Redstate

He JUST got 51 votes!

why it's so funny that the number of votes for cloture was higher than the number of votes for confirmation. All along Republicans have maintained that as long as nominees get a fair up or down vote, senators should be free to vote their conscience. Why is the existence of Democratic senators who agree with that sentiment supposed to gall Democrats?

I love it.

Akaka - NO

Alexander - AYE

Allard - AYE

Allen - AYE

Baucus - NO

Bayh - NO

Bennett - AYE

Biden -

Bingaman - NO

Bond - AYE

Boxer -

Brownback - AYE

Bunning - AYE

Burns - AYE

Burr - AYE

Byrd -

Cantwell - NO

Carper - NO

Chafee - NO

Chambliss - AYE

Clinton -

Coburn - AYE

Cochran - AYE

Coleman - AYE

Collins - AYE

Conrad - AYE

Cornyn - AYE

Craig - AYE

Crapo - AYE

Dayton - NO

DeMint - AYE

DeWine - AYE

Dodd - NO

Dole - AYE

Domenici - AYE

Dorgan - NO

Durbin - NO

Ensign - AYE

Enzi - AYE

Feingold - NO

Feinstein - NO

Frist - AYE

Graham - AYE

Grassley - AYE

Gregg - AYE

Hagel - AYE

Harkin -

Hatch - AYE

Hutchison - AYE

Inhofe - AYE

Inouye - NO

Isaakson - AYE

Jeffords - NO

Johnson - AYE

Kennedy - NO

Kerry - NO

Kohl - NO

Kyl - AYE

Landrieu - NO

Lautenberg - NO

Leahy - NO

LEvin -

Leiberman - NO

Lincoln - NO

Lott - AYE

Luger - AYE

Martinez - AYE

McCain - AYE

McConnell - AYE

Menendez - NO

Mikulski - NO

Murkowski - AYE

Murray - NO

Nelson (FL) - NO

Nelson (NE) - AYE

Obama - NO

Pryor - NO

Reed (RI) - NO

Reid (NV) - NO

Roberts -

Rockefeller -

Salazar - NO

Santorum - AYE

Sarbanes - NO

Schumer - NO

Sessions - AYE

Shelby - AYE

Smith - AYE

Snowe - AYE

Specter - AYE

Stabenow -

Stevens - AYE

Sununu - AYE

Talent - AYE

Thomas - AYE

Thune - AYE

Vitter - AYE

Voinovich - AYE

Warner - AYE

Wyden - NO

Note a number of Senators couldn't bother being in the chamber on time and did not respond to their name in the roll, but voted later during the open vote period.

I believe Blanton may just have been goading them into frustrated rage-filled states for his own entertainment.

Can we start oppressing women and minorities yet?

I saved a 55-gallon drum of 1950 vintage PCBs to dump in a creek for just such an occasion as this.

[/SARCASM]

Nos

Rockfeller

Landrieu

Pryor

Lincoln

Bayh

Baucus

Chafee

Nelson (FL)

Ayes

Snowe

Dorgon

Collins

Conrad

Hagel

Johnson

Nelson (NE)

Ensign was present and voted aye.

I point out that the 58 includes Thune, Isakson, DeMint, Martinez, Vitter, and Burr.  If this vote was in 2004, that would be 6 lost votes.  And the President would not have nominated Alito for that reason.

Also of note, Sen. Landrieu has voted no thus indicating she intends to lose in 2008 for her obstructionism in her very pro-life and very Catholic state.

thinks that any potential SCOTUS nominee that doesn't believe that Roe v. Wade should be carved into Mt. Rushmore is a cross between Hitler and Osama, and they are having kittens because Democratic Senators didn't set themselves on fire (although I thought Kennedy might) in order to keep the vote on the nomination from happening.

Voted NO.  I listened to him do it on C-Span.

Akaka - NO

Alexander - AYE

Allard - AYE

Allen - AYE

Baucus - NO

Bayh - NO

Bennett - AYE

Biden - NO

Bingaman - NO

Bond - AYE

Boxer - NO

Brownback - AYE

Bunning - AYE

Burns - AYE

Burr - AYE

Byrd - AYE

Cantwell - NO

Carper - NO

Chafee - NO

Chambliss - AYE

Clinton - NO

Coburn - AYE

Cochran - AYE

Coleman - AYE

Collins - AYE

Conrad - AYE

Cornyn - AYE

Craig - AYE

Crapo - AYE

Dayton - NO

DeMint - AYE

DeWine - AYE

Dodd - NO

Dole - AYE

Domenici - AYE

Dorgan - NO

Durbin - NO

Ensign - AYE

Enzi - AYE

Feingold - NO

Feinstein - NO

Frist - AYE

Graham - AYE

Grassley - AYE

Gregg - AYE

Hagel - AYE

Harkin - NO

Hatch - AYE

Hutchison - AYE

Inhofe - AYE

Inouye - NO

Isaakson - AYE

Jeffords - NO

Johnson - AYE

Kennedy - NO

Kerry - NO

Kohl - NO

Kyl - AYE

Landrieu - NO

Lautenberg - NO

Leahy - NO

Levin - NO

Leiberman - NO

Lincoln - NO

Lott - AYE

Luger - AYE

Martinez - AYE

McCain - AYE

McConnell - AYE

Menendez - NO

Mikulski - NO

Murkowski - AYE

Murray - NO

Nelson (FL) - NO

Nelson (NE) - AYE

Obama - NO

Pryor - NO

Reed (RI) - NO

Reid (NV) - NO

Roberts - AYE

Rockefeller - NO

Salazar - NO

Santorum - AYE

Sarbanes - NO

Schumer - NO

Sessions - AYE

Shelby - AYE

Smith - AYE

Snowe - AYE

Specter - AYE

Stabenow - NO

Stevens - AYE

Sununu - AYE

Talent - AYE

Thomas - AYE

Thune - AYE

Vitter - AYE

Voinovich - AYE

Warner - AYE

Wyden - NO

Total - 58 Ayes, 42 Nos

Note a number of Senators couldn't bother being in the chamber on time and did not respond to their name in the roll, but voted later during the open vote period.

Alito confirmed ....

O'Connor is officially retired... we now have 8 Supreme Court justices until Bush can have Alito sworn in.

Sorry no link

given that a good portion of her base is now living outside Louisiana.

Voting Aye on Alito: 54 Republicans, 4 Democrats

Voting No on Alito: 1 Republican, 1 Independent, 40 Democrats

The results seem clear: the more Republicans there are in the Senate, the easier it will be to confirm conservative judges.

Ew, sorry.

Should be sworn in time to take his seat next to the other justices at tonight's event!

When the vote was done, I told my wife to get in the kitchen (barefoot of course) and make me some breakfast. She laughed and left to go to work.

I'll have dinner ready when she gets home....

According to the AP, he will be sworn in this afternoon, and will be sitting with the other Justices tonight at the SOTU.

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/01/31/D8FFOPS80.html

The swearing will occur at a White House ceremony tomorrow (Wed.) afternoon.

Missed the "Yea" votes by one.

Let the record further show that (unless I am in error) 91.11% of the Democrat caucus (including Jimpin' Jim, and Independent-in-Name-Only) voted against the confirmation of a ABA unanimously well qualified recommended nominee to the SCOTUS who further has 15-years of superb Appelate Court experience on his resume.

In case you were wondering, 90.11% of 55-votes is - 50 votes (50.11 to be precise, but I figured I'd round down).

I hope the Democrats remember that if the ever win the Presidency and hope to appoint a Justice to the Supreme Court.

I know I will.

was the greatest choice, I did think your comment was funny. With all the hyperbole in politics, you'd think they'd make natural soap opera actors.

Since there is no way to reply to "Red Hot" posts (for some reason), I'll respond here instead.

Baucus did not vote Yes.  He stuck with No.

Conrad, Johnson, Nelson, and Byrd were the only Democratics.

...but I thought it unseemly that they all bolted for the microphones right after the vote when an attempt had been made to move on to the next piece of business.  Shouldn't Mr. Frist have called for a break instead of for the next agenda item?  I guess you can tell how much I actually watch C-SPAN2.

Once the CLOTURE vote went through, the AA and blog wingnuts were rampaging on about running opponents against the 19 yes-voters (Lieberman being at the top of most hit lists) in their next primaries.

on Mrs. King.

Kennedy has taken time on the Fed Chairman's vote to talk about Corretta King.

He just said that Mrs. King was with Dr. King all the way, even when he was "enjailed."

That's what I get for trying to keep up with the roll call on CSPAN.

I predicted 59-41.  I thought Burns and Byrd would vote "no," and Chaffee and Landrieu "yes."  But I was pretty close.

about those 6 Republican Senators who replaced Democrats in 2004.

This was pretty much a party-line vote, with only four Democrats (Byrd, Conrad, Johnson, and Nelson (NE)) actually voting for Alito, and Chafee the only Republican voting against him.

Out of the Gang of 14, only Nelson and Byrd crossed party lines to vote for Alito.

This vote does demonstrate the difference between a cloture vote (where 18 Democrats voted in favor) and an actual confirmation vote (where only 4 Democrats voted for Alito). There were 14 Democrats willing to vote for cloture who voted against Alito. They didn't want President Bush going down to their states saying that they had unfairly blocked his SCOTUS nominee (as a minority), but they could still tell the Democrat base that they voted against Alito.

These Democrats have faced facts--they have the right to their opinion on a judicial nominee, but filibusters look bad (President Bush hammered this on the campaign trail in 2004), and the President can take advantage of this for his next SCOTUS nomination, if he gets the chance.

Also, we do need a GOP Senate majority to get conservative Justices on SCOTUS. Somehow, we've got to save Santorum in PA, as well as Jim Talent in MO. There are potential pickups in MD, NJ, and MN, and FL is ripe for plucking if Jeb Bush could be convinced to run!  

Congratulations, Justice Alito!!! This is also his victory, for his wonderful performance in the hearings.

 

he voted 'AYE' during roll call, then corrected his error during the open vote period. It's Baucus... who knows what he was thinking. Not exactly the best example of Montana--- still not sure why my fellow Montanans elected him. He baffles me.

somehow...

http://amorpatriae.blogspot.com/2006/01/alito-confirmation_26.html

He will have a private swearing in ceremony this afterfoon by Roberts (official) and a second on towmorrow afternoon at the White House.

But Montana probably has the most lackluster pair of Senators in the country.  Burns isn't the sharpest tool in the shed either.

What's going on out there?!

Sun shines...dog's backside....blah blah blah...

Hehehe, I'm just bitter that I was off by 10 :)

whereas the loonies will be saying, "If only those _&#%(&@% had voted that way yesterday...." That's what makes it funny.

Whom did Burr replace?

You forgot the VP candidate already?

He just used some of his time in the Fed Chairman vote debate to take pot shots at Bush over Alito.

Sheesh.

He voted FOR Alito before he voted against him.

"...but Montana probably has the most lackluster pair of Senators in the country.  Burns isn't the sharpest tool in the shed either.  What's going on out there?!"

WELL it's like this...they have tons of seniority, and we get a lot of federal bucks here. Baucus usually votes pretty moderate, and voted for Roberts' confirmation.  The buzz here is that Montana is turning blue, due to Dem governor & other trends.  No doubt Max wants to hop on board. Also, he is not up until 2008 so he's hoping we'll forget.  Burns is a good enough guy and at least he votes right!    

Dems should breathe a little easier today, since at6 least the caucus held for the confirmation vote - cloture [i]must[/i] have hurt.

We have about 920,000 people (6% of whom are Native Americans... most of them live on reservations), 146,000 sq/miles of land and about 6 people per square mile. We literally have more cattle, moose, and elk than people. 2/3rds of the state is eastern Great Plains ranch land, 1/3 are mountains.

I'd say it's pure political apathy. Most people out here don't care unless it's something that's going to specifically effect them. So unless it deals with water rights, agriculture, ranching, mining, indian land or forest land-- the majority of Montanans aren't going to pay attention.

I should have been more clear, these votes are now easy ones.  Rs don't have to look over their shoulder to see what they are going to do.  Sen. Landrieu from LA voted no.  Any R from LA is an automatic aye.  Ditto SC, NC, GA, FL, and SD.  For the other direction see CO where an automatic aye turned into a "moderate" D who voted no.

Getting Rs into seats in ND, WV, NE, FL, MD, NJ, and MN would make the vote even easier before one even worries about RI.

with that! Conrad's a good guy, he just did a stupid thing. Max is hoping we'll forget he voted party line on this one in another 2 years-- or that he'll have no real challenger.

Brian's a good guy, for a democrat. He wouldn't fit in the Washington branch of the democratic party-- that's for sure! He almost beat Conrad in 2000. If he wasn't so stuck on strip mining the eastern part of the state, and a few other little things, he'd make me a little happier. But he's not all that bad, for a guy that runs around in jeans and a bolo tie. His dog is awesome though.

Evan Bayh:

Bayh also called the confirmation process a "partisan Kabuki theater" in which the nominee says as little as possible to avoid saying anything controversial.

Dana Milbank:

But at yesterday's March for Life, neither speaker nor marcher was confused by the Kabuki. "We must support the confirmation of Judge Alito and other jurists who will support a strict-constructionist view of the law and make it possible once and for all to end Roe v. Wade ," Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.), a leading House conservative, thundered.

Ellen Goodman:

BOSTON - Now that it's all over but the accusations, let's take a minute to check the reviews. The performance, no, excuse me, the confirmation hearings of Judge Samuel Alito Jr., were most often described by political drama critics as a "charade" or a bit of "Kabuki" theater.

Lyndon LaRouche:

"Now," LaRouche continued, "what you have is, you have a problem in the Congress: The Democrats are putting up a show on this thing, but it's not--at the present time, it's not too clear cut. They're going to the mat and saying they're against Alito, they're asking questions. But, here's a guy, Alito, who's lying his head off about what his policies are--he's really playing kabuki theater, with the Congress--and the leaders know it. But they also know that a number of the members of the Congress are soft-shoeing it on this one, that they're going to go through the motions of protesting against Alito, but then, reluctantly confirm him, when it comes down the line.

I have a vague remembrance of really good hair... and something about how John Kerry is the second coming of Jesus and would make Christopher Reeves walk again... but goshdarnit... the name... any sort of real identity, a position of some kind... all escape me.

There was a candidate for VP in 2004, right?  Wasn't just an actor hired to play the part in Commander in Chief or something?

-TS

"Now, go on out and get them re-elected this year."

Does that mean you're asking Kos NOT to endorse these guys?  Just checking.

they won't vote anyway?

Any chance of redstate taking up my proposition of pushing a candidate in the conservative blogosphere?

Any chance that Senator Dull gets us a candidate in North Dakota that we can get excited about.

We're back to Nine :

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060131/ap_on_go_su_co/alito

Just in time for the 9th CCA to declare the PBA ban unconstitutional.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060131/ap_on_re_us/abortion_lawsuits

This will also open up a 3rd CCA slot (Alito's).  This is three open slots on the 3rd (although one has a nominee as of last week).

http://www.uscourts.gov/cfapps/webnovada/CF_FB_301/index.cfm?fuseaction=Rep
orts.ViewVacancies

And I predict that Roberts and Alito will bring Kennedy around to saying that a PBA ban does not violate the "central holding" in Roe -- thus upholding the law.  They will say that Roe doesn't need to be overturned at this point, because the law can be upheld without overturning Roe.  They might, however, address Roe's companion case, Doe, that created the "health" exception, and say that the "health" exception was never meant to be read as broadly as it has been.

Such a ruling could open the floodgates for more laws (and more challenges) that will chip away at Roe for several more years, before the Supreme Court simply says that Roe is "unworkable" and should be overturned -- except for a very narrow "life or serious pysical health of the mother" exception that will be retained as the only Constitutional vestige of Roe v. Wade.

This will take a few years, and we should be patient.  But it's coming!

By that time hopefully we can have 1-2 more originalists on the court so that we don't have to rely on the fickle Kennedy.  Start preparing for the next nominee --I have a feeling it may be Senator Martinez.

at how badly the Democrats bungled this. A filibuster called for by a Senator who can't even be bothered to stay in the country while the debate is happening, announced after its quite clear that a filibuster has no chance of suceeding.

This filibuster fight then pushes Democratic Senators into a choice between enraging their base (not hard to do, but still) or voting for a course of action not supported by the majority of the American public, and doomed to fail.

We then are led to the filibuster vote, which is quickly defeated, once again reminding the American people that the Democrats in the Senate are totally powerless.

All of this culminating today in the swearing in of Justice Alito, giving President Bush a huge victory hours before the State of the Union.

I couldn't make this kind of stuff up if I tried.....

away women's rights, Blacks to the back of the bus,  working men back to the 60hr work week in the mines, and stay the hell off the beach at Hyannisport.  I hope a few of the loyalists of this site did a quick perusal of the filth heaped on the wayward Democrats over at InterminableKos, it appears love is only one vote deep.  With that kind of loyalty it's no wonder we have a high divorce rate.

that Ken Salazar is a moderate?  Pretty please?