The candidacy of an immigrant from Mexico who was running against the leader of Arizona’s crackdown on illegal immigration appears to have been a trick to split the pro-immigration vote.
To reach their goals, conservative leaders are blatantly gaming the system. They are going where they have never ventured before, and conducting politics in a way that has never been seen before in America, by exploiting constitutional gaps, working in the crannies and crevices of our system, and proceeding both openly and privately to empower themselves in a manner that would never succeed at the ballot box if it were fully understood.
The story about these activities has been largely ignored, or at most incidentally reported, by the mainstream news media. While some of this activity is merely hard-nosed, real-world politics at its ugliest, other undertakings are conspicuously abusive, and, indeed, reminiscent of what I saw when inside the Nixon White House.
(Source: sarahlee310)
Well that answer speaks volumes. What a poisonous toad.
(Source: diadoumenos)
A study on voter fraud pushed by Maine Republicans concluded that there is absolutely no evidence of student voter fraud in the state — but the GOP has pledged to crack down on it anyway. Like conservative state legislatures across the country, Maine Republicans have been pushing a Voter ID law, ostensibly to prevent non-existent voter fraud. As ThinkProgress has documented, these laws are a transparent attempt to disenfranchise Democratic voters, especially students, the poor, and minorities.
Ben Adler from the Nation
At the Fox News/Google Republican presidential debate in Orlando on Thursday, candidates argued with each other more frequently than at any of the previous debates, but they all shared one theme: that the federal government is the enemy. To a degree that has been unmatched in recent years, serious contenders for a major party nomination expressed contempt for the very government they seek to lead. You would have to go back to Barry Goldwater in 1964 and his segregationist allies to find a campaign when “states rights” were so in vogue.
Both parties are rotten - how could they not be, given the complete infestation of the political system by corporate money on a scale that now requires a presidential candidate to raise upwards of a billion dollars to be competitive in the general election? Both parties are captives to corporate loot. The main reason the Democrats’ health care bill will be a budget buster once it fully phases in is the Democrats’ rank capitulation to corporate interests - no single-payer system, in order to mollify the insurers; and no negotiation of drug prices, a craven surrender to Big Pharma.
But both parties are not rotten in quite the same way. The Democrats have their share of machine politicians, careerists, corporate bagmen, egomaniacs and kooks. Nothing, however, quite matches the modern GOP.
I HIGHLY suggest this article. It is a devastating take-down of the GOP from a person whose been working within their ranks for 16 years. It’s hard for people to refute the idea that one party is worse than the other, with respect to contributing to our country’s political problems, when former GOP staffers are coming out and confirming the truth by writing long-winded mea culpas to that effect.
Andrew Breitbart, fantasizing about starting a civil war and killing liberals at a Boston Tea Party event.
I’d like to compare and contrast for a second. Conservatives got all riled up over Teamster President Jimmy Hoffa’s comments on Labor Day. At a rally in Detroit, he said, “President Obama, this is your army. We are ready to march. And President Obama we want one thing: Jobs. Jobs. Jobs. Jobs. Jobs. Jobs. Jobs. Jobs. That’s what we’re going to tell him. He’s going to be - and when he sees what we’re doing here he will be inspired. But he needs help and you know what? Everybody here’s got to vote. If we go back and keep the eye on the prize, let’s take these sons of bitches out and give America back to America where we belong!”
So he’s talking about voting anti-union politicians out of office. Conservatives self-righteously condemned his remarks as “thuggery” and “hate speech.” Tea Party Express leader Amy Kremer said, “It is high time that elected leaders like President Obama were held accountable when their key supporters engage in harmful and divisive rhetoric.” Well, I think Breitbart’s quite clear, particularly when he says, “We outnumber them in this country and we have the guns…”
Penn Bullock at Towleroad writes, “On the face of it, Breitbart’s admission demands a congressional or criminal investigation. If he’s implying that military officials have pledged their armed support to him and the right-wing, those officials are guilty of treason. If Breitbart is lying, he’s diagnosable.” I’d agree. If (and that’s a big IF) he’s telling the truth, those “military officials” are supporting armed insurrection against the American government and its people. The military tends to frown on its members doing that.
Watch the video of Breitbart’s remarks here. So, how long before Breitbart gets on Fox News and whines about it being taken out of context? Hoffa’s comment was taken out of context. This isn’t. This is talking about bullets v. ballot boxes and the bullets winning.
(via cognitivedissonance)
That’s an intelligent way to respond to random death threats, threaten to kill liberals in a bloody war. This is a very clear and very direct threat unlike any I’ve ever seen. Conservatives love to make gun and violence based political statements but yeah for the most part it’s just to rally the base, this however is something else, this is “I can’t wait till I can shoot a liberal that called me names with the military behind me.”
Scary shit.
-Joe
(via stfuconservatives)
Conservatives have spent 30 years divorcing the taxes we pay from the services they finance — no wonder the public doesn’t know where their tax dollars go.
Today, “free to choose” has become “free to die.”
I’m referring, as you might guess, to what happened during Monday’s G.O.P. presidential debate. CNN’s Wolf Blitzer asked Representative Ron Paul what we should do if a 30-year-old man who chose not to purchase health insurance suddenly found himself in need of six months of intensive care. Mr. Paul replied, “That’s what freedom is all about — taking your own risks.” Mr. Blitzer pressed him again, asking whether “society should just let him die.”
And the crowd erupted with cheers and shouts of “Yeah!”
The incident highlighted something that I don’t think most political commentators have fully absorbed: at this point, American politics is fundamentally about different moral visions.
Now, there are two things you should know about the Blitzer-Paul exchange. The first is that after the crowd weighed in, Mr. Paul basically tried to evade the question, asserting that warm-hearted doctors and charitable individuals would always make sure that people received the care they needed — or at least they would if they hadn’t been corrupted by the welfare state. Sorry, but that’s a fantasy. People who can’t afford essential medical care often fail to get it, and always have — and sometimes they die as a result.
The second is that very few of those who die from lack of medical care look like Mr. Blitzer’s hypothetical individual who could and should have bought insurance. In reality, most uninsured Americans either have low incomes and cannot afford insurance, or are rejected by insurers because they have chronic conditions.
So would people on the right be willing to let those who are uninsured through no fault of their own die from lack of care? The answer, based on recent history, is a resounding “Yeah!”
Paul Krugman, writing in today’s New York Times.
Yeah.
(via inothernews)
A major problem with this free to choose nonsense is that most of us are NOT free to choose, well we can choose between health insurance and food or between health insurance and rent or… but for most of us it is not about just choosing not to buy health insurance.
If you don’t want the responsibility of universal healthcare you have to take the responsibility for the death of people who cannot afford healthcare.
