From CNN:

“What I mean is they have got no plan,” Grayson told Wolf Blitzer. “It’s been 24 hours since I said that. Where is the Republican plan? We’re all waiting to see something that will take care of the pre-existing conditions, to take care of the 40 million Americans who have no coverage at all.

“That’s what I meant when I said that the Republican plan is don’t get sick. And if you do get sick, die quickly.”

That was just the beginning of a bold defense Alan Grayson made on CNN yesterday. Blitzer and the same old tired crew did their best to try and define his words as outrageous, but the American people know better - and this particular Congressman doesn’t mince words.

It’s sad that it had to be refreshing to hear the FIRST PERSON in this debate say what others seem afraid to say - the Republicans priority is not the American people. It will ALWAYS be their business interests - and the insurance companies want this discussion shut down.

Unfortunately, there is one man who’s supposed to be on our side but is helping the other side in every possible way he can.

Harry Reid. I’ll be simple in my rhetoric and make what I feel is a truthful claim here. This man - the inneffectual, weak, sorry excuse for a “leader” - has sunk the public option and in-turn any real reform we might have had in healthcare.

Harry Reid is solely responsible for the failure of the democrats in this debate. No one else. Just him.

Think I’m wrong, Mr. Reid?

Why is it then that you can’t rise to the strength of the position you’ve been given? Ever since the democrats gained the majority several years ago, the democrats in the senate have caved AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN to the wants of the republicans.

We VOTED THE REPUBLICANS OUT! Do you understand this, you stupid, lame fuck? This is the time to push through an agenda the people actually WANT.

Why is it that other senate members are constantly making excuses for your inability to rally your side on any democratically-backed proposition, let alone this one? Why is it you are always blaming the republicans for your inability to get YOUR job done? Bill Frist had no problem doing your job. He got the votes he needed and when he didn’t, he’d ram through legislation and get the President’s signature.

What have you done except complain?

Do you understand that there is no excuse for failure or compromise with this job, in this climate, on this subject - right now? I see you in the news looking the way you’ve always looked - a man who simply wants to hide behind the mechanics of the system, never challenge it, never get angry, never scream. You minimize every discussion with your pathetic, tired demeanor.

If this bill fails to have a public option, THAT will be your legacy. Don’t worry about your next election. You’ll be done - and you’ll bring the party down with you.

There is no excuse for being weak. Just none. What did your dad teach you when you were young, to give in all the time? Take a page from the book of Alan Grayson. That’s what it means to be right and know it. Unfortunately, I doubt you’d recognize that kind of truth even if it shoved a two-by-four up your puny ass.

Politics, Verbal Paintball Alan Grayson, harry reid, republican losers

– To be a republican politician means you make sexual proposals in men’s bathrooms stalls, then lie about it.

– To be a republican politician is to take lots of money from the health insurance companies and support legislation that limits Americans from having control over healthcare or having any financial access to health insurance at all.

– To be a republican politician is to vote again and again for pre-emptive war and troop increases but when it comes to having your own children fight for the same cause - with the exception of one or two of you - they are conspicuously absent.

– To be a republican politician is to look the other way - or coverup - when one of the your members is sexually harrassing young male interns.

– To be a republican politician is to get in the way of you and your family in issues of euthanasia.

– To be a republican politician is to accuse others of being bad Christians or subversives if they do not agree with the republican platform 100%.

– To be a republican politician is to line your pockets with lobbyist money, add tons of pork to bills you approve unanimously for the entire time you have a majority - then vote against the same exact type of bills once you lose the majority because the money is no longer prominent.

– To be a republican politician is to believe it’s all about survival of the fittest when you had a privileged upbringing, have a $150,000 job, government health insurance and no connection to real people.

– To be a republican politician is to be callously indifferent to the suffering of others unless you can profit from it.

– To be a republican politician is to stand behind people like John Boehner, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Anne Coulter, Alberto Gonzalez, Dick Cheney, George W. Bush, and Sarah Palin who either curse, divide, lie or do all three.

– To be a republican politician is to vote against the needs of the individual and always for the needs of the wealthy and corporate.

– To be a republican politician is to look at the world in black and white and think concretely because you’re too dense to accept that most things are gray or abstract - or are just unwilling to accept it.

– To be a republican politician is to hire right wing bloggers to shill for you in an attempt to fool the public and sway opinion on the internet.

– To be a republican politician is to support a party platform that would be find acceptance and unity with people like David Dukes

– To be a republican politician is to blame the people of New Orleans for their own demise during Katrina.

– To be a republican politician is to block proposals for guidelines in the financial industry for 10 years and then feign ignorance that such a lack of oversight would encourage corrupt behavior.

–To be republican politician is to secretly wish that Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid - and, for that matter, any proposal that shows a little mercy on those who have less than you or are older than you - is dismantled.

– To be a republican politician is to lie to the American people about everything because you have no respect for them whatsoever.

– To be a republican politician is to be a narrow minded, ignorant lemming.

– To be a republican politician is to convince the general public that you are none of the things mentioned above, didn’t do any of the things mentioned above, and are quite out for them (mainly because you know deep down how immoral your beliefs truly are and if the stupid public remembered any of these things - or connected the dots - the money would stop coming. So you lie all the time at our expense).

Verbal Paintball Mark Foley, republican losers, republican politicians

Far right. I know we don’t talk much, primarily because you think you know everything and consider me a fucking douchbag (your words, not mine). Nonetheless, let’s address the root of your credibility as it exists in ANY argument you may have now or in the future:

Sarah Palin, your savior, your standard-bearer, your 2012 candidate, has just quit her position as governor of Alaska because….well, we don’t know what because is. What we do know is that she couldn’t handle random bloggers creating photoshop files of her image. She’s threatening litigation against anyone who looks at her cross-eyed. She couldn’t deal with letting the public know the truth about anything, therefore trying to have operative during the McCain campaign lie about her husband’s secession membership. She just couldn’t handle the heat…so, naturally, she still leaves the impression to 75% of us that she had no business being part of a Presidential campaign or public office of any sort.

Mark Sanford? Well, once again, a Governor who just couldn’t seem to leave his personal preferences about gay marriage and other issues away from the Governor’s desk, a man who decided ON HIS OWN that the stimulus money would NOT go to those who need it in his state but would, instead, go to paying off the state debt…well, this man has cheated on his wife, lied to her and his children, lied to his staff and the state, and disappeared for a week without any ability for followup. It’s nice he’s in love, but his actions leave the impression for 75% of us that he has no business being in high office and would have been a terrible candidate for President.

John Ensign, Mark Foley, Newt Gingrich, Henry Hyde, Bob Barr, David Vitter, Larry Craig, Tom Delay, Ted Stevens, Scooter Libby, Helen Chenowith, Jack Abramoff…do I REALLY need to go on? I could list in detail the crimes and failures of these scumbags, but will it matter to you?

Yes, I’m talking to you - 25%ers - the people who cannot seem to let go of this idea that George W. Bush was a great President and the republican party of the last 20 years was great and true and honest. Do you REALLY want to have this argument anymore? We outnumber you. Our facts outnumber your innuendos, rumors and lies. Our level of accomplishments outnumber your idiots’ countless fuckups, illegal maneuvers and outright disasters. Our moral authority trumps yours. Our ability to act like functioning, responsible, intelligent adults outnumbers your ability to act like spoiled, nasty, ignorant, self-centered children.

Our President is doing the things that smart adults with a grasp of the weight of their decisions does - and is changing our world for the better (on the back of a disasterous economy YOU helped create and a continued obstruction your leaders (heh!) continue to push). Don’t like it? Don’t care for the change in our government? You think your opinions and strategies are still valid? Well, THEY’RE NOT! And, by the way WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU KNOW!? Take a good, hard look at the list about of the people you spent so much time throwing in our faces as the saviors of our political process, the incorrupable Elliot Ness’s to our radical, counter-culture Al Capones.

Let me state this in the clearest terms I can: YOU PEOPLE ARE FUCKING IDIOTS! YOUR CHOSEN REPRESENTATIVES AND POLITICAL IDOLS ARE EITHER FUCKING IDIOTS WHO COULDN’T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT YOU OR ME - AND AREN’T SMART ENOUGH TO COUNT TO 2 or they’re MEDIA PUNDITS who play your emotions and push your buttons TO MAKE THEMSELVES RICH! They ALSO couldn’t care about you and, very likely, don’t even take your side of the argument seriously! Unlike us (that is, the 75% of real Americans out there), you are not SMART ENOUGH to understand that when someone bends you over and takes you up the rear without your consent they’re not making love to you. THEY’RE RAPING YOU! These heroes of yours are RAPING YOU and poking the rest of us in the process.

Go back to school. Read some books. PLEASE become something other than ignorant, stubborn lemmings who couldn’t recognize reality from an acid trip. Please. And if you absolutely won’t then go crawl under a rock and STAY THERE!

Current News, Politics Mark Sanford, republican losers, Sarah Palin

From a commenter named Lungfish in Huffington Post:

The GOP are against everything except supporting corporate interests in the face of all common sense and forcing their Superstitions into our legal system and expecting us all to convert. They are against education, women’s rights, American workers, the middle class, accountability for businesses and corporations who violate the law, accountability for criminal acts by their Party and Administration, etc… They are for handing out a trillion dollars to Wall Street and demanding zero oversight, torture, etc…

Their own Administration denied that we were in a recession two years ago and they didn’t lift a finger to do anything about it, preferring to leave it to their successors. They scream about fiscal resonsibility but the megadebt to the Chinese was a result of their funding drive for the Iraq war…and where were they when the bailout for Wall Street happened? They were all for bailing out failed corporations that did not deserve to survive but they complain about capital investment to keep us from careening into financial ruin….

What principles? When it comes to accountability for GOP they lock ranks and try to change laws rather than hold their own accountable.

It is inevitable that hoards of republicans will try to rationalize the Arlen Specter switch. Surely, he must be an evil, purely politically motivated person. He must be weak. He must be trying to get back at them, etc. etc. etc.

The truth of the matter is, he’s just had enough. The only difference is it was a long journey for him where for many others it was 8 years of disasterous policies. As well, the republicans are acting like the same nasty, belligerent spoiled children they’ve always been. They just can’t see past their own navel when it comes to their platform and the quality of their constituents.

I’ll do that for them and cut to the chase: If you are still a republican, after ALL that’s happened in the past 8 years, after all the deaths, swindles, cheating, lying and stealing - you are an absolute moron. This is not a debatable point here. There has been more than enough solid, unambiguous evidence that the republican party is a party built for one type of person - rich, white and connected. If you are one of those people, you have every reason to stay republican - well, except for the lack of inclusion, the bigotry and a culture devoid of empathy for anyone but themselves (take a look at the aftermath of Katrina, again).

Fuck you people if you still believe you’re relevant. You’re far from it. Stupidity has no place in a democracy, at least not deliberately - and you dead-enders can all be classified as the stupidest of the stupid.

Thanks for your support.

Current News, Politics Arlen Specter, GOP, Michael Steele, republican dead-enders, republican losers

Thank you, Sean Penn, for stating so simply what is childish, simple-minded and seriously wrong with the right’s assessment of Obama’s recent encounter (Huffington Post):

I know President Chavez well. Whether or not one agrees with all his policies, what is certainly true of Chavez is that he is a warm and friendly man with a robust sense of humor. To treat such a man coldly is akin to spitting on him. As a country we’ve done enough of that. Say what you will, but it has only resulted in the self-celebration of our smirking spitters, while costing us international respect, American lives, and left wounds in the hands of our children’s future. The Cheneys, down to the O’Reillys and Hannitys and Limbaughs, effectively hate the principles upon which we were founded. They are among the greatest cowards in all of American history. I applaud an American President who’s tough enough…to smile.

The saddest outcome of our last eight years has been the absence of common sense. Even in a leader we disagreed with there was an assumption that foreign policy required finesse. Reagan knew this. Clinton was a master at it. It’s only been recently, with the advent of GW Bush, that the “bully” approach has been given any credence.

If you asked the average conservative person in 1985 whether nastiness, aggressiveness and arrogance would help us in our relations with our world neighbors, you’d get a quick “what, are you fucking kidding me?” look. Ask the same conservative dittohead back in 2004 and you’ll find you’re in a conversation with a frat boy. It’ll start with a gutteral “yeaahhhh!!!”, move into macho posteuring and end with the suggestion that those who don’t feel the way he does about Bush’s approach are traitors and pussies.

In America (and certainly other countries), with every new Leader comes a new personal style - a style that the country adopts into it’s culture. We saw this with the new Monarchy in Britain during the 1870’s when Queen Victoria gave rise to the buttoned-down “Victoria Era.” We’ve seen in recent times the youth culture’s rise during Kennedy, the down-home southern values that followed Carter’s four years, and the political correctness that followed Reagan. If that leader is a spoiled child, like Bush has been, that same me-first attitude poisons the overall culture. If that person is a true adult, one who takes responsibility for his mistakes and treats other with dignity and respect (unless they absolutely don’t deserve it), then we have a country and a culture that shows some promise and maturity once again. It’s seems that Obama is that man.

All I can say is thank God we’re rid of George W. Bush and his ilk. He’s been a poisonous force so lethal it almost did us in. But American’s are not stupid, even though they can vote that way sometimes. Bullies, in the end, never win.

Current News, Politics Barack Obama, Chavez, George W. Bush, republican losers, republican whiners, Sean Penn

An article in Burnt Orange Report tries to explain current republican political anger:

Republicans started cutting taxes for corporations and top income earners under Ronald Reagan.  He convinced Congress to cut the top marginal rate from 69 percent in 1980 to 28% in 1988.  This approach then started to trickle down to the states.

The Center for Public Policies Priorities, a non-partisan research center based in Austin, provides an annual report called “Who pays Texas Taxes?”  In 2009 Texans with incomes less than $27,000 have to pay 12 percent of their income to the state.  The tax burden for Texans earning over $117,000 is just 4.9 percent.  No wonder the average Texan is angry.  After 30 years of “Republican tax cuts,” the benefits have never trickled down to us.

Bill Clinton tried to fix this disparity.  He raised the top marginal rate to 39 percent and gave middle class families several tax breaks.  For example, he proposed the child tax credit to help families pay for day-to-day expenses, and, the Hope Scholarship for students entering college.  Through a combination of tax cuts and increases Clinton created the first budget surplus since World War Two.

Republicans are angry. Their house of cards has collapsed and grand fleecing of the rest of America has been exposed for what it is. The few left have no place else to turn but to their own hatred of everything beyond the scope of their own navels.

Agree or disagree with the democratic doctrine, but one of the many things it promotes is concern for the welfare of others. You don’t have to be the most compassionate person in the world to understand that what benefits the bottom 30% will benefit the top 30%. To me, this is a no brainer. Businesses thrive when EVERYONE can afford goods and services. Stockbrokers get richer when their client base grows beyond just the top 1%. The cost of our government gets CHEAPER when we’re not paying down an enormous credit card issued by countries like China and Saudi Arabia. And, as a consequence, our security as a country is increased when we don’t have to compromise our relationships with other nations due to our overwhelming debt.

George W. Bush put this country on the path of disaster. Obama is doing all the right things to move us off this path. If the hard-headed, prejudice, selfish, narrow-minded dead-enders want to complain about this, create right wing extremist groups in response or act as spoilsports in Senatorial races like that of Coleman and Franken, lets let them.

They’ve shown us who they are. We’ve seen their anger first-hand - and we reject it as a country.

Politics Al Franken, Norm Coleman, republican anger, republican losers, right-wing extremist groups

From CNN:

The GOP budget would repeal the entire $787 billion economic stimulus package except for an extension of unemployment insurance benefits. It also would roll back a recently passed 8 percent spending boost in the budget for the remainder of the current fiscal year.

At the same time, the federal share of Medicaid payments would be converted to block grants for the states. Medicare would be transformed for Americans younger than 55 by allowing them to choose from a series of preapproved private insurance plans, with premium payments from the federal government to insurers varying according to an individual’s age, income and health.

So the republican’s answer to our economic problems is…do nothing.

This proposal is pathetic and insulting. All it is essentially is extend unemployment benefits without any boost to the job market (because, as we know, the market knows how to regulate itself and create jobs and wealth on its own) and push the bullshit private investment plans for Medicare, an obvious attempt for the insurance lobby to muscle into the conversation.

Thanks, John Boehner and Mitch McConnell. Thank you for letting the American people see what treasonous assholes you really are. All you’ve done is play to your small, but rich, constituents and all the lobbyists that no longer have a voice in the Obama administration. Your budget will do nothing to help our current crisis and I’m sure you know it. You also know it has no chance of being passed, but it does give you a chance to cowardly avoid doing anything for the country that involves a decision on your part.

Go screw yourselves, traitors.

Current News, Politics john boehner, mitch mcconnell, republican budget proposal, republican lies, republican losers

From The Wall Street Journal:

“We have a tougher job than our friends across the aisle. They’ve been offering Americans a free lunch for the last 80 years, rather successfully,” he told reporters at a lunch hosted by the Christian Science Monitor. “Those of us that believe in a smaller, more accountable government, we have a tougher time making our principles relevant to the American people. But it’s our challenge, and we’ve got to do it.”

With Republicans out of power on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, Boehner summed up the question facing the GOP as: “How do we take our principles and develop policies that relate to a broader cross-section of America?”

The problem Mr. Boehner and the Republicans are having isn’t simply a case of branding. The country KNOWS your brand. We rejected it. Heck, according to Utah Republican Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. in this same article, even your own PARTY rejects it:

I don’t listen or read whatever it is they say because it is inconsequential–completely.

and, according to The New Republic, it’s a dance we’ve all seen before:

The Republican Party has been using a grab-bag of strategies to counter Obama’s policies over the past month. They rail against the stimulus package for its (supposed) pork. They hammer home their points with gimmicky videos and props. They speak in warrior rhetoric and revel in heroic, fighting-man stunts. But if there is one strand running through all these strategies, it is that they evoke a discomfiting feeling of deja vu. We’ve seen this stuff before: The GOP is currently reliving John McCain’s presidential campaign. The return to the strategies of their fallen candidate may be the saddest illustration of the current state of the party.

Republicans are a long way from mainstream. I hope they stay that way.

Politics republican blame, republican losers, republicans, Wall street journal

From the Cullman Times:

In front of a packed room, Shelby explained how he was a staunch proponent of fiscal responsibility and that he had opposed the $787 billion economic stimulus bill Obama signed into law earlier this week.

“If we (republicans) were in control, I would have been chairman of the banking committee … and I would have killed some bills,” Shelby said with a laugh.

When Richard Shelby opens his Jack Nicholson-joker-like mouth he spews the kind of garbage typical of someone who’s begrudgingly lost and is absolutely, completely unwilling to get along - or work with - the elected winner. Unfortunately, our financial well-being is in the balance.

I’ve made no secret of my disdain for this narrow-minded, childish partisan asshole. In truth, he’s a real piece of work. A former Bush lapdog, former member of the banking and Senate intelligence committees, Shelby is always on the wrong side of the argument and sometimes the wrong side of the law as well.

Regarding the stimulus bill, he sides against the taxpayers in offering no valid alternatives other than more tax cuts and a suggestion of banking regulations which Obama has already included. Take, for example, this exchange:

After noting that since previous administrations have already placed the country more than $10 trillion in debt, local resident Matthew Glover asked Shelby what would be the problem with another $1 trillion debt from Obama’s stimulus package.

“He said some stuff about dividends … but he never really answered my question,” Glover said.

No. And he never will, Matthew. Because what he also didn’t tell you was that those “previous” administrations included our last one, of which - with the exception of one vote (170: S 1307) he was lockstep all the way with the Bush Administration on all the key votes of the last five years.
What’s more, he still feels the need - at this late date - to keep false rumors alive:

Another local resident asked Shelby if there was any truth to a rumor that appeared during the presidential campaign concerning Obama’s U.S. citizenship, or lack thereof.

“Well his father was Kenyan and they said he was born in Hawaii, but I haven’t seen any birth certificate,” Shelby said. “You have to be born in America to be president.”

This is not a new statement by him, either. He’s been using this line for the last few months.

Also, lets not forget his treasonous act of leaking information about NSA activities:

From Washington Post,
Thursday, August 5, 2004

Federal investigators concluded that Sen. Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala.) divulged classified intercepted messages to the media when he was on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, according to sources familiar with the probe.

He also refused to take a lie detector test.

And, lastly, his well-known support for the Iraq war. It helps when you know the players in that war personally:

From Bob’s Links & Rants:

Senator Richard Shelby (R-AL), supporting the Iraq war resolution in October, 2002:

That photo is from Joseph Wilson's The Politics of Truth

“I support this resolution because the threat posed by the brutal dictatorship of Saddam Hussein is real, immediate, and growing.

The threat is real because Saddam possesses conventional, chemical and biological weapons. He is doing everything in his power to acquire the means to construct and field nuclear weapons.

The threat is real because Saddam has used his conventional and chemical weapons to attack his neighbors and his own people.”

So tell me, Senator, why were you holding hands with Saddam just three months after his chemical attack on Halabja?

Oh, how I wish someone would remove all the toilet paper from the bathroom before this guy takes his next dump.

Current News, Politics, War Bush administration, republican blockers, republican lies, republican losers, Richard Shelby

Shawn Mallow of WizBangBlog wrote on February 13th the following:

The Bush years don’t seem so bad now, huh?

Aside from the constant harping from the Democrats about Iraq, and charges of fear mongering from the liberal left, the economy was in a state of fiscal fitness.

Yet, how often did we hear, throughout the Bush years, of just how awful the economy was?

Well, Shawn, we heard it CONSTANTLY. No, it wasn’t THE LEFT WING MEDIA that was pronouncing it, but the basic facts - along with word on the street. It’s old news - but in the revisionist mind of the dead-enders there’s always room for another fantasy to be presented as fact.

Well, not this time. Here’s the Washington Post just the other day:

The number of jobs in the nation increased by about 2 percent during Bush’s tenure, the most tepid growth over any eight-year span since data collection began seven decades ago. Gross domestic product, a broad measure of economic output, grew at the slowest pace for a period of that length since the Truman administration. And Americans’ incomes grew more slowly than in any presidency since the 1960s, other than that of Bush’s father.

As they also truthfully point out, the “economic expansion” Bush and his minions like to boast about were numbers filled with as much air as the dot.com bubble. Sure, housing prices increased, but most saw that for what it was - the availability of obscene mortgage products that allowed a bum on the street with two dollars to his name to make some kind of housing purchase. Consumer spending rose, but we all know how - credit cards pumped up with costs few could pay off easily, ever bloating as the last 8 years slowly chugged. And sure, Wall Street made some gains, but the foundation was filled with sand and we are currently at levels seen 6 years ago.

Was any of this foreseeable? Of course it was. Countless articles, news editorials and even film (Maxed Out) gave searing portraits of our credit card culture - and the housing “bubble”, coined by Greenspan, has been referred to by that moniker since 2003.

What we’ve seen over the past 8 years is what we see with every new President - an “attitude” about our culture that becomes part of the public conscience. With Nixon came years of cynicism. With Carter, a down-home feel of getting back to nature. Remember all those ridiculous nature moves - Wilderness Family, Grizzly Adams, etc. With Reagan came the culture of political correctness and renewed jingoism. With Clinton, a laissez faire attitude to sex and with Bush?

Well, Bush gave our culture the gems of his personality - lack of curiosity, fear in black and white, and most profoundly the lifestyle of a spoiled little rich boy (buy now, don’t worry about the credit card. It’ll all work out). For him it was easy. Every dumb financial decision he ever made his family or friends bailed him out of. He even ran our country that way, spending us into oblivion and keeping any regulation at bay (yes, I know Clinton signed Glass-Steagall out of commission, but guess what? That was 9 years ago. No oversight of any sort since - and that doesn’t absolve Chris Cox from sleeping during his entire tenure at the SEC).

So what has the era of Bush given us? An economy that is worse than when he began office. A population out of work or fearful of losing their jobs and an economic collapse that could have been prevented.

But don’t expect that kind of bleak picture from the true believers because even in the darkest hour of this republican disaster we’ve inherited, it’s always someone elses fault. Guess it must all be Obama’s. He has been in office 3 weeks, you know!

Politics bush economy, republican losers, Sanford Weill