{"id":3160,"date":"2010-01-14T13:39:10","date_gmt":"2010-01-14T18:39:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/?p=3160"},"modified":"2010-01-14T13:46:02","modified_gmt":"2010-01-14T18:46:02","slug":"barney-frank-is-still-crazy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/3160\/barney-frank-is-still-crazy\/","title":{"rendered":"Barney Frank is Still Crazy"},"content":{"rendered":"

The ostentatious Representative Barney Frank from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts never shies away from reporters or combative political opponents.\u00a0 He once said<\/span><\/a> to a constituent at a town hall meeting, \u201cMa\u2019am, trying to have a conversation with you would be like trying to argue with a dining room table.\u00a0 I have no interest in doing it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, amidst rumors that Democrats are planning to delay the swearing-in of Republican Scott Brown if he were to win the special election in Massachusetts, Frank issued yet another linguistic tour de force<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Representative Frank opined<\/span><\/a>, \u201cThat\u2019s the stupidest thing I\u2019ve been asked in a long time.\u00a0 That is insane, the suggestion could only come from a demented right wing source\u2026 That is conspiracy theory at its most contemptible.\u201d\u00a0 BAM!<\/p>\n

Barney, you\u2019re wrong.\u00a0\u00a0 \u2018Conspiracies\u2019 like this happen all the time in Washington\u2019s political meat grinder.<\/p>\n

Remember, Massachusetts Democrats changed the rules<\/span><\/a> on filing Senate vacancies twice, once in 2004 when it would have aided Democrats, and again in 2009 to ensure a 60th Democratic Senator.<\/p>\n

Remember, Representative Bill Owens (D-NY) was sworn in<\/span><\/a> on a weekend so that Speaker Pelosi could secure his vote for health care reform.<\/p>\n

Remember, Representative Vern Buchanan (R-FL) almost had his swearing-in delayed<\/span><\/a> because Speaker Pelosi wanted to reduce the number of Republicans.\u00a0 Pelosi ultimately decided to seat Buchanan so that his district would have representation. \u00a0After Buchanan\u2019s election, however, one Democrat noted, \u201cNo one who\u2019s in a disputed election like this should get too comfortable in the House of Representatives.\u201d<\/p>\n

Because Massachusetts can take its time with certification and because the Senate, under Article I \u00a75<\/span><\/a>, \u201cshall be the Judge of Elections, Returns and Qualifications of its own Members,\u201d then there is plenty of legitimate legal ground for Democrats to delay the ceremony.<\/p>\n

However, since the public backlash against even the idea of a delay is so strong, it appears that the eventual winner will be sworn in the normal course, but \u201cnormal\u201d might not occur until February if the Senator happens to have an \u201cR\u201d after his name.<\/p>\n

Barney, you might be entertaining but you’re still crazy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The ostentatious Representative Barney Frank from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts never shies away from reporters or combative political opponents.\u00a0 He once said to a constituent at a town hall meeting, \u201cMa\u2019am, trying to have a conversation with you would be like trying to argue with a dining room table.\u00a0 I have no interest in doing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[164,368,84,159,726,725,90],"class_list":["post-3160","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts","tag-barney-frank","tag-bill-owens","tag-congress","tag-massachusetts","tag-massachusetts-special-election","tag-scott-brown","tag-town-hall"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3160","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3160"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3160\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3163,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3160\/revisions\/3163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}