republican version Archives - Where Is The Outrage?

Tuesday Night News Roundup

Do you remember that song by a group called The Sylvers? Boogie Fever?It was a perfectly forgettable song from the mid-1970s. It also proved that disco was clearly not going to last. 🙂 It seems to me that Washington has developed sequester fever. In every newspaper you pick up there’s a large story on the sequester and what it means to you and me. Every political blog has taken a stance on the sequester. Congress has until Friday to come up with some solution or we will all face the sequester consequences. In my mind, we’ve come to a clash of ideologies. We’ve come to an impasse. We’ve come to the exact same type of deal that we had back in 1994 when the Republicans decided it was a great idea to shut down the government. That didn’t work out very well for the Republicans. As a matter of fact, that didn’t work out so well for the country. Democrats are powerless to stop it. All I know is that we need jobs. We need to put people back to work. Polls show that Americans aren’t really interested in cutting anything.

Former Surgeon General C Everett Koop has died.

So, help me understand, what was all the bluster over Senator Chuck Hagel? As I recall, he was nominated by President Barack Obama to be Secretary of Defense. The Republicans jumped up and down, held their breath, turned blue and then said okay. Chuck Hagel passed a basically party-line vote earlier today.

Speaking of Republicans flailing around for no particularly good reason, what about the Violence Against Women Act? Remember some House Republicans had “serious reservations” and therefore drafted their own Republican version of the Violence Against Women Act. I really don’t understand. It looks like the legislation is slated to pass over the next several days. The Republican form of the bill is predicted to fail, spectacularly.

Today is the first anniversary of the shooting of Trayvon Martin. I wish I could tell you I had some great insight, some nugget of information that is new and exciting. I don’t. It is a year later and I find the whole ordeal to be sad and depressing. I have written extensively about Trayvon – here, here, here and here. This prompted a week-long discussion about race – here, here and here.

In the Republican version of déjà vu all over again, a Michigan State Senator has publicly stated that he’s not sure if President Obama was born in the United States. He was just wondering why the press didn’t push that issue any further. I have no comment.

A Texas man admits that he shot his girlfriend while they were playing a game of “Quick Draw.” Remember, guns don’t kill people.

A sophomore at UNC Chapel Hill is having a complaint filed against her because she accused another student of rape. He and his friends are stating that they feel intimidated. Every now and then, I feel the world is getting crazier and crazier.

The absolute best story that I’ve read in the last couple of days has to do with the paranoid delusion that some far-right conservatives have. They have this theory that President Barack Obama is developing a Black Army designed to wipe out the White race. Please take off your tin helmet. It isn’t helping.

The suspense isn’t killing me (Updated)

For the past four years, the Republican Party has been doing backflips, trying to prove to America that they care about minorities. They’ve been trying to prove that they are an inclusive party. They’ve been trying to come up with the Republican version of Barack Obama ever since Barack Obama was elected to a Senate in Illinois. As far as I know, Allen West is the only Republican Congressman who’s black (I’m sorry I over looked Tim Scott of SC. My apologies.) and there are no black Republican senators. I don’t think that this is because the Republican Party would not embrace a black figure, because they seemed to be plenty happy with Condoleezza Rice and with Colin Powell, before he endorsed Barack Obama and before he said that torture was not the direction that our country should be going.

Three years ago, the Republican Party picked Michael Steele out of relative obscurity in Maryland politics. Michael Steele had no previous experience in the national spotlight and his inexperience showed. There were many times when it was unclear whether Michael Steele was representing the GOP or simply his own interests. So at their first opportunity the GOP gave Michael Steele the boot.

Finally, the Republicans found the perfect candidate – Herman Cain. His resume looked impressive. He ran a successful company. He made tons of money (almost a prerequisite to run for the Republican nomination). He had a conservative talk show, which had a decent sized audience. He had a personable, almost folksy way of talking at campaign events. The bread-and-butter conservatives really like this. He was the former chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. All of this was really cool!! Herman Cain for President!

Problems with Herman Cain surfaced almost from the start. He seems to do well in these rallies where he can talk off the cuff and get the crowd energized. He seems to have problems with interviews. He seemed to have problems during the debates. During his closing statement in the first Republican debate, Herman Cain quoted the song the movie Pokémon. He said, “A poet once said, ‘life can be a challenge, life can seen impossible, it is never easy when there’s so much on the line.'” Personally, I think if you have to stoop to quoting a cartoon (“I’m strong to the finish, ‘cuz I eat my spinach” – Popeye), your candidacy should be over. Then, Herman Cain came out with his 9-9-9 plan. This seems to be directly derived from the 2004 version of SimCity (“It’s clobbing time” – The Thing). He has no economist to stand up and say “I came up with this plan and gave it to Herman Cain.” He has no team of advisers who said that they were knocking around different ideas for flat taxes and came up with this 9-9-9 plan. By itself, it isn’t really all that crazy, but when he added the Pokémon quote, doesn’t that mean that you’re not a serious candidate (“You’re despicable” – Daffy Duck)? So, Herman Cain continues to campaign and try to sell more books (selling items that personally line your pockets seems to be a theme in this Republican race this year – see Newt Gingrich). He then has a softball question tossed at him. What do you think about president Obama’s handling of Libya? I’m not sure what was difficult about this question. Libya has been in the news for more than six months. I think was reasonable for Herman Cain to ask for a point of clarification, just in case the reporter was trying to ask about a specific aspect of the Libyan policy. Yet, even with prompting, he came up with nothing (“I think I should’ve taken that left turn at Albuquerque” – Bugs Bunny). I won’t even going to the Iran nuclear issue question that Herman Cain also fumbled. The bread-and-butter of the Republican Party since Richard Nixon has been foreign-policy. Yet Herman Cain fumbles and bumbles the most basic foreign-policy questions. Republican voters should have been running for the exits.

We must remember that the Republican Party since Ronald Reagan has embraced this idea that they are morally superior to the rest of us. They have courted the religious right. A Republican candidate who seems to have a new woman alleging unwanted sexual advances every week should be nauseating. Then, this week, we have a woman who basically stated that she’s had a 13-year sexual affair with the guy who is running to be the nominee of the “family values” party. Sure, it would be easy to dismiss this woman as Herman Cain has dismissed all of the other accusers. This woman had Herman Cain’s phone number in her cell phone. She sent a text message to that number and only a couple minutes later Herman Cain called back. (“That’s all folks!” – Porky Pig.)

For the last three or four days Herman Cain has been “evaluating” his candidacy. Why? The rest of us have moved on. Sure, some time later on today Herman Cain is supposed to make a big announcement. Do we care? My answer is no. I don’t think that Herman Cain was ever a serious candidate for president. I hope he sold the books that he wanted to sell. I have no animosity or malice towards Herman Cain. He just should not run for president. The thousands and thousands of Americans who were duped into supporting this man should have their money refunded. (Somewhere on my blog, somebody posted a comment telling me that Herman Cain was going to “kick Barack Obama’s butt” in the general election. I wonder what that shortsighted supporter is thinking now.)

Update: Cain has suspended his campaign. (“Are you still here? The movie is over. Go home.” – Ferris Bueller. [I couldn’t think of any more great cartoon quotes. Sorry.])