For the past two years, I have TRIED hard to be a reasonable observer of the national political scene. Politics are politics and sometimes you need to take it with a grain of salt. Sometimes, it takes a truckload of salt to get through the day. Republicans = good, Democrats = bad seems to be the minority party’s mantra, regardless of facts and logic.
After today’s lack of vote in the Senate, I am seriously pissed off. The majority of Americans want to see DADT repealed, despite an ongoing dismissive attitude towards gays and lesbians. By any logical reasoning, gays should be allowed to serve in our all-volunteer Armed Services without having to lie about their orientation.
Today’s non-vote was the last straw for the Republican’s “Party of No!” agenda. Granted, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is a political idiot and he handled the repeal vote very poorly, as he has with many procedural and political issues.. That is hardly an excuse for not dealing with a fundamental right for gays and lesbians in a manner that would discard an antiquated and unnecessary statute.
The Democrats are going to be the minority party in at least one of the Houses of Congress come January. The first order of business for the Democrats must be to replace Reid with someone who can play the game of politics with an equal measure of skill that the Republicans have done.
The next on the agenda is to obtain a spine – either grow one, steal one or pick up one on eBay. The time for playing nice ended long ago, but the Democrats have never shown the nerve to fight fire with fire. The Republicans have no compulsions about taking an obviously partisan stance, defying logic and fairness.
The Democrats need to become the “New Party of No!” despite any misgivings about appearances. Largely, the Republicans have not suffered ill effects from their obstructionist policies. When the Republicans are in charge, the Democrats must take a page from the Republican playbook.
When the Republicans push their right-wing agenda, every Democrat must stand united, as the GOP has, and resist any and all attempts to push through a new version of the same old platform that got us into this mess in the first place.
After all, if it is fair for the Republicans, it is fair for the Democrats.
William Stephenson Clark
PrairiePopulistsAndProgressives.net 
To prove how gullible Republicans must be, several of their elected officials stood up and told them they voted no because they wanted to debate the subject. All the while their no vote was to end any possibility of debate — stop it before it even got to the floor.
It will be interesting to see if the GOP has anything but NO. I don’t think the democrats will need to be obstructionists. I don’t think the Republicans will do anything but attempt to change what the democrats accomplished. They still have nothing but no, and that’s fine with their constituency.
Think back. What have Republican majorities in Congress accomplished that is good for Americans? Yeah, nobody can think of anything.
We will see endless investigations, bills to repeal this and that, impeachment proceedings wouldn’t surprise me. What we won’t see is any progress. They have none of that.
The blocked was completely expected, and the vote should have been done much earlier. It was going to be tough to get 60 votes anyway (as outrageous and idiotic as that is). This was a last-minute “oh, that!” Hail-Mary pass, with predictable results.
The only good to come of it: unanimous Republican opposition. If young Americans bother to vote this time around (and that’s a big if), it could hurt the GOP.
The old people are dying off. It’s a fact of life. I haven’t seen anyone make it out alive yet. Old white people are becoming a smaller percentage of America’s population. There’s much that could hurt the GOP.
But, their constituency doesn’t notice. They do nothing, they have no solutions, no ideas, they’re intolerant, they’re cranky — and their constituency approves.
I’ve always been pretty gullible, not that I’m proud of it. But at least I’m not gullible enough to think that digging my heels in and not moving an inch is anything close to participation.
Was I surprised at the filibuster? Okay, the pretend filibuster, because I doubt most of the GOP has a clue how to actually do that. No, I wasn’t surprised.
Nor am I surprised that the Dems haven’t even bothered to look around for a deal–good or bad–on a new or used spine. It seems some of them think worrying about re-election and voting against their own party is what a spine is. Uh, no.
Maybe I should switch parties. At least I can be certain of what the Repubs will do: Nothing. I’ve seen 2-year-olds with more ideas.
Aha! It has just come to me why these politicians are worrying about re-election. They actually do see the employment situation out there and don’t want to join the ranks of the unemployed, especially if they voted against extending unemployment benefits. I mean, after all, just how many good paying bullshitter jobs (lobbyists) are going to be left in the future when we just automatically put the CEOs of companies into the Senate and House seats?
Watching it yesterday on CSPAN, two things stuck me.
One was a colloquia among a few Cons including our own Roberts.
It mainly was about how unfair the majority was treating the minority.
And “oh if we ever get the majority back we would NEVER act that way!”.
AHHHHH oh shit who were they trying to fool with that one?
Another was to oxymoron between the Cons on that other blog and those who were in the colloquia.
Several of the Cons in the senate were expressing how they intend and wish to vote for the Dream act.
One that would allow the illegal aliens who join the Military to gain U.S. citizenship.
Meanwhile the Dream act was being portrayed as sneaky Liberal way of giving citizenship to lowly criminals and voting rights to them! On that other Blog, kind of like the same side of the issue was looking at totally different laws?
Levin kept bring up that unless the issue was voted for to continue then there is would not be a debate so it was those voting to stop the issue from continuing to debate were the one stopping the Cons from being able to have their say and to debate not the majority leader!
A comment reading “All faggots must die” left on the comments section of the gay-issues blog, Joe.My.God., has been traced to the offices of the U.S. Senator from Georgia, Saxby Chambliss. Chambliss’s office confirms that the message was written on one of its computers and says the office “will not tolerate any activity of the sort alleged”; the comment was posted under the name of “Jimmy.” Meanwhile, the main author of the blog, Joseph Jervis, traced the post back to Chambliss’s Atlanta office by looking up the IP address with the help of readers. “Among the files in which gay people are over-represented is the IT field,” Jervis said.
http://joemygod.blogspot.com/2010/09/confirmed-sen-saxby-chambliss-admits.html
That is part of the game, “plausible deniability” like those 520’s who make out and out lies out there.
Oh but it was not the candidate! Just because it is against their opponent and like that even those it came from his office does not mean he is responsible for it!
They should not be fooling anyone but they do or at least it is an aceptable way of dismissing what is said.
Maybe the rainbow (there’s one behind every dark cloud!) to all the nasty ads that no one paid for [eye roll] is that by the 2012 elections they may be so numerous, so sickeningly nasty, that we’ll all turn off our televisions. We’ll read books, surf the net, talk to the neighbors…
I found this article very interesting. I don’t know what it means for Democrats in the upcoming elections. I, unlike the media and punditry, am not ready to believe that the country will vote in the party that destroyed our economy, though I concede that it’s a possibility.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/21/AR2010092104638.html?wpisrc=nl_politics
Wow! It’s good to see that someone out there from both/either/no side is aware of what’s going on. These women seemed to understand that Obama inherited a mess. You sure don’t hear the voices on the Right admitting it’s true. I think these women see the truth, because the live it.
The question I would ask them is if their husbands tell them who to vote for. 😉
Ain’t it the truth.
You know, after the Democrats folded up their tent on even voting on expiring tax cuts for the wealthy (let’s duck out until a lame-duck session, the guy with his hand up my ass in on the line), I think maybe the party of “Hell No!” is vitally needed and now.
That’s what the Tea Party thinks they are, but this needs to be the real thing. No, not a lame-ass third-party effort; there’s no time.
But make the case, such as it is, not for a party or politicians, but sanity itself.
And no (I don’t have to tell you folks, Jon Stewart didn’t give me that idea, or need to.
But so long as the entranced former swing voters are convinced that we’re just carrying water for a team, we’ll get nowhere.
Divide and conquer. Works every time.