Let's Just Say It: The Republicans Are The Problem

The Washington Post:

Rep. Allen West, a Florida Republican, was recently captured on video asserting that there are “78 to 81” Democrats in Congress who are members of the Communist Party. Of course, it’s not unusual for some renegade lawmaker from either side of the aisle to say something outrageous. What made West’s comment — right out of the McCarthyite playbook of the 1950s — so striking was the almost complete lack of condemnation from Republican congressional leaders or other major party figures, including the remaining presidential candidates.

Read the whole story at The Washington Post

Comments

[sicky]

02:38 PM on 09/04/2012

From Sandy Goodman "The single greatest threat to the United States is not joblessness, foreclosures, another recession or skyrocketing debt or health care costs. Nor is it terrorism, China or declining influence abroad. No, the single greatest threat to our country is today's Republican Party.
That's because the GOP is relentlessly pursuing a policy of the American public be damned, so that next year Republicans can regain the national political dominance they held from 2001 to 2006. Their sole, selfish aim is to complete the transformation of the U.S. to a government of, by and for the rich and the far-right. Veteran reporter Robert Parry, a retired correspondent for the Associated Press and Newsweek, accurately summed up that policy this way:
Modern Republicans have a simple approach to politics when they are not in the White House: Make America as ungovernable as possible by using any means available... Control as much as possible what the population gets to see and hear; create chaos for your opponent's government, economically and politically; blame it for the mess; and establish in the minds of the voters that their only way out is to submit, that the pain will stop once your side is back in power...
Republicans and the Right... are well positioned to roll the U.S. economy off the cliff
and blame the catastrophe on Obama. Indeed, that may be their best hope for winning Election 2012.... " These Republicans are the real UnAmericans

[jonesll]

08:31 AM on 05/03/2012

I read the article and this is what stayed with me (quote)........."Mike Lofgren, a veteran Republican congressional staffer, wrote an anguished diatribe last year about why he was ending his career on the Hill after nearly three decades. “The Republican Party is becoming less and less like a traditional political party in a representative democracy and becoming more like an apocalyptic cult, or one of the intensely ideological authoritarian parties of 20th century Europe,"

[Tavon]

08:55 PM on 04/28/2013

The good polititicans left in the Republican Party are ostracized. I once voted Republican....won't do it again for a long time....if ever.

[Rik Seyman]

05:17 PM on 05/01/2012

Flash! Read all about it! Major media corporation identifies that hither-to-mysterious, 5-ton, grey, big-eared, long-nosed creature that has been destroying the House and Senate Chambers as well as the West Wing of the White House, along with thousand of other government offices for the past decade or more is, in fact, the proverbial ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM. Who would have guessed? Investigative journalism at its finest! Good Old Washington Post!

[l78lancer]

03:20 AM on 05/01/2012

I wonder how much hate mail the authors received?

[K August]

04:11 AM on 05/01/2012

There were over 5,000 comments under the original article over at the WA Post.
Sorting by popular comments...... the comments in agreement had the most "faves".

BTW .....one of the authors is a life-long Conservative.

[l78lancer]

04:18 AM on 05/01/2012

So there are probably many more complaints (like email, snail-mail) that we'll never know about. Anytime Chuck Hagel condemns his party, there's a real problem.

[l78lancer]

01:53 AM on 05/01/2012

"No doubt, Democrats were not exactly warm and fuzzy toward George W. Bush during his presidency. But recall that they worked hand in glove with the Republican president on the No Child Left Behind Act, provided crucial votes in the Senate for his tax cuts, joined with Republicans for all the steps taken after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and supplied the key votes for the Bush administration’s financial bailout at the height of the economic crisis in 2008. The difference is striking."
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In other words even when they disagreed, the democrats still acted like adults during the Bush Administration.

[Tavon]

08:59 PM on 04/28/2013

That's the way I see it. Republicans, it seems, has forgotten what being a patriot means.

[l78lancer]

01:18 AM on 05/01/2012

"The GOP has become an insurgent outlier in American politics. It is ideologically extreme; scornful of compromise; unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition."
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The republican party will probably not die. However, The above is an epic description of why it will relegate itself to a progressively smaller corner of significance over time unless it experiences a transformational change.

[Lightoward]

04:24 PM on 04/30/2012

The WashPost article makes one thing very clear; that is that it would be a disaster to have a Romney administration.

What I mean by that is that since the Congressional Dems are more moderate and not prone to commitment to obstructionism, that means that the GOP would have greater ability to ram through every radical destructive program they could conceive. And even more, they would be able to transform the Supreme Court into an even more radical right institution than it is now.

They fear monger about our freedoms being taken away now. But with the chaos that will result under the scenario described, one can hardly imagine the loss of freedoms the 99% would likely experience.

[Tavon]

09:06 PM on 04/28/2013

What good is a Democracy if the representitives don't respect the majority. Republicans pretty much slap their own in the face and vote however it suits their pocket, in one way or another. Money buys power. We are supposed to have the power by, of and for the people.

[Lightoward]

02:24 PM on 04/30/2012

And what's the most outlandishly preposterous right wing meme is the constant attack on Obama as being the most divisive president or political figure EVER.

Could that possibly be considered the most blatant example of projection EVER?

[Tavon]

09:07 PM on 04/28/2013

I agree with you.

[philhellene]

11:40 AM on 04/30/2012

And I'll say this also.

At least fifteen to twenty percent in this country would just love to see a right-wing dictatorship, whose sole agenda was to push corporate interests.

[Bob A D]

08:33 AM on 04/30/2012

Prime example of PTSD.

[HonorCourageCommitment]

02:26 AM on 04/30/2012

Man, the liberal cesspool known as HuffPost is trying hard to support the Communist agenda of making LtCol West a target and discredit him. One paragraph journal articles. Come on, HuffPost. You can do better than that! Now these Communist supporters are attempting to gain the support of other Republicans against the true allegations LtCol West makes.

[K August]

03:18 AM on 04/30/2012

Did you miss this link under that one paragraph?
That's where the real story is and it has nothing to do with West.

Read the whole story at The Washington Post

[HonorCourageCommitment]

03:52 AM on 04/30/2012

Actually, I read the link. This is a poor attempt by Democrats on their attack on LtCol West to use their media bias to try and gain support from those moderate Republicans. Fortunately, there's no dispute for LtCol West's accusations, and many of these "moderate" Republicans are proud that a man finally stands up to the Politically Correct and tells it like it is. The real story is the media has been proven to be very biased as well as the scientist's findings that the Washington Post eludes to as fact. You see it's a few politicians who have influence over the biased media who decides which scientific "facts" to publish in the news media and which to exclude. You see, the reality is the majority of the Marine Corps was opposed to repeal of the DADT and of women serving in the Infantry. However, those negative comments never even made it to the politicians because of our politically correct generals afraid of losing their jobs. The negative feedback was ignored and not reported anywhere in the media. Nobody tells you these FACTS.

[l78lancer]

03:32 AM on 05/01/2012

Republicans have stated that the democrats have socialsitic intentions and policies, but they quietly wink and nod when West say's that they are communist. I asked a question before - which is it, socialist or communist? I never go an answer. Without out answering that West's claim - and your defense of him are specious. I also stated that Because West flippantly equates progressives too communists without providing any basis for that association indicates that he either doesn't know the difference or is too lazy to figure it out. Would you like to take another crack and defending that, too? If the Communist party in the US states that these individuals are not affiliated, where is the truth in West's statement?

[framefiller]

02:20 AM on 04/30/2012

Why is it that Mitt Romney and company supports Allen Wests comments about how many card carrying Communists that we have in our Federal House? The dichotomy between the Democrat's and Republicans were at one time minimal, and so were the problems. Now it is so large that whoever is elected President will just represent who voted for them, and the rest can go to hell! The problems are now buried in concrete and rebar with little chance of being corrected anytime soon. If the Republican Presidential candidates all support Allen West where is the room for movement and difference within that political party? The answer is that there isn't any room for change in the ideology of the Republican Tea party. The ultra conservatives may not have gotten they're Presidential candidate(not Romney), but they have locked-down the responses to the anti-American comments of a misguided missile from Florida. Any American should be ashamed that Allen West can make those kind of comments and have it accepted by a major political party.

[mostberg]

11:43 PM on 05/06/2012

Your Occupy movement has forced to Chicago to nearly lock down for safety sake and a branch of your movement - the Anarchists - in Ohio wanted to blow up a bridge guaranteed to kill people and the economy there. No one in the Tea Party is any different from the average next door neighbors who are responsible citizens. Occupy: radicals in; Tea Party: radicals out moderates in. I do not know about Communist Democrats, but you sure have your people who hate our country and especially our economic system.

[Sahuaro]

10:29 PM on 04/29/2012

The X are the problem?

Didnt' that type of thinking get us into big trouble last century?

[asiclilpup]

08:37 PM on 04/29/2012

When a tper is able to bounce Bachmann out of the spotlight on the woowoo stage and take over as the number one woowoo on said stage with the support of the party leadership--trouble will abound. The gop party leadership has been unable or simply don't want to control the newest cliff hangers of the right.

[K August]

08:35 PM on 04/29/2012

The UK cut their budget 20% (extreme austerity) and they just entered a double-dip recession for the first time in 40 years......according to the news.

That is what the Conservatives want for OUR country. Instead of investing in growth ( more Stimulus -3 million jobs saved/created and approving the American Jobs Act -1.9 Million more jobs , they want to continue with 30 years of failed trickle down policies.

[mostberg]

11:35 PM on 05/06/2012

That dumb slogan, red herring whatever you want to call it of "trickle down" economics had nearly everyone employed less 5% until Obama took office. What slogan to label Obama? How about "the fundamental change disaster"? Or maybe the "nightmare of his father"? How about the "changes even worse than Carter"? Gee, maybe I do like these slogans after all.