reality-based educator

Sometimes it's nice to hear somebody in the Republican Party tell the fat, corrupt GOP leadership to take their cynical, manipulative bullshit and shove up their fat, corrupt asses. John Warner is essentially doing just that:

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican leaders in the House and Senate were blocked Tuesday by a senior GOP senator in their efforts to add immigration, handgun and Internet gambling measures to a defense bill.

Sen. John Warner, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, rejected appeals from Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and House Speaker Dennis Hastert to use his bill on military pay raises as a vehicle for their pet measures.

Warner said in a memo to Frist he is "firmly opposed" to including unrelated bills in the defense bill. Two other Republicans also oppose the add-on bills, Warner said.

Hastert had insisted on adding to the defense bill a measure the House passed last week that would make it easier to detain and deport illegal immigrants who are members of violent criminal street gangs.

"Cracking down on gangs might be divisive in San Francisco, but it's not in the rest of America," Hastert said in a reference to House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, who represents the city by the bay. "It's my hope the Senate will live up to its word so that we can send this measure to the president for his signature."

The speaker also wanted to use the defense bill as a vehicle for a House measure allowing judges to carry handguns and bolstering courthouse security in response to the murder of a Chicago federal judge's husband and mother last year.

Warner balked at both, saying he wanted to keep the defense bill bipartisan at a time when U.S. troops are at war. Warner said that he, along with Democrats and at least two other Republicans, would not sign off on it or any other "out-of-scope" bills that were added.

"There are not even sufficient signatures to affect a partisan Republican" defense bill, he said.

You know what, Denny? If you want to pass your immigration measures, put 'em in an immigration bill and try and pass the whole fucking thing.

Leave ancillary bullshit out of the military pay raise bill.