Tea Is Still Being Served

(Cartoon by Lee Judge, published 6/11/14 in the Kansas City Star and featured at McClatchy DC.  Click on image to enlarge and then bring your attention back here, please.)

One of the reasons I am an avid fan of Eschaton is that Duncan Black, its host, has a pithy way of expressing his view.  Take one of yesterday's posts, for example:

Cantor will stop being Majority Leader on July 31, at which point the House can continue to carry out its important job of repeatedly voting to repeal Obamacare.

Nice, eh?

Unfortunately, Dr. Black is probably correct.  I don't expect much of change in GOP strategy (although that might be too dignified a word to use for Republican behavior) for the next two years.  Still, I don't think the Tea Party will be calling all of the shots in the House after July.  And I'm even hopeful that House Speaker Boehner will be less tolerant of the whackos, especially as the general election in November and the conventions in 2016 approach.

In my opinion (and that of a few better-credentialed pundits), the primary victories the Tea Party did get this time around can be attributed to low voter turn-out.

Yup.  That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

A Perfect System

(Cartoon by Yaakov Kirschen and published on 5/30/14 on his blog.  Click on image to enlarge and then trot on back.)

The blurb that accompanies Mr. Kirschen's cartoon says simply, "The system could also be good for America."

I don't often agree with Mr. Kirschen (he's too conservative and too much a Zionist for me), but I enjoy his cartoons a great deal simply because they make me think.  This cartoon especially sent the wheels spinning in my head bone.

My first thought was, "Oh swell.  Just what we need, trusting Congress to select the next president."  But then I got a series of thought in quick order.

Isn't that what we allowed the Supreme Court to do for George W. Bush?  And four years later what we allowed the state of Ohio to do?

And then I realized that for quite some time we've allowed others not part of any government to make that selection:  PHARMA, Big Oil and Big Coal, the Adelsons and the Soros, those with the big dollars to make the choice for us by donating huge amounts of money to 501c4 and SuperPAC committees to pay for nonstop commercials and trips to every boondock town in the country.

Now, every citizen gets just one vote, but somehow our individual votes don't seem to carry the same clout we used to have, especially when it comes to nominating conventions.  The two main parties have seen to that.  Not that this needs to be the case, however.

But when voters tune out and stay home, that's what happens.  In the recent California Primary, slightly over 13% of the electorate turned out.  I think that appalling, especially since voting absentee (by mail) is so easy.

A wise person once told me that in a democracy we get the government we deserve.

I think we're in trouble, folks.

We Can Only Hope

(Cartoon by Jack Ohman, published 5/2714 and featured at McClatchy DC.  Click on image to enlarge.)

We can only hope that Jack Ohman is as prescient a political pundit  as he is a skilled cartoonist.  With any luck at all, we'll have the results on the news shortly on the various state primaries held yesterday.  It's too early for me to check the confirmed results, but here's what McClatchy DC noted yesterday:

Amid what could be the tea party’s last hope for victory this spring, Mississippi’s neck-and-neck Republican Senate race Tuesday between incumbent Sen. Thad Cochran and tea party-backed state Sen. Chris McDaniel, has the potential to irrevocably impact the anti-establishment group, which has caused a rift in the Republican Party. ...

The biggest — and maybe last — hope could be Tuesday’s close race in Mississippi, where the anti-Washington group has backed state Sen. Chris McDaniel, hoping to maintain some of their fire from 2010 — when the tea party swept elections nationwide.
 McDaniel, with backers like former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, embodies the movement’s prototypical candidate. Removing incumbent six-term Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss., would give the tea party further sway over the future of the divided Republican Party.

In California, Democratic incumbent Gov. Jerry Brown leads both Tim Donnelly, a state Assemblyman and tea party conservative, and Republican Neel Kashkari. Donnelly and Kashkari are about even in the polls. The top two finishers advance to the November election.
 Local tea party-backed state Sen. Scott Beason faces national tea party-backed Chad Mathis in Alabama’s primary against five other Republican candidates to replace Rep. Spencer Bachus. But a tea party victory isn’t likely as both candidates trail state Rep. Paul DeMarco.   [Emphasis added]

I'm not familiar enough with Mississippi politics (nor do I want to be) but that really does appear to be the key test for the Tea Party.  McClatchy appears to be predicting victory for the establishment Republican in Alabama and a toss-up in California.  California will return Democrat Jerry Brown to the Governor's Mansion, but a victory for the Tea Party candidate in the primary could keep the Republican Party out of state office for years, something I am not comfortable with.  I want a two-party system ... it keeps the Democrats a little more focused.

If all three Tea Party candidates lose, then we will hopefully see the last of Sarah Palin and Michele  Bachmann and the Republican office holders won't have to waste their time and energy keeping that tiny sliver of the American electorate satisfied.  They will be able to and will have to sit down at the negotiating table with Democrats in Congress and the White House.  That means some things might actually get done by this Congress and the next.

An old woman can dream ....

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2014/06/02/229133/tea-party-pins-2014-hope-to-tight.html#storylink=cpy

Between-Times

(Cartoon by Ben Sargent, published 4/16/14 in  the Austin American-Statesman, and found through a Washington Post link.  Click on image to enlarge.)

It's that rather dullish part of the presidential election cycle:  it's too early for any serious campaigning before the public.  Instead the candidates are busy raising funds and seeking the imprimaturs from the heavy-hitting big donors. 

Congressional candidates, on the other hand, are busy scurrying around their districts and states in an attempt to both raise funds and to garner votes from their constituents for the June primaries and the November elections.  Incumbents are dividing their time between doing nothing in Washington D.C. and giving speeches back home about how hard they're working.  Their opponents don't have to do quite the traveling, but they have a tougher time establishing name recognition and motivating their party to pay attention and to help get out the vote.  Voter turn-out tends to be dramatically lower in these "off-year" elections.

That's probably the reason why there's been a resurgence of trash-talking during campaigns.  Immigration reform is off the table, so anti-immigrant sentiments are expressed freely by the GOP, especially since Ted Cruz isn't involved in any major race.  Benghazi will continue to be investigated by the fourth or fifth House Committee because Hillary Clinton will probably declare one way or the other after November.

Kind of a boring time on the election circuit. Even I'm having a hard time getting motivated.

A Winning Strategy

 

Click on image to enlarge

 

Ted Rall is at it again and he absolutely nails it with this cartoon and comments from his blog:

 

 

Republican Andy Vidak won an upset victory in last year’s special election for a state senate seat representing the San Joaquin Valley, prevailing despite the Democrats’ 22-point advantage in voter registration.

How’d he do it? His explanation: “Our message was that common sense has no party lines.” But as The Times’ Patrick McGreevy writes, his common sense might also have a lot to do with knowing when to shut up. “He sidestepped gay marriage and some other divisive issues — while taking a moderate approach to immigration,” writes McGreevy. ...

A February piece in the right-leaning Examiner lays out “Five things Republicans should just stop talking about already.” Number 3 is social issues. “Republicans should deemphasize social issues. Voters are split on issues like gay marriage and abortion, but they are much more united on the twin issues of the economy and Obamacare.” Number 4 is immigration. “In contrast to the economy, immigration is an issue where many Republicans are at odds with a strong majority of voters.”

The old question is, should a party stick to its long-standing convictions, even if it means losing elections? Or should it accommodate its positions to reflect the changing opinions of voters?

What’s new here is the suggested tactical compromise: maintain your platform as is, do whatever you can to promote your ideals — in this case, opposition to gay marriage and illegal immigration — after you win enough elections to be in a position to do so. But don’t talk about those issues to voters. Because if they knew what you were all about, they’d vote against you.

Count on people’s ignorance. Bait and switch. Your future relies on lies of omission.   [Emphasis added]

If nothing else, Mr. Vidak got California Democrats' attention.  Maybe they will finally start taking elections more seriously and start doling out money to candidates even in "safe" seats. 

And he did run a good campaign.  He avoided discussing the hot-button issues of gay marriage and immigration, and he came across as a man with common sense willing to use logic in the solution of problems.  Who knows?  He might even be such a man...you know, a moderate Republican.  Lord knows we certainly need such a person and for several reasons.

First of all, I like the two-party system (or three-party, etc.) because it keeps the parties in check and on their toes.  Debates, formal or otherwise, are healthy in a democracy, but only if differing views are presented for voters to choose among.

Second, I think a Republican Party with an open moderate wing unafraid to compromise for the good of the state and nation would mean that things would finally get done!

Third, if the "center" of the political spectrum shifts because the Republicans become less Tea Party-ish, then perhaps the Democrats will see fit to shift a little bit to left of center.  If the Democrats hope to maintain their majority in the Senate and to win the House, they have to stop running like centrists ("Republican-lite").  We need Roosevelt Democrats, not Eisenhower Democrats, you know?  The "Third-Way" Dems and the DLC didn't do their party or the nation any good.  None.  Zip.  I keep waiting for the party leaders to notice that.

So perhaps Mr. Vidak's election isn't quite the disaster folks, including Ted Rall, think.  At least I hope not.








GOP Gender Gap

(Cartoon by John Darkow, published 4/10/12, and featured at Cagle.Com.   Click on image to enlarge.)

I'm still giggling over the CPAC conference this weekend.  It reminds me that silly season is getting closer and closer.  The 2014 elections are just around the corner, and then the campaigns for the presidential nominations will get started in earnest.  CPAC laid out quite nicely just how silly the run-up to the nominating conventions are going to be.

One thing CPAC made clear is that the GOP still hasn't figured out this whole thing about women.  That was evidenced by their line-up of speakers.  Yes, yes:  Madame Palin spoke and even did some poetry, but she was one of the few women speakers.  Robin Abcarian noticed the same thing when she saw the list of speakers. Her March 7 column in the Los Angeles Times did the math:

By my count, the CPAC mobile app listed 163 speakers and panelists. Men outnumber women by far

The breakdown: 128 men (78%) vs 35 (21%) women. That’s a 57-point gender gap, people. If Republicans have any hope of stopping the Democrats' blockbuster narrative that they are waging a war on women, they must first solve their own war of attrition on women.

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who closes CPAC on Saturday evening, is expected to be a highlight for many attendees. But one woman with mega-star power is not enough to dispel the notion that CPAC (and by association the Republican Party) is a retrogressive boys’ club.
When is the next Sarah Palin going to get some CPAC love?

Even a writer on the conservative website, Breitbart.com, was brutal: “CPAC could have invited South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley or New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez," wrote Mary Chastain. "These women are not only in a position of power, but they are also minorities. Martinez can reach out to women and the Latino vote, which leans to the left. They did not even bring in Condoleezza Rice … she is respected on both sides of the aisle. CPAC also left out Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer.”

In a way, I can understand Cardenas’ obliviousness. He’s got man blinders on.   [Emphasis added]

I guess the GOP just doesn't get it.

Acting Like Grown Ups?

(Cartoon by Steve Sack, published 10/10/13 in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.  Click on image to enlarge.)

Merciful heavens! Congress managed to pass a bill to raise the debt ceiling!  And it was a clean bill, too.  The White House and the Democrats didn't have to give up anything to get it passed:  no (further) cuts to social programs, no demands for the beheading of a cabinet member, no strings whatsoever.  What happened?  Were the Tea Partiers hung over from all their victory celebrations? 

Nope.  Apparently, according to Doyle McManus of the Los Angeles Times, the Tea Party was stung by the increasing drop in their popularity among even conservatives and decided, as voiced by Rep. Michele Bachmann, to pick their battles.

Here's what Doyle McManus suggests about the 'switch' in tactics:

To some tea party militants around the country, Bachmann's words sounded like surrender. But the Minnesota congresswoman and her colleagues on Capitol Hill were simply embracing lessons learned from October's disruptive government shutdown.

Back then, tea party conservatives expected the American public to rally behind their demand to defund President Obama's healthcare plan — but the public didn't rally. Instead, voters turned against the GOP for staging a needless crisis, driving the party's popularity to record lows.

From that experience, the tea partiers learned some crucial lessons. The first was: Don't stage a crisis without a plan to win something from it.

The demands made by congressional conservatives in the fall were nonstarters, given a Democratic Senate and a president with veto power. The only thing they could offer was obstruction, and Americans didn't like that. And that brought the tea party to lesson No. 2: Branding yourself as "the Party of No" only gets you so far.

A third lesson came from the calamitous rollout of President Obama's healthcare plan, which rescued the GOP from its slump. With that, conservatives in Congress learned that if you think your opponent's signature project is a train wreck, the best thing to do is get out of the way and let the voters watch it crash. [Emphasis added]

McManus points out that as part of the new strategy, they have forged links with more traditional GOP backers and think tanks and have taken some lessons on how Congress works and how to manipulate the media, presumably so that fewer people merely point at them and laugh and more people will pay attention to the Tea Party agenda.  They also intend to do a better job screening and training the candidates they put up each election.

None of this means that the civil war in the GOP is over, just that a smarter tea party may be less inclined to sabotage itself. Almost 90% of John Boehner's House Republicans voted against the speaker on the debt ceiling, but they didn't make a scene while doing it.  [Emphasis added]

Sigh ... I shall miss the funny hats.

Pipe Down!

(Cartoon by Ingrid Rice and found at Cagle.com.  Click on image to enlarge.)

Doyle McManus's latest column nicely summarizes the arguments for and against the building of the Keystone Pipeline.  President Obama isn't going to have an easy time making this decision.

The State Department's 11-volume environmental impact statement released last month attempted to balance the factors dispassionately. Yes, the report said, the oil from Alberta's tar sands is 17% dirtier than most of the oil extracted in the U.S., and its transport and refining could add 27 million tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere each year.

But the report also concluded that a U.S. decision to block the pipeline wouldn't significantly reduce that problem, because Canada intends to move the oil whether Keystone is built or not. Indeed, if Canada ships most of the oil by rail, the environmental consequences could be even worse, and the United States would lose out on the pipeline's economic rewards.

That's why some administration officials I've talked with — and even, privately, some environmentalists — are betting that Obama will eventually approve the Keystone project.

How that sits with voters, especially environmentalists, may depend on what conditions the president imposes on the project and what else he does to address climate change.

If he signs off on the project, liberals and environmentalists (the people who worked so hard to get him elected) will scream long and hard.  If he doesn't sign off, several Democratic senators whose states will be affected may lose their seats in the upcoming election, and the Dems will lose their Senate majority (not that the Senate Dems have used that majority very well).

If he signs off, he will be admitting this country isn't serious about fighting climate change.  If he doesn't, the power companies and our Canadian neighbors will ship the dirty oil by rail, which is even more dangerous.

He's damned if he does; damned if he doesn't.

 Sorry, Barack:   addressing tough issues is part of your job.

How Amusing ... Not!

(Cartoon by Lee Judge/Kansas City Star (1/17/14) and featured at McClatchy DC. Click on image to enlarge.)

Leave it to the Republicans to find a new way to raise money, at the expense of the Democrats, of course.

From the L.A. Times:

The National Republican Congressional Committee bought up hundreds of URLs ahead of the 2014 election cycle and has created nearly 20 websites appearing to support Democratic candidates in all but the small print, a spokesman for the campaign confirmed Thursday.

The websites include donation forms that accept credit cards and encourage viewers to contribute up to $500, but instead of money going to the Democratic candidates, it goes to the NRCC. ...

But NRCC spokesman Daniel Scarpinato defended the committee’s strategy, calling the Democratic candidates’ official websites “deceptive” for omitting support for President Obama’s policies. He also dismissed concerns that the sites were misleading, characterizing the language contained in the websites as “clearly negative.”

“I think they are crystal clear about the perspective they are coming from,” he said. “And the Democrats don’t want this information out there. Therefore, they’re freaking out about them.” [Emphasis added]

The Republicans claim they have violated no FEC rules (although that is disputable, as the article points out).  The GOP simply went out and bought the website urls from the internet authority before the candidates got around to it.  In addition, claim Republicans, if one actually reads the material on the bogus site it is clear that it is asking for donations to the NRCC and not to the candidate whose picture appears.  In other words, if Democratic voters don't read the fine print they should be ripped off.

Watergate it ain't.  But sleazy and slimy?  Absolutely.

I think the GOP must be more than a little nervous over the upcoming elections.  I sure do hope so.

The Royal Opposition

(Cartoon by Jack Ohman/Sacramento Bee (1/29/14) and featured at McClatchy DC.  Click on image to enlarge.)

After watching and listening carefully to President Obama's State of the Union address on Monday evening (which was too long by about 15 minutes to my way of thinking), I decided to crawl into bed and listen to the GOP response with my eyes closed.  I, of course, fell asleep almost immediately.  I felt a little guilty about that, so on Tuesday I found the text of Rep. McMorris Rodgers' on line and read it.

Heh.  Ohman's cartoon got it wrong, but only insofar as Ms. McMorris Rodgers wasn't wearing a tie.  Her speech could have been given by almost any of the other members of the Republican Party. Our local paper gives a pretty good summary of that speech.

 From the Pasadena Star News:

Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers on Tuesday offered a kinder, gentler vision of Republicans who are determined to empower Americans, not the government, and close the gap “between where you are and where you want to be.”

Tapped to deliver the GOP response to President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address, McMorris Rodgers touched on the daily routines of average Americans that overshadow Washington, from kissing children goodnight to preparing for a doctor’s visit, and complained that Obama’s policies are making life harder.

The highest-ranking Republican woman in Congress said the GOP believes “in a government that trusts people and doesn’t limit where you finish because of where you started. That is what we stand for — for an America that is every bit as compassionate as it is exceptional. Our plan is one that dreams big for everyone and turns its back on no one.”  [Emphasis added]

A little short on details, wouldn't you say?

But, then, the GOP doesn't have a plan ... they don't need to.  All they feel they have to do is, to coin a phrase, "Just Say No."  And that's all they've done since 2009, and clearly all they intend to do until, well, until they hold the White House and both Houses of Congress. 

At that point, well, I shudder to think what they will say "Yes" to.

No Surprise Here

(Cartoon by Lee Judge, published in the Kansas City Star and featured at McClatchy DC.  Click on image to enlarge.)

File this away in the "nothing changes" drawer. 

The GOP still doesn't get it.  For all its talk about reaching out to minorities and women, the Republican leadership continues to dig itself deeper into the hole of wealthy old white guys.

From the Seattle P.I.:

Sixteen members of the Republican National Committee want the GOP to repudiate a “strategy of silence” on the abortion issue and speak out forcefully against Democrats “deceptive ‘war on women’ tactics.”

The resolution will be taken up this week at the RNC’s winter meeting, which coincides with the 41st anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark Roe vs. Wade” decision that legalized abortion.

“The Republican National Committee urges all Republican pro-life candidates, consultants and the Republican Political Action Committees to reject a strategy of silence on the abortion issue when candidates are attacked with ‘war on women’ rhetoric,” said the resolution.
...

The core of the resolution reads:

“RESOLVED: The Republican National Committee will support Republican pro-life candidates who fight back against Democrats’ deceptive ‘war on women’ rhetoric by pointing out the extreme positions on abortion held by Democratic opponents.”
“RESOLVED: The Republican National Committee will not support the strategy of Republican pro-life candidates who stay silent in the face of such deceptive rhetoric.”
In short, no soft-pedaling of the party position.

Now, if there were only some real Democrats out on the hustings for the 2014 election ...

Internal War

(Editorial cartoon by Mike Luckovich and published in the Atlanta Journal Constitution.)

Doyle McManus took a look at the GOP and noted that the war over who owns the brand continues, and will presumably continue throughout the next year.

We've all grown used to a Congress locked in bitter warfare between two parties, producing gridlock on federal spending and other pressing issues. But the Congress that left Washington last week hit a new high in another category: gridlock among Republicans. ...

How divided are Republicans in Congress? So divided, one conservative joked, that it shouldn't be called a civil war: "It's not organized enough for that." ...

Every political party has its factions, of course. And parties that have recently lost presidential elections — as the GOP just did — are often the most divided.

But the current brawl in the GOP seems more destructive and personal than most. McCain has called Paul and Cruz "wacko birds," for example, while Cruz called his GOP critics the "surrender caucus." Christie warned that Paul's views were "very dangerous." Paul responded by calling Christie "the king of bacon." ...

But perhaps the biggest problem the Republicans have is one of leadership. When asked to identify the leader of the Republican Party, the first-place winner in the Pew poll was, accurately enough, "nobody."

"The single biggest difference is the disappearance of an organized establishment," said Richard Norton Smith, a historian at George Mason University who has written several books on GOP history.   [Emphasis added]

And the disputes range from immigration, to the budget, to Obamacare and beyond.  I would argue that it's not merely the Tea Partiers versus the establishment, but the Tea Parties vs. the Libertoonians vs. the Moderates (what few there are left).  I'd be very surprised if that changed in the coming year and during the 2014 elections.

That means gridlock for at least two more years unless the Democrats make some amazing gains in 2014, and I'm not to optimistic about that.

Even popcorn doesn't take the edge off a non-functioning Congress.

Sleazy Is As Sleazy Does

David Horsey makes a pretty strong point with his cartoon and column from August 1.  Weiner's behavior was indeed scandalous, but then so has the behavior of most members of Congress been (both sides of the aisle).

All but a few macho holdouts among the let-men-be-men faction agree that Anthony Weiner is not worthy of becoming mayor of America’s biggest city, but there is a perennial threat to our democracy that is far larger than the turgid tweets of the former congressman from New York. That threat is the ongoing whoredom of members of Congress who remain in office.

It is no secret that our senators and representatives expend a significant amount of time and effort every week of the year soliciting campaign donations from lobbyists for corporations and other special interest groups and from fat cat donors who have interests of their own. Most who take the cash will insist that they are not selling their votes and, in most cases, that may be technically correct. The reality, though, is that all that money drives the congressional agenda and buys an open door into the rooms where legislation is crafted. The votes automatically follow.

Certainly, there are a few men and women in Washington whose motives and philosophy are so pure that money does not sway them, but, too often, the money shapes the philosophy and justifies the motives. ...   [Emphasis added]

Congressional freshmen are told to plan at least four hours each and every day raising funds for the next election.  The amount of email requests I get the last few days of each month lends some credence to that assertion.  Raise the money, get re-elected, take care of your donors.  Unfortunately, small time donors like the 99% of us don't given enough to really get their attention.

And now our Congress critters are beginning their 5-week recess.  When they return they will be in full election mode for 2014.  Little has been done this past year.  I suspect even less will be done in the next year.

Well, they might be foolish enough to shut down the government, but that would require some action, and I'm not sure this congress is capable of that.

I am not optimistic.

Poor Mitch

(Editorial cartoon by Joel Pett / Lexington Herald-Leader (July 7, 2013) and featured at McClatchy DC.)

Poor Mitch McConnell.  It doesn't look like he will be facing a Tea Party challenger for his senate seat, but there will be a Democratic challenger, one who has already won a state-wide election and one who is a "girl."

From the Louisville Courier-Journal:

The race between U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes appears to be on.

That’s despite Grimes’ odd rollout of a campaign that apparently wasn’t really a rollout. The real rollout will come later, we’re told. ...

An official campaign rollout done right — particularly if it includes the Big Dog, former President Bill Clinton, the last Democrat to carry Kentucky in a federal election of any kind and a close friend of the Lundergan family — would go a long way toward making people forget Grimes’ announcement.

The GOP’s harping on the rollout could, in fact, show that it has an even bigger problem — an opponent who hasn’t taken many positions and therefore doesn’t have much of an Achilles’ heel.

McConnell’s campaign team acknowledged as much during the infamous strategy meeting recorded by activist Curtis Morrison when a presenter said doing opposition research against her was like looking for “a needle in a haystack.”

The main things they found about her are that she supported the Democratic Party platform in 2008 and that she endorsed President Barack Obama for re-election in 2012, but according to the presenter was “too smart to use his name.”   [Emphasis added]

The lengthy article this excerpt comes from is actually quite dismissive of Alison Grimes and takes more than a few pot-shots at her rather aimless announcement.  Still, it does note that she holds a state office and is friendly with the Clintons.  If Bill shows up to help her campaign, it should help considerably.

Here is a good case for Howard Dean's "50-State Strategy."  If the Dems want to be rid of McConnell, "Mr. Turtle Man," and they certainly should, then pouring some money into her campaign would be money well-spent.

No, she probably won't be another Elizabeth Warren or Kirsten Gillebrand.  What she will be, however, is not Mitch McConnell and not a Republican.  We could use that in the Senate.

They Still Don't Get It

(Editorial cartoon by Mike Luckovich and published 6/16/13 in the Atlanta Journal Constitution.)

It became even clearer after the Sunday talk shows that we won't get an immigration bill out of this Congress.  From McClatchy DC:

Republican House leaders reiterated their opposition Sunday to the immigration bill passed by the Senate last week, highlighting the uncertain prospects for enacting a major overhaul of the nation's immigration laws.

"The Senate bill is not going to pass in the House," House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., said on CNN's "State of the Union," echoing statements made by House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and other senior Republican lawmakers. ...

Boehner has said that he will not bring up an immigration bill for a vote that does not have the support of the majority of the Republican House caucus.

And the reason stated is that there isn't enough of a guarantee of border security to stop the flow of new immigrants in the Senate bill, even though that bill would extend the border fence and increase the number of border agents and drones to do just that.  I think the real reason is that the Tea Partiers don't like the fact that the Senate bill allows a path to citizenship for those "illegals" already here.  The fact that the path to citizenship is so draconian as to be almost impossible to trod doesn't matter.  It's still "amnesty" to their way of thinking.

Will it come back to haunt the GOP?

Certainly.  If not in 2014, then certainly in 2016.  The demographics (see Mike Luckovich's cartoon above) are just too clear.

Some folks are just too stupid to see the light.  In fact, they might just be too stupid to find their way home.

Be Careful What You Wish For

(Editorial cartoon by Steve Sack 5/30/13 and published in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.  Click on image to enlarge and then come back.)

A couple of days ago I put up a post which tried to figure out why the GOP stalwarts, who have plenty of money, hadn't moved on to putting up primary opponents to Tea Partiers who are costing the party voters all across the country:

For example, why aren't they grooming someone to take on Michele Bachmann.  She is being sued by an Iowa Republican leader for stealing an email list.  She is under a House Ethics Committee investigation.  She continues to spout ridiculous conspiracy theories, embarrassing her party every time she is fact-checked by the major mainstream media outlets.  The Democrats have targeted her for defeat and will pour money into their candidate's campaign (finally!).  She's from a conservative district; surely there is someone there who would do the job for the GOP.

So, shortly after the post went up, Michele announced that she would not be running for re-election in 2014 in her own patented word-salad way.  From her home-town newspaper, the Strib:

Her announcement, which came as she embarked on a congressional tour to Russia, surprised friends and detractors alike. It capped a tumultuous two-year period in which Bachmann went from leading Republican presidential contender to barely hanging on to her congressional seat while coming under investigation for campaign spending that occurred during her short White House run.

Starting as a grass-roots activist who knocked out a veteran incumbent in her first legislative race, Bachmann quickly emerged as a national conservative icon. She commanded a loyal following even after her 2012 presidential ambitions died quickly when she went all-out to win the Iowa caucuses and came up well short. Along the way, she became one of the country’s most prolific political fundraisers, with a vast network of small donors. ...

Democrat Jim Graves, who came close to unseating Bachmann last year, said his former foe’s decision makes clear that she “recognized that it would be an uphill battle for her going forward.”

Graves announced his candidacy last month and says he will battle whoever replaces her on the Republican ticket.

Without Bachmann in the race, a host of Republicans began salivating at the chance to run in a rare open seat in the state’s most conservative congressional district. As of late Wednesday, no GOP candidate had officially stepped up to run, but many were publicly assessing the possibilities.   [Emphasis added]

Michele's avowed reason is that she never considered her seat in Congress as an occupation, which is so wonderfully ironic I can hardly stand it.  She and her Tea Party colleagues have served as an occupying force in this Congress so that no work for the people could actually get accomplished.  Her backers no doubt had that in mind.

So why is she leaving?

I still don't know.  Maybe she's received a better offer, perhaps from Fox (who might want the latest iteration of Sarah Palin on staff).  Maybe her contributors have been less forthcoming this time around and she realized that Graves might beat her.  Maybe the Karl Rove traditionalists have told her it was time for her to move on and offered her a cushy spot in one of the right-wing think tanks.  Nobody seems to know at this point.

What I do know is that she has ruined the easy post for lefty-bloggers, the easy test for fact-checkers, the easy subject for political cartoonists, and none of us are happy about that.

She also has dashed the hopes of an easy victory for Jim Graves and the Democratic Party.

A mixed blessing, to be sure.

Dissin' The Function: Updated

(Click on image to enlarge and then boogie on back.)

This time David Horsey has taken a look at the sequester and points out the obvious pain it is causing, and not just to the poor and the elders.

It is not in the news much anymore, but the automatic across-the-board cuts – the spur to legislative action that resulted in no action – continue to kick in. In the aftermath of the monster tornado that struck Oklahoma last week, a detail that went largely unnoticed was that federal money for emergency relief had been slashed by $1 billion because of the sequester. The disasters won’t stop, but the money might run out.

Meanwhile, the budget for the National Institutes of Health has fallen by nearly $2 billion. That means hundreds of fewer grants for research into new ways to prevent or treat diseases.

As the wildfire season approaches, the U.S. Forest Service is asking 41 states to return millions of dollars that are part of a revenue-sharing scheme that goes back to the days of Teddy Roosevelt. Thanks to sequestration, the Forest Service says it cannot afford to share anymore. ...

Even though the federal deficit is dropping – due, in particular, to the increase in taxes for the rich that kicked in on Jan. 1 – Congress remains mired in tired rhetoric and false premises about overspending and big government. Instead of wasting time bloviating about tea party fantasies, our leaders should get busy cleaning up the mess they have made by failing to do their jobs.   [Emphasis added]

Why, yes, David.  Our leaders should pull the plug on sequestration, but they won't.  The House as presently constituted won't allow it.  The wackaloon Tea Partyists continue to rule.  Nothing of substance will come out of this Congress.

And here's what I don't get:  why aren't mainstream Republicans doing something about it.  Why aren't they primarying the worst of the lot.  Surely at this point they can't be hurt any more than they're already being hurt.

For example, why aren't they grooming someone to take on Michele Bachmann.  She is being sued by an Iowa Republican leader for stealing an email list.  She is under a House Ethics Committee investigation.  She continues to spout ridiculous conspiracy theories, embarrassing her party every time she is fact-checked by the major mainstream media outlets.  The Democrats have targeted her for defeat and will pour money into their candidate's campaign (finally!).  She's from a conservative district; surely there is someone there who would do the job for the GOP.

Karl Rove has the money, as do other more "traditional " Republicans.  Why are they holding back?

I really have no idea.

UPDATE:

Michele has announced that she won't be running for re-election.  I have to admit that I'm surprised.

Not Exactly

(Editorial cartoon by Glenn McCoy / Belleville News-Democrat (May 17, 2013) and featured at McClatchy DC.)

Doyle McManus took a look at the three scandals currently swirling around the White House and seems to believe that this state of affairs is typical for a second-term president.

What is it about presidents' second terms that makes them seem so scandal-ridden? Simple: The iron law of longevity. All governments make mistakes, and all governments try to hide those mistakes. But the longer an administration is in office, the more errors it makes, and the harder they are to conceal.

Just ask Richard M. Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton or George W. Bush, all of whom spent much of their second terms playing defense.

The longevity rule caught up with Barack Obama last week as he wrestled clumsily with not one controversy but three: the Internal Revenue Service's treatment of "tea party" groups, the Benghazi killings and the Justice Department's seizure of Associated Press telephone records....

If Obama is both smart and lucky, all three controversies will gradually fade away, assuming no more wrongdoing comes to light. His Republican critics already run the risk of repeating their error in the 1998 impeachment of Clinton; if they hound the White House on charges that don't pan out, they'll be vulnerable to charges that they're wasting time on partisan squabbles.   [Emphasis added]

 I agree that the second term is difficult for most presidents, but this series of events is a zebra with a different stripe.  Yes, Obama is behaving clumsily, stumbling gracelessly on the first two "scandals" involving the IRS and Benghazi.  On the third, he at least has used the cover provided him by the various iterations of the Patriot Act, passed overwhelmingly by the congress critters since 9/11, 

Ironically, that third scandal has merit, but not exactly the one the wackaloons in the current Congress want to touch.  I think that's why we've seen fewer fireworks being shot off on that one.

I also think that what really is ginning up the controversies is a desire to keep the wackaloons in place for the 2014 election, perhaps even after the 2016 election.  If the basest base of the GOP can be kept energized, the Tea Party movement (primarily funded by Our Owners) will last a little longer and its hangers-on (Ryan, Bachmann, and Issa) will be in place for another couple of years at least.

It's never too early to campaign for the next election.

Michele Stays Busy

(Editorial cartoon by Steve Sack and published 4/14/13 by the Minneapolis Star Tribune.  Click on image to enlarge and then be so kind as to return.)

Michele Bachmann, convinced that her constituents are as distracted by shiny keys as she is, continues to lead the wackaloons in the House in pointless exercises.  From the Star Tribune:

For Rep. Michele Bachmann, Thursday hearkened back to the halcyon days of 2009, when her Tea Party supporters flocked to the U.S. Capitol and she led Republican opposition to President Obama’s health care law.

Tea Party rally? Check. House vote to repeal Obamacare? Check.

The Tea Partiers rallied around the Minnesota Republican in the morning to express their outrage over the IRS’s disclosure that it had targeted Tea Party and other conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status.

Hours later, by a vote of 229-195, the GOP-led House passed its 37th attempt to defund all or part of the health care law, a measure championed by Bachmann. “This issue is now revived,” Bachmann said of the repeal bill. “It’s back on the table.” ...

But Bachmann still plans to ride the issue in Minnesota, where she has launched a two-week television ad blitz focusing on the repeal of Obamacare, an issue that helped thrust her into the national spotlight three years ago and that became no small part of her 2012 presidential bid.

The ad campaign, 18 months before voters go to the polls, represents an unusually early start in congressional elections. But Bachmann faces a potentially tough challenge next year in her rematch with DFL businessman Jim Graves, who lost by just 4,296 votes in November in an overwhelmingly Republican Sixth District.

Bachmann also has been battered in recent months by ethics and campaign finance allegations stemming from her presidential campaign. Her ads are running as she is in settlement talks in connection with a politically damaging lawsuit filed by a former staffer who accuses her of covering up the alleged theft of a proprietary database taken by the chairman of her Iowa caucus campaign.   [Emphasis added]

I imagine Michele has been doing a lot of dialing-for-dollars  to cover the costs of those ads and to help pay any settlement she reaches with the former staffer in his law suit.

I also imagine that there are several powerful groups perfectly willing to finance her, just as they did during her presidential bid and her last re-election campaign.  Will it be enough?

That all depends on the House Ethics Committee report.  I think we know what that will look like.

Because We Need More Benghazi

(Click on image to enlarge and then please return.)

The Republicans are not done with Benghazi! Benghazi! Benghazi!, and so neither is David Horsey.  Once again he points out that a rational and serious discussion of what went wrong so that the incident isn't repeated in the future would be helpful, and once again he notes that neither party is in the mood for such a rational and serious discussion.

A Pew Research Center poll found that 70% of Republicans believe the administration has been “dishonest” about what happened at Benghazi. Only 16% of Democrats feel the same way. But 60% of Democrats believe Republicans have “gone too far” pursuing the issue while 65% of Republicans think their party’s representatives have handled it “appropriately.”

This stark partisan divide is hardly a surprise given the sour state of American politics, but, on an issue of national security, one would wish for broader middle ground in which concern for objective facts, not political advantage, would guide people’s opinions. ...

Playing a public relations game with the situation does not reflect well on Hillary Rodham Clinton’s State Department or on the Obama White House. However, this game of semantics was a fairly typical example of inside-the-Beltway spin doctoring and posterior protecting. It is not nearly in the same league of monumental cover-ups of illegal acts that took place with Watergate and the Iran-Contra scandal.

And that’s the problem with the current demand by many Republicans for a special committee to be set up to investigate the Benghazi affair. That seems a pretty obvious ploy to pump up the issue for political advantage and to do as much damage as can be done to the former secretary of State, who just might be the future Democratic presidential nominee.   [Emphasis added]

2016:  that's the whole point of this exercise in wackaloonacy.  This has little if anything to do with Obama.  He has given the GOP everything they've wanted, even things it didn't ask for.  It's all about the Hillary.  They've got to have some red meat to throw to their basest base in 2014 and they have to deny the Democrats the White House in 2016.

This is yet another reason why we can't have nice things.