Shea-Porter and Hodes on Proper protection?

The Stimu-less bill the NH twain rubber-stamped on Wednesday included a provision that would require all those supposed shovel-ready projects to get their steel from American companies.  That’s right, no foreign steel.

And you thought they cut the 400 million for “protection” out of the bill.

So is this how Obama heals our tarnished image with the global community.  Trade protectionism.   Who said experience doesn’t matter?

Well, the foreign governments got the message.  They are already lining up to give Mr. Obama piece of their mind, suggesting that similar actions against us would have to follow if the provision manages to survive and become law.  (Is this the test Biden warned us about?)

Preliminary estimates by several fortune 500 companies peg the potential job losses from a slew of global trade barriers in the tens of millions as the increased cost of global goods, and the problems in acquiring them strain an already fragile US economy.

So yeah,  Hodes and Shea-Porter voted for a stimu-less bill filled with lefty handouts, and hundreds of billions in non-stimulus spending, but they also  supported trade protectionism on top of it.   This must be part of that helping the middle class mantra, right?

So I am of course assuming that they actually knew what they were voting for.   I mean you don’t actually vote for 800 billion in pointless handouts after whining about fiscal responsibility and accountability, or about the culture of corruption you’re going to help clean up, do you?  You don’t blindly support trade barriers in a global economy that will affect every job sector while you are claiming to create jobs for (your union buddies) do you? Do you? 

Is it possible they never even pulled Pelosi’s sunshine yellow  post-it off the front, the one that said “just vote yes?”  Are their copies filed away in the ‘Victory’ drawer without even one dog-eared page?

No matter how it played out, as the bill meets stiffer opposition in the Senate, the public is learning a lot more about just how bad this bill really is, something our House Reps–the fiscal conscience of congress, seemed unconcerned with in their rush to give Obama a quick victory.

It’s good to know where their priorities lie.  Of course we always knew didn’t we, yet for some reason they got re-elected anyway.  So you know the old saying, fool me once shame on you, fool me twice…

Judd Gregg-Filibuster slayer?

A good tyrant kills off any pretenders to his throne to protect and secure his power.  While that’s not exactly how it’s done these days, President Obama may be executing a strategy that accomplishes the same thing.

 

Roll Call is reporting that Senator Judd Gregg is aware of a potential nomination by Obama to be the next commerce secretary.  Gregg, who has been warming to Obamanomics, and appears to be cozying up to the new administration, has never been considered long on republican principles by conservatives, and likely to have a fight on his hands in two years to seperate himslef form any Democrat rival.  (Or any serious conservative primary cadndaites) So It’s not difficult to see him taking the job.   

But is he willing to make that kind of mark on history?   He could forever be known as the Republican who helped give Mr. Obama and his massive liberal agenda  with a filibuster-proof Senate. 

 

And there-in lies the subterfuge (if genius isn’t the right word) of the Obama administration.

 

Picking any Republican Senator (but Gregg in particular)—whom any democrat led Senate committee would confirm for obvious reasons—allows Democrat Governor John Lynch to appoint his replacement until the 2010 election when Greggs term expires.  It’s a pick destined to be a Democrat, most likely a congressional house member from New Hampshire like Paul Hodes.

 

Now there are those who claim that Lynch might exercise his “independent streak” and appoint a Republican, but that’s total nonsense.  Lynch is as doe-eyed for Washington as Gregg is, and being the democrat who could have given Obama a filibuster-proof senate but decided not to because of some ‘independent streak,’  is not something he wants on his resume.  Lynch would appoint a democrat given the chance and I suspect Obama knows this.

 

So if Judd Gregg is on the short list, and he gets a shot at being Commerce Secretary, he has a big decision to make.  Will he kick his party to the curb and give the liberals their shot at a utopian collectivist agenda, or stand tall for the resistance?