Suicide Caucus Or Not? (With Update)

Here is one Tea-Bagger who accepts his role as a lemming:

[Rep. Phil Gingrey, R-Ga.] said Republicans were “absolutely” prepared to lose the House to extract concessions on the CR and the debt limit, and he said the White House is “missing the determination of the Republican Party.”

The Republicans are definitely having problems with their message right now.  So what is it -- are the Baggers on a suicide run or do they really believe -- as a lot of Republicans are now claiming -- that a default would be a minor thing?  Whatever it is, Steve Benen does not think that the Baggers are very good hostage takers:

Let's say the default deniers are right. They're not, but let's just say they are for the sake of conversation, and the consequences of the United States ignoring its financial obligations would be minor. If that's true, why should President Obama and congressional Democrats pay a steep ransom to let the hostage go?

In other words, Republican lawmakers are presenting Dems with the following message: "Meet our demands or we'll shoot the hostage. And by the way, even if we pull the trigger, the hostage will probably be fine." I'm not an expert in hostage crises, but there seems to be a problem here.

I think the Baggers are having a message problem because they want the economic chaos that will result from a default. Why do they want that?  Because they believe that history will blame President Blackenstein for it. 

But they can't come out and just say they want economic chaos. These folks are idiots, but they are smart enough to know that you shouldn't admit to intentionally trying to bring down the economy. Then you'd have to explain why you hate America so much. So instead they simply say that a default on our debt wouldn't be a big deal, even though they are quietly expecting that it will be. 

They clearly wanted to shut the government down.  Why else would they demand from the President the one thing they knew he couldn't give them, namely, the repeal of ObamaCare?  The Baggers made Obama an "offer" they knew he'd refuse.

Anyone who previously questioned whether the GOP would rather see the economy tank than let Obama achieve even a perceived victory should doubt no longer.  Mitch McConnell himself proclaimed several years ago the the GOP plan was to bring down Obama, and the country is now witnessing what happens when a major political party lets hatred for the President drive its agenda.

UPDATE:  Looks like the Kock Brothers just blinked:

In a letter to U.S senators dated Wednesday, Koch Industries denied ever advocating for a government shutdown as a way to force the defunding of Obamacare. The letter was in response to comments on the Senate floor Tuesday by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) in which he blamed Koch for the shutdown, which followed a conservative push to pressure Democrats into defunding or delaying Obamacare to keep the government open.

The Brain Dead Zone (With Update)

"I think, personally, it would bring stability to the world markets."

-- Rep. Ted Yoho (R-FL), on breaching the debt ceiling.

Now I'm not posting merely to point out that this Yoho character is a piece of shit.  What I found a bit interesting -- in an unnerving way -- was that right after I read that quote, this scene from "The Dead Zone" popped into my head:



Let's face facts. A lot of the very same Baggers who are intentionally trying to crash our economy are also heavy-duty Bible beaters. You know the kind: they think that the Earth is 6000 years old and the End Times are just around the corner (e.g., Michele Bachmann) -- or worse yet, they believe the End Times are just around the corner and they feel they have a personal role to play in bringing them about.

We've seen that kind of crap before, but never for such high stakes or with such a high level of accompanying lunacy. Who could forget this oldie but a goodie from the Bush years:

Many conservative Christians say they believe that the president’s support for Israel fulfills a biblical injunction to protect the Jewish state, which some of them think will play a pivotal role in the second coming. Many on the left, in turn, fear that such theology may influence decisions the administration makes toward Israel and the Middle East.

Anyway, has anybody considered the possibility that perhaps these Tea-Baggers who want to bring down our country are just, well . . . how do I say it --  religious nutcases who want to usher in the Era of the Anti-Christ?

UPDATE:  Right on cue:

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) accused President Obama of arming al Qaeda militants in Syria and said it was evidence "we're in God's end times," The Hill reports.



Said Bachmann: "This happened and as of today the United States is willingly, knowingly, intentionally sending arms to terrorists. Now what this says to me, I'm a believer in Jesus Christ, as I look at the End Times scripture, this says to me that the leaf is on the fig tree and we are to understand the signs of the times, which is your ministry, we are to understand where we are in God's end times history."

My Apology to Ramesh Ponnuru

Over a year ago, I was critical of conservative writer Ramesh Ponnuru for stating: “If Obama wins re-election, the Republican Party will react by moving right, not left.” I responded to Mr. Ponnuru by basically stating he was full of shit. I said: "How will the GOP move more to the right than they are now? Are they going to start wearing swastikas on their arms?"

Well, he was right and I was wrong, and I apologize for my error.

Quote(s) Of The Week

The Republican Party is like the corpse in Weekend at Bernie's and the Tea Party is like the two guys who put sunglasses and a party hat on it and drag it around.  The Republican who summarized it best this week -- he was all over the news -- was this Indiana Tea Party guy named Marlin Stutzman, who said “We’re not going to be disrespected. We have to get something out of this. And I don’t even know what that is.”  Say what you will about a toddler throwing a tantrum in a grocery store -- at least he knows he wants Cocoa Puffs.

- Bill Maher.

Obama’s view, which I share, is that the debt ceiling fight is far more important not only than the specific policies on the table, or even the catastrophic economic consequences of a debt breach. It’s a fight to preserve the Constitutional order. ***

[T]he bigger problem here is that conservatives are not acknowledging the Democrats’ belief. It’s not a pose. They genuinely think, regardless of the merits of the ransom demand, they can’t give in, both for the national long-term interest and on moral principle. Conservatives are acting like the problem here is that they asked for a bit too much to begin with, and want to start haggling down the price. The price isn’t the issue. If the conservative goal is to create the illusion of winning something for the debt ceiling, then they’ll come back next time to win more, and Democrats can’t allow that.

- Jonathan Chait.

What Is The One Thing That Can End The Shutdown?

This:

A new Fox News poll finds that President Obama's overall job rating has improved 5 percentage points over last month: 45% approve now, up from 40% in September.

The radicals within the GOP are pushing this whole shutdown scheme because they hate government, but they hate Obama more and they won't be able to tolerate watching his approval numbers climb.

The GOP needs to accept the political truth of all this:  Obama isn't in a big hurry to end the shutdown. He can continually lob grenades into the GOP camp and all the GOP can do is feebly try to make the case that the Democrats are responsible for the shutdown, a notion only Fox News appears to be buying into.  The White House knows the longer this shutdown lasts, the better it is for Obama.  As a senior White House official said yesterday: "We are winning...It doesn't really matter to us" how long the shutdown lasts "because what matters is the end result."

Although I wouldn't have advised anyone in the Administration to make a comment like that, it does happen to be the truth.  The Democrats are standing strong right now, and the Republicans are beginning to attack each other.  Ted Cruz took a beating last Wednesday during a closed door meeting with fellow GOP senators:

[O]ne GOP senator after another pressed Cruz to offer a proposal to end the shutdown, according to Politico. The junior senator from Texas reportedly had no solution nor could he explain how he would defund the Affordable Care Act – an effort led by Cruz and Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) that served as the impetus for the current shutdown.

“It was very evident to everyone in the room that Cruz doesn’t have a strategy – he never had a strategy, and could never answer a question about what the end-game was,” an unnamed senator told Politico. “I just wish the 35 House members that have bought the snake oil that was sold could witness what was witnessed today at lunch."

Needless to say, I am enjoying this whole shutdown story quite a bit. I'm sadddened that a lot of people are suffering because of it, but the GOP is going to take a big hit for causing it, which will be a good thing for the country in the long run.

And the absolute best part of all this? The Baggers who caused this mess are not going anywhere. A lot of them are gerrymandered in. Some of these idiots could go out and shoot a hundred people on live TV and they'd still win reelection in their very red-colored districts (they'd argue they were simply exercising their Second Amendment rights when they shot all those people, and their constituents would believe it).

It's as if a self-destruct mechanism was build into the GOP itself. Normally, if a small group of radicals was damaging the brand of a major political party, then the radicals would be purged from the party's ranks. But not in the bizarro world of the GOP -- the radicals are the ones purging the moderates from the party. I think Oregon Congressman Greg Walden said it best about a month ago when he was asked why the GOP was flirting with shutting down the government: “We have to do this because of the Tea Party. If we don’t, these guys are going to get primaried and they are going to lose their primary.”

So there you have it.  The Baggers are here to stay and they will destroy the Republican Party, unless someone can convince the Koch Brothers and other rich conservatives to stop funding them. Let's hope that doesn't happen.

Republicans Blamed For Shutdown (With Update)

Well, so much for the Republican dream that Obama and the Democrats will be blamed for the shutdown.  Here is a compilation of editorials from around the country regarding the shutdown, and the GOP is receiving near-universal blame for it, even by editorials boards who oppose ObamaCare.

I'm not surprised by this.  I remember the last time the GOP shut down the government.  They tried to blame the Democrats for it back then as well, but that didn't work.  However, I did write a couple days ago that I expected the shutdown to last only a few days, and one reason I thought it would be of short duration is because I knew the GOP would catch endless shit for it, even from folks who usually support the GOP.  But now I think this shutdown could last quite a long time.

During the last couple of days, I've been thinking a lot about an article I read after the 2012 Election. The article discussed how everyone in the Romney Camp was stunned that they lost the election.  One adviser actually said that Romney "was shellshocked" by his loss, Paul Ryan seemed "genuinely shocked," and Ryan's wife "was shaken and cried softly."  One senior Ronmey adviser even said: "We went into the evening confident we had a good path to victory -- I don't think  there was one person who saw it coming."

Well, maybe there wasn't a person in the Romney campaign who saw it coming, but most everybody else outside of Fox News did. I was stunned at the time by the fact that Romney himself "couldn't see the writing on the wall," given that a businessman of his alleged caliber "would presumably want to get the straight scoop on where he stood with the electorate."

Bill Maher describes this GOP inability to see reality as "living in the bubble."  But I believe what we are witnessing here is in fact a form of shellshock which I think has a variety of causes -- e.g., the election and reelection of a Black president, the passage of Health Care Reform after 100 years of trying, a conservative Supreme Court upholding the constitutionality of the Health Care Reform law, gay people actually getting some rights, the Pope saying that atheists can go to Heaven, marijuana being legalized in two states, the winding down of two wars, the fact that the GOP base is dying off while the Democratic base is expanding.

I think all of these historic developments over the last few years have overloaded the GOP psyche.  It is just too much for most Republicans to process over such a short period of time, and that is why we are seeing the GOP acting out the way it is now.

I think a lot of the Republicans who actually campaigned on the promise of shutting down the government and who fully support allowing this country to default on its debts are taking these radical positions because they just don't give a shit anymore about this country and the people who populate it. The one thing they do know is that Obama would never agree to shutter the Affordable Care Act.  That's why they made the demand.  They wanted the government to shut down and they want the United States to default on its debts, even though most of them understand a default would cause more economic upheaval.

Bottom line: It's really hard to negotiate with crazy people who are not only willing to bring down the entire country, but apparently want to bring the country down in much the same way terrorists want to. Ironically, these same Republican terrorizers also routinely accuse liberals and progressives of hating America.

UPDATE:  Well, nice try folks:

The monuments in Washington, D.C. -- and particularly the World War II memorial -- have become a symbol for the right to decry the government shutdown, even labeling the National Park Service shutdown "shock troops" designed to toss veterans out at will as they approach the memorial.

On Tuesday, Rep. Steve Palazzo (R-MS) reportedly opened the barricade of the World War II Memorial to let a group of veterans in. Rep. Steve King (R-IA) helped by "distract(ing) a police officer" to sneak the veterans in, according to a reporter on the scene. Even outgoing tea partier Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) made an appearance.

"President Obama is so fixated on forcing Obamacare on the American people that he's even willing to deny World War II veterans the right to access the memorial they have earned through their heroic service," Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) said in a statement on Wednesday.

Republicans say President Barack Obama has been so obsessed with pushing a governmental shutdown that he's refusing to allow anyone into the national parks and monuments (even though the National Park Service said on Wednesday that veterans would be allowed to visit the World War II memorial).

You just can't make this shit up.  The whole thing reminds me of a crappy movie.  Get better writers next time, GOP.

Solid Fallows Piece on "False Equivalency"

This James Fallows piece from last Friday -- titled "Your False Equivalency Guide to the Days Ahead" -- is definitely worth a read.  Some of my favorite parts:

This time, the fight that matters is within the Republican party, and that fight is over whether compromise itself is legitimate.*** Outsiders to this struggle -- the president and his administration, Democratic legislators as a group, voters or "opinion leaders" outside the generally safe districts that elected the new House majority -- have essentially no leverage over the outcome. ***

As a matter of journalism, any story that presents the disagreements as a "standoff," a "showdown," a "failure of leadership," a sign of "partisan gridlock," or any of the other usual terms for political disagreement, represents a failure of journalism*** and an inability to see or describe what is going on.***

This isn't "gridlock." It is a ferocious struggle within one party, between its traditionalists and its radical factions, with results that unfortunately can harm all the rest of us -- and, should there be a debt default, could harm the rest of the world too.

This "failure of journalism" to which Fallows refers has really annoyed me over the years.  The GOP has done such a number on the mainstream press that some journalists are afraid to tell the truth, namely, that Republicans are not only responsible for gridlock in Washington, but they have admitted their responsibility and actually brag about it.

I've said it before and I'll say it again:  the problem is that the Mainstream Press has no interest in reporting what may be the most underreported story in recent political history, namely, the radicalization of the Republican Party over the last few years.  A lot of folks in the Press are not reporting this important story because they are too scared to report it, but it really is The Big Story right now because the radicalized elements within the GOP are basically calling the shots right now and are killing the Republican Party in the process.

When was the last time a major political party went belly up in this country? Well, we are seeing this happen right now, and I find it hilarious that one of the great political stories of our time is going unreported because journalists are so afraid of the GOP that they are unable to notice the stench of death beginning to emanate from that Party.

By the way -- as usual, Jon Stewart nails it.

A Few Thoughts on the Government Shutdown (With Updates)

Let me begin by stating that I am really enjoying the opening skirmishes of what history will ultimately call "The Great Republican Civil War," an epic struggle that will end the GOP's run as a major political party. Once that happens, then the United States can begin to rebuild from all the damage the Republicans have caused over the last few decades.

But in the meantime, here is my take on the GOP's threat to shut down the government tomorrow:

Although I am fairly certain that there are enough votes in the House to pass a clean continuing resolution, Boehner will probably not allow that to happen because he is too afraid that Ted Cruz (R-Canada) and the rest of the Baggers will force him out as Speaker if he allowed such a vote (I know that Ted Cruz is not a member of the House, but someone really needs to tell him that). 

So I believe there is a better than 50/50 chance that the government will shut down.  I predict, however, that the shutdown -- if it happens -- will only last a few days.  This is because Boehner, due to intense political pressure, will have no choice but to end it by allowing a straight up-and-down vote on the clean CR.  And that is where the fun will begin because - after the whole shutdown thing is resolved - the Republicans must then move on to their next fake crisis, namely, their threat to bring down the American economy by voting not to raise the Debt Ceiling. 

My question is:  If Boehner and the Baggers allow the government to shut down tomorrow (even if only for a few days), will forcing a fake Debt Ceiling crisis two weeks later simply be too much bullshit for most Americans to take in such a short space of time?  I think it will be.

And that is why I believe there remains a good chance (not a 50/50 chance but still a good one) that a government shutdown will be averted at the last minute. This is because Boehner may yet be able to convince even the more radicalized members of his caucus that they can't both have a government shutdown and a Debt Ceiling default all in the same month. That means the radicals will have to choose one or the other, and I think they just might settle on the Debt Ceiling default as their manufactured crisis of choice.

All of this will probably come down to how badly Boehner wants to keep his speakership.  If he doesn't care about it, then a shutdown will be averted by a straight up-and-down vote on the clean CR.  But if he wants to remain Speaker of the House, then he will allow a shutdown to happen tomorrow.

And what will the Democrats do in the meantime?  Well, if they are smart, they will do absolutely nothing.  There's an old lawyer saying that goes:  If you are winning, then shut the fuck up, especially when the enemy is tearing itself apart.

My advice to the Democrats?  Just sit back and enjoy the spectacle now unfolding in the GOP.  It promises to be a great show.

UPDATE:  This is pretty funny:

Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) had choice words for fellow House Republicans who are willing to see the government shut down over their opposition to Obamacare: “Lemmings with suicide vests,” he called them.  "They have to be more than just a lemming. Because jumping to your death is not enough,” he said.

I also read somewhere that one of Rep. Nunes' aides added that to compare these guys to lemmings isn't right because such a comparison "would be unfair to lemmings." 

Needless to say, I can't get enough of this.



UPDATE II: Well, that little battle didn't last long:

Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA), who just hours ago was castigating his colleagues as "lemmings" for shutting down the government over Obamacare, has now decided he's going to go lemming and vote with Boehner after all.

Blacktracking

From Real Time With Bill Maher:

The Debate On Whether To Attack Syria Is Essentially Over (With Update)

All that is left now is the actual launching of the missiles (via Politico):

The powerful pro-Israel lobby AIPAC is planning to launch a major lobbying campaign to push wayward lawmakers to back the resolution authorizing U.S. strikes against Syria, sources said Thursday.

Officials say that some 250 Jewish leaders and AIPAC activists will storm the halls on Capitol Hill beginning next week to persuade lawmakers that Congress must adopt the resolution or risk emboldening Iran’s efforts to build a nuclear weapon. They are expected to lobby virtually every member of Congress, arguing that “barbarism” by the Assad regime cannot be tolerated, and that failing to act would “send a message” to Tehran that the U.S. won’t stand up to hostile countries’ efforts to develop weapons of mass destruction, according to a source with the group.

Everybody knows that pretty much every Republican in Congress -- excluding perhaps some of the more radicalized members of the Bagger contingent -- would fully support an attack on Syria except for one thing:  President Blackenstein currently occupies the White House and he not only supports strikes against Syria but is actively pushing for them.

What this means is that, prior to today, there would have been no way in hell that a majority of Republicans in Congress would vote to strike Syria because that would be doing what Obama wants and there is no way Republicans would ever support Obama on anything, even on ideas that the GOP had previously supported (i.e., Pay-Go, the Bipartisan Deficit Commission, the Individual Health Care Mandate, Cap and Trade, trying terrorism suspects in federal court, and on and on and on).

But today's AIPAC announcement changes everything.  Prior to today, one of the biggest gripes from Republicans with regard to Obama's foreign policy is the President's intense hatred of Israel.  Even the Idiot Palin has weighed in on this issue.  But now we have a situation where Israel agrees with Obama on an issue, and the only way the GOP can oppose Obama on his desire to attack Syria is if Republicans also oppose Israel on the very same issue.

And that just ain't gonna happen.

UPDATE:  Here are examples of two Republicans who were for striking Syria before they were against our first black president's plan to attack that country:

In another example of the pressures facing Republican congressmen, Rep. Mike Coffman (R-CO) is backing off an earlier public statement of support for limited military action in Syria. Coffman’s initial support for the plan, which came before President Barack Obama asked for congressional approval, unequivocally supported a limited military strike in retaliation for the Assad regime’s use of chemical weapons, but now Coffman says he’s undecided as the vote approaches. ***

Coffman isn’t the only House member to back away from supporting an attack. Also on Thursday, Roll Call reported that Rep. Michael G. Grimm (R-NY) was withdrawing his support from Obama’s plan to attack Syria.

Don't get me wrong -- racism is a really bad thing.  But sometimes it causes incredibly hilarious things to happen, and this is one of them.  Both these guys are going to have to flip-flop again now that Israel supports Obama's plan to attack Syria.  At the very least, the Congressman from New York will have to re-change his position.

A Horrible Week For The GOP

You just have to think that all of the far-right-wing Republicans -- namely, 98% of the current GOP -- are pretty depressed this week. First of all, you have the whole 50th anniversary of the March on Washington debacle -- not a single prominent Republican attended. How did the GOP defend this massive fuck-up on its part? Well, by expressing outrage, of course -- outrage that no Republicans were invited to this event.

That turned out to be false -- shitloads of Republicans were invited.  Every single one of them turned down the invitation, however, which is understandable, given that there isn't a prominent Republican in this country who would allow himself to be photographed at an event commemorating, among other things, the 50th anniversary of MLK's "I Have a Dream" speech.

Fox News did its best to push this "no Republicans were invited" horseshit earlier in the week, but that effort fell apart, culminating in a very rare on-air apology by Mr. O'Lie-lly himself:

Bill O'Reilly apologized Thursday night for his erroneous comments about the 50th anniversary celebrations of the March on Washington the previous day.  O'Reilly had complained that no Republicans had been invited to the event. In fact, many, including both living Republican presidents, John McCain, Jeb Bush and John Boehner had been asked to attend. All declined for various reasons. O'Reilly admitted that he had been wrong.

"The mistake? Entirely on me," he said. "I simply assumed ... Republicans were excluded."  He advised viewers to "always check out the facts when you make a definitive statement, and added that he was "sorry I made that mistake."

The GOP's last hope was to push the notion that the Senate's only black lawmaker -- Senator Tim Scott (R-S.C.) -- wasn't invited, but that was also false. Senator Scott, it turned out, declined an invitation as well. I'm still waiting for Fox News to do the right thing on this, i.e., criticize Republicans for not showing up at this event.  I have a feeling that will be a long wait.

The GOP's bad week also included problems for the Heritage Foundation, the right wing group that -- ironically -- first came up with the idea of the individual health care mandate, the centerpiece for ObamaCare.  Here is Steve Benen's take on what happened:

The Kaiser Family Foundation published an interesting report this week on public attitudes on health care, noting among other things that 57% of Americans do not want to defund the Affordable Care Act. This was, of course, not what Republicans and their allies wanted to hear.

The Heritage Foundation was apparently so despondent with the findings that it lost its reading-comprehension skills -- the right-wing group unveiled a poster on Wednesday, asking folks to join the 57% of Americans who do want to defund "Obamacare." When Heritage was told it simply read the poll wrong, and got the results backwards, the organization made the same mistake again.

The Heritage Foundation was also banned this week from meetings of the Republican Study Committee, a group of 172 conservative Congressmen.

Things really turned to shit for the GOP yesterday.  Once again, here is Steve Benen to sum it all up:

The Obama administration's Department of Health and Human Services *** announced it will now extend key Medicare benefits to same-sex married couples. Soon after, the Justice Department cleared the way for Colorado's and Washington's marijuana laws to be implemented.

Also today, the White House announced new gun policies on background checks and the re-importation of U.S. military weapons; a California court endorsed a ban on so-called "conversion therapy"; and in case social conservatives weren't quite miserable enough, the IRS will now recognize same-sex marriages, even in states where marriage equality is impermissible.

I'm willing to bet that Republicans are more depressed now than they were on the day President Obama killed bin Laden. Yes, this last week was really that awful for them.

You Just Don't Get It, Do Ya Phyllis (and Mike and Rob and Ken)

I'm amazed by the number of Republicans who forget that the "real" (i.e., fake) reason for all the recently-passed voter suppression legislation is to stop fraud, not actually suppress the vote.  Most Republicans, when asked about these laws, state that the reason GOP legislatures are restricting the vote in states like Pennsylvania, Texas, and North Carolina is to stop rampant voter fraud (which, by the way, doesn't seem to exist anywhere).

But every once in awhile, a Republican comes clean about the real reason these laws are being enacted. Last summer, Pennsylvania Republican House Leader Mike Turzai actually boasted that voter identification efforts in that state were designed to suppress the Democratic vote, stating that Voter ID “is gonna allow Governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania, done.” Well, that didn't happen, although Pennsylvania’s Republican Chairman Rob Gleason recently bragged about how the GOP “cut Obama by 5 percent” in 2012 and “probably Voter ID had helped a bit in that.”

Last June, Texas Tea-Bagger Activist Ken Emanuelson said:  “I’m going to be real honest with you -- the Republican Party doesn’t want black people to vote if they’re going to vote 9-to-1 for Democrats.”

And now we can welcome Radical Right-Winger Phyllis Schlafly to the party. In a recent WorldNutDaily column, Schlafly explained why North Carolina's new voter restriction laws are necessary:

The reduction in the number of days allowed for early voting is particularly important because early voting plays a major role in Obama’s ground game. The Democrats carried most states that allow many days of early voting, and Obama’s national field director admitted, shortly before last year’s election, that “early voting is giving us a solid lead in the battleground states that will decide this election.”

The Obama technocrats have developed an efficient system of identifying prospective Obama voters and then nagging them (some might say harassing them) until they actually vote. It may take several days to accomplish this, so early voting is an essential component of the Democrats’ get-out-the-vote campaign.

Astounding amount of truth-telling there, Phyllis.

Ted Cruz: A Gift Who Just Keeps On Giving

Texas Senator (and Joe McCarthy look-and-act-alike) Ted Cruz really wants to win the GOP nomination for president in 2016.  There is one minor complication, however -- he has the same problem that the Birthers can only fantasize Obama has, namely, Cruz was not born in the United States.

He was born in Canada, which I find hilarious because Ted Cruz is just the kind of guy the Baggers and the Birthers would love in the White House.  I've been waiting to see how the Radical Right addresses this problem (Racist Birther-In-Chief Donald Trump danced around the issue the other day).

The story became more interesting earlier this week when it was revealed that Cruz is currently a Canadian citizen due to the fact that he was born in Alberta.  This has become such a problem for the senator that last Monday he said he would renounce his Canadian citizenship.

And now we have this:

U.S. Senator Ted Cruz, who says he recently discovered he is likely a Canadian, must win security clearance from Canada's spy agency, fill out a four-page form and then wait up to eight months to sever his ties to America's northern neighbor.

Eight months?  That's an eternity in American presidential politics.  How do you not see something like this coming, especially a Harvard Law School graduate like Ted Cruz. He could have put this baby to rest years ago, but instead has to now jump through a lot of hoops in order to no longer be a citizen of a country that has long embraced [gasp!] socialized medicine.

And once all that is resolved, how will the Birthers differentiate Cruz's real birthplace (Canada) from Obama's fictional birthplace (Kenya)?  Are they simply going to come clean and say it is okay that Cruz was born in Calgary because Canada is full of white people whereas Kenya is full of black people?

The bottom line for me is that I really don't care where Cruz was born because I think he's constitutionally eligible to become president.  Plus I would really love to see a Radical Right-Wing Bagger like Cruz get the GOP presidential nomination in 2016. 

But would I be upset if some progressive billionaire funded a campaign to make Cruz's life a living hell with regard to this citizenship/eligibility issue?  Probably not.

Amazing Racists, Part XXVII

Republicans in Louisiana think that Obama is more to blame for the Hurricane Katrina Debacle than George W. Bush (via TPM):

Twenty-eight percent said they think former President George W. Bush, who was in office at the time, was more responsible for the poor federal response while 29 percent said Obama, who was still a freshman U.S. Senator when the storm battered the Gulf Coast in 2005, was more responsible. Nearly half of Louisiana Republicans — 44 percent — said they aren't sure who to blame.

I'd be interested in hearing what other things Louisiana Republicans blame our first Black president for (The Great Depression? The Dust Bowl? The Crucifixion of Christ?).

It's amazing the things that racial hatred will make a person believe.  I was camping with friends at a Central Oregon lake last month and was trying to take an afternoon nap when the following exchange about Obama took place in the campsite next to ours:

MALE:  "Man, I sure hope that Nigger doesn't get reelected in 2016."

FEMALE:  "Oh, I wouldn't worry about that -- somebody will shoot him by then, don't you think?"

There were several other people in that particular campsite at the time, so I expected at least one of them would have been smart enough to point out that Obama cannot run for a third term, but nobody did. 

And the most amazing thing of all is that every one of those individuals probably vote -- although they are going to be pretty surprised when they open their ballots in 2016 and Obama isn't on it.

Quote of the Week (With Update)

"I will bet you, for most of you, you go home in the next two weeks when your members of Congress are home, and you look them in the eye and you say, 'What is your positive replacement for Obamacare?' They will have zero answer.

"We are caught up right now in a culture, and you see it every single day, where as long as we are negative and as long as we are vicious and as long as we can tear down our opponent, we don't have to learn anything."

- Newt Gingrich, speaking at the opening session of the Republican National Committee's summer meeting last Wednesday.

Interestingly, Gingrich has a long history of supporting the Health Care Individual Mandate - the centerpiece of Obamacare - and many other prominent Republicans also supported the Individual Mandate prior the the election of Barack Obama as president (e.g., Mitt Romney, Former Senator Jim Fucking DeMint, Senators Orrin Hatch and Chuck Grassley, Former Senator Dick Lugar, Bob Dole, Alan Simpson, Arlen Specter, Judd Gregg, and Kay Hutchison.

And no, I am not making that last part up - all of those Republicans were in favor of the Health Care Individual Mandate prior to the election of President Blackenstein.  In fact, Jim Fucking DeMint, in February 2007, actually stated on Fox News that what Romney did in Massachusetts (i.e., an individual health care mandate also known as Romneycare) should be enacted on a national level.  DeMint's exact quote:  "Well, that's something that I think we should do for the whole country."

What is Jim Fucking DeMint doing now?  Well, he recently resigned from the Senate to take over the Heritage Foundation, and is (ironically) using that position to lead the charge against Obamacare.  Indeed, the recent poll indicating that an attempt to gut Obamacare by way of a government shutdown would not hurt the GOP was the product of Heritage Action for America, a "sister organization" of the Heritage Foundation. Both these organizations are aggressively supporting a movement to defund Obamacare.

But the irony does not end there, because it turns out that the Heritage Foundation is the conservative think-tank that came up with the idea of the Individual Mandate in the first place.  You just can't make this shit up.

UPDATE:  As usual, I can't get enough of this:

Just when they seemed to have the situation under control, Republican leaders are facing the wrath of conservatives who are furious that the heads of the party aren’t interested in risking a government shutdown over Obamacare this fall.

Conservative anxieties over the Affordable Care Act are reaching a boil as the law’s major provisions are set to take effect in the coming months. And an all-out grassroots mobilization during the month-long August recess by wealthy right-leaning groups like FreedomWorks and Heritage Action appears to be having an impact. Republican lawmakers have said their constituents are demanding they hold the line.

“I’m hearing a lot of anger that is right beneath the surface, ready to erupt,” said veteran Rep. Michael Burgess (R-TX), according to The Hill. Burgess, who has influence within his caucus on health policy, said the support for the defunding push was “virtually unanimous.” ***

I was never much of an Individual Mandate supporter. I've long thought that the best way to deal with the Health Care Crisis was to expand Medicare to cover everyone. But the beauty of Obama signing a health care reform bill featuring the Individual Mandate is that Republicans now lack a fall-back position.

Had Obama enacted the public option into law, the Republicans could have then proposed the individual mandate -- their own idea -- as a replacement for it.  But since Republicans have decided to oppose Obama on everything and have nowhere to go health care-wise, all they can do now is dress up like Founding Fathers and walk down the street pissing themselves while holding signs saying that Obama is a Fascist-Socialist-Kenyanist simply because he put into place what is essentially a market-oriented (i.e., conservative) solution to a very serious problem. 

Hilarious.

Racists Say The Darndest Things

Here is the new conspiracy theory from the folks who are furious that a Black Democratic president could do something in two years that a White Republican president couldn't do in eight years, namely, kill Osama bin Laden:

Conservatives seeking to unveil the transgressions of President Barack Obama's presidency seized upon another target Thursday: the iconic photograph capturing a tense moment in the White House Situation Room on the night of the raid upon Osama bin Laden.

After skeptics coaxed the White House into releasing a photo of Obama skeet shooting in February, and Fox News suggested a photo of Obama golfing was "staged" earlier this week, Bryan Fischer, a conservative radio host and an official with the American Family Association, followed suit with a familiar, and quite detailed, conspiracy theory.

"Look at the size of his head compared to the size of the head of everybody else in the room. Even people standing in the back of the room, their heads are bigger than his head," Fischer said on his show Focal Point. "And it looks teeny-tiny next to the people that he's sitting next to. He looks kind of hunched over and small."

He continued: "Frankly I think that got photoshopped in after deal. I think Obama's approach was, 'Hey, if this thing goes south, I don't want to be in the room. I don't want to be anywhere near this thing if it blows up. If it succeeds, if it's an outstanding success, then photoshop me in there.'"

Please God -- Let This Happen (With Update)

Via TPM:

A leading conservative group unveiled poll results Wednesday that it said should assuage Republicans who are squeamish about shutting down the government in an effort to defund Obamacare.

The poll from Heritage Action for America, first reported by NBC News, surveyed likely voters from 10 competitive House districts. According to Heritage Action, the results prove that triggering a government shutdown in an attempt to gut the new health care law would not be detrimental to the GOP.

The poll, conducted by GOP firm Basswood Research between Aug. 7-8, found that 28 percent of voters in the 10 districts would blame Republicans for a shutdown over defunding Obamacare, compared with 22 percent who would place blame on President Barack Obama and 19 percent who would blame Democrats in Congress. Seventeen percent said they would distribute blame equally among all three groups.

I just can't get enough of this stuff.  Of course a government shutdown will hurt the GOP, just like it did when the Republicans pulled the same crap back in 1995-96.  With regard to this threat to shut down government over ObamaCare, the President revealed what the Democratic response will be during a recent press conference:

In a White House news conference on Friday, the president was asked about Republican threats to shut the government down if appropriations legislation contained funding to continue putting the Affordable Care Act in place in the 50 states.
 
He replied, "The idea that you would shut down the government unless you prevent 30 million people from getting health care is a bad idea."  ***  Obama also expressed wonder that making sure 30 million people don't have health care is "the one unifying principle in the Republican Party at the moment."

"Why is it that my friends in the other party have made the idea of preventing these people from getting health care their holy grail; their number one priority?"

The reason such a response will be effective is because it is true -- the GOP has offered nothing to replace Obamacare.  But it gets better, because it turns out that shutting down the government will not stop the implementation of Obamacare. Even Mitch McConnell knows that:

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) told a crowd at Baptist Health Corbin, Ky. on Tuesday that shutting down the government won't actually stop the implementation of Obamacare. "I'm for stopping Obamacare, but shutting down the government will not stop Obamacare," he said, according to Tanner Hestberg, a local reporter for CBS affiliate WYMT.

McConnell is right: As a recent Congressional Research Service report found, a government shutdown would not impact major portions of the law which will continue to receive implementation funding that the law provides outside the appropriations process.

And the absolute best part of all this is that if the Republicans do not shut down the government over Obamacare, then you know the Baggers are going to make a big issue out of it in the 2014 GOP primaries. This means, of course, that the more moderate GOP members of Congress -- if there are any left -- will lose their primaries to the more radicalized members of their party (aka the Akin-Mourdock Effect). 

Shut the government down or don't shut it down -- it really doesn't matter in the long run because the GOP is toast regardless of what happens.  Now that's what I call a win-win.

So my response to Republicans who want to shut down the government over Obamacare?  Bring it on, Motherfuckers.

UPDATE:  Steve Benen reports on the latest GOP threat with regard to Obamacare, namely, the Republicans will agree to increased the debt limit only if the Democrats agree to delay the rollout of Obamacare.  In other words, the GOP is backing down on its threat to merely shut down the government, opting instead to intentionally bring down the American economy unless Obamacare is delayed. Ezra Klein describes it this way:

Trading a government shutdown for a debt-ceiling breach is like trading the flu for septic shock. And Boehner knows it. Republicans will effectively be going to the White House and saying, “Delay the health-care law or we will single-handedly cause an unprecedented and unnecessary global financial crisis that everyone will clearly and correctly blame on us, destroying our party for years to come.”

Bottom line: the biggest threat to the security of this country isn't China or Russia or al-Qaeda -- it's the fucking Republican Party. The GOP is on a suicide run and is apparently content to bring the whole country down with it.

More Ground-Standing In Zimmerman's Future?

"George Zimmerman is in hiding right now and his supporters are saying this is very unfair. They're saying that, despite the verdict of being acquitted, he doesn't think that he can just walk down the street now because there are people who'll look at him and see an obviously guilty man and might try to take matters into their own hands."

Bill Maher.

Racists Spring Into Action After Supreme Court Ruling (With Update)

Republicans engaged in a flurry of Titanic deck chair re-arranging following the U.S. Supreme Court's recent ruling striking down a portion of the Voting Rights Act.  Here is one example:

Texas is wasting no time capitalizing on the Supreme Court's ruling on the Voting Rights Act.

Shortly after the high court issued a sweeping 5-4 decision Tuesday striking down a centerpiece of the historic 1965 law, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott vowed to immediately implement a controversial voter ID law in the Lone Star State that was blocked last year by the now-gutted preclearance provision of the Voting Rights Act.

Texas Republicans are not alone in their quest to keep minorities from voting. GOP leaders in North Carolina are getting into the act as well:

The GOP chairman of the state Senate rules committee, Sen. Tom Apodaca, said he would move quickly to pass a voter ID law that Republicans say would bolster the integrity of the balloting process. GOP leaders also began engineering an end to the state's early voting, Sunday voting and same-day registration provisions, all popular with black voters. Civil rights groups say the moves are designed to restrict poll access by blacks, who vote reliably Democratic.

Republicans need to start facing facts: the barbarians are at the gate and there isn't a goddam thing they can do about it. These pointless exercises sort of remind me of this scene from the film Downfall.

The part of this I find absolutely hilarious is that all these efforts to keep minorities away from the polls only encourage more minorities to vote.

UPDATE:  Music to my ears (from Steve Benen):

[W]hat's driving [GOP opposition to immigration reform] is the growing sentiment in conservative circles that if the Republican Party can only improve its performance among white people -- getting 70% of the vote instead of 60% -- then its demographic death spiral isn't too big a deal after all. It's a thesis Real Clear Politics' Sean Trende has touted for months, which has grown considerably in recent months as Republican opposition to immigration reform has grown.

OK, I get it. The GOP plan is for Republicans to act out in even more racist ways than they are already doing, thus causing more white people to vote for GOP candidates. Of course, such a tactic will piss off minorities and cause even more of them to vote. So it really does come down to whether Republican voter suppression efforts are going to ultimately succeed.

The hammering you hear in the distance is from the construction of the Grand Old Party's coffin. These assholes would rather die than change.

I can live with that.

The New IRS Scandal

This is hilarious:

House Republicans on Wednesday pushed back on an inspector general’s suggestion that the GOP asked for a limited inquiry into the Internal Revenue Service’s targeting of conservative groups, a statement Democrats have jumped on in recent days.

GOP lawmakers and staffers acknowledge that they reached out to Treasury’s inspector general for tax administration (TIGTA) after hearing that Tea Party organizations seeking tax-exempt status felt they were being mistreated by the tax agency.

But Republicans also say that it made no sense for them to try to limit the inquiry to the Tea Party, because a broader inquiry would be needed to determine whether the IRS was treating conservative groups more harshly than other groups.

A spokesman for TIGTA J. Russell George said this week that the House Oversight Committee and Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) asked for a narrow inquiry just into Tea Party groups. Democrats allege this gave the public the false impression of a large IRS bias against conservatives. ***

You know, it's one thing for a GOP-fueled "scandal" to just fizzle out, like so many of them have in the last four years. But you just gotta love it when an attempt by Republicans to manufacture a "scandal" backfires so badly that the efforts to manufacture it become a scandal in and of itself.

I've asked this question before and I'll ask it again:  What did Darrell Issa know, and when did he know it?

Best First Few Sentences of an Opening Statement Ever

Pretty powerful opening statement [h/t Slic(k)]. 

And MSNBC or any other network shouldn't have to have a seven-second delay for broadcasts like this.  They should simply have to give their viewers a warning that there may be crude language used.  This is a murder trial for Christ's Sake. 

A Republican From Texas Who Has Never Read The Bible?

Apparently so.  Rep. Michael Burgess (R-Texas), who supports a legislative ban on all abortions after 20 weeks, said this the other day with regard to fetuses:

"This is a subject I know something about ... Watch a sonogram of a 15-week baby, and they have movements that are purposeful. They stroke their face. If they’re a male baby, they may have their hand between their legs. If they feel pleasure, why is it so hard to believe that they could feel pain?"

You can watch the video of his statement here. 

So fetal masturbation justifies banning abortion, Congressman?  Well, not according to God. As stated in Genesis 38: 8-10:

And Judah said unto Onan, Go in unto thy brother's wife, and marry her, and raise up seed to thy brother. And Onan knew that the seed should not be his; and it came to pass, when he went in unto his brother's wife, that he spilled it on the ground, lest that he should give seed to his brother. And the thing which he did displeased the Lord: wherefore he slew him also.

I never thought I'd hear a radical right-wing Republican (from Texas no less) actually make a Bible-based argument supporting abortion, but there it is.

Truer Words Have Never Been Spoken

“I’m going to be real honest with you -- the Republican Party doesn’t want black people to vote if they’re going to vote 9-to-1 for Democrats.”

Texas Tea-Bagger Activist Ken Emanuelson.

Racist?  Of course.  Un-American?  Absolutely. But this particular Republican should be praised for speaking the truth about the GOP.

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.

Quote of the Week

Fucking hilarious:

"I will tell one thing, from 9/12/01 until the time President Obama raised his right hand January of '09, the man kept us safe. And there -- you certainly can't say that since President Obama has taken the oath of office."

-- Eric Bolling of Fox News, praising George W. Bush.

Don't you just love the Radical Right's ability to gloss over the 9-11 Attacks -- which occurred during Bush's presidency -- as a virtual non-event?

With the Bush Presidential Library about to open, we are going to be hearing a lot of this kind of crap in the coming days. Of course, all this type of talk is more than simply an attempt to rehabilitate one of the worst presidents in our country's history -- it's also an assault on President Blackenstein and a not-so-subtle attempt to blame him for the Boston bombings.

I'll say this much:  if the radical right produces evidence that Obama, a few weeks prior to the bombings, was handed a memo saying "Two Disgruntled Men of Chechnyan Descent Determined to Bomb Boston Marathon" -- and it turns out that Obama responded to the persons who handed him the memo by saying, "OK, you've covered your ass" -- then I'll listen to what the Extreme Right has to say on this issue.

The bottom line here is that Bush got a warning just like that one prior to the 9-11 Attacks, he made the "cover your ass" statement and then did nothing in response to the warning, and 3000 people were killed. That's one of the reasons he has earned -- and will retain -- his spot as one of our worst presidents.  Of course, letting bin Laden escape at Tora Bora and then responding to the 9-11 Attacks by invading Iraq won't help his standing much either.