The way Charles
Grassley was carrying on just now on live C-Span, you’d have thought the future
of American civilization was at stake. I
was happy to see the news headline that Presidential nominees will be strictly
by up or down vote. If you think about
it, bills you can debate. They have provisions and clauses and stuff in
them that need to be hammered out, and maybe some want to debate a little more
to help them make up their minds. That’s
what the cloture bill in Roberts Rules of Order is supposed to be all
about. But that’s not how it’s
used. Not by a long shot. But when you have a nominee- - you know
pretty darn quickly, and especially after he’s sat answering your dumb questions
for several hours- - whether you want this guy in or out. It’s time to take a vote. But they don’t do that. They just sit on their ass. They envoke the filibuster rule. But all this senate rule change means, is
that once again the senate will be conforming to the US Constitution. That is to have nominees of a President
approved by a majority vote, not a super-majority. If the constitutional writers had intended
that, they knew how to specify it, but they didn’t. Also I would submit that the vote to change
the rules had ITSELF to comply with the three-fifths rule, meaning that there
had to be this super-majority to cut off debate on THIS bill, and now that the
vote has passed, Grassley is still speaking.
There is the other issue about unfilled DC court vacancies. The republicans just wanted to just reduce the size of the
court. Of course everything is being
“cut back” these days including psychiatric treatment in major Hospitals. Some congressmen need their heads examined,
that’s for sure. But the mental health
cut-back is just another “penny wise and pound foolish” type move- - because it
means there will be more whacko, not-cases roaming the street and some of these
have access to guns, and that never ends well.
Randy Rhodes is talking
about this republican manuel for obstruction and talking points to scuttle the
affordable care act, and what red hering examples to bring forth. They say that Obama care will cost small
business jobs, when it’s big agri-business that gets the huge tax subsedies and
Wall Mart has their local sales tax waved in communities, and they’ll even
spend highway funds to people can get to the Wall Mart more easily. But the thing is- - like with these Judge
nominations - -when they ever bring something to a vote it passes easily. So the purpose of this Republican
obstruction, as Obama said today, is not to more thoroughly scrutinize the
candidate but merely as a political maneuver to make the President look
bad. And this congress has passed
virtually no constructive bills since 2010.
Obama said that in the past sixty years, twenty presidential nominations
were filibustered in that period. But in
the five years of this administration- - thirty nominations have been
filibustered- - fifty percent over the sum total of the previous sixty
years. But the thing is when the
Republicans have clear power- - they didn’t change Social Security or make
abortion illegal. Because they really didn’t
want to do that. In fact Randy Rhodes
says that Paul Ryan’s medicare reform act has never been brought to the floor
because the Republican house members themselves know how bad of an idea it is.
It was pointed out that
White people of certain regions of the country hate it when a black man or
woman is successful. So you can imagine
they were doubly perturbed when President Obama awarded Oprah Winfree the medal
of freedom yesterday. And it was a fine
thing he did in due recognition for all Oprah has done to advance the status of
Black people. But Moe Kelly doesn’t like
it. First on his show he denies that he
said anything about Oprah but then goes on Oprah bashing rant. And he criticized Oprah for having J Z on her
show, and then not spending the next hour arguing over whether using the N word
in rap music is a bad thing. The tea
party people would have loved that. But
it would have done nothing to advance the cause of Black people had Oprah done
that, and that’s why she didn’t do it.
But in truth I think Moe Kelly must be just plain jealous of Oprah’s
status. Moe says “Giving away cars or
sending Black kids to college does nothing to advance the cause of Black people”. I dialed away for a while and I returned
later and Moe was still on this rant.
And Moe goes on to talk about what a great role model his father was, as
if that figured into the discussion somehow.
I’ve thought about that, and I suppose he brought it us as some sort of
swipe against the feminists. I wish my
father had been a different person growing up than he was, and both of my
brothers, as different as we are, feel the same way. The only thing missing from Moe’s rant was
the introduction of religion. It was
James Dobson decades ago that said “If you have a problem with God, it probably
means you had problems with your father growing up”. But the last person I’d want as my father is
something like James Dobson or a Chuck Swendoll. And as to Moe’s suggestion that local court
Judges go somehow easy on Black celebreties- - I have news for you. It doesn’t matter WHAT race you are if you’re
a celebrity, they’ll go easy on you. I
don’t know why- - but for Moe to somehow tie this in as some example of- - - I
don’t know- - maybe Black people somehow deserve all of the mistreatment they
get as some way of “evening things out” or something.
Rush Limbaugh was going
off on how liberals are calling Dallas a profoundly extremist filled town. I never blamed the city of Dallas for the
Kennedy assassination. In fact the whole
case was yanked out of the hands of the Dallas police department by the federal
government for fear they would discover the truth. Moe Kelly talked about Zimmerman some more
saying that nine thousand dollars is awfully low bail in anybody’s book, but
particularly for an individual with such a violent past and present as George
Zimmerman. Moe believes the system is
still handling Zimmerman with kid gloves.
Then there is that Radal Florida congressman who did cocaine. Now he’s going into rehab but still is
keeping his job. He gave one of those
self serving speeches about now he’s in a unique position to help others. Then we have this KKK guy who wanted to start
a group in North Dakota but then it was discovered by one of these Oprah type
TV shows that the man was genetically fourteen percent Black, and Moe says “I
have relatives who are less Black than that”.
I believe it. So now those same
buddies of his are drawing swastikas on his house and such and despise him now. As Bob Dylan sang it long ago, “Don’t speak
too soon, for the wheel’s still in spin”.
This
is Thursday on a semi-rainy morning. We
all stood in the hall as kind of a protest to having to wait out in the rain
and cold for our coffee. People said
“It’s wet out there and we don’t want any slip and falls”. Far be it for these people to use the same
logic for not going out as they would for not walking on freshly mopped floors. When Dora gave the word I tried to be the
first to get in the line outside, which already had people in it. I had one full cup from Dora and the line
behind me was long. This is November 21,
2013 and there are just shy of eight days till I get my ATM money. I
did three blog posts yesterday and apparently judging from this file, two of
those postings were after dinner. I was
diligent to get down for medication from Donnie at plenty of time at a quarter
to six. After ABC news and the game
shows it was Arrow, and at nine I watched just a little bit of “Tomorrow
People”. The one was after eight, and I
added to the long paragraph of that one getting up at four o clock this morning
to type and add vital information to my theories. Of course I slipped up and called “Billy” by
his real name, rather than the name I’ve been referring to him as all these
many decades. ("So why are you mentioning it now?") I went out to the patio
for a smoke and came in and went back to bed.
I looked and it was 4:35 when Bill asked me the time. I tried to get sleep for over an hour but
couldn’t really, and got up at 5:48 and took a long shower and turned on
Stephanie Miller.
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