Hopeless Change

The toughest decision on this post was how to title it.  Do I go straight SEO (search engine optimization) and somehow incorporate "Tea Party", "Republican" or "Nancy Pelosi"?  Should I fall for the veiled reference to the fallout of the Republican's new majority in the House of Representatives with something like "Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead"?  I considered "The More Things Change..." and "Too Little Too Late".

Ding Dong, The Witch Is Dead

But I like "Hopeless Change".  It has the same number of syllables as Obama's 2008 campaign slogan of "Hope and Change" while reflecting what yesterday's (Tuesday November 2, 2010) election has accomplished, at least as it applies to the overwhelming majority the Democrats had held in both houses of Congress.  And it pretty much sums up what that change will ultimately mean to this nation.

The Republicans and the Tea Party and Restore the Constitution folks will be celebrating, believing they've sent a message to Washington.  And they have.  Americans are tired of the way things in Washington work.  In the words of newly elected Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, "We've come to take our government back."  Problem is, the people who are expected to deliver the message are the very people we need to take the government back from.

Don't Expect Real Change From The Feds
The kind of change we need at the federal level is not going to be accomplished by the federal government.  No matter how many of the newly elected Congressmen campaigned on how bad Obamacare is (and it's worse than most people fully appreciate) it isn't going to be repealed.  Oh sure, the Republicans may manage to pare it back a little, but it's still going to wind up costing me and you way more money than we're paying for health care now.  It'll cost us directly in higher premiums for individuals and small businesses.  It'll cost us indirectly as those higher premiums are passed on to us as consumers in higher prices and in taxes to pay for it.

And Obamacare is only the tip of the iceberg.  Not only has government gotten too big, it's gotten too arrogant.  And by that I mean the people we have elected.  They have forgotten their place.  They tend to think of themselves, at worst, as rulers, and at best as leaders.  They have forgotten that they are, to put it in Biblical terms, stewards.  And we have allowed them to forget as we have forgotten that it is we, the people, who in this nation are sovereign.  Los Angeles Guns Rights Examiner John Longenecker has written extensively on this concept of sovereignty in the U.S.

A Long Line Of Sidestepping The Constitution
To be fair, Barrack Obama is not the first of our national stewards to overstep his authority, though he has been the most blatant.  This transfer of power from the people to the government, our relinquishing power unconsciously as our elected managers eagerly usurped it, has happened like a frog in a kettle.  You know the analogy, throw a frog into a kettle of boiling water and it will jump out, but put a frog in a kettle of cool water and then turn up the heat under it and the frog will boil to death.  In this instance we are the frog and the federal government has been turning up the heat for a century and a half or more.

It goes back even to good old honest Abe Lincoln when he suspended habeas corpus.  Then Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, Roger B. Taney defied that suspension and ordered a writ of habeas corpus.  Lincoln and the military didn't honor the Justice's writ.  Taney then ruled Lincoln's suspension unconstitutional and Lincoln ignored that ruling.  Franklin Roosevelt was a mastermind of sidestepping the Constitution to fatten big government with his New Deal alphabet agencies.  And of course under George W. Bush the Patriot Act was an egregious violation of Constitutional rights.  All of which, at least tacitly, paved the way for Obama's nationalization of GM and Chrysler, bailouts and Obamacare and the march down the road to America becoming a socialist state.

The Patch Over Of The Tea Party
Now the Republicans have taken control of the House and made major gains in the Senate.  As of noon today (Wednesday November 3, 2010, the day after the election) there were three Senate races that still had not been decided, Alaska, Colorado and Washington.  Without those seats the Senate stands at 49 Democrats, 46 Republicans and two independents, who both caucus with the Democrats.

John Boehner, Republican House Minority Leader from Ohio, who is expected to become the next Speaker of the House, calls the Republican showing a "mandate for Washington to reduce the size of government."  But, again, that's not going to be an easy mandate to realize by those at the federal level.  Not because there's anything stopping them from doing so, save their own self interest.

It started before all of the ballots had been counted last night.  Republicans are trying to annex the Tea Party.  If this was an episode of Sons of Anarchy it would be called a "patch over", where one MC (motorcycle club) influences a chapter of another, usually allied but weaker club to become a chapter of the stronger club so the stronger club can consolidate its power in a certain area.  The weaker club then has to wear the patch of the stronger club.

Republicans last night were talking about the need for party unity and strongly encouraging the so-called Tea Party candidates to moderate their stance in favor of said unity.  The TV network talking  heads repeatedly referred to the "Tea Party Republicans" as if the Tea Party was an official subgroup of the GOP.  The Tea Party can not allow that to happen, but that's a topic I'll discuss in the coming days.

Our Hope Is With The States
The real good news in the results from yesterday's elections is what happened at the state level.  Republicans have gained a majority of state governorships.  That's good news because if any real change is going to be realized at the federal level it's going to have to be initiated by the states.  After all, the federal government was created by and gets its authority from the states.  The bad news is that the states, like we individual citizens, the people, have largely forgotten that.

There has been some rumbling in the past year or so at the state level.  Several states have passed state sovereignty firearm legislation aimed at exempting firearms, ammunition and accessories manufactured, sold and kept in state from federal firearm regulation.  New Hampshire went so far as to add a clause making it a felony for a federal agent to enforce federal firearms regulations on firearms manufactured and kept in New Hampshire.  And a handful of states have passed or are considering legislation aimed at exempting their citizens from participating in any federally mandated health care scheme.

The states defend this type of legislation based on the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which states, "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."  That's the part of the Constitution most often ignored by those in federal government.  And it may be our best hope to affect real change.  There are those two words again, "hope" and "change".  I guess Obama got at least one thing right.

I'm just sayin'.

Barack Obama: Vampire or Zombie

Jimmy Carter has managed to live long enough to see something we could not have imagined, an American president worse than himself. Barack Obama is a failure as a president, a leader, a statesman, an American. When the liberal mainstream media, which only a few short months ago were heralding Obama as some sort of savior, start writing things like Mark Halperin did in the Monday October 11, 2010 issue of Time magazine, you know Obama is in trouble.

Halperin wrote, "With the exception of core Obama Administration loyalists, most politically engaged elites have reached the same conclusions: the White House is in over its head, isolated, insular, arrogant and clueless about how to get along with or persuade members of Congress, the media, the business community or working-class voters." (Full article here.)

Actually, Halperin paints a picture that is too rosy by half, but you have to consider the source. Time magazine and Halperin in particular have long been Obama cheerleaders. But even the Wall Street Journal is pointing out the similarities between Carter and Obama (read the story here).

Obama's politic career is dead. Trouble is he's still in office. So I guess he's really un-dead. And that begs the question; just what type of undead is he, vampire or zombie? He has demonstrated characteristics of each type of monster.

Zombama

Zombies don't think, they simply plod along violently, eating any living creature unfortunate enough to fall into their path. Obama has reacted with zombie-like bloodlust on a number of occasions. There was the time he called the Cambridge, MA police "stupid" and threw down the race card. He wanted to know "whose ass to kick" over the BP oil spill. And he's predicting "hand-to-hand combat" with Republicans should they, as is widely expected, take anything close to a majority of the seats in Congress in the November 2010 mid-term election. Zombies are monsters of opportunity, and Obama has certainly tried to seize his share of monstrous opportunities.

Barakula

On the other hand he has often exhibited the qualities of the vampire. Operating under cover of darkness, the way he and his lackeys did in passage of the Obamacare bill. The mere fact that he has lackeys is much more vampiresque than zombie-like. And he has them, from the Black Panthers intimidating voters in Philadelphia and Attorney General Eric Holder who refused to investigate them, to the bug eating Renfield-like Nancy Pelosi.

Switched at birth?

Renfield                                  Pelosi

And like the vampire he has hypnotically created his own army of the children of the night, oblivious to the coming disaster, heeding only their master's voice. And he has used the classic images of the horror movie to keep them in line, such as when he summoned a group of Wall Street CEOs and told them, "My Administration is the only thing between you and the pitchforks." (Story here)

I fear that Obama is a vampire rather than a zombie. And that frightens me because a vampire is much more difficult to destroy. All it takes to fell a zombie is good clean shot to the temporal lobe. And this can be accomplished in many ways, from a swat with a shovel to a sniper's bullet from hundreds of yards away. The traditional problem with zombies is in their number. They have no organization, no plan, no leadership. It's just that there are usually so many of them that they tend to wear down the living and exhaust their supplies along with their resolve. Most of the knuckleheads in Congress today would fit that description.

But a vampire can be defeated in only one of two ways, exposure to direct sunlight or a wooden stake through the heart. Obama isn't going to be drawn into the light any time soon. He's had way too much experience with dealing in the dark, going all the way back to his days in the corrupt Chicago Democratic machine.

Where is Van Helsing when you need him
No, we're going to need a Van Helsing to take out the vampire residing at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Trouble is, Van Helsings are rarer than vampires and there isn't one in view. No one currently in Congress has been up to the challenge. Among those running for Congress in November there are 55 candidates who have never held national office (story here). But even if Republicans take every seat up for grabs (and that's an extremely long shot at best) it's doubtful that any of them will have the testosterone levels necessary to get close enough to Barakula to hammer a political stake into his chest.

That stake would of course be impeachment. The U.S. Constitution states that a president can be impeached on grounds of "Treason, Bribery or other High Crimes and Misdemeanors". (That last phrase, "high crimes and misdemeanors" is described in some detail here.) Obama's nationalization of GM and Chrysler almost certainly fall under that meaning, as may his use of ACORN and the firing of Inspector General of the Corporation for National and Community Service Mark Walpin.

Beware the angry villagers
It's doubtful that any of those who will be elected in November, rookie or returning incumbent, will raise the impeachment flag. So we will be stuck with a bloodsucker in the White House until at least 2012. And then the question still remains, who will challenge him then? John McCain surely wasn't up to the task in 2008. And if that was the best the Republicans could trot out against Obama you have to wonder what we have to look forward to in two years. Sarah Palin? Please. The only vampire hunter Palin conjures up is Daphne from the Scooby Doo crew.

Daphne Palin

There is no one that I am as yet aware of who is ready to take on Barakula, not after the November election or this far from the 2012 presidential race. The Tea Party and Restore the Constitution movement have the momentum, but they are the pitchfork-wielding villagers. And the villagers always need a frontman, a Van Helsing. So we will have to wait and hope that one materializes, and soon.

If the Republicans can't overturn some of the catastrophic legislation of the past two years, or at the very least, hold the imbecilic policies and legislation coming out of the White House at bay; we may not have time for a Van Helsing to show up. At the point that the Republicans fail to demonstrate some decisive action to reverse the socialist course Obama has taken us down, the villagers are going to turn their pitchforks on anyone and everyone in the castle. And it won't take till the 2012 presidential campaign if there's not some swift action early in 2011.

So we wait and see how November 2, 2010 turns out. Allowing a short period of celebration should the Republicans do as everyone expects. Then it has to be down to business, and not business as usual inside the Beltway. We wait for Van Helsing.

And while we wait, just in case, I'm investing in precious metals. Lead. In brass jackets. Just in case the villagers run out of patience.

I'm just sayin'.