Republicans Are Panicked, Stupid And Cruel

The caption of this post was too good to pass up - especially since it is true in its description of far too many of today's Republicans.  Sadly, the party base embraces ignorance - - actually, celebrates it - gushes bigotry, and is motivated b fear: fear of gays, fear of blacks, fear of Hispanics, fear of Muslims and fear of modernity itself.  Enter the GOP clown car of GOP presidential candidates and the result is almost guaranteed to be a train wreck.   A piece in Politicususa.com looks at the the fruits of the failed policies of the GOP and the bigotry and hysteria of the GOP base which has only intensified since November 13, 2015.  Here are highlights:

It is really difficult to discern what kind of character flaw is driving a fair number of Americans to abject fright and dependency on being in a near-perpetual state of panic; most recently over a single incident in Europe that is repeated around the world at the same frequency as mass shootings in America, almost weekly.

At first blush one assumes that social conservatives are pathologically addicted to fear, but it is so much more than that because a primary component of irrational fear is ignorance. The Republican base are also inherently stupid and it is a fact not lost on their leaders who are again taking advantage of that indisputable fact to manipulate them like a herd of terrified sheep.

[I]f the right were not so stupid, they would realize that the Republican fear mongering over Syrian refugees is precisely how George W. Bush convinced Americans to support invading two Middle East nations who did not attack America. They also supported giving up their privacy, opening the door to al Qaeda in Iraq, and creating the object of the Republicans’ fright du jour; the Islamic State (IS, ISIS, ISIL).

In his Friday column, Paul Krugman noted that since Barack Obama was sworn in as President, Republicans and conservatives have done nothing but “warn about imminent catastrophe.” Of course none of the fiscal crises, hyperinflation and economic collapse due to health insurance, gun confiscations, or imposition of Sharia Law have happened as predicted. And yet, the same Republican panic-mongers have their stupid base terrified of allowing refugees who are not “proven Christians” into the country.

All of this Republican-created panic and fear is going on in America while Parisians who were actually attacked are staying calm and going out to cafes to show that they are not intimidated like terrified Americans. President François Hollande even reaffirmed that, because France is a humanitarian nation, they will continue taking in Syrian refugees and increased the number.

According to right-wing social conservatives, all they require to be courageous and intimidating is god and guns, and although they have those in abundance, a tough guy like Erickson is too much of a coward to venture out to the local multiplex. All the while, Parisians are back to their routines and Republicans are terrified of refugees; unless “they can prove beyond a doubt that they are Christians.”

Krugman is not alone in his assessment of Republicans and their conservative punditry. President Obama rightly mocked Republicans for claiming they intimidate world leaders and yet are “scared of widows and orphans.”
Mr. Krugman makes a very valid point in noting that panic is the only thing Republicans have and that the presidential nomination will go to “whoever can most effectively channel that panic.” Krugman comprehends, like Republicans and their conservative pundits, that their social conservative base is driven by fear, stupidity and cruelty; especially toward Muslim people whether they are Syrian refugees or American citizens.

There is a major election coming up and with nothing to run on Republicans are reverting to what they know works best; frightening Americans who are too cognitively challenged to know they are being manipulated yet again. It is not a testament to Republicans’ expertise at reading the people, just a revelation that a fair portion of the population is stupid enough to fall for the exact same fear tactics. If they were not imbecilic morons they might be embarrassed but they are not; that in itself is embarrassing.

Prostitute Loving Vitter Loses Louisiana Governor's Race

With so many Republicans falling into the thoroughly despicable category nowadays, it is sometimes difficult to estimate which ones are the most despicable.  By any measure, prostitute loving, gay hating Senator David Vitter (R-La) has to rank near the top in terms of both utter hypocrisy and sleaze factor.  Vitter for years ridiculously used the excuse that he had repented from his erroneous ways to get himself reelected by simpletons and godly folk in Louisiana.  Last night Louisiana voters seemingly finally got their heads out of their asses and Vitter went down to Democrat John Bel Edwards who garnered 56% of the vote.  While the results suggest that Republicans in Louisiana may be belatedly coming to their senses, the same unfortunately doesn't hold true elsewhere.  A piece in Talking Points Memo looks at Vitter's delicious loss.  Here are highlights:

[I]t is nice to see the political career of David Vitter - someone we've been following closely at TPM for almost a decade - go down in flames tonight. But there's an additional part of the story, an additional piece of good news. As Catherine Thompson explained here, Vitter devoted the last week of his campaign to demagoguing the Syrian refugee issue in a desperate effort to save himself. He even went beyond the standard scare talk and hyperbole to trying to whip hysteria against a specific Syrian refugee who Vitter falsely claimed had mysteriously disappeared and was now at large in the state. (The man in question had, all through official channels and with appropriate notifications, been relocated to the Washington, DC region where he had relatives.)

[T]he race had become a potential bellwether for Syrian refugee hysteria and politics. Perhaps even the fear of terrorism or hatred for the desperate and forlorn was not enough to overcome the state's building revulsion for the man-child senator.  

Not only did Vitter not make a comeback. The final election results (almost a 10 point win) suggest the last minute immigrant-terror bashing had no effect at all. 

We're still seeing how this all plays out. I don't mean to tell you that Syrian refugee hysteria politics is nothing. But in this case it wasn't enough. Indeed, it does not appear to have helped Vitter at all - not even to partially close the gap. And that is worth noting.

Ben Carson Looks in Mirror and Says "Americans Are Stupid"

A piece in Mother Jones makes the case that Ben Carson is right on one point: many Americans are "stupid."  Unfortunately for Carson, he seems to be describing his own supporters and others in the reality denying Republican Party base.  He also displays the same paranoia and conspiracy theory craziness of Randy Forbes  sees liberals, progressives, secularists, Marxists, or whatever as having penetrating key elements of American society to gain control of the nation.  Here are story excerpts:

When retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, the current GOP 2016 front-runner, campaigns, he routinely pitches "common sense solutions from We the People." But it seems the candidate who celebrates a cheerful and straightforward populism has a fair bit of disdain for many of his fellow citizens, for at a videotaped event last year, while discussing the American people, he declared, "Many of them are stupid."

Carson made this observation while speaking at the Richard Nixon library on October 19, 2014, as part of a book tour. After a fifteen-minute talk—prior to a book-signing—Carson was asked if he might run for president as an independent. He vowed not to do so, noting this would fracture the Republican vote. He then pivoted to another topic: unnamed political foes—presumably liberals, progressives, secularists, Marxists, or whatever—penetrating key elements of American society to gain control of the nation:

They can twist and turn things as much as they want. But what they don't understand—and they miscalculated. They were doing a great job in terms of fundamentally changing this nation. In terms of infiltrating the school systems. In terms of infiltrating the media. All of this—they've done a great job. Everything was perfect. Except they underestimated the intelligence of the American people. The people are not as stupid as they think they are. Many of them are stupid. Okay. But I'm talking about overall.

Carson also noted that he could escape the corruptions of conventional politics by deftly using social media, and, with no apparent sense of hyperbole, he suggested that Fox News was preventing America from becoming a totalitarian state:

Even if all the media tries to shut you down—which they have tried very much to do with me. But they can't because the good Lord has provided me with mechanisms like my syndicated column and like Fox News. We'd be Cuba if there were no Fox News.

Carson's remarks about stupid Americans and the insidious plotting of unidentified elements to sneakily seize key American institutions were in sync with previous statements from this political novice who recently vaulted to the front of the Republican pack.   Carson has long noted that he's a fan of W. Cleon Skousen, who in 1958 wrote a book called The Naked Communist, a dark and paranoid screed that maintained that commies had "penetrated every echelon of American society"—from PTAs, art salons, media entities, social program offices, and entertainment companies to the "highest offices of the United States Government." Skousen believed that the civil rights movement, acceptance of homosexuality, the rise of abstract art and modernism, and the advent of Medicare and Social Security were all part of a clandestine scheme mounted by communists and others to destroy the United States.

Carson does seemingly believe that for decades the American public has been slyly manipulated by an enemy from within.

Carson is crazy.  And his supporters are not only stupid, but likely just as crazy as he is.

Jindal Joins GOP Clown Car and Attacks Jeb Bush

Bobby Jindal has run Louisiana into the ground and after stating that the Republican Party needed to stop being the "stupid party" has proceeded to do everything possible to label himself as exhibit 1 of what the GOP should not be doing.  He has utterly prostituted himself to the Christofascist elements of the GOP base and in the process outraged big business in Louisiana.  Now, Jindal has joined the list of declared occupants of the GOP clown car and will take his batshitery to an even wider stage.  In his announcement of his candidacy, he launched into an attack on Jeb Bush that likely has Hillary Clinton smiling broadly.  Politico looks at the launch of Jindal's delusional campaign.  Here are highlights:

Bobby Jindal went there. As the 13th Republican candidate to enter the presidential race, the Louisiana governor tried to grab attention by going negative with his announcement speech Wednesday, smacking down his rivals as “selfish” politicians who are nothing more than “talkers,” and calling out Jeb Bush as a mushy conservative.

“You’ve heard Jeb Bush saying we need to be able to lose the primary to win the general election. We’re going to help him do that,” Jindal said, kicking off his long-shot bid for the GOP presidential nomination.

Presenting himself as an unapologetically religious, small-government conservative, Jindal told several hundred supporters inside a musty event hall here that his rivals may talk a good game but that he plans to punch his way back into the race by telling the truth.

“Here’s the truth about most politicians: They are selfish, and they are followers, not leaders,” said Jindal, who promised to cut spending and wear his religious beliefs on his sleeve, even if he runs afoul of Washington’s “in crowd” by doing so.

Polling at just under 1 percent nationally, Jindal has little choice but to run as an insurgent, anti-establishment firebrand.

[H]e reserved his most vicious firepower for Bush, the current GOP front-runner.  Jindal warned that Bush is putting the whole Republican Party in danger by appeasing the left and masking conservative views.

“He is saying that we need to hide our conservative ideals,” he said. “But the truth is, if we go down that road again, we will lose again.”

[D]uring his speech Wednesday, Jindal focused less on policy points, playing up the politics of grievance that he hopes will fire up social conservatives.

“I know that some believe that I talk too much about my faith,” said Jindal, who was born Hindu but converted to Catholicism. “But I will not be silenced in order to meet their expectations of political correctness. They don’t accept the idea that you can be both intellectual and Christian.

I beg to differ, but conservative Christian beliefs and being intellectual and reality based are mutually exclusive.  Jindal conveniently forgets that he converted to a church that took hundreds of years to formally admit that it was wrong about Galileo. 

Bloomberg Poll: Almost Half of Americans Are Stupid

The Republican Party has indeed become the party of stupid.  Hence, it is little surprise that almost half of Americans are stupid.  Yes, you guessed it, the GOP base in particular.  How else to explain a refusal to accept modern science, the desperate clinging to the writings and myths of unknown Bronze Age goat herders, and denial of climate change even as the polar ice masses melt.  Politicususa looks at the poll findings.  Here are excerpts:

As comedian George Carlin once said, “Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups” and he was certainly referring to Americans loyal to the Republican movement. It is possible that in many Americans’ cases, stupid is the wrong term and denial a more apt descriptor; although a combination of the two terms is likely apropos when referring to half of America. In fact, it is safe to say that the two terms accurately describe Republican voters as a whole because it takes a particularly stupid person to deny what they know have experienced and seen with their own eyes; something results of a Bloomberg poll released yesterday revealed in grand fashion.

[T]he poll revealed that overall the President’s approval rating is positive in no small part due to a recovering economy that even Republicans cannot deny or take any credit for after spending six long years doing nothing. Those numbers are bad news for Republicans who continue claiming errantly that the economy is lagging regardless corporate profits are raging, unemployment is falling, GDP is up, the debt is falling, and the stock market continues setting new records. Even for stupid Americans, it is obvious that the economy under President Obama has been steadily improving and shows no signs of slowing any time soon according to economic experts forecasting continued growth with one caveat; the majority of the population is not seeing their personal finances keep pace with the rich and corporations in a growing economy. It was the one part of the poll results that a substantial majority of Americans were in complete agreement about.

What was curious about the poll results, though, was that although 69 percent of Americans say a growing problem is the widening income gap between the very rich and the rest of the population, there was a relatively even split on how best to address the economic discrepancy favoring the one percent; that is where the stupid factor is manifest. Americans who agreed that it is “better for the government to implement policies to shrink the income gap” made up 46 percent of respondents, and 47 percent said it is better “for the government to stand aside and let the market operate freely; even if the income gap gets wider.” Now, it is belligerently stupid for respondents, 69 percent of them, to acknowledge that, on the one hand, there is a growing income gap between the richest one percent and the rest of the population that has to be confronted and solved, and yet 47 percent believe the best way to address the problem is for government to ‘stand aside‘ and let the market take care of the problem; “even if it makes the gap wider.” Maybe the 47 percent agreeing with that statement failed to read the last phrase.

Obviously the stupid 47 percent who want to solve the income gap issue by, as Republicans preach, “getting government out of the way” have spent an inordinate amount of time getting their economic policy solutions from Republicans and Fox News. They also apparently have a serious issue with reality because study after report after study after life experience has revealed that nationally and particularly in states where Republicans have “got government out of the way,” economic growth is non-existent, job creation is lagging, people are getting poorer while the rich get richer, and deficits are exploding.

For example, Republicans attempted to get government out of the way by eliminating overtime pay, blocked Democrats attempt to pass an equal pay for equal work law, obstructed every attempt by President Obama to create jobs, and slashed federal spending that killed jobs. Republicans have also spent the last few months getting government out of the way of the rich getting richer by attempting to pass legislation giving the rich greater tax breaks as part of their failed trickle down scam . . .

Either 47 percent of the respondents are too stupid to understand that the Republican anti-government approach to the economy has failed every economic test over the past thirty years, or they know it increases the income gap and foolishly think that if the richest one percent gets richer, their own financial situation will improve. If left on its own, the market will always favor the rich. . .

The only reason there is a destructive income gap in America is because for the past thirty years Republicans have been on a crusade to get government out of the way and it has created an environment that is conducive to corporate profits and increased wealth for the richest one percent at the expense of the rest of the population. One has to hand it to Republicans for convincing nearly half of the Bloomberg poll’s respondents that going forward with an economic agenda that enriches the already wealthy at the expense of the rest of the population by eliminating government is the solution to the widening income gap. Republicans understand that at least half of America is stupid and will continue falling for the same failed approach to the economy regardless the disastrous economic consequences, and there is little doubt they will work tirelessly to convince the rest of the population that eliminating government will make them filthy rich.

The GOP Primary Is Where Ideas Go to Die

Since the GOP establishment foolishly allowed the Christofascists to hijack the party base, the intellectual level of the party has been in a death spiral.  The party that once respected science, education and progress has been replaced by a party where ignorance is celebrated and science and modern knowledge are scorned.  To court favor with the fetid swamp that is the GOP base, would be political candidates must eschew thought, logic and innovative plans and instead embrace the mantras of the most ignorant and extreme elements of the party base.  A column in The Daily Beast looks at how the GOP base and GOP primaries is where ideas go to die.  Here are excerpts:

So now we have us some candidates, on the Republican side. Who’s the big kahuna? Jeb Bush? He keeps getting called front-runner, and I suppose he is, even though the polls sometimes say otherwise. Scott Walker? Certainly a player. Rand Paul? Pretty bad rollout, but he has his base. The youthful, advantageously ethnicized Marco Rubio? Some as-yet-unannounced entrant who can hop in and shake things up?

Each has a claim, sort of, but the 800-pound gorilla of this primary process is none of the above. It’s the same person it was in 2008, and again in 2012, when two quite plausible mainstream-conservative candidates had to haul themselves so far to the right that they ended up being unelectable. It’s the Republican primary voter.

To be more blunt about it: the aging, white, very conservative, revanchist, fearful voter for whom the primary season is not chiefly an exercise in choosing a credible nominee who might win in November, but a Parris Island-style ideological obstacle course on which each candidate must strain to outdo his competitors—the hate-on-immigrants wall climb, the gay-bashing rope climb, the death-to-the-moocher-class monkey bridge. This voter calls the shots, and after the candidates have run his gauntlet, it’s almost impossible for them to come out looking appealing to a majority of the general electorate.

You will recall the hash this voter made of 2012. He booed the mention of a United States soldier during a debate because the soldier happened to be gay. He booed contraception—mere birth control, which the vast majority of Republican women, like all women, use. He lustily cheered the death penalty. 

He is a demanding fellow. And he is already asserting his will this time around. Why else did Bush endorse Indiana Governor Mike Pence’s religious freedom bill in an instant, only to see Pence himself walk the bill back three days later? Bet Jeb would like to have that one back. But he can’t. The primary voter—along of course with the conservative media from Limbaugh and Fox on down—won’t permit it.

[A]s it happens, some of these candidates come to us with a few serious and unorthodox ideas. . . . Now, there is to be sure another Rubio, one who’d feel right at home on Parris Island. He is apparently now the quasi-official blessed-be-the-warmakers candidate, with his reflexive hard lines on Iran and Cuba. Along with Senate colleague Mike Lee of Utah, he also has put forth a tax plan that would deplete the treasury by some $4 trillion over 10 years—for context, consider that George W. Bush’s first tax cut cost $1.35 trillion over a decade—in order that most of those dollars be placed in the hands where the Republicans’ God says they belong, i.e., the 1 percent of the people who already hold nearly half the country’s wealth.

I think it’s a safe bet that we’ll see the neocon Rubio and the supply-side Rubio out on the stump. But the Rubio who wants to make life better for indebted students and working-poor childless couples? Either we won’t see that Rubio at all, or we will see him and he’ll finish fourth in Iowa and New Hampshire and go home. You can’t be a smart candidate in a party that wants to be stupid.

Maybe the fear of losing to Hillary Clinton and being shut out of the White House for 12 or 16 consecutive years will tame this beast. But the early signs suggest the opposite.

After all, how did Scott Walker bolt to the front of the pack? It wasn’t by talking about how to expand health care. It was by giving one speech, at an event hosted by one of Congress’ most fanatical reactionaries (Steve King of Iowa), bragging about how he crushed Wisconsin’s municipal unions. That’s how you get ahead in this GOP. I’d imagine Rubio and Paul and the rest of them took note.

Of the announced candidates of both parties, the only grown up who will discuss ideas is Hillary Clinton.

Republican Governed Red States Are Economic Parasites

We constantly hear Republicans and the Christofascists and Tea Party crowd (most of whom are Christofascists hiding behind a different label) maligning the poor and attacking the "takers" versus the "creators" as in Mitt Romney's infamous 47% statement.  Yet the biggest parasites of all are red states governed by Republicans.  These states receive far more at the government money trough than their liberal blue state rivals.  Among these ironies is that while the Republicans want to slash food stamps and other benefits, the highest per capita usage of these programs is in red states where moronic voters are duped into voting Republican due to the GOP cynically playing on racism, homophobia and anti-immigrant bigotry.  Politicususa has details on  the findings of a new report.  Here are excerpts:

[Y]et another report reveals that those same red state Republican voters who want the federal government cut to shreds are leeching substantially more assets from the federal government they want destroyed at the expense of blue states that are supporting them. 

 This time the report is not from a liberal-leaning think tank, or any government agency; it is from a commercial organization with no political or economic stake in the study’s results. If this were the first report of its kind showing red state economies would wither and die, and the people would starve, without leaching federal funding from blue states, one may be inclined to dismiss it as an aberration.

However, study after study has consistently  exposed anti-federal government Republican states as being incredibly dependent on the federal government they hate with religious passion and just voted for Republicans to fulfill their wishes and decimate it. Never, never ever, underestimate the power of stupid Republican voters in red states who are a Presidential veto away from seeing their evil dream reach fruition.

The categories were; the return in federal dollars on taxpayer investment, or how many federal dollars a state receives as opposed to what the residents pay in.  The percentage of state revenue from federal funding that keeps the state from declaring bankruptcy and its residents from starving or dying from lack of medical care. The number of non-defense (civilian) federal employees in a state, as opposed to states supported by large military installations. And last, the per capita federal employee rate in the state such as federal marshals, park rangers, federal highway workers, and federal regulators keeping air, water, and food safe.

Republican states have benefitted greatly from federal healthcare such as Medicaid, Medicare, and the Affordable Care Act, and it is relatively common knowledge that the largest percentage of SNAP (food stamp) recipients are poor white Republicans in red states; likely because red state legislators enacted Draconian ‘right to work’ laws keeping wages at or below poverty levels. What informs the epic stupidity of red state Republican voters is that they are the morons who consistently send Republicans to Washington to rein in the federal budget and cut the federal government down to size.

Congress  . . . just passed a seriously Draconian budget that does precisely what red state voters yearned for; ended “federal interference” in their lives. If the Republican budget stands, red state voters will get their wish and can finally stop bemoaning the horrid ‘federal interference’ in their lives; the interference that kept food on their tables, their families in relatively decent health, and their state economies from going bankrupt. It is likely that the same morons and racists are too stupid to comprehend that the damage their state legislatures have been wreaking on them is about to be magnified a hundred fold due to less federal interference (funding) in their poverty-stricken lives. In fact, it may seem inhumane, but one almost wishes President Obama was not inclined to veto the Republican budget proposals just to let the real Americans, those patriotic “rugged individuals” comprehend just how much worse their pathetic existence would be without the federal government, blue states’ largesse, and humanitarian Democrats unwilling to allow their fellow citizens, no matter how stupid, suffer so the rich get richer.

Some of the poorest states, all red states, are dependent on federal funding for 30 to 45% of their total revenue and the GOP’s budget will slash that revenue and make dire revenue shortfalls already decimating red states seem like an economic bonanza.

There is no accounting for stupid people who, as equally stupid Sarah Palin claims, are the real Americans sitting on their porches holding their guns, their god, and their Constitution while supporting Republicans who promised to ravage the federal government they are convinced is stealing their liberty. 

What is noteworthy is that the blue states that receive 20, 30, or 40 cents in return for every dollar they invest in the federal government are not revolting and threatening to secede. But that is the difference between blue state residents and hateful red state Republicans; they accept that Americans assist their fellow citizens no matter how stupid they are for voting against their own best interests . . . 

Yes, the author is brutal in the manner red state voters are described, but sadly, the assessment is 100% on point. These morons are being cynically played for suckers yet are too stupid to realize it.    As the author notes, it might almost be fun to see the GOP budget pass and then watch the red states' economies crash and burn. 

Bobby Jindal Angles to Lead the Stupid Party

As would be leaders of the Republican Party jockey for position to jump into the 2016 GOP presidential contest, it seems that it's in many ways a race to the bottom - something that has sadly become necessary as the GOP base has increasing gravitated toward the celebratory embrace of ignorance, religious extremism and open racism.  Joining in this race to lead the "stupid party" is Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, an admitted dark horse given his Indian descent.  And irony of ironies, he has totally forgotten his admonish from just two years ago that the GOP needed to cease being the "stupid party."  Salon looks at Jindal's willingness to prostitute himself to the ugliest elements of the GOP base.  Here are excerpts:

Following the Republican Party’s humiliating defeat in the 2012 elections — a loss that polls indicated was coming but which nevertheless stunned no small number of Republicans — Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal was scathing in his assessment of the state of the GOP.

It was high time, Jindal told Politico, for Republicans to discard its “simplistic” sloganeering and knee-jerk opposition to President Obama — time, the governor said, for the GOP to “stop being the stupid party.”

“We’ve also had enough of this dumbed-down conservatism,” Jindal added. “We need to stop being simplistic, we need to trust the intelligence of the American people and we need to stop insulting the intelligence of the voters.”

Of course, boastful ignorance and anti-intellectualism largely define the modern American right, so Jindal’s summons for a more level-headed, ideas-based GOP never stood any chance of success. And Jindal himself refused to specify what would substantially differentiate a non-stupid Republican Party from its stupid iteration.

But Jindal, eyeing a 2016 bid for president, has completely abandoned his anti-”stupid party” crusade, desperately doing all he can to burnish his Know-Nothing credentials.

Some of the latest evidence emerged Wednesday, when his administration issued a letter asking Ebola researchers who had recently traveled to afflicted west Africans not to attend an upcoming conference of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene in New Orleans. Experts have condemned such sweeping bans as not based in science, noting additionally that travel bans and other restrictive measures targeting health workers and researchers may well discourage other professionals from traveling to Ebola-stricken countries. But Republicans, happy to demagogue the Ebola issue ahead of the forthcoming midterms, have little interest in the recommendations of the Centers for Disease Control and public health advocates. And Jindal is happy to join in.

Jindal’s latest forays into right-wing rhetorical red meat come on the heels of other public statements that put the lie to his self-fancied image as the GOP’s ideas man. He was among the first conservatives to rush to the defense of homophobic “Duck Dynasty” star Phil Robertson, alleging Robertson’s critics were engaged in a “war on religion” and suggesting that pushback against anti-gay remarks somehow threatened free speech. Meanwhile, the Brown University biology major and Rhodes Scholar won’t say if he accepts the theory of evolution or climate science, putting him to the right of the pope on those issues.

So Bobby Jindal, recognizing that thought and ideas are anathema to the contemporary GOP base, no longer has any interest in eradicating the stupid from the stupid party. Instead, he’s angling to become its leader — once he’s gained a little more weight.

Mission Impossible? Making the GOP the Party of "Yes"

Having watched the Republican Party descend into lunacy in the years since I exited the party in protest over its conflating of religion and the civil laws I am skeptical about supposed efforts under way to transform the GOP into the "Party of Yes" rather than the party of "No" and outright obstruction.  Given the control of the GOP base by Christofascists and Tea Party members (the vast majority of whom are Christofascists and/or white supremacists), no real change will occur in my view until these fouls elements are exiled to the political wilderness.  A piece in the New York Times looks at the wishful thinking among some Republicans that they can transform the GOP into a functioning political party that can actually govern the nation.  Here are highlights:

With control of Congress within reach, Republicans are quietly assembling an aggressive 2015 agenda built around a push for a balanced budget and quick passage of measures, like approval of the Keystone XL pipeline and repeal of a medical equipment tax, to show they can govern.

At the same time, they are warning Republican members who have chafed at their minority status for years that simply holding the majority is no guarantee that they can get all they want. Party leaders say that Republicans will need to be realistic about what they can achieve and that a high level of party unity will be essential since any Senate advantage they gain in the midterm elections is likely to be narrow.

“We need to change our mentality,” said Senator John Cornyn of Texas, the No. 2 Senate Republican. “Because we have been in the minority, some people are used to saying no. We need to find something we can say yes to, something that advances our agenda.” 

Fear of a splintered majority was a principal reason top Senate Republicans were determined to fend off Tea Party challenges to incumbents, an effort that culminated last week with primary victories by Senators Lamar Alexander of Tennessee and Pat Roberts of Kansas, two pragmatic Senate veterans considered team players.

Still, recent House chaos that preceded a Republican agreement on border funding underscored anew the challenge of rallying ideologically divided Republican lawmakers behind party priorities.

Republican leaders acknowledge they will need to persuade their most conservative colleagues — including several potential presidential contenders — to be satisfied with legislative gains that might fall short of their ideals. Insisting on all their demands could end in failure by leaving Republicans short of 51 votes, let alone the 60 that will be required to pass most bills.

“We are going to have to convince people that we are not going to be perfect, but let’s at least move the ball down the field and try to do things many of us have wanted to do for a long time,” said Senator John Thune of South Dakota, chairman of the Senate Republican Conference.

While they try to entice colleagues on the right, Senate Republican leaders must be mindful of the potential vulnerability of their senators up for re-election in 2016 — when the electoral climate will almost certainly be less favorable to them . . . 

Democrats say they hope Republicans never get to try their hand at full control of Congress. But they believe divisions among Republican factions would greatly complicate matters if they did.

“The $64,000 question is, will mainstream Republicans break from the Tea Party?” said Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, the Senate’s No. 3 Democrat. “If they do, it will be good for the country and bad for the Democrats.”

My prediction is that the mainstream will be unable to stop the Tea Party and Christofascists.  Far too many sane and rational Republicans have left the GOP and are unlikely to go back as long as the base is controlled by  religious extremists, white supremacists and those who proudly embrace ignorance.

The GOP's Broken Message on Obamacare

Here in Virginia - as in many states across the country - Republicans are obsessed with repealing Obamacare.  Of course, they have no policy as to what they would replace it with other than to throw millions off of insurance and return visits to emergency rooms as the only source of medical care for countless Americans.   While repeal of Obamacare remains the mantra of the delusional and, in many cases, racist GOP base, something is happening that may sink the GOP's plan to capture both houses of Congress simply by running on repeal of the law: more and more Americans want the law fixed, not repealed.  An editorial in the New York Times looks at the phenomenon and the wrench it may throw into the GOP's playbook for 2014.  Here are excerpts:

It was supposed to be so easy this election year for Republican congressional candidates. All they would have to do was shout “repeal Obamacare!” and make a crack about government doctors and broken websites, and they could coast into office on a wave of public fury. The failure of the Affordable Care Act was simply assumed.

But it has not quite worked out that way. The government website was fixed, and 8.1 million people managed to sign up for insurance through the exchanges. An additional 4.8 million people received coverage through Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program. Three million people under the age of 26 were covered by their parents’ plans. Though the law itself has never been widely popular, most people say they like its component parts, and a large majority now says it wants the law improved rather than repealed.

That sentiment conflicts with the Republican playbook, which party leaders are suddenly trying to rewrite. The result has been an incoherent mishmash of positions, as candidates try to straddle a widening gap between blind hatred of health reform and the public’s growing recognition that much of it is working.

Sometimes the dissonance reaches nearly comic levels. The Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, recently won his party’s primary for his Kentucky Senate seat in part by saying he wanted to repeal the health law “root and branch.” Last week, though, he was asked what repeal would mean for the 413,000 people who had signed up for insurance under Kynect, Kentucky’s state-run exchange. “I think that’s unconnected to my comments about the overall question,” he said. Mr. McConnell knows full well, of course, that the popular Kynect program was created by the Affordable Care Act and could not exist without it, but he is hoping to fool his constituents into believing the health care access they like has nothing to do with the law he has fought against for so long or with President Obama.

Many other Republican candidates have also switched from brimstone to mush on the issue, no longer claiming they will repeal the law but instead will “replace” it or “fix” it in some unspecified way that could not possibly work.

Richard Tisei, a Republican running for a Massachusetts congressional seat . . . . wants to instill free-market solutions,” the ad says, “end the job-killing tax on medical devices and curb lawsuit abuse to bring down the cost of care.” None of which has anything to do with bringing care to the uninsured, or those with pre-existing conditions.

The good news is that some Democratic candidates, sensing the same change in the weather, are beginning to campaign on the law’s benefits. Improving access to health care was the right thing for the country, and supporting it may turn out to be good politics, too.

I continue to believe that to be a Republican nowadays, one has to be incredibly stupid - which does apply to much of the party base - a flaming racist, a religious extremist, or a greed driven individual who cannot see that when all of society is better off, most likely, they will be too. 

Will the GOP Come to Rue Its Obamacare Obsession?

Despite mis-starts and and a poor roll out, more Americans are enrolling under the Affordable Health Care Act and expansion of Medicaid is proceeding in many states.  Nonetheless, the GOP remains obsessed with trashing the law even as it offers no viable alternative to it.  All one hears is about repealing Obamacare and the default position is throwing millions of Americans - many of whom the GOP seems to believe are minorities, and thus disposable - back into the ranks of the uninsured.  A column in The Hill suggests that the GOP obsession may come back to bite the GOP in the ass.  Here are column highlights:

Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.), chairman of the Republican Senatorial Committee, is sure he has the best political strategy for winning the six seats the GOP needs to capture control of the Senate in November — attack Democrats for the Affordable Care Act.

The Republican National Committee’s first major advertising buy of this midterm election season will come in the shape of attack ads in 12 states against incumbent Democrats who voted for ObamaCare.

Conservative activists are following the same strategy. The New York Times reported last week that the billionaire Koch brothers have already helped to air $20 million in advertising against Democrats who supported healthcare reform.

Oh, what a waste of money.  As President Obama joked about casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, who spent millions trying to defeat him in the 2012 election: “You could have bought an island and named it Nobama for that kind of money.”

Instead, the GOP is labeling itself “The Party of No.”

“The Republican Party makes a huge mistake by defining itself by what it’s against and not what it’s for,” David Axelrod, President Obama’s former top political advisor, told me. “If they go into the midterms counting on opposition to ObamaCare as their reason for being they will only exacerbate the image that has driven their numbers down.”

Ed Rogers, the longtime Republican fundraiser and strategist, wrote in The Washington Post last week that Democrats are trying to fake out the GOP by urging them to stop talking about problems with Obamacare.  “Republicans need to stick to the script,” Rogers wrote, “and much of that script centers on Obama, ObamaCare and the Obama economy. Period.

But note that Rogers is careful to add a focus on the economy to his prescription for a winning GOP strategy for the midterms elections.

So far, however, the money and the messages from Republicans are all focused on ObamaCare. The GOP attack advertisements remind voters that ObamaCare led the President to utter 2013’s lie of the year, as determined by PolitiFact — that Americans could keep their existing healthcare plan under Obamacare. The scripts also frequently mention cancelled plans, higher premiums, and people losing their favorite doctors.  Republicans in Congress are locked on the same political message.

A hardball political analysis suggests the GOP is lost in the weeds.   A January Quinnipiac poll found 39 percent of voters think the “most important priority” for the 2014 is the economy. The second biggest concern, at 23 percent, is the federal budget deficit. And in third place, at 16 percent, is health care.

It is important to factor into that polling such as a CNN/ORC poll in December, which found 15 percent of Americans who tell pollsters their perceptions of ObamaCare are negative because it is “not liberal enough.”

According to the Census, nearly 48 million Americans had no health insurance in 2012. Another 40 million are estimated to have inadequate health insurance that left them without coverage at some time during the year or had costs so high as to threaten their finances. People want solutions. Meanwhile the non-stop attacks, absent any better plan — make that any realistic plan at all from Republicans— for how to fix the nation’s costly healthcare system is steadily becoming political wallpaper.

Despite all the current negativity around ObamaCare, the real news is that more than 2 million have now signed up for the state and federal exchanges. Another 4 million have benefited from Medicare expansion.  Millions more have gained improved policies that cover preventative care, pre-existing medical conditions, eliminate caps on insurance spending and allow young people to stay on their parents’ insurance plan until they are 26.

Last week, Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said he expects Republicans to come up with a healthcare plan later this year to replace Obamacare.  My advice: Check with Mitt Romney.

Chris Christie’s Gays & Guns Problem

Chris Christie increasingly personifies the difficulties that Republicans in liberal states face should they have ambitions for higher offices:  the positions that make them electable in their home states are anathema to the drooling, knuckle dragging Bible beaters who dominate the primaries for the presidential nomination.  And it goes without saying that gays and guns are two litmus tests for the primary voters.  One simply cannot hate gays enough or want to allow any restriction on the arsenals being amassed by the lunatic fringe that believes fantastic stories that Obama is raising a black army to murder and/or subjugate whites.  A piece in The Daily Beast looks at this quandary Christie faces.  Here are highlights:

Chris Christie, the governor of New Jersey and one of the Republican Party’s best hopes to win the White House in 2106, is about to find out how hard it can be to be both the governor of a blue state and a potential presidential aspirant.

That’s because a pair emotionally charged bills—one legalizing same-sex marriage, the other calling for stricter restrictions on firearms—are working their way through the New Jersey legislature. Each has the overwhelming backing of New Jersey voters, with recent polls showing that more than twice as many voters supporting each bill than oppose.

But if signing either will win Christie plaudits back home, it could be suicide for his presidential ambitions—just ask Romney, who was hailed in Massachusetts for signing a universal-health-care bill into law, only to be pummeled for it when he appeared on the national stage.

New Jersey already has some of the strictest gun-control measures in the nation, but last month, the State Assembly passed 22 measures that would, among other provisions, limit magazine size, ban the online sales of guns and ammunition, and require a firearms safety training class as a condition to obtain a permit to purchase a firearm.

Right-wing blogs and websites have been urging conservative activists to mobilize against the bill as the State Senate prepares to draft their own gun-control measures.

“[The Christie camp] doesn’t want to accept it, but this is a bright red line test,” said Rick Wilson, a Florida-based GOP strategist. “Conservatives may be evolving on gay marriage or drug legalization, but they are not evolving on this. They are digging in. If you are in a Republican primary, do you want to be on the side of Mike Bloomberg or do you want to be on the side of the Second Amendment?”

On same-sex marriage, the Assembly and Senate passed bills last year that would have made marriage equality the law of the state. Christie promptly vetoed both measures, saying he supports the state’s civil-unions law, and telling supporters of marriage equality to put the issue to a state referendum. Advocates have resisted that move, saying fundamental rights shouldn’t be won or lost at the ballot box.

For both issues, the stakes may be higher for Christie than for any of the other top 2016 contenders. While Christie appeals to party insiders for his ability to govern as a pro-life, fiscal conservative in a liberal state, party regulars in early primary states view anyone from “Blue Jersey” with suspicion.

But if Christie is pushed by CPAC and social conservatives on one side, on the other are a number of his most prominent supporters. Some of those who promised to bankroll a possible 2012 presidential campaign are also major supporters of marriage equality, including hedge-fund magnates Paul Singer, Clifford Asness, and Daniel Loeb, all of whom gave money to a similar legislative effort across the river in New York state.

[S]upport for marriage equality in New Jersey tops out at 64 percent, more than any other state, and has the backing of older voters and even, by a slight margin, Republicans.   Such numbers, Stevenson said, should be enough to move the governor.  .  .  .  .  Advocates are hoping that, at the very least, Christie will quietly signal to Republican lawmakers in Trenton that they are free to override his veto of last year’s equality bill. So far, supporters of same-sex marriage say they are three votes short of an override in the Senate and 12 in the House.

Plenty of Iowa Republicans are already grumbling at him. If he were to go another step further and sign into law the gun thing, or the marriage thing, I think it would almost disqualify him as a national candidate.”

So instead of nominating someone who might actually be able to win nationally in a general election, the GOP base would rather give the White House to a Democrat in 2016.  The party base's lunacy just seems to be growing.