Republican Hypocrisy category archive

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.

The news today is full of stories about Bushie Department of Justice memos that were released yesterday.

TPM linked to some of them yesterday.

I particularly liked this one (PDF), from last October, which pretty much starts with “remember what Gonzo said seven years ago? Forget it.”

A clear case of covering their rear ends before the door hit them on the way out.

These memos add further evidence of what a lot of us have been saying for years.

The Bushies cared not for the Constitution of the United States of America; not for the rights and liberty of the people; not for the blood, sacrifices, and dreams of the Founders and of the American people as they have tried to bumble their way to a more perfect union for the last two centuries.

H/T Karen for the link to the Washington Post.

Addendum:

The title of Dick Polman’s commentary nails it. Follow the link and read the column:

Bush’s Secret Dictatorship

By the way, here’s part of my reply to Karen’s email telling me about the news story in the Post:

I was just hearing the report on NPR Morning Edition.

Wanted to make himself a bleedin’ dictator.

Skippy hops after the money to see who paid for the tea.

Addendum:

John Cole is skeptical.

Explained:

John Cole has more.

Maybe I’ll get out some of my Three Stooges CDs tonight in an effort to understand Republicanism.

Nah.

The Three Stooges couldn’t make this stuff up.

Some Republican CPAC attendee was on Marconi’s Magic Box talking about “intellectual honesty.”

Oxy Moron.

Addendum, 11:49:

The Booman and Steve have the crazy.