Gosh, Who Would Have Thought?

Peter Overby did this story this morning on National People's Radio.

In it, he laments the fact that McCain-Feingold has destroyed party structures, especially in the states.

But when I tried to make this case, in my Senate testimony before the Rules and Admin Committee, in April of 2000, it didn't get very far.  The thing is that it was absolutely clear--fifteen years ago!-- that the BCRA was a party-killing incumbent protection bill.  That Caesar of the Senate, John McCain, just finds competition very inconvenient. It's not an accident that now most contributions to candidates, and therefore to incumbent candidates.

So, forgive me.  But I TOLD YOU SO.  We even did a letter, fergoshsakes. 

Mourning Becomes Electra

And the Senate becomes the House.

This is interesting.

This is interesting, and also insightful.

The problem was not the filibuster, which actually was a problem.  The Repubs were abusing it, their obstruction was bad and dangerous.  That's all true.  However, if the Senate rule is that the rules are whatever a simple majority says the rules are....that's worse.

The U.S. is NOT a democracy, if by democracy you mean simple majority rule.  The dodge that "no, it's a republic" is true enough, but the real point is that many of our institutions are explicitly designed to prevent majorities from imposing their will.

An extremely insightful video, with a remarkably handsome commentator.

MSNBC jumps the shark

Consider this description of an MSNBC report:


MSNBC co-host Touré thinks the main reason Senator Mary Landrieu (D., La.) and other red-state Democrats are moving forward with bills to delay Obamacare is that they’ve been “gerrymandered” into safe seats. 

He explained on The Cycle that vulnerable Democrats such as Landrieu, Kay Hagan of North Carolina, and Mark Pryor of Arkansas have to deal with appealing to right-leaning constituents because of their . . . situation. “We see red-state Democrats who are dealing with the challenge of living and governing in a gerrymandered world,” Touré said. 

Um...he does understand that those are all SENATORS, right?  Elected from states?  The big things on the map, the ones with the state lines set by federal statutes of territorial admission?  

I mean, it's one thing to claim that problems in the House are caused by gerrymandering.  (They aren't).  But...the Senate?  Really?  I understand that MSNBC doesn't hire commentators with an IQ over 80, but this is embarrassing.

Pow Wow Chow

They want the "Redskins" to lose their name, but Elizabeth Warren, who is not even Native American, can write (actually, plagiarize) a book called "Pow Wow Chow" and that's okay?

Some background, in an email from WH:

Elizabeth Warren, the queen of the notional proposition, wrote a book entitled Pow Wow Chow. 

It was much later pointed out that the book was plagiarized. Basically no one ever read the book and those that did read it at its face value [recipe book]. 

However, when Warren was running for the senate she made a big deal of being of native American ancestry. The claim of native American ancestry lead people to investigate the claim. The investigation spider webbed into all kinds of nooks and crannies once it was determined her claim was dubious and that she had parleyed her claim into obtaining crony type benefits over her career. 

The aggregate investigation by reporters and plain old regular folks lead to the uncovering of Pow Wow Chow as plagiarized. The plagiarizing is old news. But the Amazon book reviews are little known. Huh? Given the above, the book Pow Wow Chow is sold on Amazon. Over the years only a handful of reviews existed. Once the whole native American ancestry deal was exposed and the book having been plagiarized, people started visiting the book's site on Amazon and writing additional comments. Some of the "new" comments [note the proliferation in 2012] are absolutely hysterical! 

 I'm not so sure about the "plagiarism" thing.  After all, these are recipes.  Maybe she should have made a little more effort to change things up, but recipes are rarely original.

The title "Pow Wow Chow," on the other hand:  Wow! She can only get away with that because she's a real Native American.  Oh...wait.

Just when you think you have heard it all...

...it turns out that Pete Domenici has fathered enough children to have his own baseball team, from the Domenician Republic.  (Thanks to a commenter on the original article for that one).

One with the then-24-year-old daughter of a fellow senator.  Wow.

Nod to Anonyman.

Living it up at the Hamptons

So, the feds prosecuted former Senator John Edwards.  FAIL.

And the feds are going after Douglas Hampton, really hard.

But former Senator Ensign gets a free pass.

Even though Hampton cooperated with the Justice Department, and gave the lawyers PLENTLY to hammer Ensign with.  There is actually a case against Ensign.  He should go to jail.  But.... nothing.

A deal?  Ensign may know something about Democratic Senator..... Anonyman wants to know.