“If you make less than $250,000 your taxes will not go up. Not one dime.” — Barack Obama.

Not one dime, that is, as long as you’re not married. If you’re married the ObamaCare bill would hit couples making as little as $25,000 each. From the Wall Street Journal:

WASHINGTON – Some married couples would pay thousands of dollars more for the same health insurance coverage as unmarried people living together, under the health insurance overhaul plan pending in Congress.

The built-in “marriage penalty” in both House and Senate healthcare bills has received scant attention. But for scores of low-income and middle-income couples, it could mean a hike of $2,000 or more in annual insurance premiums the moment they say “I do.”

… For an unmarried couple with income of $25,000 each, combined premiums would be capped at $3,076 per year, under the House bill. If the couple gets married, with a combined income of $50,000, their annual premium cap jumps to $5,160 — a “penalty” of $2,084.

Wow. I cannot recall an inauguration treated with such disrespect. Obama can’t choose his supporters, I guess, but it’s going to be hard for him to unify as he promised when he’s backed by persons who clearly have no interest in unifying. They just want their pound of flesh.

American elections are founded on the notion of peaceful and respectful transitions of power from leader to another. Yet here were the typically rabid Bush-haters in the crowd chanting the “Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye” song (by Steam, how’s that for trivia). All that was missing was the “Left, Right, Left…” chants given to a fouled out player during a college basketball game. Stay classy Democrats.

But as sad as that spectacle was the benediction by Rev. Joseph Lowery was a mixture of insult and embarrassment.

Lord, in the memory of all the saints who from their labors rest, and in the joy of a new beginning, we ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get in back, when brown can stick around … when yellow will be mellow … when the red man can get ahead, man; and when white will embrace what is right. That all those who do justice and love mercy say Amen.

I get it, okay. It’s an historic occasion that a black man has been elected president. Nonetheless I take offense at the notion that the country is just a few steps past the racially troubled 60s. Fact be known, the only people who ever made race an issue in this election were the media, who preemptively predicted that it might be a problem for Obama. That never came to pass. So, saying that whites might “embrace what is right…” That’s supposed to be unifying and post-racial?

Here’s Mike Paulson:

You would think people would learn. The recount in the contest between Norm Coleman and Al Franken for a seat in the U.S. Senate isn’t just embarrassing. It is unconstitutional.

This is Florida 2000 all over again, but with colder weather. Like that fiasco, Minnesota’s muck of a process violates the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution. Indeed, the controlling Supreme Court decision is none other than Bush v. Gore.

Remember Florida? Local officials conducting recounts could not decide what counted as a legal vote. Hanging chads? Dimpled chads? Should “undervotes” count (where a machine failed to read an incompletely-punched card)? What about “overvotes” (where voters punched more than one hole)? Different counties used different standards; different precincts within counties were inconsistent.

The Florida Supreme Court intervened and made things worse, ordering a statewide recount of some types of rejected ballots but not others. It specified no standards for what should count as a valid vote, leaving the judgment to each county. And it ordered partial recounts already conducted in some counties (but not others) included in the final tabulation. The result was chaos.

By a vote of 7-2, Bush v. Gore (2000) ruled that Florida’s recount violated the principle that all votes must be treated uniformly. Applying precedents dating to the 1960s, the Court found that the Equal Protection Clause meant that ballots must be treated so as to give every vote equal weight. A state may not, by “arbitrary and disparate treatment, value one person’s vote over that of another.” Florida’s lack of standards produced “unequal evaluation of ballots in several respects.” The state’s supreme court “ratified this uneven treatment” and created more of its own, and was unconstitutional.

Bush v. Gore is rightly regarded as controversial — but not because of its holding regarding the Equal Protection Clause, which commanded broad agreement among the justices. The controversy arose because of the remedy the Court chose for Florida’s violation, which was to end the recount entirely. The majority thought that time was up under Florida law requiring that its results be submitted in time to be included in the Electoral College count. That aspect of Bush v. Gore commanded only five votes. Two justices thought Florida should get more time and another chance.

The problem with the remedy was that it arguably violated the same principle that led the Court to invalidate the recount: the need to treat all votes equally. It had the practical effect of awarding the election to Bush (though subsequent media counts confirmed that Bush won anyway, under any uniform standard). This has led to enduring partisan criticism of the case, some fair and some unfair.

But no matter: Bush v. Gore is the law of the land. On the question of how the Equal Protection Clause applies to state recounts, the ruling, which reflected a 7-2 majority, controls.

Minnesota is Bush v. Gore reloaded. The details differ, but not in terms of arbitrariness, lack of uniform standards, inconsistency in how local recounts were conducted and counted, and strange state court decisions.

Consider the inconsistencies: One county “found” 100 new votes for Mr. Franken, due to an asserted clerical error. Decision? Add them. Ramsey County (St. Paul) ended up with 177 more votes than were recorded election day. Decision? Count them. Hennepin County (Minneapolis, where I voted — once, to my knowledge) came up with 133 fewer votes than were recorded by the machines. Decision? Go with the machines’ tally. All told, the recount in 25 precincts ended up producing more votes than voters who signed in that day.

Then there’s Minnesota’s (first, so far) state Supreme Court decision, Coleman v. Ritchie, decided by a vote of 3-2 on Dec. 18. (Two justices recused themselves because they were members of the state canvassing board.) While not as bad as Florida’s interventions, the Minnesota Supreme Court ordered local boards to count some previously excluded absentee ballots but not others. Astonishingly, the court left the decision as to which votes to count to the two competing campaigns and forbade local election officials to correct errors on their own.

If Messrs. Franken and Coleman agreed, an absentee ballot could be counted. Either campaign could veto a vote. Dean Barkley of the Independence Party, who ran third, was not included in this process.

Thus, citizens’ right to vote — the right to vote! — was made subject to political parties’ gaming strategies. Insiders agree that Mr. Franken’s team played a far more savvy game than Mr. Coleman’s. The margin of Mr. Franken’s current lead is partly the product of a successful what’s-mine-is-mine-what’s-yours-is-vetoed strategy, and of the Coleman team’s failure to counter it.

The process is not over yet, since the state court decision in effect kicked the can down the road. The candidates can revisit these issues by contesting the legal validity of the election under state law — which Mr. Coleman’s team did last week.

But as matters stand now, the Minnesota recount is a legal train wreck. The result, a narrow Franken lead, is plainly invalid. Just as in Bush v. Gore, the recount has involved “unequal evaluation of ballots in several respect” and failed to provide “minimal procedural safeguards” of equal treatment of all ballots. Legally, it does not matter which candidate benefited from all these differences in treatment. (Mr. Franken did.) The different treatment makes the results not only unreliable (and suspicious), but unconstitutional.

What is the remedy? Unlike Bush v. Gore, there is no looming national deadline. Minnesota can take its time and do things right.

This means two things: First, the process must conform to Minnesota election law. Second, it must conform to Bush v. Gore. Whatever standards Minnesota uses must be applied uniformly, consistently, and under clear standards not admitting of local variation. Discrepancies between machine counts and hand recounts, and between numbers of recorded votes and signed-in voters, however resolved, must be resolved the same way throughout the state.

The standards for evaluating rejected absentee ballots likewise must be uniform, with decisions made according to legal standards, not by partisan campaigns. If the Minnesota Supreme Court fails to assure these things, the matter could go right up to the U.S. Supreme Court.

And what if there is no reliable way to determine in a recount who won, consistent with Bush v. Gore’s requirements?

The Constitution’s answer is a do-over. The 17th Amendment provides: “When vacancies happen in the representation of any State in the Senate, the executive authority of such State shall issue writs of election to fill such vacancies: Provided, That the legislature of any State may empower the executive thereof to make temporary appointments until the people fill the vacancies by election as the legislature may direct.”

In a sense, a vacancy has already “happened.” The U.S. Senate convened on Jan. 6 with only one senator from Minnesota. Still, the seat is perhaps not “vacant,” just unfilled. But if the contest proceeding does not produce a clear winner that passes constitutional muster, a special election — and a temporary appointment by Gov. Tim Pawlenty — may be the only answer.

For now, the only thing certain is that the present “certified” result — which is that Mr. Franken won by 225 votes out of more than 2.9 million cast — is an obvious, embarrassing violation of the Constitution.

Senate Maj. Leader Harry Reid is adamant that he will block any nomination for Obama’s former Senate seat put up by Gov. Rod Blagojevich. Adamant he may be but the strategy of keeping Blago in the media limelight is just a bad one for Democrats.

What’s really interesting is that some conservatives, while no fans of Blago, are rightly pointing out that like it or not Blago is empowered under the constitution to make the appointment, but not Reid.

They tried in 2000 and came close to theft. They appear to be doing so in Minnesota. What’s really interesting (i.e., fraudulent) is that 25 precincts now have more ballots than voters who signed in to vote.

Here’s gateway pundit:

More… The Wall Street Journal reported today that 25 precincts now have more ballots than voters who signed in to vote.
And, there’s this:
Last month, Mr. Franken’s campaign charged that one Hennepin County (Minneapolis) precinct had “lost” 133 votes, since the hand recount showed fewer ballots than machine votes recorded on Election Night. Though there is no proof to this missing vote charge — officials may have accidentally run the ballots through the machine twice on Election Night — the Canvassing Board chose to go with the Election Night total, rather than the actual number of ballots in the recount. That decision gave Mr. Franken a gain of 46 votes.

Meanwhile, a Ramsey County precinct ended up with 177 more ballots than there were recorded votes on Election Night. In that case, the board decided to go with the extra ballots, rather than the Election Night total, even though the county is now showing more ballots than voters in the precinct. This gave Mr. Franken a net gain of 37 votes, which means he’s benefited both ways from the board’s inconsistency…

…It appears some officials may have failed to mark ballots as duplicates, which are now being counted in addition to the originals. This helps explain why more than 25 precincts now have more ballots than voters who signed in to vote…

Minnesotans like to think that their state isn’t like New Jersey or Louisiana, and typically it isn’t. But we can’t recall a similar recount involving optical scanning machines that has changed so many votes, and in which nearly every crucial decision worked to the advantage of the same candidate. The Coleman campaign clearly misjudged the politics here, and the apparent willingness of a partisan like Mr. Ritchie to help his preferred candidate, Mr. Franken. If the Canvassing Board certifies Mr. Franken as the winner based on the current count, it will be anointing a tainted and undeserving Senator.Shameless.

UPDATE: Dick Morris claims that military votes are being rejected in the Minnesota count.

The McCain camp finally starts to realize what fiscal conservatives knew years ago — McCain’s lack of fiscally conservative economic principles would hamstring his election chances.

[Business & Media Institute] As it turns out, swaying from conservative principles doesn’t always pay off for a Republican presidential candidate. Sen. John McCain learned that lesson that hard way.

Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a senior policy adviser to McCain’s failed campaign, said Nov. 19 that McCain’s support for the $700 billion bailout of the financial sector was the “key strategic policy error of the entire campaign.”

“We also make mistakes,” Holtz-Eakin told a group of conservatives at The Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C. “There’s no doubt about it–20/20 hindsight. I think the key strategic policy error of the entire campaign, that is mine, is believing that the bailout bill would help.”

This isn’t news. Redistributing taxpayer money (and to people whose business models were apparent failures at that) isn’t a good way for a supposedly conservative candidate who is not tight with his base to woo them.

To Democrats, “recount” means stacking the deck with liberal activists.

BRECKENRIDGE, Minn. — A woman who worked for Al Franken earlier this week during the Senate recount in one county ended up counting ballots as a nonpartisan volunteer here Saturday in a recount that grew heated at times.

No shananigans there. Move along, move along.

[Washington Post] Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) easily won a vote yesterday to remain chairman of a key committee and will stay in the Senate Democratic caucus despite his high-profile criticism of President-elect Barack Obama and his support of Sen. John McCain during the presidential campaign.

Lieberman surrendered his position on the Environment and Public Works Committee, leaving the panel and his subcommittee chairmanship. But he will remain chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and head of the Armed Services subcommittee that oversees air and land power issues.

“This was done in a spirit of reconciliation,” Lieberman told reporters after the meeting.

Reconciliation, my arse. Ironic, isn’t it? Should the Democrats get to 59 seats Joe Lieberman will become the most powerful member of the Senate. But, at 60 seats Joe Lieberman will become the least powerful member of the Senate.

Several years ago Christie Todd Whitman, former governor of New Jersey and EPA administrator, wrote a book called “It’s My Party Too.” She used that treatise to argue for the party to abandon its conservative roots. Even after two serious GOP drubbings at the polls, she has found no takers. Likewise, Lincoln Chaffee, the former Rhode Island Senator once labeled a “Republican in Name Only,” was still complaining last week to the Washington Post that “right-wing talk show hosts and the Ann Coulters and that ilk” never understood that the GOP needs people like him.

Maybe that’s because Republicans have looked closely at the election results. The country hasn’t so much moved left as it has abandoned a GOP that abandoned its own principles. In Ohio, Barack Obama actually won about 40,000 fewer votes than John Kerry did four years ago. Mr. Obama took Ohio only because John McCain pulled 350,000 fewer votes than George W. Bush did in 2004. Republicans and Republican-leaning voters stayed home.

That’s not an endorsement of the ideas of the left. It’s a lack enthusiasm for a party that failed to deliver the smaller government it promised in Washington. At least the GOP, in settling on future leaders like Governors Jindal, Sanford and Palin, seems to understand that.

– Brenden Miniter.

A few points:

• It really gets funny about 5 minutes into it.
• Voter Erika was by far the most sensible, and bubbly cute. The rest were morons… Albeit, PBS-/NPR-/New York Times-educated morons.
• Along those lines, it really underscores the power of the mainstream media, no matter how archaic conventional wisdom says they’ve become in our Internet age.
• The media really, really hated Sarah Palin, and that hatred — through the engine of perpetual negative coverage of her — really, really permeated to the public.
• That somebody actually made that ‘drink every drop of the Kool-Aid’, chanting “O-Bam-A” song is quite disturbing.