Abstinence Only or Cancer -- The Republicans' False Dichotomy

There was a very interesting special on NOVA, PBS, last night dealing with vaccinations in America; their history, development, and some of the controversy that’s plagued them. We all know about the fraudulent Wakefield study and how it caused a lot of parents to avoid getting their children the MMR vaccination and all the problems that caused (and continues to cause, because some idiots still believe vaccinations cause autism -- see for example, 'Health Impact News').

I didn’t know that the vaccination to prevent the Human PapillomaVirus (HPV), which can cause cervical cancer was so controversial. The physician discussing it on the Nature special said (and I’m quoting from memory), “We’ve all wanted some way to prevent cancer, now we have an incredible scientific breakthrough that prevents cervical cancer, why wouldn’t we use it?” Good question.

Then we switch to a video of a female physician discussing the HPV vaccination with a woman and her pre-teen daughter. The mother and daughter are facing away from the camera so we don’t see their faces. The physician explains the dangers of HPV and the efficacy and reliability of the vaccine and recommends the mother have her daughter vaccinated. The mother declines to do so. The physician asks if the woman has any fears about the vaccine harming her daughter. The mother says no, she isn’t going to have her daughter vaccinated because she, the mother, believes in “chastity.”

There is some back and forth on this, with the mother explaining that she expects her daughter to refrain from sex until she’s married, and the physician explaining that the blushing bride could still get HPV from the groom, or even through “deep kissing,” should she ever have a boyfriend in her poor unfortunate life living with this deeply disturbed mother.

But the mother says that having her daughter vaccinated against HPV will encourage her to have premarital sex. She is adamant. She will not approve the vaccination! So the physician says, “Well, let’s just do the flu shot today and we can talk more about the HPV vaccination another time” (little did the physician know that there are those that claim the flu vaccination is "the most dangerous vaccine is the U.S." -- see again, Health Impacts News, whose Managing Editor and Founder, Brian Shilhavy, has a “BA in Bible and Greek from Moody Bible Institute, and an MA in Applied Linguistics from Northeastern Illinois University.”).

Well, this mother must be an outlier, right? Unfortunately, no. Mrs. ‘Tightlips’ is part of a conservative ‘abstinence-only’ movement that apparently would rather see their daughters (or sons -- men can get cancer from HPV) die from cancer than have pre-marital sex (it is the second leading cause of cancer deaths among women).

I should have remembered this outbreak of anti-science, because Rick Perry kept apologizing during the 2008 Republican presidential debates for signing an executive order making the vaccine mandatory in Texas for all sixth-grade girls. “I made a mistake,” he said -- oops! And who could forget Michele Bachmann claiming on Fox and ‘Today’ that the vaccine caused mental retardation. Was she talking about herself? Did she get vaccinated? I doubt it. There must be another explanation.

As of July 30, 2015, 4 out of 10 adolescent girls and 6 out of 10 adolescent boys have not started the recommended HPV vaccine series, leaving them vulnerable to cancers caused by HPV infections.

American Exceptionalism: Part II

Read Part I Here

The United Nations Arms Trade Treaty (ATT), regulating the international trade in conventional arms -- from small arms to battle tanks, combat aircraft and warships -- entered into force on Christmas Eve, December 24, 2014. It had been signed by 130 countries (including the U.S.) and ratified by 60, ten more than it needed to become effective. The United States was not, however, among the countries that ratified the ATT.

The treaty establishes standards for the global trade in conventional weapons, with the goal of preventing such weapons from being sold to those who would use them to commit genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. Congressional Republicans were strongly opposed to the global treaty. You might even say they were up in arms about it. In fact, 50 senators sent President Obama a letter expressing their opposition to the ATT, including every Republican except one, plus five Democrats worried about backlash from the NRA.

Some have called for the Obama Administration to "unsign" the treaty; something George W. Bush did in 2002 when he renounced U.S. obligations as a signatory to the 1998 Rome Statute that established the International Criminal Court (ICC). It was just as well that he did so, given the recently released Senate Report on the Bush Administration's execrable program of torture and extraordinary rendition during the Iraq War. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Tenet in the dock at the ICC at The Hague might cast an unfavorable light on America's human rights record.

But I digress. This little essay is about how Congressional Republicans, concerned more about currying favor with arms dealers, legal and illegal, and the broader Military Industrial Complex, along with their NRA quislings, have, with malice aforethought, killed any attempt to reign in the international arms trade. Their intransigence has doomed untold millions of people from Syria to Nigeria and beyond to death and destruction. On the other hand, it has made millionaires and billionaires of people like Adan Khashoggi, and Pierre Konrad Dadak, who threatened to put anyone who crossed him, "in a jar."

Overseas weapons sales by the United States comprise more than three-quarters of the global arms market, valued at $85.3 billion in 2011. America is without peer when it comes to supplying the world, especially developing countries, with the means to murder, maim, and mutilate. And in this, we are speaking only of reported arms sales. Illegal trafficking of firearms -- the weapons that end up in the bloody hands of Boko Haram, Al-Shabaab, Al-Qa'ida, and the ever popular Islamic State -- very probably rivals that of the legal trade. The bottom line is the bottom line, i.e., we are dealing with a hugely profitable business.

Republicans have always been known as the party of big business. And the arms trade is just that. Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Boeing are far and away the top three arms-producing companies in the world. In fact, the United States has a larger share of the worldwide arms market than the rest of the world combined and double the market share of all of the Western Europe OECD combined. Indeed, in this respect, America is exceptional.

Republicans argue that America’s arms trade is part and parcel of the implementation of its foreign policy, and should not be subject to the whims of a U.N. secretariat consisting of a ‘bunch of foreigners.’ In this regard, the non-partisan Congressional Research Service has said,

"Whereas the principal motivation for arms sales by key foreign suppliers in earlier years might have been to support a foreign policy objective, today that motivation may be based as much, if not more, on economic considerations as those of foreign or national security policy."

Still, Republicans have other reasons besides money and money to rail against the treaty. Listen to their ‘speechifying’ on the Senate floor and you’ll hear them lament a further intrusion into the inalienable rights of “patriotic Americans” -- the Arms Trade Treaty violates our Second Amendment right to “keep and bear arms.” Top NRA lobbyist Chris Cox said the treaty represents, "blatant attacks on the constitutional rights and liberties of every law-abiding American." The thing is, that’s just not true. No international treaty overrides our Constitution. Period. So the Second Amendment argument is bogus and that brings us back to the real argument, MONEY. Republicans value money. Life? Not so much.

ISIS Mass Execution. Where do they get their weapons?

I'm not a scientist

Climate scientists are certainly seen by most laypeople as boring, and sometimes even irrelevant, when they describe increasing concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide, and other “greenhouse gases,” the decreasing pH of oceans, Milankovitch cycles, climate forcings, positive and negative feedbacks, etc., without saying why we should care.

 But when these same scientists put their findings in context relative to current and projected consequences of global warming, e.g.: melting ice sheets and rising sea levels, the bleaching of coral reefs and die off of the aquatic life they support, extended droughts, dwindling ice pack, water shortages, increased prevalence and extent of wildfires, extreme weather events, and the attendant human and economic impact of anthropogenic global warming, they are labeled, "alarmists."

If climate scientists venture to suggest government action to address climate change, politicians (primarily but not exclusively on the right) tell them to stick to the science and leave policy to the "experts," that is, politicians. These same politicians when pressed on why they refuse to address global warming invariably begin their reply, "I'm not a scientist..." My response to that sort of dissembling is, "Then shut the fuck up and listen to the scientists."

Republicans Investigating NSF Grants

Going to be hard to fund #NSFgrant on differences in breast feeding protocols titled #RepublicansSuck. http://t.co/JqVjzauwCM via @POLITICO
— Richard Badalamente (@Nimasema) November 30, 2014

Seeing is Believing

My good friend, a died-in-the-wool conservative, contested an earlier post, The Absurdity of Conservative Economics, arguing that stimulus spending doesn't work because we never reduce spending after increasing it to stimulate the economy. Really?!

There is a legitimate debate about so-called deficit spending and Keynesian Economics, and whether in the long term it helps or hurts economic growth, but there is no debate about whether federal spending is ever reduced after increases -- maybe I misunderstood him. He's old and I'm older. But here's the picture that's worth a thousand words.

Outlays, Receipts & Deficits as % of GDP

The data were downloaded from the Office of Management and Budget and then opened using an Apple Works spreadsheet program. Clearly, the outlays as a percent of GDP during WWII greatly exceeded receipts and deficits grew larger. After the war, federal spending dropped dramatically and deficits shrunk. You can see the same pattern throughout the chart, although far less dramatically.

It's also interesting to note that our current deficit problems started in George W. Bush's first term in 2001 and grew worse until he left office. Under the Obama Administration, outlays and receipts are converging and deficits are shrinking -- another fact that my friend and his conservative golf buddies at the country club are loath to recognize (there were three Democrats at the country club, but two of them died and the other one disappeared mysteriously after birdieing the 8th hole and causing a 'redistribution of wealth' among the foursome (JK)).

The contraction during the Great Recession precipitated by Bush's economic policies and an under-regulated financial industry is the largest decline since quarterly data became available in 1947. Cumulatively, real GDP fell by 4.3% during the recession. The steep drop in economic activity caused by the recession makes it imperative that more work is done to raise economic growth and speed job creation.

Republicans say they're focused on creating jobs, but actions speak louder than words. They manufactured two debt crises in the last two and a half years. In the first one they managed to get an across-the-board cut -- the sequester -- causing all kinds of chaos (which they then tried to reverse with selective appropriations). In the second they got basically nothing (except some $3b for a dam project in Mitch McConnell's state of Kentucky).

But they'll be back for more cuts, both in spending and taxes, as well as "fixes" to the Affordable Care Act. Everything they do will hurt the economy -- count on it!

The Absurdity of Conservative Economics

There's another "economy lesson" floating through the blogosphere, courtesy of the conservative propaganda machine. This one attempts to defend the Republicans latest round of budget brinkmanship by once again comparing the federal budget to your household budget. "Oh, my! Imagine how you'd feel if you were trillions of dollars in debt!" Yeah, I'd feel like some bank loan officer wasn't doing his/her due diligence.

The "Fiscal Cliff" is a wholly owned subsidiary of a Republican polity whose only motivation is antipathy for the President and disdain for the poor.

The US economy is no more like your household budget than the Idaho militia is like the US Marine Corps.

There will always be a national debt and there should be. Budget deficits have been decreasing and will decrease more as the economy continues to improve. Had it not been for the obstructionist practices of poor-loser Republicans, we'd have a stronger economy and even lower deficits. As it is, deficits have fallen from over 10% when Bush left office in 2008, to 7% in 2012.

What Republicans refuse to acknowledge is that George W. Bush left an economic disaster in 2008, unemployment was rising, revenues were falling (both due to his crazy-ass tax cuts and to loss of jobs), and spending on safety net programs were necessarily rising (that's what they do when people lose their jobs). Economists will tell you that recovering from a deep recession like the one Republicans left, can take ten years (Japan has suffered for decades).

But, if you're a Republican, look on the bright side. If Republicans can succeed in denying the vote to women and [even more] minorities, and they can come up with a candidate that isn't a dick (or doesn't keep stepping on his dick), they may win the Presidency in 2016. Then they can claim credit for reducing deficits in 2018 in their attempt to win back the House.

While Rome Burns

While Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives "wile" away their time by shutting down the government and threatening to blow up the global economy by refusing to raise the U.S. debt ceiling, the issues and activities that the federal government is required to manage continue apace. We all know that the shutdown has put thousands of people out of work, had devastating effects on veterans, hurt business, and stunted the recovery. But what many people seem not to realize, is that America's ability to effectively combat threats to national security has been degraded. The longer the shutdown goes on, the greater the risk that something will blow up in our face, figuratively or literally.

There are both domestic and foreign threats to consider. Iran, for example, under its new president, Hassan Rouhani, has launched a charm offensive to waylay fears over its nuclear program. Do we believe the program is strictly for peaceful purposes? No way. Do we know how close Iran is to realizing their ambition to create a nuclear weapons development capability? We have a close approximation. Is there a chance we can, through an coalition of foreign powers with similar concerns and interests, persuade Iran to accept limits on its nuclear developments? Yes; not a good chance, but worth a shot. How are we doing on the latter initiative? Not worth a damn. We're shut down.

North Korean scientists are thought to have attained the ability to build uranium-based nuclear bombs on their own, cutting the need for imports that had been one of the few ways outsiders could monitor the country's secretive atomic work. How are we doing tracking on the Hermit Kingdom's nuclear weapons and delivery systems? Who knows. We're shut down.

James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, told Congress this week that the partial federal government shutdown has forced the furlough of some 70 percent of employees throughout the intelligence community. Intelligence agencies are focusing on the biggest threats: counter terrorism and nuclear nonproliferation. So some other issues, such as detecting and defending against cyberattacks and keeping an eye on ballistic missile launches around the world, have to fall by the wayside. Why? We're shut down.

The Department of Homeland Security has promised to stay on the job protecting Americans from foreign and domestic terrorists, but the Federal Law Enforcement Training Centers run by DHS have shuttered training operations for federal agents. The closure of these services could delay when newer employees with the Border Patrol, Customs and Border Protection and Capitol Police can go on the job. Meanwhile, FBI activities are suspended for longer-term types of investigations of crimes that don't involve an immediate threat. Training and other support functions have been slashed. Hopefully, terrorists will do the right thing and take a break while Republicans continue their hissy fit over not winning the 2012 presidential election and insist on keeping the government shut down.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which monitors the nation's 100 commercial nuclear power plants, is set to furlough 3,600 employees on Thursday after depleting funds amid the government shutdown. The shutdown will disable non-emergency licensing of nuclear reactors, emergency exercises, and the inspection of nuclear materials and waste licensees. What will the impact be? Well, as Condoleezza Rice might say, let's hope it's not a mushroom cloud floating over some unfortunate city while FEMA is shut down.

The Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say they could handle recalls and high-risk foodborne outbreaks, but they are less likely to discover them because most of the people who investigate outbreaks have been furloughed. Routine food safety inspections conducted by FDA are suspended, so most food manufacturers won't have to worry about periodic visits from government inspectors to make sure their facilities are clean. U.S. food inspections abroad have also been halted.

I've always thought that America's leaky food inspection system presents terrorists a great target to create death and destruction. Americans would be well advised to either stop eating, or march on the Capital and tell the stupid-fuck House Republicans, "ENOUGH, ALREADY!!"

Stop this fucking SHUT DOWN!!!

Negotiate Under Threat?

Paul Krugman

"Everybody not inside the bubble realizes that Mr. Obama can’t and won’t negotiate under the threat that the House will blow up the economy if he doesn’t — any concession at all would legitimize extortion as a routine part of politics. Yet Republican leaders are just beginning to get a clue, and so far clearly have no idea how to back down. Meanwhile, the government is shut, and a debt crisis looms. Incompetence can be a terrible thing."

Here's the Thing

According to the New York Times, Republicans planned to shutdown the government months ago in something called a "blueprint to defund Obamacare." Surprised? You shouldn't be. Republicans have done everything they could short of throwing tea into the Potomac to sabotage President Obama's terms in office. Never mind that their obstructionism has hurt the economy and job growth, or that their objections have been at times at odds with things they've recommended in the past, or that their own 2012 candidate for president, Mitt Romney, had implemented an Obamacare-like health program in Massachusetts, or that the 2013 Congress has been the least productive in U.S. history -- they don't care. The health of the Republic, the state of our democracy, the plight of every-day working Americans -- none of that matters to a Republican Party gone mad from losing two presidential elections to a man who is not only not white, not a member of the good ole [rich] boys club, and not someone they'd want to have a beer with, but is also -- horrors! -- an intellectual.

Don't be surprised if these Republicans cause the United States of America to default on its debt [on purpose] for the first time in its storied history. These crazies just might do it, because they're mad. They're mad because:

• they think government is overreaching (such as when it prevents air and water pollution),
• they believe in free markets (such as those that practically bankrupted the nation in 2008)
• they believe we are moving towards a socialism (because the 1% only own 42% of the nation's wealth, while the bottom 80% own a big 7%)
• they lost the 2008 presidential election and worked real hard to obstruct everything Obama tried to do only to lose again in 2012 (Fucking hell! What've gotta do to get back in power, burn the White House to the ground?!)

Don't be surprised if they do.

The Debt Does Not Exist

VIEWPOINT: The Debt Everyone Is Freaking Out About Does Not Exist
JEFF SPROSS, FEBRUARY 24, 2013

Excerpts:

The debt that’s got everyone worried is the part we haven’t yet incurred. And that debt, by definition, does not exist. It’s not a certainty, it’s merely a projection by the Congressional Budget Office. And trying to model how the federal budget, not to mention the entire American economy, will behave years or even decades in the future is a devilishly treacherous business.

By fixating on a problem that may or may not exist, Washington has trapped policymaking in a weird, postmodern dilemma. We’ve declared there’s a crisis because we’ve produced a hypothetical number, tethered to reality only by a host of assumptions and guesswork about what will happen in the next several decades. Then we insist this “crisis” isn’t “solved” until we’ve made policy changes that shift the math designed to spit out said hypothetical number. Policymaking becomes less about solving concrete problems and more about made-up numbers on an Excel spreadsheet.

In a depression, spending cuts suck demand out of the economy, leading to slower growth. Europe has so far pursued austerity with markedly more enthusiasm than the United States, and its economic performance predictably tanked as a result. Spain and France are anticipated to miss their latest debt-cutting targets, and the Continent as a whole will probably not see renewed economic growth for another year.

The vast majority of the deficits we’ve seen since President Obama took office were due to the 2008 collapse. Under depression conditions, deficits are a feature, not a bug.

We’ve already cut non-defense discretionary spending to 40-year lows, endangering all sorts of investments in America’s infrastructure, health, safety, communities, and future productivity. This massive failure to invest or aid saps the economy’s skills, education, networks, and future prospects.

The Undead Return to Washington

Dark clouds heavy with rain scudded over the Washington Mall on a cold, windy morning in our nation's capital. It was two days after the 2012 elections, and Constitution and Independence Avenues appeared to be populated only by brown and yellow leaves skittering down the wide avenues towards the Capital Complex. Then, rising from the depths of metro stations and despair, Republican members of Congress shuffled towards their offices. Their slumped shoulders, loose hanging arms, red eyes, and halting walk told all we needed to know about their condition. They are the undead, come once again to feast on the brains of America's citizens, hoping to reanimate the life of the Party.

Same Sex Marriage

Why do you think so many people, especially Republicans, seem so adamantly opposed to same sex marriage? Do you suppose it's because they focus on the act of sex, rather than the bond of love?

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.

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.

Richard "Doc" Hastings Playing the Same Old Republican Saw

You have to hand it to Richard "Doc" Hastings (R-WA) -- he stays on message, no matter whether the message meshes with the facts. Republicans want you to believe that if we just cut taxes and eliminate “burdensome” government regulations, jobs will suddenly pop up like mushrooms in May. Never mind that Republicans have being playing the same old saw since time immemorial with the same results, i.e., the rich get richer, and the rest of America gets screwed.


Hastings went on Fox News recently to propose that environmental regulations be lifted so logging could resume in National Forests in Washington. The state is facing a 4 to 5 billion dollar budget shortfall in the next 2 years. Budgets for education, health care, and help for the state’s poor and disabled are being slashed, and Hastings is going on Fox to lament environmental regulations on slash and burn logging?

What's up Doc? Total Timber sales revenues in 2011 amounted to about 4% of the state’s deficit and money going into the State's coffers from that revenue stream is minuscule. How about spending a little time working on the other 99% of the problem and stop playing with that old Republican saw in our forests?

When it comes to the Washington State budget shortfall, thoughtful people (not you, Doc) have some difficult decisions to make. Decide what your priorities are on the League of Education Voters web site and see how you fare in cutting the deficit.

Republican Zealots Threaten America's Security

Based on an article by Nicholas Kristof in the NYT, 7/23/2011

We tend to think of national security narrowly as the risk of a military or terrorist attack. But national security is about protecting our people and our national strength — and the blunt truth is that the biggest threat to America’s national security this summer doesn’t come from China, Iran or any other foreign power. It comes from budget machinations, and budget maniacs, at home.

House Republicans start from a legitimate concern about rising long-term debt. Politicians are usually focused only on short-term issues, so it would be commendable to see the Tea Party wing of the Republican Party seriously focused on containing long-term debt. But on this issue, many House Republicans aren’t serious, they’re just obsessive in a destructive way. The upshot is that in their effort to protect the American economy from debt, some of them are willing to drag it over the cliff of default.

Republican zealots yelling about America's debt and the Democrat's "tax and spend" policies are in fact, fanatics willing to ruin our economy in order to have their way. No tax hikes, no way, no how. No new revenue, not even from corporations that pay no taxes, like General Electric. Not even from corporations like Exxon-Mobile that are making billions in profits and still accepting taxpayer handouts in the form of government subsidies.

No, the Republican Tea Party members and sympathizers would rather cut programs that can serve to bolster America's long term economic recovery, keep America at the forefront of science and technology, educate our young people, and help the elderly and disabled. That's the Republican way. It's always been the Republican way (During the 1960s Ronald Reagan was the key participant in an American Medical Association (AMA) sponsored campaign to prevent the enactment of Medicare).

Republicans under George W. Bush drove the American economy into the toilet with unwarranted tax cuts for the wealthy, a prescription drug program that has cost over $549 billion and was not paid for, and two costly wars that were not only not paid for, but were underway when Republicans slashed taxes. It was no less than fiscal criminal negligence.

Now Republicans are feigning righteous indignation over the Nation's enormous national debt and preparing to stand firm on their demands for massive cuts to social programs and no new taxes. Well, to hell with them!

The Hell with Future Generations!

A House spending bill passed in February 2011 would stop the EPA from enforcing new limits on toxic emissions, such as mercury, from cement plants and from updating air pollution standards on dust and other coarse particulate matter that exacerbate asthma and lung ailments. It withdraws funding for the enforcement of dredge and fill regulations that the EPA recently used to halt a big mountaintop-removal coal project in West Virginia. And of course, it removes funding for climate change mitigation efforts.

Coal ash pond rupture near Kingston, TN, late 2008.

Using the Nation's budget crisis as their cudgel, Republicans are moving aggressively to rollback government policy, regulations, and programs that they have long held in contempt, including programs put in place (with bipartisan support) to protect the health and safety of Americans, and preserve America's incomparable natural beauty.

One of their key targets is the Environmental Protection Agency and its program to curb greenhouse gas emissions, and to boost climate-related research.

Hal Rogers, R-Kentucky, will head the House Appropriations Committee. He will reign in dollars allocated to the "run amok" EPA and their efforts to deal with climate change; efforts Rogers claims will "devastate" Kentucky's coal industry.

The incoming Chair of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee (believe or not) is 87 year-old Ralph Hall, R-Texas, a major recipient of oil money, who is willing to spend time and money investigating climate scientists, but apparently not on climate research. At his age, he's probably thinking, "why worry?"

Hall's Vice Chair, Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Wisconsin, says climate scientists are frauds and fascists (does it take one to know one?). Paul Broun, R-Georgia, Chairman of the Investigations and Oversight Committee, supports his colleague's view, stating that climate change concerns are a hoax perpetrated by a scientific community bent on getting federal dollars (and no doubt by the perfidious Al Gore, trying to sell his books).

Perhaps my favorite climate change denier is Rep. John Shimkus of Illinois, who heads the Subcommittee on Environment and the Economy, He tells us that global warming isn't something to worry about because God said he wouldn't destroy the earth after Noah's flood.

But Republicans aren't satisfied with gutting climate research; they want to rollback regulations on clean air, clean water, and endangered species.

Nothing "endangered" about these species. Rep. Paul Broun, R-GA, has them preserved in his office.

Representative Broun seems to equate his ideological opponents with terrorists. In his invocation for a GOP-sponsored barbecue in Cobb County he prayed, "Father, there are many who want to destroy us from outside this nation. Folks like al-Qaeda and the radical Islamists. But there are folks that want to destroy us from inside, the progressives and the socialists..."

Broun and his Republican cohorts have devised a plan for countering the Progressives radical attack on America; they will defund clean air and clean water regulations. Apparently, Republicans plan to hunker down in cigar lounges drinking single malt scotch, so will be safe from air or water pollution. Who knows what these wingnuts are thinking?

Stunningly Hypocritical

I find right wingers stunningly hypocritical. They raise hell about the government attempting to regulate green house gas emissions, but insist that government regulate a woman's reproductive system. Republicans see gay marriage as morally reprehensible, but see no moral imperative in preventing the devastation that global warming will visit on future generations.

The Demise of a Thoughtful Republican

George W. Bush, Donald Rusfeld, and Paul Wolfowitz announcing Joint Resolution to authorize force against Iraq.

By J. Phillips

The Iraq War is an utterly depressing subject. My upbringing as a military brat and career as an international nuclear security expert and weapons inspector in Iraq between the two wars cast this unnecessary foreign adventure in a grave, unflattering light. This war alone broke me out of a lifelong tradition of support for the Republican Party. In the history of strategic blunders, this war may prove to be much worse than Vietnam from the perspective of our nation’s place in the world.

Charles Duelfer, chief U.S. investigator on
Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, confirming
there were no WMD stockpiles in Iraq.

The lack of a persuasive casus belli in the case of Iraq, and the predictable distraction that resulted, interfered with the proper execution of justifiable military and nation building efforts in Afghanistan.

Success in that endeavor is now imperiled.

The military difficulties of defeating the Taliban and other tribal coalitions, on Afghani terrain, are well understood. Afghanistan has a storied history of ruining all invaders going back many centuries and they have not been successfully administrated by an external power since Timur’s conquest 600 years ago. The dramatically punctuated Afghani terrain and its finely parsed tribal feudalism is a simile of Russian winter and its regional partisans in the annals of military history. It’s a place where invaders have gone to die a slow death. The combination of that difficult, but justifiable proposition with the coincident invasion and occupation of Iraq, arguably the Yugoslavia of the Middle East and the primary foil of Iranian ambitions, was pure Bush Administration folly.

All but seven of 272 Republican legislators lent active support to Bush’s destructive foreign policy. The Democrats, cowed by a nationalist spin machine wrapped in the flag, voted tepidly against the war 147 to 111. The neocon spin machine had convinced a willfully ignorant electorate that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction at the ready to use against us, was complicit in 9/11 and was in league with Al Qaida. These assertions were patently false. It’s not possible that the Bush Administration was uninformed. The lack of justification for war was simply an inconvenient truth standing between them and their ideological goals.

No less than Brent Scowcroft, National Security Advisor to George HW Bush during the First Gulf War, opined against the imminent invasion in the Wall Street Journal in an attempt to divert the Titanic from its tragic course, but Bush’s neocons and the Republican Party would have none of it. After witnessing these events I could not, in good conscience, support a political party that actively promoted and participated in this ill-fated national decision. It became the demise of a thoughtful Republican.

Though I did not respect the pack of craven Democrats who supported the Iraq invasion, over half did not support the Iraq War – including then Senator Obama. They bucked the popular view as a matter of principle. Ironically, cleaning up this horrendous mess, left by the previous Republican Administration, has now fallen to President Obama’s Administration along with an extensive laundry list of other messes.

Recent estimates of the direct losses of the Iraq War on the larger U.S. economy range as high as $3 trillion all said and done. This does not include opportunity costs, which are the “unknowable unknowns” – the might have beens. The related increment in the national debit will exceed $1 trillion. Your personal share of the U.S. economic losses of the Iraq War will total roughly $10,000. That comes to a U.S. “investment” of roughly $150,000 per Iraqi man, woman and child, spent thoroughly eviscerating their nation in a blender as it were. If it’s not obvious to the reader, this is an inconceivably large figure in contrast with the extremely limited means of an average Iraqi citizen.

We have spent our national treasure destroying another country without justifiable cause and then trying to contain the consequence of the ensuing chaos. It has been a war funded entirely on debit from day one and has been a significant contributor to the destruction of our economy, but speaking from the heart, the wasted treasure is so much less compelling than other things.

I feel familial grief for the uniformed services that have suffered in the aftermath of that thoughtless decision. To date, in excess of 4,400 U.S. soldiers have died and roughly 30,000 suffer with combat injuries. Thousands suffer from post-traumatic stress disorders, chronic depression and related substance abuse. Many thousands of marriages have been destroyed by deployments without end – remember the “Stop Loss policy?” Their children join the swollen ranks of the progeny of broken homes. Suicides among military personnel have soared. All of these casualties of war have families and extended families that bear the brunt of our unfortunate nationalist excess.

The tragic legacy of the Iraq War is only beginning to unfold within the military community. Knowledge that it is a rear guard effort to try and recover from a disastrous Republican Administration decision only makes these losses more intolerable. In a nation whose conscience has become seared by an outbreak of neoconservative nationalism, it’s not even worth raising the hundreds of thousands of casualties on the Iraqi side including the uncounted multitude of innocents killed, maimed and displaced after the fact by the sectarian conflict we unleashed. How many innocents will die and be maimed before Iraq is stabilized? Do we even care?

Most Americans are either ignorant of the facts or can’t find the personal courage to stare into that dark abyss and contemplate whether they bear a share of indirect responsibility for that disaster through their voting decisions. They would rather sit in church pews, watch football games and go to barbecues – so would I. But we can rest assured that more than one generation of Iraqis will not forget this. It is now burned into their national consciousness and it will increase the danger of terrorism we face for the foreseeable future.

So where’s the honor to be found in this debacle? I propose that these good soldiers and their families are worthy of double honor, respect and support from the American people for toiling to stabilize Iraq. Thereby saving the United States from the utter disgrace and disrepute that would have been ours if Iraq were allowed to spin out of control into a sectarian genocide of our making. The Bush Administration, the voters that put them in power and a minority of craven Democrats that supported it, started this war, but the U.S. military is now compelled to finish it.

To those arm chair generals out there that have been supportive of the Iraq War from its inception, please find the personal courage and humanity to see the brilliant film The Messenger. Its heart-felt portrayal of the ocean of grief unfolding in my “home town” stuns one into a holy silence – as the commanding officer in the film states: notification of the first of kin is a sacred duty. While you’re at it view The Hurt Locker for its depiction of the chaos and inhumanity of the sectarian violence that you and I elected to unleash. Those so certain of their point of view should not be afraid to be students of its actual consequence.

The suffering of military personnel and their families coping with death, physical maiming and mental injuries from this elective war is beyond my ability to impersonally dismiss as a usual outcome that the military will have to tolerate for the greater good of the country. There’s nothing usual about this situation.

And what of the flood of Iraqi war refugees, many of whom are Christians, killed or forced from their country by the Islamic fundamentalism that we elected to unleash? Iraq, despite its notorious dictatorship, was a secular state that protected its Christian minority. What of the other minorities who are now crushed under the wheels of majority groups fighting to fill the power vacuum that we elected to create? Apparently, “freedom is an untidy business” as Mr. Rumsfeld so casually stated.

But does taking responsibility in Iraq mean that the electorate should now have corporate amnesia and absolve the Republican Party for making this disastrous decision before they have fully appreciated the consequence and reformed their perspective? This is about political tough love that only an educated electorate can administer to the proper measure. I voted for them all my life before they did this terrible thing, but I can have the personal integrity now to admit my error, change my mind, and vote against them until their last nationalist neocon has been sent packing.

Adolf Hitler was a nationalist neocon. He was a German populist elected in reaction to the economic collapse of the Weimar Republic – Germany’s first attempt at liberal representative democracy. That ideological path is spawned in economic hardship and riven with danger and infamy. God help us if we cannot find the strength to resist that path.

As in the time of FDR and Truman, the Republicans have lost their way. They’re in desperate need of an extended retreat to the political wilderness to find themselves again and cast off the radical influences of populism and neoconservatism. If they don’t accomplish this painful task of reform, they will not be in a position to help build a positive future. They will cease to be the worthy inheritors of the proud legacy of Lincoln, TR and Eisenhower – all of whom would be labeled “RINO” by populist Republicans today.

America’s future needs Republicans, but this batch is defective. Believe in an America that’s a force for good in the world rather than a force for greed, destruction, war and fear. Send the Republicans away until they get it right.

Who is Clint Didier?

Prominent Republicans, including Sarah Palin and Ron Paul, are supporting Clint Didier, in his campaign bid to unseat 3-term incumbent US Senator Patty Murray (D-WA).

Just who is Clint Didier?

• a graduate of Connell High School
• attended Columbia Basin College and Portland State where he was a star football player
• played professional football
• presently has an alfalfa farm and runs an earth moving business, as well as coaches at Connell High School.

 His stated positions are:

• Health care: "I will not support a federal government health care plan – period."
• Immigration: "We need to revamp and revisit the guest worker program." 
• Government: "If not authorized by the Constitution, it will be a NAY vote from me."
• Foreign Policy: "I favor a non-interventionist philosophy. Let’s stop trying to spread 'democracy.'"
• Gun Law: "I will never submit to, or support, any legislation seeking to undermine this essential right and protection of individual liberty."
• Marriage Rights: "I believe marriage is between one man and one woman."
• Women's Rights: "I am pro-life – from conception until natural death." 
• Global Warming: "It is becoming increasingly clear much of our climate change data affecting public policy is not scientifically sound."
• Energy: "We must drill for oil and do it now. We need to reduce stifling regulations that keep refineries from being built. We need to revitalize our nuclear energy industry."
• Agriculture: "I believe it is time to begin backing the federal government out of farm subsidy programs and let farmers become self-sufficient."
• The Economy: "I will introduce and support legislation seeking to reduce taxes and meddlesome bureaucratic regulations. I will not vote for any new taxes, or any increases in existing taxes."

Didier's blunt, angry rhetoric is music to Tea Party ears. One wonders if they even consider what he is saying; eliminate the Department of Energy, the Department of Education, the Environmental Protection Agency. He'd cut Medicare, Medicaid, welfare, and food stamps. Didier says people should take care of themselves. At a Tea Party forum in Bellingham, Washington in July he said, "We've got to get rid of this 'protecting the weak.' If we keep the weak alive all the time, it eats up the strong, and then our economy will never come back."

Nature…confers the master's right on her favorite child, the strongest in courage and industry ... The stronger must dominate and not blend with the weaker, thus sacrificing his own greatness.

Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf (1925-26), American Edition (1943), 134-5.

In William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (1990), 86.