Tin-Foil Hate In Ur Congress, Making Ur Laws

Hey everyone, gun control ain’t dead! There’s actually a bill in Congress that would ban ammunition purchases for six months! And, unbelievably, this bill has the support of far-right GOPers like Sen. Jim Inhofe Of Oklahoma.

What’s that, you say?

Yep, meet the AMMO Act (“Ammunition Management for More Obtainability,” cute, huh? Republicans love those clever acronyms). Will it stop suspected terrorists from buying ammunition? Crazy people? Convicted felons, domestic abusers, etc.? Nope. It’s directed at federal agencies:

The legislation would require the Government Accountability Office to conduct a report on the purchasing of ammunition by federal agencies, except the Department of Defense, and its effect on the supply of ammunition available to the public. The AMMO Act would restrict agencies from obtaining additional ammunition for a six-month period if current agency stockpiles are higher than its monthly averages prior to the Obama Administration.

This bill stems from some long-debunked conspiracy theories circulating around the internet about the Obama Administration stockpiling ammo to disarm the American populace and prepare for civil unrest (oddly, the bill exempts the Defense Department; seems some folks don’t really understand the meaning of the term “martial law”).

Anti-government “tin-foil haters” like Alex Jones and Pat Dollard are cheering the bill. Of course they are, they’re the very folks who have been flogging this nonsense in the first place. The fact that there is actual legislation in the U.S. House and Senate addressing one of their crackpot conspiracy theories is a huge win for them. It shows how far their influence has reached inside the Republican Party.

And make no mistake, this is unique to the Republican Party. Yes, during the Bush years some lefties pondered the government’s role in 9/11; some folks believed a false national security event would occur so the Bush Administration could declare martial law and cancel the 2004 elections. But these were commenters on blogs, maybe a far-left radio host or two. Not people actually elected to the United States Senate or a state legislature. Not people holding office and in a position to influence public policy.

Not people like Tennessee Republican Rick Womick, or the crazy lady in New Hampshire’s state house who bought Alex Jones’ “false flag” nonsense about the Boston bombings. The fact that the Republican Party is increasingly associated with these fringe conspiracy nutters shows just how far off the rails America’s conservative political party has gone. Wake up, folks. Michele Bachmann has plenty of company in that crazy train.

I call them “tin-foil haters” because hate is exactly what these people are selling. It’s distrust of the government with a heaping pile of amygdala-tweaking fear thrown in, topped with a shining hero archetype. It’s the idea that only you, young Wolverine, have the exclusive truth and can save the world — or at least your corner of it. Only you can be the hero of this movie. And yes, I do blame Hollywood for a lot of this stuff. I can’t tell you how tired I am of seeing the White House or a national landmark blown up on the big screen (and hunky Channing Tatum alone can save us!). Hollywood, get a new storyline. This one’s played out.

By the way: if you think our government is too incompetent to regulate healthcare but is clever enough to pull off any of the convoluted conspiracy theories you’ve dreamed up, I’ve got a bridge to sell you.

Arkansas State Rep. Nate Bell: Asshole of the Day

Nate Bell, Republican from Arkansas:

Can’t imagine why people think Republicans are mean-spirited, can you?

Bell has been summarily spanked on Twitter for this douchey Tweet, prompting him to Tweet about praying for families and re-Tweeting a “love your enemies” Bible verse. That’s right, hide behind religion when your fat yap opens and the stupid falls out, you sanctimonious shit.

(h/t, ThinkProgress)

Wingnut Mashup

If we needed any further proof that the Republican Party has disintegrated into little more than a pile of amygdala-tweaking meme salad with the sole purpose being to separate the rubes from their paychecks, I bring you this latest grift from Rep. Steve Stockman of Texas:

All you have to do to get this awesome bumper sticker is send $10 to the Stockman campaign. Such a deal! And you know you want one, wingnuts, because Stockman says liberals hate it! Punch the hippie, just $10! Cue the calliope soundtrack.

Last month I wrote that your modern Republican Party is no longer a political entity, it’s a massive money-making scheme. Rep. Stockman is just the latest con man to put his hand in the grift machine.

Idiotic.

TN GOPers Root Out Creeping Sharia In Capitol Bathrooms

Tennessee State legislators Bill Ketron (R-CooCooForCocoaPuffs) and Judd Matheny (R-TinFoilHatsRUS) are still focused like a laser on crazy crap no one really gives a shit about:

Building managers and legislative staffers have sought to reassure some concerned Tennessee lawmakers that recent renovations at the state Capitol did not install special facilities to support Muslim prayer rituals.

The new sink is instead meant to make it easier for custodial staff to fill buckets and clean mops.

Senate Clerk Russell Humphrey said he had been approached by a House and Senate member to inquire about the basin, which replaced a utility sink that had been mounted higher on the wall.

Sen. Bill Ketron of Murfreesboro said he had asked about the change after being approached about it by fellow Republican Rep. Judd Matheny of Tullahoma. Ketron said the answer dispelled any potential concerns, while Matheny denied being involved.

Ha ha ha … Love that Matheny is all like, “Huh? Waddun’t me!”

SO GLAD WE GOT THAT CLEARED UP FOLKS! Now back to your regularly scheduled wackadoodle.

Fer crying out loud … Who in their right mind sees a dang sink and immediately gets all scared about ZOMG ISLAMOFASCISM!? Get some help, guys. Like, of the medicinal sort? Maybe?

I do not want to know what reality looks like to these guys.

When Pigs Fly

This will happen when monkeys fly out of Rick Santorum’s armpit:

The report calls on Republicans to counter the party’s image as an arm of business. It says Republicans should “blow the whistle at corporate malfeasance and attack corporate welfare. We should speak out when a company liquidates itself and its executives receive bonuses but rank-and-file workers are left unemployed. We should speak out when CEOs receive tens of millions of dollars in retirement packages but middle-class workers have not had a meaningful raise in years.”

Yes, you should! Why don’t you? Maybe because it’s really hard to blow a whistle with the same mouth you’re using to fellate corporate interests and Wall Street bankers?

It gets better:

Beyond that, however, there are no policy details. Indeed, the authors point out that they are not a policy committee, in a section calling on the GOP to “embrace and champion” comprehensive immigration reform without further specifics.

In addition, an extensive set of “inclusion” proposals for minority groups, including Latinos, Asians and African Americans, appears to mimic similar, failed outreach efforts by various RNC chairs over the last 30 years.

Of course there are no policy details. The Republican Party hasn’t had a new idea since Ronald Reagan. Conservatism by its very nature is the antithesis to new ideas. These are the same people who don’t believe in science, in evolution, in a living, breathing Constitution. They are cemented in the past, indeed that is the very definition of being conservative.

It’s hard not to look at this RNC “report” as nothing more than another canon fired in the war between establishment Republicans and the Tea Birchers. The RNC’s report is getting a lot of national attention today, and that’s no coincidence: conservatives just spent the weekend grumbling about how they want segregation back and cheering tired old Telepromptr jokes at the CPAC freak show. The Teanuts are the Neanderthals of conservatism, trying to drag the Republican Party back to the swamp. Reince Priebus has thrown this post mortem out as a warning to those rabble rousers that they’d better step in line or get thrown under the bus. Good luck with that!

Fun fact: remove all of the vowels from Reince Priebus and you get RNC PR BS. Who says God doesn’t have a sense of humor?

Vast Right-Wing Cesspool

If you haven’t read The Trials Of Nadia Naffe, then stop what you’re doing and go read it, now. It’s a long, in-depth piece that outlines in agonizing detail the collusion between the Republican Party, Fox News, conservative Sugar Daddies, and James O’Keefe’s smear operations.

Here’s a sample:

The idea for the next Project Veritas mission originated with John Fund, a Fox News contributor and author of the 2008 book Stealing Elections: How Voter Fraud Threatens Our Democracy. In January 2010, Fund emailed the Republican National Lawyers Association and other hard-right affiliates about an incriminating tip he received about the Massachusetts Service Employees International Union (SEIU) — Greater Boston’s brotherhood of janitors, health-care workers, and other mostly low wage earners. Fund’s “normally reliable” source, he wrote in an email that has since been made public, claimed the SEIU planned to help Democrats steal the special Senate election between Scott Brown and Martha Coakley. According to Fund, the union would accomplish this by chartering buses in the liberal and minority-rich neighborhoods of Roxbury, Mattapan, Roslindale, and Jamaica Plain. “If you’re black or brown,” he wrote, “they’ll rope you in and take you to the polls. Registration can be worked out.”

Shuttling voters to polls is perfectly legal, of course — but pretty soon emails were flying between members of O’Keefe’s associates, rife with speculation that the SEIU would try more nefarious ploys, like paying for votes and helping people to vote twice.

Such hypothetical shenanigans sounded like surefire fodder to Steve Friess, son of investment billionaire and Rick Santorum bankroller Foster Friess. The elder Friess is perhaps most famous for telling MSNBC host Andrea Mitchell that, back in his day, “gals” “used Bayer Aspirin for contraception.” To plug conservative causes, Freiss has a whole foundation that’s run by his son Steve, who relished the prospect of causing “image problems for SEIU.” With their support in place, O’Keefe jumped on board, and he brought Naffe along with him. Not only did she have her star turn in the Waters series to recommend her, but she also matched the request from Freiss for “black/Latina conservatives [who] could be wired for video, and get picked up on one of these busses.” Less than a week later, Naffe flew into Logan airport. Her first task was to snoop on an election-eve rally for Coakley at a Dorchester union hall.

John Fund? Foster Friess? Foster Friess’ son? It’s always the same characters in right-wing land, isn’t it? (By the way, that attempted SEIU sting was a big bust. The suspected fraud never existed and Brown won the election.)

Also, I don’t understand why Nadia Naffe never questioned the fact that these Project Veritas “stings” almost exclusively targeted minorities, the poor, and those serving them. Maxine Waters? Shirley Sherrod? ACORN?

I mean, I understand the Planned Parenthoood sting: conservatives hate abortion, and PP is identified with abortion, that makes sense. But ACORN? From the article:

His big score came in the fall of 2009 — O’Keefe’s decisive blow against ACORN, which at the time was among the nation’s leading advocates for poor and disadvantaged people. ACORN had also been historically integral in getting out the minority vote; after the rise of Obama, this made them the object of widespread conservative consternation.

That’s it? ACORN got out the minority vote? That what put them on O’Keefe’s hit list? Umm … isn’t that a little … racist? That strikes me as an idea rooted in a campaign office or party headquarters, not some young activist trying to make his name with a “gotcha” video attacking a notable liberal figurehead. Who had even heard of ACORN before this?

I’ve always been suspicious about why ACORN was even targeted in the first place. Who sent O’Keefe their way, anyway? Aren’t right-wingers always saying that non-profit groups like, well, ACORN should deal with the poor and disadvantaged? Not nasty old big gummint?

By the way, I meant to put this in my Good News Friday post, but last week it was announced that James O’Keefe will pay $100,000 to one of his ACORN victims, Juan Carlos Vera. O’Keefe’s accomplice, Hannah Giles, already paid Vera $50,000 last year.

I’m sure Foster Friess or PayPal cofounder/Facebook investor Peter Thiel, who gave $30,000 to make the ACORN videos in the first place, won’t mind chipping in. Because a community organization helping poor and disadvantaged people is just the most awful threat to democracy ever.

/sarcasm

Anyway, go read the article. It’s an eye-opener.

First Draft Tuesday

I write about some serious, hard-core ratfucking by apparent anonymous “Republican operatives.” Watch your backs, Dems. Dirty deeds, done dirt cheap.

Chris Christie Is Severely Conservative

Please stop telling me that Chris Christie isn’t sufficiently conservative because CPAC did not invite him to their little crapfest this year. I ain’t buying it.

This whole phony-baloney CPAC “snub” storyline is such an obvious piece of marketing bullshit. I know my readers are too smart to fall for it, but it amazes me that the political media has. Seriously, guys, how many times are you going to get played? Or maybe you just don’t care. Yeah, that has to be it. It’s all Kabuki, the media is dutifully playing their part, and we rubes in the sticks are supposed to eat it all up. Thanks for watching the previews, now get ready for the big show somewhere around 2015!

Americans have been played so many times by the endless deluge of political theater, I just don’t think it’s going to work. At least, it’s not going to work on me.

Look, the big problem every pundit and Republican “strategist” identified as sinking the Mitt Romney campaign was its failure to “define” their candidate early in the game. The big thing that sunk Romney, according to the experts, was that Obama “defined” Romney as an out-of-touch, super-wealthy, flip-flopping elitist. Hey, if the shoe fits, amiright?

So it’s just so obvious to me that the Republican establishment has identified Christie as their guy for 2016 and they’ve started “defining” him as the anti-Teanut, non-crazy Republican.

Look, Republicans figured out that the extremists that make up their base have hurt the party, so they’re tossing those folks under the bus, tricorn hat and all. Instead they’re going to offer up their straight-talking, outspoken, Real American, blue collar dude who will “reach across the aisle.” As proof that he’s not one of the foamy mouthed Neanderthals, look at how he’s been “snubbed” by CPAC! See!

Pfft. Except he wasn’t too liberal for CPAC last year, when he took to the podium and bragged to those same foamy-mouthed Neanderthals about what a dick he could be to Democrats, and how Obama is a scary big-government guy who is going to ruin the country for future generations. I found a copy of Christie’s 2012 CPAC speech on YouTube, it’s a bad video and you might want to just listen to the audio or else take some Dramamine capsules before you watch it:

Listen to him gloat about how he went in and made budget cuts by executive order, instead of negotiating with the Democratic legislature on a budget, because fuck yeah, that’s how Chris Christie rolls. That moment of non-compromise elicited vigorous cheers from the audience, because there’s nothing wingers don’t love like a fellow conservative bully. (And really, haven’t we already had one Little Napoleon in the White House in recent memory? Do we really need another?)

Christie is another union-hating, cheap labor, tax-cutting, de-regulating, pro-life, ex-Wall Street lobbyist, Reagan-worshipping Republican. Make no mistake, these people are all the same. Like our Bill Haslam, they may look reasonable, but they always revert to type. They’ll let the mouth-breathers and Bible-bangers have their way, if it suits their interests.

That’s why Christie vetoed New Jersey’s same-sex marriage bill last year. Noted Steven Goldstein, head of Garden State Equality:

“He won’t veto the bill because he’s anti-gay,” Goldstein said in a statement issued before the veto was issued Friday. “He’ll veto the bill because the 2016 South Carolina presidential primary electorate is anti-gay.”

Truer words were never spoken. But a funny thing happened between last February and this February: the American people overwhelmingly rejected the “legitimate rape” wing of the Republican Party and their “binders full of women.” The War On Women became a real thing, and nobody cares if a couple of gay guys get married anymore. So this CPAC “diss” is a carefully planned brand roll-out.

Remember when John McCain was all “mavericky”? And then quickly disintegrated into a flip-flopping Pander Bear? This is like that, but I don’t think Christie will pander. He’s too smart for that, plus he can bully his way into the Republican nomination, because did I mention how much Republicans love their pet bullies? I really don’t think he’ll have any problems with the Tea Party crowd, those guys are so over, and Christie will have all the Wall Street and Koch money he needs to buy the nomination.

This guy isn’t the people’s choice, he’s the establishment choice, the Wall Street choice, the choice of the plutocrats. And liberals better start mining the memory hole now before the thing is scrubbed clean.

Also, y’all have no idea how much it pisses me off that I had to add a “2016 Presidential Election” category with this post. Cripes, America. Get a new hobby.

Payback, Republican Style?

Oh my God, how did I not know that the WWE had created a villainous Tea Party wrestling character, with an evil manager sidekick? To wit:

Appearing on Monday Night Raw last week, Swagger and Colter were booed by the crowd as they overzealously talked about the Constitution, the scourge of illegal immigration, and “true patriotism.” Other promotional videos of the two show them talking about freeloading immigrants and welfare recipients in front of the Gadsden flag, which has become symbolic of the Tea Party movement.

Swagger is set to battle for the “World Heavyweight Championship” (or whatever it’s called) against Mexican wrestler Alberto Del Rio — clearly a play on the stereotypical tension between anti-immigration types and Mexicans.

Further hyping the “Tea Party” gimmick, during one match ringside commentators Michael Cole and Jerry Lawler continually referred to Colter as Swagger’s “nutjob” manager, and said that the pair had received “fan mail” from controversial conservatives like Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Alex Jones.

Conservative blog Twitchy hit back at the WWE with a clever swipe at pro-”wrestling” itself: “WWE’s racist Tea Party villain as realistic as pro wrestling.”

Oooh yes, clever indeed. Nobody ever made that joke before!

Trying to think of why WWE would make fun of the Tea Party. I wonder if it has anything to do with Linda McMahon’s failed run for Connecticut Senate? McMahon, whose husband owns and operates WWE, lost handily to Democrat Chris Murphy. But I had thought McMahon was the Tea Party candidate?

Odd, but there’s no fuck you like a Republican fuck you.

How Virginia GOP Spent MLK Day

I simply can’t understand why the Republican Party has a problem with African-American voters, can you?

The state Senate is split 20-20 between Republicans and Democrats. On Monday, while state Sen. Henry Marsh (D) — a 79-year-old civil rights veteran — was reportedly in Washington to attend President Obama’s second inaugural, GOP senators forced through a mid-term redistricting plan that Democrats say will make it easier for Republicans to gain a majority.

With Marsh’s absence, Senate Republicans in Richmond had one more vote than Senate Democrats and could push the measure through. The new redistricting map revises the districts created under the 2011 map and would take effect before the next state Senate elections in Virginia and would redraw district lines to maximize the number of safe GOP seats.

Apparently nobody — even the Republican governor — knew this was coming. Oh, but it gets better:

…after using the absence of civil rights leader Marsh to push through the legislative changes, the Senate adjourned in honor of a well-known Confederate general.

“On motion of Senator Stosch, the Senate adjourned in memory or [sic] General Thomas J. ‘Stonewall’ Jackson at 4:10 p.m. to convene Tuesday, January 22, 2013,” read the official minutes of the legislative day.

Lovely way to spend MLK Day, Virginia Republicans. Redraw district lines in the Republicans’ favor, then adjourn in honor of a Confederate general. Nope, can’t imagine why the GOP has problems with minority voters at all.