Hostage Taking

Imagine this scenario: a criminal has cloistered himself in a building somewhere and taken hostages. A  negotiator is dispatched, but a hostage is killed when, for whatever reason, the police fail to accede to the criminal's demands.

The criminal is eventually captured, but he blames the dead hostage on the police: "You didn't meet my demands. I had no choice but to kill a hostage." he says with a shrug.

That's essentially the scenario that is playing out right now in Washington. The Republicans have decided that they're so serious about their goal of repealing so-called "Obamacare" that they are willing to shut down the government if the president does not kowtow to their demand to defund health care reform.

So whose fault would it be if the government is eventually shut down due to such intransigence? Why, President Obama, of course!

"Well, the one who's threatening to shut down the government is the president and his Democratic allies. What they're basically saying is, unless the budget funds Obamacare, they won't support it. They're basically saying that, unless we fund Obamacare, they are willing to shut down the government.... [I]t's their insistence on continuing to pour money into this broken and failed experiment that is threatening a government shutdown, not us."

So said Marco Rubio recently during an interview with Sean Hannity.

Setting aside hostage-taking politics for a moment, there has been, for what seems like quite a while now, an 'Opposite Day' strategy among some Republicans to blatantly deny reality. They want to shut down the government over "Obamacare", but such a shut down would be Obama's fault. Waterboarding is OK, because it's not really torture, but "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques". Osama was caught on Obama's watch, which means that Dubya should be given credit.

It's like some members of the Republican party collectively suffer from cognitive distortion, defined by Wikipedia as "gross reshaping of external reality to meet internal needs". It's Republicans' world; we just live in it.

The $64,000 question is this: how long will the American people put up with being taken hostage by an increasingly radicalized Republican party?

The Party of the 'Little Guy'

From an excellent op/ed article written by Dana Milbank:

“The president claims his economic agenda is for the middle class. But it’s actually for the well-connected,” Paul Ryan, the GOP’s 2012 vice presidential nominee, wrote this week in USA Today, rejecting Obama’s latest proposal for a corporate tax cut. “There’s no doubt that it works well for them. But for the rest of us, it’s not working at all.”

Ryan, in his brief commentary, protested that Obama is “interested in tax reform for corporations — but not for families or small business.” He further accused Obama of implementing health-care and regulatory policies that favor big businesses and big banks.
That’s rich.

Source: The GOP Flips the Script on Obama

The Republican party's sudden shift to the party of the 'little guy' is nothing short of amazing.

Let's remember that this is the party that opposes regulation of any kind, opposed Wall Street reform, and constantly fights against people who work for a living (labor). In fact, most Republicans are quick to label as "Socialist" anything that smacks of even being moderately disapproving of big business.

Now the party of Donald Trump, Mitt Romney and the Koch brothers is suddenly positioning itself as the party of "joe six-pack"?

One just can't help but be astounded at the sheer chutzpah.

An aspect of this situation that Milbank did not address in his column is this: the fact that the sudden shift from a party of the rich and powerful to the party of "the little people" is less about genuine concern for the poor and more about cynical politics.

Republicans are desperate to do whatever they can to defund so-called "Obamacare" before it takes effect next year. So single-mindedly focused are they on this goal that many of them are willing to risk major political blowback by shutting down the government if Obama does not cave to their demands - a tactic that even uber-conservative Charles Krauthammer denounced as crazy in a recent column.

Unfortunately, Republican efforts to defund and/or discredit "Obamacare" are not going so well; there have been encouraging signs that health reform is actually working extremely well in those states that are already implementing changes: in Washington, Oregon and Maryland, insurance premiums are turning out to be lower than expected.

Sources: Medical Daily
              Washington Post

Republicans are left with few alternatives, so that means falling back on a tried-and-true tactic: throwing everything at Obama and seeing what sticks. If that means crying crocodile tears about the poor being screwed over in favor of the rich, in an attempt to discredit a federal program that will benefit the poor by allowing them to purchase health insurance, so be it. Destroying"Obamacare", it seems, is more important than, you know, actually giving a damn about the "joe six-packs" of the country.

The Republican Party At Work

Although we're much better off now that we were, say, this time four or five years ago, our country is still facing a number of very important issues both economic and domestic. But never fear - the Republican party has been hard at work trying to fix these problems in Congress!

...Or not.

I've said this before, and I will continue to harp on it: Three years ago, John Boehner couldn't stop talking about "jobs, jobs, jobs" while laying out his party's agenda for the upcoming legislative session:

“This speech is about jobs…because this coming election is about jobs,” Boehner told the welcoming campaign crowd in his home town. “It’s about the jobs that were promised to the American people by the current administration, and never delivered. It’s about the jobs our economy should be creating right now, but isn’t creating, because of the policies coming out of our Congress. It’s about the jobs our children deserve in the future, but may never have because Washington is burying them in a legacy of debt.”

Source: ABC News

Republicans handily won the midterm elections in what was almost universally seen as a "red tide" of opposition against Obama's agenda. Thus, everyone lived happily ever after because the Republicans worked their little butts off to create jobs for unemployed Americans, right?

Nope. Instead we got self-inflicted economic wounds:

Scariest Business Stories of 2011: Debt Ceiling Standoff
Sequestration Impact

Meaningless votes to repeal so-called "Obamacare":
Source: NBC News

Attempts to name bodies of water after Ronald Reagan:
Source: The Hill

Warring against women on several fronts:
Rape
Pay equity
Gender Roles
Abortion 


...as well as endless hearings on what have proven to be non-scandals:
MSNBC

Ladies and gentlemen, the GOP at work. With a record like this, it's a wonder to me why anyone would want to vote Republican.

Doubletalk

This post is dedicated to my wonderful cousin Heather in North Carolina, of whom I'm proud to be associated because she stands up for the same stupidity that I try to address on this blog.

One doesn't know whether to shake one's head and laugh, or cry. 

During the North Carolina gubernatorial race, Republican candidate Pat McCrory was asked how many anti-abortion bills he would sign as governor. "None" he quickly replied.

Then North Carolina Republicans came into power in a big way, earning a majority in the state legislature that Republicans hadn't held since Reconstruction. 

You'd be forgiven if you thought that the legislative agenda that followed was all about small government conservatism. Instead, the Not-So-Grand Old Party has had a field day doing everything from trying to establish a state religion to banning nipples. No; I'm not making this up.

But perhaps most egregious of all, besides the onerous voter ID bill Republicans passed (the subject of a blog post to come), is Senate Bill 353. 

Originally a bill concerning motorcycle safety, Republicans shoehorned abortion restrictions into the bill hoping that voters would be either too dumb or too uninformed to tell the difference. The bill passed the legislature (naturally) and headed for Governor McCrory's desk.

The man who claimed during the debate that he would not sign any abortion restrictions into law promptly approved the motorcycle bill, abortion restrictions and all.

http://tinyurl.com/lkysmue

That action in itself would be cause for understandable outrage among North Carolina voters - McCrory went back on a rather clear and distinct promise he made to not sign abortion restrictions into law.

Perhaps more egregious, however, is the way in which McCrory is trying to spin the situation:

"This law does not further limit access, and those who contend it does are more interested in politics than the health and safety of our citizens."

Ah, the old "it's for the health and safety of women" dodge! McCrory and his Republican cronies would have us believe that they cared so much about women's health that they shoehorned abortion restrictions, which impose overly strict regulations on abortion clinics that will likely shut them down, into a motorcycle bill and passed them on to the governor.

There's a word for people who promise one thing and then do something completely different.

A Big 'Screw You' to Texas Women

Following an eleven-hour filibuster by state representative Wendy Davis, and protests numbering in the thousands, Texas Republicans finally passed their restrictive anti-abortion bill, which is supposed to close all but five of the thirty-six Planned Parenthood clinics in the state.

How the legislation was passed is instructive of the underlying agenda:

Texas Republicans voted early Wednesday to move forward with new abortion restrictions, after limiting testimony at a public hearing, refusing to consider Democratic amendments and imposing strict security precautions to prevent disruptions from protesting abortion-rights supporters.

 (Emphasis mine)
Source: Washington Post

The irony is striking. Republicans are usually the first to emphasize accountability and "consensus of the governed". That was partly the basis of their opposition to so-called "Obamacare" in 2009: Democrats have "pushed through" the legislation despite the fact that the American people "didn't want it".

Yet when it comes to unpopular legislation that harms women's health, Republicans are suddenly very, very concerned with making sure that We The People (whose opinion they claim to value more than almost anything) don't get a chance to speak out.

It just goes to show something that I've slowly begun to realize in the past five years: you can tell when Republicans are lying by simply looking to see if they are talking.

There's Hope....Maybe

As soon as I finished my previous "omnibus" post, expressing the need for hope in the wake of the Supreme Court's disastrous Voting Rights Act ruling, I surfed onto Rachel Maddow's blog and found this:

A House Republican who led the last push to reauthorize the Voting Rights Act exhorted lawmakers Wednesday to join him in bringing the law back to life.

The day after the Supreme Court quashed the anti-discrimination statute, Rep. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.) urged lawmakers to cast aside their differences and restore the rejected provisions for the sake of voter protection.

“The Voting Rights Act is vital to America’s commitment to never again permit racial prejudices in the electoral process,” Sensenbrenner, the second-ranking Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, said Wednesday in a statement.

“This is going to take time, and will require members from both sides of the aisle to put partisan politics aside and ensure Americans’ most sacred right is protected.”
Republican Reps. Steve Chabot (Ohio) and Sean Duffy (Wis.) also expressed support Wednesday for congressional action in response to the high court’s ruling.

Source: The Hill

To borrow a likely-overused phrase: I'm cautiously optimistic. A few Republicans seem willing to do the right thing and fix the Voting Rights Act rather than simply sitting on their hands for the sake of their electoral chances.

At the same time, I do not want hope to turn into naivete. I don't exactly trust the GOP as far as I can smell it. The above Republicans may say one thing and end up doing another. Even if they do follow through on their word to reauthorize the Act, their caucus may put up a show of resistance and obstruction to keep things as they are.

There is, however, a glimmer of hope on the horizon. Maybe this isn't the death knell for the Voting Rights Act.

Week In Review

Because of assignments for my summer classes, I have been, up to now, unable to expound on what's been happening in the political world. Rather than write twenty-seven posts to make up for lost time, I thought I'd simply cover the highlights (or, perhaps more fittingly, the lowlights) in one large omnibus post.

What a week it has been! Already we have seen one of the worst decisions to come from the Supreme Court in recent memory, followed by one of the Court's best decisions.

I'm referring in part, of course, to the Court's execrable ruling on the Voting Rights Act. A majority of conservative judges, in their infinite wisdom, ruled unconstitutional section five of the Act, which provided a formula for determining which counties of certain states required preclearance before passing new voting laws. The basis for this decision was the fact that section five "used data from the 1960s and 1970s", and "our country has changed since then".

The court, ruling in a challenge brought by Shelby County, Ala., left standing Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, which gives the federal government authority over states that historically suppressed minority votes. But that section was effectively nullified by the court, which said the formula used to identity such jurisdictions, contained in Section 4, is not constitutionally valid because it is based on decades-old voter-participation data.

 Source: Wall Street Journal

Using old data did not seem to be a problem as recently as 2006, when a Republican-majority Congress voted nearly unanimously to extend the Voting Rights Act. Bush, to his credit, did one of the few right things of his presidency and promised to sign the legislation that extended the Act.

Source: Washington Post

But somehow, the Act became unconstitutional in the seven years since Congress last extended it, thus prompting the conservative justices to strike down the enforcement part of the law. Because, after all, we elected a black President in 2008, and a couple of black state Representatives successfully ran unopposed in some Southern state. Therefore, in the apparent logic of the Supreme Court, racism no longer exists!

Never, in my twenty-nine years, did I think that the Voting Rights Act was either controversial or in danger of being struck down.

So what happens now? The Voting Rights Act goes back to - you guessed it! - our notoriously inept Congress, full of obstructionist Republicans who will likely view the situation as a boost to their electoral chances and thus have no motivation to act.

A nice big judicial "screw you" to the minorities of this country. I'm sure, however, that the Voting Rights Act ruling won't be seen as judicial activism. That only happens when the Court hands down decisions that liberals like.

In much happier news, the Supreme Court also saw fit to strike down the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA)!

The 5-4 decision read: "DOMA violates basic due process and equal protection principles applicable to the federal government. Under DOMA same-sex married couples have their lives burdened, by reason of government decree, in visible and public ways.
"By its great reach DOMA touches many aspects of married life from the mundane to the profound."

Source: ABC News



Jurist Antonin Scalia, however, is apparently outraged over the ruling. An enterprising journalist from Talking Points Memo collected some of the more notable passages from Scalia's dissent:

Referring to the issue of standing, Scalia wrote, “I find it wryly amusing that the majority seeks to dismiss the requirement of party-adverseness as nothing more than a ‘prudential’ aspect of the sole Article III requirement of standing.”

“As I have said, the real rationale of today’s opinion, whatever disappearing trail of its legalistic argle-bargle one chooses to follow, is that DOMA is motivated by ‘bare … desire to harm’ couples in same-sex marriages.”

“As I have observed before, the Constitution does not forbid the government to enforce traditional moral and sexual norms,” Scalia wrote. “However, even setting aside traditional moral disapproval of same-sex marriage (or indeed same-sex sex), there are many perfectly valid — indeed, downright boring — justifying rationales for this legislation. Their existence ought to be the end of this case.”

“We have no power to decide this case,” Scalia wrote. “And even if we did, we have no power under the Constitution to invalidate this democratically adopted legislation. The Court’s errors on both points spring forth from the same diseased root: an exalted conception of the role of this institution in America.”

“The Court is eager — hungry — to tell everyone its view of the legal question at the heart of this case.”

(Emphasis mine)
Source: Talking Points Memo

The last quote above is especially ridiculous coming from a Court who, only a day before, ruled unconstitutional a law that had been democratically adopted. Now Scalia is concerned with judicial activism involving the elimination of laws enacted through the democratic process?

In even better news, Secretary of Defense Hagel has promised that the Pentagon will grant marriage benefits to same-sex couples, saying that it was "the right thing to do".

Source: The Hill

If you're a part of the LGBT community or one of its supporters - or if you're white and a Republican - this has been an excellent week for you. If, however, you're a minority who is hoping to vote in the next election, it has perhaps been the week from hell. Maybe - just maybe - there's still hope....

The New Political Correctness

Note: This is not my work; it is from Paul Krugman's excellent blog 'The Conscience of a Liberal".

Remember the furor over liberal political correctness? Yes, some of it was over the top — but it was mainly silly, not something that actually warped our national discussion.

Today, however, the big threat to our discourse is right-wing political correctness, which — unlike the liberal version — has lots of power and money behind it. And the goal is very much the kind of thing Orwell tried to convey with his notion of Newspeak: to make it impossible to talk, and possibly even think, about ideas that challenge the established order.

Thus, even talking about “the wealthy” brings angry denunciations; we’re supposed to call them “job creators”. Even talking about inequality is “class warfare”.

And then there’s the teaching of history. Eric Rauchway has a great post about attacks on the history curriculum, in which even talking about “immigration and ethnicity” or “environmental history” becomes part of a left-wing conspiracy. As he says, he’ll name his new course “US History: The Awesomeness of Awesome Americans.” That, after all, seems to be the only safe kind of thing to say.

Actually, this reminds me of an essay I read a long time ago about Soviet science fiction. The author — if anyone remembers where this came from — noted that most science fiction is about one of two thoughts: “if only”, or “if this goes on”. Both were subversive, from the Soviet point of view: the first implied that things could be better, the second that there was something wrong with the way things are. So stories had to be written about “if only this goes on”, extolling the wonders of being wonderful Soviets.
And now that’s happening in America.


Source: The Conscience of a Liberal

Immigration

the benefits would mostly go to business owners.....He's afraid “the 21 million Americans who can’t find full-time work will have an ever harder time getting a job and supporting their families.” This bill, Sessions said, apparently with a serious face, could be “the biggest setback for poor and middle-class Americans of any legislation Congress has considered in decades.”

Source: AL.com

A Republican expressing concern about the poor and worrying that benefits from legislation would go to wealthy business owners?

Don't get too excited. Republicans only pretend to care about the poor and the middle class when they think it will benefit them politically. In this case, Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama was trying to make up reasons on the spot to kill the pending immigration reform bill before Congress.

Recently, Republicans have been trying to use the tried-and-true "It costs too much!" argument against the bill, but unfortunately, that ended up not working for them:

The American economy would suffer some initial struggles if a Senate bill legalizing the nation's million unauthorized immigrants becomes law, but the overall effect would be a reduction in the federal deficit, according to an analysis from the Congressional Budget Office.

But the CBO also found that the border security components in the bill would reduce illegal immigration only by 25%.

The CBO, which estimates the cost of legislation, stated the bill would decrease federal deficits by $197 billion within a decade of passing Congress and an additional $700 billion over the next decade.

(Emphasis mine)
Source:  USA Today

Whoops! So onward and upward, pandering to the poor and middle class by pretending to care about their plight.

And while we're at it, how about launching anti-immigrant, tea-party-like-it's-2010 rallies in DC?

At one point, Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, R-Fla., addressed Hispanic media outlets in Spanish — only to get heckled.

“If they all learned English …” someone shouted from the sidelines, then trailed off, as a woman arrived wielding a sign that read, “Do not reward criminals, no amnesty for illegal aliens!!!”
The speakers sought to brush it off.

“I want to make a call for unity,” said Becky Keenan, a pastor with the Gulf Meadows Church of Houston, Texas, “a call for a tone that is civil, where we can discuss issues, see where we can compromise.”

Across the East Front lawn, a woman was shouting wildly into a much louder microphone, almost drowning out Keenan. Protesters wore T-shirts emblazoned with American flags and tea party slogans, and they waved homemade signs that read, “John Boehner: no amnesty, get a backbone,” “Boehner: go home,” “exporting illegals = importing jobs for Americans, stop socialism,” and “if we lose rule of law we become Mexico.”

Source: Roll Call

After losing to noted fearsome Socialist Barack Obama for a second time in 2012, Republicans launched a "rebranding" campaign in which they pledged outreach to women and minorities (both of which came out of the woodwork to vote for Obama in droves).

Despite all the talk of "rebranding" and a "softer, kinder" Republican party, however, we still see nativist "English only" idiots gathering at the Capitol to derail a bill whose passage would likely help Republicans with minority outreach!

Is it any wonder that the GOP is (deservedly) "in the wilderness" right now? Maybe they should stay there until party leaders actually start showing a modicum of common sense (for a change).

The Camel's Nose

The Colonel Flaggs responsible for this country's vast military-intelligence complex have responded to growing criticism over the NSA's PRISM program:

The National Security Agency surveillance programs made public this month have helped foil more than 50 terrorist plots since Sept. 11, including one to blow up the New York Stock Exchange, top intelligence officials told Congress on Tuesday.

The officials appeared before the House Intelligence Committee and answered mostly friendly questions to defend the programs, which collect phone records inside the United States and monitor Internet communications overseas.

“I would much rather be here today debating this point than trying to explain how we failed to prevent another 9/11,” said Gen. Keith Alexander, the NSA director.
At least 10 of the foiled plots were “homeland-based threats,” he said.

Source: NBC News

You'll pardon me if I call BS - I'm just having trouble believing a single word the government says in defense of the PRISM program. Government spooks would say just about anything to keep the broad, unchecked powers they were granted in the hysteria following 9/11.

Were there not similar claims from the government that torture - pardon me..."Enhanced Interrogation Techniques" -  had "saved lives" in order to shut up justified criticism over our intel-gathering activities? To the surprise of nobody save perhaps Dick Cheney, it was later revealed that so-called "Enhanced Interrogation" had saved exactly zero lives, and may in fact have put our troops in greater danger.

I'm reminded of an allegorical story that is often trotted out in politics: the camel and the tent. It is said that once a camel sticks its nose in your tent, it's like having a foot in the door - there's nothing to stop the camel from working the rest of its body into the tent, thus taking it over.

After 9/11, scared Americans decided that they would give up much of their "essential liberty" for a "measure of security" and granted the government a battery of unprecedented powers to collect information on its own citizens.

In recent years, Americans have largely gotten over our post-9/11 hysteria that gave us the PATRIOT Act, Gitmo, and other questionable national security apparatuses. Nevertheless, it has proven exceedingly difficult to rid the government of the excessive powers that were granted after 9/11. Perhaps worst of all, however, is the fact that some Americans have gotten so used to the "new normal" of Big Brother government that they have barely batted an eye over the PRISM program.

The camel's nose is in the tent, and it's going to be tough to push him back out...

Credibility, Thy Name Is NOT Cheney

Former Vice President Dick Cheney, that paragon of virtue, was interviewed over the weekend on national security matters. As you might expect, the interview was chock full of gems:

Cheney voiced support for the administration's recent decision to supply arms to Syrian rebel groups working to unseat Syrian President Bashar Assad, but said the infusion of aid may be "a day late and a dollar short."

"I think it is important that Assad go down. I think my instinct would have been to support the opposition sooner," he said. "You had an opportunity earlier to provide support without having to get American forces directly involved, and they took a pass. Now they are going to do it."

Overall, Cheney said, "I don't think it's been well-handled."

 (Emphasis mine) This from the Vice President who lied us into Iraq, claiming that there were non-existent "weapons of mass destruction" and promised that we would be "greeted as liberators"? A war from which we were only able to disentangle ourselves after ten years?

Cheney has about as much authority on matters being "well-handled" as my foot.

Source: CBS News

Then there was this:

He added that President Obama's defense of the eavesdropping programs is ineffective because Obama has been weak on security issues. Cheney complained that under Obama, the Internal Revenue Service had targeted conservative groups for extra scrutiny and the administration had made crucial errors in protecting Americans during terrorist attacks on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, last year. Four Americans, including an ambassador, were killed in those attacks. "He's got no credibility," Cheney said of Obama.

 OK...let's, as they say on cable news programs, "unpack" this a bit, shall we?

Firstly, as I have been repeatedly saying on this blog and elsewhere: what scandal? Both the Benghazi and IRS "scandals" are a bust, as neither one has any apparent connection to Obama or the White House. I know that Republicans are trying very, very hard to milk these incidents for all they are worth, but as the president said: "There's no 'there' there".

Secondly, who is Dick Cheney, of all people, to dismiss anyone as having "no credibility"? Under Cheney's watch, 9/11 happened, torture happened, Gitmo happened, lying us into an unnecessary war with Iraq happened, and accusations of being a "traitor" for not following the Dubya administration unquestioningly happened. Cheney was repeatedly found not only to be wrong, but his actions in the wake of the so-called "War on Terror" proved to be extra-Constitutional.

If Cheney wants to point to anyone who has "no credibility" on national security issues, he need only to look in the mirror.

Why are we still listening to this man as though he knows what he's talking about?

A Letter To The Editor

A Letter To The Editor that I submitted to the Richmond Times-Dispatch was published today! Frequent readers of this blog will likely not be surprised by the content:


Washington is caught up in Scandalmania 2013, and so, it seems, is the letters section of this newspaper. Since news of the IRS scrutinizing conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status and the Benghazi attacks, there has been a flurry of letters from conservative correspondents breathlessly accusing President Obama of corruption and claiming that he is the second coming of Richard Nixon

As more facts have been released to the general public, however, Benghazi and the IRS controversy have begun to look less like scandals and more like molehills.

Take Benghazi. Emails released from the White House reveal that it was the intelligence community – not the White House – that was responsible for the infamous talking points from which Susan Rice read on Meet the Press. Besides Rice, Obama is also absolved from guilt, as military analysts have gone on record to say that even if military planes had been sent to Benghazi during the attacks, they would not have arrived in time to render aid. So much for Benghazi being used to derail Obama’s presidency.

Attempts to turn the IRS controversy have met with similar difficulties. Despite claims to the contrary, liberal groups received the same scrutiny as conservative groups, suggesting that the IRS was not targeting political opponents to the president but simply doing what it thought was its job. A conservative-leaning manager of the IRS recently told The Washington Post that he was responsible for the scrutiny of political groups and not the White House.

There are certainly valid reasons to be upset with Obama. Recent leaks revealing that the government has been spying on citizens’ phone records is appalling. If the president is to be criticized, however, he should be criticized for what he has done, and not imaginary scandals milked by the opposing party. What happened to Republicans vowing to focus on jobs, jobs, jobs?

Big Government Conservatives

Why is it that the people who so loudly claim to hate so-called "big government" and the "nanny state" are often the first ones to advocate big government policies while in office?

I'm referring, of course, to recent laws proposed and passed by Republicans that give the government - that hated institution - power to override the personal decisions made by women.

Take, for example, a recent law from the hopelessly Republican Iowa legislature which gives the governor the power to personally approve abortions. No; I'm not making this up!

Source: http://tinyurl.com/mhczlcq

Imagine the outrage - the howls about a burgeoning police state - if a liberal or Democratic governor wanted to assume for him or herself the power to personally approve gun purchases. But the government taking control of women's personal decisions? Perfectly fine!

This is also happening in good ole Wisconsin, where noted union-busting Governor Walker has decided to use the power of government to force women to have medically unnecessary ultrasounds before an abortion - because, you know, that worked so well for Governor Bob Ultrasound McDonnell here in Virginia.

Source: http://tinyurl.com/lkazzho

"I don't have any problem with ultrasounds!" said Walker recently, apropos of nothing. Of course, it's not his body that the Wisconsin state government wants to invade in the name of punishing women who want to undergo an abortion procedure. 

These are examples of a (recent?) trend among Republicans that Rachel Maddow rightly calls 'big government conservatism', the phenomenon of running on a platform that decries the "gubmint" and then, once elected, using the power of public office to control and micromanage people's (read: women's) lives. 

Whether this trend is truly indicative of a contradiction in conservative philosophy is debatable, though it certainly looks like one. It does, however, prove the old adage to be true: power corrupts.

"Our Number One Priority"

From George Stephanopoulos' recent interview with Speaker of the House Boehner:

STEPHANOPOULOS: You know, we asked-- our viewers for questions for you. And so many came in on the same exact theme. Where are the jobs? What is this Congress doing for jobs?

BOEHNER: Well, that's interesting, George. Because it really is our number one priority. If you look at-- the last four years, we've had anemic economic growth. There aren't enough jobs. People's wages aren't growing. And frankly, I believe the president's policies are getting in the way of creating more jobs.

Source: ABC News

Really, Boehner? You sure could have fooled us.

How many jobs are being jeopardized by sequestration, which Congressional Republicans refuse to remove despite numerous reports of the sequester hurting the American people?

How many jobs are being created by the anti-abortion legislation that Republicans keep proposing in front of Congress, despite the fact that such legislation will (thankfully) never see the light of day?

How many jobs have been created by the over thirty-five votes to repeal "Obamacare"? Or the innumerable hearings on Benghazi and the IRS "scandals" that have not revealed anything that we didn't already known? Or the union busting that has been happening in the states thanks to Republican majorities there? Or the numerous attempts by Republicans to ensure that less qualified voters are actually voting?

Obama has done more to create jobs for the American people in five years than Republicans in twice that much time. Yet we still hear the leader of the "do nothing" party complain that Obama isn't creating jobs fast enough to suit the same people that made it necessary to create an excess of jobs in the first place!

If this is what focus on a "number one priority" looks like, I'd sure hate to see what would happen if Republicans didn't care about a particular issue.

What Happened to the Democratic Party?

What has happened to some parts of the Democratic party nowadays?

First we hear of Big Brother-esque spying from the government, in which "metadata" from personal e-mails and phone calls is collected and placed into a colossal database of intelligence. Rather that actually issuing condemnations for the obvious Constitutional concerns that are caused by such programs, many top Democrats chose instead to defend the program! "It's called defending America" said Feinstein several days ago.

(NOTE: I am excepting Senator Franken, who also recently defended the program. I respect and trust Franken, and his support of the  program carries more weight with me than "party flaks" such as Feinstein)

Now I hear that in the wake of allegations of widespread sexual assaults in the military, which is undeniably a major problem that prompted John McCain to stop short of recommending that women join the military, Senator Carl Levin is now blocking efforts to fix the problem!

The plan was to add to the Defense Authorization Act (DAA) a proposal which would take investigation of sexual assaults out of the chain of command, thus ensuring that such assaults would receive due diligence instead of being whitewashed by top brass. The proposal, offered by Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), reportedly had twenty-seven cosponsors, including four Republicans.

Unfortunately, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Carl Levin, stripped the proposal out of the DAA:

An effort to place military sex assault cases in the hands of an independent prosecutor was thwarted late Tuesday when Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin sided with the top brass – and against a fellow Democrat.

Levin (D-Mich.) will strip a proposal by Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) from the policy-setting Defense Authorization Act and replace it with a measure that instead requires senior military officers to review decisions when commanders refuse to prosecute a case.

Source: NBC News

To be fair, the article later mentions that:

Levin, who is not seeking re-election, is expected to accept an amendment from Senator Claire McCaskill to prevent commanders from overturning jury verdicts.

At the same time, the Democratic party that I know - the one that I have proudly supported for nine years - is not one that supports an ever-increasing police/surveillance state and efforts to whitewash sexual assaults!

That is not to say that Democrats are necessarily becoming Republicans. For that to happen, they would collectively have to lose several dozen IQ points and begin showing utter contempt for women, minorities, and work getting done in Congress.

Support for Big Brother because the face of Big Brother is now a Democrat, however, is not much better...

"Meet the old boss, same as the new boss"

Big Brother Government....From An Unlikely Source

We've known for quite a while that the government has been collecting information such as telephone and library records in the wake of the September 11th attacks.

What we haven't known, at least until The Guardian broke the story a few days ago, is that the government has been collecting the records of its own citizens, aided by major technology companies, since at least 2006:

The National Security Agency has obtained direct access to the systems of Google, Facebook, Apple and other US internet giants, according to a top secret document obtained by the Guardian.

The NSA access is part of a previously undisclosed program called Prism, which allows officials to collect material including search history, the content of emails, file transfers and live chats, the document says.

The Guardian has verified the authenticity of the document, a 41-slide PowerPoint presentation – classified as top secret with no distribution to foreign allies – which was apparently used to train intelligence operatives on the capabilities of the program. The document claims "collection directly from the servers" of major US service providers.

Source: The Guardian

It's one thing to collect information about those who are suspected to have links to terrorists, but it's frankly appalling to hear the the government has been collecting records of its own citizens - in complete defiance of Constitutional protections against unreasonable searches and seizures and guarantees of privacy.

Perhaps even more appalling, however, is the fact that many Democrats, who claimed to be so outraged when Dubya was doing this during his presidency, have tried to tell us that these new revelations are "no big deal":

“It is lawful. It has been briefed to Congress,” Senate Intelligence Chair Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) told reporters at an impromptu news conference in the Capitol. “This is just meta data. There is no content involved. In other words, no content of a communication. … The records can only be accessed under heightened standards.”

“I read intelligence carefully. And I know that people are trying to get to us,” Feinstein said. “This is the reason we keep TSA doing what it’s doing. This the reason the FBI now has 10,000 people doing intelligence on counter-terrorism. This is the reason for the national counter-terrorism center that’s been set up in the time we’ve been active.”

“And it’s to ferret this out before it happens,” she said. “It’s called protecting America.”

Source: TPM

No, Feinstein - it's called turning America into a police state in the name of national security".

I expect this kind of behavior from Republicans, who claim to care about the Constitution but have often been the first to violate it in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. I expect better from Democrats.

When I voted in 2008, I didn't just vote for Obama, but against the egregious power grabs and abuses that had happened on Dubya's watch in the name of 9/11: the torture - pardon me... "enhanced interrogation techniques", the PATRIOT Act, "Total Information Awareness", warrantless wiretapping, etc etc etc.

Now I find that Obama is not necessarily any better on these issues than Dubya. He puts on a good front for Democrats, claiming to be "transparent" and above the aggressive national security tactics while continuing many of the Bus-era programs.

It is, to say the least, disappointing.

Rove On The Couch

This will be the first of a two-part series of posts I intend to do that psychoanalyze certain political figures on the right. Granted, I have not met these people (thank God) and don't know them personally. However, I believe that I may have an insight into some of their behaviors.

I have a theory about Karl Rove: he was teased and bullied mercilessly in school.

Rove seems exactly like the type of guy that might not have necessarily been 'Mr. Popularity' in high school (not that being unpopular is necessarily a bad thing, I should add). He doesn't have the most attractive face in politics (comparisons to Porky Pig, fair or unfair, have been made), and he tends towards the plump side of the weight spectrum.

I think that Rove spent most - if not all - of his time being bullied in school, but he never got over it. Unlike most people who are bullied, Rove never confronted his psychological baggage over high school social politics. Instead, he let that baggage fester for years, until it became unhealthy.

Rove is well known - infamous, even - as the poster boy of modern dirty politics. There have been many stories of the underhanded tactics Rove used in campaigns against political opponents - character assassination through smears, misrepresentation, and inventing scandals out of thin air. A list of some of Rove's "greatest hits" can be found here.

When Rove attacks  in this way, I don't believe that he is necessarily aiming that vitriol at his political opponents, but at the bullies who teased him in school. He is projecting the venom he feels for his former classmates into politics, retaliating others for wrongs that were done to him decades ago in high school.

Thus, in so doing, Rove has become exactly what he hates so much: a bully.

A Swing and a Miss

Ever since the news broke that conservative groups had been scrutinized by the IRS, the GOP has been desperate to milk as much political capital out of the story as possible.

Too bad that, as I've noted here, the facts of the case have revealed little to nothing scandalous that could be used against Obama. As the president himself noted, albeit commenting on another scandal, "there's no there there".

But now conservatives are excited because, in their minds, they've found the so-called smoking gun that "proves" Obama's complicity in the IRS "scandal": the fact that the former IRS commissioner - gasp! - visited the White House!

Unfortunately for the scandal-mongers, the commissioner visited the White House eleven out of one hundred seventy -five times - mostly for meetings on how to best implement health reform:

Source

As a good friend of mine often says: a swing and a miss. So much for Scandalmania 2013!

And as for "the smoking gun", do Republicans really want to bring that particular metaphor to mind? Have we forgotten the last time that metaphor was used by the GOP?

"Smoking Gun"

Running Scared

From the looks of it, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is feeling anxious about his chances of winning reelection at the end of his current term.

The distinct smell of desperation began to hover over Team McConnell as recently as last December, when McConnell chose to begin attacking Ashley Judd before she had even thrown her hat into the ring:

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/mcconnell-preempt-judd-senate-challenge-article-1.1225237

Hypothetical polling at the time had placed Judd, a Hollywood actress with little or no political experience, slightly ahead of McConnell, whose job performance had sunk to 37%.

Now there's evidence that McConnell is trying to get away with misleading the public about the IRS "scandal" in order to whip Kentucky voters into a frenzy:

“Again and again, this administration and its allies have used the resources of the government itself to intimidate and silence those that oppose it,” McConnell says. “I think that the leader of the free world and his advisers have better things to do than to dig through other people’s tax returns.”

The ad ends with a quote from Obama, where he seems to admit to punishing opponents of his administration: “We’re going to punish our enemies, and we’re going to reward our friends.” But this is an out-of-context quote, pulled from a comment made more than two years ago in an interview with Univision radio. “If Latinos sit out the election instead of, ‘we’re going to punish our enemies and we’re going to reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us’ – if they don’t see that kind of upsurge in voting in this election, then I think it’s going to be harder,” Obama said in that interview. McConnell’s use of the quote is the dishonest capstone to an intensely dishonest piece of political rhetoric.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2013/05/29/michele-bachmann-is-gone-but-her-paranoid-politics-will-live-on/

Luckily for those of us who actually care about the truth, Jamelle Bouie of the Washington Post caught McConnell's misrepresentation. Obama never said that he was going to "punish his enemies"; he was speaking of the effect that Democratic apathy would have on the past election.

Recent polling indicates that McConnell is currently tied with a Democrat who hasn't yet entered the race:

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2013/05/28/grimes_would_give_mcconnell_strong_challenge.html

I can't tell you how much pleasure it gives me to see Mitch McConnell squirm over his reelection chances. Of all the various Representatives and Senators that currently "grace" our nation's Capitol, McConnell is the Congressman that I dislike the most. He has made a career out of being a naysaying, obstructionist, angry old man, and the Senate would benefit from his ouster.

If you have been following my political musings here or on Facebook, you are likely aware that I have spent a lot of time complaining about Republican obstructionism in Congress. The face of that cynical, do-nothing obstructionism is none other than McConnell, who has decided to simply throw a hissy fit over the past five years because he didn't get his man in office in 2008. Now it seems that karma from the past couple of years is finally coming back to bite McConnell in the ass.

And as they often say: karma's a bitch.

A Day In the Life of Joe Middle-Class Republican

This is not my work, and I do not present it here as such. It was just so good, however, that I just couldn't pass up sharing it with...whomever is out there.

Joe gets up at 6:00am to prepare his morning coffee. He fills his pot full of good clean drinking water because some liberal fought for minimum water quality standards. He takes his daily medication with his first swallow of coffee. His medications are safe to take because some liberal fought to insure their safety and work as advertised.

All but $10.00 of his medications are paid for by his employers medical plan because some liberal union workers fought their employers for paid medical insurance, now Joe gets it too. He prepares his morning breakfast, bacon and eggs this day. Joe’s bacon is safe to eat because some liberal fought for laws to regulate the meat packing industry.

Joe takes his morning shower reaching for his shampoo; His bottle is properly labeled with every ingredient and the amount of its contents because some liberal fought for his right to know what he was putting on his body and how much it contained. Joe dresses, walks outside and takes a deep breath. The air he breathes is clean because some tree hugging liberal fought for laws to stop industries from polluting our air. He walks to the subway station for his government subsidized ride to work; it saves him considerable money in parking and transportation fees. You see, some liberal fought for affordable public transportation, which gives everyone the opportunity to be a contributor.

Joe begins his work day; he has a good job with excellent pay, medicals benefits, retirement, paid holidays and vacation because some liberal union members fought and died for these working standards. Joe’s employer pays these standards because Joe’s employer doesn’t want his employees to call the union. If Joe is hurt on the job or becomes unemployed he’ll get a worker compensation or unemployment check because some liberal didn’t think he should loose his home because of his temporary misfortune.

Its noon time, Joe needs to make a Bank Deposit so he can pay some bills. Joe’s deposit is federally insured by the FSLIC because some liberal wanted to protect Joe’s money from unscrupulous bankers who ruined the banking system before the depression.

Joe has to pay his Fannie Mae underwritten Mortgage and his below market federal student loan because some stupid liberal decided that Joe and the government would be better off if he was educated and earned more money over his life-time.

Joe is home from work, he plans to visit his father this evening at his farm home in the country. He gets in his car for the drive to dads; his car is among the safest in the world because some liberal fought for car safety standards. He arrives at his boyhood home. He was the third generation to live in the house financed by Farmers Home Administration because bankers didn’t want to make rural loans. The house didn’t have electric until some big government liberal stuck his nose where it didn’t belong and demanded rural electrification. (Those rural Republican’s would still be sitting in the dark)

He is happy to see his dad who is now retired. His dad lives on Social Security and his union pension because some liberal made sure he could take care of himself so Joe wouldn’t have to. After his visit with dad he gets back in his car for the ride home.

He turns on a radio talk show, the host’s keeps saying that liberals are bad and conservatives are good. (He doesn’t tell Joe that his beloved Republicans have fought against every protection and benefit Joe enjoys throughout his day)  Joe agrees, “We don’t need those big government liberals ruining our lives; after all, I’m a self made man who believes everyone should take care of themselves, just like I have”.

Doom and Gloom Republicans

Well well well...looks like Republican reports of high premiums and other implementation problems involving "Obamacare" are greatly exaggerated:

The Congressional Budget Office predicted back in November 2009 that a medium-cost plan on the health exchange – known as a “silver plan” – would have an annual premium of  $5,200. A separate report from actuarial firm Milliman projected that, in California, the average silver plan would have a $450 monthly premium.

Now we have California’s rates, and they appear to be significantly less expensive than what forecasters expected.

Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/05/23/california-obamacare-premiums-no-rate-shock-here/?wprss=rss_ezra-klein

Providence Health Plan on Wednesday asked to lower its requested rates by 15 percent. Gary Walker, a Providence spokesman, says the “primary driver” was a realization that the plan’s cost projections were incorrect. But he conceded a desire to be competitive was part of it.

A Family Care Health Plans official on Thursday said the insurer will ask the state for even greater decrease in requested rates. CEO Jeff Heatherington says the company realized its analysts were too pessimistic after seeing online that its proposed premiums were the highest.

“That was my question when I saw the rates was, ‘Can we go in and refile these?’” he said. “We’re going to try to get these to a competitive range.”

This is pretty close to what the Obama administration dreams of: Insurance plans looking to woo millions of new customers—and slashing their rates in the process.

Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/05/20/oregon-may-be-the-white-houses-favorite-health-exchange/

Add this to the growing list of issues about which Republicans are (apparently) wrong.

Some Things Never Change

The only constants in life, according to some authorities, are death and taxes. As impermanent and ever-changing as human life tends to be, we can only ever be sure that we will pay taxes to the government (whichever government under which we choose to live) and eventually die - hopefully after long, fulfilling lives.

I would submit that something should be added to the above list: Republicans claiming that x action will "please the terrorists" or mean that "the terrorists win".

Yesterday, President Obama laid out a paradigm shift for national security: freeing Gitmo prisoners who have been wrongly accused of terrorism and repeal of the 2001 authorization to use military force, among many other shifts in policy.

In other words, no more "perpetual war" against terrorism, which is both impractical and, as Obama rightly pointed out in his speech, treacherous for civil liberty.

Many Republicans, naturally, have already voiced their opposition to Obama's plans:

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told reporters afterward that “there are parts of this speech that I could’ve given.” But Obama’s overall view of the war is wrong, Graham said, adding that the president’s policies would make the country less safe. “The enemy is morphing. It is spreading,” he said. “There are more theaters of conflict today than there have ever been. Our allies are more afraid than I’ve ever seen; our enemies more emboldened.”

The top Republican on the Senate Intelligence panel, Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, dismissed the speech as rewarding detainees at Guantánamo who are carrying out hunger strikes.

“The President’s speech today will be viewed by terrorists as a victory,” Chambliss said in a written statement. “Today’s speech sends the message to Guantanamo detainees that if they harass the dedicated military personnel there enough, we will give in and send them home, even to Yemen.”

Source: http://www.rollcall.com/news/frosty_gop_reception_for_obamas_terrorism_policy_shifts-225121-1.html?ET=rollcall:e15729:44098a:&st=email&pos=eam

Republicans have used this particular line against Democrats for years, accusing them of being in league with terrorists whenever Democrats have had the temerity to question many of the civil liberty- and Constitution-busting decisions Republicans have made in the name of "national security":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpPABLW6F_A

To those who pit Americans against immigrants, and citizens against non-citizens; to those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this: Your tactics only aid terrorists, for they erode our national unity and diminish our resolve. They give ammunition to America's enemies, and pause to America's friends. They encourage people of good will to remain silent in the face of evil.

http://www.brendan-nyhan.com/blog/gop-dissent-attacks.html

Listening to Republicans on these issues is what gave us the Patriot Act, indefinite detention of prisoners at Gitmo without legal counsel, the Iraq War, innuendo that accused critics of being in league with terrorists, torture, and seven years of not finding Osama.


The above quotes in response to Obama's speech is proof positive that we should continue not listening to Republicans on matters of national security.

Hypocrisy and Bad Theology

There are times when hypocrisy in politics is so brazen that you just have to be amazed at the sheer brassiness.

Take Tennessee Representative Stephen Fincher as an example. The Republican recently used a Bible verse from 2 Thessalonians to justify severe cuts in the food stamp program, or SNAP:

Thessalonians 3:10: "For even when we were with you, we gave you this command: Anyone unwilling to work should not eat."

If it's not bad enough to use God's word, which exhorts believers to help the poor, as justification for gutting services to help the poor, there's the hypocrisy.

http://tinyurl.com/ovtvqjx

According to the New York Times, the same Congressman who thinks that the government should make the poor fens for themselves is one of the largest recipients of farm subsidies.

This is not the only example of Republican hypocrisy on government spending. Many Republicans make a career out of railing against government spending....until a disaster of some kind hits their state, at which time they can't wait to get their hands on that sweet, sweet federal disaster relief.

With Republicans like Fincher in office, it's no wonder that many people view the GOP's unofficial motto as "more money for us; screw you".

The REAL Benghazi Scandal

Years ago - long before Obama's inauguration, when most Congressional Republicans' memories conveniently seem to begin - I remember a news outlet receiving harsh criticism for what was seen as biased reporting. CBS Evening News reported on leaked documents that seemed to call then-President Bush's National Guard into question.

As it turned out, the documents proved to be phony.

As a result, many conservatives blasted Dan Rather and what they derisively renamed "C-BS" for trying to derail Bush's reelection campaign. Rather, if I'm not mistaken, eventually lost his job for reporting on what he thought was news.

Fast forward to today. At the height of the Benghazi "scandal", ABC News reports that leaked e-mails show the White House scrubbing references to terror in the talking points about Benghazi. That ends up being untrue.

Source

It's true that ABC News was simply doing its job of informing the public of what they thought was news. Moreover, it remains unclear whether this incident betrays biased reporting at ABC. Nevertheless, both CBS and Dan Rather were forced to apologize for their reporting on information from untrue leaked documents.

Where are the calls for the heads of ABC executives' heads on platters, and when will ABC issue similar apologies for reporting untrue information?

Scandalmongering and Unfair Comparisons

For the better part of this week, we have been seeing a lot of news coverage over the scandal at the IRS. It seems that applications for 501(c)4 status from conservative groups received more scrutiny than similar applications from liberal groups. Not very good news for a government agency that is already distrusted by a wide array of Americans.

After a week of twenty-four hour news reporting on the scandal and additional information coming to light, no evidence has shown that President Obama had any involvement with the IRS' greater scrutiny of conservative groups. That has not stopped the most rabid right-wingers, however, from making unfair and overwrought comparisons to Nixon.

    
Now we get this era's version of Mr. Nixon's infamous Enemies List, too: The director of the division of the IRS that oversees tax-exempt organizations apologized last week for targeting those that have suspicious words like Tea Party or Patriot in their names.

To quote Director Lois Lerner: "We made some mistakes; some people didn't use good judgment. For that we're apologetic." Right. Just some mistakes. Or as Ronald Reagan would say, slipping into the passive voice for once, Mistakes Were Made.

Surely it was only a coincidence that the IRS didn't target organizations with words like Progressive or Ninety-Nine Percent in their names. Just as the Enemies List compiled by Richard Nixon included only left-wing types -- or those he thought were left-wing in his all-consuming paranoia. These days it's a Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy, to use Hillary Clinton's term, that draws special attention from the IRS.

http://townhall.com/columnists/paulgreenberg/2013/05/16/deja-vu-all-over-again-n1597426

So said conservative columnist Paul Greenberg earlier this week. Naysaying political cartoonist and cheap shot artist Bob Gorrell also joined in on the act this week:

Leaving aside the fact that liberal groups were scrutinized in much the same way as conservative groups (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-05-15/irs-sent-same-letter-to-democrats-that-fed-tea-party-row.html), it's really reaching to claim that the current IRS scandal is "Nixonian".

Let's recall our history. While he was in office during the early 1970s, Richard Nixon compiled enemies lists and used the IRS as a weapon against those enemies. It was revealed during the 'Watergate' scandal that Nixon had personally asked the IRS commissioner to go after his political rivals through their taxes.

Is there any proof that President Obama has ever compiled an enemies list of his own? No.

Is there any proof that President Obama tried to go after Tea Party groups via the IRS? No.

So where, one may ask, are the parallels to Nixon - besides the fevered imaginations of Greenberg and Gorrell?

All the evidence released thus far points to the IRS scandal being an intra-agency problem. The Citizens United ruling in 2010 opened the floodgates, allowing political advocacy groups to avoid paying taxes by claiming that they were "social welfare" organizations. Apparently, IRS bureaucrats were so confused by the onslaught of new 501(c)4 applications that they began scrutinizing the groups who were asking for tax-exempt status, thus creating the scandal in the first place.

It's bad enough to find out that the IRS was targeting certain groups because of their politics. Partisan vultures eager to play the politics of scandal don't help matters. Is it too much to ask to wait until the whole truth is revealed before asserting, without proof, that Obama is guilty of Nixonian crimes?

Deficit Reduction

So much for the Republican line that higher taxes on the wealthy won't reduce the deficit. According to CBO projections:

         "If the current laws that govern federal taxes and spending do not change, the budget
          deficit will shrink this year to $642 billion, CBO estimates, the smallest shortfall since
          2008. Relative to the size of the economy, the deficit this year—at 4.0 percent of gross
          domestic product (GDP)—will be less than half as large as the shortfall in 2009, which
          was 10.1 percent of GDP."

Source

Republicans have been hammering President Obama over the deficit ever since he took office. Contrary to their talking points, however, Obama is well on his way to completing his goal of deficit reduction in five years.

It appears to me that Obama is doing more to help the deficit than the hostage-taking Congressional Republicans...

WHY Are We Still Talking About Benghazi?

Last week, Congressional Republicans launched what was supposed to be the Hearings To End All Hearings on Benghazi. In addition to providing excellent fundraising fodder and red meat for an empty-headed conservative base, the Republicans were hoping against hope that the hearings would uncover hidden truths that would prove to be a presidency-ending scandal for Obama.

What actually happened, however, is that the hearings were a waste of everyone's time. They did not tell us anything we had not already known about the Benghazi attacks or the subsequent White House response to those attacks.

So here in reality land, where no right-winger has gone before, what are the actual facts compared to the Republican talking points on Benghazi?

Obama called it a "spontaneous attack"!
In its initial assessment, the intelligence community thought that the attacks were spontaneous. Thus, that's what they put in the talking points memo given to Obama:

http://abcnews.go.com/images/Politics/Benghazi%20Talking%20Points%20Timeline.pdf

When that was proven to be untrue, the intelligence community changed its assessment.


"Obama didn't call it an act of terror!"
The day after the attacks, Obama said the following in the Rose Garden at the White House:

                    "No acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this great nation, alter that
                     character, or eclipse the light of the values that we stand for"

http://www.cnn.com/2012/10/17/politics/fact-check-terror


Why didn't the military respond to the attacks?
According to an assessment by Leon Panetta, fighters scrambled in response to the attacks would not have arrived at the embassy in time to actually do anything about the attacks:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/07/leon-panetta-benghazi_n_2638283.html


Republicans were champing at the bit in November to hear testimony from General Petraeus on the Benghazi matter. There were conspiracy theories at the time that word about Petraeus' affair had been timed to discredit him so that he could not spill the beans over the alleged cover-ups involving the Benghazi attacks.

Now that Petraeus has actually testified that there was no conspiracy involving Benghazi, Representative Darrell Issa (R-CA) is now saying that Petraeus' testimony, formerly highly valued by Republicans, is not trustworthy:

GREGORY: Chairman, my reporting of the immediate aftermath of this talking to       administration officials is that CIA Director David Petraeus made it clear when he briefed top officials that there was a spontaneous element to this, that it was not completely known that this was a terrorist attack right away. You don't give any credence to the notion that there was some fog of war, that there were conflicting circumstances about what went on here?

          ISSA: David Petraeus said what the administration wanted him to say is the indication.

 http://www.nbcnews.com/id/51857413/ns/meet_the_press-transcripts/#.UZGRu8plFWm


There is no conspiracy or cover-up surrounding Benghazi. It is not a scandal. Almost everything Republicans have been claiming about Benghazi is either a lie or a misrepresentation of the facts as we know them. There's no doubt that the loss of any American lives abroad - especially those lost due to terrorist activities - is tragic. We should be angry about what happened, and we should demand answers. Now that we have those answers, however, it's time to move on with our lives.

Advise and Obstruct

Votes to confirm Gina McCarthy as head of the Environmental Protection Agency are being blocked by Republicans.

Why? They say it's because McCarthy has been "unresponsive" to questions submitted by Republican Senators:

        "In a statement, the Republicans explained the reason for their absence. “The new nominee to 

         be EPA Administrator has been extremely unresponsive with the information we requested,” 

         said Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.)."

The truth, however, is that McCarthy reportedly received more than 1,100 questions - unprecedented for any presidential nominee. Six hundred of those questions came from Senator David Vitter (R-La), and McCarthy answered every one of them.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/senators-boycott-blocks-action-to-confirm-epa-head/2013/05/09/c1c5062a-b8dd-11e2-92f3-f291801936b8_story.html

But, you know, McCarthy has been "unresponsive" with information requested by Republicans. So yet another nominee by President Obama gets blocked.

So what's the real reason for GOP obstructionism, besides Congressional Republicans acting like petulant children? It's simple: Republicans hate the EPA. Thus, nobody gets to head the EPA, ensuring that the dreaded agency becomes a poorly-run shadow of its former self. Then Republicans can turn around and point to the EPA as "proof" that the government "is the problem" and should be shrunk to the size that it can be "drowned in a bathtub".

Sound like responsible governance to you?

Extortion for the sake of extortion

"Greg Sargent points out that it’s even worse — Republican leaders in the House, including Speaker John Boehner, have already admitted that they aren’t willing to really force default, so they’re refusing to negotiate for now because they’re waiting until they can threaten to blow up the economy even though they admit they really won’t."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2013/05/08/house-republicans-and-extortion-for-the-sake-of-extortion/

Congressional Republicans claim that fixing the economy and "jobs, jobs, jobs" is their number one priority, but their actions belie their empty rhetoric. People who were truly concerned about a better economy would not be constantly holding the economy or the faith and credit of the United States government hostage to extract concessions from the President.

Now we hear that Republicans intend to force a default "just because". There isn't even any good reason to hold the economy hostage except for acting like five year old children trying to manipulate their parents by holding their breath till they turn blue.

Are these the actions of a party that's serious about economic matters?

On that note, Moody's Analytics recently estimated that austerity policies will slow GDP growth and reductions in the unemployment rate:

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/05/09/us/fiscal-policies-take-a-toll.html?ref=us&_r=0

If Republican hostage-taking and obstructionism doesn't harm our economy, perhaps their damaging austerity measures will...