Posted on 10/08/2013 4:37:36 PM PDT by mdittmar
An old friend who has been active in politics for more than 30 years tells me he’s giving up. “I can’t stomach what’s going on in Washington anymore,” he says. “The hell with all of them. I have better things to do with my life.”
My friend is falling into exactly the trap that the extreme right wants all of us to fall into — such disgust and cynicism that we all give up on politics. Then they’re free to take over everything.
Republicans blame the shutdown of Washington and possible default on the nation’s debt on the president’s “unwillingness to negotiate” over the Affordable Care Act. But that law has already been negotiated. It passed both houses of Congress and was signed into law by the president. It withstood a Supreme Court challenge.
The Affordable Care Act is hardly perfect, but neither was Social Security or Medicare when first enacted. The Constitution allows Congress to amend or delay laws that don’t work as well as they were intended, or even to repeal them. But to do any of this requires new legislation — including a majority of both houses of Congress and a president’s signature (or else a vote to override a president’s veto).
So the president cannot renegotiate the Affordable Care Act. And I don’t believe tea party Republicans expect him to.
Their real goal is far more insidious. They want to sow even greater cynicism about the capacity of government to do much of anything. The shutdown and possible default are only the most recent and most dramatic instances of terminal gridlock, designed to get people like my friend to give up.
(Excerpt) Read more at kansascity.com ...
Robert Reich is definitely afflicted with “little man syndrome.” Ignore him.
I like his civility speech.
Makes me want to get drunk and toss dwarves.
For later
If you pass a highly controversial law with only Dem votes that requires ongoing congressional funding and then the GOP takes over one house of congress, you're going to have a bad time.
SOUNDS GOOD!
That reminds me: I need to find my “Get Shorty” DVD.
A Truly Worthless Paper.
Send him back to Munchkin Land. Hope the Wicked Witch of the West kicks his short a$$.
Sorry. That has been the Dem party platform plank for many years: to make those who oppose them just plain sick and tired of all the snip-y politics that they just quit.
Besides, with whom in the TEA Party did Reich talk to get his supposed information? How much is what he says worth anything if he never actually talked to anyone affiliated with them?
Bloviating, partisan, propaganda spin-meister!!
What the RATS and RINOS don’t understand with their attacks is they are accurately portraying us, for once!
They keep trying to portray our efforts as ending up as unintended consequences, these changes we are effecting..
THIS is CHANGEBACK, and this is HOPE!
Ignore who?
He’s a mental midget as well
All the insiders are chiming in. Their precious status quo is coming to an end.
For Robert B. Reich, in a crowded room, the entire world stinks.
I remember Reich from his first movie....he didn’t look happy even back then.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhjRUKCKIG4
I call him “The Little Man with the Big Lie”.
Obviously he has no clue. If he were to attend a Tea Part he’d see a bunch of hardworking guys and gals upset about this country being taken over by Commies and are real patriots who payt taxes so he can get his benefits
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