Category Archives: Teapublicans

“RNC Needs To Be Closed For Repairs.”

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That’s what former Senator and Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole said about today’s Republican National Committee. Asked if he would fit into the GOP today, he said, “I doubt it…Ronald Reagan wouldn’t have made it. Certainly Nixon wouldn’t have made it, because he had ideas.”

Now Former Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) has reiterated Dole’s comments. “The Republican Party is undergoing some, you know, significant and serious changes, and they are going to have to rethink their approach as a political party and how they are going to regroup and become a governing majority party that appeals to a broader group of Americans than they do today,” she said.

Dole and Snowe are the latest in a long line of moderate Republicans to decry their own party…or, more accurately, what’s left of their party.

But don’t expect Dole’s and Snowe’s comments to make much of an impact on the party. Today’s Republicans, especially their Tea Party parasites, simply don’t listen to reason. They live in an imaginary world where faith prevails over science; ideology over mathematics; anger over compromise; fantasy over history.

According to today’s Republicans, Ronald Reagan never raised taxes, Reagan and Bush never presided over deficits, and neither contributed to the national debt. They believe Watergate was merely a second-rate burglary, Reagan never sold weapons to Iran, and Bush never lied about WMD in Iraq.

In Republican World, only liberals and socialists rely on government while Republicans rely on their investments and hard work. On their own Red Planet, Republicans believe that government is unnecessary because free markets are self-correcting and self-policing; if corporations cheat or lie, they simply won’t survive…never mind the impact on consumers.

In Republican World, all scientists are wrong about climate change; all economists are wrong about the negative effects of austerity; and evolution is just a theory.

Most important, in the new Republican Party, all real Republicans toe the party line; independent thought is heresy; and former Republican officials who criticize the party are just that…former Republicans .

Vast Right Wing Conspiracy Revisited.

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During President Clinton’s two terms as president, a right wing witch hunt led by Ken Starr and financed by libertarian billionaires spent years trying to uncover dirt on the president and his wife. They claimed that Clinton’s investment in a development named Whitewater was fraudulent. They claimed that Hillary hid legal records from her time as an attorney at the Rose Law Firm. They claimed that Hillary was at the heart of a “Travelgate” conspiracy that resulted in the death of Vince Foster. Some even accused her of murder.

So after eight years and $70 million, what dastardly deed did special prosecutor Ken Starr uncover? An Oval Office blowjob by White House intern Monica Lewinsky. Oh my! Although not the scandal Starr and his minions wanted, it was enough to embarrass the president and initiate impeachment proceedings after he claimed it didn’t happen.

Unfortunately for Starr and right wingers, it was not enough to have the president removed from office.

Fast forward 15 years and you see the same strategy; the same witch hunt; the same torches and pitchforks…just a different Democratic president.

Since Teapublicans took control of the House in 2011, we have seen Solyndra-gate, Fast & Furious-gate, and Benghazi-gate. Now there is IRS-gate and AP-gate. These are merely second-rate attempts to fire up the right wing echo chamber and energize the conservative base. None of them rises to the status of a real scandal.

But the right wing will keep digging.

After all, that appears to be the only thing they’re really good at…using a combination of money and lies to smear the reputations of their political opponents and to distract the media and voters from the real issues at hand. While voters have been focused on the scandals, few have noticed that Teapublicans have not put forward a single jobs bill; or that they have made no attempt to resolve the nation’s budget impasse; or that they have watered down consumer protections against another financial crash; or that they have secretly passed a bill to protect Monsanto from lawsuits; or that they have cut funding for necessary regulation designed to catch tax cheats, catch Medicare fraud, and keep our food safe; or that they are gearing up for another disastrous fight over the debt ceiling.

It seems that the right wing political strategy is nothing more than a high stakes version of three card Monte.

Political Wars – From Reasoned Debate To Party Tribalism.

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Despite our political differences, almost all Americans would agree on one thing: Our political system is broken. But why? What led us from the relative political unity following World War II to the anger and divisiveness of today?

It didn’t just happen.

A few individuals intentionally created the politics of destruction, most notably the so-called three amigos consisting of Jack Abramoff, Grover Norquist and Ralph Reed. Beginning in the 1980’s, these three not only viewed politics as a quasi-military, win-at-any-cost enterprise. They viewed it as a profit center in which they could squeeze millions from conservative groups and ideological billionaires to control the political dialogue and enrich themselves at the same time.

As leaders of the College Republicans, these first-rate bullies embraced combative politics. The only thing they treasured more than money was confrontation with liberals, progressives, and moderates of either party. As their power and standing in the Republican Party and conservative circles grew, our national politics devolved into a series of culture wars combining right wing militancy with the evangelical fervor of “Christians” unhappy with what they believed to be a nation in moral decline.

Abramoff was eventually arrested in 2006 and sentenced to six years in prison for mail fraud, conspiracy to bribe public officials and tax evasion. As executive director of the Christian Coalition, Reed was also implicated in the scandal but not charged. However, he was previously found to have violated federal campaign finance laws in 1990, 1992 and 1994. Meanwhile, Norquist has continued to gain power, having established Americans for Tax Reform and created the notorious Taxpayer Protection (No New Taxes) Pledge that all Republican candidates are asked to sign.

But the three amigos are not entirely responsible for our poisonous politics.

When Newt Gingrich was selected as Speaker of the House, he transformed Congress by pushing Republicans to vote as a unified block or risk being labeled a RINO (Republican In Name Only) and forced to face a difficult, and expensive, primary fight in the next election. Rather than fight, most Republicans submissively fell into line. As a result, we have an uncompromising, European-style parliamentary party in a two-party system that was based on compromise.

Adding to the dysfunction, the Tea Party movement, feeling displaced by minorities and disenfranchised by large corporations that had shipped jobs overseas, attached themselves to the Republican Party like leeches determined to bleed the party of every remaining moderate.

There you have the perfect political storm. A storm that destroyed the party of Lincoln and has now taken aim at our federal government. But you don’t have to take my word for it.

You can learn much more about the three amigos in Thomas Frank’s book The Wrecking Crew: How Conservatives Rule. Frank summarizes the thesis of his book this way, “Bad government is the natural product of rule by those who believe government is bad.” I also highly recommend It’s Even Worse Than It Looks: How The American Constitutional System Collided With The New Politics of Extremism by Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Orenstein.

Neither of these books were written by anti-conservative ideologues. To the contrary, they were written by thoughtful and highly-respected moderates who are as dismayed by our take-no-prisoners style of politics as I am.

Marketing Guns To Kids.

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For many years, I’ve used mock guns to teach disarms to martial arts students. Some time ago, government agencies banned the sale of such items if they too closely resembled a real gun. They dictated that they be colored red, orange or yellow, and that they not include any detail so that no reasonable person would mistake them for a gun.That meant that they pretty much resembled a colored block of rubber or wood with a handle. The fear was that, if they were too realistic, criminals might use one of these training aids to hold up a convenience store.

Yes, I know, it never made much sense to me, either.

Now gun manufacturers have made such restrictions pointless. It seems that bluing, silver and black are not exciting enough to attract women and kids to the shooting “sports.” So, the murder-for-sale industry is now marketing guns in a variety of colors. This trend began when they began offering pink guns to women, presumably so that attackers wouldn’t know whether to back off in fear or simply curl up in laughter.

Not satisfied to stop there, the gun industry decided to offer guns in a full range of candy-like colors, such as red, blue, green and yellow. Of course, the new colors made them much more attractive to young children. And since they look like toys, when a young child discovers a colored gun in mommy’s or daddy’s nightstand, the child is almost certain to play with it.

What did the gun industry do when it was made aware of the potential danger of these guns? Did they immediately stop marketing them? Did they recall the lethal “toys” already on the market?

Of course not.

These upstanding Second Amendment absolutists simply encouraged parents to give guns to kids so they could start shooting them at targets (and each other) at ages as young as 5! Thanks to the NRA and their Teapublican supporters, there is virtually nothing that can be done to stop them.

On the other hand, it’s still illegal to sell or own a rubber or wooden “gun” that appears too realistic.

Worse Than Watergate?

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Every time there’s even a hint of a scandal in a Democratic administration, conservatives are quick to call it “worse than Watergate.” It’s obvious that they need a history lesson. Because, nothing…I mean nothing…has approached the abuse of power that is now known as Watergate.

For conservatives and those too young to remember the Nixon administration, Watergate was more than just a single break-in at the Democratic headquarters in the office complex known as Watergate. It was a wide-ranging criminal enterprise directed by the President of the United States and the aptly-named Creep (Committee for the Re-election of the President).

Operatives known as the plumbers committed break-ins at the homes of reporters and political enemies. They set up illegal wiretaps. Nixon ordered the IRS to audit political enemies. He ordered the plumbers to spy on Democratic candidates, to use a variety of dirty tricks to disrupt their campaigns, and to leak embarrassing information. In short, he intended to use the full power of his office to short-circuit democracy and our electoral process so that he would be re-elected in 1972.

After a Watergate security guard interrupted the plumbers break-in at the Democratic headquarters, the repercussions resonated throughout the administration and the White House. Not only did Nixon resign under threat of impeachment, more than 40 operatives spent time in prison.

No president has so abused the power of the office and, had it not been for Watergate, Nixon would more likely be remembered for committing war crimes in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Chile. The only administration that has remotely approached the corruption of Nixon’s was the George W. Bush administration.

Corruption is corruption no matter who commits it, and it should be punished whether it was committed by a liberal or a conservative.

But let’s keep things in perspective: nothing in the Obama administration has risen to the level of Watergate. Not the imagined “scandals” of Solyndra and Fast & Furious. Not Benghazi. And unless it can be determined that the IRS was acting at the direction of the White House in scrutinizing Tea Party organizations, or that anyone above the level of the Assistant Attorney General ordered the phone records of AP reporters in order to track down a serious security leak, the Obama administration should not be compared to Nixon’s…except in contrast.

The Benghazi “Smoking Gun” Goes Up In Smoke.

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Just when Darrell Issa and his melodramatic, partisan witch hunters thought they found the “smoking gun” showing malfeasance by the Obama administration with regard to Benghazi, they found that the “gun” was aimed at them.

On Tuesday, ABC News reported to have found an email showing that the State Department crafted the talking points for Ambassador Susan Rice’s appearance on Sunday morning news shows in order to cover up its incompetence. Issa’s committee immediately jumped on it as if it was catnip and they were a herd of crazed cats.

Then other news organizations examined copies of the original email and found that it had been misquoted by ABC. It seems ABC had been given an altered version of the email by an undisclosed “source” – most likely Issa.

Oops!

A day later, CBS reported that Republicans had altered several White House emails regarding Benghazi in order to make the emails appear damaging to the White House and the State Department.

Double oops!!

In addition, former Ambassador Thomas Pickering refuted claims by Issa’s committee that he had refused to testify, publicly stating that he had offered to testify before the committee but was turned down.

Triple oops!!!

Then McClatchy newspapers reported that the late Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens had, on at least two occasions before the Benghazi attack, refused offers from military personnel for additional security for the consulate.

Quadruple oops!!!!

So after months of sensational reports and accusations that the Obama administration and Hillary Clinton were negligent in protecting the consulate in Libya and conspired to cover up their incompetence, the only ones who appear to be involved in a conspiracy and cover-up are Rep. Issa and his torch and pitchfork crowd.

Repealing Obamacare…Again.

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In case you haven’t heard by now, Teapublicans don’t like the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Since taking control of the House in 2011, Teapublicans have voted to repeal Obamacare 37 times.

The latest vote came yesterday.

Of course, there is absolutely no chance that the law will actually be repealed. Not only do Democrats control the Senate, President Obama would be certain to veto any bill calling for the law’s repeal. The Teapublicans know this. So why do they continue to vote for repeal?

According to Speaker Boehner, it’s because the freshmen congressmen have not yet had a chance to vote for repeal. Without such a vote, how would they ever be able to face their conservative supporters back home? Failing to vote for repeal might result in them being labeled RINOs (Republicans In Name Only) and being “primaried” by some nitwits who are even more hateful toward Obama and his landmark legislation.

Meanwhile, the other issues these Teapublicans claimed to support during their campaigns for election have languished. There have been no bills to create jobs, to reform taxes, to rebuild infrastructure, or to replace sequestration with a real budget designed to cut the federal debt without forcing departments to make mindless across-the-board cuts. And they most certainly have not reached across the aisle!

But they have held more kangaroo court-style hearings on Benghazi and they’ve threatened to start a couple more wars.

31 To 5.

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Teapublicans continue to demand accountability for the deaths of Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three others in Benghazi. They might begin with some simple addition and subtraction.

For example, under President George W. Bush, the US State Department suffered the following attacks:

  • 2002 Karachi, Pakistan Embassy – 10 dead
  • 2004 Tashkent, Uzbekistan Embassy – 2 dead
  • 2004 Jidda, Saudi Arabia Consulate – 8 dead
  • 2006 Damascus, Syria Embassy – 1 dead
  • 2007 Athens, Greece
  • 2008 Belgrade, Serbia Embassy
  • 2008 Sana, Yemen Embassy – 10 dead

That adds up to a total of 31 who died at embassies on Bush’s watch.

During the Obama administration, the US State Department has thus far suffered the following attacks:

  • 2012 Benghazi, Libya Embassy – 4 dead
  • 2013 Ankra, Turkey Embassy – 1 dead

That adds up to a total of 5 who have died on Obama’s watch.

Now for the subtraction. Since 2010, the Teapublican-controlled House cut the State Department’s budget for embassy security by $296 million. Okay, Rep. Issa, investigate that!

You simply can’t be “outraged” by the events in Benghazi, if you weren’t equally outraged by the many events that preceded it. And you can’t blame the State Department for failed security if you don’t fully fund its requests.

Sex, Politics, Religion And Poverty.

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According to a new Census Bureau report, Social and Economic Characteristics of Currently Unmarried Women With a Recent Birth: 2011, more than 6 out of 10 women who have children in their early twenties are unmarried. That number has accelerated in recent years – up 80 percent since 1980. Overall, 36 percent of all births in the United States were to unmarried mothers in 2011.

The Census Bureau attributed the increase, in part, to changing norms for sexual behavior and a decrease in marriage rates. But before you religious zealots decry the alleged decline in our nation’s moral values, you should know that teen mothers are far more common in the US than in Europe, despite the fact that, according to studies, US teens have less sex than European teens.

Obviously, there are reasons beyond the imagined moral decline. The most important is economic. Women with college degrees and higher incomes are far less likely to be single mothers. And according to many studies, the greater the gap between the poor and the middle class in any particular region, the more likely an unmarried woman is to have a baby while she’s young!

Pushing the mother to marry the child’s father often makes matters worse. It results in a variety of associated problems including domestic abuse, early divorce and children who are traumatized by parental conflict, broken households and overall instability.

Given the fact that most of those in the US who are living on public assistance are single mothers and their children, it’s in all of our best interests to find a solution to this phenomenon. In searching for answers, we should first look at sex education and contraception. Several studies have found that education on correct contraceptive use works best in preventing teen pregnancy. These studies also conclude that abstinence-only education may, in fact, contribute to an increase in teen pregnancies.

A 10-year government study found that that “students in abstinence-only programs were no more likely to have abstained from sex, had similar numbers of sexual partners, and had sex for the first time at around the same age as students not in abstinence-only programs.”

All of this shows that, instead of allowing Teapublicans to cut sex education in public schools, we should be increasing it. Instead of allowing the Catholic Church and evangelists to deny easy access to contraceptives, we should be making them more available. And instead of cutting public assistance and food stamp programs, we should be improving them. Studies prove that doing otherwise only perpetuates the problem.

As usual, the right is wrong!

The Austerity Fraud.

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For more than 30 years, conservatives have pushed for smaller government. Their battle cry is to “Starve the Beast,” the beast being our federal government. They have demanded more and more tax cuts, especially for the wealthy, and they finally got them under President George W. Bush. Yet, when the tax cuts led to large deficits, Richard “The Dick” Cheney and other conservatives famously stated that “deficits don’t matter.”

Of course, when President Obama took office, their attitude suddenly changed.

Despite having driven our economy off a cliff, conservatives demanded that the new administration cut spending in order to bring the deficit and debt under control. To prove their point that these were the biggest challenges facing our nation (bigger than rampant unemployment, the housing crisis, losses by pension funds and the depressed stock markets), conservatives cited a Harvard University study by Reinhart and Rogoff which stated that economies suffer whenever a nation’s debt surpasses 90 percent of GDP.

This study was cited over and over by conservative politicians and conservative media.

Unfortunately for conservatives, it was recently debunked by a graduate student who found numerous statistical and computational inaccuracies which completely altered the study’s conclusions. Turns out, there were numerous exceptions to the Reinhart-Rogoff rule.

As for the effects of austerity measures, one need only look to Europe to see what happens when concern over deficits and debt trump job creation. Following strict austerity measures in both Greece and Spain, unemployment among young people now exceeds 60 and 50 percent, respectively. Both countries are facing major upheaval as the unemployed have taken to the streets to riot. In England, France and Italy, the effects of austerity have been less dramatic. Nevertheless, austerity has pushed their economies back into recession.

Had President Obama followed the advice of conservatives, we, too, could be struggling through another deep recession. Despite conservative claims to the contrary, the economic stimulus worked. For the past 3 years, we have not only recovered the jobs lost as the result of the Bush recession. We have added 1.5 additional jobs, and we would have added many more if not for layoffs in the public sector forced by Republican-controlled state houses.

We might well be back on the road to full recovery had the Teapublicans not taken  control of the House in 2011.

Virtually every economist has stated that the budget restraints imposed by our Teapublican Congress have hampered our economic recovery. Indeed, a recent article in The New York Times states that deficit reduction has already cost our economy at least 2 percent growth and 1 percent employment. And the budget cuts forced by sequestration have yet to fully take hold!

But don’t look for conservatives to give up on austerity any time soon. Despite our fragile recovery, they’re still demanding severe cuts to federal programs. They have proposed cuts to “entitlements” such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. They want to eliminate or severely reduce unemployment insurance, SNAP (food stamps), Pell grants, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. They even want to cut or eliminate the United States Postal Service!

During the last election, Teapublican candidates said they would target entire departments for elimination, including the Environmental Protection Agency, the Education Department, the Commerce Department and the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives. Some want to get rid of the Federal Reserve and return to the gold standard.

Given a limited (and false) understanding of history and our Constitution, today’s conservatives believe that the only constitutionally-allowed functions of the federal government are defense, homeland security, border security and highway construction. For everything else, you’re on your own.

It’s easy to see what these policies would do to our nation. Just look at Somalia.