Republicans In Disarray!

Thank you, media Villagers, for bringing us constant, breathless reports from assclown Donald Trump, who -- wait for it -- has decided not to run for president.

Oh, I’m shocked! Shocked, I tells ya! Oh wait, I’m not.

Nothing illustrates the sheer uselessness of our Washington media elites more than the Donald Trump rabbit trail. I said Trump was the Balloon Boy of politics and I was right. Well, y’all got pwned, just like I said you would. Now please go away and do something useful, like basket weaving or crocheting or something. The grownups have important stuff to worry about.

So now, who do we have among Republicans for 2012? How about Gov. Chris Christie! The media keeps shoving him our collective face, too. Please run, Christie. With approval ratings like this you’ll be lucky to carry your own state:

By 5:1, NJ Voters Say Governor Christie Should Not Run for President in 2012: New Jersey Republican Governor Chris Christie, beloved by some and despised by others for his bluntness, has a Minus 18 job approval today as speculation continues about whether Christie should run for President. 38% of NJ adults approve of the job Christie is doing, 56% disapprove.

I just have to wonder where the “Republicans in disarray!” storyline is. I mean, "Democrats in disarray" is such an oldie but a goodie, it’s always trotted out by the media around election time. But it’s the Republicans who can’t find their ass with both hands and a map.

Ah well, it’s always good news for Republicans.

When They Say States Rights You Know They Mean Mississippi

Seriously, this move by the GOP to allow states to basically opt out of any federal law they don’t like would be laughable were it not so scary. Didn’t we already fight this battle? Literally?

Anyway, what’s appalling to me is the hypocrisy. Republicans are all about “states rights” until a Blue State passes a law they or their corporate cronies don’t like, and then they’re all about repealing it, citing the supremacy of Federal law. But Mississippi could bring back Jim Crow and they'd be all like, "well, states rights!"

A few recent examples:

• In 2001, then-Attorney General John Ashcroft issues a directive effectively nullifying Oregon’s Death With Dignity Law, launching a series of lawsuits before getting smacked by the U.S. Supreme Court.

• In 2002, the Bush Administration joins auto manufacturers in suing the State of California over its Zero Emission Vehicle mandate. They argue that Federal law supersedes California state law, and so GM’s electric car program was killed. Until, of course, the sheer stupidity of our gas-guzzling ways came back to bite us on the ass. By which point the Japanese had already surpassed us in technology and manufacturing. Wow, way to go, folks! Really brilliant move!

• In 2005, the Republican-controlled Congress nullified a New York state vehicle liability law which had been on the books since 1924 by slipping a provision into the massive Federal transportation bill.

• In 2005, the Republican Congress passed a bill -- signed by George W. Bush -- keeping Terri Schiavo on life support and requiring a new inquiry into the entire Schiavo affair. Ah yes, one of Bill Frist’s finest moments. [/sarcasm]

• In February 2011, the House Judiciary Committee unanimously voted for tort reform. I love this one because the Democrats, all unanimously opposed to the measure, called them on their hypocrisy:

Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) quipped that the Republicans had changed their tune on states’ rights within the span of a few hours, noting that Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli had told the panel earlier that the health care overhaul was unconstitutional because it includes an individual mandate requiring everyone to buy insurance.

In the afternoon, she said, Judiciary Committee Republicans argued that the federal government can impose its will about medical malpractice laws and “intrude on states’ rights.”

“You can’t have it both ways,” she said.

Of course they can! Because the rule of modern American politics is always, always IOKIYAR. For example, Atlanta Journal Constitution columnist Jay Bookman asked a logical question:

More importantly, where exactly in the Constitution does it say that Congress shall be empowered to dictate to state governments, state courts, state judges and state juries how they should handle state cases of alleged medical malpractice? What’s the source of that federal authority? I’ve looked in my handy pocket Constitution, and I can’t find such a provision anywhere. Under conservative legal theory, it certainly can’t be the commerce clause, given that the commerce involved is strictly intra-state, not interstate. Most people do not cross state lines to get medical care.

Curious, I went digging into the Congressional Record. Under new House rules, remember, sponsors are required to cite congressional authority for their proposed bill. And sure enough, on Jan. 24, the bill’s sponsor — a “Mr. Gingrey of Georgia” — cited the commerce clause as his authority.

Whoa! It most certainly was the commerce clause! The very same one rightwingers claim does not apply to healthcare reform, making the Affordable Care Act unconstitutional.

IOKIYAR!

Yes, of course they can have it both ways. They always do. Republicans will not be in power forever, nor will they have the majority of state legislatures forever. That’s just reality. And you can bet your sweet bippy that as soon as they get the White House back, or state legislatures turn left, they’ll all be walking back that states rights stuff so fast your head will spin.

I mean really, it’s just hard to take any of these people seriously about anything.

What Exactly Are Republicans Good At, Again?

[UPDATE]:

Apparently the video is no longer available on YouTube but you can see it on his Facebook page, or if you don't do the Face-space thingie, it's right now on his homepage.

--------------------------
Bill Maher asked the question Friday night, which you can see here at around the 2:50 mark. Enjoy:

Trump’d Is The New Punk’d

So, earlier this week I’m talking to a conservative acquaintance and he gives me his usual “they’re all crooked sleazebags” line (more on that later) and then he says, I shit you not,

“You know who I’m interested in? Donald Trump. I’d really be interested in hearing more of what he has to say.”

At which point I practically exploded in laughter. In fact, I even said, “How can you support someone whose own casino went bankrupt -- three times!” He replied, I shit you not,

”It wasn’t really a bankruptcy. It was reorganization.”

I mean, just ...oh my God. That’s just... so ... priceless.

Anyway, so I finally met one. You know, one of those Republican voters who have supposedly “embraced a Trump bid.”

Here’s the thing. As I’ve been saying all along, Trump is not running for president. This is absolutely, without a doubt, a hoax to boost ratings for his Apprentice franchise. That’s what I said when Trump first started talking about running. And the only ones to take him seriously have been our stupid mainstream media and political punditry, which never saw a shiny-sparkly piece of political theater it didn’t like. And when Trump announces on the Celebrity Apprentice finale that he’s not running, the media will look like idiots yet again. It’s Balloon Boy all over again. I will be absolutely gobsmacked if I’m wrong about this.

Seriously, look at this:

See, Trump has been "seriously" considering a run for the Oval Office since last October—or, just weeks after season 10 of The Apprentice got off to a franchise-low start.

Of course, the timing could be a coincidence. Or not.

Yeah call me a cynic but I’m going to guess ... not. Seeing viewers lose interest in his reality TV show last fall, the master of gimmickry came up with the best promotion ever for the spring season of Celebrity Apprentice. I mean, when your idea of "celebrity" is Gary Busey, Meat Loaf, LaToya Jackson and NeNe Leakes, no wonder your ratings have tanked. But it’s worked:

The story begins in February, when Trump is a distant, but surprising fourth-place finisher in a survey of Republican voters. He polls at 8 percent.

On March 6, the new season of Celebrity Apprentice premieres, and averages 7.9 million viewers, down 5 percent from the previous spring. 

So, it's bad for Busey and the men of Backbone that Trump is searching for President Barack Obama's birth certificate, right?
Wrong.

On the same day, March 13, that Trump kicks up to 10 percent in a CNN poll, Celebrity Apprentice moves up to 8.1 million viewers.

A few weeks later, on April 3, the show hits a new season high, with 8.6 million viewers. Trump's support among GOP voters, meanwhile, increases to 17 percent in an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll.

Okay, there’s more ... Trump’s vocal birtherism has come with a marked decline in the show’s ratings. Who knows if they’re connected? All I know is that this is undoubtedly a ploy to boost ratings. And anyone who buys this nonsense (and near as I can tell that’s pretty much just our news media) has been punk’d.

So back to my conservative acquaintance. We actually agree on a lot of things. He believes money and greed have corrupted our politics, he believes corporate influence is out of control, he thinks corporations and rich people should pay more taxes. He thinks the Tea Party is nuts. But his answers to these problems are not necessarily the same as mine.

But where we most differ is in his steadfast belief that government is inherently corrupt and evil, that every politician is a lying, money-sucking scumbag, that the nation is in a steep decline that will inevitably result in civil unrest of apocalyptic proportions, and that the entire world is headed toward a one-currency/One World Order scenario.

I won’t get into that crackpot One World Order stuff (like, for instance, who exactly is going to take over? Every empire which has tried has failed, including ours). I think the whole disillusionment thing is a feature, not a bug. See, the more people believe that they’re all corrupt and what’s the point of even being engaged, the more the plutocracy wins. Sure, David Vitter was a sleazebag and so was John Ensign but Clinton got a blowjob and John Edwards is Rielle's baby daddy. So let's just wash our hands of them all, right?

Really, what is the point of that kind of thinking? Does anyone believe that the only person worth leading this country is a saint or Jesus Christ himself and until those people come along we’re better off just tuning it all out? Yes, our politics and political process has been corrupted, yes we need clean and fair elections and we need to get the big money out of politics. Do those two things and you will have done a lot to root out the sleazeballs and scumbags.

But no, we now we have a bunch of people who believe the entire process has been corrupted and taken over by sleazebags and slimeballs, getting punk'd by the biggest slimeball of them all. As if getting taken by the Grifter From Wasilla wasn't been bad enough, you folks now think the Grifter From Manhattan is going to be any better? Really, people? Hey I think I know how this movie ends. And hey, with any luck maybe we can get our voter turnout even smaller next election. It’s not like people aren’t disillusioned enough as it is, right?

Anyway, I thought I had posted this here before but if you haven’t seen Lewis Black take down the idea of a Donald Trump candidacy, you are in a for a treat. Maybe what this country needs is a Third World dictator.

The Daily Show
Tags: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

I Blame The Liberal Media

I’m not a big fan of polls, but I thought this new one from Pew Research was interesting:

• About half of Americans think the debate over spending and deficits has been "generally rude and disrespectful," including 48% of Republicans and Democrats as well as 57% of independents.
• The percentage of Americans who feel that the Republicans are better at handing the deficit dropped from 35% after the election to 21% currently.
• The percentage of Americans who feel President Barack Obama is better at handing the deficit has also dropped from 24% to 20%.
• About 75% of Tea Party supporters back the GOP budget plans after the election, that figure has dropped to 52%.

Hmm... maybe, just maybe, anti-Muslim hysteria and a focus on abortion might not have been the deficit reduction plan folks had in mind. Just maybe people are thinking that tax cuts to millionaires and corporations while cutting funds to schools and fire departments isn’t the solution they wanted.

What’s interesting to me is that Republicans and Tea Party leaders blame voter impatience. I’m thinking ... no, at least, not as far as budget deficits are concerned. I think people understand that you don’t vote in November, have your representatives sworn into office in January, and see results by March.

I’m thinking that people are pissed off that jobs and the economy still suck after so many years. It's really that simple.

It’s the same thing that pissed people off in 2004, 2006, 2008 and November 2010. And it will continue to piss people off in 2012 and 2014 and 2016 unless somebody, somewhere, goes after the real problem, which is outsourcing of jobs and wage stagnation and widening inequality between the haves and have nots. These are systemic problems that have no easy answers and they won't be fixed in three months, let alone two years. Tackling healthcare reform was a huge step in that direction but the institutional powers that be pushed back so hard against it, we ended up with very modest changes that really didn't reform much at all. This is a sign of what's to come, people: I'm afraid we're in a situation where we have to fight tooth and nail for tiny, incremental changes like this in everything, which means we're going to be in this situation for a long, long time.

It's kind of sad that the media doesn’t get it. We’ve been in a recession for a really, really long time -- since long before the market crash of 2007. I remember blogging about all the people left behind from the supposed “Bush boom,” and Republicans calling me “angry” and “negative” and a “blame American first” kind of person who suffered from “Bush derangement syndrome.” I mean seriously, am I the only one who remembers these conversations from 2004? Am I the only one who remembers arguing with Bill Hobbs every time he blogged about how terrific the economy was? Am I the only one who remembers George W. Bush telling a divorced mother that it's "fantastic" and "uniquely American" that she works three jobs? As if she wanted to?

America has been in a downward spiral for a long time, folks. This isn’t some new phenomenon that just popped up when the real estate bubble burst. And I think what surveys like this one from Pew show us is that Americans understand this yet don’t know what to do about it, because we have so little control over anything. We’re basically offered a choice between dumb and dumber every two years and people are getting frustrated and maybe a little frightened.

I know I am.

It Will Be Different This Time, Honest!

I swear, the narrative coming out of Democratic Party circles as Republicans take over the House of Representatives is driving me nuts. The message we’re hearing repeated everywhere is that “now Republicans have to lead,” and “governing is oooh so different from campaigning,” and “put up or shut up”, or as Rep. Anthony Weiner told Face The Nation:

"It's their ship to run now," he said. "That's the responsibility."

No, it’s not! It’s totally not! Because, they’re Republicans, which means they can do whatever the fuck they want and no one ever calls them on it, ever. Like, when Peggy Noonan famously claimed in a 2008 Wall Street Journal op-ed that “At least Bush kept us safe,” which neatly overlooked Nine-Fucking-Eleven, the anthrax attacks, Hurricane Katrina, etcetera, etcetera. Heh heh, we all know that shit was Clinton’s fault!

Or how about the time Karl Rove wrote, also in the Wall Street Journal, that President Obama’s stimulus package is “the biggest peacetime spending increase in American history,” forgetting that it’s not peacetime, asshole, we’re still embroiled in the two wars started under your watch.

In a sane world, someone over at the Wall Street Journal might have pointed these things out before running these pieces to begin with. But this is not a sane world, this is a world where Republicans are allowed to get away with saying and doing whatever they want. Republicans are Teflon, Democrats are glue. When will the Dems figure this out?

You know, you can never, ever say anything about what a budget-buster the Iraq War has been without someone pointing out, “Well, Democrats voted for it toooooo!” Yeah, but they wouldn’t have if a) Republicans weren’t fearmongering 24/7 about smoking guns being mushroom clouds, b) Republicans weren't given free rein to question the patriotism of anyone who had the temerity to doubt the Bush Administration’s war rationale, and c) Bush Administration officials, in collusion with the media, hadn't personally threatened and intimidated war critics like Valerie Plame and Joseph Wilson. So get over your damn selves.

Yeah, we all know this routine. As long as there is one liberal within 30 yards of a bad decision, that is the person who is getting the blame. Wake up, Democrats.

Democrats never, ever remember this stuff. They never remember that the media is not liberal, that the networks and cable news bots are infatuated with sniffing Republican shorts and will rarely call Republicans on their lies, spin and revisionist history.

I mean, I don’t recall hearing a lot of media hacks rushing to correct the lies of Rush Limbaugh, who claimed Obama tanked the economy as payback for racism. This only makes sense if you are insane, and also if you forget who was president in fall 2007, when the economy actually crashed. Remember how John McCain was going to suspend his campaign and rush to Washington to fix the economy?

Ah yes, but the Democrats took the Senate in the fall 2006 elections, so everything that happened after that is their fault! Heads we lose, tails they win.

Already today we are seeing Republicans rewrite their brand-new House rules to suit their agenda. You know, like how deficits matter except when they don’t, which would be when pushing for war and tax cuts and pretending that a repeal of healthcare reform won't add $230 billion to the deficit.

Got it, Democrats? It’s always Republican Rules. IOKIYAR is the guiding principle of modern American governance. Republicans can get away with everything and anything, Democrats cannot.

So don’t be pushing this pablum about how “Republicans have to govern now.” No, they don’t! They just have to show up on some Sunday morning bobblehead show and mouth some bumper sticker bromide about Freedom and Real America and What The American People Want and blargheddy blargh. It's not like anyone in the media, save maybe Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, ever holds their feet to the fire.

This will only change if Democrats finally grow a spine and really wise up and make a big stink about this hypocrisy. And that won't happen until they stop caring about what Tweety and David Broder think, and start really pushing back.

But I don't hold out much hope.

Political Theater Alert

Stupid U.S. Senate!

With folks like Sen. Jim DeMint threatening bullshit stunts like this, I have to wonder what the point of having a bicameral government is. Really? You just want everything to grind to a halt? Again? What the hell for?

Republicans loaded the omnibus bill with billions of dollars in pork (as did the Democrats but they aren’t the ones whining about it), then are shocked--shocked!--at the size of the bill! Amazing!

Hmm, starting to look like a bunch of political theater to me, but who is the audience? Who is paying attention to this stuff? What is the point? I don’t get it.

And let me just say, those of us who are paying attention are appalled. We deserve better. We deserve--and want--a government that functions. I never again want to hear the Democrats tell me they need a "filibuster proof majority" -- when they had one, they went on and on about the need for bipartisanship! So screw you all, we're not as dumb as we look. Broken government? No thank you.

Next Democratic majority needs to reform Senate rules FIRST THING:

"I Remember"

Wow. Powerful ad.



(h/t, Brilliant At Breakfast.)

Shorter GOP Pledge

The Republican’s 21-page pledge, summed up in 16 words:



(Via Balloon Juice.)

Empty Pledge

[UPDATE]: Lying With Graphs, Republican Style. Hilarious.

Why don't Democrats ever think of this stuff?

----------------------------

The GOPs “Pledge To America” is about what we all expected:

The document speaks constantly and eloquently of the dangers of debt -- but offers a raft of proposals that would sharply increase it. It says, in one paragraph, that the Republican Party will commit itself to "greater liberty" and then, in the next, that it will protect "traditional marriage." It says that "small business must have certainty that the rules won't change every few months" and then promises to change all the rules that the Obama administration has passed in recent months. It is a document with a clear theory of what has gone wrong -- debt, policy uncertainty, and too much government -- and a solid promise to make most of it worse.

Ezra has more details on the specifics.

My favorite part is here:

We will permanently end taxpayer funding of abortion and codify the Hyde Amendment.

Hey great, you guys already have a head start since there is no taxpayer funded abortion! Apparently they are aware of this because they reference the Hyde Amendment, which prevents Medicaid funds from paying for abortion. The Republican Party promises to “codify” something which has been attached to every Health & Human Services appropriations bill since 1976. Hey, way to go out on a limb there, guys. That’s some bold leadership! Just one question: how come you didn’t do that four years ago when you were in charge of Congress and the White House? I guess you “forgot.”

Ooops.

The pledge also includes this:

We will require that every bill contain a citation of Constitutional authority. We will give all Representatives and citizens at least three days to read the bill before a vote.

A “citation of Constitutional authority”? What the hell is that? Is that like the Good Housekeeping Seal Of Approval? Actually it's some meaningless Tentherism nonsense that John Shaddegg of Arizona cooked up. Question: does it say anwhere in the Constitution that legislation has to cite constitutional authority?

Ditto that three days to read the bill stuff. Is that in the Constitution? Or is it more useless claptrap designed to slow down the legislative process; I’m trying to decide how this will work, since it seems to me that most bills we’ve been discussing have been in the hopper for weeks if not months so the whole “three days” stuff is really puzzling. Does that mean three days after every little tweak and change to a piece of legislation? Looks to me like the Republicans are pledging gridlock to be the new normal. I’m just surprised they didn’t put a page limit on legislation, since they seemed really really upset at the length of some of these bills this year. Poor dears. Congressin’ is really hard work!

Looks to me like the Republicans are pledging to make your government even more stupid.

This Is Why Al Gore Invented The Internet

Comedian/liberal agitator Marc Maron got seated next to Ken Mehlman on an airplane and he's live-Tweeting it right now.

It's Republican Rules

Welcome Crooks & Liars!

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I love it when Republicans have hissy fits over people like Charlie Rangel yet their own crooks--cough*cough*Rick Scott*cough*cough--always wear Teflon.

So now Rick Scott is Florida’s Republican candidate for Governor. How is this possible? How did the hustler who let the largest healthcare fraud case in U.S. history go on right under his nose, who left Nashville’s Columbia/HCA in such tatters that they had to change the company’s name, who escaped with a $10 million golden parachute, manage to sell enough free market snake oil to make people forget he’s (in my opinion) a big, fat crook?

Only in Florida and only in the Republican Party. How can Democrats get that deal? If Mark Sanford can hike the Appalachian Trail with his South American mistress and not have to resign the governorship, then so can Eliot Spitzer. Oh I forgot, there’s always a higher standard for Democrats. IOKIYAR.


Even more amazing are all the Freepers claiming Scott was brought up on “trumped up charges,” which totally makes sense when you remember that a) Rick Scott actually wasn't brought up on any charges, and b) Columbia/HCA paid $1.7 billion -- yes that’s right, billion with a “B” -- in penalties and fines and pled guilty to various criminal charges. Sure, corporations would rather plead guilty and pay nearly $2 billion to make “trumped up” charges go away. Man you guys are pathetic.

So this week I hear a lot of folks wondering why Rick Scott is not in jail. Why wasn't he charged with any crimes, anyway? Good question. For that you can thank President Clinton’s Attorney General Janet Reno. Last year one of my readers posted a link to an interview with Reno (or maybe it was a news conference transcript, I don't remember) where she said something to the effect of, "Scott’s public humiliation was punishment enough." I can’t find the link now to save my life, and losing all of my old comments to the demise of Haloscan didn't help.

That Reno let Scott go always stunk to high heaven to me. Remember: Scott and Reno are both from Florida. Janet Reno ran for governor of Florida in 2002 but lost the nomination to Bill McBride. Bill McBride is married to Alex Sink, who is currently running for governor of Florida against .... Rick Scott. You know, Florida politics looks like one of our Kentucky family trees: no branches.

Anyway, Rick Scott was supposedly chastened by his "ordeal" and public humiliation. Oh wait, maybe not:

The man leading the Governor's race on the Republican side was deposed just days before he got into the Governor's race in one case and accused of medicare fraud by a former doctor.

Now Rick Scott is refusing to answer questions about the case against his current company.

[...]

Scott went on to call the ploy desperate and "Chicago style politics" but refused multiple times to release his testimony in the case. He's also been accused by a former doctor at Solantic of Medicare fraud and that case is now in the hands of the FDLE. No charges have been brought. Wednesday was supposed to be the final debate, and the only one to be broadcast statewide. Scott decided to skip that final debate. Bill McCollum will be here in Orlando today for the forum anyway.

Of course, we all saw Scott subpoenaed at a press conference.

I remember when politicians tainted by an ethics cloud were forced to set aside their political ambitions. Nowadays it's part of a Republican candidate's resume -- even for Vice President of the United States. Hmm.

I remember when Ronald Reagan was first labeled "Teflon Ron" way back in 1984. After more than 25 years of this, I guess we're just supposed to accept that Republicans are made of rubber and Democrats are made of glue.

Holy Crap I’m In The Wrong Line Of Work

I don’t know why Republicans claim to be fiscally responsible when they do stuff like this:

“It’s standard operating procedure” to pay bloggers for favorable coverage, says one Republican campaign operative. A GOP blogger-for-hire estimates that “at least half the bloggers that are out there” on the Republican side “are getting remuneration in some way beyond ad sales.”

In California, where former eBay executive Meg Whitman beat businessman Steve Poizner in a bitterly fought primary battle in the campaign for governor, it sometimes seemed as if there was a bidding war for bloggers.

One pro-Poizner blogger, Aaron Park, was discovered to be a paid consultant to the Poizner campaign while writing for Red County, a conservative blog about California politics. Red County founder Chip Hanlon threw Park off the site upon discovering his affiliation, which had not been disclosed.

[...]

But while Red County’s Hanlon expressed outrage at Park’s pay-for-blogging scheme, questions arose about his own editorial independence when it emerged that Red County itself had been taking money from the Whitman campaign.

In December of 2009, Red County received $20,000 from the Meg Whitman campaign, which has sent the site $15,000 a month since then.

The money is ostensibly for advertising, yet by conventional measures the numbers don’t add up. According to Quantcast, Red County reaches around 125,000 unique viewers per month. Two new media industry experts confirmed that, given such a readership, Whitman’s ad purchase is “ridiculously” expensive, surpassing the going market rate for such ads by 1,000 percent or more.

On the Republican side of the aisle, political campaigns are just one big gravy train, meanwhile George Soros still hasn’t sent me a fucking check. Dang.

Meanwhile, lefties can’t even get Democrats to advertise on liberal blogs. Seriously, what the hell is wrong with this picture?

Obviously we’ve all known for years that some conservative bloggers are on the GOP dole; it’s also been rumored that the Republican Party and conservative organizations pay people to comment on blogs. I haven’t been able to verify if that’s true; of course a big chunk of my comment spam is paid commercial crap, selling jewelry and casino vacations and other nonsense. It stands to reason that conservative organizations would do likewise.

Anyway, $15,000 a month? Holy crap. Compare that to the $3 to $5 per 300-500 word article sweatshop pay which according to Craigslist, MediaBistro, Demand Studios, etc. is the going rate. So while right-wing Christian billionaire Phillip Anschutz’s Examiner.com throws a few pennies in writers’ tin cups, apparently we should all go straight to GOP candidates and rake in the big bucks.

Because The GOP Just Can’t Piss Off Enough People

(This post in honor of the 19th Amendment, ratified 90 years ago today ....)

Apparently not content to simply offend African Americans, Latinos and Muslims, the GOP has decided to go for the home run and piss off women, as well.

Via Mother Jones we have the Minnesota GOP telling people to vote Republican because their chicks are hotter than those hairy bull dyke “dogs” who are the “Democrat” women. No, I’m not making this up, you can watch the video for yourself:



Minnesota GOP webmaster Randy Brown said of the video:

"[I]ts only intention was to bring a smile to a few peoples faces, and possibly irritate a few others. Is it fair? Does that matter? It wasn't intended to be fair. It was intended to be funny."

Yeah, cuz I tell you, we women think it’s hilarious when we are judged by how we look (or how well we are photoshopped), not the content of our character or what’s in our brains.

Vote GOP. Because they will always treat you like an object. Winning slogan, guys.

Jumping The Shark

Eugene Robinson points out what we Lefties have been saying for some time: the Republican Party has gone batshit insane.

The Republican Party's candidate for governor of Colorado believes that bicycle paths are "part of a greater strategy to rein in American cities under a United Nations treaty." The party's Senate candidate in Nevada wants to privatize Medicare and Social Security -- and has called for the United States to withdraw from the U.N., though not because of the bicycle conspiracy. And the GOP's Senate candidate in Connecticut once climbed into a professional wrestling ring and kicked a man in the crotch.

Who slipped the crazy juice into the Republican Party Kool-Aid? Every time I hear a new crazy conspiracy theory from the far right -- Sarah Palin’s death panels, or Michelle Bachmann’s FEMA camps -- I think, “this one, surely, we can ignore, right? Nobody will take this one seriously?” And then it’s Topic A on the Sunday morning bobblehead shows.

So let’s talk Terror Babies. Apparently the theory originated with Texas Republican state legislator Rep. Debbie Riddle and has a believer in Texas Congressman Louie Gohmert, R-Crazytown. Gohmert is a birther, so it's no surprise he bought this tall tale.

The idea is that Islamic terrorist groups are impregnating women and sending them to the U.S. on tourist visas to have their babies here so they will be born U.S. citizens. The women and their infants then return to their home countries, where they raise their children to be America-hating terrorists. Twenty years later these America-hating young people sail across our borders as U.S. citizens, whereupon they wreak havoc upon the homeland.

Umm ... yeah. I think I saw that movie already. It stars Angelina Jolie and she totally kicks ass!

Seriously, are you people smoking crack? Send pregnant women over here to birth terror babies? Why on earth would any terrorist go to all that bother? They could just leave the pregnant women at home and send their America-hating spawn over to here on tourist visas -- skip the middle woman. And guess what: they don’t even need to wait 20 years! They can do it right now!

ZOMG!!11!!!!1!!!ELEVEN!!!

Someone grab an extra large box of Adult Depends, Republicans all across Texas are wetting themselves as you read this. What a bunch of Nervous Nellies.

If you haven’t yet watched this video of an incredulous Anderson Cooper trying to get Gohmert to substantiate his “terror babies” conspiracy theory, you are in for a treat:



Seriously, Democrats? You're losing to these people? The Republican Party has gone off the deep end, spouting some of the craziest crap this side of Alex Jones' Prison Planet. All you folks need to do is sit back and look like the sanest people in the room. Unfortunately, too few Democrats have stood up and called bullshit when they saw it; maybe, like me, they didn't believe "birtherism" and "death panels" and "FEMA camps" and "Obama is a secret Muslim" would be taken seriously. You guys need to learn what I've learned: nothing is too crazy for America these days. Time to play some hardball.

Anyway, with both the GOP and Democratic Party polling high “unfavorable opinion” numbers, I wonder if that won’t mean voter apathy for the midterms, especially among independents?

In which case, the Democrats better plan on engaging their base, if it’s not too late already. A sane energy and climate bill might be a good place to start.

Con-Con Artists

Just Another Constitutional Conservative

How do you know when both the Tea Party brand and the Republican Party have been tarnished? When they start calling themselves “Constitutional Conservatives running on the Republican ticket.”

Kinda like Tennessee’s Lou Ann Zelenik who yesterday chirped:

”I’m so fed up. I’ve worked hard to get Republicans elected and they’ve failed me. I’m worked hard to stand up for our freedoms. I’m running on the Republican Party ticket, but I’m running as a constitutional conservative who believes in our constitution and our free market. We’ve got to stand up."

Zelenik is just the latest right winger to adopt the “Constitutional Conservative running on the Republican ticket” meme. Jeff Hartline is running for Jim Cooper’s seat on that label (of course, he needs to win his Republican primary first). Rand Paul, of course, told Sean Hannity: “I call myself a constitutional conservative.” Sharron Angle is a “Constitutional Conservative Patriot.” Others include Utah’s Mike Lee, Florida’s Robert Lowry, Alaska’s Joe Miller ... they are everywhere, in every state, these Con-Con artists.

It’s so pervasive, I started to suspect that someone at the Tea Party Express advised these candidates to dump their “Tea Party” label, now that it’s been tarnished by the unhinged racists, homophobes and conspiracy theory wackadoos who have become the face of the Tea Party. It’s a neat con, these Con-Cons: a dog whistle to appeal to Tea Party sympathizers without frightening off your more mainstream Republican voter.

Turns out I’m right:

Former Republican House Majority Leader Dick Armey, one of the drivers of the Tea Party movement, is suggesting that Republican political candidates should shy away from the "Tea Party" label to avoid harsher scrutiny.

No surprise there. Dick Armey is one of those Texas Republicans who took over the party in the 90s by exploiting identity politics -- these are the folks who (briefly) turned “liberal” into a bad word. These folks tend to focus more on superficialities: image over substance, labels over doctrine. It’s more a marketing campaign than a political ideology. But in this age of the internet, I have to wonder how effective such politics is anymore.

I think it’s interesting to watch the Tea Party suddenly rebrand itself as “Constitutional Conservatives” now that the shine is off the tea pot. I wonder if by next year they will feign outrage at being identified by the “Tea Party” label, much as how today they are outraged at being called Tea Baggers, despite that being the name they originally called themselves.

You People Have Too Much Time On Your Hands

Looks like you Dirty Fucking Hippies took the House Republicans up on their offer to “send us your best ideas.” Hilarity ensued:

"End Child Labor Laws," suggests one helpful participant. “We coddle children too much. They need to spend their youth in the factories."

"How about if Congress actually do thier job and VET or Usurper in Chief, Obama is NOT a Natural Born Citizen in any way," recommends another. "That fake so called birth certificate is useless."

"A 'teacher' told my child in class that dolphins were mammals and not fish!" a third complains. "And the same thing about whales! We need TRADITIONAL VALUES in all areas of education. If it swims in the water, it is a FISH. Period! End of Story."

House Republicans, meet the World Wide Web.

Oh, the poor dears. Can you tell the fake conservatives from the real ones? I’m guessing the birther was a real conservative, “the child labor/dolphins are fish” commenters were fakes. But hey, you never know.

Check out these other ideas floated on the House GOP’s new website.

• American Values: Protecting the sanctity of life section:

“We're wasting our time protecting the sanctity of marriage by merely targeting gay marriage. We should immediately criminalize divorce.”

“Require all Muslims in the U.S. to wear ankle bracelet transponders so we know where the terrorists are at all times.”

“We should administer capital punishment to anyone who has an abortion. In order to cut costs that the death penalty normally entails, we will have lax gun laws that will allow people to obtain guns with greater ease. Then we would allow the "free-market" to dictate whose philosophy wins out – the liberals irrational philosophy or our logical and God following philosophy. Liberals who have abortions would be taken care of by a militia of the willing who will get rid of all liberals who take the life others irrationally and will allow us to remove all of our opponents to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

• American Values: Liberty and Freedom section:

”I want to drink from a separate water fountain again.”

“THIS IS ONE LAW I WOULD SUPPORT NO OTHER NATIONS FLAG CAN BE INSIDE OR WAVING AT ANY PUBLIC TAX PAYER FUNDED BUILDING. AND NO OTHER NATIONS LEADER CAN COME IN TO OUR CAPITOL AND CUT DOWN ONE OF OUR LAWS.”

• Job Creation:

“Eliminate the metric system. All the duplication in effort measuring everything twice could be used in creating jobs, not handouts like our Socialist European metric-users.”

“eliminating minimum wage laws will allow companies to hire many more Americans for just a fraction of the price. If Mexicans can work for 2$ an hour, so can we.”

• Open Mic:

“STOP STEALING OUR WATER! I was watering my plant the other day and I noticed all the water disappeared! WHAT has the state of LIBERAL politics gotten to when your water is vanishing from everywhere!! Sometimes I go to the bathroom and there's no toilet paper either, they should FIX that!”

“At the present time I would suggest some Federal money would be well spent to employ everyone in Louisana that is not working to help clean up the coastline.”

“GOP BEWARE. Personal attacks against Tea Party backed candidates shows how desperate you are to gain power and move the country to the ultra-right. Which by the way is no better than what we have now in power, the ultra-left. There are millions of people that are tired of these kinds of campaign tactics and the majority of them believe in the tea party message. Be warned, if you choose to use personal attacks and not substance in your campaign, your party will see their numbers dwindle.”

I suspect GOP interns have been tasked with erasing the bogus/unwanted entries as fast as folks can input them.

Let's Talk About ACORN Some More!

Yes, let's:

Orange County authorities are launching an investigation into possible voter registration fraud after a local newspaper reported over a hundred cases of voters being tricked into registering as Republicans by petitioners who asked them to sign petitions for, among other causes, legalizing pot.

The Orange County Register reported last week that the Orange County District Attorney's office announced it would team up with the Secretary of State on the case, following a Register report that 99 written complaints were filed since March by voters who said they were registered as Republicans without their consent.

Another 74 voters reached by the Register said they, too, were unwillingly made members of the GOP.

In a lengthy investigation published earlier this month, the paper pointed to an $8 "bounty" offered by the California Republican Party for each new registration as a cause for the problems. It identified multiple petitioners who work for vendors "with ties to the California Republican Party." Back in 2006, a similar scandal led to the convictions of several

Of course, the California GOP is a repeat offender where voter registration fraud is concerned. (And despite his guilty plea and conviction, it seems Mark Jacoby is up to his old tricks again.)

You know, the thing that was such bullshit about the whole fake ACORN brouhaha is that conservatives claimed liberal activists were enacting vote fraud by registering "Mickey Mouse" to vote. Thing is, Mickey Mouse can't show up to the polls to vote, unless it's someone whose actual legal name is Mickey Mouse.

But California is a closed-primary state. When you register someone to vote as a Republican, then they must vote in the California Republican primary. They cannot, as we do in Tennessee, show up at the polls on election day and say "Oops that's a mistake, I want to vote in the Democratic primary instead." Sorry. You have to vote in the primary for the party in which you are registered.

So it seems this piece of fraud perpetrated by the California GOP has actually disenfranchised voters.

I'm sure the California GOP will blame an "overzealous staffer" or "inexperienced people" at the unaffiliated organization hired to register voters.

But ... um ... ACORN!!!!!

Echo Chamber Populism

E.J. Dionne’s column in today’s WaPo is excellent. Dionne looks at the New York Times/CBS News survey of the Tea Party “movement”--I use quotation marks because is a gathering of angry people who aren’t sure what and why they’re mad or what to do about truly a “movement”?--and he makes some really strong points. For one thing, he points out that

This must be the first "populist" movement driven by a television network: Sixty-three percent of the Tea Party folks say they most watch Fox News "for information about politics and current events," compared with 23 percent of the country as a whole.

Yes, thanks for noticing. We liberals have been saying this all along.

Dionne also points out that Tea Partiers hold beliefs that are actually far outside the mainstream of America:

The poll asked: "In recent years, do you think too much has been made of the problems facing black people, too little has been made, or is it about right?" Twenty-eight percent of all Americans -- and just 19 percent of those who are not Tea Party loyalists -- answered "too much." But among Tea Party supporters, the figure is 52 percent, almost three times the proportion of the rest of the country. A quarter of Tea Partiers say that the Obama administration's policies favor blacks over whites, compared with only 11 percent in the country as a whole.

So race is part of this picture, as is a tendency of Tea Party enthusiasts to side with the better-off against the poor. This puts them at odds with most Americans. The poll found that while only 38 percent of all Americans said that "providing government benefits to poor people encourages them to remain poor," 73 percent of Tea Party partisans believed this. Among all Americans, 50 percent agreed that "the federal government should spend money to create jobs, even if it means increasing the budget deficit." Only 17 percent of Tea Party supporters took this view.

Asked about raising taxes on households making more than $250,000 a year to provide health care for the uninsured, 54 percent of Americans favored doing so vs. only 17 percent of Tea Party backers.

Again, this reaffirms what we lefty types have been saying for the past year now: that the Tea Party is the same wackadoodle far right fringe we’ve always had whose ideas are far outside the mainstream. They are pissed because they lost an election and are out of power and that happened because, I repeat, they are a far right wackadoodle fringe outside the mainstream.

See folks, this is echo chamber populism: a group of people who talk only to each other, who get all of their information from like-minded sycophants, whose news and information and views are formed inside a bubble. It’s warm and cozy in the bubble but it’s also not reality. No wonder they believe they are some kind of majority and something went terribly, terribly wrong for them to not have their viewpoints codified in the halls of power.

Feeding this belief is a mainstream news media which covers every fart and belch at a rate of one reporter for every three Tea Party convention participants, and which repeats the spin that this is just a mainstream group of folks because to do otherwise is an admission they were foolish to jump aboard the bandwagon to begin with.

Sorta reminds me how the media was all like, "America fuck yeah!" during Shock & Awe and then when Iraq was revealed to be a huge lie they were all like, "What? Who? Us? Why we'd never be so irresponsible!" Except for a handful of Jake Tapper-types who said maybe they could have done a little better job of reporting in the run-up to the Iraq War. But, bygones!

But I digress. Anyway, Republicans will pander to this group because that’s how they roll, but Democrats need to run far and fast from the Tea Baggers.

Writes Dionne:

Democrats face problems not from right-wingers who have never voted for them but from a lack of energy among their own supporters and from dispirited independents and moderates who look to government to solve problems but have little confidence in its ability to deliver.

Ayyy-fucking-men to that. The biggest mistake Democrats at any level -- local, state, or nationally -- could make is to try to run to the right. Liberals needs to be energized and motivated, and independents and moderates need to see that there is, in fact, a reasonable alternative to the fringe wackadoodles that the Republican Party is busy sucking up to.

Your Modern Republican Party

A bunch of belligerent zealots, says Chris Currey, lifelong Republican who laments he was purged from the party.

Interesting read. There have got to be some folks out there for whom this message resonates. And they are hanging their head in shame.

John McCain, I am looking at you.