John Kerry recently said that the media shouldn’t devote one bit of time to airing Tea Party opinions, so I’m skeptical about his willingness to work with Tea Party members — should any end up on the “super committee” that is:

Sen. Harry Reid has made his picks for the deficit super committee whose task it is to recommend with $1.5 trillion in federal spending cuts over 10 years — Senators John Kerry of Massachusetts, Patty Murray of Washington State and Max Baucus of Montana.

Several news outlets reported Tuesday afternoon that they learned the names from Democratic sources. The committee will have 12 members, three more named by Sen. Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, and six named by House Republicans and Democrats.

Passing thought: Isn’t the term “super committee” an oxymoron, especially in this context?

In any case, good luck getting Patty Murray to budge on entitlements heading into 2012:

By choosing Murray, who chairs the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee that will be trying to defend the 23 Senate seats currently held by Democrats, Reid ensures that whatever recommendation his people agree to will be deeply informed by the Democrats’ desire to hold onto their slim majority.

Maybe the whole idea is to choose people who cannot or will not reach an agreement, because it’s becoming known that the automatic spending cut trigger that would supposedly kick in if a deal can’t be made may well only fire blanks.

Who will Mitch McConnell’s three Republican Senate picks be? If one of them is Scott Brown, I’m folding up the big tent and heading home already.

Meanwhile, Nancy Pelosi is calling for all Super Committee meetings to be open to the public, available for viewing online, and completely transparent. It seems like only yesterday the new Queen of Transparency was saying things like “we’ve got to pass it to find out what’s in it.” What’s she got up her sleeve?

Update: Mitch McConnell is reportedly very close to naming the Republican Senate members of the “super committee,” but it isn’t a good sign that he’s calling on them to be open to compromise before negotiations even start:

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

The “Tea Party downgrade” memo has been successfully circulated.

First up today is John Kerry. It’s some kind of hilarious to watch a big spending, pro bloated government liberal try to come across like a life-long hawk on cutting deficits, shrinking government and tackling the debt problem — if only his hands weren’t tied by those darned anti spending cuts Tea Partiers:

On NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday, the Massachusetts Democrat called Standard & Poor’s lowering of the nation’s credit rating from AAA to AA+ as “without question, tea party downgrade.”

“A minority of people in the House of Representative countered even the will of many Republicans in the United States Senate, who were prepared to do a bigger deal,” he said.

Kerry defended President Barack Obama’s repeated efforts to put a grand bargain deal on the table, which would have cut upwards of $4 trillion from the deficit over a decade, rather than the final debt ceiling deal that cuts between $2.1 to $2.4 trillion.

Also today, David Axelrod referred to it as a “Tea Party downgrade,” as did Howard Dean.

For the first two years of Obama’s presidency, the Democrats, including one John Kerry who now wants everybody to believe he’s become a reborn frugalitarian, had full control of the Senate and House. At that point the Democrats could have done anything, including cutting back spending to sane levels (pause for laughter), but instead they went on a wild spending binge and presided over the largest expansion of government since World War II.

As a result, Republicans from something known as the “Tea Party,” who believe that government spending should be held in check and don’t subscribe to a hackneyed “the more you spend the more you save” government spending philosophy, were elected. This helped the Republicans take back control of the House. Recently a deal was struck that raised the debt ceiling $2.4 trillion more, which included some spending cuts. The cuts will take place mostly “down the road” but naturally the extra money will be available to spend immediately. These Tea Partiers didn’t want to raise the debt ceiling, but rather demanded immediacy in tackling the problem of unsustainable spending. Last Tuesday the US saw the largest one-day debt bump in history. On Friday S&P downgraded US credit for the first time in history, saying it was because the government wasn’t addressing unsustainable spending aggressively enough — and it’s the Tea Party’s fault?

Maybe there’s a bluff that needs calling here. Tea Party members of Congress should propose a new round of cuts to match what John Kerry says were on the table just to get to the level of responsible spending these Democrats are trying to have everybody believe they’ve been after all these years. It would be a nice outreach in the spirit of bipartisanship.

Here’s Noel Sheppard at Newsbusters responding to a Clarence Page op-ed entitled “Is the Tea Party Over?”

The Tea Party nine months ago scored a huge victory assisting Republicans to the biggest midterm election landslide in decades.

The following month, before any of these Tea Partiers had even been sworn into Congress, the President and his Party caved into their wishes by extending the Bush tax cuts.

Last week, the President and his Party caved into Tea Party demands to not have tax increases as part of the debt ceiling agreement.

And it is the Tea Party that is in danger of “ultimate defeat?”

Maybe somewhat off topic but still semi-related to all this, here’s the opinion of somebody who runs a business. I particularly like the part about “inheriting a mess”:

One of the assumptions I disagree with however is that the president “can’t put together a plan.” Oh yes he can. We’ve seen the implementation of plenty of “plans” — very, very, very expensive plans.

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

Keep in mind as you read this that John Kerry is a fan of the Fairness Doctrine — it’s just that some sides of the argument deserve more fairness than others.

Kerry was on Morning Joe today and exposed himself as a hobbit-phobe of the highest order, so much so that he asked the media to stop allowing the Tea Party time to voice their opinions (though I’m assuming those who call them “terrorists” and “hostage takers” will still be allowed some exposure under guidelines set in the yet to be implemented Kerry Doctrine for Selective Impartiality).

Transcript from Real Clear Politics:

SEN. JOHN KERRY: “And I have to tell you, I say this to you politely. The media in America has a bigger responsibility than it’s exercising today. The media has got to begin to not give equal time or equal balance to an absolutely absurd notion just because somebody asserts it or simply because somebody says something which everybody knows is not factual.

“It doesn’t deserve the same credit as a legitimate idea about what you do. And the problem is everything is put into this tit-for-tat equal battle and America is losing any sense of what’s real, of who’s accountable, of who is not accountable, of who’s real, who isn’t, who’s serious, who isn’t?”

If saying things that aren’t factual led to no media coverage we’d never hear from John Kerry again.

Click on Thurston to go to the video:

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

Today a Senate bill will be introduced that would pay for the construction of a charging station for electric cars on the Senate side of Capitol Hill.

John Kerry fully supports members of Congress leading by example:

“We’re stuck in this crazy period where congressmen boast about bringing back plastic forks to the House cafeteria because they’re against recycling and composting,” Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) said in a statement. “That’s nuts. Instead, we should be taking steps like this so Washington leads by example. The clean energy innovation we need right now will shape our global competitiveness, so let’s do the small and big things that are needed to lead.”

Hopefully the Capitol Hill charging station is large enough to accommodate Mr. and Mrs. Lead-By-Example’s Gulfstream V and 42 foot “Scaramouche” that gets less than a mile per gallon.

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

***

John Kerry’s recycled government slush fund recipe
by Michelle Malkin
Creators Syndicate
Copyright 2011

Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., has once again earned his nickname: Thurston B. Howell III. He’s elite, effete and so hopelessly out of touch with reality that his latest solution to America’s fiscal profligacy is … more fiscal profligacy, of course, Lovey! On Tuesday, Kerry introduced a $10 billion infrastructure bank bill that would engineer yet another federal taxpayer boondoggle benefiting Big Labor and favored Big Business interests.

Kerry finagled support from Texas GOP Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, AFL-CIO brass knuckler-in-chief Richard Trumka, statist U.S. Chamber of Commerce head Tom Donohue, and the far-left Center for American Progress. Like spinning straw into gold, the Kerry coalition promises to leverage $10 billion in unidentified funds into $640 billion for crumbling roads and bridges.

This new recipe for expansive government is actually not a “new” idea. It’s an old recycled one borrowed from former corruptocrat Democratic Sen. Chris Dodd, who sponsored a bill to create a federally operated “infrastructure bank” in 2007. President Obama tried to get $5 billion in funding for one in his 2010 budget, and $4 billion is proposed for one in his 2011 budget.

Connecticut Democratic Rep. Rosa DeLauro is pushing a House version — and her lavish pipe-dream plans tell you all you need to know about what a disastrous, costly slush fund this thing would inevitably morph into (TARP redux plus stimulus redux plus Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac redux = abysmal failure redux):

“The program, which would make loans much like the World Bank, would finance projects with the potential to transform whole regions, or even the national economy, the way the interstate highway system and the first transcontinental railway once did,” The New York Times reported last fall. “In an interview, Ms. DeLauro said she would be ‘looking at a broader base,’ meaning the bank would finance not just roads and rails, but also telecommunications, water, drainage, green energy and other large-scale works.”

Green energy? Bright red flag. Like Stimulus I, which was initially intended to put infrastructure spending first but evolved into a multipurpose slush fund that put infrastructure last, the Kerry-Dodd-DeLauro-Obama “infrastructure bank” envisioned by progressives on Capitol Hill would be plundered to finance “green energy” and “other large-scale works” based on “social benefits” determined by a panel of cronies appointed by the president.

The social justice infrastructure “bank” would be anything but a bank in the normal sense of the word. Ron Utt at the Washington-based Heritage Foundation exposed the farce: “This bank would be capitalized by federal appropriations to leverage a greater volume of debt borrowed under the full faith and credit of the federal government. In turn the bank would use these funds to finance eligible infrastructure projects. While these proposed entities — and similar ones that exist in the states from earlier legislation — are described as ‘banks,’ they are no such thing.”

In other words: The infrastructure banks would borrow more money the government doesn’t have to dole out grants that wouldn’t be paid back and don’t require interest payments. All’s well that ends well in the land of make-believe austerity.

Unsurprisingly, Big Labor biggie Andy Stern, former head of the Service Employees International Union and an Obama confidante, is glomming on to the infrastructure bank idea to push a new overseas profit tax on multinational corporations. Brilliant: Impose new double-taxes on American businesses that no other country imposes, reduce competitiveness, induce companies to incorporate outside the U.S., and then put union bosses in charge of redistributing the $30 billion punitive windfall.

Supporters also compare the infrastructure bank plan to the U.S. Export-Import Bank — an idea that, as Washington Examiner reporter Tim Carney rightly notes, “epitomizes corporate welfare. It also is a prime example of unaccountability. The agency is independent of any cabinet department, and it hands out loans and loan guarantees basically at its own discretion. … (I)t’s kind of like Fannie Mae was, before its exposure became real and the taxpayers had to come in and bail it out. So, Kerry wants to create Fannie Pave, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce loves the idea: a bunch of free money that seems to cost nothing.”

Who pays? Ordinary taxpayers, nonunion contractors and businesses that don’t pander to the Obama White House.

Remember: In his first weeks in office, Obama signed union-friendly executive order 13502, which essentially forces contractors who bid on large-scale public construction projects worth $25 million or more to submit to union representation for their employees. The project labor agreement racket requires contractors to hand over exclusive bargaining control; to pay inflated, above-market wages and benefits; and to fork over dues money and pension funding to corrupt, cash-starved labor organizations.

Higher taxes. Union favoritism. Crony capitalism. Left-wing special interest wish list. We’re on the road to another irreparable taxpayer sinkhole. You can bank on that.

John Kerry has taken the handoff of the “every great idea has required government to succeed” baton from Joe Biden in the third leg of the “Defend Public Sector Bloat at Any Cost” relay and is lumbering for the finish line — and fails to properly credit Al Gore in the process:

Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) warned incoming Republicans Tuesday morning against cutting back the size of government so much that it cannot contribute to U.S. productivity.

“Do they want a government too limited to have invented the Internet, now a vital part of our commerce and communications?” he asked at one point.

Kerry also argued that the government’s bailout of U.S. auto companies was warranted, and said government-funded research programs should be spared.

“[Do they want a] government too small to give America’s auto industry and all its workers a second chance to fight for their survival? Taxes too low to invest in the research that creates jobs and industries and fills the Treasury with the revenue that educates our children, cures disease, and defends our country?” he said in remarks to the Center for American Progress.

“We gave you the Internet and this is the thanks we get over a measly $14 trillion debt and horrible economy?”

If Americans’ taxes are too low, they’ll have more money, and we all know that they can’t be trusted to spend it wisely.

Speaking of taxes, have Thurston and Lovey paid what they owe Massachusetts for the SS Rhode Island yet? How can the government contribute to productivity if Kerry’s holding out on everybody?

Update: Kerry on the same day: Congressional gridlock has left people “somehow bitter.”

(h/t Weasel Zippers)

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

John Kerry is throwing a self-congratulatory party/campaign fundraiser (not necessarily in that order) at Boston Symphony Hall, and the Massachusetts Senator requests the honour of your presents.

I’ll go ahead and take a wild guess that one of the traits celebrated on the evening of December 13th will be Kerry’s unshakable humility:

Kerry isn’t up for re-election for four years, but it’s never too early to raise some cash and pat himself on the back for nothing more than being the closest thing to a Kennedy remaining in the US Congress:

The state’s senior senator — recently ranked the nation’s richest with $2.7 million in his campaign coffers and an estimated net worth of $239 million — is asking fellow Democrats to open their wallets yet again after they dug deep during a hard-fought election year. His extravaganza at the Boston Symphony — where tickets range from $75 to $4,800 — could be a tough sell as the party’s rank-and-file struggles through another Christmas in a tough economy.

“For Democrats, there’s a bit of fatigue — people have been giving aggressively,” said Democratic consultant Scott M. Ferson, president of the Liberty Square Group. “But we need John Kerry now more than ever. He’s one of the few (Massachusetts) Democrats left in a leadership position.”

Kerry put up $85,000 in campaign cash to rent the 2,000-seat Boston Symphony, where Boston Pops maestro Keith Lockhart, singer James Taylor and actor-director Ben Affleck are expected to appear.

In the lobby lot after the party, Thurston and Lovey will be holding a gin-soaked raisin bake sale, with proceeds benefitting the Kerry/Heinz Fund for unfairly persecuted luxury tax avoiders.

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

I realize we’re in a period of know-nothingism and us inattentive dopes out here in Kornfield Kounty just gave an old-school beatdown to John Kerry’s liberal vision for an America everyone has to live in except the elite hypocrites who designed it, but is it too much to ask that he let go of the bitterness long enough to crack open his wife’s checkbook and settle a tax debt he promised to pay over three months ago?

It’s been more than three months since we first told you about Capt. John Kerry’s high-seas tax dodge on his new $7 million yacht, Isabel, and the town of Nantucket still doesn’t have a check from the senior senator!

You may recall that Kerry lowered the flag and surrendered in July, agreeing to pony up more than $400,000 to cover state taxes on the toney tub. Mr. Teresa Heinz broke out the checkbook four days after the Track set off a furious tempest with our report that he had purchased the 76-foot floating palace and ported her in Rhode Island, thus depriving the commonwealth of its pound of flesh.
[...]
Kerry’s flack Jodi Seth told us the senator hasn’t paid because he hasn’t received a bill.

Back in July it didn’t sound as if Kerry was going to wait to be billed:

“We’ve reached out to the Massachusetts Department of Revenue and made clear that, whether owed or not, we intend to pay the equivalent taxes as if the boat’s home port were currently in Massachusetts,” Kerry said. “That payment is being made promptly.”

That’s using the definition of “Prompt” from the political, not standard, dictionary:

prompt   
–adjective
1. A promise done, performed, delivered, etc., at once or without delay only after somebody calls you on it a second or maybe third time.
2. see #1.

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

John Kerry’s list of significant epochs in world history:

–Upper Cambrian
–Lower Permian
–Middle Jurassic
–Paleocene
–Gigolocene
–Know Nothing (Late 2010-?)

Thurston Heinz III’s swift boat has sprung a leak in the deep end again. Strange — just a couple of years ago the country was brilliant, progressive and in a period of mass awakening, and less that 24 months later that same nation is ignorant and blind to the facts.

Could it be that some of the hypnotized hopeful who believed harmonic convergence would be free and that clean air, world peace, free gas and kickass careers had finally arrived in the form of catch-phrases and campaign slogans eventually awakened to the fact that they were duped? Nah, it’s much easier just to blame talk radio for dumbing down America:

With his party braced for defeats in the midterm elections, the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee told the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce that a Republican machine — fueled by talk show hosts such as Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck — has undermined progress and misled the public into believing Democrats created the country’s current economic problems.
[...]
“It’s absurd. We’ve lost our minds,” said a clearly exasperated Kerry. “We’re in a period of know-nothingism in the country, where truth and science and facts don’t weigh in. It’s all short-order, lowest common denominator, cheap-seat politics.”

The “enthusiasm gap” talk among Democrats means the left thinks the problem isn’t as much that Republicans are going to outnumber Democrats at the polls next week, but that many Democrats who showed up two years ago are going to sit this one out. It’s doubtful that Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck are the ones who have convinced these particular left-leaning voters to stay home. John Kerry is as adept at avoiding reality as he is at avoiding Massachusetts luxury taxes.

Kerry’s comments about the “Big Dig” are as priceless as the Big Dig itself. To paraphrase Thurston, the Big Dig “cost way too much and was poorly managed, and as a result other cities will want to replicate it.” Kerry must be on the payroll to get Tea Parties targeted to local governments.

Kerry also blamed Republicans for the country’s woes, pointing out, for example, that the $700 billion TARP bailout was requested by President Bush. This particular “blame Republicans” point might have been a little more effective if Kerry himself hadn’t voted yes on passing TARP. But since this is the period of “know nothingism,” I imagine Kerry’s counting on us not knowing that.

(h/t Jammie Wearing Fool)

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

John Kerry has a sinking feeling about the election in November, so he’s trying a new tactic to sway people to vote Democrat: Insulting their intelligence:

A testy U.S. Sen. John F. Kerry yesterday blamed clueless voters with short attention spans for the uphill battle beleaguered Democrats are facing against Republicans across the nation.

“We have an electorate that doesn’t always pay that much attention to what’s going on so people are influenced by a simple slogan rather than the facts or the truth or what’s happening,” Kerry told reporters after touring the Boston Medical Center yesterday.

Every coffin needs a nail, so, as he’s done many times in the past, John Kerry has answered this call to service. Uninformed moronic serfs will supply the hammer on November 2nd.

If this doesn’t bump up Dem poll numbers, Kerry’s going to start riffing with the “voters mommas are so fat…” jokes to see if that helps.

Have Thurston & Lovey written Massachusetts a check yet for the Bay State luxury taxes they avoided on the SS Rhode Island? (Wait, I’m not supposed to remember that because of my short attention span and all, so nevermind)

Update: dutt80 via Twitter: Didn’t he say the same about soldiers?

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

Several reporters caught up to John Kerry and asked him about keeping his newest yacht in Rhode Island instead of Massachusetts — a move that just by happenstance allows Thurston and Lovey to avoid a $500,000 Bay State luxury tax.

Kerry’s claim is that the boat is in Rhode Island for repair work. Everybody who’s ever been to Nantucket, Martha’s Vineyard, Cape Cod and the general Boston area knows there’s a tremendous shortage of businesses that perform boat repair:

For the record, Kerry shouldn’t just fess up and pay the extra Massachusetts tax. Kerry should admit that the exorbitantly high taxation he helps promote chases people away to other states — states bright enough to realize that lower taxes collected from more taxpayers, including wealthy out-of-staters like John Kerry who are running from the results of their own policies — is a boon to private businesses not to mention the government coffers.

If Massachusetts luxury taxes were, say, half of what they are, not only would the state have a quarter-million or so in luxury tax money, but an in-state company would be performing the alleged repair work on Kerry’s boat and paying taxes on that income to Massachusetts instead of Rhode Island.

John Kerry is swift-boating his own state.

(h/t Dittos Rush)

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

John Kerry, who fights on behalf of the little people on whose backs the rich get richer by avoiding taxes most Americans can’t afford to dodge, is seeing to it that the little people aren’t burdened by an extra $500k in his home state’s tax coffers.

From the Boston Herald:

Sen. John Kerry, who has repeatedly voted to raise taxes while in Congress, dodged a whopping six-figure state tax bill on his new multimillion-dollar yacht by mooring her in Newport, R.I.

Isabel – Kerry’s luxe, 76-foot New Zealand-built Friendship sloop with an Edwardian-style, glossy varnished teak interior, two VIP main cabins and a pilothouse fitted with a wet bar and cold wine storage – was designed by Rhode Island boat designer Ted Fontaine.

But instead of berthing the vessel in Nantucket, where the senator summers with the missus, Teresa Heinz, Isabel’s hailing port is listed as “Newport” on her stern.

Could the reason be that the Ocean State repealed its Boat Sales and Use Tax back in 1993, making the tiny state to the south a haven – like the Cayman Islands, Bermuda and Nassau – for tax-skirting luxury yacht owners?

Cash-strapped Massachusetts still collects a 6.25 percent sales tax and an annual excise tax on yachts. Sources say Isabel sold for something in the neighborhood of $7 million, meaning Kerry saved approximately $437,500 in sales tax and an annual excise tax of about $70,000.

John Kerry said this in February of 2009:

If you put a tax cut into the hands of a business or family, there’s no guarantee that they’re going to invest that or invest it in America.

The $7 million dollar yacht on which the Kerrys avoided a heavy “sails tax” hit in their home state was constructed in New Zealand, so Kerry really went out of his way to prove himself correct.

Update: Just because it fits so well, here’s Rep. Alan Grayson mocking the GOP for their “yachts and art collections.” Um, yeah, darn those Republicans and their yachts.

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

Patrick Kennedy’s going to need a few more vodka shots after delivering another substance abuse prevention speech when he reads this:

The Obama administration gave the go-ahead today to America’s first offshore windfarm in the Nantucket Sound, overcoming nearly a decade of resistance from the Kennedy clan and other famous denizens of the favourite holiday destination of America’s liberal elite.
[...]
The Cape Wind project will comprise 130 turbines that are expected to generate 75% of the electricity for Cape Cod and nearby islands like Martha’s Vineyard. It could trigger a major expansion in America’s use of wind power, which currently generates only 2% of supply.
[...]
The Cape Wind project had also encountered strong local opposition, led by the late Ted Kennedy, who used to sail in the Nantucket Sound. The solid bloc of opposition from the Kennedys – even from the environmentalist Robert Kennedy Jr – made Cape Wind a tricky project for Democrats. Even John Kerry, the Massachusetts senator, leading the push for climate and energy legislation in the Senate, hesitated to come out for the project.

The Kennedy family’s concern for the pristine nature of the Massachusetts-area waters is irony at its finest. Over the years, assorted Kennedy modes of transportation have put so much oil and debris in the Sound that would have – if their last name wasn’t “Kennedy” – earned the family a handsome fine from the Environmental Protection Agency and an honorary Exxon Valdez crew jacket.

The Kennedys, the Kerrys and all the other “green” rich liberal hypocrites had a chance to set an example by “taking one for the team” on the “clean energy” idea they shove down everybody else’s throat. Instead they fought it, proving themselves the hypocrites we all knew they were — and now they get to look at the fruits of their labor anyway. I love the smell of liberal “fail” in the morning — or afternoon as it were.

The long and short of it is that the “environmentalist” left sure doesn’t act as if they believe their rhetoric about the earth warming quickly to the point of the extinction of mankind unless we do something about clean energy now. If we’re all really going to die in ten years if nothing is done, would Robert Kennedy, Jr. be arguing about the view from his living room? (don’t answer that)

As far as the turbines go, I think they’ll spruce up the Kennedy compound a bit — here’s an artist’s rendition of how it’ll look, minus the drunk nephews hopping around outside with their pants around their ankles chasing the catering waitresses (known to the locals as the “Hyannisport potato sack races”):

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The question isn’t why Sarah Palin is helping John McCain. The question is: What are you doing to stop him from cementing his Big Government Republican legacy?

***

Conservatives: Beware of McCain Regression Syndrome
by Michelle Malkin
Creators Syndicate
Copyright 2010

Pay attention: In the afterglow of the Massachusetts Miracle, there are flickers of peril for The Right. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but like Paul Revere’s midnight-message, consider this warning “a cry of defiance, and not of fear.” Conservatives have worked hard over the past year to rebuild after Big Government Republican John McCain’s defeat. But McCain isn’t going gently into that good night.

Red Flag Number One: A reader from Arizona informed me the day after the Bay State Bombshell that he had received a robo-call from Massachusetts GOP Sen.-elect Scott Brown. “He basically wanted me to vote for John McCain in November,” the reader said in his description of the automated campaign call supporting the four-term Sen. McCain’s re-election bid. “No wonder [Brown] said he hadn’t had any sleep…he was busy recording phone messages!”

Red Flag Number Two: Also in the wake of the Massachusetts special election, the nation’s most popular conservative political figure, Sarah Palin, announced she would be campaigning for her former running mate in Arizona in March. Palin told Facebook followers that she’s going to “ride the tide with commonsense candidates” and help “heroes and statesmen” like McCain. Facing mounting conservative opposition in his home state and polls showing him virtually tied with possible GOP challenger and former Rep. J.D. Hayworth, McCain welcomed the boost: “Sarah energized our nation and remains a leading voice in the Republican Party.”

Savor the irony: After a career spent bashing the right flank of the party, Sen. McCain is now clinging to its coattails to save his incumbent hide.

And pay attention to the hidden, more troubling irony: While he runs to the right to protect his seat, McCain’s political machine is working across the country to install liberal and establishment Republicans to secure his legacy.

In Florida, McCain’s Country First Political Action Committee is supporting the Senate bid of fellow illegal alien amnesty supporter and global warming alarmist, GOP Gov. Charlie Crist, whose crucial 2008 primary endorsement rescued McCain from disaster. Grass-roots conservatives support former GOP statehouse leader Marco Rubio – who is hitting Crist hard for lying to voters about his embrace of President Obama’s pork-laden, fraud-ridden stimulus package.

In Colorado, McCain and his meddlers infuriated the state party by anointing former lieutenant governor Jane Norton to challenge endangered Democrat Sen. Michael Bennet. She’s a milquetoast public official who has served on a lot of task forces and GOP clubs – and who happens to be the sister-in-law of big Beltway insider Charlie Black. An estimated 40 percent of her coffers are filled with out-of-state money (and much of that is flowing from the Beltway).

The mini-McCain of Colorado claims to oppose “special interests,” but has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars from D.C. lobbyists at McCain’s behest – stifling the candidacy of strong conservative rivals led by grass-roots-supported Weld County District Attorney Ken Buck, an amnesty opponent whose aggressive illegal immigration prosecutions have earned him the rage of the far Left and big business Right. A recent Rasmussen poll showed Buck and another GOP candidate Tom Wiens beating Bennet – despite the huge cash and crony advantage of front-runner and blank-slate Jane.

In California, McCain’s PAC supports former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina – a celebrity name with deep pockets of her own, massive media exposure, and a checkered business record. Fiorina served as the economic adviser to McCain, who supported the $700 billion TARP bailout, the $25 billion auto bailout, a $300 billion mortgage bailout, and the first $85 billion AIG bailout. As GOP rival and grass-roots-supported Chuck DeVore’s camp notes, Fiorina has also vacillated publicly over the Obama stimulus. With taxpayer “friends” like this, who needs Democrats?

With all due respect to McCain’s past noble war service, it’s time to head to the pasture. As the Supreme Court ruled on Thursday, he was wrong on the constitutionality of the free-speech-stifling McCain-Feingold campaign finance regulations. He was wrong to side with the junk-science global warming activists in pushing onerous carbon caps on America. He was on the wrong side of every Chicken Little-driven bailout. He was wrong in opposing enhanced CIA interrogation methods that have saved countless American lives and averted jihadi plots. And he was spectacularly wrong in teaming with the open-borders lobby to push a dangerous illegal alien amnesty.

Tea Party activists are rightly outraged by Sarah Palin’s decision to campaign for McCain, whose entrenched incumbency and progressive views are anathema to the movement. At least she has an excuse: She’s caught between a loyalty rock and a partisan hard place. The conservative base has no such obligations – and it is imperative that they get in the game (as they did in Massachusetts) before it’s too late. The movement to restore limited government in Washington has come too far, against all odds, to succumb to McCain Regression Syndrome now.

So, who does a beleaguered Democrat Senatorial candidate turn to when her elitist, diffident, listless, aloof campaign is collapsing?

Why, she goes to one of the Senate’s most elitist, diffident, listless, aloof members to connect with the little people…by smearing them all as violent Barbarians.

Just when you think Martha Antoinette Coakley and her “helpers” can’t do any worse on the hustings, they do. Reporting for duty:

“I’m no stranger to hard fought campaigns, but what we’ve seen in the past few days is way over the line and reminiscent of the dangerous atmosphere of Sarah Palin’s 2008 campaign rallies. This is not how democracy works in Massachusetts,” Kerry said this afternoon in a statement.

“Scott Brown needs to speak up and get his out of state tea party supporters under control. In Massachusetts, we fight hard and win elections on the issues and on our differences, not with bullying and threats,” Kerry said.

Or else, what, Sen. Kerry?

We know who the real bullies and threat-mongers are:

Photoshop credit: American Power

***

Fun Kerry flashback on his Boston Marathon dissembling: Here.

Fun Kerry flashback on his dainty cheesesteak-eating techniques: Here.