2 October 2013 The pump won’t work cause the vandals stole the handle

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/harold-meyerson-building-a-permanent-republican-minority/2013/10/01/bde96d78-2ac7-11e3-8ade-a1f23cda135e_story.html

“So, what’s really going on? What’s behind this two-decade drive to employ the obstructive power of a governmental minority to undo the policies that a majority enacted or to unseat an elected president? Plainly, the gap between the Republican Party and the rest of the nation has widened. And as that gap has grown, Republicans have become more insular and more desperate — a toxic combination for a functioning democracy…”

“…All this leaves only two ways that Republicans can affect public policy at the national level: They can embrace minority rights (through, say, immigration reform) and accept a legitimate role for government in the nation’s economic affairs (which, polls show, millennials strongly support) — that is, they can move to the center. Or they can try to maximize the power of their minority status by trying to disrupt the nation to the point that the majority will be compelled to support Republican positions.

Rationality dictates the first choice, but rationality doesn’t hold much sway in today’s GOP. Insularity is largely to blame. Right-wing media fuel support for Republican lawmakers’ most obstructionist tendencies. And Republicans in safely GOP districts don’t have to concern themselves with voters who may blanch at their radicalism.

Is this course sustainable? Ultimately, no. Eventually, the number of millennials, voters of color and fed-up moderates will rise to the point that 218 sufficiently white and conservative House districts can no longer be crafted. How much havoc Republicans can wreak until then, however, is anybody’s guess.”

Cassi Creek:

          The day is sunny with high clouds.  Lots of chores to be done.  Perhaps tomorrow.   

          I suggested to a friend of ours, last night, that she should become a write-in candidate against our sitting Representative, Roe, in the 2014 election.  I’d love to see him challenged and defeated by a competent woman.  For that matter, I’d like to see anyone other than a teavangelist defeat him.

          The shutdown continues with various teavangelists and GOPers claiming that they are saving the nation by shutting down government.  They are mindless idiots, as are the voters in gerrymandered districts that elected them.  Their intention, and the intentions of their financiers, is to roll the country back to the 19^th century.  They will, if allowed, overturn the child labor laws, do away with public schools, and undo all the women’s rights laws that have been passed.  They will overturn every safety net program enacted since the Civil War.  They’ve already begun these actions in the Red states.  They won’t stop until they are physically thrown from office.  It is up to us to stop them.