Harry Reid is a Great Big Jerk – Reid not interested on bipartisan stimulus

A tentative agreement has been reached on the stimulus plan. The plan has been chopped down to $780 billion.

from Huffington Post:

UPDATE – 7:50PM ET: Specter makes it official. Sen. Arlen Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican, announced on the Senate floor that he is supporting the compromise stimulus bill that emerged today. Specter’s support comes after the announcement minutes earlier by Sen. Susan Collins (R-Me.). Democrats have 58 members in their caucus. The support of Specter and Collins gives them the 60 they need to end debate and move to passage of the bill.

Get used to hearing the names Collins and Specter, along with moderate Republican Sens. George Voinovich of Ohio and Olympia Snowe of Maine. If Al Franken ultimately finds his way to Washington, Democrats, if they stay united, will need only one of those four to move a bill through. They proved this evening they’re willing to do that.

Senator Harry Reid has shown some disappointing behavior in debate on the bill.

from NPR:

Earlier, Reid aggressively warned that the package would not be hijacked by the bipartisan group, which has been led by Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine. Nelson said his group had been dealing with the White House during their meetings, though he did not say whether the president himself was involved in the discussions.

Behind the scenes, some Republicans were skeptical of Reid’s claim. But Democratic leaders are said to be confident that no Democrat will vote against the president, and that Collins and her fellow Maine Republican, Sen. Olympia Snowe, and perhaps another Republican or two will vote for the plan, even without a compromise that lowers the price tag.

Democrats could pass the measure by a simple majority of the Senate’s 100 members. But leaders want to hit 60 to deny Republicans the opportunity of blocking the legislation with a point of order allowed under the chamber’s rules.

The mood at the Capitol all day had an air of desperation — and, at times, anger — as Republicans took to the Senate floor to take whacks at the president’s plan, and Democrats pushed back.

Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona attempted to replace the president’s package with one that cost about half as much and included more tax cuts; his effort failed by a vote of 57-40. McCain said what was happening in the Senate is “not bipartisanship.”

Come on Senator Reid. You are acting like a child. You are not the kid who was bullied on the playground who has decided to fight back. Just because you had to fight the Bush administration hard for eight years doesn’t mean you can or should turn around and do the same. This is a bipartisan group no less, not just Republicans. Does absolute power corrupt absolutely? In Harry Reid’s case maybe it does.

Vacation All I Ever Wanted

Starting this Saturday, I’ll be gone for a week. I’ll be off grid for the majority of my trip. I have some posts scheduled to go out during the week. For those hungry for their blog lunches and missing those nightly news nightcaps I apologize. Stick around, read up on some interesting history, and I’ll be back next week.

For future reference, anyone that would like to share cross-postings please email me at deviger@yahoo.com.

Have a great week everyone

Plumber Watch ’09 – "The Karl Rove of the Commode"

Should I laugh or cry? I may do both. Donklephant has more words from that unintentional comedian Joe the Plumber. You can’t miss this one. Let me give you a taste.

['Joe The Plumber'] Wurzelbacher opposes the stimulus and said he questioned why the government can’t just cut its bills like other people do. He also advised staffers to take a harder line on the legislation: “Republicans on the Hill are afraid of saying too much,” he noted.Further recommendations from the Karl Rove of the Commode included having “someone go in there and kick some ass.”

Donklephant – Joe the Political Consultant, Redux

Big Brother in Big Love Country – Bar attendence database in Utah

This story is a little scary. Utah is proposing a law that will require patrons to have their ID entered into a database when they purchase alcohol at a restaurant or bar.

from ABC –

The governor of Utah has two problems with a State Senate proposal to scan the IDs of everyone who visits a bar in the state and make that database available to law enforcement officials.

For starters, it is an “Orwellian” breach of privacy, he said. And second, it makes his state look kooky.

“I think that would enhance the oddness of our laws,” Gov. Jon Huntsman told The Associated Press. “I think that for most people that is a rather frightening, almost Orwellian, proposition.”

Orwellian indeed. The reasoning behind the monitoring turns the proposal from a nightmare to an absurdity. The impetus behind this Big Brother bid? Tourism.

In an effort to boost the state’s $6 billion a year tourism industry, Huntsman, a Republican, at the behest of bar and restaurant owners, asked the state legislature to review the club law and consider replacing it with electronic scanners that could determine if a patron was under the legal drinking age of 21 years.

In doing so, some lawmakers from his own party realized that the information obtained by those scanners could be used by the police to investigate drunken driving incidents and proposed creating a database to store that information.

Yeah that might make you look a little kooky. If there is anything that would make people avoid Utah like it was a plague zone it would be this database. I’m sure Reason will be on this soon. I can’t wait to see what they have to say.