Hearings for Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito

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deep

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I will watch and listen to as much of these as possible.

There will be accusations about the treatment the nominee recieves

I beieve he will not get near as many votes as Roberts

if he can not get 60 votes

it could be interesting.
 
Charles E. Schumer D
New York

comes off too strident
his remarks sound like accusations
he would serve his agenda better
if he posed these as concerns in the form of questions to be answered



Tom Coburn R
Oklahoma

was a bit bizarre
calling the Supreme Court schizophrenic.
asking how they call rule in favor of sodomy
but against prostitution :huh:
 
In Alito Battle, Issues of Presidential Power Thrust to Forefront

By David G. Savage, Times Staff Writer

WASHINGTON — Twenty years ago, a Reagan administration lawyer proposed that when the president signed a bill passed by Congress, he should use the occasion to declare how he interpreted it.

"The president's understanding of the bill should be just as important as that of Congress," wrote Samuel A. Alito Jr. in a 1986 memo. Spelling out those thoughts "would increase the power of the executive to shape the law," he added.
President Bush put that idea to work two weeks ago in a little-noticed statement that followed his signing of the muchcelebrated McCain amendment, which forbids cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment of prisoners here and abroad.

His words appeared to turn a legislative defeat into a White House victory. Bush said he would back the torture ban so long as it didn't conflict with his "constitutional authority" as commander in chief and his need to "protect the American people from further terrorist attacks."
 
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Interesting, deep. It does kind of defeat the purpose by placing conditions on it.

How much executive power does Bush really have? We don't have a President here, and I would say that if our Governor-General ever actually used any of his nominal powers (by refusing to authorise an Act of Parliament), we would have a very popular republican movement on our hands. But would that solve any of our problems - would we just end up with a President with power to do exactly the same thing, and no way for us to throw him out?
 
Two quotes from yesterday:

"The role of a practicing attorney is to achieve a desirable result for the client in the particular case at hand. But a judge can't think that way. A judge can't have any agenda," he said. "The judge's only obligation, and it's a solemn obligation, is to the rule of law."

"No person in this country, no matter how high or powerful, is above the law, and no person in this country is beneath the law," Alito told the committee just before it adjourned for the day.
 
No such time to watch the hearings. Couldn't tell what you were refering to from your post.

We could, however, step back and examine what is really accomplished by these hearings. Will "new" information be revealed? Is there some qualification test that is employed?

Or do hearings give senators time to test nominee responses before focus groups - especially those facing elections in 2006?

Hearing also make good fund raising material for all sorts of special interest groups.
 
nbcrusader said:


Hearing also make good fund raising material for all sorts of special interest groups.


i was thinking the same thing

it explains my previous post below \/

different doner bases in NY and OK




deep said:
Charles E. Schumer D
New York

comes off too strident
his remarks sound like accusations
he would serve his agenda better
if he posed these as concerns in the form of questions to be answered



Tom Coburn R
Oklahoma

was a bit bizarre
calling the Supreme Court schizophrenic.
asking how they call rule in favor of sodomy
but against prostitution :huh:
 
Irvine511 said:
does he remind anyone else of Milhouse?

Alito-solo.jpg


milhouse_smiling.gif




:wink:
 
Send the picture to Schumer - he needs all the help he can get... :wink:

Democrats Cast Wide Net Seeking Alito Flaw

The senators' critique showed the party's difficulty at coalescing around a single, clear argument against his high court nomination.

By Ronald Brownstein, Times Staff Writer

WASHINGTON — Democrats resembled a guerrilla army searching for a weak point in a heavily guarded fortress Tuesday as they challenged Supreme Court nominee Samuel A. Alito Jr. at his Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing.

The array of issues Democrats raised reflected the breadth of their concerns about the record of Alito, President Bush's choice to succeed retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. But the broad nature of their critique also underscored the party's difficulty at coalescing around a single, clear argument against Alito's nomination.

The long day of testimony did not produce a dramatic or emotional confrontation that flustered Alito, a judge on the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals. But the persistent and sometimes relentless questioning from Democrats signaled that the party might mount a more forceful resistance to his nomination than it did to Bush's choice last year of John G. Roberts Jr. as chief justice.
 
FORK REPLACES DONKEY AS DEMOCRATIC PARTY SYMBOL
January 11, 2006

by Ann Coulter :hug:


I'm not sure Sen. John Cornyn was helping with that lengthy presentation attempting to establish the many similarities between Samuel Alito and Sandra Day O'Connor.

It doesn't matter. Liberals are being routed. They can change the lineup, the manager, the coach, but the losing streak never ends. By and large, Republicans aren't even bothering to send in their A team anymore. Alito can start wearing his iPod to the hearings. By the end of the hearings, he'll be addressing the senators as "dude."

For fun, we ought to replace all the Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee with "American Idol" contestants (assuming they wouldn't object to serving on a committee that includes a degenerate like Teddy Kennedy). Democrats would still not be able to persuade a single normal American that Sam Alito is "out of the mainstream."

With all their hysteria about Valerie Plame, I had nearly forgotten what the Democratic Party stands for. It's good to be reminded that the sole item on the Democrats' agenda is abortion.

According to Dianne Feinstein, Roe vs. Wade is critically important because "women all over America have come to depend on it." At its most majestic, this precious right that women "have come to depend on" is the right to have sex with men they don't want to have children with.

There's a stirring principle! Leave aside the part of this precious constitutional right that involves (1) not allowing Americans to vote on the matter, and (2) suctioning brains out of half-born babies. The right to have sex with men you don't want to have children with is not exactly "Give me liberty, or give me death."

In the history of the nation, there has never been a political party so ridiculous as today's Democrats. It's as if all the brain-damaged people in America got together and formed a voting bloc.

The Federalists drafted the greatest political philosophy ever written by man and created the first constitutional republic. The anti-Federalists – or "pre-Democrats, as I call them – were formed to oppose the Constitution, which, to a great extent, remains their position today.

Andrew Jackson, the father of the Democratic Party, may have had some unpalatable goals, but at least they were big ideas. Wipe out the Indians, kill off the national bank and institute a spoils system. Love him or hate him, he never said, "I'll be announcing my platform sometime early next year." The Whigs were formed in opposition to everything Jackson stood for.

The Republican Party emerged from the Whigs when the Whigs waffled on slavery. (They were "pro-choice" on slavery.) The Republican Party was founded expressly as the anti-slavery party, which to a great extent remains their position today.

Having won that one, today's Republican Party stands for life, limited government and national defense. And today's Democratic Party stands for ... the right of women to have unprotected sex with men they don't especially like. We're the Blacks-Aren't-Property/Don't-Kill-Babies party. They're the Hook-Up party.

Leave aside any moral questions about baby-killing – a term I have come to understand the baby-killing party dislikes. Smoking is fun too, but even I wouldn't support a political party whose sole raison d'etre was to eliminate non-smoking sections across the nation. That's not exactly the Magna Carta.

This week's conventional wisdom is that the Democrats weren't even trying to nail Alito at the confirmation hearings. Au contraire! The Democrats were tigers! They proved exactly what they set out to prove.

In fact, Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-Hillary's state, was so deft in his questioning, he even has me convinced that Alito is going to vote to overrule Roe vs. Wade. (And just when I thought I couldn't be more enthusiastic about the nomination!)

I'll go out on a limb and bet that, after the Democrats' expert cross-examination, Judge Alito has lost the support of every single member of NARAL.

The problem for the Democrats is: NARAL members aren't like most people. "Give me liberty or give me the right to have unprotected sex with men I don't want to have a child with" just isn't that attractive a principle in the light of day.
 
*waits for Anne Coulter fireworks to begin*


Has any case against Alito been presented? If the strongest argument is membership in CAP, they should just call for the question - vote along party lines and send it to the Senate.
 
nbcrusader said:
*waits for Anne Coulter fireworks to begin*



but that would be what she wants.

if we just ignore her, she'll go away, if the diet of cocaine and Newport Lights doesn't erase her from existence first.
 
http://news.yahoo.com/s/huffpost/01...5sn37se6sgF;_ylu=X3oDMTA3MXN1bHE0BHNlYwN0bWE-

by Max Blumenthal

If there's another terror attack on American soil, you can forget about civil rights. That's according to Peter Kirsanow, who will testify to Samuel Alito's civil rights credentials before the Senate Judiciary Committee today. Kirsanow is a conservative African-American member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and recent backdoor Bush appointee to the National Labor Relations Board. His mere presence today as a pro-Alito witness raises serious questions about the nominee's willingness to protect established legal precedent on civil rights.

On July 19, 2002, during a U.S. Commission on Civil Rights meeting with Arab-American groups in Detroit, Kirsanow warned that if there's another terrorist attack in America "and they come from the same ethnic group that attacked the World Trade Center, you can forget about civil rights."

Kirsanow continued by urging his audience to drop their opposition to the Patriot Act. After all, he said, if Arabs attack the U.S. again, "not too many people will be crying in their beer if there are more detentions, more stops, more profiling." To Kirsanow, crushing civil rights is just fine as long as "too many people" don't complain..........

.........Compare Kirsanow's language to to that of a 1983 essay, "In Defense of Elitism," published by Prospect, the journal of the Concerned Alumni for Princeton, to which Alito belonged: "People nowadays just don't seem to know their place. Everywhere one turns blacks and hispanics are demanding jobs simply because they're black and hispanic, the physically handicapped are trying to gain equal representation in professional sports, and homosexuals are demanding that government vouchsafe them the right to bear children."

The difference between Kirsanow and the bigots of Princeton's glory days is only skin deep. If he is the best the Republicans can muster to sell Alito's civil rights record, the future of the Supreme Court looks grim at best.
 
Kennedy, Feinstein and Schumer all made themselves look like total morons. Talk about a reach with that CAP bullsh*t. And Schumer Telling him he's avoiding questions. You should hear the audio I heard today from Ruth Bader Ginsberg's hearings. She did the same thing, and Joseph Biden DEFENDED her right to not answer ANY question she didn't feel comfortable answering. This is why people hate politician's and rank them in honesty somewhere between used car salesman and snake oil manufacturers.:eyebrow:
 
Alito Likely To Become A Justice

Samuel A. Alito Jr., an appellate judge who could shift the Supreme Court significantly to the right, appeared headed for the high court yesterday after completing three days of interrogation without a serious misstep.

Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee made a final stab at challenging Alito on presidential powers, the death penalty and other matters. But their efforts sometimes seemed halfhearted, and even the most liberal advocacy groups acknowledged privately that they saw slim hopes of preventing his confirmation later this month in the full Senate, where Republicans hold 55 of the 100 seats.

President Bush called Alito from Air Force One "to congratulate him for doing a great job during the hearings," the White House said. Committee member John Cornyn (R-Tex.) predicted the nominee "will be confirmed," adding that "the unfounded attacks on Judge Alito had about as much traction as bald tires on an icy road."

When the hearings began Monday, liberal activists said their best hope was for Alito to commit a gaffe or lose his composure. When his 18 hours of testimony ended at lunchtime yesterday, and Republican senators scurried to shake his hand, both sides agreed he had done neither.
 
what's a progressive to do in such a situation?

Alito seems perfectly qualified, and reasonably within the mainstream. in these situations, we have to defer to presidential power -- part of winning an election is getting to pick SCOTUS nominees. this was part of what you were voting for when you were in the voting booth in 2000 and 2004.

if you don't believe that women should be treated like cattle, think of that when you vote in 2008.

if you don't believe in the free reign of executive power during a vaguely defined "war" (determined at the whim of the president), think of that when you vote in 2008.

if you believe that America's universities benefit from the addition of women and ethnic minorities, think of that when you vote in 2008.
 
Irvine511 said:
what's a progressive to do in such a situation?

Alito seems perfectly qualified, and reasonably within the mainstream. in these situations, we have to defer to presidential power -- part of winning an election is getting to pick SCOTUS nominees. this was part of what you were voting for when you were in the voting booth in 2000 and 2004.

if you don't believe that women should be treated like cattle, think of that when you vote in 2008.

if you don't believe in the free reign of executive power during a vaguely defined "war" (determined at the whim of the president), think of that when you vote in 2008.

if you believe that America's universities benefit from the addition of women and ethnic minorities, think of that when you vote in 2008.

While I wouldn't use the same descriptions as you, if there are significant changes in the law following Alito's confirmation it could be a boon to Democratic Party. A decision overturning Roe v. Wade (even though it would not materially impact abortion - it would be decided state by state) would mobilize the support base - watch the $$$ flow in!
 
nbcrusader said:


While I wouldn't use the same descriptions as you, if there are significant changes in the law following Alito's confirmation it could be a boon to Democratic Party. A decision overturning Roe v. Wade (even though it would not materially impact abortion - it would be decided state by state) would mobilize the support base - watch the $$$ flow in!



good point.

i also think the country would benefit from a real discussion on abortion.
 
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