kenoki wrote:but actually republicans at least did something good in florida finally. new legislature says if someone tries to shoot me in the street i'm allowed to shoot back and if i kill or wound dude i'm automatically protected. before it was like, families of the attacker could sue the attackee for fighting back. is that just weird to me? the whole concept? that there would need to be a law? or? hm.

From the Washington Post:
"The Florida measure says any person 'has the right to stand his or her ground and meet force with force, including deadly force if he or she reasonably believes it is necessary to do so to prevent death or great bodily harm.'
Florida law already lets residents defend themselves against attackers if they can prove they could not have escaped. The new law would allow them to use deadly force even if they could have fled and says that prosecutors must automatically presume that would-be victims feared for their lives if attacked."

So basically, the main change is that if you get in a shootout now, you get to stay and finish it, and waste all the bad guys and you won't be legally responsible for your failure to retreat. So real life is becoming more like an action movie. If you knew someone was coming to your house to do you harm, presumably you could just sit there and ambush them.
Thank God for the NRA. They make it more and more feasible for ornery hillbillies and other assorted fuckwits to live out their revenge fantasies.

oxlongm wrote:Judicial nominees are suposed to be the president's turf anyway, and while voting down nominees is always an option, I think that refusing to vote on the nominee is kind of a stretch of "advice and consent."

You could just as easily argue that the Republican majority has failed in its capacity to advise and consent by promising to rubber-stamp any clown the President nominates.

i am fully opposed to congress being able to vote or make decsions any faster than usual. fillibuster = NUMBER ONE!

After reconciling my 11/04 political hangover I've decided that what's happened isn't so bad. Give these dicks enough rope so they can hang themselves. Every single thing they do is less and less mainstrem. Special sessions of congress to save a brian-dead woman? Eroding church/state lines? Iraq? Now this fillibuster thing.

If Kerry had won, they would have blamed everything on him because they still would have held most of the cards. The economy, the war, etc. would have been his fault because he "interrupted Bush's great vision."
OK, bitches, you've got it wrapped up, let's see what you've got. No excuses now.

Hubris is a bitch, and these guys are just speeding up the process.
Let 'em go. It *always* happens. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. The sooner these assholes are out of work, the fewer judges they will have the chance to appoint. They are just speeding up the process with their actions.

One day the poor are going to decide that god matters a lot less than food and healthcare, and then, to use a term that Bill Frist and Tom DeLay can understand, there will be a "day of reckoning."

See you in hell, fuckers.

alex maiolo wrote:After reconciling my 11/04 political hangover I've decided that what's happened isn't so bad. Give these dicks enough rope so they can hang themselves. Every single thing they do is less and less mainstrem. Special sessions of congress to save a brian-dead woman? Eroding church/state lines? Iraq? Now this fillibuster thing.

The distressing thing is that a huge chunk of this country just doesn't give a shit.

We can always say, eh, people will wake up, and yes, I suppose they will eventually - I'd rather that be BEFORE we're turned into a totalitarian corporate theocracy, thanks. As noble as the uphill battle is, I'd rather leave those odds to cyberpunk fiction.

So we have to MAKE people give a shit.

stewie wrote: Judicial nominees are suposed to be the president's turf anyway...

I have a feeliing that Montesquieu might disagree.

solum wrote:

stewie wrote: Judicial nominees are suposed to be the president's turf anyway...

I have a feeliing that Montesquieu might disagree.

Er...I didn't write that...quoting problem somewhere it seems!

You guys both had to quote the part of my post with a stupid typo?

greenlander wrote:

oxlongm wrote:Judicial nominees are suposed to be the president's turf anyway, and while voting down nominees is always an option, I think that refusing to vote on the nominee is kind of a stretch of "advice and consent."

You could just as easily argue that the Republican majority has failed in its capacity to advise and consent by promising to rubber-stamp any clown the President nominates.

Yes, I don't like these guys either, and I do favor more debate on the nominees. I did say that the rule change would be only a mildly bad idea, but still a bad idea.

solum wrote:

oxlongm wrote: Judicial nominees are suposed to be the president's turf anyway...

I have a feeliing that Montesquieu might disagree.

Well, since his death predated the Constitution by several decades, I'm not all that concerned with hewing strictly to his interpretation of it. It says that the President has the power to, "with the advise and consent of the Senate," appoint judges. In other words, it's something like the reverse of Congress'/the President's roles in making legislation. In each case, one is the primary mover and it's up to the other to agree or disagree. The Senate's role is supposed to be secondary to the President's here, and this holds true even if I don't like the President.

Imagine, it's 2013, and the Democrat in the White House nominates a judge... a group of Deep South senators (approaching tough re-election fights and needing a stimulus to excite the "base") holds it up, arguing that she misses church once a month and failed to stencil the ten commandments on her bench... I think a lot of you are going to be changing your minds on this.

oxlongm wrote:Imagine, it's 2013, and the Democrat in the White House nominates a judge... a group of Deep South senators (approaching tough re-election fights and needing a stimulus to excite the "base") holds it up, arguing that she misses church once a month and failed to stencil the ten commandments on her bench... I think a lot of you are going to be changing your minds on this.

You need 60 senators for cloture. Therefore this group of Deep South senators needs to number at least 41 to hold up a nomination by filibuster. I'm not sure exactly what "Deep South" refers to (at least MS, AL, GA, of course, but I'm not sure which others), but the South as a whole only has 32 senators, some of whom are Democrats.

I think the rule is good. A filibuster can only be used by a large minority (at least 41), and it costs political capital to use it. I think if a faction has enough support in this country to send 41 senators to Washington, and is willing to spend its political capital in this way, then let them filibuster.

I guess, simply put, I'd rather let 41 have the ability to block a nomination than give 51 the ability to put one through.