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The terrific duo of Huckabuck and Cornball are at it again. These two bozos, who masquerade as the two Senators from Texas when they are not doing anything else, are showing us their stupid side. They were loud and proud in their rejection of the Obama Stimulus Plan crying about the deficits it would bring and the imminent collapse of our economy if it passed. Well, it passed and the economy began to recover despite their Chicken Little routines and now they want in on the act. They are complaining that not enough of the stimulus money is being spent quickly enough and they want some of the money now that they didn’t want before. What a bunch of hypocrites.
Turns out that NASA got somewhat shortchanged in the last budget (that they also voted against) and now they come to the public with hat in hand asking for some of Uncle Sam’s greenbacks from the Marxist government they hate so much. Can you say bake sale, Senators? How about giving NASA a big old tax cut… that appears to be the republican solution for every other problem… Maybe we can sell some corporate space on the side of the latest missle under development and fire up the Exxon-Mobil missle to Mars. Anything but asking the Socialist Commander In Chief for stimulus cash… but yet here they are doing just that. I guess all that secessionist talk we heard from these rightwinger types earlier this year crawl back under their rocks when their buddies have their hands out wanting our tax money. Where’s the tenth amendment screamers now? Do they think we are that stupid or have incredibly short memories when it comes to their fake outrage? Give me a break.
I don’t know what will happen to this ‘request’ from Huckabuck and Cornball but it is possible that they may get something in the long run that they will no doubt take all the credit for. Just once I’d like to see this president take notice of these hypocrites and call them out in public telling them that in order to get some money from a government program that first you have to vote for that program. Then, and only then, can you get what you asked for. These same rightwing crybabies are the ones who want to strip all foreign aid from countries that do not vote with us in the UN but that same principle goes by the wayside when they are doing it. It’s bullshit, plain and simple, but republicans don’t seem to know any other way to act anymore. Hypocrites one and all.
The fine folks of Louisiana sure got themselves a winner with Bobby Jindal, the republican from India that took the name of one of the Brady Bunch kids instead of the Indian name (Piyush) he was born with. In a nutshell, that tells me everything I need to know about Jindal: he likes the ridiculous, the pretentious, and the simple minded stuff instead of the complicated ideas that are present in politics. He must think we all grew up watching that stupid ass show given how he’s been acting on the national stage.
Bobby was one of the most outspoken opponents of the stimulus plan. He called it wasneful spending and was even tempted to return the money back to the federal government. As the recession got worse, he quietly changed his mind and allowed the money to flow into Louisiana. He still spoke out against Washington and their intrusion into Louisiana with this cash booty.
As the money began to arrive, Bobby took a different tack on the stimulus. He commissioned someone to make over-sized checks with his name on them and then went around the state “awarding” those checks to different organizations to foster job growth or a public works project. Nowhere on those checks did it say that the money was coming from the federal government but that’s where the money was coming from all right. He went all over the state taking credit for something that he had spent months railing against. Isn’t this beginning to sound like a really bad Brady Bunch episode to you? It does to me.
Then, the director of the state transportation department, who was appointed by Bobby, stopped his department from making signs that indicated that the projects that were funded by the federal government’s stimulus from erecting signs that gave credit to the federal government. It’s OK for the governor to hand out bogus checks but it’s not OK for the public to know that those mean, nasty, all-powerful federals actually helped li’l ol’ Louisiana with some taxpayer money. The plot deepens on the newest episode of the Brady Bunch…
Now comes the latest chapter in this book of hypocrisy. A few days ago, Vice President Biden held a conference call with all of the nation’s governors (or their representatives) to encourage them to submit quarterly reports on how many jobs were created with the stimulus money flowing into their states. 49 out of 50 governors were represented at this conference call. The missing governor? Yep! You guessed it: Bobby Jindal.
I’d like to say that the call was mandatory and that not calling in meant you could not collect the $200 and you do not pass Go but it doesn’t quite work that way. In this Brady Bunch episode, Bobby takes credit for something he did not do or even want, keeps one of his employees from giving credit where credit is due and then doesn’t call the house when he’s supposed to call. What’s the ending? What’s the punch line you ask? There is no punch line on this sad joke, unfortunately, and Bobby gets away with it because no one calls him out on it. I hope Louisiana voters are watching and will remember his actions in the next election. That won’t happen, however, because Bobby is a republican and republicans do not believe in oversight or accountability anymore since they discovered that voters, especially republican voters, don’t care as long as they are getting the money.
Texas has a real fine collection of politicians who fit the description of “total and complete idiot.” On any given day it’s hard to decide which one is the most asinine one. They have contributed mightily to the ignorant discourse that is standard for republicans here in Texas. Today we’re going to ignore the idiot who said that it would be a million years before Al Franken would be seated as a Senator in the United States Senate. It’s pretty hard to top that but it’s been done. Instead, we’ll concentrate on the other two prominent imbeciles: Rick Perry and Kay Bailey Hutchison.
Rick Perry started this stupidity a few months ago when he said that he would refuse to accept the stimulus money because he didn’t like the strings attached to the money. He did not like the fact that the money would go to the state’s unemployed and that it would increase their benefits. He even went so far as to suggest that he may look at taking Texas out of the Union over the issue. It created a big hubbub and Perry backed down real quick. The talk of secession over the issue of state’s rights struck a chord with all the rightwing bigots and fringe nutjobs and got Perry some publicity in a year when he may be facing some stiff opposition in the primary. So, refuse the money he did.
A few weeks ago, Mr Perry had to swallow some huge amounts of crow when he came begging to Uncle Barack Sam for a loan of $170 million dollars to pay into the unemployment fund. Seems like it was going to go broke without the infusion of cash. There were two problems with that request: (1) he could have had that money for free if he would have accepted the stimulus money and (2) this loan he’ll have to pay back with interest. For all the political posturing and talk of secession, dumbshit Mr Perry just cost the state of Texas untold millions of dollars by appealing to the stupid redneck branch of his party. Sad to say, the story does not end there.
Enter the possible opposition for Rick Perry in the upcoming governor’s race, Kay Bailey Hutchison. She starts screeching about Perry hypocrisy in turning down the stimulus money and condemning him for taking out the loan to salvage his mistake. Here comes the fun part: SHE VOTED AGAINST THE VERY STIMULUS SHE’S BLASTING PERRY FOR NOT ACCEPTING. How much sense does that make? She’s trying to have it both ways hoping that the people of the state do not remember that she cast her vote against the stimulus package that slowed down the descent into the depths of George Bush’s recession. Some of us have memories like elephants even if the party of the elephants doesn’t.
The media here in Texas loves all these idiots and would never print stuff that blasts these two (and all the others) for their ignorant ways and stupid actions. That’s OK. Those of us not afixed with glazed eyes to Fox News or any of the rightwing newspapers that call Texas home can go online and find out what is happening in our own state even if the local press doesn’t cover it. Rick Perry and Kay Bailey Hutchison: two big republican hypocrites. I hope Texas can do better come election day 2009 and toss both these numbskulls out of office.
There’s nothing like the party of white Anglo Saxon men calling other folks racist because they have pride in being something other than white. For decades these republicans have made race the lynchpin of their appeal and they have done quite well attracting the underground racists who left the Democratic Party after the passage of the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts back in the 1960’s. Given that being overtly racist isn’t socially acceptable anymore, these Kloset Klansmen have provided the winning margin all thru out the South for the republican party, the party that once was the home of Abe Lincoln. I wonder what poor Abe must be thinking now that his party is the home to the same bunch of haters he fought against during the War Between The States. He’d especially find it revolting that members of his party are talking about secession after all the blood was spilled the last time the subject came up in a serious way.
The current crew of racists in the republican party are having at Sonia Sotomayor in hopes they can hang the racist label on her after getting that tail pinned on themselves for the last 40+ years. Most of America isn’t buying this crock of shit just like they didn’t buy into the “palling around with terrorists” crap back in 2008. They see the republicans for all their warts and scars and they know the truth about Judge Sotomayor. The hype isn’t working. What’s good for the republicans is they are getting a lot of air time out of this spate of name calling but it’s also showing the public that the republicans have no leadership and they have no clear message in how to proceed in getting America back to work.
Unelected republican leaders like Rush Limbaugh, Newt Gingrich, Tom Tancredo and Ann Coulter have been cutting loose on the race issue while the people who have faced the electorate lately have sat on their hands saying and doing little to curb the feeding frenzy. John Cornball Cornyn actually told folks to cool it last week but nobody listened to him. Party Chairman Steele has flip-flopped so many times on whether or not to attack Sotomayor he looks like a human yo-yo. Most of his comments have the racial bent to them so at least he is not branching out on his own. What’s important is that folks will remember how Sotomayor was treated come election time.
The long term effect of these attacks will be to show new voters, minorities, and independents where the heart of the republican party truly lies. For all the “small government” and “fewer taxes” talk they rode into power on, the people see now that those issues were just a smoke screen. The last eight years of NeoCon policies blasted that myth all to hell.
What is amazing is how LBJ’s prediction came true in a way he never thought possible. After he managed to pass the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts, he thought that he was costing the Democrats their majority for good. Richard Nixon capitalized on that sentiment with his Southern Strategy in 1968 and the die was cast for 40 years. The good-old-boys who were the backbone of the Democratic Party since the days of Lincoln did the unthinkable and became republicans which gave the GOP a foothold in the South they never had before. Add the Religious Right and Reagan Democrats and this looked like the permanent republican majority that people like Karl Rove and Lee Atwater dreamed about.
Trouble is they started feeling their oats a bit too much and thought that most people were supportive of their agenda when they just wanted a fair shake from their government, not a shake down. The Religious Right became disillusioned with the lack of progress on their theocratic agenda, the Reagan Democrats realized they had gotten screwed by Bush and the moderates were driven out of the party by the non-compromising NeoCons who were running the show. They lost two elections and they weren’t running the show anymore.
That’s when the ugliness came out and here we are today watching the GOP implode. They will soon be the party of the Deep South with little impact or force outside the South and the sparsely populated Western states. What makes this journey so wild is that now the party of Lincoln that rose to prominence because of their emphasis on civil rights has now became the party that has no clue what those rights mean to most Americans. It explains the attitudes of the party mouthpieces and why there is an across-the-board lack of racial inclusiveness in the republican party. After all, most people have an unerring sense of not staying where they are not wanted and they do not want to be republicans anymore. Too bad.
It is an amazing process to watch republicans posture and pontificate whilst on duty in Washington DC and then run home to their constituents crowing about things they had no part in passing. The stimulus comes immediately to mind.
Passed with almost no republican support, the hypocrites are now presenting themselves to the public in support of the stimulus bill they just finished trashing and complaining about to anyone who would listen. They remind me of the office dimbulb that bitches about anything new to make life better who goes home after work to tell his wife that he thought of the new idea and even helped place it in the office once he sees how popular it is. Such are the current crop of NeoCons in Congress and whack jobs in various statehouses.
Examples you say? Gladly.
What is so revealing about these ideologues is when they complain about “the strings” attached to the stimulus. You see, back in the olden Bushbot days money would roll into the states and they could be as irresponsible as they wanted with it since there were no strings attached to it. If you understand that “strings” essentially means “being responsible” with taxpayers money, you will quickly realize why these NeoCons do not like the new game in town. They do not like being told what to do or how to do it because they think they always know best but all you have to do is look around and you can see what this NeoCons Know Best philosophy has gotten us.
There is an easy solution to this dilemma. Like I stated in my previous post, refuse the money. Don’t take it if it bothers you so much. Let the voters decide in the next election whether or not you did the right thing.
I dare ya.
It never seems to end with these people. Rightwingers seem to think that they can call people whatever the hell they want in the heat of rhetorical battles but when they get called out for it or exposed for their hypocrisy, they lash out with this overblown sense of indignation and outrage that never matches up to the incident in question. In the real world we call these people crybabies but here we call them what they really are: Un-American NeoCons.
Introducing Supreme Court Justice Scalia. I guess he’s found time to write a book despite his overbearing workload on the Supreme Court (wink, wink, nudge, nudge) and now he’s out promoting said book. (I’d offer up the name of this worthwhile tome for accuracy’s sake but, frankly, I don’t really give a shit because I don’t intend to read the rantings of an asshole.) Anyway, he’s out in the hustings drumming up sales for this masterpiece and he gets a dose of the real world, a sample of reality, if you will, from a college student that is not intimidated by his tough guy Italian NeoCon image.
The Old Boys Club that is the Supreme Court doesn’t want to have their proceedings televised because they do not want the slow workings and partisan wrangling that goes on exposed to the public view. This brave college student had the gall to ask Scalia if that opposition was “vitiated” by book tours conducted by the justices when they wrote a book. The crowd caught the connection immediately and roared with laughter. Scalia responded with a petulent, arrogant personal attack upon the questioner saying, “That’s a nasty, impolite question.”
Later, he came back and told the audience that the justices did not want SCOTUS arguments turned into 30-second sound bites and that it would lead to “miseducation” about the Court itself. Please. Allowing partisan hacks to postulate from the highest court in the land discredits the SCOTUS more than any televised proceedings especially when those hacks are so transparently following a political party’s talking points in their renderings and decisions. They publish all of the Court’s opinions in nifty little volumes so it’s not hard to dig around and read how far off the political mainstream Justice Scalia’s opinions are. It’s not exactly a secret, you know.
Justice Scalia will go down as one of the court’s biggest failures when the court history of this period is written. His partisan take on nearly every issue that has come before the court is truly sad but not unexpected. He can thank his stars that he served at the same time as Clarence Thomas because he will only be second on that Worst Justice Ever list and it’s because of incidents like this that he can attribute such an exalted ranking. Thin-skinned and pompous describes most NeoCons to a T and here is just more proof. This whole episode can be summarized with a phrase from an age old children’s story: Look, the Emperor has No Clothes!
Featured link: http://thinkprogress.org/2009/02/04/scalia-nasty/
I’ve been thinking about this for quite a while now and I am just stunned that this isn’t getting more play in the media. In what amounts to one last insult to his political opposition, George Bush made certain that the official guest residence, The Blair House, was not available for the Obama family to live in prior to moving into the White House. If there was ever a case to be made for the uncivilized behavior and arrogant rudeness of NeoCons, this should be bullet point number one. It is the political White House of George Bush never giving an inch to anyone even as the door is hitting them in the ass on the way out of Washington.
The incoming leader of the free world was forced to set up residence in a Washington hotel so that his children could begin attending school with the start of the new year. Why wasn’t the First Family to be allowed to take up residence in the Blair House? Because George Bush invited former Australian Prime Minister John Howard to stay there instead. The preference that Bush showed to Howard, a NeoCon PM who supported Bush’s incursion into Iraq and who was to be in town to get a Medal of Freedom, is appalling, to say the least. The friendship of one NeoCon to another must take priority over the safety and security of the incoming president in the world of George Bush. It is a large reason that his ilk were so soundly trounced last November; the American people were tired of the skewed priorities that Bushbot NeoCons demonstrated over the last eight years.
The final straw was this: when it became clear that Obama was going to want to use Blair House as his Transition base, it was then, and only then, that Bush hurriedly invited Howard to stay there so he could tell Obama “No, you cannot stay there.” I compare it to the old Three Stooges where Moe is poking Shemp in the eyes after Shemp asks Moe a question he cannot answer or doesn’t want to answer. Whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop!
You see, Tony Blair, the former British prime minister, and Alvaro Uribe, the president of Colombia are also in town to get their Medals but they declined to stay at Blair House even though it was offered to them. Bush must have convinced Howard to stay there so he could poke Obama in the eye one last time before he left office. If there was room for Blair and Uribe, why wasn’t there room for Obama? Obama’s not a NeoCon ass kisser, that’s why he cannot stay there as George Bush’s guest.
There were plenty of “receptions” aka parties, going on this last week of the Bush presidency but those were hardly a reason to keep the Obamas out. There are throwdowns there all the time and the guests are hardly bothered at all. That’s what the place is there for. It’s a guest house and tradition has the president-elect taking up residence there. Except this time.
From what I understand, there are more than 100 rooms with 17 separate bathrooms in the place and the Obamas would only take up 2 or 3 bedrooms and one bathroom. Does John Howard need that much room or privacy that he gets to take up the whole place to the exclusion of all others? Well, yes, he does because, as history shows, Howard is one of the most faithful Bush lap dogs there ever was. When Obama announced his candidacy, it was Howard that attacked him for his Iraq withdrawal plan. John Howard, a guy from Australia, who most Americans could not pick out of a line up, is now issuing expert opinions on American politics probably at the behest of Bush operatives if not Bush himself. This guy rates more highly on the Bush-o-meter than the next president does. No wonder Blair House was “full” when the Obamas came knocking.
This just goes to show you the loyalty that NeoCons have for each other. It transcends political party, race, or national boundaries. It even transcends common decency. NeoCons come first and no one else matters after that. Disgusting mothefuckers one and all.
It is truly amazing who the republicans in this country look up to and who they roundly condemn. It’s even more amazing who they choose to honor when they have the chance. Case in point: Chuck Colson. Remember him? He was Richard Nixon’s idea guy. Thankfully, Tricky Dick had more sense than to listen to Colson’s ravings or Watergate would have been an even juicier scandal than what it turned out to be. Colson was the genius who advocated hiring Teamster thugs to beat up anti-war demonstrators and he was also the one who wanted to commit acts of domestic terrorism against the Brookings Institution because they told the truth about the war in Viet Nam. He also went after Daniel Ellsburg and for that he got caught and was sent to jail.
After getting out of jail, Colson joined the Holier Than Thou Club. He buddied up to the Religious Right and began to rehabilitate his public image despite the fact his private leanings still bordered on the lunatic fringe. He got involved with prison ministries. What better way to make yourself look good than to hang out with people that are much badder and more evil than you are? I cannot think of a better way to get right in the public’s eyes than that. This provided the perfect cover to delve back into the political arena.
Colson was never office holder material but he could influence said office holders by expounding on issues and causes near and dear to the rightwingers desires. He did so all throughout the 1980s and 1990s and even into this decade. He recaptured a lot of rightwing street credibility by laying down with the Religious Right and staying on the straight and narrow while doing so. Even though Colson advocated positions out of the mainstream of the American public as a whole, he marched in typical lockstep with the Religious fringe of the GOP (which includes being a part of a faction of evangelicals advocating the War In Iraq) and all that led to the most recent public incident of Colson’s political career: being awarded the Presidential Citizen Medal by George Bush.
This fits perfectly with the Bizarro World View that Bush and the Bushbots have held in the past eight years. Bush can claim not to torture detainees merely by changing the definition of what constitutes torture. He can also claim to have rebuilt New Orleans if we only count the white neighborhoods and not the black ones. Honoring a convicted criminal with a Presidential Citizen award lowers the bar in much the same way. It’s like they were saying that God forgave him and so should we.
Bush claims, as a part of his legacy tour, that he brought honor and dignity back to the White House after the Clinton years. I guess honor and dignity also got redefined when I wasn’t looking because now it includes giving awards to convicted and unrepentant criminals. I’m sorry if I am just not willing to consider his post conviction behavior as merit for this award because it was a purely partisan attempt to cover his ass for his prior behavior.
You see, when it comes to criminals, rightwingers are willing to forgive one of their own if they became a Jesus follower after being convicted. They never forgive a Liberal for the same crimes no matter how long they have been crime free in their post conviction life and no matter how strongly they cling to the same Jesus. I just want to be consistent in my judgments here and apply the same criterion to rightwingers that they apply to us so they get an idea how it feels.
In all truth, I am just not buying the Chimpster’s assertion that Chuck Colson meets the standard for awarding this medal which states in part that the recipient “performed exemplary deeds of service for the nation.” Was it an executive order that redefined exemplary deeds or was it John Yoo in the DoJ counsel’s office? Either way, it’s wrong. Dead wrong.
Inspirational link: http://thinkprogress.org/2008/12/10/bush-colson-medal/
Black & White and Cardinal Red All Over 