Write your newspapers

This is not a political blog, but it is a writing blog, and this has to do with writing. And we are still the reality-based community after all.

The Republicans are on the verge of creating the political equivalent of the Death Star. Salivating at the prospect of grabbing Complete Power for the first time in two centuries, their hope is to end the tradition of filibustering in the Senate and pack the courts, especially the Supremes, with extremists to finish extinguishing the ever-dwindling legacies of any past U.S. government that registered at least a bleep on its EEGs. As many as four vacancies on the Court could come up in the Chimperor's 2nd term, and they will only need 51 votes to create the Death Star. Maybe this is why the Shiavo distraction.

Your Senators and Congresspersons are going to be home over their break for the next week, and their staffers will be sniffing the local air for signs of what people are thinking. I myself have admittedly been in blissful political hibernation since a few days after the election, but this is one of those opportunities to impact ten-fold over normal times. Write your local papers -- it's easy and can in many cases be done through the Web or email. Often what I've written in five minutes has been published. I just send an email to opinion@press-citizen.com, they call me to confirm my identity, and boom.

Use understatement. Be funny. Be witty. Be Mark Twain. And why not post them here as comments when you're done.

Here are some talking points from a MoveOn email I forgot to delete:

• Radical Republicans want absolute power to appoint Supreme Court justices that will favor corporate interests and the extreme right over the rest of us.

• To get it, they plan to use a parliamentary trick they call the "nuclear option" to overturn 200 years of bipartisan checks and balances that have kept the courts fair for centuries.

• Last term Senate Democrats confirmed almost 95% of President Bush's judicial nominees. Eliminating the filibuster is not about overcoming "obstructionism", its about the desire for complete one-party control.

• While the "nuclear option" is likely to come up in a fight over an nominee, make no mistake -- the real targets here are the 4 Supreme Court seats likely to turn over in the next 4 years.

• Republicans have taken millions of dollars from their corporate backers. Now they're seeking to use the courts to pay back their big donors by overturning protections they have long agitated to remove like labor rights, environmental laws, and privacy rights.