After the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was created, it took two years and a threat to change the filibuster rules to get Senate Republicans to agree to an up or down vote on Richard Cordray, Obama's nominee to head it. As everyone knows that appointment was just one of an unprecedented number of administrative and judicial nominees that were being held up by Senate Republicans.
And then there is the Republican party policy with regard to Obamacare. There was a story in the news a few weeks ago that Republican Congressmen have adopted the strategy of having their home state offices refuse to provide any information about Obamacare to their constituents who might call with questions. Instead they were instructed to refer callers to Health and Human Services.
Tom Toles had a great cartoon a few days ago that showed the Republicans ripping up the track in front of a train labelled Obamacare, and running away while yelling "it's gonna be a train wreck."
Now I came across this item. It seems that the Secretary of Health and Human Services was negotiating with the NFL and other sports organizations as venues for informing their fans about the new insurance exchanges. When this was made public, the two leading Senate Republicans wrote a letter to the NFL commissioner which resulted in him backing off.
Republicans seem to forget, first, that this is already the law of the land and, second, that they took it to the people in the 2012 elections and lost. To them it is still "a highly polarized public debate."
It is shameful, especially since they don't really have anything to offer in its place except status quo ante.
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