The budget clears the House
I’m not going to write a lot about it, because I’ve already said my piece.
I will add once again that I don’t think this is the hill to die on at this point. To get what you want, you have to elect enough people to control Congress. That’s the bottom line. How to get there is a different story. But I don’t see how a civil war that ends up giving control to the Democrats can possibly help. I have no patience for rhetoric that condemns the Tea Party, and I have no patience for rhetoric from the Tea Party that refuses to face facts.
[NOTE: Interesting.]
I’m slightly torn on this one, but in general, I think I’m against the deal.
However, with that said, I would like to ask a question of you, Neo, and it might be one I’ve at least alluded to before, if not asked outright… Because this isn’t the first time you’ve mentioned that you don’t think (x) is the hill to die on. What hill do you think would be one worth dying on?
To paraphrase Patton, the object is to get the enemy to die for his country.
I’m in agreement that this isn’t the hill to die on because electing more Tea Party/Libertarian/Conservatives in 2014 & 2016 is the only way to stop the growth of the Entitlement and Regulatory State.
That said, the budget deal is as much about advancing to Amnesty as it is to take the budget off the table to retain the public’s focus upon the ObamaCare debacle.
The GOP leadership’s support for Comprehensive Amnesty for 11-33 million ‘undocumented democrats’, which will ensure near-permanent one-party rule in America for generations to come, while that leadership KNOWS that Obama will ignore any provisions he dislikes is also a fact that must be faced about the GOP leadership.
Anyone who opposes a “civil war” in the GOP is in favor of keeping Boehner, Ryan, McConnell, Cornyn and the rest of the schlubs on Capitol Hill.
The war needs to be against the Dems, and the schlubs do not have it in themselves to fight outside the family.
neo writes, “I’m not going to write a lot about it, because I’ve already said my piece,” and gives the link.
In response, M J R wrote,
“The Democrats, lefties, and other assorted statists would *love* to have a budget battle as a distraction from confronting head-on the obamacare disaster. [dot dot dot] At least with kicking the can down the road – with spending cuts in the future that are never going to happen, let’s no one kid ourselves – we can focus on containing the more more immediate malignancy.”
Drew M., at Ace of Spades HQ, has written an excellent rebuttal to M J R’s point of view, and more or less to neo’s point of view, that I think has merit and is worth a read:
http://ace.mu.nu/archives/345692.php
@Geoffrey Britain – That thought had crossed my mind and that of several others as well, it seems (that they want this out of the way to get to Amnesty ASAP next year).
Think about it like this… What if McCain et al are pushing for Amnesty, not because they think it will result in a groundswell of new GOP voters who have conservative leanings, but because it will make their seats safe from primary opponents from the right? In many ways, it stands to reason that they want it so that they won’t have to answer to us anymore, so long as they capitulate to their Democrat Masters. The Dems will run weak candidates against the McCains, and in turn, the McCains and Grahams will then be elected not via the support of conservatives, but via a coalition of “moderates”, “independents”, and democrats, with a mandate to “compromise”.
It could be that they see Amnesty not as a way to shore up GOP support, so much as it would be a way to marginalize the conservative voting block.
Think about it for a minute… If you look at the Amnesty push from the perspective of personal preservation rather than party preservation, it makes sense. They drive a wedge between themselves and the conservative voting block, which would be spitting mad.
At the same time, they endear themselves to those who lean left, and are probably hoping that the amnesty push gives them, personally, support from the Illegal Immigrants, and shows the “independents” that they can “compromise”. They are trading, in effect, the GOP base that comes with the party ticket, for a personal base that does not have those same conservative values. From their perspective, it’s a win/win. They don’t have to worry about pissing off the base anymore, and get their praise from the NYT and the rest of the MM, get invited to all the cool parties at the White House where they can be seen with Obama, etc…
If they (The GOP Establishment) push for and pass Amnesty, I will never vote for another Republican as long as I live, and I’m sure I’m not the only one. It’s not like that’s some big secret, so why make the push?
Maybe they see this as a feature, and not a bug. The conservative base will have no home, and be politically ended. The Republican Party will be reduced to the permanent minority, and will most likely never produce another presidential winner. But the individuals who did it? They’ll keep their plush Congressional seats, their cocktail parties, a relatively fawning media… Hell, the media would make them into heroes.
And Boenher just fired opening salvos that will distance himself from the “right wing lunies”.
I don’t like this tin-foil land that my mind just ventured into…
They would be mad to do it. With the record that the D’s have for double crossing their Temporary allies, they wouldn’t last one election cycle.
With regards to the budget deal, I’m with Denninger:
It’s Over Folks
As for immigration, here is what I said last night at Ace of Spades:
It’s no longer about Democrats vs. Republicans. As Codevilla said, it’s the Ruling Class vs. the Country Class. They wish to take us back to an era when hereditary elites were not bound by the same laws that governed (or controlled) the peasantry.
The Marxists have completely taken over education, and they are rewriting history and teaching younger generations that traditional America was rife with oppression and injustice, rather than the Land of Opportunity.
Those of us who were educated before the Marxist takeover are in the way and need to be silenced. We’re becoming a smaller and smaller minority year by year. Immigration will overwhelm us and destroy our political power. Government-run health care will further reduce our numbers through attrition. Eventually there will be no one left who remembers America as it was.
MJR @ 6:07,
Outstanding link and a very persuasive argument by Drew M., at Ace of Spades HQ
“It’s no longer about Democrats vs. Republicans. As Codevilla said, it’s the Ruling Class vs. the Country Class. They wish to take us back to an era when hereditary elites were not bound by the same laws that governed (or controlled) the peasantry.” rickl
“Men by their constitutions are naturally divided into two parties:
1. Those who fear and distrust the people, and wish to draw all powers from them into the hands of the higher classes.
2. Those who identify themselves with the people, have confidence in them, cherish and consider them as the most honest and safe, although not the most wise depository of the public interests.
In every country [and time] these two parties exist, and in every one where they are free to think, speak, and write, they will declare themselves.” —Thomas Jefferson to Henry Lee, 1824
“The Marxists have completely taken over education, and they are rewriting history and teaching younger generations that traditional America was rife with oppression and injustice, rather than the Land of Opportunity.”
Because that is an historical lie, it cannot stand upon its own merits. One indication of that is that “Obama’s approval rating with Hispanic voters has dropped 23 percentage points in the last year, down from 75 percent in December of last year to 52 percent this November.
Meanwhile, a Harvard University Institute of Politics poll shows that 54 percent of Millennials disapprove of Obama’s performance, with 18- to 29-year-olds now viewing the president as unfavorably as they ever have. A startling 47 percent of young people said they would vote “Yes” if the president were to be “recalled.”
All of this is evidence that, once again Shakespeare had it right, “Oh what a tangled web we weave. When first we practice to deceive…”
fred Barnes, from Neo’s closing link:
“It was the defection of Republicans, led by chairman Buck McKeon of the Armed Services Committee, that shattered the pro-sequester majority. Republican members of the Appropriations Committee also dissented for turf reasons. The sequester intruded on their role in shaping the budget. The result: The sequester was suddenly vulnerable.
“Only under these circumstances does the budget accord fashioned by House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan and his Senate counterpart, Democrat Patty Murray, become minimally acceptable.”
The sequester was a budgetary triumph. It came out of the White House as a bluff, and the bluff was called.
I accept F. Barnes’s explanation of motives of RINOs in power(above).
These are the people in the GOP (nominally, our party) with whom we should compromise? We should leave it to these shaky, egoistic reeds to pick the hill we should die on?
Geoffrey Britain, 8:40 pm –“Outstanding link and a very persuasive argument by Drew M., at Ace of Spades HQ.”
Geoffrey Britain, your “endorsement”, so to speak, will encourage others to have a look. Here it is again . . .
http://ace.mu.nu/archives/345692.php
GB…
The term of art is “Virgin Democrats” … Barry will groom them in due time.
It’ll be so bromantic, too.
No respect upon the morning after, though.
57 ways to leave your lover, indeed.
rickl, I remember a story called TSN Epiphany. In it, they made Obama, who is clearly Obama, out to be a dictator, claiming the President for Life title, and causing a civil war in the US that got rid of him.
I thought at the time, “what is the author” smoking here. Not that it was implausible to me, but that he would clearly write it out like that in so obvious a manner in a published book that the NSA, CIA, would gladly put on the watchlist.
Now it ain’t so funny, I guess.