AM Feed - October 31, 2005

Hot Topics
List of 4 items
President Bush wasted little time in trying to wipe away the painful memory
of Harriet Miers' Supreme Court nomination: Today he tapped appeals court
Judge
Samuel Alito to fill the position that Miers could not. This selection is a
clear case of President Bush bending to the demands of his most conservative
faction of supporters. Alito served in the Reagan administration, and was
one of the names suggested by conservatives to Bush as a replacement to
Miers.
Unlike Miers, Alito has a judicial history, and it is undoubtedly
conservative. He ruled in the landmark Planned Parenthood v. Casey abortion
case to uphold
many provisions of the Pennsylvania law that restricted a women's right to
an abortion - he even dissented from the majority in one instance when they
struck down one restriction imposed by the PA law. Alito also dissented in a
1996 sex discrimination case in which he contended that it was too easy for
discrimination cases to reach a jury trial. In addition, Alito has also been
willing to blur the line on the issue of separation of church and state.
[link]
The Bush administration is clearly hoping that the news of Alito's selection
will take some of the focus off Scooter Libby's indictment and resignation.
It shouldn't. After all, Libby's involvement with the leak once again raises
serious questions about the Bush team's pre-war intelligence and evidence
of WMD. Yesterday Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) called on Karl
Rove to step down, and even Sen. Trent Lott (R-MS) said that Bush needs "new
blood, new energy, qualified staff."
[link]
Almost lost in the shuffle of news about Libby, Plame and Miers is the fact
that oil companies posted record profits last quarter. That's right - while
you're paying more at the pump, Exxon enjoyed gains of $9.92 billion, it's
highest-ever quarterly profit. And Exxon wasn't alone. Other oil companies
also
shared in the spoils during a time when the Gulf Coast was ravaged by
Hurricane Katrina and gas prices soared to nearly $3 per gallon. Some
Democrats in
the Senate have called for a tax on windfall profits by oil companies that
would target money not spent on new exploration and production, but it has
languished
in the Republican-controlled Senate.
[link]
Meanwhile, a Republican-controlled committee in the House has voted to slash
$844 million in food stamps - even as a new report from the Agriculture
Department
found that 38.2 million Americans were "food insecure," an increase of two
million from last year. Nearly 12 percent of US households had problems
providing
enough food at some time last year. The party-line vote in the House pushed
cuts that would eliminate food stamps for 300,000 Americans.
[link]
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Morning Snark
List of 2 items
You know things are out of whack when Exxon's profit margins make
Halliburton look like a non-profit charity.
How long before Bush lobbies for Harriet Miers to slide into Cheney's chief
of staff position?
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Posted by Miriam V.