Readers will no doubt recall the inane tale of the Southwick nomination and the DiFi vote to send it through to the full Senate when it should have been stopped in the Judiciary Committee. (See here and here for the back story if you missed it.) Well, sources tell me that the nomination is set for a full vote -- perhaps prior to the Columbus Day recess, but more likely afterward. And that DiFi is, again, making a nuisance of herself on the vote.
Here's the scoop:
It seems that Sen. Feinstein has been telling fellow Senators and other Hill staffers that she hasn't heard any opposition to the Southwick nomination whatsoever from her constituents or from any legal groups. I hear through the Beltway grapevine that a number of her Democratic colleagues are less than pleased with her convenient constituent amnesia, because they have been peppered with contacts about Southwick -- running very negative on the whole, and it is felt that DiFi is trying to paint a rosy CYA picture to make nice after her vote to send him through the Judiciary Committee in the first place.
I have heard that even her own staff was taken aback when they found out about this -- because they HAVE been getting calls and faxes and e-mails and other contacts from constituents -- again, running mostly negative, against the Southwick nomination.
So, here is what I would love for readers to do, especially readers in California who are constituents of DiFi's. E-mail or fax her office:
Senator Dianne Feinstein
United States Senate
331 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510
Phone: (202) 224-3841
Fax: (202) 228-3954
E-mail form here.
And then cc copies of what you send to the following:
Sen. Harry Reid, Senate Majority Leader:
E-mail form here.
528 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
Phone: 202-224-3542 / Fax: 202-224-7327
Sen. Dick Durbin, Sen. Assistant Majority Leader:
E-mail form here.
309 Hart Senate Bldg.
Washington, DC 20510
(202) 224-2152 - ph
(202) 228-0400 - fx
Sen. Chuck Schumer, Chair of the DSCC
E-mail form here.
313 Hart Senate Building
Washington, DC 20510
Phone: 202-224-6542
Fax: 202-228-3027
Sen. Pat Leahy, Chair of the Senate Judiciary Comittee
senator_leahy@leahy.senate.gov
433 Russell Senate Office Bldg.
Washington, DC 20510
(202) 224-4242
And the following media contacts in California, who have also gotten the same story from DiFi, and have thus held off on writing about her Southwick vote thinking it is a "non-story":
Los Angeles Times
Richard Schmitt – Richard.schmitt@latimes.com
David Savage – david.savage@latimes.com
San Francisco Chronicle
Bob Egelko – begelko@sfchronicle.com
General – metro@sfchronicle.com
Sacramento Bee
General – editor@sacbee.com
San Jose Mercury News
Howard Mintz – hmintz@mercurynews.com
General – readerrep@mercurynews.com
San Diego Union-Tribune
Greg Moran – greg.moran@uniontrib.com
Very much appreciated gang -- this is a single judicial nomination, but it is one that could easily have been stopped cold and, instead, we are dealing with a wrangle for no particular reason other than inattention to detail and a failure to put good governance and a commitment to the rule of law over personal ego. And that has to stop. Let's just call this "Operation No More Implausible Deniability," shall we?
For information on why the Southwick nomination is a bad one, see here and here for details and links to even more.
(CA readers: please feel free to pass this around to the CA blogs and groups. Also, if anyone decides to set up a meeting at any of DiFi's offices about this issue -- and takes photos, please send them to me and I'll try and get some up for everyone to see. Thanks!)
UPDATE: Via e-mail, I hear the following: There will be "a press conference next Tuesday (the 9th) at 11am Pacific time outside Feinstein's SF office." If anyone happens to attend said presser and gets a question into Sen. Feinstein and/or takes photos, do send along a report. Thanks!
Login Here
Share This
Spotlight
?
Difficult to believe she is claiming there isn’t any opposition to this odious nomination.
Let’s prove her wrong, shall we? To the faxes!
DOH! I just finished a ‘brilliant’ (If I do say so myself ;-) post downstairs, and I was EPU’d before I was even finished.
But we haven’t shifted gears too much, just gone from religious hypocrisy to political hypocrisy. Let’s keep their feet to the fire!
#3?
Good Morning, pups!
Thanks for staying on top of this, Christy.
So…if the Repugnant party treats voters like they’re stupid, how long does it take before the Blue Dogs start believing their premise and doing the same?
Rhetorical question…
FunnyDiva
Hey SufiLizard,
I’ll go read your post, ‘K? I’m sure it was faboo!
FunnyD
Greenwald:
good luck, base. my bold.
hypothetically if committed citizens finally get over their co-dependence on the unfaithful (D) team and work to create a 3rd party that did share their values, they wouldn’t have to be beseeching the pompous paladins who hold them in contempt.
see http://www.salon.com/opinion/g.....index.html
SufiLizard EPU’d
Somebody needs to ask DiFi on video what it is that 1) Lott negotiated with her, or 2) what Lott’s got on her.
Something stinks, the kind of thing she doesn’t even want to share with her staff.
Ack, Ack…who is “I hate all Iranians”, Debra Cagan???? Another Ann Coulter is in the WH…
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pag.....ge_id=1770
~~~ModNote: Edited for content - We don’t disparage folks here this way - it’s an insult to the many transgender folks we care about. Please refer to this comment and others like it.~~~
This post should be “Spotlighted” too.
LS @ 10
you’re right!
Spotlight!
Christy -
I do luvs the way your mind works…..said it before and it bears repeating, thank Dog you’re on the side of the light. *g*
Note to difi: it ain’t smart to p!ss off CHS!
Ok the threads are moving way faster than I am today:
RockPaperScizzors @ 39
No, we don’t get a “free ride.” (And as a Federal employee, I’m damned insulted by that statement.)
We pay into Social Security, Medicare, and our pension fund in addition to our own version of a 401(k), the Thrift Savings Plan. We also pay taxes, Federal, State and Local. We also have to pay our share towards our health insurance, and most of these plans have co-pays.
Where in Ghu’s name do you get the idea that anything a civil servant gets is “free?”
sporkovat @ 6
i don’t think creating a third party would solve everything… no matter what party we work with, we do need to organize effectively to get our values taken seriously.
both the D and the R leaders have plenty of respect for their base - if, by base, we mean the people with the $$$ and the power and not the little people who provide the votes.
Thanks Elliot and Diva. My post at #3 was really just faux outrage, but I appreciate your concern.
I don’t want to detract from the important issue brought up in this post though.
She’s full of cr*p. I e-mailed her before she voted Southwick out of committee, urging her to vote against.
Her e-mail form says that all of them are read, and constituent opinions are carefully considered, but she’s just demonstrated that that is not actually true in any more than the literal sense: yes, they’re read and yes, opinions are considered, but they’ll have no effect on her: she ignores them.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein - the Democratic Party’s version of Sen. Ted Stevens. Too bad she’s not up for election next year.
selise @ 13
Digby, in her post approvingly linked from here earlier this morning, said of threats to bolt to a 3rd party by right-wing christianoid leaders:
I’m not saying it would solve everything, or is easy, but it would give some leverage to the little people where today there is none.
I set Feinstein another scorcher- hope it does some good. I suspect that she’s past caring.
Snakehandlers threaten to form their own party- in other words- they’re telling the primary voters that if they vote for Rudy- the christian right will make sure that the dem candidate beats him. Interesting to see if threatening other VOTERS is an effective tool.
Freddie ahead (barely) of Rudy according to Rasmussen.
sporkovat @ 17
that’s a very different strategy that the long term work needed to build a third party.
i’m ok with specific threats for a specific goal. (for example - we’ll vote green in a specific race if candidate x is nominated or unless the occupation of iraq ends)
but those kind of actions need to be very well organized… like a threat from moveon and associated allies. no one is going to listen to you or i.
as for a generic threat to go third party without a specific demand? i’m not for that.
that doesn’t mean i pretend that most of the dems in congress are something other than what they are… i’m all for shining the bright light of truth and oversight and accountability.
Just some extra information on Southwick. Via wiki, from Leslie H. Southwick time on the Mississippi Court of Appeals:
Basically, in this case the court was supposed to follow the findings of the Board decision but chose not to. Now you might wonder why anyone would think they could make such a blantantly racist remark like that nowadays or that it could ever be perceived as anything other than malign. Southwick and the Mississippi Court of Appeals in their decisio, however, thought that it was no big deal, which says a lot about him and them.
This one is fairly self-explanatory. If the husband had a series of girlfriends, that would not be considered an issue, but that the mother had a series of girlfriends was seen to adversely affect her child. Real forward thinking there.
When you take the two decisions together, you see how a judge can wrap his prejudice up in legal reasoning: a white employee can engage in racist behavior (which they knew to be racist) but not be subject to the sanction prescribed because that would be harsh and a gay mother can have her gayness used against her (for the good of the child).
These decisions are clear evidence of Southwick’s own prejudice and his willingness to let that prejudice enter into his judgments.
~~~ModNote: Edited for content to clear filters. Hurtful words need some smoothing, even if in quotes.~~~
rwcole @ 19
they can afford to think long term… since they are trying to change the supreme court.
we’re trying to prevent that change, so it’s harder for us to think long term. we’re always in a panic about losing what we have.
Debra Cagan, TRex fodder if I ever saw any. At first, I thought I’d discovered a new picture of Rudeeee in drag. Gotta love that Iron Cross, eh? Our Deputy Assistant Secretary for Coalition Affairs to Defence Secretary Robert Gates hates all Iranians.
Can my #23 be let out of moderation?
I wrote my Senator Mark “Lieberlovin’” Pryor who sits on the committee with Di Fi, but never could figure out how the members of the committee voted. If anyone knows or has a link to the committee members vote I would appreciate a helping hand. Thanks.
Copy of my letter:
rwcole @ 19
no, they are just following their principles to a logical conclusion.
To the snakehandlers (great phrase!) abortion = murder, and one does not in any way support a candidate who is wishy washy or triangulates on an issue like murder.
to someone who is sincerely anti-war, rather than someone who is just using the slaughter in Iraq as a wedge issue against the (R)’s, state murder of another nations civilians is also murder.
If only more on the left had the courage of their convictions, and could bring themselves to oppose advocates of state murder, like the leading (D) presidential candidates, who couldn’t commit to ending the immoral, illegal, and failed occupation by the end of their first terms!!!
On Friday 5/30/03 Debra Cagan met with Libby, see his calendar:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pag.....ge_id=1770
Here is what she was heavily involved in: Project Vinca and frequently dealt with Armitage.
http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/npr/v.....3bleek.pdf
Why the f*ck is Feinstein backing Southwick to begin with? Doesn’t she know this will upset her base constituents? Or is it truly the case that she has contempt for those constituents–per the comment @ 6 above? Then lying about response on top of that to media as well? Amazing.
I’ve faxed and emailed Feinstein and all the senators on the list above. I’ve also emailed the CA media listed. I have tons of friends in he LA area, whom I’ve bcc’ed in my email, who will be sending out similar emails, and so on.
LS @ 30
Correction, this is the link to Libby’s calendar:
http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/iln/.....X00601.PDF
Ed*ard Teller @ 23
707! Yikes!
Did you see the uber freaky terrorismawareness.org with their Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week. At first glance I thought it was a parody.
selise…
short term scaremongering, hectoring to support the Least Worst in each successive election cycle, is what has brought us to this point today.
If the (D)’s nominate Clinton, the message control machine will be at high revs with this.
my angle is just to try to question some axiomatic notions that are holding us back, before the conventional wisdom comes down heavy during the electioneering of 08.
I wrote to Feinstien about this months ago and NEVER received a reply.
I have done my part again.
DiFi is my senator. I have voted for her, each time she has run for election or reelection. Having admitted that, my take on her on this time is that she is in her own world. The internet does not exist. Anyone except wealthy contributor might as well be a fly on the wall.
Its 1950, all over again.
LS @ 9
Woops, you are so right. My apologies.
Ed*ard Teller @ 17
I’ve always thought of her as the Lieberman of the West. A vote on Southwick should not be scheduled rather it should be put up for debate where it can be filibustered.
Good morning, Christy and all you good people here on FDL -
OT - (and by some strange way very related) The peace in Burma is because the monks are either dead or imprisoned. Reports say thousands slaughtered. UN representative has been unable to get a meeting with the junta leaders. We need to remain the eyes, ears and voices of those who have been shut up. Contact the Chinese Consulate near you and Chinese Embassy in Washington D.C.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pag.....ge_id=1811
any firepups in the area available to do a meeting this week at di fi’s l.a. office?
i got a response from one of her district managers a while back (on a different matter) stating his willingness to speak to me on any future matters. provided he’s willing and available, i’ll try to set something up if someone else will come with me.
e-mail me at ma50 at earthlink dot net.
Joe D. @ 36
You have to keep voting for her because Senate power derives primarily through longevity. CA benefits from her seniority, all of which would be lost by electing someone else.
Does anyone have a list of zip codes from the DiFi area? Her office, among others, asks for zip code and I am willing to tell her office as much truth as her office tells us
Despite my handle I’m a constituent of DiFi and email has been sent with copy to Reid. WTF are they thinking?
She has really gone to the dark side - like with FEC nominee (name escapes me and too lazy to Google.) Next cycle we need a primary fight.
nomolos @ 42
try 941xx San Francisco
949xx Marin and Sonoma Counties
900xx LA
http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....01423.html
this-is-fro_-a-’k'ristie’s-pre_ios-southwi_k-post-li_ked-up-top
has-good-talki_g-poi_ts-to-help-with-_alls-&-letters
nomolos @ 41
Try this.
Christy - I will get those letters out today as well as put in a call to each of them so they can never say they heard nothing. This may be a good time to take out an ad in a D.C. paper so it is really in her face. I don’t know if she reads hometown papers other than the financial section.
Thanks for the reminder.
Badwater @ 39
Not if she’s using it for these purposes, though.
It’s academic anyway — she’s not up until 2012 and at that point she’ll be 80, I believe.
twȝk @ 33
She is really scaring me.
ccmask @ 47
Talk about a nuevo gestapo look!
Or is it what is coming out of the mouth!?!
ccmask @ 49
Beauty is only skin deep, but ugly goes clean to the bone.
pb @ 48
There are rumors that Ahnold might want to run for the Senate, since he’ll be finished as governor by then (I hope). Not sure I want him as senator, but he can’t be much worse than DiFi is now.
Give the goopers a california senate seat? I don’t think so.
P J Evans @ 52
I wish he’d just go back to making dull, formulaic action movies. It makes him much easier to ignore.
Maybe Feinstein has been bought.
Or is being strong-armed over something.
Someone with contacts on the hill should snoop around, hard.
Christy - My email to Feinstein came back with a “we can only respond to email that includes a California postal address.” Well, that’s one way to make sure you don’t have to deal with anyone else…
Badwater @ 41
These are her committee assignments:
U.S. Senate Committee on Rules and Administration (Chairman)
U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary
Terrorism, Technology and Homeland Security (Chairman)
Administrative Oversight and the Courts
Crime and Drugs
Immigration, Border Security and Citizenship
The Constitution, Civil Rights, and Property Rights
U.S. Senate Committee on Appropriations
Interior and Related Agencies (Chairman)
Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies
Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies
Defense
Energy and Water Development
Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related agencies
U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence
The committee of which she is chairman is not that powerful. The other 3 are but she’s not chairman. Of these, only Appropriations has real potential to deliver benefits to California.
Seniority is the primary criterion on the Republican side. On the Democratic side, it is one factor among others.
Toby Wollin @ 56
This despite the fact that her actions in office affect everybody in this country. Nice attitude, Senator.
Toby Wollin @ 56
That’s why a fax is better, IMHO.
Our continuing mistake is to think that the Democratic leadership feels the same way about things that we do.
It is asolutely clear, at this time, that we are wrong, completely and utterly, with that line of thought.
We can no longer pretend that they simply don’t ‘get’ it.
WE are the ones who do not ‘get’ it!
We naively assume that we just have not adequately communicated to the leadership what our concerns are.
Our greatest failure is that we have not been reaching out to the general public wuth compelling, COMPREHENSIBLE narratives about ‘what’ is going on and what a just, humane, and sustainable future should look like.
Even when we do so, for it must come to that;
the leadership of BOTH Parties will come down hard on any mass demonstration of frustration, disgust, or explicitly delineated hopes for the future.
Make no mistake. We have few courageous and stalwart friends in Congress.
Let us support any we may have and elect others whom we may trust, but let us also soberly assess our collective political dilemma.
There are no easy answers, henceforth. Things are grim and look to become even more grim.
‘Least Worst’ will not be much ‘better’. As I said at the tail-end of the Savage thread, HRC wants power - and we have no reason, now, to ‘believe’ that the Democrats will use the power of the ‘unitary executive’ with significantly wiser compassion or more honest pragmatism. It is not OUR interests they hold dear.
Toby Wollin @ 56
Well, you know there was this TV show: Beverly Hills 90210 if you are looking for inspiration. *g*
I vant more powah!
-The Gropernator
EvilDrPuma @ 52
And the said movies are much more interesting to watch than his political hackery :-/
EvilDrPuma @ 56
While I agree, she’s not the only one. Reid keeps punting my stuff too, and he’s even MORE of a figure that affects everyone!
GSD @ 62
Personally, I don’t think Ahnold would want to move to Washington from Kalifornya.
Joe D. @ 36
Is there any chance of her being replaced in a Dem primary? How do many CA constituents feel about her these days?
Okay, done and off to Feinstein, Reid and Leahy. Feels good!
Lurker in California here. Wrote them all! Thanks for the heads-up, Christy.
Bit NOLA @ 53
I tried to encourage the LA Times to investigate this story further, but who knows.
A & R Davis @ 68
Welcome A & R Davis and thanks for pitching in! Hope we hear more from you.
peanutbutter @ 64
Ridiculous. It’s not as if anybody believes their senators are taking the time to craft personalized email replies that carefully consider the issues raised by each writer. What is served by pretending that only constituents are entitled to the bare minimal consideration one of their form replies actually give?
Feinstein was just re-elected in 06 doesn’t run again until 2012…She’ll be about 90 years old by then!
difi and liebervurst will probably give it up at the same time–2012.
anne @ 65
She was re-elected last year for a six year term. There are no provisions for recall of Federal level offices, such as Senators.
rwcole @ 73
I believe CT used to have a real AG (Blumenthal) and a real US Attorney. Now what we have is an AG (Blumenthal) who is obsessed with myspace pornokiddieexploitation–whereas formerly it was insurance co and carveouts and that sort of thing–AND an absentee US attorney who lauds the kiddiepornofine thread combing of myspace AND ignores allgeations of missing petty cash (election 2006), false charges of website hacking, and vote buying (most seriously in the Hartford area.) I hope that will change before 2012. And Lieberthug will be history before then.
rwcole @ 72
Well, there’s your problem: Y’all are fighting senility!
Serious question, though, can’t Reid just shelf the vote on this guy? Does he have to schedule a vote?
rwcole @ 72
Born in 1933, she’ll be 79 in 2012 and still young by Senate standards.
Toby Wollin @ 56
Toby - I also received the same notice but I called her office and sent a letter that I cc to others on the list. It was short and brief. She knows others were cc on it. Nasty lady.
Over at Crooks and Liars there is a vigorous defense of slavery by the blithering sociopath, Michael Medved.
-GSD
http://www.antiwar.com/frank/?articleid=8609
The wishy-washy senator now claims Bush misled her prior to the invasion of Iraq. I don’t think she’s being honest with us, though. There may have been other reasons she helped sell Bush’s lies. According to the Center for Public Integrity, Feinstein’s husband Richard Blum has racked in millions of dollars from Perini, a civil infrastructure construction company, of which the billionaire investor wields a 75 percent voting share.
In April 2003, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers gave $500 million to Perini to provide services for Iraq’s Central Command. A month earlier in March 2003, Perini was awarded $25 million to design and construct a facility to support the Afghan National Army near Kabul. And in March 2004, Perini was awarded a hefty contract worth up to $500 million for “electrical power distribution and transmission” in southern Iraq.
Feinstein, who sits on the Senate Appropriations Committee as well as the Select Committee on Intelligence, is reaping the benefits of her husband’s investments. The Democratic royal family recently purchased a $16.5 million mansion in the flush Pacific Heights neighborhood of San Francisco. It’s a disgusting display of war profiteering, and just like Cheney, the leading Democrat should be called out for her offense.
And that’s exactly why the Bush administration is so darn bulletproof. The Democratic leadership in Washington is just as crooked and just as callous.
QuakerGirl @ 78
Yep, I did all of that also - I had some issues with a couple of the newspaper emails addys though…
But it seems to me that if you are someone in Congress with a committee assignment..and if you sign your responses with United States Senator (not California Senator - US Senator), then you have an obligation to accept emails from people who are NOT your constituents. When people are on committees, they are acting for all of us, not just their state constituents.
Of course Feinstein’s been bought. See No. 80 above.
Iceland pulls out of Iraq:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dk4rBQDxOEE
Look for mailbox places in CA and use one of those street addresses. I doubt they’d go so far as to check against boxholders - and if you make it look like an apartment address, they’d have a harder time. Shopping-mall street addresses might also work: most people don’t even realise they have addresses.
GSD @ 79
On the basis of what? Theory of Competitive Advantage??
GSD @ 79
I must go read it. While we call it slavery, like it exists in a vacuum, it was/is laissez-faire capitalism. So, if this person is a die-hard capitalist, he will defend slavery. You piqued my interest.
Christy’s now upstairs…
Toby Wollin @ 81
Even if we aren’t direct constituents, with our mobile society, most of us have family or friends who are constituents. And we talk to our families and friends who reside in California (or NY, or FL, or…)
ccmask @ 83
Is that one or two persons? I thought one. Educate me.
peanutbutter @ 74
(Snark on) Right — you have to get the Republican party to consider the Senator in question a threat. Then the GOP arranges a plane crash…(Snark off)
Christy, the e-mail for Richard Schmitt bounces back.
So late to this party, since I’m suddenly home due to a film mistakenly delivered to my house rather than place o’ business for restoration analysis. I’m making good use of the home time by faxing & emailing all those above.
DiFi’s office 1/2 the time ignores my faxes or sends a form response. Her cohorts in the Senate & the newspapers will be getting that bit of info as well.
Haven’t seen our Diane really awake in a hearing since the SJC USAs’ testimony in March, for chrissakes. Wake up, or give your seat there to someone else!
My latest e-mail to Sen. Feinstein:
I wrote — but let me tell you — it annoys the HELL out of me to NOT be able to email Feinstein, Reid, Schumer, and Durbin. I don’t want to fill in all the blanks on their crappy websites. Yes, yes, I realize they do this to discourage us from writing. So be it. That speaks volumes to me.