I found this interesting essay online and thought folks might like to read it. I excerpted a piece and you can take the leap to read the whole thingy!
Go here for the full story: The ideological Jiu-Jitsu of the GOP in Hawaii
Ever since moving here I have regarded the political clime as, well, mystifying to say the least. Even for such a Democratic state, the Tea Party/GOP/fearful conservative demographic is exceedingly small but very very vocal, and overly funded. The fact that someone like Linda Lingle could ever become Governor of Hawaii attests to this bizarre dynamic. Two or three times a year (especially on “Tax Protest Day”) I can drive into Kona and see the annoying gathering of Tea Party holdouts, their expensive cars parked close by, shaking signs and waving yellow Don’t Tread On Me flags in anger over how we are not living in 1789 anymore. It is rare that you see a dark face amongst their scrubbed, white and slightly sunburned ones. But occasionally you do, and when that happens you are lured into a true Post Turtle moment. For those not aware of the joke, one guy walking a country road sees a turtle placed on top of a fence post and asks a neighbor what it is. The response is “a post turtle”. He asks again what that means, and is answered that no one knows how he got up there, but he doesn’t belong there and everyone agrees he needs to be helped down.
Without holding a single hearing, Lieberman’s committee wants to pass the “Independent Agency Regulatory Analysis Act of 2012” which strips the independence of a raft of federal agencies: Everything from the Securities and Exchange Commission to the Nuclear Regulatory Agency and National Labor Relations Board.
Among its many provisions, the law would require each of the agencies that Congress quite deliberately established as independent to submit all proposed rules to The White House for “vetting” before they could be published. According to a report buried election day afternoon on a back page of Tuesday’s New York Times, the bill would “introduce delays to an already slow process, and would give banks and businesses yet another place to lobby for favorable treatment.”
The Times also notes correctly that bad reviews from The White House would enable industry groups to use an administration’s objections in mounting legal challenges to rules that are eventually put in place.
Lieberman’s bill to defang regulatory agencies has bi-partisan support in the committee – perhaps not entirely surprising given that its Republican members include Tom Coburn, outgoing Senator Scott Brown, John McCain and Rand Paul. But Carl Levin also is a member as is Hawaii’s Daniel Akaka, yet they are supporting the measure even though they should know better.
And finally, New Rule: Since President Obama seems to be having so much trouble defending his record on the economy, the next debate must be held in a mall. Any mall. It doesn’t matter. They’re all packed. There’s one not 100 yards from this studio, with dancing waters and a choo-choo train, and a shirtless gay kid out in front of Abercrombie & Fitch. The parking garage is always full, the Cheesecake Factory is working overtime, and Lady Gaga’s new perfume — with its delightful scent of blood and semen — is flying off the shelves at Nordstrom’s.
What I’m saying is, I know it’s campaign season, but can we all stop acting like the American economy is in complete shambles, where no one has a job or a place to live, and we’re all doing our laundry in the river? (wild audience applause)
Thank you. I mean, folks, I travel this country constantly, all four corners of it. And everywhere I go, I’m always standing in line for 20 minutes to buy hair gel, or batteries, or nipple moisturizer. Traffic is a bitch everywhere. Yes, there are people sleeping on the sidewalk, but that’s to buy an iPhone just like the one they already have! (audience applause)
It just doesn’t feel like Obama has ruined America. Republicans, you know, they used to talk a lot about this thing called the stock market, and how it helped not just the rich, but middle class folks, whose pensions and 401(k)’s depended on it. Well, now they never seem to mention the stock market. Perhaps, because under President Blackenstein, the Dow has doubled. Or as Republicans call it, “devastating economic news”. (audience applause)
Now, there certainly still is poverty in our country, but it’s obviously among the underclass that you don’t see — the very people that today’s Republicans couldn’t give a shit about! So I don’t understand why they’re all so upset about the economy. Except, of course, it’s their big issue. So they have to pretend that America is a rotting compost heap where people are eating cat food and wiping their ass with the pennysaver. (audience applause)
And weirdly, Obama kinda has to pretend that too. Because if he doesn’t, then he’s “out of touch”. So we all wind up living with this fictional picture of America that actually would be more appropriate for the year before Obama took office. Remember 2008? (audience applause) Yeah, I do.
That’s when Lehman Brothers collapsed, and the markets froze, and they were measuring GM for a pumpkin lot. And when you opened your bank statement, you saw the drowned Japanese girl from The Ring, and then you died.
And yes, I am saying we can keep blaming Bush for that. It’s the same as blaming rats for the Black Plague. Just because you’re sick of hearing historians say it, doesn’t mean it stopped being true. (wild audience applause)
George Bush left a flaming pile of dog shit on the White House steps, and now it’s gone, and Mitt Romney has a hell of a nerve running on the idea that “I’m going to fix the economy by restoring the policies of the party that destroyed it”.
12 million jobs. That’s what Mitt Romney promises. 12 million. A number that’s just… waaaaay up there. (reaches into ass to pull it out) Oh, there it is, wow! There it is, 12 million! (wild audience applause) Way up there! Hoo, boy, I feel better.
And about 45% of American voters hear that and say, “I like. Me want good now.”
People are disappointed in the economy? Sorry. I was disappointed in Prometheus. You don’t like the way the stewardess landed the plane after werewolves ate the flight crew? Stop electing werewolves.
hawaiimagazine.com – Hawaii marks King Kamehameha Day with parades, lei-drapings. Here’s where to go. by: Maureen O’Connell posted: Thu Jun 07, 2012 at 01:03 PM Hawaii will celebrate its King Kamehameha Day this weeken…
cgvi.uscg.mil – HONOLULU – Guy Hagi, a reporter with Hawaii News Now, documents a search and rescue case conducted by the Coast Guard, June 7, 2012. The news feature documenting a SAR case was a collaboration betw…
hawaiinewsnow.com – HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – Gov. Neil Abercrombie announced Colin Kippen as his selection to be the state’s next homelessness coordinator Friday and said a new coordinated approach toward the homele…
hawaiinewsnow.com – HONOLULU (AP) – An elderly California couple is suing the landowner of a Waikiki outdoor bazaar, claiming they were injured when a branch from a large banyan tree fell on them. Attorneys for the Ra…
hawaiinewsnow.com – The State Land Use Commission Friday afternoon approved the proposed Hoopili development. The vote was 8 to 1 in favor of the D.R. Horton project. The development would add 11,750-homes on 1,554 ac…
jasonstravels.com – A pile of plumeria flowers already covered the table. They were piled high, more than enough for us to string several lei together without running out. But we had walked the dusty field surroundin…
kitv.com – Lions Club volunteers help save city money HONOLULU – On any given morning, Chinatown is bustling with pedestrians criss-crossing through the streets.Dressed in bright yellow shirts and decorated v…
pacificislandparks.com – Lava Rocks and Tide Pools Ranger Ruth explores the meaning and nature of pohaku, the Hawaiian word for rock or stone. Kaloko-Honokohau National Historical Park on the Kona side of the Island of Haw…
gaveltogavel.us – May 2nd, 2012 by Bill Raftery Leave a reply » I mentioned back in early April Hawaii’s SB 650, a constitutional amendment that would allow the state’s chief justice to call retired judges and justi…
• HI-Sen: Sen. Dan Inouye says in a new interview that he “will not take sides in the primary,” and Politico ads that his “top aides insist” he won’t be lending quiet, behind-the-scenes support to any candidates either. I hope that’s true, since I was concerned Ed Case might have mended things with Inouye to the point that the latter might get behind the former. But without some special help, I think Case will have a hard time. Also, SMS Research took the most useless poll imaginable, pitting Case against former Honolulu Mayor Mufi Hannemann in a primary… and absolutely no one else. Whatevs.
There is one line in the sand, however: Social Security. Social Security is THE bedrock social compact that binds this nation together through generation after generation. It is THE signature achievement of modern American democracy. It is the foundation program of the modern Democratic Party. There is nothing wrong with it. It produces substantial surpluses every single year and will for many years into the future. It is the one program that ties youth, work, sacrifice, perseverance, aging, sickness, old age, and death together all at once. It is so important, it nears the sacred. For that reason, there is really no reason at all to remain a Democrat if a Democratic president cuts Social Security. For now, I take the president at his word when he says he prefers to raise taxes on the wealthy to account for distant shortfalls in the program. But when he says, “All options are on the table,” I start to worry. It makes me fearful that he will mess around with the last, best, hope of an impoverished middle class. Make no mistake: Cutting Social Security is a dealbreaker, pure and simple. Cut it, and I’m gone.
Obama probably did the best he could do, and that’s the point. The best our current two parties can produce today — in the wake of the worst existential crisis in our economy and environment in a century — is suboptimal, even when one party had a huge majority. Suboptimal is O.K. for ordinary times, but these are not ordinary times. We need to stop waiting for Superman and start building a superconsensus to do the superhard stuff we must do now. Pretty good is not even close to good enough today.
