In 2012, John Stewart posed this question to Republicans:
“You are aware that the frontal lobe of the cerebral cortex gives us the ability to store and recall past events as they occurred, right?”
Seems John Boehner, impotent leader of the lunatic GOP controlled House, missed that show. He recently told reporters:
“This whole talk about impeachment is
coming from the president’s own staff and coming from Democrats on Capitol Hill. Why? Because they are trying to rally their people to give money and to show up in this year’s election. We have no plans to impeach the president. We have no future plans.
It’s all a scam started by the Democrats at the White House.”
Evidently, John’s been on one hell of a bender for the last six years (which would surprise no one) or, like his fellow dwellers in the Conservative Alternate Universe, he believes up is down, black is white, President Obama isn’t really the President, and people actually believe their bullshit. So let’s travel back in time to, oh I don’t know, say 2008 when Raw Story reported:
Barack Obama has not even been sworn in yet as the 44th president of the United States but groups are springing up online calling for his impeachment.
On Facebook, an “Impeach Barack Obama” group has attracted more than 700 members and a lively debate about the Democrat’s election victory on Tuesday over Republican John McCain.
Another Facebook group of the same name has 160 members and urges others to join because “we might as well get a head start on the impeachment of Obama.”
Moving along to 2009, President Obama wasn’t even in office three months when the Tea Party started calling for his impeachment citing “wasteful Washington spending.” Of course this was because of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act which was necessary to slow the recession. Forget about George W. Bush’s reckless tax cuts and needless wars, you know, the things that turned an $86.4 billion surplus in fiscal 2000 into a $2 trillion deficit by the time he left office. Never mind the fact that Bush, as the Cato Institute put it, “presided over an 83-percent increase in overall federal spending“.
Unfortunately, the Tea Party has never really had a clue when it comes to the government. If only those tricorne hats came with a brain already inside.
Next comes 2010, when The Conservative Caucus put out their little mailer containing a “National Campaign for an Impeachment Inquiry” directed at 5,000,000 registered voters.
And 2011, when Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) talked of impeaching the President if we defaulted on the debt, (like Ted Cruz wanted) while Rep. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) wanted to impeach him if he raised the debt ceiling without Congress’ approval. (Republicans voted to raise it 19 times under Bush).
Then there was 2012, when Representative Walter Jones filed Impeachment Resolution H.CON.RES.107.IH, claiming the President “went to war with Libya “without congressional approval”. Of course we didn’t “go to war with Libya”, and as Leslie Marshall at U.S. News pointed out at the time, by that logic, we should have impeached:
… Harry S. Truman for the Korean War, Bill Clinton for the Bosnian War, and George W. Bush for the second Liberian war and the 2004 Haitian Rebellion.
On at least 125 occasions, the president has acted without prior express military authorization from Congress. These include instances in which the United States fought in Korea 1950, the Philippine-American War from 1898–1903, and in Nicaragua in 1927.
But hey, and I must say it, they weren’t the black guy.
In 2013 Steve Stockman, (R-where else but-Texas), threatened the President with impeachment over… wait for it… gun laws. (The only surprise with that one was that it took so long.)
In fact, RWNJ’s who have endorsed impeachment of this President include:
- Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa
- Rep. Blake Farenthold, R-Texas
- Rep. Steve Stockman, R-Texas
- Rep. Bill Flores, R-Texas
- Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif.
- Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla.
- Rep. Kerry Bentivolio, R-Mich.
- Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas
- Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla.
- Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah
- Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C.
- Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn.
- Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas
- Rep. Trey Radel, R-Fla.
- Rep. Ted Yoho, R-Fla.
… just to name a few. Now here we are in 2014, and John Boehner is calling the right’s endless impeachment idiocy a “Democratic scam”. Let’s see, what else is the “Democrats’ fault”; well, there’s the
Veterans Administration “Scandal”
Even though, as Campaign For America’s Future reported:
U.S. Senate Republicans blocked legislation… that would have expanded federal healthcare and education programs for veterans, saying the $24 billion bill would bust the budget.
Back in 2012… GOP senators blocked a $1 billion jobs bill would have helped millions of unemployed veterans find work…
in that same year, Republican opposition also blocked a bill – the so-called Veterans’ Compensation Cost of Living Adjustment Act – that would have kept veterans’ benefits on par with rising expenses….
GOP lawmakers killed the Wounded Veteran Job Security Act, the Veterans Retraining Act of 2009, the Homeless Veterans Reintegration Program Reauthorization Act of 2009, the Disabled Veterans Home Improvement and Structural Alteration Grant Increase Act of 2009, the Veterans Business Center Act of 2009, and the Job Creation Through Entrepreneurship Act of 2009.
Every single one of these bills would have helped veterans and every single one was killed exclusively by Republican opposition.
Slow Economic Recovery, Unemployment, Food Stamps, Border Situation, High Student Loan Rates, Everything Else Under the Sun… you guessed it – Democrats’ fault. The only thing they haven’t been blamed for, yet anyway, is Eve eating the apple; but I’m sure that’s coming. The fact is, Republicans accept no responsibility for the damage they’ve done.
So let’s take a look back. In October 2012, Bob Cesca put out a list of legislation Republicans filibustered in just the President’s first term which included:
- H.R. 12 – Paycheck Fairness Act
- H.R. 448 — Elder Abuse Victims Act
- H.R. 549 — National Bombing Prevention Act
- H.R. 577 – Vision Care for Kids Act
- H.R. 626 – Federal Employees Paid Parental Leave Act
- H.R. 1029 – Alien Smuggling and Terrorism Prevention Act
- H.R.5281 — DREAM Act
- S.3985 — Emergency Senior Citizens Relief Act
- S.3816 — Creating American Jobs and Ending Offshoring Act
- S.2237 — Small Business Jobs and Tax Relief Act
- S.2343 — Stop the Student Loan Interest Rate Hike Act
- S.1660 — American Jobs Act of 2011
And here’s the pièce de résistance:
“On the House side, every single Republican, including Paul Ryan, voted against the Statutory Pay-As-You-Go Act, which forces Congress to pay for new legislation through either budget cuts or revenue increases.”
So while Republican and Tea Party voters should be dumbfounded at their elected officials intentional tanking of the economy, and destruction of their quality of life, the sad truth is, they’re just dumb. Period. The real scam is the one being run on them by their own parties.
The other sad truth is, if intelligent, (aka liberal, progressive, independent) voters don’t get their asses to the polls this year, we can look forward to two more years of conservative sabotage and government dysfunction.