Pre-Partisan America, 1789-1801

By David Swanson

I’m not a big fan of post-partisan America, a notion that seems to amount to running the government through two political parties but taking care that one of them not perform in any significant way better than the other one. But I am a fan of the idea, which nobody ever seems to consider, of actually disempowering parties.

That idea has a precedent in the first dozen years or so of our republic whose Constitution never planned for party rule, although nonpartisanship would read more

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Cheney's Crimes and Confessions: Torture Is the Least of It

By David Swanson

Dick Cheney’s statutory crimes are notable for their severity, their number, and his public confessions to them.  Torture is the least of it.

We can start with the crimes found in the three articles of impeachment contained in H Res 333 in the 110th Congress:

1. "Cheney has purposely manipulated the intelligence process to deceive the citizens and Congress of the United States by fabricating a threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction to justify the use of the United read more

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Here Comes Single-Payer Healthcare in Another State

By David Swanson

A bill to create single-payer healthcare in California has passed that state’s senate for the third time now. Californians just need to persuade a governor to sign it. Single-payer healthcare bills are advancing in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Minnesota, Massachusetts, and a growing list of states, including New Mexico, where State Senator Jerry Ortiz y Pino, a long-time supporter of single-payer healthcare, is running for Lieutenant Governor.

Now North Carolina house candidate Marcus read more

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Senator Tom Udall to Call a Point of Order to Throw Out the Filibuster Rule

Senator Tom Udall of New Mexico has put an honest description of the antidemocratic filibuster rule on his website.

According to Jon Walker at FireDogLake Udall plans to call a point of order at the start of the next Congress to eliminate the filibuster rule.

This is the real solution that we need (although not all experts agree it has to wait for the start of a session), not asking the Vice President pretty please to declare the rule unconstitutional as Thomas Geoghegan suggests read more

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God Killed Haitians So "We Are the World" Could Have a Timely Topic

So say Lionel Ritchie and Quincy Jones, and with much gratitude toward God, in this video.

And, by the way, a bunch of American millionaires really are not the world. Charity from people who are allowing their government to destroy and exploit on unprecedented scale is pathetic enough, but thanking God for a timely tragedy is a little bit too much.

Nice song, though.

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