What's the Little Pest Up To Now?
This is a story with two distinct parts -- in fact, possibly more than just two. The first part, as MeanMesa would call it, the "low hanging fruit" is a tale of just more, predictable, post election, amateurish Republican creepiness. This first part has been covered fairly well in what's left of the media, although the tale has definitely been "dumbed down" so the hill billies could handle it.
Do we remember Senator Scott Brown (R-MA) the skunk who took Senator Ted Kennedy's seat after his death? It turns out that there are two totally ironic aspects to Senator Brown's career.
First, Brown was an entirely unlikely man to suddenly be seated in the Senate chair still warm from the "Lion of the Senate." Brown was hardly someone considered of the same stature as the late Kennedy. We'll take a look at a few of the more notable stages of Scott's career.
If you have the appetite for it, you can "explore" the "entire picture" of Senator Brown's "early phase" in the COSMO article here.
The Early Years
Senator Scott Brown Posed Nude for COSMO
September 20, 2012 at 3:17PM
By Ashley Womble
Long before he was a politician, Senator Scott Brown (R-Mass.) posed nude for the centerfold of Cosmo. Sen. Brown
won our “America’s Sexiest Man” contest and appeared in the June 1982
issue. In those days he was a 22-year-old law student at Boston College
who was cramming for finals just days before stripping down for our
photographer.
Now, the senator's running for re-election, but unfortunately, we don't think his abs will come into play on the campaign trail.
Compared to some men in the GOP, this politician looks pretty damn
good for his age—and we bet he still has an amazing body underneath his
suit and tie. There have been plenty of pics of our president running
around without his shirt, so now that a precedent has been set, we’re
hoping to see Scott shirtless again.
The Campaign for Senator in the 2010 Special Election
Here are excerpts from the New York Times coverage of Brown's special election victory. Read the whole article here.
G.O.P. Senate Victory Stuns Democrats
BOSTON — Scott Brown,
a little-known Republican state senator, rode an old pickup truck and a
growing sense of unease among independent voters to an extraordinary upset Tuesday
night when he was elected to fill the Senate seat that was long held by Edward M. Kennedy in the overwhelmingly Democratic state of Massachusetts.
Although the race has riveted the nation largely because it
was seen as contributing to the success or defeat of the health care
bill, the potency of the issue for voters here was difficult to gauge.
That is because Massachusetts already has near-universal health
coverage, thanks to a law passed when Mitt Romney, a Republican, was governor.
Thus
Massachusetts is one of the few states where the benefits promised by
the national bill were expected to have little effect on how many of its
residents got coverage, making it an unlikely place for a referendum on
the health care bill.
On Capitol Hill, the fate of the health
care legislation was highly uncertain as Democratic leaders quickly
gathered to plot strategy in the wake of the Republican victory.
Sentiment
about how to proceed was mixed, with several lawmakers saying the House
would not accept the Senate-passed plan. Top officials had said that
approach was the party’s best alternative, and many members said they
still believed it was crucial that Democrats pass a plan.
of unease among independent voters to an extraordinary
upset Tuesday night when he was elected to fill the Senate seat that was
long held by Edward M. Kennedy in the overwhelmingly Democratic state of Massachusetts.
...
The election left Democrats in Congress scrambling to salvage a bill
overhauling the nation’s health care system, which the late Mr. Kennedy
had called “the cause of my life.” Mr. Brown has vowed to oppose the
bill, and once he takes office the Democrats will no longer control the
60 votes in the Senate needed to overcome filibusters.
There
were immediate signs that the bill had become imperiled. House members
indicated they would not quickly pass the bill the Senate approved last
month.
And after the results were announced, one centrist Democratic senator, Jim Webb
of Virginia, called on Senate leaders to suspend any votes on the
Democrats’ health care legislation until Mr. Brown is sworn into office.
The election, he said, was a referendum on both health care and the
integrity of the government process.
Beyond the bill, the election
of a man supported by the Tea Party movement also represented an
unexpected reproach by many voters to President Obama
after his first year in office, and struck fear into the hearts of
Democratic lawmakers, who are already worried about their prospects in
the midterm elections later this year.
Mr. Brown was able to
appeal to independents who were anxious about the economy and concerned
about the direction taken by Democrats, now that they control both
Beacon Hill and Washington. He rallied his supporters when he said, at
the last debate, that he was not running for Mr. Kennedy’s seat but for
“the people’s seat.”
That seat, held for nearly half a century by Mr. Kennedy, the liberal
lion of the Senate, will now be held for almost three full years by a
Republican who has said he supports waterboarding as an interrogation technique for terrorism suspects, opposes a federal cap-and-trade
program to reduce carbon emissions and opposes a path to citizenship
for illegal immigrants unless they leave the country. It was a sharp
swing of the pendulum, but even Democratic voters said they wanted the
Obama administration to change direction.
...
Mr. Brown presented himself as a Massachusetts Everyman, featuring
the pickup truck he drives around the state in his speeches and one of
his television commercials, calling in to talk radio shows and
campaigning with popular local sports figures.
The implications of
the election drew nationwide attention, and millions of dollars of
outside spending, to the race. It transformed what many had expected to
be a sleepy, low-turnout special election on a snowy day in January into
a high-profile contest that appeared to draw more voters than expected
to the polls. There were reports of traffic jams outside suburban
polling stations, while other polling stations had to call for extra
ballots.
The late surge by Mr. Brown appeared to catch Democrats
by surprise, causing them to scramble in the last week and a half of the
campaign and hastily schedule an appearance by Mr. Obama with Ms.
Coakley on Sunday afternoon.
...
Although the race has riveted the nation largely because it
was seen as contributing to the success or defeat of the health care
bill, the potency of the issue for voters here was difficult to gauge.
That is because Massachusetts already has near-universal health
coverage, thanks to a law passed when Mitt Romney, a Republican, was governor.
Thus
Massachusetts is one of the few states where the benefits promised by
the national bill were expected to have little effect on how many of its
residents got coverage, making it an unlikely place for a referendum on
the health care bill.
On Capitol Hill, the fate of the health
care legislation was highly uncertain as Democratic leaders quickly
gathered to plot strategy in the wake of the Republican victory.
Sentiment
about how to proceed was mixed, with several lawmakers saying the House
would not accept the Senate-passed plan. Top officials had said that
approach was the party’s best alternative, and many members said they
still believed it was crucial that Democrats pass a plan.
Three Years of Scott Brown in the Senate --
Who were the Senator's "friends?"
Who were the Senator's "friends?"
Scott Brown Has Another Wall Street-Tied Fundraiser
The Huffington Post
|
By Michael McAuliff
Posted: 08/16/2012 Read the whole article here.
Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) likes to tout his credentials
fighting Wall Street, but he's been doing awfully well lately raising
money with the help of New York finance types, and Saturday he'll notch
another such event.
An invitation
shows that former Lehman Brothers bond trader Larry McDonald is rolling
out the red carpet for Brown on Cape Cod, just a few days after New York
Mayor Michael Bloomberg hosted Brown in the big Apple.
McDonald, who wrote the "A Colossal Failure of Common Sense"
documenting Lehman's collapse, makes it very clear that he thinks Brown
will be good for his industry.
McDonald, who wrote the "A Colossal Failure of Common Sense"
documenting Lehman's collapse, makes it very clear that he thinks Brown
will be good for his industry.
"As a New Yorker, working in the finance industry, I think it's of
paramount importance Scott is reelected," McDonald writes in his pitch,
warning that "pendulum swings" after financial catastrophes often lead
to a situation where "initiative choking regulation is the ultimate job
killer."
"We need Scott Brown to help lead our country out of this financial
quicksand," McDonald argues, saying that recent failures of the firms MF
Global and Peregrine Financial aren't evidence that better regulation
is needed, but instead "go a long way to prove we don't need more rules
and regulation, we need effective regulators."
He's also clear where he wants Brown to focus his efforts. "Above
all, I want Scott on the Senate Finance Committee next year, he's the
right choice, not his opponent," McDonald writes.
Brown cast the key vote in passing the Dodd-Frank bill to tighten financial industry regulations -- a fact he cites often in his ads -- but recent reporting also suggests he worked hard to weaken regulation, as well, which McDonald apparently sees as slowing that regulatory "pendulum swing."
"I've spent a lot of time with Scott Brown discussing what's right
and wrong about financial reform and Dodd Frank, he gets it, and has the
right ideas to make the crucial improvements needed," McDonald says.
From his Senate seat, Scott Brown "delivered the goods" to Wall Street, make that "delivered the goods" big time. And, the banksters can, actually, be loyal in return -- even if it is only to each other. They were certainly loyal to him.
We should add excerpts from the POLITICO article about Scott's unusually lucrative campaign contributions.
Wall Street filling Scott Brown's coffers
By ROBIN BRAVENDER | 10/1/12 3:32 PM EDT
