THE DAILY BLADE: U.S. Congress Takes A Page From The Iraq Parliament’s Playbook
The Senate recessed on June 27, 2008 for the Fourth of July holiday having failed to enact legislation on critical economic issues, notes The Washington Post:
With each side using the Senate's byzantine rules to gain advantage, work in the upper chamber, always balky, has ground to a halt.
Senate Democrats accuse Republicans of adopting intransigence as a strategy to produce a “do-nothing” Congress. Senate Republicans acknowledge using delay tactics but say they are reacting to a heavy-handed Democratic majority that has denied them a voice on the Senate floor. …
“It's a delay-of-game Congress,” said R. Bruce Josten, executive vice president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. "This Congress isn't addressing the issues that are foremost in the public's mind such as gasoline prices, economic anxiety and the housing crisis.”
Senators in both parties say the logjam is the worst they've seen, largely due to copious use of the filibuster. Since January 2007, motions to end debate - cloture motions - have been filed 119 times. The previous record for any two-year session was 82.
Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) has used a procedural tactic to prohibit GOP amendments 13 times since January 2007, more than any Senate leader since 1985.
The embattled Iraqi Parliament did not do much better. While Iraqis have made “satisfactory progress” on 15 of the 18 Congressional benchmarks to measure security, political and economic progress, many still have not been not been enacted and implemented, according to a report by the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad requested by Rep. Mike McIntyre (D-NC) to update the Congressional testimony by Gen. David H. Petraeus and ambassador Ryan C. Crocker last September. Reports The
The embassy judged that the only remaining shortfalls were the
Since the September assessment, the report notes, the Iraqi parliament has passed significant legislation on de-Baathification reform, the division of powers between the central and provincial governments, and amnesty for former insurgents. It grades progress in all of those areas as newly “satisfactory” even as it acknowledges that the laws in most cases have been implemented slowly, if at all. Congress mandated that
The Associated Press reports that for his part, McIntyre is not at all impressed, drawing a distinction between “satisfactory progress” towards a benchmark and fully achieving it.
Bet He Smokes Cigars, Too: Part II
Now why would you title this to include cigars. A kid who did what this one is allegedly doing smokes blunts, not cigars. There's a big difference.
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Heh, heh. But The Stiletto is tweaking the American Medical Association, which complained that kids would take up smoking after seeing the villain smoke cigars in "The Incredible Hulk." This is going to be a running gag until the AMA realizes how ridiculous their position is and backs off.
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Speaking of the U.S. Congress:
The U.S. Congress does not like George W. Bush—Bush committed too many crimes.
George W. Bush committed hate crimes of epic proportions and with the stench of terrorism (indicated in my blog).
George W. Bush did in fact commit innumerable hate crimes.
And I do solemnly swear by Almighty God that George W. Bush committed other hate crimes of epic proportions and with the stench of terrorism which I am not at liberty to mention.
Many people know what Bush did.
And many people will know what Bush did—even to the end of the world.
Bush was absolute evil.
Bush is now like a fugitive from justice.
Bush is a psychological prisoner.
Bush has a lot to worry about.
Bush can technically be prosecuted for hate crimes at any time.
In any case, Bush will go down in history in infamy.
Submitted by Andrew Yu-Jen Wang
B.S., Summa Cum Laude, 1996
Messiah College, Grantham, PA
Lower Merion High School, Ardmore, PA, 1993
“GEORGE W. BUSH IS THE WORST PRESIDENT IN U.S. HISTORY” BLOG OF ANDREW YU-JEN WANG
_________________
I am not sure where I had read it before, but anyway, it goes kind of like this: “If only it were possible to ban invention that bottled up memories so they never got stale and faded.” Oh wait—off the top of my head—I think the quotation came from my Lower Merion High School yearbook.
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Dude, you really need to lay off the coffee. Or whatever it is you were doing when you wrote this.
You weren't born when Jimmy ("stagflation") Carter was president, so George Bush can only be the second worst president. U.S. Grant presided over a bribery scandal in Congress (one of a couple political scandals), so that drops Bush to third worst. Then there was Warren Harding and the Tea Pot Dome scandal; Bush drops down another spot to fourth worst president. And you can't forget Richard Nixon, who resigned before being impeached, and Bill Clinton, who was impeached for perjury. In the grand scheme of things, Bush will end up being a fair to middling president and not "the worst president in U.S. history," your blog notwithstanding.
The Stiletto is guessing that your B.S. did not include any American history courses, else you would not have made such a rash, hyperbolic claim.
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