Base Republicans Are Crazy

TPM: A significant chunk of Louisiana Republicans evidently believe that President Barack Obama is to blame for the poor response to the hurricane that ravaged their state more than three years before he took office.

The latest survey from Democratic-leaning Public Policy Polling, provided exclusively to TPM, showed an eye-popping divide among Republicans in the Bayou State when it comes to accountability for the government's post-Katrina blunders.

Twenty-eight percent said they think former President George W. Bush, who was in office at the time, was more responsible for the poor federal response while 29 percent said Obama.

This closely mirrors the 24% of Republicans that believe Obama just may be the anti-Christ. This 20-30% of Republicans is the GOP base.  They're crazy.  Well and truly crazy.  Now, you can vote with crazy people if you want to, but unless you're after crazy public policy, it's really not a good idea. 

Get The Government Out Of My Food Safety!

Daily Kos:  What could something like this...

Federal authorities are struggling to explain why 600 people in 22 states have fallen ill from a foodborne parasite rarely seen in the United States.

...possibly have to do with the sequester? Simple: It takes money to investigate and prevent the spread of diseases—and the whole point of the sequester was spend less of that money. And the flip side of spending less money is that investigations like this can take longer to solve. According to the deputy director of the CDC division responsible for investigating the outbreak, "budget priorities" are playing a role in the delay. Specifically:

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has had to slash $285 million at a time when food and health experts say disease detection needs more funding as these type of food outbreak cases become more complex and widespread.

 If you eat, and you vote Republican, you're an idiot.

Down With Self Rule!

GILBERTON, Pa (AP) — Police Chief Mark Kessler expects to be fired for posting incendiary videos in which he ranted obscenely about the Second Amendment and liberals while spraying machine-gun fire with borough-owned weapons.

But Kessler, whose pro-gun videos have garnered hundreds of thousands of views online, has no intention of going away quietly.

With an Internet radio show, speaking invitations to gun rallies around the country and a newly formed “Constitution Security Force” that he claims already has chapters in 45 states, the 41-year-old coal miner-turned-cop said his message — that the federal government is too big, too powerful and wants to grab guns — is resonating with a segment of the public that believes as he does.

Putting aside for a minute that this right-winger is advertising his treason and admitting he intends to make war on the United States, anybody who's been brought to a place where he's devoted his life to less self rule is a useful idiot of the transnational corporation. Government by the people is a good thing. Anybody telling you different is dangerous.  This guy is one of the more obvious examples. 

Can We Get Some Real Americans Please?

Daily Kos:  So, first the bad news: In the wake of revelations that he was in fact a citizen of both Canada and the United States, Ted Cruz has made his choice. And, sadly, it's not our neighbors to the north.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) announced Monday evening that he will renounce his Canadian citizenship, less than 24 hours after a newspaper pointed out that the Canadian-born senator likely maintains dual citizenship. “Now the Dallas Morning News says that I may technically have dual citizenship,” Cruz said in a statement. “Assuming that is true, then sure, I will renounce any Canadian citizenship. Nothing against Canada, but I’m an American by birth and as a U.S. senator; I believe I should be only an American.”

I guess this puts Cruz in a similar position as Michele Bachmann, who renounced her Swiss citizenship last year—and once again, we are the losers, because we keep on getting stuck with lunatics who say things like this:

 Asked about the possibility of impeaching President Obama, Ted Cruz did not rule it out. In a question and answer session following a speech he gave at a Montgomery County GOP dinner last night, an audience member asked Cruz, “Why don’t we impeach him [Obama]?”

“It’s a good question,” Cruz responded, “and I’ll tell you the simplest answer: To successfully impeach a president you need the votes in the U.S. Senate.”

A nice question from the GOP base, eh?  A real American (or just somebody who's devoted to democracy), would have answered that question thusly:  "We don't impeach people for no reason because if we did, that would undermine our democracy.  It's just not the American way."

And he's not the only one.

Democracy is one of the core American ideals.  Obviously Ted Cruz is not a real American.  And neither are his buddies in the Republican party.   

Devils

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Raw Story: A Tennessee tea party Republican state legislator told a frightened little girl at a town hall meeting on Thursday in Murfreesboro, TN that laws are laws and that her undocumented father is going to have to be deported. According to ProgressivePopulist.org, 11-year-old Josie Molina told state Rep. Scott Desjarlais (R) that she has papers but her father does not. 

During a question and answer session at the meeting, Molina stepped up to the microphone and, with a quavering voice, asked, “Mr. DesJarlais, I have papers, but I have a dad who’s undocumented. What can I do to have him stay with me?”

Rather than make any attempt to assuage the girl’s fears, Desjarlais said, “Thank you for being here and thank you for coming forward and speaking,” but “the answer still kind of remains the same, that we have laws and we need to follow those laws and that’s where we’re at.”

The tea party crowd whooped and applauded wildly as the little girl took her seat, head down. Progressive Populist reported that Josie Molina’s father is currently in the process of being deported and that the girl is seeing a child psychologist in order to cope with the stress and anxiety.

Desjarlais is a former physician and anti-choice crusader who was fined $500 by the Tennessee Board of Medical Examiners after it came to light that he had engaged in multiple extramarital affairs with female patients. When one woman became pregnant, the staunch anti-abortion conservative pressured her into terminating the pregnancy. Another patient charged that Desjarlais prescribed narcotic painkillers to her for recreational use and frequently smoked marijuana with her.

“I know God has forgiven me” for the transgressions, Desjarlais told a conservative radio host in an interview in December of 2012. 

Doubtful.  We'll actually leave the serial cheating, impregnation, and forced abortion to him, his wife, and his God.  But as far as he and his and his Euro American Tea Party crowd gleefully cheering against a frightened 11 year girl, to her face, there's no doubt the whole rotten bunch is going straight to hell.

No Debates For You!

TPM headline: RNC Unanimously Passes Resolution, No Debates For NBC Or CNN

They have decided the way to minimize the damage from the fact their party is full of crazies, racists, corporatists, and theocrats, is to not show it to people that aren't crazy, racist, corporatist or religious zealots.  They way they indend to do this apparently, is to limit their debate broadcasts to Fox News.

And as if this was not as pathetic as it could be already, they're doing this on direction of their leader, Rush Limbaugh (note from the link that he decreed it should be so last week).

The Most Republican Thing Ever Said

Daily Kos: I'm just going to throw this one out there because it really needs no explanation.

There’s no such thing as financial crime, according to Rep. Tom McClintock (R-CA). At a town hall meeting in El Dorado Hills, California on Tuesday, a constituent asked McClintock for his “stance on Wall Street criminal practices.” The congressman responded, “Well first of all, for a criminal practice there has to be a gun. It’s pretty simple.”

You know something? I am 100 percent sure that McClintock actually believes this. If there's not a gun involved, it's not a crime. No matter what. And it wins the day for most Republican thing said by any Republican, ever. 

He doesn't think rape is a crime either.  Which is unfortunate because his party has been fucking us without our consent for decades. 

The Vote Suppressionists

Think Progress: Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), a tea party senator with a long history of opposition to civil rights laws, told an audience in Louisville, Kentucky on Wednesday that there is no evidence of black voters being excluded from the franchise. According to local NPR host Phillip Bailey, Paul said that he does not believe “there is any particular evidence of polls barring African Americans from voting,” during a speech to the non-partisan Louisville Forum. 

If Paul is not aware of the evidence indicating widespread efforts to prevent African Americans from voting, then he must not be looking very hard. During the 2012 election, black and Hispanic voters waited nearly twice as long to cast a ballot as white voters. In Florida, lines of up to six hours led an estimated 201,000 people to become frustrated and leave the polls. These lines existed largely because of a voter suppression bill signed into law by Gov. Rick Scott (R-FL) which reduced early voting hours in the state. After the election, top Republicans admitted that the purpose of cutting early voting was to reduce Democratic turnout. One Republican operative conceded that early voting was cut on the Sunday proceeding Election Day because “that’s a big day when the black churches organize themselves.”

The Republican party wants to steal elections by robbing all manner of poor, disabled, elderly, young, and minority Americans of their ability to vote.  Their efforts are nationwide and ongoing.  National studies put the anticipated number of disenfranchised at over 5 million.  And that was before the Republican repeal of the voting Voting Rights Act.

It's no wonder Paul wants to plead ignorance.  To admit the obvious means he's an anti-democratic, anti-american, corrupt piece of shit.  But the reality is, of course these laws suppress the black vote and the Democratic vote in general.  If they didn't, the Republicans wouldn't be bothering.

Ayatollah Cuccinelli?

Think Progress:  Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II (R), his party’s nominee in this November’s gubernatorial election, unveiled a 12-point education plan Tuesday. Among his proposals: Virginia should amend its constitution to allow public funding for religious education.

Hey, Ken, we here in America have something called separation of church and state.  If you don't like it, get the hell out of the country.  Leave.  Move to Iran.  You can live in a place where they're not interested in such ideals.

Team Meeting

Rep. Paul Ryan, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor and New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez secretly spoke to wealthy donors at the Koch brothers’ recently concluded summer gathering on the outskirts of Albuquerque.

Why not? That's who they represent.  Every single one of their policy ideas makes that very clear.  So if you're a billionaire industrialist and you're looking out for your own transnational empire, by all means, vote GOP.  If you're looking out for America, 99% of the people who live in it, and most likely yourself and your family, it's really not a good idea.  Whether you call yourself a Republican or not, that's not your team. 

Hard To Swallow, Tough To Breathe

Headline: Maine Moves To Opt Out Of Longstanding Anti-Smog Regulations

Brought to you by the Republican governor on behalf of the industrial polluters in his state. 

Particulate air pollution kills 34,000 Americans every year.  Republicans would rather protect corporate profits than protect the lives of Americans.  It's rude to say, but it's true.  So you better start saying it.