Republican Hypocrisy category archive
The Entitlement Society 0
If you can’t change the law, change the lawyers.
Highlights Reel 0
Thom looks at several under-covered stories from the news.
Note: Tom Price was fired (or resigned under pressure, which is fundamentally the same thing) after this segment was recorded, but that does not negate Thom’s larger points about priorities, budgets, and news coverage, as the next guy is likely to be just as bad.
Swamp Things 0
Farron looks at Donald Trump’s “newly drained swamp” and concludes the drains are clogged.
Taxation without Consideration 0
Job’s Anger.
Dis Coarse Discourse 0
Josh Marshal decodes de code.
Misdirection Play, Freedom of Screech Dept. 0
There has recently been much moaning about “freedom of speech” on college campuses amongst the right-wing puniditocracy. Upon a close reading, most of it falls into the “much ado about not much of anything” category and generally seems designed to use ad hominem arguments to discredit ideas, as in
- “Oh, look! Their clothing is unkempt! I shall fall upon my fainting couch clutching my pearls as I refuse to listen to a word they say!”
In other words, it’s a misdirection play.
Joe Patrice refuses to be misdirected.
He tells us of a flying visit by Attorney-General Jeff Sessions to Georgetown Law School. Some students were invited, then uninvited to the event, apparently because they might have had the temerity to disagree with the views of Sessions and his sponsors.
Patrice suggests that the sequence of events illustrates the right-wing selective perception on freedom of speech. The whole story is rather convoluted, so follow the link for the details, but here’s the lesson Patrice draws from it:
The GOP’s Pathological Partisanship 0
Danny Westneat tries to understand the Republican obsession with repealing the Affordable Care Act.
He starts with recalling Rep. Cathy McMorris’s (R–Don’t Get Sick; If You Do Get Sick, Die Quickly) request for ACA stories a couple of years back, She received over 10,000 responses, the great majority of which were positive. Nevertheless, she announced that she would favor the repeal of the ACA:
But the larger problem — the one that continues to hang the party today — is that she wasn’t remotely interested in the real story.
All the News that Fits 0
Afterthought:
I’m a Southern Boy. I grew up under Jim Crow, I attended segregated schools, and I have my share of baggage.
I’ve known lots of racists and even more white folks who grew up with racism and did not realize that they had been trained to it from birth.
It’s the rare racist who will admit to being racist.
Which leads to the question: Who is more vile, the person who is proudly and avowedly racist or the person who is silently racist and unaware of or willfully blind to his or her racism?
Blood in the Water 0
Thom discusses how Republican obstructionism and denial of climate change led directly to increasing Harvey’s toll on Houston.
Aside:
Thom is incorrect about why Amtrak cannot run high-speed trains between D. C. and New York. Amtrak does own the track from Washington to Boston. It can’t run higher speed trains because the government won’t fund the necessary improvements.
(Embed fixed.)
Misdirection Play, DACA Dept. 0
Robert Reich wonders why Trump tossed DACA into the mix when the Republicans have already demonstrated that they can’t get anything done.