Write To Your Senators About Cloture -- It May Actually Be Working!

Maybe.

I'll not mention which blogger wrote to which Senator's staff about cloture, as I got to read the exchange, which the staffer may not have known. The blogger accused the Senator of planning to vote for cloture but against the bill, attempting to perpetrate a sham on his voters. The staffer wrote back that there was nothing in the Senator's statements to support such a suspicion and that he had not indicated he would vote for either cloture or the bill itself.

Does that mean this wavering Senator won't vote against cloture? No, he didn't say that, either. But 1) the Senate's office is apparently worried about that charge to offer a fulsome rebuttal against it and 2) his response seems to indicate the Senator in question hasn't yet committed one way or another.

"Not yet committed" is hardly our goal, but it's a start. Let the word go out by phone and fax and even snailmail to our "representatives" that we're hip to the yes-on-cloture-no-on-passage scam, and we won't be fooled. We've read, for example, that many Republican Senators are telling lobbyists they do in fact want the bill to go through, even though they may be worried about voting for it themselves. This passive-aggressive passage of the bill will be seen for what it is. A senator who votes for cloture is voting for the bill, period.

Meanwhile, Trent Lott says "We have to do deal with that problem," and by "that problem," he means not border enforcement but conservative-leaning talk radio "running the country" and daring to question their Senatorial Overlords on the amnesty bill. A shocking statement by a Republican, or an American, for that matter; is he really suggesting that free speech needs to be better controlled so that he and his fellow douchebags can be free to legislate without question?

I don't see how else to read it -- Trent Lott has joined Media Matters Rep. Maurice Hinchley in the campaign to regulate political speech by destroying one of the only media outlets for conservative political views. He's implicitly endorsing the dreaded "equal time" rule -- mandating that half of talk radio hosts endorse his piece of shit bill -- which of course destroys talk radio entirely. It didn't exist before that pernicious rule was repealed, and it won't exist after it's reintroduced.

This breathtaking statement by Lott has even cautious we-suck Eeyore Allah re-evaluating the need for rightroots organizing to "deal with that problem" of Lott, Graham, Hagel & Co.

Kaus, meanwhile, continues to question the absurd claim by the MSM that amnesty without security is popular:

Forty percent (40%) of American voters say that President Bush is doing a good or an excellent job on taxes. A Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 39% say the same about his handling of the economy.

At the other end of the spectrum, just 15% say he is doing a good or an excellent job on immigration.

If 39% think Bush is doing well on the economy, despite ceasleless confidence-sapping bad-news poor-mouthing from the media, how can it be he only gets a 15% positive rating on immigration despite relentless boosterism from the MSM?

And I ask again: If this bill is so popular, why does everyone keep insisting it must be passed now -- safely far enough from the elections for the public to forget it about before Novemeber 2008? If it's popular, why shouldn't the vote be scheduled right before the elections -- or, better yet, the primaries -- so that the Senators championing this very-popular law can reap the political benefits of passing it?

One more tale out of school: I've been getting, as many bloggers do, updates from the White House's Office for Public Liason. I don't mean to burn them -- I appreciate their tips, though I use hardly any at all -- but I will say that today's amensty-boosting email, titled "What They're Saying...," is simply a digest of pro-amnesty quotes -- from MSM newspaper editorial boards, almost all liberal-leaning, with the exception of the WSJ, itself not just liberal but licentious on this issue. They put the WSJ quote up top, as if they're supposed to have some sway with us.

Pretty sad that the Bush Administration has turned to quoting the NYT and other left-liberal papers as evidence that conservatives ought to support its piece of shit bill. I don't see any quotes from someone I actually trust, like, say, conservative talk-show hosts Laura Ingraham or Michelle Malkin.

Ah, well -- I suppose we'll just "have to deal with that problem" in the next Congress.

posted by Ace at 04:27 PM

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