Miller vs. Murkowski vs. Fox

Two great tweets from Josh Marshall that I would like to share regarding Lisa Murkowski's apparent victory over Joe Miller and Miller's (and Fox's) resistance to acknowledging reality. Just a little food for thought:

Murkowski must have won because i think only Fox is letting the Miller guy come on to say he wants a recount.

Followed by:

also, in case like Miller vs. Murkowski does Fox have to hold executive level meeting to determine who to be biased for?

There have already been articles written about the role Fox will play in the upcoming 2012 Dancing with the Republican Presidential Candidates, soon to be airing in prime time on your television. A number of potential Next Greatest Republican President Stars have contracts on Fox (Palin, Huckabee, Gingrich) while some (actually only Romney and the current elected officials like Pence, Christie, and Pawlenty) don't. How will Fox decide who, as Josh says, to be biased for? If its not Palin, god help them. The Palinistas will be out with knives drawn. With their "you're either with us or against us" ideology, it'll be tough when "against us" is themselves.

When Is an Earmark Not an Earmark? When its in Michelle Bachmann's District, Natch!

Is consistency too much to ask from these people? I mean, really. You don't like earmarks. Dumb position, but OK, whatever. You are entitled to that position. But this? I don't know if it's "teh crazy" or "teh st00pid". More like "I think that the people that believe this shit are all st00pid, except for me because I get to decide the rules because I am Michelle Bachmann". To wit:

Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-MN) hates earmarks. Despises them. On her website, she calls the earmark system "little more than a political favor factory at taxpayer expense." But when it comes to her own district, she's in favor of a little earmark "redefinition." Because what isan earmark, after all?

"Advocating for transportation projects for one's district in my mind does not equate to an earmark," Bachmann told the Minneapolis Star-Tribune yesterday.

"I don't believe that building roads and bridges and interchanges should be considered an earmark," Bachmann continued. "There's a big difference between funding a tea pot museum and a bridge over a vital waterway."

Yes, there could be no viable economic reason for a Congresscritter to want a "tea pot museum" (subliminal shot at the Tea Party, perhaps?) in their district. But highways, which as we all know are free and pay for themselves, as opposed to wasteful spending on silly things like rail and other forms of public transportation which have zero economic valuel, are exempt from the definition of an earmark because...well, because!

Consistency, people, consistency. Is that too much to ask?

TPM.

Only Sarah Palin Could Endear Me To Lisa Murkowski

From the horses mouth (sorry, Lisa. I had to take the shot):

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) doesn't have much faith in Sarah Palin's ability to be president, and said as much to known Palin nemesis Katie Couric on CBS last night. "I just do not think that she has those leadership qualities, that intellectual curiosity that allows for building good and great policies," Murkowski said. She added: "I don't think that she enjoyed governing."

"She would not be my choice for president," Murkowski said.

Fortunately for Lisa, Palin should be but a distant memory six years from now. Unfortunately for Lisa, this, combined with her defeat of Joe Miller, will make for a long six years thanks to the predictable backlash from the Palinistas.

Video here.

Baby Wants His Ba-Ba

I don't really know who Andy Harris is, the newly elected Republican representative for Maryland's First Congressional district, but by all accounts he is some sort of whiny baby who wants what he wants and he wants it now, no matter what.

It appears that the Honorable Gentleman from Maryland wants his health care - his GOVERNMENT health care - and he wants it NOW. What is so unusual (but not entirely unexpected) about this is that Mr. Harris is an anti-health care Republican and won his election by campaigning on his opposition to government run health care. Here's how it all went down:

A conservative Maryland physician elected to Congress on an anti-Obamacare platform surprised fellow freshmen at a Monday orientation session by demanding to know why his government-subsidized health care plan takes a month to kick in.

Republican Andy Harris, an anesthesiologist who defeated freshman Democrat Frank Kratovil on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, reacted incredulously when informed that federal law mandated that his government-subsidized health care policy would take effect on Feb. 1 – 28 days after his Jan. 3rd swearing-in.

“He stood up and asked the two ladies who were answering questions why it had to take so long, what he would do without 28 days of health care,” said a congressional staffer who saw the exchange. The benefits session, held behind closed doors, drew about 250 freshman members, staffers and family members to the Capitol Visitors Center auditorium late Monday morning,”.

“Harris then asked if he could purchase insurance from the government to cover the gap,” added the aide, who was struck by the similarity to Harris’s request and the public option he denounced as a gateway to socialized medicine.

Harris, a Maryland state senator who works at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore and several hospitals on the Eastern Shore, also told the audience, “This is the only employer I’ve ever worked for where you don’t get coverage the first day you are employed,” his spokeswoman Anna Nix told POLITICO.

Actually, Mr. Harris, most employers WILL make you wait a predetermined amount of time before your health care kicks in. Maybe if you had just spent more time in the private sector, instead of in a government job (which as we all know, isn't a real job at all, according to most Republicans) you would know this. This, however, is my favorite quote:

Nix said Harris, who is the father of five, wasn’t being hypocritical – he was just pointing out the inefficiency of government-run health care.

Actually, that's not what it points out at all. A waiting period for health care has absolutely nothing to do with any real or imagined inefficiencies with health care. What it does point out is a) how the MARKET determines when health coverage kicks in (most employers want to wait a bit to see if you are going to stay at the job long-term, so there is a grace period before you get your health care) and b) Andy Harris is a a hypocrite of the first order and a moron, taboot. The next thing you know, Mr. Harris will be screaming about keeping the government out of Medicare.

Soylent Green is people!

Read all about Mr. Harris in Politico and TPM.

Ezra Klein Nails My Thesis Exactly

One gripe. He says this could either be a Civil War or a complete capitulation by the establishment. Either way its the same thing: it will tear the party apart.

Last week, Politico reported that Mitch McConnell was quietly meeting with incoming senators to talk them out of banning earmarks. "Eliminating earmarks would effectively cede Congress’ spending authority to the White House while not making a real dent in the $1 trillion-plus budget deficit," he argued. That pitted him in opposition to Jim DeMint and the Tea Parties, both of whom had made the elimination of earmarks a central priority. 

Yesterday, McConnell waved the white flag. "Make no mistake," he said. "I know the good that has come from the projects I have helped support throughout my state. I don’t apologize for them." But "unless people like me show the American people that we’re willing to follow through on small or even symbolic things, we risk losing them on our broader efforts to cut spending and rein in government."

The big news here is not earmarks, however, which are, as McConnell says, "small or even symbolic things," but the glimpse into the dynamics of the incoming Republican legislators. Jim DeMint and the conservative base hold a lot of influence. At this point, it's not yet clear that McConnell and the Republican establishment -- many of whom were defeated in primaries over the course of the election -- can counter them. Some have warned that will lead to civil war in the Republican Party, but it could also lead to an exhausted capitulation by the old guard -- much as we saw from McConnell yesterday. If that happens, if the moderating influence of the veterans is not just rejected but actively extinguished, we're going to see a much more ideologically hardline and legislatively unpredictable Republican Conference than most have been predicting.

If you don't read Ezra on a regular basis, you should.

That Was Fast. Tea Party 1, Establishment 0

Well, Mitch McConnell read the writing on the wall and caved into the anti-earmark demands of the Tea Party. Chalk this one up to a victory for the Tea Party. Give them an inch...

McCain v. Paul (Rand)

This should be good. You have establishment (McCain) v. insurgent (Paul) challenging one another over the sacred cow of Republican politics: the defense budget. Who will win? Only time will tell:

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) sounded an alarm about some of the Republicans joining him in Congress next year, warning that they could affect the consensus on the war in Afghanistan and might pose challenges to free trade agreements and the defense budget.

"Rand Paul, he's already talked about withdrawals, cuts in defense," said McCain. "I worry a lot about rise of protectionism and isolationism in the Republican Party."

He talks earmarks too. If only he had mentioned Medicare/Social Security/Health Care it would have been a trifecta!

Original here.