Houston Democrats

Would have been nice to get more, but having a ten vote handicap and still shoving this powerplay down the throats of the ReDobsonites is better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick. On a scale of 1-10, this is a 7. Letting those judges through knocks 3 off of the 10 Reid gets for exposing Frist/Dobson's impotence to the world.

Bush is a lame duck, his man in the House is an ethics scandal and his man in the Senate has been cuckolded by over 10% of Republican Senators. Some 'mandate'.

I wouldn't call this a great victory for Democrats. The three very controversial judges, Priscilla Owens, Janice Rogers Brown and William Myers, confirmations will have an "up or down" vote. The only thing the Democrats did was slap Bill Frist upside the head with this compromise. In my opinion, they should've allowed the cat killer to go forward with his so called "nuclear option", and then the Democrats should've shut the Senate down and refused to vote on ANYTHING. One CANNOT compromise with the enemy.

I am sure there are many here on this blog that will disagree with my opinion. As far as I'm concerned, the public and the Senate have been much too concerned with the filibuster issue as of late and seemingly not as concerned with the Downing Street memo and the issue of this country being led into war on a pack of lies. Our government continues to funnel taxpayer dollars into Iraq for the continuation of this so called war. The issue of the 14 permanent military bases being constructed in Iraq has not been addressed. The attention of the Democrats in the House and Senate and the attention of the American people has been diverted from the MOST important issues to issues such as this filibuster, the Newsweek story on the desecration of the Quran, Bush's opposition to stem cell research, gay marriage issues etc etc etc.

Isn't it nice that the Democrats decided to unite on this filibuster issue and keep the Republicans from controlling all three branches of government? Why haven't our illustrious Democrats united on other issues of MORE importance like the invasion of Iraq and getting our troops out of that country immediately?! As far as I'm concerned, the Democrats should always present a united front in opposition to the Republicans, especially this radical right wing cabal of thugs.

For some odd reason, many of our Democrats seem content to roll over and allow the Republicans to kick the hell out of them over and over again. It seems that our Democrats decided to "grow a pair" over this issue of the filibuster when it appeared likely they would be totally emasculated by the Republicans and have absolutely NO SAY over judicial nominees. BushCo, collectively, has been stepping on its own dick for quite some time now and overreaching. They have been allowed to trample civil liberties, take this country into war against a nation that was no threat to us, commit treason by outing an undercover CIA agent etc all with the seeming blessing of the Democrats in Congress.

I feel no sense of victory this morning at all over this filibuster issue. As far as I'm concerned, many of our House and Senate Democrats have shown their true colors with regard to whether or not they truly represent the people of the United States as opposed to their corporate interests. They have remained mostly silent on the issues I've previously mentioned. That, in and of itself, tells me they care nothing about the people of this country but more about whether or not they feel they can be re-elected.

For the life of me, I don't know why our Democrats in Congress are so afraid of BushCo. Where is their sense of moral outrage at being lied to by the administration? Where is the sense of moral outrage at all the death and carnage in Iraq on both sides?

Just because the Democrats, FOR ONCE, decided to grow a sac and oppose the most radical of Republicans doesn't mean they have my respect at all. They have whored themselves out one too many times to the Republicans and allowed themselves to be trampled into the dirt and laughed at.

I want a party of Democrats in Congress who will oppose the Republicans on ALL issues if those issues violate the rights of the American people or the rights of citizens of other countries. We are supposed to have a government that is controlled by the people and working for the best interests of the people. We don't have that. We have corporations that have been granted "human rights" who are allowed to dump loads and loads of money into campaign coffers, thereby, making politicians beholden to them. What has happened to our country?

I wouldn't wet all over myself, people, over this so called victory for Democrats. The Democrats have had many, many opportunities to rise up and battle the Bush administration and their hideous agenda. More often than not, they have chosen to sit idly by with their tails between their legs begging for scraps off the Republican table. The Democrats in Congress have helped the Republican cabal of fascists take over government because they won't stand up to them.

Now, we have three radical right wing judges who, if voted in, will have lifetime appointments to the bench. Boy howdy! What a victory for the American people! So, Bill Frist, gets a solid knock off his high horse, and we benefit HOW??!! The American people will most likely get three wacko judges who will turn the clock back on civil rights, labor rights, environmental protections etc. Sure sounds like a victory to me! NOT!!

Remember, people, YOU DON'T COMPROMISE WITH THE ENEMY EVER!

Unfortunately, most of our Democrats have proven they are $2 crack whores for the pimp daddy Bush administration.

I'm sure there will be some comment positive or negative regarding my post, so feel free to post away. When you do, if you disagree with my post then tell me succinctly why you believe we should declare a victory in the Senate on this filibuster issue.

It's too bad we didn't get our Senatorial "Alamo" to rally around. But let's see how this all plays out. One benefit of this compromise is that instead of the Senate Dems looking obstructionist, it's the Frist camp who look like whiners who hold their breath until they get their way. The Constitution is saved and the world is on notice that the Repugs don't give a rat's ass about it, so beware. And the filibuster is still intact when the lame duck Congress tries to shove a right activist onto the Supreme Court. That could be crucial... would the Repugs dare to kill off the filibuster for that?
Of course the downside is that you'll get the likes of Priscilla Owens deciding 100% for big business and slapping victims down for their inability to pay out. But one day, when those judges are all that's left of the far right in Federal government, they'll serve as reminders to the next generation.

Agree, a great victory would be a vote sustaining the filibuster and then using it to block all seven Judges. That would be 10/10 instead of 7/10.

But as you say, "Remember, people, YOU DON'T COMPROMISE WITH THE ENEMY EVER." The majority just comprimised with us. They blinked, not us. We didn't have the votes, they should have had the votes. They have ten more Senators than we do. Instead of their side voting as Dear Leader instructed, and some of our side waffling, our side was united and many on their side broke with their leader on his #1 highest profile issue with regards to his Theocracy Now master.

It's not so much a victory for our side as a defeat for the enemy.

I thought you all might be interested in some comments given by John Podesta, President and CEO of the Center for American Progress, regarding the compromise made on the filibuster.

Statement of John D. Podesta

On bipartisan compromise to avoid nuclear option

May 24, 2005

It should never have come to this. But we commend the 14 senators whose eleventh-hour agreement has ended a reckless exercise in nuclear brinkmanship. In preserving the judicial filibuster they have spared the Senate and our republic from a dangerous detour into the uncharted waters of one-party rule.

But this victory comes at a heavy price: the near-certain confirmation of at least three nominees whose contempt for constitutional liberties and disregard of precedent make them manifestly unworthy of judicial office.

While the fate of the remaining nominees remains uncertain, at least two of them will be subject to a filibuster and a cloture vote, and presumably these and certain other nominees will be defeated if they cannot muster the support of 60 senators.

The success of this fragile compromise will depend upon the good faith of senators on both sides, and on the willingness of the White House to desist from the confrontational behavior that precipitated this crisis.

As the country awaits a likely vacancy on the Supreme Court, we hope that the president will take to heart the advice he has been given by these senators: "to consult with members of the Senate, both Democratic and Republican, prior to submitting a judicial nomination to the Senate for consideration." Only then can the Senate perform its proper role of ensuring that nominees will uphold the Constitution and the rule of law.

Note the following part of John's sentence: "the willingness of the White House to desist from the confrontational behavior that precipitated this crisis."

Now, who among us believes the White House will desist from the confrontational behavior that precipitated this crisis, hmmmm? That's what I'm saying here, people. If you compromise with the enemy once then you'll compromise again and again and again. This administration is full of fascist Republicans. This is not your "normal" Republican administration. There is nothing "normal" about these creeps. Does anyone actually believe the Republicans in the House and Senate will be willing to give an inch on ANY issue in the future? I think not.

Re-read John's last paragraph carefully:

As the country awaits a likely vacancy on the Supreme Court, we hope that the president will take to heart the advice he has been given by these senators: "to consult with members of the Senate, both Democratic and Republican, prior to submitting a judicial nomination to the Senate for consideration." Only then can the Senate perform its proper role of ensuring that nominees will uphold the Constitution and the rule of law.

Does anyone actually believe the majority of Republicans in Congress are interested in "upholding the Constitution and the rule of law"?! Give me a break! They have proven time and again they are willing to crap on the Constitution and break the rule of law. These piss tubes worship money and power. They aren't interested in upholding the Constitution because the Constitution protects the rights of you and me! Does anybody remember Senator John McCain throwing his arms around Chimpie Boy at the Republican National Convention?! Good grief! I used to have a smattering of respect for McCain because of all he went through as a POW in Vietnam, but after that display, I came to realize McCain is simply a whore for Bush. So, just because McCain was one of the senators who compromised on the filibuster doesn't mean I have any faith in him or his "moral compass" at all. You will also see that Joe "I'm really a Republican" Lieberman was one of the senators who compromised as well. We all know Joe "Droopy the Dog" Lieberman has backed Bush on many an occasion; therefore, he is not deserving of any respect either for his so called stand on preserving the filibuster. Gee whiz, Joe, I wouldn't want you to take a stand on anything remotely democratic and diminish your position with Bushie boy! Wasn't it Joe who got the kiss on the head from Bush? I can't remember now, but methinks I'm correct on that one.

My point, once again, is this is no victory for Democrats. We have merely kept the Republicans from going nuclear on judicial appointments and effectively putting the country under one party rule. It is my opinion, though, that we are already under one party rule in this country as the majority of centrist Democrats in Congress have continued to cave under the pressure from the Republican thugs who currently control our government.

By the way, no one who has posted thus far has addressed the issue of why the compromise on this filibuster issue is MORE important than the issues of our troops getting out of Iraq, the issue of Valerie Plame being outed by someone in the Bush administration, the issue of the Patriot Act and the Democrats who voted for it etc. Why are the Democrats in Congress ignoring these issues? Why are they not in the forefront of the discussion in this country? By remaining silent on these and other issues, the Democrats are complicit in the crimes being committed by Republicans here and abroad.

Thanks Dem. Filibuster negotiators. You traded for us a sharp stick in the eye for a future hot poker up the anal cavity. And, we get Priscilla Owen, Corporate pimp-girl to boot. I'm sure I'll get used to the hot poker in time. I agree with Sen. Russ Feingold and David Van Os's assessments. Merriman

Future hot poker, Stan? We've been taking the hot poker for years now. We'd all better buy stock in Depends Adult diapers because after the reaming we'll be getting over the course of the next three years, we'll be crapping in our drawers for the foreseeable future.

I agree with Kris Graham that the Senate has avoided the hard and important issues--the criminal ones, the ones beside which the nuclear option pales into relative insignificance.
We don't deserve to be able to hold our heads up until we force the Bush gang to take responsibility for these crimes and to redress them. We did accomplish one thing in the debate about the nuclear op., though. We showed by comparison with our guys what a bunch of slimy, mean bastards Republicans are, especially their leader, Dr. Butcher Frist, who, a week or so ago, reminded his good Christian followers, to show how tough he is, that in some other life, he removed people's hearts. One had the feeling that he was looking forward to doing something of the kind to our Democratic brothers and sisters today and was somewhat disappointed that he was being deprived of the chance. He reminded me of Congressman Jack Brooks from Orange, a slick operator who, in my youth, was called "the smiling surgeon" for the ease with which he could separate people and their money and their own good.

Now that we got all the pent up anger out of our systems, what about the future? How long will those Republicans that agreed to this be able to stand the grief that they are getting. (Without taking anything away from Kris, I would imagine that what those Republicans are getting from the far right Christian Fundamentalists, is the equal of anything Kris can throw out).
Might we see some sort of political realignment in the Senate between the moderate Republicans and some of the Democrats? Would this be so bad?, could the Senate then get down to work on some of the real issues that need to be faced: cleaning up the mess we made in Iraq and getting out; doing something about medical care in this country; global warming etc (I am sure we can all come up with a list of the importent issues that need to be dealt with). Might this be the dawn of a new age and the twilight of the present administration.

Those GOP moderates aren't being altruistic... they're looking to their own political futures. They're positioning themselves to be key players the Senate minority after '06. The upcoming Republican minority. But they'll have to survive some Republican extremist outrage first.

Ah, my friends Kris and Stan have come in and turned over the furniture again. An evil man once and recently said, "Focus your anger". Y'all's seems focused enough; it's just pointed in the wrong direction.

Aim more to the right, please...

There are some of us who believe any compromise is going to be seen as a sign of weakness, and there's little that can be said to change those minds.

The plain, unvarnished, unspinnable truth (from Daily Kos) is:

-- Democrats hold 44 seats in the 100-seat Senate. One independent (Jeffords) votes with the Democrats, giving Dems a 10-seat deficit.

-- Reid had 49 votes. He needed 51 to defeat Frist's nuclear option. Thus Reid needed at least two of the remaining four undecided Republicans. (DeWine and Graham were in this bunch; others uncertain)

-- Had Reid come up short, the filibuster would be dead in judicial matters.

-- If the filibuster was dead, Bush would've been able to put anyone on the Supreme Court. Anyone.

-- Talibaptist James Dobson demands the right to choose the next Supreme Court nominee. Dobson's biggest enemy is the filibuster. Hence, he forced Frist to engage the nuclear option.

-- Now, because of the agreement, Dobson doesn't get to choose the next Supreme Court justice. Bush's choice --if an extremist -- faces the prospect of a filibuster.

In order to save face, Republicans have gotten up or down votes on most of the handful of judges who are currently being filibustered. It's a price, but a relatively small one to pay to protect the filibuster during the next Supreme Court battle.

Given that Democrats have a 10-seat deficit in the Senate, that's no small feat.

And Steve Soto over at the Left Coaster took the words out of my mouth:

Again, it wasn't a satisfying victory tonight for many on the left, but such a victory in a 55-44-1 Senate would have resulted in a victory on principle and nothing else. We live to fight another day, in a better position now in the court of public opinion than before, while protecting the Supreme Court beachhead. And Bill Frist lost face with the American Taliban and lost the car keys to the Senate at the same time.

Trust me, we're doing fine.

*puts on flame-retardant suit*

Here is the ephipany-like realization I've come to reading both the report from the Nuke-option Dem. negotiators and most of you all on this blog, excepting myself, Kris and Muriel: You all and the negotiators are making small tactical maneuvers vis a vis the Right, who have declared war on you and us. You all are behaving as if the war they have declared doesn't exist. Kris,Muriel and myself along with David Van Os and Russ Feingold understand that we are at open, declared political warfare. At stake? Democracy itself. Folks, this is not business as usual with liberalism jockeying for position vs. conservatism. The is open warfare between corporatism and theo-plutocracy vs. economic populism and republican democracy.
Moyer, Chomsky, Frank (Kansas), Huffington, Zinn and a myriad of other intellectuals on the left see it clearly; Kevin Phillips and Michael Lind on the right see it from the populist perspective. There can be no compromise or capitulation if we are to save this constitution and bill of rights. they are almost gone. We must sweep aside the capitulators currently representing us in office and replace them with fighters to form a united front of resistance. To the streets, to the barricades my friends. We have no choice if freedom means anything at all for our kids and grandchildren.

Don't think of the eleventh hour plan to save the filibuster as a compromise. Start thinking of it as "appeasement" (as in Austria and the Sudetenland). If you do that then you will understand why Europe and the rest of the world is beginning to look at the US (read us) as the enemy and not terrorism. The filibuster will still be toast and every Bush nominee will be upheld, making the United States an official one party/fascist nation. You can wait for the illegal search and seizures, detentions, and deportations if you need more proof, but don't look for the democratic process and your vote to rescue this nation. Moderate Republicans and right wing Democrats can't see the forest for the trees, folks. This ain't your Daddy's Oldsmobile!

rIGHT ON, BELLWETHER ! Below is the most seminal analysis yet by David Corn of Nation magazine:
The No-Nuke Deal: A Fast and Skeptical Take

I offered a fast take on the "compromise" reached by the Gang of 14 in my "Capital Games" column at www.thenation.com. Here it is:

The No-Nuke Deal
May 24, 2005
David Corn

The Senate will not be nuked. As the doomsday clock ticked down, seven so-called moderates from each party concocted a deal that was more of a win for the Republicans than the Democrats.

Under this brokered arrangement, three of Bush's rightwing nominees for appellate courts--Priscilla Owen, Janice Rogers Brown and William Pryor Jr.--will not be filibustered. In return--so to speak--the filibuster will remain a weapon the Democrats can use in the future against other judicial nominees but only "under extraordinary circumstances." What qualifies as "extraordinary circumstances"? That was not defined.

What does all this mean? At issue were five judicial nominees. The Republicans ended up with concrete gains: three conservatives (including one--Rogers Brown--who has declared that government is the enemy of civilization) will presumable be confirmed. What happens to the others--Henry Saad and William Myers--is uncertain. Saad's nomination is already in trouble (perhaps because of allegations within his FBI file). Myers could be a candidate for a filibuster. But the Democrats did not walk out of the room with a hard-and-fast right to resort to a filibuster. With this compromise, they are only able to wield a judicial filibuster if seven Republican senators agree the situation is "extraordinary." In essence, a small band of moderate GOPers will now have veto power over the Democrats' use of the judicial filibuster.

Democrats and their allies in the judicial wars can point to the fact that one or two of the Bush nominees may be stopped and that the filibuster might be available in the future. But what they got out of this deal is more iffy than what the Republicans pocketed. True, they prevented Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist from pushing the button. But Ralph Neas, the head of People for the American Way, is overstating the case when he says "this is a major defeat for the radical right." What has the radical right lost in concrete terms? One or two conservative judges.

The future of the judicial filibuster remains unclear. Some opponents of Bush's nominees are suggesting the filibuster has been saved for the coming titanic battles over Supreme Court vacancies. "Our members fought hard to preserve the filibuster, which will now live to see another day," says Eli Pariser of MoveOn PAC. "The only way the 'nuclear option' comes back is if the Republicans break their agreement." Yes and no. If George W. Bush were to nominate, say, Priscilla Owen to the Supreme Court, would the GOP half of the Gang of 14 buck the leader of their party and attest that such an action was "extraordinary" and open to a filibuster? After all, how "extraordinary" would it be for a president to nominate to the highest court a jurist who served on both a state supreme court and a federal appellate court and who was previously confirmed by a majority of the Senate?

Frist and the Republican right had aimed to eliminate the judicial filibuster, and they did fail in that mission. But they succeeded in dramatically weakening the filibuster--possibly to the point of rendering it inoperable. Social conservative leader James Dobson decried the compromise as a loss for the Republicans. But undermining the filibuster is certainly more of a gain than a defeat for the GOP.

Did the Democrats get screwed--or screw themselves? This might have been the best deal they could have achieved. The Republicans were in the position of strength, and the betting in Washington was that Frist had enough votes to launch the nuclear option. There was no telling which party would have won the post-nuclear contest to blame the other side. What might have happened if Frist had dropped bomb and the Democrats subsequently hung together as a party and made good on their threat by slowing down the Senate, forcing the Republicans to vote on such Democratic initiatives as the minimum wage increase and health care tax cuts, and depicting the Republicans as a power-hungry majority (while the Republicans accused them of being obstructionists)? No one knows. And now no one will.

Looking back, it seems as if the debate over these judicial nominees became too much a fight about Senate rules. The Democrats benefited when Senator Trent Lott stupidly coined the phrase "nuclear option." But the back-and-forth about the filibuster and parliamentary matters (as important as they are) practically subsumed the central point: that Bush has been engaged in judicial activism--that is packing the federal courts with rightwing judges who usually side with big corporations over individuals. In spite of Lott's boneheaded mistake, the Republicans were able to define this war as one mostly over the use (or, as they put it, the misuse) of Senate rules. The Democrats fired back by claiming the Republicans were abusing their majority standing and unfairly rigging the game. This is what political consultants call a "process issue," and the conventional rule in politics is that "process issues" rarely resonate with large blocs of voters beyond those base-voters already engaged by such things. And with this arrangement, the Democratic moderates--let's name them: Ben Nelson, Robert Byrd, Joseph Lieberman, Mark Pryor, Mary Landrieu, Ken Salazar, and Daniel Inouye--did elevate the rules issue (and the goal of preserving the stately ways of the Senate) above the desire to do everything possible to block Bush's takeover of the courts. This deal was more about the Senate than the judiciary.

In the end, the bare-knuckle brawlers of each party who justifiably wanted a fight over Bush judges were sent back to their corners by the mushy-middlers. But this is a fight the Democrats need to pursue. The rules of the Senate matter, but what matters as much, if not more, are the far-reaching decisions handed down by judges who would restrict the rights of individuals and bolster those of corporate interests. This deal has yielded an uneasy peace--one arguably more beneficial at this moment to the Republicans than to the Democrats--but it does not the resolve the fundamental conflict. The judicial wars will (and should) continue by other means.

I've pasted an article below written by Robert Kuttner, co-editor of the American Prospect. The article appears at www.commondreams.org.

Published on Wednesday, May 25, 2005 by the Boston Globe
Bush and Frist Got What They Wanted
by Robert Kuttner

The Wasington press corps loves the conceit that polarization is what ails American politics and that bipartisan moderation will save the day. The high drama of the ''nuclear option" averted by brave moderates from both parties fits the script perfectly.

In the conventional account, Republican leader Bill Frist, tired of court nominees being denied a floor vote by obstructionist Democrats, threatened to scrap the filibuster rule. Just hours before this nuclear option was to be exercised, 14 moderates of both parties, after marathon negotiations, heroically fashioned a compromise in which just three controversial nominees get a floor vote, and the filibuster is preserved.

Several press accounts had Frist isolated and humiliated, and right-wing groups furious. The only problem is that this happy spin is almost totally wrong. Consider what actually happened.

By threatening what amounted to a parliamentary coup d'etat, Frist got nearly everything he wanted. A rules change requires a two-thirds vote. Frist's ''nuclear option" would have had the leadership rule from the chair that the filibuster can be scrapped for judicial nominees; then a simple majority of 51 senators would have upheld the parliamentary ruling. End of filibuster.

Faced with bad publicity for this show of crude force, several Republicans looked for a face-saver that would still preserve the substantive result -- confirmation of extremist nominees. They and Frist won. This was no mutiny against the Senate leader; it was merely a change of tactic.

What does the vaunted compromise actually do? First, it guarantees an up-or-down floor vote on three of the most reactionary judges ever to come before the Senate: Janice Rogers Brown, William Pryor, and Priscilla Owen. It was Democratic resistance to these appellate nominees that caused Frist to go nuclear in the first place. He and George W. Bush won. The three judges are now likely to be confirmed, and other extremist nominees will keep coming.

Second, the deal commits the GOP to relent on the plan to scrap the filibuster, but only for now. Frist is free to revive the nuclear option any time he likes, say, when the first Bush nominee to the Supreme Court comes before the Senate. Frist can hold this threat over the heads of Democrats, who are committed to minimize the use of filibusters.

Frist, Bush, and the Republican propaganda machine have been expressing outrage that Bush has been denied a handful of court nominees. The fact is that Republicans denied Bill Clinton far more court nominees, not by filibustering, but by refusing to let nominations out of committee. And Clinton tended to appoint moderates in an effort to appease Republicans, while Bush's nominees are mostly far-right conservatives.

Frist needed 50 votes plus Vice President Cheney as tie-breaker to sustain his threatened parliamentary coup.

In the end, seven of the 55 Senate Republicans decided to pursue this ''compromise," leaving him two votes short. But if these Republicans were genuinely moderates, they would not just be providing this parliamentary fig leaf; they would be voting against confirmation of these extremist nominees when they come up for a floor vote.

If you want to look for profiles in courage, see whether ''moderate" Republicans like Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine, John McCain of Arizona, and Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island actually oppose any of these nominees. For the most part, these people posture moderate and then do Bush's bidding.

The nuclear option is a very fitting analogy. Throughout the Cold War, the two super powers never used nuclear weapons. It was the threat to use them that produced the power. This is what Frist has done. He did not have to blow up a Senate norm, and he got his way just the same.

This week's nuclear compromise was no victory for moderation. It was just the latest in a series of salami tactics, where the right takes some now and comes back for more later.

In addition to the myth of bipartisan moderation, another myth is that the country wants moderate policies but that both parties are at fault for moving to the extremes. In fact, the Democrats have moved steadily to the center on issues of social outlay, progressive taxation, and deregulation, while Bush has worked to energize his party's most extremist interest groups.

If the country is not getting moderate policies, it's because the Bush administration has shown that if you play real hardball, you can enact policies far to the right of what most voters want.

Robert Kuttner is co-editor of The American Prospect.

© 2005 Boston Globe

I am not believing how dumb the moderate Democrats are in the Senate. By compromising on the filibuster, they have literally screwed the American people forever.

It was the Republicans who broke ranks this time, not the Democrats. This COULD be a major turning point for progressives. This glass is AT LEAST half full!
Ever see a martial arts demonstration where a diminutive person, usually a woman, shows how to take down some muscle-bound rock who looks like he could crush her rib cage with two fingers? If she knows what she's doing, all she has to do is get him to attack her, and his ass is on the mat. She doesn't put him there, he does, all she does is give ground at the right moment and knock him off balance. The more strength he applies the more pain he receives.
Winning isn't about overpowering an opponent, but about neutralizing their strength. Until progressives have the numbers again -- and we will -- why not keep letting brain-dead extremists like Dobson push their allies into tight corners with no wiggle room? It's those tight no-compromise situations that get them in trouble. People on the Far Right are prone see their rigidly inflexible ideologies as their greatest strength. Isn't it time for Progressives to learn that it's really one the Right's principle weaknesses?