(Promoted from the diaries, with minor edits, because I support this protest — Steven D)
This is a proposed plan to protest and ultimately prevent Samuel Alito from becoming a Supreme Court Justice.
Man Eegee described how we might do this in his diary:
Anatomy of a Cross-Blog Protest – Alito is Toast!:
Congress is scheduled to reconvene December 12th. They will be in session until they conclude current business. This may be a day or more.
The basic outline is to think of/create 12 actions, one for each day, beginning December 12th and concluding December 23rd. If Congress has recessed before the 23rd, any efforts/actions focused on them will be there upon their return, morphing into New Year greetings.
The “12 Days of Christmas” was the basis for the 12 days.
It has been suggested that actions be directed to a variety of organizations on the national and on the local level with the intention of activating as many people as possible.
The actual Senate Judiciary hearings are scheduled to begin on January 9th.
A tentative schedule with an idea. Additional ideas would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks.
Humming in my head: On their first day back from recess I defended Justice by…
Day 1: Notifying by e-mail, fax, or snail mail each Senator (& Rep.?) that Alito is a danger to them. BEWARE with a “Ghost of Christmas Future” from Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol.”
Why this action? From Roll Call to Steve Clemen’s, The Washington Note, to our Cedwyn:
“Some time ago, Jeffrey Rosen, a superb legal scholar, pointed out Alito’s dissent in a 1996 decision upholding the constitutionality of a law that banned the possession of machine guns. We are not talking handguns, rifles or even assault weapons. We’re talking machine guns.
Congress had passed the law in a reasonable and deliberate fashion. A genuine practitioner of judicial restraint would have allowed them a wide enough berth to do so. Alito’s colleagues did just that. But Alito used his own logic to call for its overturn, arguing that the possession of machine guns by private individuals had no economic activity associated with it, and that no real evidence existed that private possession of guns increased crime in a way that affected commerce — and thus Congress had no right to regulate it. That kind of judicial reasoning often is referred to as reflecting the “Constitution in Exile.”
Day 2: Contact Any and All Local Senior Citizens (phone/poster), informing them of Alito’s danger to them on 2 counts – Alito’s opinions on Discriminating Against Older Americans (From People for the American Way) and “his opinion on the Family Medical Leave Act. (From the Communications Workers of America)
Seniors vote and they are vocal. They have just been threatened by changes to Social Security and they just witnessed the Bush administrations incompetence with Hurricane Katrina.
Okay – thoughts and ideas?