Why is this guy still in business?
Sheriff Joe Arpaio's volunteer investigation into documents pertaining to President Barack Obama's place of birth and citizenship now includes the services of a taxpayer-funded ...
The lies roll off the man's lips like music off Yo-Yo Ma's cello. Both are virtuosos - one a cellist, the other a liar.
A partial list.
Bush had nothing to do ...
Happy Friday.
The best from Political Humor‘s collection of the week’s late night political humor.
"Barack Obama supports same-sex marriage. Mitt Romney doesn't even support same-sex car pools." –David Letterman
"The head of ...
Republican Rep. Mike Coffman at a Saturday afternoon fundraiser in Colorado.
I don't know whether Barack Obama was born in the United States of America. I don't know that. But I ...
Rand Paul:
Call me cynical, but I didn’t think his [Obama's] views on marriage could get any gayer.
We won't call Rand cynical. Ignorant, bigoted asshole is more fitting. An adult using ...
Happy Friday.
The best from Political Humor‘s collection of the week’s late night political humor.
"President Obama came out with approval of same-sex marriage. He said that over the years, he has ...
I've never understood Log Cabin Republicans - gay conservatives who give their support to a homophobic political party that derides their sexuality and refuses to grant them equal rights under ...
Finally.
“I have to tell you that over the course of several years as I have talked to friends and family and neighbors when I think about members of my own ...
Election roundup:
Indiana.
As polls forecast, the Tea Party's efforts to cleanse the GOP of any impure conservatives has Dick Lugar out and teabagger Richard Mourdock in. Mourdock is the new Republican ...
There are lies...and then there are lies.
My own view, by the way, was that the auto companies needed to go through bankruptcy before government help. And frankly, that’s finally what ...
From the papers captured last year at Osama bin Laden's Pakistani hideout comes this.
Like any public figures, bin Laden and his advisers were mindful of the media. Adam Gadahn, one ...
The best from Political Humor‘s collection of the week’s late night political humor. Happy Friday.
"Today Mitt Romney visited a firehouse here in New York City. Of course, he was disappointed ...
It happened to Kerry. Can it happen to Obama? Nope says Margaret Carlson.
Obama’s belief system -- in that hopey-changey business and the post-partisanship thing -- has been altered by reality. ...
Sullivan:
What do Republicans call a gay man with neoconservative passion, a committed relationship and personal courage?
A faggot.
Exactly right, but then could one expect anything different from a political party that ...
And they claim that atheists are immoral?
The ugly side of religion shows its face once again. The words below were spoken at a Sunday sermon by Sean Harris, a pastor ...
It's been fun watching conservatives and Romney twist themselves into pretzels trying to undo Mitt's past words on GM and bin Laden.
Romney, April 2007:
It’s not worth moving heaven and earth ...
In an op-ed piece in the Washington Post, a couple of scholars from liberal and conservative think tanks, discuss the state of American politics.
We have been studying Washington politics and ...
Romney's VP-in-waiting, Marco Rubio, is perfecting the conservative sleaze play.
He has proposed his version of the Dream Act in which people who entered the country illegally as children will be ...
Beyond the rhetoric, the political BS, the lies - that is, the concerted effort by the right-wing noise machine to distort and misinform at every opportunity - is the very ...
And yet another analysis of the race to become the Republican presidential nominee. There’s been no shortage of them. The latest one is from Doyle McManus of the LA Times and all of the usual suspects are mentioned – Romney, Huckabee, Pawlenty, Gingrich, Barbour, Santorum, Thune, Paul and Palin. Here’s the line that caught my eye.
There are really only two spots on the GOP presidential ballot. One is reserved for Mitt Romney. The other is for someone who isn’t Mitt Romney.
This is true. If there has been one consistent item in the gazillion polls done to date on which Republican has the best chance of defeating Barack Obama in 2012, it’s that Romney is their man. But Republican politics have taken a hard turn to the ideological right which makes the nominating process more complex than it used to be.
If the Republican Party worked the way it used to, Romney already would be the presumptive nominee. For decades, Republican governors and state party chairs coalesced early around a tested, experienced candidate — George H. W. Bush in 1988, Bob Dole in 1996, George W. Bush in 2000 — and helped him fight off insurgent challengers.
It is quite possible that the artificially created Tea Party movement which has now taken on a life of its own, will prove to be more of a hindrance than help for the GOP. They’re already creating problems for Republicans in the House.
But in the end I don’t think it really matters who is running against Barack Obama in 2012. His opponent won’t be a Republican, male or female. It’ll be a much more formidable foe – the economy. If it’s on the upswing come November of 2012, then an Obama second term is almost guaranteed. Should it be sluggish or declining, then I imagine that even dopey Michele Bachmann would stand a chance at victory.
Jon M. Huntsman Jr., the U.S. ambassador to China, sent a resignation letter to President Barack Obama on Monday and now is likely to explore a Republican presidential bid, a close associate told POLITICO.
In a letter hand-delivered to the White House, the former Utah governor said that he wants to return to the United States by May, the associate said.
GOP allies of Huntsman have already begun laying plans for a quick-start campaign should the former Utah governor decide to enter the ill-defined Republican field.
Here’s what they were saying about Huntsman back in 2009.
Huntsman may be the most important person you’ve never heard of. He’s a moderate Republican governor in one of the most conservative Republican states, where, until the time of his appointment, he enjoyed approval ratings above 80%. A few weeks back, Obama campaign manager David Plouffe unintentionally elevated Huntsman on the national stage by suggesting that he was one of the few Republican politicians that appeared formidable in 2012.
Huntsman is young, exceptionally smart, quick on his feet, amiable and incredibly articulate; when he speaks, he exudes reasonableness, a quality almost entirely void in the modern Republican party. He has the potential to be for the Republican Party what Obama was for the Democrats – a man capable of simultaneously exciting his base while appealing to an ever-more critical group of Independent voters. To hear him speak is to know he’s a guy an Independent would love.
So, should Democrats be concerned about a Huntsman bid in 2012?
Nope.
By all accounts, Jon Huntsman has the ability and talent which any thinking conservative would love to see in their leader and presidential candidate. The problem is that there does not appear to be a hell of a lot of thinking conservatives around anymore. The Republican party, already a fragile entity wobbling on the brink of wingnuttia, has been consumed by a far-right ideology which leaves little room for a Jon Huntsman and his center right politics. Could anyone possibly believe that a Republican who has slept with the enemy (Huntsman was Obama’s ambassador in China) has any chance of winning the GOP presidential primary in this teabagging age of RINO-bashing, eat-your-own madness?
It’s not going to happen, at least in 2012 it won’t. Best hope for a smart, rational conservative like Huntsman is to bide his time and check out conditions in 2016. With any luck, the Tea Party will by then just be just one big bad hangover.
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times and for Michael Steele, yesterday can be filed under the worst of times. The RNC experiment to counter a Kenyan black President by having its first African-American chairman ended yesterday. Steele lost to some guy from Wisconsin named Reince Priebus. Reince who???? One can only hope he’ll be half as entertaining as Steele was over the last two years.
I’m going to miss the my friend. This blog and Steele’s tenure as RNC chairman both began in January 2009 so it does feel as if I’m losing a traveling companion. In tribute to the man who has helped inspire me along the way, here’s a look back at some of his more memorable moments.
De Facto Leader Fiasco
In March 2009, Steele responds to an interviewer who claimed that Rush Limbaugh was the de facto leader of the Republican party.
“No he’s not. I’m the de facto leader of the Republican party.”
Steele went on to refer to Limbaugh as an entertainer. Limbaugh, unhappy that anyone would deny him claim to a title he has worked so hard to call his own, shot back.
“So I am an entertainer and I have 20 million listeners because of my great song and dance routine. Michael Steele, you are head of the Republican National Committee. You are not head of the Republican party. Tens of millions of conservatives and Republicans have nothing to do with the Republican National Committee…and when you call them asking for money, they hang up on you.“
Two days later, Steele caved in to the Great One and set the record straight.
“I have enormous respect for Rush Limbaugh. I was maybe a little bit inarticulate. There was no attempt on my part to diminish his voice or his leadership.
Lost Minds
A couple of weeks later, Steele regrouped and once again tried to tell Republicans what’s what.
“I’m tired of seeing the same old, same old. I’m tired of hearing the same old arguments. I’m tired of hearing the complaining.”
“If you want to complain and moan and groan about everything going on, there’s the door.”
Steele went on to explain why Republicans lost both the White House and Congress in 2008.
“We started drinking from that wonderful Potomac River. We got that Potomac fever, and we lost our minds.”
You knew for sure that Steele’s days were now numbered. Accepting the truth is not something Republicans do well.
Steele as Hipster Doofus Cool Guy
Do The Deal
Mikey on fixing health care.
“So if it’s a cost problem, it’s easy: Get the people in a room who have the most and the most direct impact on cost, and do the deal. Do the deal. It’s not that complicated.”
“If it’s an access question, people don’t have access to health care, then figure out who they are, and give them access! Hello?! Am I missing something here?“
Oh Say Can You See
A bing a bang, what illegal immigration problem?
“Basically what we should be saying is that there are rules that you need to get into the country, go the right door, fill out the right form, have some apple pie, hum a few bars of the star spangle banner and get to work, God bless you, and I think that that begins to set us on the right road to dealing with this issue.”
Cow on the Tracks
I can think of no better ending to Steele’s career as RNC chairman that this. See ya around, Michael…you’ll be missed. Really.
Arlen Specter takes his parting shots at the GOP (“compromise has become a dirty word“) and remarks on the dwindling number of moderate Republicans.
“Eating or defeating your own is a form of sophisticated cannibalism.”
Cannibalism? Sure. Sophisticated? Not really. There is nothing sophisticated about teabagger’s attempt to cleanse a party that has taken an ugly hard turn to the right. Purity rituals are always a messy affair.
One of Pres. Obama‘s biggest supporters in the Senate in the past week is not even a member of his own party: Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska).
Murkowski supported the president’s position on the Senate’s four biggest votes since last Wednesday. She and fellow Alaska Sen. Mark Begich (D) voted in favor of the tax cut compromise and to invoke cloture on New START treaty, the Dream Act and the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. Both senators also voted in favor of the final repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell on Saturday.
No Senate Republican voted for all four bills other than Murkowski. And the senior senator from Alaska, who became a national figure this year when she defeated attorney Joe Miller (R) with her write-in campaign, has actually been a more reliable vote for the president than 18 members of the Senate Democratic caucus since Dec. 15.
One of the sweeter outcomes from the midterms was the defeat of the smug, teabag-sucking Joe Miller. The GOP’s poster boy had his senate dream shattered by Murkowski. She now finds herself in the same position that Joe Lieberman found himself after being scorned by the Democratic heirarchy. Payback time.
Murkowski is a full-fledged conservative but look for her to buck the party line anytime she wishes. She owes her allegiance to no man. Nice.
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