Poli Sci: Here’s how Senate Dems can foil GOP filibuster strategy on budget bill

3 comments March 2nd, 2009

If push comes to shove on the Obama administration’s budget bill, the Democratic majority in the U.S. Senate (above) has a certain PARLIAMENTARY PROCEDURE available to prevent the tail from wagging the dog. 

El Rushbo is not exactly an expert on America’s founding documents

13 comments March 2nd, 2009

 

 In his stirring keynote address the other day to a gathering of conservative malcontents, Rush Limbaugh waxed pseudo-historical with references to our nation’s founding documents.

 The Great One said of right-wingers in general: “We believe that the preamble to the Constitution contains an inarguable truth that we are all endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights, among them life, liberty, freedom, and the pursuit of happiness.”

 Uh….gee, Rush, I hate to be nit-picky about this, but you’re not exactly correct about that stuff.

 For starters, those rights from the Creator are mentioned in the Declaration of Independence, not the preamble to the Constitution.

 For seconds, Thomas Jefferson mentioned only three of those rights — “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” He didn’t say anything about  ”freedom,” at least not in the passage to which you refer.

 For thirds, Jefferson said those rights were unalienable, not inalienable.

 But otherwise, Rush, the speech was a real doozy (although I’m told it reads better in the original German).

UPDATE: Speaking of Limbaugh, he expressed dismay today over disparaging remarks made about him by Michael Steele, chairman of the Republican National Committee.

So, naturally, Steele is now GROVELING before El Rushbo, begging for the Great One’s forgiveness.

Pretty obvious who runs the GOP, isn’t it?

UPDATE II: And now the Dems are RUBBING Steele’s nose it.

Man, this liberal strategy of portraying loose cannon Limbaugh as the face of conservative Republicanism is working out better than I had expected when I first SNIFFED IT OUT more than a month ago.

UPDATE III: Conservative David Frum RECOGNIZES the threat Limbaugh poses to the Republican Party.

News alert! Disturbing dispatches from the battlefield in the bloody GOP Civil War!

1 comment March 2nd, 2009

 

 Please, people, don’t let THESE REPORTS fall into the hands of your womenfolk or children.

 Details of this ugly conflict are not for the faint of heart.

 But at least we can be thankful that the bloodletting is mostly fraternal. The Republican combatants spend more time fighting one another than going after their common foe (which, by the way, is the rest of us).

Another tour of the right-wing blogosphere

Add comment March 2nd, 2009

As usual, our GUIDE is Roy Edroso.

Burris launches a re-election Web site

3 comments March 2nd, 2009

 

Embattled U.S. Sen. Roland Burris apparently thinks he’s got a shot at election to his own full term in office, as we see HERE.

He’s baaack! Newt returns to the GOP stage

Add comment March 2nd, 2009

 

A decade after resigning in political defeat as speaker of the House and slinking away into relative obscurity, Newt Gingrich suddenly seeks to FILL THE VOID of intellectual leadership in the Republican Party after the debacle of the 2008 elections.

Say what you will about the Newtster, there’s no denying that he’s a man of ideas — many, many ideas, not all of which are consistent with one another.

UPDATE: Nate Silver also has an INTERESTING TAKE on the return of Gingrich.

Everything is amazing, nobody is happy

1 comment March 2nd, 2009

I should sue comedian Louis C. K. for stealing my thoughts: