The Rabid Conservative

…but they sure can roll it together when budget shortfalls threaten to turn off the Government’s lights (even if they are in the shape of curly fries)

The US Senate continues to show its dysfunctional state of operation by showing that it can’t do one simple thing without overcomplicating the issue. At the center, the Balanced Budget Amendment prevents Congress from doing what normal people have no choice but to do – spend less than we take in and to show fiscal responsibility with taxpayer dollars. But rather than just promote a simple bill that would have started the process, both parties had to add in riders so they feel like they are getting something that they want.

Republican Bill (defeated 47-53)
- 2/3ds majority vote on raising taxes
- Spending limit 18% of GDP

Democrat Bill (defeated 12-79)
- Prohibit lowering taxes on millionaires
- Lock-box Social Security

Don’t get me wrong – I like the idea of restricting tax raises and controlling spending through caps.  But perhaps it would be a good idea to just write a simple amendment and send it out to the states, rather than playing games.

The stupidest thing said in this process came from Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt) made this statement: “I wish those who so often say they revere the Constitution would show it the respect it deserves rather than treating it like a blog entry.”

Uhh, excuse me Pat, but who is “those who so often say”? Are you talking about Democrats, Republicans, or your “living Constitution” brethren? By the way, the Founders didn’t say that the Constitution could never be changed, but rather, just put tight controls to keep it from being changed capriciously (like you say, “like a blog entry”). Now unfortunately, The Rabid Conservative doesn’t get updated as much as it should, but saying this process is anything like that, well, your objections are seriously far-fetched, dude.

However, I think the GOP seems to be more in touch with this than the Dems here, since the results of the GOP bill were along party lines while over 30 Democrats voted against their own bill – unless there are over 30 Dems who just don’t believe in fiscal policies like a balanced budget. Either way, to me, the Dems own this budgetary mess, since they lack the real mettle to fix it. And fixing it doesn’t mean the fallacy of taxing the rich into oblivion, since taking 100% of the rich’s earnings won’t even fix it.

So, no Balanced Budget Amendment from our do-nothing Congress. The losers in this aren’t the Republicans or Democrats – it’s all of us outside the Beltway who continue to watch the Government spend itself into oblivion and can’t make a simple piece of legislation without twenty policy riders.

Last night, the Congress though decided that it would be a really bad thing if it had to turn the lights off because they couldn’t spend money. So, faced with another $900 billion or so in spending, Congress throws together another big bill in darn near the dead of night.

But like Congress, policy riders abound, such as whether or not incadendescent light bulbs were legal, whether contractors had to disclose their political contributions, or issues over nuclear waste. Once again, Congress has to play games rather than doing the actual work of governance.

And as I write this, I see:

Do-Nothing Congress -> DNC -> Democrat National Convention

Coincidence?  I think not.

Today, El Presidenté made the claim that the GOP was wasting precious time with the Boehner bill in the House, meanwhile the Democrats have yet to cough up anything that works and will even get passage.  Thing is, Obama and Harry Reid have already made the point that they won’t pass anything that allows only a short-term raise in the debt ceiling and basically continue to complain about not wanting to make any real cuts to spending.

Then, Nancy “Queen Bee” Pelosi says that John Boehner “went to the dark side” to get the votes for passage.  And I would have thought a woman of her experience would actually be able to act a little more than juvenile with her claims.

But no matter.  The GOP still has done more to solve the debt ceiling problem than the Democrats have.  The GOP has already produced a budget, something that the Dems haven’t done since they got the the Presidency with a super-majority in the Congress in 2008.  The GOP passed the Cut, Cap, and Balance plan to fix the problem and Harry Reid has tabled it, with the promise of a veto if it ever got to his desk.

In short, since “Dem-Blonde Debbie” made the point that the Democrats “own the economy”, then I would say that, despite what the GOP does, the Democrats have already claimed ownership of this mess.  They are standing in the way of their own bills, and pushing the government to the brink of default. 

So, Mr. President, you and your people are the ones wasting time and all of this is now your party’s fault.

And you were calling for change…

I can’t wait for the change of 2012 when the American people give you a pink slip.

You know, I really get tired, I mean really fed up and sick of racists like Sheila Jackson Lee who start saying that the reason why Obama is getting static from Congress…

…is because he is black.

Holy crap, really??  REALLY??

I thought the fact that Obama was black was going to work to his advantage, that he was going to be able to get things done because America had evolved to a place where we could elect a president of African heritage.

Well, not QUITE African, but I digress.

So, on the house floor, she suggests that the reason why Obama gets criticized and has such a tough time, singled out as the only president who has ever had a difficult time getting anything done is because of the color of his skin.

Never mind that not once did the topic of race come up during this discussion about whether we should again defer our bills to the government credit card.  Never mind that we completely have a spending problem in the government.  Never mind the amount of waste and uselessness of the 2008 stimulus, or the pork projects, so-called “shovel-ready” jobs created, bailouts, defense spending overkill and mismanagement.  No, all of this argument is because President Obama is a man of color, so all the evil GOP’s are picking on him.

Sheila, you are a miserable ingrate.  You accuse everyone else of being a racist but it’s you who is doing the race-baiting and leveling the vitriol.  You are arrogant and corrupt.  You represent everything that Barack Obama was talking about overcoming with your racist nonsense. 

On the plus side, I guess it also proves a point that I’ve long held that, when Democrats have no other recourse in a situation, they resort to name calling and ad hominem attacks.

Source: The Hill

Well, it was only inevitable – the so-called 2006 mandate that ushered the Democrats into power and culminated to the 2008 win of Barack Obama has now shown that it was dismally unable to deliver on any of its misguided promises

In 2006, the GOP lost the farm, not because of a rejection of conservative ideas, but because of the liberals and moderates that have infiltrated the Republican party.   The GOP showed itself not much different than the Democratic party, not because of the failure of the parties, but because both have been swayed by stupid progressive values and programs that seek to rob power from the people and give it to the all-powerful state.

Since the GOP lost its distinction as being the “party of Reagan”, the “conservative choice”, and basically reneging on the Contract With America that hoisted the GOP into power in 1994, they have recently showed that they are just as willing to spend ridiculous amounts of money on entitlements and earmark projects and do very little to protect the traditional family.  They have sought to sit in the middle and try to appeal to the more moderate people in the country  (which I defy anyone to show me a true moderate without showing me someone who is conflicted in their beliefs)

Well, today we’ve been informed by Rasumussen that Congress’ approval rating is about ready to fall into the single digits.   More and more Americans, Democrats and Republicans are showing staunch disapproval for the job that Congress is doing.  Perhaps it’s for different reasons, such as the libs railing that they couldn’t get health care passed while the conservatives look at the Congress as a cesspool for progressivism.  Either way, more people are unhappy than happy these days.

I get the feeling the hammer is about to fall on Nancy Pelosi and the rest of the Democrats that remain in Congress after November 2010.  Harry Reid is doomed, three others (Dodd, Bayh, and Dorgan) are jumping ship, and the Dems are looking worse and worse everyday for their respective elections.

The tide is about to change…

Well, the health deform passed the Senate this morning after a long fight with Senators who demonstrated this Reagan principle:

Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first. – Ronald Reagan

So with sellouts like Ben Nelson of Nebraska, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Chris Dodd of Connecticut, and others who scored windfalls for their states by demonstrating they can be bought off like the political whores that they are, proved Reagan right once again. 

The House and Senate, once again, have disregarded the will of the American people in passing this bill.  Many states polled showed majority opinion against the bill, yet the senators and representatives from those states voted for it with extreme arrogance.  And I look forward to the legal fight when Obama signs it into law and within seconds after, the federal courts get slammed with suit after suit, questioning the bills constitutionality. 

Basically, the Senate language is the first big step towards a single-payer system, completely socialistic and in violation of the 1st, 4th, 5th, 6th, 9th, 10th, and 14th Amendments.

But did you see this little “gem”?

Turns out, Senator Jim DeMint, R-SC, noted that, with the passage of the bill, there as a Senate rule change that stated, with regards to the Independent Medicare Advisory Board:

"it shall not be in order in the senate or the house of representatives to consider any bill, resolution, amendment, or conference report that would repeal or otherwise change this subsection."

So basically, the “Death Panels” as Governor Palin has named them, not only are a pencil-whip away from being law, but to bring legislation up that would repeal them would be “out of order”, according to Senate rules, requiring a 2/3 vote in the Senate to change the rules.  Of course, this rule change is in violation to the Senate’s own rules of requiring a 2/3 vote to change the rules, but it also can very well be construed as unconstitutional.  The same goes for the House.  Of course, what good are rules if the House and Senate can break them whenever they want.

You see, no law is unrepealable.  If you recall, even a law set in motion by the Constitution can be repealed, as we saw with prohibition, which was enacted by the 18th Amendment and later repealed by the 21st Amendment.

So no matter how much that moron Harry Reid likes to think he can put down a law that no one can move, it can be moved.  But such a provision even putting this in shows the utter arrogance and lack of concern in this standing congress.  They simply don’t believe in representing the American people anymore, but rather, pushing the “agenda”.  I’m thinking we’ve quietly moved from a constitutional republic to a oligarchial democracy, where the majority of congressional elites make the rules and the American public is wholly ignored, except when these elites come to prostitute themselves for your election vote.

So America not only gets a lump of coal in her stocking with this idiotic piece of dung legislation but the stocking now has a stain that will take a whole bunch of Americans, scrubbing, before it comes out.

I really wonder what the Founders would think of this.

Because it’s not their money, and it’s not even our money.  It’s our great-grandkids money.

Democrats today announced plans today to kick up the debt ceiling by as much as $1.8 trillion.  It’s bad enough that they do this and kick our national debt to $14 trillion, but the reason they are doing this now…?  Because if they do it next year in 2010, they fear the backlash of losing votes come November.

So rather than take a logical course and reduce spending and not try to ramrod legislation that better than half the country doesn’t want, namely so-called health care reform, the Dems interest is to continue their full court press in implementing as much of their radical left wing agenda and burden our successive generations with a debt that is now approaching 25% of worldwide GDP (currently $60T as of 2008).

Perhaps because they understand that if they take out the public option, they will have to bolster Medicare to get their government-run policy in place and someone is going to have to pay for that.  And since that arbitrary one trillion watermark represents the spending barrier that Congress seems to want to avoid these days with the healthcare bill, well, the only other place to pull the cash is from the government’s Heward’s handy haversack that contains all the money imaginable.  (I guess someone forgot to tell them that their bag of holding was really a bag of devouring.)

In any case, the way that government is presently spending (taking note, again, that President Bush started this insane spending back in 2000 when the national debt was only $5 trillion, not the $14 trillion today), it would seem that their spending is without any sort of fiscal accountability or responsibility.

Because it’s not their money, and it’s not even our money.  It’s our great-grandkids money.

Thing is, again, the Dems don’t have the spine to do this next year, when the money is actually needed.  Instead, they want to do it now, capitalizing on the thought that Americans won’t be so angry about yet another debt raise when it comes time to pull the switch.

How typical.  How pathetic.  I guess they realize that raising the debt ceiling is wrong and they don’t want to take the repercussions of their actions.

[T]he inconvenient truth is that majorities of Democratic voters are opposed to the Obama-Pelosi agenda on many issues. – Brad O’Leary, American Thinker, 8/9/2009

The Democrat Party appears to be losing its appeal rather quickly.

Latest poll numbers from Pew, Gallup, and Rasumssen are showing Presidential approval in steady decline with the 50% approval marker within striking distance within the next month or so. 

And not just the president, but the ruling party right now is falling from the highest approval rating it had in nearly four years, now settling back to the 30% mark. Perhaps it’s expected that as time goes on, popularity and job satisfaction numbers are generally entropic, that is, they are always in a general state of decline.  But one would wonder if this decline is not also getting a great big push from the people who are the very ones falling from grace – that is, they’re doing it to themselves.  After all, the spring approval surge occurred as a result of the Obama Immaculation. But the seven point drop off in the last three months is showing that the kool-aid may not be having its intended effect anymore.

By the way, note that the 14% record low occurred with the Dems at the helm, as they were voted into power in November 2006 and have been on the downward trek all the way until ObamAd, Inc took the reins.

Now, I’ve never really been big on polls, since polls are only really for Democrats and strippers, but when you have three polling organizations showing a marked drop in approval, there’s something to be said.

The ongoing health care debate is certainly a problem for the Sinister* Wing.  They had hoped to push this thing through the Congress and get it to the President’s desk before the August recess, because of having to face angry voters in town hall meetings.  Of course, that didn’t work and now town hall meetings where legislators could see maybe 20 people show up now see 2,000, filled with angry people who are tired of the elites in Washington ignoring them.

Kinda like how Obama snubbed the protesters and the Central High Marching Band in Grand Junction, Colorado because he only wanted to hear the bussed-in supporters (ACORNies) from Denver, not the locals who showed up in opposition.

And today, the New York Post reported a double flip-flop regarding whether the White House would be ready to surrender the public option, which I mentioned that’s a position from which the Dems would not so quickly back down.  ObamAd, Inc made the slight whiff of backing off the public option and the liberals started dropping the F-bomb all over the Daily Kos and Democratic Underground websites, their words dripping with vitriol and hatred as they continuously chant “single-payer, single-payer” with their mantras.  But then, when Robert Gibbs comes out with his manufactured smile and says that “nothing has changed”, we see the cracks begin to show – a political party that cannot even get its story straight from one day to the next.  And the most difficult thing is that the people that the Dems need to push their agendas forward, the independents, are beginning to file away.

I can’t say this bugs me much, in fact, I hope the infighting continues within the Democrat party and the liberal movement for the next year.  Not only will it make for an amusing Christmas holiday when more town halls occur, but it’s my prediction that the Dems will lose their filibuster-proofness in the Senate in 2010.  But I’m also expecting to see the House swing back in a big way to the right as we watch legislators get tarred and feathered in their districts for disobeying the will of the people.

I end with these comments from Brad O’Leary, writing for American Thinker who comments:

President Obama and Speaker Pelosi may find it convenient, not to mention politically expedient, to blame Republicans every time they fail to get one of their Big Government agenda items through the Democrat-led House and the Democrat-led Senate. However, the inconvenient truth is that majorities of Democratic voters are opposed to the Obama-Pelosi agenda on many issues. According to a recent Gallup poll, 40 percent of all Americans consider themselves "conservative," and only 21 percent call themselves "liberal" (35 percent say "moderate"). The same poll found that 62 percent of self-identified Democrats consider themselves either conservative or moderate.

Try as they might, Obama and Pelosi should eventually find these numbers hard to ignore. In the meantime, they seem content to not only buck mainstream America, but also buck the mainstream within their own Party.

Anyone wanna take a bet on how low it will be by Christmas, or perhaps this time next year?

*Sinister, in the Latin, means “left”. The more I see the actions of the left, the more I see them as sinister.