In my life, liberals have been kept under
control by what Dave Emory once called the three B's: bribes, bedrooms
and bullets. If you can't bribe 'em, you blackmail 'em. If that doesn't
work, you shoot 'em.
The cowardice of the Dems on such an obvious thing suggests numbers
one or two.
If someone sends out another mailing of anthrax to the
Senate building maybe we're back to the third option.
Update:The censure resolution is now headed for the Judiciary Committee and Sen. Harkin has become a co-sponser. Sen. Boxer and Menendez say they support the censure. Only 3 senators say they won't support censure, Sen. Dodd, Dayton and Holy Joe.
While mainstream media outlets have pounced on the fact that
Democrats blocked an effort by one of their own to censure President
Bush over his warrantless wiretapping program, RAW STORY
has found that Senate Democratic offices are fuming. The proposal to
censure the President was introduced on a Sunday talk show by Sen. Russ
Feingold (D-WI).
Though all say they believe the program warrants "more
investigation," several Senate aides rebuked Feingold for proposing
censure. They say that his move had the potential to derail Democratic
efforts to strengthen the party's image on homeland security issues,
noting that a large part of the country believes the eavesdropping
program should continue. Bush has defended the program, calling it a
"terrorist surveillance" program, and has used aides to defend its
legality.
Strikingly, some of the criticism came from liberal Senate offices.
One longtime Senate aide was particularly scathing.
"Feingold's grandstanding screwed the pooch and played into Bill
Frist's hands," the aide said. "Thank God Dems punted this down the
field. Frist was going to force Democrats to vote on a resolution
Feingold had kept a big secret and he would've split the caucus on an
issue that needed time to get the whole caucus to support. Russ
Feingold had only one persons' interests in mind with his Sunday
bombshell, and those were his own. He practically handed a victory to a
Bush White House that desperately needs a win."
Feingold, defending his censure plan today on Fox News, said:
"I'm amazed at Democrats, cowering with this president's numbers so
low. The administration just has to raise the specter of the war and
the Democrats run and hide…too many Democrats are going to do the same
thing they did in 2000 and 2004. In the face of this, they'll say we’d
better just focus on domestic issues…[Democrats shouldn't] cower to the
argument, that whatever you do, if you question administration, you're
helping the terrorists."
There are several points that make censure, better yet, impeachment, an imperative. 1. Bush spied on innocent Americans without a warrant. 2. He admitted it. 3.
He had an easy legal mechanism to do what he wanted to do, ignored it
openly, claiming absolute executive power during this manufactured war,
destroying our constitutional checks and balances. 4. He (by means
of the NSA) has passed information to the FBI to spy on citizen
organizations that oppose him, but otherwise are completely peaceful
and legitimate - i.e he has used his power towards partisan ends.
So
many people are saying that the American people agree with what he is
doing, but they just believe that he should be able to spy on al-Qaida.
It is another failure of Democratic leadership that they have allowed
this spin to survive. It would be very easy to destroy it with a few
more people just repeating what Feingold said on TV yesterday. The
Democratic leadership are trying to force us into a new party. The
scoundrels.
Who are these pansy-ass little staffers and why are they spouting shit like: "The majority of the American people agree with what the president’s
doing. A lot of people outside the beltway see this as a tool that’s
keeping Americans safe." WTF! I thought only around 35% approved
of his bullshit. And since when are the publics' approval or
disapproval ratings the basis of action for protecting the people from
politicians violating the laws they swore to uphold? Any idiot that
believes wiretapping will keep us all safe deserves no liberty
whatsoever and should have his/her citizenship stripped immediately.
Feingold
seems to be the ONLY person in the senate or the house that is not
BOUGHT. Think of the double-think bullshit in the story: "Feingold's
only in it for himself", but "what a stupid move by the Dems"! If it
was such a stupid move for "the dems", why would it be such a great
grand-standing move for Feingold?
The point is not whether Finegold is a team player — it’s whether the Democratic team is willing to play.
I'm with Digby on this one, and the motion only drives home the point:
It is past time for elected Democrats to begin laying out the case
that the leader of the Republican party, the man to whom the congress
has blindly followed at every turn for the past five years, is
dishonorable. They must begin to create a low hum that reverberates
throughout the body politic that says "the Republican party is
unethical, untrustworthy, inept and dishonorable." Make people hear it
in their heads before they go to sleep each night.
Russ Feingold has just taken the first step to doing this. His
censure motion will not pass, of course. But he's started the hum. The
press is listening. They are shocked, it can't be, how can he say that?
But Feingold is saying outloud, for the whole nation to hear, that the
president defied the law and broke his oath to defend the constition.
As the magnificent helmeted Cokie Roberts once said, "it doesn't
matter if it's true or not, it's out there." In this case, it's true.
And now it's out there.
Finegold's motion
is "out there" because Bush and the Repubs are so bloodied by now.
It's a measure of how far and fast Bush has fallen that Repubs are
forced to burn prime time capital fending off such an otherwise
quixotic attack.
In Connecticut, rape counseling activists say a recent study concludes
that about 20% of state hospitals routinely refuse to offer emergency
contraceptives to rape victims who are determined to be ovulating at
the time they're attacked. A proposed bill would require them to do so.
This fight isn't exclusively being drawn along party lines.
U.S.
Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, who often takes a conservative line on social
issues, is facing a liberal Democratic primary challenge from wealthy
Greenwich businessman Ned Lamont. But that hasn't stopped Lieberman
from supporting the approach of the Catholic hospitals when it comes to
contraceptives for rape victims.
Lieberman said he believes
hospitals that refuse to give contraceptives to rape victims for
"principled reasons" shouldn't be forced to do so. "In Connecticut, it
shouldn't take more than a short ride to get to another hospital," he
said.
If Catholics want rape victims to be forced to carry the fetuses of their attackers that's great, let them move to South Dakota.
It is outrageous and yet quite predictable that Lieberman once again
provides "bi-partisan" cover to this especially ugly brand of religious
extremist bullshit. His cloture vote put Alito on the Supreme Court and
paved the way for what is happening today in South Dakota, Mississippi
and Missouri. That he continues to be considered a "friend of choice"
by both NARAL and Planned Parenthood is an absolutely contempt worthy.
They should both be denouncing him loud and long and calling bullshit
on his claim to be "pro-choice" rather than rubber stamping his
nonsense.
But Sen. Joe Lieberman, D- Conn., voiced some misgivings and hinted that he’d vote no on the Feingold resolution.
“Frankly
I’d prefer to spend our time on figuring out ways to bring this very
important program of surveillance of potential terrorists here in the
United States under the law…. I disagree with the Bush administration’s
legal judgment on this one…. But this is a critically important program
to the prevention of terrorist acts here in the United States.”
I have two words for the people of Connecticut: Ned Lamont.
Crooks & Liars has a great clip up of Ken Mehlman saying just how much he loves Holy Joe.
Personally I think they’re made for each other. Nobody tell Hannity.
While mainstream media outlets have pounced on the fact that
