Tag Archives: extreme

The Teapublican National Convention will be anything but a moderate affair

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Paul Harris with The Guardian reports on the terrible shitstorm of the century that’s about to hit Tampa — and how it might be impacted by Hurricane Isaac. Harris describes the difficulty Romney will have attracting moderates while being nominated to run for president by a party base comprised of socially conservative “Christians,” anti-government wackadoos, and tea party “patriots.” It will be a perfect storm of the most extreme, vicious, and radical versions of the GOP that have ever existed.

The article describes the various extreme elements to watch for, such as Todd Akin with his legitimate rape theory — which is who and what the RNC’s official abortion platform actually matches. There will be birthers, seven in all, as featured speakers. Will four three days be enough time for all the fresh birther jokes? And any mention of marriage equality and gays should rile the attendees to a level of primate frenzy not fit for national coverage. So The Girl With the Faraway Eyes will be there, speaking at numerous events, doing her part to rile them. Herman Cain will talk about how Obama is failing black people and maybe Jesus, and to offer his personal attention to any lonely female attendees. Ted Cruz will undoubtedly speak about the huge threat of Sharia Law… and Muslims.

The article doesn’t mention the “surprise” appearance of the shadowy OPSEC Group, a reincarnation of Swiftboat Veterans for Truth, run by Republicans, funded by nameless billionaires (none of whom were probably ever in the military), and comprised of a few former U.S. intelligence and special forces personnel who dislike the president enough to use their past service in a political campaign to advance a guy who dodged the Vietnam draft for 30 months in France. They want to tell America that President Obama had about as much to do with the take down of Bin Laden as did Snooki from the Jersey Shore. Not that any of these people were anywhere near the Bin Laden operation, but … you know, they once had super important Jason-Bourne-like government jobs — so you should just believe them. And it’s anyone’s guess how their swift-boating will be “honorably” represented this year, without the little purple-heart bandaids.

And at some point Donald Trump, with his intricately spiraled hair hat, will amaze the attendees with his originality by shouting at an Obama impersonator: “You’re fired!”  Naturally, some will believe it’s really happening, while the others will pretend they didn’t see that coming, and the crowd will go mouth-foaming wild. Count on The Donald to serve up another fresh birther joke as well.

But for Mitt, the real ugliness will be Ron Paul and his legion of disciples:

[...] A final thorn in Romney’s side could be Texan congressman Ron Paul. Libertarian-leaning Paul is bowing out of national politics, but his followers are going to be vocal in Tampa, highlighting their beliefs in minimal government, an anti-war foreign policy and getting rid of the Federal Reserve. Now thousands of Paul supporters are holding a three-day festival in Tampa in his honour. Paul himself will speak tomorrow night at a rally at the University of South Florida’s Sun Dome. Coverage is hardly likely to leave the impression that Romney heads a united or a moderate party. One thing that could dampen things is Hurricane Isaac, which is barrelling towards Florida and may yet force some of the convention to be delayed or cancelled. “For Romney, that is probably a blessing in disguise,” said Bowler.

We’ll see if Reince Priebus and Mitt have observed what’s arrived in Tampa and decided that the hurricane will be a danger to the attendees every day this week except for Thursday night. It’s pretty bad when a hurricane would be the best thing that could happen to Lord Romney’s convention.

Morning in the bunker

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  • (Think Progress) – Colorado Tea Party candidate Ken Buck on abortion: “I don’t believe in the exceptions of rape or incest.” Buck’s extremist stance may help him regain favor with his far-right supporters, some of whom he recently got into trouble with when he called them “dumbass” birthers.
  • (Jeffrey Goldberg) – The Cordoba Initiative, which is headed by an imam named Feisal Abdul Rauf, is an enemy of al Qaeda, no less than Rudolph Giuliani and the Anti-Defamation League are enemies of al Qaeda.  Bin Laden would sooner dispatch a truck bomb to destroy the Cordoba Initiative’s proposed community center than he would attack the ADL, for the simple reason that Osama’s most dire enemies are Muslims.
  • (NY Times) – GOOD NEWS: The government is expected to announce on Wednesday that three-quarters of the oil from the Deepwater Horizon leak has already evaporated, dispersed, been captured or otherwise eliminated — and that much of the rest is so diluted that it does not seem to pose much additional risk of harm.
  • (Greg Sargent) – Pew Research just released a new poll finding that more than twice as many Americans see a Palin endorsement as a negative for a Congressional candidate than view it as a positive. Sargent summarizes, “she’s successfully tightening her emotional grip on her devoted legions of supporters at the expense of just about everyone else. Far more see [Palin] as a turn-off than as a turn-on.”
  • (Reuters) – Barnes & Noble, the number one U.S. book store chain, is putting itself up for sale as business suffers in the high-stakes battle for a leading role in the digital books market.
  • (NYTimes) – 2.4 million more [Americans] became obese from 2007 to 2009, bringing the total to 72.5 million, or 26.7 percent of the population. The numbers are part of a continuing and ominous trend. The nine states with obesity rates of 30 percent or more are Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, Tennessee and West Virginia. The highest rate, 34.4 percent, was in Mississippi.

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