A roundup of articles on the Republicans this afternoon

Each day, I look at the links I've attached here, to this blog, to see what stories I should possibly be aware of. This afternoon, it seems there is a pretty good thread, telling of what the Rethugs, I mean Republicans, are up to of late.

To wit:

From Americablog:

--Inhofe and GOP again rally to protect BP from liability

Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), the top Republican on the Environmental and Public Works committee, blocked a request offered by Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) to pass the bill, which would raise corporations' liability caps from $75 million to $10 billion.

Republicans, protecting British Petroleum. Nice.

From Daily Kos:

Great patriotic Republicans reject taking care of 9/11 responders
by Joan McCarter

I guess they're already over 9/11.

Ailing Sept. 11 responders don’t deserve a permanent, guaranteed program to ensure they get health care, and giving it to them could wreck the country, Republicans in Congress argued today.

Calling the Sept. 11 Health and Compensation Act a new “entitlement program” like Medicare, members of the GOP on the House Energy and Commerce Committee argued the nation already has too much that it must pay for, and making the care of tens of thousands of 9/11 responders mandatory was too much of a burden.

Republicans, not protecting the American people who were working for us, right after 9/11 and putting their lives and health on the line for us.

From Alternet:

Peak Hypocrisy: Republican Party Vies for Tax-Payer Bailout

Posted by Joshua Holland at 1:40 pm

Four years ago, I asked Dean Baker why he didn’t like the term “free-market fundamentalism” to describe conservative economic thinking.

Joshua Holland: You say that conservatives are not, in fact, self-reliant fans of free-markets. Lay out your thesis in a nutshell.

Dean Baker: Well that’s the stereotype — that conservatives are willing to take the hard knocks when they come — but in my book I argue that what the conservatives have done is they’ve rigged the deck. They’ve made sure that certain people come out ahead, that income flows upward, and that other people are put at a disadvantage — and these things are built into the rules of the system. And then what they want to do — in talking about “free markets” — is they want to kick back and say, “No, no, no; those are the rules, and we can’t talk about them.” They don’t want to talk about how the deck is rigged; they want us to fight over the small scraps.

Republicans, taking care of themselves and their rich friends, first, last and foremost.

Conclusion: The Republicans are deeply, deeply fragmented--we know that--and self-destructing, popularity-wise, with the American people. They know very well how to take care of themselves and their rich friends, the wealthy and big business, the corporations. What they don't know is that they need to take care of the country and the American people. Or how to do it.

The Libertarians aren't even really a political party (no real national committee, no organization) and the "Tea Party" is a rather small collection of people with a wide variety of opinions but no real core values they share other than "smaller government" but that's what the Republicans and Libertarians have been hawking for years now.

If the Democrats and President Obama can pass the trimmed-down "line item veto" this President is pushing for, cut earmarks, shrink spending that way and then act, as soon as possible, on the eventual conclusions of the bipartisan panel to cut government spending, we will stay much more cohesive and strong and be able to weather the political storms now and into the future.

That's a lot of "ifs".

But I believe we can do it.