GOP

“Liberal” New York Times Serves as GOP House Budget Plan Accomplice (March 21, 2013)

Becky SarwateLeave a comment

NYT-Ryan

An increasingly rare event since Republicans took control of the House of Representatives in 2010, the party of “no” is generating headlines for doing something other than antagonizing the President of the United States at every opportunity. It’s easy to forget with this bunch that they were ostensibly hired by the American people to legislate and keep our great democracy functioning.

In fact it has become such a novelty to see the House doing any business as usual, that when we encounter a headline such as “House Passes Plan to Avert Federal Shutdown,” it is found on the front page of The New York Times as breaking news. Apparently learning a small lesson from New Gingrinch’s hubris and folly circa 1995, Speaker John Boehner and his ilk passed a measure that will keep the government afloat through September. Well done, ladies and gentlemen.

But before we host a national ticker tape parade in honor of the House’s decision to do one of its’ most fundamental jobs, theTimes piece by writer Jonathan Weisman informs readers that allowing the government to continue operating was not all the busy GOP did today. They also, “passed a Republican budget blueprint that enshrined the party’s vision of a balanced budget that would substantially shrink government, privatize Medicare and rewrite the tax code to make it simpler and flatter.” Am I alone in my cynical view that the GOP is quite content with this example of lead burying?

Will we as a voting republic ever be free of the Ryan budget plans? Did we not reject this fraud masquerading as “responsible” government in November of 2012? Most vexingly it appears that the GOP is rather proud of its pass-and-run trickery. According to Weisman, “With a final flurry, Republican leaders sent the House home before noon Thursday for a two-week recess, confident that they had outmaneuvered President Obama and the Democrats in the running fiscal fight from the last redoubt of Republican control in Washington.”

Yes, they certainly deserve a rest after this latest example of disingenuous legislation. Another time-wasting maneuver from a group who seems last to understand that the majority of Americans are disinterested in its fiscal platform. That the revised Ryan plan has zero shot of being signed into law appears not to perturb this gang of thieves. Representative Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, the ranking Democrat on the Budget Committee, called the plan “an uncompromising, ideological approach to our budget issues,” and went on to observe, “The American people voted, and they resoundingly rejected the direction this budget has taken for the third year in a row.”

Tell that to the increasingly insulated and hearing-impaired Republican leadership. However in this instance, my anger is better directed at Weisman himself, as well as his superiors at the Times. We have all been subjected to GOP complaints of a “liberal media bias” that favors President Obama. We have collectively audited this whining ad nauseum. Yet the supposedly liberal-leaning Grey Lady has bestowed the gift of cover for House charlatans who would like you to forget they continue to serve the same warmed over plate.

When the story becomes “This just in! The House is kind enough not to hold the country hostage while offering the same old sh*t,” there is something very wrong with our nation’s investigative journalism apparatus.

Republicans Confront the Reality That America Just Isn’t That Into Them (February 26, 2013)

Becky SarwateLeave a comment

listening-elephant

There is so much to talk about this week. Those of us not living under a rock are well aware that the budgetary disaster otherwise known as sequestration will go into effect this Friday in the absence of a bipartisan Congressional resolution. I am going to take a rare break from my genuine, liberal defensiveness and point the finger at both parties for allowing it to come to this.

It is unfathomable that playing the blame game as to who must own responsibility for developing the plan has taken precedence over coming up with a viable alternative. Further, it now seems that Democrats and Republicans may just take their chances with the sequester and let the voting public decide who’s most at fault. The theory goes that the party who is assigned the largest portion of accountability will have to scream “uncle” and ultimately compromise their position.

Well these types of tactical moves may play well in Poker and Risk, but this the real world. Real people stand to lose real jobs, and a fledgling U.S. economy just starting to show signs of life may be sent back to the precipice from which it stood in late 2008. Shame, shame, shame on this pathetic excuse for representation of the peoples’ will. I am about ready to declare big picture, long term planning completely obsolete on Capitol Hill.

And while we’re on the subject of regressive thinking, the GOP continues to wrestle with a four-month old question to which finding the answer would change nothing. The Republican Party is still wasting time and resources trying to figure out why it is that Mitt Romney lost the 2012 Presidential election in the first place. The party of fantasy, having gotten nowhere blaming voters for their unfathomable desire to put their own economic survival ahead of big business interests, and the settled question of a woman’s right to control her own body, have found a new target: technology.

Mitt Romney’s former top strategist, Stuart Stevens, has been everywhere in the media in recent days. Stevens has canvassed print and television news outlets, defending himself from the latest charges directed at the Romney campaign, to try to account for what many Republicans still view as a incomprehensible rejection of their chosen candidate. Conventional right wing wisdom has reevaluated the Obama’s mastery of viral messaging across social media, YouTube, and campaign websites and come up with one conclusion: the Romney Team’s dearth of tech savvy cost them the vote.

Sounding more common sense than reactionary, Stevens has challenged the party to look deeper for its failure to connect with the electorate. Among other arguments Stevens made in an Op-Ed published in The Washington Post earlier this week, the strategist called upon his partymates to admit that the answers are not that simple. He wrote, “There seems to be a desire to blame Republicans’ electoral difficulties and the Romney campaign’s loss on technological failings. I wish this were the problem, because it would be relatively easy to fix. But it’s not.”

Instead Stevens joins a growing chorus of GOP leaders who seem to be waking up the simple unpopularity of the party platform. ABC News summarized the operative’s view as follows: Stevens “argue[s] that it was a generation and message gap that ailed the GOP last year and ultimately paved the way for President Obama’s victory over Romney. The Democrats’ superior technology – and Republicans’ weaknesses in this area – was only part of the problem.” Ya think?

Leave it to the modern Republican Party to turn anywhere to avoid the obvious truth: Americans just aren’t that into you anymore. Stevens went on to caution the right against adopting the belief that more effective Tweeting and the right software package would be enough to convince alienated voters to give the GOP another try. He said, ” “Technology is something to a large degree you can go out and purchase, and if we think there’s an off the shelf solution that you can with the Republican Party it’s wrong.”

We know by now that the 21st century Republican ilk retreats from facts and logic when it comes to pursuing its own agenda, but it seems that they’ve only really succeeded in fooling themselves. If they haven’t learned by now that continued legislative intransigence and a loose relationship with reality is a strategy destined to fail, may they be reminded during the 2014 midterm elections.

 

Sane GOPers Tell the Crazy Republicans to Stop Talking to Themselves (January 31, 2013)

Becky SarwateLeave a comment

sad-elephant

Although I respect the intellect of New York Times columnist David Brooks, particularly his application of humanistic psychological and sociological research to the formation of public policy views, there are many times when I throw my hands up in frustration. While professing a moderate approach to the role of government in American society, he often ends up sounding much like a Republican mouthpiece. I am thinking of his implausible regard for Paul Ryan’s endless circumstantial flip-flopping on budget and deficit responsibility (pro-spending under George W. Bush, austerity principles during the Obama regime) as just one example.

At the risk of welcoming angry comments and hate mail, I do believe that a sound and rational two-party system is essential to the health of our cherished democracy. No one is served by a insulated majority free of checks and balances, closed to new ideas, no matter which end of the political spectrum that party should occupy.

I would assert that underlying much liberal anger is a genuine wish that those of the right wing persuasion would embrace modern reality and take part in a honest conversation about the direction in which the country needs to move if it is to face current challenges, including but not limited to: immigration and health care reform, globalization, fiscal balance, entitlement spending, the tax code and a whole host of other issues. Unfortunately, an increasingly radicalized GOP has brought little to the table in recent years beside anger, corporate kowtowing, backward social thinking and obstructionism.

With this in mind, there are elements to admire vis a vis Brooks’ column for the Times this week, entitled “A Second G.O.P.” In it, Brooks writes “On the surface, Republicans are already doing a good job of beginning to change their party. Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana gave a speech to the Republican National Committee calling on Republicans to stop being the stupid party, to stop insulting the intelligence of the American people….But, so far, there have been more calls for change than actual evidence of change.”

Well said. If the results of the 2012 Presidential election taught us anything, it’s that the Republican Party platform increasingly falls outside of mainstream views. Continuous disregard and disrespect for the middle and working classes, the social safety net, female reproductive rights and immigrants cost Mitt Romney the popular vote in a big way. Almost every GOP leader woke up the need for more inclusive messaging, but to Brooks’s point, how does that translate into real policy reform? Thus far, it hasn’t. In order for the right to begin taking steps toward relevancy, it must do more than talk to itself about change. It must actually make that change palpable.

Brooks goes on to observe, “In this reinvention process, Republicans seem to have spent no time talking to people who didn’t already vote for them.”

In other words, as the GOP seeks to rejoin productive policy dialogue, it must move away from navel gazing and the equivalent of empty locker room pep talks to doing the actual work required to attract new members. President Obama has made it clear over the last four years that he would love to count upon constructive Republican input when it comes to solving the nation’s problems – with disappointingly few results. As the title of Brooks’ column implies, the GOP needs to reverse course in the form of a total break with a failed platform.

It has been an interesting feature of 2013 that the direction of the Republican Party has been the subject of much internal criticism. Will that criticism be co-opted into sincere course correction? Stay tuned…

Revenge: It’s What Female Voters Have in Store for the GOP (August 7, 2012)

Becky SarwateLeave a comment

Data published late last year by the Pew Research Center indicated that the marriage rate amongst U.S. adults stands at an all-time low. “In 1960, 72% of all adults ages 18 and older were married; today just 51% are.” And within the 49% that remain unattached, more than half of the unmarried Americans are women. For every 100 single women, there are 88 bachelors available.

What does this mean beyond a favorable dating pool imbalance for the nation’s single men? Well for the tone tone-deaf Republican party one implication is that when the polls open this November to elect the next President of the United States, there will be an awful lot of single women casting votes. The party continues to cater to its target base of wealthy, older white men at its own peril.

The New York Times highlighted the predicament facing Republican candidates this morning in an article published as part of the paper’s “Campaign 2012″ series. Viewing the female vote through the prism of the country’s weak fiscal performance, the piece by writer Shaila Dewan entitled, “Weak Economy Puts Spotlight on Votes of Single Women,” argues “Single women are one of the country’s fastest-growing demographic groups — there are 1.8 million more now than just two years ago. They make up a quarter of the voting-age population nationally, and even more in several swing states, including Nevada.”

The article presents examples of women, small-business owners and urban singles among others, who feel a conflict between government regulation and intrusion but have suffered personally in an anemic job market with soaring health care costs. This brand of savvy singleton is not so quick to swallow the GOP party directive of laying blame for the nation’s troubles at the feet of Obama. Remembering the unpaid for Bush tax cuts, the deregulation of Wall Street and bristling at the very recent assault on women’s reproductive health does not require the lengthy-tenured cognizance of an elephant. As one woman quoted in Dewan’s piece claims, “I am definitely a swing vote…I have no idea.”

It is more than proper, it is fact common sense, to wonder how Republicans view a path to victory that excludes single women, not to mention the Hispanic vote they have also devoted ample time to alienating. For every crazy like Palin or Bachmann who puts a pretty face on outdated feminist doubletalk, there are literally millions of women struggling to keep a roof over their head and food on the table while GOP standard bearers presume to tell them what they might be able to do with their bodies. Meanwhile, as the title of the Times article suggests, they have bigger fish to fry. As one of those single female voters in abundance, I can tell you we are tired of not being taken seriously.

Keep patting us on the head, calling us sluts and shuffling us aside as statistics like this go ignored: “While the jobless rate for married women has stayed relatively low, at 5.6 percent compared with 2.6 percent before the recession, the rate for unmarried women has risen to 11 percent, from a prerecession level of 6 percent.”

There are more single women than single men in the country yet our ability to provide for ourselves is reflected in an unemployment rate that exceeds the national average. Those of us who do have jobs can expect to earn less than our male counterparts while fending off presumptuous debates regarding our reproductive health. It’s enough to drive a madwoman to the attic.

But we’ll have our revenge at the ballot box this Fall. And we’ll enjoy the spectacle of the GOP’s mystified Wednesday morning quarterbacking when it’s all over. It’s sort of like ignoring half the chess pieces on the board then wondering how you found yourself checkmated.

Even the ‘Moderate’ Conservative at the New York Times Can’t Describe the GOP Healthcare Plan (July 3, 2012)

Becky SarwateLeave a comment

I have a cousin who posted this as his Facebook status this morning: “Sometimes I think, ‘this time David Brooks will write something that doesn’t make me want to punch him.’ And each time, I’m wrong.” I know the feeling.

Brooks has worked as a New York Times Op-Ed columnist since 2003, and while I appreciate that he is the paper’s purported moderate conservative voice and that all media outlets should strive for true “fair and balanced” representation, I join my cousin in his frustration. I am tired of being fooled by this guy. I do not pay for a New York Times digital subscription and it’s a waste to keep allotting any of my 10 free articles per month toward the writer.

Because the reality is that there’s nothing moderate or independent about Brooks’ ideology. Take this morning’s promising example. On the surface, to encounter a title like “A Choice, Not a Whine” seems to bode for real criticism. The headline carried this subtext: “Opponents of Obama’s health care law should stop venting about John Roberts and instead provide a credible alternative.”

Well then! A critical piece from Brooks that might clarify that Republican opposition to last week’s Supreme Court decision regarding the Affordable Healthcare Act isn’t wearing any clothes. Panderer extraordinaire Mitt Romney and his gang of GOP cronies have repeatedly claimed that, should Mittens be elected, they will repeal and replace Obamacare with….what? They won’t say, in the first place because specifics just can’t top the sort of general chest beating that has become the hallmark of Republican contrariness. The party of “no,” has had very little to say for itself beyond a simple negative for years now. It has worked well to a certain degree. The GOP was able to take over the House in the 2010 midterm elections with shockingly little to say for itself besides, “We don’t agree with anything the President says.”

In the second place, Republicans exist to uphold the status quo, the complex state of affairs that keeps siphoning money into the hands of corporations and the extremely wealthy while diminishing the prospects of the middle and underclasses. Pick an issue and look for the GOP’s corresponding cynicism: global warming is fake! Because energy companies are plying us with money to say so! Charter schools rule – forget about revamping public education! Because so many of the operations that provide these untested models of schooling are privately owned with excellent lobbyists!

And then there’s healthcare. For those of us looking to David Brooks to put his party (damn, I keep forgetting he’s independent) to the test, a click on this morning’s column yields this: “Critics of the bill shouldn’t be hating on Chief Justice Roberts. If they can’t make this case to the voters, they really shouldn’t be in public life. Moreover, there are alternatives. Despite what you’ve read, there is a coherent Republican plan.”

Let’s gloss over the fact that if the word has come from the pen of a middle-aged policy fart like Brooks, then “hating” has jumped the pop cultural lexicon shark, and cut to this supposed”coherent Republican plan.” Which is what?

Basically the same tired retread of non-specifics: patients should just say no to elaborate and/or endless procedures (because don’t we all know someone who gets mammograms and colonoscopies for giggles?), give people tax credits so they can purchase their own plans in a competitive, private marketplace. Then there are my two personal favorites: “Americans should be strongly encouraged to buy continuous coverage over their adulthood,” and “encourage experimentation in the states instead of restricting state flexibility.”

I have news for Mr. Brooks, the word “encourage” is rarely followed by concrete specifics. There is NO Republican plan for turning these ideas into reality. What makes you think you can delineate that which your fellow party members can only mumble?