The Wall Street Journal nails what Pelosi and her merry band did last week, in short bowed to the far left and cut off funding to support our troops in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The Senate will in all likelihood restore this funding and get rid of the retreat timelines, but the whole thing is one more example of Democrats turning our government into a circus.
Seriously, props to Jay Stevens for the national attention. It must be exhilarating to get that kind of recognition. I mean, to have Howard Dean - Mr. Montana himself - recognize the hard work of being a lefty blogger along with 49 other official state blogs (sucks to be in states 51-57 I guess) has got to be exciting. I’m sure Dean is a regular reader - you can tell from the way his statement doesn’t seem scripted at all. I wonder if it was the 49th or the 50th one he did that day.
I mean getting a shout out of national significance - from an important place like Washington, DC, the home of Senator Max Baucus, Mr. BMW himself, is a remarkable accomplishment, so well done.
Of course, to share in your celebration we’ll all forget that we know that national Democrat Leaders will say anything to dupe Montanans into supporting them.
I guess we’ll just have to settle for the insignificant opinions of actual Montanans like Congressman Denny Rehberg and Gubernatorial Candidate Roy Brown. Ooooh the sour grapes taste awful!
YEEEAAHH!!!
Roy Brown wrote an Op-Ed over at Montana Headlines.
Unfortunately, Governor Brian Schweitzer is among those who support this federal power-grab, despite all the problems it creates in Montana. He’s taken the side of extreme environmental groups who contend that the federal government should apply the standards of the Clean Water Act to all waters in Montana, from our major rivers on down to stock ponds and irrigation ditches.
I certainly don’t envy Jay in his self-imposed task to re-brand the Democrats as the party of Fiscal Responsibility. His effort to de-brand the Republican party isn’t as difficult a task as it should be. Some in the GOP lost their way, and for too long the philosophy of small government got lost. But it was the Party - not the philosophy - that failed.
I’m willing to concede that both parties actually want fiscal responsibility. The difference is how they prefer to get it. When a Democrat preaches fiscal responsibility, they are using code for “higher taxes” to pay for all their great ideas about how government can take best care of us.
Take, as an example of the Democrat’s habitual need to raise taxes, Jay’s criticism of Republicans for rejecting a tax increase tied to the continued extension of the Alternate Minimum Tax (AMT) - i.e. the preservation of the status quo.
Forty Republicans signed the letter, indicating that, once again, no responsible offsets will be included in an AMT patch. The Republicans have Congress and the country between a rock and a hard place: the only recourse Democrats have in this battle is to not implement a patch, which is neither politically palatable nor particularly progressive.
Here’s the problem for the claim that Democrats are acting responsibly. They spent money that they never intended on collecting.
That’s why they are insisting on an off-set. Think about it, the Democrats always intended to fix AMT so then they never expected the revenue that would have come from not fixing AMT. Since they always knew that revenue wasn’t going to be there, it was fiscally irresponsible for them to spend the money. By spending non-existant income, they justified for themselves a need to raise taxes - even though the policy they are off-setting is the status quo.
The last paragraph was a mouthful, so I’ll put it in terms of 13-year-old econ like Jay did. While I don’t know many 13-year-olds with credit cards (you have to be 18, don’t you?), you don’t need a credit card to understand that you shouldn’t spend money that you aren’t going to earn.
One of my favorite Montana blogs is Kilo India Tango. She’s getting married pretty quick here, and I’ve been reading her progress complete with the cannon that she’s going to fire at her ceremony. Kit loves her guns, big noises and - of course - a little WoW. Although most of her material avoids political commentary, she does get into it sometimes. Her post on White Racist Voters is worth a read.
They went on to use the phrase “white racists voters” three more times, but portrayed the black voters as “the good guys.” Let me make sure I understand. If you vote against Obama because he’s black, you’re a white racist. But if you vote for him because he’s black…. you’re elevated to sainthood for canceling out those nasty white racists’ racist votes?
This weekend I spent some time with my ladyfriend (hi baby!) - and honored her request that I keep my computer use to a minimum. She gets jealous sometimes and being that it’s her birthday, I figured I’d respect her request. But over the next few days, I’ll be back. And when I get back I’m changing tracks a little bit to talk about some hyjinx that aren’t getting nearly the attention they deserve. Governor, you’re been warned. Consider this a warning to get your house in order.
And just to let you know I appreciate your patience, here’s a fun little factoid I learned from the good people at Diet Mountain Dew (I kid you not).
The term “news” to describe important current events like reprinting DC-based gossip columns as if they were really important came from an old graphic that was use by papers. It was a globe, with the points of a compass marked thusly:
North, East, West, South. NEWS.
I love Diet Mountain Dew.
Update: Okay, so this factoid more interesting than it is true. I still love Diet Mountain Dew though. And to make up for it I leave you with this replacement factoid: You have more bacteria in your body than cells. Even with anti-bacterial soap.
Looks like the neighborhood is changing, and we just got here too. Craig over at MTPolitics has a guest blogger today, Denny Rehberg. The Congressman is showing his support for the Blogger Protection Act which protects the political speech of bloggers from FEC rules. Go check it out.
Via Dave Budge.
Go to Welcome Home Montana and check it out.
Another day, another inaccurate description of the Rehberg-SCHIP affair.
Jay links to a timeline over at Kos (I will not link to that site, ever) stating Rehberg wrote his op-ed on August 10, 2007. Not really a huge issue other than the editorial was published August 3rd in Billings, and is dated August 1 on his website. This of course means Rehberg wrote the op-ed concurrently with his vote, not afterwards.
Not that I expect Kossacks to have an understanding of the Eastern Montana mentality, but the author misses by a wide margin about what happened in Sidney. From my own experiences, and what was published, the lady at the meeting was mad at Denny for opposing the President on SCHIP. Kinda goes against the whole rubber stamp meme doesn’t it?
Lamnidae has recently graduated from commenting to, well, gad-flying with her own little corner of cyberspace. So far the transition hasn’t gone too smoothly but being new ourselves I guess we can forgive a bit of a learning curve.
For one, Brad points out that she needs to source her claims - like that Erik Iverson (diabolical puppet-master) is the highest paid staffer in the House of Representatives. This would be a little easier to accept if, well, the salary she claimed he received weren’t impossible. She seems to be posting from the new jhwygirl / Jay Stevens school of argumentation: “there’s no proof against it so it must be true.”
Most recently though, is an entertainingly clumsy attempt to go after Rehberg for supporting a policy that he says is popular in Montana. Egads! “Elected Representative uses constituents opinion as justification for policy position.” I sure hope the press doesn’t get ahold of this unpinned grenade! If this breaks, I don’t even want to imagine the shock waves that will reverberate through the Republican establishment.
Oh and Lamninate also makes fun of my name while calling Roy Brown a monkey and Jack the Blogger a goofball. I guess she wants to play full contact.
Welcome to the blogs honey. Looks like you’ve learned your name-calling from Wulfgar and your argumentation style from Jay. You should fit right into the evolving irrelevance that has lately settled over Sinestra.
