A Confederacy of Dunces

I'm not sure what to make of the Republican Party these days. In the latest Presidential poll, Michele Bachman is in a statistical dead heat with Mitt Romney. Now Romney has been known for at least four years as the man who will change his position on any issue to best reflect the views of whichever constituency he is trying to appeal to at that time. His flip-flops make John Kerry ("I was for the war before I was against it") look like a statue of rectitude. Remember, Romney was the man who brought healthcare reform to Massachusetts, before he decided that almost the same plan is terrible for the country. He was pro-choice before he was pro-life. And the list goes on. Meanwhile, Bachmann is the gift that keeps on giving to comedians nationwide.Ssomeone needs to install a switch somewhere in her brain that prevents her every thought from reaching her tongue. As Keith Olbermann put it, "that woman is an idiot." What does it say about the Republicans that these two candidates are currently leading in both the Iowa and national polls?

In the meantime, we have the tea party folks who keep chanting something to the effect of we must take America back. My question is, "from who?" I should think they would want to take it back from the corporate oligarchy that is strangling the middle class and our republic even as we speak. That doesn't seem to be the case though. We have Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court, a justice so morally deficient that he doesn't even try to hide his conflicts of interest on cases he is charged with deciding -- and I can tell you everytime which side of the case he will choose, without my having to bother reading the briefs. Justices Alito, Scalia and Roberts are not much better, and Justice Kennedy continues to disappoint with almost every decision since he represents the deciding voice on almost every case. I'm not speaking here of the "social" cases -- although abortion is surely going to fall this way as well. I'm speaking more of the financial cases -- with this court, whatever corporate America wants, corporate America gets.

Next let's look at those twin stalwarts of the Republican Party in the Congress, Paul Ryan and Eric Cantor. Turns out that on close inspection each stands to benefit from screwing the rest of us. If Ryan's budget somehow were to pass, then Congressman Ryan will make a small fortune by privatizing Medicare. If the U.S. defaults on its debt by not raising the debt ceiling, then Cantor will make wheelbarrows full of money. See, he's been betting AGAINST treasury bonds. It's no wonder he decided to walk out on the debt ceiling talks last week. The chutzpah these guys show knows no bounds.

I could go on this way for some time -- but to be quite frank, thinking about the modern Republican Party and the disastrous effect it is having on the country I so proudly served is giving me a massive headache.