Today, Donald re-learns about hot mics.
Today, our intrepid politicians figure out that party unity isn’t always a good thing, but who’s to say that should stop one’s ambition? After all, when your campaign is built on clever marketing, the sky is the limit!
Why is giving money to a candidate considered free speech? Free speech means you can say or write whatever you want without fear of imprisonment or worse. That’s free SPEECH. It doesn’t mean you can DO whatever you want. You can’t rob a bank, for instance. Why does donating to a politician somehow qualify as ‘speech’? This isn’t speech. This is clearly a financial transaction. Giving money to politicians isn’t necessarily saying anything at all. It might be a kickback, bribe, or just a donation with no particular issue in mind. Making donations a first amendment issue is like making sales a first amendment issue. Both are financial transactions. One says you support a candidate, the other says you support a product. Why is one speech and the other not? You could then argue, for instance, that the government must allow me to purchase C4 explosives or that fully automatic rifle with extended clip and silencer – you know, because of free speech.
This is absurd for a number of reasons. First of all, if donations are a form of free speech, then wouldn’t rich people have more of a ‘voice’ than the poor? Would that not give the rich more opportunities to ‘speak’ than the poor? I’m not sure that’s what the framers of the constitution had in mind. But in practice, this is what happens. The rich spends millions while the average person can’t afford to donate anything substantial to politicians in the first place. I think everyone can understand speech isn’t something that you should need to be able to afford. The rich shouldn’t have a larger voice with which to speak.
Financial transactions are not ‘speech’ and should not protected by the constitution like actual speech is. What we’re really protecting here is the ‘right’ of the rich to have more influence on our politicians and our lives than the majority of citizens. We’ve handed them the keys to the kingdom and called it a ‘right’. Good work, all you idiots who made this happen. When the ‘wrong’ people have all the money to spend, then what will you think of your success?
Today news broke that the Democrats have a nuclear option when it comes to the supreme court nomination of Mr. Garland.
Evidently the Democrats only need to offer up a rare procedural trick which would essentially cause a simple majority vote to take place leading to the eventually up or down vote on the judge. Senator Grassley, the Republican in charge of the process reportedly said, “There’s nothing we can do about it” when asked about whether he could prevent the eventual vote.
So, while Republicans in congress constantly accuse the president being an amateur, of not leading, or of leading from behind, these same people continuously lead their flock into fights they can’t possibly win. Each time they end up being out-maneuvered by the president whether it’s the budget, debt ceiling, foreign policy, or, well, you name it.
- Ted Cruz led a useless attempt to defund the ACA and ended up shutting down the government for nothing. Beyond that, the Republicans have voted dozens of times to defund or repeal the law.
- The Republicans led an effort to reign in Obama’s climate policy.
- The Republicans and Tom Cotton led an effort to reign in Obama’s Iran initiative.
- Now the Republicans have picked a fight they seem to be unable to win with the Supreme Court pick. They lose no matter what happens.
Meanwhile, President Obama must be scratching his head. Why would the Republicans continue to take public positions when they can’t possible previal?
He must wonder if losing over and over (and over) is considered great leadership by the Republican base. In the end, our President Obama usually gets whatever he wants. Perhaps this so-called ‘amateur’ isn’t so dumb after all, eh my Republican friends?
Today a prominent member of our intrepid cast, Senator Paul Ryan, came to the realization that the entire crop of 2016 presidential candidates is bat-shit crazy. Donald Trump reportedly bit the head off a Mexican immigrant during a rally in Tempe and spit it out into the eager hands of a waiting Sheriff Joe Arpaio. Ted Cruz issued a statement calling Trump a ‘stupid-pants’ for stealing his idea.
Senator Ryan’s next move was one of desperation….
Our intrepid geniuses are hard at work devising a plan to keep us safe in this dangerous world. If it weren’t for these deep thinkers, we wouldn’t stand a chance. Let’s all celebrate the fact that we’re lucky enough to have such amazing people calling the shots.
Today’s red meat loving right-wing base doesn’t mind hearing terrible things about Muslims, immigrants and anyone else they decided they don’t like. But when outrageous talk provokes outrageous action, , they won’t bother looking in the mirror or at their leaders for answers. Instead violence only provokes more violence and their leaders will be the ones clamoring to bring it to them.
Engagement has always been the way to quiet the angry rumblings of international animosity. Winning hearts and minds was never accomplished through violence. But most in the grassroots right-wing conservative movement don’t even know the difference between Sikhs and Muslims and often mistake them for one another. How can they be expected to vote for leaders who claim to understand the nuanced way to deal with a culturally different and population? They just want to vote for people who preach violence and intolerance.
The reason we have freedom of religious is not only to protect the religious group, but to prevent discord within the population in general. Antagonizing an entire group of people, especially religious fanatics, is a great way to provoke a response and we need to collectively come to that realization.
In the last decade, it seems that terror attacks just prior to elections have become all the rage. It’s almost becoming a regular expectation even when it doesn’t happen. As a population of intelligent and calm-minded people, we need to learn to expect such atrocities in today’s environment and not over-react to even the most terrible of provocations. If we can’t do that, then the bad guys win – the war mongers among us who would rather steal power through antagonistic methodologies and violence, and those who perpetrate the violence by provoking the reactions they set out to provoke.
Chris Christie accidentally misses his plane returning from a mandatory Trump rally.
The GOP rank-and-file just love to call Obama an emperor, insinuating that he’s left the constitution behind and become a lawless president. They accuse him of abusing his executive authority and label him accordingly. But President Obama has done much more to get his way than sign a few executive orders. At nearly every alpha-item turn, the President has outfoxed the entire Republican congress even after they took control of both houses in 2012.
The president has a handful of foreign policy accomplishments like the historic Iran deal, the historic Cuba re-engagement, and historic climate deals. And there’s more. The president won every shutdown or near shutdown fight over spending and the debt limit, passed him signature healthcare reform bill, and managed to preside over same-sex marriage’s court win as icing on the cake. The Republicans have been powerless to stop him, and yet have managed to become known as ‘the party of no’ even as they attempt to stifle his every initiative.
Now comes the death of Antonin Scalia, noted conservative jurist and scourge of the left, and the subsequent nomination of Merrick Garland. Almost predictably the reaction on the right was nakedly political. ‘Obama gets to name another justice, replacing a conservative?! Over my dead body!’ Many of them, even before the end of the day, had publicly come out as saying they would never confirm a justice nominated by President Obama, even though nearly a year remained before the end of his term.
Let me now take a moment to mention that Republicans have become amazing adept at these kinds of knee jerk reactions, and this is probably the most notable to date. It’s even more damazing than their last major political failure when, led by Senator Ted Cruz, they shut down the government over the federal budget in October of 2013. In this case, and in an astonishing display of political malpractice, they have tied their deliberate intransigence to an unpopular issue directly connected to the presidential election.
In picking this issue to make a stand, the Republicans have given several great political tools to their adversaries and have left themselves no way out of their own box.
First, this knee-jerk display of partisanship will be seen as obstructionism by objective people. Most people feel that this popular president has a right to select the replacement. Also, the constitution is clear on presidential and congressional responsibilities. The Republican’s primary rationale – that the American people should have their say thereby delaying consideration of a replacement – rings hollow, given that it’s only March. And those who say Obama ignores the constitution are now forced to eat their own words as they ignore their own party’s political departure from any kind of strict adherence to the letter of the law. Many will be hammered for months as hypocrites.
Secondly, vulnerable Republicans and those who aren’t plain crazy will understand that this posture of denying Garland a vote will not play well with moderate voters. The President’s approval rating is high right now, and varound surveys reportedly agree with the President that the nominee should be considered by congress and given a vote. These Republicans will put pressure on their own party to move past the issue, and in so doing, squeeze Mitch McConnell between their own vulnerable candidates and their immovable base.
Finally, this issue isn’t going away and is tied existentially to the election. This means that voters will, in part, make decisions based on the optics associated with this event. Democrats will no doubt work tirelessly to keep this partisan blockade of this nomination on the minds of voters right up until election day. The Republicans are acting unfairly and Some voters will probably punish them for it.
So Republicans, led by Chuck Grassley and Mitch McConnell, have once again built themselves a nice box to sit in. If they hold firm on their position not to grant a vote to the nominee, they will suffer repeated attacks all the way through election day. On the other hand, if they relent, they will be seen as weak and ineffective by their unrelentingly extreme voter base. They really have nowhere to go on this issue.
Recently our intrepid hero was quoted saying, “I’m speaking with myself, number one, because I have a very good brain”.
