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.

Wonderboy's Big Healthcare Lie In The State of the Union Address

I couldn't bear to watch the lengthy whining that promised to be Wonderboy's State of the Union address last night.

However, I saw salient passages on the various news programs. And the one that really struck me as the baldfaced lie our First Rookie told when he claimed to be open to ideas about health care reform.

I don't have the exact quote, but he essentially said,

'If anyone has an idea to improve the quality of health care and reduce its cost, I want to hear it!'

Of course, this is a total lie.

The Congressional Republicans put forth alternative plans and amendments addressing the following aspects of health care reform:

1. Tort reform.
2. Interstate marketing of health insurance
3. Uniform pre- or after-tax treatment of health insurance premiums
4. Removal of mandates so that each buyer may purchase exactly what health insurance fits their needs.
5. Health savings accounts.
6. Federally-provided vouchers to the poor to buy health insurance, including, if necessary, for those with pre-existing conditions, federally-supplied health insurance of last resort.

Congressional Democrats ignored all of these ideas. So did Wonderboy.

Even last night, he continued to lie through his teeth, claiming to be open to all ideas which would improve US health care.

Looks like three more years of the same from this president. A lot of self-impressing rhetoric composed mostly of lies.

Wonderboy's Disingenuous Spending "Freeze"

Only a few days ago, I wrote about Karl Rove's analysis of Wonderboy's spending binge of early 2009. Growth rates of 20%+ in some spending categories were not uncommon as part of the new administration's first fiscal moves.

Now, in addition to the Congressional Democrats' attempt to snooker Republicans into joining a 'deficit commission,' Wonderboy is floating a ploy to trap them by means of a faux spending "freeze."

The "faux" part comes from the fact that the so-called freeze will only cover about 17% of the federal budget. A mere sliver of its total outlays.

But, as Glenn Beck pointed out on his program last night, there's a seamy underside to Wonderboy's gambit.

Not only does freezing such a small portion of total federal spending, about .5%, as Beck calculated, not do much of any significance for the deficit, but, by freezing certain spending categories, the First Rookie makes them off-limits to Republican cutting, should they regain one or both Houses of Congress in November.

It's a pretty slick trick. For example, Beck pointed out that the EPA would fall under the freeze. I believe he said its budget had been swollen by 25-30% last year. Freezing it now would effectively leave such bloated spending levels intact for the rest of Wonderboy's term.

Fortunately, Americans are being bombarded with punditry exposing this expedient trick by the president. And not buying it.

Numbers after last night's State of the Union address indicated that few voters were swayed by the First Orator's magical wordsmithing. Rather than move back to the center, following three straight major Democratic losses- two governships and a Senate seat in deep-blue Massachusetts- he's moving full speed ahead to the left.

And this parlor trick of having pumped up spending levels in his favorite departments, then offering to freeze them, is cynical and disgusting In effect, Wonderboy is betting that voters are too stupid to realize what he's doing.

So much for transparency, eh?