March 16, 2010

I first heard about the infamous Coffee Party, supposedly a liberal alternative to the right leaning Tea Party movement, at Hot Air; I watched a couple of videos trying to understand what was its pont. After suffering through the rambling, pointless video promos produced by the "unwitting" founder of the Coffee Party, Annabel Park, I concluded that she must be some naive and ignorant college girl. (For one point, she doesn't even seem get the historical reference to "Tea Party," as in Boston.)

Park claims the anti-Tea Party "movement" started when she ranted her frustration on her Facebook page about all the attention the Tea Partiers were getting:

[L]et's start a coffee party . . . smoothie party. red bull party. anything but tea. geez. ooh how about cappuccino party? that would really piss 'em off bec it sounds elitist . . . let's get together and drink cappuccino and have real political dialogue with substance and compassion.

Within hours, she received dozens of responses. Within days, the idea attracted hundreds of fans. Soon the movement caught the major media's eye. The Washington Post and the New York Times featured the story (now there's a surprise!)

Overnight, Annabel Park, a 41-year-old "independent filmmaker" became the leader of Coffee Party movement.

Now, after two short months, the mob has gotten so big that they're already holding a nation wide Coffee rally:

Since February, the Coffee Party has gathered some 120,000 fans on Face book. And it’s set to bring its virtual community together in public for the first time this Saturday. The group has close to 350 kickoff parties scheduled around the country, with thousands of supporters expected to attend, according to Chris Rigopulos, a Boston-based organizer for the group.

What an incredible grassroots organization! What a difference to the stumbling, humble origins of the Tea Parties: That movement started with just a handful of people here and there gathering in town hall meetings. No organizing, no sponsors, no mass media attention. It took a whole year for the various Tea Parties to organize and hold a convention. Compared to the amateur Tea Partiers, the Coffee Party is almost... professional!

Park describes the Coffee Party as non-partisan and "100% grassroots." I grew skeptical of that point the more I watched her; despite my first impression of naiveté, careful listening of her speechs and videos suggest she is an experienced -- and trained -- political activist:

"We object to obstructionism and extreme political tactics that are I think fear-based, not reality-based, and in many ways just deliberate misinformation"

"I think that it's human for people to be nervous about changes in the neighborhoods and in demographics of the country."

“If you don’t believe that the government has any role, then yeah, you should join the Tea Party,” “But there are many of us who that believe we have to have the government addressing these things, representing our interests.”

The careful way Park characterizes Tea Partiers as obstructionists, fear mongers, liars, racists, and anarchists, without directly saying so, takes well-developed skill. This is not the speech of a naive college student or simple independent film maker, whatever that means.

Surprise, surprise, it turns out that her role as leader of that leftist political movement called the Coffee Party is no accident, no matter what the elite media tendentiously claim. As Andrew Breitbart of BigJournalism.com notes:

Yet there was nothing accidental about Park’s anti-Tea Party activism; the Coffee Party’s roots are about as grassy as the signature surface of the old Houston Astrodome; and Park’s facade of cooperation is undermined by her “tea bagger” epithets on Twitter.

Meanwhile, her claim that the Coffee Party is “purely grassroots” and “independent of any party” is laughably rebutted by the fact that the registrant for the website was listed as “Real Virginians For Webb, 14461 Sedona Drive, Gainesville, Virginia 20155” until the information suddenly went private behind a proxy. That’s “Webb” as in Virginia Sen. Jim Webb, one of at least two elected Democrats for whom Park has actively campaigned (as evidenced by this campaign video, “Real Virginians for Webb”:

In fact, Park has been an ardent supporter of Barack Obama since forever... so much so that she made her own pro-Obama YouTube promotional videos:

So intense was her support for the would-be president that Park co-directed a video for the YouTube channel, UnitedForObama, in which she encourages her mother to give a pro-Obama testimonial in their native Korean. The slick four-minute production, titled “Annabel’s Mom Takes on Sarah Palin, In Korean!!!,” features jaunty piano music and English translations of her mother’s homage to Obama, including this comment, which has the vague ring of a “Dear Leader” haiku:

I listened to Obama’s speeches/and, though my English isn’t perfect/I started to change my mind about him./I came to understand/what he wanted to accomplish/and what we really need is Obama.

Having now been exposed, Park is hardly apologetic. On the March 4th edition of the Coffee Party USA website, the Party line stated:

Annabel was never paid by the Obama campaign, but she worked very hard as volunteer, as did millions of other Americans. A newspaper inaccurately reported that Annabel held a videographer position. But, if there is anyone who cares about such things, and also cares about getting their facts straight, the truth is very easy to verify.

To date, neither Annabel nor her partner Eric Byler have ever been hired by a political campaign or by a political organization. They are active citizens who, as volunteers have knocked on doors, made phone calls, and made videos:....

They are proud of a record of inventive civic engagement and have nothing to hide. If they didn't want people to see their work, they wouldn't have put it on YouTube!

So Annabel Park is a veteran Democratic media shill, trained and experienced; yet she did all that work for candidate Obama without being paid. Translation: Park is a diehard liberal (and Obamic) partisan. And far from being grassroots, this "movement" is a cynical ploy designed to manipulate inattentive viewers into believing that the left-liberal dogma spewed forth by the Coffee Party on a daily basis accurately represents real America.

Look for the elite media to keep percolating the Coffee Party right up through the November elections. Then abruptly, the fame and adulation will stop, and Annabel Park will be dropped to the floor, like an outgrown and broken toy.

Enjoy your fifteen minutes of fame, Ms. P; you and your "partner" both.

Hatched by Sachi on this day, March 16, 2010, at the time of 1:11 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

March 15, 2010

In our last installment on Saturday, we were able to report the following:

The Hill newspaper is published daily in the nation's capital while Congress is in session, which is unfortunately true right now. They've been publishing a daily (or so) whip-count; that is, the Democratic and Republican leaders tell the Hill how many votes they think they have, and the paper makes the final judgment (presumably after talking to some of the waverers).

In the count published today, here's how we stand:

• All 178 Republicans will vote Nay.
• 34 of the Democrats are firm, leaning, or likely Nays; this includes eight Democrats who voted Yea the last time around in November.
• 147 Democrats are firm, leaning, or likely Yeas.
• The remaining 72 Democrats are "undecided."

That puts the current count at 147 Yea, 212 Nay, with 72 toss-ups. Note that a majority is currently 216, since there are only 431 members of the House right now.

In today's whip-count, we see some movement -- and astonishingly, considering all the proclamations of Obamic victory, it's in the right direction!

• All 178 Republicans will vote Nay.
• 37 of the Democrats are firm, leaning, or likely Nays, three more than last time.
• 146 Democrats are firm, leaning, or likely Yeas (one fewer than Saturday).
• The remaining 70 Democrats are "undecided" (two fewer).

That's 146 Yeas, 215 Nays, with 70 ditherers, and majority is still 216.

In other words, ObamaCare is just one vote shy of defeat in the House... with 70 votes still up for grabs. We must win over one more Democrat -- before they win over 70: If Democrats lose even one more congressman, the bill dies.

I still have full faith and confidence in the American people; we have proven ourselves to be steadfast in our rejection of a radical rewrite of all health-insurance rules. The danger is not the American people but rather the Democratic majority, which might still trample the people down with hobnail boots.

But more and more, it appears that simple self-interest will kill this wretched act; simply put, most United States Representatives like their jobs and want to keep them.

But even if the worst happens, even if the Dems suddenly reverse the momentum and end up eking out a marginal victory, I still believe that we can repeal ObamaCare -- despite the fact that (as I am reliably informed) no major new government social bureaucracy has ever been "uncreated." Think of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, and State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP).

Why am I so positive? First, because the reliable claim is not particularly reliable; for one example, Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) was an FDR-era welfare entitlement created, as Aid to Dependent Children, as part of the Social Security Act of 1935. Yet it was repealed in 1996, to be replaced with a radically different and far more temporary welfare program titled Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF).

Even the New Republic has recently hailed the repeal of AFDC and enactment of TANF instead [hat tip Wikipedia, of all sites]; TNR editorial of September 4, 2006, p. 7; the piece appears not to be available online:

A broad consensus now holds that welfare reform was certainly not a disaster--and that it may, in fact, have worked much as its designers had hoped.

But the second reason I am convinced that ObamaCare can be repealed is that it differs significantly from all other social-welfare, social-control bureaucracies enacted by Congress -- including AFDC. Unlike all the others, ObamaCare is not supported by voters; it is vehemently opposed by large margins.

If President Barack H. Obama's scheme is finally enacted, it will be over the earsplitting objections of the American people. By contrast, programs such as Social Security and Medicare were wildly popular when they were enacted -- and most retain strong majority support even today.

We have never before enacted such wholesale change in the balance between government and governed -- when the bill itself was so intensely unpopular; I daresay it's the most unheard-of thing I ever heard of. For that reason, I simply do not believe it will be passed; but even if it is, I do not believe it will survive long in the 112th Congress.

So hip hip, chin chin, and keep your welly up. Courage, Camille. This too shall pass away!

Cross-posted on Hot Air's rogues' gallery...

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, March 15, 2010, at the time of 8:44 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack (1)

March 13, 2010

One fear that obsesses too many folks is that the People's Republic of China, a.k.a. Red China, "owns" a scandalous chunk of our national debt in the form of U.S. Treasury bonds; and that they will somehow be able to use these holdings to force us to dance to the tune they pipe, turning America into a Chinese vassal state.

When pressed on how they could physically do this, fearmongers suggest China could threaten to dump all their T-bills at bargain-basement prices, driving down the value of the bonds we need to sell to finance our out-of-control spending. The sudden drop in bond values would force us to jack the interest rate through the sky, just to get people to buy them. This in turn is supposed to drive our prime rate into the stratosphere as well, bankrupting the country.

To avoid this scenario -- dubbed the "China Syndrome" by some economists -- we will (so goes the argument) give the Commies anything they demand in the way of foreign and domestic policy and military stand-downs... to appease them, placate them, and keep them from carrying through their extortion.

Beldar has posted a fascinating (as usual) and long (as always) essay on the subject. He comes to the well-founded and irrefutable conclusion that there truly is little to fear from the fact that Commies hold such a huge amount of our debt:

A company's largest shareholder is not much at all like its largest bondholder. He who buys a company's bonds gets to stand at the front of the line, ahead of equity holders (like shareholders), if there's a forced liquidation of the company and a distribution of its net assets. But in exchange, the bond holder generally has to forfeit all rights to participate in the management of the company's business unless and until there's a default by the company on its promise to repay according to the terms of the bond. And the caselaw says that companies owe all sorts of fiduciary and other unwritten, vague, but powerful duties to shareholders, whereas companies own nothing more to their debt holders than the precise minimums to which the companies are specifically committed by explicit written contractual promises to the bondholders....

No matter how many Treasury bonds China buys, it can't somehow "convert" those into a right to cast votes in the U.S. Senate or to give instructions to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The holder of an American federal bond has a contractual right, enforceable against the U.S. government under its own laws and in its own courts, to repayment of principal and payment of interest on the exact terms specified in the bond. And that's all it has. [All emphasis is in the original, except for this note that all emphasis is in the original. -- DaH]

But I have another angle on the whole thing. I say it would be absolutely wonderful for us if the Chinese really did enact their eponymous syndrome!

So why am I right and all those professional economists wrong? Because they think like acolytes of the Dismal Science -- that is, dismally -- whereas I think like a novelist.

Here is my scenario:

1. Red China threatens us with a China Syndrome unless we sever relations with Taiwan (for example).
2. We tell them to go stuff an eggroll.
3. They decide to call our "bluff," and they really do dump all their T-bills at, say, half their current value.
4. The Federal Reserve jumps into action, working through proxies to buy every dang Treasury Note China sells, as many as we can get our mitts on.
5. Now that we have bought back hundreds of billions of dollars of our "debt" for fifty cents on the dollar, we wait for the dust to settle and the market to recover -- then we sell them again for the normal price.
6. We send a letter to Beijing, thanking them for their generous donation to the Save Liberty and U.S. Sovereign Health (SLUSSH) fund. With heartfelt thanks, we settle back to enjoy our windfall profit on our own debt instruments.

The moral is simple: Whenever any entity -- whether individual person, giant corporation, or sovereign nation -- buys or sells bonds, equities, derivatives, collectibles, futures, or indeed any other investment instrument on the basis of politics, party, policy, or pique -- that is, whenever one makes investment decisions for any reason other than pure economics -- that entity is going to lose its shirt... along with its coat, tie, pants, and undies.

This Lizardian Rule of Thumb applies to universities that divest their stock in Israeli companies to protest Israel's dealings with the Palestinians; it applies to lefties who dump their mutual funds if they contain Starbucks or Nike stock; and it applies to conservative Christians who will only invest in companies that are run by ministers: You're going to lose a huge wad of your return by letting extraneous circumstances dictate your financial decisions.

Now you may think the trade off is worth it, and who could argue? Just bear in mind that you are donating beaucoup bucks to your favorite cause; if that's all right with you, I certainly don't care. So long as you are aware of what you are doing, and so long as you don't violate any fiduciary responsiblities you may have to shareholders (or moral duties to those who take your advice).

But I doubt that China is really that altruist. They're not going to donate hundreds of billions back to the U.S. just to make a political point. (That what? That they're too stupid to be trusted with monetary decisions?)

So let that be another reassurance that there will be no China Syndrome... at least until and unless we default on our repayment obligations, in which case dumping the bonds would be a purely economic decision anyway!

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, March 13, 2010, at the time of 11:09 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack (0)

The Hill newspaper is published daily in the nation's capital while Congress is in session, which is unfortunately true right now. They've been publishing a daily (or so) whip-count; that is, the Democratic and Republican leaders tell the Hill how many votes they think they have, and the paper makes the final judgment (presumably after talking to some of the waverers).

In the count published today, here's how we stand:

• All 178 Republicans will vote Nay.
• 34 of the Democrats are firm, leaning, or likely Nays; this includes eight Democrats who voted Yea the last time around in November.
• 147 Democrats are firm, leaning, or likely Yeas.
• The remaining 72 Democrats are "undecided."

That puts the current count at 147 Yea, 212 Nay, with 72 toss-ups. Note that a majority is currently 216, since there are only 431 members of the House right now.

To put it in a nuthouse, Republicans must get 4 of those toss-up Dems to vote Nay, while the Democrats must get 69 of the toss-up Dems to vote Yea.

It should be obvious now why Squeaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Haight-Ashbury, 100%) has not yet called the vote: The risk is too great that the Nay-sayers will get their 4 before the Yes-men get their 69. And she won't call the vote until the whip-count shows better odds for ObamaCare than against it.

Now I expect the great majority of those toss-up Dems will eventually vote for ObamaCare; but if they lose only 4 out of the 72 (6%) it goes down. Bear in mind that when the current Congress ends -- probably sometime in late November or December -- any legislation passed in one or both chambers but not signed into law dies.

The new Congress would have to start all over again with ObamaCare (if it's still controlled by Democrats); the new House cannot simply pass the previous Senate's bill and send it to President Barack H. Obama for signature.

As a more practical matter, the closer we edge to the November 2nd elections, the greater the pressure on the toss-up Dems to vote Nay, since that is the way most of their constituents want them to vote.

I would guess that the window will firmly shut in late May or early June; after that -- with one dangerous exception -- ObamaCare cannot be enacted, for reasons of politics.

The one dangerous exception is the putative "lame-duck" period of the second session of the 111th Congress... the short interval after the elections but before the 112th Congress is seated on January 3rd (per the Twentieth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution).

During those two months, every representative in the House already knows whether he has been reelected, and the Senate bill is still in effect.

A defeated Democrat has nothing to lose by voting for ObamaCare. If enough of those currently leaning towards Nay are defeated, they may, in a fit of vindictive revenge against the constituents who fired them, vote in as perverse a manner as possible. (Though of course, it's unlikely the reconciliation side of the package could also be enacted during that period.)

This is the most likely time for ObamaCare to be enacted, since it would then have virtually no consequences on its supporters: Many of the Democrats voting for it will have already been defeated; and for those from moderate districts who were nevertheless reelected, a December vote gives them the maximal "memory-lapse" time before facing voters again in 2012.

I'm quite concerned about that interval; has the GOP given it much thought?

Cross-posted on Hot Air's rogues' gallery...

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, March 13, 2010, at the time of 11:43 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (1)

March 12, 2010

In 2006, incoming Squeaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Haight-Ashbury, 100%) infamously promised that the Democrats would run "the most honest, most open and most ethical Congress in history." When President Barack H. Obama ran for president two years later, he made a similar pledge of ethics and transparency that would rise so high above the supposed gutter-level of the George W. Bush administration, it would be heaven on Earth. He explicitly pledged that lobbyists would find no home in the Obama administration.

Now, after a year plus of Obamunism, we're starting to see the outlines of those ethics and that transparency:

President Obama's pick to oversee export controls at the Commerce Department is a trade lawyer whose recent clients include two companies on a government watch list and a shipping business that agreed to pay millions of dollars last year to resolve a federal probe into shipments to Iran, Sudan and Syria.

All three companies have had recent interests before the government office that Eric Hirschhorn would oversee if he is confirmed as undersecretary of commerce for industry and security....

"If confirmed, Mr. Hirschhorn will be required to recuse himself for two years on all matters in which his former clients are parties or represent parties," Commerce Department spokeswoman Shannon Gilson said.

Do ye want yer old lobby washed down?

Eric Hirschhorn is a lawyer who most recently acted as a lobbyist for a couple of Hong Kong companies linked to Mayrow General Trading (Dubai); the feds linked Mayrow to manufactured parts found in IEDs set in Iraq to kill Americans and Iraqis. He also represented a DHL division that had to pay a huge fine for unlawful shipping to Iran, Syria, and Sudan.

Commerce Secretary Gary Locke singled out Mayrow in a speech last fall on export controls, saying that through work with the United Arab Emirates, "we successfully targeted Mayrow General Trading, which was forwarding U.S.-made goods to Iran that ended up in bombs in Iraq."

But I'm sure naming Hirschhorn to a top Commerce Department job -- where he "would oversee the Commerce Bureau of Industry and Security, which controls exports of technology, software and dual-use items that can be used for both commercial and military purposes" -- was a mere oversight, a fluke event. He'll just recuse himself in a few cases, and then all will be well. Oh, wait; there's this:

Another top export official at the department, Kevin J. Wolf, a trade lawyer recently confirmed by the Senate as assistant secretary for export administration, is recusing himself from matters involving 36 former clients, including major exporters such as Raytheon and Boeing.

At least there's no suggestion that Mr. Wolf's former clients are linked to IEDs in Iraq, thank goodness.

But it is peculiar just how easy it seems for lawyers and lobbyists, deeply committed to their oft-unsavory clients, to find themselves working in the Obama administration at the very body they used to lobby; one wonders how many of these appointees expect to return to their former advocacy jobs as soon as legally allowed after finishing their stints in the Obama administration... thus might (just a thought) make decisions with an eye towards future employment, after their recusal period ends.

Paul Mirengoff has recently noted that it's unfair to refer to seven Justice Department lawyers who voluntarily sought to defend America-attacking terrorists held in the Guantanamo Bay Detention Facility as "the al-Qaeda Seven," since that implies that the lawyers share the views of al-Qaeda. All right, I won't argue against that case; but what does it say about the President of the United States that he has such a fetish for hiring such individuals into the administration, his administration?

Not only those seven at the Department of Justice, but now Mr. Hirschhorn to the Commerce Department, where he will "oversee" the committee that decides what companies can export to which enemy recipients; and of course, many, many other former lobbyists or advocates against America have wound up in the current administration... starting, I note, with the president himself, who called on the U.S. military in Iraq to declare defeat and go home.

The president should be held to a higher standard than merely saying that it's not strictly illegal for him to appoint a tendentious partisan on the enemy's side to a powerful post in D.C.:

• Barack Obama has no duty to those companies;
• Barack Obama did not represent them, nor did he have any responsibility to ensure they were represented;
• Barack Obama is supposed to pick the best person for a job, taking all factors into account;
• Barack Obama himself knows that not every person who is technically qualified under the law is therefore a good choice for high-ranking positions in the government.

Those are two different standards: Activity that may be perfectly legal -- such as lobbying for companies that are already known to be aiding and abetting Iran's program to build IEDs to blow up American soldiers, Marines, and civilians -- can still be a common-sense disqualifier for a plum federal position. Nobody has a "right" to be named to the Department of Justice, Commerce, or any other federal agency.

What's next -- if Attorney General Eric Holder resigns, will Obama replace him with some lawyer who rushed to file a friend-of-the-court brief to the Supreme Court demanding the release from military custody New York "dirty bomb" suspect Jose Padilla?

Oh, wait. My mistake: That was Attorney General Eric Holder, not some hypothetical replacement, who forgot to mention that amicus curae brief during his confirmation hearings. Never mind!

If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs...

In the meanwhile, Republicans are not letting the crisis of a yawning chasm between rhetoric and reality under Barack Obama go to waste:

In a move to break with the GOP's big-spending past, House Republicans voted Thursday to ban their members this year from requesting earmarks, the pork-barrel spending that directs money to pet projects in home districts....

"Today, House Republicans took an important step toward showing the American people we're serious about reform by adopting an immediate, unilateral ban on all earmarks," said House Minority Leader John A. Boehner, Ohio Republican, adding that this was just a first step in a broader fight to control overall spending.

Blindsided by the GOP's sudden burst of propriety -- Pelosi never expected that! -- Democrats labored mightily to respond -- and gave birth to a mouse:

On Wednesday, House Democrats announced another new rule, one to ban earmarks to for-profit companies.

Fortunately, this will not prevent Democrats from using earmarks to funnel money to ACORN. Or to International ANSWER or the SEIU. Or to some "charity," such as the Holy Land Foundation. Or to Hamas itself, if they really wanted to do; last I checked, the Palestinian terrorist organization was not a "for-profit company," hence not covered by the ban.

So there you have a tale of two parties: One is showered daily by a cornucopia of corruption... while the other can only sigh wistfully for the good old days, when it had its own bottomless bowl of largess.

Previous posts in our neverending series about the Democratic culture of corruption and earwax:

1. The Missing Earpiece
2. Has Nancy Pelosi Changed Her Mind About Ears?
3. The Democrats Are All Ears
4. Earmarks? No No... Phonemarks!
5. They're All Ears... Again
6. The Power of the Big Idea: O'Billery Reduced to "Me Too!"

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, March 12, 2010, at the time of 3:22 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

March 11, 2010

A little over a month ago, I noted the shift in our spacefaring strategy towards privatizing space exploration and exploitation, a strategy pushed, astonishingly enough, by President Barack H. Obama:

I'm just now picking my jaw up from the floor: Barack H. Obama has just decided to privatize -- space exploration?....

It's a little odd that such a lover of big-government Obamunism and nationalization of private resources would suddenly go all capitalist over the space program; I worry that this will just turn out to be more empty rhetoric. But entrepeneurs can use even empty rhetoric to fly below the radar and actually bring about some of the dreams that Obama has woven, perhaps unintentionally and against the president's own better judgment. Certainly there is no lack of players champing at the leash to jump into a newly revitalized private space-launch industry....

Republicans should seize this idea to show they're not just the "party of No," as Obama loves to claim. Here's a chance to champion science, space research, and private enterprise and entrepeneurship, all while showing some bipartisan flair! The GOP would have to be utter morons to let this fish loose.

Oh, wait...

I'm glad I tossed in that final cynical jab at the GOP (which may come to mean "grand obsolete party"); it makes me look less like a Pollyanna, sunny-side up nitwit. For just as we all suspected, the Republicans are so locked into the top-down "command science" that they join their Democratic colleagues in trashing the very idea of private manned space launches:

"As with all great human achievements, our commitment to space must be renewed and encouraged or we will surely be surpassed by other nations who are presently challenging our leadership in space," Democratic and Republican members of the U.S. Congress from Florida wrote to Obama last week."

Here is the new plan, as enunciated by the running-dog capitalist in chief:

Obama, in his Feb. 1 budget proposal, planned to increase NASA's overall funding to $19 billion in 2011 with an emphasis on science and less spent on space exploration.

He would cancel the Constellation program's Orion spacecraft and Ares rockets, after $9 billion and five years of tests. Constellation is aimed at returning astronauts to the moon in the 2020s to clear the way for a Mars mission.

Instead, Obama would spend $6 billion a year for five years to support commercial spacecraft development and pursue new technologies to explore the solar system in what the White House called "a more effective and affordable way."

The Florida Republicans shake in their boots, terrified that private enterprise will surely lead to massive job losses (possibly even within the state legislature). But is it now Republican dogma that public spending creates more jobs than the free market?

It's not just know-nothing congressmen in the Reptile State pushing the bright red panic button about private aerospace development. Here comes President George W. Bush's NASA administrator, "explaining" -- in the sense of "mocking the very idea" -- why we must allow government to monopolize spaceflight:

Various members of the far-flung U.S. space community have been troubled by the change, such as former NASA administrator Michael Griffin, who struggled to get more funding for Constellation from the previous administration of President George W. Bush and believes Obama should stick with it.

"There's a larger issue here," Griffin said. "Does the United States want to have a real space program? Do we actually think we can have a robust, exciting, world-leading space program by hiring private enterprise to furnish it?"

Why yes, Dr. Griffin; many of us do support exactly that weird idea: In a capitalist state -- or even whatever hemi-demi-quasi-capitalist state we currently inhabit -- it's always best to try the market first... and only haul out the big-government guns later, if a screaming emergency arises.

The bureaucratization of space exploration is one of the most disheartening aspects of contemporary society: Here we sit, verging on the sixtieth anniversary of Robert A. Heinlein's classic, "the Man Who Sold the Moon" (1951); and our "leaders" at NASA still scoff at the preposterous thought that private rocket ships, free-market space colonization, and entrepeneurial expansion to the stars can actually work... maybe even better than Michael Griffin ordering his civil servants to innovate, on schedule.

My God. A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. And so far, that's where it bloody well ends, too.

Cross-posted on Hot Air's rogues' gallery...

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, March 11, 2010, at the time of 2:06 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (1)

March 10, 2010

Politico reports that Squeaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Haight-Ashbury, 100%) is losing her grip.

Not her grip on reality (not to mention sanity), however tenuous that may appear; she knows what she's doing. What lefty Independent Jonathan Allen meant is that the Speaker is losing her iron grip on the Democratic caucus in the House of Representatives:

Over the past two weeks, Pelosi has faced a series of subtle but significant challenges to her authority -- revolts from Democrats on the Ways and Means Committee, the Congressional Black Caucus, the Blue Dog Coalition and politically vulnerable first- and second-term members.

The dynamic stems from an “every man for himself” attitude developing in the Democratic Caucus rather than a loss of respect for Pelosi, according to a senior Democratic aide. But it’s making Pelosi’s life -- and efforts to maintain Democratic unity -- harder.

Allen offers several explanations why, like Darth Vader, star systems are slipping through Pelosi's fingers: a "tough election cycle," Democratic congressmen eager to take "revenge" on the Senate for not being partisan enough, and her go-lite chastisement of Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY, 100%) and other revolting Democrats. But he misses the most obvious explanation: Nancy Pelosi is leading her caucus to certain doom in the mid-term elections.

She asks them to take suicidal votes on wildly unpopular bills, from ObamaCare, to Cap and Tax, to stimulus packages so numerous they must be numbered... and now, in an election year! She demands that Democrats, even those just starting their careers, immolate themselves upon a cross of bogus bailouts and carbon credits.

Oddly, they're somewhat reluctant to fall upon their swords just so that Pelosi will look good.

I suspect that if she were to suggest that it would be best all around if the House were to scrap the current thoroughly discredited ObamaCare bill and start all over again... well, she might find that the easiest way to "lead" is to find a parade already heading down the street -- and dart out in front, pumping your baton.

But then, of course, she wouldn't have the nearly orgasmic joy of digging deep to sacrifice myriad others for her own cause. And really, in the grand scheme of things, what could possibly be more important than Nancy Pelosi's near-petite mort?

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, March 10, 2010, at the time of 12:55 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

March 9, 2010

I've been summoned for jury duty many times; I've never even gotten to voir dire.

Until now: Through some perversity of the Fates, I was actually impaneled yesterday.

A juror impaneled is like -- is like a butterfly mounted. All day, every day for the rest of the week and perhaps even Monday or Tuesday next, I'm pinned in my box, unable to do ought but squirm and squirm, and wriggle and wriggle. I'll try to blog a bit in the evenings, but...

But on top of just closing escrow on our house, having to get it rewired, repainted, erecting a couple of fences, stocking the joint with labor-saving appliances; having our main car totaled, buying a new (used) car in replacement; and atop Sachi going through a particularly stressful time at work just now; suddenly finding myself on a jury is just too-too!

It saps the very marrow of my bones. *

I shall do my civic duty; but next time, I swear to whatever God I don't yet believe in that I'm going to show up in the jury assembly room sporting my t-shirt that reads, "I'd rather be waterboarding."

I'll see you on the flip side; and don't expect the usual long-winded, endlessly weedy screeds for which Big Lizards has become justy infamous.

 

* I've been told being on a jury is very rewarding, and the tale-tellers were right: I'll get about $75 plus thirty-eight cents per mile... where "per mile" here means, not my actual driven mileage, but rather as the vulture flies. Cheap, Alfie.

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, March 9, 2010, at the time of 2:08 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)

March 7, 2010

Paul Mirengoff of Power Line, who seems as conflicted as can be about the aspects and auspices of Sarah Louise Palin, ponders them deeply in a recent post, Would Reagan vote for Sarah Palin? (Answer: Yes.)

Paul quotes from Steve Hayward writing in the Washington Post (I supply the missing link here); Hayward is the chap who answered Yes to the question above... then added what Paul calls a "cautionary note":

But while the parallels between them are evident, it is far from clear that Palin appreciates Reagan's discipline and substantive grand strategy. In many of her speeches and media appearances she tends to ramble on, with none of the crispness and rhetorical force of Reagan's formulas. With the partial exception of energy, she has yet to identify a set of signature issues that can carry her particular stamp, as Reagan did in the late 1970s with his relentless attacks on detente and his championing of supply-side economics.

I rise only to note a peculiar point in defense of a lady: Sarah Palin is only... well, as a gentleman, I won't bandy a woman's age; but note that when our fortieth president was the age she is now, Ronald Reagan himself had "yet to identify a "grand strategy" or "set of signature issues that can carry [his] particular stamp."

All that we knew about Reagan's politics in 1957 was that he had been a New Deal Democrat when New-Deal Democrat Franklin Roosevelt was in power; an anti-Communist Truman-Democrat when Truman was in power; and an Eisenhower Republican when (you guessed it) Dwight D. Eisenhower ran for president.

He did not identify his "signature issues," as Hayward put it, until he was well into his 60s; heck, he didn't even deliver his electrifying introduction for Barry Goldwater until he was 53, significantly older than the Thrillah from Wasilla.

In '57, Reagan had just begun his stint hosting General Electric Theater. The job required him to travel the country giving speeches; that very activity induced Reagan to develop his own peculiar and wonderful political philosophy. (Note that he was still a private citizen at this time; he would not enter actual elective politics, as opposed to being elected union boss, until 1966, when he was 55 years old.)

Thus have I given the gracious lady my advice to tour the "lower 48" and speak, speak, speak -- and listen, listen, listen: Great wisdom can be found among the uncommon common American. (Advice sent but probably never delivered; Big Lizards is notoriously less reliable even than the Post Office -- though significantly cheaper.) If Palin follows the Reagan model, this is her time to introduce herself to America on her own terms, not as the perhaps ill-considered shadow of John S. McCain.

The VP run was premature, but I suspect Sarah Palin was as surprised by the invitation as were the rest of us. Kudos to McC for thinking outside the box; but there is a reason why nobody is outré all the time: "The box" is actually defined by what usually works!

And now is the moment for Sarah Palin to decide what she thinks "works" in America and why, what doesn't and why not, and to answer the most important question: How do we get there from here? She is not yet tardy, but she'd better hit the ground speaking.

By the way, I am pleased once again to be a harbinger of trends to come. Hayward had this to say about the Tea Parties:

Reagan typically described conservatism in populist terms rather than formal ones. In his "Time for Choosing" speech on behalf of Barry Goldwater during the 1964 presidential campaign, he sounded almost exactly like Glenn Beck does today. "This is the issue of this election," Reagan warned: "Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American Revolution and confess that an intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves."

This populist undercurrent is why I am certain that Reagan would have been an enthusiastic supporter of the tea party movement. While the tea partiers confuse the media and annoy the establishments of both political parties, Reagan would have seen them as reviving the embers of what he called the "prairie fire" of populist resistance against centralized big government -- resistance that helped touch off the tax revolt of the 1970s. That movement was often dismissed as a tantrum, but when The Washington Post called California's 1978 antitax Proposition 13 "a skirmish," Reagan replied that if so, then the Chicago fire was a backyard barbecue.

Now compare it to this point made by an obscure blogger and minor crank:

A popular front is an extremely broad-based coalition of political forces that normally oppose each other. In rare moments, the stars align, and so do the groups; what results is a mass movement that can wash away the status quo like a burst dam. The movement doesn't have to include all or even a majority of the citizenry; but it is large enough to push aside any countervailing coalition -- which means whatever the front wants, it gets....

The Tea Party front is the worst nightmare of the hard-core Left -- a patriotic, small-government, capitalist popular front. While Tea Partiers are not specifically Republican, leftists realize that GOP leaders (Sarah Palin) and candidates (Scott Brown) are far better positioned to appeal to Tea Partiers than are Democrats: All Republicans must do is match their words with deeds; but Democrats would have to (a) repudiate everything they have said and voted for in the past four decades, then (b) convince Tea Partiers that this time they're sincere!

I think Hayward and I are seeing the same structure but describing it in slightly different terms, he from his Reagan scholarship and I from my "forces and fractures" methodology.

Of course, I said it first...

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, March 7, 2010, at the time of 10:12 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

March 6, 2010

Alas, Squeaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Haight-Ashbury, 100%) just picked up a vote for ObamaCare. Rep. Eric Massa (D-NY, not yet rated) has announced his resignation from the House effective Monday, due to ethics charges (sexual harassment). On November 7th, 2009, Massa was one of the 39 Democrats who voted against the House ObamaCare bill; see this roll-call vote.

There are two paths forward:

• Ultra, ultra-liberal New York Gov. David Paterson might appoint a replacement, if state law permits; Paterson would unquestionably appoint a liberal who will vote for ObamaCare, converting Massa's Nay into a Yea -- a big help to Pelosi.

• If the law does not permit, or if Paterson doesn't move quickly enough (being embroiled in his own ethics charges -- bribery), then Pelosi still gains.

  There currently are only 432 members of the House, instead of the usual 435 (two resigned and one, Jack Murtha, dropped dead); to pass the Senate version of ObamaCare in the House the Democrats need an actual majority... which is 217, because 216 is only 50%.

  But with Massa's resignation, that leaves only 431 members; and 216 is an actual majority (50.1%) of 431. Since Massa voted against ObamaCare, Pelosi needs one fewer vote from the same number of Yes-men... so she doesn't even need to convert Massa from Nay to Yea.

Either way, Speaker Pelosi has picked up one net vote since yesterday. So it goes.

However, three other House members are embroiled in their own ethics charges: Reps. Charlie Rangel (D-NY, 100%), Maxine Waters (D-CA, 100%), and Laura Richardson (D-CA, 100%); and each of this lot actually voted for the House version of ObamaCare. Thus if any of them is forced to resign in the next month or so, that would make up for Massa. (If two or three of them leave, that would put even more pressure on the Speaker, of course.)

It's up, it's down, it's a yo-yo.

Cross-posted on Hot Air's rogues' gallery...

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, March 6, 2010, at the time of 6:11 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (1)

March 5, 2010

The "Climategate" scandal began last November, when several thousand e-mails and other documents hacked from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia (the CRU at the UEA, for you alphabet-soup lovers) were dumped at a separate website, RealClimate (which, by the way, supports the "consensus opinion" of the IPCC, vigorously defends predictions of carbon-driven climate catastrophism, and evinces little but contempt for global-warming skeptics).

The hacked documents stunned the world, as they appear to demonstrate that the "consensus opinion" of climate research was not driven by strong and uncontroverted science -- as we'd been told ad nauseam since the 1990s -- but by political calculation and activism, sloppy research techniques, malfunctioning or mis-sited measuring equipment, predetermined outcomes and the "desk drawer" fallacy, bullying of peer-reviewed literature to exclude dissent, hounding and character assassination of "deniers" (skeptics), and above all, driven by the lure of hundreds of billions of dollars in "carbon credits," with all the anti-scientific pressures such massive monetary manipulation inevitably entails.

And it all began with such promise... the promise of a world cleansed of the contagion of religion, technology, Capitalism, and conservatives!

Anthropogenic ("man caused") global climate change (AGCC) was promoted by a portion of the scientific community which consistently identified itself as representing the whole, quivering with eagerness to (a) join the bandwagon, (b) not be seen as unhip, (c) not be seen as (even worse!) non-liberal, (d) get their hands on the literally hundreds of millions of dollars available in government-sponsored research grants, issued only to those scientists whose research arrived at the "correct" conclusion.

It's important not to make the same mistake in reverse; the motives above do not prove that the "consensus opinion" is wrong. But the degree of cross-citation in the AGCC echo chamber does call into question the independence of the data that supposedly corroborate each other. (I have the mental image of a great circle of true believers, each pointing at the fellow behind him, with the last pointing at the first... rather like the world-girdling serpent that swallows its own tail.)

Climate modeling replaced more traditional scientific research as the source of "evidence;" that is, a general circulation model predicts a temperature increase over the next hundred years... and that prediction is itself used as "evidence" that global warming is ongoing and civilization-threatening. Papers were published with peer review conducted entirely by guaranteed true believers; contrary evidence was suppressed, while supportive evidence was generated through poor methodology by researchers who already knew what they were going to find; surprise, surprise, they found it.

Climatological papers began to read like pronunciamentos, manifestos, or at times, theocratic fatwas. The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was not simply seeking the truth, it was saving the world!

Alternative explanations that didn't start from human industrial activity and end in Armageddon were rejected out of hand, without investigation but with an unhealthy dollop of ridicule; alternative responses to the "crisis" that didn't require stunning deindustrialization -- accompanied by a ruinous transfer of wealth from developed to developing countries -- were dismissed as "too little, too late." Global warming became a political battle cry and a shibboleth separating Left from Right (with the "consensus" establishment firmly ensconced on the Left, of course)

This is not an environment conducive to unbiased, persuasive scientific research.

Simply put, if a someone was not an IPCC cheerleader and New Luddite, if he didn't call for "smashing the looms" -- crippling reductions in energy use coupled with draconian deindustrialization and global transfer taxes -- then regardless of his scientific credentials, he was a knuckle-dragging, slack-jawed, slope-browed, Bible-thumping, drooling, ignorant, uneducated, right-wing member of the "booboisie," who shouldn't even be allowed to mouth such uninformed and foolish opinions and offend his betters. And obviously in the pay of Big Oil, to boot.

When Climategate broke, it was swiftly followed by Glaciergate and a couple other scandals that forced retractions from science journals and even the IPCC itself. It was "hack heard 'round the world."

America and the rest of the world jerked awake, stared at the crumbling edifice of the AGCC "consensus opinion," and collectively breathed, "what the hell?" Those thoughtful souls who were not climate scientists, who had nervously followed (and believed) the hype of the last two decades -- that the entire climatological scientific community was on board with the IPCC's predictions of calamity and the scientific urgency of communalism -- abruptly discovered that the "consensus" was ginned up the old-fashioned way... by strategems, threats, and bribes. To quote Robert Anton Wilson on quite a different subject, as I have done several times before and will persist doing, world without end --

To unbiased (if appalled) observers, the release of the Climategate "papers" and the ensuing retractions, backing and filling, admissions against interest, recriminations, resignations, and regrets, is occasion to step back from the Globaloney hysteria and refocus our research efforts on putting the basic science of climatology on a sounder footing.

But like President Obama, who infamously insists upon sticking with his predetermined narrative on ObamaCare with only cheap and cosmetic changes, the IPCC and its acolytes take quite a different lesson from the the last four months' imbroglio:

Undaunted by a rash of scandals over the science underpinning climate change, top climate researchers are plotting to respond with what one scientist involved said needs to be "an outlandishly aggressively partisan approach" to gut the credibility of skeptics.

In private e-mails [!] obtained by The Washington Times, climate scientists at the National Academy of Sciences say they are tired of "being treated like political pawns" and need to fight back in kind. Their strategy includes forming a nonprofit group to organize researchers and use their donations to challenge critics by running a back-page ad in the New York Times.

"Most of our colleagues don't seem to grasp that we're not in a gentlepersons' debate, we're in a street fight against well-funded, merciless enemies who play by entirely different rules," Paul R. Ehrlich, a Stanford University researcher, said in one of the e-mails.

There you go! Taking a page from the Progressivist playbook, when caught red-handed in biased conclusions, confabulations, skulduggery, and corruption, the best tactic is always to lash out at the accusers, blaming them for stirring up trouble and raking muck. Go on the offensive and charge opponents with everything one's own team has done, hoping that the confusion will induce a "he said, she said" unresolvable "paralysis by analysis" that (one hopes) leads to a scientific civil war. Or perhaps a brain aneurysm... anything to prevent, or at least delay, the dread necessity of an honest re-evaluation of the basic premises of AGCC.

Waverers must be reborn in the faith; or failing that, lumped with the accusers and destroyed alongside them:

Some scientists question the tactic and say they should focus instead on perfecting their science, but the researchers who are organizing the effort say the political battle is eroding confidence in their work....

George Woodwell, founder of the Woods Hole Research Center, said in one e-mail that researchers have been ceding too much ground. He blasted Pennsylvania State University for pursuing an academic investigation against professor Michael E. Mann, who wrote many of the e-mails leaked from the British climate research facility.

Woodwell concludes by committing an epigram, with malice aforethought: "We are dealing with an opposition that is not going to yield to facts or appeals from people who hold themselves in high regard and think their assertions and data are obvious truths" ...working himself into such a lather that he mixes subject and predicate, inadvertently implying that it is he and his compadres who "hold themselves in high regard" and think their every utterance is "obvious truth."

But there are still a few sane scientists left in the world, thank goodness, who recognize that climatology's situation is of the climatologists' own making, because -- like contemporary journalists -- they started seeing themselves as saviors, not seekers:

"Sounds like this group wants to step up the warfare, continue to circle the wagons, continue to appeal to their own authority, etc.," said Judith A. Curry, a climate scientist at the Georgia Institute of Technology. "Surprising, since these strategies haven't worked well for them at all so far."

She said scientists should downplay their catastrophic predictions, which she said are premature, and instead shore up and defend their research. She said scientists and institutions that have been pushing for policy changes "need to push the disconnect button for now," because it will be difficult to take action until public confidence in the science is restored.

"Hinging all of these policies on global climate change with its substantial element of uncertainty is unnecessary and is bad politics, not to mention having created a toxic environment for climate research," she said.

We wait with bated breath to see whether the scientific community remembers that it is supposed to be a community, not a Lysenko-like dictatorship cum grant-grabbing bureaucracy; and that its first allegiance is to the truth... even if that truth doesn't comport with political correctness or the messianic zeal of individual scientists, eager to spread the dire news -- and enforce a "solution" that, funnily enough, is just the political regime they've always wanted to impose anyway. If climate science can shake itself from dreams of empire and recover its real purpose -- to learn, not lead -- then we may yet come out of this dark night with our civilization intact.

But if the delusions of grandeur and martyrdom run too deep, if the high of political clout and grant money overwhelm the day to day grind of real science, then we may be headed for yet another theocratic attack on our liberal, democratic society... this time under siege by the First Church of Fundamentalist Anthropogenicism.

I have high hopes that this too shall pass, and science will return to its own yard and stop tarting up to play in the geopolitics yard. To paraphrase another great sage, I keep my optimism, because in spite of everything, I still believe that people are really wise when they need to be.

Cross-posted on Hot Air's rogues' gallery...

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, March 5, 2010, at the time of 3:38 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

Let's check back with the minions of Squeaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Haight-Ashbury, 100%); the Squeak insists she'll either pass the bill, or she'll pass the bill. It's in the bag -- no need even to vote on it. (I wonder if -- maybe she'll... would even San Fran Nan have the huevos to try to rule that the Senate bill has passed the House by acclamation? Nah, even she wouldn't have that much chutzpah.)

But what do said minions themselves min? There are two main dissenting groups, plus one unnamed revolutionary mob that may well be larger than the other two put together.

Abort! Abort! Abort!

Let's start with the Stupakians, who have stooped to stupify the Squeaky stooges in Congress:

A dozen House of Representatives Democrats opposed to abortion are willing to kill President Barack Obama's healthcare reform plan unless it satisfies their demand for language barring the procedure, Representative Bart Stupak said on Thursday.

"Yes. We're prepared to take responsibility," Stupak said on ABC's "Good Morning America" when asked if he and his 11 Democratic allies were willing to accept the consequences for bringing down healthcare reform over abortion.

"Let's face it. I want to see healthcare. But we're not going to bypass the principles of belief that we feel strongly about," he said.

Oh, well they can always pass the Senate version of the bill (with no aboriton restriction), then just fix it in reconciliation, right?

Wrong: Reconciliation must follow the "Byrd Rule," which means (among other things), it's only available for clauses and sections that are primarily intended to reduce the budget deficit, either by cutting spending or raising taxes. There is no possible way that the Senate Parliamentarian, Alan Frumin, or anyone else Majority Leader Harry "Pinky" Reid (D-Caesar's Palace, 70%) names to that position in a fit of pique, is going to say that the primary purpose of banning federal spending on abortion coverage is simply to reduce the budget deficit.

That means the Stupakians must accept in advance of their vote the solemn assurances of liberal, pro-choice Democrats like Sen. Chuck Schumer that they will vote against funding abortion, even when they have the chance to implement what they have always dreamt of: Full funding of abortion with taxpayer money, so that every woman can get one!

I'm sure Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI, 90%) and his likeminded colleagues have absolute trust in the Senate Left.

Green is the color of my true-love's eyeshades

The second group that has begun grumbling comprises the fiscal... well I wouldn't exactly say hawks; they are Democrats, after all. But at least fiscal woodpeckers, who might insist upon hammering off bits and pieces here and there to bring the cost down somewhat -- and who already voted against the House bill because it was too costly:

But perhaps the most overlooked section of [Barack H. Obama's] speech was his insistence that the Democratic bill will take sufficient steps to control the rise in health care costs for individuals, families and the federal government.

“We have now incorporated most of the serious ideas from across the political spectrum about how to contain the rising cost of health care -- ideas that go after the waste and abuse in our system, especially in programs like Medicare,” the president said. “But we do this while protecting Medicare benefits and extending the financial stability of the program by nearly a decade.”

Whether the legislation will tamp down rising health care expenditures is controversial; even experts who support the Democratic legislation say it could do more to control costs. Nonetheless, the president’s remarks sent a clear message to a crucial group of Congressional Democrats who voted against the health care legislation citing cost concerns: the White House and Congressional leaders will not be taking any big new steps to win them over.

This is the group that the Squeaker must target for more votes, since her coalition has already dropped to a minority due to the loss of four votes (one reversal, two retirements, and one demise). At this point, Mrs. Pelosi has only 216 from her previous 220-vote majority... and she needs 217. (I think we should at least count Bart Stupak as another defection, dropping the current count to 215, two less than she needs now.)

The only place to troll for new votes is, quite obviously, among those who voted Nay last time; and that means Nancy Pelosi must persuade the fiscal woodpeckers to switch and support the bill this time.

The problem for the Democrats is... why? Why should they switch? What can the Democratic leadership offer the 39 Democratic Nay-sayers that they didn't offer them last time? How can the deal be better, now that they're voting on the Senate bill, rather than the one they helped craft in the first place?

Nothing in the Senate bill, vice the House bill, sweetens the pot for the fiscal woodies:

• The Senate bill adds many more taxes and "fees" on the middle class and on the medical community than the House bill.
• The Senate bill loots Medicare for considerably more than does the House bill, $438 billion vice $396 billion over ten years.
• The House plan raises revenues by putting a big tax on "the rich" (individuals who earn more than $500,000 per year, households which earn more than $1,000,000), perceived as being primarily Republican; contrariwise, the Senate plan raises revenues by taxing "Cadillac" health-care plans, a tax that falls disproportionately on union members, perceived as primarily Democratic.

• Although the Senate bill supposedly spends less than the House bill ($871 billion vice $891 billion over ten years), it (equally supposedly) reduces the deficit by less than the House bill does -- $132 billion vice $138 billion over ten years.

  (This is all a fiction, of course; as Rep. Paul Ryan, R-WI, 84%, demonstrates: The CBO counted ten years of tax increases but only six years of spending, so it's hardly surprising that looks good on paper; think how good your own bottom line would look if you counted a decade of your salary, then subtracted six years of your spending.)

The distance between the bills is not great; but what few discrepencies remain tend to make the woodpeckers less likely, not more likely, to vote for the Senate bill. Certainly the gap was wide enough that the two chambers never did come to a meeting of the minds.

Pelosi might get a few votes by twisting arms; but will it be anywhere near the dozen Stupakians she's going to lose, plus the four other votes she has already lost? That drops her 220 down to 204; Speaker Pelosi needs to scavenge 13 of the 39 Democratic Nays -- a third of them! -- for a bill that is certainly no better than the last time and arguably worse... up for a vote in an undeniably worse political environment than last time.

Lotsa luck, lady.

Red state menace

Finally, we have the "hidden" group: Those representatives who actually voted for the bill the last time... and then got mugged by their own constituents with a sock full of sand. I refer here not just to congressmen from Republican-leaning districts but even the moderate or "swing" districts -- which have swung rather decisively against ObamaCare.

Remember, the House Dems must vote for the entire Senate bill; not a word, not a comma or semicolon, not a jot or tittle may be changed -- else the "new" version has to return to the Senate and be voted upon, with 60 votes required and only 59 available.

Nothing, nothing can be changed before that first vote. That means that, in addition to voting for a bill that the president pretends costs $1.3 trillion over ten years, but which everybody knows really costs closer to Ryan's estimate of $2.3 trillion; in addition to voting for a bill that allows the federal government to use taxpayer money to fund abortion; in addition to raiding Medicare of half a trillion buckaroos, increasing the cost of health insurance, drastically raising taxes, and rationing health care (yeah, "death panels"); in addition to voting for all that, our hapless Democrats must must also vote for the Louisiana Purchase, the Kornhusker Kickback, and the Gator Aid.

If those poor reps suffered howls of anguish after the first go-round, imagine the shrieks of hysterical outrage when those same clods return for Easter break with a new black mark on their record -- just as their reelection campaigns kick off in earnest!

Doom is nigh!

Michael Barone has suggested (based upon a comment by Mark Tapscott) that the Democrats may be a little shorter than folks realize:

Clever liberals in the blogosphere are still urging House Democrats to pass the Senate health care bill, with the Senate then making changes through the reconciliation process requiring only 51 votes and the Senate going along. Sounds like a clever idea. But as my Examiner colleague Mark Tapscott writes, an anonymous quote from a House Democratic leader suggests that they are 100 votes short of passing the Senate bill. I wouldn’t take that 100 votes as a precise number, but as an approximation.

Whether a particular Democratic representative is a fiscal woodpecker and voted against the bill, or a pro-life Democrat and voted for it because of the Stupak Amendment, or a scared moderate Democrat from a moderate to right-leaning district -- or even a tie-dyed liberal who thinks that without the "government option," the whole bill is worthless -- he is asked to gamble his entire political career on the desperate hope that the Senate rides to his rescue, approving all sorts of things that it rejected the last time.

...Despite the fact that many of those clauses, such as the restriction on abortion coverage, cannot possibly be shoehorned into reconciliation; therefore they would be subject to filibuster, and any 41 Senators -- liberal, conservative, or a left-right alliance -- could block their implementation.

Barone's last line sums up this entire post, explaining in a nuthouse why all the momentum is with those switching from Yea to Nay, not the other way around:

The House Democratic leadership’s problem is that it cannot credibly promise that the Senate will keep its part of the bargain.

And I would add, so what if it did? It's still a lousy bill in a lousy year. The idea that there are handfuls of Democrats in the House just itching to pass an unpopular government takeover of health care and get themselves thrown out of office as reward is just... surreal.

How many high-paying ambassadorships and top-level adminstrative positions does anyone think Obama can find -- given that he needs those open slots to bribe campaign donors?

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, March 5, 2010, at the time of 3:57 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

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