Breaking News - Conservative Republican Fails To Fan Flames of Hatred

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It's got to be a sign of the times when Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) hands out reality checks and it's big news. Lots of things happened today and some of them happened to the Republican party, but this morning that story was all over the web because unlike scandal, this was a singular sort of event. Thing is, being a very, very conservative Republican we have to wonder if Senator Coburn is feeling a little lonely right now. Not because he spoke his mind and maybe pissed off some Teabaggers or some Fox anchors. But it's got to be lonely being an arch-conservative who wants to keep a foot in reality right now, because the most of the breed departed on the USS Delusion by the time Caribou Barbie had spent a few weeks on the campaign trail in '08. Any stragglers were driven to madness by the election of Barack Obama. There's really nothing lonelier than being the one semi-sane person in a caucus full of lunatics.

Former Prez makes Handy Wipe for Former Prez

I know there are much more relevant Republicans to make fun of right now. It's kind of silly even to bother with Dubya at this point, and to be fair, he's been staying out of the current president's business unlike Darth Cheney. So, it's almost wrong to highlight this video of him being him, but like the mountain, it was there.

The Dumbest Contention Of Them All?

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The Take - Washington Post

....former Republican House speaker Newt Gingrichsaid Obama and the Democrats will regret their decision to push for comprehensive reform. Calling the bill "the most radical social experiment . . . in modern times," Gingrich said: "They will have destroyed their party much as Lyndon Johnson shattered the Democratic Party for 40 years" with the enactment of civil rights legislation in the 1960s.

Well, let's take a look at where the similarities lie.

• A. Both are monumental and contentious pieces of legislation that change the social contract between the government and the people. Check
• The Democratic Party is a big tent coalition with diverse major factions. Check
• Two of the largest of the Democratic factions are pro-labor New Dealers and conservative Dixiecrats. Oh, wait just a minute on that. 

The latter started moving to the Republican party after the aforementioned Civil Rights and the GOP finished the job by appealing directly to them in what we all recall as the Southern Strategy. And the modern Democratic equivalent of those people would be? Who among the Democratic Party gathers at night in hoods  to burn a caduceus on the lawn of the wrong sort of health care consumer? I'm thinking that's not really such a faction in the party these days.

G.E. Still Hearts Ronnie.

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G.E. is sponsoring the Reagan Centennial. And you might have noticed they're running TV commercials about it. A lot. I particularly enjoy the part where he would talk  to G.E. employees and inspires them. Of course, once he became president he could inspire even more workers. The picture on the right depicts President Reagan saying inspiring things about air traffic controllers.

 Dick Meister remembers Reagan's attitude toward working people the way I do, only better. If you'd like your memory refreshed read his Ronald Reagan's War on Labor. 

Profiles In Courage - Cynthia Davis

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You have to hand it to Rep. Cynthia Davis. Most politicians would feel like they had to pander to constituents who might be soft on hungry children - at least a little. It takes a special kind of person to come out against providing nutritious meals for kids, but Rep. Davis goes there.

Her suggestion that the older kids could get jobs at McDonald's and get fed on their break makes a lot of sense. Maybe they could grab some extra ketchup packets and take them home so their younger siblings could have vegetables. And why did she not suggest that the kids stand on busy thoroughfares holding up, "Will Work for Food" signs? She probably wishes she did.

Sorry Wingnuts - He's All Yours

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Of course the people who make their livings off of the worst instincts of the right wing base are anxious to deflect any blame for the most recent murder by a far right extremist. And given their propensity for opposite logic it’s not a big surprise that they’ve decided that Von Brunn is a leftist.

Ironically, the voices of vitriol – Limbaugh, Beck, Hannity, O’Reilly, right wing bloggers and the rest might be less responsible for this individual’s actions than the other murders that have taken place in recent months. It’s complicated. Von Brunn’s world view intersects with the birthers and tea baggers who are encouraged by the right wing punditizers. He would meet kindred spirits at any Palin rally. But still and all,he’s 88 years old. He’s been who he is for a long, long time. He’s done reckless things before, even serving time in jail. It’s just possible that something as simple as having a black president could have sent him out to do this murder. That doesn’t mean they don’t have real responsibility for the violent climate that’s been emerging since the election. Their rhetoric is dangerous. And they should be very afraid that  a critical mass of people will finally call them on it. Much more of this and that could happen.

By people, I mean the Republicans that line up to genuflect to them. I mean mainstream media which treats them as voices on one side of the political spectrum instead of the irresponsible shock jocks that they are. That includes the media that we mostly like. Why does Frank Gaffney get a platform on Hardball, for instance? The things he’s said recently should completely marginalize him, and yewe pretend he has something to say? When it comes to Limbaugh and Beck, maybe we’re all guilty. They’re such trainwrecks that it’s hard to look away, but perhaps we should all try.

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Fire In A Crowded Theater

How many people have been killed in the last few months by domestic extremists? Well, I was about to write a post about that very thing but turns out TPM poster known as The Commenter Formerly Known As NCSteve pretty much covered all the ground I had in mind.

So my question is this. How many more murderous rampages by enraged rightists--whether executed or merely in the planning stage--are we going to have to endure before the traditional media is willing to acknowledge and address the obvious? How many people are going to die, and how highly placed will the victims have to be, before someone connects the dots and starts calling out the ever more violent, hateful and apocalyptic rhetoric of the likes of Coulter, Malkin, O'Reilly, Hannity and Savage as bearing some responsibility for creating this climate of insanity?

Raving mad rhetoric has been mainstreamed by right wing radio, cable news and, of course, the intertubes and to some extent even by elected officials. This rash of killings is not, as was posited on Hardball tonight, completely separate from any political party. It is lunacy that is absolutely predictably inflamed by talking points that are treated as just another point of view.

It’s clear that having our first African-American president, the economic climate and the repudiation of conservatism has combined to send some lunatics right over the edge. There’s no question of shutting down freedom of speech, but that doesn’t mean that the kind of hate speech that’s become so commonplace shouldn’t be much more seriously marginalized by mainstream media and strenuously criticized by mainstream political figures – Republicans and Democrats alike.

Also, I’m just wondering if Shep Smith (and others who receive them) are turning over those untold number of hate filled e-mails to the appropriate authorities? I assume that the Secret Service is already spending a fair amount of time at Free Republic where the legitimacy our our duly elected president is questioned with regularity. I just hope they’re taking every thread like that very seriously.

*Updated to add quotes and clarity

Governor Perry Says He's Not A Rebel, No, No, No

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Now Rick Perry writes that he never advocated for secession. And he never will. It was just a case of twisting his words. He's clearing it up now. He's just understandably upset over Democratic deficit spending, as opposed to Republican deficit spending which is just fine.

My only question is whether this is something he'll have to apologize to Rush Limbaugh for. Or is it Hannity who's in charge of secession related apologies?

The Mentally Stable Need Not Apply

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Acting Globally

I don't really know very much about Governor Huntsman of Utah, other than what I've read recently. The graviment of that is that he's that increasingly rare bird - a Republican and not demonstrably mentally ill. Therefore, he might be able to make a credible run for the presidency in 2012 and apparently was considering doing so. It's early, but it was serious enough for the Michigan County Republican Party to cancel an appearance by Huntsman because of his not being enough of a mouth breathing, knuckle dragging bigot support for civil unions. And now he's going to China to be an ambassador. Ambassador to China is a hugely important job at this moment in history and he seems to be well qualified for it. It's also about as far away from Republican Party politics as he can get.

I was thinking about doing a longer post, speculating about Huntsman's motivation for accepting this post, but it turned out that Steven Benen had already posted exactly what I was thinking, only better. This might be the sort of of post-partisanship that President Obama was talking about. A rival goes to the other side of the world and Jon Huntsman gets to take himself out of action while he sees if the Republican Party is ever going to have room for normal people again. And of course, the crazies don't have to go to the trouble of running off another moderate. They've got enough to do with expelling Charlie Crist and Colin Powell.

Acting Out Locally

Meanwhile, here on Long Island, the teabaggers were at it again. They had what looked to be a pretty lively event on tax day last month, so they decided to do it again for Armed Forces Day. I haven't been able to find any coverage of it online as yet. The only reason I knew about it was that my sister passed it on the road today. She said it was as charming as all these things, with signs that said "Waterboard Pelosi" mixed in with other assorted complaints. I'm not surprised that we have some wingnuts in our midst. Not in the least. Hell, there's a couple down that have matching "Sarah Palin 2012" stickers on their cars already. If that's not scary stupid, I don't know what is.

Still, I was curious about our local teabaggers so I checked them out in the Google and found a Meet-Up site where some of them could be found. There's a message board. There are practical discussions about logistics of their events and stuff like that, but keep going and the crazy rears its head. My favorite was a birther post about an April Fool's joke that they ate up like it was dipped in chocolate. They may live in the area, but they haven't moved into the reality based community.

Speaking of which, where's our daily Cheney? I haven't heard anything new from him for two days now. Have I just missed it?

Let's Keep Not Investigating Torture

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I have to say that for something that's not being pursued we're getting a lot of new information about the previous administration's actions regarding torture every day. I hope we keep not investigating the whole thing and I certainly hope that the Cheney Family Torture Tour keep doing what they've been doing so well. We're learning a lot more than the details of the Cheney/Bush administrations adventures in " enhanced interrogation".

We might well be learning the why and the who of it. And we're getting daily confirmation that Cheney really was running the show for a long time. And apparently thinks he still is, but hey, don't tell him yet. He's on a pace to move popular opinion firmly to the side of prosecution for war crimes within a few more weeks. That can only help.

So, let's see more of this inaction. It's working pretty well so far.

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Democrat Socialist Checking In

All I can say about this is it that I guess maybe if they wanted to follow suit the Democrats could introduce a resolution to rename the Republicans the Poopy Head Party. Then the Republicans could counter with the I'm Rubber, You're Glue resolution. The Democrats would then have to answer with the Oh Yeah, Well Nobody Likes You measure which the Republicans would be hard put to answer.

And people say that the GOP has no ideas...

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There Will Be No Listening - per Rush

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The Old Kids on the Block wanted to listen to you. Well, some of you. Mostly just the ones who had thoughts about rebranding the cool new version of the GOP. Not so much anyone who was looking for more substantive changes. So Eric, Jeb, John and Mittens started this listening tour.

Even that is too much for Rush Limbaugh to allow. After all, why would Boss Rush want anyone to listen to anyone but him? Soooo - now it's a "La-la-la, I can't hear you!" tour. Doesn't make much difference. The Republican party is not currently inclined to learn anything by listening to regular people.

It's kind of interesting. Today's Republicans seem to be very hierarchical. They certainly don't listen to anyone below them - like voters, for instance. But they do seem to love being led around by the nose by anyone who can pass as the Alpha Male. Right now that's Rush Limbaugh, in the absence of any serious leadership, I suppose. Maybe they got used to be slapped around by Dick Cheney for eight years and decided they enjoyed the abuse.

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