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Politics : Bill Clinton Scandal - SANITY CHECK -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Neocon who wrote (62779)	11/18/1999 10:08:00 AM
From: DMaA	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 67261

Trent Lott rapes midwest farmers and screws one of the truest, most consistent conservatives in the Senate: Lott Has a Cow There are a million stories inside the Beltway, most of which the pols don't want you to know. But we thought you might be amused by the one about Trent Lott, dairy queen. As Public Works Chair . . . sorry, Senate Majority Leader, Mr. Lott has already built himself a pork-barrel legacy for the Mississippi ages. But who would have thought his largesse was big enough for all New England? There's apparently nothing the guy won't do to re-elect a fellow "singing senator," in this case the liberal James Jeffords of Vermont. Vermont has lots of dairy farmers, most of whom are much less efficient than those in the Upper Midwest. Worse yet, Congressional permission for a six-state price-fixing dairy cartel known as the Northeast Compact is about to expire. So Mr. Jeffords, who is running for a third term next November, got hold of Mr. Lott, who promised to jam an extension past an otherwise reluctant Senate. Never mind that this milks consumers to the tune of about 20 extra cents a gallon. (Milk consumed by the same "poor children" who liberals like Mr. Jeffords and Vermont Democrat Pat Leahy are constantly invoking to sell their new programs.) Never mind that the Senate voted down an extension earlier this year. And never mind that in the process of helping Mr. Jeffords, Mr. Lott is sticking a shiv in the back of another vulnerable GOP incumbent, Rod Grams of Minnesota. "I guess Jeffords is in a tough race," Mr. Grams told us ruefully. "But it can't be tougher than mine. And this is going to hurt me back in Minnesota, because it will hurt our farmers." Mr. Lott likes to complain that he lacks a real conservative majority. Yet Mr. Jeffords is a routine apostate, agreeing with Ted Kennedy on demand, while Mr. Grams is a reliable conservative. It's nice to know how much Mr. Lott values ideological loyalty when he's doling out backroom favors. Not that Mr. Lott deserves all of the credit. He has help in the House, where Speaker Dennis Hastert has caved in to Missouri Rep. Roy Blunt's attempt to gut the free market dairy reforms that Congress urged on a reluctant Clinton Administration as recently as 1996. Mr. Blunt's affront would add another 16 cents or so to a gallon of milk around the country. Mr. Lott wants to ram this into the end-of-session budget bill too. Beyond the muscle politics, all of this is one more embarrassing sign that Republicans seem to have kicked over the reform stool. They're mainly into incumbent protection now. Messrs. Blunt and Lott are supposed to be GOP leaders. But the difference between them and Dick Gephardt is more and more a matter of whose special interest gets gored. As of this writing, Mr. Grams and Wisconsin Democrat Herb Kohl were promising to filibuster the Lott-Jeffords-Blunt cartel plans. But the way these things usually go, the dissenters get run over by the Members stampeding to leave town to brag about all of the pork they just voted to deliver. Cow-abunga, Trent. interactive.wsj.com