Group Think Mega-Fail

Stupid, stupider, stupidest. The House GOP was clearly not content to lose the Presidential election as well as seats in both chambers. They are determined to miss the next huge gimme election, the 2014 mid-terms.

Last evening, the majority scuttled their Speaker's already absurd, extreme budget proposal. Yes, that would be the one that only raised taxes on those with taxable income over $1 million a year...and with huge additional write-offs so even these affluent effluents would not feel any pain. Instead the Tea Partiers held to absolutist anti-tax positions and spurned their own GOP's efforts.

By all polls, Americans get it where the TPs don't. They know giving huge piles of money to the richest crushes the economy, decidedly does not lead to more jobs, and harms nearly all of us.

The worst of the party extremists are now set up to lose elections and primaries in two years. Normally the mid-term is when the party without the Presidency pick up many Congressional seats. Regardless of how the fiscal cliff thingummy resolves, we are not likely to forget the callous arrogance and deep stupidity of Republicans.

That's Republicans, not Congress, not the President, not even the vagaries of economics. If the Tea Party Reps need a slogan, let's go with Smug and Stupid.

Graceless and Spiteful

We should not be surprised that cynical liars, like Mitch McConnell and John Boehner, reacted abominably to the election. Likewise, we can expect delusional and manipulative entertainers like Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter to feign all manner of cover stories.

Whether the inane, illogical and in some cases vicious response was a defense mechanism is irrelevant. We, and I hope our re-elected POTUS, have to keep in mind two points:

• Republicans lost this election at the top of the ticket and in Congress
• the winners must dictate the terms going forward

On a personal note, I was kind of hoping that FB chums, some of whom I've known for decades from high school and family, would have the civility to look for pro-America solutions that will require reason from GOP Congress members. Likewise, small statements, even muttered, of congratulations, maybe a little contrition, and acknowledgement that the majority of the voters want Obama's policies are in order.

Particularly on Facebook, the emotion and vitriol were startling before the voting. The nasties have been mute since.

I managed not to respond to even the worst of the lies in the new memes, those "photo" messages, mini-posters. They presented and restated disproven, desperate slanders on the President and other Democrats.

In fairness (the Dem and progressive weakness of showing kindness to the malicious), I admit that my side did engage in insulting Romney, Ryan, Rove and in particular the absurd GOP party platform. Honesty and reason were generally on our side in contrast.

Yet, as we heard in the post-election statements of Speaker of the House Boehner and Senate Minority Leader McConnell, they have no intention of working for the good of the nation. They would let Americans founder to prove their repudiated points and viewpoints. Both have made it plain that Obama needs to bring out the big brass ones to cow them into doing so.

He did that with equal pay for women, DADT and most notably healthcare reform. Doing so seems to be all that the current GOP leaders understand and respect. Compromise, to them, means doing only what they want.

One would think, if one thought, that they would recognize after the election that they would lose their Congressional power and likely the 2016 election if they do not help America to economic recovery. This time in attempted voter suppression and in the previous redistricting in Republican-led states after the 2010 elections to overcome demographics. That was an even bigger failure than the inability to put Romney in during a gimme year of terrible economic times.

Come 2014 when Obamacare kicks in and when the recovery continues over GOP unwillingness to help, Republicans are certain to lose control of the House. Likely too if filibuster reform does not beat them to it, Dems are almost certain to get a supermajority in the Senate.

So there we have the elephants honking away in the wild as though their side hadn't gotten skunked. Boehner and McConnell both blustered that Obama had to forget the policies that brought re-election and support theirs that voters rejected. Get real!

For their supporters, the pretense is that each party is equally as obstructionist and uncompromising. I'll join the chorus of Dems, nonpartisans, and ordinary smart people in calling BS on that. The POTUS' mistake in his first two years was to give in too much to clowns who had no intention of doing anything they were not forced to.

I'm looking forward to the too-often-timid Obama staring down the bad guys.