Deeper into the Summer Doldrums

++Spent four glorious days in upstate New York where thanks to Nelson Rockefeller,Hugh Carey,Mario Cuomo, and Andrew there exists a modern infrastructure. Who knew there was an Irish Catskills? The Mike Quinn Irish Cultural Center? Remember Mike Quill, the old corrupt union leader. All I could think about was when can I move to the North again.

++So how is the Republican rebranding going? Rand Paul is up to his eyeballs in a controversy that his spokesman and co-author of his book is The Southern Avenger, a man who toasts John Wilkes Booth on his birthday, thinks Lincoln is a monster, and that writes that the South should have won the war. Mike Huckabee traipsed down to Texas to speak for the anti-abortion bill, calling abortion slavery. Rick "Frothy Mix" Santorum followed the day after but he admitted he was confused. Louie Gohmart moved to strike all the Democrats' complaints about the House Farm Bill lacking foodstamps from the record. Rick Lowry and Bill Kristol wrote in the National Review that the House must kill the immigration bill. Mitch McConnell was raising funds off his remark that if Harry Reid eliminated the filibuster he would have "He Killed the Senate on his tombstone". Marco Rubio will not say the term "Obamacare". The House will repeal Obamacare again next week--38 or 39th time if you are counting. The North Carolina legislature voted an anti-abortion law as part of its motorcycle safety law. The net effect it would close 15 out of 16 abortion clinics in the state. Ted Nugent wants to run for President in 2016. Rick Perry already is with his visit to Israel next month. The Alaskan chairman of the state GOP says he has never met Sarah Palin or heard anything from her about her desire to run for Senate. Reince Preibus says he is totally down on the Cooch campaign for government, despite stories that the governor and the Cooch are corrupt as hell.There is still no House budget after 100 days.

++Now if you are banking on winning with a greater percentage of the white vote, why would you go out of your way to insult 51% of the white vote--the women? And if you are banking on winning back lower-middle class white voters, why are you cutting off all food stamps for the first time in 50 years when the bulk of those using them are no longer minorities?And why would you schedule a vote in the House to privatize Medicare, especially when your core constituency is the elderly?

++Pundits point to demographics as the problem with the GOP. But why would you go out of your way to starve your base and kill them off? A new report released by the Department of Health shows "death by zip code". If you are a male living in Marin County, California, you leave to 85, 81 in Old Town Alexandria, Virginia and 67 in Franklin County , West Virginia. If you live in a blue state, you will live at least ten years longer than the male in a Red State. And if your base of support is in the Red States, your base dies off 10-15 years earlier and minorities overwhelm them earlier.  Red States have lower levels of education, lower levels of health, lower levels of income and higher percentage of children out of wedlock.  This goes for whites as well as minorities. So why then do you campaign against healthcare, women's reproductive rights,and economic progress? 

++While the Simpson-Bowles Catfood Commission recommended curtailing Social Security and Medicare and gutting the social welfare net because of the deficit, the United States just posted its largest budget surplus in its history. Will someone apologize to Paul Krugman who saw this all along?

++Quinnipiac has a poll that dispels the myth that President Obama is just not a good politician and can't get anything done. 51% believe gridlock is caused by GOP obstructionism, and only 35% believe it is because Obama can't persuade Congress to come together. 

++On Immigration, no matter how you cut it, the majority of Americans and a large plurality of Republicans believe there should be a road to citizenship or at least immigrants should have the right to stay here. Only 28% of the overall sample and Republicans believe immigrants should leave the country.  Watch this space because immigration is eventually going to get done--probably late in the year.

++ENDA, the bill to end discrimination against gays in the workplace, passed out of committee 15 to 7, with two Republicans. It is close to a majority in the Senate.

++The rash of anti-Obamacare ads are not really aimed at the healthcare bill per se but the expansion of Medicaid in Republican states. The scare tactics in the ad with the young mother are just that--none of the claims are true but the deeper goal is aimed at depriving the very poor of healthcare. 

++Democrats are giddy over the Looney-Tune quality of the Republican positions now. But dreams of taking the House are far-fetched because the gerrymandered districts show Republicans in districts with only about 15% total minorities. So there exists no incentive for the House Republicans to do anything--at all about anything.

++Louie Gohmart has introduced at the behest of Focus on Your Family, Not Mine, a bill sponsoring proselytizing by evangelical Christians in the military. He claims Obama is biased against Christians.

++The Republican Attorney-General of Pennsylvania will not defend the state's anti-gay marriage law. 

++The fight over filibuster reform is getting dire because the GOP does not want to fill spaces on legally constituted bodies like the National Labor Relations Board. The net effect when 3 conservative judges ruled Obama's recess appointments unconstitutional is that no labor law in the country can be enforced. This is also true for the EPA,and the Consumer Protection Agency, two other bodies the GOP hate. So the issue becomes can one political party in the minority actually gut the government because they don't like the legally created bodies? In the case of the 2nd Circuit Court, Senator Grassley accuses Obama of wanting to "stack"the court when all he is doing is filling the vacancies. Unless Mitch McConnell gives on this issue, watch for a showdown soon. It is basic politics that the winning Presidential candidate gets to nominate the persons of his or her choice as long as they are qualified.

++In mulling over current GOP strategy, I don't see how the GOP deals with Hillary Clinton, except to dredge up old Clinton scandals that no one remembers and in fact if they do, consider her a victim. She is a woman, who was the First Lady of a Slave State--Arkansas. So how does that work if you are depending on the white South?