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The Foundation
"It is to me a new and consolatory proof that wherever the people are well-informed they can be trusted with their own government; that whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied on to set them to rights." --Thomas Jefferson
Government & Politics
'The People's Seat'
Hope floats in Boston Harbor
"Here's my assessment of not just the mood in Massachusetts, but the mood around the country: The same thing that swept Scott Brown into office swept me into office." So said Barack Obama when asked about Tuesday's special election to fill the Senate seat held for 46 years by the late Ted Kennedy.
Naturally, to Obama, everything is about him; though, in a sense, Brown's shocking victory was about Obama -- but not in the way he thinks. In fact, we're hoping the president campaigns for more Democrats come fall. Voters have responded to his presence on behalf of fellow Democrats with resounding rejections in the Virginia and New Jersey gubernatorial races, and now in deepest-blue Massachusetts.
Then again, Obama says, it's Bush's fault. "People are angry and they're frustrated," he explained, "not just because of what's happened in the last year or two years, but what's happened over the last eight years."
So Scott Brown became the first Republican senator elected in Massachusetts since 1972 because voters are still angry with George W. Bush?
In reality, Brown won for several reasons. First, he was a first-rate candidate. His regular-guy persona resonated with voters and he communicated the right message -- that we need less government, not more. He ran explicitly against ObamaCare, saying, "I can stop it." In his victory speech, he said, "People do not want the trillion dollar health care plan that is being forced on the American people, and this bill is not being debated openly and fairly. It will raise taxes, it will hurt Medicare, it will destroy jobs and run our nation deeper into debt."
Best of all, in a debate with Democrat opponent Martha Coakley, Brown answered a challenge from moderator David Gergen about taking Ted Kennedy's seat only to derail health care: "Well, with all due respect, it's not the Kennedy seat, and it's not the Democrats' seat, it's the people's seat."
That's when the sea change in the polls began.
Second, Martha Coakley was a lousy candidate. Briefly, for example (and there are many), in a state with a large percentage of Catholic voters, Coakley offered the advice that if you object to abortion and are a devout Catholic, then "you probably shouldn't work in the emergency room." She derided Red Sox hero Curt Schilling as a "Yankee fan" and scoffed at greeting people in the cold at Fenway Park, which is precisely what hungry candidates do in sports-crazy Boston. In addition, a member of her staff was caught on video knocking a conservative reporter to the ground. In short, her arrogance and inanity are out of touch.
Finally, health care became an albatross for Coakley, and the Leftmedia didn't help, continuing to refer to the seat as "Kennedy's seat" in order to play up that debate. Kennedy spent a lifetime fighting for socialized health care, and, when he died, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) even suggested naming the health care bill after him. The irony is that the senator from Massachusetts was supposed to steer socialized medicine to passage; now it looks like the senator from Massachusetts could be the one to sink it. As PBS's Judy Woodruff sobbed, it would be "a tragedy of Greek proportions if Ted Kennedy's successor ... is the one who was responsible for the death of health care."
Mary Jo Kopechne could not be reached for comment.
Americans who want to see the current health care bills die owe a debt of gratitude to Republican Mitt Romney. As Massachusetts governor, he signed universal health care into law in 2006 (as a state legislator, we should note, Brown voted for it). The law is similar to the one being debated in Washington in that Massachusetts residents are required to buy health insurance. The program is currently 20 percent more expensive than projected, and premiums are rising at least 7 percent per year. The reason Bay State voters don't want to pay for socialized medicine is that they're already paying for it. They believe that Washington's bill is redundant, and they have serious questions about the affordability and sustainability of their own state's health care plan. That's federalism at its best.
Nancy Pelosi doesn't think so, however. "Massachusetts has health care and so the rest of the country would like to have that too," she defiantly lectured. "So we don't [think] a state that already has health care should determine whether the rest of the country should."
Brown's win Tuesday may well end up being a victory for liberty. Many Democrats (finally) appear cautious about proceeding on health care. Even Pelosi admits she doesn't have the votes to pass the Senate version in the House. Some, including Obama, are talking about a much smaller bill.
We won't hold our breath, but those metaphorical crates of tea floating in Boston harbor this week may just be a promising sign.
Quote of the Week
"Martha Coakley's resounding defeat in the Massachusetts Senate race is hardly the sort of anniversary gift President Barack Obama could have predicted. Yet there it was, wrapped in a bow and plopped on his doorstep like a flaming bag of dog poo to mark the end of his first year in office." --Nick Gillespie and Matt Welch of Reason magazine
From the 'Non Compos Mentis' File
Sen. John Kerry, in a fundraising appeal for Martha Coakley, continued Democrat ridicule of the Tea Party sentiment bubbling up in Massachusetts. He warned that Scott Brown's "allies in the right wing dream of holding a 'tea party' in Kennedy country."
Uh, John, the original Tea Party was in Boston.
Meanwhile, Bill Clinton took the opposite tack, though at least he acknowledged the first Tea Party. "The Revolutionary War was first won here," Clinton told a Boston crowd. "It started with the Boston Tea Party, and the right-wing Republicans have appropriated that on the premise the Tea Party was against government. What they were against was abuse of power."
Try parsing that one in a way that favors Democrats.
This Week's 'Alpha Jackass' Award
"That I do think is a mistake of mine -- I think the assumption was if I just focus on policy, if I just focus on this provision or that law or if we're making a good rational decision here, then people will get it." --Barack Obama on his proposed health care takeover
Got that, folks? Even when he's admitting a "mistake of mine," he's throwing the blame onto others. His failures are your fault because you just don't get it. That's called pathological narcissism.
New & Notable Legislation
Senate Democrats want to raise the federal government's debt ceiling by $1.9 trillion to a mind-boggling total of $14.3 trillion. The current debt limit was just established by an increase of $290 billion snuck in at the end of December 2009, but will be reached by mid-February. If the ceiling is not raised again, then the government will default on payments to millions of Social Security recipients, defense contractors and other beneficiaries of government disbursements. Just 10 years ago, an increase of this size would have covered government spending for an entire year. Now, they're sweating just getting through February.
The proposal is coupled with a new PAYGO proposal that would offset increased spending with tax hikes and cuts in other areas of the budget. Previous attempts at PAYGO fell by the wayside in recent years, as both Republicans and Democrats have given up on even the appearance of fiscal responsibility -- which is all PAYGO is.
Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-ND) and Evan Bayh (D-IN) have indicated they will not support PAYGO or a debt increase unless they are accompanied by a bipartisan commission that would create fiscal reform measures. House Democrats, led by Nancy Pelosi, are against the idea of a commission because it would take power away from their own budget committee leaders. The Obama administration attempted to bridge this logjam by announcing the creation of a similar commission at the executive level that would include Democrats and Republicans appointed by both Congress and the president. Any commission created by Obama, however, wouldn't release any recommendations until after the November elections. How convenient. The dodge around fiscal responsibility continues.
The Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee is considering the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act, which, in essence, would allow the Obama administration to nationalize the student loan industry. Currently, federally subsidized loans through the Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) program make up approximately 80 percent of the industry. The government subsidizes or profits from a set interest rate and also guarantees loans for both student and lender. The bill under consideration would drop private lenders entirely and turn student lending over to the government. The proposal originated in Obama's 2010 budget, and according to the Congressional Budget Office, it would save the government $87 billion over 10 years. Forget the Constitution -- not that the status quo holds to it -- Obama's solution to every problem is nationalization.
Essential Liberty Project -- Conference Presentation
This coming Feb. 4-6, the Constitutional Coalition is presenting their Educational Policy Conference 21, "Lessons Children and Others Must Hear." The Thursday through Saturday event in St. Louis, Missouri, will feature Fox News host Glenn Beck, radio talk-show host Michael Medved, several stalwart conservative senators and representatives, and many principled authorities, including a presentation by our own Essential Liberty Project Executive Director, Jim Cuffia. Visit www.ConstitutionalCoalition.org for conference and registration details.
Hope 'n' Change: Obama Pens Haiti Story
The disaster in Haiti is a perfect example of Americans doing their best to help others in need, and it has once again brought out the finest qualities of the American character. Unfortunately, politics is at play. For example, Newsweek magazine, which years ago gave up its mission as an objective news source to become a propaganda organ of the Left, premiered its reporting on the crisis with a cover story by Barack Obama. His unremarkable piece offered the liberal rag an opportunity to boost its plummeting circulation. The latest Obama issue of the magazine hit the newsstands days before his first year as president comes to a close -- a year in which he has experienced an unprecedented drop in popularity and support.
To add further political twist to a natural disaster, Narcissist in Chief Obama asked Americans to donate for Haitian relief through the White House Web site, not directly to Red Cross. How this is beneficial, we don't know, but maybe he wants to first take the government's typical 30-70 percent cut.
The House unanimously passed a bill that will allow cash contributions to Haitian relief made through March 1 to count against 2009 taxes. Americans didn't need this incentive, though. In the week since the earthquake, we committed over $275 million to relief efforts, with a third of that amount coming from American companies. The $83 million that those evil corporations have contributed in just seven days has received little recognition by the media, however.
Meanwhile, America's attempts to help the wounded and keep order in the fragile nation have come under fire by the French, joined by Cuba and Venezuela. Alain Joyandet, the French minister in charge of humanitarian relief, called upon the UN to curb America's military role in Haiti, claiming that our military personnel resembled an occupying force, and he asked the UN to "clarify" our role. Of course, to the French, every foreign army is an occupying force.
Halls of Justice: SCOTUS Overturns Part of McCain-Feingold
The Supreme Court of the United States overturned two precedents and struck down limits on corporate political spending in a 5-4 ruling this week, with the usual suspects in dissent. The Court found that at least part of the 2002 Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, known as McCain-Feingold, violates the First Amendment by prohibiting corporations from funding political ads leading up to an election.
As The Wall Street Journal reports, "The case before the court, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, originated in a 2008 feature-length movie critical of then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. Citizens United, a conservative advocacy group, wanted to promote the film, but the election commission called it an 'electioneering communication' subject to McCain-Feingold restrictions." In 2003, the Supreme Court upheld the law.
Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the majority in a 57-page opinion, "The government may regulate corporate political speech through disclaimer and disclosure requirements, but it may not suppress that speech altogether."
Additionally, of requiring that money be funneled through political action committees -- those now-hated 527s -- Kennedy wrote, "When government seeks to use its full power, including the criminal law, to command where a person may get his or her information or what distrusted source he or she may not hear, it uses censorship to control thought. This is unlawful."
Barack Obama called the decision a victory for Wall Street, Big Oil and other special interests hated by the Left, and he promised to work with Congress on a "forceful response." That's nothing but hypocrisy coming from the first major-party presidential candidate to reject public funds, opting instead to run solely on money from special interests.
The BIG Joke
"When you think about the First Amendment ... you think it's highly overrated." --White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, joking (or so he says) at the May 9, 2009, White House Correspondents Association Dinner
From the Left: Edwards Admits Paternity After Affair
Former Democrat presidential candidate and North Carolina Sen. John Edwards admitted this week to fathering a child with Rielle Hunter, a former campaign groupie, in an affair that he says ended in 2006. His campaign has been under investigation for illegal use of funds in connection with the affair. Edwards, a former trial lawyer who became John Kerry's running mate in 2004, initially confessed to the affair in August 2008, after the National Enquirer beat the Leftmedia to the story while they were busy slamming John McCain's choice of a running mate. Until now, however, Edwards had avoided acknowledging paternity, while another staffer took the fall. Edwards' wife, who has been battling breast cancer for years, was "relieved" that the truth is out, but family friends say the couple has now separated.
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