Dear America,
The sheer transparency of the conservative Republican Party astounds me, as does the failure of Republicans to see what their party is doing to this country. As the year 2016 begins, the Republicans in Congress are shamelessly playing with public sentiment when they know that their actions are to no avail, just for the purpose of inflaming sentiment that they have previously whipped up in light of the fact that this is a presidential election year. Both houses have now passed a repeal of "Obamacare" with full knowledge that President Obama will never sign it. By doing so, they pander to the people who don't benefit from the law and don't care that nearly 20 million of their countrymen have, while avoiding alienating those 20 million people because the vote will be forgotten and the benefit of the law will still be derived by those 20 million voters. In addition, the bill being sent to President Obama either sharply curtails or eliminates funding for Planned Parenthood--the fact that such action is taken under false pretenses being set aside for now--which is another pandering gesture that is fated to go nowhere from the beginning. And the motivations for all this are so plain, and by the way partisan and shallow, that I cannot understand how Republican voters feel more inclined toward their party on account of them, but for the past five years, they have been election after election. Then there is the petroleum industry sop that was passed, and signed by the President, I assume in a moment of weakness or as a quid pro quo for something more important.
As to oil in general, I heard the president of the American Petroleum Institute (API) pontificating against the disapproval of the Keystone XL pipeline at a televised forum a couple of days ago, and the casuistry of his argument was evident not just from what he said, but from what he didn't. The reasons he spouted for his objection to the disapproval were just a few, but they were all dubious. First, he said it was a chance to help out "our Canadian neighbors," as if the Canadian and American oil companies involved in the project, who could have expected to reap enormous profits from it, were the people next door. In fact, as for ordinary Canadians, the pipeline would do virtually nothing for them, and it would do less for us in light of the fact that Congress has now passed that bill allowing for the first time in forty years the export of raw petroleum. We are still importing petroleum by the millions of barrels per day, but our petroleum industry is exporting it at the same time. Of course, with oil and gas prices being as low as they are, no one will notice for awhile, but that won't always be the case, and this law is the camel's nose inside the tent after forty years of keeping him at bay. The API president, Jack Gerard, then mentioned the "thousands of jobs" that we now won't get as if there was a substantial number of them, when in reality, there would be only three to six thousand of them, spread across the country from the Canadian Border to Steele City, Nebraska, all but about thirty of them temporary, and only a few hundred at a time...another dubiously motivated exaggeration, this time on Mr. Gerard's part. Then he added that pollution would increase on account of the alternate modes of transportation that the Canadian tar sands oil would be conveyed through, but he never mentioned the fact that processing those tar sands would have increased pollution all over the world because it requires so much more effort to refine and the concurrent emissions would have been spewed not just here, but worldwide. Is there any doubt that Gerard is a Republican?
As to that Planned Parenthood budget provision, the only way it got through was in the course of what is called "budget reconciliation." When congress goes to that process, which it can do only on budgetary matters, the ordinary rules of The Senate are suspended and a simple majority can pass a bill, as it can and did in The House. Mind you, I think the Senate should operate that way all the time, which they would if the filibuster weren't de rigueur in their proceedings, but I also think it should be all the time or not at all. So, passing the repeal of Obamacare and the de-funding of Planned Parenthood through this device seems devious to me, which is what I expect from Republicans, but that doesn't make it any more palatable. And in light of the fact that even if it hadn't been attached to another provision that has no chance on its own, there was never any possible purpose other than pandering for its inclusion in any bill. It's a poison pill on its own, and bringing it up in the context of another futile gesture just demonstrates even more clearly the insincerity of the Republicans, including the new Republican Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, who stood at the speaker's podium with his bare face hanging out claiming to be ushering in a new day when he was voted in. It all seems so tawdry and despicable to me...and obviously so...but that never gets any consideration from Republican voters even though they themselves don't benefit from it one bit.
If I were a Republican, I would be thinking that my personal integrity was at stake every time I cast a vote for my Republican congressman, senator of presidential candidate. But if you're a Republican, I guess integrity isn't an issue.
Your friend,
Mike
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