Yeah, I don't trust the slimy bastard either.
Republicans In crisis and a Nation and a Democracy on the Sacrificial Alter
- Thread starter joepistole
- Start date
Yeah, I don't trust the slimy bastard either.
The Universe is a Practical Joke of the General at the Expense of the Particular
I don't know. The Invisible Hands? That's a pretty big exception I tacked onto the front. More than a script, I think this is some sort of farce verite, in which they're just grasping at straws, and everything comes up looking unbelievable. Right now the question seems almost laughable; lex parsimonae is confused—is it more extraordinary to script this kind of Keystone GOP performance, or to accidentally achieve such farcical reults? It is unclear what the razor should cut away.
Joepistole said:
I don't know. The Invisible Hands? That's a pretty big exception I tacked onto the front. More than a script, I think this is some sort of farce verite, in which they're just grasping at straws, and everything comes up looking unbelievable. Right now the question seems almost laughable; lex parsimonae is confused—is it more extraordinary to script this kind of Keystone GOP performance, or to accidentally achieve such farcical reults? It is unclear what the razor should cut away.
It would be farcical were it not for the fact that millions are being harmed by their theater. When a political movement is led by an entertainment industry (i.e. Fox News, Republican/conservative talk radio) as Republicans are, I guess you cannot take the theater out of politics. Theater becomes more important than the health and wellbeing of the nation’s citizens and that is indeed unfortunate.
The good news this day is American democracy appears to have won this round…but just barely. Americans still have and worthless House of Representatives. A significant portion of our government remains an obstacle to American freedom and prosperity. The Republican House has proved itself totally incompetent and incapable of governance.
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Something About Flying Cars
Something About Flying Cars
Just to follow up on this one:
And, yes, now that we've seen the rough sketch of Twenty-First Century Know-Nothing Noir, we can watch how they adjust when this comes up again in February.
One wonders when they'll give up this macguffin and move on with responsible governing.
____________________
Notes:
Whitaker, Morgan. "Debt ceiling deal could defer GOP’s impeachment dreams". Politics Nation. October 17, 2013. MSNBC.com. October 17, 2013. http://www.msnbc.com/politicsnation/latest-obama-impeachment-reasoning-squashed
Something About Flying Cars
Bells said:
Just to follow up on this one:
While the deal crafted Wednesday appears to have taken the risk of default off the table for now, the threat of the debt ceiling proved that Tea Party Republicans will look for any reason to impeach President Obama.
Sarah Palin made the suggestion this week in a Facebook post in which she warned, “Defaulting on our national debt is an impeachable offense.”
“There is no way we can default if we follow the Constitution,” she wrote. “The Fourteenth Amendment, Section 4, requires that we service our debt first. We currently collect more than enough tax revenue to service our debt if we do that first. However, we don’t have enough money to continue to finance our ever-growing federal government.”
Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert quickly joined the chorus of default-focused impeachers.
“If the president instructs the treasury secretary that–though the money is there to pay interest–if he instructs him to default, I think we’re getting close to a high crime and misdemeanor,” Gohmert said in an interview on Fox News ....
.... However, there’s not much evidence that impeaching President Obama would be a political win for the GOP. Republicans have been hand-wringing over their recent drop in the polls, including the Gallup poll that showed the party’s favorability sunk to a record low of 28%, but impeachment pursuits have been comparably damaging. The last time the GOP’s approval dropped so low was in 1999. In the months after Republicans launched their campaign to impeach President Clinton, the Republican party’s favorability dropped to 31%. Who knows how low it could go with the one-two punch of impeachment and default.
If history is any indicator, impeachment might help out Obama; Clinton saw his approval rating increase during the impeachment.
(Whitaker)
Sarah Palin made the suggestion this week in a Facebook post in which she warned, “Defaulting on our national debt is an impeachable offense.”
“There is no way we can default if we follow the Constitution,” she wrote. “The Fourteenth Amendment, Section 4, requires that we service our debt first. We currently collect more than enough tax revenue to service our debt if we do that first. However, we don’t have enough money to continue to finance our ever-growing federal government.”
Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert quickly joined the chorus of default-focused impeachers.
“If the president instructs the treasury secretary that–though the money is there to pay interest–if he instructs him to default, I think we’re getting close to a high crime and misdemeanor,” Gohmert said in an interview on Fox News ....
.... However, there’s not much evidence that impeaching President Obama would be a political win for the GOP. Republicans have been hand-wringing over their recent drop in the polls, including the Gallup poll that showed the party’s favorability sunk to a record low of 28%, but impeachment pursuits have been comparably damaging. The last time the GOP’s approval dropped so low was in 1999. In the months after Republicans launched their campaign to impeach President Clinton, the Republican party’s favorability dropped to 31%. Who knows how low it could go with the one-two punch of impeachment and default.
If history is any indicator, impeachment might help out Obama; Clinton saw his approval rating increase during the impeachment.
(Whitaker)
And, yes, now that we've seen the rough sketch of Twenty-First Century Know-Nothing Noir, we can watch how they adjust when this comes up again in February.
One wonders when they'll give up this macguffin and move on with responsible governing.
____________________
Notes:
Whitaker, Morgan. "Debt ceiling deal could defer GOP’s impeachment dreams". Politics Nation. October 17, 2013. MSNBC.com. October 17, 2013. http://www.msnbc.com/politicsnation/latest-obama-impeachment-reasoning-squashed
Thanks Tiassa, that was very informative.
Presumably she just made herself the laughing stock of kids who were too little to understand her in 2007. But what a great teaching point, to complement the strides being made in raising student literacy. Maybe Johnny and Sally will be turning in papers for their 7th grade civics classes that could be captioned, well, not "Why Sarah can't read", but "what Sarah has't read", followed by their recital of the cited section:
The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.
The Reconstruction might even be on the curriculum plan right now for a lot of schools, as it's a conventional place to segment the teaching of US history, and it hasn't been that long since the semester began. How funny it would be if a network of kids were to start posting a rebuttal, completely taking Palin to the shed for failing to articulate what they just learned the 14th Amendment was about, and what it provides. That, followed by some appropriate caricatures in the spirit of Tina Fey, and perhaps Palin would again be on center stage with her foot seriously lodged in her gullet.
Of course, as usual, by her own twisted logic the reverse is true. If it were remotely conceivable that the mere questioning of the validity of the public debt were counted as "high crimes and misdemeanors" as grounds for impeachment, then impeachment proceedings should be immediately be brought against all of the Republican caucus, and Palin should lose what ever rights and privileges of a former official of Alaska, provided they have a suitable ex post facto penalty of that sort. Burning her in effigy would work if she were down South, so maybe the progressives of Alaska can come up with some suitable form of derision and hold a mock trial. A public referendum, declaring her a dolt would be a start. In other words, the intent of Palin's remark works to exonerate Obama and the Dems for not questioning the validity of the public debt, while condemning anyone who fails to raise the debt ceiling as required to service the debt.
That being said, Palin's analysis of law reminds me of the person who plans to slip in a Wal-Mart and then sue them for damages. And how stupid to have them associating a provision incorporated into the Amendments which enforces against insurrection--we need only play back to them their windy appeals to their mean, stupid constituents to secede from the Union. And Palin got in that frying pan back when pseudo-secessionists started flapping their gums after Obama's election.
Besides shutting down the executive branch, these fools suddenly appear "in the robe" as if John Roberts just appointed them to sit in for the temperate justices, who he would have --in their dreams-- just dismissed through some other long-ignored "loophole" in the law.
Heh heh. Of course this time the accused hasn't left any DNA at the scene of the crime.
It would be a real kangaroo court. For all of their failings to pretend to have legal claims against him--from the Birthers to the ones who sued to trash the health law, even the mean stupid justices (Thomas, Scalia, Alito and Roberts) wouldn't treat it any more seriously than a person suing the US for secreting alien body parts and technology in Hanger 52.
The day they are kicked out by the barely informed voters who have (we wish) finally seen through them. They could go on governing their own little worlds in whatever rodeo clown show folks like them retire to.
Really all it takes is for voters to wake up. Roughly half are evidently comatose, and a good portion of that crowd are permanently brain dead.
An Exercise in Futility
An Exercise in Futility
Rep. Raúl Labrador (R-ID01) made the sort of statement today that always raises reporters' eyebrows. That is, it's one thing to lay into the press in the wake of an embarrassing political catastrophe like the House GOP just dropped on themselves, but entirely another to do so with such a weak complaint.
Jason Linkins makes a valiant attempt to unravel this particular thread:
To be fair, though: "As a purely technical distinction, Labrador is in the clear. You just have to shut off parts of your brain and stare at it with your peripheral vision to see it."
Try to figure out how that one works. It's actually pretty keen, insofar as it was a well-enough devised rhetorical sleight as to actually make people stop and think about it for a moment.
But, yes, that's the same Raúl Labrador who voted against John Boehner's speakership, plotted with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) to undermine House leadership, and then offered up incredibly condescending praise of the Speaker's performance, right before suggesting that the problem in the GOP is the failure to get rid of the moderates.
No, really.
____________________
Notes:
Linkins, Jason. "Raul Labrador Castigates Media: 'We Have Never Asked For A Full Repeal Of Obamacare'". The Huffington Post. October 16, 2013. HuffingtonPost.com. October 16, 2013. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/16/raul-labrador-obamacare-repeal_n_4109712.html
An Exercise in Futility
Rep. Raúl Labrador (R-ID01) made the sort of statement today that always raises reporters' eyebrows. That is, it's one thing to lay into the press in the wake of an embarrassing political catastrophe like the House GOP just dropped on themselves, but entirely another to do so with such a weak complaint.
Jason Linkins makes a valiant attempt to unravel this particular thread:
So how does one reconcile Labrador's insistence here with objective reality? Well, first, you have to focus exclusively on just the legislative michegas that's transpired over the past few weeks, which led to the government shutdown. From there, you have to follow along with the way talking points are parsed. And then it helps if you sort of use your side-eye to look at this.
To be fair, though: "As a purely technical distinction, Labrador is in the clear. You just have to shut off parts of your brain and stare at it with your peripheral vision to see it."
Try to figure out how that one works. It's actually pretty keen, insofar as it was a well-enough devised rhetorical sleight as to actually make people stop and think about it for a moment.
But, yes, that's the same Raúl Labrador who voted against John Boehner's speakership, plotted with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) to undermine House leadership, and then offered up incredibly condescending praise of the Speaker's performance, right before suggesting that the problem in the GOP is the failure to get rid of the moderates.
No, really.
____________________
Notes:
Linkins, Jason. "Raul Labrador Castigates Media: 'We Have Never Asked For A Full Repeal Of Obamacare'". The Huffington Post. October 16, 2013. HuffingtonPost.com. October 16, 2013. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/16/raul-labrador-obamacare-repeal_n_4109712.html
Some of our conservative/Republican friends are gearing up for round two next quarter.
Well, of course they are ....
All of the pieces are there if one reads the news detail. The fact that two million people signed an online petition? That's how Ted Cruz is describing this as a victory. Raúl Labrador is awesome, at least insofar as I wonder how he walks with stones of that size and density. What the hell was it Mick Mulvaney just said? Oh, yeah, that's right, he combined the blame-the-press and the 2012 autopsy arguments.
This, of course, dovetails nicely with the Speaker explaining that Republicans just didn't win.
Actually, they flat out lost. This wasn't a squeaker, or a heartbreaker, or a buzzerbeater, or a replay controversy. This was a straight drubbing. Mulvaney? Seven days until what? The whole hostage situation was what it was, with one guy threatening to shoot the hostage and the other pleading that people shouldn't worry, the hostage would be just fine even if shot. And what would be an indication that the message was getting out? Seven days until what? Salvation? Republicans rescue America? What did you want to hear, there, Mick?
And the slayer thing is, if we go with narratives, this was a clean sweep for the Democrats, including an own goal by the Republicans. No, really. Out of all those demands, the only one the GOP got wasn't really a demand at all since it already exists, the Democrats got a budget conference, and Republicans have effectively given federal employees a one-time pay raise (or two extra weeks of paid vacation, depending on how you look at it).
Okay, the own goal is one of those rhetorical flips, but not nearly so distant and overly complicated as Labrador trying to explain that nobody ever said anything about ... er ... yeah. That one.
Vitter is winding up for another run at his employees' healthcare. Remember, he wants congressional employees specifically exempted from a fairly particular exemption from an accidental exemption. Watch the rhetorical twists there; what he's demanding is that Congress be exempted—or, perhaps, even prohibited—from contributing to employee health benefits.
And Jonathan Strong reported, in September, on the GOP's intended approach to the debt ceiling; it's an impressive list.
I come back to Mulvaney because his words approach the level of a Kinsley gaffe, except I'm not certain this is one of those things Republicans aren't supposed to say. Remember, we've heard this language before, as conservatives dissected their 2012 loss. So Republicans needed to sweeten the message, as such, like Charles Krauthammer suggested. Perhaps we should ask the ladies how that's gone. I'm not sure I could survive Krauthammer's assessment.
With the war of the sexes, as I noted, where Krauthammer goes awry is that there really is no delicate way to say it. I'm not certain how delicacy fits into this rhetoric, per se, and we've considered the difference between obligations and entitlements. What conservatives need is to win a war of definitions. Right now, the hair Labrador is trying to split doesn't play. The hair Rand Paul tried to split doesn't play. This is one place in which conservatives are accustomed to winning; the fundamental difference between obligation and entitlement, in the question of government outlays, is the established definition of the conventional wisdom. (See social conservative issues, such as the question of life at conception, "child" or "fetus" in utero, birth control, family structure, &c., for a wide array of definitions conservatives have failed to establish as baseline.) The conservative politic is much like Catholic theology insofar as it is perfectly obvious and self-evidently true, but only if you accept a priori a certain set of untestable presuppositions.
It's hard to see how Republicans can win a new war of definitions, but that would seem to be their mission. Barney Frank recently spoke highly of Mick Mulvaney, calling him intellectually honest while remembering a particular military issue they worked on together. Accepting that assessment, though, some of the things Mulvaney says are nearly shocking for his apparent inability to perceive the gravity of his words.
We've seen the demand list. We've heard the early internal critiques—purge the moderates, make a better argument for the hostage negotiations, and shame the press into tanking the story. And now we can only await the next dangerous farce.
(Although, we must admit that political comedy is much less hazardous to the performers than physical comedy.)
____________________
Notes:
Weigel, David. "The GOP's Alamo". Slate. October 16, 2013. Slate.com. October 17, 2013. http://www.slate.com/articles/news_...shutdown_and_debt_limit_the_gop_rewrites.html
Conaway, Laura. "Chart: What Republicans demanded in exchange for not shutting down the government". MSNBC. October 16, 2013. MSNBC.com. October 17, 2013. http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/chart-the-house-gops-demand-list
Strong, Jonathan. "Revealed: The House GOP’s Debt-Ceiling Plan". The Corner. September 26, 2013. NationalReview.com. October 17, 2013. http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/359534/revealed-house-gops-debt-ceiling-plan-jonathan-strong
See Also:
Krauthammer, Charles. "The way forward". The Washington Post. November 8, 2012. WashingtonPost.com. October 17, 2013. http://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...92e302-29d8-11e2-96b6-8e6a7524553f_story.html
Cusack, Bob. "Winners and losers of the debt-limit fight". The Hill. October 17, 2013. TheHill.com. October 17, 2013. http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/328977-winners-and-losers-of-the-debt-limit-fight
Joepistole said:
All of the pieces are there if one reads the news detail. The fact that two million people signed an online petition? That's how Ted Cruz is describing this as a victory. Raúl Labrador is awesome, at least insofar as I wonder how he walks with stones of that size and density. What the hell was it Mick Mulvaney just said? Oh, yeah, that's right, he combined the blame-the-press and the 2012 autopsy arguments.
“It depends on whether or not we’re able to articulate why we did what we did,” said South Carolina Rep. Mick Mulvaney, a conservative who voted against Boehner for speaker but sings hosannas for him now. “We believe we did it for the right reasons. We believe it was good policy. We believe good policy makes good politics. But we have to be able to explain that policy in order to accomplish it. I did an interview with a local radio station back home a week ago, and it started with them saying it was 'just seven days until default.' That was an indication that our message was not getting out.”
(Weigel)
(Weigel)
This, of course, dovetails nicely with the Speaker explaining that Republicans just didn't win.
Actually, they flat out lost. This wasn't a squeaker, or a heartbreaker, or a buzzerbeater, or a replay controversy. This was a straight drubbing. Mulvaney? Seven days until what? The whole hostage situation was what it was, with one guy threatening to shoot the hostage and the other pleading that people shouldn't worry, the hostage would be just fine even if shot. And what would be an indication that the message was getting out? Seven days until what? Salvation? Republicans rescue America? What did you want to hear, there, Mick?
And the slayer thing is, if we go with narratives, this was a clean sweep for the Democrats, including an own goal by the Republicans. No, really. Out of all those demands, the only one the GOP got wasn't really a demand at all since it already exists, the Democrats got a budget conference, and Republicans have effectively given federal employees a one-time pay raise (or two extra weeks of paid vacation, depending on how you look at it).
Okay, the own goal is one of those rhetorical flips, but not nearly so distant and overly complicated as Labrador trying to explain that nobody ever said anything about ... er ... yeah. That one.
Vitter is winding up for another run at his employees' healthcare. Remember, he wants congressional employees specifically exempted from a fairly particular exemption from an accidental exemption. Watch the rhetorical twists there; what he's demanding is that Congress be exempted—or, perhaps, even prohibited—from contributing to employee health benefits.
And Jonathan Strong reported, in September, on the GOP's intended approach to the debt ceiling; it's an impressive list.
I come back to Mulvaney because his words approach the level of a Kinsley gaffe, except I'm not certain this is one of those things Republicans aren't supposed to say. Remember, we've heard this language before, as conservatives dissected their 2012 loss. So Republicans needed to sweeten the message, as such, like Charles Krauthammer suggested. Perhaps we should ask the ladies how that's gone. I'm not sure I could survive Krauthammer's assessment.
With the war of the sexes, as I noted, where Krauthammer goes awry is that there really is no delicate way to say it. I'm not certain how delicacy fits into this rhetoric, per se, and we've considered the difference between obligations and entitlements. What conservatives need is to win a war of definitions. Right now, the hair Labrador is trying to split doesn't play. The hair Rand Paul tried to split doesn't play. This is one place in which conservatives are accustomed to winning; the fundamental difference between obligation and entitlement, in the question of government outlays, is the established definition of the conventional wisdom. (See social conservative issues, such as the question of life at conception, "child" or "fetus" in utero, birth control, family structure, &c., for a wide array of definitions conservatives have failed to establish as baseline.) The conservative politic is much like Catholic theology insofar as it is perfectly obvious and self-evidently true, but only if you accept a priori a certain set of untestable presuppositions.
It's hard to see how Republicans can win a new war of definitions, but that would seem to be their mission. Barney Frank recently spoke highly of Mick Mulvaney, calling him intellectually honest while remembering a particular military issue they worked on together. Accepting that assessment, though, some of the things Mulvaney says are nearly shocking for his apparent inability to perceive the gravity of his words.
We've seen the demand list. We've heard the early internal critiques—purge the moderates, make a better argument for the hostage negotiations, and shame the press into tanking the story. And now we can only await the next dangerous farce.
(Although, we must admit that political comedy is much less hazardous to the performers than physical comedy.)
____________________
Notes:
Weigel, David. "The GOP's Alamo". Slate. October 16, 2013. Slate.com. October 17, 2013. http://www.slate.com/articles/news_...shutdown_and_debt_limit_the_gop_rewrites.html
Conaway, Laura. "Chart: What Republicans demanded in exchange for not shutting down the government". MSNBC. October 16, 2013. MSNBC.com. October 17, 2013. http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/chart-the-house-gops-demand-list
Strong, Jonathan. "Revealed: The House GOP’s Debt-Ceiling Plan". The Corner. September 26, 2013. NationalReview.com. October 17, 2013. http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/359534/revealed-house-gops-debt-ceiling-plan-jonathan-strong
See Also:
Krauthammer, Charles. "The way forward". The Washington Post. November 8, 2012. WashingtonPost.com. October 17, 2013. http://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...92e302-29d8-11e2-96b6-8e6a7524553f_story.html
Cusack, Bob. "Winners and losers of the debt-limit fight". The Hill. October 17, 2013. TheHill.com. October 17, 2013. http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/328977-winners-and-losers-of-the-debt-limit-fight
Fraggle Rocker
Staff member
In the "Candorville" comic strip a few days ago, Lemont was talking to a Tea Party conservative. The guy asked why nobody was willing to negotiate over Obamacare. Lemont said, "Because it's a done deal. A 'done deal' means that the negotiating is over."
The Mad Hatter asked, "Since when is something a 'done deal' just because it was passed by a majority in both houses of Congress, signed by the President, and approved by the Supreme Court???"
Lemont answered, "Since 1826." (I don't remember the exact year but it was around then, when a landmark case established the meaning of what we now call a "done deal.")
It's obvious that the "Tea Party" is named after the event in Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, not the event in Boston Harbor.
The Mad Hatter asked, "Since when is something a 'done deal' just because it was passed by a majority in both houses of Congress, signed by the President, and approved by the Supreme Court???"
Lemont answered, "Since 1826." (I don't remember the exact year but it was around then, when a landmark case established the meaning of what we now call a "done deal.")
It's obvious that the "Tea Party" is named after the event in Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, not the event in Boston Harbor.
Adding to the sarcasm, the answer was actually "1787" (date of the Constitutional convention).
It brings to mind the question of the Legislature's Constitutional authority to do what they are doing. The framers obviously had no way to do full regression testing on every possible permutation of ways one branch might overstep the doctrine of separation of powers, but the blanket defunding of large swaths of the Executive branch is tantamount to, if not the actual commission of, the type of usurpation that doctrine seeks to deter.
A huge hole exists in the Constitution, which ought to be closed. For all the talk of arguing for a balanced budget amendment at the Federal level, there ought to be a prohibition against Congressional defunding altogether, now that they've demonstrated that it can be used as a weapon. What's needed is an amendment which says the funds for running the Executive branch are appropriated by default. Perhaps Congress should get out of the budget business altogether. Maybe we need a new agency, perhaps created under the Supreme Court, which examines the legality of all government business and, once it passes muster, funding for those agencies is earmarked for appropriation by default, upon review by the Supreme Court and set in the form of a judicial order.
For a country that lays so many claims to the primacy of law and order, the unprecedented control over select executive and judicial offices -- primarily those that comport with Right Wing policy objectives -- smacks of usurpation of the Constitution and laws enshrined in our most basic sense of legitimacy. Obviously the Constitutional amendment exists as a safeguard handed down by the framers to fill holes as they develop. And obviously this is a huge one.
Not that anything I just said has any bearing on the real world, which is largely inhabited by incredibly mean, stupid people, who are hellbent on living in a Right Wing-slash-fundamentalist fog, having caved in to Republican propaganda, disinformation and manufactured controversy. That's the ultimate problem, and this why Liberals need to retake Congress in next year's election.
One of the prevailing markers of psychopathy, narcissism, comes to mind. Only true narcissists would engage American policymaking under the pretext of patriotism and rebellion against despotism, while carving the Executive branch to shreds, especially when deliberately done in support of the larger goal, which is: to return to laissez faire economics and Victorian social norms. But then they've always wrapped themselves in the flag and convinced their sheep that that wolves grow wool, even whole packs of them bearing the brands of Big Money. If Lewis Carroll were down home today in Bell Buckle, Tennessee, spitting chewing tobacco on a sawdust floor, and with the same art and imagination playing out in his mind as did did when he wrote his quasi psychedelic story, I wonder if he would come to the same conclusion. Maybe he would set another cup at Alice's table, for a mean stupid elephant, one that is preoccupied with his reflection from another kind of mirror, a mirror from Hell, which makes him see himself as wise and kind.
Id
Great post. I was wondering what legal recourse could exist for ending, what I believe it to be, the seditious attempt to destroy our constitutional democratic government. Really "....., for a mean stupid elephant, ....? LOL. Excellent characterization of the brain dead ideologues.
This can't be conservatism. These folks are in free fall off the right end of the political spectrum. They have a closer affiliation with the goals of al qaeda than the goals of American constitutional democracy.
We had our own Sarah Palin in Australian politics. She served one term as a Senator and in her maiden speech went on about "Reverse Racism" with regards to the Aborigines our Indigenous folk, and Australia being swamped by Asians and wanted the policy of multi culturalism abolished. Her name was Pauline Hanson, an attractive red-headed fish n chips shop owner, who espoused to be speaking the views of the average Aussie and silent majority.
Both sides of Australian politics quickly disowned her, her party and her radical views.
To be fair there are those in the Libs and Nats who are as bad as Palin without looking at the fringe parties. Cory Bernadi for example, hell Howard himself was bad enough. He tried to block the refugees from vietnarm after the vietnarm war and was only stopped by the then PM Fraser
Please take back your Rupert Murdoch! He is the guy that rattles the monkey cage and gets these guys and gals all stirred up. He feeds them a steady diet of misinformation, lies, and hate. We should not be surprised by the result.
He's a US citizen now and if I had my way he would be shut up in the US and not be allowed to pollute our country the way he BOUGHT the last election
I discovered this yesterday. I had never seen this before, so it turns out that Limbaugh actually made this comparison twice! This is from November 1992, about a year before the incident detailed above. This is the episode that the deniers will admit happened, but they attempt to pass it off as a simple mistake. If it had been a mistake, they could have edited it out, as it was a taped show. I do remember seeing the beginning of this episode; you'll notice he's wearing a hat with the capital letter Y on it. Near the beginning of this episode, he had a monologue about seeing many young blacks with a black baseball cap with "The roman numeral ten on it". He then brought out his cap, and put it on saying "I don't know why?". This was a reference to the film Malcolm X, and the popularity of the black baseball caps that accompanied it. I think it was about then I thought to myself "What a jerk", and changed the channel, thereby missing his first time of taking on an awkward looking twelve year old because he didn't like her father. I'm just about certain that the same photo of Chelsea was used on both occasions.
Please look at: http://www.sciforums.com/showthread...ay-inflation&p=3122641&viewfull=1#post3122641
I don't "double post" but that gives review of the immediate effects and probable results of the recent madness in DC.
I don't "double post" but that gives review of the immediate effects and probable results of the recent madness in DC.