Posted on 01/29/2009 6:38:11 PM PST by markomalley
It should come as no surprise that there was not a single Republican vote for the $819 billion stimulus package that passed the House last night. Those Republican smiles over the efforts of President Obama to reach out to them were actually more like grimaces.
Indeed, talk of bi-partisan cooperation at the outset of a new administration in Washington is common, yet it seldom ever materializes, especially since the GOP was taken over by the wingnuts of the far right 30 years ago.
That party is now a distant cry from what it was under President Eisenhower in the 1950s, when he launched a stimulus package as big, in 1950s dollars, as what the Democrats voted last night. His humongous jump-start of the National Interstate Highway system is credited with lifting the nation out of a drifting malaise that could have returned it to the pre-war depression days.
Those were the days of true bi-partisanship, but they were eroded in the period following the fall of Richard Nixon when legions of scruffy hippies, those of the more amoral stripe, were washed and groomed and thrust into conservative churches and off-beat political causes to become reborn as the nation's neo-conservative right wing.
The Young Americans for Freedom, with heavy funding and encouragement from some of the original "America First" deep pocket right wingers and Nazi sympathizers of the 1930s, were a cadre force operating in those particular denizens of the 1970s counterculture where concerns were only for sex, drugs and rock and roll. These were not the civil, women and gay rights and anti-war activists that animated the earlier spirit of the counterculture. These were the spoiled brats of American elite families who decided to slum it, while getting plenty of financial support from back home until they were ready to insinuate themselves into the pores of a vulnerable and unsuspecting Republican Party. Karl Rove is a perfect example.
The Republicans were reeling from the effects of Watergate, losing terribly in the 1974 midterm elections and dropping the 1976 presidential election to Jimmy Carter.
Along came the young neo-cons, looking mighty inviting by GOP regulars, even if a little edgy and some dangerously right wing.
They showed what they could accomplish by organizing a series of major referendum drives, picking on advances in gay and women's rights, in particular, as relatively easy targets. In California, they nearly succeeded in a statewide referendum to require the firing of any public school teacher simply for the fact of being gay, demonstrating that they could wed their cutting-edge, quasi-fascist impulses and energy with old fashioned bigotry to achieve a political goal (see the current, highly-acclaimed Hollywood movie, "Milk").
What had been a pro-business and economic development Republican Party, favoring large scale infrastructure development projects and strong military and economic alliances around the globe, transitioned through this process into a party run through and through by crackpots fixated more on gays rights and abortion than world peace or universal prosperity.
The "Reagan revolution," not Reagan, himself, or some of his cronies, became the first wave. This was a mass youth movement that swept college campuses, fueled by the philosophy of "me, me, me!" Overt pro-Hitlerites like Werner Erhard of "EST" (Erhard Seminar Training) fed into this, receiving massive corporate funding to proliferate a mass brainwashing movement, replete with organized days-long sensory depravation and ego-stripping methods, predicated on the notion that individuals should feel no social obligations to anyone, not even grandma, besides themselves.
Too readily, gullible pro-business Republicans became swept into this social phenomenon, to the point they lost any grounding in their own values and began marching to the same beat as the dingbats.
They scoffed at the religious right at first, but quickly learned they'd better shut up and show respect. When the religious right started winning elections, they became "true believers" in hopes of riding the success for their own gains, as well.
Now, this party is in shambles, run into the ground by its own excess, but so far, no one in it seems to recognize this fact. They'll just keep being set up by Obama to show their insensitivity to millions of real people and their jobs, as they did in knee-jerk fashion last night, until they slither back into those dingy denizens from which they came.
Stand up and be counted GOP Members of Congress!!!
HUH? Talk about EXCESS....just look at that STIMULUS ..er..PORKULUS package.....PIGS.
btw, in case you haven’t heard it, the prefix peta- means one quadrillion (1,000,000,000,000,000).
Let the celebration begin!
Eisenhower refused to cut taxes, because he refused to run a deficit.
No doubt about it. Democrats do have a serious mental problem. And the disease becomes more severe with each passing year.
Diatribes of this sort mean the party is doing as it should for a change.
Why, he’s so prescient, so wise! Just last night as I was polishing my Iron Cross I went back in my mind to the heady days of Work Makes Free and One People, One Fuhrer. How I miss those happy days of singing and goosestepping and bashing Berkeley Hippies. I remember the strategy sessions where we identified the fags and flower children for the final solution, where we bought up Zyklon stocks and, and, oh, it’s all so wonderful to recall the start of our fantastic fascist movement, now succeeding so well in destroying the only true American, president, the impure multiracial president. How did he know? I must find the informer among us and get ready for our second “Night of the Long Knives.”
I don’t understand why they are so upset. The bill passed. They don’t need GOP help to help those poor downtrodden Americans they claim to represent best. If the bill is really this magical cure all, this means they’ll receive a windfall of credit and benefit at the ballot box at the GOP’s expense. They should be thrilled the GOP voted for their “demise”. LOL
They are furious they are not getting any cover from the Republicans. So they will overplay their hand completely
I understand full well why they’re upset.
1) Come’on, liberals live off being outraged by something or other. Whether it’s the selfish indulgence of the roadie who used two squares of toilet paper, or the unforgivable temerity of the spook who had the nerve to listen in on a terrorist’s phone call - they’ll find some way to get upset over it.
2) If the GOP fights back, it might win. Of course, it also might not; I have no crystal ball that tells me what the future may hold. But I at minimum know that if they don’t even try then they have already failed; and liberals know that as well, so they launch their attack at the first sign of resistance.
Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty. This much we pledge--and more.
That was from the inaugural address from the hero Kennedy, who couldn't possibly be from today's democrat party, the party of "Palestine" - the party of old eastern Europe - the party of defeat. Today's democrat party is Red October, the ultimate weapon that will destroy America.
Proud working-class, VN vet, GI Bill college student, YAF 1967-75 PING!!! Wotta Clymer.
This is the loon who runs the lone paper in the People’s Republic of Falls Church, just inside the Beltway in Northern Virginia. The paper, which is distributed for free at local fast food shops and occasionally shows up in the gutter near my curb, is vastly overpriced.
“Those Republican smiles over the efforts of President Obama to reach out to them were actually more like grimaces.”
Reach out???? What he means is, go along with whatever stupidity the Democrats come up with.
Soon hopefully it will close.
I don't know, back when I had birds, they used to like that kind of paper...to line the bottom of their cage.
Seriously, this kind of paper is absolutely great! It lets me know what the Majority leadership on both sides of PA AVE NW really thinks (behind their Botox'd smiles).
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