dick durbin – Moe Lane

I maintain a certain skepticism that Dick Durbin is in all that much trouble right now.

I am… hesitant to put too much weight on this Illinois Senate poll showing Dick Durbin ahead by only seven points. Don’t get me wrong: I despise Dick Durbin for being a re-segregationist, corrupt, constitutionally ignorant hypocrite who has no feel for his constituents and no interest in their welfare. And I don’t think that Durbin can count on the Gov. Pat Quinn race giving him a boost in the election this go-round, largely because Pat Quinn is having difficulty breaking 40 in the polls himself. It’s just that it’s still really, really easy to believe that this poll is just an outlier. That’s usually the safe way to bet.

Mind you: I’d be ecstatic to find out that I was wrong, so… Jim Oberweis for Senate. Because Dick Durbin is an awful Senator and not that great a human being*. It’s long since time he found something else to do with his time.

Moe Lane

*The DC school choice thing really sticks in my craw. There’s following a policy, and then there’s just meanness. Durbin made his choice.

Democratic Senators may be starting to signal that healthcare.gov is doomed. #obamacare

I could not believe that Dianne Feinstein had said this, in response to Bob Schaffer’s pointing out that the President kept telling us that if we liked our plans, we could keep our plans:

Well, as I understand it, you can keep it up to the time — and I hope this is correct, but this is what I’ve been told — up to the time the bill was enacted, and after that, it’s a different story. I think that part of it, if true, was never made clear.

…(bolding mine) but, yeah, she did:

Continue reading Democratic Senators *may* be starting to signal that healthcare.gov is doomed. #obamacare

Harry Reid, Barack Obama fingered as sources for Dick Durbin lie about GOP.

I should not be surprised: Harry Reid is the wellspring for all clumsy lies in the Senate. But you’d think that the President wouldn’t have been this stupid.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) told his Democratic caucus last week in a private meeting that a top House Republican said to President Barack Obama, “I cannot even stand to look at you,” according to two Democratic senators who were present.

The account was confirmed by two Senate Democratic aides who said they independently learned of the exchange from other senators.

A White House official said Thursday that the administration did relay such a message to Reid, but that it was the result of a miscommunication.

Continue reading Harry Reid, Barack Obama fingered as sources for Dick Durbin lie about GOP.

Rift between Dick Durbin and… White House? [UPDATE: Durbin calls Barack Obama a liar.]

They’re starting to crack under the strain, guys.

Allegation:

A top Senate Democrat said that a leading House Republican told President Obama that they could not ‘even stand to look at you’ during negotiations over the government shutdown.

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said in a Facebook post that the alleged confrontation happened during a meeting between Republicans and the president.

Denial:

Spokesmen for both Speaker John Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor say neither official said or remembers anyone else saying they couldn’t stand to look at President Obama at a White House summit during the government shutdown, as Democratic senator Dick Durbin of Illinois alleged in a Facebook post.

“The speaker certainly didn’t say that, and does not recall anyone else doing so,” says Michael Steel, Boehner’s spokesman. Cantor spokesman Rory Cooper also says his boss did not say and does not remember anyone saying that.

Annnnd here’s the confirmation of the denial from… the White House: Continue reading Rift between Dick Durbin and… White House? [UPDATE: Durbin calls Barack Obama a liar.]

Dick Durbin desperate for Republicans to share blame on #Obamacare.

Oh, dear: it would seem that Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois is having a bit of an… incident.

[Dick] Durbin calls on Republicans to ‘change and improve’ Obamacare

In a surprise move, Illinois Senator Dick Durbin is saying it’s time to change President Obama’s signature achievement: Obamacare.Deadlines for not one but now two important pieces of Obamacare have been delayed a year. So when [Dick] Durbin, the number two Democrat in the Senate, was asked if he’s alarmed, he said it’s time to “change and improve” Obamacare.

[snip]

[Dick] Durbin is calling on Republicans to help change and improve Obamacare…

But… Republicans already have. Quite some time ago, in fact. Continue reading Dick Durbin desperate for Republicans to share blame on #Obamacare.

Chris Wallace smacks Dick Durbin over Barack Obama’s debt rhetoric hypocrisy.

I personally think that maybe Chris Wallace shouldn’t have done this to Senator Dick Durbin. Executive summary of “this:” Wallace asked Durbin why it was that President Barack Obama in 2013 declared that our $16 trillion debt was “sustainable,” when Candidate Barack Obama in 2008 declared that $9 trillion debt was “unpatriotic;” and Durbin answered the question by declaring to Wallace that Durbin had had a dry night and did not need to go potty.

Note that I am trying to give the semantic gist of the conversation, here: as Doug Power notes, Durbin didn’t even try to answer the question. Continue reading Chris Wallace smacks Dick Durbin over Barack Obama’s debt rhetoric hypocrisy.

#rsrh Chicago Tribune whines about “Durbin tax.”

They’re very upset that Senator Dick Durbin is being rather insolent:

Sen. Dick Durbin must be forgetting that once you’ve dug yourself into a deep hole, you’d best stop shoveling.

How else to explain the Illinois Democrat’s blustery reaction to the $5 a month that Bank of America Corp. plans to charge some of its customers who use debit cards? The charge, which other banks are likely to adopt, is a direct result of his lawmaking. Call it the Durbin Fee.

…but, really, why should Dick Durbin be sorry? I mean, the Chicago Tribune endorsed Durbin in 2008, and it will undoubtedly endorse Durbin in 2014. I can’t for the life of me imagine why the senior Senator from Illinois would care that the editorial board of the local paper is upset at the loss of its free checking and debit card services; what are they going to do, actively try to get a conservative elected in his place?

(Via RCP)

Moe Lane

Bank of America, CARD Act, Dodd-Frank, and soaking the poor.

See, I told you so. I freaking well TOLD YOU SO.

Congratulations, Congressional Democrats: you’ve managed to soak the working poor again.

Bank of America will start charging debit-card users $5 a month to pay for purchases. The move comes as the cards increasingly replace cash and as banks look for ways to offset the loss of revenue from a new rule that will limit how much they can collect from merchants.

Via Instapundit. You see, what happened here is that Senator Dick Durbin took a break from throwing minority kids out of private schools to extend his legislative magic to the field of merchant debit card fees. The plan? Force the banks to give up their greedy, greedy profits by limiting merchant-to-bank transaction fees, thus saving the merchants money, which they would then pass along to the customer in the form of lower prices. Which sounded… actually, it sounded stupid in theory, even then. It sounds really stupid now because Durbin and the rest of Team Jackass didn’t consider the possibility that their Congressional mishandling of the economy from 2007 to [2010] might have resulted in a poor economy in 2011. So what happened? Well, the banks still need the revenue – because of the economy – so they’re going to raise debit card fees to make up for it. And the retailers aren’t doing much better – because of the economy – so they’re not racing to lower their retail prices. Assuming that they do it at all. End result? Your monthly expenses are probably about to go up. Hope you have a job! …Oh. Right.

Oops?

Continue reading Bank of America, CARD Act, Dodd-Frank, and soaking the poor.

#rsrh Does Dick Durbin LIKE tormenting kids?

I mean, it’s kind of cruel to lie and tell a bunch of foreign-born young people (illegal aliens, to be precise) that they, too could be President some day.

Because, well, they can’t. They’re not native born citizens. Which Dick knows; indeed, he probably has that portion of the Constitution freaking memorized by now, given how often his party has been screaming about the Dread Birther Menace since 2008. There’s really no excuse to get that wrong if you’re a sitting Senator, in other words. Continue reading #rsrh Does Dick Durbin LIKE tormenting kids?

Durbin to Obama: ‘YOU LIE!’ #rsrh

[UPDATE] Welcome, Instapundit & Hot Air readers.

…well, as much as a Democratic party career politician can manage it, at least:

Which is to say, it’s even money that Dick Durbin (D, IL) isn’t sufficiently aware of the political battlespace to know that he had called the head of his political party a liar.

Moe Lane

[UPDATE]: Ed Morrissey is collecting reactions. And The New Ledger beat me out on using my own video…