Money No Longer Connected To Politics!!

Woo-hoo! Sure glad that phase is over. Nancy Pelosi took the gavel to return the House majority leadership to the Dims today, and she announced that the toughest Congressional ethics bill in history would be passed. Presumably, this will mean that Republicans will no longer be able to play Death Race 2000 with their pedestrian constituents, and must resort to killing and maiming people by more traditional means, like by running stoplights or paying for ninja hit squads like regular citizens. For the Dims, maybe it's time to rev the engines, put on the helmets, and check the empty scorecards. The competition will be keen.

Don't get me wrong. I'm glad the first female Speaker of the House has happened. I like Nancy Pelosi, and am genuinely glad she's the Speaker and a goose-stepping brownshirt degenerate with a lazy, insolent drawl is not. By comparison, she's extremely capable. I was glad, even hopeful, when she announced today that Congressional politics will be disconnected from the interests of Money. But. The system is the same. And are four days of celebrating before the Passover in good taste? Is it time to open our wallets, jewelry cases, and safe-deposit boxes and give everything at the Fund-Raiser they're holding to commemorate the demise of Special Interests? Maybe so. Wyclef Jean, Tony Bennett, and a couple members of the Grateful Dead have been singing there tonight:

The main event on Jan. 4 is her election as speaker. First, she'll attend a nondenominational prayer service, a tradition on the day a new Congress convenes, at St. Peter's Catholic Church on Capitol Hill.

The House meets at noon to elect Pelosi in a formal process expected to take several hours.

That evening, Pelosi will be honored at a concert/fundraiser for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which runs the party's national House campaign. Entertainment at the National Building Museum includes, King, Jean and Mickey Hart, late of the Grateful Dead.

The price will be steep: $15,000 for political action committees. But, hey, they get two tickets. The cost for regular folks is a mere $1,000 a ticket.