OBAMA:  Ryan’s the one who’s giving their caucus spine.  And he still won’t budge?

VALERIE JARRETT:  No, sir.  His family . . .  release them?

OBAMA:  Not yet.  Give it another day or two.  Let Mrs. Ryan have formula for the baby, though.

BILL DALEY:  What about Kucinich?  He’ll block the House from doing anything that passes muster with Senate Democrats.

OBAMA:  Get him on the horn.

[Daley dials, hands phone to President]

Hey Dennis, how ya doin’?  Look, if the Boehner plan blows up in the House, we think we can get the Senate to swallow the Reid Plan.  But first we have to get it through your chamber, and as long as you don’t . . . .  Well, yes, I remember our discussion.  [sighs] Yes, I agree to your terms.  [hangs up]

DAVID PLOUFFE:  What did you just promise him, sir?

OBAMA:  On my next overseas trip, we’ll install a booster seat in Air Force One’s co-pilot chair, and he’ll pretend to fly the plane.

JARRETT:  Well, that’s not too bad.

JOE BIDEN: I hate to bring it up, Boss, but I busted my butt with the Gang of Six, and uh, you said . . . . (more…)

So. With yesterday’s farcical Senate theater, the brain-trust begs a very basic question:

“Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., who presided over the hearing [said] ‘Businesses should make a profit. That’s what drives our economy. But do these profitable companies need taxpayer subsidies?’”

Huh. Sen. Baucus, you come out in the black, and every year, too. And it’s fair to say, you are somewhat subsidized by the taxpayer, non? The salary, of course. The car. The driver. Retirement lucre. The trips to and from the office and your home. Often, that’s ‘homes’.

Biiiiig taxpayer-subsidized (actually, provided) budget to underwrite  your work, which of course does nothing so harmful as produce a product driving our economy. More like slowing it down, if fiddling here and there in hope of engineering outcomes desired by your political class along the way.

Then there are the junkets, and for those you may bring with you. The per diems. The mail costs to promote yourself. Then there’s that health insurance. Yep. Really something when someone, who could pay for these things without the taxpayer propping it up, has hard-working people foot the bill for doing his business.

And as a result you’re now worth …ok, well, there’s a little confusion here, with you having reported a negative net worth, while buying a $900,000 home.

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On Friday, we all woke up to the happy news that gas prices might go down a teensy little bit after Memorial Day. Even though that “teensy bit” might just mean “down to $3.50, that news was welcome in a slow economic climate that an administration pre-occupied with it’s own image seems unwilling to acknowledge. But Americans should make no mistake: the tiny decline in gas prices has little to do with the administration’s energy policies, and this week, they’re going to demonstrate that to the nation as they put “Big Oil” on the chopping block in a new round of finance committee hearings chaired by that perennial failure at basic economics, Chairman Max Baucus.

From Politico:

Senate Democrats are looking to bring to the floor next week a plan to strike billions of dollars in annual tax incentives for the five biggest oil companies.

“That’s what we’re thinking,” a Senate Democratic leadership aide told POLITICO Thursday evening, adding there won’t likely be a vote on the measure next week.

Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) will also hold a hearing next Thursday on gas prices and oil tax incentives for the biggest oil companies — including ExxonMobil, BP, Chevron, Shell and ConocoPhillips.

One major question for the Senate leaders: how any money saved from reducing the tax incentives would ultimately be used. Many Democrats are pushing for the money to go toward deficit reduction, the leadership aide said.

Now this all might sound well and good, using money that we pour into domestic industry to pay down the deficit…but that’s merely a sound bite being used by Democrats to sway a public they think will respond to lip service and key words, and won’t dig deeper into their nefarious plans. The truth is, oil companies, like other companies, rely on tax breaks to be competitive in the world market and to spur on a thriving American industry in times of economic recession, like now.

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The death tax is a punitive levy that discourages saving and investment and causes substantial economic inefficiency. But it’s also an immoral tax that seizes assets from grieving families solely because someone dies. The good news is that this odious tax no longer exists. It disappeared on January 1, 2010, thanks to the 2001 tax cut legislation. The bad news is that the death tax comes back with a vengeance on January 1, 2011, ready to confiscate as much as 55 percent of the assets of unfortunate families.

I’ve criticized the death tax on many occasions, including one column in USA Today explaining the economic damage caused by this perverse form of double taxation, and I highlighted a few of the nations around the world that have eliminated this odious tax in another column for the same paper.

Politicians don’t seem persuaded by these arguments, in part because they feel class warfare is a winning political formula. President Obama, House Ways & Means Committee Chairman Charlie Rangel, and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus have been successful in thwarting efforts to permanently kill the death tax. But I wonder what they’ll say if their obstinate approach results in death?

Congresswoman Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming is getting a bit of attention (including a link on the Drudge Report) for her recent comments that some people may choose to die in the next two months in order to protect family assets from the death tax. For successful entrepreneurs, investors, and small business owners who might already be old (especially if they have a serious illness), there is a perverse incentive to die quickly.

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“We have a lot of Re-education to do,” Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said this week. And no wonder — once you’ve started with Rationing and Redistribution, it’s the third R of out-of-control government!

Sebelius claims senior citizens need the re-education the most, because they “have been a target of a lot of the misinformation.” Of course, what’s really happened is that Americans have learned more about Obama’s law, and what they’ve learned, they don’t like. The facts are now inescapable, for Sebelius and for the politicians who advocated for this measure — facts that detail the false nature of the case advanced by the president and his allies, and the true ramifications of this wrongheaded reform package foisted upon the American people. They’ve learned that they can’t keep their plan, even if they like it; they can’t count on lower costs; they can’t count on lower deficits; and they can count on more bureaucracy, more rationing, and more IRS involvement in your daily life.

Today, fewer than one-in-three Americans believe their family will be better off under ObamaCare. The same survey Nancy Pelosi touted last month as showing some positive views on the measure illustrates the movement. The Kaiser Family Foundation found that “support for health reform fell over the course of August, dipping from a 50 percent favorability rating in July to 43 percent, while 45 percent of the public reported unfavorable views.”

Americans have these views because of the litany of broken promises within Obamacare, detailed across thousands of websites, hundreds of reports and dozens of research papers released since its passage. They have these views not because they need to be taught a lesson by Kathleen Sebelius, but because they’ve noticed how the politicians and activists with all those big promises are awfully quiet now. They can’t even make the claim that the legislation will reduce costs or lower the deficit any more without getting laughed out of the room.

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In a little remarked upon move earlier this month, Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) put forward a legislative proposal to raise taxes on energy companies by stripping them of the ability to claim a key tax deduction.

Known as Section 199 relief, the deduction in question has been available to companies engaged in energy production, as well as manufacturing, for several years as an incentive to encourage operations and employment.

However, under an amendment introduced by Baucus, which could be voted on in the Senate next month, that deduction would be eliminated for certain players in the energy industry.

According to a memo obtained by Capitol Confidential and written by Senate Finance Committee staffers Scott Mulhauser and Erin Shields, the Baucus amendment is intended as a substitute to another introduced by Sen. Mike Johanns (R-Neb.).  The Johanns amendment is itself intended to modify the Small Business Jobs Act.

The memo states that “the Democratic alternative… would repeal Section 199 of the tax code, which currently allows these corporations to deduct six percent of their income from oil and gas production from their tax liability, effective December 31, 2010.”

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Those of us who had to square dance in grade school may remember the old Virginia Reel; the caller commanding us to do the dos-a-do which was a spin move in one direction and then another.  That spin, however, doesn’t compare with the Obama Administration’s version of that dance move, in which the American people are told one thing, and then with dizzying speed, find out something else . . . the truth. Fortunately, most Americans are beginning to focus on the complete disconnect between the absurdity of the claims made by the Administration’s spinmeisters and the people’s own sense of reality.

The most breathtaking flight of fancy from Washington this past week was the full- court press by the President, Vice President, Chairperson of the White House Council of Economic Advisors and a whole host of Obama acolytes to proclaim that the Stimulus is working, that we’re “ahead of schedule” on job creation and that we’ve created  (or saved) millions of jobs.  The job saving claim is, in a strange way, irrefutable…sort of like a witch doctor saying if he hadn’t done his rain dance, the drought would have been worse.  As Democratic Senator Max Baucus complained to the White House “you created a situation where you cannot be wrong.  If 2,500,000 jobs are lost, you claim that without your stimulus program, 3,500,000 jobs would have been lost.  Taken to its logical conclusion, if everyone except one person were laid off, the Administration could claim that without its stimulus program, that person would have lost his job.”

There is, of course, a reason for this disciplined chorus of downright silly spin.  The Administration knew that data were about to be released from a variety of reliable sources revealing a further decline in manufacturing and retail activity, a further pull back in private sector hiring plans and industry investment plans, unemployment stubbornly stuck at just under ten percent and a further sinking of consumer confidence.  What’s a “fella” to do with elections coming and millions of jobs lost?  Dance the old dos-a-do and around you go, and claim the stimulus saved jobs.

This further sinking of consumer confidence is particularly significant and vexing to the Administration.  Consumer confidence is a consequence of the consumers’ sensitivity to what they see, hear and feel all around them.  It is reality. It can’t be manufactured, successfully manipulated (for very long), divined from the White House or spoon fed from a teleprompter.

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At the end of 2007, hedge fund billionaire John Paulson invested $15 million in the leftist non-profit, Center for Responsible Lending, their largest single donation ever. Around the same time, Paulson and his employees contributed over $100,000 to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, headed, at the time, by Sen. Chuck Schumer. Roughly six months later, CRL and Sen. Schumer both launched a highly public attack on the California-based mortgage lender, Indymac. The lender failed, wiping out the investment of thousands of people. Roughly six months after that, John Paulson, in partnership with George Soros, bought up the remnants of Indymac for pennies on the dollar.

It is a drama that no longer surprises us, unfortunately. Wealthy investors use their access to elected officials and their checkbook to advocacy groups for private profit. But this story has a twist; a top executive of CRL when this deal went down, Eric Stein, is now working at the Treasury Department,  heading up the proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency. Mr. Stein will be the chief federal official designing regulations to protect consumers. Right.

This is that story.

Financial crises create opportunities. Prudent and discerning entrepreneurs who save their capital for a rainy day are able to acquire assets at firesale prices and put these assets to higher and better uses. Market forces cleanse wasteful malinvestments, innovative business models make existing ones obsolete and the economy roars forward all the stronger for it.

But while market entrepreneurs generally prosper during times of great dislocation, ultimately to the benefit of all participants in the economy, today political entrepreneurs have hijacked the economic system. The politically connected elites have used this downturn to carry out a massive wealth transfer from the people to the public and private sectors, fleecing the middle class for their own enrichment.  In their hypocrisy, the long ago small businesses that grew large because of free markets have helped chain these markets through lobbying for regulations and subsidies to shield themselves from competition and their own errors.

This has occurred most egregiously in the financial sector, where there has been a veritable free-for-all in legalized political plunder.  Those who understand the illusory nature of our monetary and symbiotically related political and financial systems have clamored to profit as much as possible before the house of cards falls, with the sanction of our supposed representatives.

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The Obama Administration, once again, is in need of a villain to serve as a political piñata, and it is now clear that Goldman Sachs has been selected to fill the villain void.

Careful observers will note that Team Obama  is never content to argue the potential benefits of their increasingly dodgy legislation (e.g. Stimulus, Healthcare, Cap and Trade).  Obama is no fool; he understands that his wealth redistribution schemes, his desire to grow government, to provide new kickbacks to Unions, and to crush small business growth are so antithetical to most Americans that passage and support require that a villain be found that can be blamed for any and all possible evils.

Already, we have seem Team Obama single out CEOs of automotive manufacturing corporations, financial industries, drug manufacturers, and health insurance companies for special, public floggings.  So, it should come as no surprise that, once again, President Obama has found a convenient, new villain, Goldman Sachs, to be publicly flogged and abused, to help drive support for the President’s complicated, new, financial regulations and bank oversight legislation.

Cynical minds must wonder at the timeliness of the SEC’s charges of fraud levied against Goldman Sachs . Consider the exhaustion of Congress after the recent healthcare reform struggle.  As a result, the legislation for financial reform, among other proposed reforms,  had been lagging and moving lethargically in the Senate.  With another election cycle approaching, legislators were finding it hard to rally interest in, yet another, bloated piece of legislation which did little to address the Wall Street abuses that initially caused the interest in the financial reform.

All 41 GOP senators were united, voicing strong language against a useless, toothless piece of legislation, and their objections began to garner support.  Even Obama apologist,  Paul Krugman, weighed in, saying that no reform was better than the lame legislation currently being considered.

But then, just as Financial reform was crawling on its belly, going off to die, the “crisis” with Goldman Sachs suddenly occurred.  How remarkably convenient!   Suddenly, the financial reform legislation has new life, and a pitchfork campaign to further demonize Goldman Sachs is in full gear.

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In modern day America, if you criticize the government you are now fair game to be called upon to explain yourself in front of it.  As Byron York reported in a recent Washington Examiner column, Rep. Henry Waxman sent letters to executives of major corporations such as Verizon and Caterpillar, requesting their testimony at hearings of the Subcomittee on Oversight and Investigations of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, chaired by none other than Rep. Bart Stupak, as each of the companies “announced that provisions in the [healthcare] law could adversely affect” their “ability to provide health insurance.”  AT&T for instance had disclosed in an SEC form that changes in the tax treatment of a Medicare subsidy would lead to a $1 billion write-off in earnings from the first quarter of 2010, and said it was considering changes to the health care benefits it provides for its employees.

That the legislation would negatively affect the earnings of these corporations and potentially hamper their ability to provide healthcare is for Rep. Waxman “a matter of concern,” as the “new law is designed to expand coverage and bring down costs.”

But I wonder, for whom are the negative effects of this legislation really a concern?  For Rep. Waxman and his fellow Democrats who already forced the egregious bill on the public?  For the private enterprises pummeled seemingly on a daily basis by these same politicians?  Perhaps for the American people faced with all kinds of economy-crippling unintended consequences as a result of the legislation, on top of the higher costs and worse healthcare they will ultimately receive?

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By Tom McGillvray, Cary Smith, and Gary MacLaren

As state legislators, we are used to the federal government treating the states like its red-headed stepchild. Washington dictates, and we are expected to follow. Whether it’s transportation, health care, or education, federal money comes with federal strings—and more often than not, the strings outlast the money and the states end up picking up the tab. And the current debate over health care reform is no exception.

We were willing to give President Obama the benefit of the doubt when he called for more discussion and debate. He certainly seemed willing to reach across the aisle to include his political opponents in his recent health care summit. But, given just how much of any health care reform bill is bound to fall on the shoulders of the states to implement and fund, he should have included us—a point which House Minority Leader John Boehner made in a letter to Rahm Emanuel.

But this new era of “bipartisanship” was short lived indeed. Just ask Congressional leaders like Jon Tester and Max Baucus if they support the so-called nuclear option of passing a health care bill Americans don’t want through a questionable legislative maneuver. If Congress does manage to pass the President’s health care reform proposal it is sure to include a mandate for individuals to purchase health insurance.

However, being forced to buy health insurance, or being forced to buy a particular health plan, just doesn’t sit right with independent-minded Montanans, or the rest of Americans judging by recent polls. This is why we plan to introduce the American Legislative Exchange Council’s (ALEC) Freedom of Choice in Health Care Act, a state constitutional amendment that protects individuals, employers, and health care providers from being forced to participate in any health care system and preserves individuals’ right to pay directly for care.

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The recent ruling of the House Ethics committee against Charlie Rangel has attracted a tremendous amount of attention and has put substantial pressure on House Democrats, especially Nancy Pelosi. The Atlantic’s Marc Ambinder even reported one Democratic strategist claiming that it “loses us the House.” The basics of the story are that Rangel and his staff failed to disclose a series of facts about corporate sponsored trips about Caribbean policy.

However, there’s another Caribbean scandal that could burn Democrats. In February, Pro Publica’s Marcus Stern reported that Congress and the Virgin Islands will give British alcohol conglomerate Diageo a $3b subsidy if they shift production from Puerto Rico to the US Virgin Islands. Previously, I had written about this issue, including Rangel’s threats against the Puerto Rican health system.

But now an ad, pictured here, is running in Montana asking Senate Finance Committee Chair Max Baucus why he is putting up with this. That’s turning up the heat a little.

Another rum producer told the Billings Gazette that the subsidy “is so large it’s twice the cost of production.”  That is, if Diageo spends $100 making rum in the Virgin Islands, they get $200 from the federal government. Then Diageo gets to sell the rum too! Diageo’s 2008 operating profit was £2.2 billion and 2009 sales were $20 billion.

Now, I understand — disagree but understand — US taxpayers giving struggling American farmers a subsidy to make ethanol. (rum is also ethanol) I don’t understand why US taxpayers are giving billions to an already highly profitable, publicly traded British booze company.

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Editors Note: This post is re-printed with permission from The Nation magazine, where it appears as the February 4, 2010 cover story. You can see a video interview with Professor Lessig about the piece here, or take action on issues raised in the piece by visiting FixCongressFirst.org.

We should remember what it felt like one year ago, as the ability to recall it emotionally will pass and it is an emotional memory as much as anything else. It was a moment rare in a democracy’s history. The feeling was palpable–to supporters and opponents alike–that something important had happened. America had elected, the young candidate promised, a transformational president. And wrapped in a campaign that had produced the biggest influx of new voters and small-dollar contributions in a generation, the claim seemed credible, almost intoxicating, and just in time.

Yet a year into the presidency of Barack Obama, it is already clear that this administration is an opportunity missed. Not because it is too conservative. Not because it is too liberal. But because it is too conventional. Obama has given up the rhetoric of his early campaign–a campaign that promised to “challenge the broken system in Washington” and to “fundamentally change the way Washington works.” Indeed, “fundamental change” is no longer even a hint.

Instead, we are now seeing the consequences of a decision made at the most vulnerable point of Obama’s campaign–just when it seemed that he might really have beaten the party’s presumed nominee. For at that moment, Obama handed the architecture of his new administration over to a team that thought what America needed most was another Bill Clinton. A team chosen by the brother of one of DC’s most powerful lobbyists, and a White House headed by the quintessential DC politician. A team that could envision nothing more than the ordinary politics of Washington–the kind of politics Obama had called “small.” A team whose imagination–politically–is tiny.

These tiny minds–brilliant though they may be in the conventional game of DC–have given up what distinguished Obama’s extraordinary campaign. Not the promise of healthcare reform or global warming legislation–Hillary Clinton had embraced both of those ideas, and every other substantive proposal that Obama advanced. Instead, the passion that Obama inspired grew from the recognition that something fundamental had gone wrong in the way our government functions, and his commitment to reform it.

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Here’s a concept I never thought we’d be exporting: governments taking over markets to act as the “competition.” 

News is Venezuelan brute Hugo Chavez has created a “new chain of government-run, cut-rate retail stores that will sell everything from food to cars to clothing from places such as China, Argentina and Bolivia,” according to Breitbart.com:

Chavez said the Comerso chain of stores will include “a network of subsidiaries” that will sell new vehicles directly imported from China and Argentina, “without capitalist intermediaries.”

“We’re going to defeat speculation. Private individuals in sales can still sell, but they’ll have to compete with us and with a people who is now fully aware,” Chavez said.

Gee, where have I heard that before?  Oh yeah!  That kind of sounds like the talking points from the Democrats government-option proposal.

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There is on YouTube an hilarious video, drawn from C-SPAN2, of Max Baucus on the Senate floor denouncing his Republican colleagues and even more emphatically the Republican leadership for squelching attempts at what he piously describes as bipartisan healthcare reform.

The senior Senator from Montana has obviously had a snootful; he is having considerable difficulty in managing the English language; and he is evidently as mad as a wet hen.

I do not blame Baucus – neither for the excessive imbibing nor for being angry. He is now in a pickle. He was the point man for the Democrats’ healthcare initiative in the Senate, and for perfectly predicable reasons his constituents out in Montana are none too happy with him.

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As many readers know by now, on Dec 5^th, Senator Max Baucus( D-MT) , the man entrusted with writing the govt. takeover bill of the American healthcare system, was forced to disclose the embarrassing fact that he had nominated his live-in girlfriend as the next U.S. Attorney for his home state of Montana. Senator Baucus did not disclose this fact out of some good-natured rationale; rather a political watchdog group had discovered the link, and the information was coming public, so he tried to get ahead of the story.

Understandably, the Republican Party among others are calling for an investigation into what seems to be clear conflict of interest in his dealings and a serious lapse of judgment. Considering his current girlfriend Melodee Hanes started working in Senator Baucus’ office as early as 2002, and the divorce to his current wife was not announced until early 2009, it would seem to be more than just a possible legal and political transgression he was making with Ms. Hanes. (more…)

With Democratic support coalescing around Sen. Max Baucus’s (D-Mt.) health care reform proposal, passage of a comprehensive overhaul now appears more likely than ever.  Opponents had their summer of protests.  But, Democrats have shown a renewed sense of energy since discrediting Sarah Palin’s “death panels” and Sen. Charles Grassley’s claim that ObamaCare would “pull the plug on grandma.” Still, while those charges may have been a little overwrought, there is plenty to be concerned about with the Democratic health reform effort.

As I explain in a new Competitive Enterprise Institute paper, “A Cure Worse than the Disease: Obama Care Won’t Cut Costs, But May Cut Quality,” most of the alleged cost-cutting measures in the Baucus bill merely shift costs from the federal government onto the states or private payers, without affecting long-term health care inflation.  The only measures that could reduce the annual rate of growth in health care costs would erect government barriers between patients and their doctors, while jeopardizing long-term medical innovation.

Skeptics have made hay arguing that the so-called Sustainable Growth Rate can’t be counted on to cut $245-billion in Medicare spending. But Senate Finance Committee negotiators have designed a Medicare Commission—what the White House previously called an Independent Medicare Advisory Commission—to make similar cuts in physician and hospital payment rates in a more opaque way.

In an April New York Times interview, President Obama suggested that such a group, working outside of “normal political channels,” should guide decisions regarding that “huge driver of cost…the chronically ill and those toward the end of their lives.”  That’s not exactly a death panel roving the country to pull the plug on innocent grandmas who’ve survived past their sell-by dates, but the effects could be equally pernicious.

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The first game in a long series of Obamacare battles is complete and the liberals lost Game 1 by 13 votes.  The Senate voted against a procedural motion to debate the so-called “Doc Fix” bill Wednesday.  Just as Manny Ramirez of the Los Angeles Dodgers has taken a beating in the media for leaving Game 5 of the National League Championship Series early to take a shower and hitting a mere .250 for the series, Senator Harry Reid has taken a beating in the press for marching the Democrat Caucus into a losing vote in the first battle over Obamacare.

A bipartisan coalition of senators concerned about spending stopped Senators Reid from bringing “Doc Fix” to a vote with 13 Democrats siding with the entire Republican Caucus.  Democrat Senators Evan Bayh of Indiana, Robert Byrd of West Virginia, Kent Conrad and Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, Russ Feingold and Herb Kohl of Wisconsin, Claire McCaskill of Missouri, Bill Nelson of Florida, Jon Tester of Montana, Mark Warner and Jim Webb of Virgina, Ron Wyden of Oregon and Independent Democrat Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut all opposed the motion to start debate on the bill.

The strategy to pass the “Doc Fix” outside of Obamacare in an attempt to buy off doctors groups’ support for Obamacare was documented in the media.  The Hill reported earlier this week that “the White House and Democratic leaders are offering doctors a deal:  They’ll freeze cuts in Medicare payments to doctors in exchange for doctors’ support of healthcare reform.”  Clearly the majority of senators would not go along with this strategy because the $247 billion price tag for the bill was too high to buy Obamacare. 

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Say what you will about the health reform bill introduced by Senator Max Baucus (D-MT), and the Left is having a field day attacking it, but at least it is a plan. President Obama has spent months talking about what he wants out of a bill, but when the chips are down and the polls are crashing, all we get from him is a two and half page outline.  Why would he offer such weak leadership?

One possible answer, for you cynics out there (and I may be one), is that he has zero leadership experience and this is simply his way of voting “present” one more time. But that’s too easy and too amateurish for someone so politically savvy.

The only logical answer is he doesn’t want to be pinned down on any specifics.  Sure, he’s talked about what he’d like in a bill, but he’s pretty much disavowed everything he’s said he supports too. He wants a public option one day, but doesn’t need one the next, then explains how it is vital to “real reform.” It literally can’t be both but that hasn’t stopped him from having it both ways.

So at this point, whenever anyone criticizes Obamacare the White House has the perfect defense, “There is no bill.” You can’t win a shadow boxing match, you can’t pick a lock with mashed potatoes, and you can’t pin any unpopular proposals on the President.

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