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Has TEA Party Won The Battle Of Ideas In Washington?

POLITICO has a piece up on top of its website today that starts like this:

If this was a dud year in Washington, get ready for 2014 — the year to “go small.”

Lawmakers had already lost their appetite to “go big” this year, letting reforms of immigration, guns and the Tax Code slip away in the face of gridlock and dysfunction.

And now there’s a new problem. Lawmakers are reluctant to rely on the federal government to get anything done — a guilt-by-association consequence of Obamacare’s botched rollout. Republicans have called it an indictment of more than a website, but of Big Government itself.

While Democrats argue the problem is obstructionism — not ideology — the result will be the same: As Washington laments the end of a do-nothing year, lawmakers are fully prepared to do as little — or even less — in the new year.

“I think anything that has a significant expansion or role for the federal government is going to be problematic,” South Dakota Sen. John Thune, a top Republican message strategist, told POLITICO. “Because I just think there’s going to be such a cynicism and skepticism attached to any promises made with regard to the federal government’s role.”

Ron Paul, the Grand Poobah of the smaller is better ideology has been saying that the Republicans and Democrats are all the same, even saying on some occassions that they are all part of the same party.

Does this mean that his brand of governance which has usurped the TEA party movement has finally caught on?  The answer is no.

The reaction that POLITICO is predicting for 2014 is more a response to the ineffectiveness of the Obama administration and a growing uneasiness with what many used to dismiss, but now fear, are his nefarious plans for America.  In fact most of the anger and angst of the TEA party was born in reaction to Obama, has fed off of Obama's agenda and is still a reactionary movement rather than a pro-active one.

I saw this meme on Facebook sent out by a local TEA party group:

 

You have to ask yourself, what does this really say to people?  Is it some sort of rallying cry to keep the flames of discontent burning hotter than ever?

The phrase "More Constitution" means what exactly?  Lower taxes?  Taxes are undesirable no doubt, but they are certainly constitutional.  Does it mean more civil liberty?  We certainly have suffered in this area lately and numerous cases are working their way through the court system which ultimately decides, as the arbiter of these debates, what is and what is not constitutional.

How does this meme fit into the reality of political life?  What, no republican who wants more civil liberty and lower taxes can be trusted, and neither can any democrat?  Then who?  What other party is out there?  Aren't most of the TEA party candidates running as republicans?  And isn't it a fact that in places where they do, for the most part, they give democrats an added advantage of being able to run on their liberal agenda while republicans eat each other alive in primaries?

So just what does the observation of the POLITICO piece mean.  Has the TEA party won the battle of ideas in Washington?  Is there really some meaning to the concept of "More Constitution" that is controlling how elected officials act?

No, and no.

The fact is that even the proper role of government, as seen even by TEA party types, is considered dangerous territory.  Standing up in favor of building bridges and fixing roads, and repairing a half century or older infrastructure lights a match under the "big spender" accusers who have found a way, much like the protesters of the sixties did, to get attention in front of cameras and try to steer the policy of the nation.

Spend no money, collect no taxes, go to Washington, do nothing, dismantle the federal government, weaken our military, and withdraw into a kind of isolation that fools people into believing that the world will just leave us alone and allow us to prosper so long as we don't intervene in anybody else's business.

Foolhardy, reckless, ignorant thinking like this makes America vulnerable to the evil forces at work in the world.  If the worst happens it will be on the shoulders of those who failed to take charge in difficult times.  The blame will be squarely upon the heads of those who would give Israel over to the Palestinians, chemical weapons to Assad, control of Afghanistan to the drug cartels, who would remove border security and issue terms of engagement to our military that told them to stand up and take the first shot before firing back.

War is, as the saying goes, hell.  And hell is at our doorstep.  The last thing we need is a nation of bong hugging gamers driving the ship of state.

If the TEA party really wishes for an America that used to be, maybe they ought to be asking things like, where are the real men, the John Wayne's of our time, instead of asking that old time policy be implement by a bunch of impotent 'fraidy cats. 

Think about it.  America was strong, and stood up for itself in the days the Ron Paul folks wish they could return us to.  To get there might take a much tougher, rougher approach than the rally attending, flag-shirt wearing, malcontents and protesters can deliver on their own.

If a do nothing Congress is the result of a TEA party victory, then I think Merle might have asked the right question a long time ago: Are the good times really over for good?

 

Obama "Faked" Job Numbers Just Before Election

The New York Post says it has proof positive that Obama faked the unemployment numbers making him look better just before the November elections.

In the home stretch of the 2012 presidential campaign, from August to September, the unemployment rate fell sharply — raising eyebrows from Wall Street to Washington.

The decline — from 8.1 percent in August to 7.8 percent in September — might not have been all it seemed. The numbers, according to a reliable source, were manipulated.

And the Census Bureau, which does the unemployment survey, knew it.

How much longer will the Congress tolerate a president who openly lies, manipulates data, exceeds his legal authority and may have even been the beneficiary of widespread election fraud?

No wonder Congress has such a poor approval rating.  They are letting this guy get by with murder.

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Thank You Mitch McConnell

There is an article at the Wall Street Journal in which Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell does a great service for the GOP and the country.  He tells it like it is about America's frustration with government, what the TEA party is up to and why he clearly deserves to be the next majority leader of the US Senate.

"The most important election yesterday wasn't the governor of New Jersey and it wasn't the governor of Virginia, it was the special election for Congress in South Alabama, where a candidate who said the shutdown was a great idea, the president was born in Kenya, and that he opposed Speaker Boehner came in second." The victory of a more electable Republican, is significant, Mr. McConnell says. To govern, parties must win. To win, parties must "run candidates that don't scare the general public, [and] convey the impression that we could actually be responsible for governing, you can trust us—we're adults here, we're grown-ups."

EXACTLY!  Sure, you can grouse all you want about the fact that McConnell wasn't able to single-handedly repeal Obamacare, but just listen for a minute.  Expecting him to have THAT much power is a disconnect from reality.

Is the GOP in civil war? "No, I don't think so." Everyone agrees on the central issue: "We would all love to get rid of ObamaCare. If we had the votes to do it we'd do it in a heartbeat. It's the single worst piece of legislation that's been passed in modern times."But "we have a disability right now—it's called in the Senate '55 of them and 45 of us.' I'm not great at math, but 55 is more than 45. . . . I think it's irresponsible for some people to characterize themselves as sort of true conservatives, to mislead their followers into believing you can get an outcome that you can't possibly get."

And Mitch is spot on in his analysis of what many in the TEA party are really up to.

The tea party, he says, consists of "people who are angry and upset at government—and I agree with them." But "I think, honestly, many of them have been misled. . . . They've been told the reason we can't get to better outcomes than we've gotten is not because the Democrats control the Senate and the White House but because Republicans have been insufficiently feisty. Well, that's just not true, and I think that the folks that I have difficulty with are the leaders of some of these groups who basically mislead them for profit. . . . They raise money . . . take their cut and spend it" on political action that hurts Republicans.

In his usual calm, reasoned and measured approach to political reality Mitch has provided us once again with a voice of reason.  We need to elect adults, not tantrum throwing protesters.  We cannot beat back the Obama agenda until we get a majority in the Senate and hopefully control the White House.  And for all the good ideas that many in the TEA party have, and their understandable anger, many of those who are taking the lead in that group are in it for the money and the power and the prestige who are misleading their followers.

Are members of the tea party on the ground being fooled by operators, profit makers and cynics? "Yes," he said, followed by a brief silence. He declined to say more, but emphasized again that "I make a distinction between the leaders and the followers. I mean, I think a lot of well-meaning people are sending money to organizations having no idea they're gonna spend all that money against Republicans. Because they're being misled."

I've been saying these things for a long time now.  Thank you Mitch McConnell for saying them so much better.

Oh, and thank you for saying without a flinch something else I've been saying all along too.

He refers to the Senate Conservatives Fund. "That's the one I'm prepared to be specific about." The fund "has elected more Democrats than the Democratic Senatorial Committee over the last three cycles." The group is targeting Mr. McConnell with ads slamming his leadership during the shutdown. "Right now they're on the air in obvious coordination with Harry Reid's super PAC—Harry Reid's!—in the same markets, at roughly the same amount, at the same time." But says he isn't worried about his own race: "I don't wanna be overly cocky, but I'm gonna be the Republican nominee next year."

Damned right you are Mitch.

WH Says Durbin's Accusation Of Insult Not True

Dick Durbin reported on Facebook that a GOP legislator told President Obama during a meeting (that Durbin didn't attend) "I can't even stand to look at you."  If that had been true it would have been an outrage.  But it didn't happen says the White House, and those from the GOP in attendance who are demanding an apology.

And if it didn't happen, Durbin most certainly does need to apologize.  I understand that as an Obama democrat he feels the need to help destroy the GOP, but that is not what the people of this country want, politicians out to destroy each other.

Reasonable people want reasoned debate, honest compromise and to get things done.  Bitching about the scratches in the paint won't get the motor running and Americans have been waiting far too long already for the economy to get going.

Durbin needs to come clean quickly and spend some of his political capital making this right.

But instead what is he doing?

“Durbin stands by his comments,” said Max Gleischman, a spokesman for the Illinois Democrat. [POLITICO]

Dick Durbin Slams Republican Leadership

I'm no fan of Dick Durbin, but if what he says is true, then whoever made the comment was indeed disrespectful.  Of course, if someone did make this comment then he/she was clearly expressing the feelings of many Americans, but for a guy who has been trained in debate and decorum, this would be inexcusable behavior.

The No. 2 Democrat in the Senate, Sen. Dick Durbin, says that a House Republican leader told off President Barack Obama during a negotiation meeting, and that they are so disrespectful it’s practically impossible to have a conversation with them.

“In a ‘negotiation’ meeting with the president, one GOP House Leader told the president: ‘I cannot even stand to look at you,’” Durbin wrote in a post on his Facebook page over the weekend. [POLITICO]

You Now Have Your Marching Orders Directly From Obama

Okay my conservative friends, those who still have the ability to reason, those who have enough life experience to know that things never get fixed until the yapping stops and the wrenches turn, Barack Obama in one of his most out of touch speeches yet has given you your marching orders.

After the gridlock and the shutdown ended he went to the podium and said that people are fed up with Washington and that Congress needs to learn that the way things are done there needs to end.

Say whaaaat?

He is the President yet he spoke as if he was completely removed from Washington politics instead of the main reason things are not getting done.  But he did give one good piece of advice.  He preached from his high horse that if republicans want to get something done they have to go out and win elections.

I agree Mr. President.  That is precisely what we intend to do.  Starting with enough seats in the Senate to make you not only a lame duck president, but the most ineffective lame duck president in history.

Criticism Of McConnell Is Mind Boggling

EDITORIAL

Headlines all across the nation exploded today with criticism leveled at Mitch McConnell for his role in the "shutdown" negotiations particularly the expansion of funding for a years old dam project on the Ohio River inserted in the late night bill and approved by a wide margin of 81-18 in the Senate 285-144 in the House.

Calling the funding increase the "Kentucky Kickback" and other equally ugly things blogs, newspapers and commentators from across the political spectrum are attacking Mitch, claiming that he failed to hold the line against the democrats and that he got a little pork for Kentucky as a payoff for surrender.  Have people lost all perspective on politics and reality?

First of all, as Mitch correctly pointed out, if you have questions about the dam funding, ask Diane Feinstein and Lamar Alexander the chairwoman and ranking member of the Senate energy and water subcommittee, respectively.  As reported by the Courier Journal:

Alexander said in a statement to Buzzfeed that the provision was required to safeguard $160 million in Army Corps of Engineers contracts for the dam. Alexander said he and Feinstein asked for the provision.

“It has already been approved this year by the House and Senate,” Alexander said.

The Olmsted project is one of the largest construction projects in the country, considered essential but way over budget.

Let's get this straight.  The TEA party bunch cries all over the place that they would like a limited government that does little more than provide a strong military, and builds interstate highways, bridges and dams.  A major construction project in one of the busiest corridors of commerce in the nation is sorely in need of replacement before the antiquated lock and dam system that has been outdated since 1988 fails completely.  The Senate waterways committee chaired by a democrat inserts a funding increase for a project which is already underway into the CR bill and McConnell is criticized for not stopping it?

The bill passed with 81 votes for cripesake!  How was he going to stop that?

And if the continued funding of a project which is under way already was necessary because of years of delays and funding uncertainties, who in their right mind would abandon it?  What the hell is wrong with you people?!

And let's get one more thing straight.  Even if Kentucky benefits from this funding, since when is a Senator NOT supposed to help his state?  Are you people dropping acid or something?

Look, the whole shutdown fiasco was a cesspool, but ask yourself.  Do you think Alison Lundergan Grimes or Matt Bevin could swim out of a cesspool with the kind of pearls in their teeth that McConnell got for Kentucky?  I mean, if the entire fight was about to go down to defeat it is a good thing to have a guy like McConnell up there helping Kentucky isn't it, considering that the democrats are in the majority?

Criticism of McConnell is mind boggling.  In fact the entire world of politics in Washington is like a brain eating amoeba, the longer it goes untreated the more we get close to a world of Idiocracy.

Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, Justin Amash, Thomas Massie and the others, get over yourself.  You didn't accomplish anything except get airtime for yourselves, disrupt the nation, and show once again how totally ineffective you are.

And those of you who continue to listen to those guys and jump on the "bash McConnell" band wagon at their invitation, let me suggest that this is going to be a very short ride.  Eventually the adults will take the keys away.

Until the GOP wins the White House and the Senate we need strong people in Washington who work FOR Kentucky, not some altruistic technicolor dreamworld image of a nation that has never, and will never be.

On Wednesday afternoon, Rand Paul defended Mitch McConnell in an interview with Terry Meiners on WHAS radio in Louisville.

"I would say Kentucky's very lucky to have Sen. McConnell," Paul said. "You need somebody who's willing to stand up for Kentucky."

I agree.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2013/10/16/2880106/mcconnell-takes-criticism-

from.html#storylink=cpy

Third Party Needed Says Majority Of Americans

According to a new Gallup poll, a record high number of Americans say a third party is needed.

Amid the government shutdown, 60% of Americans say the Democratic and Republicans parties do such a poor job of representing the American people that a third major party is needed. That is the highest Gallup has measured in the 10-year history of this question. A new low of 26% believe the two major parties adequately represent Americans.

Okay, here we go again.  The disgruntled and pushed aside in the political arena will rush to quote George Washington's admonition against political parties in his farewell address.  They will claim that the two party system is broken and that we need an independent third party.  Well, let's examine that model.

In the current system the majority party wins the right to control the agenda under discussion.  In the House for example, this means that the party holding the majority of the votes appoints the chairmen of the various committees and sub-committees and gets a majority of the votes on those committees.

Like it or not, what gets put on the agenda of any committee is within the discretion of the chair.  So you have a bill that you think is great, if the chairman doesn't want you to win, for whatever reason, your bill never gets "out of committee".  All bills that have not been voted upon at the end of each two year session of Congress, are dead.

Now insert a third party.  Assume that of the 435 Congressmen 135 come from the new party and two hundred each from the democrats and republicans.  Which party has the majority?  Who appoints the committees?  Who controls the agenda?  You think the House is dysfunctional now, divide it up even more.

Oh sure, I share the frustration of the people who think the system is broken, but have they given any thought to how to fix it other than taking their ball and going home to a protest party?

And where would the new party come from?  Obviously the biggest split we see right now is among republicans.  So we would divide the unified front of the GOP and give control to the democrats who would, as they did when they controlled all three houses (2 in Congress and the one at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue) pass any bill they were told to pass "just to see what was in it?"  You do remember don't you that this is how Obamacare got passed, by a democrat controlled government.

And you do remember, don't you, that opposition to Obamacare by a majority of Americans is what gave the GOP control of the House and is what elected Rand Paul as a republican in 2010?

Sure Congress is a mess, but ask yourself why.  It's because Harry Reid controls the Senate and Barack Obama wants conflict in order to remove the GOP as the last impediment to his plans to control America's future.

And why should we want Barack Obama and Harry Reid to control America's future?  Look what they've done with the time they've had thus far.

Unemployment is worsening, prosperity is more elusive for most Americans, racial tensions are at a fever pitch, the debt is through the roof and people are more fearful of their government than ever before.  With this record you want to do something that would strengthen these folks?

The third party idea needs far more in depth analysis than just the knee jerk reaction to Obama's failures that are so bad the blame is getting stuck on everybody.

What we need is not political revolution, what we need is the revival of reason.  When that day comes good people with a servant's heart and a clear picture of what place our nation holds in the history of the world will have a chance to right our ship of state, and not before.

The Truth About Debt Ceiling Buried By Egomaniacs

Here's the truth about the upcoming fight over whether or not to raise the debt ceiling.  We are not going to default on our national debt.  Anybody who tells you that is lying and trying to scare you.  The US Treasury brings in over $250 billion each month.  Our debt payment is $20 billion and by law must be paid first.  The President does not have the discretionary authority to not pay it first.

So why are we hearing all this stuff about collapse, default and the bogeyman coming to take you away?  Because politics has become theater for the egomaniacs of our nation.

The media finds a story and beats it to death in order to attract an audience which in turn gives them viewership numbers they can use to sell advertising.  That is television, radio, newspapers and most blogs in a nutshell.  It's all about getting money.

As it is with most politicians.  Oh sure, I know, the TEA party guys are all about principles and not politics.  Baloney.

They looked out over the political landscape and discovered an audience they could carve out for themselves, a niche so to speak,  from which they could raise money and get voted into $176,000 per year jobs with all kinds of perks not the least of which is having people jump to their feet and applaud every time they walk into a room.  They have staff members with a deep sense of loyalty whose only jobs are to make the boss look good.

This applies equally to the TEA party folks, the other republicans, the democrats, Libertarians and all others.  They have found  group to which they appeal for money, donations, volunteers and all of it is designed to get them in and keep them in office.

The media provides a free delivery system for their message and increases their notoriety.  Even though the Kentucky readers of this blog don't see Steny Hoyer knocking on doors in their neighborhood, you probably know the name and can picture in your mind kinda what he looks like.  The same holds true for Barney Frank, Barbara Boxer, Saxby Chambliss, Ted Cruz, Dick Durbin and many other names you know.  These people all have notoriety, a perk of office.

So when the press keeps the debate over the government shutdown on the top of the news for a few weeks don't be surprised if the people increasing their notoriety in the environment of that news cycle do little to put an end to in until the media moves on to some other topic.

And what's up next?  The Debt Limit increase.  More theater, more lies, more exaggerations and more confusion about what is really going on.

We aren't going to default on the debt.  And no, all those government workers who are being held up as such poor victims of the shutdown aren't going without pay.  They have been promised back pay when the shutdown is over so it has saved us nothing, cost them nothing, given them a paid vacation and cut down on whatever productivity the government has any chance of performing for a little while.

Why don't you hear the truth?  Because it doesn't sell as well as the hype.

The truth is being buried by egomaniacs.

Treasury Says We're Broke, Broke, Broke

There is a difference between being poor, and being broke.  Being broke means you are out of money, which could be temporary.  According to Jack Lew at the Treasury Department, the USA is broke, but we may end up being in pretty poor shape unless something is done by October 17 when we hit the debt ceiling.

What usually happens is that the Congress approves an increase in borrowing to fund the government.  But this time, considering how the government shutdown is working out, the budget talks might very well force the government to take some much needed drastic measures to balance the budget.

This could easily mean deep cuts.

I think Harry Reid and Obama are getting a pretty clear picture of what the meeting of an immovable object and an irresistible force looks like, up close and personal.  Expect Obama's lust to be a dictator to be on full display.

Stay tuned.

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