We've really fallen down the fucking rabbit hole, haven't we?

[Redstone]

Four and a half years of this stupid fucking war.
Economy ready to tank: See today's Euro and Canadian Dollar values.
How many hungry Americans?
How many unemployed Americans?
How many Americans going bankrupt because they're sick, and have no health insurance?

Our Senate is just too damn busy to deal with any of that.

YET:

They find time to pass a bill bitching about the MoveOn newspaper ad, in DIRECT contravention of the First Amendment.

"T'was brillig, and the slithy toves..."

Redstone

[MNDemNY]

1. Didn't fall....Ran head on.

[Richard Steele]

2. Been falling for years, and still no bottom in sight.

This is a TOTALLY deep hole.

[shanti]

19. yes

it's felt that way ever since the chimp was selected.

[Greyhound]

23. Oh no, the bottom is right here and approaching far faster than any of us

want to believe.

Step back and consider all that is really happening, and has been happening for a quarter century, here and in the rest of the world.

[plasticsundance]

3. Empires come and go ... C’est la vie

[MannyGoldstein]

4. Don't Worry! The Brave Congressional Democrats Will Protect Us!

:rofl:

Good thing that we have to keep voting for them.

[Redstone]

5. PS: I'd be PROUD to be censured by THIS fucking senate. They're disgusting.

Redstone

[PA Democrat]

49. I got an email from the DSCC to day requesting money.

I told them that in light of that ridiculous amendment condemning Move On and NO movement on ending the war, I had chosen to donate to Move On instead of the DSCC this month. I said that if they FORCED the Republicans to perform an actual filibuster or refused to bring Bush's next Iraq funding bill up for a vote, I would reconsider resuming donations to them.

I've had it.

[Neecy]

6. it's achtung, baby time

Political speech is getting downright dangerous, isn't it?

Speak out at a political event and get pulled from the mic, wrestled to the ground and tasered.

Support MoveOn's ad and get 'condemned' by the United States Senate.

It's called a chilling effect and if we can agree on one thing here it's that we have not only the right but the obligation as citizens to express our views. The events of this week should make us louder, tougher, and yes maybe even OBNOXIOUS at times.

[RangerRK]

7. you're gonna get tazed for that!

They clearly have time for Impeachment!

[Greyhound]

27. Nixon took 2 months, Clinton 3. All the evidence is there and has been for quite some time.

All the BS about no time, no votes, too distracting, and whatever the next thing they'll make up to cover their collusion, has worn quite thin. Is it thin enough? I don't know, Americans are a pretty thick bunch, some present company excluded, of course.

[leftchick]

8. a long time ago...

back in 200o with every year bringing on the speed with fuel added by complicit democrats. Screw, screwed, screwn!

[Kajsa]

9. --and ---they make damn sure to suspend habeas corpus

indefinitely.

Why do they hate America?

I'm really asking.


;(

[superkia]

14. They live in America, we live in Amerika. 2 different places.

[RangerRK]

10. They voted for the Iran Freedom Support Act

n/t

[Skittles]

11. f***ing ugly out there

that rabbit hole getting bigger by the day

[CaliforniaPeggy]

12. K&R, my dear Redstone...

Beautifully said!

Off to the Greatest Page for you!

:patriot:

[truedelphi]

13. You are all saying it better than I can - I am NUMB! n/t

[Hydra]

15. Yeah, no kidding

and Wonderland gets stranger and stranger every day.

I just have to ask- what's wrong with you people that think everything's fine?!?!?!!

[Le Taz Hot]

46. I'm less worried about those people than the

people who keep urging us to vote Democrat, right or wrong, just because they're not Republican. Talk about drinkin' the fucking Kool Aid! No, we need PROGRESSIVES, regardless of party, because this batch of so-called Democrats sure as hell ain't doing it.

[bdamomma]

50. willful ignorant and in denial. to answer your question.

[MazeRat7]

16. America should have taken the "Blue" pill -nt

[Greyhound]

26. We did, my fellow coppertop, we did. n/t

[earth mom]

17. They are too damn busy to Impeach or to even attempt to fix New Orleans

but they DO have time for this TOTAL B.S. over Betrayus. :puke:

Yep, War is Peace doncha know?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x1844446

[Individualist]

18. down the rabbit hole and through the looking glass!

:crazy:

[Zodiak]

20. I condemn the U.S. Senate

For their fecklessness. For their refusal to be a separate but equal branch to Bushler. For their open hands to lobbyists and their lies. For their squandering of our children and our future for the wishes of one incompetent man. And for the dereliction of duty in solving our nation's problems while they crush the principles this nation was founded upon.

A gigantic fuck you to the U.S. Senate today, and my strongest condemnation.

And just for kicks, fuck the DLC, the New Dems, and the DSCC. Your bullshit machinations do not hide the fact that you have money but no no base...so you come to steal ours. You overextended yourselves today, because 2 million moveon.org members are the ones who USED to convince people around them to vote for you over the pukes. Those people are still listening to us, you know...at the dinner table and the water-cooler. Oh well, have fun in the political dustbin because you are fucked. We are not going to support you any more, and expect to see primary challengers. The GOOD Democrats need company, and you are fucking things up for everyone.

(this does not apply to those who have always kept the faith.....about half of the Dems in the Senate and about 100 of our Reps in the House).

[snappyturtle]

21. K&R Can't you just see our senators sitting around the table at

the "tea party"? It's total nonsense. Thanks for posting this.

On impeachment: "We're late, we're late, for a very important date, no time to say 'hello', 'good-bye' we're late, we're late, we're late." Is there no urgency in the House and Senate today?

on edit: urgency for the important matters

[pat_k]

30. In the "Mad Hatter" world of the beltway. . .

• casting a losing “no” vote against Alito, but refusing to join in a united filibuster, is accepted as “opposition.”


• charging/impeaching bushncheney for openly -- even proudly -- turning the the USA into a war criminal nation is unthinkable because it would "distract" from passing more laws for them to violate.


• "being divisive" is worse than being treasonous.


• men who have no qualms about openly violating any law or raiding the treasury (as they did after TIA was defunded) can be "forced" to "change course" by passing new laws or "cutting the funding."


• speaking truth and "dividing" Constitutional defenders and attackers is political suicide.

. . .the list goes on and on.

http://january6th.org/talking-impeachment-customize.pdf">Talking Impeachment in a Foreign Land (the DC Beltway) -- a half-fold, four-panel (two-front, two-back) leaflet that challenges their "through the looking glass" rationalizations for inaction on impeachment.

[Quixote1818]

22. More like down the Republican toilet bowl K & R nt

[JVS]

24. those morans need to get a brain, and some priorities

[Rex]

25. We walked through the looking glass into an hourglass

and now the sands of Democracy run out of time or it sure feels that way.

[ShortnFiery]

28. Yes, and the press functions as "The Mad Hatter."

[pat_k]

29. Impeachment is the only path to sanity. . .

. . .but our impeachophobic "leaders" tell us they won't impeach because they have "other priorities" -- "other priorities" that cannot be advanced as long as the nation is hostage to "the decider" and his puppet master.

Passing more laws for Bush to violate makes about as much sense as Jabberwocky. And as for "restoring" habeas -- there is no "restoring" the tenets of our Constitution. When a person violates the law, you do not seek to "restore" the law. You enforce it. We charged Congress with enforcing the Constitution and empowered them to do so by impeaching and removing officials who violate it.

Bush declared his intent to violate McCain's anti-torture amendment (which passed 90-9) with a signing statement. Even if 90 Senators refused to fund the occupation does anyone here actually believe that bushncheney would have any qualms about raiding the treasury to "stay the course"??

Our impeachophobic "leaders" tell us they won't impeach because it would be "divisive," as if "being divisive" is worse than being treasonous. If impeachment means more "division" between Constitutional defenders and attackers, what‘s the downside?

Impeachment forces a comprehensive "up or down vote" on the worst of the recent past with the maximum public attention. The Senate will pass judgment, and then the People will judge the judges in the next election.

If the Impeachophobic Dems don't "recover" soon, they could see the White House slip through their fingers, just as it did when they failed to impeach Reagan and Poppy Bush.

Check out http://january6th.org/talking-impeachment-customize.pdf">Talking Impeachment in a Foreign Land (the DC Beltway) -- a half-fold, four-panel (two-front, two-back) leaflet that challenges their "through the looking glass" rationalizations for inaction on impeachment.

"If the impeachment provision in the Constitution of the United States will not reach the offenses charged here, then perhaps that 18th-century Constitution should be abandoned to a 20th-century paper shredder."
-- The Honorable Barbara Jordan, Statement on Impeachment 25 July 1974 (http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/barbarajordanjudiciarystatement.htm">Transcript and Video)

[bobbolink]

34. their priorities are $$$$, and we haven't figured out how to change their direction.

"If the Impeachophobic Dems don't "recover" soon, they could see the White House slip through their fingers, just as it did when they failed to impeach Reagan and Poppy Bush."

You're absolutely right, and it's sad how many times it repeats without learning the lessons of history.

:cry:

[pat_k]

47. 48 Democratic Reps and 15 Senators were there in '87

And of course, since they have been around for more than 20 years, they are the folks who chair committees and subcommittees, or serve in the leadership.

Their apparent repetition compulsion is mind-boggling.

When they gained control of the Senate, the Dems of the 100th Congress were sure that victory would be their's in '88 -- that they just needed to sit back and watch the Republicans destroy themselves. The leadership "knew" they'd blow it if they appeared "too prosecutorial"; that they needed to take the "high road" and focus on "getting things done.". With Iran Contra exploding, Reagan and the Republicans would surely be too weakened to stop them.

They not only failed to impeach, the limits they set on the Select Committee investigation guaranteed that they wouldn't uncover the worst of it. Of course, the resulting slap on the wrist did nothing to "weaken" Republicans, and so the Dems were steamrolled. Instead of impeaching and demonstrating the strength and commitment to principle that Americans seek in their leaders, they just proved their impotence with empty gestures.

It really is http://journals.democraticunderground.com/pat_k/24">"Deja vu all over again".

You've gotta wonder what they attribute their failure back then too. I wouldn't be surprised if they concluded that they had "gone too far" and "energized the opposition" when they slapped Poppi on the wrist. Whatever they think, asking the question could perhaps kick off a useful dialog. If they have it right, do they really want to repeat history? If they have it wrong, its an opportunity to challenge them on it.

I may have missed somebody, but here's my list of the Members of Congress who were around back then:

Senators:
Reid, Leahy, Byrd, Biden,, Dodd, Harkin, Kennedy, Kerry, Rockefeller, Levin, Bingamam, Conrad, Inouye, Lautenberg, Baucus.

Representatives:
Neil Abercrombie (HI-1st)
Gary Ackerman (NY-5th)
Robert Andrews (NJ-1st)
Howard Berman (CA-28th)
Rick Boucher (VA-9th)
John Conyers (MI-14th)
Jerry Costello (IL-12th)
Peter DeFazio (OR-4th)
Norman Dicks (WA-6th)
John Dingell (MI-15th)
Eliot Engel (NY-17th)
Eni Faleomavaega (AS-AL)
Barney Frank (MA-4th)
Bart Gordon (TN-6th)
Steny Hoyer (MD-5th)
Paul Kanjorski (PA-11th)
Marcy Kaptur (OH-9th)
Dale Kildee (MI-5th)
Tom Lantos (CA-12th)
Sander Levin (MI-12th)
John Lewis (GA-5th)
Nita Lowey (NY-18th)
Edward Markey (MA-7th)
Jim McDermott (WA-7th)
Michael McNulty (NY-21st)
George Miller (CA-7th)
Alan Mollohan (WV-1st)
John Murtha (PA-12th)
Richard Neal (MA-2nd)
James Oberstar (MN-8th)
David Obey (WI-7th)
Solomon Ortiz (TX-27th)
Frank Pallone (NJ-6th)
Donald Payne (NJ-10th)
Nancy Pelosi (CA-8th)
David Price (NC-4th)
Nick Rahall (WV-3rd)
Charles Rangel (NY-15th)
Jose Serrano (NY-16th)
Ike Skelton (MO-4th)
Louise McIntosh Slaughter (NY-28th)
John Spratt (SC-5th)
Fortney Stark (CA-13th)
John Tanner (TN-8th)
Gene Taylor (MS-4th)
Edolphus Towns (NY-10th)
Peter Visclosky (IN-1st)
Henry Waxman (CA-30th)

[catnhatnh]

31. Yes... and then something about the gyre...

or gyreing, or of gyrations, or some such of the sort and thenceforth spiraling downward toward a "frumious Bandersnatch" or some such other contretemps. Really I much preferred the "Walrus and the Carpenter" for their straightforward and illuminating revelations regarding "cabbages and kings" since references to both "vegetables" and our current "supreme political leader" and their, in fact, irresistible melding is within my circles of conversation, an ongoing discussion...
Regards,
Lord Python-Snark

[tom_paine]

39. The Second Coming by W.B. Yeats

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight; somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

My God, that poem used to make me feel funny in the gizzard but now it also stands the hairs up on the back of my neck, because it is so close to coming to fruition and from being meatphor to being damned near literal truth.

[shadowknows69]

52. The last two lines of that poem are my favorite

Just damn creepy.

[bobbolink]

32. How many homeless?

~~waving hand in air~~

How many Dems concerned about me and the rest?

...
...
...

....crickets....

Yet, they'll continue to condemn suicide.... as if some people actually have a choice anymore....

But, dear Redstone, they're getting their lobbyists funds, donchaknow...

That's all that counts........................

:cry:

[RangerRK]

48. I'm concerned about you and the rest.

I think DUers should start giving money to eachother instead of presidential candidates,MoveOn etc.
That way you know it is really used for something good. Money for presidential candidates are given to the Corporate media by the hundreds of thousands, who give all their candidates free advertising anyway.

Someone recently said they still give money to John Kerry??

We need to look out for each other.

[dbt]

33. Nope. We was PUSHED.

Somehow, we were distracted to the point where we forgot to

Beware the jubjub bird and shun
The Frumious Bandersnatch.

[Telly Savalas]

35. We live in a Bullshitocracy

The dominant political force in this country is Bullshit.

[RangerRK]

36. great post

:kick:

[JCMach1]

37. Yes, was agreeing 100% with Pat Buchanan during a foreign policy interview yesterday

He was 'daring' to insist that Ahmadinejad be allowed to go to the WTC site and 'gasp' we should be talking to him fact to tace while he is here.

[leftofthedial]

38. unless there is some sort of unprecedented turnaround,

there is no one to vote for anymore.

[Kazak]

40. Moderation is the road to ruin.

:shrug:

[hfojvt]

41. I cannot see this rabbit hole

Am I taking the wrong drugs?

"How many hungry Americans?"

I have no idea. Do you? Is it that many more than there were 10 years ago, or twenty, or thirty?

"How many unemployed Americans?"

That I can tell you - 4.6%

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm

It was 5.7%, for example, in February of 1997. So 4.6% is not that bad.

"How many bankruptcies?"

Looks like about 700,000 through March 2007. That's way down from 1.7 million the previous year. I doubt if that is really good news, especially since foreclosures are up. In the 1990s, one study estimated that 20% of bankruptcies were due to health costs.

Your questions there seem to be hype. None of those problems, even the war, are new. Today's censure resolution does not contravene the first amendment. It provides no direct penalty to MoveOn. Nor does it prevent them or threaten them with penalties if they run another ad with the exact same message.

For the Senate to consider that resolution does not seem any more of a waste of time than DUs numerous threads about the same topic. We have or take the time to discuss this instead of more pressing issues. In our capacity as a think-tank, is there anything we can offer the Senate to answer more pressing problems? Do we have anything except the hyperbolic complaint that our elected Democrats are useless and that the world has gone insane?

[OneBlueSky]

42. frumious Bandersnatches, all of them . . . unfortunately, we can't shun them . . . n/t

.

[ShortnFiery]

44. "we can't shun them"

Wanna bet?

I've learned though my work in addiction counseling that you have to wait for someone you love (Democratic Party under leadership of the DLC) to *hit bottom* before you can truly conduct an successful intervention.

I'm going to shed many tears as I watch this slow train wreck of OUR Democratic Party "crash and burn" before my very eyes in the 2008 election. The bitterness will be the DLC, New Way and Blue Dogs damning *all things not centrist* as they leave in a huff.

THEN, only when The Democratic Party comes home to it's liberal base, can those of us who truly love the ORIGINAL/TRADITIONAL values begin to pick up the pieces.

Until then, no amount of belittling nor arrogant guilt trips will force me to even consider voting for a DLC candidate. It just won't happen.

NOT. THIS. TIME.

If we truly cherish the "values based" Democratic Party, we must "still love from afar" BUT allow it fall under corrupt leadership before we can begin to heal the wounds left by "the hard-core centrists." :(

[bobbolink]

54. You're so right in your analysis. Yet, we get castigated for this view.

It *is* painful to watch, and I think that's why so many try so hard to keep it afloat.

Boil, frog!

[puebloknot]

43. Grabberwocky...

Grabberwocky

'Twas Danzig, and the Swastikoves
Did Heil and Hittle in the Reich
All Nazi were the Lindengroves
And the Neurat Jewstreich.

Beware the Grabberwock, my Son
The Plans that spawn, the Plots that hatch,
Beware the JewJew Bird, and shun
The fuhrious Bundesnatch.

He took his Aryan Horde in Hand
Long Time the Gestapo He taught
Then rested He by the Baltic Sea
And stood awhile in Thought.

And as a Polish Oath they swore
The Grabberwock, with Lies aflame
Came Goering down the Corridor
and Goebbled as it came.

Ein, Zwei! Ein, Zwei! One in the Eye
For Polska Folk. Alas, alack!
He left them dread and as their Head
He came Meinkampfing back.

And hast thou ta'en thy Liebensraum?
Come to my Arms, my schemish Boy
Oh grabjous Day, Sieg Heil, be Gay
He strengthened through his Joy.

Twas Danzig, and the Swastikoves
Did Heil and Hittle in the Reich
All Nazi were the Lindengroves
And the Neurat Jewstreich.

This version came from Pete Jones, Brussels, Belgium
If anyone knows of the author to this poem, please email!

[ShortnFiery]

45. Morning LIBERAL kick!

:dem:

[RangerRK]

51. n/t

[Javaman]

53. Down the rabbit hole, through the looking glass...

walked into the lightl...

Yeah, pretty much.

what happens now is bullshit bills get passed that press the button of indignation of the senate reactionaries that spout on and on upon redefining what is acceptable and what isn't.

so Move on calls patrayus Betray us, but it's perfectly okay for the vp to tell someone to go fuck themselves and for the prez* to call someone in the press an asshole.

yes, that is the world we live in. the royalty can do no wrong yet the power to speak the truth is held to task.

what pisses off our mouth breathing members of congress is that there are no free speech zones on the net and that's why they want to take it away from us.

More power to Move On.