Pacific Free Press was launched in March 2007 by Dutch-Canadian Richard
Kastelein of V.O.F. Expathos, in the Netherlands along with Chris Cook- CFUV radio journalist and Editor in Chief of Pacific Free Press. Cook is based in , Victoria, British Columbia.
The mission of Pacific Free Press is simple: to dig out nuggets of truth from
the slag-heap of lies, ignorance and witless diversion that has buried
public discourse today. Pacific Free Press provides a new venue for
disseminating hard news and insightful, fact-based analysis of the
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First Real Test for Democrats: The Lame Duck Session of Congress
Forget all the talk about civility and compromise.
It's clear that President Bush and his aiders and abettors in the Congress are going to do their damndest to cover their tracks over the next few weeks, using their "lame duck" majorities in House and Senate to pass legislation, while they still can, protecting them as much as possible from future investigation and retaliation.
Bush clearly wants a bill granting him retroactive immunity for his crime of violating the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act--probably the surest path to his impeachment in a growing list of some dozen crimes against law and Constitution. He may push other actions insulating himself and his cohorts from future prosecution too, as he already did just before the election in ramming through a bill immunizing him against prosecution for authorizing torture.
While the Democrats won't have a majority in either branch of Congress until early January, when newly elected Democrats are sworn in and replace some 30 Republican members of the House and six members of the Senate, they have plenty of members already in place to perform a blocking action--particularly in the Senate, where the Democrats can fillibuster to death any bill they want by just keeping 40 of their 45 caucus members together.
Will they do this?
Nancy Pilosi
(D-Calif.), the prospective new speaker and current minority leader of
the House, so far is not showing much taste for combat. If she doesn't
take a stand, though, it will be a massive betrayal of the millions of
voters who came out and backed Democrats, often for the first time in
their lives, because they want a real opposition.
The truth is, Pelosi probably shouldn't have a hard time rounding up
the 15 or so Republicans she'll need to block any FISA-immunity bill.
There are some libertarian Republicans in the House who have been at
least as outraged at Bush's warrantless spying on Americans as the most
liberal Democrats.
But Pelosi and the Democrats can't continue to act like the
out-of-power wimps that they have been for the past six years or more.
They shamelessly sat on the sidelines during the debate over the truly
dreadful military tribunals bill, allowing Republican critics to do all
the heavy lifting. As a result of their calculating cowardice, that the
bill passed into law, ending habeas corpus--the right to have a case go
before a judge--for the first time since the 13th Century, and making
the U.S. a pariah nation that no longer honors the Geneva Conventions.
Democrats also sat on their hands as Congress passed legislation making
it easier for the president to declare martial law--an incredible act
of betrayal against the people and the Constitution.
The Democratic Party leaders' behavior during the campaign, in which
they ducked every important issue, particularly those involving the war
and civil liberties, was disgraceful, even if it had at least a veneer
of justification (the leadership mistakenly believed that it would do
better in the election by not offering Republicans a target). But now
Democrats can no longer sit on the sidelines, and no longer have the
excuse of being in the line of fire. They are on offense now, and they
need to start fighting as a ruling party, even before they take over
the gavels in the House and Senate. For the next two months it will
have to be full-scale, active obstruction.
After that, maybe they'll realize--from the cheering--how badly the
American public wants a fighting opposition. Then maybe they'll move
into active opposition after they take over control of the two houses
of Congress in January. Maybe Rep. Pelosi will realize over the course
of the next few weeks' battles, that American voters were not asking on
Nov. 7 for more civility in Washington; they were demanding a real
opposition. Maybe she'll realize Americans across the country were
voting for a new Congress that would "take out the trash."
Or not.
In which case the party of Roosevelt, and its too cautious leadership, will richly deserve history's dustbin themselves.
Writings 
Forget all the talk about civility and compromise. 
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