Senate Update: 2014 Election

There’s been a lot of chatter about the Republicans taking the Senate in November. That’s still unlikely, but the odds have been improving lately because the Republicans finally got their fringe under control – the primary challenges are failing and the lack of idiocy has left the focus on Obama’s failings. The Republicans need to pick up six seats to regain control of the Senate. As things stand right now, 13 states are key to whether or not this happens. Let’s examine the key races.

● Alaska: Democrat Mark Begich is defending his seat in this conservative state. Begich got into office by defeating a Republican with a history of corruption. He won’t have that luck again. On the negative side, he has generally acted as a moderate, except on social issues -- he did, however, support Obamacare. The leading Republicans have slight leads in the poll over Begich (+1% or +6%). Prediction: Republican gain.

● Arkansas: Democrat Mark Pryor is seeking a third term. He is a moderate with a generally so-con voting record. He did vote for Obamacare. The Republican, Congressman Tom Cotton, is a Tea Party type and a so-con, but he’s also a Harvard-educated attorney so he’s not your typical loon. He has a slight lead (+4%). Prediction: Toss up.

● Colorado: Democrat Mark Udall is facing a serious challenge from Rep. Cory Gardner. Udall defeated a strong Republican opponent to win the seat, but has since voted for Obamacare, for the Stimulus, for background checks on gun sales, and some things that won’t play well with military voters. Gardner became the candidate when his opponent bowed out to give the party the best chance against Udall. It sounds like Gardner is in favor of immigration reform, which will play well with Hispanics in Colorado. Udall has a small lead in the polls (+4%). The problem here is that the Colorado Republican Party is whacko when it comes to social issues and rip each other apart for entertainment. There’s no way to tell how this will go at this point, but expect Tom Tancredo (Colorado’s version of Pat Buchanan) to probably ruin it for Gardner. Prediction: Democrats probably keep the seat.

● Georgia: An open race to replace retiring Republican Saxby Chambliss. The Democrats are running the daughter of Sam Nunn, a popular pro-military moderate from the Reagan Era. She should do well. The Republicans are running Huey, Duey and Screwy who are competing to be seen as the most extreme. There is much talk that these fools will hand a safe seat to the Democrats. On the other hand, this will be a low turnout election and the Democrats aren’t going to turn out... of course, neither will our side. Prediction: Toss up.

● Iowa: Democrat Tom Harkin is retiring. The Democrat will be Rep. Bruce Braley, who is a populist leftist. He voted for Obamacare, for the stimulus, and has a 100% pro-choice record. Unfortunately, that won’t hurt him in socialist Iowa, and he does lead in the polls (+6%). Also, the Republicans haven’t decided on their candidate yet, but the Iowa party is split between so-cons, Paulbots and everyone else and recent history suggests they don’t support each other. Prediction: Democrats keep the seat.

● Kentucky: Our fringe wants to unseat Mitch McConnell, but that’s not happening. Their candidate, Bevins, is down by 42% to McConnell, but that’s not stopping them because they would be happy to have the Democrat take out McConnell so they can whine, “We told you so!” McConnell is tied with Democratic challenger Alison Grimes, but that’s not reliable because of the primary challenge. McConnell also has too much knowledge of Kentucky politics to lose in an off-year election with low Democratic turnout. Prediction: Republicans keep the seat.

● Louisiana: Democrat Mary Landrieu is defending the seat here. She comes from a Louisiana dynasty, but the state has been shifting to the right more and more each year. She is also infamous for causing Obamacare by agreeing to the Louisiana Purchase. It’s not clear who the challenger will be yet, but they have all the momentum and they lead her in the polls by +5%. Prediction: Republican gain.

● Michigan: Democrat Carl Levin is retiring. Seeking to replace him is Democratic Rep. Gary Peters, who supported Obamacare and Republican Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land, who opposed the auto bailout. The polls are even (+0%). But a clue to this race is that 63% of Michiganites (including Tea Party Governor Rick Snyder) supported the bailouts and Snyder has also embraced the expansion of Medicaid under Obamacare. Prediction: Democrats keep the seat.

● Montana: Democrat John Walsh is the incumbent, having been appointed to replace Max Baucus, who wrote Obamacare. The idea was to remove the Obamacare stain. But polls show Republican Rep. Steve Daines with a big lead (+14%) over Walsh. Prediction: Republican gain.

● North Carolina: Democrat Kay Hagan is defending her seat. She voted for Obamacare and that is hurting her. But the Republicans don’t have a candidate yet, so it’s too early to tell what will happen. The lack of a clear front runner is a danger sign for the GOP. Also, North Carolina is trending bluer with each passing election. BUT, Hagan is behind in the polls (-7%). Prediction: Toss up, leans Republican.

● South Dakota: Democrat Tim Johnson is retiring. Former Republican Gov. Mike Rounds is favored (+20%) to replace him in this very red state. Prediction: Republican gain.

● Virginia: Democratic Sen. Mark Warner is a heavy favorite (+27%) in a state that doesn’t often throw out incumbents. Add the fact that Virginia is trending more and more blue and that the state GOP thinks becoming more extreme will help them and this should be a cakewalk for Warner. Prediction: Democrats keep the seat.

● West Virginia: Democrat Jay Rockefeller is retiring. The race will be between Republican Shelley Moore Capito and Democrat Natalie Tennant. Moore is perhaps the one Republican in the state who can win statewide and she leads in the polls (+14%). Moreover, West Virginia is slowly trending away from the Democrats because of their position on coal and their acceptance of gays and blacks. Prediction: Republican gain.

As an aside, the Democrats in these states are doing all kinds of conservative things now. For example, eight of them vote against Obama nominee Debo Adegbile because they knew that voting for a man who defended a cop killer loved by the left would not be good politics right now. They know they’re in trouble.

So what we’re looking at here is the Republicans should gain 5, with two toss ups they still might get. They also may lose one seat. So they do have a shot at getting the six they need. Of course, this all assumes that the Republicans don’t do anything stupid between now and the election, and you have to remember that certain people have a vested interest in Republican failure. Look for Talk Radio to try to suppress Republican turnout, for Ted Cruz to look to inspire Democratic turnout, and our attention-whore brigade (e.g. Palin, Tom Tancredo, Pat Buchanan, Newt, Santorum, etc.) to do their best to remind the public why the GOP scares them. Other than that, things are looking surprising good.

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Republicans Can Win The Senate? Uh, No

Fair warning: I’m going to crap on an article that’s all unicorns and happy dust about the Republicans winning the Senate in 2014. So if you want to believe that all is well, then ignore this article. But if you’re interested in getting a real sense of what is going wrong for our side right now, then read on. The article in question comes from Breitbart, but I’m seeing similar analysis all over the place. And this article highlights how blind the conservative pundit establishment really is at the moment.

The article starts by suggesting that the Republicans have an advantage in terms of taking the Senate in 2014 because 20 of the 32 Senators up for re-election are Democrats. Sounds great, right? Moreover, we only need to win 6 seats and 12 of those 20 Democrats are in “a state that is red or swing.” Gee, that sounds really great! What are those red/swing state? Alaska, Arkansas, Colorado, Iowa, Louisiana, Montana, South Dakota, Minnesota, New Hampshire, North Carolina, West Virginia and Virginia.

Uh. . . no.

Colorado, Iowa, Minnesota and West Virgina are reliable blue states. So scratch them off the list. Moreover, states like Virginia and North Carolina are trending blue. And don't forget, we lost red states North Dakota and Montana in the last Senate election cycle, and we lost Alaska before that. In fact, reaching back, we lost both Montana seats, both Virginia seats, both West Virginia seats, both Colorado seats, and both Minnesota seats in the past few years. Not to mention the Democrats in Arkansas, Iowa, Louisiana, Montana and South Dakota are long-time incumbents, and the Democrats are very good at picking people who play well in those states. So what we're really looking at is maybe two vulnerable seats. Hence, forget winning.

But wait! This article also assures us the issues are on our side. Which issues? Well, Obama’s gun control push will force Democrats either to “back the President’s gun control agenda or risk handing their GOP opponents an effective talking point.” Really? What if the Democrats just do what they always do. . . they go home and talk about the need to save us from guns while simultaneously swearing they will protect the Second Amendment. Then they watch the House kill Obama’s proposal and the issue dies without them ever taking a stand. Huh, didn't see that one coming.

Wait, there's more!

“If the Republicans play their cards right,” the debt-ceiling debate is another “edge” the Republicans hold. Ha ha ha ha! Ok, first, the Republicans never play their cards right. Secondly, there is no right play here.

(1) You can’t play chicken with someone who wants you to hit their car, which is what the Democrats are. They want the Republicans to appear to wreck the government and the economy. . . it gives them cover.

(2) Do you really think anyone cares if the debt ceiling is $14 or $15 trillion? No. This is not an issue that you die for. And die it will be because the Republicans will be tarred with claims that (i) Social security will stop making payments, (ii) Medicare will stop paying doctors, (iii) soldiers won’t get paid, (iv) unemployment benefits will stop coming. . . all because the Republicans are trying to score political points to extract some worthless, meaningless promise of cuts that will never happen.

But more fundamentally, do you notice anything missing here? Yeah, the actual goal. This is Underwear Gnome Theory again: STEP ONE, hold country hostage... STEP TWO, _____... STEP THREE, profit. Seriously, this person is telling you the fiscal cliff holdup will win the day for us and they don't even realize there's no actual demand, there's just the holdup and the assumption of victory.

And they aren't done. Apparently, the evil Democrats in the Senate have “refused to pass a budget for the last four years. (Why aren’t we hearing more about this !?1?!)”. Good grief. We aren’t hearing more about this because it's technocratic bullship. Taxes get collected. Agencies get their share. Money gets spent. Programs continue. There is no substance to this argument, it's all procedure.

So look at what you're being sold here. You're being told there is the promise of a takeover of the Senate because 12 of 20 Democratic seats are vulnerable. The reality is we're talking about two. You're being told the Democrats will be forced to admit they want to round up guns, which won't happen. You're being told the public will magically fall in love with us if we disrupt the government for some goal to be named later. And you're being told the public will suddenly love us if we make the Democrats fill out Form A instead of Form B. This is delusional. Please do not believe this crap.

But even putting this aside, do you see the real problem? Ask yourself, what is our agenda? What are we offering the public? The answer which this pundit thinks is so wonderful is: (1) Stop Obama from doing something about guns. (2) Stop Obama from spending more money. Translation: vote for us so nothing changes!

If the Republicans ever want to win again, they need some actual ideas. They need to tell people how they will make the job market grow. How they will fix the housing market. How they will fix the student loan problem. How they will make the country safer. How they will make kids smarter and less ugly. “Vote for me and I’ll make sure nothing changes,” simply doesn’t work, and we need to stop accepting it.

Here are three names that are at least making moves in the right direction. Bobby Jindal is trying to eliminate the income tax in Louisiana. The same thing needs to be brought to the national level. Marco Rubio is talking about immigration reform. Again, we need to stop the bleeding on this issue and admit the inevitable. Rand Paul is talking about a foreign policy that involves a strong military, but dropping the idea that we should bomb everyone on the planet.

These ideas are a good start. They barely scratch the surface of what we need, but they at least are something more than “Vote for me and I’ll make sure nothing changes.” The truth is, we need an agenda that will create jobs, that will make people more secure financially and protect them from ill-health and old age, an agenda that helps people get out from under their debts, send their kids to college, and provides genuine protection from bad guys. And we need an agenda that promises personal freedom. I'm hoping to start unveiling such an agenda in a couple weeks, but in the meantime, start thinking about conservative solutions to problems people actually care about. Until we do that, more and more states will turn blue.

In the meantime, don't believe this garbage that everything is going great.

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No, This Is Not Comforting

People always take solace in the wrong things: “sure, we got blown out, but we played well in the final minutes against their backups.” Yeah, right. Elections are no different. And right now conservatives are consoling themselves with the idea that the election wasn’t so bad for them because they won the House, which they seem to think means the public really did support them, but just didn’t like Romney. Uh, no.

What you need to remember about the House is that it’s not representative of “the public,” it is representative of 435 different publics. If you want to understand the difference, consider this.

Assume you have 100 voters, 55 of whom vote Blue and 45 of whom vote Red. In a straight up election, the Blues will win every time. But if you separate them right, you can actually cause the Reds to win overwhelmingly. Indeed, the Reds could win as many as 8 of 10 districts if you can divide them right. Thus, even as the Blues win the national election by 10%, they could lose as many as 80% of the districts.

This is what is happening in the House.

The House is divided into 435 districts. Because of Republican wins in 2010 at the state level, the Republicans controlled the redistricting process for 213 of the 435 seats. The Democrats controlled only 44 seats. The rest were split.

As a result of this, 109 Republican seats were made more safe for the Republicans and another 109 Democratic seats were made more vulnerable to the Republicans by adding Republican voters or removing Democratic voters from those districts. That gave the Republicans a competitive boost in 218 districts -– they only need 218 to control the House -- by skewing the chances in those districts toward the Republicans. The Democrats, meanwhile, managed to make only 67 Democrats seats safer. This means the Republicans will win more seats even if they lose the popular vote. And indeed, in 2012, the Republicans won 33 more seats even though they lost the popular vote to the Democrats by about 0.5%.

Moreover, this is making these seats safer, which means few seats remain competitive. Since the 1990s, the number of competitive seats has fallen to around 40 -- less than 10% of all seats. This is why 99% of incumbents got re-elected in 2002 and 2004 and why 90% got re-elected in 2010.

So don’t believe that the Republicans winning the House means anything about the party’s health on a national level. In fact, the Democrats weren't concentrated in a small number of state... remember every vote at 50%+1 is a waste... the national elections and the Senate would look even uglier. Do not listen to anyone who tells you that the party is fine or who points to the House as evidence of that. The party is not doing fine and it needs to realize that real change is needed.

Finally, I want to highlight a point that was made in the comments the other day which I think should give everyone pause: the Democrats can run competitively for Senate seats in every state. . . the Republicans can't. That should tell us something. We need to broaden our appeal and again become a national party, not a party of 218 House Districts.

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It's Your Problem Now. . .

I warn you up front that this will be an ugly article. But last night's election really brings to light that something has gone drastically wrong in this country and it's time we realized that. It's time we realized that America is indeed two nations, just as John Edwards said. There is productive America and handout America. And it's time we stopped enabling the leeches. They created this problem, let them pay for it now. Here are my thoughts on the election, the future and the country as a whole.

● To The Retards: Congratulations. You proved once again last night that one can never go broke underestimating the American public. You, my slow cousins, just re-elected a man who has put the country on the brink of bankruptcy and whose plan to fix that is to (1) spend more money that doesn't exist to create jobs that won't exist, (2) create an unfunded entitlement program that is bigger than the entire national budget, and (3) tax his way to prosperity. Good luck with that, assholes. Good luck because you, his mindless supporters will be the ones hardest hit when the economy tanks and when the government can't afford to pay the benefits you voted for yourselves. Indeed, good luck when gas prices hit $6 a gallon, when your taxes double, when your employer drops your healthcare and you get fined for not buying your own coverage, when your doctor stops taking Medicare or Medicaid, when your welfare check stops adjusting for inflation or shows up as an IOU, and when you lose your job to China because Obama won't stand up to his debt-pimp. Good luck finding a job too with the economy being 23 million jobs short and your idiot Messiah's plan being to hire 100,000 new teachers. Not to mention he'll need to create another 10 million just to keep up with population growth. But don't worry, he'll get even with all those rich bankers for you. . . only, he forgot to tell you, he's their bitch. That's right, he passed regulations that let evil Wall Street wipe out small local banks so that they can make a mint on your stupid ass.

● To My Productive Friends: This election was a battle between productive Americans and leeches. The leeches won. But guess what, you still have options. I recommend the following:

(1) Everyone should apply for every government benefit they can. None of these programs are funded and they rely on good people being unwilling to apply for them, i.e. they only work because only a fraction of people who qualify actually take the benefit. It's time that changed. It's time for everyone to demand every penny to which they are entitled. Employers should drop their employee health insurance and shift that cost to the government, just as Obama wants. Take up tax avoidance strategies. Find tax shelters. Apply for subsidies. Reagan broke the Russians by spending them into oblivious, you can do the same to Washington. There is no shame in taking from a thief.

(2) Stop subsiding liberal cesspools. Conservatives need to move their businesses from blue states to red states. Stop buying from blue state companies. Buy instead from red states or foreign companies.

(3) Conservative governors, don't be stupid. Grab every penny you can from Washington. Sign up for Obamacare or you will only end up subsidizing the states that do. Being frugal in a zero-sum game only means you end up paying the bill for others binging.

● To Congress: The Democrats are now talking about the Republicans needing to come together to work with Obama to solve the nation's problems. Why should you? Pelosi proved in 2004-2006 that the public would not punish them for standing in the way of everything Bush wanted. To the contrary, they got more seats. Harry Reid and Obama proved in 2010-2012 that they could stand in the way of everything as well, and they too got rewarded. For six years now, the strategy of paralysis combined with character assassination has proven effective. I see no reason why the Republicans in the House and the Senate shouldn't do the same. Let the country fail and let Obama take the blame -- America is strong enough to pick up the pieces in six years. It's time for scorched earth. No more good faith. No more acting for the good of the country over partisanship. If a deal gets done, make sure it benefits red states at the expense of blue states. . . forget shared pain. And never stop the character assassinations. This was Obama's plan and now it needs to be yours.

● To The Religious Right: Go away. For several election cycles now, it's been clear that the Religious Right has become an increasingly heavy drag on the party. It is simply impossible to win women and moderates when your party is the party of old white guys who proclaim rape to be the will of God and who want the government to obsess over gays and abortion. Your bullshit will never pass and all it's doing is turning off the people we need to fix the country.

● To Conservative Whites: It's time to face the fact that the electorate is changing and we need to embrace Hispanics. If Romney had gotten into office, I think we would have seen a serious change in this regard, but he didn't. So it's up to us. It's time we STOPPED talking about deporting illegal aliens. That will never happen anyway and whining about it only upsets Hispanic voters who don't want to hear us running around talking about deporting their friends and family. Get over it.

● To My Foreign Friends: The joke's on you, seriously. I've been speaking with several foreigners who were very much rooting for Obama for a variety of reasons. Sadly for you, you are about as misinformed as humans can get. Here are some things you thought would change "from the evil Bush years" which didn't and which won't: Obama won't close Gitmo, he won't stop the war on terror, he won't stop using drones or landmines. He won't rein in America's out of control debt. He won't take the lead on climate change or on saving the Eurozone circle jerk. Oh, and to my Chinese friends, all that paper you are holding marked "Backed By The Good Faith and Credit of the United States" isn't worth the paper it's written on. Sorry, you backed the wrong horse.

Do I sound bitter? Probably, but I'm not. I'm just telling you the truth. In reality, I really don't care about last night because it doesn't affect me. The people who will be hurt are the very people who wanted Obama to win, and it's kind of hard to care about them, since they decided to use the ballot box to steal from the rest of us to support their own worthless lives. But I'm through saving you from your own incompetence. You've created fiscal and economic tsunamis that will now strike. And like I said, it's your problem now.

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Election Night America!

And away we go. It's election day!

As the swing states decide, we'll update the map above and let you know which states have gone which way. Reputable sources say Romney wins 315 votes. My personal guess is that he wins 301 votes: New Hampshire, VA, NC, Florida, Ohio, Wisconsin, Iowa, all of Nebraska, Colorado, and Nevada. He does not get Oregon, any of Maine, or Pennsylvania. But we'll see.

The Senate is important tonight too. Of those "in play," we are defending: Massachusetts, Indiana, Maine and Arizona. All but Arizona are endangered. The Democrats are defending: Hawaii, Wisconsin, Connecticut, North Dakota, Nebraska, Montana, Ohio, Florida, Missouri, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. All but Florida are endangered. We need to win a net of four seats to take control. I predict we win four.

Your thoughts, predictions and insider-info below...

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Final Pre-Election Roundup

All right. . . one more election roundup before we move on from this topic, thankfully. Things look good for Romney, but not so good for the Republicans in the Senate. That could make for an interesting and difficult four years.

● The Presidency. The polls are all over the place. There are polls showing Romney/Obama tied in Michigan, Romney ahead in Ohio, Romney ahead in Pennsylvania, and there are polls showing the reverse. Pretty much every battleground state has contradictory polls. So forget the polls and focus on the momentum. As we head into the final hours of the campaign, Romney is hitting his stride and he’s giving off all the signs of being the winner. He’s talking about big themes, love of country, and setting a very positive, enthusiastic tone. He’s talking about the future. He’s also drawing crowds of around 30,000 people. Even the press is noticing his tone. Obama, on the other hand, is speaking to nearly empty venues and just told his supporters “voting is the best revenge.” Talk about exposing a hateful leftist mindset if you need to appeal to anger and spite to excite your supporters.

Moreover, the Romney people are starting to predict victory. One Romney aid predicted 300 electoral votes. Michael Barone predicted 315. Sen. Rob Portman says he’s confident Ohio will swing Republican. They are spending money in states where they shouldn’t even be competitive, like Minnesota, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. On the other side, Team Obama is defensive. They are pouring money into the same states, talking about firewalls (which indicates a disaster) and spending their time trying to deny that Romney has momentum. . . they don’t claim any momentum of their own. The hurricane bounce appears to be three points, like all his bounces, and should have already faded -- plus, it won't translate into votes.

Now add in a rash of surprise newspaper endorsements for Romney with eleven major papers switching from Obama to Romney, and a demoralized press corps that hasn’t attacked Romney with any enthusiasm and which seems resigned to dealing with “President Romney.”

All of this suggests that things are indeed going Romney’s way.

● The House. There’s no serious contention that the Republicans will lose the House. Pelosi kept claiming she would win the 25 seats they need to take over, but now they are only promising 5 seats, and they are privately concerned about losing 1-2 seats.

● The Senate. The Senate is not turning out well. At once time, it looked like the Republicans could win as many as nine seats to get a 56-44 lead. But things have gone wrong. Uninspired candidates didn’t help. Then we got a surprise retirement in Maine. Then some of our candidates turned stupid. . . really stupid. Now it looks like we’ll be lucky to get the four seats we need to take the chamber 51-49.

Of the seats “in play,” the Republicans are defending four: Massachusetts, Indiana, Maine and Arizona. All but Arizona are endangered, and I think we’ll lose them all. Massachusetts is simply too liberal for a Republican to win barring something unusual in a bi-election. In Maine, another liberal state, the race will go to a popular former governor who will side with the Democrats. Indiana was a mistake, where a popular Republican got tossed in the primary by a “Tea Party” candidate who made a huge slip-up on abortion. . . something the Tea Party doesn’t normally worry about.

So we start by losing three seats, which puts us at 44 seats.

The Democrats are defending the following “in play” states: Hawaii, Wisconsin, Connecticut, North Dakota, Nebraska, Montana, Ohio, Florida, Missouri, and Virginia. All but Florida are endangered.

We got stupid again in Nebraska (thank you Sarah Palin) and picked a bad candidate, but I think we’ll still squeak that one. Wisconsin in trending our way. Virginia is a race between two former governors and ours isn’t as inspired as he should be. It’s a toss up right now. We should be winning Montana, except a libertarian candidate is draining away just enough support to keep that one close. I think we win that too. Missouri was ours for the taking until our Religious Right nutjob candidate started talking about abortion. Now the race is too close to call. Everyone talks about how great the Democratic candidate is in North Dakota, but I don’t buy it. . . we win that one. Hawaii is a toss up, as is Ohio. I think we get Ohio, but not Hawaii. And finally, I think we lose Connecticut in a squeaker. That means we win 5, lose 2, and 2 remain undecided.

Doing the math means we get somewhere between 49 and 51 seats, with a likely result of 50. A 50/50 result would not be good because that means nothing will ever get out of committee. Indiana and Missouri are the real killers here and abortion is again the problem.

Also, let me remind people of Christine O’Donnell. Conservatives lost easily-winnable seats in Nevada, Delaware, and now likely in Missouri and Indiana because they got stupid and picked unpalatable candidates. Those four seats may well be the difference in Obamacare going into effect and conservatives will bear the full blame for this. Elections have consequences and so do failing to win elections. It’s time we got smarter about picking candidates.

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Republican Wacko Should Resign Now

This is going to be a nasty article and some of you won’t like it. I don’t care. I’m finding myself really pissed off at the retard who will be representing our side in the Missouri Senate Primary. His name is Todd Akin and he seemed pretty decent until his dogma shut down his brain. He needs to resign.

Akin was asked this weekend during a television interview about his view on whether or not abortion should be allowed in the case of rape. His answer was this:

“If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”

By which he meant that victims rarely get pregnant from “legitimate rapes.” He then stated that he thinks abortion should be banned in the case of rape.

Uh... f*ck you.

First of all, what is a legitimate rape? And what kind of piece of sh*t would believe that rape comes in degrees of legitimacy? I hate the word “insensitive,” but I can’t imagine a better use for it than the way Akin just smeared rape victims. This is so reminiscent of Texas gubernatorial candidate Clayton Williams, who obnoxiously said about the rain: “It’s a lot like rape. As long as it’s inevitable, you might as well lie back and enjoy it.”

That a human being would utter either of these statements is frankly incomprehensible to me. How f*cked up do you need to be to believe that only certain rapes matter or that rape is something women should enjoy? Where does the Republican Party keep finding these sex-obsessed troglodytes?

Secondly, what is this crap that somehow the female body “has ways to shut the whole thing down”? Where does this medical quackery come from? If a doctor said this, they would lose their medical license for incompetence. If a teenager said this, we would laugh at them for being stupid. Yet here a grown “man” says this? This is dogma, this is not science. This is a man who believes in witchcraft, who sees women as unclean deceivers, and who fears the atheists under his bed. This is not a man whose judgment can be trusted. This is the kind of crap which gives Christians a bad name.

Akin, of course, apologized for this obscenity, but this is one of those moments where you can’t un-ring a bell. We now know what he believes, and this is not a man I would want near any female I knew and I sure as heck don’t want him in a position to represent my side of the aisle on women’s issues. He is unfit and needs to resign.

And let me say, this is exactly why young professional women will never vote Republican, but that’s not even what bothers me here. What bothers me is that a man with a Fourteenth Century understanding of sexual relations could be chosen to serve in the United States Senate. He needs to resign. If he doesn’t, I will support McCaskill.

Conservatives need to rid themselves of these people.

And while I’m at it, let me say that if you believe women should be forced to carry children to term when they’ve been raped, then you are wrong. There is no legal or moral justification for your position. You are suggesting sexual slavery. You are suggesting that you have the right to victimize these women every single day until they give birth because you think your religion tells you to use the force of law to control others. You are wrong.

UPDATED: It is now being reported that Akin will resign. Good. But there's one more bit to add to the story. The mouth-breathers at the Family Research Council have been giving strong support to Akin throughout the day. Their president Tony Perkins claims this is nothing more than an attempt to distract from the record of that unclean woman Claire McCaskill and Satan’s workshop at Planned Parenthood. Pathetic. Seriously, if you don't see the problem with this, then there is something wrong with you.

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It's Like Likability And Like Stuff

Whoops. For months now, the left has consoled itself with the idea that because Obama rates more likable in polls than Romney, voters will choose him in November even though their answers to every other poll question show a pro-Romney blowout in the works. A new poll by The Hill casts serious doubt on that. Let’s talk about the Senate too.

● I Like You, But I’m Not “In Like” With You. Polls have consistently shown Obama doing much better than Romney in the likability category. This seems a strange contradiction given that every other indicator goes against Obama. So what is going on? Looking at the way people make decisions, it strikes me that this high likeability really indicates that the voters have already made up their minds. In other words, since they’ve already decided, there have no reason to generate dislike for him to aid their decision. This fits with his amazingly steady low approval rating.

And now we have more reason to question the likability number. Indeed, according to a new poll by The Hill, 93% of likely voters said that competence and policies matter more than likability. That’s horrible news for Obama. Once you get away from likability, Obama’s in deep trouble. Even the The Hill, whose polls do lean left, found that 47% of voters share Romney’s values compared to 44% for Obama, 48% view Romney as the stronger leader compared to 44% for Obama, and 46%-44% view Romney as more trustworthy.

Interestingly, The Hill uses these numbers to conclude that Obama’s attacks on Romney “as a heartless corporate raider responsible for layoffs, outsourcing and tax secrecy” have “largely failed to change the narrative in the race.” Yep. So it sounds like all those conservative blogs that were pounding the table that Romney wasn’t responding correctly have been proven wrong. Imagine that.

● Senate Math. With 98 days to go until we can upgrade from the Moron to the Mormon, there is another aspect of the election we should consider: the Senate. The Republicans need to win the Senate to get their policies in place. Romney can make some changes through agency rules and the such, but any sort of significant policy changes just won’t be possible. So what are the odds the Republicans will win the Senate? Not as high as you would think.

The Republicans need to gain four seats to control the Senate, three if Romney wins. There are 33 Senate seats up for reelection this time. The Democrats are defending 22 of those. And of the eight seats considered most endangered, the Democrats hold six of those. Should be simple, right?

Well, not quite. Right now, it looks like the Republicans will pick up North Dakota, Nebraska and Missouri for sure. However, they may lose Maine and Massachusetts. In the key swing states of Pennsylvania, New Mexico and Ohio, the Republicans have compelling candidates, but they still trail. Everything I know about Virginia tells me the Republicans will win that, but the polls don’t reflect that yet either. So based on this, we would be looking at anywhere from -2 to +7 seats, with a more likely result between +1 to +5.

That said, in the last several elections, the undecided seats have tended to sweep to one party, and that’s the party with the momentum. That would be the Republicans. Moreover, Obama’s lack of coattails and excitement will hurt the Democrats in each of these states except maybe Ohio, where blacks are likely to turn out in huge numbers. I personally think the Republicans will gain five seats, but we won’t know until we get a lot closer. This will be much closer than it should have been.

● Here Come The Excuses. Finally, the Democrats are starting to build up excuses for the loss they are expecting. The most used excuse is likely to be Voter ID laws. These laws were passed in six swing states, including Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Virginia and Wisconsin, as well as several other less competitive states, and the left is claiming that these laws are aimed at blacks and the young, who apparently are incapable of getting state identification cards for some reason. They have even attached a number to this issue to make it sound scientific: 5,000,000!! Said Politico:

At least 5 million voters, predominantly young and from minority groups sympathetic to President Barack Obama, could be affected by an unprecedented flurry of new legislation by Republican governors and GOP-led legislatures to change or restrict voting rights by Election Day 2012.

Yeah, ok. It’s no coincidence that the enthusiasm of both of these groups is down right now, probably in about the exact amount the left claims will be affected by these Voter ID laws. Not to mention that if these groups wanted to foil us in our dastardly plan, they could actually go get a valid license and register to vote. Imagine that. But that wouldn’t give the Democrats an excuse, would it?

No doubt, more excuses will be forthcoming soon. Want to help them with some suggestions?

P.S. Don't forget, it WAS Star Trek Tuesday at the film site.

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Killing ObamaCare From the Inside

Sometimes, evil can’t be killed. It can just be buried somewhere until the next generation of teenagers stumbles across it. Some suggest that’s the case with ObamaCare. Frankly, I see no reason why it can’t be killed with reconciliation, but let’s assume arguendo that the Republicans somehow don’t capture the Senate or can’t get it through reconciliation. Is there another way to drive a stake through this unearthly terror? Actually, yes.

There are four or five ideas being battered around right now on how to kill ObamaCare without a full repeal. I think a couple of these are excellent temporary measures, but a couple others would be disastrous. Here are my thoughts.

● Method One: Starve It. Most federal laws require funding to function. Without funding, they cannot hand out cash, award contracts or even assign government workers to perform tasks. In some instances, this won’t matter because the law is enforced by private individuals who can bring suit to make it happen or, in the case of criminal law, it can be used by DOJ without specific funding. But ObamacCare isn’t that kind of law.

ObamaCare requires the creation of federal exchanges, requires enforcement officials, workers to process paperwork, inspectors, etc. It requires the payment of money to insurance companies and states, funding for the creation of demonstration projects, etc. It even requires money for IRS agents to be able to pursue the penalties. Without money, none of that can happen.

Usually, when laws like ObamaCare get passed, the Congress appropriates (assigns) money in advance to make the law happen. Those appropriations then become line items in the federal budget and take on a life of their own because they become part of each subsequent budget unless they are specifically voted down.

But in this case, the Democrats got careless (or more accurately tried to hide the price) and didn’t appropriate any money. To make up for this, Obama has been funding the law from an HHS slush fund meant to pay for the Federal government’s general health care expenses. Romney can stop this on day one and effectively kill the implementation of the bill. And unless the Congress decides to force funding on Romney, the bill will be dead until Romney is out of the White House.

This could kill about 90% of the bill for up to 8 years.

● Method Two: Ignore It. An offshoot of the first method would be that Romney could simply tell his agencies not to enforce the law. Thus, the IRS would not collect the tax, HHS and Medicare would do nothing to implement the law, etc. Obama has done this with laws he doesn’t like, like many related to immigration.

The problem with this approach is that once money is obligated by Congress for a specific purpose, the President must do that. Until Nixon, Presidents often impounded such money rather than spend it, but a weakened Nixon administration gave up this power. So while Romney could ignore the law for a little, the courts would eventually force him to act. Although, that could take a couple years.

This could kill about 90% of the bill for up to two/three years.

● Method Three: A World Without Rules. To implement a law, the Executive Branch issues rules which tell everyone how the government will enforce the laws. In most cases, these rules are written by the agencies on behalf of the White House -- though a few are handled independently. A new President has the power to re-write any regulations which prior Presidents have issued. Thus, in theory, Romney can wipe out or re-write all the rules related to ObamaCare to neuter it.

But there’s a catch with this method: wiping out rules isn’t as easy as it sounds. For one thing, once rules are promulgated, the agency must go through the whole rulemaking process to change them. That means the rules must be issued in proposed form, the public must be allowed to comment, the rules must be issued in final form, and then dozens of lawsuits will be filed before the rules go into effect. Until that point, Obama’s rules would still apply. This wouldn’t apply to any rules Obama hasn’t finalized yet, but it would apply to all the rules he has finalized. Thus, most of his rules could stay in effect for two to three years.

The other problem is the legal review. As unbelievable as it sounds after Obama’s term, the Executive is required to enforce the laws as reasonably written. So it would be nearly impossible for Romney to just change the rule to “just kidding.” He could cleverly sabotage much of it, but not all of it. Also, the next administration could simply redo his rules.

This could eventually wipe out most of the law, but it would take time and it would only last until the next administration changed the rules.

● Method Four: Misimplementation. Because the law was written with the idea that Democratic administrations would handle all the dirty details away from the sight of the voters, the law gives HHS a lot of discretion in terms of how to implement the law. Romney could exploit this by certifying that people, businesses and states are in compliance when they aren’t really. This could defang the law.

Personally, however, I don’t like this option at all. This wouldn’t wipe out any of the law and it runs the risk of turning into cronyism. It also wouldn’t stop liberal states from taking advantage of the law to demand massive federal subsidies.

That leads me to another method of misimplementation. When the Democrats drafted ObamaCare, they made an interesting mistake. The way the law is written, it doesn’t allow the Federal government to give subsidies for buying insurance except through state insurance exchanges. Thus, if states refuse to set those up, the federal government can set up alternate exchanges but it can’t provide subsidies.

Some conservatives are saying this would be a good move. I completely disagree. This does nothing to kill the bill. It also allows the establishment of federal control, which can become rather oppressive, especially if the Democrats manage to sneak funding into a bill somehow. In effect, this would be like letting a robber hold a gun to your head just because you think it’s not currently loaded. Moreover, this would allow liberal states to implement the law and get subsidies from taxpayers all across the country, while people living in conservative states would not get the subsidies. In effect, conservatives states would be subsidizing big rich liberal states, and the bill would appear much cheaper. This is a bad solution.

Thoughts?

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Government Reform. . . The Fantasy Version

Let’s do a bit of fantasy government reform. These are reforms I’d like to see, even if there’s no chance they will happen. The problem as I see it, is that the Founding Fathers were very good at establishing a government that uses checks and balances to control the misbehavior of the branches, but they couldn't stop individual misbehavior. Here is what 200 years of experience tells me we need to do:

1. The Fiscal Discipline Incentive: Right now, Congress can bribe voters with no real consequence. Hence our budget problems. Let’s re-align that incentive with something Warren Buffet apparently suggested: any time there is a deficit of more than 3% of GDP, all sitting members of Congress and the Senate are ineligible for re-election.

This one would require a Constitutional Amendment to be implemented, but the effect would be dramatic as the things that Congress does now to buy votes would actually cost them their jobs. What’s more it gives Congress a powerful incentive to make the economy grow.

2. Banning Influence Peddling: Coincidentally, to keep them from profiting when they get tossed out, we need a lifetime ban from lobbying for any Congressman who serves more than two terms and any Senator who serves more than one full term. And Congressional pensions can’t begin until 15 years of service.

3. Pro-Growth Balanced Budget: We need a balanced budget amendment with spending capped at 15% of the prior year’s GNP. This would keep the government in check at an historically average size and would give Congress an incentive to put in place a pro-growth agenda. Using last year’s GNP prevents cheating.

4. Tax Discouragement: Raising taxes should require a 60% vote in both the House and Senate.

5. No Tax-Free Lunch: All lobbying gifts are now income to the Congress members/Senators and are personally taxable. . . every lunch, free flight or box of chocolates.

6. Separating The Fourth Estate: No Congress member or Senator may be married to any member of the media or any employee of any media company.

7. No Direct Self-Interest: Government employees may not vote in federal elections.

8. Tim Pawlenty’s Google Test: The government must privatize all services that are available in the private sector, i.e. can be found being offered to the public on Google. The government should be reformed so that only two types of people work for the government: (1) those administering private contracts and (2) government inspectors/law enforcement. Also, government pay should be set at the Dept. of Labor average for that job category in the region plus 10%.

9. Primary Improvement Act: Our primary system is skewed by the early primaries. We need to replace it with a rotating regional primary system, breaking the country into five or six regions and rotating the voting order each election. This will eliminate the overweight importance of early states while still making candidates address regional and state concerns.

10. The You First Act: Every law Congress passes must apply to Congress and all staffers.

Thoughts? What would you add?

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Dancing On The (Debt) Ceiling

I MAY owe Mitch McConnell an apology. I’m not sure yet. I’ve been looking into this whole debt ceiling thing and I’m actually starting to see the cleverness in his plan, especially compared to the alternatives. Wanna talk about the debt ceiling? You know you do. Don’t worry, I’ll make this as painless as possible.

Ok, here are some basics.

1. The debt ceiling was first put in place by statute in 1939 by the Public Debt Act, which set the maximum amount the government could borrow. This number has been raised many times and currently stands at $14.294 trillion. . . roughly 4 trillion Big Macs.

2. The government will break through this ceiling on August 2 like a clown bursting out of a cake. . . hmmm, cake.

3. Everyone has a plan for dealing with this.

● the Do Nothing Plan: Do nothing. Kind of self-explanatory. Of course, this means that 80 million people won’t be getting their checks, and our cost of borrowing will go up, and a bunch of investment stuff with explode like a Congressman in a microwave.

● the Dumb~ss Plan: S&P and Moodys want Congress to eliminate the debt ceiling, which would be like parking your armored car at a thieves convention.

● the Double Dumb~ss Plan: Bill Clinton thinks Obama should just declare himself king and say that he has the power to raise the debt ceiling. Clinton also thinks yer kinda sexy.

● The Tom Coburn Plan: Tom Coburn is ready to do some serious cutting. He proposes $9 trillion in cuts over the next 10 years. This would include a trillion from the Pentagon budget, modernizing military health care, significant reforms of Social Security and Medicare, and the elimination of “corporate welfare” through the elimination of subsidies (e.g. ethanol and targeted tax credits) and many deductions. Grover Norquist (which I swear is the name of a Muppet) says: “it is now clear Sen. Coburn’s plan all along was a trillion dollar tax hike. . . [I have you now Coburn, there's no escaping the Grovernator]!”

● The Gang of Six: This group of reprobates are proposing a $3.4 trillion plan that isn't a real plan. It goes a little something like this.

(1) Find $500 billion in cuts now, mainly by reducing the cost of living increase for Social Security. Impose spending caps until 2015, freeze congressional pay and sell unused federal property. . . like Hawaii.

(2) Within 6 months come up with a plan to find more cuts.

They also suggest guidelines like simplifying the tax code by making three brackets (8-12%, 14-22%, 23-29%), setting the corporate tax at 23-29%, and eliminating the Alternative Minimum Tax (which sucks when it hits you. . . “what do you mean my deductions don’t count?! Alternative what?! Did I step into an alternative reality? If that’s true, then where’s my beard Mr. IRS ‘you owe us’ letter?! Where's my beard?!”).

Beyond that, this is just a plan to work on things... kind of like the Underwear Gnomes on South Park.

● the Tea Party Plan: The House just passed a really cool bill (Cut, Cap and Balance Bill) that does a lot of cutting ($5.8 trillion), would require a balanced budget amendment, and doesn’t raise taxes and it’s really cool and I like it a lot and stuff. . . but it’s D.O.A. at the Senate. Move along, nothing to see here.

● the McConnell Plan: Finally, we come to the McConnell Plan.

When I first heard the McConnell Plan, it sounded downright stooopid. As filtered by the press, McConnell was proposing to give Obama the power to raise the debt ceiling. If Congress wanted to stop him, they would need to pass a law stopping him. Since he could veto it, that meant Congress needed 2/3 support to stop him. . . and that ain't gonna happen.

The purpose of this plan seemed to be to let Obama get his debt ceiling increase, while claiming the Republicans tried to stop him, without actually stopping him. I was not pleased. And seeing Nancy Pelosi clapping her hands over this like one of those monkey toys with the symbols made me even more suspicious. If Pelosi likes it, it can’t be good.

Then I heard more details of exactly what McConnell is proposing. Apparently, to raise the debt ceiling, Obama also would need to recommend $1 of spending cuts for every dollar he wants to raise the debt ceiling. Now that is a horse of a different shade of green. That would mean for Obama to get a $1 trillion extension to the national credit line, he would need to propose $1 trillion in cuts. Wow! Me likely!

Not only would this mean Obama would be the one responsible for raising the debt limit (as he could avoid it by offering cuts instead), but he would also be forced to make cuts. Cuts which his peeps will absolutely hate! What’s more, the Republicans can vote against those cuts (claiming they would have made different cuts) because Obama has more than enough Democrats to let his veto survive!

Now, there are some caveats here. First, I think the Republicans need to send a series of budget cuts to him and have him veto those first -- as a showing to the public that they tried to get cuts. Secondly, they need to be very careful in how they write this. It better not include any chance of him raising taxes or this will go over like a lead balloon with the public (although... it might be a good way to let him do some of the dirty work of tax simplification to keep the Grover Norquists off Republican backs).

At this point, we don’t know exactly what the deal entails, but this may actually be a smart plan. Hence Obama and the monkey with the clap (Pelosi) are now rooting for the gang of six proposal instead (Reid doesn’t like it).

Stay tuned.

There... that wasn’t so bad was it? If you have any complaints, please leave them below.

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Republicans Play Smart!

Prior to the Giffords shooting, the media was busy trying to discredit House Republicans for their first week in power. They spun stories of a lavish “Republican” fundraiser (though only a handful of Republicans attended), they whined about two Republicans not being properly sworn in (a non-issue at best), and they complained that Republicans didn’t cut $100 billion from the budget on day one. Of course, few people fell for these smears. What's more interesting though is something that's gone almost entirely unnoticed by the media, something that could turn out to be significant.



Years back, the Congress put a limit on the size of the federal debt. But the federal budget is so out of control that the Treasury keeps running into that limit. Consequently, the Congress must repeatedly vote to raise the debt ceiling or face the music as government spending grinds to a halt and the government begins defaulting on its obligations.



One such moment came up prior to the election. But with the Democrats likely to lose the election, they decided to set a trap for the Republicans. By voting only to extend the debt ceiling for a few months worth of spending, the Democrats hoped that one of the first votes the new Republican Congress would need to make would be to raise the debt ceiling. The Democrats hoped this would embarrass the Republicans and alienate them from their Tea Party allies. It seemed like a nice trick.



But like everything else the Democrats do, this one has blown up in their faces. Indeed, rather than just hold their noses and vote to raise the debt ceiling, as the Democrats expected, the Republicans decided to hold out until Obama agrees to budget concessions. Said Speaker John Boehner:

"The American people will not stand for such an increase unless it is accompanied by meaningful action by the president and Congress to cut spending and end the job-killing spending binge in Washington. While America cannot default on its debt, we also cannot continue to borrow recklessly, dig ourselves deeper into this hole, and mortgage the future of our children and grandchildren."

Even the RINOs are on board. Said Lindsey Graham (RINO-S.C.):

“This is an opportunity to make sure that the government is changing its spending ways. I will not the vote for the debt ceiling increase until I see a plan in place that will deal with our long-term obligations, starting with Social Security.”

Graham’s demands are similar to those of many Tea Party activists -- raise the retirement age for Social Security, means test benefits, and slash non-security discretionary spending to 2008 levels. The Republican leadership is on board as well, as are most members, though some are opposed to raising the debt ceiling under any circumstances.



Obama first tried to castigate the Republicans for “playing chicken” with “catastrophe,” but now indicates he’s willing to reach a deal with the Republicans. Harry Reid too has climbed on board, though many on the left continue to resist. Said Dick Durbin (D-Ill): "Using this doomsday scenario and putting the American economy at risk I don't think is a responsible way to govern." Wah!! What does Durbin know about responsibility?



What makes this such an interesting issue is that the Republicans could well be on the verge of obtaining actual, serious concessions from Obama. Consider that for a moment. When the Republicans won the House but not the Senate, the assumption was that nothing would happen until 2012, when Obama could be replaced and a majority obtained in the Senate. But through the careful application of political pressure, the Republicans may be about to obtain concessions that begin to right our fiscal house and reshape the federal budget toward conservative goals.



Combined with actual cuts ($35 billion in the House budget), Issa’s deviously clever plan to let American business have a hand in slashing regulations, and the seeming easy unity of Tea Party people and RINOs (and even some Democrats), things appear to be off to a pretty good start in Washington. Maybe these really aren’t the same old Republicans?



What do you think?



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Congressional Reform

With Congress getting set to start again, now is a good time to talk about some of the changes we need to make Congress work better. Or, said differently, these are reforms we should make to rein in Congress.

1. You First: Number one on any list should be that any law that Congress passes must apply to Congress, their minions and aides, and all government workers. Thus, if they pass ObamaCare, then they need to have their healthcare taken away and replaced with the basic ObamaCare being foisted on the rest of us. Government pensions should be scrapped and replaced with social security. Any new workplace rules must be applied to Congress, as must every other law.

2. Four Weeks A Year: There is no reason Congress should become a full time occupation. Most state legislatures only meet a couple days a session. Boards of directors only meet one day a month, if that. Congress should be limited to meeting four weeks a year, one week in each quarter.

3. No Pay For Public Service: Since we’re cutting the Congressional term and we’re picking up their expenses, and public service is its own reward, it’s time we stopped paying Congresscritters. This should not be a profession, but a noble pursuit done in conjunction with gainful employment in some other profession.

4. Strip The Perks: There is no reason Congress needs a barbershop, a post office, a cafeteria, a mini-rail system, massive offices, a housing allowance, massive staffs, a gymnasium or any of the other perks they get. Take it all away. Give them a dormitory, two aides, and coach airplane tickets to and from each Congressional session.

5. Lobbying Moratorium: Lobbying rules need to be changed to make it less profitable for K Street to hire ex-Critters. Thus, it should be prohibited for lobbying firms to pay any money to a Congresscritter OR THEIR FAMILIES for a period of two years after they leave office. Similarly, Congressional aides should need to wait two years to work as or for a lobbyist as well.

6. Criminalize Self-Dealing: It should be made a felony for a Critter to vote on any bill that sends money to any person to whom they are related or to any firm that employees any person to whom they are related.

7. Budget Reform: The budget process must be reformed. (1) No budget may exceed the prior year’s budget by more than the prior year’s percentage change in GNP. (2) All budgets must balance, based on the prior year’s actual revenue received. (3) Every line item of spending must be voted on individually (and its sponsor(s) identified), and must be approved by both houses. There will be no committee negotiation to reconcile the two bills and no final all or nothing vote -- any item not passed by both chambers dies. (4) Nothing can remain “off budget”: not wars, not a “doctor fix,” and not social security. (5) Budgets may only be made on a year-to-year basis, no more 10 year phony budgets.

I think these would be a great start toward refocusing Congress on its proper role and duties. These would also loosen the grip of lobbyists and wipe out the excuse that the process makes it impossible for individual Congresscritters to do the right thing.

What you would add? Or take away?

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DC Statehood Dies. . . Again (Yay!)

It looks like the issue of statehood for the District of Columbia has died for the year. Good. This thing needs to die finally and stay dead. Unfortunately, it keeps coming back and some Republicans mistakenly support this policy because they think this will somehow endear them to blacks. This is a horrible idea. Let me tell you what we should do instead.

Why The Democrats Want Statehood

Every year, the Democrats try to push through statehood for the District of Columbia. Why would they want this? Try this, it’s 80% Democratic. Moreover, they’re loony Democrats. Nancy Pelosi would be considered a moderate in DC. It’s the kind of place where nepotism runs deep, the police force hires criminals, criminals walk away from jail and no one cares, potholes thrive, snow only gets removed from privileged streets, the politicians are drug addicts and thieves, and the residents fight about whether particular candidates are “black enough”. . . all of the common characteristics of the worst banana republics. And if the District gets statehood, they would get two guaranteed Senate seats and probably three guaranteed House seats.

Why in the world would any Republican agree with that? Because they’re misguided.

Some Republicans see this as a way to show blacks that they aren’t racists. Talk about a stupid idea. I’ve talked about minority outreach before. If you want to reach out to minorities, you need to actually do it -- empty gestures, no matter how destructive to the nation and the party, simply are not enough. It’s time to stop viewing blacks as a group. Treat them like everyone else. Reach out to the ones who share our values and forget the rest. Stop trying to placate the ones you’ll never get. And holy cow, don’t give the Democrats two permanent Senate seats just to prove something that no one reputable believes anyway!

Even talk about giving Utah an additional House seat in exchange does nothing to offset this disaster.

Fortunately, the primary Republican offender on this point, Tom Davis of Northern Virginia has resigned. Davis got swept into the House in 1994 and he’s a turd. Since he’s been in the House, he has been the biggest proponent of increasing government pay and DC statehood in the Republican Party. Good riddance jerk off.

Why The “Moral” Argument For Statehood Is Crap

Proponents of statehood love to whine that there are all these poor people in the District who aren’t represented. They don’t get the vote, just like every other American. Boo hoo hoo. Well. . . move.

It’s not like we conquered the District and took away their votes. There’s no fence to keep them in. Everyone who lives there lives there by choice. They knew they would not have the vote when they got there and they know they won't get it if they stay. And if they want to vote, they can move a couple miles away to Maryland.

What Republicans Should Do

And that brings me to the solution. Rather than letting this issue drag on year after year with the danger that the Democrats some day might actually get statehood for DC (like they could have done this year if their leaders weren’t morons), let’s put an end to this charade once and for all:

Take the part of the District that includes the monuments and the neighboring government offices. No one lives there. Carve that out as the District of Columbia. Take the rest and hand it back to Maryland, from whence it came. Maryland, like the District is hopelessly corrupt and Democratic, so the former residents of the District will feel quite at home. Moreover, the District would fit in well with Maryland. In fact, when you are in it, you have no idea where DC stops and Maryland begins. They are identical twins separated at birth. Let’s reunite them. . . think of the children!

So I say, spin them off to Maryland and put this issue to bed before some Democrat actually gets this monster pushed through.

And while we’re at it. . . Hawaiian independence is looking pretty good. It’s the right thing to do. Sure, the Senate would lose two Democrats, but that's a small price to pay for undoing our evil colonial past! Heck, breaking California into two parts sounds pretty good too -- west coast and everything else. Maybe we need a new state right between Texas and Oklahoma?

Come on Republicans, think globally act locally.


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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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The Unrepealable Bill. . .

The latest bit making the rounds of the blogosphere is that Harry Reid inserted language into the health care bill “that makes it impossible to repeal or amended the bill.” There is some truth to this, but it’s not what you think. Nor is such a thing even possible. In any event, Reid's language raises an interesting constitutional issue that may destroy this part of the bill. Let’s talk about what is really going on.

This Language Does Not Affect The Entire Bill

The first, most important thing to grasp is that the language in question does not affect the entire bill -- it relates only to a Board that will be established to recommend changes to Medicare to lower the growth of Medicare costs. Here’s how the Board works.

The Board will not come into existence until 2014. Thereafter, each year that the Chief Actuary of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services determines that the growth rate in the cost of Medicare services exceeds the expected growth rate, the Board shall put together a list of recommendations to cut total Medicare spending to the targeted growth rate or slightly lower.

BUT, the proposal cannot include (1) recommendations to ration health care, (2) recommendations to raise revenues or Medicare premiums, (3) recommendations to increase cost sharing, i.e. deductibles or co-pays, or (4) recommendations to change eligibility requirements. (Basically, they will have to recommend cuts to reimbursement rates to doctors.)

Each recommendation must include an explanation of the proposal and the reasons for its inclusion and an actuarial opinion by the Chief Actuary that the proposal meets the requirements of this legislation. Interestingly, each proposal must also include “a legislative proposal that implements the recommendations.” (more on this later)

The proposal must then be presented to the Congress. This is where the language in question comes in. Starting around page 1017 of the bill, the bill describes how the Senate and House must handle these proposals. This includes the rather controversially provision that prevents House or Senate members from offering any amendment to the Board’s proposals (or to this part of the bill), unless 3/5th of the Senate votes to waive this requirement.

That sounds bad. But hold on.

This Is Not Unprecedented

This is basically the format used in the 1980s with the base closing commission. When it became apparent that it was impossible to handle base closings with any rationality because every Congressman from every district with a military base would fight to the death and cut any dirty deal they could to keep their base open, the parties agreed to create an independent base closing commission. That commission was charged with coming up with a list of bases to close, based on various non-political factors. The list was then forwarded to Congress for an up or down vote. No one could amend the list. By refusing to allow amendments by individual House members or Senators, Congress managed to close unneeded bases without being stopped by the normal political process. On the surface, this is the same thing.

Further, in 2006, Sen. John Kyl (R- Az) identified at least twenty-six rule-making statutes that limit the ability of Senators to amend legislation. One, the Budget Act, has been in force for more than thirty years.

Thus, this is nothing new. But this is no reason to fret.

This Can’t Actually Bind Future Congresses

Despite the language preventing future Congresses from changing this legislation or these proposals without a supermajority, that language can’t actually control what a future Congress does. One Congress cannot bind a future Congress.

Article I, section 5, clause 2 of the Constitution states that “[e]ach house may determine the Rules of its Proceedings.” In 1892, the Supreme Court took a look at this clause in United States v. Ballin, 144 U.S. 1 (1892). In that case, the Supreme Court held that this clause grants each Congress the powers to amend their rules whenever a simple majority of the quorum are present. And this power is continuing, meaning it can be exercised at any time by any Congress: “[The] power to make rules is not one which once exercised is exhausted. It is a continuous power, always subject to be exercised by [either] house.”

Therefore, one Congress cannot bind a future Congress. Indeed, one Congress cannot even bind itself -- each Congress has the power to change it rules by simple majority vote at any time.

Thus, while Reid’s language looks authoritative, future Congresses can ignore it. . . it will only have effect until a majority of either house of Congress decides to change it.

Consequently, this is not the big deal people are making it out to be.

But there is something else in this language that troubles me.

The Board’s Proposals Can Be Enacted Without Congress?

Throughout this section, Reid allows the Secretary to implement the Board’s proposals even without Congressional approval. This is a troubling issue because this represents an abdication of Congress’s legislative powers to the Executive.

Under the Constitution, the power to enact legislation lies entirely with the Congress. It may not grant this power to the Executive. In the past, this was strictly enforced and the Supreme Court would strike down anything that gave the Executive the power to make law, rather than calling upon the Executive to enforce the law. In particular, this appeared in cases where laws were struck down for being “too vague.” If a law did not clearly define what the Executive was supposed to do, the Supreme Court would strike it down.

But this has been eroded to the point of disappearing. Indeed, the most infamous moment probably came with the Americans With Disabilities Act, where the Congress actually refused to include a meaningful definition of “disability,” instead leaving it up to the Executive and the courts to determine.

Yet, Reid's law may revive this prohibition. Think back to the language I mentioned above. The Board not only recommends changes, but Reid is requiring the Board to include “a legislative proposal that implements the recommendations.” This is fairly strong evidence that the Board’s recommendations do not involve merely filling in the gaps of clear legislation, but instead involve creating law. Indeed, if the Board weren’t creating law, there would be no reason to allow the Congress to weigh in on these proposals -- in fact, it would violate the separation of powers to let the Congress approve an agency action.

Thus, if I were to challenge this statute in court, I would argue that this abdicates the legislative function because it allows the Executive to take actions that the law itself recognizes as needing the approval of Congress, i.e. law making.

Will a court accept this? They should. The legal theory is entirely sound. And if they do, then Reid’s control-freak behavior will have resulted in this entire section of ObamaCare being wiped out by the courts.

Nice work Harry.


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Leadership From Dummies: Eric Cantor

I want to be a Republican. I believe in much of what the Republican party stands for. But they make it so very hard. Our party seems to be cursed with a leadership that consists of weak-kneed hacks, incompetent bumblers, and fools. I wouldn’t hire a single one of them to represent me in my personal affairs, yet I am stuck with these idiots representing my views in politics. This does not make me happy. The latest example of their endless stupidity? Heir-to-the-throne Eric Cantor.

Many of you have never heard of Eric Cantor, which is an indictment in and of itself. Cantor, the House Minority Whip, is a youngish, five-term Republican from central Virginia. He is the only Jewish Republican in the House and, by all appearances, he is being groomed for bigger and better things by the party machinery. Whether that means Speaker of the House, leader of the party or President is not clear. But what is clear, Cantor does not understand politics.

Cantor first appeared on my radar screen in August 2008, when Cantor’s name was raised as a possible running make for joke-candidate John McCain -- though apparently McCain never actually considered Cantor (which does go in Cantor’s favor).

Since that time, the party seems to have made a special effort to put Cantor forward as the part-time face of the party (except when they found other obscure party members who were willing to deliver poor speeches). For example, Cantor took the point in the Republican opposition to the Stimulus Bill. And he seems to have had some sort of role in the health care debate, though it’s not clear that the Republicans actually took a position in that debate.

But Cantor really hasn’t distinguished himself. Indeed, despite many public appearances it is unlikely the public could pick him out of a one-person lineup. And this has to do with his incredibly underwhelming performances. His delivery is flat and indifferent, his knowledge suspect, his points are bland and meandering, and his commentary is about as biting as a stuffed Snoopy doll.

Consider, for example, his stirring opposition to Nancy Pelosi’s plan to appoint a car czar. Cantor called her plan. . . wait for it. . . “bureaucratic.” Whoooo hoooo! Who’s ready to grab a pitchfork and follow Eric into the gates of hell?! Nobody huh? Maybe Eric should have said:

“The use of czars upsets the constitutional balance of powers. It allows the Executive to make law and it eliminates judicial review. This is illegal under the Constitution, it violates our agreement with the government, and it leads to the types of abuses the Constitution was meant to prevent. Our government is a government of laws, not of men. The use of czars flips this on its head and makes our government totalitarian in nature.”

Or, if he doesn't like quoting me, he could have said:

The rapid and easy accumulation of power by White House staff can threaten the Constitutional system of checks and balances. At the worst, White House staff have taken direction and control of programmatic areas that are the statutory responsibility of Senate-confirmed officials.

As presidential assistants and advisors, these White House staffers are not accountable for their actions to the Congress, to cabinet officials and to virtually anyone but the president. They rarely testify before Congressional committees, and often shield the information and decision-making process behind the assertion of executive privilege. In too many instances, White House staff have been allowed to inhibit openness and transparency, and reduce accountability.

That’s Robert Byrd (D-WV) schooling young Eric in how to be a Republican.

When the health care debate began, Eric waited and waited and waited and then he promised that the House Republicans would release an alternative health care plan. They didn’t. Instead, he went on a listening tour. . . a listening tour. Despite having months (if not years) to prepare a Republican counter proposal, Eric went on a listening tour. Listening tours are public relations distractions intended to make people think that you aren’t a clueless moron with no ideas.

And what did this listening tour lead to? Nada. Eventually, the Republicans released a four page list of bullet points instead of a plan. Consequently, Cantor continues to get his butt handed to him at town hall meetings because the Republicans don’t have a health care plan alternative. Strangely, he seems content with this.

But none of these failures precipitated this article. This article came about because of an interview Cantor gave the other day to the Politico. Cantor was asked about Nancy “da Freak” Pelosi’s ludicrously insane and disingenuous comments that “vitriol” injected into the health reform debate could end in violence akin to the assassination of San Francisco Mayor George Moscone in the 1970s. No doubt, he’ll shoot down this stinking pile of Pelosi, right? Let’s look at his response:

“I think she’s living in another world -- I really do.”

Ok, sort of good. Except, why are you weakening your statement by including the words “I think” and then backing up this far-from-bold assertion with the pathetic “I really do”? Insecurity in a politician is a horrible thing Eric. And if you’re afraid to speak your mind without tossing in caveats and qualifiers, then perhaps you should consider another line of work, like becoming a librarian.

“I’m not condoning any of the things that, you know, the media may catch in terms of messages on the signs and what have you.”

W. . . T. . . F?! So right after accusing Pelosi of kind of sort of maybe living in another world, you turn around and *%$&# admit that Pelosi is right about the level of “vitriol”? And not only that, you imply that it’s hidden, and you make the media the arbiter of truth? My advice to you, shut the heck up now Eric. What’s that? You have more to say?

“But I have not run into any violence.”

That’s great Eric, anecdotal evidence is for fools. Besides, you just admitted that it’s out there and the media is finding it, so what’s your point?

“I have not run into crowds running over people. We should want spirited debate, although civil, and I’ve not been anywhere over the last several months where I would even think such a situation where violence is in the offing exists.”

More anecdotal evidence Eric, and no one cares because you already admitted that it’s going on, just like the media said it was. Maybe you should have said, "that's a cheap political tactic used by desperate politician, a failed Speaker of the House, to demonize the American public and I find it disgusting. . . I think. . . kind of. . . and stuff."

Cantor was then asked if he had personally heard any racist remarks. No doubt, this is the moment he shines and redeems himself. This will be the moment his backbone stiffens and his political instincts kick in and he will say:

“This charge of racism disgusts me. These are decent, average, hard working Americans expressing their point of view. And the media and the Democrats are slandering them. The Democrats have nothing to offer except socialism and the people have seen through it. They don’t want what the Democrats are offering and they are making their voices heard. And the Democrats, in a panic are using false charges of race to demonize the American people as a smokescreen for their own failures. You see it in New York, where Patterson is claiming racism to cover up his failures, you see it with Charlie Rangel who is trying to hide his problems behind false charges of racism, and you see it in the desperate attempts of people like Jimmy Carter and Nancy Pelosi to change the terms of the debate. It’s despicable. Even the President has rejected that charge.”

Let’s see. . .

“I’ve certainly seen it on the television screens — but I have not personally run into it.”

F. . . and the horse you rode in on Eric. You just threw several hundred thousand Americans under the bus. But it gets worse, doesn't it Eric, because you kept flapping your lips:

“Certainly, if I did [run into it], I would be as turned off as you would be — it’s abhorrent and it has no role in this discussion. That’s why when Jimmy Carter stepped out and said this about the president’s race, my comment was, ‘That’s abhorrent, that’s living in another world, another time.’”

Yes, what Jimmy Carter said was abhorrent, but then I know that’s not what you meant, is it Eric? Indeed, it’s not. You just sold out your side, Eric. You just helped demonize millions of Americans, Eric. And you did it on the basis of crazy, Jimmy Carter’s opinion. I am too angry to be snarky at this.

Eric, resign.

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