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10) You believe that Bush's gutting of the Clean Air Act's New Source Review rules, rolling back of protections against arsenic in water, insisting on drilling in the Arctic Wildlife preserve when it won't solve America's energy problems, and walking away from the rest of the world by refusing to negotiate and sign the Kyoto Protocol when America produces 25% of the world's air pollution, makes him a "good steward of the land" as he declared in a recent debate.
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9) You believe that his taking America from a $300 billion surplus to a $500 billion deficit in major part by pushing irresponsible tax cuts while the nation is at war that have had at best a questionable effect on the economy; by misleading the nation about the true costs of war in Iraq; and by failing to veto a single pork-filled bill from his Republican Congress is true to conservative principles of fiscal prudence.
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8) You believe it is appropriate, for the first time in history, to add an amendment to the Constitution that takes away a fundamental right from a group of people (see Loving v. Virginia, the case that struck down bans on interracial marriages: "Marriage is one of the "basic civil rights of man," fundamental to our very existence and survival") rather than creating one.
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7) You believe that go-it-alone "cowboy diplomacy" that disregards the views and needs of allies around the world is the best way to conduct foreign policy and wage an effective war on terror, because after all an empire like America doesn't need friends.
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6) You believe that having a country that consumes more than it produces, with an economy that depends on $1-2 billion in loans to the Treasury every day from foreign banks to remain afloat, with a yawning trade deficit of $500 billion (quite apart from the $500 billion BUDGET deficit) that threatens to crash the dollar and cause a recession or worse, without any attempt to protect what remains of manufacturing in this country, without forcing countries like China to play fair by stopping their pegging of currencies to our dollar so as to keep their exports artificially low in price, amounts to sound fiscal trade policy.
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5) You believe that allowing younger people to privatize Social Security with personal accounts without accounting for the $2 trillion budget deficit that would cause when paying benefits to today's elderly amounts to a reasonable way for cutting the deficit in half in five years.
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4) You believe Bush's Treasury Secretary John Snow when he says offshoring of jobs is a good thing and that there is no net job loss in this country (a remark he unbelievably made in Ohio recently) when the evidence clearly shows Bush to be the first president since Herbert Hoover to lose jobs despite intervening wars, recessions, and unrest; and you believe that the administration's failure to enforce fair wage and environmental regulations in trade agreements with other countries, and failing to close tax loopholes encouraging outsourcing, is a good way of stimulating job creation in America.
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3) You believe that Bush's black-and-white mission from God to spread democracy around the world by force of arms regardless of what other people want is a good vision for the most powerful nation on Earth, especially when it can't afford to pay for it.
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2) You believe that a president that sat and read "My Pet Goat" to children after being aware of the first and second attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11th while people were jumping out of windows and splattering on the pavements of New York, who ignored clear and multiple warnings that Bin Laden was trying to use hijacked aircraft to attack American targets, who made Al-Qaida much more dangerous by decentralizing it instead of focusing on destroying it in Afghanistan, and who fails to understand that the true war on terrorism should be waged by focusing on why the world hates America and fixing that instead of by just using weaponry, is one who provides the strong leadership required to mount an effective war on terror. (See "An Interesting Day" for a minute by minute summary of what happened with and around the president on 9/11.)
And the #1 reason......
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1) You believe it was the right thing to do when the President rushed to war when allowing inspectors to finish their work would have saved America $200 billion and the huge quagmire it is now involved in, when he commanded his staff to find the link between Al Qaida/9-11 and Iraq when it didn't exist and thus failed to listen to arguments to the contrary, when he misled America in its grand adventure, when he has hobbled America from being able to confront countries who really have weapons of mass destruction like North Korea and Iran, and when he squandered more than 1000 US lives and American treasure with his spectacular failure of leadership.
Wow....this makes
getting a blow job in the Oval Office and then lying about it seem
pretty trivial by comparison!
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Filibuster Facts
Fact Sheet - National Women's Law Center
The Current Filibusters of Judicial Nominations: an Important Part of Checks and Balances
December 9, 2004
National Women's Law Center
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Filibusters of a handful of the Bush
Administration's judicial nominations have been prompted
by the Administration's insistence on selecting nominees
with extreme records (Charles Pickering, Janice Rogers
Brown, William Pryor and others), in an effort to pack
the courts with ideologues who will undermine critical
legal rights and protections. The federal courts are already
tilted to the right because obstructionist tactics blocked
so many Clinton Administration nominees - the Senate failed
to confirm over one-third of the Clinton nominations to
the Courts of Appeals - and the balancing process that
normally takes place over time, as administrations change,
has not occurred. If this trend continues, the federal
courts all across the country will be dominated by judges
who do not support civil and women's rights or protections
for workers or the environment. With the Senate controlled
by the same party as the White House, Senate filibusters
are the only way to stop the most extreme nominees.
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Filibusters have been used sparingly
-- there has been no blockade of Bush Administration nominations.
Over 200 judicial nominations were confirmed in the Administration's
first term, while only 10 of the most extreme were filibustered.
President Bush has appointed 24% of all active federal
judges, and 20% of all Circuit Court judges, in just four
years.
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The repeated claim that filibusters
of judicial nominations are "unprecedented" is both false
and hypocritical. Not only has there been a filibuster
of a Supreme Court Justice (the nomination of Abe Fortas
to serve as Chief Justice in 1968), but between 1980 and
2002, cloture motions (the way filibusters are broken)
were filed on 14 Court of Appeals and District Court nominations,
according to the Congressional Research Service. For example,
cloture petitions were necessary in 2000 to obtain votes
on the Clinton Administration nominations of Richard Paez
and Marsha Berzon to the Ninth Circuit, after opponents
repeatedly delayed action on them - for over four years
in Paez's case - and then openly declared a filibuster.
Sen. Frist was among those voting against cloture on the
Paez nomination.
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Criticism of filibusters to block Senate
votes on nominations rings hollow when it comes not only
from those who have supported past filibusters but also
those who blocked Senate votes on Clinton Administration
nominations by letting them die invisible deaths in committee
- in effect, filibusters by committee inaction. When Sen.
Hatch chaired the Judiciary Committee from 1995-2001,
dozens of highly qualified judicial nominees had no hearing
at all or had a hearing but no committee action. These
included two nominees to the D.C. Circuit (one of whom
is now Dean of Harvard Law School), two Hispanic nominees
to the Fifth Circuit (Jorge Rangel and Enrique Moreno),
and several female nominees (such as Helene White for
the Sixth Circuit, who went over four years without a
hearing). This past obstructionism is relevant not because
it justifies "tit for tat," but because it suggests that
some of those criticizing filibusters now are less concerned
about majority rule than about ramming through their favored
nominees - and because, as noted above, the blockade of
Clinton nominees has caused a lack of balance on the judiciary
that will be exacerbated if the current effort to pack
the courts succeeds.
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Filibustering judicial nominations
is constitutional. The Constitution (Art. I, Sec. 5) gives
the Senate the power to make its own rules, and Senate
Rule XXII imposes a 60-vote cloture requirement to end
debate on legislation or nominations. The Constitution
does not say that a simple majority vote is required for
Senate confirmation of nominations. To read into the Constitution
a simple majority requirement for nominations - let alone
a prohibition on filibusters on nominations - would be
the opposite of "strict constructionism." And if it were
unconstitutional to filibuster a nomination because it
allows a minority to prevail, it would be unconstitutional
for the Judiciary Committee chairman to fail to schedule
action on a nominee, or for the Majority Leader to fail
to take up a nomination on the floor - tactics that allow
a minority of one to prevail - yet no one is challenging
the constitutionality of these actions.
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A nominee to a powerful, lifetime seat
on a federal court should be able to secure the confidence
of 60% of the Senate. Filibusters on legislation are commonplace,
and even more justified when needed to stop a lifetime
judicial appointment. Legislation can always be amended
or repealed, and executive branch appointments last only
for finite terms -- but once the Senate confirms a judge,
its decision is irrevocable, given the rarity of impeachment.
And federal judges wield enormous power: the Courts of
Appeals have the final word in the vast majority of cases,
and they have tremendous latitude to interpret and apply
the broad principles laid down by the Supreme Court. Their
decisions determine the scope and meaning of our most
fundamental rights and liberties.
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Filibusters can be essential to protecting
the will of the minority, as even some critics of current
filibusters have acknowledged. As Sen. Hatch said when
other Senators were filibustering a Clinton Administration
nomination to the Third Circuit in 1994, the filibuster
is "one of the few tools that the minority has to protect
itself and those the minority represents." Conservative
commentator George Will, after objecting to one recent
filibuster, now says, "The filibuster is an important
defense of minority rights, enabling democratic government
to measure and respect not merely numbers but also intensity
in public controversies."
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The way to make filibusters unnecessary
is for the Administration to consult with potential Senate
opponents - honoring the "advice" part of the "advice
and consent" role the Constitution gives the Senate -
and agree to submit more moderate, consensus nominees.
Just as the threat of a filibuster and the need for 60
votes for cloture often forces a bill's proponents to
agree to compromises in order to gain passage, the need
for 60 votes should persuade the Administration to stop
sending such extremist and divisive nominations to the
Senate. A Clinton Justice Department official acknowledged
that administration's reluctance to nominate judges unless
over 60 Senate votes for confirmation were expected. If
that approach were taken now, it would end the filibusters.
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