Randi Rhodes: Happy New Year & Farewell to Legend

Well, it’s a New Year. The way things have been going, that sounds like as much of a threat as it does a promise. In Arkansas, wildlife officials are investigating why over 5,000 dead blackbirds fell from the sky a few minutes before midnight on New Years Eve. And that’s not even the most disturbing thing to fall from the sky this New Years. MTV dropped a ball in New Jersey with Snooki in it. Wildlife officials seem unconcerned.

At least the new Senate has an opportunity to take up filibuster reform. The Senate will have to look at how it does things when it goes back to work on Wednesday. If you’re thinking “Hey, I went back to work on Monday,” that just highlights the need for the Senate to look at how it does things. At the very least, the filibuster should be limited to the actual passage of a bill. Now, Republicans routinely filibuster not only the final vote on a bill, but the initial motion to even debate it. It’s like a football coach being able to challenge a call before the play. Make no mistake, the procedures to amend the Senate rules on the filibuster are complicated and delicate. It’s like trying to build a house of cards… that can stand up to a sledgehammer. The road to filibuster reform is long and winding. But it’s better than the dead end that the filibuster represents.

On the House side, Congressman Darrell Issa, the incoming chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, called President Obama “one of the most corrupt presidents in modern times.” Of course, to conservatives, “modern times” is the 16th century. As head of the oversight committee, Darrell Issa will have subpoena power. That’s a frightening thought, even in a country where any nut is allowed to have a gun. Issa says he’s just trying to ferret out waste. If you really want to ferret something out, you wouldn’t leave it up to a weasel like Darrell Issa. He isn’t interested in investigating the Obama administration for doing anything wrong. He’ll investigate them for doing anything, period.

Well, here we go again. Let’s hope saner heads prevail, or 5,000 dead blackbirds may end up being one of the high points of 2011.

Today’s Homework | Discuss

Randi’s talk radio mentor Neil Rogers passed away on Christmas Eve morning. Flashing back to 1993, here’s Randi & Neil at WIOD in Miami…