Bloodthirsty Liberal

One to go:

The Kennedy political dynasty is shaking in the aftershock of U.S. Sen. Scott Brown’s earth-shattering election, with a new poll showing U.S. Rep. Patrick Kennedy losing ground as he faces a well-financed GOP foe backed by Brown’s top strategists.

The WPRI-12 poll showed the Rhode Island Democrat with a 56 percent unfavorability rating in his district - a negative that grows to 62 percent statewide.

Only 35 percent of voters in Kennedy’s district said they would vote to re-elect him. Another 31 percent said they’d consider a different candidate and 28 percent said they would vote to replace him, according to the poll.

…

“Independents are running from the Democratic Party, and that benefits candidates across the northeast,” said Tory Mazzola, spokesman for the NRCC.

…

Salivating Republicans pointed to Kennedy’s controversial year, from his dust-up with Rhode Island Bishop Thomas J. Tobin, who denied him communion over his abortion stance, to his fumbled endorsement of Brown’s opponent, Attorney General Martha Coakley, whom he referred to as “Marsha.”

I would have thought his much-publicized DUA incident (Driving Under Ambien) would have had something to do with it, but the voters of RI, in their wisdom, have reelected him twice since that special day.

If JFK ushered in Camelot, the ouster of Ethelred the UnKennedy will be its ultimate dismantling.

When I first saw this on Best of the Web Today, I thought Taranto was joking.

The only joke, needless to say, is the now senior senator (though very much junior in popularity and influence) from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts:

Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) on Tuesday said he’d support the uphill battle to amend the Constitution to gut the impact of a Supreme Court decision lifting restrictions on corporate campaign spending.

“I think we need a constitutional amendment to make it clear, once and for all, that corporations do not have the same free-speech rights as individuals,” Kerry said during a Senate Rules Committee hearing.

…

“The sovereign right of the people to govern being essential to a free democracy, Congress and the States may regulate the expenditure of funds for political speech by any corporation, limited liability company, or other corporate entity,” the amendment says. “Nothing contained in this Article shall be construed to abridge the freedom of the press.’’

Cool how he made it all constitution-y sounding. Maybe an extra “e” or two at the end of a word and an “oye” would have helped, but all very powdered wig.

I’m no lawyer, but I wonder if the wording on the proposed amendment wasn’t carefully crafted to allow unions to slip through the cracks. The Democrats have been awfully slippery in their criticism of this SCOTUS decision, too often neglecting to mention McCain-Feingold was just as restrictive on organized labor as it was on the corporate bosses. Unless the AFL-CIO falls under the category of “corporation, limited liability company, or other corporate entity”, it will be free to poor millions into the political process without any offsetting funding from management.

What a grandstanding move by our senator. Is it any wonder that he has only one other co-sponsor so far?

Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) is the only other senator so far to back the idea of a constitutional amendment.

PS: More on the unions:

The two-sentence amendment does not address the prospect of unlimited union spending on independent campaign expenditures, which experts say would be another result of the decision.

Quelle surprise.

John Kerry may have failed in his bid to become president, but his bid for irrelevancy looks unbeatable.

We love the appearance on Leno, Scott…

and the victory lap around the state…

But would you drive that heap down to Washington already and kick that Kennedy toady, Paul Kirk, out on his fat ass and start taking some votes?

Though Massachusetts voters have selected Scott Brown as their newest representative in the Senate, Sen. Ted Kennedy’s appointed stand-in, Paul Kirk, is still voting.

Kirk provided Democrats a needed 60th vote to increase the debt limit and to reimpose statutory pay-as-you-go rules for spending, and, though his vote wasn’t needed for passage, he voted to confirm Ben Bernanke to a second term as Fed chairman, Susan Anne Hiller points out at Big Government.

Before and after Brown’s election, discussion centered on whether Kirk would cast the 60th vote on a modified health care bill; the next day, President Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid assured the nation that he wouldn’t and that Democrats wouldn’t “force” a massive health care overhaul through the upper chamber without letting Brown have his say. But Kirk’s overall voting status was less of a focus; turns out he’s still legislating away.

It’s not Scott’s fault, but I wish he’d channel his inner juvie and get medieval on Kirk’s ass.

U.S. Sen.-elect Scott Brown is expected to be seated in the U.S. Capitol by Feb. 11 despite past precedent that had U.S. Rep. Niki Tsongas (D-Lowell) seated within two days of her election.

Brown isn’t concerned about the sluggish approval process because Washington, D.C., pols have promised not to try and ram through health-care reform before he’s officially sworn in.

“Scott appreciates that both President Obama and (Senate) Majority Leader (Harry) Reid (D-Nevada) have said that no major action will be taken on health care until he is sworn and seated,” said Brown’s campaign manager, Eric Fehrnstrom.

Doesn’t mean there haven’t been other important votes. Here’s the list of Senate votes taken since Scott Brown won the election.

Just look at all the votes to raise the debt ceiling by another trillion-plus. Think Scotty’s vote on a filibuster might have changed history? How much can one party steal?

Charge to 200… CLEAR:

NPR Poll: Obama’s First Year

January 26, 2010

Do you approve or disapprove of the way Barack Obama is handling his job as president?

Congress

If the 2010 elections for United States Congress were being held today, for whom would you vote: the Republican candidate or the Democratic candidate in this district?

An NPR poll? N-freakin’-P-freakin’-R???

Darn you, Robert Siegel, live! Don’t you quit on me, Linda Wertheimer! Stay away from the light, Susan Stamberg!

PS: Ed Morrissey:

I think we can safely say that the war on Rasmussen is over, and the Democrats lost. That bastion of conservative thought — NPR — polled 800 likely voters and found that the Republicans had taken a solid five-point lead on the generic Congressional ballot. And that was actually the good news for Democrats.

And all we’re left with is “-cracy”, which is close enough for government work to “crazy”:

Highly informed sources on Capitol Hill have revealed to me details of the Democratic plan to sneak Obamacare through Congress, despite collapsing public approval for healthcare “reform” and disintegrating congressional support in the wake of Republican Scott Brown’s victory in Massachusetts.

President Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid all have agreed to the basic framework of the plan.

…

Here’s what I learned top Democrats are planning to implement.

Senate Democrats will go to the House with a two-part deal.

First, the House will pass the Senate’s Obamacare bill that passed the Senate in December. The House leadership will vote on the Senate bill, and Pelosi will allow no amendments or modifications to the Senate bill.

How will Pelosi’s deal fly with rambunctious liberal members of her majority who don’t like the Senate bill, especially its failure to include a public option, put heavy fines on those who don’t get insurance, and offering no income tax surcharge on the “rich”?

That’s where the second part of the Pelosi-deal comes in.

Behind closed doors, Reid and Pelosi have agreed in principle that changes to the Senate bill will be made to satisfy liberal House members — but only after the Senate bill is passed and signed into law by Obama.

This deal will be secured by a pledge from Reid and the Senate’s Democratic caucus that they will make “fixes” to the Senate bill after it becomes law with Obama’s John Hancock.

But you may ask what about the fact that, without Republican Scott Brown and independent Democrats such as Joe Lieberman, Reid simply doesn’t have the 60 votes in the Senate to overcome a Republican filibuster that typically can stop major legislation?

According to my source, Reid will provide to Pelosi a letter signed by 52 Democratic senators indicating they will pass the major changes, or “fixes,” the House Democrats are demanding. Again, these fixes will be approved by the Senate only after Obama signs the Senate bill into law.

Reid also has agreed to bypass Senate cloture and filibuster rules and claim that these modifications fall under “reconciliation” and don’t require 60 Senate votes.

To pass the fixes, he won’t need one Republican; he won’t even need Joe Lieberman or wavering Democrats such as Jim Webb of Virginia.

His 52 pledged senators give him a simple majority to pass any changes they want, which will later be rubberstamped by Pelosi’s House and signed by Obama.

Now, I’ll say what you’re thinking: Dick Morris can’t be the sole source of a story if we are to give it complete credence.

Fine.

But tell me you have complete confidence that there is nothing, absolutely nothing, to this horror story of legislation run amok. Go ahead, I’ll wait.

Maestro, a little music to pass the time?

There is a rub to all of this.

This secret plan being hatched by Pelosi and Reid requires not only a pledge by 52 Democratic senators to vote later for the House modifications. House liberals must actually believe these Senators will live up to their pledge and pass the fixes at some future date.

A Senate source cautions: “Senators more than House members and both more than ordinary people, lie.”

I’m feeling real good about the legislative process right now, how about you?

Besides trying to carry Martha Coakley’s light-skinned ass across the finish line, the President has a few other responsibilities.

Not that he’s shown the slightest ability to accomplish them:

President Obama’s plan to fix the foreclosure crisis has been a dud, putting the housing market recovery at risk, predicted…

Who, Michael Steele? Sarah Palin? Rush Limbaugh? Scott Brown?

… Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Economy.com.

Hopes were overinflated when Obama unveiled the program before an audience of Arizona high school students last February. Almost a year later, it appears about 750,000 homeowners - a fraction of the 3 million to 4 million projected - might complete the application process, Zandi said.

The more borrowers who can’t be helped, the more foreclosed properties will flood the market. And that means the nation’s housing market, which appeared to recover last summer, could soon take another turn for the worse.

A record 2.8 million households were threatened with foreclosure last year, up more than 20 percent from a year earlier, RealtyTrac Inc. reported this week. The foreclosure listing firm expects another record this year.

Home prices, meanwhile, are down 30 percent nationally from the peak in mid-2006, and there is mounting evidence they will fall again over the winter as low-priced foreclosures make up a larger proportion of sales.

“It’s a very serious threat to the housing market, and still one of the most significant risks to the broader recovery,’’ Zandi said.

Heckuva job, Barry.

But here’s one job at which I hope he utterly fails:

President Obama and top congressional Democrats closed in on agreement yesterday on cost and coverage issues at the heart of sweeping health care legislation, their marathon White House bargaining sessions given fresh urgency by an unpredictable Massachusetts Senate race.

Negotiators are “pretty close,’’ Senate majority leader Harry Reid said after returning to the Capitol in late afternoon.

A White House statement said there are “no final agreements and no overall package.’’ But no further meetings were scheduled, and Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, the third-ranking House Democrat, said “something should be going to CBO very soon,’’ indicating that aides were drafting the decisions made around the table in the White House Cabinet Room.

…

No details were immediately available, and congressional aides stressed the decisions made at the White House had had not been fully shared with the Democratic rank and file.

Nobody knows what they’re writing, nobody knows who has their ear, nobody knows nothing.

While the nation’s attention has been understandably distracted by the election of Scott Brown to the US Senate from Massachusetts—this pack of hyenas—up to and including the hyena-in-chief—has been plotting the overthrow of the open legislative process. Nothing less.

And they’re blaming Republicans?

And his sock puppet is a liar, too:

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs says he hasn’t heard about the C-SPAN letter requesting that final health care negotiations be televised — which, of course, harked back to President Obama’s [in]famous pronouncement that all talks should be televised on C-SPAN.

“I haven’t seen that letter,” Gibbs said.

…

John Boehner has. His statement:

C-SPAN’s role in fostering government transparency is so significant that on several occasions during the last presidential campaign, then-Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) pledged that health care reform negotiations would be broadcast on C-SPAN so the “American people will know what’s going on.”

Unfortunately, the President, Speaker Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Reid now intend to shut out the American people at the most critical hour by skipping a bipartisan conference committee and hammering out a final health care bill in secret.

…

These secret deliberations are a breeding ground for more of the kickbacks, shady deals and special-interest provisions that have become business as usual in Washington. Too much is at stake to have a final bill built on payoffs and pork-barrel spending.

So has Sen. Mitch McConnell:

I don’t think that anyone is surprised that a bill that was written behind closed doors, that has only bare Democrat support, will be written only by Democrats in yet another series of closed-door meetings.

Even the NY Times has seen—and published—the letter:

Brian Lamb, the chief executive of C-Span, made the request in a letter to Congressional leaders on Dec. 30. He released the letter on Tuesday after it appeared on Politico.com, a political news Web site.

“President Obama, Senate and House leaders, many of your rank-and-file members, and the nation’s editorial pages have all talked about the value of transparent discussions on reforming the nation’s health care system,” Mr. Lamb wrote.

“Now that the process moves to the critical stage of reconciliation between the chambers,” he added, “we respectfully request that you allow the public full access, through television, to legislation that will affect the lives of every single American.”

That’s nice that he respectfully requests what Obama has already promised—eight times. What a gentleman.

But I’m a blogger, and I am tiring of respect when we are so consistently met with dishonesty and arrogance. Let me put it this way, President Obama, Senate and House leaders: are you people of your word, or are you lying [bleeps]?

That’s about as respectful as I can manage, and I think I’m generous.

PS: Who made him program director of CSPAN, anyway? Anybody else find it odd that some pissant first-term senator feels so empowered to promise TV coverage of his poxy health care plan?

Also, note that one of the reasons he states he wants transparency in the negotiations is that he wants Big Pharma et al to be in the spotlight. Guess they’re not so scary anymore.

PS: Poor Gibby. Makes me want to found the ASPCSP—the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Sock Puppets.

And a good thing, I say:

Polidata Inc. projects from the 2009 estimates that the reapportionment following the 2010 Census will produce four new House seats for Texas, one for Florida, Arizona, Utah and Nevada, and none for California for the first time since 1850. Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Illinois are projected to lose one each, and Ohio two. Americans have been moving, even in recession, away from Democratic strongholds and toward Republican turf.

Massachusetts actually gained population last year, so watch out, Texas! Our 3,614 new residents (a decent crowd at a high school basketball game) will kick your ass.

I’ve been waiting for the migration from the liberal northeast to the conservative midwest and south to produce results for years—first with trepidation, more recently with anticipation, currently with frustration.

I’m happy Massachusetts will lose a seat. No one will miss a single one of the clowns we habitually re-elect. But moving a seat to Texas or Utah doesn’t always mean turning a Democratic seat Republican. There used to be no more conservative state than New Hampshire. But immigrants from tax-burdened Massachusetts brought their politics with them, and the Granite State is now more like talc. They fled the state of Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, and Barney Frank—and promptly elected Jeanne Shaheen, Carol Shea-Porter, and John Lynch.

Hope for the best, and expect the worst.

How do you really feel?

Senate Democrats passed a landmark health care bill in a climactic Christmas Eve vote that could define President Barack Obama’s legacy and usher in near-universal medical coverage for the first time in the country’s history.

That’s the lead in a news story, let me observe, not an editorial.

I could just as objectively write:

Senate Democrats shoved through a bloated mess of a health care bill, without having read it, over objections of Republicans, who despaired at the size and reach of a federal government unimaginable to the Founding Fathers, and reservations of moderate Democrats, whose misgivings were overcome with goodies totaling billions of dollars, for the benefit of a president who misled and prevaricated to get a bill, any bill, as a personal tribute to his grace and majesty.

Slanted, perhaps, but no more so than the AP lead, and a little closer to the mark.

Good for them, and good for him—may they choke on it.

I’m not saying I’m optimistic, I’m just saying:

[I]t’s not over yet. Here are five obstacles that still stand between Reid-Pelosi and a White House signing ceremony:

1. Public Revulsion. The bill was already under water in every major public-opinion poll, and opposed by a margin of almost 2 to 1 in the latest CNN poll. The latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll put its support at freezing, 32 percent. A few ticks downward and the bill will be in the 20s.

…

2. The Stupak Dozen. Nelson cut a deal so far short of the Stupak language in the House that the National Right to Life Committee is going to score the cloture vote on the bill as a vote to subsidize abortion on demand. That won’t matter to anyone in the Senate, but it could have a major effect in the House.

…

Then there’s Joseph Cao, the Louisiana Republican who voted for the bill at the last moment during the first House vote but has said he would vote against the bill — even if doing so might cost him his seat — if it funds abortion. Surely, not all of the Stupak Dozen have that level of commitment.

…

3. Who Pays? As a practical matter, it should be relatively easy to find a compromise on revenue sources. That doesn’t involve a hot-button cultural issue or a matter of deep principle like abortion. But the differences in financing between the Senate and the House bills are vast.

…

4. Feeling Blue. “Blue Dog Democrat” is understandably becoming a term of derision, denoting a willingness to object only enough to be noticed before caving in to the Democratic leadership. Yet the Blue Dogs still have to be a worry for supporters of the bill. […] As Michael Barone points out, nearly 70 percent of the Blue Dogs represent districts that voted for John McCain. A vote for this bill must look even more like a potentially career-ending decision now than it did the first time around.

…

5. The Left. Progressives are pained, at what should be their very moment of triumph. The Senate dashed their dreams of the public option. Without it, many on the left are abandoning ship. “This is the real sticking point,” said Howard Dean last Sunday. “There hasn’t been much fight from the White House on that.” It was always unlikely, no matter how much Bernie Sanders grumbled, that left-wing senators would block the deal. It’s easier to imagine a firebrand or two in the House doing it. No fewer than 60 liberals in the House imprudently made a pledge to oppose a bill without a public option. Almost all of them can be expected to eat it. But what if one or two don’t?

Of all these, I suppose I have the least despair (faith or confidence don’t enter the picture) in the anti-abortion crowd. It’s one thing to tell yourself that a compromise of your principles serves a greater good; it’s another to try to sell yourself that codswallop on the issue of late-term abortion. You might think self-preservation would cause a few of the Blue Balled Democrats to bail out, but either their principles have a relatively affordable purchase price, or survival in Washing-Reid-Pelosi-ton isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

PS: Hey, who knows, the bill may even be unconstitutional. (That’s the tattered piece of parchment we have lying around in the Smithsonian or somewhere. Can somebody check?)