A break in the clouds?

Mahablog’s Barbara sends us this discussion of legislation about to be introduced by Connecticut’s Democratic Senator (Chris Dodd… the Democrat who isn’t being cagey about his party affiliation)… to amend the Military Commissions Act to make it more in conformance with the legal and moral traditions of this nation… and civilization in general.
Good luck to Senator Dodd, as certainly, regular readers know what an abomination I personally consider our detention and purported adjudication policies. I would like this to be one of the four or five pillar pieces of legislation that the new Democratic led Congress immediately introduce, the others being an immediate tying of the minimum wage to Social Security cost of living increases (i.e., each will rise by the same percentage each year automatically), tying the “kick-out” wage rate of Social Security to automatically increase by the same amount, mandating paper back-ups in all federal elections, and perhaps expanding Medicare to all Americans under 18 (the last one will be… a little harder!) Also, the American people want immediate action on global warming. That will be a lot of new legislation, to be sure, not to mention mandating enforcement of our existing legislation, a lot of which is already very progressive and helpful.
Bipartisanship to get these things done would be wonderful; bipartisanship for its own sake is stupid, counterproductive, and indeed, it has been called just another word for date rape.
I didn’t comment on the Steny Hoyer/John Murtha thing, but I’m glad it came down that way. Steny is more liberal; I remember him from my short stay at the then General Accounting Office– he was taking it to the Reagan Administration, and I think he’ll be the guy to take it to the Bush Administration. No, he’s not perfect, but on net, he’s damned effective– and that’s what our guys were elected to do: get things done. Gridlock, if it checks extremism, is an absolute good. If we get good things done as well, we can consider it a bonus.
Among those things not to get done are reinstating a draft… at least, not at this stage of the game.