If the Republicans really believe our top federal judges deserve an up-and-down vote, and that the filibuster is an unfair relic, there's an easy solution: Propose a rules change that will end it-in 2015.

I'd still support keeping the filibuster as way to protect minority rights. But its history has been pretty mixed. If the shift were voted in now but deferred for ten years, it would be hard for anyone to argue that it was being changed for narrow political advantage. The Republican push might even look like principle, instead of yet another raw power play along the lines of Tom DeLay's mid-census midnight Congressional redistricting. If they can sunset the phasing in of tax cuts to make them easier to pass, why not sunrise this fundamental shift in how the Senate has done business for 200 years?

Would the Republicans accept this deal if offered full Democratic support? Would they offer an alternative to grabbing everything they can the moment they hold the reins of power? I doubt it. But it would be a great way to highlight their real priorities.

Paul Loeb is the author of The Impossible Will Take a Little While, named

Sign here to become a member of the 14 Per Cent Club. Twenty bucks plus shipping and handling gets you the T-shirt. Credentials for membership derive from a recent study by the Pew Research Center disclosing, in the words of Katharine Seelye of the New York Times on May 9, that 45 percent of Americans believe little or nothing of what they read in their daily newspapers.

"When specific newspapers were mentioned, The Times fared about average, with 21 percent of readers believing all or most of what they read in The Times and 14 percent believing almost nothing," Seelye reports. Chalk up another victory for the left. We've been at it for 30 years at least, saying that most things in the Times are distortions of reality or outright lies, and here is a robust slice of the American people agreeing with us. Of course, the faint hearts who believe that the left can never win anything will say that the credit should go to moles at the New York Times, boring from within, hollowing out the mighty edifice with year upon year of willful falsehoods until, at last, the whole ponderous structure is crumbling into dust, crushing all within.

AUSTIN, Texas -- As Riley used to say on an ancient television sitcom, "This is a revoltin' development." There seems to be a bit of a campaign on the right to blame Newsweek for the anti-American riots in Afghanistan, Pakistan and other Islamic countries.

Uh, people, I hate to tell you this, but the story about Americans abusing the Koran in order to enrage prisoners has been out there for quite some time. The first mention I found of it is March 17, 2004, when the Independent of London interviewed the first British citizen released from Guantanamo Bay. The prisoner said he had been physically beaten but did not consider that as bad as the psychological torture, which he described extensively. Jamal al-Harith, a computer programmer from Manchester, said 70 percent of the inmates had gone on a hunger strike after a guard kicked a copy of the Koran. The strike was ended by force-feeding.

CHICAGO (April 18, 2005) – Addressing some of the most controversial but relevant issues in America – from the renewal of the Voting Rights Act to the failure of college sports programs to graduate their players – the RainbowPUSH Coalition and the Citizenship Education Fund also echo the nation's Founding Fathers and look to more recent historical giants in the 34th Annual Conference, “A More Perfect Union: Building on the Legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Lyndon B. Johnson.” The conference, an event where the RainbowPUSH seeks to take action on many of the key issues it addresses during the year, will be held June 11 through 16, 2005, at the Sheraton Chicago Hotel & Towers, 301 E. Water St. in downtown Chicago.

A stellar array of guests scheduled to appear during the conference includes, from the political arena, Senators Harry Reid (D-Nev.), Barack Obama (D-IL) and Congresswoman Maxine Waters D-Calif.); and from the religious, entertainment and business arenas, Nation of Islam Leader Minister Louis Farrakhan, activist and entertainer Harry Belafonte; and prominent business executives Cathy Hughes and Earl Graves.

To Harvey Wasserman.

I read your article "Four bloody lies of war, from Havana 1898 to Baghdad 2003".

Thank you for writing a great historical review.

I discovered at the national achieves, seven taped telephone conversations between Robert McNamara and Lyndon Johnson on august 4th 1964 the day of the Golf of Tonkin Incident.

One minute and thirty-eight seconds into clip # 3 McNamara says "and our ships are allegedly o be attack tonight". Confirming in there own words that the whole Gulf of Tonkin incident was to be a fake excuse to start a war and murder three million people.

If you listen to all seven clips you will get a real fly on the wall understanding of two mass murderers preparing for the kill.

I especially like the part were Johnson checks with the New York bankers before going ahead.

Jim Davis

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB132/tapes.htm