There is a reason that sometimes the GOP is called the Stupid Party. House GOP has now lived up to that title. Are they serious that they could not find one woman or minority to lead a House Committee? (NOTE: It has been pointed out that Daryl Issa (R-CA) who heads the Investigation Committee is of Arab descent.) Their Bravo Sierra about Women chosen for the House Conference made me burst out laughing as it is so lame. The Conference does not control legislation and what bills are passed. If you ask me, they gave these crumbs to women thinking no one would notice.
A House Republican leadership aide declined to comment on the lack of diversity in the party's committee leadership. The aide noted, though, that GOP leaders just put four women in party leadership. Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash) is the new House Republican Conference Chair, Rep. Lynn Jenkins (R-Kansas) is conference vice chair, Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) is conference secretary, and Rep.-elect Ann Wagner (R-Mo.) will represent freshman members in party leadership.To reelect the same leadership in the House that has been so obstructionists including giving a waiver to Rep Paul Ryan (R-WI) to continue to head the Budget Committee shows they have no plans to change their obstructionist tactics even though they lost 11 seats and only kept control of the House because of huge gerrymandering in the states. The same gerrymandering they accuse the Democrats of doing but they took it to a new low.
Went to see the "Lincoln" movie several nights ago and was struck at how Republicans in those days were defending the rights of slaves to be free as President Lincoln was not sure that The Emancipation Proclamation would hold up in Court after the Civil War ended. There were liberties taken with history as there are with all historical based movies, but this movie was powerful in the way the Democrats fought tooth and nail against giving slaves equal rights and the Republicans pushed the equal rights. Some Republicans wanted the newly freed slaves to have voting rights which did not come until the next century. Today it is the Democrats pushing Civil Rights and the Republicans pushing voter suppression to keep minorities from voting.
What happened to the Republicans of Dwight Eisenhower years where he started the integration of schools across America which was pushed by the Republican Party. Martin Luther King was a Republican during Eisenhower's Administration. In a little over 50 years, the Republican Party has gone so far hard right to an anti-minorities and women stance so that I don't recognize GOP of 2012. In the 1950's, you would never hear about the earth being 5,000 years old or other nonsense that comes out of the creationists who seem to have taken over the GOP of today putting people on the science committee like Rep Paul Broun Jr. (R-GA) who believes in creationism. What is he doing on the Science Committee?
Over the Thanksgiving holiday, we went to the Ed Noble Museum of Natural History on the University of Oklahoma campus. It is highly acclaimed as one of the leading Natural History Museums in the United States with their vast collection of specimens. The Museum takes you through at the beginning on how they categorize their finds and date the fossils that are found. It is one of the most interesting places you can visit if you believe the earth is more than 5,000 years old. In actuality, the earth and the other planets of our solar system are dated at approximately 4.5 billions years old.
The oldest rock formations on Earth are between about 3.8 and 3.9 billion years old., but there are older bits of more ancient rocks that were incorporated into these early rocks, and they date to something closer to 4.4 billion years old. These and other early materials are dated primarily using a variety of parent-daughter radiometric techniques, with the most effective for this time period being a lead-lead system.
Since rock from the time of the Earth’s formation isn’t available (because it didn’t really exist or was gobbled up in the fiery beginnings of the big round ball) the preferred method of dating the Earth is to calculate the age of meteorites. The earliest meteorites essentially date the condensation of materials in the solar system into the planets, and thus, the date of these meteorites indicates the date of the early Earth. (The Earth existed prior to this condensation in the form of whatever parts of the early solar nebula would eventually condense into this particular planet, of course.)Personally don't want Creationism taught in the public schools because it flies in the face of science with the interpretation by evangelicals on the age of the earth being 5,000 to 7,000 years old. That makes no sense at all. Is that why so many Republicans are pushing charter schools so their theories can be taught since those charter schools are privately owned? In Oklahoma the other year at the Convention, the GOP Platform wanted the Bible taught in public schools. I was shocked that they had gone that far right but as I learned in 2012, it is not only Oklahoma Republicans but the National Party that has gone hard right even defining the meaning of the word rape and person hood.
Get the feeling that the Republican Party is regressing not moving forward after the 2012 election. Will they remain the Stupid Party aligned with Grover Norquist who says no new taxes or will they wake up to the fact that Republicans are an endangered species if they don't change. They cannot remain a viable party from the hard right where social issues rule along with their stance on illegal immigration. America is moving forward and want the parties to work together for the benefit of all Americans not just the top 2% that the GOP leadership is protecting.
Has Republican Leadership in the House put major donors over what is good for the vast majority of Americans? Sure looks like it. Will they change and come to the negotiations in good faith? Maybe it is 50/50 or even less. All the House has to do is pass the Senate bill that keeps the tax cuts for everyone making under $250,000 and work out details on the people making over $250,000 later. That Senate bill should have been passed immediately upon their return to Congress after the lengthy recess. The very fact that the House Leadership refuses to budge and pass that bill shows that Grover Norquist still controls the House GOP when it comes to raising taxes. The GOP has plenty of rhetoric they use all the time but are they really changing? Sure doesn't look like they have any intention of losing their obstructionists ways anytime soon or being on the hard right of the political spectrum.
Are the American people going to have to wait until 2014 to get real leadership in the House and Senate from Republicans. Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) who is the Senate Minority Leader is still giving the same rhetoric like they won. There were 23 Democrat Senate seats they had to defend and they held their seats plus picked up two seats which means of the ten seats the GOP had to defend, they lost two. That is a huge loss. In the House, they only won by gerrymandering as the popular vote went to the Democrat candidates. Have Congressional Republicans learned their lesson? From what I am seeing, I would say that would be a very loud NO! In fact, I don't think the GOP has learned their lesson but are trying to put a new face on the same old rhetoric.
We need two viable parties in this Country but the Republicans are forcing more and more Republicans to leave the Party with their hard right stance. The jury is out on whether they have the capability to track back to the center right and jettison the hard right. If I was a betting, I would say that is not happening because the hard right seems to be going no where except to destroy the GOP by their hard right agenda where white males are superior to everyone.
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