Speaker Hankey

Hi-Di-Ho!

My fellow Marylanders have beat out of me the notion that the American voter will, in the long haul, get it right.  Any group of addle minded voters,  stupid enough to turn out of office the most successful governor in my lifetime, for a two-bit conniving liar, and hustler, like Martin O'Malley are beyond redemption.  Baltimore is also where the current Speaker of the House learned her trade, which gives you an idea.  It really doesn't matter who the next president is if Pelosi and Reid are still running things in 2009.  In retrospect, it would have been a blessing had the Commies nuked Maryland in 1960.  August 17-25 to be exact.  My dad took us camping in Kentucky that week, so nothing of value would have been lost  (sorry Diane W, Mary B, Pam D, and  Sandy A (you bitch). Anyway -- to wit. “ Pelosi's latest move is to link a $108 billion supplemental bill for U.S. troops in Iraq to an extra $70 billion in pork spending in a tacked-on economic stimulus package. It's a bad idea, one that wouldn't make it through a congressional vote. So she's getting around that by changing the rules. Instead of submitting the package to a subcommittee vote, moving it to a full committee, and allowing debate until consensus is reached, Pelosi's skipping the appropriations process altogether. This has been done only a few times in the last 20 years — mostly in times of national emergency, like 9/11 and Katrina. Now, it's just business as usual with Pelosi in power. Pelosi seems to have been emboldened by her success in halting Colombia's free-trade agreement this month — again, not through votes, but by changing house rules to end the 90-day requirement to schedule a vote. This damages our alliance with Colombia. For what price? Like the Iraq bill, she's tying passage of Colombia free trade to the new pork spending she seeks. Winner: Big Labor. Loser: the private sector, which must pay $1 billion in tariffs.  [Hankey's Widening Power Grab] ”