For the past couple weeks, I’ve been aware of this “Right Wing Trucker Plot” to jam the traffic in the nation’s capital and then — er… Citizens Arrest all the members of Congress for a litany of complaints stretching from the Debt down to Benghazi.

Also Glenn Beck has backed it.

Didn’t really seem plausible a thing that might happen.  And I guess it wasn’t.

“The comments to U.S. News were designed to do one thing and one thing only: stir the feather of the mainstream media,” said Conlon, a father of three. “Nothing gets the attention of the mainstream media like some sort of disastrous threat. I knew it was going to ruffle some feathers.”
So while thousands of truckers may indeed come to Washington on Friday and many of them may travel along the inner loop of the Beltway, honking their horns, they won’t intentionally shut down traffic, he said.
“First of all, we know it would not be right to go to D.C. to lock down the city by the Belt loop,” said Conlon, 50, a veteran truck driver who has suffered through more than his share of traffic jams. “That wouldn’t be fair to the people there.”

Er.  The message is lost.  Sometimes when you see someone making stupid obnoxious act, you just don’t care what the motivation is.

Yeah, I know.  They want to send the message of … I guess… “They may take our lives, but they’ll never take our freedom”, if you must…

“I mean, they seem to think that we will miss this opportunity for a ‘Braveheart’ moment to do the right thing for the American people and that we’ll back down for fear of losing the House and not gaining control of the Senate,” Gingrey said.
The 1995 movie is based on William Wallace, who died in the 14th century after fighting in the Wars of Scottish Independence for Scotland’s freedom. “They may take our lives, but they’ll never take our freedom!” he bellows during the film’s most famous scene.
Gingrey has used the “Braveheart” analogy before. In December 2011, he made a similar reference on Fox News during a fight over a short-term extension of payroll tax cuts. He said tea party members were rallying around House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) during that showdown, despite reports that they were attempting to force his hand.

I’m waiting for the Pokemon 2000 moment myself.

“Life can be a challenge. Life can seem impossible. It’s never easy when there’s so much on the line. But you and I can make a difference. There’s a mission just for you and me.” 

Now that the event has been called off, I guess the next opportunity for the truckers, or — maybe people who can rent, borrow, or steal a truck for the purpose of this political demonstration — to make their point is…

November 19.  Millions will flood outside the White House and demand Obama leave.  To be replaced by… Jerry Boykin, I guess?
Frankly, I like the Wall Street Plot against Franklin Roosevelt better.  At least that one would’ve given us Smedley Butler.

Hey!  Scott Lively is running for Governor in Massachusetts!

These are very dark days in Massachusetts and across America, and growing steadily darker. I believe it is time for Christians with a strong Biblical worldview to rise up and preach the whole truth of the Bible as widely and boldly as possible. Massachusetts is the bluest of the blue states: the first to adopt socialized medicine and “gay marriage,” the national model for promoting homosexuality to children in the public schools, and the most aggressive defender of child-killing through abortion. The Mass Republican Party is solidly controlled by moderate to liberal “progressives” and the Democrats are virtual communists. They both embrace and champion the culture of death. With these two liberal parties splitting the liberal vote, a true conservative independent could win the governorship.

Not apt to be elected, this is just to send a message.

“Massive Resistance“:

The South Carolina state House passed a bill Wednesday that declares President Obama’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act to be “null and void,” and criminalizes its implementation.
The state’s Freedom of Health Care Protection Act intends to “prohibit certain individuals from enforcing or attempting to enforce such unconstitutional laws; and to establish criminal penalties and civil liability for violating this article.”

That’s South Carolina for you.  Somehow this does eke into your your weird “Rebirth of the Old Confederacy” tact.  See too:

Ed Kilgore noted that “Republican House members from districts with poor and black folks—or next door to heavily poor and black areas—are very likely to be more savagely opposed to Obamacare than anyone else.” And that is not a bug, it’s a feature. 

In case the South Carolina Legislator doesn’t go far enough for you, a date has been set for the Revolution!

On November 19, 2013, a day that will hopefully live on in the history of our once great republic, I call upon millions of Americans who have been appalled and disgusted by Obama’s criminality – his Muslim, socialist, anti-Semitic, anti-Christian, anti-white, pro-illegal immigrant, pro-radical gay and lesbian agenda – among other outrages, to descend on Washington, D.C., en masse, and demand that he leave town and resign from office if he does not want to face prison time.

I further propose that we borrow the techniques perfected and used by such epic crusaders such as Mahatma Gandhi, to show Obama and his enablers that the American people are more than fed up and will not take it any more. The millions who are being summoned to our nation’s capital should, like Gandhi did in India and South Africa, peacefully shut the city down, by blocking roads and massing in front of the White House chanting for Obama to get out of our nation’s capital. In addition, I propose bringing the victims of his reign of terror to a podium across from the White House in Lafayette Park to give their testimony on how he has singularly severely harmed and in some instances even killed their loved ones through his actions.

Who are the Millions?

 Tea partiers, bikers, construction workers, police officers, school teachers, farmers, truckers, clergy, housewives, husbands, students, doctors, lawyers and all elements of our society who see our nation slipping away into the abyss, must now stand tall and descend on the capital, much like the Egyptians recently did in ousting another radical Muslim, their then president Mohammed Morsi. 

Comes all into place around here, I … guess?

On the September 30 episode of his Prophetic Perspectives on Current Events TV show, Joyner said:
“We’re headed for serious tyranny. I think we’ve been used in some wonderful and powerful ways by God. We’ve been one of the most generous nations in history. We’ve done so much good. And that’s why I appeal to the Lord: Don’t let us be totally destroyed. Please, raise up those who will save us. And as I start telling friends from a long time that no election’s going to get the right person in there that can restore us because the system is so broken, so undermined right now — the whole system. I believe our only hope is a military takeover — martial law. And that the most crucial element of that is who to the martial [marshal?] is going to be. I believe there are noble leaders in our military that love the republic and love everything we stand for. And they could seize the government.”
Scary, huh? And what makes it even scarier is that a frequent guest on Rick Joyner’sProphetic Perspectives on Current Events and other shows is none other that retired 3-star general Jerry Boykin, the same retired general who met with Pentagon officials a couple of weeks ago as a representative of one of the primary organizations in the so-called Restore Military Religious Freedom Coalition. In fact, Boykin was the guest on Joyner’s Prophetic Perspectives on Current Events for four of the five episodes in the week leading up to his September 30 proposal for a military takeover of the government.

Hm.  Leave it to the “oldest continuously published newspaper” for Utah to stick Rick Joyner’s opinion in a round-up of religious leaders’ opinions.

Surely there can be a compromise between these two extremes?

Like… elect a Jesse Ventura / Howard Stern ticket… a publicity or vanity campaign, to be sure, but then again… that’s what they said when Ventura ran for governor.

I’m listening to The Dead Milkmen album, er, “Beelzebubba” — hadn’t done so in years.  And this may be subtle, but I think I see an early advocating of gay marriage.

There it is.  Last line in what’s pegged here as the fourth stanza.

(blink).
What?
Preceding as this does “Stuart”, who knows?

Yep!  There is a bit of that Moby Dick here at this point.

Comments made by Rep. Marlin Stutzman (R-Ind.) last weekunderscore Ross’ suggestion that many Republicans believe what’s at stake is no longer a matter of policy but one of pride.  
“We’re not going to be disrespected … We have to get something out of this. And I don’t know what that even is,” Stutzman said.
The Indiana Republican later apologized, saying he had “carelessly misrepresented” the budget debate.

Cue Richard Hofstadter.

A great deal of pseudo-conservative thinking takes the form of trying to devise means of absolute protection against the betrayal of our own officialdom which the pseudo-conservative feels is always imminent.  The Bricker Amendment, indeed, might be taken as one of the primary symptoms of the pseudo-conservatism.  Every dissenting movement brings its demand for Constitutional changes; and the pseudo-conservative revolt, far from being an exception to this principle, seems to specialize in Constitutional revision, at least as a speculative enterprise.  The widespread latent hostility toward American institutions takes the form, among other things, of a flood of proposals to write drastic changes into the body of our fundamental law.  Last summer, in a characteristically astute piece, Richard Rovere pointed out that Constitution amending had become almost a major diversion in the Eighty-third Congress.  About a hundred amendments were introduced and referred to committee.  Several of these called for the repeal of the income tax.  Several embodied formulas of various kinds to limit non-military expenditures to some fixed portion of the national income.  One proposed to bar all federal expenditures on the “general welfare”‘  another to prohibit American troops from serving in any foreign country except on the soil of the potential enemy; another, to redefine treason to embrace not only persons trying to overthrow the government but also those trying to “weaken” it, even by peaceful means.  The last proposal might bring the pseudo-conservative rebels themselves under the ban of treason:  for the sum of these amendments might easily serve to bring the whole structure of American society crashing to the ground.

As Mr. Rovere points out, it is not unusual for a large number of Constitutional amendments to be lying about somewhere in the Congressional hoppers.  What is unusual is the readiness the Senate has shown to give them respectful consideration, and the peculiar populistic arguments some of its leading members have used to justify referring them to the state legislatures.  While the ordinary Congress hardly ever has occasion to consider more than one amendment, the Eighty-third Congress saw six Constitutional amendments brought to the floor of the Senate, all summoning simple majorities, and four winning the to-thirds majority necessary before they can be sent to the House and ultimately to the state legislatures.  It must be added that, with the possible exception of the Bricker Amendment itself, none of the six amendments can be classed with the extreme proposals.  But the pliability of the senators, the eagerness of some of them to pass the buck and defer to “the people of the country,” suggests how strong they feel the pressure to be for some kind of change that will give expression to that vague desire to repudiate the past that underlies the pseudo-conservative revolt.

Cue Peter Vierick

Unless one of two unexpected events occurs, the Republican Party has forfeited its claim to retain in 1956 those decisive votes of non-partisan independents which gave it victory in 1952.  The unexpected events are either a far firmer assertion of presidential leadership over the anti-Eisenhower barn-burner and wild men in the Senate, or else their secession into a radical third party.  If either of these blessings occurs, there will again be good reason for independents to vote for Eisenhower: on moral grounds if he asserts his leadership, on strategic grounds if there is a McCarthy third party.  The latter would save the Republicans in the same unexpected way that the secession of pro-Communists into the Progressive Party saved Truman in 1948.

[If not, everyone should vote for the intellectuals’ hero of the 1950s, Adlai the Odd.]

Why did these two excerpts from this book pop out at me?  Start with radio host — impossibly shrill — Mark Levin.  He has a book, which … well… Utah Senator Mike Lee had to answer for at a town-hall meeting.  (A bit more here.)  It is an oligarch’s dream of a new constitutional, put out in some populist notes.

The other reason… sort of a weird random exchange between liberal magazine blogs (New Republic to Washington Monthly)… about hypothetical — and I’d say hypothetical hypotheticals at that — on what might happen if an Eisenhowerish Republicanism broke free of a third party Tea Party “Wallace” Republicanism.  Which is about as insane as conjuring up an Adlai Stevenson Presidency with the break up of a Joseph McCarthy third party.

Reading this edition of the comic strip “Zits”…
  Yes, it’s another one of those “visual representation of a figure of speech” strips that this cartoonist (Jerry Scott and Jim Borgman) does with regularity.  Its chief virtue is that it is not a “talking heads” gag — and shows off the the form of the strip.  Its chief defect is a sort of “yeah, whatever” to the joke itself.

I do find the sentence that Jeremy is reading kind of interesting.  “Incoming Republicans lead a congressional move that forced James Buchanan to”…

Details on congressional movements during the James Buchanan Administration leading up to the Secessionist Crisis and the Civil War are sketchy to me.  Certainly a good amount of gridlock after the 1858 midterm brought the Republican Party into power, though it was nothing like the chaos that ripped about the Franklin Pierce Administration.

Urm… the historical legacy of James Buchanan was one of inaction — he’s considered the worst president because he let the Secessionists at the end of his term take off and begin… seceding.  I’m just wondering what the nascent Republican Party forced him to do.

Can I get the conclusion to that sentence?  If nothing else, it might give some suggestions for the current Obama Administration.

There is a sort of comedy within the netherworlds of the Conservative media on the implementation of the Affordable Care Act (commonly and crudely referred to as “Obamacare“, and which I’ve tended to call DoleRomneyObamaCare).  Every single glitch gets magnified and pounded upon.  This is indeed funny — a showcase of stock images of happy kids within the government’s material on the exchanges — but in the end, pretty damned meaningless.

Given the nature of the act and the high amount of deference it gave to state implementation, I had understood that the thing would work well enough but imperfectly  in states whose governors care to implement it (every state with a Democrat in the governor’s seat and every state where a Republican governor has to fret about a possible loss to a Democrat), and not terribly well in those states that don’t care to implement it (erm.  Largely the South.)  Regrettable all this, but I can only shrug on that score.  Interestingly, I see a convergence of arguments on the act — where some conservative commentators (George Will and Charles Krauthammer) have long argued that this is but a halfway measure to the dreaded single payer system, liberals are now pointing to their fellow “ugh.  Just a boon to Insurance Companies” partisans that this act is best seen as but a halfway measure to the glorious single payer system.

The unforeseen wrinkle has been lobbed: Republican Irresponsibility.  A product, and I see this explanation from a source that is highly sympathetic with it (Reason Magazine) of Citizen’s United bringing about a force that supersedes Republican Party Whip, gerry-mandered districts that puts a large number of Republicans in a position of having no left flank to worry about, and the Hastert Rule — informally reasonable proposition of Majority of the Majority needing to agree on the bill before it gets to the floor — but in the guise of the moment flexibility is imperative.

Counter to this otherwise fine dailykos post How A Bill becomes a Law — it’s not an ill-gotten majority the Republicans have in the House; it’s ill-retained.  Regrettable feature of a Census year victory.  (This is a better summary.)

And now I see this smattering of smug “nope.  Not affecting me” commentary — from people sort of on record as considering anyone who a shutdown of the government in immediate tangible norms (as opposed to your equivalent of “a bit more flight risk”) as — well, as Alan Greenspan wrote the NYT on Atlas Shrugged — “parasites”.  (Maybe a riot coming, unlike previous shutdown occurrences, because of our increased level of socialism.)

Your bit of a political calculus — quite apart from the fluctuating poll numbers and the insulation of the individual House members.  Obama’s numbers are doubtful to go up, even if the Congress goes down, and the Republicans go way down.  Which leaves to doubt that this would imperil a House majority significantly.  Put another way — if you lose a few seats in the midterms, who cares?  Did the Republicans really get smacked in the 1998 midterm elections… really?  And unfortunately, it’s hard to figure out how the party would lose much more than that.  This may be the more real meaning behind the point that Lemmings don’t commit suicide.  So, actually, even under that debunking of myth, the analogy still holds.

And then there’s this curiosity.  Why it’s Obama’s fault.  The Reason writer should know better than the simplification of an “Obama can drone strike abroad”, which is the libertarian equivalent of the Republican hoo-haing of “Sure, he can negotiate with Iran’s President, but not Boehner?”  Boehner states that at the end of the day, German Chancellor Angela Merkel will be calling Obama to ask “What the Hell is going on?” and not Boehner.  History records these years as being under the directive of Obama.  Lazy history, of course, but history nonetheless.
Recently I overheard a conversation of a Republican trying to convince an apolitical person with soft support of Obama of the wrongness of Obama.  And I heard this quick jab, “Well, we got our nation’s credit rating knocked down.”  Indeed, one of the Credit Agencies.  The report on the current decision mostly (though not entirely) blamed Republican intransigence as the immediate cause (the long term reasoning goes back further than Obama, of course).  Another credit agency stated earlier they’d follow suit with a Government shut-down — too many signs of institutional dysfunction.
The good news on this score, is to look back to history — see: The Government Shutdown of 1879.  No one much remembers Hayes, and what history books record are societal changes.  Reconstruction is over… corporate hegemony falls into place.  AND…

To sum up what of Obama as of now… Basically I think it’s time Obama follows Bill Clinton’s prior call to invoke the 14th Amendment.  If not that, there’s the Trillion Dollar coin.  Both ideas are asinine, but asinine times call for asinine measures.

In hindsight, the biggest Senate race of 2008 was the Texas Republican Primary between David Dewhurst and Ted Cruz.  From the outside, this “establishment versus Tea Party” figure seemed just to be just two wackadoodle Right wingers, but as things have turned out — urm.  (“Like 9/11, Let’s Roll.”  — Er… Congratulations?)

The two relevant election results.

07/31/2012  TX US Senate – R Runoff  Lost 43.20% (-13.60%)
05/29/2012  TX US Senate – R Primary  Won 44.67% (+10.58%)

The first one was the one that David Dewhurst really needed to get to that 50 point 1 to avoid the run-off, because… the depleted and more true believer run off turnout would just overwhelm the “Republican Establishment” vote.  If I recall, he was really shooting for the moon on immigration at this juncture.  As so happens, he failed — by 7 percent… final total — he, 43, Cruz 33.  Skip ahead those 2 months, and in a 2 man contest, Dewhurst was still at 43.  (The Democratic Primary was a hoot, though an irrelevant hoot.)

A few months ago, the National Review questioned why “Liberals and Democrats are obsessed with Ted Cruz” and suggested it was because he defied stereotypes with his Ivy League pedigree and etc.  To wit you mostly just scratch your head… no, one’s interest in Ted Cruz comes from him being an influential and powerful figure in a political party, and one whose aims are destructive to the country’s best interests.  Your liberal obsession with him hinges on the conservative obsession with him.

So, what do we see in David Dewhurst right about now?  The last “Hey Hoo!’ story was a relatively low level but definitely notable bit of influence peddling in trying to get his daughter out of trouble with the police.  Peg it into the background, mention it often, but know ye this: there will be Democratic politicos who pull the same entitled crap.
And he made more national news and notes in having to finally got the Texas legislator to restrict abortion, over the objectives of Wendy Davis.
And today we see that he’s taking his part in sharpening up Texas’s redistricting lines — a large part in the bane of our problems in the House.

But beyond all that… today we some Texas figures who love Ted Cruz want him to join him in the Senate, by making a primary fight against John Cornyn.  Because… — hm?

More importantly, would Texans be better served with him at the helm of the Texas Senate or with him as a Senator in Washington, doing the will of the Republican base unlike Sen. John Cornyn?

Naturally the comments section in this brings out the lines of your Republican base charging Dewhurst with being a “RINO” — though how he stacks up against “RINO” John Cornyn is not quite dwelt on — some comments directed to liberal nay-sayers about “Freedom” and “Texas!  Woop!”  (Some variation of this, actually.)

Another oddity… your crude bit of partisan thumb-nose sneering.

Now, for those of you on the left that are reading this (I’m talking about you Scrambled Brains and others), the caricature you have of Ted Cruz supporters is wrong. Incorrect. Idiotic. Whatever adjective you choose.
Check out Ed’s Linked In. Please. I beg you. I’ll wait. And if those big words scare you, I can understand.

Hm.  Actually the distinct aura of populism and elitism can be seen in the great Hamiltonian Party / Theocratic Party merger of 1968 — which was, in retrospect, the creation of the modern Republican Party.

Or, I could consult how liberals viewed the emerging conservativism in the 1950s (rebooted in the 1960s).  See the Daniel Bell edited book The New American Right.  Skip to the sections where it compares the old rich to the nuevo rich (particularly in Texas) with the old rich having some sense of noblesse oblige where the nuevo rich are status conscience and still afraid they might lose their wealth, and thus define Socialism down to … urm… John Cornyn and, depending on whether he’s running against… David Dewhurst.  but maybe the Hamiltonian Theocrats will hold their nose on that one.