Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : WHO IS RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT IN 2004 -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: calgal who wrote (2243)	6/5/2003 8:38:59 PM
From: PROLIFE	Respond to of 10965

IMo, Shillary knew and tried to control everything that happened to billybubba...to Hillary, power is more important than any intern...

To: calgal who wrote (2243)	6/5/2003 10:52:04 PM
From: calgal	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10965

GOP, Democrats Clash Over Republican Push to Ease Senate Filibuster Rule URL:http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,88712,00.html Thursday, June 05, 2003 WASHINGTON — Republicans and Democrats angrily accused each other Thursday of subverting the Senate's constitutional powers and edged closer to a showdown over a GOP drive to prevent outnumbered senators from killing presidential nominations with filibusters (search). Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (search), R-Tenn., has proposed easing the Senate's filibuster rule, which Democrats have used to block President Bush's nominations of two federal judges. Such procedural delays can be ended now only with the votes of 60 of the Senate's 100 members, a margin that Republicans have failed to muster in the case of the judges. Senate Rules Committee Chairman Trent Lott (search), R-Miss., whose panel held a hearing on Frist's plan, said Democrats were using filibusters for "what I consider to be a hijacking of the Senate's constitutional responsibility to advise and consent on nominations." Sen. Zell Miller of Georgia, the only Democrat co-sponsoring Frist's plan, said his party's treatment of Bush nominees is the revenge of "those special interest groups that failed to elect a majority of the Senate last November." But Sen. Mark Dayton, D-Minn., said the White House-backed efforts to change the Senate's rules belied Bush's campaign promises to change the tone in Washington. "Unfortunately, he in some cases has reduced it to one note -- Mi, my way," Dayton said. Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., said the Senate was designed to work slowly and protect minority views. "This resolution points an arrow at the heart of the constitutional liberties of the American people," Byrd said. Many view the fight over judicial nominees Miguel Estrada and Priscilla Owen -- and Frist's effort to rewrite the rules -- as a prelude to even rougher fights should vacancies occur on the Supreme Court. With Democrats holding 48 Senate seats, plus a Democratic-leaning independent, members of both parties say Frist will never get the 67 votes required to change a Senate rule. Some Republicans have threatened to use what both sides call the "nuclear option," a precedent-setting ruling by the GOP lawmaker presiding over the Senate that filibusters cannot be used against nominations. "But that nuclear option would be a response" to Democrats using the delays to block Bush nominees, said Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., the No. 3 Senate GOP leader, as the Senate Rules Committee held a hearing on Frist's plan. "To suggest we are firing the first bomb here is misstating what's actually occurring." Democrats argued that Republicans were slavishly following Bush's desire to rewrite Senate rules to free up his nominations of Estrada and Owen to federal appeals courts. They said the Senate has approved 127 of the 129 Bush nominees to the bench that the Senate has considered. "Because it's not 100 percent, we are entertaining changing the rules," said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. "It's almost like a temper tantrum." In a brief interview after the hearing, Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., said he has not discussed with Frist whether he would resort to a ruling from the Senate chair to end nomination filibusters. Such a ruling would enrage Democrats. "I'd rather not even entertain such an unthinkable act. I'd think nobody would ever allow something as radical and dramatic as that," he said. Frist's plan would require 60 votes to break a filibuster over a nomination on the first try, but on subsequent votes the number would gradually be reduced to 57, 54, and finally 51. Filibusters of legislation would still require 60 votes to halt. Lott told reporters that his panel would probably vote on Frist's plan this month. Even short of votes, bringing it to the Senate floor "could be the vehicle for an action that would be determinitive," he said.

To: calgal who wrote (2243)	6/5/2003 11:04:18 PM
From: calgal	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10965

Democrats' Conference Exposes Split By Dan Balz Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, June 6, 2003; Page A06 The Democratic presidential candidates brought their best attack lines against President Bush to an audience of progressives here yesterday. But it was an attack on the party's centrists that brought one of the biggest ovations and exposed the fissures Democrats will have to overcome before they can think about winning in 2004. The three-day conference sponsored by the Campaign for America's Future has revealed a resurgent liberal wing of the Democratic Party, energized by what its members see as Bush's close ties to corporate America and, for many, by his decision to launch the war against Iraq. Nearly every element of the party's grass-roots base -- labor, environmentalists, feminists, gays -- was represented at an event that organizers said quickly became oversubscribed, and it has become clear that while there is considerable animosity toward Bush, the progressives roaming the corridors of the Omni Shoreham Hotel hold the centrist Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) in low regard as well. Former Vermont governor Howard Dean, whom the DLC has attacked for opposing the war in Iraq, used part of his appearance to keep the intraparty battle alive. "As long as we're willing to say whatever it takes to get elected, we're going to be in the minority party for a long time," he said. "You know what, those folks at the DLC are wrong. The way to get elected . . . is not to be like the Republicans, but to stand up against them and fight." Bruce Reed, the DLC president, said the animosity reflects the stakes for the competing wings of the party as they begin to choose a nominee to challenge Bush in 2004. "Primary battles are a defining moment for a party and we care very deeply about that and so do they," Reed said. "This is really the first definitional moment the party's had since 1992." The sniping began with the opening of the conference Wednesday when a liberal group placed an ad in the New York Times attacking the DLC and its founder and CEO, Al From, and Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.), the presidential candidate closest to the organization. The ad attacked the DLC as a tool of Fortune 500 companies, hostile to unions and too pro-defense. The DLC responded with a memo challenging the progressives and warning against allowing opponents of the war in Iraq to set the direction of the party, which Robert Borosage, one of the main organizers of the Take Back America conference, called a doomed strategy. "They want to read the peace movement out of the party," he said. "That's goofy politics. . . . The base of the Democratic Party is here." Six candidates for the nomination appeared either live or by video -- Dean, Sens. John Edwards (N.C.) and John F. Kerry (Mass.), former senator Carol Moseley Braun (Ill.), Reps. Dennis Kucinich (Ohio) and Richard A. Gephardt (Mo.). Lieberman was among the no-shows. A spokesman said the Connecticut senator had a conflict and was not snubbing the progressives. Sen. Bob Graham (Fla.) also did not attend; Al Sharpton plans an appearance today. © 2003 The Washington Post Company