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SEN. SCHUMER CAUGHT ON CELLPHONE: 'WE ARE GOING TO WAR' OVER SUPREME COURT

**Exclusive**

Senate Judiciary Committee member Chuck Schumer got busy plotting away on the cellphone aboard a Washington, DC-New York Amtrak -- plotting Democrat strategy for the upcoming Supreme Court battle.

Schumer, promised a fight over whoever the President’s nominee was: “It's not about an individual judge… It's about how it affects the overall makeup of the court.”

Schumer was overheard on a long cellphone conversation with an unknown political ally, and the DRUDGE REPORT was there!

Schumer, chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, proudly declared, “We are contemplating how we are going to go to war over this.”

Schumer went on to say how hard it was to predict how a Supreme Court justice would turn out: “Even William Rehnquist is more moderate than they expected. The only ones that resulted how they predicted were [Antonin] Scalia and [Ruth Bader] Ginsburg. So most of the time they've gotten their picks wrong, and that's what we want to do to them again.”

Schumer later went on to mock the “Gang of 14” judicial filibuster deal and said it wasn’t relevant in the Supreme Court debate.

“A Priscilla Owen or Janice Rogers Brown style appointment may not have been extraordinary to the appellate court but may be extraordinary to the Supreme Court.”

By the time the train hit New Jersey, Schumer shifted gears and called his friend and “Gang of 14” member, Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham. The two talked in a very friendly manner about doing an event sometime this week together.

Developing…

http://www.drudgereport.com/flash3sca.htm

 

[Zhukov]

Is this really surprising?

Dr. Frist may as well move to Def-Con 1 now.

The D's are going to try and fillibuster anyone the President nominates.

They can't win at the 'voting game' no matter how much they cheat (alright, they did get the mansion in Olympia...) and the Court is their last hope. They won't give it up without a fight.

The only thing to really watch is how it plays out.

It will be difficult with the media on their side, but it is most important that the D's are fully exposed for the rabid partisans they are, rejecting nominees simply because of who nominated them. If seen this way this will continue their spiral into the abyss of insignificance and hopefully hasten us to the time when they either reform themselves, or an entire new party with real ideas and a willingness to actually do the people's work and solve problems takes their place.

The key is to not drag the process out. Months and months of stalemate in the Senate turns the people against the entire Senate not one party or the other because one party is seen as obstructionist the other as impotent. Most importantly the Senate is (quite correctly) seen as not getting anything done.

That's why it was right that the President came out and said that they were going to do this as quickly as possible.

And when it's over and Bush's pick is in? Then Rehnquist will announce his retirement.

 

[Jimmyeatworld]

Reminds me of a couple of months ago when Neil Cavuto went against the grain and went public with off the record comments.


http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,155415,00.html

Sometimes you learn a lot when someone goes off the record because — sometimes — they go off the reservation.

A Democratic congressman talked to me after seeing my interview with New York's Charlie Rangel on the issue of Social Security

"You don't understand, Neil," he said. "This Social Security issue is our party's issue. A Democratic president came up with it. Who the hell is a Republican president to destroy it?"

"But it's broke," I say.

"I know," he shoots back. "But there's no politically wise way to fix it."

He's brutally blunt and he's brutally aware the president has called Democrats' bluff:

They wanted the rich to get less. Under the president's plan, the rich will get less.

They wanted something close to "means-testing." Under the president's plan, those with means are tested.

They wanted the poor protected. Under the president's plan, they're more than protected.

Yet with each overture — with each bow to his opponents — his opponents bow out.

"It's a dead issue, Neil," this congressman explains. "It's killing the president in the polls for doing it. Why should we join him? What's the upside for us?"

"Oh, I don't know," I say. "Maybe saving the system your hero FDR invented?"

"No, Neil," he interrupts. "It doesn't work that way."

So the president goes out on that third rail of politics, I argue, and you're going to sit and watch him get electrocuted?

"Yes," he says.

"Why?" I ask.

"Because we can. Because we will."