GOP: The Party of Death

[babylonsister]

GOP: The Party of Death
Adele M. Stan
February 21, 2018
Shortened lives, whether from gun violence or lack of health care, is of no concern to Republican leaders.


They balk at any attempt to stem gun violence. They’re against affordable health care and want to voucherize Medicare. Given their druthers, they’d allow giant companies to befoul the air and poison the water. And don’t get me started on the lies Republican figures advance to deny any attempt to address the changes in our planet’s climate that are wreaking destruction on the lives of millions, whether through floods, drought, or sea-level rise.

The anti-regulatory Koch network provides Republicans with the ground troops and voter data they need to turn out the vote, and funds the think tanks that craft Republican policy that argues against health care and environmental health. And the National Rifle Association, which won’t even countenance background checks for those who purchase firearms at gun shows, is keeper and bestower of the seal of approval every red-state Republican must win in order to have a shot at winning his race or keeping her seat.

To win elections, Republican politicians are dependent on the peddlers of death, those greedy billionaires and their field marshals, who are paid handsomely for holding the line on any regulation that would prevent unnecessary fatalities.

Take Wayne LaPierre, CEO and executive vice president of the National Rifle Association, whose execution of gun manufacturers’ brutal agenda has not only stopped any meaningful discussion in Congress of gun regulation, but also targeted anti-Trump protesters with propagandized threats, as shown in this video. (“The only way we stop this, the only way we save our country and our freedom, is to fight this violence of lies with the clenched fist of truth,” NRA spokesperson Dana Loesch says in the video.) This belligerent approach has earned LaPierre a handsome payout. In 2015, according to the latest available tax filings, the NRA paid him more than $5 million for his trouble.

Selling death, it turns out, pays pretty well.

It’s also brought Republican politicians to heel, as the NRA brilliantly branded the gun as a cultural marker, an emblem of tribal identity and a symbol of white patriarchy, which is enjoying a sense of resurgence with the election of Donald J. Trump to the presidency.

more...

http://prospect.org/article/gop-party-death

[yallerdawg]

1. Dickens identified us as Scrooge's "surplus population."

In a "Tale of Two Cities" he wrote about what happens to the 1%.

[MagickMuffin]

2. #GOP THE PARTY OF DEATH

DEATH PANELS INDEED!

Once again they were projecting way back during the ObamaCare debate.

[Wounded Bear]

3. The Gory Oligarch Party...