I don’t know what I’m looking forward to the most, seeing the Republican majority using the &uot;nucular&uot; option to stifle minority filibustering or actually witnessing Bush’s ultra right wing judicial nominees sitting on the federal bench.

I want Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist to drop his nucular bomb on the hapless Democrats who will either be vaporized into the same oblivion their last two presidential candidates wound up or they will finally develop the backbone to stand up to the tyranny of the majority party.

The Democrats say that if the nucular option is used, they will use Senate rules to grind decision making to a halt in Washington. I’d rather see that than see Bush push through his agenda to turn this nation into a feudal autocracy that turns the poor and the middle class into serfs – men and women who are deprived of decent public educations, work their fingers to the bone until the day they die, and have no hope of ever improving their lot in life.

Until the Democrats actually stand up and offer alternatives to Bush’s strong-arm tactics, the inexorable march away from the principles that founded this oldest democracy will not abate until the tipping point makes retreat impossible. Now is the time for the forces of democracy to put a stop to Bush. If it takes a nucular attack in the Senate to get the troops mobilized, then I say drop that darned bomb, Mr. Frist.

Most of the judicial decisions the Republicans most revile have been to ensure the separation of church and state – preventing government from imposing a single religion on us.

But there are those in the country who want their religious fervor forced upon everyone else. And that minority of people have now captured the White House and both houses of Congress because most Republicans of good conscience are, like the Democrats, cowering in fear of the perceived power of the demagogues. Like all demagogues, however, these people only acquire power that is freely given to them by people too timid to denounce them for what they are – tyrants standing on hobnailed boots atop the Constitution as they wave a flag in one hand and menacingly hold a Bible in the other.

There comes a time when the power they have been given through cowardice or stupidity becomes too great to be taken away. That’s when the horrors begin. The fascists seemed reasonable at first. They wanted a return to decency, morality and prosperity. It was only after they acquired the necessary power to accomplish what they wanted that people discovered the cost was fear, intimidation and end of freedom.

I think we’re still a few years away from the tipping point, but if the Democrats and the moderate Republicans don’t take back the power they have ceded, there won’t be anything for them to take back.

So let’s let the Republican Religious Fascists (RRFs) declare political war on the rest of the nation. Put Bush’s crazy nominees on the bench so we can all see them in action (if the press will finally step up and do its job of reporting the news and quit kowtowing [Newsweek] to Bush and his minions).

Let’s go ahead and let the Republicans vote on John Bolton, Bush’s nominee for U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Bolton, Bush, Jessie Helms and all the rest of the RRFs hate the U.N. because they want to rule the world without having gone to the trouble of actually conquering it. They hate the U.N. because those pesky member nations, in democratic fashion, can be openly critical of US foreign policy, civil rights abuses, and hypocrisy.

So let’s put a U.N. hating diplomat in office to represent us in the U.N. Maybe if we let Bush be Bush before he gets the power needed to totally destroy the Constitution and our democracy, maybe people will wise up throw the RRFs out of office.

Then again, maybe that’s just what they want. In thinking that shining the light of truth on them will lessen their luster, perhaps we freedom-loving sorts will discover their obsidian gleam will just suck in that light and make it disappear forever.