Month: March 2011
Sen. Rand Paul Reminds Us That Even the Cuckoo Clock Is Right Twice A Day
Imagine this—what if there had never been a President George W. Bush, and when Bill Clinton left office he was immediately replaced with Barack Obama. Now imagine Obama had governed from 2000 to 2008 exactly as Bush did–doubling the size of government, doubling the debt, expanding federal entitlements and education, starting the Iraq war–the whole works. To make matters worse, imagine that for a portion of that time, the Democrats actually controlled all three branches of government. Would Republicans have given Obama and his party a free pass in carrying out the exact same agenda as Bush? It’s hard to imagine this being the case, given the grief Bill Clinton got from Republicans, even though his big government agenda was less ambitious than Bush’s. Yet, the last Republican president got very little criticism from his own party for most of his tenure. For conservatives, there was no excuse for this.
— Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky, is right that Republicans would have never given a Democratic president a pass on the sort of ineptitude and malfeasance that became the trademark of the Bush administration — but his analogy is wrong in that no Democratic president could ever be as bad as governing as Bush, Cheney et al proved to be.
GOP Leader Says US Must Cut Tsunami, Disaster Preparedness Because ‘We All Have to Do More with Less’
Asked why the House tea party Republicans’ recklessly crafted budget bills called for cuts to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which includes the National Weather Service (NWS) and is charged with tsunami warnings as well as preparing for and reacting to disasters, Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., trotted out the GOP spin that the deficit can only be resolved by cutting spending:
Q: Given the size of the disaster is not over, of course, but given the size of it and the robust response that the world is trying to make in rescue, just looking at some of the budget lines that are cut in the Republicans’ [Continuing Resolution to temporarily fund the government]: $415 billion for international disaster assistance, USAID is cut; National Weather Service, NOAA cut $455 million. When a disaster like this happens, do you have any concerns that, while everything is on the table and we’re making necessary cuts, that the United States’ ability to respond to disasters like in Japan could be hampered if those cuts go through?
CANTOR: Look, I think that all of us need to be tempered by the fact that we’ve got to stop spending money we don’t have. I mean, essentially what you’re saying is, go borrow money from the Japanese so we can go and spend it there to help the Japanese.
Cantor, a master of Washingtonspeak, claimed that the “cuts” to NOAA and other disaster preparedness programs were really just a 10 percent reduction in 20 percent budget increases in funding from 2008 to 2010.
We’re cutting NOAA’s budget, Cantor continued, but that doesn’t mean we support less preparedness.
No, that’s really what he said:
A Quarter of GOP Fears Zombified ACORN Will Steal 2012 Election
25%
Of Republicans predict that ACORN will steal the 2012 election — a drop from 52% who believed in 2008 that ACORN stole the election for Pres. Obama that year. Never mind that ACORN would have had to falsify nearly 10 million votes to give Obama-Biden their 52.9% to 45.7% victory over McCain-Palin. And never mind that ACORN has been kaput — out of business, dead as doornail, digging up roses, D.E.A.D., dead — since March 2010, and so, absent zombification, can have no effect in 2012 or ever again, which was, after all, the point of the GOP’s dirty tricks campaign to take it down. Among those who fear the zombie ACORN, 20% support Palin for president, 19% support Gingrich and 16% support Milt Romney.
Why I Don’t Go To Church
This is sad beyond words.
Lawrence O’Donnell Fills in the Gaps in Gingrich’s ‘Patriotism Made Me Do It’ Excuse for His Extramarital Affairs
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Lawrence O’Donnell’s send up of Newt Gingrich’s attempt to excuse his adulteries by saying that his patriotism combined with his workaholic tendencies drove him into the arms of congressional staffers is must-see video.
But I have to point out that not only was Gingrich having an affair with a staffer when he led the Republicans’ campaign to impeach Pres. Clinton because he lied in a deposition in civil lawsuit over his affair with a staffer, as O’Donnell points out, but both Gingrich and Clinton were engaged in extramarital affairs when they made the Defense of Marriage Act the law of the land.
Wisconsin GOP Senator Most Vulnerable to Recall Found to Be Living Outside District with Mistress
NEWT GINGRICH: There’s no question at times of my life, partially driven by how passionately I felt about this country, that I worked far too hard and that things happened in my life that were not appropriate.
Wisconsin state Sen. Randy Hopper, R-Fond du Lac — the most vulnerable of the senators facing a recall because of their support for Gov. Scott Walker’s union-busting bill — may need to try that excuse himself now that his constituents have discovered that a) he is having an affair with with a much-younger lobbyist and b) he has left his wife and two children and is living with his girlfriend in the state capital. It appears he has been living outside his district since he filed for divorce last August, if not before.
The way voters in Hopper’s district found out about his new living arrangements is almost as comical as Gingrich’s suggesting that excessive patriotism drove him to have extramarital affairs. First, on Friday, Hopper issued a statement saying he would not be attending the St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Fond du Lac on Saturday, citing a purported death threat:
In New Hampshire, Bachmann Flunks American History Again
REP. MICHELE BACHMANN: What I love about New Hampshire and what we have in common is our extreme love for liberty … You’re the state where the shot was heard around the world in Lexington and Concord. And you put a marker in the ground and paid with the blood of your ancestors the very first price that had to be paid to make this the most magnificent nation that has ever arisen in the annals of man in 5,000 years of recorded history.
The battles of Lexington and Concord took place in Massachusetts, not New Hampshire.
Stephen King Tries to Awake the State
Thank a union gal too, Stephen.
