Just Another Day in the Lives of Republicans

I turned on my computer this morning first thing, as I always do, to peruse the news. This is the gist of what I encountered:

Senators try to kill an EPA attempt to limit mercury and toxic air.

Romney announces no hiring of more Public workers.

McConnell is opposed to any rules for disclosure of names of those who contribute to SuperPacs (as it might inhibit their speech).

1.9 million transportation workers are being held hostage by Republicans.

House of Representatives, several bills opposing clean energy.

Attorney General Eric Holder is found in contempt of Congress by partisan vote by the Issa committee, composed of a majority of Republicans. This was an unprecedented, completely unnecessary vote designed purely for publicity and to harm Holder and, more importantly, Obama. Most everyone knows it is a witch hunt, pure and simple.

The attempt to keep student loans at the current rate instead of doubling them was defeated because they were to be paid for by closing a loophole for the wealthy.

Representative Peter King decides to hold still another (the sixth) completely unnecessary and useless hearing on radical Muslims.

The Iowa Republicans want a bill banning Medicaid payments for victims of rape, incest, or severe fetal anomalies.

Governor Scott Walker persists in purging Florida voters in spite of being sued by the Federal Government and the refusal to cooperate by local officials.

Republican Governor Nikki Haley of South Carolina has vetoed an already passed bipartisan bill that would have allowed free HPV vaccines for seventh graders.

An Arizona death row inmate requests his execution be stayed until Governor Jan Brewer is replaced as it is known she loaded the Clemency Board with cronies who understand they are not to grant clemency to anyone.

New York Republicans stop a New York attempt to decriminalize Marijuana.

No doubt there is more but by this point I just gave up. You will note the absence of anything positive on the part of Republicans. They cling to their bizarre idea that the way to win in 2012 is to not be concerned with any positive steps forward on anything but, rather, simply to destroy Obama no matter what it costs the country (or apparently even their party). You will also notice there is nothing much that makes much sense. The attempt to disparage Holder (and through him the President) is so transparently nonsensical and purely political it is doubtful anyone will be taken in by it, in fact, it will most probably harm Republicans. The McConnell opposition to disclosure, while it may make sense in one way, is fundamentally absurd. If money is speech, it has to be spoken by someone. Secret speech is not really speech at all. Speech involves putting your money where your mouth is, not slipping money anonymously to other spokesman to speak for you. Or at least so it would seem to me. If you are not willing to speak yourself you should not be allowed the privilege.

Anyway, the current political scene is so utterly, completely, and ridiculously absurd it is not really worthy of comment. We have long since left any realm of reality. When you are arguing about why the filthy rich should pay fewer taxes, why students should have to go into serious debt to be educated, why health care should be involved with insurance companies, why air and water should not be protected, why global warming and the environment should be ignored, and why women’s health and well-being should be in the hands of a Medieval Church and a bunch of elderly White men, why Iran should be bombed now because they might someday want to make a bomb, and why Obama is going to take away your guns for sure because he has not yet done so, you have long since left the earth’s atmosphere for La La Land somewhere out there in the furthest reaches of outer space.

"He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad."

Rafael Sabatini