Tag: Republican Party

This piece is running in newspapers in my conservative congressional district in Virginia (VA-06). ******* Winston Churchill said: “Some men change their party for the sake...

This piece is prompted by yesterday’s entry by 5oclockshadow, with the title “Fruits of this Poison Tree: Republicans Can No Longer Pretend They’re Not...

Earlier today, President Obama said this: "I think what's been interesting is the repeated denunciations of his statements by leading Republicans," he said in a...

The question I find interesting, in the wake of Ted Cruz's headline-making refusal to endorse Trump as a major speaker at "Trump's Convention," is...

This is in response to a posting here earlier today regarding Senator Tim Kaine's speech at the National Press Club yesterday. Senator Kaine's talk shows...

When the issue of Democratic Party strategy comes up, one of the biggest questions often is: does the Democratic Party finally dig its trench and swollen the bitter pill of sequestration in order to force the GOP into an unshakable political hole? Of course, there are as many opinions and answers as there are individuals answering this question. But two of the main answers are as follows.

One is that refusing to cave to Republican Party pressure to cut a raw deal on the sequester  is an essential policy move that will make Republicans think twice about waiting the Democratic Party out to give in to GOP demands. And there's a lot of truth to this. If the Democratic Party continuously 'caves' during the worst effects of poor policy decisions (like the sequester), then the Democratic Party has no real leverage to extract any significant policy demands from the Republican Party, like Ezra Klein points out. Yes, the Democratic Party may be saving their constituents pain in the short run, but when you give in to the demands of a mad man holding hostages, you better make sure you've neutralized the mad man (i.e., the Republican Party) in the process. Otherwise, the mad man will keep holding hostages!

I know, let's clone Jesse Ventura and station a Ventura clone at each school across the country! Sound a little south of practical? If so, it's actually an idea with more rationale than arming "certain teachers" across the country, an idea that has been increasingly proposed by members of the Republican Party as a remedy to the recent school killings in Connecticut.[1] The logic is as follows: fight gun violence with more guns! Brilliant! If only we could use this strategy with nuclear weapons, then the world would truly be MAD!

You've got to hand it to some Republicans, they really know how to turn the improbable into the highly likely. For instance, who would have thought that any party would have been audacious enough to openly propose probing a woman's private parts? Brilliant! But the encore has been even more brilliantly mind-boggling in its utter absurdity.

The idea of putting weapons into the hands of individuals who are supposed to be seen by our country's youth as role-models to exemplify, who are professionals trained to enlighten others with the pen (not the sword), who have had little say (to my knowledge) in the matter is the same as asking Albert Einstein to strap a bomb to his chest in case the Nazi's attempt to kidnap him. The supposed solution could easily turn out to create even bigger problems than the initial quandary (i.e., armed individuals killing students).

Did anyone seriously believe the election would end the partisan rancor, or that gridlock would melt away now that the voters have spoken?  Of course not.  It is status quo ante.... and this situation will continue for the foreseeable future, because the Republican Party has been travelling a road for 30+ years which has led them to this destination. They have left behind the practical pragmatism which created the American experiment in self-government, and made it work for over 200 years through ad hoc compromises and a willingness to abide by the results of fixed-term elections. The Republican Party is now ideologically no longer disposed to participate in a meaningful way in a congressional system based on popular free elections, one in which they are expected to cooperate with another party in governing the country, win or lose.

That pragmatic set-up has apparently run its course. It has collided with the non-negotiable demands of the modern Republican party, a party convinced it alone is possessed of the holy Truth, about which it would be a fatal mistake to compromise, if not an outright sin. To a dyed-in-the-wool Republican, all other parties are unpatriotic and have no legitimacy. That is, Republicans are no longer simply a traditional "conservative" party; they appear to be both authoritarian and more like a religious cult than a political party. Most observers have been reluctant to come right out and say it, but the truth is, the dominant faction in today's Republican Party can only be described as an American version of fascism.

These villains are not the antagonists you'll find in any of the most recent Batman films, but the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) Action Fund's (along with Environment America) naming of 193 U.S. House members and 39 U.S. Senators as "Dirty Air Villains" are no less dangerous to the health of American's than the evil characters Bane or the Joker.

Not surprisingly, but no less disturbingly, the NRDC Action Fund analysis "found that on average, House members who took more than $100,000 in career polluter campaign contributions voted against clean air laws nearly twice as many times as those who accepted less than $100,000 from dirty industries." Similar conclusions were found for members of the U.S. Senate.

What a revelation! Money influences the votes of the U.S. Congress!

If you'd like to view more of the disturbing findings, go to http://whovotesdirty.com/, just make sure you wear a gas-mask (it really stinks!).

If America could tax every policy lie and/or half-truth told by members of the Republican Party, our debt problem could be quickly solved. Walla! While my policy proposal may not be rushing through the House of Representatives anytime soon, a sensible carbon tax policy like that offered by Rep. Jim McDermott (D-WA), the Managed Carbon Price (MCP) Act should be the next launching point to finally address carbon emissions by America's businesses.

The bill's summary states,

"The MCP is unlike a traditional carbon tax, because the MCP creates a flexible price system that provides certainty by accounting for volatility in the energy markets, requires specific emissions reductions, and addresses any increase in energy costs with dividend payments to the public."