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Jeffrey A. Rendall

The Right Resistance: In Washington, the ‘best and brightest’ means letting the people decide

It generated a surprising number of headlines considering the source and the forum, but last week Pennsylvania’s half-brain Democrat senator John Fetterman stirred the establishment media’s sensation pot by saying to CBS’s ultra-liberal late night talk show host Stephen Colbert, “You all need to know that America is not sending their best and brightest to Washington, D.C.”

Fetterman went on, “Sometimes you literally just can’t believe, you know, these people are making the decisions that are determining the government here. It’s actually scary.”


Far be it from me to admit it, but I actually agreed with Fetterman. It is indeed scary that people such as he – and this includes most of the Democrat caucus -- are making decisions that impact everyone’s life. Be it ordinary run-of-the-mill choices between tax rates, or setting immigration policy (for Democrats, it’s “let ‘em all in and feed and house ‘em once they get here”), or more complex decisions such as how much American taxpayer loot should be shipped to far off lands to fight other peoples’ wars, the folks weighing the arguments, reading the white papers, conducting the committee hearings and appearing on the legislative floors to vote often act like they never had any education at all, much less common sense and real life experience to supplement it.


Only those who’ve spent appreciable time in Congress understand the legislative procedures, yet it’s evident to everyone that the current group of congressman and senators lose the big picture in their deliberations, where there’s no such thing as working for the good of the people or seeing the long-term effects of what they’re doing. Both sides are guilty of excessive partisanship, and there isn’t a lone leadership voice standing up to command the “children” to get in line, either.


Take the recent flap over the situation in Israel, where Iran-funded and ideologically backed Hamas non-humans attacked slumbering Jewish towns and assaulted innocents with the intention of wiping them from the face of the earth, accomplishing their mission with little or no resistance from the unarmed population while committing the most unthinkable brutality and savagery. Frankly, no one was spared.


Running this through an American’s decency filter, it’s a no-brainer to determine who’s right and who’s wrong here, yet a good many Democrats and university academics – and leftists – couldn’t join with the realists to condemn the attacks and grant license to the “good guys” (Israel) to do whatever it takes to ensure the non-humans can’t rise up whenever they feel the urge to kill, burn and maim again.


Heck, even senile Joe Biden got it right during his brief address to the nation the other day, though his people are still keeping mum about Iran – and who can believe a word the broken-down old dolt says, anyway?


As would be expected, the establishment media tried keeping attention focused on Donald Trump because he’d made a remark about Hezbollah being “smart”. It was the latest in a long predictable pattern of desperately working to paint Trump as a racist and a bigot whenever they can while protecting senile president Joe Biden from his administration’s complicity in the funding of the terrorists. I would bet that, at some point, Biden said something complimentary towards the Democrats’ Muslim enforcers – why isn’t this front-page news now?


It’s safe to say the media doesn’t offer the best and the brightest, either. It’s one slanted story after another, and the shameless talker-lot doesn’t even care that they’re putting lives in danger in the process.


After saying Congress doesn’t have the best and brightest, Fetterman wasn’t finished explaining what he meant. As reported by Judy Kurtz at The Hill, Fetterman added:


“’Before the government almost shut down, I mean, it came down to a couple hours,’ Fetterman said of the House and Senate last month passing a continuing resolution to fund the government into mid-November, narrowly avoiding a shutdown.


“’I was in my office, and they finally came over from the House. And they’re like, ‘OK, well, this has to be unanimous in the Senate.’ And out of 99 of us, if one single one of us would have said no, the whole government would have shut down,’ he told Colbert.


“’That’s how dangerous that is to put that kind of power in one’s hands, because you have some very less gifted kinds of people there that are willing to shut down the government just to score points on Fox [News],’ Fetterman said.”


Best and brightest? Democrats employ the same old “Republicans are afraid of Fox News” bull crap to explain motivations behind those who take a stand on the side of responsibility and risk the contempt of idiots like Fetterman to do the right thing. The federal government has grown and grown to the point where not one earthly soul has any clue where all the money goes and we’ve got one party that acts put-off when somebody objects.


That’s why “unanimous” means… well, everyone.


It shouldn’t be forgotten that the late Senator Dianne Feinstein remained a member of the body until she passed, and was Fetterman talking about the legendary liberal as an example of someone who wasn’t quite up to the job? Or was he referring to the conservatives in the senate who seem to be the only ones – and this includes establishment Republicans – who ever actually do anything to highlight the problems with the nation’s legislative process and financial health?


Meanwhile, the dust-up over in the House demonstrates that Republicans are far from blameless for dysfunctional government. When Matt Gaetz made the motion to vacate earlier this month, resulting in then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy losing his position, I was hopeful that whatever came after would be better (for the cause of liberty) than what had just been removed. Yet Republicans appear to have squandered an opportunity to instill real discipline on its own members by failing to agree on a new Speaker in reasonable time.


As the mess in January amply proved, the Republican conference is hopelessly split between the conservative, liberty-loving true believers and the go-along-to-get-along types who’ve made a plethora of promises on the campaign trail that they never intended to keep, resulting in nothing ever changing in the GOP caucus – or the House.


It’s difficult to defend Kevin McCarthy because he didn’t keep his word (back in January) to reform the process and fight for the conservative agenda like he’d promised. Those who voted to vacate the chair were entirely justified to do so, but they, as is true with the rest of us, couldn’t have realized that nothing good would result from it in the days since. I’ve said it often – what the Republican party needs more than anything is a leader like Nancy Pelosi for the Democrats, one who wields his or her power and cracks the proverbial whip (committee assignments, campaign cash assistance) to ensure party discipline to move towards the greater goals.


Such unflinching strictness isn’t needed when there’s a sizable majority, but it’s essential when the numbers are close, as they are now. No two Republicans are truly the same, but they all have things in common, including pledging fidelity to the party platform and support for each other. GOPers have never been good at this, primarily because of a leadership void – at least since Newt Gingrich stepped down a quarter century ago.


McCarthy certainly wasn’t the one to do it, though all that’s happened since is the different factions talking trash about the others to the media and Democrats hooting and hollering about shutdowns and failure to be able to send aid to Ukraine. Meanwhile, Republicans look on in disgust as a few individuals from each ideological extreme threaten (to withhold votes) and hold out like petulant children.


I’ve never been a big fan of the word “compromise”, yet some sort of meeting in the middle is necessary here. Nobody’s getting anything they want – budget reform, immigration reform, border security, national security measures, investigations into the Biden family’s corruption – while the Republican leadership tug-of-war continues. Being in Congress isn’t exactly a team sport, but it’s hard for a party to achieve victory without working with everyone else to advocate the common cause.


No one truly expects much from government – or the Republican party – but sooner or later there must be someone to take the reins and command. Who knows, maybe naming Donald Trump as a temporary Speaker wouldn’t be such a bad idea, after all. But again, I doubt Trump would ever agree to it.


We certainly can’t have a discussion about Fetterman’s “best and brightest” observation without bringing in the president and his vice president into the conversation here. Senile Joe Biden is neither the best (of anything) nor the brightest (even his own Democrats would concede as much) yet he’s managed to take his meager abilities and talent for fibbing to the greatest extent.


Kamala Harris leveraged her gender and skin color to near the highest echelon of power. In Democrat circles, that gets you a lot!


Liberals like Biden and Harris and Fetterman equate big government advocacy to being “smart”, primarily because the concept of liberty and limited government and trusting the people to act in their own best interest aren’t fathomable to them. It’s beyond argument that the “brightest” people in Washington today are the ones who recognize that the Constitution restrains government, not empowers it.


The audience laughed when John Fetterman said that the “best and brightest” aren’t being sent to serve in government, but for all the wrong reasons. Americans have become far too complacent and dependent on government to think for them – or at least half of the voters have – and it’s about time we headed in the other direction, towards electing people who fight to let the citizens decide things for themselves.



  • Joe Biden economy

  • inflation

  • Biden cognitive decline

  • gas prices,

  • Nancy Pelosi

  • Biden senile

  • January 6 Committee

  • Liz Cheney

  • Build Back Better

  • Joe Manchin

  • RINOs

  • Marjorie Taylor Green

  • Kevin McCarthy

  • Mitch McConnell

  • 2022 elections

  • Donald Trump

  • 2024 presidential election

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1 Comment


kenmarx
Oct 16, 2023

Fetterman goes on a "comedy" show to state that we don't have the best and the brightest serving in Congress? Hoo, hah, hah! That must have created the biggest laugh of the night. He ought to know (or not). It's like a short person stating that there are too many short people. We will never know how Fetterman received enough votes to beat Oz. Maybe the voters in Pennsylvania aren't the best and the brightest either.

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