Servicewomen and Abortion

"Abolition of a woman's right to abortion, when and if she wants it, amounts to compulsory maternity:  a form of rape by the State."  ~Edward Abbey

Huh. This is a neat little news article.

The Obama Administration released an official statement yesterday that includes support for abortion access for military survivors of rape. The statement[PDF] calls for changes to the National Defense Authorization Act for 2013, which details the military's budget, but supports an amendment that would allow military personnel to use their insurance to cover an abortion in cases of rape or incest. The statement also supports access to elective abortions for all servicewoman and military dependents when they use their own funds, including servicewomen overseas. 

Under the amendment, armed servicewomen would be granted the same rights as civilian women under federal policies that provide affordable abortion care to women who are the victims of rape or incest. Under the current policy, servicewomen are only eligible for abortion care if the woman's life is at risk. 

President Obama tends to do these things and doesn't trumpet them much, but I certainly appreciate his efforts. (Of course, it would be great if elective abortions were also covered by military insurance. Someday.)

The Scorpion's Tail

Let's set up a sting, shall we?

Let's put together our hidden cameras and microphones, and walk into this jackass's store.


Southwest Shooting Authority in Pinetop, Ariz. took out an advertisement last week in the local newspaper, the White Mountain Independent, that spelled out the store's new policy in explicit terms.

"If you voted for Barack Obama your business is not welcome at Southwest Shooting Authority," the ad reads. "You have proven that you are not responsible enough to own a firearm."

Let's recruit a young man and woman, the former wearing a cowboy hat and shitkicker boots, with a telltale Skoals circle in his rear jeans pocket, the latter a wide-eyed, lipsticked, none-too-bright-looking blonde. Two walking cliches, in other words. Driving a battered, rusty 70's Ford pickup truck, of course, with a rifle rack in the back window, festooned with nasty Republican bumper stickers like these:

Into the gunstore we go. The shitkicker cowboy buys whatever gun he wants, after name-dropping Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, and Sarah Palin a few times, perhaps adding a couple of re-nig jokes along the way. After the purchase is completed, the two head for the door, and right as they leave the blonde turns and says, in a voice as sweet and sharp as cyanide:

"By the way, we voted for President Obama." 

I would pay good money for that to happen. 

The God of Number Crunching

This jpg is a perfect snapshot of the election.

The President couldn't have orchestrated this any better if he and Nate were in the White House basement right now building a time machine, preparing to go back a year and lay the groundwork for this historic victory.

In 2008 Nate Silver called 49 out of 50 states correctly. This time he hit every single state (the last I heard, Florida still has about 200,000 votes to count, but Obama is up 47K or thereabouts, so I believe he'll get Florida), as well as the popular vote (50 to 48 percent). Turnout was very similar to 2008 levels, with higher numbers of women, African Americans, and Latinos.

Mother Jones has an article on the election and the awesomeness of President Obama's ground game. The ground game mattered greatly in Florida, according to the Miami Herald. Forbes also has an interesting article about this, written from a small-business perspective.

Also, need I say how immensely satisfying it is that all of Karl Rove's and the other SuperPAC money--literally billions of dollars--got flushed down the toilet? I do not envy "Turd Blossom" today, trying to explain himself to Sheldon Adelson and the Koch Brothers.

In short, we did it, motherfrakkers.

Not only the President, but the 20 women now in the Senate (including Elizabeth Warren and Tammy Duckworth, who I'm proud to report I contributed to). Marriage equality wins in four states. And a whole host of progressive ballot measures passed at the polls.

A pretty damn good night.

Sigh of relief. Nate Silver was right and Mitt Romney's ass got booted. Some on MSNBC were praising his concession speech last night, but all I saw was the same insincere, smarmy slimeball I've always seen.

Goodbye, Mitt. We hardly knew ye.

Thank God.

Let's Rearrange the Deck Chairs, Honey!

Well. After all the fuss by the Romney campaign over Pennsylvania supposedly being in play...

...it turns out they bought ad time there because it was the only state with any airtime left.

With the tens of millions of dollars being funneled into the campaign in its closing weeks, that I can believe.

I just wonder how Karl "Turd Blossom" Rove will explain to the Koch brothers and Sheldon Adelson exactly how he squandered all their money.

Nine Days

More newspaper endorsements for President Obama keep rolling in. I particularly like this one, from the deep red state of Kentucky, home of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (he of the infamous "our first priority is to make President Obama a one-term president" remark).


Separating rhetoric from reality is especially difficult when considering Republican Mitt Romney, because he has espoused so many conflicting positions. From abortion to taxes and trade with China, he has been all over the map.

Romney's a great salesman, but it's impossible to know what he's selling or predict what he would do if elected. This makes him a risky choice.

Barack Obama has a record as president, and though he has not led us to his post-partisan promised land, he has provided steady, principled leadership during an economic crisis.

I keep hearing people declare that Romney's going to win, but more and more I think that's pure fantasy. Nate Silver's Five Thirty Eight blog, for example, puts the president's chances of winning the Electoral College at 73% as of today; this has held steady for a while, and the Romney "bounce" of last month ('scuse me, earlier this month) appears to be over. Sam Wang of Princeton predicts 300 electoral votes of President Obama, while Drew Linzer, Assistant Professor of Political Science at Emory University, predicts a whopping 332 electoral votes for Obama. He also has an interesting state-by-state polling analysis.

The Huffington Post's electoral map puts the President at 277 electoral votes (270 needed to win), while the lowest poll tracker I've seen, at Talking Points Memo, has Obama at 265--five short. If you average all these out, statistically the President has it in the bag.

Of course, anything can still happen, especially with Hurricane Sandy the nasty power-line-downing monkey wrench. The Obama campaign, naturally, isn't letting up, and is pounding away at early voting, which may be the President's saving grace. Fake Noise (Fox News), meanwhile, is still screaming "Benghazi," which I believe is the ultimate red herring, since most Americans (who at the moment are concerned with a hurricane and an election, in that order) couldn't give a pink rat's ass. As illustrated by this cartoon.

But hey, as the saying goes, keep screwing that pooch and see how far it gets you. 

I am cautiously optimistic. I also happen to be off work on Election Day, and probably won't get much sleep, since it very well may go down to the wire (in Ohio). But I just don't think whichever Mitt Romney is programmed to be on display this week is going to pull it off. 

"Life is a sum of all your choices"

"It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities." ~J.K. Rowling

It's rather interesting how several swing-state newspapers have endorsed President Obama for re-election. The latest, the Cleveland Plain Dealer, does so here. It's a tepid endorsement in a couple of places, but it's still an endorsement.

Consider a defining moment early in Obama's first term -- one with special resonance in Ohio: The outgoing Bush administration had used TARP funds to throw a lifeline to General Motors and Chrysler, but the two automakers were still at death's door. They wanted more cash and offered vague promises to change their ways. Public opinion opposed another bailout. Romney urged the companies to file for traditional bankruptcy -- at a time when private-sector credit was frozen even for healthy firms.

Obama told the companies to restructure using the Bankruptcy Court and set conditions for government financing: GM's chairman had to go. Excess plants and dealerships had to close. Chrysler had to be bought out by Fiat. Contracts had to be renegotiated.

It was unpopular but gutsy. And it worked. Ohioans today are making cars in Lordstown and Toledo. They're making parts and steel for Ford, Honda and other automakers. They're back on the job.

That's leadership that deserves a chance to finish the job. Re-elect President Obama.

The Denver Post weighs in here, pointing out that Mitt Romney's numbers and policies simply don't add up.

We know that many have a different view, and point to Romney's record in Massachusetts as ample reason for his election. Unfortunately, he never seriously campaigned as a centrist alternative to Obama.

From running to the far right on immigration and women's health in the primary and then saddling his campaign with Rep. Paul Ryan's extreme and unrealistic budget, the Romney of this election cycle is not the man elected in Massachusetts.

Instead, we must judge him on the menu of options he has repeatedly put forward during this campaign. On policies ranging from tax reform to immigration, from health care to higher education, none of Romney's numbers add up. Moreover, he has been unwilling or unable to outline for voters specifics that demonstrate his math works — probably because it doesn't.

Romney has said he will repeal Obamacare, yet insists he can keep its most popular provisions without fully explaining how he would pay for it.

He's calling for 20 percent tax rate cuts across the board. Independent analysts say the government can't come close to making up for that lost revenue without closing popular deductions like those for home-mortgage interest and charitable contributions. Romney's explanations for how he would do that don't wash.

And his pledge to create 12 million jobs in four years sounds good, but Moody's Analytics has predicted that type of job growth regardless of who is elected.

The Tampa Bay Times chimes in with its endorsement--rather ironic, considering this was where the Republican National Convention was held.

Obama also recognizes the importance of maintaining Medicare and strengthening its finances. The Affordable Care Act extends Medicare's life by eight years, to 2024. The law's $716 billion in Medicare savings and the creation of an independent panel to recommend more efficiencies are positive steps. There is more work to be done, but the path is the correct one. 

 In contrast, Romney would transform Medicare into a voucher program that likely would force many future seniors to pay more for less coverage. He rejects raising even $1 of new revenue for every $10 in spending cuts, and he promises to cut taxes by $5 trillion but won't say which loopholes or tax breaks he would end to cover the cost. Meanwhile, he wants to reduce the federal deficit while increasing spending on defense beyond what even the Pentagon requests — even though the United States spends nearly as much on its military as the rest of the world combined. This fanciful math could only add up to deep cuts in spending on education and other domestic programs — and tax increases on the middle class. 

 We wish the economic recovery was more vigorous, and we would like the president to present a sharper vision for a second term. But Obama has capably steered the nation through an incredibly difficult period at home and abroad, often with little help from Congress. The next four years will not be easy for whoever occupies the Oval Office, but Obama has been tested by harsh circumstance and proven himself worthy of a second term.

Considering Florida's senior population, hopefully this will carry some weight.

Finally, the Salt Lake Tribune, in Mitt Romney's home state, endorses the President--and absolutely mangles Mitt Romney.


Sadly, it is not the only Romney, as his campaign for the White House has made abundantly clear, first in his servile courtship of the tea party in order to win the nomination, and now as the party’s shape-shifting nominee. From his embrace of the party’s radical right wing, to subsequent portrayals of himself as a moderate champion of the middle class, Romney has raised the most frequently asked question of the campaign: "Who is this guy, really, and what in the world does he truly believe?"

The evidence suggests no clear answer, or at least one that would survive Romney’s next speech or sound bite. Politicians routinely tailor their words to suit an audience. Romney, though, is shameless, lavishing vastly diverse audiences with words, any words, they would trade their votes to hear.

More troubling, Romney has repeatedly refused to share specifics of his radical plan to simultaneously reduce the debt, get rid of Obamacare (or, as he now says, only part of it), make a voucher program of Medicare, slash taxes and spending, and thereby create millions of new jobs. To claim, as Romney does, that he would offset his tax and spending cuts (except for billions more for the military) by doing away with tax deductions and exemptions is utterly meaningless without identifying which and how many would get the ax. Absent those specifics, his promise of a balanced budget simply does not pencil out.

If this portrait of a Romney willing to say anything to get elected seems harsh, we need only revisit his branding of 47 percent of Americans as freeloaders who pay no taxes, yet feel victimized and entitled to government assistance. His job, he told a group of wealthy donors, "is not to worry about those people. I’ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives."

...


In considering which candidate to endorse, The Salt Lake Tribune editorial board had hoped that Romney would exhibit the same talents for organization, pragmatic problem solving and inspired leadership that he displayed here more than a decade ago. Instead, we have watched him morph into a friend of the far right, then tack toward the center with breathtaking aplomb. Through a pair of presidential debates, Romney’s domestic agenda remains bereft of detail and worthy of mistrust.

Therefore, our endorsement must go to the incumbent, a competent leader who, against tough odds, has guided the country through catastrophe and set a course that, while rocky, is pointing toward a brighter day. The president has earned a second term. Romney, in whatever guise, does not deserve a first.

This prompted a .png that I posted to my Pinterest board.

There's your choice, America. Choose wisely.

The Snow is Falling

Paul Krugman has been firing on all cylinders recently. Now comes another indictment of the empty meatsack that is Mitt Romney.

What do Mr. Romney’s economic advisers actually believe? As best as I can tell, they’re placing their faith in the confidence fairy, in the belief that their candidate’s victory would inspire an employment boom without the need for any real change in policy. In fact, in his infamous Boca Raton “47 percent” remarks, Mr. Romney himself asserted that he would give a big boost to the economy simply by being elected, “without actually doing anything.” And what about the overwhelming evidence that our weak economy isn’t about confidence, it’s about the hangover from a terrible financial crisis? Never mind.

To summarize, then, the true Romney plan is to create an economic boom through the sheer power of Mr. Romney’s personal awesomeness. But the campaign doesn’t dare say that, for fear that voters would (rightly) consider it ridiculous. So what we’re getting instead is an attempt to brazen it out with nakedly false claims. There’s no jobs plan; just a plan for a snow job on the American people.


Do go forth and read, please. And ponder the immense damage that would be inflicted on this country and its people if this joker was elected President.

Who's Got the Button?

This is great. That button could win "Dancing With the Stars."

Romney Tax Plan

(If Mitt Romney loses, I fully expect him to turn up on that program in a year or two.)

The Tears of a Clown

Another great ad from the President.

I don't know who's choosing the background music for these ads, but I've noticed a trend in the ones I've seen lately. Just like this sprightly, jazzy little tune, they remind me of circus music...the better to emphasize that Mitt Romney is a clown.

"Drawn by your own sweet skill"

I was going to post this a couple of days ago, but I got caught up in Mitt Romney's Craptacular Flustercluck.

This, of course, is Bill Clinton's knock-em-dead speech at the Democratic Convention. The content has already been analyzed ad nauseum, but take it from me: He pounds the Republicans into the ground and spreads chicken manure over the remains. He also does it all with a wink and a smile and enough good-ole-boy electrified zingers to bring Zombie Reagan shambling across the stage.

The speech is wonderful in and of itself; I've watched it twice. There was a bit of factchecker grumbling, but in the main Bill's facts and figures were found to be accurate. What I wanted to talk about was not the content but the delivery--the sheer poetry of the entire thing.

Good speaking, like good writing, has a distinctive pace. You can't be a single-beat thumping drone, or you'll lose your audience in the first five minutes. Likewise, you can't be a sixteen-note staccato (the way Yngvie Malmsteen tried to play, for those who remember the fiery 80's guitarist) or your listeners' heads will explode. You have to have a rhythm, a structure, a variation--start out strong, then pull back; take a minute to reflect and regroup; lay the groundwork for your next point (or next chapter) and head there, quickening the pace like climbing a mountain; at the summit, stop and look around, soaking in the majesty you've found, before heading down the path towards the next peak.

Bill Clinton's speech did all that pretty damn well. Maybe some got the impression that he was hurrying too much, but I don't think that at all. Surely the man knew he was already running overtime, but since I'm sure he figured that since he still had the networks' attention (and he knew he had the audience's) he was going to wring this thing out to its triumphant end. Nevertheless, he still slowed down. He paused to let his "brass"-isms sink in, and of course he had to pause for cheers and applause (although the bursts of applause were actually when I noticed he would try to get things going again, so he wouldn't appear to be stumping too heavily for a repeal of the 22nd Amendment).

Bill's speech was poetry. More than poetry, it was a Shakespearean sonnet. Barack Obama's speech, by contrast, was more of a workmanlike free verse; it didn't need to soar and inspire. Not only had Bill Clinton already done that, I think more of Obama's 2008 rock-star hysteria would have fallen flat in today's political atmosphere. He's dealt with way too much crapola over the past three and half years to fly so high again, even if the mood of the country would permit it. The President you're seeing now is battle-tested, scarred, and rapidly going gray, and he's earned every one of those steel curls.

Which of course left Bill Clinton free to take Steve Miller's advice, and man did he ever dive and wheel and soar with it. I didn't pay much attention to Bill during his time in office--I was preoccupied with other stuff. That's too bad (although I'm certainly not sorry to have missed the impeachment claptrap). Bill Clinton is the 2nd-best person Barack Obama could have chosen to be his standard-bearer (after Michelle), and I'm glad I got to witness it.

Sonnet 16


But wherefore do not you a mightier way
Make war upon this bloody tyrant, Time?
And fortify yourself in your decay
With means more blessed than my barren rhyme?
Now stand you on the top of happy hours,
And many maiden gardens yet unset
With virtuous wish would bear your living flowers,
Much liker than your painted counterfeit:
So should the lines of life that life repair,
Which this, Time's pencil, or my pupil pen,
Neither in inward worth nor outward fair,
Can make you live yourself in eyes of men.
To give away yourself keeps yourself still,
And you must live, drawn by your own sweet skill.

Nearer My End To Thee

Oh man, I really really hope this is not just wishful thinking.

I've been wondering since the conventions why so many Republicans are so desperately clinging to the Romneybot, and telling so many lies to get him elected (in addition to the candidate's innate untruthfulness). This may be the reason.

When Mitt Romney loses—and, hopefully, when Democrats secure majorities in both Houses of Congress—I expect to see the end of the Republican Party. As the Bryan Fischer quote indicates, the rabid conservatives will blame the debacle on the GOP not being conservative enough. We might see an emergence of a radically right wing party, on the order of the National Front in France: nativist, fundamentally religious, and so far to the right as to be unable to appeal to voters outside of their circle. Whatever "moderates" are left in the party might form a rump GOP; but without the shocktroops of the Right, it too would have little electoral strength. We might very well be on the cusp of witnessing the demise of the conservative movement for a generation—enough time to put the country on a solid footing, so that when conservatives finally re-emerge as a political force, too much has changed to be undone. It's really the only hope the country has to survive as a decent place worth calling home.

Read the whole thing.

The Do-Over

This is great. I don't know who's producing President Obama's ads, but man, they should be nominated for short-short Oscars.

Asshat of the Day

By now, surely everyone has heard that Mitt Romney picked Paul Ryan to be his running mate, so I'll turn the proceedings over to the irreplacable Charles Pierce.

We're not worthy, Charlie.


Paul Ryan is an authentically dangerous zealot. He does not want to reform entitlements. He wants to eliminate them. He wants to eliminate them because he doesn't believe they are a legitimate function of government. He is a smiling, aw-shucks murderer of opportunity, a creator of dystopias in which he never will have to live. This now is an argument not over what kind of political commonwealth we will have, but rather whether or not we will have one at all, because Paul Ryan does not believe in the most primary institution of that commonwealth: our government. The first three words of the Preamble to the Constitution make a lie out of every speech he's ever given. He looks at the country and sees its government as something alien that is holding down the individual entrepreneurial genius of 200 million people, and not as their creation, and the vehicle through which that genius can be channelled for the general welfare.

To add my two cents: I would not vote for Mitt Romney if he was the Last Presidential Candidate on Earth and God Hirself was holding a gun to my head. I cannot believe any rational American citizen would contemplate putting this sleazy, arrogant, dishonest, lying slimeball into the highest office of the land.

But his pick of Paul Ryan for VP only solidifies my contempt. Paul Ryan, after all, wants to dismantle Medicare as we know it, turning it into a voucher system. No, make that a coupon system--you're given a fixed amount to purchase healthcare (just as a store coupon takes only fifty cents or a dollar off the actual cost of the merchandise), and if the annual cost of healthcare is rising beyond the value of your coupon, well, too bad, so sad, you have to make up the difference.

I didn't pay my Medicare taxes for all these years--fifty years by the time I retire--to have the system yanked out from under me just because Paul Ryan has some kind of juvenile Ayn Rand obsession.

Together, these two Twitrands constitute the worst Presidential ticket I have seen in my lifetime.

Vulture/Voucher 2012--"You People Are On Your Own"

Vote for them at your peril.

"The Tyranny of Other People's Sanctimony"

This is just great. As usual, Charlie Pierce is required reading.


It has been hard not to notice that he is the first president in my lifetime who is treated as though he has been given permission by the country to lead it, a permission that can be rescinded at any time, for whatever reason, fair or foul. 

Read the whole thing, of course (and the comments, a couple of which prove Charlie's point). If you don't acknowledge that the race of Barack Obama doesn't play a large part in everything he does--and even more so for his opponents--you're just denying reality.

Amercia the Beautiful

This ad left me jumping up and down and squealing with glee. Fan-frakking-tastic.



And the Romneybot's head went flying in one direction, its body in another, leaving nothing but scorched earth and burnt wires in between.

The Prickly Dish

Man. Andrew Sullivan is in an asshole-ripping mood today.

That last massive lie is at the core of Romney's political strategy. By removing that context (which is like talking about the sinking of the Titanic without mentionng the iceberg), Romney is knowingly arguing that the spending and debt levels of the last three years were some kind of choice by a president who just loves to strangle the US economy by spending much more money than we have. But the only president who made that choice was George W. Bush - by crippling revenues, even as he fought wars with no budgets and new entitlements with no end (Medicare D), rendering us bankrupt even as we desperately needed a rainy day surplus to fight the depression.

Obama did not have a serious choice; he had a fate. That fate was to pick up the pieces of the most catastrophic presidency in modern times. The final bouquet - after emptying the public coffers with no serious boost to employment, profits or growth - was the financial collapse, which both shrunk the economy, decimated revenues to 50 year lows, and automatically increased spending for the unemployed and poor in desperate need of help. Once you account for that - and the Nutting graph indeed shows that this was baked in the cake by the time Obama was elected - Obama has been, like most modern Democrats, far more fiscally conservative than any modern Republican.

The President should put Sully in charge of Internet outreach. 

"A larger pattern of rejection of reality"

"For me, the most disturbing aspect of the Republican political culture is how it puts its unquenchable thirst for power, domination and a radical ideology above facts, reason and the truth."  ~Al Gore

“The dismaying truth is that birtherism is part of a larger pattern of rejection of reality that has taken hold of intimidating segments of one of the two political parties that alternate in power in our governing institutions. It is akin to the view that global warming is a hoax, or that the budget can be balanced through spending cuts alone, or that contraception causes abortion, or that evolution is just another theory, on a par with the theory that the earth is six thousand years old.” 
― Hendrik Hertzberg

In a classic "no shit Sherlock" moment, the Washington Post notes the following:

Let's Just Say It: The Republicans Are the Problem


We have been studying Washington politics and Congress for more than 40 years, and never have we seen them this dysfunctional. In our past writings, we have criticized both parties when we believed it was warranted. Today, however, we have no choice but to acknowledge that the core of the problem lies with the Republican Party.


The GOP has become an insurgent outlier in American politics. It is ideologically extreme; scornful of compromise; unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.

Holy Flying Spaghetti Monster, you'd think they just learned that water is wet.

This, of course, has been obvious to a lot of people since President Obama's inauguration. In fact, the Huffington Post reported that Republican conniving started that night. With the takeover of the GOP by the white ultraconservative bloc calling themselves the Tea Party, Congressional dysfunction was assured.

This is pointed out by an invaluable book I just finished reading, The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism, by Theda Skocpol and Vanessa Williamson. To me, this book is very damning, because it simply reports on what the authors saw and heard during the past couple of years, visiting various Tea Party groups. I've stuck bookmarks throughout the book's pages (since it's a library book, I can't highlight it, and I hate doing that to a poor defenseless book anyway). Here are some relevant paragraphs.

By now it should be obvious that Tea Partiers have a self-centered understanding of democracy. Tea Partiers consider themselves to be the true, patriotic Americans, and they believe that elected Republican representatives are "hired" to do pretty much exactly what Tea Partiers themselves say should be done. Government by and for the Tea Party, could be the motto. Little thought is given by local activists or by national advocacy groups to discussing vital national issues with people outside the Tea Party. When we spoke with small grassroots activists and observed discussions in meetings, we never heard anyone acknowledge the need for two-way dialogue with other Americans who think differently from Tea Partiers. The talk was all about getting GOP representatives to do what they had "promised" Tea Party voters, with no acknowledgment that other kinds of voters also supported successful GOP candidates, let alone any acceptance that Democratic representatives, elected by other constituencies, also have legitimate roles to play in Congress and state legislatures. [p.183]

In other words, they just want politics, laws and a Constitution for themselves, not for the entire diverse population of this country.

Despite their fondness for the Founding Fathers, Tea Party members we met did not make any reference to the intellectual battles and political compromises out of which the Constitution and its subsequent amendments were forged, let alone to the fact that key Founders were Deists, far from any brand of evangelical fundamentalism. Nor did they realize the extent to which some of the positions Tea Partiers now espouse bear a close resemblance to those of the Anti-Federalists--the folks the Founders were countering in their effort to establish sufficient federal authority to ensure a truly United states. The Tea Partiers we met did not show any awareness that they are echoing arguments made by the Nullifiers and Secessionists before and during the U.S. Civil War, or that their stress on "states' rights" is eerily reminiscent of dead-ender white opposition to Civil Rights laws in the 1960s. [p. 50]

Hmm. Wonder what it is about President Obama that sets these people to frothing at the mouth?

Heaven help us if they get into power in November. The country they would remake in their image is not one I would want to live in.

"Float Like a Butterfly, Sting Like a Bee"

I missed it, but I gather President Obama gave a barn-burner of a speech today, wherein he ripped the Republicans and Paul Ryan a new one.

Good for him.

The Purity Brigade

In my neck of the woods, this is called "cutting off one's nose to spite one's face."

Centrist Women Tell of Disenchantment With Republicans

You can't insult, belittle, demean and threaten 50% of the population and expect their support.

What's hilarious about this is that President Obama doesn't have to say a word. He's just standing back and watching the Republicans guarantee his re-election. The level of cluelessness on their part is just astonishing.

But I suppose that's what happens when you put purity and ideology (and religious precepts that absolutely do not belong in government) ahead of actually governing.

"Reality bites...and doesn't let go"

"How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg? Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg." ~Abraham Lincoln

This is just beautiful.

Why I'm Leaving the Republican Party and Endorsing President Obama

The Republican Party refuses to look at what works and what doesn’t — they simply base policy on whether it fits into a rigid anti-government philosophy, whether it is good policy or not.  Essentially, the effectiveness of policy is completely and totally irrelevant to Republicans.  Additionally, the Republican Party believes more strongly in obstructing anything that President Obama proposes than in real solutions that would create jobs and help the average American.

(snip)

Even worse, the Republican Party has bamboozled the American people by portraying themselves as the party of fiscal responsibility.  Any person who can recognize that some numbers are larger than other numbers know the obvious fact that the biggest spending Presidents are Republicans.  Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush alone are responsible for most of the national debt.  Bill Clinton cut government and actually spent less money than was taken in…but George W. Bush quickly changed that.


I believe in smart government that effectively does what it should and leaves the rest to the private sector, while still recognizing the legitimacy of the existence of government.  I believe in equal rights for all Americans, whether gay, straight, female, male, immigrant or naturally born.  The Republican Party no longer believes in any of that.

This is called "living in the real world," the same place I am proud to admit I also inhabit. I will admit, I didn't always feel this way. Once upon a time, I used to (horrors!) watch Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity--the latter more because I thought he was cute than because I was really into what he was saying.

(Needless to say, that caveat does not apply to Bill O'Reilly.)

But the more I read, the more I followed links on the Internet and basically opened my mind, the more I realized these people--and by extension, anyone on Fox News and at Townhall--were simply not telling the truth. Or at the very least, distorting their "facts" beyond all recognition. The more I stepped back and thought about it, the more I realized the modern Republican "Party" had long ago abandoned the definition of a political party and was, in fact, taking on the mark of a religious cult...with Grover Norquist serving as its Grand High Poobah.

Last night's debate certainly drove home that point. I cannot believe one of those babbling idiots is going to win the nomination. Jon Huntsman sounded far and away the sanest of them all, and as others have remarked, he has a snowball's chance in hell of winning the nomination.

Really, what does that say about the Republican Party as a whole?

Any honest conservative should be saddened and dismayed by this turn of events. I would be tempted to feel sorry for them, if it weren't for the fact that if any of these yahoos gets into the White House, the country will crash and burn along with the party.

Be afraid, America. Be very afraid.