Michael Bennet gets caught in a moment of rare honesty with an open mike in the Senate:
“It’s all rigged. The whole conversation is rigged. The fact that we don’t get to a discussion before the break about what we’re going to do in the lame duck. It’s just rigged.”
Of course it is. They know what they want — a deal to extend all the Bush tax cuts for two to three years. It’s just a matter of how the Democrats can set the Republicans up to take the blame, yet not do it in a way that causes political blowback for them. They tried for months to get the Republicans to share the blame for the health care bill, and couldn’t pull that off either, so I doubt their competence has improved significantly.
So, Nancy Pelosi will preside over her little piece of stunt theater today in the House, taking a meaningless vote that will surprise nobody when it fails because she set the bar for success at 290 votes, which they can’t possibly hope to achieve.
But gosh darn it, they tried
… and this from FireDogLake’s Founder. Jane Hamsher:
Would you believe that this old man in West Virginia was once a Broadway Producer, or a Commercial Food Photographer, or a Justice of the Peace, or a Font Designer, or even a Director of a major non-profit Arts Program on Cape Cod? Well, he was. Now he spends most of his time posting in the blogosphere and looking for things to do (retirement is a bitch).
- - -
A note about YOUR COMMENTS. I accept comments from all sides... but I reserve the right to eliminate comments with offensive (to me) language and comments which promote causes or situations I believe to be criminal or worse. Also, please limit your comments to no more than three insertions... I'm less than thrilled with the same argument on any subject repeated more than three times. Continued posts complaining about me or my views without presenting a polite argument will get you on my Spam list.
I cut unpaid advertising and absolute crap, too. Once you are cut and on the Spam list you are there forever. I don't even look at Spam posts, I just erase them... so please keep all arguments above board and avoid insulting the admittedly thin-skinned blogger, yours truly.
SPAMMERS:
Don't even bother to push your unpaid advertising disguised as comments on this blog. We are very good at keeping it off and the software we use to do so is terrific. If you want to advertise, send an e-mail to the owner (btchakir@mac.com) and he'll work out a financial arrangement for you.
If you want to e-mail Bill:
Click on the mailbox picture in any post.
_____________________
"Liberals got women the right to vote. Liberals got African-Americans the right to vote. Liberals created Social Security and lifted millions of elderly people out of poverty. Liberals ended segregation. Liberals passed the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act. Liberals created Medicare. Liberals passed the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act.
What did Conservatives do? They opposed them on every one of those things...every one! So when you try to hurl that label at my feet, 'Liberal,' as if it were something to be ashamed of, something dirty, something to run away from, it won't work, Senator, because I will pick up that label and I will wear it as a badge of honor."
-- Matt Santos, The West Wing
