Monday, January 15, 2007
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Democratic Majority: How To Lose Your Way in 100 Hours
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Posted by:
Mary Katharine Ham at
2:31 PM
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If you're like me, you may have lost sight of what the Dems were doing in their first 100 hours while you were paying attention to all the troop surge talk. So, let's go over it, lest you miss out on the entertainment.
This picture pretty much says it all:
This is the good stuff:
Yesterday on the Senate floor, Majority Leader Harry Reid was caught pulling out every stop to kill his own party's plan for earmark reform.
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To Speaker Nancy Pelosi's credit, House Democrats recently passed ethics legislation that included provisions making earmarks more transparent. ... The ethics reform offered by Senate Democrats contained none of these tougher earmark provisions. So Senate Republicans, led by South Carolina's Jim DeMint, cheekily took the identical language of the House earmark bill and offered it as an amendment to the Senate version. Numerous Democrats instantly denounced it, apparently unaware (or unconcerned) that the language had been sponsored by Ms. Pelosi.
Maybe that's why they stopped the clock at 17:48. A few more hours like this, and the New America of Democratic Prosperity will be seriously endangered. This was the scene last week on the floor:
Dick Durbin, the Majority Whip, threw a fit on the Senate floor and offered a motion to table it (kill it)...
Senate Leadership tried to kill a bill that House Leadership supported and passed. Harry Reid and Dick Durbin are basically saying that they want their pork no matter what, even if it embarrasses their own party.
So when the motion to kill the bill came to a vote, Durbin and the Democrats lost! [ed. note: At this point, the Senate erupted. The chair, who I think was Maria Cantwell, banged the gavel repeatedly to bring the room to order. The Democrats were frantically performing triage in an attempt to recover.]...
Anyways, a reliable and friendly source in the Senate is telling me, "This is absolutely amazing. Senate Dem Leaders are twisting arms and defying Senate precedent in order to reverse an earmark reform vote that was based on Nancy Pelosi’s proposal."
Read the whole thing for color. Hmm, question for Dem feminists-- would a Pelosi-passed bill have been treated with so little respect by her male counterpart in the Senate if she were a man? This was quite the public smackdown of her leadership in the House on an important, campaign-promise issue. Of course, Democrats, by virtue of not being Republicans, are incapable of ever show anything but the utmost respect for women in a professional setting. Kinda like Bill Clinton.
Bonus Reid-whining:
After the move to kill the DeMint language failed, Democrats refused to allow the amendment to be approved by voice, a normal procedure, and an hour later Reid called the entire Senate to the floor to beseech them to reconsider. He did not set a time for a final vote.
"It's important that the Senate rules be amended slowly and with careful, bipartisan deliberation," Reid said, stressing that the House didn't spend much time on its version and the Senate approach was "so much better."
Smart moves by these guys (and Pelosi and House Dems) for actually supporting the reform they promised on a no-brainer of an issue:
Among the Democrats siding with DeMint were possible presidential candidates Barack Obama, D-Ill., and John Kerry, D-Mass., freshmen Jim Webb of Virginia and Jon Tester of Montana, and Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, who faces a tough re-election bid in 2008.
But why, oh, why, mightn't Reid be in favor of strong earmark reforms? This from Bob Novak's column on the Republicans' plans to offer a tough-on-earmarks "Reid amendment" (ouch) this week:
The proposal follows the revelation that Reid's four sons and his daughter's husband all have been lawyers or lobbyists for special interests. While Reid has declared they are barred from lobbying for their clients in his office, there is little doubt they have taken advantage of their close proximity to a powerful senator.
An example is provided by earmarks that have sent millions of federal dollars to the University of Nevada at Reno. Reid's son-in-law, lawyer Steven Barringer, was a paid lobbyist for the university. In general, Republican reformers see Reid illustrating the nexus between legislators and special interests, in his case mainly real estate, gambling and mining.
More on Reid's connections, here.
I'm not sure of the fate of the "Reid amendment" plans, since DeMint and Reid have come to an agreement on the DeMint amendment:
“Senator Reid and I have reached a bipartisan agreement on earmark disclosure that is even stronger than what I had originally proposed."
If this is what a honeymoon-period win looks like for Senate Democrats, I'm gonna enjoy the 110th Congress.
Pelosi's not exactly the picture of detachment from special interests, either. Looks like everyone has to pay the new minimum wage except for Pacific Islands whose economies rely largely on Star Kist Tuna, whose parent company is headquartered in San Francisco.
Points awarded to North Carolina Rep. Patrick McHenry for this shot: (emphasis mine)
During the House debate yesterday on stem-cell research, Mr. McHenry raised a parliamentary inquiry as to whether an amendment could be offered that would exempt American Samoa from stem-cell research, "just as it was for the minimum-wage bill."
A clearly perturbed Rep. Barney Frank, the Massachusetts Democrat who was presiding, cut off Mr. McHenry and shouted, "No, it would not be."
"So, the chair is saying I may not offer an amendment exempting American Samoa?" Mr. McHenry pressed.
"The gentleman is making a speech and will sustain," Mr. Frank shouted as he slammed his large wooden gavel against the rostrum.
Video of Frank's tantrum, here.
Pelosi's spokesperson says she was never lobbied by StarKist.
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I'm sorry that you've been duped by the dishonest rhetoric of the Left.
You wrote: "...people who work an honest job are entitled to at least a "living wage." If you are working 40+ hours a week at a real job, waiting on tables, canning tuna, making auto parts, teaching, etc. you should be able to stay above the poverty line."
How many of the people who are working 40+ hours a week at a real job are actually making only minimum wage, do you suppose? Really?
Don't trust the statistics. The standard percentage at minimum wage includes, incredibly, waitresses waiting tables, because their NOMINAL wage is usually something like $2.25/hour. But with tips, their usual wage is more like $10/hour, far above minimum wage. Likewise cabbies, porters, and various other vendors; the stats put them among minimum wage workers, but reality puts them far above that.
My daughter, at 21, waited tables at the Hard Rock Cafe, and I was both galled and impressed that at the time (since I was starting a business that had cash flow problems) she was making more money there than anyone in the family.
The simple truth is, the market prices labor higher than minimum wage, and that's as it ought to be. So relax. People are getting what they're worth.
You also wrote: "...the salaries of over-compensated CEOs and the like, which are at historically high multiples of the average worker's wages ... suggest that the "market" is not doing a great job of rewarding work and results...."
This is nonsense, and has nothing whatsoever to do with the minimum wage discussion. The market, as always, is pricing such work PERFECTLY. It just galls you that they're making so much -- and you're not. Why else would it bother you? their high wages don't take a nickel out of your pocket, and if they mess up, it's not YOUR money that's been lost. Boards of directors will not pay more than the candidate is worth, not for long, and even if they do, it's their money, they can do with it as they please.
If you're going to whine about somebody making too much, take note of what Oprah Winfrey and Tom Brady earn; and then, you and your husband (or wife, I don't know your gender) should stop watching so damn much TV, so their wages can come down to more normal levels. |
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Did Colorado have a disaster and I missed it? What does this state need with Federal disaster aid? What happened?
Yah, its cold. Yah, we got snow. Yah, DIA had to shut down becuase of stupidity. But stupid actions by Californians usually don't qualify as disasters. |
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Last week you were all in favor of raising the minimum wage. This week we find out you support exemptions for politically connected locales. What will next week bring? |
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Wait until they hear the news that Iran says Liberalism is the cause of terrorism and a well written book says that the liberal progressives are responsible for 9-11.
For once I may have to agree with the terrorist. The liberal progressives are destroying the foundation of the world in their desire to remove all religion from the public square and the slime put out by Holy-wood is destroying the young people.
I disagree with the terrorists on their target selection on 9-11. If they are after the liberal progressives (liberal progressives don't work in office buildings) they will have to pick 10 major colleges and universities and hit them. They will hit their chosen target (liberal progressives) in any 9 of the 10 they pick. Hitting anywhere in Ca and specifically Hollywood/SF would take out a lot of liberal progressives. Denver Co would be a good choice and anywhere in Oregon and Wash state will surfice. Definetly hit the NYT and LAT, they weren't leaking national secrutiry data to help you, they were helping themselves and the liberal progressives 'look big' and important.
Hope this helps the terrorist on their next target selection for a few massive attacks. Less chance of taking out innocient people this way.
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They're all corrupt. The very process is corrupt. Look at John Salazar's latest stunt. He wants federal money for disaster relief here in Colorado. To push this through, he's adding it as a rider to the Iraq military funding package. That's a dirtbag maneuver, but it's in keeping with the rules. Happens all the time.
As I said, the very process is corrupt, and both parties are guilty as he!!. I don't care who you elect or whether they drink the red Koolaid or the blue; to keep electing "new" people is just like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. Only a complete housecleaning will make any difference. New rules only give them new loopholes and new ways to wring us dry.
The single difference between the parties is who criticizes their filthy antics. The Demoncrats get a complete pass in the mainstream media. Dirty Harry Reid is just one perfect example. At least with the Republicans in power, we knew we could count on the media to blast their failings. Now, even that limited level of accountability and control is gone. |
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Gimma a break..The dems have been in office for a relative micro second and already the right wing propaganda machine is turning out tripe like this! You guys control all or most of the power centers in this country...will ya for once let the poor, blue collar,pink collar and working classes in this country breath...have a chance to earn a living wage and provide for their families.By the way...it would also be advisable to run not walk in the direction of the pragmatic conservatives who recognize the moronic foreign policy our government has been follwing and are now, at long last,coming over to the side of reason. |
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that Pinky Reid (folks in Nevada will get that reference) and Pelousy are pulling this garbage. The RATs have been the home of corruption since the 1800s, and nothing has changed. Tammany Hall, the Pendergast Machine, the Dennison Machine, the Daley Machine...one party states in the South...all Democrats.
You'd figure people would have learned...not that Republicans are necessarily any better, they just havn't had the opportunities for graft that the JackAss Party has had...but from Dingy Harry's land deals to Nancy's "exceptions" to the minimum rage, people got precisely what they voted for:
Old-line, corrupt limousine liberals.
As Bill Engvall once said, "I hate stupid people"...especially when they vote.
Great blog, Mary Katherine! |
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However it does prove that raising the minimun wage is a crock. It only causes employers to A:raise prices to cover wages. B:move where people will work for lower wages, or C: layoff employees to compensate |
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