The Gift that will keep (taking)!

Momentous conundrums

The Gift that will keep (taking)!

Open Rebellion

By Stephen L. Wilmeth

            Tyson sang it with the “Dutchman and the hoots and (the) assorted galoots” congregated at the UFA. We must assume the weather was typical springtime Alberta with ice and snow warnings converging from yesterday’s clear skies on HWY 2. The subject of the ditty was what every cowman that ever lived … lived by.

         
          It’s moisture

          Moisture, eh?

          Throughout the land you hear the old refrain

          It’s moisture … By god we’ll take it.

          We may never have this much of it again!

           
Dateline Washington

            The boys and girls that ostensibly represent you and me made quick work of the omnibus spending package last week. They ran it all down to the last day before they voted for their campaign war chests and we bought their airline tickets home for the holidays. Well, most went home for the holidays. Others headed for state junkets to various and exotic locales in order to become acquainted with the local flora and fauna for the purposes of crafting future theoretical legislative packages that will add to their legacy. One thing is certain, though. Our dimes will become increasingly less dear.

            $1.15 Trillion is their number.

            The real legacy of the snotty nosed crew that voted for the behemoth is that their names shall be indelibly inscribed on the $20 trillion national debt monument they’ve guaranteed. No longer will they be able to bubble words out just condemning your president. They are willing sponsors and direct contributors to this accelerating national disaster.

            Bipartisan spending package was the headline from the local liberal rag. When the progressive partisans applaud so called bipartisan voters, an automatic shock of horrors always emerges, and it did. Many of us immediately started searching the vote tally. We found that 150 House Republicans voted for it. We found 18 Democrats voted against it along with 95 Republicans.

This president got everything he wanted.

On second thought, maybe that is an unfair statement because he didn’t get the official total annihilation of the Republican Party nor did he get the revocation of the Second Amendment outright, but he got enough to climb aboard Air Force I with a big smile on his face singing meh-leh kah-lee-kee-mah-kah on his air voyage home to the Islands.

Think about the relief he must feel. His agenda is fully sanctioned by congressional vote. Every agency under his command was given a vote of confidence and their budgets were funded. More insidious, no policy riders are now attached to his administrative agenda that could hamstring any action he now plans for public lands, energy, and wildlife programs.

His legacy is firmly reaffirmed by the vote. He not only can play golf and drink beer with holiday acclamation he can now contemplate how he will dismember the recreant and milquetoast Republicans, and … hasten their political extinction.

Agreement with Sessions

We, the legal American citizenry, are looking for leadership that protects us. The action of this congress doesn’t even come close to the expectation implicit in the vote of 2014 when republicans surged to majorities in both chambers.

Senator Jeff Sessions (R-Alabama) suggests it is a total disenfranchisement of the American tax payers and he is correct. He reminds us all it will not only give this president full authority to bring in 170,000 foreign born refugees from Muslim countries in the next 12 months it gives him unlimited authority to act beyond that number.

It will also affect the current allowance of seasonal green card holders that are so important in the vital harvest of a great deal of our vegetable and fruit supplies. Those agricultural based labor allocations will be displaced by refugees whose net contribution will be direct reliance on our welfare programs.

This is a debacle.

Nearly 85% of Americans are demanding our borders be controlled to curtail the flood of undocumented illegals. Their demands were ignored. The tax credits approved in the tax extender portion of the action will allow new entrants to file tax returns and receive a refund without paying a dime in taxes. They will be able to take deductions for children not even residing in our country. The lines will now get longer!

Essentially every program that suppresses freedoms in the West except the export of oil was supported.

The funding for sanctuary cities, resettlement of refugees, funding the Endangered Species Act and Planned Parenthood, acceptance of the WOTUS rule, sanctioning the Red River land grab, purchasing more private property in the West, expanding most agency budgets, and extending the tax credits for terminally deficient green energy dreams were all supported.

Sessions closed by suggesting it is little wonder that American taxpayers are reaching the critical mass of open rebellion. This congress chose to double down on the things that are destroying our system.

Is incredulity the correct word or … is it simply disgust?

Heavy Reading

My King James Version of the Bible has 1528 pages.

In my heart of hearts, I am convinced its translation in 1611 was prepared with profound reverence for the Word of my Savior and with deep appreciation of the wise traditions established by those devoted folks who undertook the task. The night after the vote I vowed again to commence a full reading of it. I will follow the recommended plan. It will take a full year of concentration and study.

The congressional representative who took the vow to support the Constitution in his or her actions had three days to read the Omnibus package before they voted on its content. It was something like 2009 pages with another 233 pages of a tax extender bill.

The only folks who really know what is in this miscarriage of courage are the policy wonks and special interest emissaries who crafted the components, and they don’t know what is included aside from their targeted agendas. There was no profound reverence for the Law of our Land, the Constitution. The traditions that were adhered to were the special interest demands that accompany the campaign contributions to the elected leadership.

The only special interest that wasn’t represented was the American people.

Ted Cruz acknowledged such in his prepared statement following the vote. “… we witnessed the Washington Cartel in action yet again … working for big businesses and lobbyists, rather that the American people … this time in the form of a $1.1 Trillion, 2000 plus page spending bill. This big-government bill demonstrates that we have a government of the lobbyist, by the lobbyists, and for the lobbyist.

Donald Trump jumped on the bandwagon with his own statement. “If anyone needed more evidence of why the American people are suffering at the hands of their own government, look no further than the budget deal by Speaker Ryan. In order to avoid a government shutdown, a cowardly threat from an incompetent President (and one of every three Americans who now depend directly on government for subsistence), the elected Republicans in Congress threw in the towel and showed absolutely no budget discipline.”

We, the American people, will continue to be the cabinet that is robbed to pay the special interest piper. Especially in the West where the wolf is already at our doorsteps, we will endure higher deficits, greater debt, less and less economic liberty, and the rampage of accelerating special interest payoffs. Our children will leave our communities because they can’t find jobs, there will be a growing polarity of old and young in those communities, and we will lose ground on every matter of equal footing between regional and national political and constitutional haves and have-nots.

Epilogue

 It’s supposed to snow this week end. If we could get Tyson to join us down here in a cow town saloon in one of the few remaining bastions of our diminishing West, we’d sing his songs. In fact, we’d even drink to our existence by graciously accepting the moisture.

We’d also join in singing three part harmony with his coyote ditties. We’d end with the plight we find ourselves:

Well the cowboy is a conundrum

A contradiction in this age

Well he says he’s doing fine

On the poverty line

With a working cowboy’s wage

The whiskey bottle costs 13 bucks

The big prairies moon is free

So who is the dumber son of a bitch

The little coyote or (us … the American citizenry)?

Stephen L. Wilmeth is a rancher from southern New Mexico. “We are confounded by Congress. The debt was a matter of major campaign discussion. The border and amnesty were similar points of contention. They will surface again as reelection nears. We will no doubt hear the promises all over again, but those who voted for this bill have breached a trust that will be hard if not impossible to recapture. Is there little wonder candidates outside of politics are receiving favor?”

I had high hopes for the Ryan Speakership, only to have them dashed by this "deal".

The real conundrum is why anyone would vote for this, especially a so-called conservative in the Republican leadership.  As Rush Limbaugh recently said, despite Republicans controlling “the largest number of seats in the House they’ve had in Congress since the Civil War,” on this bill they’ve sold the country “down the river.”