Wednesday, October 9, 2013

Isn't it Ironic? UPDATED 10-9-13 7:30pm MST

By now, watchers of the political world in the US -- all over the country -- know about Brenda Barton and the statement she made without engaging her sanity filter. If she even has a sanity filter.

From the Phoenix New Times:

There's a saying the local Democrats have: You can't spell "crazy" without "R-AZ."
Why? Because of people like Republican Representative Brenda Barton of Payson...
Of course, Arizona news sites have reported on it, but so have national and international sites, including the infamous WingNutDaily as well as Huffington Post, Raw Story, and more.

Here's what she posted to her Facebook profile on Monday:
Someone is paying the National Park Service thugs overtime for their efforts to carry out the order of De Fuhrer... where are our Constitutional Sheriffs who can revoke the Park Service Rangers authority to arrest??? Do we have any Sheriffs with a pair?
Plenty of others have remarked about the audaciousness of someone actually in elected office making such a statement. But what I find intriguing is that NONE of her GOP colleagues have called her on it.

Has anyone besides me yet picked up on the magnificent irony that the RWNJs who were so afraid that Agenda 21 would cause massive collapse of our system of representative government are now the very people who are rabidly spouting full blown seditious fantasies.

In a story criticizing the Environmental Protection Agency regarding the Navajo Generating Station, in the Payson Roundup last month,
Barton's presentation prompted one attendee to ask, "This is all Agenda 21, right?"
Barton agreed. The comment refers to claims that a 30-year-old United Nations resolution supported by more than 100 countries supporting "sustainable" development policies represents an effort to control the U.S. on the part of the international organization.
If you want an up-to-date rundown of the current seditious fantasies, visit one of the many Facebook pages owned by current GOP Congressional representatives. Like David Schweikert. Of course, the fantasies are also expressed in plenty of other places on the internet. But it troubles me that Schweikert, who is supposed to represent me in Congress, not only condones the fantasies, but he seems to take pleasure in promoting them.

In another twist of irony, apparently Mr. Schweikert thinks it's a good thing to jeopardize the full faith and credit of the United States. A campaign event promo posted to SonoranAlliance.com back in 2010 boasts,
As Treasurer of Maricopa County, David was responsible for protecting billions of dollars of taxpayer money. One of his great successes was earning over 300 million dollars in investment income while never taking a loss during a volatile bond market.
It's one thing to practice with other people's money, but now the Congressman is claiming that talk of the US Treasury defaulting on debt obligations is false. Left unstated in his grandiose claim is that if there is plenty of cash to make debt service payments, other demands (bills now due for payment) for the cash now in the treasury would be left unpaid.

How does Schweikert get away with such bold misdirection? Could it be because corporate media is both unprepared and unwilling to demand accountability for outrageous statements made by slick politicians? There is currently far too few journalists in nonprofit news enterprises to cover all such tactics.

Should local and national media also be asking the hard questions about Schweikert's motivation for courting national broadcast media coverage on this issue? He certainly has looked pretty chipper in all of the appearances.

And given that he knows HOW to make a fortune in volatile bond markets, maybe Mr. Schweikert made a business decision to bring the treasury to the brink. I wonder how giddy he will be when the rate the treasury must pay to borrow money goes up? He knows a credit rating downgrade happened before. Will he profit from your misery this time?
Credit rating agency Standard & Poor's (S&P) downgraded its credit rating of the U.S. federal government from AAA (outstanding) to AA+ (excellent) on August 5, 2011.
This was the first time the government was given a rating below AAA. S&P had announced a negative outlook on the AAA rating in April 2011. The downgrade to AA+ occurred four days after the 112th United States Congress voted to raise the debt ceiling of the federal government by means of the Budget Control Act of 2011 on August 2, 2011.
Reuters this week reported,
The three main credit rating agencies have all warned, in varying degrees, the United States rating could be cut should it hit an expected October 17 deadline when Washington is set to run out of cash, endangering its ability to pay its debt.
As in 2011 when Democrats and Republicans in the U.S. Congress could not agree on a budget and spending measures, the full faith and credit of the United States is being put into question, and global markets are coming under pressure.
If the government does not increase its $16.7 trillion borrowing limit, it will not be able to issue debt to pay its bills, leading to a possible default. 
From a Huffington Post report dateline Tuesday,
Let's repeat that: As a result of House Republicans holding the U.S. debt ceiling hostage because of "spending" or "Obamacare" or "disrespect" or whatever their reason du jour, the U.S. government's debt situation will get worse. As a result of this spike in rates, the government is paying more to borrow for one month than it does to pay for one year, a freak occurrence.
Again, the irony that oozes from people like Schweikert and Brenda Barton is often thick enough one can cut it with a knife.

In the meantime, every journalist that comes face to face or even just voice to voice with David Schweikert should demand of Mr. Transparency that he fully disclose ALL of his financial activity, especially with regard to bond markets, over the last six months especially.

UPDATE

The Arizona Capitol Times posted a follow up story just a short time ago this afternoon with audio from a telephone interview one of its reporters conducted with Brenda Barton.

At the end of the first audio clip, Barton says she believes we are in danger of losing our constitutional republic. The clip pretty much validates the connection of dots I made in the post above.

When called on the controversial nature of Barton having compared Obama to Hitler, she emphatically stated that she does not believe it is a controversial statement (in the second audio clip).




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