Frist's Filibuster Fray

ryan_velo.

What you just said held some truth. However; Lincoln him self was an abolitionist, from what I understand his own true ideological beliefs were that slavery was immoral. Even if he didn’t intend it for the advancing minorities, how could you say it did not

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"Avoid the world---it's just a lot of dust and drag and means nothing in the end.”
~ Jack Kerouac

"The whole idea of music---from the beginning of time---was for people to be happy."
~Robert Plant

ryan_velo.

By the way, wht do you think abolishionest John Brown? We were just discussing this in History.

__________________
"Avoid the world---it's just a lot of dust and drag and means nothing in the end.”
~ Jack Kerouac

"The whole idea of music---from the beginning of time---was for people to be happy."
~Robert Plant

davidmc

My understanding is that it is 1/2 & 1/2. The moral injustice ("Bloody Kansas", Harpers Ferry, ect...) of slavery & the need for Union support (troops), as Colorado Ryder has stated, I believe there is a monument in Massachusetts(?) commemorating an all black battalion(?) from that era. As an aside, I found out Douglas lived in Rochester. I did not know that.

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I'm completely in favor of the separation of Church and State. My idea is that these two institutions screw us up enough on their own, so both of them together is certain death.
George Carlin
US comedian and actor (1937 - )

davidmc

My understanding is that if he could keep The Union together w/ slavery confined to its then southern area, he would've but it turned out to be impossible. The South wouldn't budge & the Kansas-Nebraska Act (confining slavery to below a certain parallel of latitude for newly accepted states into The Union) incited the "Bloody-Kansas" incidents. He had no animosity towards The South but they "forced his hand".

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I'm completely in favor of the separation of Church and State. My idea is that these two institutions screw us up enough on their own, so both of them together is certain death.
George Carlin
US comedian and actor (1937 - )

ryan_velo.

He was also apposed to the use of force, but he would later come to another conclusion. Harriet Tubman was said to have:well, supposedly she would have gone w/ Brown to Harpers Ferry but she fell ill & could not make it.

__________________
"Avoid the world---it's just a lot of dust and drag and means nothing in the end.”
~ Jack Kerouac

"The whole idea of music---from the beginning of time---was for people to be happy."
~Robert Plant

ryan_velo.

Hu, a protest.

__________________
"Avoid the world---it's just a lot of dust and drag and means nothing in the end.”
~ Jack Kerouac

"The whole idea of music---from the beginning of time---was for people to be happy."
~Robert Plant

davidmc

He is supposed to have said to Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom's Cabin, "So you are the little lady who started this Great War." & he said to his His concerned cabinet in re:General Grant's drinking habit's "Whatever he's drinking, send a case of it to each of my General's." Gotta love that President Lincoln, unless one is a racist of course.

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I'm completely in favor of the separation of Church and State. My idea is that these two institutions screw us up enough on their own, so both of them together is certain death.
George Carlin
US comedian and actor (1937 - )

Colorado Ryder

You missed the point. David said Lincoln issued the proclamation to specifically advance minorities. It was a war measure. And if you did a little research you'd find some interesting facts about it.
The proclamation was only valid for states that were in secession. In other words the slave states of Missouri and Kentucky(which were on the Union side)were exempt.

lokstah

Ten. (Sorry to peel away from the Lincoln discussion.) The number of Bush judicial nominees denied a vote on the floor, because their nominations were rejected from basic consideration by opposition action, is ten.

How many Clinton nominees were denied voting consideration on the floor because of opposition intervention? Sixty-four (or was it sixty-five?). Arguing that only Democrats opposing Bush nominees have successfully employed the filibuster to reject nominations is a cheesy dodge which misses the point (it also slips past the fact that Republicans, including Frist himself, attempted to filibuster several Clinton Circuit Court nominees). Though their methods were more varied, the Republican effort had the exact same effect, and was done for precisely the same reasons as Democrats do them now: to preserve an ideological balance (or imbalance) which protects their own.

A question: are Frist and his colleagues operating out of respect for rules and procedure, as they claim, or is that simply how they've managed to frame an increasingly dirty fight now that they're on the other side of things?

* First and Hatch alike, referring to then current Clinton judicial nominations under consideration, openly professed a duty to prevent a "flood of liberal judges" from filling federal courthouses.

* Republican Senator Bob Smith of New Hampshire, on the failed attempts he lead to filibuster Clinton appeals court nominees Richard Paez and Marsha Berzon: "Don't pontificate on the floor of the Senate and tell me that somehow I am violating the Constitution of the United States of America by blocking a judge or filibustering a judge that I don't think deserves to be on the circuit court ... . That is my responsibility. That is my advice and consent role, and I intend to exercise it." A press release on the events can be found here.

* Bill Frist himself participated in the Paez filibuster attempt. Paez's nomination had been delayed for four years by a "hold" order placed by Trent Lott; only when the hold was dissolved did Frist, Smith and others attempt to enact a filibuster in March of 2000.

* In defending a Republican-led filibuster on a judicial nomination in 1994, Hatch himself explained that the filibuster is “one of the few tools the minority has to protect itself and those the minority represents.”

* The current state of judicial nomination screening arguably began in 1996. From CBS News: Rather than openly challenge President Clinton's nominees on the floor, Republicans decided to deny them Senate Judiciary Committee hearings. Between 1996 and 2000, 20 of Bill Clinton's appeals-court nominees were denied hearings, including Elena Kagan, now dean of the Harvard Law School, and many other women and minorities. In 1999, Judiciary Chairman Orrin Hatch refused to hold hearings for almost six months on any of 16 circuit-court and 31 district-court nominations Clinton had sent up. Three appeals-court nominees who did manage to obtain a hearing in Clinton's second term were denied a committee vote.

* In 1994, Senator Orrin Hatch solidified a rule (the blue-slip policy) which would permitted a single senator to enact a "hold" on judicial nominees from their home state, preventing the prospect from leaving comittee and freezing action on the nomination. Paez and literally dozens of other Clinton nominees were delayed for years using this tactic. In 2003, Hatch abolished the practice.

* Trent Lott in 1998, on the stalling of nominees using blue-slip tactics. "Should we take our time on these federal judges?" Lott asked rhetorically. "Yes. Do I have any apologies? Only one: I probably moved too many already."


Again, my purpose here isn't to portray Republican efforts during the Clinton administration as demonic; it's simply to indicate that there is considerable precedence for throwing partisan roadblocks before presidential judicial nominations. In light of their extensive efforts to hamstring district and circuit cout nominees during the last Democratic White House era, Republicans' claim of the high ground strikes me as incredibly slick talk.

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i relish complicating the obvious and trivializing the stupendous

lokstah

I said he made a mistake, and he agreed. In tackling him, you and C.Ryder have brought one of the uglier legacies of American conservatism to the front of the conversation...

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i relish complicating the obvious and trivializing the stupendous

Colorado Ryder

Or were we just preventing David from revisionism?

lokstah

Maybe. While we're on the subject of revisionism, though, we could revisit Republican attempts to rewrite the history of judicial confirmations...

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i relish complicating the obvious and trivializing the stupendous

Colorado Ryder

Or Liberal attempts to revise the reason for the Emancipation Proclamation.