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passed 25 tax cuts last year aimed at the middle class and small business...with no votes from the party of no.
@ Rewinn,
In Canada we do have the House of Commons and the Senate.
Not that it is working well; the Senators are appointed and that has just been abused by our own little Neo-Con, Steven Harper, who campaigned on the idea of an elected Senate then when he was in danger of being turfed out, and again during 'prorogue' of Parliament, he stuffed the Senate with conservatives to avoid what we call the 'Sober Second Thought..
Unfortunately we both seem to be governed by Conservative Minority Governments.
Feh!
Rick
@chuckle8
Amen! The shortest distance between two points is a straight line. Join the party, (Dems) and get in and clean out the barn. There are no shortcuts. Raise hell!
chuckle8,
Been there, done that, have the t-shirt. My first summer job was with the NY State Democratic Party. I heard Gene McCarthy speak live in '67. I'm now in my fifties. And unemployed.
Also, been to Afghanistan with an NGO, for a month.
111 accomplishments? I'd trade all of them for one torture prosecution, they are so miniscule. Ledbetter act? If 22 Democrats hadn't voted to support Bush Justices we wouldn't have needed it.
Check out Jeremy Scahill today: The Expanding US War in Pakistan
by Jeremy Scahill
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/02/05-9
Do you call keeping Robert Gates change? Spare me.
RE Frank Luntz and Willy Brown debate as fund raiser for Mayor Kevin Johnson-
I will keep what ever information I can find about this including links to the The Daily Beast and SAC BEE and fund raiser information on my blog. (Click Foodfascist hyperlink).
Luntz did mumble something about having spent time in Sausalito, CA and some more reading...on global warming.
I had a copy of his own quotes from the Daily Beast in my hand, which suggests that as 64% of Americans believe its 'definitely' or 'probably' caused at least in part by humans.
I was sitting close enough to the stage and so he saw that I had something prepared. I was generous and simply asked, The Daily Beast had reported he had changed his position on global warming. There were a lot of Republicans in the room and there were some silence and a groan or two.
Former SF Mayor Brown warned Luntz that this would be up on You Tube- but who knows. I cannot find it. However, It has not been even 24 hours.
@rewinn - "mavericky"?. Yes, I do blame the mavericky Dems. We are talking about a cloture vote that will allow for an up or down vote. These mavericky Dems are just as much obstructionist as the 40 Repubs.
@Zero G.
You do realize you are reacting just as the republicans are trying to make you react.
As an antidote you should visit, politifact.com that points out 111 accomplishments of the Obama administration.
Democracy and liberty are hard work. Please do as Thom suggests and infiltrate the democratic party and change it.
"All animals are created equal, but some are more equal than others."--"Animal Farm," George Orwell. Welcome to Corporate "government." Government for you, anarchy for them...
Thom, you are more of an export on corporate personhood than so very many people in Washington. Couldn't you go and speak to congress? Often citizens do. Could you request to give a speech to congress?
James Bovard"" Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner.""
Corporate Personhood is one wolf given "special rights" to devour the other two, granted a patent on the process of digestion, and exempted from the "personal responsibility" of cleaning up his own crap.
No other major nation has an working 2-house legislature. The Senate serves no purpose and in the long run needs to just go away. Every other major nation does just fine with a parliament that functions basically like our House.
It's time for up-or-down vote
By Bill Frist
All 100 members of the U.S. Senate will soon decide a basic question of fairness. Will we permit a fair, up-or-down vote on every judicial nominee? Or, will we create an unprecedented 60-vote requirement for the confirmation of President Bush's judges? I sincerely hope that it is the former.
Our Constitution grants the Senate the power to confirm or reject the president's judicial nominees. In exercising this duty, the Senate has always followed a careful and deliberate process of examining the nominees through hearings, discussing their merits in committee, debating them in the full Senate and then coming to an up-or-down vote on the Senate floor. We investigate, we debate, and then we decide.......
It's time for Harry Reid to send a letter to the editor; it's time for an "up or down" vote!
@Charles - so you're saying the 40 Republicans who are sticking together to block any action are less to blame than the 1 or 3 Democrats who are all mavericky?
I'm sorry but your position is incoherent.
More problems with voting for the democrats and expecting change:
Power Over the People
Intrusion Alert—It's the Government
By James Ridgeway Tuesday, Jul 29 2003
Political observers often have wondered why Democrats, especially liberals, didn't put up more of a fight against the Patriot Act, which passed the Senate with only one dissenting vote. Many thought it was because Dems didn't have the guts to stand up, and were afraid both to look unpatriotic and to risk defeat at the hands of the mighty Bush. But there may be another reason: The Patriot Act enhances major incursions into civil liberties that were sponsored by Bill Clinton in 1994 and 1996, including the setting up of secret courts and the launch of mass deportations.
The 1996 Antiterrorism Act gave the secretary of state the authority to decide which organizations are terrorist. Anyone supporting such an organization for humanitarian reasons is liable to criminal prosecution. And, of course, under Clinton the FBI was allowed to continue building files on people and organizations based not on the likelihood of their committing a crime, but on grounds that an FBI agent thought they should be investigated. This act, directed at international terrorism, was pushed through Congress in the aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombing, which the government had no reason to believe was caused by foreign terrorists. These measures were opposed not by rank-and-file Democrats, but by the ACLU, per usual, and conservatives who feared they might be the targets of the next investigation.
more: http://www.villagevoice.com/2003-07-29/news/power-over-the-people/1
*********************************
Hey, I voted for Obama, and I won't be fooled again.
What I would like as an addition to filibuster rule is cloture based on population represented by the senators. That is, if senators whose state populations represent 67% of the want cloture it should happen. That is, it would take 33% of the population to block voting (currently, the level is 10.6% with a certain set of states).
"" The proposal of any new law or regulation which comes from [businessmen], ought always to be listened to with great precaution, and ought never to be adopted till after having been long and carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous, but with the most suspicious attention. It comes from an order of men, whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it.""--Adam Smith
–Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Cause of the Wealth of Nations, vol. 1, pt. xi, p.10 (at the conclusion of the chapter)(1776)
Changing the filibuster rule is not the answer. Harry Reid needs to enforce the rules of the filibuster. Reid's claim that he cannot get enough votes to overturn the filibuster is defeatist. He pulls legislation on the grounds that there is important work that needs to be done. Because of this, he gives Repubs all the amunition they need to portray Dems as ineffective. They don't even have to prepare for one.
Reid must to take away their toys. If healthcare, banking reform and fair trade policy are what is needed to turn the economy around, as I suspect most people agree, then Reid must make them stand before the people.
There is power in the filibuster for both sides of the aisle.
Keeping to one footnote per post, here is the link to the drug war story:
Obama grows the drug war, with enforcement a clear priority
By Stephen C. Webster
Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010 -- 9:10 pm
http://rawstory.com/2010/02/obama-grows-the-drug-war/
In his opening speech to the Tea Party convention today, Tom Tancredo said "...that Obama was elected because “we do not have a civics literacy test before people can vote in this country.”
First of all, the words "civics literacy" are over the heads of most Tea Partiers. Secondly, Mr Tancredo should understand that such a test would exclude the votes of the civics illiterates which happen to be over-represented in the Tea Party movement which is the Know-Nothing branch of the No-To-Everything party.
John Yoo Renews Claim That President's Authority to Torture Depends on What Is "Necessary"
Friday 05 February 2010
http://www.truthout.org/john-yoo-renews-claim-that-presidents-authority-...
If this president does not prosecute torturers, I would be a "f'n retard" to vote to re-elect him, Supreme Court not withstanding. I would remind Thom and others that 22 Democratic senators voted to confirm John Roberts. Voting democratic does not lead to ending war, or ending torture, or a decent court.
And Raw Story reports that the drug war budget is expanding under Obama's new budget. Change? Whisky Tango Foxtrot.
I have a couple of questions about what is being discussed. Number 1, why doesn't Thom and Bernie, along ihe progressive Democrats proclaim what a boost to jobs it would be to have universal single payer health care or at least a system where everyone is covered. 50 million new patients equals more jobs.
Second, why do Bernie Sanders and other progressive just come out and state what a blatantly corrupt political system we have? It is just like the Mafia with huge financial payoffs, inside operatives and fear of significant damage to politicians, if not physical then political and financial. Why don't we all just admit it? Loudly and constantly.
Perhaps a bit stale of a subject, but I've been ruminating on Senator Jim DeMint's prediction about Healthcare Reform being Obama's Waterloo. I hope that's true, but truly hope that Obama comes out of the process as Arthur Wellesley, the First Duke of Wellington, who, with Prussian commander Gebhard von Blücher, kicked Boney's derriere, just like I want Obama to kick the Republicans' bloated bottoms.
""One nation under Wall Street..Indivisible from the fall of Rome...with liberty and justice for all WHO CAN AFFORD IT..." Jello Biafra.
Re: replacing Justices: It's not just the Supreme Court, its the whole Judiciary. Few cases actually make it to the Supreme Court. So, having a Democratic President is even more vital.
@rewinn - Until yesterday, Dems sort of had 60 votes. I do not lay the blame of holding up Obama's nominees on the Repubs. They have proven since the Gingrich revolution they will stand together regardless of the outcome. The TSA vote was held up because the Dems could not come together as an unified body. One Dem or psuedo-Dem stepping out of line causes gridlock.