Biden on the START treaty vote

17 December 2010 |permalink | email article

Finally, there’s an adult standing up to some of the disordered politicians milling around in Washington. That would be the Vice President. He sounded off Thursday after two Republican senators balked at the idea of having votes on the START treaty and other matters before or after Christmas.

“Don’t tell me about Christmas. I understand Christmas, Biden, a Catholic, told NBC’s Andrea Mitchell. Brushing aside the Christmas shopping focus he said “this is the nation’s business. National security is at stake.” Biden was reacting to Republican Sens. Jon Kyle of Arizona and Jim DeMint of South Carolina who claimed that holding votes on the crucial treaty near or after Christmas would be “disrespecting one of the two holiest of holidays for Christians “and “sacrilegious,” respectively.

GOP and earmarks

The President made his distain for the subject clear after the midterm elections, noting that the process in Congress isn’t what the American people really want to see in terms of how taxpayer dollars are spent. On Wednesday Republican Sens. John Cornyn and John Thune of South Dakota flayed a Democratic effort to push forward with a 1,924-page, $1.1 trillion measure, even though millions of dollars of GOP pork wound up in it.

Pressed by ABC News whether either of them had any credibility on the issue Cornyn fired back that they did: “Because we’re going to vote against the bill because it’s the wrong way to do business.” Neither Senator acknowledged that it was wrong for them to insert the spending projects in the bill in the first place. It’s a fresh example of Republican hypocrisy.

Brays and Trumpets

John Boehner, town crier. – Crib Sheet, Henry Alford, New York Times

“See that Social Security card you have? The voice asks. “That means security for you and your family. The Democrats made that possible.” – A grainy black-and-white television ad for Adali Stevenson’s campaign in 1952, in which the narrator reminds a voter of all that the Democratic Party has achieved on his behalf. It’s a generational reminder of what Social Security has meant for all Americans.
                       

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