What is it about the language of the Constitution that Speaker Boehner refuses to read and comprehend:
Section 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned (14th Amendment).All Congress Critters … including the Republican leadership and their Tea Thug colleagues (but NOT necessarily their proto-fascist benefactors) … have a constitutional obligation to honor the nation’s debts. When they swore an oath to protect and defend the Constitution, they swore an oath to follow this provision.
Bullying and holding the nation hostage for partisan gain is not my idea of protecting and defending the U.S. Constitution. So who or what holds more authority in this instance: The U.S. Constitution or Grover Norquist?
Former Republican presidents understood their Constitutional obligations. Previous legislatures, both Democrat and Republican, raised the debt ceiling 18 times under Reagan and 7 times under Bush … without conditions, exceptions or partisan hostage-taking. What makes this Republican legislature different from all others?
The Republicans refuse to govern alongside Democrats and have lost all ability to participate in a democracy comprised of diverse constituents and stakeholders. The Republicans have become a party of corporate interests that have no loyalty to the Constitution, the nation, the American economy, or the American People. In other words, the endgame is PROTO-FASCISM.
The proto-fascist direction seems to be undeniably true. Let's hear it for corporate democracy, in which every Fortune 1000 company gets a vote.
ReplyDeleteLook, the problem is the president keeps calling Boney during happy hour. I mean...wtf...would you give up your happy hour to talk about that shit?
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, let 'em have a martini.
Frankly, I was so damn disgusted tonight, I was sorely tempted to take down this post and just say FUCKIT, but silence would mean capitulation, and I refuse to do that.
ReplyDeleteWell, Boehner & Co. don't want any tax increases. Low taxes stimulate the economy, they say. But what they don't tell the public is that the top tax rate in 1960 was 91% and the capital gains tax was 25% as compared to 40% and 20% today. And that doesn't cover the panoply of loopholes the present day wealthy enjoy.
ReplyDeleteSo, add it up:
No new taxes
Two longest wars in U.S. history, still underway
54% of the budget spent directly and indirectly on military
Greatest migration of wealth to top 1% in history
Biggest bank bailouts in history
Most home foreclosures in history
Official unemployment at 9.2%
Greatest rise in poverty since the Great Depression
Private and public debt approaching $30 trillion
Huge portions of U.S. debt owned by China and others
U.S. about to default on its debt (like Greece, for Chrissakes!)
Former bankers running U.S. government and IMF
Consumers broke and not spending = no economy
Country technically bankrupt
And STILL no new taxes on the wealthy? PU-LEEEZ. Greed, and only greed will kill America.
And what about all the 'free' cash from all those tax breaks since 1960? All that doesn't count? Wow, guys.
ReplyDelete"but silence would mean capitulation"
ReplyDeleteWe're talking about a party that made the words hope and change objects of mockery. our ire just makes them laugh the harder and the harder they laugh the more people laugh with them.
They know damned well their voodoo doesn't work, They know it's all a charade, but it won't hurt the Koch Brothers and it won't hurt Newt when the economy collapses. Not so for the hangers on, like Allen West, but they're too demented and stupid to realize how expendable they are.
Collapse is what they want. They can and will blame the evil black president for it and leftyliberals in general and they can then insert some raging, raving but pliable figurehead into the ocal office to further the new, fascist dystopia they want to build on the ruins.
It's all about destroying Obama and no disaster is too great to disuade them from their appointed rounds.
It's not about destroying the country. It's about returning society to its proper order.
ReplyDeleteCapt. Fogg and Edge,
ReplyDeleteWell, sure -- the "proper order" in today's Republican terms is basically a semi-fascist dystopia slathered with a thick coating of ridiculous nostalgic hokum about the Good Old Days. Anyhow, I think Capt. Fogg's words about the desirability of collapse well reflect my own view of a geriatric republic close to perishing of "multiple organ failure." There's practically no procedure, no system, no tradition, that dark forces have not by now figured out how to pervert to their benefit and our grief. I have no doubt that there are elements in this country that would benefit from an extreme situation: it would allow them to impose the kind of economic and social "order" they could otherwise only get by costly violence. No wonder the bastards are so calm in the eye of the storm -- all the turbulence breaks in their favor, even if it shatters the rest of us.
Dino, I find myself without a response, other than experiencing a depressing sense of the gravity of it all.
ReplyDelete