James Inhofe

The Tea Party Attack On Chris Christie: Wonderful News For Democrats!

The right wing Tea Party attacks on New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, making clear that his victory means nothing for the Presidential campaign of 2016, is great news for Democrats, as it indicates that the Republican Party is insuring its own defeat by attacking moderate conservatives such as Chris Christie, along with Jeb Bush and Jon Huntsman.

We have seen Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, Rick Perry, Rick Santorum, and James Inhofe taking negative stands on Christie’s victory, and if any of the first five are the GOP nominee in 2016, it will make for an easy landslide victory for Hillary Clinton, or any other Democratic nominee for the White House!

And the bitter attacks of right wing Talk Show hosts Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and others only adds to the destruction of the GOP brand!

If the GOP cannot appeal to African Americans, Hispanics, women, gays and lesbians, young voters, and labor, it has absolutely no possibility of regaining the White House or control of the Senate anytime soon, and the House of Representatives is also put into play.

The rhetoric will fly fast and furious as the GOP self destructs before our eyes, and it will be a display that makes the 2012 Republican brand look more rational by comparison, although it most certainly was not that at all!

Republican Suicide As Result of Government Shutdown And Debt Ceiling: Long Term Damage!

The Republican Party has seen 144 members of the House of Representatives and 18 in the US Senate voting for default on the national debt!

The Republican Party has seen itself held accountable for an increase in government spending caused by the shutdown of the government, to the tune of $24 billion, instead of having 800,000 civil servants working for 16 days, but now getting back pay rightfully for their forced period out of work!

The Republican Party has shown it does not give a damn for the economic and emotional turmoil it caused millions of Americans by their reckless, selfish, delusional behavior!

The Republican Party has shown it has no limits in its determination to destroy this President, but it has failed miserably!

The Republican Party allowed itself to be hijacked by Ted Cruz and the Tea Party Movement, and it has lost all respectability and credibility to achieve control of the White House, the Senate, and at some point, the House of Representatives, as they have shown themselves to be no longer representative of a broad coalition needed to be taken seriously as a national party based on coalition and compromise!

Public opinion polls show the GOP in crisis mode, with the lowest ratings in recorded history for a major political party since polls began in the mid 1930s!

The only hope for a revival of the Republican Party is to:

Repudiate Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, Rand Paul, James Inhofe, Marco Rubio and other Tea Party Senators.

Repudiate the Tea Party Movement in the House of Representatives.

Repudiate the talk show hosts on radio and Fox News Channel.

Repudiate the Heritage Foundation and other right wing think tanks, and come back to the moderate center which led to the elections of Eisenhower, Nixon, the Bushes, and yes, even Ronald Reagan, who would be mortified as to how right wing extremist the GOP has allowed itself to become.

But will the Republican Party take any or all of these actions? Do not hold your breath on this!

The Reign Of Terror Of Ted Cruz And Tea Party House Republicans: Time For Adults To Take Over From Children!

The nation has had enough of the Reign of Terror of Senator Ted Cruz of Texas and 35-40 Tea Party House Republicans!

It is time for the adults to take over from the children!

It is time for the Republicans in the Senate, minus Cruz, Mike Lee, Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, James Inhofe and a few others, to declare war on their reckless Senate colleagues and put them in their place once and for all!

It is time for John Boehner to show “cajones” and stop the destruction of American government for which he should be held accountable by the American people!

And it is time for Eric Cantor, the House Majority Leader, with greed and ambition waiting to replace Boehner, as the secret brains behind the House Tea Party Republicans, to be condemned by all sane Republicans, almost 200 of them, as having lost all credibility as a leader of their party in the lower chamber!

It is time for responsible moderate conservative Republicans to take hold of their party! When one loses one house of Congress, loses the White House, loses the majority of the Supreme Court, and the vast majority of their office holders, including Governors, accept that ObamaCare is here to stay, it is time to stop acting as hostage takers, and as anarchists!

Ted Cruz A Villain, Wendy Davis A Hero On Health Care

Texas Senator Ted Cruz failed to break the record of a filibuster today, stopping after 21 hours and 19 minutes, while the record remains 24 hour and 18 minutes by Strom Thurmond in 1957.

Also, Senator Alfonse D’Amato of New York and Senator Wayne Morse of Oregon surpassed Cruz in time spent on a filibuster.

Cruz is no hero, as he had a few breaks with assistance from fellow Tea Party activists Rand Paul, Mike Lee, Marco Rubio, James Inhofe, and a few other Republican Senators, and went off topic, referring to Dr. Seuss, Star Wars, Ashton Kutcher, and other extraneous topics.

On the other hand, Texas State Senator Wendy Davis spent 13 hours in her filibuster against the limitations on Texas health care recently, with no assistance allowed by others, and no extraneous topics allowed.

And Wendy Davis was speaking FOR health care, while Cruz has worked AGAINST health care coverage.

So Ted Cruz is a villain, while Wendy Davis is a hero!

Town Hall Meetings, Senator Tom Coburn Et Al, And Pandering To The Mob Mentality!

Senator Tom Coburn, Republican of Oklahoma, who this author has very little respect for, including regarding him as one of the worst Senators in American history, actually was starting to make me think that maybe I had misjudged him. He had begun to sound rational and reasonable on issues that he discussed on MORNING JOE on MSNBC, and I have always thought that his fellow Senator James Inhofe, who denies climate change, was far worse.

But lo and behold, Coburn has gone off the deep end, lost all credibility he had gained in my eyes, as a result of pandering to a mob mentality at a Town Hall meeting in Oklahoma, and this is not the only Republican to have done so this month!

Coburn is now claiming that Barack Obama, who has been very nice to him, and had meetings with him, is “perilously close” to meeting the standards for impeachment! And other Republicans are saying that they think they have the votes to impeach Obama, and one wishes that he could author the bill to impeach Obama, as if this is a laughing matter, a light matter, an action that if taken is no big deal, when it is INDEED a big deal!

The problem is that there is ABSOLUTELY NO BASIS for impeachment, as Republican strategist Nicole Wallace, who worked for John McCain in his 2008 Presidential campaign, has clearly stated, and any rational Republican, with the number diminishing, KNOWS this to be a fact!

These town halls are becoming an example of democracy gone amuck, where racists, nutcakes, whackos, lunatics, show up and demonstrate the worst elements of ignorant people thinking they know what should be done in government. And disturbingly, it is often women who spew forth hatred and venom and poison unbecoming a decent lady, let alone gentlemen!

Where is this going to stop? When are we going to have Republicans recognize that appealing to the ignorant mob rule is dangerous, and that responsible political leaders must take a stand against such craziness, even if, by so doing, they lose their coveted seats, which should not matter more than doing what is right and moral?

And if Colin Powell, the esteemed former General in the Persian Gulf War, and Secretary of State, can, rightfully, condemn the North Carolina Voter ID law as counterproductive and outrageous, and right in front of North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory, who signed the despicable legislation, just one of the many discriminatory Republican laws on voting rights, it is time for decent Republican voters who are dismayed by what has happened to their party, to make clear that they are abandoning any Republican such as Tom Coburn who speaks and talks in a reckless, irresponsible manner about our President and our government!

Do the Republicans look to promote anarchy and chaos, and follow the lead of demagogues Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, and their ilk?

If so, they should be denounced and repudiated by all sane Americans!

Joplin, Missouri; SuperStorm Sandy; Moore, Oklahoma: Reason To Pay More Taxes To Help Our Fellow Citizens!

America has gone through one natural disaster after another, more so in recent years, at greater cost of life and property.

The climate change deniers say it is par for the course, that nothing unusual is occurring, and that global warming is not the issue.

But even worse is that the same people in government who deny any concept of climate change and the need to react to it, also are the same people who, when a natural disaster occurs, fight against federal disaster aid, as in SuperStorm Sandy.

And if they, grudgingly, give up and say that disaster aid should be offered, they want the least aid possible, and only if there are budget cuts elsewhere to cover for the disaster aid.

So we have the two Oklahoma Senators–two of the absolute worst members of the US Senate at any time in our history—who represent one of the poorest states, but also a state of the oil industry, who take a hard hearted view on disaster aid, and budget cuts to compensate for such disaster aid!

James Inhofe and Tom Coburn have no problem in being “skin flints” on disaster aid, but if such is to be given, then hurt the poor, the sick, the unemployed, rather than make corporations pay fair taxes, make the wealthy pay more taxes, make all of us understand that when natural disaster hits, it is not just the people in the area of the disaster who suffer, but instead we all suffer!

It is the responsibility of all of us to help our fellow citizens, with the corporations and the wealthy being expected to pay more, but all of us need to pay more, and understand the Christian view that we are all our “brother’s keeper”!

What has happened to common decency, common dignity, and common humanity?

What has so sickened the body politic that all that matters is selfishness, greed, and lack of concern for our fellow citizens?

Is this the America that we want to live in? Is this the America that our Founding Fathers believed in when they created the Constitution? Is this the America that people have fought and died for in our wars? Is this the America we want to bequeath to our children and our children’s children?

This is a time to think about values and what really matters, rather than just money and things and possessions, and not caring about people we do not know!

It is a time to come together and strike back at these vicious right wing, narrow minded people who only care about themselves, and no one else!

The Historic Dust Storm Of 1934, And The Heat Trapping Gas Milestone Just Reached: An Environmental Crisis Has Begun!

79 years ago, the historic dust storm that swept across the Great Plains all the way east, marking the Dust Bowl beginnings that plagued the middle of the nation during the 1930s, occurred, and it is ironic that on this horrible anniversary, it has now been revealed that the heat trapping gas level that last existed three million years ago, has reoccurred!

We are now in the midst of a massive environmental crisis worldwide, and yet, our government has to fight the science and environmental deniers, including moronic Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma, who would rather threaten impeachment of President Obama than deal with the reality of the need to do something about the damage being done by our industries and mankind in general, to the future of human existence!

The carbon dioxide level is 41 percent higher since the Industrial Revolution. an alarming development. Of course, the US cannot solve the issue alone, and needs the backing of other nations, including China, but IF we are unwilling to do anything as the number one power in the world, then the future is gloomy indeed for the long range!

Talk Of Obama Impeachment Over Benghazi Tragedy: Republican Insanity!

The Republican Party and the conservative movement have been out to get President Barack Obama from the day he took office, just as they were with President Bill Clinton.

The right wing was able to impeach Bill Clinton over his sexual affair with Monica Lewinsky, but was unable to remove him from office, even with a majority Republican Senate in 1999.

Now, the tragedy of the death of the ambassador and three support staff in Benghazi, Libya, is being conjured up to be a scandal on the level of Watergate under Richard Nixon, Iran Contra under Ronald Reagan, and the sex scandal under Clinton.

And Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe and former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, now a right wing talk show host gone mad, are suggesting that impeachment of Barack Obama is possible, a totally lunatic concept!

NOTHING about Benghazi is worthy of impeachment, and it would simply be another “lynch mob” as occurred with Bill Clinton, making a mockery of the impeachment provision of the Constitution, by utilizing it for the third time in 40 years, when only the Richard Nixon case was worthy of impeachment!

It would undermine the ability of the government to deal with the many domestic and foreign policy issues this nation faces, and be a waste of time and money, as even with an impeachment, which would stain the reputation of Obama permanently, as it did with Clinton, the reality is that NO WAY would a two thirds vote of the Senate be possible to remove the President from office, any more than it was with Bill Clinton!

It is an exercise in futility, unjustified, and clearly is just a political ploy that would reverberate on the Republican Party and the conservative movement, leading to just more political confrontation, and cause disgust among the American people!

Threatened Filibuster On Vote On Gun Regulation Should Lead To Filibuster Reform In Response

The threatened filibuster of having a vote on gun regulations, in the wake of the Sandy Hook Massacre, should be enough to lead to filibuster reform in response!

Five Tea Party affiliated Senators should be ashamed of themselves for not allowing a vote at the least, since the likelihood of major reform is highly unlikely. But in honor of the 20 dead children and six educators at Sandy Hook, plus the victims in the Aurora, Colorado movie theater and other tragedies, why not let a vote take place? How obscene and heartless can these five Senators be?

The five Senators who should be roundly vilified and condemned are :

James Inhofe of Oklahoma
Mike Lee of Utah
Rand Paul of Kentucky
Ted Cruz of Texas
Marco Rubio of Florida.

The latter three have Presidential ambitions, but if the GOP were to nominate Paul, Cruz, or Rubio after not allowing a vote by a threatened filibuster on the gun issue, then they are most certainly dooming themselves for the long term future, as a party being led by heartless lunatics of the far right!

Majority Leader Harry Reid is threatening filibuster reform, which is a simple majority of the Senate, if the extreme right wing stands in the way of a vote on background checks for gun purchases, supported by 90 percent of the nation and 80 percent of Republicans in recent polls. And John McCain has protested the idea of a filibuster, and even Senator Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania seems ready to promote some kind of gun regulation reform.

The GOP cannot allow its fringe members to destroy the party’s future, which is what the threatened filibuster would do!

Cheers To Former Senator Richard Lugar For Blistering Conservative Talk Radio As Out To Promote Discord For Monetary Gain!

Former Indiana Senator Richard Lugar, one of the few “decent” Republicans left in the GOP, came out yesterday in condemnation of conservative talk radio and other right wing extremists as out to promote discord for monetary gain, in a speech at Duke University.

He also was critical of the attacks on Defense Secretary nominee, former Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel, by right wing spokesmen, both in the Senate Armed Services Committee (including Ted Cruz of Texas and James Inhofe of Oklahoma), by former Vice President Dick Cheney, and by the usual right wing activists on Fox News Channel and talk radio.

Both Lugar and Hagel are a dying breed, conservative Republicans in a field of right wing loonies taking over the party, led by Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, Mike Lee and others. One might not always agree with Lugar and Hagel on every vote, but one could have respect for their intelligence and fair mindedness, and willingness to “cross the aisle”!

It is good that Lugar, despite his defeat last year, is willing to speak up on principle about the extremist turn in his party, and how people are making money off of promoting hate and division!

ONLY when we have future Lugars and Hagels will the GOP rise again to the White House and Senate control, as the Tea Party Movement is the destruction of the party and its future!