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Tea Party vs. Establishment GOP

It’s going to be fun watching the tea party wing of the Republican Party take on the old dogs of the GOP.

It’ll be over Obamacare and whether it’s prudent to shut down the government to deprive the Affordable Care Act of the funds it will need to become operational.

http://thehill.com/blogs/healthwatch/health-reform-implementation/313819-obamacare-funding-battle-pits-tea-party-vs-establishment-gop

Here’s what I see happening.

The establishment wing of the party knows the dangers of shutting the government down to prove some kind of political point. The Republicans tried that in the late 1990s. You remember that, yes? House Speaker Newt Gingrich and his band of GOP insurgents shut ‘er down over a budget fight with the Clinton administration; turned out Newtie really was mad because President Clinton didn’t give him a choice seat aboard Air Force One – but I digress.

The government shutdown didn’t work well for Gingrich and his Republican foot soldiers. They ended up getting their heads handed to them in the 1998 mid-term elections, Gingrich ended up quitting the House and President Clinton – despite being impeached by the House – ended his presidency on a high note.

The establishment guys remember all that. Their memories are painful. The tea party guys are new to this game of D.C. hardball politics. They’re righteous in their cause and, by golly, they’re going to have it their way or else.

I feel compelled to remind them that Newt Gingrich once was a righteous revolutionary who knew how to obtain power, but didn’t have a clue about what to do when it came time to actually use it.

A part of me is beginning to believe that history is going to repeat itself.

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Scandals know no partisan bounds

A word of caution is due to Republicans here and across the country as they watch the struggles of three well-known Democratic politicians.

Let’s not gloat, folks.

Anthony Weiner wants to run for mayor of New York. Bob Filner already is mayor of San Diego, Calif. Eliot Spitzer, the former governor of New York, now wants to become NYC’s comptroller. All three of them have made headlines for (in order) sending text messages and videos of a certain functional body part to women; groping and speaking hideously to female staffers; consorting with prostitutes.

Some Republicans are relishing the troubles that have befallen these Democrats. One noted conservative columnist and Fox News TV commentator, Michelle Malkin, recently tweeted about how silent Rep. Nancy Pelosi and other Dems have been about Filner’s difficulty; I responded to her with a tweet that advised her to cool the “partisan perv” talk.

The record shows that Republicans have endured more than their share of sexually related difficulties. To wit:

House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s extramarital affair with a staffer while he was blasting President Clinton for his own marital misbehavior; U.S. Sen. David Vitter of Louisiana becoming involved with a call girl; U.S. Rep. Mark Foley’s email flirtations with underage congressional pages; U.S. Sen. John Ensign’s marital infidelity; U.S. Sen. Larry Craig’s arrest (and this is my favorite scandal) for making indecent sexual advances to others inside a men’s restroom at a Minnesota airport.

Let’s stipulate that all three men now caught in the sexual perversion vise — Weiner, Filner and Spitzer — deserve every bit of the scorn they’re getting.

Misbehavior by male politicians, though, hardly is a partisan endeavor. Pols from both parties in recent years have garnered their share of infamy.

 

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Keep jails in public hands

Curry County, N.M., officials are considering a bad idea, which is to hire a private company to run their county jail.

At issue is a $9.9 million bond issue to be decided Aug. 6. It would finance construction of a new jail in downtown Clovis. I won’t comment on the wisdom of that site, although I will refer to an editorial in the Clovis News-Journal that says it’s a bad idea, given that downtown is a magnet for families who shop and eat there.

http://www.cnjonline.com/2013/07/27/new-jail-bond-hard-to-sell-with-poor-planning/

I’ll reserve my comments for the wisdom of farming this out to a private company. I’ve noted before I think that’s a bad idea. I’ve long had concerns about accountability and whether private companies can be held to the same strict accountability standards as public taxing authorities, such as cities and counties.

What goes on inside the jail walls ought to be the public’s business. Yes, I’m aware that jail standards would have to be met and that state officials would be able to monitor their activities.

But there seems to be an overarching public responsibility that needs to be honored. We pay police officers to arrest criminal suspects; we pay for courts to try them, and that includes prosecutors and on occasion we even pay defense counsel to represent the accused; and we ought to pay for the defendants’ housing in jail before and during their trial.

It ought to go with the territory.

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Nugent embodies right-wing lunacy

Ted Nugent doesn’t speak for most reasonable Americans. He speaks for himself and the crazed lunatics among us who share his racist, homophobic, xenophobic world view.

He sits on the National Rifle Association board. A group called “Stop Gun Violence,” an acknowledged foe of the NRA, wonders why the pro-gun group doesn’t boot Nugent off its board.

http://csgv.org/action/tell-the-nra-remove-ted-nugent-from-your-board/

Why, indeed, doesn’t the NRA act?

The Motor City Madman has been on a roll of late, as the link attached to this blog post will attest. No need to repeat his rants. Suffice to say he is out of control.

There he is, though, promoting the NRA agenda — which when it comes to background checks for gun buyers — doesn’t even agree with rank-and-file NRA members, who support background checks.

He makes news when he twists off the way he does because he once was a reasonably popular rock musician. He now has become caricature of himself and the views he espouses.

 

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This slug should slither away

Bob Filner is a slug.

Don’t take my word for it. The San Diego mayor has all but described himself that way.

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/07/bob-filner-announcement-sexual-harassment-94815.html?hp=l12

He’s admitted to groping women, saying unbelievably crass things to them, accosting them, making their working lives miserable. He needs to resign his office. But he won’t.

Filner, the former Democratic congressman from southern California, instead says he’ll enter two weeks or rehabilitation to cure himself of the demons that drive him to do these horrible things.

The man doesn’t get it. He doesn’t understand that he no longer can represent his fine city.

Filner is just the latest pol to get himself into some serious political trouble. The other, of course, is Anthony Weiner, the former congressman who’s now running for mayor of New York. I’ve already declared my desire for Weiner to stay in the race and let voters cast him aside — which they should do.

Filner needs to take another course. He’s already in the office. He’s already betrayed the trust of everyone who’s supported him.

Filner needs to go to rehab as a private citizen, try to fix what ails him and perhaps try to reassemble what’s left of his life. And it’s going to take a lot longer than two weeks.

 

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AG picks fight with Texas

Well, that’s a big surprise. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder announced that the federal government is suing Texas to make sure the state follows federal civil-rights law – and Texas Republicans go ballistic, saying the feds are picking on the Lone Star State.

Someone has to be singled out, yes? If not Texas, then which state feels the heat? Mississippi? Alabama? Georgia?

http://thehill.com/homenews/house/313535-texas-gop-pans-holder-move

Holder has asked a court to require Texas to obtain “pre-clearance” before enacting any state laws governing Texans’ voting rights. It seems Texas is one of those states with some history of denying certain folks full access to voting rights based on their race or ethnicity. The U.S. Supreme Court decided earlier this year that the federal requirement is no longer necessary and has left these decisions up to the states.

The AG says that’s not good enough.

Thus, the Justice Department is taking action to ensure that Texas complies right off the top.

I applaud the attorney general for seeking to guarantee that the rights of full citizenship for all Americans – even those who live in Texas – are protected under federal law.

The Hill said this in reporting the story:

“White House spokesman Josh Earnest defended the move, saying ‘the goal of the administration
 is to protect the constitutional rights of all Americans.’  

‘“That includes protecting the voting rights of all Americans who are eligible to vote – that’s the goal here,’ Earnest told reporters aboard Air Force One. ‘I would assume that that would be a goal that would also be supported by congressional Republicans. We’ll see.’”

Members of the state’s congressional delegation, dominated of course by Republicans, see it differently.

“My belief is (the) Voting Rights Act and those laws ought to be applied equally across states, and not played for political games, which is exactly what I see happening here,” U.S. Rep. Kevin Brady said. “Eric Holder (is) just singling us out – just skipped through the alphabet and happened to land on Texas.”

Something tells me the Justice Department doesn’t really care what Texas Republicans – given their intense antipathy toward the president and his administration – think of its voting-rights policy.

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Dr. Coburn is right about shutdown effect

U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn is an Oklahoma Republican who joins his GOP colleagues in hating the Affordable Care Act.

But the man also understands the consequences of shutting down the federal government to make a political point about ending what’s known as Obamacare.

Don’t do it, Sen. Coburn warns.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/313845-coburn-government-shutdown-would-destroy-the-gop

A government shutdown would destroy the Republican Party, he told the Washington Examiner.

Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, has this idea to quit operating the federal government if it results in getting rid of Obamacare. He’s been joined by some of the party firebrands, such as Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas. Such a shutdown could occur later this year as the White House and congressional Republicans lock horns in their ongoing battle over federal spending.

Someone ought to remind Lee, Cruz and some of the other political pistols on the right that Congress enacted the ACA, which then withstood a challenge in the Supreme Court of the United States, which ruled in June 2012 that the law is constitutional and it should stand.

Yet the foes persist time and again trying to get rid of a law they contend constitutes a federal overreach.

And now they’re threatening to shut the government down to make their point?

Quick. Put out a call to former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who also led a government shutdown in the 1990s. The shutdown helped doom Gingrich’s speakership.

What’s that saying about the consequences of ignoring the lessons of history?

 

 

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Dreamliner in trouble 
 again

I’m beginning to feel like one of the few, the proud who’ve gotten to fly on Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner – before it gets grounded for keeps.

Another Dreamliner experienced problems today, this time at London Heathrow Airport. The Ethiopian Airlines jetliner caught fire, forcing the airport to close for an hour.

http://thehill.com/video/in-the-news/310719-boeing-dreamliner-airplane-catches-fire-in-london

My own history – brief as it is – with the Dreamliner is kind of interesting. I was flying to Portland from Amarillo in June, via Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport. Weather – along with some human error – forced me to spend the night in Houston. I woke up the next morning and boarded a Dreamliner for a flight to Denver – but the plane wouldn’t start. We all got off the plane and boarded another Dreamliner and made the trip to Denver.

I must say the Dreamliner is a nice bird on which to fly. It has all kinds of leg room even for those of us in the cheap seats, which are a bit wider than they are on other aircraft.

But it keeps having all these issues. Electrical problems grounded the fleet worldwide for months. They keep catching fire. The plane cannot seem to operate safely over an extended period of time.

I hope this doesn’t doom the aircraft. It’s supposed to be the latest and greatest air travel innovation since, well, perhaps the 747 Jumbo Jet.

As it stands at the moment, I’m feeling somewhat privileged to say I’ve flown on one of these birds – and actually enjoyed the ride.

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Ariel Castro will lead some kind of life

Ariel Castro, who held three girls captive for as long as 10 years, has accepted a plea deal that spares him the death chamber in Ohio.

He’s heading to the slammer for the rest of his life.

Some of my friends have chimed in on social media in the past few hours about the deal and what it means for Castro. They’ve invoked the name of another monster, one Jeffrey Dahmer, suggesting Castro could meet the same fate as the late Wisconsin Cannibal.

Dahmer was thrown into prison in the 1990s after it was revealed he had killed and actually eaten many of his victims, some of whom were children. Wisconsin hasn’t had the death penalty since 1853. So, when Dahmer was sent away to serve a life sentence in prison, the state’s prison authorities threw him to the wolves, so to speak.

Dahmer was sent into the general population. He was attacked twice by inmates. The second time took him out. He was beaten to death in November 1994.

This is one of those things no one has yet been able to prove, but I’ve long believed that Wisconsin officials knew Dahmer’s life would end that way when they sent him to live among the rest of the bad guys. Absent a death penalty, what the state got — if you’ll pardon the expression — was the next best thing.

Ariel Castro would have faced a death sentence had he been convicted of murdering his victims’ unborn children, which he had been accused of doing. The state would sought the death penalty and likely would have succeeded had Castro taken his case to court.

Now, though, he’s spared himself a one-way trip to the Ohio death chamber with a guilty plea. He’ll spend his the rest of his days in prison.

Will he meet the same fate as Jeffrey Dahmer? That will depend on whether Ohio prison authorities separate him from the rest of his new “friends.” 

If he’s forced to live among ’em, well, as the saying goes: Karma’s a bitch.

 

 

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GOP troubles with Hispanics keep growing

Two words — one syllable each — can describe just why the Republican Party cannot make inroads with the nation’s fastest-growing demographic group.

Steve King.

The Iowa GOP congressman has planted both feet inside his very large mouth and has drawn criticism from none other than the speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives.

http://thinkprogress.org/immigration/2013/07/25/2355631/boehner-condemns-steve-king-comment/

King said recently that for every young illegal immigrant living the United States, 100 more of them are drug mules who pack illegal drugs across the border. Then he said they may be small in stature but they “have calves the size of cantaloupes.”

Boehner, also a Republican, has called King’s remarks “hateful” and mean. Do you think, Mr. Speaker?

King is among a minority of House Republicans who oppose immigration reform. He prefers to round all them illegals up and ship ’em back to wherever they came from. King fervently opposes the Dream Act pushed by President Obama, which would in effect grant amnesty to young U.S. residents who were brought here illegally as children but who have made this country their home.

As for Boehner, he is invoking a House rule that says a measure should be voted on only when a majority of the party in power — that means Republicans — favor it. The House is deciding what to do with the immigration reform bill approved by the Senate in a sweeping bipartisan vote in June. Most House Democrats favor it as does a significant number of Republicans. It has the support of the full House, but it won’t come to a vote unless most GOP members sign on.

Steve King’s big mouth and utter callousness ought to persuade Boehner that the majority-of-a-majority rule — named after former Speaker Dennis Hastert — needs some serious rethinking.

 

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