Chuck Muth’s News & Views – December 24, 2009
By: Chuck Muth
Citizen Outreach
MERRY CHRISTMAS – GOIN’ FISHIN’
Chuck Muth’s News & Views: The e-Newsletter will be taking a much-needed holiday hiatus until Monday; however, I’ll still post major stories, breaking news and commentary on the newsblog at www.NevadaNewsandViews.com over the weekend. Merry Christmas – and do keep a warm thought for our troops overseas!
THE MORE THINGS CHANGE…
“Yesterday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell caved in on health care, rushing the bill through to an earlier vote so he and his buddies can make their vacations on time. Merry Christmas, from the spineless Republican leadership.”
– John Tate of Campaign for Liberty
IS MITCH MCCONNELL INSANE?
“Read below and you’ll see that if the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over again expecting a different result, our fearless Minority Leader might be insane.
Senator Mitch McConnell has lost almost every major legislative battle he has managed. In the early ’90’s, he managed opposition to the Motor Voter Bill, which encouraged groups like ACORN to register fraudulent voters. McConnell refused to filibuster the motion to take up the bill – something that would have served as a key delaying tactic.
Moreover, Sen. McConnell sat by idly as sponsors of the bill played ‘let’s make a deal’ — offering amendment after amendment to buy off opponents of the bill. A bill, which initially had more than enough votes to kill it, ended up passing because of McConnell’s ill-advised strategy.
A decade later, McConnell managed the opposition to the Incumbent Protection Act a/k/a the Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act to take away the free speech rights of Second Amendment groups during heated elections. McConnell threatened and cajoled to prevent Republican senators from offering ‘killer amendments’ to the bill.
McConnell explained that he would bring a lawsuit to overturn it in the courts. Well, after the bill’s passage, McConnell did bring a lawsuit. He lost.
Now, Senate Minority Leader McConnell could once again end up losing this historic battle against anti-gun ObamaCare legislation – when we have it within our power to defeat it.
…We should also point out that under Mitch McConnell’s leadership, the Senate GOP has gone from 55 Senators to 40.”
– Blogger Erick Erickson, 12/19/09
THE MOST SIGNIFICANT VOTE OF THE DECADE
“Did you feel that disturbance in The Force? The one that took place about 3:35 this afternoon?
At 3:20 p.m., Independent Bernard Sanders of Vermont — acting as the presiding officer of the Senate — called a vote on a point of order against the health care overhaul bill. Fifteen minutes later, Sanders closed the vote, and the matter was done. The Republicans finally got the vote they’ve been needing all year long.
Every Senate Democrat (plus the two Independents, Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut and Sanders) went on record declaring that the so-called individual mandate that is the heart of the health care bill — that is, an unprecedented federal mandate that requires individuals to purchase a product in the private market, on pain of taxation should they choose to disobey — does not violate the Constitution.”
– Blogger and GOP strategist Bill Pascoe
IGNORANT OR ARROGANT?
“Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is either ignorant or arrogant. Every American who has completed a high school civics class knows that one Congress cannot constitutionally bind a future Congress. It is black letter law that while the Constitution limits the power of Congress, any future Congress can repeal or re-write any law enacted by a prior Congress.
Apparently, however, Majority Leader Reid is either unaware of this basic principle or contemptuous of it. In the Managers Amendment he released this week, Senator Reid purports to prohibit any future Congress from changing a portion of the Senate Health Care Bill.
Specifically, page 1020 of Senate Bill 3590 provides: ‘It shall not be in order in the Senate or the House of Representatives to consider any bill, resolution, amendment, or conference report that would repeal or otherwise change this subsection.’ Incredible!”
– Rep. John Shadegg (R-Ariz.)
IS THE CHOSEN ONE FADING?
“(Barack Obama’s) a star alright. One of his most eager admirers, Bruce Springsteen, sang at the dawn of his own emergence years back: ‘I burst just like a supernova.’ But here’s NASA’s definition of a supernova: It’s a stellar explosion, an incredibly luminous star, able to outshine a whole galaxy….before gradually fading from view. So one may ask after the first year of Obama: Is he a star for the ages, or is he fading fast?”
– Columnist Dan Henninger
MUTH’S TRUTHS
First, think about what Harry Reid and the Democrats just did to shove ObamaCare up our collective wazoos, along with what Mitch McConnell and the Republicans DIDN’T do.
Then hearken back a few years when the shoe was on the other foot.
Harry Reid was in the minority and used every trick in the book to block confirmation of a number of conservatives to the federal bench. Republicans could have legitimately used the “nuclear option” to break Reid’s filibuster, but then-Majority Leader Bill Frist refused to pull the trigger.
Instead, John McCain and the Gang of 14 sold out and a number of high-quality conservative judges never even got a fair hearing, let alone an up-or-down vote.
And Republicans wonder why so many conservatives have left the GOP and gone “independent”?
Hey, guys. We don’t mind you losing the fight. We mind you not fighting the fight. Will you ever learn? Will you ever grow spines? Will pigs ever fly?
ADDITIONAL READING
“If there is any bill that deserves being stopped by shutting down the Senate, it is this one,” writes Erick Erickson of RedState.com about the ObamaCare measure currently working its way through the congressional sausage-grinder. “There are a whole series of parliamentary maneuvers that could be used by Republican senators to stop this bill.”
What are they? Read Erickson’s recommendations chapter-and-verse HERE
SURVEY SAYS!
If Jesus was born in a vacant house in Washington, DC this weekend, would you be able to find three wise men to come visit him?
- Yes
- No
To cast your vote in today’s online survey, click here!
FAMOUS LAST WORDS
“This country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session as we do when the baby gets hold of a hammer. It’s just a question of how much damage he can do with it before you take it away from him.”
– Will Rogers”
In Memoriam
Available at Amazon.com 
