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Politics : The Donkey's Inn -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Patricia Trinchero who wrote (3173)	3/8/2002 2:37:47 PM
From: Mephisto	Respond to of 15516

Hello, I didn't see your message last night. Yesterday, I read that Ray might seek a bid for the Senate. In the same article, it mentioned that no one found anything illegal about the Clinton's White Water deal. The cost to the American taxpayer for Whitewater and Monica was $70,000.000. The article mentioned the two people who could profit were Ray and Monica. Monica may be telling her story to tv. I'll see if I can find the article for you later.

To: Patricia Trinchero who wrote (3173)	3/8/2002 2:38:43 PM
From: Mephisto	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 15516

At one time, Ralph Reed lobbied for MSFT. He must have done a good job. It seems that Ashcroft doesn't want to damage MSFT.

To: Patricia Trinchero who wrote (3173)	3/8/2002 2:39:40 PM
From: Mephisto	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 15516

Bush faces defeat over right-wing judge's job By Rupert Cornwell in Washington 08 March 2002 news.independent.co.uk President Bush is facing his first defeat on a judicial nomination, over a southern judge who Democrats accuse of being a racially motivated ideologue. Yesterday, a tactical move by Republican Senators earned a bit of extra time for Charles Pickering, delaying by a week the crucial Judiciary Committee vote on his proposed elevation to the New Orleans-based 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals - one rung below the Supreme Court. Mr Bush hopes the postponement will allow the Republicans, who are in a 10-9 minority on the committee, to snare the one Democrat to allow the nomination to go to the full Senate. At that point, the White House is confident of persuading at least one conservative southern Democrat to cross the floor and approve the confirmation. But as post-11 September bipartisanship fades before November's vital mid-term elections, that tactic is unlikely to succeed. Tom Daschle, the Senate majority leader, said that the key vote would be in committee. Every sign was that the 10 Democrats would stick together, and send the judge to defeat. At immediate issue is Judge Pickering's record in his home state of Mississippi. The charge sheet against him stretches from his advocacy in 1959 of a tightening of Mississippi's existing laws against racially mixed marriages and his 1964 abandonment of the Democratic Party after the state was forced to include blacks in its delegation to that year's presidential nomination convention. In his later career on the bench, his critics say, the judge has consistently opposed abortion rights and been hostile to civil rights plaintiffs, at one point even querying the principle of one-man, one-vote. To which the White House has retorted darkly that "if actions taken 40 years ago were the criteria," some Democratic senators who will be voting on the nomination might have questions to answer. Mr Bush has also wheeled out some civil rights activists who back Judge Pickering. But the true stakes in the Democrats' campaign are far higher. By digging in their heels against this nomination, Mr Daschle and his colleagues are warning Mr Bush to expect a similar but bloodier fight if he puts forward right-wing nominees to the full Supreme Court. Using the oldest refrain in Washington, Mr Bush is urging his opponents to "stop playing politics" and let the nomination through. Yet no underlying issue weighed more heavily in the 2000 election campaign than the future make-up of the Supreme Court - which ultimately decided the result. Its ruling in Bush v. Gore confirmed a bare 5-4 conservative majority on the court. But with Chief Justice William Rehnquist, and at least one of his eight colleagues, likely to retire in the not-too-distant future, Mr Bush has a chance to strengthen the conservative bloc, over a period that will far outlive his presidency. With their refusal to accept Judge Pickering, Democrats say that Mr Bush's wafer-thin victory two years ago - when he actually lost the popular vote - obliges him to appoint moderate centrist judges, acceptable across the political spectrum. The White House, however, will have none of that, pointing to Congressional obstruction of Reagan nominees in the 1980s, despite his landslide election wins in 1980 and 1984. "The system does not work that way," Ari Fleischer, the White House spokesman, said yesterday. news.independent.co.uk