Rules for Thee, But not for Me

Here are some of the rules and precedents the executive will have to ask its allies in the Senate to break or ignore in order to turn the Senate into a rubberstamp for the nominations. They were laid out by Kennedy in his floor speech the other day. I wonder how many of these rules Wayne Allard feels should be broken to get Bush's judge appointment percent over 95?

First, they will have to see that the Vice President himself is presiding over the Senate so that no real Senator needs to endure the embarrassment of publicly violating Senate rules and precedent and overriding the Senate Parliamentarian the way our Presiding Officer will have to do.

Next, they will have to break paragraph 1 of rule V, which requires 1 day's specific written notice if a Senator intends to try to suspend or change any rule.

Then they will have to break paragraph 2 of rule V, which provides that the Senate rules remain in force from Congress to Congress, unless they are changed in accordance with the existing rules.

Then they will have to break paragraph 2 of rule XXII, which requires a motion, signed by 16 Senators, a 2-day wait, and a three-fifths vote to close debate on the nomination itself.

They will also have to break rule XXII's requirement of a petition, a wait, and a two-thirds vote to stop debate on a rules change.

Then, since they pretend to be proceeding on a constitutional basis, they will have to break the invariable rule of practice that constitutional issues must not be decided by the Presiding Officer, but must be referred by the Presiding Officer to the entire Senate for full debate and decision.

Throughout the process, they will have to ignore or intentionally give incorrect answers to proper parliamentary inquiries which, if answered in good faith and in accordance with the expert advice of the Parliamentarian, would make clear that they are breaking the rules.

Eventually, when their repeated rule-breaking is called into question, they will blatantly, and in dire violation of the norms and mutuality of the Senate, try to ignore the minority leader and other Senators who are seeking recognition to make lawful motions or pose legitimate inquiries or make proper objections.

By this time, all pretense of comity, all sense of mutual respect and fairness, all of the normal courtesies that allow the Senate to proceed expeditiously on any business at all will have been destroyed by the preemptive Republican nuclear strike on the floor.

To accomplish their goal by using a bare majority vote to escape the rule requiring 60 votes to cut off debate, those participating in this charade will, even before the vote, already have terminated the normal functioning of the Senate. They will have broken the Senate compact of comity and will have launched a preemptive nuclear war. The battle begins when the perpetrators openly, intentionally, and repeatedly break clear rules and precedents of the Senate, refuse to follow the advice of the Parliamentarian, and commit the unpardonable sin of refusing to recognize the minority leader.

Conscience of the Senate

Last night, the Conscience of the Senate, Robert Byrd of West Virginia, gave a history lesson on the filibuster and the parliamentary intricacies of the Senate to his colleagues. All Americans would have benefited from hearing this speech. Historians would be humbled by it; the Republican Senators posing in this charade should have been shamed by it.

I called Senator Byrd's office this morning to find out when the speech would be posted as it wasn't up yet. The assistant on the line seemed to be having a good day; she was very polite and asked my name. It was raining in DC, she seemed happy to talk, and I told her how warm it would be in the Springs today. All this chat told me one thing besides the fact the Byrd hires good people: the wingnuts had not been on the attack after his blockbuster speech. We know how they hate Byrd, and if they had the guts, they would've called the Senator to disagree -- but deep down they know he's right, morally ethically and procedurally right.

Here's the speech. The history is fascinating. The absolute correctness of the Democrats' position is undeniable.

Some ineteresting facts that no doubt will be ignored by the philsophical vipers on the right:

• The practice of limiting debate dates to 1604 when Sir Henry Vane first introduced the idea in the British Parliament. Known in parliamentary procedure as the “previous question.”
• The rules adopted by the United States Senate in April 1789 included a motion “for the previous question.”
• By a vote of 76 to 3, on March 8, 1917, after only six hours of debate, the Senate adopted its first cloture rule. (notice the margin of the vote - Z)
• Long speeches and other obstructionist tactics were more characteristic of the House than of the Senate in the early years.

Dig This

Digby at Hullabaloo takes on the Downing Street Memo:

"Tony Blair had to make a deal with Bush that he'd support him on Iraq to get him to go after Al-Qaeda. Is there anything more pathetic --- and frightening --- than that?"

Don't know who he is, but I like him.

Great Briton*

Oh man, George Galloway needs to give our Democratic representatives in DC a seminar on how to respond to right wing attacks. The Scotsman (* - that wouldn't have made such a clever title, now would it?) fired at Republican Senators with both barrels in their attempts to link him to the Iraq/UN oil-for-food scandal, just like he promised.

According to the BBC's Matthew Davis, he rubbished committee chairman Norm Coleman's dossier of evidence and stared him in the eye:

"Now I know that standards have slipped over the last few years in Washington, but for a lawyer, you are remarkably cavalier with any idea of justice," the MP declared to Norm Coleman (R-Hack)

"Senator, in everything I said about Iraq, I turned out to be right and you turned out to be wrong."

"I have met Saddam Hussein exactly the same number of times as Donald Rumsfeld met him. The difference is Donald Rumsfeld met him to sell him guns and to give him maps the better to target those guns. I met him to try and bring about an end to sanctions, suffering and war."

Paging all Democrats in Washington DC:

Read this testimony and use it daily!

And if they don't want to go so far away for advice on debating, maybe they can check with our own Mike Merrifield, he's got that same fiestiness.

A Pack of Lies

It's only too obvious now: not one of our representatives at the national level had the guts to forestall the war in Iraq, denounce the lies that led us there, or lay the blame where it truly lies in a way that would matter. Oh, there were peeps, whispers of outrage, weak denunciations. Dennis Kucinich was a persistent voice against the war - he even visited Colorado Springs during the presidential campaign and we saw his passion face to face.

But none of it mattered against an onslaught of fear and rhetoric pushed by the Neocons after 9/11. George W. Bush took us to war in Iraq with the combination of personal vendetta and a pointless backlash against the Arab world that let the perpetrators of the attack go free in Afghanistan. The President paid no political price for this and has had to account for none of his mistakes. He has continued on his merry way, promoting the architects of the war, giving them medals, protecting his business partners, continuing to stifle our democracy at every turn, and blissfully ignoring terrorist threats.

George Galloway has done it today. He's a British member of parliament who was smeared recently by the US Senate Republicans in the oil for food scandal. He was asked to testify in front of the Senate Committee on Investigations. Senator Norm Coleman, the designated hit man for the Senate's smoke screen on this scandal (a scandal that was furthered by Houston based oil companies more than the Secretary General's son) had his clock cleaned by Galloway today. Most committees check the prepared testimony and find out what someone is going to say before they swear them in, but Coleman's ego got the better of him again.

And I commend Coleman for his willful ignorance in this case. He should have read Galloway's testimony, then he might have thought twice about his part in this play. I'm glad he didn't, because the Galloway testimony is clear and damning and wouldn't have been seen but for the cynical posturing of a hack politician. Instead, it was covered live by several news outlets. It was spoken boldly and succinctly to the Senator. And Galloway's testimony does what our guys couldn't do: it reclaims the truth and honor of this horrible mess for those who opposed the war and tried to stop it; it highlights the lies repeated by our leaders; and it lays blame for the deaths of our soldiers and Iraqi citizens at the feet of the President. It gives name to the pack of lies that took us to war.

Will this latest piece of evidence crack the consciousness of our fellow citizens? Only time will tell, but one can hope.

Olbermann calls for McClellan's Resignation

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7873141/#050516b

About time!

Don Rumsfeld might also consider what it is he himself said about the Newsweek item:

“People lost their lives. People are dead,” Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said. “People need to be very careful about what they say, just as they need to be careful about what they do.”

Considering what Rumsfeld is neck deep in, that's really stunning. Just go read Olbermann. There's no way to improve on his response.

Due to terrorist attacks, we must ban abortion...

Today's title come to us courtesy of Sen. Wayne Allard, who decries the filibuster because of -- you guessed it -- terrorist attacks. Somehow the Appeals Court is supposed to defend us from international terrorism. I've included a full-text snip from his "cogent" letter in the Comments section...