Posts

Showing posts from January, 2014
Image
Strassel: Harry Reid's Senate Shutdown The Senate didn't pass a single appropriations or jobs bill in 2013. by Kimberley A. Strassel ( From wsj.com 1/10/14) The popular judgment that Washington's dysfunction is the result of "partisanship" misses a crucial point. Washington is currently gridlocked because of the particular partisanship of one man: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. And Republicans are warming to the power of making that case to voters. It's often said the 113th Congress is on track to become the "least productive" in history—but that tagline obscures crucial details. The Republican House in fact passed more than 200 bills in 2013. Some were minor, and others drew only GOP votes. But nearly a dozen were bipartisan pieces of legislation that drew more than 250 Republicans and Democrats to tackle pressing issues—jobs bills, protections against cyberattack, patent reform, prioritizing funding for pediatric research, and strea

Oh, the Humanity!

Image
Outrage. That sense of being incredibly, vein-poppingly angry about something you have no control over and that you feel is totally someone else's fault. The sort of outrage that residents of Ft. Lee, NJ are expressing this week over the discovery that members of Gov. Chris Christie's staff ordered lane closures as alleged retribution for Ft. Lee's mayor's unwillingness to endorse Christie's bid for reelection. I get it. It sucked being backed up in traffic for close to an hour. Normal rush hour gridlock extended into the mid-day time frame. Heck, people are even calling it a "public health issue" because ambulance service couldn't get across the bridge. But what about non-Governor-caused traffic tie ups? Those where there is a bad accident and a major highway is shut down for hours with no regard for those involved in the tie-up? Where is the outrage? Where is the class-action lawsuit when you have been held captive in a traffic snarl for 90 min