Did Any Of Them Build This?

Aug 30th, 2012

For all of the mileage the GOP is getting from what is shaping up to be the all time gaffe of President Obama's career, they still just don't seem to have thought this thing through.

The Only Thing They Did Build

"We Built It."

Okay. It's glib but clever. Obama handed it to them. Here's the problem with this theme for the week; it's beginning to look like they didn't actually find anyone to speak at the convention who didn't benefit from public investment.

GOP: It's Completely Different When We Do It, cont...

May 23rd, 2012

The recent decision by the Obama administration to grant a visa to Mariela Castro Espín, the daughter of current Cuban strongman Raul Castro, allowing her to attend the Latin American Studies Association in San Francisco later this week where she is set to chair a panel on LGBT issues has set off a firestorm of indignation in GOP circles. It's quite the conniption.

GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney is "greatly distrubed."

Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) called it "outrageous and an enormous mistake." (Video HERE)

The ever-temperate Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) participated in an angry joint statement with fellow congressional Republicans and some Florida Democrats writing that "The State Department needs to wake up from its delusional love fest with the dictators in Havana. I urge them to immediately revoke these visas."

Ed Morrisey sees it as a possible tipping point that will send Florida to Romney in the general election:

"The Cuban-American community in Florida leans Republican, but they’re strongly anti-Castro. They won’t appreciate the decision by the Obama administration to give the dictator’s daughter a pass to the US, especially not for the purpose of politicking. Listening to lectures from the Castro family on the nature of political and cultural freedom is somewhat akin to having to sit through a seminar on graciousness by Morton Downey."

What's that you say? You've never heard of Mariela Castro Espín? That's funny because she came to the United States repeatedly under the last administration.

Where was the outrage then? There was none. Where were the screaming headlines on right wing blogs and breathless pronouncements of near-treason on Fox and talk radio? There weren't any.

It's always just "different" when they are in charge.

The Gaffes Are Uncountable

May 23rd, 2012

Rachel Maddow notes the sheer volume of GOP blunders in recent days and wonders why they are largely going unchallenged.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Santorum Watch - Home Schooling Edition

feb 21st, 2012

When I noted yesterday that the least insane of Rick Santorum's statements recently was his assault on public schools, I was unaware of an interesting (and unsurprising) piece of information.

Stephen D. Foster writes:

"Rick Santorum has been very vocal about his preference for home schooling. There’s a reason for this of course. He holds a grudge. Santorum enrolled his children in the Western Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School and stuck the taxpayers for 80% of the costs which were paid through the Penn Hills School District. In November 2004, Penn Hills asked Santorum to repay $67,000 in tuition costs because he and his family were spending most of the year in Virginia and did not meet the qualifications for residency status. So Santorum pulled his kids out of school and has home schooled them ever since. If parents are supposed to be responsible for teaching their own kids, how come Santorum wasn’t home schooling his children before 2004?"

Santorum is a hypocrite of a very rare breed.

Big Time Republican Flip Flops

Sept 24th, 2011

Yesterday, Joshua Holland shined some light on nine issues about which the Republican party has gone through the looking glass altogether over the last few decades, most notably, the concept of a health care "mandate."

"Late last year, when a federal judge ruled against the mandate (two other courts disagreed, and the Supreme Court will end up deciding the question), Senator Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, rejoiced. "Today is a great day for liberty," he said. "Congress must obey the Constitution rather than make it up as we go along." It was an odd testament to freedom, given that Hatch himself co-sponsored a health-care reform bill built around an individual mandate in the late 1990s.

Journalist Steve Benen noted that while "the record here may be inconvenient for the right ... it's also unambiguous: the mandate Republicans currently hate was their idea."

It was championed by the Heritage Foundation ... Nixon embraced it in the 1970s, and George H.W. Bush kept it going in the 1980s. For years, it was touted by the likes of John McCain, Mitt Romney, Scott Brown, Chuck Grassley, Bob Bennett, Tommy Thompson, Lamar Alexander, Lindsey Graham, John Thune, Judd Gregg, and many other ... notable GOP officials.

According to NPR, the mandate was the Right's response to progressive proposals to establish a single-payer system. Mark Pauly, the conservative economist widely credited with the idea, explained that "a group of economists and health policy people, market-oriented, sat down and said, 'Let's see if we can come up with a health reform proposal that would preserve a role for markets but would also achieve universal coverage.'"

Yup. I am sure they were secret-communists all.

The Riots and Conservative Audacity

Aug 13th, 2011
by F. Grey Parker

As the meltdown of order overcame England last week, the reading public was simultaneously subjected to a riot online. There were absurd proclamations by the left that this was a desperate response to the "austerity" measures enacted by the Torys. There were equally vulgar rushes to judgment, a lot of them, from the right. In particular, there was an incredible smear from England's answer to Michelle Rhee, Katharine Birbalsingh, who wrote hastily about the "race" of the man who was killed by London's police in the incident that lit the fuse:

"I'd like to know what they’re angry about. Mark Duggan is dead. He was shot by the police in a shootout. Duggan was in a minicab and shots were fired from both the cab and the police elsewhere. A police officer was hurt in the incident and a bullet was found lodged in a police radio. Either Duggan was shooting at the police or the driver of the minicab was. Either Duggan was in the wrong place at the wrong time and his death is a terrible tragedy – he was caught in the crossfire – or he shot at the police and the police defended themselves. Whatever the explanation, the police did not kill this man in cold blood."

First of all, she exposes a viewpoint which is actually shocking... outside of American right wing circles. The casual acceptance of official violence against people "in the wrong place" has become so common here that we in the States no longer raise much more than an eyebrow. Second of all, this sputtering and angry little rant demonstrates again why no one, either on the left or right, should rush to make political hay before the facts are established.

Media On Libya - First, Flip. Then, Flop

March 27th, 2011

I had been considering the right wing's wild flip-flopping on Libya. As if there needed to be any more parsing of statement's from craven opportunists like Newt Gingrich. Horsey has a great cartoon that sums it all up better.

The Right Wing: Having It Both Ways

March 22nd, 2011

"You can't fire both teachers and Tomahawk missiles."

The Daily Show
Tags: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook