feminist blogs

Could they stand on their hind legs? Do you think?

performing pastel-colored poodle,
in a clown and poodle show
[OCRegister]

Ari Berman in The Nation takes a look at the Dems, embroiled in their running soap opera of duck and cover. Hide from it all but be The Alternative --also known as The Candidate:

Iraq returned as a central theme in George W. Bush's State of the Union address this year. With the war on the minds of many members of the public and with the 2006 midterm elections approaching, it seemed natural that the opposition party would forcefully challenge the President's policy.

Instead, the Democrats ducked and covered. Virginia Governor Tim Kaine devoted a mere three sentences to the Iraq War in his official Democratic response to Bush.

Representative Rahm Emanuel, a leading party strategist, didn't even mention Iraq when asked on television what his party would do differently from the Republicans--a hint of how the Democrats have downplayed the issue internally.

On the advice of top party consultants...

[there we go again! If they had any decency, or could close their greasy palms, they'd leave the country, FOR SHAME!],

the Democrats in the run-up to the 2006 midterm vote are either ignoring Iraq and shifting to domestic issues (the strategy in the 2002 midterm elections) or supporting the war while criticizing Bush's handling of it (the strategy in the 2004 presidential election).

Three years into the conflict most Democrats can finally offer a cogent critique of how the Bush Administration misled the American people and mismanaged the Iraqi occupation, but they're unwilling or unable to suggest clearly how the United States should extricate itself from that mess.

Count on the Dems to catch the drift, and depart, vacate any idea of leadership. Remembering that Murtha stepped forward FIVE months ago, read it and weep:

For a moment on November 17, when Representative Jack Murtha boldly called on Bush to bring the troops home, the Democrats seemed to have found such a voice--and with it an opportunity to shift the debate to how to exit Iraq, not whether to stay.

Sure, plans to redeploy US troops within a year or two, sponsored by Russ Feingold in the Senate, the Out of Iraq Caucus in the House and the Center for American Progress (CAP), were already on the table.

But none brought with it the standing and sense of urgency of Murtha, who previously had been known on Capitol Hill as the dean of the defense hawks.

Well, do you think that Pelosi and Reid and others are, you know, hampering a strong anti-Iraq War coalition from forming within congress ?

I do.

Progressives/left/liberal need to break away. there is no place for them in the party.

A Washington Post survey of eight prominent foreign policy advisers found that only one, former Carter Administration National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, proposed a clear plan for how to get out.

The resulting headlines--DEMOCRATIC LAWMAKERS SPLINTER ON IRAQ, DEMOCRATS FIND IRAQ ALTERNATIVE IS ELUSIVE, DEMOCRATS FEAR BACKLASH AT POLLS FOR ANTIWAR REMARKS--reflected the disarray.

As prominent Democrats shied away from the fight, Bush went on the offensive with a series of Iraq speeches, allowing Republicans to caricature Murtha's plan as "cut and run."

Pollster Mark Penn [Penn is Hillpac's pollster] and Democratic Leadership Council founder Al From warned that foes of the war "could be playing with political dynamite" and needed to be "extremely careful."

These Democrats seemed transfixed by the ghost of George McGovern, instead of reacting to the mounting unease with Bush's policies. [...]

Democrats in Congress subsequently went mute on the war.

By mid-February even Pelosi was reassuring nervous party strategists that there would be no specific talk of Iraq when the Democrats unveiled their own version of the GOP's Contract With America later this year.

The bulk of Democratic strategists approved of the no-details-on-Iraq approach.

Do nothings. Newly born. Born again. The No Details New Democrats, Republicrats, Demlicans, Trojan Horses, Republican-Lite... we all know the drill.

And here is a tidy quote from Steve Elmendorf:

"You can't hope the Democrats will ever have a unified message, other than a unified critique of how Bush mishandled the war," says Steve Elmendorf,

a former chief of staff to Representative Dick Gephardt and senior adviser to the Kerry campaign who's helping plan the Democratic agenda for '06.

Begala:

"The point of an agenda is to be unified, and the party clearly won't be." Nor is it realistic to expect they should be, says longtime political adviser Paul Begala:

"I don't think a Congressional candidate ought to presume to be able to solve unsolvable problems."

Let us be clear, the issue is not, any longer, voting for the war. More than half the Democrats in the senate voted FOR IWR, and few have recanted, much less apologised to the American people. Let's get real here, they have provided, already, the heavy lifting to get us there, and keep us there. They now plan to continue with the proven themes.

The issue is a measured plan to withdraw, semi-withdraw -- oh, troops at the ready in the friendly circle of friends we have, Doha Qatar, UAE, Jordan Israel others... We are in the bag for ''war in the region''. We are readiness at the ready!, there to put down palace coups or internal armed insurrection. We stand ready! Our sphere of influence is across 27 countries in the broader region, from the 'Stans westward. As the Iraq invasion took place we "greatly expanded our footprint in the Horn of Africa".

That is all this is about: Sign on to a plan for measured withdrawal.

Understand this: The party will split, whether it cuts the damned baby in half or not, because it, Biz Wing, War Wing, supports war forever, permanent bases forever. They voted for it. And for Negroponte too, 98/2. And they voted for him when Clinton made him Ambassador to the Phillipines. Let's get real.

The short version: The party supports George Bush. Oh they flail around, they rail, they bitch, they moan... but when the cow chips are down? -- crickets -- His poll numbers are down? Cue the crickets.

Those who see it otherwise, see issues of morality and pragmatism in a responsive approach:

It may be impossible to assume that discussion of the war can wait until after November, given the recent events on the ground. If most Democratic strategists have continued to counsel caution on Iraq, a few do not--for moral and pragmatic reasons.
"I think the Democrats are afraid of the issue, but I don't think they should be," says Democratic pollster Celinda Lake. Lake had previously fallen into the camp of consultants who advised Democrats to ignore the war and pivot to domestic issues.

Now she says that approach is no longer possible, and that Democrats must talk about a plan to bring troops home. "Iraq is the essential factor in the voters' landscape," Lake says, the number-one issue feeding distrust of the President and a desire for change.

And Brzezinski, NSA under Carter:

"The tone, unfortunately for the Democratic majority, has been set by the two Clintons," says Brzezinski, a longstanding hawk and vocal critic of the Iraq War, "who have decided that Senator Clinton's chances would be improved if she can manage to appear as a kind of quasi-Margaret Thatcher, and therefore she's been loath to come out with a decisive, strong, unambiguous criticism of the war, with some straightforward recommendations as to what ought to be done. And I'm afraid that has contaminated the attitude of the other Democratic political leaders." [...]
"Prolonging the war is damaging us in every respect," says Brzezinski.

"The costs are quite extensive and if you add the economic costs [$1 trillion] and the costs in blood [roughly 20,000 US casualties], staying the course is not a very attractive solution or definition of victory.

And I think Democrats could make that case intelligently and forcefully."

Berman closes on some notes of hope, but I am very sorry: I say, think back. Did they ever get it, in recent memory? '00?... and '02? Grab a hankie and think back to '04? Kerry at the Grand Canyon? He'd vote for it again! It did not mean war...

Last year? What did they "get" last year? We got primary fields cleared, for the likes of Casey, just ONE example.... Who is pro-war, pro-life, supports defense of the fetus from conception (that heralds criminalisation for drs and women, let's get real) and would vote for ... Alito.

A gift quote, well timed for the administration and the speeches, that Casey and Rendell gave to Bush. Bush, three times, quoted Rendell's support for Alito, identified him each time as a Democratic governor, naming him. It is called "supporting Bush".

I say it makes Rendell and Casey what Bush called "discerning Democrats" who should join with Zell and vote for Bush. I rather suspect Casey did. Rendell may very well have.

Let's get real. They divvy up power.

Caste your eyes back up to the quote from Brzezinski, about the Clintons:

"The tone, unfortunately for the Democratic majority, has been set by the two Clintons, who have decided that Senator Clinton's chances would be improved if she can manage to appear as a kind of quasi-Margaret Thatcher, and therefore she's been loath to come out with a decisive, strong, unambiguous criticism of the war, with some straightforward recommendations as to what ought to be done.

And I'm afraid that has contaminated the attitude of the other Democratic political leaders."

Vote for us, we're poodles! About where it is.

Progressives need to pull away. There is no place for them in the party.

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Technorati tags: Democrats progressive values rant Samuel Alito

I somehow missed this news item. But really, should we be surprised that Samuel Alito is as hateful and evil as we feared? His mash note to James Dobson, who has found fame and fortune in advocating hate and intolerance of millions of Americans, is quite revealing ... and frightening:

Dobson, head of the Colorado Springs-based conservative Christian ministry that reaches more than 200 million people worldwide through broadcasts and publications, read Alito’s note on his Wednesday radio program.

The note thanks Dobson and his listeners for supporting Alito during his U.S. Senate confirmation hearings.

Dobson said Alito wrote that “the prayers of so many people from around the country were a palpable and powerful force. As long as I serve on the Supreme Court I will keep in mind the trust that has been placed in me.”

What does that mean? We know what Dobson's ideas are: forced pregnancy and church-run-state-run breeding laws, not to mention sexual orientation laws to keep Dobson and his sheep from turning gay. This note seems to express Alito's affinity for Dobson's opposition to freedom and equality.

Supreme Court spokeswoman Kathy Arberg said Alito’s note was in response to a letter Dobson sent him congratulating him on his confirmation. She said his pledge to “keep in mind the trust that has been placed in me” was a line he included in many replies to congratulatory letters.

Again with the "He didn't really mean it" defense?

Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo., who supported Alito, wasn’t concerned about the note.

“His only reaction to the letter was to say that, in his opinion, it just goes to show that both Justice Alito and Dr. Dobson have nice manners,” an Allard spokeswoman said.

Of course, Allard loves that Dobson support, too, especially when it comes from just down the Interstate.

Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, called the note “grossly inappropriate conduct.”

“He kind of sounds like the winning political candidate doing a victory lap and thanking his backers,” Lynn said. “He’s not sounding like a fair and independent judge.”

He said the note can be interpreted as a pledge to rule as Dobson wants on key issues, such as gay marriage, abortion and church-state separation.

“It sounds like he’s carrying a right-wing agenda instead of being a justice for all the people,” Lynn said, noting he’s never heard of a Supreme Court justice writing such a letter.

Lynn, whose group opposed Alito’s nomination, called Dobson’s reading the note on air “astonishingly strange conduct” indicative of a “self-congratulatory impulse on the part of Dobson.”

Focus on the Family did not return two phone calls Wednesday seeking comment.

Ellie Smeal, president of the Feminist Majority, which opposed Alito’s nomination, called the note “highly unusual” and akin to someone thanking his political supporters.

“What’s happening is, the courts are becoming more politicized,” she said. “So much of it is about private conduct and the agenda of the right wing.”

The Republican response: "Whaddayagonnadoabowdit!"

[Via Jessica at feministing.com]

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Technorati tags: human rights news abortion birth control civil rights Culture of Corruption feminism health politics religion reproductive rights Republicans Samuel Alito Supreme Court

I have not been a big fan of NARAL's efforts of late. I've written of their ineptitude in hiring hack media companies to produce lame ads that seem to miss the entire point. I've not been alone.

But really, to actually claim that NARAL and Planned Parenthood are responsible for Alito's confirmation?

Puhleez!

South Dakota has now passed legislation making it illegal for a woman to have an abortion even in the case of rape or incest. It's a law perfectly timed to test the new Supreme Court now that Samuel Alito has joined their ranks. How exactly did we get to this place?

Ask Planned Parenthood and NARAL.

They sat back, bilked their membership like an ATM then didn't show up to fight Alito's confirmation, frolicking in their mountain of hoarded cash even as they pissed and moaned. Worse yet, afterwards they told their members to thank those in the Senate -- like Joe Lieberman -- who cast their votes to let this happen.

Here's the problem with this logic: NARAL did not have a vote on that floor. Neither did Planned Parenthood.

For the better part of a year now, big sport has been made by A-list bloggers to kick NARAL and blame them for everything from John Kerry's election loss to, now, Alito's confirmation. When Kos does it, you can see the crocodile tears. After all, seeing a man who avidly endorses forced-pregnancy candidates actually whine and complain about NARAL's political tactics regarding reproductive rights is like listening to a deer hunter complaining about the WWF's ineffectiveness at protecting wild game.

But I really don't get the A-listers' front-page attacks on NARAL, an organization of limited effectiveness and little political clout.

Jane Hamsher gets this much right:

The conventional wisdom in Washington these days seems to be that the Democratic party will be just fine if it shifts dramatically to the right and "goes with the flow." NARAL was birthed by pioneering feminists like Betty Friedan who had fire in their bellies, but somewhere along the line they became an institutional behemoth who wanted to court the rich and the powerful more than they wanted to actually serve the cause that so many hard working Americans entrust them to do -- guard choice.

They began endorsing Republicans like Lincoln Chafee and giving money to Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins. Yet when the Alito cloture vote went down -- the only meaningful vote, which could've been stopped with 40 "nay" votes from getting to the floor -- all of these people voted "aye." People like Chafee and Joe Lieberman later voted "nay" in the final vote which only required a simple majority of 51. They then ran around and huffing and puffing about this coathanger-wielding like they'd done something really brave on behalf of choice. Nobody was fooled.

Well, nobody but Planned Parenthood....

...

...And nobody but NARAL, who said "Thank your senator for opposing Alito!" and then listed a whole slew of Senators who hadn't supported them on cloture.

But to claim that "NARAL and Planned Parenthood Are Now the Enemies of Pro-Choice"? At worst, they're guilty of bad judgment and political ineffectiveness.

The enemies are the politicians who cast the deciding votes. The enemies are the activists who try to marginalize women's control over their own bodies as a "pet cause." The enemies are the political bloggers who push candidates like Casey in PA in primaries and attack (using Republican talking points) those who don't agree with them.

Kicking NARAL may offer some short-term satisfaction, and stir up some controversy. But it won't accomplish much of anything. The problems are the politicians -- the so-called "pro-choice" Republicans who have yet to vote to protect equal rights, and the so-called Democrats who seem to love voting with the Republicans.

"Pro-choice" doesn't count if they don't vote it.

"Democrat" doesn't count if they don't vote it.

That's where the problem is. And at this point, NARAL is at worst simply irrelevant.

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Technorati tags: human rights abortion Democrats election feminism health House John Roberts media politics progressive values reproductive rights Republicans Samuel Alito Senate Supreme Court

The strident right-wing e-rag with the ironic title "Life News" really really hates Hillary Clinton, even though she gave $10,000 to pro-criminalization candidate Bob Casey, Jr.'s campaign to win the Democratic nomination for Pennsylvania's open vulnerable Senate seat this year. Why?

Because they love strict father Rick Santorum, who has unshakable bigotry and misogyny credentials, more. And because Hillary is married to Bill, that unwashed boy from the South who dared rise above his station and become a part of the ruling class. (The good ol' boys are supposed to vet all new entries to the club, and Bill did not even apply. Damn inconvenient sometimes, this democracy thing.)

According to the Post, their campaign blasts Casey as a "Republican-lite on women's issues" and bashed it as a "calculated effort by party leaders to build a so-called 'bigger tent' at the expense of women's rights."

But the reason for Clinton's donation may have nothing to do with abortion.

Casey is running against pro-life Republican Sen. Rick Santorum, a Clinton nemesis. Santorum drew Clinton's ire after he published a rebuttal book to her "It Takes a Village to Raise a Child." Santorum's was titled "It Takes a Family."

A white, straight family with none of them queers or coloreds. Yeah. "Tell your neighbor to fuck off," is the Santorum way. Community? Neighborhood? The folks next door? They don't fit into Santorum's values system. There's no room for a metaphorical village in the radical right's view. Not when they're running the federal government and now have the power to invade people's lives. (Is spying on Americans a family value, too?)

But let's back up a sec. Why the hell is Hillary giving money to Casey during the primary, when he's running against candidates who favor reproductive rights?

Meanwhile, HillPAC spokeswoman Ann Lewis, a noted abortion advocate, told the Post, "Sen. Clinton is committed to electing Democrats through contributions and campaigning on their behalf."

Should Casey defeat Santorum, which is a possibility given his 10 percentage point lead in the polls, it would aide Democratic efforts to recapture the Senate in the November elections.

For Clinton, supporting abortion is still a salient issue and she proved her credentials again with her recent vote against Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito. Not only did she vote against Alito's nomination, she backed a filibuster engaged in by a handful of the most ardent pro-abortion members of the party.

About Alito, Clinton said "He will intensify his campaign to roll back" abortion rights granted in the Roe v. Wade decision.

Of course, Casey already announced that he thinks Alito would do a heckuva job.

So what kind of Democratic Party is Hillary trying to build, anyway?

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Technorati tags: human rights abortion birth control Blog for Choice Culture of Corruption Democrats election feminism Plan B politics reproductive rights Republicans Samuel Alito Senate sexuality Supreme Court

The nomination is over and done with, but I wanted to share a particularly interesting letter that a collegue of my dad’s wrote to Sen. Arlen Specter. I’m posting the letter with permission, but the author has requested that I not use his name. I’ve also taken out identifying information. It’s a great piece; I hope you all take the time to read it:

Dear Senator Specter:

I am a former Assistant United States Attorney and have practiced in the federal courts for over thirty years. I write now to urge that you vote against the confirmation of Judge Samuel Alito, Jr. to the United States Supreme Court. While I am certain that Judge Alito is a fine human being and has displayed competence throughout his legal career, his record, when examined objectively, is that of one who is simply too committed to an ideological agenda well out of the mainstream to be able to judge the critical issues likely to confront him as a Supreme Court Justice in an even-handed fashion.

Justice Alito’s record has properly been criticized in a variety of areas, but I would like to focus on two aspects of his philosophy that, if translated into policy by a majority of the Supreme Court, would, as I see it, be dangerous for the Republic: first, his opposition to a federally conferred right to privacy, not only in his clear disagreement with the Roe v. Wade decision, but in other areas, as well; and second, what can be predicted to be an excessive deference to the Executive Branch at the expense of Congressional and individual interests, at a time when such deference would have long term negative effects if accepted by a Majority of the Supreme Court. At this critical time in our Nation’s history we cannot afford to take a chance on an individual on a candidate with such radically conservative views.

Judge Alito Opposes A Constitutionally Conferred Right to Privacy.
First, there can be absolutely no question that Judge Alito personally opposes a woman’s right to choose an abortion and that this bias has affected his decision-making to date. Memoranda written while serving as an Assistant to the Solicitor General in 1985 reflect a deep-seated abhorrence (confirmed by his mother to the Press on the day of his nomination) to a woman’s right to seek to terminate a pregnancy, no matter how compelling the reason. In one memorandum he wrote in favor of a strategy “to advance the goals of bringing about the eventual overruling of Roe v. Wade and in the meantime mitigating its effects,” while excoriating the Supreme Court’s reasoning with the false specter of “the mindless dumping of aborted fetuses into garbage piles.” Since ascending to the Third Circuit, the Judge wrote in his dissent in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, 947 F.2d 682 (3rd Cir. 1981) that a woman’s right to make this important decision concerning her health in the privacy of the physician-patient privilege should not prevent states from requiring them to notify their spouses, except in limited cases. In rejecting this reasoning Justice O’Connor wrote for the Supreme Court that Judge Alito’s position harkened back to the days when “a woman had no legal existence separate from her husband.” Judge Alito’s opposition to Roe must be considered in light of what all agree is a well thought out and hard bitten conservative philosophy that gives short shrift to the right of privacy in other contexts. For example, in Doe v. Groody, 361 F.3d 232 (3rd Cir. 2004), his dissent would have upheld police strip-searching of a mother and a ten-year-old daughter, while executing a search warrant.

From his public statements and writings there is every reason to believe that Judge Alito falls into the “judicial fundamentalist” school of thought on privacy rights, as described by University of Chicago Law Professor Cass Sunstein in his recent book Radicals in Robes: Why Extreme Right-Wing Courts Are Wrong For America (2005). As Professor Sunstein points out, if this philosophy were ever to command a Majority of the Supreme Court, not only would Roe v. Wade be overturned, but also Griswold v. Connecticut (overturning prohibition against sale of contraceptives to married couples) and Lawrence v. Texas (overturning criminal prosecution of homosexual acts of consenting adults). However one might evaluate the merits of any specific case in the privacy arena, a wholesale repudiation of well established Supreme Court decisions would, I would argue, have highly corrosive effects on citizens’ expectations of basic personal privacy, as those expectations have been developed over the last forty years. While Judge Alito apparently has given assurances that he will defer to precedent if confirmed, his stated record and personal beliefs are so clear that the Senate might wish to give great pause before accepting these assurances at face value. For this reason alone, he should not be confirmed.

Judge Alito Would Defer Excessively to Presidential Power.
To me the likelihood that Judge Alito would defer excessively to the Executive Branch if confirmed as a Justice is an even more troubling issue than his views on privacy. Regrettably, many of the great issues likely to reach the Court in the next few years will deal with the limits of Executive Branch power. As we all know, the Bush Administration is currently, at the very least, pushing the envelope regarding its power in such areas as treatment of detainees or enemy combatants, warrantless electronic surveillance, governmental secrecy, and respect for Congress as a coordinate branch of government. Vice President Cheney lobbies Congress for a “torture exemption” for the CIA, Secretary of State Rice dodges queries about “rendition” and secret prisons in Eastern Europe, and the President defends four years of secret and unauthorized National Security Agency wiretaps under his “inherent” powers. A growing body of thought believes that President Bush’s real criteria for Supreme Court Appointees is someone who will not question Presidential authority. While, to my knowledge, Judge Alito has not written any decisions which deal explicitly with these issues, clues can be found in the written record that point toward excessive deference to the Executive Branch and an unwillingness to second guess Presidential power.

While serving as a Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Judge Alito agreed with an FBI plan to collect fingerprints cards from Iranian and Afghan refugees residing in Canada. He argued that the non-resident status of immigrants rendered the Executive Branch’s actions free from those rules against “stigmatizing” individuals that would apply within the United States. This is precisely the reasoning that the current Administration offers in support of Guantanamo Bay abuses and treatment of enemy combatants. Similar logic could be used to support secret CIA interrogations in former Eastern European Gulags, now under scrutiny by the European Union. In another memorandum from his Justice Department years, the Judge argued in favor of granting “great deference” to Executive Branch determinations of “national security” interests. He also authorized government lawyers to surreptitiously record conversations with taxpayers, dismissing what he called “this broad ban on electronic surveillance” found in a Formal Opinion of the American Bar Association. Documents released just today reveal that he favored a carefully thought out approach to shield high level government officials from damage suits arising out of illegal domestic wiretapping that took place during the Nixon Administration. In a 1989 debate sponsored by the Federalist Society, the Judge sharply criticized a 7 to 1 United States Supreme Court decision upholding the Independent Counsel Act, characterizing it as “congressional pilfering of presidential power.” He described Justice Scalia’s dissent in that case as “brilliant, but lonely.” Cumulatively, these writings portray an individual loathe to second guess the President and quick to defend governmental spying on our citizenry. On this record alone the Senate may properly ask: how objective would Judge Alito be if comparable and more current issues relating to the use, or abuse, of Presidential power in electronic surveillance and national security matters were presented to him on the Supreme Court?

Judge Alito’s writings on the Third Circuit continue to reflect a pervasive bias in favor of the Executive Branch. He construes prisoners’ rights and constitutional freedoms associated with the defense of accused persons extremely narrowly. A New Jersey defense lawyer who has known Judge Alito since 1981 describes him as “very prosecutorial from the bench. He has looked to be creative in his conservatism…” A study of his opinions by a Yale Law School Student Project finds that “even when he finds that a defendant’s rights have been violated he consistently declines to provide a remedy. As a result he has ruled for the government in almost every case reviewed.” In immigration cases he is quick to defer to INS determinations at the expense of individuals, even when those determinations are not supported by the evidence. Twice he dissented from decisions which overturned INS dismissals of refugee claims, on behalf of individuals who rightfully feared persecution in their native countries (China and Republic of Guinea). Chang v. INS, 119 F.3d 1055 (3rd Cir. 1997); Dia v. Ashcroft, 353 F.3d 228 (3rd Cir. 2003). In Dia the majority opinion noted that Alito’s reasoning “gut[ted] the statutory standard” and “ignore[d] precedent.”

It is no exaggeration to say that measured, yet firm and transparent oversight of the Executive by an impartial federal judiciary is one of the linchpins of our Rule of Law, going all the way back to the seminal case of Marbury v. Madison. Even under the wartime pressures of what Mr. Justice Black so eloquently called “foreign shot and shell” in the Pentagon Papers case, the Supreme Court has not hesitated to strike down Presidential usurpation of power, as the decisions in Youngstown Sheet and Tube v. Sawyer (seizure of steel mills during the Korean War) and United States v. Nixon (Nixon tapes case) so aptly illustrate. There is simply no reason to believe that a jurist with such an unwavering record of deferring at all costs to Executive authority would have the inclination to treat alleged abuses of that authority with the needed objectivity, were these issues to be presented to him as a Supreme Court Justice.

Judge Alito Is Likely to Embrace a Judicial Fundamentalist Agenda.
Professor Sunstein’s recent book Radicals in Robes describes in vivid terms how what he calls “judicial fundamentalists” are trying to take over the federal courts. One of the agenda items of the fundamentalist school is to roll back the power of Congress to utilize the Interstate Commerce clause to regulate in areas which it would like to see unregulated. Judge Alito embraced this position in a dissenting opinion United States v. Rybar, 103 F. 2d 273 (3rd Cir. 1996) a decision which dealt with Congress’s authority to regulate possession of machine guns. The Judge wrote that there was “no appreciable empirical support for the proposition that the purely intrastate possession of machine guns, by facilitating the commission of certain crimes, has a substantial effect on interstate commerce,” a view which the Court majority characterized as “show and tell.” While Rybar is only one decision, Judge Alito’s approach in that case, considered in light of his writings and decisions taken as a whole, puts him squarely within the judicial fundamentalist agenda described by Professor Sunstein and others. If the Supreme Court were to adopt the philosophy behind Judge Alito’s dissent in Rybar, Congress’s ability to regulate under the authority of the Commerce Clause in areas to which the judicial fundamentalists object, such as gun control, the environment or workplace safety, to name but three examples, will be in jeopardy.

Whether Judge Alito is a “judicial fundamentalist” or merely highly conservative, his confirmation would likely cement a plurality on the Court (Chief Justice Roberts, Justices Scalia, Thomas, and Alito) that is, without any doubt, committed to a judicial philosophy well outside the mainstream of current American society most judicial thought. It is no coincidence that many of Judge Alito’s supporters are so pleased at his nomination, just as they were displeased with the President’s selection of Harriet Miers before then. They know his true stripes.

In urging that you vote against Judge Alito’s confirmation to the Supreme Court, I recognize that I could be proven wrong. Court history is filled with examples of men and women who grew into the position, who were able to shed prior assumptions or beliefs and became fine Supreme Court Justices. Justices Black, Blackmun and O’Connor come to mind. But a fair and reasonable reading of Judge Alito’s record is of an individual who has been radically conservative throughout his entire career, one whose commitment to a consistent ideological agenda outweighs his objectivity, in spite of the seemingly measured tone of his decisions. Moreover, there is no reason to believe that the Judge’s personal makeup would transcend ideology and deference to governmental power if he is confirmed as a Justice. This is a Judge who once granted the extraordinary remedy of a Writ of Mandamus for an asbestos company based upon its First Amendment associational rights, In re Asbestos School Litigation, 46 F.3d 1284 (3rd Cir. 1994), yet in Dia had no difficulty dismissing, as incredible, an immigrant’s asylum claim based on evidence that the petitioner’s house had been burned to the ground and his wife raped in his native Guinea village. Regrettably, Samuel Alito Jr. is a man who instinctually favors the interests of the entrenched and powerful over the less fortunate or helpless.

At this time in our history we cannot afford to take a chance that a Jurist of Judge Alito’s judicial philosophy, temperament and deep seated personal predilections will change. He is not part of the traditional and more thoughtfully metered conservative philosophy exemplified by, for example, Mr. Justice Harlan. Rather, he is a “radical,” as that term has been defined by Professor Sunstein, and as revealed in his written record.

Because I believe that Judge Alito’s ideology and approach would do grave damage to the structure and balance of our government if adopted by a majority of the Supreme Court – particularly in the areas of privacy protections and Executive Branch power - I urge you, the other members of the Senate Judiciary Committee and your colleagues in the Senate to vote against his confirmation.

Thank you for your consideration of this letter.

They are a wonderment

Washington -- Judge Samuel Alito is expected to win confirmation to the Supreme Court today, after Senate Democrats led by the party's former presidential nominee John Kerry failed Monday to block Alito's nomination. The Democrats' maneuver exposed divisions within their party and prompted warnings from Republicans that it would come back to haunt a Democratic president. [...]

Nineteen Democrats voted to end the filibuster, joining all 53 Republicans who attended Monday's session.

Kerry's move to force a filibuster vote heightened the scrutiny by activists of a handful of moderates of both parties, including Feinstein, who already had announced her opposition to Alito.

Sell me a bridge!

Two weeks ago on a Sunday talk show, Feinstein seemed to rule out a filibuster of Alito, saying,

"I don't see those kinds of egregious things emerging that would justify a filibuster. I think when it comes to filibustering a Supreme Court appointment, you really have to have something out there whether it's gross moral turpitude or something that comes to the surface. Now, I mean, this is a man I might disagree with. That doesn't mean he shouldn't be on the court."

But Feinstein spokesman Howard Gantman said the senator's statements never ruled out support for a filibuster.

Ever pliable... and DiFi loves TV, if she can appear to discuss what is already decided (her vote), she will be there.
We know her well in San Francisco.

"Senator Feinstein has carefully over the last couple of weeks been going through the transcript, she's been carefully going through (Alito's) lack of responsiveness to a number of questions on very serious issues facing our nation," Gantman said. "She went back through his earlier writings, through his court cases, and Senator Feinstein reached the point where she felt she could not support ending debate on this."

Sell me the Bay Bridge too!

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., who voted to sustain the filibuster but had disagreed with Kerry's decision to use it, said the problem was President Bush's failure to consult with Democrats.

Reid argued that former Democratic President Bill Clinton had avoided nasty confirmation fights by pre-clearing his nominations of Justices Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Stephen Breyer with Republicans.

Bush actually consulted with Reid on O'Connor's successor, heeding Reid's recommendation of White House counsel Harriett Miers. But Miers' nomination was soon withdrawn under fire from conservatives who suspected her ideology and qualifications.

Reid called Miers "a good woman treated so poorly -- and the people who destroyed her are being rewarded by the Alito nomination."

Well, the Republicans have a demanding base.... notice who got "rewarded".

Kerry announced his filibuster on the liberal blog Daily Kos, and after returning to the Senate Friday, he said he was taking a stand on principle. "This is not the vote of Monday afternoon," he said. "This is a vote of history."

And history is announced on Daily Kos? I don't think so... more likely histrionics take place on the pages there. About it. The FP is populated with Democratic party organiser wanna bees. Lordy, can it get more tawdry? Deflation is on the horizon. Deflated jellyfish is not a wonderful sight...

Poor Democrats. They hung themselves with the Gang of 14. Pure numbers game. You are 44 in the senate, a filibuster requires 41, meanwhile 7, supposedly of your own party are a standing group against filibuster. It would be hilarious if it were not tragic. And obvious from minute one last April.

Seven Democrats who were part of a bipartisan group labeled the "Gang of 14" had indicated Alito's nomination didn't meet the extraordinary circumstances that could trigger a filibuster.

Trigger Cops vs Jellyfish. Down for the count... years ago.

Besides the fact that the filibuster was a hopeless cause, Senate Democrats and consultants worried that the move would put Democrats in Republican-leaning states in a bind during a midterm election year when they had a chance to retake their Senate majority.

Kerry's filibuster robbed these "red state Democrats" of anywhere to hide, forcing them to cast two conflicting votes -- one pro-Alito vote Monday to end the filibuster and another today against Alito's actual confirmation.

One of those Democrats up for re-election this year is Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida, who voted against the filibuster but said he would vote against Alito.

Yes the Democrats used Bill Nelson of FL over the Schiavo mess, they needed his seat badly and could not risk him being plastered with "You killed Terri".

The Democrats lost 2002 for the machinations to "win".

Can they do anything but protect Republican interests?

They lost the ground game in FL in '00, by not being ready. Quess who was ready, with litigation written and a plan to fight thru the last elector. Not the Democrats. They trumpeted they had - scream now - the Kennedy machine on the ground in FL. Keep screaming.

The party to save Nelson of FL. It's a hobby.

The party of the Davos whatever. More hobbies and pastimes. Please, go back to Davos. Alito was lost many years ago. The battles that never were.

DiFi and Blum are, I am sure, preparing for the annual drop in at the Villa d'Este on Lake Como...

Alito hearings and votes are tiresome responsiblities squeezed in. It is a haphazard game, at best.

And get ready for the Big Whopper, you knew it was coming:

Plus, he said, "It doesn't look good to push a filibuster and lose. You want to save it for the next time when you might be able to win it."

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Technorati tags: Democrats rant Samuel Alito Senate Supreme Court

The filibuster that wasn’t. The Senate voted 73-25 to cut off debate.

I can’t find a list yet of who voted which way. However, Lincoln Chaffee voted to cut off debate yet plans to vote against Alito — something that NARAL apparently didn’t have a problem with.

Jane Hamsher says not to give up.

Scalia’s absence from the Roberts swearing-in explained:

He was on a judicial junket.

The place: the Ritz-Carlton resort in Bachelor Gulch, CO. The event: a legal seminar. The sponsor: the Federalist Society.

Not only did Scalia’s absence appear to be a snub of the new chief justice, but according to some legal ethics experts, it also raised questions about the propriety of what critics call judicial junkets.

“It’s unfortunate of course that what kept him from the swearing-in was an activity that is itself of dubious ethical propriety,” said Stephen Gillers, a New York University law professor, who is a recognized scholar on legal ethics.

Scalia spent two nights at the luxury resort lecturing at the legal seminar where ABC News also found him on the tennis court, heading out for a fly-fishing expedition, and socializing with members of the Federalist Society, the conservative activist group that paid for the expenses of his trip.

What, no duck hunting?

One night at the resort, Scalia attended a cocktail reception, sponsored in part by the same lobbying and law firm where convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff once worked.

“You know a lot of people would be embarrassed at that. I don’t think Antonin Scalia will be embarrassed,” Gillers continued.

No, I’m sure Nino won’t be embarrassed by this, just as he wasn’t embarrassed to accept a duckhunting trip from Dick Cheney, whose case was pending before him at the time.

Scalia, of course, is not the only Justice to accept freebies; he’s also not the, ah, most gifted on the Court:

An examination of the Supreme Court disclosure forms by ABC News found that five of the justices have accepted tens of thousand of dollars in country club memberships. And Justice Clarence Thomas has received tens of thousands of dollars in valuable gifts, including an $800 leather jacket from NASCAR*, a $1,200 set of tires, a vacation trip by private jet, and a rare Bible valued at $19,000.

“The rules dealing with gifts don’t apply to Justice Thomas because the rules only apply to lower court judges,” Gillers explained. “People give gifts to judges and justices because they have power. And they have power because of their position that they hold in trust. And to suggest that it doesn’t matter, no one will care, seems to me to be whistling in the dark.”

There is no explicit code of ethics for the Supreme Court, though, as Gillers pointed out, lower-court judges are bound by such a code. Still, lower-court judges quite frequently emulate the big boys and accept paid vacations under the guise of judicial conferences. And, of course, lower-court judges are supposed to recuse themselves in cases where they have a financial stake in any of the parties. The local rules in the Southern District of New York, for instance, require litigants to file a statement listing any publicly-held entities related to the parties so that the judges can evaluate recusal (and, presumably, so the court can assign the case with a mind to potential conflicts of interest).

Not that such a code of ethics stopped Alito from continuing to preside over a case in which he had a financial interest in one of the parties, Vanguard, even after a motion was made to remove him from the case. Anyone have any guesses how he’ll behave once he’s no longer bound by a code of ethics?

Regardless of whether a group is involved in pending litigation, allowing any group to buy the ear of a judge necessarily puts other groups and individuals at a distinct disadvantage in future litigation.

Fortunately, it appears that judicial junkets will be addressed in the lobbying-reform proposals being put together by the Democrats, with Patrick Leahy, Russ Feingold and John Kerry putting special focus on the judiciary.

* I can’t imagine how tacky-ass an $800 NASCAR leather jacket would be. I once attended a law-firm holiday party at the Waldorf-Astoria, and NASCAR was having its own party down the hall. Lavish spending apparently equals strobe lights and women in tight silver lame catsuits.

January 26, 2006

Honorable Dianne Feinstein:

I must write, tho I hardly bother anymore, to state how ashamed I am of the Democratic Party.

I watched every day of the hearings for Alito. Disorganised, inept and ultimately just weak. For this most vital nomination. The thing for which you all lied and kept your powder forever dry.

Yes, you did, you were eternal virgins for the next "fight".

In how many elections did you drag out, and dust off, "Its for the Supreme Court"?

FOR SHAME.

As the Democratic party morphed more and more to be a lesser version of the MODERN Republicans (I would not fuss if you were old time moderate-to-liberal Republicans) there really is no reason to struggle anymore. Why bother to wish you all were better? You are not.

If only the small number of you still alive would break off. Many of us would follow. Instead we will pull back from national politics and work locally.

We dismiss you. For your failures.

Close the casket on the party. They fight for NOTHING. Certainly not for people.

First voted in 1972. Did not vote for Kerry in '04, why bother, the Republican machine would continue to hound him and he proved HE DID NOT FIGHT.

One point, lest you think I was not paying attention, the Navy records. No excuse, release them. The February 2003 medical records, no excuse, release them. He released neither.

The hell with you all. Yes I am angry. You bet I am.

Sincerely,

XXXX

CC:
Barbara Boxer
Nancy Pelosi

w/ attachments

Andy Stern, David Broder column, WaPo

July 26, 2004

"It is a hollow party," Stern said, adding that "if John Kerry becomes president, it hurts" chances of reforming the Democrats and organized labor. [...]

Later in the day, AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney told The Post that Stern's attitude "is not justified." Sweeney, also a product of the SEIU, the largest and fastest-growing union in the AFL-CIO, said the process of change is already underway within labor, adding that he is impressed with "the unity and solidarity" of Democratic support for Kerry. "I'm optimistic about the future of the Democratic Party," he said.

Stern made it clear that his complaints long preceded Kerry's nomination. He said that when Clinton was president, he demonstrated how little he cared for the Democratic Party.

Calling the former president "the greatest fundraiser of his time," Stern asked: "If you think the Democratic Party is valuable, why would you leave it bankrupt?"

Other elected officials are equally indifferent to the party, he said, adding that if Kerry is elected "he would smother" any effort to give it more intellectual heft and organizational muscle.

I notice Sweeney took the loss on CAFTA very seriously: You don't deliver.

And immediately post Nov. 2, Stern changed the manner in which SEIU supports the party in its quadrennial thrashing. I think they trust you (the group "you") as much as I do.

You don't deliver.

George Felos, atty for Michael Schiavo:

March 18, 2005

And the bill was passed because, ultimately, not one Democratic senator got up and said I don’t consent to the bill being heard at this time.

And I want to say to ... the Democratic senators, don’t do this to Terri Schiavo again. To have this woman’s wishes now, to have her feeding tube inserted by a subsequent act of Congress before she dies, would be a horrific act upon her body.

And if the Democratic minority doesn’t stand up for Terri Schiavo, then they deserve to be the minority party.

If they can’t stand up and one person say, no, we’re not going to ramrod this through. If they can’t stand up for the civil liberties of each and every one of us, then they deserve to be the minority party and the dwindling minority party. It’s time for them to stand up. Yes.

But you did not. You all hid. And before you hid, you cut deals in the cloakroom. And in case you think I was not paying attention, Yes Levin changed "may" to "shall" and yes, Wyden manoevered a delay. But first Reid caved.

You never stand up.

Jonathan Turley on CNN

January 14, 2006

NGUYEN: Yes, going through the motions, but what are we truly learning?

Jonathan, let me ask you this very quickly.

Do you think he will be confirmed?

TURLEY: I think he will, and he will owe that to the Democrats. I think they have done a perfectly horrible job in advancing their interests here.

They lacked strategy, direction, discipline. There's little evidence of a Democratic Party.

And I think most of us are very surprised about it. If they can't muster their troops on this one, I don't understand when they could.

NGUYEN: Jonathan Turley, law professor at George Washington University, thanks so much for speaking with us this morning.

I agree.

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