After nearly a month of
fiddle-farting around, Nancy “The Master Legislator” Pelosi finally accepted
defeat. The battle with Senate Majority
Leader McConnell ended with a whimper not a bang. Forced to accept the Senate would not proceed
on terms favorable to the diaper-soiling meltdowns of her party, she quietly
surrendered.
During an interview
with CNN’s Dana Bash back in December of 2018 Pelosi boasted, “I put on a suit
of armor, eat nails for breakfast. I
know how to take a punch.”
So where was this “leverage”
everyone on the left claimed she would wield?
Surrendering the fate of judicial proceedings to the Republican-majority
Senate was always how this was going to end.
She was outmaneuvered by
a stubborn McConnell and a Senate disinclined to entertain sham Articles of
Impeachment drawn up by a vicious, spiteful, lying pencil-neck on the House
Intelligence Committee and a bespectacled fat man whose pants encircle his
portly midriff just beneath his manboobs on the House Judiciary Committee.
She imprudently followed
the advice of John Dean, a convicted felon, and a vitriolic Trump-hating Harvard
law professor named Laurence Tribe who championed the farcical notion of
holding the Articles “as a tactical matter” to strengthen Chuck Schumer’s hand
in bargaining over trial rules with McConnell.
Permit me to quote Spanish
philosopher Baltasar Gracián:
“Every fool stands
convinced; and everyone convinced is a fool. The faultier a person's judgement
the firmer their convictions.”
Pelosi rushed the
impeachment of President Trump, calling it urgent and refusing to allow a
presidential privilege claim to proceed to court. Yet now she has stalled on
the articles, raising serious questions about the legitimacy of the
impeachment.
Senate Majority Leader
Mitch McConnell warned Pelosi if she does not turn over the articles of
impeachment, he will act as though the House had never passed them in the first
place.
If, by Monday,
the articles do not arrive in the Senate to take up the trial of the President
the House of Representatives will have, for all intents and purposes, “pocket
vetoed” his impeachment.
"If the Speaker
continues to refuse to take her own accusations to trial, the Senate will move
forward next week with the business of our people," McConnell said.
"We will operate on the assumption that House Democrats are too
embarrassed to ever move forward."
A growing number of
Democrats in the House and Senate have joined Republicans in recent days saying
it’s time for Pelosi to send the articles to the Senate.
Tick tock, Nancy. Tick tock.
During her weekly press
briefing at the Capitol yesterday she said, “I’m not holding them
indefinitely. I will turn them over when
I’m ready, and that will probably be soon.”
During the presser, a
reporter for Fox News asked Pelosi, “Are you going to the Niners game?”
Pelosi responded
saying, “It would be my intention to go.
I have, unfortunately, responsibilities to save our country from peril
this weekend.”
Football fans really
love trick plays when they work, but a trick play wouldn’t really be a trick
play if it worked more often than it failed.
Unless it’s your team, trick plays that spiral toward outright catastrophe
are far more entertaining than those executed flawlessly.
Nancy’s trick play is
precisely that kind of catastrophe. No
offense to you Niner fans out there, but I’m rooting for the Minnesota Vikings
to embarrass Colin Kaepernick’s former team.
It’ll serve Nancy right.
Nancy Pelosi, At A 49ers Game, Gets Called Out.
Patriots everywhere need to start confronting these Democrats in non confrontational ways ..
During the protracted impeachment clown show on the floor of
the House of Representatives yesterday, we heard Democrats proclaim our
democracy is in a “clear and present danger” from a president who has turned
around a sagging economy adding 266,000 jobs last month. The unemployment rate
ticked down to 3.5% matching a 50-year low.
Consumer confidence is up and so is bond market confidence. Our military is now stronger than at any time
in our history. I could go on, but these
are things you already know.
House Majority Leader
Steny Hoyer (D-MD), the second-ranking lawmaker in the House, said Wednesday
that Democrats must discuss a last-ditch gambit to delay sending Articles of Impeachment
to the Republican-controlled Senate to prevent it from summarily discarding the
case against President Trump.
Politico
reported that senior Democrat aides said the House was “very unlikely” to take
the steps necessary to send the Articles to the Senate until at least early
January.
“So far we haven’t seen
anything that looks fair to us,” Pelosi told reporters at a news conference
just moments after the House charged Trump with abuse of power and obstruction
of Congress. “That would’ve been our intention, but we’ll see what happens over
there,” she said.
If Pelosi holds onto
the Articles of Impeachment, some Democrats hope it will put pressure on Mitch McConnell
to negotiate the trial rules with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. Its abundantly clear to this observer that
House Democrats got hit over the head with a clue bat when they realized their
tenacious hold on the process and the narrative of impeachment would end the
moment the Articles go over to the Senate.
Any delay in transmitting
the Articles will make this sham impeachment process look more political,
not less. Talk about being in a pickle.
Three-dimensional chess requires a higher understanding and
mastery of politics, diplomacy and warfare that goes far beyond the
comprehension of ordinary observers.
If Pelosi and her minions want to play hardball, Mitch
McConnell could open the trial and then litigate subpoenas for Hunter Biden,
Adam Schiff, Schiff’s staff, the whistleblower and the dirty cops at the FBI if
he were inclined to be mischievous.
There goes their narrative and Trump challengers Pocahontas and
Commie Sanders would be precluded from campaigning. That would be a pity. [snicker]
Following a Trump rally in West Virginia in August of 2017,
Charles Krauthammer made an appearance on Fox’s Tucker Carlson Tonight
show. Its relevant to what has been
happening to this president for three years.
Krauthammer died ten months later.
He couldn’t know his warning would be prophetic.
UPDATE:Welcome readers of Pirate’s
Cove.We thank the Admiral for the
linky-love.
If the House approves
articles of impeachment against President Trump, there would be a trial in the
Senate. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell
has made it clear that discussions with Minority Leader Chuck Schumer have not
yet begun noting, “If the House acts, I think the place to start would be to
take a look at what the agreement was 20 years ago in the Clinton impeachment
trial as a starting place and then discuss how we may be able to agree to
handle the process. How long it goes on
really depends on how long the Senate wants to spend on it.”
On Monday, McConnell told
reporters in Kentucky, “I can’t imagine a scenario under which President
Trump would be removed from office with 67 votes in the Senate.”
Republican senators
including McConnell have criticized the House process arguing the President has
not been allowed to defend himself in the inquiry. Consideration is being given to dismissing
the inquiry, a move that would require a simple majority of 51 votes.
Every moment of every
waking day, Democrats have been searching for any pretext to remove this
president.
As I noted in a previous
post Adam Schiff, Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, has had
impeachment papers on his desk for three long years. No one believes that the fix hasn’t been in
since Trump took the Oath of Office.
The Democratic
Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) conducted focus groups in key battleground
states to find a more compelling word to replace the Latin term “quid pro quo”. The groups found “bribery” to be most
damning.
Nothing underscores the
fact that impeachment is a political process, not a legal remedy, intended to
turn public opinion against the President.
CNN’s Legal Analyst,
Jim Baker, pining for a real life Orwellian “1984” scenario tweeted:
I’m sorry if some people think these hearings are boring. As American citizens we have a solemn obligation to pay attention to this process no matter what side you’re on. You’re not being asked to storm the beaches at Normandy after all. Suck it up and watch.
Democrats and the
legion of Trump haters are demoralized over impeachment hearings being tuned
out by Americans.
“One of the most
important aspects of the televised hearings is how many people watch them,” said
Darrell West, Director of Governance Studies for the Brookings Institution.
“During Watergate, millions watched and learned new things about President Nixon,
which ultimately turned them away from him. For Democrats to have any hope of
altering public opinion, they need robust viewership levels.”
Has the manufactured
hatred of Trump hit a ceiling? Oh, I think
so. San Fran Nan and her henchmen met
privately about the prospects of a dramatic shift in opinion according to CNN.
“How impeachment plays
in key districts has been an issue that Democrats have discussed repeatedly
behind closed doors. At a meeting in late October, DCCC officials discussed
focus group research that showed voters wanted the inquiry to be a fact-finding
mission—not a foregone conclusion, according to a source in the room.”
The notorious RBG, who
is recuperating at George Washington University Hospital after fracturing three
ribs in her office Wednesday night, was not in attendance at today’s Supreme
Court Ceremonial Investiture of Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
They’re fitting her for
bionic ribs in an effort to extend her lifespan. Democrats may have to laminate her if they
don’t want to cede ground on the Supreme Court or they’ll have to run a
stealthy ruse for the entirety of Trump’s presidency.
Someone may need
to be tasked with lining Ginsburg’s office with pillows.
People, especially
really stupid younger people, were offering the octogenarian their own ribs on
social media starting the hashtag #RibsForRuth on Twitter.
Do they need rib donors? Because she can have mine. Right now. #RibsForRuth
Many of the judges of
the US Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit were in attendance including Judge
Merrick Garland who was nominated to the Supreme Court in 2016 by The World’s
Most Dangerous Community Organizer. Garland was not given a confirmation
hearing or a Senate vote. The seat
vacated by Justice Antonin Scalia’s death remained open for more than a year so
the new president could fill the vacancy.
Sitting several rows
ahead of Garland was Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell with his wife
Elaine Chao. Also in attendance was Sen.
Lindsay Graham and White House Counsel Don McGahn.
President Trump and
First Lady Melania were seated in the front row alongside retired Justice
Anthony Kennedy who Kavanaugh succeeds on the bench.
Kavanaugh accuser, Christine
Blasey Ford, is still being harassed, her lawyers say. She's reportedly had to
move four times. She's had to pay for a private security detail. And she hasn't
been able to return to her job at Palo Alto University. Bless
her heart.
Early in the day on
Wednesday the US House of Representatives voted on a nearly $8 billion aid
package to victims of Hurricane Harvey.Senate Republican leaders had been planning to tie that aid to a bill to
raise the debt ceiling after the
2018 midterm elections.
Democrats were amenable
to helping move the aid/debt ceiling bill but would only agree to do so for
three months.This prompted Speaker of
the House Paul Ryan to go on the record despising the plan calling it “dumb” at
a news conference.
“Let’s just think about
this: We’ve got all this devastation in Texas. We’ve got another unprecedented
hurricane about to hit Florida, and they want to play politics with the debt
ceiling? I think that’s ridiculous and disgraceful that they want to play
politics with the debt ceiling at this moment when we have fellow citizens in
need, to respond to these hurricanes so we do not strand them,” Ryan said
angrily.
Shortly
thereafter, Ryan and other congressional leaders went to the White House for a
strategy meeting with the president.
It
was at that meeting that President Trump agreed to endorse a plan proposed by Sen.
Chuck Schumer and Rep. Nancy Pelosi to attach hurricane relief money to a
shorter-term bump in the debt ceiling as well as keeping the government open.
Schumer, during the meeting, reminded the president that Ryan had
supported short-term increases in the past intended to help create bipartisan
deals in 2013.
Senate Majority Leader
Mitch McConnell said later that he would support the deal agreed to by the
president but he made very clear following the Republican policy lunch that
this was an agreement between President Trump and Democratic leaders. He
wouldn't say if he was surprised by the deal, but said Trump's
"rationale" was the "feeling that we need to come
together."
Countless
Americans have become increasingly disgruntled with Congress’s failure to get
anything done and see McConnell and Ryan as the obstacles to enacting the
president’s agenda.If things don’t change
voters will not only demand new leadership they will throw the bums out come
election day.
Ben Domenech, writing
at The
Federalistsurmised, “This is the first sign Trump is waking up to the
inaccuracy of the conventional wisdom about needing McConnell and Ryan which
has animated so much of the early failures of the Republican legislative
agenda.So, he’s being more honest:he doesn’t like McConnell and Ryan, never
did.He likes Chuck Schumer, and knows
him, and thinks he can work with him.”
Voters began electing
men and women to serve in Congress who would repeal and replace Obamacare and
legislate tax reform beginning in 2010.They’ve had years of preparation and yet have been unable to advance
their agenda.Republicans have failed to
deliver on their promises to President Trump and to the voters who sent them to
Washington to fight for them.
They’ve been blowing
smoke like a ’56 Rambler.I don’t blame
the president for taking sides against the feckless GOP elite.
Mitch McConnell had refused to meet with Trump for weeks, now GOP cries because Trump retaliated on debt ceiling. Welcome to hard ball.
He made $24 million in
six years on a $193,400 annual government salary. I'm sure there's a reasonable
explanation.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch
McConnell has the lowest favorability rating of any elected official with a
national profile, according to a new Harvard-Harris poll provided exclusively
to The Hill.
McConnell, who is not
up for reelection until 2020, only has an 18 percent job approval rating in
Kentucky according to a poll released this week by the left-leaning Public
Policy Polling.
Speaker of the House
Paul Ryan is underwater, posting a negative 33-47 split, but he is viewed
favorably by 63 percent of Republican respondents nationwide.I find this to be wildly inexplicable.
Conrad Black, commenting
at National
Review noted, “…three-quarters of Americans despise the Congress as
tainted and ineffectual windbags wallowing in the public trough. Congress has
become a useless appendage, a hopeless, stupid, talking shop that, apart from
tax cuts after the 9/11 terrorist attacks and Obamacare, has done nothing
significant since welfare reform in 1996. The mutual antipathy between the
president and all the congressional leaders is obvious and unseemly. Trump
shouldn’t be tweeting about it, but it is nervy for McConnell and Ryan to
criticize publicly almost everything the president does.”
Congress is scheduled to reconvene after Labor Day.
VICE
PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN:
Merrick, I kinda fubar-ed your nomination.
CHIEF
JUDGE U.S. COURT OF APPEALS MERRICK GARLAND: Yeah, ya did Joe. For totes reals.
BIDEN: The damned Internet
is forever ya know and they dug up that C-SPAN video of me saying, “Action on a
Supreme Court nomination must be put off until after the election campaign is
over. That is what is fair to the nominee…Otherwise we will be in deep trouble
as an institution, stuck in a bitter fight, no matter how good a person is
nominated by the president.”
JUDGE GARLAND: Yeah, believe me, I
remember it well and let’s not forget that time when the doofus standing on the
other side of me filibustered
the nomination of Justice Alito. Why
do you think I almost broke down in tears a minute ago? You guys doomed me. It’s as if the Sweet Meteor of Death swooped
down and destroyed my chances.
BIDEN: He said he regrets
that. Come on man, can I buy you a nice
ice cream cone to make you feel better?
GARLAND: You really are an
idiot aren’t you?
Sen. Joe Biden in 1992 says President Bush should "not name a nominee until after the November election..." #SCOTUShttps://t.co/setQGLzePt
Jonathan Turley,
Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University penned
a piece for USA
Today in which he noted, “Our political system seems poised to answer
the question of what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable
object. The unstoppable force, Obama, insists that his nominee to replace
the late justice Antonin Scalia be given a hearing and a vote. The
immovable object is the Republican Senate, which is equally determined to
prevent both. Who will prevail?”
A moderate could
easily change the results in cases of unions forcing non-union members to
pay dues; states crafting districts under standards governing one person, one
vote; exempting religious organizations from the Affordable Care Act’s
contraceptive mandate; allowing universities to consider race in admissions;
and exempting millions of undocumented immigrants from deportation.
Garland will be
viewed with suspicion over gun rights. In 2007, a three-judge panel of the DC
Circuit ruled against the city's handgun ban in Parker v.
District of Columbia. In an unsuccessful move for a rehearing by the full
court, Garland voted with three other judges to reconsider and was presumed to
oppose the panel decision. The case went on to the Supreme Court and
became known as District of Columbia v. Heller, the historic ruling
recognizing the individual right to bear arms. For conservatives, Heller is
gospel and Garland seems like a non-believer.
Turley postulates, “In
the end, the only thing worse for the GOP in barring a vote might be
allowing a vote that would literally wipe out core political issues ranging
from abortion to affirmative action. A Republican senator can survive a
role in obstructing a nominee but would unlikely survive a role in facilitating
the loss of gun rights.”
Republicans have
presented an impressive unified front against any hearing for the
nominee. However, five GOP Senators whose seats are considered
endangered, Ron Johnson (WI), Kelly Ayotte (NH), Mark Kirk (IL), Rob
Portman (OH) and Pat Toomey (PA) appear to be waffling.
Hey, Chuck Schumer, life's a bitch when the wingtip is on the other foot isn't it buddy?
With the most popular Republican Presidential candidate (and possibly the top two) in open existential warfare with the GOP leadership, it's clear that the party, as we know it, will not survive into 2017. A leadership change is being forced by deeply unhappy conservative voters, but the old guard leaders, represented by Senators McConnell and Graham and House Speaker Ryan (and Boehner before him) are not going quietly into the night.
In fact, recent actions by the party indicate an unthinkable level of willingness to self-destruct, even to purposely lose the election rather than allow a popular outsider like Donald Trump to win the nomination and the general election. According to Politico, GOP leadership is taking measures to set up a possible independent run at the last minute in order to split the vote and prevent their own candidate from winning the general.
Although shockingly deceitful and destructive, such a move actually makes sense. The current party leadership might survive another loss to Democrats with whom they share more in common than they do with their increasingly alienated constituency. But they might not survive a huge victory by a free candidate, like Trump, "loaded for bear" against them.
Another strategy reported by the New York Times is for the GOP leadership to force a brokered convention and nominate a candidate friendlier than Trump: Marco Rubio or John Kasich - but NOT Ted Cruz. BlurBrain commented about this as follows (emphasis mine):
Why not just run Romney or McCain again?
Once again the Party elites are bound and determined to find some way to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory by dumping some lackluster nominee on the unwilling Republican voters in the mistaken belief that only some Johnny Milquetoast RINO can appeal to the wider segment of society.
Dude, we tried that, TWICE and it failed...
How about for a change they just let the people decide who they want, for better or worse and then get the hell out of the way?
This election isn’t going to be about ‘likes and wants’ as much as who you hate and fear the most. And right now it seems the GOPe is siding with the Democrats.
UPDATE: Welcome readers of Adrienne's Corner. We are honored that she linked to this post.
Is it true that Ted
Cruz refrained from criticizing Donald Trump after the firestorm over his
comments belittling John McCain’s war record to pick up some of The Donald’s
support should he drop out of the race for president?
In an interview with Bloomberg Politics Cruz said, "My view on John
McCain is explicit and unambiguous. He's an American hero and he's a friend. I'm not going to just take a stick to fellow
Republicans or for that matter to Democrats.
In my time in the Senate I haven't impugned the character of Republicans
or Democrats and I don't intend to start today."
In his March 23, 2015
presidential announcement speech, Cruz cited Ronald Reagan who popularized the
Eleventh Commandment: Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow
Republican.
On Friday, however,
the gloves came off. He accused Senate
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of lying to his colleagues.
Cruz’s broadside of
McConnell came after he set up votes on the controversial issues of the repeal
of Obamacare and the reauthorization of the Export-Import bank. Though
McConnell has personally spoken against the Ex-Im Bank’s reauthorization,
Democrats said in June that he had agreed to schedule a vote on the bank in
order to get highly divisive trade legislation passed.
“I asked the majority
leader very directly: What was the deal that was just cut? The majority leader
was visibly angry with me that I would ask such a question, and the majority
leader looked at me and said, ‘There is no deal, there is no deal, there is no
deal.’ Like Saint Peter, he repeated it three times,” said Cruz.
The bank’s
reauthorization expired on May 31, 2015.
Ex-Im subsidizes innumerable export transactions with guaranteed loans
to make exports cheaper for American products.
In March, two months before the reauthorization expired, the bank’s
$100M cap had been reached.
Critics of the bank
call it “Boeing’s Bank” because of its interventions in financial assistance to
the aircraft manufacturer in selling planes to China, India and other nations
thus allowing U.S. trade policies to be set by market-distorting foreign
governments. The bank is only lightly constrained by the law that supposedly
leashes it.
As Sallie James of
the Cato
Institute notes, government favors flow to the politically connected. Favor-dispensing institutions such as the
Export-Import Bank are dispensing incentives for private interests to develop
lucrative political connections.
Are charges by Cruz
that McConnell is “running the Senate in much the same manner” as Harry Reid
did when he was Majority Leader true?
Hell yes.
“There is a profound
disappointment among the American people because we keep winning elections, and
then we keep getting leaders who don’t do anything they promised,” Cruz said.
“We’ve had a Republican majority in both houses of Congress now for about six
months…This Senate operates exactly the same, the same priorities.”
According to
published reports, McConnell was not on the floor of the Senate during Cruz’s “outburst”. When he learned about it McConnell
barred Cruz from discussions regarding the National Defense Authorization
Act in the Senate Armed Services Committee.
The Drudge Report had a blaring red headline on its website proclaiming
“Joni Takes 7 Point Lead” and linked to The Des Moines Register bearing an
almost identical headline.
News of Ernst’s sizeable lead
over Democrat Bruce Braley has sent Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid squealing
like a piggy in desperation—a kind of flop sweat you get when you realize
you’re in peril.
Politico’s Burgess Everett (I refuse to link) reported that Reid
held a conference call on Saturday with the Progressive Change Campaign
Committee and Roll Call shared some of what Reid
said during the call.
“If we win Iowa, we’re going to
do just fine,” Reid told the liberal activists. “Iowa is a key in what we do.
You know, we’re doing really quite well now in New Hampshire. I think we’re
going to win in North Carolina. I’m not going to go through all the races. Iowa
is critical. There’s no other way to say it.”
“What Joni Ernst would mean,
coming to the United States Senate, is that Mitch McConnell would be the leader
of the Senate, someone who agrees with her on virtually everything. Think what
that would mean to our country.”
Did Dingy Harry unwittingly give
Minority Leader McConnell something to smile about?
With just two days left before
America’s voice is heard, we are witnessing a complete unraveling of the
progressive agenda. Democrats across the
board have put their loyalty to The World’s Most Dangerous Community Organizer
above their duty to America and voters, it would appear, are ready to give
Republicans control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate.
He's running for U.S. Senate in
Kentucky, but he's not going to talk to you about “jobs” and the
“middle class.” People without jobs can’t afford to donate to his campaign. And
the middle class, well, they’ll be gone soon anyway.
His opponents Mitch McConnell and
Alison Lundergan Grimes will spend $100 million to show the people of Kentucky
how much they care.
Honestly, he doesn't care about
Kentucky. He cares about that sweet, sweet cash.
Find out what Gil thinks about net neutrality, healthcare costs, and the
economy. You can also follow Gil on Twitter. Just remember, it’s not about you sweety. It’s about your money.
With their ears to the ground,
crystal balls at the ready and a few Magic 8 Balls for extra measure, long-in-the-tooth
Republicans like five-term senator Mitch McConnell are mounting an aggressive
effort to undermine the credibility of advocacy groups like the Tea Party by
denying them any Senate primary victories, cutting into their fund-raising and diminishing
them as a future force in Republican politics.
At the apex of the rise of the
Tea Party, the conservative groups stirred up a hornet’s nest for establishment
Republican candidates.
“I think we are going to crush
them everywhere,” McConnell, the Senate Republican leader, said in a New
York Times interview, “I don’t
think they are going to have a single nominee anywhere in the country.”
McConnell, the GOP Post Turtle,
is one of three establishment Republicans who are facing primary challengers
backed by Tea Party conservative groups. The Senate Conservatives Fund, The
Madison Project, and FreedomWorks are supporting Matt Bevin, McConnell’s rival
in Kentucky.
"I won't let you down. I will lead with integrity…We will debate our
ideas openly, we will vote without fear…The best conservative ideas for lifting
Americans out of poverty will get a hearing," promised McConnell at this weekend’s
CPAC conference.
"It was a speech by a politician," one attendee
noted wryly.
Declaring the need “to crush them
everywhere,” are the words of a self-serving, small-minded power hungry
politician who has already been in Washington far too long.
Running to his real friends at The New York Times to trash the very
people he was attempting to court just days before is loathsome and
despicable. I hope Bevin wears him out
in the primary. We don’t need a betrayer
of limited government
The Democratic
Senatorial Campaign Committee hired a leading pollster to “test” the waters for
the Kentucky Senate race and omigod, the DSCC is producing major flop sweat
over the results.
According to the Louisville Eccentric Observer, after
receiving the results of the poll, the DSCC is "re-evaluating" their
initial "all-in" support for Judd against Senate Minority Leader
Mitch McConnell (R-KY). Their concerns
emanate around her liberal political leanings and the stupid shit she utters.
In case you didn’t know, Judd also currently lives in Tennessee, though she
grew up in Kentucky and Republicans have already sought to make her residency
an issue.
After news of the disastrous poll broke, Jim Cauley, an outspoken critic of her
potential run who also ran Obama's campaign for president in Kentucky in 2008, called
it a potential "catastrophe" for down-ballot races in
one report.
Instead, the White House is
hawking a potty-mouth T-shirt for 30 bucks that refers to Joe Biden’s
vulgar whisper in the president’s ear, and caught on tape, calling the
Affordable Care Act a “big f—king deal.”
Senate
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell gave a sarcastic poke in the eye saying, “I saw
the president down at the White House. I’m
a little surprised, but there wasn’t a birthday cake to celebrate the second
anniversary of ObamaCare."
That’s not a new necklace the president is
wearing. It’s a political
albatross around his neck. This regime awaits the high
stakes hearings on the constitutionality of the law by the Supreme Court beginning
March 26.
The next day,
March 27th, will be devoted to arguments involving the administration's claim
that not buying insurance somehow constitutes interstate commerce that may be
regulated by Congress.
The
28th will be devoted to the commandeering and severability issues. The Democrats, you will recall, failed
to include a severability clause in Obamacare. This, in theory, means that the
Court must invalidate the entire law if it strikes down the mandate. If the
justices follow the example of U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson, PPACA is
toast. Unfortunately, the precedents aren't as clear on this issue as one might
wish. The justices have demonstrated a willingness to ignore the absence of
severability language when it suits them.
Charles
Krauthammer’s Op-Ed in The Washington
Post sums up ObamaCare nicely: “Rarely
has one law so exemplified the worst of the Leviathan state—grotesque cost,
questionable constitutionality and arbitrary bureaucratic coerciveness. Little
wonder the president barely
mentioned it in his latest State
of the Union address. He wants to be reelected. He’d rather talk about
other things.”
“But there’s
no escaping it now. Oral arguments begin Monday at 10 a.m.” Oh, and just for
shits and giggles, the #ILikeObamaCare hashtag launched by President Whiny’s
re-election campaign was hijacked by conservatives. The
Daily Callerdutifully notes, “The Twitter hashtag was the most popular
in the world Friday afternoon, but not for reasons the Obama campaign wanted.”
