Friday, April 8, 2011

TEA PARTY (AND OTHER RIGHTWING) PRINCIPLES, AND PRINCIPALS

With my post-brain surgery mind, I'm not sure which is which this morning. But it's clear that no matter what some of the rank and file Tea Partyers might believe or think they've been fighting for or standing up for and various rightwingers have proclaimed they believe in—smaller government, less spending, etc.—or what the majority of voters say they want—jobs, jobs, jobs—the Republican Party has brought the government to the brink of a shutdown over a rider concerning funding for an organization that supports abortion even though no federal funding is used for that purpose.

It's all down to the same old "family values" jive (my family or yours?). Obama and the Democrats have made so many concessions they might as well be Republicans lite at this point, but noooooo, the Tea Pasty Republicans are holding the rest of their party and the country, meaning us, hostage until we give them what they want: a country with no mixed-race presidents with funny (i.e suspicious) sounding names, no chance for Democrats to have any say in anything concerning governance, even if they're elected by a majority of voters, that has the at least public values of 1950s "America" but without the unions and social safety net for those of us not super wealthy and definitely without the taxes, which, of course, during our most prosperous times were higher for the wealthy than they are now and Paul Ryan the rightwing Republican golden boy wants to reduce much further while proposing changes in medicare and medicaid that would replace government guaranteed payments with vouchers for us to take to insurance companies and hope they'll honor and maybe pay part of our medical costs, 'cause god knows the insurance companies have done such a great job before the new healthcare system screwed it up with requirements like no denying pre-existing conditions etc.

14 comments:

JIm said...

Obama will have doubled the US debt to 16 tillion by the end of his first term. It will swell to 24 trillion by 2021 if Obama's budget is followed. We have historical models for this type of fiscal irresponsibility. Those models are the Roman Empire and the British Empire. There is time to reverse the slide into the dustbin of history; but not much time.

JIm said...

By the way, how about Wisconsin. If 12000 plus votes had been found, post election, in Cook Count Illinois, most would assume the votes were from the dearly departed, particuarly if ACORN had been involved. But since it was from a Republican county and city, the likelihood of fraud is small. As a conservative Republican I can only hope that the public union and the Democrat party will launch and expensive recount. Every dollar spent in Wisconsin will be that much less that will be available for 2012.

-K- said...

For what it's worth, a "princiPAL" is supposed to be your PAL altho I'm not sure that's been the case since Spencer Tracy played one in "Boystown," a movie I have fond memories of.

Harryn Studios said...

This whole thing - the morning after - is, and has been ridiculously embarrassing. The 'fact' that we don't have mindful congressional leadership that reflects 21st century thinking and humanity - that the games being played politically do not reflect the consensus of the majority of people that live and work in this country - and that because of the 'noise' from a radical, stupid, right wing faction that wants some retro Norman Rockwell version of America and is too blind (or stupid) to see our standing in the world diminish to nothing more than bullying military strength with an impoverished, unhealthy, uneducated population is despicable ...

Anonymous said...

It s all about .... POWER ...

this new minority along with the new Speaker flexing the muscles "testing the waters"


besides, politicians, live and operate "on a different planet"

so, seems to me that all that was "accomplished" was another week's extension ... Planned Parenthood is saved. No public money for abortions or needle exchange in D.C. and public vouchers for school kids
(also in D.C.) all the other 'riders' taken out of the bill of The Senate. Now it goes back to the House... THEN for a vote yea or nea..

so, what we got is another week's extension and a set-up for a bigger battle over the rest of 2011 AND a bigger battle over the 2012 budget !

that talk you talk about vouchers for medicare is just (at this stage) that talk... mostly talking heads on the useless endless media shows

the last time we were in a depression what "saved" our asses (and the rest of the world was WWll

we've been at war ever since it is the basis of our existence can't cut that !


Our next pres will "solve" things The Donald is coming ....

after all he's a Gazillionaire ... made it all via coming out of FOUR bankruptcies

wiped out his debts ... and retained ALL of his assets.


His most likely running mate will be that guy who owns facebook

so coming, if not already here, is Rule by

ebay, google, facebook and Trump WOW!

that's about where we are at now ... Poer, Greed and Morons
get used to it

Miles said...

Here is a link to a look at what happened in the budget "debate".

Not sure how to link to a specific day's post at the plum line but April 9th in the morning has a summary of what went down:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line

Lally said...

Great link Miles, thanks for alerting us to it. It summarizes the whole process excellently.

Harryn Studios said...

Agreed - nice plum-line link Miles ...
I believe there's another sub-text ploy going on with this inept congressional maneuvering.
Despite its problems, I've never dealt with a government agency that isn't as equally inefficient as Verizon, cable providers, or utility companies.
Still, the rally song seems to be "keep government out of our lives". The G.O.P.'s stalling tactics and inappropriate behavior throughout Obama's tenure has been to make government appear as inept as possible - especially during high-visibility debates over budget , health care, etc. Who would want the government involved in their lives when they can't even run their own business?
This perception simply adds more fodder to that extremist groups who continue to maintain government involvement is 'bad', whereas the only line of defense over the past few years has been the intervention of sanity from the liberal and social minded Democrats. As these programs, involvements, and over-sights are eroded, I suspect we'll be entering a new version of the wild west run by corporate wealth with no regard for the people that are willfully submitting to this manipulation.
Just a shell game played by the corporately owned G.O.P. with the idiots who think a few billion dollars is really the issue.

Miles said...

Totally Paul.

It's also totally maddening that the "serious" budget plan put forth by Ryan is based on projections by a firm that does this.

Miles said...

Jeez, I like the word "totally" :)


And on a somewhat related note, I often enjoy the connections that the "word verification" letters evoke. This time I got "irkleman". Seems appropriate.

Robert G. Zuckerman said...

Thanks Paul, for telling it as it is.

JIm said...
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Lally said...
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Lally said...
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