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GOP powers that be are sowing the seeds of their own destruction

"There's something happening here. The anti-establishment protest song has been turned on its head as Tea Partiers find their voice," we captioned this image of Sarah in our post "Give to strategic small-government candidates, not parties" back in October of 2009: "People speaking their minds/Getting so much resistance from behind/What a field-day for the heat/A thousand people in the street/Singing songs and carrying signs …" (Cover image of October 2008 "quickie paperback satire" Terminatrix,  co-authored by top Harper-Collins Editor Adam Bellow (Saul's boy), who most recently worked on Sarah Palin's forthcoming blockbuster autobiography Going Rogue).

"It's as if Rob Jesmer, the NRSC's Executive Director, is a Tea Party saboteur, intentionally destroying the NRSC," twittered Erick Erickson around ten last evening in a eureka moment that set off a tsunami of retweeting:

I think I like the NRSC. Because of their incompetence, we're blessed with Rubio, Toomey, Paul, Buck, Angle, Lee, and now Miller.

And now Miller, indeed. The darkhorse candidate's likely win — to be determined after absentee ballots are counted starting next week — caught incumbent Senator Lisa Murkowski and the effete elites of the NRSC off guard in Tuesday's Alaska primary. Shellshocked, Murkowski "lawyered up" in anticipation of the NRSC's doing whatever it took to assure the final count went her way. The will of the people was never on the table. As Johnny Rocco said in Key Largo (h/t TheRealMirCat on Twitter)":

How many of these guys in office owe everything to me? I made them.

Unfortunately for the Johnny Roccos of the GOP, the old way of doing business isn't working anymore. It happened in the Massachusetts special election that sent Mr. Brown to Washington, and it's happening again. The national GOP is being disintermediated via the Internet. No wonder they're upset. The people's choice, Joe Miller — endorsed by Sarah Palin and with major funding from the Tea Party Express — is battle ready:

Joe Miller … accused the National Republican Senatorial Committee of "meddling" in the contest while charging that his opponent was trying to "pull an Al Franken."

Speaking with Fox Business Network, Miller referred to reports that Murkowski had sought legal counsel from the national committee as the state prepares to count thousands of absentee ballots that could decide the race.

Miller said his campaign would have volunteers on the ground as well to ensure nothing improper happens. Echoing his message from the campaign, he portrayed any potential ballot dispute as one of the Washington establishment against real Alaskans.

"The Tea Party is about overthrowing the establishment," Rush told his listeners Wednesday:

You have to understand here: [Murkowski] is a ruling class Republican, and it's just like you didn't understand why Bush would endorse Specter — you didn't understand why the Republican Party would endorse Specter — over Pat Toomey? Politics is politics. It is a business; it has requirements. Lisa Murkowski is the Republican.

Click here to support Joe Miller.

Update: Michelle Malkin "Buzzworthy" link!

Update II: Trending on Memeorandum.

Update III: Instalanche! See also Dan's totally awesome exclusive linked in the same Glenn Reynolds post:

Related: Betrayal: AK GOP HQ Phone Banked For Murkowski On Election Day. “There are additional reasons why we may soon see what amounts to a civil war within the GOP in Alaska, one that could easily spill over nationally, infuriating the Republican base if the establishment attempts to steal this election for Murkowski. And Murkowski will do the GOP brand no good among the grassroots if she pulls a Sorry Charlie Crist and opts for another route.”

Update IV: ShrinkWrapped offers the talking cure:

Read the whole thing; it may be the most illuminating post of the summer.

Maybe we should start charging by the hour?

Update V: Stacy links!

Crossposted at Riehl World View and Liberty Pundits.

As Alaska goes, so goes the nation?

"Tea Party candidate Joe Miller 'credited the support of former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin for his lead. 'I'm absolutely certain that was pivotal, he said,'" reported the Anchorage Daily News yesterday and this morning, as incumbent Alaska Senator Lisa Murkoswki (above) watched her "sure-win" segue into "possible upset" and now "verge of stunning upset." Read Palin's Facebook endorsement here.

"SissyWillis We're having a Scott Brown sequel! even better :) … 'Historic night,'" twittered WooHooYoo in the first tweet to greet us early morning. Scrolling through our "Favorites" column, we were delighted and enlightened to discover our betters had stayed up all night with their eyes wide open while Sissy slept.

"So what sign did the mainstream media miss about @JoeWMiller and the #AKSEN race that would've given us a hint of this?" twittered Politico reporter Dave Catanese in the wee hours as Ace of Spades HQ called it just after midnight for Palin-endorsed challenger Joe Miller in Alaska's "classic underdog" Republican senatorial primary. A more prudent Dan Riehl, willing to declare only "Miller on Verge of Stunning Upset Over Murkowski, called it for truthiness in the Journolist-weakened legacy media's failure to believe their lying eyes:

@davecatanese no offense, maybe some 2 busy undermining Palin and TP to notice, perhaps? #AKSEN

They see what they want to see. Ace nails it:

Slate: Joe Miller's Embarrassing Defeat …

In fairness, there was some polling showing Miller behind. But … This was an article written to describe what the author wished to happen, and what the intended audience joined him in wishing with all their hearts would happen.

Earlier tonight, someone called The Politico's claim of insurgents (again: by that they meant Tea Party favorites) failing so disastrously a case of spin.

I don't even think it's spin. Spin is when you know you're lying. These guys aren't lying.

They're wish-casting. They are not telling you any sort of objective reasonable assessment of likelihood; they are just telling you what their shriveled black hearts wish would happen.

"The results were a major upset in a race in which Murkowski held large advantages in name recognition and money," reports the WaPo's Chris Cillizza:

Miller had spent less than $200,000 as of early August, compared with more than $1.4 million for Murkowski.

But the "tea party"- backed Miller was boosted by an endorsement from Murkowski's longtime foe, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R), as well as a controversial ballot measure, Proposition 2, that would require doctors to inform parents in order for a teenage girl to undergo an abortion. The measure appeared to be turning out conservative-leaning voters in record numbers.

If Murkowski is defeated, she will follow Sens. Bob Bennet (R-Utah) and Arlen Specter (D-Pa.), both of whom were defeated in intraparty battles earlier this year. A Miller win would also be a major boon for Palin, who endorsed four other candidates in Tuesday's primaries, all of whom had won or were on track to win.

Examining the entrails of the twittersphere this morning, we discovered Tammy Bruce had been up all night virtually cavorting with "the boys" — Dan, Ace and Stacy McCain, whose blow-by-blow insider report is a must read — and has the last word on Ace's "wish-casters":

You know evil is gonna be in a bad mood tomorrow so we must get some sleep to properly stare it down.

Update: Instalanche! Sorry about that, Professor:

TEA PARTY CANDIDATE beats Murkowski in Alaska. [Oops — ahead, but not beating so far. Sorry — posted this on my first cup of coffee and misread.]

Update II: Michelle Malkin "Buzzworthy" link!

Update III: After his second cup the Professor has a fun update:

Jim Treacher twists the knife.

Update IV: Top story on Memeorandum.

Update V: Cubachi links. Be sure to check out outraged kitteh plucked from soccer field.

Update VI: Dave Weigel weighs in.

Crossposted at Riehl World View and Liberty Pundits.

Barney Frank: Politically fat and campaign lazy?

"Barney and his colleagues need to go," challenger Sean Bielat told a group of RetireBarney fans at a Constitution Ride Across America rally at the State House yesterday: "Barney Frank's been at the heart of the financial meltdown and the real estate crisis … As a businessman I understand what it takes to create jobs, I understand the need for fiscal responsibility in Washington. As a Marine, I understand that we achieve peace through strength. And as an American I realize that we need to return to our Constitutional values and the idea of citizen legislators."

"You can call me Congressman," quipped Barney Frank challenger Sean Bielat when we asked permission to call him "Sean" during a cordial and informative phone interview yesterday. Incumbent Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee since 2007 and enthroned upon the "Frank Seat" (MA-4) for nearly 30 years, has grown politically fat and perhaps campaign lazy after decades in office without a serious opponent. We hear he's been looking over his shoulder, polling the popularity of our man Sean since April, when Bielat's RetireBarney campaign started building up steam. And Barney — May we call you Barney? — has started attacking his challenger by name, the surest sign that he's taking Bielat's candidacy seriously. As Framingham lawyer Robert Snider writes in his excellent PJM piece "Might Barney Frank Lose?":

A primary reason Frank has stayed in office since 1981 is that the Fourth is a carefully gerrymandered district [that] connects the Volvo liberals of Newton and Brookline to the Democratic, blue-collar cities of Fall River and New Bedford. It meanders from the Boston city limits south, all the way to the ocean — overwhelming the intervening leafy bedroom communities like Dover and Lakeville …

A legitimate, Republican candidate — with a modicum of gravitas — has not tested Barney recently …

Electoral history seems to support an inference that the Fourth has an intimidating percentage of registered Democrats, but this is not the case: the current breakdown is 38% Democrat, 11% Republican, and 50% independent. Even in the five Democratic cities, registered Democrats do not outnumber the total of registered Republicans and registered independents. In the special election of 2010, Scott Brown won every one of the bedroom communities and failed to reach 50% only in the four urban cities and Sharon.

Bielat told us he didn't expect to change too many minds among the die-hard Democrats who voted for Coakley in the special election last January, but Scott Brown did win the Fourth overall, and Brown supporters and tea party activists have been signing on as early volunteers. Count us among them! Already 20,000 phone calls have gone out, with 3/4 support among what are called "high-performance" Republicans and unenrolleds (the Massachusetts term for Independents). We protested that from our own experience phonebanking for Brown, voters mostly don't like those calls from strangers, but — like negative campaigning itself — phonebanks work. The campaign is up and running on Facebook and Twitter, which is right up our alley.

But given our junior Senator's disappointing, big-government votes on the jobs and financial reform bills, could the great energizer that is the Brown Revolution be a double-edged sword? We asked Sean in a series of written questions and will publish his more extended, written answers as soon as they become available. For now, consistent with his born-and-bred limited-government, free-market philosophy as expressed on his campaign website (click on "Views"), Bielat assured us he would have voted against the jobs and fin/ed bills and has signed the "Contract from America." As Dick Armey and Matt Kibbe wrote in their WSJ op ed the other day, referring to candidates like Sean Bielat across the nation who have signed the "statement of policy principles generated online by hundreds of thousands of grass-roots activists":

These young legislative entrepreneurs will shift the balance in the next Congress, bringing with them a more serious, adult commitment to responsible, restrained government.

Then there's retail politicking. Our phone interview gave us a taste of our candidate's personal warmth and humor. Commercial fishermen in a coffee shop in "The Whaling City" of New Bedford — where unemployment is over 15% — opened up to Sean. They were onto Barney Frank's role in facilitating the financial meltdown. "What about Fannie Mae?" they wanted to know. We don't know how much retail politicking in distressed blue-collar towns Frank's been doing of late, but his pollsters must have picked up the scent. Today's WSJ explains in "Barney to Fannie: Drop Dead:

Barney Frank has been all over the airwaves this week with a clear and — we never thought we'd say this — perfectly sound message about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac: "They should be abolished."

Well, praise be. Two years ago next month, then Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson put the two government-sponsored mortgage-finance giants into conservatorship, and Congressman Frank declared himself pleased that there was a good chance, according to government bean-counters, that the rescue wouldn't cost taxpayers a dime.

To his supporters, Barney Frank's shamelessness may be one of his most endearing qualities. Talking about the failed "stimulus" bill the other day, he confided to a reporter on the record "we're supposed to call it the 'recovery bill,' not 'stimulus.' That's what focus groups tell us." You're out of touch, and you don't speak for the rest of us, Barney. Sean Bielat is listening with his own ears.

More to come in written responses, including Sean Bielat 's strategy to raise the funds necessary to be competitive with an opponent some would say is "too big to fail." And don't miss the two Seans on Hannity next Monday night!

Update: Too much fun: Barney Frank Freddie Fannie Flip video.

Crossposted at Riehl World View and Liberty Pundits.

Barney Frank and the Code of Ethics for Government Service

The tortured shape of Barney Frank's Massacusetts 4th District (above) calls to mind the original gerrymandered congressional district of 1812 that gave the tortured political sleight of hand its name. It included our own Chelsea-by-the-Sea as the tail of the serpent. As we blogged last April, we've chosen our next political battle, skipping over our own far less powerful MA 8th District Rep. Michael Capuano, to go straight for the jugular of the man who did so much to precipitate the nation's current economic woes. Frank (MA-4) has three Republican challengers, including businessman and US Marine Sean Bielat, our candidate of choice.

Barney "Frank wrote a special provision into the TARP legislation designed specifically for OneUnited Bank," writes Jonathan Well at Bloomberg Opinion, shedding a little light on the culture of corruption that must be rooted out in the "term limits by other means" that are the November elections (h/t Sean Bielat):

For all the strange details to emerge in the Maxine Waters bank-bailout scandal, this one might be the most surprising: It turns out members of Congress are prohibited from doing “special favors” for anyone, even if they receive nothing of value in return.

Who knew? Here I had been living under the impression that handing out special favors is something Washington lawmakers do all the time — be they free pens, tax breaks or earmarks. And, of course, it is.

Yet under the Code of Ethics for Government Service, it is against the rules for any federal employee to “discriminate unfairly by the dispensing of special favors or privileges to anyone, whether for remuneration or not.” That’s what it says in Count III of the ethics charges against Waters, which were unsealed this week by the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct. The House of Representatives adopted the code in 1958.

No wonder Waters and Charlie Rangel are crying "Racism!" It's the last refuge of scoundrels:

The bank eventually received $12 million under the Treasury’s Troubled Asset Relief Program, in December 2008. That’s because an even more powerful lawmaker intervened, Massachusetts Democrat Barney Frank, the chairman of the Financial Services Committee.

Frank wrote a special provision into the TARP legislation designed specifically for OneUnited. It instructed Treasury to consider assisting banks with less than $1 billion of assets that had suffered severe capital losses on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac preferred shares …

The reason OneUnited wasn’t healthy is it made poor investment decisions. But for Frank’s efforts, the bank would have collapsed.

Enter stage right Sean Bielat, an authentic small-government American original who speaks for us tea partying red staters hunkered down here behind deep blue enemy lines in Taxachusetts. We'll be interviewing Bielat tomorrow or Monday, so please let us know any questions you'd like us to ask him. Meanwhile, twitter/blogfriend Brian O'Connor of Red Dog Report attempts to answer the question "Who is Sean Bielat?":

Barney Frank has been in the United States Congress since 1981, and he has been collecting a taxpayer funded paycheck for the last 37 years.

Sean Bielat, on the other hand, has served in the Marine Corps and has actually taken a paycheck from the private sector; first at McKinsey & Company and later at iRobot …

Barney Frank recently spearheaded the White House's massive Financial Regulation Bill, which restricts how banks can make profits, but then funds bank bailouts if the CEO's make bad decisions, causing the bank to fail.

Sean Bielat, on the other hand, would rather see free market solutions to business and industry.

"The unemployment rate in Barney Frank’s district is particularly high, at over 12% according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics," notes the Massachusetts Conservative Feminist, who adds "The Commonwealth’s average unemployment rate has remained between 9.2 and 9.5% for the year, starting at 5.6% in January of 2009, according to the Boston Globe." It calls to mind the fact that the bluer the state — that is, the more heavily a state went for Obama in the 2008 election — the greater the per capita debt today.

A reminder: Let us know your questions for Sean Bielat. This from our inside source:

Just be fair and not afraid to ask tough questions, like, can he win, etc? Given that I see myself as an advocate, I often give them some leeway, discuss the interview first off-record, telling them, I don't mind helping them to get their message out — but I won't let them make me look like a shill, either. I would think his big goal is convincing people he can win — that impacts fundraising — so he shouldn't duck the question. To some extent, I want to hear their rationale for themselves and for their campaign being able to win. That usually serves both me and them to put out there.

Update: Instalanche! Thank you, Professor Reynolds.

Crossposted at Riehl World View and Liberty Pundits.

A growing chorus of "minority" Republicans are finding their voice

 

New Jersey Sistah Grizzly Cubachi (left) takes no prisoners. Watch out, Harry Reid. "Minority" Republicans are mad as hell, and they're not going to take this anymore.

"Harry Reid can't believe I'm a Hispanic Republican" writes our fiery Latina blog/twitterfriend Cubachi in an important post that's part of a growing chorus of "minority" Republicans who are finding their voice. They're pushing back against Michelle Malkin's "ethnic plantation owners," the demagoging Democrats who would project their own racism onto the tea partiers of all races among us who don't toe the politically correct, identity-politics party line. And they're disintermediating the legacy media via the internet. Cubachi's opening salvo is a challenge to the obscenely arrogant Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's assertion that he "doesn't know how anyone of Hispanic heritage could be a Republican":

Well Harry, let me introduce myself. I am the daughter of Cuban exiles who have seen first hand the failures of liberal and socialist policies in their native country. My father in fact, was a political prisoner in Cuba for five years because the government deemed his speech against repression and dictatorship “hateful and dangerous.” Sort of like what you democrats say about the tea parties, although you have not thrown their members in jail … yet …

My father looked at the platform of the republican party that endorsed small government, lower taxes, and strong defense, while the democrat party embraced Che Guevara and Fidel Castro, murderers and tyrants, as some sort of folk heroes, and endorsed larger governments taking power away from the people.

Although I wasn’t born in Cuba, I witnessed for myself liberals governing the state of New Jersey. I saw the failed policies of former Governors Jim McGreevy and Jon Corzine. Unions ran the show, uncontrolled and limitless spending, massive corruption, and the highest property taxes in the nation. I, as a thinking, tax-paying citizen, can not fathom why I would support democrats that have ran this state to near bankruptcy. Heck, I see it in a larger scale in Washington, DC. Yes Harry Reid, I do think and watch the news.

As a red stater behind enemy lines here in Deepest Blue Taxachusetts, we feel a profound kinship with fellow Americans like Cubachi and other "minorities," including small-government, free-market women of Northern European descent like ourselves, demonized by our "betters" on the left side of the aisle for embracing the Founding Fathers' vision and rejecting the smothering embrace of identity politics and the nanny state. A sampling from recent archives of that rising chorus of "my people" finding their voices:

Cedra Crenshaw, who's fighting the Chicago machine

Herman Cain, whose words "Stay inspired. The people are still in charge" are an inspiration

Black Republicans National Press Club event

Other signs of unconventional Republicans finding their authentic American voices:

Pajamas Media's weekly The Minority Report

Juliette Akinyi, aka Baldilocks, "The Herding Series"

GOProud Announces Ann Coulter to Headline Homocon 2010 in New York City

Update: Michelle Malkin "Buzzworthy" link!

Update II: Juliette Akinyi links at KelseyLive.com.

Update III: "SISU has it almost right with the title of her first rate post," writes our friend Da TechGuy:

The truth is they have always had their voices, it is just the MSM has ignored them in the past and continues to do so. The point is they are unable to prevent the general public from finding them due to social media and the internet. The correct title is "A growing chorus of “minority” Republican voices are found by the public."

Crossposted at Cloven Not Crested, Riehl World View and Liberty Pundits.

Should a Tea Party candidate run in the 2012 primary if Scott Brown drifts further?

"Retire Barney.com. Sproing! The thought of it set our heart aflutter," we captioned this image in our blogpost "Boston Tea Party Fallout: Retire Barney Frank?" last April: "As a volunteer gathering email addresses for the GBTP at today's Boston Tea Party on the Common with Sarah Palin, we got to chat briefly but intensively with a multitude of good folks from all walks of life and different ethnic backgrounds, ages and sexual orientation who share with us a love and admiration for this Shining City Upon a Hill and want to save it from the ravages of the international progressivist statist impulse represented by the Obama Machine. The vibrant 'new mom' above turned out to be sis-in-law to Barney Frank challenger Sean Bielat" (see below for a proposal).

Interesting email exchange this evening with Professor Reynolds, following up on our earlier post, "Sissy Willis, Scott Brown doesn't want to hear from you":

We: He's getting an earful from us Tea Party people today. Too late for FinReg, but maybe next time?

Glenn Reynolds: Indeed. Somebody should make noises about running a Tea Party candidate against him in the primary if he drifts further …

Barney Frank challenger Sean Bielat poses with newly-minted Senator Scott Brown for this image from Bielat's campaign website.

What if Tea Party favorite, businessman and Marine Sean Bielat manages this November to unseat Barney Frank (MA-4), co-architect of the "Dodd-Frank Financial Fiasco" that passed the Senate this afternoon thanks in part to Brown's vote? He'd have a chance during the next two years to show what he's made of and could be ripe and ready to step into the fray as the kind of Tea Party candidate Reynolds suggests, should Brown's voting record continue to disillusion former supporters. Senator Brown comes up for election to a full term in 2012

We're supporting Bielat this cycle, as we explained last April:

Forget about our useless District 8 Rep Michael Capuano. We've got bigger fish to fry: 4th-District Rep. Barney Frank is in our sights, and Sean Bielat might be just the man to unseat him. Before we decide whether to support the very appealing Mr. Bielat, we'll check out all three Republicans challenging the unspeakably arrogant and destructive Frank, responsible perhaps more than any other one person for the Fannie and Freddie bubbles that precipitated the nation's current economic woes. But the point is, we're going to apply our "Give to strategic small-government candidates, not parties" strategy within our own Commonwealth of Massachusetts, giving time and money to wresting Barney Frank from the Frank People's Seat of Massachusetts 4th Congressional District for the next period of time. This is going to be fun!

Update: "Good way to hand the seat back to the Democrats, I think," cautions twitterfriend Irishspy. Another follower, dmataconis, is more direct:

Dumb idea.

But as we twittered back to Irishspy, "Maybe, but why not think outside the box at this early date?"

Update II: Twitterfriend WooHoo Yoo delights us in the comments:

Retiring Barney to a movement candidate would be delicious and perhaps the best strategy to pulling Brown right. Does Sean yell loudly, cuz Scott is surely deaf to the American people.

Update III: "He's better than Martha Coakley would have been," says Professor Reynolds — thanks for the Instalanche! — citing gs from the comments:

I voted for Scott Brown and gave him a donation when it appeared he had a serious chance, but I’m neither enthused nor disenchanted. I was supporting divided government, not Scott Brown.

Crossposted at Riehl World View and Liberty Pundits.

"Sissy Willis, Scott Brown doesn't want to hear from you"

"Sissy Willis, he doesn't want to hear from you," Dan Riehl just twittered in response to our own early-afternoon tweet:

Just called Scott Brown's local number, again as yesterday & phone mailbox full. Arggh!

But the DC office of our junior Senator did pick up, with a real person on the other end after a two- or three-minute wait on hold with a tasteful Mozart concerto playing in the background. As we wrote in the comments of Dan's related blogpost, "Usual Suspects: The Dodd-Frank Sell-Out":

When I asked which way the calls were trending, [the woman who answered the phone] said she couldn't say. I asked whether that meant she WOULDN'T say, and she said yes. Sounds to me like they're trending NO!

For a reality check, we ran our gut reaction by Tuck, who agreed with our assessment but had this bit of sadder-but-wiser wisdom to add:

The no's are the people who WOULD call. Those who don't call don't know what's going on anyway.

Update: Some thoughtful perspective from fellow Brown campaigner Professor Jacobson of Legal Insurrection. Be sure to read the whole thing:

I'm not going to engage in the name calling some have directed at Brown. I believe Brown was sincere in his belief that the legislation does more good than bad. And I'm still glad that I supported his campaign, because Brown stood firm on health care and other negative Democratic initiatives [Also, our own view, the "Massachusetts Miracle" served as a catalyst to break up the incumbent logjam, promising "term limits by other means" in local and national elections this spring and come November].

But Scott Brown failed to see the forest for the trees on financial reform.

Whatever good the financial legislation accomplishes could have been accomplished without another impenetrable behemoth, sprinkled with lobbyist-induced goodies, which expands government for the sake of expanding government, and which constitutes a cure which is worse than the disease.

Update: Michelle Malkin "Buzzworthy" link!

Update II: "A Sissy Willis Scott Brown Tribute" from Dan.

Update III: Instalanche!

Update IV: Interesting email exchange this evening with Professor Reynolds:

We: He's getting an earful from us Tea Party people today. Too late for FinReg, but maybe next time?

Glenn Reynolds: Indeed. Somebody should make noises about running a Tea Party candidate against him in the primary if he drifts further. . . .

Note: Brown will be up for election to a full term in 2012.

Update V: "Sissy Willis I have one thing to say to you," says blog/twitter buddy DaTechGuy:

This post is spot on, I wish I wrote it.

Crossposted at Riehl World View and Liberty Pundits.

Scott Brown "has listened to his constituents" and will definitely vote "no" on financial reform

"It's as if Tony Hayward of BP were allowed to write new rules on deep water drilling," the WSJ editors analogize in "Triumph of the Regulators." Above, Barney Frank and Chris Dodd, chief architects of the "sweeping" financial "reform" bill careening through the halls of Congress, beam at the thought of the latest bit of legislative handiwork they are preparing to impose on the American people. Associated Press photo.

Scott Brown "has listened to his constituents," an aide in our junior Senator's office just told us, and will definitely vote "no" on the Dodd-Frank Financial Reform bill should it come to the floor. ABC explains why that may not happen soon:

The Senate was expected to vote on the Dodd-Frank Financial Reform bill this week, giving the President the opportunity to sign the most sweeping overhaul of Wall Street regulations since the Great Depression before Congress's July 4 recess.

But …

Without Robert Byrd — or a Democratic replacement to fill Byrd's seat — they may not have the votes to pass it. On the critical procedural vote that enabled the bill to pass the Senate on May 20, Democrats prevailed 60-40. Senator Byrd's vote was essential; the bill had exactly the number of votes needed to pass.

And there's this: Democrats seem to have lost another vote. Sen. Scott Brown, one of just four Republicans in the Senate who voted for the Senate's version of the bill, is now suggesting he may oppose it because it now includes $18 billion in taxes and fees.

"I've said repeatedly that I cannot support any bill that raises taxes," Brown had told reporters Friday, raising our hopes:

While I'm still reviewing the bill's details, my fear is that these costs would be passed onto consumers in the form of higher bank, ATM and credit card fees and put a strain on lending at the worst possible time for our economy.

Nor was he amused that $18 billion in new assessments and fees had been "added in the wee hours of the morning by the conference committee." Our Mr. Brown, now outpolling senior Senator Kerry and President Obama here in Massachusetts, is proving to be a quick study in the ways of Washington, a fact that isn't going over well with the folks at Daily Kos, who snarked "So much for the wisdom of negotiating with Scott Brown to give him his big bank carve-out on the Volcker Rule." Nyah, nyah, nyah. Meanwhile, Senate Banking Committee Chair Chris Dodd blithely acknowledged that "No one will know until this is actually in place how it works." As an eye-rolling WSJ explains, the system will be built "not around clear parameters of what institutions can and cannot do, but instead entirely on regulator discretion":

President Obama hailed the financial bill that House-Senate negotiators finally vouchsafed at 5:40 a.m. Friday, and no wonder. The bill represents the triumph of the very regulators and Congressmen who did so much to foment the financial panic, giving them vast new discretion over every corner of American financial markets.

Chris Dodd and Barney Frank, those Fannie Mae cheerleaders, played the largest role in writing the bill. Congressman Paul Kanjorski even offered a motion to memorialize it as the Dodd-Frank Act. It's as if Tony Hayward of BP were allowed to write new rules on deep water drilling.

The Federal Reserve, which promoted the housing mania and failed utterly in its core mission of monitoring Citigroup, will now have more power to regulate more financial institutions and more ability to dictate the allocation of credit …

Oh,and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac? They aren't touched at all, even as they continue to lose billions of taxpayer dollars each quarter.

Where is Friedrich Hayek when you need him?

Update: Michelle Malkin "Buzzworthy" link!

Update II: Kinda fun: NYT Politics "From around the web" link.

Update III: Instalanche! Thank you, Professor Reynolds. 'Hope Scott Brown is still listening. We didn't like the sound of this morning's WaPo headline:

Scott Brown reconsidering support of financial regulation bill.

Update IV: Christine Varley's Greater Boston Tea Party is sponsoring a Senator Brown, Just Vote NO! Rally in front of Brown's Boston office today at noon.

Update V: Woohoo! Professor Jacobson's Post of the Day!

Cross-posted at Riehl World View and Liberty Pundits.

Scott Brown puts signature "41st vote" behind Murkowski Resolution

"This has been one of the most difficult personal or professional decisions I have ever made, but it is the right one for me, because it enables me to spend more time with my husband and family,” said longtime WCVB-TV reporter Gail Huff, who will be "leaving the Boston station after nearly two decades to be a part-time reporter in Washington, D.C." the Boston Herald reported Tuesday.“

"This action would give an unelected and unaccountable government agency the power to impose restrictive and damaging carbon dioxide regulations that will drive up energy prices and hurt job-creating small businesses in our country," says our own Massachusetts junior Senator Scott Brown in a must-read Cape Cod Times op ed (h/t Red Mass Group) explaining his decision to get behind the Murkowski Resolution (S.J. Res 26) that would nullify EPA's authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. Businessweek has the story:

The EPA’s authority to regulate greenhouse gases under existing law stems from a 2007 Supreme Court decision on the scope of the Clean Air Act. This approach is the Obama administration’s back-up plan if the cap-and-trade legislation it prefers doesn’t pass Congress this year.

"It doesn't really matter who you elect because huge, unaccountable bureacracies are actually running things," notes a justifiably cynical Tuck, but that's exactly why the Murkowski Resolution is important. The political maneuvering is not for the faint of heart, as Businessweek explains:

Senate Republicans will try a long- shot maneuver today to derail greenhouse-gas regulations for cars, power plants, refineries and factories that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency plans to enforce next year under existing law.

Senator Lisa Murkowski, the Alaska Republican leading the effort, said yesterday her motion to disapprove the EPA’s regulations must clear a “very high hurdle” to succeed. If the motion gets the necessary 51 votes to pass the Senate and then makes it through the U.S. House, White House officials have said President Barack Obama would likely veto the measure.

While the Murkowski disapproval motion probably won’t stop the EPA’s regulations, today’s vote threatens to set back a bigger plan to charge polluters a price for releasing carbon dioxide and other gases linked to climate change into the atmosphere, K. Whitney Stanco, a Washington-based analyst with Concept Capital, said in a telephone interview.

The closer Murkowski gets to 51 votes, the harder it gets to pass a carbon-pricing bill with the little time that’s left this year,” Stanco said.

Senator Brown was one of only three Republicans — predictably including Maine's Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe — who did not join the other 40 Republicans co-sponsoring the bill. His signature "41st vote" won't in itself be enough to pass Murkowski, but it carries profound symbolic value for those of us who gave our all to send Mr. Brown to Washington. Alerted to the forthcoming vote yesterday in an email from Americans for Prosperity, we'd put in a call to his office urging him to vote yes. Good to know our junior senator is paying attention to the folks back home:

As I continue meeting with Massachusetts residents and small business owners, they all say the same thing: "We need to get this economy moving again." For that to happen, America's businesses need the confidence to invest in new opportunities. What Bay State businesses don't need is the federal government arbitrarily passing down restrictions that would dramatically restrict their potential for growth by saddling them with higher costs.

Furthermore, imposing this regulation of emissions is something that will affect every aspect of our economy and every American. We cannot allow these decisions to be made by an unelected bureaucracy; this is an issue that deserves a full debate in Congress.

This just in as we're going to press: The Boston Herald is reporting this morning that ultra-liberal Americans United for Change is planning "to spend $40,000 on Boston broadcast and cable television stations to convince Brown to oppose the resolution. Too much, too late?

Update: Just for fun, reader brooklyn in the comments at our RWV crosspost:

If Scott Brown were to be reading the mighty SISU each day, following the insight seriously, his Job as Senator for MASS would be much easier and more successful.

Update II: Michelle Malkin "Buzzworthy" link!

Update III: Good news: All Republicans [including Collins and Snowe!] and six Democrats vote yes. Bad news: Murkowski Resolution voted down 53-47.

Crossposted at Riehl World View and Liberty Pundits.

As Arizona goes, so goes the nation? Ask Massachusetts.

Don't tread Fed on me. Arizona Black Rattlesnake (above) is a fitting symbol for Arizona's widely unread immigration law: "When threatened, rattlesnakes will often rattle their tails, producing a loud, dry rattling sound meant to warn the threat away."

Scott Brown may be disappointing a lot of his supporters by going RINO in recent U.S. Senate votes, but the Brown Effect is in full swing stateside in Taxachusetts. We just got wind of this from Barney Frank challenger Sean Bielat on Twitter:          

Mass, Senate passes crackdown on illegal immigrants.

With one lawmaker citing President Lincoln's respect for the rule of law, the Massachusetts Senate passed a far-reaching crackdown this afternoon on illegal immigrants and those who would hire them, going further, senators said, than any immigration bill proposed over the past five years …

Democrats had resisted such a sweeping proposal, but spent last evening negotiating today’s measure, shortly after a new polled showed 84 percent of the liberal-leaning state’s voters supported tough immigration rules barring state services to illegal immigrants.

"The measure comes weeks after immigration measures failed in the House, and amid heightened debate over illegal immigration fueled by the state's election season and Arizona's passage in April of the toughest immigration law in the nation," reports the Globe [A fine job of reporting, we must say. Not a whiff of Bush bashing.]:

Thursday's Senate amendment would also authorize the state attorney general's office to broker an agreement with federal authorities to help enforce immigration law. That would be a stark departure for Attorney General Martha Coakley, who has increased outreach to immigrants, encouraging them to file employment complaints, regardless of their legal status. Scores of immigrants whose bosses allegedly failed to pay their wages have turned to her for help in recent years.

The Brown Effect segues into the Arizona Governor Jan Brewer Effect?

Related: "MSNBC's 'A Divided Nation' Ignores Conservatives, Champions Immigration Overhaul."

Update: Michele Malkin's "Buzzworthy" link and Memeorandum discussion.

Update II: Instalanche! This story has legs.

Update III: Maggie's links!

Crossposted at Riehl World View and Liberty Pundits.