A good example of what's wrong with the GOP

It’s a pretty sad state of affairs when a news anchor knows more about what’s going on than a sitting senator.  In that video, Rand Paul, said that we are taking in $250 billion, and the interest on the debt is $20 billion, so technically if we pay that, then we’re not in default.  That logic will be accepted by the followers of Thomas Sowell and Fox News, but it’s very irresponsible. Senator Paul doesn’t factor in missed Social Security payments, interest rates going up, the spooking of the markets, the feeling of uncertainty or the downgrade of our credit rating. Representative Michelle Bachmann tried to use that flawed logic in her failed presidential run in 2011.

Samantha Guthrie should replace David Gregory as the host of “Meet the Press” because she was just as tough on Treasury Secretary Lew.  We should be able to learn something from the Sunday talk shows and not just listen to the prepared message of the day.  At least, she put in a good effort in trying to extract information but even her best effort couldn’t get Rand Paul to comment on his “open MIC moment.”

Speaker Boehner said the president knows his phone number, so he could call anytime he wants to start the negotiations.  In the 2011, I remember John Boehner refusing to take the president’s call and Eric Cantor walking out of a negotiating process.  I imagine. John Boehner could call the president if he knew what he wanted.  First, it was about defunding Obamacare, and then it was about delaying the individual mandate. When those two were defeated, they offered a piece meal approach, and today they want to talk about the deficit and the debt for passing a two-month CR. If the president agrees to that, we’ll go through the same process two with three more times before the 2014 election.  In the meantime, the GOP is not offering the democrats a single thing. The GOP has a laundry list of demands for opening the government. 

The TV hosts could go home and just play a rerun of last week’s talking points and we wouldn't miss a thing.

For most of us....it's not a game

In the video Rand Paul talks about a winning strategy but what's he winning? The country is losing $300 million for every day the government is shut down.I saw Rand Paul give that GOP messageIn of the day on CNN. He said that the administration only had four people guarding the embassy in Benghazi but they had 5 park rangers keeping the vets from visiting the WWII memorial.  I heard that talking point being used several more times during the day by representatives and Fox News hosts.

I saw our own representative Blake Farenthold fall for Chis Hayes's  trap. Chris asked Rep. Farenhold if he wanted to defund Obamacare. Farenthold said that he wanted fairness and a delay of the individual mandate ,just like the president gave to small businesses. Chris Hayes said that the delay would cause Obamacare to fail and the GOP knew that.. Bam, that's when Mr. Farenthold forgot the talking points and admitted that he wanted to defund Obamacare. Back in August of this year,Rep. Blake Farenthold joined 79 fellow Republicans by signing a letter to John Boehner urging him to use defunding Obamacare as a strategy to pass the CR. The representative knew that he had been had and his facial expressions said it all. Rep. Blake Farenthold is not a bright fellow but the straight-line party Republicans will try to send him back to Washington year after year and then they wonder why our government is in a mess.

Fox News are doing their best to help the Republicans by referring to the shutdown as a slim down or a slowdown.  Right wing talk show hosts and Fox News hosts are downplaying the effects of the shutdown. Millionaires will never feel the effects of the shutdown.

Republicans are trying to deflect blame because the Senate won't pass their piecemeal approach. The only reason Republicans added funding NIH to their piecemeal legislation,was that there was a story in the Wall Street Journal about 30 children being denied cancer treatment. 

The GOP now wants now wants a lifeline to save face. Several Republican have said the president has to give the GOP something and they go on to list a laundry list of goodies but they don't want to give anything in return. Keeping government open is what congress is supposed to do. 

I heard that John Boehner might consider passing a clean bill to raise the debt limit to keep the country from defaulting but insist that the government remain shutdown until he gets a grand bargain.

Getting the Truth is Like pulling Teeth

I finally got relief when my molar was pulled but not before I had to endure extreme pain every time the dentist would come to check the numbness of the affected area. The dentist had a knack for finding the nerve that caused the most pain. Afterwards, his assistant gave me a list of do’s and don’ts. Whatever happened to the old pioneer days when the patient was given ½ bottle of whiskey got the tooth pulled and then went out and plowed the back 40?

I got home around 10:30 AM, took my pain pill, turned on the television, and I thought I was going to catch up on the news. I don’t know if it was the pain pill or the sheer boredom of watching the same stories being rehashed that put me to sleep. I know it’s the “dog days of summer” but how many stories can you do on “who will win the Republican presidential primary in 2016?” We’re only eight months into President Obama’s second term!

Every now and then I do hear something that makes me laugh such as Rand Paul saying “There is no greater defender, truly, of minority rights... than myself." I tend to believe Hillary Clinton when she said “Anyone that says that racial discrimination is no longer a problem in American elections must not be paying attention.” Rand Paul is a lot like his dad, because they both like to use statistics to try to pull the wool over people’s eyes. In this case he correctly says that more black people voted than whites but then he goes on to say that it proves there’s no racial discrimination. Of course, we no longer have Jim Crow laws but Section 4 (pre clearance) of the Voting Rights Act was largely responsible for that large black turnout, and we all know what the Supreme Court did to that. One only has to look at the recent North Carolina voting laws that were passed if you want to know what voter suppression looks like. Like the snake oil salesman that he is, Rand Paul said “who can be against showing proper ID before you vote?” That’s one of those questions that require more than a yes or no answer and politicians know that.

Usually a political strategist gets away with their exaggerations and half- truths, but that was not the case yesterday when a Republican strategist tried to blame the Democrats of today for the actions of the Jim Crow tactics that were used by southern Democrats of yesteryear. The pundit told the strategist that he could not let him get away with that, and then went on to tell his audience that the two parties have changed sides.

If there was evidence of rampant election fraud, then both parties should sit down and work out a solution; not just GOP legislators and governors trying to enhance their chances of winning. The issue is not just about the voter ID. It's about the cost, what will be accepted, and availability. Voters have already shown proof of who they are, when they registered to vote; it wasn’t a matter of just signing your name. I’m all for a national ID card, but I can just hear the outcry from libertarians by the sheer mention of it. How ironic, conservatives are dead set against regulations unless it has to do with voting and a woman’s right to choose.

Ben Smith, who runs the website ,BuzzFeed, said he took off for a week, turned off all his electronic media devices and then came back to find that he didn’t miss a thing because it’s the same news on a continuous loop.

Is Rand Paul a Serious 2016 Contender?

The 2016 presidential election is light-years away, yet the political pundits make daily predictions about who will win the Republican nomination.  The Democrats are set.  It’s Hillary Clinton all the way.

I don’t know why Chris Matthews made his predictions this early.  It could be that he’s trying to get Rand Paul on his show where he can berate him, or perhaps he wants to be the smart one in the crowd, where he’ll be able to say, “I told you so.” I think he’s trying to explain how some conservatives feel.  He's heard  some republicans say that if we’re going to lose to Hillary anyway, let’s go with someone who espouses our conservative values.  It’s no more “go along to get along.”

Joe Scarborough quickly said that he also does politics for a living, but he disagrees with Chris Matthews because he doesn’t think Rand Paul can win a general election.  Former RNC Chairman Michael Steele said Rand Paul has a legitimate shot at the nomination because he’s everything that the established Republicans aren’t but he agreed that Senator Paul would be a long shot to win the general election.

Senator Rand Paul is depending on the youth vote, but GOP governors have made it much harder for that group to vote.  If Hillary is the democratic nominee; he might be forced to find a woman to run as his vice president. Susana Martinez, governor of New Mexico, might be the cosmetic choice, but she doesn’t hold his libertarian views, and neither does New Hampshire senator, Kelly Ayotte.  Senator Marco Rubio or Ted Cruz would be willing to sacrifice their true beliefs for a shot to be vice president.

Republican Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey is the most popular politician overall but not by much, and yet; he still ranks eighth as far as GOP nominees go.  Some Republicans are so sensitive that they can’t get over the governor’s photo OP with President Obama during hurricane Sandy.  The governor is one example of not being conservative enough for the tri- cornered hat crowd. And that is what the 2016 election will be all about for the GOP.

It'll start at the sate level  where the Tea Party of Texas is making it too darn easy for a hostile takeover by the Dems…They are saying John Cornyn, a man who is always near the top as the most conservative member of Congress, is suddenly not conservative enough because he won’t join Senators Mike Lee and Ted Cruz in trying to shut down the government over defunding Obamacare…. Those dangling tea bags hanging from their tri-cornered hats are blinding them, but I hope they run one of the Christine O’Donnell type candidates because one of the Castro brothers will mop the floor with them.

I don’t think we’ll have a robust economy in 2015, but when Hillary makes the trip to Iowa for the first time, it’ll be on the verge of a full recovery.  That’s when she’ll hit Rand Paul, if he is the leading candidate.  She’ll tell the country that Senator Paul is on the wrong side of an increase of the minimum wage, woman’s issues and national security.  Rand Paul will hit back with Benghazi, which will be a faint memory in the voter’s memory, and his Ayn Rand’s philosophy of an unfettered free market.  The national polls will then show Hillary’s numbers trending up, and Rand Paul’s headed toward the basement.  

Another national election loss for the GOP will be devastating enough for them to make some serious changes.  They will learn that voters don’t really care about ideology (liberal or conservative) they want a strong national defense, effective government, and fairness across the board.

 A win for the GOP would signal the end of unions,  and Roe v Wade because they will appoint the next Supreme Court justices. Obamacare would be repealed along with serious cuts to the social programs. Medicare and Social Security would be on a path toward privatization. You can bet that Hillary Clinton will emphasize that on every campaign stop.

 

The GOP is Having A Civil War but Does Anyone Care?

If not for the scandals of Anthony Wiener, Eliot Spitzer, and San Diego Mayor Bob Filner; Democrats would have been left out of the Sunday talk show discussions. The media is fixated on the 2016 presidential campaign and the infighting among Republicans.

I don't know why I waste so much time watching the Sunday talk shows because it’s not as if they’re newsworthy. It’s just one big gotcha, or a platform for politicians to spout their interrupted talking points. For example, George Stephanopoulos and David Gregory wanted the treasury secretary to admit that there would be a government shutdown in October. Chris Wallace sat there silently as Senator Mike Lee said that the president was not ready to implement a major part of ObamaCare even though the employer mandate is barely 6% of the law.

The old-guard Republicans have put a target on Senator Rand Paul because he is considered a non-interventionist. It’s unusual for the GOP to be having a hawk versus dove battle. It’s one of the reasons Liz Cheney is running for office. Six years ago, House Republicans would have never considered blocking a National-Security Agency’s domestic surveillance program, but they did, and with the help of Democrats, they almost pulled it off. Senator Paul seems to think if he can win the presidential nomination; he can move to the left of hawkish Hillary Clinton and pick up the youth vote. Governor Chris Christie shot the first volley at Senator Paul and the latter weakly responded by saying that he was not going to take the incoming fire lightly. Senator Paul said that the New Jersey governor gobbled up Sandy money leaving no money for defense. Pass the popcorn; it’s going to be a fun three years.

I was wrong when I said the words of Bill O’Reilly would not be repeated because they certainly were. The commentators on CNN and MSNBC have set him up as a poster child for race baiting instead of improving race relations. People like O’Reilly believe that black people deserve all the injustice they get from society because of what he thinks happens in the inner city. O’Reilly will cite lyrics from a Lil Wayne song, fatherless children, and Chicago killings as the reason race relations will always be a one-way street. That’s just a distraction to avoid talking about voter suppression laws, racial profiling, Stop and Frisk and the high unemployment in the black community.

Yesterday, conservative columnist for the Washington Post, George Will said” “You can’t solve the problems[Detroit], because their problems are cultural.”
“You have a city, 139 square miles, you can graze cattle in vast portions of it, and dangerous herds of feral dogs roam in there. You have three percent of fourth graders reading at the national math standards, 47 percent of Detroit residents are functionally illiterate, 79 percent of Detroit children are born to unmarried mothers.”
“They don’t have a fiscal problem, Steve, they have a cultural collapse.” I think that’s pretty much their answer for helping the poor. People like George Will ignore the fact that the brain needs fuel (food) so by cutting off school lunches, food stamps, or other programs designed to help the needy, we will continue to cut the rug out from under them before they can get started. The conservative plan for Detroit is to raid the union pension funds, allow private investors to buy up the public lands and treasures while only paying 10¢ on the dollar.  I did notice that the bond money for building the new sports stadium will be funded 100%, despite Detroit’s problems. Republicans are already submitting amendments to prevent Obama from providing funds to Detroit. We should know by now that nation building should only be done in Iraq and Afghanistan because there’s no room for that nonsense in the United States.

I did learn a couple of things over the weekend. I learned that republican commentators get pretty angry when President Obama or his surrogates call the ongoing investigations, “phony scandals.” It infuriates them.

In yet another wing of the right- wing GOP are forming a group called “Groundswell” which will go after progressives and Karl Rowe. Justice Clarence Thomas’s wife Ginni and Allen West will head up this group. This group put out a memo that read “We are failing the propaganda battle with minorities. Terms like, 'GOP,' 'Tea Party,' 'Conservative' communicate 'racism.” They want to be known as Frederick Douglass Republicans. They also said that their message must be at a 4th grade level. And therein lies the problem, the old GOP never had to rebrand or resort to gimmicks and trickery; it was a plain old fashion conservative party.

Unruly Mob?

I thought it was a bad idea for Mayor Polasek to be addressing posters on our on-line forum. I thought that the posters would be disrespectful, but that wasn’t the case yesterday. I thought yesterday’s comments led to an informative civil discussion, and I hope it continues. I wish I could only say that for state and national politics.

I guess it depends on what side of the fence you are on, when it comes to defining a mob. Three years ago, those of us interested in passing health care,may have thought that the tea partiers were unruly mobs at their town-hall meetings and on the steps of the capital, the day health care was passed. The other day the people rooting for Senator Wendy Davis were called an unruly mob. This morning Joe Scarborough said that if pro-lifers were shouting from the capital gallery, they would be called a disorderly mob.

Governor Rick Perry allowed the recent loss of the GOP’s very restrictive abortion measure, to get the best of him. The governor made a very condescending remark about Texas Senator Wendy Davis.. Perry said “Who are we to say that children born in the worst of circumstances can’t lead successful lives?” Perry asked in a speech at a convention held by the National Right to Life organization. “Even the woman who filibustered the Senate the other day was born into difficult circumstances. She’s the daughter of as single woman, she was a teenage mother herself. She managed to eventually graduate from Harvard Law School and serve in the Texas Senate. It’s just unfortunate that she hasn’t learned from her own example: that every life must be given a chance to realize its full potential, and that every life matters.” The issue was much more than that and he knows it. Those remarks don’t dignify the office he holds especially since he knows that he called a special session in which he has a good chance of passing the abortion bill he wants.

This morning I heard Lieutenant Governor Dewhurst tell a Fox anchor, Bill Hemmer, in an interview, after he said "You put out a statement, I think yesterday, that said you were furious". Dewhurst responded, "Absolutely. I've always been a strong protector of women's health and the rights of the pre-born, but Bill, I'm really mad. The will of the people of Texas is not going to be thwarted by Obama-style mob tactics. We can't permit that in the state of Texas."

http://www.keyetv.com/news/features/top-stories/stories/dewhurst-brings-obama-into-abortion-debate-9497.shtml

The strongest words I heard from a Democrat after the strike down of the enforcement mechanism of the Voting Right Act came from John Lewis. He said it stuck a dagger into the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The president said he strongly disagreed with ruling, but he did not resort to language that is beneath his office.

Senator Rand Paul told Glenn Beck that the Supreme Court Ruling for same-sex marriage opened the door to bestiality, but then he remembered about his presidential aspirations and cleaned up his statement before going on CNN where he backtracked those words.

Another Tea Party Summer?

Congress is taking another crack at passing immigration reform, but it’s 2007 all over again. It doesn’t matter how it’s packaged or how much data there is that proves that it’s to our economic benefit to pass a comprehensive immigration bill because the right wing of the GOP considers anything less than 100% attrition as amnesty. The right-wing does not want to address the 11 million undocumented people residing in our country other than to say “citizenship …never” and “let’s just secure the border.” There is language in the bill that calls for 90% of the southern border crossing being secured but there are people here  illegally from countries other than Mexico.

It’s pretty funny watching Senator Rubio trying to satisfy both sides of the issue while trying to maintain his credibility. Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee thinks that he has found the answer. He upped the ransom that he will pay to get a few more Republican votes. His amendment will now include 700 miles of additional fencing, and he doubles the amount of the border patrol from 21,000 to 42,000. Remember we’re still in sequester mode but now he wants to hire more federal workers and spend millions more to extend the fence, even though the illegal border crossings are at net zero. All these sweeteners are just to pass a bill in the senate which doesn’t stand a chance in the other body unless Speaker Boehner relies on 100%  yes votes from the Democrats once again.

The Democrats are signing on to just about everything that appeases Republicans because they think they will outsmart their opponents in the long run. Even Michelle Bachmann understands the Democrats’ strategy. If the Senate passes a bipartisan comprehensive bill that has 70 votes in the affirmative, it will put the speaker on even more shaky grounds than he is in now. If by some miracle, the GOP controlled house passes their version of an immigration bill, it then has to go before a committee, so both versions can be merged. Will speaker Boehner stick with the Tea Party and destroy any chance of the GOP ever winning a national election or will he go to Nancy Pelosi ( hat in hand) and ask her for all the Democrats votes when he can only produce 20 or so? John Boehner can kiss his speakership good-bye if he does the latter.

The Republican base’s pep rally issues are front and center awaiting the 2014 mid-term elections. Yesterday, the Tea Party, Glenn Beck, Louie Gohmert, Steve King, Ted Cruz, Rand Paul and Michelle Bachmann held an all day rally on the White House lawn. I will never understand why people who have so much distain for government, run for office. Their complaints ranged from Benghazi, abortion, the IRS, Obamacare, illegal immigration reform, President Obama and government in general. Ted Cruz called for abolishing the IRS; Rand called for the same, but he also said that he would never send foreign aid to countries that persecuted Christians. Rand Paul is testing the presidential waters for his eventual 2016 run. The crowd images I saw I saw had about as many anti-Rubio signs and there were anti-Obama signs. The call was for small government for the safety net and more government for abortion, NSA and border enforcement. The Libertarian Republicans still have to convince their non- libertarian members that they have to be scared of big brother snooping. It shouldn’t be that hard, they’ll try to use the IRS and Obamacare as examples of big brother can’t be trusted to do anything right.

We are seeing record abortions bills passed in GOP controlled states and in the House of Representatives, but it’s not because there is an increasing amount of abortions, it is for political reasons. The states that are passing the unconstitutional bills don’t care about the costs; both politically and monetary because they want this issue front and center. The Pro-lifers want a Supreme Court challenge where they think having five conservative judges gives them an excellent chance of overturning Roe v Wade. In the meantime, GOP lawmakers are the beneficiaries of the Pro-lifers money and votes.

I’m finally at the point where it’s pretty obvious where the lines are drawn on the gun, Obamacare and immigration issue. The pro- gun people watch the evening news, read their paper and listen to their radio and come to the right conclusion that our country is getting more violent. They don’t trust law enforcement to be at the precise time and place to protect them. They want as much firepower and ammunition as they think is necessary to protect themselves in any situation.

A lot of people don’t have the slightest idea of what it takes to insure 31million more people, because they never spent the time and effort it takes to learn how the Affordable Care Act will affect them. Those who have company paid insurance or those on Medicare and VA will not see much difference. A lot of people fear that the government will take away benefits that their company gives them and redistribute them to the uninsured. There will never be convinced that we pay for the overuse of the emergency rooms with increase premiums rates. I could go on and on but that’s for another blog.

The immigration bill opposition is pretty easy to understand . We live in south Texas, so a lot of people here think that it’s a Mexican issue. If that’s a case, then it’s about food stamps, welfare, more crime and the overburdened of our hospitals and schools. Those people will tune you out if you present facts that contradict what they already presume to know. Citizenship, hell no; that just legally puts them on the public dole. Some people still believe Americans will pick those crops, and they can say they will pay higher prices to make it happen because they know they never will. The more browning of America is the underlying issue. If you need more proof, you won’t have to look no further than our redistricting maps. I have yet to hear a reasonable answer as what to do with the 11 million people who either came to this country illegally or overstayed their visas.

I believe that you have to be blunt because sugarcoating an issue just prolongs the solution. There’s a lot to “tell me what you really think.” Think about it; that’s why we have all the back and forth about a legal document being translated into Spanish.

Am I the only who is curious about the tease of two homes being raided yesterday? I didn’t see a follow up on the evening news or in my morning newspaper.

Over the Top

The NRA's latest ad represents an organization that has lost its way and explains the reason that only 36% of Americans have a favorable view of them. They will tell you that their membership has increased by 250,000 and gun sales are out the roof since the Newtown shooting, and that's probably true but the Washington Post/ABC poll tells a different story.


In anticipation of President Obama's' new gun control proposals where some may be achieved through executive orders, Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) said, "   I think having a monarch is what we fought the American Revolution over and someone who wants to bypass the Constitution, bypass Congress — that’s someone who wants to act like a king or a monarch.” I wonder what Senator Paul thought of Ronald Reagan's 381 executive orders or the executive order President George H. W. Bush used to ban the importation of assault weapons. I wonder if the senator knows that the order the latter used halted the importation of some semi-automatic firearms after a mass school shooting Stockton, California." He based his executive order on the 1968 Gun Control Act and used it to ban the shipment of what could be considered “assault weapons” unless they were used for sporting purposes."

Yesterday, the state of New york passed the strictest gun laws in America even though the Senate in that state is controlled by the GOP and Maryland and Connecticut are strengthening their gun laws. After the  bill was signed the governor said, "Common sense can win."  "You can overpower the extremists with intelligence and with reason and with common sense." The common sense part didn't convince one Republican who voted against the bill. He said that he would have to break the law rather than leave his wife at home with their small children because she needed the high-capacity  ammo clip to protect their home in his absence... He cited a woman who shot an intruder four times to defend herself and her children in Georgia. He forgot to say that she had a six shot revolver. Second point, what kind of kind of neighbor does the legislator live in? If he's that concerned, he should resign and get a job closer to home. I know he was using his family as a prop to state his political point.

 Gun control, mental illness illness and violence in our video games and movies will always be a sensitive subject because we are dealing with the second amendment, first amendment, and privacy issues. We don't have as much push back when we try to regulate the movie or video game industry as we do, when we even mention gun restrictions because even though they may be only 30% of our overall population, they are a well- funded loud 30%. This time it may be different because Mayor Bloomberg is putting his money behind common sense gun laws and the images of the 20 young children's bodies riddled with bullet holes is still fresh in our minds.. 

Right now, it doesn't seem like much will get through the GOP controlled house but the one that has the greatest chance of passing is the universal background checks.  

We need this debate, but we need to leave the president's family out of this. What would you do if you were the president and four mass murders happened while you were the chief executive?. You are going to be hit from both sides no matter what you decide to do.