The Battle for America 2010: Special Election Candidates Promise to Stop Lame-Duck Agenda
Illinois will hold parallel elections on November 2: a general election to a six-year Senate term and a special election to fill out the final two months of President Obama’s unexpired term. Under ordinary circumstances, the six-year term would be the only one that mattered, but with the looming lame-duck threat the two-month term could be extremely consequential. Fortunately, at least one of the candidates has promised to put the brakes on the lame-duck agenda: Mark Kirk. On MSNBC’s Morning Joe last week, Kirk made a clear promise to stop the lame-duck threat if elected. He went further in the Washington Post, saying, correctly: “The only legitimate thing for the Congress to do is to pass a short-term continuing resolution to keep the doors open — and let the voice of the American people as communicated through their new representatives and senators speak in January.”
Kirk’s Democratic opponent, Alexi Giannoulias, has not made a similar promise to prevent a runaway lame-duck session from circumventing the national elections.
West Virginia is having a special election to fill the remaining two years of Robert C. Byrd’s term. The primary will be this Saturday, August 28, and the likely nominees will be Republican businessman John Raese and Democratic Governor Joe Manchin. Both men are running as conservatives, and the lame-duck issue may provide the best litmus test of the claim.
If Manchin is not willing to make a clear public commitment to buck the national Democratic Party and its extreme agenda to block a lame-duck session, then voters concerned about cap and trade, card check, tax hikes and a range of other issues would do well to consider voting for Raese. I recently spoke with Raese, who signed our NoClimateTax.com pledge and promised to oppose a lame-duck session. I expect he will specifically campaign on stopping the lame-duck agenda — as Kirk and O’Donnell are doing — and that if Manchin fails to match the promise it may become a defining issue in the campaign.
These three states (and possibly Colorado, although it appears unlikely that Michael Bennet will follow custom there) will offer their voters an opportunity to elect U.S. senators who can be immediately seated to derail Reid’s lame-duck ambitions.
When I see election polls and Senator Reid is neck and neck with Candidate Angle because of some off the cuff remark she made I about have a seizure. As of last week Senator Reid was still slipping in articles to an energy bill that will damage our ability to seek energy at home. His Democrat Congress would have rammed this down our throats already if they didn’t need to be back in their district meeting only with the party faithful. The media picks up on these so called “open” forums like it is the will of the people and then they focus on snippets of what the candidate said like it is toxic. The last three legislations these distinguished Senators and Congressman have passed are over 7,000 pages and those that are reporting on the content are scaring all of us and throwing the entire economy in to reverse. The 48 or 49% of the Nevada voters that support Senator Reid must like having the largest foreclosure rate in the nation and a president that trashes the gambling ways of Las Vegas.
The Tea Party wins, even if it loses;
The people will hold the Pols to their
promises this time; No more excuses.
This election will help define what I believe will be the new political alignment here in the USA. One one side will be Constitutional, Capitalist, Ecologists and on the other side will be Authoritarian,Socialist, Environmentalists. We all must get informed and make our choice. I made mine. Vote for Liberty!
Actually there are four states: you forgot New York. The omission is somewhat understandable, however, as the GOP has essentially conceeded that seat.
but what can we do about RINO Judd????
Relapse Summer 2010
As thousands of mortgagors, many of whom wouldn’t qualify for mortgages in the real world, line up to be bailed out by the feds, as the nation’s recession birth rate falls to 2.7%, the lowest in a century, as Joint Chief of Staffs Chairman Mike Mullen warns that the national debt is endangering national security, President Nero Obama fiddles away, chows down on shrimp and lobster, golfs, parties with the other rich and famous on Martha’s Vineyard, and generally enjoys the hell out of his sixth vacation this year.
Is anyone minding the ranch? It certainly isn’t our vice president who revels in his own non-existent, Nirvana.
It can’t yet be termed a double dipper, it certainly isn’t the Big Dipper, but VP Joe Biden’s sanguine reference some weeks ago to the summer of 2010 as “recovery summer” is turning out to be one of the dumbest and most presumptuous remarks our dumb and presumptuous vice president has made to date.
Even if Biden’s July mantra was only part of the administration’s campaign to convince the American people not to believe their lying eyes and those lying economic numbers and it wasn’t one his very original observations such as, “This is a f***ing big deal!” the term “Recovery Summer” has been hung around the VP’s neck like a dead economic albatross.
And, not only is Recovery Summer 2010 collapsing into Relapse Summer 2010 but the administration doesn’t seem to much care or notice any more than they notice former rabid supporters turning on them as if they had a terminal dose of the plague.
When the CBO announces that Obama’s stimulus “may” have added 3.1 million jobs and lowered the unemployment rate by up to 1.7% in the second quarter and is unable to substantiate either of those bizarre claims and no one is able to locate any of those phantom jobs and the Commerce Department reports a paltry 1.7% GDP increase in that same quarter, people begin to wonder as should the Obamians.
When staunch Obamian from day one, David Letterman, begins cracking jokes about the sorry state of America’s financial affairs and refers to his former hero as a one-term president, which Letterman has been doing of late, Obamians might want to consider sitting up and taking notice even if, by force of habit, Dave and his writers still reserve their most scathing rips for George W. Bush.
However, when the media mogul, gazillionaire, highly-influential Mortimer B. Zuckerman . . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=1867)
Sean, New York is having a special but state law does not allow the winner to be seated until January 3, after the lame duck.
Thirty-four states already cut higher education aid and twenty-five states already reduced grade school aid. Twenty-Seven states have reduced health care benefits for low-income people. Twenty-six states have hiring freezes. Twenty-two states have lowered employee”s wages. Thirteen states have announced layoffs. Federal aid to the states has already being reduced. The worst is yet to come. 2010 will bring the loss of many jobs in public sector as well as the private sector. Experts say any chance of a turn around will not happen now. The US is broke and has the worst debt in the world.
The bankruptcies should happen in 2010 and many of the other problems have already begun. In 2010, 37 Governors face re-election and 46 states will chose their legislatures. The reality is to keep the states spending budgets up; taxes will have to be increased. When you have a lot of people out of work and a lot of failed businesses this means big tax hikes and raising taxes for those able to survive in a down economy is just going to make it harder for them to make it in the long run. Of course out of work people are short term oriented and can care less about down the road.
Things look like the politicians are going to try and run with upside down budgets but they will run out of money and then have to make some hard choices when they are up against the wall. In a state with high unemployment, who is going to vote for a politician who says we need to pull our belts in and run with a balanced budget and a sound economic policy and this will mean spending cuts and job cuts. Now the politician who says well we need to make jobs, extend unemployment benefits, send the kids to school and college, keep the medical aid coming, and keep the spending up is going to get elected. Then when the spenders get elected what are they going to do?
A study, conducted by the Pew Center on the States, found that California, Illinois, Michigan, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island and Wisconsin are among the most bankrupt states in the country. The only ones not run top-to-bottom by Democrats were Arizona, Florida and Nevada…all of which have huge illegal immigration problems.
California to become America’s first failed state?
Their unemployment is at 12 percent, and government staff workers are being paid with IOUs. None other than Professor Kevin Starr, University of Southern California, State Librarian Emeritus, one of California’s greatest historians, pronounced that “We are on the verge of becoming a failed state because we can’t agree on anything.” The California Senate has been in Democratic hands since 1970, and likewise, the Assembly — The reason California may be our first failed state is because the Democratic recipe for success in California is the same as in every other liberal state — more spending —– particularly on social programs and public employee sector benefits. Spending is the public policy that gets Democrats re-elected. (Their state budget went from $56 billion in 1998 to an eye popping $131 billion in 2009.) What nobody on the left is willing to admit is that blue states are in meltdown. Michigan, New York, New Jersey, Illinois (Obamaland), Pennsylvania, Oregon and, of course, California, are in debtors prison. High levels of taxation, a love affair with regulations — the more the merrier — and the unremitting expansion of public sector employment have made public sector unions a political powerhouse. It’s hard to imagine that the debates in the primary elections will not focus on job creation in the private sector, and stemming the tide of businesses and high-income residents fleeing the state. So will California’s elections move them right of center as we saw with Europe’s large social democracies, or will their fascination for Obama-like left-leaning economic policies remain intact — no jobs, increased spending and bigger government. Lastly, Los Angeles voted to Arizona boycott over immigration law. Who cares? Many states are now looking at passing the same law. LA and San Francisco have just hurt there on own economy’s which according to all the top economists won’t last long anyway. This is bad news, who wants to be like California Not Arizona. Many experts agree that after the November elections the Democrats will lose the Congress and Obama’s rating will drop 20% to the lowest ever recorded for any US President.
Democrats Ducking Town Halls
08/17/2010
Numerous vulnerable House Democrats are refusing to schedule town hall meetings in their districts over the summer recess.
A survey conducted by the National Republican Congressional Committee shows that of 75 Democratic House members who are targeted for defeat by the GOP, 65 have not yet scheduled a town hall meeting with their constituents.
The figure is astounding, to say the least. The “Gang of 65” includes freshmen who rode in on the national Democratic tide in ’08, among them Pennsylvania Rep. Kathy Dahlkemper (who faces a stiff challenge from car dealer and conservative GOPer Mike Kelly) and Ohio Rep. Mary Jo Kilroy, who won a much-disputed “squeaker” against Republican state legislator Steve Stivers and now faces him in a rematch.
In addition, many Democratic “sophomores” who came in on a nationwide wave of anger against the Bush Administration and the Republican-run House in ’06 and then won on Barack Obama’s coat-tails in ’08 are also AWOL when it comes to scheduling meetings for constituents. These include two-termers Jason Altmire and Chris Carney of Pennsylvania, both of whom face stiff re-election challenges in 2010.
Even surprise winners of special elections in historically Republican districts, but who are under strong fire this year, are among the 65 who do not have town meetings on their calendars. Democratic Rep. Bill Foster won the Illinois seat of former House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert in a dramatic upset in ’08 and Scott Murphy won the upstate New York district of fellow Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand when she was named to the Senate last year. Murphy won in the 20th District by just over 500 votes.
As to why Foster, Murphy, and the others are ducking town hall meetings, it could be any number of reasons. Earlier this year, veteran Rep. John Dingell (D.-Mich) had a town hall meeting over healthcare in his Dearborn-area district turn into a near riot, as constituents angrily charged that the lawmaker had not read the healthcare bill that was before Congress.
In Illinois’ 8th District, Democratic Rep. Melissa Bean had gone weeks during the healthcare debate without a town hall meeting on the issue. Republican opponent Joe Walsh hit this hard and began holding meetings of his own on alternatives to the proposals before Congress. In so doing, Walsh drew standing-room-only crowds and swatches of publicity.
Dingell and Bean apparently got the message. Neither are part of the “Gang of 65.” As to why there are so many who haven’t gotten the message and scheduled meetings, that’s something they will have to explain themselves—especially since House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on ABC’s “This Week:” “We are very proud of the agenda that we have put for to the American people.”
So why not talk about it with constituents?
FTA: “…Harry Reid’s runaway lame-duck agenda…”
What this should demonstrate to every American no matter what your political affiliation is that “government” isn’t interested in ‘representative’ behaviors.
Why would a “leader” need to “ram through” a lame duck (no majority support exists for the body) ‘agenda’?
Answer: This isn’t about leadership or government (in the classic sense of the word) or any of the other adjectives we use and understand as associated with both.
This is about something much much more complex. Now, I can’t tell you what that context is with 100% certainty. Even our leaders won’t be frank with us, so that makes it difficult to make conclusions with 100% accuracy. However, the general direction is clear as crystal.
Many of our ‘leaders’ have even made statements of their reverence for socialist killers, despots, tyrants and philosophers.
I see these as clear appeals to the enemy for mercy on them specifically (pleas for dhimmitude) or attacks on our culture out right in their own name. In either case they have made public statements confessing their allegiance to another governmental model and demonstrated a treasonous “service” to our nation.
Reid is one such sleeper in a cast of hundreds and thousands. Tired minds too limp to do due diligence to the service they swore an oath to perform in good faith or subversives with an ulterior motive. In any case our government is NOT operating in good faith to uphold and defend or perform to the best of their abilities the duties and obligations of their office.
Re: DE and Lame Duck Agenda
While Mike Castle’s staffer made a strong statement that the candidate believes no business should be done, there is one thing missing. Castle SUPPORTS many of the lame duck agenda items! In addition, he is one of the co-sponsors of DISCLOSE act which would essentially shut down any alternative voices!
He says one thing then votes 70% of the time with progressive Democrats. It is vital we hold leaders accountable to their promises at the polls. As the health care debate demonstrated, once they are elected the people become the lame ducks!
Our “NATION is on a SUICIDE SLIDE,as in a third world country.
In a very clear,concise presentation, I invite all to listen to the FACTS, as told by an old Country Boy, “Buddy Starcher”, in his recording on Decca Records, 1966,#32012,titled,
“The Fall of a Nation”. Our SILENT MAJORITY,is attempting to raise it’s voice in many
options, the one “POSITIVE” format is symptomatic in “THE TEA PARTY<PATRIOTS". We all need to just be plain honest to our PRESENT ELECTORATE, and FIRE THE ENTIRE LOT OF THEM.
I suggest we continue in our private conversation with the Man Upstairs, to seek His Guding Hand, to rescue the profoundly valuable gift He, gave us"One Nation Under God", from the ravages of "THE ME SOCIETY", and return us to the FOUNDATION formed BY OUR FOUNDING FATHERS. God Bless America, and it's continuem by His firm hand.