Monday Afternoon Amusement

-Ok, now everyone in Georgia can stop worrying, the Governor is praying, that should solve everything.

-The Pope is coming to America to stop priests from touching little children...and say a mass or two.

-Conservatives like Fox News, country music and movies where things blow up, Liberals like everything else.

-Max out your credit card at the Woodfield Mall or Sherman Oaks Galleria, put yourself into thousands of dollars in debt, or the terrorists win.

-McCain's mom tells us Mormons bribe people, even know the Mayor of Salt Lake City who was accused of doing it, was a Catholic.

-I'm the King of Spain BITCH! Don't make us colonize your sorry ass again!

-Gordon Brown, haven't you learned from your predecessor, the British Prime Minister is supposed to obey his lord and master in Washington, D.C. C'Mon, man, even the French are taking orders from us now.

Your Daily Dose Of Fear

The Secretary of Homeland Security reminds us why we should be scared to death to leave the house and go anywhere.

Still, I give him points for ACTUALLY wanting to be prepared for something for once.

Bush Gets His Spying Authority

These 16 Democrats voting for it;
Evan Bayh (Indiana)
Tom Carper (Delaware)
Bob Casey (Pennsylvania)
Kent Conrad (North Dakota)
Dianne Feinstein (California)
Daniel Inouye (Hawai‘i)
Amy Klobuchar (Minnesota)
Mary Landrieu (Louisiana)
Blanche Lincoln (Arkansas)
Claire McCaskill (Missouri)
Barbara Mikulski (Maryland)
Bill Nelson (Florida)
Ben Nelson (Nebraska)
Mark Pryor (Arkansas)
Ken Salazar (Colorado)
Jim Webb (Virginia).

Liberals are, of course, pissed. I'm sure YearlyKos is all fired up over this.

It does, however, need to be reauthorized in February, so it's not the WORST thing the Senate's ever done.

Besides, Bush did an excellent job here backing them into a wall in the last few days of the session.

Democrats Do Something

And gloat about it.

Congress overwhelmingly passed a bill implementing the 9/11 Commission recommendations; a homeland security cornacopia that shifts money to high risks cities and states, expands screening of cargo at air and sea terminals, and puts money into a new program to ensure that security officials at every level can communicate with each other.

After six months in office and a minimum wage incrase, the Democrats can finally celebrate that they've done...something.

“We will have done in six months what previous Congresses failed to do for almost six years,” said Speaker Nancy Pelosi

Still, Republicans complain this, the second success of the Democratic Congress shows the 110th Congress is just as useless as the 109th.

See, now here's the test;

Important Bills Passed By The 110th Congress;
-Raise in the minimum wage
-Implement the Recommendations of the 9/11 Commissions

Important Bills Passed By The 109th Congress;
-?

Yeah, exactly.

For a Congress with a President from the other side of the political spectrum, not bad...if only they'd get our troops out of Iraq.

THIS Is "runaway spending?"

He's upset over a Homeland Security budget that went $2.1 billion over what he wanted to $37 billion and that to him is runaway spending?

But that $923 million embassy in a country everyone wants us out of, that's not runaway spending, and neither is the billions we pissed away in that country.

Nope, $2.1 billion extra dollars in Homeland Security. THAT is runaway spending.

I know how to control spending...STOP FUNDING THE WAR!

9/11 Commission Recommendations Passed

The Senate, after two months, has passed the bill to implement 9/11 Commission Recommendations. If you remember, the House passed this bill on January 9, 2007. Like in the House, all 50 Senate Democrats voted aye. (Tim Johnson is still recovering.) The bill won the support for 10 Republicans;

Senator Kit Bond (R-Missouri)
Senator Norm Coleman (R-Minnesota)
Senator Susan Collins (R-Maine)
Senator Elizabeth Dole (R-North Carolina)
Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska)
Senator Gordon Smith (R-Oregon)
Senator Olympia Snowe (R-Maine)
Senator Arlen Specter (R-Pennsylvania)
Senator Ted Stevens (R-Alaska)
Senator George Voinovich (R-Ohio)

Interesting Note: John McCain was absent for the vote...AGAIN

Don't Punish New Orleans

Amidst all the brouhaha about the appointment of the corrupt piece of garbage Congressman William Jefferson (D-Louisiana) to the Homeland Security committee, there is something everyone is forgetting...his constituents.

Yes, Jefferson has been dogged by scandal, he is corrupt, he is the worst possible type of politicians, but something has happened since Pelosi stripped him off the Ways and Means Committee...an election happened.

And it wasn't as if Jefferson wasn't targeted. Another Democrat, Karen Carter, ran against Jefferson and got support from a large number of Democrats around the country. (I rooted for Cater to defeat Jefferson.) However, the people of New Orleans, for some ungodly reason, reelected the jerk.

Pelosi put him on the Homeland Security committee to serve the people of New Orleans, 43% of whom did not vote for Jefferson. The people of New Orleans deserve service...and quite frankly, I look forward to defeating Jefferson in 2008.

I would say however, one more indication of corruption from this guy, and he should be stripped of everything and possibly even expelled from the House. I can't deal with people like Jefferson. It angers me that he got reelected, but that was the prerogative, which I can't seem to understand, of a slim majority of his district.

At Least They're Working

Nobody knows what to do with Iraq...even the Democrats. They don't want to stay, they don't want to go, their hands are tied and there's only so much they can do to bring this administration back to earth.

Sure they're divided, I'm happy they're divided and following the Democratic leadership blindly (as the Republicans had done.) Anyway, Congress isn't doing anything, they're working;

"We have got to finish this bill," Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said as he opened the Senate session. He read parts of a letter from relatives of people killed in the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks asking the Senate to consider the legislation "without complications regarding Iraq."

Senator Reid is talking about the bill to implement the 9/11 recommendations and tighten homeland security rules. Quite frankly, with how important Iraq is, the Democrats are not going to bring the war to end two months after taking office. I'm kind of certain it is going to take much of their two year term and much of their political capital. They only enjoy a slim, fragile, majority in the Senate.

In the end, whether the Democrats are divided or not, whether the President can be forced to end this war, whether they can stop a troop surge or not, the point is, they're working. They're passing bills, they're raising the minimum wage, they're implementing the 9/11 Commission recommendations, they're voting to fund stem-cell research (even though the President will put the brakes on that.) They voting to end play-to-pay. They're working, which is more than the last Congress did.