Election Run-Up Potential Coalition Building and a System Gone Awry

Israel, Prime Minister Netanyahu, Iran, NIAC, United States, Congress vs. President Obama

 

 

There are a number of crucial events and societal revelations all holding a great propensity to go awry traveling astray of their reputed paths and expectations. Yesterday a full-page advertisement was placed in the New York Times by a political non-governmental organization (NGO) called the National Iranian American Council (NIAC). This advertisement likely cost them upwards of $200,000 unless the New York Times welcomed the advertisement to such a degree as to offer NIAC a discounted price, something we are unable to prove such actually transpired but decided it was worth mentioning the possibility. The NIAC nonprofit NGO has been perceived to represent the Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Hosseini Khamenei (Persian: علی حسینی خامنه‌ای‎) being his spokesman in the United States using whatever medium they feel will achieve the most influence reaching the targeted people be they in the White House, members of Congress, the public in general or even a targeted audience. The audiences targeted by this advertisement were the people in the United States government, influential people from the public and even the public in generally or at least those who read the New York Times. This advertisement attacked Israeli Prime Minister coming to speak before a joint session of the United States Congress, and accused Speaker of the House John Boehner of “siding with a foreign leader” against the elected leader of the United States, President Obama, whose efforts have placed the P5+1 on the “verge of a diplomatic victory that will prevent war and prevent a nuclear-armed Iran.” This advertisement targeted the growing divide between President Obama with the Republicans as represented by Speaker of the House Boehner and by association with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu with whom the President has huge disagreements over the Iranian nuclear weapons program. This disagreement is merely the latest uproar between President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu. It was this split between the President and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and the American people’s expressed exhaustion with having American troops fighting what appear to be senseless wars all across the Middle East and gaining no advantage nor reaching a more peaceable relations that NIAC President Trita Parsi stated in a press release that, “The U.S. and its closest allies are on the brink of a historic deal that will both prevent an Iranian bomb and war with Iran, and Congressional hawks are orchestrating political stunts with foreign leaders to try to kill it. The American people do not want another senseless military adventure and certainly don’t consider Benjamin Netanyahu to be their commander in chief.” This was added in order to take aim at the suspicions that the Islamic world believes the rest of the world also suspects the Jews generally and the Israelis in particular of possessing far too much influence over the United States governance.

 

One day earlier, on Saturday , a senior figure in the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), Mujtabi Du Al-Nour, threatened that Tel Aviv could be destroyed “in ten minutes” if Israel attacked Iran’s nuclear facilities. He further claimed that the Iranian rockets can reach the heart of Tel Aviv within six or seven minutes, “even before the rockets of the Zionists reach us.” This was simply additional bluster by Iranian military leadership from within the IRGC elite units touting weapons superiority over the Israeli weaponry. As much of the Iranian systems are produced by them and within Iranian borders, this makes assessing the effectiveness of their weapon systems impossible; but if previous records and ability to produce systems with equal or superior abilities against Israeli weapon systems, such attempts are next to impossible. Often these type statements are made with the intention of impressing their own people just as much if not more than it is to be taken as an actual threat from the Iranians. That Iran has thousands of missiles and nearly countless rockets capable of being launched and reaching Tel Aviv is a valid threat and not any different from Israeli estimates of the Iranian capabilities. Israel has been made aware of the extent of their level of competence and expertise. The question is whether or not the Iranians would place weapons of mass destruction (WMD) atop these weapons and if so how many such warheads they would utilize and if so exactly which variety and in what numbers. Of course such determination is only important if Israel would resort to replying with weapons of mass destruction in return and if Israel has decided to answer chemical weapons, biological weapons and nuclear weapons using same kind of weapons. Should the Israeli plan be to simply respond to any attack utilizing WMDs of any variety, be it chemical, biological or nuclear, the Israeli response would come in the form of a nuclear response. Such a response should be made known before there is any such assault from Iran and thus after an exchange of fire the Iranians cannot claim they did not understand how Israel might respond.

 

Then there are the coming Israeli elections and the forming of a coalition and thereby name the Prime Minister and set government policies. The fact that the likelihood that current Prime Minister Netanyahu will be called upon to make the next ruling coalition is only disputed by the polls being touted by the media which continues to depict the race as close between Netanyahu’s Likud Party and the combined ticket of Labor with Hatnua and having a shared Prime Ministership between Tzipi Livni and Yitzhak Hertzog. The media has claimed there is the threat of horrific evils should Netanyahu and the Likud win and the combined ticket of Hertzog and Livni ended up in the opposition. There was a report which claims that a senior source in an article in Arutz Sheva titled Senior Source: Bibi Plans Gov’t with Labor, Haredim has informed the media that Prime Minister Netanyahu plans on forming a Unity Government with his initial coalition by inviting the Labor/Hatnua parties along with Shas to form the government and lock out Jewish Home and the other religious Zionist parties. Such a coalition would result in the complete capitulation to whatever President Obama would demand of Israel concerning the formation of an Arab state using the 1949 Armistice Lines as the new borders and a sharing of Jerusalem. This would be accepted by Netanyahu as a result of making such a coalition as not accepting the formation of an Arab state utilizing whatever President Obama would demand as the main parties forming the coalition would be Labor/Hatnua which would hold the coalition to fulfilling their main concern, the forming of an Arab state as President Obama desires and along the Green Line, also called the 1967 lines or the 1949 ceasefire armistice lines and named by Israeli United Nations Abba Eban as the Auschwitz Borders as he predicted that Israel returning to the borders as defined before the Six Day War would leave Israel indefensible against another combined Arab assault. This, if it proves true, will mean that Bibi Netanyahu, another IDF veteran from an elite group and as well respected for his military service as was former Prime Minister Sharon very well might be heading to making another unilateral disengagement just as was performed by Sharon with Gaza except this time the area to be gifted to the Arab terrorist groups will have easy ability from the overlooking Judean Hills to launch rockets directly into Tel Aviv and the heart of Israeli society targeting well over three-quarters of Israeli population, business, industry, power generation and virtually everything else one might imagine including the nuclear reactor at Dimona. The only reason which we have been able to put together as to why Prime Minister Netanyahu would form such a government is in order to attack Iran with the backing of the entire government and the people as such an assault may be required once Israel reads and fully understands the ramification and realities of the world once President Obama with the backing of the P5+1 default giving Iran a green light to attain breakout existence and making Iran a threshold nuclear state capable of producing nuclear weapons at their choosing with merely a two or three week period to reactivate the hardware required to make the ninety percent enriched uranium and producing two bombs a week within eight to ten weeks. In order to prevent Iran from having such ability in the present time Israel would be required to destroy the nuclear sites within Iran and to do so and repeat doing so each time Iran rebuilds their nuclear weapons production stations. This would mean that information which Israeli intelligence has gathered is so convincing of how dire the situation is as a result of the feckless negotiating by President Obama such that even Tzipi Livni would realize that before returning to negotiations with Mahmoud Abbas about the formation of a poisonous state in Judea and Samaria the situation with Iran will need to be defused otherwise that threat would make any concessions impossible. Benyamin Netanyahu making such a broad and diverse coalition would only make such reasonable if a combined and unified nation is required for the situation Israel is facing and both Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Rivlin have seen and discussed the situation and already reached their conclusions and planned for the making of a Unity Government. That Prime Minister is considering forming a unity government with Labor can only mean we are on the verge of an existential war which will require a united nation and all-inclusive governance.

 

The final event is the finalizing whatever agreement is in the workings between the P5+1 and Iran over the Iranian uranium enrichment and nuclear weapons system. President Obama has been working on finding some slight of language which will permit him to sign a treaty for the United States and enforce said treaty without receiving the approval by the Senate. President Obama has had his advisors, czars and other appointees assisting in the making and signing of a treaty putting it into effect establishing the international application without fulfilling the requirements for making a treaty or agreement between the United States. Such an agreement very well may force Israel’s hand and have Israel leading a coalition of the willing which would possibly include Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, and other Arab states all of whom are petrified with fear and very well may be willing to even join an organized resistance against Iran and even allow said alliance to be organized around and led by Israel. This may be the near future should Iran be permitted to retain assembled and not required to disassemble her nineteen-thousand centrifuges of which a sizeable number of these centrifuges are their latest version and they are six times more capable than their older models. It is very likely possible that Iran is simply waiting for the end of negotiations and likely to blow off reaching any agreement and immediately start their dash to produce a nuclear arsenal. Once the negotiations have been permitted and accepted as the manner of addressing the limitation of Iran thus preventing the Iranian governance and military from attaining nuclear breakout, that allows Iran to easily start making nuclear bombs and stocking an entire arsenal. The guarantee being proffered by the United States that they would be capable of detecting any moves by Iran in time to prevent their making nuclear devices is on shaky ground as proven by the United States having missed catching the Soviet Union, China, India, Pakistan, North Korea and South Africa from reaching nuclear breakout becoming a nuclear armed power and a member of the nuclear club, a club which is steadily losing its exclusivity.

 

The near future is appearing to be exciting enough to give even the most optimistic of us reason to pause and even to stumble before regaining our balance while observing the earth losing its balance. Meanwhile anti-Semitism is once again spreading across Europe and the call is once again blaming the Jews for the world’s ills. The difference this time is the Jew is the state of Israel. The Middle East is heating towards a boiling point and may explode very soon. Iran is still financing and arming terrorists worldwide. Iran has even gotten into the business of arming and financing Sunni terrorists such as Hamas. Talking about Sunni terrorists, there is a new Sunni terrorist group called ISIS (or IS) which is gaining recruits from the world over and also is being reinforced by other treacherous Sunni terror groups joining their front including one of the larger terror groups in Libya and from Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad and along the Muslim/Christian divide in western Africa, Boko Haram. Meanwhile Iraq has split into three states, the Shiite south being protected by a loose alliance of the United States and Iran while the north is becoming a Kurdish run and protected state which is also receiving some aid from the United States and even being further armed by Iran as well and between them in the Center of Iraq and slowly expanding is ISIS. The United States is also assisting in the fight against ISIS in Syria where the government of Bashir Assad is fighting for its life with aid coming from Hezballah, Iran and air support from the United States who are also presumably attempting to remove Assad. Confused enough yet? Well, try this on for size, Israel is loosely allied with Saudi Arabia and Egypt against ISIS and also may be developing an above the table alliance against ISIS with Jordan. Will wonders ever cease? Add to this the fact that the United States President is working against Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and definitely Israel. The final relationship has deteriorated to the point that President Obama had begun to attack the Prime Minister of Israel claiming that he is attempting to disrupt the negotiations with Iran just as President Obama has almost completed the terms of the United States surrender which Europe appears to be satisfied will not destroy Europe immediately. The entire mess reminds me of the song Eve of Destruction by Barry McGuire of the video below.

 

 

 

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Importance of Sizeable Revolt as Boehner Wins Speaker Vote

 

It is suspected that the day after reports in the mainstream media will belittle the Republican Representatives who voted against reelected Speaker of the House Boehner emphasizing their failure while intentionally ignoring the fact that had all the members of the House of Representatives voted their revolt would have succeeded. What they will omit from their reporting is that the real reason Speaker Boehner won reelection was due to the funeral for former three-term Governor of New York Mario Cuomo as this event drew twelve Democrat Representatives attendance thus missing the vote for Speaker of the House. Subtracting these twelve Representatives from the 435 members to a maximum of 423 voting which changed the number of votes necessary to win the Speakership from 218 to 212. As all of those attending Mario Cuomo funeral were Democrats, this resulted in changing the numbers necessary for the Republican revolution to change from 28 to 34 out of the total number of potential Republican 246 votes. As if that was not enough, the final voting recorded only 408 votes cast which meant the Speaker Boehner needing 204 votes which raised the number of votes required to prevent Boehner’s reelection over 40, something well beyond the original 29. Despite the daunting task ahead to garner the votes to block the Speaker’s reelection and the obvious lack of votes, the original 15 decenters still raised another 10 dissenting voters but getting beyond the 25 count proved too much of a mountain to climb.

 

What is lost in all the numbers is that the number of dissenting voters was the greatest revolution against a sitting Speaker of the House in recent history. The revolution also makes the expected effectiveness of Speaker Boehner to control the agenda more challenging leaving him two directions which he can seek to get the necessary support. The direction the conservative and constitutionalist leave for Speaker Boehner is to lean in their direction and work within his party. The other direction would be to find either a dedicated core of Democrats willing to agree to support a neutral agenda thus giving him whatever votes he might need to replace those Republicans who oppose his direction and support for compromise legislations. The other problem is that no matter which direction will be taken by the Speaker, the legislations he passes along still must pass through the Senate and even then get past a veto from President Obama as he has guaranteed to do in his recent statements. The direction the Speaker will be availing himself of will become evident early on and thus define where the opposition will be concentrated. The dissenting Republican Representatives will very possibly gain additional Representatives who may have refused joining the revolution against the sitting Speaker but actually align politically with the revolutionary Representatives as polls showed that sixty percent Republicans who voted in the last elections opposed Boehner being reelected Speaker making their desires for new and more conservative direction.

 

These facts brings us to another important subject that the current Republican majorities in both Houses of Congress, the House of Representatives and the Senate, to deliver on their desired conservative support and avoiding severe compromises where the Republicans are marshalled to reach compromises which appear more like simply surrendering and adopting the liberal, progressive agenda. This will only serve to further alienate the Republican base. A very significant portion of the Republican voters are demanding for their Representatives in both Houses of Congress to define the Republican platform through their legislative agenda even if sending such legislation to the President results in his using his veto to block every bill. What would surprise very many people is that much of the truly conservative, constitutional agenda would be supportable by numerous Democrats in Congress as their constituents may be inspired to call in support such legislation. This is not to say that the Republicans will not face a confrontation to their agenda and that there is any guarantee the Democrats will not attempt to filibuster in the Senate which begs the question as to whether the Republican controlled Senate will adjust the cloture rule back to the 60 vote requirement or simply leave the nuclear option of requiring merely a majority vote to gain cloture and end debate or a filibuster. Should the Republicans adopt the rules as they were in the previous Congress we can expect some real shouting about the Republicans killing the Senate by changing the traditional rules while leaving out of the argument that this nuclear option was initially voted into place by the Democrats during the previous Senate when they had the majority.

 

The coverage given virtually every Republican piece of legislation or even making the rules exactly as they were under Senator Harry Reid in the previous session would receive damning coverage in the media. In reports from the ‘newspaper of record’, the New York Times, and the other most quoted papers which includes the Washington Post, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Chicago Tribune, the Seattle Intelligencer or other far left media will make the story in almost identical wording casting the Republicans as the greatest threat to civility and transgressing all the rules of decency by their motivations and enactment of rules. The truth that the Republicans were simply adopting the currently standing rules will not stand in the way of reporting that the Republicans are adopting Senate rules which will grant them dictatorial powers and squelching all oppositions. There will be polls taken which claim that the Republicans are overreaching and destroying all the historic rules which had stood for close to two-hundred years. We can expect such a ruckus while making mountains out of ant hills casting the Republicans as the usual ogres and spawns of demons that the Republican leadership are often defamed with all while not reporting anything weighty nor making honest reports. What is coming is nothing new nor is it actual news. The editorializing by the papers and their overt partisanship should not alarm anybody as the carrying the water for the Democrats has been guiding their path for decades and have yet shows any desires or indications for changing any time soon.

 

We can also look forward to hearing many sound bites and speeches from President Obama with some being given with media present instead of simply releasing a press release. No matter how the President decides to give out his disdain for the encroachments on a whole series of life on the planet, the media will simply accept everything he announcemes as truth. The President will castigate the Republicans for taking actions which are killing the planet, destroying the safety nets which help the poor, refusing to permit undocumented citizens from joining the rest of society in the light, and that they are destroying the medical coverage provided the entire citizenry by altering of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. There will also be skits on Saturday Night Live, Comedy Central and other places all spoofing the Republicans as the brutish knuckle dragging dolts just as they have been betraying the Tea Party movement members. Each channel will use the same phrases which are best received by the public simply as if it works once, it should work every time.

 

So, in conclusion we did not receive sufficient numbers of Representatives to replace the Speaker of the House but at least neither did Nancy Pelosi as the only thing that can be stated with absolute certainty is that Boehner is an improvement over Pelosi and McConnell is an improvement over Reid. That leaves an election to place a preferable person in the White House; something I feel will happen even if it ends up being anybody but a Bush or a Clinton, even if it ends up being Elizabeth, I’m a Native American, Warren; and who knows, maybe the Americans can find some new leadership and start to revive an America that the world can be glad is back on track, even though once that comes to fruition the World media, particularly the European media along with the rest of the Western intolerant media sniping at their every values based decision. Americans ask why the Islamic world despises them so completely and the answer is so easy to see. Right in front of their own eyes they can see the problem, it is the face the world receives thinking this is what America is all about. They see America as America is represented in the media which makes America in their eyes as Miley Ray Cyrus (born Destiny Hope Cyrus), Justin Bieber and the rest of the media favorites from Hollywood, the music industry, advertising and commercials and anything else from either coast. What is missing from the view many around the world and especially in the Muslim world not get to see as often as they should if they honestly desired to know what makes America great, the regular working class American. What is so great about the regular working class American is that they are so much not regular as they are exceptional. Many of these very same regular working class Americans have the exact opposite morals as are portrayed in films and television and other media, they are industrious instead of frivolous, they are modest, not empty braggarts, and many are believers in G0d even if they are not church goers and they have a strong sense of morality and responsibility. What would shock the followers of Islam the most would be the average American residing in what the elitists call flyover country as they would see something they do not recognize. There are many elites from Islam who know very well that the vision they paint of America is false, but they use the horrid image of the media to paint the average American as a debauched boor seeking only carnal pleasures and the other sins of the flesh rather than a believer in G0d and having exemplary moral characters even if they stumble from time to time. There are many Americans who have lost sight of the ordinary American who may be ordinary in America but is something extraordinary everywhere else. We must remember that it was those unusually silent, mostly unseen, hard-working, completely dedicated, moral through and through, down to earth, selfless people who have saved Europe twice in the last century ending both World Wars. Let us just hope Europe will not need saving once again.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Political Terms Republicans Should Learn

After watching United States Speaker of the House John Boehner, a Republican from Ohio, marshal his majority of fellow Republicans to pass in a submissive and orderly fashion a completely clean piece of single item legislation raising the debt ceiling silently complying with the expressed demands of President Obama, we were struck by his complete lack of principles, vapid timidity, absence of cogent leadership and total absence of political gamesmanship. It occurred to us that perhaps Speaker Boehner had forgotten an entire slew of political terminology which any freshman Representative should know before ever arriving in Washington DC. So, in an attempt to provide some useful service, we figured that perhaps a short lesson covering some of the basic but vital terms necessary if the Republican Party ever again seeks to challenge the fates and take on leadership will need to understand.

 

Political Theater. This is the concept where even though you realize that you are facing a situation where any efforts you put forward are completely futile as you are facing a situation where the other party is holding all the cards, and the votes, and have the near total support of the mainstream media, you still make a display giving an accounting of your side of the argument simply to be able to state your principles and have them heard.

 

Principled Stance. This concept is very similar to political theater except on steroids. Here you actually pass legislation which represents your position and refuse to budge from these particular ideals, also known as principles, forcing the other party to make dire predictions and threats before acquiescing and eventually passing the clean bill while stressing that you are doing so solely because you are unable to win this time but promising that should your party ever have the advantage that they will act and enforce these principles you stood on.

 

Playing to You Base. This is a vitally important part of playing the political game where you make at the least a symbolic stand expressing succinctly the positions of you core segment of voters in the society. This does not mean that you only express those principles that play well in your district but more that you play to the core principles that represent the vast majority of your basic supporters on a national level. Doing this gives your mainstay supporters a reason to campaign and vote for your party in upcoming elections, and even more important, prevents the embarrassment of having your core support be so disenchanted that they stay home on election day. This should be something the Republicans are very familiar with and should be doing everything within their power to correct and correct as quickly as possible.

 

Stick to Your Guns. This is a simple concept which entails simply refusing to compromise without making the case and forcing the other party to sweat a little and make a compromise granting you some concessions before you eventually concede. In this way you at least extract a price and have something tangible to show your constituents come election time. Even more important is you establish firmly the difference between your party and the other party which provides the voters with a clear alternative to the current state of things. This is of the utmost importance at times like these where a large segment of the population is desperately seeking somebody to lead the nation in a different direction as there are now.

 

Calculated Risk. This refers to taking the measure of the situation and if there is an opportunity to fulfill the items described thus far, you actually brave the consequences and make your stand holding out from conceding the fight for as long as you are able. This may very well mean that the mainstream media will pillory you for taking this stand but at least they will also need to give you the microphone to speak to the people to explain you reasoning and the position for which you are making a stand. Yes, there are risks but often this will pay off down the road as long as you do not go overboard and completely refuse to address anything at all.

 

Object Lesson. This refers to a very simple and basic action in which you define a concept and then put that concept on display as publically as you are able. By doing so you will have adopted that concept as your own and ownership of popular concepts is a desirable aim. Currently, one such concept is the paying down the debt or, at a minimum, not adding any more to the already almost debilitating national debt. If any concept has found its time, the balanced budget requirement and the passing of a Constitutional Amendment stipulating such as one of the basic requirements demanded of the Federal Government is definitely one of them. Sure there would be the necessity to place a path around this requirement during times of war or other calamities and demanding a two-thirds vote of both houses of the Congress would make only truly serious situations allow for such. 

 

Government Shutdown. By all appearances you act as if allowing, or even forcing, a government shutdown would be the worst possible action ever taken. This may not be actually the case as the American voting public in polling has stated that one of their most important desires is to lower the debt. The majority of American voters has expressed their dissatisfaction with the current direction being taken by the Federal Government in particular and is desperate for an alternative. There is likely no bigger statement to be made than actually forcing the shutdown of the government. Even if you force a prolonged shutdown say six weeks or more, you will actually serve the purpose of allowing the vast majority of Americans to realize how little positive things in their lives owe anything to having the Federal Government fully functioning and this is an object lesson whose time has come.

 

Default on Debt. This is simply a scare term used as a weapon of threat that predicts an overt and outrageous eventuality which, in reality, is technically false. The Federal Government takes in simply on fees, taxes, duty paid on imports, tariffs and sundry other remittances collected daily to pay the necessary required debt payment, which is simply paying the interest on the debt and does nothing to pay down the principle, making an actual default an impossibility. If the Federal Government were forced to shut down, the debt payments would still be possible as the sole individual necessary to make such payment is the Secretary of the Treasury, a person who would not be affected. Even if the President, in order to create the absolutely worst case scenario, were to require his Cabinet members to also not report to work during a shutdown, the President also has the power to make the required debt payments.

 

Framing the Argument. This terminology is also called Framing the Debate and consists of setting the acceptable terms and their meaning such that the ability of the other side to argue their position becomes untenable. The best way to combat this tactic is to take the initiative and get out in front of the debate and defining the terms in a manner supportive of your arguments. One example of this tactic has been the defining illegal immigrants as undocumented workers, poor people leaving a really unfortunate and bad situation who have simply entered the United States illegally in order to find employment and raise their families or persons lacking the proper paperwork. Another use of framing the argument in the immigration reform drive has been the claim that the border can be enforced closing it to illegal smuggling and illegal immigration simply by electronic surveillance and that drones patrolling an area is just as effective, if not more so, than building an actual and real fence. Simply by defining the problem such that the only realistic solution is the one offered by those defining the terminology the debate has been won without really debating a single item allowing the blanket application of one side’s entire set of arguments and solutions.

 

Teachable Moment. This phrase has become one of President Obama’s favorites and has allowed him to set its definition thus far. Even though President Obama has adopted the phrase Teachable Moment does not prevent anybody else from also utilizing it. All this phrase means is that the person or group invoking it believes that the discussion is beyond the common understanding of the general public and they are going to use the situation to define the particulars and implications of the event or item to which they refer. The phrase itself is not a very strong argument as long as somebody contests the definitions assigned by the author using the phrase. Teachable moment is the announcement used by any politician when they wish to frame the debate favorably to their arguments and close down any disagreements or discussions coming from the opposing view.

 

Opposition Party. This refers to the party having the least power. The Senate has the Republican Party in the minority and thus they are the opposition party. The House of Representatives has a majority of Republicans making the Democrats the opposition party for all intents and purposes there. As the Senate and the Presidency are held by Democrats, even with the majority in the House of Representatives, this casts the Republicans as the opposition party. As the opposition party there are some basic guidelines that are required. The most important requirement is for the opposition to offer an alternative view on the most important subjects, legislations and problems facing the public. They are also tasked with presenting opposition, sometimes standing on principles despite the consequences. What they are not supposed to do is simply cave to the demands made by the party holding the majority of the power by utilizing the safeguards placed in the Constitution to curb this exact situation.

 

In the recent debate, or lack thereof, over raising the debt ceiling once again, the Republicans shirked their duties by folding before President Obama and the threats and intimidation of the Democrats allowing for a clean piece of legislation and passing on any attempt to make the Democrats pay a price thus accomplishing at least one small iota of the Republican agenda. The complete capitulation and collapse of the Republicans in the House of Representatives was absolutely one of the most repulsive and appalling acts of cowardice. The pathetic performance by the Republican Representatives was outdone by craven disregard for principles and resorting to the most deceptive of actions by the Republicans in the Senate. The Republican controlled House of Representatives could have very easily forced through legislation which would have required a discussion if nothing else over the concept of giving the entire American public a reprieve from the requirements of Obamacare by including granting a waver as part of raising the debt ceiling. Since President Obama has already granted waivers and stay of execution of the Affordable Care Act, Obamacare, for both businesses large and small as well as wavers to Administration and Congressional staffers and other favored groups through blatant disregard for the limitations placed on the office of President by the Constitution, the extending of a similar set of waivers for the general public is really not such a revolutionary concept. Demanding that the general public receive equal treatment to that granted to even the largest of corporations would simply be leveling the grounds for enforcement and removing the disparate treatment favoring wealthy corporations over regular citizens by President Obama.

 

Even this lack of will to establish a position by the House of Representative Republicans was not a valid reason for the Republicans in the Senate to deceptively vote for cloture ending debate and then vote against the legislation raising the debt ceiling mostly so they could claim later this year, or whenever they come up for reelection, that they opposed the debt ceiling being raised as demonstrated by their “Nay” vote but betrayed by their cloture to end the sole Republican taking a principled stance, Senator Cruz of Texas. The argument by the Republican leadership in the Senate was that they would have eventually lost anyways, so why resist. The problem with that defeatist argument is that a filibuster supported by the entirety of the Senate Republican would have prevented passage of this legislation. The nuclear option taken by Senate Democrats to permit cloture on a straight up or down vote only applies to confirmations and not to the filibuster of legislation. That means to end debate the Democrats would need to find about a half dozen Republican Senators to vote with them or the filibuster on the legislation would block its passage. Presuming that the Republicans expect to someday actually win elections, particularly the Presidency, they had better first establish a definable difference between themselves and the Democrats. Taking a stance that represents fiscal responsibility would be a very good principle on which to start making your stand. Apparently the Republicans only desire to follow behind the Democrats and take every precaution to prevent making trouble for President Obama or Harry Reid. Perhaps, in reality, there is no opposition party and what we have is two variations of the same party system which leaves the American people without an alternative to the current destructive road on which they are travelling ever faster and faster. The brakes probably could not be applied demanding a price for raising the debt ceiling, but perhaps the foot could have been removed from the accelerator pedal and even maybe the car placed in neutral in preparation for braking in the not too distant future. If such slowing and eventual reversal is not executed soon, then the execution of America and her economy is indubitably assured.

 

Beyond the Cusp