Since the GOP controls both houses of Congress, the holders of those offices are both Republicans.
While the GOP, when caught, vowed to pass a resolution on Wednesday nullifying Istook’s provision, the fact is that the provision will become the law of the land if Bush signs the budget legislation before Congress passes the corrective legislation and gets it to the President.
I’m not gonna tar the entire GOP with this. But this is IMHO so exceptional, so antithetical to what this country is about, that they should just plain drum Istook out of the GOP caucus for this. And if they don’t at least strongly censure him for this, if they treat this like just a casual mistake that they don’t need to make a big deal about, then at that point the GOP caucus becomes complicit.
Because people with ideas like these frankly ought to leave this country and find themselves a nice banana republic to help run. Because that’s the sort of stuff that goes on in countries that have at most the pretense of democracy, rather than the real thing.
Mr. Istook, regardless of what the law says, I no longer consider you an American. Get out of my country, you fascist.
OK, folks, go to those threads. Sorry. (I just plain missed Reeder’s thread, but I would’ve had to be psychic to guess what Elucidator’s thread was about, so I don’t feel bad about that one.)
I don’t know how it can be a mistake. A mistake is forgetting to pick up milk at the grocery store. Someone had to take the time to draft the language and insert it into the bill. That takes forethought.
Istook has some 'splaining to do. I shall be curious to see how this shakes out.
I’d say it isn’t Istook that has some explaining to do; there is no forgivable explanation. My feeling on the matter is that he should be kicked out of Congress, stripped of his citizenship, and shown to the border.
But if his party fails to treat him as persona non grata, then they will have some 'splaining to do, IMHO. Because like you say, this was not a mistake on his part; this was his intent. The question is to what extent the GOP is willing to tolerate persons in its midst who have this sort of intent.
Commentators on the right are forever saying the Dems should repudiate this or that person on the left. I’d say the ball’s in their court right now; it’s their put-up-or-shut-up time.
It’s not President Bush’s old yacht. It’s the former Presidential yacht, as much as it can be anyway since we’ve never had an official Presidential yacht.
Just a little clarification before I join this pit gang, I was unaware that tax forms were confidential. I always assumed tax records were somewhat public record that could be presented to those interested, such as the media, upon request.
I’ll let you wade through the Federal Privacy Act if you like, but in summary, from this site:
Your misapprehension may be a result of the various presidential candidates making it a habit for at least the last several election cycles to release their tax returns to the media.
Members of and candidates for federal office are also required to file personal financial disclosure forms if they use over $5000 of their personal money in a campaign which, since they all do, means they all have to file. Hence every year or so there are news stories reporting that so-and-so is the wealthiest member of Congress but the numbers are always reported in extremely broad ranges. You can search for them here.
Maybe they just put it in so that everybody would forget about the anti-abortion rider.
Like maybe they changed the rules regarding whether DeLay could keep his post if indicted, to stop people from talking about whether they change the rules on fillibustering judicial nominations.
That must be it. Sneaking a big-brother law with real repercussions in illustrates that point much better than a harmless page with something silly written on it, like “This bill is being passed even though nobody has read this very page, on which we rule that November 21 will henceforth be known as Congress is a Bunch of Big Fat Humps Day.”
If my bitterness is too much, I apologize. It’s just that I’m sure like the Pubbies would claim it was all to make an ironic point if they thought they could get away with it.
Must be fun to be a GOP Congressional staffer; you can change legislation that’s been passed by both houses of Congress, without the permission of an actual Congressdroid.
I suppose it’s possible that the process is that broken.
But doesn’t it say wonderful things about the party of accountability and personal responsibility? :rolleyes:
Suppose? One of the line items in this budget is $225,000 for catfish research. That’s less than 1 millionth of the entire spending bill, yet it’s apparently important enough to merit being called out specifically for review. That’s like having the CEO of IBM reviewing the purchase of one midrange server as part of the annual budget. When you’re allowed to insert riders for things this ridiculously small, nobody can manage it effectively.
IIRC David Lee Roth said VH’s wacky requests for a bowl of M&Ms sans brown ones in the dressing room wasn’t because they were insane. He said if attention had been paid to that detail, he knew everything else had been taken care of.
Don’t know what that has to do with your comment, but it made me think of that.
