‘I could do his job better’

Candidates go to lots of trouble to get elected, but they never seem to want the posts they get.
U.S. Reps. Mo Brooks and Robert Aderholt, Republicans of Huntsville and Haleyville, are joining the state’s First Lady for a rally against abortion. Their positions against abortion are reasonable, but neither Brooks nor Aderholt have anything to do with the issue. They are not Supreme Court justices, who determine the constitutionality of laws intended to restrict abortion. They are not the president, who appoints such justices. They are not even senators, who must confirm the president’s nominations.
They’re messing with an issue that is totally outside their job descriptions at a time when Congress has the lowest ratings in history because it can’t get anything done.
This sort of excursion is commonplace these days.
Alabama’s House Majority Leader, Micky Hammon of Decatur, sponsored an immigration law. He did so despite a U.S. Constitution that leaves immigration issues to the federal government. If he wanted to be in Congress, why did he run for the state House?
Brooks, who did run for Congress, spent much of his rhetoric supporting a state law on immigration.
Gov. Robert Bentley — who ran for governor, as would seem obvious — spends much of his time weighing in on federal healthcare issues, federal immigration issues and abortion. He can’t repeal the Affordable Care Act from the governor’s mansion. If that was his goal, why didn’t he run for Congress?
Today I heard an ad for Twinkle Cavanaugh slamming all things Obama, including the Affordable Care Act and environmental regulations. Is she running for Congress? For the presidency? No, she’s running for reelection as a member of the state agency that regulates utilities.
The strategy appears to be one of political misdirection. Either real obstacles (the economy) or artificial ones (low tax revenue) are preventing the various officials from succeeding in the positions to which they were elected. They figure the next best thing is to loudly debate an issue over which they have no authority. Sadly, the strategy appears to work.

Obama views not extreme

Congratulations to Mitt Romney for a hard-fought caucus win in Iowa. For Republicans, Romney’s victory should — but probably won’t — squelch claims that President Barack Obama is an extremist.

Cries that Obama is a wild-eyed socialist Muslim from Kenya tend, when challenged, to focus on a few Obama policies.

Chief among them, of course, is his support of the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare. The mandate that most Americans who can afford to do so either purchase private health insurance or pay a penalty is viewed from the right as a symbol of socialist extremism.

Whether or not the Affordable Care Act ends up delivering on its promises, Romney’s success Tuesday suggests it is not an example of extremist thought. As governor of Massachusetts, Romney supported and signed legislation that created a nearly identical plan, complete with the mandate. Last month he described mandatory insurance as “fundamentally a conservative principle to insist that people take personal responsibility as opposed to turning to government for giving out free care.”

Newt Gingrich, who finished fourth in the caucus, also supported mandates until politics changed his mind.

Another frequently cited example of Obama extremism is his acknowledgement that human activities contribute to climate change. Until Romney realized it turned off his conservative base, he also accepted the scientific evidence on climate change. GOP candidate Jon Huntsman has paid the price of delaying his decision to reject science until after the primary race began.

Another indication of Obama’s extremism, according to many conservatives, was his support of bank bailouts during the credit crisis, at the onset of the recession. Former President George W. Bush, a Republican — faced with the same economic challenge — also supported the bailout, but conservatives increasingly have distanced themselves from the former president.

Yet Romney, too, supported the bailout. “We were on the precipice, and we could have had a complete meltdown of our entire financial system,” the candidate explained in October. “So action had to be taken.” Gingrich also supported the bailouts.

Only time will tell whether Obama’s support of health-care reform and bank bailouts was wise, or whether his assessment of climate change is accurate. Using any of these factors as evidence that he is extreme in his policies, however, is absurd when the front-running GOP candidate has agreed with him on all three.

http://www.decaturdaily.com/stories/Obama-views-not-extreme,89769

The end of reason?

From David Frum’s “When did the GOP lose touch with reality?“:

Some of the smartest and most sophisticated people I know—canny investors, erudite authors—sincerely and passionately believe that President Barack Obama has gone far beyond conventional American liberalism and is willfully and relentlessly driving the United States down the road to socialism. No counterevidence will dissuade them from this belief: not record-high corporate profits, not almost 500,000 job losses in the public sector, not the lowest tax rates since the Truman administration. It is not easy to fit this belief alongside the equally strongly held belief that the president is a pitiful, bumbling amateur, dazed and overwhelmed by a job too big for him—and yet that is done too.

We don’t want you, foreigners

We spend millions in Alabama in a desperate attempt to attract industry. Our lawmakers routinely remind us that the recruitment of large industry is intensely competitive. It’s worth spending our tax dollars, they promise, to help Alabama stand out.
Worry not. Alabama now stands out from the competition.
Our Legislature separated us from the pack by passing an immigration law so punitive that it caught worldwide media attention.
We have firm evidence that the immigration law prompted a Chinese copper-tube manufacturer to rethink a plan to build a $100 million plant in Thomasville. Less certain, but believable, is that Spanish-owned BBVA Compass’s decision to forego building an $80 million tower in Birmingham was prompted by the immigration law.
The potential costs to the state, and the willingness of other states to use the law against us, are made clear in this St. Louis editorial:
Editorial: Hey, Mercedes, time to move to a more welcoming state
A state without Alabama’s unfortunate history of intolerance might not suffer so much economic damage from passage of a harsh immigration law. What our Legislature has done is provided foreign companies with an excellent reason to avoid Alabama. As the editorial linked above makes clear, other states are thrilled.

Mo Brooks strikes gold

Our congressman, U.S. Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Huntsville, constantly strives to find a way to stand out from his many tea party colleagues in the House. It’s a difficult task, because all are vying for media attention. He struck gold in his latest sound bite, which he carefully inserted in several media appearances.

For Brooks, any press is good press. For Alabama?

From a Washington Post blog:

Freshman Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) is getting heat today for a recent interview in which he said of stopping illegal immigration: “As your congressman on the House floor, I will do anything short of shooting them. Anything that is lawful, it needs to be done because illegal aliens need to quit taking jobs from American citizens.” Rep. Charles Gonzalez (D-Texas) of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus responded that Brooks’ “irresponsible words that reflect a hateful, dehumanizing undercurrent” in the immigration debate.

Not mentioned is that, shortly after his “anything short of shooting them” comments, Brooks signed on as a co-sponsor of 14 anti-immigrant bills floating around the House. (He has yet to sponsor a single bill on any topic.)

Brooks has great political instincts, so he probably was wise to jump on the anti-Hispanic bandwagon. Alabama, sadly, can thank him for contributing to its longstanding reputation for race-based hatred.