Democrats Plan Ambitious Lame Duck Session

As I've posted before, if the November election is as bad for the Democratic Party, which presently controls Congress seems to predict at present, we'll see the rest of their agenda rammed through in December in a "Mad Duck" session.  If you think chicancery behind the passage of Obama Care is bad, just wait until these men and women will have nothing to lose...

In the Wall Street Journal, someone prominent is finally reporting on this possibility.  This despite rumours pooring out of Washington by the boat load, that this just what Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi will do as their "last hurrah".   We'll see a raft of massive new taxes,

"I've got lots of things I want to do" in a lame duck, Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D., W. Va.) told reporters in mid June. North Dakota's Kent Conrad, chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, wants a lame-duck session to act on the recommendations of President Obama's deficit commission, which is due to report on Dec. 1. "It could be a huge deal," he told Roll Call last month. "We could get the country on a sound long-term fiscal path." By which he undoubtedly means new taxes in exchange for extending some, but not all, of the Bush-era tax reductions that will expire at the end of the year.

The elimination of the secret ballot in union elections.  

In the House, Arizona Rep. Raul Grijalva, co-chairman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, told reporters last month that for bills like "card check"—the measure to curb secret-ballot union elections—"the lame duck would be the last chance, quite honestly, for the foreseeable future."  Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin, chair of the Senate committee overseeing labor issues, told the Bill Press radio show in June that "to those who think [card check] is dead, I say think again." He told Mr. Press "we're still trying to maneuver" a way to pass some parts of the bill before the next Congress is sworn in.

Other bills that will probably be considered is the constitionally shakey mandated universal voter registration system to override state laws (um...this sort of throws away the 10th Amendment), as well as a budget resolution that would seek to permanently lock in the vastly increased spending levels that this Congress has imposed.  More importantly, we can't forget  the pork: 

A Senate aide told me that "some of the biggest porkers on both sides of the aisle are leaving office this year, and a lame-duck session would be their last hurrah for spending." Likely suspects include key members of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Congress's "favor factory," such as Pennsylvania Democrat Arlen Specter and Utah Republican Bob Bennett.

The last issue will be the Cap & Trade bill.  A very weak energy bill will be passed in September, then in the Mad Duck session it will be "amended" by replacing it with the radical Cap & Trade bill. 

Mike Allen of Politico.com reports one reason President Obama failed to mention climate change legislation during his recent, Oval Office speech on the Gulf oil spill was that he wants to pass a modest energy bill this summer, then add carbon taxes or regulations in a conference committee with the House, most likely during a lame-duck session. The result would be a climate bill vastly more ambitious, and costly for American consumers and taxpayers, than moderate "Blue Dogs" in the House would support on the campaign trail. "We have a lot of wiggle room in conference," a House Democratic aide told the trade publication Environment & Energy Daily last month

Officially, the Democratic leadership is saying that nothing sweeping will be done during the lame duck session this year, but privately, legislative aides are bracing for a whole slew of sweeping legislation.  Expect to see the same tactics that were used to ram through ObamaCare used to ram through this radical agenda.  If this is done, the present anger of voters will be NOTHING like what will happen in 2012.  My biggest feara is that the GOP leadership will be what they were from 2002-07, Democratic lite...