A Ringing Endorsement
Some highlights and lowlights as the underachieving 109th Congress came to an end.
***House-Senate conference negotiators failed to reach agreement on legislation superfluously rubber-stamping the NSA terrorist surveillance program. They might do something after Election Day; they might not. Either way the program, compromised as it is, will still go forward, because it has to.
***The Senate's appellate court confirmation process entered this Congress like a lamb, and exited like a goat. Several Bush nominees were left hanging, including Terrance Boyle and William Haynes to the 4th Circuit, William Myers to the 9th, and D.C. Circuit pick Peter Keisler. Thanks a heap, Snarlin' Arlen, Chuck "Perfidious Devilspawn" Hagel, Fristy the Doofus, and Darth Queeg, the latter of whose legacy of infamy is set even deeper in the cement of perdition - for which fellow mutineer Mike DeWine may yet pay with his political head.
***The House passed the President's superfluous jihadi treatment legislation 253-168, with 160 of those "nay" votes coming from Democrats and the seven Donk "yea" votes including two - Harold Ford of Tennessee and Sherrod Brown of Ohio - who just coincidentally happen to be running for GOP senate seats in "red" states. What are the odds?
***Senate Democrats tried to filibuster the President's superfluous jihadi treatment legislation establishing in statutory law the interrogation techniques that have saved perhaps thousands of American lives over the past five years. The attempt to stiff cloture failed, 65-34. Then sixteen Donks switched sides on the final 80-18 vote. This was reportedly because they didn't want voters to think they weren't not open-minded on intolerating a little "torture" on a regular once-in-a-while basis, but only if Jack Baeur carries it out on a different network than Fox. And as a last resort. except if it's to be used in Jackass III.
***The House passed (and the Senate subsequently followed suit on mime vote) something called the Iran Freedom Support Act, a measure which in essence bypasses the UN Sharia Council and unilaterally imposes selected economic sanctions on any private entity that does business with the mullagarchy for the benefit of its WMD programs. Rather like closing the barn door after the horse has evolved into a dragon about to lay waste to the surrounding countryside.
The comment of the bill's sponsor, Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-FL- "Enough with the carrots. It's time for the stick" - was embarrassing. And yet even this was too much for the Democrats, who were aghast at the idea of breaking international formation and actually DOING something, no matter how lame.
On second thought, I take that back; the Dems want to do something - in Dennis Kucinich's words, "give assurance to Iran that we are not going to attack them." And he includes "supporting Iranian democracy" in that definition. Spoken like a man who has never stood upright because he's never loosened his white-knuckled grip on his ankles.
And he doesn't even represent San Francisco.
***The Senate pulled the plug on John Bolton's brief UN ambassadorship when Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Dick Lugar chickened out on bringing the nomination to a committee vote without Democrat cover. Given that RINO pain in the ass Lincoln Chafee is already holding up Bolton over Bush Administration support for Israel, this qualifies as salt in the f'ing wound.
***Mickey Kaus was sure that Fristy would crap out on the border fence legislation. But, wonder of wonders, the retiring (in more ways than one) SML actually came through, bulldozing the bill to cloture 71-28, assuring final passage.
NRO has an overall scorecard for the biggest collective Republican majority in three-quarters of a century. The title of the piece suggests the final "GPA" and could also serve as the best summonable Republican campaign slogan for these last five weeks to the mid-term finish line: "It could have been worse."
That's still better than the Democrats' candid alternative: "A desperate choice for desperate times."
***House-Senate conference negotiators failed to reach agreement on legislation superfluously rubber-stamping the NSA terrorist surveillance program. They might do something after Election Day; they might not. Either way the program, compromised as it is, will still go forward, because it has to.
***The Senate's appellate court confirmation process entered this Congress like a lamb, and exited like a goat. Several Bush nominees were left hanging, including Terrance Boyle and William Haynes to the 4th Circuit, William Myers to the 9th, and D.C. Circuit pick Peter Keisler. Thanks a heap, Snarlin' Arlen, Chuck "Perfidious Devilspawn" Hagel, Fristy the Doofus, and Darth Queeg, the latter of whose legacy of infamy is set even deeper in the cement of perdition - for which fellow mutineer Mike DeWine may yet pay with his political head.
***The House passed the President's superfluous jihadi treatment legislation 253-168, with 160 of those "nay" votes coming from Democrats and the seven Donk "yea" votes including two - Harold Ford of Tennessee and Sherrod Brown of Ohio - who just coincidentally happen to be running for GOP senate seats in "red" states. What are the odds?
***Senate Democrats tried to filibuster the President's superfluous jihadi treatment legislation establishing in statutory law the interrogation techniques that have saved perhaps thousands of American lives over the past five years. The attempt to stiff cloture failed, 65-34. Then sixteen Donks switched sides on the final 80-18 vote. This was reportedly because they didn't want voters to think they weren't not open-minded on intolerating a little "torture" on a regular once-in-a-while basis, but only if Jack Baeur carries it out on a different network than Fox. And as a last resort. except if it's to be used in Jackass III.
***The House passed (and the Senate subsequently followed suit on mime vote) something called the Iran Freedom Support Act, a measure which in essence bypasses the UN Sharia Council and unilaterally imposes selected economic sanctions on any private entity that does business with the mullagarchy for the benefit of its WMD programs. Rather like closing the barn door after the horse has evolved into a dragon about to lay waste to the surrounding countryside.
The comment of the bill's sponsor, Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-FL- "Enough with the carrots. It's time for the stick" - was embarrassing. And yet even this was too much for the Democrats, who were aghast at the idea of breaking international formation and actually DOING something, no matter how lame.
On second thought, I take that back; the Dems want to do something - in Dennis Kucinich's words, "give assurance to Iran that we are not going to attack them." And he includes "supporting Iranian democracy" in that definition. Spoken like a man who has never stood upright because he's never loosened his white-knuckled grip on his ankles.
And he doesn't even represent San Francisco.
***The Senate pulled the plug on John Bolton's brief UN ambassadorship when Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Dick Lugar chickened out on bringing the nomination to a committee vote without Democrat cover. Given that RINO pain in the ass Lincoln Chafee is already holding up Bolton over Bush Administration support for Israel, this qualifies as salt in the f'ing wound.
***Mickey Kaus was sure that Fristy would crap out on the border fence legislation. But, wonder of wonders, the retiring (in more ways than one) SML actually came through, bulldozing the bill to cloture 71-28, assuring final passage.
NRO has an overall scorecard for the biggest collective Republican majority in three-quarters of a century. The title of the piece suggests the final "GPA" and could also serve as the best summonable Republican campaign slogan for these last five weeks to the mid-term finish line: "It could have been worse."
That's still better than the Democrats' candid alternative: "A desperate choice for desperate times."
posted by JASmius at 11:38 PM
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