Category Archives: Political Deals

Wow! What a weekend.

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I had a real busy weekend. I had a real busy week. My shootin’ buddy and I spent Thursday at the range practicing for a pistol match coming up next month. Saturday night was a Friends of the NRA dinner and auction in H’ville. Then Sunday afternoon was the Western Missouri Shooters Alliance 25th Anniversary picnic.

I’m pretty much whooped.  Still…I’d do it again in a second.

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The Kansas Senatorial race continues to be in the front of the news. I’ve had some friends ask me what the controversy is all about. It’s this, as briefly as I can explain.

There are (were) three candidates running for US Senator; Pat Roberts, the incumbent on the Republican Ticket, Chad Taylor on the democrat ticket, and Greg Orman, a democrat who the democrats wouldn’t let run against Taylor in the primary. Orman decided to run as an ‘independent.’ In reality, it’s two democrats running against one ‘Pub. Ordinarily, this would be a shoo-in for Roberts because Orman would split the democrat votes with Taylor.

Suddenly, the environment changed. Polls indicated that Orman was running better against Roberts than Taylor. To the democrats, this meant one of their candidates was a possible winner, especially since Roberts pissed off much of the grass-roots conservatives who had backed Milton Wolf. A significant percentage of those Wolf supporters declared they would either vote for Orman or stay home.

The democrats were now in a dilemma. Orman, a democrat in an independent’s costume, was ahead of Taylor. They decided to have Taylor quit. That would allow the democrats to vote for Orman instead of splitting their votes between the two democrat candidates.

The Kansas democrat leaders forced Chad Taylor to quit.

After a series of legal shenanigans, with the aid of their left-leaning KS Supreme Court, they got Taylor off the ticket. Bad news for Roberts. But Orman isn’t the clean-cut, scandal-free candidate the democrats and he projects. He is being sued for failure to pay royalties to another company for the use of their patented technology.

The establishment ‘Pubs are rallying around Roberts and Orman is facing more scrutiny from the national press. Surprise, surprise! Orman is keeping closed-mouth about what his political views?

Greg Orman, a political enigma, faces growing scrutiny in Kansas Senate race

By Philip Rucker September 28 at 8:53 PM

WICHITA — Greg Orman, the upstart Senate candidate threatening to unseat longtime Republican incumbent Pat Roberts in Kansas, says it’s liberating to run as an independent: “I can go to Washington as a problem solver, not a partisan.”

But not having a party also liberates Orman from taking positions — especially on controversial issues that might alienate partisans.

Greenlight the Keystone XL pipeline? Orman said he doesn’t have enough information to say yes or no.

What about gun control? He said gun restrictions should be “strengthened” but would not specify whether he backs an assault-weapons ban.

And on the biggest question of all — Would he caucus with Democrats or Republicans? — Orman insists he’s not sure.

Republican Sen. Pat Roberts, left, and independent candidate Greg Orman talk after a debate at the Kansas State Fair Saturday, Sept. 6, 2014, in Hutchinson, Kansas. (Charlie Riedel/AP)

“It’s not in the best interests for us to say that,” Orman said in an interview here last week.

Orman has said he would caucus with whichever party has the majority after November’s midterm elections. But what if the Senate is evenly divided and Orman’s decision swings the balance? He said that would be “a wonderful opportunity for Kansas.”

Orman’s rise has transformed deep-red Kansas into the year’s unlikeliest political battleground. Many voters say Roberts has lost touch with the state he’s represented in Congress since 1981.

Since Democratic nominee Chad Taylor withdrew his name from the ballot this month, Roberts has been in a two-man race with Orman, who has previous ties to the Democratic Party but preaches independence. Public polling has been unreliable, but both sides believe the race is very tight.

Orman, who entered the race in June, has surged on the strength of his pitch to fix a broken Washington without any allegiance to a political party. But now the enigma is under increasing pressure from voters to provide a clearer sense of his ideology and politics, while facing attacks from the Roberts camp over his business ties and Democratic past.

“I’ve been impressed with Greg so far, but we’re still in the ‘I’m an independent’ stage,” said Lynda Neff, 68, a retired teacher. “I’m ready to move past that and hear about some issues. . . . I will support him if he gives me a little more information.”

Perhaps the biggest test for Orman, a multi­millionaire investor who is partially funding his campaign, is surviving the intensifying public scrutiny of his business and personal relationships with Rajat Gupta, the former Goldman Sachs board member who was convicted in 2012 of insider trading and is serving a federal prison sentence.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dre/politics/election-lab-2014

Election Lab: See our current forecast for every congressional race in 2014.

View Graphic

Roberts and his Republican allies have launched a barrage of attacks designed to make Orman appear untrustworthy. On the campaign trail in Kansas last week, a parade of top Republicans alleged that Orman is a liberal Democrat in disguise.

“Anybody with a liberal record like Greg’s . . . that’s not independence. That’s someone who’s trying to snooker you, Kansas,” Sarah Palin, the former Alaska governor and vice-presidential nominee, said Thursday in Independence.

Palin’s 2008 running mate, Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), told voters a day earlier in suburban Overland Park: “Let’s be honest — he’s a Democrat. He walks like a duck and he quacks like a duck and he is a duck.”

Robert J. Dole, a former Senate Republican leader and 91-year-old Kansas legend, said Monday night in Dodge City, “There’s a multimillionaire who claims he’s an independent, but really [he’s] in the other party.”

In Kinsley on Tuesday, after reporters asked whether he trusted Orman to govern as an independent, Roberts said, “All of a sudden, if there’s a metamorphosis and the caterpillar changed — why, I just don’t think that’s in the cards.”

Orman argues that the Republicans are reading him wrong. He said he voted for Obama in 2008, and public records show that in the middle of that decade he made donations mostly to Democrats, including Obama and Sen. Al ­Franken (Minn.). In 2008, he briefly ran for Senate against Roberts as a Democrat before dropping out.

The column by the Washington Post is long. You can read it completely on their website.

I was surprised that the Washington Post says the new Senate will be ‘Pub controlled, 62 to 48 given their history of biased reporting. Joni Ernst now leads Braley, 44 percent to 38 percent. Most of the polling over the last month or more has Ernst in the lead but the MSM claimed otherwise and called Iowa a ‘leaning blue’ state.

Des Moines Register: “The ground under Bruce Braley has shifted. The Democratic U.S. Senate candidate is 6 points behind his GOP rival, Joni Ernst, according to The Des Moines Register’s new Iowa Poll of likely voters. Ernst leads 44 percent to 38 percent in a race that has for months been considered deadlocked…. One potential reason: Two-thirds of likely voters who live in the country are bothered by a remark he made about Republican U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley that’s been perceived as besmirching farmers.”

Braley should have known that dissing farmers in Iowa is not a career-enhancing tactic.

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News and Views

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Obama went to Texas this week. He went for another fundraiser. He had no intention to visit the border—and didn’t over the protests of his own party members, such as Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-TX.

http://www.theblaze.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Perry.Hannity.pngGovernor Rick Perry met Obama on the tarmac of Austin’s airport to ask Obama to go with him to the border. “He flies in a big airplane. It’s only 350 miles to the border,” Perry said in an interview with Shawn Hannity last night. Perry and Obama did meet to discuss the border, a meeting that resulted in Obama’s presser yesterday that said nothing and continued to blame Republicans for the border crisis.

Obama wants billions to ‘fix’ the border. He doesn’t need more billions; he can do that immediately by ordering the DoD to secure the border. In fact, Obama has a duty to do so. But he won’t. Instead he’ll dither as usual and do nothing while the problem compounds itself. The crisis is nearing the boiling point from Texas to California. Obama could not care less.

What will happen next? No one knows…except that it won’t, while Obama remains in office, get any better.

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There is a bill floating in the Senate that Dems hope with give them some creds with Second Amendment activists. The bill has a lot of good changes in it…and a poison pill for anyone who votes for it.

EDITORIAL: No free pass on gun rights for red-state Democrats

Republicans must deny endangered incumbents a phony vote

By THE WASHINGTON TIMES, Wednesday, July 9, 2014

If Democrats regain a majority in the House and retain the Senate, the first order of business after a tragic shooting — any shooting will do — would be to enact strict gun control. Everyone knows it, and that’s a problem for Democratic senators trying to keep their seats in states where people aren’t afraid of guns.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid let Sen. Kay R. Hagan, a Democrat with an uphill re-election struggle in North Carolina, bring up her Bipartisan Sportsmen’s Act, which would actually make several useful changes in the law. It would modernize licensing for duck hunting and encourage the use of federal land for fishing, hunting and target shooting. It would even allow hunters who legally shoot a polar bear in Canada to bring the pelt back home to the United States.

But, as always with democrats, it’s a sham.

In 2012, Sen. Jon Tester, Montana Democrat, was fighting for survival and pushed such legislation to shore up his pro-gun credentials. After he won re-election, Mr. Tester joined the liberals in his caucus to support President Obama’s actual gun-control agenda. Mr. Tester voted for the “background check” requirement that the federal government track sales of firearms between friends and family, inevitably creating a national registry. It came within a handful of votes of passage.

Several tough, realistic Republicans aren’t eager to give endangered Democrats an undeserved break and insist on adding language to reveal which senators actually believe in the Second Amendment and which only pose as believers.

A number of GOP Senators want to add some amendments to the bill. Senator Reid won’t allow any. He wants a simple ‘hunting-friendly’ bill to help those Senators in danger of being booted out of office.

When the bill comes up for a vote Thursday, senators won’t be allowed to freely amend the bill. If the measure clears the Senate, House Republicans must resist the temptation to pass the bill as is to put it on Mr. Obama’s desk. It’s so rare that a bill gets past Mr. Reid’s legislative blockade that it would be hard to scold Republicans for taking the poisoned bait.

Voters deserve to know where their representatives really stand on gun control, so House Speaker John A. Boehner should encourage the addition of genuine pro-gun amendments that would doom its chances for Senate concurrence. Better to allow a positive but mostly symbolic bill to die than to give Mrs. Hagan and her colleagues a trophy to fool their constituents.

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Missouri GOP Party Chairman, Ed Martin, has been watching the Mississippi fiasco and he isn’t pleased. This week, he has called for an investigation into Mississippi’s primary and that of Halley Barbour.

MOGOP — ‘Missouri GOP head seeks party probe of Mississippi ads alleging racism,’ The Washington Post: “The head of the Missouri Republican Party on Tuesday asked Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus to appoint a task force to investigate what he called “racially divisive ads and robocalls” critical of state Sen. Chris McDaniel in the Republican runoff for U.S. Senate in Mississippi, marking the latest instance of lingering intra-party discord following Sen. Thad Cochran’s narrow victory over McDaniel last month. Missouri GOP Chairman Ed Martin e-mailed letters to Priebus and RNC members Tuesday afternoon expressing concerns over ads reported by Britain’s Daily Mail newspaper that sought to link McDaniel to a Ku Klux Klan ally, suggested that the tea party has “racist” ideas and warned that a vote for McDaniel could mean losing food stamps and other government programs. Martin’s concerns came a day after Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) slammed the “D.C. machine” for “racially charged false attacks” against McDaniel. And they arrived as McDaniel’s campaign was gearing up to challenge the results of the election, which were certified. Martin, who said he was neutral during the primary and runoff, said his concern is that Republican National Committee member Henry Barbour could be partially responsible for the ads. The Daily Mail report suggested that Barbour, who ran a pro-Cochran super PAC, could have ties to the group that ran the ads, Citizens for Progress. The group has no record at the Federal Election Commission. …

Martin asked Priebus to “appoint a special committee of RNC members to investigate this matter and report to us at our August 7th Members meeting before the August 8th general RNC meeting.” Martin said in a telephone interview that he already had received a response from one RNC member volunteering to join the special committee.” — The Washington Post, PoliticMO.

I’m glad to see I’m not the only Missouri Republican who is concerned about the RNSC’s actions in that mess in Mississippi. There is potentially another RNSC fiasco brewing next door in Kansas and that’s too close to home to ignore.

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Countdown

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The Missouri Legislative session only has a few more days to run. Conservatives passed a much needed Tax Cut by overriding Nixon’s veto of the bill. The tax cuts will affect small businesses and individual taxpayers the most.

Unfortunately, many other bills are hung in committees, held hostage by RINOs who dare not offend their liberal constituents. They care not for their conservative supporters.

Here is the run-down on some of the more popular bills. It’s possible one or two may break loose and make to the the floor for their final votes. If so, expect Nixon to vote each one.

The first item is the Impeachment of Governor Jay Nixon. Three separate bills of impeachment were submitted. All are sitting in the House Judiciary committee and they will likely remain there. None of the ‘Pub committee members have the guts to bring the bills to a vote, much less allow them to reach the House floor. Those members, all lawyers, are using legal reasoning to block the bills. Impeachment is NOT a criminal charge—it’s a political charge, but the lawyers in the committee refuse to consider that position.

Right-to-Work. Dead. However, it is still possible that Paycheck Protection, a separate bill, may be voted upon this week.

House Majority Floor Leader John Diehl, R-St. Louis, said explicitly Thursday he does not believe Republicans the votes to send ‘right-to-work’ to the Senate. The bill was a chief priority of the conservative wing of the House Republican Caucus, including House Speaker Tim Jones. Instead, labor eyes are turned to the Senate, where lawmakers are expected to return to the ‘paycheck protection’ bill. The legislation would require annual authorization for public labor unions to use dues and fees to make political contributions, and consent for withholding earnings from paychecks. — PoliticMO Newsletter, May 12, 2014.

Voting Bills. There are two Voting bills in the Legislature that may get final attention this session. One will be presenting a Constitutional  amendment to the voters to require photo-ID for anyone voting in Missouri. Voter-ID has been under attack in the state and this effort is another plan to strengthen our battle against liberal vote fraud in St. Louis, Kansas City and other locales in the state.

The other bill would be to authorize early voting. This is another attempt by democrats to provide a means for more vote fraud. Urge you Legislators to vote NO on this provision.

Second Amendment Protection Act. This one, too, is hung in a House Committee. Ron Calzone in his May 10th, 2014, Missouri First newsletter reports:

Five legislators hold the fate of SAPA, the Second Amendment Preservation Act in their hands.

That’s how many members of an 8 person committee are needed to sign a Conference Committee Report that will take most of the teeth out of HB 1439 and send if back to the Senate, where it will probably die.

Right now, it looks like at least 5 of them are probably going to recommend to the House and Senate that they remove the strongest enforcement clause from the bill. If they do, our only hope would be for Senator Nieves, the Senate handler of the bill, to refuse to make a motion to accept the Conference Committee Report, or for the House or Senate to vote the report down and go back to the stronger bill.

The frustrating thing for me is that it’s the House sponsor of the bill, Rep. Doug Funderburk, who wants to take most of the teeth (the “ineligibility clause”) out of the bill. Doug says he’s afraid that unless we weaken the bill, one particular Republican senator will vote “no” if a veto override is needed next September.

While it’s true that the senator he’s concerned about IS a potential no vote on override, this senator voted FOR the bill WITH the ineligibility clause in it just 10 days ago. This same senator voted FOR the veto override last September.

The ‘ineligibility’ clause was reinstated in the Senate. It prevents any Federal official from taking employment in Missouri in the Law Enforcement field under some circumstances.

The “ineligibility clause” in HB 1439 is the most important enforcement provision in the bill.

It’s designed to prevent federal officials who would infringe on your gun rights from accessing state resources as well as provide personal disincentive to those federal officials.

In addition to the “ineligibility clause”, SAPA includes a “private cause of action” provision that gives legal standing for any victim of 2nd Amendment infringement. Such a civil suit against an agent or agency does not depend on government doing their job, as would be the case with criminal charges.

However, because of something called “Supremacy Clause immunity”, civil suits and criminal charges, are almost impossible to make stick against federal officials. That’s where the “ineligibility clause” comes in.

The “ineligibility clause” simply says that any federal official who violates the Missouri Second Amendment Preservation Act shall be forever ineligible to hold a Missouri law-enforcement job.

Paper Ballots. The purpose of this bill is to insure that a paper audit trail will exist. Electronic voting, used in some parts of Missouri, have no paper trail and are vulnerable to hacking…or manipulation. Vote fraud exists. In one St. Louis precinct, more people voted that were eligible in the entire precinct. Without a photo-ID and an audit trail, just examples of vote fraud are very difficult to prove in court.

This bill, SB623, is hung in Rep. Thomas Flanigan’s Fiscal Review Committee. The Missouri Secretary of State claims this bill would cost counties money to remove the electronic voting machines and implement processes and procedures to insure paper audit trails are built to conform to the requirements of this bill.

We’ve come close this year but not close enough. We must all remember, when we approach the polls in the upcoming August Primary and the General elections next November, who voted for these bills, who did not, and most importantly, the gutless wonders who blocked these bills in committee. Remember, come August and November.

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Another chip gone.

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Chip? What chip? It is a chip off the stone of GOP solidarity. Boehner and McConnell, in order to preserve their political futures, have started a war they cannot win. In the short term, as the GOP continues to fragment, the only winners are the democrats. In the long term…who knows. The real question is whether, when all the chips have fallen, will there be anything to rebuild—of the nation and the Constitution?

The Ryan-Murray budget ‘deal’ is another chip off that rock of GOP solidarity. Ryan, Boehner and the rest of the Washington establishment are willing to risk everything to avoid confrontation before the 2014 elections. Instead, they have risked the entire country to gain a little time.

What Ryan, Boehner, Cantor, McConnell and the others have done is to increasingly solidify the opposition of conservatives against them. The article below from the Washington Times supports the reports of growing opposition to the budget deal.

All-out war breaks out in GOP over budget

By Jacqueline Klimas and Seth McLaughlin, The Washington Times, Wednesday, December 11, 2013

House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio,joined by House Budget Committee Chairman Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., takes reporters' questions, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2013, as House Republicans signaled support for a budget deal worked out yesterday between Ryan and Senate Budget Committee Chair Rep. Patty Murray, D-Wash. The budget deal was one of a few major measures left on Congress' to-do list near the end of a bruising year that has produced a partial government shutdown, a flirtation with a first-ever federal default and gridlock on President Obama's agenda. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)Tea party groups and fiscal conservatives wasted no time Wednesday in savaging a bipartisan budget agreement negotiated between House Republicans and Senate Democrats, drawing an unusually angry response from House Speaker John A. Boehner, Ohio Republican.

All sides were rating the winners and losers in the deal struck a day earlier between House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, Wisconsin Republican, and Senate Budget Committee Chairwoman Patty Murray, Washington Democrat. The modest deficit-cutting deal had some sweeteners for defense contractors and oil drillers, while air travelers, federal workers and some corporate executives would take a hit.

But most of the passion focused on the politics of the deal, with Mr. Ryan, Mr. Boehner and the House GOP leadership defending their handiwork from attacks from conservative colleagues on Capitol Hill and from outside groups such as the Club for Growth, Heritage Action and Americans for Prosperity. Critics said the agreement effectively raised taxes in the form of higher fees, failed to restrain entitlement programs and permitted new spending in the short term in exchange for vague promises of long-term cuts.

Rep. Jim Jordan, Ohio Republican, said in an interview that Republicans sacrificed their biggest point of leverage — the tough “sequester” spending cuts that were already in force — in the rush to get a short-term deal that did not address the long-term costs of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

“I am against [the deal] from just a basic point that we embarked on a position at the beginning of the year that said, ‘We will keep the sequester in place unless we get to make changes on mandatory spending that will save those program and put the budget on path to balance within the next 10 years,’” Mr. Jordan said.

Added Chris Chocola, president of the fiscally hawkish Club for Growth, “Apparently, there are some Republicans who don’t have the stomach for even relatively small spending reductions that are devoid of budgetary smoke and mirrors. If Republicans work with Democrats to pass this deal, it should surprise no one when Republican voters seek alternatives who actually believe in less spending when they go to the ballot box.”

— Continue reading here.

Unfortunately for fiscal conservatives, Boehner is pushing for a vote on the ‘deal’ as quickly as he can. The vote could take place as early as today and he, Boehner, wants a quick vote to prevent “interference” from conservatives. Heritage Action, Club for Growth and the American’s for Prosperity initiated call-in campaigns yesterday.

The lines are being drawn as more ‘Pubs shift to one side or another. Some will continue to try to sit on the fence, fearing offending one side or the other. Like so many in the months prior to December 1860, they will discover that fence-sitters will be despised by both sides and have support from neither.

Here is some links to addition columns in today’s digital newspapers.

KIBBE: Another Republican budget surrender

The short-term deal will assure long-term overspending — Washington Times

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Budget Agreement Gets Attention from the Tea Party (Video)

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John Boehner rips conservatives for prematurely bashing budget deal, but rushes bill to floor

By PHILIP KLEIN | DECEMBER 11, 2013 AT 5:48 PM(Washington Examiner)

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Budget deal a step backward: Opposing view

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December 11, 2013 at 4:06 pm (The Foundry)

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Boehner’s Outburst Fuels GOP Civil War

The worst speaker of the House and Republican leader in the memory of living men. (PJ Media)

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To say this deal is unliked is an understatement of biblical proportions.

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What goes around, comes around

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Nothing in this nation, this world, is permanent. Even the mountains change over time. At one time, the Appalachian mountains were the height of the Rockies. Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas and parts of Nebraska were once under water—an inland sea. Nebraska was once a desert complete with sand dunes. The only thing we can be assured is that change will happen.

Politicians forget this.

Harry Reid is threatening to use the “nuclear” option to insure some liberal activists are confirmed as federal judges and nominees for other federal positions. Once in office, those liberal activists, the new judges, will have a job for life.

The ‘Pub establishment is in a conundrum. Do they oppose Reid and risk him pushing the button or shall they acquiesce, knuckle under to his threats?

McConnell, McCain and other ‘Pubs turned coward and knuckled under. They have agreed to confirm some of those activists saddling the rest of us with more activist bureaucrats ready to destroy the constitution piecemeal.

The ‘Pubs could have defeated Reid and his threats by reminding him of one simple fact. Nothing remains the same.

It’s beginning to look, more and more, that the ‘Pubs will seize the Senate in 2014 or 2016. It’s also likely the ‘Pubs will continue to control the House, perhaps with fewer members, but maybe with a larger majority. It depends on how well the democrat vote fraud network does its job.

All McConnell needed to do was to tell Reid that if he destroys the filibuster, it won’t be available to them when the ‘Pubs next take over the Senate. That could occur in 18 months.

Reid intended the threat to intimidate the ‘Pubs. He was successful. What would he have done if McConnell and the others showed some backbone? I think he would have blustered, made threats and…done nothing. He and the dems in the Senate need that ability to filibuster as much as the ‘Pubs.

From the Investor’s Business Daily…

Democrats’ Assault On Filibuster Would Alter Our Republic 

Posted 07/16/2013 06:44 PM ET

Congress: Democrats, led by Majority Leader Harry Reid, seem intent on pursuing the so-called nuclear option on the Senate’s filibuster rules. Someday, they might even win. They should be careful what they wish for.

Given the low esteem of Congress in the public’s eye and the slow-motion collapse of the Democratic Party’s Big Government agenda, Reid and his allies no doubt believe that changing the Senate’s decades-old filibuster rules is a good idea.

Reid’s filibuster rule-shift would require a mere majority to approve presidential nominees, instead of the current filibuster-proof 60 votes.

…

This might seem like a mere parliamentary trifle, but it isn’t. Back in 2005, when Reid led the minority Democrats in the Senate and Obama was just another senator, both spoke passionately in favor of the filibuster.

Now, not so much. They’ve changed their minds.

Lest they forget, the Republicans are looking pretty good right now for the 2016 elections.

Only half of the seats up for grabs are held by the GOP. Democrats look vulnerable — as New York Times polling guru and blogger Nate Silver recently noted.

Reid & Co. will no doubt scream bloody murder if, under GOP control of the Senate, their party’s rights in the minority are disrespected or even eliminated.

Unfortunately, getting rid of the filibuster is a long-run project for the progressive wing of the Democrats.

Their ultimate aim is to turn everything into a 51% vote, counting on their power to recruit new Democrats from the millions of illegal immigrants they plan to turn into citizens.

Think about that: That’s why our Constitution was written, and the Bill of Rights added to it. It was to protect the rights of the minority from the political predations of the majority. End that, and our republic dies.

A government run by simple majority is little more than lynch mob rule justified by ballot; a government in which the rights of those not in power are protected is a republic.

Think about that last paragraph above for a moment. If the minority organization has no power within the system, why should they remain within that system? The primary reason the South seceded beginning in 1860, was due to their loss of power in the federal government. The voting blocks of the North and the growing Midwest overpowered the Southern Representatives in the House. The smaller states in the North had a numerical advantage in the Senate as well. When the Southern states saw they were losing the political battle in Congress, they, in their opinion, had no other choice but to secede.

A Senate rule can always be changed. Yes, if/when the ‘Pubs get back in power, the new Senate Majority Leader could reinstate the filibuster. But! Why should he. Harry Reid has given the new leader the power to push anything through the Senate with a simple majority vote. What worked for Reid will now be a tactic for the new ‘Pub leader.

Reid’s machinations are nothing more than strong-arm tactics. If the ‘Pubs had any backbone, McConnell would have told Reid to go pound sand. Unfortunately, we have few ‘Pub Senators with a spinal column. McConnell offered a compromise Monday of this week. Apparently, from late reports today, Reid has rejected that compromise. Or has he? Reid gets one position, one nominee, confirmed, with a promise of “quick action” on the others.

I see no win here for McConnell or for any conservative. Just another day in Foggy Bottom where the Establishment continues to betray our interests.

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The Call of the Mild

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Chris Muir’s Day-by-Day has a great cartoon today. It presents the more important issue in Washington, the roll-over of the Republican Establishment.  Barack Obama is still the more dangerous person in the country, but numbers two and three are John Boehner and Mitch McConnell.

Obama is dangerous because he wants to overthrow our Constitutional government. His actions of this last week are only the latest instances in a series of acts that he has done to by-pass Congress.  Boehner and McConnell aid and abet Obama’s act by doing nothing in opposition.  Now it appears the ‘Pub establishment is about to ram another rubber stamp by the name of Mitt Romney down our throats.

I have heard that the Tea Party is running a candidate against Boehner in Ohio.  We must remove Boehner and all the rest of the ‘Pub establishment before the country is irrevocably damaged…if it isn’t already.

The Missouri ‘Pub establishment has closed the Missouri Caucus.  I hope they don’t sell us out like the ‘Pub establishment in Washington, DC, has done.

Summertime trials

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There was great news last night.  The US House passed Cut, Cap and Balance on a vote of 234 to 190.  Five dems voted for the bill.

Five Blue Dogs join GOP in vote for ‘cut, cap and balance’ bill

By Russell Berman – 07/19/11 09:07 PM ET
Five Blue Dog Democrats joined House Republicans in backing a conservative plan to condition a $2.4 trillion increase in the debt limit with immediate spending cuts, an annual cap on spending and a strict balanced budget amendment to the Constitution.
Reps. Heath Shuler (N.C.), Dan Boren (Okla.) Jim Matheson (Utah), Mike McIntyre (N.C.) and Jim Cooper (Tenn.) all voted for the GOP “cut, cap and balance” plan that passed the House Tuesday on a vote of 234-190. The support from Democrats was a surprise, one GOP leadership aide said. Most Democrats railed against the GOP plan as a “radical” attempt to enact deep spending cuts and reforms that would threaten entitlement programs.

Cooper, also a member of the New Democrat coalition, signed a letter Tuesday endorsing the Senate’s “Gang of Six” plan, which includes $3.7 trillion in budget savings and is likely to draw more support from Democrats.

The bill didn’t get complete republican support.  Nine ‘Pubs voted against Cut, Cap and Balance.

GOP presidential candidates Reps. Michele Bachmann (Minn.) and Ron Paul (Tex.) were among the nine House Republicans to vote no. The others were Reps. Paul Broun (Ga.), Quico Canseco (Tex.), Scott DesJarlais (Tenn.), Morgan Griffith (Va.), Connie Mack (Fla.), Walter Jones (N.C) and Dana Rohrabacher (Calif.).
Michele Bachmann said she voted against the bill because it didn’t include a repeal of Obamacare.  I can understand that.  There were already sufficient votes to insure passage and she is able to maintain her position against Obamacare.  I can understand why, I don’t agree with her.  I think she’d get more mileage supporting the Constitutional amendment.

Ron Paul’s reasoning is a bit different.  He continues his efforts to cut defense in order to force the US back into isolationism.
Rep. Ron Paul said he voted against the bill because it only serves to sanction the status quo by putting forth a $1 trillion budget deficit and authorizing a $2.4 trillion increase in the debt limit.
Paul said it’s “impossible” to eventually balance the budget without cutting military spending, Social Security or Medicare.
“These three budget items already cost nearly $1 trillion apiece annually,” he noted. “This means we can cut every other area of federal spending to zero and still have a $3 trillion budget.  Since annual federal tax revenues almost certainly will not exceed $2.5 trillion for several years, this Act cannot balance the budget under any plausible scenario,” Paul said.
 I maintain my position that Ron Paul is unfit to hold any national office.  If he had been President in the years leading to WW2, Europe would still be under Nazi control.  Paul has yet to understand that National Defense is best when it’s performed over there rather than over here.
As the news of the passage of Cut, Cap and Balance spread, there came an announcement by Obama about a deal among the Senate’s Gang of Six. That group consists of Sens. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), Mark Warner (D-Va.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) and Tom Coburn (R-Okla.). 
Supposedly it contains $3.6/3.7 Trillion in cuts over ten years, cuts to be determined at some unspecified time, with $1 Trillion immediate new tax increases—uhhh, new revenue.  In short, it reinstates Obama’s 2011 budget plan.  A plan that didn’t get ONE SINGLE DEMOCRAT VOTE!

Gang of Six plan punts on key details

By Erik Wasson – 07/19/11 01:09 PM ET
The Gang of Six plan unveiled to senators on Tuesday punts on key details, including exactly how it would reform Social Security and Medicare, according to a detailed outline obtained by The Hill.
The plan adopts a two-track approach: a $500 billion down payment and a later reform bill generating an additional $3.2 trillion in deficit reduction. That later bill is largely left up to committees of jurisdiction, and they are only required to meet specific savings targets.

So the cuts, instead of being specified, would be left to the discretion of some later committee.
Yeah, sure.
We can believe that just like there were $38 Billion in cuts in the last funding CR.  Those cuts turned out later to be only $343 Million, not Billions.  Whenever a democrat is involved, you can be sure the basis of any agreement is a lie and a fraud.
Getting back to Cut, Cap and Balance.  I have one disagreement with it.  The Constitutional Amendment should have been separate.  The President has no vote in the passage of an Amendment—only the two houses of Congress and 2/3rd of the states.  With the Amendment embedded in the bill, Obama can, as he’s already stated, veto it.
Neither plan has any hope of passage.  Harry Reid won’t let Cut, Cap and Balance pass in the Senate. The House ‘Pubs won’t pass the non-plan from the Gang of Six.
The best option that I can see for any increase in the debt limit is a one-for-one deal.  That would be for every Dollar of increase in the debt limit there would be one Dollar of REAL spending cuts. Real cuts. Not some unspecified, nebulous item that doesn’t really exist.  Defunding Obamacare and Dodd-Frank would be a good start.
As far as reaching any agreement by Obama’s August 2nd deadline?  Ain’t gonna happen.  Unhappy Birthday, Obama.