{"id":6266,"date":"2011-11-03T00:05:26","date_gmt":"2011-11-03T07:05:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2011\/11\/03\/webb-slams-gop-over-prison-reform\/"},"modified":"2011-11-03T00:05:26","modified_gmt":"2011-11-03T07:05:26","slug":"webb-slams-gop-over-prison-reform","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2011\/11\/03\/webb-slams-gop-over-prison-reform\/","title":{"rendered":"Webb Slams GOP Over Prison Reform"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Don\u2019t get me wrong.&#160; I am not a Jim Webb (DINO-VA) supporter, even though he\u2019s far better that what he replaced: George Allen, aka Macaca Man.&#160; Webb is a DINO.&#160; In the video that follows, he even brags about being a DINO.&#160; It makes me sick! I hope he faces a primary challenge. However, when someone I oppose does something right, I give them credit for it.&#160; If Joe LIEberman, whose name I consider so foul that I would not write it on toilet paper, lest it soil my pristine arse, did something right, I would even give him credit for it, because I don\u2019t get to make up my own facts.&#160; On the issue of Prison Reform, Jim Webb is right.<\/font><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; float: left; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px\" title=\"3webb\" border=\"0\" alt=\"3webb\" align=\"left\" src=\"https:\/\/www.7thstep.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/3webb.jpg\" width=\"360\" height=\"239\" \/>Another month, <strong>another dismaying example of a smart measure stymied in Congress by Republican intransigence<\/strong>. <strong>This time, 43 GOP members of the Senate blocked passage of legislation that would have created a new National Criminal Justice Commission<\/strong>, a bipartisan group designed to help figure out how to bring some order to the chaos that currently exists in the nation&#8217;s criminal justice systems. The cops supported the bill.<\/p>\n<p>The American Civil Liberties Union supported it. But <strong><font color=\"#ff0000\">Senate Republicans wouldn&#8217;t even allow a merits vote on it<\/font><\/strong>. On October 19th, they filibustered.<\/p>\n<p>Predictably, the primary sponsor of the measure, Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.), was furious. One of the more conservative members of the Democratic caucus, and someone with legitimate street cred when it comes to law and order, Webb took to the Senate floor Tuesday and delivered these biting remarks&#8230; <\/p>\n<p>&#160;<iframe loading=\"lazy\" height=\"360\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/SUIR0dqEymY?rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"640\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe> <\/p>\n<p>&#8230;<em>Serious issues of actual governance<\/em>. Sen. Webb is right &#8212; that&#8217;s what this legislation was and is; a necessary and practical effort by the federal government to address a serious problem that is bad and getting worse. And yet <strong>for all the senator&#8217;s work, and all the bipartisanship the idea garnered beyond Capitol Hill, he could not overcome persistent Republican hostility<\/strong>. <\/p>\n<p>I would call it &quot;mindless&quot; hostility since it&#8217;s so destructive but, of course, it&#8217;s not &quot;mindless&quot; at all. It&#8217;s <strong>all part of some grand political plan to make Democrats look inapt and inept<\/strong>. <\/p>\n<p>You use the Constitution as sword when you want to. You use it as a shield when you want to (Sen. Coburn&#8217;s remark above is priceless). And no matter what you figure out a way to do nothing that would benefit the American people. <strong>The demise of this legislation ultimately will cost the country a ton of money. And the absence of necessary recommendations from a blue-ribbon Commission will guarantee further injustice to thousands of Americans in the justice system<\/strong>. This is your Senate today &#8212; snatching defeat from the jaws of victory\u2026 [<em>emphasis added<\/em>]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Inserted from &lt;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/politics\/archive\/2011\/11\/the-senates-latest-unnecessary-scandal-a-criminal-justice-commission\/247743\/\" target=\"_blank\">The Atlantic<\/a>&gt;<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">As most of you know, I was in prison last Thursday doing volunteer work there.&#160; Both the prisoners and the correctional officers, with whom I discussed this, were appalled that Republicans obstructed this bill.&#160; I can guarantee you that something is terribly wrong when the cons and the guards are on the same side if an issue.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Don\u2019t get me wrong.&#160; I am not a Jim Webb (DINO-VA) supporter, even though he\u2019s far better that what he replaced: George Allen, aka Macaca Man.&#160; Webb is a DINO.&#160; In the video that follows, he even brags about being a DINO.&#160; It makes me sick! I hope he faces a primary challenge. However, when <a href='https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2011\/11\/03\/webb-slams-gop-over-prison-reform\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal","category-politics","category-3-id","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6266"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6266\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}