Here’s a surprise: the shutdown was planned months ago. So the pleadings and forthright looks we’ve been getting from Ted Cruz and the orange-tinged scoldings from John Boehner and the laments of the lack of compromise by Republicans everywhere have been fakes. Falsehoods. Frauds. Wait for it…Lies.
What the Republican Cadre, because it’s no longer a viable political party, has done is reprehensible. From the beginning, and I mean 2009, they have tried to obstruct President Obama’s agenda and wait out the electoral clock for four, and now eight years while they plot their way back to power. Thank heavens that they don’t, in fact, know how to do that effectively on the national stage. They will continue to win House seats, though a new poll suggests otherwise, but they’ve fallen farther behind when it comes to women and Hispanics, and we know how viable you are when that happens. In the meantime, all they have is obstruction.
Any talk of compromise or negotiation is not to be trusted. They don’t want to delay the health care bill, they want it gone. They also want Dodd-Frank repealed and for the XL pipeline to be built and they want no new taxes in any economic or tax bill they’d support. And who won the 2012 elections?
But, oddly, they seem to love Medicare and are falling over themselves to fund some parts of the federal government if they believe it will help them. Wait long enough, and they’ll CR themselves into opening the whole thing in a week or so.
Just to make things worse, Boehner is now disavowing his comments from last week that suggested some compromise. He and the far right will now take us to default if the president won’t do as he says. The crash is coming, it won’t be pretty and the GOP will take the fall.
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