How desperate are Democrats to retain control of Congress?

So desperate, that they are actively backing, and helping pay for the campaigns of Tea Party supporters, and birthers, in order to siphon votes away from Republican candidates. This effort includes paying for misleading phone calls to Republican voters. It should come as no surprise, of course, that Alan Grayson is one of the prime dirty tricksters behind the effort.

Of course, if anything like this were done on the Republican side, the left blogosphere would start screaming and not stop until about 2030. But they are quite silent about the issue, since as far as they are concerned, ethics are situational and the ends justify the means.

Incidentally, why doesn’t someone ask President Obama whether he endorses this kind of effort?

Is President Obama going to denounce Barbara Boxer, Patty Murray, Kirsten Gillibrand, and Alexi Giannoulias anytime soon?

Because if not, I don’t see how he can attack the Chamber of Commerce, the Citizens United decision, or the Supreme Court, while maintaining a straight face at the same time.

Also, impeaching John Roberts over the Citizens United decision appears to be out the window.

“They told me that if I vote Republican in the upcoming midterm elections, there will be impeachments afoot. And they were right!”

Note that this particular impeachment is being proposed because Vic DeFazio disagrees with one of the Chief Justice’s decisions. Art. III, Sec. 1 of the Constitution states that judges–and this includes Supreme Court Justices, of course–”shall hold their Offices during good Behavior,” which means that only lapses from good behavior justify an impeachment. DeFazio claims that the Chief lied during his confirmation hearings with a supposed claim that he would never overturn precedent, but that claim itself is a lie; the Chief never stated that he would not overturn precedent. Indeed, law professors like Geoffrey Stone–who is no one’s idea of a judicial conservative–throw cold water on any drive to impeachment:

When in one, stop digging:

“We found ourselves in a hole that I didn’t dig, but I have dug, dug and dug to try to get out of that hole,” Reid said.

It’s working:

Nowadays, they just seem to be shooting bullets through them. Daniel Blumenthal’s attempt to understand and convey the nature of the Chinese “cognitive prism” is a valuable contribution to Sinology, and well worth reading. Equally worth reading is the conclusion to his piece:

. . . The West (the democracies of the world) is quite satisfied with the current liberal order. The key American foreign policy task of the 21st century, then, is to better explicate, legitimate, and defend that order at a time when it is under tremendous pressure from China. A strong defense of the Western system will help avoid the tensions we have seen over the past year. Chinese leaders must see that power is not shifting, that the U.S. means to protect the world order it created, and that attempting to change it would lead China once again to ruin.

It’s the inevitable result of the Juan Williams firing.

“Since 2001, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which funds programming for National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service, has received nearly $4 billion in taxpayer money,” said DeMint. “The country is over $13 trillion in debt and Congress must find ways to start trimming the federal budget to cut spending. NPR and PBS get about 15 percent of their total budget through federal funding, so these programs should be able to find a way to stand on their own. With record debt and unemployment, there’s simply no reason to force taxpayers to subsidize a liberal programming they disagree with.”

“We can’t keep borrowing hundreds of millions of dollars from China each year to fund public radio and public TV when there are so many choices already in the market for news and entertainment. If CPB is defunded taxpayers will save billions. This is just one of the many cuts Congress should make next year.

House Speaker In-Waiting John Boehner has also made some noises along these lines, at least in terms of NPR if not CPB as a whole.

How are we supposed to implement policies designed to improve our economy, when one of the two major political parties not only insists on being economically ignorant, but seeks to reinforce economic ignorance amongst members of the voting public?

The blatant display of xenophobia doesn’t help matters either?

You don’t just stick in the rhetorical knife and immediately pull it out. No, you stick in the rhetorical knife, and then you twist it.

Heaven forbid that as lifespans increase, anyone consider extending the retirement age, even though failing to do so entails courting a fiscal calamity.

1. Gosh, I would hate to think that tolerant port-siders are launching cyber attacks against Tea Party sites.

2. Keeping fear alive. And demonization. And misrepresentation. With each passing day, the current President looks more and more like the caricature drawn of the previous President.

3. Promises to the contrary notwithstanding, Barney Frank has raked in over $400,000 from lenders that received federal bailouts. Of course, I guess that this is what happens when you suddenly realize that after years, and years of living on Electoral Easy Street, you suddenly have a fight on your hands.

4. Speaking of raising campaign funds, populism and business-bashing apparently stop when there are political donations to be had. I am sure that we would be hearing more from the Obama Administration about Google’s efforts to avoid taxes on foreign profits if it gave money to Republicans. More here.

5. If Juan Williams can get fired, why does Nina Totenberg get to keep her job?

6. Bill Clinton is about as condescending and insulting as other Democrats are when talking about people with whom they disagree, but while I have a lot of respect for Barack Obama’s political skills, Clinton is clearly still the master; the best politician that the Democrats have. He is smarter than Obama, and better at connecting with people. He may have been off his game in 2008, but he is clearly back on it.

7. Was Linda Greenhouse this concerned about judicial vacancies back when George W. Bush was President, and the likes of Miguel Estrada were being filibustered–in Estrada’s case, because of his race? Or when former Senators Obama, Biden, and Clinton joined in a last-ditch effort to filibuster Samuel Alito’s nomination to the Supreme Court?

8. Krauthammer brings the funny.

Having hired Harry Reid to represent them in Congress, what exactly are Nevadans getting for their money?

No, I don’t think it is all that fair to blame politicians for job losses. But since Democrats had no problem pinning the blame on Republicans in 2008, I don’t think Republicans should lose sleep while returning the favor in 2010. Oh, and live by the class warfare, die by the class warfare.