Dang, Beth! Do some calming breathing exercises or something, or else you might do as I did a few years ago; get so exercised at the injustice that I'd just heard about that I jumped up and down, hoppin' mad, until I came down wrong and bent an ankle very painfully.

Not the best way to get in touch with one's inner autie.

It's the Economic Stability Act and that's what it should be. Nothing more. Nothing less. They don't ever get it, do they?

The key thing here is that they did not add pork to the bailout bill.

They added the bailout to the pork.

Remember, the Senate can not initiate a spending bill, per the Constitution. They can, however, amend the heck out of any they get from the House.

So in this case they took a porksicle that had already passed 93-2 but had not been officially sent on its way and brought it back up for 'further consideration'. Said further consideration was the addition of a minor amendent known as the "Economic Stability Act".

It's a key distinction that all of that pork had already passed both housed of Congress. If it hadn't been a handy way around the Constitution (in a situation where they did need to do it) that sausage would have been happily laid on the President's desk.

Now, because of the poor way it's been reported (I contacted the KCStar about their Friday morning article on this and explained it to them) the bailout itself is in danger of failure. While the pork is bad and that bill should probably never have been passed, it was passed and the fact that they used it to carry the bailout bill should have no effect on the bailout bill. But because of the publicity it will