[10 , 9 , 8 . . . 7 , 6 , 5 . . .]

[Going Nuclear -- Countdown to Ground Zero -- Part 1]

[Via Hugh Hewitt] The seven Republican senators thought to be on the fence about ending the filibuster: Alexander, Chafee, Collins, Hagel, Snowe, Sununu and Warner. Here’s the contact info.

If you are a political Conservative you have been suffering from an adrenaline rush since yesterday, when John McCain went on Chris Matthews’ Hardball program and announced that he would not support his party’s effort to change the Senate cloture rule to allow a simple majority vote to stop the filibustering of up-or-down votes on judicial nominees. Here is part of the transcript from the Hardball page on MSNBC.

MATTHEWS: But bottom line, would you vote for what’s called the “nuclear option,” to get rid of the filibuster rule on judgeships?

MCCAIN: No, I will not.

MATTHEWS: You will stick with the party?

MCCAIN: No, I will vote against the nuclear option.

MATTHEWS: You will vote—

MCCAIN: Against the nuclear option.

MATTHEWS: Oh, you will?

MCCAIN: Yes.

MATTHEWS: So you will vote with the Democrats?

MCCAIN: Yes, because I think we have got to sit down and work this thing out. Look, we won’t always be on the majority. (…)

If this wasn’t enough to spike your blood pressure, on yesterday’s radio show, Hugh Hewitt had Senator Rick Santorum on in his first hour and asked the Senator if the Republicans had enough votes to get the rule change done and the waffling began.

Senator Santorum began the program today, and the news was as bad as it gets. Do you have the votes to end the filibuster? “We’re working on it.” When will the vote occur? “Within a couple of months.”

Hugh’s producer, Duane, has the complete transcript available at his blog, Radioblogger. Check that out and then read the post above it to get Duane’s take on McCain, which ain’t a good one! Oh, why wait to follow a link? Duane writes:

Senator McCain, with all due respect to your military service to this country, goodbye. Don’t let the door hit you where the good Lord split you.

If you don’t understand the importance of this rules change to conservative and especially to pro-life supporters, just watch how it is being covered on the networks’ evening news shows and in the major newspapers. The New York Times today tries to link Senator Frist with what they characterize as the out-of-control religious wing of the Republican party and intimates that judges are facing the peril of physical violence from the religious nuts.

Democrats, for their part, are already stepping up their efforts to link Dr. Frist and the rule change with conservatives statements about unaccountable judges hostile to faith.

On Thursday, Mr. Schumer released an open letter calling on Dr. Frist to denounce such attacks. “The last thing we need is inflammatory rhetoric which on its face encourages violence against judges,” he wrote.

In this AM’s LA Times is an editorial by University of Chicago law professor Cass R. Sunstein that declares that the Republican Senators’ possible changing of the cloture rule is the third wave of a Conservative attack on the judiciary:

In the last half-century, conservative politicians have mounted three dramatically different attacks on the federal judiciary.
(…)
Now, the battle over the confirmation process has become enmeshed with this third and most extreme stage of conservative thinking. What we are seeing, for the first time, is a fundamental challenge to the rule of law itself.

In the Washington Post Senator Frist is presented as a right wing politico that is mostly concerned with burnishing his ‘08 Presidential chances and let the Democrats define him this way.

They also are portraying Frist as a tool of GOP extremists. Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.), asked this week if the radical right is driving Frist and his lieutenants, replied: “If they decide to do this, which it appears they are going to, the answer is unequivocally — underlined, underscored — yes.”

My previous posts about this issue here & here.

My other Southern California Bloggers’ Alliance members are weighing in on this fight!

Rick Moore at HolyCoast has had it!

It’s time for the GOP to develop some backbone and call the Dem bluff. If the Dems want to shut down the Senate – GREAT! The GOP will be in position to play them like a cheap fiddle.

And J. A. Gillmartin at The Sheep’s Crib is in like mind. J. A. is collecting a comprehensive list of Alliance bloggers’ post here.

Based on what I’ve seen and heard this week, I don’t think these spineless cowards, these supposedly sage middlemen, these penstriped suits who fantasize about their giftedness, understand that the bleeding won’t even begin until the next election; that’s when grassroots, red-state republicans stay home by the thousands. I saw it when George H. W. Bush ran for his second term. I thought they’d learned their lesson when Bush lost to an upstart Arkie! Evidently they didn’t.

John Schroeder at Blogotional gets into the nitty gritty of what needs to be done to force the Republicans to grow some hair and make the rule change. John is also excerpting SCBA posts on this issue here.

So what do we do? Same thing we did to try and save Terri, we call every Senator whose voice mail we can get into and we tell them, “Bring the nominees to the floor, change the rules, break the filibuster, VOTE”

Jeff Smith at Proverbs Daily explains in detail what the filibuster is, and is not, and why this all matters to him.

Why does this mostly Christian topic blog care so much about the filibuster? It’s simple. Some of the reasons for filibustering judges is their pro-life position or their tendency to base their morality on their religious traditions. Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was a director for the ACLU. A candidate with a similar conservative anti-abortion title would never get through a filibuster. As long as the filibuster is around, strong pro-life federal judges will not be.

Finally, Lowell Brown at Hedgehog Central pulls it all together and provides lots of links, and begins to see some light at the end of this long tunnel in this AM’s Washington Post. However, Lowell is not a happy camper over the performance of the GOP senators and remarks:

But now, look what’s happened. The unimpressive Harry Reid is proving just as effective as Daschle in stymieing the process. And it appears the GOP senators now have the issue on top of them, instead of being on top of the issue.

I’m sure some more of our group will weigh in on this developing story and more will be written by the above. Hopefully Senator Frist will get this to the floor for a vote sooner rather than later so that we can see where they all stand, and before the MSM can do any more damage! (db)

This entry was posted on Friday, April 15th, 2005 at 10:20 am and is filed under Focus On Politics, S.C.B.A.. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.  |   Print This Post  |   Email This Post

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