Times Dispatch Slams Virginia GOP for Threatened State Government Shutdown

The Virginia GOP continues to grow more extreme by the day and about the only thing the House of Delegates hasn't done is pass a law authorizing secession from the United States.  Things are truly that batshit crazy amongst today's Virginia GOP.  Hence the Virginia GOP's threat to shut down Virginia's state government if Gov. McAuliffe continues to push for Medicaid expansion.  In a main editorial, the Richmond Times Dispatch - perhaps the most conservative newspaper in Virginia - slams the Virginia GOP and House Speaker William Howell.  It also slams the gerrymandered districts engineered by the Virginia GOP which allows the GOP members of the House of Delegates to largely escape accountability.  Here are highlights from the editorial:

Bill Howell serves not only as speaker of the House of Delegates but also as the highest-ranking state official among Virginia Republicans. . . . . And he expressed fears that a government shutdown could result in the lowering of Virginia’s AAA bond rating.

“I sure wouldn’t want to be governor when we lost our AAA bond rating for the first time in state history,” the speaker said. He sure shouldn’t want to be speaker if Virginia lost its AAA rating, either.

Gerrymandering diminishes accountability in the legislature, particularly in the House of Delegates. Howell and his minions have almost no reason to fear retaliation in general elections. Their biggest threat comes in nomination contests where purists could challenge delegates who prefer effective governing to pointless posturing. The Byrd Organization kept its grip by limiting the electorate. Republicans in the House keep their grip by ensuring that votes do not matter. The disgrace invites the unpleasantness Virginia is enduring.

The Times-Dispatch supports Marketplace Virginia. If Obamacare did not exist and Marketplace were seen as a way to increase access to private health insurance, we suspect it would pass. A case could be made that Marketplace does not belong in the budget, but Virginia has moved beyond that argument. A yes to a budget that includes Marketplace Virginia marks the proper step.

 

Will We See a New, Far Tougher Obama?

Today is Inauguration Day in Washington, D.C., and as Barack Obama begins his next four year term there is much speculation as to whether or not we will see a tougher Obama than during his first term where ridiculous efforts at bipartisanship proved just as futile as many of us could have predicted.  And then there was the maddening display of Obama punting his leadership role and waiting for Congressional Democrats to lead the way.  It was enough to make me want to pull my hair out and this blog certainly took Obama to task on may occasions.  Will we see a more reality based leadership this go around and will Obama face the reality that many in the GOP controlled House of Representatives would as soon give him a cup of coffee laced with cyanide as they would compromise and reach an agreement that would benefit the country even if it upset the Christofascist/Tea Party base of the GOP.  A piece in Huffington Post looks at this question.  Here are highlights:

As President Barack Obama enters his second term, his aides have concluded he likely will fall short on one of his signature promises. Barring some collectively cathartic Beltway experience, the Obama administration will not usher in an era of post-partisanship. The forces of gridlock continue to have the upper hand, and they will have a tangible impact on the president's tactics and ambitions.

Obama and his aides are neither fretting nor apologizing. Rather, while expressing a continued preference for politics by consensus, they are embracing the need for a more aggressive, even confrontational approach. The president signaled as much by vowing simply to not negotiate with Republicans over raising the debt ceiling. He upped the ante with the introduction of his gun policy reforms, which were more comprehensive than expected.

The message was solidified this past week with the announcement that Obama for America -- the organization that lifted the president to two election victories -- would be converted to a non-profit entity for the express purpose of pushing the White House's agenda in Obama's second term. One senior administration official was practically giddy about the prospect of using the organization's massive email list for policy purposes, admitting the campaign group had failed to do so effectively during the president's first term.

The White House has made similar boasts before, so skeptics have their reasons. But this time, a dysfunctional Washington and a weakened but more dogmatic Republican Party make a combative strategy the best option.

As for the next term, "I think a lot of it will end up having to do with how the Republican Party sees the future," Axelrod added. "Survival is a strong instinct. If Republicans think there is a political advantage to them personally to continue this Manichean struggle, then that doesn't bode well."

During Obama's first term, Republicans rebuffed the president time and again. Eventually, the president's aides concluded that more could be done working around or against Congress, rather than with it.  The seeds of that approach -- which involve barnstorming outside the Beltway, urging voters to pressure elected officials, and taking harder lines for negotiations -- were planted during the payroll tax cut fight in early 2012 and bloomed during the fiscal cliff standoff at year's end.

Inside the White House, she added, "there is a recognition that there are only so many hours that you can spend sitting around the table talking to or at people who have no interest in helping you." 

Those who know Obama best insist that he isn't giving up on the notion of post-partisanship. Pressing the idea is a useful public relations tactic, they argued, portraying opponents as hopelessly intractable if they don't bend. Moreover, the public still wants him to try. According to a new HuffPost/YouGov poll, 39 percent of respondents want the president to cooperate more with Republicans. Only 22 percent want him to cooperate less; 16 percent think he cooperates too much and 38 percent think he doesn't cooperate enough. 

Frankly, I'm in the 16% that thinks Obama cooperates far too much.

Quote of the Day: "Paul Ryan is A Con Man"

Lest there be any doubt, I loath Congressman Paul Ryan of the failed Romney/Ryan ticket.  The man is, in my view, a unfeeling, self-centered, out of touch, narcissistic jerk who has no empathy or concern for average Americans.  Sure, Ryan will claim that he cares about middle America, but his budget proposals would devastate average Americans while redistributing even more wealth to those already disgustingly wealthy.  Ryan adds to his hypocrisy by claiming to be a devoted Catholic who cares about the social gospel of helping the poor and the needy.  In a piece in the New York Times Paul Krugman sums up Ryan well:

The fact is that Ryan is and always was a fraud. His plan never added up; it was never, contrary to what people who should know better asserted, “scored” by the CBO. What he actually offered was a plan to hurt the poor and reward the rich, actually increasing the deficit along the way, plus magic asterisks that supposedly reduced the debt by means unspecified.

His genius, if you can all it that, was in realizing that there was a role — as I said, that of Honest, Serious Conservative — that self-proclaimed centrists desperately wanted to see filled, so that they could demonstrate their bipartisanship by lavishing praise on the holder of that position. So Ryan did his best to impersonate a budget wonk. It wasn’t a very good impersonation — in fact, he’s pretty bad at budget math. But the “centrists” saw what they wanted to see.

Ryan can’t be ignored, since his party does retain blocking power, and he chairs an important committee. But if he must be dealt with, it should be with no illusions.

The fact that Ryan has been given a prominent role in the current negotiations to avoid the so-called "fiscal cliff" is a strong sign that the GOP learned nothing on November 6th and that Congressional are continuing on their quest to take from the poor and give to the rich.  Ryan is a disgusting excuse for a human being much less someone who claims to follow Christ's Gospel message.   To call him a modern day Pharisee is far too kind.