Elizabeth Warren and Her Law License Quandry

One would think that if you are going to run for public office, and put yourself through the intense scrutiny, you would make sure EVERYTHING was in order:

Speaking to Boston’s 96.9 FM radio program “Jim and Margery” on Monday, Democratic Senate challenger Elizabeth Warren admitted that she is not licensed to practice law in Massachusetts.

According to reports from listeners, she claimed that she does not maintain a law practice. She also “said that she gave up her New Jersey  license because she could not keep up with the Continuing Education requirements,” according to one listener who commented on Breitbart’s Monday story, “Does Elizabeth Warren Have a Law License Problem?”.

Ms. Warren’s statement comes as a surprise to the many clients she’s provided legal services to over the past decade, including the law firm of Simpson, Thacher, and Bartlett, which listed her as “of counsel” in the 2009 brief they submitted to the United States Supreme Court on behalf of their client, Travelers Insurance.

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/09/24/Elizabeth-Warren-Admits-She-Is-Not-Licensed-to-Practice-Law-in-Massachusetts?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+BigGovernment+%28Big+Government%29

Guess Michelle Obama isn’t the only one of Barack’s favorite people who have issues regarding their law licenses!!

Romney’s “No Apology” Tour Will Take Him to Familiar Places: Iowa, New Hampshire, and 2012

For most of the past year, Mitt Romney has been off the stage. While Sarah Palin has commanded headlines, while other Republicans have jumped into intra-party controversies over purity and as GOP leaders have vied with one another to bash President Obama the loudest, Romney stayed largely out of the fray.

That is about to change. The former Massachusetts governor has spent much of the past year working on a book called “No Apology” that will be published next month. He is now preparing to reemerge, with an eye on a possible 2012 presidential campaign. The question is what he learned from his failed 2008 campaign.

He marked the beginning of his reemergence with an appearance at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, which wrapped up three days of rhetoric Saturday. There he delivered a full-throated attack on Obama’s policies, offered praise for former president George W. Bush and former vice president Dick Cheney.

For that he drew an enthusiastic response from an audience that has become emblematic of the party’s most conservative wing. It didn’t hurt that he was introduced by the newest darling of Republicans, Sen. Scott Brown (Mass.), whose victory in the special election for the seat once held by the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy dramatically changed the political calculus in Washington and around the country.

for full story: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/20/AR2010022002923.html?hpid=topnews

HealthCare Lobbysist Resigns; Pharmaceuticals Not Fully “OnBoard” with ObamaCare

Health Reform in Limbo, Top Drug Lobbyist Quits

By DUFF WILSON AND DAVID KIRKPATRICK

Billy Tauzin, one of Washington’s highest-paid lobbyists, is resigning as president of the drug industry trade group Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America amid internal disputes over its pact with the White House to trade political support for favorable terms in the proposed health care overhaul.

As the industry’s top lobbyist, Mr. Tauzin brokered the deal with the White House and Max Baucus, chairman of the Senate finance committee, last summer to limit the drug industry’s total costs under the proposed health care overhaul to $80 billion over 10 years.

Mr. Tauzin’s departure is the latest unexpected fallout of the Republican upset in the Massachusetts Senate race, which abruptly transformed the health care overhaul from a near-inevitability to a daunting cause.

for full article: http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/11/health-reform-in-limbo-top-drug-lobbyist-quits/

Kennedy Dropping in Polls, opts to NOT seek a 9th Term in Congress

     His grandfather would be mortified that he was not “up to the fight” to hold onto his seat for a ninth term in Congress, put Patrick Kennedy, the youngest son of the late Sen. Ted Kennedy has announced that he will not run for another term in Congress.

      Kennedy, who has had a battle of substance abuse and other issues, much like his mother Joan Bennett Kennedy, has said that he will “champion the causes” that are dear to him in a different manner, but did not announce any immediate plans.

      Yesterday, Florida’s Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart, a Republican, annoounced that he, too, was not seeking another term, deciding to focus on the Cuban-American issues from the private sector. His brother, also a Florida Congressman, immediately announced that he will relocate to his brother’s district to run for that seat.

      The “Pink Slip” movement seems to be afoot for some, while others, Like Diaz-Balart, believe that there should be fresh ideas brought to Washington. After all, that was the way our forefathers planned it.

Side note: Don’t be surprised if Patrick Kennedy moves back to Massachusetts and runs for “his father’s seat” in 2012 against Scott Brown.

Nothing to Fear but the Citizens!!

     Have you been to City Hall to question the Code Enforcement Department? How about the Water Billing Dept? With the recent report that about 75% of Americans express anger at the government for its actions, it seems that some local governments are taking the idea of a “Panic Button” literally:

When Scott Brown stunned the Massachusetts establishment, some state Democrats said it was time to hit the panic button. But I didn’t know they meant that literally.

According to yesterday’s Herald, Boston City Hall has been testing ePanicButton software. “[City] workers would be able to hit a button on their computer or push a pedal on the floor to summon help if an angry taxpayer storms into City Hall or if someone arguing a parking ticket gets out of hand,” the Herald reported.

“Angry taxpayers”? Aren’t those the people who showed up at those dangerous Tea Party rallies, too? I bet the Department of Homeland Security has a file on them!

For the rest of the Boston Herald editorial: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/opinion/op_ed/view.bg?articleid=1232056&srvc=home&position=emailed

We Get It, Obama, We Don’t Like It—— Do you get It?

It’s a modern marvel how the increasing opposition of the American public to President Barack Obama’s plans for us is explained away by administration officials and certain Democratic legislators — such as California Sen. Dianne Feinstein — as a sign that the people just don’t get it. A panel of pundits chatting with Charlie Rose on his talking-head fest the other evening came to the conclusion that Tea Partiers and their ilk are too stupid to know what’s good for them. It wasn’t stated that bluntly, of course, because these pundits belong to the oh-so sophisticated “educated class,” as New York Times columnist and Obama worshipper David Brooks describes his fellow Ivy League-educated worthies.

In his blog, under the heading “Too Dumb To Thrive,” Time scribe Joe Klein expressed his amazement that a recent poll showed three out of four Americans think the $787 billion stimulus package has been largely wasted. He says if it has been wasted, it’s been wasted on them. And they’re too dense to understand that, for one thing, most of that money hasn’t been spent yet, and that “the big, jobs-creating programs, like the rebuilt ‘smart electric grid,’ major highways and fast trains, will come on line during the next year.”

One of the problems the “educated class” seems to be having is that they, with rare exception, are weathering the Great Recession rather well. The under-educated, i.e. less privileged, are not. There is a great difference in their respective perspectives. One out of five American men in prime working age — mid-20s to late 50s — are without a job. They know the government has failed them. They understand this didn’t begin a year ago when Mr. Obama took office. They know public spending is totally out of control and portends economic disaster not very far down the road. They also understand that the current occupant of the White House and the Democratic Congress have made things worse, rather than better. Those of them in Massachusetts sent quite the message by electing Republican Cosmo centerfold Scott Brown to the Senate seat long occupied by the late Democratic stalwart Ted Kennedy……………………..

“Barack Obama has now, in just a year’s time, become the single most inept president perhaps in all of American history, and certainly in my lifetime,” Mr. Green said, adding that “Never has so much political advantage been [squandered] so rapidly, and what’s more in the context of so much national urgency and crisis. It’s astonishing, really, to contemplate how much has been lost in a single year.”

For full post: http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bal-op.smith0129,0,7869044.column

Why is “Former” Sen. Paul Kirk (D-Ma) Still Voting, despite Senate Rules to the Contrary

From Big Government:

?by SusanAnne Hiller

The Senate has voted on three pieces of legislation today that required 60 votes–to raise the debt ceiling to $14.3 trillion, to reduce the deficit by establishing five-year discretionary spending caps, and Ben Bernanke’s confirmation–all of which interim Senator Paul Kirk (D-MA) has voted on. In addition, there have been other Senate votes since Scott Brown was elected as Massachusetts senator that Kirk cast a vote.

The main question here is: why is former Senator Kirk still voting on these legislative pieces? According to Senate rules and precedent, Kirk’s term expired last Tuesday upon the election of Scott Brown. Furthermore, Massachusetts law can be interpreted, according to GOP lawyers, as:

Based on Massachusetts law, Senate precedent, and the U.S. Constitution, Republican attorneys said Kirk will no longer be a senator after election day, period. Brown meets the age, citizenship, and residency requirements in the Constitution to qualify for the Senate. “Qualification” does not require state “certification,” the lawyers said.

Additionally, as reported in the Weekly Standard and investigated and confirmed by GOP lawyers:

Appointed Senator Paul Kirk will lose his vote in the Senate after Tuesday’s election in Massachusetts of a new senator and cannot be the 60th vote for Democratic health care legislation, according to Republican attorneys.

Using this interpretation, Kirk cannot vote on any other legislation. Moreover, further analysis by Michael Stern concludes:

The Senate subcommittee and committee concluded, based on its hearing and review, that “the term of service of a Senator appointed to fill a vacancy in an unexpired term ends on the day when his successor is elected by the people.” 1939 Congressional Record, p. 998. There was evidently no controversy among either the subcommittee or full committee regarding this legal conclusion, and the committee then presented a resolution to the Senate for adoption, expressing the view that Berry’s term of service expired on November 8, 1938, the date of the special election. As Senator Connally, a member of the subcommittee, explained to the Senate, the fact that the Tennessee statute purported to extend Berry’s term until the qualification of his successor was of no force because the statute was “plainly in conflict with the provisions of the seventeenth amendment.” Accordingly, the Senate adopted the proposed resolution without dissent. 1939 Congressional Record, p. 1058.

Based on this authority, it would appear that a valid point of order could be raised as to Senator Kirk’s participation in Senate proceedings after January 19, 2010.

Why is the GOP allowing the Democrats to blatantly violate Senate and election rules and laws? Where is the GOP leadership? Will Kirk’s votes stand?  Massachusetts voters deserve an explanation as does the rest of the country for this blatant abuse of power.

http://biggovernment.com/2010/01/28/why-is-senator-kirk-still-voting-on-legislation/

Dems Are Fighting: With Each Other

President Barack Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will be all smiles as the president arrives at the Capitol for his State of the Union speech Wednesday night, but the happy faces can’t hide relationships that are fraying and fraught.

The anger is most palpable in the House, where Pelosi and her allies believe Obama’s reluctance to stake his political capital on health care reform in mid-2009 contributed to the near collapse of negotiations now.

But sources say there are also signs of strain between Reid and White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, and relations between Democrats in the House and Democrats in the Senate are hovering between thinly veiled disdain and outright hostility.

In a display of contempt unfathomable in the feel-good days after Obama’s Inauguration, freshman Rep. Dina Titus (D-Nev.) stood up at a meeting with Pelosi last week to declare: “Reid is done; he’s going to lose” in November, according to three people who were in the room.

Titus denied Tuesday evening that she had singled out Reid, but she acknowledged that she said Democrats would be “f—-ed” if they failed to heed the lessons of Massachusetts, where Republican Scott Brown won Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat last week.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0110/32053.html#ixzz0drKl5ZOj

HotAir: The Dark Side of “Ellie Light”; Attacks on HillBuzz

In case you haven’t heard, the Left has launched a smear campaign against the HillBuzz blog. I summarized the situation in an e-mail to a friend:

A group of gay men in Chicago who supported Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primaries bolted when Obama got the nomination, and have continued blogging against the Obama agenda at their site, HilllBuzz.
A couple of weeks ago, when HillBuzz started promoting Scott Brown’s campaign in Massachusetts (they dubbed him “Hottie McAwesome“), HillBuzz was threatened by the Left. And when they kept it up, they were then “outed” – i.e., their Internet anonymity was breached and they were identified in a way that jeopardized their day jobs.
An anonymous smear site, “BigotBasher,” named the proprietor and accused him of — you guessed it — RAAAAACISM. This smear was then picked up by DailyKos, Democratic Underground and other pro-Obama sites. [Kevin] DuJan believes he’s identified the smear artist behind this operation and is considering legal action, but outside of the conservative blogosphere, nobody even knows that this is happening. This is the dark side of the “Ellie Light” Astroturf operation: Ruthless slash-and-burn attacks on anyone who stands up against the One. . . .
We’re talking about GAY MEN IN CHICAGO standing up to the Obama regime — kind of like that lone Tiannamen Square protester facing off against a ChiCom tank, really.

http://hotair.com/greenroom/archives/2010/01/26/the-dark-side-of-ellie-light/

Dem. Strategist Bob Beckel is “Frustrated” over the MA Senate Race