If going back to the failed economic policies that created the worst recession since the Great Depression and almost pushed the country into a economic meltdown and into a depression was not enough of reason to not vote Republican this November then the threat of another tax-payer financed witch-hunt like the one against former President Bill Clinton that wasted millions of dollars is another reason.
You will recall that from day one rich Republicans spent millions of dollars investigating every single aspect of the Clinton’s lives, but at least it was their inherited money and not tax payer money. But the Ken Starr witch-hunt that cost more than $7 million and became the most expensive investigation in history could be in the cards again if the unthinkable happens in November.
New York Times columnist and Nobel Prize winning economics professor Paul Krugman lays out what will happen if we give the keys to the car back to the Republicans.
“So what will happen if, as expected, Republicans win control of the House? We already know part of the answer: Politico reports that they’re gearing up for a repeat performance of the 1990s, with a “wave of committee investigations” — several of them over supposed scandals that we already know are completely phony. We can expect the G.O.P. to play chicken over the federal budget, too; I’d put even odds on a 1995-type government shutdown sometime over the next couple of years.“
Even though the American people clearly wanted the silliness to stop back in the 1990s, Republicans refused, and they were going to get Clinton at all costs.
“The last time a Democrat sat in the White House, he faced a nonstop witch hunt by his political opponents. Prominent figures on the right accused Bill and Hillary Clinton of everything from drug smuggling to murder. And once Republicans took control of Congress, they subjected the Clinton administration to unrelenting harassment — at one point taking 140 hours of sworn testimony over accusations that the White House had misused its Christmas card list.”
Republicans have already said if they regain power it will be wall to wall investigations from the House and Senate floor, and the country can’t afford that silliness. Not only that, rich Republicans angry that they may be forced to pay their fair share have already spent millions to bankroll another Arkansas-like project.
“Wall Street has turned on Mr. Obama with a vengeance: last month Steve Schwarzman, the billionaire chairman of the Blackstone Group, the private equity giant, compared proposals to end tax loopholes for hedge fund managers with the Nazi invasion of Poland.
And powerful forces are promoting and exploiting this rage. Jane Mayer’s new article in The New Yorker about the superrich Koch brothers and their war against Mr. Obama has generated much-justified attention, but as Ms. Mayer herself points out, only the scale of their effort is new: billionaires like Richard Mellon Scaife waged a similar war against Bill Clinton.”
The only difference between then and now was that the Clinton presidency created a time of peace and prosperity. That’s not the case today, and President Obama has driven the car out of the Bush recession ditch, but it is still too close to the ditch to play the gotcha ya game the Republicans love so much.
“It will be an ugly scene, and it will be dangerous, too. The 1990s were a time of peace and prosperity; this is a time of neither. In particular, we’re still suffering the after-effects of the worst economic crisis since the 1930s, and we can’t afford to have a federal government paralyzed by an opposition with no interest in helping the president govern. But that’s what we’re likely to get. “
7 comments:
There's a simple way to avoid legal battles. STOP BREAKING THE LAW.
We've just had nearly two years of no oversight. This administration thinks it can run roughshod over the American people. Come November, that won't happen any longer. There will be oversight and if necessary, investigations and prosecutions.
For all of your whining about Clinton investigations, without them, 80 some odd people would not have been brought to Justice.
As for the 90's being peacetime. Let's see, there was the war in Bosnia, the war in Serbia. We were attacked 8 times during the Clinton years and he did nothing. Three times he was offered bin Laden and refused to take him.
Then there were the Rangers dragged through the streets after being slaughtered. Yep, sounds like peace to me.
As for the prosperity, Clinton said nine times that the budget couldn't be balanced for a certain number of years. Pick your number from 4 up to 11 years that he thought it would take to balance the budget. The first two years with Democrats in control of both Houses and the White House, the economy was very slow averaging 2.6%. It didn't start to improve until after the Republicans took over in 1995 and lo and behold, the budget was balanced after the Republicans took control of Congress.
ONce again, the best way to avoid people going to jail is to NOT BREAK THE LAW.
You probably should be more concerned about how Obama will be considered the White House of "no" when Republicans pass bills and he veto's them over and over.
Obama is about to become the loneliest man in DC.
What bullshit.
No one is breaking the law in the Obama Administration. “We've just had nearly two years of no oversight?” Two Democrats have been brought up on ethics charges. You don’t see Republicans charged when they control Congress. As for Republican corruption, I have two words for you, Jack Abramoff.
Oh, there will be investigations for sure if a disaster occurs and Republicans control Congress. But jut like the Clinton witch-hunt they will find nothing, and it will be a waste of time.
The 90’s were a time of peace and prosperity. We were certainly not fighting two wars. Ah, the old Bin Laden lie. Nothing like an oldie but a goodie.
We suffered quite a lot more causalities in Iraq, a useless war, than we did in Mogadishu. The Clinton years were a time of peace and prosperity, and he turned over a budget surplus to Bush. Seriously, the Republicans balanced the budget? Is this the same Republican Congress that shut down the federal government just because the Speaker claimed the president didn’t say hello to him when he was getting off a plane? He lost, and Clinton won, and Clinton’s budget was passed.
Once again, no one is breaking the law.
I’m not worried about the President vetoing bills passed by Republicans for a couple of reasons. First, they will still be in the minority after November, and second, Republicans simply have no plan other than saying no to everything anyway or anything to send to the White House. They are not interested in governing, just being in power.
Again, anonymous coward, I’m still waiting for you to back up your outrageous lie that we were “nearly shoulder to shoulder once.”
Two Democrats brought up on ethics charges? Hmmm, maybe you're right about that. Maybe those two Congresspeople that had control over the scholarships haven't been referred to the ethics committee....yet.
But let's see, Wm Jefferson was just sent to prison recently. The guy in New York...oh yeah, he resigned before they could bring him up on ethics charges, although the committee already was conducting an investigation. Then there's the guy from West Virgina. Mohan or Moran. Those are in addition to Rangle and Waters.
No Republicans were brought up while the Republicans were in power? Hmm, you could be right there too since Foley quit before the committee got to him. But then there was Tom DeLay, who by the way just had all but one of the charges against him dropped and that was from five years ago. Was it Cunningham from California that went to jail while the Republicans were in charge? It is funny that you say no Republicans were charged while they were in office but then you contradict yourself by saying "two words....Jack Abramoff. I hear he's working in a pizza parlor now that he's out of prison. Yep, the Republicans let him off the hook.
I'm not sure which is worse. That you actually try to say with a straight face that "nobody" is breaking the law or if you really believe that these Democrats aren't breaking the law.
Isn't Blago a Democrat? I wonder if he'll take one for the team and allow Jackson Jr to avoid corruption charges in his bid to get the Senate seat formerly occupied by the head socialist.
Then there's Monica Conyers...oh wait. She must be the Republican married to the Democrat in the House.
What was that mayors name? Kwame Kilpatrick? Did he change to independent just before he got diddling his chief of staff and having texting sex with her with government equipment?
Funny how you claim Clinton not taking bin Laden three times is a lie when it's a well known fact and even admitted to by the former First Pedophile.
I'll bet you think Webster Hubbel wasn't really a prison inmate either.
As for the government shutting down, I really hope it is and I don't care if the reason is legitimate or not. If the government is shut down and the doors padlocked, that's less that these morons can do to the American people.
In the meantime, keep holding on to that hope that the socialist keep control of the House and Senate. You're probably the only socialist in the country that believes that, but hey, I have to admire your dedication to socialism.
No, not maybe, it’s a fact. I don’t know anything about any scholarships, but whatever it is, it won’t get swept under the rug like when Republicans were in charge.
That is correct, anonymous coward, no Republicans were brought up while the Republicans were in power. As for your hero Tom DeLay, the Justice Department chose not to prosecute your hero like the 20 or so lobbyists and staffers and Bob Ney associated with your boy’s pal Jack Abramoff, but DeLay still faces a state trial in Texas on charges of money laundering and conspiracy.
That is correct, it was Cunningham that went to prison, but Republicans had nothing to do with that. That is correct, anonymous coward, no on in the Obama Administration is breaking the law.
That is correct, anonymous coward, the Osama Bin Laden lie has long been debunked.
http://www.factcheck.org/askfactcheck/did_bill_clinton_pass_up_a_chance_1.html
I have no idea who “First Pedophile” is.
Once again, anonymous coward, there is no such thing as a Socialist Democrat in the United States, and that is just a false, Republican smear. I’m a liberal Democrat, not a socialist. Like I said numerous times, the party in the White House almost always loses seats in the mid-term, and we will lose some in November. But the good news is that the party that represents the middle class and working people will retain control of the House and Senate. Plus, Republicans keep making it easier by electing extremist teabaggers.
Again, anonymous coward, I’m still waiting for you to back up your outrageous lie that we were “nearly shoulder to shoulder once.”
President Obama when did you stop being an anti-American Kenyan born Marxist Muslim?
Ha ha! You see that's a really awesome socratic horns-of-the-dilemma which will trap Obama into admitting he's an anti-American kenyan born marxist muslim!
I see Not Anonymous is up with the lies of the ABC road to 911 fantasy movie. And of course Not Anonymous is a brazen hypocrite in that he'll gleefully ignore Republican criminals while harping on Democratic ones!
And Not Anonymous being an ignorant buffoon immediately conflates accusations with convictions. But then honesty isn't a conservative value.
Conservative value Power over Principle and Elections over Ethics...
Only the deadest of diehards would relive the Clinton impeachment charade as the glory years of Republicanism.
It takes Not Anonymous twenty paragraphs of holier-than-thou certitude to not cite a single instance of anyone in the Obama administration breaking the law. I could have turned that trick in zero 'graphs.
The Krugman article is about trumped up charges against the president, not the former governor of Illinois. NA may think that 80 dubious "convictions" (like Don Siegelman) was worth putting the country through the Clinton impeachment idiocy, but the vast majority of the country has a healthier sense of priorities and proportion.
One blogger was practically rubbing his hands with glee over the prospect of "subpoenas" for Obama and Holder. He meant/hopes for "nooses" of course.
I would add my two cents but gene pretty much wrote what I was going to say. The Republicans spent tax payers dollars to see the Clintons' Christmas card list and Whitewater a land deal the Clintons lost money on. When they couldn't find any wrong doing in that the Repugs settle for lying about oral sex.
Leap into the Bush years where you had clear violations of the law the Republicans remained silent and I'm willingly to wager if the Dems and President Obama had went after the crimes of the Bush administration the Republicans will fight like hell to protect Cheney and Bush.
Hopefully progressives see what's at stake idiots like the anonymous coward aren't voting because they think their way is better, they want to get back at the black guy in the White House.
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