Deep Thoughts from Powerline Blogger Paul

We are all doomed. Leaving Afghanistan is a "Humiliation."

The U.S. has commenced negotiations with the Taliban. The Afghan government is excluded from the talks, which I consider a disgrace.

….Under these circumstances, the Taliban cannot be expected to make concessions. Thus, the likely outcome is “no deal.” This is a loss for the U.S. because we will have gone to the Taliban, hat-in-hand and over the objections of our partner in the fight, and received nothing in return.

But because our negotiating position is so weak, a deal would be even worse. God only knows what concessions we need to make to obtain a deal from such a position. And whatever those concessions are, a deal would describe the terms of our defeat for all the world to ridicule.

I’m not cynical enough to believe that this is what President Obama wants, but the thought has crossed my mind.

Having determined that the U.S. shall lose this war, Obama’s best option is to have America go home as quietly as possible.

The United States has been nation building in Afghanistan much of last 65 years - starting in 1949 through 1979 and then from 2001 to 2013 and beyond.  At some point, it is time to leave - especially after Killing Bin Laden and most of his guys. Really.

Perhaps Powerline Blog should advocate for turning Afghanistan into the 51st state. That might make it easier for them to achieve whatever their goals are there.

There are some people that are never going to be happy about anything, other than having a Genius as president.  The Bush years were the best of times. Nothing humiliating about the good ol' days.

Deep Thoughts With Powerline Blogger John Hinderaker

Are Republican Politicians Really Stupid?

I have never thought so. On the contrary, the Republican politicians I know well are far smarter and much more hard-working than the public gives them credit for. [Ed Note: Not a difficult standard to meet] Still, there are times when you wonder: are Republican politicians–not voters, but politicians–pathologically unable to learn from experience?

The current immigration controversy is a case in point. Who could possibly consider it a good idea to bring in one-quarter to one-third of the population of Mexico to compete for low-wage jobs with native Americans? Hey, they will now be legal, so it must be OK! Is it possible that anyone–not to mention a Republican office-holder–could be that stupid?

 There are different schools of thought on this important subject.  Generally it is bad practice to assume that your opponent is stupid. Many are of course, but of those that have worked their way up, it does you a disservice to automatically assume that they, including right wing bloggers, are stupid. 

Sure Marsha Blackburn seems to have as much sense of box of hammers, but that does not mean she is stupid? More likely when you see her on the TV she appears stupid because she is ignorant, misinformed, indoctrinated by goofy right wing ideology, bigoted, greedy or trying to cater to Tea Partiers. It could be a combination of those factors, but she is probably not as stupid as she seems.  

 Powerline Blogger Hinderaker has written on different occasions that immigration reform surely means that 1/4 to 1/3 of Mexico will empty out and move north. Now that is a Stupid thing to say! But its just likely something that he'd heard bouncing around in the conservative echo chamber. It does not mean that he is stupid - but rather that he's just an easy mark for the con men that play in the echo chamber. 

This of course is a general rule and obviously does not apply to all Republican politicians - there are notable exceptions - but you get the gist.

There is another school of thought regarding right wingers.  A Darwinian Explanation.  In the space that right wingers inhabit, only the ones most adapted to the environmental conditions survive. Today those conditions (a small but dedicated misinformed and angry base) mean that wingers possessing greater than average paranoia, anger, and delusion survive in the struggle for existence (the primary). This means that GOP primaries reward the crazier candidate competing for the votes of this narrow cross section of the population. This in turn pushes the GOP farther from reason and reality filling the ranks of congress with certifiable bat shit crazy politicians. As this occurs, the party continues to self select for more extreme characteristics at the expense characteristics such as thoughtfulness, rationality and temperance. In this regard, yes, Republican politicians are relatively "stupid" when compared to their peers.

Reasonable minds can differ regarding these two schools of thought. This is one of the reasons why Obama should have allocated stimulus funding toward more Social Science (Wingnutology) to study this phenomenon.

West may try to teabag Rubio

Teabag (verb). Definition: To defeat a GOP incumbent (or establishment candidate) in a primary election by running a far right campaign or by just plain acting like a crazy person.

Former Rep. Allen West (R-FL) has put Rubio on Notice:

"That's a pretty heavy lift, because you're talking about running against a sitting senator, and then, of course, that creates that schism that the other side would love to see happen... We'll see what happens down the pike, God will set my feet down the right path."

That'd be fun to watch. Two candidates who have been Tea Party favorites at one time or another going at it.  As far who would play the terrorism card first, my money would be on West.

Sure Rubio says he is an American. That is what he says. But where was he on 9/11? And why won't he take a lie detector test? What's he hiding. Is he Taliban or Al Qaeda, that is what people want to know.

h/t Cam Brady

Somebody Hates America….

Quote of the Day

“Palin is nothing if not fertile. Or, perhaps more accurately, she is nothing if she isn’t fertile,”

-Lamestream Media Personality and former Conservative in Good Standing  Kathleen Parker

There is a lot of things one could say about the Princess of the Perma-frost, but do we really have to go there? I think that this is just mean.

Of course Parker has written mean things about Obama in the past, such as he has no sense of "place" of does not know his "place" or some other mean-spirited tripe.  So I guess it is par for the course for her.

Poor Sarah.  Bless her heart, no matter how hard she tries, people can't help but to take shots at the former 1/2 term governor of Alaska. She was a just a half term governor because she quit - just like she did in college when she quit 4 different times. People remember the quitting, but forget that on the 5th time she tried, she finished college.  That's the important thing.

People always remember the bad, like her support for the Bridge to Nowhere or the ethics violations or that time when Katie Couric asked her trick questions, but they forget how good she was as the Sportscaster for Action 7 News Team on the local news.  This is because people are mean.

Deep Thoughts from Jonah Goldberg

From A Beautiful Mind:

One of the ways the Left consistently outmaneuvers the Right is through their use of symbolism and imagery, which of course they've learned from the masters over the course of the 20th century. But their fatal weakness is their inability to disguise their true thoughts and feelings -- their inherent, apparently congenital misery, self-loathing, can't-do attitude and, most of all, their burning desire to force the rest of us to join their insanity always come shining through. 

As far as masters of imagery from the 20th century go, I picture Walt Disney.  Can't do any better than Walt. I don't know how he would fits in with regard to self loathing and congenital misery, but I am sure it would be pretty bad. F*cking Disney characters.

I can imagine where Johan Goldberg would fit in, however.  He'd fit in nicely as a 2013 Golden Wingnut Nominee for excellence in wingnuttery. Let is be so.

Instapundit Sounds Kinda Racist or Dumb to Me

Glenn Reynolds does not like Rubio or immigration reform - perhaps for racist reasons:

"He could have gotten behind an immigration bill, but getting behind this immigration bill, another cooked-up-in-a-backroom you’ve-got-to-pass-it-to-find-out-what’s-in-it monstrosity was a mistake. His second mistake, and the really fatal one, has been expressions of contempt toward his base. Suggesting that people who don’t support his bill are racist, and that American workers are dumb, is political poison. And his staff should know better than to say this kind of thing to any journalist, however friendly-seeming. All in all, a really disappointing performance from Rubio."

Basically Instapundit is pushing the latest meme on the wingnet: outrage. If Rubio thinks American are stupid, maybe the mob  (sufficiently outraged) will demand that Rubio's Reform Measure be teabagged in the House of Representatives.  

Reynolds is probably not one of the Racists or the Stupid people, but he want them on his side to try to kill the reform.

Powerline Blogger Falls For another Climate Scam, again (sigh)

The Heartland Institute is a wingnut welfare outfit that turns tricks in the climate denial circuit while in bed with Exxon, Ex-tobacco industry scientists, hard right conspiracy theorists and other malcontents and misfits.  You could refer to her as a Whore of Babylon - unholy in all regards.  Whether its comparing climate scientists to the uni-bomber or its everyday disinformation operation, Heartland brings the crazy. Their latest scam is to play translation games with climate reports published by other Nations.  The latest victim, other than wingers who fall for this BS, is China. According to Heartland, China is joining the wingnuts on Climate Science according to a new "translation" of a climate report.

Here is how  a Powerline Blogger reacts from his fever dream deep inside the bubble:

Much more significant but contrarian, and hence naturally drawing no media attention at all, was the announcement from the Chinese Academy of Sciences (their version of our NAS) that it has translated into Chinese the Climate Change Reconsidered and Climate Change Reconsidered: 2011 Interim Report, products of the Heartland Institute’s Non-Governmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC—heh).  These reports comprise over 1,200 pages of material that takes a sharply different view of the matter than the U.S. scientific establishment.  Sounds like the Chinese scientific establishment has decided to sign up with the climate skeptics, or at least give their point of view a fair hearing instead of just resorting to name-calling.  It’s enough to give any self-respecting member of the NAS here an embolism.

Here's the Chinese Academy of Sciences reacting to the Heartland Scam:

"the Heartland Institute published the news titled “Chinese Academy of Sciences publishes Heartland Institute research skeptical of Global Warming” in a strongly misleading way on its website, implying that the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) supports their views, in contrary to what is clearly stated in the Translators’ Note in the Chinese translation. The claim of the Heartland Institute about CAS’ endorsement of its report is completely false..."

"If the Heartland Institute does not withdraw its false news or refuse to apologize, all the consequences and liabilities should be borne by the Heartland Institute. We reserve the right for further actions to protect the rights of CAS and the translators group."

FEMA camps. If we had them, the ex-tobacco industry boys at Heartland would be among the first to go. They're all whores.

New mini-Hitler to accept peaceful transfer of power from old mini-Hitler

Word on the net is that a new guy has been elected President of Iran. Word will be out on the wingnet shortly that the new guy will be as dangerous as the old guy who was basically the new version of Hitler.

This upcoming transition likely means the current Leader of Iran, Ahmadinejad, will retire from the world stage-without having invaded Czechoslovakia or Poland or Utah - unless he acts fast.  This also kind of means that Ahmadinejad was a complete failure at being a mini-Hitler.  The poor bastard will  retire knowing that the history books will record him as the least bad, least effective and most inconsequential Hitler ever.

I wonder if the Neocons at the Weekly Standard could have possibly over estimated Ahmadinejad by elevating him to mini-Hitler status. Who knows.  Maybe they'll be less likely to rush to judgement and label the new guy as the next mini-Hitler. No, probably not.

Lindsey Graham Demonstrates why the Wingnet calls him Grahamnesty

Here is Graham via the Lamestream Media:

"If we don't pass immigration reform, if we don't get it off the table in a reasonable, practical way, it doesn't matter who you run in 2016. We're in a demographic death spiral as a party and the only way we can get back in good graces with the Hispanic community in my view is pass comprehensive immigration reform. If you don't do that, it really doesn't matter who we run in my view."

This really is a shitty issue for the GOP establishment. It is a Lose - Lose Bigger proposition. For the dems it is the opposite. Its win-win.  If the GOP caves and does the right thing, there will be immigration reform. This is a win because it is good policy.  If the GOP gives in the most hard core in the base and kills reform (for now), this is also a win because Dems will use the issue to beat the GOP over the head in the next election and the next. So Grahamnesty has a point.

Quote of the Day - Cheney Speaks But nobody cares

"One of the worst abuses of power imaginable."

 Fmr VP Dick Cheney, on the IRS application form snafu regarding conservative groups trying to set up fake social welfare organizations in order to avoid paying taxes

Outside of Foxnews, I don't think anyone even pays attention to this poor SOB.  And even then, why would the Foxnews viewer invest much in Cheney's opinion?  He'll likely die a lonely man.

Someday, a biographer may decide to tackle "Cheney, his Life and Times" and describe the forces could have that led a fella' to dodge the draft 5 times as a young man but also caused him to recklessly send  young men and women into combat in the wrong country as a bitter old man. 

Desegregation, the civil rights movement and Gender Equality were hard on a young Richard B. Cheney, nicknamed "Dick," by classmates who thought he was kind of a dick.  Unable to fit in at elite universities such as Yale and Wisconsin, his resentment at the dirty hippies, know it all liberals and bra burning women led him to toward hard right politics. Eventually Dick ended up in the Nixon Administration, where he fit right in.

Maybe there is more than meets the eye, here. But it sure doesn't look like it now, though.

Deep Thoughts with Right Wing Professor Rahe

America is always doomed. Its best days are behind her.  Here is an example of Apocalyptic Conservatism in Action:

It comes down to this: In embracing the administrative entitlements state, as they have, Catholic churchmen and their Protestant counterparts have lent aid and comfort to those who believe that we can establish heaven right here on earth and they have led their flocks to mistake the Machiavellian maneuver of forcefully taking from one citizen to support another for a fulfillment of the Christian duty of charity. Moreover, their desire to sustain the political alliance devoted to expanding the welfare state caused them to knowingly downplay the enormity of murdering 50 million unborn children, and now their erstwhile allies are rewarding them for their moral obtuseness over many years by making them complicit with mass murder. In sum, they made a pact with the devil, and payment is now due. The proper setting for the practice of Christian charity is a free-market society. The rise of the welfare state and the decline of Christianity go hand in hand. To see this, one need only go to church in Europe.

I like this statement: "The proper setting for the practice of Christian charity is a free-market society."  This would kind of rule out feudal societies that various conservative thinkers dream of wistfully.

If only we could have frozen the clock at the year 1299, everything would be OK today.

It'd probably rule out the period when the new testament was written, too, because there was a lot of welfare, the dole, back then too.  It probably rules out the early 1800s in the US. There was a lot of welfare during that period - often in the form of the US Army evicting native Americans from their lands and opening up this area up to people like Jefferson Davis's older brother to move in and make millions from cotton. So it is hard to say just when the free market operated independent of state welfare. Probably, it'd be post Reconstruction but pre-Teddy Roosevelt - which happens to match up with the period when Social Darwinism was at it most influential point.

Anyway, contra to Right Wing Professor Rahe, the administrative state helps create freedom and independence for its citizens.  It's thousands of little things that add up over time.  Know anyone with a 30 year fixed rate mortgage?  This a convention created by (evil) bureaucrats in the 1920s that put home ownership within the reach of the middle class. Prior to that time 5-year mortgages were what the free-market offered. Increasing home ownership also served as an attractive alternative to Commie-style collective housing.  Americans owning a piece of the American dream were less likely to fall for socialist propaganda, so it goes.  Perhaps if you opposed bureaucrats creating long term mortgages, folks would label you a red agitator trying to bring the Soviet-style policies to America. USA number 1, man!

The administrative state also brings social security and medicare (before these there some States ran their own mandated pension system). These administrative state programs improve the quality of life of countless seniors providing tremendous freedom not seen by previous generations of seniors.  During the pre-administrative state period, it would not have been common for parents to require their youngest daughter to remain unmarried and take care of them as they age.  Duty.  Now that would be unheard of.  Today we can have a 401k or a safe food supply or clean air to breathe or safe water to drinking. 

There are thousands of things that the administrative state does that improve the quality of life that you never notice unless you look. And there is a reason the administrative state does these things.  The People demand it. And this action fills the safety net vacuum that churches and unions used to fill. Both institutions are less influential than back in the good ol' days. But that's the law of supply and demand in action.

The thing that movement conservatives really cannot deal with very well is that they've lost the last two great revolutions - The Modernization of Government (New Deal, etc., leading to bitching about the administrative state) and The Freedom Revolution of the 1960s (largely complaining about equality for Women). They lost both fights.  Adjusting to your times can really be tough, but life goes on. Now if we had FEMA camps, we could make adjusting a little easier on these folks. 

EDITORIAL NOTE: Yearning for Christian Charity and a Free-Market Society is fine.  There is a model for this. It is called a Theodemocracy. Rick Santorum would be a great 3rd party candidate to run on a Theodemocratic Platform.

Deep Thoughts from Powerline Blog, cntd

This sounds Kind of Racist to me

 Rather than defend the indefensible, liberals try to shut down argument by calling you a racist.  It’s the political discourse equivalent of shouting “fire!” in a crowded theater.  Guaranteed to cause pandemonium and shut down actual argument as everyone (conservatives included) stampedes for the exits.

It’s possible that liberals are practicing what psychologists call “projection,” since the Democratic Party was the party of rebellion and racism for over a century, and nowadays has extended the plantation mentality of the 19th century under the name of the social welfare state.

I really dig it when wingers talk about a plantation mentality. There is something romantic about chain gang labor, the bull whip and seeing one's children raped and sold down river.  Outreach!

But it was true that the Democratic party was the party of small government /local control for much of its history. Therein we can capture its support of rebellion (in the South) and racism (jim crow-also originating in the south).  Today the Democratic Party is not the party of small government and racism.  It started moving that direction 70 years ago to get to where it is today.  A different party has modified its message to fill the space the democratic party used to hold.

You see these types of posts on the wingnet quite commonly - defensive rhetoric about racism linked to conservatism or vice versa. Wingers are defensive because people motivated by racial animosity tend to gravitate toward their party whether they are wanted or not.  Just a year or so ago, The NRO had to disassociate itself from 2-3 contributors who turned out to be White Nationalists. But that is just a cost of doing business for the NRO, because shit like that just happens. No matter how hard they screen their writers, some of these characters are going to slide by.

So we get defensiveness. Sure the GOP's Southern Strategy paid dividends in the past, but today it is best to forget about all that late unpleasantness or pretend it did not happen and blame the Mean Liberals for their party's past. Looking in the rear view mirror, it is easy to see that bad stuff happened in the past. Pretending it did not, does your party no good. And then people might confuse you for being racist.

Powerline Blogger Discovers New Global Warming Denier, Declares Another Nail in Coffin

There is almost a religious belief on the wingnet that some day, man made climate change (AGW) will be disproved as a Hoax. The Most Hardcore of Right Wingers believe this. These people, who should be locked up in FEMA run camps, represent Phase I of Climate Denial.

There is however a fringe of the right wing that has moved past Phase I and are willing to admit that green house gas emission play some role in climate change but not much as the scientists say. This position represents Phase II of Climate Denial. The other day the Powerline Scholar found a webcast by some professor in Australia representing the Phase II crowd.

[paraphrasing - because my version is better and shorter] In my opinion, hrumph, greenhouse gasses don't drive climate change, hrumph. Rather than what "Cult Science" tells us, sometimes shit just gets hotter. Hrumph.

So its just his opinion as you can see from my excellent translation of wingnutspeak into english. You see, changing the composition of the atmosphere by turning solid or liquid forms of carbon stored under the earth for 100,000 of years into gas over a relatively short period of time, might cause some warming but it is not the key.  Sometimes shit just happens. The problem with this is that I also have opinions. People on the wingnet have opinions. Everyone has them, but this guy is a professor so Phase II right wingers can keep hope alive.

But this is how the game is played.  If AGW can be demonstrated by a simple equation like 1+2=3, its best just to ignore the equation instead of trying to prove that 1+2=something entirely different.   Instead you talk about your feelings. I hate math and the number 3. So I won't have anything to do with it. Seriously, 3 sucks. Or you could say that Liberals are mean. Or Carbon, smarbon, what about clouds? Has anyone studied the possibility of an Alien Heat Ray blasting Earth from one of the moons of Jupiter.  And so it goes.

Here are the phases of climate denial:

Stage I - It’s all a Hoax! Anthropogenic Global Warming is a goddamn conspiracy, Man. Quick put on your tin-foil hat before the Government starts reading your brain waves!

Stage II -  Yes there is some warming going on but people are not 100% responsible. The Climate changes all the time. Don't listen to Algore, the Climateers , the Warmists, the Liberal Scientists and the Media because the Wingnuts know something they have all missed.  Seriously, the Wingnuts have figured something out that the smart people couldn't do.

Stage III-AGW  is real but it is not bad. We can adapt to small increases in temperature.  Japan can deal with disaster (Fukushima) better than Haiti (Earthquake) because it is resilient while Haiti is not. Therefore fewer people in Japan die when there is a disaster. We can be resilient and deal with disaster, too.  How will other countries fare?  Maybe not so good but I got mine.

Stage IV - AGW  is real and may be super bad but there is nothing we can do about it. However if there was something that could be done, it would result in the Environmentalists will enslaving us, taking away our guns, and making us live in hobbit-sized homes in designated human habitation zones with only turnips and tofu to eat. Oh, and there would also be a UN guard in front of every freakishly small hobbit sized home.

Stage V - It is real. It is Super Duper Bad. We could have done something about it but unfortunately, because Climate Scientists and Liberals were so mean and condescending with their science, theories and facts and hurt our feelings so much, it is too late to do anything now. We shouldn't think about it anymore. But we should increase the defense budget to prepare for the coming resource wars.

NRO Guy identifies Approach to Appeal to Younger Voters

The GOP has lost the youth vote (badly) three presidential elections in a row.  There are reasons, to be sure, but the common denominator is the same. Young voters don't want to associate with a bunch of  assholes (I am paraphrasing here). 

The first step then, logically, is to stop being such assholes about everything:

To my eye, these findings suggest there is an opening among young people for Republicans who advance credible plans to reduce the cost of health care and college, to foster job growth, to control the national debt and to address the other issues they consider important. Republicans will want those plans to involve shrinking the government, but that shouldn’t be their chief selling point. If they can do that -- a big if, for many reasons -- Republicans will also get credit from young voters for trying, whereas they now seem reflexively anti-Obama. It will also make them seem more intelligent, which is a quality that young people, according to the report, prize more than coolness.

The first step then would be to try to make folks' lives better by reforming and modernizing the government to better serve its customers.  This makes sense but there is a big problem with this approach. The GOP would have to want to make the government work better instead of what it really wants to do to the government - starve it to the point of drowning it in a bathtub. 

But the thought counts, I guess. And a right winger can dream.

Right Wing Professor Offers New Conspiracy Theory

Perhaps the tricksy Obama was responsible for the NSA Meta data Leak Story:

the NSA program is also different in that — unlike Benghazi, IRS, etc. — it wasn't a screwup. It was quite intentional, and it's something they can and will defend. We're not going to hear the usual statements about doing a thorough investigation into how something like that could have happened and the need, going forward, to insure that it never happens again. It's an opportunity to talk about competence. This scandal/"scandal" requires us to focus on the most serious duty of government — national security — and a program that is carefully planned and implemented and (apparently) completely legal.

Now, libertarians and lefties are enraged, and we've been hearing a lot from them in the last few days. Consider whether this is just what Obama wants. Get Rand Paul over there with Glenn Greenwald and his crowd. Let them blow off steam. Meanwhile, the moderates, including many moderate conservatives, are gravitating toward Obama. The left and right extreme are peeling off together, going to their happy place where the fear of foreign terrorists goes numb when Our Own Government threatens Our Liberty.

But the vast middle is coalescing... around Obama... just as planned.

That Obama sure is tricky.   

Just when all the wingy wingers start on a new obsession, he'll hit 'em with another one on purpose - you know to divert wingnuts.  This process will repeat until the wingers are at peak outrage, and then he'll hit again …... but this time it'll be with a FEMA run camp to lock the bastards all up.  They won't even know what hit them. Brilliant!

If Lincoln were around today, he'd be leading a secession movement in the South against Healthcare tyranny

Rich Lowry sums up Abe Lincoln:

Although Lincoln is not an exact fit for either our contemporary political ideologies, I argue that he is much more one of us than one of them. He loved liberty; he welcomed the market; he sought economic growth and change; he revered property; he rejected class warfare; he celebrated individual initiative; he defended the Founders and their principles; and he insisted on adherence to basic cultural norms.

Seems to me that Honest Abe was a big proponent of The American System.  This would put him in the dreaded "Tax and Spend" and dare I say, as the tea party would put it, socialist camp. That's hardly consistent with today's Grand Old Tea Party. Just saying.

Dispatches from the 2012 Campaign, cntd

Remember when all it would  take to jump start economic growth was to elect a Republican?  Yep. That's all the economy needed.

Here's Willard Unplugged: 

If it looks like I’m going to win, the markets will be happy. If it looks like the president’s going to win, the markets should not be terribly happy. It depends of course which markets you’re talking about, which types of commodities and so forth, but my own view is that if we win on November 6th, there will be a great deal of optimism about the future of this country. We’ll see capital come back and we’ll see—without actually doing anything—we’ll actually get a boost in the economy. If the president gets reelected, I don’t know what will happen. I can—I can never predict what the markets will do

It’s the Confidence Fairy. However, it turns out that the confidence fairy seems to favor Obama, now that consumer confidence levels are at highs not seen since before the Great Bush Bust of 2008.

That Willard Romney sure was a weaselly SOB.

The GOP is a deeply Anti-Modern Party

Its not that its just not cool. Which it definitely is not.  The problem is deeper than that. Its Science, Technology and cultural resentment and the rest:

The modernity gap that haunted the Republican Party on Election Day 2012 has since worsened. Demographics, attitudes and technology continue to make the Republicans look like out-of-touch relics of a bygone era. A record-high 30 percent of Americans now identify as socially liberal, Democratic-leaning single mothers are a growing portion of the electorate, and more Americans than not have an unfavorable view of the GOP, notwithstanding the recent spate of negative news surrounding the administration.

To top it off, a report issued this week by the College Republican National Committee, Grand Old Party for a Brand New Generation, indicted the Republicans for being “closed-minded, racist, rigid, old-fashioned;” for singularly attacking government; for hostility toward gay marriage, and for acting like the “stupid party.” But too many in the GOP seem to embrace that label.

Limiting the evidence to just the past two weeks, Exhibit No. 1: Texas Congressman Louie Gohmert, a GOP member of House Judiciary Committee, told a witness — who had ended her pregnancy after having been advised that the fetus was brain dead, that she should have carried the “child” to term.

Exhibit No. 2: Erik Erickson, the founder of RedState, mansplained to Fox News’ incredulous Megyn Kelly this week that “when you look at biology, look at the natural world, the roles of a male and a female in society, and other animals, the male typically is the dominant role.”

Exhibit No. 3: Phil Bryant, Mississippi’s first-term governor, blamed working mothers for American illiteracy.

Exhibit No. 4, Georgia Senator Saxby Chambliss attributed rape in the armed forces to hormones.”

The real problem, though, is not stray and scatterred comments. Rather it is that such comments speak to the party's discomfort with modernity.

Global Warming, Evolution, Ancestor Worship, Social Science, Economics, Women's rights, LGBT rights it is all there. High discomfort levels.

It doesn't stop there.  You even have Tea Party Congressmen trying to defund Political Science research. You'd think some of them might embrace Political Science to help win elections. But apparently ideology comes first. You have the NC GOP trying to wish away global warming by legislatively banning it:

The Outer Banks are gonna be safe thanks to the GOP, because they're a fixin' to make sea level rise illegal along the North Carolina coast line.

Its only gonna get worse.

Dispatches from the 2012 Election, cntd

A disappointed and dumbstruck Right Wing Professor Rahe dreams of a revolution:

I do not now believe that Mitt Romney was ever serious about repealing Obamacare. Had he been serious, he would have run a campaign designed to nationalize the Senatorial elections in every state. …. He wanted to win an office, not an argument. In that particular, he was typical of nearly all Republican presidential nominees in the past. He had no desire to change the direction in which we are tending. He merely wanted to manage its progress in that direction more prudently.

That may never have been good enough. It is certainly not good enough now. Let's hope that Mitt Romney turns out to be the last managerial progressive nominated for the Presidency by the Republican Party. What we need is a woman or man intent on radically correcting our course and a party intent on achieving the same end.

Having predicted a landslide for Willard, the Right Wing Professor recalibrates.  Having misinterpreted the low turnout Tea Party win in the 2010 mid-term, Rahe wants to re-litigate the election of 1912. The problem holding the GOP back is that its rhetoric is too moderate and its leaders too timid. Dramatic change is needed - a revolution undoing the social contract.  

Along this mindset, what is required (for Utopia) is a Tea Party (anti-federalist) Presidential Candidate that will turn back the clock to the McKinley Era by repudiating the administrative state.

Problematically, however, since the expansion of the administrative state, which got it's start under the (Theodore) Roosevelt Administration, gained momentum under ol' Woodrow but really took off during WWI, every preceding GOP president  (Harding, Coolidge, Hoover, etc) has kept it in place if not expanded it (think Bush II).  Every single one. Modernity demands it, but that is beside the point because movement conservatism is a deeply anti-modern philosophy.  

I was reading some prominent conservative from the 1940s the other day and observed that he traced the break down of society back to around the year 1300.  Maybe things could be like they were during the middle ages again, because Game of Thrones is so awesome…...

But it is always this way -we need to opt out of the now and go back to the then. One of the features of modern movement conservatism is the frequent call for dramatic change in order to preserve "the way things are or the way they used to be." See above. Its paradoxical really - dramatic change to preserve the statue quo. But absent FEMA camps, what can you do?

Global Warming Hoax Nearing End Predicts Right Wing Blogger, again (sigh)

If you read the wingnet, one of the certainties is that global warming is not real and the elaborate conspiracy promoting it is about to come crashing down.

 It could be a Sean Hannity news-special that cause the global warming house of cards to collapse (it doesn't). It could be the next blog post written by a fellow traveler who purports to have special knowledge (its special, but it ain't knowledge). It could be the next scientific study funded by the Koch Brothers (it verifies AGW, instead). It could be a lot of things. But the wingers are damn certain that it is going to happen and that the end to the hoax is near:

The curtain is coming down rapidly on global warming alarmism, as evidence of the AGW theory’s falsity accumulates on nearly a daily basis. Of course, the global warming machine grinds on, like a dead frog whose legs are still kicking. My 10th grade daughter had her last day of school yesterday. A teacher gave her a sheet of instructions on how to lead a “green,” low-carbon summer. The sheet included suggestions like “hitchhike.” Great idea for a 16-year-old girl! Also, don’t have a baby over the summer. Um, don’t worry: she wasn’t planning to. But not for reasons of climate control. Is our world getting stupider all the time, or what?

The world is not getting stupider. It is getting more complex and labor is becoming more specialized to meet those challenges. This is one of the reasons why expertise (instead of ideology) should be relied upon to understand complicated topics (climate science) and it another reason why we should have FEMA run camps to help those who cannot help themselves.

Great Moments from the 2012 Campaign, cntd

After Joe Biden batted Paul Ryan around in the VP debate, a Mean fella' wrote this:

For the second time in as many presidential elections, Joseph Biden got to debate a young, attractive Republican candidate who was demonstrably less qualified to be president than I am to be chairman of the World Bank...

For years, Paul Ryan has been the shining champion of some really terrible ideas, and of a dystopian vision of the political commonwealth in which the poor starve and the elderly die ghastly, impoverished deaths, while all the essential elements of a permanent American oligarchy were put in place. ...

Joe Biden laughed at him? Of course, he did. The only other option was to hand him a participation ribbon and take him to Burger King for lunch.

You know what's the difference between Sarah Palin and Paul Ryan?

Lipstick

Good times.

Mean Spirited Joke of the Day

Conan O’Brien is Mean:

Republican Florida Senator Marco Rubio will vote against his own immigration bill. In fact, he’s now gone so far to the right, he’s introducing a bill to deport himself.

I hope the Rubio Deportation Act  passes. 

However it would be probably be an unconstitutional bill of attainder. And if that is the case Rubio could attack his own bill for running rough shod over the constitution and re-endear himself as a constitution conservative.

Willard Adopts Ironman Meme on Benghazi

Willard is disappointed that Susan Rice was appointed as NSA. Apparently it has something to do with not deploying Ironman:

"I find that a disappointing appointment on the part of the president. I think what she did was to very seriously mislead the American people about what happened in Benghazi. My greatest concern about the Benghazi events was the fact there was not a rescue effort attempted and that is very troubling to me."

Romney was one of the first to pile on that administration over the Benghazi attacks and he did it before any of the facts were known.

GOP 2016 - Because it is never too early for the CRAZY

The first seemingly credible candidate (i.e., not crazy, wild eyed or prone to warning people about black helicopters) has opted out of the race for the GOP nomination for president in 2016. Susan Martinez, rumored to be on Willard's short list for VP in 2012 says no thanks:

Gov. Susana Martinez has a one-word answer for anyone who asks whether she’ll run for president: No.

The first-term Republican, in town for a major fundraiser for her re-election campaign hosted by some of the biggest names in the GOP, says she’s happy with her current job, and that she feels she owes it to a very specific segment of her constituency to serve out her two terms.

“As the first Hispanic female governor in the country, I have a lot of little girls who come up to me, and they know who I am. They know that I’m the governor. They get big-eyed and they call me by my first name, and I’ve got to set an example for them and pave a path for them,” Martinez said in an interview. “I can’t abandon this job and not do it honorably and to the fullest extent possible that benefits them. And so I wouldn’t do it because of them.”

OK. I can see not wanting to have to deal with Teahadists. Nobody sane would. And you can see that she just is not ready to face them yet. 

Look how she talks about "owing" it to her constituency to serve out her "two terms."  If I know Teahadists, and I think I do, there is a good possibility that some of 'em will look at here pledge to serve out 2 full terms as a slap against America's Sweetheart. Sometimes serving out a half of a term is what you do. It feels right, so you do it.  Who's to judge Sarah?  Certainly not Martinez. So she'll need a little work and seasoning before she can face the mob.  She could always tell the mob to go eff themselves and run as a non-crazy candidate.  But she would need their votes and would likely be doomed. So for the time being, the GOP candidate will have to either act crazy but be non-crazy at the same time or just be plain batshit crazy like Santo.

It is hard to be both crazy and non-crazy at the same time. That is why I think that Willard Romney should run again in 2016 -especially if Hillary does not run.  That way he can run in both the Democratic and Republican Primaries. He can run as Tea Party and Anti-tea party, mainstream and insurgent, conservative and liberal, you name it.  Willard 2016!

Jonathan Chait is a mean SOB, cntd

Lamestream Media Elitist, Jon Chait, is reporting a new danger - that super scary Obamacare may become linked to immigration reform.  

You see, if Tea Party congressmen in the House fixate on whether undocumented workers will be allowed to seek medical care during their 15 year path to citizenship, immigration reform could be swept into the firestorm.  Here is how Chait meanly describes the right wing id:

if immigration reform gets attached to Obamacare, it'll be like trying to debate free-speech law with angry crowds in Afghanistan in the wake of a Koran burning. The emotional animus just overwhelms any rational consideration.

Sarah was right all along. And if this happens, immigration reform may be the very first victim of the DEATH PANEL!  

This is another reason why we desperately need FEMA run camps.

First comes the application forms, then comes the goose stepping

Quote of the day:

“Honestly, I feel like our country has turned a corner into tyranny,”

- Dianne Belsom, president of the Laurens County South Carolina Tea Party talking about the difficulties Tea Party groups encountered setting up a fake social welfare organization as part of a tax avoidance scheme.

Red State livin' is tough, man. 

What is next up for the Obamunist Tyranny? 

Perhaps close down polling places in select areas for "efficiency" reasons and then require Tea Party types to show multiple forms of photo Id in order to vote after standing in line for 8 hours or longer?

The GOP's Foxnews Problem Explained

When you hire Foxnews to serve as your communication arm you better have a way to control them:

Fox and the others aren't really in business to help Republicans. They're in business to keep the tea party crowd whipped up and ready to invest in the gold coins offered by their advertisers. Outrage is how they do this, and neither facts nor the long-term health of the GOP are allowed to get in the way. Pounding away mendaciously on Shulman's 157 visits might be the kind of overreach that hurts Republicans in the long run, but who cares? The rubes don't read the Washington Post and don't know that the story is bogus, so Fox will keep at it because it's good for business. The tail is now wagging the dog, and the Republican Party is being held hostage to the bottom line of the conservative media.

This is the Republican Party's core problem. Sure, it's always hard for a party to change directions, even moderately, but it's almost impossible when you have organs like Fox News generating froth-at-the-mouth outrage over every deviation from orthodoxy. It makes the short-term risk of change too great to bear. Until the GOP fixes that, they're going to have a hard time fixing anything else.

This is essentially correct. The rubes will believe what the "grown ups" tell them.  So if the Foxnews and the AM radio can be recalibrated, the rubes can be gradually brought around.   

The problem is that the Foxnews business model is based on culture. On the Entertainment side it feeds people the trash that they want while simultaneously raging against the "coarsening" of the culture on the News side. And since theand AM radio is very profitable the shock jocks and the Foxnews is very profitable for the elites, there is not a vested interest in adapting - absent repeated electoral drubbings.

This fella' Should write a Manifesto

 Awesome Wingnuttery via the Corner

More disturbingly, Washington's level of political corruption is on a par with ancien régime France. Like the doomed Bourbons, today's insulated, self-reproducing Washington elite lavishes itself with astronomical salaries (whether making over $100,000 as a civil servant in the White House or millions on K Street), luxurious vacations, numerous privileges (from business-class air travel to junkets abroad), and exclusive neighborhoods. In order to do so, they extract more and more money from the productive sectors of the economy, and particularly from those who cannot protect themselves through preferential tax treatment. If the elite doesn't take those gains for themselves, they redistribute them to the electoral groups that ensure their permanent hold on power.

Sure, an individual congressman, or two, or several dozen, can be thrown out at election time, but as a class, the electoral and bureaucratic elite retains its unassailable position and grows fatter while the rest of the country must make do with less. Once the silent majority become convinced that the system is rigged against them, that fairness is no longer at the core of the system, then the entire structure will come apart. Maybe through an electoral revolution, maybe in some other way, such as widespread flouting of laws, hiding of income, ignoring regulations, sensible or not. Given the power inherent in the government, the elite will be able to protect itself for a long time while society as a whole crumbles (or, more accurate, while the crumbling of society spreads ever wider). 

It needs a little work but it has a little Marxian cadence to it. 

What I'd like to see, is for this right winger to deliver this manifesto to a traffic cop the next time he gets pulled over for running through a stop sign.

Winger: The system is so like totally rigged, Officer, that I can no longer remain silent. I have no choice other than to flout the laws of the land whether they are sensible or not in opposition to the oppressive Obamunist regime.

You may have seen a vehicle that did not come to a complete stop at that last stop sign. That is true. But what I see and I what I want the World to see is a revolution!

Officer: I am going to need you to exit the vehicle so I can search it for drugs.

Need them FEMA Camps.

I'm Gone from the Internets for 10 days and everything goes to HELL!

News broke last week that Michele Bachmann will retire from congress, thus depriving late nite comedians and mean spirited bloggers of a reliable source of entertainment.

I have two silver linings to this tragic development.

1- the competition to win her market share of the Crazy is up for grabs. There could be some wild competition to fill this void. So that's all good. I'm looking at you Marsha Blackburn. Step up your game before that youngster Lynn Jenkins and her special variety of Cray-Cray muscles past you.

2-The Queen Tea Baguette probably isn't going completely away. There is always Foxnews and always a chance of a zany new reality TV show.

On Tour in the Old Confederacy

No or limited posting ahead because I'll be too busy counting Wal-Mart's and Confederate Flags while touring the old confederacy. 

Check back in a week or so.

Mur-Cow-Ski Hates America

Such mean things to say about America's Sweetheart:

"I think there are a lot of outside interests that would like to see Sarah Palin in some form of elected office. Most in Alaska recognize our former governor is really not involved in or engaged in the state anymore, that she's moved to other interests. In order for you to represent the state of Alaska, you've got to be in the state."

Sen. Lisa Murkowski offering a little pay back?

One of the best storylines from the 2010 midterm elections was Sovereign Citizen Joe Miller's meteoric rise (fueled in part by Sarah) and fall during the course of just a couple months.

Now Obama is just Effing with them

Obama is hardcore. His latest nominee has Benghazi Street Cred:

The State Department spokeswoman who earlier this month found herself in the middle of the controversy surrounding key revisions to the Benghazi talking points appears to be in line for a promotion. The White House announced Thursday that President Barack Obama intends to nominate Victoria Nuland as assistant secretary for European and Eurasian affairs, a position that requires Senate confirmation.

I will assume that Obama thinks that Nuland is the right person for the job, and he is tired of putting up with bullshit over his appointments . But with the Base is suffering from an extreme strain of Benghazi fever, GOP Senators can't just look the other way. They will be obliged to show fake outrage at the nomination and keep the Benghazi conspiracy talk going even longer. 

The Benghazi Bugaloo ain't going away:

Senator: The Presidents latest nomination is unacceptable due to her role in that thing I can't really explain without sounding like a babbling fool. 

Reporter: Senator are you opposing her because she would be yet another  woman in position of authority?

Senator: No. I oppose her because of that thing that is hard to describe and because of Benghazi and because of stuff.

Reporter: Sounds like you have issues with women

Senator: No. I have had my picture taken with Condi Rice.

Reporter: I am going to need you to explain that thing that makes you sound like a babbling fool, so I understand that you don't hate women.

Senator: Benghazi. Benghazi. Iron Man. Stand Down. Benghazi.

Reporter: Are you saying that Nuland had the authority to send Iron Man into Benghazi but didn't. You do know that Iron Man is not real, don't you.

Senator: Benghazi.

Reporter: I am having a hard time understanding your point. Let me ask this last question. Do you agree with what Sarah Palin wrote on her facebook page about the Nuland nomination?

Senator: Benghazi.

Man this is just a plain stone cold.

Live by the Crazy, Die by the Crazy

Something called a Reince Priebus is in a difficult spot. Like John Boehner, he's a party boss of dysfunctional party consumed by the crazy. So how do you rein in the successive waves of crazy consuming the Base:

The Republican Party cried its way to Bill Clinton’s ridiculous impeachment, the Iraq War and dozens of fake Obama mini-scandals, including those focused on the president’s birth certificate, his religion, his father, Solyndra, trips to India, a beer summit, a hip-hop barbecue, golf,  ”You didn’t build that!,” the First Lady’s diet, her sleeve length, and — most recently — umbrellas.

Amidst this constant, all-engrossing whining, three “real” scandals have emerged in the last few weeks. Republicans have been so thrilled that the media has finally bought into their constant scandal narrative that they’re already planning which “NOBAMA!” t-shirt they’ll wear to the impeachment.

“I will tell you, as I have been home in my district, in the sixth district of Minnesota, there isn’t a weekend that hasn’t gone by that someone says to me, ‘Michele, what in the world are you all waiting for in Congress? Why aren’t you impeaching the president? He’s been making unconstitutional actions since he came into office,’” Michele Bachmann (R-MN) said at a rally on Capitol Hill Wednesday.

Sensing that his party was about to blow it, Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus — and expert in blowing it — issued a warning to his fellow Republicans – especially Bachmann – to turn the crazy down a bit.

“We have to be persistent but patient,” Priebus told Politico Thursday. “I think where there’s smoke, there’s fire. If we present ourselves to the American people as intelligent, we’re going to be in a great place as far as showing that this administration is not transparent, is obsessed with power and hates dissent. But you don’t call for impeachment until you have evidence.”

Evidence requires facts and to understand facts, one must live in the reality based community.  Notice that Reince Preibus does not stand up to the base in this paragraph.  When Reince says something like this, it convinces nobody to straighten up:

Look. We all know that Obama's a tyrannical dictator who is threatening the existence of western civilization, but you have to come down off the ledge and chill for a while.

That appeal is, how should we put it, weak tea.  As it stands, the national GOP is little more than a protest movement - it has no governing ideology. So who is going to tell the base to take a bath, get a job and stop bad mouthing America? Not Reince Preibus. No cojones. Reagan is dead. And the rest of the so-called establishment leaders in the GOP shakes in fear of the Base.

Until the Party and its communication arm, Foxnews, figure out a governing ideology (maybe copy the european model of the "conservative welfare state") and how to market it to the masses, it looks like more electoral losses. 

Who knows when they'll figure it out. Perhaps sometime after Hillary's second term? Perhaps before we'll repeal the 22nd Amendment?  Because if they don't, we are going to elect Obama President for Life. Then its Agenda 21 and hobbit sized homes for all!

Conspiracy Theorist Claims Government "Weather Weapon" may be responsible for OK tornado

Why is this guy walking the streets instead of resting comfortably at a safe secure location:

Conspiracy theorist radio host Alex Jones explained to his audience today how the government could have been behind the devastating May 20 tornado in Oklahoma.

On the May 21 edition of The Alex Jones Show, a caller asked Jones whether he was planning to cover how government technology may be behind a recent spate of sinkholes. After laying out how insurance companies use weather modification to avoid having to pay ski resorts for lack of snow, Jones said that "of course there's weather weapon stuff going on -- we had floods in Texas like fifteen years ago, killed thirty-something people in one night. Turned out it was the Air Force."

Following a long tangent, Jones returned to the caller's subject. While he explained that "natural tornadoes" do exist and that he's not sure if a government "weather weapon" was involved in the Oklahoma disaster, Jones warned nonetheless that the government "can create and steer groups of tornadoes."

According to Jones, this possibility hinges on whether people spotted helicopters and small aircraft "in and around the clouds, spraying and doing things." He added, "if you saw that, you better bet your bottom dollar they did this, but who knows if they did. You know, that's the thing, we don't know."

Get him a gig at the NRO or the Heartland Institute. Heartland could use some more muscle in their Global Warming Denial Game. This guy would be perfect. He could make up shit so fast that it'd take an army of scientists just to keep up with him. It'd be like the Bachamann effect on Politifact. Bachmann gives a speech and Politifact is shut down for a month due to bullshit overload. The Ex-tobacco Industry guys at Heartland should give this serious thought.   

/shamelessnutpicking>

Tales from the 6th Annual Poll of Right Wing Bloggers

This year's annual poll of the wingnet tells us that:

Clarence Thomas is the most admired Republican

Tail gunner Ted Cruz is the favorite candidate for President; Christie is 12th

George Bush's favorability/unfavorability rating is 78-20

Right Wing Bloggers admire other Right Wing Bloggers

Via right wing news

Nothing new here.

RedState Blog makes Shameless Nutpicking is Easy

Discrimination in granting fake social welfare status is not acceptable even if the discrimination is targeted at disfavored  or despised groups. 

However, it is possible toget carried away about the significance of the matter:

Since August or September of 480BC, Western Culture has been well aware of the power multiplier that comes with establishing and holding a choke point. When King Leonidas of Sparta held a vast army of Persians at bay for several days with a smaller force at Thermopylae; the world then knew that chokepoints were strategic fulcrums from whence power could be leveraged far beyond its initial limits. The economic analog to such a chokepoint is the monopoly. The government permit power is just such a chokepoint generating function to empower the state beyond its circumscribed constitutional limits.  When the government controls activity via permit, they are able to do several things that go far beyond their enumerated Constitutional powers. They can pick winners and losers. 

History is replete with tales of "choke points" that changed the destiny of Mankind. And so too, was the great  fake social welfare group application form delay of 2010 an event that changed the course of human history.  Unable to run a tax avoidance scheme and operate in total secrecy at the same time, Tea Party groups were silenced into oblivion, unable to participate in the political system and emasculated by application forms with long and hard to understand words.  If only fake social welfare status could have been granted earlier, The Tea Party could have changed the course of history and defeated a dreaded foe at the ballot box.