The Coalition of the Chillin’
(I’m moving this to the top because my Blogger is still screwy…ay caramba…)
That’s what I propose to call those of us who aren’t having a cow over fili-deal (inspired by Viking Pundit’s excellent suggestion to take it easy, which my regular readers will know I fully endorse). I propose for charter membership:
- myself
- Viking Pundit
- Scott Elliott
- Glenn Reynolds
- James Taranto
- Stephen Bainbridge
- My Vast Right Wing Conspiracy
- Ryan James
- Alexander McClure of Polipundit
I know that some of my nominees may decline to serve; others I may have missed or may wish to join (just let me know in the comments, preferably with a link to a suitable post). Positions are unpaid; you can check out any time you like (but you can never leave?). Frankly, I’m not expecting a big response; after all, most of us are just chillin’…
UPDATE: How could I leave off John Podhoretz? How silly of me…
Alexander and Beth have graciously accepted…should I design a logo, or sit on my butt eating potato chips? Decisions, decisions…Lorie Byrd has joined (she gets honorary charter member status), as has Prof Bainbridge, and Ryan James has accepted as well…I designed a logo, but in true chillin’ fashion, I’ve got no way to host images, and I can’t even post a picture from work, so I’ll have to show it to you later (why can’t these IT departments just take a hint from us and chill?)…
And the first Coalition Victory (my, we move fast): Priscilla Owen has been confirmed…
Sissy Willis has got caught up in the tide, though she links to a post with a decidedly unchillin’ John McCain…
Add the Strata-Sphere to the list: we’re living in historic times, people…
Ryan James has the blogroll going…
And Prof Bainbridge has the logo up!…many thanks to the good Professor – check it out…
More here…
And the Instapundit is in!…
For a map of the Coalition member states, by our distinguished comrade the Commissar, visit here…
Gina, absolutely…we’re open to one and all…shall we count you in?…
[...] You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your ownsite. [...]
[...] Longtime readers will remember the flurry of activity around here when we formed the Coalition of the Chillin’ in reaction to the uproar over the Gang of 14’s judicial compromise. Our argument then, and it remains so, was that the compromise was a huge win for the Republicans, because it basically set a very strict standard for a filibuster, and as we have seen, the filibuster has not been employed in the interim. [...]
[...] Longtime readers who were around for the Coalition of the Chillin’ days will recall that our position – that the filibuster deal by the Gang of 14 was a huge win for the Republicans in that it gave up nothing in return for an exacting standard for filibusters – was definitely not shared by the majority of bloggers on the right. Perhaps most vocal of the opponents (or at least, way up there!) was our good friend Captain Ed, and in commenting on this piece in the Washington Post, he shows that he has most definitely not chilled in the interim: Now the Seven Republican Dwarves of the Gang of 14 will see the folly in compromising with the Democrats. They now have to make up their minds about whether to support Bush’s nominees to the Supreme Court or to protect a filibuster that has been abused by the Democrats to overturn the results of two elections in terms of controlling judicial nominees. They could have resolved this four months ago, with the stakes less than today and with a lower level of media attention. Now they find themselves only a year away from an important election cycle, where the voters will surely remember whether they supported a Supreme Court pick rather than an obscure appellate nomination. Fellow Coalitionist Timothy Goddard begs to differ: Why, you may ask, is the good Captain still so wrought over this, an agreement that has seen some of the most conservative judges ever appointed to the Federal bench, and an agreement that is seeing John Roberts sail the through the nomination process like a massive judicial yacht? Why, because the Democrats assure us that, next time, honest to goodness we promise cross-our-hearts–they’re going to filibuster. [...]
[...] Thus spake Taranto in the Wall Street Journal today. The honorary member of the Coalition of the Chillin’ is quite unconcerned about any potential filibuster: The Democrats could filibuster, a dilatory tactic that allows 41 senators to block a vote. This they did in 2003-04 to prevent the confirmation of a dozen or so appellate court nominees. But in May, under threat of the so-called nuclear option–a GOP maneuver that would have changed Senate rules to abolish judicial filibusters–seven Democratic senators agreed to a compromise in which they disavowed the filibuster except in “extraordinary circumstances.” [...]
[...] You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your ownsite. [...]
[...] You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your ownsite. [...]
Coalition of the Chillin’, Part Deux
Now Patrick Ruffini is starting the Coalition of the Chillin’, Part Deux, a collection of bloggers who don’t think Harriet Miers is the next David Souter (may he lose his home!).
Miers certainly wouldn’t have been my pick, but I’m not that worri…
[...] There are those who think the nomination of Miers is a defeat, that it shows the folly behind the deal made by the Gang of 14. I respectfully disagree. On the eve of that deal, if you had predicted that George W. Bush would nominate two Supreme Court justices who would sail through confirmation without even a serious filibuster THREAT, much less the real deal, you would have been laughed out of the room (unless you were part of the prescient group known as the Coalition of the Chillin’, that is). [...]
[...] I write this post as a call to arms directed at all past, present, and future Coalitioners, and a call to merge our interests with the second, more focused Coalition formed by the great Patrick Ruffini. The two Coalitions are not equivalent, and of course, each member is free to opt out, as it were… [...]
[...] The Mark Coffey of Decision ‘08 and founder of The Coalition of the Chillin’ and Patrick Ruffini, founder of The Coalition of The Chillin’: SCOTUS Division have joined forces on the Harriet Miers nomination. [...]
[...] You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your ownsite. [...]
[...] You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your ownsite. [...]
[...] You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your ownsite. [...]
[...] You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your ownsite. [...]
[...] I think the Coalition of the Chillin’ is about to be completely and permanently vindicated. The Commissar has the lowdown on Joe Biden’s prediction there is not sufficient support to pull off a filibuster over Alito. Here is some of Biden’s comments on Meet The Press today: A key Democrat said on Sunday that he expects the full Republican-led Senate to vote on U.S. Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito without the threat of a Democratic filibuster. [...]
[...] A top Democratic strategist tells me he now expects no more than a handful of Dems—eight at the max—to end up voting for Alito. I think it could be fewer. Remember, there are currently 55 Republicans, 44 Democrats and one independent in the Senate. We may well be headed for a “nuclear option” showdown, in which a Democrat would filibuster the floor debate on Alito. How utterly pedestrian this analysis is…there is no mention at all of the gang of 14…if the gang holds, and the Republicans go party-line, then the 60 votes or there; if not, the Republicans go nuclear…and it’s a tough sell that a twenty-year-old memo means ‘extraordinary circumstances’ (yep, I’m still chillin’). Fineman admits as much in the excellent middle section: Would the Republican leadership be able to muster the 60 votes needed, including a handful of Democrats, to shut it off? Not clear. [...]
[...] There is far too much ‘me, too’-ism, oneupmanship, and manufactured outrage out there, and many talentless, humorless, rabid partisans pervade both the left and right. I’ve been moving towards something different (I hope) for a while now in fits and starts, probably beginning with the Coalition of the Chillin’. It was the near-universal apocalyptic rhetoric that greeted the ‘Gang of 14′ compromise that first opened my eyes to the mob mentality that is so pervasive in the world of politics. [...]
[...] Somebody has to pat Mark Coffey on the back (and the rest of us Chillers) for seeing the facts behind the Gang of 14 agreement. Here we are eight months later and all is going well with Judicial nominations: “I don’t think anybody today sees a reason for a filibuster, but they may after the hearing if the answers are troubling to them or they feel they haven’t gotten the answers to important questions,” said Carl Tobias, a University of Richmond law professor. [...]
[...] You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your ownsite. [...]
Consider me “chilled in”… (over here at: Mensa Barbie Welcomes You
mensa barbie, you’re in! I’ll notify the keeper of the blogroll…have a great one!…
[...] You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your ownsite. [...]
[...] When the Gang of 14 forged an old-fashioned backroom compromise to prevent the ‘nuclear’ option from becoming operative, they were much vilified, and there was a feeling from much (most?) of the right that we had been sold down the river by those darn moderates. My own reaction was one of consternation. Why did people fail to see the victory we had achieved? And why where they so nasty about it? As a lark, I started a Coalition of the Chillin’ to combat the extremist rhetoric, and to my great surprise, I touched a real nerve, and the Coalition found itself deluged with dozens of requests for membership. [...]
[...] When the Coalition of the Chillin’ was formed, one of the most prominent bloggers to resist the Coalition’s position was Captain Ed Morrissey. Well, Captain Ed has now succumbed and joined the ‘Chilled Side’: Tigerhawk points out today that the Gang of 14 deal looks pretty good right now. I agree with him that it has taken a bite out of the Democrats’ ability to use the filibuster and strip the White House of its ability to have its nominees treated with the deference Bush’s election should have given them. I’ll agree with him that it has worked out better than I predicted — but what it has enabled are these terrible smear campaigns as the Democrats and their allies attempt to gin up the “extraordinary circumstances” they believe will justify a filibuster. You can thank the Gang of 14 for the debacle of the show-trial Samuel Alito endured this week. [...]
[...] You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your ownsite. [...]
[...] Members of the Coalition of the Chillin’ (and any others who wish to chime in) might like to know Mark Coffey and I have been discussing a Carnival of the Coalition to mark the occasion. Mark suggested we all think about the following question: [...]
[...] I am going to keep this short, mainly because there is not a lot to say. The Democrats have been performing their usual trick of misleading bravado since the Gang of 14 agreement last spring. That agreement caused a lot of handwringing on the right – with the exception of the Coalition of the Chillin’ of which I am proud member. [...]
[...] …that there were 14 more votes for cloture than confirmation? Says Prof. Bainbridge, with an assist from Opus: it means that the Coalition had it right; it was the much-maligned Gang of 14 deal that secured this victory. [...]
[...] You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your ownsite. [...]
I MUST CHILL! I MUST CHILL!
Can I please chill?
The Cranky Insomniac
[...] The Coalition of The Chillin’ – established during the initial phases of the filibuster debate when the Gang of 14 Senators was instantiated and there was hysterical speculation the end of Bush’s judicial nominees was nigh – has another feather to stick in its cap with today’s hearings on Circuit Court nominee Brent Kavanaugh: White House staff secretary Brett M. Kavanaugh today testified at a contentious Senate hearing on his nomination to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, asserting he had no involvement in the Bush administration’s policies of interrogating terrorism suspects and domestic spying without court warrants. [...]
[...] Our good friend AJ looks at the Brent Kavanaugh hearing today and sees further vindication for the Coalition of the Chillin‘… 2008 hopeful Mike Huckabee is proposing a tax rebate for the good folks of Arkansas – do I approve? Repeat after me: Tax Cuts = Jobs + Income… [...]
[...] a single GOP senator would support the nuclear option now–and that’s what “the Coalition of the Chilling” was saying all along. (Sorry, I can’t resist–I TOLD YOU [...]
[...] that even hinted at bipartisan sanity (e.g., The Gang of 14 which I and my fellow members in the Coalition of The Chillin’ accurately predicted would not be a disaster for the GOP, but would instead lead to the long string [...]
[...] get back the Senate, the “nuclear” option will be used against us. (Remember the Coalition of the Chillin’? I was a charter [...]
[...] and don’t get back the Senate, the “nuclear” option will be used against us. (Remember the Coalition of the Chillin’? I was a charter [...]
[...] 9:07 p.m.: Good defense of individual choice by McCain on the insurance issues – and a nod to the Coalition of the Chillin’ days – [...]