Virginia voters showed their INTELLIGENCE tonight as they rejected incumbent house majority leader Eric Cantor’s re-election bid.
Cantor epitomized the Republican incumbent inside-the-beltway-I-got-mine-now-I-am-going-to-hold-on-to-my-perks fraternity. The Republican leadership (Boehner-Cantor-McConnell) have insisted on capitulating to the alpha-male Democrats on Capitol Hill, in abject defiance of their grass-roots conservative base. They have repeatedly “assumed the position”, thinking it would protect their cocktail-party invitations with the DC elites and the flow of funds to their executive PACs.
Wrong. Fail.
This is nothing less than a stunning repudiation of amnesty – deficit spending – and capitulation to an overreaching imperial Obama administration.
Congrats to the “political novice with little money” Dave Brat.
So do ya still think the Tea Party is DEAD?!! Meet Virginia!
Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side
She never compromises, loves babies and surprises
Wears high heels when she exercises
Ain’t that beautiful
Meet Virginia
Flashback to Kindergarten. One of the the first things we had to learn was how to decide which things are the same and which are different. It builds the foundation for organizing our knowledge.
At first blush, South Carolina politics is pretty straightforward. Governor: Nikki Haley, Republican. Senators: Lindsey Graham and Tim Scott, Republicans. Representatives: Sanford, Wilson, Duncan, Gowdy, Mulvaney, Rice – all Republicans. Jim Clyburn, Democrat.
Here is your political kindergarten worksheet for this morning: Which of these South Carolina politicians is different?
Obviously, lone Democrat Jim Clyburn is sitting by himself at the South Carolina lunch table. But many South Carolina conservatives argue that another one of their elected officials is different.
Those who seek to unseat Graham face an uphill battle. Six primary challengers are lined up against him, all solidly positioned to his right. Lee Bright appears to lead the pack currently, but the key to the election is whether the rivals can, as a group, win 51% of the votes and force a runoff election. If not, Graham will cruise to victory and a certain return to his DC post.
Graham will not debate his opponents until a few days before the election, and will likely not spend much of his reportedly huge political war chest, evidence of (according to critics) his insider connections.
There is one factor that may be Graham’s undoing: backlash to his imperious penchant for poking Tea Party conservatives in the eye:
“Everything I’m doing now in terms of talking about climate, talking about immigration, talking about Gitmo is completely opposite of where the Tea Party movement’s at,” Graham said. On four occasions, Graham met with Tea Party groups. The first, in his Senate office, was “very, very contentious.”
“The problem with the Tea Party, I think it’s just unsustainable because they can never come up with a coherent vision for governing the country. It will die out.”
Conservatives can’t help but compare Graham to their governor, their other senator, and their Republican congressmen, all supporters of the Tea Party principles: constitutionally limited government, free market economics, and fiscal responsibility. If Lindsey Graham lines up on the opposite side of these convictions, I would have to mark him on my worksheet as DIFFERENT.
Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side
You see ’em drop like flies from the bright sunny skies
They come knocking at your door with this look in their eyes
You’ve got one good trick and you’re hanging on
You’re not the same!
November, 1964 – another crisp, sunny afternoon in Great Falls, Montana. We got out of McKinley Elementary at 3:15 and like most other days headed over to the Willetts’ house to see if the other neighborhood kids were up for some football.
The Willetts’ house was set back quite a ways off the street, and had a big front yard of thick, green grass littered with fat orange, yellow and red leaves from the huge maple trees that graced our older middle-class street. It was irresistible to a bunch of grade school boys with lots of energy and no homework.
By 3:30 a dozen or so kids had arrived, and the captains picked their teams. The team captains were the biggest, toughest, or oldest kids – the alpha males of the bunch. You were proud if you were one of the first boys picked, and kind of embarrassed if you were the last. But everybody got to play.
Seems like the captains always got to play quarterback, too. Like it or not, they were the natural leaders. There might be an occasional challenge – “Hey I want to be captain!” – but usually it was pretty evident who was going to be in charge. The captain had to be smart enough to call a play that actually might work. He was usually the best athlete. And he had to have the respect, or at least the obedience, of his teammates.
Bobby was fast as the wind, a natural running back. Randy could catch anything. He always got to be a receiver.
Roger, the fat kid, always had to play center or guard. I mean let’s face it, he just couldn’t run fast enough to catch a pass or defend one. Plus he had no idea how to call plays. But Roger didn’t mind, he knew his place. And heck, he could block two or three of us at a time.
Our neighborhood was very mixed, from one end of the socioeconomic scale to the other. Some of us were scruffy kids from poor families. We were the ones with no dads at home. The middle-class boys had real families and belonged to the cub scouts. They had to be home at 6:00 for supper. Some of the gang were actually upper-crust; in fact, Mr. Willetts ran for mayor.
But on a blue-sky late autumn afternoon in the sixties it didn’t matter what your dad did for a living, or if you had one. It was all about run, throw, catch, score, and WIN. Nobody cared what you looked like or how worn-out your shoes were. You succeeded or failed on your own, and you weren’t going to get any respect for free.
We learned about leadership. About the joy of competition. About how to fit in and contribute to a team effort, and to share in the rewards. About getting knocked on your butt, and getting back up. Some kids learned that they just weren’t cut out for football. They found something else they could do well. Or not.
And all of this happened without worried parents hovering over us, coaches having tantrums, or lawyers and TV news crews waiting for somebody to get hurt. No rules committees, safety equipment, or umpires. No government programs to shelter us and tell us what to do.
There was never any mention of “inequality”. Everybody got to play, and the boys who had the most skill, experience or drive had the most success, and the most fun. But we all wanted to compete, and to win.
That bunch of boys became men, and our generation did pretty well with what we learned on our own in those front yards and vacant lots. Now, sadly, the notion of kids being able to – and allowed to – organize their own rough-and-tumble football games is unthinkable. That level of freedom and opportunity for kids is long gone.
In today’s “fairer” progressive social structure, everybody will get to play quarterback. We will all have new shoes, but they will be low-quality, made in China. We won’t pick teams or keep score because that is just too damaging to self-esteem. There will be no losers, and no winners – just shared mediocrity.
I don’t know about you, but if Roger is going to be the quarterback, I don’t even want to play.
Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side
Ooh, it takes every kind of people
To make what life’s about, yeah
Every kind of people
To make the world go ’round
One minute we hear “the Tea Party is Dead”. The next minute, every other hopeful in the upcoming primaries is labeled a “Tea Party Candidate”. Which is accurate?
Last week Montana newspapers reported two stories with the words “Tea Party Candidate” in the headline.
The Great Falls Tribune broke the news, on a tip from an anonymous flame-throwing far-left blogger, that a number of “apparent Tea Party conservatives filed to run against bona fide Democrats in the June 3 primary.” Who determined that these people are “Tea Party” candidates? The candidates themselves did not claim to belong to any Tea Party. According to the Montana Tea Party Coalition, none of the eight candidates identified in the article are members of a coalition affiliate.
And regardless whether they are actual Tea Party members, what makes them less “bona fide” than the other candidates? The Tea Party believes in smaller governments, fiscal responsibility, and constitutional freedoms. We only want to preserve the American Dream – more good jobs, no crushing debt, and rising standards of living – for our children and grandchildren. Do “bona fide” Democrats oppose these principles?
Why didn’t the Great Falls Tribune talk to any of the easily-accessible Tea Party organizations in Montana – perhaps the very visible and active Great Falls Tea Party Patriots right in their hometown?
I called Drew Turiano today and asked him if he is a member of any Tea Party affiliate. “Well, no,” he said. “I just believe in most of the Tea Party principles.” Does that qualify him to be called the “Tea Party Candidate” in the race for the critically important, and only, US House seat from Montana? I looked at Turiano’s website today and found no mention of Tea Party other than the headlines of the linked news stories. Chuck Johnson, Capitol Bureau Chief for Lee Newspapers, told me that he recalled Turiano identifying with the Tea Party in an earlier interview. But again, no one in the media took the initiative to check in with the real Tea Party.
Meanwhile, the extreme left-wing blogs and the mainstream media can’t wait to find something – anything – about these candidates that they can use to vilify the Tea Party. Especially tasty are charges of racism in the Tea Party, a flat-out fabrication. Turiano was called a racist because he believes illegal immigrants are illegal and should be returned to their home countries. He made the mistake of referring to the Eisenhower-era deportation program called “Operation Wetback” – named by the US Immigration and Naturalization Service, not Turiano. And the Tea Party is guilty of racism by association. Both charges – racism and association with Turiano – are false, but that doesn’t stop the left or the media. The Montana GOP didn’t exactly hit this one out of the park either.
So, to set the record straight – there are ZERO “Tea Party Candidates” in Montana. And please guys, next time you have an issue or a question about the Tea Party, would you just call us and ask?
Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side
Hey, I just met you, and this is crazy
But here’s my number, so call me, maybe
It’s hard to look right at you baby
But here’s my number, so call me, maybe!
In my last post I decried the incessant corruption in Washington, DC. I recently read Peter Schweitzer’s amazing book “Extortion” and suddenly I see the baffling events inside the Beltway with new clarity.
Today the Senate, with Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Republican Whip John Cornyn voting along with the Democrats, passed the bill for President Obama’s signature. As a result the national debt will rise to at least $18.2 trillion while our government does nothing but accelerate the calamitous decline in our economy.
Until I read Schweitzer’s book I could not fathom how the Republican leadership of both houses of Congress could vote not only against the wishes and interests of their constituents, but also in defiance of their own body of legislators. The Republican majority-holding members in the House could have stopped this travesty in a heartbeat, and would have, were it not for John Boehner and the other Republican leaders. What kind of evil pathology is this? How can we face our children?
It just didn’t make any sense to me. Until I learned about “the money”.
I learned from Schweitzer and subsequent research that the game of government in DC is all about “the money”. A congressman cannot get elected without “the money”. Once a candidate is anointed by his party (both teams play by the same rules) and then elected, he is immediately indebted. He is required to not only raise enough funds to win his own re-election, he also must also raise funds to sustain the party. And let me tell you, these are some high stakes.
Committee assignments and leaderships are granted to legislators based on the funds they raise. Votes are bought and sold. Party leaders can financially make or break any member in a heartbeat. None of the attributes a congressman brings to his position – knowledge, experience, skill, hard work – matters at all. One’s status and hope for re-election is solely the result of how much dough he raises for the party. The vast majority of a legislator’s time is spent chasing “the money”.
While you never hear about this “Lord of the Flies” culture in the press, it is no secret inside the Beltway. It has been in place for a long, long time.
But a change took root in recent years. Conservative voters, seeing that the entrenched political class in Washington, DC no longer took any interest in limiting government, supporting constitutional rights, and passing reasonable budgets, began sending principled men and women to the nation’s capital. These newcomers were less engaged in “the money” and more driven by practical economics and common sense. As the Tea Party influence became more pronounced, and fewer members feared the leadership’s “protection racket”, the DC money machine started to break down. The Republican war chest was depleting. And the central control of the Republican leadership started to crack.
For a candidate, the worst thing about the Tea Party is that they will work hard for you, but they won’t bring you a lot of money. The best thing is that you won’t have to sell your soul to pay them back.
Boehner and friends have thrown in the towel. From the Huffington Post:
Speaking to reporters on Capitol Hill, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said he “hoped to find 18 of them to join 200 Democrats to get the job done.”
“The fact is, we’ll let the Democrats put the votes up,” Boehner said. “We’ll put a minimum amount of votes up to get it passed.”
The new conservatives don’t care that much about raising money and are not indebted to the leadership. They voted a resounding NO, and led most of the Republican membership into the light with them. The old guard Republican leadership hunkered down in their central command, clinging to the hope that they could keep hold of their power and positions, and “the money”, by caving in, again, to their Democrat opponents. In his final hurrah, Boehner bought just enough votes to do the deal and now he is broken and broke, along with Cantor, McConnell and the others. “The money”, and the power structure it bought, may soon be extinct.
I hope we will look back at this day as a pivot point. It was a battle lost, but one that could light the path to winning the war, where true conservatives stand on principle and vote for the people, not “the money”.
(To my Montana friends – The “Responsible Republicans” in the Big Sky State should take note. Their future may look a lot like that of Boehner and friends.)
Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side
You never give me your money
You only give me your funny paper
And in the middle of negotiations
You break down!
Our federal government is dysfunctional. Everybody knows it.
Most people blame the polarization of politics in America today. The Democrats and Republicans can’t agree on anything because they have deep ideological differences, right?
Maybe not so much. Our entrenched political leaders in Washington – Democrats and Republicans alike – are less driven by ideology than they are by money. This is nothing new, but it sure seems to be accelerating.
The untold secret, closely guarded by the press and the political oligarchy, is that politics inside the Beltway is hopelessly corrupt. The average American assumes that lobbyists work for big, evil corporations seeking to buy political favors. Sadly, the opposite is more often true. Our political leaders live and breathe to extort money from corporations, fattening their campaign coffers and their own wallets by promising (or threatening) to pass (or not pass) legislation that will affect profits. They write bills specifically for the purpose of shaking down a given company or industry – often writing and then erasing the same proposals over and over to generate fresh cash with each iteration. Democrats and Republican leaders frequently collude on legislation, agreeing to pass it after all palms have been well greased. Legislative leaders repeatedly stall votes until the appropriate ante has been paid.
Peter Schweizer’s book “Extortion – How Politicians Extract Your Money, Buy Votes, and Line Their Own Pockets” lays out the schemes in non-partisan detail. Here’s an example: In 2011 the Wireless Tax Fairness Act, written specifically to help AT&T and Verizon prevent local taxation on cell phone bills, was stalled in the House, waiting for a floor vote.
“Everyone expected Boehner, given his general aversion to raising taxes, to support the bill and hold a vote. But as the months went by and mid-October arrived, it was unclear whether the vote would ever come.”
“Members of Congress from both parties had their hands out. Employees of Verizon and AT&T wrote over two hundred checks totaling over $180,000 to the campaign committees of members of Congress during September and October of 2011. Finally, he declared a vote for the bill on November 1, 2011, and on the day before the vote, Boehner’s campaign collected the toll: thirty-three checks from wireless industry executives, totaling almost $40,000. Twenty-eight of those checks came from executives with AT&T. The day of the vote, employees of Verizon sent twenty-eight checks to members of Congress.”
“The tribute had been paid. The vote was held. The Wireless Tax Fairness Act passed the House easily on a voice vote.”
Actually, the more polarized the Democrats and Republics seem to be, the more money they can raise. They love conflict, and work hard to preserve it.
Let’s stop being naive. There is a reason why the United States has slid to 19th place on the “least corrupt government” ranking by Transparency International. There is a reason why Congress writes thousands of bills for every one that is passed. There is a reason why Congressmen begin their careers with modest wealth and end them fabulously rich. There is a reason why a lobbying firm will frequently work for both Republicans and Democrats. There is a reason why so many lobbyists are related to politicians. There is a reason why the president’s campaign contributors get federal contracts. There is a reason why 154 (and counting) tax breaks are written to be “extended” every year or so instead of put in place permanently.
It’s called corruption. But you will never hear the press talk about it, and to this point no candidate has mentioned it.
The framers of our Constitution didn’t build in malware that would stop corrupt individuals from taking financial advantage of their positions. They relied on the voters to elect people of character.
We can’t afford to send one more corrupt or corruptible person to Washington. We must fight to remove Pelosi, Boehner, Reid, McConnell and Obama. Our last, best hope is the Tea Party – until we get principled people in the positions of leadership in Washington, DC nothing will change.
The Democrats and Republicans have played us for fools for far too long.
Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side
Everybody plays the fool,
They use your heart just like a tool.
They never tell you so in school
Everybody plays the fool.
For you youngsters: these are “Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots” – a toy from the 1960s.
Are you tired of getting blasted because you don’t feel like compromising your important conservative principles with the liberals – first liberal Democrats, and now liberal Republicans?
The left calls us racists. They claim we hate women. They say all we care about is tax cuts for the rich. They repeat the most insulting and dishonest characterizations without conscience. And then they blame us for refusing to “compromise.”
Have you ever seen a liberal compromise on anything?
Compromise in the mind of a liberal does not have the same meaning that it does to you and I. To them, compromise only travels in one direction. Reaching across the aisle means moving from right to left, never the other way.
Recently many pundits and talk-show hosts who became wealthy pretending they are conservatives have joined the attack against the Tea Party. Karl Rove has gone so far to the left that he has lost all credibility, even among milk-toast Republicans. Michael Medved, Bill Bennett, and Mike Gallagher still throw out the occasional conservative talking-point biscuit, but in-between they soft-shill for the president and Democrat leaders and their big-government ideology. They say conservatives can’t compete with the liberals politically, so we must become more like them – we must “compromise”. In recent years we have offered plenty of weak-kneed Republicans to the voters, all eager to compromise. Tell me, guys. How is that workin’ out for ya?
In Montana, a group of Republican state legislators apparently worship at the altar of compromise. Calling themselves “responsible Republicans“, they frequently side with the Democrats, even on critical issues.
What is it about “compromise” that is so noble and righteous? If you know that something is wrong and harmful, why would you condone it, even a negotiated measure of it?
Should Franklin Roosevelt have compromised with the Nazis? “Hey, Adolf, how about this? We’ll stay out of your way if you would just promise to shut down the incinerators every other day.”
Should the 1964 civil rights advocates in the Senate have compromised with the southern block of Democrats who said, “We will resist to the bitter end any measure or any movement which would have a tendency to bring about social equality and intermingling and amalgamation of the races in our (Southern) states”? Maybe they could have agreed to allow blacks to vote only every other year, and attend integrated public schools, but only through sixth grade?
Tolerating illegal and unconstitutional acts, or looking the other way when government malfeasance results in the loss of American lives is every bit as onerous as voting against the principles of those who elected you.
There are details that can be compromised in a representative government. Should we build a four-lane highway or two-lane? Do we really need new streetlights this year?
But an elected official who won’t stand on principle when he or she knows for certain that the wrong choice will cause serious harm to the citizens has no business in government.
And he or she has no moral authority to criticize those of us who will stand for important principles.
Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side
Mercy’s hard to find
It’s just a state of mind
Drop the slack, get out the way
We don’t have another day
Right is right, wrong is wrong
Right is right, wrong is wrong
Could it be that these Washington, DC elites are owned by the incredibly wealthy business tycoons and their lobbyists who have profited greatly by shipping 55% of our manufacturing jobs overseas?
In his upcoming state of the union speech President Obama is expected to decry income inequality, while out of the other side of his mouth he promotes free trade. The two are incompatible. Free trade clearly creates income inequality by creating enormous corporate profits without domestic employment.
Isn’t it about time our leaders take a stand for American jobs and families?
Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side
Now stand in the place where you work.
Now face west. [toward China!]
Think about the place where you live,
Wonder why you haven’t before!
Side note for Montanans: Rep. Steve Daines (R) and Sen. Max Baucus (D) have supported the Trans-Pacific Partnership; Sen. Jon Tester (D) appears to support the treaty, but has demanded protections for the US timber industry.
Here is what’s wrong with politics in the United States today.
Steve Daines was elected to the US House of Representatives from Montana in 2012. While he was never touted as a “Tea Party Conservative,” Daines courted the increasingly politically powerful coalition of Tea Party groups from across the Big Sky State and enjoyed their support through his primary push and the general election.
You will hear enlightened voters lament often, and everywhere: once a politician of either party gets to Washington, DC, they are swallowed up by the federal power structure. Men and women of the highest integrity, with the best of intentions, land inside the Beltway and in very short order become pawns of their respective parties, losing their autonomy and values along the way. Blame the money, blame personal ambition, or blame the system, it seems to happen over and over again.
Maybe Congressman Daines is the latest victim.
A conservative friend of mine recently wrote to Daines encouraging him to oppose the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The TPP has received criticism from both Democrats and Republicans alike, for widely varying reasons. The benefits to the US of joining such a broad-ranging multi-lateral trade agreement are sketchy at best, dangerous at worst, and the secrecy of the proceedings has caused considerable alarm. President Obama’s recent overtures toward inclusion of communist China in the agreement is a five-alarm fire.
I am not arguing the merits of the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement in this post. What upsets me is the way Congressman Daines responded to his constituent.
It’s clear that the Daines staff has two form letters prepared for citizens who contact his office about this issue. (This procedure likely applies to every issue about which a constituent might contact the congressman.) Form letter “A” would be sent to a constituent who supports the congressman’s position. Form letter “B” is sent to one who opposes.
My friend, a conservative supporter of Daines, received form letter “B” because she opposed the TPP. And here is the ugly, cynical, political part of the process. Republican Daines’ staff assumes that if a constituent opposes his position, he/she must be a Democrat. And by deductive reasoning, he/she must be a big supporter of labor unions and environmental causes. So this is the response that Congressman Daines’ conservative constituent received:
Thank you for contacting me to express your concerns about the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations and international trade in general. As someone with nearly three decades of experience in the private sector, I value your point of view on this important issue and appreciate the opportunity to respond.
As you know, the United States is currently negotiating a TPP agreement with twelve Trans-Pacific countries. The purpose of the potential agreement is to create jobs and boost economic growth in our country by increasing U.S. exports to this growing region. You may be pleased to know that labor and environmental concerns are being addressed as part of the negotiations. (ed. emphasis) The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service has noted that such provisions “are now standard (in U.S. trade agreements) and increasingly enforceable.” I respectfully support our efforts to expand trade in the Trans-Pacific region, and I am monitoring the negotiations.
I’m pretty sure Congressman Daines did not personally read the letter from his (former) supporter. If he had any personal or political sensitivity, he would not have suggested that his Tea Party Conservative supporter’s top priorities are “labor and environmental concerns” – especially at a time when the indefensible and incredibly expensive “global warming” hoax is being laid bare by record ice packs and an “inconveniently truthful” pattern of global cooling.
How cynical, how disingenuous, how condescending is this letter to a conservative supporter? Did this come from Congressman Daine’s office, or from Speaker of the House John Boehner’s?
I know how difficult it is to get elected to a national office. I understand that a congressman must represent all of his constituents – even those who did not vote for him. But shouldn’t a congressman have principles from which he can articulate and defend a position? Must he pander to the beliefs he assumes to attribute to a given constituent?
I’m tired – very tired – of politicians who are quick to say whatever they think the nearest voter wants to hear. And of those who try to ride the fence to election without studying an issue and coming to a conclusion that they are able and willing to defend. Has our vaunted system of government – the federal republic – been reduced to nothing more than a poll-driven, focus-group, finger-in-the-wind marketing campaign?
Steve Daines, and the rest of you in Congress and the Senate: you can do better than this.
Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side
I’ll even tell you that I love you,
If you want me to.
Third-rate romance,
Low-rent rendezvous.
Sorry there are no “live” video performances available of this great story/song by the Amazing Rhythm Aces. There are many covers, but nothing compares to the original. I sing this song almost every weekend – it is not only a poignant vignette about the sometimes sad state of romance in our culture, but it also serves as a reference point to the “bend over” current state of politics in our once-great nation.
While enjoying a TV football game this weekend, I was subjected to a Geico Insurance commercial featuring that cute little British (or Aussie, or Newzie, or some other “smarter than American”) gecko. To my surprise, the commercial was not about insurance.
It was a snarky little victory dance celebrating what the gecko proclaimed to be the end of the Tea Party.
In the commercial, the gecko has ordered a cup of tea at a ritzy Boston dockside restaurant, but the wind blows his tea bag into the Boston Harbor. “Oh deah . . . ” the aristocratic little amphibian laments. “I’ve dropped my tea into Boston Hah-bah. Huh, I guess this pahty’s ovah!”
For me, this was a first. I don’t recall ever seeing an American business buy expensive nationwide advertising time to make a left-handed, snarky bitch-slap at a large group of American citizens – many of whom are its own customers. What the hell? Does this company have more revenue than it wants or needs?
Apparently it does. Turns out Geico is owned by Berkshire Hathaway – aka Warren Buffett, the uber-wealthy Obama-defender who bravely “supports Obama 100%”. Buffett also strongly believes that we should all pay more taxes, while he employs an army of accountants to avoid paying his. A 2012 report in the Huffington Post said Berkshire Hathaway, the eighth-largest public company in the world at the time, admitted owing taxes all the way back to 2002.
You know, I had enough of Warren Buffett quite a while ago. And I’m getting pretty tired of that stupid little gecko too. I think it’s time to cross Buffett and Geico off my Christmas card list.
Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side
Now you can save your lip, And pack your grip,
And leave a trail of smoke behind ya,
Who needs ya? Think about it, baby.
Who needs you!
Canadian rocker John Kay and his band Steppenwolf had some huge hits in the late sixties. Everybody remembers “Born To Be Wild” and “Magic Carpet Ride”. But I think this song is Steppenwolf’s best. Here’s a live look at an aging but still rockin’ John Kay in 2009.
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — House Majority Leader Eric Cantor was defeated Tuesday by a little-known economics professor in Virginia’s Republican primary, a stunning upset and major victory for the tea party.
She never compromises, loves babies and surprises
Flashback to Kindergarten. One of the the first things we had to learn was how to decide which things are the same and which are different. It builds the foundation for organizing our knowledge.
Montana Headlines: 
In my last post I decried the incessant corruption in Washington, DC. I recently read 
Our federal government is dysfunctional. Everybody knows it.
Tolerating illegal and unconstitutional acts, or looking the other way when government malfeasance results in the loss of American lives is every bit as onerous as voting against the principles of those who elected you.
Here is what’s wrong with politics in the United States today.
I just about fell off the couch.
Tom Balek - Rockin' On The Right Side 