Republican US Senator Scott Brown now has a 9-point lead over Elizabeth Warren, his likely Democratic opponent in the November election, a new poll has found. The Suffolk University/7News poll, which was released late Thursday night, asked 600 likely voters across Massachusetts which candidate they would support in a head-to-head matchup, if the election was held today. The poll has a margin of error of plus-or-minus 4 percentage points. Forty-nine percent of respondents said they would vote for Brown while 40 percent said they would back Warren, according to the poll. Separately, 45 percent of respondents said that Brown deserved to be reelected, 39 percent said he did not, and 16 percent were undecided. Brown also led Warren among independents in the poll by a margin of 60 percent to 28 percent, Suffolk University said in a statement. Fifty-two percent of registered voters in Massachusetts are independents, the statement said. Read more at The Boston Globe
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Senate Poll: Scott Brown Opens 9-Point Lead Over Elizabeth Warren
On Thursday, the Senate voted 96-3 to ensure that the same insider trading laws that apply to citizens also extend to members of Congress. But as the Associated Press points out, elected officials enjoy at least seven legal exemptions that the rest of us do not: While Congress is moving to explicitly apply insider trading laws to its members, lawmakers are exempt from provisions of other federal laws. In 1995, the House and Senate passed the Congressional Accountability Act, which did apply many civil rights, labor and workplace safety statutes to the legislative branch. Specifically, members of Congress are exempt from: The Freedom of Information Act. Investigatory subpoenas to obtain information for safety and health probes. Protections against retaliation for whistleblowers. Having to post notices of worker rights in offices. Prosecution for retaliating against employees who report safety and health hazards. Having to train employees about workplace rights and legal remedies. Record-keeping requirements for workplace injuries and illnesses. Unfair? Further evidence that members of Congress are out of touch and think they’re above the law? You decide.
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Seven Laws You Have to Follow but Members of Congress Don’t
Breitbart editor Peter Schweizer’s battle against congressional insider trading will enter a critical phase this week as the Senate is set to vote on a bill banning members of Congress from using material, nonpublic information to make private investments. From USA Today : Aware that most Americans would like to dump them all, members of Congress hope to regain some sense of trust by subjecting themselves to tougher penalties for insider trading and requiring they disclose stock transactions within 30 days. A procedural vote Monday would allow the Senate later this week to pass a bill prohibiting members of Congress from using nonpublic information for their own personal benefit or “tipping” others to inside information that they could trade on. The Senate is considering passage of the STOCK (Stop Trading On Congressional Knowledge) Act, which would ban members of Congress and their staffs from engaging in insider trading and would include a 30 day reporting requirement on all investments. The Senate version of the bill is cosponsored by Sens. Scott Brown (R-MA) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY). Prior to Peter Schweizer’s book Throw Them All Out and the 60 Minutes report based on his book, the STOCK Act had only four cosponsors in Congress. Now, the bill has 230 cosponsors . After President Barack Obama urged Congress to ban insider trading in his State of the Union speech, Sen. Brown approached the President and said “the insider trading bill’s on Harry’s [Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV)] desk right now. Tell him to get it out, it’s already there.” President Obama replied: “I’m gonna tell him. I’m gonna tell him, I’m gonna tell him to get it done.” And Sen. Gillibrand, who made improvements to the bill, made this Senate speech last week arguing for passage of the bipartisan STOCK Act: In an interview with BigGovernment.com after President Obama’s State of the Union speech, Peter Schweizer said he believes that the STOCK Act, while well-intended, does not go far enough to remedy the problem. Schweizer says that a new bill by Rep. Sean Duffy (R-WI) called the RESTRICT (Restoring Ethical Standards, Transparency, and Responsibility in Congressional Trading) Act is a better bill: We need to get behind Rep. Duffy’s RESTRICT Act and let our leaders know that we will not stand idly by as members of Congress profit off of access to material, nonpublic information. The RESTRICT Act would force members of Congress to either place all their assets in a blind trust or submit to a three day public disclosure requirement. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) has also expressed a desire to see improvements made to the STOCK Act. Rep. Cantor says he’s committed to expanding the bill to include things like land deals and other investments by members of Congress. No word yet on when or whether the Congress will consider action on Rep. Duffy’s RESTRICT Act.
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Senate to Vote on STOCK Act This Week
From PJMedia : Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) caused a bit of a stir when he announced he was not seeking re-election. Frank, a high-visibility member of Congress for more than 30 years, is in one of the safest Democratic districts in the nation. Yet he is not alone: there are several other Barney Franks fleeing the 112th Congress. Eight other veteran House Democrats who reside in safe congressional seats are throwing in the towel. The problem isn’t merely in the House. Just this week, U.S. Senator Ben Nelson from Nebraska announced he won’t seek re-election this coming November . Nelson is one of seven Senate Democrats who have decided to “voluntarily” retire ahead of the 2012 elections. This is a repeat of the 2010 elections when a flood of Democrats decided to retire rather than face certain defeat. The retirement of rank-and-file Democrats is an especially bad sign for the Democrats if they have any hope of retaking the U.S. House. The nine House retirements are even more notable because each ranks high in seniority for key House committees — if the House returned to Democratic rule, they would be in line to assume chairmanships. Chairmanships are great perks, offering hideaway offices in the Capitol building and less restrained power and authority. Voluntarily walking away from Hill leadership is uncommon: House members can sit for twenty years on the Hill and never get close to a chairmanship. To Democratic Party faithful, the nine retiring congressmen present a dramatic picture of the hostile environment Democrats are facing as the 2012 election begins. Some of the retirees had easily won re-election with 60-70% majorities. Their stampede for the exit is yet another admission that the Democrats face a potential “wave” election, and of course, it portends considerable trouble for Barack Obama. The accelerating House retirements come on the heels of last September’s special election in New York , where an unknown Republican defeated a popular Queens Democrat to take Anthony Weiner’s seat. The New York congressional district was Democratic for 80 years — registered Democrats outnumbered registered Republicans by a three-to-one margin. Barney Frank is, of course, the headliner of this group: he is one of the best-known and most powerful Democrats outside of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), serving 16 uninterrupted terms. When the Democrats held the House during the first two years of the Obama administration, the Massachusetts Democrat served as the undisputed power at the House Financial Services Committee, muscling through many regulations that pummeled banks. His name is on the Dodd-Frank law, which threatens to impose new regulations on all financial institutions. The law is so complicated that, two years after its enactment, administration regulators still have failed to issue rules for methods of enforcement. Including Frank, the departing group represents a wealth of experience that will not be easy to replace: The nine have served in office for a combined 172 years. Read more here . Is it any wonder Alexandra Pelosi believes her mother wants to leave Congress?
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Exodus: Already, Nine Veteran House Dems Have Announced Retirement
This week, Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies (Crossroads GPS) targets Massachusetts Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren and her self-professed ties to the #Occupy movement in a new television ad running in the Boston, Springfield-Holyoke, and Providence, RI markets for a total buy of $596,000. The ad, “Foundation,” can be viewed here: “The ‘Occupy Wall Street’ movement is the wrong response to our country’s economic morass,” said Nate Hodson, Crossroads GPS Director of State and Regional Media Relations. “This issue ad is designed to alert citizens to the radical views of Elizabeth Warren and turn up the heat for solutions that help Massachusetts’s job creators instead of propping up her intellectual theories.”
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American Crossroads Ad Targets Warren, #OccupyWallStreet
From The Associated Press : The six have met in private for several months, even as House Republicans and Obama developed more partisan plans that have little chance of being enacted into law because of Washington’s divided government. House Republicans passed a nonbinding plan in April that calls for reducing annual deficits by a total of $6.2 trillion over the next decade. It includes no tax increases but calls for transforming Medicare from a program in which the government directly pays medical bills into a voucher-like system that subsidizes the purchase of private insurance plans. Obama has outlined a plan to reduce borrowing by $4 trillion over the next 12 years. His plan includes $1 trillion in tax increases and is less specific about how he would cut benefit programs. Vice President Joe Biden is to begin leading a series of bipartisan talks this week on reducing the debt. The Gang of Six senators wants its plan to be part of the discussion. The senators’ work is rooted in a simple political reality: Getting anything actually passed into law given the present balance of power in Washington requires both Democrats and Republicans to embrace proposals that make each uncomfortable. An approach that leaves politically challenging topics off the table simply won’t make a dent in deficits averaging $1 trillion a year or so over the upcoming decade. “A Republican plan will not pass. A Democratic plan will not pass,” Chambliss said. “It is going to require locking arms and jumping off the building together.” The still unfinished plan faces many obstacles but has one important advantage. It’s the only truly bipartisan effort in a Senate teeming with politicians promising to tackle the debt but lacking the trust needed to take politically poisonous positions such as cutting federal benefit programs and boosting tax revenues. The goal is to release the plan within the next few weeks. Read the whole thing here . This ‘gang-banging’ seems to be the new trend in the Senate. A few Senators from each party get together and declare themselves Super-Senators over some particular issue. Bit of hubris to believe that some collection of enlightened statesmen can decide an issue for all of us, nevermind their 94 colleagues. Publius would like to know, you know, generally speaking, what are they even discussing? And why are these discussions in private? And, finally, will this plan go through the normal open committee process or just kind of show up one day on the Senate floor. Will the Gang of Six tell us we just need to pass their budget to find out what’s in it?
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‘Gang of Six’: Senators Craft Budget Plan Behind Closed Doors
There is never a good time for a great statesman and courageous leader to retire from the United States Senate. But it is hard to think of a more inopportune time to be losing Senator Jon Kyl, the chamber’s Number 2 Republican. Senator Kyl announced this morning that he will not run for reelection when his term expires in 2012. He has represented the people of Arizona with great distinction since 1986, first in the House of Representatives and then in the Senate. Those of us who know him are not surprised at his announcement; we have been dreading it for years – especially since his last reelection was grueling and the prospect of another arduous and expensive campaign was understandably unappealing. Sen. Kyl’s service on Capitol Hill has been absolutely exemplary. He is a man of unimpeachable integrity, decency, civility and common sense, qualities to which most pay lip service but rarely exhibit. He has shown himself time and again to be a visionary and effective leader on national issues, great and small. His most important contributions to date, however, have been in the area of national security and international affairs. No other member in the United States Congress – in either chamber, on either side of Capitol Hill – has his command of the defense and foreign policy challenges of our time. No other member has worked harder to exemplify and practice the philosophy Ronald Reagan called “peace through strength.” The good news is that Sen. Kyl will doubtless be working as tirelessly as ever on such matters over the next two years as the Senate’s Minority Whip. There is little doubt that the Nation will greatly need his vision and savoir faire in the conduct of national security policy during the difficult times ahead. It can only be hoped that he will be asked to continue his service to our country in some other capacity thereafter – ideally, as Secretary of State or Defense in a new, and far more robust Republican administration.
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Senator Kyl Retiring: A Tragedy for National Security
Hold on to your hats — here’s where I compare Barack Obama to Richard Nixon. Perhaps I should explain. When it comes to politics and presidents, everyone’s always looking for precedents. For parallels. Which is why you’ve been hearing so many references lately to 1994. “This is just like 1994!” the pundits cry. “A first-term Democratic president’s first midterm election, and the voters are really angry, and they take it out on the president’s party, and the Republicans take control of the House of Representatives for the first time in generations!” Not a bad comparison. Decision 2010 may turn out to look a lot like Decision 1994. Then there’s the 1980 comparison; I’ve been leaning toward the 1980 comparison lately. Another first-term Democrat in the White House, running for re-election this time, with a terrible economy at home and endless frustration abroad (the Iranian hostage crisis, for instance). But the parallel for me isn’t the Democratic president going down to defeat in November, but all the Senate Democrats who went down with him. See, anytime you have a slew of competitive seats, there’s a tendency to say, “Well, OK, it’s a bad year for our side, so maybe we won’t do as well as the other guys. A dozen seats up for grabs? Maybe we’ll only hang on to five.” But it doesn’t always work that way — and it certainly didn’t work that way in 1980. The results weren’t “a few more here, a few less here.” The results were a virtual sweep. Practically every competitive Senate race in 1980 fell the same way — to the Republicans. They took control. Many of the contests were close, but in almost all of them, the result was the same. A Democratic loss, a Republican pickup. Which to say: When it goes bad, it can go really bad. So 1980 isn’t a terrible comparison either. It’s hardly beyond imagining, even with the likes of a Sharron Angle or a Rand Paul or a Christine O’Donnell on the ballot, that the GOP runs the table — that it picks up the 10 seats it needs to grab the Senate. Unless, that is, the best comparison of all is to 1972 — but not the way you think. This is the part where Barack Obama gets to play Richard Nixon. In 1972, it was a Republican president — Nixon — running for re-election against George McGovern. George McGovern was that year’s darling of the left flank of the Democratic party — against the war in Vietnam, against a bigger military budget, in favor of decriminalizing marijuana. That sort of thing. Equally important, the McGovern campaign was… untidy. Undisciplined. Liberated women. Hairy kids. Multiple skin tones. A nominating convention so blissfully self-indulgent that by the time the candidate got his moment in the sun, it was the middle of the night. And — here’s the point, here’s the possible parallel: It took the Nixon campaign roughly three milliseconds to make its move on the rest of the Democrats. “Your party has been captured by the McGovernite wing,” the Republicans declared. “You’re every bit as appalled as we are.” “It’s not your party anymore,” Nixon and his pals told those disaffected Dems. “Come find a new home with us .” And millions did just that — they crossed party lines for the first time in their lives. They voted for Nixon and the Republicans. Many of them never came back. “I didn’t leave the Democratic Party,” they told themselves. “The Democratic Party left me. ” You think there aren’t millions of sensible, middle-of-the-road Republicans today who are looking at the sudden rise of the Tea Party — hearing the ravings of the Angles and Pauls and O’Donnells, the Palins and the Becks — and thinking exactly the same thing? “This isn’t my party anymore.” So the question is: How many milliseconds should it take for Obama and friends to put out the welcome mat? Rick Horowitz is a syndicated columnist. You can write to him at rickhoro@execpc.com.
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Rick Horowitz: No, Really — Dems Should Party Like It’s 1972
AP – President Barack Obama has reached out to longtime Republican Rep. Mike Castle after his upset loss to a tea party-backed candidate in Delaware’s Senate primary.
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White House: Obama calls Rep. Castle after loss
(AP)
CQPolitics.com – Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, during a wide-ranging interview Thursday on the upcoming elections, said his party must embrace candidates across the ideological spectrum if it hopes to retake control of Congress and block President Barack Obama’s agenda.
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McConnell Embraces Big Tent GOP
(CQPolitics.com)