Downward Spiral

Not American decline, in this case, but the political fortunes of its architects.

There are many reasons why the "permanent Democrat realignment" the Left gleefully assured us was "inevitable" after the 2008 election disaster is destined to last but a single biennium.  Runaway debt, recessionary economic policies, ObamaCare tyranny, a propaganda civil war launched against many of the same people who elected them in the first place.  What these factors all have in common is a candorous lack of discretion borne of triumphalist arrogance.  Believing themselves to have won not just a single election, but once for all time, they eschewed accountable governing for unaccountable rule, possessed of the maniacal misimpression that (1) they still were accountable to the electorate, at least theoretically, and (2) that electorate had not, after all, embraced Obamunism and was developing a highly pissed case of mass buyers' remorse.

Herewith, the latest examples of Donk extremist indiscretion:

***When Democrats and Republicans both agree on the economically dubious idea of subsidizing a permanent indolent class (and additional pro-Donk constituency) through perpetual extensions of unemployment benefits, you'd think the Dems had won the policy day, right?  I mean, about what is there left to argue?

Would you believe....the source of the funding to pay for it?:

The Senate failed once again late Wednesday to advance a plan to restore jobless benefits for people out of work more than six months, leaving millions of unemployed workers in limbo until after the July 4 recess.

The measure fell one vote shy of the sixty needed to end a Republican filibuster. Sen. George V. Voinovich (R-Ohio) said he was prepared to provide that vote, but that Democrats had rejected his request to pay for at least half of the $34 billion measure with unspent funds from last year’s stimulus package.

“Democrats are more interested in having this issue to demagogue for political gamesmanship than they are in simply passing the benefits extension,” Voinovich, who is retiring, said in a statement. “I came to the table with a fair compromise and the ball is in their court.”

It's more than that, actually.  What it most important to Democrats is NOT that unemployment benefits get extended (again) to the ever-burgeoning unemployment population that Obamanomics is "stimulating," but that the national debt be expanded to do it.  For all the fanfare with which they passed their "pay-go" rule back in February that "requires" that every dollar of new spending be paid for with a matching dollar of either new revenue or reduced spending from elsewhere in the federal budget, their true objective is to wildly pursue and insist upon the precise opposite.

That flagrantly in-our-face hypocritcal profligacy has taken its PR toll on these self-styled overlords.  Remember four months ago when retiring GOP Senator Jim Bunning (R-KY) conducted a one-man filibuster against a previous extension of unemployment benefits on the grounds that the Dems were blowing off pay-go and grafting the bill straight onto the deficit?  Remember how the rest of the 'Pubbie caucus slapped him down for his fiscally responsible effrontery?  Here we are four months later with that same bunch o' Pachyderms in rock-ribbed lockstep taking the same stand, the RINOs in their midst walking away from their rejected sell-outs in disgust at the other side's unwillingness to "compromise" - and winning, both in the immediate and broader contexts.

Think about what else the Dems have done.  They've thrown away another of their core propaganda cliches - "compassion for the downtrodden" - because they didn't want to waste unspent Hogzilla funds on the Obama-impoverished masses that they have, er, earmarked for kickbacks to their Big Labor/Purpleshirt extremist political cronies.

The Democrats prefer that we not have jobs and the economic independence that comes with them.  Now we see that they prefer that we not even have the meager substistence of unemployment compensation if it means their having to choose between us and not burying future generations under even more debt for the benefit of the twenty-first century Sturmabteilung.

***Ah, but you know the drill by now, right?  Libs are perfectly willing to be draconian budget-slashers, complete with Jason hockey masks - when it's the "right" spending being cut:

The Air Force must retire six fighter air wings equivalents, and at the same time build 301 fewer F-35 fighters. The nuclear bomber force will be completely eliminated in the name of unilateral disarmament—the B-1 and B-2 and B-52 and other bombers will still be able to drop bombs, but their nuclear weapon wiring and controls will simply be removed. Procurement of the new refueling tanker and the C-17 cargo aircraft will be canceled. Directed energy beam research and other advanced missile and space warfare defense projects will also be eliminated or curtailed.

Active duty Army personnel will be slashed from 562,400 to 360,000. That includes elimination of about five active-component brigade combat teams (the report is not exactly). The Army will also suffer a myriad of other cuts, including closure of overseas bases.

The Marine Corps would be cut by 30%, from 202,000 to 145,000, and the other funding cuts planned for the Corps mean the United States will not be able to mount a major amphibious landing on any hostile shore. Marine Corps programs to be killed include the V-22 Osprey tilt rotor aircraft and the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle.

The aforequoted are recommendations from the "Sustainable Defense Task Force" co-chaired by Barney "Lollipop/Democrat Financial Logic Bomb Co-Architect" Frank and the one, the only, Ron "9/11 Truther" Paul.  As the famous saying goes, "What could go wrong?"

Just as it was thirty years ago, a whole bleeping lot writes Sarahcuda:

There's growing concern among Republicans - and especially among the pro-defense neoconservative wing of the party - that national-security spending, which is under a level of scrutiny and pressure not seen since the end of the Cold War, could fall victim to the anti-establishment, anti-spending agenda of the Tea Party movement. Palin, as the unofficial leader of that movement and its most prominent celebrity, is moving to carve out such funding from any drives to cut overall government expenditures.

There's a sense among GOP insiders that she is not only the perfect figure to make the case, but she's also the only one who can pull it off....

Palin's drive to lead the charge against defense cuts on the right was on display in a June 27 speech at "Freedom Fest," a conservative gathering in Norfolk, VA, where she sent a clear message to Republicans that deficit reduction can't come at the expense of the military.

"Something has to be done urgently to stop the out of control Obama-Reid-Pelosi spending machine, and no government agency should be immune from budget scrutiny," she said.

"We must make sure, however, that we do nothing to undermine the effectiveness of our military. If we lose wars, if we lose the ability to deter adversaries, if we lose the ability to provide security for ourselves and for our allies, we risk losing all that makes America great! That is a price we cannot afford to pay."

Palin also directly took on Defense Secretary Robert Gates, a Republican, challenging his drive to reign in procurement spending and reevaluate the need for certain huge weapons systems and platforms.

"Secretary Gates recently spoke about the future of the U.S. Navy. He said we have to ‘ask whether the nation can really afford a Navy that relies on $3 to $6 billion destroyers, $7 billion submarines, and $11 billion carriers.' He went on to ask, ‘Do we really need ... more strike groups for another thirty years when no other country has more than one?'" Palin said. "Well, my answer is pretty simple: Yes, we can and, yes, we do, because we must."

You know another old saying: The most expensive military in the world is the one that's second best.  And as the Navy is already finding out anew, it's vastly cheaper to maintain a strong, broad-based military capability than it is to throw it away and then have to belatedly rebuild it.  I don't think any of us realize how close we were to being conquered and/or destroyed as a nation in the late '70s and early '80s when the Soviet Union had effectively conquered half the world and possessed strategic nuclear superiority over the West to go with their already crushing conventional advantage in Europe.  It is arguable that Ronald Reagan's presidency was outright providential in sustaining American survival and eventual revival during that crisis period of maximum strategic vulnerability.  It is even more arguable that we are extremely unlikely to ever be granted such a near-miraculous reprieve and deliverance from hard-left foolishness - or calculated sabotage - ever again.  In a world governed by the aggressive use of force, and whose post-WWII peace has been kept by the preponderance of American force, that's a fate we dare not beckon.

***So we see again that Dems don't care about you but about Big Labor and debt explosion that will given them [ahem] more crises to exploit.  And we are freshly reminded that they would sooner see America - thee and me - wiped out by foreign enemies than divert so much as a plug nickel away from that domestic communization agenda.

ObamaCare illustrated for all time the totalitarian impulses of Obamunism.  But just in case we were inclined to let the vivid memory fade into the mists of PR legend, the Evil Chipmunk has ridden to the rescue to keep Donk authoritarianism front and center in American frontal lobes everywhere:

House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) said he would “absolutely” seek to keep greenhouse gas limits alive in a House-Senate conference if the Senate approves energy legislation this summer that omits carbon provisions.

“It would be open in conference to consider because our bill has it,” Waxman told The Hill Wednesday.

Waxman authored a sweeping climate and energy bill that the House narrowly approved last year that merges an “economy-wide” cap-and-trade system with other provisions to boost alternative energy and energy efficiency.

Greenhouse gas caps face large hurdles in the Senate, and may be left on the cutting-room floor when the Senate debates an energy package that Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) wants to bring up next month.

The Admiral Kirk rule again:  "The word is no.  I am therefore going anyway."

But there's that darn accountability snag again.  As Ensign Ed notes, Nostrildamus' bald threat provides redundant filibuster ammunition not just to Senate Republicans, but to more than a few "flyover country" Dems in the midwest who are not eager to be sent into retirement so prematurely.  It's practically a billboard not just for holding energy policy hostage to cripple & tax, but for voters to return the Senate to GOP hands in November along with the House.

One might even call it an engraved invitation to a permanent Republican realignment.