Fauxcahontas Could Face An Unexpected Primary Challenge

This just isn't working at all the way Elizabeth Warren and the Massachusetts Democrat Party planned it. She was supposed to have an unobstructed run to the general election, but her fork-ed tongue has made her an embarrassment (from the Boston Herald):

Could there be mutiny occurring within the Massachusetts Democratic Party? The sentiment of discontent is not happening on John “Anchors Aweigh” Kerry’s yacht, Isabella. It is within the rank and file.

Next weekend, commonwealth Democrats are holding their annual state convention. It will be a gathering of moonbats wearing Birkenstocks and socks, union payroll patriots and limousine liberals. Although Fauxcahontas Elizabeth Warren is their anointed candidate to take on U.S. Sen. Scott Brown, state Democratic Party Chairman John Walsh is predicting that Marisa DeFranco, a Boston immigration lawyer with a mere 1200 Facebook friends, is going to get 15 percent of the delegates, allowing her to be on the September ballot. That means Sitting Duck Warren will have to face a primary.

This is contrary to the strategy deployed last fall when Democratic challengers such as Mayor Setti Warren and Alan Khazei had a mysterious change of heart and thus quickly dropped out of the race. Khazei has to be kicking himself around the block for quitting the race so early and clearly missing the Native American bundler in his opposition research.

By allowing DeFranco on the ballot, does that mean Democrats think that Lieawatha is a flawed candidate? Have Democratic leaders lost control of their party? Or is this their backup plan in case October’s hot Halloween costume is a Democratic Senate candidate, complete with Indian headdress?

Tossing Warren in the primary would be kind of like the Tea Party uprisings that have knocked off veteran RINOs like Dick Luger. However, this unknown immigration lawyer would get absolutely stomped in the general election.

Scott Brown must live right because he's had two weak opponents.

Political Billboard of the Day

This is great, from the recall election in Wisconsin.  Falk and Barrett are running for the Dem nomination to see who will get to lose to Gov. Scott Walker.

And Walker isn't going into this race unarmed:

Gov. Scott Walker raised an unprecedented $13 million since mid-January — an unheard of figure in races for governor.

The money he has raised in the last three months is more than the $12 million he raised in 2011, which was itself a record at the time. …

His fundraising dwarfs what his chief Democratic rivals have raised this year. So far this year, Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk raised $1 million and Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett raised $750,000.

Unemployment in Wisconsin has dropped from 7.6% to 6.8% in the last year since Walker took office. Suck on that, Dems.

Elizabeth Warren, Pretendian

Some time back I created the word "Pretendian" to describe people who claim Native American heritage but can't prove it.  Looks like Massachusetts Democrat and challenger to Sen. Scott Brown fits the description:

Elizabeth Warren said yesterday she is “proud” of her Native American heritage and indicated she had no problem with Harvard Law School using her roots to claim her as a diversity hire, but her campaign still could not produce documents proving her lineage.

“I am very proud of my Native American heritage, thank you,” said Warren when asked if she disapproved of the school counting her as a minority woman on the faculty. “These are my family stories ... This is our lives and I am very proud of that.”

The Herald reported yesterday that Harvard Law School officials listed Warren as Native American in the ’90s, when the school was under fierce fire for their faculty’s lack of diversity.

Warren, who will likely face off with U.S. Sen. Scott Brown this fall, said she didn’t know the school has counted her as a minority faculty member until “I read it on the front page of the Herald.”

Her campaign said yesterday it is still working to produce documents proving that the 62-year-old Oklahoma native, whose maiden name is Herring, is a descendent of the Delaware and Cherokee tribes.

They said the Delaware Tribe that Warren is from had become assimilated, and because of that there is lax record-keeping.

Warren, who said she was told through family lore that her maternal parents were from the Cherokee and Delaware tribes, said she could not “recall” ever listing her Native American background when applying for college or a job.

Chris Miller, a secretary with the Delaware Tribe in Oklahoma, said he could not find Elizabeth Herring or Elizabeth Warren listed in the tribe’s official records.

I guess if she loses to Brown she can always open one of those Indian casinos.

Scott Brown Leading in Massachusetts

Republican (and sometimes RINO) Scott Brown, who famously won Ted Kennedy's old Senate seat, is leading against the Democrat most likely to face him in November:

Sen. Scott Brown, R-Mass., leads Democratic challenger Elizabeth Warren by nine points, riding a dominant advantage among independent voters, according to a Suffolk University/WHDH-TV poll released Thursday night.

Brown carries 49 percent to Warren's 40 percent of the overall vote, and laps her among the independent voters who comprise a majority of the Massachusetts electorate, 60 percent to 28 percent.

The poll, taken as Brown has been shelled by Democrats for co-sponsoring legislation permitting employers to restrict access to contraception coverage on religious grounds, is a departure from other recent surveys that have shown Warren with a small lead.

Warren, the consumer advocate President Obama passed over to helm the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau she helped design, has quickly consolidated support among Massachusetts Democrats, overcoming concerns that voters and the state's political establishment would resist a candidate born in Oklahoma and encouraged to run by Senate Democrats in Washington.

Brown is a favorite of independents because he's more likely to govern right down the middle than to the right where conservatives hoped he'd be. Warren, on the other hand, is a lefty ideologue and as more people come to know how far left she is, the less support she'll have among independents.  If you're looking to elect a moderate voice, she's definitely not it.

Sen. Scott Brown Runs and Hides Under Obama's Skirt

Sen. Scott Brown, the Massachusetts Republican Senator who won Teddy Kennedy's old seat with significant support from the Tea Party, is now running to Obama to try and save his job:

In an attempt to bolster his status as an "independent thinker" in an appearance on Fox 25 Morning News, Sen. Scott Brown, R-Mass., highlighted the legislation that he and President Obama have agreed on.

The sole Republican member of Congress from Massachusetts, Brown faces a tough battle with Democratic opponent Elizabeth Warren.

"The president just signed into law my 3 percent withholding bill, the Hire a Hero veterans bill, the Arlington Cemetery bill," he told Fox. "I mean, I could go on and on and on."

Brown, who has been supporting left-leaning policies as of late, also referred to himself as the most bipartisan senator in Congress.

The GOP can lose that seat and still win the Senate back, and given Brown's aversion to all things conservative, that might not be a bad thing.

Political Headline of the Day

From Hot Air:

Elizabeth Warren: I didn’t take my clothes off to pay for school like Scott Brown did; Scott Brown: “Thank God”

Give that one to Brown.

Tea Party Won't Back Brown in Massachusetts in 2012

Scott Brown's big win in Massachusetts last year, in which he took the so-called "Ted Kennedy" seat, may not happen again:

In 2010, he was the tea party poster boy. In 2012, Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown may not get so much as a nod of acknowledgement from tea party groups.

Brown shocked the country back in 2010 when he beat his Democratic opponent, Martha Coakley, and was elected to the state’s Senate seat vacated by the late Teddy Kennedy. The Tea Party Express paid to run pro-Brown ads. FreedomWorks activists campaigned for him.

In short, Scott Brown was the tea party movement’s first electoral victory. But now that he’s up for re-election for a full six-year term in 2012, tea party activists tell The Daily Caller they’re not going to bother putting together the same operation that swept him into office the first time.

That’s not to say tea partiers will not vote for Brown, or even put up much of an effort to oppose him since a serious primary challenger has yet to be found. The movement has matured into realizing that sometimes the “least of two evils” — as one activist put it — is necessary in a traditionally blue state like Massachusetts.

But don’t expect tea partiers to be happy about it.

“Scott Brown has disappointed us a few times,” Carlos Hernandez, state coordinator for the Tea Party Patriots, told TheDC. “So are we going to go out there and hold signs for him everyday? I don’t think so.”

As moderate and even liberal on some issues Scott Brown is, he's still way better than extreme leftist Elizabeth Warren who will be challenging him. She comes from the "all money belongs to the government and you should be happy with what we let you keep" crowd. That woman is truly dangerous to freedom.

Sen. Scott Brown: I'm Not in the Tea Party

This isn't surprising, but I think Brown is making a tactical error.  I'll explain after this:

The surprise victory of Senator Scott Brown in Massachusetts was thought of at the time as one of the Tea Party’s first big victories. But as he prepares for a tough reelection fight in one of the country’s bluest states, Brown tells USA Today that he is not a Tea Partier.

“No, I am a Republican from Massachusetts,” Brown told the paper when asked if he was a member of the Tea Party. He also referred to himself as a “Scott Brown Republican” concerned primarily with fiscal issues.

“I’m somebody who keeps an open mind on all the other issues,” Brown said before adding: “I’m not a social crusader.”

The paper notes that, in his new book, Brown refers to the Tea Party just once. “I think a lot of different entities played big roles,” he said when asked about the Tea Party’s contribution to his victory. “There’s no one particular group that did more than the others.”

Brown’s poll numbers in Massachusetts are solid. A recent survey conducted by Public Policy Polling showed that his approval rating is 53 percent, against only 29 percent disapproving of the Senator.

It's no surprise that Brown doesn't follow the Tea Party line on a number of issues, and that's okay. We're lucky to get any kind of Republican out of Massachusetts.

However, when he seems to dismiss their influence in helping his election he makes a tactical error in that he essentially tells the Tea Party he's going to go it on his own. The Tea Party did a lot to get him elected, and could do a lot to help his re-election even if he doesn't embrace all their issues. But by minimizing their contribution to his success the Tea Party will be content to save their money for other races.

O'Donnell Down 11 in First Poll

As expected Christine O'Donnell is trailing the "bearded Marxist" in Delaware in the first Rasmussen Poll:

Democrat Chris Coons holds a double-digit lead over Republican hopeful Christine O’Donnell in the first Rasmussen Reports post-primary survey of the U.S. Senate race in Delaware.

Coons earns 53% of the vote to O’Donnell’s 42%, with leaners included. One percent (1%) prefer some other candidate, and four percent (4%) are undecided.

The poll also shows that independents prefer O'Donnell by eight points.  Independents will play a big role in the November elections nationwide.

Let's not forget that two weeks before the Massachusetts special election Scott Brown was down 9 points. He's now SENATOR Scott Brown.  Delaware is still very winnable.

Dems Can't Find a Candidate in Massachusetts That Isn't Named Kennedy

How weak must the Dem field in Massachusetts be if the only candidate they can find to challenge Scott Brown is a dead Kennedy's wife?

Nearly one year after Edward M. Kennedy's death, prominent Democrats in Washington and Massachusetts are promoting his widow as the party's best shot at winning back the Senate seat he held for nearly five decades.

Though she has seemed to bat down the idea of challenging Sen. Scott Brown (R) in 2012, Victoria Reggie Kennedy has been in some ways acting the part of a candidate. She has raised her public profile by campaigning for other politicians and appearing at events across the country.

The prospect of her candidacy is fast becoming a source of family tension, according to several Kennedy intimates. Some relatives fear that a campaign against Brown -- a popular figure even in liberal Massachusetts -- would distract Kennedy from promoting her late husband's legacy, they said.

If there's one thing they ought to hope for it's something to distract people from Ted Kennedy's legacy.

The Most Popular Politician in Massachusetts is a Republican

John Kerry must be feeling a little blue today:

US Senator Scott Brown, who only months ago was a little-known figure even within the tiny band of Republicans in the state Senate, not only catapulted to national stature with his upset US Senate victory, but is today the most popular officeholder in Massachusetts, according to a Boston Globe poll.

I hope Brown realizes that the reason he is so popular is because he doesn't vote like John Kerry. If he forgets that he'll be in trouble.

Sen. Brown Hits The Dems on Obamacare

Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) took some shots at the Dems over their insistence on cramming down the Obamacare bill:

Newly arrived Republican Sen. Scott Brown of Massachusetts accused President Barack Obama and Democrats on Saturday of a "bitter, destructive and endless" drive to pass health overhaul legislation that Brown warned would be disastrous.

"An entire year has gone to waste," Brown said in the weekly GOP radio and Internet address. "Millions of Americans have lost their jobs, and many more jobs are in danger. Even now, the president still hasn't gotten the message.

"Somehow, the greater the public opposition to the health care bill, the more determined they seem to force it on us anyway."

Brown himself can claim responsibility for the Democrats' failure to pass health overhaul legislation to date. They were on the verge of doing so before Brown claimed the late Edward M. Kennedy's Senate seat in a special election upset in January, depriving Democrats of their filibuster-proof supermajority and throwing the health care effort into limbo....

Brown, as a state senator in Massachusetts, voted in favor of the universal-coverage law in that state. The bill he supported in Massachusetts has a number of features in common with the Democrats' legislation, including a mandate for nearly everyone to be covered.

But he campaigned on a promise to be the Republicans' crucial 41st vote against Obama's health plan, and said Saturday that his victory amounted to a message from voters that Washington should "get its priorities right."

"We need to drop this whole scheme of federally controlled health care, start over, and work together on real reforms at the state level that will contain costs and won't leave America trillions of dollars deeper in debt," Brown said.

Just think, had Ted Kennedy retired when it was clear his health was in serious decline chances are Scott Brown would never have ended up in his Senate seat. However, Kennedy delayed until he finally passed away and by that time the tide had already turned against Kennedy's signature issue, thus paving the way for a Republican to win Kennedy's seat. To some extent Kennedy is the reason Obamacare hasn't passed yet.

Going From Wino to RINO?

Some folks were really exercised about Scott Brown's decision to join several other Republicans and the Democrats in voting to invoke cloture on Harry Reid's $15 billion jobs bill. The title of his post represents one of the criticisms being offered by some of those angry Republicans.

I was not that bothered, and neither is Michael Graham who writes this in the Boston Herald:

Brown ran as the 41st vote against Obamacare, and he won going away. He ran against Washington's arrogance toward the voters and its cluelessness about us and our priorities.

As a result, Obamacare is all but dead, and the only vehicle left is the reconciliation trick that, if Congress used it, would prove to swing voters that liberal arrogance has no limits. It would be a Pyrrhic victory at best.

All this came from electing Scott Brown, and I'm supposed to declare him apostate over a lousy $15 billion? I know that sounds like a lot of money, but let me put that in perspective.

Obama's health care plan is likely to cost at least $1.5 trillion, and perhaps much more. If Brown casts the one vote that stops the disaster in its tracks, he could cast that same $15 billion vote 150 more times, and we'd still be even.

That's how much Scott Brown is worth, in real dollars.

Brown is a Northeastern Republican - he's not always going to agree with the most conservative of GOP senators on every issue. As long as he's with us on the big issues, and Obamacare right now is the biggest, then the effort put into his election was well worth it.

And remember, had Martha Coakley won she wouldn't be voting with the GOP on ANYTHING.

Scott Brown Joins in Stopping GOP Filibuster

I think we all knew this would happen from time to time:

The election of Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) energized Republicans as it ensured that he would give them a critical 41st vote to help them block Democrats and filibuster key legislation.

So in the second vote of his Senate career, Brown promptly voted to help Democrats cut off a Republican filibuster of a $15 billion jobs bill engineered by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV).

"It's not a perfect bill," Brown said shortly after voting. "I was comfortable with that vote."

Brown defended his vote, saying he was concerned about putting people back to work.

"Anytime you can make a small step, it's still a step," said Brown.

Brown joined Sens. Olympia Snowe (R-ME), Susan Collins (R-ME), George Voinovich (R-OH) and Kit Bond (R-Mo.) in voting with Democrats to quash the GOP filibuster.

I can't get too exercised about this, especially since there were so many GOP Senators voting with Brown and the Dems. I don't expect him to vote straight down the line with Mitch McConnell all the time. He is, after all, from Massachusetts.

Romney: Obama Has Failed

Mitt Romney is in the early stages of another presidential run and made his pitch to the conservatives at CPAC:

Republican Mitt Romney blistered President Barack Obama for a squandered first year of policy failures and broken promises on Thursday, informally auditioning before a key part of the GOP base for the chance to challenge the Democrat in 2012.

"President Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and their team have failed the American people, and that is why their majority will be out the door," Romney told a gathering of conservatives, a certain critical constituency in the upcoming Republican primary fight.

"When it comes to pinning blame, pin the tail on the donkeys," Romney quipped -- and this partisan crowd ate it up.

Conservatives attending the annual Conservative Political Action Conference also heartily cheered at several other points during Romney's speech. And they went wild when newly elected Sen. Scott Brown, R-Mass., made a surprise appearance to introduce Romney, whose advisers helped orchestrate Brown's upset victory last month.

"He was the only one behind pushing me along to try to make a difference," Brown said of Romney, "one of the Republican Party's bright lights."

Brown, beloved by conservatives and "tea party" activists despite his moderate stances on social issues, brings Romney credibility with a constituency that had viewed the former governor skeptically during his failed 2008 bid for the GOP presidential nomination.

Noting as much, Romney said: "As a Massachusetts man, who, like my fellow Bay-staters, has over the years, been understandably regarded somewhat suspiciously in gatherings like this, let me take just a moment" to rejoice in Brown's victory.

Romney hasn't decided whether to run for president again but he's laying the groundwork. He's seen by observers as the most formidable Republican, given that he's run before and the GOP has a history of nominating the loser of the last nomination fight. He withdrew from the GOP fight two years ago before the same audience he spoke to Thursday, effectively ceding the nomination to John McCain.

I'm still far from sold on Romney. It's hard to ignore his version of Obamacare that he enacted in Massachusetts which is now beginning to fall apart, and his conversion to real conservatism seemed to come pretty late in life (like not long before the 2008 campaigns began). While his religion doesn't both me, I think it will bother a lot of other folks who will be less likely to vote for him in the general election.

There's still a long way to go and there may be some surprises in store in terms of candidates. I just saw that Mike Pence, conservative GOP congressman from Indiana, is making a speech in New Hampshire. He turned down the opportunity to run for the Senate and now appears to have something bigger in mind.

Clinton Cronies Plan War Against Tea Party Movement

I guess Bill Clinton's feeling better after his heart scare from the other day:

But, Big Government has learned of at least one other conference call/meeting around this time. A meeting of former Clintonistas and senior Democrat political operatives to coordinate a push-back to the burgeoning tea party movement. Consider it a Democrat party relief effort.

When tea party, 9/12 and townhall protests and rallies first erupted on the national scene, they were derided by national politicos as astroturf or a small fringe movement. Lefty journalists at MSNBC, CNN and elsewhere laughed away the movement with derogatory, pornographic references.

Then, Scott Brown won election to the U.S. Senate from Massachusetts. No one is laughing anymore. In fact, Democrats are facing political annihilation this November. Not only do Democrats face the possibility of losing their congressional majorities, massive losses in state house races could jeopardize redistricting next year and set back the progressive agenda for at least a decade.

So, the Clinton Empire is planning to strike back.

Big Government has learned that Clintonistas are plotting a “push/pull” strategy. They plan to identify 7-8 national figures active in the tea party movement and engage in deep opposition research on them. If possible, they will identify one or two they can perhaps ‘turn’, either with money or threats, to create a mole in the movement. The others will be subjected to a full-on smear campaign. (Has MSNBC already been notified?)

Big Government has also learned that James Carville will head up the effort.

Obviously, there is no love lost between Obama and the Clinton machine. It may at first seem odd that Clinton would rush to Obama’s defense, but the tea party movement poses a threat far beyond the immediate goals of the Obama Administration.

The tea party movement could evolve into a new political realignment, one founded on a belief in limited government and less government interference in the economy. The Progressive agenda, which has been painstakingly built up over the last three decades, could be left in tatters.

As the Clinton’s know, “politics ain’t beanbag.” Expect the counterattack soon. Don’t say you haven’t been warned.

I think Clinton mistakenly believes that the Tea Party movement is run by political professionals who might be impressed by his efforts, but it's not. It's truly a grassroots effort that may have a few prominent leaders, but is really made up of millions of average folks who don't like what they're seeing in Washington. Going after a handful of leaders will not harm the movement in the way Clinton may think it might. The people who are attending those Tea Parties are not following a particular leader, but an ideology of smaller government and lower taxes.

The Myth That Bipartisanship is a Good Thing

American Thinker looks at the Democrats' sudden interest in bipartisanship:

Since Scott Brown's historic win in Massachusetts last month, there has been a rising tide of calls for bipartisanship coming from the left. This was a central theme for Obama's recent visit to the House Republican retreat in Baltimore. In an interview with the Washington Post, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs called for Republican cooperation on the administration's proposed jobs bill and on health care reform, which according to Gibbs is still in the works; and this Sunday, Obama told Katie Couric that he wants to work with the Republicans on a bipartisan health care bill.

Where was this spirit of bipartisanship last year, when the Democrats thought they could get away with pushing things through while brazenly running roughshod over Republicans and the American people?

In light of the fact that the Obama administration has laid out plans to frame the Republicans as obstructionists in order to minimize Democrat losses in this November's elections, can we even trust the sincerity of this administration's newly adopted calls for bipartisan negotiations? Even if the proclaimed intentions of the Obama camp are sincere, is bipartisanship really something the congressional Republicans should consider?

To objectively evaluate an issue, one must begin by defining one's terms. Merriam-Webster's online dictionary defines bipartisan as "marked by or involving cooperation, agreement, and compromise between two major political parties." So essentially, it is a matter of compromise applied to the realm of politics. Is compromise an end in itself, inherently valuable regardless of what elements are being compromised? What sort of compromise could be reached between a murderer and his victim, between slaves and slaveholders, or between the Nazis and the people they sent to die in concentration camps? What compromise could be reached between advocates of government-run health care and those who want the freedom to make their own decisions? No justice could ever be achieved by seeking compromises of this fundamental nature -- compromises of principle.

In her book, entitled Capitalism: the Unknown Ideal, Ayn Rand wrote, "In any collaboration between two men (or two groups) who hold different basic principles, it is the more evil or irrational one who wins." In a compromise between life and death, freedom and slavery, good and evil, only the latter group can win.

Of course, there are instances in which bipartisanship is appropriate. Specifically, it is appropriate when both parties agree on the essentials and the principles involved, and they compromise where necessary to sort out the particulars. But that is certainly not the case now, when one party is struggling to preserve the semblances of freedom and protection of individual rights in this country, while the other is engaged in a full frontal assault on our freedom, seeking to establish a system of government that is more similar to fascism than capitalism.

Bipartisanship in itself is neither good nor bad, but rather, it depends on the context. To hold it up as something inherently valuable is to commit the fallacy of context-dropping. In doing so, one ignores the obvious and necessary questions: What is being compromised, to whom is this compromise a value, what are the principles involved, and for what purpose is the compromise being made? Therefore, one must reject the premise that compromise in the realm of politics -- i.e., bipartisanship -- should be held up as an inherently honorable goal outside any context without any further evaluation.

The central issue of the health care debate is collectivism vs. individual rights. It is the question: Does each individual have a right to their own life, or does that life belong to the state? To the extent that the Republicans are taking a stand on this issue, they are standing on the side of individual rights. Any calls for bipartisanship in this context are calls for a compromise between freedom and statism, and in such a compromise, it is possible only for statism to advance and for freedom to lose.

As CBS News' Mark Knoller wrote yesterday, to Obama bipartisanship means Republicans surrendering to his agenda. I'm all for cooperation and compromise where you can do so without surrendering your values, but there haven't been a lot of opportunities like that since Obama became president. His far-left agenda is directly at odds with conservative principles of freedom, smaller government and lower taxes. Therefore, there's no reason for the GOP to feel compelled to join in just to satisfy the left's idea of bipartisanship.

Camelot Emancipation Day

Howie Carr writes today about the new world that dawned on Massachusetts this morning:

To all of you Kennedy groupies out there, go find yourself a grief counselor.

Call the Samaritans. As the sign on the Sagamore bridge says, suicide is not the answer.

This morning, for the first time since January 1953, there is neither a Kennedy nor a Kennedy-family retainer “representing” Massachusetts in the U.S. Senate.

The moonbats are really in mourning now. This was worse than finding out yesterday that their Priuses may be ... unsafe at any speed.

To all you grief-stricken blow-in drifters on Morrissey Boulevard, go home to New York, mix up a pitcher of brandy Alexanders and put some Judy Garland on the stereo. Do not despair - after all, you still have Barney Frank.

Maybe someday you’ll have a new generation of Kennedys to cover up for, to point out how they are turning their lives around after (fill in the blank) a cheating scandal, a drug scandal, a rape accusation, a blonde in the pond, an overturned Jeep on Nantucket, an extramarital affair with a polo player, a drug overdose, a waitress sandwich . . .

Not only that, but yesterday we learned that the last of them in Congress, Patrick “Patches” Kennedy of Rhode Island could be knocked out of office. A new WPRI-TV poll showed him with low 35 percent approval rating, and 62 percent disapproval.

Yesterday was Camelot Emancipation Day. For taxpayers, it was Christmas and the Super Bowl rolled into one.

Howie goes on to list the Kennedy family's greatest hits. Read it all.

Dems Lose Their 60th Vote

Scott Brown is now Senator Scott Brown:

It is official: Massachusetts has a Republican representing the state in the Senate.

Scott Brown was sworn in by Vice President Biden shortly after 5 p.m. ET, ending the Democrats' supermajority and becoming the Republican's "41st vote" on health care.

Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick signed the certification of election Thursday morning to make his the next U.S. senator.

Brown had originally planned to be sworn in next Thursday, but urged a rush on the certification, saying that "it's time to get to work."

"I'm humbled and honored to represent the people of Massachusetts," he told a throng of reporters.

Brown refuted claims that Republican leaders pressed him to rush to Washington for a vote against two of President Obama's nominees, including Craig Becker, the appointee to head the National Labor Relations Board.

"I've had no contact with the Leader's office," Brown told a throng of reporters.

"I'm an independent voter and thinker -- I always have been," he added.

Things just got a lot more complicated for Harry Reid.

Scott Brown's Election To Be Certified Tomorrow

Time to seat the new senator (from Big Government):

In a previous post on Big Government, I questioned why Senator Paul Kirk has not stepped down as the Senator from Massachusetts, as he should have on January 19th. Today, the attorney for Senator-elect Scott Brown stated in a letter Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick that Brown wanted the results of the January 19 election certified by 11 a.m. Thursday, so they could be forwarded to U.S. Senate officials for immediate action.

Governor Patrick’s office also issued this statement via email today:

As the Lieutenant Governor stated earlier today, the Governor will convene the Governor’s Council at 9:30 a.m. tomorrow morning and certify the results. This will ensure that Senator-elect Brown’s request to receive the final paperwork by 11:00 a.m. tomorrow is fulfilled.

This stunning move by Brown and fulfillment by the governor’s office forces Kirk to resign his seat–presenting problems for the Democrats as they move forward with the current Senate schedule, which includes the controversial M. Patricia Smith nomination.

This reversal comes days after several inquiries with the Brown campaign, in addition to Senator Mitch McConnell’s office, as to why interim Senator Paul Kirk is still voting on legislation–providing the 60th vote in some cases–and preserving the Democrat supermajority in Congress.

One Brown's election has been certified under Massachusetts law current Sen. Paul Kirk must step down and cannot any longer vote. We'll see if that's what really happens.