We’ve seen some crazy politics from Tea Partiers (aka TPs) this year, in all parts of the country, but our neighbors south of Carowinds still take top honors. Locally, who could ever forget Tim D’Annunzio? He may be out of the race, but other TPs have made up for it.
Let’s see, there’s Renee Ellmers in Raleigh, whose congressional campaign is based on her opposition to an Islamic center in New York; and Sharron Angle in Nevada, who wants to ditch Social Security and hints broadly that if the T’s don’t get their way, they may start “looking toward Second Amendment remedies.” Of course, there’s also Christine O’Donnell who can’t remember where or when she went to college, and thinks others’ sex lives are her business. And Alaska’s Joe Miller wants to go to the Senate so he can eliminate the Dept. of Education and unemployment benefits. And don’t forget Carl Paladino, GOP candidate for governor of New York, whose “I’m mad as hell” campaign has been so off the rails, it’s even alienated tough-guy Rudy Giuliani – not to mention that Paladino was caught on camera threatening, “I’ll take you out, buddy” to a reporter yesterday. And in case you haven’t heard, there’s Andrew Shirvell, an assistant attorney general in Michigan. Shirvell is so riled up about a gay student being elected University of Michigan student government president, he started his own private blog called “Chris Armstrong Watch,” in which he lambastes and makes fun of the student.
All those folks are bad enough — and we didn’t even touch on Rand Paul’s goofball ideas in Kentucky — but nobody comes close to South Carolina’s junior senator and serial hair dye experimenter, Jim DeMint. The reactionary lawmaker suddenly, and shockingly, declared that every single piece of legislation in the Senate would now be blocked by his office unless it had been pre-approved by his own staffers. In other words, Jim DeMint has declared himself King of America, and decided unilaterally to end legislative activity in the Senate. Members of both parties are stunned and have lashed out publicly against DeMint’s power play. The real question, to me, is: Why in hell does the Senate have a rule that would allow one senator to exercise that much power to begin with? You have to expect goofball actions from the likes of DeMint — after all, here’s a guy who blocked funding for a Women’s History Museum because America already has quilting and cowgirl museums — but there’s no reason to leave insane rules lying around where any old senator could use them to shut down Congress.
This article appears in Sep 28 – Oct 4, 2010.
He is just following the example set for the last two years by his party. The same Senate that has a silly rule tht allows the minority party to block legislation even though a majority supports it.
We have gone “through the looking glass”. We now have a system where the minority rules.
Hooray for gridlock. The rules are designed to make it difficult for legislation to be passed. This is not a democracy, it is a Republic. The 51% should not have power over the 49% (or the 90% over the 10% for that matter), and that’s what our system is intended to prevent.
BTW, can someone please enlighten me as to the improvements in education that have come about due to the creation of the dept of ed? Both the dept of ed and the dept of energy came about under Carter, have either gotten better due to the existence of more bureaucracy?