Boehner's Alcoholic Moment

As the debt ceiling approaches and the debate and associated rhetoric heats up, the TEA Party Freshmen and Speaker Boehner need to treat this issue as an intervention. They need to use Barack Obama's OWN words as a Senator to justify an ABSOLUTELY NOT HAPPENING vote on this. No balanced budget attachments (that is a separate debate), no rider promises of future spending cuts, no debate PERIOD.

Anyone who has been, or has dealt with, an alcoholic or drug addict knows that there is NO SUCH thing as just 1 more drink or 1 more fix...the only thing that matters is making sure that the LAST ONE stays the LAST ONE.

A Reasonable Opinion

This is somewhat of a continuation of my prior post, PREENING AND POSTURING. While half the punditry cheers "Total Victory!!!" and the other half bemoans "Total Defeat!!", there are some reasonable opinions out there. Having just read the book pictured here after meeting the author at a local book signing, I was eager to hear Huck's take on the whole budget boondoggle.

"Never pour all of your water on too small a fire." There is no doubt that our great country is fiscally in deep ka-ka; it doesn't take an economics professor to recognize this. But taken in context, this preliminary budget battle was more like a playground tiff in comparison to facing the coming difficulties. The debt ceiling is approaching, the 2012 budget is after that, and the incumbent President has the entire Democrat war chest of an anticipated BILLION dollars for the next election. There are much bigger fires coming...best to save some water to battle them as well.

"The only way you can WIN IT ALL is if you CONTROL IT ALL..which the Republicans don't." Our government was founded with some key checks and balances, the biggest of which is WE THE PEOPLE. Our government has strayed from the principles that created it, and the populace at large (obligatory Wizard Of OZ analogy coming) is beginning to "pay attention to that man behind the curtain." The TEA Party is OUR lobbying group in DC...not that I wish to give advice to the opposition, but they continue to marginalize us AT THEIR OWN POLITICAL PERIL.

"Legislating is easy, criticizing is easy, punditry is easy...now GOVERNING, that's TOUGH!" There are several pundits out there whose opinions I value, and Mark Levin is one of them. But I have to disagree with his latest train of punditry accusing Speaker Boehner and the Republican leadership of "caving" on key issues. AT THIS TIME, the actual "number" cut from 2011 spending is somewhat irrelevant, as are the policy riders regarding Planned Parenthood, the EPA, ObamaCare and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. I say "irrelevant" only in the context of former Speaker Pelosi's promise that there would be ZERO cuts...the fact that the debate actually shifted to cutting spending rather than increasing it is enough of a victory AT THIS TIME.

Like a fabulous steak dinner that takes some time to cook...you don't eat it all in one bite. Our government has taken decades to get to this point, and although we need to rein it in quickly, we moreso need to rein it in wisely. Let's give the new House common-sense majority the time and the opportunity to do it!

Preening and Posturing Politicians

Now that both sides of the Congressional aisle can strut and claim victory, it is time to get on with the business of taking the country back. To my liberal friends who say that the Republicans were cheering for a government shutdown, you're damn right. To my conservative friends who say that the Democrats were cheering for a government shutdown, you're damn right. "Huh? Both sides actually agreed on this?" you ask. My answer is YES...let me 'splain something to you...

When both sides are cheering for the same outcome, maybe, just maybe, it's the right thing to do...however "politically stupid" it is. After their mid-term election thumping in 2010, the Democrats pulled a play from the Clinton playbook...they entered this 112th session with no budget and a plan to cause the government "budget crisis", hoping to replay the resurgence of Clinton's popularity after the previous budget-related shutdown in the mid-90s.

There are a number of differences between THAT shutdown and THIS potential one. A) Bill Clinton's Congress was Republican, and led to the balanced budgets that he got all the credit for, despite never having presented a balanced budget. B) The electorate is no longer apathetic and uninformed...Fox News and the conservative talk-radio circuit, providing ACCURATE information to the masses, have given the voters more insight into the inbred system that is the Beltway. C) Their grossest miscalculation was in underestimating the public outrage at the despicable, even obscene spending spree by Obama and the 111th Congress.

The Republicans got the voters' message and stuck by their guns, forcing the Democrats to begin the concession process. Now comes the media blitz...we're all going to hear about how they "saved" the country by preventing the government shutdown...the Lamestream Media will tout Obama's "leadership" in getting the two sides to "agree" on various compromises.

Nary a word will be said about Obama's LACK OF LEADERSHIP in demanding a budget from the outgoing 111th Congress. No mention will be made of the leaders in BOTH parties who neither presented nor demanded a 2011 budget or of the idiotic rhetoric of both sides blaming the other.

The Green Thing...

In the line at the store, the cashier told the older woman that plastic bags weren't good for the environment. The woman apologized and explained, "We didn't have the green thing back in my day...."

That's right, they didn't have the green thing in her day. Back then, they returned their milk bottles, Coke bottles and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, using the same bottles over and over. So they really were recycled. But they didn't have the green thing back her day......

In her day, they walked up stairs, because they didn't have an escalator in every store and office building. They walked to the grocery store and didn't climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time they had to go two blocks. But she's right. They didn't have the green thing in her day......

Back then, they washed the baby's diapers because they didn't have the throw-away kind. They dried clothes on a line, not in an energy gobbling machine burning up 220 volts. "Wind" and "solar power" really did dry the clothes. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing with some logo on them...

But that old lady is right, they didn't have the green thing back in her day......

Back then, they had one TV, or radio, in the house not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a pizza dish, not a screen the size of the state of Montana . In the kitchen, they blended and stirred by hand because they didn't have electric machines to do everything for you. When they packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, they used wadded up newspaper to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap.....

Back then, they didn't fire up an engine and burn gasoline just to cut the lawn. They used a push mower that ran on human power. They exercised by working so they didn't need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity. But she's right, they didn't have the green thing back then......

They drank from a fountain when they were thirsty, instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time they had a drink of water. They refilled pens with ink, instead of buying a new pen, and they replaced the razor blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull. But they didn't have the green thing back then......

Back then, people took the streetcar and kids rode their bikes to school or rode the school bus, instead of turning their moms into a 24-hour taxi service. They had one or two electrical outlets in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances. And they didn't need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 2,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest pizza joint......

But that old lady is right. They didn't have the green thing back in her day.......

OH NO!!...that was MY day too!

(author unknown)

Liberal crybabies are out in force already!!

From Josh Marshall of the Talking Points Memo (TPM) Editor’s blog…not to be confused with O’Reilly’s nightly Talking Points Memo, which generally makes sense…“Democrats…say it was ‘courageous’ but ‘politically stupid’ for Paul Ryan to put up a plan to abolish Medicare and other federal social programs…” That’s the battle line that is being drawn for the debate about fiscal sanity. No Josh, it’s NOT about abolishing them, but FUNDAMENTALLY TRANSFORMING them. What…it’s OK to fundamentally transform the greatest nation on earth but not a financially insolvent federal program? Silly liberal, wake up and smell the latte! Be real. It isn’t the responsibility of the Federal government to take care of each state’s citizens; it is each state’s responsibility. We have allowed the Federal government to take way too much power away from the states, and from the citizens, and taking that power back from the political inbreds in Washington DC is going to take the “courage” to do what is “politically stupid” (DCism for “the right thing”). He finishes, “sometimes things are politically risky because they're profoundly bad ideas.” No Josh, they are only politically risky because they are good ideas.