Showing posts with label Vote 2010. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Vote 2010. Show all posts

Saturday, October 23, 2010

Outrage!


If the Democrats have their way, this man will not be allowed to vote in Connecticut.
 
"We don’t have to worry about a voter with a Vietnam Vet t-shirt being turned away because Dick Blumenthal lied about serving in that conflict. But we hope Secretary Bysiewicz considers banning individuals who wear clothing promoting law firms, Yale University or Harvard College." - Connecticut Republican State Chairman Chris Healy

Sunday, October 10, 2010

Hey, you know who reminds me of a Nazi?


Rich Iott (third from left) reenacts the Battle of  Löwenbräu
 
At long last, an American political candidate has emerged for whom it makes perfectly good sense to refer to in a sentence containing the word Nazi - Rich Iott, Tea Party backed Republican candidate for Ohio's 9th district.

The Atlantic this weekend broke the story of Iott's proclivity for dressing up in a German Waffen SS uniform and wiling away the hours as part of a group reenacting the merry exploits of the Nazi's 5th SS Panzer Wiking Division. A patriot through and through, Iott said that he chose the Wiking division because they fought primarily on the Eastern Front against our evil allies, the Bolshevist Russians. Presumably this means that when Iott was playing war, he did not have to reenact the slaughter of any American troops. 
 
In what is perhaps the single worst defense of bad judgment in recent years, Iott claims that he joined the Nazi cross-dressers - I'm not making this up - "as a father-son bonding thing".
 
Pictures of Iott (who's middle name is not Id) have been removed from the Wiking website, but don't get the idea that this is just because he's running for Congress. Heil no. It's because he quit the group a couple of years after his son, apparently having reached the age of reason, lost interest in playing dress up with Dad. Apparently that father-son bonding thing isn't all that it's cracked up to be.
 
On 'FOX News Sunday', House Minority Whip Eric Cantor, representing the entire Jewish contingent of the congressional Republicans, became the first member of the GOP to distance himself from Iott. After being cornered by intimidating Florida congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz to repudiate Iott, the normally defiant Cantor bravely said "I'm doing it right here, Debbie". Given the state of the Republican Tea Party, it's a repudiation he'll soon be likely to regret.

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

see you in hell

Say hi to Tea Party favorite Paul LePage. I'm sure, you'll be seeing this face a lot over the next 48 hours, and if he wins the governorship of Maine (he's currently leading), he's destined to be a FOX News favorite. Cause he's so colorful, and if you haven't learned but one thing from politics 2010, it's that America loves colorful.

Which means that he should have this race wrapped up after making this intriguing campaign pledge: "As your governor, you're gonna be seeing a lot of me on the front page saying 'Gov. LePage tells Obama to go to hell'."

I'm willing to wager that as we speak, this pledge is causing his campaign contributions to go through the roof, because not only does America love colorful, America loves a man with the courage to tell Obama to go to hell. Even those faint souls who might find this a little harsh are still going to love a man with a message, and Paul LePage has a message, the story of his rise to glory.

"We came from behind because we have a message. We have a message that says: One, we've had enough of the federal government. We've had enough. Two, we've had enough of the state government. And number three, government should be working for the people, not the people working for the government."

Closely examining this platform, I detect a certain inconsistency in the logic of LePage running for office, as well as a contradiction between the stated position of points one and two with point three. But then I'm a nitpicker, and I'm sure LePage would justifiably tell me to go to hell.

Saturday, September 18, 2010

One degree of separation from Justice Roberts

Good morning, and welcome to the weekly Republican rebuttal of President Obama's weekly Saturday address. Or as I like to call it, the GOP's weekly exercise in futility, seeing as how nobody listens to the President's Saturday address and even less listen to ours. Nevertheless, it's a long and hallowed tradition here in the Washington, much like wallowing in corporate money.

That sound you hear in the background is Chief Justice Roberts trying rather unsuccessfully to suppress a laugh. You'll just have to take my word for that, of course, since we're not being televised. Which brings up a really interesting question - What the hell are we doing dressing up for a radio address? Heh heh, made him laugh out loud that time.

Moving on to the point, President Obama today was once again criticizing the Supreme Court’s decision to let corporations spend without limit or any public disclosure on advertising aimed at influencing elections, and he was criticizing Senate Republicans for trying to protect these corporate rights by blocking his proposed regulations. To quote him verbatim, he said "a partisan minority in Congress is hoping their defense of these special interests and the status quo will be rewarded with a flood of negative ads against their opponents. It's a power grab, pure and simple." To which I would respond, duh.

Ah, I've got Justice Roberts giggling again, which is good news because he certainly wasn't giggling half an hour ago when the President took it upon himself to once again to call that Supreme Court decision one of the worst ever. You were pretty hot around the collar about that, weren't you John?

Well, Justice Roberts can't answer that because it might be seen by some as inappropriate for him to weigh in on what is basically a partisan difference of opinion. You see, here in Washington we also have a long and hallowed tradition called the separation of powers, which the Republican Party deeply respects, and for the Chief Justice to respond would understandably be seen as unseemly. So Justice Roberts, just give me a wink if you'd like to kick Obama's ass. I think I saw a wink, folks.

To conclude, I would just like to ask the American people - at least the few who might be listening - why in the middle of the worst recession in memory is the President not focusing on jobs? I mean, he says this bill is about transparency. It's about transparency, all right: It's a transparent effort to help Democrats ahead of an election in which they clearly can't run on their record. Right, John? Ah, I think I saw a wink.

Friday, September 10, 2010

profiles in whatever


Lynn Westmoreland. You know, the right-wing congressman from Georgia. The one who tried to block reauthorization of the Voting Rights act? The one who voted against providing relief after Hurricane Katrina? The one that got FOX love for calling Obama uppity? Okay, maybe you remember him for his most significant (and pretty much only) legislative proposal: a bill to display the Ten Commandments in the House and Senate.

And there he was today, addressing  Ralph Reed's Faith and Freedom Conference, taking up Newt Gingrich's 'shut down the government' mantra in front of a full house of gleeful wingers.

"When we take the majority, we’re going to assume that the American people have revolted, or whatever, against the Obama agenda, the progressive agenda, for Washington," Westmoreland succinctly noted  But we all know what happens when you assume, don't we? Whatever, as the man says.

The problem is, even after the American people have revolted or whatever, that arrogant President Obama will probably stand in the way of progress by vetoing all their good ideas like repealing health care and repealing financial reform and mandating the display of the Ten Commandments in all classrooms and finishing the dang wall and more tax cuts and freezing all new federal regulations and outlawing Islam and repealing the fourteenth amendment and whatever. Well, Obama can just take that veto pen and shove it up his uppity ass.

"The government shut down," Westmoreland told his crowd of cheering peers. "That's what I wanted to hear! A good clap for that! We want you with us. We gotta have you there. Because they're going to come and say, 'Daddy can't go to the VA, the national parks are closed..."
Little Billy's got food poisoning from the uninspected meat, Mommy just got killed in a mid-air collision, Grandma's moving in cause she can't get her Social Security but she can't move in because Hurricane Gina destroyed our town and nobody's doing anything about it,  whatever.

The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Better Know a District - Lynn Westmoreland Update
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes2010 ElectionFox News

Friday, September 3, 2010

AdWatch: 'No voice of her own'


Details of a new television ad from Arizona Governor Jan Brewer, set to begin airing Sunday, September 5:

TITLE: "No voice of her own"

LENGTH: 30 seconds.

PRODUCER: Simon Lavitagus.

AIRING: Statewide on cable networks, and media markets Phoenix, Tucson, Flagstaff, and Scottsdale.

SCRIPT:

[Scene: Woman cooking in brightly lit kitchen]

[Voiceover, low pitched male, unaccented]: Meet Scottsdale homemaker Rosemary Waters. Rosemary would like to say a few words about Governor Jan Brewer's campaign for re-election, but unfortunately she can't. You see, Rosemary is a headless torso. And somebody needs to speak out in her behalf. 

[Cut to Brewer]: "Law enforcement agencies have found bodies in the desert either buried or just lying out there that have been beheaded." [Freeze frame]

[Voiceover]: Rosemary Waters has already been silenced. Now some would like to cut off Jan Brewer's words as well.

[Cut to Democrat Terry Goddard]: "You need to stop scaring people by saying things that are untrue, that defame our state, like there are beheadings in the desert."

[Cut to kitchen. Rosemary drops bowl, drops to her knees and feels around for it in vain]

[Voiceover]: Scaring people? Perhaps if someone had bothered to scare Rosemary, she wouldn't have lost her head. On November 2nd, vote Jan Brewer for Governor.

[Black screen]

[Shouted voice over, Hispanic]: Voy a por ti hermosa dama! Me gustaría un poco la cabeza!

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

The Young Guns


"That's all you got? That's all you got? Pretty wimpy handshake you got there, fella. Not much of tough guy, are you? I'm a tough guy, yeah, yeah I am. I grew up on the streets of Richmond where you gotta be tough if you're a Jew. I take no quarter, and I can take you, whether it's on the b-ball court or the court of public opinion. Mano a mano? You bet I'll go mano a mano, and when the smoke clears... Oh, hi John. I was just rehearsing for my 'Young Guns' book tour... Thank you, Earl, you can take off the mask now. Good workout."

"Right, right, that's uh... Actually, that's what I was dropping by to talk to you about. I was reading your book just last night..."

"What? 'Young Guns'? You were reading 'Young Guns' last night? You can't do that, Boehner. I'll have you up in front of the ethics committee. 'Young guns' doesn't even come out for another two weeks."

"It's okay, Eric, I called the promo department at Simon and Schuster and they sent me over a copy..."

"Why? You gonna review it? The only advance copies they're supposed to be sending out are review copies."

"Well, I think they sent it out of courtesy, out of deference to my position as House Minority Leader..."

"For the moment."

"Huh? Oh, sure, for the moment. And then after November I'll be Speaker of the House and..."

"If no one challenges you."

"That's, uh, that's technically true, but I don't know of anybody that plans to challenge me, do you? If you hear anything on that, I sure would appreciate a heads up. Anyway, about the book..."

"Brilliant, isn't it?"

"It's, uh, it's very well done, Eric, but you know, I couldn't help but notice that my name only came up three times in the book..."

"So?"

"So, I appreciate the mentions, but they are rather slight, don't you think? 'Boehner was at the meeting with me', 'Boehner appointed me to run the Platform Committee', 'Boehner was also at the White House briefing'. As I said, rather slight."

"That's three more mentions than Mike Pence got."

"True, but I might point out that Mike Pence is only a Conference Chairman, while I'm the Minority Leader."

"For the moment."

"Yes, yes, you said that before, and believe me, I am well aware of the awesome responsibility that awaits me as Speaker. I'm just saying that your book hardly captures the breadth and depth of my experience in the House."

"Nor was it intended to. Let me make something clear, Boehner. This book is about the new faces in the House, the movers and shakers, the young guns, if you will. And. You. Are. Not. A. Young. Gun."

"Granted, I'm a bit older than you. Fourteen years, as a matter of fact, and I'd like to think..."

"Fourteen years is a loooong time in politics, old man."

"That's, uh, pretty cold, considering that I've basically been your mentor, and all..."

"Uh huh, uh huh. Well, I guess you did a pretty damn good job of it, gramps. Anything else?"

"No, I... guess not... Oh. I did want to point out one thing, though... Right here... I guess these are the publishers notes, it starts out 'These Young Guns of the House GOP--Cantor (the leader)'..."

"Go on."

"That's all, I just wanted to point out the mistake. I'm just saying that I'm the Minority Leader and you're the Whip."

"For the moment."

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Brock Landers for Congress!



This really is one of the most frightening political ads of the year, as well as one of the funniest. Not just because of the TEA party influenced boilerplate that serves as the script ("Barack Obama is the worst president in history. In my generation, we'll inherit a weakened country. Drug cartels in Mexico, tax cartels in DC....what's happened to America?"), not even because the very prospect of Dan Quayle's son being an Arizona congressman is inherently amusing. No, it's because this particular candidate looks and speaks like one of those creepy, quiet guys who suddenly explode in a frenzy of violence. You can almost hear the next door neighbor saying "He used to mow my yard..."

And then, the money shot, where young Ben stands up and calmly states "Somebody has to go to Washington and knock the hell out of the place." That's entertainment.

Too bad that the ad began airing right when Quayle's denials of writing for "Dirty Scottsdale" under the pseudonym of Brock Landers began to fall apart. Brock Landers? You might remember him as the action porn star played by Dirk Diggler (played by Mark Wahlberg) in Paul Thomas Anderson's excellent movie 'Boogie Nights'. Good luck, Ben!


Friday, July 23, 2010

the Bachmann agenda

Michele Bachmann, Queen of the House TEA Party caucus, has taken a swipe at Minority Leader John Boehner's "pathetic little agenda" which she likened to a schooner of warm piss.

"It's sad to see such a total lack of boldness and real ideas in a man who imagines himself in the role of Speaker of the House. He wants to roll back health care, but he knows that can't happen before 2012. What we can do is completely defund it so it just sits there piteously as a monument to Obama's broken promises. Keep taxes low? I don't think so. Get rid of taxes all together, that's what a real constitutional conservative would say. Where in the Constitution does it say the government has a right to tax your income? Don't give me that 16th amendment crap, that wasn't put in till 1913, it's not what the framers wanted. They were all deceased. Repeal it. Am I being bold? You bet I am. Let's see, what else was on our leader's agenda. Block cap-and-trade? It's dead, bonehead, so you've got nothing to do but tan. When I get to be Speaker, you're going to see some real action."

Aside from repealing the 16th amendment, there are a number of others on her chopping block: the 14th ("It's been thoroughly exploited by illegal immigrants"), the 18th ("God, prohibition was repealed by the 21st, what's it still doing in there? Leave it to a woman to have to do all the housekeeping"), the 19th ("The framers didn't care if I could vote or not. That's a State rights issue."), the 22nd ("If it wasn't for that one, Bush would still be President and we would have avoided all this Obama mess."), and the 25th ("I just don't like it.")

High on Bachmann's to-do list is returning the economy back to the corporations where it rightfully belongs. "Before Obama, the private economy was 100 percent held in private hands, while today 65 percent of the economy is now held in government's hands. That's an increase of 65 percent. No, wait a second, I've got my numerator mixed up with my denominator. Zero percent was held by the government and now it's 65, so that's like an increase of 6500 percent."

Her main agenda item for the next two years, however, is to get payback by endlessly subpoenaing the Obama administration.

"Oh, I think that's all we should do," Bachmann explains. "I think that all we should do is issue subpoenas and have one hearing after another. And expose all the nonsense that is gone on. People want to hear the sound of gears locking, so it's very important that when we come back after the election that we have constitutional conservative leadership because the American people's patience is about as big as this hand grenade, and they're about to pull the pin. So we have to make sure that we do what the people want us to do or they'll kill us."

Thursday, July 22, 2010

the inanity of dope

You can read the enthusiasm on his besotted face, can't you? He senses that his long dreamed plan of becoming Speaker of the House may be on the verge of coming true, and so after twenty years in Congress, it's time to part the curtain a little so we can catch a glimpse of the butterfly John Boehner will soon become.

Because he will be Speaker, won't he? Surely no young gun would attempt to challenge him on his own turf. After all, Boehner wants you to know via his gift for sheer redundancy that he is a genuine legislator in a castle of pretenders.

"There’s very little deliberation, there’s very little, very few legislators among the 435 members. And I really think that members are being short-changed. I came out of the Ohio Legislature, a place where it was a legislature and you were taught and you learned how to become a legislator. And I think that we need legislators in the U.S. Capitol."

I just got a tingle up my leg. Much as John Henry was a steel driving man, John Boehner is a legislating man, and that's something that always gets people excited. By the way, Weepy, nice shout out to your colleagues, a majority of whom would have to, you know, vote for you. But maybe you could pick up some of that TEA party energy, notwithstanding the fact that some of them are "anarchists who want to kill all of us in public office." No, maybe not, although that does bring up an interesting point. If you really think that some of these people are murder bent radicals, just what the heck were you doing try ing to rile them up during the health care end game? Just a case of dangerously bad judgment?

Well, let's cut to the chase and ask what the first three things a Speaker Boehner would do. Number one, of course, is really an undo - repeal health care. Now seeing as how you're such a unadulterated legislator, it's possible that it could have occurred to you that even under the most hopeful GOP outcome, there is no way that both the House and Senate are going to have the two-thirds majority needed to overcome a presidential veto, so either the Ohio Legislature didn't contribute to your knowledge of math, or you're promising an exercise in futility. Or, perhaps, you're promising to do nothing for at least two years. Number two is blocking any attempt to pass cap-and-trade, which in this case isn't even an undo, it's preventing something from being done. And truth be told, even if you don't get to be Speaker, unless the GOP actually loses seats, it's going to be something you do irregardless, so moot point. Number three I really like - keep taxes low. So I guess this is a tacit admission that taxes are already low, a position that probably is a bit out of step with the talking points of your party.

Not exactly lofty goals, but as you explained in your always stirring rhetoric, "You can't succeed, no professional football team succeeds at throwing Hail Mary passes on every play."

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

No, you're not Sparticus

Probably by now you've heard some of Michele Bachmann's latest claptrap, since this is the sort of sound bite practically invented for today's superficial media. Seems that we've become a 'nation of slaves', a depressing notion, but with the way things have been going, hardly a surprising one.

Bachmann was the keynote speaker for the Western Conservative Summit*, a three day leadership event in Denver, and need I mention that the crowd went wild as she told them of her plan for dismantling the slave ship board by board. There doesn't appear to be a transcript, so I'll never know for sure whether or not she shouted 'let my people go'. I do know that death panels reemerged (they never really went away) with an even more ominous agenda - this time sparing only those who are of sufficient value to the Treasury Department. Really? Really. "It is about being useful not to you, not to others, but to the United States Treasury," Bachmann told the crowd of paranoiac zealots. "How useful are you to the United States Treasury? These people are serious. It makes Kevorkian look like Mary Poppins." That's funny. They do have a marked similarity of appearance, and they both believed that a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down.

Bachmann did something else that was fairly remarkable, lay out her dream agenda (and by extension, the agenda of all good conservatives) in as concise and straightforward a manner as I've heard it done. You might want to print this out to show to friends and acquaintances who are too disenchanted to vote this cycle.

"We reform social security, then we reform Medicare, then we pare back welfare to the truly needy, for the truly disabled, because, yes, we can make that determination**. No welfare for those who violate America’s borders. Close and secure American boarders, cut the budget, limit our foreign entanglements for America, then we massively cut spending first, then we cut taxes." Bachmann went on to say that she would privatize social security, and to enumerate the the details of her tax plan. A 20% rate for all individuals, 9% for businesses, and the elimination of capital gains and estate taxes. And finally, the complete repeal of Obama care.

Sure, Bachmann is a wacko, but she outraised Sarah Palin two to one last quarter and leads her own House race by nine points. In case you hadn't noticed, people have developed a real fondness for wackiness lately, an apocalyptic fever of sorts that makes them perfectly willing - eager even - to see the whole place burn. Work on that enthusiasm, people, November is creeping up on little cat feet.

*other featured speakers included kooky Tom Tancredo, shrill pundit Michelle Malkin, third-tier talker Dennis Prager, and excretable toe-sucker Dick Morris.

**Via the conservative version of death panels, I assume.