GOP Already Grasping at 2016 Straws with References to Hillary Clinton’s Age (July 2, 2013)

Becky SarwateLeave a comment

hillary-bored

Latter-day Republican Party patron saint Ronald Reagan was 69 years old when he was elected President in 1980, and 73 when he successfully sought a second term in 1984. President George H. W. Bush was 68 when trounced at the polls by young, upstart William J. Clinton in 1992.

Former Kansas Senator and Majority Leader Bob Dole had logged 73 years on the planet by the 1996 Presidential campaign, which saw him fail to unseat an incumbent Clinton. Today, at nearly 90 years of age, Dole remains a relevant voice of reason, challenging his party mates to reengage common sense reality. In May of this year, Dole famously told Fox News that the the GOP should be “closed for repairs” while it assembles a party platform standing for more than fractious negativity.

In 2008, Arizona Senator and Republican Presidential nominee John McCain, then 72 years of age, was rumored to have considered a unique offer to the American public. For the price of one victorious election, the elder statesman pondered resolving concerns about his age with a commitment to just one term in the Oval Office.

As the right continues to awkwardly flounder in its attempts to connect with mainstream voters, Americans are being treated to the latest in a seemingly endless string of political ironies. The party of old white men, keenly anticipating another electoral drubbing in 2016, have resorted to attacking presumed Democratic front runner Hillary Rodham Clinton on the basis of her maturity.

In a recent New York Times article entitled, Republicans Paint Clinton as Old News for 2016 Presidential Election, writer Jonathan Martin observed, “At a conservative conference earlier in the year, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, ridiculed the 2016 Democratic field as ‘a rerun of The Golden Girls,’ referring to Mrs. Clinton and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., who is 70.” It is worth noting that the hapless Senate Minority Leader is himself 71 years of age.

To quote protagonist Meredith Grey of the long-running ABC drama Grey’s Anatomy: seriously? Is this the best that the GOP can do before Hillary officially tosses her hat in the proverbial ring?

Matt K. Lewis of The Week wrote a companion piece to the Times article, aptly titled Why Republicans should shut up about Hillary Clinton’s age. Among a number of cogent perceptions, Lewis declares, “The cult of youth, of course, is silly. Age can bring wisdom, and youth often equals ignorance.” Let’s zero in on the last part of the second sentence. I will take the poise, experience and cool intellect of a seasoned Clinton over the ignorant hubris of a Paul Ryan, Rand Paul or Marco Rubio anyday.

Ryan’s ongoing quest to win the serious policy wonk award has been undone repeatedly by his blanket disregard for anyone but millionaires – not to mention those 2012 campaign workout photos (egads). Rand Paul’s approach to female reproductive rights reads like this: “I think there should be some self-examination from the administration on the idea that you favor a woman’s right to an abortion, but you don’t favor a woman or a man’s right to choose what kind of light bulb, what kind of dishwasher, what kind of washing machine.” And Marco Rubio has plenty to sort out before he could ever be considered a palatable candidate, such as how the grandson of an undocumented Cuban immigrant can align himself with today’s Republican Party in the first place.

According to polls conducted in early June, Hillary Clinton’s favorability rating with American voters stands at 58 percent. This is down from a December 2012 high of 70 percent, before the GOP enjoyed their weak Benghazi scandal feast. But with Clinton currently out of political office, and the famously short term imprint of the national news cycle, experts expect those numbers to climb back steadily.

If I were a Republican strategist, I’d be worried too. A field of anemic males versus one-half of one of the most formidable couples in political history is a daunting prospect. But instead of resorting to disingenuous, hypocritical, agist barbs, why don’t you boys go out and find yourselves a platform? Expecting to gain traction with “Hillary is old! Na na na boo boo!” fully explains your present state of voter alienation.

Paul Krugman Rightfully Calls The Fed Out for Bowing to Political Pressure (June 24, 2013)

Becky SarwateLeave a comment

krugman-cbs

New York Times columnist and Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman published an early week column entitled, “Et Tu, Bernanke?” The Latin allusion references the literary accusation of traitorousness, uttered by fallen Roman dictator Julius Caesar to his friend and fellow statesman Marcus Brutus at the moment of his assassination. A piece of dialogue from the pen of legendary dramatist William Shakespeare, the quote lives on because of its pain and simplicity. There are few wounds that rival the discovery of betrayal from people and institutions that we have taken for granted as acting in our best interests.

Krugman, a longtime opponent of the failed austerity plans implemented across Europe and the United States, has been a powerful, if lonely voice speaking against fiscal pain that only increases the torment of those who most need a lifeline. As Krugman has written many times in a variety of ways, the Great Recession, in large degree, is not the result of profligate financial behavior from ordinary citizens. It is instead a unique challenge presented by the runaway malfeasance of “too big to fail” banks, mortgage brokers and lenders and a host of other big businesses that have bounced back in while those they fleeced bore a double penalty: the taxpayer burden of resuscitating these institutions even as jobs, homes and retirement accounts went the way of the Edsel.

Krugman makes clear that these setbacks at the individual household level are still a long way from resolved. In fact, “The first thing you need to understand is how far we remain from full employment four years after the official end of the 2007-9 recession. It’s true that measured unemployment is down — but that mainly reflects a decline in the number of people actively seeking jobs, rather than an increase in job availability.” Simply put, almost five full years after the late-2008 market crash that sent the U.S. economy into a tailspin, many former members of the vibrant middle and working classes that made this country the envy of the world, have thrown in the towel.

The average American’s stoic ability to endure great suffering without the benefit of lobbyist dollars and infrastructure is not a reason to letup on policy making that could and should restore middle class dignity and security. Unfortunately, the very same folks who are all for corporate welfare stand firmly against “freedom killing” efforts to relieve the common man’s burden. Any talk of a jobs bill, an extension of unemployment benefits or Medicaid coverage is greeted with right wing howls against the “nanny state,” the threat of longterm deficits, etc.

But as Krugman points out, the Federal Reserve, should be immune to the disingenuous pressure of this chatter. A supposedly independent body with a three-prong mission (maximum employment, stable prices, and moderate long-term interest rates), the Fed suddenly seems as willing as the bulk of the GOP to abandon the first charge of its raison d’etre. And the columnist further suggests that the Fed never went far enough to aid the unemployed American in the first place: “You can argue — and I would — that the Fed’s activism, while welcome, isn’t enough, and that it should be doing even more. But at least it didn’t lose sight of what’s really important. Until now.”

Krugman is referring to Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke’s highly anticipated speech late last week in which, disappointingly, the leader indicated an imminent reduction in “stimulus” measures in favor of a return to normal monetary policy. The problem with this plan, as I have already highlighted, is that the nation remains dreadfully far away from that vaunted “maximum employment” goal. And the suggested reason for the Fed’s exhausted disinterest is more than slightly troubling.

“In any case, my guess is that what’s really happening is a bit different: Fed officials are, consciously or not, responding to political pressure. After all, ever since the Fed began its policy of aggressive monetary stimulus, it has faced angry accusations from the right that it is ‘debasing’ the dollar and setting the stage for high inflation — accusations that haven’t been retracted even though the dollar has remained strong and inflation has remained low. It’s hard to avoid the suspicion that Fed officials, worn down by the constant attacks, have been looking for a reason to slacken their efforts, and have seized on slightly better economic news as an excuse.”

We all know from experience that the squeakiest wheel tends to get the grease but that trope implies that the wheels all need attention in the first place. Why would a group that has been proven so wrong for so long – the conservative economists and think tanks – continue to have such an influence on supposedly nonpartisan policy making? It is more than frustrating and disheartening. It’s dangerous. It’s disloyal, even.

It’s High Time That the GOP Faces Its Real Enemy: House Republicans (June 22, 2013)

Becky SarwateLeave a comment

boehner-house-2

As should be apparent to anyone who paid attention to the November 2012 election cycle, the Republican party is in electoral disarray. To call their messaging strategy tone deaf is an insult to the musically-impaired, who typically find other ways to communicate successfully. In print, web and television outreach, the GOP managed to estrange women, the scientific community and minorities with all-out assaults on female reproductive rights and workplace equality, sneers at empirical evidence of climate change and of course, a view of our nation’s immigrants as persona non grata. The really neat trick about the last bungle is the speed with which the Republican party managed to destroy the 59 percent approval rating once enjoyed by former President George W. Bush amongst Latin Americans during the majority of his term.

After an embarrassing Election Day drubbing which featured President Obama trouncing Mitt Romney with regard to women voters, African-Americans and (this statistic still stuns me) enjoying a 44-point advantage amongst Hispanics, GOP loyalists (masochists?) hoped ballot box tallies would deliver the necessary wakeup call. Republican Governors and Senators, all coincidentally I’m sure, considering a 2016 run for the White House, fell all over themselves to get to the nearest microphone. The plea, in not so many words, was clear: please stop engendering long-term revulsion for our party with backward, racist rhetoric that ignores the country’s rapidly evolving demographics. In January, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal cautioned the Republican National Committee to “Stop being the stupid party,” while 2013 It Boy, Florida Senator Marco Rubio, begged his caucus to cease using “harsh, intolerable and inexcusable” rhetoric directed at illegal immigrants, or risk losing the Latino vote in perpetuity.

And for a moment, considering the speed with which the Senate managed to come together in consideration of long-overdue, comprehensive immigration reform, it appeared that GOP party members received the message. In short order, Republicans returned to their number one priority: stonewalling the President at every turn with regard to Cabinet and judicial appointments, squashing common-sense gun reforms and scandal baiting that led former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich (Newt Gingrich, people!) to caution his party against “overreach.” These are, clearly, crazy times in which we live.

But while the Republican Party goes about its daily business of painting the President as the enemy of freedom, privacy and job creation, leaders in the Senate have tried to ignore the very real fact that, when it comes to creating resurgent conservative momentum, the enemy lies within. The threatening calls, quite literally, are coming from inside the House.

Consider this week’s headline courtesy of ABC News: House Committee Would Criminalize Being Undocumented. Writers Jim Avila and Serena Marshall open the piece with the rhetorical question, “One small step for immigration in the Senate, one giant leap backward in the House?” Describing the recent work of the House Judiciary Committee on immigration reform, the article notes a “First step, making it a federal crime (misdemeanor) to be in the United States with undocumented status and repealing DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals), better known as the DREAM Act, that provides temporary status to people brought to the United States as children and were younger than 31 as of June 15, 2012.”

Though this proposed legislation has zero chance of passage in the Senate, or of being signed into law by President Obama, Republicans in the House have no qualms about continued waste of taxpayer time and money that results in legislation opposing the will of the American people. Depending on the poll, it is estimated that between 61 and 78 percent of voting citizens support immigration overhaul.

The response to the House’s latest shot at immigrants was immediate and profound. Avila and Marshall report that “Protestors chanting ‘shame, shame, shame, stop the pain’ and ‘Si, se puede’ (‘Yes, We Can’) caused a momentary pause in the committee at the beginning of the proceedings.” And, “The hashtag #HATEact was being used by opponents of the legislation on social media.”

Well done GOP. Nothing like welcoming Latino voters back into the fold.

However my question for today is directed at those would-be populist Republican Senators and Governors. When exactly will you stop directing your petulant, partisan griping at Obama and start taking on your real opponents, the members of your own party who will have you languishing as a fringe minority (pun most certainly intended) for all eternity?

The Right Gets Desperate With Claim That Obamacare Will Result In Fewer Doctors (June 13, 2013)

Becky SarwateLeave a comment

Who can forget the great (descriptor used with healthy dose of irony) health care reform debate of summer 2009? In a historic low point for American discourse, crazed Tea Party crackpots and others situated on the extreme right side of the political spectrum attempted to derail the eventual passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) by any means they deemed necessary.  These efforts included the sensational and oft-repeated claim that group of government drones would render service decisions that could theoretically result in the arbitrary deaths of American citizens. It is still hard to recall the death panel “conversation” without overt queasiness.

Having failed to gain traction for the propaganda outside the usual circle of tinfoil hat wearing paranoids, the right then sought to take the wind out of the act’s sails by senselessly voting for its repeal in the House no less than 37 times. These “symbolic” gestures have been an epic waste of taxpayer resources even as issues related to consistently high unemployment, infrastructure dissolution and climate change languish.

Then the GOP apparatus tried a new tactic, espousing the dire warning that Obamacare would bring the country to financial ruin, ruin I say! The folks who spread this disingenuous swill would have loved us to forget that Wall Street already tied its hand at that last decade. But instead of Republican howls for accountability at the time, we received cynical claims that further deregulation was the solution. That’s just what an alcoholic needs: increased access to spirits.

And then, oops! As Obamacare began to become the law of the land, we experienced a marked slowdown in health care costs. In even worse news for right wing agenda, the reversal may be permanent if the economy continues to grow. Better get back to that middle class job killing stat! I am certain GOP opposition to raising the Federal minimum wage is just a coincidence.

Having dispatched the more obvious objections to Obamacare with amazing speed in this era of legislative inertia, the right is launching a new scare tactic. Designed to divert attention away from the fact that health care reform is already working to relieve budgetary strain while increasing access to health insurance for Americans previously locked out, the conservative media apparatus would now have us believe that a doctor shortage is the next danger.

The Wall St. Cheat Sheet ran an article this week with a rhetorical question for a headline: Does Obamacare Mean Fewer Doctors and Less Accessible Healthcare? Note to right wing pundits: the inclusion of a question mark at the end of a provocative headline is a dead giveaway that what we are about to read is not solid analysis, but rather a rudimentary attempt to plant an idea. This is NOT journalism.

But I digress. Among the more flimsy evidence writer Meghan Foley offers is data from a “Physicians Foundation survey of 13,000 doctors [which] discovered that 60 percent of respondents would retire today if they could, an increase from 45 percent who gave the same answer before the legislation was passed.”

Here’s an idea. Perhaps those doctors who wish they could retire are among the throngs of Baby Boomers who, having lost savings, pensions, jobs and homes in the housing bubble burst and financial crash of 2008, can no longer afford to do so. How in the world is this survey direct evidence of Obamacare creating a doctor shortage? To suggest that other factors may be at play could be the understatement of my professional writing career.

I give the right’s media arm credit for Playskool Weeble-like resiliency, but the arguments and objections against implementing reform are becoming more pathetically desperate. If the Republican party and its voices are the “true patriots” they often claim to be, how about getting behind a law that was passed democratically and which is already demonstrating significant benefits with regard to the finances and security of the nation and its denizens. Give it up already.

Wayne LaPierre and NRA Directly Responsible for Ricin Letters to Gun Control Leaders (June 3, 2013)

Becky SarwateLeave a comment

ricin

I am old enough to recall a number of frightening sensations swirling through the nation’s collective psyche immediately following the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Those who lived in major urban centers were prone to Pavlovian responses of dread at the mere sight of a low flying aircraft. The delivery of an unexpected package elicited fleeting concerns of surprise explosives, and those receiving mail in corporate settings and government offices had to wonder if anthrax could be part of an envelope’s special delivery. It was a rightfully paranoid time.

One source of comfort to be found in terrifying circumstances is knowledge. Knowing your attacker, your would-be assailant, permits power in the form of an action plan. When the culprits of the World Trade Center and Pentagon atrocities proved to be Al Qaeda-directed terrorists, the nation came together behind an all-out assault upon the foreign groups responsible for our united fear and suffering.

In 2013, the threat of chemical attack by mail has returned, this time in the form of ricin. According to a report from Good Morning America, “The toxin, which comes from castor beans, stops cells from synthesizing proteins so victims can suffer organ failure.” Ricin has experienced pop cultural ascendancy in recent years as a recurring plot point on popular AMC drama Breaking Bad. Anti-hero Walter White, a former mild-mannered chemistry teacher turned methamphetamine kingpin, uses ricin to intimidate and control potential drug cartel enemies.

However, to ascertain the root cause of the recent spate of ricin-laced letter attacks, directed at everyone from New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg to President Barack Obama, we need not look to the inspiration of fictional characters. Real-life villains exist within the ranks of overreaching lobby groups, inciting chaos under the guise of Second Amendment defense.

Consider the paraphrased text of one such letter delivered to gun-control advocate Bloomberg’s New York office last week. Per a report from Fox News, New York Police Department Commissioner Raymond “Kelly said the unsigned letter says, in so many words: ‘Anyone who comes for my guns will be shot in the face.’”

Now where would this deranged domestic terrorist get the idea that President Obama and Michael Bloomberg, advocates for a safer, more rational exercise of the right to bear arms, might instead demand complete surrender of personal weapons? Let us hearken back to a February 2013 Op-Ed piece in the Daily Caller from National Rifle Association Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre. Amongst a number of verbal gems, LaPierre included this thinly veiled reference to the Newtown school shootings: “A heinous act of mass murder—either by terrorists or by some psychotic who should have been locked up long ago—will be the pretext to unleash a tsunami of gun control.”

Ok but that’s just one quote taken out of context right? LaPierre didn’t really mean to suggest that failed Congressional efforts to institute common-sense universal background checks were a threat to law-abiding gun owners. No one is that crazy.

February 10, 2012, The Washington Times: “All that first term, lip service to gun owners is just part of a massive Obama conspiracy to deceive voters and hide his true intentions to destroy the Second Amendment during his second term.”

May 4, 2013, Huffington Post: “‘political and media elites’ have tried to use Sandy Hook and other recent shootings ‘to blame us, to shame us, to compromise our freedom for their agenda….We will never surrender our guns, never,’ LaPierre told several thousand people during the organization’s annual member meeting.”

We are a people that loves justice. The reason that so many incarnations of Law & Order and CSI have experienced television ratings success is because of the appeal of the suspense boilerplate: a crime is committed, guys in uniform discover weapon and motive, emotional trial ensues, outlaw goes to the clink. It’s simple. It’s just. It’s satisfying.

I’m no prosecuting attorney but it seems to me that there’s a direct correlation between the prolific, fear-inciting rhetoric of Wayne LaPierre and the NRA, and the homicidal threats against the lives of pro-gun control elected leaders. Is a bystander who knowingly allows harm to occur guilty of something? If the answer is yes (and it is), then Wayne LaPierre is an accessory to each and every one of these ricin crimes. He may not have supplied the chemicals, but he and his group continue to dish out motive in dangerous, irresponsible bucketfuls.

Haul him to the precinct, turn on the hot lights and file some charges. I’m serious. If it’s illegal to yell “Fire!” in a public place and incite a riot, there should be no distinction between trumping up an imagined threat to the Second Amendment and standing smugly aside as violence ensues.