It shouldn’t be, anyway. Although you wouldn’t know it by the way some of our fine elected officials have been behaving lately!
First up is New Hampshire Congresswoman Carol Shea-Porter, who has come up with a clever way of dealing with people who ask her questions in townhall meetings that she doesn’t feel like answering:
Ed Morrissey notes: “I’ve watched this video a couple of times, and I still can’t figure out why the police took this man out of the room.” Apparently because he asked whether the guy in the purple SEIU shirt, the one trying to drown out his question, was even a resident of New Hampshire. The implication being that the young fellow was bussed in from somewhere else. But that would be astroturfing! So out the older guy goes.
Oh, sorry, he was ejected because he didn’t have a ticket to speak. As Now Hampshire notes (emphasis mine):
In four short years Carol Shea-Porter has evolved from a rabble-rousing, town hall disrupting anti-war activist who once had to be forcibly removed from a President George Bush event in Portsmouth to a Member of Congress who instructed armed security guards to remove a frustrated voter from her own town hall event in Manchester on Saturday.
In the appended video, Shea-Porter can be seen instructing security to remove a man for standing to ask a question without a ticket. Shea-Porter previously held a lottery to determine who could ask questions. She can also be heard taunting the man on his way out by saying, “I do hope the movie theater can be a little quieter for you…”
“The irony is, of course, that Shea-Porter used to be a ‘tea-bagger’ on the left,” writes Nashua Telegraph columnist Kevin Landrigan. “She stalked then-congressman Jeb Bradley at town hall-style meetings the 1st District Republican incumbent held throughout his district.”
Four years ago Carol Shea-Porter protested at the State House alongside people dressed as Nazis while accusing the federal government of trying “to brand us like sheep.” On Saturday, she disparagingly referred to people who do not trust the same federal government to run our health care system as “these people.”
Nazis, eh? So the government is a bunch of Nazis when you’re one of the people, and then when you win a position in the government, it’s the people who are the Nazis. Nazi see, Nazi do!
Bonus: The guy who was escorted out, Carl Tomanelli, is a retired NYC cop.
Next up is the always-charming Nevada Senator Harry Reid. According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal:
On Wednesday, before he addressed a Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce luncheon, Reid joined the chamber’s board members for a meet-’n'-greet and a photo. One of the last in line was the Review-Journal’s director of advertising, Bob Brown, a hard-working Nevadan who toils every day on behalf of advertisers. He has nothing to do with news coverage or the opinion pages of the Review-Journal.
Yet, as Bob shook hands with our senior U.S. senator in what should have been nothing but a gracious business setting, Reid said: “I hope you go out of business.”
And hello to you too, Senator! Keep up the good fight against those “evil-mongers.” Republicans tend to reserve the word “evil” for other countries that hate America, but now we know that the real bad guys are American citizens who disagree with your policies. If they’re members of the press, even worse!
And finally, good ol’ New York Congressman Charlie Rangel. Charlie, Charlie, Charlie… NY Post:
Rep. Charles Rangel claimed on mortgage papers that a Harlem brownstone was his principal residence — even though he was living elsewhere at the time, The Post has learned.
When the Democrat — who is under investigation by the House Ethics Committee — took out the mortgage in 1990, he said the property on West 132nd Street was his “principal residence,” records show.
But Rangel has been living since the 1970s in Harlem’s Lenox Terrace apartment complex, where he improperly amassed four rent-stabilized properties.
State law requires that rent-regulated apartments be the tenant’s residence…
Newly filed financial-disclosure reports show Rangel has understated his annual earnings, his assets and his business dealings by millions of dollars since 2002, The Post has reported.
Whoops! NY Post again:
Rep. Charles Rangel failed to report as much as $1.3 million in outside income — including up to $1 million for a Harlem building sale — on financial-disclosure forms he filed between 2002 and 2006, according to newly amended records.
And according to the Boston Herald:
New York Rep. Charles Rangel is facing more questions over his personal finances after an amended report he filed this month shows he failed to disclose up to $500,000 in assets in 2007.
An amended report to his 2007 Congressional disclosure form indicates that Rangel’s assets include a checking account with a balance between $250,000 and $500,000.
And what makes all this tax-dodging tomfoolery so delicious?
Rangel is the powerful chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, which writes the tax code.
With all that tax-free cash, you’d think Rangel could afford lozenges! Sounds like he smokes ground-glass cigars or something.
It’s tough to keep up with all the corruption and hypocrisy in government these days, but that seems like a good start. If you’ve got a good one, leave it in the comments!
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I strongly believe we should be an IQ minimum for elected officials. In addition, if their behavior is shown to be taudry, crass, rude, and HYPOCRITICAL they should be tarred and feathered – manditory, no pardons, no excuses.
That might cut down on some of the bs people are having to wade through.
Make. It. Stop. SAy what you will about REpublicans, but damn, the democrats are just too doggone hypocritical. They dressed up as Nazis and it was okay. We are called Nazis and fear mongers.
Wern’t you tarred and feathered for being treasonous? You know, back in the day when Patriotism mattered? Cause, that would be really cool
August 6, 2009:
“War on Terrorism” is over
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/aug/06/white-house-war-terrorism-over/?feat=home_headlines
August 31, 2009
“War on terrorism” not over
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2009/08/31/white_house_spokesman_uses_phrase_war_on_terror.html
Hey…we could really kill 2 birds with one stone with the tar and feathers. We could also apply the standards to hyocritical Petards. Oh the irony
Prove it. 2010 is coming. 2012 is closer than you think. Get rid of these dinosaurs once and for all. People shouldn’t spend 20, 30, or even 40 years or more in congress. It’s maddening.
hey, I am not the one voting them back in. Wish there were more like me
Can I tell you how much I love the 2012 stuff? The observatory in LA is doing a display on how the 2012 conspiracy is a big pile of bullcrap. But I love that they took it seriously enough to make a whole exhibit on it. Niburu’s collision course with Earth is serious science, apparently.
New Rasmussen poll shows 57% of Americans would like to replace every single member of congress. The voters in this country need to give these people a collective bitch slap and get them outta there.
I was talking about the elections.
Ha, funny. It still applies though.
How about a Burning Man Deceiver article?
There’s a plethora of material, from arson charges for the guy burned down their totem pole early last year (or the year before), to the stack of legal paperwork their lawyers have you sign these days.
Not to mention all the pot smoking free love you can carry.
John Edwards would love it, and I’d be willing to bet Rielle Hunter always wanted to go.
Maybe Lizzie can load the everybody in the RV and they can make a week of it.
You have to at least claim to have read and accept the license agreement before installing any commercial software. Politicians should be required to say they have read the constitution and accept it before taking office. Then we can catch them out when they prove that they have not and do not.
Sorry, but a seat in Congress IS usually a lifetime appointment and the nearly brain-dead American people are to blame for that. They re-elect the same clowns over and over and over again. Incumbents are usually set for life because the voters prefer stability over everything else. It doesn’t matter how crooked or inept a given Congress person is. The dumb mob will pull the lever for the guy or gal they’ve seen on the news for the last couple of years.
Can you burn hippies at burning man? If you can I’m there.
Sometimes being a history buff can make you crazy – this is one of those times. I can’t help but reflecting as I read these stories how eerily similar the undercurrents are to the events leading up to the Spanish Civil War, or even the American Civil War. The fury, the divisiveness, the seeming indifference of the politicians we supposedly elected to represent us, the complicity of trusted authority figures in the political infighting(like the police officers dragging voters from town halls for speaking their minds) are all startlingly familiar to a student of modern history.
This nation is a powder keg, and the scariest part of it all is that those who are supposed to be in charge are seemingly in denial about that fact. They seem to believe they can keep going on with business as usual when ‘business as usual’ is exactly what’s pissing people off to begin with.
We’ve reached that watershed where people are drawing lines in the sand and have basically said they’re not going to put up with any more infringements on their personal lives and individual liberty, and that folks, is the stuff that revolutions are made of. Lets do our best to vote these clowns out, because I’ll tell you the only thing you need to know about modern war – you don’t want it coming home.
The egos of these elected people are staggeringly huge. SCARILY huge. They depend so much on their underlings to read this stuff they need to be prepared on…then are defensive when people speak back on what they feel needs to be heard but evidently is not getting heard. I just wish so much that more voters would turn these career politicians out, that apathy wouldn’t figure so much on voting day.
These are scary times Scott F.
I read an interesting editorial that pointed out that Ted Kennedy’s “quest” for universal health care took a back seat to reality for most of his time in Congress, and that he probably would have pushed for more of a bipartisan bill if he had been healthier (based on past behavior in similar situations), but his aides wrote a one-sided bill since he wasn’t healthy enough to do anything. This was from a conservative (but usually fair-minded) who wasn’t a big Teddy fan. So much for the whole push-a-crappy-bill-through-for-the-Kennedy-legacy.
Note: Represent the people means vote the way the people want you to vote. If you can’t do that, RESIGN.
Regarding AllyKat’s point, it scares the crap out of me that we’re living in a country that allows non-elected individuals (aides,lobbyists) to write bills. They’re the ones essentially running America right now, since the idiot Congress people can’t even be bothered to READ the darn bills they vote for. Really, many of them are more ignorant on technicalities that we the people are. So we’re living in a non-democracy now, not allowed to vote for the people who draft legislation. How did this happen?
And yeah, I don’t see how these people keep getting voted in, since there are so many intelligent, protesting individuals out there. Time will tell if the pattern continues, though.
Congressmen never write their own bills. They are usually written by staff. Who writes them depends on what committee they come out of.
How do I know this? My son was an intern a few years ago (he interned for a committee in the House) and actually wrote a couple of paragraphs for one of the bills.
Reckoning is coming.
I knew that Congressmen do not write their bills just by watching “Legally Blond 2″
And these are very scary times. Murtha calls Marines killers and calls his constituents redneck racists and he is still voted back in.
Obama’s number keeps sliding too. 46% approve of him and more importantly 66% of independents disapprove. Those are the ones that helped carry him into the White House.
Guys, we don’t live in a Democracy, we live in a Republic, and the elected officials must be help to the standards of their elections or be removed from office. The problem is that most Democrats simple vote straight ticket and when you are an incumbant there is no run off you are automatically nominated by the party of that state.
As for the History lesson well I would equate the way America is heading to the height of the Roman Empire when more than half the population was being fed and entertained by the Senate. Nothing going on today is new, it is tried and true and unfortunately becoming common practice with elected officials. Term limits are one way to end these long riegns that people like Reid and Pelosi have enjoyed and become rich from.
Once we quit sending tort lawyers to Congress, we might see the end of this particular chattering class.
Getting a responsible, answerable congress will only be the starting point. After that, the hard work of deconstructing the Executive branch must begin, concentrating on the Tsars and the Commisars of the various departments, and thinning out the herds of bureaucrats that are the actual apparatchiks who engage in the destruction of personal liberty every day. The dog can’t hunt, because its tail is too big.
We should hold our congress critters to a higher standard, but I would be satisfied if they were held to the same standard of behavior and honesty that I am. Betrayal of the public trust should get them convicted as felons and imprisonment. Treason, such as that engaged in by Ted Kennedy with the Breshnev era KGB, should get them executed.
As an unrelated question: Why is Ted Kennedy buried in Arlington? That internment is not merited and is an insult to the men and women who actually fought and died for this Nation and the Constitution.
Ted Kennedy is buried at Arlington b/c he was a Kennedy. I have never understood the allure of that jumped-up clan of criminals, and I probably never will.
And they’re all so very, very classy, too:
http://www.thefoxnation.com/culture/2009/08/31/kennedy-relative-flips-crowd
That photo simply shows one Kennedy relative doing literally what the whole filthy bunch has spent decades doing figuratively.
Beige,
My understanding is that he enlisted in the Army, thinking it was for 2 years when it was for 4 years. The Kennedy name got him out of serving the 4 years and got him to lay in rest in Arlington. Still think that his plot deserves to go to some hero who was killed in action rather than to him, murderer and harasser that he is
Ted is allowed to be buried in Arlington because of his time in the Army and the 40 plus years in congress. I read that on Fox News the other day.
And I agree with AAW, that plot SHOULD go to a deserving hero who was killed in action.
What I want to know, what forklift company got the contract to move that fatass’s casket around because there is no way six people could have moved that piano case/casket.
Great article and comments! Well, the good news is that the elite socialist left is really showing its true colors here for all to see. They have been waiting so long for this opportunity to take over, but they haven’t reformed or updated their tactics since Marx’s Manifesto and Saul Alinsky’s Rules For Radicals, and those just don’t work in today’s free-info internet society because they can’t do their work in secret anymore. Heheh.
P.S. Remember what the radical protesters used to shout in the 60s, “The whole world is watching!”, well, right backatcha now, Commies. :-p
Pearce for Senate in 2010, right when I meet the age cutoff….
Teddy enlisted in the Army because he got kicked out of Harvard for cheating. Funny how that little factoid doesn’t get much press. Some columnist claims that conservatives would have forgiven him of Mary Jo’s murder if he had championed conservative causes while in Congress. Sorry, I don’t think 40 years of cushy public service on either side is enough penance to make up for killing someone. Or leaving someone to drown while you save yourself.
“Scott F
Sometimes being a history buff can make you crazy – this is one of those times. I can’t help but reflecting as I read these stories how eerily similar the undercurrents are to the events leading up to the Spanish Civil War, or even the American Civil War. The fury, the divisiveness, the seeming indifference of the politicians we supposedly elected to represent us, the complicity of trusted authority figures in the political infighting(like the police officers dragging voters from town halls for speaking their minds) are all startlingly familiar to a student of modern history.
This nation is a powder keg, and the scariest part of it all is that those who are supposed to be in charge are seemingly in denial about that fact. They seem to believe they can keep going on with business as usual when ‘business as usual’ is exactly what’s pissing people off to begin with.
We’ve reached that watershed where people are drawing lines in the sand and have basically said they’re not going to put up with any more infringements on their personal lives and individual liberty, and that folks, is the stuff that revolutions are made of. Lets do our best to vote these clowns out, because I’ll tell you the only thing you need to know about modern war – you don’t want it coming home.”
OK, Im with you on the voting, but and it is a big but, do you recall all of the states that had irregular voting, false registrations, out of state voter fraud and the list goes on. Well the democrats and Obama have been handing out money right and left, getting the Chicago way going really strong all over, giving
Acorn a Billion dollars to make sure the next elections turn out how they want them to.
Remember that when you read this quote:
The Second Amendment is a doomsday provision, one designed for those exceptionally rare circumstances where all other rights have failed – where the government refuses to stand for reelection and silences those who protest; where courts have lost the courage to oppose, or can find no one to enforce their decrees. However improbable these contingencies may seem today, facing them unprepared is a mistake a free people get to make only once.
2009 Judge Alex Kozinski
Sometimes things don’t turn out fair or what you want, but something else entirely. I think that all of this is not just politics anymore but something else.
Papa Ray
West Texas
“Scott F
Sometimes being a history buff can make you crazy – this is one of those times. I can’t help but reflecting as I read these stories how eerily similar the undercurrents are to the events leading up to the Spanish Civil War, or even the American Civil War. The fury, the divisiveness, the seeming indifference of the politicians we supposedly elected to represent us, the complicity of trusted authority figures in the political infighting(like the police officers dragging voters from town halls for speaking their minds) are all startlingly familiar to a student of modern history.
This nation is a powder keg, and the scariest part of it all is that those who are supposed to be in charge are seemingly in denial about that fact. They seem to believe they can keep going on with business as usual when ‘business as usual’ is exactly what’s pissing people off to begin with.
We’ve reached that watershed where people are drawing lines in the sand and have basically said they’re not going to put up with any more infringements on their personal lives and individual liberty, and that folks, is the stuff that revolutions are made of. Lets do our best to vote these clowns out, because I’ll tell you the only thing you need to know about modern war – you don’t want it coming home.”
OK, I’m with you on the voting, but and it is a big but, do you recall all of the states that had irregular voting, false registrations, out of state voter fraud and the list goes on the last elections? Well the democrats and Obama have been handing out money right and left, getting the Chicago way going really strong all over, giving Acorn a Billion dollars to make sure the next elections turn out how they want them to. They are a hundred times stronger now and they don’t intend on letting elections stop them.
Remember that when you read this quote:
The Second Amendment is a doomsday provision, one designed for those exceptionally rare circumstances where all other rights have failed – where the government refuses to stand for reelection and silences those who protest; where courts have lost the courage to oppose, or can find no one to enforce their decrees. However improbable these contingencies may seem today, facing them unprepared is a mistake a free people get to make only once.
2009 Judge Alex Kozinski
Sometimes things don’t turn out fair or what you want, but something else entirely.
I think that all of this is not just “politics” anymore but Something Else.
Papa Ray
West Texas
Next we will all be on trains to re-education camps. I can see the black helicopters now. Of course, I live near a Blackwater training camp so I might be okay.
Yeah!
Hey kids, don’t worry! Charlie gets to keep his chairmanship!
I was so worried that paying off ethics investigators might be construed as shady.