MORE THAN LUNCH WITH THE PRESIDENT

The president will meet with the leaders of congress at noon today for lunch. What has changed? Why all of a sudden did they accept an invitation to sit down with Obama? Numerous times on this blog site, I have referenced the idea that politicians from both sides of the aisle act by instinct. For me this meeting is another example of that idea. The rightwing instinct is engage an enemy only from a position of strength. We hear this “feeling” or “sense”—only deal from a position of strength—expressed repeatedly in Republican literature, especially in diplomatic relations but also in domestic situations. Senator McConnell, and his ducklings, refused to meet with the president; they actually stubbed his invitations and did it in an insulting way. As a result, they only met two or three times in six years. Now, all of a sudden they are going to meet. The difference between then and now aught to be obvious; the Republican have gained control of both houses of congress, they feel they are in a position to deal from a position of strength.

In contrast to the Republican philosophy, liberals, like my self, want to see government get something done regardless of who gets the credit; which was why Republicans won the elections so decisively. Of course, liberals care what they do in Washington. We want workers to receive wage increases; we want to see narrowing of income profit disparity; and we want to see corporation pay more taxes by closing tax loopholes and workers pay less. We want all children to be educated and not just our own children. We like to think all people should have equal opportunity including the right to vote, to use family planning, to distribute “common” wealth through salaries and taxes. We want engagement with the world but do not want war. This list is just as a start of thing liberals want “for the people”.

Of course, what we fear and what we have to put up with are the idiots among the elected Republicans. Invariable, these elected officials gained their positions by longevity and not by talent and ability, which is why I feel free to refer to the insulting way I do. We do not have to look far for obvious examples, including cantankerous science denier Inhofe (R-Ok) as head of the Committee that deals with environment. The list of naysayers includes the especially  mentally slow “hate every thing” pair of Ron Johnson (R-WI) and Darryl Issa (R-Ca) who are heads of government oversight committees in their respective houses of congress. We cannot forget sleepers such as the hyper-partisan Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) as head of the judicial committee who has politicalization of the courts, as their primary objective, as they have already done with the Supreme Court. By the way, Grassley, is not a idiot; he has a definable objective, which is irrevocable conservative power. What happened with the courts, like voter suppression, is not reversible, therefore is especially dangerous. These two things feed on themselves; every step makes the next step less likely for us to reverse.

We should add “insane” McCain (R-Az) to the list of dangerous people. I isolate him from the above list because what his lust for war does as head of the Senate Armed Forces Committee has the potential of overriding the sensible policies of our president in the Middle East and Ukraine; thus, killing our sons and daughter and wildly spending our taxes in perpetuity as happened in Vietnam.

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