Is there ONE adult left in the GOP?!?

You certainly wouldn't know it from the way the debt ceiling business has gone on...

A simple procedure that was little more than a rubber stamp while Ronald Reagan was tripling the National Debt - and George W. Bush was doubling it - has suddenly become THE WORST THING IN THE WORLD.

To understand what it's all about, read this.

According to the Congressional Research Service, the debt ceiling has been increased by Congress 74 times since 1962. On average, that's about 3 times every couple of years. Under George W. Bush, it was raised 10 times in 8 years. We never heard about it. But now a Black guy is President. Makes you wonder...

But once again, the Republican Party is REALLY hoping you have a short memory. When Americans blamed Republicans for the government shut down in 1995, one would think the GOP learned their lesson. But the eternally short memories of Republicans and their apparent inability to deal in historical fact once again compels them to try something that failed. What is it about the GOP that makes them believe that they can hold America hostage?

As the debt ceiling deadline approaches, Republicans are once again sticking to their guns, refusing any and all deals that include tax increases on the wealthiest Americans.

BIG surprise (rolls eyes).

I have continually said for over a decade that, unless you make over $250K/year,Republicans do not give a damn about you - they seem hell-bent on proving me right.

Their recklessness and general irresponsibility over that span of time has put us in the economic situation we are currently in and once again they are willing to dig us deeper into economic calamity. It’s as if they think that a recession isn’t enough, that what they really want is a second Great Depression.

If Americans weren't clear about Republican intent before, they damn well better have clarity now. The Republicans have thrown hissy fit after hissy fit over the insistence of Democrats (and over 2/3 of the American people) that raising taxes on the wealthy and closing tax loopholes on large corporations be part of any debt ceiling deal. Their refusal to agree to revenue increases of ANY KIND means that they are negotiating in bad faith. President Obama, despite taking heat from his own party, put Social Security and Medicare cuts on the table and that still wasn’t good enough for the GOP. As the President stated earlier, Can Republicans say yes to anything? Republicans expect Democrats to cave in and givhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gife Republicans everything they want, and at the same time refuse to give Democrats anything in return. It’s a dishonest and dangerous game. It reminds me much of Yasser Arafat in 2000 - the Israelis made him an offer that gave the Palestinians over 90% of what he said he wanted, and he walked away, throwing Middle East peace away with both hands. That is precisely what Speaker Boehner is doing to the US Economy.

Republicans are already trying desperately to lay the blame at the feet of the Democratic Party in an attempt to spin away from the fact that they have been intentionally sabotaging the economy for political and personal gain. Eric Cantor is set to gain financially if the economy crashes and it is likely that many other Republicans have something to gain as well. They have made bets that the United States will fail, and they are doing everything they can to bring it to ruin. The Republican Party is using fear over the economy to advance their agenda and gain power. Their main goal is to make President Obama fail and has been since the day he won in 2008.

That’s why they won’t say yes.

But their plan is beginning to backfire.

As things get worse, the American citizenry is waking up to realize that the Democrats are the adults in Washington and that Republicans are acting like children that can’t have everything their way. Speaker John Boehner rejected a grand bargain that would have required compromise from both sides. He has also claimed that Democrats haven’t offered anything, which is a flat-out lie. Eric Cantor stormed out of the debt talks simply because taxes were brought up. Mitch McConnell continues to accuse Democrats of not negotiating in good faith. But all Democrats have asked for is that the wealthy pay only a bit more in taxes and that the tax subsidies for Big Oil and other corporate tax loopholes come to an end.

Republicans have continually sided with corporations and the wealthiest 2% of Americans. They have spent all of their time in Congress tearing down programs that benefit the other 98% of the American people. They have managed to spend every single moment in the House of Representatives focusing on their social agenda and have not spent any time on jobs and the economy. In fact, they have contributed to the unemployment rate by slashing government jobs and have destroyed jobs that depend on government funding such as Planned Parenthood. Their biggest campaign issue in 2010 was job creation, and now they don’t want to take it seriously.

When August 2nd arrives and America defaults, it will absolutely, no doubt about it, be the fault of the Republican Party. When Social Security checks fail to go out, senior citizens WILL notice. When our men and women in uniform go unpaid for their sacrifices, they WILL notice. And when businesses come to a standstill because the government shuts down, small business owners and even greedy CEOs WILL notice. And who will they all blame you ask? Surveys are showing that most Americans will blame the GOP for a government shut down. 71% of Americans disapprove of Congressional Republicans. And even if Congress kicks the can down the road, Republicans will still be blamed for not negotiating in good faith and for their irresponsible political posturing on behalf of the wealthy and corporations that results in no real solution to the big issue. Republicans are ignoring the vast majority of the American people at their own peril and may even take heat from their own masters since their profits ultimately depend upon a stable economy. Default is not good for anyone in these troubled times and Republicans are only making things worse (as usual).

The Republicans had the spending cuts they wanted on the table and they rejected them solely on the grounds that their corporate masters would see an increase in taxes. The way I see it, if the Republicans got the spending cuts they demanded, Democrats should get to close some tax loopholes for the rich like they’ve demanded. Of course in a perfect world, Democrats would take Social Security and Medicare off the table, and replace them with cuts to defense instead. The silver lining in all of this is that Republicans will get the blame. They actually believed that history wouldn’t repeat itself and that they could turn the tables on the Democrats this time. But just like they were in 1995, Republicans are being stubborn, uncompromising, and insensitive to the majority of Americans that demand a raise in taxes. As long as Republicans continue to demand spending cuts and reject revenue increases, they are finished politically and THAT is without a doubt something to look forward to, as this version of the GOP needs to go down HARD and be replaced by adults.

Happy 4th of July!

Here's why we celebrate:

The Unanimous Declaration
of the Thirteen United States of America

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. --Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise; the state remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.

He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.

He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies without the consent of our legislature.

He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states:

For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing taxes on us without our consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury:

For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses:

For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule in these colonies:

For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments:

For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow citizens taken captive on the high seas to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare, is undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms: our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have we been wanting in attention to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends.

We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by the authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be free and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.

Happy 4th of July Weekend!

A pretty amazing video on America - how far we've come and how far we have yet to go to "form a more perfect Union":
http://youtu.be/j9apMRjugSA
I especially like REPUBLICAN Presidents Reagan and Bush43 speaking on religious freedom.