Category: Harry Reid

Did Mobsters Beat Harry Reid?

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John Hinderaker at Powerline returns to the unanswered questions surrounding the retiring Democrat senator’s injuries:

When a guy shows up at a Las Vegas emergency room on New Year’s Day with severe facial injuries and broken ribs, and gives as an explanation the functional equivalent of “I walked into a doorknob,” it isn’t hard to guess that he ran afoul of mobsters. Yet the national press has studiously averted its eyes from Reid’s condition, and has refused to investigate the cause of his injuries. To my knowledge, every Washington reporter has at least pretended to believe Reid’s story, and none, as far as I can tell, has inquired further.

Read the rest. Reid’s corruption is notorious, even by Democrat standards. The media won’t tell the truth about him, but when was the last time the media told the truth about anything?

 

The Sweet Hangover of Victory

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Tuesday’s Republican tsunami left Harry Reid disgraced and desperate to rescue some semblance of Democrat relevance:

Reid has run the US Senate for the past eight years like a dictatorship, steadily eroding minority privileges to the point where Republicans couldn’t offer amendments or put up any significant resistance to Barack Obama’s radical appointments, unless Democrats forced Reid’s hand on either score. After watching his party lay a historic egg in the midterms — the size of which is still not yet fully known — Reid tried spinning the results as a mandate for the kind of compromise that he’s blocked ever since winning control of the upper chamber in 2006 . . .

Read the whole thing at Hot Air. The aftermath of a wave election always involves a contest by partisans and pundits to seize control of the narrative, to tell us What It Really Means, although usually the truth can only be known with the advantage of hindsight.

(Left to right: That’s Elise Stefanik, the Republican who last night became the youngest woman ever elected to Congress; Mia Love, who last night became the first black Republican woman ever elected to Congress; and Joni Ernst, the Republican who last night was elected Iowa’s first-ever female U.S. Senator.)

Sandra Fluke got beat and, meanwhile, back at the feminist salt mines . . .

Christian Post columnist Rachel Alexander had some delightfully blunt truths about the “catcalling” video that went viral last week:

The truth is, catcalls bother feminists because they’re jealous. One of Rush Limbaugh’s 35 Undeniable Truths of Life is that “feminism was established so as to allow unattractive women easier access to the mainstream of society.” Feminists are highly critical of women who choose to make a significant effort to look attractive. If they can stop men from complimenting pretty women, they won’t have to observe it and feel pangs of jealousy.
The other dynamic at play here is feminists want to make men just like women. They don’t want to acknowledge there are differences between the genders . . .

Feminists reacted by going completely berserk — even more berserk than usual. There’s crazy feminism and kuh-RAY-zee feminism.

Today I’ve been chilling out most of the day, watching MSNBC and laughing. Elections come and go, but the Culture War never ends.

 

Election 2014 BREAKING: GOP Wins Senate Majority, @AoSHQDD Says

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UPDATE 11 p.m. ET: Always trust the reliable source:

It’s a blowout, folks. A total Republican wave.

UPDATE 1 a.m. ET: Did I say “wave”? No, it’s a tsunami:

UPDATE 9 p.m. ET: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell crushed Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes in Kentucky, apparently out-performing polls, perhaps signalling a “surge” for the GOP.

Meanwhile, in West Virginia, Republican Shelley Moore Capito defeats Democrat Natalie Tennant and Republican Tom Cotton has defeated incumbent Sen. Mark Pryor in Arkansas, so that the GOP so far has a net gain of two seats, needing four more pickups to get to the magic number of 51 to control the Senate.

* * * PREVIOUSLY (4 p.m. ET) * * *

Allahpundit summarizes the likely Senate scenario:

Right now the GOP has 45 seats. You can go ahead and bump that up to 48 because three pick-ups are a fait accompli: Steve Daines will win big in Montana, replacing Max Baucus; Mike Rounds will cruise in South Dakota, replacing Tim Johnson; and Shelley Moore Capito will enjoy a landslide in West Virginia, replacing Jay Rockefeller. With those three in the bank, getting to 51 early in the evening should be easy, no? Tom Cotton’s going to beat Mark Pryor in Arkansas for number 49. Joni Ernst is probably going to beat Bruce Braley in Iowa for number 50. And then Cory Gardner’s going to put Mark Uterus out of his misery in Colorado — or I will take a flamethrower to this place — for number 51. There’s our majority! But wait: If Greg Orman knocks off Pat Roberts in Kansas, as he’s (slightly) favored to do, that knocks us back down to 50. What then?
Well, there’s always Kentucky, where Mitch McConnell is expected to beat Alison Lundergan Grimes. But McConnell is simply protecting his seat; that’s not a pick-up, so we’re still stuck at 50. Ditto for Georgia: Even if David Perdue avoids a runoff and beats Michelle Nunn outright tonight, he’s simply holding Saxby Chambliss’s seat. No pick-up there either. We could get back to 51 if either Thom Tillis beats Kay Hagan in North Carolina or Scott Brown beats Jeanne Shaheen in New Hampshire, but the Democratic incumbents are favored in both races. Assuming they win, we’re still stuck at 50.

Read the whole thing. Without checking my archives, I can assure you that I predicted this basic scenario weeks ago. It’s weird to have ignored all the cable-TV pundit hype about the campaign during the past month, and then return to the subject on Election Day and find out, yeah, all that hype didn’t really change anything.

Here’s my gut hunch: About midnight Eastern time, the cable-TV talking heads will have the GOP at 48 or 49 Senate seats. Election junkies will stay awake until the wee hours and maybe — just maybe — the GOP will get to 50 seats by the time we crash out at 3 a.m. ET. By lunchtime Wednesday, about three of those 50 GOP seats will be within the range of a mandatory recount, and MSNBC talking heads will be screaming “vote fraud” (meaning somehow Republicans cheated) despite the fact that, as every liberal knows, there is no such thing as “vote fraud” (if that phrase means Democrats cheating).

So, while both parties will be scrambling squadrons of lawyers to the recount states, everything will ultimately come down to (a) the possible runoff in Georgia, and (b) the absolutely guaranteed runoff in Louisiana. At best, the Republican majority will be 52-48. At worst, Harry Reid’s Democrats will maintain control by the narrowest of margins, either 51-49 or else 50-50 with Joe Biden casting the deciding vote to keep the Majority Leader’s gavel in Harry’s hand.

All of that’s just gut-hunch stuff, of course.

We’ll see how my shoot-from-the-hip gonzo forecast holds up against the “expert” talking heads on cable TV who have spent the past month wasting their time (and ours) by telling us basically nothing.

UPDATE: The usual suspects, the usual message:

In a recent Democratic National Committee email, actress Scarlett Johansson said if Republicans win control of the Senate they will take away a woman’s right to choose. . . .
In fact, in August she designed a t-shirt on behalf of the abortion giant. As LifeNews previously reported, the pink t-shirt read, “Hey Politicians! The 1950s called …” on the front. And on the back, the shirts say: “They want their sexism back!”  . . .
An article in the Washington Examiner shares more about Johansson’s letter. The author, Ashe Schow, wrote the following:

“Despite the Left’s insistence that abortion is one of the few things women voters care about, the word “abortion” rarely makes it into their campaign ads. The reason abortion supporters call themselves “pro-choice” is that they’d rather not say the word. Abortion isn’t actually as popular as they would have you believe — it doesn’t poll well, and other than the first three months of pregnancy, large majorities of Americans think it should be illegal.
And so it is with a recent Democratic National Committee email sent on behalf of actor Scarlett Johansson (Black Widow from “The Avengers”), which claimed that if the GOP wins control of the Senate, they will take away “a woman’s right to choose.”
The email vaguely describes that choice as the ‘right to make her own personal health care decisions,’ but never says that the only decision they mean is abortion.

Experts predict a big win tonight for heteronormative patriarchy. And you know what that means? Prepare to be oppressed, ladies.

 

Michelle Nunn Pulls a Grimes?

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Trouble for Democrats in Georgia:

Another Democratic Senate candidate has refused to say whether she voted for President Obama: This time it was Michelle Nunn in Georgia.
The same question has tripped up other red-state Democrats on the campaign trail. On two occasions over the past week, Kentucky’s Alison Lundergan Grimes has been panned for her refusal to answer the question, twice citing the “sanctity of the ballot box” as her reason for keeping mum.
Nunn was approached by a tracker who asked her if she voted for the president in 2008 or 2012. Nunn did not respond and kept walking towards the venue she was headed to. In the video captured, a member of her entourage faces the tracker and asks, “Would you leave her alone?”?

This could sabotage all hope for Democrats to maintain control of the Senate in next month’s election. After Grimes got “tripped up” over whether she voted for Obama, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee pulled its TV ads off the air in Kentucky. Although the Grimes campaign says they’ve still got plenty of money ($4 million), the DSCC move was a clear signal that Grimes’ blunder is viewed as a fatal error. There was only one TV debate between Grimes and Mitch McConnell, she blew it, and Democrats know she blew it. If we can now therefore say Mitch has got Kentucky in the bag, that changes the map in the Senate mid-term campaign.

As of today, 10 Senate races are rated toss-ups by Real Clear Politics, where the ratings are based on poll averages. Of those 10 seats, seven are held by Democrats and three by Republicans, while each party holds 46 seats rated either “likely” or “leaning.” If we rule out any unexpected meltdowns in one of those “likely/leaning” races, we see that the odds of a Republican takeover are roughly 2-to-1: The GOP must get to 51 seats to control a Senate majority; 46 seats are more or less locked up for them; and of the 10 “toss-ups,” 70% are held by Democrats, who are more that twice as vulnerable of losing half of those 10.

The seven toss-up states where the Senate seat is currently held by Democrats are: Alaska, Arkansas, Colorado, Iowa, Louisiana, New Hampshire, and North Carolina.  The three toss-up states where the Senate seat is currently held by Republicans are: Georgia, Kansas and Kentucky. But as we have seen, Kentucky just started looking like a loser for Democrats; if so, that would effectively put Republicans at 47 seats; and what if Nunn’s blunder takes Georgia off the map?

Polls had shown Nunn, daughter of Georgia’s legendary Democrat Sen. Sam Nunn, gaining ground against Republican businessman David Perdue. The difficulty facing the GOP in Georgia is that Michelle Nunn doesn’t have a prior legislative record, so she can play the “moderate” card and thereby avoid debating any issue where Democrat policies are controversial. However, now the question is asked, “Did you vote for Obama?” She can’t run away from it, you see, and if she tries to run away from it, she looks like a phony.

It’s too early to tell whether Nunn can recover in Georgia, but if she can’t, a Perdue win there and a McConnell win in Kentucky — assuming all the “likely/leaning” states break as predicted — puts the GOP at 48 seats, meaning they only need to win three of the remaining eight toss-up races to take control of the Senate. Now, let’s suppose that troubled Republican incumbent Sen. Pat Roberts can’t hang on in Kansas. That would be bad for the GOP, but it’s likely to be offset by Democrat Sen. Mark Begich’s defeat in Alaska.

Understand we’re counting hypotheticals now, but if the GOP wins both Kentucky and Georgia, if Roberts loses in Kansas and if Begich loses in Alaska, you would then have six remaining toss-ups and Republicans would need to win just two of those to get to 51 seats.

It’s hard to see Democrat Sen. Mark Pryor holding off the challenge from Tom Cotton in Arkansas, and Democrat Sen. Mary Landrieu’s hope is obviously fading in Louisiana. Analyzing the battle for the Senate on a race-by-race basis, then, you see that Michelle Nunn’s problems in Georgia could be the crucial linchpin; if Nunn unravels in the final 19 days of the campaign, Harry Reid loses the gavel.

Overall, despite the many hypotheticals and contingencies, the trend is now running strongly against Democrats, in part because of factors beyond control of the rival parties. That is to say, the ISIS threat in Iraq and the Ebola threat here — both of which have made President Obama look incompetent — are undermining support for Democrats, no matter what happens in the day-to-day battles between GOP and Democrat candidates in each of the key states.

The latest poll in Iowa, for example, shows Republican Joni Ernst widening her lead over Democrat Bruce Braley. Is that a result of Ernst’s campaign strategy and a reflection of her good qualities as a candidate? Yes and yes. However, Ernst is also a beneficiary of the general trend nationwide, which is anti-Obama and anti-Democrat.

It’s by no means safe to predict a Republican victory on Nov. 4, but Democrats have just two chances of holding the Senate majority — and Slim keeps checking his watch and looking toward the door.

 

VIDEO: Harry Reid’s Koch Rant

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In a Senate floor speech Thursday, the Senate Majority Leader used the word “radical” 21 times in attacking the Left’s bogeymen:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Thursday accused Republicans of holding up crucial assistance to Ukraine in order to protect the Koch brothers.
Reid tied the billionaire brothers who have bankrolled conservative causes to GOP demands that language delaying the Internal Revenue Service’s regulation of non-profit political advocacy groups be added to the Ukraine package. . . .
“It’s hard for me to comprehend how with a clear conscience they could say, ‘Ukrainians, we probably can’t help you because we’re trying to protect the Koch brothers,’” he said on Thursday. “And not only that, they’re saying to the American people that protecting the Koch brothers is more important than helping our country.”

 

Of the top 10 political contributors for the 2014 campaign cycle, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, five represent Big Labor: The National Education Association (#2), the Carpenters and Joiners Union (#4), the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (#5), AFL-CIO (#6) and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (#10). Combined with the #1 donor — the Democratic Governors Association — these groups have contributed $21,717,266 to Democrats so far. By comparison, Koch Industries (#45) has spent $963,250, according to the same source.

So what’s with the Koch obsession? Allahpundit professed that he was mystified, but as Chris Good of ABC News explained, the Kochs are believed to have contributed to the Americans for Prosperity TV ad campaign targeting vulnerable Senate Democrats for their ObamaCare votes. I say the Kochs are “believed” to have done this because AFP is a 501(c)4 group and, as such, isn’t required to make its donors public. This drives Democrats nuts, because . . . well, because Democrats hate free speech, I guess.

Anyway, what Harry Reid and the other Koch-mongering Democrats are doing is (a) trying to justify the administration’s crackdown on 501(c)4 groups, (b) hoping to fire up Democrat donors, (c) seeking media sympathy, and (d) trying to establish a narrative that the reason they’re about to get their asses kicked in the mid-terms is because of “shadowy” right-wing mega-funders.

It’s an excuse, in other words — a scapegoat rationalization intended to shift the blame for Democrat political failures onto pre-demonized right-wing villains, so that when Republicans take over the Senate after the 2014 elections, Democrats can claim they were cheated, and assert that the new GOP majority is illegitimate.

 

“Poor, Poor Pitiful Reid,” Zevon Sang Not

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by Smitty

Via Instapundit, Harry Reid again underscored why he’s the Worst Senator EVAR yesterday, going after the Koch brothers in an unseemly manner.

Reid charged that Charles and David Koch, who are tied for fourth place on the Forbes list of 400 richest people in the United States, violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, citing a 2011 report by Bloomberg Markets magazine.
“These are the same brothers whose company, according to a Bloomberg investigation, paid bribes and kickbacks to win contracts in Africa, India and the Middle East,” Reid said on the Senate floor. “These are the same brothers who, according to the same report, used foreign subsidiaries to sell millions of dollars of equipment to Iran, a state sponsor of terrorism.”

Read Reid’s Reedy wheezing in its entire despicable non-glory. Because, you know, a Senator giving people a fair trial and stuff before smearing them in the Senate is soooo last century.

Presented without further ado, and apologies to the late great Warren Z:

Poor, Poor Pitiful Reid

He’s the saddest sack the Senate ever saw
Worse’n “Submarine” Teddy
His jerk contest with Schumer was a draw
Poor, poor pitiful Reid

Poor, poor pitiful Reid
Poor, poor pitiful Reid
Mary Landrieu won’t let him be
Lord have mercy on Reid
Let him choke on Tea

His embalming fluid is a constant chore
He uses an expensive brand
He sprung a leak out on the Senate floor
The pressure got out of hand
A nervous page cleaned it up real fast
(Just sayin’ ‘cuz the facts ain’t much)
Rumor has it Reid’s a pederast
Like Romney cheats his tax ‘n’ such

Poor, poor pitiful Reid
Poor, poor pitiful Reid
Barbara Boxer won’t let him be
Lord have mercy on Reid
Let him choke on Tea

He’ll be infamous for ObamaCare
And calling good folk liars
With his mewling voice and his undead stare
His evil never tires

Poor, poor pitiful Reid
Poor, poor pitiful Reid
Dianne Feinstein won’t let him be
Lord have mercy on Reid
Let him choke on Tea

Alleged Pederast Harry Reid Disregards Senate Rules, and Also Craves Boy Flesh

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You’ve probably forgotten the Harry Reid pederasty scandal of 2012, because the lamestream media refused to cover the accusations. There was certainly as much evidence for that as for Harry Reid’s claim that Mitt Romney evaded paying income tax — an accusation that Reid insisted Romney must disprove — and I don’t remember Harry ever proving he is not sexually interested in young boys, so by his standards of logic, it’s fair to say Harry Reid is a pederast.

Now the alleged deviant Harry Reid has stricken down the Senate rules:

After years of threats and warnings, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and his Democratic majority on Thursday executed the “nuclear option” to eliminate the filibuster for executive branch and judicial nominees, except for the Supreme Court.

Drew M. at Ace of Spades explains:

This is going to result in all out partisan warfare in the Senate. Democrats complain fillibusters slow the Senate down but requiring a vote on everything and not agreeing to any unanimous consent requests will grind it to a halt. . . .
Reid is a lying hypocrite who is trying to change the subject from the damage that ObamaCare is causing across the country.

The Senate has adjourned, and Harry Reid will now return to his home state to meet with his constituents and fellate teenage boys.

Allegedly.