Democrat versus Democrat

As we near the end of a President’s reign, especially an unpopular one, the members of the President’s party start to go their own way. This can range from simply talking about new issues that had been de-prioritized by the current administration to actively attacking the lame duck President. The Democrats are in the middle of that at the moment, and it’s going to cause them serious problems. Observe...

Here are some big examples of recent attacks by Democrats on Obama:

(1) Sen. Chuck “Chuckles” Schumer came out and basically blasted the Democratic obsession with Obamacare. He noted that this was not what was concerning the public at the time and he suggested that putting their eggs in this basket made the Democrats seem out of touch. He also suggested other problems with the law and he blamed it for destroying the Democrats in the midterm elections. Chuck seems to be setting himself up as a “prominent critic” of Obamacare... the only possibly positive legacy Obama has.

(2) Sen. “Dingy” Harry Reid is apparently on the verge of cutting a deal with Republicans to put in place $400 billion (over 10 years) in tax breaks. The White House has had no input into this and actually rallied liberals to kill the bill... after a veto threat. Think about that: a veto threat aimed at something Harry Reid is trying to pass!

(3) Sen. Robert “Illegal Fundraiser” Menendez has been working with Republicans to shape a new sanctions bill against Iran, despite Obama trying to play the “carrot only” game with Iran... and despite Obama claiming that GOP fears about Iran are paranoia.

(4) Obama wants to enact trade deals with Europe and the Pacific Rim countries to lower trade barriers. The Democrats are freaking out about this and are attacking the proposals as bad for American workers.

(5) Harry Reid’s aide David Krone has publicly blamed Team Obama for their losses in November... and aides never speak publicly without permission.

(6) Mary Landrieu attacked Obama over the Keystone Pipeline and arranged a vote to try to pass it over his objections. She fell only one vote short in the Senate. After her 12 point loss last week, she and others blamed Obama for failing to support her.

(7) Several Democrats, especially talking heads, have been positively freaking out about Obama’s immigration order. Others on the left are angered that he didn’t go any further. No one is happy and no one is staying silent.

(8) Lots of leftists and black race baiters are attacking Obama for not doing/saying more about Ferguson... or New York.

All of this is typical and means the Democrats are engaged in at least a low grade civil war. That’s rarely good. What makes this even worse though, is that this was isn’t about ideas, it’s about finger pointing, i.e. they all want to blame someone else for the party’s recent failures. At least in ideological battles like the GOP just fought, you have the chance to fix the things that went wrong rather than just whine that it was everyone else’s fault. Here the goal is basically just to pass the blame.

That said, there is an ideological component brewing in this fight and it’s one that is potentially highly destructive....

I wrote about the decimation of their princelings recently and in that discussion I noted that the Democrats seem to be making a mistake embracing those people in the first place. Specifically, by elevating a bunch of women, blacks, Hispanics and gays to the leadership positions to replace the boring looking/sounding white males who currently are “the face of the party,” the Democrats appear to be sacrificing their ability to pretend that they still are the party of mostly-conservative white working class males. Right now, with soft-spoken old white guys like Harry Reid (who claims to be a devoutly religious farmer who loves hunting) as the face of the party, the Democrats are able to sell the idea that they are not as urban, not as ethnic, not as anti-traditional values as they really are. But by swapping urban blacks, women, gays and Hispanics for the likes of Harry Reid, they are losing the carefully staged images they need to push this lie. In my opinion, that will cost them in rural America.

Anyways, adding to this, I am now seeing lots of articles being written by leftists who are arguing that the Democrats can no longer claim to have any real support among “working class whites,” and that they should accept this and openly embrace an agenda that better fits their new core, i.e. feminists, race baiters, gays and minorities.

I cannot tell you how much I hope they buy into this advice and change the image of their party. If they do, they will lose another 10% of the white vote, plus they will struggle with Hispanics and Asians (the fastest growing group of immigrants), who very much want the American dream... not the welfare dependency substitute.

It’s going to be fascinating to see how this plays out, particularly as all the old “moderate” Democrats fade away after being destroyed by Pelosi’s banzai charges and then Obamacare, and the face of the party becoming increasingly urban-ideological. If they also embrace a far-left urban agenda, they could well destroy themselves.

Thoughts?

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The Crazies Are Back

While I enjoyed taking last week off, other people had no such intention. In fact, we could call last week, “Return of the Fringe: The Idiots Want Attention.” Seriously, yikes. Here’s who tried to win your love last week:

● Grizzly Sarah Palin: The easiest way to kill a vampire is to drive a stake through their heart. To kill an attention whore, deny them attention. The moment the media learned that they could kill Palin by simply not talking about her, she imploded as a national figure. She has been desperate to find a national platform ever since. While our little site here was on vacation, Palin was letting it be known that she would happily join The View... you betcha.

When her overtures were denied, she decided to try to incite the fringe again. This time she screamed “IMPEACHMENT!!” Not that she hasn’t screamed it before, but this time she assured that the time had real come, if only those wimpy Republicans weren’t doing the Democrats’ work.

Not surprisingly, Drudge’s mouth-breather audience is right there with her. A poll at his site had 72% of his readers saying Obama should be impeached NOW, 15% said he should be impeached but not yet, and 13% used their brains and said no.

Of course, it never occurs to these fools that they have a zero percent chance of success, that by the time they got it done Obama would only have a few weeks left in office, that the last Republican Congress to try this got their butts handed to them, and that the politics on this would be entirely against them. Indeed, the public really dislikes Obama now. They see him as a joke because of his never-ending failures. Impeaching him turns the focus on the Republicans and their motives. It would be a Godsend for Obama and the Democrats as it lets them deflect all of their failures. It would probably cost us the Senate and it would likely give the Democrats a fresh start for 2016.

But hey, it would help make Palin relevant again.

● Rape Ape Todd Akin: Yeah, Todd is back. He dun wrote a book. And in this book, he admits what everyone pretty much knew – he was lying when he said he had been taken out of context when he spoke about “legitimate rape.” In fact, he doubles down on his idiocy by embracing the idea of there being legitimate rape (real rape, unlike fake rape, which is when the unclean woman lies about being raped), and he lays out his ideology about how you can’t get pregnant from rape – an ideology which relies on the discredited opinion of a discredited doctor.

Todd is also attacking all those RINOs who didn’t defend him when he opened his mouth and spewed his woman-hating crap. FYI, he uses the same list talk radio uses.

And lest you think that Todd is just a lone lunatic screaming in the woods, Mike Huckabee wrote the forward to his book.

Whether this ends up meaning anything is unclear. I doubt any voters will embrace him, but that doesn’t mean he can’t be brought into campaigns, which is exactly what I would be doing if I were a Democrat.

● From The Crypt: Pelosi reappeared last week too. First, she went to Texas to try to claim that all those kids slowly working their way under Drudge’s bed from El Salvador are Americans!. Uh, no. She’s seriously out of step on this. Even Obama has repeating that these kids need to be deported. Nice work, Nancy, keep people scared of your party!

● Clinton v. Obama: Finally, a new book by Edward Klein on the relationship between Hillary Clinton and the Obama’s has knocked Hillary’s book out of the top spot on the New York Times bestseller list. This book is called “Blood Feud: The Clintons vs. the Obamas,” and it outlines a very nasty relationship between the Clintons and the Obamas. It also lays out how the Obama’s have turned off people like Oprah, who has since been wooed by Hillary. The most interesting idea in the book is that Obama has promised too support Elisabeth Warren if she runs against Hillary.

While Klein is known for being a little sensationalistic and anti-Clinton, the things he says do seem to fit with things we can observe. And his conclusion that the Clintons are much better politicians and much better liked than Obama isn’t really a shock. Ultimately though, it will be very interesting if this turns into a feud between Obama and the Clintons through the primary.

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Hypocrites and Fools

I really did not want to talk about this Connecticut school shooting. We’re about to go into Christmas mode, and it strikes me as disrespectful and depressing to discuss this. BUT the left is in full exploitation mode and it’s pissing me off. So I’m going to make a few points myself.

(1) The left is despicable. This guy hadn’t even stopped shooting and they were gleefully rushing to microphones to politicize this event. Show me a single leftist who didn’t start screaming about gun control. And that’s not all. These same people who claim to care about the victims made death threats to NRA members. Vile hypocrites. Obama’s press secretary tried to connect this to tax hikes. Teachers unions have tried to turn this into demands for more money. And liberals everywhere are masturbating thinking about Obama’s meaningless speech: “Oh, it was like the Gettysburg address... for dummies.” Some of them are even trying to hide their own shame by claiming that the people politicizing this issue are the people who refuse to politicize it. All of you on the left are despicable.

(2) Liberals are to blame for this killer. Yes, I said it.

Liberals dismantled the mental health system in the 1960s. Rather than fixing it, they just turned people loose, and they left a legal system that is incapable of dealing with the mentally ill.

Liberals run Hollywood. Hollywood exploits gun violence for profit and makes it cool to solve your disputes with violence.

Liberals run the media, the same media which glorifies these killers and gives them exactly what they crave – fame. Even now, these same journalists who wring their hands about guns continue to try to outdo themselves to glorify this guy. They want to report on everything that made him tick. They want pictures of his life, to explain his motives, to understand his needs and desires. They want to get rich and famous making him important.

Liberals trade in hate. THEY have built a culture based on pitting one group against another, THEY traffic in jealousy, spite as policy, race-baiting and fear as a substitute for loyalty. THEY whined about Sarah Palin using a cross-hairs image, yet THEY talk about “enslavement” and “a war on ___” and “hostage taking” and every other violence rhetorical image you can imagine. Liberals are to blame for the hateful culture we have right now. And let me add that anecdotally, Liberals make up the majority of internet trolls. THEY are the ones who post hateful rhetoric, who make death threats on twitter, who call for the imprisonment and execution of the people they don’t like... like the Rich or Republicans or Jews.

(3) Gun Control Is Stupid and It’s An Evasion. I understand that liberals are stupid. They don’t grasp logic. But even they should understand that gun control is not an answer. This killer was in violation of dozens of laws, and not one of those laws stopped him. Adding more laws won’t help. And even if they could somehow ban guns outright, that wouldn’t have stopped him either. Timothy McVeigh didn’t use a gun, nor did the 9/11 terrorists. Nor did Andrew Kehoe, who blew up killed 45 people, including 38 children, and wounded 58 more in 1927. All those mass murderers of grade school kids in China used knives. Offering gun control as a solution is as idiotic as Weight Watchers telling dieters to ban forks from their house. It’s stupid. It won’t work, and they know that.

In this case, all the whining about gun control is an evasion. This is liberals trying to evade responsibility for the fact they are the cause of this. It is their behavior, as outlined above, which has created the angry, hateful culture which spurs these guys on.

So don’t feed me this crap about “it’s time to act.” If it was time to act, then you liberals would stop being such hateful creatures. You would stop trying to steal that which does not belong to you and you would stop trying to demonize those who disagree with you. Seriously, I hope Santa brings you all a big old bag of go f*ck yourself.

- - - - - -

In other news, I am still beating my head against the wall on the fiscal cliff stuff. Boehner proposed a millionaire tax, the same tax hike that Pelosi proposed early. This was a great move, and yet, the right is going insane. Drudge is stupidly playing up the idea that Boehner has morphed into Pelosi and talk radio is whining about Boehner being a sell out.

Lost in all of this idiocy is something key. Why are the Democrats voting against the millionaire tax? Talk radio land isn’t asking that.

According to Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer, the only reason Pelosi ever proposed a millionaire tax in the past was “as a political ploy” because she knew the Republicans would vote it down and then they would look like they support the rich. Naturally, that worked. And talk radio backed that to the hilt at the time.

Now talk radio is horrified that Boehner is proposing it and they are slamming him as a sell out. Yet, none of them have asked why Pelosi won’t agree to this now? Hoyer’s excuse is that it wouldn’t bring in enough revenue, but that argument makes no sense in two ways. First, if it doesn’t bring in enough revenue, then doesn’t that mean Obama lied about only taxing the rich? Funny how talk radio missed that point.

Secondly, even if it doesn’t bring in enough revenue, who don’t the Democrats who claim to hate the rich agree to it and then seek other tax hikes to get the rest? Could it be that they don’t really hate the rich after all and this is just an act. . . as I’ve been saving since forever? Could it be they know they can’t get other taxes later once people realize that someone other than millionaires will pay it?

I am no fan of Boehner, but he finally did the right thing and it exposed something massively important. Yet, conservatives have missed this point because they are too busy whining about the poor millionaires whose taxes might go up and attacking the guy who handed them a golden nugget. Wake up idiots. Maybe Santa will bring our talk radio hosts a clue?

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Here Comes “The Republican War On Jews”

Obama has a Jewish problem. That’s been pretty obvious. You just can’t keep attacking people without them eventually getting upset. And Romney is now trying to win over Jewish votees. So it’s time for Obama to whip out the dirty tricks. Here comes the War on Jews.

Let’s start with the obvious. Obama lacks popularity. Anyone who has followed his approval rating knows that it looks like the famous Al Gore “hockey stick” only held the other way around. Check out this graph from Rasmussen, which shows a quick fall followed by remarkably stable unpopularity.

Obama has made this worse with policies that have hurt people and rhetoric that offends them. What this means is that Obama no longer has broad popularity and he needs to spend his time trying to excite his supporters group by group. That’s why we had the War on Women meme, the War on Hispanics/Immigrants meme, the War on Blacks meme, the War on the Poor meme, the War on the Middle Class meme, and a few others I’ve probably forgotten. Now it’s time for the War on Jews.

Obama’s popularity among Jews is fading. He’s down to 68% according to Gallup, though the real number is likely lower. Why? Well, his policies have largely undermined Israeli security in favor of the Palestinian radicals he knew in his youth. ObamaCare threatens Medicare, which is very popular with older Jewish voters in places like Florida. And his attacks on bankers have a distinctly anti-Semitic ring to them, so much so that the Wall Street community has openly complained about his rhetoric and have begun to close their wallets. And with Romney now making a play for Jewish support, it’s clearly time to act.

Hence, Nancy Pelosi fired the opening shots in the new meme this weekend when she claimed that Republican-leaning Jews are “being exploited” and that Republicans are merely “using [support for] Israel as an excuse, what they really want are tax cuts for the wealthy. So Israel, that can be one reason they put forth.” In other words, Jews, like blacks and women and everyone else before them are too stupid to realize that the Republicans are only lying to them about their beliefs and only want their votes so we can cut taxes on the wealthy. This woman is insane.

Interestingly, Pelosi must have realized calling Jews stupid was a bad move, so she quickly added this little contradiction: “And they’re smart people. They follow these issues. But they have to know the facts.” How can they both know the issues and yet not know the facts? That’s like saying, “he understands football, he just doesn’t know how football works.” Then she proceeded to explain some of the facts these silly deluded Jews didn’t know:

“The fact is that President Obama has been the strongest person in terms of sanctions on Iran, which is important to Israel. He’s been the strongest person on whether it’s Iron Dome, David’s Sling, any of these weapons systems and initiatives that relate to Israel. He has been there over and over again.”

Ok, so they didn’t realize that Obama has been pushing sanctions, that he’s been “the strongest person” on various weapons systems being built by Israel, and that he’s been to Israel. Uh... if they don’t know these “facts” then can we really say they know the issues? These aren’t factors anyone who “knows the issues” could have missed. Frankly, I’m finding her whole line of “you’re so deluded but you’re really smart but you don’t actually know jack” a tad bit insulting. Also, I should point out that Obama has not yet visited Israel even once since he's been in office, so she’s lying. . . as usual

Anyway, this weekend also saw Obama using foreign policy for electoral gain. Romney has been talking about Israel. He also just visited. And his speeches have gone down rather well. Said Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu about Romney’s Nevada foreign policy speech, “Mitt, I couldn't agree with you more.” Netanyahu also pointed out this about those sanctions Pelosi thinks Israel wants:

“We have to be honest and say that all the sanctions and diplomacy so far have not set back the Iranian program by one iota. And that's why I believe that we need a strong and credible military threat coupled with the sanctions to have a chance to change that situation.”

So much for Pelosi’s facts. Romney, by the way, said in Israel that he has a “zero tolerance” policy toward Iran obtaining nuclear capability and said:

“Make no mistake: the ayatollahs in Tehran are testing our moral defenses. They want to know who will object, and who will look the other way. My message to the people of Israel and the leaders of Iran is one and the same: I will not look away; and neither will my country.”

One of his advisors even said that Romney would respect Israel’s right to strike Iran unilaterally.

So guess what mysteriously happened this weekend? SOMEONE let slip that Team Obama has presented Israel with a plan of attack for striking Iran. Let’s be honest. Obama’s national security team chose this weekend to leak that they have a plan to attack Israel because Romney’s speech was very well received and his support among Jews is growing. This leak is a disgusting political ploy which risks the lives of US personnel in the event of an attack, and it fits the pattern of leaks Team Obama has been guilty of in trying to make their effete foreign policy seem more muscular. Heads needs to start rolling for these leaks.

This administration really needs to be shown the door.

99 days to go!

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Keep The "Bad" News Coming!

Every day I think I’ve covered the issues that matter and then people do stuff and more issues appear. I’m starting to think blogging is a Sisyphean task? In any event, we’ve got more sour grapes advance-excuses for Team Obama, bad news for Madame Pelosi, the NCAA and more!

● The Big Mo in Michigan: Romney has moved ahead of Obama in Michigan. Yes, Michigan. That’s the state with the “eternally grateful” autoworkers whose very lives were saved by Obama. That’s the state with all the Muslims who hate and fear Republicans for their evil. I don’t put much faith in polls, but I do put faith in momentum in the polls and Romney’s got the Big Mo.

● Cry Poverty: Obama’s campaign is not in the best financial shape. After all this talk of him raising a billion dollars for this election, the funds have actually been few and far between, and he’s nowhere near a billion. To the contrary, he’s only raised $261 million so far. At this point in 2008, he’d raised $296 million. What’s worse, he’s spending money faster than he’s bringing it in. Last month, he took in $39.1 million, but spent $44.6 million. At the same time, Obama is now worried that Romney will actually hit a billion dollars ($1.2 billion to be precise) and Obama will earn yet another historical distinction – being the first incumbent to be outspent by a challenger.

● Prog-not-stication: Pelosi has been claiming for a long time now that the odds of them retaking the House “are better than 50/50.” I would like to put down five grand on “no f-ing way.” Now the Cook Political Report, which is usually pretty good at guessing Congressional races, says it ain’t happening.

Using simple math, Pelosi needs only 25 seats to retake the House. However, only one time in recent history has an incumbent President’s party gained more than 25 seats in the House in an election: Johnson in 1964. So this is unlikely in any event. But there’s more. Because of redistricting, the Republicans will likely gain 8-12 seats. That means Pelosi likely needs 35 seats. That ain’t happening. Moreover, Cook predicts that the Democrats will gain only 10 seats. So much for Madame P’s ability to see the future.

Interestingly, one race which blew up on the Democrats involved California’s new voting law. Last year, California decided that rather than letting both parties select their own candidates, everyone would vote and the top two vote-getters would move on. The idea was to ensure that lots of races ended up with a choice between two Democrats. Well, something went wrong and a district which voted for Obama by 56% will now have a choice between two Republicans. Ha ha! Look for the law to be changed again in light of this. Maybe this time they’ll just ban Republicans from running?

● Prog-not-stication: What do you all think of Tim Pawlenty as Vice President? Honestly, I liked him and his ideas, but he quit awfully quickly and I don't see him having the killer instinct the job needs.

● Playoffs? Playoffs?!: Finally, slightly off topic, the NCAA has let it leak that they will do a college football playoff system starting in 2014, with a committee picking four teams and then letting them eliminate each other with extreme prejudice. I personally don’t like this idea. I think it caters to the obsession of finding a single best team at the expense of the traditions set up within college football. As the system stands right now, it means something to win your conference and win a bowl game. Dozens of schools can gain glory and fans love it. But under the new system, only four teams will be relevant and only one will matter, just like in the NFL. But you may disagree. Thoughts?

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60 Minutes Outs Pelosi

The Democrats are masters of corruption. They talk about hating evil corporations and helping the poor, but it’s all for show: the Democrats use government to enrich themselves. The reason they’ve gotten away with this for so long is the media covers up for them. So why did 60 Minutes just “out” Pelosi?

Here’s the story. In 2008, Nancy Pelosi “somehow” got the chance to buy into (subscribe to) the Visa initial public offering (IPO). For those who don’t know, this is something only insiders get to do. IPOs are almost always limited to company employees, their families, and large companies connected to making the public offering happen, i.e. the investment bank, a few institutional clients, company creditors and lawyers. Pelosi was none of these, yet she got in.

Indeed, Pelosi bought between $1 million and $5 million worth of stock. She paid $44 per share to buy in. Two days later, the IPO was issued to the public and the stock price soared to $65 per share. Two month later, it was $85 per share. She had almost doubled her money in two months.

So how did Pelosi get into this IPO? Well, it turns out that companies looking to build good will in Congress will sometimes let selected members of Congress in on their IPOs. And why would Visa care about Nancy Pelosi? Because two weeks after Pelosi bought into this IPO, the Credit Card Fair Fee Act was introduced in the House. This bill would have prevented credit card companies like Visa from charging certain fees. How much in fees? The credit card companies took in $48 billion in these fees in 2008 alone.

This bill passed the Judiciary Committee and apparently had broad public support as high as 77% in one poll. Yet, for some strange reason, Pelosi never let this bill get to the House floor for a vote. Imagine that.

And Pelosi wasn’t done there. Another bill, called the Credit Card Interchange Fee Act of 2008, which would have required credit card companies to disclose rates, met the same fate: Pelosi killed it. Instead, she brought to the floor a vote on a similarly named bill which only provided for further study. That's not a bad return on investment for Visa since it cost Visa nothing to let Pelosi ride along on their IPO.

Other IPOs in which Pelosi made money include Gupta (88% profit in two days), Netscape and UUNet (100% profit in one day), Remedy Corp., Opal, Legato Systems, Act Networks, etc. In 2007, Pelosi put $100,000 in an IPO with natural gas company Clean Energy Fuels and $500,000 in an IPO for natural gas company Quest Energy Partners. Then she started pushing natural gas bills in Congress. Tom Brokaw actually asked her if she had made significant personal investments in natural gas companies and if this represented a conflict of interest and she dodged the question.

But this is nothing new for Democrats. In just the last couple years:

● Pelosi got special treatment for donor Kaiser Permanente under ObamaCare.

● Democrat Max Baucus, who made his girlfriend the US Attorney for Montana, apparently made the same kinds of insider trades Pelosi did.

● Democrats Jim Moran, Peter Visclosky, and John Murtha directed $137 million in defense contracts to clients of a lobbyist who funneled more than $380,000 in illegal campaign contributions to them.

● Democrat Chris Dodd, who wrote banking regulation legislation, got sweetheart loans from the banks that would have been effected.

● Pelosi budget supercommittee appointee Xavier Becerra, sent out a fundraising letter to the companies whose programs he could now cut.

● The Congress Black Caucus has been particular good at illegally giving federal money to their friends and family, see e.g. Democrats Sanford Bishop and Eddie Bernice Johnson (scholarships to relatives), Charlie Rangel (tax breaks to donors) and Maxine Waters (money to relatives’ banks).

● As a Senator, Democrat Joe Biden, who was basically owned by MBNA worked to make credit card debt harder to discharge in bankruptcy.

● Democrat Obama gave the Treasury to Goldman Sachs and GM to his union friends. His donors at GE had record profits yet paid no taxes. GE also gets waivers from Obama for laws they’ve lobbied for. Of course, Obama also gave thousands of Obamacare waivers to donors.

● It’s getting increasingly obvious Obama steered $535 million in taxpayer dollars to big-time Obama donor ($100k) and “green-jobs” showpiece Solyndra as it was failing.

● Democrat Jon Corzine managed to “lose” $700 million in client money when his new company, MF Global went belly up. . . after donating $500,000 to Obama’s reelection.

Of course, the MSM has long ignored all of this. So why report the Pelosi story now? Could the MSM be about to become honest about exposing Democratic corruption? Or did Pelosi just cross some secret line?

How about this: this information was first uncovered by the Heritage Foundation. They were, in fact, writing a book about it. I suspect 60 Minutes realized this information would reach the public, no matter how hard the MSM tried to ignore it because Pelosi has such a high profile. Rather than let this blow up during the election and hurt all Democrats, 60 Minutes chose to cover this now, during the silly season where little is happening in Washington and the public is preparing for the coming holidays, i.e. 60 Minutes wants to defuse this now.

If I’m wrong, then 60 Minutes will follow up on this and attempt to get Pelosi to disgorge the profits and/or resign from Congress. But I wouldn’t hold my breath.

What do you think is going on?

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Democrats Use Supercommittee As Cash Machine

Surprise surprise, the Democrats are unethical and corrupt. . . just like we figured. Not only was it obscene that Harry “the turd” Reid appointed the Honorless Pat Murray to the new Supercommittee, but Nancy Pelosi’s selection, Xavier Becerra immediately set about trying to profit from being selected to the Supercommittee. Wow, Democrats are shameless.



The Supercommittee, as you may recall, will be charged with finding $1.5 trillion in spending cuts. This could include actual cuts or the elimination of special-interest-obtained tax deductions. That means thousands of lobbyists will want to get their paws on these Congresscritters and Senators to buy them off so their plundered spoils will continue to come pouring forth from the Treasury.



Apparently, the Democrats are happy to sell themselves to these lobbyists.



Indeed, when the committee names were first announced, Harry Reid’s selection of Washington State Senator Patty Murray seemed the most cynical. She is the head of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. That means she is charged with raising money to help Democratic Senators get re-elected in 2012. Giving her a post that will cause lobbyists to fight each other to the death for a place in line to buy her off is so incredibly cynical you wouldn’t think a modern American politician would actually try to get away with doing such a thing -- indeed, this harkens back to the days of the scandals of the 1880s, when politicians were openly bought and sold. But you would be wrong. Reid did it. Nice work Harry, you sh~t. . . oh, and #$%& you Nevada.



But Murray has been a paragon of virtue compared to Pelosi appointee Xavier Becerra (which means “corrupt bastard” in Spanish). Literally within two hours of being appointed, Becerra sent out an invitation to Wall Street lobbyists inviting them to a $1,500 per-ticket event. On the invite, he highlighted his membership on the Supercommittee:

“[Becerra is] not only vice chairman of the Democratic Caucus, but who also has just been named to the new deficit reduction committee. This will be Mr. Becerra’s first event since being named to the commission and may be one of the first for any of the twelve members of the group. This event could give all attendees a glimpse into what will most assuredly be the primary topic of discussion between now and the end of the year.”

In other words, this is your first chance to give me money because I will be deciding the fate of your spoils. This is just shameless. Kenya isn’t this corrupt. Nigeria isn't this corrupt. Chicago isn't this corrupt.



Should we be surprised by this? Hardly. Pelosi is infamous for corruptly giving special treatment to her donors, see e.g. Kaiser Permanente. She is also infamous for trying to pass bills that benefit companies in which she has an ownership stake, like various natural gas bills that would directly help Clean Energy Fuels Corp (CLNE). And of course, she’s not alone in this. Indeed, using their legislative power to corruptly help their donors or enrich themselves is part of being a Democrat. The Congress Black Caucus, for example, has been particular good at illegally giving federal money to their friends and family, see e.g. Sanford Bishop and Eddie Bernice Johnson (scholarships to relatives), Charlie Rangel (tax breaks to donors) and Maxine Waters (money to relatives’ banks), and most Democrats are quite accomplished tools of big business. Chris Dodd was an infamous whore for Countrywide Financial. Obama too has been good at this (GE corruption, giving the treasury to Goldman Sachs, money for GM unions) as was Clinton and just about anyone with a "D" after their names. In fact, they should dump their Donkey mascot and replace it with a backscratcher or a cash machine.



So if you’re a Democrat, it’s time to face reality: your party is the corrupt tool of big business. You stupidly think your party stands for the little guy, but it really only stands on the little guy. You are supporting a party that steals from the poor to give to rich friends. You suck.



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New Boss Same As The Old Boss

“We didn’t lose the election because of me. Our members do not accept that.”
-- Nancy Pelosi

“That is why you failed.”
-- Yoda

As predicted, the House Democrats will re-elected Nancy Pelosi as their leader. Clearly they learned nothing from the election. Nevertheless, there are a couple of interesting aspects to this whole affair, including the possible future of Heath Shuler. Who?

1. The Democrats lost because of Pelosi.

The Democrats got into power and ran wild. During the election, Obama tried to sell himself as a break with the crazy tribal politics of the Democratic Party. Pelosi and her crew tried to sound like moderates too, attacking the Republicans as big spenders and as the party that wants to tax the middle class. And Rham Emanuel ran around the country trying to find conservatives to run as Democrats in Republican districts.

So you can imagine the public was somewhat surprised when the House, under Pelosi’s leadership, tried to tax the economy to death, spend the budget to death, strangle our health care system to death, and breathe life back into the most malicious zombie of them all. . . the unions. What’s more, they did this even though they knew the Senate would stop almost all of it, and even though they knew Obama had no stomach to offer them political cover.

The public was not amused and they took it out on the Democrats in November. Indeed, the public inflicted an historic defeat on Pelosi and her crew. Pelosi wants to blame the economy, but if it was just the economy, then the Senate also would have experienced an historic change. . . it didn’t. Moreover, Pelosi doesn’t seem to understand that she bears the responsibility for the economy. Having two years under Obama and four years under Pelosi to impose economic policy tends to give one that responsibility.

2. The Democrats are heading in the wrong direction.

With almost all the moderate Democrats losing their seats, the Democrats were always going to have a hard time realizing what went wrong and correcting themselves. Those that remain are blinded by ideology The re-election of Pelosi to their leadership (indeed the reelection of the entire leadership without change) and the disclaiming of any responsibility for their defeat indicate that they have not heard a word of the message the voters sent them. Thus, expect them to move further left and continue to scare the public.

And for those who point to the Republicans’ rebound in 2010 as evidence that Pelosi could rebound, let me point out a problem with the analogy. The Republicans were weighed down by a deeply unpopular President in 2008 and a horrible candidate. But by 2010, both of those factors had disappeared and the Republicans actually caught a tailwind from an unpopular Democratic President. Pelosi et al., on the other hand, will still be weighed down by Obama in 2012 and possibly 2016.

3. The Very Strange Case of Heath Shuler.

Finally, we come to the strange move by Heath Shuler. Shuler, for those who don’t know, is a Democratic Representative from North Carolina. Before that, he was famous for being the Washington Redskins’ draft bust who head butted a wall on national television and injured himself. Shuler is running against Pelosi for the leadership even though he has no chance to win. Why do this?

Several thoughts come to mind. First, North Carolina will be redistricting and he may find himself with more Republicans in his new district. It will help him to have stood up to Pelosi. But here’s some speculation for you. . .

When Shuler first ran for the House, the media asked a couple of his ex-teammates what they thought of his run. One teammate, his former roommate for road games, said that he were surprised Schuler ran as a Democrat because Shuler was ultra conservative. It is true that Shuler has not fully lived up to that in the House, but he is one of the more conservative Democrats. And in a state that is slowly trending Republican, and with the Republicans controlling redistricting, Shuler may be the first House member to jump parties. Indeed, little about him fits in the current Democratic Party, except that being a Democrat was the only way he was going to get elected in 2008. So what better springboard than to make a run at the leadership on behalf of returning the party to the center, and then jumping ship when he “reluctantly” concludes that the party has left him and will never return?

It’s just a thought, but it makes sense. And here’s a further thought. . . if he pulls it off, look for Shuler to run for President as a Republican at some point.

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Pelosi: Betrayed By "Secret Money" (updated)

You know the game is lost when the coach starts making excuses before the end of the third quarter. The same holds true in politics. The election isn’t until next week, and yet, the Democrats are already whining about how "secret" special interest money “defeated” them. This is interesting not only because it shows just how demoralized they are, but also because the claim is false.

For a couple weeks now, the Democrats have claimed that special interests have bought this election for the Republicans. Obama said it, and implied that this money was secret foreign money (and odd claim for a boy from Kenya to make). Even the MSM called him on that one. Pelosi said it and proved just how delusional she is:

“Everything was going great and all of a sudden secret money from God knows where — because they won't disclose it — is pouring in.”

Of course, that’s true if you define “great” as “planning to lose 60 seats.” And think about how insulting this claim is: people are too stupid to think for themselves and only vote for whoever spends the most money. Biden said it, but got his numbers wrong, claiming these groups spent “$200 billion.” (Being off by a factor of 1000 is actually pretty good for Joe.)

And behind the scenes, the Democrats are positively shrill about this money:

• “They’re widening the field, it’s just a stunning thing,” said a senior White House official.

• “Special interests bought the Congress they wanted. Corporations bought the new Republicans,” said a House aide.

• “The reality is that were it not for outside money there would be a lot less uncertainty in House, gubernatorial and Senate races around the country,” said a senior House official.

But is there any truth to these allegations? Nope.

• First, there is the hypocrisy problem: the Democrats benefitted from a similar phenomenon in 2006, when George Soros and friends spent lavishly to help them.

• Secondly, in election after election, the evidence has shown that no matter how much money a candidates spends, a bad candidate simply cannot win. Indeed, in 2006 and 2008, when the tide turned against the Republicans, the Democrats won numerous races where they were massively outspent.

• Third, the claim of massive secret money is just not true. Campaign experts estimate that only 10% of the money being spent in this election cycle is from these sources, the rest comes from traditional sources like the parties themselves.

• Further, the Democrats have their own identical sources of funding in groups like Soros’s group and union slush funds. In fact, AFSCME, a public employee union, is spending the most of any outside group this election cycle -- $87.5 million. . . all to help Democrats. When you look at the parties themselves, the DNC and its related committees have outspent the GOP by significant amounts.

• And finally, don’t forget the millions of dollars in should-be-illegal campaign ads being run by government agencies touting ObamaCare. . . that’s right, you’re paying to have Andy Griffith lie to you. And don’t forget all that free press the Democrats get from their fellow travelers in the MSM and Hollywood.

Despite these facts, the Democrats are running with this claim to justify their loss. Of course, this shouldn’t surprise us as the Democrats now specialize in unreality. And let’s not forget that this is the same party that’s been waging such a dirty campaign that even the New York Times had to take note of the Democrats’ dirty tricks, e.g. planting and funding fake Tea Party candidates to siphon off votes from Republicans. Thus, blaming their pending loss on a lie is hardly beyond the pale for Democrats.

Ultimately, I doubt this issue has legs. It may excite the Democratic base, who are too stupid to grasp that they’re being lied to, but it doesn’t resonate with anyone else because the Democrats are equally guilty. And even among Democrats, there is no constituency to clean up campaign funding, their constituencies are solely worried about getting their own vendettas put into law. . . and they rely on dirty money.

Thus, in the end, I think this issue will merely give people like Pelosi a way to sleep at night without having to ask herself the hard questions.


Update: Here is an update from Politico tonight. Apparently, the Democrats have outspent the Republicans by $270 million during this election. Making this claim about being outspent not just a lie, but a ridiculous lie.



**** Don't forget to pass around the Election Guide to remind people why they need to vote the Democrats out!****


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The End Of Pelosi?

As we saw in the latest Commentarama poll, most of you (80% in fact) think Nancy Pelosi will be booted from the Democratic leadership after the November debacle. While I don’t dispute that the odds favor her ejection, let me point out why this might not be a foregone conclusion. Surprised?

The public has certainly soured on Pelosi. Indeed, the only public figures with higher negatives than Pelosi are Hitler and Satan, and Satan’s got stronger positives. But the public doesn’t get to vote on Pelosi. If they did, she would be tied to a stake right now blowing at the flames. In fact, it’s not even Democrats who get to make this decision. No. Only House Democrats get to vote on Pelosi, and they don’t think like you.

As far as the Democratic public is concerned, the argument for dumping Pelosi is simple. Beginning in 2006, the Democrats took over the House of Representatives and Pelosi became the media-anointed “most powerful Speaker in history.” But after four years of Democratic control over the House and two years of control over every nook and cranny of government, the Democrats have remarkably little to show for it. They passed a huge stimulus that went to waste. They passed a version of ObamaCare that was so watered-down the Kool-Aid flavor was barely recognizable. They did Wall Street’s bidding. They were corrupt. And now they’re about to hand power back to the Republicans in one of the worst tidal wave elections in history.

But here is the view from the Democrats in the House. Pelosi has been a great Speaker. She managed to pass a wildly progressive agenda that died in the Senate. . . a den of cowards who subverted everything the House did. Moreover, the Democrats’ current unpopularity isn’t Pelosi’s fault, it’s the fault of a combination of two factors that include (1) a mysteriously bad economy that seems to be the result of collusion by Republican business interests refusing to hire employees, and (2) an Obama administration that has never once defended their values, which hasn’t had the will to follow through on its own rhetoric, and which caved to even token Republican resistance.

Additionally, Pelosi raised tens of millions of dollars for individual Democratic candidates, something she is very good at, and many of them owe her. Further, Pelosi handpicked almost all of the committee chairmanships, and thus, more Democrats owe her.

Then there’s something else to consider: who would replace her? Generally speaking, there are two House Democrats who have tangled with Pelosi. But neither appears up to the task.

The first was California Rep. Jane Harman (mucho bad blood). Harman was Pelosi’s biggest rival when Pelosi assumed the Speaker job. What’s more, Harman’s husband recently bought Newsweek, which could easily become the headquarters of an anti-Pelosi media campaign. But Harman is (wrongly) considered a “moderate” Democrat. Indeed, she once belonged to the Democratic Leadership Council, a group determined to pull the Democrats back from the brink of socialism. That’s a problem.

A similar problem exists for the other possible candidate: Steny Hoyer. Hoyer is the number two Democrat in the House, and he and Pelosi have a very strained relationship. Their bad blood began when Pelosi defeated Hoyer for the job of Minority Whip in 2002. Then, in 2006, Hoyer ran against Pelosi’s hand-chosen candidate (John Murtha) for Majority Leader. Hoyer defeated the scandal plagued Murtha 149 to 86. Since that time, Hoyer has campaigned heavily for other Democratic House members and has on some occasions taken stands that wonks have interpreted as intended to embarrass Pelosi, such as demanding that she push through with the full agenda even when it became clear the Senate would never vote on these proposals.

But Hoyer is a bit of an emotionless bootlicker. He’s not the guy to inspire passion in a party that traffics in emotion rather than reason. Moreover, while Hoyer is not a moderate himself, to pull off the 149-86 upset, Hoyer relied on the support of moderates. . . the same group to which Harman would appeal (although her appeal has been diminished because of an espionage-related scandal, where she was twice caught trying to lobby the Justice Department on behalf of Israeli spies).

So is the problem that Hoyer and Harman will split the moderate vote? No. The problem is that there won’t be any moderates left in the House after the election. All those “bluedog” Democrats the media likes to talk about were hand-picked by Rahm Emmanuel with the idea of taking Republican-leaning seats from the Republicans. Those seats will all change hands in November, along with quite a few Democratic-leaning seats. What will be left will be the Democrats in the hard-left districts, districts that match Pelosi’s politics.

Thus, in a contest between Pelosi, who delivered on a far left agenda, who raised money for most House Democrats, who appointed every committee chair and party leader except Hoyer. . . . and Hoyer, who is bland but has done some campaigning, the far-left nutjobs who get to vote are not likely to favor the rhetorically more moderate Hoyer. That means they are likely to vote for Pelosi again.

Could Pelosi really survive? John Boehner survived the debacle of 2008 to remain Minority Leader. The last Speaker to be tossed out of the leadership by their party was Republican Joseph William Martin, Jr. after the Republicans lost the majority in 1958. Before Martin, I’ve found none who were ejected from leadership as far back as the Civil War and probably a lot longer than that -- though several resigned and a couple lost re-election to Congress.

So what are the odds Pelosi will survive? That’s a lot closer question than you would think, isn’t it?


**** By the way, don't forget to pass around the Election Guide to remind people why they need to vote the Democrats out!****


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Obama Who? Pelosi What? Never Heard of Them!

My how the mighty have fallen. In a few short months, Obama has gone from messiah to pariah. His agenda has gone from ambitious to noxious. And Nancy Pelosi. . . well, she’s never been able to show her face outside her home district. With the mid-terms fast approaching, the Democrats are finally showing some brains. . . by running away from the mess they’ve made and each other.

Think back a few months. Barack Obama was the Kool-Aid Savior. He could do no wrong. The MSM wept in his presence. Average liberals read “his” book, tried to find out what he ate on his pizza, had sexual fantasies about him, and drew him in Biblical poses. Remember that?

My how times change.

Did you know that when he went to Texas the other day, only one candidate was willing to be seen with him? The candidate for Lt. Governor. Everyone else (including Congresscritters) suddenly found themselves too busy doing anything else. And Texas is not unique. When Obama went to Wisconsin, Sen. Russ Feingold disappeared off the face of the planet. It seems that no one wants Obama to come to their districts to campaign for them! Indiana Democrat Joe Donnelly even released a new ad Monday that lumps Obama, Pelosi and House Minority Leader John Boehner together, labeling all three: "the Washington crowd."

Now think back on the Obama/Pelosi agenda. Do you remember how the Stimulus was needed to create jobs? Remember how that was going to be the centerpiece of their November campaign? Remember how they needed to pass ObamaCare to give the voters something to latch onto? Do you remember how that was going to be the centerpiece of their November campaign? Do you remember how the second, third and fourth jobs bills were going to be the centerpiece of their November campaign? Do you remember how financial regulation was going to be the centerpiece of their November campaign? You get the picture, right?

Well, get this. Brad Ellsworth (D-Ind.), who is running for Senate in Indiana, won’t mention health care reform. In Iowa, the Democratic candidate for governor is running ads attacking the Republican candidates’ health care plan for being too much like ObamaCare. Rick Boucher (D-Va) began his campaign by running ads highlighting his opposition to ObamaCare and Obama’s energy bill. Kendrick Meek (D-Fla.) just did a two day swing through Democratic strongholds in South Florida without mentioning the Democrats’ legislative record.

And that’s actually the advice they’re getting from their handlers: whatever you do, don’t talk about the Democrats’ legislative record. Instead, they are being advised to focus on “shaking up Washington” and whatever new plan the Democrats can dream up to create jobs. Indeed, privately, Democratic strategists are admitting that their legislative record “has limited political benefit in swing districts.” Basically, it’s toxic in America.

Fascinating. Who could have possibly foreseen this? ** cough cough ** Commentarama readers ** cough cough **

So what does Nancy Pelosi say about this? We have no idea. . . Nancy’s gone into hiding. Over the last 20 months, Pelosi visited 21 states on behalf of members of her party. Here’s the catch: she hasn’t appeared publicly in any of them! Yep.

Like an ancient vampire, Pelosi has been doing fundraising, sucking donors dry, but carefully staying out of the light of day as she sucks. In fact, later this month, Pelosi will be doing private fundraisers in Dallas and Houston and the two Democrats who the fundraisers are for won’t even show up (Chet Edwards and Ciro Rodriquez). Can you blame them? As Eileen Smith of the Texas Monthly so nicely explained the problem: “Why doesn’t D.C. just send Satan down to campaign here?”

So “the most powerful speaker in history” is now about as popular as Satan. Nice.

But not everyone is happy with the Democrats’ new “run for your life” strategy. Party Chairman Tim Kaine says Democrats would be “making a mistake” to run away from Obama and the party. Actually, the mistake was everything they’ve done up till now. . . as Sen. Robert Torricelli (D-NJ) inadvertently admitted: “Everybody is in one boat. I’d recommend correcting the course of the boat rather than swimming away from it.”

Sorry Bob, that boat already sank and the rats are swimming for their political lives.


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The Nangotiator

I’ve done a lot of negotiating in my time. From sentencing agreements to mediating all manner of civil cases to negotiating contracts for companies, some of whom you’ve heard of, I’ve done it all. I’ve had easy negotiations, hard negotiations, and impossible negotiations. I’ve been reasonable and unreasonable, and I’ve dealt with reasonable and unreasonable. I’ve even walked out of negotiations. And in all that time, certain universal truths about reaching deals have revealed themselves. Nancy Pelosi violates those truths seemingly on a daily basis. Nothing has shown this more than three things she’s done this week.

Caught Bluffing

One of the first rules you learn about negotiation is that a little bit of puffery is to be expected, but lying is a deal killer. What is the difference? Puffery is a suggestion that you might be holding a stronger hand than it may appear. It is intended to feel out the other side without tipping your hand. People know this and they don’t get offended by it. An example of puffery might be: “I’m confident we’ll have the votes.”

Lies are a different story entirely. Lies are assertions that are not true, like: “We have the votes right now.”

So why is the lie bad? Because negotiations are about reaching a comfort zone where neither side feels like they had to give up more than other side to reach the deal. When one side is lying, it becomes impossible to evaluate this with any certainty. Consequently, the other side will either walk away or start presenting take it or leave it deals at the far end of their own comfort zone. In other words, if I can’t trust what you are saying, then I will work out the deal I want and I’ll present it to you as a take it or leave it deal, because I will no longer concern myself with trying to address your concerns.

Pelosi lied last week when she claimed she had all the votes she needed to pass health care. It was obviously a lie and it was intended for two reasons. First, she wanted to scare the NO voters into thinking that the battle was over and that they were about to be on the losing side. Secondly, she wanted to scare wavering YES voters, by making them fear that switching to NO might make them responsible for killing the entire bill.

This might have worked, except that the lie was so obvious and by Sunday morning, she had been exposed. Now she looks weak and desperate and untrustworthy. There is no reason for a NO to reconsider and the wavering YES votes should get even more skittish as they move to the most comforting end of their comfort zone.

The Bad Bluff: Take It Or Leave

The next worst thing you can do in a negotiation is the bad bluff. When you tell the other side that you can’t go any lower/higher, you better be telling the truth. If they reject your offer and you come back with a lower offer, then the other side knows they have you, and they’re going to drive the price all the way to what they think is probably your truly lowest offer. Why? Because this will confirm to them that you don’t have a serious idea of what your side is worth, and they will treat all of your subsequent entreaties to the contrary as just negotiation ploys, at least until they come to the point that they think is your true minimum.

Pelosi spent Monday telling everyone that she was done dealing. There will be no more bribes, it is time for a vote, she claims. She’s bluffing, and this is a huge mistake. Since she doesn’t have the votes, she will need to go get some, and that means more bribes. But as soon as she bribes one more Congressional, and thereby proves that she is bluffing, all the others will demand their own deals. Moreover, since everyone already knows that she is lying, there is no reason not to hold out at the moment. Indeed, this even gives YES votes an incentive to shift to the NO camp just in the hopes of getting some goodies sent their way. Essentially, she’s put herself into a situation where she now needs everyone, which will cause the very people she needs to increase their demands.

Demonstrating A Lack of Good Faith

Finally, when you raise a concern in a negotiation and the other side responds with a fake solution, it doesn’t take long before you lose confidence that the other side is dealing in good faith. The natural response in that situation is to stop negotiating in good faith yourself. Basically, you stop working your way toward the middle ground and you stand pat with your last offer.

This is exactly what Bart Stupak has done. In an interview this weekend, Stupak stated flatly that he now believes that Pelosi never had any intention of addressing his concerns. Therefore, he considers the negotiations over and he won’t support the bill -- and keep in mind, he was a YES originally.

So what does Pelosi do now? She repeats this mistake with the entire NO camp by offering the Slaughter Rule. Many Democrats are concerned that voting for the health care bill will become a political death sentence. They’re right. (See the very correct cartoon on the right.) So Pelosi proposed a solution, the Slaughter Rule. The Slaughter Rule, for those who haven’t heard, would allow the Democrats to vote on a rule that would deem the health care bill passed rather than voting on the bill directly. Since no one would need to vote on the bill itself, Pelosi argues that this should resolve her members’ concerns. But anyone who thinks that voters won’t be able to see that voting for the rule and voting for the bill are the same thing is a fool. Thus, Pelosi has presented a bad faith solution in response to the legitimate concerns raised by the NO camp. Their response should be to stiffen their spines, just as Stupak has done.

Way to go Nancy.

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The Liberal Case Against Pelosi

So I’m cruising the net yesterday and what to my wandering mouse clicks should appear, but a rather entertaining bit of leftist fratricide. Over at Salon.com, a fringe sleaze site, between articles comparing Glenn Beck to a Nazi, explaining that Bill Clinton was right to abuse FBI files, and shriekings that Disney “princess” movies “turn little girls into bedazzled pod people” was a fun little article called “The liberal case against Dennis Kucinich.” Let’s discuss, and let’s see if the same case can be made against San Fran Nan the Pelosi.

Now before you get all excited that you may get some real analysis here, let me warn you right up front that like all diatribes written by leftists, this isn’t really much of a test. It’s more of a “find some fact that supports a prejudice” than it is anything you could call an “argument,” but it’s fun nevertheless.

The Accused: Dennis “Barking Mad” Kucinich

Occupation: Hero of the Left, Congressional Mascot

The Question: Despite spending seven terms in Congress, what has Dennis Kucinich ever done for the cause of progressivism? Like seriously. . . and stuff.

The Normal Liberal Answer: He has such good intentions that he’s almost pure goodness and above reproach. He’s like finding an extra pound of tofu under your commune’s Prius. He’s a sunny day without princesses, where everyone has free health care and peace and happiness reigns and those who disagree with you are murdered in their sleep by angry mobs. :-)

This Liberal’s Answer: Nothing, that’s what he’s done.

The Proof: A quick search of the Congressional website reveals that since he’s been in Congress, from January 7, 1997 to the present, Kooky Kucinich has sponsored a total of 97 bills. Of those, only 4. . . yes, FOUR, made it out of committee and only 3 were enacted.

Conclusion: He’s an ineffective embarrassment to progressives and should be put to death. . . or someone should run against him, which ever comes first. No further proof or argument needed.


Wow! So that was the liberal case against Kucinich. Well, that got me thinking. . . a very non-liberal thing to do. What if we applied the same test to others?

What? Yes. Yes, I know that. I know that liberal arguments aren't meant for general purposes, that they should never be applied to people we like. . . just those we've already judged guilty. But dammit, I feel frisky. Let's do this thing!

I can think of no better target for this new test than that most progressive of progressives, the botox queen herself. Let’s see how she fares under the Kucinich Standard:

Nancy Pelosi: Pelosi sponsored 86 bills since 1987, making her much lazier than Kucinich (she’s running about four per year, while he’s running about nine per year). Of those, only 15 made it out of committee and only 6 made it into law -- about one every four years. That’s right, every four years one of Nan’s bills creeps into the legal books.

That’s way worse than Kucinich’s one every three years!

That’s also much, much worse than John McCain who got 33 bills enacted in the same time, or about 1.4 per year. Or Charlie Rangel who got 30 in the same time. Heck, Hillary Clinton got 11 bills enacted in seven years, that’s like 1.6 bills a year!

Thus, there can be only one verdict. . . Guilty, and ugly. No princess here. Off with her botoxic head!


Oh, and for those of you wondering about the princess-hate, apparently today’s “thinking” feminist is upset (1) that Hollywood thinks that “boy stories are for everyone, but girl stories ‘alienate half the potential audience’” -- ah yep, truth hurts, and (2) that you “females” allow yourselves to be “conned . . . into spending $3.7 billion on princess-branded crap last year.” For shame ladies, for shame. You should know that princess crap is not as good as nondenominational Miracle Grow.


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Can They Pass DonkeyCare By Reconciliation?

The big question over the past few days has been whether or not the Democrats can pass their health care reform creature using the reconciliation process. Answer: It’s not clear. Indeed, the process will be much more difficult that people realize.

1. The Non-Filibuster Filibuster

We all know the Republicans can’t filibuster DonkeyCare if the Democrats go the reconciliation route, right? Actually, that’s not entirely true. While debate would be limited to only 20 hours, there is no limit to the number of amendments that can be offered to slow the process down. Republican Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH) pointed this out in a letter a few months back, which the Democrats called “a manual on obstruction.” Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) has promised to offer enough amendments to delay any vote until November.

2. The Byrd Rule

Any reconciliation attempt will run smack dab into “the Byrd Rule” (Section 313(b)(1) of the Congressional Budget Act). The Byrd Rule is a Senate rule that determines what can and what cannot be done through reconciliation. If any part of the legislation does not satisfy the six part test created by the Byrd Rule, then that portion of the bill can be knocked out of the bill as the bill passes through reconciliation.

Of particular interest, the Byrd Rule provides that elements in bills that are not strictly designed to have a budget impact can be removed on points of order. Many believe this would prevent the Democrats from getting their abortion language through this process, and their attempts to impose requirements on private insurers. Without the insurance provision, this is nothing but a health care tax bill.

There is one caveat on this, however. To achieve this, the Republicans need to raise point of order motions against the individual pieces. These are decided by the Senate Parliamentarian. But Joe Biden could overrule the Parliamentarian. However, he would need to do so in direct opposition to parliamentary procedures and likely CBO conclusions. In other words, Slow Joe not only would need to lie, he would need to accuse the CBO and the Senate Parliamentarian of incompetence. And while worthless Joe is certainly shameless enough to make himself into a hated national joke, it is questionable whether many Democrats would be comfortable following his lead.

There are other exception, but they must be certified by the Senate Budget Committee chairman AND the ranking minority member, i.e. Mitch McConnell. So there is no chance of that.

4. Reconciliation Expires.

Right now, many on the right fear the Democrats will willingly sacrifice themselves with the idea that once a bill like this is passed, it will stay passed, i.e. the Republicans won’t have the nerve to repeal it. Thus, they win by shifting the country permanently to the left. This is wrong.

First, it totally misunderstands human nature. Current politicians will not sacrifice their careers so that their party can make ideological gains in the future. Indeed, as Rep. Jason Altmire (D-Penn) noted, “People who voted YES would love a second bite at the apple to vote NO this time, because they went home and got an unpleasant experience. On the other hand, I don't know anybody who voted NO who regrets it.” That hardly sounds like wagon circling.

But more importantly, everyone is forgetting that reconciliation bills expire. That’s right. Whatever the Democrats pass would need to be renewed (usually in either five or ten years), or it will repeal itself. It will take the Democrats more than ten years to recover from this debacle, which means renewal ain’t happening. Thus, when Democrats start to realize that they are being asked to sacrifice their seats for a half-bill that will expire a few years after they are cast out of office, Pelosi's support will collapse.

5. Pelosi doesn’t have the votes.

Finally, as I noted the other day, several Democrats are now starting to waver, and it’s fairly clear that Pelosi doesn’t have the votes to get this out of the House. With Pelosi losing four of her 220 votes already, she is now one short, barring further surprise. They have now announced that nine Democrats who voted NO may reconsider, but they have offered nothing solid to date. Moreover, this still only leaves Pelosi with a five vote margin before the other 216 Democratic YES's weigh in.

And Bart Stupak has indicated that his band of supporters cannot live with the Senate bill, and that the abortion language is just the first problem they see. Others are making similar noises about their pet peeves as well.

Further adding to the suspicion that Pelosi lacks the votes, she is now demanding that the Senate go first on the reconciliation process before she tries to pass this bill through the House. That's a pretty clear indication she lacks the votes.

Finally, let me finish with the very wise words of Republican Representative Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), who notes that: “If they had the votes, we wouldn’t have had the summit.”


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Mad-Lib Obama Style

We probably shouldn’t admit this, but someone in the White House sent us an audio recording of our young President going about his daily routine. We thought we’d share the transcript with you.


[Obama’s Voice]

Where did I put that troop plan? There it is. . . no, that’s not it. Oh here it is. . . no this isn’t it either. Must have left it in Copenhagen.

Hey, what’s this? A ‘Mad-Lib.’ I remember these from my youth. We used to do these in the madrassas between prayers. I wonder how this got here? Oh well, never turn down a lucky find, or a Nobel Prize! *chuckles*

Let’s see, how does this work again? ‘Read the clues and insert words, then flip the page and read the finished product.’ Great, I. . . uh, I’m great at reading.

Ok, the first one. Name someone with whom you disagree? Those. . . who. . . oppose. . . Wait! *scratching noise* I’ve got a better one: Pe. . .losi.

Name something people cherish? Healthcare. That seems important to people.

A body part. Heh heh. . . a butt.

Another body part. Brain.

Let’s see, something you say when you’re upset. Screw you.

Oh man there are a lot of these. Heart, brain, sewage, flatulence. If I’d known it took this much work, I wouldn’t have started. Something long? Let’s keep to the theme -- stool sample. No, better just put ‘stool’. . . just in case this ends up in the Presidential archives like that damn coloring book. Ok, just a few more. Drunk, socks, gunk.

Enough. Time to read. Ok. . . Man, that’s hard to read. It might be easier to read on the old teleprompter.

*clicking noise*

That’s better. Let’s see. . .

All the Whos down in Whoville liked Healthcare a lot,
But the Pelosi, who lived just west of Whoville, did not.

*chuckles* Isn’t that the truth?!

The Pelosi hated healthcare, all without reason.
Oh, please don’t ask why, there’s no reason you would believe in.
It could be, perhaps, that her shoes were too tight.
Or maybe her butt wasn’t screwed on just right.
But I think that the best reason of all
May have been that her brain was two sizes too small.

*chuckles* Really nailed her!

Think I’ll skip ahead. . . took away health care. . . taxed the Whos. . . yada yada yada. Here we go.

They're finding out now that no Healthcare is coming.
They're just waking up, I know just what they'll do.
Their mouths will hang open a minute or two,
Then the Whos down in Whoville will all cry, "Screw you!"

This is amazing. It’s like this book can tell the future! I should get Rahm to read this when he gets back from having his rear end waxed.

You're a monster, Ms. Pelosi.
Your heart's an empty hole.
Your brain is full of sewage.
You've got flatulence in your soul.
Ms. Pelosi. I wouldn't touch you, with a...thirty-nine-and-a-half foot stool.

*chuckles* All that college stuff finally pays off!

You're a foul one, Ms. Pelosi.
You're a nasty, wasty drunk.
Your heart is full of unwashed socks.
Your soul is full of gunk.

And she’s got a lot of junk in the trunk, magic book!

[Outside voices]

Oh shoot, someone’s coming, better look busy. Ah, yeah, I think 30,000 more troops should be good. That’ll show those Romanians who’s boss. Who says I can't make a decision?!



That’s where the tape cut out. We don’t quite know what to make of it yet, but if we reach any conclusions (or if we invade Romania), we’ll let you know.

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Pelosi Planning Huge Mistake

I love Ronald Reagan, as do you. But Reagan made two mistakes. One he’s admitted -- the illegal alien amnesty. The other took longer to become apparent. Now Pelosi seems intent on undoing that mistake by making her own version of that mistake. Hmmm. Read on my friends. . .

The second mistake Reagan made was the tax reform he enacted in 1986. From an economic perspective, this was a great reform. It eliminated some tax brackets, flattening the tax structure, and lowered the capital gains rate. That reduced some of the distortions of the tax code and spurred the economic growth that we’ve continued to enjoy until pretty much last year.

But within that success lay a political disaster. As a result of those reforms, millions of people came off the income tax rolls. Economically, that’s a good thing. But politically, it created a problem. People who don’t pay taxes have no incentive to keep the size of government under control. To the contrary, they have an incentive to increase the size of government because it doesn’t cost them anything. Thus, by taking millions of Americans off the tax rolls, Reagan accidentally created a class of people that had nothing to lose from an increase in the size of government!

And that class has been growing. Indeed, the number of Americans who pay no income tax has risen from 15% in 1985 to 40% today. Add in the fact that just over 52% of Americans now receive a check from the federal government, and you’ve got the makings of a “pro-government-growth” constituency.

But if Nancy Pelosi has her way, this problem may be about to correct itself. Over the past few weeks, the left, i.e. Pelosi and many within the MSM, have begun talking about “the need” for a value added tax.

A value added tax is like a sales tax, only the product is taxed at every stage of its production rather than at the point of sale. Said differently, whereas a sales tax is paid once -- by retail consumers, a value added tax is paid by each business that participates in the creation of the product or service. Each business is taxed on the “value it adds” to the product. Since businesses don’t pay taxes, they pass those along to consumers by rolling those taxes into the price of the product as it moves along the production chain.

Economically speaking, a value added tax is a good method for raising taxes. It doesn’t distort people’s incentives to work, like an income tax, nor does it distort their consumer behavior, like targeted deductions. It is also much less intrusive than an income tax. Thus, economically speaking, a value added tax is far superior to an income tax.

But the downside with a value added tax is that it is an easy tax to raise because consumers don’t see it. They only see the final price of the product, they don’t see where it was taxed at each stage of production. And while this could be countered with a requirement that all products identify the total tax paid, consumers still are a notoriously difficult group to organize against bad governmental decisions. A case in point is sugar subsidies, which harm all consumers and which everyone agrees should be eliminated. But because consumers are a diffuse group and the sugar industry is a determined lobby, no one has been able to gather the political muscle needed to eliminate those subsidies.

In any event, if I had a choice between an income tax and a value added tax, I would probably lean toward the value added tax, with certain safeguards. But Pelosi isn’t talking about replacing the income tax, she’s talking about adding a value added tax to the income tax. This, I cannot support.

Anyhoo, here’s the interesting bit about what Pelosi is trying to do. She wants a value added tax. But a value added tax hits all consumers. Thus, she’s working hard to pass a tax that will suddenly smack right in the face that 40% of Americans who currently pay no income taxes. What does this mean? It means, that if she passes this, she’s going to undo Reagan’s 1986 mistake by taking this “pro-government-growth” constituency and making them pay for the services they get. God bless her little black heart.

What’s even more interesting is that a value added tax smacks all consumers equally. That means that the tax is “regressive” in that it takes a larger share of poor people’s income than it takes from rich people. This is not going to make the “pro-government-growth” constituency happy at all. Indeed, even if they exempt food and medicine, for example, this constituency will suddenly find that cars, clothes, DVDs and consumer goods are 20% more expensive.

And here I thought liberals cared about poor people?

Interesting times ahead.

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PelosiCare’s Pyrrhic Victory

Once again, the MSM has it wrong. The House voted 220-215 to pass PelosiCare and today the media is busy celebrating Nancy Pelosi’s “victory.” But I wouldn’t buy the confetti just yet. As I see it, last night made it much more difficult for the Democrats to pass any version of ObamaCare. What a shame. Consider the following. . .

1. The Senate Problem

Passing the Baucus bill was already going to be a challenge. As we discussed before, the Democrats lacked the support of two key Senators -- Snowe and Lieberman, with several more sitting on the fence.

The House bill goes much further than the Senate bill. Indeed, even noted RINO Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-Reid’s Lap) stated today that: “The House bill is dead on arrival in the Senate. It was a bill written by liberals for liberals.”

Joe Lieberman likewise re-confirmed that he would not allow any bill that includes a public option to reach a vote in the Senate:

“If the public option plan is in there, as a matter of conscience, I will not allow this bill to come to a final vote because I believe the debt can break America and send us into a recession that's worse than the one we're fighting our way out of today.”

If Lieberman is to be believed, he will not let a bill pass that could result in a public option after the bill is reconciled with the House bill. But the House lacks the votes to pass anything that doesn’t include a public option. Basically, it’s a stand off.

Moreover, seeing that the House does not have the votes to move toward the center, and the Senate will not move left to meet the House, one should expect opposition to grow in the Senate to even putting this thing to a vote. Why vote on something that cannot pass? Indeed, I’m suspecting that several Democrats are quietly sending thank you letters to Snowe and Lieberman as we speak.

Thus, Pelosi’s inability to play well with others, her unwillingness to compromise and her inability to seek consensus before acting, may have just made a Senate vote much less likely. . . which would kill ObamaCare.

2. Unresolved House Problems

Even aside from the Senate problem, passage in the House actually still remains in doubt. Indeed, this vote solved nothing, it just put off the moment of decision:

• The Abortion Problem

Abortion has been a serious problem throughout this entire process. As we stated before, there are a group of 40 or so House Democrats, led by Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich) who have stated that they will not vote for any bill that allows the use of public funds to pay for abortion. On the other side are a group of about 190 pro-abortion Democrats who will not vote for this bill if it does not cover abortion. Another stand off.

Pelosi “resolved” this dispute with a stupid bit of double-dealing. She let the anti-abortion group insert language (tougher than they even demanded originally) into the bill, but she simultaneously promised the pro-abortion group that this language would not be in the final bill. Indeed, Rep. Janice Schakowsky (D-Planned Parenthood) has already stated that if the restrictions imposed by Stupak make it into the final bill, “many of us couldn’t support it at the end of the day.” Rep. Diane DeGette (D-NARAL) called this “the greatest restriction of a women’s [sic] right to choose passed by Congress in our career. [sic]”

So the problem remains. Both sides have the power to kill the bill, and neither side will budge. And even if this can ultimately be resolved, do nervous Senators take that chance and put their votes on record?

By the way, let me credit the Republicans with backing the Stupak amendment and thereby keeping this controversy alive. Brilliant tactical move.

• Illegal Aliens

Both the House and the Senate bill explicitly prevent illegal aliens from using the new system. This is a requirement for the bill to pass. But then. . . Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Mexico) said that Hispanic lawmakers got a pledge from the House leadership “to defeat” any attempts to insert language that bars illegal aliens from participation, and they would oppose the final bill if it contained such language. Hmm.

3. Why Support Will Fall, Not Rise

Further, don’t expect support for this bill to grow, as usually happens after a bill passes. Normally, Americans give the benefit of the doubt to bills after they pass, and give them a chance to work. But support for this bill will not rise, it will fall as more and more negative details keep slipping out. Take a gander at these. . .

• Insurance Is Too Expensive

Section 224 of the bill requires the HHS Secretary to decide what constitutes a qualified plan within 18 months. On November 2, the Congressional Budget Office estimated what these “qualified plans” would likely cost. An individual who earns $44,000 will need to pay $7,300 a year -- 17% of their pre-tax income. A family earning $102,000 will need to pay $20,300 -- 20% of its pre-tax income. That will go over like a lead balloon.

But the public option or the exchanges will save us right? Actually, no. According to the CBO the public plans “would typically have premiums that are somewhat higher than the average premiums” for private plans.

• Options? You Don’t Need No Stinking Options

Under Section 303, the bill appears to provide for three options -- basic, enhanced and premium levels. But those levels refer only to the co-pays and deductibles (and you thought those would go away?). The plans themselves will be “one size fits all” in terms of coverage.

• The Jail Thing

The House Joint Committee on Taxation has confirmed that Pelosi can send you to prison if you don’t get coverage. Anyone who does not get acceptable health insurance coverage and who refuses to pay the fine (2.5% of income) is subject to a fine of $250,000 and imprisonment up to five years -- about what you get for armed robbery.

Interestingly, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-FascismLand) notes that: “There’s just going to be some people who choose rather to pay the fine than to pay for health care. There’s going to be some people that just philosophically don’t want to buy health care.” And if they don’t, we make them political prisoners. . . for the good of the American Volk!

• The Uninsurable Problem

The biggest supporters of this bill are the five million uninsurable Americans who think they’re going to be covered. But they’ve just learned that they need to wait six months to be considered uninsurable. Said the American Cancer Society, “if you are a cancer patient and have cancer now, you can’t wait six months to go into a plan because your condition can go from bad to death.”

Moreover, they won’t be able to afford their insurance. PelosiCare lumps these people into pools with other uninsurables, which pools are supposed to be self-sustaining. Translated into English, your premiums will be thousands of dollars a month.

To cut this cost, the Democrats have allocated just $5 billion dollars. That works out to $1,000 subsidy per participant over a ten year period -- less than $10 a month. Any chance that’s all it takes to help pay for someone with an uninsurable condition? And if that’s all it takes, why not just get Sally Struthers to beg rich foreigners for $10 a month. . . “33 cents a day can change a life.”

• The Funding Problem

Even leaving aside who the Democrats plan to tax to pay for this -- currently an impassable point of contention between the House and Senate -- this bill contains a bizarre contradiction: it relies on people refusing to participate to pay for the bill. Indeed, the House assumes that millions of Americans will rather pay the fine than buy the health care, to the tune of $167 billion. If these people fool us and sign up for the bill, this money vanishes. Chaos ensues.

• The End of Medicare As You Know It

The bill also cuts $500 billion from Medicare, a program that already bankrupts doctors. But what’s worse, the bill fundamentally changes the way Medicare works by allowing Pelosi to dictate your treatment decisions.

Section 1302 of the bill introduces something called a “medical home,” which is euphemism speak for an HMO. Right now Medicare lets you choose your own doctor and the doctor is paid for each service provided. This new plan requires primary care providers to determine whether or not you can see specialists or get specific tests. The CBO says these medical homes will resemble “unpopular gatekeepers of 20 years ago.”

• Interest Group Payoffs

Finally, the bill is crawling with giveaways to left wing interests. For example, Section 299V gives money to community groups. Section 222 provides reimbursement for culturally and linguistically appropriate services. ¿Qué es eso? And Sections 2521 and 2533 establish racial and ethnic preferences in nurse training.

4. Democrats Exposed

This has all the makings of a pyrrhic victory. How pyrrhic? To give Pelosi her moment in the sun (not literally of course, because that would kill her. . . but figuratively), the Democrats have now exposed themselves to the American people.

The public hates this bill. Poll after poll shows support dropping like a stone in a lake -- 42% at last check. And the elections in Virginia and New Jersey demonstrated the level of anger the public holds. Even Owens in New York had to promise to oppose PelosiCare to get elected, a promise he promptly broke.

With this vote, the public now sees the Democratic Party laid out in all of its public-ignoring, healthcare-system-seizing, petty-tyrannical glory. Leftist bastards. There is no hiding anymore. No one who voted for this monster can claim to be a moderate. . . and, best of all, they exposed themselves for the sake of a bill that will never pass!

And let’s not forget the “Blue Dogs” who voted against this thing. They aren’t blameless. They could have stopped this thing long ago on numerous procedural votes. They also could have joined with Republicans to create real reform. . . but they didn’t. They are as complicit in this assault on America as if they had loaned Pelosi the crowbar.

Moreover, their vote was nothing but self-preservation. Of the 39 Democrats who voted against the bill, 31 represent (and I use that term loosely) districts that voted for Old Man McCain over Menthol Smooth B. Obama. Of the remaining eight, three are freshmen who defeated Republicans in 2008. One Democrat, Rep. Betsy Markey (D-FingerInTheWind) only voted “no” after it was clear the Democrats had the votes to pass the bill.

So in the end, while the left trumpets this as a victory, this could well turn out to be the most pyrrhic victory in the history of pyrrhic victories.

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