Oh, it’s time for another edition of The Good. The Bad. And the Ugly. Funny, there’s always more of The Bad. And the Ugly. Such is the state of American politics.
Proving that she’s very, very good
Elizabeth Warren, the freshman Senator from Massachusetts, is living up to her billing. As a member of the Senate Banking Committee, she’s on the attack on banking oversight. She proves that she is indeed “The New Sheriff in Town” during her first hearing. Of course, the GOP managed to block her from being appointed as the head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), and that might have been the worst thing they ever did because she would never have challenged Scott “Wall Street” Brown for his Senate seat. She won handily. What goes around comes around, boys. Now that John Kerry has become the Secretary of State, she’s also the senior Senator from Massachusetts.
If you haven’t seen the video of Elizabeth Warren in action, I’m showing it here. I don’t need to go on any further. She says it all. She’s serious, and she’s taking no prisoners.
Warren was also named Truthdigger of the Week by Truthdig. Why wasn’t this hearing featured in the mainstream media? Like the New York Times?
Harry Reid: We hate to say it, but we told you so
I have to say that I was really pissed off when I heard that Harry Reid backed down on filibuster reform. I knew that it was a disaster in the making, and I was absolutely correct. For the very first time in history, the GOP has managed to filibuster the President’s nomination for a cabinet post, in this case Chuck Hagel. As inane as it may sound, the GOP has effectively blocked the nomination of a member of the GOP for the position of Secretary of the Defense (succeeding Hillary Clinton).
The GOP has mastered the art of the filibuster to stand in the way of any effective legislative reform. The GOP used the filibuster a record number 112 times from 2007 to 2008, and it has largely been ignored by the lamestream media. Apparently, the Democrats have also fallen asleep at the switch since they chose to dance with the devil and settle for a much watered-down solution to the problem.
Please, don’t let me hear that some reform is better than no reform. On this issue, that’s a bunch of bullshit and we all know it. The Democratic leadership’s continual backing down to a party that is no longer relevant is totally unacceptable. The GOP was not given a mandate last November, but Barack Obama and the Democrats most certainly were. They have already failed their constituents early in Obama’s second term.
I know. I know. The Democrats have a solution that will get around this problem. I get that. However, had the Democrats stood their ground and toughed it out, they wouldn’t have to work around the problem. Backing down on filibuster reform is a disaster in the making beyond this vote. I am sure that the GOP will use it throughout Barack Obama’s second term, and there may be no “work around” for the legislation that follows. Will the Democrats ever really learn? It doesn’t appear so. I’m as pissed off at the Democrats as I am the GOP, frankly.
Marco Rubio the Savior of the GOP? Really?
I walked into a convenience store near my house late last week and saw a photo of Marco Rubio, the junior Senator from Florida who has been serving (if that’s what you want to call it) since January 2011, on the front cover of Time magazine. The headline read “The Republican Savior.” I literally spit my soft drink out right there. Really? That’s the best the GOP can do? You have got to be kidding me.
This is the same Marco Rubio who handled the rebuttal to Barack Obama’s State of the Union speech. Now, I’m not much on SOTU speeches. I think they’re a bunch of bullshit, no matter who’s delivering them. But Rubio seems to have prepared his rebuttal by assuming what Barack Obama was going to say, and had criticisms for things he never said. I guess you’d think that the shining star of the GOP might be able to make adjustments before making his speech. Maybe? While Twitter was buzzing about the fact that Rubio was sweaty and dry-mouthed during the speech, Rachel Maddow took on his SOTU rebuttal from a factual standpoint.
I guess Rubio as “savior” is as good as any other member of the GOP. I mean, who else are they going to hang their hopes on? Scott Brown is gone. Chris Christie? Yeah. I don’t think so. It’s pretty clear that John McCain has seen his best days, so he isn’t any help. Who else do they have? It is widely speculated that Rubio will run for the presidency come 2016. His appearance on Time magazine may just put a big, fat bullseye on his back.
In honor of President’s Day…
Yes, today is President’s Day. I’m not sure what we’re celebrating. However, I did find a page today on Facebook called “Can this poodle wearing a tinfoil hat get more fans than Glenn Beck?” Seriously? I found this to be one of the most interesting pages I’ve seen yet. I don’t know how many fans Glenn Beck has on Facebook and I’m not interested in finding out. But I can tell you that this page has more than 235,000 fans.
On this page, there was a photo of our surviving presidents, posted by the Poodletarian Board of Directors.
From left to right, they’ve listed the names of the surviving presidents as follows: Poppy, Hopey, Dopey, Gropy and Mopey.
I’m not sure there’s much else for me to say in this post. Agreed?
Categories: 2013, Banks, Conservative, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Democrats, Financial Fraud, GOP, Mainstream Media, Massachusetts, Ying & Yang
Revolutionary Radar 
Hey girl! My post early this morning (you got it) said the Liz Warren story should front page, NYT! I wuz first!
The rest of what you have to say is more or less a requiem for democracy: the entire congress looks like an overstuffed clown car.
And would someone PLEASE send John McCain home? Most people with dementia are in nursing homes.
The sequester will destabilize the nation yet further, and leaders (?) around the world are poising for large scale warfare, while Syria implodes, Israel gets testier and Putin sends out long range bombers.
As Pogo said, “We have seen the enemy and he is us.”
Never in my lifetime have I seen mankind so bent on self-destruction.
Of course Obama got to play golf with Tiger…..
Really, Ivan. I agree. It’s time for the Democrats to target McCain for replacement. What is taking them so long?
It is the same reason that rattlesnakes don’t bite lawyers: professional courtesy.
Where is site for your Cultured Hippie? I think we should do a “point-counterpoint”. You be the cultured hippie and I will be the cultured hippo-critic. You bemoan the sad state of the culture and I will give historical perspective that always asks, “so what did you expect, strawberries and cream, perhaps?”
Pushing Marco Rubio as the savior of the party is just the GOP overcompensating for a very poor minority showing.
It’s like when my grandfather tried to talk to me about MC Hammer songs.