Tag Archives: wingnuts

The clear difference between wingnuts and liberals

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Stupid Right-Wing Tweets: “Today, you see a clear difference between wingnuts and liberals. After Obama clearly lost the first debate, liberals said so. Loudly. But wingnuts are physically incapable of acknowledging reality, even when it’s staring them in the face. So, Joe Biden lost because…because we said so, that’s why. Expect Romney to “win” the next two debates in similar fashion, regardless of the actual results. There is no truth or falsehod, comrades! Only service and loyalty to the party!”

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CBS News: “Fifty percent of uncommitted voters who tuned into Thursday night’s vice presidential debate in Danville, Ky., said they see Vice President Joe Biden as the winner over Mitt Romney’s GOP running mate Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis… 31 percent deemed Ryan the winner, and 19 percent said they felt it was a tie.”

Climate change: Antarctica’s densest waters have reduced dramatically

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A report from Raw Story this morning about Antarctic waters and climate change:

THE DENSEST WATERS OF ANTARCTICA have reduced dramatically over recent decades, in part due to man-made impacts on the climate, Australian scientists said Friday.

Research suggests that up to 60 percent of “Antarctic Bottom Water”, the dense water formed around the edges of Antarctica that seeps into the deep sea and spreads out through the world’s oceans, has disappeared since 1970.

[...] They took temperature and salinity samples at stages of the journey to the Earth’s southernmost continent, also revealing that the dense water around Antarctica has become less salty since 1970.

Rintoul said the change was “likely reflecting both human impact on the planet as well as natural cycles”.

“And the human impact includes both the increase in greenhouse gases but also the ozone hole over Antarctica,” he said, adding that this hole had caused winds of the Southern Ocean to strengthen.

Read: Antarctic waters changing due to climate: study

“Ninety five percent of the glaciers in the world are retreating or shrinking… there is no scientific dispute about that“  – Photographer James Balog shares new image sequences from the Extreme Ice Survey, The Canary In The Coal Mine: Climate Change in Time Lapse Photography

WATCH a promo video from
http://www.extremeicesurvey.org
 –

…

Some photos from the same website:
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A massive iceberg broken off the Greenland Ice Sheet, surrounded by lily pads of sea ice, in the process of breaking up at the edge of Disko Bay. Previous photo / Next photo

How seriously does the anti-science, rightwingnut think tank Heartland Institute take this threat? This seriously.

Now consider the most extreme result in some dystopian future:

Morning Bunker Report: TGIF 5.4.2012

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—————————–—WHAT THE REPUBLICAN PARTY STANDS FOR TODAY

PAUL KRUGMAN fired back at Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) after the influential Republican laughed off the New York Times columnist’s criticisms by saying, “I’ve always figured I’ve got three certainties in my life: Death, taxes and attacks from Paul Krugman.” In an exclusive interview following the release of his new book End This Depression Now!, Krugman told TPM, “That’s not a substantive remark. I’ve never attacked him just for nothing in particular. I’ve gone after his arithmetic and said it doesn’t add up at all. And he has never offered a response to that. All he does is make scary noises about the deficit, with mood music, with organ music in the background about how ominous it is, and then propose a plan that would in fact increase the deficit.” “So if he wants to joke about it, that’s fine, that’s his right. But he has not actually offered any response at all to my criticisms,” added Krugman, a relentless critic of both Ryan and the journalists who lionize him as a deficit hawk. – TPM

MITT ROMNEY’S pro-America “Made in China” flag pins — Mitt told a story about the “We Stand United” American flag pins he commissioned for the [2002 Salt Lake City Olympic Games], which took place just months after the terror attacks on 9/11. Romney touted his creation of the pins as a means to explain how he hopes to bring Americans together. [...] Complicating Romney’s patriotic message is the fact that the pins were made in China, according to a website run by the Utah state government’s culture department… [...] Meanwhile, Lynn Sweet at the Chicago Sun-Times notes that a conference call hosted by the Republican National Committee (RNC) yesterday attacking President Obama for “high unemployment” was hosted by a firm in The Philippines (apparently a subcontractor of Verizon, whom the RNC used). – Mitt Romney Commissioned Pro-America Pins, Made In China

(VIDEO) RICK SANTORUM’S own words on Mitt Romney: “’If Mitt Romney’s an economic heavyweight, we’re in trouble.’ Senator Santorum, We Couldn’t Agree More,” the DNC says in a new video:

…
NEWT GINGRICH made sure to single out his chief benefactor during his concession speech Wednesday, Sheldon and Miriam Adelson: Yes, we’re through the looking glass here. The Adelsons spent $25 million on Gingrich’s campaign, and so I suppose a “thank you” is in order. But that’s the problem. Imagine the “thank you” if Gingrich had won the nomination and then was elected president. — Bob Cesca

THE RON PAUL insurrection in Tampa – The McCain camp was forced to fight off an insurrection on the 2008 convention floor from delegates supporting Ron Paul in what was at the time a very underreported story. It looks like the Paulites are burrowing themselves in deeply this time around, too, controlling more delegates than he “deserves” by taking advantage of the byzantine delegate-nominating process. — TPM

MITT AND MRS. MITT meet the wingnuts, allow their rings to be kissed: The attendees came from numerous conservative sites and right-of-center publications, including National Review, Daily Caller, American Spectator,Washington Examiner, Human Events, RedState, Right Wing News, Powerline, Townhall, Ace of Spades, RiehlWorldView, White House Dossier and PJ Media. RNC chairman Reince Preibus also attended. — HuffPo

PRESIDENT OBAMA / DEMOCRATS————————————————————

SWIFTBOATING OBAMA — Can Obama be swift boated? That’s the idea behind this attack ad from Veterans for a Strong America, which slams the president for taking too much credit for Osama bin Laden’s death. The group’s founder tells Mother Jones’ Adam Weinstein that he’s recruiting Navy SEALs to openly criticize Obama: “We’re gonna be rolling some of those folks out soon.” Want to know who’s funding the group? Sorry, it’s a 501(c)4, so it doesn’t have to reveal its donors or how much money it has. – Mother Jones

PAYING TAXES is, in fact, patriotic – It’s un-fucking-American is what it is. I don’t want you to apologize for being rich; I want you to acknowledge that in America, we all should have to pay our fair share. That our civics classes never taught us that being American means that—sorry, kiddies—you’re on your own. That those who have received much must be obligated to pay—not to give, not to “cut a check and shut up,” in Governor Christie’s words, but to pay—in the same proportion. That’s called stepping up and not whining about it. That’s called patriotism, a word the Tea Partiers love to throw around as long as it doesn’t cost their beloved rich folks any money. — Stephen King

  • King… regularly lands on Forbes’ highest-paid authors list; in 2010, he was at No. 3. His net worth is estimated to be as much as $400 million — that’s huge for a writer but small change when it comes to big finance. Warren Buffett, another tax-the-rich advocate, is worth about $4.4 billion.
  • Rich Americans renouncing U.S. citizenship rose sevenfold since UBS AG (UBSN) whistle-blower Bradley Birkenfeld triggered a crackdown on tax evasion four years ago. About 1,780 expatriates gave up their nationality at U.S. embassies last year, up from 235 in 2008, according to Andy Sundberg, secretary of Geneva’s Overseas American Academy… – Bloomberg

WHOEVER WANTED to let Detroit go bankrupt must be pretty embarrassed by this news: GM (GM) posted a profit of $1 billion in the first quarter, beating Wall Street expectations on strong demand in its key North American market. GM also said the U.S. economy was improving and it expected its core North American results in the second and third quarters to largely match the first quarter due to scheduled downtime at its large truck plants. – Daily Kos

ELEVEN DEMOCRATIC state party chairs are pushing to include support for gay marriage in the 2012 national Democratic platform.  – TPM

OBAMA’S BELOW-THE-RADAR push builds support for healthcare reform law: “The Obama administration is employing an aggressive ground game to build support for its controversial healthcare law that often reaches beyond the Beltway.” – The Hill

NEVER FORGET: President Obama did something Donald Rumsfeld would not – Donald Rumsfeld now says the raid to nab Osama bin Laden was not a tough call, but five years ago Rumsfeld pulled the plug at the last minute on a Navy Seal raid against high-value al Qaeda targets. — TPM

Why does CNN currently suck?

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Joe Coscarelli asks, Why Is No One Watching CNN?

Put gently, as usual, by the Times: “Like Fox News, MSNBC now has hosts with clear political points of view at key times of the day. CNN promotes itself as the top source for nonpartisan news on television.” In other words, it’s boring and basic, so people only watch when they need primary results or Whitney Houston dies. Cenk Uygur of Current TV’s The Young Turks has the following advice:

… for the love of God, stop doing “he said, she said” crap that doesn’t actually deliver the news to anyone. Democrats said this and Republicans said that — who cares? What is the reality?! Your job is supposed to be to bring us facts, not what official spokespeople told you in their press releases and talking points.

I agree that the ‘he said, she said’ bullshit has to go — in fact Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein recently wrote an excellent op-ed, practically begging the media, like CNN, to stop being such complete failures on this issue. But to have CNN bill itself as the “top source for nonpartisan news” is a joke. Please. Let’s not forget this is the cable news network which decided it would be a great idea to add political commentary from such glorious wingnuts as Erick Erickson and Dana Loesch. If I wanted to listen to rightwing nutjobs (which I don’t), I’d turn to Fox News (which I won’t). CNN is losing on many fronts.

03/18: Sunday morning’s more or less interesting things

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1) PRESIDENT OBAMA / DEMOCRATS 

  • President Obama repeats call to end subsidies for Big Oil - “… at a time when big oil companies are making more money than ever before, we’re still giving them $4 billion of your tax dollars in subsidies every year. Your member of Congress should be fighting for you. Not for big financial firms. Not for big oil companies. In the next few weeks, I expect Congress to vote on ending these subsidies. And when they do, we’re going to put every single Member of Congress on record: They can either stand up for oil companies, or they can stand up for the American people. They can either place their bets on a fossil fuel from the last century, or they can place their bets on America’s future. So make your voice heard. Send your representative an email. Give them a call. Tell them to stand with you.” 
  • Medicare fight is not over yet – Rep. Steve Israel - This Republican Congress of Chronic Chaos is dusting off last year’s same failed playbook — where seniors would lose their Medicare while Republicans give more tax breaks to millionaires and Big Oil companies. I have one response: Bring it on. Tone-deaf House Republicans are preparing a budget that will — again — protect millionaires over Medicare. As with their last budget, House Republicans are giving Americans a window into their souls. And the American people don’t like what they’re seeing: Republicans’ relentless, reckless promise to protect the ultrawealthy at the expense of the middle class and seniors. Republicans might stand for those failed priorities, but middle-class families and seniors won’t. Medicare is a sacred bond with seniors that cannot be broken.

2) YOUR 2012 GOP PRIMARY

  • Rick Santorum: If I win the Illinois primary, I win the nomination - ”This is a primary, and turnout is everything. You do your job, you do your job, then this is the pledge,” Santorum said. “If we’re able to come out of Illinois with a huge or surprise win, I guarantee you, I guarantee you that we will win this nomination.” Illinois has largely been predicted to favor Mitt Romney for Tuesday’s primary. The vote is expected to be driven by Chicago and its surrounding suburbs, pegged as unfavorable territory for the former Pennsylvania senator’s brand of conservatism. But in areas like Effingham, hours south of the Windy City, Santorum hopes to fire up a Republican base that is often overshadowed by its Democratic counterparts to the north.

…

  • Ahead of Ill. primary, Romney blasts Obama on gas prices, defends his own wealth -  Romney accused three administration officials—Energy Secretary Steven Chu, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson— of working to push up energy prices. He said they should either resign their offices or be fired by the president. [...] He ended the event with a defense of his business success, which has helped him amass a huge personal fortune. “I am not in this race to make money,” he said to rising cheers from the audience. “I’ve already made enough… I’m not embarrassed about being successful, but I’m embarrassed for people who think there’s something wrong with that.”

3) YOUR 21st CENTURY REPUBLICAN (TEA)PARTY 

  • Why Conservatives Are Still Crazy After All These Years - But are right-wingers scarier now than in the past? They certainly seem stranger and fiercer. I’d argue, however, that they’ve been this crazy for a long time. Over the last sixty years or so, I see far more continuities than discontinuities in what the rightward twenty or thirty percent of Americans believe about the world. The crazy things they believed and wanted were obscured by their lack of power, but they were always there – if you knew where to look. What’s changed is that loony conservatives are now the Republican mainstream, the dominant force in the GOP. [...] conservatism continues to thrive. That’s because power begets power: Democrats can be counted on to compromise with conservative nuttiness, and the media can be counted on to normalize it. And it’s because there will always be millions of Americans who are terrified of social progress and of dispossession from whatever slight purchase on psychological security they’ve been able to maintain in a frightening world. And because there will always be powerful economic actors for whom exploiting such fear, uncertainty and doubt pays (and pays, and pays).
  • San Diego Tea Party activist Michael Kobulnicky. Screenshot via Vimeo.Tea party leader suspected of sexual assault - San Diego tea party spokesperson Michael Kobulincky was placed into custody and accused of abduction and sexual assault on a 56-year-old woman in February. Authorities say the woman was pulled into a car and assaulted before she was dropped off. Surveillance cameras and a picture released to the public led to Kobulincky being identified as a suspect. The San Diego Tea Party released a statement, citing that Kobulincky has been relieved of his spokesperson’s role and has been inactive since January. He is facing a myriad of felony charges, including kidnapping, sexual assault and sex with a foreign object.

4) REPUBLICAN WAR ON WOMEN

…

  • Breaking: “First Degree Homicide Of The Unborn Child Bill” Passes CO House On Second Reading -  Horrible news for women’s rights from the state House tonight. From State Rep Daniel Kagan (D): “…we were unable to prevent the Republican majority in the House from passing on second reading the First Degree Homicide of the Unborn Child bill. Under some circumstances, it makes both termination of pregnancy and the use of the morning after pill a homicide. It also confers personhood on a newly fertilized egg.” Kos readers may believe this bill will be stopped in the Senate. Tea Party legislators have been successful in passing 135 bills nationwide to limit women’s reproductive rights this year. To assume it cannot happen in Colorado is a dangerous assumption…
  • Violence Against Women Act Divides Senate - But Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the senior Republican on the Judiciary Committee, found multiple reasons to oppose the bill when it came up for a formal consideration last month. The legislation “creates so many new programs for underserved populations that it risks losing the focus on helping victims, period,” Mr. Grassley said when the committee took up the measure. After his alternative version was voted down on party lines, the original passed without a Republican vote. Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, one of two women on the judiciary panel, said the partisan opposition came as a “real surprise,” but she put it into a broader picture. “This is part of a larger effort, candidly, to cut back on rights and services to women,” she said. “We’ve seen it go from discussions on Roe v. Wade, to partial birth abortion, to contraception, to preventive services for women. This seems to be one more thing.” [image: leftish]

5) PROTECTING THE WEALTH OF THE ONE PERCENT: GOP WAR ON THE 99%

  • Yet another income redistribution scheme. Notice the GOP never recommends more revenue with a tax increase to the one percent? Medicare bill would hike costs to federal workers - Four Republican senators have introduced legislation designed to improve Medicare, but with federal employees paying a price. Under the Congressional Health Care for Seniors Act, Medicare recipients would enroll in the Federal Employees Health Benefit Program (FEHBP). Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ken.), the main sponsor of the bill, said it would save taxpayers $1 trillion over 10 years. He acknowledged, however, that the legislation would result in higher premiums for federal employees… An organization that represents older Americans on Medicare and federal employees does have arguments against the legislation. ”This is a kill-two-birds-with-one-stone kind of proposal that would both bring down Medicare as we know it and threaten the stability of the FEHBP,” said Joseph A. Beaudoin, president of the National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association.
  • A Senate Republican plan to replace Medicare - For years, Republicans have insisted that they would not end Medicare as we know it and that any changes to the program would not affect those in or near retirement. In the span of 20 minutes Thursday, they jettisoned both promises. [...] But DeMint and his colleagues think the time to end Medicare is now — with a cold-turkey conversion to a private program, effective in 2014. … Paul says his plan would cut funding of Medicare by $1 trillion over 10 years and reduce Medicare’s liabilities by $16 trillion. It would do that by enrolling Medicare recipients in the health plan now used by federal workers. The government would pay 75 percent of the insurance premium on average but 30 percent or less for those who earned more than $100,000 a year. The eligibility age would gradually be raised to 70 from 65. If seniors can’t afford their share of the premium, they can apply for Medicaid, the health program for the poor. || The GOP has always been against Medicare — remember THIS?
  • Ryan Budget to Include Firewall of Defense Sequester - President Obama and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta have stated they want defense spending to be part of a larger budget deal on taxes and spending. The sequester mandates that both defense and discretionary spending will take a hit beginning next January. Defense spending would account for $600 billion of all mandated cuts over 10 years. Some Republicans not wanting to flirt with national security have said they want to keep defense out of the negotiations surrounding the sequester, which are expected to last until after the November elections. Panetta has stated any further cuts could be “devastating,” but has insisted Congress should negotiate on taxes and spending in a comprehensive way without pulling defense. [...] But by firewalling defense from further cuts, House Republicans would need to pay for those expected cuts another way. At a House Budget Committee hearing, Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., told Panetta he felt entitlement spending should be on the table. [chart: MotherJones « click for larger image]

6) MISC

  • Mossad ‘agrees with U.S.’ on Iran nuclear goals - Israel’s intelligence service Mossad agrees with US assessments there is no hard evidence that Iran has decided to build a nuclear bomb, even though Israeli leaders have talked about Tehran’s plans to acquire nuclear weapons, The New York Times reported. “Their people ask very hard questions, but Mossad does not disagree with the US on the weapons program,” the newspaper quoted an unnamed former senior US intelligence official as saying. “There is not a lot of dispute between the US and Israeli intelligence communities on the facts,” the former official said. The Times reported last month that the latest assessments by US spy agencies are broadly consistent with a 2007 intelligence finding that concluded that Iran had abandoned its nuclear weapons program.
  •          
  • BUT THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE! Record highs set Wednesday. Open circles indicate records were tied, circles with an x indicate records were broken. (National Climatic Data Center) Temperatures more characteristic of June have broken hundreds of temperature records over the last several days and promise to continue into the next week in many areas. In some places, temperatures have been an eye-popping 30-40 degrees above normal, nearing or surpassing the warmest temperatures ever recorded so early in the season. Since Sunday, an amazing 943 new record highs have been broken or tied across the U.S. compared to just 9 record lows On Wednesday alone, an incredible 400 new record highs were were broken (307) or tied (93). Record heat spanned from Florida to Montana.  [...] The backdrop for these warm weather records is an atmosphere that’s bulking up. Levels of carbon dioxide and methane (two key greenhouse gases) are higher than they’ve been in at least 800,000 years, and global temperatures over the last decade are unsurpassed in the modern climate record. All 11 years of the 21st century rank among the 13 warmest globally since 1880 according to NOAA. 

There is no GOP ‘savior’

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“So there is no savior. And let us please be clear on why there is no savior. Because there is no one who could satisfy the base of the GOP = a cohort so drunk on ideology and resentment that they cheer electrocutions and boo a soldier – and be elected president of the United States. Period. The standard journalistic trope the past few months has been to say that the Republican establishment would step in at some point and not let things get too out of hand. But that’s mostly nonsense. This GOP establishment is barely less loopy than the base. If this base is driving the party into a ditch, the establishment is riding shotgun holding a shovel.” – Michael Tomasky - There Will Be No Saviors for the GOP in 2012 / The Daily Beast (via: randomactsofchaos)

 

Wednesday morning’s 9 interesting things

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1) Poll: Nearly Half Of Americans Say Deficit Primarily Caused By Wealthy Not Paying Enough In Taxes - A plurality of Americans — 46 percent — say the primary cause for the nation’s deficits is that “wealthy Americans don’t pay enough in taxes,” according to a new United Technologies/National Journal Congressional Connection poll. Just three percent blamed too much federal spending on the elderly, and just 14 percent blamed too much federal spending on poor people. Meanwhile, 80 percent oppose cuts to Medicare, 75 percent oppose cuts to Social Security, and nearly two-thirds oppose cuts to Medicaid. Perhaps for those reasons, Americans prefer President Obama’s budget, which raises taxes on the rich and preserves Medicare and Social Security, by a 10-point margin over the one proposed by congressional Republicans.

via: odinsblog

2) TheTruth Behind The GOP’s ‘1000 Days Without A Budget’ Canard - But the much more important fact Republicans have left out is that the Senate passed a budget on an overwhelmingly bipartisan basis last summer — one that unlike an annual “budget resolution” has the force of law behind it. The Budget Control Act — the law that resolved the debt limit fight — set binding appropriations caps for this fiscal year and the next and instituted a mechanism to contain spending on domestic discretionary programs — education, research, community health programs and the like — through the next decade. [...] When Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says it would be redundant for the Senate to pass a budget, this is what he means. Republicans know this.

3) Poll: Catholics approval of Obama mostly unchanged amid birth control battle - Catholics approval of President Barack Obama has remained relatively unchanged despite facing harsh opposition from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops over new contraception rules. A survey released Tuesday by Gallup found that 46 percent of Catholics approved of Obama last week. A week prior to that his approval was at 49 percent, a change within the margin of error. [...] Facing a backlash from Catholic bishops and their Republican supporters, the White House said last week that it would change the proposed rules by exempting religious hospitals and universities, and instead mandating that insurance companies provide those services.

4) The Internal Contradictions of Mitt Romney - And by “internal”, I mean in the same paragraph: “This week, President Obama will release a budget that won’t take any meaningful steps toward solving our entitlement crisis,” Romney said in a statement e-mailed to reporters. “The president has failed to offer a single serious idea to save Social Security and is the only president in modern history to cut Medicare benefits for seniors”. Yep, Obama has failed to resolve the problem of excessive entitlement spending; furthermore, he’s cutting entitlement spending!

5) Rick Santorum doesn’t want to be typecast as a social conservative - Um, Ricky? Too late. Rick Santorum is hoping to turn the political conversation away from the social and cultural issues that have dominated his quest for the Republican presidential nomination so far and focus instead on the economy as he prepares to compete in the big, recession-plagued battleground state of Michigan. [...] So now, after endless moralizing and sanctimonious preaching against sex for fun, Santorum wants to pretend he’s got something else in his pocket? Ha ha ha! He’s a Republican. His job plan is to cut taxes for Mitt Romney. There. Done. Now that that’s out of the way, he can get back to talking about what he really wants to talk about: Your bedroom.

6) BREAKING: Tentative deal reached on payroll tax cut extension - Congressional negotiators have reached a tentative deal to extend the payroll tax cut and unemployment benefits while avoiding a fee cut for Medicare doctors, according to Republican legislators and aides.

via: randomactsofchaos

7) Meh: Poll finds low enthusiasm for Republican candidates - Most Republicans believe Mitt Romney will be their party’s presidential nominee and that he has the best chance to beat President Barack Obama in November, a national poll released Tuesday found. But the CNN/ORC International poll found little enthusiasm for the former Massachusetts governor’s presidential bid, instead favoring Christian conservative Rick Santorum over Romney, 34 to 32 percent. The poll findings underscored Romney’s failure to ignite his base weeks into a primary season that has seen one candidate after another surge to challenge his de facto frontrunner status, and then lose steam.

Mitt or get off the pot - Nevertheless, he’s probably right that the GOP is running out of fools, that’s it’s quarter-to-three, there’s no one in the place except Rick and Romney, that it’s time for some hot man-on-man action: “We think this is a two-person race right now,” Santorum said on CNN’s “State of the Union” yesterday,“and we’re just focused on — on making sure that folks know we’re the best alternative to Barack Obama and we have the best chance of beating him.” I’ve always said that in this primary, Republican voters love the bad boys. Now it’s come down to a guy who wears sweater vests versus a guy who wears magic underwear. Who’s bad?

8) Wingnuts Furious About … Fox News Going Liberal - What are America’s old white racist exurban cretins on Medicare and Social Security upset about today? Oh, the usual: Obama, liberals, gays, sex, black people, youth, hippies, the poor, the rich, Mexicans, “the hip hop,” Iran, exercise, unemployment, unemployment benefits, vegetables, a talented black woman with addiction problems such as Whitney Houston, [or, now, her young daughter], organic farms, birth control, people having sexual intercourse in general, solar energy, Mormons, national parks, public transportation, Europe, NPR, Media Matters, the New York Times, CNN, MSNBC and Fox News. WAIT WHAT IN THE ??? Yes, Fox News. The wingnuts have spastically lurched from one invented outrage to the next with such shallow furor that they finally wound up enraged about the very teevee channel that tells them what to freak out about.

9) 52% Say GOP Agenda In Congress Is Extreme - While positive ratings for Congress remain at an all-time low, more voters than ever see the Republican agenda in Congress as extreme. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 35% of Likely Voters say it would be more accurate to describe the agenda of Republicans in Congress as mainstream, while 52% feel extreme is a more accurate description. Thirteen percent (13%) are not sure.

New study that will make Teaparty members even angrier then they are now

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FIVE YEARS AGO, IN 2006, DAVID E. CAMPBELL AND ROBERT D. PUTNAM INTERVIEWED 3,000 AMERICANS and re-interviewed many of the same people again this summer. Their findings indicate what most of us already knew: that Teapartyers were far-right, social conservative Republicans (and still are). Or, as Jon Stewart said: “They’re just moral majorities in a tri-cornered hat.”

[W]e can look at what people told us, long before there was a Tea Party, to predict who would become a Tea Party supporter five years later…

Our analysis casts doubt on the Tea Party’s “origin story.” Early on, Tea Partiers were often described as nonpartisan political neophytes. Actually, the Tea Party’s supporters today were highly partisan Republicans long before the Tea Party was born, and were more likely than others to have contacted government officials. In fact, past Republican affiliation is the single strongest predictor of Tea Party support today.

What’s more, contrary to some accounts, the Tea Party is not a creature of the Great Recession. Many Americans have suffered in the last four years, but they are no more likely than anyone else to support the Tea Party. And while the public image of the Tea Party focuses on a desire to shrink government, concern over big government is hardly the only or even the most important predictor of Tea Party support among voters.

As so many have been arguing for the past 3 years, priority #1 is not small government with these people! So what do (rank and file) Tea Partiers have in common (from 2006 through today):

  • They’re white and
  • have a low regard for immigrants and blacks (*ahem* racist?!)
  • are disproportionately social conservatives
  • have a desire to see religion play a prominent role in politics
  • seek deeply religious elected officials
  • approve of religious leaders engaging in politics
  • want religion brought into political debates

Absolutely no surprise. They’re the same weird, eccentric group of religious RWNJs with a brand new Koch-funded name: Tea Party Patriots. What rubbish. They have always wanted a form of government for the USA that’s a straight-up Christian Theocracy, and nothing has changed.

Sometimes it seems that teahadists needs to be reminded that Jesus Christ was not one of the founding fathers. And, newsflash! Their idea of Christianity is so far removed from mainstream belief that it borders on freakish: Jesus as a gun-toting, white-power, women-belong-in-the-kitchen, immigrant-hating, ‘get your own wine and fish’ conservative Deity, who gladly puts the world on hold to personally speak with politicians like GWB, Perry, Bachmann and Palin.

But here’s what’s funny — people have already figured out the teaparty:

Polls show that disapproval of the Tea Party is climbing. In April 2010, a New York Times/CBS News survey found that 18 percent of Americans had an unfavorable opinion of it, 21 percent had a favorable opinion and 46 percent had not heard enough. Now, 14 months later, Tea Party supporters have slipped to 20 percent, while their opponents have more than doubled, to 40 percent.

 [...] the Tea Party ranks lower than any of the 23 other groups we asked about — lower than both Republicans and Democrats. It is even less popular than much maligned groups like “atheists” and “Muslims.” Interestingly, one group that approaches it in unpopularity is the Christian Right.

Read the rest….

With the growing disapproval of the teaparty in general, it’s nice to know that most of us ARE actually using the brains God gave us.

Related:

Observations on a Two-State Solution vs. the Magical-Thinking Status-quo

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Dennis G. on Netanyahu pretending President Obama said something he didn’t:

I think it is pretty clear that delaying any negotiations towards a Two-State solution is the policy of Netanyahu’s coalition. That is why he had to pretend that President Obama said something he didn’t say to create a distraction—without the manufactured dust up talks might get underway and that must be avoided.

[...] It was a bit embarrassing to see so many put the political desires of the extreme elements of the Likud Party ahead of the future of Israel and the security of the United States, but so it goes. It is all magical thinking and that is the rage in wingnutopia. Bibi is a long-time believer in wishful thinking and so he fits right in. He is yet another one of these folks who believes that time, science, reality and everybody else in the world will stand still while their fantasies plays out as imagined. The notion that it might be crazy to think that the entire world revolves around your narrow delusions and petty framing never seems to occur to these folks.

Josh Marshall cuts through Netanyahu’s endless bullshit with this observation:

Prime Minister Netanyahu doesn’t want a two state solution. Period. End of story. Whether this is a principle of deeply held belief (probably) or just a desire not to see his coalition government fall (certainly) doesn’t really matter. His clear aim is to perpetuate the status quo indefinitely—something that is simply not compatible with Israel’s security, America’s security or the Palestinians need for a state.

And Jeffrey Goldberg explains, clearly, why a TWO-STATE SOLUTION is actually the PRO-ISRAEL stance:

If I were a Palestinian (and, should there be any confusion on this point, I am not), and if I were the sort of Palestinian who believed that Israel should be wiped off the map, then I would be quite pleased with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s performance before Congress this morning.

[...] My goal: To hopelessly, ineradicably, entangle the two peoples wedged between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.

Then I would wait as the Israeli population on the West Bank grew, and grew some more. I would wait until 2017, 50 years after the Six Day War, which ended with Israel in control of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. I would go before the UN and say the following:

“We, the Palestinians, no longer seek a homeland of our own. We recognize the permanence of Israeli occupation, the dominion of the Israeli military and the power of the Israeli economy. So we would like to join them. In the 50 years since the beginning of the ’temporary’ occupation, we have seen hundreds of thousands of Israelis build communities near our own communities. We admire what they have built, and the system of laws that governs their lives. Unlike them, many of us live under Israeli military law but have no say in choosing the Israelis who rule us. So we no longer want statehood. We simply want the vote.”

And this, of course, would bring about the end of Israel.

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What GOP / Tea Party racism?

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Ryking:

The National Federation of Republican Women (NFRW) held its annual fall Board of Directors meeting in Charleston, S.C. last weekend – a decision the organization is likely regretting after several controversial pictures from one of the meeting’s sponsored events began surfacing on the internet. One of the pictures shows S.C. Senate President Glenn McConnell - who FITS readers will recall enjoys dressing up as a Confederate General – posing in his Rebel garb with a pair of African-Americans dressed in, um, “antebellum” attire. More on the story here.

The National Federation of Republican Women (NFRW) held its annual fall Board of Directors meeting in Charleston, S.C. last weekend – a decision the organization is likely regretting after several controversial pictures from one of the meeting’s sponsored events began surfacing on the internet.

One of the pictures shows S.C. Senate President Glenn McConnell - who FITS readers will recall enjoys dressing up as a Confederate General – posing in his Rebel garb with a pair of African-Americans dressed in, um, “antebellum” attire.

More on the story here.

Another photo of two actors hired to play slaves at the Confederate-themed National Federation of Republican Women’s meeting, held last Friday. Now why on Earth would anyone think that Republicans are racists? (Here’s the first photo, starring a Republican state senator.)

Another photo of two actors hired to play slaves at the Confederate-themed National Federation of Republican Women’s meeting, held last Friday.

Now why on Earth would anyone think that Republicans are racists?

Of course there’s more!

Here we have a parade with a tea party float featuring a guy wearing an Obama mask, whipping a white taxpayer.

Think Progress: At the annual Sportsman’s Day parade last weekend in Naches, WA (a small town southeast of Seattle), a tea party group called “Remember Us We The People” — which is affiliated with the Tea Party Patriots — sponsored a float that many local residents are “calling offensive and in bad taste“:

Bob Cesca:

If anyone tries to tell you that the tea party doesn’t prey upon racial resentment/fear as a means of recruiting and rallying its members — the very definition of the Southern Strategy — feel free to tell them where and how they can suck it.

John Cole:

Really, they’re just advocates for limited government. …Time for another Reason magazine post explaining that really, opposition to Obama’s policies are rooted in a desire for limited government, and not, as it openly appears, racial resentment and the desire to stoke racial fears for political gains (which David Frum has quite clearly figured out).

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But he didn’t thank George Bush!

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Wingnuts are pissed off about the end of combat operations in Iraq speech last night. At first, I thought it might be because Obama didn’t wear a flight suit and swagger into the Oval Office — they miss the theatrics. Their bellies weren’t rubbed correctly.  But apparently the problem may also be why, at least in the eyes of neocons, the combat operation could end: the surge.

[Balloon Juice]

Bobo and various other neocons have been on a crusade to get liberals to “admit that the surge worked”. This is part of a larger effort to rehabilitate George W. Bush, the Iraq War, and neoconservatism.

Of course, there’s no doubt that violence did start to go down a great deal in Iraq about six months after the so-call surge began in Iraq. Bob Woodward (here; here) attributes this to strategic operational changes that had little to do with having more troops there. Juan Cole thinks that ethnic cleansing—of Badhdad Sunnis by Baghdad Shiites— played a large role.

Maybe it’s impossible to know for certain, but it seems very unlikely to me that a small increase, percentage-wise, in the number of troops in Iraq could have caused the decrease in violence. But maybe that’s because I hate freedom.

Honestly, I’m kind of pissed that Obama didn’t announce when the hearings will begin for Bush and members of his administration over all the lies we were told to get us into Iraq in the first place.

23 Aug: Morning in the bunker

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Park51 Mosque:

  • Fabricated conservative outrage: In 2006, @GlennBeck Praised “Ground Zero Mosque” Imam Rauf [Oliver Willis]
  • Jihad! [Bob Cesca] — exactly what fundamentalist Christians want: a Holy War — bring on the #Rapture!

Obama:

  • The Clark Griswold president? CBS’s Mark Knoller, the unofficial keeper of such things, said Obama has taken 48 days off since his inauguration. At this point in Bush’s presidency, he’d taken 155 days off. [Bob Cesca]
  • In the past week, Obama’s approval has hit a new low: “it now stands at 42 percent, virtually identical to Reagan’s in August 1982.” [WaPo]

Misc:

  • Paul Krugman observes Bush tax cuts will give $3 million EACH to the richest 120,000 people [Krugman]
  • What’s Wrong With Wingnuts: (1) Paul-tarded economics (2) declare holy war (3) criminalize science [Matt Osborne]
  • Fox News scrubbing Wikipedia entry on their $1 Million donation to GOP [DaillyKos]
  • Dick Armey leader of Freedomworks says Medicare and Social Security need to be ended [JoeWo]
  • Conservatives hate Socialism – except when they love Socialism [ThinkProgress]

News:

  • New rules designed to protect credit card users from “unreasonable late payment and other penalty fees” come into force Sunday as a result of the Wall Street reform bill. [CNN]
  • Chile: miners alive but rescue may be MONTHS away [CSMonitor]
  • Half-billion bad eggs, more could be recalled: FDA to aggressively investigate salmonella outbreak that has sickened 1,300 [MSNBC]

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