GOP Putting Politics Over Security

My Kingdom for a Congressional Democrat who would be willing to stand up and say the Republicans are putting politics over the security of the American people!

Well I guess for now Rachel Maddow will have to do...

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Spencer Ackerman PWNS Crazy Pete Hoekstra

Spencer catches Congressman Hoekstra fundraising off of fear mongering over the attempted terrorist attack on Northwest flight 253. Further he hits him over the head with the fact that the terrorist who attempted said attacked is being housed right there in Michigan with all his terrorist super powers and other worldly abilities.

Somebody better get the fainting couch ready! LOL

Dangerous Laughing Stocks

Here is the central problem of our politics today. You have the Democrats led by President Obama who have an agenda they are trying to implement to get our country back on track. Not everything they are doing however is in the best interests of average Americans and or isn't consistent with our Constitution. That's not just my opinion, that's a fact.

But the other major political party has essential decided to eschew any semblence of real and rational arguments against what the Democrats and President Obama are doing, instead choosing to drink from the well of asshatery. Right now there is truly nothing they won't say or do to try to fearmonger against Democrats on any given subject and if that means trying to smear them or trying to smear a group of people in this country and trying to inspire reprisals, hey they are all for it.

Dahlia Lithwick has an excellent piece in Slate about the many legitimate ways the Republican Senators could have criticized Attorney General Holder's reasoning for putting Khalid Sheik Muhammed on trial in federal court in New York. But instead many Senators of the GOP persuasion decided to hold some kind of inquisition about all those "leftist lawyers" now populating the Justice Department who might be terrorist sympathizers.

Seriously.

And the last graf of her piece really puts this all in perspective.

Reasonable people can differ on whether the acts of Sept 11, 2001, were crimes to be handled in court or acts of war to be tried by military tribunals. Experts will never agree on whether criminal trials make us safer or less safe. The 9/11 families also remain split on whether trials or commissions are appropriate. But when you continue to hear that anyone who objects to Bush's detainee policies is unworthy to serve in government, or is part of some elaborate conspiracy to free terrorists, there is truly nothing left to do but laugh.

And yeah she has a point about laughing at them, until you realize that there are people in this country who don't know any better. People will hear Senator Jon Kyl intimate that Attorney General Eric Holder is a terrorist sympathizer and buy it hook line and sinker. People who, still on edge after 9-11, will decide that they HAVE to do something to protect themselves, their family, their friends. People who eventually will attempt to take the law into their own hands because they are being brainwashed into believing that their own government is conspiring against them.

And last night Rachel Maddow took this a step further also focusing on the many Republicans who now think its fine to demean a religion, and to call for the profiling of those who practice Islam.

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Journalists, politicians and regular folks can continue to try to make it seem as if this is just politics as usual but its not. What is happening here is one political party is building up a tension inside this country. A tension that is a lot stronger than disagreements over the free market or tax cuts. A tension that is and has been radicalizing a percentage of our citizenry who increasingly see in the Republican party an almost tacit approval a a violent anti government backlash.

Its time for people to stop holding back on this kind of bullshit and sounding the alarm. What I don't want anybody to say if one or some of these crazy bastards go out and try to target liberals or elected Democratic officials is, "Nobody could have forseen..." The writing is right there on the wall for all to see. And if we don't get these assholes to back off the ending will be predictable. At some point people are going to have to decide if that is acceptable to them, and if not they are going to have to say something.

It is what it is.

Can We Get Somebody To Call This Muthafuka Out?

Uhmmm when exactly are the Democrats planning on nailing the low hanging fruit that is Pete Hoekstra to teh damn wall? Between him and Tom Coburn Democrats should have had people wanting to storm the offices of the RNC by now. I mean seriously, what the fucking fuck?!

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A Twofer On The Rachel Maddow Show

I was going to do separate posts on this but what the hell.

First up, if the Democrats have any sense they will bludgeon Pete Hoekstra into oblivion over this obvious instance of running to the media with sensitive informations. And I don't mean any weaksauce "We are very dissappointed...." bullshit statements either. I mean some "We have serious conscerns and reservations about his ability to continue to serve on this committee..." type statements. Alerting a terrorist to the fact that we are monitoring his email. Are you fucking kidding me? Imagine if Nancy Pelosi had done it. Then flip it and turn it right back on his ass!

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Now as far as this story I just can't understand why in the hell we are continuing to pay for Blackwater or Xe or whatever the hell they are calling themselves this week to be in Iraq after all the crap they have pulled over there. And trusting them to guard our own officials? Unnacceptable!

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Pots And Kettles

I am just wondering if any mainstream media outlet is going to get around to pointing out that one of the people bashing Speaker Pelosi for saying the CIA lied to her, Pete Hoekstra, accused the CIA of covering up a crime just last fall.


Ooops I forgot, IOKIYAR.

The Walkback You Aren't Hearing About

You would think that with all of the "he said, she said" journalism going on with respect to Speaker Pelosi's quote last week that the CIA misled her that when a prominent antagonist of hers had asserted that she was lying and then had to walk it back on a major "Sunday Show" after seeing the actual CIA documents that it would be plastered all over cable news. And you would be wrong.

“I think these documents will be made public. I think that when they are made public it won’t be crystal clear as to what exactly went on in that briefing. …

“Overall, Chris I think it’s pretty clear the speaker either knew or should have known that these enhanced interrogation techniques were occurring. …

“I think the documents for me are pretty clear. For others they may not be as clear.”

Now why in the world wasn't Representative Hoekstra's word featured prominently on "Morning Joe" today as they tried to impugn Speaker Pelosi's credibility? I think we all know the answer to that. Send this video to as many people in the media as you can via twitter or their email addresses and demand they start focusing on the credibility of the CIA as much as they have been focusing on Speaker Pelosi's.

(major h/t to JaO)

Buncha Dumbasses

On the heels of the Democrats in Tennessee pulling off a coup in the State Assembly, we now here this story of a similar coup attempt by the GOP in Virgina. Unfortunately though the Republicans in the Virginia Senate decided to follow the Peter Hoekstra rules to twittering and the end result was an EPIC FAIL!

Apparently Senator Ralph Northam had agreed with Minority Leader Tommy Norment to vote to give Republicans power sharing in the Virginia Senate today.

Before it was announced on the floor and finalized, RPV Chairman Jeff Frederick tweeted about it.

Can you guess what happened next?

The Democrats found out, shut down the session and pulled Northam behind closed doors and gave him the business until he saw the error of his ways. And all because Frederick felt the need to use his crackberry prematurely (I bet his wife hates that). Do these fools think when they send a message on twitter that nobody else can see it? Straight comedy. I really hope the GOP keeps going with their online "rebirth". Its going to make smashing them to bits just that much easier.

(h/t emptywheel)

Intelligence Fail

I would imagine that this story about Congressman Hoekstra twittering to his followers where he and the rest of a Congressional delegation to Iraq are in clear violation of an embargo on that information in the interests of security and keeping the delegation safe will have the RedStaters and the Freepers all in a lather today. Of course that is until they figure out that Hoekstra is a wingnut Republican. IOKAYAR rules and all that. But I will bet you anything that Joe The Plumber is somewhere PISSED right now.

Of course it turns out that this is not his first offense.