More Moments of Zen from the Republican Surreality
Posted: July 17, 2012 Filed under: 2012 presidential campaign, right wing hate grouups | Tags: birthers, Fox Propagnda Network, insanity, Repubicans, Reublican Paranoia 42 Comments
Can we please send an army of psychologists into the Republican Party and find out what the heck they’ve been ingesting?
First up, McCain announced that Romney wasn’t chosen for his vp slot because Snowflake Snookie was a “better candidate”. I’m wondering if he’s decided to help Obama?
Mitt Romney’s tax returns had nothing to do with Sen. John McCain’s decision to choose Sarah Palin as his running mate in 2008, according to the Arizona Republican, saying he chose the former Alaska governor because she was a “better candidate.”
McCain received more than two decades worth of Romney’s tax returns as the former Massachusetts governor was undergoing the vetting process four years ago, far more than Romney has released publicly in the 2012 campaign. Democrats have questioned whether McCain saw something untoward in those tax returns and decided to choose Palin instead.
But on Tuesday, McCain flatly rejected that assertion and grew angry at questions over his decision to choose Palin over Romney.
“Of course not,” McCain told POLITICO when asked if the contents of Romney’s tax returns disqualified him from the selection process. “I don’t know what depths these people won’t reach. Obviously, it’s just outrageous. That’s just outrageous. It shows the – it’s so disgraceful for them to allege something that they have absolutely no knowledge of.”
Asked why he chose not to go with Romney, McCain said: “Oh come on, because we thought that Sarah Palin was the better candidate. Why did we not take [Tim] Pawlenty, why did we not take any of the other 10 other people. Why didn’t I? Because we had a better candidate, the same way with all the others. … Come on, why? That’s a stupid question.”
Then, New Hampshire ickster John Sununu raises the volume to 11 on “the president isn’t a real American” stupidity.
In a brutal campaign conference call Tuesday organized by Mitt Romney’s campaign, several of the candidate’s surrogates went after President Obama with fiery attacks accusing him of socialism, and being un-American.
“I wish this president would learn how to be an American,” said former New Hampshire Gov. John Sununu said toward the beginning of the call. Asked later to explain his comment, Sununu said he was referring to Obama’s economic philosophy, and apologized for not being clearer.
Fox News raised the specter that Obama believed small business people owed everything to the federal government yesterday by mangling an edit. They continue to do anything to prove Obama some how has an anti-business agenda and is a socialist.
The right-wing is desperate to change the subject from Romney’s recent Bain pain—Fox News joined in by selectively editing a speech President Obama gave in Roanoke, VA to make it seem as if he insulted small business owners by saying “If you’ve got a business—you didn’t build that. Somebody else made it happen.” Of course, the conservatives went wild. We’ll show you their deceptive edit AND the clip in context
Rachel Maddow is all over this.
Towards the end of the speech, echoing a sentiment Elizabeth Warren articulated quite well last year, Obama stressed the way in which American society helps people prosper.
“If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.
“The point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together…. We say to ourselves, ever since the founding of this country, you know what, there are some things we do better together. That’s how we funded the GI Bill. That’s how we created the middle class. That’s how we built the Golden Gate Bridge or the Hoover Dam. That’s how we invented the Internet. That’s how we sent a man to the moon. We rise or fall together as one nation and as one people, and that’s the reason I’m running for President — because I still believe in that idea. You’re not on your own, we’re in this together.”
Fox News took the quote, carefully edited out the context, and soon after, Republicans decided they had a new talking point on their hands. Paul Ryan, the right-wing chairman of the House Budget Committee, helped lead the way.
A conservative writer ran this item last night.
It was Rep. Paul Ryan’s wife, Janna, who first saw — via Twitter — President Obama’s recent comments about American entrepreneurs, that “if you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.”
And the Wisconsin Republican — thought to be on Mitt Romney’s running-mate short list — couldn’t believe it. He thought someone must “have been putting words in the president’s mouth.”
But Obama said it all.
Well, no, actually he didn’t. Ryan argued that Obama “slipped” and accidentally mentioned his radical leftist ideology, but that only makes sense if you deliberately feign ignorance and ignore the context.
Meanwhile, Bachmann is still seeing secret infiltrating Muslim radicals everywhere. She’s doubled down on it. BB covered this some in the morning post but it seems Bachmann won’t back down. The Muslim Brotherhood is taking over the State Department!!!
Can we get a sane minority party for a change?
peej
Carissa
bostonboomer
ecocatwoman
mablue2
peggysue22
quixote
skydancingguestblogger
Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
Sky Dancing 
Where is the old GOP? used to have a whole lot in WA state — and then they were forced to leave. So the Republicans became democrats — which fundamentally changed the old Dem party.
I remember a time when the GOP really had true liberals — I think I remember or did I read about that somewhere?
The GOP has been insane for decades . . . .
Every time I think — this is the limit those crazy fools can’t go any lower — oops they prove me wrong and show themselves to be flat out bat sh*t crazy.
Was it Rove (aka Turd Blossom) who was a genius at using the oppositions strong points AGAINST that person?? Whatever was thought of as a positive — Rove can turn into a negative.
I think this insanity has been a big part of the plan for sometime. If they don’t win this election it is over for them, over, like they will not be able to repeal Obamacare (ACA).
Yes, the moderate Republicans are now the Democrats. Just like the current POTUS. Still better than the nutwing Rs.
I think I finally “get it”. Finally understand what the GOP and the once so called liberal bloggers are hinting at as they line up to support this loser of all time.
The hatred against Obama is something to a degree that I have never ever undergone in my lifetime and this includes the 8 solid years of Clinton bashing we were subjected to that was aimed at a man they perceived as a “hick form Arkansas” whose background was not quite up to their standards. But he was white.
This is the difference that lies to close to the surface you can almost feel it palpitating. Referring to Obama in terms of “the other” is as close as they can actively come to the “N” word without quite having to say it.
As many have pointed out to me on more occasions that I can remember, Obama is closer to identifying with the Right in some of his decision making that should have earned him points with the other side but rather it has led to references to his not being American born or American enough to satisfy them.
He has been pursued for a birth certificate, been assailed as a commie loving Muslim, had his manhood explored, and his education scorned and I believe simply because they view him as “the uppity black” who should never have been elected to the presidency.
You cannot keep the Obama/Hillary wars going on infinitum. But you can pick apart every statement, every movement, every utterance without having to actually speak on behalf of Romney who is by far one of the worst candidates to ever seek the office.
There is little to defend on behalf of Romney and the only way to overcome this deficiency is to throw out who is and who is not an American out into the public square often enough and it will stick. Today alone how many from the Right made that assertion? Starting with Rush and finding its way out of the mouths of Sununu and Bachmann the beat goes on.
Where I myself took issue with being labeled a racist back in 2008 for refusing to get onboard the Obama express I knew I opposed his candidacy based on his lack of qualifications and much needed experience especially going up against a candidate like Hillary who had it all. It had nothing to do with race but I was told otherwise.
Yet today I see where that racial hatred has taken itself out of the closet and seems to flourish this time out. The hatred is real and it manifests itself by declaring a man born and raised in this country, educated by in the higher echelons of learning, as a man who “hates America”.
There is no way around this for me than to accept the fact that the color of one’s skin is still a factor when the challenger himself has proven to be a shady, unenlightened, lying piece of work who would put his focus on taking from so many the rights and entitlements they deserve. How is that a defensible position.
So rather than openly discuss the emptiness of a Mitt Romney better to attack the guy you never wanted to serve owing more to the color of his skin than anything else.
I hope I am wrong in this suspicion but something tells me I may have just finally “got it”.
You’re not wrong. The stink of it practically repels me from some blogs I used to read on a regular basis. The candidate opposing Obama could be anyone, with absolutely any damned agenda, it would make no difference.
They play the race baiting cards continually all the time while screaming that they’re not racist. It’s like some form of mental illness.
That’s what I’ve been thinking.
I know so many people in equity capital that think Bain and Romney give them all a bad name. Romney took some one else’s money, leveraged the hell out of his funds by borrowing more, bought companies, stripped them of their assets, paid himself and his investors incredible amounts of money, and left the shells of the companies to bankruptcy with unemployed people, primary creditors without a cent to recover, and entire communities with lost revenues and worthless property. He left MA. worse than when he found it. Only Louisiana had a worse employment situation and that was because of Katrina. How can any one in their right mind call that a strong business background? A strong job creation background? Your brain has to be pretty fucked up with hate and anger to buy that kind of lie in the face of all that reality!
I can think of two sites that used to be associated with the old place that I think should be categorized as hate groups by the FBI and the Southern Poverty Law Center.
some fellow caucus members shook their heads when I said I preferred Hillary because I knew she had grit and determination, which we did not know about Obama at the time. He was new on the scene. While I love it that I have lived to see the first African American president and First Lady, I still think he runs a little too much to the right. While I will vote for him, it is with disappointment in my heart because I was hoping he would be a rousing democrat, not a sorta democrat.
That’s what’s the most ironic thing. He’s center right at best!!
You speak for a lot of us. One thing I know for certain though is this time there’s quite a lot more than 2% separating the candidate so I’m behind Obama here.
He is GOP lite and gave the Republicans most of what they wanted — he’d capitulate before the bargaining ever began. He certainly is not a liberal — he is part of the Chicago political machine and missed getting caught like the rest of his Chicago buddies.
Democrat he is not. He’s more like the Republicans of the 1960s. 0bama is the best Republican President since Ike.
Never mind — 0bama is sort of like the dinosaurs question — where did they all go? Turns out that dinosaurs evolved into modern day birds. The old Republican party has evolved into feathered flying dinosaurs — or turned into 0bama and the rest of the Chicago political machine.
There is no rationalizing or reasoning with the Republicans — 32 votes against 0bama care — 32!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The Republican Governors are rejecting health care for their states — and Texas is the bottom of the list in most things related to health care.
Could be that the dust storms hitting various Southern regions carry some sort of chemical or bug which turns some folks into raving lunatics. Or too many christian cults — taking over people’s mind. The born again and their shrinking brains.
Bostonboomer and I have been having phone conversations about this. The code words, the screams of how dare they call us racists all the while blowing obvious dog whistles, the absolute over the top derangement, all of it … it’s beyond anything I’ve ever seen. Their support of things like destroying access to voting for the most vulnerable populations is just over the top. I can’t see it as anything else other than xenophobia and racism. I agree with you. Romney IS everything that’s been wrong with this country since Reagan took over and then some.
I totally agree, Pat. The misogyny dominated in 2008, but this year I’ve seen racism raise it’s ugly head in ways I thought I’d never see again. That a person could claim to have supported Hillary and then turn around and praise a creep like Romney is amazing to me.
Makes me wonder if some of them never truly supported Hillary at all….that it was a ruse to cover for their true tea party extremist racist views…If Hillary had not been such a threat to Obama, and someone else was in her place back in 2008, I wonder if they would have been as supportive of that person. Even then it was anyone but Obama, however masked by voting McCain as a protest vote because of what happened with Hillary.
Did any of that make sense?
I’ve decided a few of these folks were looking for an audience/fan club/attention and just pretending to support Hillary’s viewpoints because that got them the desired attention.
Not convinced that line is necessarily racist. The Repubs have used the “anti-American” insult against liberals for quite a while. It was especially prominent after 9/11.
As distinct from other claims/accusations that they use.
It just seems to me that the faux outrage should be directed more at those whose agenda does not quite match up to the rights of the voters. Like the voting laws as one example.
Instead you get a lot of “what Sarah said” as if there were some form of illumination to be gained from that gobbledy gook she dishes out that is entirely made up of loose facts and plenty of Obama bashing as a side dish.
There is so much crap being served up by the GOP that will amount to a lot of loss to this nation but little is ever brought to discussion unless it is a comparison to Obama blah, blah, blah.
Not saying he has not disappointed but the other side is so toxic with their proposals that you would expect more pushback. But no. Just lift the hammer and keep hitting. And this from supposedly intelligent people.
I would think that calling the president of the US “unAmerican” would border treason. Or suggesting he was not born in the US would equal lunacy in face of the facts. But they still march on smug in their assertions that felling him is the ultimate goal.
My favorite comment was one where the commentator was cheering for a Romney win so that he could then begin working the very next day to bring him down. I never heard such a senselss or useless reason to vote for Romney and they have been plenty.
Obviously the Ryan Budget and all it contains need not top the list.
And I have yet to hear one Republican speak out against any of the sexism, racism, or inflammatory lies that have been produced by some of the worst elements in that party.
I wish people would stop likening various political viewpoints to mental illness. It is wrongheaded and offensive on a number of fronts. People subject to mental illness have no choice in the matter, unlike most of the vox populi. It is insulting to compare people whose politics you find abominable to victims of mental illness. I have seen this very often among the righties who claim “liberalism is a mental illness”. I am chagrined and dismayed to find more enlightened posters resorting to the same exact slur.
The term “victims” of mental illness isn’t exactly enlightened framing. Plus,There is something seriously amiss with some one who is so paranoid they see secret muslims every where … it’s not just political … some of these people have serious issues. Plus, who’s talking about mental illness? Do you see any one talking about some one being ‘depressed’ or “schizophrenic” or being accused of being bipolar or having borderline personality disorder or something? Saying they’re creating their own reality isn’t exactly equating them to something in a textbook. We’re not exactly talking ‘political disagreements’ here. No one is discussing high or low taxes, or passing a law on or no laws on abortion. Do you see a political view in my post at all when some one finds Muslims hidden in the State Department or suggests the president isn’t an American?
Actually, I never use the term “mental illness.” It’s a false name because all illnesses affect the mind and the body. The current term is “psychological disorder. And I do believe that some politicians have psychological disorders, e.g., Michele Bachmann.
Agree that all illnesses affect mind and body. We cannot identify anything that is purely mind. Though “psychological” seems to exclude “physiological.” I dislike the term “behavioral health” because it seems to imply that one simply needs to behave differently and everything will be OK. A person can certainly behave as if they are not unhappy, yet still be depressed.
It’s hard to find appropriate terms since our culture has long-standing division between “mind” and “body” and this is reflected in our language.
Psychology does include the physical. We study the brain as well as human development, including physical development. It’s all part of psychology.
But even the term disorder may be problematic, because different classes of people are diagnosed differently. If you’re poor and homeless, you’re likely to come to the attention of the system, but there are plenty of people walking around with serious psychological issues. If you’re rich and famous you can get away with a lot more strange behavior than if you’re poor.
I stand corrected. I knew that human development was studied in psychology, but didn’t know about the extent of physiologic content. BB, your comment prompted me to check my Stedman’s Medical Dictionary and the psychology definition includes “… physiological processes.”
One of the reasons I like this blog so much is because I learn things!
I used the term “insanity” to describe the confusion and tension, and emotional pain they are using in order to win. Like accepting sexism, and racism in order to gain support and hoping to win. The other part of that is Trust, not just within the parties, but between the parties.
Much like the issue and decision making by one Mitt Romney at the Bain Company. As far as Michelle, well she is becoming more boring to me than any person walking this earth………….just plain assed BORED to death of her. When they engage in negative behaviors, we know the outcome is bound to hurt our society, like deny women and children food stamps and health care. They are creating more people problems, and becoming more dangerous every damn day.
Personally I like the term “bat shit” crazy to describe Michelle Bachman etc. And the people who can’t see that she is bat shit crazy are also bat shit crazy.
By the way I do have a sister who is bi-polar, paranoid schizophrenic. Politically she was exhibiting all the Bachman traits before the shrinks finally figured out what was wrong with her. My sister thought he was perfectly sane — just like Bachman thinks she is sane.
I agree with Fannie that the term “insanity” is perfectly appropriate to describe people like Michele Bachmann.
It looks like Sununu’s meltdown was a deliberate part of Romney’s underhanded effort to push the birther issue.
That was no meltdown. That was Sununu pushing their meme of the day/week/month whatever.
Well, Sununu is morally challenged … he could possibly be yet another sociopath walking amongst us …
Maybe but he’s been in politics too long to make crazy statements like that, for public consumption, without permission of the campaign. They are all batshit, as far as I’m concerned.
Dumbass Bachmann and the other fucking wingnut conspiracy theorists are now infecting US foreign affairs.
Behind Jeers for Clinton in Egypt, a Conspiracy Theory With U.S. Roots
Oh good grief — all the old players are back at it again. I was wondering when I read that the crowd chanted “Monica” — those kids are too damned young to know that name without help from the radical right.
Thanks for the link — now that “demonstration” makes a lot more sense. Interesting that the radical nutjobs are universal.
Yes and the theory originated right here with our very own homegrown nutjobs. When they begin to infect foreign affairs, they need to STFU!
Okay …yet another example:
http://www.nationalconfidential.com/20120717/vermont-republican-official-posts-racist-attack-vs-obama/
I do find the “hope & change” and the “blame it on Bush” part funny! Those refer to legitimate critiques which the Rethug swiped from liberals. The rest makes me think WTF?
That’s a real knee slapper to the white sheet wearing crowd.
I can think of a few blogs where they’ll love it and consider us racist for bringing that up
How did that crowd ever find someone smart enough to be bilingual?