The GOP Sure Is Queer-- And Not Only In The Good Sense Of The Word

This isn't another post about the plethora of Republican closet queens-- from semi-"out" freaks like Lindsey Graham, Aaron Schock and David Dreier to the hysterical sociopaths who do everything anti-gay under the sun to hide their identity, like Patrick McHenry, Trent Franks and Adrian Smith-- and voting against LGBT equality in Congress and it's not just about how Darrell Issa and his cronies have set about to destroy (see video above) the U.S. post office. Let me start with 3 who don't have much in common beyond how classically queer they are: Arkansas Congressman Steve Womack, California Congressman Buck McKeon and Willard "Mitt" Romney (like McKeon, a Mormon).

Who would defend the Supreme Court's misguided, corporatist and profoundly anti-democratic decision to grant corporations personhood (Citizens United)? Well... Arkansas corporate whore Steve Womack. He likes that floodgate of corporate money perverting democracy. "I believe," wrote Womack, "that the Citizens United decision strengthens the fundamental right to free speech afforded to all Americans by the First Amendment.  In the same way that individual Americans and political groups are able to speak out during election season, corporations should be allowed to have their voices heard. They are now allowed to use the same media outlets that as large political and interest groups are allowed to use…Corporations are comprised of Americans too and it is important that we uphold the Constitution without selectively granting First Amendment rights."

Blue Arkansas Blog admits being stunned by Womack's cluelessness. "I really don’t think any Republican in Congress has ever laid out their support for corporate personhood and the corrupting corporate influence in elections quite like that. For all that lofty talk about the Constitution, what Citizen’s United actually does is give corporations the chance to dump millions or even billions into shaping public opinion."

Womack set the tone for the AR-03 debate from the start. He did that when he made the comment about how he and Ken Aden ran in different circles-- Ken in middle class circles, him with so called high society. Aden has stood solidly with the 99% of Americans while Womack has done the bidding of big business every day of his short congressional career. And while Ken Aden has been getting a lot of donations from ordinary Arkansans who believe in his campaign but can only give a small donation, Womack has just had to sit back and let the corporations he’s been defending hand him the cash in a form of perfectly legal, commonly accepted bribery. The good news for those of us who can’t just cough up a six figure ad buy?  Even a ton of money will only go so far, and the power of ordinary people can still match that of the already powerful.

Buck McKeon was born during the Great Depression of the 1930's. He's utterly out of touch with the modern era and rarely makes any sense. Unfortunately, Boehner made him chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, where he uses his power to push the Mormon agenda of ant-gay bigotry. He's gone as far as threatening to sit on the entire Pentagon budget unless Obama reconsiders implementing Congress' decision to abolish Don't Ask, Don't Tell. Yes, he'd jeopardize the nation's security because he hates gay people so much-- or at least his sick, bizarre, throwback view of gay people! (It looks like he failed again this week.) But that's not the only thing-- nor by a long shot-- that's queer about Buck.

Born into a wealthy Mormon family that he eventually drove into bankruptcy, ole Buck has a strange relationship with money. Widely considered one of the most corrupt Members of Congress in either parties, he's also one of the most hypocritical. The GOP banned earmarks... well, not really. They announced they banned earmarks and then set about with vigor and determination to get around their own ban, McKeon in the lead.

One of the first efforts this year to sidestep the ban came in May, when the House Armed Services Committee crafted the National Defense Authorization Act. Lawmakers added 111 amendments totaling more than $650 million in special projects for their districts. Committee Chairman Howard P. “Buck” McKeon (R-Calif.) set aside $1 billion in a special fund that was used for member-directed projects. Lawmakers said the projects were not earmarks and promised to create a competitive process for the money.

But 59 of the 111 amendments contained language nearly identical to that used to describe previous earmarks, according to an analysis by the earmark watchdog group Citizens Against Government Waste.

McKeon, who illegally uses campaign contributions to enrich his wife and son, won't left a finger to help anyone in his own district other than big campaign contributors. Case in point: there's widespread support in McKeon's southern California district for Sen. Barbara Boxer's proposal to block a giant, environmentally-unsound sand and gravel pit mine in Soledad Canyon for Cemex, a Mexican mining firm. Boxer's bill (S.759), which requires House approval (since it involves land owned by the federal government) would authorize a land swap that would provide Cemex with property near Victorville in exchange for giving up its right to mine in Soledad Canyon. The city of Santa Clarita, where McKeon got his political start as mayor-- and the biggest town in the district-- is leading the charge (mostly based on clean air and heavy truck traffic concerns. Organizations that are behind the swap include:

• Breathe California of Los Angeles County
• Clean Air Now
• Coalition for Clean Air
• Planning & Conservation League
• The Sierra Club
• Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy
• Santa Clarita Organization for Planning and the Environment (SCOPE)
• SCV Green
• Endangered Habitats League
• Friends of the Santa Clara River
• Rivers and Mountains Conservancy
• Safe Action for the Environment (SAFE)
• Los Angeles Conservation Corps
• San Fernando Valley Audubon Society
• California Association of Realtors
• Valley Industry and Commerce Association
• Valley Industry Association
• Greater San Fernando Valley Chamber of Commerce
• Santa Clarita Valley Chamber of Commerce
• Simi Valley Chamber of Commerce
• City of Glendale
• City of Palmdale
• City of Bellflower
• City of Santa Clarita
• Castaic Lake Water Agency
• Newhall County Water District
• Los Angeles County Democratic Party
• Democratic Party of the San Fernando Valley
• Santa Clarita Valley Congress of Republicans
• Democratic Club of the Santa Clarita Valley
• Santa Clarita Valley Fair Elections Committee
• Santa Clarita Valley Community College District
• William S. Hart Union High School District
• Castaic Union School District
• Newhall School District
• Sulphur Springs School District

Not on that list-- or any list supporting the bill-- is the local congressman, Buck McKeon. In fact, the local paper says McKeon refuses to sponsor the bill, calling it "an earmark." McKeon's Democratic opponent, Lee Rogers, calls it "a questionable excuse from a Congressman who has been a leader in securing earmarks for his special interest friends. In fact, he was voted "Porker of the Month" in July 2011 by Citizen's Against Government Waste for legislation which helps defense special interest groups even during the Republican moratorium on earmarks." This is a big deal in the district and time is ticking-- they have 2 weeks to work this out-- but McKeon refuses to get off the dime. Some speculate that he's waiting for a payoff, although he insists it's because of the earmark ban (which he's ignoring when it involves defense contractors who routinely bribe him and his family members). Rogers hit him again last week-- hard:

McKeon is no stranger to earmarks. Between 2008 and 2010 McKeon requested $78.5 million in earmarks, 76% of which were directed to defense projects, including a $9.6 million payday to the Northrop Grumman Corporation. Additionally, he is responsible for loads of fat in the National Defense Authorization Act, including a $650 million slush fund that earned him the title “Porker of the Month” from Citizens Against Government Waste in July 2011.

As for McKeon's co-religionist... where does one even begin? Another old video of the country's most flip-floppin'-est politician EVAH!



Queer? Not as queer as Jonathan Chait's post $10,000 bet goof-up report on Romney's little rich kid persona in the new New York.

Wealthy though Romney may be, as a committed Mormon who can’t gamble and an equally committed tightwad, he’s the last guy who’s going to run around throwing down high-stakes bets on a whim.

I do think the debate exposed a deeper problem for Romney and the Republican Party. Romney is obviously conscious of his wealth and determined to avoid the stereotype of an out-of-touch rich guy interested only in protecting his own. And yet the party is committed to a policy agenda that involves enriching people in Romney’s tax bracket. This combination renders him an especially poor vehicle for the GOP agenda.

All the presidential candidates, including President Obama, are rich by the standards of the average American. But Romney is especially rich, and not just numerically. He looks and sounds like a paragon of the upper class, with his regal appearance, precise diction, and dignified graying sideburns. This has forced him to defensively cast himself as a middle-class champion, foreswearing at every turn any interest in benefiting the rich.

The most dramatic example concerns his proposal on capital gains. Reducing the tax rate on capital gains is the centerpiece of the Republican domestic agenda. Capital gains represent a huge share of income for the very rich, and the lower rate for capital gains income (as opposed to salary income) largely accounts for the fact that Warren Buffett pays a lower tax rate than his secretary. George W. Bush cut the capital gains tax, and most leading Republicans want to eliminate it altogether.

Romney proposes only to eliminate capital gains taxes on income under $200,000 a year. That would cover just a tiny portion of capital gains, making it essentially a symbolic measure. A few months ago, the Wall Street Journal editorial page railed against Romney’s plan. The problem, the editorial noted, was not just that Romney wasn’t offering any new tax breaks for the rich. It was that the retreat “suggests that he's afraid of Mr. Obama's class warfare rhetoric”-- that, in general, he will shrink from the task of advocating for policies that increase income inequality.

Any conservatives liable to worry about this would be positively alarmed after hearing Romney defend his position on Saturday night. During one portion of the debate, Romney mentioned that he, unlike Newt Gingrich, would restrict his capital gains tax cut to those under the $200,000 annual threshold. Gingrich replied, accurately, that households under that ceiling have barely any capital gains. Romney replied:

And-- and in my view, the place that we could spend our precious tax dollars for a tax cut is on the middle class, that's been most hurt by the Obama economy. That's where I wanna eliminate taxes on interest dividends and capital gains.

“Spend our precious tax dollars”-- that is a phrase to strike terror in right-wing hearts. For twenty years, the basis for Republican budgeting has been to refuse to acknowledge any tradeoff between cutting taxes for the rich and other governmental priorities. The Democratic position is to insist that tax cuts for the rich be measured against other possible choices-- lower taxes for the rich mean higher taxes for the middle class, or lower social spending, or higher deficits. Here, Romney is actually employing the Democratic formulation.

Indeed, he is doing it in the way most prone to enraging conservatives-- by describing the choice to cut taxes as a form of spending-- a formulation that for several decades has prompted the conservative auto-response that this phrasing presumes all taxpayer dollars belong to the government.

Every additional episode that highlights Romney’s wealth merely increases the pressure he surely feels to avoid the vulnerabilities associated with championing the rich. Republicans have usually sought to avoid this problem by nominating candidates who can at least sell themselves as authentic representatives of the middle class. George W. Bush may have been handed enormous wealth by his patrician family, but he crafted an image of himself as a kind of Texas dirt farmer, with his modest “ranch” serving as the background. Nominating Romney, stripped of any such cover, raises the risk for Republicans that he may be a pacifist in the class war.

This is one screwed up party. They need a rest-- a nice long one, out of governance entirely. Are you registered to vote?