Moveon.org Call-in Day

[Nite Owl]

Tomorrow, Wednesday, March 16th, movon.org has organized a call-in day to your Senators regarding the ‘nuclear option’. This would take away with the filibuster and the need for 60 votes to get right wing judges through. All that would be needed are 50 votes plus Cheney.

Dozens of lifetime appointments to the Federal courts would be granted and it would pave the way for an even more radical Supreme Court.

So please call your Senator tomorrow and let them know that we are still a people who demand a democratic process and we want a system of checks and balances. These judges should be there to uphold the law and not a partisan, right wing view. If they get in we can expect to see worker’s rights, civil rights, environmental, and women’s rights laws overturned.

Will this work? Will it really do anything to change any minds? I have no idea but what I do know is this issue is one of the most important; the problem won’t go away with an election if they get on the bench. We have to know in our hearts that we tried to do something, we have to let our Senators know that there are people in the country that know what is going on and we don’t like it. I don’t want to wake up one day and say I should have done something. The time is now to act.


The 20 nominees Bush has resubmitted were rejected because of their extreme positions in favor of corporate interests and against civil rights, the environment, civil liberties, and the concerns of ordinary Americans. Here's a brief summary of just the first four to be considered.

William Myers III has never been a judge and spent most of his career as a lobbyist for the cattle and mining industry. He has written that all habitat conservation laws are unconstitutional because they interfere with potential profit. In 2001, Bush appointed him as the chief lawyer for the Department of the Interior. In that role he continued as a champion of corporate interests, setting his agenda in meetings with former employers he promised not to speak with, and even illegally giving away sacred Native American land to be strip mined.

Terrence Boyle was a legal aide to Jesse Helms. As a judge, his signature decisions have attempted to circumvent federal laws barring employment discrimination by race, gender, and disability. His rulings have been overturned a staggering 120 times by the conservative 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, either due to gross errors in judgment or simple incompetence.

William Pryor Jr. served as Attorney General of Alabama, where he took money from Phillip Morris, fought against the anti-tobacco lawsuit until it was almost over, and cost the people of Alabama billions in settlement money for their healthcare system as a result.<6> He called Roe v. Wade "the worst abomination of constitutional law in our history," and has consistently argued against the federal protections for the civil rights of minorities, lesbian and gay couples, women, and the disabled.

William Haynes III served as the chief legal council for the Defense Department, where he championed the outrageous legal theories that led to the torture at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay. Haynes also developed the "enemy combatant" doctrine, which allows for United States citizens to be detained without trial, due process, or access to a lawyer -- forever -- at the sole discretion of the president.

http://www.moveonpac.org/