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

 

What the New Republican Majority Congress Must Not Do

I have seen near countless articles and editorials, is there a difference between the news and editorials any more, making every sort of suggestions for what the Republicans must do to make their majority count for something and be successful. What was a constant for virtually every suggestion of what they must do was how almost none of it would get passed the White House Obama veto. As President Obama once warned that he has a pen and a phone could also imply that he could veto legislation passed by the Republican Congress and then phone them to come pick up their worthless pieces of paper. So, with the veto pen and the insulting phone call in mind I thought suggesting what the Republicans should avoid if they desire to be successful in the ensuing Congress over the remaining two years of the Obama Presidency. Where they should pass certain principled legislation initially which defines their principles but not waste months doing so, they should also repeat this procedure in the summer leading up to the 2016 elections to augment a candidate for President that hopefully can excite the Republican voters across their spectrum and can express the core conservative and constitutional principles in a manner similar to President Reagan but also able to use social media to good advantage.

The Republicans must not fall for the media mantra that what voters demanded from the new Congress was for them to reach across the aisle and work with the Democrats and President Obama as a great number of their voters wanted no such thing, something I learned about through personal and close up observation and a listening tour in Oklahoma which ended about one year ago. They should not make attempts to modify the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, aka Obama Care, and also should not spend great amounts of time repealing it as having President Obama veto one single protest legislation repealing Obama Care should suffice. The electorate did not send their representatives and Senators to Washington to waste time playing political games; they sent them to relay a message, no further damage to their nation and the future in which their children and grandchildren will live. The one message the Republican voters want delivered is no automatic and immediate amnesty by Presidential edict even if it requires cutting funding for the entirety of the Immigrations and Naturalizations Department. The people want the budget to be carefully crafted and the wasteful spending reduced as much as can be accomplished. This means no omnibus spending bills or full budget bills which leave discretional spending by the administration. If that requires passing tens or hundreds of individual pieces of legislation funding each department and even each program individually even if it takes the vast majority of their efforts in order to prevent monies from being diverted to places and programs they were not intended to finance. The people want the spending trimmed down by any means necessary. Do not worry about what the media accuses you of being as their name calling will not affect your voters if you treat their desires with respect and do their bidding.

The people who sent many of you to Congress do not want any compromise immigration reform, especially if it includes amnesty. They do not want another immigration legislation which grants a path to citizenship in the immediate and a future sealing of the border and completing the double fence as such legislation in the past never did build the fence or seal the border. Immigration reform means sealing the border and building the fence the entire length of the borders, northern and southern as either border can be used by those who desire to harm us just as easily as the other. The Democrats will be doing everything in their power to force the amnesty to come first but that must be resisted. Now that you are controlling both houses you can refuse to permit adding riders and amendments to legislation which are unassociated with the subject of the legislation or simply add little treats for the home districts as the people you presumably serve do not benefit or desire these little favors which have become part of business as usual and waste billions upon billions of dollars every year. Whatever you decide to do, do not pass any legislation which is more than two or three pages unless entirely unavoidable due to the complexity of the subject such as a manned mission to Mars or a moon base. Your constituents will be very unforgiving of any legislation which is hundreds of pages, let alone thousands of pages in length and are, as Nancy Pelosi once stated, that we have to pass it to see what is in it. Know that there are many amongst your supporters who will read every last page and then write notes, articles, comments and convers on social media and across many places on the internet and you will hear their disgust loudly when they replace you at their earliest convenience. Ask those Republicans who lost primaries and thus never got to seek reelection, they understand.

The voters who elected you are sick of deficit spending and expect that you will not spend more than the government takes in from taxes and other various fees, licenses, fines and whatever. Even if this means that there must be some cuts in services or programs, then so be it. They want jobs, economic growth and fewer regulations which strangle economic growth. Many may not understand the mechanics of the interactions between the government actions and economic matters but they do understand unemployment, low growth and the other effects such things have on their lives and that they can detect whenever they balance their checkbook account. They really do not want excuses for why you had to enact certain legislation in order to make compromises with the Democrats and get other items passed with Democratic help. They remember how the Democrats acted completely unilaterally and passed Obama Care without a single Republican vote and see no reason for compromise now that the Republicans control Congress. Do not repeal the nuclear option that Harry Reid put in place so that any Presidential appointment could be ratified by simply majority in order to freeze out any Republican dissent, turnabout is fair play. You were not sent to Washington to be invited to all the Georgetown parties and other social functions, nor were you sent to get along with the other side, you were sent to Washington to ruin President Obama’s last two years and ending his reign of terror over the United States as well as its people and allies. You were sent to Washington to send a message and prove that the Republicans have finally learned from their past mistakes and are prepared to return to their roots and basics and are able to resist any influences and pressures from the Democrats, the media or the lobbyists and NGOs who are paid to persuade you to forfeit the trust of your constituents and instead serve their moneyed interests. Feel free to also not do any of these things and ignore all the warnings if you choose and enjoy your one term for as long as it lasts. The new face of the most active elements of the Republican Party are done with business as usual or go along to get along politicking and will continue to seek new faces until they get the representation they desire. The choices are yours to make for now but eventually the final decision over whether you are returned to Washington is that of your constituents and the one disadvantage you have is as a Republican you must win the minds more so than the hearts of your constituency and that constituency are high information voters, a phrase used by talk radio personalities to describe their listeners and these are also your voters. If your get nothing more from this article than those who sent you to Washington are awake, politically savvy and watching your every vote and will hold you to account for every vote should you betray their trust and cross their red lines, and they will use the nuclear option on your candidacy should you cross their red lines as they are not like the President, they mean what they say and vote what they believe. You have been warned and if you are aware, then it should be easy for you to understand the situation and act accordingly or else it has been nice knowing you and hope you enjoy your next day job.

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