Posted on 12/12/2014 8:22:17 AM PST by C19fan
The CrOmnibus passed last night and the story of the day is the TEA party-Elizabeth Warren wings of the parties uniting in an unsuccessful bid to derail it.
Lots of people are having fun with the idea that Ted Cruz and Warren have become mirror images and wondering what this might portend for the GOP.
I think this is missing the real story.
What we should be focusing on is that the establishment of the GOP was far more interested in cutting deals with the Democrats than they were in exercising the power of their new majorities come January.
Look at the provisions that the GOP included in CrOmnibus that set off the Democratic progressives and some TEA types...
First was an increase the limits donors can give to political parties.
The provision would increase the amount of money a single donor could give to national party committees each year from $97,200 to as much as $777,600 by allowing them to set up different funds for certain expenses. The change would be a huge boost for party committees that have faced steep challenges in recent years from well-funded outside groups....
"Conservatives support the First Amendment and believe there should be no limits on political speech," said Ken Cuccinelli, president of the Senate Conservatives Fund. "Unfortunately, the new limits included in the omnibus only increase political speech for party insiders while silencing the majority of Americans who are fed up with Washington."
The second was a 'reform" of Dodd-Frank. Republicans have been running against Dodd-Frank for years. Normally their critique is that it hurts small businesses that can't afford to comply with a maze of regulations. The reform the GOP stood fast on? A provision literally written by Citigroup.
The derivatives provision would let JPMorgan, Citigroup Inc. (C:US), Bank of America Corp. (BAC:US) and other banks trade almost all swaps in divisions that have government backstops like deposit insurance. It would repeal a requirement that some of the trades be pushed out to separate units, which Wall Street argued would drive up costs for clients and increase risk in the financial system by moving the trades to firms less regulated than banks.
So thanks to the brave leadership of John Boehner, Harry Reid and Barack Obama we made it easier for political parties to fend off outside interest groups and make sure banks can trade derivatives again with the knowledge that if things go south, the taxpayers will foot the bill. The chairman of Citigroup certainly must be pleased with his personal lobbying efforts.
I'm not one to say there's no difference between the GOP and Democrats, that's silly. But it's not nearly enough or as much as they like to pretend.
The story isn't that a minority of the GOP found common cause with some Democrats to oppose these deals, it's that after facing a populist backlash after the failed GOP administration of 2001-2007, the party has successfully weathered the storm and returned to business as usual. Big donors and big business get theirs. Meanwhile voters who thought they voted for spending cuts and opposition to amnesty just six weeks or so ago are told, sorry can't do it. Good luck ever collecting.
I know there's a lot of anger on the right today, as there should be. But don't blame the GOP. There's no White Knight coming to liberate the GOP from the evil clutches of Boehner and McConnell. They are what the GOP is. Instead of railing about sellouts leading the party, ask yourself why you continue to support them and why you thought it would be any different this time.
Boehner-dict Arnold has got to go.
Demand of you incoming Rep that the Speaker vote for the next Congress be a recorded vote.
Also tell your incoming Rep that a vote for Boehner will be held against them.
Don't blame me however, I refused to vote for this clown. I'm not holding my nose to vote anymore.
Pretty much spot on. The GOPE wants amnesty, this gets their paymasters the Chamber of Corrupt Commerce what it wants and they can go back to the conservative apologist and say we tried but we just can’t shut the government down and we can’t impeach, there is just nothing we could do.
I have seen many “Republicans” argue that they can’t expect the party to fight and die in suicide charges, they must continue to kick the can down the road and slow things down and surrender on every issue to the democrats for little or nothing in return.
Yes off the cliff and into the rocks is the destination, lets just slow down and prolong the agony. I submit they are the worst of the worst in moral cowardice and selfishness. They don’t really give a crap about the country or their own families, they just want things held together until they take their dirt naps so they don’t have to witness it.
Yesterday the rule of law was suspended in America. Previously, the President had issued an Executive Edict on amnesty, becoming a dictator, and yesterday Congress endorsed his dictatorship.
If John Boehner had stood in the Oval Office and placed a crown on Barack Obama’s head on national television, it could not be more clear that America is no longer a democracy.
Which means that nothing Congress does matters anymore. It’s all a game, all the time. In the game of Monopoly, the players pretend to be big investors throwing money around; and in the new game of Congress, the players will pretend to be lawmakers in an actual democratic legislature like Britain and France and many other countries still have.
And anyone, including Conservatives like Ted Cruz, who decides to play along instead of using their time and efforts to expose the dictatorship and fight against it are simply joining the conspiracy to fool the public that we still have an authentic democracy.
What can we do about this? First, we must face reality. ‘’It doesn’t matter,’’ should be the response to everything Congress does and to everything journalists may write about what the Congressional players do.
Since Congress has become a theatrical production, a series of vaudeville acts by political ham actors fighting each other for the public’s attention, journalists covering Congress will now essentially become theater critics commenting on the quality of each Congressperson’s performance.
In fact, that’s exactly what has already happened to the leader of the Executive Branch, Emperor Obama. No one in the media takes anything he says seriously any longer, they simply comment on the relative effectiveness of his performances in deceiving the public.
Recently Tim Cook noted that when you get free information from a web service you are not the customer, you are the product.
These Congressmen are not stupid, we are.
Voting for a Progressive RINO is the same as voting for any other Tyrant.
True.
Interesting that the left-wing Democrats who follow Elizabeth Warren and the Tea Party conservatives whom those very same leftists viscerally hate are on the same side of this, isn’t it?
The true conservative we just elected could start a third party already just be changing their party affiliation, all they would need is a name and a leader. That move alone would put the GOPe leadership in doubt. Come on Patriots man up.
Has it occurred to you that the GOPe plays for keeps too? Maybe they just have the same goals.
I don’t think one Congress can bind another one.
We should start all over on January 3rd—pass a CR for two months and defund amnesty.
Then pass new appropriation bills for the remainder of FY 2015, one at a time.
Senate should declare the nuclear option, and we pass everything and send it to the Kenyan Klown.
If he vetoes it, we override. Even Dems if they want to get re-elected, will help.
But this would take balls and a strategy, two things that Boehner and McConnell were born without.
Gave democrats everything they wanted, nothing for Conservatives. This is worse than being a horrible poker player, they have obviously surrendered.
Here is the worse part of all this.
The cases before the courts about Nero’s Amnesty illegality is going to get thrown out when the Court rules the Legislative branch had their chance to stop this thing by not funding it. When they approved the funding they agreed to the actions.
John Boehner, Barrack Obama and Mitch McConnell all know this.
We been had by the whole bunch of Vipers!
Another way of looking at it I guess, but it’s still depressing.
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