a collection of posts from around the web that highlight just who the right has become …
and who the gop really are today …
the first piece here is a post by a great poster from politicususa that is a MUST read …
it perfectly summarizes exactly what is going on in america these days …
and combined with the hundreds, if not thousands, of examples of the right wing madness that is gripping a large segment of the american population in the last several years …
if this doesn’t scare the shit out of any thinking and caring person, then honestly, i don’t know what will …
read part one of “‘know your gop” here
Republican “Patriots” Terrorize America with Calls for Armed Insurrection
By: Rmuse
June 30, 2012
The sole reason humans progressed beyond cave dwelling was their ability to learn, reason, and communicate to form communities and eventually civilizations. Unless a person is born with a genetic brain defect or are developmentally retarded, they should have the capacity to think rationally and assess situations critically to make choices in their own best interests. Of course, there are circumstances where ignorance plays a role in making bad choices, but unless a person is stupid, there is really no reason to continue reaching conclusions with no basis in fact. There is a notable difference between ignorance and stupidity, but both can lead to unwise acts, and in combination, there are few outcomes that do not produce disastrous results for the person and anyone connected with them.
In their quest to transform the country into a corporatist theocracy, Republicans are using the ignorance and stupidity of a significant segment of the population to incite violent reactions to every policy proposed by President Obama. Americans got a glimpse of the stupidity in the teabagger movement during the healthcare reform debate two years ago, and despite the availability of information about the myriad benefits of the health law, it appears that, coupled with racism, that particular group is still stupid and becoming a hazard to the security of the entire population. In the 24 hours after the Supreme Court’s ruling that the Affordable Care Act is constitutional, the combination of ignorance, stupidity, and racism exposed the threat of a violent uprising against the government of the United States.
There are Americans openly discussing armed insurrection to overthrow the government based on the notion that the worst form of tyranny this country has ever witnessed is the Affordable Care Act’s constitutionality. A list of comments labeled “Hilarious Reactions to the High Court’s Ruling” on a liberal website are not remotely humorous, and only serve to inspire more hatred toward President Obama among stupid Americans who lack the ability to discern between a legally passed law upheld by the High Court and tyranny against the citizens of the United States. A Michigan lawyer emailed numerous media outlets asking, “Is Armed Rebellion Now Justified? There are times government has to do things to get what it wants and holds a gun to your head. I’m saying we have to ask when do we turn that gun around and say no and resist.” A Breitbart activist claimed, “This is the greatest destruction of individual liberty since Dred Scott… the end of America as we know it. No exaggeration.” A conservative blogger Tweeted, “We don’t just need a new president. We need a revolution.” The Christian extremist Bryan Fischer said Chief Justice Roberts “is going down in history as the justice that shredded the Constitution and turned it into a worthless piece of parchment,” and the teabagger group Freedomworks said, “the power to tax is the power to destroy.” Another conservative blogger wrote that “someone got to Roberts and told him he has to vote this way or members of his family – kids, wife, parents, whoever – were going to be killed.”
Now, any semi-conscious American with a rudimentary understanding of the legislative process may find these assertions hilarious, but there are plenty of angry, racist, stupid, and extremely well-armed Americans who perceive the court’s ruling as a threat to themselves and their ignorant concept of American liberty. Their perception of tyranny is being co-opted by Republicans who use coded language and sometimes overt proclamations that the only solution to President Obama’s tyranny is a “2nd Amendment remedy” and armed rebellion. A Republican in the House of Representatives, Michele Bachmann, told residents of Minnesota that she wants them to be “armed and dangerous” if the federal government attempted to implement laws she felt were impinging on their freedoms, and the infamous 2nd Amendment remedy solution to a Democratically-controlled Congress originated with a candidate for the U.S. Senate from Nevada. However, there are less overt buzz-words and catch-phrases being used on a daily basis by Republicans that are instigating violence-tinged reactions across the country from seriously stupid and tragically ignorant Americans.
snip//
It is a travesty that the divisiveness raging across America for the past three years has its basis in racism, ignorance, and stupidity, because it is not health insurance reform, consumer protection from predatory banks, less government spending, lower taxes, or the jobs President Obama created. Republicans have seized on America’s racism and stupidity and parlayed them into a perpetual campaign of hate and vitriol to implement their Libertarian vision of America. America is being torn apart by Republicans and their hate-filled teabagger and evangelical bootlickers, and the real shame is that this country could be a truly exceptional nation for all the right reasons, and not because Republicans want to kill Muslims, Liberals, gays, and non-Christians. The proliferation of guns among evangelicals, teabaggers, and Mormons is no accident and there are specific reasons they stockpile assault rifles, machine guns, and a two-year supply of food and ammunition, and it is not for hunting rabbits and pheasants. The lot of the religious super patriots are on standby for a signal that the nation is ripe for armed insurrection and the Supreme Court just gave the “on your mark” warning by ruling that a brilliantly beneficial health insurance reform law is constitutional. Americans are going to need all the healthcare they can get when the shooting starts and one thing is certain, there will not be one Republican on the front line. They will be hiding out in corporate or church-provided bunkers to pick up the pieces and if any American thinks it is a joke, then they are as ignorant and as stupid as those who fire first.
READ HERE
next up, an awesome post by “the ghost of huey long”
Who cares if they want to call health care a tax…what better could we spend our tax dollars on as a nation?
Hmm should we take care of our own people with dignity and respect, or should we go kill some people in another country instead?
I don’t believe they really asked our opinion on that one.
So far, the majority of our tax dollars goes to the military for wars the Republicans started and lied about…to destroy things, kill and maim millions of innocent people
and
Republican Big Government slush funds like Homeland Security and the TSA which use our tax dollars to violate our Bill of Rights, illegally spying on us, illegal detainment, naked photos and groping your grandma at the airport.
I really don’t like how Republicans waste our money, so that is just too damn bad if they don’t want to pay for health care.
We need to call them on their bullshit! Protecting the Constitution my ass!! Who forced the patriot act on us?
Worried about the debt my ass!!!! Maybe you shouldn’t have stolen the Social Security Trust fund for your wars and Big Government.
I say we cancel all your bullshit tax cuts, wars and Big Government programs and use that money to pay for health care. Problem solved.
I am really tired of these hypocrites and their stupid ass corporate media.
And then to claim the moral high ground!!
What would Jesus want for US? Wars and Authoritarianism or health care for all?
Chris Mathews made an interesting and relevant point …
In his "last word" comments, he pointed out just how far right the Republican Party has gone and how they are different from the Democratic Party?
He noted that the Democrats were prepared to lose the Supreme Court decision. Not only the mandate portion but a possibility of losing it all. Yet, they were not ready to clinch their teeth and fists and riot over the decision. They were ready to accept the Supreme Court decision as the rule of law.
But the Republicans…
They were ready to declare Roberts a traitor. They were making all kinds of irrational and volatile comments. They were threatening to repeal it as soon as Romney became President. They were not ready to accept the decision as the law. They believed the Supreme Court belonged to them. They felt betrayed.
It was a stark contrast between the two Parties.
Conservative Southern Values Revived:
How a Brutal Strain of American Aristocrats Have Come to Rule
It’s been said that the rich are different than you and me. What most Americans don’t know is that they’re also quite different from each other, and that which faction is currently running the show ultimately makes a vast difference in the kind of country we are.
Right now, a lot of our problems stem directly from the fact that the wrong sort has finally gotten the upper hand; a particularly brutal and anti-democratic strain of American aristocrat that the other elites have mostly managed to keep away from the levers of power since the Revolution. Worse: this bunch has set a very ugly tone that’s corrupted how people with power and money behave in every corner of our culture. Here’s what happened, and how it happened, and what it means for America now.
North versus South: Two Definitions of Liberty
Michael Lind first called out the existence of this conflict in his 2006 book, Made In Texas: George W. Bush and the Southern Takeover of American Politics. He argued that much of American history has been characterized by a struggle between two historical factions among the American elite — and that the election of George W. Bush was a definitive sign that the wrong side was winning.
For most of our history, American economics, culture and politics have been dominated by a New England-based Yankee aristocracy that was rooted in Puritan communitarian values, educated at the Ivies and marinated in an ethic of noblesse oblige (the conviction that those who possess wealth and power are morally bound to use it for the betterment of society). While they’ve done their share of damage to the notion of democracy in the name of profit (as all financial elites inevitably do), this group has, for the most part, tempered its predatory instincts with a code that valued mass education and human rights; held up public service as both a duty and an honour; and imbued them with the belief that once you made your nut, you had a moral duty to do something positive with it for the betterment of mankind.
Your own legacy depended on this.
Gov. Chris Christie limits halfway house monitoring
Source: Star Ledger
TRENTON — Gov. Chris Christie today limited an effort by the Legislature to learn more about the state’s halfway houses, which have been criticized for being rife with mismanagement and violence.
In their budget proposal, Democrats inserted language that would have required the state Department of Corrections to report quarterly on the halfway houses, including the number of inmates convicted of violent and non-violent crimes, and the number of days they were imprisoned.
The Democrats also sought information on the amount of money reimbursed to halfway houses for taking inmates, the rate of reimbursement, the number of escapes and the number of incidents involving physical violence.
The governor, however, struck out language that would have required the department to report the actions taken to protect inmates imprisoned for non-violent crimes from those imprisoned for violent crimes. Christie also batted back a request for disciplinary actions against inmates accused on violence, and actions taken to prevent violence.
read more here
After the New York Times reported on the dreadful conditions at halfway houses run by Chris Christie’s politically connected friends like Bill Palatucci, halfway houses which are really private prisons in disguise, Christie said he’d conduct a full investigation into these state funded private prisons. As Escapees Stream Out, a Penal Business Thrives
So much for Chris Christie’s word. Using his line item veto powers over the budget today he not only limited an effort by the legislature to learn more about the miserable conditions reported by the NY Times, but he struck language that would allow the legislature to learn how violent inmates are dealt with and he deleted requirements that would have had the corrections department make quarterly reports on the halfway houses.
Governor Christie then said he did this all in the interest of inmate safety.
This man is beyond despicable.
Links to the New York Times 3 part series:
A company with deep ties to Gov. Chris Christie dominates New Jersey’s system of large halfway houses. There has been little state oversight, despite widespread problems, The New York Times found.
At a Halfway House, Bedlam Reigns
The Bo Robinson center in New Jersey is as large as a prison and is intended to help inmates re-enter society. But The New York Times found that drugs, gangs and sexual abuse are rife behind its walls.
A Volatile Mix Fuels a Murder
As financial pressures grow, officials are using vast halfway houses as dumping grounds, The New York Times found. At Delaney Hall in Newark, low-level offenders are thrown together with violent ones.
O’Malley: GOP Likes Mandates When They’re ‘Transvaginal Probes For Women’
Benjy Sarlin
Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) accused Republicans of hypocrisy for pairing protests against a health care mandate with demands for increasingly invasive restrictions on women’s health.
“The only health care mandate they can embrace are transvaginal probes for women,” O’Malley said Friday during a press call.
O’Malley was referring to bills like one proposed in Virginia that would have required the procedure for women seeking an abortion, part of a broader effort by pro-life groups to shame patients who wish to end their pregnancy. Other Republican-led states, like Pennsylvania and Alabama, have pushed for similar measures.
The governor also dismissed criticism of the Affordable Care Act from Republicans claiming that the Supreme Court’s ruling that the penalty for not having health insurance was actually a tax, noting Mitt Romney had used the same language in his own legislation in Massachusetts.
“It was a penalty provision that was also in Romneycare,” he said.
“Or, as Gov. (Bobby) Jindal just called it, ‘Obamneycare.’”
read more here
BREAKING:
House Republicans Biggest Donor Approved “prostitution Strategy In China
The Associated Press reports that House Republicans’ single largest donor, Sheldon Adelson, "personally approved of prostitution and knew of other improper activity at his company’s properties in the Chinese enclave" of Macau, China. Sheldon Adelson is giving House Republicans’ election efforts $10 million so far – $5 million to Speaker Boehner’s Congressional Leadership Fund super PAC and $5 million to Leader Cantor’s Young Guns Network super PAC. Adelson’s already given $70,800 to the NRCC as well.
What will Speaker Boehner, Leader Cantor, and House Republicans do with their Chinese prostitution money?
Sheldon Adelson Approved ‘Prostitution Strategy’: Fired Former Sands Executive
The fired former chief executive of Las Vegas Sands Corp.’s Macau casinos alleges in court documents revealed Thursday that billionaire Sheldon Adelson personally approved of prostitution and knew of other improper activity at his company’s properties in the Chinese enclave.
read more here
Darrell Issa Puts Details of Secret Wiretap Applications in Congressional Record
Source: Roll Call
In the midst of a fiery floor debate over contempt proceedings for Attorney General Eric Holder, House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) quietly dropped a bombshell letter into the Congressional Record.
The May 24 letter to Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), ranking member on the panel, quotes from and describes in detail a secret wiretap application that has become a point of debate in the GOP’s “Fast and Furious” gun-walking probe.
The wiretap applications are under court seal, and releasing such information to the public would ordinarily be illegal. But Issa appears to be protected by the Speech or Debate Clause in the Constitution, which offers immunity for Congressional speech, especially on a chamber’s floor.
According to the letter, the wiretap applications contained a startling amount of detail about the operation, which would have tipped off anyone who read them closely about what tactics were being used.
read more here
this is probably the reason they held the vote as they knew DOJ wasn’t going to prosecute.
"Contrary to the Attorney General’s statements, the enclosed wiretap affidavit contains clear information that agents were wilfully allowing known straw buyers to acquire firearms for drug cartels and failing to interdict them-in some cases even allowing them to walk to Mexico. In particular, the affidavit explicitly describes the most controversial tactic of all: abandoning surveillance of known straw purchasers, resulting in the failure to interdict firearms," says Issa.
Issa’s counterpart on the House Oversight Committee, Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD), today took issue with the idea that the wiretap application disclosed any hint of gunwalking. He says Issa is "hiding key information" from the very same wiretap documents.
"Sadly, it looks like Mr. Issa is continuing his string of desperate and unsubstantiated claims… His actions demonstrate a lack of concern for the facts, as well as a reckless disregard for our nation’s courts and federal prosecutors who are trying to bring criminals to justice. We’re not going to stoop to his level," said a Cummings spokesman.
read more here
