Wins and Losses

I posted yesterday about a couple of legislative victories, but what I didn't notice were a couple horrendous losses.

First, the House did its best to render the Internet totally impotent. From this Kos diary:

The horrible COPE bill, which serves up our Internet as a nice little garnish on a fat juicey meal of money and power to the Telephone & Cable companies (who have become, not incidentally, another arm of the authoritarian regime now in power), passed the House last night. The Markey amendment, which would have protected Net Neutrality, failed by 117 votes, of which 58 came from Democrats. Eleven Republicans and one independent voted with the good guys on this one.

The Senate is a little more hopeful, but it's definitely time to agitate. It's simply ridiculous and anti-competitive to put up gatekeepers on the Internet.


Number two was this blatantly illegal move. From David Swanson:

When the House and the Senate pass similar but not identical bills, they create a conference committee to work out the differences. When they both passed amendments to the "emergency supplemental" spending bill stipulating that none of the money could be used to build permanent bases in Iraq, the conference committee, behind closed doors this week, resolved that non-difference by deleting it.

This would appear to be a blatant violation of the rules of Congress and an unconstitutional voiding of the will of the people as expressed by their Representatives and Senators. But it can't appear that way to a people that knows nothing about it. And it does not appear that way at all to the journalists who inform the public of its government's doings. Even the minority members of the conference committee and the leaders of the minority party in Congress seem entirely comfortable with this course of events, although Congresswoman Barbara Lee has denounced the Republicans for it.

Blogs are great because they edit the news in real time, taking something off the radar and putting it front and center. This is completely ridiculous and symptomatic of how this Republican Congress works. It doesn't matter what gets legislated, the committee will nullify and shape a new bill out of the old ones. This is a perversion of the process. Do you all realize that Democrats aren't even allowed, for the most part, on these conference committees? Despite being in the minority, Democrats represent 45%+ of the Congress. All of my representatives are Democrats. My voice is silenced in Washington, and deliberately so. How is that democracy?

So mad about this I could spit. But I'm at Yearly Kos, so that softens the blow. More updates to come.