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Saturday, August 3, 2013

House GOP August Recess Gift: More Time Wasted on Phony Scandals

     Yes, they failed to pass a transportation bill, a farm bill that had any hope of making it to the Senate, a jobs bill, or something to replace the sequester with. However, they did manage to 'ban' Obamacare for the 40th time. 

     http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2013/08/gop-repeal-obamacare-obsession-turns-40.html

     Now, in an-ahem-even better use of Congressional resources in time and money, the House GOP has issued: more subpoenas on the all the phony scandals-the IRS, Benghazi, more on Fast and Furious, and even a subpoena for the 'secret science' the EPA uses. 

     "Issa, a strident Obama critic, complained in a Friday letter to Treasury Secretary Jack Lew that the IRS has “engaged in a systematic effort to delay, frustrate, impede, and obstruct the Committee’s investigation.”
“Your speed of delivery is such that you will be long gone, the president will be long gone, Lois Lerner will be retired before we would have received a sufficient amount of information to be meaningful,” Issa told IRS Acting Director Danny Werfel at Friday’s OGR hearing to approve the subpoena.


      Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/08/subpoenas-house-republicans-95150.html#ixzz2av82nzKt


      While Congressman Issa sees no cause to rush for trivial issues like a transportation bill or ending the sequester that has hurt so many Americans including those who serve our country's military, or maybe getting an immigration bill to conference, he does see a need for 'all due speed' on trying to pin something on the White House regarding the phony IRS scandal.  I mean we need it now while it can be used for partisan ends of the intellectually and morally bankrupt Republican party. We can't lose this partisan opportunity! 

      As Krugman notes this is really the big story in America today-how the GOP has simply abdicated any kind of constructive role in the nation's governing. 

      "Right now, if inherent importance were all that mattered, I wouldn’t be writing about the effects of sprawl, or the Fed succession, or even, probably, about China’s brick-wall problem. I would instead be writing all the time about the looming chaos in U.S. governance."

      "In the short run the point is that Republican leaders are about to reap the whirlwind, because they haven’t had the courage to tell the base that Obamacare is here to stay, that the sequester is in fact intolerable, and that in general they have at least for now lost the war over the shape of American society. As a result, we’re looking at many drama-filled months, with a high probability of government shutdowns and even debt defaults."
      "Over the longer run the point is that one of America’s two major political parties has basically gone off the deep end; policy content aside, a sane party doesn’t hold dozens of votes declaring its intention to repeal a law that everyone knows will stay on the books regardless. And since that party continues to hold substantial blocking power, we are looking at a country that’s increasingly ungovernable."
     "The trouble is that it’s hard to give this issue anything like the amount of coverage it deserves on substantive grounds without repeating oneself. So I do try to mix it up. But neither you nor I should forget that the madness of the GOP is the central issue of our time."
      This underscores the vapid narrative of the mainstream media-that both sides are roughly equally guilty. The GOP dysfunction is real as Norm Ornstein chronicled so well. 
      "Meanwhile, compare the two parties. You have the Democrats legitimately focusing in issues-the budget, the sequester, the transportation bill. The President has again performed the thankless task of reaching out to GOP Senators on Thursday in the hope of getting something done on the budget-the Senate GOP or at least a small number of them-seems to at least possibly be open to getting out of the dead end of obstruction at ever turn. 
      To Krugman's point then, defeating the GOP once and for all is the paramount issue before us today. 

     Nancy Pelosi puts it well. Today's GOP clearly haven't taken the Hippocratic Oath-first do no harm. 

     Happy to see some Dems are considering the nuclear option of judicial nominees. Not just any Democrat, either but non other than Pat Leahy, the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.



     UPDATE: I just read this interview the President had with the NY Times. It makes my point well in the contrast between a GOP opposition totally in a nihilistic funk where the only thing that energizes them is voting against a law upheld by the SJC 40 times and issuing subpoenas in fake scandals and a Democratic party that at least is talking about the issues that actually matter. 

     "And that’s what people sense. That's why people are anxious. That's why people are frustrated. That's what they talk to me about and that's what they write to me about: “I'm doing okay right now, but what I've seen over the last 20 years and what I learned profoundly during this crisis is that the ground under my feet just isn't as secure, and that the work I'm doing may not be rewarded.” And everything that I am proposing and everything I will be proposing over the next three years goes right at that issue. And if that’s not what Washington’s talking about, then we will be missing the boat."

     http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/28/us/politics/interview-with-president-obama.html?pagewanted=all

     I mean when do you hear any Republican talking like this?Or talking about anything even remotely constructive?
        

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