2015- The Look Ahead
The holidays have now passed and we have returned to the realm of five-day workweeks, dietary come-uppances, weather that bites, and epidemic influenza- all attesting to the cruelty that is, and always has been, the month of January, God help us.
Congress has returned to the nation’s capital. Speaker John Boehner has survived a nominal challenge to his leadership, while Former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has suffered an electoral blow that must have felt very much like the actual blows he received as a result of his exercise equipment, whose resistance band knocked him for quite a blow, as well. He’ll still be in the Senate, but without the power to obstruct legislation that is sent from the House. This means that President Obama will be tasked with the onus of either:
1. signing Republican bills, many of which will have some Democrat support, such as Keystone Pipeline and ACA Medical Device Tax Elimination;
(or)
2. vetoing such legislation that will expose him to charges of obstructionism that he hasn’t ever had to face, before.
Well, Mr. President, it’s time for you to “man-up” and stop hiding behind the skirts of Harry Reid, who won’t be in a position to cover for you, going forward.
The Republicans are in a position to actually govern, BUT they will have to “man up” as well. Doing so means that they will have to defund the President’s recent executive order which effectively legalized illegal immigration- and there is no doubt this will require the kind of political courage not seen in recent decades. The same goes for (Supreme Court rulings notwithstanding) replacing or amending the Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare), to alleviate the most economically-onerous parts of the bill that legislators, many even on the Democrat sides of the aisles, wish they hadn’t passed, after all. Republicans might even have to resort to pulling on the President’s purse strings (again, something that hasn’t been done in memory) in order to keep the excesses of this all-too-excessive president in check.
The major media will continue its Quixote-like quest to make Obama out to be a great president, in spite of the fact that he isn’t, or ever will be, a great, or even a good president. Nevertheless, they’ll stay in the tank for their “dear leader”, if for no other reason, to facilitate their entry into “Tank Hillary”, soon to open in a campaign near you. Allegations that her husband is still philandering around (this time with minors) won’t have any more ill-effect on her campaign than her refusal to comply with Rep. Trey Gowdy’s subpoena for her Benghazi documents, because the major media has already decided they’re in for Hillary, both to be nominated and elected- so much for what passes for journalism in these United States.
We will hear much about so-called “moderate Democrats” having to stave off the efforts of “extremist Republicans” because that is what the media keeps shoveling at us and we, for the most part, aren’t so up on things as to determine that which is being shoveled- the very same, in substance, to that which is shoveled out of the stables at Pimlico. That’s what happens when an electorate stops voting their heads, and votes their hearts, instead, as they have done in every election since 2008, save for the most recent which took place last November. The media let the 2014 election get by them- but they won’t risk it next time around, to be sure. Whoever the Republicans nominate in 2016, he or she will be labeled an “extremist” by a mainstream media who amazingly proffers New York Mayor Bill de Blasio and Senator Elizabeth Warren as moderates. Such is the state of our fourth estate.
Sadly, the situations a-brewing overseas will continue to grow worse- much worse- partially due to an effete, nuanced and altogether feckless foreign policy that Professor Obama espouses- he’ll go to his grave thinking that America is not exceptional, after all, and he has spent all of his presidency attempting to ensure just that. As the result of his selective approach to law enforcement, and his commentary regarding same, there will unfortunately be a continuation of racial unrest, here at home, not seen since the late 1960’s- ironic that the nation’s first African-American president and his Attorney General have only served to inflame racial hatreds that most of us had thought were put to bed two generations ago.
That said, Happy New Year to one, and all…
-Drew Nickell, 6 January 2015
© 2015 by Drew Nickell, all rights reserved