Didn't think it was possible for them to sink any lower but they consistently do so ...
For a government to be nominally effective in a democracy, the public
has to have a minimal amount or faith or belief that their
representatives and leaders act in a right, proper, or competent way in
serving the people who elected them. The idea of effective government in
America was dealt a crushing blow when repugicans plotted on
Inauguration night in 2009 to oppose and obstruct anything the newly
installed President proposed, and after teabaggers helped repugicans
win a majority in the 2010 midterm elections, government has all but
failed to serve the people. It is no wonder then, that confidence in
Congress has steadily declined as repugicans have openly obstructed
President Obama’s attempts to create jobs, grow the economy, and advance
policies to serve the people whether it is consumer protections,
effective social programs, or national security.
In a
new poll
released Thursday, the American people’s confidence in Congress fell to
10% and it represents the worst showing for any societal institution in
the history of the Gallup poll, and is three percentage points below
last year’s numbers and the fourth year in a row Congress is the least
trusted institution in America. Over the past four-and-a-half years,
Americans have demanded that both parties compromise and work to solve
the nation’s problems in a bipartisan manner, and yet regardless
Democrats and President Obama perpetually cede ground to repugicans on
issues near and dear to liberals, repugicans have made no attempts to
compromise or accept any concessions including on policy issues they
proposed.
Congressional stagnation and ineffectiveness cannot be assigned to
Democrats, and it is not just a liberal point of view because when repugicans created the debt ceiling crisis in 2011 that resulted in
S&P downgrading America’s credit rating for the first time in
history, they blamed repugican intransigence on the shrub-era tax cuts
and expressed no confidence that with repugican obstructionism
Washington could govern the nation effectively. Last year, two long-time
political scholars, Norman Ornstein and Thomas Mann, argued that
congressional dysfunction was solely the fault of wingnut radicals
within the repugican cabal who engaged in “
policy hostage-taking,”
and they repeated their assessment again six weeks ago reiterating
their charge citing Congress’ failure to make progress on gun control
despite support for background checks from 90% of the American public.
It is also noteworthy that Ornstein and Mann agree with this column’s
assertion that mainstream media and media fact-checkers add to the
problem by indulging in “
false equivalency” pretending both parties are equally to blame.
What Mann and Ornstien
claimed for the second time in a year is that repugican intransigence and opposition to anything President Obama supports was “
symptomatic of a legislative branch reduced to dysfunction, partisan ravings and obstruction.” In fact, Senator Pat Toomey (r-PA)
remarked that repugicans shut down discussion on background checks for gun purchases that many repugicans supported because “
there were some on my side who did not want to be seen helping the president do something he wanted to get done.”
It is no wonder the people have little confidence in Congress and
doubtless why government is at a standstill, or as Thomas Mann
succinctly put it, “
the repugican House is a formula for inaction and absolutist opposition politics, not for problem solving.”
But that is the point; repugicans are not in Congress to solve
problems, and despite their three-year assertion that jobs and the
economy are their primary focus, they have spent the lion’s share of
their time restricting women’s reproductive health choices,
investigating phony scandals surrounding the Benghazi attack and IRS
doing its job, voting over thirty times to repeal the Affordable Care
Act, as well as a investigating a variety of imagined slights dreamt up
by House Oversight Committee chairman Darrell Issa.
There have even been House repugicans obstructing bipartisan Senate
bills that typically garner universal support for legislation such as
the Violence Against Women Act and Transportation bills that were either
already funded or have minimal impact on spending, and the goal is
always obstruction for the sake of obstruction. Besides the
VAWA,
the farm bill currently under debate was passed in the Senate last
year, and because House repugicans demanded harsher cuts to the SNAP
program (food stamps) the
bill expired and has to be passed again in the new session of Congress. Last month House repugicans
voted
to cut $20.5 billion from SNAP which would take food stamps away from 2
million Americans and hundreds-of-thousands of children, but extremists
in repugican ranks are balking on those Draconian cuts and insisting
on even slashing funding deeper to fall in line with Paul Ryan’s budget
that calls for $135 billion in food stamp cuts, as well as privatizing
Medicare, 14.9% tax cut for the rich, and 15% tax increase on the poor.
The great majority of Americans support increased funding for SNAP, tax
increases on the wealthy, and strengthening social programs and safety
net spending, so repugicans cannot claim their intransigence is acting
on behalf of the majority of Americans.
The repugicans have accomplished teabagger goals of shutting down
Congress and prevented; a jobs agenda, a budget, a deficit reduction
deal, gun safety measures, tax reform, minimum wage increase, and likely
will prevent comprehensive immigration reform, but they did give
Americans a sequester cutting education, national defense, safety nets,
and infrastructure improvements. As Robert Reich
noted,
it has fallen to individual states to take action and depending on
which party controls a state’s legislature, it is either a curse or a
blessing for residents as left-leaning states like California, Maryland,
and Colorado voted to raise taxes on the wealthy and helped fund
education, healthcare for the poor, and still have a long-term budget
surplus. However, residents in states lurching farther to the right like
Kansas and Wisconsin are suffering higher taxes on the poor, horrific
job losses, massive education and healthcare cuts, and very generous tax
cuts for the rich and corporations. If repugicans in Congress
demonstrated any willingness to govern other than bringing government to
a halt, beleaguered residents in red states would be spared abject
devastation of out of control wingnut ALEC extremism.
It is seriously amazing that there are 10% of Americans who have
confidence in Congress and doubtless they are extremist wingnuts
and teabaggers hopeful repugicans continue neutering government, or
optimistic souls who believe sanity and reason will win the day and repugicans will actually work for the good of the people. However,
after over four-and-a-half years of obstruction, job killing, and
hostage taking crises, and a population falling deeper into poverty,
there is nothing whatsoever to be confident about except more dire
effects of repugicans intent on bringing governance to a halt. It is
noteworthy though, that repugicans act decisively and with great
resolve when their wealthy and extremist supporters demand action, but
that is likely the same 10% who still have confidence in Congress and
sadly they are driving the direction of the nation.
A generation of Americans grew up thinking that the instant drink powder 
Redditor
Aboiement writes that his neighbor "paid an artist to sculpt a dragon
into a tree that had to be cut down." Wonderful! And it's better than a
guard dog. No one will dare try to rob a house protected by a dragon.
Your 
Is this the elusive Jersey Devil as some Redditors have 
A
doe-eyed look would not have won over judges at a contest in Germany
this week: it was for cows only. The bovine beauties, 250 of them, even
had their own hairdressers at 
