Monday, April 30, 2007

The Big Tent ………………

……………. welcomes its newest member, Rep. Dawn Pettengill of Benton County. Dawn officially changed parties this week.

The two links above give an excellent bio and we’ll let the reader take it all in without summary here. However this party change is the latest evidence of how completely the lunatic left is in control of the IDP and its legislative leadership.

Notwithstanding the lofty statement of goals embodied in the Democrat agenda, and the utterly disingenuous representations of an intent to govern from the middle, Iowa Democrats grew government, pillaged the taxpayers and promoted the most special interest dominated radical changes in Iowa culture and economics that Iowa voters have seen in generations. The entire Democrat campaign was, as it always is, near complete deception. Only this time, for a change, it worked.

Dawn has had a chance to take a look at the ideologically rigid Democrats from the inside. That includes a first hand experience, like Joe Lieberman or, closer to home
Doug Struyk, of the Democrat's interpretation of open dialogue and free expression of conscience if that conscience differs from the party theology.

If you don’t believe me, my Democrat readers, show up at your county convention and move to amend the platform to legally prohibit abortion, with a life and imminent physical harm exception, and see what happens. For the few remaining Democrats who have physical courage, speak up in opposition to revisions to Iowa’s right to work law, or watch Sly Stallone in F.I.S.T and you’ll get the general idea with cuter characters.

For all our faults, including our lack of party discipline, we GOPers remain the party of free speech. Almost our entire party culture is built around the spirit of individualism. Look at how we run the caucuses. The Democrats promote the socialist form of leadership by requiring a candidate to be “viable” to earn delegate share at their caucuses. So if you, like my Hawkeye buddy Dave (as in the Toby Keith song) are the intrepid generationally misidentified 60s radical who supports Dennis Kucinich at the 2008 Democrat caucus and you can’t find a few like minded radicals, perhaps some actual aging 60s radicals (who personally got us out of Vietnam man) your vote won't count. The flock then begins bleating La Marseillaise like Merino de l'Est at graze until you either leave or support a more popular candidate. One person-one vote in the GOP.

Remember, the same people who stifle intra-party dissension-even their blogs usually require content review before publication-and pigeon hole each person into a larger demographic group, now control Congress; all of state government in Iowa and most of our school boards, cities and larger counties as well. Be afraid, be very afraid.

17 comments:

Ken R said...

Teddy,

You are so right about the Socialistic tendencies of the Democrats. They do censor their websites of anything not marching in complete lockstep to their agenda.

I hope other independent minded moderates within their party make the jump!

Anonymous said...

If Pettengill feels more comfortable with R’s, that’s where she should be. Nothing wrong with that. Plus, I feel many basic ideological premises of the R party are great. It’s just the application of those ideals and stupid & blind partisanship that greatly bother me.

While I have my disagreements with my fellow D’s, I find it hard to describe this year’s session as “radical.” We must have very different definitions for the word.

Your description of D caucus system as socialist is interesting. With your logic, what would you call our overall “winner takes all” election system? Communist? And how about even the possibility of someone getting more than 50% of the vote and still not winning? Talk about one-person, one-vote ideal being abused. (And by now we all know a great tragedy hit this country when that happened…)

Ken R said...

From the non custodial parent point of view the Democrats slaughtered us. Mike Gronstal shut down debate on SF507 which would have given most fathers a chance to be a father rather than a distant paycheck. Then the legislature passed and governor signed two separate bills that furthered the destruction.

#1 - Passed HF199 which means fathers have to pay mothers the mother's attorney whenever they lose in court. So much for visitation enforcement! This will be a replay of the Jonathan Wilson fiasco with the mother's attorney always running a huge a bill as a way to deter fathers from going to court at all.

#2 - HF 780 passed enabling any pending child support modification to change the child support based on what? I guess the mother's statement of the father's income so without a trial the amount will immediately change pending the trial.

MMM? I smell a rat here but hey, guys get what they deserve since a lot of stupid men voted for Culver and the Democrats. Why men are so stupid to believe Dems care about them other than to fleece is beyond me. I am just glad a Democrat stood up and said, "ENOUGH" as we need more like her to stop the insanity at the statehouse.

Oh, and lest we forget the "F-Bomb Raider" Mikey Gronstal - stated the legislature spent more money than it should have. I wonder why? I wonder why? I hope Iowans resist this march to Socialism and wake up before these people expand their power.

http://dadsnotpaychecks.blogspot.com/

www.iowafathers.com

Anonymous said...

rf - I am happy to see that you abhor blind partisanship. Dawn changed parties for that reason.

You'll note with today's presidentials on the D side, no one is allowed to dissent from the cut and run strategy. See what they are doing to Clinton because she won't get down on her knees crying about her "mistake" on the war and beg for forgivness from MoveOn.org? She's getting all kinds of hateful treatment by D's on that. No big tent there at all.

Remember how they all were too afraid to have a debate televised on Fox? After Moveon said NO, each one dropped out. They didn't have permission to sway from the party line of Dean/Moveon.org/George Soros.

Locally, did you read about how the union thugs locked the doors to the Iowa legislative chambers so that no democrats could escape until they voted the way the union thugs (democrat representatives that only represent unions, not the rest of their people) wanted them to vote?

Did you read about the blackmail and the bribary going on by those blindly stupid partisans toward the other democrats in order to secure those vote?

R's have never done that. In fact, our party has many pro-choicers in it too. They don't get drummed out of the party. They are allowed to attend party events and caucuses. We believe in dialogue -ya know...changing the hearts and minds of men through reasoned discourse.

Democrats believe the same way their Islamofascist brethen believe:

CONVERT OR DIE!

Anonymous said...

May Day parades are in order for the commies within the Democratic Party. The cheers for a replay of the Vietnam debacle are not too distant if they have their way. Go Harry Reid Go! LOSER! LOSER! LOSER! Go Loser! What do we want? DEFEAT! When do we want it? NOW! How are we going to do it? RUN FROM IRAQ!

Gotta love the lilly commies ready to sell us at the first opportunity.

Anonymous said...

Lack of party discipline??

Didn't Rants say no Rs would vote for the civil rights bill unless Dems had 50 votes of their own?

Only then would he let his R puppets vote their conscience. And we see that 9 of them did vote for the bill, when given their freedom.

Anonymous said...

????? WTF? And your point is what? That Republicans are puppets? Now that is funny!

Anonymous said...

"The Big Tent": is this a reference to Pettengill's wardrobe?

Anonymous said...

Krusty -

Bounce anon 1:07

Personal attacks really suck

WAR - Dawn seeing the light, I mean RIGHT!!

The Deplorable Old Bulldog said...

I would but I believe they say more about those who make them than the targets.

Tolerance of stupidity is the cost of the 1st Amendment.

Ken R said...

After the May Day activities I witnessed from our commie neighbors to our unnappreciative immigrants marching for more rights than I have as a Non Custodial Father I got a little upset yesterday. I was steamed when I heard an immigrant advocate claim we need to spend more money on immigrant health care since we have "wasted" money by fighting in Iraq! It was almost too much to bear watching that and flipping to another channel of a gleeful Democratic leadership pushing their cut and run ceremony. So, I switched the channel again and found coverage of Fidel Castro's Cuba and it struck me the lefties and commies really love "May Day."

I have never hated a day so much in my life! Except, I was happy to hear we may have killed Al Queda's leader in Iraq. I noticed not a peep from Harry Reid on that one!

Ken R said...

Republican Culture of Corruption issues!!!!!

But what about Diane Feinstein? Didn't Tommy Harkin do this on a smaller scale but hey, he is a novice read on....


California Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D) chairs the Senate Rules Committee and may have directed more than $1 billion to companies controlled by her husband. The problems stem from her subcommittee activities from 2001 to late 2005, when she quit. During that period the public record suggests she knowingly took part in decisions that eventually put millions of dollars into her husband’s pocket. Melanie Sloan, the executive director of Citizens for Responsible Ethics in Washington, or CREW, usually focuses on the ethical lapses of Republicans and conservatives, but even she is appalled at the way Sen. Feinstein has abused her position. Sloan told a California reporter earlier this month that while”there are a number of members of Congress with conflicts of interest … because of the amount of money involved, Feinstein’s conflict of interest is an order of magnitude greater than those conflicts.”

Anonymous said...

Dont forget that Feinstein is the one who wanted the US Atty for the Souther California fired, and then has the temerity to complain about a partisan firing.

Anonymous said...

“R's have never done that.” – I think this is the funny part. Both parties feel this way. They both honestly seem to think they have a big tent, and I think both sides are ridiculous in suggesting that. I just had some exchanges on one of the D blogs about this. The purists on my side are definitely trying to make the tent as small as their narrow mind can see. I will be the first one to admit that. But, the big tent argument is just as silly coming from the R’s. Remember Tomenga being denied access to the R caucus? Rants’ tactic in trying to prevent the vote on the gay rights bill when nine in his caucus ended up voting for it? The ruthless attacks on R’s not following the hardline view on a plethora issues - gays, abortion, Iraq War. On the national level, we know there are many R’s who have been completely marginalized in their party for not towing the purist party line. See Hagel, Jeffords, Chafee & other NE moderates.

As I said before, it’s great being the reasonable guy on the other side. It’s miserable being a moderate or maverick on your own side.

Anonymous said...

I’ll have to give you a break from my rants and raves for a couple of weeks. Enjoy!

The Deplorable Old Bulldog said...

While both parties are more ideological, and sometimes that isn't great, there is a difference in how the minority positions are treated.

Democrats actually kick their minority members out. For example, compare Bush campaigning both in the primary and the general for Arlen Specter or the vast Republican resources that were poured into Jeffords 2000 re-election and Chaffee's 2006 primary and general election with the Democrat treatment of Joe Liebermnan or Zel Miller.

Anonymous said...

Fantastic post! Wherever in your brain you come up with this, keep it coming. I laughed so hard, I had to cover my computer at work!!

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