News that Nebraska Democrat Ben Nelson has decided to pack it in and not seek reelection in 2012 has progressives simply beside themselves with glee. Finally, the DINO is stepping aside and the Party can run a true progressive to fill that seat. Good riddance to bad rubbish, right?
Forget all the ‘fighting the good fight’ bravado from the Speaker of the House. Forget all the denials from congressional Republicans that they caved on their principles to “do the right thing.” Forget all of it. This was the political equivalent of the Alamo.
Remember that Debt deal the President had with John Boehner last summer before Obama went back and asked for more revenue? Remember how that went? Well apparently John Boehner didn’t take notes, because he just made the same mistake of looking a gift horse in the mouth.
My point, Mr. President, is that mud-slinging, bitter rivalries and personal attacks are facts of life in politics, as you well know. But what is occurring in this nation over the last few months is owed not principally to a divisive political discourse, but has its genesis in something far deeper and more insidious. It goes back farther than the mere divide of political parties, farther even than the Republic itself. The principle issue before us, Mr. President, is race.
It started March 20, 2003 and came to a merciful conclusion December 18, 2011, and in between it cost the lives of more than 4,500 American soldiers and countless Iraqi civilians. It destroyed one country, emboldened another and badly destabilized a region that was already on the brink even before it started.
What we’re witnessing here is a fundamental split within the Republican Party between the establishment and the rank and file. The establishment sees Gingrich and Paul as way too extreme, erratic and unelectable, while the rank and file – insert Tea Party here – sees them as personifying the very essence of what they want from a candidate.
Herman Cain began to speak and not just in vague political speak; he started answering questions regarding important issues that a candidate for the highest office in the land should concern himself with and at least know a little bit about.
By now you’ve heard of the proposal floated by one Republican on the Super Committee to ‘raise taxes by $300 billion’ over the next ten years as part of the $1.2 trillion deficit-reduction plan. The lone Republican? Pennsylvanian Senator Pat Toomey, that’s who.
Are my eyes and ears deceiving me or has the GOP gone soft? Like the Grinch on Christmas day, maybe their hearts have suddenly grown three times in size? Perhaps there’s something to this compassionate conservatism after all.
For over a year the country has been watching a heated and tense legal tennis match going on between conservative-leaning courts and liberal-leaning courts over the legality of President Obama’s signature legislation, the Affordable Care Act.
And now comes the greatest obscenity of all: the Iraq War. With this monstrosity of an endeavor now coming to a long overdo end, the final price tag has far exceeded the trillion-dollar mark, and that’s not counting the impact it had on the economy.
The lack of intellectual curiosity about how things work and an almost pathological pursuit of the lowest common denominator of understanding is frighteningly apparent to anyone with a modicum of awareness. Both have risen almost exponentially over the last few years.
And speaking of 2012, that brings me to the second bit of good news that greeted my weary eyes. And that was the results of a new poll (albeit a Democratic one) that revealed that Republicans are in trouble as far as the House goes for next year’s election.
The facts are as clear as the nose on your face. Not only has this bastard-child of an economic scheme been responsible for the bulk of the U.S. debt over the last three decades, which the vaunted defenders of the faith fail to even acknowledge, it has been responsible for the biggest upward redistribution of wealth in this country since the 1800s – the time of the great land barons.
Good news continues to mount on the economy. Third quarter profits were up 16% from last year’s third quarter numbers and the stock market is having its best run in God knows when. Yep, things are really looking bleak these days, for the doomsayers, that is.
Whatever else you may want to call the ‘Occupy Wall Street’ movement – and for the record I still don’t know quite what to make of it a month in – know this much: this truly grassroots movement is not phony, nor does it appear to be some left-wing counterpart to the Tea Party.
No, like it or not, the current President, not his immediate predecessor – who never met a mission he couldn’t un-accomplish – nor the one before him, has put in place a new paradigm for American foreign policy that, if followed, might actually transform much of the Middle East and restore our badly tarnished reputation.
Leaving aside the fact that, yes, the tax code desperately needs some kind of reform, a closer look at Cain’s ‘simplistic’ proposal not only reveals a staggering lack of real tax code knowledge, if passed, it would end up being the greatest tax increase for middle and lower income earners since the federal income tax was introduced, while simultaneously ushering in the single greatest tax break for millionaires and corporations.
Below are two ‘fine’ examples of idiocy. So deserving of the spotlight of shame, they could easily share first prize. But, alas, someone had to edge out in front, if only by a nose, which, after reading this, you will have to hold for quite some time.
