“A Ransom By Any Other Name”: The Larger Concern Is That Republican Tactics Are Too Dangerous And Destructive
Words have power and meaning, especially in politics, which is why the parties and their pollsters invest so much energy in choosing the most effective phrases possible. Fox News didn’t push “slimdown” as an ideologically pleasing alternative to “shutdown” for entertainment’s sake — it’s about winning an argument by defining the parameters of the debate.
Professional news organizations are often careful on this front because they don’t want to advance one set of talking points over another, and this in turn sometimes leads to interesting media pushback.
Last week, for example, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney used a variety of metaphors during a press briefing to describe congressional Republicans extortion strategies, but as Scott Wilson noted, one in particular was not well received.
[I]t was “ransom” — a word Obama has used repeatedly to describe Republican negotiating tactics — that struck the last press corps nerve. The usual briefing room decorum, such as it is, broke down entirely when Carney said finally that Obama would sign a debt-ceiling extension but not if it meant “paying a ransom” to Republicans.
“The president will not pay ransom for … ” Carney began.
“You see it as a ransom, but it’s a metaphor that doesn’t serve our purposes … ” NPR correspondent Ari Shapiro shouted back with broad support from other confused reporters.
There’s an official transcript online if you want to see the complete context, but it appears that “ransom” was a bridge too far for some of the journalists covering the White House.
I’m not unsympathetic to reporters’ concerns — “ransom” is not exactly a neutral term. Republicans have acknowledged publicly that they’ve held the debt ceiling “hostage,” but they have not gone so far as to accept “ransom” as a broadly agreed upon term.
But under the circumstances, I’m also not sure which word would satisfy the political establishment as less shrill.
Congressional Republicans threatened a government shutdown unless their demands were met, then they threatened a debt-ceiling crisis, too. GOP officials not only embraced the word “hostage” and threatened to do deliberate harm to the country unless they were satisfied by Democratic offers, but they also said they expected Democrats to make concessions in exchange for nothing — except the release of their metaphorical hostages.
If “ransom” is excessive, what’s the alternative that’s both temperate and accurate? Payoff? Is that better or worse?
It’s challenging to apply terms to circumstances like these, in large part because the conditions are so unusual. We’re just not accustomed to seeing major political parties threaten the nation with deliberate harm in order to get their way, and these radical tactics force us to use descriptions that would probably be overly harsh during more traditional political times.
Sometimes, though, a word may be provocative, and may even carry a politically charged meaning, but it may also be right. In the case of the latest Republican hostage crisis, I’d argue the larger concern isn’t whether “ransom” is too mean but whether the tactics are too dangerous.
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, October 14, 2013
“Tyranny Over The Most Vulnerable”: Women Are Bearing The Brunt Of The GOP Shutdown Fallout
The “non-essential” programs that are currently unfunded due to the shutdown are in fact essential for many women and children.
The GOP likes to say the war on women is a myth. But the government shutdown, now in its 11th day, is just the latest evidence that it is indeed alive and well. It should be no surprise that women are among those hurt most by the closure, which, predictably, is in part a reaction to the benefits that the Affordable Care Act, President Obama’s signature achievement, guarantees women, as we wrote last week.
From the nation’s elite institutions to the oft-neglected rural areas of this country, women and their families are caught in the middle of a political impasse that has furloughed an estimated 800,000 government workers, threatens to upend the global economy, and has left critical government programs and services scrambling to secure emergency funds in order to serve America’s most vulnerable populations.
The shutdown threatens a number of programs and funding streams, including domestic violence shelters and service centers; Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF); the Woman, Infants, and Children Program (WIC); School Lunch; Head Start; and Title IX investigations of sexual assault on college campuses. This will have a serious impact on the health, physical safety, food security, and economic stability of women and their families.
Physical Safety
As Bryce Covert wrote last week, funds for domestic violence programs designated under the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) have been suspended since October 4. (It should be no surprise that many of the House members leading the shutdown also voted against VAWA itself earlier this year.)
Small centers without access to independent funding – those that serve women with the fewest options – will only be able to weather the storm for so long. In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis and the ensuing economic downturn, violence against women has been on the rise, with eight out of 10 shelters reporting increases in the number of women seeking help, and 74 percent of domestic violence victims staying in unsafe situations because of economic insecurity. Demand for these services is increasing, while funding is being cut from every source. Nearly four out of five of domestic violence service providers have reported decreases in government funding over the past five years, and since October 1, many have closed their doors completely or limited their services.
The shutdown is also affecting the safety of women on college and university campuses across the country. An increasing number of institutions are under investigation for ineffective handling of sexual assault cases adjudicated under Title IX.
And with the shutdown, the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights has suspended investigations into alleged violations and has halted campus visits necessary for holding institutions accountable.
Food Security
The shutdown threatens the food assistance on which millions of America’s most vulnerable women and children rely. At this point, federal funding for TANF, WIC, and school lunches has been suspended. State and USDA reserve funds are being reallocated so that states can continue to provide these essential services, but they will only be able to function with these limited resources for a short time.
States are shouldering the burden to keep TANF running while the government is shuttered, but last week, 5,200 eligible families in Arizona did not receive their monthly check. Thus far Arizona has been the only state to deny this important benefit for families in need, but every day the program is more strained.
WIC, the federal program that most crucially provides formula and breastfeeding assistance for mothers in need, has also been left in the lurch. On Tuesday, officials announced that no additional WIC vouchers would be issued in the state of North Carolina, where approximately 264,000 women rely on the program. In Utah, the WIC program shut its doors and only reopened four days later because the USDA provided a $2.5 million emergency grant. Other centers are sure to face the same challenges so long as workers are furloughed and grants are on hold.
Economic Security
Head Start programs that provide childcare and education for 7,200 low-income children ages 0-5 did not receive grants due on October 1. Thousands of low-income women are able to go to work every day because their children participate in Head Start programs. Without them, women already struggling in low-wage jobs and lacking benefits are forced to miss work, because no one else is able to care for their children. For women, secure employment is contingent on secure childcare and education for their families. The New York Times reported that programs in six states had closed due to the shutdown and then reopened temporarily thanks to a $10 million gift from a couple in Texas. Head Start will continue as a result of this short-term rescue, but private philanthropy will not be able to do the job of the government over the long term.
In sum, what some define as non-essential government services are, in fact, essential to the economic and physical well-being of America’s most vulnerable women and their families. It’s just another variation on the old adage that one man’s public interest may be another’s tyranny – in this instance, largely tyranny over women and children.
By: Andrea Flynn and Nataya Friedan, The National Memo, October 13, 2013
“From Obsession To Insanity”: The GOP Is Unhinged By Obamacare
Whacking yourself on the head with a ball-peen hammer would be stupid. But doing it again and again — that’s insane.
Welcome to your U.S. House of Representatives, presently led by a pack of Tea Party Republicans. They are so crazed by Obamacare that they repeatedly hammer themselves over the head with it, having voted 46 times (so far) to dismantle, defund, delay, deny, and otherwise destroy this landmark health care bill — all to no avail. They would be hilarious, were they not so pathetic.
But now, their anti-government, anti-Obama obsession has turned into insanity. Acting as though the USA is nothing more substantial than a banana republic, this Tea Party clique of petty potentates has forced a shutdown of our national government. The craziest part of their stunt is the duplicitous claim that finally providing health care for millions of uninsured Americans will have, as one leader of the mad-dog pack put it, “horrific effects.”
Yet, even as they publicly insist that they’re heroes for trying to save the people from the horror of receiving fairly decent health coverage, the GOP hierarchy is quietly warning its members that defeating Obamacare now is essential to their own health. Why? Because they know the program will work, providing better care and nearly universal coverage at a cheaper price. It will become widely popular, and any politico who tries to kill it later will become wildly unpopular. Even the senator from Oz, Ted Cruz, understood that the program had to be aborted before it was born. It will be so loved, Cruz candidly conceded (as he desperately tried to suffocate Obamacare with a painfully-long “filibuster”), that the public will be “hooked” on it for the long haul.
Yes, Sen. Oz, the American people tend to support policies that are beneficial to them. What’s crazy is you and your cohorts thinking they’re crazy for thinking that.
So now, Dr. Hightower offers this advice: Don’t fume about the GOP’s lunatic effort to kill health care reform — just laugh at their farcical show. It won’t affect them, but it can improve your mental health.
For starters, take Ted Cruz’s 21-hour blabathon that he said would stop Obamacare in its tracks. Not only did he fail spectacularly, but senators voted 100 to zero against his crazy ploy. Yes, that means that even he ended up voting against it! What a hoot he is.
A shameful hypocrite, too. While going to extremes to keep millions of Americans from getting vitally needed health coverage, Cruz goes to great lengths to keep the people from being reminded of his own health care, past and present.
Having been born in Calgary, Canada, little Ted’s parents were able to take advantage of the country’s universal health care, or as the Tea Party darlings like to call it, “socialized” medicine. That’s right, for the first four years of Ted’s life in Calgary, he was covered under government subsidized healthcare. I find it absolutely hysterical that little Ted would grow up to throw a 21-hour-long temper tantrum over affordable health care for hardworking American people. Recently, Cruz had been repeatedly refusing to answer whether taxpayers covered his health care. Finally, he piously responded that he was eligible for taxpayer coverage, but had nobly declined.
Such slapstick! It turns out that Ted was fibbing, for he’s covered by his wife’s policy. As a millionaire top executive at Goldman Sachs, she and her family are given gold-plated Cadillac coverage by the Wall Street giant. Goldman pays some $40,000 a year for her and Ted’s policy (more than most families make in a year) — a benefit-cost that the firm passes on to us taxpayers by deducting it from its corporate tax bill. Hilarious, huh?
Then there’s the comic twist that’s included in Congress’ current government shutdown. While more than a million regular government workers are going without a paycheck, the congresscritters who forced the furlough continue to collect their $174,000 in annual pay. Some lawmakers are donating their checks to charity, but four out of five are happily pocketing theirs. “Dang straight,” barked Rep. Lee Terry. “I’ve got a nice house and a kid in college,” the Nebraska Republican said. “Giving our paycheck away when you still worked and earned it? That’s just not going to fly,” Terry told his constituents.
And that’s your Congress at work. Laugh ’til it hurts.
By: Jim Hightower, Featured Post, The National Memo, October 10, 2013
“There Are No Asterisks”: Those Who Wrap Themselves In The Constitution, Must Also Abide By The Constitution
Shortly after the 2010 midterms, as the newly elected House Republican majority was poised to start governing (I use the word loosely), the GOP officials had an idea for a symbolic gesture: they’d read the entire Constitution out loud. In January of this year, as the new Congress got underway, they did it again.
There wasn’t any harm in this, of course, but there wasn’t any point, either. It seemed to be the Republicans’ way of reminding the political world that they are the ones who truly love the Constitution. Sure, there are parts conservatives don’t like (the establishment clause, promoting the general welfare), and the right is eager to amend the document in a wide variety of ways, but for Tea Partiers and their allies, the Constitution has no greater champions than far-right congressional Republicans.
And if that’s still the case, Kristin Roberts has some bad news for them.
Have Republicans forgotten that they too must abide by the Constitution?
The document is explicit in its instruction to America’s federally elected officials — make good on the country’s debts. “The validity of the public debt of the United States,” the 14th Amendment states, “shall not be questioned.”
This is not some arcane biblical reference that needs to be translated from scraps of parchment. In fact, its purpose and intent are fairly well documented.
There’s been quite a bit of talk about exotic tactics President Obama may have to consider if congressional Republicans choose to push the United States into default on purpose. Maybe the White House can pursue a “14th Amendment option.” Maybe he can mint a “platinum $1 trillion coin.” Maybe the Treasury can create “Super Premium Bonds.” Maybe the president can do something to protect Americans from those who would do us deliberate harm, even if those people happen to be elected members of Congress. After all, if the validity of the public debt of the United States shall not be questioned, doesn’t Obama have a constitutional obligation to protect us from Republicans’ sociopathic tendencies?
Maybe it’s time to turn the question around on those who like to wrap themselves in the Constitution they claim to revere.
As this relates to Obama, there’s some disagreement among credible experts about whether the president can act unilaterally to circumvent the debt-ceiling law. Obama himself addressed the point yesterday, arguing that it really is up to Congress to complete this simple task and it wouldn’t do any good for him to experiment with creative alternatives.
But that only helps reinforce the importance of the question for congressional Republicans who swear to support the Constitution before they’re permitted to hold office. The document says, “The validity of the public debt of the United States shall not be questioned.” It doesn’t say anything about justifying extortion schemes, or holding the public debt hostage, or protecting the integrity of U.S. finances in exchange for right-wing goodies to satisfy U.S. House candidates who won fewer votes than their rivals.
Likewise, Article IV, Section 1 of the Constitution — known as the Full Faith and Credit Clause — doesn’t include any asterisks about what happens when one party really hates health care reform.
When the 14th Amendment was ratified, U.S. Sen. Benjamin Wade, an Ohio Republican, argued, “Every man who has property in the public funds will feel safer when he sees that the national debt is withdrawn from the power of a Congress to repudiate it and placed under the guardianship of the Constitution than he would feel if it were left at loose ends and subject to the varying majorities which may arise in Congress.”
Today’s congressional Republicans are prepared — some are eager — to betray this commitment, ignore their constitutional responsibilities, and put Americans’ wellbeing at risk for no particular reason.
Those who claim to cherish the Constitution have some explaining to do.
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, October 9, 2013
“Boehner’s Empty Suit”: An Emperor On An Island With No Exit Bridge
A day in the life of the emptiest suit in Washington:
7 a.m. You wake up, light a Camel. Read a pink Post-it left on the refrigerator by your wife: “John, don’t ever forget, YOU REALLY ARE THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE!!! Also, we’re out of bagels.”
7:30 a.m. You lie in your tanning bed meditating about the government shutdown, wondering if it was such a brilliant idea to let it happen. You put on some Pink Floyd, “Dark Side of the Moon,” but that doesn’t help.
8:00 a.m. On the ride to Capitol Hill, your driver remarks that there’s not much traffic in the city, no tourists lined up to see money being inked at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. You smoke another Camel.
8:11 a.m. From the car you call the police to report that some jerk on D Street is selling “Boehner is a Bum” T-shirts — no, wait, he’s giving them away! Worse, he’s wearing a national park ranger’s uniform.
9:07 a.m. Staff meeting. The assistant in charge of reading all your hate mail insists she’s not crying, it’s just allergies.
On a more upbeat note, three Tea Party activists in Arizona tweeted that the shutdown is a smashing success, and that if you cave in to moderate Republicans who want to end it, then you are lower than lily-livered liberal scum.
9:30 a.m. You deliver your regular morning blame-Obama-for-everything soundbite, which goes pretty well, all things considered. Your wife calls to say you looked totally reasonable on TV, not the least bit satanic, and asks if you’d please swing by the grocery store on the way home.
10:46 a.m. Fox News wants to interview you about the 800,000-plus federal workers being laid off. How are they supposed to pay their mortgages, keep up their car payments, yada, yada, yada….
And this is Fox? They’re supposed to be on your side.
You tell your assistant in charge of turning down hard-hitting media interviews to say you’re too busy trying to end this dire national crisis caused entirely by the Democrats and the president.
11:07 a.m. Three discreet drags on a Camel before sneaking into another tanning bed that you’ve installed in a dark alcove near the Speaker’s office. You put on some Zeppelin, “In Through the Out Door,” but can’t stop thinking about the havoc you’ve created by not letting the shutdown come to a vote on the House floor.
At the Department of Defense, 400,000 civilian workers furloughed with no pay. Same story at NASA, the Department of Justice, Treasury, Commerce, Labor, Energy, even Veterans Affairs.
And this was totally your call, as some unhappy colleagues have pointed out. One word from you and a clean spending bill would have passed, no problem, if only you weren’t such a wimp.
“I hate that word!” you start to holler, fogging up the Plexiglas.
12:30 pm. Lunch with a carefully chosen group of supporters. They try to brighten your mood with news that the signup website for the Affordable Care Act — sorry, Obamacare — is plagued with glitches.
What better proof that the president’s healthcare law is a total disaster, right?
“So cheer up, Mr. Speaker!” they say.
“Cheer up?” you snap back. “Didn’t you see the headline in the New York Daily News? ‘House of Turds.’ With my picture!”
“You’re definitely not a turd, Mr. Speaker.”
“Gee, thanks. Get the check.”
2:15 pm. You cancel the daily session with your charisma coach and go to the driving range to hit a bucket of balls. Out of nowhere comes a thundering downpour!
Turns out you didn’t receive the storm alert on your cell phone due to layoffs at the weather service caused by the you-know-what, that you yourself allowed to happen.
You stub out your Camel, go back to the office and sulk.
4:00 p.m. Your regular afternoon blame-Obama-for-everything soundbite is postponed because the assistant in charge of making sure you’re never photographed with Ted Cruz has spotted the lunatic Texan roaming the halls.
5:45 p.m. Quick trip to the tanning bed, then moisturize.
You’re preparing for a live interview with Diane Sawyer. The producer says Diane’s going to remind you that you’re the one person who could stop the government shutdown tomorrow, if you wanted to.
Suddenly you remember a dentist appointment.
6:30 pm. On the ride home you phone the NSA and ask if someone could please hack the Google site and remove all the mean stuff being written about you. Unfortunately, the hacker in charge of that department has just been furloughed.
So you light up another Camel, and call Harry Reid.
By: Carl Hiaasen, The National Memo, October 8, 2013
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