Media

US Prasidentschaftswahl 2012 – The GOP Freakshow

December 1, 2011 By mario piperni

Overseas, they’re laughing at Republicans. The German newsweekly Spiegel on the GOP primary…

Africa is a country. In Libya, the Taliban reigns. Muslims are terrorists; most immigrants are criminal; all Occupy protesters are dirty. And women who feel sexually harassed — well, they shouldn’t make such a big deal about it.

Welcome to the wonderful world of the US Republicans. Or rather, to the twisted world of what they call their presidential campaigns. For months now, they’ve been traipsing around the country with their traveling circus, from one debate to the next, one scandal to another, putting themselves forward for what’s still the most powerful job in the world.

As it turns out, there are no limits to how far they will stoop.

It’s true that on the road to the White House all sorts of things can happen, and usually do. No campaign can avoid its share of slip-ups, blunders and embarrassments. Yet this time around, it’s just not that funny anymore. In fact, it’s utterly horrifying.

It’s horrifying because these eight so-called, would-be candidates are eagerly ruining not only their own reputations and that of their party, the party of Lincoln lore. Worse: They’re ruining the reputation of the United States.

They lie. They cheat. They exaggerate. They bluster. They say one idiotic, ignorant, outrageous thing after another. They’ve shown such stark lack of knowledge — political, economic, geographic, historical — that they make George W. Bush look like Einstein and even cause their fellow Republicans to cringe.

“When did the GOP lose touch with reality?” wonders Bush’s former speechwriter David Frum in New York Magazine. In the New York Times, Kenneth Duberstein, Ronald Reagan’s former chief-of-staff, called this campaign season a “reality show,” while Wall Street Journal columnist and former Reagan confidante Peggy Noonan even spoke of a “freakshow.”

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So the US elections are a reality show after all, a pseudo-political counterpart to the Paris Hiltons, Kim Kardashians and all the American Idol and X Factor contestants littering today’s TV. The cruder, the dumber, the more bizarre and outlandish — the more lucrative. Especially for Fox News, about which Fairleigh Dickinson University found out that its viewers are far less informed than people who don’t watch TV news at all.

Obviously, Spiegel has been paying attention. They refer to the entire cast of Republican candidates as “a club of liars, cheaters, adulterers, exaggerators, hypocrites and ignoramuses.”

And what a lovely club it is.
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Filed Under: Media Tagged With: 2012 Republican primary

Scarborough: “Bachmann Is A Joke”

August 13, 2011 By mario piperni

Every once in a while, Joe Scarborough gets it just right.

“Michele Bachmann’s first answer, Mark Halperin, was “I wish the federal government had defaulted.” Had defaulted, a week after Americans had lost–some of them perhaps lost half of their pensions. Lost half of their 401(k)s, when trillions of dollars went down the drain [pounds the table] with Americans suffering, she said that and got applause, and if anybody thinks that guys like my dad are going to be voting that way when this rolls out of Iowa and New Hampshire and South Carolina, in the early stages, and really gets going, they are out of their mind and they are too stupid not only to prognosticate, they are too stupid to run Slurpee machines in Des Moines. I’ll let you go now. I got it off my chest.”

Michele Bachmann is a joke. She is a joke. And now I will pass it on to you. Her answer is a joke, her candidacy is a joke, and anybody that sits here and says she has any chance of winning anything is out of their mind. Take your straw poll, take your caucus, but Iowa, if you let her win, you prove your irrelevance once again.”

So, can the joke win the Republican primary? I’d like to think not but then I’m reminded of another joke who won it in 2000, so yeah, she can win it.

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Filed Under: Media, Republikooks Tagged With: bachmann

David Brooks Blasts Palin, Bachmann and Limbaugh – “Gods of the New Dawn”

July 19, 2011 By mario piperni

I’m not a David Brooks fan but I have to give him credit for trying to knock some sense into the heads of Republicans. In his latest NYT op-ed piece, he laces into Republicans over their failure to accept what he saw as a debt ceiling deal favorable to conservative ideals – one which could have “been a glorious moment in Republican history.” The deal was one in which the White House was willing to mess with Medicare and Social Security in a serious way and reduce the size of government to the tune of $3 trillion over the next decade. Republicans turned it down over their insane insistence that a deal could not include one cent of tax increases.

The interesting part of Brooks’ piece is that he gets specific in naming who he feels are the true culprits on the Republican side. In fact, he’s got them categorized into four groups.

Beltway Bandits (Grover Norquist who “enforces rigid ultimatums that make governance, or even thinking, impossible.”)
Big Government Blowhards (Limbaugh and other right-wing media jocks who “are in the business of building an audience by stroking the pleasure centers of their listeners.”)
The Show Horses (Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann who “produce tweets, not laws.“)
The Permanent Campaigners (Republican politicians who do not “take responsibility for the state of the country and make it better. It’s to pass responsibility onto the other party and force them to take as many difficult votes as possible.“)

Very good. As I said, I’m not a big fan of Brooks and what usually comes off as twisted conservative logic but I do believe he’s nailed this one.

All of these groups share the same mentality. They do not see politics as the art of the possible. They do not believe in seizing opportunities to make steady, messy progress toward conservative goals. They believe that politics is a cataclysmic struggle. They believe that if they can remain pure in their faith then someday their party will win a total and permanent victory over its foes. They believe they are Gods of the New Dawn.

Unfortunately for Brooks, he’s going to get vilified by the very same people he’s correctly identified as the evildoers. No one tells a Norquist, Limbaugh or Palin that they’re hindering the great conservative dream. Conservative pundits are simply not allowed to tug on the cape of conservative gods. Just ask David Frum.

Filed Under: Media, Republican Politics Tagged With: David Brooks, debt ceiling

Orly Taitz – Birther Queen to the End

April 28, 2011 By mario piperni

They don’t call Orly Taitz the crazy Republican (<– redundancy?) without reason.
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There you have it, a perfect example of the right-wing fringe in action which has become less fringe and more mainstream with each passing day . And should anyone make the claim that Taitz is more exception than rule, than may I suggest that either: a) you have not been paying attention to the endless stream of hysteria emerging from the right over the last three years or b) over-exposure to Fox has undoubtedly fried one brain cell too many.

The age of teabagging/birtherism/lunacy/batshit crazy is fully upon us and all it took was the simple act of voting in a black liberal to the White House.
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Filed Under: Birther Nonsense, Media Tagged With: birther, MSNBC, Orly Taitz

O’Reilly Gets His Pompous Ass Demolished

January 28, 2011 By mario piperni

With little more than truth and the fool’s own words, Jon Stewart neatly puts away Bill O’Reilly.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

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Bill O’Reilly Defends His Nazi Analogies

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There is little chance that this is going to be the end of the exchange. Typical of people like O’Reilly, Beck and your everyday wingnut, they will divert from the original point by introducing non-related issues and accusations of their own until the original thread gets lost in a murky cloud of words and nonsense.

Deny, deny, deny. Lie, lie, lie. Deny, deny, deny. That’s how they do it. Dicks are always right because dicks are unable to see themselves as ever being wrong.

See? It’s not complicated at all.