"The wind is blowing, and the chicken's ass is exposed " - so goes an adage. In Washington, the wind is blowing once again, and the GOP is being exposed for what it is - A party more interested in its political future, than in America's success.
Since January of 2009, weeks before Barack Obama took office as the first black President of the United States, and only one of few minorities to rise to such a national post in any nation, by through the ballot (France's Sarkorzy is another), the Republican party through its leadership , Rush Limbough, had declared their intention to see the President fail!
It was an egregious statement. Treasonous to say the least, at a time when the nation was roiling from a self-inflicted financial crises, motivated by greed. The kind of greed Limbaough, and his Republican passies have come to symbolize. In the weeks after, Republican leaders in Washington and across the nation fell over themselves to, rather than challenge Limbaough's heresy, content for the position of "Who hate Obama the most". They, in lock-step voted against the Stimulus package that was designed to buffer the nation against the headwind of a financial crises. By the Spring of 2009, another Republican gadfly, Jim DeMint, was announcing "Obama's waterloo!". The case for the 2010 mid-term election was made. Ensure the President fails, and Republicans will win back congress.
And they did. In 2008, there was a consensus Obama America's inability to compete globally in the face of rising health care costs. While America's health care costs more as a percentage of GDP, compared to any other nation in the world, its health care outcomes lags behind that of many developing and so called third-world countries. This humongous cost is leading many American corporations towards bankruptcy while leaving more than 15% of Americans without health care insurance. The general consensus was that fixing health care will help stabilize the US economy, and give American corporations a fighting chance globally. At least, they will have less incentives to move abroad, if their health care costs in the US is no longer much more than that of their overseas competitors. Also, fixing the health care in a way that provides more freedom to workers will also help free workers from their teeters to large corporations or government agencies. There were evidence that many American's with "pre-existing" conditions will rather stay at a job, just because it offers them the "protection" of health care insurance, rather than risk loosing coverage by going to start their own business. Health care cost was stifling American entrepreneurial spirit, like many other factors.
Barack Obama, with the help of Nancy Pelosi and a large Democratic congressional majority, set out to fix the problem, and relieve the nation of one of its key cancers. DeMint and a rising cacophony of Congressional and national Republican yahoos, emboldened by a phoney group called the Tea Party, rather than work to heal the nation focused on demonizing the efforts to solve a national crises, once again. By the Spring of 2010, Democrats, many of whom were also no less pussy than the Republicans, managed to pass a terribly watered down Health Care law, that at least got at the heart of the problem and provided enough triggers and tools to begin to move the nation's malaise in the right direction. And it costs the party at the mid-term polls.
Unfortunately, the loss at the polls only emboldened the now empowered Republican majority in the lower house of congress as well as the new ranks of charlatans in the Senate.
Fast forward to Fall of 2010, and the President's capitulation to Republican demand to extend a tax cut not favored by most in the Polls, but as an appeasement to a rising congressional GOP. The party, the GOP, once again blackmailed its way into another deal that was bad for the country. In the 9 months since their ballot box victory, Republicans have done everything to sabotage a weak recovery, and changing the trajectory so that we have now seen two straight months of climbing unemployment rates and lower job opportunities. The consequence of the GOP victory in November is now coming home to roost! But there are still too many willing to follow a party that now represents the spirit of secession. What a long way for the Party since the days of Lincoln!
Vote, after vote; gadfly, after gadfly; the Republican party has shown its willingness to sacrifice the health of the nation for temporary political gains. This Spring, the party, in lock step voted to end a critical safety net for the elderly - Medicare. Paul Ryan, the clown of Wisconsin, egged on by his bloated ego, unilaterally authored a bill to end medicare while running the nation aground! Every bill that could fire up the economy and give American entrepreneurs a fighting chance was block or ignored by the GOP congress. The economy began to splutter! And the GOP is not done yet! Their next gambit, American default on its debt. Since the beginning of the debt ceiling about 60 years ago, this nation has managed to raise it almost 70 times. suddenly, a bunch of loonies in the GOP are clamoring for default. For whatever it is worth, default will cost America dearly. It might not only devastate the economy right away, it will sure handover the global economic leadership to China - for all it is worth. American economy will contract sharply, as the nation looses all its economic leverages in the face of rising costs of maintaining a bloated debt load. It will take years to repair the damage and restore confidence in the American economy. It might even help the prediction of the Russian prophet of doom who had predicted America's demise in 2009. The GOP may have achieved what the KGB couldn't.
But who will tell that to Eric Cantor? A Jewish American who had made it clear where his allegiance lay - with Israel, even against the US. Of course, he is not the only American hypocrite in congress who would rather teeter American foreign policy to that of its tiny allie, even at the expense of mortal peril to the host. On all front, Cantor has managed to ensure that a fringe of the Republican party gets their voice heard nationally as he works hard to tie the congress in gridlock at every turn - playing to the right of John Boehner, the weepy Speaker with every twists. Benjamin Netanyahu was given an outsized forum in the house to bash the US president (a first!) while Cantor and his cohorts egg the nation towards debt default!
The shame of Washington is playing out in the open as the GOP seeks to push the nation over the cliff to economic ruin and political destruction, just so that they could win elections. Cantor's goals are not so clear yet. But most of his peers have a simple objective. Defeat Obama, at whatever cost. Mitch McConnell, had made his primary objective very clear. And he may yet have it. But the cost to the nation will be dear, indeed.
And who is Eric Cantor by the way? Why is Michelle Bachman claiming someone is playing politics with social security checks? How does she expect that money to be paid?
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