Nancy Pelosi's Conflict of Interest

Here's video of Nancy Pelosi trying to defend her conflict of interest in introducing "credit card reform" after she was given preferential treatment in a stock offering by VISA.

Economic History 101: WaPo Blames Bush...again

The Washington Post babbled again today about Obama inheriting a huge deficit from Bush. Amazingly enough, a lot of people swallow this BULL. So once more, a short civics lesson

Budgets do not come from the White House. They come from Congress and the party that controlled Congress since January 2007 is the Democratic Party.

Furthermore, the Democrats controlled the budget process for FY 2008 & FY 2009 as well as FY 2010 & FY 2011. (FY = fiscal year)

In that first year, they had to contend with George Bush, which caused them to compromise on spending, when Bush somewhat belatedly got tough on spending increases.

For FY 2009 though, Nancy Pelosi

& Harry Reid bypassed George Bush entirely, passing continuing resolutions to keep government running until

Barack Obama could take office. At that time, they passed a massive omnibus spending bill to complete the FY 2009 budgets.  And where was Barack Obama during this time? He was a member of that very Congress that passed all of these massive spending bills, and he signed the omnibus bill as President to complete FY 2009. Let's remember what the deficits looked like during that period: (below)

If the Democrats inherited any deficit, it was the FY 2007 deficit, the last of the Republican budgets. That deficit was the lowest in five years and the fourth straight decline in deficit spending. After that, Democrats in Congress took control of spending, including Barack Obama, who voted for the budgets.

If Obama inherited anything, he inherited it from himself.

In a nutshell, what Obama is saying is I inherited a deficit that I voted for and then I voted to expand that deficit four-fold since January 20th.

Submitted by a regular reader,  who asks to remain anonymous.

Bad Economic Indicators...

Via IBD:

Far Left Cheering Dem's Electing Pelosi Caucus Leader

Over at the Daily Beast, one of the few blogs that regularly presents articles from both sides of the political spectrum is a peice that lauds Heath Shuler's protest against reselecting Nancy Pelosi to lead the Democratic Party.  Here's a thread from the comments

Snidely70448
Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Barak Obama are the Judas Goats that led the Democratic Party to the slaughter. If the caucus wants to be anything but the party of limousine liberals, urban blacks and predatory unions, they will relegate Nancy Pelosi to the back bench where the electoral performance of the party in the 2010 elections show she belongs.

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Collapse Replies7:32 am, Nov 17, 2010

AlanD2
Don't worry, Snidely. In 2013, Nancy Pelosi will be Speaker of the House again, and you can go back to complaining about her.

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Reply   (3) Show Replies                                                    Collapse Replies11:16 am, Nov 17, 2010

AlanD2
Mattin, I have indeed said in a number of threads that while I was sure a lot of Democrats would lose, I didn't think Republicans would win the House or Senate.

I was half wrong - we lost the House. Happy now?

As for redistricting, I doubt it will be much worse than it was in 2000, when Republicans controlled a lot of states. And when Obama wins in 2012, his coattails will carry a lot of House seats for Democrats no matter how redistricting goes.

Flag It                                                                                Permalink7:45 pm, Nov 17, 2010

rvail136

Alan, it's not just loss of control of the house that is going to hurt the Dems for at least the next 10 years....it's the 680 state legislative seats and control of 22 MORE state legislatures, on top of the 29 governships they now have.

"Republicans now hold about 3,890, or 53 percent, of the total state legislative seats in America, the most seats in the GOP column since 1928. The GOP will now control at least 54 of the 99 state legislative chambers, its highest number since 1952. As a result, state legislatures will likely reflect a more conservative political agenda when they convene in 2011, NCSL reports.

"2010 will go down as a defining political election that will shape the national political landscape for at least the next 10 years," said Tim Storey, elections specialist with NCSL. "The GOP, in dramatic fashion, finds itself now in the best position for both congressional and state legislative line drawing than it has enjoyed in the modern era of redistricting.""

http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2010/11/04/114611.htm

THAT is what Dems should be concerned about. They will control redistricting of not just the US House, but of their states legislative districts as well. Furthermore, in California, redistricting of state legislative/senate districts as well as US House districts has been taken away from the legislature and given by voters to an independent body...in order to eliminate gerrymandering. Think about that for a moment...thus have Nancey Pelosi, Barack Obama and Harry Reid have wrought.

Their far left agenda has driven the Democratic Party to a disaster worse than any other leadership has since 1928, yet 2 of those three were "reselected" by their legislative caucus (Obama's turn comes in 2012). Senator Evan Bayh wrote in the NYT just after the election:

Many of our problems were foreseeable. A public unhappy about the economy will take it out on the party in power, even if the problems began under previous management. What's more, when one party controls everything - the House, the Senate, the White House - disgruntled voters have only one target for their ire. And the president's party almost always loses seats in midterm elections...It is clear that Democrats over-interpreted our mandate. Talk of a "political realignment" and a "new progressive era" proved wishful thinking. Exit polls in 2008 showed that 22 percent of voters identified themselves as liberals, 32 percent as conservatives and 44 percent as moderates. An electorate that is 76 percent moderate to conservative was not crying out for a move to the left...We also overreached by focusing on health care rather than job creation during a severe recession. It was a noble aspiration, but $1 trillion in new spending and a major entitlement expansion are best attempted when the Treasury is flush and the economy strong, hardly our situation today. "

http://thevailspot.blogspot.com/2010/11/election-was-referendum-on-democrat%20s.html

Your party is more cohesive, because every one of the moderates who voted for the party line...were defeated and kicked to the curb by their constituents. Those who bucked, and voted against Cap & Trade, The Porkulus and ObamaCare, survived. Think about that for a moment. The democratic party that is now represented in Congres is going to be at least 63 seats smaller than is was a few weeks ago. With redistricting coming in this year, it will likely lose at least another 20 seats in 2012. By following an agenda that has been roundly rejected by a strong majority of voters, and promising to continue pressing that agenda, how on earth, other than living in a fantasy eduring, echo chamber can you see a recovery in only 2 years? I can't see how that could possibly happen.

You can't depend upon the opposition to FUBAR (though, I wouldn't put it past the GOP to do just that). If they even stick to half of their party's principles, the Democratic party will be in the wilderness for at least a decade. The Democratic leadership in the House, Senate and White House vastly over-reached and led the party off the cliff...we can't get rid of Obama (impeachment would be stupid in the extreme), but reselecting both Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid to lead in Congress was stupid in the extreme.

For the first time in our history, the party leaders who lead their party to election disasters have been retained in their leadership roles. This basically says that their party's representatives want more of the same, even when a large majority of the country's voters have said...NO!

I'm not a Democrat, nor am I a Republican any more...but having 2 relatively strong parties vie-ing (spell?) one against the other has done well for our country for well over 200 years. I would hate to see that balance upset by stupidity of one party or the other. We as a nation don't do well, when one party gains too much power over the other. We prefer bi-partisanship when ever possible. The past 2 years of Democratic control tossed that out the winder. The GOP was never given the opportunity of particiapate...because "We Won" attitude became pervasive in Dem circles in 2009...now the party, and the country will pay for that stupidity.

Think about it, ObamaCare passed through both houses of Congress without one single vote of the party in opposition. When you look at the major social legislation in history, every singe one was passed with affirmation by the minority party...the Voter's Rights act of 1964, the vote cast that passed it was by a GOP Senator...same with much of the agenda of Lyndon Johnson...but the current leadership chose to pursue a straight, one party agenda. That, and that alone is what cost the Dem's control of so many seats in not just Congress but, "3,890, or 53 percent, of the total state legislative seats in America..." http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2010/11/04/114611.htm#ixzz15d YVndxj

It's time to wake up and realize that this country isn't a left/right...but more of a centre/right country and a straight liberal agenda will be soundly defeated at the polls. Instead of trying to "Get it all NOW"...a more incremental agenda, one that's been followed for more than 80 years has a better chance of success. But Nancy, Harry and Barack have forgotten that in their hubris of the 2008 election. Now at least 63 (3 more races are pending, with the GOP contender leading) have paid the price...one that will be continued to be paid for at least 10 more years.

Rich Vail
Pikesville, MD
The Vail Spot                  Flag It        Permalink7:40 am, Nov 18, 2010

The rest of the thread is pretty much an echo chamber where Nancy is lauded for all "of her accomplishments...leading the country off the cliff.

EMAIL WARNING!!!!!

INTERNET WARNING:

If you get an email titled "Nude Photo of Nancy Pelosi,"

Don't Open It . . . . . . .

It contains a nude photo of Nancy Pelosi.

The 3 Stooges

Pelosi Retains Grip on House Democrats

In an early Christmas gift to the GOP, Nancy Pelosi should retain her grip on the House Democratic caucus.  Mrs. Pelosi along with Barack Obama and Harry Reid are seen by voters as the face of reckless spending of the past four years.  She over saw a record addition to the public debt on her watch.  That amount totals to nearly $5 trillion dollars!  That's more than 1/3 of the total public debt of $13 trillion dollars.

Furthermore, the GOP will likely use her as a poster child for socialism and reckless spending in the 2012 election campaign.  Nancy, the gift that keeps on giving.  This is the first time in our history where a caucus that lost their majority retains ALL of it's congressional leadership in the next Congress.

Outgoing Speaker Nancy Pelosi averted a Wednesday showdown between her top two lieutenants by announcing that she will create a new post for Majority Whip James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.), who was expected to lose a race for minority whip to Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.).

This isn't making the back benchers in the Democratic party happy though

..."You have a bunch of senior citizens at the buffet at closing time fighting over the last piece of meat," said one veteran Democrat who talked about the "frustration of the younger generation" of talent that's upset at the prospect of keeping "the status quo."

Those Congressmen and women aren't happy about being led into the wilderness...one that they may not return from for some time to come.  Retaining Mr. Clyburn is seen as a bone to the Black Congressional Caucus...whom will see two GOP additions in an overwhelmingly Democratic group.

GOP Buyer's Remorse? Think It's Congressional Remorse...

In today's NY Times there's a column by yet another tool of the Democratic media complex named Charles Blow.  He quotes a Pew poll that buyer's remorse has set in over the recent national election. 

Democrats still searching for a silver lining to the waxing they took last Tuesday can cheer up a bit. According to a new poll, the public may already be experiencing a bit of buyer’s remorse about the choices they’ve made,

I submit that there was far more "remorse" prior to the election due to the suicidal spending policies of Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Barack Obama.  Basically voters chose the GOP because the suck just a little bit less than the alternative...an alternative that in four years has added more than 1/3 to the national debt, much of that within the past 2 years.  Here's my comment:

Your Submitted Comment

Display Name  Rich Vail
Location  Pikesville, MD
Comment
I think the common fallacy here is that the country \"trusts\" the GOP more than the democrats. What it really is that the GOP sucks a little less than the Democrats. That's it pure and simple. Under the GOP when they controlled Congress, last in 2006, the largest deficit was \"only\" $485 billion dollars. That number has been dwarfed by the last to Congresses controlled by Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid...who have added $5,000,000,000,000.00 to the debt, that's more than 1/3 of the cumulative national debt of $13 trillion dollars.

That along with a tone deaf White House who pushed a health care seizure that the country doesn't want, led by a Speaker who said \"we have to pass the bill to find out what's in it...\" has led the country to repudiate that agenda. America, whether you like it or not here in the NY Times echo chamber, is a centre/right country. The Democratic Party refused over the past two years to listen to what the voters wanted.

You think this election was bad...just wait until the 26 GOP controlled state legislatures reapportion Congressional districts. You'll see ever more losses of House seats. Additionally, there will be some 20 seats in the Senate that now hold Democrats...more than half of which are considered to be \"vulnerable.\"

If the GOP doesn't FUBAR the next two years, you'll see even more losses in the Senate (10-15, perhaps 18) and another 30 or so in the House...think about that...Even should Mr. Obama gain reelection, the GOP would then hold a veto-proof majority in both Houses of Congress as well as a filibuster proof majority in the Senate.

Rich Vail
Pikesville, MD
http://thevailspot.blogspot.com

comments?

Mad Duck Session

I expect that we'll see in the rump session of Congress, an attempt by Mr. Reid and Mrs. Pelosi to push through all those agenda items that they refused to see to prior to the election, rightly thinking that this would further inflame voters.  After all, with the loss of 60 seats, many of them committee chairmen and thus senior members of the Democratic leadership, the party thinks that it has nothing to lose...

 I expect to see "Cap & Trade" pushed through the Senate, as well a "Card Check" and a few other sundry items that Democratic constiuencies have been pining for for decaes.  This "Mad Duck" session will only make the election of 2012 much, much worse for the Democratic Party...voters have much longer memory than we did just a few years ago...

Election 2010, Spin: It's All Pelosi's Fault

In a new article in Politico.com today, the JournoList shills for the Obama presidency are trying out a new spin.  Election losses this cycle are al Mrs. Pelosi's fault.  Here's a blatant effort by the now defunked JournoList hacks to deflect any sort of spatter on Mr. Obama's failing policies.  Here's the two lead paragraphs the emphasis is mine: 

In the home stretch of the 2010 campaign, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, more than even President Barack Obama, is emerging as the heaviest drag on Democratic hopes of holding on to the House.


In district after district, from Florida's Gold Coast to central Ohio, in the Ozark Mountains, on the Minnesota prairie and in retiree-laden Arizona, Pelosi's face, plastered on billboards, recorded in video clips and emblazoned on mailers, is casting a pall over her colleagues’ chances of winning reelection.

 As Jennifer Rubin points out in Contentions, using this additional paragraph: 

Conventional wisdom holds that midterm elections are referendums on the president — and Obama is certainly the central figure in the unfolding drama of the 2010 election. But if Democrats lose the House, it’s likely to be as much a rejection of the policies and politics of a woman who has managed to simultaneously become one of the most powerful speakers in congressional history and one of the most unpopular figures in American politics today.

Those are Mr. Obama's policies as well.  He spent all of last year trying to push them through despite their historic unpopularity. 

True, Pelosi’s demeanor is even more grating than the president’s, but the agenda she jammed through was Obama’s — and his villains are hers.


Certainly the Republicans are using her image and record against her own members. She, after all, has an approval rating much worse than Obama’s. But she is also a useful reminder that no matter how “independent” a Democratic congressman claims to be, he still votes with the extreme leftist leadership that runs the House. And it was she who refused to allow her members to take a vote on the Bush tax cuts, providing a vivid example of just what a Democratic majority means in the House. (I don’t rule out the possibility that, in addition to these factors, some GOP candidates are hesitant to go after the president personally with the same zeal they can direct at his ideological twin.)

But regardless of the number of posters bearing her photograph, the target of most GOP candidates is indeed the president. They are promising to repeal ObamaCare. They are promising to act as a check on the administration’s agenda. Make no mistake, Pelosi may be a useful foil, but the ultimate target is Obama and his agenda. But after the returns are in, watch the finger-pointing epidemic that will break out. You can be certain that the White House will be all too pleased to blame this on Pelosi.  [emphasis is mine, ed.]

I agree that after the returns are in you'll begin to hear a rising litany against her leadership and that the spin will blame her and "her policies" for the historic losses the Democratic Party will sustain on November 2.

Are You Better Off Now Than You Were 4 Years Ago?

I'm not.  My wife can't find a full time job since she was laid off two and a half years ago.  I only just started back working in a cabinet shop three weeks ago.  We're perpetually behind on all of our bills and the worry of being evicted is always there.

In 2006, the Democratic Party took control of Congress and did nothing to the economy except to make it worse.  Of course big government Republicans who controlled the GOP at the time were, and are still, merely "Democrat Lite."   But, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid systematically set out to create the economic chaos that we have  now by refusing to do anything about Freddie Mac and Fannie May. 

Democrats fought every Republican effort to clean up the impending Fannie-Freddie catastrophe with their standard class-warfare rhetoric and racist sliming. The Democrats had a field day fighting off Republican attempts to reform Fannie-Freddie before it brought the mortgage business to full-blown crisis. Then, when the whole thing exploded in all our faces — bringing the cascading collapse to banks and every other industry in America — the Democrats turned right around in the blink of an eye and wagged their dirty little fingers at Republicans as though none of the citizenry would be the wiser. The Democrats weren’t worried. They presumed that once they got control of the Congress, they could bury their own malfeasance and incompetence under the rug of majority rule. And that is precisely what they have done. No investigations. No hearings. Democrat rulers think the public is still in the dark ages — before the internet.

In the four years since the Democratic Party has been in control of Congress, they have systematically waged economic warfare against business by implementing ruinous regulations.  Furthermore,

They have used their majority status to ram through mountains of anti-business, regulatory legalese that literally shackles the recovery they disingenuously proclaim. Even as Democrats have run around the country all summer like a bunch of chickens with their heads cut off, yelling “Recovery!” at the top of their little lungs, the recovery isn’t happening on Main Street and they are the very reason why it isn’t. They won election with their crass gospel of envy, bashing the job creators at every turn and then shake their heads with wonder at why these same small businesses have the life too scared out of them to hire people.

These Democrats openly admit they haven’t even read the bills they’ve passed and then ponder why the citizenry is upset with them. They act as though the U.S. Constitution is nothing more than a doormat that they can step upon as they enter the halls of taxpayer-funded, personal enrichment. They’ve turned the words “public servant” into a synonym for lying thief.[ed see Charlie Rangel & Maxine Waters]
Ever since wresting control of Congress, the Democrat rulers have done all in their power to finagle their way to bureaucratic tyranny, all the while blaming the out-of-power Republicans for having the temerity to say “No,” as strongly as their puny numbers will allow them.

It's time for a change and change we need.  Vote every single incumbent out of office.  Vote in fiscally conservative candidates who won't spend money the government doesn't have and will begin to roll back both the size of the federal and state bureaucracies as well as the scope of government intervention in business.  Candidates who will end ALL government bailouts of the private sector.  Any business "too big to fail" is too big to suceed, and must be permitted to collapse else we will enter a perpetuall cycle of shoring them up...with our great grand childrens money.

Draining The Swamp?

When Nancy Pelosi, D-CA, was swept into power in 2006 as Speaker of the House of Representatives she promised to "Drain the Swamp" of corruption...yet here is a member of her caucus stealing money and giving it to members of her family...

Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX) apparently asked the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation to send scholarship checks directly to her two grandsons and two great-nephews, rather than to their colleges.


Johnson has insisted repeatedly that she left scholarship decisions to aides.

But two letters she sent the foundation from 2006 undermine claims that she wasn’t involved in obtaining $31,000 for her relatives and two other ineligible recipients.

Well Nancy, when are you going to indict this member of YOUR swamp?

Dr Seuss On Obama Care

I do not like this Uncle Sam,

I do not like his health care scam.
I do not like these dirty crooks,
or how they lie and cook the books.
I do not like when Congress steals,
I do not like their secret deals.
I do not like this speaker Nan ,
I do not like this 'YES, WE CAN'.
I do not like this spending spree---
I'm smart, I know that nothing's free.
I do not like your smug replies,
when I complain about your lies.
I do not like this kind of hope.
I do not like it. nope, nope, nope!

Go green - recycle Congress in 2010!

Pelosi: Invetigate Those Who Oppose Ground Zero Mosque

Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, wants to investigate those who oppose the building of a Muslim mosque near Ground Zero in NY City...instead of applauding those who are exercising their 1st Amendment right to Freedom of Speech, Mrs. Pelosi seeks to intimidate or silence those who oppose this.  That's rather Stalinist isn't it?  Rather against the spirit of our Constitution which guarantees our G-d giver right to freely express our opinions on any matter we so desire to expound upon

“there is no question there is a concerted effort to make this a political issue by some.”


“I join those who have called for looking into how is this opposition to the mosque being funded,” she said. “How is this being ginned up?”

 

Of course...after receiving harsh critizism to her threats to investigate anyone who opposes the mosque, her office issued this statement this morning: 

"The freedom of religion is a Constitutional right. Where a place of worship is located is a local decision.


"I support the statement made by the Interfaith Alliance that 'We agree with the ADL that there is a need for transparency about who is funding the effort to build this Islamic center. At the same time, we should also ask who is funding the attacks against the construction of the center.'

"For all of those expressing concern about the 9/11 families, we call upon them to join us in support of the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act when Congress returns in September."

Yid With a Lid translates this as: 

OK people are pissed off about the first statement, which I admit was stupid, but I can't walk it back completely so I will add an investigation of the mosque funders so I can now appear to be even handed.

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...

Nancy Pelosi: Being Unemployed Creates Jobs

You just can't make this stuff up:

63% Support Repealing ObamaCare

Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Barack Obama told us that we'd learn to appreciate ObamaCare after it passed and was signed into law.  So far, that hasn't worked out too well.  A week or two ago, the Congressional Budget Office reported that it would cost an additional $115,000,000,000.00, above the roughly $850,000,000,000.00 the Democratically led Congress said it would.  Now, in a new poll, Rasmussen Reports finds that,

63% of U.S. voters now favor repeal of the plan passed by congressional Democrats and signed into law by President Obama in March.  Prior to today, weekly polling had shown support for repeal ranging from 54% to 58%.   Currently, just 32% oppose repeal.

That's the public at large.  On the other hand, our political masters are still insisting that its a good plan for the country,  despite all the conniving deals struck in those back rooms with unions giving them all sorts of tax exemptions on their plans, while the rest of us foot the bill.  So, the political class,

continues to be a strong supporter of the plan, however. While 67% of Mainstream voters believe the plan will be bad for America, 77% of the Political Class disagree and think it be good for the country.

Which I think contributes to the roughly 20% approval rating for Congress as a whole.  I think that they collectively are out of touch with American and it's time to vote all of them out of office.  The harm they're doing to the country is incalculable and will  take decades for us to recover.

REMEMBER NOVEMBER, RE-ELECT NO-ONE!!!

ObamaCare To Cost More Than Expected

As expected, they projections on the cost of the government's seizure of health care are already rising.  Today the Congressional Budget Office announced that ObamaCare will cost at least $115,000,000,000.00 more than Congress and Barack Obama promised before it was passed on a straight party line vote.  For the first time in our history, a massive entitlement program has been enacted without ANY bipartisan support.

Now, the cost of this huge program is going to be at least 12% higher than the $850,000,000,000.00 cost that was promised by a lying Democratic Congressional leadership.  The CBO says that it will be nearer to $1,000,000,000,000.00... that's a staggering sum. 

The additional spending...would bring the total estimated cost of the overhaul to over $1 trillion.

We can't afford that now, what will the real cost be in 10 years...after all, Medicare was projected to cap in the late 1990's at $40 billion dollars...the real cost is 10 times that at $400 billion dollars per year.  If the projected costs are going to be 12% higher now, six weeks after passage...what does that say for the real dollar amount we will be forced to pay?  ABC is reporting that,

The revised figure is due to estimated costs to federal agencies to implement the new health care reform bill – such as administrative expenses for the Internal Revenue Services and the Department of Health and Human Services -- and the costs for a "variety of grant and other program spending for which specified funding levels for one or more years are provided in the act."

The time has come to vote ALL INCUMBENTS OUT, regardless of party.  These idiots have spent our treasure wastefully and have refused to secure the borders of this country.  It's time for a change...

REMEMBER NOVEMBER!





Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0510/37081.html#ixzz0nm4faayg

A Mad Duck Congress?

If the GOP wins large majorities in this November's election, could the Democrats presently in control of Congress become a "mad duck" congress.  That would mean that during the December's final session of the present Congress, they would pass all sorts of legislation that would be difficult or impossible to reverse, like granting anmesty to 20 million illegal workers, or Cap & Trade bill now stalled in the Senate.  How about a Value Added Tax (VAT). 

These are all presently on the Democratic leaderships agenda, but are stalled or not yet introduced as bills.  Would the Democrats actually attempt to implemeent these very unpopular proposals against the will of the people?  You betcha!  If they passed the America’s Healthy Future Act of 2009 against the wishes of (as polls showed) 57% of the voting public, you can just about guarantee that they'll pass these items, as they've been on the liberal wish lists for decades.

Micky Kaus, a long time journalist from southern California, now running for the US Senate against Barbara Boxer, says,

The only sure solution to Mad Duckism that I can see is for the Republicans to not win too big, leaving at least a substantial number of Dems with something left to lose. ...

In my opinion, just the opposit should happen, the GOP should win such large majorities as to guarantee repealling all of these items in numbers large enough to over come the certainty of veto by this president (who has already proven to be a far left ideologue).    Fred Barnes of the Weekly Standard thinks this is a likely senario as well.  In a Wall Street Journal opinion piece, Mr. Barnes comes to this conclusion,

It's unpopular, but one can imagine Democrats might seek to enact it. The president's National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, which began its work last week, is required to submit a plan for serious deficit reduction by Dec. 1, four weeks after the November election.


Its recommendations are non-binding, but a lame duck Congress would be in position to take them up, including a possible VAT. Should Democrats suffer a landslide defeat, their large majorities would still be in place for the lame-duck session. What would Democrats who'd been defeated for re-election have to lose by voting for a VAT? Not much.

This scenario isn't as far-fetched as you might think. In a speech at a Democratic reception in Boston on April 1, Mr. Obama boasted of his willingness to do the unpopular: "If you govern by pundit and polls, then you lose sight of why you got into public service in the first place," he said. His "job," he said, isn't to "husband my popularity [and] make sure that I'm not making waves. . . . So I resolved to do not necessarily what was popular, but what I thought was right."

Does Mr. Obama think a VAT would be "right"? Take a guess.

I think because this on that "wish list" of items Democrats want dearly, that this will likely be what happens.  If the GOP wins less than 100 seats in the House and under 10 in the Senate, that the present Speaker of the House and a lame duck Senate Majority Leader will convene a whirlwind session and attempt to pass as much of thier agenda as possible, without any bipartisan effort at all.   After all, with the passage of the extremely unpopular America’s Healthy Future Act of 2009 without ANY Republican votes, something unprecidented in our history, why would they shirk at the rest of their agenda?

Overbearing majority

In the Federalist Papers, No. 10, James Madison warns of the "Overbearing Majority" wherein a majority party in Congress would lose sight of it's political mandate and begin enacting legislation that is diametrically opposed by a majority of the populace.  The men who wrote the Constitution put into place a number of procedural safeguards to keep this from happening.  It appears that many of those safeguards were violated when the Democratic Majority passed their "reform" of the health insurance industry.  I believe that this "reform" was more in line with a government seizure of the  health care industry. 

In a Weekly Standard column, Jean Kaufman has begun making an excellent case for this. 

The process by which this bill was passed didn’t just feature corruption and violate traditional ethics. It revealed a president and a congressional leadership that in concert have shown more callous contempt than any in history for the will of the American people, the safeguards against the tyranny of the majority built into the Constitution, and the parliamentary rules by which Congress operates. And there’s every indication that, if need be, the same will be true of cap and trade, immigration reform, or whatever else Obama, Pelosi, and Reid may deem the next morsel they plan to cram down the recalcitrant throat of the American public.

By violating the ethical rules put into place, the majority party has begun to upset the delicate balance that was  installed withing the Constitutional frame work. 

…[M]easures are too often decided, not according to the rules of justice and the rights of the minor party, but by the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority…By a faction, I understand a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or a minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adversed to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community…


But the most common and durable source of factions has been the various and unequal distribution of property. Those who hold and those who are without property have ever formed distinct interests in society…It is in vain to say that enlightened statesmen will be able to adjust these clashing interests, and render them all subservient to the public good. Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm…


Men of factious tempers, of local prejudices, or of sinister designs, may, by intrigue, by corruption, or by other means, first obtain the suffrages, and then betray the interests, of the people…

Even after the passage of this bill, when the majority party in Congress claimed that once passed, the bill would become popular.  This has not in fact occured.  Rasmussen Reports and Gallup Polling have both indicated that opposition to the legilsation has increased by more than 4 points with 58% now favouring repealing all of the legislation.  Generally, when one party has gained a huge majority in Congress as well as control over the Executive branch such as now, the  desire to retain that control has, in  the past, kept the majority party from enacting fractious legislation.  Heretofore, that has been the case.

At the present time, that seems to no longer be the case.  The Democratic leadership seems to have taken the consious decision to enact as many of its long desired legislative goals regardless of public opinion. 

(1) Never before have we seen such a drive to pass a profoundly unpopular bill.


(2) Never before has a bill been passed when it has immediately afterward become clear that the best way for candidates to win an election, or to gain traction in the polls, is to say that they will work tirelessly to repeal that bill.

(3) Never before have a party and a president so publicly and boldly discounted the very idea that procedures in the legislature matter.

Mrs. Pelosi, the Speaker of the House has publicly stated that her goal though this bill was to enact much more legislation that has a far greater impact upon the country. 

"My biggest fight has been between those who wanted to do something incremental and those who wanted to do something comprehensive," Pelosi said, according to an account by Washington Post reform advocate Ezra Klein. "We won that fight, and once we kick through this door, there'll be more legislation to follow."

Thus it now appears that this Democratic leadership has decided to commit political suicide in order to utterly wreck the ecnomic system that has been working fairly well for over 100 years.  

Pelosi argued that the debate over health care reform can begin after the bill is passed. "Pelosi said passing the bill would allow Dems to undertake a 'debate' with Republicans over 'what is the balanced role that government should have,'" writes another pro-reform blogger at the Post, Greg Sargent. According to Sargent, Pelosi explained, "We have to take it to the American people, to say, this is the choice that you have. This is the vision that they have for your health and well being, and this is the vision that we have." Again, in Pelosi's scenario, that debate would occur after the bill is passed.

That is completely against the entire American system of checks and balances.  Debate about legislation under our system must take place during the legislative process, not after that process has ended.  This fall's elections will be a referendum, not just on this majority party's platform, but upon it's actions while in power.  Never before has the party in power utterly ignored the will of the people.   Ms. Kaufman defines it well in her closing...

Pelosi’s phrase was profoundly aggressive, although perhaps she used it without complete consciousness of what she might be conveying. But it was no accident. This is an extraordinary way for a speaker of the House to talk, congruent with the Democratic Party’s newly combative attitude towards the wishes of the American people. This approach is (to use one of Obama’s favorite words) unprecedented for a major political party—at least in this country.

The Democratic Party has placed itself in a precarious position...it can either continue with it's precipate agenda, or pull back and attempt to save what it can.  I suspect that the leadership will continue on it's course having decided that it's too late to turn back.