Via Raw Story:
By setting their hopes on a “fake story,” Democrats ruined whatever chance they had of keeping Samuel Alito off the Supreme Court, according to Frank Rich in a column slated for Sunday’s New York Times, RAW STORY has learned.
While Rich attacks all sides for not “meeting even the low threshold of truthiness” during the confirmation hearings, some of his harshest criticisms are directed at Senator Kennedy and other Democrats for making a big deal out of Alito’s membership in a conservative group that’s been accused of bigotry. Rich notes that the story had already been exposed as “fake” in The Times. “The Republicans would never have been so sloppy,” Rich writes.
This will be Rich’s last column until spring. “Starting next week, I will be on a book leave, writing nonfiction about our post-9/11 fictions,” Rich informs his readers. … Raw Story
Oh, the truthiness of it all makes my head hurt. (Use this as an Open Thread too …)
Ah who gives a crapola, if they didn’t ask him the correct questions: Alito’s record speaks for itself.
Big frigging deal: filibuster is a second chance to get Alito’s wingnutty record on the air.
CALL YOUR SENATORS!
If Repug, tell them “No” to Alito; if Democrat: FILIBUSTER!
(If phones have been turned off for the Washington offices of your senators for the weekend, try their local offices, or fax, or email. Any snail mail would be tied up by Homeland Security for two weeks, so a hard copy letter would be the least effective.)
CONTACT YOUR SENATORS (Click here)
Frist is denying Democrats time to speak on the floor. We need to get the word out about why Alito needs to be filibustered:
Write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper.
Phone, fax, and email addresses for the Judiciary Committee.
People for the American Way has collected nearly 65,000 signatures to send to the Senate, please add yours: Save the Court Petition
Fundamentalists say that we should teach both evolution and creationism in schools because both are theories, theories are opinions, and all opinions have the same value. Yeah, like that opinion about E=mc2. Just ask the people in Hiroshima. “Bombardier, drop the opinion. Relax, it’s just a theory!” Boom! “Wow, that was one hell of an opinion. We smoked a whole city with that opinion. God, I hope the Russians don’t get opinions.” – Basil White
and Alito had no intention of ever exposing his true identity anyhow. The hearings are over but we all know what he is about. Now it is the voice of the people that will remedy this situation and we are being heard. Make zero mistake that we are being heard! We have proof we are being heard so crank up the volume!
that’s right! Even Novak knows we are being heard.
Are you ready for the unrelenting onslaught of ridicule the Democrats will get if we dare a filibuster?
Are you ready for the near-zero positive press we’ll get? The unending jokes about our ineptitude and inability to attack Alito effectively during the hearings?
They’ll throw everything in the book at us. Are we ready for that?
Yes we should be ready — because any defeats we have need to be strategic defeats, keeping our eye on the real prize — winning at least one house in November. So we need to plan for every eventuality. We need to prepared that there will be big talk about a filibuster and then it will fall through and we will look ridiculous. We need to be ready to accept that the Democrats will filibuster and then some small segment (including Lieberman) will give in, make a deal and make us look ridiculous. We even need to be prepared that we filibuster, defeat Alito but we do it in a way that can be used against us in November.
So we need to be prepared for all eventualities and know how to use them to our advantage. Because frankly, if we defeat Alito but it leads to us losing elections in November — we’ve completely lost. The only way we win is IF WE START WINNING ELECTIONS. Otherwise there will be another Alito, and another Alito and another Alito. JPS is not going to live much longer and RBG isn’t well either. Alito makes the court swing right but its stll close. Another Alito replacing JPS or RBG — that is a disaster we don’t recover from.
Yes we have to be ready – but if we don’t fight, win or lose on Alito’s nomination, we will lose in November. I don’t think I have ever heard, personally, one-on-one, anyone who voted R in 2004 or who didn’t vote, give a reason other than “because Democrats don’t stand for anything. They just do a poll and tell people whatever they think they want to hear.”
WTF? We’re supposed to sit back and watch this tragedy unfold without a fight because of a fear of ridicule and negative press?
A filibuster has to happen if for no other reason than to put the issue on the front pages. There is no more time to say “he’s not so bad…”See Roberts’ Chief Justice.
The MSM is going to side with the Kleptocracy no matter what. Suck it up and do what’s right goddamnit! So we get some more bad press…SOB…this is the classic attack and obfuscate crap these neo-fascist assholes have been getting away with for 6 fucking years..IT IS TIME TO MAKE A STAND.
Right now it’s to close to call regarding cloture…if the Dems don’t press this they just as well pack their bags, sublet their offices to day traders and go home. If Reid doesn’t have the votes to overcome a cloture vote there is little risk of Frist pulling out the nuclear option…which, given the perilous nature of nearly 60% of the population, according to the polls, regarding all the other revelations; Abramhoff, Delay, Scooter’s trial, Rove’s cloud of suspiscion, NSA’s illegal spying on citizens, the whole question of impeachment, etc. would be tantamount to declaring a de-facto “political” marshall law. Not a pretty picture.
A filibuster, with the possibly very, very close vote on cloture does nothing to harm the Democrats and places the GOPhucks between a hard place and a harder one…it’s an election year and a lot of R’s are getting happy feet about clinging to the BushCo™ coattails.
It ain’t over till it’s over and the fat lady’s still in her dressing room. I for one am tired of giving up without a fight, how in hell could it make it any worse?
</ rant>
Peace
marshall law =”martial law”… AKA suspension of the constitution.
they haven’t been … since RayGun ran.
The few who do fight for us have been fighting, and they need to learn to better synch their messages and they need to learn to have a 24*7*365 response
politics has been this way since at least 1980, AND the DC Dems who do NOT want to fight, all the time everywhere, are Wart-O-Crats –
the thugs will ALWAYS lie – can’t deal with it?
run a little kid school, stay outta politics.
rmm.
and ready is a must in war. I think it is good to remind everybody of what is coming so that we meet it right there. We are at war with these freaks and I have come to accept it fully now and taking SunTzu seriously in a nonviolent way!
Hey, Boo — if you get C-Span2, PLEASE watch Sam Harris at midnight.
If there’s no filibuster, we are NOT being heard.
This couldn’t be more serious.
from his own party — posted in the previous Open Thread but repeated here, from the San Jose Mercury News:
Former Peninsula Congressman Paul “Pete” McCloskey Jr., best remembered for his opposition to the Vietnam War and his speech calling for the impeachment of President Nixon, will announce his candidacy Monday in Lodi as a Republican challenger to Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Stockton.
The feisty 78-year-old beat the bushes for months in his quest to find a Republican willing to run against the seven-term incumbent, with whom he has major political differences.
But when no one volunteered, McCloskey asked, “Why not me?”
McCloskey, a lawyer and a decorated Marine who served in the Korean War, says he wants to restore Republican values such as fiscal restraint, reduced government and balanced budgets.
He also believes Pombo has behaved unethically on several fronts, such as hiring family members to work on his campaign. And he says the incumbent votes too often with former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, who is fighting a campaign-money-laundering charge back home in Texas.
McCloskey and Pombo will also knock heads over the environment.
McCloskey, who served eight terms in Congress from 1967 to 1983, wrote the 1974 Endangered Species Act that Pombo has worked to alter for the past 13 years. Pombo finally passed a bill out of the House last year that would fundamentally change the way the country protects threatened plants and animals, although the bill faces an uncertain fate in the Senate.
“It’s time to take Pombo out,” McCloskey said.
Reached by telephone, Pombo welcomed McCloskey to the race but rejected his would-be opponent’s suitability to serve in District 11 and the assessment of his job performance.
“From what I’ve heard, Mr. McCloskey sounds more like a liberal Democrat candidate than a Republican,” Pombo said.
McCloskey often embraces Democrats and their views and endorsed John Kerry for president, saying he thinks President Bush is too heavily influenced by the religious right.
Few believe McCloskey can win, but political junkies relish the match-up.
“It would certainly be a major upset for McCloskey to defeat Pombo, but McCloskey will add a lot of drama and theater to the race,” said Allan Hoffenblum, a Republican campaign consultant.
If Pombo comes out of the primary in more or less one piece, he may wind up vulnerable enough to be taken out by a good Democratic candidate…if one actually turns up. Where is Howard Dean and his “no seat left uncontested” speeches? While McCloskey would probably join the Democrats in a call for impeachment proceedings, as well as a withdrawal from Iraq, it would be great to have this seat in the Democrats’ hands. This might be a race worth watching this year…
Always nice to see a Republican tool like John Tierney go after the Bush administration:
[bf mine]
I have to add a rant – my best friend died of cancer almost three years ago. The cancer had spread to bones all over her body by about two years before she died. The thing about bone mets is that they probably won’t kill you, but they are excruciatingly painful. On the other hand, liver mets aren’t generally painful, but they will kill you.
So without oxycontin, she would have spent two years in horrifying pain before her liver finally failed. She was terrified that the media hysteria about illegal oxycontin use was going to result in her not being able to get it.
And then there was the liquid morphine we were giving her during her last two weeks – I’m sure they’d like to take that away from dying people too.
DEA + Ashcroft = EVIL.
Assholes. Bastards.
I’m so glad that when my grandmother hospiced for cancer that this wasn’t going on. She was one damn strong woman and without the liquid morphine I don’t know how any of us would have survived the end. I’m just not ready to listen to people screaming in pain for days until they die when we have ways to relieve the pain.
Pretty sobering. I think I’ll watch it again tomorrow. It is hard to take everything in when someone is nearby demanding Fruity Pebbles. It did cause me to remember my own break with Judeo-Christian beliefs. Waking up in the morning and realizing that the rest of the world was going to fry in hell used to cause me to feel special. Finally one day I realized how much alike everybody the world over is and that poor little kids in Africa were doomed to hell, and they were born in Africa because God chose that and if God can do anything and they never hear about Jesus then God is who doomed them to damnation. I suddenly realized that it didn’t matter if Pastor Smith was right or wrong anymore, if God is really that much of a fucking asshole who wants to spend eternity with him? I mean really?! Do you really want to spend forever with a mean demanding prick who plays favorites and damns people just for shits and giggles? What does he have planned for me when he gets bored with the “saved” and everybody else is in hell? How do you just trust a guy like that? Here on earth we tell others displaying similar personality traits that they have Antisocial Personality Disorder and we have sedatives and nice padded rooms for them to play in alone!
Any of you guys who haven’t read Metatone’s amazing summary of Reza Aslan’s book about Islam – I can’t recommend it enough. Ever since I started reading Salam Pax and Riverbend in the early days of the war, I’ve been struggling to understand Shi’a vs. Sunni, Wahhabism, the Muslim Brotherhood, and so on. After reading his diary, my understanding has taken a giant leap forward.
It is VERY long – but worth every word. Print it out and read in installments if necessary. I also recommend the side trip to the WiKi about Wahhabism linked in his diary.
PLEASE read Robert Parry’s clarion call re this as well:
This is truly serious. Read the rest at http://www.consortiumnews.com/2006/012106.html.
obviously we need to apologize to the Republicans and let the man onto the Court for 50 years.
They’ve done the same for us more or less often than I can count.
We’ll catch Bush on the next appointment.
That’s about the thinking in DC these days. What are they putting in the Senate water????
Anybody point out yet that the Washington Post has a story running for tomorrow on the tests in Florida on Diebold machines and how easy they were to hack?
sooo…how is the CAP story “fake”?
Go on the OFFENSIVE!
And Kick their lame asses!
To the Preznit:
Subject: NO ALITO!
You may feel free to have some fun with your messages… I sure did!
Here is your future under Alito:
That campaign is our future if we don’t stop the confirmation of the “CORPORATIST Alito”…
(Corporatist is a fancy word for FASCIST, when they don’t kill as many people… BUT only “torture” them around to their point of view, and make lots of money doing it!)
Whom does Alito love? You know… You have read the 12 Days of Justice…]
WTF are they thinking if they let this go without a filibuster?
Is there an actual source for this piece? I went to the link and didn’t see anything… and some of the other rants posted on the site are, putting it mildly, COMPLETELY deranged and delusional, in an entirely schizophrenic and apolitical fashion.
And they ALL appear to be anonymous.
It is sourced to Congress.org.
It is taken from their “soap box alert” section.
Anyone can write an action alert there for people to (hopefully) take action by contacting their congress critters. So there are a lot of rants from both the left and the right.