Crossposted from MY LEFT WING
UPDATE: Senator Tom Harkin Announces, "I Have A Spine AND Principles!"
Harkin has signed on as a CO-SPONSOR of Feingold's Reolution. BRAVO, Senator Harkin.
UPDATE II: Feingold and Harkin have been joined by Senators Boxer, Kerry and Menendez. Bravo, Senators!
UPDATE III: Feingold and Harkin have been joined by Senator Boxer; support from Kerry and Menendez as yet unconfirmed. Bravo, Senator Boxer!
There seems to be a collective memory lapse surrounding the Dianne Feinstein resolution to censure President Bill Clinton in February of 1999.
According to CNN, Feinstein proposed the censure of Clinton after the impeachment acquittal:
WASHINGTON February 12, 1999
-- Now that the Senate has acquitted President Bill Clinton of charges he committed perjury and obstructed justice, what happens next?
After the acquittal votes Friday, Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Texas) objected to a move by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-California) and 38 co-sponsors to censure the president.
Gramm had said he would fight a censure resolution, calling the measure unconstitutional.
. . .
Nevertheless, Feinstein told reporters Friday she may still attempt to bring up the resolution later. "I feel it's the right thing to do," she said.
Feinstein, who had been working for weeks on drafts of a resolution, said earlier censure supporters may simply pass the proposal around among other senators to be signed and released as a statement.
Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-Connecticut) said Thursday the senators may look to create a "declaration of censure" that could be entered into the Congressional Record but not voted on, or be sent to the president, or both. Any senator would be able to sign on to the "declaration of censure."
On Friday, the proposed censure resolution was entered into the Congressional Record along with statements in support from some of its sponsors.
Another option would be to try and attach a statement of censure to other legislation.
Some senators, though, have promised to continue to prevent a formal censure resolution from ever coming to the floor of the Senate.
. . .
Clinton's poll numbers are still at record levels. A CNN/USA Today/Gallup Poll taken February 9 showed that Clinton's job approval rating, now at 70 percent, exceeds even former President Ronald Reagan's highest approval rating.
But the survey also indicated that 57 percent of Americans want Clinton censured. So it remains to be seen whether Clinton's approval rating will remain high if his only punishment ends up being a strongly worded letter from the Senate.
But whether senators ever vote to censure Clinton, Congress is likely to get back to work on its public policy agenda, which has taken a back seat to the impeachment debate for nearly six months.
. . .
CNN's Caroline Nolan and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
In my opinion, the reason 57% of the electorate favoured a censure of Bill Clinton had little to do with his actual "crime" (and I'll go to my grave arguing that he did NOT commit perjury, but that's for another day) -- and everything to do with the well-oiled Republican Noise Machine, doing what it did and does best: hammering public opinion to fit their mold.
It had to do with a united front presented by the damned Republicans. It had to do with being "on message." There's no way in hell you can convince me that 57% of this electorate even knows what "perjury" means -- Law & Order notwithstanding.
No, the Republicans shaped public opinion of the censure that wasn't by conflating the idea of Clinton getting a blowjob with the idea of CENSURE -- the old-fashioned kind, the rap on the knuckles for having sexual thoughts.
Meanwhile, we face a President who has BROKEN THE LAW, and in a MOST EGREGIOUS FASHION... and why are the electorate silent? Because they've been told by their Democratic representatives to be silent. Since no Democrat in theSenate has bothered to release any kind of statement regarding the Feingold Resolution to Censure President George W. Bush, we must assume that their message is this:
Do as we do and just ignore this whole thing.
I have another proposal, one which will no doubt go unnoticed in the hallowed halls of the Senate, because, after all, who the fuck am I? Just another crazed, tinfoil-hat-wearing BLOGGER, for chrissakes -- ignore her, maybe she'll go away.
Throw the bums out.
Which bums? They're ALL fucking bums, man. I'd just as soon throw every sitting Senator -- Republican AND Democratic -- out on her or his ass and start fresh with total novices. And make all paid lobbying illegal.
Do you know the meaning of the word "radical?" Until yesterday, I thought I did. I was wrong.
Radical:
adj.
Arising from or going to a root or source; basic: proposed a radical solution to the problem.
Departing markedly from the usual or customary; extreme: radical opinions on education.
Favoring or effecting fundamental or revolutionary changes in current practices, conditions, or institutions: radical political views.
Linguistics. Of or being a root: a radical form.
Botany. Arising from the root or its crown: radical leaves.
Slang. Excellent; wonderful.
The ROOT of the problem is the system itself. Until such changes are implemented which provide elected representatives in Congress with more incentive to do the right thing than to simply fight to retain their seats of power, nothing will ever get better. There is too much at stake for these selfish frauds (Yeah, when you take an oath to serve the people and proceed to serve yourself, that's fraud) to ever make meaningful changes with regard to the system of electoral politics in this country.
Read Rep. Henry Waxman's stunning admission with regard to Diebold and the possibility of election fraud occurring in the past or future:
I think getting every vote counted is an important issue. As far as whether there was widespread fraud, we just don't know. But it's important to make sure that these things are gotten to the bottom of, and that we have accountability.
But we're all concerned. We really don't know. We suspect it, but we don't know.
Who's getting to the bottom of it? How do you make sure every vote gets counted if you can't be sure the machines aren't rigged?
More to the point: WHY ISN'T THIS IMPORTANT TO DEMOCRATS? I mean, important enough to be TALKING about it? The same question applies to the Feingold Resolution. 37 Senators signed onto Feinstein's similar resolution to censure Clinton. So far I THINK Feingold MAY have Kennedy and Kerry on board. Though to look at their websites you'd never know it.
See Updates in Main Text
So. Election reform? Forget about it. Real campaign finance reform? Don't make me laugh.
While we're at it, what's with the prison thing? Are you aware that every prisoner in any given state is counted in that state's census toward their population, and therefore contributes to the number of Representatives that state gets in the House? Ever wonder why there are so damned may prisons in red states?
New rule: The only people who get counted toward a state's representation in the House are the ones who can or will be able to vote in any given census period. Felons who can't vote? Don't get counted. Newborns? Don't get counted. Watch that electoral map change.
One of the more frustrating aspects of living in this huge country that styles itself a democracy is the ignorance of its citizenry. And I mean ignorance, not necessarily stupidity. If you picked your top three Government Outrages to ten randomly chosen adults anywhere in this country and explained them in comprehensible fashion, I can't imagine at least some of them being just as outraged as you are.
But it's HARD, man, to get that kind of non-soundbitey information disseminated to 300 million people. Who controls the means of communication in this behemoth country controls the government.
Say, who does control the means of communication in this country? And by that, I mean television. Sorry, WaPo and NYT; you're reputable and dignified and all that, but only a fraction of a percent of the people in this country read newspapers, and mostly just the sports and comics sections.
CORPORATIONS control the means of communication in this country. Anyone who denies it is a lying douchebag not worth rebutting. Corporations - not all of them, just the ones looking to screw anyone for a dollar, and willing to do whatever it takes to make sure the government is on their side -- are the very enemy we face.
Okay, so that's a dead end, right? We don't have access to television in any meaningful (read: controlling) way, so what the hell can we do?
Unappetizing as the uphill, slower-than-a-motherfuck climb will be, it seems to me that the only option left to most concerned citizens in this country is to become major pains in the asses of our elected "representatives."
Sometimes, I think we tend to view the Right Wing Corporate Media as a monolithic entity, shooting memos back and forth between each other. And I think that view is distorted. It SEEMS like that, most of the time, because the path of right wing corporatism is pretty clearly mapped out. Occasionally, however, they get bogged down in an unmarked field of landmines. Witness the Port Debacle: if ever the analogy of chickens with the heads cut off could apply to the RWCM, now would be that time. No clear message, people taking sides all over the damned place.
And whoever got the most actual, live, breathing citizens on the phones and writing emails... won the Ports Debacle Game. That would be us. It wasn't crystal clear, of course, because there were so many chickens running around -- but that Ports Debacle was a victory for the left.
Of course, we didn't capitalise on it -- wouldn't want to get cohesive or anything.
There is no reason we can't become the Pains in the Asses of the Democrats we need to be to get them to do what we want them to do. And the best news is, we don't even have to agree on a PLATFORM. All we need agree on is the most basic, elementary, kindergarten-level positions. Like, say, when a prominent Democratic Senator proposes a resolution to censure the most venal, deceitful, criminal President this country has ever seen... STAND BEHIND HIM.
A staffer in Patty Murray's office tried to tell me that the resolution to censure Bill Clinton was presented in the House and that Senator Murray never took a position in that censure. I'm going to be magnanimous and assume that staffer is a fucking idiot, rather than a blatantly deceitful, craven representative of an even more deceitful and craven Senator. The FACT is, the resolution to censure Bill Clinton was proposed by Senator Dianne Feinstein in the Senate - AFTER the impeachment acquittal vote. Further...
(With thanks to Susan S at DKos):
These Democratic Senators (and Jeffords) signed on to co-sponsor Dianne Feinstein's resolution to censure President Bill Clinton:
Akaka: (202) 224-6361
Baucus: (202) 224-2651
Dorgan: (202) 224-2551
Durbin: (202) 224-2152
Feinstein: (202) 224-3841
Inouye: (202) 224-3934
Jeffords: (202) 224-5141
Kennedy: (202) 224-4543
Kerry: (202) 224-2742
Kohl: (202) 224-5653
Landrieu: (202) 224-5824
Levin: (202) 224-6221
Lieberman: (202) 224-4041
Lincoln: (202) 224-4843
Mikulski: (202) 224-4654
Murray: (202) 224-2621
Reed: (202) 224-4642
Reid: (202) 224-3542
Rockefeller: (202) 224-6472
Schumer: (202) 224-6542
Wyden: (202) 224-5244
Tip of the hat to The Johnny for the link to the CNN story