Moe Lane

It’s a valid question, I think, given the way that Lawrence O’Donnell viciously and tenditiciously went after Mormonism last night on that network. Goodness knows that I have my problems with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. And I have no intention of converting to the LDS faith any time soon, or indeed at all. But to say “Mormonism was created by a guy in upstate New York in 1830 when he got caught having sex with the maid and explained to his wife that God told him to do it” in the pursuit of crude partisan purposes is an insult that splatters far beyond its designated target (in this case, Mitt Romney). (more…)

Here’s the background: the current hot topic of conversation in domestic politics right now is whether or not to extend a temporary payroll tax cut.  It’s currently an object of some controversy on the GOP side, largely because it would involve effectively another 180 billion in spending; Democrats were in fact kind of gleeful about that, given that it promised to give Republicans a bit of a problem between specifically choosing between less spending and lower taxes (two things that have been long-term fiscal conservative goals).  Unfortunately for the Democrats, they aren’t the only ones that can give their opponents uncomfortable choices: Speaker John Boehner made a deal where the tax cuts would be bundled up with provisions towards hastening the development of the ethical oil Keystone Pipeline.  This reportedly will ensure that the tax cuts will pass the House.

The problem here is that the White House has decided that it would rather pander to homophobic, racist, misogynistic, anti-Semitic, and anti-democratic conflict oil regimes abroad – and those regimes’ radical progressive allies at home – than to produce jobs for working class Americans (even the ones that work for private sector unions).  The White House has thus announced that it will veto the bill (via @davidhauptmann) if it passes the Keystone jobs program language.  Speaker Boehner has already made it clear that he’s aware of the threat, and is not allowing it to affect House business. (more…)

I call it a “Heisenberg press conference” because since we know where it’s going to be with some certainty, it then follows that we will not be able to determine when it’s actually going to start.

Supposedly this is all going to be about yet another attempt by President Obama to give the impression that he cares about any job besides his own.  Tell it to Harry Reid, Mr. President: tell it to Reid.

I’m getting the oddest feeling that Paul Ryan isn’t happy with Harry Reid’s proposed ‘spending cuts.’

What Ryan is referring to there is Reid’s cynical dodge that current war spending is going to be the baseline military spending for the next ten years; Reid thus gets his ‘savings’ by brazenly cutting spending that everybody knows is going to be reduced anyway and then claiming that it’s a ‘spending cut.’ Hence the yoghurt thing: after all, by Reid-logic that would work, too?

Moe Lane (crosspost)

Gateway Pundit has a screenshot of the Tweet in question, just in case somebody with a triple-digit IQ wrests control of Harry Reid’s Twitter account from him:

Boehner’s plan is not a compromise. It was written for the tea party, not the American people. Ds will not vote for it…

With regard to the second sentence: the voters of Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Massachusetts, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin could not be reached for comment.

Via Instapundit.

You know, when you can’t even get Talking Points Memo – look at the name, people – to sign off on your own side’s bill, you have a problem.  In this particular case: in his haste to throw up (use of term deliberate, of course) some sort of pseudo-clever agitprop on ending oil subsidies, the Transcendent Benevolent Cosmic Space Teacher currently manifesting in our dimension as Senator Harry Reid has forgotten one small, minor, technical detail.  To wit: as written the bill raises revenue, and all bills that raise revenue must originate in the House of Representatives.

Article I.  Section VII.

All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills.

And this is why the new House leadership insisted – insisted - that the new session start with the Constitution being read.  It’s because you can never assume that any Democratic politician has read the blessed thing.

As they keep demonstrating.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

The DC has the scoop*: Congress is now investigating whether the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) actually had the authority to unilaterally shut down the Yucca Mountain nuclear storage facility without Congressional authorization, given that Yucca Mountain was authorized under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982.  Furthermore, there are now serious questions about whether the NRC’s leadership – and, by extension, the Obama administration – is ignoring the actual science of the situation in favor of petty and crasss partisan politics.

This is the key paragraph, I think: it describes the background to the sudden quashing in November 2010 of a safety report on the facility.

Dr. Janet Kotra, the deputy office director responsible for drafting the [Yucca Mountain] safety evaluation, known as the Safety Evaluation Report (SER), wrote in an internal memo that [NRC Chair {and Reid crony} Gregory] Jaczko unilaterally instructed his staff to “move to orderly closure of NRC’s Yucca Mountain program.” This is despite the fact the Nuclear Waste Policy Act remains in effect and the full commission has yet to rule on whether the Department of Energy can legally withdraw the license application.

(more…)

I don’t know why he’s bothering to yell at the President over this, though: the question of whether Harry Reid has the ability to get earmarks passed into legislation was abruptly settled last November.  The House has banned them, and in case anybody was wondering whether the Republican base considers that ban to encompass the conference process where the differences between the Senate and House versions of a bill are resolved, let me clear that up: the Republican base does so consider it.

And the Republican base will get very, very loud if it even looks like the House GOP is wavering on this issue – which, I hasten to add, it does not currently appear that they are doing.  I fully expect them to stay fully righteous on earmarks, in fact. But it’s just best that everything be put on the table, all spelled out and everything, just so that there are no unfortunate misunderstandings later.  I’m sure that we all want to avoid unfortunate misunderstandings, don’t we?

Via @amandacarpenter.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

These are all subjective examinations of the current gestalt, which is a pretentious way of saying ‘They’re all WAGs.’  Caveat emptor, and all that.

• DADT Repeal: will pass.  I think that we’ve* got the votes; Northeast Republicans are just generally more comfortable with the idea; and this is one area where libertarians are going to be not in sync with social conservatives.
• DREAM Act: will not pass.  Immigration issues are very touchy right now, thanks to the Democrats’ incredibly ham-handed attempt to demonize over half of the population for daring to think that existing  federal immigration law should be, you know, taken seriously.  Supporting this will mean the difference between a credible primary challenge and a token one for at least two Republican Senators – and could easily be the last nail in the coffin for at least four Democratic ones.
• START: will pass, but the odds are almost even.  If Reid only needed sixty votes it’d pass.  It’s a treaty, so he needs sixty-seven; it’ll be a close-run thing.  I think.

Guess we’ll see tomorrow, huh?

Moe Lane

*Note pronoun.

So I see that Harry Reid has suddenly realized that he doesn’t have the votes to put together a 1.1 trillion buck omnibus pork-extravaganza.  Ain’t that a shame.  I also got sent a link to this incredibly, amazingly, and absolutely hysterical kick-sand-in-their-faces from our esteemed Republican Senators:

Minutes later, in one of the most chortling colloquies of the 111th Congress, Sens. John McCain (R-AZ) and Mark Kirk (R-IL) gloated over the defeat of the spending bill.

Kirk, the most junior member of the Senate asked, “Did we just win?”

McCain responded, “I think there’s very little doubt that the Majority Leader of the United States Senate would not have taken the action he just took if we didn’t have 41 votes to stop this monstrosity.”

Kirk continued, “so for economic conservatives, a 1,924-page bill just died?

“A 1,924-page bill just died,” McCain responded laughing.

Is it time for the Democratic party’s theme song? It is time for the Democratic party’s theme song.
(more…)

Almost as much as Harry Reid hates working for a living, apparently: the word is out that he’s going to take all that legislation that the Democrats didn’t bother working on when they had a mere 59/41 Senate majority and make Congress work on it over Christmas break… when the Democrats will have a 58/42 majority. He is also blaming this on the Republican party, of course… mostly because Reid is too lazy to come up with even a semi-plausible excuse.  Or possibly too contemptuous of the whole process; I don’t think that we’ve ever had a Senate Majority Leader who visibly enjoys the job less than Harry Reid does.  Why he kept the position is beyond me: he clearly hates it, and he’s not very good at it, and nobody really is better off for Reid keeping it.  It’s a mystery, really.

Anyway, Congressional staffers are no doubt even now calling their relatives and loved ones to tell them that, well, maybe they won’t be home for Christmas after all.  I’m reserving all my sympathies for the Republicans caught up in this last act of petulance of the 111th Congress, of course – but I’d like to remind the Democrats likewise in a vise on this one that it’s their own blessed fault, or more accurately, the fault of their various bosses.  After all, if a majority of Democratic legislators had had the guts to throw out the leadership that led them en masse into a wood chipper this November then maybe more of said legislators’ employees would actually get to go home for the holidays…

Moe Lane (crosspost)

The method is rather… elegant, in a certain sort of way: obnoxious, but elegant. What the Democrats are plotting to do is to finish passing legislation (that would appear in the continuing spending resolution that’s substituting for an actual budget) that would allow the executive branch of the government (in the guise of the Secretary of the Interior) to unilaterally take into trust land offered to them by Native American ‘tribes.’ ‘Tribes’ is in scare quotes because the new legislation makes the determination of tribal status for this purpose the sole province of… the executive branch of the government. Why this matters is because once the government has the land it can give the ‘tribe’ the use of that land back; which means that the ‘tribe’ is free to build a casino there with no interference from state governments.

This is, by the way, not an exaggeration: readers may recall that Senator Barbara Boxer’s family profited mightily earlier this decade from a similar scam involving the Miwok Indians, the Department of the Interior, and a proposed San Francisco-area casino. What this new deal would do is eliminate the need for pesky legislation granting individual recognition of tribal status: instead, groups interested in ignoring local gambling restrictions would simply apply to the Great Wh… err, the President… in Washington for the necessary permissions. And, needless to say: the Democrats are likely to look favorably on the petitions of such fine, loyal donors businessmen.

If this really bugs you, you may want to give your Senator a call at (202) 224-3121 and let him or her know that this provision shouldn’t be in the Senate version of the continuing resolution.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

H/T Instapundit.