Billiken Man

Amen. I thought Pryor was ok with a few liberal votes on things that had no chance of passing this year anyway. He did not have to vote for this. He claimed habeas corpus was importand yet he voted for the bill just to get a bill passed anyway. They think that if a majority is achieved they will pass a new bill, Who in the hell is going to sign it? They will not get enough elected in both houses to override a veto. Maybe they can trade it for not investigating something important to bush like Cheneys secret commitee, but i doubt it. He just caved to Bush and probably will always.

Amen to your post DBI and the poem, though it's currently to existential for my current preferences but those may change next week.

Tonite a group of folks in Fayetteville (NWA Progressive Coaltion) enjoyed an outstanding talk by Wendell Griffen.
Judge Griffen reminded us that Military Commissions Act will eventually tested in court. He asked us to recall the SCOUTUS decision on Hamidam vs. Rumsfield and to look at Scalia and Griffins decisons.
It's encouraging in light of those who decided against Rumsfield.

Regarding Senator Pryor:
Mark's uncle was in attendance tonite and defended Mark as a good uncle should and would. He reminded us that Mark's constituency is really conservative, that Mark is genuinely devout regarding his faith (his uncle is a minister). Another person in the group asked if we would rather have someone like Holt or Tim Hutchinson as Senator because like it or not that's the alternative.
A knowledgeable professor was there and noted that many Demo's gave an appeasment vote because they know SCOTUS will rule against the Mil. Comm Act as soon as it's tested.

Judge Griffen reminded us that in our branches of government the Courts are the only branch that doesn't have a direct political constitutency to which it must be answerable.

Take your Zoloft and save some energy for making at least a hundred calls for Demo's a week before the election.
Win or lose it means you tried to make a difference.
I can't imagine being truly depressed and having to tolerate Jesus Jim as Lt Gov and watching him slip in his slimy moves every time a gov steps away.
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lwood-you keep my sometimes kind of hours. i understand and i will make the calls from headquarters. i have for the last several elections. the problem i have is the torture. i am sorry but under no circumstances should decent people have voted for bushes changed definition of torture. he says he doesn't torture and under his new definition he doesn't . but in the old way of decent people, before he came in he does. people in the united states i belong to just are better than that and i still hold to those standards and i still hold my politicans to that that. i vote for a lot of losers but i try.

I tell ya, it pains me to speak unkindly of a Pryor, but Mark's voting record and resent love-fest with Joe Lieberman leaves me no option.

Saying he had to vote for torture because his constituents are conservative is a total cop out. Why did he vote with the giant credit card companies to make bankruptcy tougher? Don't conservatives have to declare bankruptcy at times too?

Does his vote mean conservatives and preacher relatives endorse torture? Do Arkansas conservatives believe it's a great idea to vote with Bush the majority of the time? Do they really think undermining his own party by continuing to back Lieberman though he has abandon the Democratic Party is good for America or Arkansas?

The joy of Pryor's defeat of Tim Hutchinson has been destroyed by Mark Pryor's voting record which is a mirror of the way Tim Hutchinson would have voted had he won and sent Mark packing. I agree Jim Holt would be worse, but not much worse.

And how pitiful is the excuse that Mark might be horrible, but we could do worse. It's like saying to be thankful you had a heart attack instead of cancer. Or at least Mark Foley didn't kill and eat the boy Pages he was stalking. If we can't do better than that maybe we should revert back to a territory and forget this state business.

Mark Pryor must be replaced with a real Democrat in 2008. Start beating the bushes now (no pun intended) and lets find a quality replacement whose deep faith cannot abide torture or the murder of habeas corpus.

there has to be a replacement for pryor. at this point the torture vote is unforgivable. the bankrupcy and the gunmakers votes were just plain stupid or greedy. how many businesses deserve the right to be lawsuit proof? lets make the banks usery proof. i was in the mortgage business and was not able to do business for a long time when rates were 18%. that was when there was a 10% cap on rates in ark. there have been many things done the last 6 years to make some very wealthy people more wealthy. the theory of this administration has been to concentrate the wealth in the hands of a few and mark pryor has gone along with it. he has voted to help them every chance he could. we all know the people who finance political campaigns are the ones who can get passed what they want. pryor has just played along. he has played along while acting like one of the people. that may be the problem is he has that hanke like voice and the old folks fall for it and vote for him cause of his daddy. similar to how you end up with your mayor every time. ray just goes to the nursing homes and sweet talks em.

"there have been many things done the last 6 years to make some very wealthy people more wealthy. the theory of this administration has been to concentrate the wealth in the hands of a few and mark pryor has gone along with it."

Can you name one Ark Senator who hasn't? This doesn't excuse Mark Pryor but until people wise up about why they are mostly have-nots the game will remain the same. The Bankruptcy Bill is an excellent example. No "outs" for the middle income folks and plenty of breaks for higher income filers and family-corporations. The bill allows them to dump their obligatory pension debts down the bankruptcy rabbit hole.

"Clean Elections", the fastest growing campaign reform going on, is about the only remedy for removing the super rich and their senatorial lackeys from control of our government. Each state was given two Senators to preserve the representation of the propertied class because that is who selects and sends them. Hence the Senate is given control of Banking, Foreign Affairs and selection of Federal Judges who in turn uphold the rights of the propertied, monied groups. Until our election process is changed there will only be a change of faces in the U.S. Senate.
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Right now my grandad...Papa is what we call him...he loses more every second to Alzheimer's...

He was a flight instructor during WWII and probably had to bust ass just to learn the difference in the throttle of a B-25 Mitchell and that other one...shit, I have a model of it around here somewhere...anyway...

Senator Mark Pryor said Habeas Corpus is really pronounced "Hand Me A Corpse"...

Sorry, D...this is a shameless click for a good thing (kudos for having a forum to say so)...and I hope everyone has a nice weekend, by the way...

In addition to the above, since I'm ranting on in wee hours of the morn:
Which august body do you suppose approved the sale of the 5 $Billion dollar NUCLEAR power plant to China?
The Senate of course. While the Rwingnuts criticize Clinton for technology transfers none other than Dick Cheney negotiated the entire deal between Senate approval, GE, the seller, and Commie China, the buyer.
What kind of payoff do you think will come from that one?

Earlier this year just to show his Americanism Dick Cheney invested $25 Million of his retirement in European bonds, while they have duped the patriotic dunces into thinking they should boycott all things European. Cheney knows what's on the horizon and will not give up limo's and caviar when the bottom of our debt crisis falls out in the next 3-4 years.
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Sorry rosso I'm not finding your link to work.

I'm pretty late with this, DBI, but it goes along with your theme.

http://www.transbuddha.com/index.php/P33/

DBI, I just want to send along best wishes for your mom's full and quick and event-less recovery. My own mother is 84 and, though she's in great health, we all know that folks that age can be here today and gone tomorrow.

Cherish every day with her (I know you do), and learn all you can. At least once a week my own mom comes out with another memory I never knew anything about. Old folks are a national treasure we only fully appreciate when they're gone.

I dont have any idea how someone can make excuses for Senator Pryor or anyone else who condones torture or indefinite detention without the protection of Habeas Corpus. BTW It's around 800 years old http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habeas_Corpus To vote it down because the courts will do the right thing is bat shit crazy. We the people deserved a full debate in both houses at the very least with all available information on the table. That is not what happened at all. We know the main reason this legislation was proposed in the first place. Bushco had violated the law and was demanding retroactive immunity as well as the ability to keep on running secret prisons that torture and hold countless thousands of innocent human beings including women and children and yes, American citizens. With no oversight or definitions of torture on the books forever.
Since the legislation has passed we have news of as many as 50 plus thousand more prisoners in Iraq than previously admitted. We still have no solid details on secret prisons or how many people are in them.
Evidently in the same week as the passage of the torture bill we had some rather unseemly evil in the John Warner National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal 2007l (sponsored by Presidential want to be Duncan Hunter).
http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2006/10/1732834.php
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h109-5122
Altering the Sedition Act of 1918
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sedition_Act_of_1918
Greatly increased the power and ease of Feds ability to declare Marshall law and use the military in our territory and against its own citizens for our own security from terrorists of course. I understand it allows for an enormous amount of lea-way in declaring someone to be a terrorist/ illegal combatant or lowering the threshold of how officials may claim who or what a terrorist/ illegal combatant is.
Of course there are the contracts awarded by homeland security to haliburton for detention centers in undisclosed locations for tens of thousands of beds on our soil.
http://www.alternet.org/rights/33295/
This is far from over folks.....

Senator Pryor (and quite a few others) is a danger to our constitution and citizenry, period. He failed to protect and defend the constitution on a fundamental level.
I don't know or really care if it was due to ignorance, evil, or fear of a Rovian smear campaign if he didn't play along. It does not matter.
How we treat prisoners both foreign or domestic reflects on us and our society. A prisoner is no longer a danger. Most so called illegal combatants are innocent of anything except defending their homeland and families, if that.
I will vote Republican for the first time in my life if it's the only way to remove this man from office.

I haven't given up on this blog....the Mom thing has been so in my face I haven't had a moment for serious thought and posting just to be posting seems like a waste of your time and mine.

With other family members around this weekend I am hoping to have a bit of time to write something that has been floating around in my head in the too warm and quiet inviroment of a hospital room.

Plus...all our efforts must be directed to this coming Tuesday. I have been a broken record for a year about the evils of the Bush aministration and the numbers of bad Republicans who choose to follow them. I couldn't write up another angle for a million dollars. If someone out there truly hasn't made up their mind by now......there is no help for them or us.

I am using all the metal utensils in my house to gird my loins..whatever that means, for this election. The greatest danger is another steal and it appears to me we are unable to prevent that thanks to the mysteries of electronic voting machines.

Our fate will be sealed one way or the other this coming Tuesday. I mean it when I say good luck to us all.

By God we did it! We know a whole lot more of which direction our fate is traveling and boy oh boy...does it feel good.

If only the tiredness and burn-out will lift....I'll write about something that's been rolling around in my pea brain, might be no good, but it will not have a thing to do with politics! Congratulations to all of us!

Okay, DBI, I am with you. I voted for Lisa Burke against Blanche, and I stand ready to support a progressive candidate against Pryor as well. Give me a name and an address to send the check.