Middle-Class Hypocrites

The American Thinker ^ | December 16, 2010 | Larrey Anderson

[upchuck]

However, they had better do a better job than Jim DeMint, who has just caved in...

You don't know much about DeMint, do you? And apparently you're not watching the issue very closely. From the article you linked:

Republicans, he [DeMint] said, are “signing up to watch the floor all night long, if we need to.”

DeMint spokesman Wesley Denton has said DeMint also is concerned by reports that U.S. and Russian officials have floated the idea of cooperation on European missile defense and reports that last spring, Russia had moved tactical nuclear weapons closer to its neighboring NATO countries.

Denton emphasized that debate on the treaty will not formally begin until Thursday, not today as planned.

"Senator DeMint opposes ramming the controversial START Treaty in the lame duck session," Denton said. "After Senator DeMint asked for the entire treaty to be read aloud to slow down the process, Senator Reid relented and agreed to delay the debate until tomorrow."

That last paragraph explains Demint's actions.

Instead,

Republicans will paralyze the Senate floor for 50 hours by forcing clerks to read every single paragraph of the 1,924-page, $1.1 trillion omnibus spending bill.

Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), the Senate Republican Steering Committee chairman, vowed not to back down.

“If they bring this up, they’re going to read it. It’ll take them a day or two to read it,” DeMint said on Fox News. “Again, we’re trying to run out the clock. They should not be able to pass this kind of legislation in a lame-duck Congress.”

Link.

[OldPossum]

With the exception of members of the various tea parties and a relatively small number of people who listen to talk radio and monitor web sites such as FR, it seems to me that the percentage of Americans who are highly interested in political events is rather small. Most Americans are content to watch their favorite TV shows, go to their kids’ soccer games, attend or watch football and other sports, etc. and pay little to no attention to what’s going on around them politically. Sure, they may complain about their taxes and certain dumb politicians but that seems to be the extent of it.

How can we who are concerned about the direction of this country get the attention of these people? It seems to me that we’re just communicating with each other.

[truth_seeker]

“If we could eliminate the Dept of Education....”

Easier to defund it down to such a minimal capability, that a couple of accountants or clerks could gather some state figures four times a year, and publish reports.

I could easily do that for under $1 million, with plenty of leeway for a website, etc. I’ll be the head guy.

Does the federal government have constitutional authority to compell states to send me quarterly school statistics?

—how many students, by age and grade
—state/local education budgets
—proficiency test results

I’ll take it from there. We will give back cool color pie charts and bar graphs, etc.

All for under $1 million. Huge savings compared to current Edu. Dept.

(I won’t need to know how many blacks, asians, hispanics, girls, boys or unsure)

[RoadTest]

We’ll see. I want to know that actions back up courageous words.

[wastoute]

Wow! Good work, and God Bless.