More bloviating.
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
114 Comments
Next up: Jeff Sessions- Alabama
Sessions: you are brilliant and modest, you do not use the bench to promote any personal or political position, you have restraint and have extraordinary abilities.
Judges are not politicians, not policy makers.
Thanks a gain Boo for doing this and all contributing with comments.
Sessions: reading Alito’s resume aloud.
and I thought it was Lindsay. I’m embarrassed now!
Dang Jeff. Get up off the floor.
How long until Salito is scheduled to speak? I have never heard the clone utter a word so I am hoping to catch him at lunch in about an hour.
multiply Senators left by 10 minutes.
Sessions: mainly concerned to talk up his credentials.
Sessions: hints that Alito does not have to follow precedent.
Yeah WTF.
Don’t need activists but don’t follow precedent.
Sessions: is speaking code for overturning Roe, slams Specter for calling Casey a super-duper precedent.
Sessions: is saying that Alito is not a racist.
Next up: Feingold, then a 15 minute break.
Forgive me, but he’s a hottie. Isn’t he single now?
this man should be our next President.
Yes.
What are those Web site addresses again?
could be
go get him Senator
the President’s nominees, although SCOTUS is different. So when he slams Alito as scary, rest assured it’s not a hasty nor an overly political decision.
Feingold: important time, we recently learned that admin has been spying on us for years with our court warrant, and in violation of the law, we need a court that will be a custodion of the rights and freedoms of the constitution.
What a stud puppy
Aren’t you listening to what he’s saying?!
for battle
Aw no!
Ohh baby!
deserve a date with Russ. He makes me a bit swoony too.
Feingold: judges must assure that they are independent check on executive power that the people expect.
We need judges that are beyond ethical reproach.
Brings up Vanguard case, broken promise.
and this nomination could hardly be more important
Feingold: you must have the highest ethical standards. O’Connor was swing vote.
Don’t have right to know how you will rule on cases, but we do have a right to know your opinions on issues of the day and on recent decisions.
Will ask about Executive power, dealth penalty.
You have been more forthcoming in private meetings than the previous two nominees.
We have a right to know if you hold the same opinions you held in the 1980’s.
Good job Booman
thank god for the break.
Thanks so much. I feel as if it doesn’t matter that my corporate firewall blocks all streaming video, and that I can’t get radio reception in here.
The opening statements are fascinating. Some of it is for the media to repeat, but mostly it’s a declaration of strategy to other Senators. I like how we’re doing it so far.
Turning off the TV now since the Bumbling Cowboy is on.
Dignity starts with the WH asshole
The hearing is in break and guess what comes on? Bush speech with Alito at his side after breakfast this morning. I can’t fucking believe this! Has Cspan ever done such a thing for a president before? I’m just about to tell Cspan to fuck off too these days!
I didn’t turn it off now have Scotty spinning his undignified ass off.
David Gregory now grilling Scotty about Cowboy’s statements about a dignified process.
That was good
Scotty why does the president brand democrats as foul mouthed and undignified?
Now up: Lindsay Graham-S. Carolina
Alito took a long break, was late getting back. Graham rebukes him for almost missing his opening statement.
Graham: you have my vote.
Graham: has a problem about how broadly the admin is intepreting war resolution.
Now that I’m back I’m only going to go by Booman’s commentary. It’s far more entertaining. When I have it on I only hear “blah blah blah blah blah blah” or whatevet the teacher in peanuts sounded like.
Graham: If every Republican votes for you then you must be mainstream.
Graham: i would tell the Reagan admin I wanted to overturn Roe too, if I wanted a job.
Graham: many Americans are heartsick about millions of babies being exterminated (paraphrased).
Graham: precedent matters, but you will overturn Roe, right?
Graham: abortion is certain death for an inborn child. So if you filibuster over it, you are a (fillintheblank).
I’m hearing a pretty un-vieled, veiled threat of the nuclear option.
The public supports us, and some of these grandstanding Republicans will be under investigation soon. This is what the filibuster is for.
Lindsay Graham can meet me by the flagpole after school, and not to trade Yu-gi-oh cards either.
Graham: cannot make judges promise to support Roe or good people will not serve on bench.
Because Bush won, we should be able to overturn Roe.
Graham: justice Ginsberg was the general counsel for the ACLU. How could I ever support someone like that if I use a litmus test.
sounds a little like what goes around, comes around
Ginsberg got 96 votes and Scalia got 98 votes, but that won’t happen today.
Now up: Chuckie Cheese Schumer
Chuckie: you seemed to be picked to placate the extreme right wing, and you are extreme.
Harriet Miers was blocked by wingnuts and did not get an upperdown vote.
Chuckie’s giving it to him
Chuckie: GOP is flip-flopping on upperdown vote and candor on views.
Chuckie: are you in the mold of Scalia and Thomas.
You are the most prolific dissenter on the 3rd circuit.
You reach the most conservative result, in the end you chart a rightward course.
Chuckie: you refuse to give plaintives a fair shake, you call 95% balls when one team is up and 955 strikes when the other team is up.
Good, let’s use those baseball analogies to OUR benefit.
Chuckie: cause for concern: executive power, deferential and absolutist view. Prez has inherent power to surveill without a warrant, will you issue blank check for abuse of power?
Federalism: you have extreme view. Congress cannot prohibit possession possession of fully automatic weapons? What the fuck?
You want to overturn to Roe. You scum.
This will bring a searching inquiry.
Do you still believe very strongly that the constitution does not protect a right to an abortion.
[Hey Chuck! Does Bob Casey?]
Please tell me that he actually said ‘You scum’.
Chuckie: you have an obligation to discuss views of Roe because you have already written about it.
I hope you don’t give me any of this ‘no comment’ bullshit.
Now up: Cornyn (no weeping)
Cornyn: liberals want judges that will ban religious expression, the pledge of allegiance.
when is Cornyn going to start crying?
Cornyn: people of faith should be able to express their views in public.
I am so tired of these wing nuts trying to start a religious war!
Cornyn: Sante Fe Independent School Board v. Doe was about prayer before football games. Cornyn argued it before SC. He lost. Now he no longer can pray without feeling bitterness toward the ACLU.
What a ridiculous argument. The 11th commandment in the Republican bible is ‘Thou shalt hate the ACLU’. That’s why he feels bitter towards them.
Cornyn: court is more inclined to protect porno than religion, SC thinks God is a dirty word.
Now up: ‘Swinging’ Dick Durbin
Durbin: doesn’t bother to welcome Alito, just starts launching into his attack.
Durbin: court, not congress, desegrated schools, allowed mixed races to marry.
Griswold, people could be thrown in jail for using birth control. only 40 years ago.
he’s rambling
brought up the strip search of the ten year old girl
executive power, we have gone too far in previous wars, the last stop to protecting our rights is the SC.
he’s still rambling.
Durbin: has claimed right to detain US citizens indefinitely, to set aside McCain amendment against torture based on your interpretation of the unitary power of the executive.
What a damn rambling speech! Now he is on Rosa Parks.
Durbin: is still rambling.
Durbin: blah blah blah. No focus.
And we wonder why people have no idea what the Dems stand for these days…thanks, Dick.
It sounds like Durbin v. Alito is a microcosm of Democrat v. Republican : the antagonist is wrong and reprehensible in so many ways that it is difficult to choose where to focus the attack.
Thanks for doing this Booman….
Time to go buy some more of Terry’s books at powells to support the site….
Now up: Sam ‘the Crusader’ Brownback.
Sam: Alexander Hamilton assured the nation the courts would be limited in power.
Sam: courts should defer to Congress.
Sam: seats on the court are not reserved for people of a certain ideological bent.
Sam: because we confirmed Ginsberg, of the ACLU, we should be able to confirm you even though you are fucking fascist.
Sam: Ginsberg was so totally for child pornography
Sam: courts decide whether life is worth protecting or whether gays can get married. Pfft.
Sam: Roe v. Wade based on false statements. The right to an abortion is not in the constitution. This removed the issue for leglistatures and removed an entire class of Americans, including almost all children with Down Syndrome.
Sam: I think Roe should be discussed!!
“We have killed an entire class of people…”
80-90% of “children diagnosed with Down syndrome” have been “killed before they leave the womb.”
An entire ‘class’ of people? OMG. This is sickening.
Sam: you are qualified, I hope you are confirmed.
Now up: Tom Coburn
the most crazy asssssssss Senator ever.
he doesn’t disappoint in that
ripping and tearing of unborn children
I am going to fucking scream!!!! Why should an unviable clump of cells residing in a woman’s uterus have as many or more rights than she does!!!!!!!
Coburn: really hates the term ‘right to choose’ and Coburn thinks it is a right to kill unborn babies.
Too many adjectives and adverbs.
Where are we in America when we decide it is legal to kill our unborn children.
the ripping and tearing of an unborn child from its mother, how is that legal, when you cannot even legally kill yourself,
and SODOMY? How the fuck is assfucking protected?
This guy Coburn is even worse than Brownback. Graphic ‘descriptions’ of abortion? There is NO place in the US Senate for this stuff at all. “Ripped from the wombs”? He gets off on that. How could the Okies have elected this wingnut?
Coburn: ripping from the wombs of women, and the complications of that procedure.
Is this an ethical process?
Let’s just have abortions? Is that okay.
What is life? The SC doesn’t want to figure it out. We don’t respect a heartbeat and brainwaves.
We favor convenienve.
I hope somebody points out that this is the same crazy fucknut that supports executing doctors that perform abortions.
‘Respect a heartbeat and brainwaves’? Please.
Coburn: I’m fucking crazy.
What a fucking freak
Coburn: we are wrong to slaughter children, so I am happy to see you here.
finally this shit is over.
Lautenberg doesn’t look so comfortable introducing Alito.
No wonder.