Kennedy's Replacement

As most of you know we will be electing a replacement for the late Ted Kennedy in January. We now know the 2 major party candidates for that race, Scott Brown (R) and Martha Coakley (D).

Since Martha Coakley will most likely be victorious in January I'd like to share a few thoughts about the debate from Dec. 1st between the Democratic candidates. As a side note it will be interesting to see if Joe Kennedy, no relation to Ted, who will be on the January ballot as a independent candidate, will hurt Coakley enough to give Scott Brown a fighting chance here in Mass. I'm sure Kennedy's just counting on his name to get him a good chunk of votes. Sadly, that will most likely be the case as uninformed voters head to the polls. However, if his name on the ballot hurts Coakley then I'm all for it.

Let's start with her position regarding an increase in troop levels for Afghanistan. We now know that the president is sending half of what was requested by General McCrystal, (30,000 instead of the 60,000 with a minimum of 40,000 that was asked for).

Martha Coakley has an even worse position than the president does here. She gave a flat out no for any more troops and compared Afghanistan to Vietnam. Of course that position puts her at odds with candidate Obama who called Afghanistan a "war of necessity" and who worked hard to convince us that Afghanistan was a war we had to win. Coakley claims we need to "use intelligence not troops" in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Simple question for you: given all we know about what's going on in Afghanistan and Pakistan don't you think we need to use intelligence AND troops? For the record I have a cousin who's a recent marine and will very likely end up being sent as part of Obama's limited surge in Afghanistan. I will of course continue to hope for the safety of all our troops whether he's sent or not.

When asked about the Patriot Act all Democratic candidates said no. Capuano thinks it has to be "totally rewritten", Pagliuca said no and that it "didn't work", Coakley thinks the act violates rights and needs to be restructured. They apparently weren't paying attention to the wiretaps allowed by the Patriot act that helped uncover the Brooklyn Bridge plot. Remember, the Patriot Act didn't work.

Khalid Shaikh Mohammed first connected Iyman Faris, the man behind the plot, to Al Qaeda during interrogations. I'll bet being nice and saying please is what broke him and got KSM to talk how about you?

When the subject of the 320,000 jobs lost in Mass alone came up they were asked to give specifics on how they will create jobs. Coakley's master plan...

1. Force state banks to loan to business.

While I see the point here haven't we learned that forcing banks to loan leads to many bad loans?

2. A "research tax credit".

I suppose it will depend on what you are researching, like how to keep people on welfare indefinitely. Liberals have mastered that one. It's funny how Liberals are so afraid of the words tax cuts. They substitute tax "credits" in order to save face I suppose. After all, when your platform consists of mostly tax increases and you've spent your entire political career against tax cuts it must be hard to talk about lower taxes as a positive economic policy.

3. Stimulus 2

Have you stopped laughing yet. It's amazing that these people get any votes at all. Bush's stimulus failed. Obama's first stimulus has failed, of course Obama's was never meant to stimulate anything, it was a way to payoff political partners, unions, and I guarantee it will be used to help with the re-election of liberal democrats. The same way FDR's New Deal WPA was used to help Democrats get votes during the 30's.

For the record why would we be talking about stimulus 2 when we haven't spent all of stimulus 1 yet? Coakley claims she wants to "look at stimulus mistakes" and make sure the next stimulus is "used properly". That's interesting, it seems to imply that she realizes stimulus 1 has failed. I'm sure having the same group of people who were responsible for those mistakes of the past stimulus bills will be perfectly capable of making another stimulus package work.

When asked about what they've done to adjust to this recession some of the answers were downright embarrassing.

Capuano is using more energy efficient light bulbs, great job.

Pagliuca claims to be doing more charity work. That seems like the only halfway decent answer.

Khazei said less gifts for the holidays. That actually makes him sounds like and average citizen doesn't it?

Coakley claims to be eating in more and not going out to eat as often. Looks like this recession is really hitting these folks hard huh?

When it comes to health care Coakley supports Romneycare, which is failing and proving to be much more expensive than first expected, surprise, surprise. At least her answer was better than Pagliuca's. He said he'll vote for any health care reform bill regardless of what's in it. At least he didn't win the nomination, good thing.

All of the candidates including Coakley support $20 million to be spent on a Kennedy Institute honoring Ted Kennedy. I have an idea, why don't we go after the unpaid taxes Ted Kennedy keeps in offshore accounts to pay for it?

"Why do you think U.S. Senator Edward M. (Ted) Kennedy has moved his entire personal estate assets to an offshore trust located in Tortola, BVI? Possibly because BVI has no estate or death tax? Kennedy has few personal assets in the U.S. The family pays an annual rent (to cover property taxes, insurance, maintenance, operations, etc.) to his BVI trust for his considerable luxury compounds located in Martha's Vineyard, Palm Beach and elsewhere. I am a man of modest means, but when we both die I suspect my death tax bill will be larger than his."

Full Story

Given that, why should we pay for an Institute honoring Ted Kennedy? Why doesn't his family pay for it? They obviously have the money.

In closing Martha Coakley turned to her usual Wall Street bashing,predatory lending criticism, support for the "public option", the environment, and global warming rhetoric.

It's funny how politicians bash rich businesses who create jobs but not rich politicians who don't create any jobs. When it comes to predatory lending it seems Coakley forgets that it was the government that forced risky loans to be given in the first place. It was predatory government not predatory lending.

She supports the "public option" and would probably use some polls to make the argument that the public agrees with her on that.

"But past experience shows that polls on the public option can be highly misleading in the way the questions are framed. For example, when Consumers Union polled on the public option, it prefaced its questioning with a highly positive description of a public option designed to achieve positive answers."

Public Option

As far as the environment and global warming, all I need to say is Climategate.

It's no surprise to anyone who knows my views on politics that I'm no supporter of Liberal Democrats and Coakley is no exception. I hope the various mistakes her views represent give Scott Brown enough ammunition to make a difference. While I seriously doubt it I'll just hope for the best and vote in January.
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On an unrelated and happier note:

Happy Hanukkah to all of the Jewish folks out there.