I wanted to take a moment to wish our many Legal Insurrection friends a HAPPY FESTIVUS! For those of you wondering what Festivus is about, click HERE for details.
There are four key components of Festivus:
- The Festivus Pole
- The Airing of Grievances
- Festivus dinner (filled with carbohydrates)
- The Feats of Strength
- Hat-tip: http://www.festivusweb.com/
Needless to say, dinner and displays of physical strength are difficult to do in an internet format. But I thought today might be a good forum for airing Tea Party Grievances. I want to send this message clearly to our political leader Washington DC:
“I’ve got a lot of problems with you people, and now you’re going to hear about it!”
My grievance today stems from a comment made by Ohio Congressman Steven LaTourette, a Republican who says Speaker of the House John Boehner is not to blame for the failure of the Plan B Fiscal Cliff strategy. Instead, LaTourette blames the Tea Party “chuckleheads” who have “screwed this place up.”
Mindful of the fact I am a Democrat, I will remind the Ohio Representative that neither President Obama or Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid have offered in indication they would approve of, compromise with, or work with any Republican-backed solution. Forty or fifty members of Congress who were elected by their citizens to enforce some sense of fiscal sanity, and are acting at the behest of those voters, are not the reason the Republicans in our nation’s capital are covered in shame today.
Boehner failed because no Democrat in power wants him to succeed. Furthermore, the American media is doing nothing to present the full story related to the complexities of our economic troubles. After all, the greater the drama, the better the ratings. Even better when the GOP is on the losing side of the saga!
Blaming the Tea Party backed members of Congress is inane, and does little to inspire these representatives to work with the elite-backed Republicans after the holiday break. And it gives these “rogue” members lots of incentive to change the Congressional GOP leadership after the New Year — and this may actually be the best Christmas present we Tea Party types can get!
Another San Diego activists, W.C. Varones, is a libertarian and expert on financial and economic matters. He recently took an in-depth look at the Plan B failure and offers not only an “airing of the grievances”, but the first prediction of 2013 as well:
The best outcome now would be to go over the fiscal cliff. That would bring baby steps toward fiscal responsibility. The Republicans could then use the debt ceiling as leverage to get entitlement reform. Icing on the cake would be the Republicans throwing [Boehner] out as speaker, which looks a lot more likely now that they’ve stood up to him once.
The more likely outcome, unfortunately, is that the MSM wing of the Democratic Party blames Republicans and hounds them mercilessly. In early January, cowardly Republicans then surrender, just as they have at every opportunity in the past. They undo most of the modest tax increases and spending cuts, and let Obama keep running trillion-dollar deficits. They probably surrender on the debt ceiling too.
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Now I get it! Chris Muir must have done today’s hilarious Day-by-Day Cartoon for Festivus! Leave John Boehner Alone!
If you don’t get the parody, it’s based upon Chris Rocker’s sobbing YouTube video entitled Leave Britney Alone! (language warning)
[…] FOR THE 2012 VERSION, CHECK OUT MY LEGAL INSURRECTION POST: “I’ve got a lot of problems with you people, and now you’re going to hear about it!” […]
Surrender? Nuts.
Steven LaTourette is the chucklehead who needs to go. What did he do to help deliver Ohio? NADA.
He did go. He didn’t run in 2012. After he screwed the place up.
Happy Festivus to all at Legal Insurrection!
Varones’ “best outcome”, quoted above, is an uplifting and inspirational Christmas message. I will keep it in mind during these holidays.
I think that no matter what happens, the Republicans are gonna get an atomic wedgie from O’blamo and the Demoncrats via the Lame Stream Media.
Happy Festivus to one and all at Legal Insurrection!
My Festivus grievance is that the more time that passes after the election, the more screwed up the conservative movement and the GOP are becoming.
A couple of thoughts about an electoral/governing philosophy:
1. Social issues should be left to the states.
2. Federal policy should facilitate a market economy with a safety net.
These points are not a complete platform, and they leave room fleshing out and for negotiation within the coalition. However, hopefully without being unpalatable to key members of the coalition, they might help persuade swing voters that the GOP is not a clown show of religious extremists and corporate grifters. These points are risky because they would change the status quo within the party and the country; however, conservatism has so deteriorated from the condition in which Reagan left it that IMHO risk is unavoidable to restore it.
Presumably members of the coalition recognize that we’re better off with these proposals than we would be with President Elizabeth Warren, VPOTUS Van Jones, Speaker Wasserman Schultz, and a Supreme Court staffed from the New School for Social Research. Because that’s what we may well get if our squabbling and whining continue.
Boehnor’s biggest mistake was trying to do a deal with obama in the first place. A little child could have told Boehnor that obama was not going to be sincere. Boehnor should have put a bill before the house clearing up this mess and letting reid and obama do their thing. Of course, reid would have tabled that bill just as he has tabled all republican bills but at least the base would know that Boehnor and the House had done the right thing. Wereas now, they did the wrong thing with the same result. There is no use in trying to deal with the dims. Their idea of bipartisanship is to give them everything they want and let the republicans have nothing. Anyone who reaches across the aisle is likely to get his hand bitten off.
There is more bad R publicity. A quick check with the local rag I spotted a headline quoting a Romney son as saying the LAST thing Romney wanted to be was President.
Currently it is tucked away under the Christmas Fatwa but not good.
Btw The Christmas Fatwa must get some sort of Festivus prize.
All these anti-Christian holidays–Kwanzaa now Festivius–are really annoying in their bid to distract from the most important event in the world: the birth of Jesus.
The GOP will do what the GOP does: bend over and grab the ankles. Boehner? Wimp. Pussy. Crying tart.
Happy Chanukkah to all!
Merry Christmas to all!
When you oppose a bill making permanent the tax cuts for 99.4% of taxpayers, it is difficult to argue you are not in the tank for the 0.6% you are protecting, especially when the alternative is a tax increase for 100% of taxpayers.
And this is your position because it is your “principle” to oppose any tax increase? By allowing all taxes to increase?
To my mind, “chucklehead” is a rather kind description of such lunacy, especially when it weakens the only counterweight to Obama in Washington. It is “cutting off your nose to spite your face.”