THE OTHER SHOE DROPS: Updates To Previous Posts
† Updates To Previous Posts (second item, What Al Gore Hath Wrought): Just 238 days after Election Day and after “almost 20,000 pages of legal briefs, and millions of dollars in election costs,” the MN Supreme Court unanimously handed the U.S. Senate seat to Al Franken (D) and his opponent, Norm Colman (R), conceded. The “oddly abrupt ending” gives Dems 60 votes “and thus at least the symbolic ability to overcome filibusters,” reports The New York Times:
Gov. Tim Pawlenty, a Republican, signed Mr. Franken’s election certificate early Tuesday evening. Senate Democrats said they would like to seat Mr. Franken as quickly as next week, giving the party a crucial vote as it moves to difficult debates over topics like climate change and health care.
Democrats had held some committee posts for Mr. Franken, potentially including the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee that is in the middle of drafting a health care overhaul.
With 60 votes (including those of two independents) now most likely aligned with the Democrats, the party could avoid filibusters.
Um, maybe not, according to McClatchy Newspapers:
On paper, the party now has the muscle to block any Republican filibuster, because it takes 60 votes under Senate rules to end debate and move to a final vote. However:
Two key Democratic senators are battling serious illnesses.
Two others are independents who caucus with the party but aren't certain to vote with the majority.
All senators have diverse constituencies that can lead them to break ranks with the party. …
"It's a numerical achievement, but not necessarily a political one," said Ross Baker, a political science professor at
In other words, Democrats still may have to scramble to get the bullet-proof majority.
Where Franken could make a difference in the Senate is on procedural votes, the votes on parliamentary maneuvers that keep legislation moving.
In practical terms, this means that Senate Dems can now invoke cloture and speed legislation to a vote – not such a great idea when bills are being passed in the House so quickly that legislators complain about not having enough time to read them first.
Editorial Note: The Wall Street Journal and Washington Post political analyst Chris Cillizza focus on how Franken won. The take-away message for candidates, according to The Journal: “you don't need to win the vote on Election Day as long as your lawyers are creative enough to have enough new or disqualified ballots counted after the fact.” While Cillizza calls Franken’s recount effort an “aggressive machine that … simply outworked and outflanked the Coleman campaign,” he believes that, ultimately, it was strictly a numbers game: “When the statewide recount ended, Franken led by 225 votes. … it's hard to overstate how important the fact that Franken was ahead was to setting public perception regarding the legal fight that ensued.”
† Updates To Previous Posts (Deconstructing Obama’s Cairo Speech): Al-Qaeda's North Africa wing is exhorting Muslims to “retailiate” against France after the country’s president, Nicolas Sarkozy, stated his opposition to burqa-wearing and the French National Assembly launched an inquiry into the prevalence and desirability of the practice in the staunchly secular nation, reports wire service Agence France-Presse:
"Yesterday was the hijab (the Islamic headscarf long banned in French schools) and today, it is the niqab (the full veil)," Abu Musab Abdul Wadud, head of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb was quoted as saying. …
"We will take revenge for the honour of our daughters and sisters against
The group also called on Muslims to retaliate for what it called French "hostility" against the community and its attempt to obstruct Islam's practice on its territory. …
"We call upon all Muslims to confront this hostility with greater hostility, and to counter
Terroristic threats notwithstanding, in a New York Daily News op-ed, Vanity Fair columnist Christopher Hitchens argues that the U.S. should take a page from Sarkozy’s playbook – and likens the burqa to the klansman's hood:
The whole point of the garment is that it weighs you down, restricts your movements and abolishes your peripheral vision. It's like being condemned to view the world through the slit of a mailbox.
But that observation - if you will excuse the expression - brings us to another and even more powerful objection to this mode of dress. It is quite plainly designed by men for the subjugation of women. One cannot be absolutely sure that no woman has ever donned it voluntarily, but one can certainly say that, in countries where women can choose not to wear it, then not wearing it is the choice they generally make.
This disposes right away of the phony argument that religious attire is worn as a matter of "right." It is almost exactly the other way around: The imposition of burkas or even head scarfs on women - just like the compulsory growing of beards for men - is the symbol of a denial of rights and the inflicting of a tyrannical code that obliterates personal liberty.
Western masochism about other people's "culture" often obscures this obvious fact. …
It is depressing that our President, in addressing the Muslim world, takes the most reactionary religious practice as the symbol of rights and identity.
Depressing, yes. But also distressing.
† Updates To Previous Posts (third item, The Right To Bear Arms Belongs To Us All: Part II): By a vote of 19-8 the AZ Senate has approved legislation allowing people who have concealed weapons permits to carry a gun into bars and restaurants that serve alcohol – as long as they themselves refrain from imbibing. The measure now goes to the desk of Gov. Jan Brewer (R), a gun rights supporter, reports The Associated Press:
Forty other states have approved similar measures, according to the National Rifle Association.
More than 127,000 Arizonans have concealed weapons permits, which require a gun safety course and background check, according to the Arizona Department of Public Safety.
An alcohol-serving establishment can opt-out by posting a sign next to its liquor license disallowing guns on the premises.
† Updates To Previous Posts (eighth item, Empire State Repubs Rise Again): Justice Joseph C. Teresi of State Supreme Court in
When the meeting will actually take place remains to be seen; Senate Republicans were appealing Justice Teresi’s ruling and were expected to get a stay that will delay the session.
In any case, the ruling was a victory for the governor, even if the judge criticized the lawyers for both [David] Paterson and the Republican senators for submitting court papers that he said were riddled with “hearsay, innuendo, speculation.”
Mr. Paterson has been trying to force the Senate back to work by ordering the lawmakers to convene extraordinary sessions each day since the regular legislative session ended June 22. With the chamber split in an unprecedented 31-31 tie, the recent sessions held by the Democratic and Republican blocs have yielded nothing, since neither side has the 32 members needed for a quorum. …
“To come into session as separate groups is a fiction,” he said. “It’s an illusion that these elected officials are working as one elected group that is the New York State Senate, and I will not be part of that fiction.”
The only good thing to come out of this meshugeneh mess: A law authorizing a 0.5 percent increase in the sales tax expired. It’s not much of a savings for consumers, but this is one of those rare instances when a tax got lowered after having been raised.
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