Paul Kanjorski's Progressivism Shows

Paul Kanjorksi is a Pennsylvania Democrat and Representative.

Why, then is he so passionate about ending the Senate's rule that legislation must pass with 60 votes?

Yesterday morning, on CNBC, Kanjorski displayed his Progressive stripes prominently. Just as Glenn Beck has warned, when the going gets tough, the Democratic Progressives are stepping on the accelerator.

To wit, Kanjorski began whining about how some health care had to pass. That it was the duty of Congress to govern.

Nevermind concerns over what they pass. He actually said passage was the most important thing. That Republicans' preferences for other elements in a health care bill were now simply getting in the way of some sort of legislation. So they'll have to be ignored.

So will public preferences to not have the Democrats' ill-conceived health care "reform."

Thus, Kanjorski allied himself with Barney Frank, another Congressional Democrat and non-Senator, in calling for the Senate to rid itself of its 60-vote rule, and pass health care 59-41.

Content for decades with the cloture rule, and happy to obstruct legislation they didn't like since their 1994 loss of control of the House and earlier loss of control of the Senate, Democrats now find it objectionable.

Kanjorski put on display a naked contempt for voters' wishes, claiming that whoever was the majority in Congress had the duty, obligation and, thus, right to pass whatever they liked, because, well, people want active governance. He went so far as to mock-humbly say that even if members of Congress became unpopular and weren't re-elected, it was their duty to give people these new laws. After all, some laws are, according to Kanjorski & Co., better than no new laws.

Even if the new laws violate campaign promises, aren't widely supported, and are pushed via lies and financial sleights of hand.

It's very troubling when Representatives begin agitating for the other House to change its rules. Why, on earth, should a Representative concerning her- or himself with the Senate's rules?

This clearly smacks of Progressive desperation. So desperate that they will just start changing rules which no longer suit them, in naked pursuit of their goals, irrespective of what voters have expressed as their preferences.

We can only hope that Kanjorski's district sees him for the anti-Constitutionalist that he is, and give him an opportunity for career development by electing his opponent in November.

The New Hidden Unions

Yesterday's lead staff editorial in the Wall Street Journal conveyed a chilling fact. A fact which is displayed on the nearby chart which accompanied the article.

As of last year, US public union membership surpassed that of private unions.

A little-known act in JFK's brief presidency was allowing public, state and federal government workers to unionize. In a recent piece on that topic, the author noted that even FDR and LaGuardia opposed this, because they considered government workers honor-bound to serve the people, in exchange for their public-trough-sourced jobs.

It's taken nearly 50 years, but look at the damage JFK wrought.

Here's a good example. It's from the editorial,

"The political scientists Fred Siegel and Dan DiSalvo recently wrote in the Weekly Standard about the 2006 example of former New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine shouting to a rally of 10,000 public workers that "We will fight for a fair contract." Mr. Corzine was supposed to be on the other side of the bargaining table representing taxpayers, not labor."

In the past year, the largest growth segment for employment has been.....government! And the average salary in the sector has risen, as well.

That's right. In the midst of a deep recession, government workers have benefited with more money and more jobs.

Having so many government workers leads to them organizing for higher taxes to pay...themselves. And generally swelling the public sector at the expense of the rest of us who actually work for a living.

If for only this reason, this is why outsourcing as much government work as possible to the private sector, via contracting, is a good idea.

Instead, we now have a larger union bloc voting to expand government than we have private industry union members. By comparison, the private sector unions were a mere distraction.

The John Edwards Affair Affair

The past few weeks have seen an explosion of coverage concerning one-time presidential, vice-presidential candidate, and attorney general candidate John Edwards' affair during the last presidential campaign, and subsequent birth of his illegitimate child with Rielle Hunter.

As I'm writing this, I am listening to coverage of former Edwards aide, Andrew Young, on Fox News. The full extent of Edwards' and Young's actions, lies, coverups, etc., is stunning.

As one of the participants in the Fox News discussion just noted, perhaps the worst part of the story is that our nation's liberal-leaning major news media scrupulously ignored the story throughout the campaign. Only the National Enquirer pursued it, as noted in a Wall Street Journal article by the recently-departed managing editor (or publisher- I forget which).

The Enquirer's aim was to clearly depict Edwards' willingness to lie to the media, his wife, and his staff, while also manipulating members of that staff to cover up the truth for him.

The height of this was when Edwards managed to secure Young's consent to falsely claim parentage of Hunter's baby. It's also pretty clear that Edwards funneled campaign money to Hunter, through his now-deceased finance chairman. If this is investigated by the FEC, and Edwards is determined to have falsified records of this expenditure, he could do jail time.

This has gone far, far beyond a trashy tabloid story of sexual misconduct. Edwards had himself seriously considered as the current administration's Attorney General.

The corruption and willingness to turn a blind eye to the misdeeds and lies of liberal Democratic politicians by our nation's mainstream media has become more than an annoyance or embarrassment.

This time, their dereliction almost resulted in a lying scoundrel and potential felon being named as the country's primary law enforcement official.

Fiscal Hypocrisy

Today's Wall Street Journal neatly catalogued the Senators voting against Tom Coburn's amendments to cut spending on a bill raising the federal debt ceiling. Coburn's amendments were to have saved $20B by consolidating various programs across government agencies.

Hysterically Kent Conrad, D-ND, saw his deficit commission go down in flames, then personally turned and voted against the Coburn amendments.

In all, 57 Senators failed to support Coburn's spending cuts. The Journal article notes that the Senate also voted, 61-39, to spend unobligated funds, that is, money appropriated but not yet spent, rather than simply stop the spending.

Hardly promising votes, by either party, are they?

As I believe David Walker, former budget director, said recently, you can't expect commissions in Congress to stop spending. Voters are simply going to have to elect new Senators and Representatives who will finally cut spending.

Wonderboy's Ignorance Of The Supreme Court's Recent Campaign Finance Ruling

By now, much has been written about the eight members of the Supreme Court being ambushed by Wonderboy's grossly misleading and inaccurate characterization of the recent ruling nullifying some unconstitutional elements of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law.

Some feel the court members should have had some warning about the diatribe. Others feel it's appropriate for the president, representing the executive branch, to call to attention its disagreement with the judicial branch over a particular issue.

But what's not in dispute is that Wonderboy described the decision, and its effects, completely erroneously.

For instance, he said it removed a century-old ban on corporate contributions to political campaigns.

That's not true. It simply allowed institutions, such as labor unions, corporations and non-profits, to spend their own money at any time to express their political opinions. McCain-Feingold improperly sought to muzzle free speech by restricting the time before an election during which political speech by such entities could be expressed.

Additionally, while the ruling made no mention of foreign entities, our First Lawyer claimed that it did.

If the sitting First Rookie, who is a Harvard-trained lawyer, can't get these legal points straight, just what is he supposed to be qualified to do?

It's ludicrous to see a State of the Union address contain such factual errors, and in the context of being used to browbeat the highest court in the land.

Especially when the court, for once, has rolled back government control of speech, and restored the rights of freedom of expression.