I thought I’d group my GOP elephant illustrations together and send them over to Republican headquarters to see what they thought. I heard they might be looking to replace their current stale elephant logo with something that better describes the current state of the party. I’ll let you know if there’s any response.

More.

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Nothing describes the state of conservatives politics better than a look at the four men left standing (one really) in the race to find a Republican presidential nominee. These four sorry excuses for politicians (and the political bar is historically low) makes the case that less is not always more. Sometimes less is all you’ve got.

Soulless, clueless, shameless and hopeless – four men and the political party they wish to lead.

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(The source photographs for the above illustrations are Creative Commons licensed images from photographer Gage Skidmore. )

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Add the name of professor and blogger (foreignpolicy.com) Daniel W. Drezner to the list of prominent conservatives who have had enough with Republican’s destructive and self-serving brand of politics.

I’m not a Democrat, and I don’t think I’ve become more liberal over time.  That said, three things have affected my political loyalties over the past few years.  First, I’ve become more uncertain about various dimensions of GOP ideology over time.  It’s simply impossible for me to look at the aftermath of the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the 2008 financial crisis and not ponder the myriad ways in which my party has made some categorical errors in judgment.   So I’m a bigger fan of the politics of doubt during an era when doubt has been banished in political discourse.

Second, the GOP has undeniably shifted further to the right over the past few years, and while I’m sympathetic to some of these shifts, most of it looks like a mutated version of “cargo cult science” directed at either Ludwig Von Mises or the U.S. Constitution (which, of course, is sacred and inviolate, unless conservatives want to amend it).  Sorry, I’m not embracing outdated concepts like the gold standard or repealing the 16th Amendment.  Not happening.

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Also, things that weren’t said are now being said.  Or, to be more precise, things that use to be said but ignored are now being taken seroiusly by the GOP’s leading lights.  Newt Gingrich endorses the notion that Obama has a “Kenyan, anti-colonial” worldview.  Mitt Romney claims Obama has been apologizing around the world and no longer believes in American exceptionalism.  …  There’s good, solid partisanship — a vital necessity in this country – and then there’s unadulterated horses**t.  Too much of the GOP’s rhetoric on Obama reads like the latter to me. 

So for those reasons, I really am a Republican in Name Only at this point.

Refreshing and certainly better late than never.  I’ve often wondered how thinking conservatives (yes, those in possession of a real brain with the ability to reason and discern truth from fiction) could remain loyal to a party that gave them George W. Bush and Sarah Palin.  I’m not referring to your run-of-the-mill teabagger or Fox News devotee.  Those people would vote for a barnyard pig if it had an ‘R’ tattooed to its butt and O’Reilly or Limbaugh praised the pig’s wonderful record of achievement.

I’m referring to the Frum/Sullivan type of staunch conservative who have not abdicated their right to think objectively.  How did they carry on through those eight painful years of neoconservative abuse and neglect?  I imagine it takes a certain amount of time and soul searching for one to come to grips with the realization that a loved one has gone mad.  I would think that for most intelligent and rational people, justifying political insanity becomes more difficult over time.

Again…better late than never.

I much enjoyed Andrew Sullivan’s response when asked by Howard Kurtz on how he reconciles his current harsh criticism of Republicans with his own conservatism.  “Because I’m still a conservative and they are not.”  Nice.

As I’ve noted before, if the Republican party is to ever survive its current crippling onslaught of madness on conservatism, it will be because of the efforts of strong minded conservatives like Drezner, Frum and Sullivan who are willing to call out the empty-headed emperor when he is caught wearing no clothes.  And these days, the emperor has made the conscious decision to burn his entire wardrobe.

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It’s amazing what you can uncover with Google.  I was doing some research on Hal Roach, creator of the Our Gang (Little Rascals) series which dates back to the 1920s and turned into a popular television series in the 50s, when out popped this image.  As it turns out, the parents of 7 of the 8 candidates running in the Republican primary were part of the Little Rascals cast in the 30s and 40s. How’s that for a coincidence!  What are the odds that a parent of each of the candidates hoping to be president (with the exception of Rick Santorum’s folks who had not yet emigrated from Italy), would have all known each other 60 years ago?  Truly amazing.

The family resemblance is quite startling too.  Ron Paul definitely got his good looks from his mom as did Herman Cain (not sure what the mustache on her face is all about, though…strange).

Anyway, there it is.  I thought I’d share it with you.

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One can almost feel David Frum’s pain in this insightful and honest look at his beloved Republican party.  You should read the entire piece in New York magazine to get a full sense of where Frum is coming from but here is the essence of what he is saying.

Republican mindset…

If we say something often enough, we come to believe it. We don’t usually delude others until after we have first deluded ourselves. Some of the smartest and most sophisticated people I know—canny investors, erudite authors—sincerely and passionately believe that President Barack Obama has gone far beyond conventional American liberalism and is willfully and relentlessly driving the United States down the road to socialism. No counterevidence will dissuade them from this belief: not record-high corporate profits, not almost 500,000 job losses in the public sector, not the lowest tax rates since the Truman administration. It is not easy to fit this belief alongside the equally strongly held belief that the president is a pitiful, bumbling amateur, dazed and overwhelmed by a job too big for him—and yet that is done too.

One of the key reasons for that mindset being what it is…

Extremism and conflict make for bad politics but great TV. Over the past two decades, conservatism has evolved from a political philosophy into a market segment. An industry has grown up to serve that segment—and its stars have become the true thought leaders of the conservative world. The business model of the conservative media is built on two elements: provoking the audience into a fever of indignation (to keep them watching) and fomenting mistrust of all other information sources (so that they never change the channel). As a commercial proposition, this model has worked brilliantly in the Obama era. As journalism, not so much. As a tool of political mobilization, it backfires, by inciting followers to the point at which they force leaders into confrontations where everybody loses, like the summertime showdown over the debt ceiling.

But the thought leaders on talk radio and Fox do more than shape opinion. Backed by their own wing of the book-publishing industry and supported by think tanks that increasingly function as public-relations agencies, conservatives have built a whole alternative knowledge system, with its own facts, its own history, its own laws of economics. Outside this alternative reality, the United States is a country dominated by a strong Christian religiosity. Within it, Christians are a persecuted minority. Outside the system, President Obama—whatever his policy ­errors—is a figure of imposing intellect and dignity. Within the system, he’s a pitiful nothing, unable to speak without a teleprompter, an affirmative-action ­phony doomed to inevitable defeat. Outside the system, social scientists worry that the U.S. is hardening into one of the most rigid class societies in the Western world, in which the children of the poor have less chance of escape than in France, Germany, or even England. Inside the system, the U.S. remains (to borrow the words of Senator Marco Rubio) “the only place in the world where it doesn’t matter who your parents were or where you came from.”

We used to say “You’re entitled to your own opinion, but not to your own facts.” Now we are all entitled to our own facts, and conservative media use this right to immerse their audience in a total environment of pseudo-facts and pretend information.

And it is for that very reason that it is near impossible to have a rational discussion these days with hardcore conservatives who have grown up on a steady diet of Fox News and conservative talk radio.  These people fervently believe that anything other than strict conservative dogma is pure socialistic evil and any attempt to convince them otherwise is seen as mainstream media induced propaganda.

Right-wing indoctrination has been both thorough and complete.

Conservatives like David Frum are routinely scorned within today’s Republican party.  They’re referred to as disgraced turncoats and given the RINO label to be worn forever in shame.  Throughout the 2009-10 period, Frum wrote on how Republicans needed to work alongside Dems in formulating a comprehensive health care reform package.  He reminded his fellow conservatives that “providing health coverage to all is a worthy goal” and that President Obama and Democrats were so eager to have a bipartisan agreement that the brunt of their proposed bill was constructed from past Republican plans to reform health care.  For this, Frum got fired from a conservative think tank he had worked at for years and in short time thereafter, he was no longer seen on Fox News.  This is what happens to conservatives who choose to leave the “alternative knowledge system behind.”  In today’s Tea Party GOP, the consequences for not towing the party line are quick and brutal.

Frum finishes off with a warning and a glimmer of hope.

… in the interests of avoiding false evenhandedness, it must be admitted: The party with a stronger charge on its zapper right now, the party struggling with more self-­imposed obstacles to responsible governance, the party most in need of a course correction, is the Republican Party. Changing that party will be the fight of a political lifetime. But a great political party is worth fighting for.

Good luck…really.

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Jon Huntsman was asked what he thought of the Republican debate in Vegas.

I was totally embarrassed- completely embarrassed by the lack of seriousness, the lack of focus on the issues that really matter to the American people- issues about reviving our economy and addressing joblessness were given short shrift. Our role in the world and securing our position of pre-eminence were given short-shrift. It was more game-show-like than anything else.

There are not a lot of positive things one can say about the GOP these days.  It’s 40 year descent into the slime pit of politics took an even more drastic turn to the extreme fringes with the election of Barack Obama.  But if there is hope that the party will one day emerge as a viable political force worthy of respect, that hope lies in the likes of people like Jon Huntsman.  It won’t be this year but should Republicans ever shake off the Tea Party nightmare, look for Huntsman to be a serious player in 2016.

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Bob Inglis is the type of conservative you wished the Republican party had a few more of within their ranks.  He’s the type of rare conservative who makes the term ‘reasonable Republican’ appear to be a little less of an oxymoron and more of a possibility.

Bob Inglis served six term in the U.S. House of Representatives as a member from South Carolina before finding himself a casualty of the Tea Party train wreck in the 2010 midterms.  In the run-off for that year’s Republican primary, Inglis got decimated by the Tea Party favorite in a 71-29 percent landslide.  Despite posting a solid conservative record in his 12 years in Congress, it was determined that Inglis had crossed party lines once too many times – a definite no-no for a political party where simply having one of their members agree with a liberal on the time of day is enough to demand that the person be drawn and quartered.

Inglis’ had committed the unforgivable sins of voting for the TARP bailouts in 2008 as well as siding with Dems in opposing the Iraqi troop surge in 2007.  He was also one of only 7 Republicans to side with Democrats in voting to disapprove fellow SC Rep. Joe Wilson for yelling out “liar” during President Obama’s 2009 address to Congress.  Obviously, Bob Inglis had made the decision to maintain his right to think for himself over any attempt to pursue pure partisan politics.

And despite Inglis’ willingness to compromise and side with Dems on a few, specific issues, he still maintained a “93.5% lifetime rating from the American Conservative Union and his endorsements from the National Rifle Association and National Right to Life.”  But alas, it was not enough to save Inglis from the Tea Party Inquisition, especially in light of the fact that Inglis was determined to hold on to the one belief which makes all teabaggers, wingnuts and Fox News personalities cringe in horror and uncontrollable rage.  The very conservative Bob Inglis, a 12 year member of Congress, had the audacity to…(gulp!)…to…to…believe in science!!!

Bob Inglis, when given a choice between staying true to his innate intelligence or siding with the mentally deficient crazies who now controlled his party, opted for the former.  In the end, he was mocked for it and it was a factor in his loss of position within the Republican party.

One year later, Inglis has not given up in trying to educate his fellow Republicans and conservatives.  Here’s an excerpt from a piece Inglis wrote in Bloomberg on Monday.

The National Academy of Sciences says, “Climate change is occurring, is caused largely by human activities, and poses significant risks.” Several recent studies have found that 95 percent of climate scientists are convinced that the planet is rapidly warming as a result of human activity. But a George Mason University-Yale University poll in May found that only 13 percent of the public realizes that scientists have come to that conclusion.

You would expect conservatives to stand with 95 percent of the scientific community and to grow the 13 percent into a working majority. Normally, we deal in facts, we accept science and we counter sentiment…

OK, there’s some BS in the above.  No, conservatives do not, for the most part, deal in facts.  It’s simply not something these people do well.  It might be a genetic defect, I don’t know, but if you need better convincing, tune in to the next Republican primary debate for a true example of what a lie-fest is all about.  It’s a sight to behold.

But that aside, Inglis’ message to conservatives is clear and intelligent.  He’s asking them to wake up and return from their decades long journey into the nether regions of insanity – a journey which has gotten a little more unreal with each passing day…

Alright, alright, maybe he’s not saying all of  that, but Inglis has issued a warning to conservatives.  Here were his parting words to his party after his 2010 loss at the hands of a Tea Party candidate.

“It’s a dangerous strategy, to build conservatism on information and policies that are not credible.”

It certainly is but unfortunately for Inglis, his Republican party and, I imagine, an entire nation, his fellow conservatives are just not listening.

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The more you look at Rick Perry, study his record as Texas governor and listen to him speak on the campaign trail, the more you come to realize that this man encapsulates everything which is wrong with today’s Republican Party; narrow-minded, ignorant and bigoted on social issues while on the fiscal side of the ledger, showing a total disregard for the poor and middle class Americans.

There is not much substance to the man (see Nick Anderson toon below), nor would it appear, in the people who support him.  A just released survey of Iowa Republican primary voters reveals that only 21 percent of them believe in global warming while a scant 35 percent believe in evolution.  Add to this that only 48 percent of them believe President Obama was born in the US and what you’re left with is a group of a sorely misinformed Republican voters who will have a say in choosing the person who will become their presidential candidate.  Hello Perry, goodbye Huntsman.

That same survey has Perry (22%) leading both Romney (19%) and Bachmann (18%).  It’s early still but I’ll go out on a limb and say that we’re looking at a Perry/Bachmann ticket.  Next to a Palin/Bachmann ticket, it’s just about the best news Dems could possibly hope for.

Is there any wonder Karl Rove is sounding the alarm bells?

Nick Anderson

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How easy it is to be cynical of the men and women who call themselves politicians.  Nothing new in that, is there? In the recorded history of man, politicians have not painted a pretty picture of themselves.

For whatever reasons these people choose to enter politics, many invariably fall victim to the corruption and graft inherent within the political process. Personal conviction gives way to party-based ideology while poll numbers and special interest dollars become their gods. This blog has been particularly hard on Republicans, a group of people I find most repugnant not because of their opposing political views but for their cold and calloused attitude toward segments of the citizenry least able to defend themselves – the poor, the aged and minorities. Backed by a powerful conservative media machine which does their bidding at every turn, Republicans have mastered the art of lying and truth distortion in the most ingenious of ways.

So what is one to think when coming across a conservative politician who displays both compassion and empathy  – a Republican not afraid to buck the party line and speak from his heart, risking scorn and abuse from a base infused with a teabag mentality? Well, I imagine one thinks the same things that a naturalist would think when catching sight of a Sumatran tiger in its natural habitat. You knew a few existed but seeing them in the wild is a rare sight indeed.

John Kriesel is a House member of the Minnesota legislature and a veteran who lost both his legs in Iraq. Over the weekend, the Minnesota legislature voted 70-62 in favor of a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. Only four Republicans voted against the ban. One of them was John Kriesel.

On May 21, Kriesel got up in the Minnesota House of Representatives and spoke these words.

You’re a courageous man, John Kriesel.
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