Not since the end of the Cold War has there been so much use of the term “nuclear” than this past week.
In the U.S. Senate, Majority Leader Harry Reid, a man who every day seems to exhibit more of the results of the head trauma experienced in a former boxing career, changed rules that have been in place since the first Senate was convened over 200 years ago.
Using the minority party’s refusal to allow a near historical stacking of federal judge vacancies by liberal appointees of the current president as the rational for requirement for this change, Reed’s rule change means that the Senate now only needs 51 votes to pass through nominees and removes the established right of the minority to block appointments via filibuster.
Of course, many of these vacancies have been in place since Bush was president and not filled then due to the pressure applied by the former minority party, now majority party.
And, for those who are paying attention (Fox News viewers), the threat of such a rules change made by the Republicans back in 2005 was railed against by Reed and then-Senators Obama and Biden. But, somehow now making that change is the right move to make.
Right after the decision by Reed, our now President Obama goes on camera and lauds the move that he once described as anti-Constitutional. Hypocrisy to a new level.
It’s one thing to threaten to take such a sweeping action as a negotiation stance, it’s quite another to actually do it.
We know what comes next. You think that Washington politics are polarized now? We have just entered the next level. We will have federal judges placed by all future presidents that are ideologically far right or far left and states’ attorneys general will shop for the correct circuit.
Since that will be a bad deal, the current rules change will extend to Supreme Court nominees and that body will become dysfunctional.
And then (or maybe before the Supremes) the same change will apply to legislation and laws passed will be repealed or unpopular laws will be passed by whichever party is in power.
The legislative branch and the judicial branch both become increasingly irrelevant as the monarchy of the presidency takes the full power that the Founders knew was the greatest threat to our government.
This will happen because you cannot undo the damage done when you go nuclear.
And then there is the nuclear “deal” with Iran. In what can only be viewed as a move to take the conversation off of domestic failures by this Administration or worse, a purposeful change in decades-long alliances with nations in the Middle East, the State Department makes a deal with Iran that removes some of the financial pressures that have worked to keep them from attaining their goal of a nuclear weapon.
Reportedly, this deal does not support the primary goal of both our Congress and even the United Nations, which is that Iran will not enrich nuclear materials.
Quite the opposite, the deal sets an enrichment level which in effect says that Iran may enrich.
The only thing that we need to know about this deal is this: among all of the polarized, partisan politics in Washington, one of the very few things that both Democrats and Republicans in both houses have agreed upon is that the sanctions placed on Iran must not only continue but should be enhanced.
And now the Administration asks Congress to not continue with plans to increase the pressure because we have a deal.
If Iran, a known sponsor of terrorist organizations and a nation that continues to publicly call for the destruction and elimination of Israel, attains nuclear weapons, the fallout will be far more physical and far reaching than the Senate rules change.
Thousands or potentially millions of humans will be incinerated in nuclear fire. How can any administration not foresee this coming reality?
Can anyone watching D.C. still refuse to acknowledge that our current presidential administration has decided finally and potentially irrevocably that they are in charge and that the representatives of the people have no real say in the governing of this nation?
I must once again ask those whose political leanings agree with Reed and Obama to set aside their partisanship and see the damage being done to the very fabric of our government.
Do you remember when your political satirists called the former President “King George”? The actions of the current administration make Bush look like a statesman of historical stature.
On Thanksgiving, give thanks for all that we have and pray that we have not strayed so far the Founders’ dream that we can never return.
Pray for our nation now before the federal government eliminates Thanksgiving as a holiday because it recognizes a power higher then theirs.
Alan Felts
Peachtree City, Ga.
