Can you pick out the true Libertarian?

Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, is out with a strong new statement going after conservative critics of the Islamic community center near ground zero that implicitly criticizes his own son, Kentucky Senate candidate Rand Paul.

The background here is that Rand Paul has been on the record several times saying that, while he doesn't support any federal intervention, he does not think the so-called "ground zero mosque" should be built. "I think reconciliation is best promoted by -- instead of having a multi-million dollar mosque -- maybe having a multi-million dollar donation to the memorial site, would be better for all," he told the Daily Caller. (His opponent, Democrat Jack Conway, has said much the same.)

If you picked Ron Paul then you are correct. This also proves that Rand Paul is nothing but a sellout, who will say or do anything to become a Senator. In other words, Rand Paul is the worst kind of candidate out there. Here’s hoping his time in the spot light is very short lived.

I haven’t really covered the racist rants of Dr. Laura, but after reading this post I have to jump in.

Sarah Palin continues to defend Dr. Laura Schlessinger's use of the word "n****r" and blame liberals for forcing the controversial conservative radio show off the air. But just a few months ago Palin was adamant that using the "N-word," and other offensive terms, should be a firing offense...if you're a Democrat.

"I would ask the president to show decency in this process by eliminating one member of [his] inner circle, Mr. Rahm Emanuel," Palin wrote in February. "The Obama Administration's Chief of Staff scolded [liberal critics] calling them, 'F---ing retarded,' according to several participants, as reported in the Wall Street Journal. Just as we'd be appalled if any public figure of Rahm's stature ever used the "N-word" or other such inappropriate language, Rahm's slur on all God's children with cognitive and developmental disabilities - and the people who love them - is unacceptable, and it's heartbreaking."

What we need is a Sarah Palin on the left. She could call out the right’s Sarah Palin for being sexist, or maybe even being an anti-Semitic. I just wonder if our version of Sarah Palin would get the media attention the real Sarah Palin gets?

But back here in the real world, a place that Sarah Palin apparently doesn’t even know exists, we see another example of the racial-insensitives the right has practiced for decades. They want to be the ones who deem what words offend and what words don’t, despite the fact that they are not in the group the words are targeted after. To me that is the biggest racial insult of them all. It’s right up there with the people who claim to not be a racist because they know a black person. They are small-minded imbeciles living in a time this country has been trying to move past for the last 1/2 century.

Thanks Sarah for showing the GOP is still a party stuck in the era of poodle skirts and whites only water fountains. Let’s see how that works out in the coming decades when white people become the minority in this country.

Well imagine that. S.C. Gov. Mark Sanford was out for months blasting the stimulus. All the media covered it and his declarations of not taking any stimulus money almost nonstop. Well that has changed:

Two months ago, however, with the bright lights of political promise dimmed by a scandal involving an extramarital affair, Mr. Sanford quietly signed a bill passed by the Legislature that expanded eligibility for unemployment benefits. The move paved the way for the state to claim $97.5 million in stimulus money to bolster its financially ailing unemployment insurance trust fund.

The federal Department of Labor announced Tuesday that South Carolina had officially cleared its approval process and that the stimulus money was being released immediately.

And the other thing that has changed? The media is silent on Sanford’s big flip-flop.

Following up on my earlier post about the Republicans not worrying about the deficit if it helps the rich, I decided to post this little graph. It really puts a perspective on the current budget deficit and who is ultimatley responsible for it.

Fareed Zakaria, writing an article entitled “Raise My Taxes, Mr. President!” in Newsweek, sums it up perfectly:

The Bush tax cuts remain the single largest cause of America’s structural deficit—that is, the deficit not caused by the collapse in tax revenues when the economy goes into recession. The Bush administration inherited budget surpluses from the Clinton administration. What turned these into deficits, even before the recession? There were three fundamental new costs—the tax cuts, the prescription-drug bill, and post-9/11 security spending (including the Iraq and Afghanistan wars). Of these the tax cuts were by far the largest, adding up to $2.3 trillion over 10 years. According to the Congressional Budget Office, nearly half the cost of all legislation enacted from 2001 to 2007 can be attributed to the tax cuts.

Those cuts are set to expire this year. The Republicans say they want to keep them all, even for those making more than $250,000 a year (less than 3 percent of Americans). They say that higher taxes will hurt the recovery. But for months now they have been arguing that the chief threat to the economy is our gargantuan debt and deficit. That’s what’s scaring consumers, creditors, and businesses. Given a chance to address those fears by getting serious about deficit reduction, though, they run away. Look by contrast at British Prime Minister David Cameron, a genuine fiscal conservative. To deal with his country’s deficit, which in structural terms is not so different from America’s, he concluded that he would have to raise taxes as well as cut spending.

It was conservative principals and ideologies that made the deficit what it is today. The Republicans bitch about health care reform, yet that is going to actually reduce the deficit in the long run, while the things they want to see extended will do nothing but increase it.

Conservative fiscal policy is nothing but a recipe for disaster for our nation. That’s why we must make sure it never comes to fruition. This is about our children and grandchildren, and the Republicans are the ones leaving them stuck with the bill.

Apparently not the Republicans. Check out Eric Cantor admitting that extending the Bush tax cuts will increase the deficit:

Transcript (via Think Progress):

GUTHRIE: [W]ill you just as simply acknowledge that passing these tax cuts worsens the budget deficit problem? I mean, you can’t deny that, right?

CANTOR: Savannah, let’s look at it through the prism of the working families seeking jobs and the small business people who are creating them. It’s not a tax cut they’re looking for. They don’t want a tax hike. And that’s –

GUTHRIE: But that wasn’t my question. … I just was wondering if you had any dispute with the notion that it does exacerbate the deficit picture?

CANTOR: Well, what I said in the beginning is, if you have less revenues coming in to the federal government, and more expenditures, what does that add up to? Certainly you are going to dig the hole deeper, but you also have to understand if the priority is to get people back to work, is to start growing this economy again, you don’t want to make it more expensive for job creators.

Again we see the class-warfare that the Republicans are launching. They turned their backs on small business last week to help protect the ultra-rich. Now they are saying that programs should be cut for the middle class to help offset tax cuts for the top 2%.

And the Republicans can’t use the “this is the desire of the people” meme. Americans want the tax cut to be gone by almost a 2-1 margin:

A Pew Research Center/National Journal Congressional Connection poll last week found that 27 percent of Americans think the cuts, passed in 2001 and 2003, should be allowed to expire as scheduled this year for individuals making $200,000 a year or more and households making $250,000 a year or more. Another 31 percent said all the cuts should be allowed to expire. That combined 58 percent compares to only 30 percent who think they should be extended. Along with the overwhelming percentage of Democrats who support ending the tax cut, even 40 percent of Republicans also favored ending them either for the wealthy or altogether.

As bad as the Democratically controlled Congress has been (and it has been bad), a Republican controlled one will be much worse. One of the top Republicans in the House just admitted they plan on stealing from the poor to give to the rich. Is this what you want for America? I’ll take the screwed up Democrats over that any day, and hopefully we can keep this issue on the front page so that more Americans see who the Republicans really care about – only 2% of the country.

Jean "full of” Schmidt is creating a legal trust fund:

Rep. Jean Schmidt said Wednesday she plans to create a trust to cover legal expenses associated with a defamation lawsuit filed on her behalf in Clermont County Common Pleas Court against a former political opponent, David Krikorian.

The trust would be able to accept up to $5,000 annually from any U.S. resident or organization to pay lawyer bills, spokesman Bruce Pfaff said.

The effort to create a trust was prompted by speculation that the Turkish government is funding the defamation suit filed June 8 by the 2nd District congresswoman, Pfaff said.

The suit claims that Krikorian, an Armenian-American, has falsely accused Schmidt of taking money from Turkish government-sponsored political action committees to deny the genocide of 1.5 million Christian Armenians by Muslim Turks during World War I.

You might remember David Krikorian from previous blog posts and a really interesting concession speech when he lost the Democratic Primary. Krikorian was a self-described “Reagan Republican” until he lost his bid in Republican primaries. After that he did the jump to the other side of the ticket.

But something else interesting strikes me in this article. Schmidt is supposed to be one of those “anti-lawsuit” Republicans. I guess that has changed now?

The proposed “internet kill switch”, which passed out of the Senate Homeland Security Committee last week, has met some opposition:

"Sen. Kit Bond (R-Mo.) has introduced his own cybersecurity legislation with Sen. Orrin Hatch, and he had some harsh words for a competing bill sponsored by the Senate Committee on Homeland Security. Bond said that bill, which has been criticized for allegedly giving the president a 'kill switch' over the Internet, weighs down the private sector with mandates and puts too much on the plate of the already overburdened Department of Homeland Security. Sen. Bond's bill would create a new position in the Pentagon, reporting directly to the President, in charge of coordinating all civilian cybersecurity. Any private-sector involvement would be voluntary and free from legal challenge, rather than mandated."

Remember when Bond and Hatch thought it was well within the authority of the government to force private telecommunication companies to spy on phone calls without a constitutionally mandated warrant? Wow things are different now that we have a Democrat in the White House.

Yes – Hatch and Bond worry about privacy, but only when it is the privacy of big business. When it comes to the privacy of you and me, well they think we can go Cheney ourselves.

And now for a little history lesson on Orrin Hatch and the tech world from 2003:

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) suggested Tuesday that people who download copyright materials from the Internet should have their computers automatically destroyed.

But at the time of Hatch’s proposal, it was noticed that he was using illegal software on his Senate site:

But Hatch himself is using unlicensed software on his official website, which presumably would qualify his computer to be smoked by the system he proposes.

The senator's site makes extensive use of a JavaScript menu system developed by Milonic Solutions, a software company based in the United Kingdom. The copyright-protected code has not been licensed for use on Hatch's website.

So hypocrisy is pretty much the norm for brainless dinosaurs like Orrin Hatch. I wouldn’t trust this guy to be a greeter at the local Wal-Mart.

I thought one of the driving forces behind the Tea Party was a fight against the “business as usual” mentality that plagues our leaders. Rand Paul has done a great job of stereotyping himself as one of those type of leaders and this doesn’t help with that:

Kentucky Republican senatorial candidate Rand Paul wrote in a newspaper four years ago that he would have pardoned himself if he had been the state's scandal-plagued governor at the time.

Paul's opinion piece in the now-defunct Kentucky Post appeared shortly before a judge dismissed accusations that then-Gov. Ernie Fletcher, a Republican, had violated state hiring laws. The same judge had previously ruled that Fletcher could not be tried while in office.

Yeah – he is really different….NOT!

Unbelievable:

Congressional Democrats and the White House are toying with different ways to force BP to cover the costs of damages from the Gulf oil spill. But they face stiff opposition from industry...and it seems leading Republicans. In response to a question from TPMDC, House Minority Leader John Boehner said he believes taxpayers should help pick up the tab for the clean up.

"I think the people responsible in the oil spill--BP and the federal government--should take full responsibility for what's happening there," Boehner said at his weekly press conference this morning.

This would basically be a bailout for BP and Boehner is pushing for it? I wonder how the Tea Party would like that one.

"Some of my libertarian friends balk at what looks like an individual mandate. But remember, someone has to pay for the health care that must, by law, be provided: Either the individual pays or the taxpayers pay. A free ride on government is not libertarian."

-Mitt Romney, April 11th 2006

Yes when Mitt Romney enacts mandates it’s perfectly legal, yet when Democrats enact them it’s unconstitutional. As Josh says, “bye Mitt”. His 2012 campaign is now dead.

God forbid that we allow any abortion coverage in the health care bill:

While Republicans and some Democrats want to hold up health care reform because of the false premise that abortions would be covered, the Washington State GOP provides its employees health care through a consortium that does just that. Congresswoman Cathy McMorris-Rodgers blasted Democrats for favoring a health reform plan that includes abortion coverage, even though her own state party is covered via AWB Health Choice, which covers abortions.

What’s good for the goose, well apparently it’s just good for that goose.

OK – This just has me laughing:

Gov. Rick Perry moved Tuesday to step up Texas' law enforcement presence along the Mexico border to handle the threat of spillover violence from escalating drug cartel warfare in cities like Juarez and Matamoros.

The governor also continued his call for additional federal assistance, saying he was activating the state violence contingency plan in the meantime because “with the safety of Texans on the line, we can't afford to wait.”

(emphasis added)

And this is why I couldn’t be President. If I were I would be on the phone with Perry right now saying “you want your sovereignty – well you fucking got it asshole”.

Really – this guy talks about how Texas should just leave the union. Well time to act like you are on your own and show us you can handle it. Game on Governor Secession.

Michele Bachmann is telling people to break the law and calling for civil disobedience:

At a rally at the Minnesota State Capitol on Saturday, Bachmann declared illegitimate the potential route that House Democrats could take to pass the health care bill. She was specifically railing against a parliamentary tactic by which the House could skip voting on the Senate bill by declaring it passed as part of the reconciliation bill. Bachmann pronounced this to be taxation without representation. "They have just started a revolution -- and they did it," said Bachmann.

"But mark my words, the American people aren't gonna take this lying down," Bachmann later said. "We aren't gonna play their game, we're not gonna pay their taxes. They want us to pay for this? Because we don't have to. We don't have to. We don't have to follow a bill that isn't law. That's not the American way, and that's not what we're going to do."

Not the American way? Where were her complaints when the Republicans did the exact same thing?

– The 2001 Bush Tax Cuts [HR 1836, 3/26/01]
– The 2003 Bush Tax Cuts [HR 2, 3/23/03]
– Tax Increase Prevention and Reconciliation Act of 2005 [HR 4297,5/11/06]
– The Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 [H. Con Res. 95, 12/21/05]

(By tlw3 via Alan.com)

Bachmann never once called those pieces of legislation illegal or un-American, despite the very same rule being used to pass them. As matter of fact those are the very issues that Republicans, like Bachmann, love campaigning on. They consider it huge victories for their party.

But the fact that Bachmann is out there trying to provoke people to break the laws of this land is a violation of her oath of office. She is supposed to uphold the Constitution of the United States, not define it. Given that, she should be either censured or suspended from the Congress, and that should actually come from the Republican leadership. Instead they stay silent on her crazy ramblings, so from now on when she calls for illegal activities we will say it’s the GOP calling for them. By their silence, it makes it obvious that the GOP is sanctioning what she says, so they must agree with it – right? That’s exactly what we would have heard if this was 2006 and a Democrat was doing this.

How many times have we heard Republicans say that health care reform will lead us to “socialized medicine”? How many times have they used Canada as an example of what we don’t want to be? Well check this out:

Sarah Palin's family use to "hustle" across the Canadian border to get healthcare, the former Alaska Governor said
this weekend.

In a speech in Calgary, Palin called it "ironic" that while growing up in a small Alaskan town near the Canadian border, her family used to sneak across to take advantage of the Canadian healthcare system.

"We used to hustle over the border for health care we received in Canada," she said, according to Medicine Hat News (via Dave Weigel.) "And I think now, isn't that ironic."

Yup – the queen of the GOP used to use that horrible Canadian medical system. She has brought an entirely new meaning to the word hypocrite.

Remember last month how the GOP constantly said cameras should be rolling during health care negotiations? Now that there’s a chance for that, well look at what’s happening:

Sen. Mike Enzi (R-WY) today echoed Rep. John Boehner's (R-OH) supposed concern that televising President Obama's bipartisan health care reform summit would turn it into a "media show" -- even after both called for him to make the process more transparent.

Much like Boehner, Enzi was one of the Republicans who earlier called for Obama to televise the health care debate on C-SPAN, in the name of "increased transparency."

What are these Republicans afraid of? There must be something there. I mean if they had such a great position then you would think they would want the cameras rolling. I guess their position isn’t that great after all….