1/06/2006

pacifica will cover the alito hearings live & the round-robin schedule

Mon., Jan. 9 through Fri., Jan. 13The Pacifica Radio Network is bringing you the Samuel Alito Senate Hearing for nomination to the United States Supreme Court live!Verna Avery Brown teams with Mitch Jeserich from Free Speech Radio News and Pacifica National Affairs correspondent, Larry Bensky, to bring you the controversial nomination hearing of Samuel Alito for United States Supreme Court, live.
Anchors: Larry Bensky, KPFA; Verna Avery Brown, WPFW; Mitch Jesserich, FSRN.The schedule of hearings includes a one hour pre-show on the opening day, and an half-hour wrap-up show each evening. Live analysts will join us in the booth and via telephone throughout the hearings.
Pacifica will be bringing you live coverage (as they did during the Roberts' confirmation hearings). That's great if you live in an area Pacifica broadcasts in, right? Well, online access permitting, many people live in areas where Pacifica broadcasts because they provide live webcasts (as well as archived ones). This isn't Renee and Steve yucking it up with Cokie on NPR Monday where maybe you'll get a (canned) story about the hearings that day. This is live coverage. No cutting to "cute" stories about a fisherman who . . . (fill in the anecdote, NPR loves their "cute" fisherman stories). So this starts Monday (unless the hearings are postponed for some reason). You can listen via webcast, live streaming (which you can use any day of the week, at any hour, to listen to Pacifica programming, live or archived programming).

ruth saw the announcement (italics) and c.i. posted it as a heads up. pacifica is public radio. they see it as a public service, broadcasting the hearings. and npr? they'll be offering their usual soft talk and crappy music. so if you're interested in hearing the hearings, you won't hear them on npr, not live. but you can hear it on pacifica. so if you're interested in following closely, please listen.

(i say 'if' because as a woman who's had an abortion, i'm honestly scared to death that alito will be confirmed and that reproductive rights will be destroyed. i'll listen because i have to hear and try to figure out how it's going. but i can understand if some 1's so frightened that they need the distance that following it in the next day's paper will provide.)


the democrats in the senate have already hinted that this isn't something important enough to filibuster.

it's just a lifetime appointment to the highest court in the land. nothing big there.

they think they need to save the ammo for something really important. maybe funding wild flowers on the side of arizona highways? but this, it's not a biggie. if you wonder why the democrats are in the minority party, look no further than the fact that going into a confirmation hearing for the biggest appointment congress can make, the most long lasting, they're rushing to offer whispers that they're taking the filibuster offer off the table.

check out buzzflash's "Thank God our current Senate Democrats weren't at Lexington and Concord!":

If the patriots had held their powder at Lexington and Concord, this nation might still be under a monarchy. (Well, in a way we do still have King George in power, but that's another story.)
This thought comes to mind because the Democrats in the senate are now thinking of "keeping their powder dry" and letting Sam Alito, who believes in unbridled executive branch power (aka, monarchy, dictatorship, etc.) get greenlighted to a seat on the Supreme Court. Forget, for a moment, that Alito is opposed to the fundamental principles of the Democratic Party platform; Alito is opposed to democracy.
Scalito, as he is called, believes in having a Republican president violate the Constitution by simply making a statement giving his interpretation of any law passed by Congress when he signs it. According to Scalito, this Republican presidential interpretation then becomes the law, not the "intent of Congress."
The man who Bush would have join the other absolute power of the Republican executive branch supporters on the Supreme Court came up with this idea while serving in the Reagan Administration. He urged adopting the "executive branch statement of interpretation" quietly and gradually, so it wouldn't draw much press or legal attention.

that pretty much sums it all up, doesn't it? i try not to pick on john kerry but was it just last week that he sent out that e-mail asking for donations to the 2006 races? the 1 that said we needed to reach into our pocketbooks because the democrats will fight?

maybe we should demand a test drive 1st?

as with the tragedy of john roberts jr. being confirmed, the gina & krista round-robin will have daily special editions. c.i. posted a schedule and there are some additions. i'm printing c.i.'s schedule but adding to it and since i use lowercase. this is the schedule for when the roundtabls will take place. the friday roundtable (if the hearings go on that long) will run in a special round-robin on monday morning. (and the round-robin monday will feature a roundtable because we participated in 1 tonight. it's mainly predicitions.) here's the line up:

Monday: Francisco, Susan, Eli, Shirley and Martha, c.i., ruth, tracey, ava, jess, jim, ty, dona, elaine, wally, mike, nina, cedric, betty, kat, mia, and me
Tuesday: Marcia, Charlie, Keesha, Eli, Eddie, Billie, Rob, Kara, Brad, Beth, Keshawn and Liang, c.i., ruth, tracey, ava, jess, ty, elaine, wally, mike, cedric, betty, wally, mike, nina, dominic and me
Wednesday: Bonnie, Eli, Joan, Maria, c.i., ruth, tracey, jayson (ruth's grandson), ava, jess, dona, jim, elaine, wally, mike, kat, kayla, kendrick, and me
Thursday: Erika, Eli, Brady, c.i., ruth, tracey, jayson, ava, jess, ty, dona, cedric, betty, elaine, wally, mike, nina, kat, zach, and me
Friday: Miguel, Eli, Lynda, Keesha, c.i., ruth, tracey, ava, jess, jim, wally, betty, elaine, kat, mia, cindy and me

so you can look forward to that. other names may be added but as of right now, that's the way that the schedule stands. wally decided to do every night because eli was. we're all pretty impressed with eli. he's not just the oldest member of the common ills community, he's also 1 of the sweetest and 1 of the wisest. there are other people who will participate in other ways in the special editions. and 'judge' will give us a peak at strategies like last time.












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