Thursday, November 03, 2005
Spiny Fun With Nancy and Frank
The only place I've seen this mentioned is AMERICABlog, but apparently House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi took a page from the Harry Reid playbook this afternoon. She couldn't send the House into closed session, but she did propose a "privileged resolution" on Iraq, calling upon the Repug majority to "comply with their oversight responsibilities" and investigate intelligence failures, Plamegate, reconstruction contracts, and prisoner abuse. Such a resolution can be proposed by any member of the House, and its "privileged" nature means that it can't be easily ignored or buried. It could, however, be tabled, which is what happened, by a vote of 220 to 191. (One Democrat, Jim Marshall of Georgia, voted to table it. Wanker.) But the symbolic effect is clear: 219 Republican members of Congress had to listen to a recitation of their failures, and even after hearing it, they still don't feel the need to ask any questions that might embarrass Dear Leader.
So it's been a good week for Democrat spine, and it's not over yet. According to ThinkProgress, New Jersey Senator Frank Lautenberg is proposing that the budget reconciliation bill to be considered next week, currently known as the "Deficit Reduction Omnibus Reconciliation Act 2005" be renamed the "Moral Disaster of Monumental Proportion Reconciliation Act." And boy, is it ever. ThinkProgress summarizes its awfulness here; AMERICABlog does so here.
The Repug spin is that we need to make these "hard choices" if we're going to pay for stuff like disaster relief after the hurricanes. But the truth is that money being cut from human services by the reconciliation bill is so we can keep throwing money down the Iraq rathole, but more importantly, so the wealthy who have received tax cuts since 2001 will get to keep every dime to which they are entitled.
"Party of moral values," my ass.
Recommended Reading: Last winter, North Korean state television announced a list of honorary titles supposedly used by world leaders to refer to the original "Dear Leader," Kim Jong-Il. Or maybe it was Fox News announcing a list of honorary titles it will use when referring to He Who Shall Not Be Named. Whatever.
The only place I've seen this mentioned is AMERICABlog, but apparently House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi took a page from the Harry Reid playbook this afternoon. She couldn't send the House into closed session, but she did propose a "privileged resolution" on Iraq, calling upon the Repug majority to "comply with their oversight responsibilities" and investigate intelligence failures, Plamegate, reconstruction contracts, and prisoner abuse. Such a resolution can be proposed by any member of the House, and its "privileged" nature means that it can't be easily ignored or buried. It could, however, be tabled, which is what happened, by a vote of 220 to 191. (One Democrat, Jim Marshall of Georgia, voted to table it. Wanker.) But the symbolic effect is clear: 219 Republican members of Congress had to listen to a recitation of their failures, and even after hearing it, they still don't feel the need to ask any questions that might embarrass Dear Leader.
So it's been a good week for Democrat spine, and it's not over yet. According to ThinkProgress, New Jersey Senator Frank Lautenberg is proposing that the budget reconciliation bill to be considered next week, currently known as the "Deficit Reduction Omnibus Reconciliation Act 2005" be renamed the "Moral Disaster of Monumental Proportion Reconciliation Act." And boy, is it ever. ThinkProgress summarizes its awfulness here; AMERICABlog does so here.
The Repug spin is that we need to make these "hard choices" if we're going to pay for stuff like disaster relief after the hurricanes. But the truth is that money being cut from human services by the reconciliation bill is so we can keep throwing money down the Iraq rathole, but more importantly, so the wealthy who have received tax cuts since 2001 will get to keep every dime to which they are entitled.
"Party of moral values," my ass.
Recommended Reading: Last winter, North Korean state television announced a list of honorary titles supposedly used by world leaders to refer to the original "Dear Leader," Kim Jong-Il. Or maybe it was Fox News announcing a list of honorary titles it will use when referring to He Who Shall Not Be Named. Whatever.
