GOP

November 18, 2012

Perspective. #Benghazi #Hypocrites #PartisanHacksWithTheShortTermMemoryOfAFly #p2 #tcot

Not to mention a couple people killed on 9/11/2001 if I recall… in either the biggest intelligence fuckup in history or complete and impeachable incompetence on the part of the Bush administration or a treasonable act of omission in order to create public support for a pre-conceived plan for global dominance (Project For A New American Century, anyone?…) — in either case, then there was that whole thing where W and the GOP decided they didn’t care about Bin Laden anymore and exploited the tragedy of 9/11 by lying about who was responsible and diverted all attention money and resources to launching a pre-emptive and illegal war of choice on a country that had nothing to do with 9/11 or terrorism causing a million+ deaths and 4 million+ displaced refugees. Oh yeah, and putting both wars on the country’s credit card – not only not paying for it, but not even including it in the budget. For 6 years. While giving Billions in tax breaks to rich people who didn’t need them. Remember all those Republicans screaming about the federal budget and the national debt during Bush’s 8 years in office? You don’t? Well, that’s strange. That would almost suggest… that maybe, just maybe, they are willfully-ignorant partisan thugs who put their party ahead of their country? Nah, couldn’t be… Hm, but that would also explain why they didn’t give 2 shits about Bush wiping his ass with the Constitution and eliminating basic human rights and civil liberties, while now they suddenly claim to care deeply and with an almost religious fervor. Hmmm… Interesting… I seem to remember that anyone who tried to speak out against any Republican / Bush Administration policies, foreign or domestic, was immediately silenced, vilified, publicly disgraced, had their character assassinated, their careers ruined, and were labelled traitors who hated America. Hmm… What’s changed?…

This whole manufactured Benghazi “scandal” perfectly encapsulates the absurdity of the GOP. Let me put it this way: if you supported George W Bush, then please do us all a favor and STFU. Otherwise you are clearly an imbecile, a liar, a hypocrite, a mindless partisan hack, or you have the memory of a fly. (Or some combination thereof.)

Thanks.

October 16, 2012

Oops: House GOP outs ‘undercover CIA operation in Libya’ on C-SPAN

http://americablog.com/2012/10/house-gops-chaffetz-outs-undercover-cia-operation-in-libya-on-c-span.html

The Republican lawmakers, in their outbursts, alternated between scolding the State Department officials for hiding behind classified material and blaming them for disclosing information that should have been classified. But the lawmakers created the situation by ordering a public hearing on a matter that belonged behind closed doors.

 

Republicans were aiming to embarrass the Obama administration over State Department security lapses. But they inadvertently caused a different picture to emerge than the one that has been publicly known: that the victims may have been let down not by the State Department but by the CIA. If the CIA was playing such a major role in these events, which was the unmistakable impression left by Wednesday’s hearing, having a televised probe of the matter was absurd.


Chaffetz’s and Issa’s outbursts ensured that the base in Benghazi would become a high-priority target, as the CIA is frowned upon by Al Qaeda terrorists and others.

Another point. The question of how much obvious security there was at the compound becomes rather interesting now that Chaffetz has informed us that this was actually a CIA station. I could imagine that the CIA might not have wanted a massive contingent of Marines based at the “consulate and ‘annex’,” lest it signal to the bad guys that this was not simply a backwater “consulate and ‘annex’.” But the administration couldn’t give that response while Mitt Romney and the House Republicans were berating them for supposedly not having more security at the station, they couldn’t explain that maybe we didn’t want the extra security because it might have signaled that there was actually a CIA operation underway.

Sounds like it’s time for a hearing about the hearing.

“

September 12, 2012

Best thing I’ve read in a while: “Why I left the GOP”

http://www.salon.com/2012/09/10/why_i_left_the_gop/

“
…

This is the story of how in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and later in Iraq, I discovered that what I believed to be the full spectrum of reality was just a small slice of it and how that discovery knocked down my Republican worldview.

I always imagined that I was full of heart, but it turned out that I was oblivious.  Like so many Republicans, I had assumed that society’s “losers” had somehow earned their deserts.  As I came to recognize that poverty is not earned or chosen or deserved, and that our use of force is far less precise than I had believed, I realized with a shock that I had effectively viewed whole swaths of the country and the world as second-class people.

No longer oblivious, I couldn’t remain in today’s Republican Party, not unless I embraced an individualism that was even more heartless than the one I had previously accepted.  The more I learned about reality, the more I started to care about people as people, and my values shifted.  Had I always known what I know today, it would have been clear that there hasn’t been a place for me in the Republican Party since the Free Soil days of Abe Lincoln.

…

 

I dove into the research literature to try to figure out what was going on.  It turned out that everything I was “discovering” had been hiding in plain sight and had been named: aversive racism, institutional racism, disparate impact and disparate treatment, structural poverty, neighborhood redlining, the “trial tax,” the “poverty tax,” and on and on.  Having grown up obsessed with race (welfare and affirmative action were our bêtes noirs), I wondered why I had never heard of any of these concepts.

Was it to protect our Republican version of “individual responsibility”?  That notion is fundamental to the liberal Republican worldview. “Bootstrapping” and “equality of opportunity, not outcomes” make perfect sense if you assume, as I did, that people who hadn’t risen into my world simply hadn’t worked hard enough, or wanted it badly enough, or had simply failed.  But I had assumed that bootstrapping required about as much as it took to get yourself promoted from junior varsity to varsity.  It turns out that it’s more like pulling yourself up from tee-ball to the World Series.  Sure, some people do it, but they’re the exceptions, the outliers, the Olympians.

The enormity of the advantages I had always enjoyed started to truly sink in.  Everyone begins life thinking that his or her normal is the normal.  For the first time, I found myself paying attention to broken eggs rather than making omelets.  Up until then, I hadn’t really seen most Americans as living, breathing, thinking, feeling, hoping, loving, dreaming, hurting people.  My values shifted — from an individualistic celebration of success (that involved dividing the world into the morally deserving and the undeserving) to an interest in people as people.

…

 

“

September 12, 2012

The Problem With Conservatism, In One Graphic

http://www.addictinginfo.org/2012/09/10/the-problem-with-conservatism-in-one-graphic-image/

A recent study determined that conservatives are more likely to make up facts to justify their beliefs, and this image is proof positive of that.

…..

The underlying issue here is that conservatives have such an aversion to the facts that they’re completely willing to overlook them in an attempt to make a salient point. It doesn’t matter if their claims are baseless, as long as they get the chance to throw out the word “socialism” to scare people.

…..
September 10, 2012

“The Ryan budget is a budget in the way that my doodle on a cocktail napkin is a blueprint for NASA.” — Bill Maher

Romney, Ryan Refuse To Identify Tax Loopholes They’d Close

http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/09/romney-ryan-tax-loopholes.php?m=1

“

The Romney-Ryan plan would cut taxes beneath existing Bush-era levels, with benefits disproportionately for high earners, at a cost of roughly $5 trillion. They have vowed that the breaks would be revenue-neutral by way of closing tax credits and deductions but have persisted in their refusal to specify which ones, other than promising that the changes wouldn’t target middle class Americans.

Pressed for one specific example, Romney replied, “Well, the specifics are these which is those principles I described are the heart of my policy.”

“

Wow. Sounds like he’s channelling Sarah Palin…

“

A large chunk of the over $1 trillion in annual federal tax credits and deductions — including for home mortgage interest and employer-based health care — benefit middle class Americans. Other perks, like preferential tax treatment of capital gains and dividends, are strongly supported by Republicans, including Romney.

“Mitt Romney and I, based on our experience, think the best way to do this is to show the framework, show the outlines of these plans, and then to work with Congress to do this. That’s how you get things done,” he said.

Pressed repeatedly on “Meet The Press” how he would make the numbers add up, Romney didn’t take the bait, instead saying voters should trust him.

“I’ve had the experience of being a governor,” he said. “I’ve demonstrated that I have the capacity to balance budgets.”

“

Impressive.

As Bill Maher said (of Ryan) :

“He’s not an intellectual. They said the same thing about Newt Gingrich. Somehow Newt Gingrich and Paul Ryan — these giant intellectuals — somehow they had the same great idea: Give more money to the rich people. What’s his big idea? Rich people should stop paying taxes and poor people should start looking for food in the woods. Can you name one area where he and Sarah Palin disagree on anything? So how come he’s this giant intellectual? The Ryan budget is a budget in the way that my doodle on a cocktail napkin is a blueprint for NASA.”

July 21, 2012

The Best Government Money Can Buy

“

Republicans are now proposing to cut about $3 trillion over ten years from programs that help the poor, the unemployed, the sick, and the elderly. But that $3 trillion in cuts won’t reduce the deficit one penny because they are also giving $3 trillion in new tax cuts that go only to the very wealthy.

So they’re proposing to take benefits away from the most truly needy people in our society in order to give trillions of dollars to the wealthiest Americans. In every possible sense, many in Congress are actively trying to steal from the poor, the middle class, and even the moderately well-to-do and giving to the very rich and powerful.

And it will remain this way until we enact some kind of meaningful campaign finance reform.

Far from being a “nanny state” as Republicans claim, too many people in our government work for the highest bidder. More than ever, they protect the wealthy and the powerful instead of looking out for the people who need help the most.

“

http://jeff61b.hubpages.com/hub/best-govt-money-can-buy

July 20, 2012

Republican cognitive dissonance on government & jobs

Aside from which he DID save the economy which THEIR policies had destroyed and which was hemorrhaging 750,000 jobs a month when he took office.

Aside from which these Repugs do everything in their power to BLOCK anything Obama & the Democrats try to do to create jobs.

Aside from which they ran (and got elected) on promising that THEY would create jobs.

Aside from which they are shameless fuckers.

April 5, 2012

Criticize #Obama all you want, but every thing he says in this speech is right on

via whitehouse.gov

Remarks by the President at the Associated Press Luncheon | The White House

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/04/03/remarks-president-assoc…

Lots of great quotes from this speech but a few that stood out…

”
This congressional Republican budget is something different altogether. It is a Trojan Horse. Disguised as deficit reduction plans, it is really an attempt to impose a radical vision on our country. It is thinly veiled social Darwinism. It is antithetical to our entire history as a land of opportunity and upward mobility for everybody who’s willing to work for it; a place where prosperity doesn’t trickle down from the top, but grows outward from the heart of the middle class. And by gutting the very things we need to grow an economy that’s built to last — education and training, research and development, our infrastructure — it is a prescription for decline.

. . . . . . . .

I guess another way of thinking about this is — and this bears on your reporting. I think that there is oftentimes the impulse to suggest that if the two parties are disagreeing, then they’re equally at fault and the truth lies somewhere in the middle, and an equivalence is presented — which reinforces I think people’s cynicism about Washington generally. This is not one of those situations where there’s an equivalence. I’ve got some of the most liberal Democrats in Congress who were prepared to make significant changes to entitlements that go against their political interests, and who said they were willing to do it. And we couldn’t get a Republican to stand up and say, we’ll raise some revenue, or even to suggest that we won’t give more tax cuts to people who don’t need them.

. . . . . . . .

So as all of you are doing your reporting, I think it’s important to remember that the positions I’m taking now on the budget and a host of other issues, if we had been having this discussion 20 years ago, or even 15 years ago, would have been considered squarely centrist positions. What’s changed is the center of the Republican Party. And that’s certainly true with the budget.

. . . . . . . .

So the American people’s impulses are absolutely right. These are solvable problems if people of good faith came together and were willing to compromise. The challenge we have right now is that we have on one side, a party that will brook no compromise. And this is not just my assertion. We had presidential candidates who stood on a stage and were asked, “Would you accept a budget package, a deficit reduction plan, that involved $10 of cuts for every dollar in revenue increases?” Ten-to-one ratio of spending cuts to revenue. Not one of them raised their hand.

Think about that. Ronald Reagan, who, as I recall, is not accused of being a tax-and-spend socialist, understood repeatedly that when the deficit started to get out of control, that for him to make a deal he would have to propose both spending cuts and tax increases. Did it multiple times. He could not get through a Republican primary today.
. . . . . . . .
“

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