For anyone who doesn't know what this is about:

http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/05/19/ ... index.html

Quite honestly, I feel this is one of the most disturbing moves made by the Republicans in a long time. This surpasses the Schiavo debacle, because it will have very lasting detrimental effects on the balance of power, regardless of who is in the majority.

And with Fox News behind them, the public will probably let it pass unchecked. The Newsweek story is another nice distraction from the Frist-led madness.

It will be a sad day if the filibuster is destroyed.

I think requiring 60% for cloture was one of the smarter things they did when they set up this country. The short-sightedness, stupidity, hypocrisy, and dishonesty of the Republicans on this issue is just embarrassing. I hope they don't do it, and if they do it, I hope it comes back and bites them in the ass, next time there's a Dem president with a Dem majority.

Linus Van Pelt wrote:next time there's a Dem president with a Dem majority.

For some odd reason, I don't fore see me being alive to see this to ever happen again. I also have a bad feeling that if I have kids, then they too will never see this happen.

Yeah, it's been about three weeks since they've done something deeply disturbing!

stewie wrote:Quite honestly, I feel this is one of the most disturbing moves made by the Republicans in a long time.

Man the arguments for finding a nice Scottish girl to marry and move to the UK are getting better and better!

We're so fucked if this passes.

Are we all writing and calling our senators? (I know Obama and Durbin oppose the 'nuclear option' but the more vocal we are, the more vocal they will be and the more weight their opposition carries).

http://democrats.senate.gov/filibuster-form.cfm

Senator Richard Durbin
Phone: 202-224-2152
District Offices:
Chicago: 312-353-4952
Marion: 618-998-8812
Springfield: 217-492-4062

Senator Barack Obama
Phone: 202-224-2854
District Offices:
Chicago: 312-886-3506
Marion: 618-997-2402
Springfield: 217-492-5089

And just for shits and giggles, tell Bush how you feel.

http://ga4.org/campaign/new_nominee/637s6g2p5jen57?

EDIT: sorry, that's the link to tell him to nominate a new U.N. Embassador.
oh, shit - but why not do that to?

n

i live in ohio and i've already dropped a line to senator dewine (he's one of the seven republicans on the fence about abolishing the filibuster). the others, if i remember correctly, are specter (PA), sununu (NH), warner (VA), murkowski (AK), hagel (NE), and collins (ME). mccain (AZ) and chafee (RI) have already jumped ship and supposedly snowe (ME) is on board as well. with 44 democrats together and jeffords (VT), mccain, chafee and possibly snowe, that's 47 - maybe 48 - votes. 51 would be needed, so 4 of the 7 fence-sitters are needed.

BronxCheer wrote:Man the arguments for finding a nice Scottish girl to marry and move to the UK are getting better and better!

We're so fucked if this passes.

fuck the uk, i'm moving to somalia. ain't no u.s. gettin' near me there.

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.

stewie wrote:For anyone who doesn't know what this is about:

http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/05/19/ ... index.html

Quite honestly, I feel this is one of the most disturbing moves made by the Republicans in a long time. This surpasses the Schiavo debacle, because it will have very lasting detrimental effects on the balance of power, regardless of who is in the majority.

It will be a sad day if the filibuster is destroyed.

Well, they're not proposing ending the filibuster, just ending its use for judicial nominees. It's already banned for some budget-related bills, but even the nuclear option would leave the filibuster alone in legislative matters.

I think it's only mildly bad policy. 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." I do think it would be an incredibly bad idea to end legislative filibusters, and there's a slippery-slope worry here, so for that reason I hope it doesn't go through.

It's pretty dumb politics, though. Republicans should know from only four years ago that it's very easy to lose Senate control suddenly, and it's also far from guaranteed that they'll have the White House for more than three and a half years, and they're dreaming if they don't think this will come back to bite them. They should remember how hard they argued in favor of the judicial filibuster a few years ago, when Democrats were thinking out loud about ending it.

Cheney in '08? Wait, no. He'll die by then.