The legacy of the first Do Nothing Congress

The liberal cable media and the left-wing main stream media are referring to the current Congress as the Do Nothing Congress.

The Tea Party conservatives have succeed in stopping the runaway spending by the Obama-Pelosi-Reed Spend-a-crats. Yet much still must be done to bring the economy back.

But where did this term Do Nothing Congress originate?

It was first used by Democrat President Harry S Truman in describing the 80^th Congress. It worked to gain his re-election, too.

Here’s what happened.

In 1946, the spending by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal and the Second World War left the United States strapped with huge debts. In fact, debt was 100 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) just as it is now.

Republicans swept into power in the elections of 1946 and controlled both the House of Representatives and the Senate. The GOP immediately set about reversing the laws passed during the New Deal and Truman’s Fair Deal.

Here is a list of legislation that came out of the Do Nothing Congress:

1. Approved assistance to Greece and Turkey. They were being threatened by communists from within and the Soviet Union from without
2. Passed the Taft-Hartley Act that monitors the activities of organized labor and assures workers the right to not be forced into unions. Truman vetoed the Taft-Hartley Act, but the "Do Nothing Congress" overrode his veto.(read more...)
3. Passed the National Security Act that created the Air Force, the CIA and re-aligned American’s intelligence network to counter Soviet espionage. (read more ...)
4. Minerals Leasing Act (read more ...)
5. U.S. Information Exchange Act which set up the Voice of America radio stations. (read more ...)
6. Here’s the big one … the Marshall Plan for assistance for Western Europe which was near collapse and was being threatened from within and without by the Soviet Union (read more ...)
7. Peacetime draft
8. Greek-Turkish Assistance Act.
9. Civil Air Patrol
10. Presidential Succession Act that names the Speaker of the House to be vice president when there is no VP.
11. Federal Water Pollution Control Act.
12. War Claims Act that liquidated German and Japanese assets and paid claims to American prisoners of war and detainees.
13. Agricultural Act of 1948. (Read more ...)

Above all, the “Do Nothing Congress” proposed the Twenty-Second Amendment to the Constitution which limited the President to two consecutive terms in office. This amend was ratified in 1951. (read more …)

All these measures were signed into law by Harry Truman, who named the congress the Do Nothing Congress.

“The 80th Congress was nicknamed the "Do Nothing Congress" by President Harry Truman. The Congress opposed many of the bills passed during the Franklin Roosevelt administration. They also opposed most of Truman's Fair Deal bills. Yet they passed many pro-business bills. During the 1948 election Truman campaigned as much against the "Do Nothing Congress" as against his formal opponent, Thomas Dewey,” according to Wikipedia.com. (bold face added)

The Do Nothing Congress also took over the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) investigated communist influence in Hollywood and elsewhere. Truman denounced the HUAC, but documents seized after the fall of the Soviet Union revealed that some of Truman's and Roosevelt's top advisors were indeed working for the KGB.

Truman also played the race card. (read more ...)

Now President Barack Hussein Obama has revived the strategy that worked for Truman in 1948.

Will it work in 2012?  We will see.

Do you always see the glass as half full?

So back in 2008 you turned on your TV set and heard a candidate speak about Hope and Change.  Right?  You knew nothing about this candidate other than he promised you Hope and Change.

You didn't bother to try to understand it. You just heard his promise of Hope and Change.

Does that describe you?

The economy was in the dump and the candidate promised you a bailout for your home which was underwater. In fact, you heard the candidate promise a bailout for just about everyone.

Was that the way you saw it in August through November of 2008?

Well you may have a brain malfunction, a study shows.

Researchers at the University of London have found that those who ignored negative information and only focused on Hope and Change have a brain disorder. (read more)

These people have frontal lobes which do not process real information like it should.

Does that describe you?

Do you suspect that sometimes you don't see the world like it really is?

If so, you may be a Dim-O-Crat.

Can we believe polls?

Rasmussen, Gallop, Pew, and Real Clear Politics.  These are all polls that some of us live by from day to day.  Marketers rely on polls.  Politicians live and die by polls.   Sadly, some vote by polls.

But now comes an article in Scientific American by Charles Seife that sheds new light on polls and those who report on polls.  The poll in question was released in September and concerned a “religion test” of 32 questions.  It pitted atheists/agnostics against several groups of believers.

The poll seemed to show that non-believers know more about religion than believers.  Time magazine headlined “Atheists know more about religion than believers”.

The article’s author pointed out that a Pew’s research was flawed because the sample for non-believer was small and the statistical margin of error revealed that there was no difference between the two groups polled.

Nevertheless, the headlines screamed and once again the public shrugged it shoulders and some once again may have accepted these polls on face value.

But should we accept the results of polls?  Back in the 1970’s a scandal rose over the so-called push-polls.  Candidates conducted bogus polls by polling only those groups who would ordinarily voted for said candidate.  The results was released to the media and touted in political ads.  Sure enough, the results in the other polls followed the bogus push-poll.

“The press leaped on the atheists versus believers headlines without critically examining the numbers.  The Pew study revealed less about our faith in God than it did about our faith in polls – which, far too often, is blind.”  Seife said.

The article is in the December 2010 edition and is  entitled, “The Science of ‘Disestimation’; Why we shouldn’t put our faith in opinion polls”.

Dems poised to lose Senate seats

The Democrats are poised to lose U.S. Senate seats in — Arkansas, Delaware, Indiana and North Dakota, says pollster Rasmussen. 

This came from Rasmussen’s web site at rasmussen.com.

The pollster believes the Democrats will hold onto the Senate:

…there are just nine states currently in the Toss-Up category. Outside of the Toss-Ups, current projections indicate that Democrats can probably count on having 49 Senate seats after Election Day, while Republicans will hold 42.

Conservatives need to win eight (8) of the nine toss up races to take over the Senate.

One Senate race that should be watched.  Barbara Boxer (D-CA.) leads former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina by 48% to 43%.  Some 5% says they would vote for some other candidate and 5% are undecided.  It does not look good for Fiorina, whose conservative credentials are not that good.

Tea Party members need to support

these races now.

Obama economist melts down on Cavuto Show

Obama spent a TRILLION DOLLARS and has produced no net jobs gained.

When Neil Cavuto on the Fox News Channel put that question to Obama’s chief economist his answer was to obfuscate and to change the subject.  Then when Cavuto pressed on the subject, he reverted to swearing.

This is the Obama economy:

• On Friday the Dow ended the week down 400 points!
• June unemployment was up by 125,000. LINK
• 500,000 jobless workers stopped receiving unemployment payments.  They ran out of benefits.
• The unemployment rate rose to 9.5% only because of the 500,000 workers lost their benefits.
• The state of Illinois stopped paying it’s bills.  LINK
• 7.9 million jobs have been lost.  It’s likely many will never come back.  LINK

Obama’s Approval: Long-term trends

President Barrack Obama has reverted to the campaign mode. 

This became apparent Thursday in his “major speech” on immigration.

Fox News analysts say that Obama is in the campaign mode.  This week besides his campaign style exaggerations about the failing economy, Obama seems to be reverting to what he believes worked for him in 2008.  

Just maybe it won’t work this time.

The Wall Street Journal reported today that:

The economy shed jobs in June as meager private-sector hiring failed to make up for the end of thousands of temporary census worker jobs, the latest signal that an already-slow recovery might be shifting into an even lower gear.

The graphic on he WSJ.com web site was more telling. LINK

The Journal added:

The unemployment rate declined to 9.5% from 9.7% in May, but not because more jobs were available. Instead, 652,000 workers dropped out of the labor force, meaning they weren't counted as unemployed and looking for work.

The Rasmussen Poll reported that only 29% of the voters believe that Obama Stimulus helped the economy.   Some 43% believe it harmed the economy.

Perhaps what really turned Obama to the campaign mode was his poll ratings.  Rasmussen stepped back today and showed a graphic of Obama’s ratings going back to January 2009.  Here it is:

Rasmussen Approval Index

Obama has hit a new low.  If the ratings get any lower, will they go off the  chart?

Mark Steyn said it best

Journalist Mark Steyn, who blogs and writes columns for the London (U.K.) Telegraph, said it best.

“Where Nice Obama got us”.  His blog outlines all the failures of the Obama regime and the  feckless NATO allies.   Read it here. LINK

“MARK STEYN: Why would Ahmadinejad take [Obama] seriously when even Karzai flips him the finger?“