Delta House Rules
The Opinion Journal invoke the movie Animal House to describe the behavior of the Democrats in Congress. Really futile and stupid gestures rule the Democrat's agenda.
In the movie "Animal House," the fraternity brother known as Otter reacts to the Delta House's closure with the classic line, "I think that this situation absolutely requires a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody's part." To which Bluto, played by John Belushi, replies, "We're just the guys to do it." The movie ends by noting that Bluto becomes a Senator, so perhaps this explains the meltdown among Democrats on Capitol Hill.
As they careen toward the end of their first year in charge, Congressional leaders seem capable of nothing but futile gestures. Yesterday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid failed once again to get enough votes for an energy bill, having refused to remove a $21.8 billion tax increase on energy that President Bush has promised to veto in any case. Mr. Reid was vowing to try again as we went to press.
Meanwhile, in Nancy Pelosi's House of self-inflicted pain, the Blutarsky strategy played out yesterday in one more hopeless attempt to pass a tax increase to "pay for" Alternative Minimum Tax relief. The Senate has already voted 88-5 against any such tax hike, so this House bill is dead before arrival. But Ms. Pelosi's troops are just the guys to do it anyway.
The futile, unpassable veto bait keeps spewing forth from the House and either dies in the Senate or gets hammered by Bush's suddenly red hot veto pen. Whereupon, the House under the hapless Nancy "Bluto" Pelosi revs up another asinine piece of legislation, no better than the first one and often even worse. As the Opinion Journal points out, this behavior is what has already caused fracturing of the Democrats - and is leading up to an outright collapse.
Even today, Democrats are caught between their antiwar left, which wants more futile gestures, and Members from swing districts who want to fund the troops. Democrats have delayed funding for so long that the Pentagon is issuing furlough notices to 100,000 civilian employees so it can shuffle operations funding to keep the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan in ammunition.
Then there's the AMT fiasco. Without action by Congress, that hated second tax system will engulf 22 million middle-class Americans next year, most of them in high-tax, largely Democratic states. Congress has already been so dilatory that the IRS has said it may have to delay tax-return processing that is supposed to start in January. But so determined are House Democrats to raise taxes on somebody, anybody, to "pay for" this relief that they are holding out for Senate Democrats to walk the tax plank with them. In the end the House will surely back down, but not before Ms. Pelosi has put her moderate Members on record as tax raisers. Bluto strikes again.
Millions of potential voters are going to be pounded by the AMT - a tax imposed by Democrats years ago - which the current leadership appears to be unable to patch. Millions more voters will be hit by late tax returns as a result of the antics in Congress. Hundreds of thousands of civilian employees of the US military are going to get laid off as a Christmas present from the Democrats in Congress. And Nancy Pelosi brags about how much more they'll be able to do with a Democrat in the White House.
That's precisely what a lot of people are going to start worrying about when the impacts of all these really futile and stupid gestures hit them directly in the wallet.
(H/T Pirate's Cove)
Side note: How long will it be before Sean Daniels writes another post over at Huffington Post decrying the 'misuse' of Animal House? Heck, he's probably already feverishly typing away, explaining what really happened at Faber College in 1962, to far around the bend to understand that nothing happened because Faber College doesn't actually, you know, exist.
By NortonPete, Friday, 14 December , 2007 @ 6:47 pm
A bit off track but I’m having problems confirming this:
—-
US Senate passes Iraq funds bill
US soldiers with the 101st Airborne Division and Iraqi soldiers patrol the village of al-Awsat south of Baghdad
Democrats had said funding must be tied to a pullout timetable
The US Senate has authorised more spending for the Iraq war, without tying the bill to a timetable for troop withdrawal - a key Democratic demand.
In a 90-3 vote, it approved a further $189bn (£94bn) for the campaigns in Iraq and also in Afghanistan.
Democrats, who have a 51-49 majority in the Senate, accepted the measure after failing to impose the timetable demand.
The bill had passed in the House of Representatives. President Bush is now expected to sign it into law.
The bill covers the budget year ending in September 2008. —
link:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7145488.stm
By NortonPete, Friday, 14 December , 2007 @ 7:04 pm
Its on Reuters but not any where else. Strange>
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Democratic-led Congress authorized more Iraq war spending on Friday, sending President George W. Bush a defense bill requiring no change in strategy after failing again to impose a timetable for U.S. troop withdrawals.
The defense policy bill, approved 90-3 by the U.S. Senate, also expanded the size of the U.S. Army and set conditions on the Bush administration’s plan to build a missile defense system in Europe.
The measure already had passed the House of Representatives and now goes to Bush, who is expected to sign it into law. It authorizes Pentagon programs expected to cost $506.9 billion during fiscal 2008, which began in October.
By Maggie, Friday, 14 December , 2007 @ 10:03 pm
Michelle Malkin is running it too:
http://michellemalkin.com/2007/12/14/white-flag-dem-senate-passes-troop-funding-bill-with-no-nutroots-strings-attached/