Oh, yes, liberals.  We did.

When the President started going crazy on the number and scope of his executive orders, we we warned you; “y’all might not control the White House forever.  You might not want to set that precedent”.

But you did.

And when Dingy Harry Reid tubed the filibuster, we warned you; “this is one of those traditions that has served to protect the minority from the tyranny of the majority for longer than anyone can remember”, you laughed and shot the filibuster in the head.

They did it – do you remember this? – because they weren’t getting their way fast enough for their petulant adolescent tastes!

Let’s flash back to 2013:

“The American people believe Congress is broken. The American people believe the Senate is broken. And I believe they are right,” Reid said Thursday on the Senate floor. “The need for change is so very, very obvious.”…

“I’ve sat on the Judiciary (Committee) for 20 years and it has never, ever been like this. You reach a point where your frustration just overwhelms and things have to change,” said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who had previously opposed efforts to change filibuster rules but voted with Reid on Thursday. “I think the level of frustration on the Democratic side has just reached the point where it’s worth the risk.”

So the Democrats, in a tantrum as shortsighted as that of any teenager, blew up the filibuster.  

Today?  The hangover is setting in:  

Senator Chris Coons (D., Del.) said on CNN Tuesday that he regrets the rule change Senate Democrats made to the nomination process.

“The filibuster no longer acts as an emergency brake on the nomination,” Coons said….“I do regret that. Frankly I think many of us will regret that in this congress because it would have been a terrific speed bump, potential emergency break [sic], to have in our system to slow down the confirmation of extreme nominees,” Coons said.

The problem, as I see it?  Too many Republicans are too compassionate, and absorbed the lessons they used to teach people about “good sportsmanship” and “being a good winner” as well as losing with grace (which we’ve done so much of we’re out of practice being “good winners”).   We have been loathe to pound home the fruits of the victories we’ve gotten (although the GOP’s idiot consulting class has a lot to do with that too).

But compassion must be tempered with teaching the Democrats a lesson.  We have federalism, and the traditions that up until Reid’s tantrum, protected the minority from the depredations of the majority.

So yes, GOP – we do need to make this a painful lesson for the Democrats.  We do  need to empanel a generation of conservative judges (to roll back the damage Obama did to the federal judiciary).  We do need to use this mandate that the people gave us in Congress to make the changes you were sent to make.

For the Democrats’ own good.

We tried to teach them about limited government the easy, comfy way.

Now it’s time to teach them the hard way.

Google is reaching out to hire something foreign, and a little scary, to them.

Conservatives:

In the weeks since the Nov. 8 election, Google has ramped up efforts to hire Republican lobbying firms and in-house lobbyists to change the composition of its Washington office, according to three lobbyists with knowledge of the matter.

The company also posted an advertisement for a manager for conservative outreach and public policy partnership, seeking a “liaison to conservative, libertarian and free market groups.”

I’m available to serve as a conservative-to-Silicon-Valley interpreter.

I offer the same service to the Twin Cities media.  Have your people call my people.

For a price.

The progressive chattering classes are all in a tizzy because many of Donald Trump’s cabinet nominees are long-time opponents of the departments they’ve been chosen to lead:

• Rick Perry at Energy – who has advocated disbanding the entire department and reducing a cabinet seat
• Ben Carson at HUD, who has criticized federal housing
• Betsy DeVos at Education – a major proponent of school choice and degrading the government monopoly on education
• Scott Pruitt at the EPA, an agency against whom he’s spent years litigating
• Andy Puzder at Labor, who would oppose most “progressive” labor regulations
• Tom Price at HHS, who advocates rolling back Obamacare.

The chattering classes are all aflutter.  Perhaps because most of these departments are nothing but make-work programs for worthless Ivy Leaguer poli sci grads like, well, themselves.

Or perhaps because the American people might just support it:

And that leads us to the really burning question: Will anyone miss those departments if they go away?

We could try to answer that question by diving into the bitterly partisan political and economic debate over the size of government that’s been dividing people in this country since the days of Jefferson and Hamilton. Or we could wisely dump that academic argument and realize that the answer lies in how well the Trump team manages to make sure the changes get noticed by normal voters in a positive way. In politics, perception truly is reality.

And Trump, for all his faults, gets that better than most other Republicans.  For worse or, when it comes to slashing the size and power of the Federal Government ,much much better.

The WashEx asks if Trump is already president:

With weeks to go until he takes office, Trump’s moves have tested the limits of his unofficial powers as the president-in-waiting. And although his activism has drawn scrutiny from detractors, his favorability ratingshave hit new heights on the heels of several high-profile successes.

“I don’t think it’s normal for a president-elect to be out and about like this, but this is the era of Trump, and he is literally rewriting the rules,” said Ford O’Connell, a Republican strategist.

My answer?  Why not?  Obama’s been semi-retired for the past two and a half years.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

Google “Trump salary” and you’ll see endless articles claiming Trump is waiving the $400,000 annual salary as President.  No, he’s volunteering to become A Dollar A Year Man.  That’s an important distinction, as it evokes historical parallels to great men who sacrificed to save the nation in time of peril.

 Of course, no journalist knows that.  Or if they did, they certainly can’t admit it, because that would mean Trump is a statesman and a patriot; we can’t have that.

 Joe Doakes

As Glenn Reynolds puts it, “if you remember that they’re Democrat operatives with bylines, it all makes sense”>