Even if hard to quantify, Ted Kennedy's death certainly felt like a windfall profit for taxpayers, fetuses, documented citizens, the employed, et al.
Then Republican Scott Brown's surprise nabbing of his seat definitely got a lot of otherwise sullen people jumping for joy...
And, until the next emotional letdown, it'll spur many to continue dreaming - like this guy who's trying to extrapolate from the Senate race to find other potentially weak Congressional seats here in Massachusetts. (The Democrats have all 11 seats in the House at the moment.)
Since I don't, and never did, follow local politics much I know very little about most of these clowns. In my head I have it that William Delahunt is a loon but can't put my finger on why I might think that.
But Barney Frank....that's another story.
With Ted Kennedy gone, he's become, well, let's just say a guy whose next Congressional opponent might receive EVEN MORE national support and monies from out-of-staters than Scott Brown did.
Is he really vulnerable in his highly gerrymandered 4th district? I don't know. As you can see above, the 4th split 50/50 on the Senate race.
While he may be *no Martha Coakley*, a shrill, unaccomplished dingbat....
By the same token, she, who lost(!), hadn't his record of destruction either!
It's all the rage these days, this Senate race for roasting-in-hell Ted Kennedy's empty seat.
On one side there's much *optimism* for this fella Scott Brown - that he's gaining in the polls, that his election would stop Obama's healthcare deform, and that a Democratic loss in this deep-blue state would send shockwaves nationally.
I wouldn't hold my breath.
Yeah, this Martha Coakley is a shrill Moron who's a pathetic excuse for a candidate. Every other word out of her deranged mouth is *Bush* or *Cheney*. And I think she may suffer from a likeness to Nancy Pelosi at the moment.
But this is freakin' Massachusetts, land of the *galactically stupid* - if I can borrow a Tom Cruise line.
This is the State that voted against the convenience of buying wine at supermarkets!
This is the state that RESOUNDINGLY voted against the elimination of their own state income tax!
So don't any of y'all hold your breath, Scott Brown has no chance in this election.
And, BTW, he is nothing special beyond a theoretical *alternative*. He too was among the 70% of the State that voted FOR keeping the income tax in 2008.
I won't be voting as it seems I'm still disenfranchised. They never moved my registration 2.5 years ago from the town of Newton to the South Shore. Whatever. I'd vote for that libertarian guy anyway - even though he's hardly, with his *we make them hate us* position and a rather *lite* platform, my type of libertarian. Nonetheless, only he has the attributes of a genuine *alternative*.
Rightfully, the Republicans ought to disband. Let there only be *one party* versus a Remnant. The Democrats, and hence Big Government, would have a much harder time operating without an institutionalized scapegoat. They really would.
In my radical perspicacious eyes, supporting either organized party, in any way shape or form, is unconscionable no matter what the apparent extenuating circumstance.
RUSH: While I have your attention: third party. This third-party stuff has got to stop, folks, unless you are for a third party for the Democrats. I'm all for Ralph Nader running again. I'd love for Howard Dean to get fed up or some other Democrat to get fed up with Obama and I'd love for a third party of Democrats and liberals to establish itself. I want all kinds of liberals to line and up run in third parties. That's how we weaken their side. As for our side, the focus must be to take back the Republican Party. That's the way you win. You can draw attention to yourself by denouncing both parties at the same time, and you can think that you're relating to a whole lot of people or being disabused and forgotten about, but you do a grave disservice in doing so because you're never going to win anything. You're going to guarantee Democrat victory in perpetuity. We need a strong conservative movement that takes back the Republican Party and then we have a strong Republican Party. It's hard work but it is happening.
There is a conservative ascendancy here. Why in the world waste what is happening here with this new conservative ascendance and weaken it and split it up by forming a third party? So far, not a single Republican is going to vote for government-run health care. If the parties were the same the vote would be unanimous, would it not? If the parties were the same, all the Republicans would be on board for this, in the House and the Senate, and they're not. I think one Republican in the House voted for government-run health care. When cap and trade came up, eight Republicans voted for it. The rest voted against it. In the Senate, all but a couple of Republicans voted against the stimulus bill. If the parties were the same, sweeping majorities, health care would already be the law of the land if the Republican Party was the same as the Democrat Party. There wouldn't have been any tea parties. We wouldn't be having to mess around with all these various bills and CBO scores. But, folks, it's all out in front of your face. It's right in the middle of your face, right in front of your eyes. The parties are not the same. We need more of this, and you don't get more of this by insisting that there's no difference between the parties.
Now, I'm the first to tell you, and I'm the first to agree that the Republican Party has screwed up and it needs to continue to find its legs, and with our help, it will have no choice but to become a traditional conservative party. We don't have Marxists in our party. We don't have Maoists leading the charge in our party. Those people have found a home in Obama's party and government but not in the Republican Party. The problem is that there are people trying to confuse the issue. They're saying, "Well, the Republicans spent too much and they did this and they gave us new entitlements, they spend just like the Democrats, they all spend, they all spend the same." I get that. I fought them on those things. I was deeply upset and opposed to a lot of this spending. I had emissaries from the White House sent down here to try to get my mind right on these things. But they are not, as a matter of ideology, the Republicans are not seeking the destruction of capitalism and the private sector. They are not trying to hollow out the military. They are not undermining our intelligence services and so forth.
The Republican Party has lost its way because of one issue: Abortion. The Ivy League Republican-in-name-only so-called moderate Republicans who are truly liberal Republicans do not like the social issue of abortion and other social issues like family values and morality and all that having a role in the party platform. It's as simple as that. They didn't like it when Reagan ran the show and was winning big landslides. But they are not Marxists. They are not Maoists. They do not hate the US military. They are not apologizing for the United States of America around the world. Snap out of this! There's no difference between the two parties. The Republican Party right now has lost its way. This conservative ascendancy can help it find its way. The Democrat Party has found its way, and it's the radical left way, and that's who they are now, and they have to be stopped. And they will not be stopped if a third party ends up being the result of this little internecine war in the Republican Party. They will be in power, the Democrats will be in perpetuity if a third party emerges out of our party.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Look, the truth is, folks, that most of us know that the two parties are not the same. We're hearing a lot from the same people, or thinking that surrounded the Ross Perot effort or the Reform Party effort, more generally. It seems that some people are trying to tap into this group and then claim it represents most conservatives, Libertarians, Republicans, when in fact it doesn't. Now, we always had populist movements in this country on the left and the right. But we are not populists, we're constitutionalists, we are conservatives. And when a majority of us are in control of the Republican Party, the Republican Party wins. But it's not gonna win if there's a third party.
Rush is off-base on many points here. Just to give one example, at the end there he tried to paint what can only be libertarian dissent as a *populist movement*. That's a load of bull, if not complete truth inversion. The libertarians that I know are all geeked up to tell the public, "No more entitlements, no more government jobs, no unemployment insurance, no Social Security, no Medicare, no student loans, etc."
Sorry Rush, but that ain't *populism*.
Again, there's plenty of anti-sense in there but I haven't the time or the inclination to fisk it all.
At root, I believe Rush is ignorant about what a political *party* essentially is and the reality of what even the most well-intentioned ones degenerate into.
Rush's fear is playing out on a small, but potentially pivotal, stage here in Massachusetts. The regnant party has nominated a most typical, empty-skulled Marxist....and the other party has nominated a typical bun-duster, *lite* representative.
However, a libertarian by the name of Joseph Kennedy has garnered 10,000 signatures and will be crashing the ballot for Ted Kennedy's empty Senatorial seat:
LYNN -- US Senate candidate Martha Coakley suggested today that she would not agree to debates unless long-shot candidate Joseph L. Kennedy is included, a strategy that appears to be an effort to make the contest a three-person affair.
"I think it's very important at this stage in the game that everybody on the ballot be involved in these debates," she said this afternoon. "The campaigns are in the process of talking about that now, but there are three candidates and everybody who?s going to cast a ballot on Jan. 19 should know that."
On Tuesday, Coakley won the Democratic nomination and state Senator Scott Brown won the Republican nomination.
Having a three-way debate would help Coakley, the front-runner in the race, and would make it harder for Brown to clearly differentiate himself from Coakley. As a libertarian, Kennedy is also more likely to pull votes from Brown than he is from Coakley, so giving him broad exposure on a televised debate could hurt Brown's chances.
Hmmmm.....very interesting, no?
This has just GOT TO BE making Rush Limbaugh's blood boil because....
Because if somehow the Republican were to win, and Scott Brown gets to vote on Obamacare....it might not pass. (Though I'm sure they'll just ram it in the day before he gets into office.)
And obviously, the Coakley camp has made the calculation that the libertarian renegade will only hurt Scott Brown when it's all said and done - JUST AS RUSH HAS PREDICTED.
All of this conjecture may or may not be true. But the trilemma remains, what should Joseph Kennedy do if given the chance for a three-way debate.
Should he admit practical defeat and bow out - in an effort to hurt perhaps a greater evil?
Should he, in the course of a debate, go hard at both opponents?
Or should he partake but *gang up* on the greater evil?
I'll tell you this, if it were me, I'd come out with guns ablazing in both directions!
Genuine civic virtue isn't about *practicality*, *triangulation*, or gaining office.
No, it's beholden to the naked truth. Go incite a ruckus and however it turns out, it turns out. Democracy, like life anyway, is and should remain *messy*.
Personally, I think the Republican party should disband.
THAT would hurt Big Government and its apparatchiks worse than anything.
And it just might send the bane of *party politics* into a toilet spiral.
First off, I don't know whether this is true or not, but I heard that Ted Kennedy had the stones to ask the Pope for a funeral benediction.
Generally speaking, people usually ask for a priest, ANY PRIEST, when they are dying so that they may make a final confession of sins.
But freakin' Kennedy wanted, not to admit guilt, but rather to have the highest Catholic priest publicly whitewash his portfolio of atrocity!
Though long since brain dead, the old dog was playing politics to the very end. He had 77 full years to worry about his *legacy*, didn't he?
I hardly doubt Mother Theresa or any other virtuous types were worried about such outgoing clerical approval. Both Ted's insecurity AND his true colors manifested in this final desperate act. This piece of garbage thought all it would take was a phone call from the right man. Was there ever a doubt that to Ted, morality was always and merely a relative political construct?
Apparently the Pope did have a lengthy correspondence with an ailing Ted Kennedy and judging by the sparse press release of it,...I think it's safe to say that, thankfully, the Pope refused to oblige Ted's egomaniacial request.
But that didn't mean there wouldn't be more than a few other members of the Catholic hierarchy itching to turn Ted Kennedy's death into their own political statement - particularly in the Roman Catholic wasteland that is Massachusetts!
See local (IRISH!) Cardinal:
O’Malley, writing in his blog, also revealed the substance of a conversation he had with President Obama near the altar of the Mission Church as the congregation assembled for Saturday’s funeral. He said he told Obama that the Catholic bishops are "anxious to support a plan for universal health care, but we will not support a plan that will include a provision for abortion or could open the way to abortions in the future."
Does this mean that the Catholic Church is FOR socialized, Big Government healthcare?
They are FOR *robbing Peter to pay Paul's medical bills*?
Thou shall not steal, anyone?
Now look, first of all I was born, raised, and still consider myself a practicing Catholic.
But I've learned a bit about large institutions recently.
This Cardinal O'Malley is not a person, he's a type. Just who do y'all think ascends within the ranks of Big Business, Big Government, and Big Church?
It's the *company men*, those who do what their told, those amiable fellas who *manage up*. I would no sooner expect genuine competence in the Catholic hierarchy than I would expect it in the management of Bank of America!
I don't care - this Cardinal O'Malley, and any other person on this planet who advocates Bigger Government in light of its record of havoc, is a complete Moron.
For a minute there ponder those guidelines and one Ted Kennedy....
Adultery?
CHECK!
Murder?
CHECK!
Stealing?
CHECK!
Lying?
CHECK!
Coveting?
CHECK!
Even though the blue-blooded Kennedy didn't himself need to covet....far more damning was his relentless encouraging of millions upon millions of others to do so.
Could you imagine how stressed out you'd be if you had done what Teddy did and were on the cusp of meeting your maker?
I'm right sure that Ted's personal suffering started well in advance of his final breath.
Thankfully, Ted Kennedy is not only on his way out of the Senate, he is dying.
And, the Boston Globe is running a 7 day hagiography of this imbecilic son-of-a-bitch.
It's downright nauseating.
Today they dealt with the little issue of *Chappaquiddick*. That was when Teddy got drunk, drove his mistress (one of them anyway) into the Atlantic, saved himself, tried to cover it up, got off due to his political connections, and then continued his life as a serial liar. I've always had a vague idea what happened, but just now reading the surely whitewashed Wikipedia entry I am even more disgusted.
This weekend getaway was six married men (Ted Kennedy, Joe Gargan, U.S. Attorney Paul Markham, Charles Tretter, Raymond La Rosa, and John Crimmins) with six single chicks on a somewhat remote island. If this wasn't to be drunken, cheatin' orgy I'd be very much surprised. Excuse me while I go ask Mrs. C-Nut if I can go boozin with 5 wide-eyed single women with no witnesses in sight. Yeah, I understand that Ted never looked like me, but still....c'mon already.
Anyway, without delving too much, because I can't bear to read the Globe's apologia, the tone of the article is disgustingly all about how this poor woman's death derailed Teddy's political ambitions. Seriously.
On a humid Friday in July of 1969, as his plane took off from Boston bound for Martha's Vineyard, Senator Edward M. Kennedy seemed locked in a sure, unstoppable ascent to the White House....
The Globe, sneakily slimes Mary Jo Kopechne; they slutify her as *ambitious*:
It was, on the surface, a Camelot-style gathering, of older married men and younger, unmarried women — but in an oddly modest, remote setting, with women who were unusually skilled and ambitious.
Ambitious like Monica Lewinsky? Well that is the innuendo I infer; and what the Globe wanted to imply.
Kennedy's story has not changed in 40 years: He was confused. He thought the ferry was the other way. He turned right.
And the lying template of agitprop has changed in 40 years either.
This from a newspaper that while it forgave Teddy for driving drunk, killing a young woman, this is the same newspaper that goes apoplectic over bigger beer cups at Fenway.
On the subject of Ted Kennedy Cancer Schadenfreude....I was completely taken aback by the level of sympathy expressed for the drunkin' murderin' socialist by people I would have assumed thought otherwise.
From Michelle Malkin's blog - here I just pulled the first few comments which really sum up the entire 300 post thread:
Actually, the first comment above was a complete aberration. Most of the comments in Malkin's post were *sympathetic* and *holier than thou*. I was downright shocked.
Ted Kennedy is and was one of the most vile human beings of his generation.
Anyone grieving his long-overdue demise is bereft of logic, innocent of his record, or mathematically illiterate.
His hands have the blood of millions of Indo-Chinese on them. How many tens of millions of fetuses has he helped abort?
For decades Ted Kennedy has dehumanized and weakened the most benevolent country on this over-heated planet. He's pitted race against race, class against class, and transformed the government into an intractable leviathan. You see his MO was quite simple:
Exploit popular ignorance.
Politicize the natural inequalities of man.
Turn the property of others into his own political currency.
Much of the sympathy expressed for Teddy from his non-admirers went like this, "Don't celebrate his death because then you are just like those creeps who celebrated Dick Cheney's health issues (or when he accidentally shot someone)."
Or, "Don't celebrate Teddy's cancer because then you are no different than him - someone who doesn't value and cherish human life."
Okay, let's get one thing straight. Ted Kennedy is not a human being. He is a type.
More than a few times, socialist politicians have been embroiled in scandals (e.g. Monica Lewinsky) and their constituents have bleated, "It's his personal life - It's a family issue - It's not relevant - Stick to the issues". And no doubt, many of the same commenters on Michelle Malkin's blog would be screaming, "No wait, it is relevant - It reflects poorly on his character - It raises all sorts of integrity/honesty issues..."
So, to these cancer-sympathetic Malkin-ites I say, "Well, I hated Teddy's guts before the good news broke, and I am not about to change my assessment based on some *personal life* event of his."
Countless times sympathizers said, "Cancer is not political". Michelle herself said,
Put aside your political differences and join me in keeping Sen. Ted Kennedy and his family in your prayers as they grapple with the news of his malignant brain tumor diagnosis.
Well, I agree that cancer is not "political" - it is simply a disease of bodily cell reproduction. On the other hand, I would never euphemize Teddy's legacy as "political". I would never refer to killing the unborn, destroying the family institution, neutering free enterprise, and weakening the most benevolent nation on Earth as "politics". Ted's legacy is one of atrocity.
I don't worry about *looking* like assorted other wackos because I am certain that I'm so far removed from their ilk - any comparison would be a joke.
Ted is not *stricken with cancer*, he's stricken with old age. At 77 people die quite often. It's more a wonder that his liver didn't go sooner. He should be thanking God for his extended lease on life, if anything.
Now there were a few bursts of levity on Malkin's thread. See above - and click to enlarge the pics if needed. As for the "wind farm" reference, see my prior post.
This whole cancer schadenfreude thing reminds me of an incident from "The Lakes" - the golf course in South Philadelphia at least a dozen years ago.
I was playing the sixth hole with one 'old coot' who hooked his ball off the tee. Allegedly, the 'old coots' coming up seven pocketed his ball. They were accused by my whack-job partner, denied it, and nonetheless cursed:
"You mother-effers....I hope youse all get cancer!!!"
