/head meet hand.
Thers: Breaking News
Irrelevant Lunatics Throw Pointless Tantrum.
I'm glad Politico got this hot hot scoop, and with any luck Drudge may give them a link.
John Cole: Go For It Lads
The Republican rump:
House Republicans are calling on Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to step down or be fired in the wake of a controversial department memo that has sparked indignant battle cries from conservatives and some veterans.“Singling out political opponents for working against the ruling party is precisely the tactic of every tyrannical government from Red China to Venezuela,” said Texas Rep. John Carter, a member of the party’s elected leadership who has organized an hour of floor speeches Wednesday night to call for Napolitano’s ouster. “The first step in the process is creating unfounded public suspicion of political opponents, followed by arresting and jailing any who continue speaking against the regime.”
These people are seriously not going to last four years. We should probably take out a few more of them in the 2010 elections just so they can take a breather and pull themselves together, because they clearly didn’t get the message in 2006 and 2008.
The Republican Study Committee is fundamentally no different from the wingnuttiest blogger.
- The comments section to this post are every bit as wonderful as you might expect. Take a look: Responses to “Go For It Lads”
- This astonishing video was linked in the above comments. Shep has clearly had it with the crazy: "We do not F%$&ing torture!!!"
Yglesias: The Banality of Obama
Jonathan Martin seems to have penned the political thumbsucker of the day, wondering how Barack Obama is getting away with his outlandish progressive policies:
A Democratic president thrills a French audience by telling it that America has been “arrogant.” He brushes aside 50 years of anti-communist orthodoxy by relaxing restrictions against Fidel Castro’s Cuba. He directs his attorney general to ease a crackdown on medical marijuana and even plays host to the Grateful Dead in the Oval Office.
Several times a month in his young presidency, Barack Obama has done things that cause conservatives to bray, using the phrase once invoked by Bob Dole, “Where’s the outrage?!”
I don’t find this all that surprising. Easing up on America’s Cold War approach to Cuba is a pretty obvious and intuitive response to the end of the Cold War. The Clinton administration chose to avoid taking any political risks on this front and then George W. Bush decided to intensify the old approach. That was actually a great deal odder than Obama easing off a bit. After all, why would the United States be in a period of intensifying hostility to Cuba? That’s how this looks to me more or less down the line. There never was a political taboo on shaking hands with left-wing third world politicians—the right-wing just decided to act as if there was one, and that Obama had violated it.
Obama really has laid out an ambitious substantive domestic policy agenda. But the right-wing doesn’t seem especially interested in engaging with it. Instead, they’re freaking out about basically non-existent cultural issues. Like remember when we were talking about Obama’s secret, but also totally made up, plan to replace the dollar with a new global currency?
As Ed Kilgore says, the real question here is about the impact of the constant stream of fake outrage on the credibility of Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and their loyal followers on the Hill.
JedL: Some GOPers think neo-secessionism is brilliant politics
James Bernson, who was Hutchison's campaign press secretary in 2006, says in a recent online column that, via his Tea Party appearances and secession remarks, "Perry has seized the momentum and is on fire with a large section of the Republican Party base, not just in Texas, but nationally. And it will be the wing of the party most important in the primary."
Perhaps joining the nullification, neo-secessionist crowd plays well with the extremist base.
Maybe it can help you win a primary.
But GOPers are fools if they think the insertion of neo-secessionism into the conservative mainstream will be good for their party. If neo-secessionists get their way, state governments could pick and choose which federal laws to nullify or support -- and that is no different than dissolving the Union.
Outside of the most extreme right-wing circles, nobody wants that. Any party that supports the dissolution of the United States of America is pretty much DOA as a political entity.
It's remarkable that more Republicans don't understand this.
Josh Marshall: The Junta Party
This analogy isn't close to being complete. And it doesn't match up at every point. But where it does connect, it's so spot-on that I must share it with you.
In former Banana Republics, in their post-transition- to-democracy phases, you'll often have a Junta Party. It's an opposition party whose main goal isn't to get elected so much as to maintain the legacy of the former junta regime, defend its record of service to the state and most of all keep its former leaders from being put on trial or shipped off to the Hague. Often the party will be headed up by the former Generals themselves. But if they're dead or otherwise occupied in the slammer or abroad, maybe you'll have their relatives or the one-time cronies and lickspittles of this or that el jefe of the old regime filling the leadership roles.
And today, as we watched the on-going parade of Cliff Mays on TV or Dan Burton praising waterboarding as essential to the American dream, Eric Kleefeld pointed out to me that that really is pretty much the role the GOP -- at least for the moment -- has taken in our present politics.
Yes, Republicans have tried to distance themselves from President Bush's fiscal profligacy. But on the core value issues of militarism and human rights violations and keeping faith with the war criminals of the previous regime they really couldn't be more unified or on message. If you were plopped down on earth today in front of a TV set in the United States, on the testimony of the party members themselves, you might easily get the idea that state-sanctioned torture was the main policy legacy of the outgoing administration. Sort of like Democrats looked back on late 90s budget surpluses with a proud defiance in the aftermath of the Clinton years.
I can't be the only one who this resonates with. Who else has some examples?
sgw found this bit that perfectly illustrates Marshall's "junta party" point.. It's a long segment, but very well worth watching. Watch a repuglican leader tie himself very very tightly to the torture regime. And insult "the democrat majority" in the process. I think having one major party tightly defined as the neo-secessionaist, torture party is a good thing. Facts Are Such Pesky Little Things
Pro Torturist John Ensign had better get his weight up the next time he decides to go on Hardball. Attacking Tweety will get your ass smacked down with the quickness, especially when its a topic that he actually has an interest in. Funny how just like the difference between Wall Street traders and GM union members the pro torture GOPers treat Bush administration figures way different from the rank and file soldiers who they couldn't get enough of bashing.Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
Daily KosArjun Jaikumar: Cornyn: We're In Trouble for 2010
Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, has admitted in a remarkably candid interview with the Hill that he's going to have an exceptionally difficult time keeping Democrats from gaining a 60-seat, filibuster-proof Senate majority in 2010.
We've known this since election day 2008, of course, but it's quite remarkable to hear this coming from one of the captains of Team Elephant.
"That’s going to be real hard, to be honest with you," Cornyn said of keeping Democrats from reaching 60 seats, adding:
"Everybody who runs could be the potential tipping point to get Democrats to 60. We’ve not only got to play defense; we’ve got to claw our way back in 2010. It’ll be a huge challenge."
Well, that sure is inspiring.
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