Most Ridiculous GOP Talking Point Of All Time?

Republicans have spewed some pretty fucked-up talking points in the past decade, but this one pretty much crushes them all when it comes to pure, unadulterated horse-shittery:

Republican senators are fuming about President Barack Obama's attempt to fill empty seats on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, charging him with "court-packing" and alleging that his push to confirm nominees is all politics.

But not only is Obama not "court-packing" -- a term describing an attempt to add judges to a court with the goal of shifting the balance, not filling existing vacancies -- but Republicans' efforts to prevent Obama from appointing judges amount to their own attempt to tip the scales in their favor. What's more, some of the GOP senators trying to prevent his nominees from advancing previously voted to fill the court when there was a Republican in the White House.

Let me get this straight:  A President nominating individuals for open judicial positions is "packing the court"?  Are you fucking kidding me?  Senators Grassley and McConnell -- the ones who are leading the charge on this court-packing allegation (and simultaneously vying for the title of biggest hypocrite of all time) -- had no problem with W filling vacancies on this particular court:

Grassley and McConnell both voted to fill empty slots on the D.C. Circuit under former President George W. Bush. On June 14, 2005, both voted to confirm Judge Thomas Griffith, giving the court 11 active judges at the time. A year later, on May 26, 2006, Grassley and McConnell voted to confirm Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the D.C. Circuit. That vote put the court at 10 active judges.

Look, I know you Republicans are furious that a Black man has been elected -- and then reelected -- president.  But you need to get over it.  As Barbara Boxer once said, elections have consequences.  And one of these consequences is that a sitting president gets to fill vacant judicial seats.  Deal with it.

My advice to Harry Reid? Put the turd squarely in Mitch McConnell's pocket: Tell him that if the GOP filibusters Obama's nominees to the DC Circuit, then you will deploy the "nuclear option" and sidestep the filibuster in order to push the nominees through.

Hate Groups React To Boy Scouts' Decision

Hate groups such as Liberty Counsel, the American Family Association, and the Southern Baptist Convention just can't accept the Boy Scout's decision to let openly gay kids into the organization:

Matt Barber, a lawyer with a group called Liberty Counsel, said the Scouts have become the "latest formerly honorable institution to crumble" under the "homofascist agenda." The American Family Associations Bryan Fischer added, "BSA now stands for Boy Sodomizers of America, because that's what will happen. Mark my words."

"Homofascist agenda" -- that's pretty funny. The response from the Southern Baptist Convention was equally hilarious:

Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee President Frank Page, who had met with Scouting leaders and urged them to maintain the current policy, said he was "deeply saddened" that the BSA overturned its "constitutionally protected expressive message that homosexual behavior is incompatible with the principles enshrined in the Scout Oath and Scout Law.

"We know that the pressures exerted against the voting members of the 1,400 chartered organizations by homosexual activist groups have been unrelenting," Page said. "We are grateful for each voting member who voted in the minority, but our sadness for the Scouting organization as a whole cannot be overstated."

Page said the vote "ushers in a sea-change in the credibility of the Boy Scouts of America as a viable boys' organization for millions of Americans who believe strongly in the principles of biblical morality. To claim that the Boys Scouts is the nation's foremost youth program of character development and values-based leadership training suddenly rings hollow."

"Biblical morality." I love it how hate groups like these spew their bullshit and then justify it by citing the Bible.

Great Charlie Cook Piece On GOP Over-Reach (With Update)

It is titled "Republicans’ Hatred of Obama Blinds Them to Public Disinterest in Scandals," and is definitely worth a look.  Here are the first couple of paragraphs:

Red-faced Republicans, circling and preparing to pounce on a second-term Democratic president they loathe, do not respect, and certainly do not fear. Sound familiar? Perhaps reminiscent of Bill Clinton’s second term, after the Monica Lewinsky story broke? During that time, Republicans became so consumed by their hatred of Clinton and their conviction that this event would bring him down that they convinced themselves the rest of the country was just as outraged by his behavior as they were. By the way, what was Clinton’s lowest Gallup job-approval rating in his second term, throughout the travails of investigations and impeachment? It was 53 percent. The conservative echo machine had worked itself into such a frenzy, the GOP didn’t realize that the outrage was largely confined to the ranks of those who never voted for Clinton anyway.

These days, the country is even more polarized, and the conservative echo chamber is louder than ever before. Many conservatives made it all the way to Election Day last November unaware that their White House nominee was falling short. How could Mitt Romney possibly lose when everyone they knew was voting for him? Except that he did lose, and it wasn’t even a very close race. Five other post-World War II presidential elections had closer outcomes. * * *

I've long argued that the GOP's biggest problem is that they buy into their own bullshit way too much. One conservative writer, several weeks prior to the 2012 Election, actually described the first four years of the Obama Presidency as "a trainwreck of Carter-esque magnitude."

Bill Maher describes this phenomenon as "living in the bubble," and I've witnessed it myself in people I know.  I thought the ass-kicking that the GOP received in the last election might have caused some Republicans to open their eyes a bit, but I guess not. Now we know why they call it "blind hatred."

UPDATE:  Here is the best quote yet on "BenghaziGate," and it comes from a Republican Congressional aide:

“We have got to get past that and figure out what are we going to do going forward.  Some of the accusations, I mean you wouldn’t believe some of this stuff. It’s just — I mean, you’ve got to be on Mars to come up with some of this stuff.”

Hilarious.

Is This PenisGate All Over Again? (With Update)

Anyone who lived through Bill Clinton's Lewinski Scandal probably remembers that Clinton maintained high approval ratings even through an impeachment process.  This was because most people realized at the time that the whole thing was politically motivated.

A similar thing appears to be happening with regard to all of Obama's recent "scandals" (via Steve Benen):

CNN released a poll yesterday showing Obama's approval rating going up, not down, reaching 53%. What's more, Gallup daily tracking put the president's standing at 47% a week ago, then reaching 51% on Saturday, before inching to 50% yesterday.

How is this possible given the media firestorm and the constant talk of a "White House in crisis"? It may have something to do with the fact that there are partisan differences in how the news is being perceived.

The problem for the Republicans is that they hate President Blackenstein so much that they are reacting to pretty much anything negative that occurs within the executive branch as if it is the biggest "scandal" in American history. Both Benghazi and the IRS "scandal" have been described by Republicans as "worse than Watergate." If you cry "wolf!" enough, people are going to stop listening.

So hate-filled are the Republicans toward Obama that they even released false versions of e-mails in order to make the Benghazi situation appear far worse than it was.  Needless to say -- when you have to falsify the record in order to create a scandal, there probably wasn't a scandal to begin with.

The average American hates shit like that because the average American doesn't invest a lot of time in hating the President.  But a good chunk of Republicans wake up every morning furious that we have a Black president and beside themselves in anger that things like Social Security, Medicare, and the Individual Health Care Mandate actually exist in this country (I've long found Republican anger over ObamaCare to be particularly hilarious given that the Individual Mandate was originally a GOP idea).

My advice to all these America haters?  Move to another country, but good luck finding an industrialized nation that doesn't have some form of government-supported health care for its people.

UPDATE:  Paul Brandus summed it all up this way:

One reason Republicans are so obsessed with exploiting these "scandals" is because the one issue that Americans truly care about — jobs and the economy — is getting better. *** Benghazi, a couple of rogue IRS employees in Cincinnati (working under a Bush appointee), or the Justice Department seizing records from the Associated Press (after Republicans asked the Justice Dept. to investigate leaks) -- they are all serious issues. But it seems Americans, at least for now, have bigger fish to fry.

Except perhaps for the President's killing of bin Laden, I can't think of anything that would infuriate Republicans more than an improving economy under Obama, given how much effort the GOP has expended to keep the economy in the shitter.

The Real Benghazi Scandal

This is hilarious:

One day after The White House released 100 pages of Benghazi emails, a report has surfaced alleging that Republicans released a set with altered text.

CBS News reported Thursday that leaked versions sent out by the GOP last Friday had visible differences than Wednesday's official batch. Two correspondences that were singled out in the report came from National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes and State Department Spokeswoman Victoria Nuland.

The real question now should be: What did John Boehner and Darrell Issa know of these GOP e-mail fabrications and when did they know it?

How Should Obama Deal With the AP Scandal?

That's easy -- he should send to Congress an exact copy of the bill he co-sponsored back in 2007 which would have required federal court approval before reporters’ phone records could be subpoenaed:

[Darrell] Issa was one of 21 House members who opposed the Free Flow of Information Act of 2007, a measure that would have forbidden federal investigators from compelling journalists to give evidence without first obtaining a court order. The bill included a section that specifically forbid subpoenaing journalists’ phone records from “communication service providers” to the same extent that the law protected the journalists themselves.

This is actually a no-brainer for Obama. The Republicans -- including Darrell Issa -- are attacking Obama on this AP deal as we speak, so you can imagine how pissed off Issa and other Republicans would be if Obama sent Congress this bill.  The GOP successfully filibustered it in the Senate back in 2007, but there is no way in hell they could pull that crap again under these circumstances. They'd have to change their vote, or look like complete hypocrites. Talk about putting the turd in the other guys' pocket.

The most hilarious part is that if they voted "yes" on such legislation, they'd be handing Obama a political victory in that they would actually be voting for something that Obama supports, which is something they just haven't been able to do in the last four years. They'd probably accuse Obama of engaging in political opportunism, but that would be a hard sell given that, as noted above, Obama co-sponsored the exact same legislation in 2007.

I'll Believe It When I See It

This would be a good move, but it will never happen:

Senate Democrats frustrated with the GOP’s blocking of a string of President Obama’s nominees are seriously weighing a controversial tactic known as the “nuclear option.”

The option — which would involve Democrats changing Senate rules through a majority vote to prevent the GOP from using the 60-vote filibuster to block nominations — was raised during a private meeting Wednesday involving about 25 Democratic senators and a group of labor leaders.

And by the way, this might be one of the most hilarious things anyone has said all year, and it came from the mouth of Karl Rove. He's speaking on Fox News about the emerging story that the IRS targeted Tea Bagger groups: "It would be a nightmare at the White House if this had been done on our watch," said Rove.

Really?

If the IRS did target the Baggers, then heads should roll.  Now no one dislikes that group more than I do, but the Baggers have a right to free speech (just as I have the right to call the Bagger movement anti-American).  But the notion that something like this didn't happen during the Bush Administration just might be one of the most ridiculous things Karl Rove has ever said, and that's saying a lot.

The truth is that this kind of crap was going on constantly during the Bush Regime.  The examples of such activity are too numerous to mention here -- this Salon piece provides the details.  California Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff summed it up this way:

“I wish there was more GOP interest when I raised the same issue during the Bush administration, where they audited a progressive church in my district in what look liked a very selective way.  I found only one Republican, [North Carolina Rep. Walter Jones], that would join me in calling for an investigation during the Bush administration. I’m glad now that the GOP has found interest in this issue and it ought to be a bipartisan concern.”

I couldn't agree more.

They Just Can't Help Themselves

Sometimes I get the impression that the GOP really doesn't want to improve relations with the Hispanic community:

Immigration activists are praising the Heritage Foundation for accepting the resignation of researcher Jason Richwine, who argued in recent years that groups of non-white immigrants have inherently lower IQs that could make it impossible for them to adequately assimilate in America. Heritage distanced itself from his past statements, but stood by his work co-authoring a recent study claiming immigration reform would cost $6.3 trillion in large part because undocumented immigrants would fail to improve their education or income levels.

“We welcome Mr. Richwine's resignation, but are still waiting for the Heritage Foundation to renounce the findings of his research, which like his claims about Latino IQ's are false and unbecoming of a research institution like the Heritage Foundation,” Arturo Carmona, executive director of Latino advocacy group Presente.org said in a statement. “Hiring racists like Richwine is unacceptable, but what's worse is putting their organization's name on a report laden with faulty research.”

Now, I'm certain there are plenty of folks in the Republican Party who are not racists, perhaps several thousand. The problem is, however, that there are a shitload of racists within the party who have absolutely no interest in improving relations with Hispanics; and the aforementioned Jason Richwine -- and his former boss Jim DeMint -- are great examples of such people.

This will be a fascinating fight in the coming months. In one corner will be the Republicans who are truly struggling to maintain their Party as a going concern, and in the opposite corner are folks who would prefer to see the GOP die rather than have their Party curry favor with Hispanics or other minorities.

GOP Suicide March Continues

I laughed out loud when I read this (from Steve Benen):

Ordinarily, when the chair of a major political party is forced to resign, it's safe to assume there's been some kind of scandal. Occasionally, there's suspected embezzlement or a personal scandal that brings a chair's judgment into question, but as a rule, a resignation is tied to some kind of disgrace.

But not always. The chair of the Illinois Republican Party, for example, has been forced to give up his post for the shocking crime of supporting the right of gay Americans to get married.

Usually, when a political party gets handed its ass in two successive presidential elections, its smarter members realize it is time to alter tactics and the party changes with the times.  But not the GOP.  The Republican Party is still letting its radicals run things, and I can't get enough of it.

Worst Political News Of 2013 So Far

This is depressing:

Rep. Steve King (R-IA) announced that he would not run for U.S. Senate from Iowa in 2014. "This week, I made a simple device to put toothpaste back in the tube. But a device to put the Leftist genie back in the bottle is not so simple. The best tool we have now is the majority in the U.S. House which functions mostly to keep the Leftist genie in the bottle. I cannot, in good conscience, turn my back on the destiny decisions of Congress today in order to direct all my efforts to a Senate race for next year, while hoping to gain the leverage to put the genie back in the bottle in 2015."

I thought King was a sure thing.  As I said a couple months ago: "If you liked Richard Mourdock and Todd Akin, then you're gonna love Steve King."  I have a feeling the GOP hierarchy got ahold of this guy and told him to stay the fuck away from the Iowa Senate race. This is very sad news.

When You Ain't Got Nothing, You've Got Nothing To Lose

The "Benghazi Scandal" that John McCain and other Republicans are trying to keep alive -- which is a tough thing to do given that there never really was a scandal to begin with -- reminds me more and more of Bill Clinton's PenisGate Scandal.  The Republicans were outraged by Clinton's sexual indiscretions -- outraged I say -- but nobody else seemed to give a shit.  Benghazi is the same deal.

And that is why I love this so much:

Pressure is mounting on House Republican leaders to form a special committee to investigate the September attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, that resulted in the death of U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens.

I completely understand why some members of the GOP want to do this.  Put yourself in their shoes -- they hate this President.  They hate Obama with every fiber of their being, mostly because he is a Black man.

And that is why the Obama Presidency has been so frustrating for the GOP.  Although Republicans can shut down a good part of Obama's domestic agenda because 60 votes are now required in the Senate to get anything done, they couldn't -- and still can't -- do a goddam thing about Obama's foreign policy, and behold the result:  BushCo's Iraq Debacle is over, the War in Afghanistan is winding down, Obama successfully intervened in Libya and Gadaffi is now gone, he sent Seal Team 6 into Pakistan and killed Osama bin Laden, he reversed the Bush/Cheney torture policies, he pushed through a new START treaty, he has decimated the ranks of Al Qaeda via drone strikes, etc. etc. etc.

Had the previous administration also enjoyed a successful foreign policy, perhaps the GOP wouldn't be as mad at Obama for his achievements.  But the Bush/Cheney foreign policy was a clusterfuck of epic proportions, which makes Obama's successes stand out even more.

So why this GOP obsession with Benghazi?  I think Richard Gere summed it up best in this scene:

The Idiot Inhofe Is At It Again (With Update)

I've long held the belief that Oklahoma Senator Jim Inhofe is the dumbest person in Congress.  I know -- that's a big claim given all the idiocy on the GOP side over there, but I will say this with assurance:  Inhofe is the dumbest U.S. Senator currently serving (from TPM):

Republican lawmakers are pushing legislation aimed at combating a threat to gun rights that even the National Rifle Association has described as pure fiction.

A bill introduced late last week by Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) and Rep. Frank Lucas (R-OK) would ban federal agencies, excluding the Pentagon, from buying more ammunition during a six-month period if it currently possesses more than its monthly averages during the Bush administration.

The conspiracy theory that incubated the bill is that the Obama administration is trying to buy up bullets so ordinary Americans have less access to them in the marketplace.

“President Obama has been adamant about curbing law-abiding Americans’ access and opportunities to exercise their Second Amendment rights,” Inhofe said in a statement. “One way the Obama Administration is able to do this is by limiting what’s available in the market with federal agencies purchasing unnecessary stockpiles of ammunition.”

Only it’s false — as no less a pro-gun organization than the NRA declared last year.

The most hilarious part about all of this is that most right wingers would probably believe that all this stuff about the gubmit taking bullets away is true.  In fact, they'd convince themselves to believe it even if they had doubts simply because it gives them another reason to hate the evil President Blackenstein.

By the way, this is encouraging:

Public Policy Polling released the latest in a series of surveys it has conducted that show five senators who voted against a bill that would have required all gun sales over the Internet and at gun shows to be subject to background checks, are in hot water with voters.

The survey was conducted last week between April 25 and 26. PPP surveyed more than 1,000 voters in Alaska, 600 in Arizona, 500 in Nevada and 600 in Ohio.

"The background checks vote is a rare one that really is causing these senators trouble back home," Dean Debnam, president of PPP said in a release. "All five of these senators ... have seen their approval numbers decline in the wake of this vote. And the numbers make it clear that their position on Manchin/Toomey is a major factor causing the downward spiral."

Well, I guess that's what happens when you oppose legislation that 90% of the country supports. Meanwhile, Republican Senator Pat Toomey actually got a boost in the polls due to his recent co-sponsorship of a bill to expand background checks.

UPDATE:  Speaking of Senator Toomey, here is what he had to say today about why a bill expanding background checks -- which had 90% support in this country -- ultimately failed: “In the end it didn’t pass because we’re so politicized -- there were some on my side who did not want to be seen helping the President do something he wanted to get done, just because the President wanted to do it.”

When I read Toomey's statement, I immediately thought of what Obama said yesterday during his press conference with regard to Republicans in Congress:

Their base thinks that compromise with me is somehow a betrayal. They're worried about primaries. And I understand all that. And we're going to try to do everything we can to create a permission structure for them to be able to do what's going to be best for the country. But it's going to take some time.

Of course, this is nothing new (although the whole concept of a "permission structure" -- whatever the hell that is -- appears to be a new one). The GOP hasn't agreed with Obama on anything, and has even gone so far as to reject Republican ideas that Obama embraces (e.g., Pay-Go, the Bipartisan Deficit Commission, the Individual Health Care Mandate, Cap and Trade, trying terrorism suspects in federal court). But it certainly is interesting to hear a Republican Senator admit to all this.