live from the guillotine

Great, Just Great!

Via Hot Air and please do read the whole thing, we find Representative Paul Ryan "explaining" his vote to tax 90% of  AIG employees' bonuses.  It seems he just didn't realize the bill was completely and totally against everything the founding fathers fought and died for:

“Now, that I know - which I didn’t at the time - that this is unconstitutional, I wouldn’t have voted the same way,” Ryan said during a taping of C-Span’s “Newsmakers” on Thursday - the show is set to air on Sunday. POLITICO was one of the participants in the Ryan interview.

Seriously?  Seriously??  Thanks, Wally.  Here's a thought.  Try reading The United States Constitution since you've been elected to, um, you know, understand what the hell it says and vote on bills accordingly.   It's only the fate of the country at stake.  Perhaps you should stop blaming the Democrats for rushing this legislation through and pay attention to your own vote?  Here's a clue.  If Code Pink is in total agreement with you, you're missing something.  Find it. 

Leave It To Beaver Act

Since Congress is now in the business of passing insane, unconstitutional bills like taxing 90% of AIG employees bonuses retroactively, I might as well propose my own insane, unconstitutional bill to make mandatory the showing in prime time of "Leave It To Beaver" episodes that involve Eddie Haskell.  These will, of course, preempt March Madness, American Idol, 24, and most especially the Lifetime and WE channels because women voted in droves for our new President and Democrats in general.  Thanks gals!  You're children and grandchildren will be so proud while they're standing in the soup lines wondering what happened to the American Dream you so carelessly tossed away by voting for these idiots.  They promised they'd respect you in the morning, didn't they?  Bless your heart.

We've elected Eddie Haskell President of the United States.  He's blown Mr. And Mrs. American Cleaver's skirt up with his long, smiley string of BS and they think he's actually a nice, clean kid.  (Also, Joe Biden.)  In reality, he's a smarmy manipulator who hasn't met a lie he won't tell, a dodge he won't take, or responsibility he won't pass off so long as the fault lies with anyone or everyone but President Eddie. 

I've often asked myself, what in the hell was Wally thinking hanging out with this joker?  Well Wally is every Republican who kept tiptoeing around the disaster that is President Eddie and his plans, his stimulus, his budget, and his audacity of obsfucation since President Eddie is just so darn popular because he's totally snowed Mom and Dad.  What kind of elected official is willing to throw his principals, his judgement, and his character under the bus to suck up to President Eddie and the howling mob he's created?  Wally Republicans, or the 98 "my career over my country" House politicians who hide behind the Republican brand, but are scared to tell President Eddie, the Democrats in Congress, and their constituent outrage to shove this unconstituional bill where the sun don't shine.  Yes, Eric Cantor and Joe Barton, I'm looking at you. 

Which leaves us with the small, but sane Beaver conservatives who never once quit asking about President Eddie, "Can YOU BELIEVE THIS GUY?!?!?!"

If you aren't a Beaver conservative you are the problem.  You're letting President Eddie get away with his baloney and the entire country will suffer an even more enormous cost than it is already going to suffer now.  Stop going along with it already and tell Mr. Cleaver in clear terms exactly what President Eddie is up to.  The Beave would do it. 

It took Mrs. Cleaver a much longer time to figure out what a gas bag Eddie was and this is why I'm proposing my new bill.  If Americans actually see President Eddie in action on "Leave It To Beaver" reruns, they will quickly recognize President Eddie, that they've been had, that Wally is of little use, and they will embrace the Beave.

Gee Willackers, America!  President Barack "Eddie Haskell" Obama has no clothes!

If you've read this and have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about, isn't it about time you watched a few episodes of "Leave It To Beaver"?  I offer this solution to a media driven culture with a 30 minute attention span that has been educated in public schools.  Even they can figure out Eddie Haskell.

As a much superior alternative, I'd also recommend reading The Constitution of the United States of America and The Federalist Papers, but hey, your call.  Dr. Franklin didn't call it, “A Republic, if you can keep it," because he was pressed for time and forgot to TIVO Battlestar Galactica.   

Here We Go, Depression 2.0!

Many concerned conservatives have been urging their fellows to call their representative and voice their displeasure with the Democrats' Depression 2.0, Bankrupt America plan. 

Yet I have nothing to do.  Indeed, having sensible Congresspersons who realize what a generational threat this bill is going to be, have already declared they will not support it.  Call your Congressman?  Ha!  Last night my Congressman called me.  He informed all of us participating on the conference call that he had no intention of voting for a bill that creates little in the way of jobs, but furthers the growth and reach of government to such a degree that the very Republic is in danger.  And then he took questions for well over an hour.  This, my friends, is representative democracy at it's finest.  I'll be willing to bet it isn't happening all over the country.

From The Corner at National Review, my congressman also has a bill I DO support:

Rep. John Carter, a Texas Republican, sent out a press release earlier today about his innovative new bill:

"Rangel Rule"

All U.S. taxpayers would enjoy the same immunity from IRS penalties and interest as House Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel (D-NY) and Obama Administration Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, if a bill introduced today by Congressman John Carter (R-TX) becomes law.

Carter, a former longtime Texas judge, today introduced the Rangel Rule Act of 2009, HR 735, which would prohibit the Internal Revenue Service from charging penalties and interest on back taxes against U.S. citizens. Under the proposed law, any taxpayer who wrote “Rangel Rule” on their return when paying back taxes would be immune from penalties and interest.

Thank you, Congressman Carter!

Count me shocked that the Depression 2.0 bill passed with not a single Republican vote.  I didn't think they had it in 'em.  MrG would like me to note, and I fully agree, that if they had shown this kind of united fiscal discipline when they were actually in charge of the Congress we wouldn't be in this hideous situation to begin with.  The compromising of principles and lack of leadership brought us to this day.   You finally stand together to oppose insane spending at just the moment it does absolutely no good since you're now in the minority.  Thanks guys!

I hope they've learned from their mistakes as they're fully responsible for them.  As always, we taxpayers foot the bill.  And our children.  And our grandchildren.  And our great-grandchildren. 

Now on to the Senate where Republicans can be counted on to give Obama and the Democrats cover for the socialist takeover of our country.  Do not do it, Republican Senators! Do not do it!   Or, as the Wall Street Journal puts it:

This is supposed to be a new era of bipartisanship, but this bill was written based on the wish list of every living -- or dead -- Democratic interest group. As Speaker Nancy Pelosi put it, "We won the election. We wrote the bill." So they did. Republicans should let them take all of the credit.

Thanks to Ace of Spades for this last quote. 

In the Midst of WWIV, Depression 2.0?

Peter Kirsanow at National Review Online: 

So . . . we're going to have a tax cheat in charge of the IRS, a man instrumental in the pardoning of terrorists as top terrorism watchdog, and a woman whose husband gets tens of millions from foreign governments in charge of implementing foreign policy.

 

Also from Andy McCarthy, links to two articles on the gigantic, horrifying, wasteful, and useless "stimulus" package, Depression 2.0, that is about to be crammed down our throats by the Democrats.  The first from Conn Carroll at Heritage: 

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) yesterday told Politico: “Yes, we wrote the bill. Yes, we won the election.” The House bill perfectly demonstrates how the left is using the economic stimulus bill as cover to accomplish its long-held desire to permanently increase the size of the federal government, with little or no benefit to the American taxpayer.

Today’s top six disastrous highlights..

After reading that, check out Connie Hair's article at Human Events:

The Democrat “stimulus” bill -- a bill that was created behind closed doors by Democrat leadership who usurped the normal committee process -- reaches nearly a trillion dollars in spending, and the non-partisan analysts cannot guarantee that this $825 billion in proposed legislation would create one single job.  

The Democrats are going to end up turning this recession into a depression, just wait and see.  If they don't manage it, it will be a miracle.  What remains unclear, at least for now, is whether or not they are doing it intentionally.  I guess we'll soon see since Obama is  meeting with the Republicans today. 

Will the Republicans be silly enough to vote for this monstrosity and give the Democrats the political cover they desparately seek?  Probably. 

 

Voting to Lose

The Senate is prepared to vote on a non-binding resolution condemning President Bush's plan to send additional troops to Baghdad.  More troubling is the number of Republicans considering signing onto this plan to leave our troops in the field while stabbing them in the back with this meaningless, self-serving garbage.   It will embolden the enemy and put our troops in peril.  Yes, I absolutely do question their patriotism.  Of course the Democrats, with the exception of Joe Lieberman, are a lost cause, but Hugh Hewitt has come up with a plan to get the attention of the Republican senators in question:  Hit 'em in the pocketbook by taking this pledge:

If the United States Senate passes a resolution, non-binding or otherwise, that criticizes the commitment of additional troops to Iraq that General Petraeus has asked for and that the president has pledged, and if the Senate does so after the testimony  of General Petraeus on January 23 that such a resolution will be an encouragement to the enemy, I will not contribute to any Republican senator who voted for the resolution.  Further, if any Republican senator who votes for such a resolution is a candidate for re-election in 2008, I will not contribute to the National Republican Senatorial Committee unless the Chairman of that Committee, Senator Ensign, commits in writing that none of the funds of the NRSC will go to support the re-election of any senator supporting the non-binding resolution.

And then let them know you're serious:

NRSC
Ronald Reagan Republican Center
425 2nd Street, NE
Washington, DC 20002
202.675.6000
webmaster@gopsenators.com

Then e-mail Senator McConnell and Senator Ensign, and tell them too.  Senator McConnell's phone number is  (202) 224-2541. Senator Ensign's phone number is (202) 224-6244.

As Hugh states so eloquently:

GOP activists and donors built the GOP senate delegation, as well as the majority that was punted away.  They can disassemble it as well, and GOP support for a neoappeasement resolution is exactly the way to start that process.

The Congressional GOP has to realize it cannot have it both ways --you can't be for victory after you were against it.

And GOP senators --alone or as a group-- definitely cannot count on the support of the base if any of them vote for appeasement.

Any senator who votes for this nauseating, vile, troop torpedoing resolution needs to be voted out of office.  As Cassandra states in this related, must read post at Villainous Company:

Can anyone really blame the Sunnis and Shia for wanting to kill each other when they see American Republicans and Democrats unable to work together after two centuries?

Be sure and read the whole thing.

Update:  It's already been voted out of committee:

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Democratic-controlled Senate Foreign Relations Committee dismissed President Bush's plans to increase troops strength in Iraq on Wednesday as "not in the national interest," an unusual wartime repudiation of the commander in chief.

The vote on the nonbinding measure was 12-9 and largely along party lines.

"We better be damn sure we know what we're doing, all of us, before we put 22,000 more Americans into that grinder," said Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, the sole Republican to join 11 Democrats in support of the measure.

And here we have Chuck Hagel, appeasing the enemy AND giving the Democrats political cover with his vote.  Shameful.  And then there is this from the same article:

Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., said he wanted to change the measure to say flatly that the number of troops in Iraq "may not exceed the levels" in place before Bush announced his new policy. The suggestion failed, 15-6.

This vote completely unmasks them, does it not?  To actually do something requiring the courage of their convictions might put them in political danger if they are later blamed for stopping the President's plan.  So, they trot out this non-binding show resolution that does nothing but give them political talking points while undermining the mission by simultaneously discouraging the troops and encouraging the enemy.

Wanna know why political discourse is so nasty in this country?  It's just this sort of callous political calculation, combined with the desire to see Bush lose at all costs, and scant regard to the effect on our men and women serving in time of war.  It's disgusting to those of us who support the troops and the mission.   Newsflash:  If Bush loses, the troops lose too.   And so does  the United States of America.

Bzzzt!

President Bush urges us on to victory.  A good portion of the chamber sat on their fannies and refused to cheer on even the possibility for victory of our American soldiers and our great country.  That is ALL I need to know about State of the Union.

State of the Union

Before the State of the Union address by the President of the United States, the political commentators at FOX news are talking about Nancy Pelosi's dress, or as Brian Wilson remarks, "It's sea foam green."

Sea foam green?  Will we examine her choice of shoes next? That's about all I need to know. Let me guess, she's wearing running shoes, all the better to lead our screaming exit out of Iraq.  We're in the middle of a damn war and chatting about Pelosi's wardrobe selections.  I don't know, is sea foam green the ideal color for retreat and defeat? 

I suppose we should ask the French.  They know all there is to know about fashion and surrender.

Raising the Minimum Wage

I started working for money when I was 9 years old.  My first job was short and brutal.  I loaded live chickens from a chicken house onto 18-wheelers.  I have no idea where they were going.  My job was to take the chickens out of the cages, haul them by their feet up the long rows of the chicken house, two in each hand was adequate, four in each hand was superior, and put them into crates for transport.  I don't remember how long that job lasted, but I made $40 dollars and I never spent it because nothing I wanted to buy was worth the work it cost me. 

I've been a penny pincher ever since.  My next job was babysitting and I did a fair amount of that.  I loved little kids, but the pay wasn't all that great.  I did manage to save one child's life during my babysitting years and it still brings a smile because as soon as the little guy's mom got home, Jason announced, " I drowned, but Lana saved me."

I was twelve, I rode my bicycle to work every day, and most days I chased Jason down the street in his underwear.  If he got outside it was Katy bar the door.   Because of my swimming pool heroics, I managed to land that babysitting job for several summers.  One night, the oldest boy, not the drowning victim, refused to go to bed so I put him there.  He wasn't that much younger than me, I want to say 8 or 9 years-old, and I was and always have been a short person, but I'm nothing if not determined and go to bed he did.

The next day his father called me over to the house and said, "Gary has rug burns on his back.  He says you did it."

Gary glared at me.  And I said, "Yes, sir, I did.  You told me he had to go to bed at 9, he refused, and I told him if he didn't go I'd drag him there and sit on him until you got home.  So I did."

Amazingly, Gary's dad laughed and told Gary he should probably go to bed when I told him to and that was that.  Amazingly, that is how alot of parents were back in the day.  They blamed their kids for their misbehavior, not teachers or babysitters. 

Many years later after I married and had kids, MrG and I were at a dance and concert up in West Texas put on by the Maines brothers.  Yes, the infamous Maines family, Natalie being the most famous, is from West Texas.  And who should stroll up and ask me to two-step but not-so-little Gary.  He was almost a head taller than me.  We had a lovely time catching up, but the first thing out of his mouth was, "Remember when you drug me to bed?"

That same visit we dropped by to see Jason and the family and Jason was even bigger than Gary.  He burst out the front door, picked me up, and spun me around several times before he put me down again.  And I said, "Hopefully you're not running around the neighborhood in your underwear anymore, cause I don't think I can catch you!"

All that to say, I learned how to work at an early age and I did a fair enough job that everyone I worked for still liked me years later.   My  parents taught me the important things about having a job and I listened to their advice.   You always  get to work on time.   You rarely take off and you're dependable.  You always make a hand.  (For those who didn't grow up in West Texas, that means you do whatever needs to be done without complaining, work hard at whatever you do, and with a smile.)   You always do just a little bit extra so you stand out.   It always worked for me.

When I was fourteen and with summer comin' on,  Daddy told me if I didn't have a job by summer, he'd get me one.  I didn't get one, but Daddy was true to his word and I boarded the bus to the fields at an ungodly hour every morning as soon as summer break began.  I don't think I was making minimum wage even then.  All the kids who wanted to work and get good money in the summer worked in the fields.  We rogued maize and detassled corn all summer.  The work was hot, horrible, and nasty but the paychecks were excellent.  I was the only white girl on that bus and that was a whole nother learning experience which I couldn't have gotten anywhere else and wouldn't trade for anything. 

I was also probably the only girl whose mother got up in the morning and made her french toast and took pictures of her groggy, working daughter before she left.   She didn't feel sorry for me, but she helped me learn to work and pampered me just a little along the way.

The next summer, needless to say, I had already found a job.  Thanks, but no thanks, Daddy.  I had been hired at the local family fun park as clown supervisor.   As clown supervisor, I organized all the children's parties and supervised and scheduled the parties and the clowns.  As supervisor to the clowns, I made more than minimum wage which was only fair.  I have no idea how many times I went down the water slide with a frightened child in my clown suit. 

The next summer, I got a job at what many would recognize as a Hallmark store.  I worked as a stocker and salesperson until the owner noticed I was pretty bright and decided I needed to work in the office.  He talked me into signing up for vocational office education so I could work in the backroom from noon until six everyday.  I negotiated Fridays off so I could go to football games and pep rallies.  I hadn't made minimum wage since I was 13. 

The point is this.  Raising the minimum wage won't help anyone who doesn't want to work and there isn't any need to raise the minimum wage for those who actually do want to work.  Anyone who wants to work and do a good job won't be making minimum wage in a very short period of time.  Anyone still making minimum wage after a year has problems with work ethic and needs to buckle down and do a better job.  Raising the minimum wage will do nothing more than put the slackers out of job.  And maybe they deserve it, but I don't think that's what the Democrats are going for with this plan.  They want people to make more money, but they don't want to insist they truly earn it.

Earning it, and the satisfaction that comes with it, is the very best way to encourage low paid workers to excel.  They see the rewards of honest work, they like the satisfaction of the job well done, they are proud of their efforts, and they begin to see the world in a whole new light.   

And if they don't, they don't deserve even minimum wage and certainly not welfare benefits.  Which is another part of the problem, isn't it?  Welfare for people who won't work?  It boggles the mind, but that's a whole other post.

Few Differences?

My dear friend, Tom, mentions in the comments that the Republicans and Democrats have few differences between them and I'll certainly concede that way too many on both sides of the aisle are in Washington for personal gain over national interest.  Many Republicans could hardly be called conservatives and we do need to address that, but I think the primaries, and not the general election, is the right place to do so for maximum results.   It's like termites in the woodwork.  We can aggressively spray the house repeatedly to rid ourselves of the critters or just burn it down.  Needless to say, I'd prefer to save the structure.

In very good news, there are a good minority of Republicans in the House and Senate who really are committed to conservative principles and I believe they are the brightest hope for someone who wants the Congress to just follow the dadblamed constitution!  As has been seen during the Harriet Meirs debacle and the recent immigration battle,  conservatives can and do influence the Republicans.  We'd have no such hope with the Democrats in charge.  They know we'll never vote for them so they'd have no reason to listen at all.

Most troubling, to me, is that the House of Representatives is the most likely to fall under Democrat control in 2006.  Yet, this body was the sole reason Bush's immigration/amnesty plan was stopped cold, defeated, and a fencing proposal, while modest, was put in it's place.  That's conservative voters at work and their congressmen listening to them.  To punish the group that listens more closely to conservatives and actually responds to their political heat is not going to move the country in the right direction.  Indeed, it will likely give the more liberal Senate the cover it needs to pass all sorts of legislation abhorrent to conservatives.  This we do not need.

Michael Medved gives an excellent list of eight differences between the Republican agenda and what we'll see with the Democrats in charge.  While I agree with the majority of his list, and all conservatives should read it, the most compelling reason I will continue to side with the Republicans is the war on terror and Michael F. Scheuer, "a 22-year veteran with the CIA, (who) created and served as the chief of the agency's Osama bin Laden unit at the Counterterrorist Center" spells out the stakes quite clearly regarding the upcoming elections:

Even so, bin Laden, et. al, know the biggest prize looms just ahead — the chance that the Republican Party will be ousted from one or both houses of Congress. There are many factors contributing to this possibility: the Foley abomination, other corruption cases, the trumped up "crisis" over First Amendment rights and the administration's ill-informed and ham-fisted handling of the Iraq and Afghan wars. If the Republicans are ousted, pundits on both sides of the aisle will find the causes strictly in America's navel.

    But what will bin Laden and his Islamist allies think? Well, if Republican defeat comes to pass, they will first thank the Almighty — "Allahu Akhbar!" or "God is the greatest!" — for tangible proof of approaching victory. In Spain, Thailand, and Britain — where Prime Minister Tony Blair suffered the fate of Messrs. Aznar and Thaksin for the same reason, but is leaving gracefully — al Qaeda and its allies see politicians winning power who argue: "The military option has been tried and it has failed. We must seek other-than-martial means to defuse the Islamists' appeal and power." As in Europe and Thailand, this has been the refrain of Sens. Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Charles Schumer, Hillary Clinton, Rep. Jane Harman, and a swath of Republicans who value their seats more than U.S. security.

    If Americans vote for what sounds like sweet reason from the Democrats, bin Laden and company will rejoice. What they will hear is the death knell for any prospect of effective U.S. military resistance to militant Islam. With the Republicans out, the Islamists will be confident that Democrats will deliver the best of both worlds: less emphasis on military force and a rigid maintenance of U.S. foreign policies that are hated with passion and near-unanimity by 1.3 billion Muslims. If Osama approved of music, he would be whistling "Happy Days Are Here Again!"

The terrorists are ratcheting up the bloodshed in Iraq, with the breathless and willing "body count reporting only" hysteria of our liberal media, in hopes of swaying our will before these elections.  Will we cut and run or will we continue to seek out the enemy and kill him when ever we find him?  We already know what the vast majority of the Democrats plan to do.  Cut off funding for our troops and turn Iraq into the quagmire they were determined to make it, for political purposes, before the first American soldier set one foot into Iraq.  I will not allow my vote or my willingness to just "sit this one out" to make that plan a reality.  Not for our valiant soldiers, not for the Iraqi people, and not for the millions of Americans made vulnerable to terrorists attacks at home in the process.  Vote Republican in 2006! 

2006 Election

Is this election going to be 1994 all over again?  The parties are certainly talking in the same ways they did during that Republican tsunami, excepting the fact that they've neatly switched talking points.  Back then the Democrats were very confidently going about the country, insisting all politics is local, while the soon to be Republican revolutionaries were touting massive national dissatisfaction in opinion poll after opinion poll.

Republicans, post 1994, certainly squandered the hell outta that, didn't they?  But I digress...

It's certainly a 1994 possibility given the frustration with the way the war in Iraq is going among the general population, and don't get me started on the list of things conservatives are miffed about going forward, but two things are different in 2006.  There is no Gingrich inspired Contract with America in the Democrat's arsenal, because sweeping Democrat reforms aren't something the Democrats want to run on in the first place.  Americans have consistently voted against their ideas and the proof is their minority status and President George W. Bush.    The Republicans are "worse than we are" isn't a battle cry for change, it's a primal scream.   

This is also the election screech of Republicans, since they've dug themselves into the stupidity hole and a good portion have rightly fallen and they can't get up.  The fact that many deserved it, in Mark Foley spades, is not helpful.  Yet the fact remains that neither party is offering new ideas.  Indeed, stay the course seems to be the order of the day for both parties.  This seems to be a big difference from 1994 and one that perhaps offers fewer opportunities for sweeping changes.

Additionally, I just don't trust the polls.  They've been wrong for the last 3 election cycles in one way or another.  It's certainly possible that the pollsters have fixed their sampling errors and they have the right of it this go round, but until they prove it after the elections in 2006, color me skeptical.   

I'll believe a Democratic wave across the nation when I see it. I'm just not convinced Americans will vote for another Vietnam played out in Iraq, which is exactly what will happen if the Democrats take charge.  If they do, I'll have to reconsider my trust in the American people.  I'll wait until after November 7th to make that call.  Until then and much like 2004, my faith remains in my fellow Americans.