Tag: Jim DeMint

Categories
term limits

Voters with Zombie Power

Americans overwhelmingly support term limits for Congress. Nonetheless, last week, three-​fourths of the U.S. Senate said, “Hell no, [they] won’t go.”

By a 75 to 24 vote, Senators defeated an amendment introduced by Sen. Jim DeMint (R‑SC) to express support for a constitutional amendment limiting congressional tenure as a “sense of the Senate.”

Term limits killed again — but with zombies currently all the rage, could the issue reach back from the grave for revenge … hungry for incumbent flesh?

Yes.

Senate races in Indiana, Missouri and Montana feature incumbents in very tight re-​election contests who voted against the term limits the citizens of their states enthusiastically endorse.

Sen. Claire McCaskill’s campaign is reeling from scandal — her office billed taxpayers $76,000 for 89 chartered flights on a plane she co-​owned. If profiting from expensive jet-​setting on the taxpayers’ tab isn’t enough to defeat her, the Senator’s vote against term limits just might do the trick.

In Montana, Sen. Jon Tester claims to be a populist, but voted to allow incumbents to stay in office just as long as they live. What will Montana voters think about that … if they were to find out?

In a competitive GOP primary in Indiana between 36-​year incumbent Sen. Dick Lugar, the third longest-​serving senator, and State Treasurer Richard Mourdock, Lugar’s vote against term limits may be Exhibit A to show that he is an out-​of-​touch career politician — a part of the problem, not the solution.

Given a choice, voters favor candidates who favor term limits, who understand that power must come with limits.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
ideological culture incumbents political challengers

Establishment Out

Another one bites the dust: Nine-​term Congressman Mike Castle was defeated in Delaware’s primary by Tea Party-​backed candidate Christine O’Donnell.

Weeks ago, incumbent Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski was bested in the Republican primary by Joe Miller, also Tea Party-​supported. Before that Utah Senator Robert Bennett lost his re-​nomination bid.

U.S. Senator Jim DeMint, who has actively assisted the insurgent Republicans, clarifies: “The GOP establishment is out.”

Media folks love talking about the angry mood throughout the land. The bad economic times have made people upset, they say — the supposition being that this rage is irrational, aimed indiscriminately at those in government, no matter how well they may have performed.

But the mainstream media hypothesis is wrong on both counts. First, the anger at career politicians isn’t new. Four years ago, long before the recession, Alaska GOP voters tossed out their incumbent governor, one Frank Murkowski, in favor of Sarah Palin. Voters have long disapproved of the way career politicians have wrecked our country. At some point, “enough” has morphed to “too much,” hence the current large-​scale revolt.

Further, voters are clearly discriminating, not taking their ire out on all incumbents, just those they feel have not represented their interests.

That’s why we have elections: to hold elected officials accountable.

We ought not bemoan that citizens are boiling mad, but that it takes so much bad behavior by politicians to raise this righteous fury.

This is Common sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
ideological culture insider corruption

Lott of Chutzpah

Some people you can always count on. Like former congressmen and current lobbyist Trent Lott.

Count on Lott to confirm that he’s a true-​blue partisan of gravy-​train politics-​as-​usual, a dyed-​in-​the-​wool establishmentarian committed to extinguishing each faint, flickering chance to downsize Leviathan.

The man is a rock.

“We don’t need a lot of Jim DeMint disciples,” Lott with calm, sneering authority recently told the Washington Post, as his granite-​hard jaw jutted with stern, rectitudinous integrity. “As  soon as they get here, we need to co-​opt them.”

What kind of creature is a “Jim DeMint disciple”? What terrible deeds will these zombie-​like Jim-​DeMintians perpetrate if the heroic former congressmen and his redoubtable cohorts fail to co-​opt them in time?

The creatures are affiliated with the Tea Party rebellion against the super-​escalating scope and reach of the federal government, as manifested in the looming takeover of the medical industry, trillion-​dollar annual budget deficits, etc. Senate candidate Rand Paul told the Post that the goals of Jim-​DeMintian Tea Party sympathizers like himself have something to do with fighting for term limits, a balanced budget amendment, and legislation that is consistent with the Constitution.

Sounds like if they make any headway we can expect more freedom, more real wealth, less red ink, less Washington-​based strangling of everybody.

Hence, Trent Lott to the rescue.

Thanks a lot, Lott.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
national politics & policies

Ice Is Also Great

We all like talking about the weather, and one reason “global warming” theory caught on was not because of the science, but because it gives us a “just-so”-type scenario to spice up any conversation.

Here on the East Coast, we’ve endured one of the snowiest winters in years. Elsewhere, the winter’s been moderate.

Must be global warming!

The tendency to make every kind of weather a paradigm-​case instance of global warming has become something of a joke. We all know that “weather is not climate,” but we’ve also heard a lot of silliness about how this or that weather proves a coming global warming catastrophe.

Al Gore almost invented the technique.

Last week a quip — a “tweet” — from Senator Jim DeMint made the rounds. He wrote that “It’s going to keep snowing in DC until Al Gore cries ‘uncle.’”

Droll. But the truth remains that one cold snap does not a climate make. What counts for global climate depends on averages, highs, lows, medians, means, and all that.

Knowing this — and knowing that world climate has been much cooler than now as well as much warmer — still leaves me something of a skeptic about the notion that human civilization is the major factor.

Or that warming is altogether bad. An Ice Age, which scientists have been saying we’re overdue for, would be worse.

Brrr. Do I know!

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.