Sure: what Demmekrats must do to win in November, per WaPo

UPDATE: I hadn’t realized it before but the author of this op-ed piece is Obama’s Campign Manager. My hope for next November just went up.

None so blind.

In 2006 and 2008, voters sent an unmistakable message: We want decisive change. This was not just a change of political parties. Instead of a government that works for the entitled and special interests, a government that looks out for Wall Street, they wanted a government that works better for them, a government that plays the role it should to help foster the security of the middle class.

Well we certainly don’t want Congress selling out to special interests, do we? So let’s see what the Washington Post thinks we should do about that.

Pass a meaningful health insurance reform package without delay

So that means no taxes on labor unions, $300 million to Louisiana taxpayers and $100 million to North Dakota residents. Got it. Oh yeah, the drug companies and insurance folks make out like bandits under ObamaCare too.

– We need to show that we not just are focused on jobs but also create them. Even without a difficult fiscal situation, the government can have only so much direct impact on job creation, on top of the millions of jobs created by the president’s early efforts to restart the economy.

You may not have noticed those millions of jobs Obama created and the soaring unemployment rates didn’t either, but the point is, he wanted to create new jobs, and isn’t that what really matters?

– “Change” is not just about policies. In 2006, Democrats promised to drain the swamp and won back Congress largely because the American people soured on corrupt Republican leadership. Many ethics reforms were put in place by the Democrats. But a recent Gallup poll showed that a record 55 percent of Americans think members of Congress have low ethics, up from only 21 percent in 2000. In particular, we have to make sure the freshman and sophomore members of the House who won in part on transparency and reform issues can show they are delivering. The Republicans will suggest they have changed their spots, but the GOP cannot hold a candle to us on reform issues. Let’s make sure we own this space.

Ah, Charles Rangel? Chris Dodd? Tom Murtha? Robert Byrd?  Every single cabinet official who turns out not to have paid taxes? Secret negotiatins on ObamCare after promising to televise them on CSpan? Just saying.

– Don’t accept any lectures on spending. The GOP took us from a $236 billion surplus when President Bush took office to a $1.3 trillion deficit, with unpaid-for tax cuts for the wealthy, two wars and the Medicare prescription drug program.

The Medicare prescription bill was indeed a fiasco, passed by a vote of 76-21 in the Senate. But let’s not look at what came next, under Obama:

Whoops! Nothing to see here - move along, move along

Micro-managing Detroit from Washington

Deteroit cut 2,000 dealerships, Congress wants them back. They’ve never run a business in their lives, let alone a car company, but they’re dictating product and operations, on our dime. That’ll work.

Cool!

Find those cheer leaders!

Greenwich High and our cops bringing in drug-sniffing dogs to search kids, cars and lockers. This is so stupid that even I can’t come up with a pithy riposte. But it may be time to seriously consider taking your kids out of the public moron system.

I taught my own kids to never trust cops – I’m sorry now that I didn’t include teachers in that warning, but they’ve surely discovered that on their own.

Good news for Scusie

Yummie!

US opens border to pork rind imports. That happy cheer you hear comes from Valbella’s, where Scusie is living amid its charred ruins, and Crawford, Texas.

CIA increases predator attacks after Al Qaeda killings

Good for them. And good for the ACLU who, demonstrating that they know nothing and never will, has filed suit to stop the attacks.

WASHINGTON — Since the suicide bombing that took the lives of seven Americans in Afghanistan on Dec. 30, the Central Intelligence Agency has struck back against militants in Pakistan with the most intensive series of missile strikes from drone aircraft since the covert program began.

Beginning the day after the attack on a C.I.A. base in Khost, Afghanistan, the agency has carried out 11 strikes that have killed about 90 people suspected of being militants, according to Pakistani news reports, which make almost no mention of civilian casualties. The assault has included strikes on a mud fortress in North Waziristan on Jan. 6 that killed 17 people and a volley of missiles on a compound in South Waziristan last Sunday that killed at least 20.

Some legal scholars have questioned the legitimacy under international law of killings by a civilian agency in a country where the United States is not officially at war. This month the American Civil Liberties Union filed a request under the Freedom of Information Act for government documents revealing procedures for approving targets and legal justifications for the killings.

The increase in drone attacks has caused panic among rank-and-file militants, particularly in North Waziristan, where some now avoid using private vehicles and take public transport, according to Pakistani intelligence and security officials. Fewer foreign extremists are now seen in Miram Shah, North Waziristan’s capital, which was previously awash with them, according to local tribesmen and security officials.

We license drivers and gun owners, why not parents?

Mother jailed in Georgia for forcing son to hammer pet hamster to death after he received bad grades

That’s another fine mess you’ve gotten us into

Laurel, Hardy arrested on cocaine rap.

The science is settled: Global warming a fraud

You lied!

The Indian head of the UN climate change panel defended his position yesterday even as further errors were identified in the panel’s assessment of Himalayan glaciers.

Dr Rajendra Pachauri dismissed calls for him to resign over the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change’s retraction of a prediction that Himalayan glaciers could disappear by 2035.

But he admitted that there may have been other errors in the same section of the report, and said that he was considering whether to take action against those responsible. “I know a lot of climate sceptics are after my blood, but I’m in no mood to oblige them,” he told The Times in an interview. “It was a collective failure by a number of people,” he said. “I need to consider what action to take, but that will take several weeks. It’s best to think with a cool head, rather than shoot from the hip.”

The IPCC’s 2007 report, which won it the Nobel Peace Prize, said that the probability of Himalayan glaciers “disappearing by the year 2035 and perhaps sooner is very high”. But it emerged last week that the forecast was based not on a consensus among climate change experts, but on a media interview with a single Indian glaciologist in 1999. The IPCC admitted on Thursday that the prediction was “poorly substantiated” in the latest of a series of blows to the panel’s credibility.

Dr Pachauri said that the IPCC’s report was the responsibility of the panel’s Co-Chairs at the time, both of whom have since moved on.

Don’t hurry back on our account

Dodd: Dems should take 4-6 week breather before re-addressing healthcare. Take the next few years.

A wasted six months

26 Mohawk Lane

The owner of this new home off Stag Lane paid $7.5  million for it in 2008, a steep price even in the height of the market, let alone the back side of the slope. In July of this year he put it back up for sale at $7.850 and left it there until today, when he marked it down to $6.950.  That’s the dawning of reality, I suppose. Assessment is $4.3 million.

Yeah, but at least they banned gay marriage

New Jersey’s $8 billion deficit (I’ve read $10, but what’s a couple of billion?) has finally caught the media’s attention. Not to worry; in the last week leading to Corizine’s removal, the Legislature spent its time debating and defeating a gay marriage proposal. Just as long as their priorities are right, what could possibly go wrong?

Who knew? Fresh air and sunshine are good for you!

As the result of  Dr. Alramist’s scaring young mommies about suntans, rickets is back. [Hiram - rickets are back?]

Mainstream Republicans are toast, too

Republican National Committee holding convention in Hawaii while country has 20% unemployment. I’m not saying these people should wear hair shirts and huddle in the cold, but maybe they ought to meet in Pittsburg.

Urban legend or crime wave? I report, you decide

I've told you: don't let anyone calling himself Fudrucker into this house!

One of those passed-along email things, supposedly from Round Hill Road. Take it for what it’s worth.

Hi Everyone,

I wanted to alert you to something that happened this morning.   Two men came to our door around 10:30am when I was not home. My housekeeper was vacuuming in our family room and noticed the men standing by the back door.  She was unsure whether they were ringing the door bell because of the vacuum.  She opened the door for them as they were clean cut and not threatening in their appearance (white males wearing khakis, short dark hair, mid height @ 5’6″).  They said that someone named “Scott had sent them to pick up a sofa upstairs and they need to go upstairs right then”.  My babysitter came down and said “I know nothing about this and will call my employer to ask”.  With this they said “we will just go up stairs and find it.  Do not call your boss”.  After a little more back and forth and my babysitter saying that they could not come in without my consent they left.  They had no vehicle.  We have spoken to the police and evidently there have been quite a few burglaries in our area recently.  They said that these two men were definitely up to no good. I thought you should be aware of this happening.  Make sure you let your help know and keep your doors locked.

Say, here’s an idea!

Senator Liberman introduces bill that would require intelligence officials to be notified when terrorists are in our air space. No kidding – when the panty-bomber was landing, there was an opportunity to treat him as an enemy combatant or a dadgummed criminal defendant, and TSA chose to treat him as a defendant. “We blew it”, they now concede, but is that enough?

I love it

Mayor Bloomberg: Congressional pay should be held in escrow for ten years while we wait to see how their agenda works out. And if we can enact clawback, we’ll solve the budget deficit. $100 billion for Head Start, $300 billion for job training programs, a trillion for the War on Poverty, and we’re on our way.

Megan McArdle – relying on your base is a losing strategy

Because they don’t amount to enough of a voting block to elect you.

You might also consider that the voters you’re asking them to ignore are their constituents.  You know, the majority of the people in their district.  The people they ostensibly represent.  The people who consistently poll against the various health care plans on the table. Yes, sometimes you should ignore your constituents because time is short and you have information and insight that they don’t.  But it is not obvious that these bills meet those conditions.  Obvious to you, maybe.  But not to the rest of us.

Campaign contributions case- not quite what mainstream media would have you believe

Frankie Fudrucker: "This is the moral equivalent of a rifle and that qualifies me for NRA money, right?"

Amid the wailing and gnashing of teeth over the Supreme Court’s ruling on restrictions on campaign spending by unions and corporations, it’s worth looking at the groups that urged the overturning of those laws:

Although the Supreme Court broke along familiar philosophical lines, the case itself scrambled the ideological deck. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the AFL-CIO both urged the court to strike down the McCain-Feingold provision, as did the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Rifle Association. Sen. McCain and the Democratic National Committee both argued for the law’s constitutionality.

Here at Fudrucker & Fontanski Discount Realty we’re busy recasting our business model to accommodate the latest ruling and we’ll be ready to accept donations within just a few days. Stay tuned.

Fifteen books every entrepreneur should read

So says this survey by BusinessInsider.com. Can’t say I’ve read the more technical ones but you certainly can’t go wrong with The Fountainhead (although I prefer Atlas Shrugged), The Prince, and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance .

This seems wise

Law offices of John Michael Faren, Esq.

The state judiciary is seeking to suspend Michael Faren’s law license. Faren, the New Canaanite who beat his wife almost to death, is presently incarerated in the Newtown high security prison.

The state Office of the Chief Disciplinary Counsel filed an application last week seeking the temporary suspension of Farren’s law license and asked that a trustee handle his clients’ cases. A hearing for the application was set for Feb. 4 at state Superior Court in Stamford, said Mark Dubois, the state’s chief disciplinary counsel.

“They’re innocent until proven guilty but we don’t like the idea of people setting up law offices in jail,” Dubois said.

Indeed. Fellow cons like the convenience, though.