Orrin Hatch Should have Retired but instead, like Democrats, Joins the Potentate Class

Orrin Hatch fails to clinch GOP nomination

 in Utah — by 0.9%

 by Allahpundit   at   HotAir:

Weird rule out there: The delegates to the Utah GOP convention get first crack at choosing a nominee by voting on the candidates. If anyone gets 60 percent, he’s nominated. If no one gets 60 percent, the top two finishers go to a statewide primary. That’s how Bob Bennett was sunk two years ago, you might remember. Tea partiers filled the ranks of convention delegates and ensured that he couldn’t place higher than third; Mike Lee and Tim Bridgewater went on to the primary and you know how that turned out.

Hatch’s goal today was simple. To make sure that he’d at least make it out of the convention, he’s been working the delegate process for months — and has been so successful at it that, as of 10 days ago, an internal poll concluded that he had a very real chance of clinching the nomination by taking 60 percent. If he could pull that off, he’d avoid a primary and snuff any chance of a belated tea-party awakening on his challenger’s behalf. As of 2:30 p.m. ET, the votes are in. Hatch’s take: 59.1 percent. More from Dave Weigel:

The Tea Party movement is alive in Utah. With representatives from FreedomWorks in the audience, delegates at the Utah Republican Convention managed to force Sen. Orrin Hatch into a June 26 primary. He got 59.2 percent of their votes against Dan Liljenquist, a 38-year-old state senator. Hatch needed 60 percent to avoid the primary. He couldn’t do it. In two rounds of voting, he went from 2,243 votes to 2,313 votes. If he’d gotten 32 more votes, he would have wrapped this up…

FreedomWorks and other Tea Party groups now have two Causes to distract them from their failure to replace Mitt Romney with some better candidate — the Senate races in Utah and Indiana.

Yeah, the last point is key. 59.1 percent sounds hopeless for Liljenquist if it’s an accurate reflection of Republican voters in Utah, but there’s bound to be a burst of tea-party enthusiasm for him now that he and Richard Mourdock are the last best chance to tilt the GOP further right at the federal level. Hatch did himself no favors either when he said this recently of his opponents on the right, FreedomWorks:

“These people are not conservatives. They’re not Republicans,” Hatch angrily responds. “They’re radical libertarians and I’m doggone offended by it.”

Then Hatch, a former boxer, turns combative. “I despise these people, and I’m not the guy you come in and dump on without getting punched in the mouth.”

Go read FreedomWorks VP Matt Kibbe for a response to that. If tea partiers didn’t have enough incentive already to pay attention to this race, they do now. There’s also some reason to believe that today’s delegates were actually more pro-Hatch than the general electorate: He and his team shrewdly maneuvered behind the scenes before the convention to make sure his people were well represented on the floor.

More than a year ago, Hatch’s campaign polled the 3,500 Republican delegates who voted Bennett out of office in May 2010.

Its discovery: Hatch had no chance of getting renominated, if those same 3,500 people voted.

“This is not going to be a campaign of persuading delegates,” Hatch’s campaign manager, Dave Hansen, said Thursday, recalling a conversation with the senator early last year. “This is going to be a campaign of replacing delegates.”…

To survive, Hatch needed new delegates. The first step was to recruit supporters willing to run in the 2,000 precincts that select this year’s 4,000 delegates to Saturday’s convention. Then he had to round up supporters willing to attend caucus night to vote for the Hatch-backed delegates. The initial goal of getting 20,000 supporters out on a cold Thursday night was eventually upped to 35,000. The campaign staff of 25 used every possible list to speak with potential backers.

As recently as two months ago, Mike Lee’s chief of staff thought Hatch was destined to lose; instead he came within a hair’s breadth of winning without a primary. Give him credit for knowing the rules of the game and playing it well. And in fact, despite celebrations this afternoon by proud tea partiers like the boss emeritus about having forced him into a primary, Hatch is still in very good shape. According to Roll Call, he has a $3 million advantage over Liljenquist in cash on hand and, as you’ll see below, he also has the full support of the first Mormon presidential nominee in U.S. history. That can’t hurt in a state with the largest number of Mormon voters in America. Gonna be a mighty heavy lift to oust him.

In case you’re wondering, Hatch and Dick Lugar, who’s also seeking another six-year term, have spent a combined 70 years in the Senate. Exit question from Ace’s co-blogger rdbrewer: Did Hatch’s comments about despising “radical libertarians” alienate just enough delegates to prevent him from wrapping this thing up today?

Comment:   Dick Lugar is another Washington establishment “Good old boy” who should have retired a decade or so ago.   Neither of these occasional conservatives are at the slime level of  politics as Arlen Specter.   Neither is a leader.  Neither seems to have had any influence in persuading any Democrats to cross party lines on important issues for America.    Lefties don’t do much getting along with traditional Americans.

Nor are Lugar and Hatch as untrustworthy in vital issues for America’s free society as both of the Maine gal Senators.   Yet, all four of these occasional loose cannons usually vote with their Republican brothers and sisters, and we should be grateful for their service to the country.

The Utah selection process for nominating their Senators  may not be good for the Republican Party in reelecting its old timers, but it seems to me it helps the country by keeping the Hatches and Lugars awake enough to know when they should have retired……

 

CBS Chooses not to publish the Lie Claiming the Koch Bros. are Funding Zimmerman’s defense

Have Our News Organizations Gone Crazy?

by John Hinderaker    at   PowerLine:

I wrote here about MSNBC’s campaign to tie the Koch brothers to George Zimmerman’s shooting of Trayvon Martin. That effort was, it is fair to say, insane, but it apparently inspired one or more liberals to take MSNBC’s theories a step farther. Someone wrote–I think it was on Facebook–that Koch Industries had paid for Zimmerman’s legal defense and/or put up his bail money. Other liberals happily repeated the claim, to the point where Snopes deemed it a rumor worth addressing.

The claim is not only false, but entirely baseless and, in fact, stupid. There is no connection whatsoever between Koch Industries or the Koch brothers and George Zimmerman. None. Further, while the Koch brothers have championed a number of libertarian causes, gun rights have not been among them. In the one instance where Koch Industries is known to have lobbied on a firearms issue, it was against a proposed liberalization of firearms laws in Florida. And the brothers have no history of participating in the defense of criminal defendants. Further, while this is not my area of expertise, I doubt whether it would even be legal for Koch Industries to pay for an unrelated person’s criminal defense. So the assertion that Koch Industries is paying for Zimmerman’s defense or contributing to his bail lacks the remotest shred of plausibility.

But where the Koch brothers are concerned, the normal rules do not apply. Logic is out the window, and evidence is optional. Thus, Koch Industries received this email yesterday from CBS News:

From: [Katy Conrad, CBS News]
Sent: Saturday, April 21, 2012 11:30 AM Central Standard Time
To: Cohlmia, Missy
Cc: Stavinoha, Katie; Baltzer, Paul
Subject: CBS News request

Melissa,

Can you confirm whether or not Koch Industries is paying for George Zimmerman’s legal fees and putting up money for his bond? We are covering the Zimmerman case and are on deadline for evening news at 6:00p EST.

Thanks so much,

Katy Conrad
CBS News – Editorial Producer

The following exchange ensued:

From: [Mark Holden (Koch Legal)]
Sent: Sat 4/21/2012 2:39 PM
To: Conrad, Katy
Cc: Cohlmia, Missy
Subject: Fw: CBS News request

Dear Ms. Conrad,

Melissa Cohlmia has forwarded your email to me for a response.

Koch is not paying for Mr. Zimmerman’s legal fees and we advise that you not repeat this completely false and baseless rumor. Please see http://www.kochfacts.com for our statement concerning this matter.

As is explained in the statement and as is documented elsewhere on http://www.kochfacts.com, Koch has been falsely and maliciously inserted into this storyline by MSNBC and other extremists. We trust you will not choose to republish any of these lies. Please contact me if you have any questions concerning this. Thank you.

Sincerely,

Mark Holden
Senior Vice President and General Counsel
Koch Industries

From: [Katy Conrad]
Sent: Saturday, April 21, 2012 01:40 PM
To: Holden, Mark (Koch Legal)
Cc: Cohlmia, Missy
Subject: RE: CBS News request

We absolutely will not publish, that’s why we’re checking! : )

Thanks so much,
Katy

One wonders what would have happened if representatives of Koch Industries had not been available to comment on a Saturday afternoon.

From: [Mark Holden]
To: Conrad, Katy
Cc: Cohlmia, Missy
Sent: Sat Apr 21 14:53:15 2012
Subject: Re: CBS News request

Thank you. From your response, I understand that you will not mention Koch in any way in your broadcast. Am I correct in that understanding?

From: [Katy Conrad]
Sent: Saturday, April 21, 2012 02:12 PM
To: Holden, Mark (Koch Legal)
Cc: Cohlmia, Missy
Subject: Re: CBS News request

That’s correct.

From: [Mark Holden]
Sent: Saturday, April 21, 2012 02:14 PM
To: [Katy Conrad]
Cc: Cohlmia, Missy
Subject: Re: CBS News request

Thank you.

I suppose we could congratulate CBS for at least checking with Koch and refraining from broadcasting a false story. In that respect, they are certainly superior to MSNBC, which is not really a news organization at all. But why does any rumor relating to Koch, no matter how baseless or bizarre, rise to the level where it prompts an inquiry from a major television news network which obviously hopes to include a Koch angle in its story? Do you think that if I started an analogous, equally groundless rumor about Barack Obama on my Facebook page, CBS News would be on the phone to the White House, looking for confirmation so they can use my rumor in their broadcast? No, I don’t think so either. But when it comes to the Koch brothers, our news organizations, even the more respectable ones, live in an Alice In Wonderland world.

Obama, the Peacemaker’s Camp Charges GOP “In Thralls of Reign of this Reign of Terror from the Far Right”

Axelrod: GOP “In The Thralls Of This Reign Of Terror From The Far Right”

from realclearpolitics video:

“I hink a lot of Republicans in Congress want to cooperate, know better, but they’re in the thralls of this reign of terror from the far right that has dragged the party to the right. In your own polling and other polling, you see the Republican Party has really moved out of the mainstream,” David Axelrod said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2012/04/22/axelrod_gop_in_the_thralls_of_this_reign_of_terror_from_the_far_right.html

Charles Krauthammer Nails ObamaFraud’s “the Buffett Rule”….”It’s Literally Incredible”

Krauthammer: Buffett Rule Is An Embarrassment, Shameless, Preposterous And Deceptive

from realclearpolitics:

“It’s literally incredible,” syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer said about President Obama’s vision of the Buffett Rule. “It’s almost an embarrassment, it’s so shameless. If you were to collect the Buffett tax for the next 250 years, that’s longer than the life of this Republic, you will not have covered the deficit, Obama’s deficit for 2011. You collect it for another 250 years, so we’re now in the year 2612, and you’ve covered 2011 and 2012 and you need to cover only 498 other years of deficits.”

“This is a preposterous statement and he know it is. Also on growth, it is equally deceptive. What the tax is, it’s a doubling of the capital gains tax. It’s disguised, but that’s the reason why the Buffett rates are lower, it’s the capital gains rate and it’s lower than the rate for normal income. So he double its. The reason that’s not a good idea is because when you double the rate, you actually decrease the amount that the treasury receives. And you decrease the growth because you are shrinking the pool of capital that is out there that people can invest and hire other people. The reason that we had an economic boom after the Kennedy tax cuts and the Reagan cuts, 20 years later, it’s precisely that they cut rates and particularly that they cut capital gains rates,” Krauthammer said.

Is Obama the Marxist in Trouble?

Democrats Are Jumping Ship

Editorial from Inverstor’s Business Daily

Politics: Perhaps Democrats know something the rest of us don’t about Barack Obama’s political fortunes. What else explains the increasing numbers who are openly defying the president on two key election issues?

The notoriously thin-skinned Obama could not have been happy with the news last week that, as the Hill newspaper put it, “an increasing number of Democrats are taking potshots at President Obama’s health care law.”

North Carolina’s Brad Miller, who voted for the law, now laments that “we would all have been better off” if Congress had dealt with more pressing issues “and then came back to health care.”

Barney Frank complained that the Democrats “paid a terrible price for health care.” And Virginia’s outgoing Sen. Jim Webb said the law would be Obama’s “biggest downside” in the election and had cost him “a lot of credibility as a leader.”

Meanwhile, stalwart Massachusetts liberal Elizabeth Warren is now calling to repeal a piece of ObamaCare — the 2.3% tax on medical devices — because, she says, it “disproportionately impacts the small companies with the narrowest financial margins.”

Warren, by the way, is running for the Senate seat occupied by Republican Scott Brown, whose victory in 2010 was a result of the public’s intense opposition to ObamaCare.

Former Alabama Rep. Artur Davis went furthest. “I think the Affordable Care Act is the single least popular piece of major domestic legislation in the last 70 years,” he said. “It was not popular when it passed; it’s less popular now.” Ouch.

These Democrats are no doubt familiar with polls that show surprisingly little support for ObamaCare within their ranks. Fewer than half of Democrats think the government should be able to force individuals to buy insurance — the core element of ObamaCare — according to the latest IBD/TIPP poll. Only a little more than a third say the Supreme Court should “uphold the entire law.”

The fact that they’re willing to trash-talk Obama’s single biggest legislative achievement suggests they’re worried about something more than how the Supreme Court will rule.

This fear is even more evident when you look at the growing opposition among Democrats to Obama’s position on the Keystone XL pipeline.

Obama may have thought he’d cleverly handled the issue by putting it off until next year, and that no one would think to defy his veto threats.

But when Republicans called his bluff with a bill to force a start on construction, 69 Democrats rushed to join them, giving the House bill a veto-proof majority. The Senate bill is just a vote or two away from overcoming a Democratic filibuster.

The importance of this fight is huge. If Democrats defy him, it will severely undermine Obama’s claim that he’s pursuing an all-of-the-above energy strategy.

Obama came to the White House claiming that he alone was qualified to unite the country behind common objectives. The fact that he’s losing support from his own party on two of the most important issues of the day is significant.

Comment:    Obama’s government is not rational, is devious,  dishonest, untrustworthy by citizens and allies, recently lecherous, and has abandoned the Traditional American measures of cultural unity,   E Pluribus Unum, In God We Trust, and Liberty.  Its cultural behavior   likely represents that  of the majority of Americans of voting aging eligible to re-elect this stranger to America  in the November election.

 

The culture stinks.   It’s Democrat leadership is corrupt on nearly all fronts.   The Republican opposition, also not educated in the features which have made the nation unique and great, is timid, uncertain, and lacks  confidence regarding who they are and what America should be, modern Marxist or a republican state.

Even Fox News and its pompous, loud mouth bully, Bill O’Reilly, can’t  get around to identifying some of Obama’s political thugs as  the Marxists they are….and have admitted aloud with pride…..Van Jones is offered as an example.  Only Jones called himself a Communist.

O’Reilly sneered at the Obama-Marxist ties, sluffing it off with the reason that Obama accepts private ownership of property;  Marxists do not.

In truth, Marxist might, or might not allow its gpvermed private ownership of property……History is loaded with the religion’s position on this matter……that being, private ownership of property  is not allowed, or allowed depending upon the will of the governing Marxist body as it aids the PARTY, not the people.

Like Obama and his role regarding his 2011 million plus dollar  income,  despite his slippery tongue, he did not choose to donate his  tax share, ala  Buffett Rule with  the federal government to help  halt the runaway trillions he is planning to spend and waste during his second term after his November re-election.