THE DAILY BLADE: Read The Bill
Writing in the PostPartisan blog, columnist Eva Rodriguez admits, her “jaw dropped" when she heard John Conyers (D-MI) say (video): “I love these members that get up and say, 'Read the bill' … What good is reading the bill if it’s a thousand pages and you don’t have two days and two lawyers to find out what it means after you read the bill?” She adds:
Conyers, of course, didn't say anything we didn't already suspect. No doubt few lawmakers who voted on the $800 billion stimulus package really knew, or understood, what was contained in the hundreds of pages of text. Same goes for the 900-plus pages of the cap-and-trade bill that the House approved recently. And the same could be said of almost any other piece of legislation that wends its way through both chambers.
Rodriguez reports that Let Freedom Ring, an advocacy group that is "promoting constitutional government, economic freedom and traditional values," and is endeavoring to get members of Congress to sign its "Responsible Healthcare Reform Pledge":
I, [NAME OF LAWMAKER], pledge to my constituents and the American people that I will not vote to enact any healthcare reform package that (1) I have not read, personally, in its entirety; and, (2) has not been available, in its entirety, to the American people on the Internet for at least 72 hours, so that they can read it too.
As of this writing, seven Senators (all Repubs) have signed the pledge, and none of the 91 Representatives who signed is a Dem - apparently, not even a single Blue Dog wants to read the complex, costly - and quite possibly catastrophic - legislation before (s)he votes on it.
Editorial Note: In a commentary published by The American Spectator, actor-columnist-economist Ben Stein asks “Why is President Barack Obama in such a hurry to get his socialized medicine bill passed?” In a nutshell: Having overlooked – thanks in large part to a negligent MSM – troubling or glossed-over aspects of his background during the presidential campaign, “Mr. Obama knows Americans are getting wise and will stop him if he delays at all in taking away our freedoms.”
Former IL Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D) famously had a penchant for reciting poetry at his press conferences. Turns out that former AK Gov. Sarah Palin (R) is a poet and she didn't even know it. At Conan O'Brien's behest, here's William Shatner reciting (nearly verbatim, except for the words The Stiletto placed in brackets) the second paragraph of Sarah Palin's July 26, 2009 farewell speech on "The Tonight Show" as a Beat poem - complete with bongos (video):
Soaring through nature's finest show,
Denali, the great one, soaring under the midnight sun.
And then the extremes.
In the winter time,
It's the frozen road that is competing with [all of it's] ice fogged frigid beauty.
The cold though,
Doesn't it split
The Cheechakos from the Sourdoughs?
And then in the summertime, such extreme[s]
Summertime ...
About a hundred and fifty degrees hotter than just some months ago [and]
Than just some months from now.
With fireweed blooming along the frost heaves and merciless rivers that are rushing,
And carving and reminding us that here,
Mother Nature wins.
It is as throughout all Alaska, that big wild good life
Teeming along the road that is north
To the future.
As it happens, Palin's idealized description of the Alaskan wilderness is a classic idyll - and say what you will, but Shatner's rendition works a lot better than the crappy poem by Elizabeth Alexander we had to endure during President Barack Hussein Obama's seemingly interminable (thanks in no small part to that "poem") inauguration ceremony.
Editorial Note: Here’s what Shatner does to keep busy when he’s not versifying.
The Stiletto Scoops Debra Saunders
The Dems have “Bush stole the election” and we have this. The shoe is on the other foot …
- Update to “Is Obama’s Birth Certificate Fake?” (last item), The Stiletto Blog, December 19, 2008
[The "birthers"] are no different from Democrats who claimed that voter fraud in Ohio rigged the 2004 election for George W. Bush - except that Democratic politicians feel little pressure to acknowledge or denounce the fringe elements of their party.
- “All-American Kooks,” Rasmussen Reports, July 28, 2009
The Stiletto Scoops Kathleen Parker
Now that we have elected a biracial president, Americans will no longer tolerate race-baiters simply scuttling away after hurling career-killing accusations of racism. … Gates and Obama … are trying to shove the genie into the beer bottle.
- Update to “Now Is Not The Time To Talk About Race” (sixth item), The Stiletto Blog, July 27, 2009
The genie of race was released from the bottle when America elected its first African American president -- we could finally talk about it. Perfectly, Barack Obama is neither black nor white, but both. … [O]ur little genie is still hostage to old resentments - haunted by subliminal fears and, like all of us, subject to unconscious motivations.
- “Redemption on Tap,” The Washington Post, July 29, 2009
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