Enjoy conflating? The cold cash was in William Jefferson's freezer.

"Section 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law,[...] shall not be questioned."

This is certainly an ethics violation at a minimum. I wonder if there are any statutes in force that would make it a criminal offense.

On the other hand we have Arlen the chameleon. Specter has a lifetime progressive score of 37.06% which ranks 59/99 in the Senate. Compare Ben Nelson who ranks 58/99 has a still lousy but roughly 40% higher lifetime progressive score of 52.45%. That is the best for any Republicanistic member of the Senate, but it's still on the far side of that 40% chasm. He has a lifetime record that screams, "Don't trust me!", even as his lying lips say, "I'm your man!"

Progressives should heed the message of Specter's record and give their support to Sestak.

http://brownback.senate.gov/pressapp/record.cfm?id=238161&

NEWS RELEASE
May 24, 2005

BROWNBACK STATEMENT ON JUDICIAL NOMINEES
Hopeful all of President’s nominees will be guaranteed an up or down vote

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Sam Brownback today made the following statement
expressing his concern with the agreement reached by 14 senators regarding President
Bush’s judicial nominees.
“Some progress was made yesterday, but I am not satisfied with this agreement,”
Brownback said. “For four years we have been working to get an up or down vote on
the president’s nominees—to have them approved by a majority of the Senate, as
required by the Constitution, not a super-majority as required by the Democrats. We
have showed every restraint in not rushing through this. Now that we have exhausted
all other options, it is time to move forward in the process.
“It’s important to note that the Constitutional option is still on the table. If one of the
president’s nominees is filibustered at any point in the future, I will support the Senate
leadership’s implementation of the Constitutional option.
“All of the president’s nominees—both now and in the future—deserve a fair up or
down vote, regardless of whether some members of the Senate feel they can be
filibustered based on whatever they define to be extraordinary circumstances.”

So what's the problem? The trust fund was looted by fancy accounting that would be illegal if you or I did it. The cash was swapped for treasuries, but now market is flooded with treasuries tied to our brittle currency and bearing 0 to 1/4% interest. So what else is there besides raising taxes to pay off the bonds, or print money to do it? Or we could privatize it, right?

The great irony is that since the day of his arrest, Blago is the only one associated with this affair who is actually acting in accordance WITH the law by appointing a replacement senator as REQUIRED by Illinois and federal constitutions.

Like Bush and Cheney, I guess the law may be overlooked when it is inconvenient for us. Haven't we endured enough of that?

Seem like the Republicans may not be as enthusiastic as in previous years. Meanwhile, across the state line in MO there are huge lines and in some of the DEM strongholds the wrong poll books were delivered this morning causing a 2 hour delay before voting even began. The usual crap!