By Abdul Hakim-Shabazz
IndyPoltics.Org
Abdul Hakim-Shabazz is an attorney and the editor and publisher of IndyPoltics.Org.
I would like to think the nice thing about many members of the Tea Party being religious conservatives is that it should make it easier to have a come-to-Jesus meeting.
Guys, we need to talk and do it before 2014 gets here. With all due respect, you need to either stop talking, get better spokespeople or go pick up a copy of “Politics for Dummies†and start reading. Frankly, after this last partial government shutdown, it’s pretty clear some of you have absolutely no political clue.
After 18 days of the government being partially closed and according to analysts from Standard & Poor, $24 billion was taken out of an already sputtering economy. What did you get for all your time and hassle? Is the Affordable Care Act gone? Has it been repealed? Replaced? Delayed? Oh, that’s right, no it hasn’t. Now the last time I checked the website still doesn’t work, but that had nothing to do with you. And we will get to that in a moment.
Did you improve your standing amongst the voters who will show up in a general election and decide whether your candidates make it across the finish line? It’s true that President Barack Obama has an approval rating of about 43 percent in the polls, but that’s still four times better than where Congress is right now.
It’s also worth noting that used car salesmen, root canals and head lice are more popular. Even us lawyers are looking good these days and that should tell you something. And the tea party itself hovers at about 30 percent on a good day.
What should it tell you? The only thing worse than having a bad plan to shutdown the government is having no plan to counteract the president when he calls your bluff. And this is typical tea party behavior. You people get so wrapped up in emotion and ideology that you can’t see the political forest for the trees and you are willing to cut off your nose to spite your face because you are so hell-bent that you are right and your way is the only way to get things done. In other words, you act just like far left, liberal, progressive Democrats.
Truth hurts.
Instead of a storyline of millions of people not being able to log on to the ACA website, tales of premiums going through the roof and stories of how some of the plans offered under the health exchanges are worse than having no insurance at all, viewers were treated to a narrative of U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, who by the way makes me wonder if Texas leaving the union is really all that bad an idea.
And while we’re on the subject, I know a number of tea party activists are talking about launching primary challenges against U.S. Sen. Dan Coats, Congresswoman Susan Brooks and Congressman Todd Young. Need I remind you that these are the same people who tried or brought you Sens. Richard Mourdock, Todd Akin, Christine O’Donnell and a host of others. If I were Joe Donnelly, I would send the Indiana tea party a Christmas card and a good bottle of wine this year.
Now if you’re still a tea party true believer and still reading at this point, you probably think I am the most horrible person on the planet who personifies everything you hate about the establishment. I do try my best. However, I also make it point to be brutally honest with people.
In politics, winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing. And the guy who comes in second place is called a first place loser. So if I were a member of the tea party, I’d go do some serious soul searching.
Or you better start drinking coffee because it has more caffeine than tea and it’s the perfect drink to make you wake up.
Abdul is an attorney and the editor and publisher of IndyPoltics.Org. He is also a frequent contributor to numerous Indiana media outlets. He can be reached at abdul@indypolitics.org.
The truth does hurt & it will hurt Obama as the educated public know who was responsible for the shut doiwn & it was our president. He was unwilling to negotiate as a leader should with each branch of our government. Obama thinks he is a dictator or a king for crying out loud.
Obamacare, if implemented in full, would divide & ruin our country in less than a decade. Thank God we have brave politicians willing to stand up & fight him on this plan because the crappy plan we have now is only the beginning. He has made it clear he wants a single payer system. I pray we reverse it ASAP so our grandchildren will have a fighting chance to prosper because this idiot only wants to put the middle class into the lower class & then pit all lower class citizens-legal or not-against everyone that has more than they do. The writing is on the wall. Too bad your rose colored glasses keep you from being able to read it.
Why should Obama have caved in on a piece of legislation that was passed? I’m not an ACA fan, but shutting down the government should NOT be a tactic used to overturn laws.
Here in America, we overturn laws by the Supreme Court, a Presidential Veto, or a new vote by Congress; not by defunding the government.
If you want to overturn the ACA, vote out people that voted for it; don’t play crap political games by withholding funding for the federal government.
It’s called governing. There were offers to negotiate changes but he failed to participate so HE & HE ALONE shut down the government.
He creid others wouldn’t give him what he wanted / needed but inaction didn’t shut down the government-his out of control spending did and will again.
I hope the next time it’s shut down for months. Those on the government teat still got paid (not on time but we’ll pay them anyway) and many didn’t even have to show up for work. Tell me how that’s fair to US taxpayers!
Seventeen days cost Americans $24 billion. What a great person it takes to wish even worse on their fellow citizens!
That’s your president 🙁
Obama is everyone’s President. I just wish he knew it. If you want to know who’s President he is look at the list of groups exempted from ObamaCare. That is who this sucker is looking out for.
I stopped reading about midway through. This author’s tone was just too smarmy for me.
Brad–Could it be he was over your head?
I’m pretty sure you were right there with him, weren’t you.
Isn’t “smarmy” the tone in many of these articles? It maybe hard to read through an entire piece but easy to make a comment on.
Me too!
When he wrote “us lawyers” that did it for me.
If I took anything away from this recent episode it was the reinforcement that Barack Obama thinks he IS the government. Not just one third of our government, but the whole enchilada!
His use of the NSA and the IRS to gather information on his perceived “enemies” and punish them, along with his use of the AG to block any investigations or actions taken against him, have been successful because all the politically correct politicians would rather crap on the constitution than stand up to a president who will pound them into the ground with “race” at the first opportunity.
He is in the catbird seat now. Its Barack Obama against the constitution, but I am betting that in the end, race card or not, the constitution and the country will win out.
I will not vote for anyone who voted for the ACA, ever!
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Here they are:
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=111&session=1&vote=00396
mark them well.
_
Conservatives are not going away just because the GOP or the Tea-Party goes away. The republicans are going away because to many of the leaders actually listen to when democrats coach them into being more like democrats. Yes Shabazz, let’s abandon principles for the sake of popularity.
When it is reported that it cost us $24 billion, let’s not question that it was not actually growth lost but a projection.
The problem with republicans is that the leaders are rubber-band men that can be pushed and stretched into any shape.
The greatest strength any business or organization can learn is that they will not exist forever and survival at any cost is not justification for existence.
http://advanceindiana.blogspot.com/2008/03/abdul-hakim-shabazz-has-hit-rock-bottom.html
Stop talking? So you decide what we can talk about now? Why don’t you stop talking!
Verily, the Dixiecrats will always be with us. They will change their name, as they have. Their revered leaders will have different faces, as those who have watched a picture of Strom Thurmond morph into the Canadian Ted Cruz already know. Despite the forced changes their lack of any real values always manages to shine through. It is underscored by letting unpaid third-raters carry their ‘message’ the final mile.
The inevitable folksy garbling actually helps and buys them two years. After that the dead wake up and you see the meltdown, such as what we are seeing now. It gets real nasty. The gloves come off, exposing pink fingernails clutching government checks and subsidies of various denominations in those big tough hands. Tea time indeed.
I have been interested in what is happening with the donors to the big super pacs. The first half of this year, liberal super pacs raised $31.9 million, and the right wing pacs only got $13.7 million. It is beginning to look like the far-right is turning on the monster they created with Citizens United.
They got what they wanted, the okay to pour unlimited cash into the political system on behalf of their candidates. They forgot the candidate part. They’ve been fielding and tossing money at some Jim Dandys. They overplayed their hand in a short period of time.
The damage they’ve done will be a long time in the repair shop. Shoppe (ye olde) for those really wanting to roll ‘er back. For those aiming for the mid 1800s instead of just 1925 or so.
I think you’re right. The self-infliction of harm will continue, due in good part to the right getting what it wished for.
The conservatives decided to take up with the far right fringe instead of moving to the middle, and got more than they bargained for. They can’t control their “pet fanatics”, but the money is going where the sanity is. You and I know the definition of insanity, but the Tealiban doesn’t seem to get it.
over 17 trillion in debt…….22 trillion at current spending by 2016……90 million Americans not in labor force……47 million Americans living in poverty…..millions and millions Americans losing their health care plans………..now more than ever it is tea time……….
It was the Bush Tea Baggers and the unnecessary wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that cased the deficit to balloon to high. So why didn’t you vote against Bush/Cheney if you are so against spending tax payers money and going into debt?
Under President Clinton the US Government was running a surplus. The deficit was run up by the GOP not the Dems. Not only did the GOP run up the deficit but they ruined the economy and ship most all our jobs overseas.
The Tea Party is a failure big time and all they want to do is to ruin this country by shutting down the Federal Government.
They GOP moderates need to step up to the plate and get ride of al the Right Wing Radicals. That’s the only real hope for the Republican Party. They need to stop sending people like Richard Murdock and Sara Palin to the ballot boxes.
our debt was over 5 trillion under clinton…….bush was a progressive rhino and obama is a commie……the name calling by you is typical of a low info ignorant liberal……..
rino……
As of today, the democratic machine in congress is starting to fracture. The single center issue, that compromise was not acceptable on by the POTUS and his band of flying monkeys, was delaying the individual mandate. Democrats in high risk seats are now supporting the delay. The very sticking point that caused the shutdown is now being acquiesced to. How telling.
BTW, Democrats despise the Tea Party activists because they are a threat to the RINO’s in congress.
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