Iowa Republican's Shocking Ignorance

MISSING PHRASE: Moron

I continue to lament that today's Republican Party has become the party of ignorance, racism and extremism.  The examples are many, but one that is telling is Joni Ernst, the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate in Iowa.  One indication of Ernst extremism is her appearance before the Iowa Faith & Freedom Coalition, an organization that wants special rights for Christofascists and which might as well hand out KKK robes at its gatherings (in Virginia, the equivalent is The Family Foundation).  Ernst latest batshitery is her argument that states can "nullify" federal laws that states - read Christofascists - don't like.  The Daily Beast looks at this proud GOP cretin who ought not be running for any public office.  Here are highlights:

Joni Ernst, the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate in Iowa, appears to believe states can nullify federal laws. In a video obtained by The Daily Beast, Ernst said on September 13, 2013 at a forum held by the Iowa Faith & Freedom Coalition that Congress should not pass any laws “that the states would consider nullifying.”

“You know we have talked about this at the state legislature before, nullification. But, bottom line is, as U.S. Senator why should we be passing laws that the states are considering nullifying? Bottom line: our legislators at the federal level should not be passing those laws. We’re right…we’ve gone 200-plus years of federal legislators going against the Tenth Amendment’s states’ rights. We are way overstepping bounds as federal legislators. So, bottom line, no we should not be passing laws as federal legislators—as senators or congressman—that the states would even consider nullifying. Bottom line.”

[S]he co-sponsored a resolution that says “the State of Iowa hereby claims sovereignty under the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States over all powers not otherwise enumerated and granted to the federal government by the Constitution of the United States.” It was introduced in response to “many federal mandates [that] are directly in violation of the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States."

States cannot nullify federal laws, of course.

As Erwin Chemerinsky, a noted constitutional law scholar and Dean of the University of California, Irvine Law School, told The Daily Beast, nullification is expressly forbidden under Article VI of the Constitution. “This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof… shall be the supreme Law of the Land.” Chemerinsky also noted that the Supreme Court had dealt with this issue as recently as 1958, when in Cooper v. Aaron, a unanimous decision signed by every justice on the court, it was made clear that states could not nullify federal laws or Supreme Court decisions.

Ernst’s comments mark yet another chapter in what has been an ugly Senate campaign. Democrats have tried to depict her as an extremist and suggested that the Iowa state senator supports impeaching President Obama. In contrast, the Republicans have slammed Braley as being an out-of-touch liberal trial lawyer who is willing to sue his neighbors over minor squabbles and who looks down on those without advanced degrees.

The race is currently considered a tossup by outside observers and polling has Ernst and Braley in a dead heat.

Bush and Cheney's Foul Legacy

Squandering billions and billions of dollars on wars that could never be won was but one of the disasters that George W. Bush's toxic administration brought to America,  There are many other things many Americans would like to forget (the GOP base still hasn't admitted that they happened) such as torture as US policy, the biggest security lapse since Pearl Harbor, spying on US citizens, and actions that were clearly unconstitutional.  Despite this foul legacy, Bush and company is trying to make the public forget the damage done by this cretinous president and his megalomaniac vice president.  Maureen Dowd has a column in the New York Times that looks at the Bush Presidential Library's effort to airbrush history in the hope history will forget the damage Bush/Cheney wrought on America.  Here are excerpts:

After four years of bending the Constitution, the constitutional law professor now in the White House is trying to unloose the Gordian knot of W.’s martial and moral overreaches after 9/11. 

In a speech at the National Defense University, Obama talked about how we “compromised our basic values,” and he concluded with a slap at W.: “Our victory against terrorism won’t be measured in a surrender ceremony at a battleship or a statue being pulled to the ground.” 

On the eve of the president’s speech, I was at the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum here, watching the film of Saddam’s statue being pulled to the ground. 

It’s remarkable that Obama is trying to escape the shadow of the Bush presidency just as W. is trying to escape the shadow of the Bush presidency. Browsing the library, you wonder if these two presidents are complete opposites after all, as you see how history was shaped by an arrogant, press-averse, father-fixated, history-obsessed, strangely introverted chief executive.

W.’s library highlights his role in launching the Global War on Terror, an Orwellian phrase designed to conflate the sins of Osama, who was responsible for 9/11, and the sins of Saddam, who was not. That was the fatal mistake and hallmark of the Bush era. W., Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld declared war on a tactic, stoked fear as a smokescreen and treated pre-emptive attacks as just. 

Conservatives can honk, as Senator Saxby Chambliss did, that Obama’s speech “will be viewed by terrorists as a victory.” But this president has killed more top Qaeda operatives than Bush did. While W.’s bullhorn vow after 9/11 to catch the “people who knocked these buildings down” plays every few minutes at his library, I couldn’t find any photos of Osama or acknowledgment of Bush’s failure to catch him. Obama’s library will have a wing for that feat. 

You could fill an entire other library with what’s not in W.’s. Cheney and Rummy have been largely disappeared, and it is Condi Rice who narrates the 9/11 video. You won’t see the iconic “Mission Accomplished” photo, or that painful video in which W. keeps reading “The Pet Goat” to children after learning that America is under attack, or the notorious “flyover” photo of a desultory Bush jetting from Crawford to the White House and looking through the window of Air Force One at Katrina’s devastation. 

Mostly, aside from the word “freedom” reverberating endlessly, we see the kinder, gentler W. conjured by Laura the Librarian.   .  .  .  .  Proving that the library is more a monument to Laura’s artful airbrushing than W.’s artless leadership, there’s a swank Café 43 with fancier fare than W.’s cherished PB&J’s, and a gift shop featuring Laura’s favorite books, from Dostoyevsky’s “Brothers Karamazov” to Truman Capote’s “Music for Chameleons.” 

We need to never forget the disasters Bush and his Republican sycophant brought to America lest we be doomed to repeat the same horrors in the future.  Jingoism and waving the flag and talking about patriotism do not make one a true patriot or protect the nation.  Sometimes, the biggest patriots are those who call out the errors made - and horrors created -   by those who warp themselves in the American flag.  George W. Bush and Dick Cheney betrayed thousands of our nation's service members and thousands paid with their lives or now find themselves horrible maimed.  We need to honor our fallen.  But we cannot forget those who sent many to needless deaths.

Mitt Romney Flunks Basic Geography

For a man who wants to be U. S. commander-in-chief and who claims that he has a better plan for the Middle East, he sure doesn't know even the basic geography of the region.  During the debate on Monday night Romney made this statement:

 "Syria is Iran’s only ally in the Arab world. It’s their route to the sea." 

Is the man an idiot or does he think all of the rest of us are?  As the map above mockingly indicates, Romney apparently is oblivious to the fact that (1) Iran and Syria share no common border and (2) Iran has a lengthy coastline on the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea.  It's pretty frightening and puts Romney in the same league as Sarah Palin who claimed she could see Russia from her house in Wasilla, Alaska (which is impossible).  If Romney doesn't know this basic geography, he's to stupid and far too uninformed to be president.

Truth About Palin's Idiocy Begins to Come Out

Many of us realized early on that Sarah "Bible Spice" Palin was utterly unfit to be vice president - or perhaps even a dog catcher in states other than Alaska - and now the real stories of her stupidity are all starting to spill out. Personally, I continue to believe someone (or multiple people) from the Christian Right picked her and foisted her on McCain in exchange for Christianist support. Obama needs to find out who that was so he can send them a personal thank you note for likely losing the election for McCain. Should the GOP keep Paklin as its standard bearer, I think we will see many years of Democrat rule. Crooks and Liars as a sampling of Palin's idiocy (which shows why the anti-knowledge and anti-intelligence Christianists love her):

*

Carl Cameron does one of those Now-it-can-be-told stories Fox likes to do. In this episode we learn that:

*
1. Palin did NOT know Africa was a continent.
2. She did NOT know who the parties to NAFTA were. [Hint: U.S., Canada, Mexico]
3. She threw dramatic temper tantrums over bad press.
4. She refused to prepare for the Gibson or Couric interviews.

*
None of this really came out during the Presidential campaign because of course it was told "off the record". There are a few ways to look at this, the most interesting being is why they felt the need to spill the beans the day after the election. Are the knives really out on Sarah Palin? Sure seems so. Time will tell.

*
Smith: Now that the election is over, Carl, tell us more about those reports of infighting between Palin and McCain staffers.

*
Cameron: I wish I could have told you more at the time but all of it was put off the record until after the election. There was great concern in the McCain campaign that Sarah Palin lack the degree of knowledgeability necessary to be a running mate, a vice president, and a heartbeat away from the presidency. We’re told by folks that she didn’t know what countries that were in NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, that being the Canada, the US, and Mexico. We’re told she didn’t understand that Africa was a continent rather than a country just in itself ... a whole host of questions that caused serious problems about her knowledgeability. She got very angry at staff, thought that she was mishandled.....was particularly angry about the way the Katie Couric interview went. She didn’t accept preparation for that interview when the aides say that that was part of the problem. And that there were times that she was hard to control emotionally there's talk of temper tantrums at bad news clippings......

*
Notwithstanding that there is to be an avalanche that will continue for many days now we’re told of story upon story of the foibles of Sarah Palin.

Sarah Palin Debate Flow Chart

I saw the above chart on AmericaBlog and it is too fun, yet sadly an accurate description of what Palin did last night. The thought of her potentially a heart beat away form the presidency is terrifying. The rest of the world must think Americans have truly gone insane.