100 Hours / First Female Speaker Of The House

The Democrats having taken control of both houses of Congress officially today. Nancy Pelosi, as the Majority Leader, is the first female to become Speaker, which makes her 3rd in line for the presidency. It's an historic occasion.

What will the new congressional session bring? Will the Senate really begin an era of bipartisanship, as promised by Reid (D) and McConnell (R)?

I think, probably not. The Republicans, in the last 12 years, have run roughshod over so many things held sacred by the majority of Americans. Under these avaricious Repubs, we have experienced unprecedented attacks on our national parks, prolonged assaults on the social fabrics that created the middle class out of whole cloth like Social Security, and the tax code has shifted more of the burden onto those with the least money, the poor.

Bipartisanship in this era will just allow these Repub injustices to stand instead of rolling them back, of quashing them, of holding their sponsors up to the light of scrutiny and showing them to be the cowardly, shameful toadies of corporations and lobbies that they really are.

In this new Democratically controlled era, how about some leadership? Bipartisanship is fine when there is not a 12 year backlog of dirty politics, treachery and injustice to correct. Recently forced into early retirement/disgrace Tom DeLay told his supporters via his website, "there is no such thing as bipartisanship. We must fight, fight, fight..."

And does anyone believe that Bush has had a change of heart? The man who declared that voting for the Democrats (i.e., the majority of Americans) was in fact voting for the terrorists, that those who opposed his wholesale destruction of America were somehow in league with those sons-of-bitches. Bipartisanship from Bush so far has seen him renominate Bolton (the Democrats said forget it) and a spate of the most radically rightwing judges he's ever nominated. For Bush, "bipartisan" means "do it my way, or else!"

So I say, fuck Bush, fuck the Republicans, and fuck bipartisanship. We, the people, need some justice.