Racist Republicans

A recent CNN poll asked Republicans if they want President Obama’s policies to succeed or fail. Unsurprisingly, 51% responded that they want Obama to fail.

The poll also asked about Obama’s specific policy proposals, each one unlinked from the president’s name:

58% of Republicans SUPPORT cutting payroll taxes;

63% SUPPORT Federal aid to the states to hire teachers and first responders;

56% SUPPORT Federal spending on infrastructure;

56% SUPPORT raising taxes on millionaires.

The Republicans: In complete agreement with almost everything President Obama is trying to do, they just don’t want HIM to do it.

Greg Sargent writing in WaPo ponders why this might be the case:

In fairness, maybe when Republicans say they don’t want Obama’s policies to succeed, they are talking about the first stimulus, the health care reform bill, and Wall Street reform — and what they mean is they want to see these policies repealed. Or maybe the less charitable interpretation is true — whatever the consequences for the country, if Obama’s policies fail, he won’t get reelected. Or maybe the answer to that question represents the depth of strong GOP dislike for the president. Or maybe it’s a combination of all these things.

Anyone got a better explanation?

The first stimulus has already succeeded…at least as far as it might have for being too small,
The health care reform bill, while not going far enough in terms of creating single-payer / cradle-to-grave health care for all citizens, has provided health care for millions of Americans that previously had none.
Wall Street reform? What reform?
Better explanation? Well, since he asked: Any party that relied on The Southern Strategy to elect Saint Ronnie and has been crafting racist dog whistles in every election since, in the face of stark poll results like this, simply has to take off the silly tri-corner hats and put on the ugly white sheets that mirror their soul.

GOP Strategy: Lies, Stupid Lies and Hateful Lies

Last night’s Fox News GOP debate – was it the fourth or fifth still 14 months ahead of the election? – devolved almost immediately into yet another showcase of the sheer stupidity, incompetence and dedication to outright lying that comprises the Republican candidates and the Conservative mindset.

Michele Bachmann, blindly grasping her ice cube’s chance in hell of getting anywhere near the convention, argued that there should be NO taxes. None. Zero. Of course, one wonders how she would then pay for Haliburton to conduct American foreign policy…or anything else.

Santorum maintained his grip on being the frothy candidate when asked about the repeal of DADT:

SANTORUM: I would say any type of sexual activity has absolutely no place in the military. The fact they are making a point to include it as a provision within the military that we are going to recognize a group of people and give them a special privilege to, and removing don’t ask don’t tell. I think tries to inject social policy into the military. And the military’s job is to do one thing: to defend our country…

KELLY: What would you do with soldiers like Stephen Hill?

SANTORUM: What we are doing is playing social experimentation with our military right now. That’s tragic. I would just say that going forward we would re-institute that policy if Rick Santorum was president. That policy would be re-instituted as far as people in, I would not throw them out because that would be unfair to them because of the policy of this administration. But we would move forward in conformity with what was happening in the past. Which was- sex is not an issue. It should not be an issue. Leave it alone. Keep it to yourself whether you are heterosexual or homosexual.

The stupid…it burns. Apparently enlisting in the military means a life of celibacy. The fucking moron trots out the “Special rights” bullshit, too. Asshole. There’s nothing SPECIAL about being treated exactly like everyone else.
As for the willfully blind suggestion that allowing homosexuals to serve openly in the armed forces amounts to “Social experimentation”, the experiment has been conducted in Albania, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Bahamas, Belgium, Bermuda, Canada, Republic of China, Colombia, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece ,Republic of Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand and the United Kingdom.
The evidence is clear and unequivocal: There is no reduction in force readiness, and no increase in discipline problems or resignations. Santorum is an ignorant, bigoted, Jesus ass-licking buffoon who would prefer the policies that are maintained in such notable bastions of freedom as Mexico and Turkey…but not to be outdone by the Fox audience who loudly booed the gay soldier who posed the question via YouTube.

No gays. No abortions. No taxes. No unions. No healthcare. No teachers. No Social Security. No regulations. No immigration. No environmental protection. No.
Ladies and gentlemen, the modern Republican party.

Perry. Perry. Perry.

I’m as guilty as anyone, but the time has come to stop paying attention to the blithering batshit stupidity of Michele Bachmann. Her vapid, brainless, idiotic, shallow, hateful, bigoted and pointless attempt to secure to GOP nomination is finished.
It’s time to devote the infinity of pixels to dismantling the cardboard cutout, phoney, lying, Jesus freak, stunted, backward Texas asshole that stands a serious chance of actually running for the presidency.
Rick Perry is just as dumb, just as backward, just as hateful, just as wrong…ALL the downsides of Michele Bachmann with the added sprinkles of having a shot at becoming the next teabagger Dubya Mark II fucktard.
Expose the fucker. His own words, his own record, his own phoney bullshit.

READ THIS

With over thirty years of working on the inside of the GOP, Mike Lofgren retires (before his party can gut what remains of his pension) and, in an act of bravery and desperation, tells the absolute truth about how the Republican party has devolved into the anti-American, slash and burn, corporate blow-whore, obstructionist gang of assholes that Liberals have been decrying for just about that same period of time.

READ IT. Read the whole thing.

From sucking up to the bent religious nuts to coddling blatant racists; from gutting education, infrastructure and social welfare programs to funneling massive tax breaks to the super rich; from coded hot button language designed to disguise outright lies aimed at stupid, low-information voters to media manipulation (including the Big Lie that there’s such a thing as a “Liberal Media Bias”), it’s all there…and more, with a healthy assortment of truths regarding the complete and utter ineptitude of the Democrats in developing ANY form of counter-punch against any of it.

READ IT. Read the whole thing.

It’s the best bit of political analysis I’ve read in years that isn’t written by Matt Taibbi.

Hang On A Second…

Old news: Newt Gingrich’s campaign staff jumped ship. Reports – including some from the very folks who quit the gig – cited zombie Botox Barbie wife #3 Calista as the major reason. Word around the campfire was that Newt wasn’t listening to the professionals he hired to gin up a pitch; Calista was calling the shots and if her spin was at odds with the pros, she held trump cards…so the pros walked. That’s what pros DO. If you hire me for advice and refuse to listen to it, I’ve got better things to do.

Now comes Newt, in the wake of NBC covering the story, demanding an apology:

“I believe NBC owes Callista an apology, because the fact is my campaign is my campaign,” Gingrich told Fox News’s Greta Van Susteren. “Yes, we make decisions as a couple, but in the end, I take full responsibility. And I think the program this morning was totally irresponsible, and personally reprehensible, and the kind of thing that makes it hard to get decent people to run for public office.”

First, NBC was merely reporting what the fleeing former staffers SAID. They didn’t invent the claim, so Newt’s butthurt demand is just a page out of Sarah Palin’s playbook: How DARE the damn media report what people said!?!?

Second, the self-serving bit of blather that decent people are chased out of politics by such reportage. Great jumped up horny toads! Newt Gingrich…a thrice divorced serial adulterer who got blowjobs from his mistress while his children walked past the vehicle in which the knob gobbling was going down; a man who served his wife divorce papers while she lay in a hospital bed recovering from cancer; a man who was fined $300,000 and chased out of Washington for ethics violations; a man who routinely mixes his numerous “For profit” gigs with his numerous “Tax-free charitable organizations”…THIS is the sort of decent fella who wouldn’t run because the press reports facts. I believe I am about to be overcome by a case of the vapors.

Gingrich goes on, attacking those who, when asked, explained why they abandoned The Gingrich:

“These were supposed to be professionals who we were paying, who supposedly had some sense of confidentiality, and who promptly… did some back-stabbing in a way that I just found amazing,” Gingrich said.

Comparing his marriage to Ronald Reagan’s, Gingrich said former aides couldn’t handle working for a candidate whose wife had a seat at the table.

“Callista and I have a very similar relationship to Nancy and Ronnie Reagan,” he said. “People blamed Nancy Reagan for things that Ronald Reagan did.

Like Ron and Nancy, eh? So, Calista is consulting astrologers and covering up for Newt’s ever more apparent degenerative neurological condition?
No, Newt…I blame Ronnie for the shit Ronnie did. Nancy helped, though. And not to put too fine a point on it, but your staff didn’t blame Calista, they blamed YOU. They said you were not engaged in the campaign the way they considered necessary; that you were too busy doing other things – things that Calista considered important and they didn’t – things like taking a Greek cruise instead of working the delegates and the donors; an almost complete failure to achieve a meeting of the minds.
Twisting it into some vacuous “They can’t handle a strong woman” bit of shit is a strange tack for a man who shuffles through wives like Kleenex, eventually settling on a woman who won’t accept attending early meetings because she needs time to get that plastic hair helmet in shape.

Like almost everything that comes out of Newt’s inverted fore-brain, he has it backwards. He owes his former staff an apology. He needs to say, “Sorry, I should have told you up front that your advice was going to be filtered through the sieve of my third wife’s conception of what I ought to do.”
And that’s what smart people do, right? They hire the best professionals money can buy and then check with some zombie mistress first. Like that time my mechanic told me what I needed done to make my motorcycle run right and I turned to my girlfriend and said, “Gee, Honey, what do you think?”
Or that other time my cardiologist insisted I have immediate surgery, and I decided to check and see if my girlfriend agreed. Because if the woman who sucks your dick doesn’t agree with the professionals you’re paying for expert advice, then fuck them.
“Gee, Honey, what do you think we should do about Iran?”

Republicans: Stupid, Evil and Mean

Eric Cantor, the GOP’s idiot step-child and a thoroughly reprehensible little ass-kissing ultra-conservative sycophant, has demonstrated once again the heartless, craven, ugly reality of the Republican style of governance. In the wake of a tornado wiping Joplin, Missouri off the map, Cantor demands that any disaster relief provided to the victims must come at the expense of further budget cuts.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor said Monday that if Congress passes an emergency spending bill to help Missouri’s tornado victims, the extra money will have to be cut from somewhere else.

“If there is support for a supplemental, it would be accompanied by support for having pay-fors to that supplemental,” Mr. Cantor, Virginia Republican, told reporters at the Capitol. The term “pay-fors” is used by lawmakers to signal cuts or tax increases used to pay for new spending.

Meanwhile, Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA) is on the record saying that he would not vote to raise the debt ceiling unless “we have major cuts in the size and scope of the federal government.” He went on to define this as abolishing the Department of Education and the Department of Energy. Another Republican who’s willing to hold the national and global economy hostage in order to achieve the wingnut goal of dismantling the government.

Another genius from Georgia – there must be something wrong with the water supply to create AND elect two total fucking imbeciles of this magnitude:

Rep. Rob Woodall (R-GA) faced criticism this week when video was released of him telling a constituent that she should sponsor her own health care instead of using the government’s Medicare program.

The Georgia Democratic Party released more video Wednesday from that same town hall event where Woodall explained why he wouldn’t give up his own government-funded health care program.

“You take government-subsidized health care, but you are not obligated to take that if you don’t want to,” Democratic activist Ilene Johnson told Woodall. “Why aren’t you going out on the free market in the state where you are a resident and buy your own health care?”

“It’s because it’s free,” Woodall replied. “It’s because it’s free. The same reason I went out to Walgreens and bought Activon when I don’t have any arthritis pain. Because it’s free. Folks, if you give people things for free, don’t blame them for taking them.”

It’s free because the citizens goddamn well PAY FOR IT. Meanwhile, this same ignorant buffoon screams for tax cuts and wants Medicare dismantled.

Facts are not sufficient to overcome cognitive dissonance. Reality is no cure for delusions, especially the sort of schizophrenic hallucinations the GOP have been living with for 40 years.
They don’t fudge a bit. They don’t try to put a slight spin on the issues / slant perspective a smidgen in order to offer a different cast…let the light strike from a fresh angle. They lie. They just fucking lie. All the time about everything. And there’s never any penalty for it.
When you point out that they’re lying, they lie about having lied, point their dessicated, shit stained fingers right in your face and scream, “YOU’RE THE LIAR!”
Trying to run a country with these fuckers in it is like trying to make a marriage work when your spouse is running up the credit cards, drunk off their ass every night, beating the children, fucking everything they can get their hands on, shitting on the dining room table, keeps a loaded gun under their pillow, refuses to feed the dog, alternates between random bouts of sobbing and heaving lamps at your head, and constantly belittles you for being the source of all the problems because you just don’t understand them and aren’t helping out.
If they won’t seek help, at some point it becomes justifiable homicide; an act of pure self-defense.