[The title is not a joke, but you’ll have to bear with me…]

You’d think that as the parent of a child with a rare genetic disorder, Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum would have deep empathy for a fellow parent of a child with a rare genetic disorder—or if he was a true Christian as he claims to be, even support universal healthcare for everyone’s children—but… NOPE!

Tuesday, speaking to a crowd of more than 400 people in Woodland Park, Colorado, Santorum told this woman that free market capitalism should set prices for drugs, whether she could afford it for her kid or not. Via Crooks and Liars:

“People have no problem paying $900 for an iPad,” the candidate explained. “But paying $900 for a drug they have a problem with — it keeps you alive. Why? Because you’ve been conditioned to think health care is something you can get without having to pay for it.”

The mother replied that she could not afford her son’s medication, Abilify, which can cost as much as $1 million a year without health insurance.

“Look, I want your son and everybody to have the opportunity to stay alive on much-needed drugs,” Santorum insisted. “But the bottom line is, we have to give companies the incentive to make those drugs. And if they don’t have the incentive to make those drugs, your son won’t be alive and lots of other people in this country won’t be alive.”

“He’s alive today because drug companies provide care,” the candidate continued. “And if they didn’t think they could make money providing that drug, that drug wouldn’t be here. I sympathize with these compassionate cases. … I want your son to stay alive on much-needed drugs. Fact is, we need companies to have incentives to make drugs. If they don’t have incentives, they won’t make those drugs. We either believe in markets or we don’t.”

How’s about when it comes to healthcare, we don’t believe that free markets are the way to go? It’s as if the thought that there might be ANY other way of doing it never even entered this asshole’s mind or like he was prevented from grokking it by some sort of alien brain structure Republicans have that rejects common sense.

It’s painful to watch, but at the heart of this exchange is something that I think more and more American women—including, yes, even some Christian, conservative women—are going to realize as this election cycle goes on: Republican policies are bad for America’s children.

They don’t want universal healthcare. They’ve got health insurance for their families, so fuck yours.

They don’t want to pay for public schools. Their kids go to private schools, so fuck yours.

How much more obvious can they get before even the most brain-damaged Fox News viewer finally picks up on the fact that this country is going to Hell in a handbasket if the GOP is allowed to gut spending on healthcare, education, infrastructure and social services any more than the cowardly Democrats have already allowed them to. It’s getting obvious that America is becoming a meaner, shittier place to live and raise a family. The Republicans don’t care about the environment, woman’s health matters, the unemployed… What won’t they attack?

Despite what this pious hypocrite seem to believe, where does it say in the Bible that Rick Santorum’s kids should have the best medical care money can buy, but your kids..? Uh, sorry Charlie, that’s just the way the fucking free market works.

There are winners and losers in life and in Capitalism, so buck up, America! It’s God’s will that your kid died, even if you don’t believe in God!

If you ask me, one of the greatest untapped political forces that this country could ever see would be a movement comprised of mothers who know in their hearts that this country is engaging in a race straight to the bottom when men like Rick Santorum have the loudest voices in our society. An informed mother’s movement that knows exactly who (they do have names, addresses and Social Security numbers, of course) were responsible for flushing the future of America’s children down the toilet, would be a deadly Leviathan to the Republican Party and scare the shit out of the goddamned Democrats, too.

I’m a man, so forgive me for saying so, but I do feel strongly that right now is an appropriate historical moment and opportunity to redefine and expand upon the definition of what “Feminism” means for a new century’s evolutionary needs. I’m not saying that motherhood per se would be the necessary requirement, but I am suggesting that it might be the right time for a “new” kind of woman’s movement, not exactly Lysistrata but something along those lines.

Imagine, if you will, how a female politician would have answered that woman’s question in Colorado on Tuesday. This country would be a lot better off if more smart, progressive women would start running for state, local and national elections, because idiots like Rick Santorum are never going to change anything for the better, as he ably demonstrated in the way he answered this question. He should be ashamed to admit to such thoughts in public and yet this bozo thinks he should be elected President saying them aloud with a microphone in front of his face! It’s astonishing how misguided this chump is.
 

 
In recent days, you may have heard of Senator Stacey Campfield, the woefully stupid Republican legislator from Knoxville, TN’s District 7, who is behind the bill nicknamed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill (SB49), which will block any and all discussion of the topic of homosexuality in grades kindergarten through eight in Tennessee schools. Campfield has a history of idiocy when it comes to statements on the LGBT community. He once even likened homosexuality to bestiality. He certainly reflects poorly on the citizens of Knoxville who voted him into office.

Campfield was interviewed by Michelangelo Signorile of Huffington Gay Voices, on his SiriusXM radio show, “OutQ” and said some dumb, dumb things. Very unhelpful, silly and very unintelligent things.

Gems like:

“Most people realize that AIDS came from the homosexual community — it was one guy screwing a monkey, if I recall correctly, and then having sex with men. It was an airline pilot, if I recall.”

“My understanding is that it is virtually — not completely, but virtually — impossible to contract AIDS through heterosexual sex…very rarely [transmitted].”

The thing is, Stacey Campfield is one of those people who is too dumb to know how dumb he is. He needs other people to explain that to him.

As writer Sean Braisted put it on the progressive blog Nashville 21:

“Stacey Campfield has made it a mission in his life to make life harder for those who don’t fit his own personal view of ‘normal’.”

But there has been a pushback against this bigot, as Braisted reported, started when a Knoxville restaurant called The Bistro at the Bijou refused Campfield service on Sunday.

The customer clearly ISN’T always right. Congratulations to owner Martha Boggs who ejected this shithead from her establishment (which is on South GAY Street, btw! What was Campfield doing there in the first place? Looking for a new boyfriend, maybe? Doesn’t he know that you can catch “the AIDS” from the bread sticks!?!)

Boggs told the Metro Pulse:

“I didn’t want his hate in my restaurant. I told him he wasn’t welcome here. ... I feel like he’s gone from being stupid to being dangerous, and I wanted to stand up to him.”

Bravo! I’d have have done the exact same thing in her shoes (or else pissed in his soup?). Round of applause for Martha Boggs!

The Bistro at the Bijou also posted a Facebook message that read, “I hope that Stacy Campfield now knows what if feels like to be unfairly discrimanted against.”

More from Nashville 21:

Stacey Campfield has blogged about his experience and says that he left the restaurant because “she started to yell and call me names again so I figured it was better to just leave.”  He also adds this nugget:

“Some people have told me my civil rights were violated under the 1964 civil rights act in that a person can not be denied service based on their religious beliefs. (I am catholic and the catholic church does not support the act of homosexuality)”

Ummm…no. According to the EEOC, “Social, political, or economic philosophies, as well as mere personal preferences, are not “religious” beliefs protected by Title VII.” While Title II covers restaurants, its safe to say that the same definition of “religion” would apply there as well. Arguably the belief that “homosexuality is a sin” is a religious belief, but saying that AIDS resulted from people having sex with monkeys, or passing laws that prohibit the discussion of the concept of same-sex relationships, does not fall under that classification.

There’s nothing in that legislation that prohibits discrimination against fucking assholes either. Sorry Stacey!

Below, Martha Boggs talks about the Stacey Campfield incident, saying she thinks Campfield is a “bully” and that “he needed to be stood up to.”
 

 
Caught on tape: Bachmann, Santorum, Gingrich and Mitten’s greatest “shit.”
 

 
Via Jezebel

 
Mind-blowingly stupid Oklahoma state State Senator Ralph Shortey—who in the past has introduced bills authorizing law enforcement to crack down on illegal immigrants by seizing their homes and vehicles—has filed a, um,  “controversial” bill to ban the manufacture or sale of food products which contain aborted human fetuses.

From KRMG Talk Radio:

State Senator Ralph Shortey says he’s done research and found reports that companies have used stem cells in the research and development of food.

“I don’t know if it is happening in Oklahoma, it may be, it may not be.  What I am saying is that if it does happen then we are not going to allow it to manufacture here,” says Shortey. The lawmaker that represents Oklahoma County couldn’t give any specific examples.

“There is a potential that there are companies that are using aborted human babies in their research and development of basically enhancing flavor for artificial flavors,” says Shortey.

What, and deny the good people of the state of Oklahoma more authentic tasting Bac-O-Bits?

Also in 2012, Shortey introduced a bill seeking a public vote on amending the Oklahoma Constitution to abolish the Court of Criminal Appeals. In the past he’s introduced measures to deny citizenship to babies born to illegals and an amendment to a bill that would have allowed legislators to carry firearms anywhere, including government buildings. If you’ve seen any video footage of this guy, he’s as dumb as fucking rock.

You do know how this moron got into office, don’t you? It’s simple: He ran and more people voted for him than his opponent.

Depwessing isn’t it?

 
Political junkies alert: If you haven’t seen Newt Gingrich’s epic 27-minute-long violent disembowelment of Mitt Romney, When Mitt Romney Came to Town, holy shit will it will take your breath away!

I mean… WOW. I can only imagine the look on Romney’s face when he saw this puppy. He probably broke down and cried! This shit is hardcore. Reagan’s Eleventh Commandment has been repealed.

Rating the political damage this film does to Romney on a scale of one to ten with one being merely annoying and ten being castrated and then having your balls shoved down your throat for the whole world to see? When Mitt Romney Came to Town is probably an eleven or twelve. Think I’m exaggerating? See for yourself!

This has to be the single meanest, most vicious political hit piece ever made. It’s a cold, cruel masterpiece of character assassination.

It makes the worst things Lee Atwater did in his career look warm and cuddly in comparison. “Willie Horton”? That’s amateur hour compared to When Mitt Romney Came to Town.

I suppose it’s a bit disingenuous to call it “Newt’s” film because he was just the highest bidder. The film was also offered to the other campaigns—they all had their chances—but it was Gingrich, or rather the “Winning Our Future” Super PAC supporting him, that allowed Gingrich to be the one to get all Ed Gein on Romney’s ass and deliver the axe to his head.

When Mitt Romney Came to Town was directed by Jason Killian Meath, an associate of Romney’s during the 2008 Republican primary who made ads that year that were pro-Mittens. He must have seen something in Romney that he didn’t like, or maybe not. Maybe When Mitt Romney Came to Town was simply a way for Meath to cynically sell his services to the highest bidder and enrich himself personally at Romney’s expense. Loyalties can be very flexible in Washington. The film looks like it cost no more than $50k to make, but surely Jason Killian Meath was well-compensated for this expert hit. The film’s all-out annihilation of its target positions Meath nicely as the “Scaramanga” of political operatives. In the future pols from both parties will be clamoring for his services. Why hire anyone but the very best? No one else comes even close to this guy’s mad satanic skillz! He’ll burn your opponent to the fucking ground.

Truly I don’t see how Romney will be able to counter this. It’s like the box that rips your face off in Hellraiser.

The thing is, When Mitt Romney Came to Town inadvertently goes to great lengths to expose the moral and intellectual bankruptcy at the heart of today’s Tea party-led GOP: Free market Capitalism, seen in the human form of Mitt Romney and the rest of his mega-rich cronies at Bain Capital, are such hideous and loathsome creatures that the unavoidable “takeaway”—even for conservative viewers, I should point out—is that Capitalism is an evil system rigged to benefit the people at the top of the food chain and fuck over anyone who gets in their way.

The rest of us are just their food. When Mitt Romney Came to Town makes that very, very clear… even for the most dumbshit Republicans. Freedom? You think you’re free? You’re free to lose your house, health insurance and starve is what you’re free to do, according to the message of this film. It’s called “creative destruction” and Mitt Romney will tell you all about it. It’s how he made his vast fortune: from the misery of hardworking Americans. The next time you hear some asshole going on about impersonal market forces and all that blather, show them When Mitt Romney Came to Town—this is an impersonal market force that has a first name, a last name, a social security number and a street address, albeit one that’s probably behind a big gate with security guards.

But it’s not just Mitt Romney’s mouth that this film pisses in. When Mitt Romney Came to Town dramatically and clearly indicts the entire way BUSINESS is done in America.  The film is of a set with anything that Michael Moore has ever done and seems far more in tune with the Occupy Wall Street movement than anything we’d normally associate with Republicans. Who wrote the voice over script, Trotsky? Yes, I mean to tell you that When Mitt Romney Came to Town is that much of a wildcard to throw into the GOP primary. Even Ron Paul might have his doubts about the free market after viewing this one.

Ultimately, though, I don’t think this film benefits Newt Gingrich in any way. It utterly destroys Mitt Romney, true, it absolutely skullfucks him and leaves him bleeding from his anus and shivering on the ground in a fetal position, but you’d have to be an absolute idiot if the only question you had when When Mitt Romney Came to Town is over was which one of the other Republicans you were going to vote for!
 

 
In this case, England. In the editorial pages of today’s Telegraph, Assistant Comment Editor Tom Chivers made this, as far as I am concerned, completely accurate assessment of the brain dead freak show that the modern Republican party has become. He writes in Republicans turn their back on the Enlightenment:

The Grand Ol’ Party (GOP), as the Republicans are known, has an uncomfortable relationship with scientific fact. Rick Santorum, a frontrunner in the nomination race, has said of a fellow candidate: “If he wants to believe he is the descendant of a monkey then he has the right to believe that, but I disagree with him on this liberal belief.” Yes: acknowledging biology’s central premise is “liberal”. His opponents Ron Paul, Rick Perry, Mitt Romney, Michelle Bachman and Newt Gingrich have all made noises doubting either climate change, evolution or both; only Jon Huntsman, a forlorn no-hoper, acknowledges the reality of both.

It’s not just the candidates. Fifty-two per cent of Republican voters reject the theory of evolution, saying mankind was created in present form within the last 10,000 years; just 31 per cent think man-made climate change is happening. In Congress, Republicans fought stem cell research and the HPV vaccine. Sarah Palin, ignoramus-in-chief, mocked “fruit-fly research” as a “pet project [with] little or nothing to do with the public good,” rejecting at a stroke most advances in genetics since Gregor Mendel.

Boom! Cracking good line, that…

This Nixonian strategy actually changed conservative psychology, according to [Chris Mooney, author of The Republican War on Science and Unscientific America]. “It’s been argued convincingly that when you energise people around these sort of [hot button issues like gay marriage, abortion, the war on Christmas] you get an authoritarian streak coming out, characterised by rigidity and inflexibility, thinking that you’re absolutely right and the other side is absolutely wrong; a need for certainty, a need for order.” This black-and-white thinking does not sit well with science’s error bars and uncertainties.

Worse, it’s become a vicious circle. The Republican party is trapped by its own anti-science tactics. Part of the culture war strategy included attacking intellectuals: describing them as weak and spineless and effete. Academics, always liberal-inclined, responded by becoming more so: “They’re so overwhelmingly liberal now it’s kind of ridiculous, and so is the scientific community. The Democratic party is drawing the votes of people with advanced degrees, and the Republican party is not,” says Mooney. So, in turn, the Republican party reacted by becoming ever more distrustful of intellectualism, and pushing wave after wave of scientists and academics from the Right to the Left. “The more the Republican party rejects nuance and attacks knowledge, the more the people who have knowledge go the other way. It shows in statistics about liberalism among professors and scientists, and distribution of PhDs across the parties: there’s a giant knowledge and expertise gap.”

And to appeal to this anti-intellectual base, the Republican elite now have to pretend to be stupider than they are. Gingrich, who in earlier years repeatedly acknowledged the dangers of climate change, suddenly dropped a chapter written by a climate scientist from an upcoming book after getting challenged on air by Rush Limbaugh, the hugely influential Right-wing talk radio host; Mitt Romney moved from “I believe the world is getting warmer, and I believe that humans have contributed to that” to “We don’t know what’s causing climate change on this planet” in the space of three months.

So expertly observed. So true!

Do they mean it, or is it pandering to their anti-intellectual base? “Santorum, Bachmann and Perry are completely out of touch with reality. With Romney and Gingrich, many people get the impression that they know what’s right and what’s wrong, but can’t say it,” says Mooney.

Perhaps. But nowadays, to get far in the Republican party, you can’t be part of what George Bush might call the reality-based community. It’s a worrying state of affairs: America is becoming an intellectual two-speed nation, with a technocratic, informed elite and a scientifically illiterate rump who are falling behind economically in their increasingly knowledge-based economy. The GOP is increasingly the party of the uneducated: it’s bad enough for them, but if it means voting stupid people, or people who are pretending to be stupid, into the most powerful office in the world, it’s bad for the rest of us too.

Plus one! I mean come on, how is this not 100% accurate? Barney Frank was right with his suggestion for the Democrats: “We’re not perfect, but they’re nuts.”

Republicans turn their back on the Enlightenment (The Telegraph)
 

 
Blue Q offers a pretty nifty gum which cleanses the yuck from your mouth when you unknowingly smooch a Republican. Their motto is “I’m sorry. I didn’t know it when we kissed.”

There’s also a gum for Democrats.

(via Super Punch)

“Heh heh heh!” “Hee hee hee!” “Ha hah hah!

So what are the lessons learned coming out of the Iowa Caucuses?

Well, for one, only 5.4% of eligible voters even gave a shit. Despite all of the images we’ve seen in the media for nearly a year of the GOP hopefuls doing the “retail politics” routine apparently required in the state, just about one out of every twenty Iowans cared enough to caucus. Would you say that indicates an extreme “enthusiasm gap” on the part of Republican voters?

It’s quite difficult to spin 94.6% of your peeps staying home, isn’t it? Some portion of that 5.4% were Democrats and independent voters, too, of course.

And how to explain away that 75% of those most committed Republicans, the ones who, you know, actually made it to the polls, didn’t vote for the “winner,” Mitt Romney? To me that was the main takeaway from the Iowa vote. It was a total confirmation of the whole “anybody but Romney” sentiment we’ve heard so much about.

The reason I’ve never really written much about Mitt Romney here is simply that I don’t take him seriously. I could run through a litany of reasons why I hate him (such as the fact that he was a Richie Rich draft dodger living in a CASTLE IN FRANCE during the Vietnam War who himself protested anti-war protesters! Okay for thee (to die) but not for me, eh Mittens? There’s a special place in Hell for people like Mitt Romney) but I can sum up why Romney will either not make it to the nomination in the first place, or what will ultimately be THE reason Obama will win if Romney does end up running against him: Mitt Romney is a Mormon. And this is America, which means he might just as well be a Scientologist. Christian voters will simply stay home faced with the choice of Obama vs a Mormon, which is how the Democrats will frame the election: Obama vs. the fruitcake.

Romney the “weird religion guy” isn’t gonna win. It’s a blunt truth. It ain’t gonna happen. Nuff said.

I think James Carville got it exactly right when he compared the way Republican voters feel about Romney to a dog that keeps spitting up a pill that’s being shoved down its throat. His hilarious line was worthy of Mark Twain or H.L. Mencken:
 

 
There’s also the fact that Newt Gingrich is about to go nuclear on Mitt Romney, even if it means (more) self-immolation for the Newtser himself. I don’t think he cares, he hates Romney so much. Imagine if you will, being the object of that amphibian’s vile hatred. Now imagine that hatred electronically amplified through nasty TV commercials. He’s going to pour gasoline on Romney and then throw a match on him.

I fully expect Romney to be burnt to a crisp by the time of convention. Republicans, as noted by Rick Perlstein at Crooks and Liars, tend to always nominate the “next in line,” but they’re also not supposed to speak ill of one another (Reagan’s so-called “11th Commandment”). The heir apparent this year will arrive DOA before the delegates even vote.

And then there’s Newt himself. Talk about a no-hoper. Everyone hates this guy. Just look at him. Even if you are a Republican, do you want to see his face daily for four years? Neither does anyone else. If there was a devastating nuclear war and the President, his entire cabinet, every sitting member of Congress and every single ranking member of the military were dead and Newt came forward, just like his inspiration, Winston Churchill, and selflessly offered to lead a tattered and broken nation, the nearest person with a gun and a lick of sense would shoot the guy in the fucking face without a moment’s hesitation!

He’s not going to be the leader of anything, except for a Shriner’s clown car parade. He’s not even worth getting irate about. He’s just what he is. Within a few months he’ll slink back under the rock of his old Fox News gig. I’d give 50/50 odds that nasty Newt will be doing live GOP convention coverage for the “fair and balanced” news network.

Rick Santorum? Well, what can you say about a guy who no one in Iowa paid any attention to whatsoever until a few days before the vote? The only thing Santorum had going into the eve of the Iowa vote over his better known opponents is that he isn’t named “Mitt Romney” and that the rest of them were already known quantities. He was the next logical benefactor of the “anybody but Mitt Romney” vote.

How long do you think that’s going to last when he starts talking about how he thinks states basically should make contraception illegal? Yup, Santorum thinks that sex should ONLY be for procreation even if you are married! I mean, he said that. I don’t care if Rupert Murdoch and the entire Fox News apparatus gets thrown behind this dude, how long is Rick Santorum going to last in the spotlight when people start to realize that if he had his way, you might have to order condoms and other forms of birth control over the Internet or drive to the next state? Santorum has already received the endorsement of Christians for a Moral America, the same group who for asked its follower to pray for pop singer George Michael’s death from AIDS.

Outside of the US, in Norway, this is how they already view Rick Santorum, who most of the rest of the world is hearing about for the very first time:.
 

 
“God bless America,” all of you “foreigners” are thinking, aren’t you? We make you feel good about your politicians, don’t we?

With an economic plan that calls for more, uh, marriage (but not for teh gayz), if you don’t already regard Rick Santorum as a fucking moron, don’t worry, you will!

Moving right along, I’ve already written about Ron Paul (and despite what some readers seem to think, I’ve not in any way changed or revised my opinion of the man for over two decades) but in brief, if this is a horse-race, he’s the one with “big mo” coming out of Iowa, not Romney and certainly not Santorum.

Michele Bachmann finally realized that God actually wasn’t calling her to run for President. Someone garbled the message when they wrote it down. Rick Perry? Who cares? I’ll just write “blah blah blah” about him.

Oh, I’m forgetting Jon Huntsman… like everyone else did. He should take a hint and a vow of silence for a few months if he wants the same deal Santorum got. Who knows, he might end up as the most credible VP pick after the Mexican standoff of the rest of the GOP primary season and this might be what he’s been angling for this go ‘round to begin with.

And just in time, because we’ve all missed him so much, one of the biggest idiots ever to foist himself onto the American political stage in our great nation’s history of political idiocy, HERMAN CAIN, IS BACK! That’s right comedy fans, Cain told Sean Hannitty (who else still cares about him?) on Fox News that he, just like Sarah Palin before him, is going to do his desperate and pathetic “Hey, look at ME” routine patriotic “duty” and take the “Cain’s Solutions Revolution” bus tour across this wonderful land of ours to push for his “ideas” as “articulated” in his “9-9-9” flat tax plan.

And Fox News will be there, too, no doubt!

[Note: NOTHING that you have read above should be misconstrued as support for the Democrats. I hate them, too. I just hate Republicans more.]

Above, Rep. Steny Hoyer’s press conference today.

“Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask for unanimous consent that we bring up the bill to extend the tax cut to 160 million Americans, as you walk off the floor Mr. Speaker, you’re walking away, just as so many Republicans have walked away from middle-class tax payers, the unemployed, and very frankly as well from those who will be seeking medical assistance from their doctors — 48 million senior citizens.”

This CSPAN footage of House Republicans having a right little snit fit is something you’ll be seeing over and over again in DNC political ads in the coming year. THIS is what the GOP version of bipartisanship looks like, their way or the highway, quite literally. Everyone knows what who the roadblocks are in Washington anyway, but this was a graphic reminder!

What was the House Republican leadership thinking (nothing) to just hand over an image like this to the opposition? It’s like they’re suicidal lemmings. Via TPM:

While Republican leaders gathered in Speaker John Boehner’s Capitol office Wednesday morning for a photo op with reporters — hectoring Democrats and making the case that they’re on the right side of the payroll tax fight — an unusual scene played out on the House floor.

In an attempt to illustrate just who’s at fault for the payroll tax stalemate Minority Whip Steny Hoyer showed up to ask for a vote on the Senate’s compromise bill. Republicans could have simply objected and given Hoyer his talking point. Instead they gave him so much more.

Republicans just ignored Hoyer and refused to hear his unanimous consent request. The fill-in Speaker simply walked away.

The GOP is imploding even faster than I thought they would. This week’s antics have been particularly breathtaking... Keep it up lads and finish the job! I know you can do it!
 

 
If embattled WI Governor Scott Walker can’t win fair and square at the ballot box in the now all but inevitable recall election he faces—WI Dems are making a big announcement on Thursday about the recall campaign’s progress—then why not try something immoral and shysty?

I’ll tell you why NOT, Scott: It makes people hate your fucking guts even more and it makes them all the more determined to kick your ass to the curb. 

For every story of voter suppression and menacing of Recall Walker volunteers by brain-addled reichwingers, there are more people making up their minds by the minute to boot this toxic motherfucker out of office.

It’s odd that it didn’t occur to to Walker and his weasely Republicans cronies that this kind of story might prove to be a bit of a public relations NIGHTMARE and that there would be push-back—and plenty of it—with this sort of extremely ill-advised move. From People’s World:

For more than 60 years Ruthelle Frank has not missed an election in her town, her state and her country. She first voted in 1948 and has voted in every single election since then.

She is herself an elected official in her hometown of Brokaw, Wisconsin. She is a member of the Brokaw Village Board.

Now, however, because of the new Republican voter ID law in Wisconsin, 2012 will be the first year Frank can’t vote.

Under the new law people must carry a new state issued photo ID in order to vote. The ID itself is free but one must have a birth certificate in order to get the free ID. Birth certificates, for those in Wisconsin who don’t have them, cost $20. Opponents of the Republican voter ID law argue that this, by itself, amounts to an unconstitutional poll tax.

Frank’s first problem is that she does not have a birth certificate. People born at home in the 1920s in Wisconsin did not receive official birth certificates. Like many others in 1927, Frank was born in her own house.

The ACLU have stepped in on Ruthelle Frank’s behalf to challenge this vileness in court.

WHO would think something like this is smart politically??? Well… Republicans apparently. If you can’t beat ‘em, CHEAT ‘em.
 

 
I posted about longtime Republican strategist Frank Luntz and the rhetorical tips he gave to GOP governors the other day (say “economic freedom” instead of “capitalism,” for instance) but until I heard Ed Schultz mocking it on his MSNBC program, it didn’t really jump out at me how incredibly offensive and insulting Luntz’s OWS talking points truly were… for Republicans!

It’s long been obvious that the GOP leadership in Washington has had a condescending attitude towards the loonier/lower IQ members of the party’s Fox News-watching base, but when you get right down to it, reading between the lines of what Luntz said, the Republican elite must hold them in utter contempt. The entire context of the remarks Frank Luntz made indicates strongly that there is an a priori assumption on the part of the GOP that their supporters fall into the category of “low information voters.” That’s breathtaking in its cynicism!

“Hey dumbshits!” they seem to be saying.“Vote for us!”

When will these people learn? Or are these tactics, once so effective, becoming too threadbare to matter much anymore?
 

 
There’s been a lot of hand-wringing lately from so-called moderate Republicans over the brainless crew of chuckleheaded “leadership” running their party headlong over a steep cliff.

Even David Frum (David Frum???) has taken to expressing his exasperation with his party in a recent New York magazine article titled “When Did The GOP Lose Touch With Reality?”:

The Bush years cannot be repudiated, but the memory of them can be discarded to make way for a new and more radical ideology, assembled from bits of the old GOP platform that were once sublimated by the party elites but now roam the land freely: ultralibertarianism, crank monetary theories, populist fury, and paranoid visions of a Democratic Party controlled by ACORN and the New Black Panthers. For the past three years, the media have praised the enthusiasm and energy the tea party has brought to the GOP. Yet it’s telling that that movement has failed time and again to produce even a remotely credible candidate for president. Sarah Palin, Donald Trump, Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich: The list of tea-party candidates reads like the early history of the U.S. space program, a series of humiliating fizzles and explosions that never achieved liftoff. A political movement that never took governing seriously was exploited by a succession of political entrepreneurs uninterested in governing—but all too interested in merchandising. Much as viewers tune in to American Idol to laugh at the inept, borderline dysfunctional early auditions, these tea-party champions provide a ghoulish type of news entertainment each time they reveal that they know nothing about public affairs and have never attempted to learn. But Cain’s gaffe on Libya or Perry’s brain freeze on the Department of Energy are not only indicators of bad leadership. They are indicators of a crisis of followership. The tea party never demanded knowledge or concern for governance, and so of course it never got them.

In an NPR interview, Frum discusses how people who listen to talk radio or watch Fox News have a completely different set of facts than the rest of us. He’s correct there, of course… and he’s David freakin’ Frum!

I’m perplexed, but grateful for small miracles that at least there is one conservative pundit out there who can translate their brain-damaged behavior (to a certain extent) for the rest of us. And will you look at that: They seem fucking crazy to him, too!

And then there’s today’s column, also at New York, from Jonathan Chait titled “The Agony of the Moderate Republican,” where he observes that former Bush speech writer, Michael Gerson, “[w]hen confronted with a relatively straightforward description of the party’s agenda, he instinctively recoils — not at the agenda, but at the description itself.

Here’s what Gerson wrote yesterday at The Washington Post:

“As president, Obama has asserted that Republicans want the elderly, autistic children and children with Down syndrome to “fend for themselves,” and that the GOP plan is “dirtier air, dirtier water, less people with health insurance.” In what context would these claims be true?”

Here’s how Chait parses the question posed by Gerson and turns it right around on him.

In what context? Well, let’s see. The House Republican budget would cut Medicaid — a bare-bones health insurance program for the poor, disabled, and elderly — by $750 billion over ten years, ramping up the scale of cuts until funding has been reduced by 35 percent by 2022. When you’re slashing the funding of a program that’s far cheaper than private insurance and not replacing it with anything, you’re pretty much leaving people to fend for themselves.

As for children with Down syndrome, they’re an important part of the Medicaid program. (People with disabilities account for 42 percent of the cost of Medicaid.) Unsurprisingly, disability advocates were apoplectic about the Republican budget.

The dirtier air and water part is pretty straightforward: The House Republicans have voted to roll back basic air pollution standards and strip the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to enforce clean water standards. When you eliminate laws that keep air and water clean, you make them more dirty.

And the House Republican budget would repeal the Affordable Care Act and put in place nothing whatsoever to cover the uninsured, thereby increasing their ranks by some 32 million.

Now, Republicans can certainly contest Obama’s description. I’m sure they have arguments as to why weakening laws that have produced cleaner air and water will not actually make the air and water less clean, and why cutting or eliminating programs that provide medical care to people who can’t afford it won’t deny them medical care. But Gerson doesn’t merely consider Obama’s description to be contestable. He considers it a lie so obvious it requires no rebuttal. [Emphasis added]

That’s interesting, isn’t it? Like there’s this weird blind spot that conservatives have about their own biases that makes it awfully difficult to even talk sensibly with them anymore. I doubt Jon Huntsman would have much of a quarrel with that statement in private, what do you think?
 

 
Then there’s this over at today’s Daily Beast, where columnist Michael Tomasky argues persuasively that the Republicans are set to self-destruct over their rejection of the payroll-tax cut as Senate Republicans set about proving beyond all argument that they are the lickspittle toadies in thrall of the 1% and don’t give a shit about the common man. Here’s Tomasky’s hilarious blunt pull quote:

How a party can so nakedly represent only the top 1 percent while at the same time trying to stop anything that will help the economy, and survive while doing it, is beyond me.

More from Tomasky:

Every blessed once in a great while, all artifice is stripped away, rhetoric collapses under the weight of its own absurdity, and we get to see things as they really are. Such will be the case later this week when the Senate tries to vote on extending the payroll-tax holiday. The Republicans will oppose it—that is to say, the Republicans will support a tax increase on working Americans. And why? Because the Democrats want to pay for it with a small surtax on the very top earners. So the choice couldn’t be more direct: which is more important, giving the middle class a tax cut or protecting those who make more than $1 million a year? Republicans are making it clear. This vote alone should destroy them.

The facts: The Social Security payroll tax comes to 12.4 percent of an employee’s salary—employers and employees each pay 6.2 percent. The money goes into the Social Security Trust Fund and finances benefits. At the end of last year, the Obama administration, in exchange for temporarily extending the Bush tax rates on all income levels, got Congress to agree to a one-year 2 percent payroll-tax holiday for employees, down to 4.2 percent. For a $50,000 earner, that meant paying $1,000 a year less in payroll taxes. It was agreed in that law that the holiday would cost the Social Security Trust Fund nothing—the depleted revenue would be replaced out of the general treasury. So the holiday adds to the general deficit but does not affect the trust fund.

The cut proved popular, or is presumed to be popular, so now, as many people predicted last year, Congress wants to extend it. Republicans of course say (as they say of everything) that it hasn’t done any good. But economists attest to its stimulative value. Two economists at the Economic Policy Institute say ending the holiday would reduce GDP by $128 billion and cost 972,000 jobs in 2012. The EPI is a liberal outfit, but Mark Zandi of Moody’s, who advised John McCain in 2008, agrees that raising the payroll tax back to where it was could cause another recession.

And besides those macroeconomic concerns, there is the simple question of money in people’s pockets as they try to tough out the economy. A thousand dollars to a $50,000 earner, or $1,500 to a $75,000 earner, isn’t nothing.

What the Senate Democrats want to do now is this. They want to increase the employee’s reduction from 2 percent to 3.1 percent (that is, to cut it in half from the normal 6.2 percent rate). And they now want, for the first time, to extend the holiday to employers as well. This is important, and it probably won’t be well explained in very many places. But the Democrats would have employers pay 3.1 percent (rather than the 6.2 percent they now pay) on the first $5 million of their payroll. Also, if employers add to their payrolls, they would pay no payroll tax on new hires. So the new bill is specifically aimed at helping the job creators. The total cost is $255 billion.

The Democrats want to pay for it with a 3.5 percent surtax on dollars earned over $1 million per year. In other words, if someone earns $1.3 million a year, she will pay the extra 3.5 percent only on the last $300,000 in earnings; that is, an extra $10,500 a year (bear in mind that this person takes home, after taxes, around $30,000 every two weeks). So it certainly raises the taxes of the very wealthiest. But it gives more money back to middle-class people, and it stimulates the economy, perhaps to the tune of 50,000 jobs a month, maybe even more.

 

 
How, I ask you HOW, HOW do these feckless “Marie Antoinette Republicans” think they can vote against this and still hold EVEN THE DUMBEST members of their base? How many Senate Republicans will vote for this? One? Two? None? It’s incredible to contemplate what this will do to them. I’ve always hoped to see the suicidal self-immolation of the Republican Party, but I was afraid I wouldn’t get to see it in my lifetime. At the rate these buffoons are heading for the cliff, it could happen before Christmas!

Tomasky concludes:

Obama should give an Oval Office speech Wednesday night and say: “If you are an employee and make less than $1 million, or if you are an employer of any size, I am trying to give you a tax cut. If you are an employee who makes more than $1 million a year, you should write and thank your Republican senator, because the Republicans are blocking me and helping you.”

It really is that simple.

“Don’t you just look good enough to eat? Nom nom nom.”

Must-read essay over at Daily Kos today from Jack Cluth, who asks a question that’s been on a lot of our minds over the past few years: “What happens when an entire political party embraces the Dark Side?”

By the definition of today’s GOP, compassion is synonymous with weakness as charity is with enabling sloth and indolence. If you’re unable to do for yourself, whatever your situation might be, you have no right to expect government to do for you. Ill? Disabled? Uninsured? Unemployed? That’s too bad, but it’s not the responsibility of government to do for those unable to do for themselves.

It’s as if Republicans have decamped from anything resembling compassion and migrated en masse to the Dark Side. They’ve rejected anything that smacks of humanity and embraced a Darwinian view of America as a place where the strong rightfully survive and the weak get what they deserve. I don’t know about you, but this philosophy has nothing to do with the traditional Conservatism that Republicans profess to revere. Traditional Conservatism doesn’t reject the social contract. It doesn’t genuflect to the oligarchy and the military-industrial complex. It doesn’t traffic in fear, hatred, and loathing. It doesn’t reject science. It doesn’t embrace fundamentalist Christianity as the ultimate and only authority on what America should be.

Then again, this isn’t about Conservatism. It’s about doing whatever it takes to acquire, maintain, and increase power and control. It’s about enforcing Social Darwinism and Fundamentalist Christianity as the basis of the American experience and the law of the land. It’s about using fear, hatred, and propaganda in order to manipulate the American Sheeple into doing your bidding.

The guy nails it. Read more of The GOP: The party of pain, punishment, misery, and death (Daily Kos) and check out this amazing, snarling anti-GOP rant courtesy of Chris Matthews: “Does the GOP enjoy the misery of others?” Matthews makes a pretty clear argument that indeed they do…

My compliments to both chefs!
 

 

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

 
It’s a trick question… right?

Via Daily Kos:

Anderson Robbins Research (D) / Shaw & Company Research (R) for Fox News. November 13-15. Republican primary voters. ±5%. No trends.

Which Republican presidential candidate would you trust MOST with nuclear weapons?

Newt Gingrich: 30
Mitt Romney: 17
Herman Cain: 7
Ron Paul: 7
Rick Perry: 5
Michele Bachmann: 4
Jon Huntsman: 2
Rick Santorum: 2

Puts it all into rather stark perspective, doesn’t it? OMFG.

This is ONE poll where I would have thought Jon Huntsman or Ron Paul would have come out on top....

 
She says what she means and means what she says. She’s also got a snowball’s chance in Hell of making it to the White House and everyone—EVERYONE—except for her knows it.

Still, that’s not going to stop quixotic crazypants Rep. Michele Bachmann from making sure that none of the other Republican candidates get there, either!

She really kicks her opponents in the nuts here. The DNC ought to chip in so she can run more of this one. Rick Santorum and Jon Huntsman should pony up, too!

Bachmann is burning quite a few bridges with this video and stands to gain almost nothing from it. I laughed out loud at the audaciousness of this move. From her point of view, she’s entirely correct, of course, that she’s the most consistent conservative candidate—albeit the most batshit crazy in a field full of some real lulu’s—running. The problem is that she’s contrasting her own completely insane positions as the opposite of these goofballs, blow-hards and idiots at their most reasonable!

Too much pork for the fork!
 

 
H/T Daily Kos