Tag: Tea Baggers

Kentucky Proves Republicans Were Right About Obamacare

Trish
Kentucky Sens. Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul, AP photo

There’s no shortage of jokes about Kentucky.*

Q: What do a divorce in Kentucky, a tornado in Kansas, and a hurricane in Louisiana have in common?
A: Somebody’s fixin’ to lose the trailer.

Q: What do you get when there are 32 Kentuckians in a room together?
A: A full set of teeth.

We are a nation lost in tea party mission creep, as the Party of No struggles to figure out its evolving hostage demand

Two Kentucky guys were driving in the pickup, drinking a couple of long-neck Buds, when they came upon a police roadblock. The driver told his friend to peel off the label and stick it on his forehead, then stash the bottle under the seat, and he did the same. When it was their turn at the roadblock, the officer said, “Have you boys been drinking?” The driver replied, “No sir, we’re on the patch.”

So it came as small surprise that many in Kentucky who bombarded the state’s phone line and website to sign up for health coverage on Oct. 1 specified that they did not want Obamacare. Instead, they insisted, they wanted to sign up for coverage under the Affordable Care Act.

[Kentuckians, please note: Emergency FOXectomies are not covered under Obamacare.]

Kentucky’s response proves Republicans were right on almost every point.

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Republicans Own the Shutdown. Next Question?

Trish

Never been a president who won’t negotiate the debt ceiling? Never been a president who had to.

Let the record show that, as usual, Pres. Obama and the Democrats are telling the truth. This government shutdown is 100 percent on the shoulders of the Republicans, and it could end as soon as Speaker John Boehner (R-Oh) allows the House of Representatives to vote on it. Period.

And as far as his assertion, in the “Breaking News” section shown, that there has never been a president who won’t negotiate with Congress to pay the bills it authorized, please further note that there’s never been a president who had to.

Tar Heel Tea Party Rep. Rene Ellmers: ‘I Need My Paycheck’ – Voted for Govt Shutdown But Won’t Give Up Her Salary

Jon Ponder

I need my paycheck.

– North Carolina tea party Rep. Rene Ellmers, who voted to shut down the government, explaining why she opposes giving up her salary, even though her vote has caused 800,000 other federal government employees to go without pay.

The Collapse of Institutional Republican Power

Jon Ponder

What we’re seeing is the collapse of institutional Republican power. It’s not so much about Boehner. It’s things like the end of earmarks. They move away from Tom DeLay and they think they’re improving the House, but now they have nothing to offer their members. The outside groups don’t always move votes directly but they create an atmosphere of fear among the members. And so many of these members now live in the conservative world of talk radio and tea party conventions and Fox News invitations. And so the conservative strategy of the moment, no matter how unrealistic it might be, catches fire. The members begin to believe they can achieve things in divided government that most objective observers would believe is impossible. Leaders are dealing with these expectations that wouldn’t exist in a normal environment.

— Robert Costa, reporter for the right-wing National Review, in an interview with the Washington Post’s Ezra Klein

Attention American Media: Both Sides are NOT to Blame

Trish

This treatment by ABC News shows the problem

 Perhaps as inevitable as the government shutdown for which the Republicans and tea party are solely responsible is the press’s telling of it. In their version, it’s a 50/50 deal between Republicans and Democrats. But then, isn’t everything, even the stuff that’s clearly not?

For those of you playing along at home, take a shot today every time you hear these words or phrases:

  • stalemate in Congress
  • seek a compromise
  • a game of political chicken…when neither side blinked
  • each has refused to budge
  • amid the finger-wagging

If you’re still sober enough to read, please note those quotes came from a single CNN story.

Eric Boehlert at Media Matters is not only pushing back on the old “Republicans and Democrats are equally to blame” journalistic cop-out, he’s actually holding reporters who use it responsible for what’s happening.

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Tea Baggers Claim to Love the Constitution – So How Can They Ignore It When It Gets in the Way of Their Anti-Obama Obsession?

Jon Ponder

I thought tea partyists were supposed to revere the Constitution. The Constitution lays out two ways to undo a law — repeal it through legislation or challenge it in court. Republicans have tried both routes — 42 repeals and lawsuits all the way up to SCOTUS — and it has all failed. What they’re doing now, threatening to shut down the govt and/or ruin the full faith and credit of the United States if the president refuses to submit to their demands, is not only a thuggish act of desperation, it is an affront to the constitution.

What’s worse, of course, is that they have been plotting the government shutdown since 2009, as Rachel Maddow reported last night. Not unlike their obsession with invading Iraq in 2003, they were determined to do it at any cost, all they needed was a pretext. Then it was 9/11; now it’s opening day for the Affordable Care Act.