Everything That Is Wrong with the US Senate in One Sentence
One Senator, Richard Shelby (R-AL), can singlehandedly shut down the entire Senate because the administration gave a big military spending contract to Boeing instead of a European company.
Archive for posts ‘Senate’
- President Obama condemned Uganda’s “death penalty for homosexuals” law at a prayer breakfast organized by the American “Christian” group which supported the law. (AFP)
- Your U.S. Senate will vote on a jobs bill next week, but it will probably die along with all other legislation in the Senate. (USA Today)
- The GOP is soliciting campaign contributions from Wall Street, apparently not recognizing that “Wall Street” is a synonym for all of America’s least favorite people. (WSJ)
- Public funding for healthcare hit record levels this year and will soon exceed 50% of all healthcare spending in the US as more and more people can’t afford their health insurance and turn to Medicaid. If only someone had introduced legislation to try and do something about this… (LA Times)
- HOLY CRAP! SHARK ATTACK! (MSNBC)
- CBS is considering airing a commercial for gay dating site ManCrunch.com during the Super Bowl in response to the uproar over its decision to show an anti-choice commercial from Focus on the Family. Because those two things basically cancel each other out forever. (FOX News)
- Even Michele Bachmann—who is insane—will not go to next week’s teabagger “convention” scam. (Minneapolis Star-Tribune)
- If you bought a Toyota from basically anywhere in the world, it is probably broken. (NYT)
- President Obama will announce $8 billion in federal funding for high-speed rail in order to keep Joe Biden occupied for the next three years. (LA Times)
- Your U.S. House of Lords Senate has graciously allowed the American government not to default on all of its debts. (WSJ)
In Case You Wanted to Watch President Obama on TV Without a Parental Permission Slip
- The Senate will just shut down this afternoon and everyone will go to Pennsylvania to remind Pennsylvanians that Arlen Specter is a Democrat for now. (CQ Politics)
- In addition to being the first black president, the first Muslim president, the first president to really be born in Kenya, and the first president to be heckled during a speech to Congress by a member of the House of Representatives, President Obama will be the first president to do five back-to-back TV interviews this Sunday on every network imaginable except FOX. (NYT)
- American Special Forces traveled to sunny, government-less Somalia yesterday to destroy one of al-Qaeda’s top militants. (WSJ)
- Almost three-quarters of doctors believe that there should be some form of public healthcare option. But who cares what they think. We have more important things to worry about, like, say, socialism and Obama’s birth certificate. (NPR)
- Nobody wants to visit South Carolina anymore because they’re worried that mean Rep. Joe Wilson might interrupt their tourist activities with random shouting. (McClatchy)
Priorities
Your United States Senate is holding hearings on the BCS.
RESOLVED, that the Senate is sorry for having been a dick, historically.
- Your U.S. Senate today officially apologized for slavery and Jim Crow segregation. Huzzah! But don’t expect to get anything from it, black people, because the Senate specifically prohibited any reparations. (CQ Politics)
- That little troublemaker, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, shows up to his press briefings whenever he feels like, sometimes whole MINUTES after they were supposed to have started. This is greatly annoying to the Washington media establishment as well as… actually, just the Washington media establishment. (CNN)
- Oklahoma’s crochety old man distinguished gentleman Sen. Jim Inhofe is going to vote against Sonia Sotomayor without even meeting with her, but it doesn’t matter because she’s going to get confirmed anyway because of racism, or something. So let’s just get these confirmation hearings over with so Jim Inhofe can go back to sitting on his porch with his shotgun, keeping the durn kids offa his lawn. (Tulsa World)
- FOX News are whiny brats, in addtion to being full of shit. Wait, hold on, why is this news? (Think Progress)
Dear Harry Reid
In case you need another reason to get rid of this automatic 60-vote threshold for every bill nonsense, how about Sherrod Brown having to fly back from his mother’s funeral to cast the 60th vote?
Series of Tubes
CAPITOL HILL (CNN) — Just hours after Congressional leaders posted the final version of a $789 billion stimulus deal, staffers on Capitol Hill faced both a surge of demand on key Web sites and an apparent technical glitch that crashed those sites off and on throughout the morning.
A spokesman for the Senate appropriations committee told CNN Radio that their site had been up and down all Friday morning. He said technicians had found an apparent server problem that was not related to increased demand.
Looks like they should have listened to Ted.
Thursday Update, More Blagojevich Edition
What else is he hiding under all that hair?
- Well, it’s just another day at the Governor’s office, working on the budget, helping Illinois families, dodging questions about his indictment. You know, the usual. (ABC News)
- Howard Dean says Blago has committed a “disgraceful abuse of the public trust” and should resign in order to save the legislature the trouble of impeaching him. Howard Dean is going to go to Illinois to root out corruption. And then he’s going to go to New Hampshire! And South Carolina! And New Mexico! Yaaaaahhhh!! (TPM Election Central)
- Also jumping on the “Blago should resign” bandwagon: all fifty Democratic U.S. Senators. Thanks, Rod, for helping create this impressive display of Democratic unity. (Politico)
- Hilariously, the state with the most corruption per capita is… North Dakota! Yes, tiny North Dakota has a whopping 8.3 corruption convictions per 100,000 residents, compared to Illinois 3.9. Of course, this just means that North Dakota is better a prosecuting corruption, which doesn’t bode well for the morals of Illinois juries. (USA Today)
A Case of the Mondays
(Sorry if all these bulleted-list posts seems like cop outs. It’s a busy time of the year.)
- The Senate Democratic caucus vote on whether Holy Joe Lieberman keeps his committee chairmanship is coming up soon. Kagro X reminds us that the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee has jurisdiction over the District of Columbia, 93% of whose residents voted for Barack Obama, so it would be awfully shitty to let John McCain’s best buddy run the place. Since the Lieberman vote will be done by secret ballot, a fully expect the Democratic Senate majority to cave, just like they’ve been doing for the past couple years. (DailyKos)
- Still-President Bush has the high honor of being the first U.S. President to ever call Libyan dictator Muammar Qadhafi. Bush called Qadhafi to thank him for agreeing to a claims settlement agreement between the two countries. How dare Bush speak with a foreign leader with preconditions! Surrender!! (First Read)
- Right before the election, Barack Obama sent a letter to a bunch of federal employees telling them about change they can believe in. Basically, the letter explains all of the Bush administration policies that Obama would rescind, like outsourcing government work and censoring science. If it’s undoing something George Bush did, I’m for it. (Washington Post)
- Barack Obama met with John McCain today because he wanted to hear McCain call him “Mr. President-Elect” several times to his face. Oh, and they also released the world’s most generic joint statement. Seriously. It’s only two paragraphs long but it uses a lot of words to say absolutely nothing. On the plus side, there’s a hilariously awkward video of the two talking. Look how hard it is for Obama not to gloat. (Ben Smith/YouTube)
- Lots of racist white people are pissed off that we elected a black man to be president. They can’t handle that the rest of us don’t hate minorities as much as they do and they’re getting angry and violent. Obama has already received more death threats than any other president-elect in American history, and I’m willing to bet that some of that can be blamed on the vitriol of Sarah Palin. It’s not going to be an easy four years for President Obama. (Christian Science Monitor/Austin American-Statesman/Federal News Radio)
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