The Washington Post is painting it as almost inevitable that Sen. Majority leader Bill Frist is going to nuclear and force through rule changes ending the fillibuster option and allowing the approval of Supreme Court judges and other appointees with just a simple majority.
I don't care whether the Dems have 58 Senators and the Presidency or the Republicans have 59 Senators and the Presidency -- I would hate for EITHER party to approve a Supreme Court justice who couldn't garner the respect and vote of at least 60 senators. It's amazing Frist wants to make them even less accountable to the people and their duly elected representatives than they are now.
So what are we gonna do about it? Me, I'm gonna send a polite email to all 100 senators telling them I am a moderate, a centrist, and I'm sick and tired of them catering to fringe activists and that this sort of dramatic rule change is simply unacceptable.
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Thursday, April 14, 2005
Quantico search reveals NO JJGG serving in the Marines
I know, this is now his 16th minute, but how can we not cover this? :-)
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Cover Up
The White House is trying to cover-up the Armstrong Williams investigation.
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Yet this man is allowed to marry and have children
From: michael souzaRead the rest of this post...
To: AMERICAblog
Subject: Nobody
Date: Thu, 14 Apr 2005
Do you realize that really no one cares about homos. You fools are not equal to someone like me. After all I married a woman & had children the old fashioned way w/out some dr. Frankenstein playing god or mother nature. After all I can't see what good the homo community does for society.
1st of all you clowns are a divisive force in society. If you would just stay in the closet people wouldn't bother you. After all I don't have to organize a straight pride parade. I served in the military & know how disruptive homos can be to the cohesiveness of a unit. After all if you are gay won't you be checking out men in the shower & making the hedrosexual feel "uncomfortable".
The fact that you clowns claim bringing a civil rights movement that equals what black people went through in the 60's is a riot. Most Americans can't understand what makes you want to wake up w/ the same sex. the polls that say otherwise were probably the same polls that had Arnold losing in the CA. gov. race, or Bush losing to Kerrey.just leave staright Americans alone & quit being so militant. You are starting to put "normal" Americans on the defensive. Marriage is between 1 man 1 woman. Always has been & always should be. If homosexuality was normal as me & my wife then you could pro create on your own. The fact that a defense of marriage act was passed in every single state it was brought to should tell you that most American reject normalizing your deviant behavior. Take care by by now
AMERICAblog approaches its 5 millionth visitor
Geez. I remember Atrios writing, back in the day, about how wild it was watching his traffic grow to levels he never imagined. Ditto here. The AMERICAblog one-year anniversary is April 23 - only 9 days away. And we are pretty much guaranteed of hitting our 5 millionth visitor probably by this Sunday. It's funny to think that we hit our one millionth visitor right before the election. The Internets are funny things...
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WWW.JACKINTHEHOUSE.ORG
From CREW, our favorite ethics watch dog:
CREW LAUNCHES NEW WEBSITE AT NOON TODAYRead the rest of this post...
WWW.JACKINTHEHOUSE.ORG
DETAILS SUPERLOBBYIST JACK ABRAMOFF’S
WEB OF CONGRESSIONAL CORRUPTION
Site Explores Back-Room Deals between Abramoff,
House and Senate Members, and GOP Activists
WASHINGTON, DC – Today, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) launched JackintheHouse.org. The site aims to educate the American public about the relationships between Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff, Members of Congress and Republican activists. Abramoff is currently under investigation by the Department of Justice, the Internal Revenue Service and the Senate Indian Affairs Committee.
Specifically, JackintheHouse.org explores the relationships between Abramoff and embattled House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, Representative Bob Ney (R-OH), Christian activist Ralph Reed, conservative guru Grover Norquist; Representative Richard Pombo (R-CA), Senator Conrad Burns (R-MT) and Senator David Vitter (R-LA).
“CREW created JackintheHouse.org to provide the public with a clear map of the unscrupulous back-room deals between Abramoff and Members of Congress, who received trips and generous campaign contributions from Abramoff and his clients” said Melanie Sloan, executive director of CREW. “The American public has a right to know that Members of Congress are trading legislation for luxury golf vacations and campaign contributions.”
The site also provides a means for visitors to urge the Chairman of the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, Doc Hastings (R-WA), and the Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Ethics, George Voinovich (R-OH), to initiate ethics investigations into Members of Congress who appear to have been improperly influence by Abramoff.
JackintheHouse.org is a project of CREW (www.citizensforethics.org), a non-partisan, non-profit organization that targets government officials who sacrifice the common good to special interests.
Bob Dole warns about tinkering with the "nuclear option" over fillibusters
From National Public Radio:
NPR: Your former colleagues in the Senate are... maneuvering to do away with the filibuster.Read the rest of this post...
DOLE: I think you have to be very careful, that's my advice, before you start tinkering with the rules. I mean the rules have been changed before. You want to think down the road. The Senate's going to change. It's not always going to be Republican. It changes back and forth. History shows that.
NPR: If you were giving advice, and somehow I imagine someone might ask you once in awhile, what would you suggest that Congress do to work in a more bipartisan fashion of the kind that you're talking about?
DOLE: I think it's up to the President to sort of wrap his arms around the leadership in both the House and the Senate and really not have photo-ops and things of that kind which -- and I'm certain the president does this - but I cant emphasize how productive it might be to have this very close relationship with the leaders in the Congress.
Take away the Rs and the Ds and treat them as legislators.
And I always thought if I were elected president, I'd have those guys down for breakfast lunch and dinner- y'know every day of the week. Because I know how it works.
I'd just say the President, whatever he's doing, he'd ought to do more.
GM/UAW to discuss health care costs
With GM in the toilet these days it's not much of a surprise that they want to renegotiate their health care costs with the union. GM is no doubt hoping that the union will increase its share of the costs from the current rate of 7% to be closer to the 27% that the salaried workers are paying. The numbers are pretty staggering at the moment with GM forking out $5.2Billion last year and they expect that number to grow to $5.8B this year.
Because of the numbers here, I'm curious to see how this plays out because the UAW is suggesting that GM focuses more on national health insurance instead of asking the union to pay more. One of these days the wingnuts are going to move beyond the "health care is socialist" speech and get serious about a serious problem. Why are the Dem's not labeling this as a very unfair, very expensive tax on the middle class? With families dishing out thousands of dollars per year after already paying taxes, the numbers are brutal. If the Dem's can't see this issue, we are all in serious trouble. Read the rest of this post...
Because of the numbers here, I'm curious to see how this plays out because the UAW is suggesting that GM focuses more on national health insurance instead of asking the union to pay more. One of these days the wingnuts are going to move beyond the "health care is socialist" speech and get serious about a serious problem. Why are the Dem's not labeling this as a very unfair, very expensive tax on the middle class? With families dishing out thousands of dollars per year after already paying taxes, the numbers are brutal. If the Dem's can't see this issue, we are all in serious trouble. Read the rest of this post...
Saudi Arabia Tries To Treat Women A Little Less Like Chattel
In a bold step forward, Saudi Arabia's top cleric (who is of course a puppet of the government) has come out AGAINST the practice of forcing women to marry. Congratulations! And welcome to the 20th century.
Unfortunately, it's the 21st century. Read the rest of this post...
Unfortunately, it's the 21st century. Read the rest of this post...
Bush Distances Himself From DeLay
The fun keeps on coming for Tom DeLay, who tried to ignore the ethical swamp he's sinking in and attack judges who dare to disagree with him. In a day or two, he'll have to blame a vast, right-wing conspiracy for his troubles. Ricky Santorum said he has to come clean (DeLay pretended it was a compliment). Newt Gingrich said DeLay needed to stop trying to blame the left and deal with his problems in a forthright manner. Rep. Christopher Shays of Conn. said he should step down.
And now Bush is sidling away from DeLay as well. According to the New York Times, at a White House press briefing, Scott McClellan said
And now Bush is sidling away from DeLay as well. According to the New York Times, at a White House press briefing, Scott McClellan said
"... the president supported what Mr. DeLay and other Congressional leaders were doing 'to move forward on the agenda that the American people want us to enact.'"But Mr. McClellan suggested that the relationship between Mr. Bush and Mr. DeLay, a fellow Texan, was more business than social.
"'Sure,' Mr. McClellan said, when asked if the president considered Mr. DeLay a friend. He went on, 'I think there are different levels of friendship with anybody.'"
Ouch.
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