While I can’t avoid feeling a certain sense of satisfaction about this given that it helps the Democrats and increases the likelihood that some important legislation gets passed, I also can’t avoid feeling a certain degree of scorn for these individuals.  A person who truly believes in their principles doesn’t sacrifice them for the sake of conformity and expediency.  If a Congresscritter represents himself or herself to the voters as a conservative while running for office and if the voters elect this person with this expectation, then this person betrays their constituency if they choose to take a more moderate stance after the election—and in similar vein, someone who represents himself of herself as a moderate while running for office and is elected to office with this expectation is betraying their constituents if and when they give into pressure from party leaders and vote more conservatively. 

It’s ironic that Emerson should describe this as being free to vote with her conscience and in the manner which her constituents want her to—her constituents had every right to expect that she would do this from the beginning, and the implication in her statement that she hasn’t been doing this amounts to a confession that she has betrayed their trust.  If she’s telling the truth about having been a moderate in conservative’s clothing until now, the fact remains that it was always her choice whether or not to give into pressure from the party leaders—the way in which she phrased her statement almost seems to suggest that she was an innocent victim without any real choice in the matter, and this is simply nonsense.  This only serves to prove that neither her conscience or her principles are as strong as she probably believes them to be.

The article above makes a person wonder what kind
of people are being elected to public office.
After campaigning, and lying to the people they
take oath’s that are meaningless. The only two
names mentioned was Representatives Jo Anne
Emerson R-Mo, and Rodney Alexander R-La Since
the Democrats took over the Congress, and Senate
They now feel free to vote their Conscience. How
SICK is this? How long have they not been voting
their Conscience? They should resign at the
earliest opportunity.

Elephants are so sad and angry when they’ve been compared to GOPs. Their prestige and value were violently raped by such comparaison !

RE:  •    Comment #47550 by GW=MCHammered  on  1/14  at  1:45 pm — ”...if they don’t reign-in their renegade corporate corporal Bush. Talk about a one-man worldwide wrecking ball!”

&:  •    Comment #47508 by rabblerowzer  on  1/14  at  4:49 am — “power behind the throne” ...Cheney’s ambition and the essence of the “New Paradigm.”

>>>>>>>>> The New World Oligarchy & the smoking gun to the head of the POTUS

who is to this day every bit the puppet we saw on 9/11, when he was security stripped, targeted, surrendered and ordered to call Putin with their ultimatum, or else.

By now the 911 coup is an open secret in Washington where there’s a mad scramble on every side of the aisle to keep the lid on the cover up while forestalling the neocon madmen before they blow up the world. The pressure for 911 truth grows by the day with (as of 2 months ago) only 16% buying the “official” conspiracy theory whole cloth. Somehow the Strangeloves’ fingers must be pried from the trigger, lest, as the noose descends, they completely loose it and take us all with them.

The really scary part is that there are Armageddonists who would welcome it — more than just a few in the Pentagon.

Emerson said: “Or, really, I feel free to represent my constituents exactly as they want me to be.”

Yeah. So who was she representing before? Just a fence sitter who waits to see which way the wind will blow, then votes with the majority.

We need leaders who think and stand by their issues, not ‘elected’ representatives who are mouthpieces for others.

I have a personal issue with this Representative so my opinion and comments are probably very biased, including against her party.

In 2004 she told me I was no longer a resident of Missouri because I had traveled to Texas and was, gawd forbid, using a Texas phone and fax line.

She also says you don’t gotta be a judge to have judicial authority. Don’t believe it? Hey! I still have the correspondence with her office.

All the corporate money in the world cannot save the Republican Party from certain extinction if they don’t reign-in their renegade corporate corporal Bush. Talk about a one-man worldwide wrecking ball!

Citing data from the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University, New York Times’ columnist, Bob Herbert, reports that between 2000 and 2006 the combined real annual earnings of 93 million American workers rose by $15.4 billion. That rise is “less than half of the combined bonuses awarded by the five Wall Street firms for just one year.”

“Or, really, I feel free to represent my constituents exactly as they want me to be.” said Rep. Jo Anne Emerson (R-Mo.)

In other words you’re doing exactly what you should have been doing since being elected. What comes next - independent thought and a conscience.

Cheney’s New Paradigm

“The White House is banking on the assumption that it can execute its “new way forward” in Iraq before Congress can derail it.”

Expand that statement to read: “The object is a larger one: Expanding executive power, for its own sake, with claims to limitless presidential authority before Congress can derail it.”

Enter David Addington, Cheney’s chief of staff and legal adviser. Addington’s worldview in brief: a single-minded devotion to something called the New Paradigm, a constitutional theory of virtually limitless executive power, wherein “the President, as Commander-in-Chief, has the authority to disregard virtually all previously known legal boundaries, if national security demands it.”

Addington and Cheney had been “laying the groundwork” for a vast expansion of presidential power long before 9/11. Cheney has been working behind the scene since the early Eighties in various political appointments to establish an authoritarian government. Wielding powers unearned through the democratic process, he has clawed his way to the top as a sociopathic sycophant and “power behind the throne” to subvert democracy.

That’s Cheney’s ambition and the essence of the “New Paradigm.”