Category Archives: GOP Radicalism

April 11, 2013 · 9:55 PM

When Did Ignorance Become a Point of View?

Republican - Elephants on Balloons : http://mariopiperni.com/

Good question.

I also, I wonder why “the stupid” is more prevalent within the GOP than anywhere else?  Joe Barton is the same Representative who apologized to BP for being charged with a $20 Billion claims fund after the spill in the Gulf of Mexico.  He called it a shakedown.  That’s the guy who is the subject of the following Piperni post…

Mario Piperni

Is it time yet to make a double-digit IQ a prerequisite to running for public office?

Via Foolocracy:

Texas Rep. Joe Barton doesn’t believe in anthropogenic climate change. That’s partially because he is firmly in the pocket of Big Oil. The oil and gas industry is the largest contributor to Barton’s warchest.

…

However, Barton’s fervor to deny that humans have anything to do with climate change has taken a new direction. In a bizarre reference to the Great Flood of the Bible, Barton is using that as evidence that hydrocarbons don’t change the climate. How Barton draws that comparison is going to have to be left to the imagination. Barton doesn’t elaborate on what forty days of rain in antiquity has to do with the present-day earth warming.

Perhaps he is thinking that today’s rising sea levels are the same challenge that Noah had building an ark. If only the answer to climate change was so simple. Here is the great environmental insight from Barton:

“I would point out that people like me who support hydrocarbon development don’t deny that climate is changing. I think you can have an honest difference of opinion of what’s causing that change without automatically being either all in that’s all because of mankind or it’s all just natural. I think there’s a divergence of evidence.”

“I would point out that if you’re a believer in the Bible, one would have to say the Great Flood is an example of climate change and that certainly wasn’t because mankind had overdeveloped hydrocarbon energy.”

It’s probably impossible to pack more stupid into a single statement but that won’t stop Barton and his fellow Texas Republicans (Rick Perry, Louie Gohmert, Ted Cruz, Steve Stockman – to name a few) from attempting to do that very thing the next time they find themselves in front of a microphone. You can count on it.

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April 7, 2013 · 6:24 PM

Is the GOP Sincere in Denouncing its Bigots?

Good question…

Alternet

There has been an outcry from some GOP members concerning GOP bigotry. But the sea change may be much less than meets the eye.

In a week’s time the wide range of what was once considered routine GOP bigotry was on full display. Dave Agema, a former West Michigan state representative, and Republican National Committeeman called gays “filthy homosexuals.” Next, Alaska Rep. Don Young blurted out the epitaph “wetbacks” in discussing the immigration issue. Then 23 members of the so-called White Student Union attended the Conservative Political Action Conference where its leader tacitly endorsed segregation and even slavery.

In times past, the silence from the GOP officials and rank and file would have been deafening. It would have reconfirmed the standard knock against the GOP as a party of Kooks, cranks misanthropes, and, of course, bigots. But in each of the three cases, there was an outcry from local GOP officials, bloggers, and GOP campus groups. They publicly denounced the bigotry, and in the case of Young, House Speaker John Boehner, Arizona and Texas Senators John McCain, and John Cornyn, and Republican National Committee Chair Reince Priebus blasted Young’s remarks.

At first glance, this seems a signal that the GOP recognizes that it’s widely considered the party of bigotry, and that it’s willing to do something about it. But the sea change may be much less than meets the eye. Many top GOP officials are still mute on its party’s bigots. The official record still stands that no top GOP official aggressively and consistently denounces the bigoted remarks or acts by a GOP operative, representative, or senator.

The RNC in its near 100 page blueprint for reaching out to minorities, gays and young people did raise faint hope that the GOP may indeed have finally woke up that America is changing, and it can’t win national offices anymore solely with conservative white male Heartland and Deep South voters, or through the use of the crude race baiting. But this hope ignores the GOP’s horrible history of dealing with its blatant bigots and bigotry. The pattern was on ugly display in 2002 when then-Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott touched off a furor seemingly touting the one time pro-segregation battles fought by South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond. It took nearly a week for then President George W. Bush to make a stumbling, tepid disavowal of Lott.

In the next decade, a legion of Republican state and local officials, conservative talk show jocks and even some Republican bigwigs made foot-in-mouth racist cracks that invariably got them in hot water. Their response when called on the carpet was always the same: They make a duck and dodge denial, claim that they were misquoted or issue a weak, half-hearted apology. Each time, the response from top Republicans was either silence, or if the firestorm was great enough, to give the offender a much-delayed mild verbal hand slap. Lott was dumped from his Senate Majority Leader post, but soon got a top post back as Senate Minority Whip after a kind of, sort of mea culpa.

The bigger dilemma for the GOP when the bigots of their party pop off is that they remain prisoners of their party’s racist past. It’s a past in which Republican presidents set the tone with their own verbal race bashing. President Eisenhower never got out of the Old South habit of calling blacks “nigras.”

In an infamous and well-documented outburst at a White House dinner party in 1954, Ike winked, nodded and whispered to Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren that he understood why white Southerners wouldn’t want to “see their sweet little girls required to sit in school alongside some big black buck.”

Continue reading…

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April 5, 2013 · 4:26 PM

On Peter King, Republicans, Fleas…and Marco Rubio

Republican Party - The Dark Side : http://mariopiperni.com/

I’m such a fan of Mario Piperni’s work…

Mario Piperni

GoldenBoy Marco Rubio shows up in New York to fundraise and one of the state’s Reps, Republican Peter King, protests.

“Guys like Marco Rubio in Florida. All the money that your people have gotten in Florida over the years from every hurricane that came along. And this guy has the nerve to vote against money for New York and then come up here and try to raise money. You know, he can forget it.”

“I made it clear any of those people who voted and postured against money coming to New York and New Jersey and comes up here and wants to take money out of our pockets – forget it, stay home.”

A couple of thoughts on King’s little rant…

a) Consider Rubio to be another Mitt, only shorter and with a better command of Spanish. The man is a fraud who will say or do what he must to get the votes he needs in his quest to become the GOP candidate in 2016.

 

Marco Romney : MarcoRubio / MittRomney http://mariopiperni.com/

After leading the Republican charge on immigration reform, Rubio is now hesitating as a bipartisan agreement is within sight. Why? Because the GOP base whose support he needs, opposes any form of amnesty for undocumented workers. In effect, Rubio finds himself in the exact same position that Romney was in – trying to appear to be a rational and reasonable politician while appeasing the crazies in the party.

He’ll discover, like Romney did, that it cannot be done.

b) King is upset with Rubio for voting against Sandy funding for New York and New Jersey. Cry us a river. How the hell did King expect Republicans to act? The man is a standing member of a political party that can best be described as suffering from severe sociopathic personality disorder – manipulative,  paranoid and delusional, showing lack of empathy, remorse, guilt or shame, callous in nature with a strong tendency toward pathological lying. And King himself shows many of these traits.

  • He opposed the 2009 stimulus package.
  • He voted against the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009.
  • He opposes a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.
  • He’s an Islamophobe. “There are too many mosques in this country… There are too many people sympathetic to radical Islam. We should be looking at them more carefully and finding out how we can infiltrate them.”
  • He voted for the Ryan budget that would slash social programs like Medicare and Medicaid that form the socials safety net for the aged, poor and middle class.
  • He’s voted to defund Obamacare despite the fact that it would help many of the 50 million Americans who cannot afford health care insurance.

Word of advice for Peter King. Don’t bitch about waking up with fleas when you lie down with dogs.

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August 20, 2012 · 4:37 PM

Todd Akin’s Greatest Hits

Todd Akin

As most of you know, this blog is about “sorting out the crazies”.  Todd Akin may be at the top of the list in the GOP Crazies category.

TPMDC

An untold number of Americans first met Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO) — the GOP’s nominee to unseat Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) — on Sunday, after he falsely claimed that women have a natural defense against becoming pregnant from what he called a “legitimate rape.”

Though the outlandish claim represents a fairly common view in the pro-life movement and the GOP, the backlash was so fast and severe that some GOPers are calling for Akin to abandon his candidacy, so somebody less tainted can take his place.

But even if Akin hadn’t exposed that he holds this controversial view, his candidacy wouldn’t have been a cakewalk. Although until this weekend he enjoyed a small lead over McCaskill, his record is thick with the sort of fringe views that prevented several GOP challengers from defeating Democrats in 2010. That’s why McCaskill, an unpopular incumbent, worked hard to assure Akin won his party’s nomination.

Here are some of Akin’s greatest hits.

Student Loans

In April, Akin cited a law Democrats passed in 2010 that saves billions of dollars by preventing private banks from profiting, risk free, on federally backed student loans as an example of the notion that “America has got the equivalent of stage three cancer of socialism, because the federal government is tampering in all kind of stuff it has no business tampering in.”

When offered the chance to clarify, he declined, saying “I called a spade a spade.”

Social Security

During a CSPAN appearance on March 2011, Akin raised strong objections to one of the nation’s most popular federal support programs. “Social Security, through the years, for many many people, has been a terrible investment. It’s really a tax is all it is. Social Security is a tax. The government is taking the tax — there’s more money coming in than going out — and we spend it. That’s not responsible. I don’t like it. I didn’t design Social Security. It was — it actually came from Bismark. FDR put it in place.”

First Amendment

In June 2011, Akin told Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, that “the heart of liberalism really is a hatred for God and a belief that government should replace God.”

Marital Rape

In 1991, as a state legislator, Akin questioned whether anti-marital rape legislation might be used “in a real messy divorce as a tool and a legal weapon to beat up on the husband.” He ultimately voted for the bill.

Civil and Voting Rights

Akin recently claimed that elections “historically have always been a state thing.” Without expressing opposition to the Civil Rights Act and other federal protections for ethnic minorities, Akin noted “I think we’ve come a very long way from those days,” adding, “I think we need to make sure that everybody has a right to vote — once,” a transparent nod to the inaccurate notion that voter impersonation fraud is a persistent problem that requires legal restrictions on voting.

School Lunches

In 2010, he was one of 13 to vote against expressing support for the goals and ideals of the National School Lunch Program.

Missing And Exploited Children

In 2003, he and 13 other Republicans voted against a five year reauthorization of a law that provides support for missing and exploited children.

In 2005, he was one of 52 congressmen to oppose legislation to create a national sex offender registry, compel convicted sex offenders to register, and impose mandatory sentences for convicted child molesters.

Anti-Abortion Violence

When he first ran for Congress in 2000 he fell under scrutiny for writing a 1995 letter of support to the 1st Missouri Volunteers — a fringe, anti-abortion private militia.

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February 1, 2012 · 8:01 AM

GOP Double Standard

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January 30, 2012 · 3:24 AM

All In Favor Of Public Hangings, Say “Aye”

As usual Mario Piperni sees things more clearly and logically than the Republicans he draws in his illustrations.   He writes about their weird and sometimes crazy antics and depicts it perfectly with his drawings.

There’s no secret that I am a die-hard Piperni fan.  Here’s yet another example…

Mario Piperni

From the compassionate conservative wing of the Republican party, Rep. Larry Pittman of North Carolina  speaks out .

“We need to make the death penalty a real deterrent again by actually carrying it out. Every appeal that can be made should have to be made at one time, not in a serial manner,” Pittman wrote in the email. “If murderers (and I would include abortionists, rapists, and kidnappers, as well) are actually executed, it will at least have the deterrent effect upon them. For my money, we should go back to public hangings, which would be more of a deterrent to others, as well.”

How long before execution by guillotine for liberals and atheists is proposed by Republicans?

The surprise or concern is not that wingnut politicians say stuff like this. Republicans have been running on CRAZY for a while now. No, the real worry should be that enough Americans voted for this guy to get him elected.

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January 29, 2012 · 9:26 PM

Norquist: Republicans Will Impeach Obama If He Doesn’t Extend Bush Tax Cuts

This is absurd.  The GOP will stop at nothing to harass, humiliate and blackmail President Obama into conceding to their demands.

However, throwing around the word “impeachment” is mere hyperbole since they would need a majority in the Senate to succeed and although it may be by the narrowest of margins, the GOP do not have that majority and won’t have it in the near future.

Think Progress

Anti-tax activist Grover Norquist has long held a tight grip on the marionette strings of the GOP. Wielding undue influence as the head of the Americans for Tax Reform, Norquist ensures that Republican lawmakers sign his anti-tax pledge and threatens them with electoral defeat  should they even think of deviating from it. Norquist has marked a successful few years, killing the deficit super committee agreement,batting down  a tax increase on millionaires, and, of course, ensuring the extension of the Bush tax cuts.

Pleased with his headway, Norquist is now mapping out how he can ensure further anti-tax victories by securing Republican majorities. In an interview with the National Journal, he mused that a GOP mandate would obviously enact an extension of the Bush tax cuts, work to maintain a repatriation holiday for corporate profits, and even pass House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) plan that jeopardizes Medicare. But when asked what Republicans should do if faced with a Democratic majority that won’t keep the tax cuts, Norquist had a simple answer: “impeach” Obama .

NJ: What if the Democrats still have control? What’s your scenario then?

NORQUIST: Obama can sit there and let all the tax [cuts] lapse, and then the Republicans will have enough votes in the Senate in 2014 to impeach. The last year, he’s gone into this huddle where he does everything by executive order. He’s made no effort to work with Congress.

Norquist certainly revels in his power , but suggesting Republicans impeach the president over tax cuts is wildly outlandish. According to the constitution , the president, vice president, or public officials can only be impeached for “treason, bribery, and other high crimes and misdemeanors.” Preserving a tax cut that gives more to the top 1 percent than the average income of the 99 percent hardly qualifies. But if Norquist’s only goal is to “crush the other team ,” it seems he’ll stop at nothing to do so.

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October 20, 2011 · 2:11 PM

Romney: I Support Birth Control Because It ‘Prevents Conception’

Undoubtedly this is going to be an albatross around Mitt Romney’s neck.

The Evangelical faction of the GOP will not look kindly upon his statement.  There are efforts underway now by the Evangelicals to ban birth control completely.  Rick Santorum is the person out front in this effort.

Mitt Romney will do one of two things: double down on this recent statement or flip it around and say he “misspoke”.

Think Progress

At a campaign event in Iowa today, GOP presidential contender Mitt Romney was confronted by a woman in the audience about his support for so-called “personhood” laws that would define life as beginning at conception, effectivelyoutlawing common forms of birth control. “98% of American women, including me, use birth control,” she said, “so could you help me understand why you oppose the use of birth control?”

Romney answered simply, “I don’t” — a surprising departure from the rest of the field’s radicalized anti-contraception views. Romney explained that his support of birth control is not inconsistent with his anti-abortion stance because, “I believe life begins at conception and birth control prevents conception.”

Watch it:

As the woman pointed out, however, Romney studiously avoided commenting on the stickier side of this issue — whether he supports hormonal contraception (like birth control pills) that can also prevent eggs from being implanted, which many conservatives think is tantamount to abortion.

Romney was also less-than-straight about his pro-states’ rights approach to abortion. Although he claimed, “I would like to see the Supreme Court return this right to the states,” he has recently pledged to push for federal abortion restrictions.

Romney has a mixed record when it comes to supporting women’s access to safe, effective contraception. In an effort to pander to social conservatives powerful in the Republican base, Romney said he would expand a Bush-era rule that allows doctors to deny women access to contraceptives.

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July 27, 2011 · 10:13 AM

The Debt Showdown: The GOP’s “Blank Check” Lie

Mother Jones‘ David Corn seems to “get it”.   The GOP is full of crap…

Mother Jones

What happens when a political party taints a critical national debate with a falsehood? Not much.

What does the news media do when a critical national debate is tainted by a lie? Not a whole lot.

During the debt ceiling showdown, the Republicans have clearly calculated that an effective charge to hurl at President Barack Obama and the Democrats is that the president, by asking Congress to raise the debt ceiling (which used to be a routine maneuver for Capitol Hill), is requesting a “blank check” for government spending.

In his response to Obama’s speech on Monday evening, House Speaker John Boehner claimed that Obama “wants a blank check” for a spending binge that is “sapping the drive of our people.” Earlier in the day, Boehner slammed Sen. Harry Reid’s last-ditch debt plan, which the White House supports, as a “blank check.” On Monday morning, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor issued a statement: “We have worked for months to back the President and Congressional Democrats away from their demand for a blank check to keep spending.” On Tuesday morning, the Republican National Committee sent out a fundraising email with the subject head, “Stop Obama’s Blank Check.” If you’d like to join the Republicans in “taking away Obama’s blank check,” you could send “$25, $50, $100, or more” to the RNC. On Tuesday afternoon, the National Republican Congressional Committee tweeted, “The President of No: Obama Continues to Insist on a Blank Check for More Spending.” And Boehner, in desperate search of conservative support for his debt-ceiling/deficit-reduction plan, called Rush Limbaugh and vowed he wouldn’t give Obama a blank check.

Continue reading here…

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July 12, 2011 · 2:36 AM

Lori Klein, Arizona State Senator, Pointed Loaded Gun At Reporter Richard Ruelas’s Chest

You know, it’s easy to say that some Republicans are bat-crap insane. 

The real proof in claiming that statement comes from the many instances of crazy, incomprehensible words and actions by many members of the GOP which are documented for posterity.

However, Arizona State Senator Lori Klein actions, a direct result of that state’s new gun “control” laws, was one of the most  despicable of the gamut of Republican craziness…

Huffington Post

Arizona state Sen. Lori Klein (R), a gun-rights champion, keeps a loaded raspberry-pink handgun in her purse, and during an interview with Arizona Republic reporter Richard Ruelas, she took it out and pointed it at him.

“Oh, it’s so cute,” Klein said, before aiming the gun at Ruelas’s chest to show off the red beam of the laser sight. Klein’s gun, a .380 Ruger, has no safety, but the senator assured Ruelas that he wasn’t in danger.

“I just didn’t have my hand on the trigger,” she said.

Klein told the Arizona Republic that she owns a number of guns and has had “informal” training sessions on each of them, and that she was taught gun safety by her father.

Local gun activists have criticized Klein for pointing her gun at Ruelas, however.

Rob Mermelstein, the range master of the Phoenix Rod and Gun Club, told the Arizona Guardian, that Klein’s actions were “unconscionable.”

“Whoever would do something like that needs to have a better grounding in gun safety before ever laying a hand on a firearm,” he said.

Continue reading here…

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