Let's Hope For An Internecine GOP 'War' !

Thanks to indolent, stupid American voters - namely in the Democratic ranks - the GOP stands to put a world of hurt on millions of the most vulnerable citizens, including kids, seniors, and workers. All this because critical demographics - including the young voters and Hispanics - didn't turn out for the 2014 midterms to the same level they did for the 2012 general election.

All of this was anticipated by the GOP obstuctionists, of course, acknowledging  progressives' midterm lethargy as well as the general dumbing down of the populace. Recall as recently as 2010, the rodent -faced Mitch McConnell vowed that the GOP Senate’s primary responsibility was to make Barack Obama a one term president   This strategy failed but as  Paul Waldman put it in this insightful piece in the American Prospect:  

“He devised and implemented the strategy of total obstruction in the first six years of the Obama presidency not because he couldn’t stand the president, but because he thought (correctly) that it would be the strategy most likely to get Republicans what they wanted.” 

And, of course, the GOP did get what it wanted thanks to up to 8 percent of the Demo general election voters staying at home. What? Were they stoned? Were they incapacitated? Did they not know that the gates of hell would be unleashed electorally on the majority?

Some of this  - of which most aren't aware - includes:

- Further cuts to food stamps, to increase defense spending, leaving even more poor kids hungry at night (already 15 million since the December, 2013 sequester cuts)

- Putting back on the table cuts to Social Security, mainly via the chained CPI but also more severe and general cuts (up to twenty percent) which I recently was warned about in a letter from the National Committee to Protect Social Security & Medicare.  Excerpt:

"Republicans made a change to their proposed rules package that makes it more difficult to pass legislation to protect millions of current Social Security beneficiaries (disabled workers and their families) from a potential 20 percent cut in their benefits in 2016.

Your National Committee was on Capitol Hill all day long fighting to stop this dangerous last-minute amendment from passing. And we sent a letter to every member of Congress, which you can read here, urging them to vote it down."


- Efforts to annihilate Medicare and replace it with a "premium support" system, i.e. seniors would get a fixed voucher each year to try to get the health care they need - described by one wonk thusly:

"Beginning in 2022, it would create a marketplace in which seniors have a fixed amount of money to buy health insurance. The amount of 'support' would match the price of the insurance premium."

The truth is eighty percent of seniors would find themselves further behind the eight ball on account of rising medical costs -especially for cancer treatments, hip replacement surgery etc.- while the vouchers would be barely $10, 000 a year, if that. This means they'd have to cough up much more out of pocket.

- Gutting a main component of Obamacare by eliminating the 30 hrs. a week of work entitlement to access, and replacing it with 40 hrs. But all that would happen if this was done is the corporatocratic rats would ensure most workers don't make the 40 hr./week cut and leave it at 39 hrs. or less. 

- Passing the Keystone XL pipeline which would be the fastest way to hurl us all into the climate shitcan given the degraded quality of tar sands oil - in terms of CO2 injection into the atmosphere, but also the risk of spills across the length of it especially near the Ogallala aquifer.

At least Obama has vowed to veto the last, and he will certainly veto many others as well, particularly if the Dem spines collapse in the Senate - as I predict they will. The Dems when in opposition never display cojones, they act more like terrified little wimps afraid to act the least bit obstructionist. See also:

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2014/11/harry-reid-turns-out-to-be-another-punk.html

So, in fact, we may have to rely not only on Obama vetoes but splits in the GOP itself - as revealed earlier this week when the Teepees threatened Johnno Boehner's Speaker hegemony in the House.

As salon.com columnist Heather Digby Parton put it ('The GOP's Coming Horror Show'):

"The real battle of the budget may just be between the House and the Senate Republicans with Democrats reduced to popping popcorn and settling in like they’re watching a live version of “Transformers: Age of Extinction.” 

But let' not forget the GOP House also has a faction that is leery of Boehner's leadership and this bunch of renegades (mostly Tea Partyers) attempted to oust him from his Speaker role on the first day. They failed, but their intentions and agenda were clear: they want the party to go all out in its anti-Obama crusade and not give an inch.

Maybe, if we're lucky, the GOP with its fighting factions - extremists vs. not so extremists- will 'blow itself up' and most of their bills won't even reach the sign off stage.

One can always hope!

GOP & Tea Baggers Want You To Get Sick From Fouled Water

We know from past history that the shtick of the GOP and its Tea Bagger faction is to sink government in a bathtub if they can get enough dumb people to believe they can do it. The primary principle or precept is that "big gubmint" is bad and dammit, we're going to stop it from protecting workers' interests - say from slaving away in a mine filled with methane, or people drinking water from a lake laced with cryptosporidium.

The GOP and its conservo Huns who assert the Constitution is their main book (but can't tell you the difference between the 9th and 10th amendments and the meaning of unenumerated rights) thus would rather you die from being gassed in a mine, or from cryptosporidium than that the government extend its power to protect you, the citizen. (But, the same lamos won't blink when gov't is perverted to protect the interests of corporations).

Enter now House bill, H.R. 5078, which overrides a rule proposed in March by the EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers, seeking to clarify two Supreme Court decisions that had made it difficult to determine whether waterways that are dry for part of the year are protected by the Clean Water Act — confusion that polluters have readily taken advantage of.  (As seen in several recent cases including in West Virginia and North Carolina - where tens of thousands were left without drinking water for weeks)

The new rule would give the EPA regulatory authority over millions of acres of wetlands along with about 2 million miles of small streams, the latter of which feed into rivers, lakes and reservoirs that provide drinking water for more than 115 million Americans (all of whom, presumably, prefer that water to be pollution-free). It would also protect critical fish and wild habitats.


The EPA emphasized (quite ardently) that it would not be expanding the Clean Water Act, only reasserting its authority over water sources that have historically been protected.

”We are clarifying protection for the upstream waters that are absolutely vital to downstream communities,”

EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy said in March, going on to point out - as if it was really necessary - though these days you have to wonder:

"Clean water is essential to every single American, from families who rely on safe places to swim and healthy fish to eat, to farmers who need abundant and reliable sources of water to grow their crops, to hunters and fishermen."

 How much cancer H.R. 5078 will generate is hard to say, but over time it's a good guess that at least 1 in 10 of the 115 million affected will develop a cancer of the liver, kidneys, pancreas or bladder, and possibly brain - not to mention leukemia. Will the GOP lay out their big pocket books to pay for all those cancer treatments? I somehow doubt it. Hell, they even have a boner to kill Obamacare. So why would they give a damn if some destitute farmer in the Appalachians were to develop cancer?

They wouldn't.

Then there is the illness we know will spread from fouled water, including from pollutants as well as the sort of red algae pollution that recently fouled the water of Lake Erie - not to mention the violent illness from crypto-sporidium. Ask the 490,000 people of Milwaukee who became ill from such an outbreak back in 1994.

It seems quite evident to me that if people seriously want their water protected - and with it their health interests- they will have to besiege the House and its anti-government buffoons with letters, emails, cards, whatever..... and let them know in no uncertain terms that their override is unacceptable.

Unless, of course, they have no problem with getting ill and having to deal with the inevitable mess and medical bills all by themselves. Which option is kind of incredible even given the purported Yankee affinity for "self reliance" - and the fact that the corporations meanwhile are laughing all the way to the bank over all the help the government is giving them. (For example, monumental corporate welfare to the tune of $180b each year, including tax "inversion".)

Europeans, by contrast,   would never tolerate such nonsense. They demand and expect their governments to have THEIR interests at heart which is why - for example - one beholds much greater degrees of data protection, as well as health costs covered. Oh, and having all GMO foods labeled, which Americans have been convinced (by their own gov't and corporations) isn't necessary.

Will Americans ever wake up to insisting that their government - and ALL political parties - protect their interest, otherwise known as the "general welfare"?

Doubtful, given that many don't even know the general welfare clause exists and is clearly stated in the Preamble of the Constitution. Maybe these Americans need to re-read it sometime.