**Written by Doug Powers This past June, Rep. Lynn Woolsey, a California Democrat, announced that she’ll retire when her current term expires at the end of 2012. Obviously she’s already started practicing: What’s a five-letter word for neglecting a responsibility? From The Blaze : This truly is one of those “gotcha” moments that will leave people shaking their heads in dismay, and disapproval. Democrat Lynn Woolsey, who reportedly earns $174,000 a year serving her constituents in the U.S. House of Representatives, can be seen below in the following C-SPAN clip, doing a crossword puzzle on the House floor while fellow California Democrat George Miller spoke addressed the topic of union rights on Wednesday. The backdrop provided by Woolsey offered a fitting symbolic compliment to Miller’s speech on worker productivity, wouldn’t you say? (h/t The Blaze and Andrew Malcolm ) **Written by Doug Powers Twitter @ThePowersThatBe
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Video: California Democrat Tirelessly Serves Constituents
-By Warner Todd Huston Last year for the 2010 midterms Arkansas Senator Blanche Lincoln was in trouble with her reelection. Up until 2010 most felt her seat was a safe one but Democrat challengers pushed the sitting Senator to a runoff that she barely won. 55% of her constituents opposed her. Lincoln welcomed the support of
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Death By Regulations: Has Obama Lost Senator Blanche Lincoln?
You know what they say; one man’s terrorist is another man’s democratically elected congressman. That’s just one of the many lessons of the debt ceiling compromise, a deal that heralds a new era of electrifying political rhetoric. Nazis are out. Jihadists are in. The tea party “acted like terrorists,” Joe Biden reportedly said of negotiations. One reasonable New York Times columnist called the tea party the “Hezbollah faction” of the GOP, and the other advised the radicals to “put aside their suicide vests” — for now. And in a sweeping assault on the tea party, metaphors, syntax and clarity, MSNBC’s Chris Matthews packed everything he’d read on the blogs into a glorious globule of rhetorical confusion. But fret not. Terrorist analogies are welcome when democracy fails to break to the left. Republicans should never refer to the Congressional Progressive Caucus as a bunch of wealth-destroying jihadists who wear suicide vests packed with prosperity-killing stimulus plans. That kind of hyperbole would be catastrophic, leading to violence and/or another alarmist Diane Sawyer television special. But Bob Beckel is just being cute when he discusses the “tea terrorist party” on Fox News. (He later apologized .) And it turns out that the extremist freshman wing of the Republican Party (which wing isn’t extreme, though — am I right?) voted 59-28 in favor of the bipartisan ” sugar-coated Satan sandwich ” debt deal. What kind of namby-pamby hostage takers are these people? (Did you know that 95 House Democrats also voted against raising the ceiling? From what we’ve learned about staggering dangers of fooling around with this policy, we apparently have another 95 nihilists running around D.C.) If you’re wondering why these elected officials, representing their constituents within the system, are the equivalent of terrorists, a Democratic congressman from Pennsylvania bores to the heart of the matter: “This small group of terrorists,” Mike Doyle explained , “have made it impossible to spend any money.” Well, damn near impossible. Washington will have to squeeze by on $43,900,000,000,000 over the next decade while wrestling with real cuts that are likely to rise to zero — or maybe less. If we can’t spend money, who are we as a people? Perhaps it’s because of some psychological ailment such as Stockholm syndrome — and why else would a person believe in libertarian fiscal policy? — that I hope the tea party does a better job next time around. It is, after all, silly watching the establishment celebrate a compromise on debt that adds $7 trillion to the nation’s liability and uses a base line that assumes some pretty significant tax hikes. But you needn’t sympathize with the American Taliban to understand the significance of the day. No amount of hysterics changes the fact that there has been realignment to the national conversation. The country has been radicalized by reality. A new CNN poll finds that though they rightly disapprove with everyone involved, 65 percent of those polled think that cuts in the debt deal were appropriate. Most polls find that voters believe government is too large and favor spending cuts. Remember that polls showed that most voters were against raising the debt limit at all. It’s not the terrorists who drive this change. It’s the evidence. It’s the economic suffering that “spreading it around” policy has created. It’s institutionalization of a recession. For a while, at least, those who claim that bankruptcy spending and bullet trains create jobs — no matter how regularly the media offer these myths as fact — can’t be taken seriously. Fleeting as this shift may be, we were brought a sliver of good news this week. During one glorious day, the United States passed legislation with the sole intention of cutting government rather than “creating” so-called jobs or “investing” in some cockamamie energy boondoggle or “helping” “working families” — which is, of course, the biggest help Washington can offer us. For that, we can thank the “terrorists.” _______________________ Follow @ davidharsanyi
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Harsanyi: When we balance the budget, the terrorists have won
Allen West was scheduled for a Monday fundraiser in the O.C. this week, but the event was cancelled due to the ongoing budget negotiations in Washington. West is tentatively committed to an October fundraiser, so I’m crossing my fingers for that. He’s a good man and it was my honor to meet him at CPAC last February. So following up on my post last night, ” Rep. Allen West Slams Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz Over ‘Vile’ Comments on Floor of House of Representatives .” The Hill has this, ” Wasserman Schultz brushes off West email .” (At Memeorandum .) One the things I admire about Allen West is his willingness to stand up to progressive abuse. At town hall meetings he’s challenged malicious attackers, people making false allegations of “racism,” etc. He’s repeatedly rebuked the left’s thuggery and violent intimidation. And you know what, people don’t like that he’s standing up. In response to West’s Wasserman Schultz smackdown, James Joyner posts a tiny little hit piece, ” Allen West is an Embarrassment .” James uses West’s Iraqi interrogation incident to take a cheap shot, writing: Somehow, he persuaded people that he was a war hero and rode that to Congress–despite the local Veterans of Foreign Wars endorsing his opponent. Somehow? You don’t get elected to Congress without the approval of the voters, and West’s rigorous bearing must have satisfied his constituents. West has taken responsibility for his actions and said he’d do what the moment required if faced with the same circumstances today. That’s called integrity in my book. Meanwhile, the boys at Outside the Beltway take cheap shots from the bleachers, while the terrorists abroad and progressives at home slap high fives at the useful idiots doing their bidding.
Just when we thought the circus was over, Rep. Anthony Weiner’s resignation press conference degenerated into one. During the four-minute presser, audience members cheered and jeered as the embattled congressman made his resignation official. As the congressman attempted to apologize, yet again, to his constituents and to his wife, the audience shouted out, briefly stopping him in his tracks. Bye, bye pervert!” on person yelled. “Get him out, he’s not with us!” said another in reference to the person making inappropriate comments. There were plenty more inappropriate quips as well. When the disgraced politician finally concluded his statements, one man could be heard yelling ”Will you maintain your hot physique?” You can watch the chaos unfold below. Various sources are reporting that Benjy Bronk from The Howard Stern Show was behind some of the jeering. The heckling starts at 1:50:
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Heckled: Audience Erupts in Cheers, Jeers During Weiner Resignation
Three out of four state legislators boast at least a bachelor’s degree, a rate nearly three times higher than among the constituents they serve, a Chronicle of Higher Education study found.
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College Degree Prevalent Among Lawmakers
