The Record of Right-Wing Crazy

[skylark]

So, more Republicans are portraying themselves as wanting to eliminate most of the federal government, mount an armed revolution, and destroy other ways of life in this country. More Republicans are running political ads filled with props like guns, cowboy hats, farm animals. More Republicans believe themselves to be in communion with the Founding Fathers. And they call us the crazy ones.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iQ7ZDUutU4

 

Just... just...

[Lennis]

I'm no Republican, but I thought the ad was rather effective - until the very end when the guy says: "Gather your armies."  That was completely unnecessary and makes the candidate look extremist.

It's not that the Republican Party has a completely invalid message, they just don't know how to deliver that message in a mature manner.  I mean, how many true statesmen are left in the Republican Party that are under the age of 70?  Can anybody name one?  The leaders of the party don't even hold a political office (Limbaugh, Hannity, Beck), and the one "rising star" who did chose to quit when things got rough (Sarah Palin).  Media hounds like them do not make policy.  They don't know how.  Limbaugh and Hannity have been on the scene for years, but have either of them chosen to run for office themselves?  No.  Why?  Either they don't want to put themselves on the line in a game they could actually lose, or they really don't know how to run a government without the benefit of a gold-plated microphone in front of them.

If the Republicans want to win, they need to grow up.  Fast.  One commentator said not long ago that the Republican brand was so badly tarnished that it would take them three presidential election cycles (12 years) to recover.  They need a statesman who can gather broad support among independents by staying away from needlessly divisive issues, like abortion.  I don't see any such candidate among mainstream Republicans.  They think divisive issues are the key to victory.  It's all this independent voter can do not to laugh. 

[Lord J Esq]

This is a documentary thread, not a discussion thread. Take conversation to another thread, or create one.

[Lord J Esq]

Senate Republicans Will Block any Nominee to Consumer Finance Protection Agency

One of the key provisions of the financial reform bill passed in the 111th Congress is the Consumer Finance Protection Agency, a new governmental organization charged with looking out for consumer interests in the financial sector. Elizabeth Warren spearheaded this initiative, and should have become its first director, but her candidacy was scuttled by Senate Republicans, who then went on to declare that they would oppose any nominee to the CFPA until Congress passes legislation that will make it impossible for the CFPA to do its job.

Now the President has named another nominee, and the Republicans are holding firm to their position. Bottom line: We won't have a functinoal CFPA for the foreseeable future unless Obama uses a recess appointment.

[Lord J Esq]

Beating Your Kids (to Death) Promotes Good Character!

I suppose the argument for and against corporation punishment of children is separate from the argument for brutal corporal punishment of children. Hit your kid with a metal rod so that their bodies can't dissipate the force? That's called doing the work of THE LORD!

Of course, the savagery of beating your children to death out of religious fervor is eclipsed considerably by the enormity of all those beatings and non-physical abuses that don't kill and don't go reported to the police...and thus never go punsihed.

Oh, but there's more crazy tonight:

GOP Presidential Debate Crowd Cheers Death

At the last GOP debate, the audience cheered when Rick Perry said he was proud of carrying out the death sentence on hundreds of prisoners, at least some of whom were known to be innocent.

This time, the audience cheered at a scenario where a person without health insurance dies rather than being bailed out by the government. I can't do any better than simply to point this out and let it speak for itself.

[tushantin]

 

[Lennis]

In all fairness, it sounded like only a handful of people cheered in the affirmative when the question "Do we let him die?" was raised.  Despicable, but nowhere near as bad as if the whole crowd cheered.

[Lord J Esq]

Here’s somebody giving a talk to a Tea Party gathering, in which he admits to mental confusion and a strong desire to commit violence against the left, going on to say that the Tea Party should terrorize people and that, if “push came to shove,” he had it on good authority that the military would back the Tea Party up.

This stands out for two reasons. First, the Tea Party audience was willingly taking advice from an obviously mentally sick individual. They even laughed along with him at some points. At first I thought they were laughing at him, but it became clear as the video went on that, no, he was making sense to them.

Second, the person in question is Andrew Breitbart, a Fox News analyst, racist, and professional video doctor who edits footage to make his victims look bad. This guy reaches millions of people on a regular basis, not just a room of gullible Tea Partiers.

[Lord J Esq]

Lawbreakers Lauded in the Tea Party

A guitar company breaks the law by illegally importing wood for its guitars, and the right wing holds up its CEO as a victim of big government. Conservative hate radio foams at the mouth. Speaker of the House John Boehner invites him to attend President Obama's jobs address to Congress.

The actual law, passed a century ago and expanded under the second Bush administration, has bolstered the domestic wood products industry and reduced illegal logging worldwide.

[Bard_of_Time]

... what is wrong with these people. I mean seriously. Something must have seriously happened when they were really really little to make this happen to them. No one can be THAT stupid, can they?

[Lord J Esq]

Murder Charges for Parents Who Starved, Abused Child

This stood out to me because it is almost identify to a story I linked here just a couple weeks ago: An ultraconservative Christian husband and wife, with a gaggle of biological white children and adopted black ones, kill one of their black children out of religious fervor inspired partly by the book To Train up a Child, written by Michael and Debbie Pearl.

Indeed, the stories are so similar that I had to double-check and make sure that they weren't the same story after all. They're not. Previously, it was Kevin and Elizabeth Schatz, from Paradise, CA, who beat their seven-year old daughter Lydia to death. This time, it's Larry and Carri Williams, from Sedro-Woolley, WA, who starved their thirteen-year old daughter Hana and left her to sleep out in the cold, which, due to her emaciation, killed her.

Everything else about these two stories is essentially the same. It's time to start thinking about charging the Pearls with involvement in the murder of children, and time for our country to pass laws that restrict adoption by fundamentalist parents.

Edited for clarity.

[tushantin]

It's time to start thinking about charging the Pearls with involvement in the murder of children, and time for our country to pass laws that restrict adoption by fundamentalist parents.

It won't work. We may as well pass laws that restrict adoption by unqualified parents as whole, especially those who are mentally ill, under prepared, under privileged (i.e., incapable of supporting an infant), and those having sufficient criminal record for causing harm to human beings.

[Bard_of_Time]

It's time to start thinking about charging the Pearls with involvement in the murder of children, and time for our country to pass laws that restrict adoption by fundamentalist parents.

It won't work. We may as well pass laws that restrict adoption by unqualified parents as whole, especially those who are mentally ill, under prepared, under privileged (i.e., incapable of supporting an infant), and those having sufficient criminal record for causing harm to human beings.

And yet here's the problem. Those Pearl guys are horrible rotten human beings to their adopted children, but to their real children? Their neighbors? Their family, their friends, the government? They're fine upstanding human beings. It's until we see them do horrible things to these children that we really see just how messed up they are.

The other day someone linked me to an MSNBC report on the protests on Wall Street, and how the police were just being dicks. I sent it along to my ridiculously conservative mother. I'm wondering how she'll react when she sees a different perspective, or if she'll simply delete it because it came from MSNBC.

[Thought]

Montana GOP candidate is looking to free school lunch program for places to make budget cuts.

[Lord J Esq]

Ha ha! Mississippi's "an egg is a person" constitutional amendment is getting crushed, 2 to 1 3 to 2, with half the votes counted. In friggin' Mississippi. Even if the remaining precincts are all rabidly conservative, this still looks like a comfortable defeat against right-wing crazies.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/files/elections/2011/by_county/MS_Initiative_1108.html?SITE=AP&SECTION=POLITICS

(Refresh that page for the latest results.)

Edited because I fail at counting.