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	GOOD NEWS Recognizing that the need to communicate in and understand foreign cultures has become "as important as critical weapons systems," the Pentagon has ordered a broad effort to expand the foreign language skills of the U.S. military. DON'T MISS DAILY TALKING POINTS: Nuking the Nuclear Option. SOCIAL SECURITY: American Progress's Christian Weller examines the mother of all unfunded mandates. TAXES: Want to know where your tax dollars go? Check out how the government spends your money in a new report by the National Priorities Project. SUDAN: 350+ students from 42 states visit the Hill to help end genocide. UNITED NATIONS: New York Times calls Bolton "worst of the bad nominations," supports block. DAILY GRILL The presidential commission on intelligence "called for a broad overhaul in the intelligence community to increase sharing among 15 agencies and foster dissenting views." – Washington Post, 3/31/05 VERSUS A new memo signed last week by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld gave Undersecretary for Defense Intelligence Stephen A. Cambone greater authority over intelligence operations. Officials say this "could allow Cambone to interfere with the new intelligence chief by, for example, limiting the information he gets from the Pentagon." – Washington Post, 4/8/05 DAILY OUTRAGE States that would steer Medicare beneficiaries to a particular drug plan – say, one that would provide the best deals for elderly people with low incomes – have been told to keep their mouths shut. Though a federal advisory commission recently recommended such a move, the Bush administration has told states "they cannot steer Medicare beneficiaries to any specific prescription drug plan." ARCHIVES Progress Report STUDENTS Calling all bloggers. Join the hottest place on the web for young progressives. Check Out Campus Progress Now!

by Christy Harvey, Judd Legum and Jonathan Baskin
with Nico Pitney and Mipe Okunseinde

JUDICIARY	No Nukes!
CONSERVATISM	The Great Divide
UNDER THE RADAR	Go Beyond The Headlines
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JUDICIARY
No Nukes!

The battle over judicial nominations is heating up, with the Senate right wing getting louder about detonating the "nuclear option" in order to push through President Bush's radical, activist judicial nominations. In the latest furor, conservatives are trying to overturn the tactic known as the filibuster, which has been in the Senate rules since the early 1800s. The filibuster has a long history in the Senate. As John Dean writes, the filibuster exists "to ensure that the majority party's nominees have sufficient bipartisan appeal." Even Orrin Hatch, the former chairman of the Judiciary Committee, has said the filibuster is "one of the few tools that the minority has to protect itself and those the minority represents." It's also designed to force compromise. Going nuclear is dangerous maneuver which would overturn the basic power of checks and balances.

GOING NUCLEAR: If at least 41 senators strongly oppose a bill or nominee, they can decide to indefinitely extend debate, blocking a final vote on the issue. That's a filibuster. All it takes is 60 senators to vote the debate is over, and the bill/nominee is sent to the floor. What's the "nuclear option"? Right-wing senators want to change the long-standing rule so a simple majority can end the debate (meaning they could easily stop all filibusters). To change Senate rules, however, you have to have two-thirds of your colleagues behind you. (This ensures one party can't politicize Senate procedure.) In this case, the right wing doesn't have the required 67 senators on its side. Thus, it's time for procedural trickery known as the "nuclear option." Once the next filibuster is set in motion, probably over one of the more extremist judicial nominees, a right-wing senator wanting to activate the "nuclear option" would object, "claiming that the filibuster cannot be used on a judicial nomination." The Senate leader would rule in his favor. That ruling would be appealed, and only a simple majority would be needed to uphold that ruling which, in effect, would change the rule itself. Procedure averted, rule changed, and it all happens without needing two-thirds on your side. (Thanks to People For The American Way for the explanation.)

IT'S ADVISE *AND* CONSENT: The Constitution says the president "shall nominate, and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate shall appoint" judges. The right wing is looking to strip the "consent" from that process. President Bush is already complicit in this attempt: when the Senate fails to confirm his nominees, he simply renominates them. Even worse, he has a history of bypassing the Senate altogether and simply installing judges on the bench during a recess. Conservatives in the Senate would strip their role in checks and balances. Claims that moderates and liberals in the Senate are being obstructionists, however, are belied by the record: the Senate has confirmed 204 of the president's 214 trial and appellate judicial nominees.

THE FIRST PRECEDENT: Many conservatives claim using a filibuster to block a judicial nominee is unprecedented. They may need to consult their history books. In fact, as the Los Angeles Times points out, "In fact, in 1968, Senate Republicans used a filibuster to block President Johnson's nomination of Abe Fortas to be Supreme Court chief justice."

THE FRIST PRECEDENT: Speaking of precedents, Senate Leader Bill Frist himself took part in an attempt to filibuster a judicial nominee. On 3/9/00, Frist took part in a filibuster of Richard Paez, President Clinton's nominee to the Ninth Circuit. (He tried to spin this vote last year, claiming the filibuster was for "scheduling" purposes, but a press release by former Senator Bob Smith titled "Smith Leads Effort to Block Activist Judicial Nominees" exposed his disingenuousness.) In reality, conservatives led at least six filibusters during the Clinton years.

BLUE SLIPPING: Take right-wing protestations that every nominee deserves a floor vote with a giant grain of salt. During the Clinton years, conservatives employed a bag of legislative ploys to block judicial nominations from coming to a vote. In 1994, for example, Sen. Orrin Hatch added language to the Senate rules for confirming nominees. Known as the "blue slip" policy, it allowed a single senator to secretly block nominations from leaving committee for a vote; compare that to the 41 required to keep a filibuster going. Using this method, Senate conservatives were able to block more than 60 judicial nominations. (After Bush took office, Hatch abandoned this procedure.)

THERE ARE OPTIONS: There is an easy fix to President Bush's judge problem: Stop nominating far-right, activist ideologues with extreme views not shared by many mainstream Americans. According to Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT),"What is driving ... the Senate toward conflict is this White House's efforts to create unnecessary confrontation over judicial nominees.� The president insisted on renominating troublesome and divisive choices, rather than working with us to find more consensus nominees who would be fair judges." The Washington Post writes that President Bush has many valid options to get his nominees accepted: "He could, as Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) recently said, consult with Democrats on nominations.� He could pick nominees who are qualified and to his ideological liking and yet immune to plausible partisan challenge; even in a highly charged atmosphere, many such people exist. If he showed this kind of leadership, his demand for up-or-down votes would carry far more weight."

CONSERVATISM
The Great Divide

For years, Washington conservatives have myopically pursued their political agenda while setting aside not only sound governance principles, but longtime tenets of conservatism. Now they're reaping what they've sown. New public opinion data finds President Bush hamstrung by historically low approval ratings, a markedly unpopular agenda, and, according to a major new Wall Street Journal/NBC study, a conservative movement increasingly disenchanted with the widespread corruption, rigid ideology, and fiscal profligacy of their entrenched counterparts in Washington.

AMERICA SOURS ON PRESIDENT BUSH: A note to pundits who still refer to the president as a "popular" leader: Please stop. President Bush's approval rating has now "plunged to the lowest level of any president since World War II at this point in his second term," Gallup reported on Tuesday. President Bush's current rating – just 45 percent – is 14 points lower than President Clinton, 11 lower than President Reagan, and a whopping 24 lower than President Johnson, relative to corresponding points in their second terms. "More bad signs for the president: Gallup's survey now finds only 38% expressing satisfaction with the 'state of the country' while 59% are 'dissatisfied.'"

CONSERVATIVES REJECT THE OVERREACH: The Wall Street Journal/NBC poll found that even a third of the president's base wants Congress to prevent the White House and conservative leaders "from going to far in pushing their agenda." Forty-one percent oppose Sen. Bill Frist's plan to "go nuclear" and eliminate filibusters against President Bush's judicial nominees, citing their concern for "checks and balances." And clear majorities of conservatives, independents, and evangelicals opposed the unprecedented federal intrusion into the Schiavo family's private medical affairs, which was backed (very publicly) by President Bush, Sen. Frist, and Rep. Tom DeLay.

CONSERVATIVES REJECT THE FISCAL RECKLESSNESS: President Bush's base is also none-too-happy with the right wing's concerted campaign to run up massive deficits while simultaneously cutting important social programs. Thirty-two percent of Bush backers polled by the Wall Street Journal called it "a bad idea" to borrow $2 trillion to privatize Social Security ("I think he's kind of bitten off more than we can chew," said Roberta Shakoori, a 61-year-old conservative homemaker in Sacramento, CA.). And on tax cuts, the president's "signature first-term economic initiative," one in four Bush backers "now says tax cuts have 'not been worth it' because they have increased the federal budget deficit and have led to reductions in government programs." More than half of President Bush's base disapproved of the president's handling of the economy (53 percent) and said the country heading "on the wrong track" (51 percent).

CONSERVATIVES REJECT THE IDEOLOGY: When a committed ally of President Bush, Rep. Christopher Shays (R-CT), says Washington conservatives have created a "theocracy," you know ideology has officially run amok. Unsurprisingly, then, nearly two-thirds of conservatives polled by the Wall Street Journal said "Congress shouldn't pass legislation affecting families in cases such as Ms. Schiavo's," while 41 percent said they had lost respect for Congress on the issue. Additionally, by a 50-37 percent margin, conservatives said that the federal government should be "less active" on social and moral issues; they split even on gay marriage, "with 48% saying Congress should pass legislation and 47% saying it shouldn't."

'JUST A FLESH WOUND': On Tuesday, conservative columnist David Brooks valiantly tried to wrap a pretty bow around this data, claiming that conservatives have triumphed precisely because "they are split into feuding factions that squabble incessantly," which helps to foster a diverse, ever-expanding movement. But conservatism has hardly "triumphed" in recent years; as the Washington Monthly's Kevin Drum points out, the number of Americans who identify themselves as conservatives has been mostly stagnant since the 1970s, and has actually dropped consistently since 1996. Moreover, unlike grassroots conservatives, Brooks' claim that the mainstream conservative pundit class is an ideologically diverse bunch is just wishful thinking. On "every major political issue of the last five years," the New Republic's Jonathan Chait notes – from tax cuts and Social Security privatization to Bush's Medicare drug benefit, muffled deficit concerns, Iraq, judicial nominees, Karl Rove's political strategy and more – "Bush has enjoyed a solid phalanx of conservative pundits all repeating the same talking points on his behalf."