Too bad the Congress didn't actually bother to read the USA Patriot Act before they dutifully lined up to approve it.
But that would've meant they were performing oversight - what a concept!
Posted by Christopher at March 14, 2007 03:54 AMWhat's clear is that there is barely anyone elected to office or appointed in any of the three branches that is competent or can be trusted for anything other than to show up to collect the paycheck. Republican or Democrat.
These people are willfully negligent in their dereliction of duties.
If this doesn't show the need for another alternative party, nothing does. This also showsa the need to change the form of government the US has so the incumbent administration can be dumped rather than having to ride it out for another two years or longer.
Overall, people have gotten what they paid for.
Posted by Alex at March 14, 2007 04:19 AMMaybe there should be a pop quiz about what a piece of legislation says, and anyone who doesn't pass it wouldn't be allowed to vote. Of course, who would write the quiz?
Posted by CG at March 14, 2007 04:51 AMThe OMB? The CBO? Just sayin' that they seem to be the last vestige of a competent Congress.
Cry me a river, Arlen. You've been aiding and abetting malfeasance with your cluelessness since 1963.
Posted by idiosynchronic at March 14, 2007 04:58 AMThere is a scene in Michael Moore's 9-11 where Rep Conyers laughs when asked "Didn't you read the bill?" before he voted on it.
He knows (and was candid enough to admit) that elected representatives do not read in detail every bill that comes across the desk--they come too fast and are too thick. And if the Majority tries, it can speed up the machinery so it rolls like Lucy-in-the-Cookie Factory.
The question is whether we should expect them to do it anyway. Are they accountable even when we and they know they are not capable of doing it?
Some argue they spend more time raising money and listening to lobbyists and glancing at what lobbyists throw over the transom than attending to the bills that land on their desk by due process.
I admit the latter is closer to my understanding of how Congress works.
But I give neither Specter nor Conyers exoneration for failing to pay attention. If Conason is correct, then Specter lost his integrity the minute he cut a deal with the devils in the White House---and that was a long,long time ago.
Posted by gtash at March 14, 2007 05:51 AMWasn't Arlen Spector on the Warren Commission? 'Nuf said?
Posted by Mal Feasance at March 14, 2007 05:59 AMThe Congress is populated by morons and fools.
After the events of 9/11, for them to actually read the USA Patriot act and possibly take exception to its language might've suggested they were being less than patriotic.
The Bush administration began playing them and it hasn't stopped to this day.
Posted by Christopher at March 14, 2007 06:13 AM"Wasn't Arlen Spector on the Warren Commission? 'Nuf said?"
Mal, another "rush to judgement" and "whitewash."
Posted by Judith at March 14, 2007 06:14 AM
Bingo, Mal.
Posted by idiosynchronic at March 14, 2007 06:15 AMAll three branches of government make a good case to outsource their jobs.
If they're not reading the bills they vote on, then we could just as easily put monkeys and chimps in their places. It'd prolly be more effective.
This country ain't worth the bother anymore.
Posted by Alex at March 14, 2007 07:06 AMIt's time to channel some quotes from our wise sages...
Will Durst's Quotes
George W Bush is my own personal full employment act. He's like if Reagan and Quayle had a kid. Quagan.
The reason the Democrats are so intent on passing a stem cell bill is they're depending on the research to grow themselves a spine.
Bush isn't dumb, he's just a Wheel of Fortune President in a Jeopardy world.
John Kerry has the comedic timing of an end table. Such a poor campaigner, he almost blew an election he wasn't even running in.
The Clintons got $20 million for their autobiographies. Seems like a lot of money for the memoirs of 2 people who for 8 years testified under oath, they couldn't remember a single thing.
Every time I hear the oil companies talk about solar energy I worry they've developed a plan to block out the sun.
Whenever Democrats circle the wagons, they start firing inward.
What is the deal with Arnold Schwarzenegger's marriage to Maria Shriver? What is that: phase one in a genetic experiment to breed a bullet- proof Kennedy?
As Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi follows Dick Cheney in Presidential succession. That means she's only 2 chicken bones away from the Presidency. And Bush does not look like a picky eater.
Bush claims he wants to work with the Democrats. Yeah, right. The same way a 5- year- old with a magnifying glass wants to work with ants.
How exactly does Congress plan on building a 700 mile long, 15 foot high fence on the Mexican border without using Mexican labor? What are they going to do, draft housewives from La Jolla?
Washington DC. 69.3 square miles surrounded on all 4 sides… by reality. A work free drug zone.
In San Francisco, Halloween is redundant.
People like the President because he seems like a guy you could have a beer with. But now its time to take away the car keys.
Vice President Cheney said "failure is not an option," so apparently it comes factory installed as standard equipment?
Posted by Alex at March 14, 2007 07:17 AMAlex
Your last sentence is priceless.
Great post.
Ousting Lam in San Diego was the whole goal of this latest Rove/Bushco operation---she was onto the greatest Congressional corruption scandal in the nation's history.
Because it involved Congressional Repubs, she had to go.
Now, we'll never know the extent of the corruption in the Repub Congress, and the most that will happen is that the worthless Abu will have to resign--small potatoes for KKKarl, Bush and the corrupt Repubs in Congress.
This is a huge, huge victory for the criminal Repub Party.
And for those so dismissive of the Dems in Congress, without them you'd never know a thing. They're weak, but not worthless. And they're all we've got between us and a fascist "elected" dictatorship.
Bush and his "conservative" Repubs have destroyed the rule of law in America, and it's not comin' back. Throw it on the pile of disasters.
Posted by euzoius at March 14, 2007 07:24 AMAnd then there's the other Will...
Will Rogers Quotes,
An ignorant person is one who doesn't know what you have just found out.
An onion can make people cry, but there has never been a vegetable invented to make them laugh.
Ancient Rome declined because it had a Senate; now what's going to happen to us with both a Senate and a House?
Be thankful we're not getting all the government we're paying for.
Diplomacy is the art of saying 'Nice doggie' until you can find a rock.
Don't gamble; take all your savings and buy some good stock and hold it till it goes up, then sell it. If it don't go up, don't buy it.
Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there.
I belong to no organized party. I am a Democrat.
I never expected to see the day when girls would get sunburned in the places they do today.
I was not a child prodigy, because a child prodigy is a child who knows as much when it is a child as it does when it grows up.
I'm not a real movie star. I've still got the same wife I started out with twenty-eight years ago.
On account of being a democracy and run by the people, we are the only nation in the world that has to keep a government four years, no matter what it does.
Our constitution protects aliens, drunks and U.S. Senators.
Politics is applesauce.
Take the diplomacy out of war and the thing would fall flat in a week.
The best doctor in the world is the veterinarian. He can't ask his patients what is the matter-he's got to just know.
The movies are the only business where you can go out front and applaud yourself.
The only time people dislike gossip is when you gossip about them.
There ought to be one day-- just one-- when there is open season on senators.
There's no trick to being a humorist when you have the whole government working for you.
This country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session as when the baby gets hold of a hammer.
We are all here for a spell; get all the good laughs you can.
We can't all be heroes because somebody has to sit on the curb and clap as they go by.
We don't know what we want, but we are ready to bite somebody to get it.
Rumor travels faster, but it don't stay put as long as truth.
The Illiterate Digest, 1924
There is only one thing that can kill the Movies, and that is education.
The more you read and observe about this Politics thing, you got to admit that each party is worse than the other. The one that's out always looks the best.
The income tax has made more liars out of the American people than golf has.
Posted by Alex at March 14, 2007 07:26 AMspecter is "truth challenged"
or specter is a liar
or an idiot. which is it?
For those defending the Democrats as the last hope, we're still waiting on the repeal of the Military Commission Act and the return of Habeas Corpus.
Very simple thing to do worth a lot of points with the rank-and-file.
Posted by Alex at March 14, 2007 08:13 AMAgain with Arlen. This from the NYT today
quote
Mr. Specter raised the question of whether Ms. Lam had been dismissed because she was “about to investigate other people who were politically powerful,” and he questioned the Justice Department’s initial explanation that those who had lost their jobs had received poor performance evaluations.
“Well,” he said, “I think we may need to do more by way of inquiry to examine what her performance ratings were to see if there was a basis for her being asked to resign.”
end quote
Well, I read that as Arlen looking for a way to discredit Lam, not as support of the USA's. He says he is investigating. I say he is leading the way to a smear.
Posted by gtash at March 14, 2007 08:35 AMGtash - nice catch. I think you're on the right track for ol' 'single-bullet'.
Posted by idiosynchronic at March 14, 2007 08:59 AMArlen is always "increasingly upset", and then he folds. He is all mouth. I would like to know exactly who at the DOJ applied the pressure that led to the insertion of which Arlen claims he had no knowledge. Was it Gonzales, or Sampson, or was it actually orders from Karl Rove?
Posted by Via at March 14, 2007 11:01 AMCome on people. Specter pulls the same "lightning rod" stunt over and over:
Its a three step technique:
1) He simulates outrage;
2) He implies that he intends to take serious action (this time, fer sure);
3) He issues a series of succesively weaker statements on the matter until the media has lost interest (2, 3 days?)
And presto -- "Mission Accomplished".
This little dance somehow inexplicably prevents (absolves?) anyone else from taking action until all momentum has been drained from the issue. Works like a charm, every single time.
Surely his track record speaks for itself by now. Torture bill, anyone?
Posted by Tortoise at March 14, 2007 12:24 PMMary,
Great post. Harriet Miers resigned January 4th for no apparent reason. Although these attorneys were fired on December 7th, and I don't recall the story really hitting the news until mid-January, is it possible that she resigned because she was in this up to her eyeballs and they already knew that this water was going to boil? A pre-emptive resignation...
Posted by Mickey at March 14, 2007 02:19 PMarlen is a hoor. that is how he became a senator.
the owners of the bushits, the rockefellers, put him on the warren commission staff. he was the clown who invented the single bullet theory.
this was a very important gift to the conspirators. had that bit of nonsense not been invented, then a single culprit could not have responsible...there would have to be more shooters.
it has to be understood why that potus had to be eliminated. the principal reason was his intent to remove the wilsonian construct of the federal reserve. bankers didn't like that idea. and the rockefellers were major bankers - chase manhattan for one, an owner of the federal reserve.
it is astonishing how many think that the federal reserve is a government entitity. it ain't. it is a private entity owned by bankers.
anything arlen says, you can be assured it is a lie.