Tag: politics

Video: Charles Krauthammer gets it right

This comes via The Corner:

http://youtu.be/WmvILtDMDgM

He is, of course, talking about the budget deal. The budget deal that everyone else hates. I say l let ’em hate it. The corner says this:

“The only choice of those who would reject the deal would be to go up until the deadline of January 15th,” he said on Special Report, “and the only leverage Republicans would have would be to shut down the government.

“We tried that in October. It was a disaster,” Krauthammer said, arguing that that the news stories in January would have been about such a shutdown, not Obamacare’s continuing problems. Rejecting the spending deal, he said, would have been “mindless.”

Krauthammer praised the GOP for taking the deal, lauding them for preserving 70 percent of the sequester cuts over the next two years and ending the “endless extension of unemployment benefits.”

I said the same thing back when the shutdown was happening; it was a bad idea. Why punish those who are just going to work everyday? It was a stupid idea. Ted Cruz did not have a plan, once he took the House Republicans into the ditch.  This compromise was a smart idea, and it will buy the Republicans some time, till after the election. Hopefully, the new ones coming in will play the right political game and not the wrong one again.

 

 

BudgetGate 2013

I apologize for a lack of output today. I just didn’t see anything worth wasting time over. I did post one thing; But nothing political.

Anyhow, Senate leaders hashed out a budget deal; and the Dems hate it, although some do like it; and not shockingly, the right is not to happy with it either. Which means, it might just be a decent deal. Believe it or not, Rep. John Boehner makes a valid point here: (H/T HotAir.com)

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The point he makes at 1:30 in this video is legit; and we all know whom that little remark is aimed at! (Ted Cruz) Boehner has a point; Cruz took the House into the ditch and did not have a plan to come out of the ditch at all. Which is not good politics. I’ve written all about this before, so I am not going to repeat all that again! 🙄

Either way, the roundup on this huge story over at Memeoradum is huge and worth a read.

Quote of the Day

In real life, the guy who looks you in the eye and promises that “if you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan, period” can be expected to tell you, cross his heart, the Benghazi massacre was caused by an anti-Muslim video, and that everything possible was done to save Americans under siege. He can also be expected to run an administration that assures you, even as things fall apart, that the Muslim Brotherhood is a moderate, largely secular organization committed to democracy; that Obamacare is not a tax and will dramatically reduce your premiums while cutting spending; that we are experiencing the most transparent administration in history; that the criminally reckless Fast and Furious program was begun by the Bush administration; that the president has cut spending and debt even as he piles trillions more on our tab; that he has excluded lobbyists from policymaking jobs; or that an “interim agreement” that explicitly allows Iran to enrich uranium — and that anticipates a final accord establishing a permanent uranium “enrichment program” for Iran — somehow does not recognize an Iranian right to enrich uranium and so portend a revolutionary jihadist regime possessed of nuclear bombs.

Though never desirable, presidential fraud might be tolerable if this were 1995 again. But it is not — our times are grave. Unlike the days of the Clinton bender, the question is not how the president is going to survive another fine mess he’s gotten himself into. The question is how we are going to survive this president.

 

The most important thing to remember about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1964

Is this right here:

There will be a lot of retrospective stuff published today, and I suspect that much of it will either omit or distort one key fact—Lee Harvey Oswald, the man who killed President Kennedy, was a leftwing nut job; he was a communist.

via 22 November, 1963 | hogewash.

Me and Sen. Carl Levin are on the same wavelength!

Which is pretty scary, considering he is a Democrat and I am a paleoconservative.

In a previous posting I wrote:

Not only that; what happens if the Democrats lose the majority in both houses of Congress? Then, the Republicans will use that relaxed power to stack the courts with people who, of course, the Democratswill not like and then you would have state Christian statism in a horrible form; and you have to know the Democrats will not like that one bit. Now, if I were a partisan type, I would think this would be awesome. However, I believe in divided Government and I happen to believe that one party acts as a check and balance to the other. It keeps one party from holding a monopoly on Government.

Take it away Senator Levin:

But Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, one of three Democrats who voted against diluting the filibuster, noted that past Democratic minorities have used the procedure to block GOP moves to limit abortion rights and repeal the estate tax.

He said he feared that a future Senate majority would weaken filibusters against legislation and “down the road, the hard-won protections and benefits for our people’s health and welfare will be lost.”

This is because that Senator Levin is from the old school Democratic Party and he happens to know a little about the game. Also, unlike some of the other Democrats; Levin is looking down the road, past 2014 and 2016, when the Democrats might actually lose the majority in both houses, due to the Obama Administration’s failures —- and he sees the Republicans abusing this little change in the rules to the high heavens.

Another reason too, is because he is not running for reelection. This is because of the stupidity, like this, up on the hill. The Parties have become too divided; and the partisan rancour has become too ugly. Levin comes from the old school Democratic Party and he sees the future, this is why he is getting out of it. Which is a smart move in this paleoconservative writers opinion.

Kudos to Senator Levin for having the guts to call a spade for what it truly is; a massive blunder by the Senate Democrats.

An FYI on the Beast and Don Fallon

I happen to be reading over at Breitbart.com and I happened to notice an article about Politico.com hiring a writer from that magazine the beast.

Well, I happen to have a bit of experience with that magazine called the Beast, and I happen to know a little something about the owner. If you’ll please click here you can read all about it.

Now some of you would probably say “what about you?” I have been more abundantly clear that my issues with the Zionism movement are strictly religious and political. I am NOT a Jew hater and Paul Fallon and his crew from The Beast are definitely Jew haters.

I just thought I’d let everyone know about that. And I find it very shocking that Politico would even hire someone like that.

If Harry Reid goes with the nuclear option, the Dems will be finished

That’s right folks, if Harry Reid is serious about pulling an overreach of this magnitude; the Democrats will face a setback that would last a very long time.

The Story:

Senator Harry Reid appears set to go nuclear — before Thanksgiving.

With Senate Republicans blocking a third Obama nomination to the powerful D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, a senior Senate Democratic leadership aide tells me Reid is now all but certain to move to change the Senate rules by simple majority — doing away with the filibuster on executive and judicial nominations, with the exception of the Supreme Court – as early as this week.

At a presser today, Reid told reporters he was taking another look at rules reform, but didn’t give a timeline. The senior leadership aide goes further, saying it’s hard to envision circumstances under which Reid doesn’t act.

“Reid has become personally invested in the idea that Dems have no choice other than to change the rules if the Senate is going to remain a viable and functioning institution,” the aide says. That’s a long journey from where Reid was only 10 months ago, when he agreed to a toothless filibuster reform deal out of a real reluctance to change the rules by simple majority. Asked to explain the evolution, the aide said: “It’s been a long process. But this is the only thing we can do to keep the Senate performing its basic duties.”

Asked if Reid would drop the threat to go nuclear if Republicans green-lighted one or two of Obama’s judicial nominations, the aide said: “I don’t think that’s going to fly.”

via Harry Reid is set to go nuclear. – Greg Sargent / The Plum Line

Well, I can tell you this; if Reid thinks that this “will fly” with the American people, he is wrong and the Democrats will pay the price for this one. If you think that the Republican Party will not exploit this little boneheaded move for political purposes; you are crazy. This will be seen by many as a power grab by the Conservative movement; and they will use it against the Democrats in 2014 and 2016.

Not only that; what happens if the Democrats lose the majority in both houses of Congress? Then, the Republicans will use that relaxed power to stack the courts with people who, of course, the Democrats will not like and then you would have state Christian statism in a horrible form; and you have to know the Democrats will not like that one bit. Now, if I were a partisan type, I would think this would be awesome. However, I believe in divided Government and I happen to believe that one party acts as a check and balance to the other. It keeps one party from holding a monopoly on Government.

It all goes back to that airplane analogy that I like to use: If a plane flies in circles; whether clockwise or counterclockwise, it does not really go anywhere and sooner or later, it will crash. However, if that same plane flies level, it always gets where it is going.  The same goes for the Government; a Government that is controlled by one party, is doomed to failure and will eventually crash. However, a Nation with divided Government always gets where it is going.

Hopefully, Harry Reid has more sense than to pull a stunt like this one.

Others, mostly Democrats; your mileage may vary: The Moderate Voice, Talking Points Memo, PoliticusUSA, Booman Tribune, Balloon Juice,Lawyers, Guns & Money, A plain blog about politics, Daily Kos, National Review, The Reality-Based Community and Hullabaloo (Via Memeorandum)

From the “You gotta be kidding me” file: House just voted on 2 bills that would undercut new financial regulations

This one somehow snuck past me.

I happen to read on Populist Jim Hightower’s website about this one here and I went and looked it up and sure enough; there it was in black and white:

The story:

WASHINGTON –– To Wall Street, this town might seem like enemy territory. But even as federal regulators and prosecutors extract multibillion-dollar penalties from the nation’s biggest banks, Wall Street can rely on at least one ally here: the House of Representatives.

The House is scheduled to vote on two bills this week that would undercut new financial regulations and hand Wall Street a victory. The legislation has garnered broad bipartisan support in the House, even after lawmakers learned that Citigroup lobbyists helped write one of the bills, which would exempt a wide array of derivatives trading from new regulation.

The bills are part of a broader campaign in the House, among Republicans and business-friendly Democrats, to roll back elements of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act, the most comprehensive regulatory overhaul since the Depression. Of 10 recent bills that alter Dodd-Frank or other financial regulation, six have passed the House this year. This week, if the House approves Citigroup’s legislation and another bill that would delay heightened standards for firms that offer investment advice to retirees, the tally would rise to eight.

Both the Treasury Department and consumer groups have urged lawmakers to reject the bills, warning that they could leave the nation vulnerable again to excessive financial risk taking. The House proposals stand little chance of becoming law, having received a much chillier reception in the Senate and at the White Ho

via House, Set to Vote on 2 Bills, Is Seen as an Ally of Wall St. – NYTimes.com.

You believe those greedy bastards? Jim Hightower is not amused and rightly so:

Audio:

[podcast]

Partial Quote:

On the day before Halloween, the ethically-challenged members of our lobbyist-haunted House of Representatives did a perverse imitation of “Profiles in Courage,” turning that body into “Profiles in Spinelessness.”

In particular, they cravenly caved in to an outrageous and dangerous demand by Wall Street whiners. Such financial powerhouses as Citigroup just hate having their profiteering recklessness restrained by the regulatory reforms passed after their 2008 financial meltdown. Even though the shockwaves from that Wall Street collapse continue to devastate America’s middle class, the banking elite have completely recovered – including recovering their swaggering arrogance and ability to sway money-hungry congress critters with rich campaign donations. — Read the rest at Jim Hightower’s site

I am shocked that more Conservatives are not swinging from the trees on this one here! To their credit, there are some Democrat Party house members that are opposed to this bill and rightly so. This is the same idiotic crap that brought down the stock market and killed our economy; thank goodness there is some semblance of sanity up on the hill.

Sure enough the Bill passed the house, But it is not expected to make it through the Senate and the White House has said that they would veto the thing, if it made it to the President’s desk. Which in this instance is a very good thing. However, this is not the point. What is the point is this: Those same bastards who caused the great meltdown of 2008, are now lobbying our Government to put things back as they were, so that this sort of thing could happy again. That my friends is enough to make an economic populist, like myself, to want to bite a nail in two! 😡

The people that caused the Wall Street meltdown and downturn in our economy ought to be brought up on treason charges, and lined up against a wall and shot! 😡 But, instead, they are trying to buy their way back to lawlessness. This my friends, is an outrage.