Of Torture, Bankruptcy, and Spineless Vichy Democrats
We’re all painfully aware that the torture bill passed the senate yesterday evening by a comfortable margin. The handwriting had been on the wall for a couple of days. As the debate wore on, it was increasingly clear that the Democratic Party would not put up much of a fight against the effort [...]
We’re all painfully aware that the torture bill passed the senate yesterday evening by a comfortable margin. The handwriting had been on the wall for a couple of days. As the debate wore on, it was increasingly clear that the Democratic Party would not put up much of a fight against the effort to codify all forms of torture, provide immunity (retroactively) against war crimes prosecution (in the U.S.) for those who authorized or engaged in torture, and gut the fundamental right of habeas corpus.
Then, when the kabuki theatre surrounding the torture bill was reaching a climax, I felt a sense of deja vu all over again, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. Fortunately, Susie at Suburban Guerrilla put up a post yesterday afternoon that caused the pieces to fall into place for me…
Just got this from one of the staffers in Reid’s office:
We entered into a unanimous consent agreement — the choice was have a cloture vote and lose (we simply did not have the votes) with no amendments allowed or actually get votes on four dem amendments. Because it was a UC agreement any member could have objected.
Q: When’s the last time that word was used by the Democratic Party leadership with respect to a controversial (read: BAD) piece of legislation?
A: The Indentured Servitude Act of 2005 (the bankruptcy bill).
The one real opportunity to defeat the bankruptcy bill occured at the time of the cloture vote. 14 Democratic Party senators defected to the GOP side of the aisle, and voted for cloture, which effectively ensured that this horrendous and draconian bill would pass. The defecting senators included:
Sen. Joe Biden (D-Delaware)
Sen. Tom Carper (D-Delaware)
Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Nebraska)
Sen. Tim Johnson (D-South Dakota)
Sen. Robert Byrd (D-West Virginia)
Sen. Kent Conrad (D-North Dakota)
Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wisconsin)
Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-Lousiana)
Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Connecticut)
Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Arkansas)
Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Florida)
Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Arkansas)
Sen. Ken Salazar (D-Colorado)
Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Michigan)
Following the passage of the bankruptcy bill, I wrote a blistering post where I said that I would no longer support, with words or money, any of the Democratic Party senators on the above list. My reasoning was that these senators were not supporting Democratic Party or progressive values, so there was no reason to support them. I also leveled several blasts at Harry Reid for failing (once again) to play cat herder, and bring the party in line. It doesn’t take a majority to defeat cloture - in fact, there can be TWO defections, and a filibuster is essentially in play. And this is where the connection with the torture bill comes in.
Harry Reid’s office said yesterday afternoon that they didn’t have the votes to defeat cloture on the terror bill. That means that at least 3 Democratic Party senators told Reid that they wouldn’t do it - we don’t have names, and it never came to a vote anyway, but damn. At least three unknown representatives of the Democratic Party bolted again, and Reid couldn’t bring them back in line. Either his office (or the senators themselves) didn’t think the torture bill was egregious enough to bring the threat of a filibuster into play.
I’m still shaking my head.
The final vote was held late yesterday, and the torture bill passed by quite a comfortable margin. Here’s the list of the pro-torture Democratic Party senators:
Pryor (D-AR)
Salazar (D-CO)
Lieberman (D-CT) *
Carper (D-DE) *
Nelson (D-FL) *
Landrieu (D-LA)
Stabenow (D-MI) *
Nelson (D-NE) *
Lautenberg (D-NJ)
Menendez (D-NJ) *
Johnson (D-SD)
Rockefeller (D-WV)
[Bold = also voted for bankruptcy bill
* = running for reelection this year]
I’m not really trying to accomplish an in-depth pattern analysis, but there is a crystal clear pattern in the voting on these two controversial bills. For the most part, the same cast of Vichy Democrats voted to approve both indentured servitude and torture. I don’t want to hear excuses that these Democratic Party senators voted pro-torture because they are facing “tough relection battles”, and “we have to pick our fights”. While that may actually be true in a couple of cases (Menendez comes immediately to mind), it still doesn’t justify compromising core progressive values of the Democratic Party.
What this pattern represents is the death of the two-party system. If a schmuck like me can see the pattern, and Harry Reid can’t, then it’s truly time for new leadership in the Democratic Party. Any time that a tough call comes up, these folks come up short.
It’s distressing.
The dastardly thing about this whole thing is that the primaries are over.
We have to wait another however many years to take out Carper, and by then people may have forgotten.
In Landrieu’s case it will be easier: lots of Katrina footage and that clip of her praising Bush.
Frankly, I intend to start keeping my eye out for appearances by these dopes so i can pelt them with rotten tomatoes.
Which is actually pretty easy to get away with from within a large crowd. or nearby: you set up a winger, one of those three-man slingshot things, and start whupping balloons filled with red paint in their direction.
I must mention that Lieberman is [b]not[/d] running as a Democrat this cycle. He is running as, “Connecticut for Lieberman” or something like that.
Yeah, Indiana Joe, that’s another bone I have to pick with the party.
I’m not quite sure why Lieberman’s still even allowed to caucus with the Democratic Party senators.
(Actually, I know why he is, so please, no one flame me on that one.)
I don’t know what good it did but I called Carper and left a message. His AA said that he voted to uphold habeas corpus as if that was supposed to make me feel better.
I don’t get these guys.
a sad day for our nations history.
There is no excuse for Bill Nelson of Florida. he is running against Katherine Harris and has millions in cash on hand and +30 in the polls. After Hurricane Andrew, whe he was Insurance Commissioner, it turns out, he supported allowing the national insurers to pull out of the state and create new single state companies with much higher insurance rates. Thus, the new Allstate Floridian and others that appeared. He apparently just does not care about working families or true American values. He had no reason to vote for the torture bill unless he actually believes torture is good for America. I will remember this in 6 years.
I made my last round of campaign contributions last night. Sadly, I had to scratch candidates who turned their backs on American values.
Then I submitted a request to the Manager of the Afterlife to create a special place in hell for those to whom I had previously donated and who had betrayed my confidence.
And wtf is up with NJ–two guys with D after their names voting for torture?!
“Garden State” my ass! “The Misplaced County of South Carolina” is more like it.
Yeah, BroD, I dunno about the NJ guys. Again, I can sorta understand the Menendez vote, because he’s in a tough battle, and is campaigning as tough on port security (his latest Philly market commercial is proof of this). But Lautenberg?? I don’t understand that one at all, even a little bit.
The Dems had two votes they could give away on cloture and still succeed. If any deal making were necessary, Menendez could have been one of them.
Makes it hard to figure out what a person of conscience should do with his/her vote in November, doesn’t it? How can one, iwhen voting for his/her Democratic representive or senator send a clear message that this shit has got to stop?
Help me understand this.
Even D-CA Dianne Feinstein on the morning of the 28th could not commit to voting against or fillibustering. (eventually voted against - but show some loyalty to your party base, please!)
Up for election, but it won’t be close - but she’s also the kind who joins the GOP for every jingonistic piece of crap they splat out to rile up the crowd. She should be up next for Liber-ing, if I had a say.
[...] If you think about it, in 2005 and 2006, the pendulum swing toward the Democrats was not so much about anything that the leadership of the Democratic Party actually accomplished. Ok, so Democrats weren’t in power, and legislatively, there wasn’t much that could be done. Still, for the most part, Democrat opposition in congress was weak - and that’s why we ended up with two 18th century-era constructionist Supreme Court justices who have no business arbitrating constitutional law in a post-modern society. It’s why we ended up with a bankruptcy law that is nothing short of draconian and a sellout to the moneychangers. The lack of opposition is why we continue to be mired in the quicksand of Baghdad, and why anyone with a progressive agenda has been painted as a terrorist sympathizing unpatriotic coward. See: Murtha, John. [...]
[...] Debbie Stabenow has been on my personal shitlist since she voted for the Indentured Servitude Act of 2005, and extended her stay on my list after voting for torture in 2006. Still, I don’t particularly wish her husband’s indiscretions upon her. [...]