GOP Predators Find Themselves A Useful Idiot: Chris Van Hollen (D-MD)

Couple of douche bags

If you want to make believe the Republicans in Congress aren't fighting a vicious and concerted class war against working families on behalf of Big Business, Wall Street and the 1%, you can work with them towards bipartisan solutions. But then you'd have to be an idiot since, through words and deeds, the Republicans in Congress have shown, indisputably shown, that "bipartisan" always means the same thing for them: support the dogmatic right-wing approach/strategy. Former DCCC chair Chris Van Hollen ought to know better; maybe he does.

Van Hollen teamed up with Paul Ryan-- Ryan acting on behalf of Eric Cantor-- to push through the Expedited Line-Item Veto and Rescissions Act of 2011. Ryan and Van Hollen, both members of the Budget Committee are kind of palsy-walsy, in a ruling class kind of way. Yesterday they introduced a bill to give the president a line item veto, something the Supreme Court has already struck down as unconstitutional. I wonder if Ryan gave Van Hollen a boxed edition of the collected works of Ayn Rand as a thank you.

At least one Democrat noticed. In a press release, Ryan's opponent, Rob Zerban, doesn't call out Van Hollen by name but...

Unconstitutional Attack on the Middle Class

After proposing the unpopular budget to slash Social Security and Medicare, Paul Ryan is continuing his direct attack on the funding our middle class depends on. Ryan has recently proposed reinstituting the line-item veto. This type of legislation was struck down by the Supreme Court in 1998 because it is an unconstitutional attempt to give the President unilateral powers “to enact, to amend, or to repeal statutes,” and this cannot be passed through the standard legislative process.

Instead of dealing with the many problems in our economy, both Congress and now the Supercommittee have come up short. Led by Paul Ryan, this Congress continues to propose measures designed to slash funding for the middle class.

While I am not surprised these sorts of ideas would be proposed by Paul Ryan, I am deeply disappointed by some Democrats who have not shown the willingness to fight. We cannot give in to pressure to downsize our middle class. That is not the way forward.

We must deal with our nation’s problems in Congress instead of outsourcing responsibility to President Obama. This is just one more example of this Congress’s failure to lead on budgetary issues. It is no surprise that this Congress is one of the least popular in history.

I always like a Democrat willing o stand up for the 99%-- even if that means standing up to the craven power structure inside of his own party. People in Wisconsin are pretty independent-minded. I hope they realize that Zerban is standing up for them against two very powerful servants of the 1%, one from each party establishment. If you'd like to help Zerban's campaign, we have a Stop Paul Ryan ActBlue page-- and it's open 24/7.

Meanwhile, across the aisle, wasn't it nice of Ron Paul's campaign this evening to help Republican primary voters remember just who Newt Gingrich has always been? The Mittster must be kvelling!