senate

Chris Knight's avatar

There’s not a town in West Virginia that doesn’t already have a bridge or a horse trough named after him… so how are they going to memorialize Robert Byrd?

His propensity toward pork barrel spending always irked me. And he was in the Senate way, way too long: nobody has any bidness holding the same elected office for 52 years.

But I must admit: I did have some admiration for Robert Byrd. He was certainly one of the better-read and more eloquent holder of high office in the past century of American history.

Thoughts and prayers going out to his family and the people of West Virginia today....

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Chris Knight's avatar

Ya see, it’s crap like this that makes me despise the Seventeenth Amendment and everything about it.

The United States Senate is supposed to represent the states. Up ’til 1913, it was the individual state legislatures that elected their respective senators. Then the Seventeenth Amendment was passed and made the Senate a popularly-elected office.

And that was the beginning of the real modern era of dirty politics and corruption, in my book.

We had our primary elections here in North Carolina today. Incumbent U.S. Senator Richard Burr won the Republican nomination. He’ll be going against whoever comes out of the runoff set for June 22nd against Elaine Marshall and Cal Cunningham from the Democrat party.

Elaine Marshall ain’t happy. And she wants Cal Cunningham to drop out already… for the good of the Democrats. From WRAL’s website…

“I think not having a runoff is in the Democratic Party’s

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Chris Knight's avatar

Because of two items in the reconciliation bill – one of which having to do with Pell grants, which alone made people scratch their heads in wonder about why it was in the legislation to begin with – the House of Representatives will be voting once more on Barack Obama’s socialized medicine in order to reconcile the differences between the House and Senate versions.

Considering how in the past few days a number of representatives who voted “aye” for this monstrosity have had bricks thrown through the windows of their offices and one such congressman had a coffin dumped on the lawn of his house, I have to ponder aloud if such “knock-knock, zoom-zoom affirmation” might result in more than a few of them finally “getting the message” that the American people DO NOT WANT this crap!...

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Chris Knight's avatar

Because I’m feeling extra cranky tonight (and have for the past 24 hours or so)…

“Chutzpah” is a Yiddish word meaning “shameless audacity”. It’s an olden Hebrew term that in his book The Joys of Yiddish author Leo Rosten describes as “gall, brazen nerve, effrontery, incredible ‘guts,’ presumption plus arrogance such as no other word and no other language can do justice to.”

So what fits in the category of “chutzpah”?

One example of chutzpah is the child who kills both of his parents, and then throws himself down on the mercy of the court on the grounds that he is an orphan.

Another example of chutzpah is the “evangelist” who routinely rails against a television station for “promoting dancing, R-rated movies” as being somehow sinful behavior, yet is apparently not bothered by the fact that he gives more than a million dollars of his congregation’s money to buy airtime ...

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Chris Knight's avatar

Michael D. Tanner of the Cato Institute has written an essay about the costs of Obamacare, which passed the House last night (and which I nearly reacted to on this blog with a blunt “We are sooo f-cked”, before better angels of my nature prevailed).

In his article Tanner makes the following prediction, and I thought it was well worth making note of…

Republicans won’t really try to repeal it. Republicans will run this fall on a promise to repeal this deeply unpopular bill, and will likely reap the political advantages of that promise. But in reality there is little chance of their following through. Even if Republicans were to take both houses of Congress, they would still face a presidential veto and a Democratic filibuster.

But more important, once an entitlement is in place, it becomes virtually impossible to take away. The fact that Republicans have been criticizing

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Chris Knight's avatar

Read about it here.

How the hell is this going to make him any different than Ted Kennedy?

“But Chris, he couldn’t get elected in Massachusetts if he were pro-life!”

There are more important things in this world than “getting elected”.

I have said it before and I will say it again: the vast majority of the Republican party’s leadership and elected officials do not care one iota about the abortion issue. And if they do, it’s only because it never ceases to provide a carrot that gets to be dangled in front of “the faithful” to keep them voting GOP in elections.

It just so happened that this time the carrot was “health care reform”, and that to many people that is more important than the abortion issue. Rather telling also, that Brown has publicly said he doesn’t want the Supreme Court to overrule Roe v. Wade… ...

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Chris Knight's avatar

I don’t live in Massachusetts so yesterday’s special election that saw Scott Brown win the seat vacated by the death of Ted Kennedy didn’t hold any interest for me. But I’d be deaf and blind not to know about the ridiculous amount of passion that’s built up over this election in the past few weeks and months.

Some are saying that Brown won because “the independents are angry”. Which in my mind begs the question: was Ted Kennedy only winning those unconscionably numerous terms of office because he benefited from straight-ticket voting: something that, to the best of my knowledge, wasn’t an option in yesterday’s election? Seems to me that’s an insult to ol’ Teddy’s memory: as if openly admitting that he couldn’t win election on his own merit but rather had to ride the coattails of the Democrat Party.

I’ve never been in favor of allowing straight-ticket voting anyway. ...

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Old Order Mennonites – more popularly known as the Amish – will be exempted from being required to have health insurance if the so-called “health care reform” going through the House and Senate passes. According to the above-linked story in the Watertown Daily Times out of New York state, there’s a “religious conscience” clause that allows Amish and other religious groups to opt-out of the mandated insurance.

How does this not run afoul of the First Amendment, which clearly dictates that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion”?!?

If one group of people is allowed to get out of federal health care because of sincere convictions against such a thing, then all people who object to federalized health care have the moral right to reject it.

I am a follower of Christ who belongs to no particular denomination. And I say from the bottom of my heart ...

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Chris Knight's avatar

…it MIGHT not have enough votes to pass in the Senate.

All the same, it wouldn’t surprise me in the least if it wound up clearing through there as well. And I have never been more supremely disappointed in the House of Representatives than this past weekend for passing this.

These are supposed to be men and women of sound mind, great wisdom and far-reaching vision. With very little exception, they are short-sighted and sold out on principle utterly.

Leadership entails having the resolve to say “no” to your own goals and appetites when the world tempts you to say “yes”. As it is, there is damned little leadership in American government… and it’s an open question as to whether we have any leadership at all, or have in quite a long time....

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