JUXTAPOSITION

JUXTAPOSITION

Cloister: Under this 44^th and current president of ours, not only him, but the entire country has had to endure a very embittered and embattled portion of the Republican congress. Other presidents have had to encounter some stubborn congresses, but none the likes Obama has had to. Not even close.

No other president has had to witness such stalled legislation and attempt to conduct the nation’s business at hand through an onslaught of obstruction these intransigent Republicans have assailed during Obama’s tenure in office. What other president has had to bear the brunt of debt ceiling hostage taking, fiscal cliffs, record breaking filibustering (393 to be exact as of this date) and now sequestration just to get legislation passed? The answer is none and the kick in the pants of it all…this has all been conducted right after the effects of the most devastating recession the country has had to suffer through.

Instead of coming together to package programs and duel the economic crisis, the Republican portion of congress has done everything in their power to subvert this president and his efforts to get the country healed. This…to only hold onto power no matter if it’s at the jeopardy of the nation’s overall health. Precisely due to these Republican antics, legislation has merely been a kick the can down the road scenario, only to continue the charade at a sooner rather than later time.  

Normally in a true Democracy, if one is holding political office, therefore power, one will be held accountable. For the Republican Party, this is holding true, but in the reverse direction during GOP primaries. Led by Karl Rove, the more traditional side of the GOP is now attempting to spend money against any candidate they deem unelectable for the general elections. This in turn has spurred the Tea Party Republicans into action by countering any moves the traditionalist half initiates.

Let ‘em duke it out I say and may they both knock each other out with a sucker punch in the first round.

Unfortunate Commonality:

Due to congressional behavior as of late, words most Americans never really considered, myself included, are now very familiar with such as, ‘debt ceiling hostage taking’, ‘fiscal cliff’ and ‘sequester.’ Knowing these words or terms is unfortunate, for their commonality is only due to a systematic and dysfunctional working congress. This is no way to conduct the nation’s business during healthy times of progress, much less during times of economic and financial duress.

Even though the word ‘sequestration’ is now commonly heard, I do wonder if its definition as applied to this congress is just as common, or a bit hazy. Let’s break it down into how it is currently being addressed, but first we’ll start with some backdrop.

Republicans are so entrenched in this tax revenue thing, in particular for the rich and corporate that they are willing to deceive and cajole the country that it is our only path to posterity. To have dug their self so deep in being against tax revenue on the wealthiest, they neglect to see the miserable failure we had in the Bush tax cuts experiment that aided and abetted our recession and national debt. It does not matter that taxes recently have been their lowest in over half a century the GOP still proclaim in protecting the rich from taxation, a trickledown effect will benefit the economy.

The trickledown during the Bush era never materialized; in fact it was more of a piss-on effect; the exact opposite. The wealthiest indeed benefited from making their fortunes in the good ol’ USA, but invested that money offshore…the extreme capitalist way of doing business. Corporations making mother record of record profits did not hire. In fact the hiring ratio toward the end of Bush’s term, but before the recession hit was a minus five rating meaning they laid off 5% more than they had hired…the consequential capitalist way of doing business.

Still though, with blind fervor Republicans insist Obama got his tax cuts of $85 billion/yr. this past January fiscal bluff and will not, no how, but never receive a penny more. Unfortunately due to existing loopholes, even the $85 billion won’t be realized as federal revenue because current tax law allows the wealthy to shelter portions.

Wealth and corporate are the Republican’s staunch base, so I suppose they should represent them, but how can they go against the nation as a whole to blindly side with 5% of the populace? The GOP has become exclusive of national concerns that conflict with the party line.

In evicting diplomacy and bipartisanship, at a time this country really needs it, it appears that Republicans simply adore the rich and ignore the rest. Now, they have guided this country into another self-inflicted wound that may cut deep. This latest attempt is known as the sequester.

Ticked off to start at 11:59 PM on March 01, the sequester is a set of automatic spending cuts enacted by the ‘Budget Control Act of 2011’ when the Republican congress was holding the debt ceiling hostage. Because the White House would not cave into the demands of Republican deep discretionary public and social program spending cuts, the Act was an agreement to set up across the board spending cuts that came due this month.

There was a last ditch effort in the fall of 2011 to avoid the thought of a sequester when the ‘Congress Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction,’ otherwise known as the ‘super committee’ were to reach a bipartisan agreement of areas to cut $1.2 trillion out of the budget. Made up of representatives from both parties, they were unable to even come near budget cut agreement. 

Once the Act was signed by Obama in August 2011, it was formulated to apply pressure on legislation to immediately raise the debt ceiling before the government begins defaulting with a longer term guarantee to reduce the budget. Sequestration was never intended to be actually applied into law for its cuts were indiscriminate and dug deep into all areas of government. The thinking was that no lawmaker in his right mind would allow sequestration to go into effect. Unfortunately, no one devising the plan took into consideration or fully understood how far the mindset of the Republican portion of congress would go. Most Republicans, even though it would hit defense spending as well (an entity Republicans have had a long history in blindly supporting even wasteful military and Pentagon spending) allowed sequestration to proceed.

The Republican senate at the end of February did devise a last ditch plan with no tax or corporate subsidy cuts and gave Obama the benefit of where and who to cut, conveniently making him out to be the one carrying the ax. With a 38 to 62 senate floor count against the plan, it failed.

The sequester will not affect cuts in certain areas of the military such as war monies and military personnel nor will funding be cut in Medicaid, Medicare or Social Security. However, there will be across the board cuts in government spending in military operations such as training of recruits, naval ship dispersals and national security. Domestic programs that will be defunded are in the areas of defense manufacturing, healthcare, law enforcement, unemployment benefits, education, scientific research, disaster relief, government employee furloughs and non-profit organizations.

With a reported 750,000 jobs being slashed, whether directly or indirectly this will impact each and every American citizen. The federal government will have to reduce private sector contracts. All this means less money in the pockets of working Americans, therefore less spending in neighborhood businesses such as restaurants and travel affecting the hotel and vacation industries. It can impact the housing and construction industry that as of late has seen an uptick in activity.

Each state’s educational system will witness tens of millions of cuts in funding, maintenance in ensuring clean drinking water will be impacted, child care aid will be depleted and hundreds of thousands of dollars in law enforcement will be cut for each state. There undoubtedly will be longer waiting time in airport security lines and ‘Women Infants & Children’ (WIC) programs will have to deny low income mothers and their infants’ nutritional assistance.

Republicans and fiscal hawks wisp that it is only $85 billion and should not be that great an impact if spread out. For instance, Senator James Coburn (R-OK) states in his ‘Back in Black’ proposal that $85 billion in cuts to non-defense programs (in other words only to vital public programs that hit the elderly, students and the poor) are easy feasible cuts, but pawns it off for the president “to choose wisely” taking the blame away from congress on what is cut.  What they neglect to further convey though, is that the $85 billion is only for this year alone. A total of $1.2 trillion are to be cut within the next nine years under the sequester.

To add to this, Republicans see an opening to begin another attack on the so-called entitlement programs. Representative Paul Ryan is in the resuscitation stage to reintroduce vouchers for Medicare, while many Republican congressmen are re-installing the notion to raise the age of Social Security eligibility.

Whether conservative or not, all economists concur this is not the right time to implement sequestration during a slowly recovering but frail economy. As far as sequestration goes, there already is middleclass pangs that have been around since the Great Recession due to the incessant no-no-no Republican portion of congress. Sequestration’s austerity will only add to this misery.

Spineless Big Talk:

With Europe in its economic predicament, Republicans always like to compare our situation to the likes of European countries’ woes, stressing if we don’t balance the budget now by slashing government sponsored public programs, we will become like Europe. Apparently what the GOP doesn’t understand, or in promoting their own agenda simply prefers ignoring, is that the Euro countries are in a financial mess due to strict austerity measures enacted during the global financial crisis and economic recession. This asperity mensuration put a stranglehold on public currency flow in consumption and markets and literally pushed unemployment levels to depressionary levels. In the U.S., the sequester is a Republican wish come true, for it is an austerity measure guised in multiple form.

Even so, Republicans are sweating it like a criminal in a confession box, but purely for political sake and not for what should be considered…the country’s overall well-being. GOP politicians are out in force on two sides that heavily conflict. On one side you have the tea bagger folks. With this right-wing group, Republican politicians are taking credit for the sequester in hopes of receiving brownie points. But with their district or state constituents and public at large, they are actively blaming Obama solely for the sequester to even be in effect.

To properly compare the U.S. to the Eurozone’s response to the financial crisis, forget the Republican whining of eternal budget cuts, below are the actual results.

Republican Myth: Endlessly cut taxes, in particularly for the rich and revenues will immediately increase due to a faster rate growing economy accompanied by the trickledown effect.

Reality: Forget it, this experiment has already been disproven under the Bush era, where wealthy and corporate tax cuts never stimulated the economy and as far as the trickledown, as mentioned earlier it was more like a tinkled-on effect where in 2008, overall corporate hiring had a (-5) rating meaning they fired 5% more than they hired while reporting some of the highest profits ever recorded. Where real national GDP grew 3.2% annually during the nineties under higher tax rates, it actually dropped 1.7% during the 2000s under the Bush tax cuts.

Republican Myth: To stimulate economic growth during the recession, or at any time according to the conservative mantra, government must cut spending. Destruction to our nation’s progress from the stranglehold of the economic recession is strictly due to out of control government spending.

Reality: Here’s the real comparison. In addressing the economic crisis, where Europe initially went the austerity route in cutting government budgets, Obama’s newly formed administration set up just adequate spending programs and did no budget cutting to public programs. For Europe’s choice, Greece, Portugal and Ireland’s recessive economies have only worsened while the recovering economies of Britain, France, Italy, Spain and most recently Germany are witnessing a halt and are now on the verge of a double and in some cases a triple dip recession. The U.S. has been anemic in its recovery, but on the other hand has actually evidenced a halt and reversal in its deficit and unemployment.

The GOPs continual castigation of all things European but suddenly now wanting to emulate Europe’s failed economic austerity measures simply makes no sense. The poop is in the pot, Europe is experiencing a reversion due to austerity. So why would the GOP want to conduct an experiment with the same cookie cutter that has resulted in failure?

After sequestration went into effect, Speaker of the House John Boehner only offered us this, “I don’t know whether it’s going to hurt the economy or not. I don’t think anyone quite understands how the sequester is really going to work.” So why implement it during the nation’s fragile recovery? Why not put forth at least a half-hearted effort to thwart it while doing something positive to improve the nation’s frail economic recovery?

The answer is quite simple…Obama and most Americans as backed by polling results want a more balanced approach with budget cuts countered with sensible government revenues by closing wealthy and corporate tax code loopholes. Republicans apparently cannot and adamantly will not agree in having the wealthiest give a fair share in the pain of seeing this country’s economic recovery through to a healthy standing.

Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell raged on the senate floor recently, “We have a $16 trillion national debt. That alone makes us look like a western European country.” As discussed earlier, austerity, which McConnell is promoting for the U.S. aided greatly in sending Greece and Spain back into recession. Under austerity measures the Eurozone reached record levels of unemployment this past February. The method in doing battle with the Great Recession here in the states originally was a stimulus that required spending until it was trimmed.

McConnell claims “spending has exploded in the last four years,” but it is quite the contrary. There has been spending, but that has leveled off and compared to other times of recession in our economic history, where continued spending averted financial collapse by bringing the country back to financial recovery, spending during this Great Recession plateaued where in fact it should have been spending more due to the recession’s magnitude. Since government spending has been checked, the economy’s recovery has not kept pace.

As far as Obama’s enacted budgetary cuts and proposed cuts along with sequestration in effect, McConnell calls them all “modest” cuts. The ‘Congressional Budget Office’ (CBO) begs to differ with him in finding under analysis just the sequester cuts will shave 0.6 % off the GDP for this year and increase unemployment by 750,000. Private sector forecasters such as Paul Ashworth of ‘Capital Economics’ agrees in saying the CBO figures are well within the ballpark.

Why even flirt with sending the country back into recession…

Depredatory Mercantilism:

Most Republicans will warp their reputations in aimlessly protecting the wealthy and corporate interests. I guess it’s just as well, for they’re already mind warped. But seriously, in obstinately protecting the interests of the wealthiest, they are doing this at all costs to the nation and adding more pangs to the vast majority of Americans. It appears the right-wing side of America simply feels that those who hold the most wealth are far more important than the rest.

To remind you, the wealthiest and the financial corporate created this global financial crisis that sent the average man and woman and families into an economic spin. Meanwhile, they came through unscathed from the average American’s tax dollar bailout and have gained in wealth a staggering 256%, while the median income of the average American has dropped (-9 %).

Corporate and the richest love to use the U.S. as their base for making money but prefer saving and investing it elsewhere. At pitched fervor they’ve been frantically hiding tax dollars in offshore safe havens during this ongoing recession. One of Romney’s Bain Capital business services was to teach companies how to create off shore accounts. Twenty-six of the major American corporations paid not one penny in taxes from their billions in profits between 2009 and 2011.

‘Apple’ CFO, Peter Offenheimer interviewed by the ‘New York Times’ last year stressed that he plans to continue keeping cash overseas due to current U.S. tax policy allowing the company to do so.

According to ‘Citizens for Tax Justice,’ ‘General Electric’ (GE) paid an average income tax rate of 2.3% between 2002 and 2011 while keeping tens of billions of dollars overseas and paying $24 billion tax dollars to foreign countries during that same time frame. CEO Jeff Immelt feels the U. S. tax “system is old, complex and uncompetitive,” hurting job growth.

CFO Safra Catz of ‘Oracle,’ a computer technology corporation headquartered in Redwood City, California while investing and funding in Ireland states, “We’re not in Ireland for the weather.”

As viewpoints, the above is just a few examples of predatory capitalism. So why not change the tax codes and plug the loopholes. American corporations make hundreds of billions here in the U.S. The prevailing American CEO makes in ten minutes what his/her average American worker earns in one full year. They can give back some. The ones most affected by this economic crisis certainly are and in doing so are having to choose between groceries, medicines and utilities of what will get paid on a monthly basis. That is certainly a far cry in sacrifice than simply enduring Irish weather.

Back to the Shootin’ Range:

Guns, guns, guns and more guns! That’s the NRA officials’ perception of the American way in self-protection. If that were true, as the highest gun ownership per capita nation, the U.S. should be the safest place on earth, but it is not…it actually leads the world in firearm homicides.

Ok, for a paragraph or two, let’s portray the man gun advocates knell to their knees and bow for…the National Rifle Association’s chief executive, Wayne LaPierre.

LaPierre appears to liken himself to an aire of violence as always appearing stone faced, cold staring with nary a smile, not even a slight upturn in a cheek. This dude I firmly believe has never experienced compassion. There is much vain, oh yes arrogance exudes from every skin pore and to Hades for anyone in disagreement of his dictates. With that introduction in mind, let’s continue on with a story of him.

On a cold blustery January 30^th of this year, LaPierre came storming through the congressional halls to testify. Barely seen, he was surrounded by bodyguards that were pushing and shoving any journalist or photographer that wanted a word from or photo of him. After bull dozing through the crowd and even body checking a cameraman up against the wall that dared to come near, the moving goon squad was warned by congressional officers that this type of behavior is illegal on congressional grounds, or perhaps merely reminded them, for LaPierre knows this.

Once Lapierre swaggered into the hearing room (for he has a certain reputation and aire about him to uphold), he begins to appear as if he is in control of congress and proclaims a little self-made biography with minced and snarled projectile phrases like, I’m the “acclaimed speaker and force of nature,” and describing himself as the “Renaissance man” and “skilled hunter.”

But in this last hearing, his ineptitude in honestly testifying got him burned…oh yes it did. In his boldness of confidence he declared that he opposes any form of background checks, although Senator Pat Leahy (D-VT) reminded him he once had said that he supported checks with “no loopholes anywhere for anyone.”

As always a NRA tactic, the reason he gave for the change of heart is that existing gun laws aren’t enforced stating, “Out of more than 76,000 firearm purchases supposedly denied by the federal instant check system, only 62 were referred for prosecution.” Finally, he and the NRA are called out on this bogus statistic.

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) had done his homework on the actual statistics and countered, “In 2012 more than 11,700 defendants were charged with federal gun crimes; a lot more than 62.”

Caught red-handed and off guard on his usual off-quoting of statistics, LaPierre confesses that he inconveniently misquoted by saying, “those — the 62, senator, statistic, was for Chicago alone.”  

Ought-oh, ‘burn baby burn…NRA el-infierno’…

All Lapierre could do in damage control is step back in appealing to his ground troops’ hysteria…the NRA members, the very ones who support the NRAs main existence, which is not to fight for its members rights, but to lobby for the weapons and ammo industry. He dishes out an oddball statement by using the extreme weather insisting that the average public citizen is at a loss without his guns when they are “abandoned by their government if a tornado hits, if a hurricane hits.”

He finalizes as he always begins…with empathy for his memberships in the trenches, “The hardworking, law-abiding, taxpaying American that we’re going to make the least capable of defending themselves.” He then finishes his tirade by sermonizing, “If you’re in the elite, you get bodyguards. You get high-cap mags with semiautomatics protecting this whole Capitol. The titans of industry get the bodyguards.” From there, he promptly gets up, joins his own crew of elitist bodyguards waiting in a backroom and promptly leaves the building as he had entered encased by a bouncer entourage.

Recently I was involved in a lively discussion on banning assault weapons with a gun advocate. My defense was assault weapons that are intended to be used on a battleground have no business in our neighborhoods where we are raising our children. On the other hand he insisted with the tiring argument that we are given rights by the 2^nd Amendment to protect our children in our neighborhoods.

After relaying to him concerning recent studies, as explained in my last post, ‘Glowing Anthem,’ I showed him the statistics that children are far more likely to be injured, maimed or killed in gun toting households than those that have no guns, no matter how those weapons are stored. I also added, assault weapons are the weapons of choice in mass killings simply because they can inflict the most mortality in a very short time frame. It is true that the latest FBI stats show deaths by knives (1,694) and hand/foot (728) totaled together were higher than rifles/other guns/firearm types not stated totaling 1,987. But this is ignoring handguns at 6,220 and shot guns at 356. In all total though, 75.63% of homicides were by firearms. 

If this is compared to previous statistics, it shows a gaining popularity of assault weapons as first choice in committing homicide and is the preferred weapon in mass shootings and police force mortalities. This gaining popularity in choosing assault or semi assault weapons in homicides is also corresponding to assault rifles as the current purchasing choice of weaponry. Assault weapon sales are on the rise.

The one I’m arguing with comes back and says, well then, if we need to ban assault weapons because of people dying from them, then why not ban or put regulations on cars, for he insisted cars by far kill more people in the U.S. than assault weapons do. Wow, he’s right, but unbeknownst to me initially, in quickly assessing the argument he fell right into a trap that he had set.

I swiftly countered cars already have imposed regulations and laws attached to ownership of a vehicle. You have to be registered to own a car, you have to be licensed and insured to use it, you must obey specific laws in driving one and you must wear safety belts or you will pay a hefty fine. To be a gun owner, you are not governed by none of the above.

But to pop this blackhead once and for all…what is a car specifically manufactured and purchased for…transportation. What is an assault weapon specifically manufactured and purchased for…killing. End of debate.

Below is a cartoon by Ben Sargent depicting what will happen to any gun bill held hostage by the Republican portion of congress if at first they can’t defeat it…

Image or Substance:

Besides being anti-science, anti-social, and anti-immigrant, Republicans are mostly all things anti-Obama. That is a lot of negative malarkey to run a party’s platform on, I tell ya what. The GOP had their chosen one in the presidential elections run on anti-Obamaism, but lest we not forget…also lost big time.

Besides saying no to Obama, what does the GOP stand for? It’s not a balanced budget for it is Republican administrations that add to the deficit only to loudly complain about it once a Democrat administration takes office. Since 1978, Democrat administrations have raised the national debt 4.2%, a tad high, but Republican administrations have increased it a walloping 36.4%.

Republicans always complain about big government, but since 1945, five out of the six Republican presidents carried out an increase in government growth as a percentage of GDP, while zero out of the seven Democrat presidents, which includes Obama, witnessed any net increase in the size of government during that same sixty-eight year period.

Republicans always say trust me, our methods of protecting the wealthy stimulates the economy and trickles down job growth. Well of course you had better not waste any of that trust on them. Between 1933 and the present, Democrat presidents as a whole have created jobs by 3.24%, whereas Republicans increased jobs overall at a dismal 0.21% and not one Republican was handed a financial calamity like the Great Depression or the Great Recession to work under.

With that in mind, Obama who opened up his tenure off the laps of the burgeoning financial crisis and economic recession, still, as reported by the Wall Street Journal, created 863,000 private sector jobs in his first eighteen months in office. That’s more than W. Bush created his entire eight years in office while inheriting a very robust economy with a quarter trillion dollar surplus.

Nonsensical items Republicans keep spitting down their followers throats are only believed by those that swallow. One is that the deficit has ballooned because of out of control government spending. In reality this is not the true and whole truth case. Because of the onset of the recession the deficit more than doubled between 2008 and 2009. In spite of this, under Obama between 2010 and 2011, the deficit reversed its upward trending and actually shrank a little due to the reversing of unemployment with new employees paying income taxes.

Another is Republicans blaming the $787 billion stimulus package adding to national debt, when in comparison the $4 trillion that has been spent on the Middle East wars far more affects the debt according to a recent Brown University study. The wealthy Bush tax cuts have added another $1.2 trillion in lost revenue adding to the debt.

Republicans consistently proclaim Obama has raised the federal deficit by leaps and bounds, but according to the ‘Office of Management & Budget,’ 2012s federal budget deficit was 12% lower than in 2009 and is on course to further shrink over the next several years.

Every Republican politician I know screams and every Republican follower I know echoes that scream that the Affordable Care Act will add to the national debt and is “budget busting.” The fact is, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office states the new healthcare bill will actually begin lowering the deficit within a couple of years after full implementation. Since the introduction of the new healthcare law, America has experienced the best leveling of healthcare costs since forty years ago.

I don’t know about Republicans, first they complain about the federal government spending too much on the poor, but then complain the private sector shouldn’t have to be forced to pay for a minimum wage increase. Do you know who they say should in the event of a minimum wage increase? Believe it or not, of all entities, they say the federal government should subsidize it.

On PBSs 02/13/2013 ‘News Hour’ airing, conservative guru economist Kevin Hassett argued that this was too much of a burden on business and that the government should make-up the difference. Hassett, who is listened to by all conservative, coauthored the book ‘Dow 36,000’ in 1999 predicting the stock market would gloriously rise to 36,000 points within ten years. He based this assumption on the newly enacted deregulation laws, which in reality had the opposite effect in exacerbating ripened conditions to chain react imploding the financial crisis and resultant huge drop in the stock market. The highest the stock market ever got in those ten years was 14,163.53 in 2007. Not even close, but still he is highly regarded by Republicans and lo and behold was Bush’s economic advisor and Romney’s in the 2012 campaign.

As Paul Krugman alludes, austerity is “inhumane” to the general public and is only due to Republicans insisting on not giving stasis to budget cuts versus tax revenue, to checks and balances.

This weak economy of Obama’s is a far better cry than the disastrous financial collapse under the Bush era in spite of the right insisting otherwise.

Republicans will not conform. On top of losing miserably in last year’s election, they are still coming out with outrageous claims. Who says Republicans are now out of women’s health? Recently, Representative Joel Johnson of Michigan expressed that lady-brains cannot make-up their minds mentally when it comes to medical decisions when he stated, “We have consumer protection laws for people who are getting loans, or buying life insurance. It requires that things get explained to them and in my opinion this is another situation where people aren’t making a decision they won’t be happy with down the road.” What he is referring to is required ultrasounds before an abortion even though ultrasounds are unnecessary. So, is fraud protection really likened to protection of women from themselves?

If that’s not enough, U.S. House Republicans have decided to play more politics with women’s health by reintroducing a bill to repeal a contraceptive mandate in the new Affordable Care Act. Just this past Tuesday, Republicans backed a bill that would erase a law provision in the new healthcare bill that stipulates insurers provide contraceptive coverage. They are even pressing to use the bill as a tool in hostage taking. Insisting if keeping the federal government open in near future budget negotiations is so important, it won’t happen if the bill is not passed. Amazing, during times of high unemployment, a fragile economy and budgetary crisis, the GOP must focus on ‘The Pill.’   

Not to bore ya with more idiocy, but quickly, Republican lawmaker Representative Mark Warden of New Hampshire stressed last month that women may “like being in abusive relationships,” though he later apologized. 

Representative Stella Tremblay, another New Hampshire state legislator who has ties to the birther movement, attempted in a bizarre way to connect dots to African Americans to Woodrow Wilson to Adolf Hitler. On Black History Month, after discoursing on Frederick Douglass she hailed, “Woodrow Wilson, because he was a sympathizer and he believed in the Aryan race, he believed that Hitler was correct in the races, where our Founding Fathers believed that all men were created equal. He went through all the educational material and wiped out all the…all anything that he could about the true history, about how the slaves were a really good integral part.”

Though loaded with questionable facts the glaring problem is, Woodrow Wilson died in 1924, at a time ol’ Adolf was unheard of.

Finally, viewed as a national disgrace, the Alaskan dominated Republican state judiciary committee led by Republican speaker Mike Chenault easily passed bill HB69 which stipulates that the state of Alaska can arrest and incarcerate federal officers and agents who attempt to enforce any new gun regulations. It also deems any new federal gun laws as invalid. They might want to rethink this over if they truly believe in the constitution, for it clearly states in Article 6 - Section 2 that it is forbidden and unlawful to interfere with federal officials in performing their duties to uphold the law of the land.

Ya know, disagreement is fair game, but the callous ignorance runs deeper than that in the general Republican mindset, for bigotry can rise in many forms. To be dishonest in attempts to demean Obama is standard action for Republicans, but in watching their angry tirades in general, something far more troubling is going on within their psyche. Just watch Bill O’Reilly or Sean Hannity when someone stands up to their misinformation deliverance. Recently, O’Reilly became almost incoherent in trying to hold back his anger towards Alan Colmes in a budget discussion concerning Obama. Colmes was indeed right with facts on his side, but that didn’t matter to O’Reilly who was fuming shouting out “you liar” when indeed his deceit was making him out to be the liar.

When Representative Keith Ellison (D-MN) called out Sean Hannity’s misleading deceit concerning what Obama actually stated about the sequester budget, Hannity has since been attacking Ellison with false accusations at every turn.

The deal that the Republican congress will not negotiate with Obama on a fair and balanced budget and debt reduction in good faith is not that they feel his objectives will harm the country, no; it is because of the anti-Obamaism…they cannot even remotely appear to be in agreement with this president.

Senator Marco Rubio’s follow up to Obama’s ‘State of the Union’ speech was low on substance but high on anti-Obamaism.

As far as the sequester goes on a personal level, if I were Obama, I’d say fine sequestration is yours, go deal with it and its consequences, I’m going to devote full time elsewhere like on gun control or immigration. He can’t though, for his obligation is to do the business of the people wholly and that certainly includes the effects of sequestration. Who else in politics today can best fight for job creation without snatching aid from the poor or thwarting environmental regulatory efforts?

Speaking of immigration, Republicans whined that they had never heard from the president as the senate was working on immigration reform. Lo and behold, but when his administration does announce some framework on immigration, Republicans whine in reverse telling Obama to butt out and let the bipartisan senate group lead on immigration reform. By now, Obama does realize in order to get a bill passed, he does need to lead from the outside if ever to appease the right.

For Republicans, being bipartisan doesn’t serve their partisan platform, but it is squeezing them from within. Leading simply by pointing a blaming finger is not sound policy. If they continue to play their power games instead of focusing on the country’s ills, their short change will be from their own pocket and they’ll need to bend that blame finger inward towards themselves.

Instead of becoming more narrowly defined, the Republican Party is going to have to broaden its scope and veer away from anti this and anti that if they intend to survive. Obama offered a fair definition of compromise with $1 trillion on the table in cuts stacked upon the already $1 trillion in cuts. In addition, Obama has gone against his base in offering a $400 billion savings in entitlements.

But no, Republicans won’t compromise nor budge from their wealth/corporate base in sharing some of the righting of the ills this country is under induced wholly by their base. The sequester was an avoidable budget crisis as it was intended to be so.    

Austerity will have its negative impact on the average American who is currently struggling to stay afloat. A predatory capitalist Republican base that does not meet the needs of most while exceeding the needs of the very few, destroys a democracy. For a democracy’s survival, the strong must be just, ensuring the weak are secure.

To risk the goodwill of the nation with a noxious plague of hostage taking, fiscal cliff aversions and sequestration under the umbrella of a self-induced financial crisis and huge recession simply for a certain ideologue is preposterous. The nation is beyond reproach when it comes to right-wing crusading and not because the ideologue is so good as to preclude any possibility of discredit or criticism, but rather it has entered a surpassed stage of absolute shame.

As Benevolently Reported,

BJA

03/07/2013