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?

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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.

Lessons Learned

Like everyone else, I have a lot of thoughts about the healthcare bill’s passage. I’ve made no secret of my dislike for the bill, calling it a “crap sandwich” on numerous occasions and observing that without a public element, it is indeed the very definition of fascism.

But regardless, it has passed, and it is what it is. I’m not popping champagne corks or high-fiving my fellow liberals. I’m glad that we have a good start toward curbing insurance company abuses, that finally the people have a little more leverage against a for-profit system that makes millions of dollars off of denying people access to what is supposed to be the best healthcare system in the world.

I do think this marks a good opportunity for both Republicans and Democrats to learn a few lessons. I’ll start with the Republicans, who were shameless in their lies and fearmongering about death panels and socialism, egging on their unhinged base to the point where we had Congressmen hung in effigy, a Parkinson’s patient taunted, a Civil Rights icon called “nigger” and a gay Congressman called “faggot.” You guys really humiliated yourselves in your race to the bottom, and don’t think the vast majority of Americans who don’t waltz around in tri-corner hats didn’t see your shenanigans and find them repulsive.

It wasn’t just protestors who seemed dangerously unhooked from reality, but Republicans in Congress. I caught just a little bit of the debate over the weekend, enough to see Republican Rep. Marsha Blackburn lament that “freedom has died a little bit today,” which is really rich coming from someone who:

• Voted NO on requiring FISA warrants for wiretaps in US, but not abroad. (Mar 2008)
• Voted YES on removing need for FISA warrant for wiretapping abroad. (Aug 2007)
• Voted YES on allowing electronic surveillance without a warrant. (Sep 2006)
• Voted YES on continuing intelligence gathering without civil oversight. (Apr 2006)
• Voted YES on making the PATRIOT Act permanent. (Dec 2005)

So, ya know, don’t talk to me about the death of freedom when you want the government to eavesdrop on peoples’ phone conversations without a warrant. You’re living in your own little world, lady, where “freedom” is defined on some pretty bizarro terms, and I sure don’t want to go there with you.

Former Bush speechwriter David Frum has this to say to the Republicans:

At the beginning of this process we made a strategic decision: unlike, say, Democrats in 2001 when President Bush proposed his first tax cut, we would make no deal with the administration. No negotiations, no compromise, nothing. We were going for all the marbles. This would be Obama’s Waterloo – just as healthcare was Clinton’s in 1994.

Only, the hardliners overlooked a few key facts: Obama was elected with 53% of the vote, not Clinton’s 42%. The liberal block within the Democratic congressional caucus is bigger and stronger than it was in 1993-94. And of course the Democrats also remember their history, and also remember the consequences of their 1994 failure.

Frum called the healthcare bill’s passage a “huge win for the conservative entertainment industry” because Limbaugh gets to keep his angry listeners and he gets to keep them angry by telling them lies about Democrats wanting to abort your babies and haul grandma off to a death panel. This is good for Limbaugh’s ratings and his advertisers, but it’s not good for the Republican Party either.

Frum is absolutely right. The entertainment wing of the Republican Party -- Limabugh, Hannity, Glenn Beck and, yes, Sarah Palin -- can only succeed when their listeners are enraged and uninformed. They operate in an alternate reality created by talk radio and FOX News. They parade around with signs referring to themselves (with no irony whatsoever) as the “Silent Majority,” and use “I am the mob” hashtags on Twitter.

Unfortunately, their alternate reality doesn’t make room for a few hard truths, which Frum points out: that Obama was elected with 53% of the vote, and the Democratic congressional caucus is bigger and stronger than when Clinton was president. And also the fact that polls have been back and forth on the healthcare bill, but those showing high negatives included people like me, dirty fucking hippies who wanted socialized medicine and are pissed we aren’t getting it. And that individual components of the healthcare bill, like an end to pre-existing conditions, are actually popular .

You folks created a fantasy world, so don’t come crying to me when the cold light of reality crashes your tea party.

And to Democrats I have to say, you guys blew it big time, even as you celebrate your historic victory. How in the hell did you let the opposition present a massive expansion of our private, for-profit health insurance system as socialism? Hello? How many times did we hear Republican politicians and pundits repeat, robotically, the scripted talking point about a “massive government takeover of healthcare.” I mean look, John Boehner is still doing it. How many times did we hear that fallacy and the Chuck Todds, Jake Tappers, Joe Scarboroughs, Chris Matthews’ etc. never once said: hey wait a minute, that’s not true.

How many times are the Democrats going to let their message get away from them before they figure out how to deal with this? How long before they figure out that the so-called “liberal media” is not your friend and they won’t correct the record and report facts, they operate solely on the level of opinion?

Get on message, people. I don’t expect Democrats to be robots and read off a script like the Republicans do, we aren’t that disciplined or that brain-dead, but for crying out loud, there is no way in hell an expansion of a private, for-profit business is anything close to “government run healthcare.” When you hear that kind of BS about future legislation, please in God’s name, call them on it!

Anyway, that’s enough ranting for now. I’m glad the sideshow is over ... for now.

Republicans Are Rubber, Democrats Are Glue

Rep. John Shaddegg, R-AZ, says he supports single-payer:

When Shuster accused Republicans of supporting insurers, Shadegg balked.

"No we don't! You guys keep saying that, but I'm not the guy pushing the bill that says we should compel people to buy insurance from the for-profit guys. That's the Democrats," he said.

Then, after some back and forth with Shuster: "I would support single-payer."

"You would support a government-run medical system?" Shuster asked.

"Absolutely," Shadegg said. "I would support forcing American insurance companies to compete. Right now they have a monopoly."

Shaddegg is lying, of course: last fall he likened healthcare reform to “full on Russian gulag, Soviet-style gulag health care”. It doesn't matter though. It doesn't matter that he's shamelessly confused single payer with the public option. It doesn’t matter because he’s just repeating the new talking point, which is this:

“I'm not the guy pushing the bill that says we should compel people to buy insurance from the for-profit guys. That's the Democrats."

So this is how it’s going to be. Democrats get pwned again by the Republican message machine. Only this time, the Democrats are going to find it awfully hard to counter the pro-health insurance company label because it is correct. If this healthcare bill passes (and I suspect it will), Democrats will force people to buy insurance from private, monopolized, for-profit health insurance companies, without competition from the public sector. It's true.


So expect to hear more of this line in the ensuing months and years. Shaddegg was first out of the box but I guarantee you, he won’t be the last. We live in a nation of amnesiacs, where constant repetition of talking points in the echo chamber rewrites history on a daily basis. Now we hear that 9/11 happened on Clinton’s watch and the economic decline happened on Obama’s watch. And now the Democrats have been pwned by the right wing message machine once again.

It doesn't matter that the Republicans were being really mean and shouty people with racist signs showed up at town hall meetings and elites on the Washington Post and New York Times editorial pages had big sads and things like single payer and the public option were called "socialized medicine" and "communist" and "fascist" all at the same time. No one will remember that, all they will remember is that we were forced to eat a shit sandwich and don't think for a moment that the Republicans won't make Democrats own it.

By trying to do what was expedient, instead of fighting for what was right and what would actually work, the Democrats have saddled themselves with the “pro-health insurance company” label. They have forgotten (if they every knew it to begin with) that when it comes to the message wars, Republicans are rubber and Democrats are glue. Whatever Republicans say about Democrats sticks.

By refusing to put single payer on the table, we never got to have that debate (though as I’ve said, we’ve been fighting anti-single payer arguments with the Tea Shouters and their “no socialized medicine” messaging). Now Democrats have the pro-health insurance company albatross hanging around the necks--health insurance companies, probably the most universally reviled business in this country.

Way to go, guys.

(h/t, Kleinheider)

Moving The Bar

This morning on MSNBC I heard Tripp Baird, a “Republican strategist,” say that if there’s a “bipartisan” healthcare bill supported by Olympia Snowe, “it’s not really bipartisan.”

Jeebus.

So now, according to a “Republican strategist,” a healthcare bill with the support of a moderate Republican isn’t bipartisan. Well, Sen. Snowe, you might as well just leave the Republican Party right now because, apparently, they’ve just dumped you. Your vote doesn’t count in the “bipartisan” score-keeping.

Is anyone in the Democratic Party paying attention to this crap? In the quest for the Holy Grail of “bipartisanship,” that elusive pot of gold at the end of the political rainbow, the Republicans keep moving the bar. In other words, Democrats, you are tilting at windmills. It will never happen.

There will never be a “bipartisan” bill because the Republican Party does not want healthcare reform, period. They keep moving the bar. Now, for something to be “bipartisan” it has to have the support of the fringe wackos who will never, ever support Democratic Party policies because their entire raison d’etre is to oppose the Democratic Party. Are you following me here?

The fringe wackos think President Obama will put his voodoo laser-lock mind-magic on school children, turning them into Socialist zombies in a 20 minute speech. The fringe wackos think President Obama isn’t really a citizen and therefore is illegitimate. The fringe wackos believe a government-backed option competing alongside private health insurance is somehow government control over your healthcare.

You want “bipartisanship” with these folks? No, I don't think so.

Monica Novotny asked Baird if there was any healthcare bill the Republicans would support. Baird basically said no. Insurance co-ops, he said, are basically “public option light.” Olympia Snowe’s support isn’t really bipartisan.

In other words, there simply will not be any Republican support for healthcare reform. They’ve been asked and their answer is “NO!”

I hope the Democrats are listening.

Petty Party

Could conservatives get more pathetic? As if the phony “death panels” weren’t bad enough, we have been given a string of fauxtrage pearls this week from various conservative sources.

First we have the wackos behind Sept. 8: National Keep Your Child At Home Day. These are people like Florida Republican Party Chairman Jim Greer, who thinks President Obama’s Sept. 8 address about education is really a means of socialist indoctrination.

Okay, EVERYBODY PANIC! Education Secretary Arne Duncan has urged school principals around the country to let students tune in to the address, which obviously means Obama will use his magical laser-lock mind-meld powers to turn kids into socialist zombies. Frightened wingnut parents are keeping their kids home from school that day.

Wow. Maybe you guys could spend the day at the library with your kids looking up the definition of “socialism.”

Then we have Kathryn Jean Lopez sparking a phony flag flap. Writes Andrew Sullivan:

Kathryn Jean Lopez suggests that there should be "uproar" over the redesign of the U.S. Mission to the U.N. website, which no longer features a prominent American flag image at the top. This makes us less patriotic than the French, and is presumably a prelude to mandatory Esperanto lessons and black helicopters and stuff. I, for one, am incensed.

This goes nicely with the fauxtrage generated over Nancy Pelosi’s supposed banning of patriotic Muzak on congressional hold buttons. Apparently, if you listen to the wingnuts (or watch Fox News), Pelosi has a thing for smooth jazz and has used her awesome powers to mandate jazz on the congressional phone system.

You just can’t make this stuff up.

I realize some folks are just amazed that conservatives seem to have gone off the deep end lately. But it's little different from the craziness we saw when Bill Clinton was president. Seems there's nothing like having a Democrat in the White House to make the right wing go completely nuts.

Look What Inhofe & The GOP Did For Us

Here’s Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Wingnuttia, jumping aboard the “Waterloo” train:

Inhofe said if President Obama failed to get a Senate vote before the August recess, "I would say there’s no way in the world they’re going to get this done this year. And next year would not be any easier. But I just, frankly, for political reasons, I kind of like the idea of keeping this thing alive. Look what it did for us in 1994."

Hey, Sen. Inhofe: Southern Beale has a steaming cup of STFU with your name on it. Because back in January, American Progress did take a look at what it did for “us” when your side of the aisle put the kabosh on healthcare reform in 1994. And it hasn’t been good:

Since 1994, the cost per person of American health care has more than doubled, with an annual growth rate regularly more than twice that of inflation. Fueled by rising costs of prescription drugs, inefficient outpatient care, expensive and unnecessary medical procedures, and ballooning insurance premiums, these costs are a burden on state and federal governments, businesses, and families.

Per-person health care expenditures in the United States have risen 6.5 percent per year since 2000, and 5.5 percent per year on average since 1994. In contrast, consumer inflation has averaged just 2.6 percent per year.

Health care costs burden American employers, who are forced to cut back on providing coverage and benefits or suffer a competitive disadvantage against international companies who don't bear health costs. Premiums for employer-provided health care have doubled since 2000 (the earliest year the Medical Expenditures Panel Survey has on record). That year the average family premium was $6,800. By 2008, it had risen to $12,700. This premium growth eats away at wages and pressures firms to reduce coverage.

The share of American firms offering health benefits shrank to 60 percent today, from 66 percent in 1999. And the percentage of Americans covered through their employers, where coverage is of a much higher quality than in the individual market, was 59 percent in 2007, down from 64 percent in 1999. Without workplace health insurance, Americans must struggle to find coverage in the unregulated private market (where people with pre-existing conditions find it difficult or impossible to secure coverage), go on public assistance, or become uninsured.

This is your country on Republican bullshit. Can’t govern, can’t fix anything, just like to play political games and repeat talking points while healthcare costs spin out of control and people go without the medicine and care they need.

Thanks for nothing, assholes.

They’ve Got Nothing

Literally, when it comes to healthcare reform (and just about everything else), the Republican Party has no ideas. None. Zip. Nada.

And now, they’re admitting it. Roy Blunt, who heads the House GOP Health Care Solutions Group, says they won’t even offer their own bill:

Republicans who had promised last month to offer a healthcare reform alternative are now suggesting no such bill will be introduced.

Rep. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) said, “Our bill is never going to get to the floor, so why confuse the focus? We clearly have principles; we could have language, but why start diverting attention from this really bad piece of work they’ve got to whatever we’re offering right now?”

Oh, clearly. Yes, the House Republicans could offer their own alternative to Democratic proposals, but why bother? What’s the point when they can play political games instead? Seriously, what do you think they were sent to Washington for, anyway? To craft legislation? Fix problems facing the country? C'mon! Be serious!

Unless, of course, House Republicans don’t have a healthcare alternative: never did, never will. These folks couldn’t govern their way out of a paper bag. All they know how to do is play politics. Tax cuts and banning abortion is all they’ve got. When it comes to actually fixing the dire problems America faces, they haven't got a clue, so they won’t even try. They’re gonna take their ball and go home, just like Sarah Palin.

Not just the party of no, but the party of no ideas.

Come on, House Republicans. If you've got something to say besides "NO!" then say it. Let's hear your suggestions on fixing healthcare in this country. We know you're going to be against whatever the Democrats are doing; what are you people for?

Anything? Anything at all?

Forget Bruckheimer, Get Me Nora Ephron

There’s something about the Republican Party these days that’s just made for a summer blockbuster movie. If it’s not the Jerry Bruckheimer “terrorists are gonna blow us up and we’re all gonna die if we don’t waterboard this guy” scenarios peddled by Liz Cheney, we have the passionate e-mails sent by Mark Sanford to his Argentinian lady:

You have a particular grace and calm that I adore. You have a level of sophistication that so fitting with your beauty. I could digress and say that you have the ability to give magnificent gentle kisses, or that I love your tan lines or that I love the curve of your hips, the erotic beauty of you holding yourself (or two magnificent parts of yourself) in the faded glow of the night’s light - but hey, that would be going into sexual details ...

[...]

In the meantime please sleep soundly knowing that despite the best efforts of my head my heart cries out for you, your voice, your body, the touch of your lips, the touch of your finger tips and an even deeper connection to your soul.

Damn, that’s good. What woman wouldn’t adore to hear that from her lover? Forget Dick Cheney’s memoir, I want to read Mark Sanford’s, and I want him to write it. Clearly he's tired of politics, tired of his marriage, tired of his life! You don't self-destruct like that and not have a certain awareness of what you're doing. Aw, honey.

The guy is a romantic and while I’m sure plenty of liberals are going to take pot-shots at him for those e-mails (yes I'm talking to you, Keith Olbermann) I’m enough of a sap to find them charming. Touching. And terribly romantic.

I see pictures of this stuffy politician and then read those words and think: ohhhh! Summer romance! Blockbuster! Get me Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks! Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant! Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor! Or, you know, whatever stars you kids today find hot.

Yes, it’s bad for a politician who, while in Congress voted to impeach Bill Clinton on the grounds the president

... lied under a different oath, and that is the oath to his wife. So it’s got to be taken very, very seriously.

But I’m not talking about the political stuff.

I just want to give Mark Sanford a hug. This guy poured his heart out onto the keyboard to his one true love and I just hate to see him mocked for it. Call me sappy, hormonal, sentimental, whatever, but this is the stuff of a great summer romance. If there's any redemption for Mark Sanford it's not in Washington but at the multiplex.

If this story plays out the way it should, Sanford realizes his dream of living on a small winery in the Argentinian Pampas with his lady and writing novels about Nazi hunters was a hopeless fantasy. It had always been so, an ephemeral dream of a life that might have been, had they been other people. But they were who they were, no use arguing about it. So he retires from politics and returns to private life with Jenny and the boys, and they try to make a last go of it.

But it’s too late. Too much has happened, there’ve been too many long, stony silences. There's been too much humiliation, dammit. And Jenny, well, she’s tired of the entire game, the forced smiles, the going through the motions of it all. Slowly the realization dawns that what’s been broken can never be repaired, and they divorce.

Mark lives a quiet life for a year, two, maybe even three. It’s a time of healing, contemplation, and taking stock of what’s important. Then one day he decides to take a little trip.

As he sips a robust Tempranillo at the Vincente Resto on a quiet street in Buenos Aires one afternoon, a familiar female figure approaches. They embrace.

Cue music. Roll credits.

Just STOP It Already!

[UPDATE]:

Apparently Goforth just “feels sick” about sending the e-mail to the wrong list:

When I asked her if she understood the controversial nature of the photo, Goforth would only say she felt very bad about accidentally sending it to the wrong list. When I gave her a second chance to address the controversial nature of the email, she again repeated that she only felt bad about sending it to the wrong list of people.

They just don't get it. And Goforth will keep her job. Figures.

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

I’m still fuming over Newscoma’s post.

That anyone thought e-mailing that photo was funny, cute, clever, or anything close to appropriate boggles the mind. That it was a staffer for State Senator Diane Black, chair of the Senate Republican Caucus, well, what can I say. Tennessee is the state of Chip “Barack the Magic Negro” Saltsman; it seems the problem is endemic to the TNGOP. I hope Sen. Black does the right thing and puts her house in order.

But it's not just Tennessee. Today I saw this news on CNN:

A South Carolina GOP state activist has apologized for calling a gorilla an "ancestor" of first lady Michelle Obama. Affiliate WIS reports.

WTF?!!

This shit matters, people. Frank Rich gave a rundown of some of the racist, inflammatory, offensive rhetoric that regularly passes for public discourse from conservatives toward President Obama and I have to say I’m shocked and ashamed:

But hyperbole from the usual suspects in the entertainment arena of TV and radio is not the whole story. What’s startling is the spillover of this poison into the conservative political establishment. Saul Anuzis, a former Michigan G.O.P. chairman who ran for the party’s national chairmanship this year, seriously suggested in April that Republicans should stop calling Obama a socialist because “it no longer has the negative connotation it had 20 years ago, or even 10 years ago.” Anuzis pushed “fascism” instead, because “everybody still thinks that’s a bad thing.” He didn’t seem to grasp that “fascism” is nonsensical as a description of the Obama administration or that there might be a risk in slurring a president with a word that most find “bad” because it evokes a mass-murderer like Hitler.

[...]

Obama’s Cairo address, meanwhile, prompted over-the-top accusations reminiscent of those campaign rally cries of “Treason!” It was a prominent former Reagan defense official, Frank Gaffney, not some fringe crackpot, who accused Obama in The Washington Times of engaging “in the most consequential bait-and-switch since Adolf Hitler duped Neville Chamberlain.” He claimed that the president — a lifelong Christian — “may still be” a Muslim and is aligned with “the dangerous global movement known as the Muslim Brotherhood.” Gaffney linked Obama by innuendo with Islamic “charities” that “have been convicted of providing material support for terrorism.”

If this isn’t a handy rationalization for another lone nutjob to take the law into his own hands against a supposed terrorism supporter, what is? Any such nutjob can easily grab a weapon. Gun enthusiasts have been on a shopping spree since the election, with some areas of our country reporting percentage sales increases in the mid-to-high double digits, recession be damned.

Indeed. There was a time when entertainers like Limbaugh, Savage and Coulter were seen as the circus sideshow to the national discourse; now the corporate media treats them like legitimate pundits, and their brand of vitriol spills over into the real world. Politicians now think nothing of saying the most outrageous things. Conservatives love to ridicule "political correctness" but some of y'all need some manners or you shouldn't be in office.

So stop it. Cut it out now. Do not emulate the yakkers who should be exiled to the far edges of the talk radio dial. And if someone on your staff sends this out under the banner "Historical Keepsake Photo," I hope you show them--and others--that it's inappropriate and there are consequences.

And the photo: