Vice President Biden visited the New Flyer bus company for a townhall meeting to explain the impact that the stimulus would soon have on St. Cloud. Unfortunately, we’re still waiting for the Stimulus Czar to cut through the red tape. We’re still waiting for the money so we can start working on a few of those shovel-ready jobs the administration touted just months ago.

By now, this city an hour northwest of the Twin Cities was supposed to be a stimulus boomtown. Home to New Flyer, the largest manufacturer of hybrid buses, St. Cloud was poised to benefit from a big chunk of the $8.4 billion in public transit money tucked into the stimulus package.

In March, the city drew Vice President Joe Biden and four Cabinet secretaries for a town hall at the factory. They promised that the stimulus would invest in transportation, energy and education and create a new “green” middle class and good-paying jobs — not a year from now but this spring and summer.

So where do things stand?

Five months since the bill was signed, New Flyer has yet to report hiring anybody because of the stimulus. The city’s main stimulus road project hasn’t started. Nor has the upgrade of the veterans’ hospital heating and cooling system, the $1.6 million project to rehabilitate foreclosed homes, the weatherization job at City Hall or the new jet bridge at St. Cloud Regional Airport.

St. Cloud’s experience is like that of many American cities, still waiting for that promised influx of stimulus cash and wondering when it’s going to get here. “We were hopeful that from transportation to wastewater to cops, those things would be almost immediate,” Mayor Dave Kleis said, “and we haven’t seen that.”

Last Thursday, I spoke with Mayor Kleis about the inaction on the stimulus funds. He explained that he isn’t bitter about the money not getting here post haste. He’s simply reacting to the reporter’s question on why it hasn’t arrived yet.

Jack Kelly, one of my favorite columnsts, writes that Mayor Kleis isn’t the only person waiting:

Speaking in Cincinnati to a crowd of “about 200,” some of them protesters, Mr. Biden asked for patience. “Remember we’re only 140 days into this deal,” he said. “It’s supposed to take 18 months.”

This isn’t what Mr. Obama and his aides were saying in February. Back then we were told the $787 billion stimulus bill had to be rushed through Congress to keep unemployment from rising to 8 percent.

“No one in the House read that bill because the urgency was such that the president said we had to act now and if we acted now, we would stave off job loss and we’d get America back to work,” recalled Rep. Eric Cantor, R-VA, the GOP whip.

It’s insulting that President Obama and Vice President Biden are attempting to rewrite history. Here’s what President Obama said in February:

In February, Mr. Obama said this about the goals of his stimulus package: “I think my initial measure of success is creating or saving four million jobs.” He later explained the stimulus’s $787 billion would “go directly to…generating three to four million new jobs.” And his Council of Economic Advisors issued an official analysis showing that the unemployment rate would top out in the third quarter of this year at just over 8%.

Now he’s singing a different tune:

President Barack Obama said his $787 billion stimulus bill “has worked as intended” as he pushed back against Republican criticism that his recovery program has failed to rescue the economy.

“It has already extended unemployment insurance and health insurance to those who have lost their jobs in this recession,” Obama, who is traveling today in Ghana, said in his weekly Saturday radio and Web address. “It has delivered $43 billion in tax relief to American working families and business.”

Meanwhile, Mayor Kleis waits for Vice President Biden to stop thinking like a Washington, DC insider and start cutting through the red tape. Had Vice President Biden done that in, say, mid-February, St. Cloud’s shovel-ready construction projects would be underway, New Flyer would be building additional buses and unemployment might not’ve skyrocketed to 9.5 percent.

The bigger lesson in all this is that we shouldn’t have expected people without executive experience to think about cutting red tape. Unfortunately, that’s what happens when legislators become chief executives. Unfortunately, we didn’t learn that quickly enough.

Comments welcome at LFR.

Last Friday, I did a breakfast interview with Dave Borgert. Dave is the director of Government Relations at CentraCare Health System here in St. Cloud. For over 90 minutes, Dave fielded my questions and King’s questions. The wealth of information I gained from this interview left me overwhelmed. Processing that much information is difficult enough. (Storing that much information takes it to an entirely different level.)

Several things must be shared with you so you can better understand the health care debate.

1. When Medicare decides how much they’re paying for a procedure, it doesn’t have anything to do with whether that payment covers the cost of that procedure. The principle of supply and demand doesn’t play a significant role in determining payments. Medicare totals up how many angioplasties were done, how many MRIs were done, etc. Then they look at how much money Congress appropriated for Medicare. Once the Medicare budget is set, then a cost per procedure is established.

2. The ‘Medicare is more efficient than private insurance’ meme is a myth. Dave said that the way that Medicare can say that only 2% of the Medicare budget is spent on administrative costs is because billing is the only thing that’s counted as an administrative costs. Things like processing referrals, doublechecking what was done, whether it’s dispensing medication or IVs or whatever, are counted as patient care.

While it’s true that dispensing medication or IVs genuinely is patient care, having an administrator verify what supplies were used shouldn’t be counted as patient care. The best way to describe the administrative cost comparisons is that it’s an apples to green beans comparison. They’re that dissimilar.

3. The way that CanadaCare works is that each province is given a “global budget.” Their global budget doesn’t all go to patient care and administration. Part of their budget goes to nursing and medical schools. Another part goes to research grants. There are other things that must be paid for from this global budget, too. After these things have been paid for, what’s left is what’s actually spent on patients.

When the MRI budget reaches zero, the rest of the people needing MRIs are put on a waiting list until the next budget is appropriated.

QUESTION: How many people think that waiting 2-3 months to start chemotherapy is the type of system we should aspire to?

4. CanadaCare doesn’t include a perscription drug benefit. Let’s repeat that; CanadaCare doesn’t include a perscription drug benefit. While it’s true that perscription drugs are cheaper in Canada, it’s equally true that they’re paid for by the patient or by their supplemental insurance policy.

That’s something that you won’t hear President Obama or Ted Kennedy or other single-payer advocates talk about. You won’t hear them say that CanadaCare doesn’t pay for perscriptions. I don’t think Ted Kennedy or Max Baucus would write legislation that didn’t include perscriptions. It’s just that that’s another thing that will run up the cost of ObamaCare.

5. Medicare doesn’t negotiate prices. It sets prices. Here’s the definition of negotiate:

to arrange for or bring about by discussion and settlement of terms

Medicare tells pharmaceutical companies what they’ll pay for prescriptions. The pharmaceuticals accept this because they know that they can charge a much higher price to people with private insurances. That’s where cost-shifting starts. (The VA hospitals essentially operates the same way.)

If you want the perfect real-life illustration of what happens when a ‘public option’ or single-payer plan is implemented, just read Ed’s post about the baby that was born 14 weeks premature:

A critically-ill premature-born baby from Hamilton is all alone in a Buffalo, N.Y., hospital after she was turned away for treatment at local facility and transferred across the border without her parents, who don’t have passports.

Ava Stinson was born Thursday at St. Joseph’s Hospital, 14 weeks premature. A provincewide search for an open neonatal intensive care unit bed came up empty, leaving no choice but to send the two pound, four ounce baby to Buffalo.

Her parents Natalie Paquette and Richard Stinson couldn’t follow their child because as of June 1, a passport is required to cross the border into the United States. They’re having to approve medical procedures over the phone and are terrified something will happen to their baby before they get there.

Ed’s commentary is spot on:

But why wasn’t there a NICU bed for the child in the entire nation of Canada? The government of Canada won’t pay for more. They don’t exist to expand supply to meet demand; their single-payer system exists to ration care as a cost-saving mechanism. In a free-market system, supply expands to meet demand, which is why Canada could subcontract out to a US hospital for capacity. Michael writes that paragraph as if it was mere luck that an NICU bed happened to be open in the US, but that’s a function of the system, and not luck. These parents are separated from their child at the moment through the fault of Canada’s government and not the US.

As I mentioned earlier, Medicare’s payment system doesn’t care about supply and demand. They’re just interested in keeping costs down by utilizing a low-profile const control system. Medicare can’t afford to start paying according to the principles of supply and demand; their cost controls won’t allow them to consider supply and demand principles.

Our health care system can’t function in a price control world because there wouldn’t be an incentive for pharmaceutical companies to invest in R & D. The minute that that incentive disappears, then the race to the bottom is just an eventuality.

That’s a race that’s best not run.

Friday afternoon, I interviewed Rep. Charles Boustany, (R-LA), on the subject of health care in general and the ‘private option’ provisions specifically. Let’s start with a little bit of background on Rep. Boustany.

Before he became Rep. Boustany, he was Dr. Boustany. Rep. Boustany was a practicing physician for over 20 years, with the last 14 years specializing in heart surgery.

The first thing that I asked Rep. Boustany about was what he was hearing in terms of the pace at which health care hearings would be proceeding. He said that he’d heard that Sen. Baucus had delayed his initial hearing until next week, mostly because they were balking at the high price tag, which was estimated at $1,300,000,000,000.

The word is that they won’t get far with this bill until it’s trimmed below $1,000,000,000,000.

Rep. Boustany said that he’s hearing that the House Ways and Means Committee is having difficulties getting their act together. He said that they’re having trouble figuring out which taxes to increase to pay for the high pricetag for the public option.

Another question I asked was whether there was increased public  pressure being put on Blue Dog and swing district Democrats by John Q. Public. Rep. Boustany said that that’s definitely happening. He reported, too, that there’s alot of grumbling behind the scenes because they aren’t willing to openly criticize House leadership.

The next subject we talked about was whether government was capable of efficiently administering the changing world of health care. Rep. Boustany said that, based on his personal experiences dealing with government regulators, that the answer to that question was a definite no. Rep. Boustany said that the government is incapable of the type of flexibility that’s needed.

Rep. Boustany also said that the doctor-patient relationship shouldn’t be discounted in these considerations. He said that doctors, working in concert with their patients, make the type of quality decisions that bureaucrats can’t possibly make.

Another topic that we discussed was regulations/mandate-oriented health care vs. cafeteria-style health care. Rep. Boustany said that giving patients the widest variety of choices is the centerpiece of the Patients’ Choice Act. He said that minimizing the number of mandates will drive down both health costs and health insurance premiums while giving the patients a high quality insurance policy.

He pointed out, too, that that’s the best way to spur competition. Rep. Boustany said that putting a high priority on innovation, both in terms of health care and with health insurance, is a great motivator to not get complacent.

Rep. Boustany said one thing that government can do is put together a user-friendly website that tells health care consumers what policies are available from which companies. This website, we agreed, would have to be the ultimate in user friendly features and that it would have to include which hospitals and clinics do the best work for the various specialties.

Rep. Boustany said that this is likely to work because “Americans love to shop”. With more people getting dissatisfied with their current health care situation each day, the greater the likelihood that these people would find such a website helpful.

Another topic that I brought up in our conversation was that the public option is nothing more than government-imposed price controls. Rep. Boustany agreed, then said that, based on his experience with Medicare and Medicaid, that this option would cause some hospitals and clinics to shut down because they can’t survive on the Medicare/Medicaid payments.

If that became the rule rather than the exception, it would hurt quality dramatically. I suggested that people whose children have been diagnosed with cancer or whose parents just got diagnosed with Alzheimers want robust innovation.

That observation drew a swift and passionate response from Rep. Boustany. He said those are the types of health care consumers who want robust research programs because in some instances, it’s literally the difference between life and death. He said that’s especially true of heart patients.

Rep. Boustany said that having a public option included in any legislation aimed at reforming  health care is likely to be counterproductive to the goal of improving America’s health. I wholeheartedly agree and, based on the reports coming out of DC, so do alot of other people across the United States.

The next sign that this thing is collapsing under its own weight will be when Democrats start speaking out against a public option.
This is just speculation but I’m betting that’ll happen well before the August Recess.

Finally, I’d like to thank Rep. Boustany for taking the time out of his busy voting schedule for this interview and for his Rick Curtsinger, his press secretary for getting the interview scheduled.

Comments welcome at LFR.

I just finished interviewing Rep. Lee Terry, (R-NE), about the House Cap and Trade legislation. I’d like to thank Rep. Terry, who was more than generous with his time today.

The first question I hasked Rep. Terry was whether there was any breaking news from today’s hearing. He said that David Sokol’s testimony put the Democrats on the defensive. Rep. Terry said that his staff will be posting the video of that later today.

Rep. Terry also made mention of the fact that the Blue Dogs had either been bought off or they were threatened into supporting this legislation. Rep. Collin Peterson threatened to kill the bill unless he got some concessions for Red River Valley farmers. It was Rep. Terry’s understanding that Rep. Peterson has now agreed to hold a single hearing on the bill and that he’s now supporting it. Rep. Terry said that he couldn’t confirm whether Rep. Peterson had won any concessions from Waxman-Markey.

What he was sure of is that alot of additional allowances were given on a purely political basis to buy Democratic votes. I asked whether the committee used a formula to determine their caps. Rep. Terry confirmed that that hadn’t happened. Rep. Terry noted that Republicans weren’t in the room when these caps were determined.

I said that it sounded like the bill was a purely political bill than a science-based bill. Rep. Terry said that that was an accurate description. On the issue of science, I asked whether CO2 was considered a pollutant prior to the writing of this bill. Rep. Terry said one of the provisions in the bill is to designate CO2 as a pollutant.

I asked Rep. Terry if Republicans were putting a graphic together showing which congressional districts had won additional allowances. I was told that that type of chart hadn’t been put together but that he’d put his staff on that ASAP. Check back to this blog to look the chart over.

What I’m looking for is to see if there’s (a) a correlation between the additional allowances and Blue Dogs, (b) a correlation between the additional allowances and Democrats in general and (c) there are any Republicans who got additional allowances. I’ll be surprised if any Republicans got additional allowances.

Finally, I told Rep. Terry about Minnesota State Rep. Mike Beard’s, (R-Prior Lake), contention that solar and wind will never produce enough energy to be a baseline energy. Rep. Terry agreed that that won’t happen anytime soon. I asked Rep. Terry if he agreed that, at this point, green energy was an expensive form of energy. Rep. Terry strongly agreed with that.

Again, I’d like to thank Rep. Terry for taking the time for this interview and I’d like to thank his staff for putting this interview together. This was an informative interview, something that gave me alot of information to process.

Finally, I was impressed with Rep. Terry’s on-point, concise answers. I didn’t get any answers that were evasive or long-winded. I just got alot of facts about the process and about the minor role that science is playing in putting this bill together.

Comments welcome at LFR.

I spent Wednesday night watching FNC’s coverage of the Tea Parties. The primary event locations were Atlanta and DC. Wednesday afternoon, Neil Cavuto did his show from Sacramento, CA. It was there that Mr. Cavuto made an important observation.

What Mr. Cavuto said was that these rallies weren’t only about taxes, that they were driven as much by people feeling that their money was being spent on low priority items or on pork. That’s something I agree with but it isn’t the only subplot to these rallies.

While it’s true that these rallies had alot of things that conservative could rally around, there were lots of things that appeal to John Q. Public, too. Anti-bailout signs were plentiful at the St. Cloud rally. Anti-stimulus bill signs were plentiful, too. In fact, I saw signs mocking Congress for voting for the stimulus bill without reading it.

Two messages came from these events, with equal amounts of passion. Both were directed at Washington. One of those messages was that We The People are upset that legislators vote on bills spending hundreds of dollars that they didn’t bother to read. People are telling legislators that they demand they do their job, including doing their due diligence.

Another message that we sent to Washington and to our political leaders was that it was time that they shut up and listen to us for a change. I’m not expecting this to change overnight. I’m not that naive. I expect people to start listening after large numbers of incumbents who voted for the bailouts and the stimulus bill get ushered into early retirement.

The first rule of getting the politicians’ attentions is defeating his allies. A politician’s first instinct is their re-election instinct. Harnessing the energy from yesterday’s event hinges on core principles.

Follow this link to read the rest of this post.

This afternoon’s blogger conference call with Rep. Jordan, Rep. Kirk & Rep. McCarthy was fascinating. I said in this post that the most appalling information of the call was that the C & T tax increase would wipe out Obama’s middle class tax cuts & then some. It’s disgusting to hear that bunch of elitists talk like they’re the people standing between the greedy corporations & the working poor.

I’ll say this bluntly: They’re fianancial wolves in sheeps’ clothing.

Promoted from the diaries by Erick.

What you are about to read is how one of the attorneys working for the Franken campaign tried to eliminate a legally cast absentee ballot because it was a vote for Sen. Coleman. What you are about to read is a firsthand report from the man who witnessed this play out right in front of him. Sit down and read Chris Tiedeman’s account of an eventful episode in the recount process. Just be prepared to get very, very angry.

Read More →

The DCCC is launching a campaign against 28 Republican representatives. The official title of this campaign is Putting Families First. <a href=”http://dccc.org/blog/archives/dccc_announces_families_first_ad_campaign/” target=”_blank”><strong><span style=”color:#cc0000;”>In their press release</span></strong></a>, they make this outlandish statement:

<blockquote>House Republicans just don’t get it. They celebrate being the party of no and status quo, while more than 2.6 million Americans have lost their jobs, the stock market has plummeted wiping out nearly $7 trillion stock market wealth and endangering thousands of investors’ nest eggs, and one in 10 homeowners was delinquent on mortgage payments or in foreclosure this fall.</blockquote>What the Democrats lack in intelligent policy proposals, they make up for in chutzpah. The bill that House Democrats passed <a href=”http://www.letfreedomringblog.com/?p=3522” target=”_blank”><strong><span style=”color:#cc0000;”>included $4,190,000,000 in “neighborhood stabilization activities”</span></strong></a> led by ACORN and like-minded organizations. How is that putting families first?

Until President Obama foolishly picked a fight with Rush, the bill contained $200,000,000 for maintaining the National Mall and manicuring the lawn surrounding the National Mall. How is that putting families first?

Because Ms. Pelosi’s Democrats put together a bill that spends unprecedented amounts of money but doesn’t produce much, we’ll soon get hit with high inflation rates. High inflation rates are essentially a hidden tax on families, eroding their buying power and their abiliity to save for retirement and their children’s college educations. How is that putting families first?

Now is the time for Chairman Steele to put a working group together to put our pro-prosperity agenda together. Name Newt as the group’s chairman. Include legislators like Jim DeMint, Eric Cantor and Paul Ryan on that working group. Putting Washington outsiders like Carly Fiorina and/or Fred Smith on the panel would give the panel instant credibility.

Most importantly, it would produce an agenda that truly puts families first.

Putting a fact-based rapid response team is important, too. The RRT’s priumary responsibilities would include issuing statements on the pork and bad policies contained in the Democrats’ legislation. It would also include highlighting the unsustainable spending contained in the Democrats’ bills.

Something that shouldn’t be part of the RRT’s responsibilities is engaging in tit-for-tat sniping matchings. The goal of every communication should be to persude people to join our movement. It shouldn’t be about sounding snippy. When you criticize portions of the Democrats’ agenda, stick with the facts. Don’t get personal.

Something else that should be in the RRT’s toolbox should be a sense of humor. Poking fun at the Democrats’ policies highlights what needs highlighting without sounding irritable. It’s ok to stick the proverbial dagger in. It’s just best if you do that with a smile on your face and a cheerful disposition.

Here’s another portion of the Democrats’ misinformation campaign:

<blockquote>According to Politico, House Republicans celebrated voting against economic recovery while at their retreat last week:

But the mood Thursday night here at the posh Homestead Resort was buoyant after Wednesday’s vote, in which every Republican opposed the Democrats’ stimulus bill. The assembled Republicans rose in a standing ovation Thursday night when Minority Leader John A. Boehner of Ohio showed them a C-SPAN video of the vote itself, according to people present.</blockquote>While it’s true that small portions of Ms. Pelosi’s bill would have provided economic stimulus, it’s more accurate to say that large chunks of the bill are payoffs to the Democrats’ political allies. The payoff portions of the bill do nothing to stimulate the economy. These parts of the bill will, however, trigger high inflation rates.

Here’s the real choice that Leader Boehner and Minority Whip Cantor: They could vote for a fatally flawed bill that would’ve hurt American families with high inflation and high unemployment rates or they could vote against it and tell Speaker Pelosi and President Obama that they wouldn’t sign onto was more about paying off the Democrats’ political allies than it did in terms of advancing policies that would lead us back to sustained prosperity.

It’s worth noting that Republicans didn’t just oppose the Democrats’ pork plan. <a href=”http://www.letfreedomringblog.com/?p=3549″><strong><span style=”color:#cc0000;”>They offered an alternative plan</span></strong></a> which would’ve put people back to work.

The difference between the Democrats’ bill and the House Republicans’ bill is that the Democrats’ bill is filled with pork while the House Republicans’ bill includes tax cuts that put people back to work.

The House Republicans’ bill is the only plan that substantively put families first. We should cheerfully preach that message to anyone who’ll listen because it’s a great message about real hope and intelligent change.

Comments welcome at LFR.

<a href=”http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090112/ap_on_re_us/fleeing_california_3” target=”_blank”><strong><span style=”color:#cc0000;”>This AP article</span></strong></a> lists several indicators that have been emerging that California’s irresponsible behavior is driving people away:

<blockquote>Mike Reilly spent his lifetime chasing the California dream. This year he’s going to look for it in Colorado. With a house purchase near Denver in the works, the 38-year-old engineering contractor plans to move his family 1,200 miles away from his home state’s lemon groves, sunshine and beaches. For him, years of rising taxes, dead-end schools, unchecked illegal immigration and clogged traffic have robbed the Golden State of its allure.

Is there something left of the California dream?

“If you are a Hollywood actor,” Reilly says, “but not for us.”

Since the days of the Gold Rush, California has represented the Promised Land, an image celebrated in the songs of the Beach Boys and embodied by Silicon Valley’s instant millionaires and the young men and women who achieve stardom in Hollywood.

But for many California families last year, tomorrow started somewhere else.

The number of people leaving California for another state outstripped the number moving in from another state during the year ending on July 1, 2008. California lost a net total of 144,000 people during that period, more than any other state, according to census estimates. That is about equal to the population of Syracuse, N.Y.</blockquote>Why should people stay when California’s government has been so utterly irresponsible? Taxes keep rising. California’s deficits aren’t eliminated. They aren’t even reduced. Gov. Ahnold and the legislature can’t find a way to stop spending money they don’t have. The last governor that acted in anything resembling a fiscally responsible way was Pete Wilson.

In short, the supposedly enlightened people of California can’t figure out a way to balance a budget because their enlightened priorities are making matters worse with no end in sight. Fiscal restraint is now extinct in most parts of California. At minimum, it’s on the endangered species list.

If they don’t start acting with fiscal restraint, California will become the Michigan of the Left Coast.

<blockquote>Why are so many looking for an exit?

Among other things: California’s unemployment rate hit 8.4 percent in November, the third-highest in the nation, and it is expected to get worse. A record 236,000 foreclosures are projected for 2008, more than the prior nine years combined, according to research firm MDA DataQuick. Personal income was about flat last year.
With state government facing a $41.6 billion budget hole over 18 months, residents are bracing for higher taxes, cuts in education and postponed tax rebates. A multibillion-dollar plan to remake downtown Los Angeles has stalled, and office vacancy rates there and in San Diego and San Jose surpass the 10.2 percent national average.</blockquote>California doesn’t really have much of a choice in raising taxes at this point. Raising taxes alone won’t solve California’s problems, either. California’s appetite for irresponsible spending must end. That won’t happen with spend-happy Ahnold. That won’t happen with this spend-happy legislature, either.

The only thing that will pull California out of their financial trainwreck is fiscal restraint, limited government, intelligent priorities and leadership that says, metaphorically speaking, the children can’t have dessert until they’ve finished their homework and eaten their vegetables.

I haven’t seen proof that any of California’s politicians are capable of or interested in providing that type of leadership. Without leadership and without restraint, California will be stuck in this hole for the forseeable future.

If ever there was a time when California needed adult management, it’s now. Let’s hope that leadership arrives soon. It can’t afford this pattern much longer.

Comments are welcome at LFR.

Democrats like portraying themselves as the African-American community’s best friend. That image will take a hit next Tuesday when Roland Burris will attempt to be sworn in as senator. The Democrats’ image will take a hit because <a href=”http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/01/01/aides-democrats-have-plan-if-burris-shows-up/” target=”_blank”><strong><span style=”color:#cc0000;”>Democrats won’t permit Burris to enter the Senate chamber</span></strong></a>:

<blockquote>Senate Democratic leaders think Roland Burris, Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich’s pick to fill President-elect Barack Obama’s vacant Senate seat, will likely show up on Capitol Hill Tuesday for the opening day of Congress, according to a Democratic aide familiar with Senate Democratic leaders’ plans.

They have prepared a contingency plan in case he does, the aide added. Burris will not be allowed on the Senate floor, according to this aide and a Senate Democratic leadership aide.

The aide familiar with Senate Democratic leaders’ plans said if Burris tries to enter the Senate chamber, the Senate doorkeeper will stop Burris. If Burris were to persist, either trying to force his way onto the Senate floor or refusing to leave and causing a scene, U.S. Capitol Police would stop him, said the aide. “They (police) probably won’t arrest him” but they would call the sergeant-at-arms,” the aide said.</blockquote>Frankly, the Democrats’ strategy sounds eerily similar to when <a href=”http://www.ccom.ua.edu/od/article_hood.shtml” target=”_blank”><strong><span style=”color:#cc0000;”>Gov. George Wallace stood in the doorway at the University of Alabama</span></strong></a> in a symbolic attempt to block two black students from enrolling at the school. The world has changed but the Democrats’ racist tendencies still exist. In fact, it doesn’t sound like their strategies have changed since June, 1963.

Former Black Panther <a href=”http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/01/democrats_should_wait_out_blaj.html” target=”_blank”><strong><span style=”color:#cc0000;”>Bobby Rush sees the similarities</span></strong></a> too:

<blockquote>Rep. Bobby Rush entered the Racial Politics Hall of Fame on Tuesday when he asked reporters not to “hang or lynch the appointee as you try to castigate the appointer.” The Chicago Democrat, who only recently said that Blagojevich did not have the standing to fill the seat, raised the stakes Wednesday on CBS by suggesting that if Democratic senators rejected Burris, they would risk comparisons with George Wallace or Bull Connor.</blockquote>I haven’t made a habit of agreeing with Bobby Rush but I’ll make an exception this time. I wouldn’t be surprised if this is the only time I’ll agree with him.

It can’t be highlighted enough that the Democrats are both corrupt (see Bill Jefferson, Rod Blagojevich and Paul Kanjorski) and racist (See Harry Reid). What type of political party puts plans in place to prevent a relatively qualified black man from becoming a U.S. senator? That’s unacceptable behavior, especially for the 21st Century. I didn’t think that we’d ever see that type of behavior by the Senate Democratic leadership but I’ll admit that I was wrong.

The Democrats’ behavior is appalling, disgusting, disturbing and racist. Shame on them for returning to the tactics of George Wallace.

I said here that Sen. Chambliss’ victory eliminated Al Franken’s Senate Option.

Promoted from the diaries by Erick.

I’ve been tracking the Coleman-Franken recount for a week now. My latest post focuses on Franken turning his attention to the rejected absentee ballots. He’s doing that because Sen. Coleman’s lead has grown through the recount. Franken can’t defeat Sen. Coleman without judicial intervention.

I said here that “ballots will decide this election, not partisans.

I’ll be liveblogging this morning’s Canvassing Board’s hearing where they’ll vote on whether they’ll rule on the absentee ballots or if that will be something for the courts to decide.

Each election, candidates are scrutinized from a variety of directions and on an even wider variety of issues. Two issues that shouldn’t be debated, though, are the First Amendment and our nation’s prosperity. With that in mind, every candidate or incumbent nationwide should answer some questions on those subjects. Let’s get to the questions:

Do you support reviving the Fairness Doctrine? If you do, explain why? If you don’t, why not? Please keep your answers as precise and on point as possible.

If you support the Fairness Doctrine, outline with specificity how it could be implemented. Also, explain what impact it would have on the radio industry.

To House candidates:

Do you support Rep. Michael Capuano’s proposal to make it mandatory that representatives get prior approval to post work-related content on blogs, YouTube and other websites containing advertising on them? If you support it, why do you support it? If you don’t, why don’t you?

To all candidates and incumbents:

Read More →