Today’s Tosser: Mark Penn
ArchPundit
Talking about Cougars. Next up? Tramp stamps!
Today’s Tosser
Today’s Tosser: Washington Is Full of Silly, Silly People II
ROBIN ROBERTS (co-host): It’s going to be a long day on Capitol Hill.
SAWYER: It certainly is. Senators facing an all-nighter now as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid vows to filibuster, talking all night to close out all topics besides a vote on Iraqi troop withdrawals.
ROBERTS: And of course, as they continue to talk there in Washington, our brave troops con — they forge on. And this morning, we have a brand new, inside look at their daily lives and what really happens there on the front lines.
You flunk at least one quiz in Polisci 101 with this kind of stupidity. Filibusters are held by people who do not want to vote on the bill. Over time that has meant that even the threat of filibuster means a bill dies, but those wanting to vote up or down on the bill do not have to just walk away. In fact, the 1964 Civil Rights Act was passed because the Senate stayed in session waiting out Byrd’s filibuster and it was the first time cloture had been used successfully in a civil rights bill and the second time since 1927 that it had been invoked.
Before the passage of a cloture rule in 1917, there was no way to force a vote on a bill. The Senate has long held that it’s members can debate a bill for as long as they like. Given the 1917 filibuster of enabling legislation for WWI created such a problem for the nation, the Senate limited that right of members.
The only thing Reid is doing is forcing the Republicans to do more than just threaten a filibuster and carry it out–and carry on about how bad redeployment would be for hours while the country supports the idea.
One cannot understand the role of the U.S. Senate in the history of the United States if one does not understand the filibuster and at least some of the central bills it was used for to attempt to stop bills.
Boxing without Headgear
Everything becomes clear now
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Today’s Tosser
Mike Allen demonstrating the vacuousness of the DC press.
Now, Obama’s about to endure a going-over that would make a proctologist blush. Why has he sometimes said his first name is Arabic, and other times Swahili? Why did he make up names in his first book, as the introduction acknowledges? Why did he say two years ago that he would “absolutely” serve out his Senate term, which ends in 2011, and that the idea of him running for president this cycle was “silly” and hype “that’s been a little overblown”?
In interviews, strategists in both parties pointed to four big vulnerabilities: Obama’s inexperience, the thinness of his policy record, his frank liberalism in a time when the party needs centrist voters and the wealth of targets that are provided by the personal recollections in his first book, from past drug use to conversations that cannot be documented.
The first two are rather odd. The introduction to the book explains why he did it. I understand when Lynn Sweet brought this up, but it isn’t exactly an interesting story to say he had a hard time writing it and so he used composite characters. Secondly, the whole thing about claiming his name has different origins isn’t quite right since his name actually does its roots in two different origins–or at least it isn’t an issue of controversy as Mike Allen being too stupid to understand how words develop.
How does a class of people become so vapid? Seriously, his story is not shedding any light, but gossiping about the cool kids are thinking he’s doing too well so they’ll start being hard on him on such issues, even though some are demonstrably false.
a little more from Brother Tosser:
At the DNC meeting, Obama surprised some in the audience by seeming to scoff at the intricacy of public policy. “There are those who don’t believe in talking about hope,” he said. “They say, well, we want specifics, we want details, we want white papers, we want plans. We’ve had a lot of plans, Democrats. What we’ve had is a shortage of hope.”
A former Democratic official in close touch with several of the campaigns said: “Downplaying the importance of specific plans and ideas seems like a really strange strategy from somebody who is clearly very smart, policy-wise, but hasn’t established that with the broader public yet.”
He just wrote a book. It’s fine for the average guy on the street saying they haven’t heard the details of his plans, but for a member of the press to bitch about him not having ideas or specifics, I think you can get on Amazon and buy the damn book.
And Clean Too!–Today’s Tosser
Mr. Biden is equally skeptical—albeit in a slightly more backhanded way—about Mr. Obama. “I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy,” he said. “I mean, that’s a storybook, man.”
But—and the “but” was clearly inevitable—he doubts whether American voters are going to elect “a one-term, a guy who has served for four years in the Senate,” and added: “I don’t recall hearing a word from Barack about a plan or a tactic.”
Clean? WTF?
And, of course, Obama has been giving fairly detailed speeches on the war and a new strategy since at least November of 2005.
Today’s Tosser
He gets in on the Halfrican label.
Wouldn’t you think people would be embarrassed by miscegenation jokes by now?
Today’s Tosser
After it’s clearly been demonstrated that Besuki Primary School was a public school, Gibson suggests the reporter who did the story probably went to the same madrassa.
Fair and Balanced.
Today’s Tosser
Fox News executive Bill Shine told CNN “Reliable Sources” anchor Howard Kurtz that some of the network’s hosts were simply expressing their opinions and repeatedly cited Insight as the source of the allegations.
Perhaps Fox should have a professional development session on the definition of opinion.
Today’s Tosser
I’m saving the Daily Dolt
The real problem would seem to be here:
nor his vile hatred of George W. Bush.
W. isn’t too popular in the black community, Fran. There are many, many good reasons for that, but disliking George Bush isn’t being a black supremacist. It’s being with about 65% of the public in the US, slightly more in Illinois, and a hell of a lot more in Trinity’s community.
Today’s Tosser
Tom Roeser: Snopes is an Obama fan site.
More to the point, Snopes uses words either written by Obama or from interviews with Obama so this notion that his office needs to respond to addle brained twit is silly. It’s all been covered already.