Saturday, November 7, 2015
Well, If The Wall Street Journal Says It ...
... who am I to disagree that Republicans are an economic menace?
As A Boomer, I Plead Guilty--For All Of Us
I came across this column by Jim Tankersley in the Washington Post, while I was doing a little research for my previous post about last week's election results. It is a complete and merciless indictment of the Boomer Generation and its me-first attitude in all things--especially economic things. It chronicles in detail the material, social, and cultural advantages than those born between 1946 and 1964 grew up taking for granted. From there, it proceeds to document how Boomers developed, in the process of benefiting from those advantages, a sense of entitlement to the good life that excluded any consideration of sharing those goodies with the less fortunate. The idealism of their youth gave way to an all-consuming (pun intended) desire to "have it all," regardless of the cost to anyone. The price tag for satisfying that desire is being borne not only by those that came after them, but generations as yet unborn and unnamed.
It is an absolutely scathing indictment that pulls no punches. And it's 100% correct.
As a Boomer, I plead guilty to Tankersley's catalogue of sins by my generation. From the earliest time in my life that I can remember, in school and elsewhere, a vision of unlimited future prosperity was painted for us, one that would extend far beyond this world and even reach into outer space. We were routinely told that, by the turn of the subsequent century, we would live in a world of glass-enclosed cities, flying cars, moving sidewalks, synthetic food and clothes, and computers everywhere. Of course, some of that came true, especially the part about computers; everyone now carries one around in their purse or pocket.
By the middle of the 1970s, however, it was becoming painfully clear that the resources to fulfill these visions were far more limited than we wanted to admit. And, as a consequence, a generation that had known nothing but prosperity suddenly had to deal with the idea of limits. No aspect of American life in this period made that clearer than the oil shocks created by OPEC. Suddenly, we were no longer masters of a destiny with no boundaries. Suddenly, we had to face a world in which everything we wanted might not be possible. A world that was rapidly moving from dominance by two major superpowers to one in which newly liberated colonial nations were suddenly flexing their newly-found economic muscles in ways designed to benefit them, and not us. In short, we needed to adjust our thinking by facing our problems.
And instead, we ran away from them. It is not an accident that the ascendency of Republican politics and policies started right about the time that Boomers reached voting age and entered the electorate en masse. And the GOP spinmeisters very cleverly took advantage of that fact. Supply-side economics was the perfect political pitch to Boomers. What self-respecting Boomer (is there any other kind?) could resist the not-too-subtle allure of self-financing tax cuts that paid for a great, big, beautiful tomorrow (to borrow Ronald Reagan's erstwhile employer, General Electric)? Suddenly, it seemed possible to "have it all" again.
Only, of course, it wasn't. And Boomers pursued the Reagan illusion at the expense of Gen Xers and Millenials, as Tankersley rightly points out. Money that could have gone into a better world for all of us, Boomers included, instead went into servicing the debt that grew as the price that needed to be paid for unsustainable tax policies. Without the damage wrought by those policies, no one would need to talk about making sacrifices to pay for Social Security and Medicare. Hell, maybe there actually would be a Howard Johnson's in space.
As it turns out, except for hotels, there isn't even a Howard Johnson's on Earth. It, along with many business built from scratch were suddenly merged and acquired out of business, as wealth that was supposed to trickle down instead relentlessly shot up and investment bankers foolishly financed vulture capitalism. Instead of patiently building wealth one dollar at a time, businesses went out and bought it at inflated prices with borrowed money that could never be paid off. And Boomers not only tolerated this, they even participated eagerly in it.
And there is no way out of this mess except the old fashioned way: sharing. Sharing involves recognizing that complete self-sufficiency is impossible. None of us is an island; all of us need each other in a multitude of different ways. And sharing also involves recognizing limits. We live in a world--in a universe, for that matter--of finite resources. Each one of us has a finite life; no one can be indispensible, because everyone has an expiration date. Like it or not, that's reality. And, like it or not, our politics have to change, or we won't be able to face it.
On behalf of all of us, I apologize to all of the post-Boomer generations. And I call on all of us to do the thing we Boomers said we wanted to do when we were young: make a difference. Even if there's a price we have to pay to do it. It is not fair to ask others to pay that price by themselves. Their dreams deserve to take flight as well.
It is an absolutely scathing indictment that pulls no punches. And it's 100% correct.
As a Boomer, I plead guilty to Tankersley's catalogue of sins by my generation. From the earliest time in my life that I can remember, in school and elsewhere, a vision of unlimited future prosperity was painted for us, one that would extend far beyond this world and even reach into outer space. We were routinely told that, by the turn of the subsequent century, we would live in a world of glass-enclosed cities, flying cars, moving sidewalks, synthetic food and clothes, and computers everywhere. Of course, some of that came true, especially the part about computers; everyone now carries one around in their purse or pocket.
By the middle of the 1970s, however, it was becoming painfully clear that the resources to fulfill these visions were far more limited than we wanted to admit. And, as a consequence, a generation that had known nothing but prosperity suddenly had to deal with the idea of limits. No aspect of American life in this period made that clearer than the oil shocks created by OPEC. Suddenly, we were no longer masters of a destiny with no boundaries. Suddenly, we had to face a world in which everything we wanted might not be possible. A world that was rapidly moving from dominance by two major superpowers to one in which newly liberated colonial nations were suddenly flexing their newly-found economic muscles in ways designed to benefit them, and not us. In short, we needed to adjust our thinking by facing our problems.
And instead, we ran away from them. It is not an accident that the ascendency of Republican politics and policies started right about the time that Boomers reached voting age and entered the electorate en masse. And the GOP spinmeisters very cleverly took advantage of that fact. Supply-side economics was the perfect political pitch to Boomers. What self-respecting Boomer (is there any other kind?) could resist the not-too-subtle allure of self-financing tax cuts that paid for a great, big, beautiful tomorrow (to borrow Ronald Reagan's erstwhile employer, General Electric)? Suddenly, it seemed possible to "have it all" again.
Only, of course, it wasn't. And Boomers pursued the Reagan illusion at the expense of Gen Xers and Millenials, as Tankersley rightly points out. Money that could have gone into a better world for all of us, Boomers included, instead went into servicing the debt that grew as the price that needed to be paid for unsustainable tax policies. Without the damage wrought by those policies, no one would need to talk about making sacrifices to pay for Social Security and Medicare. Hell, maybe there actually would be a Howard Johnson's in space.
As it turns out, except for hotels, there isn't even a Howard Johnson's on Earth. It, along with many business built from scratch were suddenly merged and acquired out of business, as wealth that was supposed to trickle down instead relentlessly shot up and investment bankers foolishly financed vulture capitalism. Instead of patiently building wealth one dollar at a time, businesses went out and bought it at inflated prices with borrowed money that could never be paid off. And Boomers not only tolerated this, they even participated eagerly in it.
And there is no way out of this mess except the old fashioned way: sharing. Sharing involves recognizing that complete self-sufficiency is impossible. None of us is an island; all of us need each other in a multitude of different ways. And sharing also involves recognizing limits. We live in a world--in a universe, for that matter--of finite resources. Each one of us has a finite life; no one can be indispensible, because everyone has an expiration date. Like it or not, that's reality. And, like it or not, our politics have to change, or we won't be able to face it.
On behalf of all of us, I apologize to all of the post-Boomer generations. And I call on all of us to do the thing we Boomers said we wanted to do when we were young: make a difference. Even if there's a price we have to pay to do it. It is not fair to ask others to pay that price by themselves. Their dreams deserve to take flight as well.
Once Again, Elections Have Consequences
There's a lot of focus in the media and elsewhere on off-year elections for national office. Less focus is given to off-off year elections that involve state and local offices, as well as ballot initiatives. Yet those elections can serve as the most basic of building blocks in building a political majority in a federal system of government.
And, as it turns out, Democrats didn't pick up many blocks on this past Tuesday night.
They lost the governorship of Kentucky, thereby threatening Obamacare in one of the few red states where it has been fully or even partially implemented. They lost in Houston, where a anti-discrimination ordinance against gays was repealed over ridiculous fears of men dressing like women so they can commit assaults in public restrooms. They lost in Ohio, where the voters rejected a proposal to legalize marijuana. And they lost in Virginia, where a well-financed effort by Democrats to take over the State Senate failed. They also lost, in Mississippi, the governorship and a ballot initiative that would have required the constitutionality of funding for public schools, but ... well, this is Rush Limbaugh's birthplace, after all.
In one sense, it's easy to make too much of last Tuesday's good news for Republicans. Democrats did make gains on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court and the New Jersey legislature. There are new Democratic mayors in Philadelphia, Nashville and possibly Salt Lake City, depending on whether the unofficial vote-count holds up. There may be one as well in Houston, depending on the outcome of a run-off on December 12.
There are also, in the cases of Ohio and Virginia, mitigating factors that go some distance toward explaining the outcomes. In the case of the former, the marijuana initiative was poorly drafted and would, if approved, have allowed for monopoly control of the market. In the case of the latter, the presence of out-of-state funding from Michael Bloomberg, an advocate of gun restrictions, may have prompted a backlash against the Democrats from more conservative regions in the state.
That then leaves us with the Kentucky and Houston outcomes. In the case of the former, the big news is the replacement of a pro-Obamacare Democrat with an anti-Obamacare Republican, and the potential for health care reform to be set back in a state where it has thus far worked well. But it's easy to make to much of that potential. Left out of the breathless, pro-GOP slant of the election's media coverage is the fact that Kentucky's General Assembly is divided between Democrats and Republicans. That arrangement will make any attempts to setback Obamacare difficult, if not impossible. And that will prove to be even more obvious once the words "repeal Obamacare" are replaced by the words "cancel health insurance for half-a-million Kentuckians."
In any event, I don't think the Kentucky results are truly about Obamacare. Rather, I think they're more of a piece with the Houston defeat of the anti-discrimination ordinance. It's worth remembering that Kentucky is the home of Kim Davis, the self-proclaimed "martyr" for anti-gay bigotry who has refused to sign marriage licenses for gay couples. Kentucky, like Texas, is filled with evangelical Christians who are reliable GOP voters--all the more so since this year's Supreme Court decision declaring same-sex marriage to be constitutional.
If there are any lessons for progressives out of this election, they are twofold. First of all, as the fallout from Roe v. Wade has shown over more than four decades, a favorable decision in the Supreme Court does not "settle" a contentious issue once and for all. The question of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender rights is anything but settled, and the decision by the Court this year has animated evangelical voters to a much greater degree than any of us have previously realized. The realization that we underestimate the extent and the intensity of that anger makes the need for laws at the national level to protect LGBT rights more obvious than ever.
And those laws will never see the light of day unless progressives heed the second lesson of last Tuesday: off-year elections count for as much as presidential elections due. They are the building blocks of consensus on national issues. They are the source of the next generation of progressive leaders. And they will continue to give Republicans an edge in national politics that defies the actual number of national supporters that they have, unless progressive voters finally wake up and do something that they think they have to do only once every four years.
VOTE!
If you care about the future, it's not an option.
And, as it turns out, Democrats didn't pick up many blocks on this past Tuesday night.
They lost the governorship of Kentucky, thereby threatening Obamacare in one of the few red states where it has been fully or even partially implemented. They lost in Houston, where a anti-discrimination ordinance against gays was repealed over ridiculous fears of men dressing like women so they can commit assaults in public restrooms. They lost in Ohio, where the voters rejected a proposal to legalize marijuana. And they lost in Virginia, where a well-financed effort by Democrats to take over the State Senate failed. They also lost, in Mississippi, the governorship and a ballot initiative that would have required the constitutionality of funding for public schools, but ... well, this is Rush Limbaugh's birthplace, after all.
In one sense, it's easy to make too much of last Tuesday's good news for Republicans. Democrats did make gains on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court and the New Jersey legislature. There are new Democratic mayors in Philadelphia, Nashville and possibly Salt Lake City, depending on whether the unofficial vote-count holds up. There may be one as well in Houston, depending on the outcome of a run-off on December 12.
There are also, in the cases of Ohio and Virginia, mitigating factors that go some distance toward explaining the outcomes. In the case of the former, the marijuana initiative was poorly drafted and would, if approved, have allowed for monopoly control of the market. In the case of the latter, the presence of out-of-state funding from Michael Bloomberg, an advocate of gun restrictions, may have prompted a backlash against the Democrats from more conservative regions in the state.
That then leaves us with the Kentucky and Houston outcomes. In the case of the former, the big news is the replacement of a pro-Obamacare Democrat with an anti-Obamacare Republican, and the potential for health care reform to be set back in a state where it has thus far worked well. But it's easy to make to much of that potential. Left out of the breathless, pro-GOP slant of the election's media coverage is the fact that Kentucky's General Assembly is divided between Democrats and Republicans. That arrangement will make any attempts to setback Obamacare difficult, if not impossible. And that will prove to be even more obvious once the words "repeal Obamacare" are replaced by the words "cancel health insurance for half-a-million Kentuckians."
In any event, I don't think the Kentucky results are truly about Obamacare. Rather, I think they're more of a piece with the Houston defeat of the anti-discrimination ordinance. It's worth remembering that Kentucky is the home of Kim Davis, the self-proclaimed "martyr" for anti-gay bigotry who has refused to sign marriage licenses for gay couples. Kentucky, like Texas, is filled with evangelical Christians who are reliable GOP voters--all the more so since this year's Supreme Court decision declaring same-sex marriage to be constitutional.
If there are any lessons for progressives out of this election, they are twofold. First of all, as the fallout from Roe v. Wade has shown over more than four decades, a favorable decision in the Supreme Court does not "settle" a contentious issue once and for all. The question of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender rights is anything but settled, and the decision by the Court this year has animated evangelical voters to a much greater degree than any of us have previously realized. The realization that we underestimate the extent and the intensity of that anger makes the need for laws at the national level to protect LGBT rights more obvious than ever.
And those laws will never see the light of day unless progressives heed the second lesson of last Tuesday: off-year elections count for as much as presidential elections due. They are the building blocks of consensus on national issues. They are the source of the next generation of progressive leaders. And they will continue to give Republicans an edge in national politics that defies the actual number of national supporters that they have, unless progressive voters finally wake up and do something that they think they have to do only once every four years.
VOTE!
If you care about the future, it's not an option.
Sunday, November 1, 2015
Europe To Australia In 90 Minutes?
That could be possible, depending on German success with developing hypersonic travel.
Warning To The 1%
Be careful of how much you steal from the rest of us; otherwise, you might suffer the fate of this Dutch prime minister!
Thank G-d This Thug Is Out Of The Race!
Scott Walker, enemy of the people. And, like the other clowns in the car, a coward.
How Easy Is It To Make A Fool Out Of Conservatives?
As it turns out, all you have to do is pretend you're a Target customer representative.
Cowardice Is Also What Defines The GOP Candidates
I suppose you can't completely blame the Republican presidential candidates for expecting nothing but whiffle ball questions at last week's Presidential debate. After all, its media partner was CNBC, which works overtime to support GOP fantasies about economic policy. My least-favorite CNBC anchor, Lawrence Kudlow, a supply-side devotee, was on just before the debate began, touting Donald Trump's proposed cut in the Federal corporate tax rate to 15%. "It'll pay for itself! It'll pay for itself!" screamed Kudrow to his colleagues. Sure, Larry. Just like the war in Iraq did.
But back to the debate: As it turns out, there were not as many whiffle balls as some of the candidates would have liked. Surprisingly, several of the CNBC correspondents acting as moderators seemed determine to answer questions that were designed to elicit concrete answers on issues and perhaps, in the process, give the audience some feel for how the candidates could think under pressure. And, as it turns out, several of the candidates were slightly ticked off by that expectation, turning around and attacking not just the moderators, but the media as a whole for stressing them out too much on camera.
None of the candidates was more vociferous in spearing the messenger than Ted Cruz, who remained on the warpath even after the end of the debate. He proposed that a future debate be moderated by "real conservatives," such as Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh, as opposed to "attack journalists." Along with several of the other candidates, Cruz plans to discuss ways by which future debates can be improved, i.e., made less antagonistic to conservative views.
It's impossible to imagine a moment in which it could be clearer that Republicans have no ability to cope with reality other than to wish that it would go away. What would one of these candidates do if they were actually in the White House and faced with a real crisis? Ask their favorite talk-show host to make it go away? Blame the media for telling the American people about it? Claim that it wasn't a fair test of "true" conservatism, and ask God to send us another crisis? You've got to wonder what Vladimir Putin, the GOP's favorite international "leader," is thinking as he watches the clowns getting out of the debate car one floppy foot at a time. He's got to be looking forward to the day he gets to humiliate one of them.
We have been told, time and again, that the current Republican presidential field is the candidate equivalent of the '27 Yankees. From the looks of things, they don't even seem to be up to the task of equalling the '62 Mets. Or the '15 Mets, for that matter, judging from the way they've been playing in the World Series so far. Come to think of it, any comparisons involving these candidates and any baseball teams is probably an insult to the teams.
The cowardice of these would-be pretenders for the world's most powerful and essential job is an insult to every American who has worked to make the greatest country in the world even better--and, worse yet, an insult to every American who has either given or risked his or her life in the same cause. None of those people asked for easier challenges. None of them blamed others for their personal losses. And, above all, none of them ever refused to look reality in the face, regardless of how terrible that reality may have been.
All of them need to take Harry Truman's advice--the one involving the heat and the kitchen. Better yet, all of them need to get the hell out of the way and let a real leader step forward, one who doesn't complain about how tough life can be for a President.
And, if that person is not a Republican, I'm just fine with that. The rest of us should be as well, too.
But back to the debate: As it turns out, there were not as many whiffle balls as some of the candidates would have liked. Surprisingly, several of the CNBC correspondents acting as moderators seemed determine to answer questions that were designed to elicit concrete answers on issues and perhaps, in the process, give the audience some feel for how the candidates could think under pressure. And, as it turns out, several of the candidates were slightly ticked off by that expectation, turning around and attacking not just the moderators, but the media as a whole for stressing them out too much on camera.
None of the candidates was more vociferous in spearing the messenger than Ted Cruz, who remained on the warpath even after the end of the debate. He proposed that a future debate be moderated by "real conservatives," such as Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh, as opposed to "attack journalists." Along with several of the other candidates, Cruz plans to discuss ways by which future debates can be improved, i.e., made less antagonistic to conservative views.
It's impossible to imagine a moment in which it could be clearer that Republicans have no ability to cope with reality other than to wish that it would go away. What would one of these candidates do if they were actually in the White House and faced with a real crisis? Ask their favorite talk-show host to make it go away? Blame the media for telling the American people about it? Claim that it wasn't a fair test of "true" conservatism, and ask God to send us another crisis? You've got to wonder what Vladimir Putin, the GOP's favorite international "leader," is thinking as he watches the clowns getting out of the debate car one floppy foot at a time. He's got to be looking forward to the day he gets to humiliate one of them.
We have been told, time and again, that the current Republican presidential field is the candidate equivalent of the '27 Yankees. From the looks of things, they don't even seem to be up to the task of equalling the '62 Mets. Or the '15 Mets, for that matter, judging from the way they've been playing in the World Series so far. Come to think of it, any comparisons involving these candidates and any baseball teams is probably an insult to the teams.
The cowardice of these would-be pretenders for the world's most powerful and essential job is an insult to every American who has worked to make the greatest country in the world even better--and, worse yet, an insult to every American who has either given or risked his or her life in the same cause. None of those people asked for easier challenges. None of them blamed others for their personal losses. And, above all, none of them ever refused to look reality in the face, regardless of how terrible that reality may have been.
All of them need to take Harry Truman's advice--the one involving the heat and the kitchen. Better yet, all of them need to get the hell out of the way and let a real leader step forward, one who doesn't complain about how tough life can be for a President.
And, if that person is not a Republican, I'm just fine with that. The rest of us should be as well, too.
Meet The New Boss, Same As The Old Boss
I have to confess, I had absolutely no hope whatsoever that Paul Ryan as Speaker of the House would make our national politics any better than they were when John Boehner was Speaker of the House. On the other hand, even I'm surprised by the speed with which he's shattered whatever illusions the mainstream media might have tried to encourage a gullible electorate to have.
To begin with, there's the commitment to repeal Obamacare, which is certainly going to go nowhere for at least the next two years. And it doesn't even come with a commitment to "replace" it, which is not surprising, given that Ryan and his colleagues have no intention of doing so. After all, this is coming from a man who demanded that "family time" come with his new job, but has absolutely no intention of guaranteeing such time for the rest of us. Which, once again, makes it clear what the modern Republican Party is all about: not limited government, not personal responsibility, not fiscal sanity, not even family values, but power. Their power over the rest of us.
Unfortunately for the 11 million or more undocumented residents among us (more popularly known as "illegals"), "us" includes "them." And our new Speaker apparently has no intention of helping them either. His rationale: the President can't be trusted to enforce the law.
Calling this patent nonsense is a little bit like calling his position on family leave hypocrisy, i.e., too obvious for comment. Nevertheless, it's worth repeating a few basic points, as they would otherwise tend to get lost in the noise that masquerades nowadays as news coverage.
Ryan's assessment of the President's untrustworthiness is ridiculous. Everything Obama has done or proposed in the area of administrative relief is based on his lawfully-defined authority to extend prosecutorial discretion to the application of immigration law, based on current circumstances. As it turns out, one of those circumstances is the seeming unwillingness of Congress to consider any legislation that would address not only the plight of the 11 million, but more generally bring our immigration system in line with the demands of a world that is becoming more and more integrated all the time.
And immigration is not, contrary to the way in which Republicans treat it, a stand-alone issue. Immigration affects every aspect of American life, and is inextricably link to every aspect of it. It is an economic issue, a national security issue, a research and development issue, a cultural issue, an educational issue, and yes, a family issue as well. Ryan's home state is no exception; immigration has a tremendous impact on Wisconsin, as it does on all 50 states.
Worst of all, Ryan was part of a House majority under Boehner that stubbornly refused to consider a comprehensive immigration bill that was passed by the Senate in 2013 with 68 Republican and Democratic votes. The House Republicans could have voted it down, debated it, amended it, and more generally used it to stake out a position on the issue. They pretended the issue didn't exist; that, as Republicans, they have the power to make reality disappear, and thereby gain more power as a result.
And, with the President's more recent administrative proposals on immigration, the fantasizing continues in the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which is delaying a final decision on a suit against those proposals until an appeal to the Supreme Court can no longer be made it a timely way. The Court knows that the President is right, and further knows that the Supreme Court would have no choice but to come to the same conclusion. That's why they are sitting on the case rather than deciding it.
Whether in the courts or the Congress they control, Republicans have no alternative vision of what America should be, or how America should get there. They have no agenda, no vision, no principles at all except the maintenance of a corrupt status quo that favors their contributors over the rest of the nation. They are outnumbered, and in opposition to objective reality. And the way in which they have chosen to respond to this can only be described with one word: cowardice.
But that word doesn't just apply to Speaker Ryan, or the members of his Congressional majority ...
To begin with, there's the commitment to repeal Obamacare, which is certainly going to go nowhere for at least the next two years. And it doesn't even come with a commitment to "replace" it, which is not surprising, given that Ryan and his colleagues have no intention of doing so. After all, this is coming from a man who demanded that "family time" come with his new job, but has absolutely no intention of guaranteeing such time for the rest of us. Which, once again, makes it clear what the modern Republican Party is all about: not limited government, not personal responsibility, not fiscal sanity, not even family values, but power. Their power over the rest of us.
Unfortunately for the 11 million or more undocumented residents among us (more popularly known as "illegals"), "us" includes "them." And our new Speaker apparently has no intention of helping them either. His rationale: the President can't be trusted to enforce the law.
Calling this patent nonsense is a little bit like calling his position on family leave hypocrisy, i.e., too obvious for comment. Nevertheless, it's worth repeating a few basic points, as they would otherwise tend to get lost in the noise that masquerades nowadays as news coverage.
Ryan's assessment of the President's untrustworthiness is ridiculous. Everything Obama has done or proposed in the area of administrative relief is based on his lawfully-defined authority to extend prosecutorial discretion to the application of immigration law, based on current circumstances. As it turns out, one of those circumstances is the seeming unwillingness of Congress to consider any legislation that would address not only the plight of the 11 million, but more generally bring our immigration system in line with the demands of a world that is becoming more and more integrated all the time.
And immigration is not, contrary to the way in which Republicans treat it, a stand-alone issue. Immigration affects every aspect of American life, and is inextricably link to every aspect of it. It is an economic issue, a national security issue, a research and development issue, a cultural issue, an educational issue, and yes, a family issue as well. Ryan's home state is no exception; immigration has a tremendous impact on Wisconsin, as it does on all 50 states.
Worst of all, Ryan was part of a House majority under Boehner that stubbornly refused to consider a comprehensive immigration bill that was passed by the Senate in 2013 with 68 Republican and Democratic votes. The House Republicans could have voted it down, debated it, amended it, and more generally used it to stake out a position on the issue. They pretended the issue didn't exist; that, as Republicans, they have the power to make reality disappear, and thereby gain more power as a result.
And, with the President's more recent administrative proposals on immigration, the fantasizing continues in the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which is delaying a final decision on a suit against those proposals until an appeal to the Supreme Court can no longer be made it a timely way. The Court knows that the President is right, and further knows that the Supreme Court would have no choice but to come to the same conclusion. That's why they are sitting on the case rather than deciding it.
Whether in the courts or the Congress they control, Republicans have no alternative vision of what America should be, or how America should get there. They have no agenda, no vision, no principles at all except the maintenance of a corrupt status quo that favors their contributors over the rest of the nation. They are outnumbered, and in opposition to objective reality. And the way in which they have chosen to respond to this can only be described with one word: cowardice.
But that word doesn't just apply to Speaker Ryan, or the members of his Congressional majority ...
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