ALG:
scarcely a month after being handed control of the U.S. House, Republicans are already losing sight of why they were given another chance. In retreating from their commitment to cut $100 billion from the budget (which let’s face it — will barely make a dent in our $14 trillion debt) the GOP is demonstrating a fundamental but all too familiar lack of courage. Republicans are also refusing to address the entitlement behemoths of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security — ticking time bombs that pose even graver dangers to our nation’s long-term solvency.
Such squeamishness is not surprising given the party’s recent pattern of backing down in the face of an ideologically inferior foe. In fact, I refer to this flight reflex as “going Gingrich.”
Riding a similar wave of limited government fervor in 1994, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s “Republican Revolution” promised taxpayers balanced budgets, less government and term limits — but quickly caved on all fronts. As a result the “era of big government” that Democratic President Bill Clinton promised was “over” ended up coming to pass — under GOP rule.
“The party that in 1994 would abolish the Department of Education now brags in response to Clinton’s 2000 State of the Union Address that it is outspending the White House when it comes to education,” Cato Institute founder Ed Crane wrote a decade ago, noting that “the combined budgets of the 95 major programs that the Contract with America promised to eliminate have increased by 13 percent.”
Far worse was coming. With Republicans holding the purse strings, federal spending jumped from $1.79 trillion in 2000 to $2.73 trillion in 2007 — a 23.5 percent increase after adjusting for inflation. By contrast, America’s population grew by just 9.7 percent over the course of the entire decade.
Where was Gingrich during this then-unprecedented orgy of new spending? Embracing the fuzzy science of global warming in a television commercial with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
“Our country must take action to address climate change,” Gingrich said in the ad.
Pelosi took action — spending billions of American tax dollars to create “green jobs” in other countries.
Gingrich also helped advance the Pelosi agenda in other, more direct ways. In a 2009 special election in New York he endorsed Dede Scozzafava — the union-backing, stimulus-supporting “Republican” who later dropped out of the race and campaigned against Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman.
“If you seek to be a perfect minority, you’ll remain a minority,” Gingrich said in justifying his decision.
Translation? Principles be damned.
No wonder Gingrich has dismissed the tea party movement as nothing more than the “militant wing of the Republican Party.” And no wonder he refused to defend the tea party when the NAACP played the race card against it last summer — calling the unfounded assault a “teachable moment.”
Of course Gingrich is as shameless as he is spineless.
In a recent editorial in The Wall Street Journal, he was rightly assailed for pandering on ethanol subsidies in corn-fed Iowa — where he is actively courting 2012 GOP Caucus voters.
“Even Al Gore now admits that the only reason he supported ethanol in 2000 was to goose his presidential prospects, and the only difference now between Al and Newt is that Al admits he was wrong,” the editorial observed.
Meanwhile, in an effort to burnish his credentials with social conservatives, Gingrich has said that he supports a Singapore-style drug enforcement program that would “dramatically expand” random testing and make rehabilitation mandatory for anyone who fails these tests.
Apparently his support for individual liberty is as dubious as his support for limited government.
Gingrich is also leading a highly-publicized movement to ban Sharia law in U.S. courtrooms — despite the fact there is precisely one docket in America in which a family court judge ruled in accordance with its tenets (a ruling which was quickly struck down on appeal). Nonetheless, Gingrich recently told a group of social conservatives that “stealth jihadis” were conspiring to “replace Western civilization with a radical imposition of Sharia.” He then chided liberals for ignoring this “direct mortal threat” to American values.
For this irrational fear-mongering, Gingrich was rightly pilloried by the left.
“There is no left-of-center movement dedicated to fighting the steady, stealthy insinuation of Sharia into America’s legal system because no such thing is happening,” Eugene Robinson of The Washington Post noted.
“Gingrich invents an enemy and then demands to know why others haven’t sallied forth to slay it,” Robinson added.
Sadly, in the fight to protect our liberties and our tax dollars there is no need to invent enemies. There is, however, a need for defenders of freedom and free markets to stand firm against those who would encourage us to cave against these enemies.
After all, “going Gingrich” is one of the reasons we’re in such a fine mess in the first place.
Recently I caused quite a stir here by suggesting that WSJ op-eds that, at their heart, reinforce the legitimacy of federal-run healthcare, eg., are precisely the wrong way to seize the momentum from both public antipathy toward ObamaCare, and the overwhelming electoral success of the GOP in November — despite the GOP’s having remained, polls told us, enormously unpopular.
As governor of one of the states who filed suit to stop ObamaCare — a governor who may have presidential aspirations — the clear next move for Daniels (and the other governors and attorney’s general in states that won their suit) was to go in front of Judge Vinson and petition for a contempt ruling against the federal government. The administration is continuing to implement what a judge has ruled is an unconstitutional program. That is, they are misappropriating funds.
And yet they have yet to file for a stay in the ruling, precisely because no one in the states affected by the suit has acted on the victory. The court needs to be moved to act. And those with standing need to move it to act — and force the administration to respond.
A contempt ruling would go along way toward bringing into the headlines the fact that the administration is acting lawlessly, and that what we’re undergoing right now is a constitutional crisis. Instead, we get pointed, free market-loaded alternative plans for bringing the whole of the health care industry under the control of the federal government.
Someone needs to step up here. Vinson’s ruling is only a win if one of the petitioners pushes for its enforcement. Mitch Daniels chose to go another route — posturing and (in my mind) laying out the potentiality of a compromise — when what the voters in November clearly said they wanted was no compromise at all.
And so is it really so untoward — and so worthy of scorn — to point out that, as they’ve proven themselves capable of doing before, a newly empowered GOP is already caving to establishment political pressures inside the beltway, and that one of their supposedly strong potential candidates for 2012 is showing himself to be precisely too cute by half, in what is essentially a return to the Rovian model for the GOP?
Who will step up? Who among the GOP frontrunners is actually for conservatism and classical liberalism — and not for some repulsively disingenuous establishment hybrid of conservative rhetoric coupled to “pragmatic centrism”?
— Aside from, say, Palin or Bachmann or DeMint — who many on the right enjoy to see bloodied and marginalized.
Hell, they even throw some of the punches.
Jeb Bush / Newt Gingrich 2012: you get what you pay for!
Unlike Palin Bachmann or DeMint Mr. Daniels is actually demonstrably balancing budgets right now as we speak.
You put out a crumb of hamster bait, you get a hamster.
It really can’t help itself, can it? Sad, really.
When are these people going to realize their is no real ideological difference in the two parties? That it is only a matter of degrees?
hey Mr. Daniels morning to you whatcha gonna do today balance a budget or sumpin?
Already did, Timmy. You know you gotta get up a whole lot earlier than this to catch me with an unbalanced budget!
I shore do Mr. Daniel’s! You’re the mostest budget-balancing one!
I don’t know about that Timmy… but it’s work what needs doing and I shore don’t mind doing it.
Well, thanks for looking out for my future Mr. Daniels!
You bet, Timmy.
I have never understood Gingrich’s popularity. My very first impression of him was of the fat, whiney kid who would do or say anything to try and fit in, then report your ass to the teacher in a heartbeat for brownie points.
He has done nothing since to dissuade me of this assessment.
in my spare time timmy i’ma write a op-ed cause that will sound like i’m doing something even if i’m not but that’s okay i’ve built up points for the budget balancing which means i get to skate on this one just like chris christie!
He gave Clinton a bloody nose. That’s gotta be worth something!
Are you sure? Because he could be writing a sharply-worded op-ed that the administration can safely ignore because no one is stopping them from implementing ObamaCare just now, busy as they are writing sharply-worded op-eds and balancing a state budget.
Plus he’s a man. Cupcakes for everyone.
The Pauls are there. Yes, I know there is stark disagreement in here to their foreign policies, but they are absolutely principled in their fiscal policies.
Lumping Gingrich and Daniels together is not really fair. It seems like some disagree with Daniels tactics, as opposed to disagreeing with Gingrich’s positions. But, I don’t feel like arguing with friends today. I will just denounce and condemn myself.
I want to forestall Daniels becoming like Gingrich.
But if you’re in Indiana, perhaps you can call the Governor’s office and ask why they haven’t petitioned the court for relief, having won the judgment. I’d be grateful to hear their response.
I’m of the opinion that one of the major problems we have in our political process is that we keep electing politicians and that there needs to be an ‘experience’ factor for anyone who runs for any federal office.
There are people out there who are well suited for office but are running businesses, doing science, etc. We don’t have to choose lifelong politicos to be our nations leaders.
Case in point– Huckabee, Romney, Gingrich, Barbour, Pawlenty, Jeb Bush, Palin, Demint– they’re all politicians. With the exception of the last two, I don’t see any leadership that will take seriously the problems with the country. The advantage of a non-politician for these roles is that they won’t concentrate on getting reelected but instead on fixing the serious deficiencies this government has created.
A one term President? Fine. So long as that one-termer fixes what needs to be fixed.
I wish there was the possibility of some back and forth here. I’d be very curious to hear Daniels reaction to this critique. Seems like it could be edifying towards his underlying stance and thoughts on the strategy.
Maybe there is a possibility.
Going the “Full Gingrich” in Rhode Island wasn’t a long step for their very squishy Governor.
Civility Fever, catch it……and die.
I emailed his office after the last discussion. I await a response.
I am not a lawyer, but I do not think they need to do anything, as the Judge essentially said that although it was not technically an injunction, it carried the same weight as one. Wouldn’t that allow him to proceed?
Here is Daniels most recent State of the State …. http://www.in.gov/gov/11stateofstate.htm
21 Governor’s signed a letter. Did 21 Governor’s negotiate the contents of that letter with one another at the instigation of some one or few of them to begin with? Do we know how this letter writing came together? Was it written by a committee farmed out from the group (in the manner of the Declaration, say?) or was it written beforehand by someone (one of the Governors? Or one of their staffers?) and then circulated among them for comment and edit? We don’t know any of this circumstance do we? We don’t know why it fell to Daniels to write for the Journal. We don’t know whether he chose to do that wholly on his own or was merely assigned the task by the Governors associated by signing.
The good news is that the “militants” are doing to Boehner what Gingrich himself used to do to Michels back when he was a young turk instead of an old dinosaur and now they’re going to go after the 100 billion in cuts after all.
And Gingrich has brand new book about Ronald Reagan coming out. So all is well.
Same here, sorta.
After Jeff reminded me of it, I’ve written letters to Ryan on the budget and Sensenbrenner on the web data dealio. Haven’t heard anything back yet but it’s early.
Hey, what’s the technical legal path here?
Would they ask for a contempt ruling or is that something a judge just does by himself without prompting? Can they ask for relief if something is the equivalent of an injunction but not an injunction?
(Am I even using those words correctly? No lawyer, I.)
I’m guessing but think action in the Florida court probably best begins at the initiation of the Florida AG’s office, they having first brought the suit. But I’m only guessing about that. Could be too that the Florida AG awaits an action on the part of the Feds that he can take to the court to say “See, yer honor? This right here is directly contrary to your ruling. Will you cite them for contempt?”
The RGA has this. Seems like they’re looking to speed the path to the Supreme Court rather than make use of Vinson.
If the judge doesn’t, it seems to me the winning party can ask.
geoffb,
Personally I think the problem with Gingrich is that he went the full Chaffee.
My general impression is that the Republican Congress did pretty well, despite losing the gov’t shutdown (thanks BobDole!), until the ’98 mid-term; at which time they threw up there hands, said “screw-it” and concentrated on entrenching themselves. That’s on Delay and Hastert. Newt going squishy trying to shed his ‘grich who stole Christmas image while also trying to find a way to remain relevant? Now that’s on him.
“speed the path”
They surely understand that Obama and Holder will probably slow walk every detail, if they do anything other than ignore the Governors altogether. Though the full range of the Gov’s options isn’t undercut by merely asking the suits be sped up. They don’t have to trumpet their complete strategy that is, so these other paths seem to be on the plate right along.
a newly empowered GOP is already caving to establishment political pressures inside the beltway
This, of course, assumes that they were standing up to begin with instead of crouching inside a pair of pants, holding up a head on a stick with a suitcoat draped over it. Like a pantomime horse, only a lot less fun.
Point taken, sdferr.
The nicer you are, the more prosperous you are! Chaffee is a bubble head. He must be the dumbest governor ever.
As previously stated:
Newt GringrichTim Pawlenty
Mitt Romney
Mitch Daniels
New day, same shit.
I do wonder whether anybody knows of other suits in kind (asking the law be declared unconstitutional) are in process today in other courts? Or are the legal minds behind the various suits so far, both successfully and unsuccessfully brought or dismissed (the 12 Gibbs was claiming the other day) are satisfied with the current crop as a means to go forward to the SC, so choose not to pile, say, successful suit upon successful suit in an attempt to demonstrate an overwhelming appearance of opposition in the lower courts?
Huh?
Yep. Though I’d expand that set past governor to mammals if not chordates.
Ernst,
I agree to the extent that the ’94 Republicans did what they had promised to do in the “Contract”. Gingrich was a great leader for the minority taking it to the majority but failed, as did the others who came later, at being a majority leader. Not all his fault as Clinton was, with Dick Morris helping, a master politician.
My personal view is that all Republicans who were in national office, elected or appointed, prior to 1993 are and have been subject to being blackmailed by the left due to the FBI files thing early in the Clinton administration. The various vacuous explanations of that episode notwithstanding.
If only we had somebody who could ask them very publicly why they’re doing that given the obvious sensibility of a quick and final resolution. In fact, if someone could ask them, on camera, what their response is to the RGA request, that would be pretty cool, huh? If only there were some sort of institution that does that sort of thing…to Democrats.
Think you missed another 20 governors if you feel that way, OTT.
bh, aside from the obvious, I’ve met with him several times. The lights are on but nobody’s home.
As I mentioned in the post, the court must be moved to act. One of the states with standing needs to go before the judge and get a contempt ruling — either immediately, or the judge will hold a hearing.
Gibbs is on record as having said the administration isn’t going to comply. That should be enough to get the contempt ruling. But somebody has to bring it before the judge. Just how it works.
Nothing was “won” if the administration is going right on about its business, unchallenged.
Add to the questions in 30, the questions raised by the reach of jurisdiction of the Florida court raised a few days ago? That is, even though States outside the jurisdiction of the Florida court have joined the suit and won, some folks have written that those States cannot expect the Florida decision to reach themselves to the effect that the Feds will have to stop applying the law in those outlying jurisdictions, so those successful States may eventually choose to bring suit in courts with jurisdiction to enable them such relief?
Heh, gotta love first hand confirmation.
Look, having leveraged ourselves into fiscal oblivion (oh, you think that’s rhetorical?) by way of SecProgg Entitlement Nation atop a clearly Ponzi monetary system, one looking to hitch its little red (and quite literally failshit) wagon to the rising socialist global star, what choice do we have but to, each of us, R and D, fight tooth and nail for our piece of what we’re owed by our federal masters? WHile we yet can, dammit. I mean, who are you, budget-balancer? I want mine.
We spent at least half a century intellectually debasing ourselves and at least twice that debasing our fiscal and monetary systems.
Like this has a happy ending? Anyone, Beuller, classically liberal history majors?
Shorter summation of post and comments:
We don’t have the will.
Well, Wisco is on that list and our AG seems to have his head at least halfway right on this. Guess I’ll see if I can get a few people calling the office.
I think seeking an injuntion or a finding of contempt is important here:
1) we already know what the administration’s response will be (issuance of off-shore drilling permits picked up yet?)
2) the more evident it that we’re faced with (if not already actually in) a potential constitutional crisis with conflicting lower court opinions and administration disregard for courts they don’t like, the more likely it is that the Supreme Court hears it before 2012.
I’m not sure Gibbs’s blatherings can be accepted in court as having an weight. A judge might say “Hey, that lying fuck blathers all sorts of lying shit all day everyday. We can’t take his speech as significant of anything. Bring me an act, preferably an act of the HHS in substantiation of the law as written.”
Would spending money count as an act? For instance, if the HHS is spending money on servers that contains language that runs counter to his ruling? Or any use of funds appropriated under the statute?
Any purchase they’ve made or money they’ve moved to the program since the ruling will do. But let’s not forget that this judge used Obama and his administration’s own testimony and previous statements against them in his ruling.
It would seem, to me at least, that defying a judge publicly is a good way to insure that other judges farther up the line take a rather strict view of your case. In other words pissing in their pool is not a good way to win.
It would be nice if a couple of governors would stand up and say, “We will not cooperate with this unconstitutional mandate from Washington. If Obama thinks he’s the only person who can ignore laws he doesn’t like, he’s wrong.”
‘Cuz if you’re going to force a Constitutional crisis, why not make it a big, ugly one?
Hey, the press might even cover it then.
I think any spendings would qualify. Indeed, the bar should be very low. Fed people assigned and working on implementing the details of the law in that jurisdiction should suffice, for instance. And I assume such people are already in place acting. There oughtn’t be any dearth of causes.
Jeff,
Just sent an email to John Suthers at attorney dot general – at – state dot co dot us. Copied you on it.
Why not indeed Squid?
Maybe because SquidCo has a financial stake in a big ugly crisis, you wanna-be Soros, you.
Hennessey.
Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o’clock in the morning
— The Hollow Men
OT:
Coming soon government by invitation only. The new “sit down and shut up”.
Shows signs of Obama learning from the past don’t it geoffb? He saw the troubles folks up there made for Stupak and doesn’t wish to potentially expose himself to any of the same. Tyrants even got a handbook on this stuff.
This sunds very much like a ball that the Tea Partiers could get rolling. They could have some demonstrations to demand that a contempt ruling be brought against the administration in their states as well as in Fla.
The demonstration would draw the media attention to publicize the matter, in addition to the court findings.
I mean, face it, the MBM couldn’t resist rushing right over to cover a demostration where so many people were displaying signs and carrying on about Obama breaking the law; if only becuase they might hope that some of those sign were motivated by “birther” issues.
And I’d also suggest that each of us who’s state was a party to Vinson’s ruling write to our individual AG’s and find out whazzup.
And any of us in states party to the ruling and with connections to the Tea Party perhaps whisper in a few ears and see if the idea catches on.
just my two cents
Just an aside relative to bh’s link to the RGA’s letter to Obama: Oklahoma’s is the odd Republican governor out, though I’ve no information why that is.
Gov. Fallin did sign the letter to Sebelius.
Re Gingrich. I don’t understand the urge to remain in politics long after you’ve lost all effectiveness.
I’ve often wondered about about people who just stop fighting. You’d think the thing to do would be to step aside and let someone who can still be effective take your place. Or is remaining in place part of the blackmail?
Also, what if the clintons did in fact do all the dirty illegal stuff they’ve been suspected of doing and it’s an open secret in the circles that O’Bumbles inhabits? This could explain a lot of his behaviour, lacking any exposure to the world outside his bubble and any common sense he just does blatanly what he knows others have done discreetly.
I don’t know who this Beuller is, and I’m probably more conservative than classically liberal, but I was a history major.
And the thing is, I don’t have a good answer because the scale of what confronts us all is without precedent. If we go under economically as a consequence of our fiscal disorder, we take the world with us. I’m pretty sure about that.
The historical analogy that leaps to my mind (because of my interests) is the economic crisis (part of a larger sequence of crises)that engulfed the Roman Empire in the third century. The “solution” to the crisis was the most regimented economy the world would see prior to 1917.
I think a semblance of an answer might be found in an understanding of how the failure of the liberal revolutions that wracked Europe in 1848 resulted in Europe’s second Thirty Years War (1914-1945). Hell, if you want to look at it as the second Hundred Years War (1914-1989) I won’t disagree (n.b. the Hundred Years War wasn’t one hundred years either). That’s not my particular bailiwick, however. And anyways, most of the literature on the mid-century failure of liberalism
takes it as granted that its failure was inevitable and necessary for the progress of socialism (See A.J.P Taylor).
So now that I’ve buried you in bullshit, I’ll dazzle you with my brilliance:
The answer is: It’ll have a happy ending for the great-grandchildren of the people who have to live throught it. Maybe.
FYI all:
Someone from John Suthers’ office (Colorado Attorney General) replied to a series of emails I sent indicating that “Contempt is not applicable until the issue of an appeal and stay is settled.”
IANAL, so I don’t know how accurate that assessment is, but I took 2 things away from this:
1) Someone is actually reading and responding to citizens’ emails in the Colorado AG’s office.
2) They’re watching this carefully.
@34. BH – my list is solely restricted to those with presidential aspirations. Gingrich was long gone over the Ethanol and Climate Change positions. He is a silly man and deserves nothing more than what he has now (in politics of course).
My view is that it hasn’t ended yet. The players change a bit but the war goes on.
This is interesting to the extent it could indicate a rationale to the Obama administration’s slowness to make an appeal. Merely delaying such an action — taking an appeal up the chain — gains the administration time to grind away at its implementation, attempting to make the goddamned law a fait-accomplis on the ground, pushing, from its point of view, the greater difficulty in its removal.
As I wrote to afs in an email, this seems an odd answer: were that true, the administration could avoid contempt by never applying for a stay. And the Judge’s ruling would therefore never go into effect. Meaning the administration could get around a ruling that their law is unconstitutional by (ironically) not pressing the issue any further in the courts.
They could simply implement it.
Am I missing something?
Anyway, I sent the question on to Mark Levin. Went the generic route so not sure if he’ll get it or respond at all, but because he’s been pushing the idea that any of the governors from states who petitioned can go before Vinson and petition for a contempt ruling — and he is a Constitutional lawyer and scholar who worked under Ed Meese and heads Landmark Legal — I’m interested in his response.
It’s plain there’s something screwy going on. Though I can’t say that the solution could be as simple as that there has never been an occasion such a high profile rebuke by a court has been ignored by an administration to the extent it wouldn’t even be contested at a higher court. (The Lincoln case ignoring a habeas ruling evenso.) We, or I anyway, took it for granted the Justice Dept. would appeal. But I don’t know that there is anything other than their own choosing to force them to do so. Least insofar as they’re willing to bring on a Constitutional crisis intentionally.
Can you appeal a ruling in your favor?
Well, I find it further curious because, using the rationale the CO AG did, no one would ever have to go to jail until all their appeals were used up, eg.
The judge’s ruling is in effect though (though where precisely is a question I don’t have a positive answer to). It remains, so far as I can see, for some one among the plaintiffs to take an action by the Government in contravention of that ruling back to the court, thereupon to ask for further action by the court, like a contempt citation or whatever other relief the court has power to procure.
This has me confused.
The CO Ag’s answer may not be a strictly legal answer as such, but more of a “this is what we usually do” sort of answer, and hence has the looseness that can easily lead to confusion.
Not according to the CO AG. So either ObamaCo has stopped implementation, or else no one with standing is doing anything about the implementation.
A prudent conduct of executive powers would militate caution in the face of a ruling like the Vinson ruling. A prudent executive would pull up to ask himself, “What worse injustice could we do than to force on the people of the nation an unconstitutional law?” even when he was merely gripped by some uncertainty on the question, allowing only for the merest possibility that his initial view of the law was incorrect. But we see none of this in Obama’s behavior. He doesn’t give a damn what the effects of his favored law might be. He has no doubt about his own proprieties. He’s a shiftless monster.
I am very, very jealous of A Fine Scotch’s Underdog avatar.
I’m talking breaking one of the ten commandments jealous.
I just had to mention that and no, I have nothing of value to add to the conversation other than the generally expressed incredulity.
LBascom,
You can feel free to steal Underdog. I had an Underdog T-shirt in high school that I loved, but I have no particular affection for him. I changed avatars a couple of times, once because I couldn’t read the writing on the avatar and once because my fire department told me I couldn’t use the department’s logo for an avatar.
I’ll happily switch to something else.