Redstate

Need someone to lose TO.

There have been several times where I've thought "oh, the Democrats can't be even stupider than THAT" in the past few years.

They've always surprised me.

Maybe they'll surprise me again.

Notice that not once in any of these grand public pronouncements about the "unconstitutionality" have they pointed to anything more than the fact that this has never happened before.  No cases, no speeches, not even a sentence from a Federalist essay.  Nothing.  

Thus, you can't even call it a misstatement of the law.  They aren't citing any law - they are expressing a personal interpretive opinion.  It is identical to the claim that the 14th Amendment protects a right to gay marriage - anybody can say it - that doesn't make it true.  So until someone can point to some authority outside of the Speaker's own apparently deranged mind that says this search was unconstitutional, I don't think it merits any further discussion as a legal issue (the political implications are ripe for discussion though).

at the idiocy of House Dems in their refusal to throw Jefferson overboard.  

I am astounded even more by the incredible idiocy of House Republican leadership in failing to take advantage of said Democratic idiocy, and indeed, in coming to Jefferson's defense.

I am astounded even more by the idiocy of House Dems to take advantage of said Republican idiocy.

Idiots, all of them.

And it is obviously bribery isn't protected by the Speech and Debate clause.  And grand juries are within their rights to inquire into Congress as in this case.  If the grand jury can investigate, it must therefore be able to subpoena, and having a subpoena, it must be enforceable.

This is settled law, and not new.

The Republicans take the cake here. There isn't even any way to take the Democrats to task for rallying around Jefferson and this completely bogus issue, since they are just following the Republican lead in the matter. The Democrats were dealt a bad hand on this, while the Republicans were dealt a full house and decided to take 3 more cards and show their losing hand to everybody.

bridges the great chasm between left and right.

We are all represented by amoral buffoons.

is a uniter, not a divider.

Tells me something is deeply dysfuntional in the Congress.

The dems suck, and only the republicans suck slight less.

There is something dark at work here that historians will build entire careers digging into.

And no, I am not tlaking about grand conspiracies.

I am almost tempted to tune into savage this afternoon jsut to hear him go off on this. almost.

This is a great opportunity for AGAG to gain some conservative credibility.

Do we need more evidence that the liars' club that is the United States Congress is a bipartisan oligarchy run for the benefit of its members?

Uh oh, I feel a diary coming on....

and from time-to-time.

Fortunately they are not this way always.

I suggest contacting hastert directly and en masse over this.

What disturns is me is this inward turning and self-absorption in the Congress. Why? Most Republican policies are working quite well:

The economy, the war, real estate, interest rates, employment, receipts to the government, are all doing well.

Most of our allies have come back to our side.

We have not been struck. The courts are reforming and doing better.

So why would the Republican majority choose now to cave in to democrat weedling and whining?

"Culture of Corruption".

here

Let's hope the AG sticks to his guns here. He's already admitted this was an unusual circumstance and I have a feeling sought some pretty intelligent counsel (Beside his own) before acting in this matter.

This is why I think a 3rd party would really take off.

I'd settle for an end to gerrymandering, though.

also to Hastert and Beohner

So what you are saying is you are above the law as long as you hide the evidence in your office. What a load of crap! Of all the things to get worked up about this has to be a new low for congress. The man(and I use that term losely) is a criminal and should be treated as such and your outrage should be directed at him not the justice DEPT. Keep it up gentleman and you will find yourselves in the minority come NOV! You work for us and serve at our pleasure not the other way around and you better start understanding that fact!

I'd just as soon not do that again.

They're pretty different.  The Congress is arguing based on some constitutional equivalent of estoppel or laches.

Due Process arguments are a whole other ball o' wax.

At any rate, the system was designed for spats like this between the branches.  It tells me all is well.

I'm saying "likely".

When people don't feel that the Republicans represent them, and they don't feel that the Democrats represent them...

Well, it'll probably end the same way as the last time.

Sadly, the Republicans will learn the exact same lesson.

Unless and until there's a viable option (a viable third party) talk of a third party is irrelevant.

a republican vote, no matter how wishy-washy said republican may be, is still overwhelmingly better than a democratic or independent vote.

the Libertarians (or Pat Buchanans of the world) dont have any media money and the smarts to use it this year, otherwise Republicans are in a lot of trouble.

...it's an open secret in congress that your office is a sanctuary and basically above the law. Maybe congresscritters know that there's a form of security there that they aren't willing to part with. We, their constituents, live under a naive notion that they are accountable to the electorate. I suspect they have no such illusions, and therefore think about things over a longer term -- during which they will be at various times in the minority.

So maybe the Republicans in congress fear losing that sanctuary, then losing the elections, and  then lacking the needed protection when the Dems start getting subpeona happy.

Or maybe there's a decent principle at play here somewhere and we're just not seeing it yet. Too odd for words, frankly.

Well, you know this, anyway.

But how many people out there don't have someone like you explaining to them that it's more important to vote for the (R) than for the guy who actually seems to speak for them?

We see an "explain to me why I ought to vote Republican, again?" thread in the diaries every day. These are diaries from people who bleed Redstate (well, half of the diaries are from such people).

There was even a diary from one of the honchos of this very site saying "I give up". Now, of course, he didn't really give up... but how representative of the average 2006 voter are the honchos of this site?

How many people lack the support system that this site provides?

I think that the two parties in power are hopelessly corrupt and the exceptions are dwarfed by those co-opted into the culture of corruption.

And I don't see that a solution is to be found in voting while holding my nose.

And, I suspect, there are fewer every day that think that that is a workable short-term solution.

I'm just not sure of your intention? Vote for a dem?

Unless your intention is to create or commandeer a third party and make it viable for future election cycles, I dint see the point?

In 2004, I was trying to explain to my Democratic friends that the problem with their anti-Bush stance was that it lead to stuff like the nominee-by-committee John Kerry. If they had actually stood on their principles, they'd have had a real chance of winning in 2004.

Gephardt was the name I kept pointing out.

I tried to point out that the cause of their downfall in 2002 was that they were a party of opposition without being a party of vision.

That was the cause of their downfall in 2004 as well.

Well, I am seeing a lot of signs that remind me of 1992 in a lot of ways.

The worst part is how avoidable all of these things are...

But, anyway, I am not rabble rousing as much as crying in the wilderness.

What's the point of crying in the wilderness you ask?

That's a great question.

needs only to get 3-4% to swing the election.  

Who would that third party run?

• An outsider, running against the Beltway
  
• With name recognition and
  
• A lot of cash, an
  
• Immigration enforcement-firster
  
• Who rails endlessly about OBL/Al-Qaeda
  

and be either

• A conservative Catholic, Evangelical, or Mormon
  
• Pro-Life, Pro-Family, vaguely pro 2nd Amendment
  
• Small-government conservative
  

or

• Private about his religion, defends your right to yours
  
• A doctor who doesn't like abortion but thinks it should be legal
  
• Solid family of this own, but liberal about yours

I don't think an in-your-face liberal can get elected, since he'd be tarred with too much lefty wackiness.  Neither do I think an in-your-face conservative can win, either, with a mildly conservative Republican also in the race.  

These ideas aren't fully formed -- I'm sort of thinking on bits, as it were.

Congressional leaders is an oxymoron of our contemporary politics.  I swear that these folks are demonstrating the political instincts of tuna.  

is all I could do in this hypothesis also but I think you are dead on with the first five points.

My guess with the either/or scenario is that the guy wouldnt have to be the either, more likely the OR, well, except that he would have to be small government something.

I doubt Candidate X could be anything that would actually WIN the election but it would be darn easy to sway it if he were someone that had the qualities lacking in the gop.

Basically a non-crazy Perot. The reason he WAS so popular was because he was an ousider and had an appealing idea of running the country like a business. People liked it because they knew businesses sooner follow a small govt model because they fix things that dont work. He was also self-made and rich so he obviously knew what he was doing.

Then he basically just went loco and got that poor senior citizen as his veep.

As for abortion, thats a touchy subject but if he were in the OR category he would be popular.

The biggest downfall for an 'outsider' candidate is national security, hard to have that experience without being the insider problem we have.

The other possibility is if someone inside and popular to small govt types like Shadegg ran, he would do damage.

The problem with the Libertarians is that I doubt they would ever have a candidate that wasnt all these things without going over-the-top for conservatives on many of their other issues.