On the impending coronation...

There's an interesting report just released by the House Rules Committee Minority Office: http://www.housedemocrats.gov/Docs/BrokenPromises.pdf

Broken Promises: The Death of Deliberative Democracy
A Congressional Report on the Unprecedented Erosion of the Democratic Process in the 108th Congress.

The report's opening sentence:
"In the 108th Congress, House Republicans became the most arrogant, unethical and corrupt majority in modern Congressional history."

The report sounds a very loud alarm for both Dems and Repubs. Our Congress has gotten in the dangerous habit of voting on far reaching, landmark legislation that they do not even read. The House leadership makes rules that prevent any and all discussion or debate on 500-1000 paged House bills.

I read this Minority Report. It gets really interesting really fast. The first few pages are pretty dry, and honestly they sound pretty whiney, but by the time you get to page 45, you realize that there really is a big problem up there in Washington. Those Washington Republicans don't give a hoot what's in a bill, they cannot possibly read any of them. They just vote as they are told by their shepherds. The Dems don't have a chance to even read the damn things before they are forced to a yes or no vote. Hell, why bother having a Congress if that's the way its going to be run. Let's just have the coronation, install the king and his court, and be done with it.

One party rule. That's what we've come to.
It's not called democracy when they do it in Cuba - why do we think it's democracy here?

And guess what? Surprise, surprise!
Not one word about it has made any media outlet I've seen. I even emailed all the stuff to my local tv stations several days back. Nothin'. Nada. Not a peep.

Too much American Idol and Michael Jackson news to report, I guess.

If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention!

DailyKos.com has some thorough citizen conversations on this report. The first post on the subject is here, but there are others that have been posted since this was posted.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/3/9/144945/8694