Zach wanted to note this from Democracy Now! yesterday:AMY GOODMAN: Well, in fact, last week during a conference call with bloggers, Reid reportedly announced he had asked President Bush to consider Harriet Miers for the job.
RALPH NADER: Yes, that further undermines the Democrats' position.
AMY GOODMAN: Do you think it has to do with the Senate Minority Leader, the leading Democrat in the Senate, Harry Reid, being anti-choice?
RALPH NADER: That could be a factor. But I think a larger factor is the game that the Republicans are playing with the Democrats. They threatened to appoint a Genghis Khan-type person. The Democrats are very relieved that a Genghis Khan-type person is not nominated to Supreme Court. The whole de-escalation of expectation levels keeps going down, and that's what you got yesterday. You’ve got statements of caution from Senator Kennedy, saying, ‘Let's wait and see,’ and you have statements like that of Senator Reid. I mean, they are really in disarray.
On the Roberts nomination, for example, Senator Reid came out against Judge Roberts, and Senator Leahy, the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said, “Senator Reid doesn't speak for the Democratic caucus; he just speaks for himself.” And then Senator Leahy turns around and votes for Judge Roberts. But when Senator Reid said he was against Judge Roberts, he said it at the same time that half of the Democrats are going to vote for Judge Roberts. I mean, what kind of leadership is that? When you undermine your position that you have just taken against the Supreme Court nominee, by saying, ‘Well, half of my Democrats are going to be voting for Judge Roberts.’
So, the Democrats are really in total disarray, not just on this subject, but on the war in Iraq, on reviving national health insurance, universal health insurance, on getting a living wage, on standing up for the civil justice system of compensating wrongful injury, of going after the bloated military budget and going after the huge allocation of tax dollars for corporate subsidies, handouts and giveaways that take money away from the necessities of the American people and things like what happened that made the Southern states so vulnerable during the hurricane, the whole lack of adequate modern public works establishment.
Zach remembered Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts from May and felt the point made then was still true.
On Isaiah, huge number of e-mails on his The World Today Just Nuts ("Celibacy in the City") yesterday. Everyone wants it rerun so we will rerun it shortly. He's cutting it into strips so we should be able to make it even larger.
Ruth e-mails to remind everyone that the Christmas Coup Players air tomorrow with their latest monthly program on WBAI. We'll do a heads up tomorrow as well. It airs eleven to noon EST, ten to eleven central and eight a.m. pacific.
The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.
