U.S. Senate: Burning Down the House

[Strike For The South]

ahahahahahhaha. No one cares because you're a chump! ahahahahahhaahah.

Here you are sir. You're a disgrace to Illinois....Maybe not to Illinois but if you were the governor of any other state.

[Crazed Rabbit]

Well, let's just have a look at what Pelosi herself had to say:
In 2004;
Pelosi Seeks House Minority 'Bill of Rights'

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

House Democrats’ anger at heavy-handed Republican tactics reached a new level yesterday, with the chamber’s top Democrat asking the House speaker to embrace a “Bill of Rights” for the minority, regardless which party it is.
...
Pelosi’s document, which she vows to honor if Democrats regain the majority, says: “Too often, incivility and the heavy hand of the majority” have silenced Democrats and choked off “thoughtful debate.” She called on the majority to let the minority offer meaningful amendments and substitutes to important bills; to limit roll-call votes to the normal 15 minutes rather than keeping them open to round up needed votes; and to let all appointees to House-Senate conference committees participate in meetings and decisions.

“When we are shut out, they are shutting out the great diversity of America,” Pelosi said in an interview. “We want a return to civility; we want to set a higher standard.”
...
Democrats and several analysts say recommital votes are largely meaningless. Hastert’s leadership team portrays them as “procedural votes” rather than matters of policy, and unwritten parliamentary rules make it essentially treasonous for lawmakers to vote against their party’s leadership on procedural matters.

The inevitable party-line vote that keeps Democrats from recommitting a Republican bill “is the whole ballgame,” Ornstein said, because it prevents Democrats from having a debate and a vote on the substance of their alternative proposals.

And in 2008;
House rule changes squander good will:
Pelosi package angers GOP

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The spirit of bipartisan cooperation didn’t survive the first day of the 111th Congress as House Democrats pushed through a package of rule changes Tuesday that the furious Republican minority said trampled their traditional rights to affect legislation.
...
The most contentious rule change places new restrictions on motions to “recommit” a bill for new amendments to the committee that approved it. In practice, that motion often meant a lengthy or even permanent delay in passing the measure. Motions to recommit would still be possible, but the new rules allow the full House to reconsider the bill almost instantaneously.
...
Because of the special rules regarding budgetary legislation, Republicans argued that the new restrictions on motions to recommit will hobble their ability to challenge tax increases that are included in larger, “must-pass” bills.

Unlike in the Senate, where the threat of a filibuster gives the minority strong bargaining leverage, the minority party in the House has relatively few tools to challenge the majority’s will. Mr. Dreier noted that the recommit motion had been in place for 100 years, and he rejected Democratic claims that the new rules were a minor tweak to an obscure parliamentary proceeding.

In Congress, he said, “process is substance.”

Ah, hypocrisy - where would we be without it? (And yes, I am well aware it happens in both parties, so spare me the 'but the GOP did this' whining.)

CR

[Lemur]

What the heck?

Caroline Kennedy has withdrawn from consideration for the vacant Senate seat in New York, according to a person told of her decision. [...]

Ms. Kennedy’s decision comes nearly two months after she, along with several members of Congress and leading political officials, began auditioning to replace Mrs. Clinton in the coveted position. She attracted relentless attention and was viewed by many as the most likely choice for Mr. Paterson, given her national stature and ties to the incoming Obama administration.

“We’re back to Square 1 again,” said Douglas A. Muzzio, a professor of public affairs at Baruch College. “It’s like Chutes and Ladders — we keep climbing and then we’re down the chute again.”

[Crazed Rabbit]

Paterson has appointed an upstate NRA-backed conservative Dem congresswoman!

ALBANY - Gov. Paterson, defying the liberal wing of his Democratic Party, has chosen little-known, NRA-backed, upstate Congresswoman Kirsten Gillibrand to succeed Hillary Rodham Clinton as New York's junior senator, it was learned last night.

The surprising - and, for many Democrats shocking - decision to pick the conservative Gillibrand, 42, from Hudson in Columbia County, was disclosed by the governor in calls to party officials and some members of the state's congressional delegation, many of whom said they were unhappy with the selection, sources said.

Hahaha! This is great! So much better than Andrew "End Run Around the Constitution" Cuomo!

CR

[Lemur]

I'm just glad it's not another Kennedy. Down with dynasties!

[ICantSpellDawg]

Paterson has appointed an upstate NRA-backed conservative Dem congresswoman!



Hahaha! This is great! So much better than Andrew "End Run Around the Constitution" Cuomo!

CR

I'm psyched. That was clearly a responsible and relatively middle ground appointment. If she doesn't turn out to be a psycho hose-beast, I might vote for her just to keep her in action. No more Hillary and her ilk. I've always even liked Chuck Schumer - honorable people who care about New York and have some talent.

Clinton is a monster. Kennedy is an entitled dud.

Dynasties and Royalty can create great heirs and heroes, but they also have more instances of inbreeding. JFK seemed like a dynastic talent, George H W Bush had a special knack for foreign policy, etc.
Filter them out mercilessly and maybe you'll find one or two worth voting for.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

I'm psyched. That was clearly a responsible and relatively middle ground appointment. If she doesn't turn out to be a psycho hose-beast, I might vote for her just to keep her in action. No more Hillary and her ilk. I've always even liked Chuck Schumer - honorable people who care about New York and have some talent.

Clinton is a monster. Kennedy is an entitled dud.

Dynasties and Royalty can create great heirs and heroes, but they also have more instances of inbreeding. JFK seemed like a dynastic talent, George H W Bush had a special knack for foreign policy, etc.
Filter them out mercilessly and maybe you'll find one or two worth voting for.

I'm a bit more cynical than you with this. Paterson is looking to win a gubernatorial election not too long from now. To do so, he needs upstate votes and not just NYC & Albany. This is a good tool for doing that -- picks off middle-of-the-road types for him. Moreover, I think Cuomo has his sights set on the same office, though maybe a term or two further down the road.

Clinton is not a monster, just amoral -- not that this makes me all "warm and fuzzy" towards her. Schlossberg would have been a big crowd pleaser among the Dems, though her whole first few years would have to have been pure OJT. At least this nominee can be seen as an experienced legislatrix.

As to Schumer, I tend to loathe his policy stances on 90% of the issues -- but I will admit that he does keep the interestes of NY in mind (some Senators lose their path more thoroughly).

[Crazed Rabbit]

The ship is sinking! Commence firing!

Gov Paterson unloads on Kennedy.

According to sources, at least - but why am I not surprised at this evaluation of Kennedy?

CR

[Lemur]

Lots of news today, let's see, Blago said he considered Oprah, and he's going on a media blitz tour while the Illinois Senate indicts him. How does he walk with balls that big?

Also, a New Yorker writer produces one of their 10,000 word articles about Caroline Kennedy. It's a long, tedious read, redeemed by the a few choice quotes:

Caroline Kennedy’s friends are always saying how normal she is, and it appears that they are right. Normal people do not run for the Senate. Normal people with lots of money and families that they like tend to want to enjoy the money and the families. They do not spend their winters on the phone grovelling for support, or their summers at obscure state fairs ingesting disagreeable and fattening local food. [...]

Paterson has appointed Kirsten Gillibrand, a second-term congresswoman from Hudson, near Albany. “Paterson has no comprehension of upstate New York, absolutely none, and has chosen someone better at representing cows than people,” Lawrence O’Donnell says. “What you have is the daughter of a lobbyist, instead of the daughter of a former President or the son of a former governor. This is the hack world producing the hack result that the hacks are happy with.”

-edit-

Blago on The View, part 1 and part 2.

[Xiahou]

Paterson has appointed Kirsten Gillibrand, a second-term congresswoman from Hudson, near Albany. “Paterson has no comprehension of upstate New York, absolutely none, and has chosen someone better at representing cows than people,” Lawrence O’Donnell says. “What you have is the daughter of a lobbyist, instead of the daughter of a former President or the son of a former governor. This is the hack world producing the hack result that the hacks are happy with.”

That alone leads me to think it was a decent choice. If this blowhard hates her so much, she can't be all bad.

[Crazed Rabbit]

Paterson has appointed Kirsten Gillibrand, a second-term congresswoman from Hudson, near Albany. “Paterson has no comprehension of upstate New York, absolutely none, and has chosen someone better at representing cows than people,” Lawrence O’Donnell says. “What you have is the daughter of a lobbyist, instead of the daughter of a former President or the son of a former governor. This is the hack world producing the hack result that the hacks are happy with.”[/indent]

Memo from the 21st century, pal:
We no longer select rulers by dynasty. You better try real hard to get your tiny, rigid brain around that fact.

And yes, Blago has some massive cojones. But it's all for nothing.

CR

[Lemur]

I'd just like to know what's so bad about representing cows?

-edit-

Meanwhile, the Franken-Coleman trial began this afternoon. I'm sure it's all terribly exciting, although Coleman has kind of shown his hand by taking a lobbyist job already.

[Hosakawa Tito]

Guv Patterson misplayed this Senate appointment process big time. Putting the boots to Kennedy after she bowed out was unnecessary, politically stupid, and shows a lack of class. Whatever one's opinion of her, she has Obama's ear & gratitude for the Kennedy Dynasty backing during the nomination battle with Clinton. Every state in the Union is looking for a handout/bailout/legislative policy favor from the White House...how does dissing her help the Guv's chances getting Federal help for New York State? Might be an unreturned phone call or two in his future. He also managed to piss off many of his Dem. party members for jumping Gillibrand ahead of quite a few senior party hacks, especially Cuomo, who's State Attorney Generals post is highly coveted by others if he's selected as Senator. His State budget proposal has received very little support from his own party. The special legislative session he called in late November to cut additional spending was ignored by his own party, with a majority in both the Assembly & Senate no less. They basically thumbed their collective noses, collected their per diem & had a nice $200K dinner banquet on the taxpayer. Nothing useful was accomplished.

Patterson looks weak, indecisive, dithering, in way over his head. I'm predicting he will finish this term and get the boot from his own party. I hope Gillibrand sticks just because it pisses off the Downstate Banana Republic that NYS government has become.

[||Lz3||]

little offtopic, but I read a joke last night.

"If the opposite of Pro is Con...
Then what's the opposite of Progress?"

[ICantSpellDawg]

Patterson IS in over his head and unprepared for the job. I think that he will bow out to Cuomo in the next election to make it tougher on Giuliani.

I think that a female Democratic Congresswoman that wins 58% of a Republican stronghold, seems to understand finance, speaks and writes Chinese (Mandarin), and has a gifted public persona was an eminently smart decision. She may be one of the few positive things that Patterson will leave us with.

EDIT: It seems, as expected that she is pretty hard left on abortion and has just flip-flopped on Gay issues, affirming her support for gay marriage to a prominent leader. Oh well. You wonder what a politicians true feelings are - did they support gay marriage the whole time and just vote with their local constituency or are they just voting with their constituency when they hit state-wide office? I bet a little bit of both - or they just don't care one way or another and wan't to save the political points for their core personal issues.

[CountArach]

Gillibrand, from a purely political standpoint, was really quite a poor decision. She will no doubt be fighting an incredibly tough primary battle against much more progressive Democrats (Who stand a decent chance of winning the primary in New York). That means the eventual Democratic winner will have to spend a lot of very important money and time fighting against each other while the Republicans can get themselves sorted out much more easily (Though I hear the talent pool in New York is incredibly thin...).

[Ironside]

Memo from the 21st century, pal:
We no longer select rulers by dynasty. You better try real hard to get your tiny, rigid brain around that fact.

And yes, Blago has some massive cojones. But it's all for nothing.

CR

You just keep naming them as such...

Obama II vs Mccain III
Bush II vs Kerry
Bush II vs Gore II
Clinton III (well, before the name change) vs Dole

It was slightly better before that though, but the senate seems to have a simular naming habit.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Yeah, yeah got a new hobby pointing that out after I realized how commmon that is in the US

[Lemur]

Audio and transcripts of Blago being naughty. Enjoy.

[HoreTore]

I'm just glad it's not another Kennedy. Down with dynasties!

Bah!

Admit it, you envy our dynastic ways! You're just jealous because our dynasties are proper inbreds, unlike yours!

[Devastatin Dave]

Looks like DevDave got his wish.

Blagojevich truly has been the best Christmas present ever. Hopefully he sticks it out and we get to see an impeachment. I'm sure he can leak lots of goodies on members of the state legislature. That would be high comedy.

Thank you for the recognition my good fellow.

[CountArach]

Bah!

Admit it, you envy our dynastic ways! You're just jealous because our dynasties are proper inbreds, unlike yours!

American ones just act like inbreds.

[Lemur]

Today is a great day for lizard people.

A three-judge panel ruled that as many as 4,790 rejected absentee ballots can be considered for inclusion in the Minnesota Senate recount, adding a new wrinkle to the long-lasting Minnesota Senate recount between Coleman and Al Franken.

The court ruling is a victory for Coleman’s camp, which has been trying to get thousands of additional ballots counted in its efforts to overturn Franken’s 225-vote lead over Coleman.

The inclusion of these absentee ballots is at the center of the Coleman’s camp’s legal challenge. [...]

So only a subset of the 4,700 absentee ballots -- identified by the Coleman camp -- will be added to the count. The inclusion of additional ballots could be enough to shrink Franken’s lead, but unless most of them end up being included, it would still be difficult for Coleman to overturn his 225-vote deficit.

[Lemur]

More bad news for Coleman. But then, he took a lobbying job already, so I guess he kind of knew this wasn't going to go his way.

The judges in Minnesota's U.S. Senate trial say Republican Norm Coleman has not yet shown a widespread problem with absentee voters being denied the right to vote.

In a ruling Friday, the three-judge panel says rejected absentee ballots in 12 of 19 categories should not be counted in the Senate race. That's a setback for Coleman, who wanted to count ballots in all but three categories.

Coleman is trying to undo Democrat Al Franken's 225-vote lead by arguing that thousands of rejected absentee ballots should be counted. But the order from the judges will limit the number of ballots to be reviewed for counting.

[KukriKhan]

Wut a way to run a railroad.

[Devastatin Dave]

I don't understand why Coleman is fighting so hard for this seat. You win once, take the pension, then make your millions as a lobbyist or a "journalist". Jeeze, you'd think these guys would have this figured out by now...

[Xiahou]

It's nice to see Roland Burris and, by extension, Blago are finding ways to keep in the news.

It turns out that Burris may have perjured himself when he was asked if anyone tied to Blagojevich had contacted him about his appointment. Apparently, Burris now remembers that someone did contact him- It was Blago's brother and he wanted money.

Raising fresh questions about his appointment to Congress, Sen. Roland Burris admitted in a document released Saturday that former Gov. Rod Blagojevich's brother asked him for campaign fundraising help before the governor named Burris as Illinois' junior senator.

The disclosure reflects a major omission from Burris' testimony in January when an Illinois House impeachment committee specifically asked if he had ever spoken to Robert Blagojevich or other aides to the now-deposed governor about the Senate seat vacated by Barack Obama.

State Rep. Jim Durkin, the impeachment committee's ranking Republican, told The Associated Press that he and House Republican Leader Tom Cross will ask Sunday for an outside investigation into whether Burris perjured himself.

You can't make this stuff up....

[Spino]

Today is a great day for lizard people.

A three-judge panel ruled that as many as 4,790 rejected absentee ballots can be considered for inclusion in the Minnesota Senate recount, adding a new wrinkle to the long-lasting Minnesota Senate recount between Coleman and Al Franken.

The court ruling is a victory for Coleman’s camp, which has been trying to get thousands of additional ballots counted in its efforts to overturn Franken’s 225-vote lead over Coleman.

The inclusion of these absentee ballots is at the center of the Coleman’s camp’s legal challenge. [...]

So only a subset of the 4,700 absentee ballots -- identified by the Coleman camp -- will be added to the count. The inclusion of additional ballots could be enough to shrink Franken’s lead, but unless most of them end up being included, it would still be difficult for Coleman to overturn his 225-vote deficit.

Sammy Sleestack will have his day in court! The Lizard People have spoken!

[Lemur]

Now Coleman suggests a do-over election. If Franken agreed, who would foot the bill for another election? Does this sound workable or advisable to anyone?

[Coleman said] "Yeah, you know some folks are now talking about simply saying run it again, just run it again."

"Have another statewide election?" Wilkow asked.

Coleman responded: "You know the St. Paul Pioneer Press is...one of the second largest papers in the state, last week [they] said we're never going to figure this out, just run it again. So you start hearing that. Ultimately the court has to make a determination, can they confirm, can they certify who got the most legally cast votes?"

[Major Robert Dump]

I think before another election some pretty stringent post election rules would have to be laid down before anyone would agree. It might invigorate whole new groups of people to get out and vote because they are tired of the circus, it might also invigorate a whole new group of con artists who try to think of ways to DQ ballots or cry discrimination at the polls.

I bet if they did a do-over one of the candidates would win by a very large margin, not sure who, but it would effectively end the others career. In fact, I hope that happens, because theres nothing I enjoy better than watching a politicians career end.

[Lemur]

Senator Bunning (R-KY) threatens to quit if GOP gives him a hard time. Since Kentucky has a Dem Governor, this would put the Dems into the 60-seat supermajority that nobody thought they would ever get. Freaky.

Already in conflict with his party’s leaders, Sen. Jim Bunning has reportedly said privately that if he is hindered in raising money for his re-election campaign he is ready with a response that would be politically devastating for Senate Republicans: his resignation. [...]

The implication, they said, was that Bunning would allow Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear, a Democrat, to appoint his replacement — a move that could give Democrats the 60 votes they need to block Republican filibusters in the Senate.

“I would get the last laugh. Don’t forget Kentucky has a Democrat governor,” one of the sources quoted Bunning as saying.

“The only logical extension of that comment is, ‘(Make me mad) … enough and I’ll resign, and then you’ve got 60 Democrats,’ ” said another source who was present at the event.

That was the clear message Bunning was sending, said a third source who heard the senator’s remarks at the fundraiser, which attracted about 15 people.