Crippled Water Foul [sic]

Naming the congressional session or presidential term after crippled water fowl when they are between terms, or headed out of office, goes back to England. A lame duck was originally a businessman that couldn’t pay his debts, and in the 1800’s started being used to identify politicians after elections and in between terms or sessions.

In 1933 the 20^th amendment moved the starting of new sessions and terms for congress and president from March to January. This was done to close a power vacuum between administrations and congresses, and to reduce the chance of politicians to do even more harm to the country since they had nothing to lose, having already lost.

Historically lame duck congresses have not met, the thinking being, correctly, that if they had been voted out of power, they shouldn’t be passing legislation. Dems are more likely to do this, as they did in 1980 when pro-PLO and Hamas supporter and anti-Semite Jimmy Carter and the Dem congress passed the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 in December before the new congress and Reagan came to power.

The controlling, greedy, power mad current congress, having been tossed out on their tin ears, are going to try and get their rejected agenda through in these last weeks of the year. Not surprised since they passed ObamaCare against the will of the people around midnight on Christmas Eve last year. Stealth legislation in the dead of night. This from the Administration that came to power stating they would drain the swamp, and have open and transparent governance.  

The cowardly Dems closed congress before passing any economic legislation before the election. They didn’t even pass a budget as required by law. The rest of their Statist agenda was left pending. Still, the Dems will become a dumb duck session trying to pass all this stuff. “Don’t ask don’t tell” which is just a stupid debate. Who cares who you’re poking, just shut up about, anywhere, in or out of the military, and do your damn job. Then there’s the budget, which should have been done months ago, and related to that is whether to let the Bush tax cuts expire. Truly, it should be called the Obama tax increase. Then there’s the “Dream Act” which is a nightmare. Truly, we want illegal immigrants to pay in state tuition when our own citizens can’t afford college?

Then there’s ratification of the START treaty. I hope at least some of these congress critters have read it (unlike most legislation), and it should be put off anyway until the next session. These guys have been sitting on their collective asses on this, so it can wait. Let’s see, we have environmental legislation, part of which makes the gas you exhale while breathing illegal. These are the same knuckleheads saying we of the great unwashed ignore and are ignorant of science.

What else do they want to pass legislation on? Chinese currency and trade policy, food safety, which they tell us what we can eat and child nutrition policy telling us what we can feed kids, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act reauthorization (after education has received $billions of ‘stimulus’ money), passing a renewable electricity standard and yet more stuff. About twenty bills total they want to address. In less than eight weeks.

Many of these congress critters have been fired. This is like an incompetent employee being fired and still coming to work. We need to amend the 20^th amendment to state that congress shall not meet after elections unless it’s a national emergency that requires their attention. Even then it would be better to keep them out of Washington DC. If these dumb ducks cared about the citizens like they say, they should embrace the chance to stay home in their districts with the folks for a couple months. Especially during the holiday season.