By: Dennis SMay. 27th, 2012more from Dennis S

All 47 pre-schoolers otherwise known as Senate Republicans of the 112^th congress voted down the non-binding Obama budget the other day. They were joined by 51 Democrats, 1 Independent Democrat and heroic Vermont Independent Bernie Sanders. The 99-0 vote puzzled more than a few Obama supporters. Why would the senate Democrats go against their man in the White House?  Quite the opposite was true. The Democrats didn’t go against Obama, they supported Obama in exposing their disapproval of the ploy of senate Republicans who were actually the ones to offering up a republican initiative based on a February Obama budget. Their sole purpose was to embarrass the president. They did the same thing in the house where their nonsense also failed to garner a single vote at 414-0.  The Obama budget was introduced by radical right-wing South Carolina Tea Party freshman representative Mike Mulvaney.

You see these little politically prepubescent ciphers have never made a secret of their singular reason for serving in the senate and house. It’s to destroy the president. That’s it and whatever it takes to get enough dense Fox-poxed Americans to vote Barack Obama out of office, well, by God, they’ll do it.

The Republicans actually introduced a total of 5 budget proposals in the Senate in succession including the Ryan budget that passed the House in March. All of which failed and all of which contained vicious cuts for the poor and infirm and endless favors for the wealthy.

The budgets are part of the grand scheme. Make Obama look like a tax and spend socialist and the goobers will put the likes of Mitt Romney and his corporate dictators waiting in the wings into office. That’s the plan. Blame Obama for everything the Republicans are responsible for because of their refusal to raise revenues through meaningfully closing loopholes and taxing the uber-rich at a fair rate.

Just a quick look at the budget Obama would actually like to get passed. He would never think of privatizing Medicare. He would never turn Medicaid into a block grant program. What happens when the dough runs out? If you make over a quarter of a mill a year, say bye bye to your Bush tax cuts. He’s also pushing a $350 million stimulus package for the hiring of teachers and police. Or rehiring might be more accurate given red states fired these public sector employees to make the president’s unemployment figures look much worse than they were. Those are just a few budget items being denied the American public.

There was other legislative action you might not be aware of as well. There’s HR 4970. It’s titled the Violence Against Women Act. It was sponsored by republicans because there’s this notion out there that there exists a GOP ‘War against Women’. What??? Why we just passed an act protecting women. Whatever could the socialist, anti-Christ, liberal media be talking about?  Well first of all it’s not as if the republicans created a whole new act. It’s been around for 18 years, being upgraded in 2000. They just renewed the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) through 2016. They did manage to please their bigoted base in leaving out provisions of a senate passed bill that would have extended protections for battered women who are illegal immigrants (instant justice in Tea Party parlance), Native American women who are assaulted on reservations by non-Indians (what the ef could that possibly be about?) and of course no expanded protection for those horrible gays, lesbians and transsexuals…or as the typical right-winger would say, “Let ‘em die.”

Republican house members also soundly defeated a democratic attempt to protect the identity of victims who report domestic violence allegations to law enforcement and other agencies. The GOP had to burn some midnight oil to keep that one out of HR 4970 since such protections are already written into the law. Not any more if the GOP has its way! Democrats insist that the republican bill will compromise confidentiality protections and endanger the victims. Republicans could give a shit. If you ain’t packin’ you deserve to get knocked around. And if you’re gay, lesbian or the least bit different and in the proximity of a right-wing bigot-house, bring on the Castle Doctrine.

Voterama in Congress and Roll Call, the organizations that track such votes also point to HR 4310. This legislation was voted down in the house. Remember how republicans are always wanting to cut, cut, cut?  That’s their mantra. They never let up. Cut, cut, cut!!!  But alas that only applies to programs that potentially save lives and help the poor. If  some bleeding heart house bill wants us out of Afghanistan or wants an amendment to delay development of a new nuclear bomber, say, oh HR 4310, there’s no interest whatsoever on the part of republicans to cut, cut, cut. That’s why HR 4310 got voted down by a substantial 113-303 margin. A yes vote would have promoted a prompt withdrawal from Afghanistan. Why wait until the Obama date of 2014 when you can enrich war profiteers for at least 2 more years and deaths of our soldiers be damned.

The cut, cut, cut crowd saw no problem in leaving a tidy $18 billion in the nuclear bomber coffers for the purpose of ‘developing’ replacements for some of our tired old nuke war birds with brand-spanking new models that are generally built with contracts awarded to those corporations who know how the game is played if you get my drift. This money is just for ‘developing’ the replacements. Back in ’97, you could build one of these airborne trinkets for about $2 billion a copy. By the time the new program kicks in, $5 billion per might be conservative. But, of course, think like a right-winger and salivate over the potential human lives these babies could snuff out – you start getting Hiroshima numbers and they’re cheap at twice the price.

Just as individuals are known by the company they keep, politicians are known by the legislation they pass, don’t pass or don’t allow to be passed. A cursory read of republican legislative accomplishments these past couple of years would render them undeserving of even a single vote to return any of them to congress.

You’ve got a potentially great president and some very bright and decent democratic candidates. Need I say more?