An Open Letter To Leader Pelosi: My condolences on the loss of your spine

[originalpckelly]

I know it must be very difficult to stand up to the Republicans on HR 6166 because your spine is now missing. I am sorry to say that I too have lost my spine, and I will find it very difficult to stand in a voting booth this year and vote for my Congresswoman Diana DeGette. This affliction appears to have struck her as well and many others in the House and Senate Democratic Caucuses. It is also my understanding that my fellow trench-level Democrats will find it difficult to vote for their respective Democrats as well this year for the very same reason.

Sincerely,
OPCKELLY

PS: There may be a cure for this affliction. If you could demonstrate the ability to get up and walk out of the House of Representatives September 27, 2006, and break the quorum, I might find the inspiration to vote November 7th.

[originalpckelly]

1. For more information read here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=2236628&mesg_id=2236628

[pnwmom]

27. The Dems aren't accepting totalitarianism. They're playing to win.

Bush said tons of things before he was elected in 2000. He was the compassionate conservative, remember?

I don't care how the hell they do it, I don't care how many votes like this certain Democrats may have to cast. If we get a Democratic House and Senate, we'll be able to fix what needs to be fixed. But without a majority, we'll just sit back for another couple years -- or decades -- and watch the Republicans pass anything they want.

So what if a few Dems, like Harold Ford, voted the wrong way? Their votes won't change a thing because Bush had all the votes he needed to pass this monstrosity anyway. Our only hope is to work our tails off to win in November. It's time to put some Dems in charge of this runaway train before we're all driven off the cliff.

[Lerkfish]

33. if we condone torture, what exactly do we win? I can tell you what we lose

our own humanity.

[Monkeyman]

2. Send or write it here

http://DemocraticLeader.house.gov

[SDDEM06]

3. So stay home and don't vote for Democrats...

and watch as the emboldened Republican Congress and the Administration take the country even further to the abyss.

Good plan!

Things will change when Democrats take the majority. Assuming people show up to vote on November 7...

[originalpckelly]

4. Why should I believe that? Last time I checked there was a Dem...

majority in the Senate when the Iraq war resolution was passed. Why should we believe that they will do a damn thing?

But if you paid attention to the PS, I told her to basically pull a big stunt and break the quorum of the House, basically that would prevent anything from happening without the Democrats. I highly doubt the Sergeant at Arms would arrest them, and if they did it would bring even more attention to the subject.

[SDDEM06]

5. Fine. Do what you want.

I'm working too hard to argue.

[pnwmom]

28. People make these posts because they are trying to discourage

other people from voting for Democrats.

They should find some other place to blow off steam.

[alfredo]

12. The 2002 vote was for authorization to use force only after

all peaceful means were exhausted. Like this vote it was timed to put pressure on the Dems. It wouldn't have mattered if the measure passed or failed, bush would have invaded. Nothing would have stopped him. So I wouldn't get to excited over this, it is meaningless. So is congress under the Republicans.


Congress is powerless now that bush has "reinterpreted their role." If he doesn't like a law, he does a signing statement nullifying it. He has also said that he decides what is constitutional, not the supreme court. He says that the Supreme Court is there to settle disputes.

[Greyhound]

6. LOL!

That's so funny... :rofl: ...when the Democrats take back the majority, things will change...:rofl:

[Name removed]

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[Name removed]

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[gulfcoastliberal]

14. Things will change? Like what?

Sorry for the pessimism, but not filibustering a bill allowing torture indicates the democrats and republicans are working hand in hand to undermine our civil liberties (see: "war on drugs"), our jobs (see: NAFTA, CAFTA, GATT, WTO), and now our rights of habeus corpus.

I'm begininng to think there is just a monolithic one party system, with little wedge issues to make them seem different. Sure there are heroes like Al Gore and Waxman, and Conyers. But they make up about 1% of the dems. The majoority roll over and give Bush whatever he wants - tax cuts for the rich, tax cuts for the oil companies, billions upon billions in supplemental war approriations (of which the troops see zero - all goes to the defense contractors)... tell me what the dems will do differently. Will they insist on ratifying Kyoto and follow through on it? Impose massive windfall taxes on the oil companies? Repeal the policies of "free trade" that are destroying the American middle class? That'd be great if hey did.

But as the cliche goes: money talks, bullshit walks. The dems will toe the corporate line just as the repukes do. Clinton did it. Telecom bill, NAFTA, etc, ad nauseum. But maybe that's just a little too realistic for some.

[pnwmom]

25. You're "beginning to think." Right. You're spouting standard Green

rhetoric here. And your aim is to peel off votes from the Democrats.

"tell me what the dems will do differently."
The Dems wouldn't have led us into the war in Iraq. They won't plunge us into a war with Iran either. They wouldn't be enacting huge tax breaks for the wealthy while throwing us deeper and deeper into debt. They would have ratified Kyoto. They wouldn't have lost for us the respect that we had gained over the last two centuries. They wouldn't be shredding the Constitution.

Go ahead, tell me I'm wrong. You've already said that only 1% of the Dems are the good guys. Your Green is showing.

[never cry wolf]

31. 5 words. John Conyers with supoena power....

I'll take all the spinless dems I can get if it gives us the majority.

[bowens43]

7. If you don't vote and vote Democratic

YOU are the problem.

[Uncle Joe]

8. I never did like the 666 number, even if it has a one in the middle,

maybe I'm just superstitious but if the beast of biblical lore were to pass a bill legalizing torture, I believe those numbers would be prominent.

[Der Blaue Engel]

10. See this post:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=2236991&mesg_id=2236991

[originalpckelly]

11. Cheap talk that doesn't do shit to stop the bill from passing.

I'm sorry, I'm tired of talk. It isn't working. They have the option listed in the ps. And they HAVE TO TAKE IT!

[jackstraw45]

16. DAMN right.

21st century democrats give great talk but do NOT take risks needed in these SERIOUS times.

Biden, Kennedy, Pelosi...put a camera or a sunday talk show in front of them, and they sound GREAT.

When our CONSTITUTION gets TRAMPLED, they make a comment and head home.

These people have positions of power and influence. If they took some risk, REALLY put themselves out there collectively, who knows what the public would do come November 2006.

Instead, it's all talk and the status quo come November.

[leftchick]

17. yes indeed

here I am sick to my stomach for over a week now KNOWING the democrats would cave yet again on the MOST important issue of my lifetime. Still I had a little, very teeny tiny hope in the back of my mind that Maybe, MAYBE they would do the right thing!

GOD HOW I HATE THAT NIGGLING HOPE! :argh: :banghead:

I am so done with this country. I only hope I can still leave safely.

[thethinker]

15. Is there a list

of which democrats voted for this? I heard on the radio that 7 republicans did not vote for it. Who were they?

[SDDEM06]

18. Right here

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=2849876&mesg_id=2849876

[paulk]

19. fine

You won't vote for one of the most progressive members of the House, Diana DeGette, because of something Nancy Pelosi did (or didn't do).

Pretty fucking logical.

[w4rma]

20. In Pelosi's defense, she held together the Democratic House members well.

25 "blue dogs" and ~7 other Democrats broke ranks out of around 200 or so.

The only way we we can stop America from legalizing torture is a filibuster in the Senate.

[DaveT]

21. I don't know how to be polite about this OP

Nancy Pelosi voted against this bill. She spoke on the floor against it. But because she did not try to organize a quorum flight, the original poster says to just let the GOP keep control of the Congress. I am disgusted by this suggestion.

Not that it matters to that kind of person, but -- in the first place -- Pelosi cannot compel that kind of party discipline. Each member of the Democratic Caucus is a free agent.

Here is the kind of rhetoric each member of the Democratic Caucus has to reckon with:

Hastert's comments were biting. He said in a statement that Democrats opposing the measure "voted today in favor of MORE rights for terrorists."

He added, "So the same terrorists who plan to harm innocent Americans and their freedom worldwide would be coddled, if we followed the Democrat plan."

/snip/

During the debate, House Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, all but dared Democrats to vote against the legislation.

"Will my Democrat friends work with Republicans to give the president the tools he needs to continue to stop terrorist attacks before they happen, or will they vote to force him to fight the terrorists with one arm tied behind his back?" Boehner asked just before members cast their ballots.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060928/ap_on_go_co/congress_terrorism

Pelosi can handle that kind of heat in her district. So can Kucinich, Waters, Waxman, Rangel, Kucinich and Conyers. They voted no along with the majority of the Democratic delegation.

But if they tried to organize a flight into the night to shut down Congress, the Rove trap would be sprung and the wingnut hoot-out would explode across the Main Stream Media with a vengence that would make the Reichstag Fire look like a Boy Scout barbecue.

There is no way that the ranks of the Dem caucus would hold -- and if they did, Rove would have us for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Bill Clinton trounced Newt Gingrich and the GOP when they tried to trump the business of government as usual with a bold procedural confrontation. If Pelosi were to try a similar stunt on this question of "granting more rights to terrorists" the result would be even worse than the catastrophe that is befalling the Republic tonight.

I cannot take all this Screw The Dems posturing we are seeing tonight at face value. I suppose that many or most of the people beating this drum are sincerely frustrated -- but I have no doubt that there are agent provocatuers carrying out the Rove game plan of Divide and Conquer.

How will it be different if the Dems control the House? Shit like this won't to get to the floor, that is how it will be different.

And John Conyers will have subpoena power.

That is reason enough to vote for your Democratic candidate for Congress, assuming there was ever any chance that you would vote for a Dem in the first place.

[saracat]

23. Great post! Absolutely right on. Some posters have no sense of the

political system at all and they are dangerous in that their misinterpretation of the facts causes others to follow their ignorance.This is what costs us elections. This was by far the best rebuttal I have read. Cheers.

[pnwmom]

24. "I cannot take all this Screw The Dems posturing" -- neither can I.

So 34 Dems voted for the bill. The overwhelming majority opposed it. What did you think Pelosi should have done? Sent them off the gangplank?

Most of those 34 Dems were at risk of losing their seats if they voted against the bill. But if they keep their seats, and we win a few more, then John Conyers will be the new leader of the House.

If you like John Conyers -- or if you want the oversight of the Executive branch that the Constitution calls for -- then hold your nose and vote for the Democratic candidate. No matter how much they stink.

[saracat]

22. Now that really accomplishes something.Help the GOP .

Good thinking. And Pelosi didn't vote for the Torture Bill.This type of reaction sickens me. It is absolutely no better than the Bush "my way or the highway" attitude.

[A-Schwarzenegger]

26. I'll show you I'll beat my head against this wall!

Because I'm, you know, concerned about you Democrats.
I mean, us Democrats.

[pnwmom]

29. LoL!

Yeah, all that bile is making them look kinda, well, Green. Wouldn't you say?

[Swamp Rat]

30. LOLOLOL!!!!!

:rofl: EXCELLENT! :D

:yourock:

[The Backlash Cometh]

32. I'm sure these Democrats are claiming this medical ailment so that

they can qualify for the handicapped parking. I hear parking in Washington D.C. is a bitch to find.

[unhappycamper]

34. Locking.

The old saying about a picture being worth a thousand words applies here.