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Daily Briefing: Farewell, Orange

May 19, 2005 08:13 AM

• Debate begins over Owen, and validity of filibusters. Frist: "We must restore the 214-year-old principle that every judicial nominee with majority support deserves an up-or-down vote." Reid: "If Republicans roll back our rights in this chamber, there will be no check on their power." [WP, WP, NYT, NYT, LAT, USAT, WT]

• NBC/WSJ poll: 65% say Congress doesn't share their priorities; 42% say their representative deserves re-election; 56% are against mixing Social Security and the markets; Bush's approval unchanged at 47%. Filibuster showdown isn't helping. [WSJ, LAT]

• White House quietly pulls strings to bring votes on nominees; Cheney, Mehlman, Rove on the case. [NYT]

• Democrats issue 64-page report on Bolton; Republicans counter that he's "a highly qualified nominee." [WP, NYT]

• Bush: "Democratic change and free elections are exhilarating events. . . but history teaches that the path to a free society is long and not always smooth." [NYT]

• Grenade found near Bush now deemed a threat. [USAT, NYT, WT]

• Stevens first spoke of "nuclear option" in February, 2003. [WP]

• Owen viewed as "thorough and careful judge" who often sides with business. [LAT]

• House votes 424 to 4 to drop color-coded threat system. [WP]

• House Republicans want to undo campaign spending limits. [WP]

• DeLay "adamantly opposed" to stem cell research bill; vote expected next week. [NYT, LAT]

• Congress ready to legislate steroids in MLB. [LAT]

Henry

sarah fabian ninth circuit concentration camps migrant detention migrant crisis migrant kids safe and sanitary dolly gee flores settlement flores v. barr flores agreement sherrilyn ifill ryan goodman sally yates norman mineta george takei farewell to manzanar japanese internment immigration

What Part Of NEVER AGAIN Don't We Understand?

SHAME.

Culture Wars

One day, God willing, my grandchildren will click open their history textbooks and read about the Central American migrant internment camps. They'll learn about sick kids, locked in cages, kept hungry and dirty and cold for weeks on end, and they'll be horrified.

"Bubbie," they'll say, "how could this happen in America? How could there be toddlers sleeping on the ground without blankets, without soap or toothbrushes to clean themselves?"

"I don't know. I wish I had done more. I'm ashamed," I'll say. We will all have to answer for this atrocity. But some of us will have to answer more than others. Not just the archvillains like Stephen Miller and John Kelly, but the people who kept right on doing their jobs, even as those jobs morphed into defending concentration camps.

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