WAPO:
But the online materials will not address a controversial question — whether Democratic leaders would use a parliamentary procedure known as “reconciliation” to try to pass health-care changes without the usual 60 votes in the Senate, officials said.
This is beyond stupid. Legislation never needs 60 votes to pass. NEVER. The WAPO is so dumb.
Sigh. Things would be so much easier if the Republicans didn’t have a 41 seat majority to the Democrats 59.
Benjamin Franklin thinks people should pay taxes.
Benjamin Franklin to Robert Morris
Property: Benjamin Franklin to Robert Morris: “The Remissness of our People in Paying Taxes is highly blameable; the Unwillingness to pay them is still more so. I see, in some Resolutions of Town Meetings, a Remonstrance against giving Congress a Power to take, as they call it, the People’s Money out of their Pockets, tho’ only to pay the Interest and Principal of Debts duly contracted. They seem to mistake the Point. Money, justly due from the People, is their Creditors’ Money, and no longer the Money of the People, who, if they withold it, should be compell’d to pay by some Law.
All Property, indeed, except the Savage’s temporary Cabin, his Bow, his Matchcoat, and other little Acquisitions, absolutely necessary for his Subsistence, seems to me to be the Creature of public Convention. Hence the Public has the Right of Regulating Descents, and all other Conveyances of Property, and even of limiting the Quantity and the Uses of it. All the Property that is necessary to a Man, for the Conservation of the Individual and the Propagation of the Species, is his natural Right, which none can justly deprive him of: But all Property superfluous to such purposes is the Property of the Publick, who, by their Laws, have created it, and who may therefore by other Laws dispose of it, whenever the Welfare of the Publick shall demand such Disposition. He that does not like civil Society on these Terms, let him retire and live among Savages. He can have no right to the benefits of Society, who will not pay his Club towards the Support of it.”
Referencing a Founding Father is a bit like quoting the Bible – you can use it to justify anything. Still, this is pretty sweet.
My message to President Obama:
The public option isn’t a pie-in-the-sky proposal – it’s the most pragmatic approach we have to fixing the crisis in health care. It’s not about left or right, it’s about what works. The only way to introduce competition into the health care marketplace is through the public option.
I donated, volunteered, and voted for you because I believed in your ideals and in your ability to get things done. Let’s get this done.
…than WAPO.
Japanese Opposition Wins Elections in Landslide – NYTimes.com
TOKYO — In a rare display of democratic muscle in this traditionally apolitical nation, Japan’s voters cast out the Liberal Democratic Party for only the second time in postwar history, handing a landslide victory to the opposition in hard-fought elections on Sunday.
Opposition Party Wins by a Landslide in Japan – washingtonpost.com
TOKYO, Aug. 30 — Breaking a half-century hammerlock of one-party rule in Japan, the opposition Democratic Party won a crushing election victory on Sunday with pledges to revive the country’s stalled economy and steer a foreign-policy course less dependent on the United States.
Of course, this is incorrect.
From Japan Zone:
The LDP lost its parliamentary majority in the 1993 elections, but continued to exert influence and soon returned to power in a coalition.
Yes, they were in the minority before. The Social Democratic Party’s leader became the Prime Minister. He is most remembered for his bushy eyebrows but, still, he was Prime Minister and he was not from the LDP. The LDP didn’t regain the majority until 1996!
Doesn’t the Washington Post know of Wikipedia???
Also, it’s worth mentioning that the party that won this election, the Democratic Party, was started by Ozawa Ichiro, who led an LDP faction that split and created the Democratic Party although he is no longer its leader. He’s an insider’s insider in Japanese politics.
Usually I wouldn’t read anything that oozes its way out of the sack of shit that is Jonah Goldberg. I let The Editors at The Poor Man Institute read Jonah Goldberg for me and I’m grateful to him, him being The Editors, for providing that service.
But I saw this on Google News and knew that the one man smear machine was already churning it out crap about how Democrats are now exploiting the legacy of the just passed Senator by, you know, celebrating his legacy:
People are calling this the Wellstone Effect after the backlash over the Memorial held after Paul Wellstone’s untimely death. I think Josh Marshall’s definition is better:
When Republican strategists try to politicize the outpouring of grief over the tragic death of a Democratic politician and manage to play numerous reporters for fools in the process.
It worked well for them in Paul’s case. I was in Minnesota when Wellstone was first elected. He was not a cynical person, he was an idealist and his death was infinitely more shocking than the death of Kennedy. So, sorry for the tone of this post but this pisses me off. Jonah Goldberg is a piece of shit for trotting out this turd again. Although I suppose he just stole the idea from a famous talk radio host.
