Mickey

Damn, if only I had some relevant experience......like judging horse shows. I hear that is your ticket to the bigs in this town.

"...the mother, the baby, the father, etc." Who is "etc"??? Are we going to take a vote among grandparents, uncles, aunts, third cousins, politicians, etc? I can see why the person in whose womb the fetus sits has a say but why a father or anyone else? Is there some sort of "right to fatherhood" in the constitution? Woman's womb=community property?

Deadwood Curb Your Enthusiasm Rome Weeds 24

I take it you practice total abstinence then?

Is that really the case? Where can we look that up?

I never figured you for a closet moral relativist. There is hope for you yet.

Frist's position was that they only needed a simple majority to change the rules. You are right in that they claimed that it was only something they would do to with regard to appointments. The fact is though, the only thing keeping them from going further and elimenate the filibuster in other contexts is discretion and after the Schiavo freak out, I no longer credit them with having any discretion.

You may be right given the liklihood of a senate filibuster by democrats but what if Frist decides to change the rules and get rid of the filibuster? If it went backto the states, you would have states where it is illegal in all circumstances, states where it is legal under all circumastances and a bunch somewhere in between. Can you imagine the reaction by the religious right, newly emboldened after at last obtaining victory over Roe, to "babies being murdered" in New York, California, Rhode Island, Conn., Mass., Ill., Oregon, Washington, New Jersey, Maryland, etc? There would be a huge amount of political pressure to pass a federal law and the only thing standing in the way of that would be the Senate filibuster and we have seen how much the Republican majority respects filibusters.

laugh of the day fer shur

I long ago accepted it yet still I sail the stormy seas of the discontented. Sounds bad but I used to sail the stormy seas of the incontinent so this is a distinct improvement.

All about votes. Without abortion, the republican party would have a lot more trouble in the south and midwest than they do now. Other than the politics however, you are right, it won't even the deficit or end terrorism or even fuel our cars. It does however allow us to enjoy such intellectual spectacles as "Justice Sunday".

Its not spin, abortion is legal. It may become illegal but for now, it is legal so that is the term I used and it was the correct term. Besides, in this context that is kind of a meaningless distinction. The issue I was discussing is why a nominee would want to avoid answering that question. The answer is simple, he wants to be confirmed and answering that question could endanger his confirmation....so he avoids the question entirely. How would his answer conceivably endanger his confirmation? Simple, there are moderate republicans who might vote against a nominee under those circumstances. Will it happen? Why wouldn't it? If Roe is overturned, there would be nothing stopping states from enacting what ever laws they want on this issue. Congress could even write their own legislation and they certainly would. With Sentors like Sam Brownback and Rick Santorum leading the way, you can bet they will. Their law would be a federal one preventing liberal states from keeping it legal. With the right court, there is nothing stopping it. I assume Roberts would definitely overturn Roe becuase I have no doubt that Geroge Bush believes he will otherwise, he wouldn't have nominated him. Yeah, George could be wrong as other Presidents have been when predicting the future decisions of their nominees. However, Presidents have, on the whole, been right about their nominees and so statistically at least, Bush is likely right about this guy, he will vote to overturn Roe.

"Senators trying to control the judiciary..." I assume you are talking about Senator Frist and the Schiavo gang of judicial pirates?

The people on the Senate Judiciary Committee conduct the hearings. The Senators on the Committee all get to participate. Then they will vote on whether to send the nomination out of committee for a floor vote of the entire senate. If they don't, its called "killed in committee" and it never makes it to the senate floor. Sometimes they compromise and send it to the floor but without a recommendation from the committee one way or another. I think they may have done that with Thomas, not sure. The Senate has subpoena power so an appearance before a Senate hearing isn't voluntary. The testimony given is under oath so a lie could be punished. Likewise, failure to appear can lead to a "contempt of congress" charge. Appearing but not answering a question, absent a recognized privilege, has the same effect as not appearing and so could also lead to contempt charges. I do not beleive that this notion that a judge can't speak about cases that in the exercise of sufficient imagination could conceivably come before the court in the future is at all a recognized privilege such as doctor-patient confidentiality. There is an ethical obligation of a sitting judge not to talk about cases before him now and it may extend to cases in lower courts expected to eventually get to that judge on appeal but I am not aware of it extending as far as Supreme Court nominees have taken it. Nominess from both parties have used it and the Senate hasn't had the belly to challenge it by threatening contempt charges. So they do this dance every nomination.

He can nominate someone simply because they like Bud Light if he wants to. The reason he doesn't want to answer that particular question is because there are a number of moderate republicans who support, to one degree or another, keeping abortion basically legal. Those senators would be in trouble with their constituents if they voted for a Judge who was clearly and on the record as saying he was going to get rid of all legal abortions. In fact, enough of them might cross the aisle to defeat the nomination. If the nominee never answers that question, the moderates can go ahead and confirm him. When he does then get rid of legal abortions the senator can credibly claim to their constituents, "Don't blame me, I didn't know he would overturn Roe..."

The "security" they had was to be hauled off and jailed without trial, tortured and killed. I think they had order, not security. Do they have even less security and order now? I truly don't know. As a material threat to us, assuming for the sake of argument that Saddam was a such a threat, we had a right to attack and remove him. We did. Why do we have to fix things now before we leave? Lets say that there is a whack job living next door to you who every so often fires a gun into your window. You would be justified in going over there and beating him with a stick to end his ability to threaten you. Would you then be responsible for providing for his family now facing financial ruin due to your having done in their bread winner? Would you feel responsible for fixing any furniture you broke in the process? If the creep's family said to you, with regard to your offered help, "thanks but no thanks" woud you still push this help on them? I totally have not mad up my mind on this. I too feel sort of responsible for the troubles there and feel like we should stay and fix things but I am not so sure that morally we really do have a duty to stay. Of course, an argument could be made that we have no duty to obey any moral imperative here at all even if we decide that doing so would require us to stay. There was a threat, we took him and his regime out so we are done. Time to go. If some other freak rises there, we go back and do it again. That is how that argument would go. In a Macciavelian sense, that might be the best thing for our own national security. If it were so, should we endanger our security trying to be "moral"? Again, I have no clue, I am just thinking about it.

Actually, the title of that thread was "Laura Bush Killed a Guy", I never called her a murderer, that is what the folks on the right immediately accused me of doing even though every word of my post was absolutely accurate, she in fact killed a guy. Kind of like how I started a thread here stating "Al Gore is a good man" and the reaction accused me of giving him a public blow job and/or nominating him for sainthood. The point of that long ago thread by the way was to show that you can say something totally factually correct and still not really be telling the truth. Without context, a statement compeltely true on its own can leave an entirely false impression of the truth. Laura didn't kill a guy on purpose, she wasn't grossly reckless even, it was just an accident. I am sure that if Hillary did it, we would still be talking about Hillary the assassin despite the accidental nature of the incident but that is a whole other issue. "Clinton lied under oath" is one of those kinds of statements that, without context, loses a lot of truth. Ditto Gore's charitable gifts in 1997. Calling the Bush girls drunks is like that. Sure, it is true that they have absolutely had some issues with the law on that score but again without context, that info can be meaningless. Besides, I am a big fan of drunken sluts anyway so I can't stand it when drunken sluttery is maligned by those who just don't understand their social value.

That is what it looked like to me. Josh did a square-in and JP threw an out pattern right on his break. They were clearly arguing all the way back to the sideline over which route was supposed to have been run. He was wideopen so if they had been on the right page, it would have been an easy first.

So many moles to whack and so little time. On a "side" note, are we really morally obligated to stabilize it? Wasn't it a pretty twisted wreck to begin with? I know the poverbial trains ran on time but other than that, wasn't it a nightmare of oppression and lord knows what long before we ever crossed the border? I'm still struggling over what the best course in Iraq might be, not that it matters. We are going to follow whatever course Bush wants until '08 anyway.

I know you're just having some fun but there is a serious side to this little episode. I think my exact words were "Al Gore is a good man". I don't think that could be fairly termed as either a public blow job or a nomination for sainthood as several posters have characterized it. Frankly, it ended up being more of an invitation for the more viscious and mean spirited here to show their true colors. The guy is a nobody now, a political non-entity and still, even when he does something very good, he has to be attacked and on a personal basis at that. This is exactly why politics and this board have become so polarized. It isn't enough to show that a guy is wrong, you have to show that he is an !@#$ and that is wife is a B word and that he "...doesn't care about black people".

I believe the established rule is that the first person to bring up a Hitler reference in a debate around here loses. I'm not sure I see a connection between Al Gore and Hitler, maybe you could enlighten me as to the similarities between the worst mass murderer in the history of creation and a former vice prez who funded the rescue of 270 people from a hospital destroyed in a flood. I don't know if you have noticed or not but there has been quite a few threads of late regarding this hurricane thing, maybe you heard that there was a spot of bad weather in the gulf coast area a few weeks ago? In that context, I see no reason why a post from me on the hurricane involving the rescue of 270 people aided by a well known political figure would be as out of left field as a post regarding Adolph Hitler's industrial relations policies. I guess it is okay to post a thread taking shots at the rescue efforts of Sean Penn but not okay to post a complimentary thread regarding the effective effort made by Al Gore. I keep forgetting how nasty, mean spirited denigration gets a wide berth around here while anything complimentary to a democrat, even if only remotely so, has to be set upon by rabid wolves. Gore=Bad. There, is that more acceptable?

Oh the whole thing is just silly. It is the kind of rain puddle deep cheap shot that has so coarsened public debate. Yeah, both sides do it that doesn't make it an less objectionable. I knew the very idea that Al Gore might have done something nice just wasn't going to be allowed here. The guy helps rescue 270 people from a flooded hospital and rather than just shut up or, god forbid, say "gee, that was nice", the knee jerk reaction is to find something, anything, even obscure tax records, to take the opportunity to say that Gore is a dick. *sigh*

Typical, caught in the pettiest of partisan attacks, you try and play your favorite, intellectually bankrupt defense, that the other guy is a partisan. It would have taken too much time to read the article you cited, the whole article? For example, did you read the part where it says they donated $52,558 in 1992 or $35,530 in 1997? Did you read the part where most of their donations in the year you claim they were cheapskates they donated to their church and other charities in contributions that can't be itemized? Did you read the part where in that year they had two kids at Harvard and a third in private school? That probably cost about 140 grand of their 200 right there. A quick google reveals that they gave over 15 grand in 1999, more than the much wealthier Bush gave in 1996 when his income was over twice what the Gore's made. To be fair, the Bush family did give over 300k in 1998 but then again, they made $18.4 million so that was only 1.8% of their income. I am sure that you have pointed out what a cheap skate the Bushes are everytime anyone has ever posted anything positive about him being that you're not a partisan and the rest of us are. I started this thread with a simple statement, Gore did something nice in helping to rescue 270 people. That wasn't a slam against anyone else, it wasn't a political manifesto, it was just an unreported fact on this board so I reported it. To you, his act of kindness fades to nothing balanced against an obscure tax record from 8 years ago.

Since when have you started channeling Ann Coulter? Yes, calling a guy a "good man" for helping to rescue 270 people in the wake of the worst natural disaster in the history of the US is tantamount to a public blow job as opposed to measured and warranted praise. What was I thinking? Becasue you are such a balanced non-partisan, perhaps you would be willing to be as quick with your praise as your criticism or at least, in this case, publish all of his charitable giving rather than just what he gave in a year specially selected to make him look bad. Further, if you were interested in being fair, you might examine his entire tax return that year along with his family expenses to see if he had more than $300 to give.

Yes, I recall vividly your many posts skewering all the speakers, including the Prez, at the Republican Convention last summer for not being able to complete a single sentence without mentioning 9/11. Talk about the shameful use of a disaster for political gain....it was a political convention on national television after all. Contrast that with Gore's good deed about which he has refused interviews. He did what he did as a non-office holder who is not running for anything. The Prez was most certainly an office holder and a candidate and on national TV no less. As for blatant use of disaster for political gain, Bush beats Gore handily....for real this time.