The GOP's 'New Normal' is Getting REAL Old

by Sunnyjane

New Speaker of the House, Canadian Senator Rafael Edward Cruz, was not available for this announcement.

Any little calendar square that ends in y is the perfect time for Tea Party Republicans to prove to the world that America is totally lacking in exceptionalism.  In the leaderless House, serial liver-abuser John Boehner has suddenly realized that this is an election year and is bumbling and stumbling around trying to find something -- anything -- that will prove he's in control of the situation. Perhaps it's that stunningly undeserved $49,500 extra he receives annually just for having the title;  I dunno.  But in another brilliant post for Esquire, Charles Pierce begins by wondering what Eric Cantor did with Boehner's balls when he quit his job in a huff, and concludes by deciding that Cantor passed said balls on to Ted Cruz.  Sounds very plausible.

Boehner has been Speaker for thirty-two months, during which numerous post offices have been named or renamed and repeal of the Affordable Care Act has been voted on about sixty times.  In GOP House parlance, that's called Doing the Work of the American People.  Well OK, there was that time in January 2013 when Louie Gohmert nominated -- and was actively seeking votes for -- Allen West to become Speaker of the House, even though West had lost his election the previous November and was no longer a member of congress.  But hey, that's Louie, just acting normal.

To take up some time during the paltry number of days they're actually in session -- 113 -- the House has held numerous hearings on supposed scandals, bringing Macbeth's soliloquy to mind:  ...full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.  (Just for edification, the Senate will be in session 193 days this year.)  Adding insult to injury for Republicans, a report very quietly published on August 1 -- the day after the House split for their vacation district work period -- shows that there was no wrongdoing by the Obama administration on the Benghazi issue.  Poor Darrell Issa and Trey Gowdy; how unfortunate for them.  

There may only be one Speaker of the House, but there are so many Speakers for the House that it's hardly any wonder their messaging -- as well as their policy making -- totally sucks.  So let's just delve right in and take a peak peek, shall we?

To Sue or Not to Sue, That is the Question

Another idler who partakes of strong drink and does not tend to his responsibilities.

So, coming up goose eggs on scandals, devoid of any desire to put forth bills that would truly benefit Americans, and adamantly against any proposal by the White House or the Democratic-controlled Senate, Boehner decided that suing the President for issuing an Executive Order delaying the employer mandate portion of the ACA until 2015 was a swell idea.  Perhaps it was just a lil' ole memory lapse that Boehner failed to mention that George W. Bush messed about with extending -- through Executive Order -- the Part D enrollment period back in the day.  IOKIYAR.

Only the politically ignorant, the intellectually incurious, and Fox News adherents (OK, that's all redundant, I realize) don't know that the House voted about fifteen days later to do the exact same thing.  

This isn't really about the employer mandate delay, of course.  It's those pesky Executive Orders that, according to Republicans, are unconstitutional.  Well, no; they're not.  Now truthfully, it was probably a Democrat, Rep. Xavier Becerra of California, who gave Boehner the SoSueMe idea, when he said in defense of the President's actions on Fox News in February of this year that if the President's actions were unconstitutional, somebody would have sued him by now.  This was the same show on which Mike Lee, an ass-kissing acolyte of Ted Cruz's, whined that while President Obama's use of Executive Orders went against the Constitution, there was nothing anybody could do about it.  Nevertheless, on Wednesday, July 30, the House voted to sue the President of the United States for what they termed executive order overreach.  Whatever.  There's now a pretty little ticky mark by Boehner's name to show that he actually took an action.  That oughta get him re-elected as Speaker, right?

The President actually had great fun with the lunacy of the whole idea: They’re not doing anything and then they’re mad that I’m doing something. I’m not sure which of the things I’ve done they find most offensive, but they’ve decided they’re going to sue me for doing my job!

Ted Cruz, who seems to be acting as Speaker, Leader, and Whip in the House lately, met with a dozen or so GOP representatives on Wednesday evening and encouraged them not to support Boehner's Border Bill vote on Thursday.  They didn't.  So in what can only be categorized as messaging whiplash, on the very next day, Boehner sent out a statement that said, in part,  There are numerous steps the president can and should be taking right now, without the need for congressional action, to secure our borders and ensure these children are returned swiftly and safely to their countries.  Excuse me while I Snort! at such blatant hypocrisy.

The Squawking Impeach Him! Chorus

Arf!  Ruff!  Growl!  Yap, yap, yap...

John Boehner would have Americans believe that the GOP's latest impeachment talk is nothing but a White House scam to raise money and get Democrats to the polls in November.  No, John, it was your party who started that meme, oh, about six years ago.  It went something like this: We'll make Obama a one-term president or impeach him, whichever works.  And you can't blame that one-term-president thing on the Tea Party; it was Mitch McConnell who said loud and clear, several times, The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.   Some may argue that every party would like for the opposition president to be a one-termer; however, to say it is the single most important thing to be achieved is admitting that you don't give a damn about the problems of the citizens of this country, and that's been proven over and over by the GOP since January 20, 2009.

Blame Sarah Palin, for starters.  She called in her usual strident manner for the President's impeachment last October over the debt ceiling issue.  Now she's screeching no mas -- one of the few Spanish phrases other than cajones that she's familiar with -- about the southern border crisis.  Yep, in effect, Palin has lobbed her special brand of verbal flatulence into the face of the GOP while tossing sweet-scented rose petals to the Democrats.  Between Boehner's announcement that he would sue and Palin and her ilk threatening impeachment, the Democrats have raked in $7.6 Million in donations, including one million  contributed in one day alone.  Well, few have ever called Sarah the sharpest writing implement in the pencil box.

There are far too many instances of the right and far-right calling for the President's impeachment that I'm not going to bother wasting your time or mine listing them.  However, it's very curious that John Boehner has never ruled that such an action is off the table.  Fox News tried to float the fairy tale that the Democrats had called for George W. Bush's impeachment.  It took Democratic Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York to set Chris Wallace straight, saying that then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi clearly said impeachment is off the table back in 2006.  Jeffries then went on to say that John Boehner had never made an unequivocal statement that took impeachment out of the equation, and pointed out that Boehner has little credibility because he had also said there would be no government shutdown last year.  Well, we know how that turned out.

END NOTE

 

Election 2012: Rep. Joe Walsh, The Tea Party Mega-Mouth

by Sunnyjane

While the field of candidates vying for the position of Most Obnoxious Know-Nothing/Do-Nothing in the U.S. House of Representatives is jam-crammed with highly qualified contenders, Joe Walsh (R-IL) is the clear front-runner.  This is a man so blatantly malicious that he would gleefully fire a cruise missile through the hull of the Good Ship Lollipop while dumping raw sewage into Peppermint Bay.  You know you're stockpiling some really bad karma when, after only ten months on the job, even House Republican leaders say you're toxic.

Full of Sound and Fury...and Mighty Full of Himself

After a couple decades of personal failures -- including tax liens, lawsuits alleging his failure to pay debts, the foreclosure on his condominium, losing his driver's license because of unpaid insurance, and failing to pay child support  -- Joe finally succeeded in his bid to become a failed politician. Oh, he won the election (by only 292 votes), but getting to Washington and actually doing what is right for the country are two entirely different things.

Once in Washington, the self-described crazy Tea Party freshman said in an interview with Time Magazine,  I came here ready to go to war.  The political powers will always try to get you to compromise your beliefs for the good of the team. The people didn't send me here to compromise.  This city ain't never seen something like this freshman class.   Of course, there are those people who always make money from war, while the majority of the citizenry suffer badly, and this war was no different.   A salary of $174,000 a year was more than Joe Walsh had made in roughly five years doing whatever it was he actually did back in the Land of Lincoln.  (According to several different financial disclosure forms, he tried his hand at various pursuits, never earning over $40,000 a year).   There are those of a certain disposition who feel free to ruin their fellow countrymen's lives for a rather generous salary -- which, by the way, their fellow countrymen are paying.  What sort of sick irony is that? 


Walsh was embroiled in a battle before he had even made plane reservations to Washington.  In December 2010, his former wife's lawyer called the congressional payroll office to have them enforce a court order to withhold $2,164 from his monthly check for child support.  Ouch!  [Memo to Walsh Wife #1:  You may want to make plans now to go back to court after January 21, 2013, because there's a very good chance that the congressman will not be a House employee.]


Added to that indignity, exactly nine months after Walsh had been sworn in, the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington listed him has one of the most corrupt representatives in congress.  CREW's report said, in part,   Rep. Walsh has a long history of financial problems...By failing to pay child support, by failing to pay that support while loaning his campaign more than $35,000 and living in an expensive house, by failing to report his child support obligations on his financial disclosure forms, by inaccurately reporting his income to the court handling his child support case, and by failing to report to the FEC changes to his personal loans to his campaign, Rep. Walsh acted in a manner that does not reflect creditably on the House.   Double ouch!


In addition to CREW, the new CredoSuperPac has listed Walsh as one of the Republican candidates to be defeated in 2012, describing them as the most odious members of Congress and further stating that They are anti-woman. They are anti-science. They are hypocritical, bigoted, and have said and done things that are downright crazy.   TRIPLE ouch!


None of these issues, however, could stop Tony Perkins and the far-right-Christian Family Research Council from engaging in a cow-pie-sized bit of It's OK If You're A Tea Part Freak by bestowing upon Joe Walsh their coveted True Blue award for defending family, faith, and freedom.   [You cannot make this stuff up.]   Blithely brushing aside the inconvenient facts of Walsh's personal family issues of divorce, remarriage, and his, um...reluctance to pay child support, Perkins said, Congressman Walsh and other 'True Blue Members' have voted to repeal Obamacare, de-fund Planned Parenthood, end government funding for abortion within the health care law, uphold the Defense of Marriage Act, and continue support for school choice. I applaud their commitment to uphold the institutions of marriage and family.   To which, believe it or not, Walsh had the balls gall to respond, Defending American values have always been one of my top priorities, and this reward reaffirms my dedication to that fight.   [Forget that defending takes a singular verb.  What is most revealing about Walsh's statement is the fact that he used reward, which means payback.]


Representation from a Mutant Gene Pool 

It's obvious that the single indicator on the Koch brothers' litmus test for who qualifies as a good Tea Party politician is: Batshit Crazy.   Possessing all the class, finesse, and morals of Attila the Hun, Joe Walsh aced it.


We are all too familiar with the Tea Party puppet strategy of Just Say No to make Barack Obama a one-term president.  And, we know what they're against: raising taxes on the rich; lowering taxes on middle and poor Americans; enacting environmental regulations; restricting banking abuses; etc., etc., etc.  New day, same story.


After figuratively drawing and quartering President Obama about his lack of a jobs bill, John Boehner, the supposed Speaker of the House, refused to grant the president permission to speak to a Joint Session of Congress in August 2011 because it interfered with a GOP presidential debate and it would take too long to sufficiently secure the Capitol Building for a presidential visit -- a whole three hours!   Of course, the President did eventually present his jobs bill, but Joe Walsh was not in attendance, calling it political theater and telling Martin Bashir of MSNBC that I won't be a prop for Obama.   He further stated, [President Obama] is abusing his position.  We reserve that for heads of state and visiting dignitaries, presidents in moments of crisis.   [So the jobs situation wasn't a crisis?  Hmmm....]


The poorly barbered gray head then scampered back to Illinois and had this to say at a Town Hall meeting with his constituents instead: How idiotic is this president?  I don’t want to be disrespectful, but he’s going to bring forth a jobs plan next week. Think about that for a minute. He’s been in office for three years. He’s destroyed job creation systematically for three years. 

As for his opponent in November, Walsh is ugly and dismissive towards Tammy Duckworth, a decorated and severley wounded veteran of the Iraq war.  Acknowledging in a March 2012 interview with Politico that, she sacrificed her body for this country, Walsh then lowered his voice and added, Ehhh. Now let’s move on.  But he was not done with the subject, asking rhetorically of the interviewer, What else has she done? Female, wounded veteran…She is nothing more than a handpicked Washington bureaucrat. David Axelrod, Rahm Emanuel just picked her up and dropped her into this district.  


And to his constituents, the very people who made the grave error of voting him into this position, he is equally rude, yelling and screeching at them in town hall meetings.  For example, when a constituent asked a question regarding why there were not more regulations on banks, the strutting and shouting Walsh yelled,  Don’t blame the banks … that just pisses me off!  before threatening the calm constituent that he would throw him out of the meeting if he didn’t stop talking.

Yeah, you stay classy, Joe.  OK?


Enough Hypocrisy to Make a Rock Hemorrhage

It is hardly This-Just-In! news to report that the Republican Party is so anti-woman that it makes the 1940s seem like Female Utopia.   Anyone of the opposable-thumb species in this country is aware of the egregiously outrageous laws that Red States have enacted against women. But the far-right's assertion that There is no GOP War on Women is just a big fat lie tad disingenuous.  A case in point that did not get much press is Walsh's ranting indignation when the National Security Agency met with several Egyptian political groups, including the Muslim Brotherhood.  Walsh contended that the Muslim Brotherhood has a bad women’s rights record and that since President Obama is including the major political group in the talks, that somehow makes him anti-women.


The congressman said, I call on the President not to meet with or recognize groups that do not respect women’s rights and basic freedoms. It’s disappointing that an Administration – which continues to use inflammatory rhetoric against Republicans by using terms such as ‘War on Women’ – would meet with the Muslim Brotherhood. This is a group that would be happy to see women’s rights returned to the Stone Age. The President is sending an unclear message.


Stand back, dear readers; the hypocrisy is flammable.

An Unhealthy Dollop of Racism Flavors a Tea Party Stew

Think Progress reports that at another of Walsh's ranting town hall meetings in March 2012, he said that Barack Obama was only elected because he is black and articulate.

Just this week week, he came out with The Democratic Party promises groups of people everything. They want the Hispanic vote, they want Hispanics to be dependent on government, just like they got African-Americans dependent on government. That's their game.   In reference to Jesse Jackson, he went on to state that were it not for black people's dependency on the government, the civil rights activist would be out of work.


But hey, when you get verbally smacked down for your racist comments, don't retreat, repeat and reaffirm your bigotry!   As late as last Friday, Walsh was verifying his hooded-white-bed-sheet opinions by telling a radio station interviewer, I know enough of [Jesse Jackson] to know that if African Americans -- how come Jesse Jackson opposes school choice for inner city African American parents? How come he won't give that ability to low-income black parents? Because he doesn't want blacks, African Americans to escape miserable public schools.  He won't give them that opportunity. Why? Because he wants them dependent and imprisoned in terrible public schools in the inner city.  All Jesse Jackson is trying to do is to keep African Americans down on some plantation.


End Note

UPDATE

To learn more about the CredoSuperPac and TakeDownJoeWalsh, use the following links:

http://act.credoaction.com/take_down/about.html

http://www.takedownwalsh.com/

H/T:  honestyingov