We’ve been watching as the Republican Party has been losing its collective mind. With the merger of the Tea Party and the GOP, we’re seeing more and more of the nuts getting the GOP nomination in prominent Senate, House and Governor races.
That’s emboldening the nuts in the GOP who already hold office. The latest case is GOP Representative Louie Gohmert and his “terror baby” allegations. Watch as Anderson Cooper gives him a forum and helps him make a fool of himself.
This article from Politico is quite disturbing. Anyone associated with the radical thinking of Catherine MacKinnon would never make my short list. The fact that Kagan just recently made an argument centered around the notion of restraining speech of “minimal value” is even more disturbing. Fortunately, even the current conservative court smacked down her ridiculous argument in an 8-1 decision.
Will any liberal Senators challenge Kagan on this? It’s hard to imagine filling one of the “liberal” seats on the court with someone who willing to gut the first amendment in the same manner we’ve some to expect from religious ideologues on the right. Unfortunately, radical feminists like MacKinnon were anxious to impose their sense of morality on the rest of us, and with Kagan we might have one of their allies on the court.
Hopefully Kagan will clear this up in the hearings, though I won’t be holding my breath.
We’re getting to the end of the conservative movement that really kicked into gear with the election of Ronald Reagan, and now we’re seeing the inevitable final stages, as the loons on the far right start reeking havoc on the Republican Party.
Future historians tracing the crackup of the Republican Party may well look to May 8, 2010, as an inflection point.
That was the day, as is now well known, that Sen. Robert Bennett, who took the conservative position 84 percent of the time over his career, was deemed not conservative enough by fellow Utah Republicans and booted out of the primary.
Less well known, but equally ominous, is what happened that same day, 2,500 miles east in Maine. There, the state Republican Party chucked its platform — a sensible New England mix of free-market economics and conservation — and adopted a manifesto of insanity: abolishing the Federal Reserve, calling global warming a “myth,” sealing the border, and, as a final plank, fighting “efforts to create a one world government.”
You can read the rest of the article for some of Glenn Beck’s greatest hits.
What’s left of the conservative movement and the Republican Party?
We have the Reagan worshipers who have become so dogmatic that they think tax cuts solve everything at every time in history, regardless of the circumstances. These folks seem to forget that George W. Bush enacted huge tax cuts that would be followed by the greatest economic collapse in 80 years. These folks also turn on former allies like Bruce Bartlett and David Frum who dare top open a debate on how conservatives might adapt to the changing circumstances of today’s economy.
Then we have the religious right, who’s leaders keep getting caught up in sex scandals. All these folks who preach morality can’t keep it in their own pants. Most of the public has tuned out these self-righteous fools at this point.
We also have moderate Republicans who would like to see the government spend less and who also tend to be social liberals. These reasonable folks abandoned the party and the conservative movement long ago.
And finally we have the Tea Party clowns. Many of these folks are angry as hell – some are angry at everybody, while others don’t know why they’re angry. As noted above, they can be a force at times, and they may be the GOP’s not-so-secret weapon in the fall as anti-incumbent fever hits new highs.
Or, they may just turn off everyone else with their peculiar brand of crazy. Nuts like Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin and and Michelle Bachman can rile up these nut jobs, but they may end up giving the Democrats a lifeline as well.
Most people don’t like the crazies. The GOP did a great job for years of exploiting the loony left and painting the Democrats with a broad brush, and now the tables are turned, and the Tea Party folks are giving Democrats some good talking points for the fall.
Early yesterday morning, Valerie and Rob Shirk corralled their 10 home-schooled children into their van for the 2 1/2-hour drive from their home in Connecticut to Boston, arriving just in time to hear Sarah Palin denounce government-run health care at the tea party movement rally on Boston Common.
They thought it would be a learning opportunity for their children, who range in age from 9 months to 15 years old and who held up signs criticizing the government for defying the “will of the people.’’
“The problem in this country is that too many people are looking for handouts,’’ said Valerie Shirk, 43, of Prospect, Conn. “I agree with the signs that say, ‘Share my father’s work ethic — not his paycheck.’ We have to do something about the whole welfare mentality in this country.’’
Okay — that’s fine. There’s a legitimate argument that we should cut government spending.
But wait, there’s more…
The couple, who rely on Medicaid for their health care, were also upset about the nation’s new health reforms.
When asked why her family used state-subsidized health care when she criticized people who take handouts, Valerie Shirk said she did not want to stop having children, and that her husband’s income was not enough to cover the family with private insurance.
“I know there’s a dichotomy because of what we get from the state,’’ she said. “But I just look at each of my children as a blessing.’’
Whaaa?
How is this level of hypocrisy even possible? Shirk knows “there’s a dichotomy” considering at a rally protesting health care reforms while at the same time she’s accepting government-run health care, and she explains it away by saying that her children are “a blessing.”
She talks about personal responsibility, yet she can’t stop herself from having more children even though she freely admits that she and her husband can’t afford it. She rails on those who are looking for handouts, yet she’s happily takes those handouts!
I don’t have time right now to lay out all the reasons, but the hiring of Erick Erickson from RedState.com as a contributor is just another example of how clueless CNN is these days.
Erickson has said he needs to “grow up over time” now that people actually listen to or read what he says, but that hasn’t stopped him from making more stupid comments. I’m glad to see bloggers get air time, but is this the best they can do?
Here’s a good article detailing all the childish gloating from the right. This is another example of how low our politics have sunk in recent years. Conservatives used to rail against liberals for alleged “Bush Derangement Syndrome,” but the contempt and hatred for Barack Obama has reached bizarre levels on the right. Frankly, they sound like a bunch of dumb teenagers taunting a rival team.
It’s hard to imagine how the angry right helps the GOP in the long run. The angry 30% of this country might get energized, but one would this this stupidity would turn off the middle.
Here’s “Tea Party” leader Mark Williams appeared on a CNN panel on “Anderson Cooper 360″ last night making a complete ass of himself.
It’s stunning to me how many conservative intellectuals have stood by and said little while the crazies have taken over the conservative movement. Some of them had the guts to take on Sarah Palin, and more are starting to speak up as idiots like Joe the Plumber and demagogues like Glenn Beck become the new faces of conservatism.
David Frum has been one of the loudest voices of sanity on the right, and he takes on Glenn Beck in his latest column.
We conservatives are submitting our movement to some of the most unscrupulous people in American life. This submission disgraces conservatism, discredits Republicans, and damages the country. It’s beyond time for conservatives who know better to join us at NewMajority in emancipating ourselves from leadership by the most stupid, the most cynical, and the most truthless.
The entire column is worth reading, as Frum defends Cass Sunstein against Beck’s hysterical fire.
The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s “death panel” so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their “level of productivity in society,” whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.
This is what the right in America has come to, which shouldn’t be a surprise when one celebrates ignorance and mediocrity.
At least someone at CNN has some journalistic integrity left. Next, they need to get rid of Dobbs.
CNN President Jon Klein wrote an email last night to “Lou Dobbs Tonight” staffers telling them the Obama birth certificate story is “dead,” TVNewser reports.
“It seems this story is dead,” Klein wrote, “because anyone who still is not convinced doesn’t really have a legitimate beef.”
CNN focused on the additional information that all Hawaii records are now electronic, so they don’t produce paper copies of “original” birth certificates.
Will this end the story? Don’t bet on it. The level of hatred on the right for Obama is reaching a fever pitch.
UPDATE: A civil rights organization is demanding that CNN remove Lou Dobbs from the air.
Since Barack Obama announced his candidacy for President, we’ve seen the lunatic fringe on the right push the limits of idiocy. Since his election, the levels of insanity on the right have grown exponentially.
The “birther” movement has set a new standard, even by the standards of the loony right wing. They make the teabaggers looks like sober economic scholars.
Pay particular attention to his smackdown of Lou Dobbs, who brings up “questions” surrounding Obama’s place of birth several days after a guest host ON HIS OWN SHOW completely debunks the asinine story. Further proof that Lou Dobbs is a complete buffoon. Why is this clown still on CNN?
They’re now concerned about banning part-human, part-animal creatures. Apparently they’ve been watching True Blood and they’re worried about human-animal hybrids. Keith Olbermann offers up the ridicule they deserve.
MSNBC is having a field day with this one. See how many double entendres you can find in the following clip. Hint – Dick Armey is one of the easy ones!
