Article: Capitol Hill's Rabid, Ravaging Republicans

Has there ever been a more crazed, cruel, anti-people,
corporate-indentured, militaristic and monetized Republican Party in its
154-year history? An about-to-be-released list of some of the actual
brutish votes by the House Republicans, led by Speaker John Boehner and
Rep. Eric Cantor, will soon be available to you from the House
Democratic Caucus.

Lest you think this is just partisan propaganda, these are real, recorded votes in the House of Representatives.

The Republicans seem to have it in for women and not just against health
insurance covering reproductive health care, Planned Parenthood's other
services, or privacy for the medical records of victims of rape and
incest. The Republicans en-mass voted to repeal protections to stop
health insurance companies from discriminating on the basis of gender.

On other consumer protections -- forget it. The Republicans are
indentured to the worst of their corporate paymasters. The Republicans
either do nothing to help or actually push for rollbacks. No minimum
wage to give 30 million Americans the same pay workers got back in 1968,
adjusted for inflation. The Chamber of Commerce says no. So Boehner and
Cantor curtsy.

In a frenzy, House Republicans have voted to repeal the "Affordable Care
Act" 33 times. Be assured their hatred for Obamacare is not because
they want full Medicare for all. It is because they want to voucherize
Medicare and hand patients over to the avaricious Aetnas and the Pfizers
who return the favor with campaign cash.

House Republicans rage against any attempts to stop the shipping or
outsourcing of American jobs to communist and fascist regimes abroad
that know how to keep their workers in powerless penury. Why? Because
that is what the non-patriotic U.S. global corporations want them to do.
Anything Big Oil wants, it gets-- retain big subsidies, tax breaks,
weaken pollution restrictions, lease everywhere, and even give relief to
oil companies when they damaged the Gulf Coast.

House Republicans have a conflict of interest between their families'
lungs and their corporatized minds. Resolution? Vote to weaken the Clean
Air Act, drinking water safety standards, cut funding for these cancer
preventing, health protecting programs while pushing for more military
weapons and bloated Pentagon budgets. The Republicans went so far as to
vote for polluters over children, pregnant women and people who live in
nursing homes and assisted-living facilities. These Republicans voted to
block the EPA mercury and air toxics standards that the agency
estimated would save 12,000 lives every year and prevent more than one
million asthma attacks.

With unseemly fervor, House Republicans want to generally weaken the
National Labor Relations Board and labor laws. But when it comes to
protecting the lowest tax rates and loopholes for the very wealthy, they
are Horatio at the Bridge. When the top two percent engage in financial
fraud (credit cards, mortgages and student loans, abuse of seniors) or
urge privatizing social security, the Boehners and the Cantors are
block-tackling anyone in the House who begs to push law and order for
the Rich and Corporate or keep "the security" in social security.

For the poor, let them eat less. Hunger in America is real. But not real
enough for the Republicans to stop wanting to cut these food programs.
While Republicans campaign against Obama for not doing anything to lower
gasoline prices, they are voting against measures to regulate oil and
gas speculators who drive up gas prices, a fact recognized by the CEO of
Exxon a few years ago in a Senate hearing.

The above are just a sample of what the House Republicans passed or
blocked in the House. Even worse are what many of them wanted to
summarily abolish, such as the EPA, OSHA, and the IRS. The meat-axe
Republicans have trouble telling the public how the important functions
performed by these agencies would be handled. The Republicans dismiss
the work of health and safety agencies as junk science (e.g. regarding
climate change). Fortunately, the Senate has rejected most of their
madness.

How do such people get elected? Is it just money and smooth slogans? Is
it a lack of competition in rigged districts? Is it a winner-take-all,
two-party duopoly where more than half the voters sit out the election?
Is it shocking disengagement by the cynical or hopeless public, shorn of
any rigorous expectation levels?

For the time being, go to the Democratic House Caucus website. Ponder
the fate of our Republic. Ask why we have almost unconditionally given
up our enormous sovereign power of "We the People" to those
out-of-control, raging members of Congress.