Archive » Politicians

**Written by Doug Powers Last year, New York Rep. Anthony Weiner took personal ownership of the magnificent health care law, even to the point of proclaiming “the bill and I are one” like a monk trying to attain enlightenment using nothing but willpower, outbursts and a trillion dollars of other people’s money. In short, Anthony [...]

**Written by Doug Powers Senator Claire McCaskill has been so busy promoting oversight and transparency in congressional travel that she forgot to practice it in her own life. Whoops: Sen. Claire McCaskill is selling the personal plane that has caused her turbulence in recent weeks after POLITICO revealed she used taxpayer money to cover the [...]

**Written by Doug Powers Quick note: Apologies for the slow posting the past couple of days. I’m “on the road” and haven’t gotten in as much time for a little writing as I originally hoped — which is merely an admission that I’ve failed miserably at the art of simultaneously blogging while playing blackjack. The [...]

**Written by Doug Powers Alternate title: “Pot meets kettle” We already know that Sheila Jackson Lee thinks her constituents are dumb (many of them voted for Sheila Jackson Lee, so that’s tough to argue against), but she also, according to this article, accuses her staffers of being sub-stupid: A lot of politicians give nicknames to [...]

Tickle me budget cuts

**Written by Doug Powers As you would expect in Chicago politics, all potential Team Rahm transition co-chairs were subjected to stringent background checks… except for the ones who weren’t: (CNN) – A co-chair of Chicago mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel’s transition team resigned from her new post Friday after it was revealed that she left her high-level [...]

H&R Schlock

**Written by Doug Powers How did Richard Dreyfuss end up not being involved in this? Former presidents Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush will serve as honorary chairmen of a new center at the University of Arizona that will focus on civility in political debate, university officials will announce Monday. The National Institute for Civil [...]

**Written by Doug Powers Sheila Jackson Lee makes people laugh on a daily basis, at least until they remember that she’s a member of Congress with control over the lives of others — at which point it’s like discovering that “Dummo the Clown” who’s been entertaining you in the airport terminal is also your pilot. [...]

**Written by Doug Powers I was hoping when Gregory asked Boehner how come he doesn’t spend more time lecturing people who aren’t entirely convinced President Obama was born in Hawaii that Boehner would have replied, “You probably see Chris Matthews more than I do, David, why don’t you do it?” But it wasn’t to be: [...]

Overwhelming temptation

Let’s get ready to rumble

**Written by Doug Powers When a politician refers to the general public as “ill informed” on an issue (in this case it’s hospital closures due to the health care law) it’s just another way of calling them ignorant or stupid. Even so, it’s hard to argue with Sheila Jackson Lee (D-umb Constituents) when she makes [...]

**Written by Doug Powers Note: to enhance your reading experience, this post comes equipped with an on-demand laugh track ********** Former Michigan Governor Granholm initially planned on getting a job teaching job creation in the state she ran for eight years, but I think the guy who would have hired her lost his job a [...]

**Written by Doug Powers Over the weekend, Congress will be consumed by the important national business that will no doubt involve sending their colleagues text messages that say things like, “OMG, I totally heard that he’s going to ask you to go to the SOTU with him!” Back when this idea was first floated, there [...]

**Written by Doug Powers A recent poll found that the general public knows more about the Constitution than elected officials, and one Congressman is on a mission to validate the poll’s findings: Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) believes the Constitution justifies Obamacare’s mandate that people must buy health insurance. According to him, the Constitution’s reference to [...]

**Written by Doug Powers In so quickly and unwittingly ignoring his own clarion call for political rhetoric free from such metaphors, Rep. James Clyburn helped make a point about how impractical, not to mention impossible, the knee-jerk endeavor is in the first place. For that I’ll give him due credit for making a positive contribution [...]

**Written by Doug Powers So this is what they mean by “transparency”: An aide to Rep. Dan Burton (R-Ind.) tells CBS News that the Indiana Republican plans to introduce legislation next week that would encase the House Gallery in “a transparent and substantial material” such as Plexiglas that would keep members of the public from [...]

**Written by Doug Powers I’m liking this guy: Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) will continue to fly commercially despite the security concerns that came about after Saturday’s shooting in Tucson, Ariz. Boehner’s spokesman Michael Steel told The Hill that the Speaker had no intention to reconsider a decision he previously made to forgo the use of [...]

**Written by Doug Powers Maybe Congress has raised the bar on morals and ethics just a tad, because the “sex scandals” are getting fewer and farther between — so much so that it looks like some are being forced to invent them where they don’t seem to exist. First, the allegations: Congresswoman Mary Bono Mack [...]

**Written by Doug Powers And the dud frustration bombs keep being thrown: Many Democrats have blamed unfounded cases of racism for their aversion to the growing tea party movement. But now, the new House Minority Whip, Steny Hoyer, D-Md., presents the latest presumption about tea partiers: they must come from dysfunctional families: There are a [...]

**Written by Doug Powers Mediaite reports on a recent swirl of activity in the Windy City concerning Rahm Emanuel’s opponent in the Chicago Mayoral race: If radio really is the theater of the mind, then WGN-AM listeners were given a rather unfortunate show recently. As the station interviewed Congressman Danny Davis to discuss his campaign [...]

**Written by Doug Powers Today, New York City Mayor Bloomberg delivered a message in Spanish concerning the blizzard that has crippled much of the eastern US. Click the pic to hear the announcement: If you don’t speak Spanish, here’s a translation of the Mayor’s update: ***** My fellow Spanish-speaking New Yorkers. You may have noticed [...]

**Written by Doug Powers Who better to understand and make decisions on what’s in the best interest of the private sector than a member of Congress who forces himself to live in it as much as possible? I know many politicians find that concept more horrifying than getting mouth-to-mouth resuscitation from Henry Waxman, but at [...]

Payback’s a cinch

**Written by Doug Powers New Jersey Senator Robert Menendez is still a true believer. This letter appeared in the Huffington Post: Dear Santa Claus, I am writing out of concern, because you may have to move from the North Pole due to the dramatic melting of Arctic sea ice. The Navy’s chief oceanographer says that [...]

**Written by Doug Powers It seems like a controversy over a label would be the last thing an organization called “No Labels” would ever have. They may now have to change their name to “No Logos.” I wrote about “No Labels” last month after noticing that the vast majority of the group’s organizers at the [...]

**Written by Doug Powers Isn’t it horrible when a bunch of bureaucrats make you leave the town where your home is and where your kids have gone to school for the past couple of years in order to fly to another city just to prove you live there? I hate when that happens: Rahm Emanuel’s [...]

**Written by Doug Powers The House voted 333-79 to make Charles Rangel the first Representative in 27 years to be censured. In congressional terms, a censure is just one notch below expulsion and a half-notch above having to write “I will not be corrupt and I will pay all the taxes I owe” 500 times [...]

29 dimensions of compatibility