Here's proof that some politicians don't care what the majority wants, in fact, they laugh at them. After all, they are just bottom feeders.
President Dwight D. Eisenhower famously said: "Only a fool would try to deprive working men and women of the right to join a union of their choice."
So why did Republican lawmakers in the Senate this week nearly unanimously oppose a bill that would have updated our nation's antiquated labor laws and leveled the playing field for U.S. employees to form unions?
With the exception of Sen. Arlen Specter from Pennsylvania, Republican senators on Tuesday blocked a move to bring the Employee Free Choice Act to a floor vote. By a 51-48 majority, all Democrats, both Independents and Specter voted to end debate on the bill, which needed a "super majority" of 60 votes.
More than half of U.S. workers -- 60 million -- say they would join a union right now if they could. But the labor law system is so broken they can't exercise that right. Last year, more than 31,000 workers had their union rights violated by their employers.
The vitriol expressed by McConnell, Mike Enzi from Wyoming and other Republicans on the Senate floor in opposition to ensuring America's workers have a chance to move into -- or remain in -- the middle class is breathtaking in its extremism. Rather than express sympathy for America's workers and reach out to them -- many of whom are among the nation's 43.6 million without health care coverage and half of whose employers offer no pension plans -- these senators made jokes at their expense.
Characterizing workers as "Joe the leg breaker" and using other demeaning, degrading descriptions, these senators showed they are not made of the same fiber as an Eisenhower.
In blocking the Employee Free Choice Act from a final vote, 48 Republican senators voted to perpetuate a system in which private-sector employers illegally fire employees for union activity at least 25 percent of the time they seek to form unions.
In obstructing the Employee Free Choice Act, these Republican senators seek to deny America's employees the chance to raise their wages -- union workers earn 30 percent more than nonunion workers--and retire with the knowledge they don't have to keep working full time: 80 percent of union workers are covered by pension plans versus 47 percent of nonunion workers.
And in rejecting the will of the people -- 69 percent of Americans say they support the Employee Free Choice Act -- these Republicans demonstrated how out of touch they are with America's mainstream, with the millions of employees who seek to improve their lives and those of their families, and with the best traditions of their own party.
America's workers have the majority on their side. Nearly 1,300 lawmakers in 60 state, county and city legislative bodies passed resolutions supporting Employee Free Choice; 16 governors signed on to a letter backing the bill, as did 115 religious leaders. Workers staged nearly 100 actions in the past week in support of Employee Free Choice, and middle-class Americans generated 50,000 phone calls to the Senate, 156,000 faxes and e-mail messages and 220,000 postcards, including 120,000 delivered to the Senate last week.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-sweeney/only-fools-opponents-of-_b_54175.html
Posted by Judith at June 29, 2007 04:19 AMWhere were the senators? Well, the Democratic ones, as I recall, were keeping their powder dry.
By now that powder is dried and caked, and seemingly useless still.
Posted by vicki at June 29, 2007 04:45 AMThis was very eloquent writing, Mary.
As we're starting to learn, electronic "votes" in Ohio may have been simply created on the RNC servers which the Repub sec of state used for official purposes. Did Bush win in Ohio, the decisive state in 04? His "win" in 04 allowed him to place (so far) two justices on the Court.
Nero will have many disastrous legacies, but one of the most pernicious will be his Roberts--Alito Court.
The procedure for removing justices is impeachment, like every other constitutional officer.
Posted by euzoius at June 29, 2007 05:15 AMImpeachment:
1 a : to bring an accusation against b : to charge with a crime or misdemeanor ; specifically : to charge (a public official) before a competent tribunal with misconduct in office
2 : to cast doubt on ; especially : to challenge the credibility or validity of
3 : to remove from office especially for misconduct
'Competent Tribunal', no wonder impeachment is "off the table."
Posted by Judith at June 29, 2007 05:36 AM"If Bush is illegitimate, then how can his nominations to the Court be legitimate? And if they are not legitimate, than what's the procedure for getting them removed them from the court?"
The procedure is to find someone who believes in the rule of law and actually stands on the principal that no one is above the law. Good luck.
Posted by Judith at June 29, 2007 05:50 AMThe House needs to draw up Articles of Impeachment for Alito, Roberts, Gonzo, Bush and Cheney. That should keep them busy for the better part of the summer, and since they are not doing the 'people's work', they should have plenty of time.
Posted by Judith at June 29, 2007 06:24 AMThe House needs to draw up Articles of Impeachment for Alito, Roberts, Gonzo, Bush and Cheney.
Won't happen as long as you have Nancy Pelosi as Speaker.
She doesn't have the courage or leadership skills or the interest to shepperd impeachment through the House. She's as weak as water.
Posted by Christopher at June 29, 2007 07:03 AMTotally off topic, but did anyone see the interview with Elizabeth Edwards yesterday on ABC's Good Morning America? The attack against her continued and she spent the interview time defending herself against Ann Coulter, of all people. Elizabeth was accused of calling into the Coulter interview as a publicity stunt to raise money for John, among other things. Edwards said that it was hardly a publicity stunt since she did not set-up the interview with Coulter. Anyway, instead of allowing Elizabeth the right to respond to radical Coulter, ABC took up where Coulter left off.
I guess Elizabeth asking Coulter to stop making personal attacks, saying "it lowers our political dialogue precisely at the time that we need to raise it," is just too civil these days.
Shame on you ABC.
Christopher, Ms. Nancy may have taken impeachment "off the table", but evidently not everyone agrees.
Dennis Kucinich introduced articles to impeach Vice President Dick Cheney Tuesday, basing his decision on Cheney's initial push to send the United States into war with Iraq.
"The vice president is beating the same drums of war against Iran that he beat against Iraq under false pretenses, and he's doing it all over again, against Iran," Kucinich said. "And I say that it's time to stand up to that. Our country couldn't afford this last war. We can't afford to go into another one. And somebody has to challenge the conduct of this Vice President."
The Democratic presidential candidate said he decided to go after the vice president first for practical reasons. He said if Congress impeaches the president, then Cheney would take his place. He said he didn't think the country could handle two consecutive impeachments.
Currently, no other House members have signed on as cosponsors of his action. Kucinich denied that this is a political stunt and said he thinks Congress needs to stand up to the administration.
http://www.cnn.com/POLITICS/blogs/politicalticker/2007/04/kucinich-takes-steps-to-impeach-cheney.html
Posted by Judith at June 29, 2007 07:35 AMYou are seeing the destruction of the Republic with your very eyes and as we speak.
You'll need a stinking miracle to reverse this and I dont exactly believe in miracles.
This cart only goes downhill.
Posted by Parallax at June 29, 2007 07:36 AMCurrently, no other House members have signed on as cosponsors of his action.
Judith,
They're cowards. The American people realize too.
That's why the Reid/Pelosi circus enjoys a 14% approval rating. Lower than the Congress that brought us Newt Gingrich's "Contract on America".
Posted by Christopher at June 29, 2007 07:57 AMI guess in Congress, the Murthas, the Kucinichs and the Feingolds stand alone on an island, unsupported by their peers, and not yet silenced. At least they can go to bed at night, knowing they tried, when everyone else was against them.
Posted by Judith at June 29, 2007 08:25 AMThat packing of the court -- courts, really, federal district, appeals and Supreme -- is what ensures that Bush will never have to comply with anything Congress tells him to do, including subpoenas over the fired prosecutors. Welcome to the new imperium, where the Unitary Executive really is in charge. No court will stop him.
Posted by Brian Bell at June 29, 2007 08:33 AMOkay, but where do we go from here? If the votes are fixed, and Democracy is no longer, what do we do? Nothing to date seems to make any difference to the traitors that sold us a line of crap. Will America go blindly on their way, while the rest of us become painfully aware, day after day, of the destruction of a Country once called America, land of the free? I just want to have a primal scream sometimes.
Posted by Judith at June 29, 2007 09:14 AMMary, Cheney runs this circus, not Bush. He is simply Krusty the Clown’s assistant. And a pathetic one, at that...
Posted by tempus at June 29, 2007 09:15 AMBrian Bell, how right you are. From here on out, anything is possible and probable.
Posted by Judith at June 29, 2007 09:23 AMYep Tempus, and Cheney made sure he was elected President too. The voters just didn't know it.
Posted by Judith at June 29, 2007 09:26 AMMy theory is that Dan Quayle was going to be the George Bush of today. The plan was to have Quayle ascend to the Presidency. Their master plan could have begun much earlier with another idiot in the WH that could be controlled.
The suspension of the elections is looking quite possible these days, I hate to say.
Posted by Judith at June 29, 2007 09:33 AMYesterday, the Democrats in the House of Representatives almost succeeded in defunding the Executive Branch portion of the Office of the Vice President. Rep. Emmanuel from California intorduced an amendment (via ThinkProgress) to the Executive Branch Appropriations bill that would have defunded the Executive branch appropriation for the Vice President's Office. The Vice President is also funded in the Legislative Branch appropriation which was passed recently.
Under the Constitution, the Vice President has only one duty while the Presiedent is functioning: to serve as the President of the Senate. Thus, as long as the President is serving, the Vice President is in the Legislative, not the Executive Branch. If the Vice President "acts" as President or becomes President, he becomes the Executive Branch. If separation of powers has any meaning, the only branch there should be no "Executive Office of the Vice President!" There should only be the Vice President acting as the President of the Senate. Funding and management of that office should be under the Article I control of the Senate.
Cheney has demonstrated the danger to the Republic of having a Cheney Branch of Government. The harm has been enabled by the fact that the "Office of the Vice President" is overfunded, overstaffed, and not subject to the Constitutional right of the Senate to place it under its rules. (Article I, Sec. 5, cl 2)
Yesterday, there was an attempt to remedy this unfortunate failure of separation of powers by defunding the Executive Branch portion of the Vice President's budget to get the Vice President back into the branch he should be in under the Constitution. Unfortunately, the effort failed. The Democrats failed in their duty to protect separation of powers and to check the unbridled and unconstitutional usurpation of power by the Vice President, wannabe President.
The amendment failed on a recorded vote by five votes. These Democrats voted against the restoration of the separation of powers and the rogue Vice Presidency: Bean, Boren, Boyd (FL), Capuano, Cuellar, Edwards, Ellsworth, Gordon, Herseth, Sandlin, Kaptur, Klein (FL), Lampson, McDermott, Murtha, Obey, Peterson (MN), Ross, Salazar, Sestak, Skelton, Smith (WA), Snyder, Space, and Tanner. Had these voted with the majority of Democrats, the process of restoring constitutional order would have begun. These Democrats failed US.
Each of these representatives should be written and informed that they have failed in their rejection of Emmanuel's amendment and that it is important for the Democrats in Congress to work to restore the proper constitutional role to the position of Vice President as a Member of Congress and not a part of the Executive Branch as long as the President is acting to fulfill his duties under the Constitution. After all, when the Vice President fulfills his duties under Article II, he is the President and can exercise and use all of the money and power incumbent upon that office. At all other times, he is not some new Dick Branch, he is a member of the Senate and he shoud do his job, show up, and preside over the Senate.
We believers in the value of the separation of powers and constitutional government should work to insure that when the Executive Branch Appropriation bill clears the Senate and the conference committee, all vestages of Executive Branch funding for the Office of the Vice President are expunged from the bill.
Posted by Nobody at June 29, 2007 09:40 AMThat's why the Reid/Pelosi circus enjoys a 14% approval rating.
But they get a 100% approval rating from K Street, the only rating that matters to them.
Bean, Boren, Boyd (FL), Capuano, Cuellar, Edwards, Ellsworth, Gordon, Herseth, Sandlin, Kaptur, Klein (FL), Lampson, McDermott, Murtha, Obey, Peterson (MN), Ross, Salazar, Sestak, Skelton, Smith (WA), Snyder, Space, and Tanner.
They were keeping their powder dry! Remember the Dem motto:
"Democrats! Keeping Our Powder Dry Since 1996!"
How does any self-respecting moderately intelligent person NOT have their gag reflex kick-in when they say they are a registered Democrat?
Posted by phidipides at June 29, 2007 10:26 AMHow does any self-respecting moderately intelligent person NOT have their gag reflex kick-in when they say they are a registered Democrat?
Because I'm still trying to get over the dick in my ass.
Posted by Seven of Six at June 29, 2007 10:30 AMNobody - Cheney does not give shit about the Constitution, or any laws purported to keep law and order in the land. The idiot just doesn't fucking care.
Posted by tempus at June 29, 2007 10:34 AM"The idiot just doesn't fucking care."
Cheney cares very much, but not about liberty. Cheney cares about gutting the Constittution as fast as possible and installing a permanent, authoritarian, cabal of corporate raiders.
Congress is impotent because is chooses to be and it chooses to be because the great majority of its members, including a large chunk of the Democrats are followers of same program to turn over the republic the the Club.
The proof is in the recorded votes.
Because I'm still trying to get over the dick in my ass.
!!! ROFLMAO !!!
Man, I laughed so hard I got tears in my eyes. Kudos, SoS!
Posted by phidipides at June 29, 2007 11:53 AMA close friend of Cheney's (forgot him name) was on Rose's Show last week, and said that Dick really doesn't care what anyone says or thinks. His only concern is what will be recorded historically. If that be the case, he should be quite concerned. Now I know how Bush got this same line of thinking.
Posted by Judith at June 29, 2007 02:15 PMThanks phid. I guess we have the same sick, twisted sense of humor!
Posted by Seven of Six at June 29, 2007 02:31 PM...trying to get over the dick in my ass
Is that like "trying to wrap my head around"?
I never could picture that one either.
Judith said this, and a whole lot more:
...From here on out, anything is possible and probable....
And therein lies my fears.