MERIDIAN, Miss. —
Tyrannical forces are hard at work behind the scenes to grab power and sway from November’s elections.
We get glimpses of these forces from big money activities — huge contributions to super PACs, massive media buys financed by so-called independent groups, and closed meetings between candidates and groups of big givers.
We see their influence as Congress and the White House manipulate issues, funding, and decisions to rally special interest support.
We’ll see more as carefully crafted, poll tested, focus-group massaged messages, TV ads, robocalls, direct mail pieces, Facebook campaigns, Twitter messages, and political speeches assault our fears, desires, and beliefs.
We’ll see, hear, and read more as the multitude of talking heads and columnists beholden to one force or another preaches from carefully crafted, poll tested, focus-group massaged, well-distributed talking points.
And we’ll wonder about their power and reach as gas prices rise for no supply or production related reasons or employment numbers improve for no clear economic reasons.
Yep, for the next 11 weeks or so, we the sheep of the American Republic will be at the mercy of mercenary wolves in their incredible shepherd disguises as they relentlessly hunt for power. This is not to denigrate good folks and true believers, but they often naively front for the wolves. When you see too many free, independent Americans in lockstep, beware.
The hunt is not really a new thing. They’ve been at it all along. They’re just smelling blood and closing in for the kill, an opportunity arising from the hostility and chaos they’ve fomented in Washington.
Consider these three occurrences:
In December 2009 a bipartisan group composed of 20 Republican and 15 Democrat Senators introduced a bill to create the Bipartisan Task Force for Responsible Fiscal Action. It was modeled after the Base Closure and Realignment Commission in that task force recommendations could only be voted up or down by Congress, not amended. The bill failed when seven of the Republican co-sponsors voted against it.
Later in 2010, President Barack Obama appointed his bipartisan National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform. It proposed major changes to reduce the deficit. Eleven of the 18 members supported the plan, including five of the eight Republicans, but it required a super majority of 14 to pass. Romney vice presidential pick Paul Ryan helped scuttle the proposal.
In 2011 House Speaker John Boehner and President Obama negotiated a deficit reduction deal. Just before its announcement the Senate’s “Gang of Six” proposed a plan that offered higher tax revenues. When Boehner wouldn’t agree to those higher revenues, Obama scuttled the deal.
In each case, the wolves attacked behind the scenes killing off key support, snarling much needed conciliation, feeding political chaos...creating conditions favorable to power grabs by would-be tyrants.
Opinion
Beware of unseen political forces
- Opinion
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Not your mother’s Ladies’ Home Journal
By Rheta Grimsely Johnson/Syndicated columnist
I haven’t seen the Ladies’ Home Journal in about a million years, except maybe in the dentist’s office when I was trying to avoid a television permanently set on Fox News.
Somebody’s grandchild was selling magazines for a school project, and Ladies’ Home Journal was the only one on the list I recognized. Now it comes to the house.
Let’s just say: It’s not my mother’s Ladies’ Home Journal. This month, right behind a feature called “A Country of People Who Never Stop Eating” is one called “Nice Girls Do Get Tattoos.” -
Health care market needs oversight
By Gene Lyons/Syndicated columnist
Sometimes the best journalism explains what’s right under our noses. In Steven Brill’s exhaustive Time magazine cover article, “Bitter Pill: Why Medical Bills Are Killing Us,” it’s the staggeringly expensive, grotesquely inefficient and inhumane way Americans pay for medical care.
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VA’s appalling failures not recent
By Sid Salter/Syndicated columnist
While recent national press attention to ongoing problems at Mississippi’s G.V. (Sonny) Montgomery Veterans Administration Medical Center in Jackson is welcome and needed, the failures of the overall VA service apparatus in Mississippi are not recent problems.
In short, former U.S. Rep. Sonny Montgomery — Mississippi’s “Mr. Veteran” and author of the modern G.I. Bill that bears his name — must be spinning in his grave. There have been significant failures and poor service to veterans documented by state and local media since 2008. -
Dolley Madison politically savvy
By Cokie and Steven V. Roberts/Syndicated columnists
When Dolley Payne Madison became first lady in 1809, she instituted Wednesday evening gatherings at the White House where political rivals could meet and talk. They were called “squeezes” because so many people showed up and crowded the room. As Cokie wrote in her book “Ladies of Liberty": “All were welcome as long as they were appropriately dressed. And all went — skipping a Wednesday night might mean missing a vital piece of political information or being left out of a crucial deal.”
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Mississippi isn’t immune from national college tuition trends
By Sid Salter/Syndicated columnist
Higher education in Mississippi has not been immune from national trends cited in a recent Center on Budget and Policy Priorities report which concludes that over the last five years, the global economic downturn and a “no new taxes” political climate have increasingly shifted the burden of higher education finance to students and parents at a time when enrollment is increasing and the percentage of state support is decreasing. -
Right to vote not ‘racial entitlement
By Donna Brazile/Syndicated columnist
The Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case of Shelby County v. Holder — a challenge to the Voting Rights Act of 1965, specifically Section 5, which requires states and localities with a history of voting discrimination against racial and language minorities to get “pre-approved” by the federal government before changing how elections are conducted or voters are registered. -
1st day of spring brings memories
By Wyatt Emmerich/Southside Sun
The first day of spring! My favorite month, April, is just around the corner. Now we just need one big gullywasher to get rid of the pine pollen.
Normally, spring gives me a strong sense of rebirth and renewal, but this spring I seem surrounded by moments crystallizing the passage of time.
It was a year ago, I walked up the porch to my mother’s home to box up her possessions following her funeral. -
Soaking up in tiger paw-shaped hot tub
By Rheta Grimsely Johnson/Syndicated columnist
No springtime ritual was better at Auburn than sitting on hard rocks at a nearby state park to let cold water rush over your feet. You wore cut-off blue jeans and Dr. Scholl’s sandals, the unofficial uniform for coeds in the 1970s, and when you left, you felt ready to tackle tests, term papers and blind dates.
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Medicaid or not, costs will be paid
By Sid Salter/Syndicated columnist
While the battle continues between state Republicans and other fiscal conservatives intent on focusing on the long-terms costs of Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act and Democrats, health care advocates and state hospitals intent on focusing on the short-term benefits, the fact remains that one way or another, the costs of providing health care for the poor, the blind, the aged and the disabled will be paid by the taxpayers one way or another.
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Multiculturalism is not rational
By Thomas Sowell/Syndicated columnist
Among the many irrational ideas about racial and ethnic groups that have polarized societies over the centuries and around the world, few have been more irrational and counterproductive than the current dogmas of multiculturalism.
Intellectuals who imagine that they are helping racial or ethnic groups that lag behind by redefining their lags out of existence with multicultural rhetoric are in fact leading them into a blind alley. - More Opinion Headlines
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Not your mother’s Ladies’ Home Journal
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