Breaking: Senate Dems Block Vote On Iran Deal

Senate Democrats successful filibustered a vote on the Iran atrocity today. Harry Reid managed to get 42 Democrats to block the vote.The official tally was 58-42.

“Demo­crat­ic Sen­at­ors just voted to fili­buster and block the Amer­ic­an people from even hav­ing a real vote on one of the most con­sequen­tial for­eign policy is­sues of our age,” ad­ded Sen­ate Ma­jor­ity Lead­er Mitch Mc­Con­nell after the vote as quoted by the National Journal.

McConnell, of course could have used the nuclear option ala' Harry Reid when he was majority leader to head this off, and in fact he still could. But I doubt he has the testosterone to do it, even when faced with an issue of grave national security.

“I think when [the Ir­a­ni­ans] con­tin­ue their ter­ror­ist activ­ity—their proxy war against the United States and our al­lies—you will be able to point to that and say, well, this is something that would not have happened but for the $100 bil­lion of ad­di­tion­al fund­ing that went in to fund this activ­ity,” said Sen­ate Ma­jor­ity Whip John Cornyn. “Or the lift­ing of sanc­tions which al­low the sale of 1 mil­lion bar­rels of oil a day.”

This is a day of craven, cowardly appeasement. Only 21% of the American people supported this monstrosity. While the Senators involved may pay a major price politically for their dishonorable action, it is the American people whom will ultimately pay the price in blood and treasure.

The Democrats own Iran now

The Fight OnThe Cromnibus Bill Goes To The Senate

The Washington Examiner is reporting that the new 'cromnibus' spending bill passed in the House is sparking a great deal of resistance in the Senate. It's passage as is isn't a done deal by any means.

The two senators leading the charge are Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and David Vitter (R-LA), a staunch conservative, Neither like the corporate carve outs in the bill or the abandonment of campaign finance limits.

The House passed an extension giving the Senate until December 17th to pass the bill and lame duck majority leader Harry Reid is urging them to do so and so is President Obama, but there's is a great deal of resistance from both far Left progressive Democrats and conservative Republicans.

The passage of this bill is by no means a done deal.

Dems Throw Mary Landrieu To The wolves, Reject Keystone Pipeline

 

Embattled Louisiana Democrat Senator Mary Landrieu was on her knees, literally. She begged her fellow Democrats in the lame duck Senate to vote to pass the Keystone Pipeline, because she saw it as the only slim chance she had left to save her seat in the coming run off election in energy conscious Louisiana.

It failed to pass the Senate.

You see, it was one thing for her to whore herself out for ObamaCare and the rest of that putrid agenda.But now, she's no longer useful, and a lot of the far Left Democrat Senators, especially the ones from blue states who didn't lose their seats  saw no reason to buck the president and the climate change nazis just to save her copious behind. Come December 6th, she will be pitted against Republican Bill Cassidy, who's comfortably ahead even in Democrat polls like PPP. She's almost certain to lose.

The Republicans together with the more sensible senate Democrats will pass this in January, and given that today's vote was 59-41 and the GOP will have made 9 pickups when the new senate sits, they likely have a veto proof majority to pass something that should have been passed years ago.

I admit that I enjoy seeing Landrieu booted out, but it does recall something I read about how the SDS, the communists  and other radical groups operated. They would start by recruiting useful idiots for the more benign 'social justice' parts of their agenda and cynically use them for as long as they could, gradually demanding loyalty on the more radical parts until the mark simply wasnlt willing to go along anymore..after which they'd be dumped and ostracized.

The SDS used to talk about people like Mary Landrieu as being 'on the bus' for as long as they were down for the agenda and made it a point to massage them on how important they were to the movement, how much they were loved, yadda yadda.  And once the bus reached a place where the mark voiced misgivings or hesitated, they were off the bus and that was that.

Mary Landrieu is off the bus.In fact, she's under it.

The Left And The Midterms..Denial, The First Stage Of Grief

The results of the midterms are in, and the Republican wave election that wasn't supposed to be one is over.

In their own way, the results are even more stunning then in 2010. The Republicans not only retained their control of the House but actually added seats, and took the majority in the senate by eight seats. The senate races that were supposed to be close, or result in Democrat wins - in Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky, Iowa and North Carolina - ended up being decisive Republican victories, And that included the governor's races,where Republicans held on to nine seats they were supposedly in danger of losing. In the end, Scott Walker, Rick Scott in Florida, Rick Snyder in Michigan, Sam Brownback in Kansas,and Terry Branstad in Iowa all won, and the GOP actually elected governors in three solid blue states, Massachusetts, Maryland and Illinois.

Considering the amount of voter fraud that undoubtedly occurred in some of these races, the real margin of Republican victory was likely even larger than reported.

The Left's 'war on women' tactic largely fizzled out, and some of the candidates that attempted it, like Wendy Davis in Texas and Colorado's Mark Udall (mocked as 'Mark Uterus' in the normally Democrat-friendly Denver Post)went down to defeat. While Republicans carried the majority of married women, the Democrats still led when it came to unmarried women but nowhere near what they previously managed to get. Overall, according to the exit polls Democrats managed to take the vote among woman by a mere 5%, 52% versus 47% for Republicans, while the GOP won male voters by 56% to 42%.

The Latino turnout was nowhere near what the Democrats needed, and while blacks turned out in places like Georgia and North Carolina, the numbers there were insufficient to win in those states as well as nationally.

These trends indicate something just as the professional Left's reaction - and the president's - to last night tells us what to expect in the next two years.

In looking at how the Left responded, there are several things they mostly had in common.All of them talked about the midterm electorate being whiter and older than a normal presidential election and about what a 'tough map' it was for Democrats. Few if any of them mentioned the fact that this was a referendum on President Obama and his policies, as the president himself stated frequently in his efforts to gin up turn out.

Supposing that this "young non-white electorate" these people are talking about favors Democrats or simply favored Obama in the past is a rather interesting question when you consider that the likely Democrat nominee in 2016 will be the really old white lady who they rejected in 2008.

Anyone who's actually being honest knows that President Obama won the majority of the black vote and continues to enjoy their support (at least on paper) based to a significant extent on racial grounds. The president and the Democrats spent considerable effort wooing this group by telling them that President Obama was indeed on the ballot and that he was in danger of being impeached if they didn't turn out en masse. Posters featuring a lynching that took place in the 1920's and telling black voters that if they didn't turn out those days would be returning were circulated throughout the South. The fact they mostly didn't is a sign that perhaps enough of them actually took a look at this president's policies and the way they have disproportionally hurt black America to have some second thoughts.

The same is true of women in general, even unmarried women. Married women are generally women with families, and among their primary concerns is security at home and opportunities for themselves and their children. To a lesser extent the same is true of unmarried woman, many whom know that the fairy tales about Republicans wanting to ban contraception are nonsense. What both groups see for themselves is this president's failure to deal with threats abroad or even potential epidemics as well as the increased cost of living and their own reduced economic opportunities.The old story about this being 'Bush's fault' is simply past its sell by date, and it smells worse the longer it continues to be thrown out there.

This is going to affect the 'Democrat coalition', especially as out of the record 100 women in the new congress, the majority are Republicans. The new face of American women might very well be reflected by Iowa Senator Joni Ernst and Mia love, the new GOP congresswoman from Utah.



And speaking of which, the other thing the exit polls don't quite explain is the historic level of Republican seats in the house. The GOP at the grass roots level in the congressional districts is now stronger than it has been at any point going back all the way to the 1920s.

Avoid it however they wish, the Left can't avoid the fact that this election was a referendum on Barack Obama's dysfunctional presidency.Yes, denial, with a healthy helping of sour grapes.

Not even the president can avoid this reality, although he continues to do so.

The president, in a fit of temper refused to send the usual congratulatory messages to GOP leaders Mitch McConnell and instead gave a desultory press conference today. Here's what he said:

"On Friday, I look forward to hosting the entire Republican and Democratic leadership at the White House to chart a new course forward. Obviously, Republicans had a good night, and they deserve credit for running good campaigns. Beyond that I'll leave it to all of you and the professional pundits to pick through the results.

What stands out to me though, is the American people sent a message, one they've sent for several elections now. They expect the people they elect to work as hard as they do. They expect us to focus on their ambitions and not ours. They want us to get the job done. All of us in both parties have a responsibility to address that sentiment. Still, as president, I have a unique responsibility to make this town work.

To everyone that voted, I want you to know that I heard you. To the two-thirds of voters who chose not to participate in the process yesterday, I hear you too. All of us have to give more Americans a reason to feel like the ground is stable beneath their feet, that the future is secure, there's a path for young people to succeed, and folks in Washington are concerned about them. So I plan on spending every moment of the next two plus years doing the my job the best I can to keep this country safe and make sure more Americans share in its prosperity. "

OK, the actual turnout in the midterms is estimated to be in the mid 40's rather than one third, but what's one more fairy tale from this president? What the actual message the president sent was that the GOP wave - a 'good night' as he phrased it - had nothing to do with him or his policies, but was simply because people are dissatisfied with things 'not getting done'. Which of course is solely due to GOP obstructionism!

Just compare this to what Speaker John Boehner had to say, that he was "humbled by the responsibility the American people have placed with us."

"But this is not a time for celebration," he said. "It's time for government to start getting results and implementing solutions to the challenges facing our country, starting with our still-struggling economy."

For all the president's talk about 'working together', it's pretty obvious this president has no intention of doing so. For instance, he has already signaled that he's going ahead with amnesty for illegal aliens by executive order during the lame duck session as well as pushing through whatever appointments he can..such as a new, radical attorney general like Thomas Perez.

A real leader, of course would abstain from such tactics, obey the will of the people and try to work out an acceptable compromise with the new congress. That's not what we're dealing with here.

Columnist Peggy Noonan, hardly a right wing Republican, had a column in the Wall Street Journal this week that examined how past presidents like George W. Bush and Bill Clinton dealt with this situation

She referred to their responses as "the sound of political graciousness" and said "it would be nice to hear it from Mr. Obama on Wednesday." Needless to say, we didn't nor will we. Instead, the president will go ahead with actions sure to infuriate the incoming congress and torpedo any ideas they have about working with him before they even take their seats.

Another thing a lot of the professional Left had in common in their responses was a call for the president to use his veto and for the Democrats to use the filibuster to stop the new GOP majorities from using their new clout to accomplish anything. The strategy is obvious...to keep things in gridlock which they will later attempt to blame on Republicans in 2016.

The Republicans need to remember that what happened last night wasn't so much an endorsement of the GOP as a realization that the democrats have failed to govern, that the country is very much on the wrong track and that this is a last chance to get it right.

They were, after all, elected to stop President Obama's agenda and reverse it.

Harry Reid effectively eliminated the use of the filibuster and changed the rules of the senate to please himself. He exercised total contempt for the GOP minority and Republicans were actually locked out of the room when it came to drawing up major legislation like the bogus Stimulus and ObamaCare, something unprecedented in American history. The Republicans should utilize Reid's 'innovations' as a guide and do the same. And a good place to start would be to explain to the American people that they are bringing to a vote over 200 pieces of legislation passed by the House that Senator Reid exercised a one man veto over and kept from ever even coming to the floor.

They are there to govern, and if they fail to demonstrate their ability to do so, the door swings both ways. Here's hoping they take that to heart and proceed to act on it.

Senate Passes US-Israel Strategic Partnership Bill

The United States senate voted unanimously to pass the United States-Israel Strategic Partnership Act late Thursday evening.The bipartisan legislation was authored by Senators Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Roy Blunt (R-MO) had 81 co-sponsors, out of a total of 100 Senators.

Much of this is cosmetic, what with the midterm elections looming closer, but there is some important meat here.

 


Aside from declaring that Israel is a “major strategic partner” of the United States, the bill increases the frequency and detail of US government reporting on Israel’s qualitative military edge and includes a provision that will expand the forward-deployed US weapons stockpiles in Israel.

One of the many things America gets out of its alliance with Israel is a weapons depot in a friendly country where arms and ammo can be held securely and safely to speed US resupply in the event of a crisis in the Middle East. That's a lot more valuable than it might first appear, especially when you look at the cost of a leased US base in the region, the restrictions placed on the use of our leased bases by our 'ally' Turkey and the benefits of having needed supplies to be used when we need them in a friendly nation.

The new bill allows an increase to the value of US weapons held in Israel by $200 million, for a total of of $1.8 billion. from Israel's standpoint, the good part of the deal is that the IDF, with U.S. permission, is allowed to access that stockpile in the event of an emergency, after which Israel reimburses the US for any weapons used. This summer, the stockpile — known as War Reserves Stock Allies-Israel (WRSA-I) — was accessed by Israel in Operation Protective Edge when the US let Israel use 40mm grenades and 120mm mortar rounds from the stockpile.

The bill also upgrades Israel’s trade status. And it authorizes the president to provide assistance to promote cooperation in water, homeland security, agriculture and alternative fuel technologies, pretty meaningless for the most part since Israel is self sufficient in water and food, its security apparatus is arguably better than ours and Israel is on the cutting edge when it comes to solar and biomass, but hey, a sop to the carbon footprint fanatics and it does no harm. Also it creates the establishment of a US-Israel Center of Excellence for the development of research and development and academic partnerships. There's also a provision for cooperation on cyber security.

The legislation also addresses a growing scandal, Israel’s high rate of visa rejections by the U.S.since the Obama Administration came to town.The bill encourages - it doesn't mandate - Israel's inclusion in the Visa Waiver Program, which currently allows three-dozen countries to have visa-free entry to the US.

Just guessing, but I have a feeling that a dangerous jihadi would be more likely to be a French citizen or a British subject than an Israeli. And perhaps Israel is bit more of a strategic ally to America than say, Chile or Brunei. So we'll see what happens.

Part of the problem here is Israel's disinclination to let certain violent BDS activists such as members of the International Solidarity Movement or American Arabs who identify themselves as Palestinians who hold U.S. citizenship and have a history of 'activism' into Israel. America certainly has no such problem with Israelis coming here. Again, we'll see how this works out.

The bill (of course!) has the usual language about US support for a negotiated political settlement between the Israelis and Palestinians resulting in two states living side-by-side in peace and security.

Say the last part of that sentence ten times quickly and commit it to memory and you too may qualify to be a U.S. Senator who's an 'expert' on the Middle East. Or at least for State Department spokesmouth.

Again, let me emphasize that this bill is largely about politics and the midterms.  The House has its own bi-partisan bill with similar attributes that has already passed in March 2014, but congress is set to adjourn soon and the two bills will not be able to be reconciled until after the November elections, after which President Obam has to sign it, which he may very well refuse to do.And there's no telling what kind of amendments a weasel like  Harry Reid might try to tack on as a lame duck Senate Majority Leader if the Republicans take the Senate.

So there's a lot of fluff here, but also some real meat. It might just be that some of Israel's persistent critics in the Senate are finally starting to realize how valuable our relationship with Israel really is.

In Alaska, The Slime Erupts - And Backfires

Politics has never been a profession for the fainthearted, and negative ads come and go on both sides of the political divide. But even the most negative ads tend to have at least a crumb of fact and truth in them..exaggerated, falsely applied,  used to gloss over other, more pertinent and important facts perhaps, but they're seldom constructed totally of outright lies, nor do they contain outright slander. This stuff is to easy to check on nowadays.

The Alaska senate race appears to be moving towards Republican challenger Dan Sullivan,and one reason is because of an obscene ad put out by Democrat incumbent Mark Begich that crosses these lines.

Begich is one of those senators who is a victim of Harry Reid's strategy to win or hold red-state Senate seats. It involved running Left wing Democrats who claimed to be conservative, anti-Washington, and in sync with local interests . It worked fairly well in 2010 and along with Michael Steele's buffoonery is why Harry Reid is majority leader today.

This house of cards collapsed, of course, when people saw how these supposedly moderate Democrats were voting. In Begich's case, once Alaskans saw that he had voted 97% of the time for President Obama's agenda a lot if them realized they'd been had, especially when they saw Begich's voting record onthe Obama administration's nonstop assaults on Alaskan fishing, mining and drilling.

As it was, Begich barely won election with 48% of the vote because of GOP senator Ted Steven's corruption conviction that was later thrown out of court, and an independent in the race who siphoned off GOP votes.

The Democrat's strategy to try and hold this seat is to throw money at the race - Senator Reid's Senate Majority PAC is funneling millions to a local PAC (carefully named "Put Alaska First") - and indulge in wholesale trashing of Dan Sullivan's character.

And that's where things went over the line.

Begich ran an ad showing a man who is is supposedly a retired Anchorage detective standing in front of an apartment building, discussing the recent murder of two seniors and the sexual assault of their young granddaughter. He then blames Dan Sullivan for the crime, because Sullivan as the state’s attorney general okayed a plea bargain that gave the criminal a light sentence which allowed him to get out of jail early and murder and rape again.

Except that's not how it happened.

 

Sullivan countered this with some incontrovertible facts. When the original crime was committed in and tried in 2009 he was still serving in the Marines ( he served a tour in Iraq)  and was not yet Attorney General. And the plea bargain itself only happened because of a clerical error that took place before Sullivan became attorney general.

Sullivan also was able to cite his impressive record as attorney general when it came to sex crimes. He actually lowered the number of sexual assaults as Alaska's attorney general, created and publicized Alaska's ‘Choose Respect’ Campaign to stop all violence against women and children, toughened sentences for sexual assault offenders and increased services and pro bono legal representation for victims and their families. And as Attorney General Dan Sullivan mandated that even in plea deals, those charged with sexual assault still had to register as a sex offender.

Alaska's current Attorney General Michael Geraghty said in a statement that Begich’s ad had “no basis in fact.”

“The State is actively prosecuting the person who has been charged with those crimes,” he said. “Drawing publicity to the case in a political ad, and highlighting the home where a family suffered such a horrific tragedy, is inappropriate and offensive.”

Bad as the ad was, what followed was even worse.

The attorney representing the family of the victims contacted both campaigns and asked them to take down the ads — partly out of compassion for their suffering and partly from a desire to avoid poisoning the jury pool.

The Sullivan campaign pulled their ad down immediately. The Begich campaign continued to run theirs until they received an actual cease and desist letter from the attorney.

“The family directly and without question has told your campaign they want no part of this,” wrote the lawyer, Byron Collins. “You are tearing this family apart to the point that your ad was so shocking to them they now want to permanently leave the state as quickly as possible. Again, to be perfectly clear, it was your ad that shocked them.”

To put it bluntly, Begich was willing to keep running the ad regardless of whom it hurt until he realized that it had boomeranged on him politically, with even the local newspapers taking shots at him.This is a man so desperate to get re-elected that he was willing to indulge in blatant slander and put a family through the horror of what happened to them again and again.He has yet to even apologize.

This goes beyond politics. It strikes at the core of Mark Begich's character and decency.

The polls, which were edging slightly towards Sullivan before Begich ran this ad have now tipped measurably in Sullivan's favor.

I'm not surprised, having spent some time in Alaska. The state has its share of Lefty wack jobs, but by and large most Alaskans tend to be decent folks with a strong streak of independence who have small tolerance for liars.

Anything can happen in politics, but Mark Begich deserves to lose his seat for this alone, and to crawl back under the rock he came from.

Georgia Democrat Senate Nominee Nunn is A Hamas Donor!!

Michelle Nunn is the Democrat's hope to try and make a senate pickup in a Red state. She's very much a doctrinaire Lefty from Bethesda, Maryland who has little connection with Georgia or Georgians aside from being the daughter of former Senator Sam Nunn, but that's a big deal because of the name recognition, so the democrats are putting serious money behind her. She's pro gun confiscation, pro Obama and pro amnesty, all stances that would ordinarily sink her in a Red state.

Today, her campaign plan leaked, essentially a confidential memo on how she's going to go about conning the electorate to win.

Parts of it are actually funny, like the part where Ms. Nunn, who lives in an upscale Atlanta neighborhood is advised to have pictures taken of herself and her family “in rural settings with rural-oriented imagery” to try to appeal more to rural Georgians..as if this leftist elite actually knows or cares which part of a cow milk comes out of or where fried chicken comes from.

Essentially, the idea is to fool 30% of the white working class to pull the lever for her (something no Democrat since Max Cleland back in 2002 has managed to pull off) and roust out a coalition of blacks Latinos (legal or otherwise) gays, clueless youngsters befuddled by slogans and choom and of course...Jews.

Fooling Jews into voting for her and of course donating is a ket part of the scam:

 

“Michelle’s position on Israel will largely determine the level of support here.” Hmmmm.

Now, Michelle Nunn hasn't had much to say about Israel so far. In fact, during the primary she didn't have all that much to say about anything.

But apparently, like a lot of Lefties (Barack Obama, for instance)she has some baggage she'd rather the Jews didn't find out about when she's putting the make on them.

Nun's job since she returned to Georgia in 2007 has been to serve as the CEO on the Points of Light Foundation, and in the document her strategists express enormous concern about attacks that might arise from her work there.

Like a lot of Left-bent foundations, the Points of Light Foundation has some interesting donations that occurred while Ms. Nunn was running the place. According to the document, it has made grants to terrorists and “inmates” during her tenure, and the document also makes reference to a 2010 audit that concluded Points of Light’s accounting system was “not adequate to account for federal funds.”

The accounting problems just make her a typical Democrat not to be trusted near other people's money.  But let's look at the terrorists it funded:

 According to the IRS Form 990s that Points of Light filed in 2008 and 2011, the organization gave a grant of over $33,000 to Islamic Relief USA, a charity that says it strives to alleviate “hunger, illiteracy, and diseases worldwide.” Islamic Relief USA is part of a global network of charities that operate under the umbrella of Islamic Relief Worldwide. Islamic Relief USA says on its website that it is a legally separate entity from its parent organization, but that they share “a common vision, mission, and family identity.”

Islamic Relief Worldwide has ties to Hamas, which the U.S. designates as a terrorist organization. In June, Israel banned the charity from operating in the country because, according to Israeli officials, it was funneling cash to Hamas. In 2006, Israelis arrested Islamic Relief Worldwide’s Gaza coordinator, Ayaz Ali. They said he was working to “transfer funds and assistance to various Hamas institutions and organizations.” Ali admitted to cooperating with local Hamas operatives while working in Jordan and, on his computer, Israeli officials found photographs of “swastikas superimposed on IDF symbols,” and of Nazi officials, Osama bin Laden, and al-Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

Islamic Relief USA highlighted the work of Islamic Relief Worldwide in Palestine in its 2012 annual report, in which it talks generally about the work of Islamic Relief charities in the region without drawing a distinction between the branches.

 The organization has raised eyebrows before. According to a 2012 report, its bank account was closed by UBS and it was “under constant scrutiny by other banks due to nervousness about counterterrorist regulations.” The group’s terror ties extend beyond Hamas, according to a former Israeli intelligence official. He says that Islamic Relief Worldwide’s country director in Palestine, Muneed Abugazaleh, met in April 2012 with Dr. Omar Shalah, a leader of the terror group Islamic Jihad and of the Riyad al-Saleheen Charitable Society, which is affiliated with the group. He is also the brother of Ramadan Shalah, the leader of Islamic Jihad.

This woman oversaw funds going to a Hamas front!!

And even scarier, the feds let Points of Light keep their 501c status.

I guess that tells us what we want to know about her Israel position, convenient boilerplate platitudes about 'Israel's right to exist' that I'm sure she'll come up with to the contrary.While I previously might have said the clueless Jews will take out their wallets and pull the lever for her  anyway, I sense something of a change here.The Obama Administration's behavior towards Israel and what's going on in Europe and even here in America with attacks on Jews and Jewish institutions since Israel decided to hit back at Hamas has changed a more than a few minds. Yes there are some lefty, secular Jews who will drink the Kool-ade, but not as many as before.

Ms. Nunn might not have the easy time of it with Jews she might have a few years ago.

There actually quite a bit on the web  about  Points of Light and the HandsOn Network, which operates as part of Points of Light.that is pretty troublesome, and a search will give you plenty of material.

Believe it or not, Points of Light was actually started by President George HW Bush, but like a lot of foundations originally started by non-radicals, it, shall we say, is now under new management with a very different orientation than its founders.

Democrats Push RINO Cochran Over The Finish Line

 

Democrat cross over votes in an open primary just managed to push RINO Thad Cochran over the finish line in the Mississippi GOP race against conservative state Sen. Chris McDaniel.

 With 99.9 percent of precincts reporting, Cochran beat McDaniel 50.8 percent to 49.2 percent. They were separated by about 6,300 votes out of more than 375,000 cast.

Here's a sample of what Democrats used to get out the vote among blacks for Cochran:


 

Sheer, easily debunked horse manure, but sufficient to gin up just enough Democrat turnout in a GOP primary to push a senescent RINO over the top..especially given who this nonsense was aimed at.

Nor am I kidding about the senescent part. the 77-year-old Cochran has been known to suffer surprising memory lapses about things his aides have previously informed him of, and to appear confused at times..and his own words about doing indecent things to animals in his youth also struck a great many people as strange.

 

Now this is simply power politics, and par for the course, which is why open primaries aren't such a great idea. But what's fascinating is the reaction from the usual suspects.

Democrats and RINOs are hailing Thad Cochran's 'coalition' as the way for 'Republicans to win elections'. You know, endorse amnesty, give up those quaint ideas about small government and fiscal responsibility, appeal to  'moderate Demoicrats' even though 2010 saw most of the congressional Democrats who embodied those principles disappearing.

For these people, here's a question: how many of those Democrats in Thad Cochran's 'coalition' do you think are going to vote for him in November?

Exactly. So the people of Mississippi are going to have to choose between a superannuated tool and whatever Lefty the Democrats put up. Cochran will probably win, but as always, it upsets me no end that Democrats invariably choose their lust for power over the common good.

There actually is something positive to take away from this. Right now, Democrats have a lock on most of the Black vote, even though their policies are disproportionally harmful to America's African-American community. Usually, it's done by outright lies and calls to racial solidarity like the poster above.

If even another 10% or so could be treated not as a minority that needs pandering to but as ordinary Americans with hopes, dreams, and aspirations and shown how small government, low taxes, freedom of choice and reduced government regulations and interference work to their benefit and those of their children, we'd see some major differences.

And part of that, as I know from experience is being willing to show up. As a number of Black conservatives can tell you, the Romney campaign wasn't even courteous enough to show they cared about Black voters by opening campaign offices in their neighborhoods. Or by sending the candidates or at least some credible spokespeople there to talk to these voters and make the case for voting for Romney.

Senator Michelle Obama!!!?!!

That's the speculation by the talking heads at NBC.

NBC Quoting Reuters:

She would quickly become the most recognizable face in the Senate. Her fame and fundraising ability would command deference in a body that normally operates on seniority. Whether the recent elevation of her profile suggests a plan to run is unclear, but she will be well positioned should she jump in.

According to outdated polls cited by NBC from Democrat pollster PPP in 2012, she leads Republican Senator Mark Kirk by about ten points. Never mind that the polls are two years old and that Kirk's seat doesn't come up until 2016, with two years being an eternity in politics.Or that the FLOTUS has never evidenced any interest in running for office anyway.

This is what passes for a news story these days.

But one thing the story could have looked at - if we're looking at something thought provoking - is the why someone with no accomplishments whatsoever except spending an inordinate amount of taxpayer dollars on luxury vacations and travel for herself and her entourage and friends would be thought of seriously as a worthy candidate for senator.

Mrs. Obama lacks any experience that would qualify her for the senate. Even her law license from the State of Illinois was revoked, or 'voluntarily surrendered' as the jargon goes in 1993.She's never run anything, or even held a job for very long that actually required her to do any work. Her only real 'qualification' is her last name and the fact that the Obama fundraising machine would be behind her. And oh yes, that as the Democratic candidate she could count on the usual voter fraud from Cook County.

That's it.

That's what we've come to...an entitled ruling class with no achievements or accomplishments whatsoever being touted as a candidate for high office.

There's a graphic I was going to include to express my feelings about this , but I'll let you use your imaginations.

Senator Mooch-elle.....

What They Won't tell You About The Senate's Unemployment Extension Bill

It sounds like something good that only the mean spirited would oppose, right? A bill to extend unemployment benefits for millions of Americans who have been out of work for a very long time.

That is, until you find out this little factoid.

No less than Democrat Senate Majority leader Harry Reid is blocking an amendment to the bill that would require employers to verify the work eligibility of employees using E-Verify program, a simple web-based program that allows employers to check data against records maintained by the Department of Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration to make sure they're not hiring illegal aliens.

As Senator Jeff Sessions revealed, Harry Reid won't even allow the amendment to come to a vote, even though congress passed legislation in 1986 making it unlawful for employers to knowingly hire or employ illegal aliens.

The amendment not only would help American citizens in obtaining work, but it would also help curb identity theft and illegal use of other people's Social Security numbers.

Instead, the Democrats would rather leave American citizens dependent on a government dole.They have no interest in creating jobs for out of work Americans or the effect that importing and enabling a huge pool of low skilled workers will have on unemployment, the cost of health care and housing, and depressing worker's wages. That counts for nothing next to their lust for political power.

The hypocrisy of these people in moving their mouths about increasing the minimum wage while making sure that there's going to be a huge population of workers who van be hired for whatever the traffic will bear is despicable. And yes, it's racist, as it disproportionally effects blacks and Hispanics who are legal citizens, as well as legal immigrants.

If the American people re-elect these self-serving apparatchniks, they deserve to live like the serfs Harry Reid and his friends want them to become.

'Middle class warriors'..ri-ight.

Senate Blocks Obama's Appointment Of Radical Cop Killer Advocate To Justice Department

Today the senate blocked President Obama’s nominee to lead the Justice Department’s civil rights division, with 7 Democrats joining Republicans.

The nominee, Debo P. Adegbile, was a lawyer for the NAACP who filed a brief arguing that cop killer and former Black Panther Mumia Abu-Jamal’s murder trial was 'racist'.

Mumia Abu Jamal, AKA Wesley Cook murdered police officer Daniel Faulkner in 1981 execution style during a routine traffic stop, according to three eyewitnesses. Two policemen and one hospital security guard testified to the court that while Mumia Abu Jamal was being brought into the hospital following the altercation with Faulkner, he shouted repeatedly, “I shot the mother f---er, and I hope the mother f---er dies.” He was unanimously convicted by a racially mixed jury. Faulkner left behind a wife and three young children.

Of course, Mumia Abu Jamal became a cause  for the Left, with celebrities like Ed Asner,  communists Ossie Davis and Pete Seeger and a host of the usual suspects. The NAACP was quick to move to  defend this killer, and  Adegbile led the charge, making the basis of his 'case' that the jury instructions were unclear and that the trial was 'racist'. Or in other words, he fished for technicalities to get a murderer  freed because of his race, even though there was no doubt that Jamal murdered Daniel Faulkner in the least. Adegbile went beyond mere competent  legal defense and into outright advocacy to try to get Jamal freed.

While Adegbile was unable to quite pull that off, he and the Leftist cheering section involved were able to create enough noise and race based heat  so that Jamal avoided the death penalty and is still incarcerated, a gross miscarriage of justice. It is disgraceful that the president even put his name forward. You can just imagine how he'd behave as one of Eric Holder's sturmbannführers.

Since Majority Leader Harry Reid exercised the nuclear option to essentially destroy the rights of the minority party to filibuster, all sorts of President Obama's radical nominees have been shoved through, including some remarkably unqualified ambassadors whose sole qualification was fundraising for the Obama campaign. So the president obviously expected Adegbile to sail right through.

This one was just a bridge too far, especially with midterms coming up. And it's notable that all of the Democrats who voted against Adegbile - Sens. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania where the murder occurred, Chris Coons of Delaware, Joe Donnelly of Indiana, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Mark Pryor of Arkansas and John Walsh of Montana - are all facing tough odds of getting re-elected in 2014, with the exception of Coons, who apparently decided to put right and wrong ahead of politics.

An angry Harry Reid accused the Republicans of racism, naming Robert Wilkins,who's now a judge on the DC Court of Appeals, and FHA Finance Agency Director Mel Watt as Obama nominees who were shoved through under the new Harry Reid diktats that the GOP was opposed to solely because of race.

Yes, when you take a look at their stellar backgrounds, it must have been ra-aa-cism.Right.

After his tantrum, Reid was forced to vote against the nominee in order to be able to ask for an eventual re-vote — which he did.

Oddly enough, there were several Democrat senators who voted to confirm Adegbile that might end up having to pay a politicalprice fo rit this year, including Sens. Kay Hagan of North Carolina, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Mark Begich of Alaska, Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, Mark Udall of Colorado, Mark Warner of Virginia, Al Franken of Minnesota and Jeff Merkley of Oregon.

Apparently Reid was leaning pretty hard to try and get this particular radical nominee through for the president.

Epic Fail -Boehner And RINOs Cave, Join Dems to Push Through 'Clean' Debt Ceiling Increase

 


Republican Speaker John Boehner, and his allies in the House have made an astonishing and disgraceful retreat. After President Obama and congressional Democrats had said they weren't even open to discussing spending cuts in exchange for Republicans in the House agreeing to  raise the debt ceiling, Boehner  caved in and presented a 'clean' debt ceiling increase to the House for a vote.

Boehner and his allies in the GOP caucus originally were thinking about tacking on something modest like approval of the Keystone pipeline in exchange for the debt ceiling increase, but conservatives in the House appear to be tired of this game and wanted Boehner to insist that the White give up a lot more in exchange for raising the limits on the federal credit card.

So instead, the Speaker decided to throw in the towel, and he and Only 18 Republicans, many of them retiring after this term voted with the 200 House Democrats to push this through  and raise the debt ceiling without any quid pro quo.That essentially destroys the so-called 'Boehner rule' that pledged to quash any bills that didn't have the support of the majority of the Republican caucus. It also destroys his speakership, for all intents and purposes.

As a contrast, when the disgraceful House bill went to the Senate, it was Senator Ted Cruz who forced a vote to end cloture  by 60 votes before voting on  approval of the bill, thus forcing a lot of gutless GOP senators, some facing primary challenges out into the open. Once the vote for cloture was passed, approval was automatic since the Democrats control the Senate. And of course, some of the same Republican senators who voted to end cloture tried their usual trick and cast a cosmetic vote against the bill. But thanks to Ted Cruz, they were forced to out themselves.

President Obama and the Democrats weren't even willing to allow the GOP to add on a provision to reverse the veterans' benefits cuts that were in the Ryan-Murray budget deal. Remember that the next time our commander-in-chief mouths all those fine sounding platitudes in one of his interminable speeches about vets and the military.

Instead, the House will hold a largely cosmetic vote on this item separately, and will have to bargain hard with the White House to even have a chance of getting it through. Speaker Boehner is proposing
additional sequester cuts in 2024 as an opening gambit..otherwise know,  for those whom remember the old Popeye cartoons, an offer to pay Thursday for a hamburger today.

This really is the end of an era, when a GOP-led House would abdicate its constitutionally mandated power in such a craven fashion.It really is all about leadership and strategy, and Republican leadership that understood that  would have been bringing relevant bills  out almost weekly and forcing Democrats to vote against it, ready made campaign fodder for November. Instead, we get this cowardly, clueless headlong retreat.

As for John Boehner, it's the end of his speakership as well. The Obama Administration has no respect for him whatsoever, and neither does the majority of his caucus. If he had any real regard for the country and his party, he'd either resign as Speaker right now or at least announce his intention to resign, so the House could begin vetting someone to replace him. 

The reason Boehner even became Speaker in the first place  is because Republican conservatives and the Tea Party elected a House majority that they had every right to expect to represent those views.Instead, the man who began his tenure as Speaker by reading the Constitution on the House floor betrayed them, as well as the basic precepts of that document. Whether he did it intentionally or out of weakness and fear doesn't matter at this point.

Get you gone, Cataline, get you gone.

Liz Cheney Drops Out Of Wyoming Senate Race

Well, I figured this was coming.

She announced her withdrawal today, citing, health concerns in her family as the reason.

She did have some concerns, to be sure..a daughter with newly diagnosed juvenile diabetes. I can personally testify to how devastating that can be to deal with.

Aside from the heavy odds taking on long time conservative Senator Mike Enzi, a struggle in itself in a small state like Wyoming, there was also the unfortunate matter of her remarks on gay marriage.

Her sister Mary,whom she's always been close to married her partner Heather Poe in 2012.

There's no law that says someone has to have a position on each and every issue, and no matter how one feels about same sex marriage, a response along the lines of 'this is a family matter for me and I don't feel it's appropriate to comment' would have been a proper response. Instead, she chose to make it a campaign issue, understandably enraging her sister and putting her parents in the uncomfortable position of being in the middle.

That lack of judgment alone would have had me pulling the lever for Mike Enzi if I lived in Wyoming. But I'm also prepared to cut Liz Cheney some slack and call it an unforced rookie error, provided she learns from it and makes an effort to make things right. An endorsement of Enzi might be a good start, as well as an apology to members of her family.

While she was taking a beating in the polls, the fact also remains that she raised over $2 million in funding,very respectable for Wyoming. Enzi's 69, junior Senator John Barrasso turns 62 this year, and Wyoming's sole member of the House, Rep. Cynthia Lummis is well entrenched. Meanwhile, Liz Cheney is fairly young and a retirement by any of them or even a run in a nearby state, along with some seasoning, might see Liz Cheney in Congress.

Harry Reid Changes His Tune On Iran Sanctions Bill

 

Last week Democrat Senate Majority leader Harry Reid said that he  would  “ support” a bill that would tighten the sanctions. “The Senate must be prepared to move forward with a new bipartisan Iran sanctions bill, when the Senate returns after Thanksgiving recess. And I am committed to do so,” he said.

Ah well, he's received his orders from the White House and today is a different day. Now, Senator Reid is saying the Senate will act only “if we need to do stronger sanctions.”

Reid's fellow Democrats Chuck Schumer and Bob Menendez were outraged at what occurred in Geneva this weekend and are attempting to drum up support for new sanctions legislation .What Harry Reid is telling us here is that President Obama won;t be subjected to the political embarrassment of having to veto the bill - Reid will just use his powers as leader to table it.

Quite a piece of work, that Harry Reid.

Roundup: Reactions To The Nuclear Option

 

Well, Majority Leader Harry Reid pulled the trigger on the Nuclear Option, destroying the filibuster and taking away the rights of the Republicans to have any input at all on judicial appointments 'except the Supreme Court' as Reid was quick to add. That will last until there's a vacancy President wants to fill with a young, far Left radical,who can now be appointed by a simple majority. Even Vice President Joe Biden can provide the winning vote if the senate is split.

Making Legislation passable with a simple majority will likely come next.

This is a major historic change far more than many people realize, and the reactions have been interesting and even surprising in some quarters.

While he's apparently forgotten how Democrats behaved over George W. Bush's judicial nominees like Janice Rogers and was careful to utter the mantra of how the Republicans brought this on themselves by 'being obstructionist, reliably left Dana Milbank over at the pro-Obama Washington Post was surprisingly prescient on what a bad development this move is,calling it 'the Democrat's naked power grab' :

If Congress wasn’t broken before, it certainly is now. What Reid (Nev.) and his fellow Democrats effectively did was take the chamber of Congress that still functioned at a modest level and turn it into a clone of the other chamber, which functions not at all. They turned the Senate into the House.

Here’s what then-Sen. Joe Biden said in 2005 when a Republican Senate majority threatened to use a similar “nuclear option” to allow a simple majority to carry the day: 

“The nuclear option abandons America’s sense of fair play . . . tilting the playing field on the side of those who control and own the field. I say to my friends on the Republican side: You may own the field right now, but you won’t own it forever. I pray God when the Democrats take back control, we don’t make the kind of naked power grab you are doing.” 

Sen. Carl Levin (Mich.), one of just three Democrats who opposed his colleagues’ naked power grab, read those words on the Senate floor Thursday after Reid invoked the nuclear option. The rumpled Levin is not known for his oratory. But he is retiring next year and free to speak his mind — and his words were potent.

“We need to change the rules, but to change it in the way we changed it today means there are no rules except as the majority wants them,” Levin said. “This precedent is going to be used, I fear, to change the rules on consideration of legislation, and down the road — we don’t know how far down the road; we never know that in a democracy — but, down the road, the hard-won protections and benefits for our people’s health and welfare will be lost.”

Levin's right about that. The Republicans are only six seats shy of a simple majority and getting there is not exactly a huge or impossible task given President Obama's fading numbers and given how the incumbent's party normally loses seats in the midterms anyway,particularly in a second term. Should the Republicans win that simple majority in the senate, they will have absolutely no incentive whatsoever to work with Democrats on anything. And this is not a healthy development.

Of course, aside from the pressure put on him by the president and the Congressional Black Caucus, the chance of losing the Senate was Reid's real motive for this.They can now go ahead and appoint a whole slew of radical Leftist judges to the bench to keep their agenda alive even after the American people have rejected it electorally.

Needless to say, this sort of thing is applauded by the Left generally, given the totalitarian nature of most self-styled 'progressives'

The New York Times referred to this as 'Democracy returns to the Senate', which is exactly the reverse of what Pravda-on-the-Hudson had to say back in 2005 back when GOP Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist mulled over pulling the Nuclear option when he was faced by hysterical opposition to former President George W. Bush's appointments. Back then it was, "The Senate, of all places, should be sensitive to the fact that this large and diverse country has never believed in government by an unrestrained majority rule. Its composition is a repudiation of the very idea that the largest number of votes always wins out."

Another interesting reaction came from Senator John McCain, who was instrumental in undercutting Frist back in 2005 by assembling the so-called Gang of 14 who pledged not to vote for a nuclear option no matter what. Now I haven't checked myself, but it wouldn't surprise me if some of the Gang of 14 Democrats who were on board with McCain back then were among the Democrats who voted with Harry Reid this time, who of course, back in 2005 was quite vocal on what a horrible idea the Nuclear option was and how it would destroy the Senate.

McCain, with all the stuttering rage of an unpaid prostitute who forgot that age old rule about getting the money in hand first before putting out angrily said that the Democrats were going to pay a heavy price for this.

I'm tempted to provide a link to the Soros-funded Talking Points Memo story on this to let you read how brutally the Lefties flogged him over this,but I'll let you find it for yourself. I would almost say that it couldn't have happened to a more deserving recipient. Almost,but not quite.

The bottom line is that McCain and his fellow 'moderates' stupidly trusted Harry Reid and got screwed hard without any lubricant.I would hope some of them learned a lesson from this, but I'm not holding my breath. People in abusive relationships do seem to go back to them many times, no matter how badly they get hurt.



At the end of it, this has made our government a lot less stable, leading to fast and dramatic policy changes based on one of two votes, a lot less of an atmosphere of compromise, and a lot more hi-octane partisanship. The Democrats who voted for this not only voted to poison the well for a short term political advantage,but to lessen their own power.Holds by an individual senator who wants to negotiate something or prolong deliberations to gather additional facts before a vote are no longer possible.

Another reason this was a bad idea, at least for Democrats is because it has, to a degree, united the Republican caucus in a way they weren't united before. Even Maine's Senator Susan Collins, about as close to a Democrat as a Republican can be without changing her party affiliation is making angry noises about this.

I have a feeling that the Democrats are going to look back on this in the future and wish they hadn't done this. It was bad for the sneate, worse for the country and possibly worst of all for them.

Reid Going Nuclear; McConnell: If I Were Responsible For Obamacare, I'd Change The Subject Too

Well, Harry Reid is destroying the Gang of 14 compromise as I write this  and using the nuclear option to push through Obama's radical choices for the DC circuit court by simple majority.

Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has moved to adjourn the senate.

This is going to ignite all-out partisan war in the future, but on the plus side, we now know it's only going to take 51 votes to repeal ObamaCare...and the rest of the Left's poisonous agenda.

Here's McConnell's speech, and it's not bad: (hat tip Drew M. over at Ace's place)

“Over the past several weeks, the American people have been witness to one of the most breathtaking indictments of big-government liberalism in memory. And I’m not just talking about a web site.

 “I’m talking about the way in which Obamacare was forced on the public by an administration and a Democrat-led Congress that we now know was willing to do and say just about anything to pass it into law.

“The President and his Democrat allies were so determined to force their vision of health care on the public that they assured them up and down that they wouldn’t lose the plans they had, that they’d save money instead of losing it, and that they’d be able to keep using the doctors and hospitals they were already using. 

“But of course now we know that rhetoric just doesn’t match reality.

“And the stories we’re hearing on a near-daily basis now range from heartbreaking to comic. “Just yesterday I saw a story about a guy getting a letter in the mail saying his dog had qualified for insurance under Obamacare. So yeah, I’d probably be running for the exits too if I had supported this law.

“I’d be looking to change the subject just as Senate Democrats have been doing with their threats of going nuclear and changing the Senate rules on nominations. If I were a senator from Oregon, which hasn’t enrolled a single person yet for its Obamacare exchange, I would probably want to shift the focus too.

 “But here’s the problem with this latest distraction. It doesn’t distract people from Obamacare. It reminds them of it. It reminds them of all the broken promises. It reminds them of the power grab. It reminds them of the way Democrats set up one set of rules for themselves and another for everybody else.

“It’s basically the same debate.

“And rather than distract people from Obamacare, it only reinforces the narrative of a party that is willing to do and say just about anything to get its way. Because that’s just what they’re doing all over again.

“Once again, Senate Democrats are threatening to break the rules of the Senate in order to change the rules of the Senate. And over what? Over a court that doesn’t even have enough work to do.

“Millions of Americans are hurting because of a law Washington Democrats forced upon them – and what do they do about it? They cook up some fake fight over judges that aren’t even needed.

“Look: I get it. As I indicated, I’d want to be talking about something else too if I had to defend dogs getting insurance while millions of Americans lost theirs. But it won’t work. And the parallels between this latest skirmish and the original Obamacare push are just too obvious to ignore. “Think about it: The Majority Leader promised over and over again that he wouldn’t break the rules of the Senate in order to change them. On July 14 he went on ‘Meet the Press’ and he said: ‘We’re not touching judges.’ “He may as well just have said ‘If you like the rules of the Senate you can keep them.’

"And this Democrat strategy of distract, distract, distract is getting old. Because the American people aren’t fooled. “If our colleagues want to work with us to fill judicial vacancies that actually need to be filled, then let’s do it. “If our colleagues want to work with us to spare the American people from the pain of Obamacare, then let’s do that.

“But if they want to play games and set yet another precedent that they will no doubt come to regret, well…that’s a choice only they can make. “Let me be clear: the Democrat playbook of broken promises, double standards, and raw power…the same playbook that got us Obamacare…it has to end.

“That’s why Republicans are going to keep their focus where it belongs: on the concerns of the American people. It means we’re going to keep pushing to get back to the drawing board on health care – to replace Obamacare with real reforms that do not punish the middle class. And we’ll leave the political games to our friends on the other side.”

Harry Reid is going to be remembered as the man who wrecked whatever collegiality and bi-partisanship existed in the senate, to the detriment of the country. And the Democrats going along for the ride are going to regret this.

It's that Golden Rule thing, you know. And this isn't  going to be forgotten.

Harry Reid Ready To Destroy 'Bi-Partisan' Agreement, Go Nuclear On The Filibuster

With Harry Reid as Democrat Senate Majority leader, it was easy to predict that the bi-partisan agreement John McCain, Lindsay Graham and the other RINOs who constituted the Gang of 14 back in 2005 when Republicans controlled the Senate would fall apart as soon as the Democrats felt like it and had a majority.

The deal back then was that Bill Frist,then the  GOP Senate Majority leader wanted to change the Senate rules to allow the confirmation of judges by simple majority. McCain and his playmates undercut him with a bi-partisan group of senators that pledged not to use the Nuclear option and change the rules, but to compromise and not filibuster except 'under extraordinary circumstances'. The Republicans figured that someday they would be in the minority and would want their rights similarly respected.

Harry Reid,the Minority leader at that time thought this was a dandy idea and praised  the compromise  as a true example of bipartisan cooperation.With a straight face, and without busting out laughing.

As soon as the Democrats got the senate majority all that kumbaya stuff went out the windowq of course. Aside from changing procedural rules to shove through ObamaCare, Reid used the nuclear option in October of 2011 to kill a a post-cloture amendment by a simple majority on the president's Jobs bill....even though he had to ignore the Senate parliamentarian's ruling to do it.

Reid is now threatening to use the nuclear option again to permanently change the senate rules and cut off all filibusters by the minority party, in this case, the Republicans.

The reason is that the Republicans are filibustering   judicial appointments to the DC Court of Appeals, which the president wants to pack with radical appointees because its rulings have a significant impact on federal regulatory policy. Even though that court is currently split between Republican and Democrat appointees, our Dear Leader has suffered more than a few defeats there and wants to, shall we say, eliminate the uncertainty.

Is Reid serious? I have a feeling he's just throwing the threat out there to see if the Republicans cave in, but if he goes there it's not exactly smart policy. President Obama's numbers are rapidly plummeting and as unpopular as ObamaCare is now, it's going to be even worse next year when the ObamaCare mandates gut the employer-provided group insurance policies the way its hit the individual policies this year. There are 21 Democrat senate seats up for re-election this year,and a lot of them are in Red States, held by incumbents who joined the president in lying to their constituencies about ObamaCare.

Things could change, and change significantly. I find it hard to believe that Reid doesn't realize that if the filibuster isn't honored as a check and balance, a GOP majority could treat the Democrats exactly the way they're being treated now, with presidential appointments and legislation being subject to a simple up or down majority vote..which could lead to the undoing of ObamasCare and pretty much everything else Harry Reid and this president have shoved through.

And hyper-partisanship will definitely ramp up, even worse than now.

We'll see what happens...

Obama's Push To Loosen Sanctions On Iran Headed Off By A Bi-Partisan Senate Effort

Now here's some good news.

Secretary Kerry and President Obama had been offering the Ayatollahs what they called 'reversible lessened sanctions' as a concession in exchange for Iran showing they were halting progress on their nuclear weapons program. How that was going to be verifiable in a way the West could trust is an open question.

Fortunately, in a rare moment of cooperation Republicans and Democrats in the Senate united in the face of this appeasement to quickly put together a new bill that will tighten sanctions:

The Senate Banking Committee will move ahead with a package of tough new sanctions on Iran after the negotiating session over its nuclear program ends in Geneva on Friday, the committee's chairman said on Thursday.

Senator Tim Johnson, a Democrat, said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid told him to go ahead with the mark-up - or consideration - of the bill, a step toward bringing it to the full Senate for a vote. [...]

"I think Iran has in its power to decide whether or not it faces any more sanctions or whether or not it gets any relief from existing sanctions," Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Robert Menendez, who also is a member of the banking committee, told Reuters.

But otherwise, he said he felt the sanctions should go ahead. "I just don't understand a negotiating posture that suggests that we should stop pursuing a course of action that at least brought Iran to the table while they continue to enrich," he said.

..Republican Mark Kirk, a banking panel member, said they might go ahead with a sanctions package even if the banking committee held off.

Kirk and a few other Republicans said they were considering introducing a stiffer package of Iran sanctions as an amendment to a defense authorization bill that is expected to be debated in the Senate during the week of November 18.

If nothing else, this is a signal to both Iran and to the president that the Senate isn't prepared to take the blame for another Munich..not with midterms coming up in a year, anyway.

There's also talk in the House about a bill of their own stiffening sanctions.

'Republican' Chris Christie Acts Promptly To Ensure The GOP Doesn't Get A Senate Seat

 

To anyone who still thinks NJ Governor Chris Christie is going to be the GOP's savior in 2016, (I'm looking in your direction, Jennifer Rubin) this might just came as a bit of a wakeup call.

Longtime Democrat Senator from New Jersey Frank Lautenberg dropped dead yesterday at the age of 89.

Normally, what happens in a case like this is that the sitting governor nominates someone to serve out the rest of the senator's term, and they're always members of that governor's party.

In the case of New Jersey's Governor Christie, that isn't going to happen.

There are some perfectly acceptable Republicans like former Gov. Tom Kean Sr., state Sen. Tom Kean Jr., state Sen. Joe Kyrillos, and Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno. None of them are exactly conservative ideologues or out of step with the people of New Jersey. But they're, you know, Republicans.

Lautenberg's term runs until November 2014, but instead of simply appointing a member of his own party to serve out the term, Governor Christie has announced that he will spend
$24 million dollars of taxpayer funds to hold a special election in October of 2013:



What's even more comical about this is that Christie, who claims to be a fiscal conservative signed legislation into law in January of 2012to consolidate state elections to - wait for it - save the state money!

What's actually happening here is pretty obvious. Governor Christie likely got a phone call from his man crush object President Obama asking him to move the election up as much as possible to get a reliable Democrat into the seat and to make sure that anyone he chooses as a place holder for the next 4 months (if Christie even does) is someone who will go along with the agenda until goes down.

I'll say it one more time - look for Christie to switch parties in the near future and go after the Democrat nomination in 2016. It definitely won't hurt him in Blue New Jersey, he can bill himself as 'a new type of fiscally conservative Democrat' and it will be a final humiliation of Hillary Clinton at Obama's hands.

Marco Rubio: Senate Doesn't Have The Votes To Pass Amnesty Bill

Awww. So sad.

 Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) doesn’t believe the Gang of Eight immigration bill – which he authored — has enough votes to break a possible filibuster on the Senate floor. When asked on “Fox and Friends” Tuesday whether the bill has 60 “yes” votes, Rubio replied: “No, and I think even the Democrats would concede that.” 

“There’s a few reasons for it, but one of the things we’ve learned over the last few weeks through the open process that happened through the committee process and all the public input that we’ve gotten is how little confidence people have that the federal government will enforce the law,” Rubio continued.[...] 

“We don’t want to be back here in two years, in five years, 10 years dealing with another 5 or 10 million illegal immigrants,” Rubio said. “And so that’s the key. And people don’t trust the Department of Homeland Security to do this job or to come up with a plan that will do the job.”
 
No, really? And the junior senator from Florida is just finding this out?

Marco Rubio is an intelligent and well spoken politician, and there's a great deal to admire about him...but his behavior on this issue definitely isn't one of them. In fact, by touting this he pretty much has forfeited a great deal of credibility and unfortunately, proven that he's unable to deal with the duplicity and dishonesty of experienced Democrat operatives like NY Senator Chuck Schumer, who has played him like a violin throughout this entire regrettable process.

There's simply too much evidence of how the Democrat Left views enforcing our laws and
protecting our borders to push what amounts to amnesty through...not with midterms looming next year.

Here's a prediction for you - when this goes down in flames, watch how quickly President Obama rushes to implement amnesty via executive order.

It's about been about importing a large group of reliable and easily led Democrat voters rather than the good of the country, and it always has been, ever since the original amnesty back in 1986.