Dear America,
Oh, this diary; it's always hard taking the first few steps on the keyboard; the mind is a muddled mash pit -- having been thoroughly marinated in thoughts and thesis anywhere from a day to nearly a week. Just how does one lowly human being bring it into proper form, determined to make it a fine tuned delicacy of consensus worthy of your time?...especially after the week it's been, right?
It's utterly grotesque, the tricks of political trade and treason against the bounty that is America.
Keeping pace with the truth and everything that remains outside the truth, seems to be the theme on the day. [And if we're being honest here, I'm really not sure if I can stick with this -- but will give it a shot ...preferably with a Jack Daniel's chaser.]
At times like these, deciphering what is true and not true takes everything we've got. Which begs the immediate, exasperated response under our breath: 'it just shouldn't be this hard' ...this thing called congress.
Here's a little something something to wet your whistle. (It's nothing fancy, but breaks down simple ideas into bite-size nuggets, leaving the option open to delve deeper on your own time.)
Sticking to a limited, free market loving, self-reliant respecting body politic -- one that truly upholds the principles and values set forth over two hundred years ago, one that remains diligent and mindful of living within our means, one that applauds the governing aspects in keeping with our inherent checks and balances of power, and to that end, fully respecting the individual ideas that come forth -- shouldn't be this hard.
What began as a simple family recipe of five, quality, worthy ingredients has been adulterated by a gastronomic attack of all five senses -- placing quantity over quality, elevating the new hybrid chemically-enriched over what is just good food, replacing the long, evening meal shared with family around the table with a quick-serve out of a box or microwave, up against a schedule that leaves little time for real conversation.
For Ted Cruz, it became a situation that demanded we sit down and talk about it...even if that means standing for 21 hours straight, including an epic bed time read of Green Eggs and Ham.
For Harry Reid, it was all a pathetic sideshow, a big waste of time...as he clearly made known in his best mealy mouthed, thirty years of bureaucratic mediocrity, well timed verbal assault upon a fellow statesman, just oozing with arrogance and condescension.
Again, contemplating just five little words: it shouldn't be this hard.
And throwing in five more for good measure: how did we get here?
It's like a bad case of acid-reflux. As if we didn't know eating a half rack of baby backs swimming in sauce, cheesy-creamy scalloped potatoes made from scratch, coleslaw of cabbage and kale! thoroughly juiced in a sweet and spicy horseradish dressing, followed with a heaping serving of sticky toffee pudding (make that two) -- wasn't going to come back to haunt us...seriously?
Are you kidding me?
Are you kidding me?
We set ourselves up for this; none of this should be any surprise at all. For it all began, way back when, at a time when we were simply five days away from fundamental transformation. And again.
Just what did you think FUNDAMENTAL TRANSFORMATION was going to look like? Feel like? Taste like?
As Cruz duly noted in his statement lasting nearly an entire day, "the Senate is no longer a deliberative body." Summing things up for you -- the right to speak and to amend legislation upon each deliberate whim, fully representative of one's own constituency, has been thoroughly violated from within, in an effort to control debate.
Then, in proper turn, he went on to explain the points of opposition. And there were many. But by this time, it's like 5 am, pacific coast time, having been up since three; excuse me if I spare you on every detail, for it's a wee bit of a blur. All I really know is that I didn't want to miss being a witness to history, and I loved every minute of it.
But funny thing, as the first one -- repealing the medical device tax -- just so happened to be an issue not of contention whatsoever (at least, in theory). An overwhelming majority of both sides of the aisle thoroughly disapprove of it -- cue yahoo! And rightly so! It kills innovation and the free market at every possible chance. But let it be known, it is the Democratic Senate who was for it, before they were against it (after the truth came out), before they were for it again. So who's playing to the sideshow now?
Um, telling the truth shouldn't be this hard...
Then there is this -- under the makeshift heading of Alinsky's Rules of Order: "a society devoid of compromise is totalitarian"..........
Sure, we may not all agree on things; but to say we're done talking, that negotiating any further is completely off the table, that the bill is dead upon arrival, while resorting to name calling, and throwing food if they could, is that their dignified and final answer?
Oh, and I get it...
The Senate passes the Cloture test, nearly unanimously voting to end debate 79 -19, defunding Obamacare for a split second, thereby giving congressional cover for those who may need it come re-election; but then, in an instant, like a package of freeze dried mashed potatoes, immediately removes the defunding of ObamaCare... and sends the whole mess back to the house for a re-do. Just like Cruz called it.
"Today, far too many Republicans joined Harry Reid in giving the Democrats the ability to fund Obamacare. When the bill comes back to the Senate, when the House yet again stands for principle and fights for the American people, I very much hope that Senate Republicans will rise to the challenge. We are stronger when we are united, and we can defeat Obamacare only if Senate Republicans come together, stand with House Republicans, and champion the millions of Americans being harmed by this disastrous healthcare law."
The Senate is where the sideshow lives and breathes -- it acts much like a Kitchen-Aid stand alone mixer, massive enough to whip up a lively 300 million; but so unfortunate the color, currently only coming in baby puke.
Oh, but the NINETEEN patriots:
Crapo (R-ID)
Cruz (R-TX)
Enzi (R-WY)
Fischer (R-NE)
Grassley (R-IA)
Heller (R-NV)
Inhofe (R-OK)
Scott (R-SC)
Sessions (R-AL)
Shelby (R-AL)
Toomey (R-PA)
Vitter (R-LA)
Lee (R-UT)
Moran (R-KS)
Paul (R-KY)
Portman (R-OH)
Risch (R-ID)
Roberts (R-KS)
Rubio (R-FL)
Send them some love, maybe even a batch of cookies.
So the saga continues, with no resolution in sight.
At this present moment, Boehner, and the people's House, has already sent it back to the Senate -- with corrections, of course. Here's the press release.
In a nutshell, coming out of the AP, with the headline, "Who'll blink?..." The Associated Press confirmed congress is now closed, "after a post-midnight vote in the GOP-run House to delay by a year key parts of the new health care law and repeal a tax on medical devices, in exchange for avoiding a shutdown."
Now, there are as many ways to look at this tactic as there are pundits.
Sure, why not just let ObamaCare fall under it's own weight and let the cake tiers climb to the moon and back until it crumbles on it's own...why delay the inevitable...why not just sit this one out and watch the catastrophe in the making...let the democrats bake their own demolition cake and eat it too. We all know it tastes like alfalfa. There is that. (And Rush, along with many, many others deem this to be the way to go. And count me in.)
But then again,
and strangely enough -- as wonders never cease and Wondra never fails me --
I kinda like where Boehner is going with this:
“If the Senate stalls until Monday afternoon instead of working today, it would be an act of breathtaking arrogance by the Senate Democratic leadership. They will be deliberately bringing the nation to the brink of a government shutdown for the sake of raising taxes on seniors’ pacemakers and children’s hearing aids and plowing ahead with the train wreck that is the president’s health care law. The American people will not stand for it."
At this moment in time, the House has, at the very least, temporarily funded the government -- which is slated to come to a complete stop come midnight, September 30th. Consider the "delay" of the health care mandate for individuals just part and parcel of all the delays unilaterally imposed by this president -- unconstitutionally, I might add. The House has merely thrown a little rubber scraper of their own into the mix to slow things down, scrape the sides, see how things are blending -- because reality reveals trouble at every pulsating turn.
Love that link to Hot Air, above; Ed Morrissey does a bang up job reporting on the administration run amok and ends posing a really good question:
"Why is Obama
bailing out employers and insurers
with delays
on mandates,
but not consumers?"
So the president can negotiate with the big guys, and even with terrorists, and even breaking the Code of Honor and Silence of thirty four years with Iran -- but not with the American people?
"A path to a meaningful agreement
will be difficult,"
Obama told reporters
at the White House
after the call.
"But I believe we've got
a responsibility to pursue
diplomacy
and that we have a unique
opportunity
to make progress
with the new leadership
in Iran."
The president feels a strong responsibility to pursue diplomacy with crazy people, who HATE westerners, and seem hell bent on nuking our only real friend and ally in the region, Israel, but won't negotiate with the GOP for a meaningful agreement between opposing sides of congress over health care? And Oh -- how sweet -- Obama and Rouhani exchanged "pleasantries."
"It is particularly unfortunate that President Obama would recognize the Iranian people's right to nuclear energy but not stand up for their right to freedom, human rights, or democracy." This being the response from Eric Cantor, Republican House Majority Leader, simply exchanging what everybody else is thinking...But I digress.
Let's review:
NOT ONE REPUBLICAN
voted for the
"Affordable Care Act."
Not one.
Who does this president think they represent? (Besides domestic terrorists... "tea-baggers," extremists, and anarchists...) It's called the other half of the country, Mr. Obamacare.
DO you think, Mr. President, that the GOP (all facets of it) should just give up the fight, just because you say so?
The Left never gave up the Utopian dream for Universal Health Care. It's still the ultimate goal -- is it not? See here, and oops, what I said was, here, and with Harry Reid double fudge brownie downing on the single payer health care system here.
The Left is so patient. How long has it been? Decades in the making?
Here's a Hell's Kitchen Habanero Pepper update: Cruz wasn't in the Senate the first go round. As a Senator from the fine state of Texas, he is entitled to a say -- even if some say it's too late -- even if it takes a filibuster lasting 21 hours to fully bake.
Another way of looking at it -- large or small, elections have consequences (shout out to you, too, John McCrazy Cain). The people of Texas put Rafael Edward "Ted" Cruz in the hot seat in 2013 for a reason; and Cruz proceeded to do exactly what the people of Texas wanted him to do, no matter what, no matter how hard it was. KUDOS to you, dear sir.
And Mr. President -- you may not agree, or like it -- but as president of these United States, there is an inherent obligation to let Cruz speak for those of us who oppose this outrageous piece of legislation without ridicule; and without undermining the full faith and credit of the American people that THIS congress, THIS president, THIS administration, heeds every word like a well loved recipe passed down through the generations.
We, the people, always have the floor.
It would be perfectly fine by me if this government doesn't survive another day.
The thing is: the House has averted a government shut down.
It's up to the Senate to keep it.
By the time they reconvene, they will have about as long as it takes to roast a standing crown of pork -- or each other -- to do it.
In the great scheme of things -- the president and his liberal organizers have waited this long to complete his fundamental health care transformation, what's another delay? [Guess that only works if the president thinks of it first...ooooh snap. and make mine ginger] But seriously, how insane would it be if they can't deal with a little itty bitty delay? Right? Anarchy comes in all kinds of flavors, doesn't it now?
At the end of the day tomorrow -- it may not be pretty, but let's just hope it's eatable.
Make it a Good Day, G