Quote of the Day -- Crazy Political Party Edition

"The GOP is now the party of grifters and kooks" --Juan Williams. Keeping in mind, too, Mr. Williams is a journalist and political commentator from very Right Wing, Republican Party supporting Fox.

Sadly so very true. Think of it. Donald Trump. Mitch McConnell. Ted Cruz. Missouri's own insurrectionist Senator Josh Hawley. Matt Gaetz, Jim "Gym" Jordan. Marilyn Taylor/Traitor Greene. More. Sadly, still more. #VoteThemAllOut http://hill.cm/cdta1Qh

A Letter To Santa From Trump's America (guest post)

I saw this yesterday and thought it very true and pretty darned complete.

A letter to Santa from Trump's America

Dear Santa,

We've been naughty. We elected a woman-degrading, racist-appeasing, megalomaniac to be President of the United States. There are many reasons this happened some understandable, some vile. I wouldn't blame you for removing the United States from your Christmas Eve flight plan altogether this year, but just in case you decide we are worthy of a few gifts I'm sending you a Christmas list because there are a few things we really need:

• the wisdom to rediscover those truths that once seemed self-evident but have proven not to be: that we are all equal and deserving of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness;
• the courage to stand up for people who are mistreated because of their race, religion, gender, sexual-orientation, or country of origin;
• the confidence to stand up for ourselves when others wrong us;
• the foresight to nurture the foundations of our children's futures: education, the environment, and empathy;
• the strength to speak out against tyranny;
• the insight to discern fact from fiction;
• the self-awareness to admit what we do not know;
• the curiosity to never stop learning;
• the passion to make art or support those who do;
• the freedom to speak and write what is on our minds, including the freedom to rebut the statements of others no matter how powerful they may be;
• the humility to admit when we are wrong;
• safety in our homes and neighborhoods;
• protection from mass surveillance and other forms of oppression;
• food and shelter for those in need;
• health and longevity (particularly for Ruth Bader-Ginsburg);
• peace in our communities and around the world;

And if you are feeling really generous, a couple of tickets to Hamilton.

Sincerely,

An American who still believes

Republican Presidential Candidates, 2016

Beware.

And be afraid. Be very afraid.

First the vote, yesterday, and now the stupidity

So the House Republicans did it, just as expected. They voted to send a bill to the Senate stripping 40 billion dollars of spending out of support for the poor for food and the much ballyhooed defunding of "Obamacare."

Yeehaw.

Fortunately, for the rest of us, sanity still has a hold on the rest of us. This from The New York Times yesterday:

Kamikaze Congress

Delay and defund. And default.
      

That is the House Republicans’ brilliant plan in their last-ditch effort to block implementation of the Affordable Care Act. It is a plan that threatens to grind the government to a halt and wreak havoc on the economy.

      

If they can’t take over Washington, they’ll shut it down. It’s their way or no way. All or nothing.

This is what has become of a party hijacked by zealots.

      

It would be tempting to blame all Republicans for this absurdity, but that would be unfair. There are still Republicans who are interested in good governance, but they’re being dragged to the nether regions of nonsensical policy making by younger, more ideological members of Congress, many from safely gerrymandered districts that form virtual echo chambers of irrationality.

 

Here's where the people still in touch with reality came in, along with Charles Blow, who wrote this piece:

      

The old guard has warned against the recklessness of the tactics of far-right House Republicans.

John McCain told CNN on Thursday: “In the United States Senate, we will not repeal, or defund, Obamacare. We will not. And to think we can is not rational.”

      

Senator Richard Burr, Republican of North Carolina, said of the House Republicans’ strategy of threatening a government shutdown to force the defunding of Obamacare, “I think it’s the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard of.”       

 

Senator Jim Risch, Republican of Idaho, has said: "There isn’t anybody that thinks that Obamacare is going to get defunded. It cannot happen.” He added, “It is as impossible as anything can possibly be in Washington, D.C.”

      

Even Karl Rove struck a rational tone in a Wall Street Journal op-ed published online Wednesday evening, saying:

      

“Any strategy to repeal, delay or replace the law must have a credible chance of succeeding or affecting broad public opinion positively. The defunding strategy doesn’t. Going down that road would strengthen the president while alienating independents. It is an ill-conceived tactic, and Republicans should reject it.”

      

But all those pleas seem to have fallen on deaf ears, or at least defiant ones.

      

On Friday, House Republicans (and two Democrats) passed a spending resolution that would cut all funding for the health care law.

 

And this is what it all boils down to:

 

Sometimes in a fight, you just have to know when your opponent has gotten the better of you, limp home and live to fight another day. But the House Republicans prefer a twisted, last-stand view: face sure defeat in a blaze of glory and be remembered for standing up for what you believe in.

 

If only their stance were honorable. There is no glory in this. This is petty and small. This is vindictive and vainglorious. This is what the end of seriousness looks like.

Here, however, is more truth:

Still more:

“What the Republicans are doing is fighting for tax breaks for billionaires, for the one out of four corporations in America that pays nothing in taxes, and they’re going to war against working families, against kids, against the elderly and the children. And our job has got to be to expose what right-wing extremism is… at a time when the richest people in this country are becoming richer and the middle class is disappearing it is beyond shameful to cut food programs… for people in need… to allow people to go hungry.” --Sen. Bernie Sanders, Indep., VT

It should fail, these attempts from the Republicans. They apparently, likely will fail, too.

It just can't happen soon enough.


Links:  Meet the 217 Republicans Who Voted to Cut Food Stamps Program

Fox's Williams: House Republicans Are "So Dysfunctional ...

GOP Needs to Get a Grip on Its ObamaCare Obsession

 The GOP's next hostage: The full faith and credit of the US

 

Senator Frank Lautenberg, 1924-2013, Rest in peace

The Wacko, Wacked-Out Kansas and Missouri Legislatures (guest post)

What I've been saying, time and again, but Barb Shelley of The Kansas City Star says so well:

Strange fixations of Kansas, Missouri legislators

Hey, Missouri citizen. When you woke up this morning and gulped your orange juice, did you obsess about United Nations resolution Agenda 21?

No? Well, you’d better believe your Missouri legislators did. Committees in the House and Senate have OK’d bills that forbid state and local governments from making any land use decisions that might be traced back to the non-binding 1992 environmental resolution.

It may look like a harmless list of suggested ways for communities to conserve natural resources, but none other than Glenn Beck has pronounced it a “global scheme that has the potential to wipe out freedoms of all U.S. citizens.”

Whew! How did a threat like this travel under the radar for 20 years? Fortunately for Kansans, their Legislature passed a proactive resolution aimed at foiling Agenda 21 domination last session.

Increasingly, this is what state lawmakers in these parts do best. They seize a cause from some out-of-state think tank or interest group or nut case movement and impose it on their constituents.

The fixation by tea party legislators with Agenda 21 mostly just wastes time. It’s rather unlikely that any Missouri communities are eyeing “policy recommendations that infringe on private property rights without due process and are traceable to Agenda 21,” as the proposed legislation describes.

But other agendas are much more harmful.

Take the push to lower the state income tax, which is in full throttle in Kansas and picking up steam in Missouri. This drive didn’t come from local business communities. Many local chambers of commerce have publicly opposed income tax cuts, which decimate state services and will likely have to be offset with sales tax increases.

The income tax abolition movement started with the flamboyant Arthur Laffer, who is one-third economist and two-thirds salesman. He found a home for his controversial theories in the American Legislative Exchange Council, known as ALEC, a group funded by corporate interests and free-market advocates. It holds great sway over Republican legislators around the country.

Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback, whose political career has been entwined with small-government, free-market believers like the Koch brothers of Wichita, is a believer in Laffer and his no-income-tax gospel. Huge Republican majorities in both the Kansas and Missouri legislatures mean there are plenty of lawmakers to crusade for the cause, even though the supposed gains in job growth are hypothetical.

Another example: Legislators in Missouri and Kansas have spent hours debating bills intended to weaken unions.

Why? Most public- and-private sector unions in these states aren’t known for making trouble. In both states, many public-sector employees represented by unions barely earn liveable wages.

There’s been no outcry from businesses begging the legislatures to clip the wings of unions. No, the pressure comes from outside groups. Republican legislators are willing to poison relationships and demean their states’ teachers, public safety workers and others in order to please their out-of-state bosses.

These include the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation and National Tax Limitation Committee, both of which sent operatives to Jefferson City this session to fire up Republican lawmakers. Some of the language in the anti-union bills in Missouri and Kansas is strikingly similar to model bills drafted by ALEC.

There are still plenty of serious lawmakers in Missouri and Kansas who work hard to promote the interests of their constituents and their communities. I’m always relieved to see that a newly elected legislator has served on a school board or city council; they are more apt to realize that ideology must sometimes yield to reality.

Increasingly, though, hard-working public servants are being shoved aside in favor of candidates with the right tea party and tax-hating credentials. Their loyalty is to causes, not constituents. But their causes will pay handsomely to see that they remain in office.

U.N. resolution Agenda 21 poses no threat to the people of Missouri and Kansas. The same cannot be said of the anti-tax, anti-worker, anti-government agendas being pursued by malleable legislators.

Original post:  

Strange fixations of Kansas, Missouri legislators | Midwest Voices

Read more here: http://voices.kansascity.com/entries/strange-fixations-kansas-missouri-legislators/#storylink=cpy

Question for Pat Robertson

God didn't send a hurricane or other natural disaster to Charlotte, North Carolina to interrupt or shorten the Democratic National Convention.

What's this mean?

Mitt Romney's theme song

That couldn't be more appropriate. That is, "I Want You to Want Me."

Wait.

It's gets better.

It's by Cheap Trick.


BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Cutting taxes? Again? More?

Fareed Zakaria just pointed out on his CNN news program GPS that the George W. Bush tax cuts during his administration, besides being for the wealthy, were the deepest cuts in the history of the nation and the growth during that period was the worst economic growth since the Great Depression.

To politicians--as he said--would you stop, stop pandering to the American public now, with the promises of yet more tax cuts? Could you, would you, please, be statesman/statespeople for the the nation's good, for the love of pete? We're desperate out here.

Please?

Link: http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/

Kansans being played for chumps by Topeka

What other conclusion can you come to but that you're being played for a chump when your state legislators in Topeka are blowing more than one-half billion dollars on unnecessary legal maneuvers that mix church and state?:

Kansas AG pays $644K to defend state abortion laws

TOPEKA, Kan. -- The Kansas attorney general's office paid outside lawyers more than $644,000 to defend anti-abortion laws enacted last year.

The office says it paid more than $328,000 as of Friday to Foulston Siefken, a Wichita firm helping defend a budget provision denying federal dollars for non-abortion services to Planned Parenthood.

Planned Parenthood has filed a federal lawsuit against the measure.

Forget that abortion is legal in the United states and has been since 1973.

Forget that no one--no one--even thinks about, let alone goes through an abortion procedure without a great deal of thought and emotional upset.

Forget that there are plenty--too many--laws on the books in Kansas on abortions, abortion rights (or the lack of them) and abortion procedures.

Forget, finally, that the state of Kansas doesn't have a big budget, period, for most any services and that they need to make whatever funds they have go as far as possible.

Forget all that.

Just keep focusing on one single issue that you can mix your Christian faith with government on and blow $644 million on totally unnecessary legal machinations in the courts.

Brilliant.

Link to original article: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/06/11/3652327/kansas-ag-pays-644k-to-defend.html#storylink=rss#storylink=cpy

How Missouri Legislators wasted their time--and our money--this week

Every time some Right Wing, demagoguing, Republican looney comes up with some new anti-abortion or pro-prayer piece of legislation, I'm repeatedly surprised, to the point of stunned.

This week, Missouri, Republican legislators came up with a new way to do all this, all in one movement, with this week's use--waste--of their/our time:

Right-to-pray amendment slated for August ballot by Nixon

It seems Right Wing, "conservative" Republicans wanted to do their best to get their voters to the polls this November because, after all, they want to make sure the black guy isn't re-elected--so they came up with this bill.

Sure, it's not necessary and it may even be unconstitutional, since it brings more and more religion into our political lives but this was their goal. They wanted to make sure we Missourians vote on the right and ability to pray in public. Forget that no one really has any problem doing that now. Forget that it's already possible. Forget, by all means, that the state has real, actual, tangible issues that DO need our legislators attention, no, no, forget all that. Instead, let's propose this nearly completely pointless bill in an effort to both appease our staunch, core base and, at the same time, hopefully get more people voting on the first Tuesday in November.

The problem, at least for these people?

It didn't work.

Democratic Governor Jay Nixon instead called out that this goofy, pointless bill will, instead, be voted on come August, instead.

Sheesh.

Would that they would do the work we need to be done.

I-70, from St. Louis to Kansas City--all through the state--is a dangerous, slow mess but they spend their time on this kind of thing, instead.

Shameful.

Links: http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/political-fix/right-to-pray-amendment-slated-for-august-ballot-by-nixon/article_19a8f7ec-a51c-11e1-962b-001a4bcf6878.html;http://www.au.org/blogs/wall-of-separation/rush-to-judgment-missouri-s-deceptive-right-to-pray-amendment-heads-for

Quote of the day

If a political party does not have its foundation in the determination to advance a cause that is right and that is moral, then it is not a political party; it is merely a conspiracy to seize power." ~Dwight D Eisenhower, Remarks at the forth annual Republican Women's National Conference (6 March 1956)

Notes to Texas Governor Rick Perry, Rep Bachmann and their ilk

Link to original post: http://mockthedummy.com/2011/09/07/when-dummies-pray-for-a-savior/

Here's some great news about the media out today

The Right-Wing Talk-Radio Flame Out        

Thank goodness and good riddance.


After all, hate and ugliness and demagoguery and race-baiting and division and negativity can only take you so far, ultimately, fortunately. 

As though he knew him...

"Now there's a man with an open mind - you can feel the breeze from here."  --Groucho Marx

For more, great but true humor, go here:   http://www.dickipedia.org/dick.php?title=Glenn_Beck

You may thank me later.

Have a great week, y'all.

Free at last! Free at last!

Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!!

Glenn Beck ending his daily Fox News show

Of course, we won't truly be rid of this idiot/demagogue/mental midget but maybe, just maybe this is the beginning of his decline and downfall.

Here's hoping.

Now, with this good news and fantastic weather, folks, go out and enjoy one beautiful day!

Link:  http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thecutline/20110406/ts_yblog_thecutline/glenn-beck-ending-his-daily-fox-news-show

Fiddling while Rome burns

The Right-wing, extremist idiots of the Tea Party are at it some more.

Sad proof positive:

Move to reaffirm national motto advances in House  Associated Press

The House Judiciary Committee has approved a resolution reaffirming "In God We Trust" as the national motto and calling for its display in public schools and other government buildings.



Congressman Randy Forbes, R-Va., who sponsored the measure, notes that the national motto was initially left off of some dollar coins in 2007 and was left out of the new Capitol Visitors Center until he and other lawmakers objected.


The resolution, which now goes to the full House, was opposed by the Secular Coalition of America.


But Forbes says "In God We Trust" is an inspirational phrase that has withstood court challenges.

Forget that this goes in full-face against our own Constitution.

Apparently this chucklehead thinks that he and his political party and the Republicans and everyone in Washington have fixed all our national and international problems.  He thinks everything's taken care of so he/we can tinker with this kind of stuff on the side.

Apparently this backwoods bumblebrain hasn't heard of the "Establishment Clause" of our Constitution:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion".

Small-minded idiot.

Demagogue.

Links:  http://www.onenewsnow.com/Politics/Default.aspx?id=1314152
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Establishment_Clause_of_the_First_Amendment

What will likely be my favorite Sarah Palin quote ever, no matter how long she lives

"All of 'em, any of 'em that have been in front of me over all these years."

--Ms. Former Governor and official quitter, Sarah Palin, when asked by Katie Couric on CBS News, Oct. 1, 2008 what magazines she reads.


Link to original post:  http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/bl-sarah-palin-quotes.htm?PS=917%3A4

Demagogues and demagoguery

Sad.  Pitiful.  Pathetic.

Too bad so much of what they say resonates with people.

See more here:  http://wakingupnow.com/blog/those-wacky-republicans?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+wakingupnow+(wakingupnow.com)