From Mark Leibovich’s This Town, Chapter 3, describing Election Night 2006, and how Senator Harry Reid responded to CNN’s declaration that Claire McCaskill of Missouri had won her Senate race:

Reid, a man of thoroughgoing cynicism, is nonetheless capable of a boyish hullabaloo at times like this. So what did Harry Reid do to mark this key step in his ascent to Senate majority leader? He rose from the couch and he kissed the TV — tenderly, caressing the screen. And then he sat back down to receive from [Sen. Chuck] Schumer something between a pat on the head and a noogie.

Well, that’s . . . unusual.

Sometimes, Harry Reid just likes to think about what a great kisser that television screen was.

UPDATE: Leibovich mentioned this kiss in a 2006 profile of Reid. Permit me to cynically conclude that had Mitch McConnell or John Boehner done the same, the anecdote would be much more widely repeated in press accounts as a detail that showcases how weird those lawmakers are.

The Tuesday edition of the Morning Jolt features unprintable words about San Diego mayor Bob Filner, new fundraising numbers in Virginia’s Senate race, a thought on stereotyping after the George Zimmerman trial, and then this thought on the “nuclear option” before the Senate . . . 

Save the Earth; Recycle the Opposition’s Old Arguments on the Filibuster

Ah, filibuster debates. So predictable.

Every Republican who wants to keep the filibuster and the current rules in place, just cite the arguments of this guy:

What [the American people] don’t expect is for one party — be it Republican or Democrat — to change the rules in the middle of the game so that they can make all the decisions while the other party is told to sit down and keep quiet.

The American people want less partisanship in this town, but everyone in this chamber knows that the majority chooses to end the filibuster. If they choose to change the rules and put an end to democratic debate, then the fighting and the bitterness and the gridlock will only get worse.

We need to rise above the “ends justify the means” mentality because we’re here to answer to the people — all of the people — not just the ones that are wearing our particular party label.

If the right of free and open debate is taken away from the minority party, and the millions of Americans who asked us to be their voice, I fear that the already partisan atmosphere in Washington will be poisoned to the point where no one will be able to agree on anything. That doesn’t serve anyone’s best interests, and it certainly isn’t what the patriots who founded this democracy had in mind. We owe the people who sent us here more than that – we owe them much more.

Those words are from then-Senator Barack Obama, speaking April 13, 2005.

Then again, maybe they can point to the arguments of this other guy:

The filibuster is not a scheme and it certainly isn’t new. The filibuster is far from a procedural gimmick. It’s part of the fabric of this institution we call the Senate. It was well-known in colonial legislatures before we became a country, and it’s an integral part of our country’s 214-year history. The first filibuster in the United States Congress happened in 1790. It was used by lawmakers from Virginia and South Carolina who were trying to prevent Philadelphia from hosting the first Congress.

Since then, the filibuster has been employed hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of times. It’s been employed on legislative matters, it’s been employed on procedural matters relating to the president’s nominations for Cabinet and sub-Cabinet posts, and it’s been used on judges for all those years. One scholar estimates that 20 percent of the judges nominated by presidents have fallen by the wayside, most of them as a result of filibusters. Senators have used the filibuster to stand up to popular presidents, to block legislation, and, yes, even, as I’ve stated, to stall executive nominees. The roots of the filibuster are found in the Constitution and in our own rules.

That, of course . . . is Senator Harry Reid of Nevada back in 2005.

Come on. We all know that any Senate Majority Leader with more than 50 votes but less than 60 votes is going to want to get rid of the filibuster, and any minority leader is going to want to keep it. Neither party has held 60 or more U.S. Senate seats since 1979. Democrats came close in the 111th Congress (the delay in Al Franken’s swearing-in, and the deaths of Ted Kennedy and Robert Byrd, all complicated the Democrats’ effort to control 60 seats) ; the Republicans had 55 in the 109th Congress. For the foreseeable future, most Senate majorities will have between 50 and 60 votes.

If you’re Harry Reid, the current intolerable situation means you need to hold your 53 votes together, keep Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Angus King of Maine on board, and then get five Republican senators to go along. That may not be easy, but it’s hardly “Mission: Impossible.” Put simply, pick five out of the following: Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Mark Kirk of Illinois, Susan Collins of Maine, Jeffrey Chiesa of New Jersey, Rob Portman of Ohio, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. As we all know, John McCain of Arizona, Marco Rubio of Florida, Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, and Orrin Hatch of Utah have been known to buck the party line, depending on the issue.

The 60-vote threshold makes sense depending upon the piece of legislation or the importance of the nominee; it’s usually a bad idea to have a sweeping change rammed through, over sizeable objections, by a bare majority. Call us when the minority demands 60 votes for renaming a post office.

Don’t listen to me, listen to Thomas Jefferson: “Great innovations should not be forced on a slender majority.”

Or for a more modern assessment, try Daniel Patrick Moynihan:

Back in 1993, when Hillary Clinton first tried to reform the nation’s health-insurance system, Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan warned about the difficulty of getting such a gargantuan bill passed: “The Senate has its own peculiar ecology,” he told me. “Something like this passes with 75 votes or not at all.” Moynihan was then chairman of the Finance Committee, the Senate’s natural choke point for big social-engineering schemes. He was worried that the Clintons, especially the First Lady, were being stubborn, trying to jam their bill through with a bare majority rather than build a bipartisan consensus.

Of course, if you subscribe to President Calvin Coolidge’s belief that “it is more important to kill bad bills than to pass good ones,” the filibuster is a beautiful, noble tool.

Hey, remember President Obama’s big rallying cry at the State of the Union, that all the various “common sense reforms” on gun control deserved a vote?

Today, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid told Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., that her assault weapons ban would not be included in the legislation brought to the floor of the Senate.

Apparently, it didn’t deserve a vote after all!

By the way, all of that chanting at the State of the Union… did everyone know they were chanting at Harry Reid?

And will the usual liberal columnists and talking heads who support gun control lash Reid now? Or will some hold their fire because he’s a Democrat?

And what will Sen. Chris Murphy, Connecticut Democrat, say in response? Last month, he said:

MURPHY: I think we will get a vote and I think we’ll get a vote because Newtown changed everything in this country. There were a lot of people wearing ribbons on the floor of the House of Representatives last night, and they were Republicans and Democrats. The NRA said yesterday they were going to wait for the “Newtown effect” or the “Connecticut effect” to dissipate before they went back to lobbying to weaken gun laws. Well, it’s not going to dissipate. The fact is that this nation has been transformed. I think the president was right to say, listen, republicans can’t hide from this. They need to call a vote on the floor of the Senate and House and tell the American public what side they are on. If Republicans want to be the party of assault weapons, of high-capacity magazine clips, they are on the wrong side of the American public and the wrong side of history.

“Newtown changed everything in this country.” No, not really.

From the final Morning Jolt of the week:

Fili-Bluster

Well, this is nice; Common Cause is irked at Harry Reid for not destroying the Republicans’ ability to filibuster legislation. And if they’re complaining, it probably means Republicans got a good deal:

Today’s announced “compromise” on Senate filibuster reform is in fact a capitulation by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who now has missed two excellent opportunities to restore the Senate to its proper role as a working legislative body, Common Cause said.

“My friend Harry Reid, the senator from Searchlight, NV, has gone missing in the fight for filibuster reform,” said Common Cause President Bob Edgar. “The deal he and Sen. McConnell have struck allows individual senators to continue blocking debate and action by the entire body and to do so without explaining themselves to their colleagues or the American people. This is not the Senate of debate and deliberation our founders envisioned.”

The Huffington Post’s coverage makes it clear: Liberals believe Harry Reid sold them out:

Progressive senators working to dramatically alter Senate rules were defeated on Thursday, with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and his counterpart, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), set to announce a series of compromise reforms on the Senate floor that fall far short of the demands. The language of the deal was obtained by HuffPost and can be read here and here.

Ed Morrissey summarized the impact at Hot Air:

If I had to guess, I’d say that the prospect of living under any other rules in the minority after 2014 prompted some moderate Democrats to slow down the “reform” train, as well as the prospect of setting a 51-vote precedent for rules changes and placing it in Republican hands in 2015. Instead of dictating an end to the filibuster, Reid ended up settling for a compromise that refines it, but essentially leaves it in the hands of the minority.

It looks as though McConnell got his wish in reforming the amendment process, too. The first section gives the right to the minority to offer amendments in rotation with the majority, which means Reid can no longer “fill the tree” by introducing enough amendments to shut out Republicans, although the schedule becomes constricted significantly if cloture is invoked for both the majority and minority.

This is a smart play for both Democrats and Republicans in trying to repair the reputation of the upper chamber. Reid, however, will come out looking like the big loser not so much for what he gave up, but for what he promised and then failed to deliver.

This may end up being a very big deal, as it appears that Speaker Boehner is trying a smarter strategy, trying to make Harry Reid the face of the opposition rather than President Obama and his bully pulpit.

The House GOP’s maneuver on the debt ceiling? We’ll give a three-month extension, in exchange for the Senate finally passing a budget — and in the process, putting every Democrat on record on just how much in tax increases would be necessary to pay for the spending they envision. You can picture the ads now: “As the national debt passed $16 trillion, Senator So-and-so voted to increase spending by another $1 trillion a year . . .” Translation, the Senate goes first, steps into the muck of unpopular budget decisions, and then then the House will act.

(For those screaming “but spending has to originate in the House!” keep in mind that this is not an appropriations bill but an authorization bill/plan; it doesn’t actually transfer money but instead just lays out a detailed proposal of the government’s financial goals and priorities.)

It’s the same deal on the president’s gun-control proposals: “If the Senate passes a bill, we will also take a look at that.” Translation, if NRA-friendly Harry Reid has something that he wants to make Mark Begich of Alaska, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Mark Pryor of Arkansas, Kay Hagan of North Carolina, Max Baucus of Montana, Tim Johnson of South Dakota, Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia (not running for reelection) and Joe Manchin of West Virginia vote on . . . that’s fine.

The first Morning Jolt of 2013:

Welcome back! I don’t know about you, but this holiday season seemed to stretch on forever — a school vacation that kept the kids at home for eleven days, an awful cold that kept getting passed around our family, a lost cell phone, a logistical and paperwork nightmare to replace the cell phone, and a steady stream of mostly miserable weather. On the bright side, I didn’t have to deal with covering the fiscal-cliff negotiations, so God bless Bob Costa.

Depress-equestration

The fiscal cliff drama is over — for now:

After exhaustive negotiations that strained the country’s patience, the House approved a bill to avert the dreaded fiscal cliff, staving off widespread tax increases and deep spending cuts.

In the 257-167 vote late Tuesday, 172 Democrats and 85 Republicans favored the bill; 16 Democrats and 151 Republicans opposed it…

While the package provides some short-term certainty, it leaves a range of big issues unaddressed.

It doesn’t mention the $16.4 trillion debt ceiling that the United States reached Monday.

It also temporarily delays for two months the so-called sequester, a series of automatic cuts in federal spending that would have taken effect Wednesday and reduced the budgets of most agencies and programs by 8% to 10%.

This means that come late February, Congress will have to tackle both those thorny issues.

Yuval Levin: “This deal is projected to yield $620 billion in revenue over a decade — increasing projected federal revenue by about 1.7% over that time. And that’s about it. The Democrats have made the Bush tax rates permanent for 98 percent of the public, which Republicans couldn’t even do when they controlled both houses of Congress and the presidency.”

The righty grassroots expressed a lot of anger, frustration, and dissatisfaction in the past few weeks. Over the past week I saw a lot of comments on Twitter in the vein of, “we have a spending problem! Why won’t Republicans insist we deal with that first!”

Fume at Speaker Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell all you want, but here’s the problem: The chance to gain leverage in these negotiations was on Election Day, and the GOP came up with bubkes that day. Sequestration and the expiration of all of the Bush tax cuts presented an awful status quo to begin with, and there was really no better alternative that would get A) passed in a Senate controlled by Harry Reid and B) signed by President Obama. They don’t want what we want, and we don’t want what they want. And time was on their side in several ways, not least of which was that as of noon Thursday, a new Congress, with even more Democrats, is sworn into office.

There was and is no magic argument, anecdote, policy detail or chart that could change that dynamic. What was worse — or perhaps, if you look at it a certain way, liberating — was that Republicans were and are just about certain to get the blame from most of the public, either for the failure to reach a deal or for the unpopular parts of any deal reached. Some of this is because of the power of the presidential bully pulpit, and some of this reflects people’s enthusiasm for taxing somebody making more money than they do. But a lot of this dynamic is because a large segment of the public just doesn’t pay attention to budget fights and doesn’t want to pay attention to budget fights. So no matter what the numbers actually say, they’re inclined to blame the party they already consider to be the problem.

Allahpundit examines those who wanted the House to vote down the deal passed by the Senate about an hour and a half into the New Year:

It’s worth driving a hard bargain to get something important done, even at the price of a backlash. Just remind me again what “important” goal will be achieved by forcing a new round of negotiations. What sort of spending cuts do you expect to see here? A trillion dollars over 10 years when we’re running trillion-dollar deficits annually? Even if they got Obama to agree to that, why would you believe that future Congresses would allow those cuts to happen down the line? This entire process is an elaborate charade designed to postpone the ultimate reckoning on entitlement reform, and you’re simply not going to wring serious entitlement reform out of the Democrats given the two parties’ current postures. Obama just won reelection; the Democrats expanded their numbers in the House and Senate; entitlement reform remains depressingly unpopular among the public despite attempts to educate them about the role mandatory spending plays in driving the national debt. House Republicans aren’t going to hold out for weeks on end in the futile hope of revamping Medicare against that backdrop while middle-class voters stew over their new, higher tax brackets. Why risk some of the GOP’s small reserve of political capital on a deal that’s only negligibly less terrible than this one? I understand the “let it burn” strategy, to force the public to fully absorb the cost of big government. I don’t understand this one.

The Washington Examiner’s Phil Klein sees the conglomeration as a mix of some modest good and some considerable bad and ugly — but points out that perhaps nothing was uglier than how this mess came to be presented to the public as the best option:

Conservatives believe that higher taxes are a bad thing, that the tax code needs to be dramatically overhauled and that the true driver of long-term debt is out of control spending, particularly on entitlements. For those who thought it was possible to emerge from the “fiscal cliff” showdown without tax increases, with genuine tax reform and with real spending cuts that made fundamental changes to entitlements, this deal is obviously a nonstarter. For those who assumed that President Obama’s reelection and continued Democratic control of the Senate at a time when the nation was facing an automatic $4.5 trillion tax hike would inevitably mean higher taxes without actual tax or entitlement reforms, the deal is less bad.

. . . Beyond the specifics of the deal, the process was awful. Even though lawmakers knew this reality was coming for two years (on the tax side) and a year (on the sequester side), they waited until New Year’s Eve to strike a deal that passed through the Senate at 2 a.m. on New Year’s Day. The public has had no chance to review — let alone understand — the legislation. So much for transparency.

But since you deserve to hear dissenting voices, who loathe the agreement that passed the Senate, here’s Deroy Murdock:

President Obama repeatedly has called for a “balanced approach” to deficit relief and debt reduction. H.R. 8, the bill in question, is less balanced than the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Amazingly, as the Congressional Budget Office calculates, for every $1 that this proposal cuts spending, it hikes taxes by $41! In total, $15 billion in spending cuts are dwarfed by $620 billion in tax increases. Meanwhile, America’s $16.42 trillion national debt roars relentlessly on, since this measure does not even attempt to fill this Grand Canyon of red ink.

And Ben Howe: “My problem with ‘pass whatever as long as taxes don’t go up’ position is that it’s a shining example of the can-kicking that got us here.”

Whomever Mitt Romney picks as his running mate, I hope that person understands the need to come out of the gate as a fighter. The language of the first appearance and convention address doesn’t need to be snarling or angry, but right now, millions of Republicans and independents feel like the world has gone crazy, and no one seems intent upon setting it right.

• Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is basically making things up, claiming that “a number of people” have told him about felony-level tax evasion by Mitt Romney. (Technically, zero is a number.)
• House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi declares, “it is a fact” in response to Reid’s charges and his unnamed sources, and labeling the opposition party, “the E. Coli club.”
• A new ad from President Obama’s SuperPAC declares, “Mitt Romney killed my wife.” (The man’s wife died seven years after Romney left Bain Capital.)
• The Obama “Truth Team” distributes a charge that Romney’s ad hitting Obama for changing the work requirements for welfare “has racial overtones.”
• The attacks on Romney have gotten so insane that Joe Biden looks relatively normal lately.

If, God forbid, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, or Joe Biden were to be struck by genuine neurological dementia, how would we be able to tell?

For whatever reason, Mitt Romney has chosen to not respond in kind; it is left to RNC Chair Reince Priebus to declare Reid a “dirty liar.” But Reid, Pelosi, the president, his campaign, and his allies continue to throw out weapons-grade nonsense into the media environment with absolutely no consequence whatsoever.

There was a time, not long ago, when if the Senate Majority Leader was going to accuse his opponents of a crime, he had to at least point to some evidence, lest he be derided as a McCarthyite, a demagogue, a liar and a toxic influence to public discourse. There was a time when presidential campaigns did not casually accuse their opponent of murder. There was a time when not every criticism of an opponent’s policy triggered a knee-jerk accusation of “racism!”

No one wonders why our political class is so disappointing. It’s because no sane person would want to step into the BS maelstrom that is modern politics. No one wants to deal with a world where people believe that having the right view entitles you to berate restaurant drive-through attendants. Why participate in public debate, if you’re guaranteed to be demonized and denounced as among the worst of humanity?

Our political culture has gone insane. Millions of us want something better, and perhaps Romney thinks he can embody this by taking the high road. Perhaps he is correct that it’s impossible to argue that you’ll be something better if you’re “punching back twice as hard,” as the president’s top strategist once pledged. But somebody has to call out this nonsense for what it is – and I think many, many Republicans are waiting, with growing impatience, for someone to do that.

So, media fact-checking organizations, when you see this…

WASHINGTON – Sen. Harry Reid caused a stir this week when he told an interviewer that Mitt Romney hasn’t released more of his tax returns because “he didn’t pay taxes for 10 years.” On Wednesday, Reid doubled down on the charge.

In an interview published Tuesday, Reid said an investor in Bain Capital, the former private equity firm of the Republican presidential candidate, told him in a phone call that Romney had paid zero taxes.

What do you think of the Senate Majority Leader’s allegations?

How likely is it that one of the most prominent figures in America today filed tax returns for ten years, but somehow didn’t pay any taxes during that time?

How likely is it that the Internal Revenue Service didn’t notice this phenomenon for ten straight years? How likely is it that an IRS employee would open the envelope with the Romneys’ returns, but no check for the amount owed, and shrug their shoulders and move on to the next envelope?

How likely is it that as Romney became more and more prominent as a CEO, as an Olympic organizer, as governor, and as a presidential candidate that no one at the IRS would notice a glaring ten year period where he paid no taxes, even though he presumably would owe some considerable sum?

How plausible do fact-checking organizations finds the notion that when you invest in Bain Capital, the first thing they do is reveal the multi-year personal tax evasion of the CEO? Has any investor ever gotten a chance to look at the tax returns of the CEO of their money management firm?

Okay, with all of that in mind…  how likely is it that Harry Reid is no longer in touch with reality?

UPDATE: Oh, and according to the candidate, at some point, Romney was audited, perhaps more than once: “From time to time I’ve been audited.” So Romney has been audited, but somehow the IRS audit missed a ten-year period where he didn’t pay any taxes?

So, we know Romney released his return for 2010. Which means any “ten year window” would have to be 1999-2009 at the earliest.

His campaign said that Romney has not been audited in the past ten years – meaning the audit occurred before 2002.

Either the IRS audit of Romney from 2001 or earlier completely missed a ten year period of Romney “not paying any taxes for ten years” … or Harry Reid is full of crap.

Today is one of those rare days when I’ll post the entire Morning Jolt here, as it is basically one long examination of the dominant topic of the campaign in recent weeks… So if you aren’t subscribed already, do so.

A Gaffe-tastic Morning Jolt!

We need a better, more specific term for the statements our current political journalism calls “gaffes.”

Because a lot of different statements are being thrown together under this category, and wildly contrary interpretations of candidate’s statements have become the premiere battleground of the 2012 campaign. Perhaps this is an inevitable result of a general election season that began in April or so – we’ve already hashed out the candidate’s agendas and records and ideas and vision; all that’s left is to go over each day’s unscripted comments like they’re the Dead Sea Scrolls.

For example, take then-candidate Obama’s statement, “I’ve now been in fifty-seven states, I think one left to go.”

Now, does anyone actually believe that President Obama thinks there are 57 states? He’s presumably tired, he’s thinking the number forty-seven, and his mouth is just running away from him. Happens to people all the time. He definitely sounds silly – as someone noted, “how many states are there?” is the sort of question they ask you after a concussion – but no one should draw any serious conclusions about Obama from this statement. (Then why do Republicans love the “57 states” statement so much? Because it is a lovely reminder that the candidate touted as the greatest orator since Cicero can sound dumb on his off days, too.)

Does Mitt Romney make some gaffes that deserve some criticism or mockery? Sure. “I’m not concerned about the very poor” comes to mind, or the strange description of himself as “severely conservative,” or joking to those looking for jobs, “I’m also unemployed.” Sometimes there’s this Zen surrealism to his off-the-cuff statements, like, “I love this state. The trees are the right height.” (Tell me you can’t picture Special Agent Dale Cooper making that statement in Twin Peaks.)

But to judge from the coverage of the past week or so, Romney makes a “gaffe” every time he speaks  – and the media, obsessed with advancing a “narrative”, now applies the word “gaffe” to very deliberate statements. What the term gaffe now means is, “a statement that someone, somewhere, doesn’t like.”

Of course, as Romney left the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Warsaw, Poland this week, some journalistic genius bellowed at the candidate, “what about your gaffes?!?”

Well, what about them? The alleged gaffe of London was Romney accurately mentioning two widely-covered stories in an even-tempered, casual tone in response to an unanswerable question: Is London ready for the games? The apoplectic reaction of the British press and Mayor Boris Johnson says more about them than it does about Romney.

Then another alleged “gaffe” is Romney’s comment about the cultural differences between the Israelis and Palestinians. Is there anyone in America who wants to argue that the culture within the Palestinian territories – where Hamas runs the show, where there is no free press, where kids are taught to glorify suicide bombers, and where vast sums of foreign aid get sucked into rulers’ coffers – is a superior culture to Israel’s? Go ahead. I’m all ears. Enough of this blame-the-embargo crap. Israelis don’t make Palestinians steal foreign aid. Israelis don’t make Palestinians teach kids that the noblest calling is to blow themselves up in a pizzeria. Israelis don’t make Fatah and Hamas subject Palestinian journalists to  harassment, detentions, assaults, and restrictions.

Helpful hint: Any time your culture is dominated by organizations that have a “political wing” and some other not-political wing that often carries rifles and wears masks, you’re going to have some serious problems. Society can only hash out its differences in an orderly manner when the political wing is the organization as a whole.

Some, like Dave Weigel, are convinced that Obama’s recent “gaffes” are routine slips of the tongue or unclear verbiage and that Republicans are making a ridiculous stink over them – but that Romney’s statement in London is a legitimate story. It will not surprise you that I think precisely the opposite – but perhaps the newsworthiness and significance of a gaffe is going to be in the eye of the beholder.

The term “gaffe” now applies to…

Verbal misstatements and grammatical errors: “57 states,” Joe Biden calling his running mate “Barack America”, etc.

Brain freezes: Rick Perry in the debate. Of course this looks bad during a moment in the spotlight, but anyone who has never had this happen to them, raise your hand. Uh-huh. Didn’t think so.

Honest statements that are admissions against self-interest: President Obama declaring during a meeting of his Jobs Council, “Shovel-ready was not as … uh .. shovel-ready as we expected.”

Unusual ideas: Newt Gingrich’s pay-kids-to-be-janitors idea.

Genuinely harmful erroneous statements: Joe Biden saying, “I wouldn’t go anywhere in confined places now,” in an appearance designed to reassure the public about swine flu, or Michelle Bachmann repeating a mother’s claim that Gardasil causes retardation.

Controversial or unpopular points: See Romney’s Olympics and Palestinian statements above.

The only thing that these types of statements have in common is that they are “off-script,” or unpredicted. The same press corps that whines that candidates are cookie-cutter, stiff, scripted, sticking to predictable talking points, etc., loves to tear apart candidates for spontaneity, speaking casually, thinking out loud, and having things come out a little garbled.

In that light, how should we assess President Obama’s “the private sector is doing fine”, “if you have a business, you didn’t build that” and “our plan worked”? The argument from the president’s defenders is that each one is literally true and only sounds odd to those who don’t understand the context – that the private sector is creating jobs while state and local governments cut back, the “that” refers to roads and bridges, not the business itself, and the plan refers to Bill Clinton’s tax hikes, not Obama’s enacted policies. The problem is that all of these explanations aren’t as exculpatory as his fans think:

A)     If 80,000 or so jobs per month – not enough to keep up with workforce additions –  is your idea of “doing fine,” you’re setting the bar too low.

B)      Even if President Obama was talking about ‘roads and bridges,” business owners did indeed pay for that, through income taxes, sales taxes, property taxes, and business taxes.

C)      Even if Obama meant Clinton’s tax hikes when he said our plan “worked,” he’s crediting the Clinton tax hikes are the cause of the 1990s economic boom – not the rise of the Internet in American life, the dot-com bubble, etc. “Our plan worked” contends we’re just one big tax hike away from restoring four percent annual GDP growth. Except that the tax hikes were enacted in 1993, and the boom didn’t start until 1996-1997.

The argument from Obama’s critics would be that the “gaffes” aren’t misstatements but signals of what Obama really thinks – that the private sector’s current growth rate really is “fine,” that he thinks businessmen smugly give themselves too much credit for their success and not enough credit to government, and that tax hikes are good for the economy. Perhaps Republicans read too much into these remarks … but perhaps not.

Anyway, carping that the press makes a big deal out of Republican gaffes and ignores Democrat ones is an old, well-founded, and tired complaint. But what’s striking is that the result of this culture of within the press corps is that at least three of the highest figures in the Democratic Party today are among those most prone to making statements that range from the bizarre to the outrageous to the unhinged… and they pay no discernible price for these habits. No matter what they say, the labels “dumb” or “foolish” never seem to stick to them.

Exhibit A: Vice President Joe Biden. “Big [blank]ing deal.” “When the stock market crashed, Franklin D. Roosevelt got on the television…” “You cannot go to a 7-11 or a Dunkin’ Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent…. I’m not joking.” “The president has a big stick. I promise you.” “John’s last-minute economic plan does nothing to tackle the number-one job facing the middle class, and it happens to be, as Barack says, a three-letter word: jobs. J-O-B-S, jobs.”

Exhibit B: House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. “The CIA misleads us all the time.” “We have to pass the bill so you can see what’s in it.” “Every month that we do not have an economic recovery package 500 million Americans lose their jobs.”

Exhibit C: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. “You could literally smell the tourists coming into the Capitol.” Barack Obama would be helped by being a “light-skinned” African-American with “no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.” “Only 36,000 people lost their jobs today, which is really good.” “We in the Senate refer to Sen. Gillibrand as the hottest member.” “Chris Coons, everybody knows him in the Democratic caucus. He’s my pet. He’s my favorite candidate.”

I mention all this because Harry Reid is at it again.

Saying he had “no problem with somebody being really, really wealthy,” Reid sat up in his chair a bit before stirring the pot further. A month or so ago, he said, a person who had invested with Bain Capital called his office.

“Harry, he didn’t pay any taxes for 10 years,” Reid recounted the person as saying. “He didn’t pay taxes for 10 years! Now, do I know that that’s true? Well, I’m not certain,” said Reid. “But obviously he can’t release those tax returns. How would it look?”

Hey, a Nevadan told me Harry Reid runs an underground dungeon of hookers and gladiatorial games. Now, do I know that that’s true? Well, I’m not certain.

ADDENDA: Lori Ziganto offers the emphatic phrase of the week: “You can quote me on that, but attribute it to Bob Dylan.”

The Obama campaign’s trouble with minority recruitment — really! — and the continuing dietary controversy that is, er, dogging President Obama feature in today’s Morning Jolt, but there is also this bit of silliness . . .

Harry Reid to Seniors: I’m Ensuring Your Access to Junk Mail. You’re Welcome.

Every couple of weeks, there’s some random burbling of words from the Senate Majority Leader, and I shake my head and sigh, “I can’t believe we didn’t beat this guy.”

The latest:

In his opening speech on Wednesday, Reid called on the Senate to quickly move forward on the passage of S. 1789, the 21st Century Postal Service Act, which restructures pension plans for Postal Service employees as well as allows the USPS to access overpayments in the Federal Employee Retirement System.

“Madam President,” Reid said to Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), the presiding officer of the Senate, “I’ll come home tonight here to my home in Washington and there’ll be some mail there. A lot of it is what some people refer to as junk mail, but for the people who are sending that mail, it’s very important.” “And when talking about seniors, seniors love getting junk mail. It’s sometimes their only way of communicating or feeling like they’re part of the real world,” Reid continued. “Elderly Americans, more than anyone in America, rely on the United States Postal Service, but unless we act quickly, thousands of post offices . . . will close. I’ve said this earlier today; I repeat it.”

As Greg Corombos and I say on the Three Martini Lunch, “Way to go, Nevada. Way to go.”

ADDENDA: In response to Michelle Obama’s proud boast that President Obama has “brought us out of the dark and into the light,” Ric Pugmire responds, “I’d be happier for someone to take us out of the red into the black.”

Sen. Harry Reid today: “It’s very clear that private-sector jobs are doing just fine. It’s public-sector jobs where we’ve lost huge numbers.”

The National Republican Senatorial Committee marks the one-year anniversary of Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner’s “Welcome to the Recovery,” op-ed, as well as a slew of other comments from President Obama, Harry Reid, Claire McCaskill, Jay Carney, Tim Kaine, Joe Manchin, Jon Tester, and Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, in a new web video:

I know it will come as an enormous shock to you, but the Washington Post found that Americans don’t have much faith in any figure in Washington to resolve the debt-ceiling issue.

Democrats can find a bit of solace in that Obama rates the highest among the six figures, but even he’s “underwater,” with 49 percent having little or no confidence in him, and the two figures with the least amount of public confidence are Senate majority leader Harry Reid (57 percent say “not too confident” or “no confidence”) and House minority leader Nancy Pelosi (61 percent).

Looking at the party breakdown, we’re left wondering, who are the 10 percent of self-identified Republicans who have faith in Pelosi here? And would anyone have expected Republicans to have more faith in Harry Reid than Barack Obama?

The Wednesday Morning Jolt features a look at Michele Bachmann adviser Ed Rollins’s slam of Sarah Palin and Obama’s argument on the economy, but first . . . what is Bill Clinton thinking as he watches the Weiner scandal unfold?

The Fallout of a Radioactive Weiner Spreads

I suspect that some recent night, in plush surroundings, Bill Clinton poured himself a drink of some sort of brown liquor and lamented to some trusted male friend, beginning with a sigh. “Shame about the Weiner kid. We’ve all been there, right? Although I have to admit, I find the whole thing kind of creepy . . . Stop laughing. I mean it. I mean, back in my day, if you were gonna have a little piece on the side, you had to actually reach out and touch the girl. These young guys today, with their texting and their sexting, I don’t know . . .” His shook his head and his gaze turned to the window. “I think if you’re gonna cheat, you really ought to have the person right there in front of you. Otherwise, there’s no, you know, honor in it. What’s with these kids today, so darn busy that they have to squeeze in their affairs on the web and with their blackberries and all their doodads? I made time for girls when I was talking to members of Congress about putting U.S. troops in Bosnia! Multi-task, man! If the woman on the side means enough to you, you’re willing to make that commitment. Otherwise, this cyber-flirting — it’s all so cold and impersonal, a disconnected way of expressing a really personal connection. Weenie says he was carrying on with six or seven women — hey, how special do you think each one of them feels? ‘I’ll Tweet ya, I’ll sext ya.’ Hey, Facebook is no substitute for face time. Or whatever body part time you prefer.”

He takes a final sip. “It just feels like these politicians today, they’ve just forgotten their values.”

This is entirely fictitious, but you could see him thinking this, right? Bill Clinton, traditionalist adulterer?

Democrats are slamming doors on Weiner as if he had kissed President Bush after the State of the Union speech or something. CNN just posts Harry Reid’s comments verbatim:

Senate Majority Leader Sen. Harry Reid gave embattled Rep. Anthony Weiner no love on Capitol Hill Tuesday.

“I know Congressman Weiner and I wish there was some way I can defend him, but I can’t. OK?” Reid said.

And then there was this exchange with reporters:

Q: You didn’t say whether you thought Congressman Weiner should resign.
Reid: I’m not here to defend Weiner.

Q: What do you think he should do?
Reid: That’s all I’m going to say.

Q: Senator Reid, what advice would you give him if he asked you?
Reid: Call somebody else.

In the Corner, Matthew Shaffer lays out how none of those who were most loudly pointing the fingers at Andrew Breitbart’s sinister hands behind all this have recanted or apologized — not Eric Boehlert of Media Matters, not anyone at Kos, not Charles Johnson, nor Joy Behar. I particularly like the theory from one lefty blogger that Breitbart is blackmailing Weiner into claiming responsibility and covering up his Breit-work.

This is who they are. When reality does not conform to their theory, they do not toss away the theory. They just adjust it to make their heroes more saintly and their opponents more dastardly.

 

From the first Morning Jolt of the week:

Don’t Worry, World! Harry Reid’s on this Koran-Burning Thing!

Ah. Swell: “Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) told CBS’s Bob Schieffer on Sunday that some members of Congress were considering some kind of action in response to the Florida Quran burning that  sparked a murderous riot at a United Nations complex in Afghanistan and other mayhem. ‘We’ll take a look at this of course . . . as to whether we need hearings or not, I don’t know,’ he added.”

This pastor, Terry Jones, has a jones for media attention that makes the Kardashians look like J .D. Salinger. He knows that there’s a good chance that tossing the Koran on a pile of charcoal briquettes will make the easily-enraged in far-off lands lash out in that time-tested tradition, killing aid workers, and he doesn’t give a damn. He knows there’s a chance that the Muslim tantrums might put our men and women in uniform at greater risk. He still doesn’t give a damn. He has never given a damn. What, he’s gonna go weak-kneed at the thought of a unanimous Senate resolution?

To quote the wise philosopher Alfred, “Some men aren’t looking for anything logical, like money. They can’t be bought, bullied, reasoned or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn.” Or they want to watch Korans burn and see what else catches on fire, too.

Anyway, Reid is bad, but perhaps Lindsey Graham is even worse. He added, “I wish we could find a way to hold people accountable. Free speech is a great idea, but we’re in a war. During World War II, we had limits on what you could say if it would inspire the enemy. So, burning a Koran is a terrible thing but it doesn’t justify killing someone. Burning a Bible would be a terrible thing but it doesn’t justify murder. Having said that, anytime we can push back here in America against actions like this that put our troops at risk we should do it, and I look forward to working with Senators Kerry, and Reid, and others to condemn this, condemn violence all over the world based on the name  of religion.”

Hey, er . . . what did the U.S. government limit that could “inspire the enemy” during World War Two? Weren’t we singing off-color parodies of “Whistle While You Work” about the malfunctioning genitalia of the foreign leaders we were fighting? If that and, say, our societal existence in absolute opposition to all of their values wasn’t sufficient to motivate them, wouldn’t say, the Dresden bombing be enough to give them at extra get-up-and-go? Were these guys really that “inspired” by anything we did? Isn’t that like arguing that our forces’ primary motivation in the Pacific War was to go get Tokyo Rose?

Where is this notion coming from that our actions can “motivate” homicidal maniacs? What, if we button up our pyromaniac pastors, the Taliban will stop trying to stir up Afghanis against outsiders? Isn’t that like trying to stop Son of Sam by banning dog food?

Doug Mataconis can’t believe the direction Reid and Graham are headed in: “Here’s your answer Senator. No, you don’t need to hold hearings and you don’t need to be looking into ways to limit the free speech rights of American citizens because of the insane reaction of people thousands of miles away who were obviously ginned up by demagogues. War or not, Terry Jones had every right to do what he did.”

. . . Jim Treacher put this well: “The President of the United States bombs a Muslim country, and some nobody in Florida burns a Koran. Guess which one’s to blame for rioting in Afghanistan?”

Hmmm. Over in the Corner, Bob Costa and Mark Steyn have great laughs about Senate majority leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.)’s furious response to proposed spending cuts, lamenting, “The mean-spirited bill, H.R. 1 . . . eliminates the National Endowment of the Humanities, National Endowment of the Arts,” said Reid. “These programs create jobs. The National Endowment of the Humanities is the reason we have in northern Nevada every January a cowboy poetry festival. Had that program not been around, the tens of thousands of people who come there every year would not exist.” (h/t Shira Toeplitz) Costa helpfully provides a link to the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Elko, Nevada, here.

Searching through the website of the National Endowment for the Humanities, the only reference to a grant that I can find to Elko is on this list of grant awards from the July 2000:

Western Folklife Center, Elko, NV Outright: $5,000

The purchase of storage furniture, supplies, and equipment to preserve audiotapes that are related to folklife and cultural traditions of the American West. (16 months)

The NEH magazine Humanities wrote about the festival in 2001. In 2008, the Elko County Library received the “Created Equal” bookshelf, “a collection of seventeen classic hardcover books for young readers, all related to the Created Equal theme.” This spreadsheet listing all NEH Preservation Assistance Grants [PAGs] from 2000 to 2010 lists the Western Folklife Center and Elko, Nevada once, the 2000 grant of $5,000.

It seems Reid misspoke; NEH barely gave any money to the center or the festival. But the National Endowment for the Arts has been more generous with taxpayer dollars. However, even these are fairly meager sums in comparison to most budgetary figures thrown around in Washington.

First, an NEA grant back in the mid-’80s launched the project:

Lucky for [folklorist Hal] Cannon, the NEA said yes to his proposal to host a conference on the genre. The Arts Endowment supported the project with a $50,000 grant that Cannon and a small group of folklorists used to research and contact cowboy poets. Supported by the NEA grant, Cannon was able to take a year’s leave of absence from his job as Utah folk arts coordinator to work on what in 1985 would become the first Gathering. The founders chose the small town of Elko, Nevada, known for its ties to the Old West, precisely because it was a small town — cowboys did not want to go to a city or a resort. It didn’t hurt that Elko also had plenty of cheap hotels.

The center received some grants in the 1990s: $31,500 in 1991; $35,400 in 1995. Other grants were made in 1993 and 1994, but the pdfs are not currently loading.

For the past decade, the center started receiving modest five-figure grants almost annually. In 2001:

Western Folklife Center, Elko, NV

PROJECT TYPE: New Technology $10,000

To support a partnership with Great Basin College and Elko County Economic Diversification Authority to develop and implement Internet marketing for traditional artists and craftsmen in the underserved and rural interior West. This project will allow the Western Folklife Center to identify and work with selected artists and local ranching, Native American, Hispanic and other relevant communities in marketing and selling their work to a wider audience.

Then in 2002:

Western Folklife Center Elko, NV

$25,000

To support continued fieldwork on the cowboy poetry tradition. The fieldwork will add substantially to Western Folklife Center’s body of work on cowboy poets and cowboy poetry, illuminating the variety of reasons each poet has for writing by providing more depth to the biographical, social, familial, cultural, literary and artistic record.

Then, according to the NEA annual report from 2003:

In FY 2003, the Western Folklife Center received an NEA Heritage/Preservation grant of $50,000 to support the 20th anniversary of the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering, which took place on January 24-31, 2004. The grant aided four components of the anniversary event: the reunion of performers and folklorists reaching back to the original gathering, an exhibit featuring archived materials from the Western Folklife Center, a commemorative program booklet, and video documentation of the anniversary gathering for historical record.

2005:

Western Folklife Center Elko, NV

$30,000

To support the 2005 National Cowboy Poetry Gathering (NCPG). The 2005 theme Aross the Generations will pair ten artists under the age of 30 with five senior mentors as part of an effort to engage younger people in the practice and perpetuation of the verbal and material arts of ranching culture.

Another grant in 2006:

Western Folklife Center, Elko, NV

$40,000

To support Making West Home: Stories from the Deep West, a series of storytelling and foodways residency programs in venues across the rural western United States. Each three-day residency includes one educational workshop for high school students, a day-long workshop about community stories and foodways, and a community-wide evening potluck and storytelling session.

Another in 2007:

Western Folklife Center Elko, NV

$35,000

To support Beyond Borderlands: Mexican-American Ranch Traditions in the American West. Presentations will honor the cultural traditions, poetry, song, and celebrations associated with the ranching communities of northern Mexico and practiced in the West today.

In 2008:

Western Folklife Center Elko, NV

$35,000

To support the Out West, Back East Tour. In honor of the center’s 25 years of presenting the arts of ranch culture, the project will bring some of the West’s most respected poets, narrators, singers, and songwriters to urban centers in the East, Midwest, and West for performances and short residencies.

In 2009:

Western Folklife Center Elko, NV

$40,000

To support Southeast Cowboys. The project will present ranching culture from the Florida “cracker cowboys” and the Louisiana “swamp cowboys” at the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering.

The Western Folklife Center also received some stimulus money:

Western Folklife Center, Elko, NV

$50,000

CATEGORY: American Recovery and Reinvestment Act FIELD/DISCIPLINE: Folk and Traditional Arts

The NEA’s grant listing for fiscal year 2011 lists:

Western Folklife Center Elko, NV

$50,000

CATEGORY: Access to Artistic Excellence

FIELD/DISCIPLINE: Folk and Traditional ArtsTo support the production of the semi-permanent exhibition Ranchlines: Verses and Visions of the Rural West. The exhibition will use audio and video media, visual art, hands-on interactive elements, and the display of contemporary handmade horse gear and other crafts to emphasize creativity, ingenuity, and a poetic approach to life and work in the rural ranching West.

A few years aren’t coming up in the NEA search engine, but it appears most years the Center received grants ranging from $30,000 to $50,000.

In short, Harry Reid believes that cutting this $50,000 or less to the Cowboy Poetry Festival is too deep a cut.

The Senate will vote on a two-week Continuing Resolution sometime in the next couple of days. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is, as expected, demagoguing this dispute madly. Moments ago, he told reporters, “The only message we get from Republicans is that they want to wipe out all programs that are so important to people, particularly vulnerable people.”

Sure, Harry. I’m sure that’s the Republican message verbatim.

Way to go, Nevada.

Today’s Morning Jolt features a look at how WFB launched Joe Lieberman’s Senate career, Salon’s declaration of “The Vindication of Dick Cheney” — no, really! — and this bit about a showdown on Capitol Hill:

Eric Cantor Double-Dog Dares Harry Reid

I would like to think that at some point, Eric Cantor will get a chance to run into Harry Reid in some hallway in Congress, and he’ll get a chance to squint and rasp through gritted teeth, “I know what you’re thinking. ‘If the Senate votes to repeal Obamacare, will I lose six Democrats or only five?’ Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement I kind of lost track myself. But being as this is the repeal bill, one of the most powerful mandates in the political world, and the political pressure on your Red State senators would blow your caucus apart, you’ve got to ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?” 

Alas, the formal challenge was a bit more mundane: ““If Harry Reid is so confident that the repeal vote should die in the Senate then he should bring it up for a vote if he’s so confident he’s got the votes,” Cantor said.

Apparently among the new advisors to the House Republican Caucus: Rex Ryan.

Next tactic: Chicken clucking noises.

Nevada senator Harry Reid’s son, Rory Reid, is thinking of running for Congress in 2012. He lost the Nevada governor’s race in November to Republican Brian Sandoval.

Nevada gains a House seat this year, so it would give Reid a competitive district and open seat, and the state is likely to get a lot of attention from the Obama reelection campaign as well.

In the last Morning Jolt of the week:

Harry Reid Finds Himself Omnibusted

We’re not used to watching the good guys win in spending fights very much. But last night, that’s just what happened: “Speaking now on the Senate floor, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) says he is ‘sorry and disappointed’ to announce that he does not have the votes for the omnibus spending package. Instead, he will work with Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) to draft a temporary continuing resolution to fund the government into early next year. Reid says nine Republican senators approached him today to tell him that while they would like to see the bill passed, they could not vote for it.”

Jen Rubin is stunned at the scale of Reid’s miscalculation: “After exposing his party, the White House and himself to an avalanche of bad press and bipartisan criticism over the earmark-stuffed omnibus spending bill, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, in a sort of political Dunkirk moment, gave up and fled. Just moments ago, he fessed up that he did not have enough votes for cloture on the omnibus spending bill. So instead, as the Republicans had demanded, there will be a continuing resolution, and the Republicans will get their shot to manage the budget next year. Think about it for a moment. Reid, for no good reason, forced the president out on a limb (recall that President Obama endorsed this mess of a bill) and helped the Republicans to cement their image as the more fiscally disciplined of the two parties.”

It’s later than we wanted, and in a different context than we wanted, but I still love hearing people say, “Harry Reid lost.”

Over in the Corner, the boss lays out what this suprising result might mean: Tonight may indeed may be a “seminal moment,” as McCain said. This was to be the appropriators’ last hurrah. In the end, they couldn’t see it through, and it’s not going to get any better for them next year. Why did it go down? You had Jim DeMint rallying outside opposition, and pushing Reid’s back against the wall procedurally with the threat to have the whole monstrosity read on the floor; that was time Reid presumably couldn’t afford to waste given everything else he wants to jam through. Then, you had Mitch McConnell on the phone all day with Republican appropriators — Reid’s base of support on the bill–twisting their arms to come out against it. My understanding is that by the end he had all the appropriators committed against it, with the exception of two who were undecided. McConnell told the appropriators that passing this bill, and passing it this way, would represent a rejection of everything the mid-term election was about, and ultimately he prevailed. And, finally, there was McCain. He was out there, too. On “Hannity” last night, he sounded like a tea-partier, urging people to use social media and to flood the phone lines in opposition . . . Altogether, a heartening night . . .

Rand Simberg cheers, “On the anniversary of the first Tea Party, the Tea Partiers have won a great victory . . . Mr. Smith has come to Washington, again.”

RightKlik, writing at Left Coast Rebel, chuckles, “Dems got run over by the Omnibus.”

Jay W. at Say Anything dishes out some credit, but observes that there’s a lot more work to be done: “It would be easy to say that the publicity surrounding the large number of earmarks in the bill belonging to Republicans led to this reversal. It would also be a trivial matter to claim that the successes of Tea Party candidates in the recent midterms is planted firmly in the minds of those Republicans who were denouncing earmarks in speeches and press conferences while at the same time holding out their hands for their share of the lucre. That’s because these things are undoubtedly true. The Republican victories in the midterms were a start, but by no means the end of the journey to fiscal responsibility. Pressure from the incoming Congresspeople who ran on a platform of fiscal responsibility and the continued vigilance of citizens are needed to continue the push for smaller government, smaller deficits, and transparency in how our tax money is used. This bill being pulled is a start.”

ADDENDA: Michael Vick wants a dog: “I would love to get another dog in the future,” Vick told TheGrio.com. “I think it would be a big step for me in the rehabilitation process. I think just to have a pet in my household and to show people that I genuinely care, and my love, and my passion for animals.”

As I said last night on Hannity, let’s start small. Let’s get him an ant farm. And if he can take care of them, and not start any ant-fighting rings . . .

From Wednesday’s edition of the Morning Jolt . . .

An Abominable Obamnibus

Boy, it wouldn’t be the last gasps of the Democrat-run Congress without one more last-minute avalanche of runaway spending, huh? The Hill sets the stage: “Senate Democrats have filed a $1.1 trillion omnibus spending bill that would fund the government through fiscal year 2011, according to Senate GOP sources. The 1,924-page bill includes funding to implement the sweeping healthcare reform bill Congress passed earlier this year as well as additional funds for Internal Revenue Service agents, according to a senior GOP aide familiar with the legislation. The package drew a swift rebuke from Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), chairman of the Senate Republican Policy Committee. ‘The attempt by Democrat leadership to rush through a nearly 2,000-page spending bill in the final days of the lame-duck session ignores the clear will expressed by the voters this past election,’ Thune said in a statement. ‘This bill is loaded up with pork projects and should not get a vote. Congress should listen to the American people and stop this reckless spending.’”

Late last night, our own Robert Costa talked to Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina, who “warned National Review Online on Monday about Reid’s potential maneuver. ‘Sounds like they want to dual-track [the START treaty] with the terrible omnibus bill,’ he said. ‘I’m really concerned . . . . I’m not going to be sleeping very well this week.’ Wesley Denton, a DeMint spokesman, tells NRO that despite pressure from Reid, the South Carolinian plans to read aloud the omnibus bill, for as long as it takes. He will point out that the Senate could easily pass a continuing resolution sans pork-laden projects.”

There are no really bad four letter words in this post from Pat Austin, blogging at And So It Goes in Shreveport; but you can tell she’s* a little hot under the collar. Eh, make that supernova under the collar: “You should never, EVER blog when drunk or furious. Ever. Considering that my head is about to explode and that I should definitely be drinking, I probably shouldn’t even be typing my name right now, much less attempting to read the Proof-That-Harry-Reid-Has-Lost-His-Mind Crap-Laden-One-Way-Ticket-To-The-Loony-Bin-For-Life Omnibus bill. No, I’m not drunk, but I oughta be to get through this piece of bovine excrement spending bill. Is he freakin’ CRAZY? Don’t answer that. Is he KIDDING here? Don’t answer that, either. And what in the HELL is wrong with these ‘Republicans’ who are thinking about going along with this crap-sandwich? Did they learn NOTHING from the November election? Let me suggest that this is way, WAY out of the scope and function of a lame duck Congress. Way way. There is no freakin’ way that this thing should go through as is. Who in the hell is going to read a 2,000 page piece of crap like this ever, much less right now when they’re all trying to get out of there for Christmas?”

Hugh Hewitt wants to see the Republicans make an all-out stand: “The House and Senate GOP have to gum up the entire works until the Senate Democrats agree to stop the bum’s rush of bad legislation. Where are the conservative Bernie Sanders? The public also has to use the time to let the 23 Democrats on the ballot in 2012 know that a vote for lame duck spending won’t be forgotten over the next two years. I wish the Senate GOP would have seen this coming when they quickly agreed to the absurd deal that has become a Christmas Tree of special interest giveaways.”

* Originally referred to Pat Austin as a “he.” My apologies.