Holder Hearings Thursday and Friday; Call Call Call!
The Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on Holder's confirmation are Thursday and Friday, the 15th and 16th. Opposition to Holder’s confirmation continues to grow and we need it to reach a crescendo Right Now. The Firearms Coalition has received confirmation from Gun Owners of America that they have sent out an alert urging their members to get involved and they are actively seeking to testify at the hearing. Alan Gottlieb of the Second Amendment Foundation and the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms has also spoken out against Holder’s confirmation. The Heritage Foundation has illuminated some additional skeletons in Mr. Holder’s closet and numerous grassroots Second Amendment, privacy rights, and other liberty focused organizations have joined in the call for Barack Obama to withdraw Holder’s name from consideration or for the Senate to reject the nomination.
Beginning Monday we need to flood the Senate Judiciary Committee members with calls and e-mails. We want to generate a wave of objection which hits the committee members before the hearing so here is what we’re asking you to do:
ACTION ITEM:
1. Whether you have already done so or not, write e-mail messages to every member of the Senate Judiciary Committee and to your two senators and send those messages at least once Every Day from now until the hearing on Thursday. It can be the same or a different message each day, that doesn't really matter, but be sure to make your position clear in the "Subject" line; something like "No Holder," "Reject Holder," or "Oppose Holder" should be in the subject line of every e-mail because it is likely to be all that the staffer stuck on e-mail duty will read before jotting a hash-mark in the "Opposed" column of a tally-sheet and moving to the next message. Messages themselves should be short and clear, something like: “Dear Senator, Reject the nomination of Eric Holder for Attorney General. He has demonstrated a serious lack of understanding of, and respect for the Constitution of the US and is an exceedingly poor choice for the office.”
2. Place phone calls to all of the committee members and your two senators on Tuesday during your lunch period. If your time is limited, prioritize; call the Republicans on the committee first, then the Democrats, then your own two senators. If you run out of time, you run out of time, but make as many calls as you can. (Set the alarm in your cell phone to remind you. Go ahead set it now; I'll wait.)
3. Copy this call to action and re-post it on every blog, forum, and bulletin board you can find.
Contact information for the members of the Senate Judiciary Committee can be found here:
http://akeyboardanda45.blogspot.com/2009/01/contacting-senate-judiciary-committee.html
or go through the comittee web site at:
http://judiciary.senate.gov/about/members.cfm
Senators use web forms rather than e-mail and writing to them is notnearly as easy as it should be, but it is notreally all that difficult either. Some Senators make it even more difficult by blocking direct links into their web forms and not putting their contact information in a prominent place on their web site. Please persevere and make sure that they get your message.
While it is extremely unlikely that we can muster enough votes to block this appointment in a straight up or down vote, we should definitely be able to generate enough support to stage a long filibuster and draw attention to Mr. Holder’s shortcomings. Once Holder’s record is before the public and his credibility put in question, it is likely that he will withdraw from consideration (at the quiet request of Mr. Obama) and another name will be offered.