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Posted on 05/06/2013 12:47:34 PM PDT by neverdem
Republican ennui is engulfing the grass roots as the party's House majority sits, and sits, and sits, doing nothing except raising money and, yes, taking action to secure the country's helium reserve.
The Balloon Council applauded the latter action. Yes, the council exists, and it says it represents 100,000 balloon-connected manufacturers, distributors and retailers.
Perhaps the medical device industry or the families of the dead at Benghazi ought to appeal to the Balloon Council for help, as the GOP leadership has no interest in either the repeal of the job-destroying medical device tax of 2.3 percent on all sales revenue or a Select Committee to bring much needed focus on and thus the media's attention to the Obama administration's cover-up of the Benghazi slaughter.
On the second subject, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., told my audience this week that the special committee was being blocked by turf-conscious House Committee chairmen.
On the first subject, Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., told my listeners that a medical device tax would in fact pass the Senate without being hijacked by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., for the duplicitous purposes, the prospect of which has allegedly paralyzed the House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp, R-Mich.
Presiding over this era of "splendid inactivity" among House Republicans is Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, a prodigious fundraiser whose goal to be the anti-Pelosi is coming to flower.
He commands no chair to act opposite of their whims and ruffles no feathers among the senior elite of the House GOP. Below him, Politico reports, his lieutenants are squabbling, with House GOP Whip Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., reportedly storming out of a meeting with GOP House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va.
Over at BalloonCouncil.org, there are some very handy "Smart Balloon Practices," which include "Keep balloons secured to a weight," "Do not release foil balloons into the air," and "Keep deflated or popped latex balloons away from small children to avoid risks of choking."
The pundit class may simply be missing the sort of robust simplicity that powers such guidance and which, coupled with the Balloon Council's legislative triumph, commands respect and indeed imitation.
Hence, "Smart House Majority Tips:"
* Use the majority.
* Investigate executive branch haplessness that results in the death of Americans and do so in a way that attracts the attention of the media.
* Repeal bad taxes which the Senate is willing to repeal.
Oh, there is higher-level strategy as well. California is, for example, about to launch a nightmare called its "green chemistry" rules, which the automobile industry and the United Auto Workers are actually cooperating to try and stop via a state legislative carve-out.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee might see an opening in these circumstances to pass some pre-emption rules that keep crazy states like California from destroying national industries like auto manufacturing via their own regulatory flights of fancy, and in the process split some of the old-line unions away from the new powers of government-unions protecting government regulatory turf.
That, though, is second-order thinking, like the amendment strategy needed in the Senate to keep immigration reform from becoming the killing fields of GOP presidential ambitions for decades to come.
In the House, an increasingly frustrated rank-and-file will take anything that looks like action and dress it up, so desperate are they for anything resembling an offensive against the exhausted and befuddled president.
Right now, though, it's a "phony war" between the Beltway parties, a great game of see-and-(fund)raise.
A majority is a terrible thing to waste, but wasted it has been thus far. And this is May. Imagine the lethargy index come August.
Washington Examiner Columnist Hugh Hewitt is a law professor at Chapman University Law School and a nationally syndicated radio talk show host who blogs daily at HughHewitt.com.
What leadership?
Uh?
I eagerly await the replacement party for the GOP.
If it’s not there, why even bother to vote in ‘16?
May as well let CW-II play out...which it indeed will.
The GOP motto is DON’T ROCK THE BOAT!
well, we can look at another way
inaction in Washington D.C. can sometimes be a good thing
I have never cared for Hewit because he doesn't really follow the Constitution. National industries? Does that mean the national government rules over them? If California wants to screw itself, let them do it and the sooner the better. That's more business for sane states.
So are you Hugh... Like a dumb @$$ I listened to him and his Romney run-away and now he is so pro-amnesty it will make you sick, do not listen...
Hugh’s a part of the GOPe problem. His hand wringing about how Republicans just don’t make brown people feel comfortable enough to vote Republican was enough for me to stop listening to him. Hey Hugh, maybe they’re uncomfortable around white Christians because they are bigoted against white Christians!
These hearings will not only delve into this regime’s depth of corruption and incompetence in the handling of Benghazi, but provide a test of the Republican “leadership’s” ability to take action on something besides their own individual reelections.
You can wait forever and there will be no replacement party. And we’ve been over that numerous times.
” , but provide a test of the Republican “leadership’s” ability to take action “
What leadership?
I actually think we are careening towards a multi-party system. The true Tea Party Conservatives have had about enough of the GOP’s nonsense. And there are Progressives ready to bolt from the Dems for not being progressive enough. Along with racial and sub-identity groups who are bound to feel they aren’t getting their share of the pie and might take their ball and leave.
Which will be very interesting because unlike European Parliaments, our system is utterly unprepared to deal with a multi-party environment.
When you open negotiations by meeting someone halfway, you end up at 3/4 and 7/8 real quick.
Let me use highways as an example of where the WHIG party never died. They were into highways and railroads. They still are ~ there are no other issues for them than public works (highways, bridges, port facilities.....) and never will be.
Hewitt is reliably GOP-E, so much so during the election that I automatically turned my ears off whenever I heard his voice, and changed stations if I accidentally tuned into him.
So it's surprising to see him call out Boehner and (by implication) Eric Cantor in this way.
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