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Monday, January 03, 2005
Late night open thread
What do you think the Democrat's agenda should be this year in Congress, but also vis-a-vis Bush?
Read the rest of this post...
Holy Cow. House GOP reverses course on changing ethics rules, decides NOT to water down current rules
Well, this is a surprise to just about everyone working on the issue. I'm glad to see this, but think we got damn lucky on this one. The Democrats simply did NOT launch a big PR campaign on this, so I'm still a bit confused as to why the Republicans caved, unless they just got too much bad publicity the first time around when they said Delay could keep his post even if he gets indicted. The Dems could have gotten a lot more blood out of the Republicans on this. This whole thing isn't quite making sense to me. There just wasn't the outcry, in my view, to warrant the Republicans backing down. So why did they? Or did they?
House Republicans suddenly reversed course Monday, deciding to retain a tough standard for lawmaker discipline and reinstate a rule that would force Majority Leader Tom DeLay to step aside if indicted by a Texas grand jury.Read the rest of this post...
The surprise dual decisions were made by Speaker Dennis Hastert and by DeLay — who asked GOP colleagues too undo the extreme act of loyalty they handed him in November. Then, Republicans changed a party rule so DeLay could retain his leadership post if indicted by the grand jury in Austin that charged three of the Texas Republican's associates.
House GOP to gut ethics rules Tuesday. So where are the Dems?
Where are the clowns? Send in the clowns?
Yet again, another perfect opportunity for the Democratic party to step up to the plate and where the hell are they? Tomorrow, Tuesday, the House Republicans will vote to gut most of the ethics regulations covering them - regulations that they imposed on themselves ten years ago when they claimed the Dems were running an unethical Congress, and thus the GOP needed to come in and clean things up. Well, apparently they cleaned things up a little too well. Tomorrow that will change when they eviscerate the House ethics rules so that their parents and families can accept more gifts from lobbyists and so that it will be next to impossible for outside groups, or anyone else for that matter, to file an ethics complaint against a member of Congress and have it actually investigated.
So that brings us to the key question: Where the hell are the Democrats? Where is the DNC? Where is Nancy Pelosi? Where the hell is anyone who claims to be a leader of this party? They have been handed this issue, wrapped like a little Christmas/Hannukah/Kwanzaa gift, just waiting to exploited. It's their first frigging vote, people - imagine the kind of damage you could do the freshman GOP class by exposing the fact that their first vote in Congress was to WEAKEN the ethics rules.
But no. Nothing big is being planned by the Dems, as far as I can tell. Sure, they plan on offering some amendment or something, I have no idea what. But are they holding big press conferences, rallies, launching a major public relations offensive against the GOP? No. Maybe like President Bush they're still on vacation.
It's time we sent the entire party leadership on a vacation. Permanently.
I was thinking of having folks call their members of Congress, but it's too late for that. The only hope is for people to call House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi and ask her and her staff what happened? Why they're not fighting back like Newt Gingrich and Tom Delay himself would have fought back? Where are they?
Please call Nancy Pelosi's office and ask them what the hell they're doing about this, and why she and the rest of the Democratic leadership appear to still be on vacation while the rest of the country goes to hell.
Nancy Pelosi in DC 202-225-4965, and San Francisco 415-556-4862. Forget emailing them, it's too late for that. Call the office and ask them what the hell is going on. Anger is the only thing that motivates these people, and it's time we took back our party. It can be down. But only if you speak up, loudly and repeatedly. Read the rest of this post...
Yet again, another perfect opportunity for the Democratic party to step up to the plate and where the hell are they? Tomorrow, Tuesday, the House Republicans will vote to gut most of the ethics regulations covering them - regulations that they imposed on themselves ten years ago when they claimed the Dems were running an unethical Congress, and thus the GOP needed to come in and clean things up. Well, apparently they cleaned things up a little too well. Tomorrow that will change when they eviscerate the House ethics rules so that their parents and families can accept more gifts from lobbyists and so that it will be next to impossible for outside groups, or anyone else for that matter, to file an ethics complaint against a member of Congress and have it actually investigated.
So that brings us to the key question: Where the hell are the Democrats? Where is the DNC? Where is Nancy Pelosi? Where the hell is anyone who claims to be a leader of this party? They have been handed this issue, wrapped like a little Christmas/Hannukah/Kwanzaa gift, just waiting to exploited. It's their first frigging vote, people - imagine the kind of damage you could do the freshman GOP class by exposing the fact that their first vote in Congress was to WEAKEN the ethics rules.
But no. Nothing big is being planned by the Dems, as far as I can tell. Sure, they plan on offering some amendment or something, I have no idea what. But are they holding big press conferences, rallies, launching a major public relations offensive against the GOP? No. Maybe like President Bush they're still on vacation.
It's time we sent the entire party leadership on a vacation. Permanently.
I was thinking of having folks call their members of Congress, but it's too late for that. The only hope is for people to call House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi and ask her and her staff what happened? Why they're not fighting back like Newt Gingrich and Tom Delay himself would have fought back? Where are they?
Please call Nancy Pelosi's office and ask them what the hell they're doing about this, and why she and the rest of the Democratic leadership appear to still be on vacation while the rest of the country goes to hell.
Nancy Pelosi in DC 202-225-4965, and San Francisco 415-556-4862. Forget emailing them, it's too late for that. Call the office and ask them what the hell is going on. Anger is the only thing that motivates these people, and it's time we took back our party. It can be down. But only if you speak up, loudly and repeatedly. Read the rest of this post...
It's Monday and you know what that means...
Mehlman Mondays!!!!
The latest update on Ken "I would be RNC chair, but I'm afraid to say in public if I'm really straight" Mehlman. The GOP is going to be voting on whether to give Ken the crown of the RNC at the RNC winter meeting in Washington, DC, January 18-19, 2005.
I think someone needs to organize an Ambiguously Gay Pride Parade to welcome Ken to the job. Unless the parade might scare off the RNC voters from voting for Ken, simply because he won't say on the record that he's heterosexual? Hate for that to happen. Read the rest of this post...
The latest update on Ken "I would be RNC chair, but I'm afraid to say in public if I'm really straight" Mehlman. The GOP is going to be voting on whether to give Ken the crown of the RNC at the RNC winter meeting in Washington, DC, January 18-19, 2005.
I think someone needs to organize an Ambiguously Gay Pride Parade to welcome Ken to the job. Unless the parade might scare off the RNC voters from voting for Ken, simply because he won't say on the record that he's heterosexual? Hate for that to happen. Read the rest of this post...
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