Mike Lofgren, former GOP Staffer very matter of factly reveals that all of our worst fears about the dangerous agenda of the GOP - are in fact true.
Here it's discussed at the Daily Beast.
Many people are buzzing about an article at truthout.org by one Mike Lofgren, a longtime Republican staff aide on Capitol Hill who just couldn’t take the crazy anymore, left his job, and produced this buzzy (and quite well-written) lamentation about his party’s tactics and goals.
And from looking at the article itself Lofgren, a congressional hill staffer with 28 years experience, hardly pulls his punches.
To those millions of Americans who have finally begun paying attention to politics and watched with exasperation the tragicomedy of the debt ceiling extension, it may have come as a shock that the Republican Party is so full of lunatics. To be sure, the party, like any political party on earth, has always had its share of crackpots, like Robert K. Dornan or William E. Dannemeyer. But the crackpot outliers of two decades ago have become the vital center today: Steve King, Michele Bachman (now a leading presidential candidate as well), Paul Broun, Patrick McHenry, Virginia Foxx, Louie Gohmert, Allen West. The Congressional directory now reads like a casebook of lunacy.
Yeah, I'm thinking that's putting it mildly. Here's Lofgren on Hardball.
And he has many examples...
The debt ceiling extension is not the only example of this sort of political terrorism. Republicans were willing to lay off 4,000 Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) employees, 70,000 private construction workers and let FAA safety inspectors work without pay, in fact, forcing them to pay for their own work-related travel - how prudent is that? - in order to strong arm some union-busting provisions into the FAA reauthorization.
Everyone knows that in a hostage situation, the reckless and amoral actor has the negotiating upper hand over the cautious and responsible actor because the latter is actually concerned about the life of the hostage, while the former does not care. This fact, which ought to be obvious, has nevertheless caused confusion among the professional pundit class, which is mostly still stuck in the Bob Dole era in terms of its orientation. For instance, Ezra Klein wrote of his puzzlement over the fact that while House Republicans essentially won the debt ceiling fight, enough of them were sufficiently dissatisfied that they might still scuttle the deal. Of course they might - the attitude of many freshman Republicans to national default was "bring it on!"
It should have been evident to clear-eyed observers that the Republican Party is becoming less and less like a traditional political party in a representative democracy and becoming more like an apocalyptic cult, or one of the intensely ideological authoritarian parties of 20th century Europe. This trend has several implications, none of them pleasant.
And what is the true Republican Party Platform?
This:
1. The GOP cares solely and exclusively about its rich contributors. (Money Counts, nothing else matters)
2. They worship at the altar of Mars. (The only Good Government Worker, Kills people for a Living)
3. Give me that old time religion. (Pandering to the God Cultists, keeps the Corporate Cultists Federally Subsidized)
Well, there it is - the GOP does not care about America. They do not care if the hostage dies, they do not care about the American worker. They don't care about the economy, this isn't being said by someone on the "Looney Left" this is an experienced, sober and rational congressional staffer with nearly 30 years of experience telling it how it is and it's not pretty...
Not at all.
As Obama prepares to make his jobs speech in less than an hour from when I type this... I believe it may not ultimately be about what he specifically proposes, it may ultimately become about what he refuses to let happen. Where will he draw the line in the sand, and hold that line?
Republicans are clearly aware that if they don't pass the President's Plan, or at least specific portions of it, he absolutely plans to make them eat it in the upcoming election.
But then, it's clear these people will absolutely stop at nothing, so he also has to be willing to lay down the gauntlet and STOP THEM from gutting our nations infrastructure. He has to STOP THEM from scapegoating public employees and fleecing the middle-class with their Flat (and Unfairly Regressive) Tax Plans. He has to STOP THEM from continue their Reverse Robin Hood, Rob the Poor to give more to the Rich plans.
Heaven help us all if he doesn't.
Vyan