The do-nothing GOP in Congress is not only a failure, but a threat to the Republic.
Happy Thursday TAT followers,
Many will see this post as “political” but it is nothing of the sort. When I broach subjects that people interpret as so-called, politics, I am really writing about our national security. It is truly that simple. Today’s essay is precisely about saving our republic. This essay was predicated on the current and latest GOP revolt on the floor of the US House of Representatives. The MAGA representatives and the rest of the GOP are at war again. When they fight internally, their record continues to show not a thing done for the American people. They have zero business governing.
Here’s one of the primary reasons for today’s title and it comes from a variety of credible news sources. Below is one of them from ABC. 118th Congress on track to become one of the least productive in US history.
In 2023, Congress passed only 34 pieces of legislation, which included things like keeping the government open, renaming VA clinics and a commemorative coin for the birthday of the Marine Corps. America requires congress to do their job in order to keep our republic running and yet, almost nothing has gotten done. Yep, you guessed it, the MAGA dominated House of Representatives shoulders most of the blame… and there is no close second.
Things are so dysfunctional that even some GOP elected officials, have been willing to publicly complain, albeit in a rather reserved manner. Not one has had the courage in the Trump era to loudly affirm the truth since late 2015. A few months ago, the entire House GOP, voted unanimously to impeach our POTUS without a shred of evidence. They voted to impeach the DHS Secretary, Mayorkas for the same, despite the Biden administration having a strongest Federal presence at the southern border, than at any other time in US history. In my youth, this would be classified as: “the inmates running the asylum.”
The unanimous impeachment vote in the House of Representatives, led by cowardly White Christian Nationalist and Trump sycophant, Mike Johnson, is an indictment of the Republican party en masse. Yep, like the rest of the party, my baby-faced, whiny voiced Congressman, Tony Gonzalez, better known for his dishonesty about our Southern border which includes over 800 miles within my district, violated his oath of service and office, by voting for both. He is symbolic of the cowardice of all elected Republicans of the Trump era. Every last one of them has failed to stand up for truth, if it bucks Trump’s mercurial and evil fantasy of an America, run like his buddy and mentor runs Russia. Not one word here, is hyperbole and can be overwhelmingly supported by credible facts.
Only two Republican Congressmen, stood against January 6th, an armed insurrection, while concurrently obstructing the January 6th investigation. None stood against the big lie, or the party lies about Covid. Now, they are killing our allies in Ukraine, via obstructionism.
Look, let me be clear, I have no party allegiance and am quite moderate, or as I prefer, pragmatically progressive, like my heroes, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Harry Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, FDR and JFK. If I cannot support what I say credibly, I don’t say it. Like my heroes listed above, I know that our nation was born as a radically progressive nation, based on the Scottish Enlightenment. The horizon our founders foresaw can be found in our constitution and other founding documents. They knew we were starting from an imperfect union, but put their vision on the horizon, as the target to shoot for in our nascent republic. Today’s Republican party, fully controlled by spineless republicans and MAGA dominants, is not only blind to that vision, but are running backwards at an alarming and breakneck speed.
Now, here we are with a GOP controlling the House and subservient to a former POTUS, not our constitution. They are willfully murdering our Ukrainian allies in favor of a genocidal Putin. They refuse to fund border measures that they negotiated for, because their dear leader, said so. They are equally subservient to big money donors like big oil, pharma, insurance, air travel etc. etc. etc. These corporate oligarchs are the ones responsible for what the GOP dishonestly calls “inflation.” Big oil is among the worst.
Big digital entities like Micrsoft, Google, Amazon, FB etc. control what we see and hear while the GOP has stripped our government of most oversight. Trump stripped us of Net Neutrality legislation. Now, the data collected by these media behemoths, is used to control us with fake news, mis and disinformation. So-called news outlets like FOX, NewsMax, Breitbart, MSNBC are mostly propaganda sites. This week, I wrote about how LinkedIn, a Microsoft subsidiary censored me… again for writing exactly what I am writing here today, the truth. Look at how FOX supported the January 6th armed insurrection and is in my lay opinion, criminally negligent in the murder of hundreds of thousands of Americans, with their witting lies about COVID, masks, vaccines etc.
Every single working American needs congress to enact legislation in order to protect us from the oligarchy that preys on us daily in our supermarkets, merchandise, fuel for our cars, and in fact, the vehicles themselves. This is just the short list of abuse that a Trump era Congress has embraced for more power and larger campaign donations. I’m not claiming the other side of the aisle is clean in this respect. Senator Mendez of NJ is a great example. Still as a whole, only today’s GOP is a threat to US democracy. In this respect they are also a threat to global democracy as that we have a global leadership role for liberty.
Even the Trump and Mitch McConnell SCOTUS, is an afront to our constitution. Their abortion ruling, and their overt support of big business over citizen rights cases, simply empower the two mainstays of GOP ideology: Christian Nationalism and putting oligarchs over the people. Now we even have a sitting member of the Supreme Court whose wife, Ginny Thomas was deeply active in what occurred on January 6th, and this is but one far-right, unconstitutional activity she backed.
Okay, I get it, this is quite an impassioned TAT article today. I own it because I was raised to be a true believer in the vision our founders saw on the horizon for us. Yes, Mom a Republican and Dad a democrat, were true believers as well. Both talked about facts, and voted across party lines when necessary for what they believed best for our nation. Both told the truth if asked, and never imposed their views on anyone. That is how our nation was intended to work. We all get a voice. We all are expected to be well and accurately informed, including in the science of government. Washington himself, was a leading proponent of this concept.
If America doesn’t begin to expect the same of each other, we are lost. Our elected officials in Congress are failing miserably at this, especially on the conspiracy theory-ridden, right side of the aisle. After the unanimous impeachment vote by the GOP in the House, not one of them is in my opinion, qualified to serve again. Impeachment is for high crimes and misdemeanors that are already supported by evidence. Impeachment means to bring charges, not go on a fishing expedition hoping to find something that equates to the high standard of high crimes and misdemeanors.
This essay began by talking about how little the 118th Congress has been. This is because of their cowardice and the American people’s failure to look at facts instead of blind subservience to their “party.” What I like to say is that; “if you believe that your side is always right, you’re wrong.” Our constitution is silent on parties, because the brilliant scholarship, mostly by Madison, Jefferson, Adams and Hamilton didn’t see the threat they posed. Washington on the other hand, despite lacking the formal education of his colleagues, had something even more important. He had a lifetime of self-study and real-world experience regarding human nature. He in particular despised the concept of what parties were then called, “factions.”
Based on the near absence of legislative action, the clear and present aversion of all facts and the absolute and willful absence of a moral spine, our republic cannot afford one more day of this version of the GOP. They are not honorable patriots. The word conservative does not equate to Republican in the Trump era. The parti’s actions are extremist, the precise opposite of conservative. This is a fact that all media must correct when they talk about extremism as being performed as conservative values.
My three favorite, President George Washington’s quotes, on “parties” or as he knew them, “factions.”
Washington, my ultimate American hero, left a scathing warning about factions, in his Farewell Address. From my perspective, one of the most important of our founding documents. He also warned passionately, despite being a publicly dispassionate person, about foreign influence. Apparently, the Trump GOP, succumbed to both, and still do. If you are voting party over country, you are just as guilty of failing our nation, as Trump, Jim Jordan, Matt Gaetz, MTG, Boebert, Greg Abbott, Mike Johnson, Ron DeSantis, etc. and in fact, every elected member of the GOP that has not had the moral spine to stand for our constitution. Those on the Left and other political belief systems, you are required to do the same.
Sadly, and as George Washington so precisely foretold, big money parties, the slaves to big oligarchs and brainwashed party members, now control the best experiment in government, the world has ever seen. If you truly want us to get on track and in accordance with our true national values and constitutional pursuits, search your soul as you approach the voting booth this year. Our very democracy hangs in the balance.
There is a very long list of problems to solve for our nation, our alliances and the very world itself. It’s not politics if extremists and conspiracy theorists are obstructing even the most basic responsibilities of their elected positions. Who knows, maybe in ten years it will be the other side of the aisle that I denounce so harshly but at the moment, it is the GOP that is selling out working people, our national and domestic security and in fact, the very vision our founders bequeathed us, when they gifted us a constitution. If that constitution fails, and as it nearly did on January 6th, we have only ourselves to blame. Based on the facts and the written records of the Trump era, not one sitting GOP representative nor senator, is deserving of another chance to fail us all. That is in fact and by default, a national security threat of the highest order. That is why I write about it, here on the TAT page.
My very best for your weekend,
Paul
Hi Paul,
To the observation that the "118th Congress is on track to become one of the least productive in US history" there are many who would ask "And that is such a bad thing?" Inactivity by the Congress is the best proof yet that less is more. It was, after all, Mark Twain who made the observation that "No man's life, liberty, or property are safe while the legislature is in session."
V/R
Doc B