Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
Pens can clinch tonight.
You know, a lot of people are flaming Larry Summers for dozing off, and having sat through a three hour meeting this morning in which I had to resort to stabbing myself in the thigh with my keys to stay awake, I’m with him. It happens.
What I think is surprising is it doesn’t happen more often, especially during campaigns. The hours these people keep is just insane.
This is an excellent idea:
A conservative faction of the Republican National Committee is urging the GOP to take a harder line against both Democrats and wayward Republicans, drafting a resolution to rename the opposition the “Democrat Socialist Party” and moving to rebuke the three Republican senators who supported the stimulus package.
In an e-mail sent Wednesday to the 168 voting members of the committee, RNC member James Bopp, Jr. accused President Obama of wanting “to restructure American society along socialist ideals.”
“The proposed resolution acknowledges that and calls upon the Democrats to be truthful and honest with the American people by renaming themselves the Democrat Socialist Party,” wrote Bopp, the Republican committeeman from Indiana. “Just as President Reagan’s identification of the Soviet Union as the ‘evil empire’ galvanized opposition to communism, we hope that the accurate depiction of the Democrats as a Socialist Party will galvanize opposition to their march to socialism.”
Can’t these guys grow up enough to at least have the decency to call it the “DemocratIC Socialist Party.” Sheesh. At any rate, their efforts to date have been a smashing success (via):
Keep it up, guys. Keep it up.
The Wanking Will Continue Until Morale ImprovesPost + Comments (107)
Good luck with this one:
President Obama threw his support on Thursday behind legislation that would keep banks from imposing higher fees and interest rates on credit card users, and said terms must be “written in plain language and be in plain sight.”
“The days of any-time, any-reason rate hikes and late-fee traps have to end,” the president said at the White House after meeting with top executives from the nation’s largest credit card companies, a session Mr. Obama called “constructive.”
“No more fine print, no more confusing terms and conditions,” the president said, following up on campaign pledges to try to curtail high fees and rates and chop away at the thickets of fine print in credit card statements.
***Industry lobbyists have been working closely with Senate Republicans to try to block the passage, although the White House’s recent push for the measure could make that difficult. During the presidential campaign, Mr. Obama made an issue of what he considered excessive credit card fees, but until this week he had been largely silent on the matter since his arrival in Washington.
I’m betting meaningful and substantive credit card reform legislation will be as hard to pass as health care or card check. I can already hear the screams, and half the Democrats are in as deep as any Republican.
It is all politics to these clowns:
New York Republican Rep. Peter King thinks his party needs to go nuke if Bush era officials are prosecuted on torture charges.
King, the outspoken ranking member of the House homeland security committee, said Republicans should “shut down [legislative] activity across the board” if any Bush-era officials are hauled into court.
“We would need to have a scorched-earth policy and use procedural means to bring the place to a halt — go to war,” he told POLITICO.
He added:
“If we have another 2,000 people killed, I want Nancy Pelosi and [liberal philanthropist] George Soros, John Conyers and Pat Leahy to go to the funeral and say, ‘Your son was vaporized because we didn’t want to dump some guy’s head under water for 30 seconds.'”
What the hell does Soros have to do with this? And did Peter King and company have to go apologize for the thousands killed on 9/11?
These people are insane.
Tough Guy, You Think You’re Like The ShaqPost + Comments (69)
What was the name of the rich suitor who always courting Diane (or Kirstie Alley) in Cheers. For the life of me I can not remember his name. Was it Capehart?
BTW- this is why I think I am slowly going insane. I’m sitting here working, and these things pop into my head, and I can’t get anything done until I find the answer. Why do I need to know this? I don’t know. I think because I am going insane.
Sometimes I don’t understand what people are thinking when they write things:
As Senate Democrats move closer to using reconciliation to pass health care reform this year, key GOP Senators are signaling plans to avenge the move by employing parliamentary tactics to trip up even the most noncontroversial of agenda items.
How would that be any different from, say, the last couple of months? Also, this:
President Obama will have to wait a bit longer to round out his Cabinet. Senate Republicans refused today to allow a confirmation vote on his health secretary nominee Gov. Kathleen Sebelius (D-Kan.). She is the last Cabinet member awaiting Senate approval.
At the start of the session today, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) proposed taking a vote after five hours of debate. But Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) objected, arguing that lawmakers needed more time to consider her “fairly contentious” selection.
And for those of you keeping score, they finally approved Hill as ambassador to Iraq yesterday. You remember Iraq. The most important war ever for the future of mankind? Apparently it was not important enough to keep them from playing games with the appointment of an ambassador.
Rep. Peter Hoekstra writes in Pravda the WSJ op-ed pages:
Congress Knew About the Interrogations
It was not necessary to release details of the enhanced interrogation techniques, because members of Congress from both parties have been fully aware of them since the program began in 2002. We believed it was something that had to be done in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks to keep our nation safe. After many long and contentious debates, Congress repeatedly approved and funded this program on a bipartisan basis in both Republican and Democratic Congresses.
At some point they are going to figure out that for most of us, we don’t care if the person has a ( R ) or (D) behind their name when they were instituting a policy of torture. That is what is so depressing (to me, at least) about the Ari Fleischer’s and the Thiessen’s of the world. They honestly seem to think this is nothing more than a partisan witch-hunt, the same old Washington gotcha poltics. It isn’t. When you torture people, you have crossed a really clear line. Innocent people are dead. Lives have been ruined. Our international reputation has been destroyed. Yes, the Bush administration will get most of the blame, but that is because they were in charge and they did this, not because of what party they happen to belong to. If Jane Harman and Nancy Pelosi knew about this and ok’d it, they are just as culpable.
They Still Think This Is About PoliticsPost + Comments (129)