Tag Archives: shiny objects

How the Republican Party always distracts the rubes: gays and abortion

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Yesterday while John Boehner and the rest of the Teapublican House were busy trying to give the super rich an average of $160,000 more in tax cuts, increase taxes on the rest of us by about $1,000, and protect “small businesses” like Bain Capital, they had a couple of familiar shiny objects to distract the rubes in their voting base from paying attention:

1) Chick-Fil-A Appreciation / Hate the Gays Day! 

Chick-fil-A Wants Nothing To Do With Mike Huckabee’s Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day: “The former Arkansas governor created the event on his Facebook page, where he wrote that he was “incensed at the vitriolic assaults” made on Chick-fil-A as a result of their stance against gay marriage. To fight back, Huckabee said, Americans should swarm Chick-fil-A stores across the country on August 1 to show their support. Many customers seemed to have listened. In Indiana, a Chick-fil-A employee posted a photo of his store’s record-breaking sales. In Conway, Arkansas, a store reported record crowds. Dozens of tweets reported lines wrapped around the block. [...] Meanwhile, Wendy’s also appears to have a beef with the day. After a conservative blogger tweeted about a local Wendy’s sign recommending Chick-fil-A, the fast food chain wrote back: “An independent franchisee posted the sign, which he’s taken down. We proudly serve ALL customers.”"

Miss Lindsey Graham seems to appreciate the knee-jerk hate and bigotry of his Teagealical base — he must gladly pander to pseudo-Christians to keep his job:

christopherstreet: Unctuously prissy Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) at a Chick-Fil-A yesterday.

2) Yet another, new abortion bill! (jobs, jobs, jobs): 

House Defeats Ceremonial DC Late Term Abortion Bill: “The House participated in perhaps one of the year’s most blatant displays of political kabuki theater Tuesday, shooting down a ban on late term abortions in the District of Columbia that had virtually no chance of passing. Majority Leader Eric Cantor had scheduled the abortion vote – a major priority of the National Right to Life Committee – despite the objections of moderates and even some conservatives who viewed the vote as little more than bait for the conservative base.”

Even REPUBLICANS are getting sick of the righwing extremists in Congress:

Rep. Mary Bono Mack blasts D.C. abortion vote | The Desert Sun: “A House bill this week to ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy in Washington D.C. may have failed to gain enough of a majority to pass, but it certainly spawned a heated debate on the House floor afterward. Republican Reps. Mary Bono Mack and Robert Dold questioned House Majority Leader Eric Cantor for about 10 minutes after the 220-154 vote on Tuesday, according to Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call. [...] On Wednesday, Bono Mack spokesman Ken Johnson said he wouldn’t detail the discussion with Cantor of Virginia, but explained the seven-term Palm Springs Republican’s frustration with the bill she and Dold of Illinois opposed. [...] “But, clearly, Congresswoman Bono Mack was frustrated about both the policy and process surrounding the abortion bill. There was no exception for rape or incest — absolutely none — and no amendments were allowed. “Additionally, this was on the suspension calendar, which historically is reserved for noncontroversial bills that enjoy broad support. In this case, 154 members voted against it.”” 

Roll Call News: “House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) was confronted on the floor this evening by Republican Reps. Mary Bono Mack (Calif.) and Robert Dold (Ill.), who were livid he had scheduled a tough abortion vote, according to someone who witnessed the incident. Both voted against the District of Columbia Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, which would have criminalized abortions in Washington, D.C., past 20 weeks of pregnancy. “Are you kidding me? How many times are we going to vote on this?” Bono Mack told Cantor in the heated exchange, according to the witness.”

But it’s about the economy… right, Mitt?

Work harder, plebeians: wealthy Americans need more tax cuts

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image: waronidiocy 

Kevin Drum would like to remind everyone what the outrage from the top elite is all about:

“I just want everyone to be absolutely clear on what this “narrative of aggrievement” is all about. It’s about Obama’s proposal that the marginal tax rate on income over $400,000 should rise from 35% to 39.6%. That’s your aggrievement. That’s your entitlement. That’s your socialism. That’s your class warfare. An increase in the top marginal tax rate of 4.6 percentage points. Four. Point. Six. This is what America’s most prosperous citizens are up in arms about. This is why Barack Obama is an enemy of capitalism. These are the spiteful shackles he proposes to use to subjugate America’s engines of job creation. It’s the reason America’s wealthiest citizens are so frightened about the future of their country. 4.6 percentage points. Just let that sink in.”

It will be interesting to see what shiny object(s) the GOP will introduce into the news cycle this week, to distract their not-wealthy voting base from paying attention to the Tax Cuts For The Rich Bill they’re trying to fast track. Maybe Romney in Israel, drumming up a new war with Iran?

Presidents Day: 9 semi-interesting things

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1) Rick Santorum, quite simply, is a monster in a sweater vest - So, to recap, Santorum opposes prenatal screening by prospective parents because they might abort their horribly deformed child who won’t live anyway outside the womb, but wants to enforce state sanctioned invasive procedures for those who choose to have an abortion, because you sluts already stuck some shit up there, so now you need to see pictures. Basically, what Santorum thinks should be the norm is a pregnancy as lottery standard. You miss your period, cross your fingers and hang on for nine months, because Allah God will mystify you at the end with either a healthy child you didn’t want, or maybe a child you were hoping to have but which had it’s heart on the outside of its body and will die 2 hours after birth.

2) Arizona Republican debate on Wednesday at 8pm ET - The final four have not shared a stage in almost a month: Not since Romney won Florida, Nevada and Maine. Not since Santorum triumphed in Minnesota, Missouri and Colorado. Not since Paul won — well, Paul won nowhere, though he told me on CNN’s “State of the Union,” “It all depends on how you measure winning … the bottom line is who is going to get the delegates … and we think we’re doing pretty good.” Also not winning anywhere since the last debate is Gingrich, who retains his down-but-never-out storyline. The former House speaker promised recently, “I have been front-runner twice. I suspect I’ll be the front-runner again in a few weeks.”

3) Juan McCain, who gave us one of the most nasty, negative campaigns in recent memory with Sarah Palin and her blatantly racist followers, fears the NEGATIVE TONE of the GOP race could aid Obama reelection - Former Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) said Sunday he’s worried the negative tone in the GOP campaigns could help President Obama win a second term in the White House. “I think there’s reason to be concerned about it,” said McCain on ABC’s This Week. “I’ve been in very tough campaigns. I don’t think I’ve seen one that was as personal and as characterized by so many attacks as these are.”

4) Bachmann: GOP is extremely ‘pro-women’ - “There is no anti-women move whatsoever. The Republican Party is extremely pro-women,” Bachmann said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “What we saw was President Obama’s signature piece of legislation, which is ‘Obamacare,’ demonstrated 3-D.”

…

5) “If my book is racist and anti-Semitic, how did Sean Hannity, Erin Burnett, Judge Andrew Napolitano, Megyn Kelly, Lou Dobbs and Ralph Nader miss that? How did Charles Payne, African-American host on Fox radio, who has interviewed me three times, fail to detect its racism?” – Pat Buchanan  || “Yeah, how did [this] cartoonish list of white reactionary conservatives (and a black Fox News guy — ostensibly Pat’s “black friend”) not see the racism in Pat’s book? HOW?!” — Bob Cesca

6) Republican presidential battle could get messy - The meteoric rise of Christian conservative Rick Santorum, a strong opponent of gay marriage and abortion, has turned the race on its head. Victories on February 7 in Minnesota, Missouri and Colorado have catapulted Santorum from a distant third to first — a Gallup poll now gives the former Pennsylvania senator an eight percentage point lead over Romney nationally. Should he pull off a win on February 28 in Romney’s home state ofMichigan, all bets will be off and the Republican establishment will be left facing the specter of a bitter fight all the way to its August 27-30 convention.

7) Santorum rallies thousands at Georgia megachurch (Or why are churches tax-exempt again?) - Rick Santorum isn’t a native son of Georgia. He’s not a Southern Baptist. But on Sunday night, an audience of thousands at the First Redeemer Church welcomed him as one of their own. The GOP presidential contender and former senator from Pennsylvania came to this sprawling megachurch an hour north of Atlanta to make his pitch to voters on the home turf of former House speaker Newt Gingrich, a rival, two weeks ahead of the Peach State’s Super Tuesday primary.

8) Ron Paul warns U.S. ‘slipping into a fascist system’ - The White House hopeful said the country had been on the wrong course ever since President Woodrow Wilson, who helped establish the U.S. Federal Reserve in 1913. Paul often laments the increased size of the government over the last 100 years and the move away from the gold standard. He has also voiced concerns about American’s civil liberties. “We’ve slipped away from a true Republic,” Paul said. “Now we’re slipping into a fascist system where it’s a combination of government and big business and authoritarian rule and the suppression of the individual rights of each and every American citizen.”

9) And this is how the Tyrant Virus (T-Virus) began - The quest to grow meat in a lab rather than on an animal is due to reach its climax this fall, with the first-ever culture-dish hamburger served to a celebrity taster after a $330,000 development effort. Mark Post, a physiologist at the University of Maastricht in the Netherlands, said the project is being funded by an anonymous investor who is interested in “life-transforming technologies” and believes lab-grown meat could revolutionize the food industry. Post has been talking about serving up the first lab-grown burger for a long time, but it took the anonymous 250,000-euro ($330,000) contribution to turn the dream into reality. || Note: the doomsday H5N1 flu virus was also created in the Netherlands, just 2 hours away in Rotterdam. Just saying.