Thinkin’bout Stuff

Harry Reid showed off some of his best moves at a press conference today, but did he score?  Guess that depends on how willing you are to ignore everything he said prior to this press conference.

Reid has been saying all along that it was his call (well, maybe he said it was up to “the senate”, but the way he runs that place, it pretty much would be his call) on whether Roland Burris would be seated.  Now he is saying the reason is not because of the Blagojevich indictment but because Burris’ appointment has not yet been certified by the Illinois Sec. of State… which is total BS.

This is a complete shift from what Reid has been saying and it is widely accepted that the certification is a formality that will occur, so soon Reid will either need a new excuse or will be forced to seat Burris.  But don’t worry about Reid, he won’t be admitting he was mistaken about his power here, he’s got the spin going at top speed (pun?) so that if he has to buckle he can hide behind this imaginary technicality that the reason Burris was escorted out of the senate yesterday was because he did not have the necessary papers… yeah, right.

So, Reid and Durbin met with Burris today and we learned from Reid that Burris “is a very nice man, he presents himself well”.  Reid also believes Burris is not trying to hide anything and he is very candid, etc etc etc…  not sure what any of this has to do with anything since Reid can not prevent Burris from being seated.
Oh.. and both Reid and Durbin want us to understand that this is not, I repeat (as they did repeatedly repeat), this is not a racial issue.  But Reid would not say that he will allow Burris to be seated after he is certified…   after all, as Reid said, the real reason he held this up is “obvious, we have a man who was arrested for trying to sell the office”.

Oh wait, I thought it was held up because Burris wasn’t certified… no, hold on, that was today’s reason, before today it was the because of the indictment, but when it became clear that Blagojevich had the legal right, and obligation, to appoint a new senator, and that the Illinois Dems dropped the ball by not passing legislation to hold a special election for the seat, and that Reid really couldn’t block Burris, the reason shifted to the certification…. for now, until the certification is in place, then we will just have to wait and see what Reid’s next position will be because today it was clear he’s not quite done blocking the seating of this very nice man … oh, and did he mention he’s black…

The indicted governor of Illinois legally appoints a man to replace Barack Obama in the US Senate; a man who most, if not all, Democrats and probably many Republicans would agree is qualified and above reproach.

Harry Reid & Co refuse his credentials and turn him away.

Photo at 11:00… sorry, no…

From The Chicago Tribune - But Burris - appearing calm, and accepting no questions — left the secretary’s office at 10:50 am EST escorted by the sergeant at arms, ushering him to an elevator as Capitol police barred photographers from snapping shots.

A determined Roland Burris entered the Secretary of the Senate’s office on the third floor of the Capitol this morning to present his credentials. The media were gathered around the corner - several abreast stretching down the hallway, held back by Capitol police.

Wouldn’t want any photos to mark the occasion of an African American being denied his rightful place in the senate.

Hope everyone had a peaceful, healthy and happy holiday season.

So… 15 days to go before the clouds part, the sun shines down upon us all, and we enter into a thousand years of peace.   Pity Barack Obama because the expectations are high and his only hope is to continue to talk down the economy and everything else so that when he fails he can blame it all on Bush.  Just today he said that the economy is bad and getting worse… not a word of hope or any indication that there is light at the other end of this darkest of tunnels.  No, it has to be as bad as it can possibly be BEFORE he takes office.  The hope comes later.

But at least he and Reid and Pelosi have absolute power to do what they believe is right; in the case of Reid and Pelosi, too bad they are already proving they are not up to the task of acting with integrity. Obama gets a pass for now because he’s not the president just yet, but he will need to prove that he really isn’t just another corrupt Chicago politician, he will need to prove that it’s merely a coincidence that he has so many corrupt friends.

So what are the Dems doing with this absolute power. Well, so far we have:

• an indicted governor, Blogojevich, trying to sell Obama’s senate seat
• another governor , Richardson, feeling compelled to withdraw from consideration for a cabinet position because of an ongoing investigation into questionable practices by his administration
• Harry Reid denying accusations he tried to pressure Blogojevich to not appoint one of several African American candidates to the vacant senate seat because they would not be able to hold that seat in an election, including Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr.
• Harry Reid insisting he has the power to block Blogojevich’s  nominee from being seated in the senate even though he clearly doesn’t (scary how a senator/lawyer doesn’t appear to understand his constitutional authority in this situation and did not check his facts before his little power play)
• Pelosi totally abandoning any remaining pretense that she really plans to run the House in a way that will allow input from Republicans on anything (I guess it’s quite an inconvenience that any Republicans were elected and the folks they represent are truly irrelevant in this brave new world)…
  • Per the AP:  ” House Democrats unveiled internal rules Monday that would end Republican-imposed, six-year term limits on committee chairmen and make it harder for GOP lawmakers to offer alternative legislation. In changing how the House operates, Democrats sent a message that they will use the huge majority they won in November to overpower Republicans any time they wish.”  ”
    “When Republicans won control of the House in 1994, they adopted rules to limit the terms of committee chairmen to three terms, or six years.

    That change followed four decades of Democratic rule, when committee chairmen ruled by seniority and built up unchallenged power to pass or block legislation. The powerful chairmen also built up a system of perks for themselves, including a special bank that allowed lawmakers to overdraw their accounts without penalty. That helped lead to the Democrats’ downfall in 1994.”

Nice.  And that’s all before January 20th…   welcome to a one party world folks.

Oh.. and I almost forgot the most embarrassing development of all:  Al Franken might actually “win” the senate seat from Minnesota.  Folks, it doesn’t get much more embarrassing than that.  Wonder how if Schumer and Reid would have declared the election over and pushed for the “loser” to move on without a lawsuit if the loser happened to be a Democrat…  no way.  But now that the rather questionable recount has been completed and Franken magically came up with enough votes to reverse the results from election day, no need to look any further, one of their own kind will be welcomed into the senate with open arms, no need to dig any further to ensure he really did win the election.

If he really did win fair and square… how embarrassing for the people of Minnesota… how embarrassing for our country.  What next? Micheal Moore for head of Homeland Security?

No one left to blame for their screw ups.

Witness Barney Frank and Christopher Dodd, two of the primary offenders in this economic mess. 

AP - “He’s (Obama) going to have to be more assertive than he’s been,”…

… “At a time of great crisis with mortgage foreclosures and autos, he says we only have one president at a time,” Frank said. “I’m afraid that overstates the number of presidents we have. He’s got to remedy that situation.”

“The Obama team has to step up,” Sen. Christopher Dodd, chairman of the Senate Banking Committee and one of the lead negotiators, said Nov. 21 in Hartford, Conn. “In the minds of the people, this is the Obama administration. I don’t think we can wait until January 20.”

First, Obama is right; his job right now is to build his team so he can hit the ground running on day one, which is not until January 20.

Second, Obama is right; he is not the president yet.  Whether you like it or not, and frankly I don’t care, nor does the US Constitution, if you don’t like it… George Bush is still president.

If Obama is president in the minds of the people, the people are ignorant, which likely explains why Obama is president elect; and much of the blame goes to the left-wing propaganda machine we nostalgically call “the press”.  While trying to support this man they have anointed as the chosen one, they are doing him a terrible disservice: no one can live up to the expectations these people have… but Obama is not blameless, he let this happen and at times encouraged it out of arrogance and ego.

So, Dodd and Frank will gladly make statements about Bush being absent and Obama being the real president, who has not stepped up to the role as he should have, because it helps to deflect attention from their own failings; the attacks are spilling over to the guy on deck who is actually doing a pretty good job of prepping for his new role.

Barney Frank is a mean-spirited, sarcastic far left-wing hate monger who will never see the wisdom of a two party system except as a means of having someone to blame for anything that goes wrong:

“It is a grave mistake to assume that parties are irrelevant to this process,” he said. “My one difference with the president-elect, about whom I am very enthusiastic, is when he talks about being post-partisan.

“Having lived with this very right wing Republican group that runs the House most of the time, the notion of trying to deal with them as if we could be post-partisan gives me post-partisan depression,” Frank said.

 Very right wing Republican group that runs the House most of the time?

Click here for a chart of House control from 1965-2005, keeping in mind that 2006 to present Dems controlled the House.

The majority of the years, the Dems held the majority of the seats.  When Republicans held the majority, it was typically by slim margins, especially compared with the margins the Dems held; and those majorities were not dominated by the right wing of the Republican Party.  So Frank is either mistaken, (unlikely since he knows his stuff when it comes to control of the House), or lying to make sure it appears that Republicans are to blame for the current mess… and to point us to the obvious conclusion that the more Democrats in the House, the better off we will all be.  In one respect he is right, there are many, many good Democrats in congress; unfortunately the Democrat leadership is dominated by twits like Frank, Dodd, Pelosi, Rangel, Waxman, and Dingell.

Democrats like Frank, Dodd and Pelosi are masters of spin and utilization of the press to get their message out.  You may have noticed that, prior to the election, the “bailout” was going to be a success because of the wonderful leadership of Barack Obama and the Democrats in the House and the Senate; after the election, it’s Bush’s bailout leading us down a path of socialism; it’s Bush running up the deficit; it’s Bush this and Bush that and thank the powers of nature that Obama has come to save us… but why has he abandoned us, where is the mercy of “O”, why does he speak to the unclean and invite them to sit by his side, why dost he not cast them into the pit of fire… 

Sorry, got carried away there a bit.

Over the past couple of years, Pelosi and Reid behaved as if they were the co-presidents and George Bush was an unfortunate irritant whose main value was as a scapegoat.

Should be an interesting year coming up.  Will ”O” slap them down?  Will the Dems be forced to form a circular firing squad with no Republicans to shoot? Will everyone make nice? Or, will they do everything they can to blame the next 100 years on George Bush and run a campaign of change every 2 years even if they manage to grab 100% of the seats.

Any chance we are not stupid enough to fall for it, two years from now, when they try to convince us change equals more Democrats and a super majority in the senate…

Based upon the number of Obama supporters who believe the House and Senate are currently controlled by Republicans… it’s not looking good.

Not for the first time, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, has shared his thoughts on the rather offensive odor that surrounds the riff-raff visiting the Capitol:

POLITICO April 18, 2008: “Mr. President, someone wanting to visit the Capitol today, there is no place for them to gather. They gather -it used to be out on the East Front - now they gather on the West Front. And the people who work here joke about you can always tell when it’s summertime because you can smell the visitors. And what we mean by that Mr. President – they stand out there in the high humidity, heat, sweating, and it’s really – there’s no place for them to go.” Sen. Harry Reid’s Floor remarks today.

dcexaminer.com December 2, 2008: “My staff tells me not to say this, but I’m going to say it anyway,” said Reid in his remarks. “In the summer because of the heat and high humidity, you could literally smell the tourists coming into the Capitol. It may be descriptive but it’s true.”

Hmmm… assuming the odor is as described, I can certainly understand why he might find it unpleasant, but saying something like this out loud on at least two occasions is rude and sounds a bit elitist.  His mom surely taught him better manners.

I guess the odor of sweaty old senators is preferable to the apparent stench of common citizens disturbing the sanctity of those hallowed halls.

From AP - Reid looking to remove Lieberman as committee head:

Reid, in a sternly worded statement after the 45-minute meeting, said no official decisions have been made. But an aide to the Nevada Democrat said Reid was leaning toward removing Lieberman as chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

“While I understand that Sen. Lieberman has voted with Democrats a majority of the time, his comments and actions have raised serious concerns among many in our caucus,” Reid said.

<snip>

Democrats in the past had tolerated Lieberman’s political straddling because he held their slim 51-49 majority in his hands. Now that Democrats have strengthened their hold in the Senate to at least 55 seats as a result of Tuesday’s election, Lieberman no longer is vital to their majority control.

So there you have it.  While Reid needed Lieberman to have a majority and hold his position of power, he was willing to let Lieberman have independent thoughts.  Now that they don’t need Lieberman anymore, off to the gallows dear friend.

If they are willing to dismiss Joe Lieberman, a man who has caucused with them and supported them on nearly everything, what makes us think they will even listen to those on the other side of the aisle.

Welcome to one party government.