From Sheila Parks:
I have just come from a meeting with two Kennedy aides - about Alito. This is about a filibuster. We must get enough Democratic votes for a filibuster. Everyone in each state must work on their Senator - those that voted for Roberts. Call, email, visit, etc., etc., etc. Those up for election are especially vulnerable (of course, this precludes the e-voting machines).
Two free numbers for D.C Capitol Switchboard: 1-866-340-9281 and 1-866-340-9279

EVERYONE SHOULD CALL FEINSTEIN IN CA. SHE IS ON THE COMMITTEE. Everyone should call Feingold - (this from us: 202-224-5323 - or the above numbers. As far as working on the Repubs, there is always Chafee, Snowe and Collins, but working on the Dems is better.

CHOICE IS THE KEY ISSUE we were told

From Stephanie Low:

New Yorkers, in addition to the request below, join the phone banks at PFAW this week and next. Call Tony Simone at 212 420 0440 and tell him you can come in with your cell phone to call people to lobby their reps against Alito. Thanks!

Sam Alito is merely the latest liar on the block for Bush's full spectrum dominance agenda. But the show-trial hearings on whether this proto-fascist ideologue should be allowed to shape US social and political development for a generation provide some nuggets of insight into how the corrupt junta's pathological liars actually work.

The first order of amazement is that the process can actually take place. Shouldn't precedence be given to hearings on impeaching and imprisoning the corporate cronies who lied us into war? Business As Usual, is, as usual, the most effective weapon in the arsenal of the criminal cabal that has seized control of the US. If it looks like a government, stands behind a podium with a government seal, wears a suit and speaks in an authoritative voice, then everything must be okay. Ask any successful thief or terrorist what the key to the grift is: try to blend in. When I traveled in Europe in the '80s, my friends and I were occasionally hasseled at borders because we "looked the part": sort-of-scruffy, beat up car, long hair, etc. My German friend scoffed: "Guys with bombs in the trunk are certainly wearing suits and driving Mercedes."

... that the answer isn't perpetual reform (unless the necessary reforms get overturned after we get them passed). The answer is that voters get legally-binding copies of their ballots (check brantl's posts on blackboxvoting.org) to check on and correct their votes with and we pass election financing reform to create a universal fund for elections, and each legal candidate gets 1/xth of the money where X is the number of candidates for the particular office! And then the money doesn't mean sh*t! And we take our politicians out of corporate pockets, and we start getting people that give a damn about the US in power again.

One of the heroes of My Lai died a few days ago, dislodging the old horrors and a fleeting national debate the world is begging us to reopen.

Are we the good guys? Is God on our side?

"We kept flying back and forth, reconning in front and in the rear, and it didn't take very long until we started noticing the large number of bodies everywhere. Everywhere we'd look, we'd see bodies. These were infants, 2-, 3-, 4-, 5-year-olds, women, very old men, no draft-age people whatsoever."

This story only gets worse. It took almost two years before a full-scale investigation got underway and the American public slowly became aware of what helicopter pilot Hugh Thompson happened upon on March 16, 1968: a wanton slaughter of Vietnamese civilians, being carried out by American troops.

"I think a count has been anywhere from two to four hundred, five hundred bodies. . . . I think that's a small count," Thompson, who died of cancer on Jan. 6, related during a My Lai symposium at Tulane University in 1994. He and his two-man crew stood in for the American conscience on that day.

Dear Friends: It took the downfall of a lobbyist who dresses like a Hasidic rabbi one day and a baseball coach the next to make it happen. But if looks as if our 14-month-long effort to expose the fraud in Ohio that gave the 2004 to Bush is bearing fruit at last.

Rep. Bob Ney (R-Ohio) was one of the architects of HAVA (Help America Vote Act). In that role he worked with Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) and others to reform certain election procedures that had arisen from the controversial 2000 election. But where electronic voting machines were concerned, the HAVA architects neglected accusations that they were "hackable" and focused instead on lesser issues, in particular making it easier for blind people to vote.