The Damage That Can Be Expected from a GOP Controlled Senate

James Inhofe - climate change denier and environmental saboteur.

I continue to try to be optimistic that enough Americans will get their heads out of their asses and/or make the effort to go vote so that the Republican Party fails to win control of the United States Senate.  The polls suggest, sadly, that too many will stay home or vote their racial hatred or fear of modernity and pull the GOP lever.  A piece in The Daily Beast looks at the damage a GOP controlled Senate may inflict on America.  Here are highlights:

If, as expected, Republicans take control of the Senate, they will try to repeal Obamacare and pass a string of other outlandish bills, all of which President Obama will veto. Or they might block some judgeships but work with the president in a few areas in order to build an agenda to run on in 2016. In other words, we’re told, this election is No Biggie.

This analysis, which you will hear again tonight on all the networks, ignores the ferocious radicalism of today’s Republican Party. As majority leader, Mitch McConnell might want to cut deals, but he will be dealing with a GOP caucus in the Senate that increasingly resembles the one John Boehner must contend with in the House, not to mention a base that has derailed several attempts to present a more moderate agenda on issues ranging from taxes to immigration.

The biggest impact of a GOP takeover will be on appointments. Many Obama administration sub-Cabinet positions (e.g. Surgeon General) have gone unfilled because of GOP opposition. Now many will likely remain vacant for another two years. Republicans don’t care.

The federal bench will be harmed by dozens of vacancies going unfilled, causing a case backlog. Meanwhile, none other than Sen. Ted Cruz is slated to become chairman of the subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee responsible for constitutional rights. Imagine the hearings he will hold. With any luck, the press won’t cover them, but don’t hold your breath. 

Should Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (a cancer survivor) or one of the other justices have to step down, all hell would break loose. Republicans would likely block any Obama nominee to the high court, especially for one of the conservative seats, leaving a 4-4 partisan split until early 2017, meaning that important cases would go undecided. Talk about gridlock.

The worst effect of a Republican takeover would be on the environment. The climate-change denial caucus would likely grow larger and more radical. Take Joni Ernst, a GOP darling now favored to be the next senator from Iowa. Ernst, best known for castrating pigs, doesn’t just want to ease environmental regulation; she favors abolishing the EPA altogether.

The ostrich-in-chief—and proud of it—is a former mayor of Tulsa, Oklahoma, who once compared the director of the EPA to Tokyo Rose and the agency to the Gestapo. If Republicans win the Senate on Tuesday, Oklahoma Sen. James Inhofe, now in his fourth term, is set to become the next chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, a position he held from 2003 to 2007, when the Republicans last held control. He will make it his business to carry water for the fossil-fuel industry, smear climate scientists, and do everything else in his considerable power to prevent the country and the world from confronting the slow motion crisis of climate change.

The world’s most eminent climate scientists, who all believe climate change is real, are, according to Inhofe, “in it for the money” and apparently part of the vast conspiracy that he says he will devote the rest of his days to exposing.

Even in an era when the public detests Washington, the U.S. Senate remains a powerful platform to advance ideas, including historically bad ones. So voters might want to consider who else—and what else—they are elevating when they go to the polls on Tuesday and vote for ostriches.

How did the GOP become so insane?  Look no farther than the Christofascists/Tea Party.