As we near the deadline for falling off the fiscal cliff, the Republicans continue their obstructionist ways and continue to think that it’s their way or the Thelma and Louise highway. They are doing everything they can to keep the Do Nothingest Congress alive, right through the end of the lame duck session.

Throughout President Barack Obama’s first term, they consistently voted against bills that they previously supported or even introduced themselves, in the attempt to keep anything from getting done that Obama or the Democrats could use to show progress.

This week, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell took this to new heights by actually filibustering his own bill. If ever we needed proof that the Republicans are more interested in playing politics than addressing the problems that face the American people, this has to be it. The hypocrisy is staggering. If I were the president, I’d let them stew in their own juices. The last election showed that the smoke and mirrors act was no longer fooling a majority of the electorate, yet they keep doubling down on their same old failed policies and talking points.

The GOP has long been entrenched in its ways, but if it continues to refuse to change with the times, it risks becoming irrelevant. Its members argue that they control the House, thus giving them some sort of mandate. I would argue that their success in House races stems more from their gerrymandering of congressional districts after the 2010 elections.

The election that brought us the tea party was more a product of who failed to vote than who did vote. The GOP numbers were relatively the same as the 2008 election, whereas the votes for Democrats and independents were decidedly fewer. Unfortunately, the so-called tea party wave gave the GOP in the state-controlled legislatures the power to draw up state and federal districts. They drew them with a vengeance.

In Ohio, one need look no further than Rep. Marcy Kaptur’s 9th District. About three miles wide and 100 miles or so long, and in places connected only by a bridge, it is the poster child for gerrymandering. This creative drawing managed to pit two longtime Democratic legislators against each other while splitting the Democratic stronghold of Toledo into two districts, represented by two different representatives.

Thanks to this feat, my representative is now Bob Latta, one of the most useless Congressmen to ever draw breath. He can be counted on to vote no on virtually everything that isn’t ordered by the GOP bosses, the interests of his constituents be damned. His opponent, Angela Zimmann, carried the Lucas County portion of the 5th District and  her portion of Ottawa County, previously part of Kaptur’s district. Out of the 16 representatives in Congress from Ohio, 12 went to the GOP, even though more Democratic votes were cast for Congressional candidates than Republican votes. It hardly seems like a representative democracy.

Keep in mind that this was in spite of the voter suppression tactics that Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted pushed to the state Supreme Court, once again making Ohio electoral processes the subject of national derision.

To my mind, if you can’t win with your message, maybe you’ve got the wrong message. The election didn’t turn out as Republicans hoped. People turned out this time and stood in line for seven or more hours to cast their votes in some places. People seem to be catching on to what the stakes are when they fail to vote. The GOP may still control the House, but I have a feeling if it keeps trying to do “bidness as usual,” the 2014 midterm elections could get interesting.

Before the votes had all been counted, the pundits and journalists started handicapping the 2016 presidential election. The pundit money seems to be on Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination versus an unnamed Republican candidate. It’ll be interesting to see if they can do better than the Cavalcade of Clowns they put up the last time before settling on a candidate that even they didn’t really like. Newt Gingrich has said that the GOP doesn’t have anyone who could go head-to-head with Hillary Clinton, and truth be told, there seems to be a lot of Clinton nostalgia these days. Yep, things could be interesting for the next few years.

Email columnist Don Burnard at letters@toledofreepress.com.

Tags: Angela Zimmann, Bob Latta, Don Burnard, Fiscal Cliff, Hilary Clinton, Jon Husted, Marcy Kaptur, Mitch McConnell, The Hot Corner

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 13th, 2012 at 2:41 pm and is filed under Lucas County, Opinion, The Hot Corner.
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“You cannot negotiate with people who say what’s mine is mine and what’s yours is negotiable.”

— John F. Kennedy

The budget talks go on and on, with the Repubs seemingly willing to take down the American (and possibly the world) economy to score political points. Mitch McConnell has said their main focus is to make sure that Barack Obama is a one-term president, and evidently what’s best for 99 percent or so of the country is not even on their radar screen.

Every attempt to come to an agreement has ended with the so-called GOP leadership reneging, changing the rules at the last second, and taking their ball and walking off the field like little children. Their new “allies” in the Tea Party have painted them into a corner, and now what passes for reasonable compromise seems to be a non-starter. The demagogues who have continually ignored the warnings of virtually every respectable economist now find themselves unable to bargain in good faith for fear of angering what, according to all the polling, is a shrinking but still vocal minority of the American people. Unfortunately, a number of gutless Democrats are also too scared for their jobs to do the right thing. They’re playing chicken with our lives and future to make political points.

The Greedy Overreaching Party has cast its lot with the rich corporate interests across the board. The economic gurus from their hero Ronald Reagan’s administration have even come out and warned of impending disaster if they continue down this path, to no avail. The GOP has the bit in its teeth and is headed full-tilt for the edge of the cliff.

Evidently Repubs think their rich benefactors will take care of them after the economic holocaust, like they have in the past. They’ll get extravagant paying seats on corporate boards, partnerships in lucrative lobbying firms, or will start their own firms. This seems to be what our political system has degenerated into.

The problem is, this time they may have bitten off more than they can chew. A lot of their possible benefactors may not survive this one. It is too bad that politicians have gotten away from actually representing the public interest and seem to be more interested in keeping political power. Public service, for the most part, has become a quaint memory. To be fair, this is not exclusive to the GOP, only more prevalent. The GOP just seems to have bought into it more fully.

This situation is not relegated to only federal offices. Look at the new crop of recently elected GOP governors who are pushing for the old Karl Rove goal of a permanent majority. In Ohio, King John Kasich is doing everything he can to sell off everything that still makes a profit in the state.

After quashing the high speed rail deal, which would have brought tens of thousands of jobs, he’s put more Ohioans out of work or slashed their wages with his slash-and-burn policies. He wants to sell off prisons, the turnpike and turn over the liquor concessions in the state to his cronies. For some reason, a lot of people seem to think that electing millionaires will better their lot.

I’ve never understood how anyone could think that a managing director of the financial institution whose failure started the Great Recession would be the logical choice to get us out of it. He ran on the premise that all the lost jobs were Ted Strickland’s fault, and that he was just the guy to create all the new jobs we needed. So far, the jobs he’s destroyed well outweigh the jobs he’s created and most of the accomplishments he’s taken credit for were started under Strickland. The man has the arrogance to wonder why the Democrats won’t jump on his much-vaunted bus while it runs over public schools, cities, the elderly, voters’ rights and decent paying jobs. Hmm.

In Michigan, another millionaire was elected and got legislation passed to allow someone he appoints to remove duly elected local officials and take over towns, school systems and county governments. Call it what you will, but to me this smacks of fascism at its finest. In Wisconsin, Florida, Minnesota, New Jersey, Maine and many other states, the story is the same. It’s time we, the people who still believe in America, with liberty and justice for all, stand up and vote these predators out.

Email Don Burnard at letters@toledofreepress.com.

Tags: Don Burnard, GOP, John Kasich, Mitch McConnell, The Hot Corner

This entry was posted on Friday, July 15th, 2011 at 8:14 am and is filed under Opinion, The Hot Corner.
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