Tag Archives: GOP

national news, political news

Who are ‘they,’ Donald?

donald

Donald Trump is taking undeserved credit — imagine that, will you? — for Kevin McCarthy’s stunning withdrawal last week from the contest to become the next speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives.

The GOP presidential candidate said “They’re giving me a lot of credit” for McCarthy dropping out of the congressional campaign.

Who said it, Donald?

That’s all part and parcel of Trump’s modus operandi.

He takes credit where none is deserved, along with shuffling blame off on someone else — all while tossing a personal insult or three at various other individuals.

So help me, I never heard anyone giving Trump “credit” for McCarthy backing out of the House leadership race. That is, until Trump said so.

The fact is that McCarthy’s own intemperance got him booted out.

He muttered that amazing fact, er, gaffe about the Benghazi hearing under way in the House, suggesting the committee was formed for the expressed purpose of undercutting HRC’s presidential ambition.

As former Texas Gov. Rick Perry might say …

Oops.

national news, political news

Government shutdown looming … maybe

government shutdown

Oh, how I wish I could be as serene as some of the pundits out there about the prospects of a government shutdown in the wake of John Boehner’s stunning resignation.

The speaker of the House is leaving office at the end of next month. Between now and then Congress is going to vote on some funding issues that involve possibly the very issue of a government shutdown.

The TEA Party wing of Boehner’s Republican Party won big with the speaker’s resignation. He’s been battling the yahoos on the far right for years. He’s had enough, so he bailed.

That empowers the TEA Party types. It strengthens their hand with the new speaker, believed to be House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy. Does he want to wage war with the TEA Party faction? Hardly.

He might find it more difficult to resist them than his predecessor did.

Planned Parenthood is in the TEA Party sights. They think shutting down the federal government — which, by the way, does a lot of things for other people as well — is a good way to get back at the agency for what TEA Party lawmakers say is its callous disregard for human life; it’s the abortion thing, you know.

Government to shut down?

This kind of political hostage-taking is not in keeping with congressional responsibility. Given that so many of the TEA Party faithful in Congress are too young to have been around when the GOP tried this tactic before.

It blew up in their face. It will do so every time.

If only they’d realize the folly.

 

medical news, national news, political news

Don’t mess with Planned Parenthood, GOP

2 Comments

PlannedParenthoodsign

What part of “Don’t Shut Down the Government” is the Republican caucus in Congress failing to understand?

Yet here we are yet again. Congress is threatening to shut down the federal government because some of its members dislike Planned Parenthood. The GOP caucus in Congress doesn’t believe that the federal government should fund Planned Parenthood because, they say, it provides abortion services to women who want to end their pregnancy.

Well, that’s just a small part of Planned Parenthood’s mission. As for abortion funding, Congress years ago approved a law — the Hyde Amendment — that banned federal money for abortion services, so the argument that the government funding of abortion falls flat.

The rest of Planned Parenthood’s mission? Oh, things such as exams designed to guard against cancer, contraceptive services … those kinds of silly things that help keep women alive and allow them to avoid unwanted pregnancies.

What’s more, we’re possibly treading into that minefield in which the government decides to deny government services and programs across the board that have nothing at all to do with Planned Parenthood.

Do these individuals in Congress forget what happens when the legislative branch acts in this petulant and ultra-punitive fashion? Do they not know how badly the public reacts when Congress does such a thing?

The public gets quite angry. At Congress. And, yes, at the those who belong to the party that run both legislative chambers. That would be the Republican Party.

A government shutdown is a fool’s errand.

If only the fools who comprise a significant segment of the majority party in Congress would just get the message.

 

International news

Nuke deal becomes partisan numbers game

iran nuke deal

There once was a time — it seems like an eon or two ago — when foreign policy decisions weren’t divided along party lines.

Those days are gone. Maybe they’ll be back. Eternal optimist that I am, I remain hopeful for a return of sanity in our federal government.

The Iran nuclear deal is the most glaring example I’ve seen of how partisanship now supersedes national unity in the face of threats from adversaries.

U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon, became the 31st Democrat to endorse the deal brokered by Secretary of State John Kerry and officials from five other great powers. Its aim is to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. Iran has insisted it intends only to provide energy for its people; of course, no one believes that.

Congressional Republicans appear united in their opposition to the deal. Democrats are mostly united in favor of it, although some have declared their intention to vote “no” when the issue comes up for a vote.

Merkley said something quite wise in announcing his support of the deal: “The future, whether we approve or reject the deal, is unknowable and carries risks. But the agreement offers us better prospects for preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons and more tools and leverage to ensure that outcome.”

We cannot predict the future with absolute certainty, he said.

Democrat backs Iran deal

Is the deal perfect? No, but then again, when have we ever struck the perfect foreign policy agreement with anyone?

The agreement aims to derail whatever intentions the Iranians have of developing a nuclear bomb. It allows inspections of sites. It dismantles centrifuges. It allows the rest of the world to bring back strict economic sanctions if the Iranians are caught cheating on the deal.

None of that is enough to persuade Republicans to back it.

So, the world’s greatest military power is now showing to the world that its foreign policy team is being undercut by partisan political divides when it should be demonstrating an unflinching resolve to stand united against a rogue nation.

It’s turning instead into a numbers game, with Democrats seeking to pile up enough votes to filibuster Republican opposition to the deal while also gaining enough votes to sustain a certain presidential veto of any GOP rejection of the deal.

This is no way to conduct foreign policy.

 

International news

GOP = Iranian anti-U.S. chants? Please, Mr. President

Just as Adolf Hitler’s name shouldn’t be uttered aloud in discussions about contemporary U.S. policy, how about declaring a similar moratorium on using “death to America” chants by Iranian protesters?

President Obama made a startling comparison this week in a speech at American University in which he said that those who yell “Death to America” have “common cause with Republicans” who oppose the nuclear deal that seeks to block Iran from developing an atomic bomb.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2015/08/05/obama_iranians_who_yell_death_to_america_have_common_cause_with_republicans.html

I get that the president feels frustrated because the “loyal opposition” keeps resisting all of his policies — both foreign and domestic.

However, the “death to America” chants we hear from street demonstrations in Tehran have no bearing on domestic opposition to the issue at hand. Obama said the Iranians who oppose the nuclear deal are those who utter the frightening chant.

The president drew a lot of laughs from the crowd that heard his crack about GOP kinship with the anti-American demonstrators.

Please, Mr. President, spare us the laugh lines and stay away from the demagoguery.

legal news, medical news, national news

What if Obamacare gets stricken?

You’ve heard it said that one should be careful about they wish for, that they just might get it.

Congressional Republicans have been wishing for an end to the Affordable Care Act. The U.S. Supreme Court might grant them their wish. Then again, the court might uphold the ACA.

But if the court strikes down the subsidies set aside in the law and deprives an estimated 6.5 million Americans their health insurance, who do you suppose is going to feel the heat the most? I’m guessing it’ll be Republicans who will have to come up with a plan of their own to restore the lost health insurance that so many millions of Americans have been able to obtain under Obamacare.

http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/244369-gop-fears-it-will-win-obamacare-court-battle

The Hill reports that a court victory might be the GOP’s worst nightmare.

And get this, according to The Hill: “The politics of the King vs. Burwell case are extremely treacherous and tricky for Republicans because if the subsidies are thrown out by the court, Republicans are in the position of having to create a fix that would be seen as a problem by their most conservative supporters,” said John Ullyot, a GOP strategist and former senior Senate aide.”

So, key Republicans are going to be whipsawed. Their base doesn’t particularly like federally mandated anything, let alone health insurance. They’ll fight with GOP leaders who want to repair the ACA. Meanwhile, those 6.5 million Americans will see their health insurance evaporate. Many of them live in states that will become key battleground states for senators seeking re-election.

The court will hand its ruling down any day now. President Obama has criticized the court for even agreeing to hear this case; he believes the case doesn’t even merit a court decision, that the law is ironclad, given that the court already has upheld it once already prior to the 2012 presidential election.

Whatever the court decides — and I’m far from willing to concede that it’ll strip out the ACA subsidies — at least one side of the aisle is going to go ape.

Heck, if the court rules in favor of Republicans, we might see both sides of the aisle lapse into catatonic states.

 

 

 

 

national news, political news, State news

Rick Perry: Governors make better presidents

1 Comment

Rick Perry actually makes sense when he extols the virtues of governors seeking the presidency of the United States.

That doesn’t mean in the least that I intend — at this moment — to vote for him if lightning strikes and the Republican Party nominates him in 2016. I’m going to keep an open mind, though, as the campaign progresses. Honest. I will.

But in his campaign rollout speech in that sweltering hangar in Addison, Perry said that governors are those with actual executive experience.

http://www.texastribune.org/2015/06/05/perry-stakes-defining-contrast-on-executive-experi/

He ought to know. Perry served as Texas governor for 14 years — even though it seemed much longer, at least in my eyes. He made a lot of executive decisions during his time as governor. Some of them were good decisions, even though I need some time to think of them.

He goofed on a few as well, such as the one he made requiring junior high school girls to be vaccinated for sexually transmitted diseases. The Legislature overrode that order in 2011, which of course is an action that Perry never mentions while campaigning for president.

Back to the point.

Perry’s assertion that governors make better presidents seems to have some merit. He said, according to the Texas Tribune: “The question of every candidate will be this one: When have you led?” Perry added, posing the same query that is a regular part of U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz‘s 2016 stump speech. “Leadership is not a speech on the Senate floor. It’s not what you say; it’s what you do. And we will not find the kind of leadership needed to revitalize the country by looking to the political class in Washington.”

My only question, though, is this: Does he include former Govs. Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton among those who did well as president?

I’ll answer my own query: Probably not.

national news, political news

Caitlyn Jenner still a Republican

The woman formerly known as Bruce Jenner once declared himself to be a Republican.

Now that Bruce has become Caitlyn Jenner, at least one Republican presidential contender said Caitlyn is “welcome in my Republican Party.”

U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham has rolled out the welcome mat for Caitlyn Jenner, declaring that the GOP is a big tent party after all.

Lindsey Graham: Caitlyn Jenner Is “Welcome” in My Republican Party

I’m totally fine with Sen. Graham’s statement. He’s right, of course. A political party should be a place where people judge others’ most intensely intimate personal decisions. I struggle to think of a decision that is more intimate than changing one’s gender, which is what Jenner has done.

Graham said Jenner is welcome in “my” party. The question among some of us watching this campaign unfold is whether the party really belongs to those such as Graham, who’s known to be a more inclusive sort of politician.

It’s the “base” of the GOP that’s calling the shots. Something tells me the party base isn’t quite so welcoming to Caitlyn Jenner.

 

political news

Why the fixation with The Donald?

Why, media? Why?

Why do you — and I guess, me — keep writing about Donald Trump in the context of a presidential campaign?

The Donald isn’t going to run for president of the United States. Not this time, not ever.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/21/megyn-kelly-donald-trump_n_7350412.html?ncid=edlinkushpmg00000078&utm_source=thinkprogress.org&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=pubexchange_facebook

How do I know this? Well, I don’t know it. I just feel it in my bones.

The man’s got that TV show that earns him lots of money. That’s what he appears to be about, anyhow. Money. He boasts about how much of it he has. He’s not shy about flaunting his wealth. For the life of me I don’t understand why some people don’t take extreme offense at his self-aggrandizing.

But he does.

He’s made a complete ass of himself during the entire Obama presidency questioning whether the president is constitutionally eligible to hold the office to which he was elected and re-elected. He continues to act the part of buffoon and clown.

But now he’s saying he’s going to announce his candidacy sometime in June? That’s what he told Megyn Kelly.

I will not hold my breath waiting for that announcement.

It’s not going to come.

Then again, if it does … well, the fun will really begin as the Republicans start searching for their 2016 presidential nominee.

 

national news, political news

Intraparty squabble good for political soul

1 Comment

President Obama says Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., “is wrong” to oppose him on a free trade proposal with a dozen Asian countries.

OK. So, the Democrats are now squabbling.

Meanwhile, Republican candidates for president are taking pot shots at each other over a wide range of issues, with tax policy and immigration leading the way.

There. Now the Republicans are fighting.

Is this bad? Do these intraparty squabbles harm our form of government?

Not in the least.

https://www.yahoo.com/politics/why-obama-is-happy-to-fight-elizabeth-warren-on-118537612596.html

So far it’s been mostly a GOP fight. Democrats have been fairly quiet in assessing each other.

Until now.

Warren has emerged as the far left’s champion — oh, maybe co-champ, along with independent socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders, who ‘s running for president as a Democrat. A lot of lefties want Warren to run. She’s said everything but the categorical refusal to run for president in 2016. She keeps couching her intentions in the present tense — “I am not running” or “I have no interest” in running. None of those responses eliminates the possibility of her changing her mind.

She disagrees with a free trade deal with Asian nations. The president stands by his insistence that freer trade with our Pacific partners is a good deal for the country.

So, let’s continue to debate this issue.

It strengths our political process to have these fights within our respective major parties.

It’s going to test the mettle of the parties’ nominees when they emerge from their party fracases.

And, yes, that includes you, too, Hillary Rodham Clinton.