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American and Latin American Politics, Society, and Culture

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What not to wear, Senator style

Bingley asks,

WHO was the STIFF that did THIS?

…A button-down shirt and tie to play softball in? Really?

Everyone else wore baseball tee shirts and shorts.

I’ll give you ONE clue: it was a contest between US Senate office teams from the same state and the bosses were on hand. No CHEATING!

HillBuzz has the answer: John Kerry,

Massachusetts Sens. Scott Brown (R) and John Kerry (D) are developing a healthy rivalry, but it’s not over partisan politics. It’s all about sports.

The athletic lawmakers faced off on the National Mall on Tuesday for a friendly softball game between their office teams, which Brown’s team, the Great Scotts, won handily, 11-6. Brown, wearing a team jersey and shorts, played a very capable first base for eight innings and went 2 for 3 at the plate, scoring two runs.

Kerry, who arrived in a shirt and tie, had one at-bat and grounded out to third.
But before he batted, the senator took off his tie — to whooping cheers from his staffers.

When it was Brown’s turn to bat, however, Brown asked to wear Kerry’s tie at the plate. Kerry was happy to oblige and Brown batted in “business attire.”

Glad to see that Scott Brown, while behaving like a Dem, has not taken up yet the sartorial statements. Next, Brown and Lurch will be going out for bike rides. Let’s hope Kerry wears a helmet.

In nepotism news, the Kennedys are still working on a Capitol Hill dynasty: the article also mentions that

In a twist of fate, Brown was tagged out once, at first base by Kerry intern Jack Schlossberg, son of Caroline Kennedy and the great-nephew of Brown’s predecessor, the late Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.).

I humbly pray, “Dear Lord, no more Bushes, Clintons, or Kennedys in politics, ever. Amen.”

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With Republicans like these, who needs Democrats?

Exhibit A:
Marc Thiessen writes about The GOP’s counterinsurgency by spenders

With the departure of Sen. Arlen Specter to the Democratic Party, it seemed as if Republican moderates were a dying breed. All that was left of the troika that put President Obama’s $787 billion stimulus over the top were the women from Maine — Sen. Susan Collins and Sen. Olympia Snowe. But then Sen. Scott Brown arrived in January, and he has hewed a centrist course — recently joining Collins and Snowe in providing the GOP votes needed to pass both President Obama’s big spending “jobs” bill (a.k.a. “son of stimulus”) and his financial regulation bill filled with budget gimmicks that will eventually add more than $5 billion to the deficit. Judging from the comments on Brown’s Facebook page, many Tea Party activists believe they were duped. But the Republican senator from Massachusetts is simply voting like, well, a Massachusetts Republican.

Others may soon join the big-spending ranks. In Delaware, one of the most liberal Republicans in the House, Rep. Mike Castle, is the favorite to become the state’s next senator. And in Illinois, moderate Republican Rep. Mark Kirk holds a narrow lead in the Illinois Senate race for Obama’s seat. Both have weak records on fiscal issues. Castle rates a lowly “C” from the National Taxpayers Union, while Kirk gets a slightly better “C+” rating.

In North Dakota, Republican Gov. John Hoeven has a huge lead over his Democratic opponent and will almost certainly be elected to replace retiring Sen. Byron Dorgan. Hoeven is a solid conservative on many issues, and he would certainly be an improvement over Dorgan. But he is a big spender. According to the Cato Institute, he has raised per capita spending by almost 7 percent annually since 2003. In just two legislative sessions beginning in 2007, Hoeven presided over a whopping 60 percent increase in spending. Last year, North Dakota Democrats even launched ads declaring Hoeven the “biggest spender in North Dakota history.” While he is not a deficit spender, he is not, suffice it to say, a spending hawk in the Tea Party mold.

Then there is Rep. Roy Blunt, who is running slightly ahead Secretary of State Robin Carnahan in Missouri. Like Hoeven, Blunt is a conservative on many fronts — but spending is not one of them. Blunt has been a prolific earmarker during his 12 years in Congress. In 2010 alone, he has requested $153 million in earmarks — prompting Carnahan to swear off all earmarks in a bid to get to the right of Blunt on fiscal issues. Carnahan campaigns as if she were the Tea Party candidate, accusing Blunt of having “become famous for his pork-barrel spending” and calling him a “prodigious porkmeister.”

Exhibit B:
Senate votes 60-40 to advance jobless benefits legislation

Two Republicans, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine, voted to end the filibuster. Ben Nelson of Nebraska was the lone Democrat to break with his party and vote to sustain it.

Exhibit C:
Lindsey Graham is not wise

No… really… he pretty much admitted it:

Elena Kagan now has at least one Republican vote for confirmation to the Supreme Court: that of Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who said Tuesday that she was not someone he would have chosen “but the person who did choose – President Obama – I think chose wisely.’’

So… if Obama chose wisely… and you would not have chosen her… then that makes your choice… something other than wise.

Idiot.

In the news just now:
Senate Panel Backs Kagan Nomination

The committee vote was 13-6, with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) joining all the panel’s Democrats in supporting Ms. Kagan’s nomination. Last year, Mr. Graham was also the only senator on the committee to break ranks with his party and vote in favor of Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination to the Supreme Court.

“I’m going to vote for [Ms. Kagan] because I believe the last election had consequences,” Mr. Graham told the committee shortly before its vote. “This president chose someone who is qualified, who has the experience and knowledge to serve on the Supreme Court.”

He added, “What’s in Elena Kagan’s heart is that of a good person who has a philosophy I disagree with.”

Heart. HEART! Just what a Supreme Court Justice needs, first and foremost.

As the Republicans continue to place themselves as the party of losers maybe Graham could take over the part of the Coach on the road production of Damned Yankees:
(more…)

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Senate passes finance bill

Senate Passes Sweeping Finance Overhaul

The bill, which Mr. Obama expects to sign into law next week, marks a sea change for the financial-services industry. Mammoth financial firms such as J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Bank of America Corp. face major changes to almost every part of their businesses, from debit cards to derivatives trading and the ability to invest in hedge funds.

Not only will they face new leverage and capital requirements, but also regulators with broad new authority to curb or outlaw risky behavior. The changes are in store despite Wall Street’s aggressive efforts over the last year to water down or derail the bill.

The measure, once implemented, will touch all areas of the financial markets, affecting how consumers obtain credit cards and mortgages, dictating how the government dismantles failing financial firms and directing federal regulators’ focus on potential flashpoints in the economy.

The legislation will radically alter the way regulators work to assess and respond to potential flashpoints in the economy. The Federal Reserve will be empowered to supervise the largest and most complex financial firms, working in tandem with a new Financial Stability Oversight Council made up of financial regulators that will have the ability to act aggressively against potential risks.

Derek Thompson lists 7 Reasons to Be Skeptical About Financial Reform

1. The Bill Has Lobbyists’ Finger Prints All Over It.
2. The Bill Doesn’t Deal With Fannie, Freddie, Credit Runs, or Leverage.
3. Community Banks Are Afraid FinReg Will Hurt Them, Too.
4. Financial Reform Won’t Protect Taxpayers From a Future Bailout.
5. A Derivatives Loophole Could Cost Main Street $1 Trillion.
6. Can You Trust a Bill That Requires 79 Years of Cumulative Studies?
7. We Failed to Kill ‘Too Big to Fail.’ In Fact, We Might Have Made It Stronger.

Read Derek’s post, and add one more item to the list: the Community Reinvestment Act is still law.

And, Republicans Scott Brown of Massachusetts, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, both of Maine, gave the Dems the needed 60 votes. Thanks a lot, guys. You should have allowed the Dems to own it.

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Obamacare: the brief roundup

David Hogberg of Investor’s Business Daily interviews Paul Ryan:
GOP’s Ryan Dissects ObamaCare, Lays Out ‘Roadmap’ To Health

IBD: President Obama said his overhaul will “bring greater competition, choice, savings and efficiencies to our health care system.”

Ryan: It will do the opposite of all three of those. It will mean less competition and less choice because it narrows the options consumers will have to get health insurance. It puts everybody on a glide path to go into an exchange where people will have three choices of policies — gold, silver and bronze. It standardizes health insurance and takes underwriting out of health insurance, which is how many insurers compete. At the end of the day you’ll have a few big insurers selling different versions of the same color. With the kinds of mandates and rules they impose on insurers, the small and medium-sized insurance companies simply can’t compete because they don’t have the economies of scale. What you’ll simply have are these handful of really large insurers simply becoming claims processors for federally run health insurance.

One example. There is a medium-sized insurer in Milwaukee that has 2,200 employees, 1,600 in Milwaukee. They sell in the individual market and they have the biggest share of policies with health savings accounts. If this bill becomes law, they’ll have to close because of the rules and regulations. That means they lay off the 1,600 people in Milwaukee and send out cancellation notices to their 1.3 million policyholders.

The only ones that will survive are the really big companies. That will make prices go up. And what’s so insidious from an entitlement standpoint is it’s an open-ended entitlement that says to everyone who makes under $100,000, if your health care expenses exceed 2% to 9.8% (depending on income level), don’t worry, taxpayers will pay the rest of it. That is an invitation of cost explosion.

Go read the rest of the interview.

Scott Brown delivers the Republican weekly address (YouTube here), and on Washington at its very worst:

“In speech after speech on his health care plan, the President has tried to convince us that what he is proposing will be good for America. But, how can it be good for America if it raises taxes by a half trillion dollars and costs a trillion dollars or more to implement? In addition, how can it be good if it takes another half a trillion dollars away from seniors on Medicare, and still includes all the backroom deals you have been hearing about for months?

Eternity Road on The value of ignorance

‘They Just Want This Over’

itting in an airport, on his way home to Michigan, Rep. Bart Stupak, a pro-life Democrat, is chagrined. “They’re ignoring me,” he says, in a phone interview with National Review Online. “That’s their strategy now. The House Democratic leaders think they have the votes to pass the Senate’s health-care bill without us. At this point, there is no doubt that they’ve been able to peel off one or two of my twelve. And even if they don’t have the votes, it’s been made clear to us that they won’t insert our language on the abortion issue.”

According to Stupak, that group of twelve pro-life House Democrats — the “Stupak dozen” — has privately agreed for months to vote ‘no’ on the Senate’s health-care bill if federal funding for abortion is included in the final legislative language. Now, in the debate’s final hours, Stupak says the other eleven are coming under “enormous” political pressure from both the White House and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.). “I am a definite ‘no’ vote,” he says. “I didn’t cave. The others are having both of their arms twisted, and we’re all getting pounded by our traditional Democratic supporters, like unions.”

Stupak: Dems say Abortions save Money: Stupak Threatened by Ethics Inquiry

The Slaughter Solution, And Other Tactics For Passing Health Reform

If you watch cable news this weekend (which, if you a normal and well-adjusted person, you probably won’t), you’ll likely hear a lot of discussion about the so-called Slaughter Solution, a procedural manuever that House Democrats are considering in hopes of making it easier to pass health care reform. NRO’s Daniel Foster and Slate’s John Dickerson have posted detailed explanations, but the gist is this: Rather than vote up or down on the Senate bill (which many House Democrats don’t like), the House would instead vote to pass a reconciliation bill that amends the Senate bill. Attached to the reconciliation bill would be a rule that says that once it’s passed, the original Senate bill is automatically considered passed too.

The result is that House Democrats get to vote for the reconciliation fixes but can say that, technically, they never voted to pass the bad Senate bill.
…
So, as I understand it, if this strategy works, here’s what will happen. First, the House will vote on the reconciliation bill that 1) includes the student loan bill 2) amends the Senate bill and 3) triggers the passage of the Senate bill in the House. After that happens, the Senate will have the option to vote on the reconciliation bill, thus passing both the student loan legislation and the changes to the health bill.

Is this even Constitutional?

Meanwhile, the press bellyaches that they are “bored with Barack“

I’m suspecting some journalistic rope-a-dope here because in the end, it’s all about furthering the progressive agenda and the MSM will always team with liberalism… they quintessentially define and represent it.

Indeed.

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Are we in a monarchy? UPDATED with VIDEO of the swearing-in

While checking to see if Scott Brown has been sworn in yet, was reading Memeorandum just now and came across this headline,
Brown to take Kennedy’s office

What they hey? “Kennedy’s office”?

Did Kennedy have a right to that office forever? Was it his to leave to his descendants?

No, Kennedy had it because he had been in the Senate since shortly after allowing Mary Jo to drown,

Because of his seniority, Kennedy had one of the most coveted office suites in the Senate complex. It is located in the Russell building, down the hall from the Rotunda, and has balconies that overlook the Capitol.

Makes me glad that Brown will occupy that bit of real estate.

UPDATE
Sworn in:

Via Sister Toldjah.

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HuffPo shocked that Scott Brown’s wife is good looking VIDEO

Scott Brown’s Wife Music VIDEO: Gail Huff’s RACY ‘Girl With The Curious Hand’ (PHOTOS)

The Massachusetts senator-elect’s wife, who now works as a reporter for Boston station WCVB-TV, starred in singer Digney Fingus’ 1984 video for a song called “The Girl With The Curious Hand.”

In the video (BELOW), Huff struts around and sunbathes in a black bikini, the top of which she removes at one point before diving into water. At the song’s climax, she suggestively squeezes a tube of sunscreen, perhaps explaining the curiosity of this girl’s hand.

Attila pokes fun at the HuffPo,

Via Treacher, who is getting a lot of pleasure out of the fact that the gang at Huffington Post seems to genuinely believe this is going to hurt Scott Brown’s political career. Never mind that Massachusetts is a liberal state, and its other Senator one of its congressional reps* is gay (for starters). Never mind that other liberal states—like, oh, let’s say, California—have elected people we thought were Republicans who boasted about having had orgies at Gold’s Gym in Venice when they were young. And we knew it when they were campaigning. And we didn’t care.

And never mind that the voters in MA knew that Brown himself had posed, not in a bikini, but buck naked in his own younger days. (And didn’t even know enough to move his arm, dammit. Senator: watch the arm. Get it out of the way. Geez.)

So. Whassup?—Democratic optimism about hoping to see a promising politician who’s nominally on the other side go down in flames? Or rank stereotyping about anyone even vaguely related to the Republican party being a hardcore SoCon?

I’m thinking a bit of both, but Treacher’s right: this is pretty freakin’ funny. I didn’t read more than a few comments at HuffPo, but I like the ones who are genuinely angry that there are a few physically attractive Republicans out there, like Brown, Romney and Palin. I wonder if these are the same people who were pissed off about Rush Limbaugh being severely overweight in the 1990s. Or who loved to make fun of the way Katherine Harris (mis) applied her makeup back in the day. Or Newt Gingrich’s less-than-photogenic appearance.

Because, in the HuffPo’s view, all conservatives are ugly by virtue (puns always intended) of being conservative.

Prior posts on Scott Brown here.

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