I swear to FSM that I will accept the first marriage proposal I get from any halfway decent guy who isn’t an American citizen.

Give me a year or two to get my affairs here together is all I ask.

No sham marriage, either – if you’re actually somewhat left and a resident of another industrialized nation, I’ll even put out. 😉

Sorry…this is sickening enough that all I’m left with are off color jokes.

Dunno if you noticed this or not, but we’re not really a nation of laws anymore.

The Shrill Sockpuppet offers this list for your consideration:

Twelve Democrats voted in favor, 1 Republican and 1 independent voted against (there may be one or two errors because I compiled the list while listening to the vote):

Democrats in favor (12) – Carper (Del.), Johnson (S.D.), Landrieu (La.), Lautenberg (N.J.), Lieberman (Conn.), Menendez (N.J), Pryor (Ark.), Rockefeller (W. Va.), Salazar (Co.), Stabenow (Mich.), Nelson (Fla.), Nelson (Neb.)

Republicans against (1) – Chafee (R.I.).

Jeffords voted against.

FFFFFFFFFuuuuuuuuuucccccccccckkkkkkkkkkkkk

Salazar? Oh, my fucking god. He’s mine.

I’m now officially rooting for global warming to destroy western civilization, or at least the new american monarchy.
Buy a Hummer for justice.

think about this: left-leaning activists have been lumped in with terrorists in the wording of this bill. We’re all on the shit-list now. If Dems don’t win in November, it’s only a matter of time before we’re monitored preparatory to being taken and ‘questioned’.

I still have Niewert’s video playing behind my eyes……I’m getting a little scared, I admit. I won’t stop what I’m doing, I feel it’s *that* worthwhile, but I’m getting scared…

We’re a nation of laws, all right. Ever more laws with ever more limited rights to resist them.

Habeas corpus is the single most foundational right for any state that claims to provide a government of laws. This isn’t even a fairly radical argument – it’s been made my legal minds as conservative as Richard Posner.

If they’re fucking with habeas corpus, then we aren’t a democracy anymore. Period.

I’m serious about wanting out. If you’re not American, let me know. Pics available on request.

(Okay, so that part is only half-serious!)

Ummm, Jillian, I was thinking of moving outta the country. Is that good enough?

Also, I think I qualify already for dual citizenship. Close but no Monica-cigar?

But what will you do to change your party?

You are convinced that Bush is so wrong and that any Democrats daring to dissent from the dKos orthodoxy are evil, but what would you do to get rid of those Democrats?

What motivation do you guys have to elect more Democrats?

They’ll just represent Republican districts, and they’ll either be gone in 2 years, or they’ll vote with the GOP.

The fact is that you Democrats should teach your party a lesson by refusing to vote for your party.

We’re not in the mood for your crap today Gary. Go masturbate to fantasies of Michael Moore being tortured as an enemy combatant and leave us the hell alone.
Remember, loyalty is no defense from a purge, you fuck.

The pic’s on its way, dear Retardo!

Shall it be a quickie ceremony in the Bahamas, or what?

Excuse us – We’re refugees from Atrios/Eschaton. Our current thread has gone up to nearly 1400 hits and we’ve decided to take over yours, in the interests of acquiring living room.

Hullo. Don’t mind us. We’re just about as testy as it gets.

I can’t believe anybody’s actually surprised by this. Nobody got the hint when the Democrats left it up to Warner, Graham, and John-Motherfucking-McCain to man the first line of defense? If Democrats had really opposed this bill, they would have been screaming for the last month. But, no……let the Three Stooges man the ramparts. Again, why is anybody surprised?

Yes, Gary, we should instead vote for the party with only one Senator who voted as we wanted. No thanks, puppy dog, I think I’ll just keep on voting for my two Democratic senators who both voted against this un-, no, God damnit, this ANTI-Constitutional abomination.

I could marry a few of you if Europe is ok. I’m a female goddess so it would have to be men, but I could adopt the rest.

Lack of surprise doesn’t preclude dismay or disgust or depression or etc over this becoming a reality.

Don’t you live in one of those progressive European countries that’s okay with the hot girl-on-girl action, Echidne?

I could be persuaded at this point.

What the fuck is in the water in New Jersey?

Oh….never mind.

Nice to see Holy Joe siding with the Dems like he said he would…I’ll be in Connecticut every chance I can from now to the election to get him the hell out of government and get Ned in. Would it be too much for Reid to take away his seniority and committee assignments now?

Jillian, I have to look into that. There is a civil union thingy but I’m not sure if it covers immigration. 🙂

Europe would probably be a better choice than Canada. We’re gonna run out of trees soon, and then Canada is scrood. Switzerland is probably the best choice, cause them banks hold so much secret money nobody would want to hurt em.

The worst of it is this is the administration the threw PROTESTORS into TOXIC GULAGS during the Republican National Convention in 2004. How far a jump is it for the administration to say unlicensed protest is an act of terrorism to justify throwing dissenters into a secret prison where they will have to suffer whatever torture McCain thinks is a-okay? Fine, it’s slippery slope argument, but at what point pre-9/11 did anyone think Americans could be denied due process by our own government?

Yay, send it Jillian!

Hmm, yeah a quickie would be best. Anywhere in the commonwealth. I assume you’d also prefer that the cermony be performed by wiccan-transexual-abortionists, as conforming to our Leftist beliefs.

Mark Pryor is toast. Fucking asshole.

But how will we consumate the marriage in proper homosexual fashion when you are a man and I am a woman?

Use your imagination, Jillian.

What makes you think there will be elections in the future?

Oh my. I could answer that, but I think it’s better that I don’t.

We’ll find a way, Jillian. Wait —

There is an alternative. Polygamy — like bestiality, the “logical” extention of gay marriage!

So, Jillian, it’s like this: I have to marry you and your girlfriend.

Gee, I don’t know if Retardo would like it if I did that.

Kudos to Blanche Lincoln. I’m sure voting for this monstrosity would have made her life easier in some ways. But she did not.

These 12, including the once-proud Jay Rockefeller, are dead to me.

Now that the President has the authority he sought, see a tongue-in-cheek visual of the Grand Opening of “Tortureland”…here:

http://www.thoughttheater.com

Don’t knock it ’till you try it, Retardo.

One note to add to the list listed by Richard 23—Snowe didn’t vote.

Hey, bring it on, Jillian. I’m open to anything.

230 years. We’ve only been here for two hundred thirty years. From the very beginning, America has sent her youth to fight, bleed, kill and die for something. Let’s ask the question: For what did they fight, bleed, die? Was it for a flag? Ask any combat veteran. Did you fight for the flag. Nope, sorry, it’s a piece of cloth. Was it for a National Identity? Well, except for the Civil War, the war for the preservation of the national indentity, I’d have to say no. Exactly how developed was America’s National Identity in 1812? Nope. The best, brightest people America could field have been sent in harms way for an idea. Oh sure, it’s not a simple idea. It doesn’t sum up easily like “You’re either with us or you’re with the Terrorists”. It’s a radical idea about the value of the individual. That he can read, speak, worship and love in his own way, without undue government intervention. That the government would work for the individual, and if a government agency felt the need to interfere with a citizen, invade his privacy or take him into custody, the burden before the court would be on the government to prove some cause. That the law would apply equally to all.

And now, that idea is dust. Crumpled up, tossed in the toilet by smirking boys of priviledge. Boys who don’t know the smell of mud, blood and explosives. Who never had to find a way to put aside the fear and horror and become something less than human. Something that, once released, is in your soul forever. Boys who laugh at the death, terror and suffering. Who view the world in terms of political theory, who refuse to acknowledge the damage they are doing and the disgust of the world. Due process? Habeas Corpus? Rules against torture? Quaint, and not important to them. Dirty criminal thugs who care not for America, not for her history or her legacy or her place in the pantheon of nations.

And all who have served, bled and died for this idea have gone from upholding the highest of ideas to wasted, futile, vain deaths. The very concept that I would rather accept a little risk than become something foul, something we have always, Democrat and Republican alike, railed against. There is very little in my generation for us to take pride in, except perhaps we answered our nation’s call. But today, your generation, the people who are going to inherit this nation and all it stands for, you have to accept that things will never be the same again. They have made everything you were taught, everything you believed, a mockery, a lie. I don’t know how you live with that…

mikey

F*** you, Stabenow.

You know what’s gonna happen now? The Republican machine is going to target those 12 “Democrats” for destruction because they are wimps. That’s what you get for “reaching across the aisle” Stabenow you s***.

I like how Gary thinks he can trick us into voting for Republicans this fall. Very sneaky, Gary, but you can’t fool us!

I can’t believe that anyone would vote for that bill. Someone must be holding their children hostage or something. When has giving Bush unchecked power ever worked out well?

Habeas Corpus

b. 1215
d. 2006

Killed for oil.

Just to add to mikey’s post: the people most responsible for this crap are the ladies and gentlemen of PNAC.

Conspicuous in both their love of war, and avoiding service in same.

Fucking dems. They’ve just been given the keys to the election and they’re so scared of driving there’s no question they’ll give them right back. The campaign from here on out should be reduced to a simple question; do you want to live under martial law? Cause we now do.
Instead, they’ll piss themselves and let the repubs beat them over the heads with this.
Echidne, let’s get married. I want out.

I’ve read so many impassioned essays in the blogosphere today about the death of America that I’m not even sure I could pick a top 10.

Guys, just a little perspective, please. During World War II, we put Americans in fucking CAMPS, and the Supreme Court even said it was okay. Yet today, it’s freely acknowledged as a black mark on our past, celebrated only by a lunatic fringe, and life goes on.

We don’t even know what the Supreme Court will do with this bill. And we don’t know what future legislators will do to correct it. That doesn’t make it okay, but it also doesn’t give you license to stop fighting. It’s not the end to a story.

I’m disgusted. Some of the names I’ve seen haven’t surprised me, but as many have said, this is common law. These are basic human rights.

And what is up with New Jersey? I mean, both Lautenberg and Menendez voted for torture… meanwhile, on the good side, North Dakota’s two senators voted against the bill. North Dakota’s my new favorite state that has a two-word name.

OK. Three things:

1. Both of my senators (Cantwell, Murray) voted against both cloture and passage, so that’s a comfort of sorts.

2. Arguably sicker and more twisted than the vote itself is that when you go to the Senate web page in order to click through to the vote stats, the welcoming image cheerily proclaims “We the People: Celebrating the U.S. Constitution.”

3. re the increasingly tiresome Garybot (guess I’m losing my sense of humor): I don’t need Kos to tell me what to think — I actually don’t really read Kos very often. I think, y’see? Foreign concept, I know.

Oh — actually four things:

4. mikey: I was planning tomorrow to have my students do a written response to the vote, and I’d love to give them your 3:13 post as a part of the assignment prompt. Would you be OK with that? (in all honesty, I’m tempted at least twice a week to give them one of your posts as examples of thoughtful, reasoned argument, but have not done so out of respect for your ownership of your words and ideas . . . )

Steve, the difference here is that what we did to the Japanese-Americans was illegal. The Supreme Court was wrong, as it has been on occasion. I realize this begs the qustion of a decent definition of “legal”, but you know what I mean.

After this is signed, similar actions won’t be illegal anymore.

It’s worse.

I agree with Steve. (Are you the same Steve as from FDL?)

You all give up and quit, and Karl Rove gets everything he wanted from teh shrub torture act, as opposed to just a bunch of it.

Mortician, I was thinking of doing the same thing with my students….what newspaper has the best article on this issue for high school seniors of slightly sub-par reading ability?

The thought that you would stoop to poisoning the minds of children sickens me.

Seek Jesus. And more on topic, I TOLD YOU SO!!! 😀

Well said, Steve. Although I expect interment camps will return to America before anyone strikes down this bill.

Hey, a simple answer for all you teachers out there. If I put it on the inter tubes, I don’t own in, nor do I want to. You are welcome to use it (as long as it doesn’t violate the Sadly, No! terms of service) in whatever way you see fit. And to say I’m honored doesn’t even begin to cover it. Oh, and the irony – if my teachers in school knew some other teachers were using my stuff in class, they’d fall over in a dead faint. But thank you all…

mikey

Guys, me’n Harry–re gonna let you in on a little secret.

We figure that if we just give these guys unlimited power, they will wreak such havoc on the world, will create such a Fulciesque hellscape with their mad, mad schemes, that it’ll sway those on the fence over to our side, once the undecided voters realize that our economic policies are more family-friendly.*

And they went for it! Now we’ve got them right where we want them.

On to victory!

*also we should learn to talk about faith

You know what’s sad, Rahmhack?

That is the same script Ralph Nader was reading back in 2000.

I heard Feingold talking about this earlier and he sounded like he had just been kicked squarely in the testicles.

The average American worker just can’t help but want a change in Washington once he’s been held without charge and tortured.

Midterms, here we come! 54-40 or Not!

It’s all over but the shouting. Well, I hope we all get sent to the same Gulag, if we don’t manage to get out in time.

Didn’t Mark Twain say, “Heaven for the climate, hell for the conversation”? If all you folks are there, the time between our waterboarding spa treatments will at least be interesting.

And Mikey, you frequently move me to tears. Lot of great writers on here, but you’re something special. You and D.Sidhe. And Jillian, I’ll bet you’re a wonderful teacher.

When I turned over this morning to get out of bed I had that feeling of doubt. You know, when your driving along and you don’t know if you should turn right or left to get around that fucking traffic accident that has body parts spilled all over the road. Well that’s how I feel about what happened this evening. This is more than just an accident, this is a bastardization of what we American’s used to stand for. How dare we not get off our asses and do everything possible from here on out to fight. I’m talking civil disobedience (which may include flinging poo if you’d like) the likes that would make the Vietnam era look like a nice little picnic in the park. If your not standing and fighting yet, then get up. Cause if you don’t we won’t be have the chance ever again, not with this monarchy that we have in power now. And who’s to say that the republicans don’t rewrite the constitution to allow their great leader to forgo elections in 2008 for a new position (well it’s actually the position Bush has now) and that’s king in chief.

We figure that if we just give these guys unlimited power, they will wreak such havoc on the world, will create such a Fulciesque hellscape with their mad, mad schemes, that it’ll sway those on the fence over to our side, once the undecided voters realize that our economic policies are more family-friendly.*

I’ve heard this before. It was phrased, “after them, us”. Famous last words of the German Communists.

Ahh…Mikey’s a big teddyberrr. If it weren’t for that cop mustache of his he’d be the Johnny Depp of his time…I should know…trust me…

I once had a discussion/mild argument with a gf in college about a novel she’d read where Caligula was actually a noble, brilliant ruler, who went to such horrible excesses to teach Rome not to permit them, and to limit Caesar’s power. I thought it was a bad interpretation of history, and kind of a dumb idea.
My point is to say to Rahm that you can’t save something by destroying it, and encouraging entrophy in our federal system literally costs lives. I think/hope that comment was sarcastic, but this is too draining a day to be sure.
And to steve, all I can say is none of those things happened in my lifetime, and none of them involved permanent structural changes to the basic understanding of the limits of the president and government’s power. I hope the SU strikes this down, but let’s not pretend it’s a given, even in the light of Hamadan.

Maybe you can post their names on your side bar – at the top – where they will be shamefully displayed for blog eternity. We need billboards, placards, posters, with “I voted for torture” engraved on their foreheads.

You know, Brian, you’re right. Absolutely. The Bush family claims kinship with the British royals, and Babs Bush is also said to be a carrier of “royal” blood. It’s no surprise that they have this profound sense of entitlement. I wouldn’t be surprised by anything at this point. I’ve been worrying about something along those lines for the past couple of years, actually. Usually while thinking that it can’t happen here… but… well.

Like I’m going to give my vote, or non-vote to Katherine Harris?

Have fun in moral-clarity-land. Send a postcard.

Candy, I totally forgot about the royal bush thing. Man, we are FUCKED…

I guess we’ll end up getting postcards from the Bush family that states Merry Christmas hostages from the folks that care!!! They care that you keep buying up that gas at ridiculous prices. But did everyone notice how the prices have some down all of the sudden? Nothings changed in the world, Iraq’s still all fucked up, Iran hasn’t stopped enriching uranium. Hell, if anything shit’s getting worse. Is this or is this not just an absolutely blatant example of how these assholes control the price of gas? I know… I know…I’m being all conspiracy theory ‘n shit…but WTF???

Mo’s Bike Shop: This afternoon I called Senator Nelson’s office to express my support for the filibuster. And there he is on the list of Democrats who voted for the bill. And come November I will of course vote for him.

In the words of Dora the Explorer’s backpack, “¡Delicioso!”

Mo, I am shocked, (too shocked to even make a Bogey joke) to find that Sherrod Brown voted for the shrub torture act.

But am I going to vote for DeWine? Or curl up in a little ball and cry myself to sleep?

Hell No. But I am kinda pissed. And people have a right to be.

So I’m going to vote for Sherrod Brown November 7. But I’m not going to forget, either.

No, Brian, you’re not paranoid. Well, maybe we all are, just a bit, but as me old mum used to say, even paranoids have enemies. And right now, we have the lowest gas prices in the country, right here in Dead Moines, Iowa. Also at the moment, the place is crawling with Rethuglican presidential hopefuls, all campaigning for their buddies, and getting their pictures taken with the rapidly disappearing Iowa farmer, positioning themselves for the all-important first in the nation caucuses.

Coincidence?

Coincidence?

Probably not. Aye caramba!

Aye caramba, indeed. (It’s noticing things like that which will find me in the Gulag, I have no doubt.)

Gah! Watching the news. Laura Bush was in Des Moines today, campaigning for Jeff Lamberti, son of the founder of Casey’s General Stores and a real wingnut He’s running against Leonard Boswell, who is a Dem in name only, but what am I gonna do, vote for Lamberti? She was gushing about how important Ah-owa is. OMG, I am feeling physically sick. Also on the news just now, the death of a Halliburton contractor from Iowa who was killed in Iraq is being investigated for undisclosed but apparently peculiar circumstances.

I just ate an enormous mess of leftover Hunan Chicken and am going to take a shower and an alka-seltzer and hit the sack. Maybe I’ll wake tomorrow to find this was all a dream….

Mo’s Bike Shop: This afternoon I called Senator Nelson’s office to express my support for the filibuster. And there he is on the list of Democrats who voted for the bill. And come November I will of course vote for him.

Why? Is nothing unacceptable as a means for getting a Democratic majority? Is there nowhere that you’d draw the line? If Nelson had voted in favor of throwing all Muslims in concentration camps, would that still be acceptable?

Seriously, at a certain point a sense of decency has to prevail against cynical partisanship.

Let’s see, our choices in the upcoming election are

1) Stay home on election day and get plastered.
2) Vote for the kleptocrats who used the Constitution as toilet paper and engineered this whole scam so they could say BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA! and use the issue for their “DemonRATS are PUSSIES!” ads.
3) Vote for as many Democrats as we can, so that they can control the agenda for the next two years: that way, at least this kind of crap won’t even get to to the floor much less give those 12 traitors a chance to vote for it. Then over the next primary season, we target those appeaser like Connecticut did to Joe Lieberman. And in 4 or 8 years, we take the party back.

Hm…Gary is trying to talk us out of number three–that must be the correct choice.

Jillian, sorry to be so late — I actually had some dinner with the family, go figure.

Anyway, I try to rely on a paper of record (WaPo, NYT) for such stories, but it’s hard to get past the better-not-annoy-the-emperor shit these days, so I tend to go with the following:

1. The text of the bill
2. The record of the vote
3. A good argument in favor (hard to find this time, but I’ll probably go with something from WSJ)
4. A good argument against (our dear mikey — thanks, BTW, mikey)

And re annieangel (not TO annieangel, whom I do not wish to engage again today): she can fuck right off with her “poisoning” shit. If she had read any of my previous comments, she’d know that I’m ridiculously conscientious about not dumping my beliefs or even principles on students. I give them as many relevant facts (foreign concept, I know) as I can muster, and then ask them to reach their own conclusions. Last week we read and discussed the Declaration of Independence. I trust that there’s nothing traitorous or defeatocratic about that document. Aargh.

I just ate an enormous mess of leftover Hunan Chicken and am going to take a shower and an alka-seltzer and hit the sack. Maybe I’ll wake tomorrow to find this was all a dream….

Good luck with that, Candy.

And speaking of good luck, I noticed Olbermann ended his 10-minute analysis of the Clinton-Fox interview with “Good night and good luck.” I haven’t had TV for 14 years, so only catch bits and pieces on the internets — does he borrow the Murrow thing regularly, or was this special? Anybody know?

Mikey, you’ve said what needs saying, and I thank you for that.

Gary, I hope you and annieangel marry each other and have many children. And that those children will prove to be everything you deserve.

Unlike Retardo, I’m a citizen of another country.

A nice one, too. No Sealand bullshit.

Hi Jillian.

Steve:

Yet today, it’s freely acknowledged as a black mark on our past, celebrated only by a lunatic fringe, and life goes on.

So, in other words, a comma, then?

Candy:

Didn’t Mark Twain say, “Heaven for the climate, hell for the conversation�?

Almost; “Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company.” Close enough, but I’m a bit of a Twain purist.
I’ll see you there.

Brian the Texas Transplant:

They care that you keep buying up that gas at ridiculous prices. But did everyone notice how the prices have some down all of the sudden? Nothings changed in the world….

At least some of that is pretty regularly cyclical, the flip side of the prices going up at the beginning of summer, as everyone hits the road for summer vacation, and around Labor Day, they start coming back down. How much of the drop that accounts for, though, I don’t know.

House roll call on the bill. (Richard23 pretty much covered the Senate.)

All three of my Congresspeople voted against.

Lieberman. That sancaimous bastard. I hope he goes down in november

And more on topic, I TOLD YOU SO!!!

Annie Sprinkle, I’m still trying to figure out what this means. Please clarify.

Don’t listen to digamma, Jillian! He has libertarian cooties. I mean, yuck. Sure he might have the drugs, but who’s got the abortion utensils, the redistributed income, the gaywadiness, the hippie stank, the wiccan-atheistic child sacrificing Ba’al-worship, the unbridled communism, that you need and love?

That’s right, yours truly.

So piss off, alien yuppie libertarian. Jillian needs an alien hippie socialist. Which would be me.

Why? Is nothing unacceptable as a means for getting a Democratic majority? Is there nowhere that you’d draw the line? If Nelson had voted in favor of throwing all Muslims in concentration camps, would that still be acceptable?

Considering Nelson’s competition is Katherine Harris, I’m just begging for a third option. Cause at the current moment, I almost want to write-in ‘Batman’.

Of course, electronic voting in Florida means no write-ins anymore.

Uhm, the Legislative branch giving the Executive branch Judicial powers?

ok.

Well, given that if we had a Democratic majority in the first place, we wouldn’t have these sorts of bills introduced….. then yes, I’m taking “nothing is unacceptable as long as it gets republicans out of power” for 100, Alex.

What is: a no brainer?

Hopefully, the Supremes will strike this down, ‘cos it is blatantly unconstitutional… but, I dunno… Alito… Roberts… Scalia… Thomas. Those are all pretty sure votes for this little abomination. All they need is one more… Gee, I sure hope someone retires so Shrub gets to appoint another Supreme Wanker! Won’t life be peachy *then*? Of course, while the ACLU files suit with the aim of getting this before the Supremes, how would we even know if the Administration implemented this “law” in the meantime, seeing as the “illegal combatants” have basically zero rights under it? I don’t expect that they’d start with disappearing famous persons, e.g. Michael Moore or Noam Chomsky. No, they’d start small, with regular folk like, well, us. And how would we even know if we were being picked off one by one? If I, for instance, posted no comments here for a week, would that indicate that I had been “disappeared,” or would it mean I had been sick and spent some quality time in hospital? Or that my extant medical bills had caused me to be unable to pay my cable bill, so the sweet,sweet broadband had gone away?IT IS A MYSTERY! It does unnerve one to recall that Halliburton got a contract to build some “facilities,” “camps,” if you will, to be used in case of “immigration disaster.” I’m really, really hoping those “camps” don’t have large-scale crematories. Shit.

It seems to me that once again free-thinking Americans have to depend on the Supreme Court of the United States to do something for this country, And you’ll excuse me if I point out the fact we’re still waiting on them to do the right thing after the 2000 and 2004 elections.

I figure 2008 is the last chance we have as Americans. Because I’m pretty sure it’ll be the last thing we even have that’s close to an election. After that it’s V for Vendetta time.

Hi Jill

I’d offer you a way out, sadly it wouldn’t work. Because I’m looking for a way out myself.

I live in the South, the far South. So far South that I am closer to Antartica than Europe, and the man who looks like he will be my next president, who would knowingly rape a HV positive woman, because she showed him her knees and who is incapable of managing his own finances.

It seems to me the authoritarians are so busy setting the world on fire that soon there will be no place left to run to.

This is how civilization ends, not with a bang, but a whimper.

I don’t understand the mindset among Democratic politicoes that when a thoroughly unpopular and grating President wants further dictatorial powers, you’d better not try to stop him. Sure, there’d be some nasty ads about how Democrats love gay sex with terrorists even more than they love aborting baby Jesus, but is it that hard to make an ad about Bush demanding totalitarian powers and the GOP blithely shredding the whole fabric of democracy? Cripes.

“It seems to me that once again free-thinking Americans have to depend on the Supreme Court of the United States to do something for this country, And you’ll excuse me if I point out the fact we’re still waiting on them to do the right thing after the 2000 and 2004 elections.”

Trouble is that access to the courts for a disappeared citizen are let’s say limited.

Rule of law no longer applies to all citizens equally. We now live in one of the nations that will disappear citizens. Goblessmurka!

And Jillian should count herself very lucky that she’s still single. Low income married Americans aren’t exactly comparison shopping red carpets from other First World nations these days.

Canada? Little love down here?
Australia?

New Zealand?

Fucking Iceland?

Anybody?

Have we reached the part of the program in which Mel de Mer comes to exhort us to STOP LAUGHING yet?

Arlen Specter is on record as saying “What this bill would do is take our civilization back 900 years.” Apparently that’s just fine and fucking dandy for him because Mr. Reasonable Republican voted for it.

I thought the terrarists “hate us for our freedom”? Does that mean, since we now have fewer freedoms, the terrarists hate us less? Repubs (and some Dems) are a buch of terrarist appeasers.

Vote for them anyway. They’re your only alternative to continued GOP rule. Voting for a third-party candidate is pissing your vote away – why bother?

You don’t have to like them or trust them. Use them – the same way they use you – to get what you want. There will be plenty of time to kick them to the curb once the GOP is out of power.

Yeah, I’m cynical. Most realists are.

Gary, Jose, Annie…

It’s come to my attention that you’re not cheerleading my latest actions enough…do I need to send out the black marias?

“After this is signed, similar actions won’t be illegal anymore.”

A little reminder for all of you…

Everything the Nazis did in Germany was legal, because they made it so.

Cheers!

Candy:

Being a resident of Des Moines myself, I feel your pain. Alka Seltzer will not help.

I was busy writing a furious letter to my senator (Johnson D South Dakota, perhaps you’ve seen his name recently?) when I paused to double-check the spelling of Auto-da-Fe…and I remembered something. Although he’s not up for re-election this year; he is sending out recorded messages encouraging voters to overturn SD’s heinous anti-abortion law. I’ve dealt with ambivalence before; but good grief!

Oh, he’ll still get the angry letter. It’s just that right now I have a headache that’s making my nose bleed.

Read his press release concerning the torture bill. Shorter Johnson: “I voted for this bill because I was afraid of looking soft on national security; but I’m really counting on the SCOTUS to overturn it.” Coward! Weasel! Quisling!

Arm yourselves.

Way ahead of ya.

Goatboy

M-1A NM with a good scope 🙂

And always remember: if they don’t know you’ve got it, they can’t come and take it away from you.

kac90b:

Maybe we should head down to 4th and Drink Liberally. I’m thinking it might be more helpful than Alka-Seltzer. Hey, maybe if I poured some gin in the Alka-Seltzer…

Okay, here’s what I’m struggling to understand right now…

Democratic senators who voted for this abomination obviously did so to maintain power – to appease the parts of their constiuency who are not part of their base.

Everybody here seems to think that’s wrong.

If it was wrong for them to vote for this in order to hold onto power – why is it right for you to vote for them so that they can hold onto power? If it is okay for you to politically triangulate when you vote, why isn’t it okay for them?

I’m not necessarily arguing for a pure naive realism in voting so much as I am wondering where you draw the line. If not at torture and the death of habeas corpus, then where? At “H.R. Anti-Terror Ass Rape Minor Children of 2007”? What exactly do these folks have to endorse to lose your vote?

Most of us are registered (D).

How responsive would our (R) representatives be to our calls and letters?

Nuff said.

Democratic senators who voted for this abomination obviously did so to maintain power

Well, I’m assuming that’s the case, but I’m not sure it’s obvious. I worry about whether any of those Dem votes actually represented principle — wrong and scary and twisted, but principle?

In either case, you’re right, Jillian: why cast your vote for someone who cast such a horrible vote against basic human rights and in favor of absolute tyranny? And my only answer is that GoatBoy is also right: we have absolutely no influence over Republicans — they are dismissive and contemptuous of our point of view (at best). Candidates preferable to the Democrats (Greens, for example) have little to no hope of winning elections in the foreseeable future, so although we could influence them, they can’t influence policy. That leaves us with the Dems, who may or may not really listen to us — but they have the advantage of being A) electable and B) conceivably open to their constituents’ pleas.

*sigh* I remember that it wasn’t so many years ago I was optimistic and idealistic.

Jillian: Guess how Bill Nelson voted on the Secure Fence Act.

Jillian,

You’ve raised some interesting questions. First, I want to echo Goatboy & SM. If we don’t have representatives who will listen to our concerns, and share most, if not all, of them; won’t we be reduced to torches, pitchforks, and rioting in the street?

Second, I could bore you with a lengthy defense of my Senator and a detailed explanation of why he’ll probably be getting my vote in ’08. That was the first draft of this comment. I’ll post it too; if you show me the slightest bit of encouragement

Minor point, I’m no longer so sure that holding onto power was Johnson’s motivation. That would mean that he believed he was representing a constituency of monsters. He isn’t; and I’m sure he knows that.

I’m really not trying to tell anybody how to vote or not vote…..it can be tough to tell what a person’s intent is sometimes on the internet, where we lack tone of voice and facial expressions from which to derive nonverbal clues. The questions I asked above weren’t rhetorical; they were sincere. I don’t know how to answer them myself.

It’s less of a struggle for me, obviously, than some. I’m not a Democrat and never claimed to be. I am pretty far to the left of even what the party represented at its leftist heyday. When I don’t vote for torture-supporting pigfuckers, I don’t have to deal with any sort of conflicted conscience for not supporting “my party” or whatever.

I hear the points about how we have no influence over Republicans – I really do. I just don’t feel like we have any influence over Democrats, either. Even for those of you who are that blend of mild social leftism and economic liberalism that seems to be unique to America don’t seem to have a lot of influence over the Democratic party, which is more and more a party of neoliberalism. (Just to clear up any possible lingering terminology confusion, “neoliberailsm” is probably what most people think of as conservatism – think Ronald Reagan and Maggie Thatcher. Our current “conservatives”, as should be painfully clear at this point, are better described as cryptofascists).

Do you really think your Democratic representatives listen to you, or are you maybe just scared to think that it’s possible that they don’t?

I don’t get any sense at all from Dems that they listen to folks like us. I’m wondering where y’all get it from. Once again, serious question, not sarcastic.

“Do you really think your Democratic representatives listen to you, or are you maybe just scared to think that it’s possible that they don’t?”

Not scared. And they mostly don’t. But I’ll take indefinite small odds vs. certain no odds because it’s the only game in town.

Maybe I’m fortunate in that my rep and my senators do tend to listen, and I’m rarely ashamed of their votes on the issues. The problem, really, is that they listen to all of their constituents, not just to me. I’m with you, Jillian — significantly further to the left than any member of congress I can think of. But even though I live in a reliably blue district with red splotches here and there, I’m also further to the left than probably 95% of the people in my district. In a representative democracy (that’s the theory, anyway) a conscientious rep needs to A) vote her conscience [both my senators are women, my rep is a man, I go with the odds] and B) respect the aggregate will of the people she represents to the best of her ability.

Or to put it another way: I ordered a shot of Laphroaig. My reps fielded my order with everyone else’s and by consensus I got a beer. But if my reps were GOP, I fear I would have gotten a glass of warm piss. Broken over my head. For which I would then be arrested. And held without charge. Etc.

Let’s try it this way. This is a fascinating discussion of political theory at the retail level, important and interesting. There is, however, one thing it is not. And that is pragmatic. I can’t think of a time when this “American Experiment” has been under attack at this level, maybe since the civil war? Now we can agree that, D or R, we don’t like most of these cats. But I’m sorry, we no longer have the luxury of debating fine points of political theory. Ask yourself: Can what I think of when I think of America survive six or even eight more years of these criminals and thugs? Whatever the Dems are, whatever they have done that we hate, if we do not vote this executive and their congressional enablers out, then I can’t imagine what our nation and the world will look like. But think “third world economy” and “perpetual war” for starters. Now I’m old, in shitty health, with pretty good combat skills, so theres a part of me that says “American stupid” do your worst”. Who cares? But if you have children, or plan on living a long and prosperous life, you will realize that these questions are best left for another time. Hold your nose and vote a straight Dem ticket, next month and in ’08. When the crisis is past, we can go back to theory. Gotta survive first…

mikey

I agree with you about the “gotta survive first” part.

It’s why I’m planning on leaving.

I have serious doubts as to whether the mess this country is in is fixable.

That’s almost like some speculating I’ve done regarding ecological concerns. The planet changes slowly, on a geological time scale. There are occasional bursts of rapid change, but for the most part, changes are difficult to perceive. So, I’m thinking… what if the entire planet died? As in, “ceased to be able to sustain life in any meaningful quantity. Would we realize what had just happened? Or, would a number of years go by, seemingly nearly normal. How far would we have to be past the point of no return before we had any inkling of what was going on?