Friday Notes

by Steve

It’s been a fun week for watching our national political class maintain their irrelevance.

Darrell Issa's Apology
To his credit, even after the pathetic John Boehner endorsed his repugnant behavior, House Oversight and Government Reform committee chair Darrell Issa called ranking member Elijah Cummings Thursday night to apologize for cutting off his microphone and disrespecting him earlier this week. I would like to know however why the IRS now suddenly turns over documents that the House GOP has wanted for months.

GOP Spats
I do enjoy watching Rand Paul and Ted Cruz go after each other, and I’m comforted at the thought that we have months of open GOP foreign policy disagreements ahead of us, with Cruz bashing, at a time when the country seemingly wants to focus on maintaining a steady and professional course abroad and more active focus at home. I just wish Hillary Clinton was making a better case than she has so far.

Ukraine Crisis
As for the Ukraine, the West needs to accept the fact that Crimea is lost to the Russian aggression, and that Russia is an outlaw nation that needs to be dumped from the G-8. Vladimir Putin manufactured the departure of former Ukrainian president Yanukovych into Russian territory after he had reached a settlement with the protesters, and portrayed it as an unconstitutional removal that entitled him to seize Crimea. Now he is extorting the Ukraine with cutting off their gas deliveries, an action that by itself in the context of the Crimean seizure requires the expulsion of Russia from the G-8 and the loss of any privileges it has as a world power.

As I said earlier this week, the West needs to move ahead with sanctions and the G-8 expulsion, and Obama and Chuck Hagel need to talk openly about reintroducing the US Twelfth Fleet into the eastern Mediterranean, and let Putin and his admirals gag on that.

Paul Ryan's Alleged Reforms
Lastly, as people pay more attention to what Paul Ryan and the GOP are saying about their anti-poverty “reforms”, they’ll notice that Ryan has yet to actually propose solutions that can lift people out of poverty, and instead he is backstopping his alleged serious proposals with falsehoods and discredited narratives.