Grover Norquist’s concubines…also known as “The GOP” have cheated on him. They’ve had an affair where they got into bed with those who want to raise taxes…but it was only on the lower 99% of American workers. They’ve explained to Grover, “They don’t mean anything to us, we’re not in love with them. It was just political!”

And Grover has already forgiven them…in fact, he confessed to a degree of arousal over the thought of the majority of Americans being bent over by House Republicans.

The fraud of the Norquist no-taxes pledge has been publicly exploded now and as long as Dems don’t overlook this opportunity, the entire raison d’etre for the Republican Party will be invalidated in the minds of most Americans.

Add to this the calls from House and Senate Repubs, as well as GOP Presidential candidates like Prozac spokeswoman Michele Bachmann campaigning for the poor and lower middle class to be taxed heavily (the bullshit term they use for taxing the poor is “broaden the tax base”) and you have a class warfare loving, tax loving GOP.

One would have been mistaken all year, underestimating the lengths to which the hostile, ignorant and hypocritical Repubs would threaten the sanctity of Congressional precedents and the security of this nation. We’ve seen them hold the gun to Americans’ heads enough times this year, threatening, “We’ll do it! We’ll waste them!” like two dimensional villains from an old Dirty Harry movie so we’re hardly shocked by it happening again.

But this time, it’s a little different. This time, these Republicans are threatening to raise taxes if they don’t get their “One MILL-ion dollars!”. Republicans killing a tax cut bill which would result in raising taxes? As Rick Perry would say, “Oops!”

This time, they are rejecting a truly bipartisan bill that 89 out of 100 Senators voted for. This time they are telling the Senate Republican leadership to kiss their asses. This time they are already at 9% approval and most Americans blame them far more than Dems for Congress’ being a failure. And this time, there will be an election in about 10 months.

Today, the Republicans may well have jumped the shark for good. It is hard to see them having any legitimacy from this point forward with the American People (Tea Baggers excluded) in any of their claims for having good reasons for causing gridlock. They have openly stated that defeating Obama is their priority. Okay, America believes you so you can stop with the excuses.

Today, addressing John Boehner and his crocodile tears about wanting to compromise to save Americans from a tax increase, Nancy Pelosi responded, ““He is not Lucy and we are not Charlie Brown.”

A very apt analogy. The entire year the Repubs have said, “Go ahead Charlie Brown, kick the football,” then pulled it away and America landed flat on its back again and again.

Unlike hapless Charlie Brown, Democrats and other Americans have had enough and won’t fall for it again. Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi have firmly stated that they will not assign conferees to run at the ball the Republicans are holding now.

The House Republicans are the ones who are stuck. They may try to present a confidence that they can fool the public into blaming Obama for the approaching tax hike on Americans but behind the phony self-righteousness is a recognition that it’s not so likely.

When 89 Senators vote for a tax cut, that includes most Republican Senators. So, though House Repubs will continue to try and hang the tax increase on Dems, they are opposing Dems and Repubs in order to screw everyone more.

Let’s also remember that just weeks or months ago, these same liars who claim they’re blocking the payroll tax cut because it’s only two months instead of a year, were loudly declaring their opposition to ANY payroll tax cut. They are bald face liars, plain and simple and thanks to our lazy media, their feet are rarely held to the fire for their blatant bullshit.

As for the Dems in the Senate agreeing to further negotiations, I say they are absolutely correct in saying “no”. First, this is yet another case of the Dems compromising and moving to the right then when that effort is rejected, the already compromised position is framed as a Dem position that needs to compromise with an even farther right position.

Enough!

If payroll taxes need to go up for a month for the fury of the American Public to crash down on these deluded fanatics, so be it. Give into bullies or terrorists and all you get is more of the same. President Obama and the Dems in Congress have compromised repeatedly, even in this case, dropping the tax on the wealthy and agreeing to the Keystone Pipeline provision.

And why have they done so? To protect the American people from the Republican’s vicious agenda. So the contrast is clear, Dems compromise to keep people receiving unemployment and payroll tax breaks, Republicans compromise from destroying the lives of many to destroying the lives of some (check out some of the horrendous things in the House Payroll Tax bill, including slashing unemployment payments from 99 weeks to 59 weeks which would cut off 3,347,942 Americans from receiving UI…that should help in a recession!)

It’s high time to drive the stake through the heart of the Tea Party and the Republican House and make sure that the public throws them in the ash heap of history in November 2012.

It’s kind of ironic that Newt Gingrich is vying for the GOP Presidential nomimation, the current Republican House looks to have made the same kind of political miscalculation that Newt made when he ran The House and shut down government. Repubs then were convinced the public would side with them and against President Clinton when they did so. Instead, Newt was gone shortly afterwards and Clinton was solidly re-elected.

The House Repubs look to have overplayed their hand today in the same way. Whether they panic at the backlash and sign onto the two month extension of the payroll tax cut or not, they are branded by this and for folks who have a memory that can last at least ten months, this would look to be the last straw that breaks the zealots’ back.

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Nirek
Member

This morning my wife and I were making Christmas wishes and she wished for peace on earth and a congress that wasn’t corrupt.
I told her that we might get peace on earth if we had an incorrupt congress.

Merry Christmas all.

choicelady
Member

That seems to be the truth.

And at 8 am to Andy, a homeless friend we help a lot who came looking for a little cash and for a church to attend this morning, may the local politicos remember your needs.

We fight for and try to provide “Safe Ground” for at least winter shelter complete with dinner and breakfast. Several churches open their doors at night to provide these basics, but we can’t help everyone – there are nearly 2000 Andys here in the capital of the richest state in the richest nation on earth. Saying that helping them by having a small tent city with sanitation and controlled fires will create “problems” is the Grinchiest attitude of all. Andy deserves NOT to freeze just because he’s poor and developmentally disabled. He has a heart so warm and a smile so bright he makes the world a better place just for his presence. City council members can’t say the same.

May we remember those for whom a manger would be paradise – they are part of us, too.

agrippa
Member
agrippa

The GOP has 239 in the HoR. 218 is a majority.
The GOP may have problems in Nov 2012.

Perhaps the voting public will notice that those GOPs are nihilists.

KillgoreTrout
Member

AdLib, I just can’t see any way the TPGOPers in the house can give their constituents any valid justification for their actions (or nonactions) on this bill. Those 160 million people surely include republicans as well as dems. How do the bagger house members square their decision to screw their own while trying to screw the dems?
Are these republican base members really so brainwashed that they can’t see that this will negatively effect them as well? It’s clear to me that the TPGOPers don’t want any cuts to the payroll taxes of 160 million Americans, whether it be 2 months or a full year, as they pretend to be in favor of. Also, there has to be some really big money being put into the coffers of the house repubs by the big oil industry, to get the XL pipeline approved and built.

agrippa
Member
agrippa

A lot of them may be relying upon being in a safe seat. Also, they may be on a mission to sort out Washington; if they lose, they did their best.

Mainly, they do not really care. All that means nothing to them.

KQµårk 死神
Member

To be honest it’s really a case of two conflicting pledges. Kind of like the telling a robot to compute π conundrum. You know where the robot’s head explodes. Actually it looks like you icon for the GOPTEA House baggers. They have the Norquist anti-tax pledge and they much be against anything the Dems and especially President Obama supports. If they had any redeeming human qualities I would almost feel bad for them.

Chernynkaya
Member

Great post, AdLib! (I tried to give it 10 stars but my cursor petered out after about 6–sorry!)

I’ve said this here before, but I believe for many Dems it holds true too: We would give up our tax extension rather than see the Dems blink on this. We need the money, but we want fairness more. I do not want to be held hostage for another second. Fuck ’em. I had this discussion with KQ last week and he made a great point. He said it would hurt the President’s re-election more if the economy gets worse, while I was arguing that even if taxes go up, the political harm it would do if the President appears to cave would be worse. I don’t know which is the answer. But my gut instinct tells me that letting the obscene rich keep their tax cuts– even if we can too– is a huge loser. I think to a degree people have the expectation that the economy will take years to recover; what they want most right now is someone they perceive as a warrior against the Tea Party.

As Ezra Klein pointed out in his column today, for the R’s this isn’t about tax cuts anyway–it’s about blackmail and getting their disgusting agenda in return: Keystone and tax cuts for gazillionaires. I was fine with the Keystone compromise because Obama punked them on it. But taking the tax cuts for the rich off the table–and thus making the funding come from elsewhere–made me ill.

Chernynkaya
Member

AdLib, just as I started to read this, I heard that Politifact labeled this statement Partly True: Obama lowered taxes. Why only PARTLY? “He raised cigarette taxes.” So I have to ask, when a Pulitzer Prize winning site can distort the truth like this, do any facts matter anyway? In Bizarro World, the Dems are trying to raise payroll taxes and the Reptilians are the heroes of the Middle Class. And we stand slack-jawed as Mitt flip-flops while he can get away with any lie he wants as long as there is no national entity to point that out.

Sorry for the rant–Now, back to reading….!

KQµårk 死神
Member

You are so right AdLib. The GOPTEA House just shot their first hostage or should I say over 160 million hostages. Republicans can’t spin this one and they are mad and divided behind the scenes. Boehner did agree to the deal but he never told the GOPTEA House that’s what happened. Now they are trying to play the procedural card which they claimed Dems used.

We all know they are killing it because President Obama proposed it. The GOPTEA hates the bill because it does not have enough poison pills in it to make it fail.

I saw the clip from Happy Days were they jumped the shark just the other day on one of the pol shows. How appropriate.

atdnext
Member

If they really follow through on this, the G-O-TEA may end up committing electoral suicide.

http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/12/polls-obamas-approval-climbing-almost-at-50.php

President Obama’s approval rating is rising while Congress’ continues to hit or stay at record lows. IMHO they’re doing a great job at pointing out the contrast and showing America who really cares about fixing our economy.

atdnext
Member

I love it! The G-O-TEA declare their hatred of the middle class, expose the Norquist agenda for what it really is (neo-oligarchy), and torpedo their own chances in the next election!

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2011/12/20/cnnorc-poll-december-16-18-2012-general-election/

(Last month, CNN was one of the polls showing Romney ahead of Obama… But not this month!) 😀