Stop Bill Pryor

Stop Bill Pryor

Facebook
Twitter
Email
Flipboard
Pocket

Talk about outside of the judicial mainstream! Alabama Attorney General Bill Pryor is the latest extremist candidate nominated by the Bush Administration for a federal judgeship.

An appointee to the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th circuit, Pryor has called Roe v. Wade “the worst abomination of constitutional law in our history.” He’s compared homosexuality to necrophilia and incest. He’s fought aggressively to prevent the disabled from enforcing their rights under the Americans with Disabilities Act. He’s urged Congress to gut a key provision of the Voting Rights Act, which protects the right to vote for African-Americans. He’s argued that the First Amendment doesn’t mandate “the strict separation of church and state,” and that “the challenge of the next millennium will be to preserve the American experiment by restoring its Christian perspective.”

Heard enough? If not, IndependentJudiciary.Com, an invaluable site run by the non-profit Alliance for Justice, has collected a dossier of good reasons why Pryor‘s appointment should be rejected. (There’s also info about other nominees.)

Send a letter to your Senators urging them to vote against Pryor’s nomination. It’ll take about ninety seconds using the Nation‘s new online activism kit. On this issue, it could really help make a difference. The Dems have effectively filibustered both Miguel Estrada and Priscilla Owen (two other loony-right Bush nominees). Bill Pryor deserves the same treatment.

We cannot back down

We now confront a second Trump presidency.

There’s not a moment to lose. We must harness our fears, our grief, and yes, our anger, to resist the dangerous policies Donald Trump will unleash on our country. We rededicate ourselves to our role as journalists and writers of principle and conscience.

Today, we also steel ourselves for the fight ahead. It will demand a fearless spirit, an informed mind, wise analysis, and humane resistance. We face the enactment of Project 2025, a far-right supreme court, political authoritarianism, increasing inequality and record homelessness, a looming climate crisis, and conflicts abroad. The Nation will expose and propose, nurture investigative reporting, and stand together as a community to keep hope and possibility alive. The Nation’s work will continue—as it has in good and not-so-good times—to develop alternative ideas and visions, to deepen our mission of truth-telling and deep reporting, and to further solidarity in a nation divided.

Armed with a remarkable 160 years of bold, independent journalism, our mandate today remains the same as when abolitionists first founded The Nation—to uphold the principles of democracy and freedom, serve as a beacon through the darkest days of resistance, and to envision and struggle for a brighter future.

The day is dark, the forces arrayed are tenacious, but as the late Nation editorial board member Toni Morrison wrote “No! This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.”

I urge you to stand with The Nation and donate today.

Onwards,

Katrina vanden Heuvel
Editorial Director and Publisher, The Nation

Ad Policy
x