Political Digest August 28 2009

Massachusetts Senate Seat
The Democrats in Massachusetts changed the law when Kerry was running for president, calling for a special election instead of appointment by the governor, to prevent Romney naming a successor to President Kerry. Now they have a vacancy, a Democrat governor, and need that vote in the US Senate. They should be able to jam a bill through the “Great and General Court” (as the Massachusetts Legislature was known) as soon as it can meet. BUT, if the Senate President and/or the Speaker of the House has ambitions to be appointed, or to control the appointment, the bill could be held up while a deal is cut. Watch for the Boston Globe, that bankrupt liberal organ, to put on the heat to allow the governor to appoint. Meanwhile, the Gov isn’t all that popular. And there’s a secret amendment in the Massachusetts Constitution that requires the Senate President, House Speaker and the Governor to all hate each other, regardless of party. I speak as a former member of the Massachusetts Senate, which we called the “upper house” and the House members called “the other body.”

The Coming Wellstone Effect?
http://www.redstate.com/dan_perrin/2009/08/26/the-coming-wellstone-effect/
Excerpt: Ultimately, it is their inflexibility and arrogance that comes from their policy greed (I want it now, I want it all) that could drive them to politicize the funeral of Senator Kennedy to the point of it repulsing the American public. The Democrats should remember their experience with the Senator Wellstone funeral. Given the moral certainty of liberals and their arrogance in their views, their pent-up demand for some good news on health care and their urge to imprint Senator Kennedy permanently on the historic record, combine that all and then add a truck load of saturation coverage from the boot-licking mainstream media, and a Senator Wellstone funeral blow-back effect is a real likelihood. Then, the Democrats will have truly used Senator Ted Kennedy’s death to effect the exact opposite of what Senator Kennedy would have wanted.

Changing the Name
Notice that the administration has taken a leaf from Al Gore’s playbook. With global temps dropping since the 90s, the Climate Alarmists are no longer referring to “Global Warming” but to “Global Climate Change.” (Any change is bad, is caused by humans and requires us to kill our economy.) BO & Company, having run into a buzz saw at the Town Hall Meetings, has changed the goal from “Health Care Reform” to “Health Insurance Reform.” In BO’s memorable phrase, they are trying to put “lipstick on a pig.” But it’s still a pig.

The CIA
Now that the AG is going after CIA operatives, they will doubtless be more considerate of Al Qaeda “detainees” in the future. Some day, President Obama may return from a political speech someplace, to find Washington DC and his wife and daughters incinerated by a terrorist A-bomb. He’ll proudly say that it was worth it as long as we didn’t waterboard anyone to find out about it in advance. God forbid, but I think the AG’s political investigation makes it ever more likely.

Democrats Vow to Return Money from Financier
Nemazee, a Top Fundraiser for Party, Is Charged With Fraud Related to Loan
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/26/AR2009082603498.html?wpisrc=newsletter
Excerpt: Just 11 months ago, Hassan Nemazee ranked as one of the Democratic Party's premier money men -- hosting a $28,500-a-head fundraiser in his luxurious home on New York's Upper East Side for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama. On Wednesday, Nemazee returned to the same $20 million Park Avenue apartment under house arrest, charged with lying about his assets in order to secure a $74 million loan from Citibank. He is required to wear an electronic security bracelet to ensure that he doesn't leave the building. The charges prompted a scramble among top Democrats to distance themselves from Nemazee, 59, who together with his wife has contributed more than $750,000 over the past 15 years to federal committees and candidates, including Obama, Vice President Biden and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, records show. (Ah, that Democrat “culture of corruption” Nancy Pelosi warned us about. But it bears repeating. There are good, honest, decent, intelligent, caring people who are Democrats and Republicans, Liberals and Conservatives, Male and Female, Black, White, Brown and Yellow. And there are slimeballs in every category too. Defending wrongdoing because you share a party, race, ethnicity or religion with the miscreant makes you part of the problem. Defending Gov. Sanford because he’s a conservative is just as wrong as Holder’s refusal to prosecute vote intimidation in Philadelphia because the thugs were black.)

Mayhem Crosses the Border with Informers
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/26/AR2009082603768.html?wpisrc=newsletter
Excerpt: EL PASO -- José Daniel González was living the sweet life in America. He bought the $365,000 two-story Mediterranean with the tile roof and swimming pool. He started a trucking company, was raising a family. But on a Friday night in May, he was executed in his front yard -- eight shots, tight pattern, close range. According to police detectives, González knew the man who ordered his killing. He also knew the man who stood on his lawn and watched him die. These things are often personal, especially among high-level drug traffickers.

For Intelligence Officers, A Wiki Way to Connect Dots
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/26/AR2009082603606.html?wpisrc=newsletter&wpisrc=newsletter&wpisrc=newsletter
Intelligence agencies sharing information? Gee, novel idea.

Specialists Under Fire: Health care reform takes aim at the most highly-trained physicians
http://www.biomet.com/corporate/ceoBlog/postDetail.cfm?postID=39
Interesting data on the threat to access to care.

Doctor’s website on HCR
http://www.juliogonzalezmd.com/

3,900 stimulus checks went to prison inmates
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Stimulus-checks-not-boosting-apf-2542694170.html?x=0&.v=2
And they want the government to run health care.

Afghanistan Apocalypse
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/dreyfuss/466546/afghanistan_apocalypse
Excerpt: Their conclusions: (1) A significant escalation of the war will be necessary to avoid utter defeat. (2) Even if tens of thousands of troops are added to the US occupation, it won't be possible to determine if the US/NATO effort is succeeding until eighteen months later. (3) Even if the United States turns the tide in Afghanistan, no significant drawdown of US forces will take place until five years have passed.

Richardson Probe 'Was Killed in Washington'
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/08/27/richardson-investigation-killed-washington/?test=latestnews
Holder is too busy going after CIA folks who tried to prevent another 9/11 to be worring about little things like voter intimidation by black thugs in Phila, or political corruption among Democrats. This is the guy who promised a “non-political” AG office. You’d laugh if you weren’t crying.

The Actions That Are Necessary Now: "$10 for Tark."
http://townhall.com/columnists/HughHewitt/2009/08/27/the_actions_that_are_necessary_now__$10_for_tark
Excerpt: The country is on the edge of unleashing hyperinflation which will not only destroy economic growth for years to come but also wipe out the savings of millions of retired Americans. It is unconscionable that the country is borrowing so much money, and there is no rationalizing it except as a ruthless political payoff to the president's most loyal constituencies. It is a poisoned payoff, however, as this sort of economic recklessness will undermine the quality of life for every American.

Pelosi Radioactive in… California?
http://www.redstate.com/brianfaughnan/2009/08/26/pelosi-radioactive-in-california/
Excerpt: It’s no surprise when a Southern Democrat in a GOP-leaning seat - someone like Parker Griffith - runs like a scalded dog from Nancy Pelosi. Indeed, if Democrats hold a narrow edge in the House after the 2010 elections - a genuine possibility - they will nervously count the Blue Dogs to see how many will withhold votes from Pelosi. But it should be surprising that even Democrats in California are trying to distance themselves from her:

Alleged mastermind of Jakarta attacks arrested: the director of an online Islamic "information portal"
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/027364.php
Excerpt: And yet he, too, missed the memo about Islam as a "religion of peace." Or he just plain "misunderstood" it. Funny how that keeps happening.

Medical advice on Libyan bomber 'in doubt'
http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/latestnews/Medical-advice--on-Libyan.5587119.jp
Excerpt: JUSTICE secretary Kenny MacAskill was last night under pressure to reveal more details of the medical evidence that led to the release of the Lockerbie bomber, after it emerged that only one doctor was willing to say Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi had less than three months to live. Labour and Conservative politicians have demanded the Scottish Government publish details of the doctor's expertise and qualifications, amid suggestions he or she may not have been a prostate cancer expert.

10-year-old Muslim bride turned over to 80-year-old husband from whom she had been hiding
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/027361.php
(No outcry from American feminists?) Excerpt: AL-LAITH: A 10-year-old bride was returned last Sunday to her 80-year-old husband by her father who discovered her at the home of her aunt with whom she has been hiding for around 10 days. A local newspaper said the husband, who denies he is 80 in spite of claims by the girl’s family, accused the aunt of meddling in his affairs. “My marriage is not against Shariah. It included the elements of acceptance and response by the father of the bride,” he said. He added that he had been engaged to his wife’s elder sister and that this broke off as she wanted to continue with her education. “In light of this, her father offered his younger daughter. I was allowed to have a look at her according to Shariah and found her acceptable,” he said. (Well: "The Prophet wrote the (marriage contract) with 'Aisha while she was six years old and consummated his marriage with her while she was nine years old and she remained with him for nine years (i.e. till his death)." -- Bukhari 7.62.88)

Hamas Plays Host to Pedophilia
http://thelastcrusade.org/2009/08/07/hamas-plays-host-to-pedophilia/
Sickening if true. Our tax dollars at work.

Court Rulings Increase Lawsuit Abuse, Reduce Patient Care
http://www.protectpatientsnow.org/site/c.8oIDJLNnHlE/b.5400697/k.2552/Newsletter.htm
But they can’t figure out why health care costs keep going up.

Gov. Haley Barbour: Obamacare is going too far, too soon, too fast, and costing too much
http://www.protectpatientsnow.org/site/c.8oIDJLNnHlE/b.5400681/k.2352/Gov_Haley_Barbour_Obamacare_is_going_too_far_too_soon_too_fast_and_costing_too_much.htm
Excerpt: It took Obama six months to pick out a family dog. Cramming health care reform down the country's throat in a fraction of that time scares people who have been told, accurately, the various bills contain a billion-dollar combination of tax increases and Medicare spending cuts.

Dean says Obamacare authors don't want to challenge trial lawyers
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/Dean-says-Obamacare-authors-dont-want-to-challenge-trial-lawyers-55140567.html
Excerpt: Asked by an audience member why the legislation does nothing to cap medical malpractice class-action lawsuits against doctors and medical institutions (aka "Tort reform"), Dean responded by saying: “The reason tort reform is not in the [health care] bill is because the people who wrote it did not want to take on the trial lawyers in addition to everybody else they were taking on. And that’s the plain and simple truth,” Dean is a former physician, so he knows about skyrocketing medical malpractice insurance rates, and the role of the trial lawyers in fueling the "defensive medicine" approach among medical personnel who order too many tests and other sometimes unneeded procedures "just to be sure" and to protect themselves against litigation.

NH court orders home-schooled child into government-run school
http://www.alliancealert.org/2009/08/26/nh-court-orders-home-schooled-child-into-government-run-school/
Excerpt: Although the marital master making recommendations to the court agreed the child is “well liked, social and interactive with her peers, academically promising, and intellectually at or superior to grade level” and that “it is clear that the home schooling…has more than kept up with the academic requirements of the…public school system,” he nonetheless proposed that the Christian girl be ordered into a government-run school after considering “the impact of [her religious] beliefs on her interaction with others.” The court approved the order.