Republicans threaten economic armageddon. Again. Because they're Republicans.

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Republicans are at it again, threatening to refuse to agree to a debt ceiling increase, and therefore threatening economic catastrophe for the country (and globally), if they don't get what they want. They're not sure what they want, or rather what the ransom will be, they just know they're going to take hostages again. Here's how Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (in part sucking up to teabagging wingnuts for political self-interest) put it today on Fox News:

CHRIS WALLACE: So are you saying right here, "We are going to attach something to the debt ceiling"? And if so, what?

MCCONNELL: What I'm saying is we ought to attach something significant for the country to [President Obama's] request to increase the debt ceiling. That's been the pattern for 50 years, going back to the Eisenhower administration. I think it's the responsible thing to do for the country.

[...]

We're never going to default — the Speaker and I have made that clear. We've never done that. But, it's irresponsible not to use the discussion — the request of the President to raise the debt ceiling — to try to accomplish something for the country.

Talk about a ridiculous threat. We're not going to default, but we'll threaten to allow the country to go into default if we don't get what we want? Yeah, sure. There's no way the Republican Party's business backers will ever go along with default, so there's no way McConnell and John Boehner and the rest of the business-oriented leadership will let that happen. Which basically makes this an empty threat, and President Obama and the Democrats should treat it as such.

Otherwise, how is it "responsible" to threaten default? Actually, it's the exact opposite. Furthermore, holding the country hostage and trying to extract concessions from the party holding the White House hasn't been the "pattern" since Eisenhower, it's part of the new anti-Obama Republican obstructionism of which McConnell himself has been one of the most vocal champions.

Basically, the Republicans don't want to give Obama (or, presumably, any Democratic president, but it's worse with Obama given the rabid intensity of the anti-Obama right) anything that could be seen as a victory, and so they've basically turned themselves into the disloyal opposition that is apparently willing to do any amount of harm to the country to score political points.

Republicans may wrap themselves in patriotic rhetoric and symbolism, but their actions show their commitment to party and (extremist right-wing) ideology far more than country. This is just more of the same, as pathetic, and yet as dangerous, as ever.

Not so long road to GOP authoritarianism

By Frank Moraes 

Last week, Robert Reich wrote an article trying to explain, Why Republicans are Disciplined and Democrats Aren't. Basically he argued that this is because of the kind of people who are attracted to the two parties. Republicans tend to lean toward authoritarianism, and thus it isn't surprising that their politicians would be good at delivering the same brainless talking points over and over and over again. I don't think there is much question of this. When I was a libertarian, I hated the Republican Party and still had a certain fondness for the Democrats for exactly this reason. (Sadly for the movement, most people are exactly the opposite, which ought to tell you all you need to know about libertarianism as a practical matter.)

What confuses me is that according to Reich, it ever was so. He quotes Will Rogers saying, "I'm not a member of any organized political party. I'm a Democrat." He likely said that before the first World War. But I'm not sure it means what Reich claims. After all, people normally make that kind of joke about whatever organization they are associated with. But I do think the joke works because Democrats have long recognized themselves in it and Republicans have felt superior for that reason. But is that image correct?

In many ways, the Republican Party has always been conservative. When the party started in the 1850s, it had a very compelling slogan, "free labor, free land, free men." The "free land" part of that referred to the fact that plantation owners tended to own all the good farm land in an area. As a result of this, free (white) farmers were kept down because the system was proto-feudal. But it's clear that the slogan is laser focused on slavery. The first and third phrases are about slavery and the second is about slave holders. The truth is that from the beginning, the Republican Party was very much pro-business, although it is certainly true that business then was quite different from now.

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Obama first since 1956 to win 51% twice

By Richard K. Barry

It's good to win and it's even better to win convincingly. As Bloomberg reported yesterday:

Eight weeks after the Nov. 6 presidential election, a revised vote count in New York shows that Barack Obama is the first president in more than five decades to win at least 51 percent of the vote twice.

State election officials submitted a final tally Dec. 31 that added about 400,000 votes, most of them from provisional ballots in the Democratic-stronghold of New York City that were counted late in part because of complications caused by superstorm Sandy.

And to put that in historical perspective:

Obama is the first president to achieve that level of support in two elections since Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1956 and the first Democrat to do so since Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1944.

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Never on Sunday

By Mustang Bobby

Today's edition of right-wing stupidity comes from Ron Christie, the sock-puppet commentator who shows up on MSNBC the way the Washington Generals show up at a Harlem Globetrotters game. 

He's all twitterpated because President Obama will be sworn in at a private ceremony on January 20, 2013 at the White House and the public won't be invited:

That's because January 20, 2013 is a Sunday, so the big public ceremony will be held the following day. It's happened before: both Dwight Eisenhower's and Ronald Reagan's second inaugural happened to fall on Sundays and this is how it was done.

But since it's President Obama, Ron Christie gets to prove that once again there is nothing this man won't do to shame America.

Sheesh.

(h/t: Blue Texan)

This day in history - August 21, 1959: Hawaii becomes the 50th state

By Richard K. Barry

(Ed. note: Interestingly, I just finished reading Sarah Vowell's wonderful book Unfamiliar Fishes, a fascinating history of Hawaii mostly from the arrival of the first missionaries in 1820 (with a great deal leading up to their historic voyage) to its pro-American white oligarchic revolution in 1893 and appalling annexation by the U.S. in 1898 -- and more broadly a case study of American imperialism and its myriad injustices. It turned me into a Hawaiian nationalist -- though, alas, I have never been there -- and made me really, really, really want to see Princess Nahi'ena'ena's famous feather skirt for myself. -- MJWS)

Aloha!

On August 21, 1959, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed an executive order proclaiming Hawaii the 50th state in the union. This day is celebrated in Hawaii as Admission Day or Statehood Day, and it is a legal holiday. It's actually celebrated annually on the third Friday in August.

Statehood bills for Hawaii were introduced into the U.S. Congress as early as 1919 and again in 1935, 1947 and 1950, but it wasn't until 1959 that Congress approved the Hawaii Admission Act. After this, a referendum took place in which 94% voted in support of statehood, which was then followed by the executive order making Hawaii a state. Prior to this, Hawaii had been an organized incorporated territory of the United States beginning on July 7, 1898.

(Cross-Posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

A Republican voice of reason (if you go back 60 years)

By Richard K. Barry

Here is an interesting quote on war on this Memorial Day from, perhaps, an unlikely source:

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.

-- Dwight D. Eisenhower

This is from an address called the "Chance for Peace" speech. It was delivered on April 16, 1953, shortly after the death of Joseph Stalin.

It is well documented that, as a former military man, President Eisenhower was concerned about increases in military spending. Many people are aware of his comments on the matter in his farewell address of January 17, 1961, which is also commonly known as his "military-industrial complex" speech.

Can you imagine a Republican leader today saying anything of the kind? I think not.