Brown and Palin: Two may be a crowd

JUST WHEN I WAS beginning to resign myself to President Sarah Palin it now happens that I have to come to terms with President Scott Brown. As everyone knows - at least that half of America that pays a little attention to politics while the other half tweets and texts - Brown has become a cult sensation among Republicans since he dared to put an inept woman candidate in her place up in Massachusetts. His name has already been smartly encoded on Capitol Hill as "No. 41" by admiring senators on his side of the aisle because he is empirical evidence that the Democrats are no longer filibuster-proof. Some of us, however, have known that for some time with guys like Joe Lieberman and Ben Nelson always hanging around with a suspicious rash.

So No. 41 is the party's Wave of the Future, which will surely embolden some of his ossified colleagues to unapologetically meet with their constituents who might have preferred waves of health care or cleaner air. Americans have long enjoyed waves, particularly at athletic events where fans have leaped to their feet without really knowing why.

Some of No. 41's nitpickers have sneered that he posed as a nude model for a magazine, a blip of moral exposure that no one could find in the GOP's book of family values. But that should be on his plus side. Despite the headiness of the moment, no one can possibly imagine the likes of Chuck Grassley or Jim Inhofe duplicating No. 41's immodest behavior.

Speaking of posing, the question now is how President Palin, who had been No. 1, will respond to No. 41. Having two presidents would not be out of the question. There was a time when there were three popes. I doubt that she would thrust herself onto a magazine centerfold. But politicians do strange things when they are running scared. In pre-No. 41, President Palin was doing fabulously. The Harper's Index noted that 65 pct. of Republicans would support her candidacy although only 58 pct. thought she was qualified for the job. But it is only fair to report that no more than 27 pct of these Republicans believe Barack Obama was "legitimately" elected.

In any case, the GOP presidential wannabes have shrunk to two people who are already president, No. 41 and No. 1. Rudy Giuliani disqualified himself by forgetting things like 9/11 or whether the President mentioned terrorism in his speech. Mitt Romney lost much of his luster of being elected as a Republican governor in Democratic Massachusetts. Mike Huckaby would never pose nude. And a few others were sleeping around with girlfriends.

I imagine the alchemists at Fox News who have been spending so much time with Palin to turn base metal into gold will now have to take a second look at their investment, if not a centerfold.

It's back to stalemate on Capitol Hill :

ON THE DAY AFTER President Obama's State of the Union speech, I decided not to watch the Project Runway politicians step up to the TV cameras for their 3 minutes of spin. But having seen some of the comments on the Internet, I've concluded that the Republicans are not seriously opposed to some of the recovery programs, but they are deliberately out to destroy Obama, no matter what he proposes. It's personal, and ugly. The vote today on Obama's call for pay-as-you-go programs passed the Senate by, yep, a straight 60-40 party line vote. Some Republicans who had supported PAYGO voted against it. Among them , Ohio's Sen. George Voinovich. "Moderate" George, who will be retiring from the Senate this year, once defended PAYGO as the necessary defense against deficit spending, saying: "I don't understand how we can continue to go this way. We're living in a dream world. This deficit continues to grow." (As quoted from Think Progress.) That was then. This is now. Dream world be damned.

And how about John McCain's chest-pounding dismissal of Obama's proposals? McCain, who is in a primary fight as his popularity among Arizonans is ambling in the low 40s, boasted to his constituents that he would fearlessly "stand up and speak out against Democratic leadership". As McCain was passing the responsibility to the other side, the city manager of Phoenix, David Cavazos, announced plans to cut 500 police and fire positions , six library branches and five senior centers to balance the budget. The city council will act on it March 2. Meantime, the state's unemployment rate rose above 9.1 pct. According to the Arizona Republic, the city will be eliminating 1,385 jobs. A friend who covers Capitol Hill says seasoned reporters are astonished by the changes that have taken place in McCain since his loss to Obama. He remains a bitter man these days with no desire to follow his one pledge to reach across the aisle. Some courage, I'd say.

Other Republican senators immediately had meltdowns, with Oklahoma's James Inhofe, who seldom lends confidence of his mental agility, suggesting that Obama was nothing more than a liar. During the speech, he and the other GOPers with fixed stares resembled the figures in Madame Toussoud's wax museum.

What all of this says is that there will be no truce in the months leading to this year's election. None. In the meantime, the nation watches and waits as its economy drifts into oblivion. As for health reform, shouldn't we ask the pols to give up a half-year of their own health coverage for every month that they delay passage? Of course it's fair.

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Oregonians respond to the gravity of their problems

WE ALL KNOW that Republicans look at tax cuts the way that schoolboys are fascinated by the prettiest girl in their class. In Ohio, eliminating the state income tax has become the centerpiece of gubernatorial candidate John Kasich's tax-cutting projects. But in Oregon, the voters made a kind of progressive history this week by easily passing two measures that would increase taxes on upper income residents ($250,000 and up) as well as the minimum tax levels on corporations. (The current corporate minimum of $10 has been around since 1931). Like most states, Oregon has been hit hard by the recession that has resulted in 11 pct. unemployment. Sound familiar?

The first indication of raw political courage arose in the state legislature that was confronted with plugging an estimated $727 million deficit as education and other state services continued to suffer. But the legislative action was quickly challenged by tax opponents in a referendum pursued by an outfit called Oregonians against Job-Killing Taxes.

Although you will be hearing a lot of talk this year about how cutting taxes increases jobs, there is a consensus of economic studies that the Bush tax cuts will rip upwards of $2.4 trillion from the treasury through 2010 without providing a groundswell of jobs. These cuts were covered by borrowed money, which will add another $379 billion in interest.

Well, here's to oregon, whose voters may know something about the cost of a healthier society. So much for an across-the-board tax revolt!

Not quite the battle of Bunker Hill

IT'S BEEN A disquieting day for the Tea Partiers seduced by the Nashville Sound. Just when they were walking on the waters of Boston Harbor, they started to hear troubling words from their off-year Tennessee Waltz to Nashville next week. The first national convention sponsored by the Tea Party Nation has developed growing pains. Some of the life support groups have pulled out with angry words that the TPN sponsor has found a convenient money-making scheme to capture the mood of its constituents. Well, that's understandable, considering that the very same folks who have been complaining of thievery in high places like Capitol Hill are being charged $549 to attend the convention, hotels and travel expenses excluded. For that price you'd think the planners would have at least included a choice seat at Grand Ole Opry.

There have even been questions raised about the big fee that will be paid to Sarah Palin as the keynote speaker. It's been reported to range between $100,000 and $125,000 and if TPN won't confirm it, we think we know why. So times have changed a tiny bit. It wasn't too long

ago that anybody doubting Palin's worth to the movement would have been branded as socialist trash.

Describing the event as a non-profit initiative, TPN founder Sherry Phillips insisted that she is working with a tight budget. Even so, it could a rousing pep rally. That would be especially true if they invited to the podium Richard Behney, the Republican Tea Partier who is running for the U.S. Senate in Indiana. Behney has been telling his audiences that he is praying for new faces in Washington. And if they don't get them? "I'm cleaning my guns and getting ready for the big show," he says. "And I'm serious about that, and I bet you are, too. But I know none of us want to go that far yet. And we can do it with our votes."

Corporate $$: pay your money and take your choice

TWO YALE LAW PROFESSORS have stepped up with a relatively simple proposal to curb a flood of corporate political dollars that was certain to be driven by the Supreme Court's 5-4 decision that opened the gates on current restrictions. In an op-ed piece in the Washington Post, Bruce Ackerman and Ian Ayres said Congress could easily weaken the court's action by denying corporations with federal contracts from endorsing political candidates. They noted that it could be quite effective inasmuch as nearly 75 pct of the largest publicly-traded firms are federal contractors. (No mention of organized labor, but unions are so depleted these days they can hardly play in the same ring with the big guys.)

"If Congress endorsed our proposal," they said, "these companies - and tens of thousands of others - would face a stark choice: They could endorse candidates or do business with the government, but they couldn't do both. When push came to shove, it's likely that very few would be willing to pay such a high price for their 'free speech'."

The court's decision also laid bare the silly arguments by conservatives that justices should merely interpret the law and not engage in judicial activism. The Scalia court first decided the outcome of a presidential election and is back to give a huge opening for corporate support of candidates (read: Republicans).

So I'll leave you with this thought from dissenting Justice John Paul Stevens:

"While American democracy is imperfect, few outside the majority of this court would have thought its flaws included the dearth of corporate money in politics."

UnitedHealthCare's blitzkrieg on hospitals

SHOULD YOU have any doubts about the blitzkrieg that the health insurance has assembled to destroy any semblance of reforms, check out the withering reports about UnitedHealthCare's threat to a major hospital chain in New York. As reported by the New York Times, the insurance giant has demanded that hospitals notify it of an incoming patient within 24 hours or face the loss of half of the patient's coverage. The hospitals, which include Beth Israel Medical Center and St. Luke's -Roosevelt Hospital Center, are fighting to stave off UnitedHealthCare's poison pills. The teaching hospitals would have to absorb whatever loss that arose from the insurer's reduced coverage. The insurer said it merely wants to cut costs and prove the quality of health care. Fat chance.

Is UnitedHealthCare kidding? As one who has bounced through that outfit and then moved on to Aetna before it became a burdensome nuisance, I can report from personal experience that I often wondered whether the Aetna enforcers ever read their mail. A full eight or nine months after we switched to our current insurer, I and my wife were still getting notices from it despite a number of phone calls and letters to it with reminders to Aetna that we were no longer under its so-called tent.

In the New York case, the hospitals might be pleasantly surprised if they ignored the threat. It's possible that UnitedHealthCare would not catch up with such defiance for many months. What would you lose that you might lose anyway?

Boehner, the common-sense (?) guy

ASIDE TO REP. JOHN BOEHNER: When you insist that President Obama must turn to "common-sense solutions" for Ohio's economic problems in a Plain Dealer op-ed piece, may I humbly ask you to define "common sense"? Is that what your Republican candidate for governor, John Kasich, is talking about when he calls for the elimination of the state income tax? Please help me to understand where you, as the head of the GOP House, a Cincinnatian and Deliverer from Evil, are going with this? An operator is standing by.

Texting Lieberman: Your role has been eliminated

AS WE SAT through the timely film, "Up in the Air,", with its wrenching cold-blooded scenes in which George Clooney and Anna Kendrick matter-of-factly informed employes at various companies that their jobs have been eliminated, I kept waiting for Sen. Joe Lieberman to turn up. He, as you've probably heard, was one of the big losers in that blast in Massachusetts. As one of the leading purveyors of the Hobson's Choice that eventually shredded the health reform bill - Joe's version or no version - he was able to blackmail the Democratic caucus by holding it hostage to his vote to deny a filibuster. Now that the score is 59-41 or less, Joe's bargaining power on the street is worthless. His role as a smarmy Independent go-between has been eliminated, leaving in its wake a lot of wounded Democrats who bowed to his demands to salvage the bill. Let's hope that the Democrats can muster what little courage they still have to kick him out of the caucus and strip him of his committee chairmanship.... So long, Joe. It wasn't good to know you.

To the G0P: Don't crack open the champagne yet

WHILE REPUBLICANS are celebrating their newly-found glory in Massachusetts as Democrats fall on their swords, may I add two cautionary words for the GOP? Tea Party. Throughout the land the adrenalin is flowing for the political upheaval that has taken over the dialogue, for which the traditional Republican soldiers might pause. The Tea Partyers are up and running, like unleashed pit bulls, against the Republican officeholders in the primaries. A brief recap:

In Texas, where its governor, Rick Perry, has talked of secession when it has suited his audience, eleven Republican congressmen are being challenged in the state primary by the TP's. That's not a misprint. E-L-E-V-E-N! As in football.

In Ohio, a TP candidate, State Rep. Seth Morgan, from rural Huber Heights, has declared his candidacy for Ohio Auditor with strong backing from the TPs who refer to him as a "man of principle". Should the folks at the State GOP Headquarters in Columbus risk the enmity of the hard-right conservatives by giving full support to a party-backed candidate? In Ohio's Second congressional district, a seat already held by U.S. Rep. Jean Schmidt (a birther and hardly a lib) now comes Libertarian-TP activist, Marc Johnston, who has entered the race that includes Schmidt and several others. The Ohio U.S. Senate race has at least one TP-friendly candidate, Tom Ganley on the Republican side, and at the top of the ticket, gubernatorial candidate John Kasich has appeared at a TP rally or two to assure them that he is one of their brethren.

In Florida, Gov. Charlie Crist has a challenge in his bid for the U.S. Senate from a TP. In New York's 23rd District, the Republican congressional candidate withdrew from a challenge by a TP who was supported by Sarah Palin (in this instance the TP came up empty as the Democrat won.)

In Massachusetts, Illinois and other states, we may see more TP candidates in the mix. ( I was going to mention Michael Steele, the RNC chairman, too, who is fond of the TP's. But nobody takes Steele seriously these days.)

I wouldn't think that GOP regulars (read: the ones back at the club) could comfortably sniff away these challenges. The TP's are now operating on web sites named Patriotic Resistance, Tea Party Nation and FreedomWorks and they don't speak that highly of either party up on Capitol Hill.

Win or lose, any serious primary challenge will only serve to drain money that could be spent against the Democrats in November. And after all, isn't money what politics is all about these days? Well, that and, eh...socialists.

Limbaugh has a special place for tampons

I ALWAYS TELL myself to ignore Rush Limbaugh. But I am weak. For me it is those times when I try to avoid stepping on the seams in a sidewalk but step on them anyway. But with Rush, there are so many more opportunities for me to weaken. Of late it's his bombastic attempts to ridicule President Obama and others who are engaged in helping the victims of Haiti. No surprise there. With the day approaching when he will find a way to link Obama to selling steroids to Mark McGwire, Rushbo has now been bleating about former President Clinton's work on aid to Haiti, reminding all who care to listen that, "You can't even pick up a prostitute down there without genuine fear of AIDS." This from a fearless big-spending addict who returned from Venezuela with Viagra.

Don't go. There's more. To a woman listener who criticized him, he retorted that such woman callers "have tampons in their ears."Ha. Ha. Athough our supply was nearly exhausted in 2009, we still have a Grumpy Abe Linguistic Lunacy (GALL) award on hand to post one for him. That might help a little in alerting folks to where he has turned and lowered his neck to place his head.