Posted on 02/20/2016 9:49:04 AM PST by smoothsailing
We Remember – December 23rd 2009 when Majority Leader Harry Reid passed a version of Obamacare through forced vote at 1:30am. The Senators could not leave, and for the two weeks previous were kept in a prolonged legislative session barred returning to their home-state constituencies. It was, by all measures and reality, a vicious display of forced ideological manipulation of the upper chamber; shared as a reminder for what set the stage, and what followed.
Riddled with anxiety we watched the Machiavellian manipulations unfold, seemingly unable to stop the visible usurpation. Desperate for a tool to stop the construct in December 2009 we found Scott Brown and rallied to deliver $7 million in funding, and a “Kennedy Seat” victory on January 19th 2010.
Unfortunately, the trickery of Majority Leader Harry Reid would not be deterred. Upon legislative return he stripped a House Budgetary bill, and replaced it with the Democrat Senate version of Obamacare through a process of “reconciliation”. Thereby avoiding the 3/5ths vote rule (60) and instead using only a simple majority, 51 votes.
Angered, we rallied to the next election (November 2010) and handed the usurping Democrats the single largest electoral defeat in the prior 100 years. The House returned to Republican control, and one-half of the needed Senate seats reversed. Within the next two election cycles (’12 and ’14) we again removed the Democrats from control of the Senate.
Within each of those three elections we were told Repealing Obamacare would be job #1. It was not an optional part of our representative agreement to do otherwise.
However, from the writing of Jonah Goldberg, an advocate for modern conservative political opinion, you find the following:
[…] If you want a really good sense of the damage Donald Trump is doing to conservatism, consider the fact that for the last five years no issue has united the Right more than opposition to Obamacare.
Opposition to socialized medicine in general has been a core tenet of American conservatism from Day One. Yet, when Republicans were told that Donald Trump favors single-payer health care, support for single-payer health care jumped from 16 percent to 44 percent. (link)
With control of the House and Senate did Majority Leader Mitch McConnell or House Speaker John Boehner use the same level of severity expressed by Harry Reid to put a repeal bill on the desk of Obama for veto?
Simply, NO.
Why not? According to NRO’s Goldberg it’s the “core tenet of American conservatism”.
If for nothing else, but to accept and follow the will of the people. Despite the probability of an Obama veto, this was not a matter of option. While the method might have been “symbolic”, due to the almost guaranteed veto, it would have stood as a promise fulfilled.
Yet the professional political class speak of “core tenets” and question our “trust” of Donald Trump?
TRUST?
We are not blind to the maneuverings of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and President Tom Donohue. We are fully aware the repeal vote did not take place because the U.S. CoC demanded the retention of Obamacare.
Leader McConnell followed the legislative priority of Tom Donohue as opposed to the will of the people.
This was again exemplified with the passage of TPA, another Republican construct which insured the Trans-Pacific Trade Deal could pass the Senate with 51 votes instead of 3/5ths. This is limiting government? No, this is usurpation of the will of the people.
However, the TPA bill passage provides both an example and a contrast.
We are not blind to the reality that when McConnell chooses to change the required senatorial voting threshold he is apt to do so. Not coincidentally, the TPP trade deal is another legislative priority of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
Yet you question the “trustworthiness” of Donald Trump’s definitions of conservatism?
Another bill, the Iran “agreement”, reportedly and conveniently not considered a “treaty”. Again, we are not blind; nor are we blind to Republican Bob Corker’s amendment (Corker/Cardin Amendment) changing agreement ratification to a 67-vote-threshold for denial, as opposed to a customary 67 vote threshold for passage. A profound difference.
Yet you question the “principles” of Donald Trump?
A truly representative political body would be questioning the “ideological conservative principle” of their leader, Mitch McConnell. Or questioning Bob Corker. Both McConnell and Corker working to deny the will of the electorate within the party they are supposed to represent.
Of course, you need to remain willfully blind. You need to keep acting as if we are not aware of these closed door machinations. If you faced us, if you opened yourself to really being questioned by us, it would force you to admit some uncomfortable truths.
In years past our confrontation would have included tar and feathers.
Another example soon followed – Lisa Murkowski ? An Alaskan senator who can factually lose her Republican primary bid, yet run as a write-in candidate, without admonishment from the Republican Party, and the professional political class permit her return to the Senate with full seniority and committee responsibilities?
Did the RNC, Reince Preibus, or a republican member of senatorial leadership meet the returning Murkowski and demand a Pledge of Allegiance to the principles within the Republican party? No, but you damned sure required a pledge from candidate Donald Trump. Square that circle.
The “protectionism” and “isolationism” you rail against, in the few media appearances where you are brave enough to raise your head, is simply you projecting your own concerns of your own political interests. In essence, your necessary isolation to retain your status.
We do not forget Mitch McConnell working to re-elect Senator Thad Cochran, fundraising on his behalf in the spring/summer of 2014, even after Cochran lost the first Mississippi primary?
We do not forget the NRSC spending money on racist attack ads. We do not forget the GOP paying Democrats to vote in the second primary to defeat Republican Chris McDaniel. We are well aware the “R” in NRSC is “Republican”.
Perhaps you chose to think we forget. We do not.
You stand jaw agape, in admonition of those who have had enough and are willing to support candidate Donald Trump. Intentionally you must refuse to accept how intensely angry we are. However, specifically because of your refusal, you have now taken yourself further into the bunker and don’t realize the scope of our assembly.
Your latest attempt to quell the rising pitchforks is Paul Ryan; now charged with the definitions of who is allowed to call themselves republican, or conservative.
Tell those definitions to the majority of Conservative Republicans who supported Chris McDaniel and found their own party actively working against them.
Oh, we understand your definitions.
Where is the historical republican “character” in the fact-based exhibitions outlined above?
Remember Virginia 2012, 2013? When the conservative principle-driven electorate changed the method of candidate selection to a convention and removed the party stranglehold on their “chosen candidates”. Remember that? We do.
What did McConnell, the RNC and the GOP do in response with Ken Cuccinelli? They actively spited him and removed funding from his campaign. To teach us a lesson? Well it worked, we learned that lesson.
Representative David Brat was part of that lesson learned and answer delivered. Candidate Donald Trump is similarly an outcome of those lessons learned, and hopefully just as strong an answer forthcoming – yet these professional political voices speak of “character”.
Collectively the GOPe punditry speak of concerns toward candidate Donald Trump’s outlined tax proposals. Yet, these same voices ignore who cut the tax rates on lower margins by 50% thereby removing any tax liability from the bottom 20% wage earners?
Which party simultaneously expanded the role of government dependency programs? That would be the GOP (“Bush Tax Cutsâ€)
What? How dare you argue against tax cuts, you say.
The truth is the “Bush Tax Cuts†removed tax liability from the bottom 20 to 40% of income earners completely. Leaving the entirety of tax burden on the upper 60% wage earners. Currently, thanks to those cuts, 49% of tax filers pay ZERO federal income tax.
But long term our fiscal house is much worse. The “Bush Tax Cuts†were, in essence, created to stop the post 9/11/01 recession – and they contained a “sunset provision†which ended ten years later specifically because, if the baseline budget spending continued, the tax cuts were unsustainable.
The expiration of the lower margin tax cuts then became an argument in the election cycle of 2012. And as usual, the GOP, McConnell and Boehner were insufferably inept during this process.
The GOP (2002) removed tax liability from the lower income levels, and President Obama then (2009) lowered the income threshold for economic subsidy (welfare, food stamps, ebt, medicaid, etc) this was brutally predictable.
This lower revenue higher spending ‘baseline-budget’ approach means – lower tax revenues and increased pressure on the top tax rates (wage earners) with the increased demand for tax spending created within the welfare programs.
Professional DC Republicans focus on “spending†without ever admitting they, not the Democrats, lowered rates and set themselves up to be played with the increased need for social program spending, simultaneously. These same politicians have never addressed the abhorrent beast that is baseline budget growth. Ultimately, is this reality/outcome not simply a “tax the rich” program?
As a consequence what’s the difference between the Republicans and Democrats on taxes? All of a sudden Republicans are arguing to “broaden the tax base”. Meaning, reverse the tax cuts they themselves created on the lower income filers?
This is a conservative position now? A need to “tax the poor”? Nice of the Republicans to insure the Democrats have an atomic sledgehammer to use against them.
This is a winning strategy? This is the “conservatism” DC is defending because they are worried about Donald Trump’s principles, character or trustworthiness.
Here’s a list of those modern conservative “small(er) government” principles:
• Did the GOP secure the border with control of the White House and Congress? NO.
• Did the GOP balance the budget with control of the White House and Congress? NO
• Did the GOP even pass a FY 2016 budget with control of the House and Senate? NO.
• Who gave us a $2.5 Trillion Omnibus Spending Bill in December 2015? The GOP
• Who eliminated, not just raise but eliminated, the debt ceiling? The GOP
• Who gave us the TSA? The GOP
• Who gave us the Patriot Act? The GOP
• Who expanded Medicare to include prescription drug coverage? The GOP
• Who created the precursor of “Common Core†in “Race To the Top� The GOP
• Who played the race card in Mississippi to re-elect Thad Cochran? The GOP
• Who paid Democrats to vote in the Mississippi primary? The GOP
• Who refused to support Ken Cuccinnelli in Virginia? The GOP
• Who supported Charlie Crist? The GOP
• Who supported Arlen Spector? The GOP
• Who supported Bob Bennett? The GOP
• Who worked against Jim DeMint? The GOP
• Who worked against Rand Paul? The GOP
• Who worked against Ted Cruz? The GOP
• Who worked against Mike Lee? The GOP
• Who worked against Ronald Reagan? The GOP
• Who is working against Donald Trump? The GOP
• Who said “I think we are going to crush [the Tea Party] everywhere.� The GOP (McConnell)
And, you wonder why we’re frustrated, desperate for a person who can actually articulate some kind of push-back?
Here’s a shock for ya – We are not just pushing back against Obama, Pelosi and Reid, we are also desperate for push back against you.
Inasmuch as President Obama is our fiscal enemy, so too are Mitch McConnell, John Boehner and now Paul Ryan. Which leads to the next of the GOP talking points. Where they opine:
“Politics is a game where you don’t get everything you wantâ€
Fair enough. But considering us “whacko birds” have simply been demanding common sense, ie. fiscal discipline, a BUDGET would be nice.
The last federal budget was passed in September of 2007, and EVERY FLIPPING INSUFFERABLE YEAR we had to go through the predictable fiasco of a Government Shutdown Standoff and/or a Debt Ceiling increase specifically because there is NO BUDGET!
That’s a fiscal strategy?
That’s the GOP strategy?
Essentially: Lets plan for an annual battle against articulate Democrats and Presidential charm, using a creepy guy who cries and another old mumbling fool who dodders, knowing full well the MSM is on the side of the other guy to begin with?
THAT’S WAS YOUR GOP STRATEGY?
Don’t tell me it’s not, because if it wasn’t there’d be something else being done. And to make matters even more brutally obvious – when given control of the House and Senate in 2015 what did the GOP do?
The Republican DC politicians eliminated the entire debt ceiling, passed a $2.5 trillion omnibus spending bill, and kicked the can all the way to March 2017.
That’s a flippin’ solution?
That’s a republican solution?
That’s a conservative solution?
And don’t think we don’t know the 2009 “stimulus” became embedded in the baseline of the federal spending, and absent of an actual budget it just gets spent and added to the deficit each year, every year. Yet this is somehow smaller fiscal government?
What’s with the squirrelly google link to so many leftist websites? Back up your assertion with conservative critique with factual information from a trusted source.
I’m still in Massachusetts, so I “get” what you are saying. I too voted for Scott, and was not pleased with his voting history, though he stuck by us on immigration & Obamacare. The country is in such bad shape now that it’s going to take more than a little luck to salvage anything in the future that looks like the wonderful place that was our country in the past.
| Thanks a lot for this post. It's all there and Sundance has done a lot good work during this election cycle. I wish the material was slightly better organized for easier reading, but the content is excellent. |
When you dove into astrology, at once I said Nuts.
There are such things as false signs and wonders, as well as true ones. At one point, even a Resurrection will be faked.
I’ve been there, done that, with astrology. Using that as a guide to ANYTHING is a load of, well, Taurus. It opens things up to the other guy.
My pleasure, I have found his writing to be very informative.
I wish he were more succinct. He often takes a little long getting to the point.
Pretty good?
FANTASTIC!
Great flow, thoroughness, restrained jabs at the party without either gonads or brains.
And great conclusions.
I wish there were a way for that thread to be posted at least once a day until election day.
I wish I had the time to clean up the obvious garbage embedded in the post for future use. I might start on it, but have no idea how long it might take.
The nation that has killed 55 million babies is under judgement from YHWH. He is done with the United States of America.
You condemned our Nation in the name of God. Your will is not His order and your power to condemn a Nation of Christians is way above your pay grade.
I am just observing the signs. Look up! Your redemption draws near!
Those who believe are not appointed to the Wrath to come. We will be caught up to meet the Lord in the air. Then the End will come.
1 Thessalonians 4
13 But I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope.
14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus.
15 For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who are asleep.
16 For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first.
17 Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord.
18 Therefore comfort one another with these words.
Nelson, Thomas (2009-02-18). Holy Bible, New King James Version (NKJV) (p. 1146). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition.
1 Thessalonians 5
1 But concerning the times and the seasons, brethren, you have no need that I should write to you.
2 For you yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so comes as a thief in the night.
3 For when they say, “Peace and safety!” then sudden destruction comes upon them, as labor pains upon a pregnant woman. And they shall not escape.
4 But you, brethren, are not in darkness, so that this Day should overtake you as a thief.
5 You are all sons of light and sons of the day. We are not of the night nor of darkness.
6 Therefore let us not sleep, as others do, but let us watch and be sober.
7 For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk are drunk at night.
8 But let us who are of the day be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet the hope of salvation.
9 For God did not appoint us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ,
10 who died for us, that whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with Him.
11 Therefore bcomfort each other and edify one another, just as you also are doing.
Nelson, Thomas (2009-02-18). Holy Bible, New King James Version (NKJV) (pp. 1146-1147). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition.
Revelation 2
7 “’”Whoever has ears ought to hear what the Spirit says to the churches.
To the victor I will give the right to eat from the tree of life that is in the garden of God.”’
- - - - -
11 “’”Whoever has ears ought to hear what the Spirit says to the churches.
The victor shall not be harmed by the second death.”’
17 “’”Whoever has ears ought to hear what the Spirit says to the churches.
To the victor I shall give some of the hidden manna; I shall also give a white amulet upon which
is inscribed a new name, which no one knows except the one who receives it.”’
- - - - -
24 But I say to the rest of you in Thyatira, who do not uphold this teaching and
know nothing of the so-called deep secrets of Satan: on you I will place no further burden,
25 except that you must hold fast to what you have until I come.
26 “’”To the victor, who keeps to my ways until the end, I will give authority over the nations.
27 He will rule them with an iron rod. Like clay vessels will they be smashed,
28 just as I received authority from my Father. And to him I will give the morning star.
29 “’”Whoever has ears ought to hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”’
- - - - -
Revelation 3
4 However, you have a few people in Sardis who have not soiled their garments;
they will walk with me dressed in white, because they are worthy.
5 “’”The victor will thus be dressed in white, and I will never erase his name
from the book of life but will acknowledge his name in the presence of my
Father and of his angels.
6 “’”Whoever has ears ought to hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”’
- - - - -
20 “’”Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and
opens the door, [then] I will enter his house and dine with him, and he with me.
21 I will give the victor the right to sit with me on my throne, as I myself
first won the victory and sit with my Father on his throne.
22 “’”Whoever has ears ought to hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”’”
- - - - -
* [2:7] Victor: referring to any Christian individual who holds fast to the faith
and does God’s will in the face of persecution. The tree of life that is in the
garden of God: this is a reference to the tree in the primeval paradise (Gn 2:9);
cf. Rev 22:2, 14, 19. The decree excluding humanity from the tree of life has
been revoked by Christ.
http://www.usccb.org/bible/revelation/2
http://www.usccb.org/bible/revelation/3
And then people IN SIN superimposed astrology on them. Where did Virgo come from, just to pick a random example.
Or I should rather say, “Virgo”
And we don’t need any astrological signs to allow these lights to be “for signs and seasons.” I daily drive my car east in the morning and I am sure you can believe me, whether it hits me full in the face needing polarized sunglasses in spite of visors depends quite much on the time of year.
There is no bible talk specifying anything more. Even when magi saw something they identified as King of the Jews we aren’t furnished any details; this says predestined coincidence to me and that we are discouraged from following suit. I know something of this dynamic right now in sharing the blessings of God with a group of spiritually aware Hindu people, who know I am Christian. They might be looking at me and thinking Brahman or whatever their idea of a supreme being is, but this will yield to a vision of the Lord as realization sets in.
Meaning, to clarify, the sun in my face, and something they identified as the star of the King of the Jews. So sue me, I can’t proofread perfectly every time.
Yes, I am observing these times, too. But only God decides what is what and who is who. He decides when is when.
And I pray that abortion and all the dark magic that is going on in the US right now stops; as it becomes so overwhelmed by the Spirit of God in us.
Peace and grace unto you, brother, if you haven’t read E.W. Bullinger’s commentaries, you might start with this one.
http://www.amazon.com/Witness-Stars-E-W-Bullinger/dp/082542030X/
We can’t understand everything. It says so in the Bible, and there is a mathematical proof of this that comes from general revelation. So we don’t have to get everything correct. We see in through a glass darkly. But one day soon we will see clearly fact to face. So I am not going to argue with you about this. Read your Bible, read the commentaries to which the Holy Spirit leads you, and pray! Maranatha!
I am not a Romanist Christian, but I do believe they have it right regarding the intercession of the saints on both sides of this mortal veil. those 55 million innocent little ones, I am convinced are in heaven and interceding for their parents, who are in danger of going to hell... They care for their loved ones and their homelands. So does God.
People in heaven follow Jesus’ example and intercede for us and for God to avenge their blood and ours... (Hebrews 7:25)
God’s word tells us that our real enemies are NOT flesh and blood, but principalities and powers: Rev. 6:10, Ephesians 6:12.
Their prayers along with ours, and along with our obedience to the God’s Spirit, will eventually save this nation. He is NEVER done with us. He will never fail, nor will HE ever give up.
We could elect Balaam’s Ass and God would refuse to fail or give up on us. it is not in his nature. It is his infallable nature to work all things after the council of his OWN will... not always immediately apparent, but always impending and ultimately unavoidable.
Yes, but He has told you what will happen, so that when it starts to happen, you will believe. There is only one way this ends: Jesus comes back and ends it.
I know. : )
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