We are hearing word that House Democrats, led by House Rules Chairman Louise Slaughter (D-NY) are attemping an end-run around one of the most basic Constitutional principles taught in Junior High Civics - the mechanism by which a bill becomes law. Article 1, Section 7 of the constitution is clear:

Every Bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, shall, before it become a Law, be presented to the President of the United States; If he approve he shall sign it, but if not he shall return it, with his Objections to that House in which it shall have originated, who shall enter the Objections at large on their Journal, and proceed to reconsider it. If after such Reconsideration two thirds of that House shall agree to pass the Bill, it shall be sent, together with the Objections, to the other House, by which it shall likewise be reconsidered, and if approved by two thirds of that House, it shall become a Law. But in all such Cases the Votes of both Houses shall be determined by Yeas and Nays, and the Names of the Persons voting for and against the Bill shall be entered on the Journal of each House respectively. If any Bill shall not be returned by the President within ten Days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have been presented to him, the Same shall be a Law, in like Manner as if he had signed it, unless the Congress by their Adjournment prevent its Return, in which Case it shall not be a Law.

This mechanism, of course, is referred to in Constitutional and legal shorthand as “bicameralism plus presentment,” which stands for the basic premise, stated above, that before a bill can become law, that bill must be passed by BOTH chambers of Congress and be presented to the President for either his veto or his approval. It is obvious to any thinking person (and indeed even to members of Congress) that if the House passes one bill and the Senate passes a different bill touching on the same topic, this does not equate to the same bill having passed both the House of Representatives and the Senate, per Article 1, Section 7. Which is why, as they teach you in junior high, when the Senate and House pass different versions of a bill, they must hammer out their differences in a conference committee, and then the compromise bill (to the extent it contains changes from the bill passed by both chambers) must be sent back to *both chambers* for a vote, so that both chambers of Congress will have in fact passed the same bill. This is also why, after the election of Scott Brown, Democrats have found it necessary for the House to pass the Senate bill exactly as-is, knowing that compromise bill between the two will be defeated after it returns from the Senate.

Having determined that they lack the votes in the House to pass the Senate bills as-is, House Democrats are attempting one of the most breathtakingly unconstitutional power grabs ever witnessed - a maneuver to deem the Senate bill ALREADY PASSED by the House by rule, despite the fact that it clearly has not. Now, as we have constantly reminded our ahistorical liberal friends who have already forgotten all of 2002-2006, the filibuster is constitutional because it is a Senate rule of debate, which is expressly authorized by Article I’s delegation of power to each house of Congress to set its own rules of debate. Apparently, some Democrats can’t seem to tell the difference between a rule of debate and just declaring by rule that the House has passed a bill that they have not, when the Constitution itself expressly states that “in all [] Cases the Votes of both Houses shall be determined by Yeas and Nays[.]” What Slaughter and Pelosi here are attempting here is a blatant violation of the principles of bicameralism and presentment.

And unlike other Unconstitutional things Congress does, there’s caselaw here suggesting pretty clearly that when Congress attempts to pass a law in the absence of proper bicameralism and presentment, a person negatively affected by Congress’s action (e.g., a person required to pay a fine for not having health insurance) has standing to challenge the law’s validity in the Courts. This farce is illegal and unconstitutional on its face, and someone has to be advising the Democrats in the House of this fact. They already know the American people don’t want this bill. They know by now that what they’re trying to do is illegal. The question now is whether they still have the shame to care about either.

After having listened to the entirety first primary debate in the California Senate contest, there is only one rational conclusion to be drawn: Assemblyman Chuck Devore was the only candidate to emerge from this debate unscathed, and the only candidate to sound like a serious and credible threat to Barbara Boxer in November.  Round one of this contest went convincingly to Devore over Carly Fiorina and Tom Campbell.

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No, I don’t mean being pro-choice, I mean surrender:

Rep. Bart Stupak said he expects to resume talks with House leaders this week in a quest for wording that would impose no new limits on abortion rights but also would not allow use of federal money for the procedure.

“I’m more optimistic than I was a week ago,” Stupak said in an interview between meetings with constituents in his northern Michigan district. He was hosting a town hall meeting Monday night at a local high school.

“The president says he doesn’t want to expand or restrict current law (on abortion). Neither do I,” Stupak said. “That’s never been our position. So is there some language that we can agree on that hits both points — we don’t restrict, we don’t expand abortion rights? I think we can get there.”

I have long said that once you reach the United States Senate, there is no such thing as a pro-life Democrat.  However, it used to be true, even within this decade, that honest-to-goodness pro-lifers existed among the Democrat caucus in the House.  IN fact, I personally felt so strong about preserving their existence that I voted for Marion Berry (D-AR) in 2004, despite his incorrigible record on spending.  However, if Stupak isn’t able to hold together enough people to defeat this bill on this issue - not just abortion, but public funding of abortion, then the myth of the pro-life Democrat is officially dead, and the Democratic party will have officially become the first monolithic party on this issue in America.

I suppose it’s possible that Stupak and the rest still believe in their hearts that they are in fact pro-life, and that their pro-life instincts have just been overridden by the much deeper Democrat instinct to surrender.  However, in this political environment, with the current resident of the White House calling the shots, being a surrender monkey is going to effectively mean being pro-choice until there’s no one left who remembers the difference.

Over the course of the last 8 months Paul Hodes, current Congressman and presumptive Democrat nominee for the Senate seat currently held by Sen. Gregg (R-NH), has consistently been mired behind expected GOP nominee Kelly Ayotte in the mid-to-high single digits.  Apparently in order to do something, anything, to close the gap, Rep. Hodes appeared today with Howard Dean to double-down on support for the still-unpopular Obamacare package:

Hodes criticized congressional Republicans for politically practicing the “audacity of nope” by blocking legislative progress on even programs that Republicans have backed themselves, such as a debt commission.

“We need to find the higher ground of the common good,” he said. “We have seen no evidence, even from New England Republicans, they are willing to work together,” Dean said.

Supporters Ken Hill and Cindy Stanton drove south from Moultonborough to be at the fund-raiser. They wanted the state to have two Democratic senators (if elected, Hodes would join Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, who won in 2008) and said Hodes is working hard on the economy and health care reform. They, too, were frustrated by congressional Republicans. “They are completely negative and getting away with it,” Hill said.

Leaving aside what Dean was doing at this event, having called for the defeat of the present bill, it is worth noting that apparently, more Obamacare boosterism is the only strategic maneuver left even for purple-state Democrats like Hodes.  The only problem for Democrats is that not only is the healt care bill itself unpopular, in states like New Hampshire, Obama himself is becoming much more unpopular, especially among independents, who are notoriously key in that state:

The crucial independent voters of notoriously independent New Hampshire, the ones who were so vital to Barack Obama’s 2008 victory there and nationally, are fast falling out of love with the Democrat.

***

Among the all-important independent voters in New Hampshire, Obama’s decline has been most dramatic. It now stands at 39%, a 28 percentage point drop since October, or about 2 percentage points per week.

And so Democrat candidates find themselves these days, caught between the Scylla of the netroots, who will kamikaze primary any Democrat insufficiently loyal to Obama, and the Charybdis of the American electorate, which dislikes Obama’s policies and increasingly dislikes Obama himself.  And unless the public suddenly becomes more fond of Obamacare between now and November - an increasingly remote possiblity given that it won’t take effect before then even if passed - Democrats’ electoral fates this November look increasingly bleak.

Missouri voters know that the Carnahan family fancies itself a Missouri political dynasty in the style of of the Massachusetts Kennedys. Like the Massachusetts Kennedys, the Carnahans are apparently also big fans of using the federal government to funnel massive amounts of money to their friends and family. Case in point: current Missouri Secretary of State (and presumptive Democrat nominee for the seat being vacated by Kit Bond) Robin Carnahan. A year ago in March, back when the stimulus was a relatively popular idea, Carnahan expressed her strong support for the stimulus as she began her PR campaign for the Democratic nomination.

Turns out, however, she had another (somewhat more undisclosed) motivation: her brother Tom Carnahan’s company. Tom Carnahan is the CEO of a company called Wind Capital Group, which is a purported “green jobs” outfit seeking to build a “wind farm” in Northwest Missouri. Wind Capital Group, as you might have guessed, is seeking to cash in big-time on the Stimulus, having applied directly for $90M in stimulus funds. If Robin Carnahan is elected, does anyone have a serious doubt whether Wind Capital Group will get those funds?

Of course, there’s one more major problem with this story, besides of course the standard Carnahan attempted influence-peddling. By Tom Carnahan’s own admission, the turbines to be used on the wind farm in question are manufactured not in Missouri but in India. Now, I am a big believer in free trade and have no problem with a company that buys goods in India. But given that the stated purpose of the stimulus was to help the United States economy and create domestic jobs, it seems a bit… odd… that the Carnahan family is trying to funnel money to Tom Carnahan’s company in order to generate jobs overseas.

Well, at least, it might seem odd to anyone who hasn’t followed the Carnahans.

A bizarre thing is unfolding in Arkansas. The two candidates in the Democrat primary in Arkansas appear to be engaged in a mad dash… to the right.  Via Hot Air, behold the latest campaign ad from Blanche Lincoln:

 I agree with Allahpundit that the ad is well done and clever.  I’m just not sure about whether it’s very smart.  As I’ve written about extensively here, Arkansas Democrats are different from most other Democrats, and there’s room for Lincoln to point out that her opponent is funded by the sort of leftist wackos you’d expect to find in Vermont.  However, Lincoln doesn’t go after “liberals” or “outside groups” - she goes after her party.  Now, in this environment, in the state of Arkansas, that’s a great general election strategy. However, I still think a lot of conservatives in Arkansas stubbornly self-identify as Democrats and are proud of that. I’m just not sure naming the party specifically is a smart move.

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Apparently, having seen the great success with with Democrats have used bogus ethics charges to bog down effective Republicans in the last several years, the Missouri Democratic Party in December decided to file a ridiculous ethics complaint against Roy Blunt for a mailer sent to his constituents about his vote on cap-and-trade legislation.  Yesterday, the bipartisan Commission on Congressional Mailing Standards has completely exonerated Blunt.

(Washington, DC) — A bipartisan commission in Washington D.C. has ruled Rep. Roy Blunt (R-MO) did not violate federal rules about postal mailings that explained his vote against the so-called “cap and trade” bill.

The mailer went out in mid-December and immediately drew fire from Democrats.  Edward Janosik of Springfield filed a complaint in late January with the Commission on Congressional Mailing Standards, questioning the use of public funds for the cost of the printing and postage.  Each member of Congress is allowed a certain amount of franking, or mailing, privileges to communicate with their constituents.

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The latest participants to continue the neverending thread of idiocy concerning Jim Bunning’s objection to a unanimous consent motion are two key Democrat Senate candidates, Ohio Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher, and Andrew Romanoff, who is expected to challenge incumbent Democrat Michael Bennet in Colorado.  They are, of course, naturally helped along by the Politico, who apparently shares the inability to distinguish between an objection to a unanimous consent motion and a filibuster, despite ostensibly being a publication that exclusively covers politics.

Seizing on the stalled health care legislation and Kentucky GOP Sen. Jim Bunning’s unilateral move to hold up a spending bill, a growing number of Democratic Senate candidates are calling for the end of the filibuster.

 

Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher in Ohio and Andrew Romanoff in Colorado became the latest Tuesday, both citing Bunning’s efforts as reasons to scrap the time-honored Senate procedure intended to protect the rights of the minority party in the upper chamber.

** snip **

Bunning’s lonely stand blocking a bill that would provide jobless benefits, transportation funding and Medicare reimbursements has increased scrutiny of the practice — and raised the political stakes.

 

“The filibuster is doing more harm than good,” Fisher wrote in an e-mail to supporters urging them to sign a petition. “Stand with me in support of ending it today — it’s time we put an end to paralysis in Washington and started solving problems again.”

While the media malpractice concerning the coverage of Bunning’s objection is perhaps understandable (if not excusable), one wonders at the willingness of Democrats to signal so clearly that they don’t understand basic facts about the job they are applying for.  As has been explained painstakingly by Hogan here, if it seems weird to you that a single Republican could successfully filibuster a bill for days with zero support, that’s because it isn’t true. 

Bunning is not filibustering - the Democrats (and Olympia Snowe) have repeatedly made unanimous consent motions - which, if you speak English - you would properly understand to require unanimity to pass. One Senator is enough to defeat a unanimous consent motion because if there’s one Senator who objects… there isn’t unanimous consent!  It has been perfectly within Harry Reid’s power to schedule the vote on the regular order of business, schedule an immediate cloture vote (which would have passed, given that no Republican has stood with Bunning), and then vote on this “emergency” bill well before the Monday deadline passed.  Instead, Reid has deliberately chosen to play politics with this issue because it involves a retiring and unpopular Senator, and he thinks he can score political points off the Republicans in so doing.  If you’re on unemployment and ticked about missing your check, thank Harry Reid for trying to save his own seat.

But by all means, Democrats, keep mounting an assault on the “filibsuter,” which has zero to do with this particular story.  We’ll enjoy seating Justices Coulter and Yoo when the next Republican takes the White House.  Or, if you want, you can redefine “unanimous” to mean “almost unanimous” and hope that no one notices.  But is it really too much to ask that your candidates for the Senate have a rudimentary understanding of how the Senate works?

When I first heard the news that Lt. Gov. Bill Halter planned to challenge Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) in a primary, and further that he had raised $600,000 from various nutroots groups and $3M in pledges from the AFL-CIO, I was excited.  Knowing that Blanche Lincoln would undoubtedly also rake in $3M-$5M, I was overjoyed at the thought of two Democrat candidates flooding the airwaves to convince Arkansas voters who was more pro-union, more pro-Obamacare, more anti-gun, a bigger believer in AGW, more pro-choice, and more likely to advance the Obama agenda.  Because they are idiots, the netroots were also excited at this same prospect.  Unfortunately for us both, the signs from the first day of Halter’s campaign indicate that he’s not exactly planning to run as the champion of MoveOn and DailyKos.

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Early reports have Governor Zoolander crushing KBH in the Gubernatorial primary. Drop updates in the comments on this and any other races you are watching.

I apologize in advance for the inside baseball nature of this post, but I think it’s important to shed light on a common problem I see with many Republican Web 2.0 consultants.  Many of the folks who do this sort of work on the right have developed a clientele basically by getting themselves mentioned in media outlets (most of which are hostile to conservatives) criticizing the GOP as old, outmoded, and essentially doing the internet wrong.

Exhibit A of this sort of behavior is alleged web 2.0 guru David All. David’s latest offering in this genre is printed in - where else? - the Huffington Post, and purports to show (surprise!) that the great omnipotent Obama machine is doing it right and the GOP is doing it wrong (and stands in danger of losing the message!):

But it’s not enough to just produce the data visualization. There needs to be a coordinated, multi-channel distribution approach that focuses on persuading the audience to not only side with the position being promoted, but also to spread the information to their networks. This is the most effective way to use data visualization to have a real and effective impact on the debate at hand.

This type of approach was recently exemplified by Organizing for America’s (OFA) in its efforts to build up support for President Obama around the one-year anniversary of the $787 billion stimulus.

While Republicans in Congress and conservatives across the country pointed to the nearly 10 percent national unemployment rate as proof that the stimulus had failed to create jobs and stimulate the economy, OFA — an arm of the Democratic National Committee — launched a coordinated campaign to persuade Americans that President Obama’s administration had put the country back on a “Road to Recovery.”

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Erick wrote a good post yesterday indicating his reasons why he would feel comfortable voting for Rand Paul. As he implied in the post, many (probably most) of us among the contributors here at RedState disagree with Erick on Rand Paul and whether he is a candidate deserving of our support. I am one of those contributors who disagrees very strongly with Erick, and would like to give the other side of this particular story.

To be clear, I don’t have a strong feeling one way or another on Trey Grayson. The people I have talked to from Kentucky indicate that he is a competent, good-government type. My general sense is that Erick is right that he will go along with McConnell most of the time. Really, as long as we are in the minority, I expect the same will be said of Rand Paul, as the primary goal of the Senate at this point involves putting the brakes on the worst of what Obama and Reid are proposing. However, in the event we are able to recapture a razor-thin majority, I’m not so sure that having someone with a warped Paulite view of the Constitution as the deciding vote will necessarily be a good thing. But I digress. This post is not about Trey Grayson, it is about Rand Paul.

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Facing immense criticism for her role in the “Louisiana Purchase,” Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA) last week defended her principled stance of changing her vote on Obamacare in exchange for $300M in special favors for Louisiana. Her “defense,” if it may be called that, was essentially that without that kickback, Louisiana would have to raise taxes or cut services in order to afford Obamacare:

Obama’s plan — and the health care bill passed by the Senate — would expand Medicaid programs in the states as a way to move some of the uninsured onto insurance rolls. State and federal governments share the costs of the Medicaid program.

Levine said the Senate bill would cost Louisiana an extra $130 million annually in state funds and Obama’s proposal outlined this week could cost Louisiana as much as $260 million each year in additional Medicaid costs. An estimated 370,000 Louisiana residents would be added to the Medicaid rolls under the proposals, so nearly 37 percent of the state’s population would be covered under Medicaid, according to DHH estimates.

“The state’s going to figure out how to afford it because it’s the state’s responsibility, not just the federal government’s responsibility, to help all of the people in the state get adequate health insurance,” Landrieu said.

She said under the president’s proposal, the federal government would pick up the full cost of the Medicaid expansion for two years and then give states another two years at a lesser cost-share to give states the time to “adjust their budgets.”

“I think that’s pretty reasonable,” she said.

I haven’t seen a study recently showing how many states are operating in the black in the middle of the current recession, but if the number is greater than 5, I’ll eat my favorite Red Sox hat. Yet one of the untold stories about the current Obamacare bill (and Obama’s newest proposals) is that in addition to the fact that they’ll almost certainly lead to Federal tax increases, they will also lead to massive State tax increases, as state governments that are already struggling to get financing for their debt have to find some way to meet the Obamacare mandate. Of course, it’s possible in the alternative that states will pay for Obamacare by enacting massive cuts in other services, but given the recent history of state fiscal responsibility in this country, that result is neither desirable nor likely.

Democrats have been desperately hoping that they can get the bill passed now, in the hope that people won’t notice this extra cost that they’ve kicked down the road to state budgets. Thankfully, Mary Landrieu is there to remind them.

Like a spoiled and petulant child who has tattled on a sibling to Daddy to no effect, angry liberals who are mad that Bush Administration lawyers suggested it was legal to put a terrorist in a box with a caterpillar have decided to try the other parent to see if they get a more satisfactory response.  By way of reminder, the DoJ cleared Yoo and Bybee last week of professional misconduct in connection with the issuance of the infamous “torture” memos which suggested that throwing neck-braced terrorists against fake walls might not be illegal.  Ever content to parody themselves, outraged liberals offended at our very uncouth treatment of people who plot our national destruction have been busy demanding the heads of current law professor John Yoo and current federal appeals judge Jay Bybee ever since. Apparently, they now want the DC Bar and Pennsylvania Bar to take some sort of action against Yoo and Bybee:

The Justice Department may have concluded its ethical proceedings, but professional disciplinary authority over lawyers rests not with the Justice Department but with the state bodies that license lawyers to practice law.

Mr. Margolis acknowledged in his decision that “the bar associations in the District of Columbia (where Mr. Bybee is licensed) or Pennsylvania (where Mr. Yoo is licensed) can choose to take up this matter.”

Both should commence investigations without delay.

Of course, as everyone (most especially the Obama Administration) realizes, this course of action is preposterous and dangerous for the future of our country.

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Great news for Republicans in what already looked like an uphill battle before the nutroots decided to force a hard charge to the left for the Democrat nominee:

Arkansas Lt. Gov. Bill Halter (D) “is moving ahead with a primary challenge to Sen. Blanche Lincoln, he announced Monday,” POLITICO reports.

“Washington is broken,” Halter said in a video on his campaign website. “Bailing out Wall Street with no strings attached, while leaving middle-class Arkansas taxpayers with the bill; protecting insurance company profits instead of protecting patients and lowering health costs; gridlock, bickering and partisan games while unemployment is at a 25-year high. Enough’s enough.”

Halter’s decision further complicates Lincoln’s already difficult path to a third term. Polls have shown Lincoln trailing a slew of Republican opponents, including Rep. John Boozman and state Sen. Gilbert Baker, as well as more obscure candidates.

I worked on the last campaign that attempted to unseat Blanche Lincoln (Jim Holt 2004), so I have a little bit of personal perspective on running against Lincoln.  Although some polls have suggested that Halter fares as well or better against the expected Rs in the race than Lincoln, let me explain why this is great news for the GOP’s chances of picking up this seat.

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We get a lot of hate mail here at RedState. Almost none of it is as entertaining as this. Take note, trolls: if you want your nonsensical rant to appear on the front page of RedState, from henceforth this is the bar it must clear:

From: Rod Burket

Date: February 28, 2010 10:11:10 PM EST

To: RedState

Subject: A complaint about your “moderator” Neil Stevens

I just recently created an account on your site.  Today, I was “banned” so to speak by a moderator whose name is Neil Stevens.  The thread that I supposedly caused him to terminate my account was http://www.redstate.com/moe_lane/2010/02/27/obama-administration-kills-23k-space-related-jobs-in-florida/#comment-30885

I am truly offended that someone like this Neil person would have the audacity to stop someone from expressing their ideas, or prevent someone from expressing their opinion.  If this is what Red State is all about, then I do not wish to be part of this online community.  If this is not retracted, and if I do not receive an apology, I shall write a blog posting about the practice of Red State’s representatives and how they are against the First Amendment of Free Speech.  I shall write to every blog site I belong to, and show the proof of the above referenced thread as my evidence which I have saved into my web browser.  I shall also visit your associated “partners” and also inform them of your actions today.

I must also mention that I am an editor for the Open Directory Project.  This is the online community of volunteer editors for the advancement and accurate placement of web sites on the internet.  If you are not familiar with this project, I would suggest you speak with your webmaster.  I am sure that he or she is familiar with this project.

My site called newfreedomblog.com is a site which not only promotes freedom of speech, but also tracks down those sites online which do not participate in this basic right in our great country.  I do hope Mr Stevens has just made a simple mistake, and is man enough to apologize.  I am sure he was simply having a bad day, and regrets his action.

Respectfully,

Rod Burket, Administrator newfreedomblog.com

http://www.newfreedomblog.com

Dear Mr. Burket,

Although it is by no means a certain thing, hopefully you are possessed of the brainpower to deduce whether that apology is coming your way any time soon, based on the fact that we have posted your most hilarious email on the front page for all to see and mock.

Good day,

RedState

Open thread.

The Chicago Tribune ran a front-page story today on the continued financial troubles of Broadway Bank, and the picture is not good.

At once-successful Broadway, headquartered in a former car dealership in the Edgewater neighborhood of Chicago, the situation has turned awful at an inopportune time for the Illinois treasurer. Less than a week before Giannoulias’ Democratic primary election victory earlier this month, the scope of the problems at Broadway became clearer after a regulatory order was made public saying the bank has just three months to get its financial house in order.

** snip **

Broadway’s chief executive, Demetris Giannoulias, Alexi Giannoulias’ older brother, told the Tribune the family must raise at least $85 million by the end of April to stave off government seizure.

Demetris Giannoulias said he doesn’t expect the government to drag its feet on shutting the bank if capital-raising efforts come up short.

“Regulators aren’t cutting us any slack,” said Demetris Giannoulias, 38, whose father founded the bank in 1979.

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In light of a bloody legislative year, in which the House passed a number of controversial measures that ultimately stalled in the Senate, Blue Dogs and other endangered Democrats have been putting substantial amounts of pressure on Pelosi and the rest of the House leadership to not act on more controversial bills without sure signals that the Senate was already lined up to pass them.  The Blue Dogs, you see, are tired of getting thrown under Pelosi’s bus on behalf of unpopular bills that don’t become law. It’s one thing to hypothesize that the public might like the effects of an unpopular bill after it passes, it’s another to try to recover from voting in favor of one when you can’t even hold on to that vain hope.

In light of the fact that Congressional Democrat leadership has apparently decided to give self-immolation a try on behalf of the wildly unpopular Obamacare reforms, the Blue Dogs had hoped yet again that the Senate would act first.  However, earlier this week, Kent Conrad sent a clear signal to the House that the bill was dead entirely unless the House passed the Senate version first.  So how did Pelosi and the rest of Dem leadership respond?

The House could act first to pass a healthcare bill within the next month, a top House chairman signaled Thursday.

Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), the chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee and a close ally of Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), suggested that the House may pass the Senate bill before any other action is taken — a key concession to Senate Democrats.

This is an especially foolhardy move by Pelosi since, as the article notes, she doesn’t believe she even has the votes to pass it, thus putting many of her most vulnerable members inbetween the rock of a possible nutroots primary challenge and the hard place of a loss in the general election.  In other words, the clear message being sent to House Democrats, like the message sent to vulnerable Senate Democrats, is “be prepared to fall on your sword.”  But hey, take heart Blue Dogs - if the agony is too much to bear, Obama is prepared to act as your second.

Remember when Obama made that speech about all those marginalized people who distrusted all the good things government could do for them and therefore headed out to the remote wilderness away from civilization where they could bitterly cling to their guns and religion? Unbeknownst to Obama, he was describing the majority of Americans. Note especially how even independents break on this question:

Washington (CNN) – A majority of Americans think the federal government poses a threat to rights of Americans, according to a new national poll.

Fifty-six percent of people questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Friday say they think the federal government’s become so large and powerful that it poses an immediate threat to the rights and freedoms of ordinary citizens. Forty-four percent of those polled disagree.

The survey indicates a partisan divide on the question: only 37 percent of Democrats, 63 percent of Independents and nearly 7 in 10 Republicans say the federal government poses a threat to the rights of Americans.

Now, to be fair to Obama, it’s entirely possible that there weren’t nearly this many people who felt that government was a threat to their freedoms back when he made that speech.  But they sure do now. And given that pretty much everything Obama wants to do legislatively will result in expanding the reach of government, Congressional Democrats would do well to note the extent to which the people now agree with Ronald Reagan about the danger of the words, “I’m from the Government, and I’m here to help.”

Examining his record, you might have thought that Illinois Democrat Senate Candidate Alexi Giannoulis was too busy approving loans to known mobsters to be have time to donate money to rabid anti-Israeli causes. However, that kind of thinking just demonstrates the way people have been misunderestimating Alexi Giannoulias all his life. Turns out, Giannoulias is a man of impressive ability and multitasking skills:

In an effort to deflect from his embattled record and ethical issues surrounding his family bank’s ties to the mafia, Illinois Senate candidate Alexi Giannoulias (D-IL) attacked his opponent, U.S. Representative Mark Kirk (R-IL), for opposing a U.S. military option in Iran and falsely claiming Kirk wanted to “let Israel handle it.”

The attack on Kirk – an established pro-Israel champion who engineered the Iran Refined Sanctions Petroleum Act and won the deployment of a U.S. X-Band radar to Israel – was an obvious attempt by Giannoulias to smear his opponent in the Jewish community and claim to be the “more pro-Israel” candidate in the race.

** SNIP **

Please read on below the fold.

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