GOP Wants to Throw Up

The out-of-power party is using bile instead of brains. By substituting bumper sticker rhetoric for platform policy, Bush’s architect Rove succeeded in transforming the GOP’s constituency to a radio audience of non-reading, non-college educated, white, males, who privately refer to the President in epithets. Political celebrity Sarah Palin voiced easy-to-repeat sound bites that echoed across AM talk radio and Twitter. The transformation succeeded in driving conservative moderates, intellectuals, African-Americans, and Hispanics out of the Party to become amorphic Independents. The Republican Party now seems to be working on alienating women voters over health care issues. The GOP’s successful failure as majority party of the House of Representatives is reflected in record low, single digit congressional approval ratings. Epic sized Super PAC cash-backed poser conservatives are in a campaign that is all about advertising on television and radio. The national good goes unmentioned.

In a surprising New York Times column, David Brooks blames “the professional politicians” who in private “bemoan where the party is headed” and “in public they do nothing.”  Although Republicans had a chance to retake the White House, Brooks writes that those pro polls allowed the party to trash its “reputation by swinging from one embarrassing and unelectable option to the next: Bachmann, Trump, Cain, Perry, Gingrich, Santorum.”

This is not to say that eastern major market pundits like Brooks or fellow conservative travelers like Charles Krauthammer and Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post know something that the rest of country does not. But when they seem united in their conservative consternation about the likes of Rick Santorum, it begs a question. I am not sure what telling the world that “I almost threw up” after reading the text of a speech by President John F. Kennedy says about Santorum or to whom that comment is supposed to appeal.

The 1960 JFK speech in question had to do with Kennedy’s Catholicism as much as the separation of church and state.  Republicans raised his religion as an issue about the Senator’s candidacy much as Romney’s Mormon religion has been questioned. At best, Rick Santorum botched his commentary about the absoluteness of church and state separation by his reference to sickness. At worst, he did not grasp Kennedy’s nuances, or he just does not think before he speaks, which is not a smart presidential qualification.

Santorum later said he wished he "had that particular line back." He should talk to Howard Dean about that kind of wish.

As to Romney, who split his home state of Michigan with Santorum, the former governor suffers much the same think-before-you-speak dilemma as the former Senator. Romney recently told an Ohio reporter, regarding a bill to overturn the Obama administration's much-debated birth control requirement, “. . . the idea of presidential candidates getting into questions about contraception within a relationship between a man and a women, husband and wife, I’m not going there.” Then he added, “contraception is working just fine, let’s just leave it alone.”

This is why it should be no surprise that Republicans like New Jersey’s Governor Chris Christy and Florida’s former Governor Jeb Bush have eschewed entering the race, a word that seems contextually out of place. They are smart not to enter. The reason is that it would blight their résumés to run and loose to the incumbent President Barack Obama. They have chosen to let the dummies do that. Christie and Bush will save their political cachet for the 2016 election to run against Obama’s Democratic successor. It will also give the GOP time to throw up and recover.

Wishful Thinking

The Newt Gingrich candidacy for President is a cynical practical joke. He is not a serious presidential candidate. He is a recognizable figure promoting himself for personal gain, to sell his books and indulge in some fantasy about a future Republican presidential administration, just not anytime soon. His only viability is to make Mitt Romney seem a more reasonable and safer candidate. Gingrich is the spice in an otherwise bland stew. The only expectation of him is for self-destruction within the next eleven months. It is not for him to become the President of the United States in 2012 and it never has been. It is for him to make more money.

But the Gingrich candidacy has shed light on other things about the post-Bush weaknesses of the Republican Party. There is no credible expectation for the GOP to win the national election against the incumbent Democratic president than there was when the Republican standard bearer was Senator John McCain. Media attention always follows shiny objects that move quickly in and out of headlines be it Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich or Michele Bachmann. Fame seekers are just fame seekers. There is no substance to them. Attracting attention does not count.

The 112^th Congress has done so much to discredit the Republican Party that Gallup reports, “About three-quarters of registered voters (76%) say most members of Congress do not deserve re-election, the highest such percentage Gallup has measured in its 19-year history of asking this question.” How that GOP majority expects to run on its record of obstruction and be returned for another term as the majority party is wishful thinking. There is no record of accomplishment. There is only a documented record of opposition to a single person, President Barack Obama.

The country is not “Choking on Obamacare.” The country has not had time to taste, eat, or digest it because most of its 10 provisions will not go into effect until after 2014. Just because conservatives recite those three words does not make the comment so.

The 111^th Congress passed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). That the PPACA is remarkably similar to Mitt Romney’s Massachusetts health care legislation has been hashed and rehashed so much so that it has become a liability to Romney, especially in the “flip-flop” category.

I do not single out columnist George Will as an ardent wishful thinker, either. The conservative pundits have their own problems with which Will is not alone. They tend to nod with favor towards Gingrich as a man of great intellect and of big ideas. To borrow a Richard Nixon quote, "That's just plain poppycock." It isn’t true. Gingrich may come across as smart compared with Rick Perry, Herman Cain, and Michele Bachmann. Compared with people of true intellect, however, Gingrich is a pretender.

What are those big GOP ideas for government? They seem limited. Repealing a law that has not been completely implemented, abolishing abortion, repealing the Great Society, and replacing President Obama are less than noble ideas.

The wealthy professor and the wealthy businessman are tribunes of a cause that is limited for a nation in the midst of a turn-around. The only reason for a Gingrich candidacy is a Romney candidacy. The only reason for a Romney candidacy is that the GOP has to run someone. Romney winning is wishful thinking.

Article originally published as “So Much Wishful Thinking” on Blogcritics.

The Republican Brand: An Empty Hat

The GOP became the removed-from-power party when Barack Obama won the 2008 election. The Republican Party ran a Senate veteran with a relatively novice politician to follow its flawed Presidential incumbency. They lost the election. The GOP squandered time for the necessity of rebuilding in favor of expedience. By the midterm elections it embraced a faction called the Tea Party. In so doing, the GOP became fractious, forgetting that it took six years for candidate Richard Nixon to successfully reinvent the Nixon brand: Nixon’s the One. Nixon had a plan. The Republican debates demonstrate no such plans from its cast of candidates and puts the brand in jeapordy.

To its credit the Republican National Committee replaced Michael Steele at its helm. However, the RNC retained the same elite hypocrisy as the John Boehner House speakership demonstrates. Being the party of business became the party owned by business. The recent debt ceiling crisis and deficit debate debacle that Speaker Boehner allowed makes matter worse. It difficult to argue that such GOP stewardship has been looking after the best interest of its stock holders, Republican and Independent voters. Some observers allege that the disparities in the Republican Party stem from ideological differences. However, those allegations are phony.

One might think that it must be hard to be both phony and shallow. Failure to distance the Republican brand from its Tea Party faction as well as from self-appointed spokespeople like Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin has corralled the GOP into a political pen. Bigots have come to roost. The Republican debates may have demonstrated reach and audience, but the star candidates lack substance. They are becoming highly paid political celebrities who are famous for being famous. Unfortunately, that is all there is to them. They don’t stand for anything; they stand against things, President Obama foremost among all. They don’t represent anyone other than themselves. A television audience is a poor substitute for a constituency.

The concept of “take the country back” deserves derision, not applause. It is an expression of rube rhetoric that may sound good but does not mean anything. Does it mean taking the country back to another time in history, like before the Civil Rights Act of 1964 -- an idea floated by Rand Paul? Does it mean taking the country away from a person or from a group? I ask because neither the President nor the Congress is a foreign occupier of our government. Even so, the Tea Party faction likes the “take back” slogan fragment because it is an identifier, like a verbal secret handshake.

Although they won’t admit it, the Tea Party folks are pissed off because they lost the most important election of our time in 2008. They have hated the loss now for three years. They will continue to hate it for another five years if the secret handshakers in Congress continue to make the O in GOP stand for obstruction.

There is a limit to just how much empty-hat policy the country will tolerate. Griping about everything the president does or doesn’t do is no substitute for policies on issues such as civil rights, ending the wars, and immigration reform. Karl Rove’s acolytes drove Hispanics and Blacks from the GOP to appeal to the white Christian right. That was their master plan, their conservative agenda. Gallup reports, “The Republican Party in 2011 remains demographically and ideologically similar to the way it looked in 2008. The only change is that “Republicans are now slightly less likely than they were in 2008 to be male and to be highly religious.”

The Tea Party rejuvenated the GOP sufficiently in the midterm elections to keep it out of any meaningful rehabilitation. Had it undergone rehab, the Republican Party would have admitted it is powerless over the greed that subsidizes it and that subsequently tarnished America’s reputation and finances. It would have made amends to everyone it hurt, like the American people. Seeking some forgiveness is no longer an option. Repudiation is in order, such as bringing criminal charges against Bush, Cheney and Rove -- indicting them with high crimes and misdemeanors.

Instead, the GOP has served up a meaningless series of television debates among candidates who are incompetent for the presidency. The debates offered lots of talking points but no policy, just empty-hat ritual and rube rhetoric. The debates showed that the party lacks the courage for the conciliation required to rebuild the Republican constituency. It will require those attributes for the Republican brand to become inclusionary, to end obstructionism and to become a smart, loyal opposition.

The “O” in GOP stands for “Old.” The elephant logo dates from 1874. It looks like something one would expect to find hanging on the wall at Applebee’s. I can venerate the GOP for what it once was in my father’s lifetime. “I like Ike” was then. Today, the GOP brand is like old-time religion -- significant to a former time, just not to this time. The once venerable Republican Party has become more about political celebrities, who vie for money by denigrating the incumbent president than it is about conservative policies articulated by credible candidates. Deep down inside, it is shallow.

Originally published as Republican Brand: An Empty Hat on Blogcritics.

Repealing the Great Society

Republicans propose changes in Medicare and Social Security. The claim is that federal spending is “out of control.” Members of Congress repeat that claim often, hoping that by repetition their claim will become true. GOP members publicly advocate that the federal budget must be cut to their terms or else the United States can default on its obligations. The party opposes the “Great Society” as it did the “New Deal.” It just doesn't know that.

President Lyndon Baines Johnson (LBJ) signed the Social Security Act of 1965 into law. It established Medicare. Johnson enrolled former President Harry Truman as the first Medicare beneficiary at the bill-signing ceremony and presented him with the first Medicare card. Truman’s boss, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR), signed the first Social Security Act into law in 1935. Thirty years later, that part of FDR’s New Deal had become part of LBJ’s Great Society.

Republicans have opposed Social Security for more than 65-years-old. They also oppose facts. For instance, Social Security and Medicare entitlements are already paid for through an involuntary tax called FICA, collected at a rate of 7.65% of gross [before deduction] earnings. 6.2% goes for Social Security called OASDI [Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance]. 1.45% goes for Medicare. The federal system of old age, survivors, disability and hospital insurance is paid by the FICA tax. The Social Security system then funds the first three, while hospital insurance is funded by Medicare.

Those are the facts. Here are more. For the last 20 years Congressional Republicans have tried to limit Medicare spending on doctors’ services. However, the proposed limits have always proved to be so unrealistic, like their current demands, that each time new limits have been proposed, Congress has had to intervene to increase them. Republicans inaccurately call it uncontrolled spending when they lose.

Only half of American's 65 and older had any health insurance at the time LBJ signed the bill that created Medicare. Medicaid, established by Title XIX of the Social Security Act of 1965, is administered by the states. The public health insurance program covers over 60 million people, including one in three children, eight million people with disabilities and nearly six million low-income seniors. Each state administers its own Medicaid program. In addition to Medicare, LBJ’s “Great Society” legislation included laws to uphold Civil Rights, to create Public Broadcasting and the National Endowment for the Arts and Humanities, and to establish a host other social legislation programs to improve the American way of life. It seems as if Republicans are determined to repeal the Great Society.

Thirty-five million Americans lived below the poverty level in 1965. In a nation with such abundance, LBJ argued that helping the poor was in the best interest of business by providing stability to society. Republican disdain for Johnson’s War on Poverty continues. Originally headed by the late R. Sargent Shriver, the first Director of the Peace Corps, its legislation created Medicaid in addition to environmental protection, aid to education, Head Start, and the Job Corps. Republicans appear to label any program that helps poor people as “reckless spending.”

President Johnson also handled spending differently than the way Republicans and President Obama are considering. Instead of deficit spending to finance the Vietnam War, LBJ pushed Congress to enact a surtax. The imposition of a surtax added another 10% to one's ordinary federal income tax liability. LBJ left office in 1969 with a balanced budget plus a small surplus. It took 30-years for the United States to see another balanced budget.

Bear in mind that there is no Constitutional requirement for a balanced budget. The United States federal government has pretty much always been in debt since its inception. Article I, Section 8, Clause 2 of the Constitution grants to the United States Congress the power “To borrow money on the credit of the United States.” As you may also know from recent accounts, Section 4 of the Fourteenth Amendment states, “The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned.”

Republicans are questioning it.

Their latest debt ceiling demands include an oldie-goldie cover renamed the Cut, Cap and Balance Pledge. It is a classic hit that comes up from time to time -- to oppose raising the borrowing limit unless it is accompanied by spending cuts and caps, and to pass a Balanced Budget Amendment to the Constitution. So far the Pledge has been signed by just 12 senators (6 of them freshmen Republicans) and 28 House members (17 of them Republican rookies). Republicans seem to like the idea of amending the Constitution despite the fact that the founders made that so difficult to accomplish it has only happened seventeen times. As I say, it’s a GOP blast from the past like the Fair Tax.

During the Carter administration, Republicans proposed the Balanced Budget Amendment as a fiscal cure-all. It didn’t cost them anything politically since they were out of power, controlling neither house of Congress nor the Presidency. They knew it would not be enacted. Between April 29, 1975 and January 29, 1980, 34 petitions for a Balanced Budget Amendment have been submitted to Congress from 30 different state legislatures. Even though deficit spending soared during the Reagan administration, a program agreed to by Congressional leaders and the administration that entailed two dollars of spending cuts for every dollar of tax increases failed miserably. Deficits mounted further. But Congress had no intention of passing the Balanced Budget Amendment.

The Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act of 1985 acted as political cover to raise the debt limit. It called for automatic cuts in discretionary spending when certain deficit-reduction targets were not met. Aimed at cutting the budget deficit, the largest in history at the time, the House passed the bill 271-154, the Senate by 61-31, and President Ronald Reagan signed the bill on December 12, 1985. However, when it began to affect popular programs, Congress amended it to postpone its effects until later years. The Act was partially overturned in the courts and eventually repealed in its entirety.

Republicans should know that default is not an option. A failure to increase the debt limit by the deadline coupled with a breakdown of Treasury’s machines for printing checks caused a two-week default in 1979. That was enough to raise interest rates by six-tenths of a percentage point for years afterward and increased the Reagan era deficit even more. Yet, the GOP threatens default as a negotiating tactic.

As to tax revenue increases, Ronald Reagan requested the largest peacetime tax increase in American history in 1982. Bill Clinton also asked for a large tax boost for deficit reduction again in 1993. Strong economic growth followed each time, even though conservative economists predicted economic disaster.

Congressional Republicans seem to be thinking about something other than fiscal responsibility, business, or the social fabric of the country. Advocacy of its position to negotiate the budget with default puts its representatives in the position of breaching their oath of office which could subject them to recall if not impeachment. The GOP position seeks to repeal the Great Society. They are doing a good job of that, so far.

Article first published as Repealing the Great Society on Technorati.

Where Are the Jobs?

The 112^th Congress has passed 25 roll call votes. This is the result of its taking care of the people’s business: 7 bills have become public law, 9 bills are destined for veto and the balance faces Senate opposition. Speaking of the Democratic controlled Senate, 4 of those veto destined bills have been referred to the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs and the balance are probably destined to failure. So, where are the jobs?

Let’s start with the legislation that has become public law. Bills on defense, Republicans never say “No” to the Department of Defense. There are lots of jobs in the armed services, but that’s not new. Roads will continue to be built and small business gets to save a lot of paper. There are continuing appropriations because bills must still be paid until a some kind of budget is enacted. But there are no new jobs in any of that.

The extension of the Patriot Act is contentious because it comes up for vote again. Key parts of the Patriot Act are set to expire on May 27^th. The Senate promised a real debate on this Bush Administration brain-child, but clearly that isn’t going to happen. The ACLU opposes its abridgement of the 4th Amendment, part of the Bill of Rights which guards against unreasonable searches and seizures, along with requiring any warrant to be judicially sanctioned and supported by probable cause. But they guy listening to your phone calls could have told you that.

The Banking Committee is looking at bills aimed at existing legislation and none is likely to pass. There is a Refinance bill to eliminate the Federal Housing Administration’s recently implemented short refinancing program. The White House has threatened to veto the measure should it pass the Senate. The Treasury’s Emergency Mortgage Relief Program, aimed at helping 3 to 4 million people by modifying at-risk mortgage loans, is a target. The HAMP Act [Home Affordable Modification Program], part of the TARP [Troubled Asset Relief Program] created by the Bush administration is a target and the administration has already said it will veto that bill. So far, however, there are no jobs offered in any of that business.

The new Republican House got lots of TV camera time by doing what it said it was going to do -- to attack and repeal the Affordable Health Care Act, which they call by the epithet “ObamaCare”. They passed the Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act and Repealing the Prevention and Public Health Fund, the latter which seeks to defund the new Health Care law. Both of those were campaign promises to people who don’t like Obama by people whose platform is not to like Obama. They promised jobs to everyone, just not in these bills.

Remember the BP oil disaster in the Gulf last year? The new Republican House hopes you don’t. Their Restarting American Offshore Leasing Now Act would require the administration to move forward with lease sales along the Atlantic Coast and in the Gulf of Mexico that it has delayed or canceled. Coincidentally, the Atlantic drilling is off the coast of Virginia, of House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s home. The administration has said it will veto the bill.

And speaking about the environment, the Energy Tax Prevention Act of 2011 would bar the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating greenhouse gases for the purpose of combating climate change. How that saves taxpayers money while it chokes them must be a gift to somebody. If you guessed an Obama veto is likely, you guessed right. As for the defunding of National Public Radio, when Rush Limbaugh is free, Who Needs NPR?

What else has the House done for us, the people, so far? It passed some more “Repeal Funding” bills, aimed at defunding provisions of the Affordable Health Care Act that probably will not make it through the Senate. I have previously written about H.R.3 [No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act] and Net Neutrality [Disapproving the rule submitted by the Federal Communications Commission with respect to regulating the Internet and broadband industry practices]. Both of those face major Senate opposition.

They passed a Scholarship bill that has to do with Washington, D.C. schools. Congress is responsible for the district. There is an FAA bill “to streamline programs, create efficiencies, reduce waste, and improve aviation safety and capacity,” and we all need safer skies. There is the Government Shutdown Prevention Act, but that is probably unconstitutional. The budget bill that passed the House last month is in the Senate Budget Committee. It is all about cuts that will put more people out of work.

The one thing that the Republican House has done that gets plenty of attention is to create controversy on the deficit and debt ceiling debates. Both are exceptional exercises in brinksmanship, not effective fiscal policy, and confirmed to investors that congress is clueless about financial markets. The financial crisis itself is a product of the Republican administration that started two wars and decided to finance them with deficits instead of taxes. Republicans are responsible for a problem that cuts cannot cure. Creating jobs would at least increase federal revenue though withholding taxes, but that is a promise they have not kept. They also expect to be reelected.

Article first published as Where Are the Jobs? on Technorati.

Net Neutrality: Medium or Message

While everyone’s attention was focused on the potential for a government shutdown, House Republicans passed a bill to repeal federal rules barring Internet service providers from blocking or setting different prices for some uses of their networks. According to the Associated Press, in voting to repeal rules on “network neutrality” set down by the Federal Communications Commission, Republicans claimed that the FCC lacked the authority to impose such rules.

“The FCC power grab would allow it to regulate any interstate communication service on barely more than a whim and without any additional input from Congress,” said Rep. Greg Walden (R, OR), a sponsor of the legislation. The vote along party lines to pass the bill, H.J. Res. 37, was 240-179. This is the same House that voted 228-192 on a bill to defund National Public Radio last month. It is yet another bill unlikely to pass in the Senate and doomed to a presidential veto if it should.

The concept of “net neutrality", according to the New York Times, holds that companies providing Internet service should treat all sources of data equally. The debate centers on whether those companies can give preferential treatment to content providers who pay for faster transmission, or to their own content, “in effect creating a two-tier Web, and about whether they can block or impede content representing controversial points of view.”

Before the House took up a joint resolution condemning the new Internet access rules, Verizon and MetroPCS brought a lawsuit to court that challenged the FCC’s pending rules to keep Internet service providers from blocking access to certain Web sites or applications. The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia circuit rejected the suit as “premature.” Although considered by some as a first-round victory for the F.C.C. and its chairman, Julius Genachowski, the real battle over the commission’s attempt to regulate broadband providers has only just begun.

In a recent meeting with Wall Street Journal reporters and editors, Genachowski said, “I don’t see any circumstances where we’d take steps to regulate the Internet itself.” He added, “I’ve been clear repeatedly that we’re not going to regulate the Internet.” In trying to craft new rules that would require phone and cable companies to treat all legal Internet traffic that flows over their lines equally, the FCC had proposed a draft of “net neutrality” rules last fall. “The communications line piece is something that we have historic responsibility for [in] promoting competition and promoting innovation. So that is the distinction,” Genachowski said.

Internet service providers, of course, say there’s no need for the government to step in, as do other opponents of the FCC.

Freedom Works called the FCC rules “job-killing regulations [that] would involve significant new controls on the Internet that would have significant implications for investing in innovation and broadband deployment.” In urging passage of HJR 37, it posted, “The FCC should respect this fact—and the careful separation of power laid out in the US Constitution—and not make such sweeping law where the legislature has not.” Naturally, anything that conservative organizations and Republicans don’t like, out comes the Constitution.

Another organization, Americans for Prosperity went as far to charge that “Chairman Genachowski, a long-time executive at Barry Diller’s IAC/InterActiveCorp, one of the leading corporate beneficiaries of net neutrality, is currently attempting FCC’s second foray into Internet regulations.” The fact is that no FCC commissioner may have a financial interest in any FCC-related business.

Consumers Union opposed the legislation. “Internet providers should not limit your choices to their preferred sites,” said Parul P. Desai, the organizations policy counsel. “Key stakeholders – from consumers, to small business, to civil rights groups and religious organizations – have overwhelmingly voiced support for Open Internet rules as well as the FCC’s authority to implement and enforce them.” Unfortunately, they did not refer to the Constitution in their opposition.

Democratic policymakers called free and open communications “a vital part of American democracy.” At the Free Press’s National Conference for Media Reform, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D, CA) said she was pleased by Democratic opposition to the GOP-backed resolution, which cleared the House under the cover of the looming shutdown. “No one should be guarding the gate on the Internet,” Pelosi said. She added that the resolution isn’t likely to gain support in the Senate. “I don’t think this bill is going anyplace.”

As I pointed out in Blogcritics two years ago, there is a difference between a regulation and a law. As an independent regulatory agency, the FCC has the power to impose regulations at any time without action by either the executive or legislative branches. The new regulations, which the FCC calls its Open Internet Order, are the rules that House Republicans attacked.

Once again House Republicans have backed a losing proposition as they did with their attempt to defund National Public Radio. The GOP opposition to Net Neutrality regulations favors corporations over consumers. At least we know where they are coming from. This time it is not about the message. This time it is about the medium and the corporations that own it. It is another win for losing.

Article first published as Net Neutrality: Message or Medium on Technorati.

House Crier: Faking a Shutdown

Hypocrisy is a pretense of having a virtuous character and principles that one does not really possess. Bare that in mind while I offer an observation that the threat of a government shutdown is just a threat. It is a bully’s threat that is about as credible as the tears of Speaker Boehner. The speaker’s tears demonstrate one of two things, that the shut-down threat is a fake or that the man is emotionally unbalanced. In either case, the threat will last until the very last minute, when it will be averted. Deals have already been cut.

Here is a quick example of this hypocrisy. Republicans especially are all about National Defense. They would sooner burn autographed pictures of Ronald Reagan than touch the Defense Budget, as they have demonstrated. However, as ABC News reports, if the government shuts down, US military personnel won’t get paid.

The Speaker is responsible for ensuring that the House passes legislation supported by the majority party, in this case the majority of the majority. Boehner’s freshmen are challenging his ability to do so. Representative Paul D. Ryan (R, WI), recently of Budget Committee fame, had very telling words about the tea party contingent who have propelled the threat of shutdown forward. “The new people did not come here for a political career,” he said. “They came here for a cause.”

Their “cause” is a risky government shutdown that they seem to think is alright. That opinion found voice in a former member of the House Budget Committee, Thad McCotter (R, MI), who says he thinks the “majority of the public would agree” that a partial shutdown of the federal government wouldn’t be that bad in their lives, according to ABC.

For Boehner the worse outcome is a split conference that pits the Republican establishment against the tea party contingency. Of course senior members of the Republican caucus like Mike Pence and Michele Bachmann, who seek to raise their profiles by establishing themselves as rebel leaders, make out but all future Republican progress would be undermined.

Republicans seem to intend to cut benefits and programs for the nation’s retirees and neediest citizens while protecting corporate America and the wealthiest people from paying their share of taxes. The ACLU opposes enacting their FY11 spending bill because it contains amendments that would eliminate funding for Planned Parenthood to legislation that would impose an “abortion tax” on small businesses who want to provide abortion coverage in their employees health plans.

The government did shut down in 1995 and 1996 under Newt Gingrich’s speakership. Two years later, voters sent 20 Republican members packing and the speaker took the blame. The hypocrisy of the tea party ideological “cause” begs the question that if the Republicans cannot govern themselves, how they are supposed to govern the country?

# # #

originally published on Blogcritics, April 6, 2011 as House Crier: Faking a Shutdown

# # #

A couple of notes, April 8, morning of the shutdown threat:

“It’s not realistic to shut down the government on a debate dealing with abortion,” Senator Harry Reid (D, NV) said. “It’s not fair to the American people. We haven’t solved the issue in 40 years. We’re not going to solve it in the next 38 hours. We should not be distracted by ideology. This is a bill that funds the government.” (see ACLU above)

Gallup reports "The American public has clearly and consistently expressed a desire for elected officials in Washington to pass a new fiscal year budget without bringing government operations to a halt."

The New York Times reports that it is “the policy riders that are the real holdup to a deal.” To Republicans it’s all about abortion, environmental protection and health care. The hold up has nothing to do with jobs or the economy. Negotiators at the White House say “the issue of the spending cuts barely even came up. All the talk was about the abortion demands and the other issues.”

The shutdown is a made for TV event. Neither the White House nor the Republican leadership will let it happen and, contrary to Dave’s right intentions, there is already a continuing resolution in the breach ready for the moment of truth.

Aaron Sorkin has written a better teleplay, but it was performed by real actors.

Tommy

Assault on the Fourteenth

The founding idea of “Equal Justice Under Law” is literally carved in stone above the entrance to the Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C. The Republican Party wants that idea changed. They want exceptions. They want “Equal Justice Under Law Except For Immigrants From Mexico. “ It’s like saying, “Liberty and Justice for Almost All.”

The Republicans won and Congress enacted the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution in 1868. Times have changed. Republicans have changed, too. Now they want to repeal the Fourteenth Amendment. With a midterm election looming, the out-of-power GOP has found its bandwagon in immigration. Its’ bigotry-mongering is aimed directly at Mexican immigrants, somehow segregating them from immigrants of other countries, like Russia or India.

Since its passage in 1868, the Fourteenth Amendment is the basis of all Supreme Court decisions having to do with our Civil Rights. Thus, the Republican assault on the Fourteenth Amendment is an assault on the Civil Rights Act of 1964, not to mention the subsequent Voting Rights Act of 1965 and Fair Housing Act of 1968. Their argument to repeal it singles out Hispanic babies as enemies of the country who deserve to be punished for the crime of being born in the United States.

Congress passed the Fourteenth Amendment to counter what was at that time called the "black codes," such as depriving citizenship to children born of former slaves. To make sure that the States could not legislate against it, the Fourteenth Amendment requirement is that “No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of the citizens of the United States... [or] deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, [or] deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

The GOP has created an immigration band wagon that harkens back to a time when discrimination and segregation were legal. Ginned by the plight of Arizona and immigration issues peculiar to all four of Mexico’s border states, on board are such prominent Republicans as Senator Lindsey Graham (SC), Senator Jon Kyl (AZ), and Senator Mitch McConnell (KY). Eliminating the so-called “birthright clause” is intentionally aimed at Hispanic children by discriminating against them and not children born of undocumented aliens from countries other than Mexico.

Senator Graham argued that the Fourteenth Amendment no longer serves the purpose it was designed to address and that Congress should reexamine granting citizenship to any child born in the United States. “I'm looking at the laws that exist and see if it makes sense today,” Graham said. “Birthright citizenship doesn't make so much sense when you understand the world as it is.”

Senate Minority Whip Kyl also supports hearings on repealing the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Kyl said that he opposes allowing children of undocumented immigrants to be granted U.S. citizenship and wants Congress to hold hearings on the matter. "The Fourteenth Amendment [has been] interpreted to provide that if you are born in the United States, you are a citizen no matter what," Kyl said. "So the question is, if both parents are here illegally, should there be a reward for their illegal behavior?"

Senator McConnell says Congress should reconsider the Fourteenth Amendment citizenship guarantee and joined the immigration bandwagon. "I think we ought to take a look at it -- hold hearings, listen to the experts on it," McConnell said. "I haven't made a final decision about it, but that's something that we clearly need to look at. Regardless of how you feel about the various aspects of immigration reform, I don't think anybody thinks that's something they're comfortable with."

The Republican immigration bandwagon claims that children of undocumented aliens will overburden a State’s resources cannot be justified and such an argument has already been held by the Supreme Court to be unconstitutional. What this Republican assault on the Fourteenth Amendment does is to attack “citizenship” by renaming it the “birthright clause.” It also attacks “due process” and “equal protection.” Its’ cynical purpose is to set the stage to reverse three Supreme Court decisions that Republicans have never liked that are on its to-do list.

· Citizenship: Plyler v. Doe (1982) protecting all children born in the US
· Equal Protection: Brown v. Board of Education (1954) ending “separate but equal”
· Due Process: Roe v. Wade (1973) extending the right of privacy to abortion

Here is what the Supreme Court held in those cases that you will find in the links above.

Plyler v. Doe

A state statute “which withholds from local school districts any state funds for the education of children who were not ‘legally admitted’ into the United States, and which authorizes local school districts to deny enrollment to such children, violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.”

The Court’s ruling says, the statute “imposes a lifetime hardship on a discrete class of children not accountable for their disabling status. These children can neither affect their parents' conduct nor their own undocumented status.”

Furthermore, “Use of the phrase ‘within its jurisdiction’ confirms the understanding that the Fourteenth Amendment's protection extends to anyone, citizen or stranger, who is subject to the laws of a State, and reaches into every corner of a State's territory.”

The immigration band wagon may get many more passengers on board on its way to the midterm elections. A band wagon is a band wagon. It sounds best when it is standing still. But it is going to play hell getting by Plyler, which will make the band wagon moving anywhere after the election a no-go from the git-go. Amendment 14 says so.

Brown v. Board of Education

"We conclude that, in the field of public education, the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’ has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal. Therefore, we hold that the plaintiffs and others similarly situated for whom the actions have been brought are, by reason of the segregation complained of, deprived of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment."

Under the guise of a “birthright” reward, being deprived of protection by reason of segregation is the effect. The GOP program is not about “separate but equal”; it is all about “equal protection.” Here is the prize.

Roe v. Wade

“State criminal abortion laws, like those involved here, that except from criminality only a life-saving procedure on the mother's behalf without regard to the stage of her pregnancy and other interests involved violate the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which protects against state action the right to privacy, including a woman's qualified right to terminate her pregnancy.”

Reversing Roe has been the ultimate objective of anti-abortionists and the GOP since 1973. All previous attempts to reverse the decision have failed because of that pesky Fourteenth Amendment. Now there is one more case to add to the list of decisions that the GOP would like reversed. It is a civil rights case.

· Civil Rights: Perry v. Schwarzenegger overturning the California ban same-sex marriage

Perry v. Schwarzenegger

The appeals are filed on this latest civil rights case that rests on the Fourteenth Amendment. The case overturns California Proposition 8 ban on same-sex marriage. U.S. District Court Judge Vaughn Walker ruled the measure was "unconstitutional under both the due process and equal protection clauses" of the Fourteenth Amendment. "Because Proposition 8 disadvantages gays and lesbians without any rational justification," Judge Walker ruled the ban bombs.

Both the Proposition 8 gay marriage ban and the Arizona SB 1070 Immigration law have two things in common. First, they seek to segregate a group of people for punitive purposes. Second: they attack the Fourteenth Amendment, which establishes protection of “citizenship” to children, grants “due process of law” to everyone, and “guarantees equal protection of the laws.” Because of that, both Proposition 8 and SB 1070 have been overturned, each measure being held to be unconstitutional.

Let us accept the offer that the Republican immigration band wagon has put forth, that the Fourteenth Amendment needs to be reviewed in context of today’s laws and society. Using that logic, then let us equally review the Second Amendment in the same context. The acclaimed GOP birthright to guns says, “A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State”, to quote Senator Graham, “doesn't make so much sense when you understand the world as it is.”

The Fourteenth Amendment issue is about the Constitution, not some election show. It is about Equal Justice Under Law.

A New Republican Brand

The “O” in GOP stands for “Old.” So does the Republican brand. I recommend retiring the GOP brand and the absurd Elephant logo. Put them both on display either in the Smithsonian in D.C. or in every Applebee’s nationwide. I can venerate the GOP for what it once was in my father’s time. But today the brand is as old time religion, significant to a former time, just not this time. It is in this vacuum created by a paucity of morality, principle and credible spokespeople that neo-bigotism grows as the political celebrities vie for money.

The mission is to create a Republican brand for this century. By the way, it’s going to cost a lot of money, so much money that when Forbes reports it, even Democrats will blush. But I digress. Here is the short version of what the Republican Party has to grip in order to contend and win.

This is the best of times to be a Republican.

As the removed-from-power party, they have the luxury of time. Besides, there is a presidential precedent. It took Richard Nixon six years to reinvent the Nixon brand that worked for his presidential quest. Having said that, which is as far as I want to go with Nixon, here are a few things that require immediate attention.

Replace Michael Steele with a real executive the caliber of a Timothy Geithner.

For Steele to remain is an example of the elite hypocrisy the old brand allowed. It is the same kind of sleaze that spent money on porno websites to advertise McCain-Palin in the 2008 campaign. It is not the case that he cannot be touched because he is black. Incompetence knows no race, color, creed, gender or orientation. If being a party of business means something, the party needs to behave like a business. Steele’s chairmanship demonstrates that the party has an incompetent board of directors who are not looking out after the best interest of its stock holders. To allow for Steele’s lack of competence in his position reflects poor governance. So while we are at it, the board needs to be replaced as well.

Co-opt progressivism by reclaiming it as a Republican platform piece.

Then the party can hearken to Theodore Roosevelt, a progressive and environmentalist. Conservation of energy and air and water benefits society but more importantly gives the renewed Republican brand at least a patina of respectable care taking responsibility. It will take practice and courage.

Distance the new brand from Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh.

They are unelected, thus unofficial, as is anything associated with the Tea Party. Decry those people as the seditious bigots that they are. They may have reach and audience, but as spokespeople they lack substance. It must be hard to be both phony and shallow. They are highly paid political celebrities who are famous for being famous and that is all there is. They do not stand for anything. They represent only themselves. An audience is not a constituency.

Deride the theme of “take the country back.”

That piece of rube rhetoric can have more than one connotation. Does it mean taking the country back to another time, such as before the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as floated by Rand Paul? I ask because there is not anyone or anything from which to take the country back. Neither the Congress nor President is a foreign occupier of our government. Tell the country of the the Tea Party, “We understand that you’re pissed off because you and your folks lost the most important election of our time big time. It must suck to be you.” And, oh by the way, “No, you are not prepared to die for your country.” Dress up in a military uniform all you want. It does not make you a soldier.

Distance the new brand from the Bush administration.

Dick Cheney and Karl Rove in particular ruined the GOP brand at home and abroad. To some extent getting over Bush et al will be kind of like going through a rehab-program -- admitting powerlessness over stupidity and greed and then making amends to everyone you hurt, like the American people. Seeking some forgiveness is no longer an option. Repudiation is in order, such as bringing criminal charges against Bush, Cheney and Rove. Charge them with the treason, high crimes and misdemeanors that could have been brought to impeachment.

Remember, W has an MBA.

The failure of the GOP brand allows for the candidacies of people who are woefully ill-equipped to perform any useful legislating. California millionaires Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina are examples. A Chief Executive Officer (CEO) is responsible to a Board of Directors for the Return on Investment (ROI) to the stockholders. As business people, neither Whitman nor Fiorina performed well as a CEO because under their stewardships each company lost significant value. They invest in running for public office because they cannot get hired in a private office as a CEO anywhere else. Nevada’s Sharron Angle at least has 6 years legislative experience as a Republican member of the Nevada Assembly. While that barely qualifies her candidacy, her policy positions are preposterous.

Get some serious policy.

Griping about everything the president does or doesn’t do is no substitute for a lack of policy on issues such as civil rights, ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and immigration reform. The Rovians drove Hispanics and Blacks from the party to appeal to the white Christian right. To redefine the Republican constituency will require courage and conciliation. It will have to for the new brand to become inclusionary, to end obstructionism and to become a loyal opposition.

Don’t scrimp.

Hire a top dollar advertising agency for a new logo. The party will have to live with it for a century or so.

Targeting Ethnic Studies

Arizona’s governor is a Republican, a white, and a woman. Keep that in mind even though it is obvious. If you thought that her attack on civil rights was bad form, get ready. Another measure has come before her for signature and the ink is dry. The measure targets an ethnic studies program in Tucson and has been condemned by a United Nations panel. The Associated Press is a little vague on the condemnation part of the story.

"The governor (Brewer) believes ... public school students should be taught to treat and value each other as individuals and not be taught to resent or hate other races or classes of people,” according to a spokesperson. That does not sound like anything that United Nations human rights experts would condemn in a report, but they did. The measure suggests that Arizona students were being taught racial resentment and hatred as well as being taught to devalue individuality. But what do UN experts know about Arizona?

State schools Chief Tom Horne, a Republican running for attorney general, “has been trying to restrict the [Tucson Unified School District Ethnic Studies] program ever since he learned that Hispanic civil rights activist Dolores Huerta in 2006 told students that ‘Republicans hate Latinos.’" That is incorrect. Huerta only personified and personalized the objective of Republican hatred. Republicans do not hate Latinos. Republicans hate truth.

Additionally, the Associated Press reports “The measure prohibits classes . . . that promote the overthrow of the U.S. government.” That suggests that on top of everything else Arizona public school students are taught, they have classes in sedition.

Arizona Governor Jan Brewer said of signing an unconstitutional piece of legislation into law a couple of weeks ago that she "firmly believed it represents what is best for Arizona." Evidently that includes invalidating the Civil Rights Act and suspending habeas corpus.

That legislatures and governors cannot elect whether or not their state is part of the Federal Union is just an inconvenience. I would have thought that a Republican white woman governor would know that. But as I say, Republicans hate truth.