And tomorrow, Mr. Figures will testify before the Senate Committee and likely tell them that Jefferson Beauregard Sessions, in his capacity as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Alabama, did his damnedest to dissuade him from further investigation of the Klan's tragic 1981 lynching of 19-year-old Michael Donald.

According to Mr. Figures' Senate testimony back in 1986, when Sessions had been nominated for a federal judgeship by President Reagan, the current Atty. General nominee called the Donald investigation a waste of time and further threatened to bar Figures from prosecuting the case, in the event he managed to obtain an indictment.

And this was AFTER Sessions had first admonished him to "be careful what you say to white folks," after Sessions' white secretary had complained to her boss that Figures acted uppity toward her.

It's really too bad that Thomas Figures isn't the nominee for U.S. Attorney General, rather than this wretched antebellum namesake.

I'm a trained parliamentarian, and the stuff they sometimes pull off there never ceases to amaze me. So, it's not at all surprising that you don't really see what's going on here in the Senate -- and why should you, really? It's not your job. Unfortunately, confusing the public like this only adds to everyone's skepticism.

Anyway, Sen. Cory Booker and the other Democrats did NOT oppose a measure allowing for the importation of cheaper meds from Canada. What they voted against was an amendment to Title III of Senate Concurrent Amendment 3, which would have given Senate Health Committee Chair Mike Enzi (R-WY) the discretion to add a deficit-neutral reserve fund "relating" to the lowering of prescription drug prices through the importation of pharmaceuticals from Canada, provided that such funding did not add the federal deficit for the next ten fiscal years.

It was a bullshit "poison pill" amendment with no funding, which had it passed would've been attached to the budget reconciliation bill that has been crafted by Senate Republicans to repeal Obamacare. Republicans were never going to allow such an amendment to pass as a rider.

Just for starters, there is no way that you can implement such a fund without inflating the federal deficit, so its alleged purpose was in fact moot. Rather, its intended effect was to get GOP members of the committee on the public record as having voted "against" the lowering of prescription drug costs, even though as I said, no monies were included to fund the measure.

Thus this amendment would never have actually accomplished what people on the outside like you thought it would, and it constituted cheap sentiment and meaningless symbolism. Of course Chair Enzi voted against it, since he never had any intention of setting up any such reserve fund in the first place, while Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) voted for it because it symbolizes the sort of shallow populism to which he gravitates, as a moth does to a fluorescent bug lamp.

Please don't pay undue attention to the opinions of those persons who can't identify congressional reindeer games like this one. Trust me, this amendment offered by Sens. Klobuchar and Sanders was all kabuki. In that regard, Sen. Booker's vote is entirely consistent with someone who is in full-throated opposition to the budget reconciliation bill to repeal Obamacare. Why vote in favor of amending a bill you're going to vote against anyway?

i'll try to explain:

Michael Linder / SC / White / Convicted 1979 / Exonerated 1981 / Acquitted

What Netanyahu's meddling in US election means for Obama, Romney, and diplomacy

WASHINGTON -- Some observers claim that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is trying to tip the scales against President Obama in the elections this November... The realization that Mr. Netanyahu may be meddling in the American presidential elections could complicate the foreign policy debate on the campaign trail and have repercussions for future diplomacy between the United States and Israel.

However this story makes me laugh. It sounds like a story shopped out of desperation from Trump and Putin and the GOP.

"It basically stands for the narrow proposition that you should not publish a sex tape," Mr. Thiel says

Or letting the FBI official manage the case after his wife got $1 million in campaign donations to run for office in Virginia as a Democrat?

to me.