Yet another pathetic day for America

The Senate is in the process of passing the new FISA bill, including all the heinous immunity clauses intact. What we have here, folks, is the gutting of the 4th Amendment, the enshrinement of a royal presidency, and the loss of checks and balances in our system of government. Think I'm being overdramatic? This bill enables anyone in the executive branch to compel private citizens and businesses to secretly spy on anyone without triggering any of the legal safeguards our Constitution provides for us. Every single phone call, email, text, letter, and conversation you have, any TV program you watch, any radio station you listen to, and virtually anything else you do, can now be recorded by the government and used by them to do anything it wants. Lest you be one of the shortsighted ignoramuses who are saying, "If you have nothing to hide, why should it bother you?", think about this the next time you apply for a loan, or are going through a divorce, or are applying for a job, or are arrested, or have to appear in court, or any other freaking thing having to do with anything other than breathing: there's nothing you've ever done that can't have been recorded (without you knowing about it), and held against you (without you knowing what it was), and you don't get any chance to fight it, because no one has to reveal any of it--to you, or your attorney, or the judge trying your case. Legally. Unless, of course, the Supreme Court rightfully rejects it as unconstitutional. I'm sure Scalia, Roberts, and the rest of those tools will save us, right? Uh huh.
All in the name of national security. What a horrible, sad day. You win again, right wing scumbags. I hope you all die painfully and soon, and may you rot in hell for all eternity. Record that, motherfuckers.

Republican resignations are usually such good news, too

Former Senate Majority Leader--and current douchebag (with all due apologies to douchebags everywhere!)--Trent Lott is resigning by the end of the year. Wasn't he just re-elected, you ask? Why yes; yes he was. So why resign now? I mean, it's not like the unregenerate racist and corrupt scumbag feels any shame for being caught in scandals--that happened before his 2006 decision to ignore them and run again.
Apparently, though, being in the minority is less fun than running the country into the ditch--the ditch of Hell, that is--even though the Republicans in the Senate have no problems stopping any and all legislation they dislike. The major reasons, then, for the timing of his resignation must be 1) selfish; and 2) political.
The selfish reason is that there is new legislation coming down the pike that will increase the time a public servant has to wait before becoming a lobbyist. The new ethics rule, which goes into effect on Jan. 1 (gee, what a shocker ol' Trent will be gone by 12/31!), will delay the transformation of corrupt pols to those doing the corrupting for 2 years; there is currently a 1 year waiting period. Trent apparently can't put off the inevitable and massive income raise he'll be getting from his right wing masters those extra 365 days. Such a financial hardship, I know.
The political reason, and given Trent's history of a lack of any kind of ethical behavior in his pursuit of Republican power, we know that there is one, is that this will give his successor the time it takes to achieve the veneer (and real world advantages, too, of course) of incumbency for the November 2008 election he will then face to complete Lott's term.
In Mississippi, the governor gets to appoint a replacement to any Senate openings, and since Haley Barbour is an old-school Republican hack, we know he's been in on this since Lott decided to run again. Expect a cleaner version of Lott to fill that seat for the next 4+ years, not that that says much . . .
Mississippi. Once again reclaiming the title of the only state Alabama can look down upon!

Cloture votes

Yeah, right, like you thought they would get even a simple "no-confidence" vote to the floor? It's not as if Gonzales has done anything worth impeaching, right? I mean, dismissing employees of the Justice Department for political reasons isn't a violation of their civil service rights, is it? Or colluding with the rest of Smirky's cabal and wiretapping the whole country illegally? How about the simple fact that he has repeatedly lied to Congress while testifying before committees?
There really is no excuse for anyone supporting this moral waste of oxygen, but hey, there are at least 38 Senators who voted yesterday who did just that.
You see, in the Senate, a vote to end debate is necessary before any action itself gets to be voted on, and cloture requires 60 Senators' approval. This is what's known as the "cloture" vote, and is the official term for the filibuster process. Voting for cloture means that the Senator wants to bring the matter at hand to the floor for the final pass/no pass vote. This past week we saw two instances where this came up; the first was the immigration bill, which also failed its cloture vote; and the second on Gonzales's wrist slap. The vast majority of those not voting for cloture were Republicans (naturally, since they have no interest in doing the people's business, but instead only seek to gum up the works at every opportunity), and since they have far more than the 41 Senators required to deny cloture (100-60+1), we can expect to see a lot of these kinds of votes over the next year and 1/2.
Why didn't the Democrats do this when they were in the minority, even though there were more than 41 Democrats in the Senate, even at their lowest ebb? Good question. Part of the answer lies in the fact that some Dems (I'm looking at you, Joe Lieberman) seem to want to appear as if they really aren't "partisan" when in fact, their lack of party loyalty simply enables the Republican agenda to continue to advance. That's not being non-partisan, Joe, that's being Republican. Jackass. Other Dems seem not to understand that our government is teetering on the brink of dissolution, in effect, as the Executive Branch under Bush runs wild over the Constitution. Those seeking to "keep their powder dry" for something really important can't ever quite pull the trigger on anything, which again simply enables the Republicans to rule, even while they are in the minority. Filibuster the nominations of Alito? Roberts? Bolton? Rice? Gonzales himself? Filibuster the Bankruptcy Bill? The extension of the Patriot Act? Vote to cut off funding for the Occupation of Iraq? Nah, we'll wait and use our "power" when it matters.
The problem with that attitude, of course, is that all of these nominations and bills (and hundreds of others unmentioned) have mattered. Greatly. And by not exercising the power of the filibuster and/or party discipline--as Republicans have been doing for the last 13 years quite extensively and successfully--the Democrats have failed in their duty to represent their constituents, let alone the country's best interests and future.