Thursday, June 09, 2011

OPINION - Republicans, Lie and are Anti-Women



"Reich: GOP sabotage of Obama includes lying about big government, job creation, economy" by itobin53, AllVoices 6/7/2011

Former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich is coming right out and saying what many only dare to think. Reich believes that the Republican Party so determined to make President Obama look bad they will stop at nothing including, deliberately harming millions of struggling Americans for political gain.

"Republicans don't want to do anything about jobs and wages. They're so intent on unseating Obama they'd like the economy to remain in the dumps through Election Day. They also see the lousy economy as an opportunity to sell Americans their big lie that government spending is the culprit," said former Secretary of Labor, Robert Reich.

There is some rather obvious evidence to support claims that the Tea Party motivated GOP is not as pure of heart as they would like the American public to believe.

For months they have been threatening to force the United States government to default on her debts if their demands for job killing budget slashing are not met. Not exactly the actions of anyone genuinely concerned about the economy.

The Paul Ryan budget plan is also particularly merciless when it comes to cuts that would hurt the poor and middle class, while it also includes a 33% tax cut for millionaires and corporations; also not exactly a noble or fair plan.

Economists like Paul Krugman have warned that massive budget cuts will destroy hopes for job growth, and giving more tax cuts to the wealthy will only worsen the deficit.

What the GOP has been consistent on is their war against the success of President Obama. For the past three years, republicans have used the filibuster to block legislation more than any other congress in the past 100 years. They have blocked critical cabinet appointments, and are trying to use their congressional power to dismantle Medicare and turn it into a goldmine voucher program for under-regulated insurance companies.

From a strictly observational point of view, Reich appears to be right. There is a lot more evidence to suggest that the GOP has no interest in actually creating jobs. If they were, on the first day they hit the floor of the House as the majority party, they would have introduced legislation, or at least presented an idea designed to stimulate the economy. Instead, all America has gotten from the 112th Congress is distortion of the facts and frantic scrambling to repeal as many environmental laws and social safety net programs as they can before anyone figures out how much real damage they are actually doing to the lives of millions of people.

Are the republicans deliberately working against a successful economic recovery for political gain?

The best way to answer to that question is to compare what they are saying to what they are doing. If it doesn't match up, it's a good bet they're lying.


AND

"The GOP's War on Women" by Carrie Larson, Frederick News Post 6/7/2011

The litmus test for any Republican today is that anything our Democratic president does, even though it may make perfect logical sense, they have to be against or they are not a true Republican.

Have you ever wondered why the Republicans decided to spend the first five months of their terms declaring War on Women? Simply because President Obama quickly made clear his strong support for abortion rights, prevention and international family planning when he was elected.

Since the 2010 election when Republicans gained the majority of the House, the GOP started a war on women’s rights and they have not offered one job bill, not one single solitary job bill which I seem to remember was the very thing they ran on and why they did gain the majority of the House.

The wolves in sheep clothes Republicans decided that climbing into our uteri was far more important than trying to get people back to work or coming up with a plan to lower gas prices. Oh no, it’s our uteri that have destroyed the country because they have been free too long.

Since the Republicans are enacting laws based on what their bible tells them and their bible tells them that only god has the power to make life and death decisions, they want to take away our freedom to choose and leave it in god’s hands.
So they came up with one redundant and totally unnecessary bill because they are using their bible to dictate policy. The H.R.3 bill, bogusly named “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act” passed on May 4th was signed by all of the Republicans and 16 spineless Democrats.

What these god fearing Republicans seemed to have forgotten is that the Hyde Amendment and President Obama’s Executive Order states that not one penny of taxpayer dollars can be used to fund abortions; abortions are only covered in the case of rape or incest.

However, god-fearing Republicans don't ever want a woman’s abortion covered even if that woman was a victim of rape or incest, so they decided to redefine rape with this H.R 3 bill, which states on line 16 page 6 that a woman has to be forcibly raped to qualify for Medicaid to pay for her abortion.

The reason they wanted the word forcible in the language is that this would rule out federal assistance for abortions in many rape cases, including instances of statutory rape, many of which are non-forcible. For example: If a 13-year-old girl is impregnated by her 24-year-old uncle she would no longer qualify to have Medicaid pay for an abortion.

Given that the bill also would forbid the use of tax benefits to pay for abortions that 13-year-old's parents wouldn’t be allowed to use money from a tax-exempt health savings account (HSA) to pay for the procedure. They also wouldn’t be able to deduct the cost of the abortion or the cost of any insurance that paid for it as a medical expense.

This bill takes women back to the time when saying no to being raped was not enough. It has redefined the meaning of no, perhaps into meaning yes in some circumstances, when a woman has been drugged or given excessive amounts of alcohol, rapes of women with limited mental capacity, and many date rapes. If you can’t actually say no then you are saying yes?

The term "forcible rape" is not even defined in the federal criminal code, and the bill’s authors don’t offer their own definition. In some states, there is no legal definition of “forcible rape” making it unclear whether any abortions would be covered by the rape exemption in those jurisdictions.

The primary sponsor of the bill is Chris Smith (R-NJ). Who doesn’t seem to have even thought this through, nor did anyone that voted on this bill.

I have been calling Chris Smith's DC office this past week asking his staff if they could find out what Chris Smith would define as a forcible rape but they have yet to find out what Chris Smith would define as a forcible rape and they don’t know either. Not surprising because there is no such as a forcible rape. All rape is forced is it not?

Even though Republicans did pull the "forcible rape" language from the pending bill, they are trying a back door maneuver to ensure the legislation achieves the same effect.

The backdoor reintroduction of the statutory rape change relies on the use of a committee report, a document that congressional committees produce outlining what they intend a piece of legislation to do. If there's ever a court fight about the interpretation of a law — and when it comes to a subject as contentious as abortion rights, there almost always is — judges will look to the committee report as evidence of congressional intent, and use it to decide what the law actually means.

So not only have Republicans redefined the meaning of rape they have given it a meaning that has no definition. Why any women would vote Republican is beyond me.

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