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Minority/Majority

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.

David Sirota

September 29, 2005

Permanent Minority.

Three Democratic senators– Patrick Leahy, Russell Feingold and Herb Kohl–voted for archconservative Supreme Court nominee John Roberts in the Senate Judiciary Committee, despite Roberts’s extreme views on privacy, civil rights and women’s rights.

Toward the Majority. With nine in ten Americans telling pollsters that oil companies are engaging in price-gouging, Senator Byron Dorgan is crafting legislation to create a windfall-profits tax on the oil industry.

David SirotaDavid Sirota is a journalist, nationally syndicated weekly newspaper columnist, and radio host. His weekly column is based at The Denver Post, San Francisco Chronicle, Portland Oregonian, and The Seattle Times and now appears in newspapers with a combined daily circulation of more than 1.6 million readers. He has contributed to The New York Times Magazine and The Nation and hosts an award-winning daily talk show on Denver's Clear Channel affiliate, KKZN-AM760. He is a senior editor at In These Times magazine and a Huffington Post contributor and appears periodically on CNN, The Colbert Report, PBS, and NPR. He received a degree in journalism and political science from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism. He lives in Denver with his wife, Emily, son Isaac, and his dog, Monty.


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