Election

Where’s The Outrage? On The Tenth Anniversary Of Ronald Reagan’s Death

Posted by on June 5, 2014 at 3:41 pm. 1 Comments :

Ten years ago, on June 5, 2004, former president Ronald Reagan died after a long illness including severe Alzheimer’s disease. It’s a curious fluke of timing that this anniversary should occur just as some prominent events have sprung up in the news that parallel notable capstones of his term in office. And while many of these affairs have erupted into frenzied allegations of high crimes and misdemeanors on the part of President Obama, they generated a far more sedate reaction from Republicans of that era.

Ronald Reagan

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Embassy Attacks

For almost two years now, the GOP has been furiously scratching at the walls to find something incriminating with regard to the tragic attack on the U.S. diplomatic facility in Benghazi, Libya. In all that time, and after numerous congressional hearings and independent investigations, they have turned up nothing. So of course they decided to launch a new Select Committee on the Politicization of Benghazi in order to continue their fruitless and frivolous charade.

Perhaps on this day of remembrance, Republicans might take into consideration the fact that there were more embassy attacks, with greater loss of life, during the Reagan administration. And yet, there was never the degree of vitriol directed at Reagan for such deadly serious incidents as this:

“In April 1983, radical Shiite suicide bombers blew up the US embassy in Beirut, killing 63. Reagan did nothing to prevent this attack, and his ultimate response to it and a later deadly attack on US Marines in Beirut was to quietly withdraw from Lebanon.”

Climate Change

Last week President Obama announced an initiative to address the persistent problem of Climate Change that threatens to cause profound damage to our environment and our economy, while triggering profound national security risks. The Republican response to that was typically hostile, with rants about unlawfully overstepping his authority and deliberately attempting to sabotage the economy. However, no such rants were ever issued when Reagan said this in a letter to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President of the Senate requesting increased funding of nearly $500 million:

“Because changes in the earth’s natural systems can have tremendous economic and social effects, global climate change is becoming a critical concern.”

Voting Rights

A constant burr in the right’s britches has been their faulty analysis of alleged election fraud. Despite years of complaints, they have failed to turn up anything but trivial evidence of a handful of infractions, which they use to deny voting rights to tens of millions of citizens. Obama’s support for reform has yielded accusations of tyranny and advocacy of fraud. Recently the conservative-dominated Supreme Court drastically scaled back the scope of the seminal Voting Rights Act of 1965. Reagan opposed the legislation at the time, but during his presidency he had a somewhat different view that failed to garner the insults that Obama has suffered:

“To protect all our citizens, I believe the Voting Rights Act should and must be extended. […] The Voting Rights Act is important to the sense of trust many Americans place in their government’s commitment to equal rights.”

Veterans Administration

Another hot topic on the GOP outrage agenda is the news that some of the Veterans Administration facilities have badly failed the soldiers they are intended to serve. While most of the veteran community report that they are “highly satisfied” with the service they receive, the disclosures of malfeasance are serious and unforgivable. The problems appear to be locally based, yet that hasn’t stopped Republicans from placing the blame directly at the feet of the President. Funny, they never did that to Reagan when these VA fiascoes plagued his term:

In 1981 a former Marine committed suicide after claiming the VA had failed to attend to his service-related disabilities. In 1982 VA director Robert Nimmo was “criticized for wasteful spending, including use of a chauffeured car and an expensive office redecorating project,” after failing to address veterans problems with Agent Orange. in 1984 “Congressional investigators find evidence that VA officials had diverted or refused to spend more than $40 million that Congress approved to help Vietnam veterans with readjustment problems.”

Negotiating With Terrorists

More recently, Obama’s decision to rescue Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl from five years of captivity by agreeing to release some aging former Taliban leaders has resulted in political attacks against the soldier, his family, and calls for Obama’s impeachment. Right-wingers complain that there is no justification for negotiating with terrorists and that Obama has violated a long-standing policy not to do so. That, however, is totally false, as proven by Reagan himself. The notorious Iran-Contra scandal was centered around Reagan’s initiative to free hostages in Iran by agreeing to sell the terrorist nation over 1,500 missiles. The proceeds from that deal were then illegally funneled to anti-Sandinista death squads in Nicaragua. Reagan’s surreal confession to these acts continues to strain credulity:

“A few months ago I told the American people I did not trade arms for hostages. My heart and my best intentions still tell me that’s true, but the facts and the evidence tell me it is not.”

2016

Special Bonus Outrage: Setting up a future political battle, Republicans are going after presumptive Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. Their fear of her is palpable as they struggle to bring down her popularity with the American people. A new survey shows her handily beating every GOP candidate she is matched against. Consequently, the right has gone all in to cast Clinton as “old and stale” (as Karl Rove said). Rove also suggested that Clinton was suffering from brain damage. Then the Drudge Report hilariously misinterpreted a People Magazine cover of Clinton leaning on a chair, which Drudge imagined was a walker.

All of this ignores the reality that Clinton is, by all credible accounts, in good health. But more to the point, she would be younger at inauguration than GOP pols like John McCain, Bob Dole, and, yes, you guessed it, Ronald Reagan, who still stands as the nation’s oldest president. This might be a good time to recall Reagan’s retort to rival Walter Mondale, who made some sly references to Reagan’s age:

“I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent’s youth and inexperience.”

While remembering the legacy of Ronald Reagan, which is fraught with disagreement and controversy, on this, the anniversary of his death, it would worthwhile to recognize the hypocrisy of contemporary Republicans who seem to have forgotten history entirely.

Late Additions

Immigration: Reagan granted amnesty to three million undocumented residents.
Al Qaeda: Reagan funded the Mujaheddin, from whom sprung the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden.
Gun Control: Reagan signed the Firearm Owners’ Protection Act that banned fully automatic rifles.

Geezer Karl Rove Tells Fox News That Hillary Clinton Is ‘Old And Stale’

Posted by on May 26, 2014 at 3:44 pm. 15 Comments :

The Republican Party already has serious problems with some of the most critical voting demographics. They have thoroughly alienated African-Americans and Latinos. Their appeal to young voters is weak and worsening. Thanks to their opposition to reproductive choice and pay equity, women are loathe to consider Republican candidates. And now the politically tone deaf GOP is determined to antagonize the nation’s most reliable voting bloc – senior citizens.

Karl Rove

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It’s not bad enough that Republicans have already put some distance between themselves and seniors by proposing cuts to Medicare and the privatization of Social Security. The latest insult to older Americans is that they are not fit to serve in public office, particularly the presidency.

This view was clumsily articulated by master GOP strategist, Karl Rove, who appeared on Fox News today to criticize Hillary Clinton. According to Rove, the former First Lady, Senator, and Secretary of State is in a “vulnerable position” due to her age and experience. Rove said that people won’t like Clinton because “they want to see a fighter,” which he seems to believe is a trait that only the young’uns can muster. His precise wording was…

“In American politics, there’s a sense you want to be new, you don’t want to be too familiar, you want to be something fresh, you don’t want to be something old and stale.”

Make no mistake, Rove deliberately chose the words “old and stale” to invoke Clinton’s age. It was just as deliberate as his disgusting choice of words last week to falsely suggest that Clinton had suffered brain damage in a fall last year. This is typical Rovian, slash-and-burn politics.

It is also strikingly stupid when you consider the most recent Republican candidates for president, whom Rove certainly supported. There was Mitt Romney, a two-term governor who ran for president twice, making him rather familiar. There was John McCain who is even older than Clinton and served as senator for more than two decades. Before that it was Rove’s own invention, George W. Bush, another two-term governor and the son of a president and the grandson of a senator. Prior to that it was the 73 year old, 27 year senate veteran and Republican leader Bob Dole. Before him was W’s dad, who had been around Washington for decades as a congressman, CIA director, and vice-president. Preceding him was Ronald Reagan, who was also older than Clinton when he was inaugurated after serving as governor of California and multiple runs for the White House.

Do the terms “fresh,” or “new,” or “unfamiliar,” apply to any of those candidates? Does Rove’s perception of what is old and stale only apply to Democrats – or women? And is Rove suddenly enamored of the sort of inexperience and unfamiliarity that he used to disparage when talking about President Obama? In fact, the entire Republican Party that once mocked Obama as a novice, is now almost exclusively fixated on even greener pols like Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, and Ben Carson. Those are the candidates to whom Rove is referring when he says that voters are looking for “a Republican with a constructive conservative agenda with the future.” Unfortunately they, like most Republicans, have their sights set squarely on the distant past, circa Dark Ages.

Worst of all, Rove is demonstrating open contempt for senior citizens with his insults to their capacity to be effective leaders. So even dismissing his rank hypocrisy, he is not making any friends with the older voters he clearly despises. Hopefully, Clinton’s campaign, should it materialize, will remind these mature voters just how scornfully Republicans regard them and their ability to contribute to society.

GUILTY! Republican Huckster Admits To Election Fraud

Posted by on May 20, 2014 at 11:26 am. 3 Comments :

For several years now, Republicans have been engaged in a prolonged and determined campaign to suppress the votes of citizens whom they believe are inclined to vote for Democrats. They pretend that their mission is to prevent election fraud, even though they can’t document more than a handful of cases. So why is it that almost every time actual election fraud is uncovered, it happens to be by Republicans?

Today a bona fide example of criminal election activity has emerged in the form of a guilty plea by Republican author and filmmaker, Dinesh D’Souza. D’Souza admitted in court that he unlawfully reimbursed friends who made donations to a New York senatorial candidate saying that he “knew that causing a campaign contribution to be made in the name of another was wrong and something the law forbids.”

Fox News - D'Souza

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In the harsh glare of the courtroom light, D’Souza is singing a very different tune. Earlier this year, when the charges were brought against him, he complained that he was being singled out for his anti-Obama writing and films. The news of his indictment stirred an outpouring of support from conservative media who alleged that President Obama was behind this political plot to silence his critics. D’Souza appeared several times on Fox News to assert his victimhood but, curiously, came short of asserting his innocence. He did, however, tell Sean Hannity that the prosecution may be “payback” by Obama for his aggressively negative, although thinly researched and easily debunked, screeds against the President. And Hannity was not alone in his defense of D’Souza. The lie-riddled Fox Nation website featured a commentary by Charles Hurt of Breitbart News that literally excused D’Souza’s crimes, even if it turned out that he were guilty – which we now know that he is.

Federal law includes sentencing guidelines that could result in a prison term of ten to sixteen months. D’Souza’s attorney, however, plans to ask the judge to waive any jail time because he says that his client is a “fundamentally honorable man” who had committed an “isolated instance of wrongdoing.” That’s if you consider someone whose books and films have been proven to be filled with lies, and who was forced to resign as the dean of a Catholic university because of marital infidelity, to be fundamentally honorable. It’s also difficult to regard paying off four different people to be an isolated instance of wrongdoing. But that’s the Republican perspective on law and order. It’s only really a crime if a Democrat does it.

Chalk One Up For The Republican Taliban (aka Tea Party)

Posted by on May 14, 2014 at 10:24 am. 8 Comments :

Yesterday’s primary election in Nebraska was won by Ben Sasse, the candidate who proudly solicited and received the support of such notables as Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, Mark Levin, Erick Erickson, and Fox News. Sasse’s campaign was bankrolled by the Koch brothers via their Americans for Prosperity front group.

Ben Sasse

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The core of Sasse’s message was his promise to repeal every word of the Affordable Care Act, including the parts that end discrimination based on preexisting conditions, the ability for children up to 26 to be on their parent’s policies, prohibiting insurers from cancelling plans when a claim is filed, and the elimination of annual or lifetime limits on healthcare.

Sasse ran a typical Tea Party campaign that pandered to conspiracy theorists and religious extremists. He boasted of his devotion to the most radical form of “religious liberty” that would effectively condone discrimination and permit religious zealots to violate any law they deemed in conflict with their faith. On his website he says…

“Ben Sasse believes that our right to the free exercise of religion is co-equal to our right to life. This is not a negotiable issue. Government cannot force citizens to violate their religious beliefs under any circumstances. He will fight for the right of all Americans to act in accordance with their conscience.”

Under any circumstances? So Sasse will fight for the right of all Americans to stone adulterers to death; to have sex with children; to burn crosses; to refuse service (and housing and jobs) to gays, African-Americans, Jews, etc.; and to ban dancing (sorry Kevin Bacon)? At the same time, Sasse would have to support the use of illegal drugs, polygamy, and public nudity.

Unfortunately, Nebraska is a blood red state that is almost certain to elect the Republican on the ballot. This means that, barring a calamitous misstep, Sasse will be the next senator from Nebraska. He can be relied upon to try to turn the clock back on civil rights, health care, the environment, and true religious liberty that respects human rights and the Constitution. And that’s the sort of agenda that has the American Taliban celebrating on this primary morning after.

Electile Dysfunction? John Boehner’s Tea Party Primary Challenger Goes There

Posted by on April 14, 2014 at 4:10 am. 3 Comments :

An Ohio Tea Party candidate seeking to oust Republican House Speaker John Boehner has released a Viagra-themed campaign ad (video below) that is actually pretty funny. J.D. Winteregg’s ad hits all the top Tea Party talking points. He’s anti-immigration, pro-gun and promises to defund ObamaCare and Planned Parenthood. And for some reason he also felt it necessary to declare his opposition golf.

John Boehner Electile Dysfunction

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Winteregg is just one of many Republican fringe candidates taking on establishment GOP figures like Boehner. He doesn’t have much chance of winning, but he can certainly be a major annoyance and, by reminding conservatives of all the things they hate about Boehner, he can contribute to Republican voters sitting out the election in November.

The ad slams Boehner as having “Electile Dysfunction” as a result of being in Washington, D.C. too long. It shows Boehner in videos being chummy with President Obama, a fatal flaw to the close-minded, Tea Party bigots who consider such fraternization to be akin to treason. And it charges Boehner with being spineless for having given in to liberals. Apparently shutting down the government for three weeks, supporting Darrell Issa’s McCarthyite inquisitions, and holding 50+ votes to cripple the Affordable Care Act is an expression of weakness in the eyes of Tea Party extremists.

Perhaps the the best moment in the ad is when the announcer gets to the disclaimer and warns that…

“If you have a Boehner lasting longer than 23 years, seek immediate medical attention.”

With that Winteregg has distinguished himself as the only candidate with the guts to make a dick joke in his official campaign video. And while it may not help him to win the primary, it’s a pretty good bet that he’ll get an invitation to appear on Bill Maher’s show after he loses. It will also get him some attention from the press, which is surely the whole point of the ad. The problem being that it will likely get more play on MSNBC than on Fox News.

And therein lies the flaw in Winteregg’s media strategy. It is not likely to appeal to the conservative media that he needs to rally voters. Consequently, the people most likely to vote for him may never see the ad. Democrats, on the other hand, will love the ad but will never vote for a far-right Tea Partier whose platform consists of nothing but negative attacks on Democratic policies and politicians.

So with this ad Winteregg has demonstrated that he (or more likely his media advisers) has a sense of humor, but he has also revealed that he has no idea how to manage a successful campaign. Which, of course, is also good for Democrats as well as Speaker Boner…er…Boehner.

Dot GOP: The Next Big Thing In Republican Branding?

Posted by on April 9, 2014 at 11:01 am. 2 Comments :

The Republican Party has been desperately seeking a solution to what they admit are serious problems connecting with the American people. Their sobering losses in 2012 to a president they were convinced had no hopes for victory shook them to their core. The Republican National Committee published an “autopsy” of the election that conceded its failure to appeal to minorities and young voters, among other critical constituencies.

Since the release of the autopsy, it seems that the party has decided to ignore its conclusions and concentrate on what it calls “branding.” So despite the mountain of evidence from their own internal analysis, the GOP still thinks that their only problem is one of poor communication, rather than their strict adherence to policies that voters have rejected.

Dot GOP

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The latest example of this cognitive disconnect comes with Republicans bragging about their new Internet top-level domain “.GOP,” “Your Street Address in the Republican Neighborhood.” Apparently the missing piece in their path to victory was a website domain like vote.gop. Now that they have fixed that problem, they can rest easy as they coast to electoral success without having to bother with addressing issues like the economy, health care, immigration, or international diplomacy. Commenting on this technological leap forward (that Fox News calls a “potential boon for online organizing”), the RNC said…

“The goal here is to really make investments and be on top of all of the newest in technology to compete with the Democrats and move up ahead of them,” Republican National Committee Press Secretary Kirsten Kukowski said.

Exactly! Because having a domain name on the Internet is the bleeding edge of modern communications. It will enable the Party to join such American institutions as “.beer” and “.porn” and “.Walmart.” It has the potential to corral all of the Party’s supporters under a single digital flag. And what could go wrong? Just because anyone will be able to register a domain with the new moniker doesn’t mean that radical fringes of the Republican universe will put sites up on DumpBoehner.gop, or EndSocialSecurity.gop, or KillDemocrats.gop, or SarahPalin2016.gop. And certainly there would no chance of mischievous lefties posting Nazi.gop, or Scumbag.gop, or AmericansAgainst.gop. [Feel to contribute your own suggestions]

It cost the RNC $185,000 to secure this prestigious Internet real estate (plus $25,000 a year). That’s money well spent if it distracts enough low-information voters from focusing on actual issues long enough to steal an election. That is the central goal of the GOP digital initiative. They have even formed a unit called “Parabellum Labs” specifically to advance the state of their technology and to compete with Democrats. But someone should have told them that Para Bellum is Latin for “for war,” and it is also the name that Germans gave to their iconic Lugar pistol.

The GOP really knows how to work branding. Too bad they don’t know how to legislate or govern or develop a platform that people support.

Sarah Palin: If He’s Good Enough For Ted Nugent…

Posted by on February 20, 2014 at 2:47 pm. 10 Comments :

We haven’t heard much from Tea Party queen Sarah Palin lately. That may explain why she is now taking desperate measures to draw attention to herself.

Sarah Palin

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In the state of Texas there is a budding gubernatorial contest that is certain to make waves. Democrats are likely to nominate State Senator Wendy Davis who rose to prominence during a heated state senate session where Republicans sought to ram through a legislative package that would have severely hampered access to reproductive health clinics for women in the state. Davis led a filibuster that, at least temporarily, blocked the legislation.

On the other side, Republicans are leaning toward the current state Attorney General, Greg Abbott, who is an arch-conservative Tea Party candidate with some unsavory friends. One of those friends is aging schlock-rocker Ted Nugent. When news broke that Nugent would appear on the campaign trail with Abbott, the candidate was forced to respond to critics who questioned how he could share the podium with a hostile, foul-mouthed, misogynistic, hate monger, who recently called President Obama a “subhuman mongrel.”

This is where Palin comes in with an endorsement for Abbott. But in her Facebook post she didn’t enumerate Abbott’s qualifications for the governorship. She didn’t reel off a list of accomplishments as Attorney General. She didn’t even praise his personal set of values that are aligned so closely to Palin and her Teabaggery. Nope. All she said was…

“If he is good enough for Ted Nugent, he is good enough for me!”

That’s an astonishingly low bar for someone who wants to be governor. But it is about as high as Palin can see. You may recall that her own turn at governing a state ended when she quit midway through her first term after being resoundingly bitch-slapped by America in her bid to move to Washington, D.C. But to cite Ted Nugent’s support as a reason to back Abbott stretches the boundaries of sanity. Essentially Palin is saying that if Abbott is good enough for a draft-dodging, pedophile, who has publicly advocated violence against his political foes (especially women), then she is all for him. Here is an example of the kind of vision that Palin admires in Nugent:

“I vow that I will use our freedom to get these dirty c*ck-suckers out of the White House. The president is a bad man. The vice president is a bad man. They’re all bad people. If you don’t get that, you’re a dead motherf*cker.”

And if that doesn’t set your heart to palpitating, how about this (video below)…

“I was in Chicago last week I said, ‘Hey Obama, you might want to suck on one of these, you punk?’ Obama, he’s a piece of sh*t and I told him to suck on one of my machine guns. Let’s hear it for him. I was in New York and I said, ‘Hey Hillary, you might want to ride one of these into the sunset you worthless bitch.’ Since I’m in California, I’m gonna find Barbara Boxer she might wanna suck on my machine guns. Hey, Dianne Feinstein, ride one of these you worthless whore.”

That’s the level of citizenship and patriotism that Sarah Palin regards as so exemplary that she would base her support for the governor of Texas on the favorable assessment of the crackpot who spewed it. It just shows how low these cretins will stoop to garner the support of even the most repulsive wing of their wretched party. We can only hope that the people of Texas are paying close attention and will look to a more respectable source for advice on who should be their next governor.

Republican Congressional Candidate Ties Obama To Crack-Smoking Toronto Mayor

Posted by on December 9, 2013 at 12:36 pm. 6 Comments :

There really is no bottom to the well of indecency that Republicans dig for themselves. If they aren’t challenging the citizenship of President Obama, they assert that he palls around with terrorists. Now we have a GOP candidate for congress in New York who has made the incoherent leap from Rob Ford, Toronto’s crack-smoking mayor, to his opponent and to Obama as well.


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The ad features George Demos who is running against Democratic incumbent Tim Bishop. It begins by asking viewers if they are “tired of politicians?” Behind this narration is a picture of Bishop, Obama and Ford. Demos has an peculiar definition of politicians in that it includes substance abusers in Canada, but not himself, even though he is running for political office.

But it’s the juxtaposition of the repulsive Rob Ford with Obama and Bishop, who have nothing in common with him, that is such a heinous act of character assassination. Demos might have been a little closer to the mark had he used a picture of freshman Tea Party Republican Trey Radel of Florida, who was recently arrested for cocaine possession.

Clearly Demos is more interested in slandering his enemies than in being honest or ethical. His behavior reeks of the bitter, tired politics he pretends to denounce. In that respect, he makes a perfect Fox News-style candidate who projects his own flaws onto his opponents. Although Fox has gone even further to mastering the tactic of labeling Republican miscreants as Democrats.

Fox News

The Cost Of Winning: Shutting Down The GOP/Tea Party Shutdown

Posted by on October 17, 2013 at 3:24 am. 13 Comments :

Last night the Senate finally crafted a bipartisan resolution to raise the debt ceiling and end the GOP/Tea Party driven shutdown. The sixteen days that government was closed had a materially negative impact on millions of Americans. Nearly 800,000 were furloughed from work. Many more were turned away from federal agencies that provide aid and public services for parks, education, etc.

The media will now spend days/weeks analyzing the repercussions and adjudicating winners and losers. While it may be apparent that the Republican Party and its extremist Tea Party wing have suffered a hobbling blow (their favorability has sunk to historic lows), the harm to the public at large cannot be dismissed. Although, sadly, it may be as the media ignores the ongoing strife in favor of reporting on horse-race style politics. Despite the relief we all feel that the immediate crisis was averted, there is still a price to be paid. And it isn’t cheap:

Shutdown Receipt

Yep, the shutdown cost America about $24 billion. That is courtesy of the allegedly fiscally responsible Republicans in Congress. Voters need to remember this in November 2014, and Democrats need to repeatedly remind them between now and then. Democrats only need to gain 17 seats in order to take the Speaker’s gavel out of John Boehner’s inept hands. Doing so will improve the prospects for economic recovery, job growth, infrastructure repair, environmental action, and progress on civil rights and income equality.

A change in party control of Congress won’t solve all of the nation’s problems. It won’t end radical Tea Party demands to repeal ObamaCare or for severe cuts to Social Security and Medicare. It won’t stop the birthers and the racists who disparage President Obama and oppose every policy put forth by Democrats. It won’t keep pseudo-patriots from advocating for war at every turn. And it won’t restore sanity to the global financial system that evades criminal responsibilities and exploits average people throughout the world.

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However, it will remove from power a gang of nutjobs who hate Obama more than they love their country. It will bring Nancy Pelosi back to the Speaker’s office. It will install Democrats as the chairmen of all committees, replacing corrupt GOP ideologues like Darrell Issa, Dave Camp, and Paul Ryan. And it will put us on surer footing and give us a more productive legislative branch that actually has an interest in governing positively, and in building up America rather than in tearing it down. That’s progress.

Sorry Tea-Publicans: America Made Its Choice And ObamaCare Won In A Landslide

Posted by on October 1, 2013 at 9:06 pm. 7 Comments :

House Republicans have succeeded in shutting down the government, a goal they have had for decades stretching back to Grover Norquist’s famous and heartless yearning to shrink it until it’s small enough to drown in a bathtub.

In the course of the debate there has been some dispute about whether the last election was a sufficient referendum on the Affordable Care Act (aka ObamaCare). Republicans persistently assert that the American people oppose the law and that it should be repealed to conform with their wishes. Conveniently left out of this argument is the fact that the law was passed with a super-majority in both houses of congress and signed by a popularly elected president. It later passed constitutional muster according to a conservative leaning Supreme Court. Finally, President Obama was reelected by a significant margin. And while polls about ObamaCare seem mixed, they rarely take into account that a fair percentage of unfavorable sentiment is actually people who think the law did not go far enough and would prefer a single-payer plan.

Nevertheless, that hasn’t stopped the GOP from pretending that the election had nothing to do with ObamaCare and was not an affirmation of the people’s support. These Tea Party history revisionists might want to sign up for ObamaCare so they can get medical attention for their severely short-term memories.

Mitt Romney
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Mitt Romney had made repealing ObamaCare a key factor in his vain pursuit of the White House. He spoke about it on almost every campaign stop. And he did not mince words. Here are just a few examples of his pointed rhetoric:

  • If elected, I will repeal Obamacare on day one.
  • What the court did not do on its last day in session, I will do on my first day if elected president of the United States. And that is, I will act to repeal Obamacare.
  • I’ve said that on the campaign trail, I think, every single day. Obamacare must be repealed –- in its entirety.
  • Our mission is clear: if we want to get rid of Obamacare, we are going to have to replace President Obama. That is my mission. That is our work. And I’m asking the American people to join me.

Apparently the American people declined to join Romney on his mission to repeal ObamaCare. Obama won by more than five million votes. And what is abundantly clear is that Romney had thrust the health care law into the forefront of the campaign. Anyone who attempts to dismiss the prominence of it as an issue is deliberately lying (I’m looking at you, Fox Nation). And if these comments by Romney are not convincing enough, he also produced an ad in the thick of the campaign blasting ObamaCare and making this promise: “Day One. Job One. Repeal ObamaCare.”

Just to reiterate – “Day One. Job One. Repeal ObamaCare.” That hardly seems like an issue that was an afterthought in the Romney Campaign. So America was presented with a choice that was focused on this very subject. They made their choice and now they are just beginning to discover the rewards of having made the right one.

That is what is so terrifying to the Republican Party. If they really believed that ObamaCare would be a disaster, they would allow it to proceed and fail, and then they would ride a wave of support into a senate majority next year and the White House in 2016. Instead they are putting up roadblocks, disseminating disinformation, and trying to persuade people not to enroll. Because they know that once people see what the program actually provides, they will not only be excited and grateful, they will lobby their representatives to expand it.

So remember that the more you hear Republicans slamming ObamaCare and trying to prevent its implementation, the more you know they are running in fear of a law that they themselves believe will be popular and will help millions of people. And if there is one thing Republicans hate, it’s helping people, because – you know – socialism.