Tag: politics

WND column

The Battle for America’s Credit Card

The eyes of the Republican blogosphere are concentrated on Wisconsin these days, as the public employee unions and Democratic senators are lashing out in a desperate and futile attempt to defend the status quo of unsustainable state debt. But despite the mediagenic circus of shut-down public schools, doctors dispersing fraudulent sick notes and teachers waving misspelled signs, the battle between the unions and Republican Gov. Scott Walker is not one that demands reinforcement from either the blogosphere or the tea party.

The focus of the fiscally prudent should be on Washington, not Wisconsin. This is because the outcome in Madison is assured, whereas the one in the national capital is not. While both situations are unsustainable, Wisconsin has already reached the outer limits of its debt expansion. The federal government has not. Wisconsin’s limits are externally imposed, whereas Washington’s are not, at least, not in the near term.

Mailvox: on the Tea Party

TF writes in regarding his perceptions of the movement:

I am a Viet Nam veteran that came home in Dec. 1970 with a burning question in my mind? “Who is running our country?” About 1975 I started on my quest to answer that question. I can’t tell you how many hours I have spent in libraries trying to find information about various subjects. I have read excerpts out of the Congressional Record of the United States, I have read volumes of books, etc etc etc. At the risk of sounding like a big mouth I am very well read and understand more then most. I have attended several Tea Party rallies in the state I live in and found that most of the people there were there for answers. They saw enough about what was going on in the Government to make them scared. Some were more informed then others but ALL OF THEM had their eyes and ears open like no group I have been around since I started on my quest in 1975. To me that’s the big deal. A lot of people now know enough to know that they need to find out more and that it’s time to really stand up and do something before it’s too late. I disagree with you that the Tea Party played no part in the recent election. How much of a part I won’t try and portray because usually any event was a combination of several factors that caused a change but I can say the Tea Party has played a part and the people now have their eyes open. I just hope they stay that way.

I do too. And I think it is entirely correct to say that the Tea Party had a powerful effect concerning which Republicans were nominated and subsequently elected, but it defies both belief and electoral history to argue that it made any difference regarding the size of the Republican victory. That was entirely a function of Democratic missteps and subsequent unpopularity, in fact, one can even reasonably argue that the Tea Party cost the Republicans a few seats such as the Nevada Senate seat. But it is totally nonsensical to attempt to argue that the Tea Party matters because a) it elected “good” Republicans who nevertheless b) vote with the exactly same results as the previous “bad” Republicans.

PD doesn’t assert that I am wrong, she merely hopes that I am. So do I, for that matter:

Thank you for your bold article. I have considered myself a Tea Party Patriot from the first day. I fully admit I am no Mensa member, but I would like to point out that many of us Tea Party folks, as homey as we are, have been calling on our representatives to defund ALL foreign giving – even Israel, under Jeffersonian and common sense principles. I fully agree that all foreign wars should cease and desist immediately, foreign bases should be closed and our military funded to secure our national borders and prepare for attacks on Americans at home. I disagree with the US being the policeman of the world and if a country needs our help they should hire it. We could use the extra income from wealthy countries like S. Korea. I have called for the abolition of unconstitutional programs such as Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security starting in generations like mine that have time to plan for that eventuality. These ideas are not foreign to the Tea Party people, but we do know that they are foreign concepts to those in DC and there is a great mistrust of even those we sent to DC. I hope you are wrong that this grassroots movement will die like so many others. I hope that it is the rudder that turns the ship of US destruction as it sails toward DEMOCRACY (if it has not already arrived), then on to socialism (where I fear we already are) and onto the final destination of Communism. I say Heaven Help US, for there is not other help that can effect a true change.

I think her mistrust is well-placed. And we should find out if Tea Party optimism will survive to live another day or if Vox Day cynicism will score a first-round knock-out relatively soon, as the Tea Party has now laid down a direct challenge to Republicans who are flirting with raising the debt ceiling.

The largest tea party group in America has come out forcefully in opposition to raising the debt limit, adding more pressure to House Republicans who can kill plans to permit continued borrowing by the federal government and thus mandate the most dramatic government cuts in spending in decades. Mark Meckler and Jenny Beth Martin, co-founders of the Tea Party Patriots, said in a statement, “Republican credibility as fiscally responsible managers of public resources is on the line” with the issue of the debt limit.

“In a matter of weeks, Congress will vote on whether to raise the nation’s debt ceiling,” they wrote. “The American people are united in saying ‘no,’ with recent polls indicating almost 70 percent of the American people opposed to this reckless action. Once again, congressional Republicans will have the opportunity to demonstrate to the American people that they are serious about bringing fiscal responsibility to Washington. Tea Party Patriots will be watching.”

This speaks well for the seriousness of the Tea Party regarding its core issue. It also sets the stage for a real test of the hypothesis that the Tea Party is capable of becoming a significant force in governing politics as well as mere electioneering. My assumption is that the Republicans will show about as much concern for the will of the people who elected them as they did when 70% of the American people opposed the banking bailouts of 2008.

WND column

Tea Party Traitors

Unlike many right-wing commentators, I did not endorse the tea-party movement when it erupted. Nor, like a few unusually shameless media whores, did I rush to leap in front of the parade and claim that I was leading it. I did not even think of doing either because I concluded from the start that the tea party is a useless and incoherent political mirage that is unlikely to accomplish anything of substance. It is not elections but the subsequent actions of the officials elected that matter.

Unelectable!

Ron Paul beats the smack out of the RINOs at CPAC:

Rep. Ron Paul (R., Texas) won the annual straw poll at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, an early, though unscientific, indicator of conservative favor as the 2012 presidential campaign cycle kicks into gear. Paul, with a 30 percent plurality, topped numerous high-profile White House contenders. He finished seven points ahead of former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, who placed second. All other candidates finished with less than ten percent of the vote: former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson snagged six percent, as did Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey. Former House speaker Newt Gingrich won five percent.

Needless to say, if Mitt “Obamacare” Romney had beaten every other potential Republican candidate this easily, all we would be hearing about was the inevitability of Captain Underoos’s nomination.

Ideological plague

This comment from an Althouse reader illustrates the problem of voter mobility:

My sister and brother-in-law — a couple of liberal Obama-votin’ Democrats — are currently trying to get out of Illinois as fast as they can. They literally cannot afford to live in Illinois anymore — they were having trouble making ends meet *before* the gargantuan tax hike.

Needless to say, no matter where they go, this couple will cling to their liberal Obama-voting ideology and continue to demand the very big government that they fled in Illinois. They are ideological disease carriers. The only viable solution I can imagine is permitting such refugees to move into a limited government state if they are willing to sign a consent form giving up their right to vote for as long as they were resident in their former state. Although perhaps even that is taking too big a risk since they’ll probably settle in an enclave of like-minded carriers. This should be a legally defensible approach since if one doesn’t wish to give up one’s right to vote, one doesn’t have to reside there.

The useless Tea Party

Most of you will recall that unlike those bloggers that leaped on the bandwagon with alacrity, I have been extremely skeptical of the Tea Party from the very beginning. And, as Karl Denninger points out, the skeptics were correct:

That’s thirty-one out of forty voting for the bill (77.5%), eight voting against, and one no-vote. Despite the eight nay votes, Tea Party-backed candidates overwhelmingly supported an extension of the PATRIOT Act.

As I expected, the Tea Party is an ineffectual and ideologically incoherent joke. They don’t see the intrinsic dichotomy of claiming to support small government while simultaneously playing totalitarian world police. Yes, the movement managed to get a few people elected to office, but that’s totally irrelevant because, as we have seen every time that Republicans get elected to office, they support extending and expanding central government power. This behavior is as predictable as the phases of the Moon; it is the nature of the sort of beast who runs for office.

And despite the brave “well, we’ll just throw them out again” rhetoric that we’ll likely hear from the more principled Tea Partiers, I am confident that most of the 31 Tea Party-backed sellouts will easily win re-election with the enthusiastic support of the very people they betrayed. Notice, by the way, that it is Republicans who are pushing the Patriot Act extensions.

“Republican leaders will bring the bill back to the floor under a rule, where it will almost certainly secure the 218-vote threshold.”

As for Michelle Bachmann, I was unsurprised to see that she was one of the frauds. I remember when she was first getting started in Minnesota politics. If I recall correctly, my father was one of her contributors, but I didn’t think much of her at the time and I have seen no reason to revise my opinion since.

Be careful what you wish for

You just might get it:

Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak is to step down Thursday night, two sources told NBC News, as widespread protests against his 30-year rule continue to grip the country. Following an all-day meeting of the country’s supreme military council, the army said all of the protesters’ demands would be met and that a further statement was due to be made later Thursday that would clarify the situation.

NBC News reported that a high-ranking source inside the president’s office said Mubarak would step down and the newly appointed vice president, Omar Suleiman, would take over. This was then confirmed by a second source. The news came following repeated warnings by members of the regime of a military crackdown or coup.

I’m a little surprised by these reports, as it was my impression that things were dying down and Mubarak had weathered the storm. But then, he’s old, and no doubt the army realized that they were going to have to deal with the succession sooner or later. They might as well face the issue now while they can get some credit with the populace for it. It will be interesting to see if the democracy fetishists are consistent in their demands for Egyptian democracy of the sort that is denied to Americans and Europeans or if their fear of an aggressive new Islamic democracy wins out.

116 may be too generous

From Obama’s recent speech to the Chamber of Commerce:

“Auto executives predicted that having to install seatbelts would bring the downfall of their industry. It didn’t happen. The President of the American Bar Association denounced child labor laws as “a communistic effort to nationalize children.” That’s a quote. None of these things came to pass.”

Apparently the moron failed to recall that General Motors filed for bankruptcy on June 1, 2009. Chrysler filed for bankruptcy on April 30, 2009. American birth rates are well below replacement rates when immigrant births aren’t counted, and the federal government explicitly claims a right to children that supercedes the parental claim in many areas, including health and education. One can reasonably argue about whether or not these events can truly be said to have been caused by the specific government policy, but to base an argument on the events not having happened takes a special combination of ignorance and unfounded arrogance.

UPDATE – It takes a real rocket scientist to attempt lying about something one did in public more than 24 times in the last two years.

“President Obama’s assertion on Sunday that he “didn’t raise taxes once” is “blatantly false,” a taxpayer watchdog group says. Obama made the claim in his pre-Super Bowl interview with Fox News host Bill O’Reilly. According to Americans for Tax Reform (ATR), President Obama has signed into law at least two dozen tax increases.”

Neocons aren’t conservatives

Glenn Beck belatedly notices:

Fox News’s Glenn Beck lashed out at Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol on his radio show this morning, accusing Kristol of betraying conservatism and missing the significance of what Beck sees as an alliance between Islamism and socialism.

“I don’t even know if you understand what conservatives are anymore, Billy,” Beck said in his extended, sarcastic attack on Kristol. “People like Bill Kristol, I don’t think they stand for anything any more. All they stand for is power. They’ll do anything to keep their little fiefdom together, and they’ll do anything to keep the Republican power entrenched.”

The pragmatic set will always sell out their professed principles. This should never come as a surprise, after all, their lack of attachment to principle is precisely why they describe themselves as pragmatists in the first place. It’s not as if Bill Kristol has changed because people like him never stand for anything but power. And they’ll be screeching like banshees about the need for American military intervention once the Caliphate that they claim doesn’t exist begins to turn its attention towards Jerusalem again.

Where Beck is wrong is to think that beginning by confronting the ur-caliphate in the Middle East is the right strategy. The strategically correct place to begin is removing its footholds in the West.

A challenge to the separation of powers?

Karl Denninger suspects the Obama administration is on the verge of committing sedition:

The White House officials said that the ruling would not have an impact on implementation of the law, which is being phased in gradually. (The individual mandate, for example, does not begin until 2014.) They said that states cannot use the ruling as a basis to delay implementation in part because the ruling does not rest on “anything like a conventional Constitutional analysis.” Twenty-six states were involved in the lawsuit.

So now we have a White House that has declared its intent to ignore a declaratory judgment. The Administration has no right to do this. Obama’s White House has exactly two options:

Comply with the ruling. This means that any and all activity authorized or mandated by the Statute cease now.

File an appeal and ask for a stay pending its hearing. If said stay is granted, then the ruling is held pending consideration.

That’s it…. This is now a full-blown Constitutional Crisis. The Executive’s willful, intentional and publicly-stated refusal to honor a declaratory judgment is an open act of willful and intentional violation of The Separation of Powers in The Constitution and, if combined with the use of or threat of use of force as is always present when government coercion is employed, treads awfully close to the line, and may cross it, of 18 USC Ch 115 Sec 238.

I tend to doubt that Obama and his crew are actually intending to challenge the separation of powers over health care reform. I suspect they are so accustomed to being able to impose their version of reality on everyone else that it doesn’t occur to them that it’s not always possible; after all they succeeded in convincing most of the nation that Obama is a highly intelligent author instead of the teleprompt-reading dolt with a ghostwriter that he observably is. I also suspect they simply didn’t stop to think about what the consequences of declaring that the executive branch need not pay any attention to declaratory judgments by the courts might be.

You must admit that it would be a rather peculiar objective for which to openly attack the separation of powers doctrine. And, given what is happening in Egypt and Tunisia right now, unusual timing as well.