Wednesday, April 30, 2008

More Anti-Dem Spin From "The Brian Williams Network"

I came across the following “hatchet job” masquerading as reporting from MSNBC Mike Viqueira here (concerning the 110th Congress)…

So far this year, the stimulus package has passed, and that's about it. It has been slow going, no question. Behind the scenes, the Democratic leaders are still wrestling with the question of how to handle the president's latest request for war funding, this time for $108 billion.
Funny that Viqueira should mention the latest war funding demand hissy fit request, since Kagro X of The Daily Kos addressed that subject here (including Dubya’s promised veto if more funding is included for our military to receive the education they were promised upon enlistment; the Repugs’ protest over requiring President Stupid Head to sign waivers when he rotates untrained, unrested, and unarmored troops back into combat; Dubya’s demand that the war be funded through his term and six months into the term of his successor, and on and on).

They are looking at legislation to ease the housing crunch.
True (and by the way, it’s worth noting here that the Dems’ legislation is picking up traction, even among GOP converts).

The farm bill has been on the verge of closure for weeks, if not months.
True again, but farm policy is typically a tangled web, so much so that a farm bill passed in 2002 has been renewed five times; this tells us that a new bill is nearing completion, so even though it might emerge as a treasure trove of giveaways to well-invested players, it would be best for everyone to wait out the process, since signoff could come inside of two weeks (and why the hell does President Highest Disapproval Rating In Gallup Poll History care about a farm bill anyway?).

And Democrats are clamoring for a second stimulus package for the economy, this time focused on extending unemployment insurance, infrastructure spending, and other items that they failed to pass in the first version.
Correction – all the items that had to be removed to get it past the congressional Roadblock Republicans.

But none of this is going to be easy. And on the fundamental job of Congress -- to pass spending bills to keep the government functioning -- it is quite possible, if not likely, that Democrats will simply punt it all into next year, thereby giving the new president, who they obviously hope will be one of their own, a clean slate on which to enact new policies and priorities.
That’s an outrageous accusation with no substantive proof at all, particularly pathetic when it was the Repugs who did that to 9 of 11 appropriations bills when they lost Congress in November 2006.

I’ll tell you what; here’s a list of accomplishments for the 110th Congress as of about a year ago – if I come across any updates, I’ll post them here as soon as I can.

And by the way, it’s not as if Viqueira hasn’t carried water for the Repugs before, as noted here (truly repellent stuff on the Mark Foley scandal).

(One more thing - Williams "responds" to his network's failure to cover the scandal of the military analysts here...h/t Atrios).

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