Republican Hypocrisy category archive

Newt Gingrich claims that the Obama administration is “secular and nonreligious.”

The last time I looked, this was not a theocracy, despite the wingnuts’ attempts to turn it into one.

Jack Cluth gets it frontwards (Aside: It somehow seems fitting that I stumbled over this while sitting in my church’s office doing treasurer stuff):

Gingrich is seeking to burnish his politcal apple by playing and age-old Republican game. If you can’t win over your base with the force of your ideas…well, then find someone you can convince people to hate. It’s not quite “divide and conquer”, but it certainly is “demonize and conquer”. When people begin to hate, they cease thinking, and a charismatic leader can manipulate the intellectually stunted to their own advantage. This is the very definition and arc of Newt Ginrich’s career.

(snip)

Too bad that the Religious Right is less concerned with hypocritical Right-wingers willing to milk Christianity to every ounce of advantage they can gain than with the “evils” of a Democrat occupying the White House.

Stop using the God of Love to foster the politics of hate.

Lola Adesioyem, writing in the Guardian, considers wingnuttery’s over-the-top reaction to the Department of Homeland Security’s report on right wing extremism (learn about the earlier report on left wing extremism here). She points out that it was a report on “right wing extremism,” and asks

When did “right wing extremist” defined by the report as “groups, movements and adherents that are primarily hate-orientated (based on hatred of particular religious, racial or ethnic groups), and those that are mainly anti-government…” become synonymous with everyday Republican?

When, indeed.

John Cole on the Republican talking points:

Apparently the safety of this country can be determined by gauging how sadistically we brutalize prisoners in our care.

I braved the inclement wind and rain to attend the MadHattery in Wilmington today. No, I couldn’t bring myself to go inside. The WNQ* was too high.

I was reminded of the words of a friend of mine when Cowboy Bob played my college during midterms:

Dozens thronged the stage . . . .

Some pictures.

Here is the gathering hordette:

But wait! There’s more!

In its key findings, the 10 page (Homeland Security Report) document put forward by the Office of Intelligence and Analysis states that there is “no specific information that domestic rightwing terrorists are currently planning acts of violence,” but warns law enforcement agencies that the economic recession, coupled with the recent election of the first African-American President of the United States, is driving radical groups’ recruitment.

“The DHS under President Bush was apparently more reluctant to make such assessments about the right. According to CQ, a 2005 report outlining terrorist threats ‘does not mention anti-government groups, white supremacists and other radical right-wing movements,'” noted Think Progress. “Bush’s report did, however, list the threat of left-wing groups such as the Animal Liberation Front and the Earth Liberation Front. And a 2001 report from the Energy Department examined “Left-Wing Extremism: The Current Threat.”

Oh, gee.

Who woulda thunk.

Funny, I don’t see any lefties calling for violent overthrow of the state.

The wingnuts speak the language of violence, then get outraged when they get called on it.

They don’t have enough courage to stand behind their own mouths.

Pah!

Via Brendan, who asks the question at the end of his post.

Some Republican is on Marconi’s Magic Box prattling on about how the Republican Party is the party of fiscal discipline.

(I guess except when it isn’t. Like when it’s in the majority and can proceed about its mission of making the rich richer and the poor poorer.)

Republicans lie. Every single solitary last one of them. And the biggest lies they tell are the ones they tell themselves.

Disregard their words, for they are but a tinkling brass or a sounding cymbal.

Look to their deeds.

What Digby said:

Bipartisanship is a one way street, dontcha know.

’nuff said.

Dick Polman analyzes the current contestants for leading the Republican Party and concludes

Maybe the Republicans are simply hoping that somewhere, in a secret lab that refuses federal stimulus money, Ronald Reagan has been cloned. As if.

No surprises here. To lead, one needs ideas.

Republican Economic Theory is not an idea. It is an ideology, and, as an ideology, does not grow with nor learn from events.

The Pinochet Principle lives:

A Spanish court has taken the first steps toward opening a criminal investigation into allegations that six former high-level Bush administration officials violated international law by providing the legal framework to justify the torture of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, an official close to the case said.

(snip)

The move represents a step toward ascertaining the legal accountability of top Bush administration officials for allegations of torture and mistreatment of prisoners in the campaign against terrorism. But some American experts said that even if warrants were issued their significance could be more symbolic than practical, and that it was a near certainty that the warrants would not lead to arrests if the officials did not leave the United States.

For some idea of what they did, listen to the Mark Danner interview on Fresh Air. From the website:

The CIA administered an ‘alternative set of procedures’ to high value detainees, alleged al Queda operatives, in a “hidden global internment network,” or “black sites,” according to our guest, University of California Berkeley journalism professor MARK DANNER. Danner wrote about this from information he read from a confidential report made by International Committee of the Red Cross, that included interviews with fourteen detainees at Guantánamo Bay. You can read Danner’s report in the April 9th issue of The New York Review of Books.

Follow the link to the website and search for March 25, 2009, Hour Two, or listen here (mp3).

Via the Booman.

Republican Economic Theory at work:

After all, “Hooverville” is already taken.

Like a dozen or so other cities across the nation, Fresno is dealing with an unhappy déjà vu: the arrival of modern-day Hoovervilles, illegal encampments of homeless people that are reminiscent, on a far smaller scale, of Depression-era shantytowns. At his news conference on Tuesday night, President Obama was asked directly about the tent cities and responded by saying that it was “not acceptable for children and families to be without a roof over their heads in a country as wealthy as ours.”

Republicanism continues to increase our vocabulary.

Republicans are hypocritical liars.

The top Republican on the House Budget Committee, Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, says the speaker means that more spending and more borrowing aren’t the answer.

“The bureau of public debt is telling us that the federal government is going to have to borrow four times as much as we ever have in the history of our country in a single year,” Ryan said.

And where was he when Bush–oh, never mind. You know the history.

Read more »

Jon Swift brings conservative clarity to the discussion of unwed teenaged mothers. As with any of Mr. Swift’s essays, a full reading well repays the effort. A nugget:

Why is Bristol Palin different? She is different because she is a conservative.

It’s different when unmarried teenage mothers come from conservative, wealthy Christian families. Although it would be preferable if her child had a father, even a white trash one, she will still be able to raise her child with the kinds of values that liberals, poor people, gays and non-Christians would not be able to give to their little bastard children who are destined to become our future criminals. Why are conservatives so reluctant to point out this obvious fact?

Steve elucidates at ASZ.

The disbar.

Susie smacks down Bushie legal theory.

She’s got even more here.

Anybody who had a parent should know the rules of “everybody does it.”

Rule One: It’s not true. As your mother asked, “Who?” (Didn’t have a good answer, did you?)

Rule Two: It’s irrelevant. “If,” as your mother said, “everybody drove their cars off a cliff, would you do it too?”

Rule two doesn’t come into play with this. Because Rule One has already taken it out of contention.

Farmers used to mark their livestock by cutting nicking distinctive marks into their ears. Hence the term earmark: something to make sure the right pig ended up slurping at the right trough.

Kos lists who was first in line at the trough amongst our elected representatives incongruously assembled:

                 Earmarks  $ in millions
1. Cochran (R-MS):     204       471
2. Wicker (R-MS):      143       390
3. Landrieu (D-LA):    177       332
4. Harkin (D-IA):      177       292
5. Vitter (R-LA):      142       249
6. Bond (R-MO):         86       248
7. Feinstein (D-CA):   153       235
8. Inouye (D-HI):      106       225
9. Shelby (R-AL):      125       219
10. Grassley (R-IA):    125       219
11. Murkowski (R-AK):    93       181
12. Murray (D-WA):      155       171
13. Lincoln (D-AK):      93       181
14. Pryor (D-AK):        92       167
15. Menendez (D-NJ):    171       160
16. Lautenberg (D-NJ):  173       159
17. Hutchinson (R-TX):  106       106
18. Levin (D-MI):       178       152
19. Stabenow (D-MI):    178       152
20. Byrd (D-WV):         76       152

Off the bat, we see that six of the top 10 earmarkers (by dollar amount) are Republicans, including the top two being our good wingnutty friends in Mississippi. We also see that six of the top 10, and 11 of the top 20, come from red states. (And remember, there are far fewer Republicans in the Senate this year.)

’nuff said.