Archive for the 'GOP Sellouts' Category

I’ve personally seen some of my progressive friends throw their own temper-tantrum and lament the filibuster rule in the Senate, openly proclaiming that “since when is 41 greater than 59″ and that the European’s parliamentary system doesn’t suffer from the problems our system does. Blah. Blah. Blah.

Well, Arnold Kling has a pretty good article over at the Library of Economics and Liberty entitled “The Progressive Tantrum“.

A quick taste:

Everyone agrees that the Republicans are just throwing sand in the gears of good government and not offering any ideas. What that means is that they are not offering ideas to enlarge government.

(snip)

My point here is not to champion Republicans. It is not to champion democracy. My point is that the ones throwing the temper tantrum right now are the Progressives. They think that the 2008 election gave them the right to operate like China’s autocracy, and they are lashing out hysterically at those they perceive as preventing them from doing so On the one hand, the villains are a small minority in the Senate. Or maybe the villains are the incoherent majority of the people.

The important point is that Progressives are never wrong.

Kling also has some examples of the Progressives lamentations (from a Thomas Friedman column) that we don’t have more of an authoritarian system that would allow us to bypass this troublesome system our Founders set up:

One-party autocracy certainly has its drawbacks. But when it is led by a reasonably enlightened group of people, as China is today, it can also have great advantages. That one party can just impose the politically difficult but critically important policies needed to move a society forward in the 21st century.

Seriously. Expect more of this, especially as the progressives start to see their greatest opportunity evaporate into a dissipating mist….

“The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield, and government to gain ground.” – Thomas Jefferson

That’s right. After much reading, studying, thought, deliberation and careful consideration, I have decided that it is time for me to become more active in politics. No. I’m not ready to run for office, nor do I consider myself to the consummate politician, as I speak my mind too much and I don’t have enough pragmatic bones in my body.

However, I believe that I can help be part of a movement to retake this country from the progressives, of both major political parties, as they try to institute even more nanny state controls and continue to put the final nails in the coffin of our Constitutional system of government.

Just as our Founders believed that government closet to the people would be the most accountable to the people, we must start taking back our local governments and start breaking our fellow citizens of the “What can government do for me” mentality that has come to dominate our politics.

Just as the quote attributed to Andrew Tytler says: Read the rest of this entry »

No. I’m not kidding. I think that Ronald Reagan’s old saying on this is fitting:

Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.

and here is the latest from the brain trust at the IRS:

The IRS is weighing a proposal to deem one-quarter of employees’ use of work cell phones as personal use and therefore subject to tax as a fringe benefit.

The proposal is one of several options the IRS put forward this week on the tax treatment of employer-provided cell phones.

Is there ANYTHING that our betters at the Versaille on the Potomac aren’t willing to tax in order to fund their orgy of spending? Anything?

Barry promised a more transparent government. He touts this to this day. Recently he held a meeting of the minds on health care reform, and he proposed a “down payment” on universal health care.

Senator Kennedy formed a group that has been holding secret meetings for 9 months now, on this topic. He has made this his signature issue, we all know. 9 months worth of meetings and no transparency to date…in fact, Kennedy has made the group swear to keep quiet.

Some details have come out, this article is from February:

Taking part in these meetings, as was reported last week in the New York Times, are a diverse group of stakeholders: AARP, the insurer Aetna, the AFL-CIO, the American Cancer Society, the American Medical Association, America’s Health Insurance Plans, the Business Roundtable, Easter Seals, the National Federation of Independent Business, Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

What? No real average people included here?

And now we learn of yet another set of secret meetings, parallel to the above mentioned meetings:

A bipartisan group of nine U.S. senators, after meeting for nine months behind closed doors, is nearing an agreement on the broad strokes of a health care reform bill. The so-called Gang of Nine — though its number expands and contracts depending on the meeting — is hammering out the finer points as they prepare to enter the drafting phase of the negotiations, sources from three Senate offices involved in the talks tell TIME.

Why the secrecy? Why such a hushed tone? Why hasn’t Barry insisted all of this become open and therefore more honest? Do the members of these groups think they know what’s best? Could it be that the committees don’t want the people to know they have discussed rationing care by denying payments for treatments deemed (by some) not to be worthy of their costs?
I bet they do…Didn’t this happen many years ago with Shillary’s Task Forces on health care?

“You don’t need to know what’s going on in the secret meetings to know the two biggest challenges are the individual mandate and costs,” says Senator Sherrod Brown, an Ohio Democrat…

Ahh..here we go. Secrecy because the fear of the masses learning the costs of this.

President Obama, I demand transparency here. The American people have a right to know what their government is up to- especially when it comes to such an important issue as their health care coverage. This isn’t a process unless everyone is included…and we the people most of all need to be included, since WE will be paying for all this.

I’ve been acquainted with this quote for quite a few years, now, but following the events surrounding the first several weeks of the Obama administration and his allies in Congress, culminating in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, for the first time I truly understand what the author meant – because that exactly how they view it, as demonstrated by their actions.

Here’s what Saint John had to say to the moderates of his era:

I could wish that you were hot or cold, but because you are lukewarm…I will vomit you out of my mouth

And with that prologue, I will address the behavior of three Senators with Rs next to their names, those who willingly yielded to the pick-up line of those asking them to be bipartisan.

For months, the so-called moderates in the Republican party, especially those allied with the Republican Main Street Partnership, have decried the pernicious influence of social conservatives, accusing them of ignoring fiscal conservatism.

Well folks, this week we see who are the fiscal conservatives. And guess what, it’s not the maligned social conservatives who have left the team.

Rather, it’s the “moderate” – the RMSP members* who have abandoned fiscal conservatism is the most egregious act of irresponsibility in our nation’s history. The “moderates” not the “social conservatives”. I will remember who took a stand for fiscal conservatism in the hour when our nation’s future was a stake, and who sold out for thirty pieces of silver. You need to also.

Worse they have aided and abetted a process in which the largest appropriation bill in history was rushed through to passage without either our representatives or the people of this country even having a chance to read the contents. A rush precipitated by the President of Hope and Change™ appealing to the base emotions of fear and scapegoating.

The second action, even more than the first, is a betrayal of fundamental representative principles, and for that betrayal they need to be primaried and cast out if possible. We are on the verge of a legislative tyranny of the majority – which will only invite retaliation in kind if the Republicans ever regain the ascendency. This degeneration is deeply injurious to the principles of deliberative government.

Democracy itself has taken a body blow today, one that may prove fatal. Those who enabled it must be held accountable.

———————————————————-

*From the RMSP website: Who we are:

Sen. Norm Coleman, Minnesota
Sen. Susan Collins, Maine
Sen. John McCain, Arizona
Sen. Olympia Snowe, Maine
Sen. Arlen Specter, Pennsylvania

That’s a fascinating list of names, wouldn’t you say. Of these 5 names, 3 are the very Republican senators who provided the critical Republican votes needed to pass the stimulus bill. Sen. Coleman, of course, is not seated since he is still in an election court contest. Sen. McCain to his credit publically called bullshit on President Obama’s attempt to label the bill bipartisan.

Senator McCain, you’ve really done grave damage to the conservative movement with your inept campaign. But you have left the door open to redemption with your position on the stimulus bill, if this represents a new awakening on your part that we are now in a war for the survival of our country – with possibly its very existence on the line, but certainly its existence as a Constitutional republic of free mean and women. We shall see.

Beating drums of doom
Racing towards the precipice
After you, Alphonse

Readers are invited to submit their own haikus in the comments.

Update 9:30pm: Second line revised; too many syllables in original version

This is from the I.O.U.S.A. film that I watched on the CNN one night. Very good at describing the mess our politicians have gotten us into. I don’t know about you guys, but I’m excited that my entire family of 4 owes/owns 700,000 bucks in our federal debt. Too bad I am the only one with a job. Unbelievable. And it is another reason I believe that this republic doesn’t have much of a life in it as it stands now. The American people will continue to put those politicians in power that promise more and more handouts from the public treasury. I believe that this is a 100 car freight train that is moving at full speed, and we’ve got a Toyota Prius that is going to try to stop it. The system will have to collapse, unfortunately, before things will change.. I just don’t see anyone doing anything to substantially change this course. People like Representative Ron Paul are laughed at, while Barack “Only Government Can Save Us” Obama are elected president with fanfare, pomp and circumstance.

Here is a link to the 30-minute version. Don’t worry if you think they give Bill Clinton credit for the “Balanced Budget” and leave the Republican controlled Congress out of it as they slay the sacred cows of Democrats, namely Social Security and Medicare. I think it is fair to say that both of our parties, once again, have failed us, the American people.

Oh yeah.. that’s right….

To much fanfare from both right and left in 2006, Massachusetts became the first state in the nation to require all residents to buy health insurance. A new state health insurance clearinghouse was created, with taxpayers subsidizing those who couldn’t afford to buy coverage. Then Gov. Mitt Romney, a Republican, promised that “every uninsured citizen in Massachusetts will soon have affordable health insurance.” Yet just two years later, Romney’s much-heralded “solution” — touted by many as the model for a national program — has become an embarrassing flop.

Just a year after the universal coverage law passed, The New York Times reported, state insurers were already jacking up rates to twice the national average. According to Dr. Paul Hsieh, a physician and founding member of Freedom and Individual Rights in Medicine, 43 mandatory benefits — including those that many people did not want or need, such as invitro fertilization — raised the costs of coverage for Massachusetts residents by as much as 56 percent, depending upon an individual’s income status. So much for “affordable” health care.

As someone famous once said somewhere this one time, I am dying of surprise. Whenever government gets involved, things just don’t seem to get better… but The View from Chaos Manor says it best here:

Of course once you admit that the Federal Government has power over some area of human endeavor, sooner or later it will create a bureaucracy to assert that power, and Pournelle’s Iron Law of Bureaucracy will take over, assuring that the area of endeavor will be choked by rules, all well meant. Congress Shall Make No Law becomes something less than an absolute restriction, and Congress hands out doles and earmarked funds but only if the states adopt whatever it is Congress thinks will be best for everyone, and meanwhile the courts hold that window washers are engaged in interstate commerce because they might be washing windows for an office suite that has someone working in it who is importing goods from another state, and suddenly federal minimum wage laws, are valid, and soon Congress will be able to say that a union goon can intimidate you into signing a card so they don’t have to have a secret ballot election to make you join the union to keep your job. Welcome to freedom tempered by good intentions.

Exactly. I highlight places where the Federal Government has made a power grab, through the power of the purse by Congress, or by judicial fiat through the Supreme Court. And it is always “for the children”, or “for our own good”, or “we need this”. No asks should we do this. Or can we do this. And we find ourselves following the same failures of socialism, skipping down that same path. Now we have one party almost completely in control over the Federal Government, whose agendas are more big government, with all of the nanny-state intrusions that comes with it. Going to be great 4 years comrades… a great 4 years…

Looks like Bush is going to “save” the Big Three for a few more months by giving them some money from the TARP. And I am so excited to see it. (/sarcasm)

Also, if I hear another CEO from the automotive industry, or from the UAW, spout forth from their greedy pie-holes another statement that sounds like “We’re committed to creating quality products and vehicles that are fuel-efficient and green” I will vomit. How about we get cars THAT PEOPLE WANT TO BUY! Ones that are of better quality and value than the foreign cars MADE HERE IN AMERICA! Bah. This reminds me of Atlas Shrugged again, where the government comes in and helps companies stay afloat, and producing jobs, that couldn’t compete with those who were working hard and taking care of business.

I have this nagging feeling that despite our governments valiant attempts attempts to rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic, things will continue to correct themselves, however painfully. Such are the consequences of these attempts at government meddling/central planning.

UPDATE: Also, it turns out that this move to bailout the Big 3 with TARP money is either illegal or unconstitutional. But nevermind, it has never stop the Federal Government before….

Introduced by Rep. Mark Kirk [R-IL], and co-sponsored by Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen [R-FL], Rep. Michael Ferguson [R-NJ], Rep. Christopher Shays [R-CT] and Rep. Michael Castle [R-DE]. I noticed that there wasn’t EVEN ONE “D” next to those names. It was apparently introduced back in June, and so far no action has been taken. However, I fully expect that the “Scary Looking Weapons” ban will be reauthorized, either for another 10 years as the introduced bill calls for, or for a permanent ban like Senator President-elect Obama wants.

What bothers me about this is that it does nothing to stop crime, as only law abiding citizens will heed and follow such laws. This “ban” doesn’t confiscate assault weapons or “high-capacity” magazines, but prohibits their production for any use other than military or law-enforcement. So, the bad guys will still have access to those on the street, only the price will go up. And if you have a Glock 17 with a 10 round magazine instead of the DREADED 15 ROUND magazine (truly scary), you simply have to reload sooner during your drive-by/school massacre.

My question is that, other than interstate commerce, how does the Federal Government, with the authority given to it by the U.S. Constitution, have the authority over the production and sale of “assault weapons” (and by assault weapons, they have a list of brand names, as well criteria like a folding/collapsable stock and/or a pistol grip… eewwww SCARY!!) by individual states. Sure, the weapons can’t be shipped to another state, or imported from overseas, if prohibited by the Feds due to the interstate commerce clause, but other than that, I just don’t see how it is constitutional for our Federal national government to actually create and enforce this law…

Oh, and a little sidenote to the GOP. These douche-nozzles who introduced this bill were from your party. This is why I am planning, short of a miraculous change in direction of your sad, pathetic group of politicians, I won’t be voting for anybody with an “R” next to their name in 2010 or 2012… Just soasyouknow…

Hat-tip to the Arsenal.