political_talk

Bachmann Jumps the Shark Again, Likens Financial Reform to Mussolini’s Italy

Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-MN), who can always be counted on for hyperbole and assorted fabrications chained together in to her very own special drivel-language, jumped the shark, yet again, during a Tuesday evening webcast with a Tea Party PAC. She likened the financial reform bill currently in Congress with the policies of the fascist government in Italy during Mussolini's reign:

Let's remember really what this is. This has a lot in common with Italy in the 1930s and they way Italy dealt with economics. It still continues private ownership of business but government is in control.

So government control of the private business, while it's private ownership, that's still at the end of the day the federal government virtually having a say over private business. We lose freedoms; we lose economic competitiveness.

And don’t forget, Italy is in tough shape financially, and that’s not what we want for the United States.

The Governator Pokes Fun at Arizona

During his commencement address to students at Emory University on May 10, 2010, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger poked a bit of fun at the outrage of the recently enacted illegal immigration law in Arizona, which requires racial profiling to enforce.

I was also going to give a graduation speech in Arizona this weekend. But with my accent, I was afraid they would try to deport me.

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Republican, CA 1947 -

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Arizona’s immigration law. 

Source of image: John Spink/Atlanta Journal Constitution

Liberal Columnist TBogg Paraphrase of Ross Douthat Article

Ross Douthat (pictured in the image at left), conservative columnist for the New York Times, is against choice for women. He probably likes the new Oklahoma travesty law too. Liberal blogger, TBogg, accurately paraphrases Douthat's original article so that you don't have to read it:

Conservatives are kept poor and stupid because they refuse to stoop to the level of the liberal elitists who get ahead in life by killing their own babies. Totally unfair.

Mike Huckabee on the Constitution and the "living God"

During a campaign (during the primary presidential campaign) stop in Warren, Michigan, in 2008, Mike Huckabee made it clear that he believes that we need two new amendments to the Constitution. One a human life amendment, and the other an amendment which would define marriage as between a man and a woman only.

I believe it’s a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God. And that’s what we need to do is to amend the Constitution so it’s in God’s standards rather than trying to change God’s standards so it lines up with some contemporary view of how we treat each other and how we treat the family.

Glenn Beck & Rep. Steve King on the vote for health care reform

Rep. Steve King (R-IA)  discussed the vote on health care reform with Glenn Beck of Fox News on Beck’s radio show (March 2010). The vote was slated for a Sunday.

They intend to vote on the Sabbath, during Lent, to take away the liberty that we have right from God.

Beck responded with his usual googly-eyed nonsensical gibberish.

You couldn’t have said it better. Here is a group of people that have so perverted our faith and our hope and our charity, that is a — this is an affront to God. And I honestly, I don’t think anybody is like, “yes, and now what we’ll do is we’ll vote on the Sabbath.” But I think it’s absolutely appropriate that these people are trying to put the nail in the coffin on our country on a Sunday — something our founders would have never, ever, ever done. Out of respect for God.

So, you would think that no Republican ever called for a vote on a Sunday. You would be wrong. Via Think Progress:

On Palm Sunday in 2005, the Republican-controlled Senate passed a controversial bill to allow a federal court to intervene in the case of Terri Schiavo. The House passed the same bill shortly after midnight on Monday morning.

Via Think Progress.

Sen. Lindsey Graham on health care reform

In March of 2010, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) began referring to health care reform as a “suicide run”, making an attempt to compare it to a Japanese bombing run. This quote is from an interview Graham did on a local radio station.

Nancy Pelosi, I think, has got them all liquored up on sake and you know, they’re making a suicide run here,

Via Think Progress.

Rep. Paul Broun calls the Civil War the ‘Great War of Yankee Aggression’

On March 18, 2010, in his overly zealous effort to aid in defeating health care reform, Rep. Paul Broun (R- Ga.) made the following statement on the floor of the House of Representatives:

If ‘ObamaCare’ passes, that free insurance card that’s in people’s pockets is gonna be as worthless as a Confederate dollar after the War Between The States — the Great War of Yankee Aggression.

Sen. Tom Coburn tells seniors that they will die sooner because of health care reform

The outright lies, the myths, and the hyperbole flew during the battle for health care reform in 2009 and 2010. Including this fabricated myth from Sen. Tom Coburn (R- OK) who made this claim on the floor of the Senate in December.

I have a message for our seniors: “You’re going to die sooner.”

Palin Lies on Leno

On The Tonight Show, Palin spewed her usual gibberish in reference to her Family Guy remarks, and her lack of opportunity (oh, please...) to follow up after the media responded.

I commented and then that gets out there in the blogosphere, it gets out there in the different forms of the mediums that we have today. And then it’s left there, not an opportunity for me to follow up and kind of elaborate on what I really meant and what I really thought of the thing.

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Source:  Andrew Sullivan, The Daily Dish, The Atlantic, 'Lying on Leno'

GOP Senate Candidate Compares Embryonic Stem Cell Research to Nazi Death Camps

"In March 2009, President Obama issued an executive order that removed President Bush’s limitations on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research, ending the tragic politicization of the issue that existed under the former president." [...]

GOP Senate candidate, Gary Coleman [R-AR] attacked President Obama regarding this decision:

Embryonic stem cell research is taking the concept of taking a life and using it to conduct experiments so we can temporarily extend somebody else’s life. Let me tell you what I just described. I just described what the Nazis did to the Jews in the death camps of WWII.

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Source: Think Progress 
Science Magazine

Chief Justice John G. Roberts on Affirmative Action

In a Supreme Court packed with conservatives, this was no surprise. Chief Justice John G. Roberts:

The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.

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Source: Seattle School District case (2007-06-28)

Samuel A. Alito: A judge can't have any agenda......

Faced with the well-founded skepticism of the Democrats during his confirmation hearings in 2006, Samuel A. Alito attempted to present himself to the Senate Judiciary Committee as an "open-minded judge with no agenda other than the rule of law".

A judge can't have any agenda, a judge can't have a preferred outcome in any particular case, and a judge certainly can't have a client.

A judge's only obligation -- and it is a solemn obligation -- is to the rule of law. And what that means is that in every single case, the judge has to do what the law requires.

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Source: NPR - Day One: Alito Stresses Rule of Law

RUSH LIMBAUGH: Our President is a worldwide joke.......

Rush Limbaugh, de facto leader of the Republican Party, indulges himself in his usual insane repartee on the same day that President Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

I think that everybody is laughing. Our president is a worldwide joke. Folks, do you realize something has happened here that we all agree with the Taliban and Iran about and that is he doesn't deserve the award. Now that's hilarious, that I'm on the same side of something with the Taliban, and that we all are on the same side as the Taliban.

MICHELLE BACHMANN: A Covenant to Slit Our Wrists....

Speaking to the conservative group, Independence Institute, at a fundraiser in Colorado, Michelle Bachmann (R-Minn.) had this to say in reference to health care reform:

This cannot pass.What we have to do today is make a covenant, to slit our wrists, be blood brothers on this thing. This will not pass. We will do whatever it takes to make sure this doesn’t pass.

Slasher movie, anyone?

Right now, we are looking at reaching down the throat and ripping the guts out of freedom. And we may never be able to restore it if we don’t man up and take this one on.

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Source: Colorado Independent, August 31, 2009

Nancy Reagan on the Death of Senator Ted Kennedy

Former First Lady Nancy Reagan's remarks upon the death of Senator Edward Moore "Ted" Kennedy in 2009:

I was terribly saddened to hear of the death of Ted Kennedy tonight. Given our political differences, people are sometimes surprised by how close Ronnie and I have been to the Kennedy family. But Ronnie and Ted could always find common ground, and they had great respect for one another. In recent years, Ted and I found our common ground in stem cell research, and I considered him an ally and a dear friend. I will miss him.

Nancy Davis Reagan, Republican, 1921-

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Source: The Huffington Post

Sen. Graham Calls Glenn Beck a Cynic

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) called Fox News host, the tearful Glenn Beck, a "cynic"

in his comments to those attending The Atlantic's 'First Draft of History' conference.

Only in America can you make that much money crying. Glenn Beck is not aligned with any party. He is aligned with cynicism and there has always been a market for cynics. But we became a great nation not because we are a nation of cynics. We became a great nation because we are a nation of believers.

Related:

Glenn Beck's sobbing secrets revealed: A little Vicks Vaporub gets the tears flowing

DAVID BROOKS Refutes the Myth of the Power of the Republican Talk Jocks

In his New York Times column, Republican columnist, David Brooks, on the talk radio jocks, and the myth of their power.

The rise of Beck, Hannity, Bill O’Reilly and the rest has correlated almost perfectly with the decline of the G.O.P. But it’s not because the talk jocks have real power. It’s because they have illusory power, because Republicans hear the media mythology and fall for it every time. [.....]

Sarah Palin Claims Her First Amendment Rights Were Violated

According to Sarah Palin, the Republican candidate for Vice President in 2008, her First Amendment rights were violated when the media claimed that Palin was engaged in negative campaigning.

If [the media] convince enough voters that that is negative campaigning, for me to call Barack Obama out on his associations, then I don't know what the future of our country would be in terms of First Amendment rights and our ability to ask questions without fear of attacks by the mainstream media.

Source: ABC News

JEFFREY HART: Both Nixon and Reagan would have agreed with Obama's speech against the Iraq War

Jeffrey Hart¹, Republican columnist for The Daily Beast, and a former speechwriter for both Reagan and Nixon, endorsed Barack Obama during the 2008 Presidential Campaign.

One thing I know is that both Nixon and Reagan would have agreed with Obama’s speech against the Iraq War… But all the organs of the conservative movement followed Bush over the cliff—as did John McCain.

¹Hart is currently professor emeritus of English at Dartmouth College, and he  wrote for the National Review for more than three decades as a senior editor.

MICHELLE BACHMANN: SBHC and THE BAD SEX CLINICS

Michelle Bachmann (R-MN) has decided that health care reform will open up the schools for.....SEX CLINICS!

She has apparently interpreted a section in the bill as relating to "school based health clinics" (SBHC), to mean that schools will be offering abortions to students. Bachmann:

The bill goes on to say what's going to go on -- comprehensive primary health services, physicals,

treatment of minor acute medical conditions, referrals to follow-up for specialty care -- is that abortion? Does that mean that someone's 13 year-old daughter could walk into a sex clinic, have a pregnancy test done, be taken away to the local Planned Parenthood abortion clinic, have their abortion, be back and go home on the school bus that night? Mom and dad are never the wiser.

Section 2511 of the bill Bachmann refers to, does not mention abortion. It further states/enjoins: 

SBHC services will be provided in accordance with Federal, State, and local laws governing-- (I) obtaining parental or guardian consent; and (II) patient privacy and student records, including section 264 of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 and section 444 of the General Education Provision Act.

From HuffPost:

The concept of "school based health care clinics" was introduced under the notion that students achieve higher academic performance when they are healthy and receive adequate medical attention. According to the National Assembly on School-Based Health Care, if implemented SBHCs would give schools access to physicians "so students avoid health-related absense and get support to succeed in the classroom."

Seriously, Bachmann has some sanity issues.