truthiness

This morning the NY Times figured out the secret strategy Democrats have to gain re-election in November. They will spend millions pretending not to be politicians and not to be Democrats

There is no better example in place than my Congressman, Chris Murphy. No he isn't some ideological activist going to hard left conferences at swanky Vegas hotels--complaining his fellow congressmen aren't working harder to "change America" but promising after the election they'll have "extra steel in their spine" .

No, he's really some mellow small town guy knocking on doors and feeling our pain.

Hollywood is known for creating fantasylands but Murphy's ad firm has outdone themselves.

The ad is entitled "Neighbors". (like John Belushi's last film?)  Well, who is Chris Murphy's "neighbor"?

Ms. Lauren Korman lives on Spruce Street in Cheshire; 2.2 miles from Murphy's current residence. She does not vote at his precinct and I do not believe she is a member of whatever church Murphy attends or has children the same age as Murphy. So how would she know Murphy well enough to endorse him as a "neighbor"?

She is a member of the Cheshire Democratic Town Committee and a vocal campaigner for President Obama and against Sarah Palin. 

Former Hillary Clinton supporter Lauren Korman of Cheshire said Palin’s lack of experience scares her.“If something should happen to John McCain, she doesn’t have what it takes to lead the country.” Korman now supports Obama and said she thinks he would be an excellent diplomat for the United States around the world. 

But it gets worse. Korman was formerly press secretary to Democratic Congressman and Defense Secretary Les Aspin.  Yeah, nothing says authenticity like hiring a former paid mouthpiece to play neighbor.  She is backing Murphy because he "works with Republicans". Right.

Murphy's ad proclaims that he is a "deficit hawk" based on a single press conference wherein he promised at some unspecified date in the future to vote to cut the budget. Since then of course, he eagerly voted for the teacher's union bailout. Guess this deficit hawk will be a dove when the press isn;t around? Forget the ratings. Believe the "neighbor"

Besides, the "neighbor" supporting Murphy for  alleged budget restraint has actually been active in lobbying Murphy to set up a brand new federal spending program. 

 U.S. Rep. Christopher Murphy, D-5, said he is hopeful that some federal money may become available to help remediate abandoned barite mines in the state like the one the one that caused a 20-foot-wide, 30-foot-deep sinkhole in one Cheshire resident’s backyard in October 2005.Murphy met with Sheridan Drive area residents Monday morning.He said a bill that will be introduced when the 111th Congress convenes in January would provide funding for remediation of hard rock, or non-coal, mines.“It was introduced to this Congress and passed the House but not the Senate,” Murphy said. “So we’re going to introduce it again.”The meeting with Murphy was held at the home of Lauren Korman, who lives next to William Baker, in whose backyard the sinkhole developed. Nearly 20 residents attended the meeting, Korman said

So until the election came around we are to believe Ms. Korman wanted to increase the trillion dollar sinkhole of the federal deficit to fill in holes around her house, but now she supports Murphy because he wants to cut spending? Sure.

So if you are a former DC spokesperson active in Democratic politics who is lobbying for more federal spending programs, Chris Murphy is your kind of neighbor.

For the other 700,000 residents of Connecticut's Fifth District, we just see another poseur trying to pull one over on the rubes so he can go back to dragging America to the left whether we want it or not.  

For a reality based candidate, I suggest Sam Caligiuri is the answer.

Evidently Dick Blumenthal been's telling folks he was in Da Nang back in the day, and the New York Times figured out he was really in Darien. Oops!

This is from another fine movie of this era, which is probably the question that Rahm Emanuel has for CT's Attorney General this am.

By the way, Dick, if you try and make it sound like you were hell bent to get to 'Nam back in the day but were prevented from getting there by bureaucrats; don't try. We've already debriefed similarly situated vets who went who frankly were amazed you got five separate exemptions.

Let's see if you can admit you simply had a "major malfunction"

You know the amazing accounting miracle of the health care reform bill,  where we can add a trillion dollars to federal spending and reduce the deficit.

Once again, if it sounds too good to be true, then it isn't.

Since the announcement that made Democrats 'giddy" we've ben treated to how this report isn;t worth the ink used on the paper. Forget the obvious dodge here, where the taxes kick immediately for ten years and the expensive part of the bill ony runs for six; we've got bigger fish to fry.

There seems to be a hard to justify $29 billion "plug number" in Medicaid reductions years from now.  

Unless the Democrats are really eager to hammer the medical community, it is assumed that they will forego a reduction in Medicare reimbursements...i.e. the "doc fix".  Remove this spurious budget reduction and there's about $208 billion in added costs; and this alone makes the bill in the red by $59 billion.. 

The Democrats have challenged the authenticity of a memo outlining this pretty little scam, but there's no doubt of the truth of the central allegation....the bill's true cost is being hidden so that in the midst of an era of trillion dollars deficits a fig leaf of fiscal responsibility is provided to the Blue Dogs.

I also suspect that one way the federal numbers were managed was to expand the unfunded Medicaid mandates on the states, therefore shifting expenses on their backs and imploding their already precarious budgetary situations. 

I'll leave to the likes of Megan McArdle and Keith Hennessey to find the other scams and gimmicks embedded in whatever bill Nancy Pelosi can cajole 216 votes for this evening. One message to deficit hawks. Tax increases and budget cuts deferred now for political expendiency now are highly likely to be deleted in the out years for political expendiency. But the left will defend the entitlement rules and expenditure levels.  Don't fall for the "Wimpy" approach.

I've seen documents like this before. It's like a sham appraisal used to get a subprime lender to approve a loan for more than what the property is really worth. It's like a Moody's rating on the MBS instruments secured by the bogus mortgages. It's a transparent "Made as Instructed" canard only Bernie Madoff could love.  Subsitute "Blue Dog" Congressman for "pension fund" and we now see a bogus deficit neutrality score is like a bogus investment grade rating. It justifies unwise investments.

Once upon a time there was an urgent matter for the national administration, which it sought to gain public and congressional support.  Supposedly the folks supposed to provide objective analysis were pressured into providing the evidence necessary to gain support for the policy agenda.

There were also allegations about memos and reports being "sexed up" to better sell the policy.

After we are years into the quagmire of expanding entitlements as the nation careens towards bankruptcy like a Toyota with a stuck accelerator, I suspect we will get some tell-all book about how the CBO budget process was manipulated.  I can;t wait to read the "CBO Street Memo"   Once upon a time even Ezra Klein complained about gimmicks.  I look forward to the meal of crow down the line.

 P.S. Last night on the House floor Ohio Democrat Rep. Ryan compared health care reform to Chevrolet.  Rep. Ryan is aware that General Motors went bankrupt, isn't he?    

There's little doubt that there's been a groundswell against the traditional leadership of the Republican party. Efforts by party insiders to anoint one of the "usual suspects" have fallen incredibly flat.

And there's plenty of reason to believe that the types of people motivated by the "tea party" movement against the Obama Administration are not going to be automatically enamored of the "Certified Pre-Owned candidates" the Beltway brain trust are eager to promote this cycle.

I note that James Carville, who may be as partisan as they come but surely not dumb, noticed how little respect the Republican voter base has for its elected leadership.  

So what are the political insiders to do with a bunch of voters looking for something completely different? Well, it's simple. They have stolen a page from the world of product marketing.

Make something sold by Corporate America look like it's from some new fresh upstart business by putting a new, different label on the product.

I predict 2010 will be the year of the "Blue Moon" candidates.  We will see many candidates who are products of the world of political insiders, but relabelled and rebranded as anti-establishment candidates expressing populist resentment.

Why "Blue Moon"?. Because that's exactly what we are dealing with

Seems one of the good ole macrobrews, Coors, wanted to start selling some different flavors of beer. But if they put the Coors label on it, people would think it wasn;t like those nice quaint microbrews and imports; it was just a spinoff from the billion or so cans of Silver Bullet quaffed every year by the masses.  So guess what.: Coors decided to sell a beer that pretended to be new, quaint and from an independent brewery.

Coors does not actively advertise the fact that the brew is owned by Coors on the belief that being associated with a major national brewery would diminish its credibility among aficionados. Blue Moon is instead branded as being brewed by the "Blue Moon Brewing Company." [5]

My local example of a "Blue Moon" candidate is liberal wrestling tycoon Linda McMahon, who will probably do something useful for real conservatives a lot less often "than once in a blue moon"  

There are some in the media who are going to be honest enough to see through the charade that people like the "Wild RINO" are trying to pull off. But in this economy, plenty more in the media will simply go along with the carnival as long as the well funded candidate buys print ads and air time from their employers. Take this example of circular reasoning.

Some Republicans wonder if McMahon’s message of an outsider is a mere contrivance. After all, she criticizes business as usual, but is often seen with veteran lobbyist Patrick Sullivan.

Nevertheless, McMahon showed she may indeed be something different when explaining at an event in Windsor that her generous campaign contributions to Democrats were “the cost of doing business.” It’s not a truth we like to hear, but it rings with authenticity.

Perhaps there's some form of "truth in advertising" herein. But I would submit that this makes Ms. McMahon's political compass much more closely aligned with that of Heidi Fleiss than that of Barry Goldwater.

Yep, we will see tycoons accustomed to buying favors from career politicians go and buy the allegiance of other career politicians.  But they will try and insist with a straight face that they will be "A different kind of Senator" when all objective indicia suggests they will be a carbon copy of the Capitol Hill lifers they seek to replace.  They'll just take their calls from Rahm Emanuel in the Republican cloakroon instead of the Democratic cloakroom.  

Much as Blue Moon beer is really dressed-up Coors, all these various rebranded political insiders are ever going to be are the campaign version of trick-or-treaters, dressed up to play the role of angry commoners. 

The worst aspect of all this is that we have a real opportunity to build a new Republican party that Middle America can once again have faith in. But that will require hard work finding and promoting new candidates for statewide office and congressional races.

 What it appears much of the political establishment thinks it can do is simply play make-believe; instead of doing the work to win a worthwhile victory.  This will fail for two reasons. First, the voters are probably going to figure this out long before the election. The resulting loss of volunteer energy and voter turnout is going to doom us.  In a low turnout election, a true-believer lefty is likely to outpoll someone who appears only to give lip service to what he claims to be running on.

One thing the various poseurs also may underestimate that even if the media lets the party roll on, the Democrats will have a full dossier of every insider deal and favor these folks got before they put on populist airs, and will simply wait to drop the hammer after they get nominated. Oops!

And if the "Blue Moon" candidates do skate through to election then what are we left with? A bunch of personality cult officeholders with a cadre of paid retainers, committed to no political agenda more important that gaining re-election. Hmmm; isn't that why we got shown the door in 2006? 

Douglas MacArthur said that in war, there is no substitute for victory. I believe in the election environment of 2010 there is no subsitute for authenticity. Either you have it- or you don't.

Republican candidates in 2010 who think they can excuse away their phoniness by massive media blitzes or slick PR tactics will find out that there is a subsitute for victory: defeat.  

Can a U.S. Senate campaign double as a reality show?

The befuddled Republicans in Connecticut are asking this question tonight?

First, this morning, the Wild RINO, Linda McMahon is called out by the Hartford Courant for "an extreme makeover"

Her "outsider" campaign will soon have 16 paid staff and has spent more than $2 million, just in the first weeks. She has hired top political operatives, including the consummate insider lobbyist in Hartford, Patrick Sullivan. There is a "new media" director. The wife of the state GOP chair will be her press secretary and David Cappiello, a prominent former state senator, will run the campaign.McMahon tells us that Dodd has been "right in the middle" of the bailouts, trillion-dollar debt, government-run health care and the "banks and special interests." Yet this former CEO is no stranger to ethically challenged situations.She presided over a business where, according to investigators from the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, " steroid use is pervasive" and the "organizations involved have not taken adequate steps to address this problem." 

Sadly, I know one of the new McMahon staffers. I can only presume she is in dire financial straits, as signing up for this lounge act was like when members of the Blues Brothers fronted as "Murph and the Magic Tones" at the Armada Lounge.

I'm not going to belabor the point, but back in 1776 the good guys were the volunteer citizen soldiers; the bad guys were the Hessian mercenaries. I note America's renaissance in the late 20th century coincided with the all-volunteer military...hmmm..   a political lesson herein?

In any case, by the time she starts she's going to be fully engulfed. First, in late morning the McMahon family did what they do so well, mix family melodrama and business; as McMahon's son quit the WWE management. A British tabloid said dad Vince was "saddened"

But methinks this is a lot like the various plotlines where Linda's been cheated on , sent to a santorium, been slapped by her daughter, kicked Vince in the groin, yadda, yadda and yadda. I strongly suspect that Shane will return to the WWE in very theatrical fashion soon enough, probably battling the Undertaker to resume his executive post or something in that vein.    

Of course, by midafternoon the CT Democrats had made like the Supreme Court under Justice Potter Stewart and examined WWE footage for obscenity. Sure enough, they claim to have found it.

Colleen Flanagan, spokeswoman for Connecticut’s Democratic Party, said as CEO of the WWE, McMahon “presided over programming that showed simulated rape, public sex and necrophilia.”

“People across this state, not to mention the millions of women who are the victims of sexual violence every year, would be horrified and embarrassed to know that the person who seeks to represent them condones this kind of behavior,” she added

The Politico is having some run with the hypocrisy of the DC Democrats, who are basically libertines "Bible Belting" McMahon over these turgid videos

Guess this was all before the PG-13 version of the show.

By day's end the WWE made the offensive videos disappear from YouTube.

I dunno about the necrophilia; maybe that's some kind of twisted commentary on the death tax.

But what the Wild RINO can't put in the cybernetic round file is the cold hard truth that at a time when we desperately need a strong voice to challenge the excesses of the Obama Administration, she is Rahm Emanuel's  favorite Republican.  

Yep, that might be even more skeevy than shlupping a stiff.

Guess being outed as Rahm Emanuel's favorite Republican isn't helping the wrestling tycoon( a/k/a "the Wild RINO")  win the hearts and minds of real CT voters.

So what's a candidate with cash and no qualifications to do? Well, one can hire some flack as a well paid "new media" director to start spinning furiously

Here's the rather lame response from McMahon, Inc., picked up appropriately only by a fansite for pro wrestling fanatics

Linda McMahon's "director of new media" issued a press release today responding to criticism of former WWE CEO Linda McMahon for her recent campaign contributions to the Democratic party. McMahon is running as a Republican in the 2010 Senate race in Connecticut."Linda has helped elect far more Republicans than Democrats, but they didn't bother to tell you that," said director Jodi Latina in response to other Republican candidates criticizing McMahon for helping elect Democratic politicians."Linda refuses to play the old game in which politicians divert attention from their own records with non-stop negative attacks. The career political insiders started going this negative so early because they're obviously terrified of Linda's candidacy."Latina turned the negative press against Linda McMahon into a rallying cry to tell supporters the other Republican candidates are "concerned about her candidacy" well before the primary elections in 2010 even take place.McMahon's campaign is using the classic rallying cry that the insiders want to keep her out and will "play the old game in which politicians divert attention from their own records with non-stop negative attacks." 

Too bad the facts get in the way here. I'll let lefty commenter "AndersonScooper" explain why, posted on CTLocalPolitics.net

Linda McMahon is Floating a Big Lie!

On her blog she tries to make the argument that she’s given twice as much to Republicans than Democrats over the years, $70,700 to R’s, and $34,100 to D’s.

The only problem is that if you subtract out the $40,900 Linda’s given this year, (only to Republicans of course), her lifetime donations take on this picture:

donated to R’s — $29,800donated to D’s — $34,100

She must think ya’ll are stupid. And I still want to know why she gave all that $$$ to Senator Mark Warner (D-VA).

So, boo hoo, we're supposed to feel sorry for poor old Linda. This tough rich woman has been in the race for a couple of weeks and the moment someone raises legitimate criticism of her she cries victim. Maybe that stunt worked for Monday Night Raw, but the U.S. Senate is not some soap opera on steroids.

Let's peel this back a bit more. The only CT Republican whom Linda's bothered in the past  to support financially was Chris Shays, who: a) was her own Congressman and b) was among the most liberal of Republicans. (Evidently Rep. Simmons and Rep. Johnson were unworthy of her financial support, then again Danbury and New London are soooo far from Greenwich) This doesn't prove any committment to conservative Republican values considering the tons of cash she tossed at Rahm Emanuel.

And please, a cursory look at the Simmons and Caligiuri websites indicates their long proven records of positive achievements.  The idea that either is hiding their record of public service due to the McMahon campaign is frankly, delusional.

But, one more thing. remember how I told you McMahon was the MSM approved Republican candidate for the Senate?  Well, guess what...her "new media" director is someone who spent the last 15 years working in...old media.  

I'm sure Linda McMahon will sign up a different high priced hired gun every day of the week. She cannot so readily buy the ability to campaign, or a credible agenda for her campaign, or the authenticity that comes from actually participating in the public policy arena.

If Mrs. McMahon thinks the voters of Connecticut are raring to buy an agenda of glitz, gloss and amnesia, well, maybe she really was conked on the head too hard by one of those folding chairs.   

The pictures here might be accurate representations of "Blue Dog" (aka Pelosi Poodle) Mike Ross. The Arkansas Democrat achieved the "little feat" of appearing to oppose a health care bill that he helped write!

Most interesting was Ross's use of an excuse that I'd anticipated but which, especially in his case, makes no sense. He pleaded that he had yet to endorse any particular bill; that there was no final bill yet; that he would still make up his mind as to whether he would support the final bill. According to one person in attendance, Ross also pleaded repeatedly that he was just one out of 535 members of Congress, and therefore could do little on his own. The problem is, there is a final bill in the House, HR 3200. And Ross's was one of the key votes that moved it to the House floor from the House Energy and Commerce Committee prior to the August recess. Ross, as a de facto leader of a group of seven moderate Democrats on the committee, was uniquely positioned among the 535 to change HR 3200. And yet he did vote for it in its current form on July 31 

I do give Ross this much credit. At least he showed his face back in his district to try and spin people, unlike these worthless cowards. You know, guys, once upon a time you could play moderate or conservative when you shlepped around your home district and then go back to DC and play errand boy for liberal party bosses.  Technology's made that trick a bit harder to pull off. Especially since we know that the whole bill is just a trojan horse to get "single payer". The question Arkansas voters ought to ask themselves is if Mike Ross can't defend the very bill he voted for to get it out of the Energy and Commerce Committee, what use is he to anyone in Washington?  At least this guy  isn't playing "Dixie Chicken"; which all Mr. Ross is doing about now.    You could still vote against it after you voted for it, Mike.  It's been tried before.

We've learned a few things over the last few weeks. One thing is that our opponents are really a bunch of animals

Consider the so-called "Blue Dogs". They loudly purport to be moderate, fiscally responsible Democrats. because that's what their district wants to hear. But we've found that on the Obamacare bill and on Cap & Tax, just enough Blue Dogs voted with the liberals to assure passage.

John Fund said this years ago before they joined the majority, but these folks aren't "Blue Dogs". They are Pelosi's Poodles 

This is what a "Blue Dog" really looks like

They are perfectly trained to fetch , heel and roll over for their masters Nancy Pelosi and Henry Waxman. Meanwhile they are also well trained to go back to their districts and beg for support by jumping through hoops pretending to be moderates or conservatives.

We'll see how Zack Space, Mike Ross, Bart Gordon & co. fare trying to explain they aren't just the door openers to Barney Frank's government medical monopoly.

But now members of the House aren't being dogs at all. At least a dog comes when he is called. 

Now  they are nothing but a bunch of  scaredy cats.

Long Island Democrat Congressman Tim Bishop is not alone---running away from the voters he claims to represent instead of defending his record.

“I had felt they would be pointless,” Rep. Tim Bishop (D-N.Y.) told POLITICO, referring to his recent decision to suspend the events in his Long Island district. “There is no point in meeting with my constituents and [to] listen to them and have them listen to you if what is basically an unruly mob prevents you from having an intelligent conversation.”

In Bishop’s case, his decision came on the heels of a June 22 event he held in Setauket, N.Y., in which protesters dominated the meeting by shouting criticisms at the congressman for his positions on energy policy, health care and the bailout of the auto industry.

Within an hour of the disruption, police were called in to escort the 59-year-old Democrat — who has held more than 100 town hall meetings since he was elected in 2002 — to his car safely.

Hmm, Tim. I suppose if they don't agree with you then they are an "unruly mob"  

Evidently this is what a lot of "town meetings" are looking like--not the pro-government expansion pep rallies incumbent politicians and their special interest allies like to see.

Hey, if you want to pass bills you haven't read and spend money the country doesn't have you might actually find the public has an opinion about this. 

Maybe our members of the House might want to dust off their copy of the Constitution. Seems they are little unclear about the "redress of grievances" concept.

This August, it is incumbent on all Americans to make clear this is a Republic answerable to the voters, not an imperial government answerable to D.C. power brokers.  And if our elected "representatives" want to hide, well that says more than millions of dollars in slick TV ads, now doesn't it.   

If you can't defend what you are doing in Washington to the people in your district, quit.  

I considey myself sorta a "shot and a beer" Republican so when I see charts like this from Redstate

I feel compelled to try and provide a better visual idea of the futility to date of Obamanomics

Since February the Obama camp claims to have "saved or created" 100,000 to 150,000 jobs

On the other hand, unemployment is up by over 1.5 million. I suspect that when adds in "discouraged workers" no longer seeking work we are well above that number.

So I think there's about a 1 to 12 ratio of new or saved jobs to lost jobs right about now.

So here's the graphic

Jobs Obama saved

Jobs Obama didn't save. 

Any questions?

;

The New Ledger has already suggested that the alleged $100 million budget cut means Barack Obama can;t do math, or think's we can;t. 

I have a different take. He's just getting deep into the car business.  Let's compare a $3/7T budget with a $100M reduction.

It would be like cutting the price of this vehicle by $ 1

Tahoe LS

2WD starts at $37,915* 

Evidently the WH press corps isn't buying the sales pitch  

Maybe they'll realise all they are going to get from "Brother Gibbs"is "jive talking"