Great! I want them to do it the old fashioned way, and use all that speaking time to trot out for the cameras ALL the dirty laundry. I just can't help but think the filibuster will draw lots of press.

Once on the Bench,is it not likely that Alito will

moderate his views?

It is just as likely that Alito will be a Thomas, which is the furthest right and the most unreasonable and unjust.

If he changes it is likely to be further to the right than he was on the 3rd Circuit.

It will be a great legal disaster.

The NYT's didnt call for a filibuster, an editorial did.
Very misleading headline, but par for this blog. Even if they did it would be no surprise, the NYT's is losing circulation as a result of their left wing agenda.

No Matter, he will be confirmed. Any Filibuster will be meet with the constitutional option and the Dems will pay a political price for not confirming an overqualified judge to the bench.

We all know about Ginsberg. She is hardcore left wing but was confirmed, not based on ideology, but qualifications. Why? Because Reps know its the President that gets to appoint the bench, not the minority party.

If the Dems do listen to the kook fringe of their party, you people, it will be another disaster which will ensure a Nov win, AGAIN. Its not the moderate Democrats that keep losing elections, its the far left kook fringe like you people.

Thanks for making it easy!

The idea to filibuster Alito is the proper idea, however, it takes 60 votes to stop cloture, which stops a filibuster.

The republicans have 55 votes, and usually some of the alleged democrats do not go for cloture, such as the Nebraska senator.

So it is NOT the democrats in the main who are responsible, it is the many republicans who are responsible.

Some republicans helped filibuster the bad patriot act, as did some courageous librarians who refused to allow the FBI to take records without a warrant (link here).

Even tho the NYT is correct, hey, they should have been on a lot of this earlier. They waited a year to publish the spy scandal leak.

Pick on the majority party (clue ... its the republicans stupid), they are the ones who demanded Meirs be thrown out without a hearing, and who demanded a right winger hence Alito.

Spell check on 'fillibuster,' on this headline as well as an older one. Or are you doing this on purpose?

Wondering why Democrats don't appear to have a spine? In business I found unmet expectations from those outside the organization were typically based on their failure to understand the inner workings of the organization. Where am I going, why should we, the electorate, have an unmet expecation of "ethically correct politicians"?

According to The Hill, Democratic Congressmen pay betweeen $200,000 to $600,000 as membership dues annually. (I can't find how much Republicans pay.) So, what I understand then, is each must raise, personally or thru donations, about $15,000 to $55,000 each month to maintain their party's support for their ego gratifying position. Party support (is) necssary to keep a job that pays about $150-180,000 per year? Imagine the situation of your frantic Senator, trying to raise $55,000 each and every month from the butcher, baker, candlestick maker in his/her district. Seems like a situation defined for failure unless, unless those generous, but noisy and demanding lobbists and those teasing, "show me the legislation" but publicly minded corporations come to your Congressman's aid. What is a few favors between bedfellows? (Maybe just unwashable and sticky fingers?)

So eventually each Party has winnowed down its pool of "employees" to those who are willing to do what ever is necessary to maintain their employment position. Each generation of employees just a little more willing than their competitors, just a little more loyal. This, a situation much like telemarketing boilerroom operations must find those challenged by the "con", who would steal from trusting old ladies. Oh, and by the way in the winnowing process the Parties have now bound their minnions to the Party, like cannibals forcing others to consume human flesh. Ethically, socially, the employee's career is now irrevocably tied to the Party, the Party is all, regardless of whether the individual agrees with the Party doctrine. The Party leaders wills are supreme, Heil fill-in-the-blank.

Now, if one Party leaders were to finally be so ethically compromised that they scribe an "enemies list", use the resources of surviellence, data mining, wiretapping, using the resources of the FBI, IRS and CIA, to forge dossiers on its own minnions and the functionaries of the opposing Party. If all the actions of all Party functionaries were in the hands of one group, a group in control of the enforcement of laws, or in the un-enforcement of laws, what could such a group accomplish? If a majority of both Parties functionaries were puppets, ethically weak, addicted-to-position, with a multiplicity of bones stuffed in many, many closets, frightened of (and, yet excited by) the thought of having very butch men as roommates in a Federal prision. If those weak willed functionaries chose to simply "ride it out", hoping against hope that the next election cycle would relieve them their leaders, allow them to fail with dignity, get the brass ring of pension, health care and title.

With these assumptions in mind, now look at the behavior of your Senators. Can you see how orchestrated each false contest is played out in Congress, how certain Democrats are "allowed" to take a stand here, compromise there? Couldn't figure out why Senator X said this, but voted that, equivocated on this, failed at that? Try a new perspective. Upset with your Party functionairies? Well, you voted for them and your expectations are your problem, aren't they?

Your unmet expecations are created by the false assumption that your Congressman is working for you and the other people who elected him/her. If you look at your Congressman as a Party functionary, you might admire his/her tireless fight furthering his/her Party's dogma, fighting against the agenda of the opposing Party, his/her unceasing advancement of their Party's continued abated and supreme existance. Change your perspective and you might find a brave, back-door Party soldier, uncompromising in their abilty to compromise the People's business.

So, as you search for that spine, remember, only vertebrates have spines. Likely, your Party functionary has had to mutate over many years to function in the Party driven environment, developing a very hard outer shell in order to replace that disolute, dissolved spine. Over the years your Congressman has been force to mutate into something like you might find cowering under a rock.

GrayCat #7

It is simple. The majority party controls the house and the senate. Always.

The majority party exercises the power, not the minority party. Always.

The simple reality is that when the people want to punish the congress for wrongs, the majority party is the one to punish.

Now for the final clue. The majority party is the republican party, and the doctrine of accountability says the people should vote them out. The opinion of the people expressed in this way is supreme, and spinal.

Alito is one of the most qualified judges to get nominated for the SC, and he'll be confirmed pretty easily. As a conservative, I'd love to see the donks filibuster, but even they won't fall into that trap - they'd get nuked and lose the filibuster for good.

But Dredd has it just right, accountability is taken up at the ballot box. If the Dems think Alito is Satan himself, make it into an election issue. As Senator Graham said. "we'll clean your clocks" in that debate, but go ahead and make my day

Thanks Bobby! You are so correct!

The next SC nominee needs to be a conservative African-American woman. I want to see a fight!

I want the Dems to be seen as the new plantation owners that they are.

Sure are a lot of freepers chirping here!

The key issue with Alito is that he believes in an imperial presidency rather than a balanced government. Does anyone—Democrat, Republican, or whatever—dispute that? Yes, love ‘em or hate ‘em, the other elements of his extremism are important, but they pale beside this one. A vote for Alito is a vote for virtual dictatorship. A failure to filibuster is an admission of willingness to watch our democracy become a virtual dictatorship.

What I don’t understand is why even Republicans would want that. No matter how delusional or drunk with power they are, they have to know that what goes around comes around. The only way it makes any sense to me is that radical conservatives believe there will never be another Democratic president, and that any future Republican president will continue to cater to them. Does anyone have a better explanation? I mean, we fought a revolution to throw off a foreign dictatorship and embrace democracy. Now we’re getting ready voluntarily to throw off that democracy and empower a domestic dictator. Why?

The most discouraging feature of this whole sorry spectacle is the fear that our elected representatives will lack the courage to put the saving of our constitutional democracy above personal expediency or pet ideological issues. If the Democrats do not filibuster, and the moderate Republicans do not help them by preventing cloture, then how will any of them be able to look at themselves in the mirror? And if we don’t subsequently vote them out of office if they betray our democracy, how will we be able to look at ourselves in the mirror?

Please! Please someone, somehow find a way to appeal to their character and their courage.

My God Paul, your really digging deep. I can post under a different name too. Quit wasting your time. The neocons are falling like dominoes and soon you will see the truth too I hope for your sake. Wake up from the Dream!

Paul & Bobby presume that Republicans were elected without cheating. THey also ignore that more Americans are represented by the 45 Dems in the Senate, than the 55 Republicans. As usual, they are wrong on both accounts.

As to Troll Li'l Ricky, who said:

The NYT's didnt call for a filibuster, an editorial did. Very misleading headline, but par for this blog.

Man, alive, are you a dope. That's an unsigned editorial from the NYTimes editorial board. Do you have knowledge of *anything* or are you simply a ditto-spigot?

Even if they did it would be no surprise, the NYT's is losing circulation as a result of their left wing agenda.

Yes, that "left wing agenda" of having Judith Miller write one false report after another leading the country to war certainly was shameful!

We all know about Ginsberg. She is hardcore left wing but was confirmed, not based on ideology, but qualifications. Why?

Why? Because Orin Hatch gave his approval for her in consultation with Bill Clinton. Nobody on the Dem side gave such approval to Bush for Alito.

They did, however, give such approval to Meiers, which your guys would not (hypocritally as usual) allow the courtesy of an up or down vote as you argue a President should receive as a courtesy.

I will also add, by the way, that Clinton was legitimately elected as President, and neither was he a criminal actively engaged in boht war crimes and shredding the Constitution of the United States of America.

Such behavior (a disgrace to the United States of America, I might add) by George W. Bush has permanently revoked any "right" he might have had to put someone on the Supreme Court.

Happy to see ya here for comic relief as usual, however, Ricky!

Senator Robert Byrd has just announced his support for Alito, along with Tim Johnson of SD. Read Byrd's reasoning for his decision:

http://byrd.senate.gov/n...room/news_jan/alito.html

I wrote to him on his webmail form, even though I am not a WVian:
Senator Byrd,

I am amazed, disturbed, confounded, and extremely disappointed in your unfathomable decision to support Samuel Alito's nomination to the Supreme Court.

It was nearly three years ago that you gave one of the most impassioned and poignant speeches of our time on the Senate floor. You chastised the Senate for abdicating their responsibility in checking President Bush's folly in rushing to war in Iraq. You were right on the money about the perilous slope of allowing arrogance and narrow-mindedness govern our nation - how can you come to any other conclusion but that Alito's presence on the Supreme Court will further embolden President Bush to break laws and ignore the Constitution?!

This is a grave day, when one of the Senators I had counted on the most to be steadfast in opposing a nominee who clearly supports the supreme executive authority of the presidency, cannot see clearly this moment of peril.

You said three years ago that the Senate was "passively mute." With Alito on the bench, it will no longer matter whether Congress is mute or not. You will have castrated yourselves.

Filibuster Benito alito . . . . Oh No! Jody, Buffy is Pregnant . . . .

P.S. Tell Mr French . . . .