A Republican Agenda

Send a message to Mitch McConnell:

Your Majority Leadership should be guaranteed. Here's how. Republicans lead thus far in Colorado mail-in ballots. However this state scares me most because the rule is an invitation to the massive fraud I fear. I still count Colorado as a bonus if we win it.

But Montana, South Dakota and West Virginia are essentially in the bag. And it looks like Republicans will take a seat in Iowa and Arkansas. That's five pickups and eventually Louisiana should make six. That's a majority assuming Republicans hold Georgia as I assume they will, and Kansas which is not as certain, but I think will happen. Alaska also looks likely and if Republicans win Colorado and/or North Carolina and possibly even New Hampshire, any of those are insurance or expansion of a majority of 51 to 55 seats or more. Things are tightening even in Virginia.

But even if relative to predictions, Republicans greatly under-perform and pickup only five seats in the Senate on Tuesday earning a 50/50 tie, full pressure should be put on Joe Manchin to switch parties, promising this agenda: Energy, Security, Health Care and Finance.

West Virginia will have swept in a Republican Junior Senator. And like Kentucky, West Virginia is a coal production state. Take the federal foot off of coal production and consumption! Open oil and gas exploration, extraction and transmission across the country on federal lands, beginning with approval of the Keystone XL Pipeline and including expand oil refinement facilities. The economy could surge on energy alone.

On security we must protect the homeland including the borders, arm the Ukraine against Russian encroachment and arm the Kurds in Iraq. We should intensify the air campaign against ISIS, the object being their utter destruction as soon as possible by whatever means necessary with American forces for spotting for airstrikes and mobilizing the Kurds but leaving nothing off the table necessary to the objective.

Obamacare must be repealed by the same measure it was passed as a budgetary measure, which is affirmed by Supreme Court affirmation of its constitutionality only as a tax. But this must be done only as an element of a plan to address health care access and cost, heavily involving return of funding and authority to the individual states.

Finally, much of the federal entanglement and constriction of finance must be undone to return viability to smaller local and regional banks and the availability of capital to small and start-up business. And it should hardly need mention that there is much needed to restore substance and integrity to the beleaguered dollar in hopes of averting a confidence crash in light of the astronomical debt and inflated dollar.

There are other big issues which should include federal withdrawal from regulation of abortion and marriage where it has no constitutional business beyond the charge to states to respect and protect human life. Some obviously will not, but let them pay the social cost of their dereliction. But these four are an agenda to suit immidiate anxieties in America and specifically in contested Senate races. Of course, Obama can veto any or all of this. But make him do it. Send a message to Mitch McConnell:

Your Majority Leadership should be guaranteed. Here's how. Republicans lead thus far in Colorado mail-in ballots. However this state scares me most because the rule are an invitation to the massive fraud I fear. I still count Colorado as a bonus if we win it.

But Montana, South Dakota and West Virginia are essentially in the bag. And it looks like Republicans will take a seat in Iowa and Arkansas. That's five pickups and eventually Louisiana should make six. That's a majority assuming Republicans hold Georgia as I assume they will, and Kansas which is not as certain, but I think will happen. Alaska also looks likely and if Republicans win Colorado and/or North Carolina and possibly even New Hampshire, any of those are insurance or expansion of a majority of 51 to 55 seats or more. Things are tightening even in Virginia.

But even if relative to predictions, Republicans greatly under-perform and pickup only five seats in the Senate on Tuesday earning a 50/50 tie, full pressure should be put on Joe Manchin to switch parties, promising this agenda: Energy, Security, Health Care and Finance.

West Virginia will have swept in a Republican Junior Senator. And like Kentucky, West Virginia is a coal production state. Take the federal foot off of coal production and consumption! Open oil and gas exploration, extraction and transmission across the country on federal lands, beginning with approval of the Keystone XL Pipeline and including expand oil refinement facilities. The economy could surge on energy alone.

On security, we must protect the homeland including the borders, arm the Ukraine against Russian encroachment and arm the Kurds in Iraq. We should intensify the air campaign against ISIS, the object being their utter destruction as soon as possible by whatever means necessary with American forces for spotting for airstrikes and mobilizing the Kurds but leaving nothing off the table necessary to the objective.

Obamacare must be repealed by the same measure it was passed as a budgetary measure, which is affirmed by Supreme Court affirmation of its constitutionality only as a tax. But this must be done only as an element of a plan to address health care access and cost, heavily involving return of funding and authority to the individual states.

Finally, much of the federal entanglement and constriction of finance must be undone to return viability to smaller local and regional banks and the availability of capital to small and start-up business. And it should hardly need mention that there is much needed to restore substance and integrity to the beleaguered dollar in hopes of averting a confidence crash in light of the astronomical debt and inflated dollar.

There are other big issues which should include federal withdrawal from regulation of abortion and marriage where it has no constitutional business beyond the charge to states to respect and protect human life. Some obviously will not, but let them pay the social cost of their dereliction. But these four are an agenda to suit immediate anxieties in America and specifically in contested Senate races. Of course, Obama can veto any or all of this. But make him do it, over and over and over. In 2016, we’ll know what party is obstructing progress.