Republicans remind me of the scorpion in the fable about the frog and the scorpion: Seems there was this scorpion who wanted to cross a pond and asked the frog if he would carry the scorpion across. The frog refused, explaining the obvious “You’ll sting me.”
“Nonsense,” countered the scorpion. “If I were to sting you I’d drown and we would both surely die.”
Made sense to the frog, and so the scorpion hoped on the frog’s back and off they swam. Halfway across the pond, the scorpion did sting the hapless frog.
“Why did you sting me! Now we will both surely die.”
“Sorry,” replied the scorpion, “it’s in my nature.”
Republicans keep stinging this president over financial matters, and, inevitably, we all drown. When the public is asked, “Who do you blame?” The public keeps answering—“the one with the stinger.” But the Republicans simply recoil to sting again.
You wonder, who does John Boehner’s P.R. work.
This time the all the hullaballoo is being called “sequestration;” a rose by any other name.
This time, just like the last two times, Republicans refuse to raise taxes that affect the wealthy in our country. They say we need to cut spending on Medicaid and food stamps and children’s health insurance instead.
Democrats contend that congress should cut tax loopholes, which only the top 5 percent of earners utilize.
Get the stinger ready.
At this point, either the whole of the Republican Party is crazy—doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result—or they just don’t care what the public thinks. Marie Antoinette said it best—before she lost her head. Truth is, it was the Republicans who first suggested the closing of loopholes when they tried, in vain, to stop the tax increases last December. Now suddenly, what was such a great idea 60-days-ago is now a ‘non-starter’ in budget negotiations. Crazy, you wonder if the venom in their stingers affects their ability to reason.
Meanwhile, the Republican Party is shrinking, visibly, day-by-day. Hispanics and women and, most importantly, the college educated are leaving the party like frightened frogs avoiding a scorpion. The republican base now constitutes blue-collar workers, religious zealots and millionaires. However, the blue-collar fraction is starting to hear a familiar refrain, that real-income for workers has been stagnate over the last 40 years while the top 5 percent have gained the system tremendously.
None of this seems to bother the Republicans, who worship at the feet of Southern Gerrymandering and so can be reelected ad infinitum no matter what blacks and Hispanics and better educated folks in the South might believe. As long as big-money southerners and non-union whites in the South vote for the guy with the stinger, they’re content and, statisticians tell us, will be soon in the minority in the House and Senate and for a long, long time.
Now comes a nervous and ineffective weak-kneed Majority Leader, John Boehner, who must appease the South and the Milton Feldman, trickledown wing of the Party who believe you can’t give too much to the rich “job creators.” The usual suspects line up behind the Reagan doctrine; Eric Cantor, who wants Boehner’s job; Paul Ryan, a lackey for the wealthy and who is crazy enough to think he might be president some day; and, over in the senate, Mitch McConnell, who has a part-time job dubbing for Mr. Burns in the annual Louisville Christmas parade.
The last part of this imbecilic Republican equation is Fox News and the driving personalities that have only one choice—double down on crazy! Night after night, with the same six guests on three primetime shows, they spew the same message to 95 percent of Americans—eat the damned cake, or we’ll sting you. Just as the public is rushing to get away from the crazies with the stingers in congress, the public is leaving Fox News in droves according to the Neilson Ratings. What do the Fox personalities do to stop the madness? Invite the same six craziness who want to bring up arcane social issues like abortion and gay marriage—oh yea, and the good ol’ NRA—while funding for many social (people) programs are cut by 9 percent.
I’m reminded of a Seinfeld episode where George gets out of a pool of cold water, takes off his swim suite, and, not knowing that Jerry’s girlfriend is in the bedroom, George takes off the towel around his waist unveiling notable shrinkage in longitude. George complains bitterly, but what you see is what you get.
Boehner, Cantor, Ryan, McConnell and Burns have shown us what they got—their stingers are simply too small.
Meantime, thousands of people will be furloughed? Crazy.
MIKE INGLES keeps an eye on the crazy action s of our so-called leadership class from some semi-sane place in Ohio.