Motley Moose – Archive

I fear I have been naive, for I have thought that the behaviors of our Congress (specifically, the Republicans therein) had hit rock bottom, that the limit of asshattery has been reached. Not so! Today’s Senate shenanigans over Chuck Hagel’s nomination may have been the straw that broke this weary old camel’s back. Seeking relief in humor, I have compiled a brief list of unflattering remarks about our legislative branch by famous people. Please add as you see fit.

Note: I don’t have strong feelings about Hagel one way or the other. I do have strong feelings about dysfunctionality.

‘For Tea Party firebrands, and likely Fox loyalists, Rove is the face of Republican Establishment, of the enemy, which means to a certain degree so is Fox News.’

Still smarting from Obama’s re-election and the ongoing implosion of the GOP brand, party leaders have concluded that something’s terribly wrong. Not their message. Nah, it couldn’t be that. More likely it’s the way they’ve been using angry, misogynistic, racist old white guys to carry the party standard. Seems that this is alienating the voters, and We Can’t Have That.

Your intrepid diarist has picked through the dumpster behind Reince Priebus’ office and found some of their latest public relations communiques on a range of subject matter. Oddly, they’re all encrypted in limerick form…

GOP anti-abortion messaging focuses on shaming women who find themselves in difficult circumstances, piling on to compound their anguish, just because they can:

Abortions are evil! Tut, tut!

If you get one, you must be a slut!

Shame on you, Jezebel!

You’ll be headed to Hell!

Guess you should have just kept your legs shut!

However, that misogynistic messaging is proving a little out-of-touch, so the new GOP copywriters are proposing something more, um… upbeat:

Life is sacred, on that we agree

Who would not love a cute, pink baby?

With their eyes full of joy

Every young girl and boy

Is a treasure to you and to me

Speaking of misogynistic messaging, how about all those armchair gynecologists dispensing disinformation on birth control such as…

A legitimate rape? Well, okay…

But most women just lie when they say

Their assailant was armed

Chances are they were charmed

By some boyfriend (at least he’s not gay!)

When life hands women a bushel-basket of lemons, it’s time to make some lemonade:

We’re so sorry; we do understand

Your rape-pregnancy happened, unplanned

Sometimes life’s so unfair

It’s just too much to bear

It’s too bad we can’t lend you a hand.

Harsh views on homosexuality abound in GOP political rhetoric (usually right up to the point when those unfortunate photos come to light):

We’re good Christians! We do not believe

In the marriage of Adam and Steve

It’s grotesque and obscene!

Marriage must be kept clean!

It’s in danger! We can’t be naïve!

Under the Kinder Gentler GOP 2.0, it’s time to face facts: not everyone’s a heterosexual. It might be time to ditch the homophobia and realize that gay people do, after all, vote:

Are Republicans biased? No way!

Why, my neighbor’s ex-wife’s son is gay!

He’s a charming young man

Served in Afghanistan

When “don’t ask, don’t tell” passed, I said “yay!”

As we learned in the Ayn Rand petroglyphs, sympathy for the poor, the homeless, the jobless, the sick, the elderly and other losers is a sign of insufferable weakness:

A poor person who can’t pay their rent?

Unemployment check’s already spent?

Well, I simply don’t care!

Not one dime could I spare!

I’m elite! In the top One Percent!

Perhaps that seems a bit, well, uncaring. Let’s see if the new GOP-lite version would sound a little more altruistic:

In the land of the free and the brave

Someone must play the part of wage slave

You should keep working hard

For that house with a yard

And that other nice stuff that you crave.

Of course, there’s nobody like a GOP chicken-hawk draft dodger when it comes to international saber-rattling and war-mongering:

Time to scramble the bombers! Let’s roll!

North Korea is out of control!

And Iran will be armed!

People should be alarmed!

We’re at war for America’s soul!

Well, that sounded nice and patriotic, but since they’ll be fighting these wars using your kids as cannon-fodder, perhaps they need a better recruiting message like this:

Join the Army, young patriot guy!

Beam with pride as our flag flies on high!

Keep America free

In Marines or Navy

It’s all good (well, it’s true: you might die)

While they weren’t busy plotting the next unpaid-for war or stripping women of their rights or shredding the safety net or protecting the uber-rich, GOPers focused their efforts on obstructing that President Obama put forth:

He’s a Socialist Kenyan! Watch out!

All the birthers were right to cast doubt!

That usurper would dare

Push for Obamacare!

Well, impeachment will be our next route

Turns out that those pesky voters keep electing the dude, though, so maybe it’s time for a little more bipartisan approach

Four more years? Well, that sucks, but oh, well…

We’ll try not to freak out or raise hell

“Kumbaya” we shall sing

In the hopes we can bring

Some bipartisan stories to tell

So… by now, you get the picture: same pig, different lipstick. Feel free to add some more rewrites in the comments section below.  

Cross Posted at The Progressive Zionist

Over at the Maddow Blog we have reports from the newest Village Idiot (even by Congressional Standards) Ted Cruz (R-Secessionist Republic of Texas).

Here let’s let the idiocy speak for itself:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…

In this clip, at around the 0:44 mark, Cruz notes that the Senate has “two pending nominations, John Kerry and Chuck Hagel.” Describing the nominees, Cruz added, “Both of whom are very prominently…”

After pausing for a few moments, the event’s moderator said, “Anti-us?” Cruz responded that Kerry and Hagel are “less than ardent fans of the U.S. military.”

Perhaps Ted Cruz would benefit from a reminder about the men he’s attacking. John Kerry is a decorated war hero who was awarded combat medals including the Silver Star, Bronze Star, and three Purple Hearts. Chuck Hagel is a decorated war hero who was awarded combat medals including the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry, two Purple Hearts, Army Commendation Medal, and the Combat Infantryman Badge.

Cruz, meanwhile, who apparently considers himself an “ardent fan of the U.S. military,” has never worn a uniform, except maybe on Halloween.

But then watch some more… Cruz goes on to solidify his claims to the title by saying that Ronald Reagan should have won the Nobel Peace Prize because he “caused the downfall of the Soviet Union and won the Cold War”.

Anyway, the sheer stupidity / ignorance of saying that two decorated War Heroes (no matter what else one may feel about either man), don’t love “us” (he did not say “the U.S.” he said “us”) are “anti-the U.S. military” is mind boggling in it’s wrongness. To say that both men only favor judicious use of the military or are anti-militarism would be far more accurate. BUT for someone who has never served in any military role to accuse two decorated war heroes, in leadership positions in the U.S. Government as being anti-U.S. military is mindblowingly dumb.

OH yeah, AND in the case of Chuck Hagel. These morons at the National Review Institute Summit should remember that not too long ago their guy Hagel was racking up scores from the American Conservative Union of over 95 on his voting record.

Oh well just another day in wingnuttia.

By: inoljt, http://mypolitikal.com/

The Democratic Party has always been the party of immigrants. Even as everything else about the party has changed, as it has turned from a party of Southern whites to the exact opposite, immigrants continue to vote Democratic. In the 1850s the immigrants were Irish-Americans. Today they are Mexican-Americans.

Of course, not all immigrants support the Democratic Party. Many immigrants, such as Cuban-Americans and Vietnamese-Americans, vote strongly Republican. There is a very simple explanation for why this is so, an explanation that requires merely one word:

Communism.

More below.

Cross posted at the Progressive Zionist (www.progressivezionist.com)

Hat Tip to Jed Lewiston and his Front Page Diary at Daily Kos: Remember when Paul Ryan blamed the attack in Benghazi on the sequester?

In reading Jed’s diary something struck me in one of Paul Ryans quotes:

We should always stand up for peace, for democracy, for individual rights.

Ok… on it’s own sounds fine.

Then Ryan goes on to say:

And we should not be imposing these devastating defense cuts, because what that does when we equivocate on our values, when we show that we’re cutting down on defense, it makes us more weak. It projects weakness. And when we look weak, our adversaries are much more willing to test us.

And this is where Ryan channels Big Brother. Allow me quote from George Orwell’s Masterpiece 1984:

WAR IS PEACE

So… what Ryan here is directly saying is… (In my words): “Let’s stand for PEACE and the way we stand for PEACE is to build up our WAR machine to a point where no one will be able to challenge us, because if they do, we will utterly destroy them.”

Now, aside from the facts that Guerilla movements in SouthEastern and Central Asia give lie to his commentary (after all, we outgunned the Viet Cong and Taliban 10,000 to one and we were able to wreck complete destruction upon their relative nations and yet that didn’t stop them). This is a dangerous fallacy that has infected the American Polity in a number of ways.

OH, and before we go on I want to make it clear that I am not an isolationist, I am not a Green, and I have no issue with the United States having a presence around the Globe (though I am certainly not a supporter of “Empire Building”). Further, I fully support the notion that the U.S. and our allies should have what I term a “Stout Defense”. But, that said, I also support an honest commentary on what that means and NOT use of Orwellian terminology to create a false meme.

But here… Here is a chart of our Defense Spending relative to the rest of the world

1. United States          711.0    

2. China                  143.0    

3. Russia                  71.9

4. United Kingdom          62.7

5. France                  62.5

6. Japan                   59.3

Now, notice… IF the U.S. Cut it’s military spending by over $ 400 BILLION per year. That’s right… you saw it $ 400 BILLION PER YEAR, we would STILL outspend the next five countries on the list added up together.

Let’s break that down even further. IF we cut our Defense budget by $ 500 Billion for one year we would still almost outspend our main rivals Russia and China together (they would have us by $ 3 billion).

NOW, does anyone in their right mind think that Al Qaeda for one second looks at our defense spending and says: “HOHOHO America cut it’s spending – well they must be weak” and further does anyone even further out really think that our main allies, Britain, France, Israel, Australia, etc… think that we are somehow “weak” even though we are outspending the next five nations (Nations 3 2-#6) collectively???

No.. What this is, is a blatant Orwellian Chant of “War is Peace”, “We destroyed that village to save the village”.

Paul Ryan’s words are hypocritical. His party stands firmly against Democracy (look at his party’s efforts to not count the popular vote), his party party stands firmly against individual rights (Marriage Equality, voting rights, civil rights). Ryan talks about Peace but in this, he is only talking about the Peace that comes from utter destruction left in the wake of War.

I’ll always be a Republican, much in the same way that I’ll always be a dumb ‘ole Iowa farmboy. It’s the way I grew up; it’s where I came from. No matter how far I’ve moved on from that time- and I’d say it’s probably the same for anyone- your roots leave their mark on you.

The Motley Moose was founded as a moderate, inclusive, progressive place to discuss politics and the path of our country. With a unique voices from other places like MyDD, DailyKos, LittleGreenFootballs, etc, something that can’t be found anywhere else on the internet. But even so, the general audience on this site skews heavily to the left.

So what brings me here? Why do I hang around?

I don’t know whether many people (especially on the left) had the stomach to watch this 90 minute exercise in silliness and futility, but I personally am a bit of a masochist. I sat through the full thing, knowing all the while that it was over an hour of my life I could never get back. For the most part, little of interest was said, though I must confess to a few points of agreement on my part with a couple of the candidates (95% disagreement of course). There were even some laughs scattered throughout, so I can hardly call it a complete waste, can I?

Let’s have a look at what was on the table tonight.

The House and Senate passed the compromise legislation to finance the Federal government for the balance FY 2011, with 59 House Republicans breaking ranks to vote against the deal. The overall vote in the House was 260-167. Eighty-one Democrats gave House Speaker John Boehner the votes needed for the bill’s passage.

In the Senate, the vote was 81-19, with dissenting votes mostly coming from more conservative Republicans. In the Senate, 48 Democrats, 32 Republicans and independent Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut voted in favor.

This is not an especially brave tale. It’s just the story of my political upbringing in the Deep South. Pretty simple, all in all – just maybe a bit unusual.

I think my first political memory is of the Willie Horton attack ad during the run-up to the 1988 presidential elections. I was born in 1985, and those ads would have been showing when I was about 3 years old. I know I have a few fuzzy memories extending that far back, and I know I saw the ad when I was very young. I know that because it provoked a very visceral reaction in me. It felt “wrong” to me, though I wasn’t sure why. I wasn’t afraid of the man in the photograph, but there was something about the ad that I knew I didn’t like. I got a cold feeling when I saw it that I couldn’t quite identify.

We have a very close family friend who I’ve known since I was only two years old – a time that seems long past, for it was when he was still youthful and affectionate and often bouncing me on his knee. A gay guy (let’s call him Sean), who – oddly enough – my whole family embraced without question, including all four grandparents. My family has never had much of a “problem” with the LGBT community, despite their political leanings. But I remember my parents sitting me down one day when I was about five years old to “explain” Sean to me, as if his nature needed some sort of explanation. They told me that Sean only liked women as friends and that he didn’t want a wife – they explained that he only liked men that way. I was confused at first, and it took a bit more explanation (the specifics of which I do not recall) before I “got it.” What I do clearly remember were the expectant looks on their faces and my reaction. “So what?” And that was that. By my nature, it just didn’t matter to me (or perhaps it was merely because that sort of bigotry was never taught to me).