Nation Topics - Senate | The Nation

Evidence is mounting that Connecticut Democrats are dismayed by Senator
Joseph Lieberman's support of President Bush and the Iraq War, giving
impetus to assertions that voters are ready to dump him.

A significant credibility gap opened between Samuel Alito's radical judicial record and his self-portrayal as an open-minded jurist before the Senate Judiciary Committee on his second day of testimony. Senators have reason to scrutinize a recent peer evaluation of Alito's rulings by Yale Law School, which locates him somewhere to the ideological right of Antonin Scalia.

On his first day of testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Samuel Alito was purely political, focusing on his blue-collar roots and the accomplishments of his immigrant family. But Democratic Senators focused on his judicial record on abortion, voting rights and conflicts of interest.

There ought to be a law about bribery in America, but there isn't--not a real one. Bribery is so central to our political culture that it's virtually impossible that any politician ensnared in the Abramoff scandal will actually be convicted of the corruption that makes Washington work.

House Republicans rammed through a budget bill in December that cuts $40 billion from domestic programs. Is there anyone of conscience in the Senate to defeat this?

Chastised by Russ Feingold for extrajudicial spying, the President who would be king invokes the divine right of kings.

Eugene McCarthy was a pure original, a great and good man, whose fundamental historical achievement was to be the standard-bearer for a moral and philosophical campaign against the Vietnam War.

Undoing the savage inequalities of the Bush era will require a
titanic fight, but the new-found courage of GOP moderates hints that
significant changes are in the wind.

Most Americans want immediate action to pull out of Iraq, but Senate
Republicans passed a measure today that essentially lets the White
House off the hook.

Civil libertarians were stunned last week when the Senate approved a
measure that would allow government officials to essentially bypass the
courts and lock up people suspected of terrorism without trial. Will
cooler heads prevail?