R.I.P. G.O.P.? Not Just Yet, BUT…

Barely one in five Americans now identify themselves as Republicans. In the latest Washington Post/ABC News poll, only 21% of respondents identified themselves as Republicans, compared to 35% who identified themselves as Democrats and 38% as Independents.

Now that Arlen Specter has defected to the Democrats, and with Al Franken closing in on the Minnesota Senate seat, the Democrats may soon hold 60 seats, giving them a filibuster-proof majority.

How did a party that three years ago controlled the White House, the House of Representatives, and the Senate—and arguably, the Supreme Court as well—fall so far, so fast? And what are the consequences for the GOP?

Moderate Republican Senator Olympia Snowe says it is the right-wing extremism of the GOP that has “disaffected and alienated so many Americans…” That may be the understatement of the year. Between the antics of Rush “I hope Obama fails” Limbaugh and Dick “Tortures R Us” Cheney, moderates and independents can’t run away from the party fast enough.

The Bush years were disasterous enough for the party without Cheney and Limbaugh acting as constant reminders of the incompetence and, frankly, depravity that characterized the last eight years.

Many others who make up the public face of the GOP aren’t helpful, either. Sean Hannity and Ann Coulter, for example, taint the party with their arrogance, mean-spiritedness, and absolutism. Their schtick may work on FoxNews and talk radio, but to the mainstream American, they look every bit as rabid and irrational as the leftust fringe they routinely demonize.

Worse yet, as moderates and independents leave the party, it becomes even more extremist, creating a vicious cycle that may well relegate it to regional status.

If the GOP continues down the Limbaugh-led path of exclusion, if it continues to rationalize the rigidity and depravity of the Bush years, it will ensure its irrelevance for a generation.

Peggy Noonan, with her usual grace, puts it this way:

A great party allows everyone in, and allows prospective members to self-define. If they say they’re Republicans, they should be welcomed and helped to find a place where they fit. A great party has a lot of such places. A great party is expansive. A great party has give.

Rumors of the death of the Republican Party are greatly exaggerated, but it’s becoming more and more apparent that it sorely needs to treat the tumor of exclusive and reactionary extremism.

Newsprism

TEA Parties Turn Into Pissing Contest

It’s Tax Day—April 15, the deadline for filing federal income tax forms.

What usually passes with a few (million) grumbles and some local news video of post offices packed with procrastinating taxs filers has has taken on added significance in the media this year as hundreds of TEA (as in, “Taxed Enough Already”) Parties are being held across the nation. This kind of protest should be welcome news in any democracy, but for a few prominent voices in the media, it’s little more than an excuse to misbehave.

Right wing news outlets and commentators, especially on FoxNews and talk radio, have been promoting the events ad nauseum, to the point that FoxNews is acting more like a corporate sponsor than a news organization. This at the very least blurs the line between advocacy and reporting. Many commentators on the right have also strongly criticized the mainstream media for failing to cover the events (quite a neat trick, considering that most of the criticism came before the events were held…)

On the left, while the news coverage has been mostly straightforward (with the notable exception of  this grandstanding CNN reporter who lost her cool with a protester), the commentary has been anything but. Numerous commentators have  belittled the events as staged propaganda planned and coordinated by right wing media and public interest groups, as if libertarians and conservatives can’t possibly think for, or organize, themselves.

The worst behavior has been on liberal cable news. MSNBC’s prime time hosts—Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow—along with other anchors on MSNBC and CNN have inexplicably chosen to disparage, ad nauseum, the tea parties as tea bagging (a slang term for an unusual sex act…Google it if you don’t know.) Liberal pack journalism has never been as vulgar and sophomoric as it was today.

You’d think the left, with its tradition of protest and civil disobedience, would honor citizens exercising their First Amendment rights.

Sadly, it seems the usual suspects on the left and right are incapable of rationally discussing the issues involved—taxation and the size and scope of government. Instead, the cartoon conservatives on FoxNews (Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity) and talk radio (Hannity, Rush Limbaugh) are using the events to shamelessly promote themselves while glibly criticizing the mainstream media for failing to cover that self-promotion. The loony liberals on cable news and in the blogosphere are using the events to mock and patronize conservatives, too often with a vulgarity that is puzzling and disturbing.

Both sides can go tea bag themselves. While more thoughtful media outlets—including the network news divisions and most newspapers—are covering the events responsibly without a red or blue filter, the loons on the left and the cartoons on the right are cynically exploiting the TEA Parties to boost their own ratings and circulation.

I wonder what the patriots who participated in the Boston Tea Party would think of the way Olbermann and Maddow, or Beck, Hannity, and Limbaugh, are turning honest protest into a pissing contest.

One thing’s for sure. This isn’t the best moment to be swimming in the waters of American politics.

Newsprism

Pig Book Documents Swine Research

Citizens Against Government Waste has just released this year’s (fiscal year 2009) Pig Book, their annual compilation of pork barrel projects coming out of our esteemed Congress.

Last year (fiscal year 2008), we spent $17,200,000,000.00 on 11,600 special projects, or “earmarks,” proposed and funded by members of Congress.

The good news: this year we only had 10,160 such projects, a decrease of 1,440 earmarks.

The bad news: those projects cost $19,600,000,000.00, an increase of $2,400,000,000.00.

The Christian Science Monitor calculates those numbers to be a 12.5% decrease in the number of earmarks, and a 14% increase in their cost.

This is just the kind of “progress” Congress specializes in.

Among the pet projects imposed on taxpayers are these gems:

$1.8 million for swine odor and manure studies in Iowa. Ah, the sweet smell of what comes out the rear end of pigs!

$27.8 million for fitness centers at Air Force bases in Texas, South Carolina, and Mississippi. ‘Cause how else are all those flyboys supposed to stay in shape? (Hint: PUSHUPS)

$950,000 for energy efficient street lighting in Detroit. Great! Now the gangbangers can see whom they’re shooting at without damaging the environment!

$2 million for the Pat Roberts Intelligence Scholars Program. Sponsored by (who else?) Senator Pat Roberts!

Democrats came to power in 2006 and 2008 promising reforms. Fat chance.

Menwhile, Republicans have been grunting and grumbling over spending by Democrats; CAGW notes that about 40% of earmarked funds came from Republicans, who make up, oh, roughly, 40% of Congress.

Newsprism

 

National Debt Up Another Trillion—IN SIX MONTHS

Just six months ago, the national debt passed the $10,000,000,000,000.00 mark, having roughly doubled during the Bush administration.

Due in part to the tail end of the Bush spending splurge, and in part to the beginnings of the Obama spending splurge, our national debt has now passed the $11,000,000,000,000.00 mark.

When will our representatives in Washington stop putting their short-term interests first—getting re-elected, supporting pet projects, getting their names on bridges and buildings, greasing the palms of special interests for whom they hope to lobby—and take seriously the long-term interests of the nation?

This is shameful. One day our descendents may look back and wonder, “What the hell were they thinking?” (Or more to the point, “Were they THINKING???”)

During the next few decades, what was once an economic supremacy not seen since the British and Roman Empires will have been squandered over the course of just a generation or two.

While the economies of Brazil and China are poised to skyrocket, ours seems doomed to fizzle like a wet Fourth of July firecracker.

For some perspective, check out this clever way to visualize what eleven trillion dollars’ worth of $100 bills (not ones or tens!) would look like:

See that tiny spot in the lower left corner of the image? That's any US citizen staring up at what we'd be leaving future Americans IF WE STOPPED ADDING TO THE NATIONAL DEBT TODAY!

 Thanks to PageTutor.com for the image.

That massive debt lays at the feet of both Democrats and Republicans in both the Executive and Legislative branches of government. As Americans, we should be outraged, and the younger the citizen, the more outrage is called for.

Maybe this Fourth of July, instead of shooting our fireworks into the sky, we should put them somewhere more appropriate…

Newsprism