What? Did I Say Something Wrong?
Some on the right are now coming to Senator Cornyn's defense after his ill-conceived remarks about how people might be compelled to violence against federal judges due to their activist rulings. However, according to the Faux News Channel, this appears to be his modus operandi:
Cornyn Blind Date Suddenly Goes Sour
"Innocent observations" alarm companion; visit abruptly cut short when woman flees
Although he'd mapped out the entire evening Senator John Cornyn still can't
figure out what went wrong with his fourth blind date this year. "Happens
a lot," he sighed. According to Cornyn, who will not reveal the lady's name, the
date got off to an auspicious start. Picking up his date promptly at 7 p.m.
Saturday night, Cornyn sailed right into his first bit of dilly-dally."She
looked spectacular," chuckled Cornyn, "so I told her, 'you look
spectacular!'" He continued, "then I told her the dress she was wearing
was sexy - so sexy she'd have to tread carefully at night, if she's alone, see,
because someone with her curvaceous figure -- in such a skimpy outfit -- could
easily find herself being gang-raped in a dumpster."
Despite his smooth overture, Cornyn said his compliments didn't go over as
well as he thought they would. "That's when she started looking at her
watch every minute or so," he groaned. But Cornyn let any perception of
rejection roll off his back. "It was as far as I'd gotten all year, so I
kept my head up and kept pushing forward, man."
During dinner, however, his date's ultra- sensitive political correctness
finally pre- vailed. "I jokingly told the manager prices like his could
get a man shot, that someone might blow up his restaurant. She ran
out."
Making Puerto Rico A Steak
Conservative bloggers, on the heels on Rather-Memogate, were pushing hot n' heavy the idea that Democrats had forged the Terri Schiavo "talking points" memo that had been reported by ABC News and the Washington Post. The memo noted that the case was a "great political issue" for Republicans, noting that it fired up their religious base and put Dem. Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) in a tough box. So, these bloggers, without ANY evidence, mind you, claimed that this memo was a fake, getting play on Fox News and the Weekly Standard, among others. Apparently, these bloggers were unable to fathom that anyone in their party could have done something so heinous.
Well, guess what? Word comes out today that the memo was NOT a fake, as the legal counsel for REPUBLICAN Senator Mel Martinez (R-FL) admitted that he was the author, and promptly resigned.
So you'd think these bloggers, with such serious, serious egg on their faces, would be offering mea culpas, huh? After all, even Henry Wallace once wrote a book called "Why I Was Wrong" to apologize for his pro-communist views. But no such luck from these guys -- they're still at it -- "OK, it's real, but it's how it was reported that was bad."
Come on guys, you need to learn how to quit when you're beat. And you were DEAD WRONG on this one. Maybe you should take a lesson from Gilda Radner's Emily Litella and just say, "Never mind."
Bush on Social Security. It's Impeachable. Yes, Really.
So, yesterday in West Virginia, President Bush visits the Bureau of Public Debt for a photo op, to see the cabinet where they keep the paper IOUs for the Treasury notes that have been given by the Government in exchange for borrowing from the Social Security trust fund for use in the general revenue expenditures. And here's what Bush said about those IOUs, that government debt issued by the U.S. Treasury to replace the money taken from this government pension program:
I have just come from the Bureau of Public Debt. I want to thank Van Zeck,
Keith Rake, and Susan Chapman. Susan was the tour guide there at the Bureau of
Public Debt. I went there because I'm trying to make a point about the Social
Security trust. You see, a lot of people in America think there's a trust, in
this sense -- that we take your money through payroll taxes and then we hold it
for you, and then when you retire, we give it back to you. But that's not the
way it works.
There is no "trust fund," just IOUs that I saw firsthand,
that future generations will pay -- will pay for either in higher taxes, or
reduced benefits, or cuts to other critical government programs. The
office here in Parkersburg stores those IOUs. They're stacked in a filing
cabinet. Imagine -- the retirement security for future generations is sitting in
a filing cabinet.
So Bush is saying that a U.S. Treasury bond is just a worthless IOU? One that foreign countries, like China, have heavily invested in? Wow, that has pretty serious economic consequences.
And, so it appears, pretty serious political ones as well. What Bush said almost certainly is impeachable under any fair reading of the Constitution. As Josh Marshall has already pointed out, here's a little known section of the 14th Amendment, Section 4:
Section 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States,
authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any state shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.
Yes, the section even refers to "pensions" directly by name!
Didn't Bush take an oath to "preserve, protect and defend" the Constitution of the United States? Sure looks like he violated that oath.
