Craziest Republican of the Day: Darrell Issa

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Via twitter: 

Darrell Issa compares fracking chemical recipe to recipe for Diet Coke, says Americans have no right to know it. (link)

-- David Roberts (@drgrist)

Interesting. I had no idea you could set fire to the Diet Coke coming out of your tap. Or that some Diet Coke in a river could destroy wildlife. Or that Diet Coke could east away your body from within and destroy your community.

There's a reason Big Gas and its allies don't want their secrets getting out. And it's not because they're afraid of competition from Pepsi.

But maybe Rep. Issa should take a trip to Gasland and go for a swim in one of those pools of fracking water. I mean, if he's so sure of himself and not just a complete moron.

(Then again, Diet Coke may be just as carcinogenic as whatever the hell's in the fracking mix. No, not really, but it made you think, right?)

boo

By Capt Fogg

"With regards to immigration policy, that those that come here illegally should not be given favoritism or a special route to becoming residents or citizens that's not given to those people that stayed in line legally,"

-Willard Mitt Romney-

One would think, if one had the fortitude to spend more than a moment watching what passes for television news, that for the last half decade or so there were nothing of more than momentary interest happening than the American political circus and perpetual campaign. Geological and meteorological calamities do get reported, but the vast bulk of air time is given over to "the candidates" and the unchallenged lies they perpetrate. There are no pauses between campaigns, no half time shows and no seventh inning stretches.

I say circus although circuses are intended to be family entertainment these days and freak shows have gone the way of Times Square peep shows, cock fights and lynchings -- and sadly, the traces of any sense of shame, decency and honesty that ever had the audacity to interrupt or question the ragemongering has disappeared.

At the South Carolina Fox News debate Monday last (and I call it debate with all awareness of the inherent dishonesty of the appellation) Mitt Romney was booed, not because of what discernible policies he may be espousing at the moment, but because his father was born in Mexico. I don't recall any booing in response to John McCain's having been born in Panama, but of course anything done or said more than ten minutes ago is irrelevant in today's Republican world and that hobgoblin called consistency is always foolish.

George Romney, Mitt's father, entered the US illegally from Mexico, which might have given a better, more decent, less ambnitious Mitt pause before making such harsh statements about not tolerating any mercy for illegal Mexican immigrants, but of course it's a racial and ethnic issue, not an immigration one despite assurances to the contrary. The name is Romney after all, not Ramirez -- and this was South Carolina, Glossolalia, Holy Ghost Power and Rebel Flags, just he way God likes it.

But the mood of the South Carolinian Republican Rabble was ugly and when moderator Juan Williams asked if it wasn't a bit insulting to minorities when Newt Gingrich spewed that nonsense about black people needing to demand jobs instead of food stamps, as though the unemployment problem were caused by laziness and a president that encourages it, the ugly mob conservative citizens booed the black moderator just as Republican snake pits at previous "debates" have booed Child Labor laws, booed a serving US soldier and cheered the killing of prisoners in large numbers.

Is it any worse that they insist on being called 'conservatives' and not snarling beasts and that our only sources of news collaborate in that farce? Is it surprising that the state of South Carolina, still unrepentant for having been the first to take up arms against the United States, would once again boo at Ron Paul's suggestion that the 'Golden Rule' so often quoted as a core Christian value be applied in US foreign policy?

" Quit warmongering, stop going to war, and treat other nations like we want to be treated. "

Hell, no! Boo the bastard! Ask not what Jesus would do, ask what Attila the Hun would do, what a tribe of savage head hunters and cannibals would do, what a pack of giggling, stinking hyenas would do while ripping and tearing at the corpse of America.

It's been suggested to me, that I should approach such people with a more polite demeanor -- that the people who have made most of human history a horror story need to be given a chance to discuss things, to debate things and that monsters and the people who promote monsters can be persuaded by kind words and reason to change.

Boooooooo!

(Cross posted from Human Voices)

Craziest Republican of the Day: Tim Scott

By Michael J.W. Stickings 

Via twitter: 

"The greatest minority under attack today are Christians. No doubt about it," says Rep. Tim Scott. 

-- Michelle Goldberg (@michelleinbklyn)

Oh, totally. I mean, just consider the bigoted virulence of the war against same-faith marriage. No way we can have crazy evangelicals and Catholics procreating within the confines of a state-sanctioned union.

And no way can we have Christians building community centers in the rough vicinity of Ground Zero. Not to mention all that ugly profiling of Christians at airports. Terrorists they are, what with their "Sunday schools" and "Bible camps."

They're on the margins, these "God"-fearin', Tebow-lovin' wackos.

Thank "God" they have no voice in politics.

Thank "God" they have no power.

Thank "God" there isn't a major political party that has made the establishment of Christian theocracy a core element of its platform, with leading figures all across the country dedicated to an extremist Christian agenda.

Today should absolutely be called Martin Luther Day instead. These poor, oppressed Jesus freaks have a dream too!

This self-denying, reality-denying African-American Republican totally has a point.

Thanks, Rep. Scott!

Christie calls Obama "bystander" on supercommittee failure, displays characteristic idiocy

By Michael J.W. Stickings

In case you missed it, New Jersey Governor (and all-around bully and blowhard) Chris Christie slammed President Obama on Monday:

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie ripped President Obama for the failure of the debt supercommittee, calling the president "a bystander in the Oval Office" in comments Monday.

"I was angry this weekend, listening to the spin coming out of the administration, about the failure of the supercommittee, and that the president knew it was doomed for failure, so he didn't get involved. Well, then what the hell are we paying you for?" Christie said in Camden, N.J. "It's doomed for failure, so I'm not getting involved'? Well, what have you been doing, exactly?"

This is complete and utter bullshit, as Steve Benen explained yesterday:

The New Jersey governor added that he's "astonished" that the president "refuses" to just call people into a room and solve problems. This is the kind of criticism the media finds compelling, but which is nevertheless idiotic.

The president has tried every negotiating tactic that exists to get congressional Republicans to work on finding solutions. Obama has tried hands-on talks; he's tried keeping his distance. The president has tried hard sells and soft sells, directly and indirectly. He's made private appeals and public appeals. He's made arguments based on policy, polls, and principles. He's tried charm offensives, combativeness, and everything in between. He's made partisan, bipartisan, tripartisan, and nonpartisan arguments, all in the hopes that maybe, just maybe, GOP leaders will be open to good-faith compromise.

And yet, nothing has worked. Nothing. 

Obama isn't blameless, to be sure, but he should be blamed for being so willing not just to compromise with Republicans but to agree to a deal that leans heavily Republican. He should not be blamed for not trying to reach a deal. If anything, he's gone out of his way, much to the ongoing chagrin of progressives, to get a deal done. (Actually, he hasn't really gone out of his way. It's more that his way isn't the progressive way.)

If there is blame to be assigned here, and there most certainly is, it is the Republicans who must be blamed. There hasn't been a deal only because, being anti-tax absolutists, they have been absolutely unwilling to budge on revenue increases even when the president, with Democratic support, has offered them massive spending cuts even to major entitlement programs like Medicare and Medicaid.

The president has been anything but a bystander throughout this whole mad exercise, from the debt ceiling talks through to the supercommittee (which was never going to reach a deal, let's be honest; it was just for show). And for Christie to call him that is just plain ignorant.

(Yes, let's make him our Craziest Republican of the Day.)

**********

Nice location for some gubernatorial remarks. What is that behind his right shoulder, a big jar of garlic powder?