Republican nose jobs

[Wildewolfe]

Watching the stimulus bills progress... it's agonizingly slow progress, through the senate this last week and the One trick elephants obstructionist republicans seemingly concerted efforts to block the bill all makes it seem like they have a plan. It makes it seem like they have the organization, the lock step mentality, the will to stay even an ill conceived course. Conversely it makes lots of us wonder about ourselves, the Democratic Party. Do we have the will to overcome their sheer stupidity?

But once in a while comes a gem that shows that they don't truly have that organization or the will. They are simply lemmings. They will cut off their noses to spit their faces (and what large noses they have after all).

I know the news story has been posted here before in its bits and pieces, but look at the story of the Tennessee speaker of the house. Here was a case where the republicans had gotten the majority for the first time in decades (50 to 49). They were going to elect a truly despicable person as speaker, Rep. Jason Mumpower. His very first act as a representative was to introduce legislation that would outlaw gay couples from adopting. I remember reading in one of the articles that he was so sure of his impending win to speaker that he had brought his family bible in to be sworn in the day of the vote. The legislative agenda that was going to be upcoming for Tennessee included bans on gay adoption and fostering, new concealed weapons laws, new constitutional limits on abortion, new anti-immigrant legislation, and mandating the teaching of “intelligent design” in public schools. Democrats would have been further limited because the Tennessee House operates under a strict committee system and the Speaker appoints all committee chairs.

But wait… the sneaky dems came along. They approached a moderate republican who had voted against party lines on some issues to the point that his own party had threatened to boycott his family businesses. They nominate him and in a moment of high political drama he casts the final deciding vote for himself snatching the speakership from Mumpower. Checkmate.

The first thing he did was get a democrat into the number 2 position in the house and declare that the committee chairmanships would be shared by republicans and democrats alike. Real bipartisanship.

Now comes the kicker to this story. Remember the republicans had a 50 to 49 majority. That’s right *1* seat. The first thing the repubs did is remove him from their caucus. Yesterday they booted him from the Republican Party stripping them of majority party status. Nose meet knife. It was all knee jerk revenge type reactionary stuff from them that we’ve all come to know and love.

So what does that mean to us? Well first of all it means that Tennessee democrats have their shit together in a way our national leaders need to learn from. More importantly it illustrates that Republicans in general don’t. They are flailing about flinging crap desperately looking around for anything that sticks and falling back on tired old rhetoric that not many are buying.

Many here talk day in and day out about the Chess game that’s going on. I believe it to be true. I think we’re seeing the republican’s staunch stubbornness and unwillingness to do anything outside of their own agenda being slowly used against them, one move at a time. The key thing to remember is that in chess you can’t make multiple moves all at once. You move, then your opponent moves then you move again. The outcome may be completely certain for many moves before the final move takes place, but the moves have to take place nonetheless.

I think that’s a lot of what we’re seeing right now. The first major issue that has to be addressed is the economy and the stimulus bill. Without that President Obama and the Democratic Party will lack the base support for all the other changes that we’re chomping at the bit to see put in place. It’s hard to wait for it all, but it’s been 3 weeks now for President Obama and we’re nearing the endgame in this first match. The republicans are scratching their heads trying to figure out which way a knight moves and checkmate is two moves away.

They still don’t have a clue. Calling Doc Sam... Republicans in the waiting room for Rhinoplasty.