House Republicans Going on Two-Month Vacation (Hypocrites)

Republicans in the House can now be called 'hypocrites' with the last session of Congress almost in the books.  They will go down in history as being obstructionists for two years whose primary purpose was to make the President look bad so he would be a one-term President.  All we heard out of Republicans in 2010 was elect us -- we will work for the people unlike the Democrats led by Nancy Pelosi which we now know was a very large pile of Bravo Sierra.

Four years ago, Republicans objected when then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) adjourned Congress for a five-week August recess without bringing up their energy legislation. Rep. Ted Poe (R-TX) shouted “Madame Speaker, where art thou? Where oh where has Congress gone?” Now, they plan a two month vacation, even if it means allowing vital programs to expire and working families to suffer.

These group of House Republicans just came back from their 5-week vacation and now are set to take the next two months off leaving a lot of bills on the table as they go back to their districts to try and save their seats.  They would have a better chance of saving their seats if they actually stayed in DC to get their work done.  For their vacation in August they never officially adjourned because they couldn't get the votes but left anyway.

Republicans promised if we elected them in the Majority in the House in 2010 they would run things the right way with transparency, inclusiveness, and plenty of notice about bills that were going to be brought to the floor.  That didn't last long as they became as bad as the previous two years of Democrat rule and in some cases worse.  With voting 33 times to repeal ObamaCare, the House cost the taxpayers almost $50M and yet they want us to re-elect them?

There are a lot members of the House who refuse to work with any Democrats on bills which means they never learned that once elected they represent all people in their district just not Republicans.  I still have not gotten over the 3rd bill of this new House led by Republicans (HR3 -No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act) co-sponsored by 227 Republicans which tried to define rape and to have no exceptions for abortion:

Paul Ryan And Todd Akin Co-Sponsored And Voted For The “No Taxpayer Funding For Abortion Act,” Which Redefined “Rape” As “Forcible Rape” In Order To Limit Federal Funding Of Abortion Procedures.  In 2011, Ryan and Akin co-sponsored the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortions Act. According to the Washing Post, “[a] Republican bill seeking to permanently cut off federal funding for abortions has angered women's groups that say it alters the definition of rape, permitting coverage for the procedure only in cases in which the rape is considered ‘forcible.’

Social issues along with making Obama a one-term President became the most important thing to this group of Republican House members, not the Country.

Nancy Pelosi was reminiscing about working with President Bush and how they didn't agree on a lot of things but did work together for two years unlike today's Republican obstructionists.  The Reagan/Tip O'Neill disagreements are legendary but they did find common ground on what was best for the Country.  Until this group of Republicans took control in the House in January 2011, the opposition party  in the House was able to find some type of common  ground with the President over the years not only on large issues but on smaller issues.

Not this group of Republicans whose sole intent was to oppose the President at all costs to the American people including not wanting to pass bills that would help the economy grow along with jobs.  These Republicans sacrificed what was good for all Americans by putting Party over Country. They don't deserve to be in leadership after what we have been witnessing for the last two years.

This two-month vacation is just another slap in the face to the American people when you look at the bills they are leaving on the table.  If the House Republican Conference had worked with this President like Speaker Boehner was trying, we wouldn't be worrying about a Sequester bill outcome.  Every time Boehner thought he had an agreement, the far right House members would undermine the agreement he had made with the President.  Cantor's sole purpose seemed to be to get the Tea Party Republicans in the House to line up against any agreement with Obama.  Now this group of Republicans is going on a two-month vacation to try and convince voters they should remain in charge while leaving key bills awaiting action: 

House Republicans Plan Two Month Vacation, Leaving Key Bills Awaiting Action  

By Josh Israel on Sep 14, 2012 at 6:34 pm 

House Republican Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) announced Friday that after next week, the House will stand in recess until November 13. His plan for a nearly two month vacation will undoubtedly allow more time for campaigning, but will leave several vital bills awaiting action.\ 

Among the important legislation the House will likely not address before the November elections: 

• 1. Violence Against Women Act re-authorization. Though a bipartisan Senate majority passed the a strong re-authorization bill in April, the Republican House leadership refused to allow a vote on the Senate version of the bill. The House passed a watered down version on a mostly-party lines vote, leaving victims to wait for House action. 

• 2. The American Jobs Act. Republicans have been blocking President Obama’s jobs legislation for more than a year. Though House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) promised in 2010 that a GOP Congress would focus on job creation, he has blocked this bill’s immediate infrastructure investments, tax credits for working Americans and employers, and aid to state and local governments to prevent further layoffs of teachers, firefighters, police officers, and other public safety officials. 

• 3. Tax cuts for working families. In July, the Senate passed a bill extending tax-cuts for the first $250,000 in annual income. The Republican House leadership has refused to consider the bill, holding it hostage to their demands for a full extension of Bush-era tax cuts for millionaires. 

• 4. Veterans Job Corps Act. The Senate is currently considering bipartisan legislation to help America’s veterans find jobs. The Air Force Times reports that the Republican House has “shown no interest” in the legislation to support those who served the country. 

• 5. Sequestration. A spokesman for Boehner said earlier this week that stopping budget cuts he voted for last August “topped our July agenda and remains atop our agenda for September.” While House Republicans have complained about the imminent spending reductions and passed a bill that would require President Obama to find offsets for spending cuts they don’t like, Republican Leader Canter could not name a single compromise he was willing to make to get a deal. 

• 6. Farm Bill. Despite strong support for a 5-year farm bill from even conservative groups like the Farm Bureau Association — the House leadership has not scheduled a vote on the bill. The current law expires September 30. Without passage, 90 percent of the work of the Department of Agriculture could be defunded. 

• 7. Wind tax credit. The Senate may act next week to renew an expiring wind energy tax credit. Despite bipartisan support — including from original author Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), the Examiner notes that the House is unlikely to pass the renewal. Despite GOP calls for energy independence, the expiration has threatened the wind energy industry and already led to job cuts. 

These, in addition to drought assistance, postal service reform, addressing the Estate Tax, cybersecurity legislation, fixes for Medicare reimbursement rates and the Alternative Minimum Tax, and all 12 of the FY 2013 Appropriations Bills remain unaddressed. 

Read More at Think Progress

Some of you might ask why a Republican would use Think Progress for a source but frankly most conservative sites are unwilling to state the truth because it shows Conservatives and Republicans do not have the best interest of the Country in mind.  They prefer to be cheerleaders like Fox News, Rush, Hannity, and others for Republicans no matter the cost to the Country and the American people.  All you have to do is take this one bill that is being obstructed by Republicans in the House that could lead to defunding 90% of the Department of Agriculture to know all they care about is the Party and electing Romney/Ryan.  They do not seem to care about the people of America who would be affected by their obstructionists tactics:

GOP Farm Bill Obstruction Could Defund 90 Percent Of Department Of AgricultureBy Zack Beauchamp posted from ThinkProgress Economy on Sep 15, 2012 at 10:42 am 

The 2012 Farm Bill is still languishing in the House, with GOP leadership in the chamber intentionally preventing action on the legislation for political reasons. According to the New York Times, “House leaders declined to take up either [the Senate or the House] version of the legislation. They are not eager to force their members to take a vote that would be difficult for some of them, nor would they wish to pass a measure largely with Democrats’ votes right before an election.” 

But without a new five-year Farm Bill or at least a temporary extension of current legislation, the Department of Agriculture may be forced to shutter almost all of its operations. 

The Farm Bill serves as a mass funding mechanism for the USDA — it provides funding for roughly 90 percent of the Department’s operations, meaning those operations may have to shut down if the Farm Bill isn’t renewed. According to the National Sustainable Agriculture Commission, the effect of even a temporary shutdown could be long-lasting:

USDA would be forced to occupy a multiple-month holding pattern, temporarily stopping many services and programs. Program administration involves a certain amount of planning and preparation, stakeholder input, rulemaking, and outreach. Even if program opportunities aren’t announced until later in the year, the preparation work that leads up to announcements takes time and certainty. Programs can’t simply be “turned off” and then “turned on” again with the expectation that program delivery and administration will not suffer.

The programs that the NSAC believe would be affected include “all the major programs for beginning and minority farmers, farmers markets, organic agriculture, renewable energy, and rural economic development” and new enrollment in the “the Wetland Reserve, Grassland Reserve, and Conservation Reserve Programs.” USDA programs funded by the Farm Bill are critical to addressing the crippling drought that has spread over four-fifths of the United States. The USDA also takes a lead role in shutting down brutal factory farms and administers the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), a cost-effective food assistance program for needy families. 

This isn’t to say that the House bill is necessarily worth passing in its current form — the House version contains, among other things, deep cuts to critical food stamp programs. But failure to pass at least a stopgap necessary to keep USDA could have dangerous consequences.   

Read More at Think Progress

In some ways this is sad to me as I have been a lifelong Republican going back to knocking doors for Republican candidates as a charter member of the Ohio Teenage Republican Club.  For years I have worked campaigns and defended Republican candidates including in 2010, but this Congress and the nomination of Romney/Ryan has taken off my blinders on the Republican Party.  This is not the party of my parents or myself as I do not condone the actions of the House, the Senate with all their filibusters to keep bills from passing that would help the American people and economy, the RNC who made sure Romney was the candidate, and Romney/Ryan who have a problem with the truth preferring to lie and spin in most cases.

Then you have the so-called Republican/conservative pundits defending Romney/Ryan and Congressional Republicans like Fox News, Rove, Rush, Hannity, Beck, Medved, and others who will spin and lie to get Romney elected along with Republicans in Congress.  Rush has made some of the nastiest remarks against a sitting President I have ever heard.   His comments and those of others are pure trash and show a group of people who hate has become their most important weapon.

We will start to cover Congressional races leading up to Nov 6th in the days ahead.  We need new Congressional leadership in both parties IMHO no matter who takes control.  Tired of the far right and the far left in Congress trying to dictate their views which are outside the mainstream to the rest of us who believe in common sense and what is good for all Americans just not a few.

Daring to Defer -- Chief Justice Roberts Showed the World Why He was an Excellent Choice

UPDATE 7:10 p.m., 29 June:  Today showed how out of touch the Republican right has become with their lies and now their attacks on the Chief Justice.  I thought Rubio was brighter then what we saw today out of him in his efforts to elect Romney who is the Father of Romneycare.  The CBO has come out with the facts that do not match the rhetoric from the right.  I honestly thought Republicans were more honest then what I saw with their rhetoric today.  Romney lied about people losing their insurance which is different even from what Cantor said.  Romney lied all day about healthcare according to even some Republicans and by the CBO.  It is disgusting.  The GOP has no replacement alternatives only about repealing.  The people who believe the rhetoric of the Republicans today, need to check the facts.

*******

Yesterday showed how fortunate we are that President Bush named John Roberts to be Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.  Among all the ranting and raving plus two cable news networks blowing the decision by not reading the ruling, the Chief Justice made the right decision to make the individual mandate a tax not part of the commerce clause.  The ruling also "curtailed the power of the federal government to bludgeon states into accepting a costly expansion of Medicaid" which you did not hear out of the mouths of conservatives yesterday.  


Romney saying he would repeal Obamacare on his first day in office came off as the biggest hypocrite in the Country when his bill Romneycare was the basis for the individual mandate in Obamacare and according to the Florida AG Pam Bondi, he planned to mandate Romneycare in every state.  But there he was yesterday saying he was going to repeal Obamacare on his first day in office.  Someone needs to tell Romney as President you have no power to repeal a law.  This is not an Executive Order which is very hard to repeal but is bill that became law and has been upheld by the Supreme Court.  When he said repeal and replace, all I could hear in my mind was he wants him name with Romneycare on the bill instead of the word "Obama" so he can take credit.


Don't like the rhetoric from either side about how the Court rules for Conservatives or Liberals when it rules on the law.  Some rulings that I haven't liked, I discover later on that the ruling followed the law and the original bill was badly written like in Campaign Finance Reform.  


Some of the remarks from conservatives were so far over the top that I couldn't believe what I was hearing like it was the worst day since 9/11, Fox News and CNBC say it is going to ruin the economy but the stock market didn't agree, and then we have Romney going out saying it was going to add $1.75 trillion to the deficit when the CBO said it is not even close.  That is just a few snapshots in some of the most over the top rhetoric ever.  This coming from the same party who in the early 90's wanted a universal healthcare bill with individual mandates -- short memories on the part of Republicans.  


This article about the Chief Justice is the very reason I have such tremendous respect for John Roberts that he doesn't rule on ideology but on the Constitution which showed when he took the individual mandate from the commerce clause and said it was a tax.  It is a tax with no enforcement.  Wonder what some Republicans are thinking today that rushed out to the microphones to demand repeal without reading the ruling?  The words they used were over the top.  If the opinion would have been reversed, you would have seen the same type words out of Democrats castigating the court for being too conservative and bowing to the big donors of the Republican Party.

We have too many members of Congress who have been there for way too long and some new ones who forget their represent America first and Party second.  We have been watching the Senate work more across the aisle in the last few months to get good bills passed.  Isn't it time that the House did the same and answered to their constituents not the special interest groups who are demanding they vote a certain way or they will defeat them.

We have a group of members in the House from both sides who are more interested in running out to the microphones at every opportunity instead of actually working for all of us which is the job they are sent there to do.  Their job is  not to work for the NRA, the Koch Brothers, anti-illegal immigration lobby, Chamber of Commerce, Unions, Soros, etc. -- their job is to work for what is best for all the American people and stop this 'my way or no way' that has become a trademark of the far left and the far right.  What about the rest of  Americans who feel disenfranchised by both political parties and their leadership?  Don't we count?

UPI Photo/Roger L. Wollenberg

Umpiring: John Roberts

Daring to Defer 

For Chief Justice John Roberts, embracing judicial modesty means finding limits in everything—including the role of the Supreme Court. 

By James Oliphant Updated: June 29, 2012 | 9:34 a.m.
June 29, 2012 | 6:00 a.m. 

At the dawn of the week, liberal critics of John Roberts’s Supreme Court had the knives at the ready. In their minds, a twofer—the Court upholding Arizona’s punishing immigration law and striking down some or all of President Obama’s health care overhaul—would confirm what many have grown to suspect: The justices are hopelessly, and predictably, fractured along partisan lines, with the Court now just another divided institution in an era replete with them. 

But you make assumptions about the high court at your peril. The justices largely invalidated the Arizona law, and Roberts himself saved the health care law, breaking from his conservative brethren in unprecedented fashion to join with the Court’s liberal wing to preserve the bulk of the Affordable Care Act. 

In doing so, the chief justice may have demonstrated that he is the jurist that his many admirers thought he was in 2005, when President Bush nominated him. Remember that bit during his confirmation hearing about judicial modesty, about how a justice should be “an umpire”? Those words seemed to ring hollow in the wake of decisions such as Citizens United. Now, Roberts seems to have applied them in two disparate instances, surely disappointing legal conservatives who believed that their movement had gained unstoppable momentum, but reminding observers that most cases at the corner of First and Maryland are decided between the margins, not in them. 

You can sense Roberts’s deft efforts throughout the health care opinion to find a result consistent with his conservative principles, one that mollifies the law’s detractors and its supporters. Both sides ended up with something. The opinion struck down the individual mandate under the commerce clause, but upheld it under Congress’s power to tax. (Woe to news organizations such as CNN that went live after reading just the first few pages of the 190-page-plus ruling.) The Court also curtailed the power of the federal government to bludgeon states into accepting a costly expansion of Medicaid. 

Embracing judicial modesty means finding limits in everything. In that regard, Roberts’s majority opinion goes out of its way to assert that, yes, there is a point at which Congress cannot regulate the everyday actions of Americans, reproaching that body in a manner that likely hasn’t been done since the days of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal. Moreover, as Roberts points out in the decision, Congress’s power to tax comes with inherent limits; the government can’t use it to compel behavior (such as purchasing health insurance), but instead only to sanction.
For a jurist such as Roberts, however, just as important is identifying the limits on the Court itself as a functioning branch of government. 

Roberts is committed to the notion that courts shouldn’t overturn the actions of democratically elected legislatures. Indeed, doing so is the kind of “judicial activism” that conservatives have historically deplored. The inestimable Linda Greenhouse, the longtime New York Times Court correspondent, predicted the result in the health care case, pointing to language that Roberts wrote in a dissent to the Court’s holding earlier this week that states can’t hand out life sentences to juveniles without a chance of parole. Courts, Roberts wrote, “must presume an Act of Congress is constitutional”—and he noted that a “heavy burden” exists for “those who would attack the judgment of the representatives of the people.” 

“He really does believe that if there’s a possible way to read a statute to preserve its constitutionality, the Court should find a way to do it,” says Jonathan Adler, a law professor at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. 

As a longtime Washington litigator and a former U.S. deputy solicitor general, Roberts is a full-fledged member of the establishment, which makes him particularly ill-suited to lead a conservative insurgency. He works in subtler ways—but his familiarity with the levers of power means that he should never be underestimated. 

Even though many conservatives are bemoaning the health care ruling, Roberts’s ensuring that the individual mandate will now be rebranded as a tax not only hands the GOP some new ready-to-go talking points but it also means that voters can perhaps express their resistance with greater clarity at the ballot box, rather than at the courthouse steps. Remember, the Obama White House was never comfortable during the health care debate with labeling the requirement to purchase insurance as a tax because of the term’s negative implications. It’s a lousy sell. 

“As long as Congress can acknowledge something is a tax,” Adler says, “then we can let the political process work.” 

It will be tempting in the short term to look at the decision, see Roberts aligned with the likes of Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Elena Kagan, and wonder whether the chief was briefly possessed by the spirit of a predecessor, Earl Warren. But Roberts knows what he’s doing. In a week when Justice Antonin Scalia’s screed from the bench about illegal immigration made the Court particularly susceptible to the charge that it has become an agenda-first body, Roberts’s move was a means to reassure an increasingly skeptical public that the justices really do try to solve problems in a principled way. He reasserted the importance of courts’ deferring to the will of legislatures, something that should resonate with conservatives, in particular. He helped set limits on the power of the commerce clause and Congress’s spending powers. And he ensured that if President Obama wants to rescue his health care law from the threat of repeal, he will have to defend it as a tax.\ 

All in all, not a bad day at the office. 

This article appeared in the Saturday, June 30, 2012 edition of National Journal.