Texas governor Rick Perry seems to really go out of his way to associate himself with complete fruitcakes. There’s a curious item at Right Wing Watch today about zany churchlady Alice Patterson, one of Perry’s “church mobilizers” for his “The Response” prayer rally. Patterson works on getting African-Americans interested in the Republican party (good luck!) and is the author of a book about her career titled Bridging the Racial and Political Divide: How Godly Politics Can Transform a Nation.

Kyle Mantyla, the author of the post, is reading Patterson’s book and found this astonishing tidbit about how she came to believe that the Democratic Party is “an invisible network of evil comprising an unholy structure,”(i.e. controlled by demons) when she was listening to a sermon by Charles D. Pierce. (Pierce author of Prayers That Outwit the Enemy and the recent book, Time to Defeat the Devil).

As Chuck described ‘Saul Structures,’ my thoughts raced to politics. “Oh my God, Chuck is describing the Democratic Party!” This was the first time I’d ever considered that an evil structure could be connected to and empowered by a political party ... One strong fallen angel cannot wreak havoc on an entire nation by himself. He needs a network of wicked forces to restrain the Church and to deceive the masses. Unlike the Holy Spirit, who is everywhere at once and can speak to millions of people simultaneously, the devil can only be in one place at a time. By himself Satan would be totally ineffective, but in cooperation with other powers of darkness he erects structures to deceive and manipulate entire nations ... At the time I was listening to Chuck Pierce in Louisiana, I hadn’t given any thought at all to strongholds in political parties. If I had ever thought about it, of course, it would have made sense, but it was new information. As Chuck’s words began to sink in, I asked the “Lord, Father, what is the demonic structure behind the Democratic Party?”

Incidentally, it doesn’t look like Perry’s day of prayer and “atonement” for America is getting much traction:  According to Wonkette:

“[O]nly 8,000 tragic souls have signed up for Perry’s “The Response” rally on Saturday, which is mathematically many less than the 71,000 or so people that fit in the gigantic football stadium where he’s holding it. Has America suddenly lost its appetite for asking God to solve its problems? Did an entire day of Rick Perry weeping and speaking in tongues while a cabal of hate-mongering evangelical pastors grown in jars under Pat Buchanan’s bed fling spittle full of damnation and hellfire at everyone just sound like a little too much fun?”

 
Don’t miss the comments. Some real gems there.

Via reddit

 
Looks like crazy eyes has some young fans. Fortunately these two enthusiasts for conservative politics can’t vote…
 

 
A) Hilarious? B) Tragic? C) Who gives a flying fuck anymore? D) All of the above.

The saddest thing about the whole debt ceiling spectacle is that the Democrats hold the Senate and the White House during the worst economic downtown since the Depression and we’re actually hearing talk about the death of Keynesian economics? Unfuckingbelievable, but there you go.

Bruce Bartlett writing at The Fiscal Times wonders if Barack Obama is “the Democrats’ Richard Nixon?” He makes some good points

By 1995, Clinton was working with Republicans to dismantle welfare. In 1997, he supported a cut in the capital gains tax. As the benefits of his 1993 deficit reduction package took effect, budget deficits disappeared and we had the first significant surpluses in memory. Yet Clinton steadfastly refused to spend any of the flood of revenues coming into the Treasury, hording them like a latter day Midas. In the end, his administration was even more conservative than Eisenhower’s on fiscal policy.

And just as pent-up liberal aspirations exploded in the 1960s with spending for every pet project green lighted, so too the fiscal conservatism of the Clinton years led to an explosion of tax cuts under George W. Bush, who supported every one that came down the pike. The result was the same as it was with Johnson: massive federal deficits and a tanking economy.

Thus Obama took office under roughly the same political and economic circumstances that Nixon did in 1968 except in a mirror opposite way. Instead of being forced to manage a slew of new liberal spending programs, as Nixon did, Obama had to cope with a revenue structure that had been decimated by Republicans.

Liberals hoped that Obama would overturn conservative policies and launch a new era of government activism. Although Republicans routinely accuse him of being a socialist, an honest examination of his presidency must conclude that he has in fact been moderately conservative to exactly the same degree that Nixon was moderately liberal.

Here are a few examples of Obama’s effective conservatism:

His stimulus bill was half the size that his advisers thought necessary;
He continued Bush’s war and national security policies without change and even retained Bush’s defense secretary;
He put forward a health plan almost identical to those that had been supported by Republicans such as Mitt Romney in the recent past, pointedly rejecting the single-payer option favored by liberals;
He caved to conservative demands that the Bush tax cuts be extended without getting any quid pro quo whatsoever;
And in the past few weeks he has supported deficit reductions that go far beyond those offered by Republicans.

Further evidence can be found in the writings of outspoken liberals such as New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, who has condemned Obama’s conservatism ever since he took office.

I’m with Krugman myself. I simply can’t believe Obama is negotiating with these assholes (see below) and losing! It’s incredible to watch.

What would Obama do in a fist fight, you know? He should have told the House GOP to do their worst but that he’d veto anything too aggressive and make sure the bills were paid under the 14th Amendment. He should have started there!

Then what would have happened?

It would have been a different story altogether. He should have listened to Bill Clinton.

Instead we’re getting a deal that the chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, called “a sugar-coated Satan sandwich.”

With fuckin’ Democrats like Obama, who needs Republicans, anyway?

This country is doomed…
 

 
Via Think Progress

 
Click here to see the full chart on the New York Times website.

A timely and handy chart for the understanding what’s going on with the deficit negotiations in Washington.

Remember that during the Clinton administration there was actually a SURPLUS coming in that went towards paying down the national debt. George Bush thought this was a bad thing—that the government shouldn’t be bagging surpluses—then promptly gave the average person the cost of a can of soda a day while giving billionaires major tax cuts and starting two costly wars. I think this chart makes it pretty obvious who fucked up this country. Who could deny otherwise? There’s no competition!

No wonder there’s nothing left for schools, roads, seniors, universal healthcare, the out of work and the sick… Isn’t this just infuriating?

H/T Joe.My.God.

 
Remember what former Representative Alan Grayson famously said about the GOP plans to reform US healthcare:

Don’t get sick, and if you do get sick, die quickly.

 
(via The High Definite)

 
Graphic via New York Times, text below from James Fallows at The Atlantic:

It’s based on data from the Congressional Budget Office and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Its significance is not partisan (who’s “to blame” for the deficit) but intellectual. It demonstrates the utter incoherence of being very concerned about a structural federal deficit but ruling out of consideration the policy that was largest single contributor to that deficit, namely the Bush-era tax cuts.

An additional significance of the chart: it identifies policy changes, the things over which Congress and Administration have some control, as opposed to largely external shocks—like the repercussions of the 9/11 attacks or the deep worldwide recession following the 2008 financial crisis. Those external events make a big difference in the deficit, and they are the major reason why deficits have increased faster in absolute terms during Obama’s first two years than during the last two under Bush. (In a recession, tax revenues plunge, and government spending goes up - partly because of automatic programs like unemployment insurance, and partly in a deliberate attempt to keep the recession from getting worse.) If you want, you could even put the spending for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in this category: those were policy choices, but right or wrong they came in response to an external shock. 

The point is that governments can respond to but not control external shocks. That’s why we call them “shocks.” Governments can control their policies. And the policy that did the most to magnify future deficits is the Bush-era tax cuts. You could argue that the stimulative effect of those cuts is worth it (“deficits don’t matter” etc). But you cannot logically argue that we absolutely must reduce deficits, but that we absolutely must also preserve every penny of those tax cuts. Which I believe precisely describes the House Republican position.

After the jump, from a previous “The Chart That Should…” positing, an illustration of the respective roles of external shock and deliberate policy change in creating the deficit.

Obama is a fucking idiot the way he’s played his hand on the debt ceiling. He appears to be an ineffectual fool trying to broker peace with a bunch of schoolyard bullies. The whole thing is so Planet of the Apes. When Mitch McConnell (sensibly, for all parties) tried to offer him the political cover to raise it on his own, he should have jumped at the chance. Now look at the mess he’s in. When is the guy going to act like a Democrat (at the very least!)? It’s becoming harder and harder to support him or even give a shit what happens to his presidency anymore (I’m sure I’ll change my tune closer to November 2012, but voting for Obama with the same “passion” I felt for John Kerry is not something I imagined happening a couple of years ago…)

How the Deficit Got This Big (New York Times)

 
Idiot redneck “preacher” Damon Thompson is ignorant, bigoted and proud of it. He makes his living spewing mono-syllabic hatred towards a group of people (gays) who he personally, has probably never had any direct experience with (unless, of course, what they say about the most vocal homophobes is true. I hadn’t considered that).

Thompson’s “flock” are the people for whom the Tea Party movement—or the Ku Klux Klan—is a step beyond them intellectually. As one YouTube commenter quipped “This is Christianity for meth-heads!”

Well put. If advanced beings from the future ever arrive on Earth, you can bet Damon Thompson would be the first one to want to burn them at the stake. What this hillbilly ignoramous doesn’t realize is that when “the queers” are re-broadcasting his message to hundreds of thousands of people across the Internet, the people watching are just laughing at him. Pointing and laughing at the dumb hick.

To the average person watching his YouTube clips, Damon Thompson just appears to be a brainless hillbilly moron. No more, no less. He’s as compelling as a drunk racist and possessing half the charisma. There is nothing, not one thing, that is even remotely interesting about him. His “message” is trite and inconsequential. People are just laughing at him. Eventually we’ll never hear his name again and no one will even remember him. He doesn’t even distinguish himself as a decent enough gay-basher to achieve any real prominence in the field. Not with the likes of Bryan Fischer around. Thompson is an inarticulate dud by comparison.

(A note to Damon: You look like a smelly hobo, dude. I could have sworn I saw flies buzzing around your head in the video clip. Have you ever considered going on Queer Eye for the Straight Guy? I think they could really help you. I know they could. Your personal grooming and hygiene is deplorable, m’fren…)
 

 
Via Jesus Needs New P.R.

 
In case you missed it, some fantastic reporting from The Rachel Maddow Show (by way of Right Wing Watch) on Rick Perry’s wingnut Woodstock, “The Response.”

What will future people think of this era? (Provided of course, these crazy assholes don’t kill us all first)
 

 
At the National Education Leadership Conference in 2004, Michele Bachmann, then Minnesota State Senator, gave a lecture on the effects of same-sex marriage on education. It’s as stupid you you might imagine.

There is not a whole lot of nuance in her words describing homosexuality and LGBT people, is there?

“I am not here bashing people who are homosexuals, who are lesbians, who are bisexual, who are transgendered. We need to have profound compassion for the people who are dealing with the very real issue of sexual dysfunction in their life, and sexual identity disorders. This is a very real issue. It’s not funny, it’s sad. Any of you who have members of your family that are in the lifestyle—we have a member of our family that is. This is not funny. It’s a very sad life. It’s part of Satan, I think, to say this is gay. It’s anything but gay.”

Funny, but her brand of “profound compassion” sounds just like Christianist bigotry to me. Exactly like it, in fact. Is there ANY discernable difference?

Here’s another winner. Bachmann on hate-monger Fred Phelps:

“I almost think that the gay community has hired this guy, or created this guy, to do what he does. He is their best friend.”

Noted and quoted.
 

 
Via Dump Bachmann