I certainly don’t want to dampen anyone’s enthusiasm for pursuing the defeat of the Alito nomination, but people who haven’t been watching congress for an extended period of time may not realize how much political theater takes place.
One of the best tricks is to vote on both sides of an issue. The Republican’s even have a name for this tactic “catch and release”. A person votes one way on a bill where their vote doesn’t matter and another way where it does. Then when campaigning they can highlight whichever version matches the audience.
The “filibuster” action taking place is a current example. There is no point in Kerry saying he will filibuster when he already knows there aren’t enough votes to sustain it. Let’s assume that I’m wrong and it does work. Then Frist calls a vote on a change of rules to eliminate the filibuster for nominations and Alito gets in anyway.
The real fact is that the Dems have no effective power at present. Devote your energies to changing that.
Agree with you totally that this seems like political theater at this point.
Disagree that the Dems have no “effective power” at this time. With 44 votes in the Senate, the Democrats have the power to filibuster. They lack a uniform will on this issue, to be certain. But the power is theirs, and it exists in fact, as I type. Now, for the sake of argument, if the Democrats were to exercise this power, and the Republicans were able to succesfully change the rules to disallow filibusters on Senate confirmation votes, that would erase the power.
But it is precisely the Democrats failure of will, on this central issue (Roe), that leads me to question the entire party. They do not stand with me. Neither major party is mine. Not just on this issue. But this issue is so key. So where they are unwilling to exercise the power they have, I am increasingly unwilling to spend my time trying to increase their power. I choose to spend my energy elsewhere, right after they fail on this issue. Even apathy, to me, is a more attractive option than continuing to waste support on an entity that refuses to stand up for me and millions like me.
It is not the losing that sucks. It is the refusal to fight. The surrendering before the fight (out of fear of the nuclear option) that I absolutely cannot take.
Sorry for the rant. Just got to going.
or lack there of, on the part of Democratic politicians.
It is poor women who will be adversely affected by the overturn of Roe. Most of them have been less empowered with choice by the existence of Roe than many realize.
Unless they live in a state that provides free abortions, or are fortunate enough to gain access to one of the worthy orgs who help women in this plight, poor women’s choice has never been any different from their choice in purchasing any medical treatment: if they can come up with the money, they can purchase the choice.
Affluent women always had choice, even before Roe. Several choices in the Caribbean. And they will have those choices when Roe becomes history.
The greatest effect of Roe is that it will become more expensive and inconvenient for affluent women to obtain abortions.
The lack of “will” you refer to is consistent with American politicans’ concern for the poor in general, including as it relates to their ability to obtain medical treatment of any kind.
As usual, DF, spot on with this:
From what I can see in my neighborhood, “choice” for poor women who can neither afford an abortion nor a child boils down to this: carry to term, then dump the kid in the nearest dumpster (alternately, hang it in a plastic bag on a fence [yes, these are examples from local news reports]) or do whatever you have to do to get rid of it. Then try to live with yourself for the rest of your life.
Sad state of affairs.
Well written.
We need to stand tall though … until we regain that essential control.
We need to show we’ve got fight in us.
And — if you want to get cold about it — psychologically it’s very important to try hard to stop someone as horrific as Alito even if we can’t necessarily win.
We’re working hard on the elections too!
And keep posting … you know how to write.
I find myself in agreement with BJ’s statement that the D’s Do Have the power to force this issue.
The attempts by Senators like Salazar, mine BTW…and he’s gotten an earful from many of us here…to stake out the “catch and release” position with a No vote on confirmation combined with non-support of the filibuster isn’t setting very well in the Blue parts of Co.
The reality is that they all, 44 Dems plus 1 Ind., don’t have to do anything by way of a vote …they can abstain, announce Present or not show up. This will give them the cowards way out and force the issue of cloture onto Frist, forcing him to come up with the 60 votes. In other words, we don’t need 40 votes, we just need for the white feather Dems to get the hell out of the way- the old adage: that if you’re not part of the solution, you are part of the problem.
On the issue of the Nuclear Option, my own opinion is that the GoPhucks will threaten it and create a lot of sound and fury, but at the end of the day it will fail. They are in serious jeopardy of losing some, if not all of their power in the coming midterms and they are not likely to relish being on the other side of that one. The brewing storm of a constitutional crisis combined with a growing unrest in the voting populace, IMO makes this option untenable.
We shall see…it ain’t over till it’s over.
Peace
Another great reason why the best answer is a credible, viable third party to reduce the loopholes in procedure.
I think it is more likely that US will transition to a one party system, which it already has in everything but name.
Yeah, I think that’s what we have now. A third party could force both of the original two to better represent their constituents or pay the political price in future elections. Supply and demand system for votes in legislation and elections.
no voter-driven supply and demand. Even assuming a strong belief in the theory of a causal relationship between which candidate gets the most votes and who takes office.
The other big obstacle is the disenfranchisement of the underclass. Neither party has anything to offer them, and a sudden surge of poor to the polls is unlikely unless someone does have something to offer them.
And yes I have a blogrant on this subject. Some references may be a bit dated, it was written during the 2004 “campaign” season, but the main point is still valid.
The Democrats’ Weakest Link
Removing the corporations from the system isn’t possible at this point. That means something else will have to give when the pressure gets to be too great. The pressure will come from the mainstream middle class voters who are frustrated and disgusted with both parties and have limited options. BushCo’s biggest mistake is taking too much away from the msmclass for the benefit of the corporations.
With any structure, the load has to be balanced even if the load is misrepresented as something else. The true weight will be obvious no matter what it’s called.
The group I mentioned will be bearing the weight of most of BushCo’s pro-GWoT, pro-corps, limited govt assistance for education, insurance, medical and other policies. They will either have nothing to spend in the skewed supply/demand as they have previously or participating won’t be worth the expense. By undermining this financial foundation here, the corporate heads are taking it all.
The ones who make their money in the global markets don’t care if the msmclass spends or not, but the career politicians will. The politicians will be forced to break ranks with the monolithic system or be voted out in overhauls.
It’s going to get worse before it ever gets better.