By Mike Appleton, Guest Blogger
“We pledge ourselves to use all lawful means to bring about a reversal of this decision which is contrary to the Constitution and to prevent the use of force in its implementation.
-The Southern Manifesto, Cong. Rec., 84th Cong. 2d Session, Vol. 102, part 4 (March 12, 1956)
‘This was an activist court that you saw today. Anytime the Supreme Court renders something constitutional that is clearly unconstitutional, that undermines the credibility of the Supreme Court. I do believe the court’s credibility was undermined severely today.”
-Michele Bachmann (R. Minn.), June 26 2012
Most people are familiar with the opinion in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, et al., 349 U.S. 483 (1954), in which a unanimous Supreme Court summarily outlawed public school segregation by tersely declaring, “Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.” 349 U.S. at 495. But many people do not know that Brown involved a consolidation of cases from four states. The “et al.” in the style refers to decisions on similar facts in Delaware, South Carolina and Virginia. And the response of Virginia to the ruling in Brown provides an interesting comparison with the actions leading to the current government shutdown.
In 1951 the population of Prince Edward County, Virginia was approximately 15,000, more than half of whom were African-American. The county maintained two high schools to accommodate 386 black students and 346 white students. Robert R. Moton High School lacked adequate science facilities and offered a more restricted curriculum than the high school reserved for white students. It had no gym, showers or dressing rooms, no cafeteria and no restrooms for teachers. Students at Moton High were even required to ride in older school buses.
Suit was filed in federal district court challenging the Virginia constitutional and statutory provisions mandating segregated public schools. Although the trial court agreed that the school board had failed to provide a substantially equal education for African-American students, it declined to invalidate the Virginia laws, concluding that segregation was not based “upon prejudice, on caprice, nor upon any other measureless foundation,” but reflected “ways of life in Virginia” which “has for generations been a part of the mores of the people.” Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County, 103 F. Supp. 337, 339 (E.D. Va. 1952). Instead, the court ordered the school board to proceed with the completion of existing plans to upgrade the curriculum, physical plant and buses at Moton High School. When the plaintiffs took an appeal from the decision, the Democratic machine that had for many years controlled Virginia politics under the firm hand of Sen. Harry Byrd had little reason to believe that “ways of life” that had prevailed since the end of the Reconstruction era would soon be declared illegal.
When the Brown decision was announced, the reaction in Virginia was shock, disbelief and anger. Reflecting the prevailing attitudes, the Richmond News Leader railed against “the encroachment of the Federal government, through judicial legislation, upon the reserved powers of the States.” The Virginia legislature adopted a resolution of “interposition” asserting its right to “interpose” between unconstitutional federal mandates and local authorities under principles of state sovereignty. And Sen. Byrd organized a campaign of opposition that came to be known as “Massive Resistance.”
In August of 1954 a commission was appointed to formulate a plan to preserve segregated schools. Late in 1955, it presented its recommendations, including eliminating mandatory school attendance, empowering local school boards to assign students to schools and creating special tuition grants to enable white students to attend private schools. Enabling legislation was quickly adopted and “segregation academies” began forming around the state. Subsequent legislation went even further by prohibiting state funding of schools that chose to integrate.
In March of 1956, 19 senators and 77 house members from 11 southern states signed what is popularly known as “The Southern Manifesto,” in which they declared, “Even though we constitute a minority in the present Congress, we have full faith that a majority of the American people believe in the dual system of government which has enabled us to achieve our greatness and will in time demand that the reserved rights of the States and of the people be made secure against judicial usurpation.”
Throughout this period the Prince Edward County schools remained segregated, but when various court rulings invalidated Virginia’s various attempts to avoid integration, the school board took its final stand. It refused to authorize funds to operate any schools in the district, and all public schools in the county were simply closed, and remained closed from 1959 to 1964.
There are striking similarities between Sen. Byrd’s failed plan of Massive Resistance and Republican efforts to prevent implementation of the Affordable Care Act. There was widespread confidence among conservatives that the Supreme Court would declare the Act unconstitutional. When that did not occur, legislators such as Michele Bachmann, quoted above, attempted to deny the legitimacy of the Court’s ruling. Brent Bozell went further, denouncing Chief Justice Roberts as “a traitor to his own philosophy,” hearkening back to the days when southern roadsides were replete with billboards demanding the impeachment of Chief Justice Earl Warren.
The House of Representatives has taken over 40 votes to repeal the ACA, quixotic efforts pursued for reasons known only to John Boehner and his colleagues. And in accordance with the Virginia legislative model, the House has attempted to starve the ACA by eliminating it from funding bills. Following the failure of these efforts, Republicans have elected to pursue the path ultimately taken by the school board of Prince Edward County and have shut down the government.
Even the strategy followed by Republicans is largely a southern effort. Approximately 60% of the Tea Party Caucus is from the South. Nineteen of the 32 Republican members of the House who have been instrumental in orchestrating the shutdown are from southern states. It is hardly surprising therefore, that the current impasse is characterized by the time-honored southern belief in nullification theory as a proper antidote to disfavored decisions by a congressional majority.
In reflecting upon the experience of Virginia many years later, former Gov. Linwood Holton noted, “Massive resistance … served mostly to exacerbate emotions arrayed in a lost cause.” Republicans would do well to ponder the wisdom in that observation.
I was not thinking so much about the critters as I was the blowback that is likely to occur come next election. It is too bad animals had to suffer because the farmers were so short-sighted.
BREAKING NEWS: Senate is voting and the Debt Ceiling Agreement is passing. The clerk is reading votes right now. The usual suspects are voting “no” but it will pass with about 80 votes. CSPAN has a live video feed.
Otteray Scribe: “Blouise & LK, Don’t you just love the smell of schadenfreude in the morning?
**
Yes, I do in a multiple personality sort of way. Storms like the one that hit South Dakota are like the Chicxulub asteroid for cattle and their ranchers. Poor critters had no idea what was going on. It just got too cold too early. Chaotic weather (caused by climate change?) and petty politics got the better of them.
The Southern Democrats of the first half of the 20th Century became the Republicans of the second half. The beginnings were in the late 1940s when Truman desegregated the military. I remember that very well. Barbershop talk was outraged, “And Truman is supposed to be a Democrat too,” they said.
Then came Brown v Board of Education, followed by National Guard troops in the streets of Little Rock. The crowning blow to the old guard Democrats was the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Practically everyone I knew changed party registration overnight, joining the Republican party. Hint, hint: many of those Democrats were KKK, White Citizen’s Council and John Birchers who were Democrats up until that time. The Republican party became something Lincoln would have never dreamed of, being born in 1964.
As for where I got my information? It didn’t come from a book. I was there.
I find the efforts of modern Republicans to avoid dealing with the racist roots of the modern Republican party ludicrous. Lying by any other name is still lying.
Following is a better link to the full interview with Lee Atwater, and a written commentary explaining the edit problems:
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/martin-bashir-broadcasts-misleading-edit-of-lee-atwater-quote-to-portray-gop-as-racist/
Blouise & LK,
Don’t you just love the smell of schadenfreude in the morning?
Blouise, I just can’t help it but all decency and empathy aside, I hope it was a dull petard.
Since this is the only thread that actually addresses the shutdown, here’s an interesting development:
Congresswoman Kristi Noem (R-SD) voted to give in to Tea Party demands and shut down the U.S. government …
And then disaster struck:
South Dakota Ranchers Face Storm’s Toll, but U.S.’ Helping Hands Are Tied
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/16/us/as-south-dakota-ranchers-face-storms-toll-us-helping-hands-are-tied.html?nl=afternoonupdate&emc=edit_au_20131016&_r=0
Talk about getting hoisted by one’s own petard …
davidm:
I will respond as best I can:
1. Your suggestion that I should perhaps supply you with a list of historians upon whom I rely is unreasonable. I will be 67 in December and have been reading history since fifth grade. I have read many historians from across ideological lines over those years. I have also been voting since the presidential election of 1968 and have been following politics seriously since the election campaign of 1960. I’m not suggesting that that makes me an historian, but I believe that I have a pretty accurate grasp of American history.
2. The word “democratic” when used as an adjective is not capitalized. I capitalized the word since I was using it as a proper noun, as in Democratic Party.
3. It is incorrect to state that Republicans have always opposed racism. The coalition that initially formed the Republican Party fought to eliminate slavery, but had no interest in civil rights for blacks. That is why Reconstruction was essentially abandoned, leaving former slaves in a condition of indentured servitude for many more years; racist attitudes were predominant all over the country, regardless of party affiliation.
4. Strom Thurmond did not form the Dixiecrat Party in response to President Kennedy. He formed the party (formally known as the States’ Rights Democratic Party) as a reaction to the inclusion of a civil rights’ plank drafted by Hubert Humphrey and placed in the Democratic platform in the 1948 convention. He was the governor of South Carolina at the time and was a staunch segregationist. As the Dixiecrat candidate, Thurmond actually carried South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. He endorsed Eisenhower in 1952 and switched parties in 1964. (In fact, it was Thurmond who actually drafted the Southern Manifesto mentioned in my column. And, by the way, Florida adopted its own resolution of interposition; resistance to civil rights was hardly limited to Virginia.) In short, neither states’ rights nor Barry Goldwater were inspirations for Mr. Thurmond’s views. The historical record is simply too voluminous to attribute his motives to anything other than racism.
5. “States rights'” is a code phrase that has always been invoked by politicians opposed to civil rights legislation. See, e.g., George C. Wallace, Orville Faubus, Ross Barnett, et etc.
6. As Barkin Dog has ably pointed out, Lee Atwater was the master of the
“southern strategy,” a strategy which he openly acknowledged was built upon, inter alia, the use of code words to attract racist votes to the Republican Party. When he became terminally ill, Mr. Atwater converted to Catholicism and publicly expressed regret over his previous action. George Wallace apologized before his death for his earlier positions on segregation.
7. Passage of the important civil rights legislation of the 1960’s was accomplished by a coalition of northern Democrats and northern Republicans. No southern Republicans in the House or the Senate voted in favor of the 1964 act. Only ten southern Democrats voted for it in the House and only one southern Democrat (Ralph Yarborough of Texas) voted for it in the Senate. In other words, regardless of party affiliation, the South remained solidly opposed to civil rights. That goes to my point that southern voters have traditionally been influenced more by cultural attitudes toward race than by party affiliation. And as we all know, it was after civil rights became the law of the land that we witnessed the conversion of the south to the Republican brand, led by the wholesale abandonment of their party by segregationist southern Democrats.
The situation we now see is a product of these trends, a Republican party that has driven out northern moderate Repubicans and which has become increasingly regionalized and isolated at the national level. The current government shutdown relied upon the historic pattern of resistance to majority rule that the south has repeatedly and unsuccessfully attempted for almost two hundred years.
Mike Appleton wrote: “Your suggestion that I should perhaps supply you with a list of historians upon whom I rely is unreasonable.”
I did not suggest you supply me a list of historians that you rely upon. I only asked you to examine them for yourself, because every historian has their own lens by which they project history. You assume that I am reading revised histories, and I am simply saying that you may be reading revisionist history. How do you know?
Mike Appleton wrote: “The word “democratic” when used as an adjective is not capitalized. I capitalized the word since I was using it as a proper noun, as in Democratic Party.”
I understand that, but people make typos all the time, especially JT’s articles. RWL asked to name a Democratic Congressional Leader with examples of their ‘southern racists’ behavior, so obviously he missed what you were saying. You were not clear, IMO, but you think otherwise, fine. Just don’t say that this is an example of me being factual inaccurate. That is not true.
Mike Appleton wrote: “It is incorrect to state that Republicans have always opposed racism.”
As a generality, they have opposed racism. Just look at the voting record. Were some Republicans racist in history? Sure, but most were not. Again, the voting record shows Republicans predominantly being for civil rights. Important civil rights leaders like Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. were Republican.
Mike Appleton wrote: “…racist attitudes were predominant all over the country, regardless of party affiliation.”
It is closer to the truth that racist attitudes have existed in both parties, but most members and leaders of racist groups like the KKK were Democrats. Furthermore, based upon voting records, those who opposed civil rights were more likely to be Democrat than Republican.
Mike Appleton wrote: “Strom Thurmond did not form the Dixiecrat Party in response to President Kennedy. He formed the party (formally known as the States’ Rights Democratic Party) as a reaction to the inclusion of a civil rights’ plank drafted by Hubert Humphrey and placed in the Democratic platform in the 1948 convention.”
You are correct about this. I type an anachronistic blunder in that paragraph and can’t even figure out right now what was going on in my head to do that. Sorry about that, and I appreciate you setting it straight.
Mike Appleton wrote: “In short, neither states’ rights nor Barry Goldwater were inspirations for Mr. Thurmond’s views. The historical record is simply too voluminous to attribute his motives to anything other than racism.”
I think people are complex beings and do not always just have one issue motivating them. Was Thurman racist? Yes, I think so. But the Dixiecrats party name, as you point out, was “States’ Rights Democratic Party.” Goldwater opposed the 1964 Civil Rights Act, not because of racism, but because of federalism — too much imposition upon states’ rights. Previously Goldwater had voted along Republican party lines to support civil rights. The histories I have read indicates that Goldwater was influential in causing Thurman to switch parties. I think Thurman was both a racist and a states’ rights person, both factors influencing his thinking. That’s how I read the evidence.
Mike Appleton wrote: ““States rights’” is a code phrase that has always been invoked by politicians opposed to civil rights legislation.”
I think that is an oversimplification. Instead of “always” you might say “sometimes.” States’ rights is a valid issue in itself. Some racists might use it as “code” perhaps, but that is not always the case.
Mike Appleton wrote: “Lee Atwater was the master of the
“southern strategy,” a strategy which he openly acknowledged was built upon, inter alia, the use of code words to attract racist votes to the Republican Party.”
This concept has been propagated by the left from an edited audio interview with Alexander Lamis. Most people only listen to the edited clip that removes important words, or they just read biased commentary about it. The truth is that Lee Atwater said in that same interview that racism was only important between 1954 and 1966. He said there was no Southern Strategy necessary for Bush or Reagan. The important issues he said were economic. He also said that the Southern Strategy was all about getting the Southern blue collar vote. You can hear the full interview for yourself at the following link:
http://www.thenation.com/article/170841/exclusive-lee-atwaters-infamous-1981-interview-southern-strategy
Mike Appleton wrote: “No southern Republicans in the House or the Senate voted in favor of the 1964 act. Only ten southern Democrats voted for it in the House and only one southern Democrat (Ralph Yarborough of Texas) voted for it in the Senate.”
Yeah, but there was only one Southern Republican in the Senate and 10 Southern Republicans in the House.
Mike Appleton wrote: “In other words, regardless of party affiliation, the South remained solidly opposed to civil rights. That goes to my point that southern voters have traditionally been influenced more by cultural attitudes toward race than by party affiliation.”
I agree with the geographical differences, but attributing it entirely to race is simplistic. Yes, we are talking about a civil rights act, but it also is a FEDERAL act, so states’ rights also is a factor. I know you think that is all “code,” but it really is a philosophical legal principle, and it is stronger in the south because of the history of the secession attempt.
Mike Appleton wrote: “The situation we now see is a product of these trends, a Republican party that has driven out northern moderate Repubicans and which has become increasingly regionalized and isolated at the national level. The current government shutdown relied upon the historic pattern of resistance to majority rule that the south has repeatedly and unsuccessfully attempted for almost two hundred years.”
That’s one way to look at it. It certainly has validity. I enjoy considering the idea. I just have the perspective based upon other facts that it is a bit more complicated than this.
hskiprob: I believe that the US and several other countries like Japan and England are in the final stages of their economic life cycle …
I don’t think that will happen. The cycle is more like raising food animals. You raise a herd, it is happy and fed and reasonably comfortable. But then the time comes to harvest the herd, and to the herd that looks like a “meltdown,” it seems like Armageddon. To the herder it is just an economic event executed without qualms; time to trade the lives and flesh of the subjugated animals for some good hard cash.
That is what I think too many people miss: Our loss is somebody else’s gain. The money doesn’t evaporate, the trillions are converted to ownerships of land, buildings, and other assets.
The herders aren’t really interested in Armageddon, that does not serve them. They are interested in a reset and a next crop every 80 years or so; one great depression (a financial harvest) to the next.
RTC: The Democrats have a way of (helpfully) snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
Very true, but always (in my observations) when the “defeat” redounds to the benefit of the monied interests that either fund their campaigns or threaten to fund primary or general opposition campaigns. I think those “snatched defeats” are engineered and intentional, not random screw ups, not incompetence or confusion or misunderstanding of deadlines or protocol, not even caving to the other party: It is caving to corporate demands because they butter the bread.
I seriously doubt default is in the best interest of our corporate overlords. I could be wrong, but somebody will have to show me a plausible path to a few trillion in profits, and right now, it seems clear to me the overlords makes the most money by not defaulting and continuing to rob America (and much of the rest of the world) blind.
So even if they point the gun, I don’t think they will pull the trigger. Obama will probably “blink” in giving up some non-ACA thing so the Republicans can save face with the Tea Party, and that might hurt, whatever it is. But ACA will go forward as planned; I think the “flaws” mentioned are going to be quite profitable for the overlords that wrote them.
Well said!!!! Politicians have to lie to their constituency in order to get votes, but must fulfill their agreements with the oligarchs in order to get the necessary campaign funding in order to run in the first place. Those who speak with forked tongue make the best politicians. The Party they represent is determined by the political persuasion of the geographic region where the candidates decides to run. It is not uncommon for individuals to switch parties if a geographic region changes but it is best to stay with the same party, as one get better at espousing the general lies necessary to get elected. A brilliant system that attracts the best and brightest psychopaths and one of the numerous reasons why democracies and democratic republics always fail over time. The Citizens can only take so much of their property and rights being confiscated because they are either broke or rebel. I believe that the US and several other countries like Japan and England are in the final stages of their economic life cycle and will be hurt the most by the next meltdown. If only I knew when that was going to happen?
david2575:
I very much enjoy spirited discussions on various topics on this blog, but try to avoid participating in them when they are on one of my columns. It is arduous enough just trying to put them together and I usually don’t have anything more to add. However, I feel compelled to respond to your comment.
Since you are obviously an intelligent and articulate person, I find myself wondering whether you assert positions which are factually inaccurate because you are being intentionally disingenuous or merely contrary. Two examples:
1. “He just did not make it clear that this racist motivated opposition was headed up by Democrats.”
In fact, I stated that the opposition came from the “Democratic machine that had for many years controlled Virginia politics under the firm hand of Sen. Harry Byrd.” I specifically chose that phrasing to support my view that southern politics has been dominated more by concerns over race than by loyalty to party affiliation.
2. We (meaning Republicans) have fought continuously against racism ever since.”
This statement is flatly absurd. Ever heard of the Dixiecrats? Strom Thurmond? Lyndon Johnson’s prescient observation upon passage of his civil rights legislation? The so-called “southern strategy”? “Welfare queens”? Willy Horton? The Republican Party’s dominance in the south was constructed on the politics of race. All of those Republican moderates who championed the cause of civil rights are dead, and their successors have been systemically purged in favor of a southern based philosophy of ideological purity and evangelical Christian social policy. Goodness gracious, this is not even a debatable phenomenon.
The point of my comment was simply that southern politics has its historical roots in a culture dominated by white supremacy and resistance to change that has been repeatedly expressed through futile claims of state sovereignty and pathetic nullification efforts. The present Tea Party standoff is another variation of that same theme. You may reasonably disagree with my opinion, but you are not free to do so through reliance on history as rewritten by David Barton or some other Sunday school teacher.
Mike Appleton wrote: ” I find myself wondering whether you assert positions which are factually inaccurate because you are being intentionally disingenuous or merely contrary. Two examples:”
DavidM wrote:
1. “He just did not make it clear that this racist motivated opposition was headed up by Democrats.”
Mike Appleton responds:
“In fact, I stated that the opposition came from the ‘Democratic machine that had for many years controlled Virginia politics under the firm hand of Sen. Harry Byrd’.”
I recognize that you assigned Sen Harry Byrd to the Democratic machine. That’s why I said you already gave us a Democrat Congressional leader. Did you overlook the fact that I acknowledged you did that? The problem is that you did not make it CLEAR in your article, because you immediately followed that up with similarities to Republicans, using the word Republicans five times compare to “Democratic machinery” once. Furthermore, the word “Democratic” is an advective that applies to many political parties, including the Republican party. So from my perspective, you did not make it clear that Democrats led racism and Republicans opposed racism. Remember that I was responding to someone who after reading your article, saw racism only in Republicans and not in Democrats. RWL wrote: “Please provide examples of Democrats conducting themselves in a manner as Mike A’s portrayal of Republicans. Please give Democratic Congressional Leaders names and examples of their ‘southern racists’ behavior.” That is why I said you gave a Congressional name that he asked for, but at the same time I was being somewhat polite about his overlooking this history because your article was focused on bashing Republicans and smoothed out the Democrat fault.
DavidM wrote:
“2. We (meaning Republicans) have fought continuously against racism ever since.”
Mike Appleton responded:
“This statement is flatly absurd. Ever heard of the Dixiecrats? Strom Thurmond? Lyndon Johnson’s prescient observation upon passage of his civil rights legislation? The so-called “southern strategy”? “Welfare queens”? Willy Horton? The Republican Party’s dominance in the south was constructed on the politics of race. All of those Republican moderates who championed the cause of civil rights are dead, and their successors have been systemically purged in favor of a southern based philosophy of ideological purity and evangelical Christian social policy. Goodness gracious, this is not even a debatable phenomenon.”
I have great difficulty following your line of thinking here, especially when you end with how this is not even a debatable phenomenon. You point out the Dixiecrats. Why? The Democratic platform under Kennedy’s leadership began to shift toward being less racist, and so some in the party formed the Dixiecrat party, which was a break away from the Democratic Party. Strom Thurmond was a Democrat originally, who later changed to Republican Party after 1964 because he opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. He apparently was attracted to the Republican party because of Republican Barry Goldwater’s opposition to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. His opposition was based primarily in the Republican concept of limited federal government, and this resonated with Thurman and he apparently felt more at home with Republicans because of his State’s rights view. But where are you going with all of this? I’m not sure. It really does not address my statement that Republicans have always been the party for civil rights. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was led by Democrat President John F. Kennedy, but Republicans worked with him putting the bill together, and the actual bill had more than 80% support among Republicans in both the Senate and House, compared to 63% and 69% support of the Democrats.
You mention the “Southern Strategy” of Nixon, which was the media characterization of his Border States Strategy. It was based on State’s rights, but often characterized as trying to appeal to racists. It apparently was successful in getting Democrats to switch to voting Republican. Was this political strategy really based upon appealing to racists in the South, or was it truly a State’s rights issue which also was popular in the South? This question is open for a lot of discussion. In contrast to what you said, it IS a debateable phenomena. I would say that with the success of civil rights and the ending of racism, Democrats since Nixon have attempted to jump on the popular bandwagon and have worked to mischaracterize Republicans as racist and uncaring for the poor, which is their untalked about Political Strategy to gain votes for their party.
History always is presented through the lens of the historian. You may want to evaluate your particular history books. Have you made a big effort to see where the actual truth lies? It is easy to call other histories “revisionist histories” but perhaps you have been trusting a “revisionist history” yourself all along? How do you determine the standard of which history is accurate? The truth comes out by reading all history books and comparing the facts and information presented to understand what the actual truth is. I have presented no factually inaccurate statements, and for you to claim that I did without specifically pointing it out is inappropriate. You should instead just ask for clarification of my statements in light of information you have relied upon that seems contradictory to my position, or you should make your point about why you think I am wrong. Please do not accuse me of being disingenuous or dishonest. We simply base our judgments upon different information. If we both relied upon the same history books, I would assume that we would express pretty much the same opinions.
RTC,
I don’t think he is going to blink. The House Republicans seem to think he is bluffing. I don’t see Obama as bluffing. On top of that, he seemed very self-assured when he said there would be no default. What could he have up his sleeve?
There is always that 14th Amendment out there. The President and every member of both houses of Congress take an oath to uphold the Constitution. This is going to get interesting very fast.
I’m sure republicans will be alright. The Democrats have a way of (helpfully) snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. But I think the way Obama deals with this problem will set the tone for the remainder of his term.
RTC: As a political matter, as long as the shutdown continues to be (rightly) blamed on Republicans, Obama should let it continue. He can always unilaterally overrule them and order the Treasury to pay its bills, he is in charge of them and I think they will obey. Just like Bush got bogus “legal cover” for his acts, Obama would have no problem getting a DOJ letter saying he had the authority to unilaterally declare an emergency that let him bypass Congress to protect the full faith and credit of the USA in accordance with the Constitution. (I actually think he has that authority.)
I don’t think the Republicans really want to see that, the debt limit is a bludgeon they want to use again and again, a DOJ opinion that the President can bypass it at will would render it useless forever.
In the meantime, the shutdown makes them ever more unpopular, and already they face the danger of losing both the House and Senate in 2014 to Democrats with a lame-duck Democratic President that does not have to worry about re-election or anything but his “legacy.”
I don’t think this will end well for them; and if it does it will only show how corrupt the entire system is, because there is no plausible justification for any win they get.
hskiprob: You know who was the strongest proponent of free public education in this country? Thomas Jefferson. Yes, that Thomas Jefferson. He believed that education was essential to a democracy. Not nice, convenient, or helpful. Essential. He thought it was necessary for citizens to “educated as to what oppresses them”. If you’ve got a problem with public education, take it up with him.
It was only later that schooling was turned into a vocational training program to serve the needs of the economy (read Corptocracy). The real problem you guys have with public education is the extent to which it continues to foster independent thought, which it only nominally fosters.
DavidM,
You are the negativity and ignorance around here, but you’re sincere about it. That’s what I like about you. You try to make your points, you try sharpen up your arguments as a result of all the sparring. So now your ready to join the choir. Good luck with all that. Don’t be a stranger.
RTC wrote: “You are the negativity and ignorance around here…”
So you too believe the erroneous Spindell dogma that Republicans started caring about civil rights in 1964? And you castigate others who do not believe that lie? I guess you too enjoy ignorance.
Thanks
Can someone free my last comment from the spam filter?
Paul: “Isn’t in interesting that the “enlightened” people keep using the term “Tea Bagger”? Why do you have to use that term?”
***
Because it was all fun and double entendre when it was being used as code by the right to conjure unflattering images regarding acts to be done to the ‘liberals’. Then it got turned around and the whining started… Lol, “Teabagers” it is IMO.
_______
May 06, 2010 08:00 AM
Enough with the whining! ‘Teabaggers’ actually introduced the term they now claim is a slur
“Moreover, as Jay Nordlinger at National Review admits, the term “teabagger” was introduced to the political lexicon by Tea Party movement leaders:
The first big day for this movement was Tax Day, April 15. And organizers had a gimmick. They asked people to send a tea bag to the Oval Office. One of the exhortations was “Tea Bag the Fools in D.C.” A protester was spotted with a sign saying, “Tea Bag the Liberal Dems Before They Tea Bag You.” So, conservatives started it: started with this terminology. But others ran with it and ran with it.
Tommy Christopher at Mediaite has it about right:
The origin of the term is relevant in determining the relative size of the Tea Party’s violin. What wasn’t pointed out to Tapper is the fact that the Tea Partiers not only invented the term, they did so in order to inflict a similar double entendre onto the President, the Democrats, and liberals in general. Hence, it’s a violin so small, you need an electron microscope with a zoom lens to see it.”
http://crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/enough-whining-teabaggers-actually-i
Thanks Jill and Michael Murry for posting the interesting reads.
Tony C., It’ll be interesting to see what Obama does. The Publicans are counting on him caving in on something because he’s done so often in past. It might be different this time, however. ACA is his signal program and he will be associated with it history the way social security is connected to FDR; he might not be so willing to wheel and deal on it. It would imply a weakness in Obamacare.
It seems like Robert Byrd tried to burnish his legacy toward the end of his career; it could be that Obama may try to do the same. One sure way to do that is to let the Publicans implode once again, in time for the midterm elections. With Democratic majorities in the House and Senate, he could implement a set of reforms of historical proportions. Wait for it…wait for it…LOL.
One last thing and maybe Nick will take note of this. I wish a group of major league baseball players in the playoffs would refuse to take the field until this impasse is resolved. Maybe then folks would start to paying attention.