Tuesday, January 1, 2013

House broken: How the GOP legislative machine turned into a doomsday Devic


If it wasn’t already obvious, the past few weeks surely have made it so: The House of Representatives has collapsed.
Sure, the buildings are still there: The chamber in the right-hand wing of the Capitol, those dumpy offices across Independence Ave. And the buildings are still filled with representatives and their staff—or will be, once they all get back to town.
But as far as acting as a functioning branch of the federal government, those people might just as well be the walking dead (although that could be a little unfair to flesh-eating zombies).
The House GOP leadership—or what now passes for it—can't even schedule a vote to stop taxes from rising for millions of Americans on New Year's Day, much less come up with a constructive bill for members to vote on.
The speaker of the House, a man just two heartbeats from the presidency, has been reduced to a cipher, watching passively as the Senate (the Senate!) tries to take the lead in finding a way out of a fiscal crisis.  
The once mighty Republican machine, which twice in living memory (1995 and 2011) vowed to roll over the White House like an M1 tank, sits paralyzed—rusted frozen, like the tin man in the Wizard of Oz.
i think it was arrogance that brought them to their true level of existence. like the look of utter surprise when their schemes, skulduggery and hate misleading did not produce a republican at 1600 Penn. ave NW  Wash., DC, they truly did not see it coming, vision blocked by the Pres. trying to sink him that is and disenfranchising half the country constitutionally.