After the 2010 midterm elections, Republicans promised to follow through on their pledge to the American electorate to immediately begin “focusing on the people’s priorities” when the new session of Congress was convened. However, within a couple of weeks of the new session of Congress with a Republican majority in the House, the GOP revealed they had no intent to honor their solemn pledge and began a terror campaign against women’s reproductive rights and a serious job-killing crusade that revealed they never considered the people’s priorities.
Fast forward four years and Republicans again promise, according to Speaker John Boehner, that “nothing is going to get in the way of our team’s focus on the American people’s priorities.” But like January 2011, Republicans have already exposed their disinterest or lack of intent to even begin focusing on the people’s priorities. What Boehner, or any Republican, fails to admit is that in their minds the billionaire Koch brothers are the American people because they bought and paid for the Republican-controlled Congress. Subsequently, Republicans are beginning the 114th Congress with the mindset that “nothing is going to get in the way of our team’s focus on the Koch brothers’ priorities” in quickly passing two bills the Koch brothers demand be acted on.
It is true that Republicans have claimed there is an opportunity for compromise, but unless Democrats are willing to bend to the will of the Koch brothers, there is going to be plenty of conflict and no Republican compromise. And, that does not include the GOP’s focus on stripping the President’s executive power over his actions on immigration and restoring diplomatic relations with Cuba. Those battles will begin soon enough and likely shortly after Republicans fulfill Mitch McConnell’s pledge to the religious right to immediately assail women’s reproductive rights and pass a two pieces of legislation to satiate the Koch brothers lust for power for at least a couple of weeks.
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For the past month Republicans boasted that they had plans to quickly advance energy and health care legislation that stalled in the Democratic-controlled Senate to show the American people that they are serious about governing effectively; allegedly by focusing on the American people’s highest priorities. On the Koch-Senate side, according to South Dakota Republican Senator John Thune, “We (Republicans) have sort of laid down the marker, and we need to follow through” as soon as the 114th Congress convenes. However, it may be a contentious task to ‘follow through‘ because many hardline conservatives are already complaining loudly that congressional Republicans intend on starting out too timidly and are demanding that if Republicans are “true and pure conservatives,” they will really impose their will on the nation according to the authority bestowed on them by the Kochs.
The House has been planning, and is anxious, to pass legislation this week to expedite the Keystone XL pipeline permitting approval despite it is the purview of the executive branch, not the Congress. But for at least six years Republicans have shown no interest whatsoever in adhering to the U.S. Constitution as a matter of course; particularly with an African American man leading the Executive Branch. Now that the Koch brothers run the Senate, Mitch McConnell and Republicans will follow the House and disregard the Constitution as part of their pledge to enact healthcare and energy legislation to start creating jobs. The Koch Senate will do their due diligence to the Koch brothers who demand that the Canadian oil pipeline’s permit is immediately approved to further enrich the Koch brothers, John A. Boehner’s stock portfolio, and TransCanada, a foreign corporation.
It should be a wakeup call to Americans that the first order of business for Republicans is not governing according to the American people’s priorities, but governing according to whatever means will enrich the Kochs to the tune of a hundred billion dollars, increase Boehner’s stake in Canadian tar sand companies, and provide profits for a foreign entity Canada will not let build its rupture-prone pipeline on Canadian soil. Senate Democrats devised a really clever ploy to expose the Republicans’ true intent in subverting the Constitution and Executive Branch’s power, but Republicans will strip those amendments out of the legislation with extreme prejudice because the Kochs’ priorities are not about creating American jobs or promoting clean energy. If nothing else, the Democrats may succeed in exposing the true nature of Keystone, and finally inform an ignorant population that there is no benefit to America in building the pipeline; particularly with gas prices plummeting due to America and the world being flush with cheap oil. Possibly, Democrats can convince Americans that building a pipeline to enrich the Kochs, and make it easier for Canada to ship its oil to Europe, China, and Japan is folly, but one should never underestimate Americans’ stupidity.
The other ‘crucial’ legislation Republicans will push right away is a measure that would change the new health care law’s definition of full-time workers to deny millions of virtual part-time employees from receiving healthcare insurance. The Koch, ALEC, Heritage Foundation legislation changes the ACA’s definition of full-time employment from the current 30 hours to 40 hours to allow corporations to maintain a workforce with fewer hours and still deny them healthcare coverage. There is no benefit to the American people whatsoever in the so-called “job creating” healthcare legislation, but it does allow the largest corporate businesses like Walmart to deny affordable healthcare insurance for its employees.
According to Republicans, doing the will of the Koch brothers is very important to, and a high priority of, the American people by passing two so-called phony “jobs bills” that the Democratic Senate blocked. However, both the Keystone approval legislation and denying healthcare to workers are as much job-creation bills as the religious right’s impending personhood legislation to ban birth control once and for all. Both bills are also the opening salvo of a concerted Republican effort to compensate the Koch brothers for buying control of Congress that, according to Republicans, was obviously a very high priority of the American people who were either too lazy to go to the polls in November, or so incredibly stupid that they fell for the same lies Republicans told four years ago. Either way, it is another example of just how exceptional Americans really are and underserving they are of an African American President who will protect them from at least a two year Koch Congress.
Audio engineer and instructor for SAE. Writes op/ed commentary supporting Secular Humanist causes, and exposing suppression of women, the poor, and minorities. An advocate for freedom of religion and particularly, freedom of NO religion.
Born in the South, raised in the Mid-West and California for a well-rounded view of America; it doesn’t look good.
Former minister, lifelong musician, Mahayana Zen-Buddhist.
