of mule dung and ash: Wingnuts

Showing posts with label Wingnuts. Show all posts

January 30, 2014

Willful Ignorance

Rep. Steve Stockman (R-Texas) walked out half way through the State of the Union address Tuesday night, upset because President Obama is "…further abusing his Constitutional powers..." He later issued a press release saying, "I could not bear to watch as he continued to cross the clearly-defined boundaries of the Constitutional separation of powers…"

Stockman’s beef is Mr. Obama’s implication that if Congress wouldn’t get off their dead keisters and do something other than strut and posture, that this administration would get done what it could by use of Executive Order. The right side of the aisle is up in arms, slinging lies in the direction of any news medium willing to publish their blustery exaggerations.

To hear the baggers tell it, the threat of “legislating” by executive order is both outrageous and radical. Obama’s record in regard EOs, according to Chicken Little, far exceeds that of any previous president. The problem with all this doom-saying is that it not only isn’t at all true, but that it is so easy to debunk. As with just about everything the GOPers do, this appears to be just another misinformation campaign.

All of this is fabricated scandal just like the IRS and Benghazi faux outrage were and continue to be fabricated scandals. Stockman has been in the House since 1995; certainly long enough to know this, yet he also knows that his constituency is sufficiently ignorant or just bigoted enough to believe anything said by an old, white, Republican man. Stockmen, McConnell, Ryan, Boehner et al recognize this to be true and don’t at all mind exploiting it.

So, is Mr. Obama the “worst ever” when it comes to issuing executive orders? The data are available for every presidential administration since George Washington. It is so very simple to check. Here are the data comparing G.W. Bush EOs for his first five years to President Obama’s:

B.H. Obama

2009 – 39

2010 – 35

2011 – 34

2012 – 39

2013 – 20

Total - 167

G.W. Bush

2001 – 54

2002 – 31

2003 – 41

2004 – 45

2005 – 26

Total - 197

Mr. Obama has so far issued fewer executive orders than any administration in the past 117 years. This is the simple truth, but don’t bother telling that to the GOPers who keep returning Stockman and his ilk to office. To the selectivly clueless a comfortable lie is preferable to a truth that upsets their skewed worldview.

###

August 4, 2012

...of the good and the Godly

The Chick-Fil-A foofaraw that unfolded upon our Great American Landscape over the past week has illustrated an unfortunate fact. In spite of all these hundreds of years of human growth and learning, bigotry remains a part of our nature… we’re still afraid of all those people not like us. Worse yet, we are willing to deny our fellow humans the same rights we enjoy.

Dan Cathy, CFA’s head honcho, ever so eloquently pointed this out for us in that unfortunate interview published by the Baptist Press. Cathy’s bigoted babbling is actually not anything rare in our modern discourse, but for some reason it ignited no less than a social media wildfire and prompted some of the more loud mouthed liberal politicians to hint at and openly threaten what would have been illegal restraints. Wingnut talking heads on the right smelled blood in the water and pounced.

Since the interview further details have emerged showing that Cathy puts CFA’s money where his bigoted mouth is by donating large sums of those good Christian greenbacks to recognized, overtly anti-gay hate groups, Groups such as Focus on the Family, Alliance Defense Fund, American Family Association and the Family Research Council received a total of $1.1 million out of the total $5 million dollar budget for CFA’s charitable arm, the WinShape foundation.

CFA patriarch and founder Truett Cathy is also the founder of the WinShape foundation. Reading the papers that formed the basis for WinShape’s original goals reveals a good man intent on helping children. If modern Christianity had not shifted so wildly toward hatred, fear and bigotry, WinShape might still be meeting those noble, early goals. Today, however, fully 20% of the foundation’s support goes to groups who would deny equal rights, all the while justifying the spreading of hatred, fear and bigotry as being “the Lord’s work.”

At any rate, the liberal backlash to Cathy’s ill-advised public comments spawned an overwhelming reaction from the so called conservative talking heads. Limbaugh, O’Reilly and Beck had a field day, of course, but it was those well known good Christians Rich Santorum and Mike Huckabee who took action.

The Huck and Frothy travelling minstrel show organized Chick-Fil-A Appreciation Day, and the next thing we see is bigots on parade. Here in Fort Worth the circus really is in town, but this was a circus of entirely different character.

The number of good Christians willing to stand in line and spend money in this organized display anti-gay bigotry was large and far too reminiscent of the 1950’s and 60’s. Sorry folks, but it disgusts me that so many in our supposedly free republic would so willingly… even joyfully… support the promotion of hate and the denial of rights for their own countrymen.

The fools call it love and compassion. To them they are behaving in a good, Godly manner. That is what their preachers tell them all the time, but this is far too reminiscent of another chapter in the progress of this nation where denying equal rights was considered to be the good, Godly and the right thing to do.

We’ve finally pretty much gotten past those days, but hells bells! Those damn liberals seem to recognize the similarities to the good old days of yore when white, Christian men made the rules, owned all the blacks, the women and the children… and for some reason those damn liberals decided to object to the foolishness embodied by Cathy’s statement.

Immediately across the right wing hate-o-sphere was heard the cry of censorship… people incited into street marches loudly shouting that Cathy has a right to voice his opinion, those damn liberals were violating the constitution in some fashion by denying Cathy his guaranteed right to say something stupid. The proposed boycott of CFA prompted the buycott in an effort to prevent those damn liberals from robbing this innocent man of his right to spew ignorant babble.

Something we should remember here is that the same people objecting to a CFA boycott have over the past weeks, months and years advocated boycotts of J.C. Penny, Starbucks, Ford Motors, Lowes Home Improvement, Best Buy, Disney, Target, Sesame Street, Ellen Degeneres, a Purple Dinosaur, a purple Telletubby, and Oreo Cookies… but there is certainly nothing hypocritical here… nothing at all.

So what we have in the end (assuming it has ended) is bigots blinded by ignorance lining up to buy chicken sandwiches in opposition to an imaginary threat and in support of behavior that most certainly isn’t good or “godly.” In my time I've been fortunate enough to know some good people who call themselves Christian. They are people who, in my mind, would be good even if the concept of Christ had never existed. They are just good people. Pompous fools like Santorum and Huckabee likely do not impress the truly good folk.

In all those photos of the long lines of CFA faux Christian supporters, many, maybe most of these good, godly people were like me in one respect – overweight. Some were grossly fat but perhaps I should be more generous and simply call them "well nourished."

I have to wonder if any of these people have ever volunteered to help at the food bank so that hungry people here in America might have the benefit of a little nutrition too. If not volunteering, have they at least donated to the food bank?

Have they ever contributed to any charity that might do some actual good in the world, or is standing up for misguided, Christian bigotry the only thing important to them... and buying a chicken sandwich the only contribution to anything they have ever made?

I hope the waffle fries were good, but meanwhile, in other parts of the world…

###

July 21, 2012

Not his daddy's candidate

Over the years friends have heard me many times say that the last reasonable Republican to hold the office of President of the United States was Dwight D. Eisenhower. When Ike departed in 1960 and his bat-shit Vice President ran against John Kennedy, Ike refused to endorse the idiot. JFK easily won and over the subsequent four years leading up to the next election the crazies started slowly hijacking the GOP.

By 1964 JFK had been assassinated and the right-wingers saw LBJ as vulnerable. The crazy hit the fan big-time (led by some oil-rich Texas brothers, but that is another story). Nixon didn’t try again this time and in ’64 Ike reluctantly endorsed Arizona’s Barry Goldwater, who lost badly to LBJ. The anger and discontent on the right continued to grow. Reasonable Republicans tried to stem this tide to no avail. There was too much crazy… too much money from rich donors… and by this time the South was Rising again.

Sound familiar?

There remained in the Republican Party a contingent of true conservatives. These are the folks who understand that fiscal policy should be the primary concern of conservatives, and that the Rights of Man did not permit politicians to inject social engineering into political debate.

These reasonable folks, these true fiscal conservatives tended toward a strict constitutionalist vision, but unfortunately found themselves badly outnumbered by those who wanted to insert a more authoritarian version of governing. LBJ’s obvious civil rights leanings had already precipitated a southern white flight and many former Yellow Dog, Dixie segregationists were already firmly encamped with the Republicans. Just like the Democrats before them, all that mattered was the votes. The Republicans gladly accepted the bigots into their tent.

In the next couple of years LBJ would sign the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act of 1965, driving the rest of the religious extremists and separationist bigots into the Republican camp. Perhaps the GOPers thought they could control them and continue on a less hateful course, but that wasn't to happen. Reasonable Republicans recognized the threat and sought ways to contain the damage.

Mitt's daddy George was one of those remaining reasonable Republicans, and in 1968 in an effort to stem that hateful tide, tried to stand up to the extremists. George Romney tossed his name in the hat for the 1968 contest in an effort to inject some sanity into the rhetoric. The party turned on him, he lost badly and the Grand Old Party has been circling the drain since… taking the country with it.

Unfortunately a less principled GOPer won that 1968 nomination and eventually won the White House. Ike was still alive at the time and the fact that he still refused to endorse his former Vice President in that election should have told the electorate something, but it didn’t, and Nixon won in a near landslide.

Here we are 44 years later and the son of the principled conservative who in 1968 tried to nudge the GOP back toward the center is running for the office that his daddy failed to gain. But even though Mitt doesn’t seem to have learned much in the way of principles from his daddy, he does appear to have learned a little from George’s 1968 defeat.

There are large differences between the campaigns of the father and the son. Where daddy George had the spine to stand up to the hateful divisiveness brought to the GOP table by the resurgent McCarthyites, now we find Mitt kowtowing to the very faction that vilified his father.

It wasn’t always that way. There was a time when Mitt actually held somewhat reasonable views and would on occasion come to the table seeking compromise.

But that was before Citizens United made it legal to purchase an election, and just like Nixon before him Mitt is willing to sacrafice every last shred of ethics and reason for a win.

###

July 16, 2012

Explain this one

The Birther controversy has been raging since before Obama was elected President. The Hillary Clinton campaign actually started it; something for which she should be eternally ashamed. Still, once the President finally released what all the Looney Tunes Teabaggers were demanding you would have thought that might at least divert them to other, perhaps equally foolish endeavors. We should be so lucky.

Goofballs such as His Donaldness have kept the drum beating, which appears to be all it takes to feed the Faux News Nation and keep them in a frothing frenzy. In April of last year, prior to the release of the long form birth certificate, when presented with a simple statement and given the choices of True, False, and I Don’t Know, a full 15% of Americans were convinced that our President was not born in the United States. I thought that was shameful, but it turned out to be only the beginning.

As reported by Adam Berinsky in Model Politics, The Birthers are (Still) Back

“The January 2012 YouGov poll I reported in February demonstrated that the power of Obama’s action was short lived. Two-thirds of the initial 12-point increase in the percentage of respondents who said that Obama was born in the United States disappeared between April 2011 and January 2012.”

"Barack Obama was born in the United States": Full Sample
	April 2011		January 2012	July 2012
	Before release of birth certificate	After release of birth certificate
	Before release of birth certificate	After release of birth certificate
True	55%	67%	59%	55%
False	15%	13%	17%	20%
Not sure	30%	20%	24%	25%

There is no doubt in my mind that there is a connection between this kind of wingnuttery and efforts by the religious right to scale back the quality educational system once enjoyed by this nation; to 'dumb down' America. The less educated they are the easier they are to control. But such efforts have cost us dearly, both here at home and on the world stage.

The U.S. now ranks 25^th in the world in math and 21^st in science. 70% of eighth graders are below average readers. 1.2 million high schoolers drop out each year, and that number is rising. Almost half of all high school dropouts are jobless, directly costing the U.S. $300 billion annually in lost wages and taxes. Cohort costs raise that figure by another $200 billion. [SOURCE]

Swallowing mass media lies and distortions is a byproduct of this purposeful ignorance and Foxification of America, but there is hope. The number of young people breaking free of the chains of the religious right is few but growing. The Internet can be credited with this growth as can the fact that a large number of freethinkers have finally gotten a bellyful of the garbage. Our friends of the Republican Party are helping too, by preaching jobs and the economy but consistently promoting anti-intellectualism and anti-humanism.

No doubt it will get worse before it gets better… but it will get better.

###

April 5, 2012

So many stereotypes

So little time...

"A state Senate GOP senior attorney is seeking a $1.75 million settlement from the state, saying that Republicans have created a hostile work environment by allowing Sen. Pam Roach back into the caucus..."

...
Things that make you say... Hmmm... wonder what is wrong here...

###

December 5, 2011

Ike and Pogo

“For 56 years the National Review has gradually reshaped Conservative thought from one of protection of the founding principles of this country into a pro-corporate rooting section. As the world’s economy has evolved this pro-corporate stance has further evolved into a pro-multinational corporate stance. In essence this movement no longer focuses on the needs of the United State of America, but instead caters to the ‘Captains’ of ‘The New World Order,’ but instead caters to the ‘Captains’ of ‘The New World Order.”

Jonathan Turley clearly illustrates the corporatization of world economies that Ike warned against in his January 17, 1961 farewell address, and that moderate Republicans and Democrats alike have through the years stood against.

Neocons are willing partners as they profit from this turn, while progressives fail to even recognize that is happening. We The People were not so bright, swallowing the slick advertising hook, line and sinker.

Those early reasonable conservatives of both major political parties have been run off or run over as corporate influence has utilized the idealism, greed and laziness of the wings to turn world governments against us. Human reason is willingly surrendered in exchange for the shiny gewgaws and the promise of better lives.

Ike was right… and Pogo was apparently a prophet.

###

November 29, 2011

Guv. Goodhair's latest endorsement

Wing Nut Daily is reporting on Maricopa County, Ariz., Sheriff Joe Arpaio's latest hissy fit.

"I'm a controversial guy and usually the media is all over me," he continued, "but when I decided to investigate Obama, the media has suddenly gone missing in action."

Poor Joe. Looks like even the ever-dumber media has lost interest in his escapades. And poor Rick as well. With this kind of support and a chronic case of foot in mouth disease, it almost makes a body feel sorry for him.

Almost.

###

November 15, 2011

Foot in mouth disease

Pols flubbing live on television is nothing new, but doesn't it seem that this current crop of wingnuts is having more trouble with most.

Some of this isn't simple flubs. There is a difference between being clueless and making a mistake. Of course the Dems have had their share of loosers and some classic bloopers, and I'm certain someone will want to point out that Obama has not always been the sharpest tool, but come on folks. Can't we do better than this?

###

November 10, 2011

Wingnuts

There must be a vending machine in Minnesota somewhere that you can drop in your two bits and get yourself a genuine wingnut.

Just saying...

###

HT PZ

November 7, 2011

Wrong again

Texas majority Republican legislature in 2003 passed tort reforms severely restricting medical malpractice judgements. The argument was that doctors were leaving the state in droves due to the enormous settlements and resulting high medical malpractice insurance premiums.

Now, just a few years later, those same proponents are lauding the fact that doctors are returning to the state and with lower insurance premiums, medical costs are coming down.

Allison Castle, a spokeswoman for Texas Republican Governor Rick Perry says, "In Texas, comprehensive medical liability reform has improved access to medical care, particularly in underserved areas, restored balance to the Texas judicial system, keeping doctors in the exam room instead of the courtroom, and has removed a large threat to job creation and economic growth that had been created by excessive litigation."

Trouble is that isn't completely true. In fact, the conservative-libertarian Cato Institute finds the opposite to be true. Cato says that tort reform has potentially resulted in patient harm, done nothing to improve access to medical care nor anything to reduce costs.

In a white paper released this week, Cato researchers conclude that caps on medical malpractice damages are actually bad for patients because they remove incentives for medical liability insurers and physicians to reduce risk associated with the practice of medicine.

Unsurprisingly, the AMA and the right wingers in the Texas Legislature are having a cow over this report, but considering the number of times that wing has gloated over some report or another issued by Cato, their whining now rings rather disingenuous.

###

June 7, 2011

Verbatim

Budget Battles Show Why our Country NEEDS Centrists and Moderates to Rise Up

By Solomon Kleinsmith

via Rise of the Center

June 07, 2011

“Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing."

-Theodore Roosevelt

You’ve seen all the headlines… the two major political parties are doing what they have been more and more willing to do in the last generation or so… let our country flounder while they fight with each other for political power, from behind their walled castles of ever more rigid ideology.

The only thing we can do is form an opposition, and fight back. This is what the Tea Party has done — and this is what we need to do.

We don’t need to mimic the Tea Party’s outlandish tactics, and certainly not their extreme views, but we do need to rise up, organize, make noise and push for politicians to listen to us… or else. If we don’t

I know your lives seem busy, and I’m sure they are… but I PROMISE you — if you take time out of your regular weekly schedule to put towards helping grow a centrist/moderate independent groundswell into a movement, you will not miss the one TV show you skipped. Like good ol’ Teddy says in the quote above, it’s the best thing that you’ll ever do.

There are tons of ways to do this… even through just shooting a check to an organization like No Labels, or if you live in a state like Maine, contact OneMaine. No Labels is trying to start local chapters all over the country. Starting groups is a great time, but requires a bit of work.

In a democracy, it is OUR job to represent ourselves. If you have a problem with how our country is moving, it is not the forces on the left and right’s fault that we are powerless, it is OUR fault that we aren’t fighting back… and pardon my frankness, but if you’re not doing anything about it personally, its YOUR fault.

I don’t expect people to put as much time into this stuff that I do… I’m quitting my full-time job next month to put more time into this, and other related endeavors, but seriously… if you can’t make the time and set aside at least a couple hours a month to do your part to help make things better, you really don’t have a place to complain about the sorry state of our government.

###

June 2, 2011

oh... my... gawd!

Reason #4,929 why no rational human being should ever vote for Rick "Guv. Goodhair" Perry.

Consider if you will that these words are spoken by a man who has become a millionaire over two decades of "public service," and currently lives in a rented mansion costing the bankrupt citizens of his state $6,000 just for rent. The roughly $4,000 monthly utility bills, upkeep for the heated pool, Neiman Marcus custom window coverings, subscription to Wine Monthly, and $1,000 emergency repair for the filtered ice machine are all extra.

...and here are a few of the previous 4,928 reasons not to vote for this charlatan.

He was like the invisible man, Dallas Morning News

Teacher Retirement Fund scandal, leaked memo

The Texas Youth Commission coverup, The Texas Observer, Hidden in Plain Sight

Selling State Government, or how Goodhair uses the "Emerging Technology Fund" as bait to lure political contributions...the Burn Orange Report

The list goes ON, and ON and ON, and ON, and ON and ON.

###

H/T Juanita

March 29, 2011

Why America is no longer exceptional

This is one of the more damning reports I believe I’ve ever read.

“81 percent of seniors from our top fifty-five colleges and universities failed a test of basic U.S. history questions drawn from a national exam designed for high school seniors. Only 22 percent knew, for example, that the words “government of the people, by the people, for the people” came from Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. If most American youngsters don’t learn about their nation’s history in the K-12 years, they are unlikely ever to learn about it.”

From a History News Network article. Read the whole story HERE.

The sad part about this is we don’t seem to ever learn that putting dogmatists in charge of educational content contributes to the decline of understanding and knowledge. Judging from recent ballot victories, this might be just what the majority of Americans want.

The discussion in this report is about history, but social studies and science are also under dogmatist attack. Witness a recent opinion piece in Forbes, another in the Palm Beach Post, and some of the work coming from the Texas SBOE.

I'm sorry. The people who vote Republican want conservative, but that is not what they are getting. The Republican party long ago married itself to the "social" conservatives, and those now make up the vast majority of the biggoted dogmatists who have floated to the top of the right wingnut cesspool.

I'm all in favor of fiscal conservatism, but that goal will remain unachievable so long as these science deniers and historical revisionists remain in power. Their brand of "conservatism" more resembles the dream of the Taliban than that of the Founders of our nation.

###

February 27, 2011

Good for thee... so long as its good for me

Interesting... an avowed constitutionalist making a very articulate argument for... limiting constitutional rights?

Hmmm. How'd that happen?

###

September 19, 2010

The Tea Party: Not just for breakfast anymore

Tea party candidate: “Hitler invented separation of church and state”

Delaware is fielding some interesting tea party Republicans this election. Businessman Glen Urquhart of Rehoboth Beach narrowly defeated the endorsed Republican candidate, Michele Rollins, to secure the GOP nomination for Congress by roughly 550 votes out of more than 50,000 cast. Why do I call him interesting? Watch the video and you shall see.

Hitler instead of Jefferson, eh? Well why don’t we take a look at what Thomas Jefferson actually wrote to the Danbury Baptists.

“Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.”

And what exactly does Hitler say that would give Mr. Urquhart the idea that the reviled German Chancellor was the origin of the quote, and where did Urquhart get such an idea anyway? I suspect it may have come from right wingnut Bryan Fischer. Fischer is talk-radio DJ, former executive director of the Idaho Values Alliance, racist, homophobe, bigot, and white supremacist.

It was January two years ago that Fischer published a piece on the Teabagger Renew America site, titled Separation of Church and State: Straight from the Mind of Hitler. In this piece, Fischer quotes Hitler as stating, "Politics do not belong in the Church," and "The Church must be separate from the State."

So I suppose we could give Urquhart points for being technically accurate, because Jefferson says “separation between church and state” and not “separation of church and state,” but even if we were to allow that technicality, it still does not detract from the asininity of the sentiment, and even if Fischer could be trusted to accurately quote Hitler, those quotes are technically incorrect as well.

Perhaps Mr. Urquhart should spend a bit of time actually studying history. I bet the history teacher in the audience would quite happily tutor him.

September 15, 2010

Education in Texas: A Fairy Tale

Quote from Texas Governor Rick Perry, from a recent interview in the San Angelo Standard Times.

"I am a firm believer in intelligent design as a matter of faith and intellect, and I believe it should be presented in schools alongside the theories of evolution. The State Board of Education has been charged with the task of adopting curriculum requirements for Texas public schools and recently adopted guidelines that call for the examination of all sides of a scientific theory, which will encourage critical thinking in our students, an essential learning skill."

H/T

This is not conservatism. Neither Dwight Eisenhower, Barry Goldwater, nor even Ronald Reagan or Gerald Ford would recognize what the Grand Old Party has become. This is radical extremism cloaked in Republican clothing, practicing scientific denialism and historical revisionism on a grand scale, and this is the reason the Republican party has lost me... probably for good.

August 17, 2010

What it takes to get elected in Texas...

...is for your name listed on the "R"ight side of the ballot. Whether or not you have any sense apparently makes no real difference.

In fairness, this kooky lady comes from the same city that elected "D" Sheila Jackson Lee.

UPDATE:
I've had it pointed out to me that Rep. Debbie Riddle is merely parroting what she heard from our beloved Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas).

In other words, Louie is continuing his long-standing practice of keeping bigots fed with fear. Apparently there are enough of the fearful in his East Texas district to keep him in office.

Shame. I keep hoping that one of these days we can sit down and have an honest conversation with folks, but I guess honesty doesn't get one reelected.

~~

July 12, 2010

Stupidity on the left, stupidity on the right

The world of politics is infested with clowns and idiots - always has been and likely always will be. EBM has a few choice words for morons, be they red or blue.

From the left...

"The Second Amendment is the only one in the Bill of Right that a lot of liberals not only will not defend, but run away from. Dedication to liberties and civil rights seems to have its limits."

And for the right...

"However, the morons on the Right are far, far more dangerous to this country."

She has both nailed.
~~

July 10, 2010

Pickin' on Sarah again

“…no one who has seriously examined defense issues would make such an idiotic statement.”

This is what Jason Siggler has to say about Sarah Palin’s recent criticism of Defense Secretary Gates’ defense budget reductions.

Honestly, I just can’t see where Siggler gets such an attitude, since Palin’s military creds are impeccable.

Pickin' on Sarah is almost too easy...

May 25, 2010

Texans for Rick Perry?

This little reminder is mostly for Texans planning to vote for Rick Perry, but the rest of y'all should remember that Gov. Goodhair has presidential aspirations...

10 Grand a month is only the rent. Once you add in the utilities, communications expenses, security, transportation cost, and those little tea parties, ol' Goodhair is fleecing Texas taxpayers for close to $100K monthly... just for his digs.

Yep, certainly a better choice than those old tax and spend Democrats.

~~

H/T BOR

Funky

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