Bolton expected to be confirmed after head count

Just herd that on the news. Dem's will try to delay and get access to classified information on Bolton that Bush won't release.

Everyone e-mail your friends and tell them to write their Senators. Tell your friends to pass the information on to everyone they know. I know Dominici, a Republican in New Mexico dosent care for him. Write him as well. Post any information on where you think your senator stands so we can respond to them.

Contact Senators Here:

http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

I really feel like punching * right now!

call everyone... all of your Senators, i beg you.

...that information, or until someone with a copy releases the documents.

...of the floor, he's asking for the WH documents now

...going on, ......now Dodd is up, back and forth, back and forth....good play

A Non-Filibuster Filibuster on Bolton? Tomorrow will be Intense. Get Access to C-Span.
This is the latest from a Senate source on what is expected tomorrow (Thursday) in the Battle over Bolton:

following is the expected procedure for the bolton votes tomorrow:
debate will continue until 6 pm tomorrow. final arguments will focus on the fact that the administration continues to stiff-arm the senate with respect to legitimate requests for documents relevant to the foreign relations committee's review of john bolton's fitness to serve as u.s. ambassador to the u.n.

for several weeks the administration has refused to comply with the committee's request for materials pertaining to syria policy and for the names on the nsa intercepts.

at 6pm tomorrow there will be a cloture vote. if there are 60 votes in favor of cloture, the senate will move without any further debate to an up or down vote on john bolton's confirmation. if there are not 60 votes in favor of cloture, the question of john bolton's confirmation will be carried over until after next week's recess.

there will be no filibuster, but a majority of democrats insist that the administration provide the senate with all materials required to make a sound judgment about whether john bolton should or should not be confirmed.

the 6pm vote will reveal whether a majority of the senate believes the legislative branch is equal to or subservient to the executive branch.


Ignore the absence of caps. This is a great preview of what lies ahead.

This is now being framed in one of the ways it should: Are the Executive and Legislative branches equal and have mutual obligations and duties to fulfill rowards each other?

Or is the legislative branch subservient to the White House?

There is great tumult and angst on the Senate floor today, this evening, and will be tomorrow.

TWN will report what it thinks is critical in the debate. TWN commenters are doing a great job of reporting the micro-twists and turns in the Comments section of the blog.

ChargingRhino and others are also doing some excellent live-blogging. (I will provide hyperlinks to these sites later.)

Stay tuned.

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/

Even the DLC must be embarrassed by her anymore.

between the "Conservative Democrats" who filibustered every civil rights law but supported liberal economic policy until Nixon wooed Southerners with his Southern strategy. She reminds us of those days. Theoretically, there was a Democratic majority back then, but actually, the Southern Democrats were extremely conservative on social issues. She's a throw-back I guess.

Is that everyone fights no matter what to not allow Bolton on the floor. Voinovich and the rest try their hardest to stop him from being confirmed, and that counts for something.

Maybe enough senators will gain a conscience and vote him out if the democrats or someone filibusters. He needs to stay far, far away from this job position and would be better as a secretary scribe.

Where they fuck are they now with their bogus moral outrage?

Nah. Couldn't be that. :sarcasm:

Is that the number of heads on pikes outside the home of our would-be ambassador? So diplomatic.

Do you think that it will be possible, after all this deliberation and the stuff that has been brought out about Bolton's behaviour, that he will be damaged goods if confirmed?

Just looking for a silver lining - as hard as it is to find one now a days. I share your sentiments exactly!

wondering why EVERYONE that Bush puts up is CONTROVERSIAL!!!!

Can't Bush put up someone Mainstream for ANYTHING!!!

What public would that be? The same public that is more worried about American Idol than American Policy?

turn on Entertainment Tonight and forget about what they just learned.

As much as Ritter wants to be proven wrong, to go 'do' Iran etc., Bush & co. needs a lunatic like Bolton in the UN to screw things up. And we haven't finished the other messes ...in Iraq.

General Clark has it down for June '06....not next month.

Withdrawing of troups in Iraq (just a few thousand out of the hundreds of thousands) to start this summer.....through the fall with lotsa of cameras and "Coming Home" stories.

The rest of the troups in Iraq will be on the permanent bases currently being built waiting for the Airforce to drop some bombs on Iran.

But again, that's June '06....closer to the election!

Scott Ritter Says U.S. Plans June Attack On Iran
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8130.htm

<snip>

"Scott Ritter, appearing with journalist Dahr Jamail yesterday in Washington State, dropped two shocking bombshells in a talk delivered to a packed house in Olympia’s Capitol Theater. The ex-Marine turned UNSCOM weapons inspector said that George W. Bush has "signed off" on plans to bomb Iran in June 2005, and claimed the U.S. manipulated the results of the recent Jan. 30 elections in Iraq.

Olympians like to call the Capitol Theater "historic," but it's doubtful whether the eighty-year-old edifice has ever been the scene of more portentous revelations.

The principal theme of Scott Ritter's talk was Americans’ duty to protect the U.S. Constitution by taking action to bring an end to the illegal war in Iraq. But in passing, the former UNSCOM weapons inspector stunned his listeners with two pronouncements. Ritter said plans for a June attack on Iran have been submitted to President George W. Bush, and that the president has approved them. He also asserted that knowledgeable sources say U.S. officials "cooked" the results of the Jan. 30 elections in Iraq."

I've heard that the Brits will definitely be leaving Iraq in 2006, however, making the US burden more difficult if we plan on keeping the occupation going. It appears a strategic pullback into the desert, and allowing the Iraqis to have a civil war, will be the only viable option that Bush will allow for.

So it won't be June '05...but sometime thereafter. General Clark calls it for June '06.....just enough time before the election to bring in the patriotic Fear Fervor Pubs love to see on voters's faces. Any later might appear too obvious.

http://rawstory.com/news/2005/index.php?p=170
Raw Story's Larisa Alexandrovna: Scott, first let me thank you for taking the time to speak with me. I want to get right to the meat of things by asking you about a comment you reportedly made in February of this year in your joint appearance with journalist Dahr Jamail in Washington state, where you were quoted as saying that George W. Bush had signed off on plans to bomb Iran in June 2005.

Former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter: No. Someone else wrote that I had said that.

Raw Story: So it is not correct?

Ritter: It is not wildly incorrect, but it is taken totally out of context. The emphasis is placed on the wrong things. What I said was that the President, in October of 2004, had been briefed by the Pentagon. In preparation to have in place by June 2005 a viable military option. This was in response to instructions by the President that the US must be prepared to implement the next phase of its Iran policy or strategy; the first phase of course being the pursuit of the so called diplomatic option-in other words allowing the European Union to carry out its outreach program.

Raw Story: So Secretary of State's Condoleezza Rice's comments regarding not taking any options off the table would echo that sentiment, it seems.

Ritter: had just come back from Europe, and this is what I was talking about during that speaking engagement, said that military plans were not on the table at this time. I said that she was a liar; either she is being really cute or she is lying. Military plans are on the table and the President has signed off on those plans. That does not mean we are going to bomb, but to sit here and pretend that we have fully embraced the diplomatic option or have not considered military plans is wrong. I reminded everyone of the situation in the fall of 2002 where the same Condoleezza Rice, along with Donald Rumsfeld, Collin Powell, and other members of the Bush administration were saying that the United States was embarking on serious diplomatic path to resolve the situation in Iraq

is once again going to be trashed, however, no matter what with a Bush controlled DoD.

The Powell Doctrine:

"Essentially, the Doctrine expresses that military action should be used only as a last resort and only if there is a clear risk to national security by the intended target; the force, when used, should be overwhelming and disproportionate to the force used by the enemy; there must be strong support for the campaign by the general public; and there must be a clear exit strategy from the conflict in which the military is engaged.

Powell based this strategy for warfare in part on the views held by his former boss in the Reagan administration, Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, and also on his own experience as a major in Vietnam. That protracted campaign, in Powell's view, was representative of a war in which public support was flimsy, the military objectives were not clear, overwhelming force was not used consistently, and an exit strategy was ill defined."

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/teachers/lessonplans/iraq/powelldoctrine_short.html

Bush sailed blindly past these with Iraq and now look at the quagmire (Rumsfeld's words) we're in. Quagmire part deux, coming right up with Bolton driving the bus.

BTW, you might want to check out a book End Time Delusions, which will have the Left Behind evangelical followers of Bush heads spinning. It seems they've been duped by a Jesuit misinterpretation of scripture from the counter-reformation. Funniest thing is most of these followers are Protestant denominations. Very weird, but can cause a mass defection from shub's following.

Thank you for posting this.

but the most atrocious Ambassador I could ever imagine.

The right has one thing going for it, the ability to lock arms and goosestep down the yellow brick road. We should stop expecting any change until that day when we get back. Of course, in 92-94 we had the pres and both sides and self destructed.

She was urging "nukes, wmd, Iran, Syria," and "support for Israel." I was in shock and swore I was watching a neo-con war-mongrel, greasy oily republican.

Have no link. Maybe it's on C-Span's web site.

in contacting Martinez. I do anyway because I can't stand the thought of this bruise on my forehead fading away.

Watched it on C-Span 2 today. And after listening to Voinivich, it's gotta be really, really bad.

I think he's Bush's red-button man. No wonder Voinivich was in tears, and Biden is so adamant w/his passion on this issue.

If ever there was a time for a filibuster, it's now.

:scared:

was that he had been subjected to so much pressure from the Rethuglican leadership and from the White House.

I sure didn't have any doubt that he was completely sincere in his fear for the country if Bolton goes up.



(Edit: stupid typo)

for his children and grandchildren like we all are. Fascism. Dictatorship. Tyranny has run amuck. I am hopeful that tide is turning. Just hope it's not too late.