Infamy

January 30, 2006 will go down in history as a dark day for our democracy and a milestone in the far right's campaign to render our Constitution an empty shell. Today 18 - eighteen! - Democratic Senators voted with the Republicans to block a filibuster against confirmation of ideologue judge Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court, virtually assuring the Bush regime a compliant rubber-stamp court as early as tomorrow. Look for more coddling of corporate robber barons, more dismantling of our increasingly rickety labor and environmental protections, more Guantanamos, more torture, more Americans incarcerated indefinitely without trial at the mere word of the imperial executive. Today's craven capitulation should lay to rest the last lingering doubt as to the moral and political bankruptcy of the Democratic Party. The many progressives who have, again and again, held their nose to vote for Democrats in hope of at least keeping quasi-fascists (there! I've used the f-word) off the Supreme Court find themselves rudely betrayed. And the Green Party's role as home to the last real patriots is brought into sharp focus....