Putting imaginary brakes on imaginary legislation

Monday, December 29, 2008

Ok, someone answer me this: How can you put the "brakes" on legislation that does not yet exist?

McConnell Puts the Brakes on Stimulus Plan
By Paul Kane
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) voiced skepticism today about the emerging economic stimulus plan, applying a brake to Democratic plans to quickly pass up to $850 billion in spending and tax cuts soon after President-elect Barack Obama's Jan. 20 inauguration.

I find it's always prudent, helpful, and constructive to be skeptical of something one has not even seen yet -- something one will not even see until a new president is in office.

How is the Republican Senate minority leader putting the brakes on a bill that has yet to even be drafted useful to this country? Isn't that a little like trying to eat an apple that has yet to grow on the tree? Or more correctly, already accusing that apple of being riddled with worms?

McConnell specifically called for a weeklong cooling off period between when the bill is drafted and when it is voted on, allowing time to dissect it for signs of "fraud and waste."

Right, because when the House had time to look over the financial bailout they added useful oversight and didn't jam pack it with pet projects. Wait, what? That's right, thanks to an addition from the White House, when the US government directly infuses cash into a firm (as opposed to buying specific assets/finaical products), there are no restrictions on spending that cash for, say, excessive executive pay. The bill also ended up including tax breaks for a fun filled menu of recipients, including, perhaps most strangely, the manufacturers of children's wooden arrows.

Right, so back to the forthcoming Bailout Package Stimulus Plan of 2009. Of course there should be oversight, of course we want to be sure that there are "..some undetermined safeguards to assure the money is being spent wisely.". But to bluster about it now? That is blatant political posturing, and it sets an adversarial tone that leads to an ineffective bill.

An early new years resolutions

1 -- To never stop blogging. (Well, at least to not give up on it now.)

2 -- To never be as dumb as:
- The guy who wrote "Barack the Magic Negro"
- The guy who put "Barack the Magic Negro" on a CD used to campaign for Chairman of The Republican Party.

Next time you hear someone use the words "post racial" be sure to play the video below to wake up and smell reality:

Shoe Update: And there's a video!

Sunday, December 14, 2008

The outgoing president is seriously good at dodging things...hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...

Back from the dead

Oooooooook, I'm back. I'm not even going to attempt to cover everything I've missed.

So I'll start with something that Gawker has already covered. I think they missed the funniest parts.

Truly a moment of Zen (TM Jon Stewart):




Excerpt from Bloomberg:

"Dec. 14 (Bloomberg) -- President George W. Bush ducked two shoes thrown at him by an unidentified man during a press conference in the Iraqi prime minister’s office.

Bush wasn’t hit by the shoes, one of which sailed over his head. The president shrugged and said 'I’m OK' after the incident in Baghdad today. 'All I can report is it is a size 10,' Bush said.

In Arab culture, throwing shoes is a grave show of disrespect. The man shouted an Arabic phrase, which an Iraqi present said translated as 'this is a farewell kiss, dog.'

After U.S. troops pulled down a statue of former dictator Saddam Hussein in 2003, Iraqi bystanders tossed shoes at it, according to news reports at the time.

The man threw the shoes from about 25 feet away as Bush, with Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, made formal remarks before the signing of an Iraqi-U.S. security agreement. Bush arrived today in Baghdad on a surprise visit.

The shoe-thrower, who was in a group of journalists, was wrestled to the ground and taken away."

First, I love that Bush is ignorant enough not to appreciate the cultural significance of his assailant's actions.

To Reiterate:
"In Arab culture, throwing shoes is a grave show of disrespect."

This little vignette perfectly illustrates how clueless this administration's leadership has been in Iraq.

A rant I have to share

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Of all places, this is from Gawker's Hills Recap this week. In the episode, three of the show's sleaziest "characters" visited their Grandmother. And the recap author, Richard Lawson, went off with a big dose of perspective that sums up just about everything that makes me feel horribly depressed about The Hills.

Here are Richard's thoughts:

This woman is 84-years-old. So she was probably born in 1924. She was 5 when the markets crashed hugely. She watched as Europe was overtaken by an army of darkness, as millions of people were killed, she watched that war end and the boys come home and booms begin. She saw the suburban 50's crystallize the American Dream into something far too fragile to ever hope to touch. She saw the Cold War terror, the first beating bits of revolution fomenting in the eyes of kids. She watched sit-ins and hosings and great, thundering speeches and witnessed Change, real change, the kind of change rarely seen since. She saw two terrifying jungle wars, a generation in full rise up and demand something different. The entire idea of Who We Are and Why We Are began to blur and change and certain old institutions disappeared forever. And people were scared and people were happy but most of all people felt different. And around her this new spirit bled and muddled into something about drugs and aimless rebellion. Around her that malaise hardened into the darkening, cynical, cocaine-bliss 70's. Which bumped up against the blockish 80's, the suits the money the drugs AIDS Reagan the fall of the economy the fall of the wall Desert Storm. Meanwhile her grandkids had come tumbling along at some point and Clinton came (and came) and a new fattiness spread across the country until that became too much for some people and buildings fell in Oklahoma and then buildings fell in New York and there we went, hurtling headlong back into the desert, our eyes fixed on black, oily windmills. And all of this, all of these years and all of this living and noise and light and hope and fear and change and stubborness and sadness and grit and boredom and brief transcendent moments of life when one fully knows, for a few fleeting seconds, that one is capital A Alive... Well, all of it jumbled together, quiet and loud at the same time, and... And it all amounted to this.

Some dumpy old woman forced to talk to her piece of shit granddaughter on a bench for the fucking Hills.

It's officially official

Monday, December 1, 2008

Hillary Clinton should be formally announced as SoS at 10:40a.m. EST today.

Read the live blog here.