I OPEN WITH A MARVELOUSLY APT QUOTE from one of my favorite commentators on the political scene.
“House GOP willing to raise the debt limit, and all they’re asking is for Obama to repeal the 20th century. That sounds fair …” — Tea Party Cat
From there it is just a short journey to the powerful message to the Republicans from Eric Cantor. An inspiring highlight of that message was obviously Cantor’s ringing written appeal to his boys in the legislative trenches, “Working middle class families deserve a government that is working for them, not against them.”
Since, as we noted last week, the wages of the middle class have flatlined this last decade — dramatically so in the lower levels of that group — it is interesting to hear these helpful comments from one with close connection to the tea party contingent of the GOP so intimately involved in the creation of that set of harsh realities. The relationship of the Cantor statement to his own actions as a Republican leader of the shutdown is for others of more subtle minds than mine to discern.
As for the heroic efforts of the GOP to rescue the middle class, consider the following April 2012 piece from NPR on Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein, authors of “It’s Even Worse Than It Looks: How The American Constitutional System Collided With The New Politics Of Extremism.”
“Congressional scholars Mann and Ornstein are no strangers to D.C. politics. The two of them have been in Washington for more than 40 years — and they’re renowned for their carefully nonpartisan positions. But now, they say, Congress is more dysfunctional than it has been since the Civil War, and they aren’t hesitating to point a finger at who they think is to blame.
“‘One of the two major parties, the Republican Party, has become an insurgent outlier — ideologically extreme; contemptuous of the inherited social and economic policy regime; scornful of compromise; unpersuaded by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition,’ they write in their new book, It’s Even Worse Than It Looks.
“Mann, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, and Ornstein, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, posit that democracy in America is being endangered by extreme politics. From the first day of the Obama administration, Ornstein says, our constitutional system hasn’t been allowed to work.
“‘When we did get action, half the political process viewed it as illegitimate, tried to undermine its implementation and moved to repeal it,’ Ornstein says.
“The authors make no secret of whom they blame for most of the dysfunction in Congress — the Republican Party. And Ornstein says some of his colleagues at AEI, which is known as a conservative-leaning think tank, ‘are going to be quite uncomfortable’ with his position.
“‘We didn’t come to this conclusion lightly,’ he says.”
From the Washington Post’s Ezra Klein and Evan Soltas, the Sept. 26 piece “The House’s debt-ceiling bill is … wow,” we get analysis of the GOP debt limit bill, another truly heroic effort to abolish reality and obliterate the environment in the service of the corporate state.
“The House GOP’s debt limit bill — obtained by the National Review — isn’t a serious governing document. It’s not even a plausible opening bid. It’s a cry for help.
“In return for a one-year suspension of the debt ceiling, House Republicans are demanding a yearlong delay of Obamacare, Rep. Paul Ryan’s tax reform plan, the Keystone XL pipeline, more offshore oil drilling, more drilling on federally protected lands, rewriting of ash coal regulations” — take a long breath here and hold it! — “a suspension of the Environmental Protection Agency’s efforts to regulate carbon emissions, more power over the regulatory process in general, reform of the federal employee retirement program, an overhaul of the Dodd-Frank financial regulations, more power over the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s budget, repeal of the Social Services Block Grant, more means-testing in Medicare, repeal of the Public Health trust fund, and more.” Now breathe!
It’s reassuring to note that closing comment, “and more.” Surely, no card-carrying conservative Republican, much less tea partier, would be content with so limited and paltry a set of tradeoffs for an increase in the debt ceiling. But then that would only be for one year and the chance quite likely to make real progress next time out of the chute.
Obliterating the EPA? Eliminating taxation on all income above a million a year? Abolishing reality? Sounds promising.
From Robert S. Becker, “GOP Lemmings ‘Rebrand:’ Beyond the Party of Stupid,” another slant on governance and the House of Representatives:
“Knee-jerk House tantrums hit new comic highs as the Wily E. Coyote party continues its madcap leap to self-destruction. Can’t zealots who hate government find more imaginative ways not to govern? The latest cartoon antics only dramatize what happens when the party of stupid slides further.
“Democratic blunders aside, huge majorities discredit Tea Party stances, perceived as wrong on zero jobs stimulus, shielding unfair taxation, governance by blackmail, defying immigration reform, and certainly impervious, racist birtherism. No majority endorses privatizing Social Security, attacks on women’s rights or abortion absolutism, let alone infrastructure negligence, rampant crony capitalism, or more ‘dumb’ neocon wars. Don’t values (and elections) eventually punish such wrangles of wrongheaded rigidity? Other than adding a fuzzy sense that government is ‘too large,’ what Tea Party mantra has won wider support in four years?
“If House zealots believe what they say — that suicide missions against Obamacare are good strategy — they are fools further jeopardizing what remains of their national competitiveness. If they don’t, they are cynical knaves turned domestic terrorists indeed begging America to fail.
“Will the party beyond stupid, translating their insatiable wrongs into divine rights, escape a return to the asylum? Who says politics isn’t more amusing, and far more suspenseful, than any humdrum cable sitcom?”
Finally, an intriguing Sept. 23 piece from professor and author Joseph Palermo, “House Republicans: ‘Yee-Haw! We’re Shuttin’ Down the Gov’mint!’”
“‘Americans for Prosperity’ and other right-wing groups are spending lavishly on advertisements designed to misinform as many people as possible about the ACA prior to the law’s implementation. And it apparently has worked, at least with a segment of the Republican base.
“On one side, we have a right-of-center Democratic president willing to bend over backwards to strike any kind of ‘grand bargain’ with the Republicans that gives them 90 percent of what they want; while on the other side, we have an extremist gaggle of right-wing kooks and nutcases whose hatred of Obama is like a disease among them.
“What are we supposed to call a cabal of politicians, many of them elected through voter suppression, gerrymandering, or in ‘safe’ districts, backed by corporations and billionaires, who purposely gum up the works of our nation’s legislature, manufacture crises that hurt ordinary people, threaten our nation’s credit worthiness, and hold the country hostage until it gets its narrow extremist agenda passed?
“Representative Phil Gingrey of Georgia complains about making a ‘measly’ $172,000 a year on the U.S. government’s dime while voting to deny food to the hungriest people in the country through savage cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition program. Where are the adults?
“Doesn’t a political party to remain viable need to be able to point to an accomplishment that benefits the country once in a while?”
And on that intriguing set of questions I close this chapter, in full recognition that there is more, much more, that requires urgent attention. What is certain is that all of us will be emotionally, and many directly, involved for the duration of this manufactured and unnecessary, but now very real and devastating, crisis.
Jerome Page is a Benicia resident.
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What did you search for on Google to find all of those quotes …. “Republican Hate Speech”?
JLB asked: What did you search for on Google to find all of those quotes
Probably just lifted them from MSNBCCNNNBCCBSABC web sites
If you took your Obama-hatred blinders off for just a second, you’d recognize a Civil War taking place in the GOP. You’re party is doomed and everyone outside the Faux bubble is aware of it.
Any one of those networks is vastly better than FOX-Anything but sports, if you’re conventional enough as a nightly six-pack swiller to waste much time with sports. Of those listed, MSNBC is most accurate and well-oriented toward facts. I also recommend Al Jazeera America and Russian Television (RT) USA. BBC is equally outside our jingoistic box and honest with information. Which is more than can be said of you and your crowd, Dennis, or most of your sources. You are all deeply sick with ego-damage, disappointment and
outrage over the lost election. Your greatest efforts at creativity aim at rejecting the majority vote by any means you can invent. I said those channels are “honest with information.” I know you will exhaustively scrabble up a counter-argument composed of their occasional mistakes or inadvertent miscues. Ho-hum.
Your main falsehood is that everything that’s not in agreement with you is wrongful propaganda. We, over here, observe this of you, regularly. The really wicked propagandists are you. By the way. Go away, Dennis. Your influence is deeply unhealthy.
If you think the last election was such a referendum, how it is that we control the house, which interestingly enough turns out to be the purse strings. If the American people in mass believe as you think they do, how is it that you lost the house so decidedly?
You do realize Dems received two million more votes in the house races than rethugs, don’t you? You do know what gerrymandering is, don’t you?
Benician you do realize California gave the Dems a 2.9 mil plus vote in just one state. So as you now see the Dems lost close to a mil in all the other states. Your 2 mil plus is invalid. The Dems got hammered in the 2012 House election. JLB is correct.
You repeat this over and over again, Livesay. Are you saying California doesn’t count? You do realize we’re well over 10% of the entire nation’s population, don’t you? Why don’t we just eliminate the deep south…what’s the difference in vote totals then?
I try to talk to you like an adult, Livesay, but when the Dems win by two million votes and you claim they got hammered, there’s no reason to do so. I can get a more reasoned debate from my dog.
Bark Bark.. It actually was 1.7 mil not two mil. Also there were many states on both sides that did so called gerrymandering. But when one state has over a 2.9 mil Dem advantage it reduces your argument. Plus California even if the Dems had won all seats and votes still would not have controlled the House. Yes we could also include the NE and that would counter the south. Bottom line the Dems got beat very badly in the house. How do you think the Dems will do in 2014 now that the districts are in place as they were in 2012? Do you think the Dems will gain seats/ If you think that then gerrymandering has nothing to do with it.
All gerrymandering is not the same, Fido. To win the House, the Dems need to win 55% of the overall vote. Do you think that is a level playing field? Dems won Prez by 5 million votes. Dems GAINED two seats in the Senate despite having to defend 2/3 of the seats. They won the House by 2 million votes. Yet, you call this all a win for the rethugs. Typical of life in the rethug fact-free world.
Actually they do call me Bulldog if that is any help. The facts are Benician you lost the House. Please tell us how the Dems will do in 2014 in the House or are you conceding early on. Just interested in your take. Explain to all of us you came up with that 55% thing. That would very interesting.
If they did not get hammered why did they not win the house. Give me an explanation. Please do not use redistricting it will not fly. At present the Dems arwe using two styate to try and win back the House. Texas and California. They could lose up to three seats in 2014 in California. Now what.
It’s like talking to a wall.
This wall has ears and will listen to your explanation. So just tell this wall of ears the answer. What is going to happen in 2014 House election. You keep avoiding the answer. This wall does have ears.
Benician:
I’m voting for your dog in 2014! Good comment…pb
Explain to me why Fox News Shows have higher ratings than any other network? Rather worrysom eh.
Because there are a lot of old white guys who need to have their fears stoked. Explain to me why studies prove the more you watch Faux news, the less you actually know.
Benician what studies are you talking about? Please give us the names of the studies so we can see just how out of touch we are. Thank you Benician I will be waiting for your list.
Look it up. You’ll find it.
You made the comment. Now back it up and stop avoiding the answers. Maybe you just made it up and we are all just expected to believe you. I will review all your sources when you give them to us. Remember they are your sources not ours. So come clean.
When have you ever, even once, provided a link or cited a study? Never ever not once ever!
Do not have to.
Let’s see…you cited a lefty column that was plagiarized, and challenged me to find it. Now, I cite a study and you challenge me to provide it. More from the Livesay Land of Hypocrisy. I really don’t care if you believe me or not. It’s out there. If you really care, you’ll go out and find it. Otherwise, you’re just blathering.
No just asking you to clarify your statement. You refuse, so I think you do not know. But maybe Gunter will tell us.
Maximilian, did a button get pushed this evening?
For the same reason that any cheaply put together, disposable, mass produced, low quality product sells better than other products. There will always be those that don’t know the difference.
That was good Dennis.
If they play nice, I play nice. If they don’t, I will throw it right back at them.
Bobby Jindal, far right conservative governor of Louisiana: ‘We need to stop being the party of stupid’. Are you now going to accuse him of being some looney leftist?
I did a Google search for “Republican Hate Speech”, and it came up with 4.5 million hits.
No, guys, from what I found on that google thing, he got his quotes by – GASP! looking in books! and reading them. Then, reading more books and sythesizing material from them and – GASP – one of his main sources was – GASP- from a very conservative political think tank. Imagine that…of course, I am sure that some folks here would only consider it valid with some quotes from Hannity and O’Reilly, but ya can’t please all the people all the time.
Actually, I was just thinking it would be more interesting if he shared with us his thoughts instead of a compilation of them from others. The agenda is pretty clear. Sort of hard to take it very seriously. Not what I would call and exchange of ideas. Just a bunch of typical left wing name calling. You have to give them credit though, they have become quite good at it. It doesn’t change anything or bring any positive effect on the world, but yes they are darn good at the name calling. Even creative at times. And Oh how they all rally around the talking points of the day.
“Actually, I was just thinking it would be more interesting if he shared with us his thoughts instead of a compilation of them from others.” – I just had a Jim Pugh moment
I find the JLB commentary particularly fascinating. The Tea Party (and Koch brothers) have led the Republican Party into an alley about as blind is alleys can get. At this point virtually everyone in the United States who has a clue, including a number of Republicans, is fully aware of this. The latter can’t suss out an escape hatch and there is the distinct possibility that the US will wonder into the abyss of a debt ceiling crisis beyond the imagination of rational man. That this is stupidity on a grand scale is evident to virtually a world of political and economic analysts. That, I would suggest is analysis, not “name calling.” Further, if this thought I am hereby sharing can possibly make up for my pathetic effort to acquaint the reader with what folks like Mann and Ornstein are saying, good. I was brought up in the school of scholarship that urged combining research with analysis before reaching conclusions. But I am always willing to embrace new insight. And, if the “talking points of the day” include the strange notion that reality deserves a hearing what is one to do?
If he shares his own thoughts (which are clearly implied by what he selects to quote) you would kick the scat out of him. So he employs the academic feat of letting others speak for him. JLB, let’s see a little intellect used by you. Describe, if you can, Jerry Page’s political or social “agenda.” Let the word “agenda” mean something, other than be used as a nastily accreted bundle of connotations amounting to an emotional push-button or code-word for radical extremist denunciation. You say he “talks around points” but that has been the tactic on your side consistently. It’s one of the few things you lot are consistent about along with similar errors of reasoning and good discourse. You’re all effed up with bias and negativity. AND ACTUALLY NOT VERY BRIGHT.
– POINT
– POINT
– POINT
– CONCLUSION
That’s how it works. Is that really over your head?
Thank you, Jerome, I have ceased to recognize the Republican party as a collection of humans, I suspect they are migratory extraterrestrials and will eventually go away…pb
Yeah, Pete. They’ll fall into the rising ocean.
The people driving the GOP these days believe in neither science nor economics nor government. And, the people in the party that actually do believe in such have to kowtow to these know-nothings to remain elected. What a sad, sad state. Until they show some courage and shove the dolts away, the party will continue down its path to oblivion.
POOR John Boehner would be a decent fellow if not cornered and pushed out of shape by his extremists on the far right. He really does like the perks of his job and it hangs by a thread.
What good will it do to say “We told you so” when seawater starts flooding into Valero’s compound? Just sayin’, for instance!
How many times must it be said, the Tea Party Patriots are loyal only to their own dream-world while practicing disloyal behavior toward the nation. Some patriotism, eh?
RMS stated: the Tea Party Patriots are loyal only to their own dream-world while practicing disloyal behavior toward the nation. Some patriotism, eh?
Disloyal? by whose standards? Of course by your standards, which always come up short by any far assessment.
Disloyal by standards of anyone with common sense. When a fraction of a fraction tries to hold the country hostage, I find that incredibly disloyal to the nation. You don’t? Last time I looked, we were still a democracy.
Who is this fraction of a fraction you are talking about? Identify this group if you will. It is so small I assume you could do it very quickly. That way we all can do some resaearch on these individuals you seem to know. Thanks for the help.
Benician Stated: Last time I looked, we were still a democracy.
Actually you should look again; we are a Constitutional Republic.
ZZZZZZZZZ. More tripe from the tripemaster.
More tripe from the tripemaster
You take a juvenile delight in belittling others for errors: typos, grammar, spelling errors etc. You incessantly try to distract the arguments presented or comments made in doing so.
You do not hesitate to take advantage of any opportunity to ridicule those whom you deem to be your intellectual inferior, which in your mind is anyone who does not vote Democrat (or leftist Third party).
Yet you just got schooled on basic high school civics because you do not know the difference between a “Democracy” and a “Republic”.
The only way you can respond is again to belittle the statement as “tripe”.
Does not work. Anyone who saw the exchange realizes your error and they also realize that my correction was made in a fair and reasonable manner by not pointing out the error in a rude manner (as I am doing now).
Must really smart to be schooled by a person you have called an idiot on more than one occasion.
Now go ahead and get your last word in, I think that will be the fourth or fifth time in a row, I have said that. But then no one of importance is counting.
I have never belittle anyone for grammar errors or typos. Another lie on your part.
In re ‘democracy’ vs. ‘republic’…simply semantics. By strict definition…sure, we’re a republic. But, “by popular usage, however, the word “democracy” come to mean a form of government in which the government derives its power from the people and is accountable to them for the use of that power. In this sense the United States might accurately be called a democracy.”(from thisnation.com). To play the ‘republic’ card to change the course of the discussion is again usage of your common tactic to avoid the substantive points in an argument. You always use this tactic, yet complain that others do. Just more hypocrisy on your part. BTW, speaking of which, still waiting to hear if you’ve communicated to the Herald and/or PUgh in re his plagiarism.
BTW, speaking of which, still waiting to hear if you’ve communicated to the Herald and/or PUgh in re his plagiarism.
I posted my comment in regards to that subject previously. You must have missed it.
I have never belittle anyone for grammar errors or typos.
BS or willful ignorance on your part.
I specifically recall you called me an idiot for using ‘your’ in place of ‘you’re’.
But that was when you were posting under the fake name of ‘Real American’, a fact that you continue to deny.
Benician is not Real American.
Yet another lie from this forum’s biggest liar.
Ah, well. No matter. All of us over 70 will be dead before the worst happens and things get bad beyond deniability. So deny, deny and deny you deny, nigh unto a high denial! A head in warm sand can be quite comfortable with eyes tightly shut. Don’t open ’em, it’ll really hurt.
To bad you won’t be around for me to tell you we told you so. Just like Al Gore is eating crow right now, you would be too.
You can pay Perter so long as Paul has money, but when Paul goes bankrupt we all starve. This country is headed for collapse under the wieght of its massive debt. We have to borrow 40% of what we give away. That my friends is unstainable!
Now Mr. Page just tell us what needs to be done. Do away with the Republican party? You do not seem to think they are worth anything. Do away with the Democratic party? No. Better yet a one party for all that only leans to the left? You will write every week and folks will comment every week. In the long run what you write means nothing without solutions presented. Just an opinion article that gives many folks an opportunity to chime in. Some hateful others with very strong left leaning ideals. Yet others that do not agree with what you write. Just watch how they get attacked. What I would like to know is who are you writing your opinion article for? Only the left? For sure not the right leaning folks or you would include them in a more positive way. Your article is very biased and that we all understand. So do expect all will not agree with your researched opinions. I would love to see a list of your solutions to this “but now very real and devastating, crisis” facing this wonderful country. I believe Mr. Page there are many who love this country just as much as you do. But many have different ideals than you do. I do respect your sacrifice for our country and that will never be forgotten. You might just find out in your research that the Republicans are not as bad as you may think. Not divided as some say and also want the best for this country as you and your followers want. Just a different approach that the left wants no part of. Can not be all that bad or they would not have more elected office holders than the Democrats. Gerrymandering works for both party’s. Just some thoughts.
Chris Hedges — truth-teller.
As we move closer to that “uncertain future,”more for Mr. Page and the community to consider.
Key quote:
“All ideological, theological and political debates with the radical Christian right are useless. It cares nothing for rational thought and discussion. Its adherents are using the space within the open society to destroy the open society itself.”
Key quote:
“We have abandoned our poor and working class. We have created a government monster that sucks the marrow out of our bones to enrich and empower the oligarchic and corporate elite. The protection of criminals, whether in war or on Wall Street, is part of our mirage of law and order. We have betrayed the vast and growing underclass. Most believers within the Christian right are struggling to survive in a hostile world. We have failed them. Their very real despair is being manipulated and used by Christian fascists such as the Texas senator. Give to the working poor a living wage, benefits and job security and the reach of this movement will diminish. Refuse to ameliorate the suffering of the poor and working class and you ensure the ascendancy of a Christian fascism.”
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/10/07-3