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Votes upcoming. Thought a fresh thread would be helpful.
When In the Course Of Human Events… |
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| By: Christy Hardin Smith Thursday September 28, 2006 1:24 pm | |
When In the Course Of Human Events… |
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| By: Christy Hardin Smith Thursday September 28, 2006 1:24 pm | |
Votes upcoming. Thought a fresh thread would be helpful.
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Fitz!
My first Fitz?
Hillary used the spinning corpse of George Washington. It affected me, it won’t affect those determined to shit on his grave however.
This is powerful and sums up my feelings exactly!
Sad day for America.
Perfect timing for a new post Christy! My comments below were put together especially for you!
Habeas Corpus – Wrongly understood?
I think there is a unremarked and long, hidden truth regarding Habeas Corpus that has led to a profound and fundamental misunderstanding of this principle.
One that may have escaped the understanding and writings of even our own Founding Fathers who included Habeas Corpus as a “privilege” in our Constitution. And one that as of yet, may have escaped the understanding of even our own Supreme Court.
Habeas Corpus is so “foundational” to the very concept of “Rule of Law” that its very nature as a precedent predates even its evocation in our own Constitution.
The conventional wisdom is that Habeas Corpus is a “privilege” that exists for “individuals”.
I believe that is in error.
I believe that Habeas Corpus is more correctly a “limitation” on the power of “government”. Any and all governments.
The focus of Habeas Corpus needs to be seen as that of the limitation on the jailer, rather than on a privilege of the prisoner. And there is something fundamentally different between these two concepts.
A “privilege” is something that may be taken away or withdrawn from individuals. A “limitation” on the power of government however, is something that the “governed” themselves define and demand as to the limits of power that may be exercised by “their” government.
Because the true focus of Habeas Corpus is on the “limitation” on the power of the government as jailer, the citizenship of the individual being detained should be and must be seen as irrelevant.
Governments detain people. Habeas Corpus limits the government’s power to do this. Habeas Corpus does not, nor should it, concern itself or speak to the citizenship of person detained. The detainment itself is the issue.
Therefore, the following must be the true summary of the facts:
1. Habeas Corpus limits the power of governments to detain a person.
2. Courts always have jurisdiction over the limits of government power.
3. The citizenship of a person detained is irrelevant.
Repeat as necessary!
Taking the vote on the ammendment by Kennedy right now…not many answering the roll call…just hope the Dems all vote for the ammendment and then against the main bill…
I believe this is the Rockefeller amendment, Moesie.
I’m too angry to even fitz. How about this:
ROPEZ!
This is Rockefeller. Very few voting it seems.
Anyone wants to pile on Harry Reid feel free:
202-224-3542
202-224-7327 (fax)
77-882-7343 Vegas
Shame
Who are those old guys in the picture, Christy? I’ll be they never had to face imminent danger to themselves and their families.
I would love to volunteer to be tortured out front of the White House. Lets have a little demonstration; I could probably handle a few hours of water boarding. Then the stress positions… bring it on. Hmm, that would be interesting. I don’t know that it would do any good, but nice thought.
votes trickling in…
Attaturk @ 3
Wonder if George Washington would have supported the Bush decision to attack Iraq.
I am putting together the list of names of Democrats that voted against a filibuster. According to Reid on the radio not long ago, they were 2 votes shy on filibuster so that is why it didn’t happen. That means 5 Democratic senators were for torture and suspension of habeas corpus.
The list I have right now is 3 likely and one probable:
Likely/Definites:
Landrieu
Pryor
Lincoln
Probable:
Nelson
Who is the 5th?
They need to have their names on the web in all their glory before the November elections. Anyone have info?
The statement that Atrios posted by Obama reads like it was a foregone conclusion that this would go down.
Pathetic.
Phonom @ 1:31 pm (#11 )
Yeah, who are all those poofters in the wigs? Are they French?
…it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
Went to Senator Kennedy’s office today, to emphasize in person how strongly I feel about this, and how strongly many among their base feel. Spoke with an intern–the staffer was out, as it was lunchtime.
My key points:
1. While we understand Dems are better than the alternatives, and that getting to 51 is the most important political goal, the Democratic leadership is making it very hard for its friends to make the case for it. Netroots constitute a fair fraction of the base, and a demoralized base is a bad thing to have going into a midterm election.
2. We are informed, and know there are many ways, large and small, to delay a bill short of outright defeat. We know you get 48 hours before cloture can be invoked. We know roll calls can eat up time. We know poison pills can be applied. We aren’t the experts on how to deploy this array of tools–we expect our Senators to be. But if they aren’t being used, we will recognize that a choice was made not to use them.
3. Torture is simply a deal-breaker.
4. The bill allows the Secretary of Defense to designate anyone, Americans included, as an “enemy combatant”, and have them sent to a secret prison, without a trial, to be tortured, with no review or oversight. Some sober, careful people are looking at this and calling it the end of the American experiment. The bill is a direct threat domestically, leave alone the international implications.
5. You can’t be against torture, but in favor of pardons for those who do it.
6. As came out in Jane’s WWJD post yesterday, security professionals are the single identifiable group most likely to categorically oppose torture.
I should say, point four was clearly being underemphasized in other calls and messages the offices are hearing. He was familiar with the provisions but clearly surprised to hear it as a reason a constituent would oppose the bill.
Some information I learned:
1. A filibuster is still procedurally possible–not foreclosed by the consent decree. He could not say whether politically it was possible.
2. Kennedy is (unsurpisingly) committed to using every one of the tools available to stop the legislation, or amend it to fix it.
3. They are working closely with the Kerry office on the issue.
4. They’ve gotten hundreds of calls this morning and definitely think this is a high-volume issue.
I also went to Senator Kerry’s office. However, they declined to even let me in the door. This is not the first time that has happened…
In conclusion: keep calling. A little math shows that if every daily reader of this site calls their Senators (red or blue: it’s important even if you know your Senator will vote against you) we’d likely more than double the call volume of what’s already considered a high-stakes issue. Specifically state support for a filibuster of the Detainee Bill. Don’t forget your zipcode…
Updated: I spoke to this guy again since Harry Reid was on Ed Schultz. He tells me he was wrong earlier. He tells me now that it won’t be possible to filibuster because of the consent decree. I asked him why the Senator didn’t object when he had the chance. He told me it was very complicated, and lots of political realities. I asked him if that should comfort me when the Secretary of Defense declared me an enemy combatant. I reminded him that nobody was fooled when Chaffee voted against Alito, because he voted for cloture. You have to stand up when it actually matters.
I wasn’t expecting to lose the cloture vote 0-100.
I’m clinging to the tiny hope that if he was wrong once, he might be wrong twice.
Never have I thought that ever…EVER will our rights, our lives, our choices we make everyday, lie in the hands in a bunch of cynical assholes.
Thomas Jefferson, terrorist mollycoddler!
http://patriotboy.blogspot.com…..4820304485
…
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.
I’m so disappointed in my country and in my erstwhile party today. Unless the Democrats do something besides bend over and cast righteous but meaningless “no” votes, I’m really really going to have trouble going to the polls November 7. A little filibuster would go a long way toward restoring my tattered faith.
Digby’s got it right today in an amazing post called Rogue Presidency.
Jane seems to have a post up, above…
It is my day for EPUs but this is rather important to the understanding of what is going on.
The consent agreement they are currently talking about it this from the Daily Digest for the Senate Sept. 27,2006:
A unanimous-consent-time agreement was reached providing for further consideration of the bill at approximately 10 a.m., on Thursday, September 28, 2006; providing for the consideration of certain additional amendments, and following disposition of these amendments, and the use, or yielding back of time, the bill be read a third, and the Senate vote on passage of the bill.
Secure Fence Act: A unanimous-consent agreement was reached providing that the cloture motion with respect to Frist Amendment No. 5036, to H.R. 6061, to establish operational control over the international land and maritime borders of the United States, be withdrawn; provided further, that on Thursday, September 28, 2006, following the disposition of S. 3930, Military Commissions Act (listed above), Senate resume consideration of the bill, with a vote on the motion to invoke cloture thereon.
The idea as I understand it is that they will vote on today’s amendments and vote on the bill which is the Frist bill which is itself an amendment to the Secure Fence Act. So there will be no cloture vote on the Frist Bill but there still could be one on the over all bill (the Secure Fence Act). Now it is very likely that the Democrats will fold on this one too but the final chance for cloture is not today but tomorrow and it is not on the Military Commissions Act but on the Secure Fence Act.
Praedor Atrebates @
15
that’s just, one of the many, problems with not attempting a filibuster – it gives cover to those who wouldn’t support it.
Bush and thugs just got a free pass from jail.
This is just for the Rockefeller amendment..
…but yeah…free pass vote will be sometime soon.
I feel so constrained. My heart keeps telling me to hang on, that good will prevail, that this cannot be happening in my country. My head keeps telling me to watch out. Shutter the windows. Lock the doors.
After all this time I am still confounded by the Dems lack of spirit and courage in the face of pure evil. WTF is going on?????? Why do they all seem so scared? Are they waiting for the election to regain their power? Is there some unseen tactic that they are going to use? Or are they truly powerless in the face of this neocon menace?
Christy – lawyers et al . . . .
What is the procedure for challenge to the SCOTUS? How can we get this to them ASAP? This MUST be undone.
Seriously pissed off people want to know
…Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
when in the event of coarse humans…
Anyone pissed off enough yet? http://www.worldcantwait.net/
Maybe by Oct 5th you will be. Can we really wait till Nov? or ‘08?
Ask your state legislators to draft bills of secession.
Keep getting a busy signal at Reid’s office wanting to talk to a real person.
Keep flooding them.
Sonoma Rus @ 30
Yes, I want to know the answer to this! Do we really have to wait years for SCOTUS to hear this?
If we weren’t in Iraq, might there be no need for this debate? We seem to be trying to treat the symptom; not the cause. The ’cause’ being our attempt at hegemony in the Middle East. I just cannot see the validity in the argument we must “stay the course”. Unprovoked war, or wars based upon lies, colonialism and hegemony is wrong. This truth is self-evident.
Training and practicing in West LA, I met a lot of people who fled Europe in the 30’s – some of them “just in time”. Many had stories of those who were unable to flee, or fled too late – and were lost.
I expect the Republican Senators to subvert the Constitution and overthrow the Republic; before today I never dreamt how eagerly the Democratic Senators would rush to join them.
Today is the day I stop wondering what my patients felt as they tried to peer into the future and guess where in the world they cold live in freedom and safety.
Today is the day I start to know what it feels like to wonder where to move – and how soon.
Today is the day our Republic dies, and the Deciderer in Chief is handed the key to the gulags. Or the FEMA camps. Same difference.
Hey guys?
Can somebody help?
I’m weeping so hard, I can barely type. Can someone say something that will comfort me in some small way?
I guess I should be doing something to comfort OTHERS, but I’ve lost my strength today and am dissolving right now. Too bad we can’t all be together in reality now, so we could weep together.
hi punaise… ;(
Praedor Atrebates @ 15
Lieberman still “counts” as a Democrat, doesn’t he? He wouldn’t want to make Karl mad at him now, after all.
He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
Thank you Praedor, for that information. Why the hell does Harry Reid feel it necessary to protect those in his caucus prepared to sell out the Constitution?! Call a filibuster, Reid, and let them vote it down, publicly, dammit. More failed leadership from Harry Reid. [Also - I guarantee you that Ben Nelson of Nebraska was one of those prepared to block a filibuster.]
Listening to the joking and joshing by Senators (”we make a good team ha ha”) in the background of the rollcall vote is appalling and sickening. Thank goodness for the seriousness in the (female) clerk’s voice.
Mrs. K8,
I’m with you but have no words of comfort as I am feeling the same thing.
Bill Scher is doing a book thingy tonight in Boston pushing is “Wait, Don’t Move to Canada” It is being sponsored by the local bloggers and DFA and DL and other groups. That is where I need to be with others who are pissed and sad. Maybe we can find some hope together . . . I just don’t know anymore.
I’m feeling about the same way I felt at the Alito cloture vote: These people are pathetic. The Republicans win elections by turning out their base. The Democrats lose them by giving their base reasons to stay home. I’ll ask the same question I asked at the Alito vote: If you can’t block this, then what, if anything, do you stand for? If the Democrats want to stop losing elections, they should stop acting like losers.
thank you to professor foland and hugh for the info and insights…
RevDeb @ 44
Vancouver is looking better and better.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.
RevDeb –
I’d like to know if Mr. Scher will change the title of his book after today. Ya think? Please ask him if today’s earthquake alters the premises of his argument.
Thanks for kindly sharing your grief.
We have to find our strength somewhere, but the landscape has just changed so drastically I don’t know where to look, exactly.
Frank Probst @ 47
Vancouver has always looked good. The t-shirt I have had on all day says
“Canada looks better every day.”
RevDeb @ 35
i’ve gotten the busy signal too.. will keep trying…
Just got through to Reid’s office in Washington. My near-transcript:
PF: I am an American citizen. If the Secretary of Defense declares me an enemy combatant, what should I do?
Reid Staffer: (in a very broken voice, following a half snort/sigh): I don’t know what to tell you sir.
PF: I’m serious. Nothing to laugh at. What do I do?
RS (sounding in tears): I don’t know what to tell you. All of us here are in disbelief at what’s just happened. Thank you for calling. [Click].
An act of congress to repeal a right as basic to having a functioning system of justice as Habeus Corpus, written into nothing less than the constitution itself.
There are no excuses for this, this is treason, plain and simple. If there were any justice in this world, all who voted in favor of such a thing and all who stood idly by and let it happen would be tried and punished accordingly.
46-53 Rockefeller amendment failed
Mrs. K8,
I,too, wish I had words of comfort, I’d be using them. My progressive friends keep telling me the Dems are our only hope, I have to wonder today, then all hope is gone.
…
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies
46-53
After pointing out that many people in Congress will vote for this piece of shit for appearances sake so that it will seem like we still have a functioning democracy instead of a dictatorship in which George Bush is going to do anything he wants anytime he wants, Tristero delivered this punch straight from the heart,
“Perhaps I should understand the Congress had no real choice?
Absolutely not. The time truly is long overdue where there simply is no choice but to say “enough.” It should have been enough over the stolen election, or the neglect that led to 9/11, or Schiavo, or the filibuster.* But voting to permit the US government to sidestep Geneva? To suspend habeas? What the fuck is Congress thinking, for crissakes??? Has fascism moved so slowly that only a few bloggers can perceive the inevitable progression? I don’t think so.
There’s no question about it. Any person in Congress who votes for this – listening, Hillary? [UPDATE: Apparently, she was.] – will never get my vote again. Ever, not even for dogcatcher, let alone president. If there is going to be a public Constitutional crisis over Bush’s rogue presidency – and there will be sooner or later, guaranteed – bring it on now.”
My sentiments exactly.
For more: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
mrs.k8 et al.
epu’ed but just to know that you area not alone…
i grieve for what has been lost today. for my country and for my loss of faith…
tomorrow is another day… and i’m not giving up… but right now i just can’t do anything but cry.
For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments:
For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us.
Isn’t it interesting that America had a flaw in it’s Constitution that would allow it to be destroyed simply by declaring a term known as “Enemy Combatant” and with that term you could remove all protections from the constitution declaring America a dictatorship.
Nixon is so sad that he couldn’t do it in his life time or earlier.
Why didn’t the Republicans think of this option sooner?
I wonder if Keith will have an “in memoriam” segment tonight in honor of the passing of the Republic.
out of sequence, but…
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred. to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
He has constrained our fellow citizens taken captive on the high seas to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare, is undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In Jefferson’s draft there is a part on slavery here
In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms: our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Christy,
Thanks for linking us to Ex parte Milligan earlier, a case I’d never read.
One ominous thing about the decision is its date: it is post-Civil War. In Milligan you could say the Constitution took a mulligan, and the swing that counted was taken well after Milligan had hung. Another habeas landmark, Duncan v. Kahanamoku, invalidated the declaration of martial law in Hawaii following the Pearl Harbor attack. That one was handed down in 1946.
Larry Tribe calls these deferrals “noteworthy if sobering” and quotes Justice Robert Jackson in an otherwise unrelated opinion:
Where the war in question is billed as generations long, the lesson is simple: nip the abuse of power in the legislative bud.
(reposting due to EPU)
I just got off the phone arguing with one of my Senators (Gordon Smith R-OR) aides.
He’s telling me that
a. the senator supports it (no surprise)
b. that section 3 of the bill prohibits torture. (i told him that having a few narrow prohibited acts and letting the executive decide what is and is not legal is a direct breakage of the constitution)
What are some good arguments re: Section 3?
ps. the toll free # for the senate switchboard has gone away, what’s up with that.
We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by the authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be free and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.
Mrs. K8 @ 63
I’d be really surprised if he doesn’t.
how does the senate party leader get chosen? can we get a replacement for reid?
I just got off the phone with Bill Nelson’s office. The staffer there was trying to confirm or deny (seeking info) whether or not Nelson was one of the 5 Dems in favor of torture and suspension of habeas corpus (I didn’t put it that way).
I stated that “we” knew from Reid’s radio statement that 5 Democratic senators were opposed to filibuster on the Trubunal bill. I stated that “we” knew that among those was Mary Landrieu, Pryor, Lincoln, and that there were two more with one of them likely to be Nelson. I told him that I intended to post the names of the Democratic senators that didn’t believe that torture and suspension of habeas corpus rose to the level sufficient to be worthy of a filibuster and that the list would be out soon to ensure it would impact the November election.
We were not going to take the senate and with people like Landrieu, Pryor, etc, in there, there’s not much value anyway. Torture is the deal breaker. This is intolerable and they MUST pay dearly the way we are all now set to pay dearly.
I will keep working on the Nelson name…perhaps Lieberman needs some calls too. I need that 5th name.
New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton
Massachusetts:
John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery
Connecticut:
Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott
New York:
William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris
New Jersey:
Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark
Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross
Delaware:
Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean
Maryland:
Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Virginia:
George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton
North Carolina:
William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn
South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton
Georgia:
Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton
Mrs. K8 @ 63
Mrs. K8, it is easy to feel inconsolable and alone at moments like these. I’m so glad you are here, and we are definitely with you at this very ugly, awful moment.
Just talked with Harry Reid’s aid. He tried reading the script. I told him to tell that to my husband when I’m disappeared. He said they tried everything . . . . yadda yadda. I asked what about Rule 21? He didn’t know.
Holding back the tears. but not very well.
If you think this is bad, wait until the nukes fly on October 24th killing a few million Iranians and the November elections are cancelled due to the ensuing national emergency.
The Republicans and spineless Democrats will pass some stupid piece of garbage legislation praising King George and today’s shit will look like child’s play.
If any one of us dares to speak out, we’ll disappear into a gulag where we will be tortured to reveal the identities of our “coconspirators.”
Yes, kiddies. We’re as fucked as fucked can be.
Collins voted against sunset. Why do we even bother with her?
New thread up top, kiddos. And Mrs. K8, huge hugs to you. And chocolate for RevDeb, because I’m sure she could use a bit about now.
angie, kirk – best relay ever.
It wasn’t much but I felt better when I bought another 300 rounds of ammo.
When the shooting starts in Civil War II I wont be empty handed.
Christy Hardin Smith @ 77
Thanks Christy, but that won’t help. Not now. Not about this.
selise and kate –
Bless you. The tears just won’t stop.
And my face is simultaneously red with fury knowing that there are fascists lurking here to read our reaction, laughing at our tears for the Republic we love so dearly and now mourn.
We will HAVE to pick ourselves up and figure out where to go from here.
Now I know something of what the abolitionists must have felt after the Dred Scott decision.
I can begin to guess in some small tiny way what the discouragement must have been like in 1960 after the Sharpeville Massacre in South Africa.
Wait — is that the place to find a shred of hope? If South Africa could experience Sharpeville, if Mandela could be imprisoned for 27 years and then later become President of the nation, and to have the Truth and Reconciliation Commission — does that mean we, who have yet to be attacked in the streets by dogs and massacred, have an obligation to cling to hope?
But dear God, tell me we will not have to go through the decades of horror comparable to South Africa or the violence of our own Civil War…
Forgive me for rambling here….I’m grasping here and there at straws, thinking aloud.
meta @ 78
made me cry, but resolved to never forget who we are supposed to be.
Boxer’s timing is way off. Just received her e-mail discussing “victory.” Replied today didn’t seem much like a victory seeing Democrats helping Republicans shred the Constitution. I don’t think they know what they have done. And I submit they have already done it.
meta @ 78
meta, angie -
so good to play with you both
such wonderful words – and brave patriots.
such a sad day to remember them.
Praedor Atrebates @ 79
Tester said in a debate with Burns that he’d (Tester) better hold on to his gun as long as we had the Patriot Act. This is even worse.
Green 67: apparently that switchboard number was run by an outside group, not by the US Congress itself. Christy has linked other numbers in some of her earlier posts this week.
I agree with Praedor: priority #1 is now flushing out those who wouldn’t filibuster. It should be a lot easier than finding out who put the hold on the pork bill–55 fewer suspects. On the other hand, they went to cloture on Alito without having the votes–so I wonder if there was a different Omerta arrangement made this time among the Dem Senators.
If any heartbroken Dem staffers are out there, you could drop by a public library computer tonight and send an email to Jane or Christy (or Josh Marshall, or Kos, etc) to tell us what you know…
RevDeb @ 74
i just got through too. the staffer told me that they “thought” they had the votes for specter’s habeas amendment so trading a cloture vote for the amendment seemed like the right thing to do.
he also tried to tell me that the choice was not just a “leadership” decision, but one that the whole democratic senate took together.
i wonder what world they think they are living in… i could have told them they would get stabbed in the back. how stupid could they be?
Yesterday was a good time for the thugs to announce they had awarded millions of dollars to have the networks’ Iraq reporting monitored. Heil Hitler!
From a horse board where I have also been pushing for people to make calls (not a very political group) – a very nice woman, moderate Republican leaning towards independent, from Texas, looked at my long lists, then at the nice NYT summary, and posted shock – followed by:
That’s what has happened to trust in our government, our parties and our justice system.
Another suddenly “got it” – You mean they have ALREADY BEEN DOING THIS STUFF and now they don’t want to get in trouble?
Lexington Herald knows what is going to happen with the vote – I sent them an excoriation of McConnell a few days back, but told them I knew it was too long (I think it helps for them to know people are paying attention).
They called today to see if they could edit and run.
But it is NOT just the Republicans I will beat on. Anyone who is asking my input I am telling to never vote for anyone who would vote for this legislation and tell everyone they know the same thing.
We can’t police the Republican’s house, but we can police our own. If we can’t – I’m moving.
Hugh – I hope you are right. I very much hope you are right.
Mrs. K8 @ 39
My dear Mrs. K8,
Though it is true that this is a sorrowful and shameful moment in the course of our nation’s life, be not so despondent that you abandon your hope.
It may be that this battle has been lost, but surely the war has not!
Surrender to this sad moment would be to surrender all that is good, decent, brave and wise in yourself and your fellow citizens.
WE.ARE.NOT what these malignant and hateful creatures would have us be.
WE.ARE.NOT!
Our principles have not died today even if their’s have!
We are in this for the long haul, and however painful and shameful this detour may seem, we are not diverted from our path!
See this aberration for what it truly is: one of the last gasps of a group of fearful, spiteful and hateful men and women who know that their time is ending.
November is but a month away and yes, we do have an Exit Strategy for those who have shamed our nation.
Here’s an idea…
http://www.brandsonsale.com/ca-010162.html
Oklahoma kiddo @ 14
Good question! We should ask the walking coldwar neocons, Rumsfeld and Cheney, who are out of touch with reality they might be psychically channeling dead people into national foreign policy.
I don’t think they are speaking with the founders of our republic, sadly. I think it’s more like Stalin or Hitler whispering into their dreams at night.
Byrd amendment lost 52-47.
Kennedy’s going into the Army Manual prohibited torture methods again. Go Ted.
Mad Dogs @
5
immanentize – on an earlier thread
FindLaw: US Constitution
“In form, of course, clause 2 is a limitation of power, not a grant of power, and is in addition placed in a section of limitations. It might be argued, therefore, that the power to suspend lies elsewhere and that this clause limits that authority. This argument is opposed by the little authority there is on the subject. 3 M. Farrand, The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 (New Haven: 1937), 213 (Luther Martin); Ex parte Merryman, 17 Fed. Cas. 144, 148 (No. 9487), (C.C.D. Md. 1861); but cf. 3 J. Elliot, The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution (Washington: 2d ed. 1836), 464 (Edmund Randolph). At the Convention, Gouverneur Morris proposed the language of the present clause: the first section of the clause, down to ”unless” was adopted unanimously, but the second part, qualifying the prohibition on suspension was adopted over the opposition of three States. 2 M. Farrand, op. cit., 438. It would hardly have been meaningful for those States opposing any power to suspend to vote against this language if the power to suspend were conferred elsewhere.”
Where is the power to suspend?
Have any of you firepups lived in San Francisco and Vancouver?
Which is colder – Vancouver’s winter or San Francisco’s summer?
I’m hoping for a silver lining (or at least a polypro one)…
Perhaps exile could be good for the BTU’s.
angie @ 91
Here’s another idea:
Can we really wait till Nov? or 2008? http://www.worldcantwait.net/
I think I’m going home tonight and write my will – CA allows holographic wills, but they have to be handwritten, per Bar Association FAQ – and get it stashed elsewhere, with an ‘in case of disappearance’ note.
CreepingTruth @
66
Lambdin Milligan died in December 1899.
Nixon is so sad that he couldn’t do it in his life time or earlier.
Here’s what’s really sad – John Dean said he believed that Nixon would have been appalled at trying to legalize torture.
Bush, all of the current Republican Congress and a chunk of the Democrats in Congress — are all to the hard right of what would shock Richard Nixon.
Mad Dog – I don’t know if you are a lawyer, but in Constitutional analysis (at least the old school version before someone came up with the idea of “entitlements”) the Constitutional world was divided into RIGHTS and PRIVILEGES – and whether something was a “right” or a “privilege” was important, because, the government could create and take away “privileges” (e.g. – your right to receive gov’t aid under programs like Social Security) much more easily than it could take away, or even infringe, upon “rights” (e.g. free speech).
Without getting into your theory as to whether a meaningful distinction exists if you look at Habeus Corpus as a prohibition against state conduct or as an indivudual right, it is and has been, considered a “right,” and not a mere “privilege.”
Which is why Congress and our Preznit are mealy mouthed, double talking schmucks.
selise @
87
Are you saying that the Dems let this whole thing ride on Specter? That is absolutely stupid and unconscionable.
Reid’s mail box is full Iwonder WHY ?
**DRY YOUR TEARS**
Get yourselves rested up and ready for the next wave.
Called Sen. Stabenow’s office. Also got a phone call back from Sen. Levin’s office.
The underlying bill to which all these amendments were supposed to be attached is going to have to go to a Conference Committee. Levin’s office says it goes back before the Armed Services Committees, both House and Senate, to get a single bill to which both houses will agree.
Prepare to call and fax ALL of the Armed Services Committee members, BOTH houses, and tell them you do not support the underlying bill — and that’s where I need to do some homework, need the number of the root bill to which all these amendments (Specter, Kennedy, Byrd, Rockefeller) were attached.
This ain’t over ’til the fat lady sings and I don’t feel a warble coming on yet.
I don’t know about the seasons in BC, but I live in SF and Vancouver is a gorgeous place. Looking more and more gorgeous every day.
PJ Evans (91), I updated my will Monday. What I most want to leave my heirs is a government like the one I knew when growing up and which I felt so proud of but that legacy seems more unlikely each day. Tears falling.
Mad Dogs (and others I’m crying too hard to go back and cite) –
God bless you. I need this sort of talk, we all need it.
If anyone else can find bits of hope, if anyone else can rally us in this godawful darkness, please post your thoughts.
I know that we must find our way ahead in this darkness, and I’m grateful that the Community of the Lake is here for us to wade through this messy flood of tears and sorrow.
My usual guideline (for myself) is to keep any expression of discouragement or fear away from the internets, 1) for fear of contagion of others and 2) for not letting on to the fascists that we are down.
Today has brought me to a violation of this, my own personal standard.
Today is a day unlike all other days.
Sally @ 88
I was thinking the same thing. And, it won’t be just about Iraq, I’m sure. This issue should be high lighted. I am feeling end times.
And, why the HELL aren’t people on the streets?!!!! We are a majority – at least against the war, for a better health care system, for more accountability, and less corruption.
When the “illegals” moved to the streets a few months back, that pretty much put the squelch on a federal anti-immigrant bill. Alas, I am feeling more like I am living in Germany, just as Hitler is tightening the noose.
selise @ 87 – thank you for that information.
What it says is that the Senate Democrats will do anything and everything to “hide” behind Republicans. Specter was co-sponsoring that habeas amendment, and the Democrats decided to place the fate of the country, our Constitution, the Geneva Conventions, our moral authority, and the most basic human rights solely into the hands of the Republican Party knowing full well what they are and who they are.
The Democrats in the Senate can only control their own members, and then only sometimes. That meant a filibuster was the only possible opposition to this savage bill once it hit the Senate floor that was under the control of the Democratic Party. But that wouldn’t allow Democrats to hide behind Republicans. So Harry Reid and Company threw the filibuster out the window, before they even got started.
Who are the members of the Armed Services Committee?
meta @ 101
on specter’s amendment and the republicans who they were told would support it (and then didn’t). i should have asked for names.
and yes, stupid (i even told the staffer that).
PJ– here:
REPUBLICANS
John Warner (Virginia)
Chairman
John McCain (Arizona)
James M. Inhofe (Oklahoma)
Pat Roberts (Kansas)
Jeff Sessions (Alabama)
Susan M. Collins (Maine)
John Ensign (Nevada)
James M. Talent (Missouri)
Saxby Chambliss (Georgia)
Lindsey O. Graham (South Carolina)
Elizabeth Dole (North Carolina)
John Cornyn (Texas)
John Thune (South Dakota)
DEMOCRATS
Carl Levin (Michigan)
Ranking Member
Edward M. Kennedy (Massachusetts)
Robert C. Byrd (West Virginia)
Joseph I. Lieberman (Connecticut)
Jack Reed (Rhode Island)
Daniel K. Akaka (Hawaii)
Bill Nelson (Florida)
E. Benjamin Nelson (Nebraska)
Mark Dayton (Minnesota)
Evan Bayh (Indiana)
Hillary Rodham Clinton (New York)
http://armed-services.senate.gov/members.htm
Rayne @ 103
INAL but I think the reason they don’t want ANY amendments to pass is so that it needs no work in conference. If both bills are the same, viola, off to be signed.
I hope I’m very wrong on this.
“The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.”
James Madison, Federalist #47, January 30, 1788
(http://www.constitution.org/fed/federa47.htm)
So, like in that great American past-time, baseball, the amendments to bring sanity, morality, or constitutionality to the Republicon-crafted Military Commissions Act of 2006 go down 1-2-3.
And pundits wonder why younger people fall into political apathy?
Rayne @
103
Thank you, Rayne, for posting your very encouraging comment.
Richmond (107), in better times, the demonstrations outside Congress today would have been monumental. Unfortunately, only the illegal immigrants seem able to do that these days. Not to say I am not with them, just that we seem to have lost whatever was there in the 60s.
pow wow @ 108
at the moment, that’s what i sounds like to me…
“According to Reid on the radio not long ago, they were 2 votes shy on filibuster so that is why it didn’t happen. That means 5 Democratic senators were for torture and suspension of habeas corpus.”
And the fact that no Democrat is willing to filibuster anyway means that they value keeping those DINOS happy more than they value the constitution.
selise, thanks. If that was the entirety of their strategy, then they were begging to get screwed. Idiotic!
Angie, that looks, um, really not good.
Rayne –
What’s that??? There’s still a glimmer of light?
I’m not sure I understand.
I thought if the bill in the Senate passed, unamended, that it was aligned with the House bill, and would end up on Caligula’s desk for signature in short order.
Is that not so?
If that’s the case, our dear ReddHedd Christy needs to put up a thread to that effect — that it’s BACK TO THE BARRICADES!
Oh no! Many readers may have closed down their computers and headed to the nearest source of immediate comfort (a bottle of booze?) — but if there are lots of us left and there is still a glimmer of daylight, we have to go back in slugging with all we’ve got!
Sally @ 115
then we’ll have to find it again….
So the “two votes shy” is the same great vote counting Senator who thought he had the votes for the Spector amendment?
If the mailbox is full, there is still:
http://www.congress.org/congre…..aimpact.tt
Hand delivery for 9 bucks.
I think I need to take a walk and clear my head so I’m posting these a little earlier than usual.
Your daily gas and oil prices
Average price for regular gasoline 9/28/06 in 50 states and DC
$3.00 plus 1 state
$2.90 plus 1 state
$2.80 plus 0 states
$2.70 plus 6 states
$2.60 plus 2 states
$2.50 plus 6 states
$2.40 plus 3 states
$2.30 plus 8 states
$2.20 plus 12 states
$2.10 plus 11 states
$2.00 plus 1 state
Average national price: $2.342, down $.014 from yesterday
Down 46.9 cents from same time last year.
Highest recorded national average price: $3.057 9/5/2005
Highest average price: Hawaii $3.136
Lowest average price: Missouri $2.053
http://www.fuelgaugereport.com/sbsavg.asp
Nymex Crude Future $62.92, down $.34
Dated Brent Spot $61.02, up $.14
WTI Cushing Spot $62.76, down $.20
Same old, same old. Oil seems to show resistance to the $60 level and so why exactly are gas prices continuing to fall? Gas and oil prices are not entirely decoupled so you have to wonder when oil’s cost will begin to put the brakes on gas prices.
meta @ 118
it was only a staffer on the phone… so, who knows… but it is consistent with what we’ve seen (and heard) today…
hopefully those with inside contacts will get more info out to us soon….
As President Franklin Delano Roosevelt said about another date in a universe far far away,
“Today is a day that shall live in infamy.”
Frist’s cloture vote on the fence probably assured that there would be a big turnout today, in an election year putsch. The votes by Spectre in support of Byrd’s amendment suggest some trading. Did Byrd oppose filibuster? Or was this a throwaway for Specter? So if we demonstrate at the uppcoming elections, are we ‘jihadists?’
Thanks relay team.
Who looks potentially malleable on that side?
Who looks “wrong” on ours?
F*O*C*U*S
Thanks Rayne & Angie
Still hope someone (TEDDY!) will have the balls to start a filibuster anyway? If thet’re two votes shy make them stand up and be counted…
Also hope that Rayne’s right and this one ain’t over yet. Please post more info if anyone talks to any more staffers….?
Mrs. K8, I feel your pain. I don’t know if I can comfort you today. In fact, I think I’ll join you in a few tears.
Today is my birthday. I went to lunch with a some mommy-friends, one whom I haven’t seen in a couple of years. We ate at a small cafe, where we have our Dem club meeting tonight. One other friend present is a member of the club.
When Blondie asked what we were up to, we told her about the new club. She burst out laughing and said, incredulously, “Democrats? Oh, what a fucking joke. I suppose you think you’re going to take back your country? (air quoting and mocking us loudly). Oh, give me a fucking break. Hahahahah!” She was vehemently and truly obnoxious.
We were astonished. There was a deep silence in the noisy restaurant and I saw several shocked faces, as well as some knowing smirks. I wish I could say I walked out or made some snappy comeback, but that was a blow that felled me.
Such disdain!? I thought I knew her. We nursed our babies together, sat through The Nutcracker several times together. This is the first time I’ve really, personally experienced this out-of-context, abstract hatred full in the face. I don’t feel so good right now.
(((Mrs. K8))), can I get a hug?
RevDeb — this is where we need to get our game on. I believe that the underlying Senate bill is NOT word-for-word identical to the House bill (the one that passed with 34 Dems support), because there was so much last minute middle-of-the-night wangling going on. We need the numbers of both bills and we need to do our homework, stat.
P J Evans — you were given the Senate Committee; here’s the House equivalent. But there are two things that need clarification: 1) does the whole House committee duke this out, or only one of the subcommittees? which subcommittee, if that’s the case? 2) what’s the status of Duncan Hunter and Brian Bilbray??
And at least THREE of the House Repugs on this Committee are DeLay-Abramoff bagmen.
US House Armed Services Committee
Republicans
Duncan Hunter, California, Chairman
Curt Weldon, Pennsylvania
Joel Hefley, Colorado
Jim Saxton, New Jersey
John M. McHugh, New York
Terry Everett, Alabama
Roscoe G. Bartlett, Maryland
Mac Thornberry, Texas
John N. Hostettler, Indiana
Walter B. Jones, North Carolina
Jim Ryun, Kansas
Jim Gibbons, Nevada
Robin Hayes, North Carolina
Ken Calvert, California
Rob Simmons, Connecticut
Jo Ann Davis, Virginia
W. Todd Akin, Missouri
J. Randy Forbes, Virginia
Jeff Miller, Florida
Joe Wilson, South Carolina
Frank A. LoBiondo, New Jersey
Jeb Bradley, New Hampshire
Michael Turner, Ohio
John Kline, Minnesota
Candice S. Miller, Michigan
Mike Rogers, Alabama
Trent Franks, Arizona
Bill Shuster, Pennsylvania
Thelma Drake, Virginia
Joe Schwarz, Michigan
Cathy McMorris Rodgers, Washington
Michael Conaway, Texas
Geoff Davis, Kentucky
Brian Bilbray, California
Democrats
Ike Skelton, Missouri, Ranking Member
John Spratt, South Carolina
Solomon P. Ortiz, Texas
Lane Evans, Illinois
Gene Taylor, Mississippi
Neil Abercrombie, Hawaii
Marty Meehan, Massachusetts
Silvestre Reyes, Texas
Vic Snyder, Arkansas
Adam Smith, Washington
Loretta Sanchez, California
Mike McIntyre, North Carolina
Ellen O. Tauscher, California
Robert A. Brady, Pennsylvania
Robert Andrews, New Jersey
Susan A. Davis, California
James R. Langevin, Rhode Island
Steve Israel, New York
Rick Larsen, Washington
Jim Cooper, Tennessee
Jim Marshall, Georgia
Kendrick B. Meek, Florida
Madeleine Z. Bordallo, Guam
Tim Ryan, Ohio
Mark Udall, Colorado
G. K. Butterfield, North Carolina
Cynthia McKinney, Georgia
Dan Boren, Oklahoma
Evil Parallel Universe @ 100
I don’t disagree with you EPU. Wrt to the “privilege” thingie, I was being somewhat snarkish since it is actually stated as a “privilege” in Article 1, Section 9 of the Constitution.
Of course, no one but a Repug would today read it literally as a “privilege”.
But my point was more centrally focused on the idea that no one, not the Congress, not the Executive branch can deny the Courts from hearing and ruling on issues of Habeas Corpus.
It is simply outside the of their power. Habeas Corpus is something so fundamental that even the Constitution itself could not impinge upon its applicability in any case where the Government detains someone.
And that is regardless of citizenship. Citizenship is not the issue, detainment by the Government is.
And no, IANAL. *g*
Mommy, take a quick shower and change clothes. Don’t hold onto all that toxicity.
And by all means, if somebody has better guidance on this mess going forward, PLEASE speak up now and share it. I hate to think we’ll start chasing after nothing.
Now going to look for the Fence Bill number…
Can somebody find the counterpart bill number for the House?
46-53 on Kennedy amendment, now comes the death knell for the Republic.
Are people still listening to cspan?
Don’t give up. Don’t ever give up.
The Reign of Witches will end.
Waste water legislation…we gotta get to that!
Rayne @
133
September 15, 2006
(CNSNews.com) – Wasting no time on an issue of concern to many voters, the U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday passed a bill that would fence 700 miles of the U.S.-Mexican border.
H.R. 6061, the “Secure Fence Act of 2006,” calls for a double-layered fence to protect about a third of the long and porous border.
A similar provision was included in a larger bill that the House passed last December, but with that bill stalled because of differences with Senate legislation, Republican leaders are forging ahead on their own.
Mommybrain at 129 — happiest of birthdays to you. And yes, we are going to take back “our country.” And when we do, you can ring the doorbell of that smug wench’s home and deliver her a slice of tart lemon pie. ;-)
Mommybrain:
I’ve had that experience many times. It’s terrible to realize that someone that you thought you knew not only despises you because you’re a liberal, but they also regard you with utter contempt. Her feelings and opinion have nothing to do with you, of course. Instead, they speak volumes about who she is and what she’s about.
Unfortunately, you now must take care to whom you speak regarding your political views. Our government soon will begin to encourage people to snitch on their neighbors. It’ll be the “patriotic” thing to do. Who knows. They’ll probably be rewarded with $$$$$$$$, part of which you will have paid with taxes.
As Mr. Rogers used to sing, “It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood.”
Going off to the Bill Scher book event and join up with Boston/Cambridge dems. Hope to have some hope to report when I get home.
DairyMaid @ 135
Yes. McCain is starting to speak.
Oh Mommybrain! My heart hurts for you!
Yes, you have a hug from me, as many as you want or need. I really wish we could be together in real time so we could console each other.
I also hope and pray that once you pick yourself up off the floor, emotionally speaking, that you send a note (I can see that a phone call could be way too much of a cardiac threat) to this “friend” severing any and all future contact.
You should engage in a permanent shunning of this “friend” IMO. If it were me, my note would say something like “Now that you have given me proof that you are NO friend of mine, I’m writing to acknowledge that fact. Your fundamental disrespect of me as a human being (let alone a ‘friend’) forces me to cut off all future contact with you.”
Just a thought.
And though it has given you heartbreak, I still wish you a Happy Birthday — in the truest sense. I thank God/The Universe that YOU, Mommybrain, were born, and celebrate that fact on this anniversary of your entry into this wondrous world.
Stephen Parrish, CPA @
98
I stand corrected, but the case doesn’t reflect this. It was presented to the court that he was hung. The petition was moot by the time it was reviewed. They took the case notwithstanding.
What saved him?
Joshoo @12: according to Ron Suskind’s book “The One Percent Doctrine”, CIA interrogators greatly admired the toughness of Khalid Sheik Mohammed because he withstood waterboarding for over two minutes. Sorry, you can’t stand several hours of waterboarding. No one can.
Of course, that doesn’t mean that torture victims tell the truth, rather it means that they say something they think the interrogators want to hear (e.g. al-Libi talking, falsely, about cooperation between Saddam and al Qaeda after being tortured).
umm, maybe I’m unclueful on this, but if there were 46 votes in favor of these amendments, why couldn’t there be 40 votes to prevent cloture on a filibuster?
any way, deep sympathy for those who are feeling this grey, ashy shame and dread.
On this day in History:
“A German-Soviet agreement divided Poland between Nazi Germany and the USSR.”
To paraphrase the Old Crone in the Princess Bride:
And that’s what this bill is, the Queen of Refuse. So bow down to torture if you want, bow to her. Bow to the Queen of Slime, the Queen of Filth, the Queen of Putrescence. Boo. Boo. Rubbish. Filth. Slime. Muck. Boo. Boo. Boo.
Boo, indeed, to the Filthy Five!
Assuming the final Senate vote passes the bill, I surely hope that the House and Senate passed different versions, so that we can keep pushing.
This. Must. Not. Stand.
Happy Birthday Mommybrain. It may not happen as quickly as we’d like, but we will get this country back from these thugs and their go along boys. I really feel in my gut that the world will demand justice for chimp and his handlers.
Dairy Maid, yes, still watching. Waiting for Leahy to have his 14 minutes.
Huge applause and appreciation for the Boston (-area) Patriots and their excellent efforts on behalf of our Republic today that their comments here have attested to: especially those Patriots known as Professor Foland, RevDeb, and selise.
Mommy@129
A friend of mine (10 years) told me he was in a restaurant where Ann Coulter also was dining. He told me he approached her and told her she was tremendous.
He sent her flowers the next day, which earned him a phone call from the FBI as she apparently has a stalker.
I haven’t spoken to him since.
Here’s my motto –
Don’t get mad – GET EVEN!
OT –
Jesu Maria!!!
I just saw a headline over at HuffPo.
Trent Lott: “Why do Sunnis kill Shiites? How do they tell the difference? They all look the same to me…”
Goddamn. The man is too stupid to cross the street, and he advertises the fact.
Has he every been to Belfast, Northern Ireland? Any way to tell who’s Protestant and who’s Catholic?
will they let Leahy speak? he seemd pretty ticked off earlier today.
john in sacramento @
136
err..uh…
the witches I know here in the SF Bay are, if anything, anarchists…
personally, I’m more frightened of oppression from monotheist autocrats than I am of polytheistic tree-huggers…
worst thing that I could imagine happening with the witches hereabouts is getting between them and their favorite tree.
they’d oppress me with a group hug…
Mommybrain,wishing you a celebration of the day you were born, I can’t even bring myself to say “Happy”. I stand with you, in support today. I,too, have lost friends and even very close family because of my political views. It hurts every time, but you can’t go back, you can’t not be who you’ve become. I celebrate you today, and thank all of you for the moral support. Just discovered you today, thank Gawd!
Mrs. K8 @ 151
I’ll bet Trent thinks that way about a lot of non-whites….
Well this might be interesting…
For whatever it’s worth, McCain is reading into the record in no uncertain terms that his understanding of the bill makes no change to U.S. observance of the Geneva Conventions and that the bill criminalizes specific techniques including waterboarding.
A poor consolation prize, but he’s at least giving a firm foothold for a legislative record minimizing the bill’s impact.
pow wow @ 149
you’re too kind, pow wow. i should have been down in DC doing a (one person if necessary) sit-in at reid’s office. i thought so last weekend, and today i deeply regret my lack of comittment.
bryan @ shotgunfreude @ 156
If the bastard wants to lessen the bill’s impact he can vote against it. Anything less is for show.
Rayne @ 103
I’ve got a list of the House Armed Services Committee people. I’m leaving from work now but will post it from home… hang in there people…
According to the WaPo, “A nearly identical version of the overall bill passed the House yesterday by a vote of 253 to 168, handing President Bush a victory.” If this is correct, there would have to be a conference committee to reconcile the bills into one new one, and then each body would have to pass it unamended.
Kate –
(And I really like your name!)
;-)
I’m so glad you found your way here. It’s the best place on the ‘net, it really is special. Please stick around, it’s great to hear your thoughts.
kirk murphy @ 153
i’ve been to actions with starhawk and pagan cluster folks. amazing experiences – have you read starhawk’s “Webs of Power: Notes from the Global Uprising“?
McCain is such a whore.
Leahy finally up.
Thanks, angie!
My teevee goes back on to hear Leahy, that patriot.
heh heh ‘quivering fear.’
leahy – quivering fear
zeppo @ 166
i guess we both liked that one!
This man is one of the main reasons I will stay in the fight– I want him to be the rightful occupant of the Chairman’s seat on the Judiciary Cmte of the Senate of the United States of America.
Mrs. K8 Re: Lott – that is exactly the reason we need to follow the Geneva Conventions – Lott and most soldiers on the ground, and shockingly even the CIA in targeted snatches, can’t tell the difference between al-Qaeda and civilians.
sporkovat @
146
This from the NY Times:
“The bill’s ultimate passage was assured on Wednesday when Democrats agreed to forgo a filibuster in return for consideration of the amendment.”
Maybe arms were twisted since the deal was struck. Maybe the Dems were never ready to filibuster in the first place. But taken on its face the report raises a question about Harry Reid’s math.
I guess everyone has gone on, and my legal knowledge is next to nothing, but isn’t this an ex post facto law, and aren’t they specifically forbidden in the Constitution? It works both ways: you can’t prosecute a “crime” that didn’t yet exist in law, and you can’t not prosecute a crime that was on the books when the crime was committed. I think.
“This is not just a bad bill, this is a truly dangerous bill.” – Pat Leahy
leahy – not just a bad bill, this is truely a dangerous bill
bryan @ shotgunfreude @ 173
ok, i’m gonna stop now… you’all just type faster and better than me. ;-)
Creeping Truth @ 144 – it was not presented to the court that he was hung (as a matter of fact they say they aren’t sure where he is, but they assume that the Executive would never be so overreaching as to take action while his habeas is on appeal in the Sup Ct. The Sup Ct’s ruling is what saved him.
meta — thanks for that bit, that’s the House version.
I think we’re at a point where we need to have a discussion outside of the thread to strategize. Remember that Jane has invited “the neighbors” for a discussion upstairs…who knows which of them will peek into the basement. Who’s up for it? Do you folks have Firefox? Have you ever used the plugin Gabbly?
treeman – we went through this earlier this week. Ex post facto laws are (or were) only unconstitutional if they made something retroactively illegal. These guys are making something retroactively legal. (They should know better, since something like half of them claim to have law degrees.)
S.3930
Section 8(A)(3):
“(3) INTERPRETATION BY THE PRESIDENT- (A) As provided by the Constitution and by this section, the President has the authority for the United States to interpret the meaning and application of the Geneva Conventions…”
_____
Unconstitutional, period. Article III, Section 2 of the Constitution gives that authority explicitly to SCOTUS, not Bush.
_
‘rubber stamping’ … ahhh
Mommybrain 129 -
I’m so sad for you. I’m sad that someone who has shared real life with you could let mere words – mere ideas – break those real ties of shared life.
I wish you a happy birthday even if it must come belatedly, and I wish you joy with those wise enough to love you for you.
I can’t feel it now, but I hope I find it to feel compassion for the psychopathology of those who follow authoritarians out of their own inner damage, rather than ambition or power.
The fearful are so easily scared into hatred of the “other”. And – to stay in power – the Rethugs will always find a new “other”.
P J Evans @ 177
If the law is struck down as void though – I’d think a void ab initio immunization is still not going to help anyone stay out of prison.
Lehey talking well but not strong enough!
I can hear Jesus crying.
“A government all of whose representatives, from Donald Rumsfeld to Michael Brown, are doing a heckofa job.” – Leahy, on a serious roll.
Frank Probst @
47
Vancouver, in addition to being one of the most beautiful cities in N America, also has a nude beach, and pot is plentiful and smoked freely. I think I’ll get high now. It will help a lot to be stoned when I am disappeared.
No, really. The ‘leaders’ who voted for this bill need to be lined up against the wall and shot.
There, that should make me disappear faster.
itwasntme @ 182
to me it sounds like grief
I live in Canada and I’m feeling really isolated right now. It’s not that my friends and loved ones don’t agree with my political positions, it’s that they don’t understand the deep impotence and rage I feel. They don’t understand the sense of loss.
Anyway, thanks to all of you for being here. It doesn’t make it alright, but it helps.
I found this on a website about Ambrose Bierce’ The Devil’s Dictionary, and it sums up my feelings. Except, for the first time, I think that perhaps the kneeling, weeping entity may be “Liberty”
Once Law was sitting on the bench,
And Mercy knelt a-weeping.
“Clear out!” he cried, “disordered wench!
Nor come before me creeping.
Upon your knees if you appear,
‘Tis plain your have no standing here.”
Then Justice came. His Honor cried:
“Your status? – devil seize you!”
“Amica curiae,” she replied -
“Friend of the court, so please you.”
“Begone!” he shouted – “there’s the door -
I never saw your face before!”
Okay I’ve had my first hit, but still lucid. To all FDL Constitutional scholars out there: Can this travesty be undone by the next congress? Can the SCOTUS overturn this?
Hey, Kat –
Can Mr. K8 and I come up and keep you company? We share your impotence and rage, and we promise to be well-behaved, neat, and hard-working refugees.
Mister Larry @ 189
They’ve made it problematic for a case to move through the system to even ever get to SCOTUS. By the time it does, Bush may have appointed his get-out-of-jail-card SC Judge.
_
Leahy supurb- some snippets: I’ll skip the ones above :
abandoning basic american values
more autocratic less accountable
Administration has yet to come clean
I weep for my country and our american values and the principles on which I was raised.
imperial presidency
Shouting: This Senator from vermont wont be a party to legislation that retreats from American values.
Shouting louder: VERMONTERS DON’T RETREAT
bill provides immunity from crime
won’t participate in legislative retreat
I love this man.
Don’t just revisit 9/11 Harry and no whining!
Shut down the Senate NOW!
OK, Harry’s up now.
And I’m crying again. After that conversation he had with bloggers when he promised this wouldn’t pass, I trusted him. Silly me!
I’m going out back to do p.t. exercises in the pool, and then (if I don’t drown myself) I’m off to the official p.t. appointment.
Will be back to my dear comrade patriots at FDL just a.s.a.p.
I love you all.
When we weep, we weep together.
Who the hell does Reid think he’s speaking to?
Blah, blah,blah, blah…..
He’s praising the heros that played him like a cheap violin?
Gawd!!! Will it ever end?
Stop citing Colin the Comma.
Mrs. K8 @ 194
drive safe – be extra careful when there’s tears….
I’m really sad. Why don’t the democrats fillibuster? I don’t get it.
selise 162 -
how splendid – i love playing with Star and the pagan cluster folk – so glad you have chance to have been with those good people.
i’ve enjoyed reading “webs” – the global uprising is good fun, and it’s great to see what friends are getting up to in various places…
i hope for good and powerful actions for us all in the coming weeks!
[ - If you’re interested in pagans and non-violent direct action, you may be interested in the Free Activist Witchcamps. Starhawk was one of the teachers at the first “Free Activist Witchcamp” in Oregon in 2005 - it was great. The third Free Activist Witchcamp is planned for the summer of 2007 on the East Coast - details may be found under “witchcamps” on the reclaiming [dot] org site.]
Mrs. K8 @ 190
If you’d like to visit us as a stepping stone to defecting, you’re welcome. But you’d better cross the border before they put up the guard towers.
Reid offering us Supreme Court remedy – hope it happens
Kat– Those would be the guard towers that you Canadians will need to keep us out, eh?
If I were another country, I would do my level best to keep us out… we had so much and gave it away; we cannot be trusted. ;(
itwasntme @ 201
The Supreme Court is already stacked 7-2 with Republican appointees. Thanks for nothing.
This Is What Waterboarding Looks Like.
Via Raw Story,link below.
This is a must read. It should be shoved in the face of everyone responsible for the travesty of justice that was perpetrated on the American public on this day.
http://rawstory.com/showoutart…..hat_wa.php
What a fool Warner is.
angie @ 202
Naw, the ones that the US is planning to build. I guess it’s to complement the fence along the southern border.
You’re sweet, Kat.
Now Frist blaming his and the Congress’ cowardice on the SCOTUS.
nice.
Mommybrain — wish you a happier birthday evening, treat yourself well.
I’m sorry for the pain you’d had today, you’ve lost a friend. I know the feeling well; I’ve had to turn away from some for the very same reason. In hindsight, I realized that real friends are the folks with whom I share my values, not just my time. Some of the friends I’ve simply outgrown – they were more about themselves than they were about others, and I guess that’s an example of values not matching. Others pointedly drifted to the right, to the point of intolerance of anyone and anything that wasn’t absolutely lockstep with their fundamental values. We simply had too many things we could no longer talk about, big silences and too much fluffy crap.
And one in particular said he wanted to bomb the f*ck out of Iraq, blow them all to glass — while my stepson was serving in Iraq. A friend of decades, now on the do-not-call list.
It hurts like hell, Mommybrain. But when a door closes, a window opens…look at all the folks here who would now consider you a friend, who’d happily seek you out at the next YKos event (or FDL event!). The cosmos, too, conspires for you; the new club is no coincidence. Someone will emerge from this club who will validate you and be your friend when you need one, the kind who shares your values.
Keep the faith. Birthdays are for looking back — and looking forward.
Read your little anti-”repulsive”-terrorist statement, Harry Reid. Praise those “principled Republicans” some more. I see you “admire their courage” yet only comment on your colleague Pat Leahy’s “outrage” for his honest, make-Vermont-proud principles and upholding of his oath of office. Who the hell do you think you are trying to convince, Mr. Minority Leader, with your empty, disingenuous rhetoric?! I have complete and utter contempt for you, Harry Reid.
This bill, as “your friend” Carl Levin just re-emphasized, wipes the slate clean for the last five years of the Bush administration: any Democratic majority will conveniently have nothing to investigate now with regard to their atrocious acts of abuse – what’s the point, after this bill is law?
The only lesson Harry Reid has learned from the last five years: Republicans are the “popular kids” and the point of life as a United States Senator is to win their approval and blessing for one’s actions. If no approval or blessing is received from Republicans for one’s actions, one’s actions are “unpopular” – bad and unworthy and shameful. You admit to knowing this bill is unConstitutional, Senator Reid, yet you refuse to force the members of your caucus to filibuster it. So just shut the hell up, Harry Reid – you have lost all credibility.
Leahy is the best.
It looks like Bush has given al-Qaeda a few ideas. They’re offering amnesty too
Along with a few get tough techniques like recruiting nuc U lar scientists to join the jihad.
Feel safer?
Frist, a bigger fool than Warner is up. Torturing humans must be more fun than killing cats, heh, Doc. What a hateful little boy he must have been.
Rayne @ 208
beautifully said, Rayne!
Happy Birthday Mommybrain… we are with you.
here we go…I weep with you all!
Christy? Looks like I was right. I hate to rub it in, but I’m going to rub it in. As a lifelong Democrat, I would like every other democrat here to know that we are chumps. And we got, to quote the poor man, chumped like the chumps we are. Chumps. How’s it feel for the rest of you, knowing that you’re chumps? Feels pretty awful to me.
angie @ 202
If I were the Canadians, I would want to fence out this government – but the guard towers going up are Bush’s towers.
The “Border Fence” act up for a vote on Friday – the bill the Senate Dems could filibuster to stop the Dungeons and Torture act – that act provides for guard towers along the borders with Mexico and Canada.
I feel safer already.
The Democrats have agreed to forgo a filibuster, and all they got in exchange was the right to vote on several amendments, and of course they lost them all.
They lost a vote to put back habeas corpus, 51 to 48. Of course if they could have stalled the vote until the next term and won a couple of seats, the vote would have won.
We’re not chumps. We were taken by chumps.
Chad at 214 — well, that was nasty and hateful and assholish…how did it feel for you? You think I like it or anyone else here likes it either? You think THIS is what I or anyone else here wanted to happen? Screw you.
is it just me, or can you not hear the replies to the roll call? how frustrating.
Chad, are you a fat lady? ‘Cuz I’m waiting for a fat lady to sing.
And I’m not hearing it.
Chad, being a man without a party does not make me a chump. It may make me an ex-American, it makes me angrier then I can describe, but it doesn’t make me a chump.
Oh and Chad — FYI — up until the end, Leahy was fighting the good fight — behind the scenes as well as on the floor, as was Levin, Feingold, Dodd, and many many others…so piss off.
I suggest that we just write off the Senate; the Democratic incumbents are mostly worthless, with only a few shining exceptions. But Chairman Conyers … that motivates me enough not to tear up my Democratic Party registration just yet.
I don’t understand why anyone thinks there is a Supreme Court remedy here. The law itself prohibits appeal to the US courts.
Just as a prisoner who is forbidden a writ of habeas corpus cannot prove his is held illegally, a that that forbids appeal to the courts cannot be held unconstitutional.
Joe Buck — bullshit. A large number of Dems in the Senate were fighting this one — on the floor and behind the scenes. You want to yell at someone, yell at Harry Reid.
kirk murphy @ 199
wow – how lovely to find another node of the web – and on the web! was trying to quickly find a pic from the rnc to upload for you (of a spiral dance in the street in front of MSG).. but it’s not quickly at hand….
have only spent 2 weeks with pagan cluster folks (one week each for two different actions), but found them all to be inspiring and welcoming… thanks for the info on east coast training next summer.
the fact is, it’s easier to put up a weak opposition, and claim you did the right thing, than it is to put up a serious opposition and polarize potential voters.
I remember watching “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” . . . what happened to our Mr. Smith?
beth meacham @ 224
That’s just it though – the bill says of itself that it is beyond review. But you file a habeas petition for a detainee based directly on the Constitution, arguing that the statute is void as unconstitutional. The court can find that the statute, including the provision that purports to place it beyond judicial review, is unconstitutional and strike it down.
Christy Hardin Smith @ 225
If the Dems retake the Senate in November, I suspect that the caucus meeting to elect leaders and put committee chairs in place will have a few folks doing just that.
Bill Nelson (D-FL) voted aye!!! Damn him.
And Karen Hughes says it it going to take years to fix America’s image, far too long to expect it to happen during the President’s time in office.
Hughes on the Job – Fixing the US Image
Because we kidnap and torture Muslims with no proof?
nah.
It’s because of the rock music.
One thing Christy and I agree on here – yelling at Harry Reid is not a bad idea.
And the only way to get back at Bill Nelson is to vote for Katherine Harris…
the country is going insane.
Nelson of NB– aye!
OMG– Rockefeller aye?????????????? wtf?
Nelson of Nebraska also defected from the Democrats to vote aye.
selise @ 226
hi selise –
how nice to find you here – and to have played with you at the rnc!
the ruckus society (ruckus dot org) has just resumed their highly effective trainings for non-violent mass civil disobedience. hope they’re not too late.
i’ll look forward to the spiral dance pic, if you come across it later.
there are also pics of the pagan cluster arrests very close to MSG a few days later. The pics are up on the Reclaiming Quarterly site (reached via the Reclaiming site).
i’m the overdressed fellow in the left rear – all suited up to serve as “police liasion”.
memo to self: comfortable shoes and clothes make for a far happier jail stay….
ROCKEFELLER VOTED AYE?!?!
So did Stabenow and Rockefeller.
bryan @ shotgunfreude @ 230
Put him on the list. Traitors to this great nation, one and all.
Landrieu– aye!
Did I just hear Rockefeller, aye?
Even the Nebraska papers have been coming out with shocked op eds on torture.
Landrieu aye. of course.
Rockefeller – wtf? What do they have on him?
And Landruex (sp?)
WTF?
Yo Mary,
Glad to see you didn’t walk away permanently!
And that you’re still on a roll! *g*
All the best!
Agh. Party discipline. Big trade-off: lockstep goons marching in time, or independent thinkers who stray at the worst times.
Ben Nelson (NE) and Mary Landrieu (LA) are the two that need to be taken to the woodshed first.
Rockefeller laughing it up with Santorum on the floor. Lots of happy faces there this afternoon.
bryan @ shotgunfreude @ 230
makes me want to write a letter to al gore asking him what THE HELL he thought he was doing in march (19th?) giving a speech in florida for bill nelson campaign … on the basis of how bill nelson was someone who would help hold bush/cheney accountable….
bryan, thank you.
This is a grievous day.
Collins: aye. So much for any GOP defectors.
Pryor, no surprise.
‘No’ from Can’t well.
She did good. For once.
Mrs. Viagra has put on weight. Goodie.
You know what, yeah– all those DINOS have constituents but the CONSTITUTION is what they swore to uphold and are bound to protect.
Pryor– aye.
Yes, confirm Rockefeller aye. I can’t f’ing believe it. We ARE chumps.
Obama: The problem with this bill is that it’s sloppy.. Yes, he really said that, I’m not making it up.
angie @ 233
WTF is right! Just what fantasy world are these folks living in?
Salazar and Lautenberg aye.
did he just say Menendez: Aye and Lautenberg: Aye?
Lots of defections now: Lautenberg, Salazar, Menendez. Like Molly Ivins said today, Habeus Corpus, RIP 1215-2006.
Thanks to everyone live blogging for us folks stuck at work with no T.V.
Do NOT give up hope. If this speeds us to the ultimate revolution. So be it.
Menendez too.
I’m so out of control my comment is in moderation.
rat bastahd @ 259
Really, if you think about it, it was truly a good run. Who would’ve thought that it would last that long?
Specter: Aye.
Bastard.
Specter, AYE. Fucking spineless coward.
Carper aye.
Christy Hardin Smith @ 218
No,in fact I’m pretty sure it’s not what you wanted to happen. And I recognize that you and the other posters here have worked quite hard to fix this broken party. But it doesn’t change the fact that we got taken for a ride by our elected leaders. Incidentally, my “rub it in” comment was in regards to an earlier exchange we had (last thread) that you mayhave forgotten. I wasn’t trying to rub in the loss, merely alluding to the prediction of a loss which you poo-poo’d. Sorry for the ambiguity.
Christy Hardin Smith @ 222
Yes, but none of them filibustered. I dont think it is prudent, at this point, to assign points to any of them for bold rhetoric.
Lieberman aye!!!!!!!!!!!!!
otob @ 227
His name is Russ Feingold
Liberman aye.
shooogarp @ 263
Yeah, oh well… democracy, and constitutional monarchy, were fun while they lasted.
Lieberloser aye.
Christy: any 40 Democrats could have stopped this bill cold. A much smaller number could have shamed their compatriots into standing up. But they didn’t.
I’ve given money to Ned Lamont, and to Jon Tester, and I will give more. But I don’t care about what people might have done behind the scenes. My colleagues and I travel internationally on business, and we are about to become a rogue nation. This is dangerous; Americans are going to be kidnapped and tortured because Democrats wouldn’t stand up to stop this.
Lieberman. Aye.
F*ck you, Joe.
Leiberman aye
naturally.
LIEBERMAN, AYE
And to shock no one at all:
Lieberman: Aye.
kirk – looking for your pic now, and will upload one of me too… who knows? maybe we’ve already met!
65-34 So sad.
65 to 34.
We are a rogue nation without a conscience.
65 – 34, PASSED
65-34!!!!!!!!!!
God damn!
Macaca is on the throne.
Dover Bitch @ 270
more like a reunion than a defection…
How about the Mary Landrieu and Joe Lieberman Re-Educational Gang Rape Freedom Camp?
Now they are launching into a discussion of immigration. Kennedy is yelling.
Screw the lot of them. Every last one. They don’t respect the document that gives them their fancy titles.
They have used our fundamental rights as bargaining chips in a perceived job security ploy and they have done exactly jack shit to make us safer.
Screw all of them.
Kennedy having a kiniption now about the fence. So. What. Franklin, Jefferson, WashingtonMadisonAdams rolling in their graves.
The World Turned Upside Down
If buttercups buzz’d after the bee,
If boats were on land, churches on sea,
If ponies rode men and if grass ate the cows,
And cats should be chased into holes by the mouse,
If the mamas sold their babies
To the gypsies for half a crown;
If summer were spring and the other way round,
Then all the world would be upside down.
When Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown (1781) the British played “The World Turned Upside Down”
The tune is also known as “When the King Enjoys His Own Again”
In its potential effects, this is Bush’s Enabling Act.
I feel crummy.
Lieberman voting Aye for this bill is about as shocking as Willie Nelson being arrested for possession of marijuiana.
Why doesn’t Teddy and the rest of the Dems just pick up and go home. Yeah, love the way Teddy yells about immigration now. Whoop-ee!
Business as usual, move along, nothing to see….
Let us see if cloture is invoked on the dumbass fence bill that the crapulation torture bill is tied to.
I am going to make tea and toast. no appetite fer anything else…
So much for mid-term and 2008 elections.
We just cancelled my physical therapy appointment, because I can’t stop crying.
I’m thinking of telling them there was a death in the family. It’s the truth.
What in heaven’s name will future generations think of us? How can so many Americans get it so wrong?
Congress should just disband itself and let the illusion end.
Sally @ 294
i gotta wonder… are they trying to loose?
object, object, object!!!!
voting for cloture now… this is it…
Well, thanks everyone for huddling through the storm with me. I’m off to Drinking Liberally to huddle with my fellow Minnesota bloggers.
I’ll check back in as things keep going downhill…
Shall we start the wagers on how long it takes the administration to determine that a political opponent or other peaceful critic is an unlawful enemy combatant?
Let the terrorists in to knock a few heads.
So…Where’s the protest?
Don’t fret everyone, it could be worse. We have our health, and if you don’t have your health; well…you don’t have anything.
What’s needed now is a stinkbomb in the Senate. Waterballoon? Protest sign?
There’s work to be done, when you’re done crying in your beer.
100Actions.com
There’s also work to be done if this bill goes to conference committee as I’ve been told.
I need somebody to contact their Senator from a state other than Michigan, preferably in Pacific time zone, and find out if this is the case — maybe somebody could go to Reid’s office, for starters, and ask them point blank if S. 3930 Military Commissions Act of 2006 is now going to conference committee for synching with a comparable house bill, or if it is going directly to the White House.
If I was a Senator, I’d whip it out right now and pee on the floor.
shooogarp @ 298
Lord Vader has just permanently disbanded the imperial senate. Regional governors will now have direct control. Fear will keep the local systems in line. Fear of this battle station.
306, they’ve already done that, and worse.
bryan @ shotgunfreude @ 305
You’re kinda creeping me out. If it’s possible to be any more creeped out than I am.
shooogarp @ 304
65 of them already did.
bdu @ 308
Yowwzaaaaaaaaa! Badabing!
Christy gave us her best. Thank her for that.
{{{{{{{{{{{{Mrs. K8}}}}}}}}}}}}
“So this is how democracy dies…” (sorry, no thunderous applause)
shooogarp @ 301
LOL.
I’m definitely in a “have fun storming the castle, boys” mode myself – but that would take a miracle . . .
shooogarp @
309
The last remnants of the Old Republic have been swept away.
So now we see that the fence on our southern border was actually to keep us in. I can see Canada from where I am sitting and it’s looking better every day.I think I’ve known for a long time that it would come to leaving my country.
Never surrender, never give up is a good slogan, but when you have no cards-no representation, no media, an obstinately uninformed public, I don’t see any other option but to fold. What a tragedy.
susan –
Thanks.
I’m sitting here in shock, in my bathing suit, at the desk.
I can’t even make myself go out back to do my regular p.t. exercises.
Feel myself pulling into a shell of some kind, a mental fetal position. (Actually, the physical version seems really attractive.)
Usually, I’m so strong. Not today. I pray this will pass soon, and that this is just temporary shock.
I promised to do phone banking from home, but I couldn’t even call to cancel the p.t. appt. myself — can’t guarantee I won’t sob out loud.
Rayne, called Leahy’s office and got a machine -it’s after their normal hours. Left a message with that question, asking for a return call or email. I’ll let you know if I hear.
bryan @ shotgunfreude @ 298
How short is the time frame?
Within the last weeks, a group of defendants (SHAC seven) were convicted and sentenced to federal prison for the crime of using a “device” to interfere with animal production facilities.
The “device” was a computer – the convicted and sentenced activists ran a web site providing information about corporate officers and corporate customers of an animal testing firm (Huntington).
The activists are in prison because they used technology to communicate about people and activites they abhorred.
The activists themselves were not angels – they advocated tactics including harassing the families of the corporate execs. But the activists weren’t convicted of harassment – they were convicted of using the computer to post information which other people may have used.
Peterr @ 313
“Ha ha! You fool! You fell victim to one of the classic blunders! The most famous is never get involved in a land war in Asia, but only slightly less well-known is this: never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha…
[Vizzini stops suddenly, and falls dead to the right]
Who would be so foolish to get involved in a land war in Asia?
shooogarp @ 292
Did my little asshole of a Senator really vote yes on this bill?!?!?
When something truly, truly awful happens, my mind starts racing around for the hook to find the way out.
Like saying, “well, at least we still have….(fill in the blank).”
Right now my mind is racing around but I can’t find the hook for the way out.
Mrs K8 take heart. That was a battle, not the war. We are in this together, and we are not finished fighting, by a long shot.
Take your sorrow, and make it righteous anger.
And meantime? Here’s a hug, honey.
new thread, again
Carolyn urban — thanks, that’s what I feared about Senate offices in EDT and CDT time zones.
7:25 pm here in EDT. 4:25 pm in PDT.
California, Oregon, Washington folks, please call your Senators’ offices and ask about S. 3930.
PLEASE!!!
As we witness to a succesful coup without a shot fired or protest heard. We now have firm numbers we need fifteen new senators about sixty representatives a few justices and a president.
I’ve got an extra twenty bucks, a vote, a shot of Jameson and I am pissed off.
KM I am ready for a ruckus!
SharonW @ 320
I guess I don’t need to urge you to vote for NED LAMONT?
; )
Does anyone from CT think that Lamont will be able to use Lieberman’s vote in any significant way to his advantage?
shooogarp @ 306
Uhmmm…I think they already did. And oh btw, it was No. 2.
Now that we don’t have a Constitution, let’s write one and elect people who will support it. One of the first things would be to take away all perks from those elected and pay them no more than the minimum wage with no benefits. How long would it take to see a higher minimum wage, health care, affordable higher education, reasonable day care, etc.
nobrakes @ 316
remember the imigrant rights protests early this year? they had less cards than us – but they had courage.
civil rights movement? indian indepence?
they had the power of courage and truth… something we’re going to have to work at…
Christy, (((MrsK8))), Kate, Mason, Carolyn Urban, KirkMurphy and Rayne, thanks for the virtual love and birthday wishes. I can’t believe how lucky I am to have this place of refuge. Christy, I’m going to enjoy delivering that slice of tart lemon pie ;)
I will indeed lose Blondie’s number. We no longer seem to have anything in common and it can’t hurt any more than it hurts now. There used to be an email going around about friends for a reason, friends for a season and friends for life. Our season is over.
It’s not a smirking trifle to me where our country is headed. I do want my country back. At least tonight I’ll be with some kindred spirits. I feel better now.
shooogarp @ 328
Hey, I was one of the first to have a meet and greet with him in April. :)
I need to talk with them. If you ask me, this is definitely in need of its own commerical, i.e. Joe Lieberman just voted yes to gutting the Constitution and taking away your right to know why you have been arrested or to see the evidence against you. Joe Lieberman has voted yes to giving George Bush sole power for determining what constitutes torture regardless of the Geneva Convention. Who says a kiss is just a kiss? (Flash pic of the infamous “kiss”)
Mommybrain:
GO GIRL!!!
Don’t let the b——s get you down.
Have fun.
kirk murphy – you still here?
I never dreamed so many Democrats would forsake the Constitution. It’s so profoundly disappointing.
hi selise -
went down to the cellar for wine…
anyone care for a glass?
71-28 for cloture
I’ll take a whole bottle for myself, thank you
kirk murphy @
338
please, sir.
selise @ 337
Why the fuck are the dems playing ball on today, of all days?
At least 34 of them should have walked out of the building after their last vote, seeing as they really serve no purpose at that point.
itwasntme @ 338
angie @ 339
would these be by mouth, or intravenous?
kirk, that’s very generous of you. Thanks, and I propose a toast to the Declaration of Independence and urge everyone to review its contents.
Rayne @ 326
Sen. Boxer info
DC Address:
The Honorable Barbara Boxer
United States Senate
112 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510-0505
DC Phone: 202-224-3553
DC Fax: 202-228-2382
District Offices:
2500 Tulare Street, Suite 5290
Fresno, CA 93721
Voice: 559-497-5109
FAX: 559-497-5111
312 North Spring Street, Suite 1748
Los Angeles, CA 90012-4701
Voice: 213-894-5000
FAX: 213-894-5042
201 North E Street, Suite 210
San Bernadino, CA 92401-1520
Voice: 909-888-8525
FAX: 909-888-8613
501 I Street, Suite 7-600
Sacramento, CA 95814
Voice: 916-448-2787
FAX: 916-448-2563
1700 Montgomery Street, Suite 240
San Francisco, CA 94111-1023
Voice: 415-403-0100
FAX: 415-956-6701
600 B Street, Suite 2240
San Diego, CA 92101-4508
Voice: 619-239-3884
FAX: 619-239-5719
kirk –
wrt wine… why yes, thank you…
i found your pic, don’t remember that we met (but i met lots of new people that week)… here’s a couple for you: dance, me.
hope you weren’t locked up for long…
I’m trying to bring up the roll for the Torture Act vote at the Senate’s website. So far, it’s unavailable. Wonder if they’re a little ashamed?
I’ve been crying since last night when I learned Brown had voted for the damned house bill. I’ve been working for him, and all dems up for election, supporting him and others financially, and I was just crushed. I’m crushed for the few ideals I still had and my belief that sometimes ethics and morals trump personal ambition. A staffer admittted some freaking Washington insider DLC shit talked him into it that he would be slaughtered otherwise. From my correspondence 3 times with his office, I think he wishes he could take it back. Too bad too late.
The Republic is now dead. Franklin is weeping like me.
I’ll take it po since I already had fascism mainlined by torture supporters against my will and best efforts, doc murphy.
65-34 and Obama calling it a “sloppy” bill is what you get when you say, before they even stand up and vote, that all is forgiven no matter what they do, because we feel too desperate to vote for anyone but them.
I don’t.
I won’t ever feel that way. You either demand accountability or you do not. You don’t run away from it with the Dems and expect THEM to then hold anyone’s feet to the fire.
The party is what it is allowed to be.
Every single Republican AND every single Democrat who voted for this mess needs to be attacked on it over and over and over and over and over.
Let the chips fall where they may – and Sherrod Brown has no business becoming a Senator when he is a failure as a Congressman.
JulieG @ 347
i’m sorry you were betrayed by brown… sadly, not everyone we think is on our side actually is on our side….
No sooner do I speak, and …
The roll for the Torture Act AKA S.3930, is now up. Read it and weep. I’ll try to compile a list of Democrats and how they voted.
Very interesting, I’ve just gone between msnbc and faux news, and NOT ONE word about what the Senate did. NOT ONE WORD. Faux is showing Panda cubs, and sunset in Atlanta, MSNBC is talking abt. Geo. Allen. Strange, maybe taped earlier. How do you all think they’re going to break this?
Mary @ 349
yep. we can’t expect our our congresscritters to hold the Rs accountable when we won’t hold our congresscritters accountable.
I’m too sick today to even have what would in normal times be called a Happy Hour, though I sure could use a drink, or an “ere.” I just know that neither will help my head right now.
Mommybrain, hope the rest of your birthday is better! Sometimes it’s a relief to find out the truth about someone…move on.
Rayne @ 326
Sen. Feinstein info
DC Address:
The Honorable Dianne Feinstein
United States Senate
331 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510-0504
DC Phone: 202-224-3841
DC Fax: 202-228-3954
District Offices:
11111 San Monica Boulevard, Suite 915
Los Angeles, CA 90025-3343
Voice: 310-914-7300
FAX: 310-914-7318
750 B Street, Suite 1030
San Diego, CA 92101-8126
Voice: 619-231-9712
FAX: 619-231-1108
2500 Tulare Street, Suite 4-290
Fresno, CA 93721
Voice: 559-485-7430
FAX: 559-485-9689
1 Post Street, Suite 2450
San Francisco, CA 94104
Voice: 415-393-0707
FAX: 415 249-4785
Mary @ 350
I think what may be called for here is having a long memory. Six years is a long time to wait for revenge, but the truth is that right now we need him more than he needs us. Having had a chance to calm down, and, uh, learn a civics lesson in the mechanics of a filibuster, I would advocate witholding money and time, but not the vote. And letting him know with a large volume of postal mail that next time he comes up for re-election, we’re going to do to him what we’re about to do to Lieberman: send him into the private sector.
well po it shall be then!
selise, angie, meta, itwasntme, firepups -
a round of glasses (and said bottle)
to the Declaration of Independence -
and the freedoms it holds forth.
and to the day on which a majority of the Senate is fit to honor those freedoms.
Here are the 34 Senators who defended the constitution today. All others are misguided beyond repair or out right traitors.
NAYs —34
Akaka (D-HI)
Baucus (D-MT)
Bayh (D-IN)
Biden (D-DE)
Bingaman (D-NM)
Boxer (D-CA)
Byrd (D-WV)
Cantwell (D-WA)
Chafee (R-RI)
Clinton (D-NY)
Conrad (D-ND)
Dayton (D-MN)
Dodd (D-CT)
Dorgan (D-ND)
Durbin (D-IL)
Feingold (D-WI)
Feinstein (D-CA)
Harkin (D-IA)
Inouye (D-HI)
Jeffords (I-VT)
Kennedy (D-MA)
Kerry (D-MA)
Kohl (D-WI)
Leahy (D-VT)
Levin (D-MI)
Lincoln (D-AR)
Mikulski (D-MD)
Murray (D-WA)
Obama (D-IL)
Reed (D-RI)
Reid (D-NV)
Sarbanes (D-MD)
Schumer (D-NY)
Wyden (D-OR)
Not Voting – 1
Snowe (R-ME)
Julie –
My tears are your tears.
I’ve never been this low.
This is the first time I’ve broken down and *talked about* my tears and fears online. It was always a bright line I drew for myself — never, ever let my own depression be expressed, so that others may not “catch” the same down mood from me.
Today feels so different. God bless the people at the Lake here for offering their hugs and mutual support. You guys are all I have now.
My hand is held out to you, Julie. Maybe we can both find a way to pull ourselves up somehow.
kirk murphy, per the wine? I’m already there. Sadly drinking, regrouping, and putting together dinner for my family.
How sad. I can’t believe what I have seen. Kiss America and the Constitution goodbye. Now all those illegal aliens and Americas can be call enemy combatants with no due process.
As for me, I think I’ll try to slip across the border and head south before the fence goes up.
Hail to the new Fascist States of America. Sorry, can’t stop crying.
Chad Robinson @ 356
this is not just about brown – it’s about all the people after brown who will think they can blow us off and we won’t care enough to stop supporting them….. – and it’s also about us, are we people who will support someone who has voted for torture, indefinite detention and legalizing disappearances?
kirk murphy @ 357
to freedom, to honor
to patriots, to friends.
selise @ 344
thnaks for sharing your pics. it was a busy week for me as well, but i don’t think we met directly. glad our paths crossed at the lake!
to Leahy! Sir, I salute you.
harkin voting no…
to harkin
kirk murphy– to the future! Huddle close hufNpuf and Mary and everybody!
I’ve been lurking through blogland for about a year. I’ve never seen anything like this. The urgent raw pain and depth of emotion is truly extraordinary.
The usurpation of the constitution is a frightening. No tears for me. No getting drunk tonight. I’m in a fightin’ mood. I’m not going to let this slip away. I intend to fight this with every tool I have available. I am a stakeholder and I will not go gently into that good night. I’m looking over my bank account to see who can use what little I can afford. I’m hitting the phones tomorrow. I’m writing letters to everyone. I’ll be in the streets when I can and I will give no quarter to anyone who dares a challenge.
But first my heartfelt thanks to FDL and other like minded people who are working so hard. Thank you. You’re the best!
Democratic Senators voting yea (for the Torture Act):
Carper (D-DE)
Johnson (D-SD)
Landrieu (D-LA)
Lautenberg (D-NJ)
Lieberman (L-CT)
Menendez (D-NJ)
Nelson (D-FL)
Nelson (D-NE)
Pryor (D-AR)
Rockefeller (D-WV)
Salazar (D-CO)
Stabenow (D-MI)
Republicans voting nay (against torture):
Chafee (R-RI)
Snow (R-ME) did not vote
Jeffords (I-VT) voted nay
I might have missed one or two, but that’s the list I’ve compiled.
John in Sacramento — thanks, I called Boxer’s LA office; the staffer I spoke with said they thought it went to the White House. But when I asked about the House voting to approve that version tomorrow, that there were minor differences between the two bills that might require conference committee, they really didn’t know.
This is what really, DEEPLY frustrates me. If there is any potential strategy here, they should be on top of it, all over it, not be so damned uncertain where they’re at on this bill.
Just got this from Democrats.com, though the email is actually signed by the Exec. Director of Amnesty Intl.
“Call 1 800 AMNESTY and our operators will connect you to your official or call the Congressional switch board directly at 202-224-3121. Let the person on the phone know that you are a constituent, and tell them that the deal President Bush has struck is a betrayal of the America you believe in. Ask your Senators and Representative to stand firm in defense of human rights.
After you’ve made your call, report back on how it went here.”
The main reason I point this out is the 1-800 # since the one I was using this morning stopped working mid-day.
to all our senators who voted against the bill, against cloture of fence bill, against fence bill.
i’m going to make a list… to make sure i remember
Stabenow’s (D-MI) statement
“There is nothing more important than keeping America safe from those who would cause us harm. It is critical that we have a system in place to handle enemy combatants in the war on terror and bring them to justice, which is why I supported this legislation. If we had not passed this bill, our military would not have been able to move forward with trials against suspected terrorists now in U.S. custody. I voted for a number of amendments that would have strengthened this bill, and I will continue to work with my colleagues to make these improvements. ”
My emphasis
I’m supposed to vote for this woman?
May this piece of legislation be the last nail in the coffin of a dead Republican congress.
I am deeply disappointed in Stabenow. After talking with her office today, I thought we were on the same page.
Gah.
The alternative is voting for a smarmy Republican who’ll be thoroughly pWned by the RNC, though.
Rayne @ 376
as painful as this is…. it does help to know what side people come down on before we spent more time, money and hope on people we are better off ignoring. there’s more than enough work to do, we don’t need to waste our efforts…
angie @ 369
Thanks I have to get out of here. I hear a tequila and and a cervesa calling me.
Sorry if it’s been done already, but this is an excerpt from Hillary Clinton’s speech today in opposition to the Torture Act. The rest of it is at:
http://atrios.blogspot.com/200…..9727117828
We were at war and victory was hardly assured, in fact the situation was closer to the opposite. New York City and Long Island had been captured. General George Washington and the continental army retreated across New Jersey to Pennsylvania, suffering tremendous casualties and a body blow to the cause of American Independence.
It was at this time, among these soldiers at this moment of defeat and despair, that Thomas Paine would write, “These are the times that try men’s souls.” Soon afterward, Washington led his soldiers across the Delaware River and onto victory in the Battle of Trenton. There he captured nearly 1000 foreign mercenaries and he faced a crucial choice.
How would General Washington treat these men? The British had already committed atrocities against Americans, including torture. As David Hackett Fischer describes in his Pulitzer Prize winning book, “Washington’s Crossing,” thousands of American prisoners of war were “treated with extreme cruelty by British captors.” There are accounts of injured soldiers who surrendered being murdered instead of quartered. Countless Americans dying in prison hulks in New York harbor. Starvation and other acts of inhumanity perpetrated against Americans confined to churches in New York City.
The light of our ideals shone dimly in those early dark days, years from an end to the conflict, years before our improbable triumph and the birth of our democracy. General Washington wasn’t that far from where the Continental Congress had met and signed the Declaration of Independence. But it’s easy to imagine how far that must have seemed. General Washington announced a decision unique in human history, sending the following order for handling prisoners: “Treat them with humanity, and let them have no reason to complain of our Copying the brutal example of the British Army in their Treatment of our unfortunate brethren.”
Therefore, George Washington, our commander-in-chief before he was our President, laid down the indelible marker of our nation’s values even as we were struggling as a nation – and his courageous act reminds us that America was born out of faith in certain basic principles. In fact, it is these principles that made and still make our country exceptional and allow us to serve as an example. We are not bound together as a nation by bloodlines. We are not bound by ancient history; our nation is a new nation. Above all, we are bound by our values.
George Washington understood that how you treat enemy combatants could reverberate around the world. We must convict and punish the guilty in a way that reinforces their guilt before the world and does not undermine our constitutional values.
Both parties should be thoroughly ashamed of their collective actions today. Individuals may be able to take some comfort in doing the right thing, but as parties they’ve disgraced themselves.
That’s what we’ve been telling ourselves since 04.
Selise at 363
I was right there with you in my indignation over this bill until a kind soul explained high school civics to me. We couldn’t filibuster, I thought we could. That we cannot changes my perspective ALOT and makes me feel a lot better. Most of the Democrats are on our side in this. The ones, like Brown, who are not will need to be punished for it. But not now. That sucks. In my fantasy world, Brown’s fundraising would dry up starting yesterday, and his campaign HQ would be devoid of staff when he got back from DC.
But we need him right now. We need him to support the people who DID stand up for us, and DO understand the importance of this ghastly bill. Uh. Law.
So, have a looooong memory. This year we can punish Lieberman. Two years from now we can punish several of the “aye” votes when they run to the internet trough for funding, only to discover that their primary opponents beat them to it. Two years after that we can punish more of them in exactly the same way. And in 2012 we can remind Brown of his actions here today and make of him what we’ll make of Lieberman in November.
nobrakes @
317
That is not sounding too bad. Given this country’s reckless slide into a combination of a pre-constitutional monarchy government, a black hole of debt, elections dictated by extreme religious literalists and voting machine manufacturers and atomic-scale gerrymandering, and an ever more vast chunk of “defense” spending pouring into no-bid wastrel shell companies while actual defense manufacturers can’t make a tricycle for less than ten billion dollars, what are the odds it won’t collapse in the next decade or two? How much past ten trillion dollars are foreign national banks going to watch our debt go before other nations’ bonds start to look like way better investments?
I have some Canadian ancestors. Canada on its worst day is a hundred times more progressive and democratic than anything the U.S. will resemble for the foreseeable future. And it might be a hell of a lot more stable in the long term. I wouldn’t mind relocating to a nice peaceful Canadian city.
Chad Robinson @ 381
But we need him right now. We need him to support the people who DID stand up for us, and DO understand the importance of this ghastly bill. Uh. Law.
So, have a looooong memory. This year we can punish Lieberman. Two years from now we can punish several of the “aye” votes when they run to the internet trough for funding, only to discover that their primary opponents beat them to it. Two years after that we can punish more of them in exactly the same way. And in 2012 we can remind Brown of his actions here today and make of him what we’ll make of Lieberman in November.
they could have tried a filibuster – but they decided not to.
wrt to brown. dead to me. that is a line i can not cross. i will support other candidates. but, i will not condemn you for supporting him if you think that is right. follow your conscience, and i will follow mine. we are on the same side.
Chad Robinson @ 5:15 pm (#382) We couldn’t filibuster
I’ll bite. Why not? It’s true that Reid made a deal not to, but before that it was an option assuming Reid had the votes to prevent cloture.
Chad –
Could you please explain the “cannot” part regarding filibuster? I heard someone say that at dKos, but I don’t understand it.
It’s not just a matter of that “gentleman’s agreement” (barf) Harry had with
MengeleFrist over “unanimous consent,” is it? Because if it is, Reid should NEVER have trusted Frist about support for ANY amendments, and should have been ready ahead of time to have filibuster support, IMO.How easy it is for them to throw it all away.
How very, very, very difficult it will be to get it back.
The truth is, much of the “Democratic base” are the only honest values voters, the only real values voters in this country. Real values mean integrity, which means that party is second to principle for those voters, and for the many, many others who belong to no political party.
The leaders and some of the followers of the Senate Democrats, desperately seeking to be “popular” with the rich and famous kids, just turned their backs on their values voters, who in turn will now be forced by this vote, and failure to filibuster, to turn their backs on the Democratic Party. It will hasten the inevitable disintegration of the two major political parties, and it looks like the Democrats may now go first. The Republican “values voters” are a myth and a fraud, because said voters will buy a lie and self-delude in order to hate others in the name of good. They won’t desert a party that enables their pathology.
But the main body of Democratic voters will not enable a Democratic Party establishment that exhibits the same pathology as the Republican “values voter.”
All I can think is that the same stars that are overhead tonight were overhead when Hitler was sending his fellow human beings to be gassed and burned. This matters.
Eureka Springs, AR @
327
Well, that sounds like enough ammo. I’m with you.
It was a nice Constitution while it lasted. 230 years is a pretty good run, I guess.
Personally, while I understand that Reid many not have had the votes for a filibuster, I find myself not giving a good goddamn. Desperate measures were called for and we got pretty speeches. Still saving that powder, I guess. It must be good and dry by now.
I also find rather insulting the notion that Dems had to vote for this bill or risk being painted as “soft on terra” back home. I think the American people know a dangerous precedent when they see one. They sure as hell know a dangerous president when they see one.
Courage, friends. Keep plugging.
Mrs. K8 @ 385
Read the Wikipedia article on filibusters for a closer look at whay this is the case (humorously, it was a Democratic ploy to stop the racists filibustering civil rights), but it has to do with cloture. Cloture can stop a filibuster, and in order to prevent cloture, you need 2/5th’s 1 of the senate to agree to help you filibuster. 2/5ths 1 of the senate is, of course, 41.
Apparently Reid couldn’t get to 41. So any attempt to filibuster would have crashed and died.
kirk murphy @
338
Please yes, and here are some Carr’s water biscuits and cheese — funerals always make me hungry.
Except we are the new Germany. We must stop this Hitler as well. If we don’t we will look like Iraq when someone else does it for us.
Chad Robinson @ 388
i’m not arguing that a filibuster would have succeeded – i’m arguing that it could have been attempted (and gained at the minimum another 48 hour delay), other delay tactics could have been attempted as well.
imo, fear of failure is no excuse. the attempt must be made.
HotFlash @ 389
is this a wake? i’ve never been to one before…
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15049251/ Interesting take from Tom Curry, specifically about Sherrod’s vote. I don’t agree and I won’t forget, but I’ll still take him over DeWine without a moment’s hesitation.
I don’t know how much difference law makes anymore. But we really need to stop the surveillance bill after the elections. It’s significance has increased in light of such weak support in the Senate today.
Are we all in trouble for expressing a myriad of alternative political views on the internet or in any other form?
Considering most of the people who passed the law today really don’t know what they have done. I have a whole lot of serious questions. Is it illegal to ask or just illegal to ask for a trial?
Looks like Lieberman is a torture freak after all. Wonder why he would vote for such a bill? Does it gain him Republican support?
anybody want to take a gander at thereisnospoon’s article at DKos?
could he be right?
he seems to have good reasons to calm down, if he is correct…
oh wait, It’s illegal to ask and expect an answer from the executive branch. That part I get.
selise –
I’m with you! Why, this is the sort of horror, it seems to me, where civil disobedience (even from congress members, imagine that!) should be called for! Lying down across the exits from the chamber!
I know, I know, I’m delusional. But I’m thinking of the magnitude of this — and I’m sure you know just what I mean.
If you believe that innocent people will be tortured and stashed away forever and even murdered as a result of this abomination, and that war criminals will be enabled to commit more war crimes, what is the appropriate “scale” of reaction?
Mrs. K8 – I believe innocent Americans will have this happen at home much more than on foreign soil.
Mrs. K8 @ 398
a very serious question…. deserving of much inner reflection…
i’ve been thinking for awhile it is time for a retreat (of the spiritual/intellectual kind) … and i just keep putting it off.
one thing i do know, that for me and from me, much more is required…
I am in that retreat selise mentions and have been for a couple of years. What is so difficult to shut out is knowledge of unconscionable actions of my brethren.
The question I cannot avoid here in my small piece of safe paradise is how can you be any more at ease, followed by what more can I do?
The inner voice just keeps getting louder.)
Any similarities between the passage of today’s “Law” and the “Reichstag Fire Decree” are purely incidental.
http://www.reference.com/brows…..ire_Decree
RMD
Eureka Springs, AR @ 401
sometimes a retreat is needed to get clear on what comes next and to prepare for it…
Exactly and I understood that going into this. Honestly I think I have known all of this for a very long time. Just trying to sort out if this is a tipping point or not and what should I do next? I think I am about as prepared as I will ever be. As Mrs K8 said
what is the appropriate “scale” of reaction?