This just underlines how flat crazy the Republicans have become.
For Democrats in general, it's one somewhat-more-liberal vote in the Senate (now that Specter is trying to win the Dem primary instead of the Republican primary) for two years that they otherwise wouldn't have.
And for Democrats in the Senate, it means keeping their old buddy Arlen around instead of having to deal with some noob.
Isn't he still going likely to be in for a primary challenge from at least one of the Dems who was thinking of opposing him? Specter will win, but he'll have to move left from where he is now to do it.
The most surprising thing about this is how long it took Specter to do it. It was obvious months ago that this was his best move to save his seat.
Is there some bill we can pass in the next two years to simply gloat over the 60 seat majority? Perhaps the Free Abortions for Welfare Mothers Act of 2009.
I thought most of the potential Dems in the primary were still feeling things out - and with Specter in the running, it'll be an expensive race. (Best case: Specter gets a bit more liberal for the next year, then loses the primary.)
5: Don't count your chickens before they become Blue Dogs.
Isn't he still going likely to be in for a primary challenge from at least one of the Dems
Also, Phil Spector is going to jail. All the spectors are going where they should.
PF gets it right in 1. The ideological cleansing happening in the GOP makes me disgusted and sad. TPM points out the structural bias against his running as an independent, and faced with the fact that the Republican party in PA has many fewer moderates now than during his last close primary, he's doing the only thing he can to save his seat.
This isn't (yet, anyway) a clear victory for the Democratic party, but it's definitely a loss for the GOP.
If he doesn't switch his vote on the Employee Free Choice Act, the unions should primary him hard. He said he wouldn't go for EFCA, but there will be plenty of excuses for him to switch (changes in the bill) between now and 2010.
Policies, not party.
It looks like a net win for Democrats even if it isn't a big win. One of the senators likely to be at the margin of any close vote is going to spend the next year or so trying to win the affections of Democratic primary voters instead of Republican primary voters.
The ideological cleansing happening in the GOP makes me disgusted and sad.
Boy, do we react differently. It makes me downright giddy to watch them work their damnedest at cementing permanent minority status.
If he doesn't switch his vote on the Employee Free Choice Act, the unions should primary him hard.
My guess is he'll vote for cloture, then abstain.
He and other Dems have said they'll vote against EFCA, but would they vote against cloture?
This just underlines how flat crazy the Republicans Democrats have become.
Specter has promised not to vote as a Democrat. He's a free spirit. Moderation wants to be free.
13: Without even getting into ideology I can say that having two strong parties is much better for the country than having only one.
What I'd really like is a strong political party I didn't disagree with more than half the time, but I'd also like a flying car that gets 2000 miles to the gallon and bacon that's good for me.
Obama has promised to support Spector against any Democratic primary challenge. and I presume many other Dem Senators will do so, so Spector may run unopposed.
So we get the Bluest (Reddist?) Blue Dog since, hell, the 60s. The most right-wing Democrat will get his way on policy details, lots of goodies, facetime on TV, and another term.
It's always about deals. We may get EFCA next year, and then a Justice that is barely, barely pro-choice, or whatever rings the old guys bells.
Where does Spector stand on war crimes trials?
I guarantee deals, favors, and promises have already been made. We have gained some things, and lost some things today.
He and other Dems have said they'll vote against EFCA, but would they vote against cloture?
I hope so. I don't know what "cloture" is[1], but it sounds pretty vile. We need less cloture, not more.
[1]this is not an invitation to tell me what cloture is, just to be clear.
Clearly this is a net win for the Dems, though it's by no means clear how big a win. I wouldn't rely on any attempt to guess how Specter is going to vote on anything; he's an opportunist above all, and I doubt he has any strongly held policy positions. This isn't the first time he's switched parties.
The ideological cleansing happening in the GOP makes me disgusted and sad.
W/ev. I'd much rather they fucking show their cards for the deliberately ignorant, race-and-bible-baiting dumbasses they've become. The less cover they get from people who don't think that FDR made the depression worse, that evolution is a plot, that war in the middle east is going to hasten the second coming, or that family leave and birth control are part of the socialist/feminist plot to destroy our purity of essence, the better off the country will be.
Including, presumably, the eventual return of a non-dumbass second party.
23:Cloture is the 60 votes requited to end debate, IOW, end a filibuster.
Just to be clear, I'm a troll, and don't need an invitation.
Oops, 24 was me. Goddammit, not having a computer of my own sucks.
23: You know when your dog vomits something up and then eats it again right away? That's cloture. It really is quite vile.
having two strong parties is much better for the country than having only one.
"Lord, give this nation two strong parties--but not yet!"
Another thing to consider here is that Specter is 79 years old and has cancer.
Spector wants to spend the rest of his life in the Senate, Strom-Thurmond-style. There's an easy way for someone to satisfy his wish for him immediately, without any tedious waiting period. Anyone here live in PA or DC?
... people who don't think that FDR made the depression worse, that evolution is a plot, that war in the middle east is going to hasten the second coming, or that family leave and birth control are part of the socialist/feminist plot to destroy our purity of essence ...
Uhhh, what? Who? Huh?
13: It makes me downright giddy to watch them work their damnedest at cementing permanent minority status.
110% with Apo, fedward. That the R's have outed themselves as the George Wallace Dixiecrat party is fine, in the sense that that will hurt them in the long run. God forbid they run as some kind of fucking Bushian moderates again. I grant that it's sad that one of the Republic's major political parties is deeply desirous of a return to 1852 (but they'd be willing to compromise on 1887!). Further to that it is sad that the nuts in that political party continue to march resolutely towards Oz or Mars or wherever the fuck they're going. Nonetheless, the further they go towards insanity, the less likely that they can masquerade as sane people, and hopefully the less power they'll have in 2010 and 2012. The alternative in those election years of an improved Republican position for a bunch of loons pretending to be sane is simply too awful to contemplate.
max
['If we can pin the sumbitches down in the seven sisters of the Old Confederacy, we can encircle the fuckers.']
27: Wait, that's what cloture is? I thought it was when you sucked the snot out of your congested infant's nose. I wonder what that's called, then.
9: And Max Spector will be marching at the front of the hippy May Day parade on Sunday! Huzzah!
The Haymarket martyrs will never be forgotten!
5: Federally recognize gay marriage, and make up for the failure to legalize it earlier by giving married same-sex couples a 50% tax cut. Reparations for slavery. Navajo as the official national language. Statehood for DC. A border fence around the Bible Belt. Adopt the Euro as the new national currency. Remove "In God We Trust" from currency and replace it with "In Quetzalcoatl We Trust." Subsidize abortion, birth control, and butt plugs. Teach creationism in public schools - the Hindu version, where the true age of the Universe is several hundred trillion years (or perhaps infinite) and evolution is hunky-dory.
33: That's called a motion to recommit.
35: I'm going to make a Haymarket-referencing sign for @ist May Day, and have it out for hippy May Day too.
That the R's have outed themselves as the George Wallace Dixiecrat party is fine
Except this is only true for a very vocal and arguably deranged minority. The party is being gutted by the wackos; the assertion here and elsewhere is that the party has been a bunch of wackos all along and now the truth is coming out.
Larison's take. One of his readers remarks: "Somewhere out there, there's an Alf Landon slouching towards Topeka to be born."
having two strong parties is much better for the country than having only one
I agree up to a point. Having a submissive center-right party and an aggressive far-right party sucks and hasn't done anything good for the country AT ALL. The modern GOP is evil, frankly, and I'd prefer a single-party state to those asshats participating in government. But I'll take a strong Democratic and a strong actually Left party.
Can we declare comity now?
30: Emerson, are you under the impression that the feds quit surveilling the internet on January 20? Shit, man. Stay out of jail.
so Spector may run unopposed.
I cannot imagine Spector's flipping without getting a pretty tight promise from the DNC that it will fund his Dem primary opponent(s) with leftover Chuck E. Cheese tickets and all the dryer lint they need.
Clearly this is a net win for the Dems
This is clearly correct, but the jury is still out on whether it's a net win for basic human decency.
32:Hell, in my dotage, I don't predict elections or the demise of parties. I have seen Nixon win after Goldwater, and Bush win in 2004. I saw great Congresspersons disappear in 1980.
Banksters or Pakistan or whoknowswhat could bring Obama down in 2012.
And the Republicans, when they win again, will be a united wingnut incoherent party, with even less restraint than under Shrub.
Not even theoretical sympathy for the Reps, "two strong parties better than one" is a reduction. One of two parties being a weak minority or even fragmented for a period of time is a periodic occurrence (take Republicans 1932-1946, or recently the conservatives in Canada), and completely different from an unhealthily lopsided system (Mexico, Japan).
also: cloture means ur a clot as any fule kno.
Navajo as the official national language.
T'áá 'aaníí!
Perhaps the Free Mandatory Abortions for Welfare Mothers Act of 2009.
Agreed with 13 and 32 when it comes to getting conservatives to exhibit the underlying ideology of their arguments ("Roe was wrong because there's no right to privacy? So Griswold also was wrong and states are free to ban contraception? And a court's ruling on marriage is an impermissible power grab, so we should go back to banning interracial marriage?).
But I don't want people who sincerely agree with low taxes and little regulation to feel compelled to vote Democrat because the Republicans have become so repugnant nationally. Some repugnancy is inevitable at the local level; my dad, who has donated thousands to Republican candidates, broke down and helped with a fundraiser for the incumbent Dem House candidate the year the new Republican was an overt and unabashed race-baiter and immigrant-hater. Dad loves him some low taxes and tort reform, but even he can handle only a certain amount of undifferentiating no-really-he's-talking-about-you-too animus toward brown people.
Except this is only true for a very vocal and arguably deranged minority.
No. The very vocal and deranged part of the GOP is well over half of their congressional delegation.
The party is being gutted by the wackos
Starting with Nixon, intensified by Reagan, further by Gingrich, and brought to full flower by GWB/Cheney. The wackos have been in charge for quite some time, and that's not even counting the Helms, Thurmonds, Schlaflys, etc.
23:Cloture is the 60 votes requited to end debate, IOW, end a filibuster.
Gibberish. Absolute, meaningless gibberish. It sounds like some Saturday Night Live sketch about Lord Fancypants explaining cricket.
17: Actually in his press release he promised to remain a free spirit, then he turned around and told Obama "I'm a loyal Democrat. I support your agenda."
48:But I don't want people who sincerely agree with low taxes and little regulation to feel compelled to vote Democrat
This is what I have been scared of, well for decades I guess. Do we really want Andrew Sullivan or 'von' in the Democratic Party, supporting gay rights, limited war, choice, and Ronald Reagan's economics? YMMV
Without a right-center Republican Party, the country will move left but the Democrats will move right. And then maybe a third-party Wallace of the left will come to swing an election to a wingnut.
Without a right-center Republican Party, the country will move left but the Democrats will move right.
Um, that already happened *with* a healthy GOP.
50: "Politics is complicated! Let's go shopping!"
Actually in his press release he promised to remain a free spirit, then he turned around and told Obama "I'm a loyal Democrat. I support your agenda."
Ideally this is an early sign of the reversal of the standard Specter antics - he'll start to talk independent and then vote Dem when the time comes.
Sorry, I've got houseguests and no time to catch up on the thread, but as a constituent:
This is only good insofar as Specter votes with Dems for cloture 100% of the time from now until 2010. He's old, so it's not like this move secures the seat for Dems indefinitely; he's useless, so it's not like I want him in our caucus; and this move will almost certainly cement his reelection, which I would have put around 25% likelihood a week ago.
So I'm basically feh, but if he plus Franken suddenly change the dynamic such that no R vote is required to do anything, starting next week, I'm OK with it. Ideally, of course, he switches, votes with us, and still loses the primary to a real Dem. We'll see.
Also, 4 gets it exactly right.
Perhaps the Mandatory Free Abortions, Free Child Care, and Affordable Housing for Welfare Mothers Act of 2009 with a rider funding public art projects.
"Mandatory" doesn't really comport with that whole choice meme we're always on about.
"Mandatory" doesn't really comport with that whole choice meme we're always on about.
It sure would piss off the right-wingers, though.
Specter has said before that he would vote against cloture and against EFCA. Maybe the Dems have extracted some promise from him to the contrary, but if not, fuck a bunch of Arlen Specter.
I still believe you, Anita.
59: Yeah, mandatory abortions for welfare recipients sounds like the Republicans fondest (if secret) wish. The anti-choice crows was actually quite pleased with laws that cut off benefits after two kids.
"Mandatory" doesn't really comport with that whole choice meme we're always on about.
You're confusing yourself with H-L again. He's the one who is always going on about the "exterminate the brutes" meme.
Okay, a compromise: mandatory abortions for the top 1% of taxpayers.
I'm sure the anti-choice crows were also pleased with the idea of cutting off benefits.
51: OK. He promised both to vote like a Democrat and to not vote like a Democrat.
Yeah, that sounds like Specter all right.
50. Daniel it's just a fucking procedural motion. Every legislature is full of them, they're a wonderful way for legislators to avoid doing anything that might benefit their constituents, and most of them originate in some grubby deal hacked out in the mists of time.
I'm betting this was something like a way of stopping a duel between Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson over the existence of the trinity - it'll be as relevant as that to current concerns.
Have another drink and an adjournment debate.
||
The Heeblet looks very alert in the new pictures.
|>
Meanwhile, Jammies looks *exactly* like all of my uncles circa 1977.
There's a scenario where facing a Democratic Party primary will now pull Specter to the left rather than the right, but that's pretty indirect as good news goes. The only really good thing about this is schadenfreude.
I like how Specter's official statement cited 200K Pennsylvanians who changed their registration from R to D. At face value, that's a pretty innocuous statement of responding to his electorate, and an acknowledgement of the political realities, that it now would be basically impossible for him to win the Republican Party nomination. But remember Limbaugh's Operation Chaos, where he urged his followers to vote in Democratic primaries in hopes of fouling up the Democratic Party nomination? I love the idea that the biggest conservatives of all would have left the party for tactical reasons, fail in their goal at the time, and push their Senator into leaving for real.
This pretty much settles it. An authoritative voice tells us that Specter's change of party is primarily a victory for wankerism:
"I have always admired Arlen as a man of deep principle who has been a bridge builder to get things done in the Senate. Arlen understands that we get things accomplished when we listen to the vital center of American politics. I know that Arlen will continue to make a major contribution to the Senate and the nation as an effective independent leader and problem solver." - Joe Lieberman.
Craappo.
He's the Marx Brother they never talk about.
Apparently Specter said today that he won't vote for cloture on EFCA, and he's opposing the appointment of Dawn Johnsen as head of OLC. So why exactly is Obama supporting him?
73: Healthcare? Additional stimulus in the near future?
I heart 70.
Really, this is all about EFCA. For me, that is, not for Specter, for whom it's all about Specter, no problem there. Whatever else Specter does, if his switch not only allows him to support EFCA but also allows EFCA to pass, the Democratic Party gets a little bigger and a little lefter. My fear is that it allows Specter to support a losing EFCA and remain in his seat, which is worth very little.
57: Yeah, I wasn't making a sincere suggestion there. A sincere suggestion would be The If You're Actually Serious About Reducing The Number Of Abortions Let's Have Some Decent Sex Education And Subsidized Contraception In Public Schools Otherwise Shut The Fuck Up And Get Back To Your Side Of The Aisle, Wingnut Hypocrite Act Of 2009.
Actually, I'd like to hear a lot more Shut The Fuck Up from the Democrats right now. Bachmann, Shut The Fuck Up. Steele, Shut The Fuck Up. Lieberman, Shut The Fuck Up. The adults are trying to get some shit done.
So just what are the rules in the House of Commons about when a debate has to go to a division and not just run out of time? AFAIK it's basically up to the Government whips. I remember David Amess MP killing a disability rights bill by reading out chunks of the Basildon telephone directory.
Fuck shit bastard cunt murder. Can I stand the coming Tory government? It's a hellish prospect. Just at the moment when everything they believe has collapsed, they're coming back, and they are simply denying that anything happened.
Wasn't it Cardinal Newman or someone who said that an excessive interest in theological matters on the part of a member of the laity is altogether too often a prelude to going round the twist? I feel the same way about parliamentary procedure. Nope, cloture, filibuster, the whole lot of them are meaningless gibberish, and I will resist any attempt to make me give a fuck, with violence if necessary. "Cloture" in any case, as any fule kno clearly comes from clot + ordure, ie a mass of congealed excrement. I don't want to delve any deeper into the matter.
Via TPM: We may not get one good vote out of Arlen we weren't gonna get anyway, but today has already been worth it to watch GOP commentators take on that hunched over bitter snarl they all have now.
77 -- No one has to pay any attention to them.
39 -- As Forrest Gump's mother would say, wackos is as wackos does. Feel free to hoot at this.
77: But I want attention paid to them. Hostile attention. On national TV broadcasts. Wherein they are told verbatim to Shut The Fuck Up.
I'll be astonished if this doesn't work out for the Democrats. What could go wrong?
I remember David Amess MP killing a disability rights bill by reading out chunks of the Basildon telephone directory.
The telephone book is part of the lore here too, but a quick Google search doesn't turn up any instances of one actually being used. The record US Senate filibuster, incidentally, goes to Strom Thurmond, who courageously talked for more than 24 hours in opposition to the 1957 Civil Rights Act.
Perhaps the Free Mandatory Abortions for Welfare Mothers Act of 2009.
Spector will vote for cloture only after amending it to allow the option of tiny American flags for others.
Actually, I saw somewhere that Spector already votes with Dems more often than Evan Bayh does.
I've heard some talk that maybe Specter will support a watered-down version of EFCA (which looks like it will have trouble passing even with Specter). The problem is: what does that mean? Card check seems pretty binary to me.
SPECTRE is pro-union, of course, since they themselves are a union. Of Evil.
Card check seems pretty binary to me.
I've seen much stricter rules for union elections - aimed at making things more fair for employees, that is - floated as a compromise. But that was in Slate, so who knows. And it's clearly not card check.
It seems clear that a significant number of non-former Republican Democrats were only for EFCA because they knew it wouldn't pass and so the vote wouldn't be held against them.
Remember Limbaugh's Operation Chaos, where he urged his followers to vote in Democratic primaries in hopes of fouling up the Democratic Party nomination?
You know, it's been a year since the primary election in PA, and this year's primary is coming up on May 19. I wonder how many of those 200k have switched their party registrations back?
(I'm not wondering enough to Google right now, though.)
Actually, I saw somewhere that Spector already votes with Dems more often than Evan Bayh does.
Really? I don't know that this is wrong. And I'm certainly not willing to do the research to find out for certain. But I'd be quite surprised if it's true. Value added in this comment? No, not really.
Value added in this comment? No, not really.
Aw, don't sell yourself short, ari. It felt good to read your comment.
Well if some random person on twitter says so...
You know that's the Congress Matters/Daily Kos guy, right? He's generally informed about this kind of thing.
I tried to look it up myself on some vote comparison tool I've seen, but they have a "vote with party", and not "vote with other party" score, so that's not helpful here. CQ has better tools but I don't think they're free.
You know that's the Congress Matters/Daily Kos guy, right? He's generally informed about this kind of thing.
I thought the name looked vaguely familiar.
I tried to look it up myself on some vote comparison tool I've seen, but they have a "vote with party", and not "vote with other party" score, so that's not helpful here.
Since there are only two parties, couldn't you determine the one score from the other?
You'd have to know how the bipartisan agreement score looks, since there are a number of overwhelming majority votes in there.
Anyway, some comparisons between Bayh and some Dems and Specter and some Dems on an individual level suggest that the numbers are wrong, at least for the 110th Congress, but that Specter still voted with Democrats over 50% of the time. Also, Lieberman appears to have voted Democratic more often than Bayh in the same Congress.
"the numbers are wrong" = Bayh voted Democratic a little more often than Specter.
85
Actually, I saw somewhere that Spector already votes with Dems more often than Evan Bayh does.
Not according to this , this or this . (via Yglesias ).
For 2008 ADA scores, Nelson (D, NE) was 75% with them, Specter scored 45%. For 2007, Specter was higher, but still below Nelson. For more years, see http://www.adaction.org/pages/publications/voting-records.php. The scores (from the Americans for Democratic Action) are set-up so that higher is more liberal.
For party voting in the 110th Congress, Specter was the Senate Rep. least likely to vote with his party (70.5% of the time) and Nelson voted with his party 81.2% of the time. See http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/110/senate/party-voters/.
96.1 Yep, that's why I went for the ADA scores first.
95: Not if the percentage includes near-unanimous or otherwise not particularly partisan votes.
I would not trust any organization's scorecards as a reliable indicator of how people vote overall. They're kind of useful for scoring particular issues, I guess, but if you look up the votes there's a fair amount of purely symbolic stuff scored there - votes on bills that never got close to passing, or better yet, votes on amendments to bills that weren't going to pass.
On the other hand, no one cares how boring minor votes break down by party, so the overall vote percentages are limited too.
People will usually split-out 'party-line votes', defined as a majority of one party against a majority of the other party and look at those votes. However, I didn't find that in the first google hits.
I wonder if Waldman is just wrong, or if his data is some other method, or if he's doing career numbers. Specter might have voted more Democratic earlier in his career, perhaps pre-Toomey.
If you go to 2001 ADA scores, you'll see Nelson at 70 and Specter at 40. On the other hand, If you go back to 1981, you will find that Specter had better ADA scores than either of Nebraska's Democratic Senators. You will also find a startling reminder of just how primitive page layout was in 1981.
Specter is a totally unprincipled half-dead old relic, who will be 80 years old when he runs for reelection, and he just got Obama to promise to campaign for him in the 2010 Democratic Pennsylvania primary. We picked up Arlen Specter today, but might have lost a real Democratic Senator next year. It's not a good trade unless we get EFCA out of it.
The ADA has their scores up all the way back to 1947. Talk about old page layouts.
As yet another constituent, my views have been pretty well covered already. Right now am just enjoying watching the Republicans react, but not expecting much from Arlen. An interesting thing about Specter is that he really has *not* been a darling (uo until now) of the fucknuts in the national political press. For instance, there was comparatively little gnashing of teeth from the "centrists" during the Toomey challenge in 2004 in great contrast to the response to Ned Lamont even before he dared to beat Lieberman. Interesting to see how that plays out with him now "moderating" the Dem side of the ledger*. I'm somehow not expecting him to operate the mirror image of his kabuki of principled opposition to the Republican base up until just before the actual votes. (But of course he will still always do the politically expedient thing, whatever that may be.)
*I'm thinking they'll like him more now that he is trying to "reign in" the power of the presidency from within the Democratic party and will cheer his oppositional stances.
The ADA seems not to have given overall number scores in the early years. In 1960 Kennedy was nearly all pluses and Goldwater all minuses, but without the numbers, how can I compare the two?
109: (Pluses/(Pluses + Minuses))*100
That's not the clearest equation I've ever written, but it isn't easy when they use + and - as data points. Verbally, you want the percentage agreement with the ADA, so you count the number of agreements and divide by the number of agreements and disagreements (i.e. ignore the skipped votes).
In 1960 Kennedy was nearly all pluses and Goldwater all minuses, but without the numbers, how can I compare the two?
Count the pluses and minuses?
Then do some math with the numbers.
And add 7 to all senators from states that start with a vowel and House members from states that start with a cardinal direction.
And that's what it's all about!
I'm sorry, but did I ask a serious question? It seems that way now, but didn't at the time.
Obama's 2008 score is only 45; apparently, if you don't vote with the ADA because you're absent campaigning, it counts against you.
I'm pretty sure all scores like this are nice and neat somewhere on ICPRS and elsewhere. Google "Poli Sci Goatse".
Sorry, ICPRS will have ADA scores and the conservative equivalent. But there is no set way to do this.
In 1960 Kennedy was nearly all pluses and Goldwater all minuses, but without the numbers, how can I compare the two?
The "missile gap" and the Bay of Pigs were pluses? Goldwater was running for president in 1960? I don't understand.
Senate voting records, dude. I'm surprised that Kennedy's record didn't match his rhetoric, but I'm surprised that I'm surprised.
"Only about as bad as Nelson and Bayh". That's a tremendous gain.
For all I know, Obama is half Blue Dog.
Bayh and Nelson are bad. They're the Republican wing of the Democratic party, from back when "Republican" just meant being in the pocket of business as opposed to being crazy.
Meanwhile, Michelle Bachmann is driving the crazy bus again. I have to admit that, for me, the entertainment value of Rep. Bonkers vastly outweighs whatever negative effects her House vote carries.
the entertainment value of Rep. Bonkers vastly outweighs whatever negative effects her House vote carries
Plus, she's fundraising gold for the Democrats. On the other hand, I feel bad for the nearly half of her constituents who voted for the other guy, Abel Tinklerbergerjohhansensteinwhatshisname.
Another beaut:
Michele Bachman attacks Obama for being like FDR and bringing us the "Hoot-Smalley" tariffs before he even became president.
Hoot Smalley would be a good pseud.
125: When I hear 'Hoot Smalley', I think of a small terrier-type doggie, maybe with a sweater.
the entertainment value of Rep. Bonkers
Whatever happened to Katherine Harris anyway?
I'm starting to believe that Bachmann is actually doing brilliant performance art, and maintaining a veneer of believability over it is all that kept her from calling it the Small-Hooters Act.
Whatever happened to Katherine Harris anyway?
She ran for Senate, got crushed, and retired to the cruel life of a wealthy heiress.
A conservative faction of the Republican National Committee is . . . drafting a resolution to rename the opposition the "Democrat Socialist Party."
Suspicion confirmed: I was in the vanguard when I joined DSA 20 years ago.
129: And I am drafting a resolution to rename the minority party NAMBLA.
conservative faction of the Republican National Committee is . . . drafting a resolution to rename the opposition the "Democrat Socialist Party."
Wouldn't that be confusing, having the Democratic Party as the government and the Democrat Socialist Party as the opposition?
129: Suspicion confirmed: I was in the vanguard when I joined DSA 20 years ago.
Apparently along with Michael Bérubé, who said the following after I posted about the same resolution as hsi place a few days ago.
I was a member for most of the 1990s, and when I forgot to renew the Illinois membership dropped to eight.
Don't know if the numbers were more robust where you were.