In a piece he wrote for Forbes magazine in 1972, the great Saul Bellow wondered if John Kennedy was right to tell us, “ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.” Like many of Kennedy’s slogans, it was always better tailored for commencement speeches than for reality, especially as too many who’d taken Kennedy’s words to heart were still uselessly dying in the Vietnam graveyards he started digging for them. Besides being preoccupied with America, there isn’t much people could do other than protest in those surly 70s. “The level of public discussion is unsatisfactory,” Bellow complained, as if he were writing today. “As we become aware of this, our hearts sink. The absence of articulate political leadership in the country makes us feel that we are floundering.”
Of course he was writing at a time when Richard Nixon was president, a reminder that even in the worst of times, if the nation could survive that knave, it’s not about to be sunk by the dimmer likes of John Boehner and Ted Cruz. On the other hand, even when Nixon took the dollar off the gold standard, he never threatened the full faith and credit of the United States, as these suicidal fanatics just did in their latest attempt to end Obamacare. They knew they were fighting a battle they couldn’t win by taking the United States to the brink of default. These alleged priests of fiscal responsibility were nevertheless willing to stomp their feet long enough to shatter the nation’s—and the world’s—financial stability, and almost did.
Besides shutting down the federal government for 16 days, they’ve cost us roughly $24 billions in lost economic activity, sapping an already fragile recovery and causing thousands of job losses. They’ve gained nothing in return. Republicans’ political standing is more crabby than at any point in the Obama presidency and even lower than when George W. Bush dragged it down to his heck of a job-approval rating. Republicans who didn’t sell out to the tea party saw it coming and are left to pay the price exacted by their more rabid colleagues. What’s left of moderate Republicans may have their own reckoning with graves their tea party colleagues are digging for them.
So what can we do, other than protest? Rather than worry about the entire country, we could begin with our own acreage. Flagler County has the misfortune of being represented by one of those fanatics who held the nation hostage for 16 days. Ron DeSantis is not yet into his second year as a congressman. We should spare him, and ourselves, a second term. His shutdown mania is hardly the only reason.
DeSantis is an ex-corporate lawyer with the personality of a bookend and a push-button doll’s ability to parrot the right-most talking points in a whiny soprano voice. He’s incapable of speaking an original idea or speaking a phrase free of clichés, a remarkable achievement for an Ivy League graduate that should nevertheless have made him a capable, working congressman. But fund-raising aside, DeSantis is not interested in hard work, even less so in governance. He’s a saboteur. He derails, with self-righteous bombast and distortions for TNT. He is, in short, your standard-issue tea party reactionary.
That he was able to safely win election as an unknown with zero political experience is testament to the two most corrupting influences in politics today, both facilitated by a Supreme Court actively disdainful of balance in those regards: money and gerrymandering. DeSantis bought his seat with $1.1 million in contributions, besting a field of less moneyed but, in at least a couple of cases, far brighter Republicans. And he took full advantage of a district gerrymandered for extremists. Florida is no exception in that regard. Though Democrats won 1.4 million more votes than Republican candidates for the House in the last election, Republican still managed a thin majority, itself controlled by the minority of suicide brigades of which DeSantis is a proud soldier.
He voted against reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act. He voted against closing Guantanamo Bay, America’s most enduring concentration and torture center (in whose aberrations he participated as a staffer for the military’s kangaroo proceedings there). He voted to deny food stamps to millions of people—and this from the guy who represents the county with Florida’s highest unemployment rate. And he spent his 10 months in Congress fixating on Obamacare to deny better access to health insurance in a state with the second highest proportion of uninsured Americans. He does not exist outside his Obama fixation, his bête noire in every sense of a term that so disturbingly feeds tea party pathology.
He does all this by wrapping his words and even the name of his proposed bills in the mantle of the nation’s founders, the way he just called one of his anti-Obamacare measures the James Madison Congressional Accountability Act—James Madison, mind you, the consummate compromiser, the founding negotiator who abhorred extremists and ideologues, and who must be retching in his grave to hear his name invoked by a man who doesn’t know accountability from Adams. Madison was nothing if not anal about the nation’s debts, calling them in federalist No. 43 the nation’s “moral obligations.” To DeSantis, one of Congress’ moral mimics, debts are bargaining chips.
But DeSantis, who may have learned the ruse in his Guatnanamo days, quotes the Founding Fathers the way the Taliban quotes the Koran: the cherry-picked citations are correct. The intent is perverse. And for the unconscionable, quite effective. DeSantis applies the identical method to the Founders’ era. He degrades present-day realities in the name of a bogus golden age that tea party amnesiacs love to conjure up as an escape from their own obligations to the present. He knows his public is mostly ignorant of the republic’s founding, its diverse and bitter divisions at the time and since. But he also knows how to exploit that ignorance. His history is worse than invention. It’s distortion so rich in resentment that it’s blind to its own paradox: invoking the founders in a drive for a less perfect union. And DeSantis fancies himself an authority on the Constitution.
Putting aside the merits of debating, amending, retracting or supplanting various parts of the Affordable Care Act, as will happen over time—as must and does happen with any law of consequence, for those interested in governance—DeSantis and his tea party guerillas willfully paralyzed government and endangered the nation’s soundness at its core over a law approved by both chambers of Congress, enacted, ratified by the highest court in the land, and ratified again by a landslide in the 2012 election. Even before the shutdown, the majority of the nation, including legions of Republicans, had loudly rejected the sort of blackmail tactics the tea party was embracing to “defund” the law. The fanatics went ahead anyway. It’s not in their nature to back down. They wouldn’t be fanatics otherwise. But nor can they be legislators. Congress has its warts. Suicidal tricks aren’t among them.
DeSantis isn’t getting the message. He’s doubling down. But so it goes with the dim-witted and the blowhards who think politics is the art of grandstanding rather than the art of the possible, and who are willing to grandstand all the way to the nation’s grave.
Of course there’s something you can do for your country: Vote out DeSantis. But he’ll always have a trump card, and he knows it. That’s the local Democrats, who have a gift for producing congressional candidates who couldn’t win a fifth grade talent show. So we may be stuck with this catastrophe of a congressman for a while yet. Let’s just not kid ourselves. We’ll need Obamacare’s catastrophic coverage to survive him.
Pierre Tristam is FlaglerLive’s editor. Reach him by email here. A version of this commentary was broadcast on WNZF and syndicated by ContextFlorida.
Ray Thorne says
Government shutdown, meanwhile our govt just freed over a billion dollars reinstating aid to Pakistan. Where is the money coming from to help others if we can’t afford to run our own country? Enlighten me.
Edman says
The United States provides about $2 billion in annual security aid, roughly half of which goes to reimburse Pakistan for conducting military operations to fight terrorism. Your defense spending no one wants to cut.
djsii says
Had to read this carefully….twice. I thought you were describing Obama in you diatribe on DeSantis.
Edward Reese says
You will not get enlightenment from anything Tristam has to say. He just parrots the liberal party line, totally ignoring data or reality.
Ben Dover says
Edward , how can you or anybody else still support the republican party , Bush absolutely destroyed our economy lying his way into Iraq , they just held our country hostage for 2.9 billion dollars , to make up for the bribe money they lose due to Obamacare , they asked for and got their consessions in the law before it was passed making sure the poorest of people still get no coverage , how can you or anybody else be against something that protects children born with MS or other deceases or people stricken with cancer from getting medical care , these greedy republicans have been getting paid by insurance companies millions a year to keep that pre existing condition loophole , kind of ridiculous only healthy people can get insurance and the people that really need it cant , my mother and father and sister died of cancer , it wiped out their life savings, leaving dept behind for existing family members because drugs in our country are 100`s of times more expensive then any other country on earth, again republicans taking bribes to not set caps , but they got their 2.9 billion for some of their lost bribes and the worst thing about it is they don t even consider it doing something wrong , they consider it bonuses being taken away, just like them wanting to raise the retirement age AGAIN , to keep the tax cuts Bush had given them , they actually thought it was fair to make poor hard working people wait till 70 till they can retire, you know how many died already at 65 and 66 that never got to retire at 67 cause they had to keep working its disgusting, how any of you people who support robbing from the poor to give to the rich which is exactly what these republicans these days do , cutting school lunch programs and meals on wheels for the elderly whose SS check is not keeping up with cost of living, cause Reagan signed a bill letting them tap into them funds ,just like our dirt bag city counsel did to the water utilities , did you think that was fair.? your already obscene bill went up 18% to pay back money they stole, how you people look at yourselves in the mirror is beyond me, even the Pope just came out saying our government is devilishly greedy , and the shut down is only one of many Im sure when more of their bribe money dries up they will pull this nonsense again, they are all living way beyond their pay grades using bribes from insurance and drug companies and supply companies that charge people 100 bucks for a Q-Tip and 75 bucks for a cotton ball , all so they can travel the world in jets and yachts they stole from hard working people they are supposed to be helping not robbing , time for a moral check buddy , life is short , and all you people supporting these atrocities are going to end up on the same elevator ride to an eternity of fire and misery , hope us working class that earned our way upstairs have movie theaters to watch you get yours.
Jay says
Telling the truth in FL seems pointless in this political climate. You’re spot on and will be branded a lib by people being crushed by Republican’s policies and blocking of policies that don’t benefit billionaires or feed in to culture war fear mongering. It’s a sad truth but when the fairness doctrine went poof thanks to Reagan(a proponent of immigration by the way) the door for completely partisan and dishonest “news” organizations was left wide open. The solidarity of poor, working class/middle class voters was attacked by fear mongering propagandists working in service to the rich and their naked avarice. Obscene Wealth as an almost universally agreed upon immoral/ unethical concept(even within the confines of capitalism) was normalized and CEO’s making obscene sums while their employees don’t make enough to survive on (many times with 2 parents working full time) became acceptable by vast swaths of Americans. As long as Fox News and Rush Limbaugh could influence masses of the population to punch down at marginalized populations, Fox viewers would stop looking up at the rich getting exponentially richer and right leaning legislators making it so much easier for them to keep their obscene sums with lower taxes, tax loopholes/ways to avoid paying taxes at all. There are Govt handouts that give taxpayer funds to the filthy rich, in what amounts to subsidizing wealth to the already wealthy. It’s really gross what/who people vote for because Fox News has programmed them to. This is part of the legacy of the fairness doctrine’s end. CEO’s in 1978 made 31x the typical employee. Productivity has steadily increased with wages for lower,middle even some upper middle class have been stagnant. Pay for CEO’s is now 350x the typical employee with the wealth gap at or worse than early 20th century levels.
Nancy Wainwright says
Your reply was short, sweet, and PERFECT!
Linda says
Whole-heartedly agree.
Congressman Micah must go for anyone in his district.. He voted no on the most recent vote. When I called his office, I was repeatedly told that “ALL” his constituents are against Obamacare.
K says
So I guess that makes us chopped liver? I know more people for Obamacare than against it here in Florida.
barbie says
Mica is a liar and a hypocrite and so is DeSantis. I’ve made it very clear in letter after letter to these clowns that there are plenty of their constituents who welcome Obamacare because it’s better than NOTHING. So all their constituents ARE NOT against it. LIARS.
We need to quit beating around the bush and call these people out for what they are–they are craven cowardly liars who are unfit to hold office and who should have their wages garnished until that 24 billion dollars is paid back. Better yet, they ought to be tried for sedition. Every last one of them violated the 14th Amendment when they put this country in grave fiduciary danger by threatening to be deadbeats and not pay the bills already incurred.
And while I’m at it, I am putting these two on notice now–HANDS OFF SOCIAL SECURITY AND MEDICARE. No freakin’ Grand Bargain deals with President Bipartisany. NO.
IvaHadit says
Very well said. Totally agree.
Genie says
Debt ceiling lifted now to NO DEBT CEILING until 2014. Enlighten me.
confidential says
Lets get out and vote in 2014 and get the record straight this time…beyond Gerrymandering and voters purge list. Lets get rid of this extreme ones elected by the fact that many stayed home in midterm elections. Never again,. Hope we learned our lesson !
SWEET AS PIE. says
Extremely valuable article, Pierre. James Madison also noted ” If men were angels , we would not need government” and, Madison Wisconsin has more enlightened civic involvement , that is truly meaningful, non violent and joy filled.
I believe tea leftovers, will be fabulously fertile ground for better substance for all our country’s people.
PS: I CAN READ TEA LEAVES ON A DEEP MYSTICAL LEVEL.
D LeBrun says
It appears like Rep DeSantis is more interested in destroying rather than legislating. He does not represent my opinions. The solution to this is to mobilize and vote him out of office.
A.S.F. says
@Ray Thorne says–And this has to do with DeSantis how, exactly?
Ray Thorne says
comment isn’t toward DeSantis.Its about the govt shut down that couldn’t be avoided meanwhile there’s billions for Pakistan.
supporter says
http://www.cox2014.com – this guy is the real deal
Outsider says
Oh boy, I don’t even know where to start. Is that all you can do is blame the Republicans for everything? Obama continues to ring up trillions in debt, and you claim it’s the Republicans who are endangering the economy? The Republicans, more specifically, the Tea Party, whether Republican or not are trying to bring some fiscal sanity to this place. The debt will never be repaid, but our children and grandchildren will be stuck with the results. We have already defaulted on our debts as evidenced by the fact that we have to borrow more money to pay off the old ones and cover interest payments as well. What we can’t borrow we print, which is quite an ominous sign in itself. When the tripling of the money supply and the 2000 plus percent increase in excess required reserves get turned loose on this economy inflation will reach the hyper level, the $8 billion in short term debt will have to be refinanced at rapidly rising interest rates, quickly raising interest on the debt from a few hundred billion dollars to nearly a trillion, resulting in some combination of higher taxes, yet more borrowing, and more money printing. If this sounds like an airplane in a flat tailspin, you’re right. And any aviator will tell you it’s almost impossible to recover from this. It was much less surprising to me than the professor who actually conducted the recent study showing a significant percentage of the Tea Party’s members had scientific backgrounds. Scientists are good with numbers, and the numbers paint a bleak picture. Liberals are good at denying reality, but scientists believe in the numbers (reality.) Regardless of who’s in control when the house of cards collapses, the seeds are being sowed right now, all because the powers that be don’t want to be the ones to say “no.” And I find it interesting that you are surprised that DeSantis’s Ivy League education didn’t make him a good congressman when Obama’s Ivy League education didn’t make him a good state senator, U.S. senator, or president.
A.S.F. says
@Outsider says: Republican Presidents have added more to the deficit during their tenures in office than Democratic ones have…and that includes Saint Ronald Reagan. Obama inherited an economy on the brink of collapse from good ole’ boy George W. Bush…and, please, spare me the fake outrage about how that shouldn’t count because it didn’t occur five minutes ago. Our country will be paying for this latest Republican stunt of a government shutdown for some time to come. And you call Obama and the Democrats fiscally irresponsible??? The national debt did not start when Obama took office and it won’t disappear by magic when he leaves, even if a Republican is elected President next time (which, at this point, doesn’t seem likely, given their latest standings in the polls.) The biggest drains on our economy are the “untouchable” entitlements of Social Security and Medicare. That, along with the exorbitant percentage that gets eaten up by that other “untouchable” (to Republicans especially), Defense spending, is what really needs to be addressed. You want to do future generations a favor? Stop laying all the woes for our fiscal problems on the doorsteps of the poor and start dealing with the tougher-to-swallow truths.Tea Party rhetoric may be appealing to some but that doesn’t make it any less a pile of bull and a waste of time.
barbie says
Yes. Republicans refuse to raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans. I cannot believe the utter ignorance of 24 people liking this comment. Read a history book, for crying out loud~! Debt is just as important to this nation’s fiscal health as anything else. The only reasons for “too much debt” is NOT ENOUGH REVENUE.
Much of that debt is defense spending. Much of it is that the United States just can’t keep its armies noses out of everyone else’s business. Quit whining about cuts unless you will cut our bloated, over-used military machine, and start insisting your benefactors PAY THEIR FAIR SHARE OF TAXES.
Anonymous says
Flagler and surrounding counties deserve better. Al Qaeda wasn’t able to shut down our government, but Ron DeSantis did!
He’s “DeSantis Extremis” — too extreme! When you go to the polls in November just say “NO!” to Ron DeSantis!
Dennis McDonald says
When I read this rant I had to re examine the person named in the title. If you change DeSantis to Obama, Republicans to Democrats, and Tea Party to Move On.Org then you would have the King of Gerrymandering !
As for “defunding” that is the tool given only to the House of Representatives, not the Senate by our Constitution. Why ?, most Citizens are unaware that prior to 1913 the Senators were not elected by Popular Vote [17th Amendment]. For over 100 years Senators were chosen and answered to their State leaders. Now they play the Voters for gain with powerful lobbyists only having to stand election every 6th year, we all can see how this was a wrong turn when this built in balance was lost.
1913 was a very bad year for these united States also the year of passing the Fed that now plays QE1, QE2, QE3……and the 16th Amendment, the start of the IRS. In these 100 years we have gone from $75,000 being worth $1.1 Million in today’s Fed $$. One percent CD rates and nearly Zero % rates between banks is not healthy.
Representative Ron DeSantis’s primary function is to be accountable for the money these united States spend. One of his first actions was to DECLINE benefits given to House Representative Members !
I am sure he voted to stop sending billions to Countrys that hate us. Actions speak loudest.
Dennis McDonald
Elaygee says
It appears that some of your commenters also have a talent for blathering quotes written by Koch Brother funded organizations and right wing hate groups. People who cannot come up with even one original fact based thought of their own don’t get my vote or my attention.
Linda says
Bottom line to me, after reading article and comments, these fanatics would support a coup of our government and that is essentially what they did. (looked it up – coup – a sudden, violent, and illegal seizure of power from a government. – that’s what they did, only without literal violence.)
Edward Reese says
You have just described the obama administration, campaigning on a bilzzard of deception and lies; all of which was obvious to anyone who studied obama’s behavior, writings, and studies before his campaign. A significant number of Americans were just too lazy, too hopeful for what he promised, and too impressed with his eloquence to do that.
tom jack says
I am so tired of liberals wrongly stating we would default on the federal debt. According to the U.S. Treasury the August taxes collected amounted to 185 billion 370 million while the debt service was 25 billion 487 million. Do I need to explain to you Mr. Tristam that when you receive more in taxes than you own in debt service you DO NOT default? Yes other government expenses would be affected but it would not have caused a default. You just keep using the same old scare tactics to support your ideology of spend spend spend. You are going to be on the losing side of this argument as many more people nation wide to the tune of 82% say the government is going in the wrong direction. No Mr. Tristam the coming 2014 elections will continue to cut the current democratic edge in the Senate and will lead to Mr. Obama being a lame duck who just as well pack his bags as he will get NOTHING from the congress
Genie says
Mr. DeSantis is one of the few who suggests that Members and the Administration should pay for their own healthcare under Obamacare.
He’s got my vote.
polly says
I certainly disagree with this article. You have taken a very special person who served our country honorably, studied Constitutional Law and ran for office for all the right reasons and accused him of not caring about those he represents. This man is dedicated to all those living in CD6. His stance on deficit spending is one everyone should approve. How long can our country spend, spend, and spend? Do you at home spend, spend, and spend? Or do you try to run your household on a budget? Ron has been all over his district meeting with the people for town halls asking them what they need. He has visited many businesses and asked how they feel Congress could help them rather than tie their hands.
Those who made derogatory comments have not followed Ron’s first year in Congress. And those of us who are aware of how hard he is working for ALL will gladly campaign for his reelection.
Genie says
Alan Greenspan: What Went Wrong
The former Fed chairman on where the economy went wrong, where he went wrong—and Ayn Rand.
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304410204579139900796324772
Interesting read.
My Daily Rant says
Well Pierre he must have been voted in by the Majority.I see you Bleeding Heart Liberals resort to Trashing people but the bottom line is he was voted in by most of the people
NortonSmitty says
“Nobody ever went btoke underestimating the intellegence of the American people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby. “. H. L. Mencken
Geezer says
There’s scores of needy people who have come out against Obamacare.
These are folks who don’t have a pot to piss in.
But they too are helping to clog Obamacare’s computer systems signing up
enthusiastically for affordable healthcare.
It’s the “in thing” for bigots and Tea Baggers to publicly shun Obamacare,
it’s another ball of wax entirely when they desperately need medical care.
The Tea Party has done an excellent job in portraying many Americans as
simpletons all around the world. Did you know that Sarah Palin can see Russia
from her porch on clear nights?
Naturally, I wonder if she can see Uranus as the sun goes down in Alaska.
barbie says
Anyone who would willingly vote for this guy again deserves whatever they have taken from them. Because guys like DeSantis will take and take and take and take until you have nothing left. Make no mistake, people–the GOP AND The Obama Administration are out to con us into “improving” Social Security and Medicare, too, now that this latest contrived Debt Ceiling Drama is over.
Yes, that’s right: Simpson-Bowles is making a big splashy debut again, as our liars in the press continue to perpetuate the lie that “entitlements” will “Bankrupt” us. NONSENSE. First of all, Social Security is an EARNED BENEFIT. We all know that conservaDems and the GOP are drooling to get their hands on a privatized Social Security trust fund–and that’s bad enough. But if this President thinks that putting Bernie Sanders on the finance committee to “study” “Improvements” to the New Deal will mollify us into backing off and letting them “Do their jobs”, he’s nuts. RAISE THE CAP ON EARNINGS. Problem solved.
Washington, your “debt ceiling charade” was just that–something to so disgust the people that they would quit paying attention to you altogether. We did that once, for far too long. Not doing it any more. We’re watching you very, very carefully. ALL OF YOU.
BW says
I personally think the quote at the beginning, “The absence of articulate political leadership in the country makes us feel that we are floundering.”, is still very real today and one of major issues. We have no real leadership with either party. A colleague of mine summed it up perfectly the other day when she said, “I’m just sick of voting for who I think is the least worst.”
We currently have one party claiming to always know best and their own arrogance keeps getting in their own way. And another party that constantly places blame on the other for everything whining they are victims because others won’t fork over their hard-earned dollars for every program they want to fund. Somewhere in the middle there is reason and real solutions but unfortunately that area just keeps getting drowned out.
Sherry Epley says
Very well said Pierre! If the voters really knew Ron DeSantis they would not have elected him to begin with. . . he only represents the worst of human nature. He absolutely does not represent the intelligent and educated members of our community. Let’s get out the vote and have him gone as soon as possible!
Ron says
Excellent article, Mr. Tristam.
I cannot wait to vote against this man when he’s up for re-election.
Anita says
For those of you who have been told that “most” Americans don’t want Affordable Care, a.k.a. “Obamacare”, please paste the following to your browser.
http://america.aljazeera.com/watch/shows/live-news/2013/10/california-man-secureshealthinsurancefor1permonththroughobamacar.html
Ray Thorne says
Affordable Care is not Obama Care.
Johnny Taxpayer says
“If I’m elected to Congress, I will… [work to] Stop Obamacare…” Ron Desantis- 2012 Election Website
I don’t know why the author and the commentators are somehow shocked that Mr. Desantis did, exactly what he said he would do during the campaign. Our esteemed Author whilst throwing stones about how most of his readers are ignorant about the founding of our country, seems to overlook the cornerstone of that founding, that the house of Representatives is the people’s house. Not the Supreme Court’s house, not the administration’s house, the people’s house. Mr Desantis is this district’s voice in the people’s house. And whether the author likes it or not, Mr Desantis was elected by an actual “land slide” (57%) in this district, in the very same election that the author claims was a “landslide” mandate to continue Obama care. It appears to me that perhaps it is the Author who lacks an understanding of our founding.
As far as Gerrymandering goes, two words come to mind, Corrine Brown.
Tim says
Curious how this whole argument centers on the conservative point of view being automatically wrong. No one ever says “Mr. President and fellow Democrats, this ACA is not ready for deployment. We’ve already given numerous exemptions to numerous corporations. We don’t even want to be subject to it so we’ve exempted ourselves. The ACA has resulted in job loss and devaluation around the country at a time when we are trying to get more people to work. Insurance companies that were providing care are being driven out of business by the ACA and leaving people uninsured which is not the intent of the ACA. We should do the right thing and put this whole project on hold while we iron out the bugs. Call the Republicans up and tell them we have a deal.” Nope never hear that the Democrats are being irresponsible with our freedoms, rights, and money. They and the media are blind, deaf, and dumb to the suffering they are causing in their desire to control more and more of our lives. Enough is enough. Vote the liberals out and get back to the intent of the Constitution.
LARRY'S GUNS & AMMO says
Pierre a typical far left rant that does not represent the majority of the American public. This country is more right of center than you think. In time you will see that Obama Care represents why the federal government should get out of our business and the states need to take back control. The Tea party while demonized by the left is in no way as far right as they want every one to believe. DeSantis and Cruz are getting blasted because the liberals fear them. People are tired of the politicians not representing their constituency. We cannot afford the entitlement programs that buy votes from the undocumented democrats. The opinions from the right does not make them racist as the main stream media would have you believe. They are very patriotic people. “Yes I do watch Fox News” Not a surprise I am sure. Thanks for posting this let freedom ring!
Sherry Epley says
Wrong! Pierre actually represents the MAJORITY of the American people. You know, the entire country that elected President Obama TWICE! Most people are open minded, inclusive, positive, caring, forward looking, courageous, patrotic citizens who want to move our entire nation forward into a future we can all be very proud of. . . I am ashamed to say that unfortunately that is not the case with some of the gun tottin’, uncaring, bigoted, close minded people in our local community.
The mean spirited Republican party is actually in its death throws. The rich old lilly white good ole boys will be dying out in the next few years. While I am a lilly white gal, it doesn’t take a genius to see the hard working people of color gaining ground by becoming more educated and moving up in their income and influence levels. This country was founded by immigrants. The 21st century immigrants are not going anywhere. . . legal or not. Women are slowly becoming more influential as well. . . and eventually that will spell the end of men controlling our bodies, and of declaring war every time a group of people dares to rise up with an idea of governing that is not an exact duplication of our own very flawed system.
Yes, our world is changing massively and very quickly. . . and hopefully for the much better!
John says
David Cox (D) Is running in our District (the 6th)
Check him out.
John says
The Party of NO strikes again….
Remember back in June, when the senate passed that historical Immigration reform bill?
Well tonight – on a friday night – House Republicans quietly announced that they are refusing to take a vote on Immigration reform, citing that “there is not enough time”.
Last week, House republicans refused to take vote on Employment Non-Discrimination Act
(ENDA would prohibit discrimination in hiring & employment on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity)
Voted to Cut SNAP by $40 Billion – the bill guts nutrition for those most in need; the poor, the hungry children, the disabled, seniors, and our veterans
March 2013 House Republicans unanimously voted against raising the federal minimum wage, despite the fact that $7.25 an hour is now equal, adjusting for inflation, to the minimum wage of 1950.
So much for rebranding.