Sheer Embarrassment from Washington

 

What or who can be described as sheer embarrassment from Washington can be answered in so many ways as the national capital is just chock full of embarrassments. Many people have referred to President Trump as the most embarrassing President in history. We might also nominate President Ulysses S. Grant as probably a good candidate to challenge for that title, but for this article, we will grant that there is plenty of potential that might be parlayed into a winning Presidency for the title. We will have to wait and see. But we were not referring to President Trump.

 

Then there is the media and the, as President Trump refers to it, “Fake news” giving them a run at the title. We know much of the news comes from New York or Los Angeles. Where that may prove true, and we would add Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston and other major cities, but the news, which appears to be most made-up, originates from Washington D.C. We have had our little disagreements with the media for longer than most and much of it with CNN and their reporting on the Middle East and Israel specifically. Even so, we are afraid that it is not the news media we are referring to in this article.

 

Then there are the reactions to the Presidency of Donald J. Trump from the entertainment direction and some of the most outlandish and outspoken actors and actresses. We have seen such things as a decapitated President, demands to assassinate the President and for assaults on the White House. The entertainment industry has had musicians actually ruin otherwise great performances by injecting political denouncements into their acts. These entertainers, singer, musicians, comedians and others have gone to such extremes that they have also been an embarrassment, but not what we are targeting.

 

That leaves Congress and they are the group which has gotten our attentions this time. It is particularly the Republicans who are going to receive our attentions. We understand the Democrat Party Congressional representation voting as a single point against the majority of things President Trump has lobbied Congress to pass. President Trump is, to them, the enemy who desires destroying everything they believe and have accomplished over the last eight years under President Barack Obama. Of course, the Democrats will vote against much, if not all, of the Trump agenda and their ability to hold the line unanimously is a credit to their part unity and vote discipline. If the Republicans were as supportive of their President as the Democrats are at opposing the President, then President Trump would be getting things completed and checking them off his to do list, as they would be done. The Republicans do not have that kind of discipline and the reason is basic, their leadership, at best, is conflicted over their support for the President. They are not attempting to hold their people to vote for the Trump agenda, as they do not respect him as their party leader. They view President Trump as an outsider and a one-off who was more lucky than having any political acumen. They do not believe he has earned their respect or the right to lead their party and thus do not feel obligated to work for him as they might one of their own. Their actions are going to cost them when elections come, especially if their electorate lives anywhere between the Appalachian Mountains and the Sierra Nevada Mountains, otherwise called Middle America. These were the people who sent Trump to the White House and they are likely not going to receive their representatives second-guessing their wisdom. This has made the Congress into a do-nothing Congress when the people voted for change and they are not receiving what they demanded.

 

The two items which the electorate was most eager to see enacted were the repeal of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) and tax reform including across the board tax reductions and simplification of the tax code even if that meant they would lose some presumed precious deductions. The people recognized that Obamacare was nothing more than the means by which the Democrats were attempting to force the enactment of a single-payer healthcare system run by the government and wanted no part of such a system. The people wanted their old system of healthcare returned to them while it was still viable rather than delays until the healthcare insurance industry had failed beyond repair, something which is no more than six months away by many estimates. Unfortunately, there are some core Republican elite members who agree with the left that the best healthcare is government run healthcare and that the people need to be given what these Republican lifetime Congress members believe is best for them, not what the people themselves desire. These lifers think they are more intelligent and wiser than the people they represent. Many of these people, they believe, are incapable of reasoning intelligently will hopefully demonstrate their ability for independent thought and replace these elite politicians who believe themselves to be superior to those they represent. Apparently there are those amongst the most well-known Republicans in Congress who have decided that being a representative of the people does not require representing the people but thinking for the people.

 

The other issue, tax reform and reduction, has not been given a good run as the Congress decided to run off and take their long Labor Day break, which lasts half of August and September, rather than do their job and address the IRS Code. We are willing to bet that most of the people these clowns represent would like to take three, four or even five weeks off to celebrate what for the regular people, you know, their lessers, get to celebrate as a three day weekend unless they use their vacation days. That is correct. The members of Congress who were unable to deliver on their seven year promise and the number one item they campaigned upon for almost a decade, the repeal of Obamacare, decided they required a month off to recover from their arduous debates and then inability to pass, not one, not two, but any of three different means for repealing Obamacare as promised. There was a reason why they had three different bills which they voted on in one day, rejecting one after the other, but allowing those who desired to oppose President Trump to each at least vote for one of the repeals or even two while making sure that they had sufficient opposition each time so all three would fail. This is an old trick that the members of Congress have pulled nearly forever. They make multiple versions of a bill they have promised to support. Then they all support at least one of the versions while the majority votes down each version. Then they can all go home and tout how they supported the single version they did vote for while disavowing that they voted against the other versions. This is how they deceive without actually being caught in a lie and more often than not the media only check to see if what they stated was true, not whether the spirit of their statement was true. The media and the political elites are all in the same party circles and become friends and friends help one another, that is only normal. Who wants new faces on their party circuit, that means getting used to a whole new person who will need breaking in and being taught how the games are played.

 

Congress will now get to play games with the tax reform packages. They will have numerous, possibly hard to count versions of tax reform and they will divide up between them how to vote so even the most contemptible Democrat will be able to tell his moneyed supporters how they fought tooth and nail to get them the breaks in the tax code they deserve. It is all about making the lies believable and having the right votes in place to back the lie despite their arranging the votes for just that purpose. We will hear reason after reason as to why there was no tax reform or that the loopholes just could not be removed because other members of Congress worked against your particular representatives in the House and Senate while they worked like dogs trying to make the new tax package more fair. Oh, how they worked themselves to the bone going to all the different Washington parties then showing up to work at the ungodly hour of eleven in the morning and going home at two-thirty so they would miss rush hour and oh the pains they went through. Oh, wait, they will never be that honest. They will try and pass the party which lasted until two in the morning as the time they were working the others in Congress to vote for their package which was just so fair and unblemished. Of course, the rich had too much influence and your attempt to be the super person of the little people failed. The poor Congress critter worked so hard between the events every night of the week.

 

Now, we will mention that there are the few people in Congress who actually are representing their constituents and the people as a whole, but these are the members who are easy to spot. The first thing is they are rarely in the news and their picture is almost never in the major newspapers. Next, they are the ones who most often have a party plant put against them in their primary and the party does all they can to supplant them and they are always the underdog. Some of these members of Congress are so egregious that they never receive any support from the national party or often the state party and even have their party work against them in the general elections as they feel it is better to have the opposition for one term and then they can run a party line person they can control the next election. If you ever find that you have such a person in the Congress, hold on to them as far too many in Congress are purely party functionaries. They do not represent their constituents; they represent money and party plain and simple. If ever there was a need for such people to be placed in the Congress, the next election is crucial. If it were possible to elect almost all members to Congress who had never been in politics before, that time has arrived if the nation is to be rescued.

 

There is a reason that the Congress is currently stymied and unable to function and that is being done on purpose. The political machine, and there is only one real political machine and both the Democrat and Republican Parties are parts of a single entity. The machine serves the major industries which have the capital to invest in making sure that each party gets their turn at the big prize, the White House. The machine every so often does manage to lose its iron grasp on the White House and must then rely on the Congress to assure that no real damage is incurred. The election of Donald Trump as President is one of those times that the machine lost the big prize. The fix was supposed to be in and Hillary Clinton was presumed to be the next President once the others, Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, Marco Rubio or even worst-case scenario, Ted Cruz lost and the uncontrollable Donald Trump became the Republican candidate. The machine had not counted on Hillary Clinton as their candidate and was counting on the Republicans to choose wisely, the people refused to be smart, imagine that. The machine had given the Republicans the nod as after eight years of a Democrat, they could read the tea leaves and the leaves indicated the Republican Party had the advantage in the race for the White House. When the Republican candidate turned out to be a rogue from outside the regular field, the machine had no recourse as the Democrats had given them a ham-handed candidate, as flawed as the Republican. They went with the horse they knew and could influence and would play the game; they went with Hillary. Their only hope was to convince the world that Hillary was popular which required her having high polling numbers and looking assured of the win. This may have backfired but that is something we will never know for sure. Now they have to deal with President Trump so the Congress must make sure he does as little damage to those who actually control the government. Let us all hope that they fail at this.

 

Capitol Cash Machine

 

There is one thing people can do which will pay dividends down the road. If your have a member of the House of Representatives who has been in Washington over ten years, replace them. Once your Senator has served two, three terms at the most, replace them. Washington D.C. has a corrupting influence which taints anybody not raised inside the Capital Beltway as only those raised that close to purgatory are capable of resisting its powers. Those who come from outside soon have their guts torn apart and they are refilled with money and corrupt practices. Every member of Congress and their staffers cannot resist and act any other way because they almost all have lived beyond the normal laws. There is an easy means for telling if your members of Congress have taken the bait and become corrupted, their net worth. If your member of Congress was worth less than two million dollars before going to Washington and now are worth over five and likely twenty million dollars, then vote them out and fast. There is this neat little thing about being in Congress or a staffer; you are not subject to inside trading laws. This means you can buy stock in companies who are about to receive large sums of government contracts before the vote or anybody else knows about this and you can sell your stock in companies being investigated by Congress before the reports come out to the media or before they do not get that contract or their merger will not be approved, all things you know ahead of their actual occurrence. This allows you to trade stocks with great confidence and amass quite a large amount of wealth rather quickly. The catch is once you get onto this gravy train you will be voting your pocket and not your constituents’ pockets. This makes you a liability to your voters and the nation and makes you a bought person. This makes you toxic and you need replacing, period. We believe that most honest Americans would agree with this analysis, so please spread the world and let the people clean up the mess in Washington D.C.

 

Beyond the Cusp