Nation Topics - Democrats | The Nation

The author claims that U.S. President George W. Bush and his supporters are abusing the power of appointment and ignoring the Constitution's "advise and consent" clause in trying to gain confirmation by the Senate of several controversial judicial nominees. Karl Rove's White House laboratory has litmus-tested and shipped another batch of extremist nominees to the Senate Judiciary Committee for its members' consent, after not asking for their advice. These nominees will get the deepest possible scrutiny because of a curiously underreported scandal. In a new excess of zealotry, Republican staffers have stooped to snooping--hacking into the computers of Judiciary Committee Democrats Ted Kennedy and Richard Durbin, stealing fifteen confidential memos and disseminating them to "friendly" media outlets like the Wall Street Journal editorial page and the Washington Times. The combination of more noxious nominations and these dirty tricks has upped the ante in the current judicial filibuster fight, in which the Democrats have so far blocked six Bush nominees. Some evangelical Christian and "family values" pressure groups, plus Senator Trent Lott, are urging Frist to use the "nuclear option" to abolish judicial filibusters. One such option involves having whichever GOP senator is presiding over the Senate at the time rule a filibuster against a nominee out of Order and then rule that his position needs only fifty-one votes to be sustained, not the sixty needed to end debate.

The article criticizes the Medicare and energy bills, which recently came before the U.S. Congress. The corruptions of Washington are hidden in plain sight. It's no secret that there's a pay-to-play ethos that links legislators, contributors and lobbyists, and results in legislation more attuned to corporate interests than the public's. With the Medicare legislation, the White House and the Republican leaders of Congress (aided by two Senate Democrats, Max Baucus and John Breaux) produced a measure that grants seniors a spotty prescription drug benefit while rewarding two of the GOP's most generous supporters: the pharmaceutical industry and the health insurance industry. Yet once in a while the hogs of Washington outdo themselves--as they have done in the writing of the Medicare and energy bills. The energy bill went even further in terms of rewarding patrons. It would have doled out billions in tax breaks--or corporate welfare--to traditional energy companies, dwarfing the amounts reserved for renewable energy and energy efficiency. The Medicare bill, with the support of a small but decisive number of Senate Democrats and the backing of AARP, passed; the energy bill failed by two votes in the Senate, though Republicans will probably try to resurrect it when senators return to Washington in January. But both pieces of legislation tell the same ugly story. In the Washington of George W. Bush, Tom DeLay and Bill Frist, industry--that is, corporate patrons--comes first. And too many Democrats are accomplices.

The article discusses former Vermont Governor Howard Dean, who seems to be gaining in popularity as a Democratic Party presidential candidate. While the other candidates continue to position themselves as the progressive populist (Kucinich), the mainstream liberal (Kerry), labor's champion (Gephardt), the women's rights contender (Moseley Braun), the civil rights contender (the Rev. Al Sharpton), the vaguely Clintonesque Southerner (North Carolina Senator John Edwards) the serious senior senator (Florida's Bob Graham) or the Democrat even a Republican could love (Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman), Dean is satisfied to run as the guy who really, really wants to put it to Bush. To a greater extent than any other candidate, Dean has recognized that what Democrats want in 2004 is a Bush-bashing populist. And even if that is not who the former governor happens to be, he is having fun playing the part. As the Democratic competitors geared up for fall television campaigns in early primary and caucus states, several recorded ads attacking Dean--though they kept the ads on hold, fearing that, like Lieberman's criticisms of Dean's antiwar stance, these hits would only enhance the Vermonter's standing. Aides to Kerry and Gephardt quietly acknowledge that their candidates continue to suffer slippage at the grassroots because of their votes last fall to authorize Bush's use of force against Iraq. Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich voted against the use-of-force resolution and played a central role in organizing Congressional opposition to the war. Yet, while Dean has ridden an antiwar stance from obscurity to front-runner status, Kucinich is near the bottom of the field in Iowa and New Hampshire, virtually unnoted by the national media and struggling to raise money for the fall's TV ad wars. What Dean's opponents fail to understand is that no candidate will overtake Dean merely by pointing out his inconsistencies because his supporters are awed by his strengths.

The article discusses the comments of U.S. President George W. Bush on Democrat Party. He said that the President of the United States is the President of every single American, of every race and every background. Texas State Representative Paul Sadler, a

This article presents views of various politicians on whether a New Party is needed or not. According to U.S. Senate Paul Wellstone Democrats have not yet responded adequately to a host of breathtaking changes in our generation. It is also true that in many states the Democratic Party is organizationally weak and controlled by small groups of activists and moneyed elites who dictate both the terms of the political debate and its eventual outcome. But it doesn't have to be that way. The New Party's approach is one that makes sense for people who are part of institutions, like unions, that must continue to be involved with the Democratic Party, even while one tries to create alternatives to it wherever necessary and possible.

The electoral system in the U.S. is now being convulsed by the broadest, fiercest voter insurgency in perhaps 140 years, and is watching from the sidelines. Worst of all, the receptacle of these volatile political humors is Presidential candidate Ross Perot. Despite the mayhem he can inflict on an unresponsive system, Perot is a catastrophe for the progressive/activist spectrum. Insurgent labor, minorities, feminists, lesbians and gays, environmentalists, community organizers, peace internationalists, the coalition that once made up the Rainbow, are in varying degrees offended by Perot's campaign but, more important, excluded from it on any terms but his.

Discusses the lack of popularity of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC). Establishment of standards at the CPSC; Personnel difficulties at the agency; U.S. President Jimmy Carter's appointment of Democrats Susan King and Edith Sloan as CPSC commissioners; Supporters of the agency's reauthorization.