A CAMPAIGN OF OBSTRUCTION: When the economy was spiraling out of control, Republicans filibustered the recovery. When out-of-control health premiums threatened to sink the entire federal budget, Republicans conspired to make health reform Obama's "Waterloo ." When persistent unemployment cried out for a more aggressive Federal Reserve, Republicans blocked Obama's Nobel Prize winning Fed nominee . Even something as basic as regulating the same Wall Street banks that nearly destroyed the American economy nearly fell before a GOP filibuster. This campaign of obstruction was not limited to big ticket items. As of last August, fully 372 bills had passed the House -- many of them unanimously -- but few of them are likely to every receive a vote in the obstructionist-laden Senate. Meanwhile, Obama's judges are being confirmed at only half the rate of President Bush's, and Republicans even stalled key economic policy makers in the midst of a recession. As this campaign of obstruction began to undercut the economic recovery, the GOP doubled down. Republicans repeatedly blocked job-creating and small business-promoting legislation, often killing essential measures or requiring ambitious plans to be pared down into nearly nothing. And this obstructionism helped keep in the economy in the doldrums, the obstructionists' standing in the polls steadily grew.That voters bought into the fuckery foisted upon us by the graduates of Nutter U aka, the GOP/Teabaggers...well, it really jacks my jaw. Not once did any of the Rethugs tell us how they would fix anything, including and not limited to the economy, job loss to overseas nations or reforming healthcare.
FLOODING THE AIRWAVES: Republicans did far more than simply blocking Obama's agenda, they also waged a multi-billion dollar disinformation campaign to poison the electorate on this agenda. Emboldened by the Supreme Court's egregious Citizens United decision , the right-wing U.S. Chamber of Commerce waged a $32 million campaign to defeat the President's allies in Congress, and this campaign was just the tip of a massive iceberg of disinformation. Right-wing front groups like 60 Plus and future Florida Gov. Rick Scott's (R) Conservatives for Patients' Rights waged a multi-million dollar campaign to tarnish health reform -- often making outlandish claims that the Affordable Care Act would slash Medicare benefits or outlaw private coverage or euthanize grandma. This disinformation campaign was not limited to health reform. Republicans blanketed the airwaves with attacks on President Obama's successful program to save the auto industry -- a program which saved more than one million jobs . The Recovery Act saved approximately 1.2 million jobs and even right-wing economists believe that it boosted the economy by 4 percent , but Republicans have done everything in their power to ensure that no one knows about these successes. Republicans have manufactured economists who deny the effectiveness of the stimulus. They falsely claim that it has not created a single job, and they repeatedly label it a "failed stimulus" -- even if they also have no compunctions about stealing credit for the law's success whenever it benefits them politically to do so. Two years of disinformation has taken its toll. Although only one-quarter of voters oppose the actual provisions of the Affordable Care Act , pluralities have been so convinced that the law is poison that they now embrace repeal. Likewise, two-thirds of voters share the false belief that the Recovery Act either hurt or did not affect the economy.
That the Democraps refused to tout their accomplishments and play hardball like the Rethugs also pisses me the fuck off. Only at the end of the election cycle did the Dem's start lobbing negative, mostly true, ads at the assholes on the right. That's when you saw Boxer and Brown pull ahead...only then.
