Hell... Even My Hometown Paper Gets It !!! (SacBee)

[WillyT]

<snip>

In the face of runaway presidential power and inroads against congressional power by both the president and the U.S. Supreme Court, you'd think it would be the U.S. Senate's Republican majority opposing Samuel Alito's nomination to the nation's highest court.

After all, Republicans traditionally have favored limited government. And with a Republican majority in both chambers, Republicans ought to be the ones who rise to protect the integrity of congressional powers when the president and the courts encroach.

Yet when the Senate votes on Tuesday, it is likely to be along party lines, Republicans for and Democrats against, marking an unfortunate chapter in our history.

The Senate process of "advise and consent" has become so predictably partisan that Congress has lost sight of its institutional interests and place in our constitutional system of checks and balances.

And...

As it stands, the vote-counters foresee Alito will receive 56 to 62 yes votes on Tuesday. That could change in the next couple of days, but if it doesn't, it's a sad commentary on Congress as an institution. This is no time to confirm an individual for a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court who has a record of undue deference to executive power and a record seeking to impose radical limits on the power of Congress to make laws.

<snip>

Link: http://www.sacbee.com/content/opinion/editorials/story/14124910p-14953941c.html

Congress is slitting its own throat. Right in front of the rest of the country... on TV.

I'm afraid... there will be hell to pay.

:wtf:

[senseandsensibility]

1. Good job, Saramento Bee

Very plainly written and to the point, I must say. Isn't the Bee somewhat conservative?

[WillyT]

2. Well...

It's a fairly Democratic town, but the Bee's labor practices have sucked for many a year.

For years, there were two papers: The Union, Republican leaning, and The Bee, Democratic leaning.

They surely don't lean as far left as I would like, but I'll give 'em props for this editorial, fo sho!

:shrug:

[kenny blankenship]

3. "After all, Republicans traditionally have favored limited government."

What bullshit. Republicans all my life have been screaming for the endless expansion of police powers and centralized state under the unifying authority of the President as "Commander in Chief". Anything Reagan's bunch wanted to put under Federal control they were FOR. And examining the record of history I see that, anything broad and sweeping that Nixon wanted to do they were FOR. They are only bitching about "limited government" when Democrats want to do something that would actually improve people's lives. Otherwise they believe in dictatorial powers for government to police your life--if states are more repressive as in the case of racial segregation, they're for that and for the states having control; if the feds would be more repressive they're for feds having control.
It's high fucking time we called them on the centerpiece of all their lies: they are NOT for "government that governs least" and they NEVER HAVE BEEN. They are for government that does the least for people and does the most to regiment their lives with fear and loathing.