“A Wingnut For Everyone”: Nowadays, Every Fringe Group Has Its Republican Politician
Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli is pretty much detested by women in Virginia — Democrat Terry McAuliffe, who once left his crying wife and their infant child in a car so that he could make an appearance at a fundraiser, currently leads Cuccinelli among women by 12 points — but he’s got the support of some of the men who used to be married to some of those women, according to this Washington Post story. The “fathers’ rights” movement, a small but vocal group of men fighting for deference in the divorce, child support and custody process, is firmly behind Cuccinelli. Cuccinelli has represented the former leader of a local group in a custody case, and when he was a legislator he supported the fathers’ rights policy agenda.
Cuccinelli is not specifically, openly pro-fathers’ rights (and to be clear, the No. 1 “fathers’ rights” issue is wanting to pay less child support). His support for their agenda is honestly more about his opposition to legal divorce, something else he doesn’t talk about much anymore.
“If you are sued for divorce in Virginia, there’s virtually nothing you can do to stop it,” Cuccinelli said in 2008 to the Family Foundation, a socially conservative Richmond-based advocacy group. “This law has everything to do with the breakdown of the family. The state says marriage is so unimportant that if you just separate for a few months, you can basically nullify the marriage. What we’re trying to do is essentially repeal no-fault divorce when there are children involved.”
As a state senator in 2005, Cuccinelli offered a bill that would have made it so parents initiating a no-fault divorce could have that action counted against them “when deciding custody and visitation.” The measure never came to a vote, but Cuccinelli won praise from Stephen Baskerville, then-president of the American Coalition for Fathers and Children, for fighting against the no-fault divorce “epidemic.”
On the one hand, banning no-fault divorce is a strange priority for a modern supposed conservative, committed rhetorically to lessening the intrusion of the state into private affairs. The notion that people ought to be able to associate (or disassociate) willingly without the interference of the government is supposed to be the core belief of these guys, I thought. But on the other hand, banning divorce does make more sense, as a policy priority, than preventing gay marriage, for people whose justification for anti-gay beliefs is a desire to make sure that the “traditional” link between marriage and child-rearing is maintained.
But whether or not Cuccinelli is personally pro-”fathers’ rights,” he has their support and has voted the way they like. He does not have a lot of company — even psycho Florida Gov. Rick Scott has vetoed legislation supported by fathers’ rights groups — but they got Cuccinelli, and he might be the next governor of Virginia.
This is truly a golden age for conservative fringe groups. No matter how obscure — or widely reviled — your pet cause is, it’s now easier than ever to find a Republican politician, often a fairly prominent one, willing to support it, or at least allow you to believe that he supports it. Republican politicians now aren’t just responsive to the desires of the big interests, like oil and gas. Nowadays a pol on the make is willing to fight for almost any crazy cause.
If you’re a “fathers’ rights” guy you have Ken Cuccinelli. If you’re a neo-Confederate you have the Paul family. If you’re a hardcore goldbug, you have, well, the Pauls again, but also sometimes most of the rest of the party, it seems like. If you love dogfighting, you have Steve King. If you’re the government of Georgia you have John McCain, though it’ll cost you. (If you’re the government of Malaysia you have whatever conservative pundits you can afford.)
The hardcore Shariah-fearing Islamophobes have their stalwart allies. The Austrian economists are made to feel welcome by major GOP figures. A party that can make room in its tent for the pro-dogfighting lobby has room for any white person with a crazy grievance. And if it weren’t for the fact that most of what these people want is terrible, this would almost be admirable. Because on the other side, the Democrats barely ever listen to some of the biggest and most “mainstream” elements of their political coalition, like the labor movement and environmentalists. The Republicans indulge everyone, which surely makes being a crazy conservative feel much more satisfying. Unfortunately it also generally leads to horrible laws.
By: Alex Pareene, Salon, August 29, 2013
“GOP Hot Mess”: It’s Almost Enough To Make You Feel Bad For Them, Almost
It’s hard enough fighting a war against the president of the United States, with his bully pulpit and the resources of the executive branch at his disposal. But how can you prevail over him when all your time is spent battling your own comrades? This is the dilemma the Republican party confronts.
It’s happening everywhere. Mitch McConnell, who could plausibly claim to have done more to undermine Barack Obama than anyone else in the country, now faces a Tea Party primary challenge in his re-election race. Yesterday the powerful chairman of the House Appropriations Committee lit into his party’s leadership after the Speaker pulled a bill funding transportation and housing from the floor, probably because they didn’t have the votes to pass it. Two likely 2016 presidential candidates, Senator Rand Paul and Governor Chris Christie, are in a public battle of insults that has all the dignity and gravitas of a grade-school playground slap-fight. Heroes of the right like Ted Cruz pour contempt on their colleagues for knuckling under to liberals, while establishment figures like John McCain fire back with equal derision. And the issue of immigration reform continues to rip the party apart at the seams, with elite Republicans convinced the GOP needs to pass reform if it’s to win a presidential campaign any time soon, and the party’s base (and the members of Congress who represent it) dead-set against anything that looks too kind to undocumented immigrants.
It wasn’t too long ago that Democrats looked at the Republican party with envy, marveling at its ability to keep all its factions talking, thinking, and moving in lockstep. That unity of purpose and action may return one day, but for now, the GOP is a hot mess. It’s almost enough to make you feel bad for them. Almost.
By: Paul Waldman, Contributing Editor; Jamie Fuller, The American Prospect, August 1, 2013
“The Few, The Proud, The Frightened”: Only The Fringe Standing With Rand Paul On Aid To Egypt
Yesterday wasn’t the best day for Rand Paul’s efforts to transform himself from a less cranky version of his old man into a power broker and potential presidential candidate in the Republican Party. Aside from Chris Christie’s contemptuous rejection of Paul’s suggestion that they sit down over a tall cool one and resolve their war of words over foreign policy, Paul failed to make much headway in the Senate in his long-standing attempt to cut off military aid to Egypt, despite having an almost ideal set of circumstances. While Democrats united behind the administration’s position that an aid cutoff could de-stabilize Egypt, most of the floor action involved the pummeling of Paul by his Republican colleagues, prior to a 86-13 vote against his amendment to the THUD appropriations bill.
WaPo’s Dana Milbank captured the flavor of the debate:
More than a dozen senators sat or stood at their desks in the usually empty chamber, engaging Paul, who tried to rebut their points. So many wished to join the fray that Majority Leader Harry Reid (Nev.) extended the debate.
The result reinforced the proud tradition of internationalism in the body, and in the GOP. For all the talk of a Republican civil war over foreign policy, Wednesday’s vote showed that the internationalists still dominate. McCain portrayed Paul as the heir to the America Firsters. But there has been no growth in the isolationist sentiment since March, when an amendment to restrict aid to Egypt failed, 74-25, or since September 2012, when a Paul bill to cut off aid to Egypt, Pakistan and Libya went down, 81-10.
The coup de grace probably occurred when Lindsay Graham read aloud a letter from AIPAC opposing the aid cutoff.
McCain needled Paul. “The question here is whether the senator from Kentucky knows what’s better for Israel, or Israel.”
Paul shook his head, reclaimed the floor and challenged the “so-called leadership” of AIPAC.
When the clerk called the roll, McCain whipped his colleagues aggressively: arguing with Dean Heller (R-Nev.) after the new senator took Paul’s side, applauding when John Hoeven (R-N.D.) voted against Paul and working over Tim Scott (R-S.C.) until the senator cried uncle. “I’m with you,” Scott said.
For the Republican internationalists, this wasn’t about winning but dominating.
Well, maybe. 13 Republicans decided to Stand with Rand on aid to Egypt. That’s just one short of the number of Republican senators who stood with McCain and Graham on immigration reform, which was supposedly a triumph of party “pragmatism” against the craziness of the House GOP. You also see some significant names supporting Paul’s amendment: Mike Lee, the majordomo of the Senate’s “constitutional conservatives,” and his boon companion Ted Cruz, a potential rival of Paul’s in 2016. There’s Mike Enzi of Wyoming, who may be counting on help from Paul in rebuffing a primary challenge from Lynn Cheney that bids fair to become a national Neocon crusade. And then there was Mitch McConnell, who has clearly decided that snuggling up to Paul is his best insurance against his own primary challenge next year.
For dedicated Paulites, this was just another vote in a long struggle against foreign policy internationalists in both parties. For the GOP as a whole, it’s unclear whether the vote pitted the dominant faction against the fringe, or the party’s past against its future.
By: Ed Kilgore, Contributing Writer, Washington Monthly Political Animal, August 1, 2013
“A Corporate Honeypot”: Look Out, Here Comes The New Border-Industrial Complex
“Good fences make good neighbors,” goes the old adage. That civilizing thought refers to such friendly structures as the beautiful rock walls of New England, elegant split rails in the South, iconic whitewashed pickets of the Midwest and even privacy fences in neighborhoods all across our country.
But the neighborly adage definitely did not contemplate the 700-mile, 20-foot-high, drone-patrolled, electronically monitored fence of steel and razor wire that our government has erected across our nation’s border with Mexico, from the tip of Texas to California’s Pacific Coast.
This thing is not a fence, but a monstrous wall of hostility, a deliberate affront to our Mexican neighbors. As Senator John McCain aptly put it in a recent debate on immigration, our Land of the Free has constructed “the most militarized border since the fall of the Berlin Wall!”
There are four big flaws with the theory that you can “secure” a border (i.e., keep people from crossing it) by throwing up a big ol’ wall. First, it doesn’t work. A 20-foot wall quickly begets 22-foot ladders — people are innately inventive, and those determined to get in or out will find many ways to do it.
Second, walls create bigger problems than they resolve, for they are deeply divisive. Our Mexican wall is ugly, both literally and in the unmistakable message of contempt it screams nonstop at the Mexican people. It’s generating bitterness toward us — and that turns neighbors into enemies.
Third, that wall has physically ripped healthy relationships apart. For centuries, families, friends, businesses and cities themselves were thoroughly integrated into unified communities across the artificial line drawn on a map.
Fourth, such walls are insanely expensive — so far, Washington has hurled tens of billions of dollars at this one to build, maintain and police it. Enforcement alone costs $18 billion per year. In addition, states have dumped untallied billions into it.
Can these policymakers even spell w-a-s-t-e? Yet the U.S. Senate voted overwhelmingly in June to waste another $46 billion to build 700 more miles of the hateful wall and double the number of militarized border agents.
Is there no other need in our country for that money? Nothing constructive we might do with it?
But I shouldn’t be too harsh on Washington, for both Republicans and Democrats are beginning to respond aggressively to economic needs. “It has been a tough time,” says one Washington insider, noting with relief that a new spending proposal “could help out.”
Unfortunately, he and Congress aren’t referring to your tough times or helping out with your needs. No, no — they are rushing to the aid of the multibillion-dollar military-industrial complex. The government, you see, has not been getting our nation into enough wars to satisfy the insatiable appetite that Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and other war profiteers have for government money. But now they’ve spied a new place they can militarize with their high-tech, high-cost, razzle-dazzle weaponry: yes, that border we share with Mexico.
In recent months, these corporate predators deployed an army of lobbyists to Congress, armed with mass campaign contributions. Targeting the immigration issue, “border security!” is their battle cry. They’ve already conquered the Senate’s bipartisan immigration bill, stuffing it with $46 billion for goosed up militarization of the 2,000-mile border. They’ve literally turned the immigration bill into a corporate honeypot. More drones! More electronic gadgetry! More agents needing more weapons, night-vision goggles and other war toys!
Various corporate lobbyists put their specific wish lists directly in the Senate bill. Rather than calling generally for the purchase of certain categories of hardware, it mandates brand-name purchases. For example, the bill requires the border patrol to buy six airborne radar systems from Northrop at $9.3 million each and 15 Black Hawk helicopters from Sikorsky at $17 million apiece.
What we have here is the emergence of a full-fledged monster — a Border-Industrial Complex that literally will tax us with an ever-expanding policy of permanent border war.
How long before they use the cry of “terrorism!” to militarize the Canadian border, too? And what after that? My guess is they’ll want to seal off those pesky antiwar radicals in places like Vermont! Ultimately, they can fence all of us in. Or is it out?
By: Jim Hightower, The National Memo, July 31, 2013
“We Were Wrong”: What If Republicans Had Come To This Realization Sooner?
It took over 700 days, a recess appointment, and a nuclear-option showdown, but a prominent Republican senator yesterday took stock of his party’s efforts to reject Richard Cordray and nullify the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. He reached an interesting conclusion.
“Cordray was being filibustered because we don’t like the law” that created the consumer agency, said Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina. “That’s not a reason to deny someone their appointment. We were wrong.”
That’s not a phrase we often hear from politicians, especially congressional Republicans, and it’s a welcome concession. Indeed, since I made the same argument on Monday, I’m delighted by Graham’s candor.
Perhaps, if Senate Republicans had come to this realization just a little sooner, Elizabeth Warren would be at the CFPB right now and Scott Brown would still be making Wall Street happy as a senator.
Regardless, the question many Senate Democrats are asking right now is whether yesterday’s breakthrough — which overwhelmingly tilted in their favor — can help lay the foundation for broader progress, at least in the upper chamber. Greg Sargent reported this morning:
Democrats plan to seize on yesterday’s events to exacerbate what they hope is a developing schism between the GOP leadership/hard right alliance and a bloc of GOP Senators who (Dems are betting) are genuinely fed up with that alliance’s continued flouting of basic governing norms. They hope to renew the push for a return to budget negotiations, with an eye towards replacing the sequester.”
Greg added that Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), the chair of the Banking Committee and an influential member of the Democratic leadership, is set to deliver a pointed message on the floor this afternoon: “There is a group of Republicans — led by Senator McCain — who are very interested in ending the gridlock and working together to solve problems…. I am really hopeful that the bipartisanship we’ve seen this week will carry over into the budget debate, and that rather than listening to the Tea Party, Republican leaders will listen to the Republican members who prefer common-sense bipartisanship over chaos and brinkmanship.”
There are obviously a whole lot of hurdles between the painful status quo and competent governing, and even if there’s a Senate GOP contingent prepared to be responsible the odds in the House are far worse, but between low expectations and the events of recent years, “we were wrong” is a step in the right direction.
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, July 17, 2013
Share This Blog
Unknown Feed- An error has occurred; the feed is probably down. Try again later.
mykeystrokes.com 