This is a perfect way for me to end a day I spent spitting mad:
With the confirmation hearings expected to focus extensively on Roberts’s views on abortion, affirmative action and other social issues, a number of Democrats say it would be unwise politically for Conrad and the five other red-state senators to side with liberal groups such as People for the American Way and NARAL Pro-Choice America.This calculation is a chief reason both sides expect Roberts to be confirmed by the Senate — with the only real debate among head counters from both parties being how many Democrats will join Republicans in voting yes.
“You are going to be arguing about issues that we all saw Democrats paid a heavy price for in the last election,” said Leon Panetta, a former Democratic House member who served as Bill Clinton’s White House chief of staff. “Democrats have a tremendous opportunity right now to hit Bush where he’s weak, which is on oil prices and the war. Don’t hit him where he’s strong, which is these values issues.”
If I try to write about this I will give myself a coronary. So, I’ll let y’all provide the invective. I’m getting some rest.
cowardice = noun: the trait of lacking courage [syn:cowardliness] [ant: courage]
nuff said…
Peace
Mr. bush is strong nowhere. Cut him and the Republicans no slack. Hold firm and strong against every single thing they bring to the table with the exception of relief and recovery efforts.
Sen. Reid… now is the time to advance a Democratic agenda. Postpone hearings on Mr. Roberts. Tell Mr. Frist to postpone his millionaires tax break package. Work on recovery and relief of the south. Work on beginning the investigation into the failure of this government to perform it’s most basic fucntion… the defense and protection of the citizens of the United States of America.
Demand the immediate resignations of Mr. bush and Mr. cheney along with Mr. Chertoff and Mr. Brown.
Allow no other business to proceed in the Senate except these.
Do not worry about any other political considerations.
Do the People’s business.
Sincerely,
Andrew C. White
Over at Daily Kos, Terri demands that the Congress stop work on anything until all the victims of Katrina are rescued.
Speaking of priorities, the America Supports You website describes how fifty service members worked for several hours cleaning up a building at Armed Forces Retirement Home in or near Washington D.C.to make it nice and clean for 400 military retirees displaced after the ground floors of a high-rise sister facility on the Gulfport, Miss. beachfront were wrecked by the hurricane. http://www.americasupportsyou.mil/
This was a decent thing to do, but people were dying.
Why was the retirement home built in such a vulnerable place?
That’s the building where Jim Cantore of the Weather Channel survived the storm. To the military’s credit they apparently built the building quite strongly. The bottom floors flooded but the building survived a direct hit from a category 4 hurricane while all else around it was demolished.
I’ve no problems with them fixing up a new place for the veterans to go since their building was so damaged by the storm surge.
But I agree with Terri that Congress must cease all activity unrelated to relief and recovery for the storm victims. The one exception I make to that is the immediate investigation into the failure of this administration to perform it’s most basic function and the demand that changes be made in order to ensure that any relief and recovery measures put forth by Congress are in fact implemented. This administration is wholly and completely incompetent and there can be no faith that they will successfully save anybody… including themselves.
unacceptable in every way. Leon Panetta, bite your tongue.
Perhaps the Clintons and their associates have been spending a wee bit too much time with the Bush family.
In the belly of the beast.
so are you surprised by this?
i’m not.
i’ve seen it coming for months and months.
the democratic party is convinced it cannot win unless it sells out its democratic ideals
in service of enslavement of women.
whats interesting is..
you may not win with us. who can say?
but you damn sure will not win without us.
and we are about to quit over SHIT LIKE THIS!
sorry, i guess i did.
FUCK Leon Panetta!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
HEY LEON, FUCK YOU!
guess i got mad, yes? :::Snickering:::
After the past few days, I don’t have any energy left for Leon Panetta, though if anyone else wants to take a shot at him, you have my encouragement.
What I want to know is how these DLC quislings even get press coverage in the first place. They don’t represent the majority of Democratic voters, so why does the media treat them like unofficial spokesmen for the party? The average joe is probably largely unaware of the DLC’s existence in the first place — which may be why their members can safely cross streets in public. It’s just us politics junkies who are aware of their work as crypto-Republican saboteurs.
Shouldn’t the media be covering real Democrats instead of megacorporate sock puppets?
exactly. i can’t count the number of debates i’ve had with members of this and other sites over the last few months about the fact that the dem party was selling out women in a misguided strategy to gain power.
how furious i have been for months about this so called “big tent” philosophy that anti-rights DINOs were welcome in the party.
my body is not a bargaining chip in some political chess game. those who seek to turn me into forced breeding livestock are not welcome in any party to which i belong. and if they are welcome in the democratic party, then i quit.
george bush and the conservatives of this country all the way back to reagan have been neglecting the real job of government (ever hear of infrastructure maintenance? addressing the needs of the poor and the sick?) while focusing on so called values of theocracy, imperialism, and winner take all, unrestrained capitalism.
and the dems have accomodated them every step of the way.
i’m glad to see on the front page of booman tribune, finally, some outrage over the democratic party’s willing to turn women into forced breeders. many of us have been outraged about this for a long time now.
i can’t count the number of debates i’ve had with members of this and other sites over the last few months about the fact that the dem party was selling out women in a misguided strategy to gain power.
That’s very polite of you, embeth, but the word isn’t “misguided”, it’s “stupid”. The “pragmatists” are desperately chasing the middle-aged white Christian male vote at a time when it is a rapidly shrinking demographic. It doesn’t even make sense in an amoral realpolitik sense.
What amazes and saddens me is that there are apparently a lot of Democrat men who loathe their wives, daughters, and mothers enough to betray them for short-term political gain. How DLC Dems can stand to face their own families is a mystery to me.
So human and civil rights are a no-go for democrats.
Tell me again what democrats are supposed to stand for?
Bush has the perfect storm brewing around his administration and the democrats are not going to even make an attempt to stand up and fight. I swear that bushco has files on all the democrats and are blackmailing them all.
I’m with you Booman, I don’t trust myself to write anything else right now because I’m sure which ever agency is monitoring these boards would come and arrest me immediately if I posted what I really think.
the are monitoring.
Geez Leon, do you feel good implying that Bush is right on values, and somehow Dems are wrong?
How about this:
Now is the time for Dems to bring it all back to their strength — what is the purpose of government?
I’ve seen bloggers say its about “right to privacy”, afraid to deal with the abortion issue. Or about some other nice slogan about security.
I think its simpler — what is the purpose of govt?
Is it to maximize the returns to the best-off of us?
Is it to increase the GDP of the USA?
Is it to dictate how we are born, how we live, and how we die?
Is it to cut taxes on the wealthy, and cut benefits to the poor and children?
Is it to give billions in giveaways to the energy companies who were already experiencing record profits?
Is it to cut 70 million in infrastructure improvements to safety needs like levees?
Is it to wage war in the middle east to turn over Iraq to Iranian style theocracy?
Its time for the adults to say playtime is over, and get back to the business of governing for the benefit of the people not just the campaign contributors — its time for the Dems to stand up and step up to the plate
Katrina reminds Americans what’s really important, and what we want of our govt. Not last-minute ass-covering and excuses, but looking out for the citizens.
Citizens aren’t a pain, they aren’t a drain, they’re the only reason the govt exists. We all submit to the govt because it serves us. Its time to get back to basics, and end the Republican orgy of mismanagement.
Someone at KOS mentioned Roberts’ support for minimalist government, and that we can/should oppose Roberts based on what we just saw last week of minimalist government in action.
Which BTW we also saw with FEMA during Bush I, almost exactly the same thing several disasters in a row (minus the giant urban cereal bowl). Clinton’s turnaround of FEMA was big news early in his admin.
I wonder if these appeasement senators would stand in opposition if they had different issues to base it on.
I’m sorry–other than striving to prevent the dismantling of liberal civilization, I got nothin’.
Of course they wouldn’t. Roberts is an anti-woman candidate, and that’s exactly what these misogynist assholes have been chomping at the bit to appoint for decades.
The Good Old Boys are scared of women’s rights.
Fuckimg cowards-I said this on kos when they bent over for the no-filibuster agreement.Why? Now guess what? We will have THREE frickin Clarence Uncle Thomases on the court.
Ya okay – I was a bitch and said it.
For some reason I can’t rate the first comment but I have given you a kazillion 4s in spirit.
teehee
I will say this as nicely and politely as I can. There are two ways to lose in the confirmation of John Roberts. One is to lose with the women’s vote. If you try your hardest to protect our lives, if you fight for us, if you vote in unison, every last one of you as a bloc, if you ask the tough questions, if you pin this lowlife against the wall defending women’s rights and he is confirmed anyway, we will understand and we will treat you in kind.
On the other hand, if you sell us out, if you pander to the Rapture Wrong, if you throw softball questions his way, if you do one fucking thing to betray us we will FUCK YOU LIKE YOU HAVE NEVER BEEN FUCKED BEFORE. WE WILL FORGET WHAT THE FUCKING WORD DEMOCRAT MEANS BECAUSE IT WILL BE OBVIOUS YOU FORGOT A LONG TIME AGO. WE WILL FUCKING MAKE YOU WISH YOU WERE FUCKING DEAD BECAUSE YOU WILL BE AT THE BALLOT BOX. YOU WILL BE TOAST. THE MEMORY OF OUR VOTES WILL HAUNT YOU FOR THE REST OF YOUR PATHETIC POLITICAL LIVES. LOSE OUR VOTES AND YOU WILL RUE THE DAY YOU DECIDED THE RIGHTWING WAS MORE WORTHY THAN US. NO AMOUNT OF BEGGING OR GROVELLING WILL WIN US BACK BECAUSE WE’VE GOT A SECRET WEAPON.
What’s that you say, we have nowhere else to go? Ahhhhhhhh, yes you have relied on that for a very long time haven’t you, you scallywags. Ever heard of the Equals Rights Party? We think it’s time has come to make a comeback. Sorry, you’re not invited if you don’t FUCKING FIGHT FOR OUR LIVES.
We’ll be watching very closely. Be good little boys and girls now, make us proud or FUCKING ELSE.
So that’s about it in a nutshell.
“You are going to be arguing about issues that we all saw Democrats paid a heavy price for in the last election,” said Leon Panetta, a former Democratic House member who served as Bill Clinton’s White House chief of staff.
Not as heavy a price as they’re going to pay in the coming election.
“Democrats have a tremendous opportunity right now to hit Bush where he’s weak, which is on oil prices and the war. Don’t hit him where he’s strong, which is these values issues.”
Mr Panetta should turn on the news and watch it for awhile if he wants to see a ‘values’ issue. Somehow I do not believe that either women or African-Americans will appreciate being sold down the river at such a time. But then, why should Mr. Panetta care? He’s got lots of money, most of which he’s made from the donations and taxes of the very people he’s so eager to sell down the river.
The Democratic party had best not look for donations from us. There are other needs right now and, man do they suck. Arrogant, stupid pissants….
“Democrats have a tremendous opportunity right now to hit Bush where he’s weak,”
That’s exactly it. The Dem (non) strategy is just to score points against Bush without upsetting the insane who will always vote for King George and his ilk.
Now where did all that do the right thing go? Now where did making a stand go? Now where did standing for something go? Now where did any notion of representing people go?
Well, if this past week hadn’t made it abundantly clear, WE ARE ON OUR OWN, with little or no representation and no signs of it arriving anytime soon.
Where do we send our Booman for President contributions?
It is not only the bigwigs. One of the most liberal and respected (male) posters at BFA suggested that if Bush suggests Roberts for CJ and O’Connor remains until her post can be filled later, the Dems should go along.
I’m ready to beat my head against the wall. Why is giving into the goons ever a good solution?
Part of it is a calculation that Roberts is going to win anyway, and he is more palatable as CJ than either Scalia or Thomas. In two senses this is better than before. We hope Roberts will be more reasonable than Thomas and Scalia, and he is replacing Rehnquist, not O’Connor. Having said that, the Dems should make this a painful and intimidating experience by making clear what we stand for and what we don’t like about Roberts.
We also need to let the hearings do their job. Depending on what he has to say, we can become more or less opposed. No one thought Bork would lose before the hearings began. But he buried himself in the hearings.
I agree with just about all of the above. And I’m trying not to be too angry at having viewpoints that most women support considered to be somehow “weak on values”. GRRRR!
So. Being polite, then, this:
We are going to lose this one and Roberts will be seated. OK.
So the issue is, how do we lose?
Here’s what our Democratic Senators should be thinking:
First, we don’t take time to discuss this candidate until more of Katrina’s rescue is done. Just as we don’t vote on the obscenity of making an estate tax permanent.
Second, we don’t antagonize our base. OUR base, not THEIR base. That means asking this man very hard questions, and if he waffles, weasels, deflects, turns away with a nice charming smile, or in any way doesn’t give a straight answer, we don’t let that go by without noting our displeasure for the official record.
Third, we vote against him. We can be just as nice as he is, just as friendly. We can look him and his handlers in the eye and say.
“You know, you seem like such a nice person, but your views are impossible to discern, given the answers you’ve given us today (or clearly different from several of the extant decisions of the Supreme Court). It is not clear how you would respond to holding the power to move against several precedents that you appear to dislike. Furthermore, the Bush administration has refused to release much of the documentation of your work in the past. This alone leads me to think that your past work offers insights into your legal beliefs or actions that would cause many to question your appointment to the Supreme Court. Therefore, (smiling) I cannot support your nomination to the Supreme Court. You have my best wishes. . .
If anyone thinks for a minute that indulging members of the other side in our country by voting for Roberts is going to matter 2 seconds to their current non-supporters after this vote is taken, she or he is too muddle-headed to serve in the Senate.
Bush to nominate Roberts as Chief Justice.
Attacking them on “gas prices” right now will backfire. That’s idiotic.
I see three things post-Katrina:
a) national democrats need to enunciate a politics recommitted to our ideals, our vision for America, and use those ideas to critique the GOP and forge a “new majority.”
Think Barack Obama.
b) local democrats need to fight tooth and nail on pragamatic local issues and GOP failings, and tie that criticsim to our “new majority.”
Think Montana, Minnesota, Colorado…and I hope California and New York.
c) We in the progressive left need to recommit to social justice struggle and be the true conscience of the “new majority.”
We need to protest and be a voice of conscience, and at the same time, find new ways to build coalition for change…we need to innovate and win for our people.
I see John Roberts as the Stepford Candidate. Everyone inside the beltway lives in Stepford – they’re already at work eliminating the rest of us. I do not believe that working within the system will change anything at all.
For the first time in my life, I understand the Vietnam monks who set themselves on fire.