Distractions

House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R, LA) spoke, a dozen years ago, to a white supremacist group founded by KKK-er David Duke. He did this as a state legislator on the stump and speaking to any group willing to listen in an effort to push his then pending state tax legislation. There’s nothing in his record since, no behavior since, to indicate he agrees with the group’s or Duke’s “principles;” Scalise has, in fact, explicitly repudiated them.

Yet this speech is being touted as a serious distraction to the new Republican majorities in both houses of Congress.

On what basis, though, is it a distraction? How many Republican votes are lost to this “distraction” from the 247 about to appear in the House? How many Republican votes are lost from the 54 in the Senate?

What bills under consideration, what bills being readied for consideration in the next two years, will not be brought to votes because of this “distraction?” There’s no distraction here.

The “distraction” is entirely manufactured: the minority party Democrats are desperate to change the subject away from the conservative, nationally beneficial legislation that’s likely to be passed over these next two years, and away from the conservative, nationally beneficial reversal of Democrat damage done over the preceding six years. The NLMSM is desperate to not have to report on the successes of those legislative efforts or on the message being sent to Americans by President Barack Obama’s vetoes of those legislations.

The minority party is willing to be racist in its desperation to change that subject, just as it’s been willing to be racist all along in its blind opposition to anything Republican.

The Flexibility of No More Elections

Some high points of President Barack Obama’s activities since the 2014 midterm elections—the last elections he’ll ever have to face, even vicariously through his party.

He’s chosen to give favor to Cuba’s Castro brothers, while receiving nothing of value to the US in return.

He’s chosen to extend favor to Iran and their nuclear weapons program while assuring all who can hear him that he’ll veto any Congressional move to extend sanctions.

He’s chosen to suspend enforcement of immigration law while assuring all who can hear him that he’ll veto any Congressional move to force enforcement.

He’s chosen to continue blocking Keystone XL while assuring all who….

He has 2,375 proposed rules now awaiting final publication without checking even their underlying principle with Congress first, in a complete, cynical bypassing of Congress.

In his latest move, he’s chosen to release from Guantanamo yet five more terrorists without any assurance that they’ll not rejoin the terrorists. Here, though, rather than threatening to block Congressional action, he’s assuring all who can hear him that he’s just going to go right on blithely turning loose the terrorists we’ve got locked up in Guantanamo.

Obama’s flexibility now that the elections are over—the outright insubordination and, worse, lawlessness—stems from our enforcement ability. We can’t fire him at the next election; he’s out the door, anyway. He can’t be impeached; there are too many Democrats who actually believe these…misbehaviors…are legitimate.

What we can do, though, and what we should do, is fire the Democratic Party at the next election for its complicity in Obama’s misbehavior. And keep them out until they show us they’ve mended their ways.

What we can do, and what we should do also, is keep a close eye on the Republican Party via primaries and the main elections, firing Republicans where necessary, in recognition of the dangers—demonstrated by that Democratic Party—of one-party rule.

In the meantime, these are going to be a very dangerous two years for the Republic.

Happy New Year

Originally published in 2012, I repeat it here.

This blogger hopes for increasing prosperity for all in the new year just begun. Following are some additional thoughts, from those better than I.

Dinner was made for eating, not for talking.
–William Makepeace Thackeray

New Year’s Resolution: to tolerate fools more gladly, provided this does not encourage them to take up more of my time.
–James Agate

Those who gave thee a body, furnished it with weakness; but He who gave thee Soul, armed thee with resolution. Employ it, and thou art wise; be wise, and thou art happy.
–Akhenaton

Character is the ability to carry out a good resolution long after the excitement of the moment has passed.
–Cavett Robert

And ye, who have met with Adversity’s blast,
And been bow’d to the earth by its fury;
To whom the Twelve Months, that have recently pass’d
Were as harsh as a prejudiced jury –
Still, fill to the Future! and join in our chime,
The regrets of remembrance to cozen,
And having obtained a New Trial of Time,
Shout in hopes of a kindlier dozen.
–Thomas Hood

We spend January 1 walking through our lives, room by room, drawing up a list of work to be done, cracks to be patched. Maybe this year, to balance the list, we ought to walk through the rooms of our lives…not looking for flaws, but for potential.
–Ellen Goodman

New Year’s Day: now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual.
–Mark Twain

Youth is when you’re allowed to stay up late on New Year’s Eve.  Middle age is when you’re forced to.
–Bill Vaughn

This bit of ’70s-style wisdom:

A year from now, you’re gonna weigh more or less than what you do right now.
–Phil McGraw

And finally,

Let our New Year’s resolution be this: we will be there for one another as fellow members of humanity, in the finest sense of the word.
–Goran Persson

Update: <sigh> Corrected the date….