Tag Archives: Filibuster

GOP Republicorp outsources groveling lackies from subsidiary Democratards

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We the electorate have been warned that “REPUBLICORP” will be unveiled as the dreaded merger of the GOP and corporate masters. Unconcatenated into the spiffy boo-word is mention of the Democratic Party, a wholly-powned subsidiary. Sure they’re the voices sounding the alarm, and they will certainly blame the victim where voters fail to elect Dem incumbents. Or WHAT will befall us? The sky falls apparently, if the Republicans regain the majority in Congress. Although Dems won the majority during Bush’s term, but couldn’t subpoena squat. And those were the halcyon days before super majorities and the virtual filibuster. I bet Washington Democrats can’t wait to be delivered from their put-on-the-breaks personas and resume unabashedly rolling in the loot of unfettered capitalist rape.

Michael Moore calls the Republicans the bigger criminals, but I have to say, there’s something about a lying petty criminal that’s much more offensive, especially when you can tell the petty fiend has aspirations to larceny every bit as grand.

Myself, I am simply salivating at the satisfaction of seeing the bullshit party cretins decamp.

Costa Rica a prototypical Western Democracy

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PUERTO JIMINEZ, CR- Touring Costa Rica has been interesting. Considering the turmoil of Central America, it may be a shining example of a functional Capitalist Democracy. It´s got a healthy middle class and a relatively contented populace. Can it offer a lesson to its strife torn neighbors? Sure. Get rid of the Indios.

Citizens of the “Rich Coast” pride themselves on being light skinned, owing to a Spanish heritage of course. They´re the descendants of settlers, mixed some with labor imports from the Caribbean. But the indigenous people are gone. Which makes for scarce land redistribution demands.

When Columbus first came to Costa Rica, there were 400,000 inhabitants. When they saw that the Spaniards were enslaving whoever they conquered, the tribes hid in the mountains. As a result, Costa wasn´t properly subjugated like elsewhere. The Spanish didn´t want land that didn´t come with ready slave labor. But hiding didn´t save the indians. As the Spanish settled the land, the original population dwindled, to 10%, then 2% within 200 years. They are, as Randy Newman sang it: “Gone, real gone.”

There is an inspiring history to Costa Rica´s present relatively egalitarian government, and I´m going to write more about some of their laudable leaders. But I have to argue that CR smacks of US artifice. And lo, even as I cringe at the camo themed souvenir caps that remind me of the Contras, it turns out Oliver North operated his Contra army and drug smuggling operation out of an airfield in northern Costa Rica. There´s a surfing destination near there called Ollie´s Point, named after the would be filibuster himself. Those apolitical surfer fucks.

(It is hard to surpress disdain for the hard-recreating American asses despoiling CR toilet paper. I cannot bear their vibes of inutile indifference.)

So the Costa Ricans are less Central Americans than good old Americans. And that never meant Native American.

El Paso County Peter Principle sadists

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COLORADO SPRINGS- I attended a County Commission meeting Thursday morning and caught such a whiff of bureaucratic decay that I don’t have any faith that our local government works at all.

I came in as the County Treasurer was addressing a shortfall in income. According to her, the problem was owed to sales tax, particularly the use tax component, which the County simply wasn’t collecting, to the extent of the funds it was actually due. I’ve bored you already with an irrelevant over-simplification, but this woman was able to reiterate this non-specific summary for ten minutes. Use tax, blah blah, use tax blah blah. I thought it was a deliberate filibuster. She spoke in a kindly, completely perplexed tone, but she went on and on and on. She explained: you wouldn’t know it from the records, and I know the figures seem to indicate otherwise, and there’s no way of calculating exactly, but there it is, the use tax, etc, etc.

No sooner had she finished, and we couldn’t believe she had, believe me, but that the commissioner who next spoke, Sally Clark, had this response, I kid you not, and I paraphrase: “I just don’t understand how such a thing could be. Can you please explain this to me again?” Which prompted an interminable re-reiteration, as if the commissioner had ascertained the squirming of the audience and goaded the idiotic speaker for her further amusement. No really, someone, somewhere must have better things to do.

Elliot Spitzer plays role model Democrat

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Elliot Spitzer resigns having discredited the New York Governor’s Office with unsavory impropriety. No sooner had phone taps revealed his financial exchanges with a prostitute, than Republicans were calling for Spitzer’s resignation or he would face impeachment. Where do his political opponents get those kind of balls?

Are the articles of impeachment only for Republicans to charge? Is impeachment like a filibuster, only Republicans need apply? In fact, Republicans need only IMPLY they’ll do it and Democrats cave. How many Republican lawmakers and office holders have faced scandal yet clung tenaciously to fulfill their term? Why am I using the past tense?

The nation’s highest office, criminal by any standard of international law, beyond the severity of an intern blow-job, and impeachment is declared off the table by the senior Democrat? What are Democrats not telling the public about the real pecking order in Washington?

People like to say there’s no difference between the two parties. Of course that’s true. It’s the same Greek Fraternity. Except the Dems are the Pledges being rushed and hazed, to remain Plebes, never to graduate to the senior positions of the Republicans. Oh they can have their Bill Clinton, a moment on the hot seat, all the while being razzed and stymied by the Repugs who own the whole damn college.

What kind of idiot do they take you for?

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In the hands of Republicans, the filibuster seems to be a silver bullet. They used it today without firing a shot. The Democratic majority wanted to fashion some legislation, but lacked the 60 votes to stop a filibuster. As a result, no go. It now takes 60% of the Senate to pass a bill, where it used to take the Republicans only 51%. What’s going on here?

That’s a question the media won’t ask. Or answer. Someone must have polled the American public and discovered that the term filibuster is misunderstood, and can thus mean whatever the media needs it to be.

In the hands of Democrats, to filibuster is to impose partisan gridlock upon conservatives trying to help our blessed nation. How dare the Dems even threaten such divisive stubbornness?

As a Republican tool, the filibuster is a trump card, a fait accomplit. They needn’t even roll out the overnight cots for round the clock monopolizing of the microphone. Saying you’ll filibuster is threat enough to make the Dems back down.

Are civics no longer taught in high school? I remember a filibuster was a tool opponents of a bill could use to force a little reciprocity from the majority party sponsors. A filibuster meant holding the floor of the Senate hostage for as long as you and your colleagues could hold out. Hopefully provoking the sponsors of the bill to consider some concessions in the phrasing. To do a filibuster you had to be prepared for a marathon speaking session, a continuous tag team of allies holding forth on the debate until somebody dropped. It was politically risky to be seen shutting down DC just to keep your rivals from having their way. And so filibusters were always rare.

Back when the Republicans dominated Congress, filibusters were like hurricanes in Hartford, Hereford, and Hampshire, they hardly happened. The media cautioned that the political fallout would be too great for the Democrats if they should try so vaingloriously to oppose the mandate of the electorate, self-evident by the nature of the GOP having the 51% majority.

What’s become of the media’s admonitions now? Where are their words of caution to the Republican minority? What even has become of their definition of filibuster? Now to filibuster is to fire a shot across the bow, to feign showing your fangs to make your opponents back down. You don’t have to do it, you don’t have to take the heat for doing it. If the “majority” doesn’t have the margin to stop it, it’s as good as done. And the Democrats dutifully follow the choreographed capitulations and the media dutifully doesn’t question the illogic.

If my naval analogy was appropriate, let me add that the shot across the bow was not delivered by a ship of inferior firepower, it always came from the superior ship as a warning that it had come within range and would decimate its target if the lesser rated craft did not immediately heave to.

Darfur round and round table discussion

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No imperial intervention on the pretext of DarfurPeople please come prepared to the Darfur round table discussion tomorrow night. The in-house event at the PPJPC is intended to bridge a perceived divide that our organization may be telegraphing regarding non endorsement of the Save Darfur organization and other like efforts. Is the PPJPC for western intervention in Sudan or against, military and/or economic?

I’m hoping a moderator will be able to preempt filibusters by spirited missionaries intent on witnessing with descriptions of Janjaweed atrocities until the rest acquiesce in submission.

Come prepared to be informed, but please do the background research. The discussion time will be limited and will be quite ill-served, I think, with a chorus responding “I didn’t know snake oil was both TASTY and LESS FILLING.”

If you can read about the Darfur Crisis, you can read why it is also considered the Darfur Controversy.

Ken Salazar to start Filibuster For Peace

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Ken Salazar, Democratic Senator from Colorado, has grown a spine and has begun to Filibuster against Iraqi War funding!

He was egged on to take a principled stance for once, by Richard Skorman of Poor Richard fame, who was named CS Mr Liberal Guy of the Decade by The Independent weekly newspaper in our fair city. This filibuster has already started and the coverage of Salazar filibustering in the Senate can be seen on youtube. Check that Ken out!

Colorado Springs -1, Salazar 0

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Well this is a fine developement for Colorado Springs. Arguably the highest profile progressive elected to a local post, city councilman and vice-mayor Richard Skorman, has resigned his position to become the regional liason for Senator Ken Salazar.
 
The announcement was made the same day that Salazar cast his vote with the majority to renew the Patriot Act. The same month that Salazar stood up to say he would not support a democratic effort to filibuster the Aleto nomination. The same year that Salazar voted for a budget which included draconian cuts to social services.

None of this is out of character for Colorado’s Ken Salazar. He began this term by endorsing the nomination of Alberto Gonzales to be Attorney General. Salazar has proven to be a foe of nearly every democratic issue. Now Colorado Springs has sacrificed a progressive voice to Salazar’s misguided moves.

Admittedly, Richard Skorman has behaved more like a centrist since he cut off his ponytail. Of course it was hard to know whether Skorman’s ineffectiveness on the city council was due more to the fact that the five other members where all part of the wacky right.

Will Skorman serve to catch Senator Salazar’s ear and realign him to the best interests of the Senator’s constituents, or will Skorman’s function be to ameliorate and apologize for Senator Salazar’s wacky rightist ways?

It’s already widely postulated that most democrats serve only to render the Neocon agenda more palatable to an incredulous American public. I think Richard Skorman is going to be playing that role.

Democrats stand for naught

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There is a point to partisanship after all.
 
Senator Diane Feinstein takes a curious stand regarding Judge Alito and the Supreme Court. “I do not see a likelihood of a filibuster,” said Feinstein. “This might be a man I disagree with, but it doesn’t mean he shouldn’t be on the court.”
 
Well, what would be a reason why he shouldn’t be on the court?

A friend of mine constantly makes excuses for the actions of Colorado Senator Salazar. “I may not agree with some of his decisions, but I honor his right to make decisions as he sees fit.”

Isn’t that just asking for constituents to be shat upon? My friend thus excuses Salazar for approving Gonzales, he of the torture memo. I can see giving our leaders the leeway to act upon complexities of governance which the population may not understand, but there should be a line draw when it comes to moral issues such as civil rights and torture.

Now Diane Feinstein recuses herself from trying to stop Alito’s nomination. Everybody can smell what will be a disasterous appoinment to the nation’s highest court. Who else but the Democratic representatives are supposed to stop him?