Forget what you hear on television; those idiots never get the story right (well, not completely right).

Governor Blagojevich has appointed Roland Burris to fill the empty Senate seat. He has the absolute right to do so. Harry Reid says he won't seat Burris, but he doesn't have that right.

In the late 1960s, Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. was prevented by the House from taking his seat, because he was under suspicion of having committed crimes. He sued, and the Supreme Court ruled in Powell v. McCormack that the House overstepped its authority.

It appears that the Supreme Court ruled explicity that someone duly elected to Congress must be seated. In this case, Burris isn't elected, but is duly appointed under Amendment XVII and Illinois state law, so he must be seated.

But...

The Constitution (Article I, Section 5) states that either House of Congress may, "with the Concurrence of two-thirds, expel a Member." So it seems that if Harry Reid can get 2/3 of the Senate to vote to expel Burris, that would end Burris's tenure.

But (there's always more) ...  read more »

(Note: Reprinted from my website.)

Once again, Democratic "leadership" in Congress has failed to lead. If anything resembling a bailout of the domestic auto companies comes out of that bifurcated body, it will not resemble anything a truly progressive Democrat could support -- except on a direct plea from the fools who supposedly run things.

Once again, Democratic "leadership" in Congress has proven that negotiation is an art, and they don't know which end of the paintbrush to hold.

Let's review the bidding: President-elect Obama calls on Congress to do something. The CEOs of the "big three" domestic auto companies are summoned to Washington, where they are pilloried and sent home with orders to return. They return as ordered, are subjected to more horsewhipping in "hearings" that accomplish nothing (as hearings are wont to do).  read more »

The U.S. Senate was in session for 11 seconds today.

Jim Webb formally gaveled the session open and closed. The pro forma procedure is a daily routine, designed to prevent the Senate from being in recess, and thereby preventing President Bush from making some recess appointments.

The problem is, those "recess appointments" would be unconstitutional, and nobody in a power position seems to have read the Constitution to find that out.

Below is a reprint of a column I wrote two years ago, when John Bolton was illegally named our Ambassador to the U.N. Back then, the wimps in the Senate failed to take action; now they're doing something completely stupid -- and the insanity must be brought to an end.

Spread the word to friends in other states, and let our Senators know the truth. It's quite possible that they are ignorant (remember, when Hillary Clinton ran for Senate in 2000, she had no idea that the "Bill 602P" e-mails, supposedly about a bill that would tax e-mail, were a fraud -- the numbering system doesn't work that way).

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And now for the column:  read more »

BULLETIN: According to the folks at Democracy for America, Harry Reid has pulled the FISA bill off the Senate floor! His office (and other Senate offices) received so many calls complaining about Reid's craven capitulation to the Bushies that he caved in to us as well.
The original post follows:

Harry Reid is at it again, wimping out bigtime!

The new version of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) has been held up because George W. Bush wants to give retroactive immunity to phone companies that illegally passed information to the federal government.

The House passed a bill without immunity (good for them!), but the Senate has two versions. One version, passed out of the Intelligence committee (that seems to have no intelligence at all) would grant immunity. The other version, passed out of the Judiciary committee, would not.

Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT) has placed a "hold" on the verison of the bill with immunity. In theory, that's supposed to kill immunity -- but Harry Reid won't let procedures get in the way of caving in to Bush again. He is going to move the bill, with immunity, to the Senate floor.

The bill is S.2248, and there are several versions, all of which can be found at the Thomas website.

What to do? Read on:  read more »

Once again, the Senate failed to pass a measure to bring our troops home and end the occupation of Iraq. This time, Democrats led by Carl Levin and Jack Reed couldn’t even muster 50 votes, much less the 60 needed to bring the bill to a final vote, but landed in a 47-47 tie. The constant failure to pick up Republican votes, and the continued refusal of Senate Democrats to seem willing to compromise, might seem like a sign of stubborn weakness matching only a similar set of traits at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue. On the other hand…

Could there be a method to this madness?

For a long time political insiders have understood that the easiest way to win an election is to allow your opponents to block a popular initiative and then blame them for the failure. This “failure and blame” strategy was spectacularly employed by Harry Truman to win reelection in 1948 by attacking the “do-nothing Congress.”  read more »