OF COURSE He Didn't Read The Bill!

Maybe its just me but I don't think anybody should be surprised that Dick Armey didn't read the stimulus bill. To revise a Chris Rock riff, these days Republicans "love to not know shit". If anything I am mildly surprised that he admitted it. But then again being against reading probably ups his cred with the wingnuts.

OOOOOOOOO This Is Gonna Get Good!

You want further proof that the Tea Baggers are gonna be the end of the GOP?

I was trolling memeorandum this morning having my cup of coffee when I came by this headline:

Dick Armey: Sarah Palin More 'Cheerleader' Than Captain...

Immediately I thought about how this could be the beginning of an all out, no holds barred, flame war between the Dick Armey astroturfed tea bagging crowd and the pro Sarah Palin, truth and knowledge don't matter, denizens. Alas when I clicked on the article Armey didn't really go after her like I thought he would although he did take some digs out of her for basically standing on the sidelines and also not doing the work necessary to become a viable candidate.

But then my dissappointment quickly evaporated as I remembered that wingnuts don't need any actual insults or slights to throw a hissy fit. So I go back over to memeorandum and sure enough there is a link to a post by "Conservatives 4 Palin".

Oh, its on BEYATCH! LOL

Armey really steps in it when he claims Governor Palin is just a "cheerleader". I don't know if he's being misogynistic or merely obtuse, but either way this is beneath the Dick Armey I thought I knew. I'd like to think he's simply having difficulty grasping the possibilities that technology allows in the hands of the right person. Governor Palin has always been a pioneer, both in spirit and in practice. This is who she is and how she has conducted her previous campaigns. She has never done things the conventional way. Perhaps Mr. Armey is unable to grasp the fact that yes, she can and is leading the modern conservative movement in a new and, perhaps, unconventional way. He is living in the past and needs to realize that there are new and better ways of doing things. As someone who has long supported Mr. Armey and his brand of libertarian conservatism for years, I hope this is the reason for his ill-conceived comments today.

snip

Today in a piece for Commentary Magazine, John Podhoretz writes that whatever Governor Palin's is doing to remain an influential player in American polictics is working just fine:

...Sarah Palin is dominating the news once again in advance of the release of her book. Which is to say, front-page stories, the lead stories on the morning shows, all using tiny tidbits of information about the book and a few clips from Monday’s Oprah. Whatever Sarah Palin is, she is also, as all this makes clear, a huge star. With the very prominent exception of Barack Obama, she’s the sensation in American politics this decade. And a person who can make news just by opening her mouth is a person to be reckoned with, a person who is not going away, a person who is going to play a role in American politics for a long time.

It is clear, to say the least, that Mr. Podhoretz has a much better grasp on Governor Palin's influence than Mr. Armey. Dick Armey can either get on board and help, or step aside.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

What makes this particular flame war perfect is that its between to people who are out of elected office and not likely to run again at least for the next 3 years or so. That means neither will have any motivation to hold back or apologize because there are no voters for them to cow tow to. This has all the earmarks of escalating, especially with Palin's history of not just letting things go. And it really doesn't matter who wins, as long as it keeps heating up because no matter what as long as it keeps going its gonna keep fracturing the GOP base.

Now all progressives and liberals, we need to for the most part just get the hell out of the way and let this happen. If we jump in and start antagonising for either side it may well backfire and derail this whole implosion by giving them a common target to unify against. Trust me on this one, they don't need any help at all to make this train wreck happen.

Instead I propose that we all hold back on criticizing Sarah Palin or at least criticizing her as much as we were. As everybody knows I have a moratorium on posting on any Sarah Palin stories (and technically I am still in compliance because this isn't about her per se, this is about the sychophants who follow her and the paid sychophants that follow Armey) and so far the world hasn't come to an end. At this point she has so destroyed her own credibility that you have the AP and even FoxNews jumping out to fact check her before some of our own blogs have a chance to do so.

So instead just sit back, grab some popcorn, and enjoy the fireworks that are sure to come!

An Armey Of Dumbasses

Paul Krugman tries once again to kill the zombie lie that negras and various other poor brown people caused the financial crisis which Dick Armey tries his best to resurrect. This line pretty much says it all.

But in Dick Armey’s world, in fact on the right as a whole, the affirmative-action-made-them-do-it doctrine isn’t even seen as a hypothesis. It’s just a fact, something everyone knows.

Speaking Of Rachel Maddow

Rachel Maddow went on Meet The Press this morning and owned it! The contrast between how she handled herself and how David Gregory just sat there like a lump on a log with all the lies flying around showed for the world to see who should be hosting that show. If NBC has any sense they will make that change before Gregory drives Meet The Press into the ground to the point where it never rebounds back to its former glory.

Here is the podcast.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Here are some choice bits from the show.


What Tom Coburn said in response to David Gregory's question about the over the top rhetoric from the right wing on health care reform:

SEN. COBURN: The, the—but the tone is based on fear of loss of control of their own government. What, what is the genesis behind people going to such extreme statements? What is it? We, we have lost the confidence, to a certain degree, and it’s much worse than when Tom was the, the, the leader of the Senate. We have, we have raised the question of whether or not we’re legitimately thinking about the American people and their long-term best interests. And that’s the question. The, the mail volume of all the senators didn’t go up based on the healthcare debate, the mail volume went up when we started spending away our future indiscriminately. And that’s not Republican or Democrat, that has been a problem for years. But it’s exacerbated now that we’re in the kind of financial situation and economic situation.

Rachel's retort:

MS. MADDOW: I—well, I, I think that anytime you’re trying to stop discussion, I think that’s un-American. But I, I mean, I take issue with the idea that the government has done anything to earn the kind of threats of violence that we have seen.

And Coburn, seeming to not realize that he had just said something on national TV that will probably be on YouTube shortly, said this in response.

SEN. COBURN: I didn’t say that.

Seriously.

Then Rachel turned her sights on Dick Armey

MS. MADDOW: The Tea Party Patriots is an organization that your organization is a member of a coalition with. It’s called the Tea Party Patriots Health Care Freedom Coalition partner. That’s what Freedoms Work***(as spoken)***is, that’s what Americans for Prosperity is. If you go to Tea Party Patriots right now, what they’ve got on their front page of their Web site, the top item, is a video showing the violence at the town hall in Ybor City, in Tampa, Florida, essentially promoting that as if that was a good thing that happened, that showed what the Health Care Freedom Coalition wants to have done in the healthcare debate. FreedomWorks is part of that coalition.

REP. ARMEY: Right.

MS. MADDOW: You can say that you denounce it, but the organization that you head is part of it.

Now at this point Gregory allowed Armey to filibuster and claim that FreedomWorks was as pure as the driven snow and that they weren't like all those other groups that were disruptive. And then Rachel drove the point home again.

MS. MADDOW: Are you a member of the Tea Party Patriots Health Care Freedom Coalition?

REP. ARMEY: I’m a member of FreedomWorks, and FreedomWorks works with many people who fight for and, and argue on behalf of individual liberty.

Now check Rachel out punching David Gregory in the mouth with those pesky facts.

MR. GREGORY: All right, Governor Ritter from Colorado, thanks, as always. Always good to talk to you.

Rachel Maddow, does the president bear some responsibility? Does he undermine his credibility when he makes some claims like, if you like your insurance you can keep your insurance, when a lot of people have said not really; employers could drop people from insurance if they wanted to move people into a public plan, if that existed? It may be an aspiration, but he can’t guarantee it.

MS. MADDOW: It’s the way—what he has suggested would guarantee it. What’s happening, I think where the, where the president has some more responsibility is to give the Congress more direction. I find it strange that we have—the American people have decided that there will be a lot more Democrats in Congress than Republicans. The Democrats have a huge 60-seat majority in the Senate, and therefore they’ve got big majorities on every committee, too. But Max Baucus, who is a Democratic senator, has decide on the Senate Finance Committee, which has this key role in what’s going to happen next, that they won’t have the whole committee do it. It’ll just be three Democrats and three Republicans who are going to make that decision. One of those Republicans is going around the country giving out copies of Glenn Beck’s book and saying that healthcare reform will pull the plug on grandma, Senator Grassley. So for, for, for, for the Democrats in Congress to be essentially giving up their majority, deciding the way this is going to pass, I think is something that the president ought to weigh in on. There’s a reason that Democrats have a 60-seat majority. The American people voted for it, and I think they’d like Democratic bill.

Ouch, that had to burn!

I also loved that she pointed out how ludicruous it is considering the present make up of the Senate for Max Baucus to have an equal number of Democrats and Republicans negotiating the terms of the Senate Finance committee, something you would NEVER hear Gregory point out.

But bigger than that was Rachel's ability to make points and ask questions that Gregory himself should be making to Dick Armey and totally exposing his radical philosophy.

MS. MADDOW: Do you really think that there’s a major uprising of seniors wanting to get out of Medicare? I know you’re suing the government for your right personally to get out of Medicare.

REP. ARMEY: Right.

MS. MADDOW: But do you really think that’s the problem...

SEN. COBURN: Is it...

MS. MADDOW: ...that Medicare—that seniors hate Medicare and they want out?

REP. ARMEY: No, I didn’t say that. Most seniors—I was talking to my minister the other day. My minister says, “Dick, I’m so fortunate I’m in Medicare.” I said, “Bless you, my, my friend that you get to be in it if you choose to be so.” But if you give a government program and you let me choose to be in or choose to be out, that’s generosity. If you force me in, irrespective of my desires, that’s tyranny. Now, if Medicare’s $46 trillion in the red, with no idea how we’re going to pay for it, why, why do they not let people who don’t want to be in out?

MS. MADDOW: This is...

MR. GREGORY: Let me—I want to get it...

REP. ARMEY: I mean, that’s...

MS. MADDOW: Just—I—very briefly.

REP. ARMEY: This, this, this defies logic.

MS. MADDOW: This is a really important point. The anti-healthcare reform lobby thinks that Medicare is tyranny, OK?

REP. ARMEY: I did—I said...

MS. MADDOW: This is an—I mean, you said in 1995 that “Medicare is a program I would have no part of in a free world.”

REP. ARMEY: Right. Absolutely right.

MS. MADDOW: You said in 2002, “We’re going to have to bite the bullet on Social Security and phase it out over a period of time.”

REP. ARMEY: And I’m going to enumerate exactly what I’m talking about. Medicare...

MS. MADDOW: Americans need to know this is your position and this is the position of the anti-healthcare reform lobby.

MR. GREGORY: I’m going to, I’m going to stop this...

REP. ARMEY: This is the Medicare law that was written and...

MS. MADDOW: It’s very important to understand.

REP. ARMEY: The Medicare law that was written by the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee and the chief lobbyists of Blue Cross/Blue Shield, voted on without amendment as an amendment to Social Security, first imposes severe sanctions on physicians and medical providers that don’t comply with its requirements, and it says to seniors at the age of 65 you can no longer buy the insurance that you bought prior to 65. And now by virtue of an internal memo—not a regulation, not a law—they tell seniors today...

MR. GREGORY: All right.

REP. ARMEY: ...if you don’t sign up for Medicare you’ll lose your Social Security.

MR. GREGORY: I want to...

REP. ARMEY: Now, if—you tell me what, what, what that has to do with anybody’s notion of liberty...

MS. MADDOW: Tell me what that has to do with healthcare reform.

Notice that when Rachel starts dismantling Armey David Gregory all of a sudden wanted to just move on. Hmmm I wonder why.

It doesn't take a blind man to see that Rachel would be perfect for the show and that Gregory is in over his head. Someone should tell NBC to get their heads out of their asses and do the right thing before its too late.

P.S. I have to give it to him, Tom Daschle also brought it today too. He wasn't letting Coburn get away with his made up facts at all.

Ladies And Gentlemen, She Got Him!

I have been advocating that Rachel Maddow be recognized in some way for the excellent reporting she has been doing about who is behind the organized opposition to health care reform. Well I don't know if she will win an award but she just bagged a trophy earlier today when Dick Armey had to resign from the DLA Piper lobbying and law firm because of the scrutiny they were cominig from due to his ties to the astro turf group opposing health care reform, Freedom Works. Ties that Rachel helped to expose.

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Ahhh the fruits of righteous labor are really sweet some times.

And the best part of this story hasn't even happened yet Both Rachel and Dick Armey will be on this Sunday's Meet The Press. If you come to this blog with any regularity you know I am a HUGE critic of David Gregory and the right wing framing he puts on that show. But I am pretty sure it will be worth the price of admission this weekend. Plus if we want to get them to book more progressives on the show then we have to tune in when they have someone like Rachel on.

Lets meet up there day after tomorrow, you bring the popcorn, I'll bring the butter.

Shuster Brings Teh Funny

Classic double entendre

What A Dick

DICK Armey showing yet again that Republicans are the most sexist idiots in the world. Funny how whenever a conservative is challenged by an intelligent woman and they can't defend their bullshit they always show their true colors and sink to the gutter. Big ups to Joan Walsh for busting his dumb ass in the mouth with the rethug kryptonite, LOGIC.




P.S. Will somebody tell Tweety to step his damn game up!