This is an oped roundup from the weblogs. Its long but there are some interesting perspectives. I'll quote one:

] I don't mean to get all Rodney King-ish, but why must ALL
] commentary, from both politcal parties consist of "We won
] and they lost. Yay!" or "We lost and they won. Boo!" ???
] Is that it? Has there been a new civil war? Do we now
] have the Red States of America locked in a twisted,
] hateful, unfortunate geographically-required embrace with
] the rival Blue States of America? Is that how it works?
] Is there no possibility that (whatever your views, or
] whoever might have gotten a 51% advantage), perhaps a
] compromise is a good idea, you know, strictly from a
] 'civil war avoidance' perspective?

(The obvious answer is "What? Huh? We're being totally reasonable. Its the other guys who are nuts...")

Another:

] The Moose is not struck by irrational exuberance. Surely,
] Congress will soon return to its adolescent ways... But for
] one brief shining moment, our leaders acted as statesmen
] should during wartime.
]
] Let us savor the moment, however fleeting.

The Moderate Voice - Senate Moderates Avert Polarizing Filibuster Showdown

Sorry for the highly partisan host but this is where I found it. I'm sure the copy is genuine. Interestingly, the left wing nuts seem to be celebrating and the right wing nuts seem to be fuming. This doesn't jive with how I read this deal.

The left wing nuts either think that they got more then they got, or they are simply overjoyed about being able to exercise some amount of influence.

I presume the right wing nuts have absolutely no interest in anything less then absolute power. I think they wanted to be able to approve radical nominees with impunity and they wanted the nuke option to proceed because they figured they'd win and get to rewrite senate rules in their favor. They were looking forward to it.

In the end, the Republicans loose 2 nominees and they don't have to proceed with a risky vote on senate rule changes until a supreme court justice is on the line. I see that as a pretty enviable position. They are much better off pulling the nuke option out when the stakes are at their highest. If they had pulled it out now and lost they would have lost big and the option would have been removed from the table almost entirely.

The first rule of announcing any sort of compromise is to claim victory. By screaming and fuming over loosing two nominees the Republicans may be canibalizing themselves. Its not in their interest to destroy Frist's credibility as a leader, but they may do so in their vanity, and if so this will be the thread that begins to unravel them. The NRO predicted this. NRO's editorial board (who opposes the nuke option) recently came out and said that at this point they had no choice but to proceed because backing down would cost the party too much face. If the Republicans target their own leadership for being wimpy they'll set the stage for less experienced voices to come in and start sowing the seeds of the party's fall. Something to watch over the next few days...

The Filibuster Deal [PDF]

] Uder the deal, the Democrats agreed to accept cloture
] votes on three of President Bush's judicial nominees:
] Priscilla R. Owen, Janice Rogers Brown and William
] Pryor.
]
] The Democrats made no commitments regarding
] two other conservative judicial nominees, Henry Saad and
] William Myers.

Hrm. Most of the stuff I have been reading has focused on Owen and Brown as being the most contentious nominees, rather then Saad and Myers. (Although Myers in particular seems to have a lot of people up in arms.)

I'm not sure what the democrats have gained here. A promise not to use the nuclear option is rather empty if there are no fillibusters to nuke, and this deal seems unenforceble. There is nothing to stop the Republicans from going back on their word once these nominees are approved and a Supreme Court position comes up. Taking a politician at his word seems like a dumb idea. By the time this comes back around most will not remember this debate and a little bit of spin will be all thats needed to deal with those that do.

Democrats: 0 Republicans: 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

Senators Reach Deal on Filibuster

] Congress is considering legislation this week to fix the ADIZ
] (basically, to remind the FAA and Transportation Security Administration it was
] supposed to be temporary) and re-open Reagan National airport to general
] aviation. If the FAA and TSA wanted to derail the legislation, this
] line of thinking goes, exaggerating the threat from a tiny Cessna would be
] a great way to do it.

Two-seater airplane brings government to a halt: was alert justified? [Politech]

] "We've got Justice Kennedy writing decisions based upon
] international law, not the Constitution of the United
] States. That's just outrageous, and not only that, he
] said in session that he does his own research on the
] Internet. That is just incredibly outrageous," DeLay said
] in the interview.

Tom Delay death spiral watch. This is Fox news. Fox news closed with a quote from a Democrat saying that they need to get Delay out of the public sphere for a little while and let him cool off. Fox news.

How dare judges attempt to research questions that are presented to them! Delay's position is that judges shouldn't be interested in the truth, per say. They shouldn't seek out objective perspectives on matters they need to consider. Rather they should be beholden to the power and money that drives the "democratic" government.

Delay wants to use the "good behavior" text in Article III Section I to bring all federal judges under fine grained political control.

He seems to be operating under the perception that the American people don't realize that the legislature is corrupt, or that politicians are bought and sold, or that people think that judges ought to live in a bubble. He is wrong on all counts, and he is starting to sound like a fool.

FOXNews.com - Politics - DeLay Calls Justice Kennedy 'Outrageous'

Rattle wrote:
] Unbelievable! In very unmistakable terms, this guy advocated
] the assassination of federal judges. There is a certain
] disconnection from ethics and reality here that is truly
] terrifying.

While calls to impeach judges by radical nutjobs is newsworthy, these nutjobs seem to have missed the fact that they are unlikely to get support from 2/3rds of the Senate, and even if they could, they'd need a constitutional amendment to include "having opinions we disagree with" as an impeachable offense.

Did Edwin Vieira advocate killing judges, or is he just spinning a phrase? Who cares!? Who the fuck is Edwin Vieira? Apparently he is also opposed to the federal reserve bank. He is too nuts to be important.

Whats newsworthy in all of this is John Cornyn. Recent murders in Atlanta and Chicago have about as much to do with right wing politics as mustard has to do with bicycles. Was his comment a warning or a threat? I do care about the answer to that question, as he is a United States Senator and he was speaking in an official capacity at the time. I imagine it was an attempt to reach for a boogyman. And he is foolish for being confused about why he got nailed on it. It was a stupid comment. He should acknowledge it as such and move on.

I said this before the election. I'll say it again. The focal point of the American people before the election was Al'Q, but I do not seriously beleive that a choice between Republicans and Democrats was a winning or loosing choice vs. Al'Q. There were strategic differences on the plate, but not of that scope. What was also on the plate was the independence of the federal judiciary. Something is going to happen, and this is a long term survival problem for the republic.

All of this positioning is prologue. It will continue for some time. The right will wait until the 3rd year of the presidential cycle to proceed, as that is when actions have their greatest political value. They think they can continue to control these radicals. I think they're jugggling fire, and they've already dropped the baton several times.

RE: One man, one problem.

] Many provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act will expire at the
] end of 2005. This forum is devoted to civil and informed
] debate about these provisions and whether they should be
] renewed, as well as a few other issues that are likely to
] be part of the renewal debate in 2005. We have an
] all-star cast of contributors, each of whom has agreed to
] an exchange of at least four comments on each provision.

This is absolutely the most informed and balanced site on the patriot act that I have seen.

Patriot Debates

] On balance, not quite as bad a day for Grokster as I
] think a lot of people were expecting. Not a sure (or
] even a probable) victory for them by any means, but the
] Court did seem quite attuned to the effects on innovation
] of whatever liability rule it ultimately adopts.

Lawyer on the Grokster hearing

Some of you probably missed nano's meme here. This is the most substantive scientific data I've seen about this case. Cat scan pictures are fairly telling. As for the ins and outs, I don't know them all. Politically this case is not particularly compelling, mostly because of this data. But the religious people want to believe that a miracle can happen here and they are fighting for it. I could save 10 lives a year with the money spent keeping this woman alive, but its too easy. There is no divinity in addressing the problems men can solve. To pick your fights is to accept that the omnipotent is limited. What is the point of saving people if there is no God to reward you for it?

Schiavo case

] If a dog alerts and nothing is found, then cops will
] never record that as an error, but will claim that the
] dog detected lingering odors of contraband that were
] recently present. Cops will testify that dogs never make
] mistakes, never have and never will, and that apparent
] errors are skillful detections of lingering (residual)
] odors of contraband.

Does our legal system really make smart decisions? If you can convict someone based on a dog barking with no physical evidence one wonders if the standard of reasonable doubt is really being upheld in our courts.

[Politech] Anti-drug attorney's critique of police using drug dogs