Not that you asked

I can almost hear Ronald Reagan uttering those immortal words again, "There you go again." Only this time the Republican deity wouldn't be directing them at Jimmy Carter, he'd be talking to those 40 Republican Congressmen who forced John Boehner to give up as Speaker of the House. They no longer call themselves the Tea Party. They now call themselves the Freedom Coalition, which is really ironic when you consider what they're doing. They identify themselves with freedom while they are basically holding our government hostage.

Even before last week's paper could hit the streets, Kevin McCarthy, whom I predicted would be the next Speaker, took himself out of consideration. He didn't quit because he told the truth about those Benghazi investigations but because the Freedom Coalition didn't think he was conservative enough.

These guys are nuts. They are bat-crap crazy. They should hold their meetings in a rubber room. The best thing that could happen for this country is for the voters in those 40 districts to vote them out of office. But that won't happen because as I wrote in an earlier column, these clowns go home and tell the voters what they want to hear and then go back to Washington and keep the Congress from doing anything.

The problem, as many people before me have said, is that the people always remember the accusations these people make, but rarely follow the story to see if those accusations are proven true or false. Everyone knows that Hillary Clinton has been accused of wrongdoing in the Benghazi tragedy. What they don't remember is that so far, seven investigations run by a Republican Congress have all concluded that she did nothing wrong. People still believe that President Obama is not a citizen or a Christian even though he has produced his birth certificate and his minister made headlines back in 2008. People still believe that Obamacare is a failure that includes health care rationing and death panels. They ignore the fact that because of the law thousands of people now have health insurance, and rural hospitals were saved from closing because they no longer have to give so much free care.

These 40 clowns go back to their districts and make all sorts of crazy claims that the voters love to hear and get all worked up over. They promise to oppose Obama on everything. They might claim that Hillary was once part of the Manson family. They tell them that because of gay marriage, God is about to rain down plagues and locusts on us. The voters eat it up and run to the polls to send them back to Washington to send them a message. It's the same thing George Wallace did in 1968.

Now let me ask you a question. What have these people done to make your life better? Have they changed the system that sends most of the country's wealth to the top one percent? Have they tried to pass a living wage or fix income inequality? Have they tried to make college loans more affordable? Have they simplified the income tax code? The answer to each of those questions is--NO!

You want a better Congress? Then pay attention. If someone makes an accusation, follow the story and find out if they are right or wrong. If a politician makes a promise, find out if he keeps it. If he doesn't, hold him accountable. Don't just sit there passively and accept the drivel they serve up. When we refuse to get involved, we allow our leaders to basically do nothing and get away with it. We have a lousy Congress, but it's our fault. We've got the Congress we deserve.

If you will listen to what's going on, you will agree with what I have been telling you for the last three weeks. Unless you are financially well off, when you vote for a Republican, you're not just voting against a Democrat, you're voting against yourself.