Is There No Low To Which They Will Not Stoop?

The answer is, of course, NO. Here are just two more examples...

The Kennedy Seat

Very human, very understandable, very hypocritical.

In a personal, sometimes wistful letter sent Tuesday to Governor Deval L. Patrick, Senate President Therese Murray, and House Speaker Robert A. DeLeo, Kennedy asks that Patrick be given authority to appoint someone to the seat temporarily before voters choose a new senator in a special election.

Although Kennedy, who is battling brain cancer, does not specifically mention his illness or the health care debate raging in Washington, the implication of his letter is clear: He is trying to make sure that the leading cause in his life, better health coverage for all, advances in the event of his death.

In his letter, which was obtained by the Globe, Kennedy said that he backs the current succession law, enacted in 2004, which gives voters the power to fill a US Senate vacancy. But he said the state and country need two Massachusetts senators.

A couple of thoughts.

First, that 2004 law was put into place because Democrats were horrified at the thought Mitt Romney might appoint a successor to John Kerry had the latter won the presidential race that year.

Now that a Democrat is back in charge, no worries about that and no need for the people to decide anything.

Second, this is admittedly unkind but unavoidable given this letter....Kennedy's concern about the people of MA having two Senators is noble and all but it doesn't concern him enough to resign. He hardly ever shows up (for more than obvious reasons) and Democrats know one reason they can't get cloture on health care is Kennedy (and Byrd) probably won't be there to vote.

It's unseemly to point this out (though it's true) and I wouldn't but for the fact that Kennedy and his acolytes are making him out to be far more noble than he is.

The third reason this letter from Kennedy reeks is because it was clear early on that he was interested in having his wife succeed him. Obviously that would be much easier should the governor appoint a successor and give her a leg up for any special election (should they keep that feature).

Despite what the Kennedy family seems to think, a seat in the U.S. Senate is not a birthright. This kind of naked power grab is astounding, especially when you stop to think about the fact that they're not even attempting to conceal what they're doing.


White House data mining operation...confirmed!

Remember those questions and concerns about the snitch website Obama set up for Obamacare opponents? The White House brushed them off, indignant and shocked -- SHOCKED -- that anyone could think they would use that genuine effort to correct misunderstandings to score some data on political opponents. Ahem:

DNC admitting flag@whitehouse.gov operation collected data?

So claims Erick Erickson at Redstate, and Greg Sargent’s attempt to explain the White House response does appear to confirm it. Even Greg sounds less than convinced by the latest Obama administration pushback on its Snitch Central e-mail line, now defunct, which is to claim that Senator John Cornyn’s website also collects information from submissions to an information line. Greg, Erick, and Cornyn point out the very obvious difference:

Now the DNC is striking back by pointing out that similar email collection is done on the Web sites of Senators and members of Congress, including … John Cornyn.

Over on Cornyn’s Senate Web site, for instance, you find that people who want to contact the Senator are asked to submit personal info, such as their names, addresses and emails, which are all required.

Now, some will point out a difference: Cornyn is raising a red flag about people possibly forwarding the White House the emails of others, whereas those writing in to the Senate Web sites volunteer their own info.

But the DNC argues this is a meaningless distinction. Following Cornyn’s logic about the White House, the DNC says, shouldn’t those who write in to Cornyn’s Web site to criticize the Senator ask what his office will do with their personal info? Isn’t it also fair to ask Cornyn to “purge” the email addresses of such critics, too?

Erick scoffs at this explanation, and for good reason:

But, as Cornyn points out, and the DNC admits, with Cornyn’s website it is an individual offering their own information to contact the Senator. With Barack Obama, it is people offering other people’s information.

The difference is even more basic than that. Cornyn’s website wasn’t designed with the intent of having peoplel snitch on others who dissent politically from the administration or the Republican Party. The White House designed its Snitch Central for that express purpose. Also, Cornyn is not part of the executive branch, and thus has no control over law-enforcement agencies, which makes his list somewhat less than terrifying. Barack Obama and his team run all of the federal law-enforcement agencies that could make trouble for anyone winding up on an enemies list, as we saw during the Nixon administration.

Apparently, the DNC can’t tell the difference. However, they have performed a valuable service in confirming the White House’s use of the traffic from Snitch Central.

Now the only question is: now that they've got all that data, what exactly are they going to with it?

Unfortunately, I'm sure we'll find out soon enough.

There's my two cents.