Timid majority

Two very decent, important pieces of legislation were shot down in the Senate this week by a Republican threat of filibuster. They were (a) the Habeas Corpus Restoration Act, and (b) Jim Webb's (D-VA) defense-spending amendment mandating that our troops get equal time stateside for every 15-month Iraq/Afghanistan deployment.

Forgive me if I'm getting overly basic here, but the filibuster is a senatorial technique to prevent legislation from coming to a vote (you can't use it in the House of Representatives, because only in the Senate are legislators given unlimited floor time during debate). For any legislation, it takes a 60-Senator "cloture" vote to force debate to an end and actually move to the vote-vote. This gives us the result that if a minority of 40 Senators is gung-ho enough about torpedoing a given measure, it's gone.

But consider: when Strom Thurmond wanted to block the 1957 Civil Rights Act, the fool actually had to stand on the floor of the Senate and speechify away for 24 hours and 18 minutes (with, it is perhaps apocryphally said, an external catheter hidden in his pants). You didn't have to talk about the legislation at hand during a filibuster: you could read out the telephone book or recite baseball statistics if you liked, but you did have to stand there in the pit and keep talking. As we all saw dramatized in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.

Since then, however, it's become standard operating procedure that filibusters need only be threatened. It's one of those comity things. You say you'd block the vote we want to bring if we brought it? Okay, you win, we won't bring it.

Now, Harry Reid, the Senate Majority Leader, could make would-be filibusterers actually filibuster if he wants; but he hasn't been doing that. The question is, of course, why not? The Republicans have embarked on a strategy of obstructionism, and are getting the two-for-one deal of both keeping the Democrats from getting what they want, and also making them look incompetent in the process. Not, it should be said, without reason.

Among the legislation that has succumbed to natural and pseudo-filibustering are amendments to advance stem cell research, a bill that would have reduced the cost of attending college, multiple pieces of legislation designed to facilitate a drawdown of troops from Iraq, and a provision that would have allowed the Department of Health and Human Services to negotiate drug prices with drug companies. (Huffington Post)

And next up, Bush is asking for more Iraq money within a month or so. Here's what should finally happen: the Democrats tie the money to specific withdrawal benchmarks - how many troops out, and what dates they're to be out by. Then make the Republicans come in with their cots and catheters and their day-long speeches to make their case to the country as to what "success" means in Iraq, how we can still expect to achieve it after the past 4.5 years of unmitigated catastrophe, and what benefit this nation ever did or still could stand to gain.

Here's what will happen: the Dems will give Bush whatever he wants, while making various noises about how he needs "a new strategy in Iraq."

$20

I don't know when the last time was that I "chipped in" (as they always like to term it) to a MoveOn.org campaign. I know it would have been during the '04 election cycle.

But this idiocy about the "General Betray Us?" ad so peeved me that I chucked them $20 this afternoon. 22 Democrats and Joe Lieberman joined all Senate Republicans in passing a condemnation of MoveOn for questioning the veracity of the esteemed General's (Petreus) rosy surge assessment.

Dear me, how dare they.

As John McCain said in response to the ad, they should be kicked out of the country (and who's "they"? Eli Pariser? Or the 3.2 million Americans who've signed on with the organization? And if the latter - and, for that matter, if the former - to what locale are the offending parties to be kicked?)

...In the past two days, of course, the Senate has scuttled real legislation to preserve Habeas Corpus, and to stanch the indefinite deployment of our troops (more on these parliamentary antics in a subsequent post). But then this thing goes sailing through. $20 is, of course, utterly meaningless; and I can't even quite go so far as to say that it makes me feel any better to have donated it. But I did, doggone it, and there you are.

If you're so inclined as to sign a petition of solidarity with MoveOn's right to have run the ad, it's here.

Ding, dong, TimesSelect is dead

Now I can read Paul Krugman again.

$20 a year I might have paid. The $50 they were asking? Too much.

Petraeus' Report to Congress

(You'll want to click on the cartoon to be able to read it.)

Left-Wing / Right-Wing

I've had a request or two to post the text of these short performance pieces online....


Right-Wing Essay:

Ladies and Gentlemen, allow me to share with you just a word about the Free-Market Gospel. Competition – repeat it with me, brothers – competition – by which I mean the fear of being eaten alive by coyotes – is the root of everything good in this world. Why, in order not to be eaten alive by coyotes, we see majestic works of art and learning everywhere we turn. Would Mr. Sir Isaac Newton have invented physics if he’d lived some kind of a life of leisure? Would the Big Bopper have created such seminal works of Rock ‘n’ Roll were he not locked in a life-and-death struggle with the Wolfman Jack? Would Michelangelo ever have impressed his masterwork upon the ceiling of the Sistene Chapel if he’d been on some kind of a government contract?

And there we get to the heart of the problem, friends. Government. After all, governments are incompetent by definition – there’s no competition! Indeed, everything every government has ever done is inferior to anything any act of free enterprise has ever accomplished. Period.*

You see, the very existence of a “nanny” government creates a host of perverse motives. For example, programs like welfare and unemployment encourage people not to work – just like Medicare makes them sick and Social Security makes them get old. And consider the police force. Why in the name of all that’s wholesome does the government run a police force? As I’m sure you’ll agree, it’s terribly unfair to poor people. Here they are, these poors out there with barely any property to protect, forced to pay taxes to support cops to protect their property! At least so far as poor people even pay taxes anymore.

No, let people who need the police, pay for the police – that’s what I say! Anybody can see how much better off we’d be if only the laws of this country were enforced by paid cadres of mercenaries in the employ of the wealthy.

And by the way, why in the world is the government running around printing money? Don’t they realize they’re incompetent? Money should be minted by multiple competing private companies, each of which can publish their own paid advertisements on the currency. Whichever company prints the coolest money (holograms, the best movie tie-ins, singing dollar bills, etc.) will tend to win out in the marketplace. Luckily, no one will ever win out, though, because market forces ensure there can never be such a thing as a monopoly.

Aha – I bet you disagree with me about that. And why? Because you’ve been brainwashed by liberals who are always out yelping that the government needs to be performing unnecessary busywork like breaking up monopolies, enforcing laws, and printing money. And it’s nonsense, top to bottom. I can prove to you right now that a monopoly has never existed in the history of human commerce. Observe: if there had ever been a monopoly, some enterprising individual would have created a company whose product was monopoly-breakup. Has there ever been such a company? Not that I’ve heard of. QED.

Therefore, you will now agree with me that all government is useless, counterproductive, marxist, parasitic, perverse, and, in every conceivable regard, bad. This is the entirety of the conservative philosophy, folks, presenting a clean, simple, and “baggage-free” agenda for the health of our nation. Thank you for listening.

P.S. The world is 4000 years old; global warming is a lie; oil companies need billions of tax dollars in annual direct subsidies; the Prince of Peace will throw you in an eternal lake of fire if you ever have oral sex; and the single greatest threat to our nation, besides terrorism and wetbacks, is the creeping menace of any persons who wear Birkenstock™ sandals (aka, “liberals”).

*With these exceptions: governments are excellent at starting wars, enforcing property rights, suppressing social and labor movements, and imprisoning people, particularly for pot-smoking. Oh – and governments are also brilliant at figuring out whom to award contracts to for doing all the things they’re no good at doing.


Left-Wing Essay:

Wake up, sheeple! Are you going to let the multinational corporations, special interests, and the racist, misogynist, corporatist, neo-nazi, Christo-fascist religious extremists continue their hegemonic dictatorship over our economic and private lives – or are you going to stand up and act?

The greed-fueled transnational conspiracy to pollute our air and water; suppress the rights and opportunities for Personages of Color; trample Labor and Wymmyns’ rights; force-feed us the drivel of television game shows, vapid lying news, and The Food Network – that conspiracy came to a head on September the 11th, 2001, when a gang of Saudi patsies was recruited to crash passenger jets into office buildings to distract attention from the explosives George Bush had personally planted in those buildings – and thereby build a fake case for invading Iraq!

Say what you like about its ruthlessness, but what you cannot question is the flawless elegance of their evil plan.

It’s finally time to wake up! They’ve been controlling the world for decades – it’s been going on since they tried to murder Castro!* In fact, in our very own community today, the corpoatocracy is at it again. Our crypto-fascistic District 4 Selectman has systmatically ignored a grassroots effort to promote education in our community. This fall’s proposed municipal bond measure Z will raise funds dedicated to teaching spirit-based holistic wellness – mandating homeopathy and vibration therapy be added to our high schools’ health curriculum, and funding free booths all around town offering herbal-tea colonics.

Spreading wellness awareness in our community is precisely the blow we must strike at the heart of the military-industrial giant! By breaking the spell of corporate brainwashing, and spiritually liberating the public, I assure you that the fundamental reconstruction of our society on a basis of justice and egalitarianism will follow naturally.

Do you realize what’s at stake? This is no time for hesitation or half-measures: have you got the courage, the fortitude, the guts to do what must be done – and sign my petition? Please?

Look, I know you have a lot of groceries you’re trying to load into your car, but it’ll only take a second.

Please? I’m being paid 50¢ for every name I get.

* i.e., when the CIA insinuated a midget assassin into the beard of Fidel Castro [1961]; when the CIA insinuated a humidor into Fidel Castro’s study whose cigars had been replaced by very small midget assassins [1962]; and when the CIA insinuated over 200 million decrepit 1958 Ford sedans into Cuba in the hopes of raising the rate of automobile accidents [ongoing]

Impeachment

Dear Speaker Pelosi,

Last fall, prior to the start of the present congressional term, you publicly declared that the impeachment of President Bush would be "off the table". I am writing because I believe this was a serious mistake - and that a broad-reaching impeachment inquiry should be undertaken immediately by the House Judiciary Committee.

Here are a few of the reasons such an inquiry is needed:

• In December 2005, the New York Times reported that the Bush administration was operating a massive program of warrantless and partly domestic wiretapping in violation of the Foreign Intelligence and Surveillance Act. The President publicly admitted the truth of the story, and continued the program without change until the beginning of this year. There is substantial evidence that even now, the administration continues to violate Americans' Fourth Amendment rights on a gross and systematic scale under a modified form of this program - as well as under other programs as yet undisclosed.
  

• The President's broad assertion of executive privilege has included openly flouting congressional subpoenas both for documents and for the testimony of top aides. The President has also appended hundreds of Constitutionally baseless "signing statements" to legislation passed during his tenure in office - many of which declare his open intention to disregard or circumvent these laws as he sees fit. Recent executive orders also suggest the administration's willingness to assume total command, by fiat, over state and local government resources in the event of an emergency, however defined.
  

• The President has asserted extra-legal powers over persons he chooses to name "enemy combatants". In at least one instance, he held an American citizen in prison for years without stating a charge, or allowing any opportunity for judicial redress.

• In violation of international treaties, there is ample evidence that the administration is operating an international network of secret prisons where "ghost detainees" are subjected to treatment that can only reasonably be described as torture.

• Documents like the Downing Street Minutes have suggested the existence of a campaign of deliberate public deception in building the case for war with Iraq.
  

The power of impeachment vested in the House of Representatives is much more than a partisan political tool. It may have been used as such a tool by the Republican-controlled congress in 1998. However, impeachment remains the most basic of the checks and balances which form the essential genius of our system of government. For the Speaker of the House of Representatives to take impeachment "off the table" is as irresponsible as it would be for the President to take the veto power "off the table," or for the Supreme Court to announce it will no longer overturn laws as unconstitutional. To decline even to investigate potentially impeachable offenses - while the Executive branch claims arbitrary new powers for itself - is to allow our system of government to crumble away piece by piece.

Today, quite unlike in 1998, I believe it is to shy away from impeachment which is the partisan political act. Such a decision clearly reflects prioritizing the Democrats' safe standing in the 2008 elections over and above a respect for the integrity of our Constitution, or for the rule of law generally. To allow this President's extra-legal acts to go forward unchallenged, sets a precedent inimical to the future of our way of government.

For these many reasons, I urge you to support the opening of an impeachment inquiry in the House Judiciary Committee.

Sincerely,
Marc Wilson
San Francisco, CA

cc. Representative John Conyers, Chairman, House Judiciary Committee