The Divine Right of Republican

The Divine Right of Republicans

 

For the past 30 years or so I have been really annoyed with the Republican Party.  I used to be one years ago.  As a result, I received a survey from them with about 100 questions on what I wanted to see happen in this country.  At the time I was thrilled because I was still pretty young and naïve about politics, and I thought they really wanted to know.  A couple of years later I read that what they had done is compile all of the surveys returned (still the snail-mail era), compiled the answers, and that was what Ronald Reagan used as his talking points to win his election.  It was not what he believed, and as it turned out, what he believed had nothing to do with the talking points of his campaign!  I really felt betrayed.  At about the same time I thought I would attend the meetings of the local Republican Assembly (what they called their local organizations), but was told I couldn’t unless I paid my dues ahead of time.  I felt that was, as they used to say, buying a pig in a poke.  That is, putting down your money for something you hadn’t had a chance to look at.  By this time Reagan had been in office long enough for me to realize that we had been taken, even without the article about the survey.  Further, his first appointee for Veteran’s Affairs was a local man who lasted only six months and was forced to resign because he was using government funding for a limousine, redecorating his offices in a very expensive manner, etc.  He came home to a standing ovation!  It was this that made me realize that a good many of the people in Washington had close ties to people in our rather rural county, and if they were running Washington the way they were running our county I knew as a country we would be having a lot of problems.  Besides, the Democratic Club in my town had a lot more parties than the Republicans, so I switched to being a Democrat. 

Over time the Republicans, led by Lee Atwater and Newt Gingrich began a PR campaign to label Democrats and other liberals as somehow not quite as American as they were.  “Liberal” became a dirty word, and the dumb liberals gave it up and switched to “progressive”.  But as time went by, the Republicans became ever more emboldened, and ended up intimidating Congressional Democrats into voting with them using every tactic possible to continue the intimidation for fear of the NRA, being soft on defense, etc. even though it was a Democrat who led the nation that won World War II. 

The last 10 – 15 years things have gotten even worse, and since 2008 have gone completely bonkers.  When the Republican leadership in Congress met the day of the 2009 inauguration and determined that they were going to see to it that President Obama was only a one term President, their absolute belief has surfaced that they, and only they, have the right to rule this country.  From that day, the Republicans in the Senate have filibustered, or stymied, every bill that might have given the President any credit at all.  What they have done since that meeting is quite well documented.  But they continue on with their attitude that they have a divine right to govern!   

The states that have a Republican governor and legislature are making all efforts to redraw Congressional lines to make it impossible, they think, for Democrats to be elected either to state houses or the Federal Legislature or Senate.  In California, the voters decreed that a bi-partisan independent commission would redraw the congressional districts as evenly as they could.  NO gerrymandering!  When the lines were approved and became law, the Republican Party in California sued the state on the grounds that by having non-gerrymandered districts it gave the Democrats a chance to win!  And in California we have two Democratic Senators, and Democrats in every elected state office because every decision was based on votes counted.  No wonder the Republicans are trying to gerrymander their states. 

But I think the one thing that irritates me the most has been the Republican’s constant ploy to insist that every time President Obama or any other Democrat makes a statement that is contrary to what the Republicans want, the Republicans start whining that the statement is divisive.  Divisive?  Why?  Because it isn’t what the Republicans wanted to hear?  What they want from the President and every other Democrat in office is a strict adherence to the Republican’s talking points.  President Obama’s Inauguration speech was what the people who voted for him by a 5 million vote margin wanted to hear.  It was not divisive from the people’s perspective. The Republicans know that if they can ruin the economy, keep the Democrats out of office by gerrymandering Congressional districts, suppressing the vote, or any of the other shenanigans the Republicans have come up with, then they can rule. 

After all, it is the Divine Right of Republicans to rule. 

 

 

 

 

Presidential Executive Orders

Well, it’s blog writing time again.  After playing a couple of games of spider solitaire, which came with my computer, to sort of let all of the various subjects whirling around in my head fall into place, I find that they are still whirling.

 

Since my last blog on gun control the President has presented his 23 Executive orders and proposed legislation on four other gun safety measures.  The radical right wing has gone bonkers over this asserting that President Obama wants to take away our Second Amendment right to own a gun, which of course is hog wash.

 

It has occurred to me why the radical right is freaking out over some gun safety laws that do not include a seizure of guns, but said absolutely nothing when George W. when he issued Executive Order # 13438.  The following is from an article from SLATE online discussing the Bush Orders that should be gotten rid of immediately by Obama.  Obama scrapped these immediately after being sworn in.

 

SLATE

The top Bush executive orders that Obama should scrap immediately.

Emily Brazelon and Chris Wilson

1/20/09

 What it says: This order grants the administration the power to freeze the assets of an abstract but broadly defined group of people who threaten the stability of Iraq. The list of targeted people includes anyone who has propagated (or helped to propagate) violence in Iraq in an effort to destabilize the reconstruction. Most ominously, it also applies to anyone who poses a "significant risk of committing" a future act of violence to that end. The order, which applies to anyone in the United States or in U.S. control abroad, also declares, "Any conspiracy formed to violate any of the prohibitions set forth in this order is prohibited." The order appears to acknowledge that it could conflict with constitutional protections but then states that targets of its provisions do not need to be notified ahead of time that their assets will be frozen. (Emphasis mine)

Why it should go: The Fifth Amendment has a few interesting things to say about the seizure of property without due process—namely, you can't do it. While this is far from the first time the Bush administration has trampled constitutional rights in the name of national security, this order, if broadly interpreted, could target war protesters in the United States. Then-White House spokesman Tony Snow said at the time that it was intended to target terrorists and insurgents, but the language of the order is vaguer. This EO drew condemnation from all ideological directions, from Swift-boater Jerome Corsi to the ACLU. One needn't be a civil libertarian to see the danger of the order's loose definitions or wonder why we needed the order in the first place. Bonus: The next month, Bush issued a similar order targeting mischief-makers in Lebanon and their supporters. That one can go, too.

Now this Executive Order was a direct violation of the Fifth Amendment dealing with private property, and hardly anyone knew about it.  When one got into the order, I believe it was Section 4 although this is from memory and thus may be inaccurate, it not only allowed for the confiscation of assets, but the freezing or confiscation of the assets of anyone attempting to assist the targeted person, including their family!  Merely attempting to make our country a safer place to live by instituting some safety measures around guns, the sale of guns, and who can safely own them is a small drip compared to the confiscation of one’s private assets and property, and the threat of same for anyone, including one’s children, from helping.  Now that was a scary time. 

Now is not.  In fact, if all of President Obama’s gun safety measures are approved by Congress, all of our lives will be much safer from a freak out by someone with an assault weapon, multiple bullet magazine, and no ability to make rational decisions.

Call your Congress member and urge him or her to support these common sense safety measures. 

 

 

 

 

 

Levity

Some really stupid things we have heard, read or written, or said.

Years ago, sometime in the 1960’s, my mother-in-law had given my husband a nice sweater for Christmas.  Before putting it away I read the washing instructions, which I am wont to do after shrinking so many all wool socks, etc., in the dryer which had been put on high heat.  The instructions read:  “Wash by hand.  Place on absorbent towel to dry”.  Now I don’t know what you believe, but I believe that towels by their very nature ought to be absorbent, since they are used to dry things. 

One of my daughters likes the instructions she read on a receipe:  “Bring cold water to a boil”.  Since thrifty people everywhere don’t really like to waste money, isn’t it cheaper to bring warm to hot water to a boil?  Also, it takes more time to bring cold water to a boil than warm or hot water.

Another daughter got something technical that she could speak into and it would put her words into written form.  Fortunately for her, it was a good friend who received the receipe:  “Before serving, discard the baby”.  She learned two things from that.  The first is read over what is to be sent out before hitting the “send” button.  The second is to enunciate carefully so that “bay leaf” is not translated as “baby”.

Recently a friend had some health problems which caused him to be transported to the hospital where he was checked over completely for heart problems.  Not being able to find anything life-threatening but not wanting to send him home where he might have more problems without some sort of monitor, the doctors put a thing called a “loop” either in or on him.  They sent him on his way after giving him a little device to keep with him at all times, and the admonition: “If you faint, press this little button”. 

Since I am what is called a grammar-Nazi, often times the little streamers of so-called news across the bottom of the screen cause me some irritation.  The other day there was an announcement that the FDA was going to tighten up regulations to prevent “foodbourne” illnesses.  No, no.  Bourne is a fictional character first dreamed up by Robert Ludlum.  The correct is “food borne”.

Many, many years ago, while still living in Fresno, and having five small children in the house, one gorgeous spring day I was thinking how nice it would be to have a park near our home to take the kids.  The doorbell rang, a nice gentleman introduced himself, then said, “I’m taking a pre-need survey for Belmont Memorial Park.”  All I heard was “Park”, so was thrilled that my thoughts had been answered so soon.  I told him how happy I was, and that I had five children that could use it.  The poor dear literally turned pale and commented, “Lady, it’s a cemetery”. 

One of my all-time favorites was the day, many years ago, that my husband came home, grabbed the hammer and “the sign”, and went out to the front yard and pounded it in.  For Sale.  We could always tell when he was really ticked off about something at work.  He was working in research for the US Dept. Of Agriculture, was the administrator at the lab, and had received a rather thick memo with all of the new rules and regulations that he dutifully read all the way through.  Stapled to the inside page was another memo that read, “Please disregard this entire memo”.

After we had moved from that place (not because of the memo), I tried to keep in touch with a neighbor.  She was a real character, with the proverbial heart of gold.  But on this particular day she was bitching and complaining about her husband.  He never wanted to get up and go anywhere; all he wanted to do was just sit and watch TV.  She added:  “My God, he’s only 93!”

So, I hope you have enjoyed this posting.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Not Today

Am on anti-biotics.  Will post something when my brain is back!

It's All The President's Fault

When I was growing up in the 1930’s and ‘40’s girls were constantly admonished to dress, speak and act in a certain manner (determined by adult white males) or else whatever bad thing befell you was your fault for not dressing, speaking, or acting in that certain manner.  This is, of course, quite constricting since no matter what a girl or woman did, if something bad befell her she had no recourse.  This shifted all of the responsibility for the ‘bad thing’, be it rape, loss of good reputation, being known as a smart girl and therefore unappealing to men who did not like women who were smarter than they were, or just general concern over the ‘appropriateness’ of the girl or woman for marriage material back onto the girl or woman, and the men could feel quite smug about their superiority.

This morning I awoke in my usual state of non-awareness before coffee, wandered in to the kitchen, poured my coffee, and went in to slowly drink it while watching the Tivo’d program, Morning Joe.  I settled down, and shortly got a very rude awakening.  I hate waking up to arrogance, and in particular when arrogance is not recognized by the pundit who doesn’t recognize that he is being particularly stupid.  Here were three or four supposedly erudite gentlemen talking about how it was all President Obama’s fault that he didn’t get everything he wanted on the recent “fiscal curb” negotiations because he hadn’t spent enough time in “outreach” to Congressional leaders and members.  If he were only more outgoing like VP Joe Biden he would have achieved much more, so it was really his fault that the Republican leadership in the House was so intransigent!!  Don’t, for heaven’s sake, blame the Republicans.  They were only doing what they had said they were going to do, which was to keep President Obama from achieving, first, reelection, and then when that got blown out of the water, anything at all.  And that, of course, was his fault.

I try really hard not to attribute either misogynistic or racial attributes to people I don’t know personally.  But the discussion this morning was so revolting to me.  If the members of Congress are so immature that they need to have “Daddy” come down and pat them on the head for being good boys and girls, we’re truly in deep yogurt.  Forget the fact that President Obama is an academic.  Forget the fact that VP Joe Biden is a time-honored politician at heart, and that he has a more naturally outgoing personality.

Do I want a President who is all smiles, back-slapping, and hail-fellow-well met?  We had one in Lyndon Johnson, and people were ticked off at him because he was so shallow.  So give me a thoughtful, knowledgeable, and compassionate man for President, such as Barack Obama.  The thing that really ticked me off this morning is that the discussion was based, probably unintentionally, or not, as the case may be, around the superiority of the white men sitting at that table.  I would hate to think they were thinking that way because of the color of President Obama’s skin.  If they were, their erudition was about as deep as the President’s skin color.