Speaker Boehner.
Michael Steele makes a coy and not unuseful misspeak this morning re the healthcare vote and Mrs. Pelosi's ferocious whipping of the Democratic caucus and the 2010 election campaign now underway. "Speaker Boehner..." is the moment. What the healthcare vote showed on Saturday was that the Democratic majority has retreated to three votes, one of them a Republican rookie from Louisiana (right, freshman Joseph Cao in the Jefferson seat from New Orleans) and another Bill Owen from the 23rd New York. Thirty-nine Democrats ran and hid from Mrs. Pelosi and her enforcer Jack Murtha, and those thirty-nine will now send out their resumes for future employment opportunity in the local GM dealerships. Murtha did find a handful of Blue Dogs who failed to escape the threats (or just hid badly) and each of those members are now on the endangered list as well. What is the sum? The GOP needs 41 seats to take the majority and elect Speaker John Boehner. The last briefing I heard of the Democratic fears is that they expect to lose 28 seats -- that number is for public consumption, that number is mean to make the Democratic contributors feel better. The difference between 28 and 41 is immaterial in a runaway train, a tsunami, what is called a wave.
Forty-one Seats.
The first place the Democrats must defend is the districts won by McCain in 2008, and of the 39 Dems who voted "No" last even, all of them were from McCain districts. This means they face a primary challenge from the Left and a general challenge from an electorate that will not have the name Obama to vote against or for on the ballot. You have to imagine a Republican district that voted for the ironic double-talker John McCain and his mysterious wife that will now vote for a Democratic freshman (woman) who speaks well of Nancy Pelosi and the stimulus package and the 10% plus unemployment. Hard to imagine. My memory is that there 49 of those districts nationwide. The next batch of most vulnerable are the Blue Dogs from Democratic districts in California and the East who will be facing primary threats and then will come up against a GOP candidate with cash who keeps pounding on taxes and jobs. Jobs especially. Healthcare and cap and trade are hors d'oeuvres. Taxes are iced tea. Jobs are the barbecue.
Jobs and 11%.
The jobless official number is now 10.2% for the trailing month of October 2009. The projections now get iffy, but in 1982, it went from 10.2% in October to 10.8% in January before it moderated. We are now watching a death run for politicians, because 10.8% for December, reported on the first Friday of January, will be a pall for the Congress returning. More critically, Charlie Gasparino, author, "Sellout," reported Saturday 7 that the official jobless number is critical afterall, because the market gamblers are betting on it. The bet is simple. If it gets to 11%, all the wagers they have placed on recovery then blow up. Eleven percent is the fail point. The fail-safe point is about 10.8%. We are going to make this a near thing. The pols know it, especially the Dems. The Obama administration projections are for joblessness to remain at or above 9.5% through Spring 2010. The brutal months will be July and August. If the number declines to under 8.5%, then the Dems can protect the majority in the House. If the number stays above 9.5%, prepare Mrs. Pelosi's private cruiser for escape. The Senate is another story and not profound. The House is the battlefield. Every remark, every healthcare backtrack, the next debate about abortion and healthcare, about immigration and healthcare, all will be opening ploys to get the GOP to winter 2010 and the jobless number. Eyes on the jobs prize.
Thirty-Nine Democratic Names for the House Gallows 2010.
(right, Time cover November 1994)
Adler
Altmire
Baird
Barrow
Boccieri
Boren
Boucher
Boyd
Bright
Chandler
Childers
Artur Davis
Lincoln Davis
Chet Edwards
Gordon
Griffith
Herseth-sandlin
Holden
Kissell
Kosmas
Kratovil
Kucinich
Betsy Markey
Marshall
Massa
Matheson
McIntyre
McMahon
Melancon
Minnick
Scott Murphy
Nye
Peterson
Ross
Shuler
Skelton
Tanner
Taylor
Teague
Predicting Obama won't be the Democratic candidate in 2012, huh? You can make some big bucks on Intrade if you're right.
You have to take into account the possibility that Pelosi gave some of those 39 permission to vote against the bill because they didn't need them, they already had 218 by the short hairs. Of course, it's a pretty narrow margin.
John, is that your "dead elephant in the room on the cover of Time? Doesn't look too dead to me.
I'd like to point out that I was correct in my observation the other day that the NY-23 election was more important than the NJ and Virginia governorships, at least in the short run.
I really, really dislike Pelosi. Hate is such an .... accurate word, but let's leave it at dislike for now. If I ever meet her in person I'm liable to punch her and gladly do the jail time for it.
Open copy of e-mail I just sent to Nancy Pelosi (with my name, address and phone number on the bottom, btw).
----------------------------------------------------------
Dear Ms. Pelosi:
After carefully watching the debate yesterday from start to finish, I must tell you that there are no words to adequately express my revolt and disgust for your bill and all its supporters. You and your party are enemies of the people, and you personally are an embarrassment to the State of California.
It's true that responsible people can disagree in this society, but when one of us no longer upholds the freedoms guaranteed in the Constitution, as you no longer do, then that person should be subject to ridicule, censure and prompt removal from office.
Even though I'm only one humble citizen of California, I swear to you that I will do everything within my limited power, with the remainder of my time on this Earth, to see that you and all your associates and supporters are punished for the atrocities that you committed yesterday.
Sincerely,
Update: Source advises me to ignore the Politico list of 39. There are many vulnerable, and some of them may be on this list, but it is guesswork and spin. The Dems and the GOP both have lists they give out, and then they both have lists that they don't give out. The latter is what is useful, but I don't have it. Game afoot. J
The game is afoot! The list members gave in to Madame Speaker, Will they give in to $4.25 gas (aka cap and trade)? Tea Partyers are not going away, they will organize and pay it back.
My Financial adviser told me to prepare for inflation, is Congress and 1600 ready?
Catholic Bishops got Madame speaker to give in on Abortion, it will now be much harder to get an abortion, since it will be outside of Government support. Big Abortion must be fuming.
Obama and The Dems must want this bad, they are eating their seed corn to pass Obamacare.
Question:
10.2% unemployment. Does that include people in the government subsidized zombie banks or the government owned zombie auto makers? Or the health care industry which is now threatened with federal take over?
Question:
I thought that Obama was the new representative of the internet age. Yet all the programs, policies and attitudes are industrial age solutions to industrial age "problems" and industrial age constituencies. How does the make sense?
All the numbers, games and strategies detailed above mean nothing. It's simply there to entertain and distract under the guise of our own feigned importance. When, in fact, we are no longer important at all - an inconvenient truth, perhaps; a pathetic afterthought to be suppressed and trampled under foot by a ruthless design that seeks to enslave us with the words of an egocentric elite. They too will ultimately implode but, in the process, they can be expected to drag us screaming through untold hells.
It's like the Cinderella story in reverse when at midnight the pumpkin turns into a carriage. Midnight represents the next election cycle. The good people are left to argue about where their carriage will likely take them and how fast. In the meantime, teams have been instructed to reduce the pumpkin to pie. …and we all like pie, do we not?
Momentarily distracted by the lure of food, we fail to realize that this pie can never be reconstituted into a carriage. And we are left stranded by the side of the road. We find ourselves unable to proceed. Bushmen emerge from the swamps and cut off our limbs, gouge out our eyes, and slice off our tongues. As a final insult, they take our wallets.
Midnight comes and goes. We are still lying by the side of the road, bleeding our essence profusely into the run-off. There is no carriage. The king and queen are far off. We have no way of reaching them.
We remember back when we still had a Constitution that sought to protect us from the excesses of tyrants and dictators. We now regret that we said nothing while it was being shredded. We regret that we took our civic responsibilities so lightly. We regret our inattention to the warnings of history. We regret our drunken fits of mocking all that was holy. We regret our blame-shifting. We regret not holding scoundrels to account.
…for now, it’s too late. Let them do their worst. Their day of reckoning too will come. Unfortunately, it won’t be ‘till long after we will have passed from the scene, surviving only as a tragic footnote; a propaganda point, now to favor of the good guys.
http://peterkoelliker.blogspot.com/
This is a tangent, but I'll put it out there. John mentions the 10.2% unemployment, and the U-6 statistic of unemployed and underemployed is 17.5%. These are indeed significant figures that will play a great role in upcoming elections.
I read recently that the bank "stress tests" were built on the assumption of a maximum 8.9% unemployment. Even with this generous assumption, the stress tests were a fantasy. The high unemployment will have real economic consequences on the banking system, and this only feeds the discontent with the status quo.
Massive relief has been given to the banking sector. With those funds, banks have increased their reserves (i.e. they are not lending it out, not no way, no how) and some banks are speculating with the money. But a lot of banks are going to fail in spite of this aid, because the stress tests were bunk and built on rosy scenarios.
Check out the TimesOnline piece on Goldman Sachs, whose head Blankfein claims they are doing the "Lord's Work." Apparently God pays very generously -- $20 billion in bonuses this year. They claim they are the smartest people on the planet, the greatest managers. We bail them out, they take all the profits, and then they have the audacity to say they didn't "f*** up like the other guys" and they deserve their riches. Disgusting! If they didn't screw up, why did they need a rescue? Where would they be without the $12 billion gift from the taxpayers funneled to them through the AIG bailout?
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article6907681.ece
My point is that you can add anger over the bailouts and the financial industry fraud that has not been prosecuted to the issues of unemployment and taxes. One more lead weight for the Democrats. Don't let your friends forget this. I will not.
The bailout occurred while John McCain was being vilified by Republicans and the press.
Can the GOP pin the blame on 1600/GoldmanSachs/Geitner/FannieFreddieGorelick/Dodd/Sen. Frank/Rangel/Democrats? Blaming Bush 43 is Sooooo last year!
Dems were very successful at blaming all the problems in the middle east on Bush 41 (all of them, including 9/11) GOP needs to run a similar whisper campaign.
GOP has always been sympathetic to Wall Street, but Wall Street Gives more money to the Dems. Financial Centers tend to be in Blue states.
Wisdom.
I'm about as staunch of a GWB apologist as you'll find these days, but even I think the blame for TARP I has to be laid squarely at his feet. It happened on his watch. It was a close vote and he could have vetoed it and/or stumped against it. He did neither. Granted the problems leading to the bailout were caused in large part by the failure of Fannie and Freddie, but no matter. All GWB had to do was say, "Sorry. VETO. Next". He didn't. Game, set, match.
Last Days of the Republicans: Part 26?
JB is right -- from now through the 2010 Congressionals the economy in general and jobs and taxes/spending in particular will be the steak. But part of the sizzle will come from the congressional Democrats' lame performance on the issues they and the Administration have chosen to highlight, namely health care and cap-and-trade. In the wake of the Ft. Hood massacre, however, a further "sizzle factor" may be emerging in the national security and defense area, where the Dems are traditionally and justifiably viewed as weak. Where appropriate, especially in McCain-supporting districts, it should not be difficult to drop into the background condemnation of those Congresspersons who support a post-American President, a corrupt and corrupting Attorney General, and politically intimidated FBI officials and Army brasshats who demand that our service men and women give their lives for political correctness and holy "diversity" rather than their country. Granted, this theme is better suited to be a major anthem in 2012, but there might be some real political benefit to be had from starting to tune up the band in 2010, at least in the right venues.
I really don't want to get in the habit of "rooting" for high unemployment just to increase the chances of an anti-incumbent sweep in 2010. Heaven knows there's enough else wrong with the Democratic Congress, in particular the House, that we should be able to get to 5% or 6% unemployment and still find enough reason as a country to throw the bums out. For one thing, they are communists. I find it rich in irony that we're supposed to be celebrating the tearing down of the Berlin Wall and we are moving fast towards a society here that is at least the same order of magnitude repressive as the one in East Berlin was. Ms. Pelosi, tear down this wall.
Lou:
Note that Obama could not bring himself to actually go to Berlin to celebrate the fall of the Wall. All he contributed was a trite yet creepy video speech with extra-dramatic reverb, rather reminiscent of the aliens' arrival in the new version of the mini-series "V." Of course, The Messiah found more than enough time back in the summer to fly to Copenhagen to lobby for awarding the Olympics to his crooked and corrupt cronies back in Chicago, and he will no doubt return to the same venue to take a leading role in the "climate crisis" farce on tap for December. But go and personally celebrate the fall of the Wall? Not one of The Bamster's priorities, since he clearly is more interested in repealing the Reagan Revolution rather than praising any part of it. Indeed, Obama's overall objective appears to be the repeal of the American Revolution altogether.
The reason the wall came down is not that the East got any less repressive, it's that the West got so much more repressive that there are no longer any important ideological differences between the East and the West that would justify a physical barrier between the two. Osmosis works in both directions. Obama didn't go to celebrate the tearing down of the wall because he doesn't understand the love of freedom.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/11/11/jeb-bushs-sons-hold-fundraiser-rubio-florida-senate-race/?test=latestnews
Jeb Bush's sons throw FL gov Crist under the bus
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