Apparently Ben Nelson wants to join Bart Stupak and make sure there are acrimonious debates about cultural issues in a bill designed to improve health care:
Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) will attempt to strengthen language in the healthcare reform bill prohibiting federal funding of abortion, he said.
Nelson, a key swing vote on the overall bill and an opponent of abortion rights, specifically said he would base his amendment on language authored by Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) that passed in the House’s healthcare bill — and ignited a firestorm among Democrats and supporters of abortion rights that quickly spread to the Senate debate.
Nelson said he and other senators, “perhaps” including Democrats, plan to introduce an amendment “something like Stupak” on the Senate floor. The prospects of such an amendment passing, however, are slim. Republican abortion-rights opponents include Nelson’s home-state colleague, Sen. Mike Johanns, have conceded they cannot muster the 60 votes they would need to attach the Stupak language to the Senate bill.
They know they don’t have the votes, so in other words, they are doing it just to stir shit up.
Can anyone point me in one legislative direction in which Ben Nelson leans to the left? He must have a redeeming quality here or there. What is it?
And can anyone explain why they don’t just tell these four “moderates” to go pound salt and just go through reconciliation? At some point, will these guys ever be such grandstanding nuisances that the rest of the Senate will say to hell with them? For chrissakes, why does everything have to be catered to the whim of wannabe wingnuts from Nebraska, North Dakota, and Arkansas? What do they account for- one percent of the nation’s population. Did any of those states go for Obama?
Emma
Can anyone point me in one legislative direction in which Ben Nelson leans to the left? He must have a redeeming quality here or there. What is it?
Beats hell out of me. The man is a troglodyte (with apologies to all troglodytes everywhere who behave much better)
cleek
the 60 vote requirement means every Senator is eligible for a free rim-job, whenever he/she demands.
Ugh
Serious question – do female members of the military get taxpayer funded abortions?
The Grand Panjandrum
Evidently he’s quite the practical joker.
Kryptik
Shit like this could be solved with one simple thing:
Strike the ridiculously stupid ‘gentleman’s agreement’ that says you can simply declare a filibuster without actually having to do the real thing, and if cloture can’t be invoked, that’s it.
Actually forcing people to actually have to fucking filibuster would make people a LOT less wary of actually standing up like that.
Carol
And why does any of this stuff need to be in the bill anway?
Its as if they’ve decided that this is their only chance to extract a pound of flesh from more moderate and liberal Democrats. And BTW, I’ve never believed that law enforcing personal morality did anything more than enrich the mob and make liars about of millions.
But it’s as if they feel as if it is their last chance on these issues-and perhaps they are right. Folks are, for the most part, making their peace with abortion being part of the landscape. And it’s clear that there will practically be no new generation to finance or participate in the culture With no new recruits, there comes a desperate drive to enshrine social conservatism into law before the generation who wants dies off.
Alex S.
Well, Ben Nelson voted for the stimulus and for Sotomayor. No, he doesn’t lean to the left anywhere, but he is, after all, from Nebraska, and fairly centrist. This amendment doesn’t have a chance. If necessary, the women from Maine will kill it. So it is just posture and I haven’t heard him making threats like “Kill my amendment and I’ll kill the bill”. It will give him the space to vote for cloture but against the bill – which is all that is necessary.
Comrade Dread
It’s probably best, John, if you see Senators and Congressmen as attention whores or hyperactive five year olds trying to get their parent’s attention.
They’ll do anything and everything to call attention to themselves and get invited to the very serious Sunday morning talk shows like Lieberman.
Just ignore the tantrums and eventually they’ll tire out and vote for HRC and the Reid compromise on abortion.
srv
You keep acting like we live in a democracy or something.
The Grand Panjandrum
OT: But, hey, if you’re outrage meter isn’t cranked up to 11 yet, how about this:
.
That is it for me today. I’ve had it. I’m gonna go fire up my new (to me) ES 335 and play some good ol’ country blues. Fuck all this shit.
Just Some Fuckhead
Perhaps there will be an eventual conservative Supreme Court majority striking down a landmark healthcare reform bill because it unnecessarily impinges on the constitutional right to an abortion in the first trimester..
tripletee
Nebraska CD-2 went for Obama (Nebraska splits its electoral votes based on congressional district).
That being said, in a center-right country like America, it’s imperative to pay proper deference to the very reasonable concerns of principled centrists like Senator Ben Nelson. To do otherwise is to allow the very soul of our democracy to be held hostage by radical far-left extremists.
It is completely unconscionable to suggest, as some have, that Senator Nelson is a frog-faced helmet-haired opportunistic fuckstain who sucks so much insurance company cock that he has tiny Blue Cross/Blue Shield and Aetna logos permanently imprinted on the back of his throat.
In a similar vein, suggesting that Nelson would have a 5-pack-a-day habit if smoking insurance industry pole was addictive? Also beyond the pale.
Just Some Fuckhead
Ben Nelson is in the Church Lady wing of the Democratic party.
thomas
@tripletee:
FTW
Sentient Puddle
Setting aside my feelings on Nelson (short: he’s about as good as we’ll ever get out of Nebraska), I can say why we might want to avoid reconciliation: anything passed that way has to have a sunset provision that prevents reform from lasting more than ten years. Unless you feel confident that the Democrats could muster 60 votes before 2020 to make it permanent, reconciliation isn’t exactly the ideal way to enact reform.
Still may the best in a set of flawed options, but it ain’t a magic bullet.
gex
@Ugh: If you’ve read much of anything about what it is like for women in the military, I’m going to have to say, yes, I bet they do.
Face
We aint getting meaningful healthcare. We just aint. You heard it here first.
Ugh
teh google says:
Members of the military and their families. Since 1978, Congress has barred abortion coverage for U.S. military personnel, their spouses and dependents. Starting in 1997, Congress has also barred abortions in military hospitals overseas even if they are paid for with private funds, with an exception for rape, incest or life endangerment.
Napoleon
Ben Nelson’s redeeming quality is that with his face he can scare the proverbial buzzard of a shit wagon.
That is it.
As much as this stuff makes my blood boil I will go absolutely ballistic if Feinstein/Bayh and crew use the nuclear option and block an increase in the countries debt limit in order to get that commission which will gut Social Security. It will be an absolute stab in the back of the entire working and middle class by the Democratic Party. It would be one giant middle finger to the American people.
Ugh
My comment got moderated, but teh google says no funding for abortion for US military personnel or their families.
Kennedy
Because Reid is a giant fucking pussy, that’s why. Using reconciliation would be too logical.
Zuzu's Petals
@Ugh:
Evidently not.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Ugh:
Only when the life of the mother is in jeopardy or due to rape or incest. In 1988 a ban was instituted by the Department of Defense. Clinton overturned this by decree in 1993. In 1995, Congress codified the ban into law.
Napoleon
@Sentient Puddle:
Personally I am confident they could but it assumes something which is unrealistic, at least today, which is leadership in the Democratic Party that is ruthless, willing to crack whips and destroy the careers of Democratic legislators if necessary. Once it passes all the leadership needs to do is tell everyone in the caucus that on a yearly basis they plan to bring it up for a roll call vote to make it permanent and if anyone votes against it it will create a record for a primary opponent to run an ad like “Senator Nelson voted six times to take your health care away from you”.
Mako
Hey, i got another question, how come the US has such shitty public transportation? Sure subways wont work in Nebraska, but has anyone tried to use the LA subway?
hey look at that, an edit function…
tamied
@Napoleon: I for one am not giving a dime to the DNC until they get their shit together and those Blue Dogs in line. I’ll give money to individuals who are doing what they should be doing.
zzyzx
The more I read about reconciliation, the less I think it could ever work. It could still require 60 votes to get something passed depending on how the parliamentarian ruled and we’d be back on square 1, but this time with a sunset clause.
Violet
How are all you people getting the edit function? I’m on Vista/Firefox and I don’t have it. I saw somewhere that someone running Vista/Firefox did have it. Am I being punished?
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
Read the top view paragraphs of this GOS story for the complications from reconciliation.
The thing is, the Senates rules are designed to work with a group of people that act somewhat grown up: The majority party recognizing that it shouldn’t go off and do everything without consulting the other party, and the minority party realizing that the majority party gets to decide what gets passed. The Republicans ignored the first rule during the time they were the majority party, and are ignoring the second rule now. The problem is that the Senate requires these rules to be followed to even change the rules to deal with those that ignore them.
ruemara
He must have a redeeming quality here or there. What is it? If he stands next to a plant, his CO2 feeds it. That seems to be his 1 redeeming value. Otherwise, he’s a total, worthless, putz. Or gormless hack, if you will.
freelancer
@tripletee:
As a constituent of his from the 2nd Congressional District , I have to say, this. He voted with Bush’s rubber stamp congress on damned near everything, and he’s done jack to keep the D next to his name.
Napoleon
@tamied:
Absolutely agree. The next time I get a DNC fundraising letter I intend to send it back to them and tell them that.
On a related note Ben Nelson says just finance the war by selling bonds like in WWII (apparently the moron doesn’t realize that is what is happening when he votes for more funding without raising taxes)
http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2009/12/01/2139468.aspx
GReynoldsCT00
@Violet:
I’m on XP/Firefox and I haven’t had it for a while. I know John is working on it.
ruemara
@Mako:
We became a car culture because what’s good for Ford is good for America. In essence, we lost our minds in the ’40s.
Scott de B.
Well, I voted for Nelson when he was governor of Nebraska. He’s not a wingnut. Most Great Plains voters (north of Kansas, anyways) are not wingnuts. He’s a relatively old-fashioned conservative Democrat. Nebraska Republicans are a bit more to the right, although they also diverge from the Republican party line at times (see Chuck Hagel).
I’m not sure what the alternative to Nelson is. There hasn’t been a more liberal Democratic Senator from Nebraska in my lifetime, perhaps ever. Nelson didn’t even win a majority of the vote in either of his Senatorial campaigns, so it’s not like he can afford to lose a lot of conservative voters either.
The reason not to go through reconciliation, however, is that anything passed via reconciliation has to expire a maximum of six(?) years from passage. So if we went that route, health care reform goes poof in a few years. That’s why the Bush tax cuts expire — they were passed via reconciliation. You don’t think Bush would have wanted to make them permanent if he could?
licensed to kill time
@Violet: I’m on XP/ Firefox 3.5.5 and just got it back a couple days ago. Seems to be a random variable and not related to if you’ve been naughty or nice ;-)
The Other Steve
Welcome to the Democratic Party, John.
Fwiffo
The reason reconciliation is a problem is because it requires that the bill be structured in a particular way. You know the sunset dates on the Bush tax cuts? They’re not there because Republicans just love temporary tax cuts. They’re in there because they were needed to cram the thing through the reconciliation process. So a public option or some such might well pass through reconciliation, but it would expire after a few years.
Edit: what Scott de B. said
Comrade Scrutinizer
@Napoleon:
__
In other words, Democratic Party leaders which work exactly the same way that Republican Party leaders work, insisting on total conformity to the Party line. Thanks, but no.
brent
And can anyone explain why they don’t just tell these four “moderates” to go pound salt and just go through reconciliation?
There are a lot of problems with reconciliation and I don’t have the energy at the moment to go through the list of issues but suffice to say, for the moment, that Senators distrust reconciliation for dealing with legislation this complex because the relatively arcane rules make it difficult to know what you would really end up with as a final bill.
Strike the ridiculously stupid ‘gentleman’s agreement’ that says you can simply declare a filibuster without actually having to do the real thing, and if cloture can’t be invoked, that’s it.
The “gentleman’s agreement” is actually because the logistics of the kind of “real” filibuster you are advocating is actually much harder on the majority than it is on the minority. It takes one person to filibuster, but it takes 51 to form a quorum to vote when that filibuster is ended. That doesn’t work in our favor.
I am actually of the opinion that we would be better off over all if we
just did away with the filibuster altogether. We would definitely have to put up with some extra shitty legislation when the Repubs are in power but they wouldn’t be able to change the constitution and a long list of progressive agenda items on education, labor, marriage equality etc, would be a done deal by now.
Sentient Puddle
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): That article also touches on another complication with reconciliation: the culling of provisions. The parliamentarian gets to decide what portions of the bill pass reconciliation muster, and this inevitably means that whatever bill submitted will look quite a bit different (likely in unexpected ways) after going through the grind.
Also of note, the current parliamentarian is someone appointed during the process of the Bush tax cuts who is in his position solely because he would rule favorably on key portions of that bill.
Silver Owl
What Stupak and Nelson do is make the democratic party look at repulsive to women as the republicans are. Which may very well be their objective. Insecure lazy old white men staying in power by oppressive means right up until they kick the bucket.
I’ve already told the DNC that they can take their contribution request and shove it and to just go ask Stupak to come up the money they want.
latts
@Kryptik:
Apparently filibustering’s harder on those who oppose it than it is on the side filibustering– IIRC, only one loudmouth with a lot of stamina need be present, but they can call at any time for some sort of head count that requires all (or nearly all) of the non-filibustering majority to be on hand. While I have no problem saying that Democrats should be willing to camp out in the chamber and beat the GOP to a pulp, keeping Byrd in residence would be problematic.
It’s just another procedural clusterfuck from our least-democratic– and not particularly deliberative– legislative corpse.
asiangrrlMN
I got edit on Google Chrome. I will keep saying that. It’s not perfect, but I like it.
This whole thing is too much for me. I think I am with The Grand Panjandrum. Politics suck.
Mako
@ruemara:
Urine is a good source of plant fertilizer. So he’s got that going for him too.
drag0n
This bill is getting shittier and shittier. The Dems have created such a crap bill that they won’t even be able to get political traction by blaming the repubs for killing it – that is quite a feat.
tamied
@asiangrrlMN: I agree. We need a critter story!
Fwiffo
Apparently LGF has gone the full Cole. John, maybe you can get together and form a support group.
freelancer
@drag0n:
Cue the lee greenwood.
Mako
@Silver Owl:
…lazy old white men…
Hey no need to get personal. Maybe if more of you broads would run for office…
Lev
Going through reconciliation would mean starting all over again on healthcare in both chambers. You can’t just decide to do reconciliation–you have to start the process at the beginning. It would mean healthcare lasts through summer, which means nothing else gets done this Congress. And it only applies to things directly related to revenue, which means that stuff like preexisting condition bans would still need to break a filibuster. And after pissing off the conservadems so that they vow to filibuster the filibusterable parts, what can you do?
I totally understand this sentiment. They probably should have done it from the start, though the five-year sunset for reconciliation period makes that an obvious (and IMO, not so good) tradeoff.
asiangrrlMN
@Fwiffo: Not quite. He doesn’t say he’s embracing lattes and patchouli oil just yet, just that he’s disgusted with the GOP.
@tamied: Yes! Animals make everything better.
Mako, I would run if I thought I had a chance in hell of getting elected. Which I don’t.
Zifnab
@Silver Owl:
Seriously, I’ll happily vote for any female politicos of my ideological stripe. It’s not like Stupak and Nelson are walking into office with the support of minorities and young people either. They’re old establishment types that just get wedged into office by their mega-churches and industry buddies and never ever lose an election again.
Ironic, how when it comes to sucking industry cock or backing up into Jesus’s loving embrace, no one does it better than an old white dude.
PeakVT
Nelson’s Progressive Punch score. It’s basically what you would expect: he’s a lousy Democrat but he’s still better than every Republican. The gap between him and Snowe is pretty significant.
tripletee
@Scott de B.:
Bob Kerrey says “WTF?”
Napoleon
@Comrade Scrutinizer:
There is no reason why the party should not enforce discipline on party members on major parts of the party platform, otherwise there is simply no reason to even have a party. Major health care reform has been a party plank since the FDR/HST period.
Do I want lock step conformity on everything? No. Do I want the party to stand for certain things and exact a cost for those who get themselves elected using the parties brand, then turn around and piss on it? Yes, just like I hope McDonald’s yanks a franchisees franchise if I get served a McShit sandwich at one of their restaurants.
If the party has a majority to pass healthcare any Dem who kneecaps it should be politically destroyed by the party. If they have a problem with that they can begin to call themselves a Republican and see how that works.
PeakVT
Might as well go all-in.
Elie
The DNC and any progressive organization is only as good as the support beneath…
It takes a lot of work to build strong organizations committed to actually making change work. I do a lot of local work up here in State of WA and its really hard. The old timers (anyone allready running things before you get there) are pretty entrenched and it takes a lot of shove to get new things tried. Even the candidates are careful about forcing changes that aren’t pushed by many others..
We have a lot of work to do on the left in this country. We have to get into meat and potatoes progressivism down where the people live. Help get good food back into school lunches, helping seniors negotiate the health care system and many many activities to assure clean water and air that people can actually see the results of our efforts. We have to teach people to stand up for themselves at work and in every facet of their daily lives. We don’t do that.
Too often we like to bang the table with our shoes and demand demand demand that this or that person or leader do this and that for us while we do little or nothing for others ourselves. But we don’t bring them (our leaders) much backing beyond threats. So we “stay home” (that’ll show ’em) and unelect someone who could help us to bring in who? Not very smart.
How many here have worked on something locally that would help your fellow community members? Beyond doorbelling or sending contributions to a candidate, or banging out some letters, how many have worked on progressive iniatives to do anything concrete. How many have taught a person how to advocate for themselves?
This is not a judgment. I havent done as much as I can either. But this is where it starts.
The right wing tribalists count on emotions of fear and territoriality to lock in their followers. Their interests also tend to have money. We represent different values that need the power of the masses to get into place.. we have to always be building our base to match the power of money put out by the opposition. Ben Nelson is a direct outcome of the reality of too little progressivism to push him or bring along a strong challenger from the left. We cede the right the grassroots by omission and yet expect that magically when push comes to shove later, our leaders will do as we demand for no reason beyond “because we say so”.
We are lazy. But we will soon all be in deep political hurt if we dont figure out how to get of our duffs and start building. Times like these can be perfect for organizing awareness of class issues and the rights of the worker. Its a place to start after a lot of lost time. Go look in the mirror. Our new leaders might be you…
Alex
Ben Nelson’s redeeming quality is that he doesn’t typically take shots at Democratic leadership. He doesn’t always agree, but he doesn’t take the Lieberman tactic of taking a shot whenever he has a chance. Here’s his interview on Colbert – he has plenty of opportunities but doesn’t bite.
Rick Taylor
Via Atrios, I just saw Ben Nelson’s proposal to finance the war through selling bonds. How could a congressman be so stupid?
Mako
@asiangrrlMN:
Interesting. The “delete” function does not seem to be working. I typed that, posted it and then tried to delete it as, “being stupid”. It still shows as “under moderation” to me.
FWP
AngusTheGodOfMeat
Look, the truth is that a benevolent king is the best form of government.
But we are stuck with this republic thing that creates one sticky mess after another.
Fuckin Founders. Fuck.
Mako
Oh nevermind, whoever is in control let it thru. This blog is, of course, run by womyn-hating trolls.
Scott de B.
Bob Kerrey more liberal than Nelson? I thought Kerrey was persona non grata with the progressive wing of the party (mind you, I loved him).
Shawn in ShowMe
I think it’s more than just laziness, Elie, it’s alienation. I feel more of a sense of community on the message boards than where I live. In a lot of places, the communities that linked one family to another no longer exist.
The spontaneous pushback against election fraud in Iran could never have happened here. Yes, Twitter helped but the core demonstrators on the street already had pre-existing relationships. If the sense of community in neighborhoods could be restored in the U.S., it would be a lot easier to organize.
Shawn in ShowMe
@Scot de B.M
Kerrey supported single payer healthcare, abortion rights and voted against DOMA and welfare reform. Nelson makes Kerrey look like Paul Wellstone.
arguingwithsignposts
Totally OT, but an earlier article on the LGF breakup with the right contains this gem:
emphasis added.
I guess Spencer’s never heard of the C-Street crew or the Family.
Mako
@Shawn in ShowMe:
If the sense of community in neighborhoods could be restored in the U.S
So go meet your neighbor. A good time is when he is partying late at night and you are trying to sleep. What I do is just walk in, grab whatever beer is in the fridge, slap in a Mountain cd, crank it full volume and flop down near the cutest chick in the room and start chatting her up.
tripletee
@Scott de B.:
He certainly has some conservative tendencies (see: Iraq War) but as a senator he was reliably pro-choice and voted against DOMA, welfare reform and the flag-burning amendment. He looks like Bernie Sanders compared to Nelson.
EDIT: Shawn beat me to it.
Elie
Shawn in ShowMe
I agree — folks are alienated. Some of that is how we live — all spread out. Both people in a household work — and usually long hours. Dinner times with family are rarer than ever.
But how much of that is insurmountable? Yeah, more effort might be necessary. Maybe the hunger for community drives some of those who get into the Christian thing — . Couldnt we get community clubs going (they used to have what they called “settlement houses” in the old time cities in the 50’s and 60’s). We could give kids a place to go after school, be a place for neighborhood meetings and with the right leadership, help folks get what they need. (I’m just musing really, but we did have this at one point). The Black Panthers certainly forayed into this.. You can see how the Christian right have used it to their advantage politically dealing with soup kitchens through after work and child care programs – all with a Christian bent.
I dunno. It could be done but agree, might be some real effort.
We have a little group dealing with salmon restoration. Not a big thing. Gather together to do different activities around the salmon effort. Kids who want extra credit for school projects and folks who just want to do a good thing. I hit up these same people to join other progressive activities such as fund raisers for candidates and to get them to attend county council meetings to testify for clean water and open space issues. It doesnt work perfectly, and I am not full time invested in it, but it helps some and we have helped get some local protection through the council for protecting the Bay and the hoped for salmon supporting creek.
I think you start small and build on it and link to other things. Also bread and circuses. We do fun things, march in parades and the like… not every one participates for every thing, but most keep up some kind of affiliation if I dont pester them too much…
DanF
Ultimately this is a failure of leadership. Senators like Nelson, Bayh, etc. should be told to stfu lest the lose committee seats. Let them vote as they want to, but they must vote for cloture and they must not weaken signature Democratic legislation. Yeah – the egos in the Senate are gargantuan – but arm twisting can still be accomplished. Unfortunately, after letting Lieberman keep his chair any threat by Reid has zero credibility.
MattR
@arguingwithsignposts: That is a perfectly timed comment since I was about to mention that Ben Nelson is a member of the Family who used to live in the C Street house.
PaulW
I have said it before.
I will say it again.
We need a viable third party of competent, reliable people who when elected won’t shove their heads up their own asses, who will stop listening to the focking talking heads on the media channels, and actually get things done.
The Democrats are too disorganized. They make cat herding look like two-legged hopscotch.
The Republicans are organized around the banner of BATSHIT CRAZY.
We need a good third party. We need that Reform Party back up and running, just not this time obsessed with NAFTA and not this time being led by a jackass like Pat Buchanan (who I think really drove that party into the ground in 2000 to do the GOP a huge favor).
Problem is, we need like $300 million of seed money to get something up and running.
Anybody got a sugar daddy with deep pockets? Anybody?
Roger Moore
@Mako:
Yes, I have. The LA Metro is reasonably useful if your start and destination happen to be close to the colored lines and you don’t have to make more than one or two transfers. Otherwise, you need either a car or a lot of time. We’re working on improving the system- and actually making it into a system rather than a bunch of separate lines- and have actually approved a tax increase to pay for it. That said, the MTA board is heavily biased in favor of the area south of the Hollywood Hills and from Downtown west, so most of the proposals ignore about 2/3 of LA county.
Elie
DanF
I don’t disagree with you in terms of wringing Nelson and Bayh’s arms. Of course if you use that and it doesnt work, you just piss them off and make them more of an enemy.
Too late for this now, but a group of 25-30 personal constituents showing up in their office with a sober message might go as far. Especially if they came with a pledge to fund opposition should they not “hear” what is being asked – to quit the bull on HCR.
These guys and gals are pretty cunning by the time they get to the Senate. Most of the time, what has worked is to get local interests to assert their power…they can pooh pooh it, but only gingerly. Otherwise, bringing everyone from Reid to Obama won’t do much. They have no real power over them — not like their folks at home.
Montysano (All Hail Marx & Lennon)
@The Grand Panjandrum:
Ahh…. An ES-335. That’s one of a list of fine guitars that I had back in the day, all of which I sold for reasons that now seem mind-numbingly stupid….. like rent, or car repairs, or braincell bending.
Montysano (All Hail Marx & Lennon)
@The Grand Panjandrum:
I know that Jesus said “Suffer the little children to come unto me” but I guess I’d forgotten the part about “and don’t forget your Green Cards”.
Elie
PaulW
A third party in the US is a disaster. It barely works in Parliamentary systems leading to rule by minority factions with weird agendas such as we see in Israel. They capture enough votes to prevent the largest most non crazy majority from ever getting critical mass and skew the direction of policy into bizarroland to satisfy their constituency…
Naw…I think thats a bad idea. We just have to work harder to get our own system to work. To my mind, we really havent tried that to great effect from the bottom up. Mostly we have (right along with the right) eschewed local and bottoms up activism for money charged top down “campaigns”. We are not teaching the people to “fish” ..so to speak.
kommrade reproductive vigor
Love the a new ad running alongside: See my ex-girl naked.
Why on Earth would that appear near a post about a conservo-creep? Heh.
Mako
@Roger Moore:
close to the colored lines
Oh I don’t want to go into those neighborhoods.
Say, are you THE Roger Moore?, because i have a screenplay in development.
Roger Moore
@kommrade reproductive vigor:
I don’t know. It seems so mild compared to ones offering mail order brides or featuring three armed Pamela Anderson. And it’s much nicer than ones that include pictures of Ann Coulter or Sarah Palin.
Roger Moore
@Mako:
Excuse me. Near one of the color coded lines, which includes the subway (red and purple), light rail (blue, green, and gold), and the dedicated busway (orange).
No, I am not Sir Roger. I don’t even qualify as “the other” Roger Moore, since there’s a second tier of Roger Moores who are much better known than I am. It’s actually kind of convenient from an on-line privacy point of view, since it means I’m going to be very tough to track using Google.
D-Chance.
BTW, today marks the official end of Hurricane Season. Calmest in 12 years. Only 9 named storms, only 2 tropical storms actually making landfall in the US.
Whew! Those promised multiple Katrinas and predicted annual Cat Fives are a-killin’ us! But, the AWG cultists will simply ignore their own data and predictions (as usual) and leaf through the pages until they find another snippet for their next “a-ha!” moment of Jehovah Witness level of kooky blind trust.
Molly
@arguingwithsignposts: “I guess Spencer’s never heard of the C-Street crew or the Family.”
No Christian extremists trying to replace the Constitution with Biblical law? Um, who’s been trying to have the 10 Commandments posted in every courthouse? Which Biblical Law are we speaking of? Leviticus? Yeah, replacing the Constitution with Leviticus would be rather impossible, and yet they’re already picking and choose which tenents of Leviticus to follow. Or are we talking about “Love one another as I have loved you?” or “Judge not lest ye be judged?” That Biblical Law tends to get ignored by the C-Street Mafia.
It’s a sleigh of hand trick. “The Constitution is based on Biblical law, so we’re just teaching you all the roots you came from. Praise Jesus.”
I need a beer.
RememberNovember
Stupak and Pitts give each other non-sex in the bathroom on C Street, then allow Ugandan witch doctors to tell ppl how to live.
Mako
@Roger Moore:
heh.
I’d rant about the horror of being left on an LA subway platform in the middle of nowhere without any train arriving for 45 minutes or any information about why a train is not arriving or any access to taxis and finally getting a bus and then getting motion sickness and then finally getting a taxi and why dont the taxi drivers in this goddamn town know anything its a fucking grid fer christsakes with numbers that go up and down, but that seems a waste of time. If LA really wanted a decent subway they’d just hire the Tokyu corp, they would use proven technology and make a profit.
Anyway, about my screenplay, do you have any contacts?
Svensker
@The Grand Panjandrum:
Cuz we wouldn’t want any illegal spawn to celebrate Christmas with toys that rightfully belong to real American poor kids. Jesus, I’m sure, would agree with this.
What is wrong with people?
LanceThruster
Every time I read about Senate rules and traditions, it seems arcane and meant only to preserve the status quo and deference to power. Therefore, a lowly Senator from a state with a total pop less than that of a congressional rep from a highly populated district is still seen as a power player. In addition, the claim that the US Senate is the world’s most deliberative body is just a way to claim that their foot-dragging and glacial pace (AGW notwithstanding) is a feature and not a bug.
Look how often the mere threat of GOP filibuster brings things to a halt. Conversely, howls of indignation were heard whenever dems spoke of filibustering even though they never had the spine to follow through (because the claim that though such a tactic is within the Senate rules, to do so however was considered unseemly – though IOKIYAR). Seems as if no one goes out on a limb a la’ “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” because the deals are actually done in the backrooms. It’s like pro-wrestling where nothing is done without the outcomes being assured.
Effin’ yellow-bellied bastids!
Wile E. Quixote
@Elie
I’m not sure that that would even work. The Senate is a horribly corrupt and unaccountable body. Not only because of the nature of the institution, where shitholes like Nebraska, a state with a lower population than King County, Washington gets the same representation in the Senate as the entire state of Washington, which has three times the population (I use Washington as an example because I live here) but also because so many senators are bought and sold by out of state interests. Look at Max Baucus, the man is covered in insurance industry peckersnot, if there was another hour in the day and eight days a week Max Baucus would be using the extra time to fellate the insurance industry for more contributions. The net result of Baucus’s whoring himself is that he ends up getting about 70 percent of his financial support from voters outside of Montana, so why should he care about what his constituents think? Votes are anonymous,
bribescampaign contributions aren’t.The Senate rules don’t help much either. Not just the filibuster but the rest of the nonsense that the Senate allows, such as anonymous holds, and the fact that Senators are only up for election every six years and cannot be recalled makes them even less accountable.
There’s also the fact that so many Democrats are miserable cowards who won’t hesitate to screw over progressives given half a chance. Take Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell as examples. Murray and Cantwell voted for the Kyl/Lincoln amendment which slashed taxes on multi-million dollar estates. Why did they do this? Well because it’s a pet issue of Frank Blethen, the corrupt old bastard who owns the Seattle Times. Murray and Cantwell are afraid that if they don’t play nice with Blethen, a man who would endorse presidential ticket consisting of Charles Manson and Philip Garrido if that ticket promised to slash estate taxes, that he’ll use the power of his rapidly decaying newspaper empire to say bad things about them in 2010, when Murray comes up for election, and 2012, when Cantwell is up for election. The fact that the Republican party hasn’t had a viable senatorial candidate in Washington since Slade Gorton, who would be anethema to today’s tea-baggers and birthers, and is run by a bunch of deranged cranks and lunatics who support Pat Robertson and Mike Huckabee and the fact that Blethen’s newspaper empire will probably be dead within the next five years (good riddance at that) meant nothing to Murray and Cantwell, they just had to kowtow to Blethen out of fear of his saying nasty things about them instead of standing up to him
I don’t know what the solution to the problems of the Senate is other than public campaign financing or at least a law making it a felony for anyone to make a cash donation to any politician they are ineligible to vote for and a law making it a felony for any politician to accept contributions from individuals who aren’t eligible to vote for them, which would at least force Senators to get money from the people they’re supposed to be representing. The Senate reminds me of that Lily Tomlin sketch from SNL back in the 1970s where she plays someone working for the phone company and the sketch ends with the line “We don’t care, because we don’t have to”.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
@arguingwithsignposts:
Spencer hasn’t listened to (or read) anything Goldwater had to say about the fact that in his opinion it was game over if the religious nuts gained control of the Republican party.
Also. ;)
I had just decided to pull out my nicely customized RR3 and do some head banging I can actually enjoy (unlike the head banging I have been doing over the amount of stupid in our ‘atmosphere’).
Must be something in the air.
You and me both.
Off to thrash…
Wile E. Quixote
@PaulW
Why not consider an alternative. A no-party system? Let’s get rid of all mentions of political parties on our ballots and all primary elections and all caucuses. Instead pass laws requiring any candidate who wants to get on the ballot for the general election in a district to have the signatures of say, 10 percent of the registered voters in that district, or even better, 10 percent of the eligible voters in the district, which is even harder to get. Once you get those signatures you’re on the ballot for the general election. Then use an electoral method for each race that meets the Condorcet criterion to choose the winner.
I’m tired of having to spend my money to fund beauty contests controlled by political parties that don’t necessarily represent my interests and I’m tired of the fact that the Democrats and Republicans have written the election laws in this country in such a way as to make it damned nearly impossible for anyone who isn’t a member of either party to run. I’m also bitter because the Democrats, Republicans and the Libertarians got the blanket primary overturned in Washington and then tried to get the open primary overturned in favor of closed primaries. This angers me because you have private political organizations demanding government support for their candidate selection process. The Democrats, Republicans and Libertarians claim that the blanket primary denied them their rights of free association, but then turn around and want the state to pay for their private selection process by holding primary elections.
So let’s take the parties out of the candidate selection process and give it to the people. I realize that there are problems with this, such as using paid signature gatherers to get signatures, which happens on initiatives in Washington State, but I can’t see how it could be worse than the current system.
HyperIon
@tripletee: EDIT: Shawn beat me to it.
what is this edit function you speak of?
i’m in ff 5.
Elie
Wile E @ 89
I hear you and completely agree with the fickle and worse nature of the Senators from WA that you discuss..
I think human nature is naturally exploitive and lazy unless made to “do right” — no different here. I don’t believe that any system will defacto give you honorable and effective leadership. Its just not a self perpetuating process. Its a process that needs to be constantly interracted with and engaged by the electorate in personal and pointed interactions with the candidates. For those of us who champion the issues and agenda that help all people and do not have wealthy support, we have to rely on mass engagement to get the same effect as money. And sadly, money does not require the same energy to be applied and the same ongoing need for focus.
I believe that most people throw up their hands in disgust and give up trying to work together to influence these folks. I think we do that too often and too easily. Maria Cantwell needs votes to stay where she is and low turn out elections always favor incumbents. We have to effect that with energy and committment by making sure that they have strong primary challenges when necessary and frequent invitations to appear at local forums with energetic and demanding constituents.
Not saying its easy to maintain, but very doable. Also, that kind of energy and attention clears the air for other good candidates to want to step into the fray. So many folks never even enter politics because of the horrible and negative nature of it. If we can show them something else, we can open the arena to much better candidates..
No fantasy solutions. Just hard work and persistence and ongoing engagement of the community over time.
tripletee
@HyperIon:
I’m using Safari 4; haven’t tried it in FF yet.
EDIT:
Forgot to tell Wile to go fuck himself for that comment. So, Wile: go fuck yourself.
Wile E. Quixote
@tripletee
Nebraska is a worthless shithole that would dry up and blow away were it not for massive infusions of federal cash. So fuck you, fuck your shithole of a state and fuck Ben Nelson, the cornbelt’s answer to Joe Lieberman.
tripletee
@Wile E. Quixote:
Gotta agree on the last one. As for the rest – well, I’ll just chalk it up to you lashing out because you’re an ignorant flannel-wearing bumblefuck who’s depressed by all the rain.
licensed to kill time
Culture Warriors have taken my reply arrow and won’t give it back until I say “Uncle”.
{{{{Uncle!}}}}
curtis
@Ugh:
No they don’t