Action Alert

A commenter named Leah has posted a comment below to the post titled "These clowns need to be exposed." I'm posting it up here to give it more exposure. She accidently cut it off at the end, but I'll leave it as is. If she reads it, perhaps she can fill out the end for us.

SHALOM CENTER URGENT ACTION ALERT


Dear Folks,

Senator Frist, majority leader of the US Senate, is leading a major national TV campaign to accuse opponents of ultra-right-wing judicial appointments of being "anti-faith." (See page 1, col. 1, of NY Times of Friday, April 15. If you think I must be over-reacting, read the article below this letter. )

We cannot let this bigotry slide by, and we cannot let him impose lifetime judges on us all who hold his narrow view of America. NOW is the time for action.

You can act by clicking here: http://en.groundspring.org/Email...401588&u=248594

Most of the 21,000 people on this Email list -- and by far most Americans -- don't share the Senator's version of religious faith. He's welcome to his. But he's not welcome to slander mine, or yours, and he's not welcome to install judges that will stuff his version down the throats of us all.

So far as he is concerned, if you have any religious conviction or roots other than right-wing Christian, you are "anti-faith." Even if you ARE a "right-wing Christian" in religious faith but don't want to impose those beliefs on others, you are "anti-faith."

If he were just taking part in a disgusting act of bigotry and slander, bad enough. But he wants to make his bigotry into public policy.

What is Senator Frist's slander about? Senate Hard Right ultras are proposing to abolish the present rules of debate on confirming judges.

If the present rules stay in place, it will take 60 Senators to confirm a judge. If they are changed, it will take only 50 Senators plus VP Cheney.

Even its supporters call this change the "nuclear option." Indeed, it could "nuke" an important bulwark of American democracy and religious freedom -- the independence of Federal judges.

Why not let a bare "majority" of Senators confirm judges? These judges will sit for 20, 30, years.

So what could be temporary Hard Right Congressional/ Presidential power -- reversible in elections -- would instead be enshrined for two generations in the courts.

Many of the Bush appointees are hard-core ideological right-wingers. (The Senate has approved hundreds of Bush appointees who were conservative, but not Hard Right fanatics.)

If we doubted the insistence of the new Hard Right to press its power to the hilt of every knife, check out Congressman DeLay's threats to the judges who upheld judicial independence and refused to obey the Congressional/ Presidential diktat on the Schiavo case. (Many Americans who would have preferred to continue the heroic measures on Ms. Schiavo were horrified by the Presidential/ Congressional intervention.)

The Bush Administration is trying to pack the courts with ultra-right-wing judges.

These new judges will be making decisions about torture, abortion, gay rights, permanent imprisonment of US citizens without access to lawyers or crimina

Leah