Posts Tagged ‘Senate’

Landrieu Victory Speech Leaks Before Saturday Run-Off

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Mary Landrieu

Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu, shown here at a dress rehearsal for Saturday night’s planned victory speech, simulates the spontaneous moment of triumph.

(2014-12-4) — With just days to go before Saturday’s run-off election in the race for Senator in Louisiana, a draft of Democrat Sen. Mary Landrieu’s purported victory speech has leaked.

The speech, handwritten on yellow legal paper, leaked to a reporter from a waste can in Landrieu’s Washington D.C. office, where the Senator had apparently placed it for safekeeping.

On the document, titled “Victory Speech,” Landrieu offers the customary gratitude to her family, friends and supporters, and to the Democratic National Committee and President Obama “who were instrumental in bringing about this incredible, unbelievable, virtually-impossible outcome.”

“If it weren’t for the money and ground troops that poured in from the DNC, I’d be making a humiliating concession call tonight, handing over the last Democratic Senate seat in the deep South to a Republican,” Landrieu plans to say.

“And if it weren’t for the wisdom and skill President Obama has used to turn this economy around, to unite our country around traditional American values, and to restore America’s reputation in the world — well, then by Monday I’d be scrounging for work as a lobbyist in the Louisiana State House, or begging relatives to get me a job as a roustabout on an oil rig, just to make ends meet.”

“It’s humbling how much the president and the DNC care about me, about the people of Louisiana, and specifically about female political candidates,” she’s slated to say. “They could have turned off the spigot and walked away after I won only a narrow plurality in November, cutting their losses while they licked their wounds from the Republican thrashing we got in so many other states.”

“But that’s not who we are as Democrats,” she’ll say. “We believe in our principles too much to make decisions for craven political purposes. I stand here before you tonight proud to say, ‘I’m Senator Mary Landrieu. I’m a woman, and I’m a Democrat!”

GOP Balks, House Democrats Move to Impeach Obama

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Nancy Pelosi

Democratic House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi shakes her fist in rage against Republicans as she announces that she’ll file articles of impeachment against President Barack Obama in September, in advance of the next Congressional campaign-finance reporting deadline.

(2014-08-04) — Because House Republicans have steadfastly refused to impeach President Barack Obama, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) today announced that her caucus would advance articles of impeachment against the president in early September.

The move comes in the run-up to the 2014 midterm elections, as Democrat fundraising goals outstrip receipts, and some polls show the GOP could recapture the Senate.

“An attack on the president is an attack on all Americans,” Rep. Pelosi said. “Republicans, deep in their hearts, have wanted to impeach President Obama since before he was senator. We Democrats will introduce these articles of impeachment to unmask the true feelings of most Republicans, and to give Democratic lawmakers the opportunity to stand boldly at his side.”

A fundraising letter immediate went out from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee with the subject line, “GOP-Run House Tries to Impeach President Obama!”

White House spokesman Josh Earnest, called the impending impeachment “no surprise given the hostility of Republicans toward America’s first black president.”

“The fact that the Democrats had to launch this impeachment effort,” Earnest said, “is just another example of John Boehner’s do-nothing Republican majority.”

President Obama, informed of his looming impeachment, reportedly said, “Cha-ching.”

Justice Ginsburg to Stay, ‘So Am As Can Able Do To’

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Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Supreme Court Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg released this recent photograph as additional evidence of her fitness to remain on the high court.

(2014-08-01) — Supreme Court Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, under pressure from Democrats to retire before a potential Republican majority takes the Senate, said this week that she’ll remain on the highest court in the land, “So am as can able do to, and perhaps longer.”

The octogenarian Liberal jurist said she’s monitoring her own ability to do the job, and will know when it’s time to go based on several indicators.

“Can you think as carbuncle masticate curmudgeon? Can you wrote fluidity pastoral semper fi? At my age, you take it year by hamstring staplegun cantaloupe. I’m OK this year.”

Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he has spoken informally with Ginsburg at a D.C. social event and that “she’s as lucid and intellectually-sharp as ever I’ve seen her. I’m comfortable with her extending her tenure on the Court.”

Senate Mulls Background Checks on Potential Victims

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Potential mass-shooting victim background checks mulled by SenateSome senators worry that a bill to screen for potential mass-shooting victims could lead to empty classrooms and theaters, or worse, the specter of armed security personnel or even armed, law-abiding citizens depriving people of their natural right to remain defenseless.

The U.S. Senate next week will reportedly take up debate on a bill to require background checks on potential victims of mass shootings. The alternative to increased gun-purchase background checks came out of closed-door negotiations among Senate leaders when they discovered that mass-shooting victims are easier to spot in advance than mass shooters.

“Victims of mass shootings have some consistent markers,” said one unnamed Senate aide. “They’re the type who tend to congregate in enclosed spaces, unarmed, and who surround themselves with other utterly-defenseless individuals. If we can screen for those factors, perhaps we can develop measures to prevent the behaviors that lead to mass victimization.”

The controversial measure is expected to meet with stiff resistance from Senate Democrats who see potential-victim background checks as “infringing on a person’s God-given natural right to avoid self-defense,” as one unnamed Northeastern senator put it.

“All this does is stigmatize law-abiding citizens,” the Democrat senator said, noting that the bill is the biggest threat yet to the popular perception of safety in “gun-free zones” like schools and theaters.

Indeed, nationwide polls show that people like the idea of believing that a prohibition on carrying guns in certain places, or limitations on buying certain weapon types, will immunize them from sudden ballistic impact syndrome.

Senate’s 1st Budget in 4 Years Stops Global Warming

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Senate budget on it's way to be bronzedAn aide delivers the Senate’s first budget in four years, as climate scientists rejoice over the prospects of falling surface temperatures due to rapid cooling in the netherworld.

At daybreak Saturday, the U.S. Senate passed its first annual budget in four years, a move scientists say could actually reverse the global warming trend if predictions about subterranean freezing come to pass.

“You’ve heard the forecasts about when the Senate would pass a budget,” said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. “Well, it happened. So as the folks in the netherworld bundle up, those of us who currently dwell topside and were concerned about the rise of the oceans can heave a sigh of relief.”

Climate scientists say that even a thin layer of ice on the surface of the river Styx in the underworld could reduce the Earth’s core temperature enough to counteract glacial melting on the surface.

While this comes as welcome news to those frightened by the prospects of global warming, an expert from the porcine research facility at the University of Idaho warned that passage of a budget in the Senate can spawn a plague of avian hogs, whose airborne antics could have unpredictable consequences for the environment.