What Republican Conservatives Really Want

Bernie Sanders is one of the politicians I admire most in this nation. He is a U.S. Senator from Vermont, a brilliant speaker and a fellow with a marvelous, dry sense-of-humor. He can also get very serious and very angry, however, and he rose to that on Facebook this morning. I read his post with great interest…
by Charlie Leck

“Congressional Republicans are threatening to shut down the federal government next Tuesday unless the Affordable Care Act is defunded. The truth is that they’re just warming up and some of their other ideas are even further “off the deep end,” Sen. Bernie Sanders told radio host Bill Press on Tuesday. In a Senate floor speech, Sanders detailed a Republican to-do list that ranges from abolishing Social Security, privatizing VA health care, getting rid of the EPA, junking the minimum wage and more. Those and other proposals, the senator said, are detailed in the Texas Republican Party platform.” [U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders]

Take a look at this video of Senator Sanders’ speech on the floor of the Senate about the 2012 Texas Republican party platform…

Here’s a list of some of the things that that party platform calls for… and it is similar to the conservative Republican Party all over the county…

Phase out the Social Security System

Privatize Veterans Health Care

Abolish all federal programs not listed in the U.S. Constitution

Close down the Environmental Protection Agency

Repeal the 16^th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution (ending progressive taxation)

End Capital Gains Tax and Estate Tax

Repeal the minimum wage law!

This platform reflects the thinking of the new conservative Republican movement. It is a policy that would be tragic for the low-income people of America. It simply calls for us to become a government that doesn’t care. It establishes a society of in-fighting and “get what you can get for yourself and the rest of the nation be damned.”

Earlier in the week, here’s what Senator Sanders had to say…

“House Republicans are trying to undo the Affordable Care Act, throw millions of children and the elderly off food stamps and continue across-the-board sequestration cuts that have slashed Head Start, Meals on Wheels, home heating assistance and other programs. That’s just the agenda for this week when the Republicans are using the threat of a government shutdown on Oct. 1 to try to get their way… What you’re talking about is the incredible cruelty and arrogance of a party representing the wealthy and the powerful to punish the poor and working people… These are bullies who are beating up on helpless people… They don’t impress me.”

Shout it out to your Senators and Representatives, wherever you live! Tell them to stop the nonsense and get on with governing. Shutting down our government will have serious consequences, once again, on our fragile economy!

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When Republicans Are In Charge

     Photo by Van Winkle Law Firm

      (www.vwlawfirm.com)

North Carolina is one of my favorite states and places to visit
I’ve had extraordinary fun in Raleigh, Charlotte, Camden,
Columbus, Ashville and Pinehurst. The 2014 U.S. Open Golf
Championship will be played at Pinehurst’s wonderful #2
course. I had planned to attend. In protest, I think I won’t go.

Let us consider an example of what happens when this new brand of Republicans are in charge and then ask ourselves two questions: (1) Could it happen on a national basis if Republicans were in total charge? (2) Could it happen in my state if Republicans were in total charge?
by Charlie Leck

At this point, ideally, you should go read this NY Times editorial, The Decline of North Carolina, that appeared in this powerful and famous newspaper on 10 July 2013; however, since many of you will not want to, I'll summarize the important editorial for you…

A significant number of people in North Carolina have begun observing “Moral Monday.” These people gather on Mondays to demonstrate and protest “the grotesque damage that a new Republican majority has been doing to a tradition of caring for the least fortunate.”

You know, conservatives – especially conservative politicians – like to talk about honoring American traditions. One of the great ones, it seems to me, is our nation’s willingness to care for those who are down and nearly out.

I think conservative Republicans have forgotten this tradition. Oh, my! Not all Republicans. I know some of the best of them – men and women who are true to real conservative core values but who also deeply believe is caring for those in our society who are less fortunate and unable to climb up on the big, steady American bandwagon that moves toward success and comfortable lives.

The realistic understand that there will always be a segment of society that has not been fortunate – that is down on its luck – that has encountered serious set-backs – that has failed in ways that are not due to a failure to try. It may be what Jesus meant when he is quoted in the scriptures as saying, “The poor we shall always have with us!”

There are a large number of people in North Carolina who fear that their state is forgetting this. Certainly, the state’s legislative body seems to have forgotten a deep, abiding tradition to care for the less fortunate. The NY Times editorial says…

“But the bad news keeps on coming from the Legislature, and pretty soon a single day of the week may not be enough to contain the outrage.”

Republicans control both the executive and the legislative branches of government in North Carolina, giving them free hand to do pretty much what they want in terms of legislation. The NY Times describes what’s happening down there as “a demolition derby, tearing down years of progress in public education, tax policy, racial equality in the courtroom and access to the ballot.”

Here is what the Republican Party has done in North Carolina and what it could do in state after state in the south and eventually in the conservative states in the north; and this would create such havoc in blue states that its expenses would rise uncontrollably as people flock into them to escape a brand of politics that I can only call unAmerican.

Last week North Carolina ended unemployment benefits for 70,000 of its residents. In a short while they will end them for 100,000 more. The remaining North Carolinians on unemployment will have their checks cut by a third. Unemployment in North Carolina is the fifth highest in the nation. It was the North Carolina Chamber of Commerce that convinced the legislature to do this.

Then the North Carolina legislature has weakened an already shaky education system and, in the long run, that will only hurt any recovery from the high unemployment rates that North Carolina is experiencing. Teacher pay is falling dramatically in North Carolina. The state legislature wants to remove all limits on class sizes. Many are predicting that a teacher exodus will follow. So, of course, will the quality of education in that state.

·         The legislature in North Carolina repealed the Racial Justice Act.

·         They refused to expand Medicaid.

·         The look to reduce taxes on the wealthy while raising it on all others.

·         The state senate in North Carolina has voted to close all the state’s abortion clinics. The House is looking at it. The Governor will sign it.

·         The legislature wants to, and probably will, impose voter identification laws and cut back on early voting (while many states are moving to expand such voting). It’s protection insurance for all ultra-conservatives.

Remember?
It was not many years ago that progressives were taking note and hope in North Carolina’s acts of compassion, thinking this state might become a beacon for the entire south. Now comes the dismantling of all that hope.

Take note!
This is what Republican conservatives like Tom Emmer and Michel Bachmann support. Off-hand, casually, they will say they don’t, but an examination of their campaign comments and their voting records will show they do.

This is what could happen nationally with Tea Party types in charges. America could be dragged down into the ditches of despair and disrepair.

This is the kind of politics the horrible Koch Brothers fund.

America, beware!

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[UPDATE] The Texas State House of Representatives has approved, on strictly party lines, a new abortion bill. The State Senate could vote on it sometime on Friday. The new law would ban abortions after 20 weeks and only allow abortions in surgical centers.…

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What Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission Hath Wrought!

Make no doubt about it, the spending reports on the 2010 and 2012 elections are clear; they show that the Democratic Party cannot keep up with the Republicans in raising campaign funds outside of their party organizations. Republican outside spending in 2010 nearly doubled what Democrats could spend and it has more than doubled what Democrats have spent in 2012.
by Charlie Leck

Source: Center for Responsive Politics

What does that opening statement mean? The Democrats do all right against Republicans when campaign spending is left to what can be done by the party organizations themselves, but the Republicans can raise twice as much when it comes to outside organizations like the money given by billionaires to the SUPER PACs.

The following comes from a NY Times article by Thomas B. Edsall (Billionaires Going Rogue):

…”The result has been a stupefying array of PACs, 501(c)4s and 501(c)6s that even professionals can barely keep track of….

“The first chart, provided by the Center for Responsive Politics, shows that outside spending tilted left in every year from 2000 to 2008, but that in 2010 — in the aftermath of deregulation — the balance skewed decisively to the right. In the current 2011-12 election cycle, it shifted overwhelmingly to the right:”

The downside of all this for the Republican Party, according to Edsall in his story, is that the bulk of this funding is come from right-wing elements in the Party that are very disruptive – elements that are “more willing to go to extremes: see the billboards showing Obama bowing down before an Arab Sheik or the ads and DVD claiming that Obama is the bastard son of the African American communist, Frank Marshall Davis.” You can see Jeremy Peters story about that billboard here.

What the Republican Party is very likely to find out, in the long run, is that it is no longer the Republican Party, but some very far right wing organization controlled by a long list of the nut cases and whacko religions in the nation. Edsall carefully explains the dangers in all of this for the Republican Party itself. I think people like Sheldon Adelson and the Koch brothers are destroying the Republican Party and doing a huge disservice to America.

Welcome to the America created for us by the United States Supreme Court!

Be sure to go to this story and read the entire account – especially if you’re concerned about where Citizens v. United is taking us.

…”The displacement of the parties by super rich men determined to flex their financial muscles in another giant step away from democracy.” [Thomas B. Edsall, in the above referenced story.]

Edsall is a professor of journalism at Columbia University and the author of the book “The Age of Austerity: How Scarcity Will Remake American Politics.”

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Why No Republican Rebuke?

Representative Allen West (Republican from Florida) publically stated recently that 76 Congressional Democrats (perhaps as many as 81) are actual members of the Communist Party.
by Charlie Leck

It was extraordinarily dumb of Representative West to say it, but he did. Amazingly, he said it with a straight face and then reiterated that he meant it. Though we’ve come to expect our members of Congress to say utterly stupid things from time to time, there is a difference here. Here's what it is: the Republican Party of America has not stood up to rebuke the Congressman and to declare that he misspoke – or spoke stupidly – or lied – or didn’t know what he was talking about.

Marxists in the Congress?
When the question was asked of Representative West, some in the crowd guffawed, but West shook the naysayers off and assured the audience that “…it’s a good question.”

He told his audience that there were members of the Democratic Party who were also members of the Communist Party. He said he was talking about the Congressional Progressive Caucus (76 Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives).

This is all laughable, I suppose – unless, of course, Representative West was talking about you. I’m sure those members of Congress didn’t think it was funny.

It took me back to times in America when we were talking about the Radical Right. Remember the John Birch Society? It still exists, by the way, and you can read about some of their fear mongering here – at the John Birch Society web site.

The point I want to make – as strongly as I possibly can – is about the silence of the Republican Party following Representative West’s utterly obnoxious statement. The Tea Party is dragging us back to the time when the John Birch Society actually had a significant following. Both build their strength through fear and untruths.

It is only right that such ugliness and lies should be rebuked – we’re not talking about distortions here – or debatable facts – or foggy interpretations. We are talking about out-and-out lies and the Grand Old Party should speak up and out about such attacks.

We’ve returned to a time when a political party is willing to build upon fear rather than upon truth. Oh, my! Oh, my!

You can read the Washington Post story about Mr. West here (you can also view a video of his statement).

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Family Differences

My Brother Believes in Rush Limbaugh and the Like
by Charlie Leck

An older brother, who lives out in NJ, wrote me this past week, urging me to join The Tea Party.

"CHL, I know you will not agree, but our President is leading us on a very rocky road. The country is not We the People -- it is Obama, Polosi and Reed.

"We the people (Tea Party's 9-12) don't want socialism, we don't want the DNC removing our freedoms. We will start, through our vote, to change the power of Congress (RNC, DNC, Ind).

"STOP TAX SPENDING

"Hope you and Anne are doing well! Enjoy your blogs."

FL

I intended to quit at this point and just allow my brother's note to me to stand on its own. Yet, I couldn't. This is another case of someone who listens too much to Rush Limbaugh and that liar Beck and others like them. These two guys are inciting so many folks who don't use other means to enlighten themselves. These days, there are a whole host of these dishonest talking heads who know the only way they can succeed in the business is to incite normal citizens through their out and out lies and distortions. Without this kind of bombastic presentation of the news and their views, guys like Bill O’Reilly could not keep working.

Well, I'm certain that my brother is referring, in his comments above, to two legislative activities of the Obama administration, so I'll quickly deal with them.

The Corporate Bail Outs
This is a difficult issue. First, it wasn't begun by Obama. He inherited a policy from George W. Bush. It will probably, one day, be proven to be a good and correct policy -- not a pleasant or cheap one, but a good one. It has probably saved the nation from a depression that would have made the Great Depression of the 30s look miniscule. It's a tough issue and only history will show whether or not President Obama was correct to follow George W. Bush down that murky, muddy trail.

Health Care Reform Legislation
It is on the basis of what Obama is proposing in this area that my brother calls President Obama a socialist. I'll start off, first, telling my brother that Obama's proposals are far too conservative for me. My great hope was that the President would send to Congress a plan for nationalized, universal health care. Of course, the legislation that the President will ask Congress to pass is much more conservative than that. It is so tame, as a matter of fact, that one couldn't even dream of calling them socialistic.

Many of the great democratic nations of the earth have nationalized health care systems that work quite well, if not far better than the system we currently have in place. Does one dare say that the following nations are not democratic: Canada, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Denmark, Luxembourg and so many more? The system that President Obama is recommending doesn't come close to being as all inclusive and sweeping as those of the nations listed above.

The United States, according to the World Health Organization, is ranked in about 27th place in the quality of the health care services it provides its citizens and in the results it achieves.

I've been down this road before and have told this tale too many times. I won't bore my readers further, but I had to present some sort of defense to my brother who is bloated with Limbaughisms.

Now, if I could get my brothers to open their minds and read some really enlightened material by solid commentators, I'd send them right to Bill Moyers and his latest comments on this subject of the crazy, radical right and its nutty commentators: Conservative Radicals and the Politics of Vengeance. I recommend it to you, my regular readers. Sadly, Moyers argues that "Intellectual Conservatism is dead." The column amounts to a conversation between Moyers and Sam Tannenhaus, the author of The Death of Conservatism.

Enough said! It would be crazy to yak on over the mind and voice of Bill Moyers.