Not sure whether or not the government will have been shut down by cartoon pirates by the time you read this, but there’s a fair chance of it. It never ceases to amaze me how deeply insane our national legislature can become when there are no effective checks placed upon it. And trust me, there are no effective checks. We have a bicameral legislature in a federal system that divides power into three branches. With respect to initially passing legislation, really only two of those branches are relevant; the Democrats control the executive branch and the upper house of the legislative branch, the Republicans the lower house of the legislature. So who calls the shots? The Republicans, of course, by default.
Boehner started negotiations on the current fiscal year budget with a demand for $30 billion or so in cuts. The Democrats have acceded to that and then some. So now, naturally, Boehner’s caucus wants $60 
billion in cuts, plus the passage of a bunch of extreme right riders that defund the EPA, banish Planned Parenthood from any federal support whatsoever, and so on. This is what you get when you give them what they want. Like any good blackmailer, they always want more. Democrats should have bitten the bullet during the lame duck and passed a reasonable spending resolution before the log went into the spokes. But there was a lack of spine then, and it’s still lacking now.
Does anyone in America remember the 2010 election? Is it just my imagination, or did these tea-party and mainstream Republicans ride around the country promising that they were going to focus like a laser beam on fiscal issues and on the mutually-exclusive values of job creation and deficit elimination? Bad as that was, I believe people expected to get that. What they didn’t expect, for example, was an all-out vendetta against Planned Parenthood, which provides vital health services – most notably cervical cancer screenings, breast exams, etc. – to women in poor communities all across the country. None of the federal funds sent to Planned Parenthood cover abortion. (That’s the product of a far earlier Democratic cave, frankly.) To reprise Keith Olbermann – Mr. Boehner, where are the jobs?
As with Scott Walker, John Kasich, and other new G.O.P. governors, Boehner and company’s legislative agenda – contrary to what they claim – has little to do with balancing budgets and everything to do with scoring political points with their deluded, misogynistic, crypto-racist electoral base – essentially, the five psychos you see planted outside the local PP clinic every freaking day. There’s no point in trying to please them.
luv u,
jp
One wishes that were the full extent of the madness – just the Keystone Cop-like clumsiness – but it goes much deeper than that. The corporations that poured money into this last campaign will be getting just what they paid for: a legislature devoted to ensuring full federal compliance with their legislative and regulatory priorities. They got some love from the 111th Congress, to be sure, particularly in light of what has happened to the economy and the environment over the past two years, but this is a prize of an entirely different order of magnitude. This is a paid-for House, pure and simple.
surprised by this? Iraq is a majority Shi’a country, like Iran. There are longstanding cultural, religious, and political ties between these two neighboring states, and many Iraqi political figures took exile in Iran during the Saddam years. Speaking of which, Iran was attacked by a U.S.-supported Iraq in the 1980s, in an eight-year conflict that cost them probably a million lives. If I were them, I would be deeply interested in what happens in Iraq…. especially since we’re still the power behind the throne.
No one seems particularly bothered about this, but Bush’s proud admission, along with Cheney’s, is basically a declaration that our justice system is in a shambles; that the law applies only to the powerless and that cruel and unusual punishment is acceptable. Torture is a violation of U.S. statute and of international conventions to which the U.S. is both a signatory and a primary participant. Waterboarding is torture; it has been recognized as such since the days of Torquemada and before, I’ll wager.
Hey, Harry Reid – time to take the gloves off. If the Republicans threaten a filibuster over benefits for the long-term unemployed, hold them to it. Make them stand there, hour after hour, day after day, through the bloody holiday weekend, defending their obstructionism and showing the entire country how little they care about those on the losing side of our economy. What a great opportunity for you to demonstrate that your pro-working stiff rhetoric isn’t just a lot of hot air. (Unless, of course, it is.) There would be those who call you partisan, divisive, etc. Let them! They say that anyway. Slug it out on behalf of workers, both poor and middle class, and you’ll end up with something a lot more valuable than a weekend barbecue.
comprehensive health insurance reform? Never. Rebuild the entire thing to suit them, and they’ll still vote against it purely for spite. The problem here is, of course, the democrats themselves, who can’t seem to recognize when they’ve got something that’s both popular and worth defending. I’m referring to the public option, Medicare expansion, and other measures denounced as “socialism” by the other side (and conservative dems) but which the general public is strongly in favor of. The reason why people aren’t fired up about the current plan is that they stripped those measures out to please conservatives. Obama – congress – get a clue! Pass something that will make a real positive difference in people’s lives quickly, and they will support you.
The latest Afghan campaign continues unabated. I’ve heard the Taliban being accused of using civilians as human shields. Just a couple of weeks ago, though, the U.S. and local Afghan government leaders were encouraging people to stay in Marjah so that there would be someone to govern when they had taken over; and there have been reports of refugees being blocked from exiting by our military. Numerous civilians have been killed in what quickly became a war zone. How is this different?
raising taxes, cutting popular programs, etc. That is, however, the main reason why they have been sent to Washington D.C. – to decide where the money for the federal government comes from and where it goes. If they are unable to grapple with these issues, they might consider applying for jobs at the corporations that paid for their campaigns. What irks me about the deficit reduction commission, aside from the participation of paleocons like Alan Simpson, is that they are not directly accountable to the electorate. Even more than that, commissions are usually mustered to do particularly dirty work, like cutting or privatizing Social Security to save a few bucks.
Death and Texas. Jesus christmas. No one likes paying taxes, or going to the dentist, or taking exams, or eating their Maypo (well…. almost nobody), but this software executive in Texas who flew his plane into an IRS building should have taken an anger management seminar or something stronger.
enough. But whatever his motivations or limitations may be, we simply cannot allow ourselves to be confined by them. What America needs is a healthy dose of movement politics – the kind that brought us the five day work week, earned black people the vote, and brought the Vietnam war to an end. It’s the only way fundamental change happens, and we had best start facing that fact.
Whether or not Obama is serious about making positive change, he should understand one thing: the Republican party, particularly those in Congress, will not support him no matter what he does. He could adopt all of their positions (instead of just many of them) and they will still work to destroy him politically. That is their clear objective, whatever noises they make for the cameras and microphones. From a political standpoint, I don’t blame Obama for addressing the G.O.P. retreat this week and taking their questions. I think he should call them out, and we did see a little bit of that today. But if he seriously thinks that they are going to work with him on anything substantive, he is smoking crack. He would be well-advised to start appealing to his base, a.k.a. the people who got him elected, and use his considerable rhetorical gifts to articulate a more progressive vision of governance.