Keep America Safe My Ass

The same GOP assholes who think its ok to deprive American citizens of their miranda rights ALSO think that people on the FBI terrorist watch list should be able to buy guns.

Fuck those assholes.

That is all.

Honesty

I don't think many people will ever mistake Senator John Thune for an intellectual heavyweight, but today he said something pretty profound:

Sen. John Thune (R) of South Dakota, a member of the Senate Republican leadership, thinks he knows why Corker is willing to occasionally break party ranks and work with Dems.

"I think he's a guy who's willing to get down into the weeds," said South Dakota Sen. John Thune, who is No. 4 in GOP leadership. "Because [Corker] immerses himself in that and understands it so well -- the positions he adopts may not always be the ones that everyone else in our conference comes to."

Maybe it wasn't so much profound as much as it was unintentionally honest. Simply put in Thune's own words Republican leadership in the Senate isn't interested in policy but Corker is so he may disagree with them on policies that may actually be good for the country but were proposed by Democrats.

This SHOULD be the stuff of a million campaign ads.

hint hint...

They're Not Embarrassed

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Fiscal Responsibiity For Thee But Not For Me: Marco Rubio Edition

Could this be Marco Rubio's John Edwards haircut moment?

U.S. Senate candidate Marco Rubio charged grocery bills, repairs to the family minivan and purchases from a wine store less than a mile from his West Miami home to the Republican Party of Florida while he was speaker of the Florida House, according to records obtained by the St. Petersburg Times/Miami Herald.

Rubio said Wednesday that he paid for all personal expenses billed to an American Express card given to him by the party to use from 2005 to 2008, when he left public office. The rest of the charges, he said, were legitimate party expenses.

Those expenses include a $1,000 charge at Braman Honda in Miami for repairs to the family car in January 2008. Rubio said the minivan was damaged by parking attendants at a political function and that the party agreed to cover half of his insurance deductible. The party also paid $2,976 for him to rent a car in Miami for five weeks.

Rubio said the party allowed him to put personal expenses on the card and the party reviewed his bill monthly.

"I was as diligent as possible to ensure the party did not pay for items that were unrelated to party business," Rubio said in a written statement. "There was no formal process provided by the party regarding personal charges."

But party spokeswoman Katie Gordon said the card was not supposed to be used for personal expenses. "The RPOF American Express card is a corporate card and is meant to be used for business expenses," she said when asked about the party's policy.

IRS rules for political parties, which are tax-exempt, require that their donations go exclusively toward influencing elections.

Records show Rubio sent payments to American Express totaling $13,900 for his personal expenses during his tenure as House speaker. But those payments were not made monthly. He made no contributions to the bill during one six-month stretch in 2007, the records show.

Charges covered by the party as political expenses include:

• $765 at Apple's online store for "computer supplies."

• $25.76 from Everglades Lumber for "supplies."

• $53.49 at Winn-Dixie in Miami for "food."

• $68.33 at Happy Wine in Miami for "beverages'' and "meal."

• $78.10 for two purchases at Farm Stores groceries in suburban Miami.

• $412 at All Fusion Electronics, a music equipment store in Miami, for "supplies."

Rubio's campaign could not find records to explain many of these expenses Wednesday night. But Rubio stressed that GOP staffers also may be responsible for some expenses, since they also had access to the credit card.

Now at this point we all know that this kind of stuff probably won't hurt Rubio with the teabagging GOP base. They don't care about hypocrisy from their candidates, they only care about at least a vocal adherence to their right wing ideology. As long as Rubio continues to paint himself as anti tax, anti Obama and anti spending, he will still probably give Charlie Crist all he can handle in the GOP primary.

But moderates and independents are a different breed. Rubio living high off the hog with his GOP credit card while preaching fiscal responsibility,reducing spending and "shared responsibility" is not likely to sit well with the majority of Florida's general election voters. As progressives we have to continue to hit Rubio and Crist hard over these kinds of issues because whether anyone thinks Congressman Meek has a chance in the Senate race here in Florida, he is a MAJOR upgrade over both of those folks.

How Do You Spell Hypocrisy? G O P

Feb. 22 (Bloomberg) -- Alabama Republicans Jo Bonner and Robert Aderholt took to the U.S. House floor in July, denouncing the Obama administration’s stimulus plan for failing to boost employment. “Where are the jobs?” each of them asked.

Over the next three months, Bonner and Aderholt tried at least five times to steer stimulus-funded transportation grants to Alabama on grounds that the projects would help create thousands of jobs.

They joined more than 100 congressional Republicans and several Democrats who, after voting against the stimulus bill, wrote Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood seeking money from $1.5 billion the plan set aside for local road, bridge, rail and transit grants. The $862 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act passed last year with no Republican votes in the House and three in the Senate.

Bonner said opposing the stimulus doesn’t mean he shouldn’t help Alabama projects compete for grants. “It is my role to ensure that their request is considered by the federal agency,” he said in an e-mail.

Alan Simpson, a former Republican senator from Wyoming named by President Barack Obama as co-chairman of a new deficit- reduction commission, said about-faces on government funding aren’t surprising.

“It’s the original sin of Washington -- it’s hypocrisy,” Simpson said. “You can’t do that then say you go out and cut the other stuff.”

Bloomberg

Democrats have found an issue that will resonate with moderates in my opinion and that is for all their bashing of the stimulus bill, Republicans themselves have stated in letters asking for stimulus money that it would in fact create jobs. That's hypocrisy plain and simple my friend and Democrats would be well served to resist the temptation to be nice and actually use that word for a change.

Shots Fired!

Excellent attack ad on GOP hypocrisy over the Stimulus Bill. One thing about it though is Democrats have to learn to start using scarier music. Sets the mood a bit better lol. Still, damn good in my opinion.

Must See TV

According to Nielsen ratings The Rachel Maddow show has lost quite a bit of its viewership over the course of President Obama's first year. I can honestly say that I can't imagine why that is. If you thought Rachel's show was interesting and worth watching before the election, it has only gotten better in my estimation since that time. And I say that even acknowledging that I don't always agree with her point of view. Last night she was particularly AWESOME in calling out the hypocrisy of Congressional Republicans which seemingly knows no bounds at this point.

The only question I have at this point is why aren't the rest of the so called news hosts on MSNBC actually paying attention to her reporting on a vast number of issues? I say reporting because that is exactly what it is. There is no denying that Rachel is a progressive through and through, but she brings facts to the table, not just hyperbole. And bigger than that she isn't above making corrections when she makes mistakes. Combine that with her appearances on Meet The Press which have been like a breath of fresh air and its high time the rest of the mainstream media, including her own network, start taking her a helluva lot more seriously!

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Wow, That Was Fast

A Good Start...

Dan Pfeiffer has taken to the White House blog to call out Richard Shelby:

Yesterday, just hours after the Senate voted 96-0 to confirm Martha Johnson as the Administrator of the GSA after a pointless 9-month delay, we learned that Sen. Richard Shelby from Alabama has placed a blanket hold on all nominees, including national security nominees, to use as leverage for some projects in his state. He's holding up 70 nominees, among them top intelligence officials at the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security. According to the National Journal, he’s holding them up until two defense contracts that would benefit interests in his state can be fast-tracked.

Let's be clear: Sen. Shelby is preventing qualified nominees who will help protect the American people from being confirmed. He’s not alone, though. This is just the latest example of this kind opposition for opposition’s sake that the President talked about earlier this week.. This strategy of obstruction is preventing qualified people from doing their jobs on behalf of the American people and it’s preventing real work from getting done in Washington. Every minute spent needlessly blocking noncontroversial nominees, many of whom go on to be confirmed by 70 or more votes or by voice vote (nine of the President’s nominees so far), is a minute not spent on the issues that matter to American families.

Now that is definitely a good start, but it reaches only those who go onto the blog and the few MSM places where they repost it and excerpt it. Robert Gibbs also called out Shelby earlier in the day, but still to drive this home we need more. What needs to happen now is that President Obama himself needs to step up to the plate and explain what Senator Shelby did and why. Its a situation that is easily explained and will be easily digested by the American people. And THEN when people can actually see for themselves WHY Washington isn't working they will at least know where to cast blame.

Now don't get me wrong, people still want results and this won't completely let Democrats off the hook. But at the very least they won't buy as much of the bullshit getting shoveled at them by the Republicans.

Just How Far Will He Go In Calling Out The GOP?

We have a test right now of President Obama that I hope he passes with flying colors. See Senator Richard Shelby has decided to put a hold all of the administrations nominees hostage until he gets funding for one of his earmarks back home in Alabama. Yes, ALL of them.

The truth is, this couldn't be teed up any better for Obama to knock it ocmpletely out of the park, but I worry that he won't step up to the plate and give himself the victory that might actually change the dynamic of what has been happening in the Senate.

Here is what I think has been one of the central problems with the White House in terms of communications since Obama has been in office, the fact that they seem to believe that the average American understands what goes on in the Congress, more specifically the Senate, and therefore they don't need things spelled out for them. Well that's about the dumbest mindset they could have possibly adopted. Most people are too busy going along trying to make it every day to even pay attention to the details of what happens in Congress. What they see are either the results or the lack thereof and maybe just a little bit of spin by either side on why something did or didn't happen.

So here is an opportunity to both educate the American people AND put Senator Shelby ON BLAST. As it happens they don't really have to mention him by name, all they have to do is refer to his home state and that will be quite good enough. If President Obama goes on TV and tells the American people that there is a Senator who railed against earmarks last year who has now put a hold on imminently qualifed people who we need to be allowed to take their jobs for our government to work, all so he can get funding for earmarks for his state of Alabama, I predict that there will be a serious shift in public opinion both about President Obama and the two political parties.


Look this isn't the first instance of Republicans being hypocrites and it won't be the last, but its at least one of the most egregious and one of the easiest to explain where average people can understand it without having to think to hard about it. And as they hear it and process it the outrage will come.

But will President Obama actually use this as a "teachable" moment? One can only hope....

Family Values And All That

Karl Rove just divorced his wife. I am sure most folks feel he did her a favor but its just another example of right wing hypocrisy on social issues. I wonder if he got caught hiking the Appalachian Trail lol.

Knowing Karl Rove he will now call out President Obama for having a good marriage as further proof that he is against freedom.

Republican Congressman Henry Brown Of South Carolina Hates Baby Jesus

Well what else are we to assume after he sent a "Happy Holidays" newsletter instead of a Christmas newsletter to his constituents last December?

GOP hypocrisy, its a feature not a bug.

What Indoctrination REALLY Looks Like!

C'mon wingnuts, lets see you freak out over this!

Hypocrisy Thy Name Is Bobby

Hypocrisy is a feature of the GOP not a bug and nobody embodies it any better than Bobby Jindal.

Never Forget That Mark Sanford Was Supposed to Be The Standard Bearer For Conservativism

Governor Mark Sanford is just the latest in a long line of Republicans who claim to be conservatives and preach to others about saving taxpayer money but exercise screaming hypocrisy in their own lives.


From the AP:

COLUMBIA, S.C. – South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford used state aircraft for personal and political trips, often bringing along his wife and children — contrary to state law regarding official use, an Associated Press investigation has found.

Records reviewed by the AP show that since he took office in 2003, the two-term Republican has taken trips on state aircraft to locations of his children's sporting events, hair and dentist appointments, political party gatherings and a birthday party for a campaign donor.

According to state budget law, "Any and all aircraft owned or operated by agencies of the State Government shall be used only for official business."

On March 10, 2006, a state plane was sent to pick up Sanford in Myrtle Beach and return him to Columbia, the state capital, at a cost of $1,265 — when his calendar showed his only appointment in Columbia was "personal time" at his favorite discount hair salon. He had flown to Myrtle Beach on a private plane and attended a county GOP event.

The trip home on the state aircraft took off at 1:50 p.m. and arrived in Columbia at 2:35 p.m., enabling the governor to keep his plans for a 3 p.m. haircut across town. There were no other appointments on his official schedule that afternoon; the trip back to Columbia would have taken about three hours by car.

Also, on five of the last six Thanksgiving weekends, Sanford used a state plane to fly himself, his wife and their four sons from the family's plantation in Beaufort County to Columbia for the state Christmas tree lighting. The cost for those flights alone: $5,536, including $2,869 for flying the plane empty to pick them up.

Sanford, 49, has been under increased scrutiny since he admitted in June to having a mistress in Argentina. He's vowed to stay in office and says he is trying to reconcile with his wife, though she moved out of the governor's official residence on Friday with their sons and plans to spend the school year at the family's beach house.

The governor has made a political career out of being outwardly thrifty — known to demand that state employees use both sides of Post-It notes. He has frequently railed against government spending, and attempted for months to block federal stimulus money for South Carolina schools.

Last month, the AP revealed how Sanford had flown first class and business class on commercial airlines at taxpayer expense, despite a law requiring lowest-cost travel.

On many occasions, records show, the governor mingled his non-official travels with official business.

For example, on March 23, 2005, Sanford flew on a state plane from Columbia to Mount Pleasant, near the beach house, where the governor was scheduled for a 5 p.m. appointment with a dentist. Later that day, he had a TV interview before speaking at a Republican Party event for Charleston, Berkeley and Dorchester counties along with U.S. Sens. Lindsey Graham and Jim DeMint.

Such mingling also is problematic under South Carolina regulations.

Aeronautics Division rules say that "under no circumstances shall aircraft owned and operated by" the division "be used for personal or politically partisan purposes." But there's no clear enforcement mechanism for such violations; the division says it simply lets citizens know that statements attesting to official use of the planes are open to public inspection.

And yet you still have mental midgets out there that worship these guys just for their rhetoric. It really makes you wonder what exactly Republicans would have to do to lose support from their base. Obviously hypocrisy is A OK with them.

Fiscal Responsibility? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

You just have to sit back and appreciate the hypocrisy involved in the GOP voting enmasse against Pay Go rules yesterday. The DCCC didn't let them slide on it either.

House Democrats passed a budget rule called PAYGO today that requires new entitlement spending bills passed during this Congress to be deficit neutral -- meaning paid for. Under the statutory pay-as-you-go rule, theoretically a tax cut would be offset by a spending cut and a spending increase by a tax increase.

PAYGO passed 265 to 166, with all but 24 Republicans voting against it and all but 13 Democrats supporting it. A press release was distributed to media outlets in 40 GOP districts, including party leaders John Boehner (Ohio), Eric Cantor (Va.), Mike Pence (Ind.) and Pete Sessions (Texas).

"Today, when given a chance to match all her tough talk about fiscal responsibility with a vote on restoring pay-as-you-go policy, Representative Mary Bono Mack just said no," DCCC spokesman Ryan Rudominer said in a release to the California Republican's district. "Representative Bono Mack's vote against Statutory PAYGO after all her rhetoric about the need for fiscal discipline proves yet again that Bono Mack will say one thing at home and do the opposite in Washington."

For anybody who is a politics junkie this really isn't all that surprising, but I think independents will be might surprised to find out just how big of hypocrites the GOOPers in the House are when it comes to fiscal responsibility.

Now the question is, will any of the Villagers even bother to point this vote out?

In Which He Presumes And Proceeds To Speak For God

Just when you thought Mark Sanford couldn't come off as any more of a self serving prick.

So in the aftermath of this failure I want to not only apologize, but to commit to growing personally and spiritually. Immediately after all this unfolded last week I had thought I would resign - as I believe in the military model of leadership and when trust of any form is broken one lays down the sword. A long list of close friends have suggested otherwise - that for God to really work in my life I shouldn’t be getting off so lightly. While it would be personally easier to exit stage left, their point has been that my larger sin was the sin of pride. They contended that in many instances I may well have held the right position on limited government, spending or taxes - but that if my spirit wasn't right in the presentation of those ideas to people in the General Assembly, or elsewhere, I could elicit the response that I had at many times indeed gotten from other state leaders.

Their belief was that if I walked in with a real spirit of humility then this last legislative term could well be our most productive one - and that outside this term, I would ultimately be a better person and of more service in whatever doors God opened next in life if I stuck around to learn lessons rather than running and hiding down at the farm.

Isn't it covenient that he never heard from God when he was all too happy to condemn and judge President Clinton?

At this point I hope he DOES stay so that the hypocrisy of the GOP can be exposed for the next year and and half as Democrats hold him up as the standard bearer for the Republican Party all over this country.

And there is going to be a special place in hell reserved for him whenever he leaves this earth.

"Almost Admirable" Revisited

I know a lot of Villagers, not surprisingly most of them men, are trying their best to excuse South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford for sleeping around on his wife simply because he admitted to it in a press conference. A press conference he HAD to have after he went AWOL for almost a week and an enterprising journalist on a haunch caught him flying back into town from Argentina. You know from my earlier post that I am not buying that particular line of bullshit at all. And now I want all of those "forgiving" MSM types to read this tidbit from a New York Times article on Sanford's wife, Jenny.

Through a spokeswoman, Mrs. Sanford declined requests to be interviewed for this article, but told The Associated Press she learned of her husband’s affair early this year when she found a letter he had written. She told him to end the relationship, but he repeatedly asked permission to visit the woman in Argentina in the months that followed.

“I said absolutely not,” Mrs. Sanford told The A.P. “It’s one thing to forgive adultery. It’s another to condone it.”

Then, last week, when the governor told her he needed time alone to write, she had specifically warned him not to see his mistress. She said she was devastated when he went to meet her in Argentina.

In my earlier blog post I asked these journalists to imagine if it was their wife who did the cheating. But now I would ask them to imagine it was their daughter who was married to Mark Sanford. And after she specifically asked him not to see his mistress while he "needed time alone" he not only went, but planned to be there for 10 days initially and couldn't even find 2 minutes to call his sons for Father's Day.

What he did was disgusting and the people trying to pooh pooh it are just as disgusting in my opinion.

Update: I personally don't think that anybody who watches "Morning Joe" for more than five minutes takes anything Mike Brzezinski says seriously. However on the off chance that a few people do MediaMatters absolutely ANNIHILATES her false equivalency and erroneous contrast between how Republicans and Democrats are treated when they engage in sex scandals.

I swear, she must have been adopted.

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.

"Really Extraordinary"

Barney Frank is really really GREAT!