I call the posters that submit blogs or comments to our midsized town of ~65,000 on line forum, the locals. Victoria, Texas, is a libertarian/republican city but when their GOP representatives get involved in scandals; the so called libertarian- republicans will call themselves conservatives. Since the GOP national, state, and local recent victories, the locals have adopted the republican label once again. One poster wrote a blog about the consequences of a super majority, and another wrote a letter to Santa; thanking him for all the new conservatives in office. One recent letter to the editor written by a local right winger named Robert T. Smith, titled his letter “Ideas to improve our Federal government." It was a right wing boilerplate special with the same calls for abolishing Medicare, the Department of Education and HUD. You know all the safety net programs. He calls our membership in the United Nations a move toward a one world government. He wants to raise our trading partner’s tariffs, as if that worked in the Great Depression of 1929. He called for abolishing the 14th and 17th amendment. Not amending; abolishing. . He wants a curb illegal immigration with our overextended military and abolishes the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment. He apparently has a problem with our voting system because he wants to take away a citizen right to elect their senator. He wants to abolish the 17th amendment and go back to state legislators appointing senators to their federal office. I love his closing statement “next month. We will cover our state and three local governments." I can hardly wait.
Evidently, the locals get all their news from Fox News and right wing blogs else they would know that it only takes 218 votes in the House of Representatives to pass a bill. They then have to send it over to the senate where the republicans do not have a majority, and they have to get 60 votes to bring any the legistration the house passes to the floor for debate. Super majority doesn't mean much in the House of Representatives; bill usually gets stalled in the senate. The democrats had a 79 seat advantage in the 111th Congress, but they saw over 400 bills stalled in the senate, without a single vote. Democrats controlled both houses of Congress and executive branch, but they were still unable to get any Federal judges appointed.
I understand party loyalty but when one criticizes a political party for irresponsible spending but remains silent while their own GOP party adds to the deficit, conducts a pledge to stop earmarking but the first chance they get,they’re caught adding millions of dollars of earmarks to a bill. It has to be about the power because it's certainly not about a principle. I consider myself a loyal democrat, but I think the current tax package is wrong and bad for our economy. I'm also disappointed that the democratic president does not pay attention to the words of recently departed Richard Holbrooke when his last words were" we need to get out of Afghanistan." The leaked cables just reinforced what we already knew; we are losing the war in Afghanistan because the governments of Pakistan and Afghanistan are not cooperating.
On a side note; there's a small town about 32 miles up the coast that installed a camera atop a traffic light to catch violators. The locals of that small town started a petition to remove the camera mounted lights and our newspaper published the story on line. It didn't take long for commenter to complain about their fourth amendment rights, etc. The local know it all, police apologist, SpeakUp1968, writes several long winded comments; lambasting those that oppose the light. What's funny is that most of the posters don't even live in that town. This is been going on for several days.
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