Republicans are Outraged

The hits keep on coming.  The latest is the director of NIH saying there would be a vaccine for Ebola by now had their budget not been drastically cut in the early 2000s. 

A few more:

ATF, frustrated by the Republican controlled congress blocking every reasonable attempt to track or block firearms as they are being smuggled in huge numbers into a savage drug war in Mexico, comes up with a dubious scheme to track a few by salting the market with a few easily tracked examples.  Some of them find their way back into the US where they are used in crimes.  Republicans are outraged.

The state department, frustrated by Republican budget cuts, spreads their protective forces too thin and the embassy in Benghazi is attacked, killing the ambassador and three others, two of them from the security detail assigned to protect him.  Republicans are beyond outraged.

The IRS, frustrated by Republican budget cuts, resorts to a simplistic filter to select groups for further study when establishing tax exempt-ness.   Political groups on both the right and left were identified...nearly all were granted tax exempt status even though the law clearly says they shouldn't have been.  Republicans were outraged--not by the violation of the law, but that the IRS would even speculate whether groups that identified themselves as Tea Party or Anti-Tax might possibly be political.  Progressive groups got the same scrutiny.

Republicans trying desperately to overturn the PPACA before the voters find out that it's actually a good thing, shut down the government.  They are outraged when their own shutdown results in Air Traffic Controllers preventing them from politicking.  They are outraged when a DC park aimed at Veterans is shut down.

Veterans Administration health workers, frustrated by demand for their services tripling and costs doubling while Republicans blocked all but a tiny increase in their budget, resort to delaying or denying patient service and attempting to hide the fact they'd done it.  Republicans are outraged.

Republicans take resources from a somewhat justifiable war in Afghanistan to put them and a lot more into a disastrously counterproductive war in Iraq, which they underfund and manage very badly in the early days.  And cut taxes at the same time.  It goes very badly in Iraq.  Republicans are outraged, so they increase the budget in Iraq (and keep the tax cuts), which allows some small progress there but makes them hate us.

We pull out, on the schedule defined by the republican's president.  Republicans are outraged.

One of the groups we antagonized (with "de-Baathification" and more) finds a strategy to gain power in Iraq and behaves very ruthlessly.  They recognize that hostility towards America and Americans is a terrific recruiting strategy.  Republicans fall for it and are outraged.

CDC and NIH, frustrated by Republican budget cuts and obstruction, are behind the curve on responding to Ebola. Republicans are outraged.

There is no surgeon general to deal with the public during the Ebola and other health crises. Republicans have blocked the nominee since Nov 2013.


All of these problems are self inflicted--by their own petard, as the expression goes.  But they never seem to suffer.