly exploited in the justification for invasion of Iraq and the attempted smears on detractors. The obfuscations employed are manifold, including the assertion that Plame was outed in the 90's- an assertion based on a single article by a known partisan hack from the Washington Times (Gertz) who quoted an anonymous govt source, nothing more...

So eager to believe, so lacking in application of analytical faculties. Most Rightwing supporters have been and are being manipulated in ways subtle and profound, their opinions and beliefs spoon fed to their trusting minds like pablum to babies. And they'll never apply any more thought to it than a toddler applies to faith in his mother. It's all part of "Faith based initiatives" wherein you're not supposed to think except to justify what you've already come to believe in an irrational manner.

In this thread, have I offered that Rove is guilty of anything? No? OTOH, I haven't joined the chorus of talking heads who don't have all the facts in his defense, either... Fitzgerald and the grand jury are doing their best to determine what, if any, crimes have been committed in this matter. I'll not prejudge their conclusions, as they obviously have a lot more information than anybody else, which is as it should be.

The SCOTUS has declined to interfere in the proceedings, which is, imo, also as it should be. So we'll all get to wait and see what comes of it. Perhaps my faith in Fitzgerald and the process is misplaced, but at least I know that it's faith, and have the sense to question it, rather than lap it up like a dog who's found a pan of anti-freeze...