We like our politics 100-proof and unfiltered!
You may have suspected that the head groundskeeper at the Stately Manor is off his meds, as punch drunk as Pee Wee Herman on an all-night toot on the Vegas Strip. Now you have proof.
Blaska has a man crush on Mitch McConnell. More wily than the Warner Bros cartoon coyote. Master of his domain. Lord of the Rings. Waddles like a turtle but stings like a bee. What a joy to watch the man operate! Like that SNL skit, Mitch is the mohel performing a circumcision in a stolen car. Scalpel!
Watched the man hand Chuck Schumer his gonads over the rules debate Wednesday night 01-19-22. People, do not miss the greatest show on earth: legislative debate on a contentious issue. This week’s episode: that Democrats’ Vote Back Better bill, or whatever they’re calling it. The U.S. Senate again lived up to its reputation as the greatest deliberative body on earth. Only the British House of Commons is in the same league.
Live and in color
It’s all on C-Span, my go-to television channel. (It’s channel 742 on Spectrum here in Madison WI.) Unedited, unfiltered. No talking heads to tell us what we’ve just seen or what we must think. Got to admit, tracking the arcanity of cloture is a bit tricky, even for this student of political witchcraft. Having lost the vote for cloture on a 50 to 50 straight-line party vote (needed 60 to end the filibuster), majority leader Schumer switched to vote with Republicans, allowing him to move for reconsideration. (We used to do that all the time on county board.) But Schumer lost Manchin and Sinema in a 48-52 vote on his proposal for a one-time rules carve out for the voting rights bill when he needed only a majority.
The turtle beats the hare
Blaska may be batty but Trump is deranged. #45 has not forgiven McConnell castigating Trump as “practically and morally responsible” for the January 6 insurrection. Just last month, Trump tweeted, “What is wrong with this broken old Crow? GET RID OF MITCH!” Problem for Trump (The Dispatch Reports) is that no one is taking him up on it, except for two outliers, one challenging Lisa Murkowski in Alaska and the other being disgraced Eric Greitens in Missouri.
Fact is, Trump owes much of his presidency’s real successes to Mitch McConnell — including tax reform, three Supreme Court justices and hundreds of federal judges. That said, Wisconsin’s Ron Johnson is not thrilled; Senate leadership gave him up for dead at his re-election bid six years ago.
We get both sides of the filibuster debate; it’s not in the Constitution, as Angus King of Maine, a Democrat in Independent camouflage, explained. But McConnell scored points with a little history of his own. How Democrats filibustered sanctions against Putin’s pipeline and Tim Scott’s police reform bill. Or when Republicans regained the Senate in the 1994 Republican tidal wave, Tom Harkin of Iowa, a Democrat, proposed abolishing the filibuster. Every Republican senator voted to keep it, even though they had the majority and could have profited without it.
C-Span also has great book reviews and history lectures, Question Time in the UK’s House of Commons, presidential press conferences, campaign events. Watch it live, catch what you missed, look up bills on its website.
Blaska’s Bottom Line: If you enjoy chess or a close football game, watch the House and the Senate on C-Span.
Education
Blaska Policy Werkes 
“Fake news you can trust” is my filter
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hmmm…underwhelming response.
We might have to rethink physics club.
LikeLike
Physics club, I’m in, but the sign on the door said “Home Economics” so I didn’t come in.
LikeLike
Home Ec was good for at least one unscheduled fire alarm per semester when we did high school, back inna day.
LikeLiked by 1 person
This is just the way things get done. Burgle, Burgle, Burgle on both sides, lots of nastiness and histrionics and then the games begin. Now go back to doing what the Uni-Party members have done best for decades, siphoning money for their families and their personal gains from foreign and domestic lobbyists, thinktanks, etc. There is still billions and billions of Covid and “Infrastructure” money out there that needs to be spent, plenty of pockets to be lined on all sides of the aisle.
LikeLiked by 1 person
kay·fabe
/ˈkāˌfāb/
nounINFORMAL•US
(in professional wrestling) the fact or convention of presenting staged performances as genuine or authentic.
“a masterful job of blending kayfabe and reality”
LikeLike
Don’t forget voter fraud investigations. That’s been a cash cow for over a year.
LikeLike
I love how Brandon yesterday afternoon in his attempt at a press conference not only accidentally gave Rusha the green light to invade their neighbors (is ok, just make it look like a minor incursion), but he also cast doubt in advance on the validity of the 2022 midterm election outcome!
I guess contradicting election outcomes is only a heinous crime when certain people do it. Otherwise if a lefty progressive does it (Biden pre-sullying the 2022 legitimacy; also see 2016 outcome) that’s just fine.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I love me some C-SPAN. Painfully dry at times, but still the most unfiltered and neutral news source you can find nowadays.
LikeLike
Mordecai The Red wrote, “I love me some C-SPAN. Painfully dry at times, but still the most unfiltered and neutral news source you can find nowadays.”
I really like C-SPAN too, when I have the time to dive into the videos, it’s definitely more unfiltered than most media outlets; however, it may not be quite as neutral as you might think. What they present may in fact be very unfiltered; however, sometimes what is chosen to make available to the public and what is chosen not to make available to the public can also reflect negatively on neutrality. I do think C-SPAN makes a really good effort to remain as neutral as they can, but even they aren’t the gold standard.
LikeLike
C-SPAN has shown the widest breadth of guests and corresponding viewpoints that I’ve seen anywhere. I think they recently had Sean Spicer and Mark Pocan on their morning show in the same week. That said, feel free to suggest something better if you have it. I consume a variety of news sources and real journalism is hard to come by these days.
LikeLike
Mordecai The Red wrote, “feel free to suggest something better if you have it.”
If you think I implied that there was something better you’re wrong.
You seemed to have missed the written and implied points of my comment so let me simplify it;
C-SPAN makes a really good effort to remain as neutral as they can, but even they aren’t completely neutral and unbiased. Skepticism and critical thinking is warranted when consuming anything from any media sources. Always remember that the act of omission can speak volumes.
Like so many other things in the 21st century the gold standard of media has been buried in the quaint anecdotes of history.
I hope that helps.
LikeLike
Hey don’t forget our own city channel:
https://www.cityofmadison.com/information-technology/city-channel
“Insomnia? We have your six.”
LikeLike