We need to get McCocaine out of the Senate - and into formal ethics (and possibly criminal) investigations ASAP.

Jimmy Chao too.

He should be charged

It needs to be repeated constantly every day.

These should be the "non-controversial" non-wall-related appropriations that fund the rest of the government save for Homeland Security.

These bills were identical in language to those that either already passed the full Senate by a veto-proof majority or passed committees and would most likely pass the Senate by a large margin.

If Turtle blocks these from consideration on the floor, then this is HIS shutdown. If he allows these to be voted on and they pass, then let it go to the President to veto and he will have to take full responsibility for a shutdown. They love Raygun so much but Raygun vetoed 78 bills during his 2 terms.

My favorite Reagan moment in fact had to do with his most famous veto - the one against sanctions on Apartheid South Africa.

Mind you, this was even AFTER it was revealed they were trying to spread AIDS among the Black population and neighboring countries (which didn't seem to bother St. Ronnie one bit).

The August 1986 veto was, as you know, roundly overridden - with even many Republicans voting to override.

It was the first and so far only override of a foreign policy-related veto.

because people like Randall Robinson of TransAfrica and many many others had been protesting and were arrested to get the boycott and sanctions applied, which was the next step after getting a ban of the Krugerrand (which eventually prompted the U.S. to finally mint a 90+% gold coin itself).

I just recalled Reagan's pet excuse for backing South Africa: he claimed sanctions "would hurt the wrong people" (remember that one?).

Please! Reagan couldn't care less if Black people were hurt any more than he cared that gay men were dying in droves from a disease he didn't even acknowledge existed until 1987.

Which was a little like declaring war on Nazi Germany in April 1945 (but of course with almost no funding).

I recall reading years later that Burson-Marsteller - the black-hand PR firm employed by fascists from Pinochet, to the Argentine Junta, to Thatcher, and of course many corporate polluters and GOP critters - may have given him that line.

He certainly didn't come up with it by himself.

Maybe it was Nancy.

where he opposed it due to nonsense such as "cost". Only after the House passed it by a veto-proof majority and the Senate was able to cut off Jesse Helms' obnoxious filibuster, did it finally get to him to be signed into law.

One of the few things Republicans are truly good at.

And the more shameless, the better.

How different than now. Could be something about power corrupting.

Had no idea. Fairly brave for a Southern Republican, I'd say.

Then of course he became a drug money-funded invertebrate. Big Lobby's favorite kind of legislator.

He wouldn't allow it if Jimmy Chao threw him another $10 million in drug money.