RickRouse.com

Back in the 1970′s those of us who were blessed to live in the Appalachian Mountain region endured some pretty harsh winters. It seemed like we received a major snowfall at least once a week, and since the daytime temperatures rarely made it above freezing the snow we got never seemed to melt. In fact, the 70′s was such a cold, snowy decade that many prominent scientists began predicting the impending return of yet another ice age.

Now, fast forward to the turn of the century. All of a sudden the same scientists who were predicting the arrival of a veritable global deep freeze just a few short decades earlier changed course and began warning a gullible population that we should scrap the notion of cooling temperatures and prepare to bake as the earth heated up like a gigantic greenhouse.

Many of these scientists (along with a few sleazy politicians such as Al Gore) quickly discovered that they could become incredibly wealthy by instilling into the average folks an intense desire not to burn up, and they began to deliver stern, never-ending warnings that it would indeed happen, and fast, if we failed to take immediate action to stop it.

But now the folks have caught on to the hoax thanks to a plethora of hacked emails that show that climate data have routinely been altered (and in some cases deleted) in order to show a pattern of global warming where in fact one does not exist. Oh, and the fact that a large percentage of the earth’s population can look out their windows this winter and see snowfall after snowfall reminiscent of those back in the 70′s didn’t help their cause either.

Now I’m not one to become overjoyed when I see another round of the white stuff hitting the ground or watch the mercury drop to rock bottom, but I do get a little chuckle every time I see another blizzard hit pretty much any locale where Al Gore’s private jet touches down on a runway.

The U.S. Constitution requires every sitting President of the United States to deliver an annual address to the Congress and the American people expressing his opinion about the current “State of the Union”. Over the centuries these addresses have changed from little more than a two page written “letter” to a full-blown speech delivered in person to both houses of Congress, the President’s cabinet, the members of the Supreme Court and the American people (via live television).

Presidents of all political persuasions have followed a certain protocol for delivering the State of the Union address throughout our nation’s history, and that protocol demands that the President not directly attack or scold either of the other two branches of government in the speech. Well, that protocol has now been thrown out the window by President Obama and his leftist speechwriters.

During this week’s SOTU address, the President looked squarely at the members of the U.S. Supreme Court who were seated before him and scolded them as a group for making a long-awaited decision that he happens to disagree with in a high profile campaign finance case. For the first time in history, a U.S. President has openly disparaged a Supreme Court decision live, and in front of much of the entire world. Even Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor who actually dissented in the decision clearly appeared to be revulsed by the shameless attack.

Unfortunately this isn’t the first “first” of Mr. Obama’s Presidency, and it is unlikely to be the last. But as damaging as his policies have been for our country, the most atrocious “first” of all is the way he has completely trashed the sense of decorum and mutual respect that used to be exhibited in formal speeches regarding the other two branches of our government.

Well, he did it. In yesterday’s special election, Republican State Senator Scott Brown easily knocked off the heir apparent to the U.S. Senate seat that had previously been held by a member of the iconic Kennedy family for the better part of six decades – in the most heavily Democratic state in the union no less.

Senator-elect Brown ran a brilliant, hard charging campaign while his lackluster opponent gave the commonwealth and the nation a primer in how to lose an election in the most efficient manner possible. But while the gap in the quality and competence of the two candidates was wider than Boston Harbor, the real reasons for Brown’s amazing victory lie in the nation’s capitol, not in Massachusetts.

For a year now the Democrats have held unfettered power in Washington with their overwhelming majority in the House of Representatives and filibuster-proof 60 votes in the Senate. But what did they do with that power? Try to ram a monstrosity of a health care bill down the collective throat of the American people even as they were screaming at the top of their lungs that it was an unwelcome government intrusion into one-sixth of the entire U.S. economy.

President Obama and the Democrats in Congress made the grave mistake of interpreting their massive victory in the 2008 elections as a mandate for a radical shift to the left. It was nothing of the sort. When the electorate sent the Republicans packing in 2008 it was a clear repudiation of the massive spending and mis-management they had presided over during the Bush years, not a stand against conservative policies. In response to this false mandate,  the Dems shifted so far to the left that they ended up in Siberia.

The Democrats chose to ignore the ever-louder warnings of the masses while spending their entire bank of political capital on health care and a highly unpopular and extremely ineffective “stimulus package” instead of concentrating on improving the economy and getting the unemployed back to work. Bill Clinton hit the nail on the head when he famously said “It’s the economy, stupid“, but somehow that lesson was lost on his Democratic successor.

Even worse, Obama made the inexplicable decision to try virtually all the terrorists we capture in the act of trying to kill us in Federal Court instead of in military tribunals where they so obviously belong. Now, instead of being forced to sing like canaries about their accomplices and future attacks, they are read their Miranda rights and provided with lawyers at our expense. We the people don’t appreciate that one bit!

The irony of all this is that Mr. Brown’s virtual landslide win yesterday is actually a gift from God for the Democrats. Why? Because it provides them with an ear-piercing wake-up call to change their ill conceived ways before it’s too late for them to salvage any amount of respectability and power whatsoever come November.

This year’s Congressional elections are going to be horrendous for Democratic candidates  regardless of whether they wise up or not, but if they keep trudging down the same road that just cost them what was arguably the “safest” seat in the entire Senate, they just might be in for an electoral bloodbath. After all, a party with unfettered power can quickly learn that the American voter holds the ultimate veto power.