Letters to the Editor
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It is time?
To go get a cough of cuppa?
I feel like a dunking donut.
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honest. I no lie. I won't be here all day.
Gentle snow flurries
are falling from the sky.
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I feel obnoxious.
Who was in the car that was in my driveway? They were not masked.
Pall Mall, Camel, or was it a Marlboro dangling from the lip?It's time for a hot bath. Look out and ponder deeply. Okay.
Gads.
I get.
Stinky breath?
What creepy GOPs.
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The Two Party Handjive
Bertrand Russell, in his book Power, noted that the people of a democracy are the easiest to deceive because they begin with the mistaken belief that their elected politicians are acting in the public's interests rather than those of the plutarchy whose interests they actually support.
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I60IYAD
It's a little more complex than that, Glenn.
Invocation of the 60 vote rule by republicans is called a "filibuster." Invocation of the 60 vote requirement by democrats is called "obstructionism."
This gets confusing, I know. We're frequently informed by the Washington Post that democratic initiatives get "voted downby, say, "57 to 43", meaning democrats had 57 votes in the Senate and republicans had 43.
In fact, a measure voted down because 40 or more democrats have engaged in obstructionism isn't really a vote at all, and leads to demands by republicans and the nation's media for an "upper down vote."
A few acronyms may serve as a handy mnemonic for Glenn. Glenn, 50 Senate votes IOKIYAR. But it's 60 if it's a democratic initiative (i.e., I60IYAD).
So remember, 60 votes for a democratic initiative is SOP (standard operating procedure). But if you expect application of the 60 vote requirement to republican initiatives, you are best advised to STFU.
IMHO, it's FUBAR.
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The Reason ...
It is obvious that the country is led by one warfare-welfare party that has two wings. One is called 'conservative', but it is not. The other is called 'liberal', but it most certainly is not.
Our only national foreign policy is domination of all others; on that both sides (parties) agree. There are many 'debates' to argue the best way to destroy this or that victim country -- but it is just a show for the rubes. Power does corrupt; and we have been a very powerful nation since at least 1890.
A new problem is the increasing tendency of the evil American Empire to dominate its own citizens in an ever more blatant manner. The sheeple that call themselves Americans put up with it for 'safety'.
Blaaa.
You are watching a WWW wresting match that is all for show --- they will gather together, drink expensive wine, eat a feast, and laugh at the unwashed masses (rubes) in the evening when the show is over for the day.
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i think it's called kabuki
i'm a little slow, but i eventually get it.
some dems voting no (or not voting) really wanted the nomination to pass - but they wanted to pretend otherwise. the rest of the dems, including those voting “no”, wanted to help those dems deceive us... so they drew the curtain over what happened by not objecting to the unanimous consent agreement - which would have forced senators to cast real votes.
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The 60-vote requirement
I generally agree with Greenwald, and would have liked to see the Senate fight the battle of the Alamo to stop his confirmation, but...if I actually had to take responsibility for the decision, I'm not sure I could pull the trigger so quickly.
Consider that Schumer produced the most devastating testimony against "I don't recall" Alberto by getting James Comey -- lifelong republican -- to come forward and testify about Gonzalez's/Card's rush to Ashcroft's hospital bed.
That cooperation was possible precisely because Schumer is a center-court player.
I'm not saying I support Schumer's posture - I was bitterly disappointed by it. But there are reasons other than pure malfeasance that may have guided it.
The progressive movement of the 60's was destroyed in part by the more radical elements attacking the center-left. (Phil Och's contemptuous ballad 'Love me, I'm a Liberal' comes to mind.) I think that those of us who want to see this country salvaged from the christo/corporate/fascist right need to hang together.
Schumer is rightly facing the music for his call. We need to see what he does next. Likewise, Mukasey. Descending into invective doesn't help anything at all.
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the acceptance of a "evil empire"
So why didn't they filibuster, the way Senate Republicans have on virtually every measure this year which they wanted to defeat?~GG
Sadly, I think Kevin Drum summed up the thinking of the Democrats who have acknowledged that Bush can never nominate anyone who openly declared waterboarding illegal so, they said, “it’s not like we could have done any better.”
I don’t think Drum is excusing what the Democrats did, just trying to understand what just happened. The other reason put forward (after the Democrats have implicitly accepted another defeat) is that “we really do need someone running the Justice Department.”
And this comparison is where I think Drum gets it just right:
“We've got an attorney general who acts like a refugee from a communist reeducation camp, dutifully reciting party-line nonsense dictated by his superiors…”
The Soviet comparison is apt because the GOP has adopted the values of the “evil empire” as their own and “torture” is the new litmus test for being a loyal “apparatchik” of the Republican Party. Drum:
‘These days, you can forget that old-style GOP rhetoric about "values," "human dignity" and the "culture of life." Because the GOP has a new litmus test for its nominees: Will you or will you not protect U.S. officials who order the torture of prisoners?
The trajectory of this debate has been depressing beyond words. As recently as a year or two ago, conservatives seemed at least occasionally defensive about the whole thing, mostly limiting their defense of torture to ticking time bomb scenarios and the like. It wasn't pretty, but it was at least a tacit admission that torture was shameful enough to be considered only in extremis.
But no more. The party that used to take Darkness at Noon as practically an ur-text about the evils of communism is now home to a snarling pack of presidential candidates who fall all over themselves to defend torture and abusive interrogation as a routine practice. How did we get here?”
Oh, we know how we got here, Glenn (and others) have been documenting it regularly. It’s just that a lot of people are unwilling to admit just how far, and fast, we’ve fallen.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_11/012470.php
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_11/012463.php