Roder, I'll say it again.  TO IMPEACH PRESIDENT BUSH, THE DEMOCRATS WOULD HAVE TO HAVE A 67-33 MAJORITY IN THE SENATE.

And in the other case, Presidents often have the power to sign Executive Orders, often to bypass the congress when they're trying to get something done very quickly.

As to how they'd pull things?  Easy.  By arguing that the Democrats are working to hold up congress, rather than trying to get work done, they'd attempt to influence voters to get the Democrats out of power.  It's happened before; look at the backlash from the 1995-6 government stoppage.

The problem is that the people with the money control the media, and the media controls the populace, and the populace votes for the politicians. Our media has been shockingly terrible for a long ass time, and they are really showing what a bunch of ridiculous clowns they are this election cycle with obsessive fixations on shit that really doesn't matter, and they're getting away with it. I've got no idea how to change that either. We've got a democracy, which is great except that the majority, the lowest common denominator, doesn't give a shit about anything that doesn't immediately effect their day to day life. When something does penetrate the stupor and make an impact in their tiny little minds, they gravitate towards whichever position the media presents in the simplest and most digestible manner. Hence why so many people support offshore drilling instead of actually kicking the addiction to oil and finding a better way.

There is some bad shit going down, exponentially worse then FISA, and the fact that liberals are fixating on FISA over everything else shows the success the media has in controlling us. FISA, especially telecom immunity, is a red sheet in front of our bull. What's going on while we're looking at the red sheet and focusing on it? Bistro had no idea that a 60 year old woman got in trouble and was accosted by police  simply for holding up a sign that said "McCain = Bush". Did she say "McCain = Hitler", or "McCain = puppyraper"? No, she compared him to the sitting president of the US, a president who is of the same political party that McCain is representing. For that the cops ticketed her. And Bistro had no idea. Because that red sheet is out there waving, making us look where the magician wants us to look. It's all a Hocus Pocus act. Has anyone noticed how Afghanistan is catching fire, and the Taliban is resurging with a vengeance? Or that the Iraqi government said they want us out by the end of the year? With all the talk about offshore drilling, has anybody noticed the oil field discovered in North Dakota that holds at least 4.1 billion barrels?

Has anybody noticed that the weather is rather unusual this year? How many people know that climate scientists are literally taking bets over whether or not the North Pole will be ice free during the summer this year, for the first time in recorded history. Those same climate scientists are saying optimistic things like

If you want to make FISA your make or break issue, go right ahead. That's your right, certainly. Go right ahead and fixate on whatever you want to fixate on, because buddy, we're fucked regardless. There's a lot more shit going on then telecom immunity. Stop watching the magic show and look behind the curtain.

I agree that impeachment is implausible, the way things stand, but it sure as hell would send a great message if the Democrats were riled up enough about it to actually make it a Big Deal, the way the Republicans did it with Clinton, who did something a whole lot less bad than what Bush has been doing consistently. The point is the tone and tenor of the senate and of the country.

I'd love to see Bush pull a whole lot of those if the Senate was constantly against him.

Again, I'd love to see it. I don't think people are going to vote Democrats out of office, when Bush does things (or in this case would propose things) that gain him a ~30% approval rating.


I'm sorry, but there is just no cogent argument in the world you could make for the idea that we are in this situation because the Democrats haven't been compromising with Bush and the Republicans enough, and have been "entrenching" too much. You would see that if you stopped fetishizing this unbelievably skewed idea of "compromise". Once again, please look up the discussion we had on compromise before, it is in some recent thread.


For the last time, Yes, I Know. But the whole point is that that means that Your System Is Not Doing a Good Job of Governing Well And Maybe You Should Change It. I don't know how much more clearly I can say it.

Proportional representation is hardly a radical idea, and it's something most Western countries have adopted to a greater degree than the united states (though none completely, and with good reason as well).

And I don't disagree that any of the other things you mention are important. What I have a problem with is this idea that we can only have some small range of "make-or-break" issues. I want global warming to be a giant issue, AND Iraq to be a giant issue AND Afghanistan to be a giant issue AND the lady being ticketed to be a giant issue, and I don't think that's too much to ask at all. Look, we vote for and pay for people whose *only* job, 9-5 is supposed to be to pay attention to ALL of the things you mention. Bush has taken nearly 365 days, a full year, of vacation time (thanks to Jon Stewart for pointing that out). Senators and Congressmen take more vacations and times off than probably anyone else in the country, as far as I know. And they still don't have time to focus on these things?

And most infuriating of all, votes like the FISA thing COME UP in the houses. So what is this argument that there isn't enough time to focus on these issues? All Obama and the other Senators had to do was vote "No", how difficult, or time/energy-consuming is that? Why can we not have red flags going up for ALL of the things you're talking about? Are we, as liberals, really so tired and defeated? Because that's the only possible conclusion I can draw from what you say, and it really is no excuse, sad as it might be.

Bistro, they tried that in the 1780s.  It was called the Articles of Confederation.  You know what happened?  The states ended up fucking eachother over and arguing.  It was chaos.

But throwing up our hands and scrapping 230 years of history when it can be fixed is a worse alternative.

The UK still exists.  It changed.

PS- I find it very distressing that my 1,000th post here at Zeech is in an argument.

Which is why I said the whole process should have been started a lot sooner, and why my whole point was about how it should have had broad support instead of a few lone people calling for it.


Fair enough, but I'm sure if he pulled an executive order like a war in Iraq or wiretapping, there'd be bills congress could pass, lawsuits Democrats could file, and Supreme Court action given enough pressure from the people (especially given that things like the wiretapping are very clearly illegal. Again, please remember that my whole position is arguing from the hypothetical of both voting and elected liberals actually doing something about things.

This is confusing cause and consequence. The reason the media would bias people for voting Democrats out of congress in this case is precisely because of the fetishism of "compromise" and "moving ahead" that is going on. It is not a cause for it. If people realized that doing nothing is a whole lot better than doing bad things, the media would be touting that message just as loudly -- the main hidden political agenda the media really has is to sell, sell, sell. If it was the case that, and if they realized that, it sold to portray the brave Democrats, fighting the Republicans to maintain our freedoms and keep them from screwing up by digging in their heels and not backing down, the media would peddle that message. As any journalist worth his salt knows, just about any position can be spun into a good story, and it's not too hard to make one or another side look like a bad guy.

Please, show me a single example of a case in the last 7 years when Democrats ended up agreeing to something they were originally against, that was a mainly Republican position, and that made the US better. Whereas there are countless examples of, how things would not have made been made worse if the Democrats had dug in their heels and refused the brand of "compromise" you love so much. You can call it petulance, or whatever other mean name you want, but the simple truth is that if Democrats had been a little bit more petulant and a little bit less compromising, you would not have had this war, wiretapping, the MCA, Gitmo, the climate crisis (to the extent it is now, at least), civil liberties taken away from 60-year-old ladies with signs, or a whole host of other things. So you can call it petulance all you want, but it's still directly true that we'd all be better off if the Democrats had spent the last 7 years being a lot more "petulant". Please explain to me in what world "something getting done" is better than "nothing getting done" when the something is the list a few lines above (which is a very truncated list, too). This is, once again, nothing but a fetishism of a completely contentless, empty notion of "progress".

And once again, Bush vetoing stuff repeatedly and nothing getting done is a LOT better than him not vetoing stuff, and bad things getting done. And once again, I am talking about a situation where liberals had more balls to vote more liberals into office anyway, instead of saying, "Oh well, I guess this is soooort of ok".

It would end up backfiring if you had more proportional representation? That doesn't follow at all from anything you said above.

Man, I need to go to bed. Good night.