GOP

Arm Yourself For Fiscal Cliff Arguments

Dave Johnson — Mon, 19 Nov 2012 13:27:53 -0500

I joined Campaign for America's Future's Richard Eskow to talk about the "fiscal cliff" scare, austerity, Social Security, Medicare and how we WON the election so we really should be talking about jobs instead.

This was a GREAT hour, and hold the information you need to arm yourself to win holiday-dinner conversations with your right-wing brother-in-law.

The conversation refers to my post, Fiscal Cliff Scare Talk Follows Shock Doctrine Script as well as several posts by Richard Eskow including, Wall Street Finds a ‘Third Way’ to Plunder Our Wealth, The “Fiscal Cliff” Is a Hoax … and a Mel Brooks Routine, The Grand Swindle – Veterans on a Cliff, After the Election, a New Mandate – and New “Fiscal Cliff” Math

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Labor Day: Team America, Including Workers, Built That

Leo Gerard — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 09:14:07 -0400

The GOP, the party of exclusion – no gays seeking marriage allowed, also no Hispanics, no black people, no poor people who are on or ever were on welfare, and no women who are on or ever were on birth control – yeah, that private party spent last week taking sole credit for America's greatness, saying in speeches, announcing on signs and even chanting: We built it.

Republicans did it all, they said. The GOP accomplished that exclusively, they contended.

Ann Romney adopted the braggadocio, assigning to her husband all credit for the success of private equity firm Bain Capital. She said of GOP nominee Mitt Romney:

“I can tell you Mitt Romney was not handed success. He built it.”

No help from anyone, not Bain & Co. founder Bill Bain, not Romney’s fellow Bain workers, not the Bain investors, certainly not the government that Romney considers so evil but that he wants to run. He built Bain all by himself.

This is a new week though. It’s a week that begins with Labor Day. For that reason, it’s a time when Republicans will be falling all over themselves to compliment American workers – well, except unionized workers, who Republicans hate and who Republicans would like to exclude from their party, along with those gays, poor people and women using birth control. This week, Republicans will ever so briefly share some credit for the greatness of America with white, male, non-union, blue collar workers – the ones Republicans believe they can convince to vote for the quarter billionaire they’ve nominated for president. Next week, however, the GOP will be back to claiming Republicans built it all by themselves.

A couple of weeks ago, President Obama said he believes America’s success was forged by the talent and hard work of innovators, risk takers, researchers, hard laborers, skilled workers and government leaders mixed with community support, faith and hope. He explained that no one person can take credit for the greatness of America, no individual built that. He said:

“If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet. The point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together.”

Republicans, have been pounding President Obama about that ever since. They contend one person did build that. No help provided or needed. If Bain was successful, then Romney did it all by himself. He gets all the credit.

Well, that might be right except for the credit that local, state and federal government should get. And that credit, of course, goes to citizens because they provided the government with the tax money that politicians handed Bain companies.

Yeah, that’s right. Bain companies took corporate welfare. One of ’em even required a new tax!

In the mid-1990s, Bain invested in a start-up mill, Steel Dynamics, that was to be constructed for $385 million in DeKalb County, Ind. The mill got built with $37 million in subsidies and grants from Indiana and DeKalb County. In addition, DeKalb County levied a new quarter-percent income tax on residents to pay for infrastructure improvements such as roads and railroad exchanges that benefited Steel Dynamics.

Bain put $18.2 million into the project, less than half of what Indiana residents did, and the private equity firm took out $104 million when it sold its share five years later. Romney, of course, contends he built that all by himself.

Similarly, California taxpayers built a conveyor bridge between two Bain company buildings. New York taxpayers gave Bain tax breaks and lower energy bills so it wouldn’t move a company to New Jersey. South Carolina taxpayers gave Bain company Holson $200,000 in utility support and a $5 million construction bond. Maryland taxpayers gave Bain company Staples $2.3 million in grants and low-interest loans. And there’s more government help for Bain companies Sealy, Steam International, Alliance Laundry Systems, Burger King. . .

But, you know, Romney did it all by himself.

Then there’s the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics that Romney claims to have saved all by himself. Right. Except for that quarter billion dollars that American taxpayers donated in the form of federal subsidies to rescue the games.

Other GOP members who spoke on the special “Republicans built it” day at the convention were Phil Archuletta, owner of P&M Signs, and Sher Valenzuela, who owns an upholstery business. Both received government aid to build their businesses. Archuletta complained that his business didn’t get enough tax dollars out of the federal stimulus package – only $340,000. Valenzuela got $2 million in loans from the Small Business Administration and $15 million in government contracts, some noncompetitive. But, you know, they did it all by themselves.

Last week, while Republicans claimed credit for building by themselves everything that’s great in America, President Obama upped the ante on his contention that many achievements are a result of group efforts. The President told 6,500 students at the University of Virginia that securing a tax credit for college tuition, increasing tuition grants and extending low interest interest federal student loans, were all possible “because of you.”

President Obama made no claim that he built that by himself. On Labor Day, he recognizes the contributions union and non-union workers made to building this great country.

All Americans built that.

***

(Now some may say Republicans love black people and Hispanics. Both Former Secretary of State Condi Rice and Sen. Marco Rubio spoke at the convention. But here’s the thing, Ann Romney last week referred to Hispanics at a Latino Coalition luncheon as “you people,” and two GOP Convention delegates threw peanuts at a black CNN camerawoman and yelled, “This is how we feed the animals.”)

GOP: Lack of Insurance Revokes Sanctity of Life

Leo Gerard — Tue, 07 Aug 2012 09:14:03 -0400

In the case of fetuses and rich people, Republicans insist on the sanctity of life. But in the case of destitute people, infants who imprudently choose working-poor parents and struggling young adults – basically all riffraff unable to afford health insurance – the GOP says there’s nothing sacred about their stinking lives.

Let ’em die. The uninsured should be left to rot. To the GOP, lack of insurance revokes sanctity of life. A GOP audience at a Republican presidential candidate debate clapped and cheered that morality. More recently, GOP leaders said insuring all Americans should not be the nation’s objective.

Instead, the Republican goal is guaranteeing Americans retain the freedom to forgo health insurance.

To the GOP, “freedom” to be uninsured is more important than public health, which could be endangered by an untreated, uninsured, modern-day Typhoid Mary. To Republicans, the “freedom” to be uninsured is more important than the horror of family members watching helplessly as a loved one who foolishly failed to get insurance slowly dies in agony from untreated bone cancer.

One percenters who are members of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s elite club of quarter billionaires can afford the risk of being uninsured. If they fall off a dancing horse, they can pay the medical bills out of pocket. But the non-rich can’t afford a trip to the emergency room. For them, being uninsured isn’t a freedom. It’s bankruptcy. It’s death.

No sane non-rich American wants the liberty to be uninsured.

Despite that, the GOP has repeatedly declared its intention to force the freedom to be uninsured down the throats of unwilling non-rich Americans. Last month, the Republican majority in the U.S. House of Representatives voted for the 33^rd time to repeal or defund ObamaCare. Republicans have tried incessantly in the past two years to kill the law that will soon increase the percentage of Americans covered by health insurance from 84 to 93. If the Republicans could just get Democrats in the Senate to approve that repeal – and President Obama to sign it – 30 million Americans would continue to be “free” to choose being uninsured.

The GOP may get that opportunity early next year. Their presidential nominee Mitt Romney has vowed that his top priority “day one, job one” in the White House will be repealing ObamaCare. No matter that it’s based on RomneyCare, which Romney signed while governor of Massachusetts; no matter that the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of ObamaCare; no matter that Republicans have no plan to cover the 30 million Americans who would lose the opportunity to be insured; no matter how many uninsured people would die as a result, repeal is Romney’s top national priority.

Let ’em die, Romney says. Sanctity-Schmanctity.

Similarly, six Republican governors – Rick Scott (Fla.); Rick Perry (Texas); Phil Bryant (Miss.); Nikki Haley (S.C.); Bobby Jindal (La.); and Terry Branstad (Iowa) – have announced they will refuse the ObamaCare Medicaid money that’s intended to extend insurance to the working poor – those who earn slightly too much to be covered by Medicaid now. The governors’ rejection of Medicaid expansion is expected to give at least 3 million Americans the “freedom” to continue being uninsured.

The governors said they would rebuff the money even though for the first three years, states don’t have to contribute a cent to the program. They’ll snub the money even though studies have shown expansion of Medicaid improves health and significantly reduces death.

Let ’em die, the GOP governors say. Sanctity-Schmanctity.

Last week, insurance companies that overcharged under the terms of ObamaCare returned $1.1 billion to policy holders and employers who buy coverage. ObamaCare, formally known as the Affordable Care Act, requires insurers, depending on their size, to spend between 80 and 85 percent of premium dollars on actual medical care. Insurers that pay too much for fancy penthouse offices and CEO perks must rebate policyholders. This is what Republicans want to deny Americans in exchange for the “freedom” to be uninsured.

The rebate checks went into the mail just one week after the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) reported – again – that ObamaCare will lower the nation’s budget deficit. That’s lower, as in reduce, diminish, decrease the deficit. In fact, the CBO reported that if Republicans had succeeded in getting the law repealed, that would have increased the deficit by $109 billion over nine years. Republicans want to give Americans higher deficits in exchange for the “freedom” to be uninsured.

That’s right. Republicans have voted 33 times to enlarge the deficit and take from Americans ObamaCare benefits they love – like coverage for young adults under their parents’ plans until age 26; payments to senior citizens to close the Medicare prescription donut hole; and prohibitions against insurers denying coverage to children with pre-existing conditions and against dropping policyholders when they get sick.

As Americans realize benefits from ObamaCare, the law increases in popularity. Despite the GOP’s massive two-year campaign to kill it, support for ObamaCare has grown steadily, so that now, nearly half the nation backs it.

Still, Americans don’t yet love ObamaCare the way citizens of Great Britain adore their National Health Service (NHS). In Great Britain, the half-century-old NHS is so treasured that it received a tribute in the opening ceremony to the Olympics in London. The NHS, like health care in other Western European countries, covers everyone.

That’s exactly what Republicans don’t want – a system that insures all Americans. Republican Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, put it this way when asked how to extend coverage to the nation’s uninsured:

“Let me tell you what we’re not going to do. We’re not going to turn the American health care system into a Western European system.”

Nope. He’d rather let Americans die. Sanctity-Schmanctity.

Mitt Romney Enjoys Your Pain

Leo Gerard — Tue, 05 Jun 2012 09:58:16 -0400

GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s reaction to high unemployment is creepy.

During an interview with CBS reporter Jan Crawford last week, Romney smirked as he mentioned that unemployment has remained above 8 percent for 39 months. Then, as the interview ended, he smirked again after saying President Obama had hoped the Recovery Act would reduce joblessness to 6 percent by now.

Romney is loving high unemployment. Just like the Republican majority in the U.S. House of Representatives that has repeatedly blocked President Obama’s proposals to increase hiring, Romney believes high joblessness is good for the GOP. It’s one thing for a politician to know in his heart of hearts that a calamity for the country may help him achieve his ambitions. It’s another to be so callous as to beam about it on TV.

The nation’s sustained high unemployment disheartens any normal human being. Friday’s report that only 69,000 jobs were created in May was troubling -- that is to anyone who has ever been laid off or had a friend or relative or neighbor who lost a job. They know the feelings of fear, depression and guilt that accompany job loss. They’ve experienced the suffering as job applications are rejected, bills pile up and foreclosure is threatened. Normal people don’t smile about high unemployment; they cringe.

Romney contends he’s the fella to fix those unemployment numbers. But his record as CEO of Bain Capital and governor of Massachusetts provides little evidence of that. The focus of Bain was never job creation. It was money making. And if making money meant destroying jobs, that’s what Bain did.

An analysis by the Wall Street Journal of the companies Bain bought in the 15 years Romney ran it found that 22 percent went bankrupt or closed within eight years. That’s untold thousands of workers who lost their jobs and untold thousands of Bain creditors who endured losses because of bad Bain business practices.

Romney has frequently contended Bain created 100,000 jobs while he led it. The Washington Post fact checker awarded that claim three Pinocchios. After Republican rivals Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry chanted, “show us the jobs,” Romney lowered the number. Kinda significantly. Down to tens of thousands of jobs. Finally, Romney cut the figure even further, releasing a campaign video saying he’d created “thousands of jobs.”

If “thousands” is true, that’s good. But, frankly, “thousands” over 15 years is hardly a bragging point for a candidate who contends his private sector experience will enable him to create the millions of jobs the nation needs.

Romney’s job generation as governor of Massachusetts doesn’t instill much confidence in his ability to perform on the national level either. Massachusetts added 45,800 jobs in the four years he was governor. While that’s positive, it occurred during a time of economic expansion nationally, not during the grave recession President Obama inherited.

In addition, Massachusetts’ net jobs growth declined to 1.4 percent during Romney’s governorship, significantly lower than the 5.8 percent growth in the rest of the nation. In fact, Massachusetts dropped to 47^th for job growth during Romney’s reign, far lower than during his predecessor’s time.

Romney claimed at one point during the campaign that he was unemployed, and laughed about it. But this quarter billionaire doesn’t have a clue what it’s like to really be jobless or desperate. This is the silver-spoon son of a car company executive, a man who attended exclusive private schools, a man who handed his own son $10 million to help start his business, a man who has a car elevator in his $9 million California beach house.

This is a candidate who mocked NASCAR fans for wearing cheap rain slickers while his wife wears $1,000 silk t-shirts. This is owner of three homes valued at a total of $20 million who opposed helping underwater homeowners, saying the foreclosure crisis should “run its course and hit bottom.”

This is a man who actually said he likes to fire people. Not hire people. Fire people. Here’s what he said:

“I like being able to fire people who provide services to me.”

The slow jobs growth in May is not surprising, frankly, considering the economic contraction occurring in Europe and even in China. In the 17-nation EuroZone, unemployment now has risen to a record 11 percent, far higher than in the United States where Obama’s Recovery Act prevented the country from falling off the cliff into another Great Depression.

Unlike the United States and China, both of which invested in stimulus, Europe chose austerity. Greece, Spain, Italy, Ireland and Great Britain now are suffering economic contraction and distress caused by austerity.

That’s what Romney and the Republicans propose for America. Austerity. Job contraction. Recession. Suffering.

It’s not true what Romney says about Americans. They aren’t jealous of his wealth. They don’t care that he and his wife ride $100,000 horses. They just want to be able to afford a rocking horse for their kid. They don’t care about the Romneys’ vacations in France. They just want to be able to save enough to get the kids a season pass to the municipal pool.

They don’t, however, want their country run by a guy who can’t conceive what it’s like to be unemployed and has made no effort to find out. They don’t want to be led by a guy who likes firing people. They don’t want a president who finds enjoyment in high unemployment.

GOP: Killing Vulnerable Americans with Kindness – Literally

Leo Gerard — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 08:06:48 -0400

As a favor to struggling Americans, U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., proposed a federal budget last week ravaging programs for the poor, elderly, disabled, young, veterans, jobless, students and other vulnerable people. Ryan did it, he said, because these programs, food stamps, health insurance, Pell grants, veteran’s hospitals and the like are demeaning.

Yes, demeaning.

So Ryan plunders them and gives the savings to the rich in the form of additional tax breaks. Half of the savings in Ryan’s budget come from destroying health insurance programs. That would cost tens of millions of Americans their coverage.

Uninsured and underinsured toddlers, injured veterans, and disabled workers may die from some curable disease as a result. But at least Ryan will save those people from being demeaned!

That Ryan, what a guy, huh? Arranging for the nation’s well off to shirk responsibility to the vulnerable – then calling it kindness.

Ryan offered up the sequel to last year’s failed country club conservative budget and explained that he purged programs for the hapless because a social safety net:

“. . . lulls able-bodied people into lives of complacency and dependency, which drains them of their very will and incentive to make the most of their lives. It’s demeaning.”

Oh. That’s the demeaning thing! It isn’t being so poor that health insurance is unaffordable, getting emergency treatment for a broken hip, then being hounded by hospital bill collectors while still in a body cast and unable to work. It wouldn’t be watching your mother die in unbearable pain of a treatable cancer because she couldn’t afford health insurance. It wouldn’t be realizing your child may die because you lost your job and with it your health insurance during the Wall Street-caused recession, then discovered your baby suffers a rare heart disease that’s treatable for those with insurance, but fatal for those without because they can’t afford the medications.

No. The really demeaning thing according to the GOP is the social safety net that provides health insurance to the impoverished, to children, to veterans, to the disabled and to the elderly.

The Ryan health de-insurance plan would smack down Medicare, Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), care for veterans and the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

Ryan announced his intent to repeal the Affordable Care Act just days before the second anniversary of the law that has provided coverage for 2.5 million young adults up to age 26 on their parents’ plans; has forbidden insurers from denying coverage for children with pre-existing conditions, and has banned the insurance company practice of cancelling coverage when policy holders got sick.

Ryan wants to repeal the law rather than wait for a decision on its constitutionality from the U.S. Supreme Court, which will hear arguments this week from country club conservative state attorneys general who want the justices to overturn the landmark measure before it can provide coverage to 33 million uninsured Americans. Because, of course, getting that insurance would be demeaning for those people.

Ryan proposes to repeal the law while providing absolutely no alternative -- no plan to cover the uninsured, no plan to close the Medicare donut hole, no plan to make sure insurers don’t re-institute lifetime limits, no plan to stop insurers from once again cancelling coverage when policy holders get sick. Because, of course, providing those protections would be demeaning.

Ryan also would slash by 45 percent federal funding for Medicaid and other health plans for low-income people including the Children’s Health Insurance Program. Last year, the Urban Institute estimated that a similar Ryan proposal to cut Medicaid and convert it to a block grant program administered by the states would strip coverage from as many as 27 million low-income Americans within a decade. Because, of course, denying coverage to impoverished children would ensure the federal government did not demean five-year-olds with life-threatening asthma and sickle cell anemia.

For senior citizens, Ryan would sabotage their beloved Medicare. He proposes a two-tiered system in which seniors can stay on Medicare or get vouchers to buy private insurance. The Congressional Budget Office determined that under the Ryan plan, the federal government would provide less and less money for new Medicare enrollees, forcing seniors to pay more and more for insurance. Because, of course, the important thing is that the government spare grandma from being demeaned by giving her the option of eating either cat food or dog food so she can afford health insurance.

For veterans, Ryan cuts programs by 13 percent. Because this nation certainly would not want veterans returning from Afghanistan with blown off limbs, grievous gunshot wounds and post-traumatic stress disorder to be demeaned by receiving adequate medical care to restore them to some semblance of their pre-combat selves.

Americans understand their obligations to each other. They fulfill a parent’s duty to a newborn, a child’s debt to elderly parents, a neighbor’s obligation to a frail community member, and a citizen’s responsibility to hurricane and flood victims. Americans don’t shirk; they always step up. They know all that stands between them giving and them receiving is one tornado, one job loss or another market crash.

The GOP demeans Americans by suggesting they aren’t keenly aware that it’s only by the grace of God that any individual is a giver instead of a receiver. The GOP demeans Americans by suggesting it would be more honorable for them to die without health insurance than receive it through their government.

Republicans: Against It Before They Were For It

Leo Gerard — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 09:44:17 -0500

First, Republicans opposed extending the payroll tax cut that put an extra $20 a week in the pockets of 160 million working Americans.

Next, they supported it. If the cost were offset the way they wanted. Even though Republicans previously had said that tax cuts never need be offset.

After that, they opposed a stopgap measure extending the break by two months. Even though the cost was offset.

Ultimately, they approved the 60-day extension.

Then, they opposed extending the tax cut another 10 months. Unless the cost were offset.

Finally, however, they supported that. Even though the cost was not, in fact, offset.

What’s that sound? It’s the frantic flailing of a grounded GOP fish: flip flop, flip flop, flip flop.

Republicans revel in casting themselves as the principled party. They claim they’re the moral majority. Their values, they contend, are unshakable. So their serial waffling on this issue is confusing. Against it; for it; against it; for it. Isn’t that what they ridiculed a Democratic Presidential candidate for?

There’s a simple explanation, however. Throughout this entire episode, Republicans never wavered or vacillated or faltered in any way in performing their most vital, their most basic function as a political party: pandering to the rich.

The thread running through this drama, from beginning to end, is Republican opposition to equitably taxing the rich. The GOP did whatever it took to prevent the nation’s millionaires and billionaires from parting with another cent. In the end, the party’s public image took a beating. But Congressional Republicans triumphed in shielding the nation’s richest from paying their fair share.

So focused are Republicans on providing welfare for the rich in the form of special tax breaks and perks that initially the party didn’t support extending the payroll tax cut for the middle class at all. Late last November, party leaders, including U.S. Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona, announced they opposed a one-year expansion. Republicans said they’d allow a temporary tax cut for the middle class to expire, no problem, even though they’d previously contended they couldn’t end the supposedly temporary income tax cut Bush gave the rich because that would be a “tax increase,” and they could never support a tax increase. Not ever.

For Republicans, who are so true-blue to blue bloods, the real problem with extending the payroll tax cut for the middle class was that Democrats proposed paying for it with a small surtax on the nation’s wealthiest.

That confronted the GOP with a choice: side with the rich or go with the middle class. This was hardly a Sophie’s Choice, however. It was no difficult decision for the average American, say one of the 160 million for whom the extra $1,000 a year from the payroll tax break is meaningful.

Despite that, the GOP sided with 350,000 millionaires and billionaires. Republicans worked to ensure those millionaires and billionaires would not have to pay an additional amount insignificant to the 1 percent individually, but collectively substantial to the federal budget.

Within days of Kyl’s assertion that the GOP opposed adding a year to the payroll tax cut, Republicans changed their minds. They would go for the extension, they said, if the cost were offset not by taxing the rich but instead by freezing the wages of federal workers for a third year in a row and eliminating the jobs of 210,000 of them.

Their logic was straightforward – if the middle class were to get a break, then the middle class would pay for it.

Democrats, and the vast majority of Americans, disagreed.

Stymied on a year-long deal, the two parties arranged a two-month reduction, the cost of which was offset. Even so, House Republicans rejected it. Before they accepted it.

At the time, Republican U.S. House Speaker John Boehner said Americans could “take to the bank the fact that” a payroll tax cut extension for 10 additional months “will be paid for.”

Seventy-eight days later, Boehner and his Republican crew agreed to extend the tax break without an offset.

Never mind, then.

In a presidential election year, Boehner & Co. surrendered to a simple calculus: the 99 percent has something that the 1 percent doesn’t – more votes. Way more. And polls show American opinion is just the opposite of Republican position on these issues. Americans strongly support raising taxes on the rich, while they strongly oppose ending the payroll tax cut for the 99 percent.

The GOP was cornered. If it wanted to win elections, it must appease the 99 percent. If it wanted to remain true to its core values – pandering to the rich – it must refuse a surtax on the 1 percent.

So Republicans flip flopped on the easier issue – appeasing the unwashed masses. Have your payroll tax break extension, damn it.

Unfortunately for the GOP, the masses may be unwashed, but they’re not unwise. This time last year, 63 percent disapproved of Congressional Republicans; by January, 75 percent disapproved of the GOP.

There’s just something so unappealing about a flip flopper. But as U.S. Sen. John Kerry can tell you, Republicans know that.

Recess Appointments: Backlash to Blackmail

Leo Gerard — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 09:54:26 -0500

In America, when gangs of bullies torment school children, pushing them around and extorting their lunch money, parents know only one response effectively counters the abuse: confrontation. Running, whining, negotiating -- none of that works.

For the past year, since Republicans took the majority in the U.S. House of Representatives, they’ve behaved like young thugs, extorting Democrats to get what they wanted. Employing the blackmail techniques of schoolyard gangs, House Republicans repeatedly threatened to hurt the American people and the American government if Democrats didn’t submit.

Then President Obama confronted them. In recent weeks, he finally internalized and implemented the advice of American parents on dealing with bullies. He stood his ground. He called the GOP bluff on the payroll tax. And they backed down. He recess appointed four officials, defying GOP attempts to thwart service to American workers and borrowers.

Apparently, it’s a new day in Washington, one in which Democrats, who control the presidency and the majority in the U.S. Senate, are fed up and not going to take GOP extortion anymore.

For a year, Republicans leveraged their demands with blackmail. If Democrats didn’t accept draconian and economic recovery-starving budget cuts, Republicans would shut down the government. If Democrats didn’t agree to slash the budget by exactly the amount Republicans required, the GOP would destroy the country’s credit rating.

In December, House Republicans overplayed. Initially, they’d opposed President Obama’s proposed extension of the payroll tax break that puts about $1,000 a year back into the pockets of working Americans. Just before the holidays, they changed their minds and said they’d accept a one-year extension, if it were offset by cuts in the federal budget. A dispute ensured between Democrats and Republicans about what to cut. As time ran out before the scheduled holiday break, the Senate compromised and passed a two-month extension, with the remaining 10 months to be settled later. The approval was overwhelming, 89 to 10. The Senators went home.

That bi-partisan action in the Senate left House Republicans with the choice of approving a two-month extension of a tax break they claimed to support or rejecting it, which would increase payroll taxes for 160 million workers.

For days, House Republicans refused to accept the Senate measure, threatening workers with a tax increase. The House Republicans claimed they wanted a one-year extension, but what they really wanted was a one-year extension paid for by cuts they chose without Democratic input. They demanded Senators return to Washington and vote on cuts to support a one-year deal. Or they’d increase taxes.

The Senate refused. Obama refused. They confronted the bullies.

And the bullies blinked. The House passed the two-month extension.

Before they left town, however, the House Republican majority refused to allow the Senate to recess for more than three days. The Constitution permits each chamber to deny the other the ability to adjourn for more than 72 hours. The result is charade sessions in which a lawmaker, every three days, smacks down a gavel, declares the chamber open for business, recites the Pledge of Allegiance, then strikes the gavel again to close and leaves.

No lawmaker actually works for the people during these “sessions.” But the political dance allows a chamber to claim it’s not recessed. And that’s supposed to stave off recess appointments by the President.

In this case, Republicans intended to block recess appointments to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. By New Year’s, NLRB membership had dwindled to two, denying the organization the quorum that this group, whose function is to protect workers’ rights, must have to make decisions.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, by law, could not fulfill all of its duties to protect borrowers from fraudulent lending practices until it had a director. Using blackmail again, Republicans said they would filibuster the appointment of any proposed director, no matter how qualified, until they got what they wanted – which was measures to weaken the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, legislation designed to prevent another Wall Street collapse.

Republicans created what appeared to be a foolproof scam to cripple implementation of the law. The legislation wouldn’t be fully effective without a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau director and Republicans refused to approve a director unless Democrats agreed to dilute the law. In addition, the GOP would block recess appointments by never officially recessing.

Obama rebuffed this abuse. He called a legislative session that opens for three minutes every 72 hours while 99 Senators are vacationing what it is – recessed. And he made the appointments. He explained:

“When Congress refuses to act and, as a result, hurts our economy and puts people at risk, I have an obligation as President to do what I can without them. I have an obligation to act on behalf of the American people. I will not stand by while a minority in the Senate puts party ideology ahead of the people they were elected to serve. Not when so much is at stake. Not at this make-or-break moment for the middle class.”

Give ‘em hell, Barack!

Republicans Try to Convert America into Pottersville

Leo Gerard — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 08:20:41 -0500

In the iconic Christmas film, “It’s a Wonderful Life,” an angel offers the beleaguered main character, George Bailey, the stark choice between a hometown named for a cruel banker or one created by and for the middle class.

The banker’s town, Pottersville, is filled with bars, gambling dens and despair. The people’s town of Bedford Falls is made of hope, hard working middle class families, and their homes financed by the Bailey Brothers Building & Loan.

The film’s happy ending is the people of Bedford Falls banding together to rescue George Bailey and the Bailey Brothers Building & Loan that had given so many of them a leg up over the years. Republicans seek a different conclusion. They find middle class cooperation and community intolerable. They want the banker, Henry Potter, with his “every man for himself” philosophy to triumph. In the spirit of their self-centered mentor Ayn Rand, Republicans are trying to disfigure America so she resembles Pottersville.

A building and loan association, like the Bailey Brothers’, uses the savings of its members to provide mortgages to the depositors. Members essentially pool their money to give each other the opportunity to buy cars and homes. At one point in the film, George Bailey explains this concept to frightened depositors who are trying to withdraw their savings during the panic that led to bank runs in 1929.

Bailey urges the townspeople who had crowded into the building and loan office to withdraw only what they need, not empty their accounts. “We have got to stick together,” he tells them, “We have to do this together.” A building and loan doesn’t function without trust and cooperation.

It works well for Bedford Falls. The mortgages it provides help working people move out of the Potters Field slums and into Bailey Park, where homes well kept by their owners increase in value. Despite the success, Potter condemned this practice, saying it was based on “high ideals without common sense.” He criticized the Bailey Brothers Building & Loan for granting a taxi driver a mortgage after Potter’s bank had rejected his application. Potter scoffed at such practices, asking if the building and loan was a “business or a charity ward.”

This is exactly what Republicans do. They describe beloved American programs like Medicare and Social Security as charities – using the euphemism “entitlements.” Like mortgages from the Bailey Building & Loan, Medicare and Social Security are not charities. They’re the American people depositing and pooling their money for the benefit of the American community.

The GOP tries to destroy programs like these that aid the middle class, the vast majority of Americans – the 99 percent – while Republicans protect tax breaks and special perks for the rich – the one percent, the Henry Potters.

This time last year, Republicans demanded extension of tax breaks for the 1 percent, contending tax breaks stimulate the economy.

For the past three months, however, Republicans have fought extension of payroll tax cuts, contending a break benefiting 160 million middle class Americans did not stimulate the economy.

All year, Republicans have demanded an end to programs the middle class created to aid the majority, the 99 percent. The GOP wants to reverse the new banking regulations that were passed in an attempt to prevent another economic collapse caused by risky Wall Street practices. The GOP tried to to rescind the healthcare reform law that prevents insurance companies from terminating coverage when beneficiaries get sick and prohibits the practice of refusing coverage to people with pre-existing conditions.

Influential Republicans this year have called for repealing laws forbidding child labor, laws guaranteeing minimum wage and laws protecting the environment. They’ve demanded elimination of federal funding for organizations like the Public Broadcasting System that educates preschoolers, Head Start, which provides opportunity to poor children, and Planned Parenthood, which uses 97 percent of its funds to provide general, obstetrical and gynecological medical care to women, many of whom are rural and poor.

Republicans have decided to be the party of Henry Potter, the “meanest man in the county,” a man about whom George Bailey’s father said: “he's a sick man, frustrated. Sick in his mind, sick in his soul, if he has one.”

Like Potter, Republicans deride compassion and community as character defects.

In the Republican world, where greed is good, it was appropriate for Henry Potter to keep the $8,000 in Bailey Building & Loan money that George Bailey’s uncle, Billy Bailey, accidently handed him.

Republicans are attempting to impose that selfish belief system on the selfless American people, people like the citizens of Bedford Falls who rush to the rescue of neighbors.

It won’t work, just like it didn’t in “It’s a Wonderful Life.” Republicans will fail in their attempt to make America Pottersville because the 99 percent believe avarice is a sin, not a value. The GOP will fail because greed is not the American way.

On Helping Republicans, Or, Next Time You Need A Bad Idea, Try These

fake consultant — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 13:38:55 -0500

I have spent a number of years complaining about the interactions between Democrats and Republicans, but after the recent events involving the Keystone XL and civil liberties cave-ins, I’ve decided it’s time to stop complaining and embrace the madness.

But I also feel like there’s an ugly edge to all this…that hasn’t really been fully exploited.

I mean, Republicans have tried to force through a lot of disgusting ideas this Congress as they’ve held various bills hostage, but it seems like, if they really tried, they could do so much more.

But I’m not here to complain, I’m here to help; that’s why today we’ll be trotting out a few ideas of our own that Republicans can attach to bills throughout 2012, with the assistance of certain errant Democrats.

It’ll be fun, it’ll be festive, but most of all…it’ll be an exercise in Civic Responsibility, and in these difficult times, that’s some thing we could sorely use.

1) Above all, the needs of the army need to be taken into consideration. For instance, it will scarcely be possible to avoid, here and there, leaving behind some trade Jews who are absolutely essential for the provisioning of the troops, for lack of other possibilities. But in each case the proper Aryanization of these enterprises is to be planned and the move of the Jews to be completed in due course, in cooperation with the competent local German administrative authorities.

--From a planning document written in 1939 by Reinhard Heydrich, as reported in the book “Documents of the Holocaust”, edited by Yitzhak Arad, Israel Gutman, and Abraham Margaliot

So let’s start with the economy: the Census Bureau tells us that nearly half the population is now poor or near-poor, and something needs to be done. With that in mind, I’d propose the “Economic Freedom and Upward Mobility Act” (HR 4377), which would establish a series of military catapult sites along the US border where carefully selected poor folks would be given, literally, economic freedom and upward mobility, even as we instantly reduce the number of impoverished persons in the United States.

Civil rights are important, but not at any cost; that’s why the “Election Cost Control Act” (HR OU812) would allow States to empower local officials to preselect winners in various elections, saving the taxpayer the time and expense of having to count the votes for all those losing candidates.

Messaging matters, and there’s no reason Republicans have to be the bearers of all the bad news: Mississippi Congressman Hatesem Lotsabunch confirmed to me in a phone call yesterday that he will take my suggestion and introduce the “Voter Education Act”, which would require President Obama to wear a giant red, white, and blue dog whistle on a thick silver chain every time he appears in public between the date of passage and November of 2012. (For the record, I actually suggested a gold chain; he thought that was a bit “uppity”.)

We have a serious immigration problem, but I think we can take a page from the Newt Gingrich playbook and introduce the “Guest Worker Protection and Identification Act” (GWIPA).

Here’s the idea: Gingrich has proposed creating a class of persons (“worker residents”?) who are allowed to live and work in the USA, but are never going to be allowed to have US citizenship. The problem is that it will be impossible to quickly tell who is a legal worker resident and who isn’t. Under GWIPA, government-issued armbands would be provided for all legal worker residents to hold their photo ID; as long as they always wear the armband, they’ll be protected from having to show papers to law enforcement officials as they go about their daily business.

Governors as diverse as Rick Perry, Jan Brewer, and Robert Bentley have demanded that the Federal Government finally get serious about “securing the border”; the “Nuclear Assault Mine/Border Legislation Act” (NAM/BLA) is my “if you’re crazy enough to support Rick Santorum, why not this?” proposal to make that happen. The new law would order the Department of Energy and the Department of Defense to work together to develop, manufacture, and deploy small “assault-sized” nuclear land mines along the Mexican border as a way to deter illegal immigration.

"Well you look perfectly idiotic in those clothes!"
"These aren't my clothes!"
"Well, where are your clothes?"
"I've lost my clothes!"
"Well, why are you wearing these clothes?"
"Because I just went GAY all of a sudden!"

--Cary Grant, as David Huxley, from the 1938 movie “Bringing Up Baby”

Finally, let’s take a moment and consider one of the vital social issues of the day.

It is apparently still possible to lock down some GOP votes by going “hard negative” on the LBGT community, if what I’m hearing from the candidates is to be believed (I was particularly struck by Mitt Romney’s ability to twist on this issue: in the last GOP debate, in one single sentence, Romney said he felt there should be no discrimination against the LBGT community…but that there should be no same-sex marriages), and I have a proposal that allows the GOP to appear to be moving to a better place while ensuring that nothing ever changes at all:

The “Mitt Romney Legal Access Beyond Intimidation Act” (MRLABIA) would do two things: it would repeal the Federal Defense of Marriage Act – and, in the Mitt Romney tradition, it would also add a new provision into law that prevents same-sex couples from entering into contracts for the purposes of marriage, thus ensuring “a perfect flip-flop, every time”, as they might say on an infomercial somewhere.

So there you go: instead of relying on the usual “poison pills”, I’m challenging the GOP to try out a few of these ideas – and I’m also challenging much of the American media to try and tell the difference between some of these ideas and the present reality; just at the moment that won’t be easy, and, all humor aside, I think that might actually be the saddest part of this whole exercise.

On The Question Of Virginity, Or, “Starter? I Can’t Make Her Stop!”

fake consultant — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 02:28:04 -0500

I got a weird little story about my friend Blitz Krieger to bring to you today.

He’s had a crazy car problem, he has, and over the past few months he thought he had found a solution – in fact, he thought he had found the solution of his dreams – but in the end, he’s discovered that the things you dream about often don’t go according to plan.

The way it’s worked out for him so far, it’s been a lot of anticipation followed by a sudden wave of frustration, but I feel like he’s a lot better off having his particular problem with his car…because if he’d had cancer instead, he’d surely be dead by now.

The community is always embarrassed by the drag queens because straight society says, “A faggot always dresses in drag, or he’s effeminate.” But you got to be who you are. Passing for straight is like a light-skinned woman or man passing for white. I refuse to pass. I couldn’t have passed, not in this lifetime.

--Sylvia Rivera, describing the founding of Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR), quoted in the book “Becoming Visible: An Illustrated History of Lesbian and Gay Life in Twentieth-Century America”

So here’s what happened to Blitz: he waited forever to buy his first car because he wanted, more than anything else in life, to drive his “perfect” car: a 1982 American Motors Eagle SX/4.

It’s a wild car: it was designed as a small hatchback…with a V-8 engine…and “switchable” 4WD…which allowed it to travel easily in snow in a way that virtually no other passenger car at the time could manage.

So he waited all this time, and two years ago, in California, he literally found a little old lady from Pasadena who sold him his “Dream Car”, which, ironically, was the same brown color as Al Bundy’s Dodge.

It drove great for about six months, but it’s been suffering from a strange malady that presents as a horrible grinding noise when he tries to start the car. He has no idea what to do – and standing in the way of a solution is an obsession that I find a bit strange:

He is absolutely determined that he is not going to go to just any mechanic.

Instead, Blitz told me that since it’s the first time the Dream Car needs to be repaired, he intends to go to a mechanic who has never worked on any car before his – and he says he wants to do this because he feels the experience of having the work done this way will make it more “special” for the both of them.

It took him almost a year to find someone, but when he did, it was truly perfect: he met a woman named Jenna Talia who wanted more than anything to be a mechanic.

She’d been studying through one of those “learn at home” programs, and, amazingly, she had an attitude similar to my friend Blitz’s: she knew about how to fix a car from what she’d read in a book, but she refused to actually repair one until she got the chance to work on her Dream Car – and even more amazingly, her Dream Car…was a 1982 American Motors Eagle SX/4.

They actually met on the bus (Blitz, naturally, refused to drive any other car except the Dream Car), and after a few months of knowing each other, Blitz proposed that Jenna might work on his car in his garage, and she agreed.

Fun Fact I Just Made Up: In a recent poll, 32% of voters thought the Iowa Caucuses were a country located near the former Soviet Georgia.

So we’re going out last Saturday night, and I get a call from Blitz asking if I could come by and pick ‘em both up there at his house, and I’m OK with that, because with two drinks in a night being a big evening for me I’m more or less a permanent designated driver.

I was wondering how it was going with the car, and what I saw was stunning: the upper half of the engine was sitting in the living room, entirely disassembled. There were rockers and rods and all kinds of stuff there, neatly arranged for easy reassembly, and it looked like they had really put a lot of effort into the thing, but it was clear that they just couldn’t get it quite figured out…which isn’t surprising, considering it was the first time for both of them.

And you could see, in just that first second, that the two of them were some kind of frustrated. But it gets worse: Blitz told me that this was her third “diagnosis”, and that, now that she was actually face-to-face with a real car, she seemed to be entirely confused about exactly what to do.

Apparently things had gone so bad that Jenna wouldn’t even leave his house at night to go home until she could get things figured out…and, from what he’s telling me, he’s ready to throw her out, buy a different car, and get that car fixed by a mechanic who’s been there and done that – a lot.

To put it another way, he’s ready to dump his virgin mechanic…for a slut.

Now here’s the really crazy part of the story: I’ve had a bit of experience with cars breaking down over time, and I knew what was wrong from the beginning, as many of you probably did, too: the starter was bad – and that’s located on the very bottom of the engine, not the top, which means everything they’d been doing was pretty much pointless.

But I couldn’t tell them that in the beginning…because, again, it would’ve just spoiled the experience…and I sure wasn’t gonna say “I told you so” now…so even though I could have offered them both useful advice about how ignorance ain’t bliss, they surely didn’t want to hear it.

So look, folks, we could have a lot more fun following out this comic premise, but there’s a bigger point: I don’t want a virgin mechanic, and surely not a virgin doctor – and they don’t even allow virgin pilots to carry passengers.

What is it about sex (and politics, for that matter) that makes people think they’ll be able to simply “get it” with no experience at all? What is it that makes them think that celebrating their own ignorance is the best way to show they’re ready to take on something that, frankly, requires a bit of trial…and error…before you really get it right?

I don’t know the answer, but the next time someone tells you how their ignorance makes them a lot smarter about something, do me a favor and think about Blitz and Jenna and the Dream Car – and the living room full of engine parts – and if that person’s running for office, run the other way. Quickly.

I’d appreciate it; so will you – and if I know Blitz, he will, too.