Owen, Rogers Brown and Pryor have been confirmed. Do you TRUST

[in_cog_ni_to]

the repuke 7 of the gang of 14 to uphold their end of this bargain? I don't. All the repukes have to do is claim the Democrats haven't held up their end of the deal and it's all over. I think that's exactly what's going to happen. They shoved those 3 nominees through like nothing I've ever seen and now we have to put our TRUST in the repukes from here on out to do what they promised they would do???? Since WHEN do repukes EVER do anything they say they're going to do? I feel VERY uneasy about this whole thing. Very, very uneasy.

extraordinary circumstances = too subjective = repuke excuse to renege on the deal

Also, I heard a report this morning that this deal was for THIS YEAR ONLY.....EXACTLY what we knew and THAT is now a repuke "talking point" to calm down the religious RW wacko nut jobs. They own the damn evoting machines, they control the elections, they will steal more seats and the WH and then where are we? We have Owen, Rogers Brown and Pryor sitting on our courts and one of them could be appointed to the Supreme Court! Heaven only knows what damage they will do BEFORE they make to the SCOTUS. The Dems will try to filibuster that nomination, but then the repukes will say..."but, but, but you CONFIRMED her/him for the appellate court! What's wrong with him/her now??" End of deal and the Nuclear Option comes out again. They got what they wanted, the Democrats get screwed.

I don't feel comfortable with this deal at all. The Senate Dems should have closed down the Senate. JMCPO

[Norquist Nemesis]

1. No. Didn't when they did it.

I'd really like to know what's up with Salazar and Nelson though. Nelson's up for re-election in 2006. Any chance there's a true Democrat that can run and win?

[bryant69]

2. We'll know soon enough.

I think you are wrong, and that the deal will turn out to be for our benefit, but not as certain as I'd like to be.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[bowens43]

3. Makes no difference , they've already won.

These 3 were the most vile appointees. If they aren't extreme, no one is..

[in_cog_ni_to]

7. No shit.

It makes me want to pull my hair out that they have been confirmed.

[getmeouttahere]

4. Fact is, when we lost the election....

we lost the fight for judicial nominees. We should invoke the filibuster whenever we want and if they go nuclear, so be it. At least we went down fighting, and when/if the Dems ever have power again, they can hold the filibuster thing over the repugs heads.

[gulfcoastliberal]

16. Exactly!! WTF is with the rolling over and playing dead?!

Beam me the fuck outta here!

[MadHound]

5. But. . . but. . . but we preserved the filabuster!

Gag me with a fucking chainsaw. The Dems, despite the excuses I've seen here and elsewhere, sold out for a song and promise. By putting through these three odious candidates, the Dems set the bar for "extraordinary circumstances" so exceedingly high that even Hitler would have trouble clearing it.

Once again, this is simply more proof that we're living under the two party/same corporate master system of government.

How I long to have a real progressive party up on Capital Hill, instead of one that has sold its soul and constituents out for that corporate lucre.

[wiggs]

13. For a while now

I've had the impression for years that any opposition displayed by our dem leaders is for appearances only. They never seem to take full advantage of being on the right sides of issues for real gains or deal-making (one of the more painful examples was the Ohio vote certification). With as many scandals as this administration and the majority party has created, you would think the dem leaders would be able to capitalize. There are dozens and dozens of winning issues.....(don't want to list them for the 100th time on DU, but will again just point out one case: dem leaders and candidates did not make the environment a strong 2004 issue even though only 7% of Americans felt that environmental restrictions should be eased and even though the adminstration is easily the worst environmental president I can remember. Why?)

It's the same feeling I got with our presidential candidate in 2004, who was on the right side of almost every issue and could run mental circles around the incumbent. A candidate as magnificent on paper as Kerry was should have been able to wipe the floor with Bush and the worst administration ever. Mysteriously, he didn't take advantage.

For some reason (maybe the corporatocracy reason you offer) dems are pulling their punches, but not so much that it is obvious. As a group, they are taking dive, I fear.

[ananda]

6. disgusting

I don't know what I hate worse, the Reeptile arrogance or the Dems caving.

There is now no system of checks and balances in this country.

Why this is tolerable, I don't know for sure.. though I have some ideas.

For ordinary people, it has to hurt them personally. All they care about now is Social Security.

For Dems, it has to mean a willingness to take risks. For them, right now, politics is about their own viability in keeping office. They're trying to tread the impossibly narrow tightrope of moderation.

For change to happen, the Dem politicians will have to risk loss and speak out from the heart with truth and passion.

Sue

[livetohike]

8. No I don't trust them

and how sad that these important positions are filled on a "deal".

[bigtree]

9. These were slime nominees who never expected to win this easily

I don't understand what our Senators thought they were accomplishing with the 'compromise'. Neither side is bound by anything agreed to and republicans have now drawn blood three times with Pryor, Owen, and Rogers. This isn't a strategy to block anything, it's an open door for the conservative agenda. It looks like a solid defeat for Democrats in the face of our earlier success in blocking this gang of conservative losers.

We were screwed because there was no real battle, just another roll over. Sad.

[RaleighNCDUer]

10. I heard on NPR last night that 3 judges were confirmed just

yesterday -- Pryor and two others -- who had X number of years of being withheld. Since Owen and Brown had been confirmed before yesterday, that would indicate that these other two were among those others on the 'wait and see' list.

If we already agreed to the worst of the worst, getting these lesser lights through would be no problem for the other side.

Can I say

I TOLD YOU SO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[in_cog_ni_to]

11. Damn. I completely missed the other 2. Who were they?

:( How did they do that? I didn't see them on C-SPAN yesterday, but I wasn't paying close attention after the Pryor confirmation. I was just so ANGRY about it, I muted the TV.

[GiovanniC]

12. Exactly

On a scale of 1-10, Pryor, Owen, and Rogers-Brown are an 11 on the "Evil Partisan" Scale.

The other seven nominees all hover around 9 or 10 on that same scale. So Democrats can't oppose those guys with a straight face knowing they let worse nominees through.

[slaveplanet]

14. I heard that too

Didn't catch the names , but the two were placed onto the 6th circuit.

on edit found this---both got through

Embroiled in Dispute

The Senate was also planning to vote on two nominees to the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals based in Cincinnati who were previously blocked by Democrats. Democrats agreed to votes on Richard Griffin and David McKeague, whose appointments had been embroiled in a dispute over whether Republicans had blocked President Bill Clinton's appointments for those judicial seats.

Frist has pledged to press for floor votes on other appellate nominees that Bush has sent to the Senate. Still, he has ducked questions on when he plans to seek a Senate vote on William G. Myers III, a mining and ranching lobbyist whose nomination to the 9th Circuit Court in San Francisco was blocked by Democrats.

Democrats argued that Pryor's temporary appeals court appointment was provocative and probably unconstitutional. ``To confirm Mr. Pryor now would validate the president's regrettable decision to defy the Senate,'' said Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois.

[WillowTree]

18. The other two...

....were David McKeague and Richard Griffin. They probably wouldn't have been filibustered in the first place apart from the fact that the Michigan senators were unhappy that the Republicans had blocked President Clinton's nominees, who were from Michigan, for the very same seats. Also, if I'm not mistaken, these two were the ones that Harry Reid had offered to bring for a vote as a compromise in an attempt to avoid the nuclear option before the gang of 14 came up with their deal. Would have been kind of hard to say that they were OK to vote on three weeks ago, but suddenly aren't again now. Most of the pundits I heard were assuming that these two would go through now even though they weren't specifically part of the deal because the Senate Democrats didn't really consider them to be that extraordinarily bad in the first place.

[RaleighNCDUer]

19. So a real compromise would have allow those two a straight

vote, and kept Brown, Pryor and Owen off.

Dems don't know the meaning of the word, "compromise".

Edited for correct name.

[WillowTree]

22. Well...

....Reid offered to end the filibusters on these two, but Frist wanted votes on all that were still being held up and wouldn't settle for just these two.

Apparently the 7 Democrats in the gang considered Myers and Saad to be the two worst of the bunch and the 7 Republicans agreed to vote with the Democrats on those to if brought for a cloture vote if the Democrats agreed to let Owen, Brown and Pryor through and the other two were kind of a given to get approved. At least that's my understanding of it.

[KharmaTrain]

15. Let 'Em Break It...

They eventually will. Frist is spoiling for some major payback and he'll find some wedge issue to force Democrats to call for a cloiture vote that sets the stage for a "nuke-lee-ar showdown". And let them shut things down...who is it really going to hurt?

Right now they'll be lucky to get Bolton voted on and the backlog of house crap is starting to pile up...any delays will hurt this regime's timetables in further fleecing of the treasury and starting even more wars.

I also hoped the Democrats wouldn't have caved on the judicial nominees and welcome a shutdown...it backfired on the Repugnicans in '95 and it will again.

This is especially the case since a broken deal by the Repugnicans puts a lot of pressure on the 7 who broke ranks with Frist...they already in deep doo-doo with the party's wingnuts and hopefully they can be further pushed away from the party's "mainstream" and start joining Democrats in putting the brakes to the right wing train wreck this government and country has become.

[RaleighNCDUer]

17. Those who "broke ranks with Frist" did no such thing.

They did an end run around our opposition. They brokered a "compromise" which was no compromise at all, giving Frist everything he wanted, and preserving the nukular option for when they put some unqualified hack onto the supreme court.

A flat out fight invoking the nukular option before the '06 elections could have been disastrous for the repubs, as it exposed the lengths that they will go to get their way. By delaying it until after the '06 election, assuming Rehnquist lasts so long, they will be in the last years of a lame duck presidency with nothing to lose. If it shuts down congress and the government, they'll then say "ooh those evil dems - lookit what they did" and play that turn into the '08 elections which, win or lose, they will still have all their lifetime appointments in place.

[KharmaTrain]

20. I Wanna See Them Overplay Their Hand

I sense people are getting very uncomfortable with so much power in the hands of one party and it's ham-handed way it uses it. The Schaivo fiasco, DeLay's slime and the judge games have make people take a closer look at how the Repugnicans are really running things.

They're also looking at their pocketbooks, seeing no end to the Iraq mess and the Repugnicans can't blame a Democratic Congress or Clennis any longer. Everyone knows things have screwed up on their watch and the moderates are the ones who will pay the biggest price.

Damn straight they punted. I swear Arlen Specter must change his underware consistantly these days. He's pandering all over the place...being the Senator from Scotland one day, but we know if Big Tony's nominated as Chief Justice, he'll be pushing him through just like he did Slappy Thomas in '91. Some of us didn't forget.

However, any rift in the GOOP ranks is a good one. Frist and McConnell are running the Senate like Hastert & DeLay do the House...it's "my way or the highway". I kinda like seeing at least 5 or 6 constantly on the bubble and creating a bigger wedge in their own party. Next to Howard Dean, my bets are John McCain is one of the least favorites in Freeperland these days.

I also agree a shutdown after the '06 elections would not help the Democrats...primarily since the '08 election doesn't focus on the House races an off-year election does. Now, hopefully we return to "norms" next year and the party out of power gains seats in the 6th year of an opposition party's presidency.

[ComerPerro]

21. Actually all the Republicans have to say

is that they don't see the nominee as being "too extreme".

If these three weren't extreme enough, then who the hell is?

[in_cog_ni_to]

23. Exactly and that's what their plan is.

No doubt!

[Tactical Progressive]

24. Exactly

The Republicans got to re-set the bar to the lowest denominators imaginable, and what can Democrats say now? Nothing, that's what.

Republican views on honor and committment are as corrupt and phony as all their other views. Dems have given them everything, and Pukes will still feel themselves the shortchanged, cheated victim. They will howl and scream when they are thwarted in the slightest, just like their ugly crybaby 'nuclear' tantrum now, only next time it will be because in their own dishonest, distorted minds, Dems promised them they could do anything they wanted, and now Dems are reneging. They'll sneer with all the self-righteous sanctimony of Orin Hatch blocking moderate Clinton judges from getting any kind of hearing. Or the self-righteous sanctimony of Orin Hatch equally infuriated that even one of his nutcase judges is blocked.

Dems who think that this was an even deal, let alone one favorable to us, simply don't understand the biggest aspect of any deal: Republicans themselves. Their self-delusions, their sanctimony, their rancor, and their completely dishonest, unethical view of themselves and the world around them makes any deal a farce, and we can see that here already without waiting for it to be tested. Republicans for one second throughout all of this never thought anybody had any right to question anything they decide to do. That hasn't changed and it won't.


Worse than that, this was a chance for the Dems to grow a spine. In confronting Republicans and the media on this, they would have learned to stand up for themselves in the process of standing up for themselves. They would have respected themselves and gained respect in the doing.

This was the showdown, and the Democrats decided to let Republicans continue their corruption. The best we can hope for is that America will grow even more tired of right-wing lies by the next time, and that we can sell it as the Republican ugliness that it clearly is. We should have sold it this time. It wouldn't have been easy - either way it has to be sold against the Republican-coddling corporate media - but in my opinion this was the time to make the stand.

[Zhade]

25. I said it was a bad "compromise" then, I say it now.

So many people cheered the folding, it was like the Dry Cleaning World Cup!

(Okay, that was lame. But my point is, this wasn't a "win". This wasn't even a fucking DRAW.)

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

26. But..but..It was a glorious Victory!! We saved the unusable filibuster!!

Just ask the "moderates". They'll fill you in on how not opposing fascists for the judiciary is a swell idea and a great strategy.

Just like Chamberlain's great victory over the Nazis in Munich.

[dogday]

27. Only thing more important than saving the Fillibuster is Using The

Filibuster. What on God's green earth did we preserve the right to say we have it and then not use it.

[burythehatchet]

28. It sort of feels like the Dems broke up the no-hitter in the 9th

ininning, and laud themselves for doing so, even though they lost the game 8-0