Miraculous Signs and Wonders

U.S. President George W. Bush, 2001 - 2009

Why, after the CBO predicted in the 1990s that the US would experience $6 trillion in surpluses over the Third Millennium (2000s), did we end up in the hole today? Well, it's not that complicated.

First, the economy did a lot worse than anybody expected during George W. Bush’s presidency and the Republican “trickle-down” economic policy; the housing bubble burst in that same period due to unmitigated greed and fraud; we had the financial crisis caused by under-regulated financial institutions; and then the big recession hit in 2008. That cut income to the government and made us spend more on various benefits that kick in as a safety net, like unemployment, welfare, and food stamps. The perfect storm. But that wasn’t all.

Second, Congress cut taxes repeatedly, starting with Bush's tax cut primarily benefiting the wealthy, and so there was less revenue than we had anticipated.

Third, the government spent more—a lot more. A couple of wars, "off the books," expansion of Medicare (Bush's unfunded drug plan), and the bank bailouts ($700+ billion under Bush with no strings attached). Believe it or not, Bush and his anti-government Republicans increased government spending more than any of the six U.S. presidents preceding him, including LBJ, of Great Society fame.

Now, when you cut taxes, have less revenue coming in, and you spend more than what you budgeted -- Hello! You end up with a deficit. Any surprise there? Of course not.

And if you have a deficit, you have to pay more interest, so that brings us to four -- higher interest payments.

The economic downturn was precipitated by a Republican president, with the unbounded cooperation of a Republican House and Senate in his first term. You can go back to the 1990s and blame Bill Clinton for signing a Republican-initiated bill throwing out the Glass-Steagal Act, but if Bush and his Republican stalwarts wanted to control Goldman Sachs and their ilk, couldn’t they have re-instituted Glass-Steagal. You bet they could. Did they want to? Hell no! And they don’t want to now.

Wasn't all this a Republican nightmare perpetrated on a basically ignorant American public, 46% of whom don't believe in evolution and think Glass-Steagal is a form of art glass?

For Republicans, all this proves one thing; Obama is a communist. No, I’m not kidding. Listen to your Republican friends crow about the American Communist Party having endorsed Barack Obama. This is like believing that because the CEO of Chick-fil-A endorses Mitt Romney it makes Romney a chicken.

For Republicans, because recovery from the consequences of their disastrous time in office is slow, it follows that we must bring back a Republican-led government that will lead us out of recession with “a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with great terror and with miraculous signs and wonders.” Verily. But without a plan, or not one they are willing to share.

We can, however, surmise what a Republican government will do. It will voucherize Medicare, and privatize Social Security, so that Wall Street can take care of your healthcare future, and BTW, repeal Dodd-Frank so that they can do it to you better.

Republicans will cut Medicaid, repeal the Affordable Care Act and let the uninsured die (listen for the cheer in the background), cut Planned Parenthood, NPR, the National Endowment for the Arts, Head Start, and Early Childhood Education.

They will do away with Affirmative Action, eliminate the Department of Education, cut the Department of Energy funding for clean up of the mess we made during the Manhattan Project, cut back EPA and OSHA and limit their ability to enforce clean air, clean water, and safety standards. How can we know this? By reading the GOP Platform. It’s poorly written and full of contradictions, but it will tell you all you need to know about who today’s Republican Party is. And it ain’t your grandaddy’s Republican Party.

"No peril justifies the regulatory impact of Obamacare on the practice of medicine, the Dodd-Frank Act on financial services, or the EPA’s and OSHA’s overreaching regulation agenda. A Republican Congress and President will repeal the first and second, and rein in the third." (The 2012 GOP Platform)

The other great financial calamity that befell the United States, the "Great Depression," lasted a decade -- ten years for my math challenged Republican friends. It took massive deficit spending to recover. After obstructing every effort that President Obama made in good faith to put us on the road to economic recovery, Republicans are now asking that we put them back in charge of the government -- a government they disdain, e.g., "Government is not the solution to our problem, government is our problem." Remember Ronald Reagan saying this in 1981? I remember, because it was the year I retired from the US Air Force. But Reagan also said this at that time, "The solutions we seek must be equitable, with no group singled out to pay a higher price."

But today's Republican Party is not the party of Reagan. Reagan was too moderate. It's the party of Bachmann, Santorum, Huckabee, Palin, Perry, Arpaio, and Limbaugh. It's an anti-science party, an anti-democracy party, an anti-everything but big business party.

The Republican Party is a party with the arrogance to believe that enough of the American people either have short memories, or are just stupid enough to ignore their record, their obstructionism, and their failed policies, and put them back in charge.

I hope to God they’re wrong! 

A carefully thought-out strategy: Throw the bums out!

 “The single most important thing we want to achieve is
for President Obama to be a one-term president...,” Mitch McConnell

Honestly, I find it puzzling that anyone but a died-in-the-wool Republican (like my retired Marine buddy) would even consider voting Republican on anything; president, senator, representative, dog catcher. And yes, I realize that in saying this I’m exhibiting the same mindless partisanship that in the past I’ve railed against, but let’s be truthful. For the last three years -- since Obama’s election -- Republicans have done everything they can to make government, all branches, dysfunctional.

This wasn’t just some knee jerk reaction to the election of a black, populist president, who wasn’t part of the old boys cabal. This was a carefully thought-out strategy (actually hinted at in a Dick Morris talking points memo) to sour the public on government and convince voters to “throw the bums out” -- the bums being majority incumbents, who were for the first two years, Democrats.

This strategy succeeded in 2010, when Republicans, with a witch’s brew of Tea Party participation, took over control of the House. It also succeeded in reducing the public’s approval rating for Congress to an all-time low, and may have fundamentally eroded faith in our Republic.

When it came to debt ceiling “negotiations,” it had the unintended consequence (unintended except perhaps for Tea Party members) of crashing the United State’s credit rating. Mitch McConnell said that the full faith and credit of the United States was “a hostage worth ransoming.”

McConnell made no bones about his party’s priority. “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president....” I know you’ve all heard this before, but do you know how the Republicans have gone about trying to achieve their goal? By just saying “No.” To everything. In unison.

Republican obstructionism has ranged from opposing the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) to refusing to confirm Obama’s judicial nominees. Obama's attempts to compromise with Republicans have weakened his position with his base -- a consequence Republicans welcome.

Not a single House Republican voted for the ARRA. Nada. Zero. Despite the urging of economists who saw the stimulus package as critical in avoiding a slide into a deeper recession, or worse, a depression. Three Senate Republicans supported the bill, giving it the 60 votes needed to overcome what has become the de-facto Republican response to any bill proposed by Obama and the Democrats -- the threat of a filibuster. Most economists now think the $787 billion stimulus package was too little, but Obama did well to get this much.

Likewise, financial reforms designed to prevent another meltdown were stonewalled by Republicans, despite Democratic compromises that ultimately weakened the bill. The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act finally passed 60 to 39 in the Senate, with 3 Republicans siding with Democrats to avoid a filibuster. Not through with their obstructionism, Republicans refused to confirm President Obama’s selection of Richard Cordray to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), established by the Act. The President had to resort to a recess appointment to get Cordray on the job. He had to do the same to fill three vacancies on the National Labor Relations Board, where Republicans were refusing to confirm Obama’s appointees.

Republicans have blocked 223 of President Obama’s 1,132 executive and judicial appointees—over 20 percent. Republican senators have enforced a strict sixty-vote threshold for most nominations, but sometimes holds are placed on nominees by individual Republican senators. For example, Sen. David Vitter (R-LA), he of the "D.C. Madam" scandal, put a hold on Obama’s selection of David Ashe to head the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Vitter vowed to keep it there until the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement issued fifteen offshore oil drilling permits. The permits were issued, but another Republican senator placed a hold on Ashe’s appointment over the Interior Department’s wild lands policy. Any individual senator can place a hold on a nomination for any reason, no matter how inane, and can do so anonymously. You can read about some of the more important Obama nominations being held up by the GOP here.

Of the 105 nominations submitted by President Obama during the first two years of his term, only 62 – two Supreme Court justices, plus 16 courts of appeals and 44 district court judges – were confirmed. That is the smallest percentage of judicial confirmations over the first two years of any presidency in American history. The Alliance for Justice has stated that due to Republican obstructionism, the high number of judicial vacancies has pushed the Judiciary into crisis.

Republican opposition to health care reform was no surprise, and one can give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they voted their principles. Their tactics in trying to get public opinion on their side were despicable, but anything’s fair in love, war, and politics -- especially politics. But the bill passed anyway, and so the Republicans, vowing to repeal it “when they’re in charge,” are now working to dismantle it piece by piece by refusing to fund key provisions, and by taking the issue of mandatory insurance coverage to a stacked court.

This is another Republican tactic. Whenever they can’t block a bill, they simply refuse to fund its enactment, or the enforcement of its provisions.

In writing about President Obama’s recess appointments, Susan Brooks Thistlethwait, former president of Chicago Theological Seminary and now a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, said:

“There is a larger issue here than a president making appointments to fill vacancies. The issue is the deliberate and sustained obstructionism that has as its goal maintaining vacancies in key positions in government. One or another party may agree or disagree on what government should do, but keeping government dysfunctional is profoundly wrong.” (Washington Post, On Faith, 01/05/2012).

Of course she’s right. Voters elected Barack Obama with 53% of the popular vote in 2008. What Republicans are doing now amounts to an ex post facto disenfranchisement of the people who voted for him.

The Probable Impact of Republican Rule in 2013

Mitt Romney has switched gears (something he does regularly) since he debated contenders for the Republican nomination in what may seem for some ages and ages ago. But if you have tracked on Republican rhetoric over time, you know what they really stand for. If you're okay with the Republican agenda, and you think Romney would make a good president, then okay, no problem. But I'd urge anyone with an open mind to consider how things will go down with a Republican president and the Congress split, or for better or worse, depending on your point of view, if Republicans control both the House and the Senate.

On the economy, Republicans have been vocal about what they'd do:

• Make the Bush tax cuts permanent
• Cut corporate taxes
• Eliminate capital gains taxes
• Cut taxes on dividends
• Eliminate estate taxes

The negative impact on revenues will then give Republicans the excuse they need to drastically reduce the size of government, by eliminating, combining, and/or cutting back government agencies, including (of the ones they remember) the:

• Department of Education
• Department of Energy
• Environmental Protection Agency
• Department of Commerce.

Republicans have called Social Security a "giant ponzi scheme," and although their rhetoric has moderated as the election year advances, there's no question that they would overhaul the program given the chance. Their favorite fix was "privatizing" social security, by diverting funds to allow individuals to have tax deferred private savings accounts. Republicans were not as vocal about that idea after the stock market crashed, savaging people's IRAs, 401Ks and other retirement accounts.

Republicans have proposed turning Medicare into a voucher program, which would slash benefits and result in increasing costs borne by seniors. Presumptive presidential candidate Mitt Romney has specially endorsed such a plan. It does nothing to control health care costs, thus more and more of the costs of health care will be the sole responsibility of seniors.

Republicans stance on women's rights are well known. America under Republican rule would see women's access to safe abortions greatly restricted, if not eliminated. Roe vs. Wade could well be overturned. The idea of women being required to undergo intrusive ultrasound tests before undergoing an abortion would likely become widespread.

Republicans will also cut "burdensome" regulations, or cut the funding of agencies which enforce them. They will:

• Repeal the newly established Dodd-Frank regulations on financial institutions (in the meantime, House Republicans are attempting to cut funding for the agencies charged with implementing the new regulations)
• Repeal and/or reformulate environmental regulations, such as the:
• Endangered Species Act
• Clean Air Act
• Clean Water Act
• Remove "burdensome" regulations on "fracking," and other non-conventional gas production techniques

Republicans have made it clear that if they are in control, they will go full speed ahead on opening new areas for oil and gas drilling, including in the Gulf (site of the recent BP disaster), in Alaska, and on the continental shelf.

Republicans will eliminate the funding for:

• Planned Parenthood
• Public Broadcasting
• National Public Radio
• National Endowment for the Arts

A current House Republican bill would cut funding for implementation of provisions of Affordable Care Act (ACA) that are to go into effect this year. If Republicans control both houses of Congress in 2013, they will repeal ACA, as they have promised.

Republicans have been outspoken on their opposition to same-sex marriage and a constitutional amendment prohibiting even civil unions may well come about under Republican rule.

Gun control will be forgotten under Republicans. In fact, the spread of laws, such as Florida's "stand your ground" law can be anticipated, creating a nightmare of further Trayvon Martin type shootings and difficult to impossible prosecution of offenders.

Republicans may well have the opportunity to further seed the US Supreme Court with conservative justices. Justices Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Stephen Breyer, both liberals, are in their seventies and would likely retire in the next president's term. A 7 to 2 conservative majority in the SCOTUS is a virtual certainty in a Republican presidency and congress.

If Republicans control Congress, they are very likely to eliminate/modify the filibuster rule to prevent Democrats from obstructing Republicans the way Republicans have obstructed Democrats. The on-going debate between Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell demonstrates the probability of the so-called "nuclear option" being employed by a Republican-controlled Senate.

There is also the question of what Republicans will NOT do. We'll cover that in a future post. Think climate change, campaign finance reform, and reform of Wall Street.

The GOP's Strategy for Winning Hearts and Minds, and the 2016 Election

The GOP has been working at winning the 2016 Presidential Election since Barack Obama won the 2008 election. Mitch McConnell made that clear in a talk to the Heritage Foundation way back in 2010. You remember that business about the Republican priority being to limit Obama to one term? That was just one of among the many things Republicans didn't accomplish in all those 8 years.

It may be that initially, Republicans saw their opposition to President-Elect Obama as part of the "loyal opposition" tradition in politics. But when they began to see the handwriting on the wall -- the public mood and demographics meant that Obama wasn't going away anytime soon -- they turned their sights on another goal; turn Americans against government. After all, it wasn't "their government."

The Republican strategy was simple. Turn loyal opposition into outright obstructionism. If nothing works, if policies aren't prosecuted, if laws aren't passed, if vacancies aren't filled, it thwarts the Obama "liberal agenda," and as a bonus, Americans become disillusioned with government. When that happens, they'll be less likely to turn out for elections. That would favor Republicans, as it historically has, and as it did, ultimately putting the "Grand Old Party" back in control of both the House and the Senate.

The American public's approval rating for Congress has reflected the success of the GOP strategy. Back in the Year 2000, 56% of Americans approved of the way congress "handled its job." Today, that percentage has dropped to 18%.

Now, moving into the 2016 election, the presumptive nominee for the GOP, Donald Trump, trumpets the slogan, "Make America Great Again." You can buy a hat from Trump's campaign site with that slogan on it. I'd be cautious about buying anything else from Trump. His track record with truth is not good, nor are the business deals he brags about, which no less a conservative voice than the National Review, has described with poison-pen contempt.

How did such a man become the presumptive Republican nominee for President of the United States? The answer to that truly puzzeling question can be found in the strategy employed by the GOP leading up to the debacle that is their pending armageddon. That strategy started first with the burn down government program already addressed, followed by this general plan.

Reach out to "low information, low propensity" registered Republicans, who make up some 35% of the Republican base and generally don't vote.

Make a concerted get out the vote (GOTV) effort through direct, personal contact. These folks don't do social media. Some of the organizations leading the charge on this GOTV effort are:

UNIFIED PATRIOTS

REDSTATE

THE PRECINCTS PROJECT

US PRECINCT PROJECT

Unite the right-wing base, including the following:

National Rifle Association (NRA), Gun Owners of America (GOA), other gun groups, and militia organizations whose membership have exploded since Barack Obama was elected. Militia membership often overlaps with gun group membership. Republican strategists estimate that only half of the membership in these organizations are registered voters, and of those, only half vote. They consider this fertile ground for plowing.

The Tea Party, which has split into the Tea Party Patriots, Tea Party Nation, Tea Party Express, and unaffilated voters who call themselves Tea Partiers. A unified Tea Party gave the Republicans the House in 2010 and the Senate in 2014 (with the complicity of an apathetic democratic electorate). In some sense, the success that Tea Party affiliated voters achieved in 2010 and 2014 was their undoing. They lost momentum, lost faith, became divided, and lost their punch. The Republican establishment, although anathema to Tea Partiers, will try to regain their trust, and their vote.

The 9-12 Project is a Ayn Rand sort of group with god thrown in for good measure. They describe their organization as a "non-partisan movement focusing on building and uniting our communities back to the place we were on 9/12/2001." Their principles include, "Government cannot force me to be charitable." The Republican establsihment sees 9-12 as a fringe of the Libertarian Party and hope to embrace them, at least until the 2016 election is over.

Smart Girl Politics Action (SGPA) describes itself as, "a grassroots community of women activists who believe in the free market, personal responsibility, and limited government." SGPA began with the mission to "engage, educate, and empower conservative women to get involved in the political process." They are essentially an organized component of Republican women. The RNC won't have to do much to entice them into the fold, but they may be pressed to GOTV for "The Donald."

SarahPAC.com is just what you'd expect it to be. Sarah Palin's personal money making venture desigend to capatilize on what she terms "her historic endorsement of Donald Trump." Palin's fund-raising message to prospective donors is that she's supporting "anti-establishment" candidates, but the RNC isn't particular. If they can glom on to Sarah's "momma grizzlies," they will. 

Grassfire formerly Patriot Action Network. This organization appears to be very social media centric. The RNC will use it to network with the organizations outlined above.

Evangelical Christians. In the recent midterm elections, white evangelicals or born-again Christians made up 26 percent of the electorate and voted for Republican candidates 78 percent to 22%.During the primaries, a plurality of self-identified white evangelicals voted for Trump (40%), while the majority split their votes between Ted Cruz (34%), Marco Rubio (11%), and John Kasich (10%). The RNC's challenge is to unify that voting block behind their presumptive nominee. It shouldn't be a problem, unless Trump says something really outrageous ("Two Corinthians" notwithstanding).

AsaMom is a "sisterhood of mommy patriots," or so it's website says.  Their mission is "to empower Moms and Moms at Heart in preserving our Constitution, country and children’s future." Their 9 principles are the same as The 9-12 Project's principles. The RNC has to convince this voting block that Donald Trump is only kidding when he says it doesn't matter what the media say as long as you have a beautiful "piece of ass" with you. Some moms might object to being objectified.

The problem the RNC had in trying to unify these groups whose commonality was primarily angry dissatisfation, was that the RNC was the "establishment" and it was peddling the same, tired establishment bullshit about Obama Care "death panels," "abortion on demand," the refusal of Obama to say "Islamic terrorism," the climate change "hoax," transgender "predators" in bathrooms, violation of Americans' Second Amendment rights, and the need to donate to the RNC to compensate for George Soros's flood of money going to the DNC. In other words, they totally misjudged the give-a-shit basis for their audience's disatisfaction, which was poor-paying jobs, no jobs, shitty jobs, and Mexicans taking all the shitty jobs that they didn't want, but were unhappy to see said Mexicans making money at. So yeah, "Fuck you, RNC, we'll vote for an asshole. That'll teach you!" And voilà -- Donald Trump.

“I will be the greatest jobs president God ever created.”

Donald Trump 2015 camapign announcement

Forget Donald Trump -- Let's Talk About Hillary Clinton

Donald Trump at Rally Mocking Reporter with Disability

Sure, Donald Trump is a jerk — an odious person woefully unqualified by knowledge, temperament, or character to be president. Still, a lot of people support him. They do so for various reasons, none good in my opinion, but that’s another discussion. I want to address one of those reasons; their dislike, and for some, even visceral hatred of Hillary Clinton. For these people, Trump is the lesser of two evils. They are not so much voting for Trump as against Clinton.

Now to be clear, not all Republicans are voting against Clinton because they hate or dislike her. Many are voting against her for ideological reasons. They don't want to see a Democrat in the White House; one who could potentially change the ideological character of the U.S. Supreme Court. So even though they may admit that Donald Trump would be dangerous as the leader of the most powerful country in the world, they are willing to risk "destroying the world in order to save it," to paraphrase an infamous U.S. officer's explanation for the almost total destruction of Bến Tre, during the Vietnam War.

I’m not going to bother addressing the people who hate Clinton. Hate is not something you reason with, but something from which you distance yourself. So let's talk about why people dislike Hillary Clinton so much they're either planning not to vote, or, as one of my Republican friends said, "I'm holding my nose and voting for Trump."

There are quite a few reasons given for disliking Hillary Clinton, but in my view they boil down to the following:

(1) Hillary Clinton is not a "real progressive." She’s too cozy with Wall Street; she's taken campaign contributions from PACs; Charles Koch of the ultra-evil Koch Brothers endorsed her (he didn't); she's "hawkish;" and last but not least, she's not Bernie Sanders.

(2) Hillary Clinton is untrustworthy — in Republican speak, she's a “liar.”

Not a Real Progressive

On being "progressive" in a political sense, my bet is that most Americans have their own ideas about what that means. The Nation, in a recent article co-authored by four historians, provides an historical perspective on what "progressive" meant throughout our modern political history. Some of what they write makes for uncomfortable reading for those of us who see racial and religious tolerance as part of the progressive credo.

For some, the label "Progressive" was a substitute for "Liberal," which declined in popular usage among democrats due to Republican success in preceding the label with, "bleeding heart," and conflating it with leftist, socialist, and communist. We democrats can be so thin-skinned, and Republicans are undeniably good at labeling people and groups, as presumptive Republican presidential nominee, Donald Trump has illustrated in his attacks on other Republican candidates, on ethnic or religious groups, on Hillary Clinton, and on women in general.

The fact that Hillary Clinton has accepted campaign donations from Wall Street firms, and made paid speeches to Wall Street firms, does not make her less progressive than Bernie Sanders. Policy positions and votes on policies across a spectrum of issues determine one's position on the ideological spectrum. Clinton and Sanders have differences -- mostly I think in what each believes can be accomplished, when -- but while in the Senate together, Clinton and Sanders voted the same way 93% of the time.

It should also be noted that accepting donations from outside entities, whether they be Wall Street firms or Emily's List, proves nothing nefarious about Clinton's relationship with any of the contributors to her campaign. If accepting money from Wall Street and big business generally were illegal (and I wish it were), almost everyone in politics would be in jail (not just former Illinois governors).

Now it's true that Hillary Clinton is not going to lead a socialist revolution. I’m good with that, although I’d love to see big money out of politics, and tax policies that narrow the income/wealth gap, as Bernie Sanders (who once again, she's not) has demanded. I believe Clinton can get done what she proposes. I can’t say the same for Bernie (has he somehow missed the Republican Obstructionist Era?).

The best evidence for Hillary Clinton’s values can be found in her upbringing and in her faith. Clinton was raised a Methodist and remains a devout Methodist. As a result she is an activist for social justice, and as such she believes in the dictum of John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist Church;

“Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can.”

Hillary Clinton holding her 1997 Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word or Non-Musical Album for an audio recording of her book, It Takes a Village: And Other Lessons Children Teach Us.

Untrustworthy

Republicans have been painting Hillary Clinton as untrustworthy for decades, including before she was in public office. They’ve turned rumor and innuendo into “scandal” and made a science of anti-Hillary urban myth, creating from it a virtual cottage industry, selling: she’s a crook, she’s a liar, and she’s a flip-flopper.

Let’s be clear, Secretary Clinton has been convicted of absolutely nothing. Unlike Richard Nixon, she can declare, “I am not a crook,” and the evidence would support her. Republicans have tried every which way to convict her of something, and have failed  — no indictments, let alone convictions. When the FBI finishes their investigation of Secretary Clinton’s handling of classified information, Republicans will be disappointed once again.

The details on Secretary Clinton’s handling of email emerged from the shameful Republican circus over Benghazi. The Benghazi Committee’s investigation alone has cost taxpayers some seven million dollars and counting (a combined $22 million has been spent by various committees). Republicans, acting as a tax payer-funded “Super PAC,” have managed to transmogrify a tragic event into a “Secretary Clinton lied about what caused the attack.” Objective research into the immediate aftermath of the attack shows she did no such thing.

When all else fails, the Republican mud machine splashes up the video of Secretary Clinton NOT under sniper fire when landing in Bosnia in 1996, although she said she was when giving a talk about the incident more than a decade later, in 2008. A week after her statement she admitted she misspoke.

Fortunately, for those of us who care about substance, hundreds of thousands of people did not die as a result of this embellishment by Clinton. That happened five years earlier as a result of lies George W. Bush told that led us to invade Iraq (notice I am not souring this, because we all know the story so well, even those of us unwilling to acknowldge it).

I might also remind my memory-challenged Republican friends that Ronald Reagan, in his “awe shucks,” folksy way, was a pretty darned good liar. He ultimately admitted his lie about not selling arms to the Iranian government and using the profit to fund Nicaraguan terrorists, but only under the threat of impeachment. He never did fess up to fabricating his tale about personally shooting footage of the liberation of Nazi concentration camps. Reagan spent the war in Culver City, California, where he processed footage from the liberation of the camps. But so what? As with Clinton, no one died as a result of Reagan’s little embellishment.

Finally, let’s talk about how Hillary Clinton has changed her mind on everything from free trade to gay marriage, once again in Republican parlance, she’s flip-flopped. Well, let’s be clear, changing one’s mind does not constitute “lying.” If it did, we’d either all be liars or catatonic.

Hillary Clinton’s shifting views on some things — free trade for example — can largely be attributed to her circumstances at the time. When her husband, then President Bill Clinton brokered the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) she spoke in favor of it. When she was a member of the Obama Administration and Obama was floating the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), Clinton was a loyal soldier supporting her boss, and his “pivot to Asia.”

Clinton backed away from NAFTA when she campaigned for senator for New York, because upper state New York was losing manufacturing jobs and “free trade” was not a popular concept with unions. It still isn’t, and in her current campaign she’s also changed her tune on the TPP. Her shifting support on these policies makes her a politician, not a liar. Sometimes circumstances change and deals have to be cut; “Read my lips; no new taxes!”

As far as gay marriage goes, I’ll give Hillary Clinton the benefit of the doubt and believe her when she says her views have evolved; along with the rest of America’s I might add.

The real questions are, what are Hillary Clinton’s core values, do you as a voter share those values, and if she’s elected president, can you trust Clinton to follow through and transform those values into policies?

Least I end this short defense of Secretary Clinton against “the slings and arrows” of her detractors without admitting her faults, I will admit that Hillary Clinton has said some things that are cringe-worthy. Clinton is no saint. But she is also not a terminally ill lesbian, who murdered Vince Foster and plotted to have the Muslim Brotherhood infiltrate the CIA.

The most saintly person I know who actually served as President of the United States was Jimmy Carter — a man I greatly admire. He has been ranked 7th among 44 presidents on integrity. Overall, he’s ranked 32nd.

Today's Republican Party's "Lofty Views"

Today's Republican Party is an embarrassment to any thinking person. It has become a bastion for bigots, religious extremists, Wall Street apologists, nationalistic fascists, libertarian 'Ayn Rand' kooks, conspiracy nuts, global warming deniers, gun nuts, and fact-challenged, Fox-addicted know-nothings.

Mind you, not every Republican today can be characterized thus. Some are well-meaning people, who still see the "Grand Old Party" as the party of Lincoln, who said, "Our common country is in great peril, demanding the loftiest views, and boldest action to bring it speedy relief."

• "I’m not concerned about the very poor." (Mitt Romney, 2012 Republican candidate)
• “I think one of the great problems we have in the Republican Party is that we don't encourage you to be nasty.” (Newt Gingrich, 2012 Republican Party candidate)
• "That's not to pick on homosexuality. It's not, you know, man on child, man on dog, or whatever the case may be... What about three men? If you think it's OK for two, you have to differentiate for me why you're not OK with three. Any two people, or any three, or four." (Rick Santorum, 2012 Republican candidate)

What was Really Behind the Republican Shutdown?

"If the Republicans had not fought on ObamaCare,

the compromise would have been over the budget sequester." 

The government shutdown is over and recriminations, ruminations, and machinations are rebounding around the halls of Congress, mainstream media, and the blogosphere. Here I am to add my $.02.

The general wisdom seems to be that Republicans are taking the brunt of the blame for the shutdown, as well they should. Allowing TEA Party members of the House to dictate a defund or die fiscal fiasco was a fool's errand and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) was the errand boy. Recriminations within party ranks have made the Republican Party look disorganized to the point of disarray. Speaker Boehner comes off looking particularly bad as leader of his party. Politically, the circus orchestrated by Cruz hurt Speaker Boehner's reputation as leader of a cohesive Party, and seems to have made Cruz a pariah among rank and file Republicans.

President Obama was seen generally as holding the upper hand in refusing to negotiate on the Affordable Care Act under threat on the Republican-led shutdown and the looming possibility of a government default. His position got stronger as the shutdown dragged on and Republicans began vacillating on what they hoped to get out of the impasse.

The Republican cause wasn't helped by some of the ludicrous things Republicans, without a consensus message for once, were saying. Rep. Marlin Stutzman (R-Ind.) told a reporter, "We're not going to be disrespected. We have to get something out of this and I don't know what that even is." And that was the crux of the matter. Republican leadership knew that getting the President to cave on the ACA -- his signature first term achievement -- was a pipe dream. So what the hell were they hoping to achieve by another round of budget brinkmanship?

It may be that an analysis of the Republican shutdown that assesses the question as a party tactic won't get us a sensible answer. Rather, the shutdown may have been orchestrated by individuals within the party, with help from outside political groups, like the Heritage Foundation and its sister advocacy group and political arm, Heritage Action. The purpose in this case, would be to shift the power base of the party from the moderates to the ultra-conservatives, including the TEA Party. How did they hope to do this? By doing exactly what they did. Making party leadership look bad, and then threatening members coming up for reelection with an all-out primary challenge to replace them with their brand of no-holds barred conservative.

Between now and the 2014 Congressional elections we will see Republicans continue to thwart the President on every front, but mostly on spending. There will continue to be attacks on the Affordable Care Act, but these will be focused on undermining the act, and making it look bad (through such tactics as Congressional investigations), with the hope that Republicans can make it a cause célèbre for the 2016 Presidential election.

It will be interesting to see how Republicans structure their primary for the 2016 election. They would certainly want to avoid an all-out battle with the TEA Party over who the presidential candidate will be, but this might not be possible. People might forget the debacle that was Ted Cruz reading from Dr. Seuss during his irrelevant filibuster, but the angry Republican moderates won't. They'll be a search for a compromise candidate. In steps Jim DeMint. Know who he is?

Swiftboating Hillary Clinton

Hillary Clinton should have been ready for the sort of targeted, coordinated smear campaign that sunk John Kerry's presidential aspirations in 2004. But it's not clear she was fully prepared for the barrage of mud that unlimited political money could sling. "Swiftboating" has never been so fully funded and carefully crafted as it is today in the project to bring down the Democratic Party's leading contender for the 2016 Presidential nomination.

To put it simply, "swiftboating" is turning some one's positives into negatives through a coordinated campaign of rumor and innuendo. The political technique was honed in the 2004 election pitting John Kerry, a decorated war veteran, against George W. Bush, who used his father's connections as a congressman to get an appointment to the National Guard, and avoid duty in Vietnam. Kerry's campaign hoped to use this disparity in the two men's military service to Kerry's advantage in the election.

The so-called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth (SBVT), a 527 group funded by by Sam Fox, a billionaire and hardline rightwinger, denigrated Kerry's military service record and questioned the circumstances relating to the award of Kerry's combat medals. Their campaign of rumor and innuendo against Kerry received widespread publicity due to his presidential bid. Defenders of John Kerry's service record, including nearly all of his former crewmates, stated that SBVT's allegations were false. The SBVT campaign against Kerry was later discredited and gave rise to the neologism "swiftboating" to describe an unfair or untrue political attack. Of course by then, the damage had been done.

Swiftboating is not about the truth. It's a coordinated smear campaign waged on uncorroborated allegations so damning and ostensibly widespread the public is disinclined to give the target the benefit of the doubt. It includes posting unflattering photos of Mrs Clinton, like the altered photo to the right created by the radical right wing organization, "shtfplan.com." The swiftboat attack on Hillary Clinton aims at discrediting the key things Republicans think could boost her chances in 2016:

• Her remarkable educational accomplishments at Wellesley College and Yale Law School
• Her experience with the Rose Law Firm, where she became the first female full partner
• Experience as First Lady of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 and 1983 to 1992
• Experience as First Lady during her husband's presidency from 1993 to 2001
  
• Experience in government as Senator from New York from 2001 to 2009 
• Her foreign policy experience, including her tenure as the 67th Secretary of State, 2009 to 2013
• Her part in founding and her work with the Clinton Foundation international programs

Hillary Rodham Clinton's Official Senate Portrait

It would take a few volumes to detail all the charges leveled at Hillary Clinton over her political lifetime. She is a remarkably intelligent woman, who has dedicated her life to public service. She is outspoken in asserting her beliefs and promoting her many causes. She can be blunt, gives as good as she gets, and can be demanding when the path forward is clear and people are not stepping up. In all this, she acts a lot like a man -- a smart man. Only she isn't a man, so one of the many charges about her character is that she's a "bitch." Well, Hillary can't hold a candle to Donald Trump when it comes to being rude and nasty, but she does have an edge. Whether she's a "bitch" or not is all in the eye of the person who's eye she spit in, but as Tina Fey said, "She is [a bitch]. And so am I. Bitches get stuff done."

The latest "bitch" charge against Hillary Clinton is that she was rude to her Secret Service detail. The charges seem to have their genesis in a "tell all" book by Ronald Kessler detailing the lives of various occupants of the White House. Parts of the book about Hillary Clinton have taken on a life of their own and become part of Internet Urban myth, even forcing Kessler to say the viral email's descriptions of Obama and Hillary Clinton, "are completely wrong."

Nevertheless, the swiftboat is trying to speed Hillary Clinton's character down the river, with poorly-sourced negative quotes and opinions being repeated in one right-wing outlet after another, and "contributors" to conservative media wielding their "journalistic" cudgels. Some of the many media outlets being used to disseminate the smear campaign include: Fox Nation, New York Post, Breitbart.com, Newsmax.com, and the always extreme right-wing reliable Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Michael Savage, etc., etc., ad nauseam.

The "bitch" charge against Hillary Clinton is a key thrust for the swiftboat campaign because it goes to neutralize her appeal as a woman, and possibly the first American woman president. But this attempt at character assassination is small potatoes compared to the coordinated attacks being carried out by the Republican Congress itself.

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The swiftboat campaign against Hillary Clinton is far more pervasive and insidious than the 2004 campaign against John Kerry, which was funded by wealthy Republican donors and carried out by a tax-exempt 527 group. But the U.S. Congress wasn't directly involved in the swiftboat campaign against Kerry, as it is against Hillary Clinton (although Jeb Bush, then governor of Florida, personally thanked the 527 group for "standing up against" Kerry). Republicans in congress have taken up their oar in the swiftboat attack by attempting to impugn Hillary Clinton's performance as America's 67th Secretary of State from 2009 to 2013.

Congressman Trey Gowdy, Chair of the House Benghazi Committee

The House Select Committee on Benghazi is the 8th congressional investigation of the September 11, 2012, attack on the American diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, which killed four people, including Ambassador Christopher Stevens. Unlike the amusing TV comedy series, Eight is Enough, the Republican 'made-for-TV' production is neither amusing (okay, sometimes it's amusing), nor any longer interesting -- all the questions (2780 to date) have long ago been asked and answered.

In addition to the 8 congressional investigations, there have been 32 congressional hearings, plus another 50 hearings, briefings, and/or interviews by the Department of Defense, and 11 published reports. This incident has been investigated more than the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, the 2000 attack on the USS Cole, the 1998 embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, the 1996 Khobar Tower bombing, the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, and even the attacks of September 11, 2001. The Benghazi clusterfuck has gone on longer than the investigation of the Watergate scandal.

Despite its best efforts, including plowing through all of Hillary Clinton's emails, the Republicans have come up with nothing substantive to pin on the former Secretary of State, or for that matter, the Administration. The best they can do is to complain that in the immediate aftermath of the attacks National Security Advisor, Susan Rice, implied the motivation for the attackers was an anti-Muslim video. Her information was based on an assessment provided by the Intelligence Community that also went to congress. Despite this, Republican Jim Jordan (R-OH), who chairs the far right, House 'Freedom Caucus,' said, "You could live with a protest about a video, that won't hurt you, but a terror attack...Americans could accept, reluctantly, compatriots being killed abroad, but what they can't live with is when their government is not square with them." The irony of this petulantly delivered statement seemed to escape Congressman Jordan.

Republicans believe the confusion over who did what to whom for what reason at Benghazi was not due to the fog of war, but rather was a deliberate misinformation campaign designed to protect President Obama's reelection chances. The reasoning behind this charge is somewhat convoluted, but not for Republicans hellbent on finding something, anything, to hang on Clinton and Obama. Were it not for the fact that Republicans leaders in congress urged the Obama Administration to support the overthrow of Libya's Moammar Gadhafi in 2011, they'd have laid the disintegration of the Libyan State solely at Clinton's feet.

If Republican Reps. Kevin McCarthy and Richard Hanna hadn't accidentally made it clear that the Benghazi investigation was designed to hurt Hillary Clinton politically — at a cost of nearly $5 million to American taxpayers -- rather than reveal anything new about the attack, then the debacle of Republican members of the so-called, 'Select Committee' on Benghazi grilling Clinton for some eleven hours has revealed it for what it is, a partisan attack on a person Republicans fear and hate. Their pontificating, long-winded statements in the place of questions, their petulance and aimless meandering were evidence of a hatchet job attempted with a wet noodle.

So, now that Benghazi has turned sour for Republican hit men, what's there next target? Ever heard of the Clinton Foundation?

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The Clinton Foundation is an international charitable organization established by former President of the United States Bill Clinton in 2001. Its mission is to "strengthen the capacity of people throughout the world to meet the challenges of global interdependence."

The Foundation focuses on improving global health and wellness, increasing opportunity for women and girls, reducing childhood obesity and preventable diseases, creating economic opportunity and growth, and helping communities address the effects of climate change.

The Foundation is chartered as a nonprofit under 501(c)(3) of the U.S. tax code. As such, it is not required to report its donors. However, in the interests of transparency, and unlike the hoard of right-wing “social welfare” organizations, who thrive on “dark money,”  it does. Despite this, or perhaps because of it, Republicans have attacked the organization and Hillary Clinton for conflicts of interest, and for using the Foundation as a “slush fund” for her political aspirations. No hard evidence exists to support such charges.

Republican presidential hopeful Carly Fiorina has charged that only 6% of the Foundation’s donations go to support charitable works. That’s patently false; 89% of donations support a wide array of charitable projects that have demonstrably improved the quality of life of some of the world’s poorest communities.

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Hillary Clinton is smart, very smart, and her intelligence and the fact that she’s self-assured and speaks her mind was and is a thorn in the side of conservatives who believe a woman’s place is in the home -- and they didn’t mean the White House!

Clinton was an outstanding student in high school, where she was a National Honor Society member. She was Senior Class president at Wellesley College, where she served as president of Wellesley Republican club, and where she was the first student speaker to address the graduating class. At Yale Law School she was a member of the board of editors, Yale Review of Law and Social Action, and graduated with honors. She did a year of post-graduate work at the Yale Child Study Center.

Early on, Clinton was active in young Republican groups and campaigned for Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater. She was inspired to work in some form of public service after hearing a speech in Chicago by Reverend Martin Luther King, and she found that her values were more in line with the Democratic Party. Subsequently, Republicans charged her with everything from communist sympathies to not being in tune with “family values.” The latter charge is especially ironic, since Hillary Clinton has been a champion of children and families her entire working life.

As First Lady of Arkansas for twelve years, Hillary Clinton chaired the Arkansas Educational Standards Committee, co-founded the Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families, and served on the boards of the Arkansas Children's Hospital, Legal Services, and the Children's Defense Fund.

As First Lady of the United States after her husband’s election, Hillary Clinton led the Task Force on Health Care Reform, overseeing research, investigatory trips, financial reports, numerous committees composed of medical and insurance professionals, lawmakers and other government officials, public service leaders, and consumer rights advocates. Conservatives, libertarians, and the health insurance and pharmaceutical industries successfully attacked the resulting healthcare plan, the “Health Security Act,” calling it "Hillarycare," and claiming it constituted government overreach, and/or socialized medicine. The act never came to a vote in the Senate or House. Nevertheless, Hillary Clinton was seen by congressional Republicans and Democrats alike as “extremely knowledgable” about healthcare and a leader on the issue.

Hillary Clinton's resume reads like a prescription for president. In addition to her legal chops, she was engaged in substantive policy formulation as First Lady of Arkansas and the U.S., she was the first female senator from the state of New York, and she was U.S. Secretary of State, where according to the magazine, 'Foreign Affairs,' she "helped undo the damage that the habitual unilateralism of the George W. Bush administration had done to the global image of the United States."

Republicans have attacked her on every front, while sallying forth a bevy of candidates that are at best inferior and at worst, dangerous fools. A political party with even a modicum of self-awareness would be embarrassed.
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The money that funds a swiftboating campaign is almost always "dark money." The group doing the swiftboating is usually a 527, a tax-exempt organization that can raise unlimited amounts of soft money. These organizations may also be 501(c) organizations, including the infamous, "social welfare organizations" that the IRS went after recently for their too obvious relationship to the Tea Party and other "patriot" and "we the people" conservative causes.

Insurgencies in the 2016 Presidential Election

Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders launched insurgent political campaigns against their respective political parties; Trump against the RNC and Sanders against the DNC. Trump won, and Bernie lost. Trump won because, quite simply, the rules of the Republican Party were "democratic." Bernie lost because the rules of the Democratic Party were not.

Now in both cases, one could argue that the reason things are where they are is more nuanced than that. Okay, but understand this; the GOP and the Democratic Party are non-governmental organizations. They write the rules for how nominees for offices up and down the ticket are chosen. If you don't like those rules, tough. Get involved in party politics and change them. Otherwise, you'll have to live by them.

Bernie Sanders' Failed Insurgency

Bernie Sanders, an independent, launched a bid to grab the Democratic Party by the throat and choke the moderate out of it. Sanders called for economic policies specifically targeted at reducing the gap between the top 1% and the other  99% of Americans -- expand social security, make public college tuition free, provide paid family and medical leave and universal health care, increase the minimum wage, implement a youth jobs program, and, with all the money that's left over, institute a trillion dollar program to rebuild America's crumbling infrastructure. Sanders had ways to pay for all of this. They all amounted to essentially the same thing -- tax the rich. So, in political terms, Bernie was trying to hijack the Democratic Party and make it a Social Democratic Party.

Conservatives and even moderate democrats, immediately saw Bernie Sanders' objective for what it was -- a redistribution of wealth. Duh! How does one reduce the gap between really, really rich people, and all the rest of us? You take the land from the rich landowners and you parcel it out to poor farmers. Then you watch as your country goes broke and your people go hungry. Hey, it's politics -- hyperbole is de rigueur. In any case, this is the conservative worldview.

There were a lot of young people who resonated with Bernie Sanders' messianic message and his passion, and his powdery snow hair. The problem was, they hadn't really participated in party politics before "feeling the Bern." Because they hadn't 'infiltrated' the party, their revolution was doomed from the beginning. Had they been in leadership positions in the DNC, they could've eliminated or at least reduced the number of superdelegates. Because, as the Pew Research Center has said, " superdelegates are the embodiment of the institutional Democratic Party – everyone from former presidents, congressional leaders and big-money fundraisers to mayors, labor leaders and longtime local party functionaries." These party faithful didn't want an outsider taking over 'their' party and because they'd prepared for just such a contingency, they were able to prevent it.

The Democratic Party's Superdelegates

Donald J Trump's Successful Insurgency

The GOP has many fewer superdelegates than the Democrats -- 250 or 7% vs the Democratic Party's 713 or 15%. In the Republican Party, the only people who get superdelegate status are the three members of each state's national party. The more important distinction, however, as Seth Millstein has pointed out, is that Republican superdelegates do not have the freedom to vote for whichever candidate they please. The RNC ruled in 2015 that their superdelegates must vote for the candidate that their state voted for. In effect, the GOP is more democratic than the Democratic Party. Is this a good thing?

If the GOP had convened in Cleveland with as many superdelegates as the Democratic Party had, and if the rules permitted them to vote their conscience, and assuming they had such, would Donald Trump have emerged as the Republican Nominee? Hopefully, not.

As Jeff Greenfield wrote,

There are some circumstances where the “will of the voters”—often the will of a plurality of voters—may well put the party on the road to a massive political defeat. Further, it may result in the nomination of a candidate who violates the most fundamental beliefs of that party. Or whose temperament and character might put a dangerous, unfit person into the Oval Office. Under those circumstances, the existence of a bloc of superdelegates means the presence of an “emergency brake,” a last chance to avoid disaster. And while it may be “undemocratic” in the narrowest sense of that term, our political system is replete with “undemocratic” elements that have served us very well.

Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight now forecasts the chances of Donald Trump winning the 2016 presidential election as 12.5%. The same poll forecasts that the GOP has a 72% chance of losing the Senate. What happens to the Republican Party after the election depends on what the Republican Party leadership does now. Republicans cannot have their party and let Trump eat it, too.

Republican leaders in the House and Senate must stop fighting this pusillanimous, rearguard action, and launch a frontal attack against the Trump insurgency. If they don't decisively distance themselves now from 'The Donald,' the Grand Old Party will go the way of the 'Know-Nothings,' a fate they will justly deserve. What the American people won't deserve is what may replace the GOP -- a neo-fascist amalgamation of all the worst elements of Donald Trump's constituency.