Mitch McConnell

Republican Party Attempt To Defund “ObamaCare” Does Not Offer Alternative Program For Millions Of Americans!

Ronald 1 Comment

The battle is on within the extreme right wing of the Republican Party to defund “ObamaCare” in the upcoming budget battles, or shut down the government.

Leading the charge are the Tea Party Republicans in the House of Representatives, and 12 Senators, including Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, and Mike Lee.

A majority of Senate Republicans are loathe to do what the Tea Party wants, figuring it will cause electoral defeats for the Republicans in the midterm Congressional elections of 2014.

But what this is doing is putting Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, and other more mainstream conservatives, including Speaker of the House John Boehner, in a tough situation, which is causing Tea Party challenges to McConnell, Graham, and others.

But ultimately, the biggest problem is that the Republican Party used to say they supported an alternative to “ObamaCare”, but now there is no such talk, and that means, were “ObamaCare” to be defunded by some manipulation, that millions upon millions of American citizens, who have not had health care insurance, and expected they would now have such coverage, would end up NOT having it!

And that means the Republican Party is saying, “To hell with these less fortunate people! Let them rot, let them do without, let them have to deal with a situation that denies them the “American Dream!””

Is that a message to draw voters, to show that government, and really all of us, have no compassion, and concern for those less fortunate? Is it a good thing to say to children, the elderly, the disabled and sick, and poorer citizens that they do not matter? That all that matters is acquisition of wealth and assets by the fortunate minority of Americans?

Is this the kind of country we want in the future in the 21st century?

Defunding ObamaCare Demonstrating Cracks In Republican Party And Its Final Demise!

Ronald 25 Comments

It looks more than ever that a full scale civil war is erupting in the Republican Party in Congress, with 60 Tea Party radicals in the House and 12 Senators joining together to create a new budget and financial crisis with President Obama and the Democrats, unless defunding of ObamaCare is accomplished, but facing vehement opposition from the majority of Republicans in the Senate, and leaving Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican leader, trying to avoid the crossfire and save his own seat in next year’s midterm elections!

The Tea Party is a bunch of anarchistic lunatics, and prominent Senators, including Senators Rand Paul of Kentucky, Ted Cruz of Texas, and Marco Rubio of Florida, by allowing themselves to associate with this extremist group, are setting up. not only a political donnybrook among their own competing desires to be the GOP Presidential nominee, but insuring a conflict of massive proportions with “Establishment” Republicans, and even, fellow conservatives, who see what they are attempting to do to destroy funding of ObamaCare as suicidal, giving the Democrats a fantastic platform which could help to wipe out the Republican majority House of Representatives, and any chance of the GOP to gain six seats and control of the US Senate!

Among the Republicans who have denounced any move on defunding ObamaCare, while not agreeing with the program, are:

Tom Coburn of Oklahoma
Ron Johnson of Wisconsin
John McCain of Arizona
Roy Blunt of Missouri
Richard Burr of North Carolina

Mitch McConnell is trying to stay out of the crossfire, and so is Speaker of the House John Boehner, who is facing pressure from Michele Bachmann and other Tea Party House members.

The more rational Republicans listed above, while certainly strong conservatives, see the GOP being portrayed as reckless and being run by the inmates of an insane asylum, if they were to create a new fiscal crisis, at a time when they desperately want to have the possibility of Republican control of both houses!

Can one just imagine now what it will be like when the ambitious Tea Party Presidential seekers compete against each other, and face the Establishment types in the caucuses, primaries, and national convention three years from now?

It will be great entertainment, great political theater, and we will all be able to watch and witness the disintegration, the dissolution, the crumbling, and the destruction of a once great political party, insuring what will happen anyway, due to the Electoral College math—the election of a Democratic President and a stronger Democratic Party in the future!

The Republican Party is fighting against demographic change and the tides of history, and they are insuring their vanishing from American politics if they continue their destructive path, which seems like an ongoing tornado that cannot be stopped! They MUST stop listening to FOX News Channel and conservative talk show hosts, who have no concern about the future, other than their own financial gains and notoriety!

Senator Rand Paul, Confederate Sympathies, And Racial Insensitivities

Ronald 19 Comments

Kentucky Republican Senator Rand Paul is making clear his desire to be the GOP Presidential nominee in 2016, and this was known even before he won the Senate seat in 2010 over the opposition of fellow Kentuckian, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Following in the footsteps of his father, former Texas Congressman Ron Paul, who gained the backing of naive college students when he ran for President in 2008 and 2012, Paul hopes to mine the support of Tea Party activists and libertarians to overcome the business establishment, the Neoconservatives who wish military intervention overseas all of the time, and mainline Republicans who see Paul as an alarm bell for the future of the Republican Party.

Rand Paul, meanwhile, has demonstrated again and again of his sympathies with Confederate types who still fight the Civil War, and has shown lack of sensitivity about racism.

Paul has kept on his Senate staff an individual who goes around in Confederate uniform and mask, a person by the name of Jack Hunter. And Paul has expressed in the past his view of his doubts about the Civil Rights Act of 1964. And he comes across as naive about the outside world, and his libertarian views, while appealing to naive people, has never worked, and will never occur in reality!

Face the facts: Rand Paul is a lunatic, a weirdo with no qualifications, no message of significance, and with troubling connections to racism (which his father has also shown in his political career), and the odds of his being the GOP nominee against all of the other Republican factions is less than zero!

Were he, somehow, to win the nomination, which would require a miracle, it would lead to the total destruction of the Republican Party, worse than Barry Goldwater in 1964 or Alf Landon in 1936, both men of intelligence, which Rand Paul is not!

And imagine Paul against Hillary Clinton, the likely Democratic nominee. She would walk all over him in a debate, and would join Lyndon B. Johnson and Franklin D. Roosevelt in a massive win over their Republican opponents!

The Imploding Of The Republican Party, As Factions Develop Around John Boehner And Mitch McConnell!

Ronald 5 Comments

The nation is witnessing the implosion of the Republican Party, as their leaders in Congress, Speaker of the House John Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, are being ripped apart by factional division in both houses!

When the Republican leadership in both houses of Congress is being torn apart by ideological and personal rivalries, that is a sign of the GOP falling apart, and indicates there could be an internal rebellion that forces both out of leadership roles in the present Congress, an unheard of idea historically!

In the House, the key battle has been over immigration reform, and in the Senate, it has been over filibuster reform.

In the House, the key opposition has been the Tea Party loonies, but in the Senate, it is the mainstream conservatives, who are “comparative moderates”, as somewhat rational and reasonable on the issue of avoiding changes in filibuster rules, by allowing President Obama his choice as the administrators of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Environmental Protection Agency, and Secretary of Labor. So it is John McCain, Lindsey Graham, Bob Corker, and Susan Collins who saw the virtues of some compromise arranged to avoid a permanent change in the filibuster rules.

There is no respect, no diplomacy, no tact any more in the Republican caucus in either house, and it is a danger sign that the party may be unable to overcome their internal divisions and operate as a responsible political party for the long term future!

A Deal Is Reached To Avoid Filibuster Reform, But Gain Approval Of Obama Executive Nominees!

Ronald 7 Comments

As the Senate went to the brink on the possibility of changing the filibuster, the leading weapon of a minority in the chamber, an agreement was reached to allow a vote on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director, Richard Cordrey, and six other executive branch nominees, through an understanding arranged by Senator John McCain with Senator Chuck Schumer and others, taking away the weapon of holding off votes on these nominees, without changing the outline of the filibuster tactic!

It was an amazing example of ability for cooperation across the aisle, as the Republicans admitted that they should not stand in the way of confirmation of nominees to executive agencies they do not like, as it prevents proper functioning of such government agencies.

It was a defeat for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, and a victory for Senator McCain, Senator Lindsey Graham, and Senator Susan Collins, all seen as rational and reasonable, but able, with the adept handling by Senator Schumer, and the willingness of Senator Harry Reid, the Majority Leader, to push through Senate Filibuster reform IF the Republicans would not bend on the nominees.

Whether this surprising agreement at the last moment will bring about more comity and willingness to cooperate long term is yet to be seen, but President Obama succeeded in gaining a successful confirmation of Cordray, and the likelihood of other important confirmations being moved forward, so it was a good day for progressivism.

Destruction Of The Senate By Republican Recklessness With Filibusters: Time For Moderate Reform Of Senate Rules On Executive Branch Nominations!

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Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky demonstrated that he was a total hypocrite when he attacked Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada yesterday, declaring that Reid was destroying the Senate as an institution by his plan to change filibuster rules on Presidential nominations for cabinet appointments and government agencies.

Reid is not advocating that the filibuster be abandoned when it comes to judicial nominations or legislation, so what he proposes is very mild, simply to allow the executive branch to operate with the filling of executive branch related appointments by majority vote of the Senate.

Considering that the Republican Party has abused the filibuster hundreds of times in the past few years, an all time record, this move does not destroy the Senate, but rather makes it able to go about the business of confirming nominations so that when we elect a President, he is able to conduct government affairs in a proper fashion, without constant roadblocks that paralyze the winner of the election from having his own people in top executive branch positions.

The Republicans have brought this upon themselves, and they have made the Senate the laughing stock of the country, and it is time to modify, without completely abandoning, the concept of the minority able to stop the majority. It still will exist for the judiciary, and for all kinds of legislation, with a 60 vote threshold still required in those areas of Senate activity!

And there is no reason why the Democrats, at some point in the future, should want to block a President of the other party in his or her right to have the nominees he or she wants for the executive branch agencies to have an up and down vote of a majority of the Senate, so that the Presidency can operate in an appropriate way!

The Attack On Hillary Clinton As “Too Old”: Sexism Rears Its Ugly Head For The Republican Party Once Again!

Ronald 2 Comments

The Republican Party, led by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who is 71 years old and looks older, is on the attack against Hillary Clinton, trying to destroy her likely candidacy for President, and likely election as our 45th President, by asserting she will be too old to be President in 2017 and beyond!

This assertion is absolutely laughable, and is purely another example of Republican sexism, as this argument would NOT be used against men!

The Republican Party seems to have forgotten that it had the three oldest nominees for President in American history, and one of them was elected in 1980, and served until nearly age 78, but not at his mental peak in his second term, Ronald Reagan!

Ronald Reagan never had the intellectual brilliance of Hillary Clinton, who would be eight months younger at inauguration for the first term in the Presidency!

And Bob Dole in 1996 was 73, and John McCain in 2008 was 72, when they were Presidential nominees!

The GOP has no strong arguments, and they are afraid of Hillary Clinton, so they come up with this despicable excuse of an argument, about her age of 69 upon election!

The tactic will NOT work, as if Hillary wants the nomination, she will win it, and take the oath of office as President on January 20, 2017!

The Immoral, Cynical Sequester: Backing Off On Air Travel, But Not On Seniors, Children, The Sick, Unemployed!

Ronald 1 Comment

The $85 billion dollar sequester forced on the nation by the House Republicans has been a tragedy for the helpless, the vulnerable, but once it affects businessmen and air travelers, the Congress is quick to react, but only for that special interest group which tends to have a larger voice politically!

Yes, even this author travels, and will a number of times this summer, and was not thrilled about airline delays caused by furloughs forced on air traffic controllers.

But what about the indigent seniors who will not be fed by the Meals on Wheels program?

What about the children who are in Head Start, and will now have no summer program, and will force their mothers who have work to quit work that barely keeps the family out of poverty?

How about the sick in nursing homes who will not get government services, and will have medications and nursing care dramatically cut?

How about the unemployed, who will have a cut in coverage which allows them to keep a roof over their heads and food in their stomachs?

How about the victims, the people at the bottom of the social scale, who are told that life is to be protected, but only enough to be born, but not any guarantees beyond that?

And this is all so because corporations must get government welfare who should not get it, such as oil companies!

And this is so because those at the top of the economic pyramid cannot be expected to pay more, when they have had the massive tax cuts of the past decade!

And this is because the Republican Party is willing to cater to special interest groups that support their campaigns, including so called “religious” groups who are out to promote their agenda, despite the concept of separation of church and state!

Who gives a damn for the powerless, over the powerful? Certainly NOT the GOP!

And the sequester which they forced through is now being blamed on Barack Obama, rather than where it belongs–with John Boehner, Eric Cantor, Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell and the rest of their despicable excuse for a political party!

Ted Cruz Of Texas: The Bully Of The US Senate, Terrifying His Own GOP Colleagues!

Ronald 1 Comment

42 year old Senator Ted Cruz of Texas is rapidly developing as a true bully, reminding many of the arrogance and “in your face” personality of Joseph McCarthy 60 years ago, who utilized incendiary rhetoric to silence his own senior Republican colleagues, and used rhetoric to demonize the opposition Democrats.

Senior Republicans are being ignored, mistreated, and insulted by Cruz, and they seem paralyzed to challenge Cruz on immigration, gun regulation and his reckless attacks on anyone who does not share his extreme right wing lunacy on every issue imaginable!

He has insulted Chuck Grassley of Iowa, Dan Coats of Indiana, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Marco Rubio (his Cuban conservative Presidential rival) of Florida, and Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania.

He also has challenged and put on edge Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and fellow Texas Senator John Cornyn, both of whom face reelection threats from the Tea Party Movement, of which Cruz is a member. Cruz has no problem in insulting, and showing lack of respect for any Republican member of the Senate, and is rapidly becoming the most unpopular Senator in the entire body of 100 Senators.

And he does not care, since he is a true demagogue, who will stop at nothing in his quest to dominate events, and to run for President, although a case can and will be made that since he was born and lived in Canada to age four, that he is ineligible to run.

One has to wonder how Fox News Channel and the right wing talk show hosts will deal with that issue, considering their constant assertions that Barack Obama was not born in the United States, when he was! Well, Cruz was NOT born in the United States, so there!

Republicans Seem To Be Suicidal In Reluctance To Change Course

Ronald 37 Comments

The Republican Party is in its death throes more and more each week.

The country is no longer interested in their agenda, in their candidates, in their goals, and in their promotion of fear and hate!

The GOP has lost five of the last six popular vote totals for President, despite spending inordinate amounts of money, the most ever in 2012, due to the Citizens United case of the Supreme Court in 2010.

But they have elements that are destroying them from within like a cancer!

These destructive elements include:

The right wing conservative talk show hosts on radio and Fox News Channel, who are making massive amounts of money promoting hate, fear and division, and until the GOP tells Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, Mark Levin, Michael Savage, Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin, Laura Ingraham and their ilk to go somewhere, they will be going down the road to destruction!

The power of the National Rifle Association and Wayne La Pierre, and its campaign to defeat any candidate who wants any reasonable gun regulations, is going to cause the defeat of Senators and Congressmen, who are unwilling to sell their souls to this powerful pressure group!

The Tea Party Movement, which wants to wipe out Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, and is furious at Republican Governors, including the latest convert on ObamaCare, Florida Governor Rick Scott, making it a total of seven Republican Governors who have decided to accept that program, has plans to run candidates against anyone who does not wish to support their desire to go back to the 19th century and wipe out all aspects of the welfare state, so Maine Senator Susan Collins is on a hit list, as is even Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, for not being conservative enough! Do not forget that the Koch Brothers and other wealthy billionaires are the brains behind this movement, which is lower class populism gone wild, but they have the ability to harm the Republican Party establishment! And Rand Paul and Ted Cruz are the lead elements in this Tea Party uprising, who might cause the Republican Party to go down to defeat in many races, because of their loony libertarianism!

The right wing evangelical Christian movement, which will fight any move toward acceptance of gay rights and gay marriage, abortion rights, immigration reform, and gun regulation, as well as their desire to promote religion in the education curriculum, rejecting science and history, and promotion of a theocracy in states that have large numbers of their believers.

The “NeoCons”, Neoconservatives, who want more money spent on defense, advocate overseas military interventions, and glorify wars in the name of American capitalism and profits! They had power under George W. Bush, but are now trying to defeat Chuck Hagel for Defense Secretary.

And finally, the no tax increase crowd, led by Grover Norquist of Americans For Tax Reform, a group which is starting to see some Republicans abandon them, but not enough, and willing to back corporate loopholes and the wealthy, at the expense of the middle class and the poor, these two groups failing to understand that this elite has no concerns, except to back the establishment on Wall Street and in the corporate world, even at a time when corporate profits are soaring, and the stock market has doubled under Barack Obama!

These are the destructive elements in the Republican Party, and will cause its total dissolution very soon if the direction of the party is not changed to appeal to the moderate center, the tradition of the party under Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and YES, even in the time of Ronald Reagan, when moderates were still a major part of the party success, and Reagan a conservative but not an extremist, as these various elements of the party are in 2013!