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

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.