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Barack Obama  |
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Rob Kailey is a working schmuck with no ties or affiliations to any governmental or political organizations, save those of sympathy.
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Thu Apr 12, 2007 at 12:16:41 PM MST
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| As a miniature ode to the late-and-great Kurt Vonnegut, I will be replacing the term asshole with * -- and using it thoroughly -- in today's post.
- Bill Kennedy is in. Good. I didn't support Kennedy in the '04 SOS Primary and I think he made some mistakes in the general. But from what I know of him, he's a smart and good man. The biggest concern about him that I hear is that he lacks the "edge" to take on someone like Rehberg, but since the biggest complaint I hear about Rehberg is that he is an *, we just might need a nice guy to beat him.
- Meanwhile, Max Baucus is close to the 60 votes he needs to get a Medicare Part D drug negotiation bill through the Senate. Why does he need 60 votes? Because Finance Committee ranking member Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) is threatening to filibuster (this is literally the kind of stuff Republicans filibuster -- low drug prices). Of course, now that he's near 60 votes, Republican Senator Olympia Snowe is saying that the bill doesn't go far enough. But rather than working to whip her fellow GOPers into, y'know, not supporting an * filibuster against senior citizens, she might try to amend the measure in such a way that it loses a few votes, lacks the support to overcome a filibuster and nothing happens. End result? Olympia runs back to Maine touting her moderate cred while drug companies probably send her fat checks for helping to scuttle a bill that would undermine their record profits. The long-term argument against Max's deal-cutting is that it treats these *es too well. The short-term argument is that they are such * that without some sort of deal-cutting, literally nothing would happen except the sucking of corporate * in Washington D.C.
- Similar stuff is happening back home where the Governor is forcing the Republican House to decide just how much they hate the idea of stream access. Brian used an amendatory veto to insert stream access language into a bill that has already passed. Still, the caucus that apparently cares for "nothing except permanent tax cuts" has apparently changed their position. They don't just want tax cuts for out-of-state landowners. They want exclusive fishing rights for them as well.
They have a good point, too. These rich folks from out-of-state probably invested big time in pharmaceutical companies and their pay can't keep rising at 3 times the rate of inflation forever, can it? They'll hardly even be able to afford the property taxes on their 30,000 square foot summer homes soon.
It's just not fair.
- Finally, U.S. Attorney William Mercer, the guy who (sorta) runs federal prosecutions in Montana, testified in a closed hearing about his role in the firings of multiple U.S. Attorneys around the country. Some of these other U.S. Attorneys were let go for failing to really be in charge of their offices. Of course, unlike Mercer, most of them were just U.S. Attorneys and, unlike Mercer, I don't think any of them ever got accused of failing to do their job adequately by a sitting federal judge in their district.
Some days I don't know what to be most angry about: the utter disregard for the concerns of most people, the constant sucking-up to corporate power, or the complete inability to do their jobs adequately.
Good folks running this country. Yes sirree. |
| Matt Singer :: A Few Things - Bill Kennedy Announces, Max Baucus Trounces, Bridge Access Bounces (Back) |
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