Here’s how Republicans are going to weasel out of their campaign promises:
But GOP Rep. John Kline of Minnesota, the soon-to-be-ranking member of the House’s education and labor committee, dismissed talk that the new Congress will make it a priority to dismantle the Education Department.
“In some ways, that’s sort of a talking point,” Kline told Anderson. “There will be those who campaigned on that language. I’m not sure they always know what it means.”
Kline would have us believe one of two things: Either campaigning is some form of temporary insanity, where candidates say things they don’t really mean because they’re too crazy to know any better. Or candidates are empty-headed Chatty Cathy dolls, repeating pre-recorded statements that were inserted into their plastic, microcephalic craniums by their handlers.
I doubt that voters will buy Kline’s weak-ass gambit to wave away promises as “talking points”, and I’m pretty sure the freshman class won’t cop to being crazy and/or stupid. They were elected by freedom-loving patriots who think closing down the DOE is the right thing to do, and they want a vote.
earlofscriggs
It’s bad enough they want to shut down the Dept of Education. What really gives me pause are their plans to create a new federal Department of Ignorance.
cleek
what gets said on the campaign trail stays on the campaign trail.
greennotGreen
Closing down the Department of Education *is* the right thing for Republicans to do. Continued and increased ignorance among the electorate is how they plan to continue and increase their majority.
c u n d gulag
Ooooh, Oooooh, Mistah Kottaaaaaar, I know da ansa. It’s da laddah raddah dan da formah!
jwb
I don’t know, I’m rather hoping that that all that talk about not raising the debt ceiling was just so much campaign rhetoric. Because I’d really the country and world not have to deal with the total economic chaos of default.
LGRooney
Umm, they elected these dumb asses in the first place. How much will the voters buy?
Dan
ummm, can’t both be true?
ploeg
Kline almost certainly didn’t make these promises.
The folks who made these promises can say with truth that it wasn’t within their power to eliminate the Department of Education, and the solution is to re-elect these folks for the next 20 years so that they get the seniority to do so.
And then the whole thing is forgotten by the next election.
kommrade reproductive vigor
The mad scientist tried to get his creation to stop, but it did not heed his commands.
What makes you think it’s a case of either/or?
Anyhoo, prepare for a walkback in 5…4…3…
bkny
@earlofscriggs: don’t forget the congressional investigations into the bogus climate change research.
i cannot believe that rick scott was elected governor of florida. and judging by the nyt’s slurpy write-up on him that gave a big ho-hum to his billion-dollar medicare fraud, i guess it really doesn’t matter.
homerhk
This gives those voters far too much credit, imho.
Look, the vast majority of voters who voted in these pieces of sh*t didn’t care about the policies of the people they voted in. They won’t care if the Republicans just sat on their arses for the next two years (exhibit 1: the Bush years). All they care about is that power isn’t vested in a party with a black man at the helm. All they care about is to ensure that in 2012 someone other than the current resident of the White House becomes President (preferably a republican, but I get the sense that they just don’t care).
As for the remainder, let’s call them the selfish wealthy, all they care about is not having to pay more taxes; they’ve got their houses, cars, health insurance, private education etc. so why would they give a crap if there is or isn’t a DoE so long as they don’t have to pay for any of it.
There may be about 5 voters who really care about these things but they are used to getting rebuffed.
The Grand Panjandrum
If they were serious about anything, and actually interested in fiscal responsibility, they would have made repealing Medicare Part D (or at least paying for it) a priority talking point during the campaign. These are not serious people. They are rat bastards whose only agenda is to appease the FUIGM crowd.
Southern Beale
And in today’s Gulf Oil Spill follow up, first we have the memory hole, one of Sarah Palin’s “tweets”:
…and today we have this in the New York Times:
Uh-huh. This is what happens when you listen to know-nothing Republican agitators who live solely to promote themselves and their careers and could give a flying fuck about things like coastal restoration or that weird science-y shit.
Just … you know … sayin’ ….
Tim in Wisconsin
I dunno. Here in Wisconsin, our governor elect has somehow already spiked our passenger rail project despite not taking office for another two months.
So, other states, get ready. One of you lucky ones will have $800 million in rail money headed your way, all because we didn’t want to spent $7 million a year operating the thing.
On Wisconsin! Forward!
Hedges Ahead
I’m not exactly sure these people know what the DoE does. Nowadays it does things like operate the student loan program, insofar as we just clawed administration of that back from private lenders who were making major bank off of it. So it’s obvious which backers want DoE gone for that reason.
Beyond that, the DoE runs the national accreditation program which, you know, guarantees that our universities at least teach to some uniformity. I mean, the world doesn’t just take our word that we have good colleges. I forget which rw university skims over the fact they can’t get accredited (Bob Jones, Liberty U? One of those) and I’m sure the for-profit colleges (looking at you, Phoenix) would like to see the DoE go, as it’s their oversight.
Further, there are community and technical schools which I think if you check your state legislature, no matter what the state, you find that those schools are receiving almost 0 support at the state/local level, in this budgetary climate.
So really it seems like it comes down to, parents who home school their kids, can afford college coaches and SAT/ACT prep courses, and the nepotism to get their kids into name-brad U’s and MBA programs don’t *need* the DoE, so TS, poor people.
Corner Stone
This reminds me of the “Do or Diers” back in the 1990’s. They ran for Congress making the pledge they would serve one term and focus on nothing but reducing the debt.
Of course, when the time came they all ran again and patiently explained to their voters that they most certainly had cast their votes to reduce the debt but the tax and spend liberals thwarted them. Just give them another chance and they would marshal the strength to do what they had promised.
IOW, lying Republicans can say anything they like with no blowback mistermix. Don’t we know this by now?
PurpleGirl
Re dismantling the Department of Education: “In some ways, that’s sort of a talking point,” Kline told Anderson. “There will be those who campaigned on that language. I’m not sure they always know what it means.”
The Republican wingnuts are always saying we have read the Constitution with the idea of “the plain meaning of the language”. Well, in that case, wouldn’t “dismantle” mean take apart. Plain meaning of the language, folk, plain meaning of the language.
frostys
@cleek: I think you win the internets on this thread! That’s the most succinct roundup of a political campaign I’ve ever heard.
BH
Republican voters and candidates have no idea what the Dept. of Education even does or what its budget is. All those campaign talking points are empty rhetoric. As proof, in this past election we learned:
1. You can get elected saying you’ll stop runaway spending without being able to cite a single cut that you would make. (See everyone except Paul, Rand)
2. You can get elected despite having your party’s soon-to-be Budget chairman’s slash-and burn approach to entitlement “reform” written in print. (See Ryan, Paul)
3. You can get elected openly admitting that you have no plans for anything and that you believe that an election amounts to an interview for a job on which you’ll figure it out as you go. (See Johnson, Ron)
Policy does not matter. Deficits do not matter. Ideas do not matter. Empty rhetoric does.
burnspbesq
@bkny:
Just to be annoying nit-picky, Scott was neither convicted of anything nor did he plead to anything. The company of which he was CEO pled guilty to 14 felonies.
The bigger fallacy in your comment is your apparent belief that Republican voters would see that as somehow a bad thing. To the average Republican, the only thing HCA did wrong was get caught.
Cat Lady
@Southern Beale:
Don’t forget nimrod Joe “apologize to BP” Barton will most likely be the new chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, so there will be a fuckton more amusing developments along the Gulf coast. Don’t blame me, I’m from Massachusetts.
WereBear
Remember Bush the Elder, confronted with what he’d said during the campaign?
But that was campaign promises!
Clearly communicating that in his mind, it was no more to be listened to than a used car salesman’s spiel…
Que Sera Sera
c u n d gulag: It’s non-rhotic: “Kottaaaah, Kottaaah.”
-5 pts, but you still get a passing grade.
burnspbesq
@Cat Lady:
Slacker. You should have volunteered to move to Texas to vote against him. Take one for the tribe.
El Cid
For generations conservatives were promised a right wing paradise if conservative Republicans ever really took power.
Abolish the IRS, stop abortions, kick the shit out of whichever dark people nation, put the Bible back in the schools, cut all the entitlements, shrink the fedrul gubmit, stop all the environmental laws and more recently stop the Satanic Al Gore global warming one-world-governmentists, throw out all the Mexicans, and so forth.
Well, they finally conquered paradise in 2002 through 2006, along with a Supreme Court that continues to hand Christmas presents to the ultra-right. (Good-bye class action suits by consumers, anyone?)
And of that wish list, they got one, and after a while they got tired of their Iraq invasion toy because it seemed to be making a mess.
Enraged at the betrayal of their long-promised dreams, outraged conservative activists flood around hired patsies and demand that their neo-Confederate Talibangelical libertardist agenda be enacted, elected quite a few people associated with the fake yet to a degree popularly appealing and heavily media-promoted ‘Tea Party’ movement, a movement named after little girls in princess costumes sitting around miniature tables serving invisible drinks to teddy bears.
I’d say ‘lather, rinse, repeat,’ the only difference being that this time the pursuit of paradise by the conservatives who will again try to focus much more on enriching further the ultra-rich and handing out a few 12th century policies for the rabid might just help push the nation over another economic precipice.
And who knows? Maybe such a result will only cause an even larger, even more violent proto-fascist movement, unless a true visionary leader emerges to make it disciplined enough to be truly fascist.
khead
Beckley WV
Register-Herald
Comrade Javamanphil
@Tim in Wisconsin: Apparently the gov elect in OH is doing the same. Amazed how much these people hate trains. Happy to have faster tracks/trains here in the NE corridor though!
RalfW
Let’s jam Klein’s fax machine with “why isn’t the DOE closed yet” messages.
Dist office Fax: (952) 808-1261
DC office Fax: (202) 225-2595
Kay
I wish it mattered, mistermix, but I don’t think it will.
Tea Partiers were Bush voters, and any Bush voter who was paying attention knew Bush was no fiscal conservative by 2002, when he happily signed that obscene expansion of the farm bill to pay back his red state rural base. Tell me again how conservatives opposed Bush in 2004? They didn’t. They dragged him over the finish line. These are the same people.
They’re base Republicans. They’ll back anything the new majority does. Joe Miller is an absolute fraud as a “conservative” or “libertarian”. He signed up for each and every federal and state subsidy program he could find that would possibly benefit his family, and he’s a lawyer. He didn’t need all that state and federal aid. The Tea party response? They lobbied to change the rules in Alaska to put 163 names on the write-in list to help him.
They’re going to focus on President Obama. They’re already doing it. When Bachman was backed into a corner by Anderson Cooper (“what would you cut?”) she pointed to Obama’s trip to India to distract and deflect, because she can’t answer that question, and every single conservative followed. That was yesterday.
bkny
@burnspbesq: yeah, funny how ‘justice’ works for the billion-dollar scammers — no admittance of guilt; a meager fine that is a fraction of the theft … i.e., angelo mozillo
i look forward to scott’s slashing of the state’s budget; the massive layoffs, the cuts to state programs…. the olds are going to be regretting their vote…
General Stuck
Methinks Sarah been reading to many trashy romance novels/ Not to refudiate Queen Wingnut, but ravaged may have been the better word choice.
TheMightyTrowel
@Hedges Ahead:
I got the warm and fuzzies when I had to make out my last student loan check to the Dept of Ed rather than to Chase Manhattan Bank. But I’m from MA and like to pay my taxes too.
RalfW
@Tim in Wisconsin: As your neighbor, who is seeing the fast train to Chicago depart empty, I don’t say this with a whole lot of pleasure.
But I hope some coastal liberal elites get that $800 million and build some extra HSR, and pronto. I’ll enjoy it when I move in a few years (after the GOP destroys Minnesota, which they are very, very keen to do).
Kryptik
You would think people would have understood by now: Republicans are never subject to making good on their promises, as long as they have their platitudes.
Democrats, on the other hand, are always asked to equivocate and explain everything they plan to do in detail, otherwise we’re obligated to assume that they’re fasci-commie islamosympathizers brought to ruin the nation and sell it off to Kenya or something.
Jado
Is it possible for us to DEMAND that the Rethuglicans do everything they promised? Cause I would LOVE to see the fallout from the dismantling of the DOE, the repeal of Health Care, and the winnowing of federal government services to the point that the government can be drowned in a bathtub.
I, for one, welcome our new/old corporate overlords, and look forward to our dog-eat-dog meathook future.
DO it. Tear it all down. Maybe then people will actually WAKE UP to what you are doing and throw you all in prison where you belong, you scumbag grifter zealots. Cause these half-measures don’t seem to have any effect.
RSA
@General Stuck:
Exactly. This is the danger in trying to sound intelligent when you’re not. Doubtless Sarah’s usage will have its defenders (“The word ‘ravish’ can be used in this archaic way!”) but they’ll come off sounding as dumb as she does.
El Cid
@Jado:
When I feel mean and pissed off, that’s how I feel. However, I have little reason to expect that the electoral reaction will be to throw the bums out and put in liberals / progressives to fix it all. They might very well just get more bitter and meaner and stop voting or vote even farther right, both of which will support farther right governments. (And for those who think Peak Rightist government has been done already, far from it.)
kommrade reproductive vigor
The Dept. of Ed. forces atheist communis homosectyual agendas down our children’s throats!
/fReichtard
I’ve also heard that public education is an assault on the family of some sort because parents should be allowed to choose what their kids do or don’t learn.
El Cid
Finally, Republicans can help us stay in Afghanistan until Victory (an undefined term which means ‘forever’):
Comrade Javamanphil
@RSA: Like all cults, the more you point out how full of shite the leader is, the more the true believers cling to her every utterance. Best we can do is point and laugh as they ravish the English language.
RalfW
@Jado: I’m with you, dude. My mantra in the next few months in Minnesota will be “you guys wanted to fix the $6 billion state deficit. So fix it. Your way.” Give it to the citizens, good and hard. And with a big, shiny GOP label.
One of the first things I want to attack (and this will hit Obama too, but he’s being an ass about this) is that the highway trust fund is broke. I say let’s go Galt on that trust fund. Not one more dollar of general revenue can be transferred in to cover the massive deficit in infrastructure.
These asswads don’t want the gas tax raised? Fine. Enjoy your potholes, jerks.
Kryptik
@RalfW:
Not a bug, but a feature. After all, personal responsibility and all that rot. You hit the pothole, you reap the consequences of hitting it, tough titties about getting it fixed, gov’t shouldn’t baby you, you fucking weakling. Fucking Nanny state and everything, thinking we need working highways and transportation routes.
Don’t you just feel the utopia?
El Cid
@Comrade Javamanphil: I recently got in an argument with someone who so fervently believed the Bible said something about a particular topic that he/she wouldn’t accept it even when I showed him/her the actual words in the actual King James Bible.
With that kind of ox-like stubbornness and pride in authoritarian ignorance, they can believe anything forever.
El Cid
@Kryptik: Nope. The reason the government isn’t doing anything is because, yes, you guessed it, they’re giving all the money to the blacks and the Mexicans and the lazy shiftless people who prefer to be unemployed and Medicare fraud and giving money to Democrat-linked banks that easily could be used to do everything they wanted. Yes, I have heard this argument on talk radio and by people parroting it. There is no lack of funds.
debit
@RalfW: I am unlucky, in a sense, that I’m in a solidly blue district. I can’t harangue my Rep or Senator. I don’t know how much weight calls, letter and faxes will be coming from me, but I’m will to set aside some time to do so.
Someone jokingly (I assume) called for the start of the Fixit Party (You promised you’d fix it, why isn’t it fixed yet?). I heartily endorse this. What we need is an interactive map with contact info and campaign promises so the haranguing can begin.
Jinchi
And they can get a vote. Republicans only own the House. They can pass all sorts of crazy legislation, knowing it will be killed in the Senate or by presidential veto.
Then they get to plead with their supporters that if only they had a few more Senate seats and the presidency, we’d be on track to the conservative utopia.
I expect Karl Rove has mailers ready to go out the door begging for contributions as we speak.
chopper
@Kryptik:
dems are required to explain everything in detail, and after they get three words out the pundits throw up their arms and yell NERD ALERT! and start pointing and laughing.
CraigGM
There’s Option C – a lot if Congressmen truly see no connection between campaigning and governing. Chuck Grassley is the most famous of these; I truly believe he expected to come back from a month of screaming “death panels!” and continue working on health care. After all, that was just re-election stuff. Who takes it seriously?
It got worse last session when Republicans moved “voting” to the campaign column. They expected bills to be bipartisan compromises they could vote against, and we’re actually shocked when that didn’t happen.
The Republic of Stupidity
Oh… those pre-recorded statements get inserted alrighty… but I don’t it’s into their cranial cavities…
PurpleGirl
RalfW and Jado and others: I think the reason liberals and progressives don’t push for this taking the Galtists at their word and to the most extreme position is that we realize how bad it would be for the rest of us and we pull back from the idea.
But then, we don’t see many (any?) of them moving to Somalia, do we? They are cheapskates who want the benefits of civilization but don’t want to pay for any of it.
The Republic of Stupidity
@kommrade reproductive vigor:
What their children do or don’t learn?
Would that oh say, ‘facts’ as opposed to ‘inane gibberish’?
Funny, the very people who worry so much about ‘assaults on the family’ are as often as not the same ones who want to totally dismantle the social safety so when a family is in trouble, it’ll be totally on its own, including the kids…
arguingwithsignposts
@El Cid:
Now we know what happened to that damned bully pulpit!
burnspbesq
@bkny:
Actually, no. A guilty plea IS an admission that the defendant did every element of the offense. I’m sure the plea agreement lays it out in excruciating detail.
And if you don’t think the fine was enough, your beef is with Congress that sets the maximum amounts, not the DOJ folks who negotiated the deal or the judge who approved it.
arguingwithsignposts
@burnspbesq:
I get your point, but I think bkny was talking about the actual executives involved, not the corporation.
Paris
When do we start rounding up 12 million people for deportation?
Ash Can
What I find surprising about this is that Kline’s honesty here, accidental or not, is completely unnecessary. I’m sure the House wackos realize that they’re free to pass anything, no matter how insane, because in the extremely unlikely event it gets past the Senate, the President will kill it. Ergo, 1) they don’t have to deal with any consequences of their inanity, and 2) they have the automatic excuse of “we did our part; it’s the Democrats’ fault we couldn’t git ‘er done.” Kline doesn’t have to make excuses for them, because they’ll go ahead and do goofy shit anyway. Not only do they know they can, it’s a good political gambit besides. The House is going to be a loony bin for the next two years, and Kline’s kidding himself if he thinks otherwise.
wasabi gasp
As a consolation prize, all tea baggers will become board certified ophthalmologists.
danimal
@Jado:
Hmmmm… sounds like something some enterprising spoofers could pull off pretty easily. Maybe we should pressure the newly-elected wingnuts with a flood of phone calls to follow through with their more ridiculous promises.
Nied
Well I’m sure the Tea Baggers will stay home/vote for democrats in 2012 once they see their demands were not met immediately. After all look how effective that strategy has been for the left over the years!
Sly
Or door three: Republicans need to lie to get elected.
I’ll take door number three, Monty. OMG IT’S A NEW CAR!
El Cid
@arguingwithsignposts: I found that quite ironic but didn’t feel like stirring up the hornets’ nest here by pointing it out.
Kyle
They were elected by freedom-loving patriots who think closing down the DOE is
the right thing to dowhat Jeebus wants. Because education is communazimuslimsoshulist and stupid is godly.Joe Max
@Cat Lady: Don’t blame me, I’m from Massachusetts.
Heh. I expect I’ll be getting to say “Don’t blame me, I’m from California” a lot for the next few years. It looks like the teabaggers are already set on primary-ing Scotty Brown, so if you yankees can’t get a Dem back in that office in 2012 I’ll be very surprised.
Though I deplore that I’m treading on the same emotional BS ground as the teabaggers, I’m overjoyed that electing Jerry Brown has really pissed of Michele Malkin and her flying monkeys.
It was still a close thing here on the left coast. Some of our Dems won by squeakers and a few races are still up in the air (although probably breaking to the Dems.) But Jerry and Barbara kicked ass, which is good for me because I’d been crowing to my friends for months that exactly that was going to happen. (It always looks scary for Boxer about two months before the election, and she always pulls it off in the end. She’s 4-for-4 now.) And Jerry Brown knows where every body is buried, every string to pull and button to push in the Cali government, so for the first time in a long time I am optimistic for my state.
So take hope, folks – it’s an old truism that “as goes California, so goes the rest of the nation” – eventually.
Erik Hare
Right wing voters have been total tools for at least 30 years. Apparently nothing has changed.