Morning Awful
Jul 30, 2010 Morning Awful, Republican Party
Republicans blocking 9/11 responder benefits.
Tags: 9/11, Anthony Weiner, republicans suck, responders
DeMinted
Jul 13, 2010 Republican Party, Republican tinfoil hattery, republicans, republicans suck
I am unfamiliar with Stuart Rothenberg, but this rings true:
By beating the conservative drum the way he does — demonizing conservatives who he says aren’t conservative enough, helping nominate candidates more interested in throwing grenades than in passing legislation and belittling compromise in a country built on political compromises — DeMint makes it easier for Democrats to paint his own party in an unflattering light.
A Senate Republican Conference filled after November with DeMint-like ideologues, troublemakers and self-righteous conservatives is a caucus that is sure to sound rigid and uncompromising, arrogant and doctrinaire. Style doesn’t matter to true believers, but it does to the American people.
And that’s why Obama is smiling.
How long have I been saying this about the GOP? A long time. America’s middle will reject a movement built on the demented quicksand of paranoid politics. The more DeMint and Rand and Angle talk, the less likely a Republican comeback becomes.
Sargent Sabotage
Jul 7, 2010 Republican Lies, Republican Party, regressives, republicans
Sargent thinks the GOP game plan (sabotage process, blame Obama, ????, POWER!) can still work:
Republicans will argue that this shows that the public wants the GOP to stall the Dem agenda. But I think something else is going on: People don’t seem aware that the GOP, in addition to wanting to obstruct the Obama/Dem agenda, is successfully doing so in the Senate through the skillful application of fundamentally undemocratic procedural tricks. The press has largely failed to inform the public of of this fact, and when it does, people tune it out as so much Beltway white noise. Result: The GOP is paying no price whatsoever for obstructionism, and may well reap rewards from it.
I find it hilarious to read this from a Beltway insider. As a member of the “liberal media,” Sargent and his colleagues have full control over whether the public sees the obstructionism. Please, Mr. Sargent, I implore you to continue. Ahem. You were saying?
It’s the bloody elephant in the room. Need we embed the full C-SPAN coverage of the Senate’s cloture debate on health care reform to prove that America’s Grand Old Party consists of plastic people telling lies and making loud noises?
It’s all they have left, and they’d clearly rather see the country fail than cooperate in fixing things. In fact, I’d call it empirically proven. They are divided into two camps: those who want to stand still, and those who want to move backwards.
They are no-gressives and re-gressives.
Beck is rallying them with Teh Stupid™, but his audience share is slipping. Any decision to cover tea party events is totally up to the gatekeepers of “mainstream media,” isn’t it? I mean…you can leave that stuff to “fringe” media. Right? So let Glenn Beck be fringe.
No more CNN on the bus with Victoria Jackson.
Can I Have The Money Quote Please?
Jun 29, 2010 Afghanistan, Kulturkampf, Republican Party, republicans, republicans suck, social security
The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review characterizes the remarks of House Minority Leader John Boehner thusly: “Ensuring there’s enough money to pay for the war will require reforming the country’s entitlement system.” But it’s not in his words, it’s in their words. The money quote linking the “need” for war to the “need” for Social Security cutbacks has been left out of their online video of the interview:
Let’s review: according to a major daily, the House Minority Leader wants to push retirement age back so we can pay for wars. After po-mouthing the president on everything else,
Boehner had praise, however, for Obama’s troop surge in Afghanistan and stepped-up drone attacks in Pakistan. He declined to list any benchmarks he has for measuring progress in the nine-year war, at a time of increasing violence and Obama’s replacement of Gen. Stanley McChrystal with Gen. David Petraeus. (Emphasis mine)
That’s the modern GOP in a nutshell. Victory is unimportant for Republicans; war itself is the object. The price in blood and treasure helps promote their anarcho-Randian domestic agenda. It would be nice if the Tribune-Review put the entire quote online so we could all see it ourselves. It’s already going to be a source of explosive controversy, and ought to be. Such a quote deserves to become campaign ad fodder.
I really hope the newspaper isn’t holding back out of some Lara Logan-like concern for their access.
Tags: Afghanistan, john boehner, Kulturkampf, social security
Choosing Not To Choose
Apr 25, 2010 Republican Party, Republicans Meet The Teabag Terror, immigration, republicans, republicans suck
Senator Lindsey Graham explains his holdup of the bipartisan climate bill:
“Moving forward on immigration — in this hurried, panicked manner — is nothing more than a cynical political ploy,” Graham said. “Let’s be clear, a phony, political effort on immigration today accomplishes nothing but making it exponentially more difficult to address in a serious, comprehensive manner in the future.”
Holding up a climate bill in the face of melting ice? Not a phony political effort to stop reform. Because comprehensive immigration reform might actually address the issue in a serious, comprehensive manner, and Republicans cannot allow that to happen.
Mind you, they know it’s important. Graham and the Republicans also know how bad the optics of the issue are right now, with Arizona jailing brown people who don’t have a copy of their birth certificate with them:
Abdon was told he did not have enough paperwork on him when he pulled into a weigh station to have his commercial truck checked. He provided his commercial driver’s license and a social security number but ended up handcuffed.
An agent called his wife and she had to leave work to drive home and grab other documents like his birth certificate.
Jackie explains, “I have his social security card as well and mine. He’s legit. It’s the first time it’s ever happened.”
Both were born in the United States and say they are now both infuriated that keeping important documents safely at home is no longer an option.
Jackie says, “It doesn’t feel like it’s a good way of life, to live with fear, even though we are okay, we are legal…still have to carry documents around.”
Republicans know all this, but don’t care. The Grand Old Party simply cannot allow Democrats to be the ones who actually, y’know, do something about it. They had their chance to do something under Junior Bush, but chose inaction; if the immigration bill under discussion resembles the one Bush failed to get through a Republican Congress, they’ll denounce it as un-American anyway.
It’s just normal Republican reactionary behavior. The GOP also knew that health care spending was bankrupting families, business, and government; they just didn’t want the Democrats to succeed in doing something about it. But the uglier truth is that a right-wing teabagging base will crucify any Republican who votes for immigration reform, and that has the GOP terrified.
They know the demographics are changing and they could lose the southwest for a generation. But they also know the racist right-wing authoritarian warmongering teabagger fringe will crucify any Republican who votes for reform. Their solution for this dilemma is…nothing. Down the memory hole again! Graham wants to quash any discussion of the issue — and no doubt most Republicans in Congress would really, really like that to work.
They’d rather be free to demagogue in home districts without being on the record in Washington, which is a pretty good argument for Democrats bringing up immigration reform ASAP. It’s also an example of the GOP painting itself into rhetorical corners that guarantee minority status.
The RNC Meltdown
Apr 2, 2010 11-Dimensional Chess, Republican Party, Republican scandals, republicans suck
The right wing coalition is beginning to fall apart in a way we haven’t seen since the last vestiges of New Deal liberalism died in the Democratic Party. The teabagger fail is complimented by the RNC meltdown and the foibles of C-Street congresscritters.
The optics of national politics are changing, just as our demographics are changing.
Let The Purges Begin
Mar 28, 2010 Republican Party, Republican tinfoil hattery, Republicans Meet The Teabag Terror, republicans, republicans suck
At HuffPo, David Frum’s wife recognizes the end of conservative philosophy:
I can categorically state I’ve never seen such a hostile environment towards free thought and debate — once the hallmarks of Reaganism, the politics with which we grew up — prevail in our movement as it does today. The thuggish demagoguery of the Limbaughs and Becks is a trait we once derided in the old socialist Left. Well boys, take a look in the mirror. It is us now.
As I have been saying: the teabaggery is only hurting the party now. Friendly fire is the order of the day.
Talking Point
Mar 24, 2010 Republican Lies, Republican Party, Republican tinfoil hattery, health care reform, republicans, republicans suck
Dozens of GOP congresscritters say “flawed health care bill:”
See what I mean when I say the mash-up is the final act in the evolution of media?
Palin’s Party Prattle
Mar 23, 2010 Republican Front Groups, Republican Party, Republicans Meet The Teabag Terror, Sarah Palin 2012, Sarah Palin's poltical future, Sarahpalooza, Teh Train Wreck™, The Teabagger Fail, republicans, republicans suck, sarah palin
Sarah wants a new third party to, y’know, make Republicans have to debate harder an’ stuff:
ThinkProgress has a list of her statements about a third party; up til now she has taken the more popular position among teabaggers that the movement shouldn’t form its own party. But Sarah was never good at that consistent-thought thing, and she’s always eager to grow her personality cult one way or another.
Yes, Republicans, your creation will now go to war with you. Bad enough it was shouting insults and spitting on Congress members over the weekend; now it’s going to take all those RNC-supplied signs and attack you with them. But keep it up! You’re doing great!
Exploiting the Gap
Mar 22, 2010 11-Dimensional Chess, President Barack Obama, Republican Party, health care reform, public option, republicans suck
The Grand Old Party held a Waterloo for Obama and then took on the role of Napoleon. Indeed, the “Battle of Health Care” ended more like a protracted siege. The question now is whether they have the sense to exploit the gap and reinforce their success on the way to the next fortified position erected by “the Party of no.”
I would agree with David Frum that conservative forecasts of glorious return to power are overblown:
(1) It’s a good bet that conservatives are over-optimistic about November – by then the economy will have improved and the immediate goodies in the healthcare bill will be reaching key voting blocs.
(2) So what? Legislative majorities come and go. This healthcare bill is forever. A win in November is very poor compensation for this debacle now.
I would go further. By leveraging the Republican Party’s apparent willingness to stick up for big banks, we may be looking at a disaster for the minority this November. A big fight over financial reform? Bring it on. The Party of No can say no all it wants, as far as I’m concerned. In fact, someone should ask the Senate parliamentarian if a Consumer Financial Protection Agency Bureau entity can pass via reconciliation given the giant deficits created by the bailouts so a “watered-down” bill can get through the Senate.
Meanwhile, a series of smaller victories can follow this one. We may not see major reform again until after the election; omnibus bills are where the GOP obstructs and delays, and this experience won’t convince them to say yes to EFCA. Give the Republican Party every opportunity to put themselves on the wrong side of history if they like.
Democrats can repeat this victory on each area of reform and accept “watered down” legislation that needs fixing, declare victory, and then spend campaign season talking about the need to fix the laws they just passed. The CFPA/B may wind up as a signature November issue alongside the public option.
Another very intelligent thing Obama can do: fulfill his threat to use recess appointments. Republicans will accuse him of abusing the privilege, but it is solidly constitutional — and one need only invoke the name of Jim Bunning to counter the meme. Better yet, Obama can release names in daily batches and keep the issue under the radar all summer. Given the way he uses power — quietly and consistently — he probably will.
One important piece of the puzzle Obama should talk up for November: health insurance rate control. If the taxpayer is going to subsidize them, companies should not be able to raise rates willy-nilly.
You gate-crashers see how that works? If the enemy is dug into his defenses, divide your forces and maneuver. The direct approach is not always best, and most often the worst option.
