Day: February 28, 2013

Trying To Analyze Republican Women In House Of Representatives Who Voted NO On Violence Against Women Act Extension

Ronald 23 Comments

The Republican Party in the House of Representatives voted almost unanimously FOR the Violence Against Women Act on the last two occasions when the legislation came up for renewal, with only two and one members voting no!

This time, today, 138 voted NO, and Speaker John Boehner only accomplished its passage with two thirds of the votes being the opposition Democrats. And House Majority Leader Eric Cantor had the gall to vote NO, against his own Speaker, absolutely unbelievable!

But even more unbelievable was that many of the women in the House Republican caucus also voted NO, despite the evidence of the threats against women by men in their lives, which has now become an epidemic! And these women showed their anti immigrant, anti gay, and anti native American sympathies in their vote, as well!

What drove Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, and Virginia Foxx of North Carolin, the most prominent of these women, to vote NO? What was going through their heads? What makes them tick?

The three women are a total disgrace to their gender, and to the concept of social justice in the 21st century! They should be ashamed of themselves!

159th Anniversary Of Founding Of Republican Party: Not A Celebration!

Ronald 47 Comments

The Republican Party, which gave us Abraham Lincoln, Thaddeus Stevens, Charles Sumner, William Seward in the years of the 1850s and 1860s; which gave us Theodore Roosevelt, Robert La Follette, Sr, George Norris, William Borah, Hiram Johnson in the 1900s-1940s; which gave us Dwight D. Eisenhower, Nelson Rockefeller, William Scranton, Henry Cabot Lodge Jr,, George Romney in the 1950s-1960s; and which gave us Mark Hatfield, Charles Mathias, Charles Percy, Howard Baker, Bob Dole, Gerald Ford in the 1970s–1990s, reached its 159th birthday today.

The Republican Party began as an anti slavery expansion party, with elements of abolitionism also present when the party began on this day in Ripon, Wisconsin in 1854.

It became the party of civil rights legislation, three civil rights constitutional amendments, progressive legislation, and supportive of much bipartisan legislation with Democrats in the New Deal and Great Society eras.

Of course, they had their evil elements, including McCarthyism, nativism, and tying themselves to organized religious influences that wished to take America backward, but until the past few years, they always had redeeming values in many ways, and would often denounce the extremists in their midst.

But now the Republican Party has become a party dominated by Tea Party radicals, who promote racism, misogyny, nativism, concern only to promote the welfare of the wealthy, and willingness to engage in foreign wars that have cost us dearly in treasure and loss of life and limb!

The Republican Party is no longer, in any way, reflective of its past, and in fact, insults its honorable, respectable history, sullying the names of its heroes and champions over a century and a half!

This is a tragedy of massive proportions, and the name “Republican” should be co-opted by the true moderates who are sitting by, watching the destruction going on, and holding their heads in their hands, ashamed that the name has been so damaged by reckless, anarchistic haters of the federal government! The party which fought the Civil War to uphold the Union is now more like the secessionist Democrats of that era!

Speaker John Boehner Has Lost Control Of Republican Caucus In House And Needs Democrats To Pass Legislation!

Ronald 1 Comment

Speaker of the House John Boehner has become the Speaker who cannot control his own caucus members, and must count on Democrats to pass legislation.

This has happened three times in two months, a total embarrassment to the Speaker, and this has never happened in recent memory, but now it is reality that Boehner cannot control the Tea Party radicals who refuse to obey their leadership and keep unity.

The third bill today, passed only with a majority of Democrats and a minority of Republicans, is the renewal and extension of the Violence Against Women Act, and now native American women, gay women, and undocumented immigrant women are covered, exactly what the Democrats wanted, and is a major victory for them and the Obama Administration.

The other two “bipartisan” bills passed with more Democrats than Republicans, was the one to avert tax increases on 98 percent of the population, and the Hurricane Sandy relief package.

One has to wonder how Boehner can tolerate the weakening of his authority, whereby he must ask Nancy Pelosi for support to pass legislation.

And to have so many Republicans vote against the renewal and extension of the Violence Against Women Act only makes the GOP look more anti women, and that is not a prescription for women to wish to vote Republican in future elections, whether for Congress or the Presidency!