biggest genocide ever

FILIBUSTER STUFF
* ""Let's step away from the precipice," said Senator Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada and the minority leader. "Let's try cooperation rather than confrontation."
The Republicans declined, interested in maintaining indignation over other blocked nominees to fortify themselves to change the filibuster rules." LINK

* "Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada said he's ready and expects to win.
"I want to be clear: We are prepared for a vote on the nuclear option," Reid said in a letter to Frist, referring to the GOP threat to change the filibuster rules. "Democrats will join responsible Republicans in a vote to uphold the constitutional principle of checks and balances."" LINK

* the blogosphere isnt sure whether Reid is a genius or an idiot - what with all of his apologies and 'compromise offers' and all... im leaning on the view that he's a genius - we'll see...

* dobson agrees with the idea of checks and balances, and 'thats the problem with black-robed judges - cos there's no second chance - no-one else to appeal to' - then he complains (im watching the justice sunday speech, finally) about dredd-scott (remember the debates?) in 1865 or whenever where the evil blackrobed folk said that black folk werent fully human cos they didnt get a full vote (if my memory serves, that was fully 100 years before women were given a full vote in oz - and i think oz was the first country to give women the vote). then he complains about roe-wade - the biggest genocide ever - 44million dead people (80% of pregnancies result in natural miscarriage - which means that god has killed 200m americans in the same time period - and about 4bn peeps globally. so much for intelligent design)

* "The University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg Political Fact Check pointed out that most of the current vacant federal judgeships "are vacant because Bush has not yet named anyone to fill them" and that there were "lots more vacant courtrooms when Republicans resisted confirming some of Bill Clinton's nominees"" LINK

* "James Sensenbrenner Jr., chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said Monday that the committee was considering the creation of an "office of inspector general for the federal judiciary" to watch over the courts... "The appropriate questions," he added, "are how do we punish and who does the punishing."" LINK

* avendon at atrios makes the same point ive been making for a while: "And then there's this nuclear option thing - why would they be willing to remove any possibility of stopping majority party initiatives unless they were absolutely sure that they could never become the minority party again?" LINK
the question still holds for those who argue that we should agree (now) to abandon the filibuster in 2009. wrong.

* "As far as I've been able to ascertain, nobody has ever actually passed and signed a bill that would explicitly exempt legislation from judicial review. This is unprecedented and if it happens it should trigger a constitutional crisis. If congress can pass any laws it wants and declare them exempt from judicial review --- as with the Real ID bill -- and also peremptorily "bar judicially ordered compensation or injunction or other remedy for damages" then our system of checks and balances has been gutted. There will be nothing to stop a majority, particularly if it ends the filibuster, from passing any laws it chooses with a simple majority and exempting all of them from judicial review for constitutionality. In other words, the constitution says what the majority says it says." LINK