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Jaybro

Social climber

wuz real!

Apr 13, 2009 - 05:16pm PT

because they are Scorpions, and it is in their nature?

Mighty Hiker

Social climber

Vancouver, B.C.

Apr 13, 2009 - 05:18pm PT

Where's Russ and his pretty picture?

apogee

climber

Apr 13, 2009 - 05:18pm PT

US corporations, banks and insurance companies have been 'teabagging' America for a long time now, supported nicely by 8 years of GWB.

dirtbag

climber

Apr 13, 2009 - 05:20pm PT

Dr. F,

You'd probably like Dr. Krugman's column that appeared today (he agrees).

"Thus, President Obama is being called a “socialist” who seeks to destroy capitalism. Why? Because he wants to raise the tax rate on the highest-income Americans back to, um, about 10 percentage points less than it was for most of the Reagan administration. Bizarre."

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/13/opinion/13krugman.html?ref=opinion

Chaz

Trad climber

Boss Angeles

Apr 13, 2009 - 05:24pm PT

Dr.F,

The middle class hasn't seen a tax-cut since Bush II.

Tax-cuts aren't enough though. We need a couple rounds of Tax Elimination. That's why I'm not a Republican.

Norton

Social climber

the Wastelands

Apr 13, 2009 - 05:24pm PT

PR disaster for the GOP: Republicans bet against the United States and lose

by JCWilmore
Share this on Twitter - PR disaster for the GOP: Republicans bet against the United States and lose Sun Apr 12, 2009 at 05:48:42 PM PDT
Earlier today we found out that the standoff with Somalian pirates had come to a happy end for American Captain Richard Phillips. Patriotic Americans have good reason to rejoice this Easter Sunday: top to bottom this story has been a positive reflection on the courage and skill of American merchant sailors, the U.S. Navy, the Navy SEALS, and the leadership of the Obama administration. For the Republican Party, however, this incident has become yet another self-inflicted public relations disaster.

It began shortly after the first reports of the hijacking came in on Wednesday, April 8th, when Rush Limbaugh took to the airwaves to attack the Obama administration over the hijacking. Limbaugh's attack was an expansion on comments made earlier by Dick Cheney that the Obama administration left the American public more open to attack.

JCWilmore's diary :: ::
Conservative blogger Ann Althouse was listening and she described what happened next:

He'd slotted the story into his Obama-doesn't-know-what-to-do template and was riffing away about Obama's indecision and what he must be fretting about and how he'd probably want to apologize to the pirates and so forth. The big show was steaming along. (I thought a good ending would be: hostage crisis... it's Jimmy Carter all over again.)

And then he was slipped the news that the U.S. crew had taken their ship back, defeated the pirates. And Rush should have turned that big show around instantly. It should have been: Yay, America! Americans don't lie back and wait to be rescued. We're ready to fight. We're self-reliant. The government isn't the answer to everything. There were lots of great alternate Rush Limbaugh templates to mobilize right then. This is why we need to have our own guns. This is why the bitching about Bush after Katrina was all wrong. Etc. etc.

But Rush couldn't turn that big show — that big container ship — around. He couldn't let go of Obama doesn't know what to do, and I felt a little sad about my radio hero.

Althouse points like a laser beam at Limbaugh's blunder, in fact she admits to it herself: the Republican Party expected Obama to fail this test, expected him to "be like Jimmy Carter." Just hours after the hijacking, long before most of the facts were known, Republicans and conservatives like Limbaugh and Althouse were placing massive bets against the ability of the United States--under the leadership of the Obama administration--to deal with this crisis. Limbaugh placed a big bet on the table that the United States would fail.

But Limbaugh's mistake should have been almost immediately obvious. Even as we were digesting the first news of the hijacking, more reports came in indicating that the ship's crew of tough American merchant sailors had managed to overpower one of their attackers and had chased the remaining attackers off the vessel. Unfortunately, the fleeing pirates had taken Captain Richard Phillips hostage when they fled in the Maersk Alabama's lifeboat. Rush Limbaugh had bet against these sailors, and so had already lost most of his bet even before his show was over.

But Republicans weren't going to cut their losses: instead they doubled down. After an attempt to trade the captured pirate for Captain Phillips went wrong, Phillips found himself trapped aboard the small lifeboat with four heavily armed pirates. "There's no way Phillips is getting out of this," Republicans seemed to be saying. Once again key Republican talking heads bet against an American mariner, the U.S. Navy, and the leadership of the Obama administration.

Republican spokesman Brad Blakeman was on MSNBC this morning predicting that the U.S. Navy would fail in its mission to rescue Captain Phillips. Over at This Week with George Stephanopoulos, Newt Gingrich went on the attack against the Obama administration, betting against the U.S. Navy. Knowing as we do how this story ends, it's hard not to conclude that Gingrich is a little reckless. Clearly Gingrich has no idea what he's talking about. Gingrich wasn't privy to the Obama administration's deliberations and planning. While Gingrich was loudly condemning the Obama administration as a "do-nothing," halfway around the world the U.S. Navy's SEALs were executing a plan signed off on by Barack Obama, and successfully rescuing Captain Richard Phillips. Newt Gingrich bet against the U.S. Navy SEALs and lost.

What did this minor incident involving piracy have to teach us about the Republican Party?

The Republican Party really is hoping that the United States fails. Often. So much so that we crawl back to the Republicans and beg them to take over the government in 2010 and 2012.
Because the Republican Party wants the United States to fail, the Republican Party has a vested interest in causing the United States to fail. This perverse incentive can be seen working itself out in the way that Republican talking heads and thought leaders like Limbaugh and Gingrich bet against the United States, predicting our failure before all the facts are in. Limbaugh in particular clearly savors the thought of American failure.
The Republican Party's leaders are irresponsible. Politics is supposed end at the water's edge. For Republicans like Limbaugh and Gingrich to go on the radio or television and demonstrate that they are hoping for a hostage rescue to fail so they can exploit that failure for political gain is a clear demonstration that the Republican Party and its leaders are unfit to serve as the leaders of our country.
All too often Republicans place party before country, and that simply isn't acceptable in a situation like the one Richard Phillips faced this week.

TGT

Social climber

So Cal

Apr 13, 2009 - 05:28pm PT

What a bunch of Statists.

I did notice that the Tea Party shedules are 12:00 to 2:00 and 4:00 to 6:00.

They must be expecting people with real jobs and families to show.

Not a bunch of losers sucking at the public teat.

Norton

Social climber

the Wastelands

Apr 13, 2009 - 05:30pm PT

Speaking of "tea parties" for morons, here's the take on them from the Nobel Economist Paul Krugman:

REPUBLICANS HAVE BECOME EMBARRASSING TO WATCH

Anti-tax organizers of "tea parties" around the country have tried to keep out fringe elements like birth certificate conspiracy theorists and potentially embarrassing national politicians like Michael Steele and David Vitter. But Paul Krugman writes in the New York Times Monday that the "movement" is of a piece with the Republican party of the past decade or so:

Republicans have become embarrassing to watch. And it doesn't feel right to make fun of crazy people. Better, perhaps, to focus on the real policy debates, which are all among Democrats.

But here's the thing: the G.O.P. looked as crazy 10 or 15 years ago as it does now. That didn't stop Republicans from taking control of both Congress and the White House. And they could return to power if the Democrats stumble. So it behooves us to look closely at the state of what is, after all, one of our nation's two great political parties.

The tea parties, he points out, are funded by typical Republican billionaires and promoted by Fox News. The crazy attacks that spring up at them resemble the ones levied at Clinton. Krugman doesn't say how, in his opinion, the GOP will once again take power. But, he concludes, "we can only hope that Republicans have moved on by the time that happens."

GDavis

Trad climber

Apr 13, 2009 - 05:44pm PT

Dr. F, I'm going to go out on a limb here and make a guess, but I think, I THINK, you may not be a member of the republican party.

Confirm/Deny?

Norton

Social climber

the Wastelands

Apr 13, 2009 - 05:50pm PT

Dead Party(GOP) Walking: Progressive Ideas are in the Ascendency

A growing number of political scientists, analysts and strategists are making the case for a realignment of political power in the U.S. to a new Democratic majority based on two trends: 1) the increasing numbers of black and Hispanic voters, and 2) a decisive shift away from the Republican Party by the suburban and well-educated constituencies that once formed the backbone of the GOP.

Arguments supporting a Democratic realignment are based on well-researched population and voting data. Nonetheless, at a time when the economy remains in crisis and when international tensions are intensifying across the globe, any claim that Democratic (or Republican) ascendance is inevitable should be viewed with caution.

In a March, 2009 51-page paper [PDF] "New Progressive America: Twenty Years of Demographic, Geographic, and Attitudinal Changes Across the Country Herald a New Progressive Majority," Ruy Teixeira makes a strong case that "progressive arguments are in the ascendancy," that demographic and geographic "trends should take America down a very different road than has been traveled in the last eight years. A new progressive America is on the rise."

To further buttress his case, Teixeira has put together "a very cool interactive map
that includes 7 levels of exit poll demographics and county-level vote shifts going back to 1988."

Teixeira is by no means alone. The New Republic's John Judis, who collaborated with Teixeira on the 2001 book The Emerging Democratic Majority, wrote an article titled "America The Liberal" the day after the November 4, 2008, election. Judis made a similarly well-argued case that the election of Obama "is the culmination of a Democratic realignment that began in the 1990s. ... The country is no longer 'America the conservative.' And, if Obama acts shrewdly to consolidate this new majority, we may soon be 'America the liberal'."

On April 9, 2009, Emory political scientist Alan Abramowitz published a paper arguing that Obama's victory "was made possible by long-term changes in the composition of the American electorate, especially the growing voting power of African-Americans, Hispanics, and other nonwhites. As a result of these demographic changes, the Democratic Party enjoys a large advantage over the Republican Party in the size of its electoral base -- an advantage that is almost certain to continue growing for the foreseeable future."

Lynne Leichtfuss

Social climber

valley center, ca

Apr 13, 2009 - 06:04pm PT

You Guys.....even I can't be wrong on EveryThing...sigh. lrl

GDavis

Trad climber

Apr 13, 2009 - 06:16pm PT

Republicans, or conservatism? Which do you mean, because there is a difference.

For me, conservatism means
-limited government
-personal responsibility
-respect for our country and the constitution
-respect for life

Republicanism is the vehicle for advancements in those areas in our government.
(but they are not mutually exclusive)

Norton

Social climber

the Wastelands

Apr 13, 2009 - 06:49pm PT

You bought their lies?

Limited Government?
The LARGEST increase in the size of government occurred from 2000 through 2006, when Republicans controlled ALL THREE branches of government.

Personal responsibility?
The Republican party wants to DENY you the personal responsibility of what to do with your body if you happen to be female. And they want to EXPAND government by PROSECUTING women and doctors who happen to make the PERSONAL choice of abortion.

Repubs are SOCIALISTS, just look at the one TRILLION dollars Bush gave the banks last October.

SOCIALISTS: This year alone, the Republican passed Medicare Drug Program will cost sixty BILLION dollars.
Generational theft! Think of the children! Oh My !

I could go on and on, the examples of what they say, versus what they want to legislate are too numerous to mention here.

GDavis

Trad climber

Apr 13, 2009 - 06:58pm PT

the same can be said for democrats, duder. Your thinking on a federal level.

TGT

Social climber

So Cal

Apr 13, 2009 - 07:10pm PT

The OP's premise is wrong to start out with. The Tea Party movement is a grass roots libertarian thing. The Republican party abandoned "Conservative" (really classical liberal)positions some time ago.

There are really only two differing brands of statists out there now as organized parties.

We have forgoten the origins of both our liberty and our prosperity.

We will now loose both.

Nefarius

Big Wall climber

Fresno

Apr 13, 2009 - 07:11pm PT

Rush is the biggest tea-bagger of them all.

apogee

climber

Apr 13, 2009 - 07:18pm PT

"The OP's premise is wrong to start out with."

TGT, the OP's premise is that Republicans are so wrong on everything You don't take this kind of hyberbolic ranting sh*t seriously, do you? Or are you just a little bit sensitive about the fact that your party is wandering the political desert (finally)?