Two Days

I was wondering how long it would take for this to happen. From TPM:

One larger issue must be addressed. The Republican Party platform clearly rejects the agenda of homosexual activists. The Party, in the wake of the Mark Foley incident in particular, can no longer straddle the fence on the issue of homosexual behavior. Even setting Senator Craig’s situation aside, the Party should regard participation in the self-destructive homosexual lifestyle as incompatible with public service on behalf of the GOP.

No member of the Republican Party in the 1860s could represent his party and be a slaveholder at the same time. Nor can the Republican Party of today speak with authority and clarity to the moral issues that confront our society and at the same time send ambivalent messages about sexual behavior. It is time for the Republican Party to be the party that defends the American family in word, deed, and by personal example.

Hopefully there will come a day when the republican party can achieve such a level of purity that they can't get elected as dog catcher.

Heh

I find this hilarious. Jonah Goldberg prints a letter from one of his readers which ends:

Conservatives need to turn off the money spigot. We can turn it back on in plenty of time for the general election next year, but right now we need to stop writing checks to any GOP organization and to any candidate who is not explicitly supporting a conservative agenda. If money is the lifeblood of politics, we need to apply a tourniquet and NOW if we're going to get our so-called elected representatives to pay any attention to us and get their heads out of the D.C. bubble. (He said, being charitable.)

I don't find this funny because the GOP base is angry, nor because they think their small donors matter. No, I find this funny because a letter talking about turning off the spigot was printed by a guy who has spent his entire adult life drinking from the hose it fills.

New Low

Not only is the President's approval ratings in the toilet, Rasmussen is reporting a new low for the number of Americans that identify themselves as republicans. From Rasmussen:

A Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of 15,000 adults in May found that just 30.8% now say they’re Republicans. That’s down slightly from last month and down more than six percentage points from the GOP peak of 37.3% during Election 2004. The number of Republicans has been falling fairly steadily since the middle of 2005.

George Bush, killing the republican party one voter at a time.

George Bush The Uniter

Well, it looks like George Bush and the modern republican party have succeeded in uniting the American people on one thing. That being the hatred of George Bush and the modern republican party. In the latest Newsweek poll, only 24% of registered voters identify themselves with the republican party. If you look at the public in general, that number drops to 22%. The Democratic numbers are 36% and 35% respectively.

And if you look at the way Independents have been breaking lately towards the Democrats, the republicans are in real trouble. All this occurs with the deck stacked against us, but if we can keep this momentum to the end of the decade, our gains at the state and local level should allow us to redistrict a lot of districts to make them more winnable. The bottom line is that there are at least another 25-30 seats out there in the US House that we can pick up.

The Republican Party

Yep, this about covers it.

Oh My

I'm glad I put off any birthday debauchery until later in the week, it looks like a pretty target rich environment today.

Old Story Line

One of the great falsehoods that the Gang of 500 seems to believe is that if Congress has the gall to challenge a president, the public will react negatively towards that Congress. This mostly comes from the republican led Congress' attempt to impeach Bill Clinton.

The problem with this line of thinking is that even during the great cum stain scandal, Bill Clinton remained a very popular president. Because of that popularity, there was a backlash. And I would argue that the backlash certainly wasn't catastrophic. Sure, a few guys got ran off Capital Hill, but most of them had their own keeping their pecker in their pocket problems. It certainly didn't lead to a wave style election like the one we saw last November.

In this case however, we have a very unpopular president who only the most extreme partisans support. The vast majority of the public are longing for the kind of investigations that the Democratic led Congress are starting to undertake.

These guys can't tell apples and oranges apart.

Voter Fraud

There is a great op-ed in today's Washington Post by Michael Waldman and Justin Levitt that takes a look at voting fraud allegations and their relevance to the dismissal of US Attorney John McKay.

The fact is that widespread voter fraud as alleged by many republicans simply does not occur. We have a tough enough time getting people to go vote once, let alone get them to vote multiple times. I especially like this great line. From the Washington Post:

But the notion of widespread voter fraud, as these prosecutors found out, is itself a fraud. Firing a prosecutor for failing to find wide voter fraud is like firing a park ranger for failing to find Sasquatch.

This is true, and while the smarter republicans know that this is really about voter suppression, I am stunned by the number who actually believe there is massive voter fraud on the part of Democratic operatives.

It's cultish really, just like those in the GOP who actually believe global warming isn't happening, these people have been so brainwashed by the right wing noise machine that they are no longer capable of rational thought. As has been noted in my absence from blogging though, the world is far too complex for most people to buy into all the GOP talking points without looking like a mindless zombie, and this has an effect on all GOP positions, making them seem, well, just weird to everyday people.

It's a good thing for us, their purity is their poison, and the middle ground in this country isn't looking to swallow it.

Rolling Stone Gets Really Shrill

Wow, The new issue calls the current republican Congress the worst one ever. From Rolling Stone via Attaturk:

“These past six years were more than just the most shameful, corrupt and incompetent period in the history of the American legislative branch. These were the years when the U.S. parliament became a historical punch line, a political obscenity on par with the court of Nero or Caligula — a stable of thieves and perverts who committed crimes rolling out of bed in the morning and did their very best to turn the mighty American empire into a debt-laden, despotic backwater, a Burkina Faso with cable.”

The issue also goes on to name the Ten Worst Congressmen in this Congress which doesn't include those who didn't even make it the full term such as Duke Cunningham (Convicted, In Prison), Bob Ney (Convicted, Sentenced, Awaiting Prison, Yet to Resign), Tom Delay (Indicted, Awaiting Trial, Resigned), and Mark Foley (Resigned, Under Investigation).

Note: This post was stolen almost in its entirety from Attaturk, except that he actually took the time and effort to post the cover of this issue of Rolling Stone, something I'm too lazy to do. If you don't read Attaturk, do yourself a favor and read him.

Tucker Carlson

This past weekend, Tucker Carlson echoed something I wrote a year ago. What did Tucker say? From Atrios:

CARLSON: It goes deeper than that though. The deep truth is that the elites in the Republican Party have pure contempt for the evangelicals who put their party in power. Everybody in...

MATTHEWS: How do you know that? How do you know that?

CARLSON: Because I know them. Because I grew up with them. Because I live with them. They live on my street. Because I live in Washington, and I know that everybody in our world has contempt for the evangelicals. And the evangelicals know that, and they're beginning to learn that their own leaders sort of look askance at them and don't share their values.

MATTHEWS: So this gay marriage issue and other issues related to the gay lifestyle are simply tools to get elected?

CARLSON: That's exactly right. It's pandering to the base in the most cynical way, and the base is beginning to figure it out

I was a little more crude when I wrote this:

Let me let any fundies that are reading this in on Washington's dirty little secret. You guys are considered to be backwoods snake-handling goat fuckers by the pro-business part of the republican party. As with the recent Supreme Court nominations, you get the table scraps the dog wouldn't eat.

I still think that is true. Do you believe me now?

Powerless

Behold the mythical power of the Democratic party. You see, even with its minority status in the House and the Senate, and despite the fact that they do not hold the White House, the republicans are powerless against them.

Why, it was just a few weeks ago in a Senate floor speech that Bill Frist declared that the blame for the "Do Nothing Congress" should not be laid at his feet. He was unable to hold the line against with his superior numbers against the power of being in the minority. Only having fifty-five of the Senate seats in his caucus, fifty-six if you count Lieberman, was no match for the power of having less.

These obstructionists, if you will, were the cause of no major legislation being passed despite the fact that the leaders of this motley band had steadfastly refused to block anything preferring to keep their powder dry.

It continues today, as now Denny Hastert proclaims from his fortress of solitude that blame for the Mark Foley scandal should, in fact, be placed on the Democrats. Yes, these wizards of archaic procedure summoned the ancient power of being out of the loop to know nothing of the impending scandal until it broke in the news. Hastert, with the full disadvantage of knowing fully what was going on for at least six months, never had a chance.

To make matters worse, Hastert's consigliere for this fall's elections had no choice but to keep the potential scandal alive by prodding the Democrat's victim into another term of service. But Hastert could do nothing to stop the irresistible force of being out of the loop. He might be the only true victim in this whole sordid mess.

What o what will these wilting flowers do next as they bear the burden holding power without actually governing? I'm sure they will be happier once they are out of power.

Blame The Victim

Well, it wasn't long after the victim in question received threats which Rodney Alexander R-LA (The page in question's sponsor) described not as death threats, "but close to it," that the right wing blogosphere decided it was definitely appropriate to publish the young man's name. Some guy known as Wild Bill (Never heard of him) first published it with large right wing sites (large by right wing standards anyway) linking to it such as Pajamas Media and Glenn Reynolds.

I rarely write about what goes on in Right Blogistan because, quite frankly it bores me and I surely know that you don't care about it either. The only reason I bring this up is because it is so egregious. Clearly these people were in full knowledge of the previous threats when they chose to publish his name. The only possible motive of bringing the young man's name to light is to put more pressure on someone whose only crime is doing the right thing. It's pathetic behavior.

Oh well, I guess the really important thing to remember about this is that us here in Left Blogistan sometimes write mean thing about syndicated columnists. We're really bad people you know.

Note: None of the above links will take you to a site which reveals the victim's name.

What Are You Wearing

Well, well, well. It looks like the republican House leadership has been covering up for a known predator of children for over a year. US Rep Mark Foley resigned on Friday after it was reveled that he had sent sexually explicit IMs to several underage male pages. Not content with fucking this country's youth thirty years in the future with massive deficit spending, Foley decided to amp up the process.

There is no doubt in my mind that the entire republican House leadership knew about this. John Boehner basically admitted as much when he said that he had talked to Denny Hastert about it in April and Hastert was taking care of it probably in an attempt to throw Hastert under the bus to move up in the leadership in the next Congress, a statement he later retracted.

Well Mr Boehner, whether you talked to Hastert himself or just his office as you now state, after six months it was plainly obvious that it wasn't being "taken care of" and yet you were silent on the issue. You knew, you did nothing. That makes you complicit in covering this matter up. A leaders job is to, in fact lead, and with regards to this matter you showed none of the qualities one is to expect of a leader. Instead, like an ostrich, you shoved your head in the sand, most likely to try to hold seats in this election. You sir, should also resign.

This is what the republican party has become, partisanship above even protecting children from predators. Never again should these people be allowed to rule us.

Jackass

Over at MyDD, Chris Bowers has posted a picture of Joe Lieberman's car parked in a handicapped spot.

Headless Chicken

Want more proof that the entire republican campaign machine is a train wreck. I received this blast fax today a little after 1:00 pm telling me I should vote in yesterday's OH-18 primary. If only they would have sent along the schematics to build a time machine.