Politics Plus

It’s almost impossible to tell what Republicans are trying to accomplish with the Republican Shutdown and impending debt limit crisis.  As a result, a variety of views have sprung up attempting to explain why.  Two of the most popular are Republican hatred of Barack Obama and Republican incompetence to govern, but I just learned a new explanation, which we should also consider.  First. let’s look at GOP hate.

The government shutdown is not driven by a Republican desire to overturn the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Nor is it about trying to reign in government spending or limit the national debt. It is, at its core, the latest act in an effort by the far right of the Republican Party to delegitimize the presidency of Barack Obama. The ACA is not anathema to the right wing of the Republican Party because it will drive millions of new customers to insurance companies, will force insurers to cover people they might otherwise not want to cover, or even because of the mandate that requires all people who are uninsured to buy insurance. Parenthetically, this last issue is a particularly absurd issue for the Republicans to be so concerned about because for decades millions of young healthy employed people have been forced, as terms of their employment, to have their paychecks docked so that they can be part of a larger health insurance pool. The ACA is anathema to the right wing because it is the signature legislative accomplishment of a president they hate and who they think is an impostor out to destroy the country.

President Obama is, by any rational measure, as legitimate a president as anybody who has occupied that position. He was elected twice in elections that were clearly free and fair, although not particularly close, as Obama trounced both John McCain in 2008 and Mitt Romney in 2012. Obama has just as clearly had to confront challenges to his legitimacy that are broader and more enduring than that of any of his predecessors. There is always an extremist fringe challenging the legitimacy of any president, and creating odd conspiracy theories about that president, but for President Obama this has been much more than an extremist fringe; and, more disturbingly, those questioning Obama have enjoyed the tacit support of much of the wing of the Republican Party that seeks to be more respectable and mainstream.

The right wingers who have taken over the Republican Party, and forced the shutdown, have more or less conceded they have no sense of what they are trying to get out of this ill-advised gambit, as evidenced by statements like those of Congressman Marlin Stutzman (R-IND). "We have to get something out of this. And I don’t know what that even is."

Republican decisions to do things like call for back pay for furloughed workers once they shutdown are clear indications that those shutting down the government are either completely unaware of what it is they are doing or that they don’t really believe in the consequences of their actions. Last week the Republicans,in what can perhaps best be described as the political equivalent of the child who kills both his parents and then asks the court to have mercy on him because he is an orphan, sought to get publicity by attacking the very government agencies they had forced to shutdown. The most extreme case of this was when a Republican congressman scolded a park ranger over the closing of the World War II memorial... [emphasis added]

Inserted from <Huffington Post>

Note how much blacker Republicans made billboard Obama that Obama actually is.

There can be no doubt that Republican hate for Obama knows no bounds, especially since he has the effrontery to govern while black, but Lawrence O’Donnell proposes that the Republican Party may have the long-term motive to destroy, not just the Obama presidency, but the presidency itself.  Howard Dean proposes the incompetence view.

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If O’Donnell is correct, it is because Republicans think they can keep the House, because they have Gerrymandered their ability to main control with a minority of the electorate. I tend to agree more with Howard Dean and the author of the the above article, but Lawrence has thought this out well enough that we should keep it in mind for future reference, just in case. Obama is correct that the Republican meme that he won’t negotiate is a lie.  The clean CR is the Republican’s own budget.

Here is the thirty-first article in our Republicans on Parade series, featuring individuals who personify what the Republican Party has become. Today’s honoree is Republican Supply-side pseudo-Christian TV host Rick Joyner, for proposing treason in the form of a major Second Amendment solution.

Rick Joyner, one of the leading lights of the Christian Dominionist movement, recently told his television audience that democracy has failed in America [seditionist delinked], and that the nation’s only hope, in light of the looming “tyranny” of the Obama administration, is “a military takeover – martial law.”

Said Joyner: “There’s no way our Republic can last much longer. It may not last through Obama’s second term. There are a lot of people who feel that it can’t. That there are forces right now that are seeking to undermine and to destroy the Republic. There’s almost a glib and almost a joyful disregard of the Constitution and belittling of the Constitution. We can’t make it without that. It’s our foundation, our moorings. We’re headed for serious tyranny…

“I think we’ve been used in some wonderful and powerful ways by God. We’ve been one of the most generous nations in history. We’ve done so much good. And that’s why I appeal to the Lord: ‘Don’t let us be totally destroyed, please raise up those who will save us!’ And as I’ve started telling friends for a long time, no election is going to get the right person in there that’s going to restore us, because the system is so broken, so undermined right now, the whole system.

“I believe our only hope is a military takeover – martial law.”… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <SPLC>

SPLC had video of this in a companion article, but Joyner pulled it, claiming © infringement to hide from responsibility for what he said, although he litters the web with his other screeds.  David Pakman has an out-take, however.

Joyner, a self-proclaimed TEAbagger, claims to be supporting the Constitution, but ignores the constitutional mandate that we elect our officials.  But Joyner says that he has the right to overthrow those elected officials by force.  For him to make that statement is sedition.  If he actually staged an attempted coup using US military units, it would be treason, because a military attack on the nation is a state of war.  If nothing else, this illustrates how important it is to keep Republican Supply-side pseudo-Christians from infiltrating our military and brainwashing our troops, as they are trying to do now.

When I posted in Saturday’s Open Thread that John “Agent Orange” Boehner (R-OH) was said to have promised there will be no Credit Default, even if he needed Democratic votes, I said, “The media seem to be reporting this as gospel, and I’m not saying it isn’t true, but I’m sure not ready to take it to the bank. Boehner said two months ago that Republicans would not shut down the government, so he has no credibility in such matters (or any other matters). In addition, this is just hearsay from an anonymous Republican (and therefore unreliable) source, not even from Agent Orange himself. Color me from Missouri on this one.”  What Boehner supposedly said then and what he is saying now are polar opposites.

Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) insisted Sunday on ABC’s "This Week" that he won’t bring up a "clean" debt limit increase under any circumstances, warning that the U.S. will default on its debt unless President Barack Obama agrees to make policy concessions.

"We’re not going to pass a clean debt limit increase," he said. "I told the president, there’s no way we’re going to pass one. The votes are not in the House to pass a clean debt limit. And the president is risking default by not having a conversation with us."

Obama has repeatedly vowed not to negotiate on whether the country is able to keep paying its bills. Boehner’s speakership is at risk if he defies conservatives and allows the borrowing limit to be raised cleanly. The deadline is Oct. 17 and Boehner said the U.S. is currently on a path to default.

"That’s the path we’re on," he said. "The president canceled his trip to Asia. I assumed — well, maybe he wants to have a conversation. I decided to stay here in Washington this weekend. He knows what my phone number is.  All he has to do is call."… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <TPM>

Part of the problem here is that Republicans virtually never stop lying.  Did Boehner actually make that promise, or were the Republicans who leaked it lying?  If he did, was Agent Orange lying then or is he lying now?  Who can say?

The bills Boehner threatens to refuse to pay are bills for the spending that he and his Republican  cronies already did, not future spending by Obama, as they dishonestly claim.  If Boehner is serious about critically harming the both the US and World economies with a US Credit Default, that is the pinnacle of sedition