Quote of the Week

"[H]ow do we determine when a corporation has [a religious] belief? Who says it?  The majority of shareholders?  Is it 51%?  What happens to the minority?  And how much of the business has to be dedicated to religion?  Five percent? Ten percent? Ninety percent?"

- Justice Sotomayor, during last Tuesday's oral argument on the Hobby Lobby case.

Money For Nothing

I think Ted Nugent is onto something here:

The town of Longview, Texas paid Nugent $16,000 to not appear at the town's Fourth of July Festival.  According to KLTV, a city spokesman said Nugent was "not the right feel for this kind of community event."

The city had reached a verbal agreement with Nugent, scheduling the rocker as the headliner who would play inside the Maude Cobb Convention and Activity Center during the town's Independence Day celebration. To break that agreement, the town paid Nugent half of his guaranteed performance fee of $32,000 from Maude Cobb's annual budget.

The move comes amid criticism of comments Nugent made about President Barack Obama in January 2014, calling him a "subhuman mongrel." Nugent, who campaigned with Texas Attorney General and gubernatorial candidate Greg Abbott amid the controversy, apologized for those comments in February.

Needless to say, it's a pretty solid scam on Nugent's part.  All he need do is agree to perform somewhere, and then make racists comments about the President, and next thing you know folks are paying him not to show up.  Well played, Ted.

Pay No Attention To the Folks Who Are Benefitting From Obamacare

Hilarious:

It seems Scott Brown, the once (and future?) U.S. senator, didn't have an answer when confronted with one of his fellow Republicans who has benefitted from Obamacare. The Huffington Post flagged the Wednesday story from the Coos County Democrat. Brown had met with Herb Richardson, a New Hampshire Republican state legislator, as Brown is exploring a run for the state's U.S. Senate seat.

During the meeting at Richardson's home, Brown called Obamacare a "monstrosity." But Richardson and his wife quickly interjected, according to the Democrat, saying that the law had been "a financial lifesaver."

An injury had forced Richardson to live on workers compensation, which became so costly that he and his wife had to move out of their house. To make matters worse, they had to pay $1,100 a month to keep their health insurance. But thanks to the Affordable Care Act, the couple now pays $136 a month for a plan that covers both of them.  Former Senator Brown, however, reportedly changed the subject after the Richardsons made their comments praising the ACA.

I have a feeling we're going to hear a lot of these stories over the next few months.  My question, however, is why aren't the Democrats capitalizing on this?  The Republicans keep running attack ads featuring Obamacare "horror stories," all of which have been easily debunked. But for every fake ACA horror story, there must be hundreds of thousands of Obamacare successes similar to the Richardsons' experience.

Perhaps the Democrats feel that they can get more bang for the buck if they wait a couple more months before running their own ads featuring Obamacare successes.  In any event, I sure hope the Dems decide at some point to go on the offensive with regard to the ACA, particularly given that the GOP has apparently decided to make Obamacare the only issue in the 2014 campaign season.

Why Is The Radicalized Right So Up-In-Arms Over Obama's "Between Two Ferns" Appearance?

Here's why (from USA Today):

President Obama's appearance on the Web talk show Between Two Ferns with comedian/actor Zach Galifianakis has bumped traffic to Healthcare.gov.

Obama pitched health care enrollment in the interview, which was posted to Funny or Die's website Tuesday morning.

Tuesday's traffic to Healthcare.gov was almost 40% over Monday's traffic. This morning there were more than 890,000 visits to the site, according to a tweet by HealthCare.gov.

Needless to say, conservatives were not amused (despite the fact that Obama's appearance on the on-line talk show was pretty fucking hilarious):

For some Republicans, it was funny until the conversation turned to health care. Other conservatives found the whole thing undignified, and called it a distraction from the real issues. Still others saw it as further evidence of Hollywood's liberal bias, and wondered what was the point of comedy that was deferential to authority.

My favorite right-wing response to all this is from Congressman Randy Weber (R-Tex.), who tweeted:

"Instead of wasting time with a parody interview, he should be focusing on finding answers re: #Benghazi"

Ben-Ghaaaa-zi!

Tweet of the Week

Republicans must embrace Hispanics unless science finds way for Hispanic women to give birth to old white men!

- Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn), quoting Stephen Colbert.

John McCain's "Near Delusional" Cold War With Himself

"The Cold War is over, the Soviet empire is gone and neither one is missed."

- John McCain in August 2008.

“[Obama administration officials] have been near delusional in thinking the Cold War was over. Maybe the president thinks the Cold War is over, but Vladimir Putin doesn’t. And that’s what this is all about.”

- John McCain on March 7, 2014.

And speaking of folks with heads up their asses, here is what Radical Right Wing radio host Michael Medved said today at the Right-Wing Shit Show (also know as CPAC):

"There has never been a state in this country that has ever banned gay marriage. That is a liberal lie."

Hilarious.

Amazing Racists: Part XXXVII

Drug addict Rush Limbaugh had this to say about 12 Years A Slave winning Best Picture:

"If it was the only thing that movie won, it was gonna win Best Picture. There was no way. It didn't matter if it was good or bad. I haven't seen it. It was going to win. It had the magic word in the title, 'slave.'"

Too bad Limbaugh didn't decide to become a movie critic, because I have no doubt he would've written -- for the most part -- a glowing review of a film wherein a free Black American is enslaved for over a decade.  Here's what his review probably would have said:

12 Years A Slave -- released on October 18 -- is the first feel-good movie of the year.  The film made me long for America's good old days, when uppity Negroes who didn't know their place were shown their place.  The only part I didn't like is at the end [spoiler alert!], when the main character's freedom is restored and he is returned to his family. I was very troubled by that.

Anyway Rush -- you missed your calling.

Ben-GHAAAA-zi!!!

I laughed out loud when I read this tweet from Lindsey Graham concerning the Crisis in Ukraine:

"It started with Benghazi. When you kill Americans and nobody pays a price, you invite this type of aggression."

Even some Obama-hating right wingers couldn't believe Graham actually went there. Perhaps this has something to do with the fact that he's facing a very tough reelection bid.

Someone Finally Figures It Out

I've been trying over the past few months to determine why members of America's Radicalized Right can't seem to come up with any real examples of ObamaCare casualties. Every time the GOP claims to have found someone who has been hurt by the Affordable Care Act, it turns out that the alleged "victim" was actually helped by health care reform.

A recent high-profile example of such chicanery was Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers' mentioning of poor "Bette in Spokane" during the Republican response to the President's State of the Union address.  Of course, Bette's tale of ACA woe turned out to be complete horseshit.
 
I figured, however, that the Extreme Right would -- with the help of Kock Brothers' money -- eventually find somebody who has been victimized by ObamaCare.  After all, when you pass into law such sweeping reforms, there are always some folks out there who will be hurt by them.

But a real victim of the ACA has not materialized despite the GOP's best efforts to find one, making me think that maybe there aren't any.  But there has to be at least one such person, right?

Well, here is Paul Krugman's explanation of why no actual ObamaCare casualties have shown up in GOP attack ads:

The most likely answer is that the true losers from Obamacare generally aren’t very sympathetic. For the most part, they’re either very affluent people affected by the special taxes that help finance reform, or at least moderately well-off young men in very good health who can no longer buy cheap, minimalist plans. Neither group would play well in tear-jerker ads.

In other words, it's not that there aren't any ObamaCare victims -- it's just that the Republicans don't like who the real victims are, so they have no choice but to make up imaginary ones and hope nobody notices.

Historic Quote of the Day

"The question remains:  How can you guys [i.e., Republicans] be so unhappy with Obama when I'm so unhappy with Obama?  You think you got coal in your stocking?  I wanted single-payer health care, a carbon emissions bill, gun control, and legalized pot.  If you get to carry around all this outrage over me getting that shit, shouldn't I have gotten it?"

- Bill Maher, from May 2012.

Some Debates I'd Like To See On Future Episodes of "Meet The Press" (Updated)

This morning on Meet The Press, Bill Nye The Science Guy debated Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn) on whether climate change is human caused.  I found this a worthy topic for debate, given that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's most recent report states that there is only a mere 95% chance that humans are responsible for global warming.

Although I caught only the last few minutes of this "debate," it occurred to me that Meet The Press should host a lot more of these things.  Here are some suggestions for future topics:

• Stephen Hawking could debate Todd Akin on whether or not the Earth revolves around the sun (after all, 26% of Americans believe the Sun revolves around the Earth).


• Buzz Aldrin could debate Sarah Palin on whether or not the Moon is made of cheese.


• John Glenn could debate Ted Cruz's dad on whether or not the Earth is flat.

Those are just a few of the many controversial topics on which Meet The Press could hold debates in the future.  I'm also looking forward to a discussion on whether Jesus's preferred way to travel was to ride a brontosaurus or to fly around on the back of a pterodactyl.

UPDATE:  More on this here.

Greatest Correction Ever

An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated Drewniak referred to the Port Authority's executive director as a "piece of crap." While Drewniak did call him a "piece of excrement," it was David Wildstein who referred to the executive director as a "piece of crap."

- Newark Star Ledger.

Hilarious

I love Colbert's line that “people should be chained by the need for health insurance to jobs they hate [because] that’s what built this country!”  In fact, that might be the best argument I've ever heard in opposition to providing heath care coverage (I don't mean it's a good argument, just that it's the best argument in oppostion I've ever heard).

The Colbert Report
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Video Archive

Has America's Right Wing Finally Found Its Place In The Sun?

Regular readers of this blog know that I've struggled over the years to find a new country for members of the American Radicalized Right, who need to re-locate given their open hatred for the United States and its people.  The problem, of course, is that pretty much every industrialized country has universal health care, so they obviously couldn't move to one of those.  I usually just settled on Haiti as the default nation to which these extremists could re-locate.

But thanks to recent comments by two members of the American Taliban -- Larry Pratt and Selwyn Duke -- it now appears to me that Ghana might be just the place for members of the Radicalized Right to call their new home (h/t JB):

Conservative gun lobbyist Larry Pratt recommended during a recent radio broadcast that U.S. blacks could get a better “attitude” if they paid attention to “Africans from Africa” who he said were more “happy.”

On the Gun Owner’s News Hour show last month, American Thinker writer Selwyn Duke told Pratt, who is the executive director of Gun Owners of America, in a shocked tone that he had discovered that the best Catholic priests were from Africa.

“Africa! Intelligent Men with PhDs,” Duke noted. “And generally the African from Africa is a very pro-American person, a very happy person,” Pratt opined. “I know several. And they always just happy with a joke, pleasant smile on their face. And they clearly don’t identify with the surliness that’s all too frequently the attitude of their fellow African-Americans here.”

“And they’re very conservative politically,” he continued. “The country of Ghana, it’s still illegal to commit an abortion, it’s illegal to be a homosexual. Very conservative social laws and very free market oriented as well.”  Duke agreed and pointed out that the types of Africans that could afford to come to the U.S. were of “a better stripe.”

Let's tally this up: ultra-conservative Catholic priests, no legalized abortion, homosexuality outlawed, no pesky regulations on business.  Sounds like a right-wing paradise.

Larry and Selwyn (if that is his real name) should move there immediately.  The only drawback for the Radical Right is that Ghana is full of black people.  But, according to Pratt, they are happier, more intelligent, less surly black people, so that should be okay, right?

The Radicalized Right's Response to Gay Marriage

No, this is not from an Onion article (it's from Think Progress):

In response to a federal court ruling that Oklahoma’s same-sex marriage ban is unconstitutional discrimination, a state lawmaker says he wants to skirt the equal protection argument by banning all marriages in the state.

“[My constituents are] willing to have that discussion about whether marriage needs to be regulated by the state at all,” Rep. Mike Turner (R) told News 9. He said the idea has the backing of other conservative lawmakers, and could be achieved through a shell bill he filed in the state legislature, intended to adapt to any court rulings on same-sex marriage.

The Think Progress article goes on to note that this tactic is similar to one used in the Jim Crow south to resist the U.S. Supreme Court’s order in Brown v. Board of Education that required states to desegregate schools:

As part of a "massive resistance" campaign urged by Virginia Sen. Harry F. Byrd, the Virginia legislature ordered the closure of schools subject to a desegregation order. When that tactic was invalidated by courts, one county went so far as to shut down its public school system entirely from 1959 until 1964.

After reading this article, the first thing I thought was how much it must suck to be a member of the Radicalized Right in America these days, what with legalized marijuana, legalized gay marriage, a Black Man elected president twice (both times in an Electoral College landslide), a health care reform law that actually requires coverage for birth control, etc.  I almost feel sorry for these folks.

I'm kidding, of course.  I don't feel the least bit sorry for these America-hating bastards.  In fact, it brings a smile to my face that members of the Radicalized Right are suffering over this stuff right now.  Hopefully some of them will do us all a favor and leave the country.

What Do I Like Most About Mike Huckabee?

That's easy -- he's not afraid to double down on his own bullshit.  Here is what he had to say the other day about women:

"If the Democrats want to insult the women of America by making them believe that they are helpless without Uncle Sugar coming in and providing for them a prescription each month for birth control because they cannot control their libido or their reproductive system without the help of government then so be it! Let us take that discussion all across America because women are far more than the Democrats have played them to be."

When Richard Mourdock made his "God Likes Rape" remark, he later apologized. When Todd Akin made his now-legendary "legitimate rape" comment, he not only apologized, but he issued his apology on Huckabee's radio show.

Well, that had to have looked pretty weak to Mike Huckabee, a guy who clearly likes saying crazy shit and seems to enjoy digging a deeper hole for himself when he does.  Here's what the former Arkansas governor had to say yesterday about his comment that all women who use birth control are sluts:

“I'm always flattered when people on the far left manufacture a new version of being ‘offended.’ They can be quite creative in finding something that hurts their feelings.”

Huckabee/Cruz Rubio Christie McDonnell Palin 2016!!

Most Hilarious Poll Question Ever

Of course, it was brought to you by the "fair and balanced" folks at Fox News (h/t Steve Benen):

In the aftermath of the attacks on U.S. diplomatic facilities in Libya, the Obama administration falsely claimed it was a spontaneous assault in response to an offensive online video, even though the administration had intelligence reports that the attacks were connected to terrorist groups tied to al Qaeda. Which of the following do you think best describes why Obama administration officials gave false information in their early public statements about the September attacks in Libya?

So much for the Fox News slogan "We Report -- You Decide." It should actually be: "We Decide to Report Complete Bullshit and You . . . . well, Fuck You!"

What, too many words for a slogan?

Another Sign of GOP End Times?

This Chris Christie debacle is fascinating:

Christie said he was "blindsided" by the release of the e-mails and text messages that bolstered claims by Democrats that the traffic jams between September 9-13 were meant to punish Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich, a Democrat who did not endorse Christie's reelection campaign.

Christie and his staff originally blamed the closures and the traffic delays on a mishandled traffic study, something he reiterated at his news conference.  He said he didn't know if it was "a traffic study that morphed into a political vendetta or a political vendetta that morphed into a traffic study."  The incident inconvenienced motorists, but also affected public safety, Fort Lee officials said.

I've long thought that, unless another strong "moderate" arises within the Republican ranks, Chris Christie represented the GOP's last hope to escape the grip of the party's radicalized elements. Christie's strength is that he won't take shit from anyone, and I had hoped that this strength would cause him to take the offensive against the radical right wing of his party that continues its process of purging "moderates" from the GOP ranks. I would love to see a fight like that.

[And the term "moderate" is, of course, relative -- Christie and a small number of others in the GOP with similar politics are only moderate because the rest of the party has gone so far to the right that even Ronald Reagan would look like a liberal these days].

But if this current scandal sinks Christie's presidential chances (and it just might), then who will replace him as the "sane" candidate from the GOP? There isn't anyone else out there with the guts to do it (at least no one who has emerged at this point), which means that the wackoes like Cruz and Rubio are going to be able to operate freely within the party without any aggressive pushback from the center right of the GOP.

Insofar as the Big Picture is concerned, that is good news for folks like me who believe that the GOP has caused enough damage and really needs to go away as a national party.  Part of me hates to see Christie go down like this, but there are definitely fun times ahead politically.

Benghazi!

[click to enlarge]

Ted Cruz And Birtherism

I have a feeling this will become one of my favorite stories for 2014:

The junior senator from Texas is still a Canadian. But he’s working on it, eh? Born in Alberta 43 years ago last Sunday, Sen. Ted Cruz was unaware of his dual nationality until The Dallas Morning News explored the issue in August. Since then, he said in a recent interview, “I have retained counsel that is preparing the paperwork to renounce the citizenship.”

He expects to complete the process in 2014. That time frame jibes with predictions from Canadian legal experts.  He doesn’t dispute holding dual citizenship. “Not at this point,” he said.

Think about that for a moment: Ted Cruz is not -- at this point -- disputing that he is a citizen of Canada. That means he is admitting he was born in Canada. In other words, he has admitted to having the exact same eligibility problem that Birthers have long fantasized Obama has, namely, Cruz is not a natural born citizen and is thus not eligible to become President of the United States.

Well, it's not the exact same problem.  Canada is, after all, a predominantly white country whereas Kenya -- the country where the Birthers claim Obama was born -- is predominantly a black country.

And that's why I believe I'm really going to love this story in 2014.  No, I don't think it will have any effect on Cruz's run for the presidency.  Indeed, Ted Cruz would be the dream Republican nominee as far as Democrats are concerned.  But it will force Donald Trump and the other Birthers --  who undoubtedly think Cruz would make a great president -- to either abandon the whole notion of Birtherism or admit that it is inherently a racist position when they apply it to Obama.

Or -- and I wish this would happen but it probably won't -- Donald Trump and the other Birthers might feel a need to be "consistent" (i.e., avoid looking like a bunch of racists) and end up actually opposing Cruz on eligibility grounds.

In any event, fun times ahead.

"A Couple People Shouting At An Empty Room In Shifts"

The Great GOP Civil War is rolling merrily along.  John Boehner finally went on the offensive yesterday against GOP outside groups over their opposition to the recent budget agreement:

For the first time, Boehner acknowledged that these groups pushed Republicans into an unsuccessful strategy that he didn't favor. He expressed particular outrage that one of the groups later said it knew the shutdown strategy wasn't going to work.

"Are you kidding me?" Boehner shouted. "Frankly I think they're misleading their followers. I think they're pushing our members in places they don't want to be," he added. "And frankly I just think they've lost all credibility."

The American Taliban clearly did not like what Boehner had to say.  The Idiot Glenn Beck, for example, responded by calling the Speaker "worthless" and "utterly feckless," and said that those like him “have got to go.”

But as happy as all this makes me, my favorite thing to happen this week was Senator Mitch McConnell's hissy fit over the Democrats finally growing a pair and reforming the filibuster:

Last night, the Senate “pulled” an “all-nighter,” meaning there were a couple people shouting at an empty room in shifts. They did this because Democrats partially nuked the filibuster and are trying to get a big slate of nominations through before the winter break, and Republicans are trying to slow things down in protest, which they will continue to do in the days ahead.

The bottom line, though, is that a shitload of Obama nominees who had no chance of confirmation before will now all be confirmed, and there is not a goddam thing McConnell can do about it.

I find this totally hilarious, because all Sen. McConnell would've had to do was give Senate Democrats an up-or-down vote on one (or at most, two) of Obama's DC Circuit Court nominees, and the Democrats would not have gone nuclear. But McConnell gave Harry Reid no choice but to reform the filibuster, and now Obama is going to get all his nominees through the Senate.

If I was a Tea-Bagger running against McConnell in a primary, I might want to bring that up during the campaign.

We Must Never Forget . . . .

Huffington Post has some great stuff today on what right wingers used to say about Nelson Mandela. Here are some highlights:

"This hero worship is very much misplaced" - John Carlisle MP, on the BBC screening of the Free Nelson Mandela concert in 1990

"The ANC is a typical terrorist organisation ... Anyone who thinks it is going to run the government in South Africa is living in cloud-cuckoo land" - Margaret Thatcher, 1987

"How much longer will the Prime Minister allow herself to be kicked in the face by this black terrorist?" - Terry Dicks MP, mid-1980s

 "Nelson Mandela should be shot" - Teddy Taylor MP, mid-1980s

American radical right wingers got into the act as well.  In 2000, Dick Cheney defended his vote against freeing Nelson Mandela by stating: “The ANC was then viewed as a terrorist organization. I don't have any problems at all with the vote I cast 20 years ago."

Think Progress has a great timeline on all this.

This Says It All

Quote of the Week

“Gee, you mean the members of the other party are criticizing the president? I can't imagine that.”

-- Secretary of State John Kerry, responding to Republican criticism of the Obama Administration on its agreement to avert Iran from gaining nuclear weapons.

The GOP has long been frustrated with its inability to interfere with Obama on foreign policy issues.  If they could've stopped the President from killing bin Laden, Republicans probably would have done so. In fact, I believe the GOP's obsession with Benghazi! directly resulted from frustration over Obama taking out the Al-Qaeda leader a mere two years into his presidency, something the Bush-Cheney Regime couldn't do in eight years.

With regard to yesterday's deal with Iran, Republican Senator John Cornyn actually tweeted: "Amazing what WH will do to distract attention from O-care."  Really?  Laura Clausen at Kos issued this perfect response to Cornyn:

Right, Obama participated in making nuclear war a little less likely in order to distract from some problems implementing his plan to get health coverage for millions of Americans. That's diabolical! Here's a thought experiment for you: What would Cornyn be saying if Obama suddenly decided to bomb Iran? Answer: He'd likely be accusing the president of trying to distract from Obamacare.

The bottom line here is that Americans are tired of bombing Middle Eastern countries. Republicans must know this.  In fact, 64% of the country supports making a nuclear deal with Iran.  But the problem for the GOP is that it is committed to opposing everything President Blackenstein does, even if his ideas match the will of the American people. 

I guess this shouldn't surprise me, given that the only policy the GOP supports at this point is denying health coverage to 40 million citizens.

Yes! (With Updates)

Read all about it here. I'm actually thinking of re-joining the Democratic Party now.

UPDATE:  Here's what the President had to say about why the Nuclear Option was necessary:

Over the six decades before I took office, only 20 presidential nominees to executive positions had to overcome filibusters.  In just under five years since I took office, nearly 30 nominees have been treated this way.  These are all public servants who protect our national security, look out for working families, keep our air and water clean.

This year alone, for the first time in history, Senate Republicans filibustered a President's nominee for the Secretary of Defense who used to be a former Republican senator.  They tried everything they could to hold up our EPA Administrator.  They blocked our nominee for our top housing regulator at a time when we need more help for more families to afford a home and prevent what has caused mortgage meltdowns from happening again.

And in each of these cases, it's not been because they opposed the person, that there was some assessment that they were unqualified, that there was some scandal that had been unearthed.  It was simply because they opposed the policies that the American people voted for in the last election.

Exactly right -- GOP obstructionism in this regard had nothing to do with the qualification of any of these nominees and everything to do with nullifying the last two presidential elections.

Sorry GOP, but elections do have consequences, even presidential elections that put a (gasp!) Black Man in the Oval Office.  Deal with it.

UPDATE II:  From Ed Kilgore:

[I]t was a foregone conclusion that Republicans would “go nuclear”—certainly over judges, and maybe over everything—if and when they were back in power. I mean, seriously, does anyone think that after forty years of promises to the Christian Right the GOP is going to be able to deny its “base” the fifth sure Supreme Court vote (perhaps) necessary to overturn Roe v. Wade? Over a Senate rule? No way. The judicial filibuster power was doomed anyway, and all it served to do at present was as a temporary instrument for GOP power that would be exercised by any means available.

Fucking-A.

Sometimes The Universe Unfolds As It Should

I'm still laughing over this one:

In September, Rep. Trey Radel voted for Republican legislation that would allow states to make food stamp recipients pee in cups to prove they're not on drugs. In October, police busted the Florida Republican on a charge of cocaine possession.

Last year, some Democrats responded to Radel's food stamp cup-peeing idea by proposing that people in Congress should be drug tested as well. I'd love to see someone introduce that bill.  The time is certainly right.

Please Excuse My French . . .

. . . but it is about fucking time:

Exasperated with the refusal of Senate Republicans to confirm many of President Obama’s nominees, Mr. Reid has been speaking individually with members of his caucus to gauge whether there is enough support to change filibuster rules.

Given how much deference senators have traditionally shown to the rules and procedures of the institution — many of them in place since the 18th century — any modifications are a serious undertaking.

But among Democrats there is a strong consensus that Republicans have gone too far in their latest attempt to block White House appointments, by denying Mr. Obama any more judges for what is considered the most important appeals court in the country despite three vacancies.

What I don't want to see is the Dems walking right up to the line on this and then pulling back because the Republicans offered some minor concession. With regard to the three vacancies now existing in the DC Circuit, I have no doubt that the GOP -- in an attempt to thwart the nuclear option -- will agree to not filibuster one of Obama's nominees, but the Democrats should refuse to compromise on this. They should simply deploy the nuclear option and get all three nominees confirmed.

Elections have consequences. But what the Republicans are basically trying to do is nullify the fact that Obama has handily won two presidential elections by not letting him fill VACANT judicial seats.  I have no doubt that the GOP -- and perhaps even some Democrats -- will respond to the deployment of the nuclear option by saying that things are only going to get worse in Congress because of it.  My response:  It can't get any worse than it is now.

These GOP efforts must be put into context: Republicans know that they are demographically screwed in the long run, and their efforts to prevent President Blackenstein from filling open seats go hand-in-hand with other things that are designed to extend the life of their dying party, such as the Citizens United case and the voter suppression tactics being employed nationwide by Republican lawmakers.The Democrats must aggressively oppose all such tactics regardless of the context in which they occur.

There is some talk out there about how Senate traditions should be preserved.  Indeed, a lot of Democrats cited "tradition" as a big reason they have opposed the nuclear option in the past.  But one thing that is abundantly clear is the GOP doesn't give a shit about traditions in government.  As the recent GOP government shutdown indicates, Republicans have no respect for government at all. They certainly have no great love for this country, given that the GOP also recently tried to intentionally bring down America's economy. All the GOP seems to care about these days is finding ways to nullify the fact that America has elected -- and then reelected -- a Black president.

The time has come for the Democrats to stop playing defense.  They need to go nuclear.

A Thousand Points Of Bullshit

No, this is not from The Onion. It's real, and it is one of the most offensive things I've read in a long time:

A Walmart in northeast Ohio is holding a holiday canned food drive — for its own underpaid employees. “Please Donate Food Items Here, so Associates in Need Can Enjoy Thanksgiving Dinner,” a sign reads in the employee lounge of a Canton-area Walmart.

Kory Lundberg, a Walmart spokesman, says the drive is a positive thing. “This is part of the company’s culture to rally around associates and take care of them when they face extreme hardships,” he said.

Think about that one for a second. This Walmart is so "concerned" about its underpaid associates that is asking a bunch of other underpaid folks -- also known as other Walmart employees -- to help feed these people.

If this doesn't epitomize the GOP's vision of what it wants America to become, then I don't know what does.

Good Point

If the Feds can't even build a working website, how will they rise to the logistical challenge of shipping conservatives to FEMA camps?

— Josh Barro (@jbarro) November 13, 2013

The Inhofe Idiot Enters GOP Civil War

This brought a smile to my face:

Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) has no plans to hop aboard the Chris Christie bandwagon.

In an interview with The Oklahoman, Inofe said he'd "have a hard time" backing the newly re-elected New Jersey governor for president. Inhofe evidently is one of many Republicans who believes that Christie's response to Hurricane Sandy last year helped secure a second term for President Barack Obama.

"Christie I still hold responsible for ... the re-election of Obama," Inhofe said, as quoted by The Oklahoman. When the reporter asked if Inhofe was referring to Sandy, the senator said, "And the way [Christie] handled it, yeah."

Inhofe, moron that he is, cannot actually believe that Christie is responsible for Obama's landslide victory.  Maybe his point might come closer to making sense had the election been very tight, but Obama crushed Romney.  I think Inhofe is more angry with Christie because he actually showed our first black president some respect.  But whatever the reason, I'm glad the Imbecile Inhofe is now fully engaged in the intra-party fight.

We also learned today that FreedomWorks "split with the Club for Growth and the Senate Conservatives Fund on Monday and endorsed former state Treasurer Shane Osborn over Midland University President Ben Sasse in the Republican primary for retiring Sen. Mike Johanns'(R-NE) Senate seat."

My big concern is that Bagger groups such as FreedomWorks just might run out of money.  If that happens, then the Democrats should consider funding them, because it is in the best interests of the Democratic Party -- and the country -- that the Republican Civil War be as bloody as possible.

A Democrat Finally Speaks The Truth About ObamaCare

The Democrat in question happens to be disgraced former congressman Anthony Weiner, but at least someone finally said it.

Weiner said this last night on Real Time in response to a Republican guest's criticism of ObamaCare:

The fact of the matter is you've got to compare it to what the status quo was. There are millions of Americans that have no health care.  You my friend are paying for them in an inefficient way.  So the Democrats came up with an idea.  We said: "You know what?  Let's borrow the idea that the Republicans keep talking about.  Let's let the market decide."  So we gave tax subsidies to people to buy a private product -- insurance.  That's the sum and substance of ObamaCare.  That's your idea!  Why don't you like it now that we wrote the law?

I'm not sure why the Democrats are have been so reluctant to give credit to the GOP for ObamaCare. Maybe they don't want to give credit to Republicans for coming up with an idea that actually has some merit, but I don't see what the harm would be now that every Republican opposes the individual mandate.

Prominent Democrats should bring up the GOP's authorship of the Affordable Care Act at every opportunity. Constantly repeating that ObamaCare was originally a Republican plan reinforces the notion that the GOP has become so radicalized that it won't even support its own ideas anymore.

So There Really Is A Benghazi Scandal After All

This is hilarious:

CBS News has pulled its dubious 60 Minutes report on the 2012 terror attacks in Benghazi following the revelation that Dylan Davies, the segment's featured "witness," has given contradictory stories about that night's events. But Fox News, which aggressively promoted the CBS segment and used it to claim that their own Benghazi reporting had been validated, has so far ignored the story's implosion in its on-air reporting.

Fox was eager to seize on the CBS report shortly after it aired. On October 28, the morning after the 60 Minutes segment, Fox & Friends co-host Steve Doocy told viewers, "It's great that mainstream media, finally catching up. CBS did this story on Benghazi and I see criticism from the left where they go, 'You guys are covering a phony scandal.' 60 Minutes doesn't cover phony scandals."

That evening, Special Report host Bret Baier said that the 60 Minutes report "reaffirmed what we knew and had reported on." The Real Story host Gretchen Carlson and The Five co-host Greg Gutfeld also used the CBS report to prop up their network's own Benghazi reporting.

All told, Fox spent more than 47 minutes -- spread across 13 segments on 11 separate shows -- covering the CBS report on October 28. And it didn't stop there. After serious questions were raised about Davies' credibility, the network rallied to his defense, with Fox & Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade suggesting the administration had leaked damaging information to the press in order to "discredit a seemingly very credible witness."

The Democrats should immediately call for an investigation. At the very least, Senate Democrats should subpoena this Davies character to appear in front of a committee -- preferably one in which Lindsay Graham is a member -- and then grill that lying piece-of-shit Davies for at least several hours while Lindsay Graham helplessly watches in horror.

The Republicans have been screaming Benghazi!-this and Benghazi!-that for over a year now. The time has come for the Democrats to take the offensive on this.

How Much Do Tea-Baggers Scare Mainstream Republicans? (With Update)

This much:

Twenty-seven Republican senators voted with Democrats on Oct. 16 to lift the debt ceiling and avert a catastrophic default. And each one of those 27 senators voted Tuesday to "disapprove" of their own votes.

The vote Tuesday was a symbolic "resolution to disapprove" of the debt limit hike. It was mandated by the deal thanks to a last-minute provision inserted by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY). The motion failed 45-54 because all Democrats opposed it.

Even if it passed Congress, it wouldn't have stopped the debt limit hike because President Obama could veto the measure. The purpose was to give these senators the chance to say they disapprove of a deal they voted for.

Such bravery.

UPDATE:  Stephen Colbert has more on this:

The Colbert Report
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Video Archive

An Elegant Argument In Support Of Raising The Minimum Wage

All I can say about this Bill Maher New Rule is Amen:



The best part:

"This is the question the Right has to answer. Do you want smaller government with less handouts or do you want do you want a low minimum wage—because you cannot have both. If Colonel Sanders isn’t going to pay the lady behind the counter enough to live on, then Uncle Sam has to. And I for one am getting a little tired of helping highly profitable companies pay their workers."

Now This Is How You Deal With A Tea Bagger (Updated)

This is the must-see video of the day, and it needs a bit of a set-up:

Bagger Congressman Joe Barton (R-TX), during this morning's House hearings on the implementation of Obamacare, accused the programmers and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid of breaking HIPAA privacy laws. Rep. Frank Pallone (D. NJ), however, called Bagger Barton on his bullshit:



The Baggers think they've cornered the market on rage in this country, so it is nice to see a Democrat in the House get angry and take the fight to these America-hating bastards.

I'm mad as hell that these tea-bagging motherfuckers intentionally tried to bring down my country's economy, and something tells me that Congressman Pallone wasn't all that happy about it either.

UPDATE:  The Daily Show's Aasif Mandvi not only conducts one of the funniest interviews of all time, but he gets a Republican to admit he's a racist:

Bonus Quote of the Week

"We've seen this sad story too many times: African-American males without role models go onto become president and give everyone healthcare.  *** One must ask, how was he able to yank such an insightful diagnosis so smoothly from his ass?"

- Stephen Colbert, responding to Fox News' resident psychiatrist Dr. Keith Ablow, who "diagnosed" President Obama with a "victim mentality" that can be traced back to his father's abandonment.

Follow The Money

One of the more interesting things to watch as the GOP Civil War unfolds is how Big Business will react to it.  If the Baggers press for another government shutdown and once again threaten to bring down our economy on purpose, then it looks like the Democrats are ready to take advantage:

Rep. Steve Israel (D-N.Y.), chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, is keeping awfully busy. In addition to serving his constituents, raising money, and recruiting candidate, the New York Democrat has begun reaching out to over 1,000 business leaders, urging them to reconsider their relationships with the Republican Party.

The Wall Street Journal reports this morning that the DCCC sees an opportunity to exploit divisions within the Republican coalition. With Wall Street and corporate leaders apparently annoyed by their lack of influence in Republican circles, coupled with the rise of Tea Party dominance among GOP lawmakers, Democratic leaders are reminding the business community that it was Dems who were doing what’s right for the economy, while it’s Republicans who shut down the government and threatened a sovereign debt crisis.

I'm also interested in whether the Baggers are going to get much funding from here on out. Indeed, as reported by BuzzFeed, the tea party group FreedomWorks "has fallen into dire financial straits, and was forced to take out a $1 million line of credit earlier this year."

Quote of the Week

What makes the Tea Party dangerous is its members’ willful disregard for the most basic tenets of American democracy. They do not believe in the legitimacy of our president. They do not believe in the legitimacy of decisions handed down by our Supreme Court. Unlike President Obama, Harry Reid, Mitch McConnell, John Boehner, or a host of other Democratic and Republican lawmakers who grasp the basic reality of politics, they have never, not once shown a willingness to compromise on anything. Merely uttering the word is enough to draw a primary challenge.

- Jon Favreau, former chief speechwriter for President Obama.

That pretty much sums it up.  In fact, if you listen to a moderate average normal non-batshit Republican talk these days, he sounds pretty much like a Bagger when it comes to policy. For example, every Republican in Congress -- Tea-Bagger or not --  hates ObamaCare so much that they never stop talking about their hatred for it.  The disagreement in the Party is over what to do about it.

I think Chuck Todd said the other day that the Tea People are not fighting with the rest of the GOP over policy -- they're fighting over tactics.  That's putting it mildly, given that one radical GOP faction is willing to bring down the American economy over the Health Care Act while the rest of the Party is not.

Charlie Cook's GOP Diagnosis

This sounds about right:

The combination of redistricting; population-sorting; and media-viewing, listening, and reading habits has created ideological and partisan culs-de-sac and incestuous thinking that are causing astonishing miscalculations on hugely consequential matters.

I consulted a psychiatrist and a psychologist on this question. Both said there is no formal term for the behavior some Republicans are exhibiting, but one described the groupthink as “hysterical delusional affirmation,” and the other named it “delusional synergy.” One said, “It entails suspension of logical intellectual processes with a selective consideration of only confirmatory input. Paranoid people typically experience ideas of influence and control where they believe that they see things that others cannot. This process is often propelled by delusions of grandeur, quite often messianic in nature.”

We've seen all this before, of course.  Cook concludes that "[w]hen hatred turns into obsession, it spawns some pretty erratic and destructive behavior."

I couldn't agree more. As I wrote last week:  "[T]he country is now witnessing what happens when a major political party lets hatred for the President drive its agenda."  And the funny part about all this is that the more Obama wins, the more Republicans hate him and the more delusional they become. 

This latest Democratic victory must have put the Baggers over the top as far as their hatred for Obama is concerned, given how thoroughly he crushed them.  Can't wait to see how they respond.

Obama Accepts Republican Surrender As GOP Civil War Escalates

Earlier this morning, President Barack Obama signed a bill increasing the debt ceiling and ending the partial government shutdown, thus bringing to a close the Republican-manufactured crisis and handing the GOP a crushing defeat.

The bill passed the House Wednesday evening on a 285-144 vote -- all House Democrats voted in favor of the bill and were joined by 87 Republicans. The Senate earlier voted 81-18 for the bill.

Meanwhile, the GOP Civil War continues to heat up. There is a whole lot of finger-pointing going on right now within the Party. Grover Norquist didn't have any good things to say about Ted Cruz and the rest of the ObamaCare defunders. Tea-Bagger Raul Labrador (R-ID) reacted to the GOP defeat by threatening other Republicans:

"I'm more upset with my Republican conference, to be honest with you. It's been Republicans here who apparently always want to fight, but they want to fight the next fight, that have given Speaker Boehner the inability to be successful in this fight. *** So if anybody should be kicked out, it's probably those Republicans... who are unwilling to keep the promises they made to the American people. Those are the people who should be looking behind their back."

Fun times ahead. Stay tuned.

Remember: Republicans Took Us To The Brink Because They Opposed Their Own Idea

This is pathetic:

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said he was "proud" of Boehner's handling of the crisis. Then within moments he pleaded with Democrats to bail out the GOP, which he admitted has "screwed up" and "really did go too far" in the shutdown and debt limit standoffs.

"We won't be the last political party to overplay our hand," he said. "It might happen one day on the Democratic side. And if it did, would Republicans, for the good of the country, kinda give a little? We really did go too far. We screwed up. But their response is making things worse, not better."

Christ, who out there thinks the GOP would ease up on the Democrats if the situation was reversed? I just hope the Democrats don't forget all the shit the Republicans pulled over the last few years leading up to this moment.   

The GOP has taken this country to the brink of default over the Individual Health Care Mandate, an idea the GOP actually once supported.  This fact is finally starting to get some ink in the mainstream press.  This is from a Los Angeles Times Op/Ed by Jane Mansbridge:

Fundamentally — and infuriatingly for the Democratic base — Obamacare is inherently a compromise because it is a health insurance reform law rather than an overhaul of the structure of our nation's healthcare system. ***  Instead of a single-payer system or even a public option for those who chose it, Democrats went along with the Obama compromise of adopting RomneyCare, the old Republican plan signed into law by Mitt Romney when he was governor of Massachusetts.

I have been critical of the GOP for its epic flip-flop on the Individual Mandate. A chronic flip-flopper might respond that a person -- or even a political party -- should have the right to change his, her, or its mind about things.  But this whole notion of the GOP bringing us to the brink over the implementation of an idea it once supported?  There's just no excuse for that kind of ridiculous behavior. 

I think Chief Justice Roberts voted to uphold ObamaCare because he didn't feel like playing the same bullshit game that the rest of the GOP was playing -- he didn't want to pretend that ObamaCare was the most evil form of socialism ever enacted when he knew it was a GOP idea to begin with and one that Republicans supported all the way up to 2008, when they stopped supporting it for some reason.

Quote of the Week

“Anybody who would vote for that in the House as Republican would virtually guarantee a primary challenger.”

- Tea-Bagger Congressman Tim Huelskamp of Kansas, on the bipartisan deal currently being worked on in the Senate to raise the debt ceiling and end the government shutdown.

What I like about this quote is that it demonstrates exactly why we are in this crisis right now, i.e., why a small group of radicals has been able to control the House.  In fact, the "you get primaried if you don't go along with us" threat used to be an unstated one.  The fact that Bagger Huelskamp now feels compelled to vocalize the threat tells me that the tide might be changing in the House and we may yet get out of this crisis with only moderate damage to our economy.  It also tells me that the GOP Civil War is really starting to heat up.

The situation does seem to be deteriorating for House Republicans.  Boehner's plan was apparently to reject the Senate compromise, vote on a House bill that would require ObamaCare concessions on the part of the Democrats, and then skip town before the Senate could send anything back.  But it looks like that plan is tanking in the House.

So it seems to me that it all comes down to whether Boehner submits the Senate Compromise bill to an up-or-down vote in the House.  If he does, the crisis is probably over because all Democrats and enough Republicans will vote for it .  If he does not, then we will default.

How Could Anyone Be Worse Than Boehner? (With Update)

One thing I noticed over the weekend while watching Meet the Press and other political shows is the emergence of the idea that Democrats must concede on the Debt Limit/Government Shutdown fight because taking a hard line could compromise John Boehner's position as Speaker of the House. For example, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said yesterday:  "[A]fter all this mess is over, do we really want to compromise John Boehner as leader of the House?  I don't think so."  The GOP's apparent argument is that if you think Boehner has been difficult to negotiate with, his replacement would be far worse.

Worse?  How exactly? The 113th United States Congress hasn't passed any major legislation this year.  Although that is undoubtedly good news for the Tea Baggers -- given their hatred for law and government America-- it is difficult to fathom how it could be any worse for the Democrats if the current Speaker was replaced.  Indeed, even if the baggiest of the Baggers ended up with the speakership, then at least the most ineffective middleman in history -- i.e., John Boehner -- would be removed from the equation and the Democrats could then deal directly with the radical right-wing extremists who actually run the House.

What is that you say?  An extremist Speaker would allow the country to default on its debts whereas Boehner would not? Well, that is yet to be seen.  I think it is more likely than not that Boehner will allow the country to default on its debts.  I think this way because even if Democrats and Republicans in the Senate were able to reach some sort of compromise in the next day or two, there is no way in hell that the Bagger-controlled House would pass it,  How do I know this?  Here's how:

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) *** thought she too had come up with a solution: Congress would reopen the government for six months and raise the debt limit for a year. Democrats would have to accept sequestration levels and throw in a two-year delay of the medical-device tax in the Affordable Care Act, and in exchange, Republicans would concede nothing. Yesterday, Democrats rejected this as wholly unacceptable. . . .

And as a practical matter, it doesn't much matter that Dems didn't like it, since House Republicans said they'd refuse to even vote on the Collins plan -- a plan in which Republicans give up nothing except temporary hold on some hostages -- even if the Senate approved it and even if House GOP leaders could tolerate it.

That's right -- the House would have rejected the Collins Plan even though it required the Democrats to make all the concessions and thus give in to the GOP's legislative terrorism.

So even if the Senate is close to a deal -- as has been reported this morning -- all that matters now is what the House will do, and I expect Boehner and the Baggers will reject whatever the Senate sends them.  The House will then send the Senate a bill that will increase the debt limit and reopen the government, but this bill will be full of poison pills -- e.g., repeal of ObamaCare, Social Security, and Medicare, along with Obama admitting in writing both that he was born in Kenya and that he is a Marxist/Fascist -- and the Senate will reject it.

So we are headed toward default.  I hope I am wrong on this, but I don't believe I am.  I think what will happen is that Boehner will allow the country to go past the October 17 default date -- just to make the radicals happy -- but then will be forced to pass a clear CR and debt ceiling increase with the help of House Democrats.  A tanking stock market will force Boehner's hand.

UPDATE:  This was long overdue:

Fox News correspondent Ed Henry walked out of a White House press briefing after being repeatedly ignored by spokesman Jay Carney on Friday.

Henry attempted to ask Carney a question twice, but Carney called on other people instead. After the first time, Henry could be seen shaking his head and muttering something to colleague Major Garrett. After the second time, Henry angrily got up and left the room. The briefing continued without him.

I've wondered for a long time why Fox News correspondents are ever called on during Obama press conferences and briefings, given that Fox News is the propaganda arm of the Republican Party.  It would be akin to FDR allowing Joseph Goebbels to ask him questions at a 1943 presser.

And no, I am not comparing Fox News and the Republicans to Nazi Germany -- the Nazis were an external threat to the security of America, whereas Fox News and the Bagger-led GOP are internal threats.  Completely different deal.

It Just Doesn't Get Any Better Than This . . .

. . . unless you're a Republican -- then it literally doesn't get any worse than this new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll:

By a 22-point margin (53 percent to 31 percent), the public blames the Republican Party more for the shutdown than President Barack Obama – a wider margin of blame for the GOP than the party received during the poll during the last shutdown in 1995-96. Just 24 percent of respondents have a favorable opinion about the GOP, and only 21 percent have a favorable view of the Tea Party, which are both at all-time lows in the history of poll.

But as awesome as all that is, my favorite part of the poll are the numbers with regard to ObamaCare, which had a very shaky rollout last week:

[T]he health-care law has become more popular since the shutdown began. Thirty-eight percent see the Affordable Care Act (or “Obamacare”) as a good idea, versus 43 percent who see it as a bad idea – up from 31 percent good idea, 44 percent bad idea last month.

Think about that for a second: The Republicans said they staged this shutdown in an attempt to defund or delay ObamaCare, apparently thinking that the public would support them because the law is unpopular. Well, not only did this support fail to materialize for them, but the GOP is now even more unpopular than it was during Bill Clinton's PenisGate Scandal.

And -- this is the best part -- ObamaCare is more popular now than it was at the beginning of the shutdown, even though the rollout of the Health Care Law has been plagued with website problems.

Way to go, GOP.  Keep up the good work, and for God's Sake, please ignore what RINO John McCain is saying about all of this:

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.