An Embarrassment to the Republic.
Welcome to the Daily Sausage.
Today we’re going to talk about a few of the many, many ways the Republican party is doing it’s best to turn the United States into the laughingstock of the free world.
First up, everyone’s favorite home for random-ass conspiracy theories, FEMA! The way that Democratic Presidential Administrations and Republican Presidential Administrations handle the organizations is radically different.
You see, Democratic Presidents like Clinton and Obama stock the organization with experienced, well-qualified individuals, which makes the whole agency a model of good government.
On the other hand, Republican Presidents like the Bushes stock the organization with political cronies that aren’t qualified to run a Dairy Queen, and we end up with Katrina-type situations.
Mitt Romney is no different. He’s said on numerous occasions that he would hand FEMA over to the states in it’s entirety. House Republicans have repeatedly blocked FEMA requests for funding, and indeed have insisted that additional expenditures for recovery from natural disasters be met with spending cuts elsewhere.
As Kevin Drum notes in the article:
The lesson here is simple. At a deep ideological level, Republicans believe that federal bureaucracies are inherently inept, so when Republicans occupy the White House they have no interest in making the federal bureaucracy work. And it doesn’t. Democrats, by contrast, take government services seriously and appoint people whose job is to make sure the federal bureaucracy does work. And it does.
This continues to be one of the most mystifying things about politics, at least to me. One of our political parties has stated unequivocally that they believe that government doesn’t work, and that the private sector is best left to do everything. The other political party has stated that they want a government that works and that meets our needs as a society. Why on Earth would anyone pick the party to run the government that doesn’t believe in the purpose of government? It just doesn’t make any sense.
Speaking of people not fit to run a Dairy Queen, let’s talk about Allen West. Or, more accurately, Allen West’s current and former opponent. Bob Crowder, the Republican who ran against West in the primary, announced that he’s endorsing West’s Democratic competition, Patrick Murphy, in the congressional race.
“As a Republican for over 30 years, I’m embarrassed by the radical fringe that has taken over the party. Sadly, Allen West is their poster child, and the hateful, divisive comments he’s made throughout this campaign make it clear to me he’s the wrong choice for our district,” Crowder said in a statement.
When asked for a comment, West spokesman Tim Edson replied:
“Crowder is a Democrat and a sore loser. I’m shocked he waited this long. Perhaps Crowder hopes to continue cozying up to local Democrats so he can be their nominee against Allen West in 2014,” Edson said in a statement.
Just curious, but is there anyone in the West Campaign that isn’t a complete dickhead?
Of course, it’s candidates like Allen West that we have to thank for the GOP completely blowing any hope of retaking the Senate in a year where they were defending half as many seats as the Democrats. Even if Romney wins, his agenda is likely “problem ded”, which is to say “well and truly fucked”.
Without a Senate majority, Republicans can’t control the budget process. Which means they can’t cram their entire agenda into a reconciliation bill that’s immune from the filibuster. It means that even if they force votes on repealing the Affordable Care Act, they’ll need 60 votes — or about a dozen Democratic defectors. Not likely. President Romney would have to stymie implementation of the law from within the executive branch — a difficult task — and his tax agenda would be a non-starter. So would his plans for Medicare and Medicaid. He’d still be able to appoint Supreme Court justices and lower court judges, but Democrats would be able to block conservatives they deemed too objectionable.
What makes this even better is that the Senate could get a lot more liberal. The actual change in seats may be between three to five, but probable incoming Democrats will be more liberal than the Democrats or Republicans they’re replacing, in some cases significantly more liberal.
Most disheartening for me personally is the fact that Joe Donnelly, who is running for Senate here in Indiana, is the least liberal potential member of the caucus. Also, Richard Mourdock is a loon.
And, in otherwise completely unrelated news, Catholic Bishop Daniel Jenky of Illinois ordered the priests under his leadership to read a letter from the pulpit on November 3rd and 4th that states:
Neither the president of the United States nor the current majority of the Federal Senate have been willing to even consider the Catholic community’s grave objections to those HHS mandates that would require all Catholic institutions, exempting only our church buildings, to fund abortion, sterilization, and artificial contraception. . . . Nearly two thousand years ago, after our Savior had been bound, beaten, scourged, mocked, and crowned with thorns, a pagan Roman Procurator displayed Jesus to a hostile crowd by sarcastically declaring: Behold your King. The mob roared back: We have no king but Caesar. Today, Catholic politicians, bureaucrats, and their electoral supporters who callously enable the destruction of innocent human life in the womb also thereby reject Jesus as their Lord. They are objectively guilty of grave sin.
For those who hope for salvation, no political loyalty can ever take precedence over loyalty to the Lord Jesus Christ and to his Gospel of Life. God is not mocked, and as the Bible clearly teaches, after this passing instant of life on earth, God’s great mercy in time will give way to God’s perfect judgment in eternity.
I therefore call upon every practicing Catholic in this Diocese to vote. Be faithful to Christ and to your Catholic Faith.
As the article notes, Bishop Jenky ignores the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops proclaiming that the federal budget should place “the needs of those who are hungry and homeless, without work or in poverty” first (incidentally condemning Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget as “fail[ing] to meet these moral criteria”. Pope Benedict XVI has called for more government intervention to combat wealth inequality. The Bishop’s own flock says that birth control is morally acceptable, and religiously affiliated organizations should be required to offer health plans to their employees that include contraception coverage.
Bishop Jenky, for those of you that are wondering where you’ve heard the name before, once compared President Obama to Adolf Hitler.
Sorry Bishop Jenky, you lose.
