Motley Moose – Archive

Heck, why not? A Moose Straw Poll is probably at least as good a predictor as the Iowa Straw Poll which has not successfully picked the eventual nominee since 2000.

According to The Hill, there are 20 candidates who have thrown their hats near the ring … ready to nudge them in given even the slightest encouragement.

Get ready for the largest GOP presidential field in recent history.

As many as 20 Republicans are taking a serious look at running for the White House in 2016. A handful of candidates have moved aggressively into the field, and others are expected to ramp up in the coming weeks, with several announcements expected in April.

According to the article, the field of declared candidates for the last election cycle never exceeded 10 and the largest group at a debate was 9 (in 2011).

The list is below the fold …

RNC Chairman Reince Priebus is boasting that the 2014 midterm election will be a “tsunami”, a mere “wave” not being big enough to show all the awesomeness of the predicted GOP WIN this fall.

Maybe “tsunami” is the new Etch-a-Sketch because it clearly has Reinced away the reality of the 2012 presidential election for the Republicans:

Forget the final results. Priebus told MSNBC’s Chuck Todd that voters thought Mitt Romney had the better presidential chops.

“I mean, the fact of the matter is Mitt Romney won on the message,” Priebus said. “He won on jobs, he won on the economy, he won on the question of, ‘Who do you actually think would make a better president?’ But where he lost was on the question of, ‘Who cares about you?'”.[…]

But it’s unclear from the exit polling what led Priebus to believe that Romney “won on jobs” and even more inexplicable why the chairman believes that voters said Romney “would make a better president.”

Speaking of “who cares about you?”, something that they may have trouble tsunami-ing away this fall, here is Speaker John Boehner showing his empathy gap: Boehner Rejects Senate Deal To Revive Jobless Benefits

Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) on Wednesday came out against a bipartisan Senate deal to revive emergency benefits for the long-term unemployed, a sign that the Republican-led House intends to nix the proposal.

Boehner didn’t offer a counter-proposal on jobless benefits. “Frankly,” he said, “a better use of the Senate’s time would be taking up and passing the dozens of House-passed jobs bills still awaiting action.“

What’s this? The Republican House of Representatives passed some jobs bills??? Oh that’s right: each of the 51 “repeal Obamacare” votes was in order to save GOP freshmen’s jobs, guys who need to burnish their tea party credentials.

More …

Jubilation!! The War on Women is Over!!! Woo hoo!!!! Celebrate, celebrate, dance to the muu-sic!!!!!

Fresh from the shores of Nonsensia:

– “Debunking the “War on Women” – Charles Krauthammer, Washington Post

– “If There Was A War on Women, I Think They Won” – Rand Paul, Meet the Press

– “Women don’t want equal pay, they already get ‘exactly what they’re worth'” – Martha MacCallum, Fox News

– “Women are better off barefoot and pregnant” – Mike Huckabee, Anywhere That Would Have Him

– “I support pay equity except the part about ‘voting for it'” – Cathy McMorris Rodgers, SOTU Rebuttal

Wait a minute. :::consults notes:::

Much like how the White Privileged Males on the Supreme Court declared that there is no longer a need for that pesky Voting Rights Act because there is no racism in America, the right-wing pundits and politicians have declared that there is no longer a War on Women. So don’t worry your pretty little heads … just become a Stepford Woman vote for Republicans who only have our best interests at heart.

The NBC/WSJ post-shutdown poll released yesterday set the blogosphere abuzz. It turns out that a reckless disregard for the well being of those who depend on the federal government, coupled with a casual connection with reality about how the financial markets work, does not instill confidence in your party or your party’s leaders. Who could have anticipated that?

Science challenged House Republicans forget about “gravity”

Oh, just about everyone … in the reality-based world!

The co-chairman of the Polk County Republican Party has resigned and changed his party registration to independent, saying the GOP has become too conservative and is condoning “hateful” rhetoric.

Steve King’s crazy finally set off a morality alarm in someone in the GOP:

Brown said in a phone interview that he became disgusted by a party he believes is being run by the Christian right and the National Rifle Association. He cited Congressman Steve King’s recent, controversial comments on illegal immigrants as an example of his philosophical conflict with the party.

“No one’s really stood out to really fight him on those. I think they’re hateful statements,” he said. King made national news with his comment that illegal immigrants were more likely to be drug traffickers “with calves the size of cantaloupes” than valedictorians.

It seems Mr. Brown values science as he feels the GOP has “declared war on science and common sense” That common sense thing goes right along with knowing Steve King is a certifiable loon. (no offense meant to birds)

Brown’s resignation letter:

   Dear Polk GOP Executive Committee Member,

    I am writing to inform you that I changed my voter registration to Independent today – severing all ties to the Republican Party. Having been a Republican all my life, I did not take this decision lightly.

    Having spoken with a pastor and having prayed about this for hours, I came to the conclusion that this is my only recourse. I’m disappointed with the Republican Party at the National level. I’m disappointed with the Republican Party at the Statewide level. I’m disappointed with the Republican Party at the Countywide level. I find it increasingly difficult to defend issues and statements made by Party leaders and officials from all three levels.

    I decided to get back in this arena following the “contentious” 2012 Polk County GOP Convention. I was upset by what happened at the conventions, and I entered into the arena with the intent to help fix the problems. However, I think this level of dysfunction is not going to be fixed any time soon.

     I donated time and financial resources to the Polk GOP and haven’t had a good return on my investment. In the 2000 Presidential Election, the Polk GOP lost Polk County by about 16,000 votes. In fall of 2000, the Polk GOP had no headquarters. The Polk GOP had no paid staff. The Polk GOP didn’t even have a working telephone number. Fundraising was minimal.

     In 2012, the Polk GOP lost Polk County by over 32,000 votes. Until 2002, Republicans were elected to the State House from Des Moines. In 2012, Republicans lost 2 State House seats in suburban, Republican-leaning districts and came two dozen votes from losing a third. Facts are stubborn things. I think we are now headed in the wrong direction on several fronts and regretfully must step aside.

    It’s my opinion that rather than fix the problems that led to such a massive 2012 defeat, the GOP does not seem to seriously want to fix the issues. I think helping a dysfunctional Party that does not want to address its problems is enabling. I do not believe in enabling. I debated this for weeks and am certain this is the only course.

    I wish you the best of luck,

     Chad Brown

Nomination by convention instead of a primary – it was GOP gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli’s dream road to the party pick. He threw all his political power, and that of his allies, behind a nominating convention and they carried the day. With a convention process he avoided a prolonged confrontation with alternative candidates such as current Lieutenant Governor Bolling.

Unfortunately for the ultra-conservative, homophobic, anti-choice Cuccinelli, his party then blessed him with the gift that keeps on giving: a lieutenant governor candidate that even Cuccinelli considers extreme – Bishop E.W. Jackson, a man who makes Michelle Bachmann look lucid, perhaps even profound.

HAHAHAHAHAHA!

Because of his black belt in karate and things, he has gotten to know many of the leaders of Russia, including Putin, and was able to use that influence to make sure that we got to talk to the very top people so that we could try to find ways of expanding our areas of cooperation,

said Representative Dana (Impeach Bubba!) Rohrbacher.

 

Actually, the GOP version is only about 6,000 years

[Cross-posted from Teh Orange]

It’s not easy being green a GOPasaur. All signs points to their individual and collective extinction, yet they still walk the Earth, seemingly oblivious to their fate, unable to see what any sentient creature could see: it’s so over. The planet, it seems, is moving on without them and they’re left to ponder the cruel vicissitudes of fate. For surely, it must just be fate, right?? It couldn’t have been anything that they said or did, could it??

Like young children, taking to heart their teachers’ threats that their latest malfeasance would be etched in stone on their Permanent Record, GOPasaurs live in perpetual dread that their crimes, misdeeds, ethical lapses, and offhand remarks about female reproduction. Unfortunately (for them), while their witless song may have ended, the malady lingers on, thanks to the preservative properties of the fossil record.

Thus is is with unalloyed joy that some of our paleo-pals have discovered a solution to their extinction fears, a way to wipe the slate clean of their missteps and recast themselves in ways that the votersaurs will find appealing, even irresistable. Follow along below the Gobi Desert Easter Egg for the Rest of the Story…  

Seismometers across the continental plate reverberated as previously-thought-to-be-extinct Onepercentasaur Brontosaurus romneii emerged from one of his well-appointed caves to grace the world with his witless utterances. With the onset of the paleosequester, this unwelcome political behemoth felt it necessary to return to the miasmic swamps of political life to point out that, had he eluded electoral extinction, Things Would Be So Much Better. This insipid viewpoint was amplified by B. romneii’s mate, Dressageasaurus cruella, whose vocalization – like nails on a Cretaceous chalkboard – continue to jangle the nerves of all organisms in the drainage basin.

“If only”, they sigh, in carefully rehearsed unison, “we had been the chosen ones. All of this awfulness could have been avoided.” Indeed. Awfulness of an altogether different sort would have pervaded the land, or at least 47 percent of the land. Latinosaurs would be stampeding in throes of self-deportation. Venturecapitasaurs would be driving workers into the streets while expanding their vast offshore caverns to accomodate still more wealth. The cries of the unemployed, the impoverished, the elderly, and the ill would reverberate across the land. All the while, B. romneii’s dynastic wealth would grow to proportions that would cause serious global tectonic disruption.

When last we heard from these two, they were licking their wounds after the painful realization that all their grand evening of fireworks and victory toasts had come crashing down around them. Indeed, the only joy of that dark night came from the immediate termination of employment of B. romneii’s campaign staff, and the concurrent cancellation of their credit cards, stranding them far from home. Yes, good times, but alas, over all too soon.

As fellow GOPasaurs engaged in the gnashing of teeth, self-loathing, and blamestorming that has become their hallmark, B. romneii and D. cruella slunk away in the night, never to be heard from again, until now, when their vocalizations have resumed, fueled by a heady mixture of righteous indignation and denial. Follow along below the coprolite horizon for The Rest of the Story…  

 

“Doctors have no business inquiring of patients

whether they are choosing to exercise their

constitutional rights,” NRA spokeswoman

Jacqueline Otto said in a statement Friday.

“When a child is brought to a doctor, it is to seek

their expertise in pediatrics, not firearms ownership.”

.