hypocrisy

Wow South Carolina is really ahead of the curve on fighting terrorism. I expect Osama is already packing up shop:

Terrorists who want to overthrow the United States government must now register with South Carolina's Secretary of State and declare their intentions -- or face a $25,000 fine and up to 10 years in prison.

The state's "Subversive Activities Registration Act," passed last year and now officially on the books, states that "every member of a subversive organization, or an organization subject to foreign control, every foreign agent and every person who advocates, teaches, advises or practices the duty, necessity or propriety of controlling, conducting, seizing or overthrowing the government of the United States ... shall register with the Secretary of State."

There's even a $5 filing fee.

That’s amazing and it comes from one of the reddest states in the union. We should do this with everything. Require drug dealers, murderers, rapists and whoever else to pre-register. That would get rid of any need for defense or law enforcement. Of course the bad side is all that added bureaucracy in our government.

Wait?

Republicans are adding bureaucracy?

Yup – again the hypocrisy stinks, but that stench is overshadowed by the over all reeking of stupidity from this idiotic law. And to think the Republicans want America to take them seriously on combating terrorism. Hell you got a better chance of Mark Sanford keeping it in his pants.

This is something the GOP does every year and despite all the problems the nation faces this year, the Republican leader won’t break from tradition. Here is the resolution:

Whereas Christmas is a national holiday celebrated on December 25; and

Whereas the Framers intended that the First Amendment of the Constitution, in prohibiting the establishment of religion, would not prohibit any mention of religion or reference to God in civic dialog: Now, therefore, be it

Resolved, That the House of Representatives–

(1) recognizes the importance of the symbols and traditions of Christmas;

(2) strongly disapproves of attempts to ban references to Christmas; and

(3) expresses support for the use of these symbols and traditions by those who celebrate Christmas.

How about a resolution honoring Hanukkah? How about Kwanza? Oh wait! The Republicans think Kwanza is some faux holiday.

But the most interesting part of Boehner’s resolution is his apparent hypocrisy:

It was just six weeks ago that House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) decided he was fed up with empty, meaningless congressional resolutions. These largely symbolic measures are taken up all the time -- it's been routine fare for years -- but Boehner decided they're now evidence of Democratic negligence. "These are your hard-earned tax dollars at work," Boehner scoffed.

In the spirit of the season I want to offer John Boehner some free advice that might help him save face on this. Figure up how long it will take for this resolution to pass. To help you out I did a little math:

Rupert Murdoch really did open a can of worms when he said he was going to pull all of his content from Google. TechDirt decided to take a look at the hypocrisy that surrounds the media mogul when it comes to using other’s content:

As Rupert Murdoch talks about how he wants to cut off Google, while claiming that aggregator sites are "parasites" and "stealing" from him -- and that fair use would likely be barred by the courts, it seemed like a good time to examine at least some of the sites that are owned by Rupert Murdoch that appear to aggregate content from other sites and which rely on the very same fair use argument. We've mentioned a few in the past, but figured it wouldn't hurt to explore them more thoroughly.

Take a look at all the examples of News Corp websites “stealing” (Murdoch’s words) from other websites.

Let me pull up just one example user by TechDirt from the Wall Street Journal:

When you show such hatred for the President then you will believe anything:

It really gets to be pretty pathetic sometimes, watching the conservatives grasp at every straw they can in order to attack and discredit a president they don't like.

If you listened to Rush Limbaugh today or visited Fox Nation, then you might have heard about President Obama's supposed college thesis in which the college-aged commander in chief allegedly wrote: "The so-called Founders did not allow for economic freedom. While political freedom is supposedly a cornerstone of the document, the distribution of wealth is not even mentioned. While many believed that the new Constitution gave them liberty, it instead fitted them with the shackles of hypocrisy."

Of course non of these organizations have set the record straight. As matter of fact only one blogger seems set on admitting to falling for it – Michael Ledeen at Pajamas Media. Good for him.

It came out this week that Mark Sanford used a government airplane to go get a haircut, hence making the cost well over $1,000.

When I first heard that I kept thinking about the John Edwards haircut fiasco. The right went after him viciously for this, calling him a hypocrite for spending $300 on a haircut when their are poor people out there who can’t even afford a $8.00 trim. Oh the hypocrisy of a man who championed for the poor to spend this kind of money!

But lets think about Mark Sanford, a man who was a beacon of conservatism to many. How is it “conservative” to spend so much government money on a haircut? This is true hypocrisy, but the coverage of it was much shorter lived than that of Edwards’ haircut. I guess that is what they mean by “liberal media”.

There is no argument that when it comes to our politicians and their little sexcapades we have a double standard in this nation – a standard clearly divided amongst party lines.

Take John Edwards, Bill Clinton, Elliot Spitzer or Jim McGreevey. These four Democrats suffered severely for their extramarital affairs. One was impeached, two were force out of office and the other has no political future.

But when we switch to the Republican side and look at Mark Sanford, John Ensign, David Vitter and Larry Craig, they were able to continue. Craig of course decided not to run again, but that was his choice. Mark Sanford and John Ensign have vowed to stay in office even though the hypocrisy now triumphs over any good they can do. These were men who adamantly yelled for Bill Clinton to be impeached. Now that they are swimming in the same pool, impeachment isn’t an option.

So why is this? I can only assume that Democrats are held to a higher standard by the public and their own beliefs. This really puts a damper on the Republican Party being the party of values, since every value they claim to believe they end up ignoring.

Republicans have a major problem moving forward. Not only are they viewed poorly on every issue across the board, but the one issue they always did have is now gone. That issue is family values. People like Tony Perkins try to hold on to yesteryear and thinking the Republicans are the superior moral beings, but the people have realized that Republican superiority is now synonymous with hypocrisy.

Jon Stewart has some fun with the hypocrisy on the right going on now over Obama’s presidency.

McCain has tried so hard to tie Obama to Freddie and Fannie, but guess what? He hasn't looked closely enough at his own campaign:

Senator John McCain’s campaign manager was paid more than $30,000 a month for five years as president of an advocacy group set up by the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to defend them against stricter regulations, current and former officials say.

In all Davis walked away with close to two million for his efforts. I believe we have the making of the latest Obama ad right here, thanks to McCain's total display of hypocrisy.