Alito predictions

Non issue.

He's confirmed. Regardless of head cout or roll call vote he's confirmed.

Three more years to get 1 or 2 more justices. Can it happen? Only time will tell. John Paul Stevens is 85 and you never know who may come up with personal issues or desire to step down.

I think Bush is going to end up with three picks on the court.
 
I predict Joe Biden will make a complete ass of himself during the hearings and be touted by democrats as a champion of freedom loving patriots.

I'm sorry, I meant abortion loving...
 
I predict Alito transforms into a giant lizard creature, and Howard Dean, armed with an AK-47, a knife, and his rippling muscles, has to take him down before he destroys the Washington Monument.
 
[quote name='Kirin Lemon']I predict Alito transforms into a giant lizard creature, and Howard Dean, armed with an AK-47, a knife, and his rippling muscles, has to take him down before he destroys the Washington Monument.[/QUOTE]
Wow, What's the over/under on that?
 
[quote name='Kirin Lemon']I predict Alito transforms into a giant lizard creature, and Howard Dean, armed with an AK-47, a knife, and his rippling muscles, has to take him down before he destroys the Washington Monument.[/QUOTE]

Finally, a motherfucker with some vision! :D
 
Well, if he learned anything from watching the Bork tapes and altering his strategy appropriately (that is, learning the strategy of not saying anything substantial), he won't have to say much of anything to get in easily.

His biggest hurdles include his legal opinions on the extent of executive power, as well as his failure to recuse himself from several cases which he had promised to. In the end, this matters to me more than abortion (the legal freedom to do so is, IMO, crucial to maintaining a fervent constituency for many on the right, and thus banning it will do more harm than good). It's a shame I'm so fucking busy this week, as I'd like to give this more attention that I reasonably can.
 
The circus has begun. I never understood the grandstanding of all the committee members before the hearing actually starts. Don't they get enough TV time to vomit out their prejudice on a daily basis? Just start of with questioning, there's no need to give every member 10 minutes of soapboxing. Alternating between handjobs and ass reaming really illustrates the fact that senators are incapable of looking or acting with any objectivity whatsoever.
 
Is he qualified? Yes, mostly. Are his opinions representative of the values of our society and the judicial mainstream? No. I think he's dangerous. Just because you can show a constitutional basis for your opinions, doesn't mean thats all that matters. If his opinion has a constitutional basis, but there's a stronger constitutional basis for an argument that goes against his opinion, I'm not sure if he'd be able to reach the latter.
 
[quote name='alonzomourning23'] Just because you can show a constitutional basis for your opinions, doesn't mean thats all that matters.[/QUOTE]

Yes, screw the Constitution. Liberals want what feels good to them and serves their special interests.

Mainly the liberal sacraments of abortion on demand and discrimination by another name.
 
PAD, please read the following sentence:

If his opinion has a constitutional basis, but there's a stronger constitutional basis for an argument that goes against his opinion, I'm not sure if he'd be able to reach the latter.
Click to expand...

Two arguments can have a constitutional basis, he seems like would not side with a view he opposes even if the other side has a stronger basis in the constitution.
 
personally, PAD, I was drawn to this portion of alonzo's statement:

[quote name='alonzo']Are his opinions representative of the values of our society and the judicial mainstream?[/QUOTE]

Frankly, I don't care about judicial mainstream. I care about defending and interpreting the constitution for what it is, not what a majority feel is correct. That's the whole reason for the existence of the judiciary, alonzo. Sometimes 'the people' or what you call 'the mainstream' are wrong and need to be held to the constitution's principles.

Values change, principles shouldn't. Just remember it wan't long ago that people valued the Macarena, Ricky Martin, public hanging, and witch burning.
 
[quote name='alonzomourning23']PAD, please read the following sentence:
Two arguments can have a constitutional basis, he seems like would not side with a view he opposes even if the other side has a stronger basis in the constitution.[/QUOTE]

I have no idea what brings you to this conclusion. Perhaps you can enlighten us with an example. BTW, I think the american bar association would disagree with you on your assumption, and so would the congress that approved his nomination to the appellate court to begin with.
 
Frankly, I don't care about judicial mainstream. I care about defending and interpreting the constitution for what it is, not what a majority feel is correct. That's the whole reason for the existence of the judiciary, alonzo. Sometimes 'the people' or what you call 'the mainstream' are wrong and need to be held to the constitution's principles.

Values change, principles shouldn't. Just remember it wan't long ago that people valued the Macarena, Ricky Martin, public hanging, and witch burning.
Click to expand...

What does this have to do with mainstream understandings of the constitution?

I have no idea what brings you to this conclusion. Perhaps you can enlighten us with an example. BTW, I think the american bar association would disagree with you on your assumption, and so would the congress that approved his nomination to the appellate court to begin with.
Click to expand...

That same accusation was made against him by members of congress today.
 
[quote name='bmulligan']Perhaps you can enlighten us with an example.[/QUOTE]
In the court currently, I'd imagine any individual justice's thoughts offer nuanced views of the constitution. It's easiest to start from the most well-known extreme of constitutional philosophy (and the easiest to identify), Antonin Scalia's (on a completely unrelated note, a NYT article noted that Scalia was the "funniest" judge, eliciting remarkably more laughter (intentionally, mind you) that Ginsburg, who only garnered two laughs the entirety of 2005 (or perhaps 4)).

Scalia is well-known as a constitutional literalist (I dunno if that's precisely the wording, but I'm not a legal scholar). Although he acknowledges amendments, he views the scope of government as not extending beyond the precise wording of the constitution. His argument against abortion rights is merely that it isn't mentioned in the constitution. Well, he certainly is right in that regard, although that doesn't make his philosophy an unarguable truth to our state. Those who consider the constitution to be more of a "living, breathing" document (OT: I hate that phrase) believe that, even though the constitution does not specifically say something, it may have protections or be illegal as a result of other aspects of the constitution. The right to privacy could be the aspect used to grant these freedoms, and both the flexible and literal interpretations of the constitution are legally viable.

I have the strange suspicion that I've spent a good deal of time arguing something that's pretty much common sense, and bmulligan's just trying to get alonzo's goat (another phrase I hate). Eh, better to post than deprive you of my genius. :roll:

The "literalist/constructionist" dichotomy has me thinking of christians: those evangelicals, pentecostals, and more atavistic faiths who consider the bible to be the precise, literal word of god (and the same people who blubber about when you ask how we got minorities out of Adam and Eve, who were undeniably white :rofl: ); OTOH, you have your christian hippies and ideological fence-sitters: the Jesuits, Episcopalians, and Methodists who tend to view the old testament as a metaphor for living one's life, and certainly not literal. This isn't to say that I view Scalia's literalist view as similarly atavistic (though I don't agree with it), but rather the contentions about how a single document can be interpreted seems to have its built-in parallels.
 
alito-bush-wiretap.jpg
 
Whatever happened to the "up and down" vote on Bush's last judicial nominee? Oh, that's right. It was the REPUBLICANS that railroaded that effort.
 
It's hard to give an up or down vote in the full Senate to someone didn't even appear before the Judical Committee, get a vote from that Committee that allowed the nominee to be considered by the full Senate and oh.... withdrew their name from consideration before any of the above were even scheduled.
 
Did I say Democrats? Did I say Republicans?

No. I did not.

Hard to give a vote to someone that withdraws their name before confirmation hearings isn't it?

Downright impossible I'd say.
 
Delightful; the classic PAD semantic rebuttal.

To clarify: PAD is outraged that democrats would dare ask questions of a supreme court nominee, yet doesn't take either party to task for shipping Harriet Miers outta town before she even got to the hearings.

I suppose that, in the interest of not delaying the inevitable, let's just send congress home for an extended vacation, eliminate the Alito hearings, and merely provide the American public with his robe fitting on the national news. I hope that you can at least admit that, if you come to terms with your outrage and disdain for any question or comment made by someone with a (D) next to their name, that the laughable hypothetical above is precisely what you're upset is not happening.
 
My disdain has nothing to do with the "D" before the name of the questioner. It's the ridiculousness of the question, or lack thereof that's infuriating. Biden and Kennedy rambled on for at least 10 minutes without even asking a question, using their time to grandstand as usual. I think Alito performed marvelously today from what little I saw. He showed up for a gunfight with an M-1.
 
[quote name='mykevermin']Tom Coburn and Dick Durbin are my favorite senators of the day so far, but for vastly different reasons.[/QUOTE]

I haven't been following it today - why do you say that?
 
Because Dick Durbin's first question of the day, the most important, pressing, theme of inquiry......

Had to do with protecting terrorists from electronic eavesdropping.

Yep, The Turbin is very predictable and oh so very impressive. Mykey, if this is your idea of excellence you're bound to fail once you leave the womb of your 10 year college education.
 
Heaven forbid we actually pay attention to civil liberties. If you agree with the President's reasoning on this, his powers are nigh unlimited because we're at "war on terrorism". No reason to have a Patriot Act if the President can authorize whatever he wants. No need to have any judicial oversight when the Executive Branch can act unchecked.

Let's just say, for the sake of argument, that we Americans agree to give up our rights regarding warrantless wiretaps for the duration of the war on terrorism. When will that war be over? When Iraq has a stable democracy? When there are no more insurgents fighting US troops? When our troops come home from Iraq? When there are no more terrorist attacks for 6 months? A year? Five years?

This is a war that will never be declared officially "over" and I refuse to surrender my constitutional rights to the cause.
 
I'm very concerned with the civil liberties of Al Qaeda. We truly need an Al Qaeda Bill of Rights.

- No surveilence.
- No interception of communications.
- No harsh treatment once captured.
- Full religous protections including dietary meals and sensitivity to their cultural differences.
- Asking them pretty please? Please tell us where the bomb is? C'mon! I'll be your best friend! Ohhhh you're mean!

MBE, no one cares about your phone calls to the chicks with dicks hotline, you placing your pot order or setting up your meetings for the Young Socialist Pioneers of America.
 
ugh. Alito commented about the planned parenthood vs casey decision (spousal notification). He agreed that a small minority of women would suffer significant damage from such a law (even after the expception for woman who state they feared violence), but that since the majority would not then it did not place an undue burden on women seeking an abortion.
 
In light of the discovery that the NSA was spying on antiwar activists who had nothing to do with terrorists, I'd say that is a very important point. Bush clearly broke the law, and anyone who sits on the Supreme Court should view Bush's actions as illegal.
 
BREAKING: Specter Stonewalls on Concerned Alumni of Princeton Docs
Just now, Sen. Kennedy requested that Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter issue a subpoena to the Library of Congress for documents related to the right-wing group Concerned Alumni of Princeton, of which Alito was a member. The documents contain “clipping files, background information, correspondence and memoranda, financial records, fund-raising material, lists of supporters, minutes of meetings, issues and other items.” The documents are critical because Alito now claims he can’t remember anything about his involvement with the group.

Specter refused to rule on the request, claiming it’s the first time the request had even been made. Actually, Sen. Kennedy sent a letter on December 22 making the request:

It is likely that a formal request for access directly from you on behalf of the Committee would be received with more cooperation than the CRS has received so far, and we urge you to make such a request as soon as possible.

The letter was also reported widely by the Associated Press.

When Kennedy noted that he had sent the letter, Specter replied that there is a big difference between “sending” a letter and someone “receiving” it. He then banged his gavel loudly.

UPDATE: Sen. Kennedy just introduced Specter’s reply to his December 22 letter into the record. So there is proof that Specter did get the letter.

UPDATE II — VIDEO: We’ve got the video of the heated exchange. Watch it in Quicktime streaming here.

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/01/11/specter-stonewalls/

For Arlen Specter claiming to be a moderate, he sure is bending over backward for the right-wing to ignore Alito's record to get him confirmed.
 
Once again for all the slow conservatives, no one is saying that the NSA can't wiretap people with suspected ties to terrorist BUT THEY HAVE TO GET A WARRANT.

I know the conservatives aren't really that slow. They just don't have a leg to stand on in this argument. Bush violated the law. Period. End of sentence. When can we vote for impeachment?
 
[quote name='MrBadExample']Once again for all the slow conservatives, no one is saying that the NSA can't wiretap people with suspected ties to terrorist BUT THEY HAVE TO GET A WARRANT.

I know the conservatives aren't really that slow. They just don't have a leg to stand on in this argument. Bush violated the law. Period. End of sentence. When can we vote for impeachment?[/QUOTE]

Only if Dubya switches from (R) to (D).
 
[quote name='PittsburghAfterDark']It's hard to give an up or down vote in the full Senate to someone didn't even appear before the Judical Committee, get a vote from that Committee that allowed the nominee to be considered by the full Senate and oh.... withdrew their name from consideration before any of the above were even scheduled.[/QUOTE]

FYI all Supreme Court nominations go to the full Senate even without a recommendation for confirmation. For example, Clarence Thomas did not get recommeded by the Judiciary Committee, although he did eventually get confirmed.

[quote name='PittsburghAfterDark']Because Dick Durbin's first question of the day, the most important, pressing, theme of inquiry......

Had to do with protecting terrorists from electronic eavesdropping.

Yep, The Turbin is very predictable and oh so very impressive.[/QUOTE]

Your characterization of warrantless wiretapping of Americans in what looks to be a direct violation of the relevant law as "protecting terrorists" is laughable. This has already been discussed quite a bit, obviously, and you obviously know that the NSA can get wiretaps through the FISA Court and even make them without approval if they seek approval within 72 hours afterwards. Couching the issue in the fear-mongering terms that you do is quite disingenuous.
 
[quote name='alonzomourning23']The national bar associations president stated that his organization does not support judge alito and finds him a threat to civil rights.[/QUOTE]

Link?
 
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