Archive for senate
The Blagoshpere
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Here’s all the inside Blago baseball you need to know in a lengthy Chicago News Cooperative piece by James Warren
Byrd of a Different Feather
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I guess we shouldn’t be surprised that a senate that passed an 800 billion dollar pork packed stimulus bill would go all out for the the passing of the king of pork. Jonah Goldberg has the bad manners to also bring up the Exalted Cyclops’s KKK organizing days here. Michael Barone admires Senator Byrd’s interest in the constitution, in a more balanced view here.
Vapid Confirmation Hearing
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Elena Kagan doesn’t have much of a legal paper trail. This is considered a good career move for Supreme Court nominees, ever since Robert Bork talked his way out of a job. One footprint she has left, however, is a 15 year old complaint that the Bork-A-Dope strategy has caused confirmation hearings to become “vapid” .
Why The Libertarian Crossed the Road
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Rand Paul won Kentucky’s Republican nomination to the U.S. Senate last week. He’s libertarian like his father, Ron Paul. Libertarians are for limited government, including the right to own property without government interference. No doubt that’s a reason the Tea Party likes him.
In 1964 private property rights ran up against the Civil Rights Act. The day after the election Rachel Maddow turned Paul inside out on that point. Here’s the interview.
I think it’s safe to say Rich Lowry believes in property rights too but he thinks Paul is wrong. Lowry views the Civil Rights Act as “the last spasm of the Civil War”. The Civil War - now there’s a government intervention for you.
Presidents Without Borders
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Obama pronounced us not defined by our borders and promptly joined Mexican President Felipe Calderon in trashing Arizona for its immigration law. Senator Arlen Specter, now spurned by both democrats and republicans, doesn’t find himself bound by much of anything. At the end of Clinton’s impeachment trial in 1999, Specter relied on Scottish Law to vote “not proved”
Strange Bedfellows
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Pelosi is considering a plan put forward by Louise Slaughter, chairwoman of the House Rules Committee . It would allow the Senate Health Care Bill to be “deemed” to have passed. Then the House would make amendments to it and pass the new bill. They would be able to pass 2 bills with one vote. Kind of like using the same dollar twice for medicare and the health care. Here’s a Washington Post story explaining the gambit.
Channeling Barbara Boxer
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During the health care summit Obama twice pointed out, with a smile on his face, that he was the president. This seemed redundant since everyone in the room was already calling him “Mr. President”. He returned the favor by addressing them by their first names as if they were kids in his class - which they sort of were. Peggy Noonan and Dennis Prager picked up on this.
Helpful note to the president: don’t call Senator Boxer “Babs”.
Blue Dog
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Bayh Bayh
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President Don Rickles
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President Rickles insulted members of his audience during last night’s state of the union speech. He criticized the Supreme Court, while some justices sat directly in front of him, for its ruling in favor of free speech in the Citizens United v. FEC case. Here’s a link to the Washington Post with a video clip of the moment, including Alito’s response. Here’s Jack Tapper at ABC giving a historian’s perspective.