Tag: public servants

March 3, 2016: The Day That The Republican Establishment “Mooned” Its Base

On By kingsjesterIn Politics1 Comment

GOP-Great-600-LI-1Indeed, we gave birth to an entirely new concept in man’s relation to man. We created government as our servant, beholden to us and possessing no powers except those voluntarily granted to it by us. Now a self-anointed elite in our nation’s capital would have us believe we are incapable of guiding our own destiny. They practice government by mystery, telling us it’s too complex for our understanding. Believing this, they assume we might panic if we were to be told the truth about our problems. – Ronald Wilson Reagan, March 31, 1976

In the middle of a day which saw the Grand Old Party attack its own Political Primaries Front-runner, with a savagery unseen during the 7-year reign of Petulant President Pantywaist, the following self-serving example of the Vichy Republicans’ oblivious nature broke on CNN.com:

Washington (CNN) – Mitt Romney has instructed his closest advisers to explore the possibility of stopping Donald Trump at the Republican National Convention, a source close to Romney’s inner circle says.

The 2012 GOP nominee’s advisers are examining what a fight at the convention might look like and what rules might need revising. 

“It sounds like the plan is to lock the convention,” said the source.

Romney is focused on suppressing Trump’s delegate count to prevent him from accumulating the 1,237 delegates he needs to secure the nomination.

But implicit in Romney’s request to his team to explore the possibility of a convention fight is his willingness to step in and carry the party’s banner into the fall general election as the Republican nominee. Another name these sources mentioned was House Speaker Paul Ryan, Romney’s running mate in 2012. 

You don’t have to read too far between the lines of the speech Romney gave Thursday at the University of Utah to see the imprint of this plan. He urged voters to support the candidate most likely to prevent Trump from racking up delegates in their states — saying he’d back Florida Sen. Marco Rubio if he were voting in the Sunshine State, Gov. John Kasich if he were voting in Ohio, or Texas Sen. Ted Cruz in the states where he polls as Trump’s strongest foe.

“If the other candidates can find common ground, I believe we can nominate a person who can win the general election and who will represent the values and policies of conservatism,” Romney said.

According to the source, Romney does not expect Rubio, Cruz or Kasich to emerge as the single candidate that can accumulate 1,237 delegates and outright defeat Trump before the convention. So the only way to rob Trump of a victory would be to keep him from reaching that magic 1,237 number.

For those of you who don’t know, a brokered political convention comes about when no single candidate has secured a pre-existing majority of delegates (whether those selected by primary elections and caucuses, or superdelegates) before the first official vote for a political party’s presidential candidate at its nominating convention.

In other words, the Leaders of the Political Party choose their Presidential Candidate, regardless of the wishes of the American Voters.

In Former Governor and Presidential Election Loser. Mitt Romney’s scripted attack on Trump yesterday, he spoke, to a great extent, in the same didactic tone in which Barack Hussein Obama has insulted, cajoled, and lectured us in for the past 7 years.

The day-long attack continued last night, during the Republican Candidate Debate, held by Fox News at the historic Fox Theatre, as The Washington Post describes:

Billionaire Donald Trump entered Thursday night’s GOP debate as the race’s front-runner — but he spent much of the night on the defensive, struggling to explain his positions to skeptical moderators, arguing with his rivals, even trying to drown out their arguments with shouted insults.

“I won 10 states,” Trump said at one point, reasserting his dominance on a night when it seemed to be under assault. “I am by far the leader!”

Throughout the debate, both Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.) and Sen. Ted Cruz (Tex.) returned to the furious attacks they had mounted on Trump a week before. Rubio, as before, assailed Trump with an eye toward moderate voters — asserting, again and again, that Trump was an unserious con man who was simply telling them what they wanted to hear. Cruz made a different pitch: Aiming at conservatives, he repeatedly sought to assert that Trump was a closet liberal, who had donated and befriended conservative enemies such as Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton.

Trump replied, as before, that he was beating them both. Which he is. With the anti-Trump vote still split between Cruz, Rubio and Ohio Gov. John Kasich, it will be hard for a single challenger to pass Trump.

…The debate reflected the degree to which Trump has changed the GOP’s discourse — at one point, he made an unprompted joke about his genitals — but also the degree to which the other candidates have mimicked his style. Cruz often treated Trump like a child with a temper tantrum, urging him to “breathe” with mock concern. Rubio repeatedly interrupted Trump, as Trump had interrupted others, saying “False. False,” as Trump tried to make a point.

Kasich, as he did in the last debate, did not participate in the attacks on Trump. Instead, he seemed to be holding his own private event at the side of the stage, ignoring the fighting next to him and trying to speak directly to voters.

At the end of the debate, all four candidates onstage refused to break the last taboo of a party debate. The other three said they would vote for Trump, if he became the GOP nominee. Trump said he would vote for one of them, if the nominee turned out to be somebody else — a vow he has made, and then reconsidered before.

But first, Trump mocked the idea that he might have to face the choice at all.

“Even if it’s not me?” he asked, as if the idea were something he hadn’t thought of before.

The way that the Republican Establishment is orchestrating their failing attacks on Donald J. Trump reminds me of “Blazing Saddles”:

We must protect our phony baloney jobs, gentlemen! Hrumph!

During his speech yesterday, Mitt Romney said,

I understand the anger Americans feel today. In the past, our presidents have channeled that anger, and forged it into resolve, into endurance and high purpose, and into the will to defeat the enemies of freedom. Our anger was transformed into energy directed for good.

Pardon my bluntness, Governor, but

You guys don’t understand squat!

The anger that you are witnessing, that has propelled an outsider to the undisputed lead in the Republican Primaries, is one which has been building since January of 2009, when a Lightweight, who seems to have as much in common with us as a Martian would, was inaugurated as President of the United States of America.

That anger, a result of his anti-American actions and resulting policies, which have affected Americans’ daily lives, has been exacerbated by you out-of-touch, pompous professional politicians that comprise the Republican Elite, whom, in your desire to “reach across the aisle” and “go along to get along”, have distanced yourselves from the average Americans, here in “Flyover Country”, who elected you to Congress in the first place.

Meanwhile, average Americans, like myself, remain mired up to our necks in an abysmal swamp of bills and taxes, living paycheck-to-paycheck, afraid to make a move, for fearing of drowning in an ocean of debt.

Seemingly forgotten, among all of your self-righteousness and empty promises, are the 94 million Americans, who are no longer, largely through no fault of their own, participating in our Workforce.

You want to talk about anger and frustration?

Try looking for work, when you are over 55 years of age.

It makes you want to give up…daily.

But, I digress…

Anger has played an important part in the forging of this great country, which will be lucky to survive Obama’s final year in office.

It was anger that formed our country….an anger over being held captive to “Taxation Without Representation”…an anger which, as a prime example of history repeating itself, Americans are experiencing, even as I type this blog.

It is this anger, which has propelled Donald J. Trump to his lead in the Republican Primary Race…and those, like yourself,  who prefer your beloved “Washingtonian Status Quo” know it.

Hence, South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley’s alluding to it in her Rebuttal to this year’s State of the Union Address, something which has never been done before.

When delivering a Rebuttal to the SOTU Address, the Opposition Party’s Spokesperson is supposed to discredit the sitting President, not one of their own.

In conclusion, concerning the “Mantle of Anger”, I, like Trump, wear it proudly.

And, judging by the reality of Trump’s overwhelming lead in the Republican Primaries, I am not alone.

It is an American’s Right…and Heritage.

And…it shows that you and your fellow Vichy Republicans, don’t have a clue.

Until He Comes,

KJ

 

 

 

Our Federal Government: Public Servants Serving Themselves?

On By kingsjesterIn Politics2 Comments

Remember “Hope and Change”?  After 3 years of Obama, all we’ve gotten is “Mope and Blame”…and Americans seem to be fed up with the present occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and all of his minions on Capitol Hill.

Per Politico.com:

Today, just one in three has a favorable view of the federal government — the lowest level in 15 years, according to a Pew survey. The majority of Americans remain satisfied with their local and state governments — 61 percent and 52 percent, respectively — but only 33 percent feel likewise about the federal government.

In 2002, nearly double that figure, 64 percent viewed the federal government favorably, and Americans held their local and state governments in similar esteem, at 67 percent and 62 percent, respectively.

There’s the expected partisan gap: A majority of Democrats, 51 percent, view the Obama-led government favorably, compared with 27 percent of independents and 20 percent of Republicans. During the Bush presidency, a majority of Republicans viewed the federal government favorably, while support for it faded among Democrats.

The poll also reveals that more Americans trust their state governments to be honest, efficient and less partisan than the federal government.

The survey of 1,514 people was conducted Apr. 4-15, with a margin of error of 2.9 percentage points.

Of course, William Jefferson Clinton was president 15 years ago. You know, the womanizer whom Liberals remember so fondly…the guy Obama left to finish answering questions at a press conference…the smooth operator who crawled around the Oval Office rug with Monica Lewinsky.

In 1997, Clinton had a popularity rating of 57%, a result of the illusion of bi-partisanship between him and a Republican Congress.

Since then, thanks to out-of-touch public servants, Americans have grown to literally despise those whom they have elected to serve them in the nation’s capital.

This hatred has been brought on by incompetency and avarice.  These “public servants” seem to lose their minds when they arrive in Washington, D.C.  They decide that our money is their money, to freely spend as they wish, on causes both noble and ignoble.

Ronald Wilson Reagan spoke about these “public servants” during a memorable speech titled “A Time for Choosing” delivered during a broadcast in 1994 in support of the presidential campaign of Barry Goldwater:

…The Founding Fathers knew a government can’t control the economy without controlling people. And they knew when a government sets out to do that, it must use force and coercion to achieve its purpose. So we have come to a time for choosing.

Public servants say, always with the best of intentions, “What greater service we could render if only we had a little more money and a little more power.” But the truth is that outside of its legitimate function, government does nothing as well or as economically as the private sector.

Yet any time you and I question the schemes of the do-gooders, we’re denounced as being opposed to their humanitarian goals. It seems impossible to legitimately debate their solutions with the assumption that all of us share the desire to help the less fortunate. They tell us we’re always “against,” never “for” anything.

We are for a provision that destitution should not follow unemployment by reason of old age, and to that end we have accepted Social Security as a step toward meeting the problem. However, we are against those entrusted with this program when they practice deception regarding its fiscal shortcomings, when they charge that any criticism of the program means that we want to end payments….

We are for aiding our allies by sharing our material blessings with nations which share our fundamental beliefs, but we are against doling out money government to government, creating bureaucracy, if not socialism, all over the world.

We need true tax reform that will at least make a start toward restoring for our children the American Dream that wealth is denied to no one, that each individual has the right to fly as high as his strength and ability will take him…. But we cannot have such reform while our tax policy is engineered by people who view the tax as a means of achieving changes in our social structure….

Have we the courage and the will to face up to the immorality and discrimination of the progressive tax, and demand a return to traditional proportionate taxation? . . . Today in our country the tax collector’s share is 37 cents of every dollar earned. Freedom has never been so fragile, so close to slipping from our grasp.

Are you willing to spend time studying the issues, making yourself aware, and then conveying that information to family and friends? Will you resist the temptation to get a government handout for your community? Realize that the doctor’s fight against socialized medicine is your fight. We can’t socialize the doctors without socializing the patients. Recognize that government invasion of public power is eventually an assault upon your own business. If some among you fear taking a stand because you are afraid of reprisals from customers, clients, or even government, recognize that you are just feeding the crocodile hoping he’ll eat you last.

If all of this seems like a great deal of trouble, think what’s at stake. We are faced with the most evil enemy mankind has known in his long climb from the swamp to the stars. There can be no security anywhere in the free world if there is no fiscal and economic stability within the United States. Those who ask us to trade our freedom for the soup kitchen of the welfare state are architects of a policy of accommodation.

They say the world has become too complex for simple answers. They are wrong. There are no easy answers, but there are simple answers. We must have the courage to do what we know is morally right. Winston Churchill said that “the destiny of man is not measured by material computation. When great forces are on the move in the world, we learn we are spirits–not animals.” And he said, “There is something going on in time and space, and beyond time and space, which, whether we like it or not, spells duty.”

You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the first step into a thousand years of darkness. If we fail, at least let our children and our children’s children say of us we justified our brief moment here. We did all that could be done.

So now, after another 15 years of a federal government consumed by incompetency and avarice, we once again stand on that precipice which Reagan was talking about, looking into the abyss.

Will America fall into that endless chasm, or will we leap toward a brighter future?

The choice is up to us.