It’s Only Unfair When The Other Guys Do It

John Hinderaker at Power Line posted an article today about a video  Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labor, has done for the Democrat Senatorial Campaign. The video warns that if the Republicans take over the Senate, they might use a “tricky, little-known maneuver” to “ram through” their “right-wing policies” with only 51 votes, instead of the 60 votes “usually required” in the Senate. In case you have forgotten, that ‘tricky little-known maneuver’ is called reconciliation and was used by the Democrats to pass ObamaCare.

On October, 18, 2011, James Capretta posted an article at National Review which stated the following:

Without reconciliation, Obamacare would not have become law at all. It’s true that the main Obamacare structure was passed by the Senate in December 2009 under normal rules for legislative consideration. That’s because Democrats at that time had 60 votes (including two independent senators who caucus with them). They didn’t need to resort to reconciliation to pass the bill as long as  all 60 of their senators stuck together and supported passage, which they did.

But then Scott Brown won the Massachusetts Senate race in January 2010; the Democrats lost their 60-vote supermajority and could no longer close off debate on legislation without the help of at least one Republican senator.

At that point, the president and his allies had two choices. They could compromise with Republicans and bring back a bill to the Senate that could garner a large bipartisan majority. Or they could ignore the election results in Massachusetts and pull an unprecedented legislative maneuver, essentially switching from regular order to reconciliation at the eleventh hour, thereby bypassing any need for Republican support. As they had done at every other step in the process, the Democrats chose the partisan route. They created a separate bill, with scores and scores of legislative changes that essentially became the vehicle for a House-Senate conference on the legislation. That bill was designated a reconciliation bill. Then they passed the original Senate bill through the House on the explicit promise that it would be immediately amended by this highly unusual reconciliation bill, which then passed both the House and Senate a few days later, on an entirely party-line vote.

The article at Power Line states:

Reich knows all of this, but he is secure in the knowledge that the Democrats’ rank and file, including the donors to whom MoveOn’s video is addressed, are ignorant of the most basic facts of government and do not have memories that reach back to the distant past of 2010. So there is no effective constraint on dishonesty if you are a Democrat bent on fundraising.

In order to survive, a representative republic needs an informed electorate. It is unfortunate that at the moment America does not have one.

What Are The Odds That There Will Be A New Democrat Senate Candidate In Massachusetts Before November ?

Breitbart.com posted an article today about some recipes submitted by Massachusetts Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren to the POW WOW CHOW cookbook. Howie Carr, a Boston talk-radio host, has uncovered some information that seems to show that the recipes were plagiarized. The information is posted on Howie Carr’s website. You can compare the recipes for yourself.

Ms. Warren has had a rough couple of weeks. There are a lot of unanswered questions about her supposed Indian heritage (which was very valuable in advancing her career) and now the POW WOW CHOW recipes look less than authentic. Ms. Warren has been raising money to run against Scott Brown for quite some time and has amassed a substantial war chest. Is that a guarantee that she will get the Democrat nomination? The Democrats pulled a switch in a New Jersey Senate election a few years ago (google “Jon Corzine”–it may take you a while to get the whole story!), but I don’t think they will do that is Massachusetts.

DaTechGuy, a Massachusetts blogger, recently had a few thoughts on the subject–he pointed out that Marsia DeFranco (the other Democrat running in the Primary) is not setting the world on fire:

Marsia DeFranco has been a candidate for the US Senate since last year and has been campaigning since then. Her fundraising has been so successful that her campaign couldn’t loan me the money to replace my furnace even if it wanted to.

But money isn’t everything what about press. Lets look at how much coverage she has generated:

I did an exact search for the Name “Marisa DeFranco” in Google news over the last year (5/16/11 – 5/16/12) sorted by date, I got 208 results shown via 6 pages.

This is going to be an interesting November.

 

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The War On Cupcakes In Massachusetts

When California schools put in place a strict ban on any kind of junk food vending machines in their schools, young entrepreneurs quickly got busy and made a fortune selling twizzlers and Hersey bars. Are the new Department of Public Health rules going to create a legion of young brownie bakers? Well, Massachusetts may have slightly more common sense than California. (Really???)

The Boston Herald reported today:

State lawmakers overturned a controversial ban on school bake sales this afternoon after a fierce public outcry over school nutrition guidelines that also prohibited pizza, white bread and 2 percent milk.

…State Rep. Brad Hill (R-Ipswich) offered the amendment, which leaves it up to local school committees whether to adopt the Department of Public Health rules, after hearing about an Ipswich school arts group that would have had to cancel bake-sale field trip fundraisers and fielding complaints from the local football Boosters concerned about their concession stands.

The bill now has to pass the Massachusetts Senate and be signed by the Governor.

I am just not convinced that this is the correct approach to obesity. Two percent milk is not a major cause of obesity. When the generation over fifty grew up, most of us drank whole milk–we were generally not obese children. Every Friday, the school served pizza for lunch. Generally white bread was the most popular kind. What has changed? How about ending recess, banning tag, banning dodge ball? Did those things have more of an impact that two percent milk? I suspect they did. Video games have not helped either (although I am probably addicted to angry birds.)

Don’t do away with bake sales–I suspect that those foods baked at home are healthier than those foods bought in the store. Also, I love the chocolate chip cookies!

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