There’s no real winner tonight. It’s certainly not a good night for the Republic. A three man race between Rick Santorum, Ron Paul, and Mitt Romney? The fake, the crazy, and the flip flopper. Does anyone really think those three guys will ever be a good president?
The real loser tonight is Iowa. It’s time to end this farce once and for all. The state of Iowa is a subsidy hog. It’s the reason Tom Harkin has been their senator for decades. Iowa clings to its “first” status to ensure pork forever. In 2016, the GOP shouldn’t recognize Iowa delegates unless they move the caucus back.
It’s time to reform the primary process. I don’t understand why Iowa and New Hampshire should remain as the two states where people vote in the primaries first. Iowa is a pork state. It’s the home of Senator Tom Harkin. Need I say more? New Hampshire isn’t much better. It’s a small New England state that’s not exactly representative of mainstream conservative thought. Why does the GOP care what the voters of New Hampshire think about picking a nominee? The fact that the RNC wants to maintain the status quo is a great example of how the GOP establishment fears the conservative wing of the party. Florida is attempting to move its primary up to January 31, 2012, and that’s causing a gnashing of teeth at the RNC.
Florida’s move would directly violate RNC rules that forbid any state other than the first four “carve-out” states — Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina — from holding a primary before March 6.
States that ignore the RNC rules are subject to losing half of their delegates — party representatives who ultimately choose the nominee — to the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida, next August.
Ask Hillary Clinton how important the state of Florida is to getting the nomination. Clinton won the state in 2008, but the DNC didn’t recognize the delegates because the state moved up its primary. One solution would be to hold a national primary. The only problem with that idea is that the benefit of a staggered primary system is the process. It’s a good way to determine which candidate has the stamina and organization for the general election. I wouldn’t mind a four-stage process where you break the primaries into four elections. It would allow the candidates the ability to visit the states in play and it would end this ridiculous Iowa/New Hampshire courtship.
Creating a system like I’ve described isn’t likely because each state controls when their primary is set. The RNC/DNC should just get out of the way. If Florida wants to move up its primary so bit it. The state of Florida is a much more pivotal state in the general election than Iowa or New Hampshire. In a four-stage primary, both small and large states would be represented in each primary election. It’s so logical that there’s no way either party will accept it. The fact that the DNC and RNC both act like the BCS tells you a lot about how they govern after the general election… like asses and pachyderms.
It was bound to happen eventually, but I have finally found common ground with Senator Tom Harkin. It turns out the Government Accounting Office cost study was at the request of Senators Harkin, Casey, and Shelby. A cynical man might ask, “Why would the pork loving Senator from Iowa care about saving money?” Fortunately, I am a cynical man.
In 2008, the Senate passed the America’s Beautiful National Parks Quarter Dollar Coin Act of 2008. Senator Harkin praised the bill, for obvious reasons.
The bill will help keep jobs at Cedar Rapids’ PMX plant that were created in 2005 by increasing the production of $1 coins. PMX produces the metal sheets that become dollar coins, quarters, and dimes.
I don’t believe we should be making coins for the sake of making coins. Also, I’m sure it costs more to change the quarter every year. Senator Harkin isn’t trying to save money. He’s trying to funnel more spending toward Iowa. Just when I think I have found common ground my research suggests otherwise. Pork, thy name is Harkin.
Back in February I wrote about Google’s Parisian Love advertisement during the Super Bowl. It was a great ad and now Google has created a new feature that allows users to tell their own stories. Here is one that I have created especially for The Daily Plunge and my favorite Senator.
Jason Mattera is now the new hero of The Daily Plunge. Anyone who takes on the American treasure that is Senator Tom Harkin automatically receives legendary status. Mattera asked Harkin directly about the Senator’s shameless claim that health insurance risk pools are comparable to racial segregation. Harkin’s response is in the priceless video below.
Senator Harkin tries to deny he made such a statement, but the pork-loving politician from Iowa must have a short memory. I touched on this briefly yesterday, but the mainstream press should be the ones calling out politicians for making idiotic statements like the ones Harkin made about health care. Harkin’s comparison did nothing to advance the debate.
I can hardly believe it’s been more than three months since we’ve posted about America’s favorite member of the Senate, Tom Harkin. As I’ve stated before the Senator from Iowa endorses loser presidential candidates, creates ironic campaign photo ops, introduces piss-poor legislation, panders to his constituency, eats pork, adds pork to aforementioned piss-poor legislation, and wants to take back the White House. Yeaahgahagaagharwaaa!
Harkin is never silent. There’s just not enough time in the day to keep up with all his ridiculous comments. Over at Hot Air they’ve been watching MSNBC so people like me won’t throw up. I wish someone did the same for Tom Harkin. I’d do it, but I’d probably throw up.
Harkin has a new theory on ObamaCare. The GOP doesn’t want it to pass because they know America will love it.
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
This isn’t actually far from the truth. The 30 million or so citizens who get free health care on the backs of all the poor schmucks who have to actually pay for it will love it! The real truth is that the Democrat party wants these people sucking from the teet of the government forever so they’ll vote for the Telly Monster party for life.
Tom Harkin says that as Americans learn more about the bill between now and November they’ll love it. How will Americans learn to love a bill that doesn’t even kick in until 2013? Harkin has been sniffing too much pork.
You know there’s pork on the table when Senator Tom Harkin is in the picture. How much does it cost to buy the vote of Senator Mary Landrieu? For a cool $100 million Landrieu was bribed to move forward with debate.
Tom Harkin loves communists
One would hope that there would be real debate about this issue. Democrats have ignored real reform from the beginning. It’s easier to characterize the opposition’s position as “hurry up and die.” Welcome to transparent government. Where the House and the Senate debate bills no one has read on Saturday when no one is watching. Thanks President Obama. Thanks for never taking the lead on this issue. Thanks for never submitting a plan, lying about the opposition, and letting the crazies in Congress derail this whole issue.
For a measly $10 billion or so, our beloved Uncle Sam could supply every household in America with a full keg of beer. Sound far-fetched? Well, it is, because the government would rather spend it on pork projects that will help guarantee that certain politicians remain in office in perpetuity.
But this is the ultimate pork (beer) barrel project, practically guaranteed to win the undying devotion of tens of millions of Americans. Providing a keg in every refrigerator has the added benefit of finally paying those reparations I’ve been lobbying for since I turned 21.
Our ancestors, some of whom are actually still alive, lived through one of the darkest eras in American history. Beginning in 1919, our forefathers toiled under the yoke of non-alcoholic beverages. Though a Constitutional Amendment rectified the suffering in 1933, Prohibition was a catastrophe that denied citizens the right to drink beer.
It’s about time the government paid for this horrendous mistake and offered reparations to the descendants of those who were denied the right to a cold beer, even if Schlitz was the brew of choice back then.
With money apparently no object in Washington these days, what’s $10 billion or so? It’s a drop in the bucket, or keg in this case. Since 2007, about $11 trillion has been allocated for “economic recovery” of varying stripes. Just think if this money had been properly allocated. Each fridge (or garage, porch or deck) in America could have been supplied with 1,000 kegs.
Obviously, this is probably way too much beer for the average household, excepting frat houses scattered here and there in this great land. Even ten kegs per household would be acceptable and would still represent only a fraction of the money those Looney Tunes in Washington are spending on their cronies and special interests.
The ancient formulation of “a chicken in every pot” would have yielded 22,000 chickens per pot per household, but I think beer is the better deal here. It’s about time Americans stood up for their right to Prohibition reparations, and their right, of course, to party.
The View from 5A posted this picture of Senator Harkin and President Obama. The author of the blog comes up with some interesting theories about what is actually happening…
It’s unclear exactly what is going on here. One of three possible scenarios seem plausible:
1) Sen. Harkin is getting ready to smack the President.
2) Sen. Harkin is preventing the President from attaining the object by playing keep-away.
3) President Obama just handed off a large white baton to the Senator during the annual White House to Capitol Hill relay.
This is a worthy effort; however, there are only a few true Harkin aficionados on the planet, and of course The Daily Plunge is the Tom Harkin source. It seems very clear to me what is really going on in this photograph…
It’s obvious that Harkin is holding Howard Dean’s map to the White House. You know, the one which details how Dean was not only going to New Hampshire, Tom Harkin, but then to South Carolina, and Oklahoma, etc., etc… Yeahahghaahgaah. Frankly I’m surprised the president has waited so long to secure this vital map. I’m sure Senator Harkin drove a hard bargain; there’s no telling how much more pork the state of Iowa will receive. The larger question is this: Did Howard Dean make a copy of the map?
The world is abuzz with Twitter. It seems like every Tom, Dick, and Ashton has a Twitter account. If one can wade through the narcissistic Twitter wasteland, the service can be helpful. Twitter is great for following real-time events (like the Google crash last week) or to get the first thoughts of journalists/bloggers. There are even fake spacetweets from astronauts. That aside, I come back to the wasteland.
Yesterday President Obama gave speech supposedly about Gitmo that I’d rather not get into at this time. Former Vice President Cheney gave a speech on the same topic shortly after Obama finished. It seems as if both sides of the political spectrum were happy with their guy’s speech (shocking). Evidently, Senator Tom Harkin took a break from creating and supporting bad legislation to give his 2¢ on the issue. I know this because I’m following “Tom Harkin” on Twitter. Well, not really; I’m actually following his name on Twitter.
Every time some person Twitters Tom Harkin’s name I get an email. That’s great when I find out that Harkin calls Cheney “pathetic” for giving a logical speech on Gitmo, but it’s bad when I get an email tweet like this…
Eveofdestructio: sen. Tom Harkin was on and he talked about how obama is following are great constition and Bill of Rights, which cheney threw out .
Really, the words speak for themselves. I guess it was the word constitution that was on the eve of destruction. It still surprises to me that people believe foreign combatants fall under the protection of the United States Constitution. Who knew plotting to blow up innocent civilians and US targets entitles a person to rights as a US citizen? Anyway, that’s a whole separate post in itself. The great world of Twitter debate has begun. Oh, the possibilities are endless.
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