EVERYTHING NOW ON THE TABLE

Rudy Giuliani's malicious comments on our president (e.g. He doesn't love America.) surprised many conservatives who felt the comments were in bad taste because the Republican Party is now trying to be respectable.  The problem is, however, that these sort of comments are closely held by many (most?) in the Republican base.  Every once in awhile, a political candidate's real thoughts come out and often they are not pretty.  For a previous example I might mention Mitt Romney's comments about the 47% who don't pay any income taxes to the Federal government.  It really is true that many (most?) of the wealthy feel the poor are poor because they are lazy.  I have heard it from a number of my conservative friends.  President Ronald Reagan felt this way (the poor are poor because they want to be poor).  He fought his way out of poverty so everyone should be able to do it if they had any gumption.  While Ronald Reagan's rise to wealth is admirable, it overlooks the difficulties in escaping poverty

A major change in our political system came when Mitt Romney politicized  the Benghazi attack during the 2012 Presidential campaign.  In contrast Democrats were quiet on the two embassy attacks (Lebanon* and Kuwait**) and Marine barracks bombing with 241 Americans killed during President Reagan's term.  No doubt the lack of U.S. military action led to emboldening terrorist attacks that are with us still.  It used to be that politics stopped at the American shores, but no more.

So it should not be surprising that now congress is making foreign policy decisions without consulting the President of the United States by inviting Prime Minister Netanyaho to address congress, who is apparently against any sort of agreement with Iran to stop their pursual of a nuclear weapon.  The departure of Republicans from letting America speak with one voice on foreign policy will hurt our foreign relations immeasurably, but they don't seem to care.

* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_United_States_embassy_bombing
The Beirut embassy bombing 1983 killed 63 including 17 Americans.  In 1984, another embassy building was bombed killing 22 including two Americans.
 ** http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Kuwait_bombings
Actually seven bombings killing six and wounding about 90 more, no Americans.
*** http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Beirut_barracks_bombing