Snippy Snippets

The unending repetition of the Republican accusations about Benghazi and the Affordable Care Act are enough to send into a political coma anyone who is bright enough to have fact checked those accusations years ago. So today, because there are few topics that are actually timely, I am not going to burden you with my opinion about timely topics. Instead, I am going to burden you with my opinion about what is not new and about the snippets I have lifted from what passed for news during the last week.

Nothing new and nothing learned: The Republicans are trying to sell us the same wooden nickels they were selling at the time of the robber barons and well into the nineteen thirties, and they are still pitching the same bitch they pitched back then: “Big Government and Socialism are taking this country to hell in a hand basket,” they bark. If that were true I am sure the indignity of being carted off to hell in a hand basket rather than an Armani Bag would be particularly odious to them! Of course it is not true, but that does not prevent Republicans from trying to convince us that taxing businesses or regulating them to protect the free market by preventing monopolies is class warfare; as are laws protecting collective bargaining and laws designed to protect consumers from unsafe products and unfair trade practices. The Republicans honestly expect us to believe that the known dangers of plutocrats ripping us off at every opportunity are more desirable than the dangers posed by a government that would try to prevent that. “And anyone who tells you starvation is starvation no matter who is depriving you of food is a lier and probably a socialist.”

All right, maybe the quotation marks were not justified, but that is the essence of what they are saying. Stripped of all the bull, they are arguing that the people who are starving because the plutocrats are exploiting them deserve to starve because those victims did not have the talent to become powerful enough to exploit the plutocrats. And as their high priestess, Ayn Rand, would have us believe it is outrageous for the government to interfere with this natural order of things. The only evolution the Republicans believe in is social evolution, and they believe social evolution is God's will. That must seem odd, but random be damned, the social order created by survival of the fittest has to be ordained by God because the dumb asses demand that kind of divine will to justify the suffering caused by allowing themselves to be so brutally exploited.

On the election front: We eagerly wait to see who will climb onto the Republican carousel of candidates for the 2016 Presidential race. The anticipation builds with each passing day. Will we be treated to a carousel of clowns as we were in 2012? I certainly hope so. I could use a good laugh, but it appears we will be minus at least one of the more infamous clowns. Louie Gohmert (AKA Gomert's Pile) has announced that he is opting out. His reason for opting out is the only comedy he is willing to provide at this time. The follicly challenged Mr. Gohmert says television makes a candidate's appearance all important. He believes the voters would reject him because of what is not on his head rather than because of what is not in his head. While I have to admit that Mr. Gohmert proved me wrong when I said anyone stupider than Michelle Bachmann could not walk and talk at the same time, Mr. Gohmert has, more often than not, demonstrated his inability to think and talk at the same time; so I hereby amend my contention. I shall miss Mr. Gohmert's inadvertent drollery during whatever debates the Republicans decide to have. Maybe the Trumpster can fill the void.

Every now and then Abby Huntsman of MSNBC discards the mantle of reasonableness to remind us that she is still a modern Republican. The other night she defended Ted, the Texas turd, Cruz, and praised him for his sincerity. She embraced Cruz and his nihilistic followers as valuable members of the Republican Party. And that was going way too far. My parent's generation did this country a big favor by condemning Senator Joseph McCarthy, and my generation did this country a big favor by laughing the John Birch Society into irrelevance. Senator McCarthy's witch hunts destroyed lives, and the Birchers fully endorsed what Tail Gunner Joe McCarthy was doing. The Birch Society even accused President Eisenhower of being a Communist, which was synonymous with traitor back then. The problem is that relevant or not the right wing lunatics are always with us, and now, as it has done in the past from time to time, the Republican Party is providing those lunatics with a cloak of legitimacy that empowers them.

What Ted Cruz and the lunatic right are accusing President Obama of doing is no more accurate or ethical than calling President Eisenhower a communist, and the fear mongering of Ted Cruz and his ilk is downright dangerous! What bothers me the most is that the nihilistic right wing has so much influence now that even Republicans who behaved responsibly in the past are joining in with the absurd accusations, the name calling, and the outrageous efforts to prevent Democrats from doing anything that might be beneficial to this country and its citizens. Something has to change. We cannot have Senators undermining the President's efforts to negotiate with foreign governments, and we must not tolerate a Republican Congress demanding the payment of a ransom to the wealthiest members of our society in order to get the government funded or our debts paid.

My advise to Abby Huntsman is to treat Ted Cruz and the lunatic right wing of your party the same way you would treat an insane uncle or cousin: accept him because he is a part of your family, but do not encourage his destructive behavior by saying it is all right or by praising the sincerity of the feelings that prompted his destructive behavior.