Politics Plus

Yesterday the Republican sequester was welcomed by a cacophony of cheers from Republican politicians, despite their hypocrisy of blaming Obama at the same time.  Perhaps, if the sequester was going to harm billionaires and corporate criminals, Republicans would not be cheering, but at least in the short term, the ones harmed will be the most vulnerable.

House Republicans were elated this week when their leader, John Boehner, made it clear that deep, automatic spending cuts would begin as scheduled on Friday. Incredibly, some consider the decision a victory.

As the cuts take effect, they will inflict widespread hardship. But some Americans will be hurt more than others, and the people who will be hurt the most are those who are already struggling. In the months ahead, an estimated 3.8 million Americans who have been unemployed for more than six months face a cut in federal jobless benefits of nearly 11 percent — or about $32 a week — all from the recent average weekly benefit of $292. And an estimated 600,000 low-income women and toddlers will be turned away from the federal nutrition program for women, infants and children, known as WIC.

It should not be this way. Deficit reduction should not occur on the backs of the poor and vulnerable. At the insistence of Democrats, most major programs that help the needy have been exempted from the cuts, including food stamps and Medicaid. Democrats also won exemptions for beneficiaries of programs that are not explicitly aimed at low-income Americans but that are crucial to keeping many retirees out of poverty or near-poverty, notably veterans’ pensions, Social Security and Medicare. Still, smaller, vital programs will fall under the knife, in part because they are in spending categories deemed dispensable under the unthinking rules for across-the-board cuts… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <NT Times>

I encourage you to click through for the rest of this article for more detail.

Ezra Klein discussed the Republican sequester with economist Jared Bernstein.

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Note that there would not have been a sequester if Republicans had not walked away from the negotiating table, because they thought they could get it all without negotiating by winning the election, that would, according to the Republicans, decide the issue. The people chose to reject what Republicans want, but Republicans do not care about the election now, because elections count only when they win. They do not care how much suffering they cause, as long as the protect welfare for the 1%. The people, whom the sequester will hurt most do not include billionaires and corporate criminals.

We have one side who will negotiate and one side who will not. The Republican insistence that they have everything their way, despite having lost the election, makes this the Republican sequester, an act of sedition against America.

Every Republican in office is one Republican too many!

To the complete surprise of most of us, John Boehner, aka Agent Orange, caved-in on the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA).  He did so by allowing a few relatively sane Republicans to vote with all the Democrats, except one who was absent.  Nevertheless, 138 Republicans voted for violence against women.  I took names.

The House on Thursday gave final approval to a renewal of the Violence Against Women Act, sending a bipartisan Senate measure to President Obama after a House plan endorsed by conservatives was defeated.

The legislation passed on a vote of 286 to 138, with 199 Democrats joining 87 Republicans in support of the reauthorization of the landmark 1994 law, which assists victims of domestic and sexual violence. It amounted to a significant victory for the president and Congressional Democrats, who have assailed Republicans for months for stalling the legislation.

The successful measure passed the Senate last month with 78 votes — including those of every woman, all Democrats and just over half of Republicans… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <NY Times>

Republicans say they had their own version of VAWA, but their version supported violence against Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender women, violence by citizens against undocumented women, and violence on reservations by non-natives against Native American women.  I think they included these exceptions, because they knew such provisions would be poison pills for Democrats.  Even, if I’m wrong, supporting violence against ANY women is a shameful continuation of the Republican War on Women.

Rachel Maddow discussed Republican InsaniTEA on this issue.

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Here are are the filthy Republican misogynists who voted FOR violence against women.

Aderholt Amash Bachmann Barton Bentivolio Bilirakis Bishop (UT) Black Blackburn Bonner Brady (TX) Bridenstine Brooks (AL) Broun (GA) Burgess Campbell Cantor Carter Cassidy Chabot Chaffetz Collins (GA) Conaway Cotton Crawford Culberson DeSantis DesJarlais Duncan (SC) Duncan (TN) Ellmers Fincher Fleischmann Fleming Flores Forbes Fortenberry Foxx Franks (AZ) Garrett Gingrey (GA) Gohmert Goodlatte Gosar Gowdy Graves (GA)

Graves (MO) Griffin (AR) Griffith (VA) Guthrie Hall Harris Hartzler Hastings (WA) Hensarling Holding Hudson Huelskamp Huizenga (MI) Hultgren Hurt Johnson (OH) Jones Jordan Kelly King (IA) Kingston Labrador LaMalfa Lamborn Lankford Latta Long Lucas Luetkemeyer Lummis Marchant Marino Massie McCaul McClintock Meadows Mica Miller (FL) Mullin Mulvaney Murphy (PA) Neugebauer Noem Nunnelee Olson Palazzo

Perry Petri Pittenger Pitts Pompeo Posey Price (GA) Radel Ribble Rice (SC) Roby Roe (TN) Rogers (AL) Rogers (KY) Rohrabacher Rooney Roskam Ross Rothfus Salmon Scalise Schweikert Scott, Austin Sensenbrenner Sessions Smith (NE) Smith (NJ) Smith (TX) Southerland Stewart Stockman Stutzman Thornberry Wagner Walberg Weber (TX) Wenstrup Westmoreland Whitfield Williams Wilson (SC) Wittman Wolf Womack Woodall Yoho

I think Boehner was smart to cave-in, because publicity about it was hurting the party, and now that VAWA has passed, the media will push it out of the news cycle in short order. There is only one possible reason I can see for most Republicans to take the position they did. Most Republican politicians consider women to be chattel. They think women should be kept barefoot and pregnant.

That certainly sounds like an outlandish claim, but without supporting evidence, I would not make it.  The GOP won’t get what they want.  Convert the defense cuts to cuts in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.  Keep most of the domestic spending cuts.  Make the federal government small enough to drown in a tea pot.  Increase welfare for the super rich.  Failing that, the GOP plan is to let the sequester happen.  However, more Republicans support the sequester plan put forward by the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) than those that support the plan by Republican politicians.  As many support the CPC plan as those who oppose it.

When the Business Insider polled registered voters and asked for their preferences among three Congressional plans floated to avoid the looming "sequestration" cuts in Washington, they found that when stripped of their partisan labels, the policies most favorable to the majority were those offered by the progressive wing of the Democratic caucus.

The CPC’s ‘Balancing Act’ proposes a one-year tax credit of $800 for low- and middle-income families and says it could prevent up to 280,000 teacher layoffs, modernize 35,000 public schools, and make infrastructure investments that if sustained could protect 3.5 million jobs by 2020. As it turns out, people like these ideas. Strikingly, the plan offered by the Congressional Progressive Caucus, called The Balancing Act and introduced in early February, is the plan that has received the least attention in the corporate media’s coverage of the ongoing and latest "invented" Beltway crisis.

The poll found that in addition to beating the House Republican plan and the Senate Democrat’s plan overall, "more than half of respondents supported [the Balancing Act] compared to sequestration and [only] a fifth of respondents were opposed."

Moreover and "shockingly," a full 47 percent of Republicans preferred the House Progressive plan to the across the board cuts pushed by their party leaders in Washington. According to the Insider, "This means that Republicans supported the House Progressive plan just as much as they supported their own party’s plan."… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <Common Dreams>

The article includes links both the poll and the CPC plan.  Check it out.  It is clearly the best plan on the table, even though there is no chance for its adoption.