Healthcare Reform - The Dirty Words No One Wants To Say Guarantee Failure

I've been watching with interest the back and forth over healthcare reform. My good friend Bookworm has a great article on the subject you should read.

But having taken a look at this, it does seem to me that the Republicans, as usual, are trying to win by avoiding being cast in the media as mean nasty villains robbing people of something. And after all, if you can spend other people's money and look good...

Although of course, they won't look good no matter what they do to the Democrat's trained seal media. You'd think they would have gotten a clue by now!

Far better to concentrate on real policy and do it right, no? And let the results be the judge.

Insurance is what I call a 'projection' industry, where fortune tellers known as actuaries crunch numbers and determine the rates on policies and on investments known as insurance contracts as far in advance as possible. Forced instantaneous hope n' change like ObamaCare hits insurance companies with a sucker punch and costs them a lot of money - which of course, like any other business they pass on to their customers.

What's going on in DC now is ridiculous. If the GOP puts together some kind of bogus ObamaCare lite entitlement and President Trump signs it, it will be the first campaign promise he's broken. I'm pretty sure cooler heads will prevail and there will be significant changes made to what we have now.

This is exactly why I said in an earlier article, that the first thing that needed to be done by President Trump, together with Speaker Paul Ryan and Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was to have have immediately announced the repeal of ObamaCare, especially the individual mandate penalty and named a date in the near future - say, November 10th, 2017 or whatever - when it will no longer be in effect.

Aside from assuring the American people they weren't being screwed again, it would give congress a clearly established a deadline to thrash out the new legislation and it would have allowed insurance companies some badly needed lead in time to plan for ObamaCare's demise.

And a demise, it must be. ObamaCare is so flawed, so thrown together without common sense that trying to build something viable using its parts is a fool's errand.It was garbage to begin with, a tax scam rather than anything to do with healthcare.

But what next? Where should we go with healthcare? Incredibly, there are two dirty words that nobody is mentioning. And there's a really good reason why...

Those dirty words? T O R T... R E F O R M! Say it again, with feeling.:  TO R T... R E F O R M!

Keep this in mind.. when someone is chattering away in wonkspeak about healthcare, mandates, health savings accounts and the like, unless they're mentioning those two dirty words they're simply blowing smoke up your nether regions.

Ask any health professional about what their biggest fear is. I've asked quite a few, and the answer is almost always predatory lawsuits. Have you ever gotten one of those official looking letters -actually calling them advertisements is more appropriate - asking you to sign on to a large class action suit against an HMO or hospital? Sure you have. The result of this trolling is almost always a fortune for the lawyers in fees and a pittance for the rubes who signed up as part of the 'class' if they mange to win and get a judgement. Even if they lose, their target spends big dollars in legal fees, or rather their malpractice insurance company does. After which the insurance company jacks up their premiums.

Picture yourself as a young American doctor. You're already carrying six figures in student loan debt. And on top of that, depending on whether you're a GP or a specialist and depending on where you're practicing the usual rates for malpractice insurance run from just under $30,000 per year to six figures in the pricier areas.

Aside from the ever rising cost of malpractice insurance, this fear of predatory lawyers also pads the price of healthcare by causing repetitive paperwork and staff work and many unnecessary and repetitive activities, even on routine medical procedures.

No doctor or institution should be allowed to get away with malpractice, and the medical profession actually does a fairly decent job of weeding put bad actors. But unless the current barrage of lawsuits is brought under control and some reasonable guidelines established, the cost of medical care is going to continue to increase. There are simply far too many lawyers, and far too many unnecessary lawsuits targeting the medical profession and healthcare institutions.

So why is no one mentioning this? So simple! Ask yourself this...what did most of the members of congress do for a living before they became congressmen? What do many of them do for a living when they leave? Why, they're lawyers of course. And even while they're in congress, a number of them receive an income from law firms they have a partnership interest in. As lawyers, let's just say that many of them are reluctant to cut off a steady stream of income for the profession if not for themselves. And as we all know, law firms also contribute a lot of money to legislators who see things their way. That's why a lot of what Senator Rand Paul has to say on healthcare sounds so sensible. He's a medical doctor,not a lawyer. We'll come back to this point later, but keep it in mind.

Another ongoing problem I haven't heard mentioned in this debate is illegal migrants. Their effect on the cost of healthcare is a lot more insidious. In California and some other states with large illegal migrant populations, many of them are on Medic-Aid, because no one checks too closely about insignificant details like citizenship.In fact, there are actual privacy laws in California that prohibit and cross checking, so the system is almost set up for fraud. Fake social security numbers or EIN's are also used quite a bit.

Another common occurrence is the abuse of ER facilities. If an illegal migrant working as a day laborer hurts himself on a construction site, he'll go to the nearest hospital emergency room for treatment. Since legally and humanely he needs to be treated, he is. And when it comes to payment, a quick discussion between the migrant and the hospital staff makes it very clear that this one is going to be a freebie. So the hospital eats it. King-Drew Medical Center in South Los Angeles was bankrupted by this type of patient, and I doubt they're the only ones who were, or who at least suffered major losses financially.

Tort reform and dealing with our huge illegal migrant problem are essential to stopping the spiraling cost of healthcare and repairing the damage ObamaCare caused. So is actual competition across state lines. And actual freedom of choice, dammit!

Keep these simple concepts in the above paragraph in mind.

Apparently a number of Americans like the idea of keeping young adults of 26 and under on their healthcare policies if they're still lucky enough to be able to have one. And they like the idea being able to get insurance with preconditions without paying for them. It's become exactly what Rand Paul said it is, a new entitlement.

Believe it or not, there is one healthcare system I know about that is government mandated, but also embraces all the of the concepts I've mentioned for real reform. After all, if we're going to have ObamaCare Lite courtesy of Paul Ryan, why not?

Israel never really planned government run mandatory healthcare, but they were more or less forced into it by circumstances. After 1948, they had a large segment of their population who were 'graduates' of the concentration camps as well as almost a million Jewish refugees who arrived there penniless after being ethnically cleansed from the Arab world. So a nationwide healthcare system was cobbled together. And it works quite well. Why?

• Israel has a very small illegal migrant problem. And thanks to the border walls, it's even smaller now. They don't have tons of illegal migrants bankrupting the system.

• The ideas of competition and freedom of choice are maintained. While the government oversees and finances part of the system,it doesn't micromanage it itself or insist that everyone have cookie cutter insurance. There are four different carriers (essentially, HMOs), all of whom compete with each other for members and have different plusses,minuses and 'specialties,' by which I mean a reputation for excelling in particular kinds of care or having better rates for certain extras or different copays and levels of coverage. All Israeli citizens get the basic plan the government subsidizes.If you want extras in certain areas, you buy them from your insurance carrier, so you have the ability to shop. On the flip side, you're not paying for something that's of no use for you, like maternal care for an elderly couple past childbearing age. Preconditions aren't an issue because everyone has to have insurance. The National Health Insurance Law guarantees all Israeli citizens access to one of the four carriers, and the right to transfer between the carriers once per year.

• Tort reform is not a problem since not only does Israel lack the litigious climate lawyers have fostered here in America (at least, so far) but lawyers also aren't coming out of the woodwork there as they are in America. And at present, lawyers don't constitute any kind of majority in Israel's Knesset. The ratio of doctors to lawyers in Israel is about the opposite of what it is here.And the level of care, even private care is so high quality and reasonably priced compared to the EU and America that medical tourism is common. Med school is also cheaper, and Israel offers special incentives for medical professionals who want to become olim (Jewish migrants to israel under the Law of the Return).

Does it work? In a survey of 48 countries in 2013, Israel's healthcare system was ranked fourth in the world in terms of efficiency, and in 2014 it ranked seventh out of 51. In 2015, Israel was ranked sixth-healthiest country in the world by Bloomberg rankings and eighth in terms of life expectancy.

So it can be done. But major tort reform,getting rid of a substantial number of illegal migrants and fostering competition and freedom of choice for consumers is what it takes. That, and creating a lot more doctors, medical researchers and personnel as well as a lot less lawyers.

Far easier said then done, but doable.

The Republican War Against Trump Will Not Be Without Consequences

As I predicted when this all started, Trump's biggest problem isn't going to be the Democrats, but friendly fire from the rear.

Their hatred and opposition to Trump always came down to three issues..his being an outsider not of the political establishment, his opposition to globalization and his opposition to open borders and the supply of plentiful cheap labor it provides. 

For years, the party elites had wailed about the party's need to make the tent bigger, to reach out to minority voters and conservative crossover Democrats. Trump has done all that, but as usual, it turns out they were lying to us. What they  really wanted was some certified GOP product, one of their own who could creditably mislead the peasants until the election was over and it was business as usual again.

Trump was something they should have foreseen would arise after they received historic majorities in both houses of congress and ignored the very people who voted for them in  favor of aiding and abetting Barack Obama's policies, enjoying the perks of office and fattening their own wallets.

 

Originally, they saw Trump's campaign as a joke or a publicity stunt, something to mock. But after Sarah Palin (whom they can't buy off and still fear) endorsed The Donald, they went into full attack mode flooded the GOP establishment candidates with money and unleashed their paid punditry in a frenzy of neverTrumper hatred.

It didn't work, and they're still too cottoned off from reality to understand why. In the end they spent almost half a billion dollars trying to knock Trump out of the primary race and failed miserably.

The hatred they have for Trump and what he represents is mirrored by their hatred for those tiresome peasants, the party's base. Trump's success against all odds has made it necessary for them to drop their cover and reveal themselves for the swine they really are.

The events of this last week are unconscionable.

Billy Bush, Hillary supporter George W,Bush's nephew handed over a 12 year old tape of what amounted to a private locker room conversation between him and Donald Trump, to the Washington Post who released it. And as we now see, Paul Ryan apparatchnik Dan Senor appears to have had a hand in getting this to the Post as well as advising them on how to use it for maximum effect afterwards. He would never have done that without Ryan's approval.

Immediately after tape's release, a slew of Republicans (many of whom were never supporting Trump anyway) jumped on the Democrat media bandwagon,helping to obscure the very real corruption' lies and greed of the Clintons in favor of demonizing Donald Trump and making that the headline story.

A number of them 'unendorsed' him, and there was open discussion about forcing him off the ticket. They were only waiting for him to be massacred at what was largely a rigged, pre-scripted 'debate' where exactly as I surmised, Mrs. Clinton had the questions in advance. The odious neverTrumpers were suddenly invigorated.

But as we all know, a funny thing happened on the way to Trump's political funeral. The script didn't go as planned, Trump triumphed and all the cooked polls and desperate punditry to the contrary couldn't change what the American people saw that night - the Clintons stripped bare and exposed for exactly what and who they are, a cancer in American politics and policy only concerned with gaining power and enriching themselves to the nation's detriment and expense.

And this puts these Republican and their paid shills in a dilemma. What to do? After jumping off the Trump train, they can't very well get back on, and for a number of them up for re-election, that could present problems, since Trump has a lot of popular support.

Some of them are simply keeping a low profile hoping this all goes away,but others, many of whom have done everything they can to derail Donald Trump are doubling down, particularly in the punditocracy.

The Trump movement is essentially a rebellion against the established order, and like our Forefathers, we now have our own class of Tories to deal with.

The lie they tell themselves is that after Trump's defeated, they will take over and rebuild the Republican Party, blaming Trump's loss on 'the trumpkins' or whatever other derogatory name they want to make up. Wat they're really saying is that it's the voter's fault, damn them. How dare they? But that aside, let's look at their prospects for 'rebuilding' shall we?

Out of a total of 31,183,841 votes cast in the GOP nominating campaign, the establishment, pro-globalist candidates combined garnered a grand total of around 26% of that number. Ted Cruz, who at least talked a good game about illegal migration while accepting the open border lobby's cash on the sly behind the scenes got 7,822,100 votes, or 25.1 percent.

And Trump? He set a record for primary votes - 14,015,993 votes, or 44.9 percent.

Does anyone think the people who voted against globalism, cronyism and open borders are going to go quietly back into the GOP fold and back the next establishment product? No, the vast majority will be gone for good, depend on it. They've been screwed for the last time.

These clowns with their fantasies are going to be trying to 'rebuild' the GOP with 30% or less of the current GOP electorate. And in terms of national politics, it will be worthless.

A president Hillary Clinton will see to that. She will appoint leftist judges galore, overturn Citizen's United, castrate the Second Amendment, destroy any vestige of voter ID laws,and use the IRS to target select GOP donors. She will use the FEC to hamstring and eventually eliminate conservative media and enforce the kind of speech codes already prevalent in the EU. Any criticism or even discussion of Islamism, Islamic terrorism or sharia will be illegal. Just ask Geert WIlders.

She will legalize millions of Democrat voting illegal aliens and boatloads of Muslim 'refugees' and continue to plant them in Red states, essentially turning them blue by using the Federal government to change the electorate. This is exactly what was done in California, so the model's already there.


The Republican Party will become even more of a joke than it already is, talking to itself and only surfacing at election time as a comic villain to keep the illusion of democracy going. In short, there won't be a Republican Party for our modern day Tories to rebuild.

Whether Mrs. Clinton is allowed to do this to our Republic or Donald Trump, against the odds is elected, make no mistake. We are going to remember that these creatures chose sides against us and against our country. We will not forget.

The Time For Changing Is Now

The Republican leadership today managed to threaten or bribe enough GOP congressmen to pass something most Americans overwhelmingly did not want passed - 'Fast Track' authority, the TPA for President Obama on his top secret trade bill that mostly isn't one.

The vote was 218-208, with 28 Democrats voting for it.

The fast track authority for President Obama was originally paired with another bill called the TAA, a bogus welfare crumb for all the American workers whom will lose their jobs thanks to Obama's secret trade bill. The combination legislation was voted down last week, but the TPA fast track was shoved through on its own and now goes to the Senate.The GOP leadership has promised to put the TAA provision, which expires in September to a separate vote, which the GOP leaders have promised will be nearly simultaneous.

Oh, I'm sure it will be...after the rest of the secret trade bill gets passed. And of course, as RINO Ways and Means Chairman Paul Ryan, the Republican Gruppenführer for Obama's trade agenda tells us, the peasants like you and I will find out what's in it when it's passed, since on a need to know basis, we're not even on the list.



Neither is most of congress, since the administration our president told us would be "the most transparent in history' is anything but. Only a handful have actually seen it, because it's locked in a secret room and no one is allowed to take notes or photograph any of it. Based on Wikileaks and a few things Senator Jeff Sessions has said, it's pretty easy to extrapolate why Barack Obama wants this so bad, and very little of it is actually concerned about trade.

According to the draft provisions,a brand new, unelected international bureaucracy is to be formed, in which America would have the same vote as Qatar. Countries could be barred from trying to control where their citizens’ personal data is held or whether it’s accessible from outside the country.

The Healthcare Annex, according to WikiLeaks, “seeks to regulate state schemes for medicines and medical devices. It forces healthcare authorities to give big pharmaceutical companies more information about national decisions on public access to medicine, and grants corporations greater powers to challenge decisions they perceive as harmful to their interests.”

In other words, congress would no longer have sole authority to over reforming MediCare and of course, ObamaCare. And the FDA would be subject to this international bureaucracy that's being set up as well.

Immigration is a big part of this too. U.S. laws, what remains of them, would now be subject to this international agreement. It calls for special fast tracking of visas that essentially would turn ICE into a rubber stamp. If this passes, look for thousands of American jobs to be replaced by foreigners at vastly lower wages and benefits as fast as corporate America can process the paperwork. And it allows much easier fast tracking of corporate off shoring of American jobs, putting Americans in competition with workers happy to receive less than a dollar an hour in countries like Vietnam.

Of course, there are also provisions to steal billions of dollars from America's tax payers in the name of global warming as well, while driving utility costs sky high.

Even more shocking, TPA gives congress no leeway on changing any of this. No amendments are allowed, simply a yes or no vote.

Overall, it's a great plan to finish bankrupting America's middle class and subject our sovereignty to the 'international community.' No wonder this president wanted it so bad and worked so hard to push it through. None of this was possible without the fast track TPA authority. And a GOP majority House just gave it to him.

Here's Louie Golmert (R-TX), one of the House's honest men, trying to stem the tide (H/T The Noisy Room and The Right Planet):



So did Senator Jeff Sessions, who is one of the few congress members who has actually seen the proposed trade bill locked in that secret room:

“It is essential that there be no misunderstanding: fast-track preapproves the formation of not only the unprecedentedly large Trans-Pacific Partnership, but an unlimited number of such agreements over the next six years,” Sessions said. “Those pacts include three of the most ambitious ever contemplated. After TPP comes the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) between the United States and the European Union, followed by the Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA), seeking as one its goals labor mobility among more than 50 nations. Together, these three international compacts encompass three-fourths of the world’s GDP. Including the nations whose membership is being courted for after enactment, the countries involved would encompass nearly 90 percent of global GDP. Yet, through fast-track, Congress will have authorized the President to ink these deals before a page of them has been made public. Then, the Executive sends Congress ‘implementing’ legislation to change U.S. law—legislation which cannot be amended, cannot be filibustered, and will not be subjected to the Constitutional requirement for a two-thirds treaty vote.”

“According to the European Commission, the TiSA agreement—which most House and Senate members did not know about when they voted—will follow in the footsteps of the WTO’s Trade in Services Provisions, which has already inhibited the U.S. from making needed immigration changes,” Sessions said. “The European Commission says the EU ‘wants as many countries as possible to join the agreement.’ We have already seen how the EU has curtailed sovereignty in Europe; we do not want to follow in its footsteps.”

With regard to TPP, Sessions warned that America has “never seen” anything like it before—and that it’ll force the United States into a version of the European Union he calls “a new Pacific Union.”

“This nation has never seen an agreement that compares to the TPP, which forms a new Pacific Union,” Sessions said. “This is far more than a trade agreement, but creates a self-governing and self-perpetuating Commission with extraordinary implications for American workers and American sovereignty. Such a historic international regulatory Commission should never be fast-tracked, and should never be put on a path to passage until every word has been publicly scrutinized, every question answered, and every last power understood by Congress and the American people.”

This is still going to be bounced back and forth between the Senate and the House, but the fix is likely in for this colossal betrayal. We're being told that this 'free trade bill' will benefit American workers. It will not. Actually, it will cost many of them their livelihoods as visas for foreign workers to replace them at cheaper wages are rubber-stamped. One more time - this isn't primarily a trade agreement at all.

I just heard Senator Rob Portman (R-OH) trying to sell it that way on one of the talk shows, saying we didn't have trade agreement with Japan, or China, or a number of other countries. Well and good senator. What's wrong with the normal process of sending diplomats to negotiate them on a per country basis and submitting them to congress for approval as we've done in the past?

Or is it just that your corporate donors want it done this way, in stealth and secrecy? Because it isn't going to benefit the American economy so much as milk it dry for the benefit of the well connected...and of course, their servile toadies in congress.

So once again, we're faced with outright betrayal. Virtually everything the Republican Party campaigned on in 2010 and especially in 2014 was an outright lie. Instead of being 'pulled out root and branch' as Mitch McConnell told voters in 2014 in Kentucky, ObamaCare is being funded by congress and the GOP establishment is already plotting to save it in case the Supreme Court declares it unconstitutional, which it always was.

President Obama's amnesty of illegal aliens by executive order? In spite of all the rhetoric, that's being funded too. We essentially have no borders anymore, or any standards whatsoever on whom we let stay here.

Shutting down President Obama's appointments of radical judges and federal appointees at offices like the FCC? Or his radical new racialist attorney general? Using the nuclear option, the way Harry Reid did to stop over 200 bills the house passed from even going to committee? Nothing. The GOP's congressional leaders have made sure that President Obama has gotten whatever he wanted.

Barack Obama's EPA war on coal? Same story.

And forget about congress using the power of the purse to compel the release of documents and the testimony of those involved in major scandals like Benghazi, the IRS targeting political opponents or the Clinton Foundation's dealings.

I have speculated on these pages that with all the warrentless NSA spying and data collection going on, it's quite possible this president has something juicy on key Republicans like McConnell and Boehner. Or it may be they're simply being paid off in one way or another.

In the end, it really doesn't matter. What does is the realization of this foul betrayal and to look at Tolstoy's eternal question; what then must we do?

I'm still putting together some of the answers for myself, and perhaps you are too, But here are some obvious takeaways.

The GOP as it is has evolved into an institution that is no longer to be trusted and certainly not worth saving. And yes, I fully understand the implications of that. But I'm also tired of being gamed to vote for the lesser of two evils only to find out there's not that much difference between them anyway.

The well established Whig Party participated in their last presidential election in 1852 and fell apart over the slavery issue. Many ex-Whigs like Abraham Lincoln actually quit politics until the new Republican party debuted in 1856. The Republicans lost that election to Democrat James Buchanan, perhaps one of our worst presidents, but they won every presidential race after that until 1884.

The early Republicans were considered radicals, impractical trouble makers and rebels against the established order of things. What they had going for them was something the Whigs did not - an adherence to principals. And principals, along with achieving power to implement them are the key to the political success of any party or movement.

Not only does the leadership of today's GOP lack adherence to principles, but they are all to willing to take advantage of those that do by pretending, a cynical shell game,

Any of you actually seen how a real shell game works? The guy moving the cups around is an expert at making you believe the peanut is really under that cup when it's not.The object of the game is to deceive and distract you and to keep you in the game as long as possible by any means necessary  to take your money.



That's exactly what we're dealing with here, and the way to win is to stop playing their game and concentrate on our own.

We basically have been acting the part of the naive hooker who believes at first that her pimp really is telling her the truth about how he loves her and that he just needs her to turn a few more tricks until she earns enough money for him to take her away with him from all this.

'Just get us the house, just get us the senate baby. Everything will be beautiful then, trust me.'

So the first step is to decide you're not going to be pimped out or conned anymore. And how to best realize your new independence.

The second step is to decide what principles you stand for, and what you're not willing to compromise on.

And the third step? To organize with like minded folks to do what all political movements should do...to work towards achieving the power to put the principles you stand for into practice. That likely includes Republicans like Gohmert and Sessions willing to declare their own independence and make the move forward

To my mind, the biggest failure of the Tea Party was its lack of organization. Without that, it was far to easy for too many people to grab on to their own small piece of turf and to spend their energies competing for funds and attention rather than unifying and focusing on the real opposition.And it was harder for them to accomplish things as small, barely connected groups.

Ronald Reagan, notorious for his successful accomplishments in spite of a hostile,  Democrat-dominated congress had a secret. He famously said, "There's no limit what you can accomplish if you don't care who gets the credit."

Becoming independent and refusing to be conned again, deciding on principles, ironing out petty differences and organizing for unity and power, concentrating on cooperation with like minded allies and accomplishing common, concrete goals rather than focusing on whom gets the credit.

Putting these principles into practice is the secret of real Hope and Change for America and the renewal of our Republic. And in fact, if we wish to continue to live as a free people and control our own destiny, we have little choice. We certainly can't depend on most of the politicians in Washington we elected so trustingly to do it.They have proven themselves disgraceful and unworthy of our trust or the offices they hold.

Read this document carefully. You will be shocked at how many similarities there are to our present situation.

Am I talking revolution ? No, not a bloodstained revolution, but certainly a political one, which is still possible. The existing set up simply doesn't work for us anymore.

It's time we banded together to secure our right to life, liberty,and the pursuit of happiness before we lose all of them for ourselves and our future generations. It's past time. That is what we should be concentrating our energies on now.

Stay tuned. More later.

UPDATE,June 23rd - Today, the Republican majority senate voted to shut down debate on ObamaTrade with a cloture vote. The official vote will likely pass, after which it will go to President Obama for his signature. And America will be well on the road to no longer being a free republic, but a collection of serfs ruled by unelected bureaucrats at home and abroad.

Here's what Jeff Sessions had to say about this. Notice what I emphasized:

“Americans increasingly believe that their country isn’t serving its own citizens. They need look no further than a bipartisan vote of Congress that will transfer congressional power to the Executive Branch and, in turn, to a transnational Pacific Union and the global interests who will help write its rules.

"The same routine plays out over and again. We are told a massive bill must be passed, all the business lobbyists and leaders tell how grand it will be, but that it must be rushed through before the voters spoil the plan. As with Obamacare and the Gang of Eight, the politicians meet with the consultants to craft the talking points—not based on what the bill actually does, but what they hope people will believe it does. And when ordinary Americans who never asked for the plan, who don’t want the plan, who want no part of the plan, resist, they are scorned, mocked, and heaped with condescension.

"Washington broke arms and heads to get that 60th vote—not one to spare—to impose on the American people a plan which imperils their jobs, wages, and control over their own affairs. It is remarkable that so much energy has been expended on advancing the things Americans oppose, and preventing the things Americans want.

"For instance: thousands of loyal Americans have been laid off and forced to train the foreign workers brought in to fill their jobs—at Disney, at Southern California Edison, across the country. Does Washington rush to their defense? No, the politicians and the lobbyists rush to move legislation that would double or triple the very program responsible for replacing them.

"This ‘econometarian’ ideology holds that if a company can increase its bottom line —whether by insourcing foreign workers or outsourcing production—then it’s always a win, never a downside.

"President Obama, and allies in Congress, have won this fast-track vote. But, in exchange, they may find that they are losing something far greater: the trust of the American people. Americans have a fundamental, decent, and just demand: that the people they elect defend their interests. And every issue to come before us in the coming months will have to pass this test: does this strengthen, or weaken, the position of the everyday, loyal American citizen?”

Senator Sessions does a good job of laying out the problem here. The solution is in our hands.

A Few Words On The Defeat Of ObamaTrade

 

While today was a victory, it underlined some unpleasant truths.

The Republican Establishment can talk all it wants about how the TPA (the fast track authority given to the Obama Regime)needs to pass, that the ObamaTrade bill will be debated properly, and that this is all a good thing.

Horse manure. The Republican Party is no longer to be trusted, no matter what they say.

The Republican Establishment has betrayed its base at every turn. The RNC did nothing positive in 2010 to get a GOP majority in the House. That was Sarah Palin and Jim DeMint's doing, and at least 3 very gettable Senate seats were lost as well because the RNC allowed the buffoonish Michael Steele to run it for his own fun and profit instead of doing anything positive. And Palin and DeMint's reward for taking the GOP off of life support was to essentially be run out of the party by the Establishment.

Having gotten a majority, theRepublican leadership allowed themselves to be manipulated into doing whatever Obama and Harry Reid wanted. On the budget, on ObamaCare, on all of President Obama's diktats they refused to use their constitutional power of the purse to block anything. Their excuse was 'oh, we don't control the Senate', as if Harry Reid couldn't be controlled and stopped from using the Nuclear option to appoint radical judges and apparatchniks by cutting off funding for the Regime's policies.They had the power. They just refused to use it.

In 2014, with the American people fired up over President Barack Obama's amnesty by executive order, we gave them the senate. Did they use that power to stop amnesty? Or ObamaCare? Or the takeover of the FCC and the Internet? Or Obama's EPA program? Or the appointment of radical judges?

No. Because they lied to us at every turn and continue to lie to us.They lied willfully and knowingly, because to them, their real constituency are their corporate donors. They look upon us as easily duped, contemptible fools, as serfs made to serve them, the Ruling Class.

 

Boehner is pledging to bring this to a vote Tuesday. His plan is to give Obama time to bribe and bully Democrats while Boehner threatens conservative Republicans.

Here's something Boehner, McConnell and anyone who caves needs to know. Win or lose, we will neither forget nor forgive this. We gave you power, and we will take it away.

This is a tipping point. We are sick and tired of being deceived and held in contempt. And we are tired of being ignored.

Watch how quickly you become today's Whigs and a new party forms unless you make serious, concrete amends. We will do it even if it means a venal creature like Hillary Clinton gets elected, because while she doesn't represent us, neither do you...and while we expect her to lie to us at every turn, we trusted you. Oliver Cromwell's famous adjuration to Parliament comes to mind..."You have sat too long for any good you have been doing lately... Depart, I say; and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!"

The exact same words were said to British PM Neville Chamberlain 287 years later, when he was deposed as Prime Minister and kicked out of office in disgrace in 1940.

Because that's essentially what we're dealing with here. Treason, appeasement and betrayal.

Enough.

GOP Senate Informs Obama He Can Get Away With Whatever He Wants

All the bold talk last November about stopping Obama's agenda was revealed today as the sheer hot air (and I'm being polite) that it always was, at least from Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and the establishment GOP.

Today, he and some of his cronies crossed lines to confirm President Obama's choice for attorney general, Loretta Lynch.

Aside from her genuinely racialist and radical Leftist views, she lacks the one major qualification to be the top law enforcement officer in our government...respect for those laws themselves.

Aside from her vigorous antipathy to any kind of voter ID laws, she made it plain during her confirmation hearings in January that she sees no limit to presidential power when it comes to amnesty by executive order. In fact, she refused to refused to identify to any hypothetical limit to President Obama’s power to stop enforcing existing law via 'prosecutorial discretion' and executive orders.



Senator McConnell as majority leader could have reinstated the filibuster to stop her.

He could have refused to bring her nomination to the floor, just as former Democrat Majorty Leader Harry Reid did with so many things. He didn't.

Instead, he voted for Loretta Lynch's confirmation.

Yes, in the end, the vote was 56-43, with senators Ayotte, Cochran, Collins, Flake, Graham, Hatch, Johnson, Kirk, McConnell, and Portman as the GOP 'yes' votes.

In many ways, this was the ultimate surrender. With Loretta Lynch as Attorney General, there will be no real investigations of the many scandals surrounding the White House. There will never be any kind of special prosecutor named, since that's now all controlled through the Attorney General's office. There will continue to be divisive, racially biased interventions and prosecutions by the Justice Department at every opportunity.

There will be no challenge to this president's unlawful amnesty or to ObamaCare. In fact, the Republican Leadership just signaled to this president that he can literally get away with murder and treat them with the contempt they deserve.

I expect Loretta Lynch to be even more radical, partisan and oppressive then Eric Holder was.There is, after all, a reason why Obama wanted her in the job, and it wasn't her resume.

Roundup OnThe New 'Cromnibus' Spending Bill...'

The new 'Cromibus' spending bill passed the House yesterday and went to the Democrat dominated Senate. It essentially funds everything through September of 2015, even Michelle Obama's lunch program.

This essentially is an attempt to undercut the incoming GOP congress by removing its main weapon..the power of the purse.

The sole exception is the Department of Homeland Security which is funded until Feb. 27, 2015. That's a bone thrown at GOP conservatives to give the new congress something to work with to try and fight the president amnesty by executive diktat.Expect Boehner and his cronies to fight any attempts to rein in President Obama's amnesty order tooth and nail.

Sarah Palin:It stinks to high heaven. Did arrogant politicians not get the memo that Obama’s agenda was decisively defeated in last month’s historic midterm landslide? Good Lord, America said loud and clear not just “no” but “hell no” to Obama’s failed policies. Americans who pay attention said absolutely no to Obama’s amnesty for illegal aliens.

We also said no to the mother-of-all unfunded mandates, Obamacare, and voters believed promises that they would ratchet down the $18 trillion debt. Well, our bad for apathetically trusting politicians. No, on second thought, it’s not “our bad.” Some of us warned and worked hard to elect candidates who would buck the status quo. Many conscientious Americans did all they could to open the eyes of low-information voters. It was tough going up against Obama’s lapdogs in the media and the power liberals have to play their politics of personal destruction against commonsense conservatives.

But really how out-of-touch do these politicians have to be to misunderstand our recent mandate to stop Barack Obama's fundamental transformation of the greatest nation on earth?

The Republican Leadership in the House just flipped American voters the bird by sidelining the new Congress we just elected.

GOP Rep: House Leaders Made False Promise to Get My Crucial Vote :Representative Marlin Stutzman (R., Ind.) accused House Republican leadership of reneging on a deal made with him to get his support on a crucial procedural vote that almost killed the $1.1 trillion cromnibus funding bill.

“I was very surprised and even more disappointed to see the cromnibus back on the floor,” Stutzman said in a Thursday evening statement. “The American people deserve better.” [...]

“I supported the rule because I was informed by leadership that the cromnibus was dead and a short term CR would take its place,” Stutzman said.

After President Obama came out in favor of the funding bill, Republican leaders spent the day whipping their members and hoping that Democrats would deliver the requisite number of votes.

“The cromnibus bill, over 1,600 pages long, does many things but what is most important is what it does not do,” he said. “It fails to directly address President Obama’s dangerous executive action on immigration and fails to include many of the solutions that could have been passed in January with a Republican House and Senate in an open process.”

Dave Brat (R-VA) in a statement:“I had two opportunities to try to prevent the omnibus bill from becoming law, and I exercised both of them. Regardless of the many policy disagreements I had with the bill, this vote ultimately wasn’t about policy for me. This bill funds an illegal act. Above all, this vote was about following the law and the Constitution.

“Without the amendment that my House colleagues and I proposed yesterday, this omnibus bill allows funding for President Obama’s unconstitutional executive amnesty for approximately five million illegal immigrants.

“Despite having claimed several times that he didn’t have the authority to enact amnesty without Congress, President Obama acted anyway. Under our Constitution, the president can’t create the law; the president has to follow the law.

“I cannot vote to allow an agency of this government to commit an act that the president and the House leadership on both sides have previously agreed is illegal. Allowing the funding of executive amnesty, even just until the end of February, allows the program to be implemented and amnesty to be enacted.”


John Hayward, Human Events: Anyone who raises the slightest objection to this panicky spending bonanza is denounced as a penny-pinching extremist monster who just wants to kill children, puppies, and kittens for fun, by shutting down the government that keeps them alive. You don’t want Obama to throw up barricades around your national parks and memorials again, do you? No? Then shut up and spend.

The sole reservation in the winder spending festival is the Department of Homeland Security – which, as Fox News explains, is only funded through February, so the GOP leadership can pretend it’s going to stage a huge fight over Obama’s illegal amnesty orders next year. This is supposed to mollify the starchy citizens who still care about antiquated notions like the rule of law, the separation of powers, the value of citizenship, and national security long enough for the Establishment to enjoy its holiday vacation:

The bill finances the day-to-day operations of every Cabinet department except Homeland Security through Sept. 30, 2015, with $521 billion for defense and $492 billion tied to non-defense. Another $64 billion is provided for overseas military operations.

However, the plan would only fund the Department of Homeland Security through Feb. 27, 2015. That is a move by House GOP leaders to tee up a debate in early 2015 over the president’s recent executive action that could suspend deportation for as many as 5 million illegal immigrants.

Some conservatives nevertheless want to wage that battle now, and use the current spending bill as leverage. Though the House voted last week against Obama’s immigration plan, these lawmakers want to do more.

Strong opposition to the House budget plan from the Republicans’ conservative wing could force GOP chamber leaders to rely on Democratic votes to avert a government shutdown. House Speaker John Boehner can afford to lose only 17 caucus votes before he must turn to support from House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi.

Pelosi, D-Calif., has said her party would be willing to help but has signaled she may make some demands.

Wonderful. Let’s have a big round of applause for the GOP Establishment, ladies and gentlemen! They managed to throw away the most remarkable electoral victory in a generation in only one month, maneuvering themselves into a position where the losers who got crushed will be making demands to win their support for a bill that effectively ratifies their will through half of their sojourn in electoral exile.

There was no reason to give the defeated Democrats anything except a stop-gap bill to fund the government through January, at which point the incoming Republican majorities should have exercised control over everything. If the Democrats don’t like that deal, let them shut down the government in a fit of pique, and tell voters how they party they just threw out of power should be allowed to control their lives for an extra year. Not only would that be smart politics – giving the Republicans more fiscal leverage to stand up for America against Obama’s amnesty, instead of just funding for the Department of Homeland Security – but it would represent more sensible and responsible government. All of this multi-trillion-dollar monstrosity is linked together; all of it should be on the table; the flab should be liposuctioned out of every agency at once in a comprehensive plan for fiscal sanity and increased American liberty.

Drew At Ace of Spades HQ: What we should be focusing on is that the establishment of the GOP was far more interested in cutting deals with the Democrats than they were in exercising the power of their new majorities come January.

Look at the provisions that the GOP included in CrOmnibus that set off the Democratic progressives and some TEA types...

First was an increase the limits donors can give to political parties.

The provision would increase the amount of money a single donor could give to national party committees each year from $97,200 to as much as $777,600 by allowing them to set up different funds for certain expenses. The change would be a huge boost for party committees that have faced steep challenges in recent years from well-funded outside groups.

...

“Conservatives support the First Amendment and believe there should be no limits on political speech,” said Ken Cuccinelli, president of the Senate Conservatives Fund. “Unfortunately, the new limits included in the omnibus only increase political speech for party insiders while silencing the majority of Americans who are fed up with Washington.”

The second was a 'reform" of Dodd-Frank. Republicans have been running against Dodd-Frank for years. Normally their critique is that it hurts small businesses that can't afford to comply with a maze of regulations. The reform the GOP stood fast on? A provision literally written by Citigroup.

The derivatives provision would let JPMorgan, Citigroup Inc. (C:US), Bank of America Corp. (BAC:US) and other banks trade almost all swaps in divisions that have government backstops like deposit insurance. It would repeal a requirement that some of the trades be pushed out to separate units, which Wall Street argued would drive up costs for clients and increase risk in the financial system by moving the trades to firms less regulated than banks.

So thanks to the brave leadership of John Boehner, Harry Reid and Barack Obama we made it easier for political parties to fend off outside interest groups and make sure banks can trade derivatives again with the knowledge that if things go south, the taxpayers will foot the bill. The chairman of Citigroup certainly must be pleased with his personal lobbying efforts.

I'm not one to say there's no difference between the GOP and Democrats, that's silly. But it's not nearly enough or as much as they like to pretend.

The story isn't that a minority of the GOP found common cause with some Democrats to oppose these deals, it's that after facing a populist backlash after the failed GOP administration of 2001-2007, the party has successfully weathered the storm and returned to business as usual. Big donors and big business get theirs. Meanwhile voters who thought they voted for spending cuts and opposition to amnesty just six weeks or so ago are told, sorry can't do it. Good luck ever collecting.

Rush Limbaugh: The news is that the Republican Speaker of the House has thrown in with Barack Obama. I don't care what the Democrats are doing. What does that matter? Holy smokes. John Boehner has just squandered the election results before the Republicans even are sworn in to run the Senate, along with the House, if I've got this right.

Yeah, we're supposed to look the other way while our Speaker of the House gets in bed with Obama and advances the Obama agenda, takes care of it, amnesty, Obamacare, fully funded, done deal. The election must not have mattered.

And then we got Elizabeth Warren out there who's staking her claim to the presidency while Mrs. Clinton isn't looking. To show you how out of whack things are, Elizabeth Warren of, "You didn't build that. You didn't make that happen" fame, well known communist socialist Elizabeth Warren is now being credited as practically the only person in Washington standing up for the little guy via her opposition to some of the relaxation of regulations in Dodd-Frank and some of the campaign finance.  By the way, about that campaign finance stuff, that everybody's upset about in the omnibus bill, I'm gonna tell you exactly what that is. 

We had a caller about it yesterday. The lady was fit to be tied. She was angry and she was right to be, because the limits have practically been obliterated, which means that corporate donors can just start giving left and right. It used to be a limit of $37,000. Now it's $737,000, something.  It's incredible.  But the point of it, do you know why it's in there?  You know why?  The Republicans put it in.  You know why it's in there, folks?  This is how corporate America's gonna defeat the Tea Party.  By allowing limitless donations from that crowd under the rubric that it's campaign finance and money is speech and freedom of speech and First Amendment. The theory is that Main Street, Tea Party people can't come close to competing with corporate money. 

So it is a Republican establishment ploy that kind of dovetails nicely with Obama sicking the IRS on the Tea Party to basically eliminate them as a viable threat by relaxing a registration in Dodd-Frank that pretty much permits corporations to spend any kind of money they want on politics.  It's kind of a dichotomy.  It's a dilemma, in terms of figuring out what to think about it. 

Let me tell you about a congressman named Marlin Stutzman.  Marlin Stutzman is a Republican from Indiana, and he is claiming, he's put out a press release on this now.  He's admitting to this publicly. He's not relying on a publication to say it, he's saying it himself that he was lied to; that he was lied to by the Republican leadership; that the Republican leadership reneged on a deal they made with him to get his support for the omnibus bill.  Want the details?  He said, "I was very surprised and even more disappointed to see the cromnibus back on the floor. The American people deserve better."

 Elizabeth Warren, is, for all intents and purposes, threatening to shut down the government.  Now, where this thing is in the Senate's kind of up in the air, but she's threatening to shut down the government.  And the media is praising her.  The media is praising her for principled opposition.  And, as you know, Republican shutdown, why, it's the end of the world, it's the end of everything as we know it.  [...]

 The media is reporting this as, for all intents and purposes, a done deal.  They are reporting that all the action was in the House, and once the House voted for the $1.1 trillion omnibus, since the Democrats run the Senate it's a fait accompli that it's gonna get done.

That's not the case because there's a flamethrower over there named Elizabeth Warren, and she's not happy with what's in the Republican bill -- and neither, for that matter, is Nancy Pelosi.  So the Senate's not done on this.  They did a couple-of-days spending bill, and the Senate's gonna take its time and still argue about it, debate this.  Now, the consensus is that the Senate will ultimately pass it, because that's what Obama wants, and the Democrat Party's still loyal to him

But that's not a fait accompli.[...]

President Obama and John Boehner want a bill that the bases of their respective parties reject.  Boehner is enabling (or did enable) the passage of a bill in the House that the Republican base wants no part of.  They don't want Obamacare fully implemented or funded, and they do not want Obama to get away with this executive amnesty.  Boehner has worked with Obama

And the Republican version of the bill in the House flies in the face of what both the Democrat base and the Republican base want.  The Democrat base doesn't like the relaxation of regulations in Dodd-Frank, which is campaign finance, basically. There's some things the unions don't like about pensions as well, because their pensions are gonna end up being devalued.

There are a couple other things in it that the Democrat base is not happy about.  Another thing being reported is that Elizabeth Warren is taking a stand on an issue that, if successful, would embarrass Obama.  This is being reported.  This is not my opinion.  You can find this story somewhere in the Drive-By Media stash today. The stand that she is taking on the issue is a very populist stand.  It is a stance against Wall Street. 

Wall Street has been given a great gift in the omnibus spending bill: Relaxation of regulations on Dodd-Frank.  Opposing Wall Street... Remember Occupy Wall Street?  Opposing Wall Street is a huge ticket item for Elizabeth Warren, particularly if she wants to run for president.  The presumptive nominee, of course, is Mrs. Clinton.  We're right back where we were 2007 and 2008 with the Washington establishment of both parties concluding that Hillary Clinton will be the nominee.

We've been there. 

We've done that. 

And out of the blue, in 2007, came Barack Hussein Obama.  Out of the blue this year is coming Elizabeth Warren, and she's got a ready-made entry and a ready-made ticket with her populist opposition to the Wall Street favors that are in the omnibus bill.  Obama is in favor of relaxing those regulations on Wall Street because Obama is in bed with Wall Street and has been from the get-go, but his base is not really aware of that. 

The Democrat Party base has been driven insane with hatred for Wall Street. They've been driven insane with hatred for the US military. They've been driven insane with hatred for the CIA.  The Democrat Party base has been driven insane by the radical nature of what everybody thinks are mainstream Democrats.  Obama is as closely tied and in bed with Wall Street as anybody is, and Elizabeth Warren is not.

And she is distancing herself from the Democrats and particularly from Obama in a major way by taking a stand on that issue regarding Dodd-Frank.  If this bill goes down to smithereens because of this, it would be an embarrassment to Obama.  Again, this is what's being reported.  It is also being reported that Barack Obama is being abandoned by Democrats by the score on this because the Democrats are not happy with a couple of provisions. 

See, the Democrats are not invested in Obamacare to the degree that you would believe.  Remember, Obamacare is why they lost, in their minds -- and you've heard by now the old stat that half the Democrat senators remaining in the Senate who voted for Obamacare, for one reason or another, are gone.  We've had Chuck-U Schumer and Tom Harkin and a number of other Democrats publicly throw Obamacare under the bus claiming it was bad bill.

(summarized) "It was a mistake timing-wise. We shouldn't have done it before we shored up the economy." There are Democrats running away from Obamacare.  It's John Boehner who's in bed with Obama on Obamacare, not the Democrats.  And one of the things we're supposed to be taking great satisfaction from watching is the Democrat fallout over Obamacare. 

But Boehner has picked up the slack there with the Republican omnibus bill, which fully funds it.  So now the Democrats are free to walk away from it, which they wanted to do and have.  So when you see it reported that Democrats are abandoning Obama by the score, one of the things they're abandoning him on is Obamacare.  Look, they have lost big in the last two midterm elections.

This is still... The scope of this defeat is still not accurately reported in the Drive-By Media, although if you keep your radio tuned to this station, you will soon hear that the Washington Post has a story today which fulfills a prophecy of mine back in 2008, 2009. I wasn't the only one, but I might have led the pack on this, as referring to Barack Obama's presidency as Jimmy Carter's second term. 

Today's Washington Post pretty much says that, and they do it with polling data.  They do it on the basis that there is a nationwide malaise among the American people, that they are despondent and depressed and feeling hopeless. There's no opportunity for the American dream. There's no opportunity for economic advancement.  It's not a pretty picture, and it's being painted in the Washington Post.  Jimmy Carter's second term. 

Lisa Lerer, Bloomberg: On one side of the debate are strategists and officials, including some aligned with Clinton, who believe their path to the White House in the post-Obama era rests with wooing centrist, working class voters.  To progressive activists, union members, and other parts of the "professional left," as an Obama aide once called them, victory lies in running on an aggressive, populist economic message.

"Some of the jockeying now is trying to strategically make sure Hillary understands that she can't be an economic moderate without generating pushback," said Andy Stern, the former head of the Service Employees International Union. "Progressives are anxious that her policies, not her heart, will be too generous toward Wall Street."

 With the Senate soon to be in Republican control, progressives aspire to become their own power center that can force Democrats to stand strong on economic issues. By aligning themselves with Warren, who’s an outspoken advocate of Wall Street regulation, groups like MoveOn not only grow membership lists and bank accounts, they also raise their profile.

While Warren is their billboard, the real target is likely Clinton. A history of pro-business economic policies and a roster of rich Wall Street donors make progressive and union activists anxious about the direction of her leadership and political loyalties. Though she has yet to announce a campaign, they're trying to send the message that their concerns should not be taken for granted.  "I think the fact that people are encouraging a person who probably isn't going to run may just be a manifestation of wanting to make clear that Secretary Clinton is not going to walk in and assume there's a coronation," said Stern. "She's going to have to work it policy-wise, particularly on the economy"

The Hill- Warren Makes Her Mark:Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s crusade against the $1.1 trillion spending bill backed by the White House firmly establishes the Massachusetts populist as a powerful player in Washington.

The freshman Democrat took on President Obama and her party’s leadership, and appeared to inspire an uprising in the House.

The fight earned her comparisons to Texas firebrand Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, another relative newcomer to the Senate who has shown outsized clout in his party.  

Warren lost the battle in the House when the spending bill was approved in a late-night 219-206 vote, and the fight is now moving to Warren’s turf in the Senate.

If she continues to fight hard against the bill, it will pull her into a deeper clash with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), who backed the spending deal and has just named Warren to his leadership team.

 “I have to assume Elizabeth Warren is running for president. That’s what you do when you run for president. You get out front,” said Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.), a senior member of the House Appropriations Committee who backed the spending bill opposed by Warren.

GOP Caves - Spending Bill Includes Nearly $1 Billion For Illegal Migrants

After America gave the GOP a landslide victory, the Republican leadership is repaying them with what amounts to a total surrender to President Obama's amnesty by diktat.

The new GOP draft 2015 “omnibus” spending bill includes $948 million designated to aid poor and unskilled Central American illegal migrants establish themselves so they can stay in the United States. And there are no restrictions whatsoever on the president's plan to give work permits and other benefits to millions of illegal migrants. Nor is the bill prohibiting the Department of Homeland Security from spending money to implement President Obama's amnesty:

Instead, the leadership, led by House Speaker John Boehner, drafted a bill imposing a 60-day spending limit for Obama’s immigration agencies.

The planned 60-day spending limit is largely symbolic, because the most important immigration agency can operate on fees paid by the illegals.

“Leadership is basically giving in to every facet of Obama’s amnesty. We’re giving up an astonishing amount of leverage on every issue imaginable,” said one Hill aide.

The struggle between Boehner’s business wing and the populist conservative wing, has received little coverage in the established media, even though GOP legislators are calling for the public to protest their leadership’s policies.

Not only does the president's new executive order pretty much make enforcement of our immigration laws irrelevant, it creates new opportunities and encouragement for a brand new surge of illegal migrants to cross the border, expected to start in the summer of 2015.

And why not? Their chances of being allowed to stay have never been better. In 2014, Obama’s agencies accepted something like 56,000 Central American minors, providing them with health screenings and air transport to parents and family members throughout the United States.

The Obama Administration is also spending at least $7 million to provide free lawyers to the migrants so they can win court cases to remain in the United States. Only 1,901 were sent home by October 31st.

If the Republican leadership thinks that they're going to be able to indulge in this kind of treachery to please the Chamber of Commerce and their wealthy donors and still win elections, they're even stupider than I thought. This goes beyond mere politics..it's bad for the country and sets a horrible precedent.

Watch how quickly their majority disappears in 2016, especially if they nominate some RINO like Jeb Bush. The base will stay home, the majority of Latinos whom vote will vote for Hillary or whatever other Democrat promises them more gimmees and the GOP will likely have participated in its last election as a new party forms.

Here's hoping enough Republicans get this to kick Boehner and McConnell out and get new leadership, before they wind up being destroyed as a political entity.

Democrats Push RINO Cochran Over The Finish Line

 

Democrat cross over votes in an open primary just managed to push RINO Thad Cochran over the finish line in the Mississippi GOP race against conservative state Sen. Chris McDaniel.

 With 99.9 percent of precincts reporting, Cochran beat McDaniel 50.8 percent to 49.2 percent. They were separated by about 6,300 votes out of more than 375,000 cast.

Here's a sample of what Democrats used to get out the vote among blacks for Cochran:


 

Sheer, easily debunked horse manure, but sufficient to gin up just enough Democrat turnout in a GOP primary to push a senescent RINO over the top..especially given who this nonsense was aimed at.

Nor am I kidding about the senescent part. the 77-year-old Cochran has been known to suffer surprising memory lapses about things his aides have previously informed him of, and to appear confused at times..and his own words about doing indecent things to animals in his youth also struck a great many people as strange.

 

Now this is simply power politics, and par for the course, which is why open primaries aren't such a great idea. But what's fascinating is the reaction from the usual suspects.

Democrats and RINOs are hailing Thad Cochran's 'coalition' as the way for 'Republicans to win elections'. You know, endorse amnesty, give up those quaint ideas about small government and fiscal responsibility, appeal to  'moderate Demoicrats' even though 2010 saw most of the congressional Democrats who embodied those principles disappearing.

For these people, here's a question: how many of those Democrats in Thad Cochran's 'coalition' do you think are going to vote for him in November?

Exactly. So the people of Mississippi are going to have to choose between a superannuated tool and whatever Lefty the Democrats put up. Cochran will probably win, but as always, it upsets me no end that Democrats invariably choose their lust for power over the common good.

There actually is something positive to take away from this. Right now, Democrats have a lock on most of the Black vote, even though their policies are disproportionally harmful to America's African-American community. Usually, it's done by outright lies and calls to racial solidarity like the poster above.

If even another 10% or so could be treated not as a minority that needs pandering to but as ordinary Americans with hopes, dreams, and aspirations and shown how small government, low taxes, freedom of choice and reduced government regulations and interference work to their benefit and those of their children, we'd see some major differences.

And part of that, as I know from experience is being willing to show up. As a number of Black conservatives can tell you, the Romney campaign wasn't even courteous enough to show they cared about Black voters by opening campaign offices in their neighborhoods. Or by sending the candidates or at least some credible spokespeople there to talk to these voters and make the case for voting for Romney.

Epic Fail -Boehner And RINOs Cave, Join Dems to Push Through 'Clean' Debt Ceiling Increase

 


Republican Speaker John Boehner, and his allies in the House have made an astonishing and disgraceful retreat. After President Obama and congressional Democrats had said they weren't even open to discussing spending cuts in exchange for Republicans in the House agreeing to  raise the debt ceiling, Boehner  caved in and presented a 'clean' debt ceiling increase to the House for a vote.

Boehner and his allies in the GOP caucus originally were thinking about tacking on something modest like approval of the Keystone pipeline in exchange for the debt ceiling increase, but conservatives in the House appear to be tired of this game and wanted Boehner to insist that the White give up a lot more in exchange for raising the limits on the federal credit card.

So instead, the Speaker decided to throw in the towel, and he and Only 18 Republicans, many of them retiring after this term voted with the 200 House Democrats to push this through  and raise the debt ceiling without any quid pro quo.That essentially destroys the so-called 'Boehner rule' that pledged to quash any bills that didn't have the support of the majority of the Republican caucus. It also destroys his speakership, for all intents and purposes.

As a contrast, when the disgraceful House bill went to the Senate, it was Senator Ted Cruz who forced a vote to end cloture  by 60 votes before voting on  approval of the bill, thus forcing a lot of gutless GOP senators, some facing primary challenges out into the open. Once the vote for cloture was passed, approval was automatic since the Democrats control the Senate. And of course, some of the same Republican senators who voted to end cloture tried their usual trick and cast a cosmetic vote against the bill. But thanks to Ted Cruz, they were forced to out themselves.

President Obama and the Democrats weren't even willing to allow the GOP to add on a provision to reverse the veterans' benefits cuts that were in the Ryan-Murray budget deal. Remember that the next time our commander-in-chief mouths all those fine sounding platitudes in one of his interminable speeches about vets and the military.

Instead, the House will hold a largely cosmetic vote on this item separately, and will have to bargain hard with the White House to even have a chance of getting it through. Speaker Boehner is proposing
additional sequester cuts in 2024 as an opening gambit..otherwise know,  for those whom remember the old Popeye cartoons, an offer to pay Thursday for a hamburger today.

This really is the end of an era, when a GOP-led House would abdicate its constitutionally mandated power in such a craven fashion.It really is all about leadership and strategy, and Republican leadership that understood that  would have been bringing relevant bills  out almost weekly and forcing Democrats to vote against it, ready made campaign fodder for November. Instead, we get this cowardly, clueless headlong retreat.

As for John Boehner, it's the end of his speakership as well. The Obama Administration has no respect for him whatsoever, and neither does the majority of his caucus. If he had any real regard for the country and his party, he'd either resign as Speaker right now or at least announce his intention to resign, so the House could begin vetting someone to replace him. 

The reason Boehner even became Speaker in the first place  is because Republican conservatives and the Tea Party elected a House majority that they had every right to expect to represent those views.Instead, the man who began his tenure as Speaker by reading the Constitution on the House floor betrayed them, as well as the basic precepts of that document. Whether he did it intentionally or out of weakness and fear doesn't matter at this point.

Get you gone, Cataline, get you gone.

Chris Christie - Has The Hindenburg Crashed?

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie appears to be in some real trouble.

A couple of readers have asked for my take on this, but I was pretty much content to leave it alone in favor of stories and outside projects I felt were a lot more important then some tale of petty political revenge. That was especially true since my views on Governor Christie, especially as a presidential candidate are pretty well known and have been for some time.

But that was before I found out that these antics actually resulted in someone's death.That puts this in a whole other realm.

What happened here is that one of Governor Christie's top aides ordered the closing of the George Washington Bridge as a retaliation against Fort Lee’s Democratic mayor, Mark Sokolich for not endorsing Christie in his re-election run for governor last year. That resulted in a 4 hour traffic delay, something Christie was pretty callous and disinterested about at the time.

This would have stayed hidden except that e-mails surfaced between Bridget Anne Kelly, Christie’s deputy chief of staff for legislative and intergovernmental affairs and David Wildstein, a long time Christie aide and New Jersey's Port Authority Director of Interstate Projects. check this out:



Unfortunately, the fall out wasn't just political.A woman died because of the politically motivated delays while waiting for EMS techs to get to her location through the traffic. As one of my attorney friends tells me, this is known as involuntary manslaughter and he'd be very surprised if the woman's family wasn't fielding non-stop calls from Jersey attorneys seeking to represent them in a lawsuit.

Christie originally said his office had nothing to do with the closures, something we now know was, well, pretty much one of those politically expedient falsehoods we've gotten used to in the Age of Obama.

After being caught out on that one, he was forced to talk to the media today. The new line? He apologized, but "Hey I didn't know nuthin'." He claims that he hardly ever even spoke to David Wildstein, someone he's been close friends with since high school and whom he personally appointed to the post of Port Authority Director.And now, since he's apologized, he wants us all to just move on, nothing to see here.

So, what does all this tell us about Governor Christie?

Not too much I wasn't aware of before, but this episode underlines it nicely.

For one thing, with him its all about theatrics and plausible deniability. Even if a few top aides went rogue and did this on their own (an unlikely story, but let's go with it) the governor is either guilty of gross incompetence and lousy judgement if he's telling the truth, and petty, Obama-like use of government for political revenge if he isn't and was in on this from the jump.The George Washington Bridge is not some small town two laner but a major commuter and commercial artery. A four hour closure is something that ordinarily would merit top priority from a governor, especially in a small state like New Jersey - unless it was something he okayed personally. If he didn't, than he obviously wasn't doing his job and was focused elsewhere, something we've also become accustomed to in the Age of Obama.Andthe fact that this stunt in the name of politics resulted in someone's death also strikes a familiar note..sort of a small scale version of Benghazi or Fast and Furious.

Obviously, there's are good reasons the governor and President Obama get along so well.



As I wrote elsewhere, the governor agrees with President Obama on all the major issues anyway. He's anti  Second Amendment, (New Jersey has some of the most restrictive gun laws in the nation), pro   amnesty for illegal migrants, pro abortion on demand, and on board for pretty much everything else that's part of Obama's agenda except the sanctity of the public employee unions. And even that was limited to a couple of famous YouTube clips. He even agrees with the president on ObamaCare, agreeing to accept Obamacare funding to expand Medicaid and reversing himself after declaring a year ago that it would be fiscally unsound.

And speaking of things fiscal, for all the rep Christie has as a fiscal conservative, New Jersey's  official unemployment rate is still 8.4% (the real U-6 rate is over 10%), it's one of the highest taxed states in the country, and under Christie's stewardship, the state's debt rose by $6 billion in fiscal 2012, up 9 percent, to about $71 billion. last year ,with Moody's downgrading the  state's bond outlook from stable to negative.

In other words, he's pretty much similar to Barack Obama  with less of a tan and a slightly bigger resume.

In the event the GOP manages to strong arm the party's base and make him the 2016 Republican nominee, he'd be a real waste of effort - almost certainly a losing candidate because the base would stay home again, but an absolute nightmare in office if he managed to win somehow.

So if this scandal manages to end his presidential aspirations, consider that a blessing in disguise.

Boehner To Push Amnesty For Illegal Aliens

 

Well, I suppose you could see this coming.

Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner has decided to push for GOP authored legislation giving amnesty to illegal aliens.

Last month, Speaker Boehner was pretty vocal about not negotiating on the ridiculous amnesty bill passed by the Senate. But it's a different day now.

Boehner just dumped his previous staffer in charge of immigration policy and hired a long time amnesty advocate for the position, one Rebecca Talent.

Talent used to work for Senator John McCain and later for Arizona Republican Jeff Flake, another pro-amnesty senator, and was working as an amnesty activist, aka 'as immigration policy director' for something called the Bipartisan Policy Center.

She was instrumental in writing a number of amnesty bills, including one for Rep. Jim Kolbe and two for Senator John McCain,the Senator from Univision.

“The speaker remains hopeful that we can enact step-by-step, common-sense immigration reforms — the kind of reforms the American people understand and support,” spokesman Michael Steel said. “Becky Tallent, a well-known expert in this field of public policy, is a great addition to our team and that effort.”

I might point out, one more time, that the people we're talking about are not immigrants according to any dictionary definition or terms in use anywhere else. Immigrants are legal migrants entering with the permission and knowledge of the host country. The people we're talking about are illegal migrants whom are here without either America's knowledge or permission. They shouldn't be demonized because of that, but defiance of America's laws and taking advantage of proximity to our porous borders to jump in front of thousands of others trying to migrate legally to America is neither a qualification for citizenship nor a reason for 'reform' of anything but border security and the enforcing of our current immigration laws.

Nor will the current laws be changed to do anything but provide amnesty. The so-called diversity lotteries won't be stopped, discrimination against potential, skilled migrants from Europe and East Asia isn't going to change. Chain migration isn't going to be halted, and neither is the process of using 'anchor babies' to gain citizenship and social welfare benefits.

It's just going to be simple amnesty, with a few provisions for border security that won't be honored, just like all of the other ones weren't.And with chain migration, we won't be talking about a mere 11 million people..more like 30 million. It will  bankrupt the country beyond repair if we're not there already, and pretty much finish off any chance of restoring our Republic.

Oddly enough, many of the people screaming for amnesty on the basis of ethnic pride and solidarity are the ones whom are going to be screwed the worse. They're the ones who will be competing with the new recipients of amnesty for housing, as rents go higher and higher to reflect the demand. It's Hispanic citizens who are going to be waiting months to see a doctor, as all of these new migrants are going tohave tobe covered and almost all will receive the ObamaCare subsidies. It's their children whom are going to be crowded into substandard, overcrowded public schools, not the elites or the monied 'activists' who will be able to afford private school..

And worse of all, the ones whom now earn middle class incomes and benefits doing jobs like delivery drivers, factory workers, care givers, domestics and construction workers and the like are the ones whose jobs will be in jeopardy as the newer wave of amnesty beneficiaries offer to do those jobs for far less money..and who will be undercut in their turn by the newest wave of illegal migrants coming over the border.

Which is exactly why much of big business is among the biggest supporters of amnesty.

The time to go after Boehner and scare the crap out of him and his playmates in the House is now. Wire call and fax and let them know you're wise to exactly what they're doing. They all come up for re-election in 2014.

Boehner is trying to forestall this by keeping this secret until after the filing deadline for the elections.

That's exactly why these people need to know now that we're wise to them. For interested parties, here's Boehner's Facebook page.

The stupid party in action...pulling defeat from the jaws of victory again....

Fear And Loathing - The RINOs Versus The Lions

Strange days indeed, when Republicans eat their own over something that seems to be a no brainer - defunding the deeply unpopular ObamaCare and avoiding a national trainwreck.

The GOP establishment, which seems to have difficulty finding its behind with both hands is facing mounting discontent over President Obama's signature achievement. In fact, it's this president's legacy, if you don't count unprecedented debt, Benghazi, Syria, Fast and Furious, lavish vacations, IRS-gate and a slightly improved golf score.

But for most Americans, who now have taken ex-Speaker Nancy Pelosi's advice and are finding out what's actually in ObamaCare now that the bill's passed and the legislation is taking effect, it's a nightmare. The most conservative estimates are that ObamaCare will increase healthcare costs for an average family of four by $7,450 between 2014 and 2022..if you can manage to see a doctor in anything like a timely manner.

And those figures do not account for the additional costs incurred if the president gets his way and legalizes 11 million plus illegal migrants, virtually all of whom will qualify for the taxpayer funded subsidies.

Even President Obama's allies the unions are jumping ship on ObamaCare at this point.

When conservative Republicans in the House and in the Senate actually took a look at the poll numbers and spoke to their constituents, it seemed like a no brainer that with President Obama pushing for yet another expansion on his credit card to raise the debt ceiling, this would be an incredible time to own this issue and connect with the American public by funding the government but defunding ObamaCare.

When the GOP establishment proved reluctant, the conservatives in the House and Senators like Utah's Mike Lee and Texan Ted Cruz led the charge to mobilize conservatives. They got well over a million signatures on an online petition and defied expectations by succeeding in getting a budget through that defunds ObamaCare.

And that when the RINO crap hit the fan.

The bill has to go to the Senate, where the Democrats will need to get 60 votes for cloture in order to end debate so Democrat majority leader Harry Reid can pass a new budget that funds ObamaCare by a simple majority and send it back to the House. If Reid
can't get cloture, the budget bill stays in the Senate and forces Reid and the Democrats to publicly own both ObamaCare and the onus for shutting the government down. Senator Cruz explains this admirably to FOX News commentator Chris Wallace here:



Guess who Reid's allies are in getting cloture?

None other than Arizona RINO John McCain, his sidekick Lindsay Graham and the rest of the RINOs on the so-called Gang of Eight. And they're not limiting themselves to merely disagreeing with Cruz and conservatives. They're trying to destroy them politically.

As Chris Wallace revealed, the RINOs actually sent him opposition research on Cruz prior to his interview with Cruz on his Sunday show, which Wallace, being an actual journalist refused to use or reveal where it came from. And as Tammy Bruce correctly surmises, if they're sending it to Chris Wallace, they're sending it to everyone.:

“This has been one of the strangest weeks I’ve ever had in Washington. As soon as we listed Ted Cruz as our guest this week, I got unsolicited research and questions, not from Democrats, but from top Republicans to hammer Cruz. Why are Republicans so angry at Ted Cruz?”

Well, for one thing, it's not all Republicans, but the RINO faction led by John McCain. They loathe Cruz, Rand Paul, Mike Lee, Ron Johnson and others from the Tea Party class of 2010 because they're conservatives first rather than Republicans, and came to Washington to govern and try to take back the country rather than going along with the Old Boy network and business as usual. Like the members of the House, they haven't been in Washington long enough to become insulated within the DC bubble from the people that sent them there, and they still retain the principles they ran on.

Worst of all, they refuse to show deference to their 'betters', carpet chewers and sell outs like McCain.

ObamaCare is a particular sore spot with the RINOs because the waiver Obama gave Congress applies to the RINOs and their staffs, and they damn well don't want to lose it because of what McCain famously called 'wacko birds'. So they're willing to break Ronald Reagan's 11th commandment in spades and provide oppo research to damage fellow Republicans.

Sarah Palin, as usual has the right of it. She demands that Wallace reveal which Republicans sent him the material intended to damage Senator Ted Cruz (h/t The Noisy Room):

Sarah Palin        ✔ @SarahPalinUSA

@FoxNewsSunday Keep it TRULY fair & balanced. Release the GOP names encouraging you to trash @SenTedCruz. No more anonymous sources.

7:13 AM - 22 Sep 2013

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As I mentioned previously, defunding both the mandatory and discretionary funding for ObamaCare is definitely possible. Congress does exactly that with the Hyde Amendment, which prevents funds going to MedicAid from paying for abortions with exceptions for incest and rape. It's done via a rider that is attached to the annual appropriations bill for the Department of Health and Human Services and has passed every year since 1976.


The RINOs, short sighted as usual, would rather not make waves.Losing elections has taught the Stupid Party nothing, although Cruz and his fellow lions appear to have learned something.

At the very least, this would put President Obama and Harry Reid in the uncomfortable position of having to whip their fellow Democrats into line to support shutting down the government to save a piece of legislation the vast majority of American hate...with the 2014 midterms coming on. The results of this might end up being surprising.

On the other hand, we have, apparently, a contingent within the GOP who have no allegiance to small r republican principles, or really, any principles whatsoever aside from getting re-elected again. Something is going to have to give, and it may just be the Republican Party.

That sharp, cracking sound you hear is the political borders re-aligning, and it may just be the start of the GOP establishment going the way of the Whigs.