Year: 2010

by Smitty (h/t Drudge)

What a near-display of courage from Senator Bunning:

I have been serving the citizens of Kentucky for nearly 24 years in Washington.

…begins the article, which gets into the details of PayGo and the sudden desire to fix things on the way out.  Then the Senator concludes:

After four legislative days of impasse, I reached a supposed deal with Majority Leader Reid to have an up-or-down vote on a pay-for amendment that would fully fund the legislation and not add to the debt. Only minutes before the vote, Democrats used a parliamentary maneuver to set aside my amendment and not vote on the actual substance of it. Only in Washington could this happen. The Democrats did not want to vote on my amendment because they knew they were in the wrong and ignored their own rules. Hypocrisy again rules the day in Washington.
I have 40 grandchildren, and I want them to grow up in a country where they have all of the same opportunities I had as a child. I fear that they will not have those opportunities if Washington continues on its course of spending without paying for it. We are at over $12 trillion in debt. I know many Americans sit around their kitchen table and make the tough decisions. It is time for the politicians in Washington to do the same.

Props for the grandchildren, but did things just suddenly go pear-shaped since Ronald Reagan departed the pattern, and you showed up?  No, the fiscal tumor has grown all that time, Senator.
The Moderate Voice was anything but:

For a week, his one-man obstructionism abusing Senate rules cost taxpayers additional money than originally set out by blocking a temporary extension of unemployment and insurance benefits, forcing a 21% cut of Medicare repayments to doctors and halting construction on infrastructure construction projects.

Let’s call it the Bunning Principle for lack of a better description. His methods arriving there proved his madness.

It was akin to the commissioner of the National Football League stopping a game in progress and changing the rules.

Bunning may have been following Senate rules but he arbitrarily took a “pay as you go” policy measure he voted against and helped defeat and then had the gall to invoke this phantom ghost on a unanimous consent vote to extend the unemployment, et.al. measure.

Trying to explain Bunning’s behavior has elicited prime time entertainment hilarity in hypocrisy. We’ve all heard it. He voted on numerous occasions in favor of the Bush administration unfunded tax cuts, Medicare prescription plan and two wars. Reasonable people ask, “Why now?”

Our resident psychiatrist, Dr. Clarrisa Pinkola Estes, suggests Bunning fits the broad parameters of being mentally unstable.

It is possible we have a 78-year-old psycho in the Senate that we can point to with some confidence.

Can we invoke Sir Robin?

The Ballad of Brave Sir Robin

Bravely bold Sir Bunning rode forth from Kentucky.
He was not afraid to die, O brave Sir Bunning!
He was not at all afraid to be killed in nasty ways,
Brave, brave, brave, brave Sir Bunning!
He was not in the least bit scared to be mashed into a pulp,
Or to have his eyes gouged out, and his elbows broken;
To have his kneecaps split, and his body burned away;
And his limbs all hacked and mangled, brave Sir Bunning!

His head smashed in and his heart cut out
And his liver removed and his bowels unplugged
And his nostrils raped and his bottom burned off
And his pen–

If Senator Bunning is the overture to a period of pedantic pettifoggery from the GOP to run out the legislative clock, then fine. While stupid, one must admit that intelligent dialog has been rather a wash in the face of Progress.

But so long as the thief has latitude to steal, the Federal Government is just going to continue the pillaging. So, Senator Bunning, one wonders what your suggestions are for structural changes to remove the opportunity for kleptocracy.  The only good thing going on these days is that bloggers seem increasingly conscious of the problem, and not content to just swap jackasses as an attempted solution.

by Smitty

Fabius Maximus links Reuters on the Prime Minister of Greece having a Come to Beevis meeting regarding their situation, floating the question: “How soon until an American President says similar words?”
American Glob links NJN.net with Chris Christie having a state-level exercise in fiscal lucidity. Christie is worth hearing in full, as he pulls the plug on the NJ fantasy land.
GOP 2012 possibility Tim Pawlenty also did something sober in Minnesota, and his minority in the legislator upheld his veto.

the Minnesota House on Monday failed to override a veto of legislation that would have restored a state health care program for some of the state’s poorest and sickest residents.

To answer the question posed by Fabius, the election is in 33 months, and we’re less than 36 months to the possibility of responsible, sober, adult leadership in the Executive branch.