Bombshells Galore

It's been an awful, awful week for the radical Leftist Democrats running the American government.  The first bombshell was Scott Brown pulling off the Massachusetts Miracle.  Today we see two more:

Bombshell #2 --- Pelosi: No cram-down possible

Nancy Pelosi announced late this morning that she can't get the votes necessary to move it to Obama's desk:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday that she does not have the votes needed to pass the Senate version of the health care bill.

"I don't see the votes for it at this time," Pelosi told reporters in a briefing.

After Democrats lost their 60-vote supermajority in the Senate Tuesday after Republicans won an upset victory in the Massachusetts special election to replace the late Ted Kennedy, House passage of the current Senate health bill appeared to be one of few options available for Democrats hoping to complete their year-long quest to pass health reform.

The leadership has apparently finally begun listening to their rank-and-file:

Brown's arrival in the capital today carried a message that Democrats finally began to comprehend, after dismissing voter anger at town halls for months as meaningless:

Rank-and-file Democrats vented their frustration at a closed-door meeting Thursday. Emerging from the session, Rep. Michael Arcuri, D-N.Y., said: "The mega bills are dead. If we didn't see what happened Tuesday night, we have blinkers on."

And now that the blinkers have begun to come off, Democrats realize that most people didn't consider this a priority in the first place:

Also fueling the Democratic search for a fresh health care strategy is a conviction by many in the party that it's time for an election-year focus on jobs and the economy, which polls show are easily the public's top concerns.

"I don't think we have to wait for health care to be resolved one way or the other before we move to jobs," said Sen. Robert Casey, D-Pa. "We need to put a jobs bill on the table very soon, certainly in the next few weeks."

This puts an end to the complicated pass-this-now, do-a-modification-later approach that had been floated over the past week as it became apparent that Democrats would lose Massachusetts.  It also probably means an end to the reconciliation approach, which could only be used to pass the least popular elements of ObamaCare — Medicare cuts and tax hikes.  We're probably looking more at a Square One approach, and this time the Obama administration may try to draft key Republicans into the talks in order to get bipartisan cover.

Hot Air gives the bottom line:

Either way, it's an ignominious defeat for Obama and Pelosi, whose radical approach and "I won" attitude finally caught up with them.  Even with massive majorities and a filibuster-proof caucus, they could not jam down a massive government intrusion into the private sector through Congress.  They overreached, and now they have been exposed as radicals in the middle of an election year.

Bingo!  It may be too late now, though.  The fact that they dropped their pretenses and floored it toward the most socialist, Leftist policies possible has opened a lot of people's eyes, especially in the all-important Independent segment (which went to Scott Brown by 71%-23%).  Given that this all happened in an election year, they're hosed.

Bombshell #3 --- Supreme Court (partially) restores 1st Amendment

In a 5-4 ruling, the Supreme Court abruptly called a halt to encroachments on political speech in the name of campaign finance reform.  It ruled that spending limits imposed on corporations and unions infringed on constitutional rights, ending decades of attempts to limit advertising on their behalf.  It also overturned McCain-Feingold provisions barring some kinds of advertising in the weeks before an election :

The Supreme Court has ruled that corporations may spend freely to support or oppose candidates for president and Congress, easing decades-old limits on their participation in federal campaigns.

By a 5-4 vote, the court on Thursday overturned a 20-year-old ruling that said corporations can be prohibited from using money from their general treasuries to pay for campaign ads. The decision, which almost certainly will also allow labor unions to participate more freely in campaigns, threatens similar limits imposed by 24 states.

The justices also struck down part of the landmark McCain-Feingold campaign finance bill that barred union- and corporate-paid issue ads in the closing days of election campaigns.

Okay, let's cut through the mumbo-jumbo.  What does this actually mean?  Basically, it means that companies and people can say what they want about political figures anytime they want to.  Previously, the McCain-Feingold campaign finance laws prevented negative ads from such entities in the weeks leading up to an election, and that provision has now apparently been rightfully gutted.  The other key thing to note is that unions have had essentially free reign to slander and smear the Right with no restrictions, while companies and wealthy businessmen had no way to play the same game in the other direction.  We all know that the unions favor Dems and the Left, while businesses generally (though not always, especially in the biggest of the big money firms) favor Reps and the Right.  So, this SC decision has effectively leveled the playing field.  And, of course, that angers the Left to no end because they can't win unless they're on an un-level playing field.

In my opinion, the most fair campaign financing rules would be no donation limits on anyone for any candidate...as long as there is 100% transparency and reporting of every penny donated.  If George Soros wants to spend a billion dollars to elect his latest sock puppet, fine.  Go for it.  But every American should know that George Soros is trying to buy the election for his sock puppet, and should understand that if the sock puppet wins, he'll be controlled by an anti-American Greek socialist billionaire.  See how this would work?  The American people are smart, and naturally skeptical of politicians with big hooks, and this system will eliminate those candidates with the biggest hooks in them.  And, in general, the simpler the system is, the more difficult it will be to game it, which will help reduce fraudulent and improper donations.

All in all, the Dems have got to be foaming at the mouth right about now with all of these bombshells.  Expect more retirements soon.

There's my two cents.