Five Before Chaos

I love it when this kind of stuff happens,  it doesn’t happen nearly as much as it should, considering how many of these people are still in the closet:

…a state senator from Southern California was arrested for allegedly driving drunk after leaving Faces, a gay nightclub in midtown Sacramento, early Wednesday morning.

A Republican, no surprise there. Of course, what makes it funny, awesome, great, etc.:

Ashburn served six years as a state Assemblyman before being elected to the State Senate. According to Project Vote Smart, Ashburn’s voting record shows he has voted against every gay rights measure in the State Senate since taking office including Recognizing Out-Of-State Same-Sex Marriages”, Harvey Milk Day and Expanding Anti-Discrimination Laws.

The day they get Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham will be a great day, indeed.

It’s been a while since I’ve commented on the GOP implosion. Perhaps it’s so rapid and farcical, I’m having a hard time even digesting it. It’s as though all of the seediness, intellectual vacuity, and Randian selfish prickishness that so many of us  have known about for so long is finally getting so obvious that even Joe the Plumber could figure it out. Well, maybe that’s stretching it a bit, as there’s no coloring book or distracting shiny objects involved yet.

One of those things that I’ve talked about before is the split between the big money/country club Republicans, and the batshit-insane crazy uncle of the party, the social conservative/Godidiot wing. Anyone paying attention well knows that the real “base” of the GOP (the hypercapitalists) have more or less used the Christian Taliban for electoral success, all the while loathing the flat-earth/dark-ages viewpoint that they’re so vocal about. You know the drill.. vote against the gays, but get a capital gains tax cut, vote to “save your guns”, get a corporate deregulation. It’s so freakin’ hilarious, simply because of the fact, that on their own, both factions at this point would be faring even worse than they are now. The Godsquad pretty much would be more at home with some fringe party like the Constitution Party or something, where they would pretty much drop off the radar. The GOP keeps playing these people for suckers, yet, being “faith” based, they keep coming back for more. It’s quite obvious the distaste from the country club wing for the Godsquad is quite high. Do you think they really give two shits about abortion, especially considering quite a few of ‘em have probably knocked up their fair share and had to take advantage of abortion, lest they hit a setback in their careers and pocketbooks? C’mon.

RNC head Michael Steele has been a hoot lately, saying crazy-ass things faster than I can keep track. First, the “are you crazy?” remark about the GOP being open to civil unions, then the Rush Limpballs apology, and now the GQ interview we’re all hearing about where he inadvertently let slip that he personally probably isn’t opposed to gay marriage or abortion. I can’t remember who I was reading yesterday, but it said that one really gets the impression that Steele basically says whatever he thinks the interviewer wants to hear. I can see that, although I really believe his comments in the GQ interview reveal the schism that I talked about above.

Vote-fraud enabler and GOP hack Ken Blackwell  (the other prominent Republican black guy) had this to say:

“Chairman Steele needs to reread the Bible, the U.S. Constitution and the 2008 GOP Platform,” said Blackwell. “He then needs to get to work or get out of the way.”

See, that’s the GOP’s dilemma. A party who finds “reading the Bible” an important part of their schtick is in serious trouble, in regards to any long-term success, as the country grows ever more secular (and of course, one also has to put aside the achingly obvious conundrum of having a party that continuously boasts of being pro-life, yet seems to simultaneously fetishize war, torture and the death penalty). Most of the real leaders are really hamstrung by the Godsquad, they probably enjoy sex of all kinds almost as much as they love money and power, but have to toe the moralist hack line, and it’s killing ‘em. When are they gonna toss these crazies overboard? As the views of the religious right seem crazier and crazier to most normal Americans, what will be the tipping point when the GOP finally gives ‘em the old heave ho?

When it comes from Republicans, probably not.

Just popping around today, I saw a lot of “media in the tank for Obama” nonsense, and how there were more “positive” stories as of late about Obama. Hmm. Let’s see… McCain picks dumb-as-dogshit Veep, commits blunder after blunder, plays to the fears and idiocy of our most mean-spirited, dumbest Americans, as 15 people show up at an airport to see him a few days after Obama has 100,000 etc. etc… How on earth are you supposed to polish that turd? Somebody please tell me, I need to know.

How does one (unless on Fox News, of course), spin idiots at McCain rallies yelling “terrorist” and “socialist” as a good thing? How is one supposed to spin an interview with a lady who makes Dan Quayle Pauly Shore look like a genius, who can’t even answer basic questions about government, as something we’re supposed to feel good about? Am I missing something here?

Nah, it’s just the same ol’ same ol’ conservatives-as-perpetual-victims bullshit. It’s just more obvious now, because they’re being so blatant about it and what their ideology is really about.

Bonus question: how many of these dumbfucks actually know what socialism really is? How many fingers do you have?

Choke on it, bee-yatch. I really do intend to do some serious gloating and taunting when this is all over. There will be no limits to my prickitude as I do my best to remind the right-wingers how utterly discredited their pathetic ideology is. How it has dragged this country into the ground. Their anti-people, anti-progress, Godiodiotic, plutocratic, Social Darwinist bullshit has scarred me irrevocably and I intend to wreak some good ol’ spaghetti-western style vengeance.

They will make tons of excuses. Some of the more deluded will predictably say that if only a “real conservative” had run, they would have won, going on the false assumption that somehow Americans prefer those policies. When they’re actually seen for what they are, without the spin, they don’t. The only way conservatives win is by lying and at least partially masking the agenda. Seems like the mask has fallen off. You can’t polish a turd, is what it really comes down to.

They will blame the media for making Palin look like a vacuous idiot, not the fact that Palin is a vacuous idiot. They will blame the “liberal” media, completely forgetting how it gave Bush a pass in the previous two elections and through most of his presidency, or that yes indeed, sometimes realiy does indeed have a liberal bias. Some of the bottom-feeders will probably blame it on not having prayer in schools anymore. Or the gays. Or those nasty brown people Seriously, that’s how some of ‘em think. They will not look inward. Self-reflection is not possible. They are always right and it’s always someone else’s fault. That’s what happens when you construct your own reality instead of living in the real one.

And we should continue to make them eat their own shit. There’s no nice way to put it, folks. It will be fun. I will gloat until my head explodes, if necessary.

And then we can concentrate on getting Obama on board where he needs to be. I’d love to see some of that non-existent “socialism” the deluded wingers keep rambling about. Hell, put William Ayers in charge of Homeland Security, just to add insult to injury. Fuck, dig up Huey Newton and put him in charge of something – for bonus points it’ll scare the piss out of those family members of mine concerned about Obama’s “black agenda”. Did you hear part of his educational plan is to make middle-schoolers watch Superfly and Sweet Sweetback’ Baaadasss Song?

It will be fun.

And the clouds parted…

Conservative Republicans are in shock after it emerged this morning that vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin, currently a self-proclaimed hockey-mom, used to be a pitbull-human hybrid. It was also revealed that shortly after accepting the Republican nomination she began to evolve rapidly into a 90-year-old man with one testicle and a Georgia cotton plantation.

Ms Palin, who has promised to keep wearing her popular rimless spectacles despite the rapid changes that will see her face become even squarer than it is, apologized to her party for proving Darwin’s theory of evolution.

“I am gutted that I have let the American Right down like this,” she said at a tearful press conference this morning, surrounded by her collection of stuffed polar bears in the den of her Anchorage home.

“Our primary argument for Creation and against the communist satanic onslaught of evolution has always been: ‘Well I’ve never seen a chimp turn into a man’ or ‘Show me a gorilla giving birth to a human baby and I’ll believe in evolution’.

“It has been an argument as sophisticated as our Grand Old Party, and I am devastated that I have undermined it, firstly by transforming from a pitbull to a woman, and now into an elderly male slave-owner.”

(h/t to Pharyngula)

Hell month is well underway, and if FBC were a child, I’d be hauled away for neglect… if I were a priest, there’d be ruined lives and lawsuits… you get the point.

Anyways, in continuing with the theme that never goes away, that being “the GOP’s perpetual dumbing down of America”, I gotta point you to the latest Krugman… it’s a real gem:

Now, I don’t mean that G.O.P. politicians are, on average, any dumber than their Democratic counterparts. And I certainly don’t mean to question the often frightening smarts of Republican political operatives.

What I mean, instead, is that know-nothingism — the insistence that there are simple, brute-force, instant-gratification answers to every problem, and that there’s something effeminate and weak about anyone who suggests otherwise — has become the core of Republican policy and political strategy. The party’s de facto slogan has become: “Real men don’t think things through.”

It’s one of those things that has one pulling one’s own hair out and running over random pedestrians in the street — it’s really that frustrating. It’s taking advantage of the low-information voter, or rather the low-information citizen, because even if they don’t vote, they still tend to have those stupid opinions that they bombard you with at the family barbecue (jeez, ya’ think I’m just a little worried about the upcoming wedding? My family is full of ‘em.)

It’s really the fruit of the conservative political strategy of the last few decades… foster mistrust in anyone who uses big words, is obviously educated (I say “obviously” as a lot of these GOP’ers went to Ivy League and such, but do their best to hide it and come across as a dumb hick),  likes food that isn’t bland, fried in lard, or may have a funny name… you get the point. For your ponderance, I leave you with another quote fromthe article, by GOP hack-extraordinaire, Peggy Noonan:

Let’s also not forget that for years President Bush was the center of a cult of personality that lionized him as a real-world Forrest Gump, a simple man who prevails through his gut instincts and moral superiority. “Mr. Bush is the triumph of the seemingly average American man,” declared Peggy Noonan, writing in The Wall Street Journal in 2004. “He’s not an intellectual. Intellectuals start all the trouble in the world.”

The scary thing is that I wonder if there is indeed some truth to Bush being like the “average American man”. Sigh.

Consider this a caption contest. Have at it, boys and girls. The fact that I watched George A. Romero’s latest zombie flick last night has nothing to do with this, I swear.

I’m starting to wonder if I need another Hindenburg picture on here, this time with McCain’s face on it. You’ve probably read the news this week about him getting the endorsement af a batshit insane end-times preacher named John Hagee. Now Hagee’s name come up a lot with ‘anti-Catholic bigotry’. Catholics like to whine about victimhood quite often, often equating disrespect or criticism as ‘anti-Catholic bigotry’, so that angle’s not really phasing me much. What is sickening is what a racist prick this guy is. Media Matters has a big piece on the crazy things this guy has said, but one really stuck out. He once had a “slave sale” as a fundraiser for a high school:

A March 7, 1996, article (accessed via the Nexis database) in the San Antonio Express-News reported that Hagee was going to “meet with black religious leaders privately at an unspecified future date to discuss comments he made in his newsletter about a ‘slave sale,’ an East Side minister said Wednesday.” The Express-News reported:

Hagee, pastor of the 16,000-member Cornerstone Church, last week had announced a “slave sale” to raise funds for high school seniors in his church bulletin, “The Cluster.”

The item was introduced with the sentence “Slavery in America is returning to Cornerstone” and ended with “Make plans to come and go home with a slave.”

A July 27, 2006, Wall Street Journal article about Hagee noted the incident:

To help students seeking odd jobs, his church newsletter, The Cluster, advertised a “slave” sale. “Slavery in America is returning to Cornerstone,” it said. “Make plans to come and go home with a slave.” Mr. Hagee apologized but, in a radio interview, protested about pressure to be “politically correct” and joked that perhaps his pet dog should be called a “canine American.”

And ya’ know how I always go on about how conservatives just aren’t funny?

Do you know the difference between a woman with PMS and a snarling Doberman pinscher? The answer is lipstick. Do you know the difference between a terrorist and a woman with PMS? You can negotiate with a terrorist.

Asshole.

McCain appareently not only got an endorsement from this guy, he had a “strategy breakfast” with the guy last year. I wonder if Tim Russert’s gonna go hogwild on McCain abut this like he did on the Obama-Farrakhan non-story.

Expect even more Republican implosions as the McCain campaign tries to have it both ways: denounce the haters, yet allow al the surrogates to continue. These people truly are pathetic. I really think what you’re seeing now is the culmination of Nixon’s so-called ‘Southern Strategy’, in that the GOP has been overtly and covertly embracing the racists in this country for so long that it’s bound to start biting them in the ass. Better late than never.

I just read the WaPo story that broke a few minutes ago. It seems that McCain was indeed lying when denying meeting with broadcaster Bud Paxson before sending two letters to the FCC on his behalf.

Paxson said he talked with McCain in his Washington office several weeks before the Arizona Republican wrote the letters in 1999 to the FCC urging a rapid decision on Paxson’s quest to acquire a Pittsburgh television station.

Paxson also recalled that his lobbyist, Vicki Iseman, likely attended the meeting in McCain’s office and that Iseman helped arrange the meeting. “Was Vicki there? Probably,” Paxson said in an interview with The Washington Post yesterday. “The woman was a professional. She was good. She could get us meetings.”

[snip]

The McCain campaign said Thursday that the senator had not met with Paxson or Iseman on the matter. “No representative of Paxson or Alcalde and Fay personally asked Senator McCain to send a letter to the FCC regarding this proceeding,” the campaign said in a statement.

But Paxson said yesterday, “I remember going there to meet with him.” He recalled that he told McCain: “You’re head of the Commerce Committee. The FCC is not doing its job. I would love for you to write a letter.”

She was good, eh? Most telling, though, is the response from McCain’s attorney, Bob Bennett. Tell me if this doesn’t encapsulate the very right-wingnut mind in a nutshell (emphais mine):

“We understood that he [McCain] did not speak directly with him [Paxson]. Now it appears he did speak to him. What is the difference?” Bennett said. “McCain has never denied that Paxson asked for assistance from his office. It doesn’t seem relevant whether the request got to him through Paxson or the staff. His letters to the FCC concerning the matter urged the commission to make up its mind. He did not ask the FCC to approve or deny the application. It’s not that big a deal.”

Get that? Did? Didn’t? No difference? Lied? It’s not that big a deal. Like we haven’t heard that a billion times in the last 8 years.

Lying is never a big deal to these people. By the time people notice, they’ve already moved on to the next one. I don’t really care if McCain was diddling his lobbyist gal pal. But in the context of what McCain may have done on her behalf, I’m definitely concerned. I hope this one gets legs. If people could tune out the right-wing noise machine for once, it will, and I’ll start to really believe things are actually starting to change.

You know, I really have to laugh at this conservative meltdown over McCain. Heck, he just got booed at CPAC, the “Cretins Pouting And Crapping” convention. I don’t get it, he’s just not as much of a prick as they expect their candidate to be (and McCain is quite the prick, from what I can gather). What’s even more astounding is how so many of ‘em were supporting Romney, who was pretty much as liberal as one could get in the GOP, at least until he started running for president. So, apparently, it’s more important to appear that you tow the far-right line, than to actually mean it.

What’s even more hilarious, as just about every Repub in the running does everything they can to sodomize the corpse of Ronald Reagan, is how unlike Reagan the party’s become. Sure, Reagan was a horrible president, and his “hate the government” rhetoric was largely responsible for the rise of movement conservatism, but I don’t seem to remember Reagan being so friggin’ outwardly nasty and downright hateful as most of these people are.

Sure, McCain’s got a shot at the WH, but I can’t think of a better representation of modern day conservatism as embodied in him: old and tired. If he’s unfortunate enough to run against Obama, the contrast will even be more apparent. It’s time to put this movement out to pasture for good.

UPDATE: this kos diarist knows what I’m talking about.