Republican Party

As the flood waters recede in the Midwest, it becomes increasingly clear that this was yet ANOTHER preventable disaster that the Republicans let happen. McCain is one of many Republicans who fought tooth and nail to prevent flood control measures in the Midwest.

First, some general background. On June 8th, 2008, NPR ran a report on the decline of America's flood control dams (you can listen with Openplayer, I think). There has been a jump of 33% in the number of dams that are considered unsafe. Consider that as you ponder the impact of these floods.

Now, more specifically, the Des Moines Register carried a piece on how Republicans, despite warnings from 1993 on, refused in 2007 to fund a much-needed upgrade to the levees protecting Des Moines. Many other similar upgrades were part of the same bill. McCain fiercely opposed the bill and Bush eventually vetoed it when Democrats passed it. From the Des Moines Register:

Republican presidential candidate John McCain opposed legislation last year that included money for flood control in Des Moines, which shows he is wrong to push for reforms to the congressional earmark system, a Democratic lawmaker charged Thursday.

A while back I discussed the inevitable consequence of Republican no-bid contracts for companies, like Halliburton, owned by their cronies with no oversight: the electrocution of our troops due to corporate incompetance. This is another part of the crony capitalism and the "Drown America in a Bathtub" ideology of the right wing.

The background story is this: a Halliburton subsidary, KBR, was given a no-bid contract to manage some bases in Iraq. The Republican government let them do this with no real oversight. The incompetence of this company has led to the electrocution of some of our troops due to faulty wiring. This problem was known and yet the company did nothing and continued to be awarded no-bid contracts by the Republicans. And the electrocutions have continued with no action taken.

Finally a freshman Democratic Senator, Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, is calling for a formal investigation from the General Accounting Office.

I have been covering to some degree the terrible flooding in the Midwest and describing how the levees breaking, leading to the flooding of towns and cities in Wisconsin and Iowa, are a direct result of deliberate Republican neglect of America's infrastructure. Republicans prefer giving your tax money to Halliburton, Exxon and Blackwater than using that money to fix our roads, bridges and levees. This morning on NPR I heard as many as two dozen levees are in danger of breaking as flood waters flow downstream along the Mississippi. A huge chunk of the Midwest has been affected. These levees should have been maintained! This began as a natural disaster, but Republican neglect of the levees is responsible for the scale of the disaster...just like in New Orleans.

Democrats vote for funding to maintain our infrastructure. Republicans vote against that funding. That means, when Republicans are in control, our levees, roads and bridges decay, leading to disaster. But the dedication of Democrats and the neglect by Republicans goes deeper than that.

As the floodwaters rose in the Midwst, Barack Obama grabbed a shovel and helped:

Where was McCain? Where was Bush?

The National Jewish Democratic Council has assembled this fact sheet on John McCain's right wing extremism. It is enough to make any moderate shudder:

FORMER MAVERICK
MCCAIN’S EMBRACE OF EXTREMISM

“ … the Christian right has a major role to play in the Republican Party.”
- John McCain [New York Times, 4/3/06]

DESPITE HIS CLAIMS TO BE INDEPENDENT, MCCAIN TAKES EXTREME POSITIONS ON SOCIAL ISSUES; HE SAYS AMERICA IS A “CHRISTIAN NATION”

McCain stated that a candidate’s Christian faith is “an important characteristic”
for a president, that he would prefer a Christian president and that the "Constitution established the United States of America as a Christian nation." Furthermore, despite criticism, a statement from his official campaign spokeswoman defended the comments and said again, "America is a Christian nation, and it is hardly a controversial claim." The New York Sun, October 1, 2007.

McCain has voted two-thirds of the time against bills supported by Americans United for the Separation of Church and State. [Project Vote Smart]

Mere days after I discussed the breaking of a levee in Iowa being another example of deliberate Republican neglect of our national infrastructure (the same kind of neglect that led to the flooding of New Orleans after Katrina), Wisconsin gets hit by the same kind of neglect. An embankment holding back a man-made lake in Wisconsin has broken, flooding yet another Midwest town: (from Salon.com)

The swollen Kickapoo River engulfed nearly the entire town Monday morning, forcing about 150 people to evacuate. By evening, the village was a grid of canals with cars submerged up to their windows and parking lots looking like lakes, just as it was in August...

An engineer assessment team from the Wisconsin National Guard was headed to Lake Delton on Tuesday to determine what would be needed to begin repairs on an embankment along the man-made lake that gave way, releasing a powerful current.

The 267-acre lake emptied into the nearby Wisconsin River on Monday, washing out part of a highway, sweeping away three homes and tearing apart two others...

I have already discussed at some length the dismal and DELIBERATE Republican failures to maintain America's infrastructure. The Republican Party has a stated policy of "Drowning American in a Bathtub," essentially reducing government to nothing. This is how Republican guru Grover Norquist put it:

"Cutting the government in half in one generation is both an ambitious and reasonable goal," Norquist stated in May 2000. "If we work hard we will accomplish this and more by 2025. Then the conservative movement can set a new goal. I have a recommendation: To cut government in half again by 2050"

We saw the direct and tragic result of that Republican "Drown America" policy in Louisiana and Mississippi after Hurricane Katrina, in closed and collapsed bridges in Minnesota, and now...floods in Iowa this month (June 7th).

There are so many reasons why Hillary Clinton will never be Vice-President that the GOP has made us all a favor and put them all together on the first official 2008 Presidential Election attack ad against Barack Obama.

Thanks Hillary and Bill Clinton and idiotic Democrats, y'all super!

The Republican Party is proving increasingly anti-Catholic...or at least my knowledge of their anti-Catholic tendencies is increasing.

John McCain and Joe Lieberman embraced right wing pastor John Hagee. In fact, John McCain SOUGHT OUT Hagee's endorsement and McCain specifically said, "I admire and respect Dr. Hagee's leadership of the -- of his church." McCain went so far as to call Hagee his "spiritual guide." Only much later (long after Barack Obama had distanced himself from Reverent Wright) did McCain, under considerable pressure, abandon Hagee. According to a Catholic News Agency article:

It’s not hard to find evidence that Rev. Hagee does not think highly of Catholics or the Catholic Church. In a video discussing the biblical book of Revelation, John Hagee suggests the Pope is the anti-Christ, and that the Catholic Church is "The Beast" (17:30 and following) mentioned in the book.

McCain clung to Hagee for so long...despite the fact that Hagee attacked Jews, Muslims and Catholics. Hagee has been described as a bigot who "waged an unrelenting war against the Catholic Church." And McCain called him his "spiritual guide" and expressed admiration of this bigot.

Last night I attended the annual dinner of the Central Brooklyn Independent Democrats, a local club where my wife is a club officer. I want to share with you a highlight of that evening. Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer spoke to us and his speech was excellent and covered several points that we all should pay attention to.

Now Chuck Schumer is certainly not my favorite Democrat. Too hawkish, somewhat prone to using Bush talking points, and disappointing as my Senator. Joy and I even had a run in with his office when we were part of a MoveOn.org delegation to object to an early funding request from Bush for the Iraq Quagmire. We were basically told to shut up and vote for Chuck anyway.

Chuck Schumer too often has been among the Democrats who has most disappointed me because for someone who is supposed to be such a bulldog, he has too often shown too much of a lack of spine against Bush.

But last night he gave an excellent speech, and one that could be seen as critical of the very weakness that Chuck has sometimes himself displayed under the Bush Administration.

The key message of his speech can be summed up by the quote I used as the title for this piece and one that all Democrats around the nation should be taking up: "I am not afraid of John McCain."

Although I have done versions of this before, this was inspired by a Daily Kos Diary:

This is what happened Monday, Aug. 29, 2005...the day Katrina hit, John McCain's 69th birthday...the day America realized that Republicans don't give a shit about Americans.

Hurricane Katrina:

I remember the radar images from the weather channel the night before landfall. I remember distincly watching it and thinking, "My god...that's going to be bad." I also remember thinking that the government had better be ready to get people out and to deal with the situation.

I was right...it was going to be really, really bad. I mean THIS bad:

While Mississippi and Louisiana were getting slammed by Hurricane Katrina and Americans were dying, THIS is what Bush and McCain were doing:

From CurrentTV comes this amazing footage from WITHIN Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans: