BREAKING NEWS!!!! 80-YEAR-OLD SENATOR DIANNE FEINSTEIN PLOWED THROUGH A SCHOOL OF GEESE AT A CROSSWALK, SCATTERING BEAKS AND FEATHERS; HOWEVER, ASLEEP AT THE WHEEL, THE ELDERLY WOMAN'S CAR JUST ROLLED RIGHT ALONG.
No, seriously, Carolyn Lochhead (San Francisco Chronicle) quotes Feinstein insisting that she's right to blow off constituents who overwhelmingly are opposed to a US military strike on Syria because they "have not seen what I have seen, or heard what I have heard. I like to believe that after 20 years that I have some skills in separating the wheat from the chaff. Knowing where we were when Iraq was considered and where we are with this, I don't want to see nations use chemical weapons with abandon."
20 years in Congress makes her an expert? Ten years didn't. In 2002, she voted for the Iraq War and, as Lochhead observes, last year Feinstein was admitting to The Chronicle that her Iraq War vote was a mistake. In 2023, will Feinstein be telling The Chronicle that her Syrian War vote was a mistake?
Probably not.
Mainly because she'd be ninety . . . If she lives that long.
Dianne's age woldn't be a concern to us were it not for the fact that she's in Congress.
For some time now -- see, for example, 2008's "A gold watch for Robert Byrd?" -- we've noted that certain lawmakers don't have the good sense to retire and, therefore, the country needs term limits or a mandatory retirement age.
The Senate itself notes that 298 members of the Senate have died while in office. Five have died in office since we started raising this issue:
All five died of natural causes. Each of them should have retired. Take Thomas who was re-elected to a six-year term in November of 2006 and dead seven months later.
What is is that makes these senators so damn selfish?
Let's ask DiFi?
At 80, does she really have no life outside of the Senate? Does her only child hate her that much? Is she so repulsed by her own husband that she has to escape into the Senate?
Or is that this pig who looks down on the voters who elected her can think of nothing worse than becoming a non-senator?
Who knows but here's what's known.
When these idiots die in office, they create a whole host of problems.
Every state is guaranteed two US senators. When they're stuck with only one -- as was the case in Minnesota not that long ago -- their one senator and her office is overwhelmed. (The November 2009 election came down to dispute between incumbent Norm Coleman and challenger Al Franken. July 7, 2009, Al Franken was finally sworn in as senator. Until that day, Senator Amy Klobuchar was Minnesota's sole US senator and, as she made clear during the endless battle over recounts, her staff was overtaxed.)
Second, if a special election is required to take place, that's a bill that the taxpayers of the state have to foot. Last November, Chris Good (ABC News) reported:
Looking at two special House elections held in Illinois in recent years -- those to replace GOP House speaker Denny Hastert and Democratic congressman Rahm Emanuel -- the Illinois State Board of Elections calculated those elections cost $2,700 to $4,000 per precinct. With 590 precincts in Jackson’s 2nd Congressional District, an election would probably cost around $2,575,000, the state board told ABC News.
Illinois will hold two special elections to replace Jackson, a primary and a general, and the state board projects that replacing Jackson could cost $5.15 million total.
Those were House races. Imagine the cost of a state-wide special election.
Senators Carl Levin (79) and Jay Rockefeller (76) have all announced they will not seek re-election. At 80, Dianne Feinstein is now the oldest member of the Senate.
Clearly, her life is so worthless and devoid of meaning that she must remain in the Senate. She has nothing else to do and, without the title of "Senator," no one would speak to her. So she desperately holds onto an office she has no business in.
At 80, we don't trust her with the car keys to make a milk run to Ted's Market over on Howard Street, why in the world should we trust her with matter of life and death like war?
We clearly shouldn't.
It is past time for America to make the difficult choice of life decisions: Either we start imposing term limits on Congress or we set a mandatory retirement age for members of Congress.
The cost to the taxpayer, the cost to the wellness of the nation is too great.