Tag Archives: Republican Crazy

“Our Economy is in Danger”

The Teapublicans are in charge of the House of Representatives which really only points out that Americans have a shorter attention span than Floyd from True Romance. And now the GOP is about to spread misery to the poor and the middle class. Bob Herbert writes:

You just can’t close the door on this crowd. The party that brought us the worst economy since the Great Depression, that led us into Iraq and the worst foreign policy disaster in American history, that would like to take a hammer to Social Security and a chisel to Medicare, is back in control of the House of Representatives with the expressed mission of undermining all things Obama.

Some more from Herbert:

This is a party that has mastered the art of taking from the poor and the middle class and giving to the rich. We should at least be clear about this and stop being repeatedly hoodwinked — like Charlie Brown trying to kick Lucy’s football — by G.O.P. claims of fiscal responsibility.

And this:

We’ll see and hear a lot of populist foolishness from the Republicans as 2011 and 2012 unfold, but their underlying motivation is always the same. They are about making the rich richer.

Oh yeah, the quote on in the title, that was said by George W. Bush in September 2008. Remember that? Probably not.

Obama Hate Machine Goes Into Overdrive

David Corn writes that in the new epilogue of The Promise, Jonathan Alder dubs the vast network of “conservative media outfits, right-wing bloggers, and GOP partisans”, the Obama Hate Machine (OHM). If you are a frequent reader of Delaware Liberal then you have seen example after example after example about the machinations of the OHM. One of the recent idiocies of the OHM is the notion that President Obama wants to give Manhattan back to Native Americans (read the Delaware Liberal post). The other lunacy is the START is the beginning of Obama wanting to disarm America.

As Obama was pushing for Senate ratification of the new START treaty, which will decrease the nuclear arsenals of the United States and Russia, Rush Limbaugh, who sits on the throne of the OHM, declared that this was part of “Obama’s effort to disarm the United States.” He also proclaimed that with the START treaty Obama and the Democrats had “finally” succeeded “in harming U.S. national security.”

I’ll give the the right-wing some props as they really stepped up their game from the Clinton years. And it will take some doing on part of the Obama Administration to navigate their way through all the bullshit.

The Obama Hate Machine is never slowed by the absurdities it manufactures. It just keeps spewing crap. The accusations don’t have to be proved. The game plan is obvious: Even if he sidesteps the individual charges, Obama will somehow be dirtied by the ceaseless flow of mud. Meanwhile, the OHM professionals will reap profits, as they feed the irrational paranoia of their believe-anything anti-Obama audience.

Justin Bieber Thinks Muslims are “Super Cool”, Christians “Lame-o-Rama”

In case you haven’t realized it yet, these aren’t real Justin Bieber quotes, they’re from a fake story (NSFW) on CelebJihad. But if you are one of the intolerant few that think the Islamic community house in New York City is an affront, well then, you bought this story hook line and sinker. But as the anti-mosque anti-Bieber forces coalesced, Salon investigated Justin Bieber’s new found love for Muslims.

I was able to reach the proprietor of the site, who confirmed that the Bieber item is in fact a hoax. “[T]he fact that some people take it seriously is hilariously depressing,” he said in an e-mail.

It’s a hoax, though, that has spread around the Web, and succeeded in taking in several anti-mosque activists.

Pointing and laughing, pointing and laughing.

New GOP House Leaders Dipping the Constitution in Tea

It appears that the new GOP House majority is taking the Constitution “seriously.” I think we can now officially call the GOP the Teapublican Party.

At the start of every Congress, each House must adopt rules which will govern how it will operate for the next two years. We’ve already heard that the Democrats in the Senate are mulling over changes to the filibuster (we’ll wait to see what happens next week).

Speaker-designate Orange Man Boehner and his caucus are proposing new rules for the House including the required reading of the Constitution, aloud, at the start of the session and that every new bill contain a statement by the lawmaker who wrote it citing the constitutional authority to enact the proposed legislation.

From the House Republican’s Rules website:

Honoring the Pledge to America

As promised in the Pledge, members will not be able to introduce a bill or joint resolution without a “statement citing as specifically as practicable the power or powers granted to Congress in the Constitution to enact” it. This will serve to refocus members of Congress, with every bill they introduce, on the Constitution that they take an oath to support and defend.

Keeping another promise made in the Pledge, under the new House rules, no bill will be voted upon without being available online for at least three calendar days. The rules package reads, “it shall not be in order to consider a bill or joint resolution which has not been reported by a committee until the third calendar day…on which such measure has been publicly available in electronic form.” This will ensure members, the media, and the American people have an opportunity to read the bill before any vote.

It seems that teabaggers around the country are just wetting themselves over this.

“It appears that the Republicans have been listening,” said Jeff Luecke, a sales supervisor and tea party organizer in Dubuque, Iowa. “We’re so far away from our founding principles that, absolutely, this is the very, very tip of the iceberg. We need to talk about and learn about the Constitution daily.”

Most Congressional scholars and experts consider this just cosmetic, something to keep the teabaggers at home and out of the GOP’s hair. I thinks it’s just theatrics. And while there will be “debates” about the constitutionality of every bill that is introduced in the House, nothing will get done. Maybe Orange Man and his Yeshiva Bucher of a Majority Leader should leave the Constitutional questions up to the courts and experts.

Akhil Reed Amar, a constitutional scholar at Yale Law School, said he supports the reading. “I like the Constitution,” said Amar, author of “America’s Constitution: A Biography.” “Heck, I’ll do them one better. Why only once in January? Why not once every week?”

But he added: “My disagreement is when we actually read the Constitution as a whole, it doesn’t say what the tea party folks think it says.”

Amar argues that the Constitution charters a “very broad federal power” and is not the narrow states’ rights document that tea party activists present it as.

But what I found funny/disturbing in this article was the following:

“You can do the talk, but you have to do the walk,” said Clifford Atkin, a leader of the New Boston Tea Party in Woodbury, Conn., who likened the increased focus on the Constitution to a religious conversion.

Beth Mizell, who leads a loose affiliate of tea party activists in tiny Franklinton, La., has attended weekend classes on the Constitution that she compared to a church Bible study. She said she is heartened that Congress is taking these steps.

While I’ve taken numerous oaths to protect and defend the Constitution, I also realize that I should not be worshiping it. Apparently, teabaggers around the country feel differently.

Dispatch From The Dark Side

When I was poking around at Delaware Politics yesterday, I came across this post by FVoshell.. It was about conservative disappointment with the Republicans in Congress. Not only did Harry Reid “eat their lunch” but President Obama drank their milkshake too. The post references a post in American Thinker about whether Republicans got the message from the election.

The lame-duck session of the 111th Congress proved one thing beyond a doubt: the Republican Party does not represent the interests of conservatives.  Despite the midterm election tidal wave, in which the Republican Party gained 63 House seats (eclipsing its historic 1994 success against Clinton), congressional Republicans failed to leverage their victory into political clout and collapsed like a house of cards in the lame-duck session.

The last two weeks ought to sicken conservatives.  Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell spectacularly failed to hold his caucus together to even delay ratification of New START until the 112th Congress is seated in January.  Republican leftists Olympia Snowe and Lisa Murkowski sided with Democrats to end the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, forcing the gay agenda from the streets of San Francisco right into the U.S. Marine Corps.  Congressional Republicans agreed to cut FICA taxes for Social Security (which is underfunded already) and expand the Democratic Party’s welfare state constituency by extending unemployment benefits — in exchange for maintaining current tax rates for a paltry two years.  The deal will add billions to the deficit.  Tea Party darling Scott Brown, mocked by Obama for driving a truck in his insurgent 2009 campaign in which he stole “Ted Kennedy’s seat” from the Democrats, voted for Obama’s agenda on all of these issues.

Give the Democratic devils their due.  They are astute students of Machiavelli.  They know how to exercise power.  The ink was barely dry on the DADT repeal when Obama cynically announced that he’d now “rethink” his (supposed) opposition to gay marriage, and Vice President Biden announced that gay marriage is “inevitable.”  Despite historically low congressional approval ratings, Speaker Pelosi rammed socialized medicine and cap-and-trade legislation through the House by one-vote margins and pursued the exercise of power right up to the eleventh hour of the lame-duck session.  When’s the last time Republicans pursued their agenda so ruthlessly?  Maybe 1919, when Republican Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge held his caucus together to defeat the Treaty of Versailles by one vote — unmoved by the plight of Democrat Woodrow Wilson, who lay crippled in the White House after having a stroke but still trying to rally public opinion in favor of the treaty.

Try not to laugh at the characterization of Democrats as Machiavellian geniuses. Anyway, I think this article is pointing out that the Tea Party/Republican marriage could be a short one. There is going to be a tension between what teabaggers want and what the real Republican overlords (big business) want. Big business managed to convince teabaggers that what they really wanted is tax cuts for the rich. Teabaggers also want a government shutdown and no extension of the debt ceiling. I don’t think big business will go for it. They won’t want to risk a catastrophic financial meltdown again.

Teabaggers are bound to be disappointed with the legislation coming out of the 112th Congress as well. Republicans may control the House but they don’t control the Senate or the presidency. If they want to get legislation passed they will have to work with Democrats to get it done. You might argue that Republicans don’t want to see legislation passed, they want a dysfunctional government and you are right about that. However, some Republicans (like Boehner and McConnell) remember the shutdowns in the 90s – they didn’t work out so well for the GOP. I want less government is a great slogan but people actually want their roads fixed, their parks open and their Social Security checks.

The battles in the next Congress will be epic and the teabaggers are going to be disappointed. We’ll have to see the response. Will the Tea Party rally together and punish GOP legislators or will they give up and gradually drift away?

The New Birthers

Ever since Obama has been in the public attention, he’s attracted more than his fair share of the crazy. He’s been dogged by birthers, the peole who believe, despite all evidence to the contrary, that he was not born in Hawai’i (and make up 50% of the Republican party). Now, apparently there’s a new pseudo-scandal giving the RWNJs the vapors. It’s the signing of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People.

Last week, the “Director of Issues Analysis” for the Christian conservative American Family Association, Brian Fischer, wrote a blog post claiming that “President Obama wants to give the entire land mass of the United States of America back to the Indians. He wants Indian tribes to be our new overlords.”

“Perhaps he figures that, as an adopted Crow Indian, he will be the new chief over this revived Indian empire,” Fischer wrote. “But for the other 312 million of us, I think we’ll settle for our constitutional ‘We the people’ form of government, thank you very much.”

Yesterday, the right-wing blog World Net Daily took it a step further in a post called “Obama to give Manhattan back to Native Americans? President believes nation can spare some sovereignty.” The article describes how “President Obama is voicing support for a U.N. resolution that could accomplish something as radical as relinquishing some U.S. sovereignty and opening a path for the return of ancient tribal lands to American Indians, including even parts of Manhattan.”

The article continues: “Obama’s interest is personal. He noted during the 2008 presidential campaign he was officially adopted by the Crow Nation, an Indian tribe in Montana, and he was given an Indian name.”

Joseph Farah, the founder and editor of WND, followed up on the article today with a facetious column called “I’ll Take Manhattan.” He writes: “Truth be told, I have a fair amount of Indian heritage on my mother’s side. So this proposed redistribution of wealth is welcome news for me. Where do I apply? I want to return wampum for Manhattan.”

During the presidential campaign, the Crow made Obama an adopted member. Since RWNJs think Obama is a secret Muslim communist fascist Kenyan imposter, I guess The idea that he would give away an American city makes sense to them. :eyeroll:

Obviously, we need a new name for this group. They are probably birthers as well but what should we call them?

Best Laid Plans Could Bring Cleaner Air

As you probably know the Environmental Protection Agency posted new plans to curb greenhouse gases (GHG) in the upcoming years. From the EPA press release:

Several states, local governments and environmental organizations sued EPA over the agency’s failure to update the pollution standards for fossil fuel power plants and petroleum refineries, two of the largest source categories of GHG pollution in the United States. Under today’s agreement, EPA will propose standards for power plants in July 2011 and for refineries in December 2011 and will issue final standards in May 2012 and November 2012, respectively.

The New Republic explains what’s going on with the EPA rulings and what is in store for the future. More importantly, the article states unequivocally why this issue should be taken care of in Congress and not through regulation.

Regardless of how forcefully Jackson moves, however, it’s worth noting that the EPA still can’t do nearly as much as Congress when it comes to curbing carbon pollution. Last year, the House passed a cap-and-trade bill that would have cut greenhouse gas emissions 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020. By contrast, EPA officials think they can whittle emissions down by only 5 percent in the same timeframe.

Fearing for Science

With the Republicans taking control of the House of Representatives in the 112th Congress, let me introduce you to the new chairman of the House Science and Technology Committee, Rep. Ralph Hall (R-TX). The congressman is a good ol’boy steeped in the beltway for 30 years and will be protecting NASA’s space budget with steely determination — you know ’cause its a Texas thang.

The talk out in the blogs is about Hall’s SCTV-like comment to the Dallas Morning News about the Deep Horizon spill:

“As we saw that thing bubbling out, blossoming out – all that energy, every minute of every hour of every day of every week – that was tremendous to me. That we could deliver that kind of energy out there – even on an explosion.”

Blowed up real good.

But what Hall doesn’t like is all this talk about climate warming.

With the House GOP full of climate-change skeptics, Hall’s committee is likely to investigate the scientific studies that say man-made activities are to blame for global warming. Environmental groups say that debate is settled. Nonetheless, Hall said he plans to appoint an aggressive legislator, Rep. James Sensenbrenner, to chair the subcommittee that investigates scientific activities.

Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., can be expected to hold hearings that question “uncertainties” in climate-change science that impact public policy, said John Mimikakis, a former deputy chief of staff for the science committee. Sensenbrenner recently referred to the scientific consensus on global warming as a “massive international scientific fraud.”

Grrr.

Homophobes Last Stand against DADT

Talking Points Memo interviewed Elaine Donnelly, founder and President of the Center for Military Readiness, who has been fighting DADT for evah and she had this to say about showers:

“I don’t know about the gyms where you go or most people go, but the gyms that I’ve seen have a sign inside the door, and the door says inside the women’s locker room ‘no boys of any age are allowed.’ Now there’s a reason for that. It in no way is a negative reflection on anybody, it is just a sign of respect for modesty in sexual manners.

Knowingly, you don’t expose yourself to somebody who might be sexually attracted to you. Does it happen unknowingly? Sure. It’s something that again, when you introduce an element of sexuality in an environment that previously did not have that, that is problematic. There will be consequences from that, because people are normal, they’re humans, they’re sensitive to that.”

I’ll let Barney Frank explain why the stoopid.

End of Life Counseling Returns in Regulations

Section 1223 is back as regulation and the right wing is in a tizzy again.

. . . turns out she [Palin] was right after all. (Riehl World)

PALIN WAS RIGHT. But informed conservatives have known that for well over a year. (Frugal Cafe)

Obama administration installing “death panels.” Palin was right after all. (Liberty Pundits)

Say goodbye to grandma and grandpa. (Sandra Rose)

Sigh.

Virginia is for Haters – UPDATED

Ardent homophobe, Virginia Delegate Bob Marshall (Neanderthal-Manassas) is so pissed off about the repeal of DADT that he is planning to introduce his a ban on any “active homosexuals” from serving in the Virginia National Guard.

Delegate Robert G. Marshall said the Constitution reserves states with the authority to do so and that he’ll introduce a bill in the state General Assembly next year that ensures the “the effect of the 1994 federal law banning active homosexuals from America’s military forces will apply to the Virginia National Guard.”

“With the repeal of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell,’ President Obama seeks to pay back his homosexual political supporters,” the Prince William County Republican said, echoing a sentiment shared by many of the repeal’s most ardent opponents. “This policy will weaken military recruitment and retention, and will increase pressure for a military draft.”

“The Constitution never would have been ratified if states were not [guaranteed] unqualified control of the militia, now called the National Guard,” he said.

What Bobby-boy is forgetting here is that the State of Virginia does not set admissions standards for the National Guard. Those are set forth by the Department of Defense.

But Claire Gastanaga, legislative counsel for Equality Virginia, a gay-rights group, said the National Guard is a federal military unit subject to the same rules as other federal military units and that “any state statute seeking to set different standards for the Virginia National Guard would be a nullity with no effect.”

So, this looks like it’s going to go down that rabbit hole of “states rights.” I’m sure his buddy Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli will help with any lawsuit that he wants to file.

Marshall is well known for his hatred of gays and lesbians. He authored the 2006 amendment to the Virginia constitution that banned same-sex marriage. He has introduced anti-gay legislation virtually every year since he was first elected in 1991. My guess is that he’s another one of the closet cases. You know, the ones that always protest the loudest are the ones who have something to hide.

But taking a page from the teabagger handbook, I suggest you contact Mr. Marshall and let him know how wrong he is. He can be reached on his cell phone (this is a publicly published number) at 703-853-4213. If you cannot get through to him on that number, you can call him at either 703-361-5416 or 703-368-6306. Tie up his phone lines. Spread the number to your friends.

Oh, before I forget, our good friend Bill “Curly” Colley from WGMD suggested during his show today that the repeal of DADT will lead to mutiny and a possible coup by those service members who object to the repeal. Good going there, bucko. First you called for “blood in the streets” if the elections didn’t go your way, now you’re advocating a military coup. Curly, you’re a terrorist. Why do you hate America so much?

UPDATE – It appears the Governor McDonnell will not support Marshall’s bill.

But Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell (R), who as the authority to deploy the state National Guard in a state emergency, says no way.

“Whatever the final guidelines are from the Department of the Defense, I expect the Virginia National Guard Bureau to adhere to them,” McDonnell said during a WTOP radio show today.

“While I disagree with the action the Congress took based on my own experience in the military,” he said, “we can’t have two different systems in the military and our National Guard.”

But Marshall is insistent.

“It’s a distraction when I’m on the battlefield and have to concentrate on the enemy 600 yards away and I’m worried about this guy whose got eyes on me,” the lawmaker, Delegate Bob Marshall (R), told WUSA9.

Umm, Bob, hate to tell you this, but Larry Craig wouldn’t even give you a hummer in the Dulles Airport men’s room.

Remember you can call this asshat at 703-853-4213, 703-361-5416 or 703-368-6306 and let him know how much of an asshat he is.

Fear is the Mindkiller — The Complete Failure of John McCain

(Pacé, Dune Fans.)

This video is a compendium from Think Progress of John McCain’s performance last week during one of the hearings on ending DADT.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOuoz6JXzRE[/youtube]

Did you notice everything that McCain has rejected here?

  • Any notion of operational Chain of Command
  • Listening to our commanders on the ground, and
  • Civilian control of the military. Unless that civilian is McCain, one presumes. (via an interview with Howard Kurtz)

But McCain is indulging in semantics when it comes to Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. In 2006, he said on MSNBC that “the day that the leadership of the military comes to me and says, ‘Senator, we ought to change the policy,’ then I think we ought to consider seriously changing it.” Now that Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, supports the Pentagon’s move toward junking DADT—and even McCain’s wife, Cindy, has appeared in a gay rights group’s video opposing the policy—the senator is blocking Obama’s plan.

“I understand that’s his commitment to the gay and lesbian community,” McCain says. But while a Pentagon study released Tuesday found more than two-thirds support for the change among service members and said disruptions would be minimal, McCain wants a broader study that would focus on combat readiness.

His explanation: “The Marine commandant is opposed to [dropping] Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. I know for a fact the other three service chiefs have serious reservations.”

As for their superiors, McCain casually mentions the commander in chief and defense secretary, “neither of which I view as a military leader.”

What Democrat would get away with these dangerous claims about military operations? Right. Yet here is McCain, just everywhere, passing off his old man grumpiness as some informed view on DADT. All the while, he changes the goalposts on those views which he is hardly held accountable for. Yet his view that the military ought to have some special vote or some special say about DADT (when they did NOT have any such consultation on whether or not to go to Iraq or Afghanistan) — pretty much bypassing the men and women who are paid to lead them and paid to take tough decisions on their behalf — is going largely unchallenged.

McCain should no longer be the face of Senate oversight of the military if he is willing to disgrace himself and the institution he claims to care for so much, largely because it is apparent that the bigotry that he was expecting from the ranks and from much of the military leadership failed to materialize. Real American patriots understand that the country’s path towards inclusion for everyone is often a long and trying one, but the long arc of our own history shows that we get there sooner or later. Time for McCain to stop fighting this history and take his old man’s bigotry off to the old folks home where it can’t do any damage.