Senate Republicans Stand Alone in Shooting Down World-Wide Act to Help the Disabled

on December 12th, 2012 at 11:30 am

Last week, senate Republicans decided that people with disabilities should not have international rights. Led by Tea Party extremist Mike Lee of Utah, the Party of divisiveness and hate scored another victory for the lunatic fringe.

Considering the performance of Congress in recent years, it is almost impossible to believe that things could get worse [“Treaty on disability rights fails in Senate,” news story, Dec. 5]. But last week’s Senate vote against ratification of the U.N. Convention on the Rights of Persons With Disabilities marks an all-time low. This treaty had the bipartisan support of leaders such as Sens. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) and was based on the Americans With Disabilities Act and signed by 155 nations. It would do nothing more than ensure that disabled individuals around the world would enjoy the same rights and freedoms as people do here. Yet, led by people such as former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum, who spread half-truths about threats to “American sovereignty,” 38 senators blocked the approval of this treaty. How those senators could look individuals who are disabled, whether by war, birth or accident, in the eye and justify their position is a mystery.   Read more at the Washington Post

Who are the 38 who decided the United States would not support the worldwide rights of the disabled? Not surprisingly, they are all Republicans, all can be classified as right-wing extremists, men following the orders of the John Birch Society and it’s leaders the Koch Brothers.

  1. Alexander (R-TN)
  2. Blunt (R-MO)
  3. Boozman (R-AR)
  4. Burr (R-NC)
  5. Chambliss (R-GA)
  6. Coats (R-IN)
  7. Coburn (R-OK)
  8. Cochran (R-MS)
  9. Corker (R-TN)
  10. Cornyn (R-TX)
  11. Crapo (R-ID)
  12. DeMint (R-SC)
  13. Enzi (R-WY)
  14. Graham (R-SC)
  15. Grassley (R-IA)
  16. Hatch (R-UT)
  17. Heller (R-NV)
  18. Hoeven (R-ND)
  19. Hutchison (R-TX)
  20. Inhofe (R-OK)
  21. Isakson (R-GA)
  22. Johanns (R-NE)
  23. Johnson (R-WI)
  24. Kyl (R-AZ)
  25. Lee (R-UT)
  26. McConnell (R-KY)
  27. Moran (R-KS)
  28. Paul (R-KY)
  29. Portman (R-OH)
  30. Risch (R-ID)
  31. Roberts (R-KS)
  32. Rubio (R-FL)
  33. Sessions (R-AL)
  34. Shelby (R-AL)
  35. Thune (R-SD)
  36. Toomey (R-PA)
  37. Vitter (R-LA)
  38. Wicker (R-MS)
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Jim DeMint Quits the Senate

on December 6th, 2012 at 6:34 pm

South Carolina’s super far-right senator, Jim DeMint, announced today that he was quitting. DeMint has been an outspoken advocate for Tea Party extremism and one of the main people responsible for Washington gridlock. He’s leaving for the far-right think tank, the Heritage Foundation, a group founded by Joseph Coors and inspired by the John Birch Society. Even conservatives are celebrating his decision. In a piece labeled, “Good Riddance, Mr. DeMint,” Jennifer Rubin writes,

I am sure many senators on both sides are clicking their heels. DeMint has been a destructive force, threatening to primary colleagues, resisting all deals and offering very little in the way of attainable legislation. He has contributed more than any current senator to the dysfunction of that body. He has worsened relations between the House and Senate, as he did in the budget fights in recent years, by meddling and pressuring his home state representative. His departure leaves other senators who seemed impressed with his brand of politics free to find their way to a more constructive position in the body.   Read more at the Washington Post

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Even Fox News’ Reporters Can See the Obvious Given Enough Time

on December 6th, 2012 at 6:20 pm

It’s no accident that Fox News is running more entertainment and feel-good stories lately, their reputation as a news organization took a shellacking this last election cycle. Fox News got just about everything wrong, from pundits predicting a Romney landslide to on the air fiascoes of political operatives like Karl Rove challenging on air reporting.

Three recent episodes illustrate the point. Fox aired 27 minutes of Obama speaking during four days just before the election – compared to 168 minutes of Republican challenger Mitt Romney, the liberal watchdog Media Matters for America noted. Author Thomas Rick’s interview on Fox last week was abruptly cut short when he accused the network of “operating as a wing of the Republican Party” with its coverage of the September terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya. The Washington Post reported Tuesday that Fox News chief Roger Ailes encouraged David Petreaus to run for president, although Ailes said he was joking.   Read more at AP

Fox’s White House correspondent, Ed Henry, fesses up as well. Regarding the saturation coverage Fox News dolled out over the Benghazi issue, Henry says, “I wouldn’t lie to you. I see that we’re covering Benghazi a lot, and I think that should be something that we’re asking about… But I would not be so deluded to say that some of our shows, some of our commentators, have covered it more than it needed to be covered.”

It’s good that Henry has diagnosed the problem. It may be too little too late, however, as most of America has made up their minds about the faux news channel. It’s hard to regain a reputation for fairness once you’ve slobbered your biases all over yourself.

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Florida Republicans Admit To Voter Suppression Efforts

on November 29th, 2012 at 1:35 am

All six members of Florida’s Democratic Congressional delegation have written to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights requesting that it convene a hearing to investigate Florida’s 2011 electoral law, HB 1355, after former Republican state leaders and GOP consultants said the law was expressly designed to reduce Democratic voter participation… Former state Republican Party chairman Jim Greer told The Post that while the party claimed the law was designed to stop voter fraud and save money, the true intent was to stem early voting, which GOP staffers and consultants believed favored Democrats. The law reduced early voting from 14 days to 8.   Read more at the Palm Beach Post

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97 Republicans Sign Their Credibility Away

on November 23rd, 2012 at 7:44 pm

In one of the most unprofessional acts in Congressional history, 97 Republicans saw fit to waste the taxpayer’s dime by lambasting America’s Ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, and signing a letter declaring their opposition to her appointment as Secretary of State. The only problem is, Ms. Rice has not been nominated to be Secretary of State! That’s right, 97 Republicans spent their time in Washington last week manufacturing a controversy and agitating the crazies on the right instead of doing the business of government, all the while the country heads towards a “fiscal cliff” and continues to battle it’s way out of the Great Republican Recession of 2008. Oh, and by the way, Ms. Rice was completely vindicated when it was revealed that the great sin she committed while appearing on the Sunday Morning chat shows was repeating the talking points that the CIA gave her.

Gee, I wonder if they’ll apologize? They won’t, and the answer to why they won’t is easily discerned. There are three things the radical right can’t stand; the United Nations, women in power, and people of color. Susan Rice represents all three things. It’s no wonder that the gang of 97 who signed the complaint won’t be retracting it anytime soon.

The good thing is that by revealing their identity we can surmise a number of facts. 1. Where the most crazy people in Congress come from. 2. Which members of Congress are part of the crazy right. 3. Who are the people in government who least deserve to serve the nation. 4. What parts of the country need the most attention. So here they are, the 97 nuts who somehow found their way into office, listed in descending order by the states with the most.

  1. Michael McCaul Texas
  2. John Culberson Texas
  3. Blake Farenthold Texas
  4. Ted Poe Texas
  5. Joe Barton Texas
  6. John Carter Texas
  7. Louie Gohmert Texas
  8. Kenny Marchant Texas
  9. Kevin Brady Texas
  10. Bill Flores Texas
  11. Michael Burgess Texas
  12. Francisco Canseco Texas
  13. Ralph Hall Texas
  14. Lamar Smith Texas
  15. Steve Southerland Florida
  16. Dennis Ross Florida
  17. Mario Diaz-Balart Florida
  18. Bill Posey Florida
  19. Jeff Miller Florida
  20. Rich Nugent Florida
  21. Connie Mack Florida
  22. Sandy Adams Florida
  23. John Mica Florida
  24. Allen West Florida (defeated)
  25. Jeff Duncan South Carolina
  26. Joe Wilson South Carolina
  27. Mick Mulvaney South Carolina
  28. Trey Gowdy South Carolina
  29. Tim Scott South Carolina
  30. Marsha Blackburn Tennessee
  31. Stephen Fincher Tennessee
  32. Phil Roe Tennessee
  33. Scott DesJarlais Tennessee
  34. Diane Black Tennessee
  35. Lynn Westmoreland Georgia
  36. Phil Gingrey Georgia
  37. Paul Broun Georgia
  38. Tom Price Georgia
  39. Tom Graves Georgia
  40. Steve Chabot Ohio
  41. Jim Jordan Ohio
  42. Bill Johnson Ohio
  43. Bob Gibbs Ohio
  44. Jean Schmidt Ohio
  45. Michael Turner Ohio
  46. Jeff Landry Louisiana
  47. John Fleming Louisiana
  48. Steve Scalise Louisiana
  49. Charles Boustany Louisiana
  50. Dan Burton Indiana
  51. Todd Rokita Indiana
  52. Marlin Stutzman Indiana
  53. Larry Bucschon Indiana
  54. Dana Rohrabacher California
  55. Dan Lungren California (defeated)
  56. Jeff Denham California
  57. John Campbell California
  58. Frank Lucas Oklahoma
  59. James Lankford Oklahoma
  60. Tom Cole Oklahoma
  61. Paul Gozar Arizona
  62. David Schweikert Arizona
  63. Trent Franks Arizona
  64. Bill Huizenga Michigan
  65. Tim Walberg Michigan
  66. Candice Miller Michigan
  67. Mike Pompeo Kansas
  68. Lynn Jenkins Kansas
  69. Tim Huelskamp Kansas
  70. Michele Bachmann Minnesota
  71. Chip Cranvaack Minnesota
  72. Spencer Bachus Alabama
  73. Robert Aderhold Alabama
  74. Joseph Pitts Pennsylvania
  75. Tom Marino Pennsylvania
  76. Vicky Hartzler Missouri
  77. Billy Long Missouri
  78. Steven Palazzo Mississippi
  79. Alan Nunnelee Mississippi
  80. Renee Ellmers North Carolina
  81. Sue Myrick North Carolina
  82. Ann Marie Buerkle New York
  83. Nan Hayworth New York
  84. Chris Smith New Jersey
  85. Frank LoBiondo New Jersey
  86. Doug Lamborn Colorado
  87. Cory Gardner Colorado
  88. Cynthia Lummis Wyoming
  89. Rob Bishop Utah
  90. Steve Pearce New Mexico
  91. Don Young Alaska
  92. Steve King Iowa
  93. James Sensenbrenner Wisconsin
  94. Tim Griffin Arkansas
  95. David McKinley West Virginia
  96. Roscoe Bartlett Maryland
  97. Randy  Hultgren Illinois
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First Presidential Visit to Burma/Myanmar

on November 23rd, 2012 at 1:03 pm

President Obama meets with fellow Noble Peace Prize recipient Aung San Suu Kyi on his recent tour of Asia

Barack Obama became the first sitting U.S. president to visit Myanmar on Monday, praising the courage of fellow Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi while also providing a symbolic nod to initial reforms in a nation once notorious for political repression.   Read more at CNN

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Creationist Marco Rubio Is No Scientist, Man

on November 23rd, 2012 at 12:28 pm

Despite some complicated dealings and questionable friends, Florida senator Marco Rubio has risen to become one of the new faces in the Republican Party. In a party of old white males, Rubio stands out as a boyish-looking 41 year-old male of Cuban heritage. Since Republicans are desperately courting Latinos after alienating them for the last one hundred years, Rubio has rocketed past more seasoned politicians through a careful cultivation of establishment figures while using the extremist Tea Party to fuel his ambition.

Rubio has recently coddled up to one of the more questionable Republican beliefs in order to enhance his national stature. Point in question is the idea that the earth is 6000 years old. While almost everyone understands that the earth is 4.5 billion years old, there are still many hold-outs who believe in the literal interpretation of the Bible which counts back all the generations of people mentioned in the Bible all the way back to Adam and concludes that the earth is a very young place. This idea is known as creationism, an idea that basically eliminates major fields of science. Subjects like geology, biology and astronomy are rejected in order to support this antiquated theory, and so most people have adapted their religious beliefs to square with new scientific facts. Not Marco Rubio.

GQ: How old do you think the Earth is?
Marco Rubio: I’m not a scientist, man. I can tell you what recorded history says, I can tell you what the Bible says, but I think that’s a dispute amongst theologians and I think it has nothing to do with the gross domestic product or economic growth of the United States. I think the age of the universe has zero to do with how our economy is going to grow. I’m not a scientist. I don’t think I’m qualified to answer a question like that. At the end of the day, I think there are multiple theories out there on how the universe was created and I think this is a country where people should have the opportunity to teach them all. I think parents should be able to teach their kids what their faith says, what science says. Whether the Earth was created in 7 days, or 7 actual eras, I’m not sure we’ll ever be able to answer that. It’s one of the great mysteries.   Read the full interview at GQ Magazine

And with that, Marco Rubio ceases to be considered a serious person… which means he’s considered a favorite in the crazy Iowa Republican 2016 primary.

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C-SPAN’s Contribution to Dividing America

on November 17th, 2012 at 8:12 pm

I’ve watched C-SPAN abut as much as anyone over the years. It’s common to hear callers thanking C-SPAN for being fair and providing a place for civilized discourse, they are considered a welcome contrast to the polemical debates and constant bickering at other cable channels. I have a different opinion. I believe C-SPAN is one of the main reasons for the decline in civility, and it is greatly responsible for the red-state/blue-state divide.

C-SPAN was created to televise Congress, which I applaud, however it has expanded to be a political and ideological battleground giving voice to the most extremist voices in America. For example, at 4 am, I wake up and C-SPAN is running a talk radio show. A zombie-like host reads headlines and takes calls on three lines, Democrat, Republican and Independent. This sounds fair until you discover that most of the calls are coming from far right extremists. The John Birch Society has taken over the channel.

The few liberal voices calling in are drowned out by the cacophony of crazies. Meanwhile, the C-SPAN host politely listens to the diatribes without comment or censure, thereby enabling the rant and giving the microphone to people who shouldn’t be given the car keys. This would be reckless by Fox News standards, yet C-SPAN gets away with it.

When Congress isn’t in session, C-SPAN offers up a line-up of conferences and policy discussions, many of which are hosted by the CATO Institute, the Heritage Foundation, and other John Birch Society and far right ideological groups in the business of pushing extreme and intolerant agendas. If you want to know what the Koch Brother’s want, just turn on C-SPAN and you’ll see it in the next segment.

On the weekends, C-SPAN promotes right wing books and celebrates ultra-right wing spokespeople, allowing crazy people like Ann Coulter and Dinesh D’Souza a national stage to spread their hate speech and conspiracy theories. Fairness is not about giving every lunatic equal time with the rest of us. C-SPAN has been on for over thirty years, ask yourself, has the American conversation been elevated over those years? I think the answer is obvious. What we’ve witnessed is the reverse, the right wing groups pushing division and extremist politics have found a home on this supposedly “neutral” network and they are running wild.

C-SPAN has been accused of having a conservative bias in the past, groups monitoring the network have noted how it favors white males over other guests, but the real problem is structural. Having a policy that mandates that hosts respond identically to the sane and the insane is absurd. Secondly, extremism has to be contained. No matter how popular Glenn Beck is, his views are so out of the mainstream that C-SPAN shouldn’t be in the business of promoting them. Thirdly, the political spectrum doesn’t run from middle of the road to the far right. If you’re going to have libertarian think tanks on, then you must have socialists on as well. As far as I can tell, the farthest C-SPAN ventures to the left is when they have Ralph Nader on.

C-SPAN seems to be in the business of moving the political center farther and farther to the right. They have failed at providing a responsible forum for debate and for political coverage. C-SPAN needs to be reined in or they should turn in their license. They’ve certainly offered up more negatives than positives over the years.

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The Aging of the Republican Party

on November 15th, 2012 at 2:16 pm

It’s not just their last candidate for President, Mitt Romney(65), seems to have emerged from a 1950′s time machine, the entire Republican Party is like a faded old image from a mid-century Sears catalog. From right wing billionaires like the Koch Brothers(72-77) and Sheldon Adelson(79), to media manipulators like Rupert Murdoch(81) and Roger Ailes(72), to conservative commentators like Britt Hume(69) and Pat Buchanan(74), this is a party on the way out. Sure they’re still clinging to power, their ancient organizations keep rolling along, they’re still awash in cash and they can buy a vote here and there, but the handwriting is on the wall. Their days are numbered.

It’s no wonder that young whippersnappers like Donald Trump(66), Karl Rove(61), Bill Kristol(59), Charles Krauthammer(62), Rush Limbaugh(61), Bill O’Reilly(63),  and Jeb Bush(59) seem like such exciting young voices to the aging gerontocracy that’s actually running things.

Republican leadership in the Senate includes Mitch McConnell(70), Trent Lott(71), Orrin Hatch(78), Chuck Grassley(79), Richard Shelby(78), John McCain(78), are among many other old white male Republicans who seem to have lost touch with their constituents. And that’s the point. Age is irrelevant. Democrats have many older leaders, the key difference is Democratic leaders listen to young people, they listen to all the people. I’d rather have a a 90 year old in touch with the modern world than young pretenders like Marco Rubio and Paul Ryan doing the handiwork of out of touch extremists like the Koch Brothers.

The Republicans are fading fast. As long as they continue to be dependent on the hand-outs of men who went to high school in the days of Eisenhower, they will continue to lose voters, they will continue to divide the country along racial and economic lines, and they will continue to hurt the United States by pushing regressive policies unsuited for the new global realities. They need to grow up and get young fast.

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Why Would Republicans Go After 2009 Woman of the Year, Susan Rice?

on November 15th, 2012 at 3:40 am

“Ask powerful people about U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice and certain words keep coming up: “Incredibly effective,” Vice President Joe Biden tells Glamour; “tough,” says former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright; “brilliant” from Senator Susan Collins (R-Maine)… The first-ever African American female in her position, she has called out Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, for his “hateful” comments on Israel; stood up to the North Korean missile threat; and condemned the Darfur genocide. Her latest goal: getting the U.N. to enforce a zero-tolerance policy on sexual violence.”    Read more at Glamour Magazine

America’s Ambassador to the U.N., Susan Rice, is obviously supremely talented and an inspirational figure to women around the world, so it’s befuddling as to why Republicans like John McCain and Lindsey Graham seem to hate her so. Both men stated yesterday that they would oppose Ambassador Rice’s appointment to the State Department if it ever came up. Wow, what would possess these men to try and destroy such an exciting new political figure on the national stage? The answer is obvious. Ms. Rice is a threat to them. They recognize her as someone who has enormous potential and they are seeking to wreck her career before she can spread her wings and fly. McCain and Graham are shaggy old political  dogs who flash their fangs when they’re most threatened. A smack with a rolled up newspaper should keep them at bay. Shame on them.

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