The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse.
- Edmund Burke
So the "good and the great" U.S. Senate passed a $1.1 trillion spending bill today (Saturday, Dec. 13) after a 24-hour gridlock. It gave the mainstream televised media something to focus on for a while, and it gave some pathological worriers something to fret about for a day or so.
Anyhow, all’s hell that ends in hell.
And passage of this $1.1 trillion spending bill removes the possibility of a government shutdown until October 2015. That is, if President Barack Obama signs off on the thing. And why wouldn't he? The ink's most likely dry on his signature as you're reading this - so what? And Obama seems to be the only sane and rational member of the federal government, anyhow. Despite all he's been through, he's still magnanimous and pragmatic.
I really think the federal government should have been shut down. Things are very bad in the United States of America - all around - and the federal government is doing a lousy job of managing it all. Most of what our federal leaders have been doing for the past few years, and I must include Obama here, too, is mismanagement. And Obama's signing of a walloping 923 executive orders in 40 months is mind boggling (please see merchantbard's comment in the comment thread below for some clarification of this statistic). The President has been criticized for taking liberties with the Constitution, much like one of the kings-of-old would do. Now I'm not a lawyer or an expert in Constitutional law, but that figure that's closing in on a thousand executive orders really makes me wonder. Has Obama overstepped his bounds a time or two? If I was a betting man. . .Well. . .You know the song. . .
Having a federal government behaving as badly as it's been behaving is akin to cohabitation with a batshit crazy person. Let's face it, with all that's going wrong these days, maybe it's just time for a breather. And if the state and local governments can manage things, maybe we'll actually get somewhere some day. As a nation of separate states, counties, cities, villages, townships, Indian reservations, and maybe even a riverboat or two. . . .
So I say let’s just do without the federal government for six months or so and see how things go. Now I’m a bit cynical, jaded and eccentric. I know that there is no way this is going to fly. But actually, doing away with the high order might not be such a bad idea. Maybe I even sound anti-American, but believe me, I really love the United States of America. I really do. And although I'm not the type to go to parades or events of a patriotic nature, I really love each and every square inch of this great nation, although sometimes I abhor the politics and the political leaders who are running things, and ruining things, too.
I'm just throwing up an idea, which really isn't a new idea, since other writers have mentioned what I'm mentioning here on many, many occasions. After a federal government shutdown threat has been thwarted at the last minute, there's always a print-oriented bastard (or two, but no more than three) who come out with their opinion pieces, or some wise-Alec, acerbic op-eds with the title "Why not have a government shutdown?" I even wrote one during the last government shutdown threat, which really wasn't all that long ago, and it was published on a satire website out of the United Kingdom.
Anyhow, all is not lost, nor is it all that bad, since I can actually write something like this and not end up being shot by a firing squad or carted off to a concentration camp for posting this story on a progressive, liberal, national, magazine website.
I’m not all that happy or pleased about a Republican-led House and Senate taking over come January. I see a lot of nasty stuff on the horizon as far as social programs being cut, environmental infractions being made, and a lot of hateful and dangerous rhetoric being spewed by all those teabagging rogues that will be having their majorities in Congress.
The keys to the kingdom will be turned over to the Koch Brothers, who are so nefarious in their whacko plans for this nation that they’re akin to a demonic possession from sea to shining sea.
An article in The New Yorker sums up what the Koch Brothers are all about succinctly: "The Kochs are longtime libertarians who believe in drastically lower personal and corporate taxes, minimal social services for the needy, and much less oversight of industry—especially environmental regulation. These views dovetail with the brothers’ corporate interests. In a study released this spring, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst’s Political Economy Research Institute named Koch Industries one of the top ten air polluters in the United States. And Greenpeace issued a report identifying the company as a `kingpin of climate science denial.' The report showed that, from 2005 to 2008, the Kochs vastly outdid ExxonMobil in giving money to organizations fighting legislation related to climate change, underwriting a huge network of foundations, think tanks, and political front groups. Indeed, the brothers have funded opposition campaigns against so many Obama Administration policies—from health-care reform to the economic-stimulus program—that, in political circles, their ideological network is known as the Kochtopus."
Charles Koch, in his late 70s, and his brother David H. Koch, in his mid-70s, together own virtually all of Koch Industries, headquartered in Wichita, Kansas. When their father Fred died in 1967, Charles and David took over and their family's enterprises flourished and prospered exponentially. Koch Industries' estimated annual revenues exceed $100 billion. The Koch Brothers own oil refineries in Texas, Alaska and Minnesota and they also control 4,000 miles of pipelines. Their other holdings include Brawny paper towels, Georgia Pacific lumber, Stainmaster Carpet, Dixie Cups and other concerns. And the Koch Brothers' investment in the Canadian oilsands? Well, one of their subsidiaries is the biggest lease holder of the northern Alberta oilsands. Needless to say, these brothers are big tub thumpers for the Keystone XL pipeline. And of course, Conservative Party Prime Minister Stephen Harper is intent on turning Canada into the world's largest junkyard, after all the oil has been rubbed out of the Alberta tar sands.
Already, we're seeing some Koch Brothers-like encroachments in Congress. And one that began in the House early this month and just got the thumbs up by the Senate this past week has made Bigfoot-sized footprints. An Apache land grab by Congress last week of 2,400 acres of ancestral and ceremonial lands that both the House and Senate manipulated was totally unbelievable. And unacceptable. I was utterly amazed at the brazen disregard for existing legislation, like the National Environmental Policy Act, when U.S. Sen. John McCain (R - Ariz.) and U.S. Rep. Paul Gosar (R - Ariz.), shoved this swap of Apache-owned desert, mountains, and forest terrain into a 1,600-page defense bill.
It was done with all the cunning and stealth of masterminding crooks. "House lawmakers slipped the land-exchange bill late Tuesday night (Dec. 2) into the 1,600-page National Defense Authorization Act, a key bill that continues funding for the Defense Department," according to azcentral.
Scenic desert forests known as Oak Flats that the Apaches own, along with a mountain called Apache Leap, and the Tonto National Forest, are going to become a copper mine. A colossal underground mine which environmentalists fear will severely damage the natural wonder and pristine wilderness that the Apache people call home, and have safeguarded for generations; and the water and land resources of this sacred ceremonial ancestral land will be contaminated by the byproducts of the heavy industrial processes that are part of copper foraging.
Yes, it's better to have no government than a government intent on destroying Mother Nature for teabagging progress. Not to mention a government that uses deceit, treachery and sneaky stealthy tricks to grab what it wants to grab.
Did McCain, Gosar and the other federal "good and great" legislators really have a sensitivity to NEPA when they voted on this Cracker Jack bill within a bill? According to "Science Insider" of Science Magazine, NEPA "lays out a process to determine a land transferal’s potential impact on the environment, archaeological and historic sites, and places sacred to Native Americans. The language inserted into the defense spending bill states that the land will be transferred to Resolution Copper 60 days after an environmental impact statement, part of the NEPA process, has been completed. That prejudges the outcome of the evaluation, says Jeffrey Altschul, president of the Society for American Archaeology (SAA) in Washington, D.C. `The bill says that Congress has already decided that the land swap will take place,' he says, `so we’ll do the land swap and then we’ll do NEPA.'”
This type of Alice in Wonderland political shuffling and total disregard for laws in place is just further proof that no government is better than this type of very bad government.
Plans to create an
underground copper mine in this area have been ongoing for years. Between 2005 and 2011, bills proposing such endeavors "died in committee five times in the House of Representatives and six times in the Senate, says David Lindsay, SAA government affairs manager, who tracks legislation for the organization. Those bills faced determined opposition from Native American tribes. Attaching the land exchange rider to the defense spending bill is a way to circumvent that opposition, says Michael Nixon, an environmental lawyer who works with the Maricopa Audubon Society and has fought the land exchange since the beginning. 'Stuffing riders into... bills that are not germane to the subject is undemocratic,' he says," according to "Science Insider" of the website
ScienceMag.org
Although the land-swap includes the Apaches getting 5,000 acres of land in return for the land McCain, Gosar, and their peers arranged to be turned into a copper mine, in sundry parcels all over Arizona, the San Carlos Apache Tribe, along with other Southwestern American Indian tribes, oppose this - they don't want a big swath cut through their homeland reservation. Environmental groups also oppose plans on creating a copper mine. Also relevant is that although one of the richest copper deposits in North America is located near the little town of Superior (62 miles east of Phoenix), this land includes archeological sites that are held sacred by the Apache people.
According to Huff Post Politics, Gosar even reportedly told Phil Stego of the White Mountain Apache Tribe that American Indians are "wards of the federal government" and that "Tribes, you can call yourselves sovereign nations, but when it comes down to the final test, you're not really sovereign because we still have plenary authority over you,'" Stago told The Associated Press.
Hey Arizona, you actually elected this racist punk to federal office? What in the hell's wrong with you people? What a bully! Gosar sounds a lot more like a thug and an autocrat than a representative of constituents. Next election, at least elect a wooden salt shaker to his congressional district. At least Gosar's current "kingdom" won't be left looking lunar or mercurial if some sort of inanimate object took his place in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Anyhow, with such brazen disregard for treating legislation like legislation, who needs the federal government? With McCain and Gosar's underhanded tactics of sticking a land-grab into the body of a defense bill like Congress is an all-you-can-eat legalese buffet, I honestly feel we could do without these weasels. Hey Arizona, if you want a free state, vote these bums out of office.
I say we try it for a little while and see how it goes. If Congressmen keep acting on the behalf of special interests, as McCain and Gosar have done for Resolution Copper Mining, then we'd be better off without any federal government at all.
And the bigger bill that the land grab was stuffed into? As far as I'm concerned, the teabaggers are already showing their patriotic red, white & blue colors, with all the pageantry of Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Fortunate Son". And the old English saying, "Penny wise and pound foolish" comes to mind, too. Billions upon billions are being spent on overseas wars, namely Iraq and Afghanistan, along with arming and training Syrian rebels. But our own troops were given a lousy Christmas present this month with the House and Senate passing their defense bills. Yes, in the coming year there will be a reduction in military pay raises, housing allowances, prescription medicine coverage, and commissary funding. Wow! Commissary funding cutbacks?! Are you kidding me?! How low can you go and how cheap can you get?!
Do these teabaggers even use good teabags when they invite others over for tea or do they use last year's teabags, which have been recycled and reused so many times that the tea is colored and flavored like polluted water?
Congress is comprised primarily of rich men who take care of other rich men. Democrat or Republican, it doesn't matter. They all work for the same corporations. And they hardly are representatives of what their constituents want or need - everyone is beginning to see that this credo is nothing more than an outrageous farce.
And although the Republicans have always been overt in taking care of their rich friends, Democratic House Reps and Senators are just as guilty. But at least Democrats believe in the need for helping needy people, for helping the sick, for trying to give workers a liveable wage, and for some sane and practical environmental safeguards. Sort of, kind of, maybe. . . .Or maybe not? I really don't know about this anymore, either.
Anyhow, I'm looking for the Republican-led Congress to start whittling away at social programs, but first, there will be more of this grabbing up of pristine wilderness lands for Republican progress. Keep in mind that 250,000 acres of national forest and government-allocated parkland territories were stuck into the defense bill, along with the Apache land-grab that was maneuvered this month.
That's what David and Charles Koch want, right?
Surely these industrialist brothers have some industrial plans for all this wilderness land. If not for them, for their friends. And the Koch Brothers have a legion of sophists in Congress who will argue all day long for them. It's a big boat and the Republicans are at the helm now.
The Koch Brothers believe in what is good for the Koch Brothers. And FOX News believes the same - the squawking heads at FOX News are just cheerleaders for the Koch Brothers, as is the Merdochian
Wall Street Journal and a host of other TV news outlets and print publications throughout America. If the federal government shuts down, the plug will be pulled on these noisemakers and tree-killing, lying, conniving sophists. They all have secret agendas and none of these include the best interest of American citizens. If the federal government is shut down, all this news as noise will cease to exist. It's time to send Megyn Kelly out to cover a school board meeting or perhaps, a meeting of township trustees in Nowheresville, America. She might be in her league and may be able to handle tasks such as these. But maybe not, who knows? And Sean Hannity? Well, if this in-your-face political screaming match continues much longer, I'd say he might have a great career as a color announcer for dog fighting matches. They'll certainly become legal in the near future, with the savagery continuing non-stop, day-and-night, forever and ever, amen. Who knows, maybe Hannity can become a dog-fighting announcer for affiliate FOX Sports. His screaming, shouting, red-faced rants and raves will serve the sport well.
Let's face it, things just aren't working in Washington, D.C. anymore. And for the Apaches and for some members of our military, Christmastime might not be such a festive time this year. Merry Christmas anyhow.