Republican Hypocrisy category archive

Cynthia Tucker of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution discusses wingnut attacks on ultra-conservative George Senator Saxby Chambliss for the crime of being willing to talk with Democrats. In the process, she points out the falsity of false equivalences. A nugget:

This is what it has come to: A fundamental principle of democratic governance — negotiating with political opponents in good faith — has come under attack from an irrational ultra-conservative base that demands its own way while claiming to champion the U.S. Constitution. They dismiss the democratic process if it produces a result they oppose. They denounce tyranny — unless it is in service of their own ideals.

Let Rush Limbaugh say what he will, there is simply no similar force on the political left.

Follow the link to her reasoning and her examples.

Tom Levenson comments. A nugget:

Bluntly: Palin and Gingrich and a Republican Party that tolerates them trade on race fear and race hatred for political gain. Evil is not, I think, too strong a word to describe either the sincere or cynical wielding of this particular cudgel.

It could work. It has in the past. And hence the obligation: every time a Palin or a Gingrich — or any of them — plays to that voter on the margin they think they can capture with a coded appeal to racism, it’s time to name and shame. It isn’t much, I know, but the goal is to raise the psychic cost of actually pulling the lever for and against the color of the candidates’ skin that much higher.

Follow the link to find out why he felt this needed to be said.

A. The Opinions of the Gingrinch.

Afterthought:

If the Gingrinch is a “Republcan intellectual,” then “Republican intellectual” is an oxymoron.

Via TPM.

The Booman sums it up. A nugget:

Let me make this as clear as I can. There is no epidemic of voter fraud in this country. People who are not eligible to vote do not vote. If we have an epidemic, it’s the opposite; people who are eligible to vote are staying home. Voter ID laws are ostensibly about making sure people are who they say they are, but there’s a reason that only Republicans are interested in enacting these laws. What they want is to limit the number of minorities who vote. Period. And they don’t care that they are disenfranchising a bunch of elderly people, too, who no longer drive and have no other need for a photo ID.

It’s a racist, voter suppression drive. That’s all it is. It isn’t what they say it is. As someone who spent a year of my life working to register voters in our inner cities, I can tell you that a lot of young urban people do not have a driver’s license because they don’t have a car. And they don’t have a state-issued photo ID because they don’t need one. If you make having a photo ID a condition for voting, you are definitely going to limit these kids’ representation in the electorate. And that’s the point.

Raise high the ensign to salute those who loudly trumpet the sanctity of their values and wish to impose them on others, except the values they trumpet have nothing to do with their own values. From TPM:

The conclusion of the case is two years in the making. In 2009 Ensign admitted to having an affair with a former campaign aide, Cynthia Hampton, and then helping her husband, also a top aide, establish a brief lobbying career. As the ethics panel was wrapping up its case in late April, Ensign announced his retirement, effective May 3, the day before his sworn deposition was to begin, according to the ethics committee’s final report.

The probe focused on the great lengths — and potentially illegal steps — Ensign took to keep the affair quiet, including having his parents (wealthy Las Vegas casino owners) pay the Hamptons $96,000 in hush money.

The Senate Ethics Committee has referred the case to the Justice Department for prosecution.

This is most extraordinary.

Congressional Ethics Committees tend to bury ethics complaints amongst partisan maneuvering.

I watched the Young and the Restless for a couple of years when I was dating someone who liked that show (Victor is my hero). Y&R has nothing on this. Rachel Maddow summarizes the results of the Committee’s investigation:

Video via Bob Cesca.

It’s a hallowed tactic of bigots.

Since the Gingrinch is running for the Republican presidential nomination, it’s safe to say that his current marriage should last at least until the Republican convention.

(Link fixed, I think. H/T to Cassandra M. for letting me know. Here’s an alternative link, which is even better because of the picture of the Regent doing a George Bush flyover of the damage.)

Amusing how these Republican governors decry guvmint spending until they wants them some for their own.

“When they tell you this isn’t racial, don’t believe them.”

Listen. It’s four minutes. It’s worth it.

Via Bob Cesca.

John Kyl takes a do-over.

Dick Polman wonders why no one’s clamoring to see Mitt the Flip’s birth certificate.

His answer:

One might think that the largely conservative denizens of battyland, given their vigilance on this birther issue, would be hammering Romney about this. Yet they are not. And we know why not:

1. Romney is a Republican.
2. Romney has a red-blooded American name.
3. Romney is white.

Yes, it really is as simple as that.

Gail Collins, riffing one John Kyl’s mendacity, thinks that there’s a hidden agenda in the rightwing fury over abortion: To keep ’em barefoot and pregnant.

A nugget:

Beyond the science, there’s the fact that many social conservatives are simply opposed to women having sex without the possibility of procreation.

(snip)

The reason this never comes up in the debates about reproductive rights is that it has no popular appeal. Abortion is controversial. Contraception isn’t. A new report by the Guttmacher Institute found that even women who are faithful Catholics or evangelicals are likely to rely on the pill, IUDs or sterilization to avoid pregnancy.

What we have here is a wide-ranging attack on women’s right to control their reproductive lives that the women themselves would strongly object to if it was stated clearly. So the attempt to end federal financing for Planned Parenthood, which uses the money for contraceptive services but not abortion, is portrayed as an anti-abortion crusade. It makes sense, as long as you lay off the factual statements.

Dick Polman has more on the lies. Another nugget:

Mike Pence said that targeting Planned Parenthood is crucial because “we’ve got to keep our word to the American people.” Defunding the group, he says, “represents the will of the American people.”

Really? By what measure does the move against Planned Parenthood represent “the will of the American people” – given the fact that the people never voted in ’10 for this morality crusade, and that the polls contradict Pence’s claim?

The guy is just making stuff up. Or perhaps he didn’t intend it as a factual statement.

In Wingnut World, “just making stuff up” may be a family value.

Not in my family.

Budget cuts for thee, but not for me:

. . . Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) was down right incensed over the decision not to include a mere $50,000 for an Army Corps of Engineers study on deepening the Port of Charleston in his home state and vowed to “tie the Senate in knots” by holding up Obama administration nominations.

The ability of Republicans to talk out of both sides of their mouths simultaneously is truly quite remarkable.

Bingo:

If Obama was white, we wouldn’t be politely rebutting lunatics questioning his birth certificate for four fucking years. But because he is black, we can spend tens of thousands of hours listening to drooling idiots wonder whether or not he is a real Murrikan.

Nitpick:

It should be conditional: If Obama were white . . . .

J. M. Ashby suggests a new term:

The next time a Republican tells you that we’re broke, ask him if we’re broke or if we’re simply “Republican broke.”

Follow the link to see his reasoning.

“If you believe government is the problem, . . . how can we expect you to run a government if you get your hands on one?”

Well, like this:

Via The Richmonder.

Not by Henry Gibson.

Actually, it’s by Peter Bergman. Follow the link for the accompanying text:

Paul Ryan is giving us pause.
His budget is loaded with flaws.
But Ryan won’t fudge it.
Cause it’s not a budget.
To him it’s a glorious cause.