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Buy 'em Off Politics
Rich Galen
Friday December 18, 2009
Click here for an Easy Print Version
About a month ago, Barack Obama, in complicity with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev), bribed Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La) with $300 million of our tax money to add her vote to the 60 needed to bring some form of health care legislation to the floor.
That was not the last time Obama and his pals, continuing a long-cherished Chicago tradition, have offered to pay someone off to get what they want.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton - no stranger to hardball politics herself - offered in Copenhagen to buy off the entire Third World by offering $100 billion A YEAR over the next ten years to � I'm not sure what the money is for but she threatened them by saying:
"In the absence of an operational agreement � there will not be that financial agreement."
Hillary can promise to spend a trillion dollars helping poor nations cope with the struggles of not having millions of automobiles belching carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, but she didn't say where that money was going to come from.
SIDEBAR
The Third World countries, which are demanding to be paid not to pollute, are known as the G-77.
There are 131 countries in the G-77 which says to me that either they can't count to 131, or they made up 54 countries (Upper Iguana, Eastern Salamander, Western Camel Spider, and the like) so they could hold us up for more money.
If they're not that good at arithmetic then we should offer them 24 dollars in wampum - which, as you remember from Mr. Mirandi's high school American history class, was enough to buy Manhattan Island - and tell them that's the equivalent of a bajallion Altarian dollars which, according to the "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy," are freely convertible anywhere in the Milky Way other than the planet Earth.
END SIDEBAR
President Obama, in his role as President of All the World, is en route Copenhagen for what the AP's Jennifer Loven writes will be "approximately nine hours there Friday." Just enough time to pull out the old checkbook and give a bunch more of our money away to people who haven't done a thing to earn it.
At some point it became an article of faith that the United States and the EU have to pay reparations to these 131 countries because the citizens of these western nations have been successful, have produced a lot of things, have purchased a lot of things, and have paid a lot in taxes, a good deal of which have been used to fund foreign aid to these same 131 countries which have largely produced nothing and are likely to continue producing nothing and so they are not likely to contribute greatly to carbon pollution.
Methane from water buffalo, maybe.
Am I wrong about this?
The last time Obama did a drop-by in Copenhagen was that really terrific pitch to get the Olympics for Chicago. That was so successful the U.S. didn't make it through the first round of voting. The Olympics went to Rio. Maybe Obama figures he due for a win there.
Ok. Who else is Obama trying to buy off? Yes? You in the back? Senator Ben Nelson (D-Neb) to be the 60th vote on the Senate health care bill? That's correct. Five Points to Griffyndor.
Take a look at this lead from the New York Times' Jeff Zeleny and Robert Pear piece last night:
WASHINGTON - The White House and Senate Democratic leaders seem willing to give Senator Ben Nelson just about anything he wants to win his support of major health care legislation.
Even in these days of Obama and Reid "just about anything" is a very, very big number. Maybe TWO bajallion Altarian dollars.
Nelson is strongly pro-life and is insisting on language which will prohibit use of tax money to fund abortions.
The problem for Obama and Reid appears to be: If language is added which is sufficient to gain Nelson's vote, Liberals in the House and Senate may revolt and scrap the whole deal.
Earlier this week, the massive Service Employees International Union (SEIU) boycotted a planned press conference in support of the legislation because the public option had been excised from the Senate version.
Former Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean has called for the defeat of the bill because it doesn't have a public option.
The President might pull out wins in both Copenhagen and Capitol Hill. But it will cost you and me more money than we can ever repay.
On the Secret Decoder Ring today: Lots 'o links! Everything including the official definition of an Altarian dollar. Also a wistful Mullfoto of what may be the last Accenture airport ad featuring Tiger Woods and a Catchy Caption of the Day.
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