Conservative Political Nonentity Sarah Palin to Close CPAC Today

And CPAC, “the granddaddy of conservative conclaves, a multi-day, big-budget ideological extravaganza put on by and for the unabashedly conservative wing of the Republican Party” (The Daily Beast) draws to a close today. 

Speakers have ranged from has-been-but-wanna-be-again politicians like Sarah Palin to gun toting multimillionaire politicians who nobody likes like Mitch McConnell – yes, he really did bring a gun to the Conference. Rumor has it that he brought it because he’d been told there would be a shooting range at the Conference and he had been practising like crazy, hoping he could improve his popularity if only he could hit the bulls eye. 

As it happens there is a shooting range – courtesy of the NRA of course - but it’s virtual only. Just kidding about McConnell’s motive for bringing the gun. He actually bought it for a buddy. 

In today’s line-up there are non-politicians like Dr. Ben Carson, Professor Emeritus, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, and there have been lunatics like Donald Trump. Trump, in an interview with The Washington Times (not to be confused with the Washington Post or the New York Times whose script it imitates), said when asked if he was a Tea Party member “I certainly seem to be in a sense. They like me, and I like them. And we have very much the same principles. When I speak to the Tea Party, they have the biggest crowd of anybody.” I almost feel sorry for the Tea Party. Their only celebrity is Donald Trump who gets crazier by the day. He really takes himself seriously though. I’m not so sure that CPAC did, however. Go to the page on their website that lists confirmed speakers. Donald is last. In a row all by himself. 

In today’s schedule speakers will make themselves available to meet and greet. Dr. Carson, who wrote It’s One Nation: What We Can All Do to Save America’s Future has a Special meet and greet. There’s one itty bitty little requirement: you have to have ordered or pre-ordered his book.  Hmm. As far as I can see from the CPAC programme, Dr. Carson is the only one to have a special meet and greet. And he’s not even a politician.  There are plenty of book signings and people who have written books meeting and greeting, though. Huh. Not a bad place to market your books. Not that that’s the purpose of the Conference. I don’t think so, anyway, but you never know with these Republicans. 

Chris Cox, Executive Director of NRA Institute for Legislative Action, speaks on “More Guns, Less Crime: How Law Enforcement is Beginning to Embrace a Well-Armed Civilian Population.” Well, that’s a relief. I'm trying to imagine cops armed to the teeth with assault rifles hugging civilians with pistols in their pockets and taped to their ankles, and one assault rifle in each hand. Oops. Did somebody's gun go off? Sorry my friend, my dear friend. I just shot you in the foot.

Dan Garza, Executive Director of LIBRE Initiative, has half an hour to elaborate on part 2 of  “Healthcare after ObamaCare: A Practical Guide for Living When No One Has Insurance and America Runs Out of Doctors.” I guess Garza prepared that talk back in 2010. Obviously hasn’t looked at the statistics lately. Poor sod doesn’t know that Obamacare popularity and functionality is on an upwardly mobile trajectory. 

For anybody worried about the environment, Alex Epstein, President & Founder of the Center for Industrial Policy, will reassure with a talk on his book Fossil Fuels Improve the Planet. 

As far as I can see there’s nobody talking about why women shouldn’t want equal pay, thank God. But the topic “Why Conservatism is Right for Women: How Conservatives Should Talk About Life, Prosperity & National Security” will be discussed by four women. That title looks like a bit of non sequitur to me, but who am I to say. Personally I don’t understand why any women vote Republican. Some kind of Pavlovian conditioning I guess. 

Ralph Hallow, Political Editor of the Washington Times (again, not to be confused with the Washington Post or the New York Times) will stimulate the serious politicos with “Clairvoyance and Hard Data: Electoral Trends for 2014, 2016 … and 2040.” Seriously?

There’s plenty of entertainment, most notable of which will be a screening of the movie Persecuted. Interestingly, if you go to CPAC’s website, there’s a rotating list of sponsors, in various groupings. Get to Associate Sponsors, though, and there’s only one. Koch Industries. Next to their logo is the logo for Persecuted. Subtle. Sinister. Frigging scary, actually. Oh, and did you know that Facebook was a sponsor? Yes, it really is. Along with organizations like the NRA, Koch Industries, and the series Amazing America with Sarah Palin. I knew there was a reason why I don’t like Facebook. 

The day, and the Conference, ends on a dramatic, politically earth shattering note with a 20 minute closing speech from The Honorable Sarah Palin who will be introduced by Chris Cox, who is, remember?, Executive Director of the National Rifle Association Institute for Legislative Action. You go, girl. 

Well I’m sure it’s been fun. Whatever CPAC achieved, one thing it did illustrate perfectly. Nobody stood out, nobody shone, nobody said anything of particular importance. Some people said some pretty ridiculous things. For example, everything Donald Trump said. See The Daily Beast for some great satire on him. Then there was Paul Ryan who, earlier in the Conference reassured a crowd of adoring fans that the GOP isn’t falling apart; in fact the very opposite is true. All this “infighting” is nothing more than grand creativity expressing itself. Politico quotes Ryan as saying “What I see is a vibrant debate. We’re figuring out the best way to apply our principles to the challenges of the day. Sure, we have our disagreements, and yes, it can get a little passionate. I like to think of it as creative tension. For the most part, these disagreements have not been over principles or even policies. They’ve been over tactics. So I think we should give each other the benefit of the doubt.” 

I wonder what the moderate Republicans who want to get rid of the Tea Party extremists thought about that. And what are we to make of 26 competing candidates? As Dana Milbank of the Washington Post said in a great article on this topic, “When you have 26 conservative combatants, you don’t have war; you have mayhem.”

John Boehner Shifts with the Wind on Immigration Reform

John Boehner, public domain

John Boehner said on Jay Leno a while ago, “A leader without followers is simply a man taking a walk.” It was part of his reason for supporting the Tea Baggers in their attempt to hold Obama hostage over the debt ceiling last year.  He seemed rational and drily humorous, and even phlegmatic when talking to Jay Leno. There was no sign of frustrated passion. And he quite openly admitted that without a doubt the fault for the government shutdown lay with Republicans. 

He said he told them Obama wouldn’t back down but they didn’t listen. He saw they were going in one direction and he was heading the opposite.  That’s when he said the bit about a leader. But the reality is, he didn’t lead them, they led him. 

And it’s happening again. For a while it seemed as if the less right wing Republicans were taking their power back, as talk surfaced of immigration reform actually going somewhere. But the Tea Party isn’t giving up without a fight. Their latest stunt is to back away from immigration reform. Now Boehner is quoted in the New York Times as saying “The American people, including many of my members, don’t trust that the reform that we’re talking about will be implemented as it was intended to be.” And the members who do trust that reform will be legally implemented, are they “The American people” too?

Boehner is quoted on Politico as saying “The president seems to change the health care law on a whim, whenever he likes. Now he’s running around the country, telling everyone that he’s going to keep acting on his own. He’s talking about his phone and his pen and he’s feeding more distrust about whether he’s committed to the rule of law. There’s widespread doubt about whether this administration can be trusted to enforce the law.”

Firstly, the President had to adapt the health care law because the roll-out was so problematic. He wasn’t disregarding the law, he was taking responsibility and making sure that Americans didn’t suffer because of the roll-out problems. 

The reference to “his phone and his pen” was about the State of the Union address when President Obama said that he would use executive action where he could in the interests of protecting the middle classes from the GOP’s refusal to entertain wage increases.

The President was referring to an executive action that would require all companies contracted by the government to increase wages from $7.25 to $10.10 when the contracts come up for renewal. New companies being contracted would have to pay the same increased wages. The point was to set an example and show American companies that when they value their employees and treat them well, they work better, they’re more loyal and all sorts of benefits accrue to the company as a result. Then there’s the extra tax they pay which everybody understand is good for the government, and the extra money they have, which they spend on other businesses’ products or services. It’s a win-win. 

However, at no point did President Obama say he was going to break any laws. In fact, he said that this would only apply to new contracts. Old contracts would have to be honoured. You can’t get more trustworthy than that.

But Mr. Boehner picked a couple of sentences, took them out of context and blew them up into something sinister.  Does he really believe what he said about the President? Probably not.  But the Tea Party has their hands around his throat again. If he supports immigration reform they’ll get rid of him. Or that’s what they say. So Boehner trotted out that he doesn’t think he’ll be able to pass an immigration reform bill. Because he doesn’t want to be that man taking a walk, does he? 

For that, 11 million undocumented immigrants, a big proportion of who contribute meaningfully to the economy, must suffer. And a year spent trying to forge a bill that has the support of many businesses and many of those “American people” Boehner referred to, will have been wasted. 

President Obama isn't the one who's untrustworthy. For a list of the executive orders signed by him so far, see The Whitehouse site.

Fundamentalist Christianity Eroding Humanity in the US; Destroying the GOP

Fundamentalists.  The word raises spectres of all kinds – ignorance, homophobia, chauvinism, dedication to ideas and ideals that are rage-driven, politically affiliated, exclusive of the rights of majority of humanity and narrow in their definition but wildly permissive in execution. Take your pick. Since 9/11 the West, led by a media consumed with lust for big headlines, has mostly attributed fundamentalism to Muslims who are blatantly political and less noticeably religious.

By comparison Christian fundamentalism seems pretty benign and when it started it was, but it has become something pernicious now. It started out in the late 1800s, amongst British and American evangelicals who didn’t want to embrace change and rebelled against the new theological ideas that broke away from traditional interpretations of God, the Bible and the origin of life as industrialization took hold. They had a narrow interpretation of the Bible, and they stuck with it. God was talking directly to the world through a group of men and every word was His word. There were no human errors in it and it was taken literally. 

So, amongst other things, there really was an Ark and Mary was a virgin when Jesus Christ was born. He really did turn water into wine and rise miraculously and very physically from the cross after he was dead. 

Fast-forward to America today. Christian fundamentalism is no more open to new ideas than it ever was before. Now it’s characterised by homophobia, xenophobia and a belief that people are poor because they’re lazy and therefore undeserving of any kind of assistance. Passages in the Bible that seem to support any of these ideas are quoted and those that contradict it are conveniently ignored. 

This peculiar brand of Christianity has become firmly entrenched in politics and in particular the Republican Party, with politicians quoting selectively from the Bible to justify their policies. For example, in May 2013 the House Agriculture Committee convened to discuss cutting $4.1 billion from SNAP – the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program – by slashing the budget for the Farm Bill which funds SNAP. GOP Congressman Stephen Fincher cited 2 Thessalonians 3:10 to justify his support of slashing the budget: 

“For even when we were with you, we gave you this command: Anyone unwilling to work should not eat.” 

These were the words of Paul, a self-confessed blasphemer, persecutor and insolent opponent of Jesus Christ who shifted with the wind and then became a persecutor and insolent opponent of anybody who didn’t agree with Jesus Christ. Bit of a runaway ego there. 

Apart from that and the fact that Fincher chooses a homophobe to guide him, Fincher’s assumption – shared by many Republicans - is that people who are poor are unwilling to work. So let the bastards starve. Let their children go homeless and above all never give them access to decent medical care. No doubt if these Bible thumpers had been alive during the Great Depression they would have also attributed it to just general laziness of the American public.

Interesting that after voting to cut SNAP by more than $20 billion, Fincher supported a proposal to expand crop insurance subsidies by $9 billion over the next 10 years. Even more interesting, Fincher himself is the second largest recipient of farm subsidies in the US. Between 1999 and 2012 he has collected $4.8 million - $70,000 last year alone. The average SNAP ‘handout’ is $1586.40 a year and goes to families whose income is below a certain level. Crop insurance subsidies don’t have income limitations. Payments are direct and according to EWG (Environmental Working Group) “go predominantly to the largest, most profitable farm operations in the country.” 

In December 1.3 million people spent Christmas with an axe over their head as they stood to lose their unemployment benefits by December 28. The House refused to extend the deadline for the benefits ending. A quote from Deuteronomy is appropriate here: 

11 For there will never cease to be poor in the land. Therefore I command you, ‘You shall open wide your hand to your brother, to the needy and to the poor, in your land.’

Not all Republican politicians are heartless bastards, though. Nevada’s Republican Senator Dean Heller has co-sponsored a bill with US Senator Jack Reed to extend the benefits for another 3 months until a compromise can be reached. Whether the House will pass it or not is another matter, but Heller, who is very conservative in many other regards, had this to say: “Providing a safety net for those in need is one of the most important functions of the federal government.” But what chance does he have against fundamentalist Christianity – an oxymoron if ever there was one – that is tearing apart the Republican Party?  

Ralph Reed, founder and chairman of the Faith and Freedom Coalition, said in May 2012 "Conservative people of faith are playing a larger role in shaping the contours and affecting the trajectory of the Republican presidential nomination contest than at any time since they began pouring out of the pews and into the precincts in the late 1970's." Never a truer word was said. They lost that election in 2012 and since then the Tea Party has crucified the Republican job approval rating. 

South Africa's Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a man of giant stature, wrote a book "God is not a Christian: And Other Provocations". Amen to that. God is definitely not an ignorant, self-serving fundamentalist politician, that’s for sure. Christianity is supposed to be about the best of humanity but the fundamentalists of today have turned it into a very different sort of animal - fundamentally anti-social, heartless, ill-informed and politically divisive. They’re doing the GOP no favors as they turn it into a party that's astonishingly low on good sense and hell-bent on self-destruction. I seriously doubt that up in heaven God, Jesus Christ and even Paul are giving them a standing ovation.

An Unremorseful Tea Party Already Spoiling for Another Fight

For people to learn lessons from their mistakes five things have to happen: they have to have an element of humility in their nature; understand that they are not the center of the universe; have empathy and a basic respect for their fellow humans; be aware of themselves and the impact of their behavior on those around them; and want to change very much. 

If any of those are absent, they might do little temporary shifts but it’ll only be to try and get out of crisis.  Essentially they’ll carry on doing the same old same old. Or else they might not even make any superficial move towards changing. Carry that to the extreme and you have a sociopath.

Since President Obama stood his ground, backed by Harry Reid and sane politicians, and the Tea Party experienced a resounding loss, many have expressed the hope that now the Tea Party will be sobered; will have learned their lessons. They’ll take a long hard look at how detrimental to everybody – including themselves – their actions have been. How they’ve undermined democracy by acting against the wishes of the majority of the electorate and underestimated Obama, Harry Reid and Democrats in general. 

How their behavior was so outside of the bounds of normalcy and decency that they turned even moderate Republicans against them, making enemies where before they had friends. How absolutely nothing good resulted from their actions. Nothing for them, nothing for anybody else.

The idea that this group has been sobered in any way at all is naïve. The Tea Party is already spoiling for another fight, congratulating themselves and Ted Cruz on a fight well fought. Bob Vander Plaats, CEO of The Family Leader (an umbrella Christian conservative organization), anti-gay, anti-abortion, who has become increasingly unpopular in Iowa, has backed losers and has failed in every run he himself has made in politics but believes he has a political future said of Cruz “[he] is a rock star sucking all the energy in the conservative movement. He’s making all the right enemies with the Republican establishment, which is taking him to unprecedented heights.”

And judging by the type of support the Tea Party is garnering, from organizations like the Heritage Foundation which has turned ultra conservative in the past six months and whose money helps secure seats in the House for Republican Representatives, they’ll never surrender. It isn’t going to bother them that the GOP job approval rating has taken a massive hit or that its chances of succeeding in any future election are diminished. That’s because they don’t want to nurture the Republican Party as a moderate party. They want to take it over. They’re taking the long view. 

It’s hard to take this group seriously when they’re so out of touch and are openly saying that what they’ve learned is how to be more effective next time, how to up the stakes, how to create more pressure. Or that’s what they think they’ve learned. How you believe you can up the stakes from government shutdown and defaulting on debt is hard to imagine. How you can imagine there’s anywhere to go against a President who just flat out says “no” and stands his ground is beyond rational. 

How you think you can take over a whole country which is ruled by democracy and retain power for any length of time when your support is 22% and on a downward trajectory – words fail.

They behave like fools and none of the normal parameters of rationality apply to them. But they’re fools with a mission and with money backing them. Which adds something sinister to the mix. Can you imagine an America run by super conservatives who have secured power by gerrymandering and some of whose members wave the Confederate flag in front of the Whitehouse? You might not be able to but they can. And they believe it’s a good thing.

They won’t succeed in the long run. But they can do damage in the short run and they’ve already illustrated that they have a talent for that, so it's probably not a good idea to dismiss them entirely.