Nation Topics - Senate | The Nation

Top oil execs were asked numerous questions at a Senate hearing on
spectacular profits earned in the wake of tropical storms. But they had
no real answers about how to ease the burden on ordinary Americans.

As the Senate opens hearings this week calling energy execs to
account for their windfall profits on gasoline and natural gas, the
question must be asked: Is this price-gouging or just good
old-fashioned capitalism?

The nomination of Judge Samuel Alito to the US
Supreme Court forces the debate the President and the Senate have tried
so mightily to avoid: whether the Court should shift decisively and
radically to the right.

War crimes are the darkest expression of the moral degradation that
permeates the White House. Bush's threat to veto the Senate's
anti-torture measure frames a crisis of law and legitimacy.

Three senators caved and supported the
nomination of John G. Roberts Jr. as Supreme Court Chief Justice. But
one lawmaker, banking on the public's cynicism of the oil industry,
wants to tax its windfall profits.

He's a far-right baby doctor. His own chief of staff
says he's clueless about the law. Meet Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn, who'll help shape the US Supreme Court.

The Senate should abandon its comical pretensions to being a body reflecting any democratic mandate.

Democrats must continue the fight to preserve an independent judiciary.

The Republican Senate seeks to eliminate the fillibuster.

For more on judicial nominations, see Garrett Epps's "Judicial Jeopardy: Questions for Nominees."