Tag: Government Reform

S01E15 – The Merkley Proposal (Season Finale!)

cross-posted from Main Street Insider

Last week, in part one of our two-part series on filibuster reform, we examined the Constitutional Option to allow majority approval of rules changes. This week, in the 15th and final episode of Season 1,we look at the most prominent package of rules changes discussed to date. Roughly a month ago, Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR) circulated a “dear colleague” memo outlining a series of changes that are being strongly considered within current Democratic Caucus deliberations.

Enjoy this first season’s finale. It’s been a fun season for us and we’ll be back in January with a whole slate of brand new bills and other policy proposals to summarize!

*Full disclosure: David Waldman, our Public Affairs Director, is an active advisor to the Fix the Senate Now coalition.

US Senate to defy Rules of Gravity! Spitting Into the Wind now OK! UPDATED

The US Senate has been quite complacent lo these past couple of years since the Democrats took over the Leadership(?) of the Senate.  FISA? check.  

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards a terrorist organization? check.  

No Change of Course in Iraq? check

Impeachment of Officials for lies, torture, myriad other illegal dealings?  No Check Here

Today, the US Senate may (note the word MAY) look to request a Federal Investigation into the changing of wording regarding an earmark installed into a 2005 Highway Funding bill, after the bill had been passed and before it was sent to President Bush.

From CNN:

The Senate may seek a federal investigation into a 2005 earmark on a highway funding bill that was mysteriously altered after Congress approved the measure but before President Bush signed it.

Well, No Kidding?

More than 80 percent of Americans believe the country is headed in the wrong direction, the highest such number since the early 1990s, according to a new survey.

This according to a CBS – New York Times poll released yesterday (Thursday).

No shit?  Maybe we have been Yelling Loud Enough! Somebody is listening.

The people of this country ARE really beginning to pay attention and it couldn’t come at a better time!  

With national elections only 7 months away, the wheels are falling off the Republican propaganda wagon at a good time for Americans.  Yes, even the Republican-Americans that don’t even realize it.  

From CNN:

The CBS News-New York Times poll released Thursday showed 81 percent of respondents said they believed “things have pretty seriously gotten off on the wrong track.” That was up from 69 percent a year ago, and 35 percent in early 2002.

To borrow from Ricky Ricardo, “Bushie, you’ve got some ‘splaining to do.”  Yet, I don’t think anyone is listening anymore, Bushie.

No, not even to the “FEAR, BE AFRAID, TERRAHRISTS IN YOUR CORN FLAKES,” or even the old standby of “the decisive ideological struggle of the 21st century” distortion of world policies that Bush wants to sell to you and I.  

His continuous insult to over a billion Muslims around the world by repeatedly speaking of Islam, fascism and terror in the same breath is only upstaged by his domestic slash and burn policies that are beginning to weigh down so hard on the entire population of the United States that even the most staunch of his backers are now backing away.

The only ideological struggle we are having in this 21st century is neo-con greed vs. the good of the people.