By Ebbtide
(Part 2 of 2)
Welcome back. We got halfway through the parade of states in
our quest to determine if the wingnuts are the fringy outliers or if they’re
actually the mainstream of the Republican Party (I think you know by now what
MY opinion is.)
So let’s pick up where we left off. Sit back and relax—a wee
bit of alcohol might be in order—as we explore the words, wisdom and whackiness
of Republicans.
Montana
Montana has had same-day voter registration since 2005. So
how’s it working out?
Montana
Rep. Clarena Brockie (D-Harlem) told the Missoulian that about 8,000 people
“registered on Election Day in November 2012, including about 1,100 Native Americans.”
Well, we can’t have that now, can we? Republicans
in Montana approved a House committee bill to end Election Day voter
registration, claiming they want to make things more convenient for county
election officials.
Republicans are predictable, if nothing else.
Nebraska
There once was a sane Republican Senator from Nebraska. His
name was Chuck Hagel. Oh, those were the good old days. Now the Republicans
hate him with the heat of a thousand suns because Obama likes him. Surprise,
surprise.
So what have those Cornhuskers been up to lately? Way back
during the 2012 primaries, Charles Pierce explained what
it would mean if Deb Fischer won the primary:
In
this case, she would demonstrate that a candidate endorsed by the Club For
Growth (Stenberg) and another one backed by both the Tea Party Express and
Citizens United (Bruning) can be rendered insufficiently conservative. This leaves the state party on the
ideological scale somewhere to the right of an Uzi.
She won (with the help of you-know-who—Pierce refers to her
as Rootin' Princess Dumbass of The Northwoods) and then went on to best Bob
Kerrey and become Nebraska’s new senator. Deb’s too new to have much of a track
record yet, (although she was the only female senator who did NOT co-sponsor the Violence Against Women Act) but based on Pierce’s prediction…
What else has been going on in Nebraska? Here’s a quick look:
February,
2011: LB 232, was introduced by state Sen. Mark Christensen (a die-hard
abortion foe who is opposed to (abortion) even in the case of rape.) It would allow
not only a pregnant woman, her husband, her parents, or her children to commit
"justifiable homicide" in defense of her fetus, but would apply to
any third party.
April,
2012: Nebraska Gov. Dave
Heineman (R) has signed every anti-abortion bill that has crossed his desk
since he was elected, including one that bans abortions after 20 weeks of
gestation -- the most restrictive in the country.
January, 2013: Nebraska Voter ID Legislation Introduced
And here’s a depressing thought:
Red
Nebraska has turned crimson:
For the first time in 36 years, the state fields an all-Republican
congressional delegation in Washington. Not since 1970 have Republicans held
all the major congressional and statewide offices in Nebraska, including the
governorship.
Nevada
From “second-amendment solutions” Sharon Angle to Senator
Dean Heller (who stepped in when adulterer/hypocrite/blackmailer John Ensign
stepped down) Nevada, despite being home to Harry Reid and Las Vegas is nuttier
than many a fruitcake.
That
was then: Back in July 2006, Heller
told the Las Vegas Review-Journal: "I'm a Mormon and I teach Sunday school
every week, but I do back a woman's right to choose abortion. It is the
conservative position."
This is now: Since
entering Congress, however, the GOP lawmaker has voted consistently for
legislation sought by abortion foes.
Heller called the Paycheck Fairness Act a “war on free
enterprise.”
TIMEOUT—I’M THROWING NEVADA
REPUBLICANS A BONE!
Feb 1, 2013 Nevada
Republicans became the first state GOP party to endorse comprehensive
immigration with a clear path to citizenship.
The GOP has
increasingly found itself in positions that do not meet the demographic
realities of the State’s electorate. These positions also conflict with our
party’s historic commitment to civil rights. To that end, Republicans must
become more inclusive, reflecting our desire to secure a better life for all
Americans, and equally important, for our children.
A spark of sanity on the right. Good job, Nevada. Now let’s
get back to reality.
New Hampshire
“Where’s the Girl?” Kelly Ayotte (thanks, Wonkette) has
become the third amigo (amiga?) to John McCain and Lindsey Graham since Deputy
Dawg, Joe Lieberman, rode off into the sunset.
When the three went on their BENGHAZI!!!! Media Tour (rather
than attend the briefings that explained what happened—See Ron Johnson,
Wisconsin for more), Ayotte was front and center. (well, she was actually on
the right.
She also went so far as threatening
to place an unprecedented (in modern times) hold on a secretary of state
nominee.
Did I mention she’s a big fan of “enhanced interrogation
techniques?
BE VERY AFRAID
“She really is a rising star in the
Republican Party,” McCain said of
her once. “I can see her being very seriously considered for both vice
president, and certainly over time, for the presidential nomination.”
We all know what a recommendation from
Walnuts brought us the last time around. Matter of fact, the article this comes from is
entitled, “A Romney in Palin Clothing: The Political Style of Kelly Ayotte”
New Jersey
I know Chris Christie has become a media and Democratic
darling for taking a sane stance on Sandy Relief, damning Republicans for their
bull-headedness and being honest about President Obama’s response. But
remember, he STILL supported and voted for Romney; he STILL hates unions and
teachers and anyway, it doesn’t matter if Christie is sane—it just makes the
Republicans hate him more.(He’s the actual No True Scotsman in a roundabout,
rotund way.)
New Mexico
New Mexico has some fine Democratic Representatives, and
then there’s Republican Steve Pearce. He’s all for personhood for embryos, school
prayer and the Pledge of Allegiance, and very much against gays getting
married, gays in the military (basically gays anywhere). He’s A-OK with the
NRA, wants to abolish income taxes, supports drug-testing for unemployment
benefits, and, oh, he’s a bit of a birther. He drew criticism
from local media after an event in Los Lunas where he refused to say whether he
believes Barack Obama is a natural-born U.S. citizen.
He’s also one of
those who voted against Boehner for speaker. (Before you get too excited, he
was mad at Boehner for negotiating on the fiscal cliff, and wanted Eric Cantor.)
Cathrynn Brown, the legislator who wants to make rape victims give birth because otherwise they'll be "tampering with evidence" is also from NM.
Cathrynn Brown, the legislator who wants to make rape victims give birth because otherwise they'll be "tampering with evidence" is also from NM.
New Mexico does have a GOP Latina governor, Susanna
Martinez, who appears to be mainly sane. Although she is vehemently against granting
driver’s licenses to undocumented people and opposes same-sex marriage, she dud actually called Romney out for some of his crazier crap.
She’s smart, she’s Latina, but she’s a woman, she’s
sane—it’s only a matter of time until the GOP turns against her.
New York
Blustery, bloviating Peter King did chew some Republican
butt about Sandy,(then he mostly walked back the next day), but don’t be
fooled. He is a HUGE Islamophobe. He has held not 1, not 2 but FIVE hearings on,
as Salon describes it King’s
witch hunt. And on The Daily Beast, Peter
Beinart tells how the GOP’s shameful religious intolerance obscures the real
homeland threat.
The Daily Beast article also points out how King was a big
supporter of the Irish Republican Army and that
According
to Mother Jones, King refused to condemn an IRA attack that killed nine police
officers. He even complained that the FBI was harassing him for his IRA ties.
North Carolina
“La la la, I can’t hear you” could be the North Carolina
state motto. Not about to believe that “sciency stuff,” North Carolina recently
passed a law that bans the state from basing coastal policies on the latest
scientific predictions of how much the sea level will rise. (Did I mention that
Republicans have had complete control of the NC legislature since 2010?)
But hey, that’s small-time stuff. Who’s calling the shots for
NC in DC? Well, lookie there, it’s Virginia Foxx, the meanest woman in Congress
now that Mean Jean Scmidt is gone.
Virginia, who recently threw a hissy fit about sharing an
elevator with mere mortals is
The
same woman who voted against aid for Hurricane Katrina victims and against
the renewal of the Voting Rights Act; the same woman who claimed that Matthew
Shepard’s murder wasn’t a hate crime, going so far as to call it a “hoax”
She’s also an educator who wants zero federal funding for
education, a mother who is against school lunch programs and boy does she hate
people having health care!
"We have more to
fear from the potential of [the Affordable Health Care for America Act] passing
than we do from any terrorist right now in any country."
North Dakota
Heidi Heitkamp, the newly elected senator from ND might not
be the most progressive Dem on the block, but the guy the Republicans put up
against her, Rick Berg, once voted
to imprison victims of incest or rape who chose to have abortions. In 2007,
Rick Berg voted for legislation -- HB 1489 -- that would have subjected a
pregnant 15 year old victim of rape or incest to a AA felony criminal charge if
she chose to abort the product of the rape. True story. He voted with 19 other radical, right-wing
North Dakota Republicans to make it a AA felony for a rape victim to get an
abortion. The bill was defeated 20 to 69
in the North Dakota legislature.
And he lost that Senate election by only 2,836 votes.
Ohio
Oh you Buckeyes. Yeah, mean Jean Schmidt is gone and
Boehner, in comparison to his fellow GOP travelers, doesn’t appear to be
totally insane, but you DID nominate (not) Joe the (non) Plumber for
congress…and you did run that weasel, Josh Mandel (and spent a bloody fortune
on him) for the senate. But the biggest GOP blot on Ohio is Governor John
Kasich. Johnny’s a Wall Street guy who wants to privatize everything from
prisons to development (and
woe be unto anyone who disagrees with him)
and liquor
control. He’s thought about selling off the turnpike and the lottery as
well.
He lost his war against unions, when Ohio citizens rose up,
yelled loudly, and voted
accordingly, but that won’t stop Kasich from doing whatever he can to serve
his corporate masters in the future.
Kasich is sarcastic and arrogant and can be downright nasty.
I believe this little ditty about his feelings for a cop who stopped him for a
traffic violation kind of says it all.
That’s Kasich’s story and he’s sticking to it, but Plunderbund
has the full story, including the video of the actual stop. BUSTED.
And just for Cheeriogirl, here’s a story on Rep.
Jim Renacci’s RandPaulian view on civil
rights.
Oklahoma
Tom Coburn is often portrayed as the guy who can get along
with Democrats. He’s friendly and usually congenial, but don’t let the façade fool
you. Tommy first showed his far-right leanings back when he was in the House
when he protested the showing of “Schindler’s List” on television, saying, TV
had been taken "to an all-time low,
with full-frontal nudity, violence and profanity." Way to miss the
point.
When John Ensign was conducting his adulterous affair, he
and Tom were housemates in the C-Street
abode. Coburn (who is an ob/gyn mind you) claimed doctor/patient privilege
as well as putting forth than he was a “deacon” to keep from answering questions about Ensign.
He’s also famous for blocking bills in the Senate—including veterans’
bills and, incredibly, a bill to recognize Rachel Carson, because Coburn didn’t
like her views on insecticides. (Apparently, Tom’s a fan of DDT.) He also
single-handedly held up funding for the 9-11 Memorial Museum. He’s blocked a
transportation bill because it included things he didn’t like—like bike paths.
Basically, Coburn is a “do-it-my-way or I’m taking my ball and going home” kind
of guy.
And then there’s his fellow senator, James Inhofe. Here’s
Inhofe’s informed view of the climate change “hoax” (he thinks it’s a
conspiracy and has even written a book
about it.)
“My
point is, God’s still up there. The arrogance of people to think that we, human
beings, would be able to change what He is doing in the climate is to me
outrageous.”
Science Week has labeled him an enemy of science, The Daily
Beast calls him The
Craziest Senator. He’s a birther; he’s called the EPA “a Gestapo bureauocracy”;
about Abu Ghraib, he said he was “more outraged by the outrage” than he was by
the treatment of detainees.
As recently as last
week, Inhofe, during the Chuck Hagel hearings,
actually cited an article by total nutball Jennifer Rubin.
Oregon
Whew, Oregon is a welcome break from Oklahoma. Two Dem
Senators, all but one Dem Reps (and even their Republican guy, Greg Walden,
seems pretty sane), the only state in the country with no abortion
restrictions.
Now at the state level, it’s another story. Oh, the Dems
pretty much have things under contro (the GOP hasn’t won a statewide race in 10
years), which is a good thing,. Because the GOP
can’t seem to control themselves at all. After one GOP Rep got caught for
some nasty business with a young staffer, seven others spent a rowdy night at a
topless bar in California. And just this pasat December, one GOP
County chair got booted when he
claimed that Democrats were to be equated with communists seeking “utopian
enslavement” and that liberalism was an atheistic cult.
Pennsylvania
Let’s see, Pennsylvania offers us Club For Growth champion,
Pat Toomey, who was all for shutting the government down during the fiscal
discussions in January; Lou Barletta,
whose opposition to immigration is because immigrants won’t vote for
Republicans (so he’ll insult them to make CERTAIN they don’t). Said the erudite
Mr. B.
“The
majority that are here illegally are low-skilled or may not even have a high
school diploma. The Republican Party is not going to compete over who can give
more social programs out. They will become Democrats because of the social
programs they’ll depend on.”
Then there’s Governor Corbett, who sat on the Jerry Sandusky
investigation while he was running for governor (and taking contributions from
Second Mile folks), and whose handling of the Sandusky matter is now
being investigated by the newly elected Democratic
Attorney General.
And don’t forget, Pennsylvania also gave us the charming Rick
Santorum.
Rhode Island
Not much to say about Republicans in Rhode Island. There
aren’t that many and most are moderates. PPP just did a “preview” poll of
potential GOP candidates to run against Jack Reed and recorded the most
lopsided result in their polling history when Reed was pitted against former
pitcher Kurt Schilling—75% to 10%.
But even in a sane state like Rhode Island, Republicans want
to impeach Obama. According
to PPP:
Obama's
approval in Rhode Island is a pretty solid 59/36 spread. But even in a state
known for having comparatively moderate Republicans, 44% of them want to
impeach Obama to 37% who are opposed.
South Carolina
Where to start. How about former Lt. Governor Andre Bauer
(who wasn’t teabaggy enough to get the Republican nomination when he ran for
the House last year) saying:
“My grandmother was not a highly educated woman, but she
told me as a small child to quit feeding stray animals. You know why? Because
they breed…You’re facilitating the
problem if you give an animal or a person ample food supply. They will
reproduce, especially ones that don’t think too much further than that. And so
what you’ve got to do is you've got to curtail that type of behavior. They
don’t know any better.”
Then there’s teabaglady governor, Nikki Haley:
Haley
threw women across the state under a bus by abandoning funding that
prevents domestic abuse and sexual assault and then added insult to injury by
explaining that battered and assaulted women are a “small portion” of society
and are mere “distractions” who don’t matter.
“Each of these lines
attempts to serve a portion of our population for which we extend our sympathy
and encouragement,” Haley said. “But nevertheless, it is only a small portion
of South Carolina’s chronically ill or abused. Overall, these special add-on
lines distract from the agency’s broader mission of protecting South Carolina’s
public health.”
Add in that the entire Republican contingent (House and
Senate) voted against the Sandy bill because, as you know, being from South
Carolina they’re unfamiliar with hurricanes.
And there you have it. Proof positive that James L. Petigru
could foresee the future, when in 1860 he said, "South Carolina is too
small for a republic and too large for an insane asylum."
South Dakota
South Dakota has two senators, a Dem and a relatively sane
Republican. SD has only one representative, and in the last election, the
choice was:
Who
do you want representing you, South Dakota? A disgusting hippie who loves
“cap and trade” and taught at the Biosphere and has a master’s degree? Or this
nice lady with the awesome hair who was named “young farmer of the year” by the
“Waterstown JC.
Guess who they chose?
Tennessee
There’s so much crazy in Tennessee, we’ll have to limit it
to one anecdote per wingnut.
Lamar Alexander’s contribution to the gun issue was , “You know, I think video games is [sic] a
bigger problem than guns because video games affect people.”
(They might affect people Lamar, but they generally don’t
leave them DEAD. Ah, I’ll go easy on Lamar, because compared to his TN
colleagues, he’s the sane one.)
Bob Corker’s latest behavior during the Hillary Clinton testimony is, I believe,
summed up quite handily in this one comment at KnoxViews..
HRC whipping Bob Corker like a rented mule over diplomacy and readinessBy: metulj
NYTimes has it on TimesCast. She's called him on every BS-got-it-straight-from-Sean- Hannity line he's puked. Keep watching. It is setting up as atour de force.
Scott DesJarlais was the pro-life,
family-values congressman who
worked as a doctor before winning election as a Tea Party-backed Republican and who had
an affair with a patient and later pressured her to get an abortion. He won
re-election in 2012.
Diane Black, not satisfied with ONE defund Planned
Parenthood bill being filed within the first 2 days of the 113 Congress devoted
her precious time to filing an identical bill to the one filed the day before
by…
Marsha Blackburn. And when Blackburn’s not busy trying to
put Planned Parenthood out of business, she’s offering her views about why guns
aren’t such a problem, "But the
problem is that it could be a hammer, a hatchet, a car, a gun.” (It could
be an invasion from out space too, Marsha.) When health care passed, Marsha had
a sad and said, :“Freedom dies a little
bit today.”
Marsha’s latest big concern is the President’s skeet
shooting, because, “If he is a skeet
shooter, why have we not heard of this? Why have we not seen photos? Why has he
not referenced it at any point in time as we have had this gun debate that is
ongoing?” (man—she talks like Palin.
And she challenged Obama to a skeet-shooting contest—didn’t Sarah want to race
him? Or shoot hoops? Or something stupid?)
Texas
It’s a big state, so it has LOTS of wingnuts.
Who can forget (dancing star and felon)Tom DeLay who said . "Guns have little or nothing to do
with juvenile violence. The causes of youth violence are working parents who
put their kids into daycare, the teaching of evolution in the schools, and
working mothers who take birth control pills."
Then there’s Tom Head, Lubbock
County Judge, who had/has great fears about Obama’s second term.
“He's
going to try to hand over the sovereignty of the United States to the UN, and
what is going to happen when that happens?,” Head asked.
“I'm
thinking the worst. Civil unrest, civil disobedience, civil war maybe. And
we're not just talking a few riots here and demonstrations, we're talking
Lexington, Concord, take up arms and get rid of the guy.
You
may remember Representative Joe Barton as the politician who apologized to the
head of BP in 2010 after the government dared to insist that the company pay
for those whose livelihoods were ruined by the gulf oil spill.
Barton
cited the Almighty in questioning energy from wind turbines. Careful, he
warned, “wind is God’s way of balancing heat.”
Clean energy, he said, “would
slow the winds down” and thus could make it hotter. You never know.
“You
can’t regulate God!”
Terror Babies--Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX), greatly fears a diabolical
20- to 30-year plot by terrorists to have babies born in the United States,
then taken abroad and trained as terrorists before eventually returning here as
U.S. citizens (thanks to birthright citizenship) to commit heinous crimes. (The Texas State rep at the beginning of this clip might be even more insane than Gohmert.)
Chickenhawk, never-served Ted Cruz said about decorated
Vietnam War veterans, John Kerry and Chuck Hagel: “We’ve got two pending
nominations, John Kerry and Chuck Hagel. Both of whom are very prominently…less
than ardent fans of the U.S. military,” Cruz said,
Tea
Party Texas Sen. Ted Cruz made his big-time national debut today hectoring
Defense nominee Chuck Hagel, the former GOP senator, and the righty blogs ate
it up, even if the rest of the world scratched its head, and fact-checkers took
apart his claims.
The right, of course,
ate it all up. “Ted Cruz Stuns Hagel With Al Jazeera ‘Bully’ Bite,” Fox Nation
screamed. “Ted Cruz shows that Hagel slandered both Israel and the U.S.,”
shrieked Powerline. “HAGEL IS AS BIG AN IMBECILE AS OBAMA,” shrieked one
Twitter loon with an Andrew Breitbart avatar.
Then there's Cruz’s Agenda 21, a black-helicopter conspiracy theory. I believe Ted is concerned about golf courses if I remember correctly. Ah yes, here it is, it
(and I have to link to it because I love the title of this blog) Replacedhisbrainwithtatertots.blogspot.com)
says
…that George Soros and the United Nations are actively working to rob us
of our golf courses. And not just our golf courses, but also grazing pastures
and paved roads. Seriously. He really says that. On his own blog. Cruz rants
about the alleged, "attempts to abolish “unsustainable” environments,
including golf courses, grazing pastures, and paved roads."
Cruz never met a camera he wouldn’t make a fool
of himself in front of, and the Republicans love him like the son they never
had. Hey guys, try to control yourself. Even though he’s Hispanic, that doesn’t
mean you’re going to capture the minds and hearts of Hispanics. And he can
never run for president or vice president because he, unlike our current
President, WAS NOT BORN IN THIS COUNTRY. OOPS, I think I'm wrong--he was born in Calgary, Canada, and his father is Cuban, but his mother is from Delaware. Nor sure how the wingers will take to all that once they know, but I still don't think they'll ever nominate him for president or vp.
Utah
“Capital punishment is our way of demonstrating the sanctity
of life.”” ~ Orrin Hatch
Hey, Hatch represents “old school” Republicanism in Utah.
Let’s see what fresh-faced Mike Lee brings to the party.
After Lee voted against the UN treaty on disabled rights ,the
ever-articulate Charles P. Pierce writes:
"constitutional
scholar" Mike Lee, the rookie senator from Utah, who was still crowing on
his website this morning about the great victory he won over the onrushing
hordes of UN curb-cutters, and his signature triumph over common sense…
Mike
Lee is the Senate's leading Tenther, opposed even to federal child-labor laws
on the basis of state sovereignty…
- · supports passing legislation that would change the portion of the 14th Amendment that guarantees U.S. citizenship at birth,
- · favors repealing the 16th Amendment (progressive income tax), and calls the 17th Amendment (allowing Americans, rather than state legislatures, to elect their Senators) a “mistake;”
- · has supported and testified in favor of legislation that would allow Utah to “nullify” federal health care reform;
- · aims to phase out Social Security, and has questioned the constitutionality of FEMA, and federal poverty and food safety programs;
- · declared the Departments of Education and Housing and Urban Development to be unconstitutional; and
- · endorsed the Supreme Court’s widely-reviled decision in 1918 to strike down a federal law limiting child labor in Hammer v. Dagenhardt, even though that decision was unanimously reversed by the Supreme Court in United States v. Darby in 1941.
Whew—so glad Utah has upgraded and replaced that “radical”
Bob Bennett with Lee.
Vermont
It figures that in the state where Bernie Sanders keeps on
keeping on, it would be hard to come up with an example of right wingnuttery.
And it was. Vermont has NO Republicans in Congress, just one Republican in
state office, and, according to The Burlington
Free Press:
Vermont
might have seen its last Republican governor when Jim Douglas left office in
January 2011.
I had to plumb to the depths of the Rutland
County Republican Party Facebook to come up with their oh so humorous racist
contribution:
Just
wanted to let you know — today I received my 2012 Social Security Stimulus
Package. It contained two tomato seeds, cornbread mix, a prayer rug, a machine
to blow smoke up my butt, 2 discount coupons to KFC, an “Obama Hope &
Change” bumper sticker, and a “Blame it on Bush” poster for the front yard. The
directions were in Spanish. Watch for yours soon.
Virginia
Three quick notes will tell you all you need to know about the
strength of tea in Virginia.
When asked if the birther nonsense was crazy talk, Eric
Cantor replied, “David, I don’t think it’s
nice to call anyone crazy, OK?”
Governor Bob “transvaginal ultrasound” McDonnell, when
naming April Confederate History Month forgot to mention slavery in his
proclamation. When he wrote his master;s thesis at age 34, he said working women and feminists were “detrimental”
to the family and that government policy should favor married couples over
“cohabitators, homosexuals or fornicators.”
AG Ken Cuccinelli, who changed the state seal to a more
Confederate version to cover up a boob, said while parsing the question of
Obama’s legitimacy, “You know, the
speculation is Kenya. And that doesn't seem beyond the realm of possibility.”
Washington
Daily Kos describes Cathy McMorris Rogers as a “concern
troll” and it seems like an apt description. At one point, talking about Obama’s
birth, she said she “wouldn’t mind seeing the papers.” Then she batted away the whole War on Women
thingy, saying it was DEMOCRATS who “have
to scare women” and “the
Democrats have been trying to create, manufacture this war on women.”
Meanwhile, she voted against the Lilly Ledbetter Act and the
Paycheck Fairness Act. When
Rachel Maddow brought up the plethora of anit-abortion bills being pushed
by Republicans across the country, McMorris-Rogers’ non-responsive response
was.
“When you highlight
just a few of the bills, out of thousands of different bills that [are in play]
at any time at the state legislative level, you're picking and choosing."
West Virginia
West Virginia is a strange place. It has two Democratic senators
(even blue-dog Joe Manchin seems to be mellowing out his harsh lately.) Dems control the State legislature and WV has
a Democratic governor.
Even Republican Rep. Tea Party Caucus member, David McKinley
has bucked his party on some votes, like voting against the Paul Ryan budget. And
a Tea Party guy lost twice in a row to a Democrat for the governorship.
Yet Romney won WV by
about 27 points, while Manchin won his senate race by about the same
margin.
The only thing I can think of is COAL. Coal seems to
influence everything in the state when it comes to voting. If there’s a WV
Politicalgater who can explain your state, I’d love to hear why they vote the way
they do.
Wisconsin
So sad that Wisconsin, once a hotbed of liberalism (and home
of my pretend boyfriend, Russ Feingold) has turned into a breeding ground for
total wingnuttery. Thanks, Koch brothers!
Paul Ryan leads as a high-profile, low-intelligence symbol
(frankly, after my last post about Paul Ryan and the straw man, I’m sick of
looking up info about him, so I’ll just confine myself to one quote.) "I'm very proud of my pro-life record,
and I've always adopted the idea that, the position that the method of
conception doesn't change the definition of life”.
Ron Johnson (I still have nightmares about him beating
Feingold) is a sciency guy
“I absolutely do not believe in the science of
man-caused climate change. It’s not proven by any stretch of the
imagination…It’s far more likely that it’s just sunspot activity or just
something in the geologic eons of time. Excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere
‘gets sucked down by trees and helps the trees grow.”
He’s also right up on foreign policy. First
Hillary Clinton, Now John Kerry Makes Sen. Ron Johnson Look Like an Idiot
And
contraceptives, “My wife actually
went online here in Wisconsin and typed in, “what if I can’t afford birth
control?” Came up, bam. If you can’t afford it, you can get birth control in
this country. That’s a straw-dog argument.”
(Like Paul Ryan, Johnson doesn’t understand what a straw man
is, nor, apparently does he know it’s called a straw MAN and not a straw DOG.)
And then there’s Scott Walker—ugh, I can’t bring myself to
even quote him.
Maybe there’s hope. Roger Rivard (R-WI) of ”Some girls rape easy” fame lost his bid for re-election to the WI
Assembly.
Wyoming
Sen. John Barasso’s Tea Party challenger said Barasso should
be jailed for treason, so I guess Barasso is one step up from the bottom. In
2010, over the course of one day, Barasso blocked
bills for seniors AND the unemployed.
Senator Enzi is anti-union, a global
warming denier who wants to abolish the EPA and is out to protect
money-grubbing for-profit colleges from regulation.
Mike
Enzi (R-WY) and John McCain (R-AZ) even walked out on a hearing in September,
claiming that Democrats are “determined to ‘beat up’ on for-profit colleges.”
THUS ENDS 50 SHADES OF WINGNUT
I’ll wrap it up by
saying if No True Scotsman Republican would say these things, then just
who has that party elected to higher office? Sorry, Republicans—the crazies are
NOT the fringe of your party, they ARE your party—the mainstream, the feature
film, the whole enchilada. They say the very things that you tout in your platform, plank
for plank. Christine O’Donnell said she wasn’t a witch, SHE WAS YOU. And she
was right. And the increasingly few of you who still have a wee bit of sanity
and/or humanity, are just as guilty as the nutjobs, because you cater to them,
you encourage them, and you remain silent while they go off the rails.
Charles Pierce nails it when he says,
Face it. It’s just like “When a Stranger Calls”
Listen to me. We've traced
the call... it's coming from inside the house.
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