Dumbass Republicans

GOP – America’s White Party

May 30, 2013 By mario piperni

Surprise, surprise. Stupidity is alive and well in the racist wing of the conservative movement.

Eagle Forum’s Phyllis Schlafly is riled up about comprehensive immigration reform, and she has hardly been hiding the reason why. Last month, Schlafly predicted that comprehensive reform would be “suicide for the Republican Party” because immigrants “come from a country” where they expect “a handout” from the government. Last week, she lamented that today’s immigrants are less patriotic than the “Irish, Italian, Jewish, etc.” immigrants of “earlier generations.” Then, she claimed that Mitt Romney lost the presidential election not because of eroding support for the GOP among people of color, but because “his drop-off from white voters was tremendous” – which is just blatantly false.

But in an interview this week with conservative radio program Focus Today, Schlafly just came right out and said it. Calling the GOP’s need to reach out to Latinos a “great myth,” Schlafly said that “the people the Republicans should reach out to are the white votes, the white voters who didn’t vote in the last election.”

That’s a lot of stupid packed into Schlafly’s statement. First of all, Mitt Romney did not suffer a drop-off from white voters. In fact, it was quite the opposite. Republicans picked up 59 percent of the white vote in 2012 – a 4 point improvement over John McCain’s 55 percent in 2008. Romney lost the presidential election because he was unable to pick up a majority of votes from the key demographics. He lost the women’s vote (45%), the Black vote (7%), the Hispanic vote (29%) and the Asian vote (27%).

In fact, Romney lost the election for the exact reason that Schlafly claims was not a factor – eroding support for the GOP from people of color. To claim otherwise is delusion at its grandest…but Democrats won’t mind a bit if Republicans take up Schafly’s advice and adopted a renewed Southern Strategy. Republican opposition to immigration reform and more stirring up white resentment toward immigrants will ensure that Republicans get an even smaller share of the minority vote in 2016.

But all that aside, Steve Benen has a great question for all conservatives who, like Schlafly and Pat Buchanan, feel that the Republican party needs to become even more conservative in a bid to attract every last white person in America.

I have a related question for Schlafly and those who agree with her: exactly what would it look like if Republicans tried even harder to “reach out to … the white votes”? The GOP is already looking an awful lot like the driven snow, so what more can party leaders do, specifically, to make white folks feel even more welcome?

Great question. Short of donning white hoods and burning crosses on Hispanics’ lawns, what more could the GOP possibly do to draw out every last white vote?

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Filed Under: Dumbass Republicans, Immigration

Idiot Quote of the Day

March 14, 2013 By mario piperni

CPAC 2013 got off to a roaring start with one of the conservative movement’s leading intellectuals, Louie Gohmert, opening act.

“Vietnam was winnable, but people in Washington decided we would not win it!”

A few more million gallons of Agent Orange (“400,000 [Vietnamese] were killed or maimed, and 500,000 children born with birth defects as a result of its use“) would have done the trick. The 20,000,000 gallons that Americans used from 1962 to 1971 to spray forests in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia was way short of what was really needed to have done the job properly. Right, Louie?

It’s hard enough to fathom how there could be that many people foolish enough to cast their vote for a total ignoramus like Gohmert. It’s even harder to understand why the Republican party would want to showcase this man’s ignorance.

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Filed Under: Dumbass Republicans, war Tagged With: louis gohmert

CPAC and Tea Party Politics

March 6, 2013 By mario piperni

Former Bush strategist Matthew Dowd has a thought or two on CPAC’s decision to not invite Chris Christie to the conservative’s March hate-fest.

“CPAC, to me, has totally diminished its credibility as an organization,” Dowd said. “And you invite Sarah Palin, who wasn’t competent enough to keep a Fox News contract? But she’s invited to a CPAC meeting?”

It’s a valid point and one has to wonder how it is that conservatives still haven’t worked out why it is they lost last November. It isn’t difficult. Three words: tea party idiocy. It’s not the only reason but it certainly is an important one. Teabaggers pushed the party to adopt policy on immigration, social programs, the economy and women’s reproductive rights that can only be described as suicidal madness. In each case, a majority of Americans rejected the Tea Party agenda put forward by Mitt Romney and in turn, Republicans lost the Latino vote, the Asian vote, the African American vote, the women’s vote and the youth vote.

Four months later, instead of licking their wounds and learning from the experience, CPAC organizers decide to reject a semi-moderate conservative who just happens to be the most popular governor in the country. Instead they go with a bunch of crackpots and rejects, all of whom are featured speakers at CPAC.

Ted “Commie Hunter” Cruz
Sarah “The Grifter” Palin
Wayne “I Wish My Penis Had the Shape of a Smith and Wesson” Lapierre
Allen “Goebbels” West
Rick “Google Me” Santorum
Rick “If I Only Had A Brain” Perry

In all fairness to CPAC, when it comes to finding competent and intelligent individuals to speak at their gathering, there isn’t much to choose from beyond the scrapheap of nutjobs and wingers who have taken control of the Republican party. But that’s fine. Any political party that rejects a Chris Christie or Jon Huntsman in favor of divisive, hatemongering teabaggers like Cruz and West deserve to have their clocks cleaned again in the next election…and the one after that…and even the one after that.

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The Ted Cruz source photograph is a Creative Commons licensed image from photographer Gage Skidmore.

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Filed Under: Dumbass Republicans Tagged With: CPAC, ted cruz

The One Trillion Dollar Coin

January 10, 2013 By mario piperni

Is the platinum $1 trillion dollar coin scheme being bounced around as a ploy to counter Republicans threat to refuse to increase the debt ceiling, taking politics into the realm of the absurd? Yes, of course it is…but I’m still with Paul Krugman on this one.

Should President Obama be willing to print a trillion dollar platinum coin if Republicans try to force Americans into default? Yes, absolutely. He will, after all, be faced with a choice between two alternatives, one that is silly but benign the other that is equally silly, but both vile and disastrous. The decision should be obvious.

Republicans, of course, are crying bloody murder and one House member, Greg Walden, is proposing to introduce a bill that would outlaw the minting of coins as a means to balance the budget.

“This scheme to mint trillion dollar platinum coins is absurd and dangerous, and would be laughable if the proponents weren’t so serious about it as a solution. I’m introducing a bill to stop it in its tracks,” Walden said in a statement issued on Monday. “My bill will take the coin scheme off the table by disallowing the Treasury to mint platinum coins as a way to pay down the debt.”

The irony in Walden’s statement is astounding. Republicans feel no shame in proposing to force a default on America’s economic responsibilities by refusing to increase the debt ceiling. This is their way of blackmailing the president into passing their wishlist of economic policies. And somehow, in their twisted view of reality, this is not “absurd and dangerous”…but issuing a $1 trillion dollar platinum coin is?

Look, the $1 trillion dollar coin is dumb but you have to keep in mind that you’re dealing with a political party that has become completely unhinged and divorced from reality. There is no playing nice with Republicans. There is no sitting down with them and discussing important matters in an adult and rational manner. You can (and should, I imagine) try but don’t become flustered when you walk away completely flustered and covered in slime.

A $1 trillion dollar platinum coin? Sure, why not. If it does little more than screw with Republicans’ heads, then it’s a worthwhile effort.

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Filed Under: Dumbass Republicans, economy

As the Job Numbers Go UP, So Does Right-Wing Insanity

October 5, 2012 By mario piperni

You have to be loving the new jobs report. With the unemployment rate finally dipping to under 8 percent (7.8%) comes the news that 114,000 new jobs were added in September and the jobs count for July and August were revised to 181,000 and 142,000 respectively. That is an increase from the original count of 40,000 for July and 46,000 jobs for August. The bottom line is that there are more people working now than when Barack Obama took office.

The economy is growing (as it has for the last three years) and the climb out of an ugly recession is real and undeniable…and Republicans and conservatives are in freakout mode. Romney’s entire campaign of distortions and lies is based on the single premise that President Obama was a bad steward of the economy. If that argument proves to be false, Mitt’s got nothing to run on.

Well, guess what…Romney’s got nothing to run on. But, of course, you already knew that.

In a hysterical act of desperation, the right refuses to accept the numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Typical of their response to the good news is this tweet from former CEO of General Electric, Jack Welch.

Unbelievable jobs numbers..these Chicago guys will do anything..can’t debate so change numbers

— Jack Welch (@jack_welch) October 5, 2012

Interesting. I wonder if it’s the same Chicago guys who released the less positive jobs report the day after the Democratic convention.

This one from some wingnut at the Washington Examiner is especially funny and so very stupid.

I don’t think BLS cooked numbers. I think a bunch of Dems lied about getting jobs. That would have same effect.

— Conn Carroll (@conncarroll) October 5, 2012

Obviously, the delusion runs deep.

Total data manipulation. Such a farce

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) October 5, 2012

And how do you even start a discussion with someone who writes the following?

Fake job numbers of 7.8% unemployment reveal the Obama corruption is in EVERY govt. dept. All are comprimised or complicit. Our govt is gone

— Lawrence Lange (@LawrenceLange1) October 5, 2012

You can’t. Paranoia, delusion and hate fuels the right and there is no possible way to deal with them on a rational level. Facts mean nothing to people when they have given themselves the authority to ignore or rewrite the ones that don’t jive with whatever snake oil they’re peddling.

Sadly, it is not an exaggeration to state that insanity has taken a permanent foothold in the Republican party.

UPDATE

Here’s why the Fox News audience is as ignorant and misinformed as it is. Try having a discussion on the economy with one of them after they see trash like this. Impossible. In their little minds, if Fox says it, then it’s true.