Recent surveys indicate that a higher percentage of liberals in media and education than at large. So, being informed,
educated, involved, and helping others learn appeals more to liberals. No wonder conservatives are angry.
I look forward to the
follow-up surveys of editors, station managers and media owners — I’ll bet the numbers are different for those with power over others.
Who cares that the restaurant reviewer is a leftist. mjh
Category Archives: Letters-to-the-Editor
Mark Twain got his start this way.
Fair and Balanced? Yeah, Right.
I watched the local news at noon the day John
Kerry came to town. The top story was the arrest of a murderer, then coverage moved to Kerry. Kerry was shown standing around the airport
waiting for something to happen. No on-the-scene sound was included, just a voice-over reading his schedule.
After Kerry’s two
minutes, coverage shifted to Duhbya. Bush was shown, as he always is, in front of a crowd, giving a speech. We heard him speak: ”a
certain senator who has been around a while. He’s been around so long he has taken about both sides of every issue.” Re-read that
stunningly inarticulate dig (after so many opportunities to rehearse it). This same clip appeared on a later local broadcast on a
different station.
The TV programmers will insist they fairly showed equal time for both candidates. One was silenced — the other
delivered precisely the message he wants us to beLIEve, however ineptly.
”The Press” we used to count on has long be replaced by
”The Media,” which exists to fatten its shareholders. The duty to inform has been replaced by the desire to sell. We have given
away the public airwaves (which used to belong to the People) and now our airwaves and our money are being used to steal our freedom to
choose wisely. We are being sold the product that benefits the shareholders the most. Forget about what’s good for America. mjh
”Blow up your TV.” — John Prine.
When Did Conservative Come to Mean ‘Changing Everything’?
[A] simple majority of the Senate doesn’t cut it
anymore on the more partisan issues.
The standard these days is the supermajority of 60 votes require to stave off a
filibuster. …
Democrats have escalated the use of a parliamentary tactic previously used only rarely: the
filibuster. …
No one is surprised by the harsh and ugly tones coming from the right or the left these days. However, we
all have an obligation to recognize fact and to avoid blatant distortion. The Journals fails in that obligation in the editorial on the
”super-majority” guidelines (also known as Rule XXII or the Cloture rule).
Trusting that readers will simply accept its
pronouncement, the Journal makes no effort to inform, and, in fact, clouds the issue with words like ”anymore,” ”rarely” and
”these days.” These days extend back nearly 100 years. These rules have evolved over a very long time and have seen the influence
of people of diverse views. Indeed, the rules of order are ratified every session by a simple majority.
There was a time when
”conservative” meant favoring tradition and opposing unnecessary change. Now, it means little. It takes 5 minutes on the Web to
learn some history; does the Right assume we are all too lazy or ignorant to care? mjh
Senate Floor Procedures — Establishment of the
Cloture Rule
These practices led to the marathon filibusters by debate that remained characteristic of the Senate into the 1960s.
Senate: Reference Home > Virtual Reference Desk > Cloture
The cloture rule — Rule 22 — is the only formal procedure that
Senate rules provide for breaking a filibuster. A filibuster is an attempt to block or delay Senate action on a bill or other matter.
Under cloture, the Senate may limit consideration of a pending matter to 30 additional hours of debate.
and Cloture
Standing Rules of The Senate: RULE
XXII
http://www.senate.gov/reference/resources/pdf/98-
425.pdf
U.S. Senate: Historical Minutes > 1921-
1940 > “The American Senate” Published
[I]n 1925…, Vice President Charles Dawes, a conservative Republican, unleashed
a blistering attack on a small group of progressive Republican senators who had filibustered legislation at the end of the
previous session.
Eight years earlier, the Senate had adopted its first cloture rule, which allowed two-thirds of the senators
present and voting to take steps to end debate on a particular measure. Dawes thought the Senate should revise that rule, making it
easier to apply by allowing a simple majority to close debate. The existing two-thirds rule, he thundered, ”at times enables Senators
to consume in oratory those last precious minutes of a session needed for momentous decisions,” thereby placing great power in the
hands of a few senators. Unless Rule 22 were liberalized, it would ”lessen the effectiveness, prestige, and dignity of the
United States Senate.” Dawes’ unexpected diatribe infuriated senators of all philosophical leanings, who believed that the chamber’s
rules were none of the vice president’s business.
On June 1, 1926, Columbia University professor Lindsay Rogers published a book
entitled The American Senate. His purpose was to defend the Senate tradition of virtually unlimited debate, except in times of
dire national emergency. Professor Rogers fundamentally disagreed with Vice President Dawes. In his memorably stated view, the
”undemocratic, usurping Senate is the indispensable check and balance in the American system, and only complete freedom of debate
allows it to play this role.” ”Adopt [majority] cloture in the Senate,” he argued, ”and the character of the
American Government will be profoundly changed.”
Written in a breezy journalistic style, Rogers’ American Senate
encompassed issues beyond debate limitation. Rogers, Lindsay. The American Senate. New York: A.A. Knopf, 1926
Notice,
that 80 years ago a conservative republican was making the same arguments — against the last of the ”progressive” republicans (now
an oxymoron). mjh
Filibusted – Pirating the Senate. By Brandt Goldstein
Filibustering was rare until the
late 1800s. It then became steadily more common, leading to reform in 1917 when the Senate passed Rule XXII, the procedure for invoking
”cloture,” or closure. According to the original Rule XXII, a vote by two-thirds of the Senate could kill a filibuster, a process
first successfully used in 1919 to ensure a vote on the Treaty of Versailles. An amendment in 1975 reduced to 60 the number of senators
necessary to halt a filibuster. In practical terms, therefore, a filibuster today is possible only if at least 41 senators support it.
Historical Minutes > 1964-Present > Filibuster Derails Supreme Court Appointment”
href=”http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/minute/Filibuster_Derails_Supreme_Court_Appointment.htm”>U.S. Senate: Art &
History Home > Historical Minutes > 1964-Present > Filibuster Derails Supreme Court Appointment
[Republican
Minority Leader Everett] Dirksen and others withdrew their support. Although the committee recommended confirmation, floor consideration
sparked the first filibuster in Senate history on a Supreme Court nomination.
On October 1, 1968, the Senate failed to invoke
cloture. Johnson then withdrew the nomination….
Dimdahl is an Ass
ABQjournal: President’s Team Ready to Face Full Court
Press By John Dendahl, Syndicated Columnist BFD
In fact, ultra-liberals such as …. rather than sticking with their
promises to leave if George W. Bush were elected …. Not altogether ignorant of history, the Left is always alert to
the usefulness of disinformation. … Then there’s the environment, that handy concealment for its socialist agenda
around which the Left has formed numerous organizations armed with many billions of dollars. …
The next six months will be
exactly as advertised by the president’s opponents, rough and tough. While that will be discomforting to many, it’s a price we
pay for the right to speak freely about our government.
John Dendahl pays no price whatsoever to
”speak freely about our government.” In spite of casting himself in a heroic light, Dimdahl is PAID to do this, paying
nothing. A small part of his compensation comes out of my subscription fee, so, John, I pay dearly for every column inch of your
nonsense.
Everyone knows that Dimdahl plays rougher than most. He used to be quite proud of his bully-nature. Now, sniff, he
wants us to know he can dish it out if the traitorous socialist liberals push him hard enough. Ha! Keep the change, John, this really is
worth the price.
Since his latest column doesn’t say much (liberals are the source of all evil, republicans are god’s chosen
people), I will respond to one quote: ”the almighty state the Left adores.”
Would this be the state which
increasingly spies on me? Is this the state that increasingly embraces a god I don’t believe in? The state that favors media
conglomerates that in turn stifle alternate views? The state that will deny most of the people I know the right to control their futures
and families, to wed whom they will? Is this the state that says the rich owe little and the poor should expect nothing? Is this the
state that is reviving nuclear weapons for use in battle? John, I do not adore your almighty state.
The era of
big government is back with a terrible vengeance and in the iron grasp of nice people like JD, who will verbally assassinate anyone
who dares disagree with them. Give them four more years and we may never pry the power out of their grip. The pendulum swings in
November. Vote against bully tyrants! mjh
American Ayatollah
problem by Cal Thomas
When Kerry and other Catholic politicians say they accept church teaching but selectively deny it when it
comes to abortion, they place the state above the church and man above God. They mortgage their consciences to convenience and
principle to pragmatism. Should such a person lead this nation?
Ah, the arrogance of the Righteous Right. We have
Calcified Cal Thomas ‘reasoning’ that John Kerry is not a ”good” Catholic and, therefore, not qualified to be President — only
radical fundamentalists need apply. I think Cal was considerably more tolerant of Bush judicial nominee William Pryor, another Roman
Catholic, who strongly opposes abortion but promises to enforce the law (wink-wink). If this is our litmus, how is Pryor trustworthy and
Kerry not? And, who is Cal to judge the quality of their faith — Saint Peter or an American ayatollah? Judge not, least ye be judged,
Cal.
The self-righteous right dominates public discourse because they are relentlessly aggressive bullies and stunningly over-
confident (after all, they believe god is only on their side). One cannot discuss color with people who only see black and white and,
worse, insist that seeing color is a defect. This kind of conservative doesn’t simply lack nuance, he despises it and ridicules the
ability to see more than one aspect of an argument. Better a president who can reconcile conflicting thoughts than one who can’t speak
one clearly.
I say it is precisely someone who puts the state above god, or, at least, can keep them separate, who should lead
America. We have no need for a pharaoh. mjh
PS- The Albuquerque Journal finally published this two months later
(6/15/04).
Ann Coulter, Elitist
She frequently
called Liberals elitist and, because of their public schooling, inherently unintelligent.
Why anyone respects a
word from Ann Coulter is beyond me. She lauds the American fascist Joseph McCarthy and repudiates ALL of the people who helped bring
about the Civil Rights movement — there’s a never-ending war that built something.
The stunningly-elitist Ann Coulter says liberals,
along with being traitors and un-American, are elitists (huh?) and can’t reason because we all went to public school — what an example
of reasoning that is. Just what is the MIT of Christian home schooling, Ann? How many global-warming-denying creationists have won the
Nobel prize? Or advanced science in any way?
The self-righteous right dominates public discourse because they are
relentlessly aggressive bullies and stunningly over-confident (after all, they believe god is only on their side). One cannot discuss
color with people who only see black and white and, worse, insist that seeing color is a defect. This kind of conservative doesn’t
simply lack nuance, she despises it and ridicules the ability to see more than one aspect of an argument (critical to what used to be
called reasoning).
This has little to do with the quality of anyone’s education or faculties; it has much to do with hubris. Pride
goeth before the fall, Ann. We’ll try not to laugh too hard at your inevitable come-uppance. Not that you’ve demonstrated the slightest
compassion or grace to us. mjh
Keep Your Mouth Shut!
This small news item caught my attention this
morning:
A woman ”was charged with aggravated assault on a peace officer with a deadly weapon after
she spit in an officer’s face early Sunday morning, police said.”
The woman was stopped for weaving while driving.
She was arrested and, during an odd-sounding stop on the way to the station, she struggled with the cop and spit on him.
Notice that
spitting on a ‘peace officer’ is akin to shooting one.
You will obey and keep your mouth shut in the process, understand? mjh
Future Docile Citizens of America
U.S. Secret Service agents questioned a high school student here about anti-war drawings he
turned in to his art teacher…. [read more]