Damage control is an action to limit the effects of a catastrophic
accident or tactical error, but it can also be a means of covering over
gross malfeasance often achieved by shifting the blame for one’s
ineptitude to an innocent bystander. For the past year, due to inaction,
obstruction, and deliberate acts to thwart economic recovery repugicans and teabaggers distinguished the 113
th Congress
as completely ineffectual. It has taken a couple of years, but noted
scholars, Capitol Hill observers, and regular Americans now understand repugicans are responsible for wasting taxpayer time and money doing
nothing but obstruct economic progress and render the government
ineffective as their raison d’être. Now that the public knows Speaker
John Boehner and repugicans lied to gain control of the House in 2010
after spending three years killing jobs, sending Americans into poverty,
and damaging the economy, Boehner is doing damage control and blaming
President Obama for House repugican incompetence.
The President has begged, prodded, and pressured repugicans to work
for the people creating jobs and growing the economy, but repugicans
created phony scandals and refused to even debate, much less vote for,
job creation bills, infrastructure improvements, or anything to grow the
economy and assist the people. Two weeks ago Boehner, aware the people
blame repugicans for Washington’s dysfunction and their economic
plight, released a slick commercial accusing President Obama of “
standing on the sidelines”
and obstructing House repugicans’ heroic efforts to create jobs with
legislation related to energy, education, agriculture, and healthcare.
Among the bills Boehner boasted House repugicans passed to grow the
economy and create millions of jobs was superseding the President’s
authority and passing legislation approving construction of the Keystone
XL pipeline, overhauling Boehner’s failed No Child Left Behind
education law, and of course, repealing the Affordable Care Act. In the
ad, Boehner says “
Here in the people’s House, we’re focused on getting the economy moving again, passing good jobs bills”
even though none of the bills Boehner cited would have a positive
impact on the economy or create jobs. Boehner and repugicans are
desperate to convince people that the “
do nothing” label they
rightfully earned in 2013 has nothing to do with their phony scandals or
obstruction and as is their wont, found what they think is an easy
scapegoat that fools no-one but their dyed-in-the-wool supporters and
Faux News’ audience. According to Boehner, repugican ineffectiveness,
obstruction, and job-killing efforts were entirely the fault of Senate
Democrats and President Obama. To punctuate what he thought was a
convincing and valid argument, Boehner ends the minute-long infomercial
asking “
Mr. President, what are you waiting for?”
Any American with a brain knows the President was waiting for House repugicans to do their jobs for the people and to help the economy
instead of the oil industry, private and cult education
organizations, and insurance industry who are precisely who House repugicans served over the past year. For example, House repugicans’
so-called “
focus on getting the economy moving again” included
eliminating overtime pay, keeping the job-killing sequester, privatizing
schools, hampering GDP growth, and enriching the oil industry;
particularly the Koch brothers.
Boehner failed to elucidate how fixating on the Affordable Care Act
by shutting down the government, threatening a credit default, and
symbolically voting to repeal it was “
focusing on getting the economy moving again”
and not just a plot to restrict Americans’ access to healthcare
insurance. He also did not expound on how holding the debt ceiling
hostage unless the President and Democrats eliminated the health law was
remotely related to “
the people’s house passing good job legislation,”
but with a fast-paced Hollywood-style propaganda video, facts are not
as important as flashy images of repugicans milling about on the House
floor.
Boehner’s contention the House bill
reforming
No Child Left Behind, his 2001 gift to corporations producing education
testing materials and pushing private charter schools, is remotely
related to reforming America’s ability to educate America’s children
when its real purpose is neutering the Education Department and giving repugican governors the means to transform public education into
private cult madrasas. The “reform” repugicans passed cut
education funding, eliminated Department of Education standards, and
provided funding for repugican states to privatize schools, eliminate
teacher unions, rob public schools to fund religious schools, and cut
funding for schools serving minority students. The only jobs the House repugican “
education reform” would create were for clergy posing
as educators and CEOs shuttering public schools and replacing them with
for-profit corporate-run conservative propaganda mills and evangelical
madrasas.
The repugican energy reform amounted to killing environmental
regulations and expediting construction of the KeystoneXL pipeline to
enrich Koch Industries, oil export companies, and John Boehner’s
portfolio replete with stock in seven Canadian tar sand companies.
Boehner contends legislation approving immediate construction of the
pipeline is “
the people’s house passing good jobs bills” even
though it will not create any more than 2,500 temporary jobs for
two-years, or that it sends Canadian tar to Koch and gulf refineries on
its way to China and Europe. Maybe he meant the pipeline creates jobs
for the healthcare industry when CO2 reaches toxic levels, or for
scientists scratching their heads attempting to clean up several
guaranteed tar-sand spills annually over prime American agriculture land
and water supplies. There is no good outcome from building the Canadian
export pipeline across American land and no possible way to misconstrue
it as good energy policy or passing good jobs bills.
Under John Boehner’s leadership House repugicans have not passed one
bill to create jobs or grow the economy since they won the majority in
the 2010 midterm elections. They have, however, spent all of 2013
killing jobs and hampering economic growth with their precious
sequester, cutting food stamps, failing to extend unemployment benefits,
and shutting down the government which is their crowning achievement of
2013. All the while, President Obama pursued and promoted job creation
bills such as an infrastructure improvement bank, Veteran’s job
program, American Jobs Act, and called for raising the minimum wage to
put money into the economy and create more jobs in the process. With
each new proposal from the President, repugicans stood on the sideline
and if they were not actively obstructing bills, they were cutting
programs that create jobs, and damaged the economy by sending more
Americans into poverty.
Boehner can pay for, star in, provide voice-overs, and tell Americans
House repugicans passed jobs bills and were focused on getting the
economy moving again in 2013 only to be obstructed by President Obama he
claims was standing on the sideline. However, the American people are
well aware that only President Obama has called for, provided, and
promoted real job creation legislation in his Inaugural Address, State
of the Union, and most recently in a brilliant speech on repugican-created income inequality hampering economic growth and
killing Americans’ jobs. When Americans look back over the past year and
consider their economic plight and lack of jobs they know it was
Boehner’s repugicans standing on the sidelines obstructing economic
growth, killing jobs, and rejecting the President’s pleas for the
do-nothing House to “
focus on getting the economy moving again and pass good jobs bills;” something they are incapable of doing.
Secessionist movements in the United States are all the rage these days.
A handful of counties in Colorado tried to secede from the rest of the
state earlier this year. There's an attempt to create the State of
Jefferson (northern California/southern Oregon) via ballot initiative in
2014.
At Dick's Depot, pairs of shoes and boots dangle outside the shop. If
this was a high street today, such wares may well have been discounted
as festive bargain hunters elbowed each other to grab them.
