Wonkette
So Alabama shitbird Sen. Richard “Dick” “Swett” Shelby has placed a blanket hold on 70-ish Obama nominees, which someone in Harry Reid’s office bothered to tell us all about yesterday. He wants Northrop Grumman to get a contract for a tanker that would bring 1,500 jobs to Alabama, and he wants some dildo thing called the “Terrorist Explosives Devices Analytical Center” to be built, in Alabama, and he will not allow 70 important jobs to be filled until he gets his stupid tanker and stupid dildo cunt factory. How does he explain this, the Shelby Shakedown — or as the really vulgar folk call it, the Questionable Application of Political Leverage by United States Senator Richard Shelby?
Here’s the gist of the statement from whatever weiner-salad works in Shelby’s office:
“Senator Shelby has placed holds on several pending nominees due to unaddressed national security concerns,” Mr. Graffeo wrote. “Among his concerns is that nearly 10 years after the U.S. Air Force announced plans to replace the aging tanker fleet, we still do not have a transparent and fair acquisition process to move forward. The Department of Defense must recognize that the draft Request for Proposal needs to be significantly and substantively changed.”
“Senator Shelby is also deeply concerned that the administration will not release the funds already appropriated to the F.B.I. to build the Terrorist Explosives Devices Analytical Center. This decision impedes the U.S. military, the intelligence community, and federal law enforcement personnel in their missions to exploit and analyze intelligence information critical to fighting terrorism and ensuring American security worldwide.
“The Obama administration wants to read terrorists our Miranda rights and try them in U.S. courts but is impeding the processing of evidence that could lead to convictions.”
Rahm, on cellphone: GIVE THE FUCKING RETARD WHAT HE MOTHERFUCKING FUCKING WANTS? OKAY?
Tim Shriver: Rahm! We’re right here, in the White House! During the R-word summit!
Little boy, crying: I’m s-s-scared…
White House Blasts Shelby Hold on Nominees [NYT]
weiner-salad?
What, no demand to eliminate the cap gains tax and bomb Sudan? Fucking RINO.
Akbar Zib, motherfucker.
oh, sorry. I’ve been in Asia for several months.
The answer is (c), the Senate’s arcane rules are so fucked up that they enable any asshole in the body to pull this stupid shit without reprisal, and the media are a bunch of lazy cocksuckers who will claim it’s all perfectly OK, as long as the dick is a Republican.
honkyman: It’s not like anything has changed.
honkyman: Yes, with a side of Cockberry Vineswett. Hey-o!
Snarkalicious: Cockberry, Dickberry, Wangberry, Twigberry…whatevs.
Now Dick Shelby has got the vapors
And he’s been known to throw a snit or two
Lord he loves pork so much
He’ll hold things up when he’s feeling blue
Now how about you?
Sweet home Alabama
Where the pork is so “blue”
(’bama gets $1.61 back from the Feds for every dollar they pay in Fed Taxes)
Sweet Home Alabama
Lord, Dick’s bring’n it home to you
Wait. Somehow “ensuring America’s security worldwide” is Alabama’s responsiblilty? Be afraid people. Be very afraid.
What did I miss? Can he do this because the R’s have a 41/100 seat majority in the senate?
To reduce he deficit, instead of analyzing explosive devices, let’s just have US senators step on them, one at a time. After the last of the senators goes off in pieces, they could be replaced by Treasury officials and/or bankers.
Apparently even Sadaam thought he was a dipshit.
ManchuCandidate: Sweet.
Is that Saddam Hussein or an Alabama State Trooper? I can never tell.
This is like when I’m so angry at my wife that I refuse to feed my kids. That’ll show her!
This is great news for me! Alabama has finally surpassed Wyoming as the state with the shittiest congressional delegation.
What a guy, according to The Official Wikipedia:
On November 9, 1994, Shelby switched his party affiliation to Republican, one day after the Republicans won control of both houses in the midterm elections, giving the Republicans a 53-47 majority in the Senate.
In 2004, a federal investigation concluded that Shelby revealed classified information to the media when he was a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Specifically, Shelby revealed classified information on June 19, 2002 to Carl Cameron, the chief political correspondent on Fox News. This information had been given to Shelby only minutes before at a closed intelligence committee meeting. This information consisted of two messages intercepted by the National Security Agency on September 10, 2001, but were only translated the day after the attacks — “the match is about to begin” and “tomorrow is zero hour.
If he brings home any more pork to Redstone Arsenal, it’s going to collapse.
What’s the use of having a BAMF veep if you can’t cut him loose to kick a little ass? I see no problem here that Joe Biden can’t solve with a crow bar.
Hannity: Obama has yet to fill 70 crucial governmental positions. Maybe he should spend less time flying around the world in his private jet and bowing down to our enemies.
This tanker contract has been a massive headache for years and is just a sea of festering corruption and legal trench warfare among the various bidders, not to mention a huge boondoggle in the first place. Shelby’s just doing his part to keep a portion of this huge unnecessary gravy train in Alabama while playing to his trailerbound base. Because there’s nothing better for national security than getting the government to spend $40 billion on a huge project it doesn’t need and didn’t ask for.
Obama should offer to build the Death Panel Campus, Research and Interpretive Center in Alabama.
Also, impeach Clarence Thomas, also
Still waiting for loudmouth pork-hater Walnuts McCain to come to America’s defense on this one. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting…
Would the “Terrorist Explosives Devices Analytical Center” entail some non-negligible risk of the explosive devices being analyzed actually, y’know, exploding? And would the hapless victims of such explosions possibly be of the southern cracker variety? Yes?
Then I’m all for it.
Why is there no Richard “Dick” Shelby entry on dickipedia.com?
Who-hoo! Bama Rules! Only Alabama is looking out for the nation.
Snark aside, NO STATE has a shittier (more shitty?)delegation than us. I thought when I moved from Louisiana that, at last, I would see some better government. I wuz wrong.
Photo: “Ha Ha Ha. Dick, my favorite fuck buddy, pull my finger.Ha Ha Ha”
give us a bob: I’m trying to figure out exactly what good an explosives device analysis center would do. I mean, above and beyond what is currently done in terms of analyzing explosives. Is the FBI not doing a good enough job or something?
Dick Swett and Akbar Zib are offended by the comparison to Richard Shelby
So, this is simple: Just put the Super Exploder Center in another state and give the contract to Airbus. Solved. YOUR WELCOME!
All he really wants is to hold somebody wrapped in a blanket. It’s what we all want, really.
From my vantage in L.A. (Lower Alabama) it looks like Dick is doing a great job! All the local trade schools have been pushing aircraft tech for the last few years, if it all works out a lot of these boys will have good enough jobs to afford all the beer and firecrackers they want, it’ll sure beat the current meth-based economy…
bitchincamaro: The pork McCain hates is pork that would help his own state. WHY does WALNUTS! hate Arizona?
Why isn’t hairy old Reid tea bagging this guy right now? The hold is complete bullshit, and I don’t see why the DemonRATS can’t just abolish it.
“Among his concerns is that nearly 10 years after the U.S. Air Force announced plans to replace the aging tanker fleet, we still do not have a transparent and fair acquisition process to move forward.
And why did he not hold Bush/Cheney to the fire….what is wrong with it that they wouldn’t agree to his ideas?
I’m too lazy to google it up, but surely this mush-mouthed cocksucker weighed in on the purported immorality of the Nebraska/Arkansas/Louisiana Medicare bribe for healthcare? Surely he couldn’t have resisted that?
I am shocked and appalled no one has created an Akbar Zib Wikipedia article yet.
Can some please do a collage of all the Republicans photographed giving a hummer to Saddam. Them give it a Blinge make over so that it might live on the internets forever and ever till Jesus or Sarah Palin comes. Also.
I guess we’re done being mad at Sen. Nelson for taking some kind of quid pro quo shit now, eh?
So this means if the Senatorious passes cloture, they will have voted to cutoff ‘bama’s dick?
Saddam, I just wanna hold your hand.
That’s gayer than Rummy shaking hands with our old friend.
give us a bob: I smell redundancy here, I’m sure all the BATF has to do is get a SCIF somewhere in NoVA/MD/Penna and keep the biz in the Federal Arc…not clear out to the flippin’ hind tit of Appalachia.
Unless it is going to reduce the domestic terrorism threat of ‘bama meth labs…
Remember that time when Bush was president, and Sen. Chris Dodd tried to put a hold on something? And Harry Reid was like, “whatever, we only honor Republican holds in this chamber” and basically flat out ignored Dodd’s hold. Anyway, what I’m saying is, fuck Harry Reid.
In the first place, 70 does not equal “several” and that is not the kind of redneck math you want analyzing your explosives, people. And in comparison to Shelby, Ben Nelson and Mary Landrieu deserve medals for their healthcare horse trading which was only on behalf of the poors, not in exchange for some well-disguised dividend-paying shares in techno co’s.
Somebody please tea board this motherfucker and make his Baathist ass tell us where Bin Laden is. Talk Shelby! We want answers!
Why not just say okay to Mr. Dick Shelby’s demands, let him release the 70 hostages, and then, when they’re safely approved, say you changed your mind? When he asks why, tell him that you don’t feel obligated to honor commitments to extortionists, and welcome to politics. Are Democratic politicians in Washington REALLY this friggin’ dumb? LBJ would have had Shelby’s “pecker in my pocket,” to use the President’s pet term for it, in five hot minutes — and when LBJ reneged later on, he would threaten to close every military base in the state if Shelby didn’t shut up. After all, Shelby isn’t really worried about the pork projects all that much; he just wants the anti-Obama publicity. Caving in to Shelby, then reneging later only makes Mr. Dick look better to his whacko constituents; everybody’s happy, except maybe a few FBI bureaucrats.
torera: lawrenceofthedesert: Nah, this really is a big employment deal down here, more than the usual sucking big business dick and anti-Hopeyism, lots of voting blue-collar types want jobs buildin’ them tankers with the Frogs down in Mobile but Boeing won’t play fair, hence all the hullaballoo. Airbus will build a bigger, faster tanker with more fuel capacity but, as we all know, common sense means nothing in defense procurement…
So, how does holding hands measure up to “palling around” anyway?
plowman: Central Planned Economy for the win, baby! He sings back in the u.s.s.r. every morning in the shower, right?
I say we put a Snapping Turtle Hold on Senator Shelby’s Balls and Pray for Sunshine.
Shelby is a creep who leers at young women, and God knows what else.
Darkness: Well, we’re gonna spend billions to build these tankers somewhere, may as well be here. All politics is local, my dark sweet pea.
@lawrenceofthedesert: Word son. Of course today if they reneged there would be fifty people on fox asking “TREASON? Did Odumbo betray real America? What does his word really mean? For reals? How can we trust ze BLACK MOOSLIME?”
“The really vulgar folk”
I agree that it is the most polite who are the most vulgar. I bet this woman: ( http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2010/02/05/2010-02-05_8yearold_boy_slain_in_failed_murdersuicide_at_manhattans_tony_peninsula_hotel.html?page=1) never uttered a curse even as she was taken into custody with a faint pulse and muttering incoherently.
Why are they holding hands?
He’s ex-Air Force? Call him up, make him a perimeter guard in Afghanistan.
Back in the day, you were nobody until you got your picture taken with the S man.
Maybe Sheldon hates America? Wasn’t Montgomery, MS, the first capital of the Confederacy?
You think our US delegation is bad, you should see our state government.
Richard Shelby, walking talking proof of what happens when folk insist on fucking their daughters, sisters and cousins year after year after year.