ConfirmThem

Does this guy ever stop crying? How can a SC Justice act this way?

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/ABA_BREYER?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&T...

More than any other liberal justice, Breyer has whined and moaned all summer long. It is as if he wants the new conservative block to hate him. Does he really think that such an arrogant strategy will encourage more consensus, or does he just want to humiliate Kennedy into being more open to his "progressive" agenda?

http://public.cq.com/docs/cqt/news110-000002565848.html

Majority Leader Harry Reid confidently predicted that Bush will not use his constitutional authority to fill top jobs without Senate confirmation. “We have an agreement with the president,” said Reid, D-Nev. “We don’t think there will be any.”

Privately, a leadership aide said amicable negotiations are under way, but a series of pro forma sessions during August remains a possibility.

A White House spokeswoman said Reid was wrong. “We do not have an agreement,” said Emily Lawrimore. “We don’t ever comment on the potential for recess appointments.”

Jim Manley, a Reid spokesman, said Democrats have worked with Republicans to clear nominees this week to high-level posts at the Treasury, Energy and Education departments, as well as two ambassadors, 56 generals and five admirals. Committees are working to clear other non-controversial nominees.

“In view of this work and our view that the process is working well, the issue of recesses should be moot,” Manley said. “If, despite this work, we see that the president still plans to recess [appoint] controversial nominees, Sen. Reid may need to keep the Senate in pro forma session during the August break.”

However, rollcall describes this agreement, if it exists, as pertaining to executive nominations, not judicial nominations.

At this point, there is no need for any judicial recess-appointments. Southwick seems assured of a full Senate vote in September, and a recess-appointment before then could cause Reid to renege on that vote. Keisler can be recess-appointed in December if Leahy and Reid continue to block him this fall. There also is no reason to recess-appoint people like Kethledge, Murphy and Stone because each of them has blue-slip problems that could be used as an excuse by Reid to stop all further judicial confirmations.

Rove's comments are exactly on the money........and then he proceeded to completely forget about them prior to the 2006 elections. Had Rumsfeld been fired around Memorial Day & judges been emphasized second only to nat'l security, things would've gone much better, albeit w/Allen, Burns, Abramahoff & Foley still being big problems.

Breyer needs to be subpeonad by the Jud Comm to see if he's violating the duties of his office and attempting to improperly influence the nomination, hearings & confirmations of federal judges. I wish someone like Sessions or Coburn (or Brownback; tailor-made issue for him) would release a statement the next time there's talk of "investigating Sam or JGR, or adding SCOTUS seats.

Exactly right. Southwick gets a floor vote, recess Keisler (and only him), Keth & Murph are dead anyway, and for crissweetsake pick the two best from the Webb-Warner list.

Not ideal, but let's salvage something from this disaster, unlike the post-Alito era.

I don't think those 2 issues would have helped much in the Senate. We might have prevented the loss of 15-20 House seats, but the only Senate seat that I feel that was affected by Rumsfeld was the Missouri loss.

GOP leadership in a 50/50 Senate might have made a difference. Then again, in 2005, a 55/45 Senate confirmed 7 nominees, of which 1 was on her deathbed.

Not a single Republican senator, not even Brownback or Coburn, let alone Hutchinson, Collins or Snowe, ever has once pointed out how Neilsen was filibustered by the Dems until it was quietly leaked that she was terminally ill, then VOILA!, unanimously confirmed.

If that doesn't tell you what's important to United States senators nothing will. Of course, it's also just another nail in the political coffin of Bill Frist, as well.

Agreed, about Rummy. Maybe dumping him could've possibly saved Allen and/or Burns from themselves, but that's about it. I always heard stem-cell research was the big issue in Missouri.

Breyer always struck me as the least objectionable of the libs, but I guess his true colors are coming out with the revelation that he is a massive sore loser. I guess he just pretended to be more moderate than his colleagues while he thought things would go mostly his way.

"UPDATE": on actually reading the article on Breyer, its not nearly as bad as the stuff that he said to Sen. Specter. While he does start out whining about being in the minority (how do you think Scalia and Thomas and Rehnquist have felt for the past DECADE? and while Scalia has never shied from emptying both barrels in dissent, but that's something rather different. and Rehnquist especially was a paragon of dignity when he didn't carry the day, quit unlike the libs this year).

I was going to add to the "UPDATE" that I didn't feel as badly towards Breyer for this article because of this quote:

"When I look at it objectively, I think how I wish I'd won, but I also think, not a bad system," Breyer said.

"I'm not going to be in the majority all the time. How I wish I were, but that's the system. That's called the rule of law," he said."

So I may have overreacted a bit to this article, which may well be an instance of the reporter putting his spin into Breyer's mouth. But his whining to Specter was still appalling.

I agree, the entire deal with the 6th circuit was and still is completely reprehensible. But to be completely honest, I can't really blame Levin.

As I understand it, Spencer Abraham tried to pigeonhole Clinton into nominating his choice, and when that didn't work, squashed both the nominees to the 2 circuit seats.

I stumbled on this possibility, though:

http://media.www.michigandaily.com/media/storage/paper851/news/2001/11/0...

One alternative would give the Clinton nominees one of four Michigan vacancies on the 6th Circuit Court and the other a seat on the U.S. District Court in eastern Michigan.

Bush"s nominees would then fill the three other Michigan vacancies on the 6th Circuit.

Obviously, this is something we've talked about here, but this article seems to indicate Levin/Stabenow would be on board.

There are now only 2 vacancies left. Now there will probably be 4 if the Dems win in 08.

I believe that they are counting the 2 CCAs from MI and the 2 DJs from E-MI to get to 4.

Or he could be referring to the new judgeships that Leahy is bound to add if a Democrat wins in 2008.

If I recall correctly, Leahy filed a bill in May to add new judgeships, with the proviso that the new judgeships would not come into being until after 2008.