Samuel Alito

I just received this on an email from People for the American Way  on the matter of Sarah Palin and her comments about the Supreme Court :

Sarah Palin may not have been able to think of a single Supreme Court case beyond Roe v. Wade that she disagrees with, but that's not true for John McCain and his panel of right-wing judicial advisors. Here are just a few of the cases on their hit list:

· Rush Prudential HMO, Inc. v. Moran—reversal would invalidate important state laws protecting HMO patients’ rights in more than 40 states
· Grutter v. Bollinger— reversal would forbid affirmative action aimed at promoting educational diversity in higher education
· Nevada v. Hibbs—reversal would prevent state employees from obtaining effective relief for violations of their rights under the Family and Medical Leave Act
· Davis v. Bandemer—reversal would allow even blatant partisan gerrymandering in redistricting
· Lawrence v. Texas—reversal would authorize criminal prosecution of private, consensual sex by adult same-sex couples
· Tennessee v. Lane—reversal would allow states to deny physical access to the courts to the disabled
· Massachusetts v. EPA—reversal would permit the EPA to refuse to regulate the emission of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from new cars

John McCain's plan for the Supreme Court is as simple as it is dangerous. He has promised to nominate “clones of Roberts and Alito”.

The Supreme Court is on the ballot this election. McCain would hand the court over to the Right for the next 40 years.

Dear Sandra,

I don't mean to rub it in, but I bet you're wishing you had paid attention to that open letter I wrote you a few years ago. This week, a report on channel KPNX leaked that your Alzheimer's-stricken husband John is living, happily, with a new girlfriend in an old age home. Their video exposé even contains hard-core shots of your husband John holding hands with Kay, the local hooch of the Huger Mercy Living Center. Far from being jealous or upset, you, according to your own son, are a bit of a voyeur who likes to watch: "For Mom to visit when he's happy ... visiting with his girlfriend, sitting on the porch swing holding hands... No stress on mom. No guilt laid on mom."

Well I'm glad you enjoy watching your husband and his lady friend "exchange oxygen masks" and play footsie under the Bingo table. And I'm glad that you don't feel guilty about your John. But I still haven't forgiven you for what you did to me and, more importantly, what you did to America. And that is something to feel guilty about.

Liberals were so busy pointing their fingers at Alito and Roberts for shifting the court to the right they forget to look at the bigger question: How did Alito and Roberts get there? By replacing Rehnquist and O'Connor, respectively, on the bench. We can hardly blame Rehnquist, or as Nixon liked to call him, " Renchburg" the "Jewish clown". I mean Rehnquist could barely walk, couldn't talk, and had a gaping hole in his throat, which he covered ingeniously with his signature "tracheo-scarf." And yet this judge chugged away on decision after decision until the day he died at the age of 81.

Daniel K. Akaka, Hawai'i
Jeff Bingaman, New Mexico
Robert C. Byrd, West Virginia
Maria Cantwell, Washington
Thomas Carper, Delaware
Kent Conrad, North Dakota
Herb Kohl, Wisconsin
Joseph Lieberman, Connecticut
Bill Nelson, Florida
Benjamin Nelson, Nebraska

These are ten particular Democratic senators who made odd choices on Monday and Tuesday. While some were opposed to Samuel Alito, they still chose to vote for cloture on Monday afternoon, effectively confirming him. Cloture went through on a 75-25 vote; Alito was confirmed by a vote of 58-42. If the 42 senators who had opposed Alito had put up a real fight, there would still be some debate going on in the Senate, and those of us who cherish our civil liberties might be feeling a little less threatened.

Why am I focusing on these ten when other Democrats made the same choice? Well, because each of the ten are up for re-election this year. Which means, each of them will face a Democratic primary opponent. Which means, voters in each of those states has an opportunity to send a message to their incumbent Democratic senator that we cherish the ideals of the Democratic party--the former values--and that "same bullshit, different day" is not cutting it as the current platform.

Robert C. Byrd, Ben Nelson, Kent Conrad and Tim Johnson are the four Democrats who would not think twice of legalizing the reproductive enslavement of women for forced human harvesting in the United States.

Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia	Ben Nelson of Nebraska
Tim Johnson of South Dakota	Kent Conrad of North Dakota

These are the faces of our new massas.

This from People for the American Way:

PFAW HAILS STRONG TALLY AGAINST ALITO – SECOND-HIGHEST IN HISTORY
Notes Moral Victories are Not Sufficient

Following today’s vote to confirm Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court, People For the American Way President Ralph G. Neas had the following statement:

“Today’s 58-42 vote to confirm Samuel Alito represents the second highest number of votes against a confirmed Supreme Court nominee in the nation’s history. The vote represents an extraordinary effort by the progressive movement which, despite daunting odds from the beginning, never gave up, made a compelling case against confirmation, and rallied several million Americans to contact their senators to oppose Alito. People For the American Way, which generated 600,000 faxes and e-mails to the Senate in just the past several days, praises especially those Senators who did everything possible to oppose the confirmation of Judge Alito.

“But moral victories are not sufficient. People For the American Way pledges to intensify its grassroots mobilization to safeguard the constitutional rights and liberties of every American. Most importantly, progressive Democrats, Republicans, and Independents must work to ensure that someday soon there will be a progressive Senate that better represents the values and beliefs of a significant majority of the American people.

Grouped By Vote Position

YEAs ---72
Akaka (D-HI) Alexander (R-TN) Allard (R-CO) Allen (R-VA) Baucus (D-MT) Bennett (R-UT) Bingaman (D-NM) Bond (R-MO) Brownback (R-KS) Bunning (R-KY) Burns (R-MT) Burr (R-NC) Byrd (D-WV) Cantwell (D-WA) Carper (D-DE) Chafee (R-RI) Chambliss (R-GA) Coburn (R-OK) Cochran (R-MS) Coleman (R-MN) Collins (R-ME) Conrad (D-ND) Cornyn (R-TX) Craig (R-ID)	Crapo (R-ID) DeMint (R-SC) DeWine (R-OH) Dole (R-NC) Domenici (R-NM) Dorgan (D-ND) Enzi (R-WY) Frist (R-TN) Graham (R-SC) Grassley (R-IA) Gregg (R-NH) Hatch (R-UT) Hutchison (R-TX) Inhofe (R-OK) Inouye (D-HI) Isakson (R-GA) Johnson (D-SD) Kohl (D-WI) Kyl (R-AZ) Landrieu (D-LA) Lieberman (D-CT) Lincoln (D-AR) Lott (R-MS) Lugar (R-IN)	Martinez (R-FL) McCain (R-AZ) McConnell (R-KY) Murkowski (R-AK) Nelson (D-FL) Nelson (D-NE) Pryor (D-AR) Roberts (R-KS) Rockefeller (D-WV) Salazar (D-CO) Santorum (R-PA) Sessions (R-AL) Shelby (R-AL) Smith (R-OR) Snowe (R-ME) Specter (R-PA) Stevens (R-AK) Sununu (R-NH) Talent (R-MO) Thomas (R-WY) Thune (R-SD) Vitter (R-LA) Voinovich (R-OH) Warner (R-VA)

I came in just as the speaker read Lincoln Chafee's "Aye" vote for cloture.

Ben Nelson, Ken Salazar, Max Baukus and Joe Liberman have all voted for cloture. I am happy to say my senators, Clinton and Schumer voted "No".

Snowe, Hutchinson and Lincoln, all women, voted "Aye". All Republicans. Obviously none pro-choice.

In case you were wondering, I want to target the turncoat Democrats and target them hard. We need to get rid of these suckers.

Which Reid of Nevada voted "Aye" and which one voted "No"?

I wish I'd memorized all the senators names and affiliations.

BTW, my kids are watching now, trying to decide whether the milling about and calling out votes makes for good drama or not.

Senator Akaka ... from Hawaii? Just voted "Aye"

GOOD GRIEF! THIS IS LIKE WATCHING PAINT BOIL AND WATER DRY .... AAAAAAUUUGH!

The cloture has passed 72 to 25.

Jim DeMint has been given the role of soundbiter for the Republicans and they've come out swinging :

"DEMOCRATS SAY ANYTHING BUT DO NOTHING ...

THEY CANNOT ARTICULATE A CLEAR PLAN ON THEIR OWN ...

Barbara O'Brien at Mahablog wrote one of the most brilliant articles ever on how the rhetoric of the pregnancy obsessed extreme right is similar to that of the Ku Kux Klan at The Mahablog | Abortion and Slavery.

The sweet and cuddly Rude Pundit gives is 99 reasons to filibuster and the bitch ain't one at The Rude Pundit | Filibustering Alito For Reasons Other Than Alito. My other to do is to review his brilliant, The Year of Living Rudely CD. Bitch gotta represent her pimp.

BradBlog and AfterDowningStreet have teamed up with Velvet Revolution to give Capitol Hill the impeachment truck from hell and they need all the donations they can get at THE BRAD BLOG: "VR: We've Got a Truck and We Know How to Use it...".

I swear, this is only for medicinal purposes. Penetrative medicinal purposes.

[via Penetrative sex the answer to speaking nerves - Yahoo! News]:

Volunteers who had had penetrative sex during the previous week or so had the least stress, and their blood pressure returned to normal fastest after their test.

Penetrative sex was far more effective in this regard than masturbation or oral sex. But those who had abstained completely from any sexual activity had the highest stress levels and blood pressure of all.

Brody also did a psychological profile of the volunteers to see whether they had an anxious or neurotic character, and evaluated their work stress and satisfaction with their partners.

But even when such factors were taken into account, sexual behaviour was clearly the best explanation for the stress responses.

So here's a bit of pondering : Does this mean that Bush don't get no action? Or more pointedly, does this this mean George Bush rarely experience the positive effects of oxytocin? There has to be an explanation for his horrid public speaking skills. Add to that the man has some serious empathy problems, I am going to take a gander that he's more into the blow the hand kind of thing than popping the mythical granadine.

There is a little email CWA have been circulating; where they target the following Democrat senators. They are all considered conservative Democrats and they all come from "red" states.

Landrieu is the only one in the the gang of 14; who negotiated a non-party line approach to voting for judicial nominees and using filibusters.

Arkansas:
Senator Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) 202.224.4843
Contact Via Web Form: http://congress.cwfa.org/cwfa/webreturn/?url=http://lincoln.senate.gov

Senator Mark Pryor (D-AR) 202.224.2353
Contact Via Web Form: http://congress.cwfa.org/cwfa/mail/?id=31613&type=CO&state=AR

Florida:
Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL) 202.224.5274
Contact Via Web Form:http://congress.cwfa.org/cwfa/mail/?id=10892&type=CO&state=FL

Louisiana:
Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA) 202.224.5824
Contact Via Web Form: http://congress.cwfa.org/cwfa/mail/?id=273&type=CO&state=LA

New Mexico:
Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) 202.224.5521
Contact Via Web Form: http://congress.cwfa.org/cwfa/mail/?id=397&type=CO&state=NM

North Dakota:
Senator Kent Conrad (D-ND) 202.224.2043
Contact Via Web Form:http://congress.cwfa.org/cwfa/mail/?id=453&type=CO&state=ND

Senator Byron Dorgan (D-ND) 202.224.2551
Contact Via Web Form: http://congress.cwfa.org/cwfa/mail/?id=454&type=CO&state=ND

South Dakota:
Senator Tim Johnson (D-SD) 202.224.5842
Contact Via Web Form: http://congress.cwfa.org/cwfa/mail/?id=537&type=CO&state=SD
Senate Switchboard: 202.224.3121

Bill Frist has declare Alito a Democrat's worst nightmare. Why not then tell it like it is on that little email they've suggested? I have gone ahead and did y'all a favor by rewriting the CWA email :

Dear Senator,

Judge Samuel Alito has demonstrated remarkable ability, during his confirmation hearings, in denying his ambition to restrict civil and reproductive rights as well as give unlimited powers to the President and the Executive branch. I vehemently reject this extremist judicial activist to the United States Supreme Court.

Judge Alito has earned his distrust by the American people through his record alone. I hope that you will not allow him to be a further embarrassment to the American people by turning our Constitution into a victim of his radical political agenda.

As a concerned citizen and as a voter, I ask that you help to ensure that Judge Alito receives a speedy rejection in committee. If that fails, then I expect you summarily reject his nomination in the floor debate by any means necessary, including a filibuster. It is wrong to allow his rejection to be stalled any longer.

Thank you for your action regarding this issue.
Sincerely,
[Your Name]
[Address]

You want to take a gander at it with your own version? Then check it out the original email sent by all those concerned women:

I finally got to see Kinsey tonight. In it, he wonders what this country would be like if the Puritans had stayed in England. Someone recently told me that the first white people were “the only ones here” so this has to be a Christian country. In fact, there were millions of people already here. There were thriving cultures older than anything that existed in Europe, with democratic governments, no prisons, no debt, no sexual guilt, no sexual repression and almost no spousal or child abuse. Then the Puritans arrived.

The Puritans brought disease, repression, slavery, hatred and violence. They persecuted “Witches” and were the first wave of what turned out to be systematic genocide and theft. America’s first fascists. Church attendance mandatory, and heaven help you if you ran afoul of the local clergy. The Patriots resisted, ushering in an age of enlightenment and drawing upon Native American democracies they created a free nation. Freedom took a little longer than they’d hoped, but the cycle had begun. American culture formed a spiral, moving forward, curving back around to an earlier, more repressive attitude, which creates the resistance needed to swing around and move the culture forward. Kinsey was the antidote to the last wave of fascism, when J. Edgar Hoover and Joe McCarthy were imposing their respective repression and suspicion on the creative (and therefore subversive) elements of the country.

Kinsey showed people that most of them weren’t as weird as they thought. He pulled back the curtain and saw the sex that went on everywhere but was never mentioned. His research was the beginning of homosexuality being viewed as a natural variation instead of an illness. It was the death of Freud’s mythical “vaginal orgasm” that had been used against women for a century. He looked at the reality of the human animal and stripped away the false structure of 5,000 year-old tribal mores that have nothing to do with our lives today.

The spiral continues. We had a push forward in the 60’s and 70’s, had our predictable conservative backlash in the 80’s and we’re smack in the middle of a current manifestation of the same old fascist forces that live in constant fear that somebody is having a good time. Always under the mantle of “morality,” these forces have a financial interest in keeping people repressed. It takes real repression to fuel persecution, and it takes persecution to control a population and to wage a war. War is a money-making machine for the wealthy. Guilt keeps church coffers full. Great power measures itself against those it holds powerless. Happy people won’t kill for your cause. Liberated women dare expect orgasms, equal pay, and won’t tolerate abuse or neglect. If a rich white man is to maintain his fortune, he believes he has to exploit the weakness of minorities, women and the poor so he can build his empire on their backs. It’s time for empires of wealth and oppression to fall. The myth of scarcity and the expedience of greed and corruption are un-American, racist, sexist, hateful hurtful lies that have lived too long.

America is at a crucial juncture. The confirmation of Sam Alito will give dangerous leverage to the Republican War on Sex. The demagogues of the Radical Right say our culture is sex obsessed when it is actually sexually repressed. They’re doing everything they can to destroy the social and sexual progress we’ve made in the last 40 years. We’re looking at a return of sodomy laws, the loss of access to birth control as well as abortion, prison sentences for normal adult sexuality, complete loss of privacy, and strip searches without warrants if they succeed. Women will be out of the work force and under the thumbs of their husbands.

Kinsey was the first to tell us that Sex is Good. It’s a normal adult activity in all its glorious variety. I don’t know about you, but I’m not going back into the closet or under the sheets. In a free country, no one should be afraid to be a healthy, sexual adult. Do you want the government in bed with you? Deciding when you can have sex, how you can do it, and with whom. Do you want the state deciding you must have a child that is unplanned and unwanted – after they’ve taken away the contraceptives you relied on to prevent that unwanted pregnancy?

Do you want George Bush making your most intimate decisions for you?
When you can have sex?
How you can live?
When you can die?

Kinsey isn’t here. It’s up to us to make sure we stay as free as we are, and that the social progress that’s dawning for the LGBT community isn’t stopped before it has really begun. Stopping Alito’s nomination is just step one, but it’s crucial. Europe laughs at us for our prudishness – don’t let them pity us our oppression.

Strip Search Sammy cannot sit on the Supreme Court!
Demand an appropriate, moderate Justice instead of a Right Wing extremist.

No Alito, No Way!

Kim Hynes reports from Connecticut with My Left Nutmeg :: All Charm, No Compromise

Senator Lieberman was gracious and welcoming, and went on for a few minutes about how he thought that debate on the war was vital to the cause (yadda yadda yadda). John Hartwell and I put forth our arguments that the war was at the point of being damaging to the US, Iraq, and the Middle East, and urged him to support a plan for withdrawal/redeployment of the troops. I brought up the fact that it would be very nice if the Senator could take the lead in acknowledging that "staying the course" and "cutting and running" were not actually the only options here. Again, gracious response, that indicated while, he was happy to sit and drink coffee while we talked, he was not changing his stance, and the president was doing just fine with the war, thanks.

Vicki Usher and Carol (from Marilyn Mackay's group - sorry I don't remember your last name, Carol!) brought up the Alito nomination, and we all were pleasantly surprised with Senator Lieberman said that a filibuster was on the table for him - hopefully he'll stick to his guns!

Martha-Ann, believe me, I too would have cried.

I would have not had the poise or the streght to have walked out of that room. I would have wailed. I would have rend my blouse and gnashed my teeth at the thought, at even at the hint of my husband being called a bigot.

Senator Graham was out of line.

We know you have black friends that appreciate you. We know that even though the National Association of Women Lawyers consider Alito unfit for the Supreme Court, their president, Cathy Fleming wrote nice things about him.

What troubles me most is that people are picking on your husband for technicalities; because we know that Samuel's crushing hand of fate is all about technicalities.

It's not Alito's fault women get married to a shmuck. Sam works in the world of legal realism. The law is the law and a woman who gets married loses her right to make decisions about her body.

It's not Alito's fault that a mentally handicap victim of rape got an bad deal with his lawyer. His lawyer had not adequately provided citations in his brief to places in the record describing the harassment. The rules are the rules and it was a technicality they had to live with.

Statistics are statistics and unless you can conclusively prove that a black guy was not given due process with an all white jury, it's a technicality black people are going to have to live with. It's just not Alito's fault.

Technicalities are technicalities and in the real world of legal decisions, the law is the law and life just happens. They have to be looked separately, inarticulately, completely separate from each other. This is the real world of good judicial philosophy.

More importantly Martha, you and I stand by our men. We do anything and everything we need to do to help our husbands win. If they win, we win. I would have cried rivers of tears, on cue and for the record. I would have smeared my mascara and blown my nose loudly. Maybe, even maybe, halted a little sob. I would have done anything my husband's acting coaches directed me to do; because I too like to win.

Hat Tips:
Hughes for America: Boo fucking hoo
t r u t h o u t - James Ridgeway | Alito's "Coaches" May Have Violated Senate Ethics Code

Although I think senators Chuck Schumer and Dick Durbin have been kicking ass, I still believe "we the people" should have more part in the process of asking the questions to the Judge. So in the spirit of cooperation and the good old democratic process, help us come up with the top 3 questions our good senators should be asking Judge Samuel Alito.

I am keeping it to 3 questions because, at this point, 10 questions, although a fantastic popular culture meme, would actually detract from the real objective of passing them on to the Democratic senators in the Judiciary Committee.

We want to move on this fast, to hopefully have the final three by the end of the morning session and ready to be faxed and email during lunch tomorrow.

Do y'all think we can do this?
Yes?
Then let's get cracking.

We ought to get 10 good questions we can narrow down to 3.

Ready?

Set.

Go!

Senator Samuel Brownback has entered into the record a letter that former Alito clear Cathy Fleming sent to the Judiciary Committee back on November. You can see a PDF copy at the New York Times here.

The problem with Brownback's maneuver is that Cathy Fleming is the president-elect of the National Association of Women's Lawyers and they have issued a negative rating; saying Judge Alito is unfit to protect civil rights based on his record alone.

[via NAWL issues evaluation of Judge Samuel A. Alito]

Of primary concern to NAWL is Judge Alito's stance on women's reproductive rights. Judge Alito's dissent in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, 947 F.2d 682 (3d Cir. 1991), is a pointed attack on the abortion right. Judge Alito argued that married women should be compelled by law to notify their husbands of their abortions. This conclusion-that women lack medical autonomy-was at odds with the opinion of the Supreme Court in an earlier case, Thornburgh v. American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, 476 U.S. 747 (1986), which affirmed Roe, condemning indirect constraints on a woman's right to choose. Judge Alito was willing to require that Planned Parenthood take on the impossible burden of proving the number of women who informed their husbands of their intent to obtain abortions. In addition, he was willing to ignore directly applicable Supreme Court precedent.

In Planned Parenthood v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833 (1992), Judge Alito's endorsement of spousal notification was explicitly struck down in an opinion by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, the Justice he is seeking to replace. NAWL believes that Judge Alito's reasoning in the 1991 Planned Parenthood decision stems from a bias against the abortion right and is more results-oriented than precedent supports. This is consistent with the approach advocated by Judge Alito in May 1985, when, working in the Solicitor General's office, he wrote a memo to the Solicitor General expressing the belief that Roe v. Wade was wrongly decided and urged an incremental attack on it by means of decisions that would empower the states to regulate abortions and undermine the authority of medical professionals.

In his opinions, Judge Alito has disparaged substantive due process, a critical underpinning of women's reproductive rights. In a zoning case, Phillips v. Borough of Keyport, 107 F.3d 164 (3d Cir.1997), Judge Alito concurred with the majority but dissented in part, expressly to attack the validity of a substantive due process argument offered by the plaintiff. His hostility toward the Fourteenth Amendment jurisprudence, upon which Roe v. Wade rests, is another basis for NAWL's concerns.

Although Judge Alito's former law clerks and professional associates interviewed by NAWL generally reported that he has had positive and supportive working relationships with women and has appropriately hired women and promoted them to senior positions, Judge Alito's interpretation of statutes affecting women and their families further reflects a narrow reading of the requirements of those statutes to the detriment of women's rights. In this area, he takes a highly technical approach to statutory interpretation that arguably is inconsistent with the intent of the statutes in question. See, e.g., D.R. v. Middle Bucks Area Vocational Technical School, 972 F.2d 1364 (3d. Cir. 1992); Sheridan v. E.I. DuPont de Nemours & Co., 100 F.3d 1061 (3d Cir. 1996)(Alito, J., sole dissenter to en banc opinion); United States v. Rybar, 103 F.3d 273 (3d Cir. 1996), cert. denied, 522 U.S. 807 (1997); Chittester v. Department of Community and Econ. Development, 226 F.3d 223 (3d Cir. 2000).

Cathy Fleming was one of the witnesses the Republicans had called to testify in favor of Alito. After the NAWL issued their negative rating (this was a day ago), she was summarily deleted from the witness list.

Hopefully some quick thinking Democratic senator in the Judiciary will pick up on this and invite her over to testify about this rating.

Hat tip to Liberal Oasis.
http://www.liberaloasis.com/archives/010806.htm#011106c

Samuel Alito is reasonable. Samuel Alito is responsible. Samuel Alito works in the "real world" not in the world of ideas. This is what people like Orin Hatch and George W. Bush want the world to believe : That Samuel Alito is a good, humble man that has clawed temperately his way to the top.

Senator Dick Durbin though has been amazing at showing how cold-blooded the man can be with his judgements.

Samuel Alito has never looked at a technicality that he did not exploit for passing judgements against individuals and in favor of established institutions and the US governmental bureaurcracy.

"You favor established institutions and go against individual's rights."

"The crushing hand of fate ... it is a pattern ... it always comes against [ victims ] and consumers and in favor of [ corporations and the government. ]"

Bravo Senator Durbin.

7 Democrats:
Joseph I. Lieberman, Connecticut
Robert C. Byrd, West Virginia
E. Benjamin Nelson, Nebraska
Mary Landrieu, Louisiana
Daniel Inouye, Hawaii
Mark Pryor, Arkansas
Ken Salazar, Colorado

7 Republicans:
John S. McCain III, Arizona
Lindsey O. Graham, South Carolina
John Warner, Virginia
Olympia Snowe, Maine
Susan M. Collins, Maine
R. Michael DeWine, Ohio
Lincoln Chafee, Rhode Island

Instant Congress Phone Number Lookup Street number and name only: Zip Code (5 digits):

It is amazing that in this day and age, when we have so many technological innovations that connect us to people from all over the world as we while away at our computers, it's seems like a burden for "We The People" to try to contact our lawmakers. The developers over at People's Email Network created this fantastic widget to help you get the phone numbers of your representatives in Congress and the Senate. We are going to need them during these nomination hearings.

He's going for it!

"I am not asking you about case law, I am asking you about your take on the Constitution ... It is still important to know your view of what the Constitution not protecting the right to an abortion ... which you have said before ... and you have proudly said."

This is awesome. He's nailed him and he won't answer the question. Even worse; when Schumer asked him if he believes the constitution to protects the right to free speech and then asked the same question about abortion Alito, who has hesitated through all this exchange has said :

Answering the question in relation to free speech is not the same because those words appear on the Constitution. To answer the question in reference to abortion would be answer a question that is based on intrepretation of the Constitution.

HOLLY SHIT!
He has charts with all the cases that Justice Thomas has said should be overruled. Alito won't answer.

--------

Schumer brought out the charts with Alito's views on Judge Bork; with quotes from an interview in which he said he was one of the most brilliant minds in US judicial history.

SCHUMER : My point is that Justices overrule cases when they think the Constitution dictates otherwise.

--------

Schumer is nailing him now with comments by other judges who have said he has a complete disregard for stare decisis; especially in cases which were going against court precedent.

Schumer on stare decisis :

1. Greatly disturbing that you won't distance yourself from your 1985 memo where you said that a woman does not have a right to choose.

2. The fact that instability of stare decisis.

3. Your 3rd circuit record ... reversing or overruling precedent.

--------

Chuck Schumer makes this New Yorker very, very proud. He really hit the questions home to the point of leaving Alito speechless.

Hurrah for Schumer.

The reason why Siegel clarified many things for me was his distinguishing the roles of Federal or lower court judges and Supreme Court Justices. He said that a judge absolutely should abide by the rules of law and precedent. Justices, on the other hand need to be prepared to discuss, philosophize and articulate potential legal precedents. This is why the Supreme Court changed the course of history with their decisions on cases like Roe vs. Wade and Brown vs. Board of Education.

I also like what he said about a Justice's accountability : as a Justice, his only client would be US Constitution.

Samuel Alito's only client has been the US government. Can he really work for the constitution instead of the US government; especially in lieu of the secret spying of citizens by the Bush Administration.

This is really timely given Hatch's line of questioning : "Lawyers job is to uphold their clients statements". The senator is asking whether one should hold the advocate accountable for it's clients statements. What is amazing about this is that Alito seems to have gone great lenghts to dissent in a number of cases that even hard-core right wingers like Rhenquist and (at the time judge) Michael Chertoff found out of line with the Constitution.

Liberal Socialist agenda in the courts?

"Your philosophy is to follow the law."

This is really interesting. I would love to find out how many times he has said the idea of "common sense", "real world" but most importantly tradition, discipline, faithful to the law and read on that one, state law.

Again, the stress of rule of law is not about precedent. It's all about state rights.

Is this about the South still looking to win the Civil War?

You can podcast the confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nomineed Samuel Alito by doing the following :

(1) Open iTunes

(2) Find in the RADIO section the PUBLIC folder. Choose either WNYC or KCRW or WNDE. I am using WNYC.

(3) Open Garage Band.
*Go to TRACK and choose OPEN BASIC TRACK.
*Go to CONTROL and deselect METRONOME.
*Hit the RECORD button on the control panel.

Enjoy.

Last night I had the special treat of discussing the Samuel Alito hearings with Normal Siegel at the New Democratic Majority monthly meeting.

Normal Siegel is a constitutional lawyer, former head of NYC ACLU and one of the true progressive liberals left in the political landscape here in New York City (and maybe the country). He ran (and lost) for Public Advocate of New York City in the last elections with the support of NDM, DFNYC and other grassroots organizations.

We spent almost 2 hours discussing these hearings and the implications of Samuel Alito becoming a justice of the supreme court.

The task of wading through the nominees 15 years of documents and records is absolutely daunting, but for the hard-core researchers, you can go to the National Archives :

http://www.archives.gov/news/samuel-alito/

That's why I have to thank People for the American Way for the amazing work of collecting, collating and analyzing at their Save the Court website the nominees paper trail.

I have though been more focused on the public discourse around Alito; especially in light of what has been bothering me since the Robert's hearings. Both Robert and now Alito claim they will respect the rule of law and legal precendents first and foremost. I have been having problems articulating why I find these statements problematic until Siegel's presentation last night.

(1) Does this mean then that he would not review the rulings that have made the patenting of DNA legal and have turned the human genome into a commodity to be owned by multinational genomic corporations?

DNA Patent Database
http://dnapatents.georgetown.edu/

DNA Patents Create Monopolies on Living Organisms
From the Council for Responsible Genetics
http://www.actionbioscience.org/genomic/crg.html

(2) Let's say a majority of "red" states are successful at passing laws that restrict abortion to the point of making it impossible for poor women and sexually-mature minors to exercise their reproductive autonomy. Does this mean that he would use that as base for a judicial review under stare decisis and, in effect, overturn Roe vs. Wade?

New law could mean death penalty for doctors
http://www.pphouston.org/site/News2?id=9640

Bill would ban abortion in Indiana
Lawmaker would want to appeal law to the Supreme Court.
http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/fortwayne/news/local/13565202.htm

More on this. I have to take the kids to another class. Which brings me to a tangent : How can citizens in this country be involved in the political process if these hearings are held during normal working and school hours? Our political and governmental system is designed for people not be engaged, not to have easy access to the decision process.

It's a challenge for new media pioneers like us bloggers (who were excoriated by a member of the Judicial Committee today but for whom I do not have a name). We need to figure out how to use this technology to augment the political process virally into people's work and school structures.

I have some ideas; but I really have to go now.

Blog you later.

I am at Chelsea Piers, here in NYC listening the hearings on WNYC's internet access. I am lucky to have wi-fi access here, Chelsea Piers being one of the few private places to offer free and open wi-fi access to the internet.

So, jumping into the Samuel Alito Supreme Court hearings I just heard the weirdest thing : Racial "enemas" run deep in some people. Needless to say, given the severity of the possible outcome of these hearings, Senator Biden has my heart for offering me a fine laugh.

BTW : This is the first time witnessing the hearings. I had to run out the door to bring the kids to their class right in the middle of Kennedy's inquiry. He kicked ass.

Biden is doing an amazing job at delving into the rules of racial discrimination.

Alito is really coming across as a callous bureaucrat that will go to great lenghts to defend business and government misconduct to the detriment of individual rights.

And what is coming out of these hearings is that Alito consistently has disregarded for juried trials.

Since I have no time to blog, I am leaving you'll with these great links. Hopefully you'll want to jump into the fray here by commenting or opening your blog and writing about the hearings as well.

Barbara O'Brien over at The Mahablog | Control

You aren’t going to budge the anti-abortion lawmakers with sordid tales of maternal mortality, of course, because they don’t care if women die. It’s more important to control women’s behavior and punish them for being sexual than to care about their health and well-being. But the majority of Americans favor keeping abortion legal. And making abortion illegal doesn’t stop it. So, one might ask — what are we arguing about, again?

Here’s what we’re arguing about:

Next week the SCOTUS confirmation hearings for Sam Alito will begin. NARAL is sending out a fact sheet on Alito and birth control saying that Alito considers some birth control methods — such as birth control pills, the contraceptive ring, the IUD (intrauterine device), and the birth control patch — to be “abortifacient

I have one huge resolution for 2006. I am not going to use email lists anymore for public discussions of political issues unless it is a private and "members only" list.

Not that I have any complaints or anything but responding to the national homeschooling lists I belong to just cuts into my blogging time. I have to do it this way for time reasons, plain and simple.

I now have a mess of emails to cobble together into one coherent post after I spent the weekend discussing the importance of looking at choice as continuum that spreads to education, parenting, even how we choose to rest in peace.

But, you know, I don't regret having spent the time doing so. A lot of really great ideas are coming out of those lists, it's just I don't have the time to reply to everybody independently --and the discussions sometime overlap leaving me confused as to who I am responding to. Anyhow ...

The site, once again, was down. This time it was due to my switching domain hosting companies; and that takes me to my second resolution. I vow to break all business ties with GoDaddy.com in the coming year. I own quite a number of domain names and at the time I bought them, GoDaddy was the cheapest alternative to Register.com and Network Solutions. But then, he published his now heavily edited and recanted views on the allegedly mild discomfort produced on detainees at Guantanamo Bay --because, you know, it's not torture, it's just a mild discomfort like when you drink some sour milk and your tummy gets a boo-boo. I find the man and his political views repulsive beyond belief.

I use www.1and1.com and have found them efficient. Their domain management interface is a bit lacking but, for $5.99 a domain, it's as good as it gets. Even though they're a German company, I am not bracing myself for any revelations. That's the nature of European companies --you just expect them to have some skeletons in their closet. I just get irritated by Americans acting like gringos.

Another resolution is to focus more on the repressive uses of technology. You think that Bush's wiretapping of citizens is an outrage? The you obviously have no idea how privacy and freedom are being turned into an emerging industry in this country, and especially after September 11.

Of course, I will be focusing on impeachment. Please remind all those 'star bloggers' on the blogosphere that waaaaay before it was fashionable to talk about impeachment, people like me and Morgaine Swann were not just talking about it but strongly advocating it in our blogs. What were we called by certain liberal bloggers? Impractical, too far to the left.

Riiiiight.

This takes me to another resolution: I am doing a serious pruning of my blogroll. You don't give me the love even after I ask you?

[Expletive deleted due to the Secular Humanist Holidays].

My blogroll is coming back. It was possesed during the previous incantation. Which reminds me : I have been meaning to do some serious updating with linkbacks to people showing the love. If you have me on your blogroll and you want the love back, please leave a comment here.

Last, at least for now : I vow to have people like Samuel Alito run out of the judiciary. I swear, the man makes Machiavelli look like an amateur. He would have been real at home working for Pinochet. So what's going to be part of my holiday reading? The cornucopia of NARA - National Archives - Records Pertaining to Judge Samuel A. Alito, Jr.

Because, you know, it's the secular humanist holidays. We need to have a reason for being depressed.

And that's it for now.

I have two hairless monkies waiting for me to take them to a date with the dinosaurs today. Blog you later.

[via Is the court Catholic? - Los Angeles Times]:

If one were looking for a predominant influence on the Supreme Court, it would seem to be Harvard Law School, not Catholicism. In addition to those listed above, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, David H. Souter and Stephen G. Breyer attended Harvard Law, which means that if Alito is confirmed, the school will have seven graduates on the high court.

The orthodoxies of this legal academy will probably be more influential on certain legal issues than any religious affiliation.

Yesterday I had mentioned in passing how we needed to start getting a list of organizations to thank for opposing the Alito nomination. Well, we have research pixies leaving us pots of data gold at our door every day.

Thank you research pixies because with your contribution we have official launched our first community book project : Samuel Alito SCOTUS Watch.

What does it mean? It means this is posted in a community page. If you are a member, contributor or contributing editor of culturekitchen, you will be able to edit this page. You will see a tab at the top of the page that says EDIT. Just as you would correct or rewrite something on one of your blog posts, that's exactly what you would do here.

Our first page is Organizations Against or Declaring concern with Samuel Alito's nomination to the Supreme Court.

With this particular page, we need help adding links to all these organizations plus a link to their statements of opposition. Help us edit this page and participate in our first ever cooperative blogging project.

Contributing editors and contributors can add pages to this book. We need a bio page, a page with links to notable articles about Alito .... and whatever else you deem important or necessary as a resource.

So jump right into cooperative blogging. You're going to like it.

Organizations Opposed
Alliance for Justice
Americans for Democratic Action
Congressional Black Caucus
Feminist Majority
Human Rights Campaign
Judge David L. Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law
Lambda Legal
Leadership Conference on Civil Rights
MoveOn
NARAL Pro-Choice America
National Abortion Federation
National Center for Lesbian Rights
National Council of Jewish Women
National Council of Women’s Organizations
National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Foundation
National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association
National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health
National Lawyers Guild
National Organization for Women
National Women’s Law Center
Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays
People For the American Way
Planned Parenthood Federation of America
Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice
The Sexuality Information and Education Council of the U.S.
The Shalom Center
Union for Reform Judaism
Unitarian Universalist Association
USAction
Violence Policy Center
The Woodhull Freedom Federation

Organizations Expressing Concern
American Association for Affirmative Action
American Civil Liberties Union
AFL-CIO
Americans United for Separation of Church and State
Center for American Progress
Center for Reproductive Rights
Congressional Hispanic Caucus
Community Rights Counsel
Earthjustice
Hispanic National Bar Association
Interfaith Alliance
League of United Latin American Citizens
Legal Momentum
National Partnership for Women & Families
National Senior Citizens Law Center
YWCA USA

This is a collection of documents, articles and media chronicling the nomination and confirmation proceedings of Judge Samuel Alito to the United States' Supreme Court.

We are asking your help with this project by helping us add information like links, email addresses or phone numbers to the organizations, senators, congresspeople and others that may appear on these pages. For that reason, if you do not have permission to edit this page, ask for it.

Samuel "Scalito" Alito is turning out to be not just a liberal but a conservative's worse nightmare. The man is so extreme in his use of the law that I would be hard pressed to believe this man could get appointed to the SCOTUS. Especially with the paper trail that's popping by the minute. First off : Shoot to kill is a OK with him.

From Alito memo says police shooting justified:

Asked to prepare a memo on whether the Reagan administration should intervene and how the case should be argued, Alito wrote, "The shooting can be justified as reasonable within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment."

The young lawyer contended that "a fleeing suspect in effect states to the police: 'Kill me or let me escape the legal process, at least for now.'"

He added, "If every suspect could evade arrest by putting the state to this choice, societal order would quickly break down."

Alito argued against overturning the Tennessee law, but recommended that the administration stay out of the case.

The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in early 1985 that the Tennessee statute and department policy violated Fourth Amendment protections, setting a precedent forbidding the use of deadly force by police except in certain circumstances. Justice Byron White wrote the majority's decision.

Link

Is it any wonder why he refused to meet with the Black Congressional Caucus? Does this mean the Puerto Rican and Latino caucus are out of the picture as well? :

[via BAW: Alito Snubs Congressional Blacks, Talk of Senate Filibuster Heating Up]:

Dandridge said the caucus, which has been critical of Alito's judicial opinions involving race, asked for a meeting with Alito last month but never got a response.

"We just assumed the answer was no," Dandridge said.

Last week, the Congressional Black Caucus announced its collective opposition to Alito, saying Alito's conservative views could place longstanding civil rights legislation in jeopardy.

"The members of the CBC are concerned about Judge Alito's opinions, many in dissent, in race cases where his decisions have disproportionately affected African-Americans," Rep. Mel Watt (D-N.C.), chairman of the caucus, said last week.

"We are troubled by what appears to be a very conservative judicial philosophy that seems greatly at odds with much of 20th century constitutional jurisprudence," he said.

Which reminds me, we need to start keeping a tally of all the organizations opposing Alito --so we can send them thank you notes galore. PFLAG jumps in the bandwagon with several other gay and lesbian organizations :

From U.S. Newswire : Releases : "PFLAG Unites with LGBT Rights Groups to Oppose Alito Nomination":

Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG), Human Rights Campaign, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, and National Center for Lesbian Rights today announced their opposition to the nomination of Samuel A. Alito to the Supreme Court of the United States, contending that Alito would roll back protections for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community (LGBT) community.

"Alito's record indicates that he would not protect all families equally," said Jody M. Huckaby, executive director of PFLAG. "As parents, family members and friends, we know that there is too much at stake now to leave GLBT rights in the hands of Alito."

Link

Meanwhile, Bill Frist has a fool on The Hill moment. In a show of psycopanthic premature verbal ejaculations, Frist threatens to call on the nuclear option (even though insiders tell me he has not a chance in hell to get the 51 votes he needs) :

From Frist Cautions Senators Against Stalling Alito Vote:

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) threatened yesterday to strip Democrats of the power to filibuster if they block the vote on Supreme Court nominee Samuel A. Alito Jr."It would be against the intent of the Founding Fathers and our Constitution to deny Sam Alito an up-or-down vote on the floor of the United States Senate," he said on "Fox News Sunday.

"His willingness to consider a procedural maneuver called the "nuclear option" seemed somewhat premature. Last week, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) said that although he anticipates intense questioning of Alito during next month's hearings, he does not detect strong sentiment for using the filibuster to stall a vote.

A spokesman for the leading Senate Democrat agreed."As far as I can tell, the only person talking about a filibuster is Senator Frist and some of the far-right fringe groups," said Jim Manley, spokesman for Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (Nev.). "This kind of talk is silly and unhelpful."

Link

And senator Byrd is ready to give him the senatorial bird if need be :
From Politics News Article | Reuters.com | Fight looms if Republicans change Senate rules:

Minutes after the Senate returned from a three-week vacation Byrd challenged Frist, a Tennessee Republican, in an unusually pointed floor debate.

"If the senator wants a fight, let him try. I'm 88 years old but I can still fight and fight I will for freedom of speech," Byrd said.

Byrd said he did not expect a filibuster against Alito, but complained, "I'm tired of hearing this threat thrown in our faces if we decide we want to filibuster."

Link

Let's not call this victory, but at least let's pat ourselves in the back because obviously, we are doing our jobs :
From Step up Alito fight, right urges GOP:

While Democratic senators such as Edward Kennedy (Mass.), Charles Schumer (N.Y.), Barbara Boxer (Calif.) and Patrick Leahy (Vt.) and liberal groups such as People for the American Way and the National Women's Law Center have raised concerns about Alito, Republican senators, with the notable exceptions of John Cornyn (Texas) and Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (Pa.), have done little to rebut the criticisms, GOP aides say.

The Democratic and liberal offensive against Alito is expected to rise a notch this week when civil-rights and labor groups come out against him, Senate Democratic and liberal strategists said. Last week, the National Women's Law Center announced its opposition to Alito.

"We'll probably see some activity [on Alito] next week, and as we get closer to the hearing there'll be a lot," said Stephanie Cutter, an aide to Kennedy.

Although Cornyn has issued regular press releases challenging liberal charges and Specter has defended Alito for failing to recuse himself from a case involving an investment firm to which he was connected, other Republicans have been mostly silent.

"Why only Cornyn?" asked a strategist for a conservative group allied with the White House in the court fight. "[The others] are back in their home states taking time off."

Link

OH.

MY.

BLOG.

I knew just by reading Scalito's dissent on Casey that the man just hates the idea that women are free and autonomous beings that have the right to choose how to live; but today I got a link to People For The American Way's unprecedented find :

[via People For the American Way - New Document: Alito Favored Overturning Roe vs. Wade and State-Level Barriers to Reproductive Rights]:

As a Department of Justice lawyer in 1985, Alito argued that the Reagan Administration should file a friend-of the court brief in a case called Thornburgh v. American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. At issue was a Pennsylvania law that discouraged women from exercising their reproductive rights, and required doctors to submit detailed reports about their patients, including, private, non-medical information.

If this is not evidence that as a Judge, Alito comes prepped with a worldview and political agenda in line with the extremists who in this country only view women as human harvesting containers, then I do not know what other evidence there is to unveil. That the man keeps a set of procreating slaves locked in his basement or toolshed?

For those reading through text-only browsers, I have taken the time to transcribe the last two paragraphs of this report; so you can read in Scalito's words how he plans to strike down Roe v. Wade :

We need not raise all of these issues. Our point is that even after, abortion is not unregulable. There may be an opportunity to nudge the Court toward the principles in Just O'Connor's AKRON dissent, to provide greater recognition of the states' interest in protecting the unborn throughout pregnancy, or to dispel in mart the mystical faith in the attending physician that supports ROE and the subsequent cases.

I find this approach preferable to a frontal assault on Roe v. Wade. 10/ It has most of the advantages of a brief devoted to the overruling of Roe v. Wade : it makes our position clear, does not even tacitly concede Roe's legitimacy, and signals that we regard the question as live and open. At the same time, it is free of many of the disadvantages that would accompany a major effort to overturn ROE. When the court hands down its decision and ROE is not overrule, the decision will not be portrayed as a stinging rebuke. We also will not forfeit the opportunity to address --and we will not prod the Court into summarily rejecting-- the important secondary arguments outlined above.

10/ The case against Roe v. Wade has been fully publicly made ...

This is an incredibly important document in light of the fact that Ayotte vs. Planned Parenthood is one of the thirty-three state legislations spawned after the Akron case Scalito talks about in this document.

Today was the first day of oral arguments on Ayotte.