I’m sitting here listening to Arlen Specter give a press conference. Arlen announced at the close of the hearings that he would vote for Alito.
One of the first questions he received asked him why he was voting for a judge whose ideas on Roe v. Wade are thought to be well known, and whom appears to be opposed to abortion rights.
Arlen explained that Justice Souter was considered strongly pro-life, and that Justices O’Connor and Kennedy had professed pro-life views, but they had all joined to write the Casey decision.
That is all true. But, Alito appears to be opposed to Roe right now. He had many opportunities to dissuade the public from the perception that he would not respect Roe as settled law, and he failed to do so.
Arlen Specter ran for reelection in 2004, claiming to be a supporter of women’s rights, and privacy rights. I know that, as the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee considering the merits of a nominee of his own party, Specter has a difficult job. But he also has to answer to the people of Pennsylvania that took him at his word when they decided to reelect him.
This is no minor broken promise. This year the people of Pennsylvania are facing a likely choice between Rick Santorum and Bob Casey, Jr. Both candidates are opponents of Roe. Yet, the people of Pennsylvania do not support overturning Roe.
Arlen Specter has an opportunity to stand up for our beliefs by rejecting Alito. At a minimum he should cast his floor vote against Alito. But, he has made a decision to turn his back on us, to break his promises, and to do the bidding of the President and the religious extremists within his party.
Specter should be ashamed of himself.
Enough with the wimpy Dems, and smug and obscuring bloviation from Republicans, it’s time WE veto Alito:
John Edwards has endorsed this petition for FILIBUSTER!
Phone, fax, and email addresses for the Judiciary Committee.
Write a letter to the editor of your local paper and contact your congress critters — all with one click.
People for the American Way has collected over 60,000 signatures to send to the Senate, please add yours:Save the Court Petition
LET’S GO FOR IT. We’ve got nothing to lose.
they are airing commercials, giving out copies of all the commercials to the reporters just like the repubs always do. Told reporters who literally said that the fight was done to just slow down for a minute…he just got out of committee and now is the time for the American people to find out about Judge Alito now that he looks like he is out of committee. It isn’t over until the people speak and phone calls coming in are 55% to 60% in favor of opposing Alito. How many Americans out there know nothing about Alito and really don’t grasp what Alito will mean but in the next week they will for the first time find out? I already know the religious right has called in but Joe American hasn’t even been heard from yet!
Fantastic, Tracy.
And there’s this via a diary at Daily Kos:
and we have these protest groups who have already made the buys for the commercials for the rest of this week and all of next week and kept it quiet until today. I think a few people have been making some quiet plans like that last Senate shutdown! The press asked how much money was put into the ad buys and I was kind of proud of the protest leaders because they said that they hadn’t released that information and smiled real nice back at the MSM all mysterious and intriguing.
their site.
Specter is going to look like such a HUGE JACKASS! IndependentCourt.org said that confirming Alito to the bench will be just about the most controversial counter to public opinion decisions made in the past 30 years.
Spector was elected?
Hoffel. For these exact reasons.
I just signed the petition, forwarded the link to a number of friends and called both of my senators.
He has abdicated the right to be a U.S. Senator by abandoning those who believed in his promise.
Congress is already weak enough without these patsies bending over and taking it up the ….
I posted this two threads below, but will post it again — even though it’s from the not-always reputable Capitol Hill Blue — but because it’s the fucking truth:
And now, with a SCOTUS that’ll stamp Bush’s blank checks, we might as well tear up the Constitution.
…and there’s no good reason to believe that Bush won’t do this at some point in the future.
Of course not. Anyone neglecting to take his famous statements regarding dictatorship seriously, imo, has been mistaken.
Of course, the question remains as to how far the unconditional support of his enablers will run here. His personal desires can only bear so much weight as he finds himself increasingly politically disabled. The apparent movement to condense power in the executive will not have ultimate effect before the end of his term. (Yes, I still happen to believe that his term will, in fact, end before his eventual death-by-stupidity.)
That said, I return to my underlying thought for the week: this is what it’s like to be governed by criminals.
The process is broken and unfortunately is becoming clearer that nobody is on our side. It’s been a roller coaster of outrage expectation and disappointment as the enablers give BushCo new life.
It’s time for something new, a different course of action, all well within the law of course, but radical.
You’re totally correct, of course.
I’m only entertaining the possibility of distancing from BushCo, on the part of the elected enablers, as a matter of their own political interests. Iow, I place some hope in their self-centeredness.
Let’s not forget the fact that the iron hand of congressional GOP leadership seems to be losing its fingers.
Let’s not forget the fact that the iron hand of congressional GOP leadership seems to be losing its fingers.
Yeah,…well, I got a couple of fingers for them. Feel free to offer as many as you like to get our point across.
People do not say they want candidates who will bust the budget and stick our kids with massive debt, but they vote for them anyway.
People do not say they want candidates that will take the nation to war for false reasons, but they vote for them anyway.
People do not say they want candidates that will steal their resources and give them to the rich, but they vote for them anyway . . .
People do not say they want whimpy, slimy Democrats to run the country. Good news: fewer and fewer people are voting Democratic!
Oops, I guess that isn’t totally good news, now is it?
Are they all so corrupt they will completely disregard the facts?
W.E Coyote cartoon taken from American Progress…
Hey, this is just typical of “most” politicians. They will tell you one thing to get elected and then turn around and do the completely opposite of what they promised. Can we trust any of them? I am beginning to believe the anwser is a big fat frickin NO!
Our trust must be fully conditional, of course — but on a personal basis I believe my own rep, Congressman Hinchey, has done well enough in his elected capacity that I’m compelled to support him more often than I have to dog him.
He’s maintained his apparent conviction & integrity as to the basic welfare of his constituents so successfully that he’s repeatedly been elected as a true-blue Democrat in a traditionally GOP district.
What it seems we must do, with regard to elected offices or political appointees, is to look most carefully at the actions undertaken outside the arena of elections or confirmations, in making our assessments as to support or opposition.
The Republican members of the Judiciary Committee, for example, have taken for granted our general negligence here: we’re expected to base our assessments on statements made in the interests of advancement, not on ‘precendent’.
Just ask Robert Bork (in reference his interview with Wolf Blitzer) about how well that works out.
For that matter, ask Scamalito.
Avert your eyes … Gonzales is giving a press conference … he is so slimy
On the NSA spying BS?
http://www.independentcourt.org.
Absolutely — & while he gave assurances at the close of the hearing that his decision was not decided on partisan lines, he’s effectively shown that he fully commends the overall Republican strategy to present Alito as a tabula rasa, in terms of what may be expected of him on the SCOTUS bench.
In other words, he’s happily fully compliant with regard to the ultimate strategy, previously apparent convictions to the contrary. To hell with him.
Again, what WW said.
Thank you, maryb.
and I second it!
is unlikely. Arlen Specter, when healthy, has been a thorn in the side of the Republican right. His battle with cancer is very unlikely to have made him more “compliant” – I doubt that today he cares much about what Sam Brownback or Lindsey Graham think of him.
Perhaps Specter’s announcement of a pro Alito vote is a positive for the pro-choice side. Maybe he knows something about Alito that he’s not saying.
I doubt that. But I do think its a possibility that he DOES have an ulterior motive. Going against Alito would risk his chairmanship of the committee — I believe they’ve threatened him before. If he believes Alito will be confirmed no matter what he may want to hold on to his committtee. That seems self serving (and it is) but he is on record, even during the Alito hearings, that he wants to investigate FISA. I’d rather have Spector in charge of the committee for that than one of the conservative repubs.
Just a thought.
We have a winner! Please claim your prize in the lounge later…
The Washington bureau of Knight-Ridder recently read all of Alito’s 311 published opinions, which are available in a commercial database or in the archives of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia, where Alito has sat for 15 years.
Their conclusion?
Oh shock, Alito is conservative.
Now who could argue with this? The Republicans, that’s who.
Who do these idiots think they are fooling? (Don’t answer that.)
In any case, Knight-Ridder did something rare in journalism today: they stood by their story. (You can read their reply to the wingnuts here.)
No one should be the least bit surprised by Specter’s betrayal of his (purported) principles favoring abortion rights for women. now we’ll see Dems nelson (Neb.), and ikely Mark Pryor (Ark.), follow suit along with Repubs Snowe And Colins from Maine.
The idea that abortion rights are going to be recriminalized in our supposedly advanced and civilized society after we’ve come so far is the best evidence to date that the era of American Empire, of America’s (supposedly enlightened) leadership in the world, is coming to an ignominious and ugly end.
I have never been more ashamed of my government and the selfish creeps who enable it than I am today.