Actually, the Right is more than wrong. It's behavior and policies are scary, dangerous and are an unmitigated disaster. The social media had been on fire last week with shares and hashtags that included #47Traitors. #GOPHatesthePoor. #GOPHatesWomen. #GOPWantsWar. #47Traitors trended at the top for three days.
Economists, social scientists, earth scientists and legal scholars can write or have already written volumes on this subject. I would like to address some of the more recent Republican Party's naked and stunning attempts at treachery, sabotage, back-stabbing and mendacious budget fraud. Not to mention the Party's inability to govern responsibly and in good faith.
In no uncertain terms it is clear that most of the elected Republican Party officials hate our President. It doesn't matter that he won two elections hands down. Actually there is probably quite a bit of pathological resentment surrounding Mr. Obama's big wins. He outfoxed his opponents. Twice. It wasn't supposed to turn out this way, according to them, for reasons that we can safely assume to be true, again, according to them. I guess it never occurred to his Republican opponents and naysayers that President Obama is far more likable, he has infinitely better ideas, as far as ordinary Americans are concerned, not to mention his heartfelt passionate, highly articulate and eloquent speaking skils that go beyond simple, lizard brain sound bytes and dog whistling talking points. That and younger, more educated voters tend to be more open minded and many are color blind.
To be perfectly frank I don't always agree with President Obama. As a FDR New Deal liberal Democrat I disagree with his policies on many occasions. Mr. Obama is more conservative at times than i would like. That said, our POTUS has been elected twice, fair and square, with no cheating or stealing needed, thank you, so, at the very least, Barack Obama deserves a modicum of respect from all of us. Those of us who voted for the President deserve a modicum of respect, too.
I believe it is the GOP's unholy aversion to our President and all of us who voted for him that is driving it's dysfunction and difficulty in governing. Granted, there is a split in the GOP between the far right tea party and the more moderate members. The far right nails the moderates as traitors if they compromise with Democrats. But they are vilified as traitors not for compromising with Democrats. It's the perception of the moderates caving into the man they loath the most. The President.
The GOP's irrational contempt for our President is the driving force behind the sabotage and back-stabbing that is taking place. To the point that Republican lawmakers, their behavior and agendas have become pathological, irrational and dangerous.
The irrationality of GOP loathing is toxic. As recent events have proved, the GOP is clearly incapable of governing. This fact threatens our national security, the financial well-being for most of us and the democratic process itself.
U.S. House Speaker John Boehner must have been possessed by the hate monster when he invited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address Congress without consulting with the White House. It was a cowardly and deliberate slap in the face to the President. This back stabbing act upset many Americans, including some Republicans. And Mr. Netanyahu's actions and remarks have further divided American Jews. In the end the Boehner/Netanyahu stunt turned out to be a disaster on too many levels.
Some 48% of registered voters said they disapproved of inviting another leader to speak without first checking with the president, while 30% said congressional Republicans should have done so. Just over a fifth said they didn’t know enough to say.
Mr. Netanyahu accepted the invitation in order to further insult and bully our POTUS. He and John Boehner also insulted the vast majority of the American people who voted for the President.
But even worse, Netanyahu encouraged Congress to reject the U.S. and our Allies negotiations with Iran.
Instead, Netanyahu chose to make a desperate-seeming end-run around the president and attempted to appeal directly to Congress to oppose a decision Obama has not yet made. In a plan concocted by Ron Dermer, who serves as Netanyahu’s ambassador to the U.S., the speaker of the House of Representatives, John Boehner, invited Netanyahu to address Congress on the dangers of a nuclear deal and the need for tougher sanctions, without first informing the White House.
Snip.
An even more obvious flaw: John Boehner is not the commander-in-chief, and does not make U.S. foreign policy. Netanyahu might find Boehner’s approach to Iran more politically and emotionally satisfying than Obama’s, but this is irrelevant. Yes, Congress can pass new sanctions against Iran, but it is the executive branch that drives U.S. Iran policy. Barack Obama will be president for two more years, and it makes absolutely no sense for an Israeli leader to side so ostentatiously with a sitting American president’s domestic political opposition.
So while trying to sabotage the President's negotiations with Iran, Mr. Netanyahu arrogantly lied to members of the U.S. Congress.
Netanyahu stood before our Congress and lied to them, receiving standing ovations.
Laudable remarks had they had been made in good faith, which they were not. In 2011 Bibi told Americans what we most wanted to hear. That he was ready to be reasonable and seek some kind of settlement to the conflict that has gone on for decades.
But he was not being reasonable. He told the Congress what they wanted to hear. This is what he said after his trip to Washington D.C.
JERUSALEM — Under pressure on the eve of a surprisingly close election, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel on Monday doubled down on his appeal to right-wing voters, declaring definitively that if he was returned to office he would never establish a Palestinian state.
The statement reversed Mr. Netanyahu’s endorsement of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in a 2009 speech at Bar Ilan University, and fulfilled many world leaders’ suspicions that he was never really serious about peace negotiations.
A day before his election in Israel Netanyahu played the race and fear cards, like a true right wing war monger would. God forbid,
Arab Israelis had the nerve to vote. And there will never be a two state solution under Netanyahu's watch, according to him. Of course after he won the election Netanyahu tried to ratchet back his rhetoric but it is too late. This time he went
too far and cannot be trusted.
Although Mr. Netanyahu has since tried to backtrack on those comments, Mr. Obama said that they had nonetheless forced his administration to reassess certain aspects of its policy toward Israel, according to a White House official who offered details of the call only on the condition of anonymity.
For the second consecutive day on Friday, the White House publicly questioned Mr. Netanyahu’s sincerity about the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, suggesting that Mr. Obama did not trust him to back Palestinian statehood, a central element of United States policy in the Middle East.
Asked why the president did not take the prime minister at his word about his support for a two-state solution, Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary, quickly shot back: “Well, I guess the question is, which one?”
Needless to say the damage has been done to U.S.-Israeli relations. All because Benjamin Netanyahu proves himself to be a disingenuous war mongering bully while John Boehner is blinded by contempt for the POTUS.
As if this treacherous deceit and backstabbing wasn't enough a junior Republican Senator from Arkansas, along with 46 other Republican Senators also decided to sabotage the President's negotiations with Iran.
The Snow Made Them Do It.
We've all heard about the #47Traitors #GOPWantsWar (both trending number one on Twitter) forty-seven Republican Senators who, in an attempt to sabotage the President's negotiations with Iran wrote a condescending, error riddled letter to the Iranian leadership. In this letter the forty-seven Republicans, led by junior Senator Ted Cotton of Arkansas, aka Dick Cheney, Jr., demonstrates that our Senators don't even know how the Senate works. Senator Cotton might hold a degree in law from Harvard but this doesn't mean he knows squat about the office for which he serves. It took a professor from Harvard Law to point out the factual errors in the childish open letter written to the Leaders of Islamic Republic of Iran. Tom Cotton and Ted Cruz (another Harvard educated lawyer) must have cut or flunked the class.
If one thing is certain, however, Tom Cotton dashed off to a fundraiser with defense contractors after he signed the letter.
After getting soundly spanked by the mainstream and vilified by the social media for treachery for well over a week, Senator Tom Cotton, also known as #Tehran Tom, has decided to reverse courses. Tom Cotton worries about U.S. interference in foreign negotiations.
Apparently someone else did what Cotton did two weeks ago. It must have been the same hate devil that took possession of U.S. House Speaker John Boehner.
Seriously?
Not to put too fine a point on this, but it was literally just two weeks ago that Cotton took it upon himself to organize a letter to Iran from 47 Senate Republicans. The point of the correspondence, by Cotton’s own admission, was to target international diplomacy, undermine American foreign policy, and disrupt officials during their ongoing negotiations.
I’m going to assume the Arkansas Republican remembers this. It caused a bit of a stir.
And yet, there Cotton was yesterday, expressing concern that a State Department official, simply by stating a simple fact about U.S. foreign policy, might “startle” officials abroad. These officials are “currently in negotiations,” so the GOP senator apparently believes Americans should be cautious not to interfere.
The irony is simply breathtaking. The mind reels.
The mind continues to reel after the U.S. House presented us with a budget from hell for the poor, the elderly, the struggling and the insured. It's a win win, though for the 1%.
Trillion Dollar Fraudsters.
So, about those budgets: both claim drastic reductions in federal spending. Some of those spending reductions are specified: There would be savage cuts in food stamps, similarly savage cuts in Medicaid over and above reversing the recent expansion, and an end to Obamacare’s health insurance subsidies. Rough estimates suggest that either plan would roughly double the number of Americans without health insurance. But both also claim more than a trillion dollars in further cuts to mandatory spending, which would almost surely have to come out of Medicare or Social Security. What form would these further cuts take? We get no hint.
Meanwhile, both budgets call for repeal of the Affordable Care Act, including the taxes that pay for the insurance subsidies. That’s $1 trillion of revenue. Yet both claim to have no effect on tax receipts; somehow, the federal government is supposed to make up for the lost Obamacare revenue. How, exactly? We are, again, given no hint.
And there’s more: The budgets also claim large reductions in spending on other programs. How would these be achieved? You know the answer.
This budget goes beyond the pale of decency.
O.K., I can already hear the snickering, but it’s the simple truth. Remember all the ridicule heaped on the spending projections in the Affordable Care Act? Actual spending is coming in well below expectations, and the Congressional Budget Office has marked its forecast for the next decade down by 20 percent. Remember the jeering when President Obama declared that he would cut the deficit in half by the end of his first term? Well, a sluggish economy delayed things, but only by a year. The deficit in calendar 2013 was less than half its 2009 level, and it has continued to fall.
So, no, outrageous fiscal mendacity is neither historically normal nor bipartisan. It’s a modern Republican thing. And the question we should ask is why.
The Republican budget is nothing more than trickle down economics on steroids. The idea is that tax cuts for the rich will ultimately float all of our boats. This fiction made its debut during the Reagan years and was re-played during the W./Cheney reign of deception. Most of the boats have sunk.
But I’m partial to a more cynical explanation. Think about what these budgets would do if you ignore the mysterious trillions in unspecified spending cuts and revenue enhancements. What you’re left with is huge transfers of income from the poor and the working class, who would see severe benefit cuts, to the rich, who would see big tax cuts. And the simplest way to understand these budgets is surely to suppose that they are intended to do what they would, in fact, actually do: make the rich richer and ordinary families poorer.
Yes, indeed. This Republican party has been on a crusade to make the rich richer by punishing ordinary Americans. It hasn't been able to hide its contempt for the President and is so blinded by it that it wants to punish voters for not voting for them.
Look, I know that it’s hard to keep up the outrage after so many years of fiscal fraudulence. But please try. We’re looking at an enormous, destructive con job, and you should be very, very angry.
So, there we have it. Today's Republican Party played Russian roulette with our foreign policy on Iran, it undermined the President's and our Allies' negotiations with Iran, it broke with protocol and common decency in order to insult the duly elected POTUS and it handed us a budget that says F*@K you to all but 1% of us.
Who votes for these traitors to their class and their country who hate us?
Don't get angry. Get even. Make your voices heard. Vote against the traitors.