It is as much as a done deal. Justice Samuel Alito will now sit on the bench of the highest court in our land for possibly the next 30 years. This ultra-conservative will rule against victims, grant unprecedented Executive power, re-interpret our laws, and promote the ultra-right agenda upon our country. Check Alito's America website for what we can expect to see from this KING GEORGE YES MAN!

Watch the careers of those who put him on the Supreme Court. Get the voting record at CSPAN and remember these so-called legislators at election time. With the exception of Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, every single Republican voted for the confirmation of Alito. A straight party vote, despite his checkered past on the bench. Republicans as a whole, voted their party-line rather than their conscience. It sickens me that these are the representatives of the people, and they are merely representing their party over the welfare of their constituents. I believe that Senator Chafee's statement is very clear, and well examined. Please read Senator Chafee's statement here.

Wushu is Mandarin for "arts of war." Today in China there exists a standardized school of Wushu based on many of its historical martial arts disciplines. You can occasionally catch exhibitions on ESPN. It looks very impressive. Practitioners are capable of dizzying acrobatic feats. They wield traditional weapons. They chop at the air and each other in tightly controlled movements that look more like an exotic dance than a fight. Wushu exhibitions are visually stunning. But today's Wushu has been emptied of its meaning. Lost are its deeper traditions and martial application. To serious martial artists, "wushu" is shorthand for spectacle without utility. The shiny weapons we see in exhibitions are hollow, light, and dull. Today the Shaolin monks, for instance, whose fighting styles are the stuff of legend, have been reduced to a cheap sideshow.

Wushu was neutered by the Maoist regime. The term was adopted by Chairman Mao and morphed from a fighting art into a physical fitness regimen. It became a tool of a statist regime intent on destroying all vestiges of traditional spirituality, culture, and independence.

Wushu is what came to mind as the Senate hearings for Samuel Alito unfolded.

I am obviously disappointed with the vote today regarding the destruction of the final check and balance on George Bush's Imperial Reign. I will never understand how the Beltway Brigade operates. I'm actually happy about that. Why should I be sympathetic to a powerful group of Senators who rely more on collegiality and spin rather than the will of the people who gave them that power?

As far as I'm concerned, the 20+ Democrats who voted for cloture today are traitors to their base, the everday Americans who canvassed and advocated for their votes in neighborhoods across this country. There is no excuse for their capitulation.

continued...

As your staff has probably already alerted you, your office has been barraged by e-mails, faxes and phone messages imploring you to either vote no or abstain on the upcoming cloture vote in the Alito confirmation.

I realize that you have heard in the media, and perhaps from your own advisors, that this massive outpouring of sentiment should be taken with a modicum of salt, due to the fact it has come from the Internet activists and bloggers.  After all, conventional wisdom dictates that this group exemplifies the far extreme in political thought, and is not representative of the greater constituency you represent.

But ... Before you make your final decision on this momentous vote, please take a moment to reflect upon the future. Not just from a moral or ethical position (in which the vote against cloture would be the imperative), but from a pragmatic, political one.

The Republican Party, which at the present time holds such a stranglehold upon all three branches of government, did not gain that position of power overnight. It was a long calculated battle waged over many years, utilizing a grassroots network of motivated activists, which put them in this position.

You too now have the power to harness such a force... but you must first recognize it in order to utilize it.

 As Georgia10 points out on daily kos, Maryland Senator Barbara Mikulski still has not committed to supporting the filibuster, and, in fact is one of those Senators who appears to be on the fence and could go either way.

So how do we persuade her to join the filibuster?  One effective method of persuasion is to show a person their own words, and explain to them how their own words require that they take a certain action.

To that end, I dug up Senator Mikulski's statement from when Justice O'Connor announced her resignation:

The cases where Judge Alito took a stand show an incredibly low regard by him for the benefits, rights and safety of working men and women.  These examples  >>

1.  Retirement and pension case.

This is important to retiring workers. In DiGiacomo v. Teamsters Pension Trust Fund [pdf file], the 3rd Circuit Court found that a Teamsters driver, who had worked from 1960 to 1971 and then from 1978 onwards, should be duly credited for the time he worked before 1971 in calculating his pension.  (The judges, most of them, based their decision on an interpretation of the federal Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) which bars a forfeiture of benefits due to a break in service.)

     Sam Alito wrote a lone dissent that would sacrifice the worker's retirement to deny him the credit of his earlier 11 years of work – by virtue of Alito's anti-worker interpretation of the ERISA law.

Note. The above was written up first by NathanNewman, who I will link to below.  This post is written in words close to Newman's writing, not my own original.  I'm reposting NN's examples here, to get ahead of Monday's hearings.

i can't seem to find an "unrecommend" feature and we're trying to get the "12 Days of Justice" diary off of the reco list, maybe replace it with today's action.

would readers clicking "don't recommend" do the trick?  would a someone or two please try this for us?  and if you feel so inclined, recommend the new one.

goofy; i know.  thanks!

LOL

Update [2005-12-18 3:14:26 by Cedwyn]: The author of our first day's letter had a brilliant idea: tampopo is printing these up to hand out as booklets to people! How's that for an action item!? Moving on with today's diary action item, aka, "Defying Reality and Disrespecting the Disabled."

It's all in a day's work for Mr. ScAlito.  Today's Anti-Alito Brigade For Justice piece is up and the indefatiguable Susan Hu did not disappoint!

It appears, from his dissent in Nathanson v. Medical College of Pennsylvania (1991), that Judge Alito's view of discrimination against persons with disability is so restrictive that "few if any...cases would survive summary judgment." (ThinkProgress)

Most critically, the Bazelon Center has released an exhaustive compendium of "'highlights of a long and troubling record' of disability right cases [including very recent decisions] decided by Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito."

As recently as 2002, "Judge Alito ruled along with other judges on the Third Circuit excusing local zoning boards from engaging in a process to identify reasonable accommodations needed to provide equal access for people with disabilities. (Lapid Laurel, L.L.C. v. Zoning Board of Adjustment of Scotch Plains, 284 F.3d 442 (3d Cir. 2002)." (Bazelon Center's analysis via Ragged Edge Magazine)

Game on!  Let's bombard our congresscritters with yet more phone calls, emails and the much-harder-to-ignore faxes befitting a dangerous idealogue like ScAlito.  And share this far and wide, won't you?  Below is yet more information on Alito's judicial hubris for the arsenal, as well as additional groups and resources for fighting his nomination:

Yesterday, we talked about the sanctity of human life. Today, Armando talked about the Alito nomination and his rabid advocacy of abolishing Roe during the Reagan years. That diary sparked a heated debate over the merits of overturning Roe.

It would seem that my adoption of the sanctity of human life would dovetail with the anti-abortion position. But that is not the case. It is a fact of life that we as a society value the woman over the fetus. Even the right-wing fundamentalists would do so. They would not advocate the death penalty for a woman who ended her pregnancy, even though they normally support the death penalty for murder. If you really think that the fetus is valued the same as a woman, then, by logical extension, you must advocate the death penalty or life imprisonment for a woman who ends her pregnancy. If you don't, then you are not really pro-life and are being morally inconsistent.

Imagine a world where doctors are forbidden by law to put their patient's health first -- when that patient is a woman seeking an abortion.

The Bush administration wants this to become a reality for every woman in America and her doctor -- and sooner than you think.

This Wednesday, November 30 the Supreme Court will hear Ayotte v. Planned Parenthood -- a case that could eliminate the requirement that abortion restrictions must include protections for women's health.

Despite several Democratic congress critters leaking to the press that Alito might not be a shoo-in, we have the example of Diane Feinstein, one of the bluest of the blue states, seeming to accept Alito's excuse that what he wrote in 1985 about chomping on the bit to overturn Roe -- well, he was simply lying to secure a post in the Reagen regime.

A good prosecuting attorney would ask, "You say you were lying then, Mr. Alito. Are you also lying now?"

It's apparent we have to hold everybody's feet to the fire on Alito -- dems and rethugs both.

And a good start are the actions below.

DefCon -- the Washington DC-based Campaign to Defend the Consitution -- thinks so. Here is part of an e-mail they sent around about Sumpreme Court nominee Samuel Alito this morning.

Here are the first of what I hope to many petitions from progressive groups opposing the nomination of right-wing extemist Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court. This post will be updated as new petitions come online. MoveOn: Stop Alito

NARAL: Tell your senators to oppose anti-choice Alito

PFAW: Stop Alito

Planned Parenthood: Act Now! Hard Line Conservative Judge Threatens Women's Rights (Via Cortexer "Oslo")

NOW: Ask Sandra Day O'Connor to stay on the Supreme Court (Via Cortexer "Oslo")

From MSNBC: "Do you support President Bush's nomination of Judge Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court?"

(Note: Apologies, all; this post should have gone under "Code Blue" for activism, which can be accessed from "Create New Article.")

I'll be sifting through the cases of Lil' Sammy and posting snippets I think reveal his "judicial philosophy." Today's case is Child Evangelism Fellowship of New Jersey Inc. v. Stafford Tp. School Dist., 386 F.3d 514, decided about a year ago on October 15, 2004.

FACTS: The school district had a policy about which groups were allowed to post things in the school, send flyers home with students, etc. There were set standards, plus the superintendent had discretion to allow groups on an ad-hoc basis.

Enter the wingnuts. Child Evangelism is describe thusly:

Child Evangelism describes itself as a "Bible-centered, worldwide organization composed of born-again believers whose purpose is to evangelize boys and girls with the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and to establish (disciple) them in the Word of God and in a local church for Christian living."