Republicans shake collective fist at sky, cursing reality for interfering with politics

By  Joan McCarter Mon Jul 30, 2012   Original

The House Republicans want to spend their last week before the long recess doing their usual shit: banning imaginary abortion practices; more abortion with the H.R. 3803, the "District of Columbia Pain–Capable Unborn Child Protection Act"; dishing out tax cuts to millionaires and billionaires; working on a tax reform bill that will also dish out massive cuts to millionaires and billionaires; and not doing anything whatsoever about jobs and the economy. But then pesky things like the worst drought in decades get in the way.

[T]ry as it might to control the message, Congress cannot control the weather. A record drought is ensuring that despite its best efforts, Congress will have to do some actual bipartisan, bicameral legislating before it breaks for the August recess. [...]

House leaders grappled with the way forward: Either pass a yearlong extension of the 2008 farm bill with disaster aid attached or pass a stand-alone disaster relief bill. Either route is troublesome politically.

And either way, what was once a week meant to highlight the House GOP’s united stand to extend the entirety of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts will now become a quarrel over how to extend—and how to pay for—disaster aid. Rather than heading harmoniously into the August recess, the vote to dole out tens of millions of dollars in disaster aid is problematic for the GOP and highlights its divisions.

Darn it. It totally sucks when doing the job you were elected to do gets in the way of meaningless, futile, obstructive politicking. It's even worse when that critical issue you're supposed to be dealing with highlights the fact that the majority of your caucus only cares about meaningless, futile, obstructive politicking.

Remember when natural disasters were emergencies and didn't have to be paid for? No one ever talked about cutting funding for first responders in order to pay for disaster relief before this crew took over. Tax cuts, on the other hand? Nope. They never have to be paid for. Saving the nation's food growers? Eh. Food shortages will be good for the riff-raff, anyway.

Technorati Tags: The House,Republican Party,Tea Party,John Boehner,Farm Bill,Politics,Current Events

Mr. Romney Has Ceased To Be Amusing

By Crashing Vor   Sun Jul 29, 2012    Original

The headlines are rolling. The diaries are scrolling. Editors and producers are choosing which breath-taking declaration will win the lede, unilateral, amateur diplomacy or unilateral, amateur warmaking.

It doesn't matter, but for those following along, both the Washington Post and New York Times have chosen "Romney Declares War on Iran" over "Romney Declares War on Palestinians." Still, as I say, it doesn't matter. Mitt Romney, a half-formed man-child who made a splash in the corporate takeover game and mailed in a term as a state governor, has single-handedly undone decades of careful diplomacy and put the United States and its armed forces in danger.

What is perhaps saddest about this turn of events is that Mitt Romney himself doesn't give two shits about Israel. A Mormon, not a fundamentalist, he likely does not harbor beliefs necessitating Israel's triumph or destruction or crowning or dethroning. For Mormons, this continent has become the center of celestial concern, the "New Jerusalem." The old one was simply stage for the prelude of the real revelation.

So why would he stand on a terrace overlooking the "old" Old City and offer up our security to the crowd like Pilate offering a Barabbas for Jesus deal? What is so dear and holy to him that he is willing to trade our troops, our sailors, our flyers on the table to purchase it?

The presidency, of course. The dream of his father. The perfect picture of himself and his beloved wife waving from the portico of the White House, ultimate Prom King and Queen. He has stolen and destroyed and tax-dodged his way to wealth unimaginable but this final attaboy, this final "such a good son" has eluded him. And he must have it.

Like Israel, the actual job means nothing to him. He's made it clear that he intends to leave the policy and direction and management to others. He just wants that picture of him and Ann waving from that house.

But even a man of his wealth can't afford to simply pull out the AmEx black card and buy the office. For that he needs help from other obscenely wealthy men, men with their own agendas. And, since he cares nothing for actual policy, for a "vision thing," he's willing to let them exercise theirs, in exchange for their money (hello, Mr. Adelson, hello, Mssrs. Koch) or their credibility (hello, Mr. Cheney, hello, Mr. Bolton).

Up until now, it has been great fun watching Mr. Romney's awful turn in the role of presidential candidate, culminating in a London run unmatched in the history of comedic theater.

Tonight, the laughter dies. Let us pray that is all that does.

A correction: It has been pointed out that I am mistaken in my assumption that Mr. Romney, as a Mormon, is not obsessed with fantasies of world war centered on Israel as a requirement to fulfill his religion's prophecies. I confess I'm not well-versed in that faith's tenets.

So nuclear conflagration over that itty bit of real estate is central to LDS doctrine. Okay. I think my title is more apt than ever.

Technorati Tags: Mitt Romney,Mormon,LDS,Israel,Iran,2012 Elections,Current Events