illustration of republican governance

Tuning in to the Benghazi “hearing” sporadically yesterday and listening to the updates on radio one thought that kept running through my mind is “man, am I glad i am not a Republican.” A derivation of that thought was “if I was Republican, I would hope no one knew.”

Led by Alfred E. Neuman look-a-like Trey (Howdy) Gowdy, the Committee To Do Every Damn Thing We Can To Stop Hillary Clinton From Being President put a shining light on what today’s Republican party has descended into. Using a congressional committee that is funded with tax dollars on a political witch hunt for the scalp of Hillary Clinton, republican committee members lied, misled and covered up information. They also showed their lack of knowledge, their disdain for protocol and ethics and manners in a display even the blind could see. No doubt their fans loved it.

Acting tough and ignorant seems to get the adrenaline flowing in their base. Yesterday must have had them ecstatic. So while they huffed and they puffed, Clinton remained unscathed and came across as a person with a truly cool head in a crisis. Oh and don’t forget that Republicans cut funding for embassy defense before Benghazi happened. See, that is how they govern.

This is a party that wants power but does not want to do the actual work of governing. Their Speaker walked away from his job the other day to work on his golf game and Scotch martinis. His job consisted mostly of baby sitting a group of adults who do not play well with others. No one else wanted the job. Looks like they may have snookered someone into taking it, but the guy stated that basically he has no plans to actually do the work – “I cannot and will not give up my family time” said Paul Ryan. Not at all hypocritical that he blocked family leave legislation.

Just to show how much Ryan doesn’t want to do his job, he will be presiding over a probable government shutdown right off the bat. Don’t worry – he will still get his paycheck when he isn’t working and spending time with his family.

Shutting down the government – that’s what Republicans do. If we want them to govern they will do it their way by taking hostages and making ridiculous demands. It is what they know how to do. They learn it from their training program known as “24.” And if a few poor folks starve in the process so be it. They should have never trusted that Republicans would keep a government up and running.

What of Iowa’s all start senate team of Grassley and Ernst? Well Chuck has become a one man roadblock practically bringing justice to a halt in this country by refusing to confirm any judges the Obama Administration nominates. Chuck seems to think like many other Republicans that not doing a damned thing is what we pay him $15,000 a month for. Also lucrative for getting bribes – I mean campaign contributions – in the millions. And Ernst? She is the token woman used to advance legislation that will harm women. Beyond that I am guessing she is working on how to say she wants to save Social Security and Medicare when she votes to take it away.

And then there are the presidential candidates. Republicans can’t stand their own politicians and understandably so, so they favor a couple of non-politicians for president. Donald Trump is more of a human cartoon of a candidate than an actual candidate. But today’s leader of the pack is Dr. Ben Carson. Dr. Ben appears to have risen to the top on the waves of stench from the other candidates. To prove his leadership, Dr. Ben immediately came out against Medicare saying he’d replace Medicare with a $2,000/ year savings account for seniors. Yep, Ben, that’ll buy a person a lot of medical care or maybe enough OTC drugs to go die quietly.

One more comment on the presidential candidates – Jeb! Bush. Jeb! Bush. He actually believes his brother kept America safe. And he is SERIOUS! REALLY SERIOUS! Maybe Jeb was sleeping on September 11, 2001 and Mom and Dad haven’t told him yet. Maybe he also missed the mess his brother created in the Middle East that has spawned a generation of people who hate America. Can you seriously vote for a man so delusional. But of course he isn’t the only delusional one. Donald Trump has a wall to sell us on our southern border whereas Scotty Walker had one to sell us on our northern border. Those are just a couple of examples of many they and other candidates have floated.

Finally let’s turn to home where we have a Republican governor who wants to just ignore that whole legislative stuff and just make decisions on his own like closing facilities and changing how the Medicaid program is run. And his appointees on the Regents just pull an old buddy or something out of their rear ends and tell him go run the University of Iowa for a few years.

Were the Republican governor decide to work even a little bit with the legislature he would find that the Speaker in Iowa is little better that the one in Washington. Linda Upmeyer will be taking her instructions from ALEC thus cutting her burden to little more than dancing when the string is pulled.

By the way, today’s Republican party is nowhere near anything conservative no matter how that word is defined. They are reactionary at best. The word that comes to my mind though is predatory. They prey on the poor, on women, on any group that is not white and male. They use government to make fortunes for their friends and little else.

Today’s Republicans should be truly ashamed.