The Republicans Killed Washington
Posted by Michelle Moquin on September 17th, 2012
Good morning!
I am finally posting what I was talking about over a week ago – The republican’s plan to sabotage the country:
TUE SEP 04, 2012 AT 01:45 PM PDT
Who killed Washington? Republicans caught red-handed
by Jon Perr
On the eve of Barack Obama’s address at the 2012 Democratic National Convention, a media cottage industry has emerged examining why the President “failed to change the tone in Washington.” Writing in the Washington Post, Dan Balz asked, “Was there a way around united Republican opposition?” and reported that “to the partisans on both sides, the answers are simple — and fundamentally at odds.” Meanwhile, GOP propagandist Ramesh Ponnuru argued that a Romney victory is essential, precisely because Republicans will obstruct anything and everything Obama would try to accomplish in his second term. In each case, scorched-earth GOP opposition isn’t called into question, but instead taken as a given.
But for inquiring minds who want to know which party really killed Washington, the numbers don’t lie. From its record-setting use of the filibuster and its united front against Obama’s legislative agenda to blocking judicial nominees and its unprecedented (and repeated) threats to trigger a U.S. default, the most conservative Congress in over 100 years stopped Washington dead in its tracks. But with the presidential race tied, the public evenly split in itsCongressional preference and the media loathe to acknowledge the reality of “asymmetric polarization,” the GOP may get away with its crime.
Even before Barack Obama took the oath office, Republicans leaders, conservative think-tanks and right-wing pundits were calling for total obstruction of the new president’s agenda.Bill Kristol, who helped block Bill Clinton’s health care reform attempt in 1993, called for history to repeat on the Obama stimulus – and everything else. Pointing with pride to the Clinton economic program which received exactly zero GOP votes in either House, Kristol in January 2009 advised:
“That it made, that it made it so much easier to then defeat his health care initiative. So, it’s very important for Republicans who think they’re going to have to fight later on health care, fight later on maybe on some of the bank bailout legislation, fight later on on all kinds of issues.”
On the night of Barack Obama’s inauguration in January 2009 (a month during which we later learned America lost 820,000 jobs), 15 top Republicans including Paul Ryan schemed in private on the night of Obama’s inauguration to “challenge them on every single bill and challenge them on every single campaign.”
As the chart above shows, that’s exactly what came to pass.
Time after time, President Obama could count the votes he received from Congressional Republicans on the fingers (usually the middle one) of one hand. The expansion of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP) to four million more American kids earned the backing of a whopping eight GOP Senators. (One of them, Arlen Specter, later became a Democrat.) Badly needed Wall Street reform eventually overcame GOP filibusters to pass with the support of just three Republicans in the House and Senate, respectively. It took 50 days for President Obama to get past Republican filibusters of extended unemployment benefitsand the Small Business Jobs Act. As for the DISCLOSE Act, legislation designed to limit the torrent of secret campaign cash unleashed by the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling, in September Republican Senators prevented it from ever coming to a vote.
The one-way street that is bipartisanship in Washington was most clearly on display during each party’s attempts to pass tax cuts and economic stimulus. While some turncoat Democrats helped Reagan and Bush sell their supply-side snake oil, Republicans were determined to torpedo new Democratic presidents:
Continue reading below the fold.
Consider the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act credited by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office with saving over three millions jobs and preventing what McCain economic adviser Mark Zandi called “Depression 2.0.” Obama’s margins in the passage of the final $787 billion conference bill were almost unchanged from the earlier versions produced by the House and Senate. Despite then Minority Whip Eric Cantor’s earlier claim that Obama’s bipartisan outreach was a “very efficient process,” the President was shut out again by Republicans in the House. In the Senate, the stimulus actually lost ground, as Ted Kennedy’s absence and the no-vote of aborted Commerce Secretary Judd Gregg made the final tally 60-38. So much for Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s January 2009 statement that the Obama stimulus proposal “could well have broad Republican appeal.”
If that all-out Republican obstructionism sounds familiar, it should. When Bill Clinton’s 1993 economic program (a bill including upper-income tax increases the GOP then as now wrongly described as “job-killing”) scraped by without capturing the support of even one GOP lawmaker, the New York Times remarked:
“Historians believe that no other important legislation, at least since World War II, has been enacted without at least one vote in either house from each major party.”
The contrast with the new Bush administration in 2001 could not have been starker. Despite losing the popular vote, Dick Cheney announced “we have no intention at all of backing off” of Bush’s agenda, adding ” I think there’s no reason in the world why we can’t do exactly what Governor Bush campaigned on.” Ironically, President Bush was aided on passing his budget-busting tax cuts by Democratic Senator Max Baucus, who explained at the time:
“Every day it looks like a better and better decision,” Mr. Baucus said at the White House after the signing ceremony. “In many respects, I think politically I helped the party. We Democrats would have been in trouble in 2002 just saying no to every one of the president’s proposals.”
Baucus, of course, was wrong. Apparently, that kind of obstruction only works for Republicans.
But if Barack Obama’s legislative agenda ran into endless Republican obstacles in Congress, hisjudicial nominees hit a brick wall. The same Republicans who decried the judicial filibuster and demanded an “up or down vote” for President Bush’s selections to the federal bench have stymied Obama’s choices at a record rate.
Citing research by the Alliance for Justice, in June 2011 ThinkProgress reported:
[T]he Senate confirmed fewer of [Obama's] district and circuit nominees than every president back to Jimmy Carter, and the lowest percentage of nominees – 58% – than any president in American history at this point in a President’s first term. By comparison, Presidents George W. Bush, Clinton, George H.W. Bush, Reagan and Carter had 77%, 90%, 96%, 98%, and 97% of their nominees confirmed after two years, respectively.Senate Republicans’ mass obstruction of Obama’s judges stands in stark contrast to the treatment afforded to past presidents. Indeed, the Senate confirmed fewer judges during Obama’s first two years in office than it did during the same period in the Carter Administration, even though the judiciary was 40 percent smaller while Carter was in office.
As dismal as that record is, it’s actually an improvement from a year earlier, when only 43& of President Obama’s judicial appointments had been confirmed:
Not content that federal judges are now retiring at twice the rate that replacements are being confirmed, Congressional Republicans headed off to their five-week August recesswithout taking action on 20 Obama judicial nominees (16 of them approved unanimously by the Judiciary Committee). As ThinkProgress also noted, the rapidly growing caseload for the under-sized federal judiciary means that “even if all judicial vacancies were filled, we’d still need more judges.” It’s no wonder Chief Justice John Roberts - certainly no friend of Barack Obama and the Democracy Party – urged action last year to address “the persistent problem of judicial vacancies.”
Republican obstructionism hasn’t merely destroyed the nominations of judicial standouts likeGoodwin Liu, who later assumed a position on the Supreme Court of California. High profile Obama administration nominees like Dawn Johnson and Peter Diamond, the latter a Nobel Prize-winning economist, never saw the light of day in the Senate. And having already dissuaded President Obama from choosing now-Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren to head the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau created by Congress last year, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell announced that the GOP would block any and all comers put forward by the White House:
“It’s not sexist. It’s not Elizabeth Warren-specific,” McConnell spokesman Donald Stewart said. “It’s any nominee.”
(When President Obama used a recess appointment to put Richard Cordray in charge of the CFPB, McConnell and Senate Republicans filed suit.)
As Ian Millhiser reported in April 2011, Republicans blocked scores of Obama nominees over matters large and small. Often, very small:
Following in the footsteps of Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL), who placed a hold on over 70 of President Obama’s nominees last year in order to extort tens of billions of dollars worth of pork for his state, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) threw a similar tantrum yesterday over a mere $50,000. Graham (R-SC) promised to shut down all executive branch and judicial confirmations in the Senate until he gets $50,000 to conduct a study on deepening the Port of Charleston.
Since House Republicans assumed their new House majority in January 2011, President Obama’s agenda has been effectively shut down. But even before their successful hostage-taking of the federal budget and U.S. debt ceiling, Senate Republicans for years had been shattering filibuster records to stop Democratic legislation dead in its tracks.
As it turns out, the Roadblock Republicans started their work when Democrats recaptured the Senate in 2007, only to redouble their efforts when Barack Obama walked into the Oval Office in 2009. Back in 2007, former Senate Minority Whip Trent Lott explained the successful Republican strategy for derailing the new Democratic majorities in the House and Senate:
“The strategy of being obstructionist can work or fail. So far it’s working for us.”
And the Republicans of the 110th Congress were just getting warmed up. The Senate GOP hadn’t merely shattered the previous records for filibusters. As McClatchy reported in February 2010, the Republicans of the 111th Congress vowed to block virtually everything, counting on voters to blame Democrats for the GOP’s own roadblocks. And as McClatchy explained earlier this year, thanks to the Republicans’ record-breaking use of the filibuster, “Congress isn’t just stuck in partisan and ideological gridlock: It’s broken.”
As even Robert Samuelson (no friend of Democrats) acknowledged, “From 2003 to 2006, when Republicans controlled the Senate, they filed cloture 130 times to break Democratic filibusters. Since 2007, when Democrats took charge, they’ve filed 257 cloture motions.” The Republicans didn’t merely eviscerate the old mark for cloture motions and filibusters after their descent into the minority in 2007. As Paul Krugman detailed in late 2009, the GOP’s obstructionism has fundamentally altered how the Senate does – or more accurately, doesn’t do – business:
The political scientist Barbara Sinclair has done the math. In the 1960s, she finds, “extended-debate-related problems” — threatened or actual filibusters — affected only 8 percent of major legislation. By the 1980s, that had risen to 27 percent. But after Democrats retook control of Congress in 2006 and Republicans found themselves in the minority, it soared to 70 percent.
Now, as the Washington Post highlighted last week, total obstructionism is the new normal for Republicans.
The meaning of that shocking picture is clear. As the Post’s Ezra Klein summed it up:
Most observers agree that its basic point is correct: We’re seeing many more filibusters today than we ever did before. But I actually think that’s the wrong way to think about it.The issue today isn’t that we see 50, or 100, or 150 filibusters. It’s that the filibuster is a constant where it used to be a rarity. Indeed, it shouldn’t even be called “the filibuster”: It has nothing to do with talking, or holding the floor. It should be called the 60-vote requirement. It applies to everything now even when the minority does not specifically choose to invoke it. There are no longer, to my knowledge, categories of bills that don’t get filibustered because such things are simply not done, though there are bills that the minority chooses not to invoke their 60-vote option on. That’s why Harry Reid says things like “60 votes are required for just about everything,” though there are a small number of bills where the majority uses the budget reconciliation process to short-circuit the 60-vote requirement.
And that, James Fallows lamented following the headline below from The Hill, represents “a conservative coup d’état.”
A conservative coup, indeed. Studies by political science professors Keith Poole and Howard Rosenthal show Republicans are responsible for the hyper-polarization of Congress. The GOP moved so far to the right that the House is now the most conservative it has been in the last 133 years.
As It’s Even Worse Than It Looks co-author Norm Ornstein concluded:
“When you look at the data, including voting records … the Democrats have moved left, to probably their own 25 yard line. President Obama’s probably around the 40. The Republicans have moved behind their own goal post.”
On no issue did the GOP move the goal posts further than on the debt ceiling. During last summer’s debt ceiling crisis, one which McConnell himself acknowledged was a “hostage-taking,” the Republicans weren’t content with nearly triggering global financial Armageddon. To do it, they pretended that history began on January 20, 2009.
While Texas Rep. Jeb Hensarling claimed last year that for Republicans raising the debt ceiling is “contrary to our DNA,” House Majority Leader Eric Cantor protested during his party’s debt ceiling hostage-taking, “I don’t think the White House understands is how difficult it is for fiscal conservatives to say they’re going to vote for a debt ceiling increase.” AsMcClatchy showed, Republicans are as bad at genetics and history as they are at economics:
As Donny Shaw documented in January 2010, Republican intransigence on the debt ceiling only began in earnest when Bush left the White House for good:
The Republicans haven’t always been against increasing the federal debt ceiling. This is the first time in recent history (the past decade or so) that no Republican has voted for the increase. In fact, on most of the ten other votes to increase the federal debt limit that the Senate has taken since 1997, the Republicans provided the majority of the votes in favor.
As it turns out, Republican majorities voted to raise the U.S. debt ceiling seven timeswhile George W. Bush sat in the Oval Office. (It should be noted, as Ezra Klein did, that party-line votes on debt ceiling increases tied to other legislation is not solely the province of the GOP.) As ThinkProgress pointed out, during the Bush presidency, the current GOP leadership team voted 19 times to increase debt limit. During his tenure, the U.S. national debt doubled, fueled by the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003, the Medicare prescription drug plan, TARP and the unfunded wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. And Mitch McConnell, John Boehner, Paul Ryan and Eric Cantor voted for all of it and the debt which ensued because, as Orrin Hatch later explained:
“It was standard practice not to pay for things.”
Or as Vice President Dick Cheney famously put it in 2002, “Reagan proved deficits don’t matter.” Not, that is, unless a Democrat is in the White House.
The result isn’t just what Dana Milbank mocked as “our do-almost-nothing Congress.” The institution is now wildly unpopular, with approval rating consistently under 20 percent. Despite the GOP”s strangling of Capitol Hill, voters remain split on the generic Congressional ballot. As for the media standing over the still warm body of Congress, both Democrats and Republicans must be complicit. As an incredulous Greg Sargent put it in May, “Only one party’s to blame? Don’t tell the Sunday shows.”
For his part, Ornstein concluded the Republicans’ crime has gone unpunished, correctly noting that “there hasn’t been a price to pay for obstruction for obstruction’s sake.” To put it another way, the Republican Party as promised killed Washington. And yet, reporters are still asking who’s responsible. Which means that over three years after Republicans plotted to smother the Obama presidency, they are still getting away with murder.
*********
From an article on the Huff Po back in April of this year: Robert Draper Book: GOP’s Anti-Obama Campaign Started Night Of Inauguration
Here are “The Obstructionists”
According to Draper, the guest list that night (which was just over 15 people in total) included Republican Reps. Eric Cantor (Va.), Kevin McCarthy (Calif.), Paul Ryan (Wis.), Pete Sessions (Texas), Jeb Hensarling (Texas), Pete Hoekstra (Mich.) and Dan Lungren (Calif.), along with Republican Sens. Jim DeMint (S.C.), Jon Kyl (Ariz.), Tom Coburn (Okla.), John Ensign (Nev.) and Bob Corker (Tenn.). The non-lawmakers present included Newt Gingrich, several years removed from his presidential campaign, and Frank Luntz, the long-time Republican wordsmith. Notably absent were Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) — who, Draper writes, had an acrimonious relationship with Luntz.
*******
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September 17th, 2012 at 9:49 am
Easy Exercises Relieve Carpal Tunnel
It won’t kill you—but when you have carpal tunnel syndrome, the numbness, tingling and/or throbbing pain in your wrist and hand can seriously degrade your life. It can be difficult to work…to pursue sports and hobbies…even to just relax. And common treatments can be frustrating or even risky.
One of my colleagues with carpal tunnel syndrome must wear a wrist guard every night and at least part of the day, which she finds frustrating because it’s uncomfortable and makes it hard for her to type on her computer.
And another had to have surgery to treat the problem—that can help relieve symptoms, but as with any surgery, it has risks, including nerve damage, infection, scarring and loss of wrist strength.
That’s why I was delighted to hear that a few simple stretches might help ease the pain of carpal tunnel syndrome, according to Kelly Jo Wantz, a certified hand therapist at the Kernan Orthopaedics and Rehabilitation Hospital in Baltimore. She told me how to do them…
WHAT NOT TO DO
First, Wantz explained to me one reason why we may get carpal tunnel syndrome—and why it hurts so much! The trouble zone, she said, is just below the center of the wrist, a narrow tunnel through which the median nerve and nine tendons connect from the forearm to the hand and fingers.
One potential cause is a constant repetitive motion (such as typing, gardening, chopping food and handling tools), which eventually can cause the median nerve and tendons to swell. That makes the tunnel squeeze the nerve and tendons, which causes the discomfort.
Many people assume that exercises to strengthen the wrist will relieve carpal tunnel, Wantz told me—in fact, she said, it’s the opposite. She explained that squeezing a rubber ball and lifting small weights actually add to the problem by increasing inflammation in the tendons and median nerve.
As an alternative strategy, Wantz and many other therapists get good results from certain specific, light hand stretches. These are safe for almost everyone, but of course, check with your own doctor before trying them.
SOOTHING STRETCHES
Wantz recommends a multipart exercise called tendon gliding, which is designed to ease pressure on the tendons and, therefore, ease pain in the carpal tunnel. You can do this sequence sitting or standing. Do it five times to complete one
“set,” and do three sets scattered throughout the day every day.
Home position: Hold your arm down straight at your side and, bending your elbow, raise your forearm so your hand is at shoulder height, palm facing out.
Spread your thumb from your fingers, but hold your four fingers together, as if indicating “halt!” Hold that position for three seconds. You will return your hand to this “home position” after each of the following exercises.
Claw position: From the home position, curl the middle and upper fingers (the parts of your fingers above your middle knuckles) to their natural touch points on the top of the palm. Hold this position for three seconds and then return to the home position.
Full-fist position: Curl your fingers into a complete, tight fist, keeping your thumb at the side of your index finger. Hold for three seconds, then return to home.
Table-top position: Bend your fingers (not your thumb) only from the lowest knuckles so that the fingers are perpendicular to your palm, creating a “table-top” position. Hold for three seconds, then return to home.
Flat position: Bend the middle and lowest knuckle joints until the tips of your fingers lie flat against the base of your palm. Hold for three seconds, then return to home.
Of course, if these stretches ever cause you any pain, stop doing them and consult with your doctor.
Source: Kelly Jo Wantz, certified hand therapist, Kernan Orthopaedics and Rehabilitation Hospital, Baltimore.
September 18th, 2012 at 12:44 am
Michelle have you heard about the video in which Romney said half the voting electorate are dependent on government subsidies and he could care less about them?
September 18th, 2012 at 12:48 am
Food stamps advertised to illegal aliens on telenovelas. Section 8 for Aunt Zeituni and Uncle Omar. Uncle Omar still in the country fighting deportation after being arrested for driving drunk.
Obamaphones with 400 free minutes. The government shaking down companies like Luther Burbank for $450,000 for “community organizations” because minorities might not be in the market for jumbo loans or the FDNY forcing them to hire and pay millions in back wages to people who couldn’t pass the written test.
Sure, these people will be lining up to vote for Romney if only he would make the case to them that he will do more than Obama to give them stuff at other people’s expense.
September 18th, 2012 at 12:54 am
Well we can tell because everything the President tries to make happen they say no but don’t offer a solution.
I don’t they have to agree with the President on all things but at least comprise for the better of the people if they didn’t like the job bill then agree aparts and put something out there but no we just didn’t get a job bill.
They are trying to appeal Obamacare for the 50th time because it isn’t what they want forget that it just might help the american families.
September 18th, 2012 at 12:55 am
Modern republicans don’t want a two party system. They want a corporate oligarchy in which the chosen few preside over the rest. There are so many details that the average person is unaware of, and would refuse to believe if informed.
There are the constant quips and freudian slips from right wing radio pundits, over the course of the last 20 years, about how “we need to get rid of liberals and democrats”, and how there should really only be one party.
There is the private club in Washington DC, where old men of money and politics gather to quite literally talk about how it’s God’s will that they, and they alone, control all of America’s wealth and concentrate its power, because they actually do believe those gifted with wealth and success are ordained by God. And those who don’t have it, are supposed to be lead as a flock and kept in their place.
There are republican writers and theorist who have gone on at great length about the need to manufacture wars and threats to terrify the population of a nation into seeking the protection of a harsh, authoratarian father figure, because left to their own devices, “We, the People”, are savages who cannot be allowed to govern ourselves.
The modern GOP has taken all this as its true motivating force and driving inspiration, and wrapped up it up in a superior mindjob. They have conditioned millions of people to give in to hatred of their fellow man.
September 18th, 2012 at 12:57 am
F’ the country , let the world economy collapse and they’ll have to vote the black guy out! Yeah Gingrich , great plan………..
September 18th, 2012 at 1:09 am
CNN and other TV stations refuse to show proof that the Republicans have admitted that they plotted to sabotage the American economy.
Everyone in the media knows that the republicans made it impossible for any bill or proposal by Obama that could improve the economy be passed so people would hate him, blame him and not re elect him.
Yet, they continue to interview the republicans about their differences in policies as if they are unaware that it is not about policy difference but a plot to prevent the economy from recovering.
What happened to the “Fourth Estate” keeping the people informed about what government was doing in secret?
Simple, It died when a black man became president.
Donna
September 18th, 2012 at 1:18 am
Murry, You are absolutely correct – an oligarchy – back to the days where a select few of rich white men and their families ruled.
They want to take us back to the time when they controlled all the regulations, all the work rules, all the voting rules, everything.
They controlled a nation of under-educated people who could not get an education – leaving school at 8 or 9 or 12 to begin working in a factory or on a farm to help their families.
Work safety was non-existent – no rules – and if you lost a lot of workers due to accident, well there were millions more waiting to take their place.
Voting today – well it’s been all downhill for these men since minorities and women started voting. All one needs to do is look at what the GOP supports:
No unions or collective bargaining, voter suppression, and de-regulation of industries like coal, oil, etc, removing women’s right to reproductive choice (which the WHO says is the SINGLE greatest thing to bring a nation out of poverty).
Americans should wake up because it’s the GOP that wants to make it harder for your children to have a better life than you.
September 18th, 2012 at 1:19 am
Truly disgusting! And republicans have the audacity to turn around and say nothing has been done, when every bill proposed has been shot down!
September 18th, 2012 at 1:21 am
Michelle, I am wondering if this is a historic first. Are there any historians out there?
That an opposing political party would sacrifice jobs for millions of Americans, and sabotage economic recovery from a deep recession, all to discredit a sitting president? It is nauseating.
Why aren’t we talking about this more?
It makes me sick to watch all these hypocrites talking about how Obama has “failed” when no president has ever had to deal with this depth of hatred.
I think it’s racism at its root.
September 18th, 2012 at 1:22 am
After Mitt’s claim that hey worked with O, I wondered how long it would take for the supposedly liberal press to dig out evidence of the lie. Why is this not front page in the NYT?
September 18th, 2012 at 1:23 am
Mitt knows about it becuase he was part of the plan along with Paul Ryan who was in the group.
September 18th, 2012 at 1:24 am
Leslie, of course it is racism. Every member of the GOP hates the fact that there is a BLACK man in the White House.
All of this needs to be exposed to the American people. This makes me sick.
Sofia
September 18th, 2012 at 1:24 am
What this tells me about the GOP is that they are indeed a bunch of power hungry mad men. They don’t care for the country, their fellow citizens and run for office only to serve themselves.
September 18th, 2012 at 1:26 am
This meeting really points to the utter hypocrisy of Republicans now blaming Obama for his “failures.” They intended him to fail from get-go.
Why American voters put up with this base, disloyal opposition is beyond me. They only thing that makes sense is the fact that too many voters are low-information voters.
They don’t read your blog; they don’t read much beyond the headlines of local, shallow papers and watch the corporate nightly news.
Hopefully, someone will bring this meeting to light during prime time during the presidential debates.
September 18th, 2012 at 1:27 am
Truly disgusting!
September 18th, 2012 at 1:27 am
Having a game plan to oppose your rivals for governmental power using opposition to their appointments and proposed bills? Isn’t that called politics?
September 18th, 2012 at 1:29 am
Why should this be a big surprise? Right-wing authoritarians have been sowing the seeds of getting people to vote against their own self-interest for generations. True, they have gotten a whole new voice of dysfunctionality with the introduction of Faux News.
Essentially, there are two kinds of people in this world right now: there are those who worship at the altar of Roger Ailes and his hate-filled diatribe against anyone not fortunate enough to be a multi-millionaire.
Then there are those that recognize Ailes’s hate-filled diatribe for what it is: an admission of failure. Since Roger couldn’t convince people of his warped and dysfunctional view of Americans, he made it a point to shout down any voice that contrasted with his own.
Faux News is the very embodiment of right-wing ignorance. There isn’t a single worthwhile point being advanced by Faux News.
Anyone with the most basic of reasoning skills recognizes Rupert Murdoch’s attempt at swaying public opinion.
Those that don’t are those that are so easily influenced by the right-wing agenda that they’ll abandon basic reasoning and logic methodology in order to support their own logically-indefensible position.
September 18th, 2012 at 1:33 am
CC, why wouldn’t I guess that there would be some people who would condone treason? Like the fools that followed Hitler because he was getting rid of the jews.
So when their time came, they were surprised that the same evil they supported when it was used against the jews, was not being used against them.
Do you really think that one day you will be one of their “elite” number?
September 18th, 2012 at 1:35 am
Yes, CC, but it is what I call a conspiracy to cripple the President of The United States of America authority and responsibility from advancing the interests of the USA and it Citizens.
Plain and simple it is Subversion of Authority to hurt America. That is terrorism and treason.
Lynn
September 18th, 2012 at 1:40 am
How surprising is this, really? Everyone knows that “conservative” is code for racist.
September 18th, 2012 at 1:48 am
Nice to see you made it home safely. Hope you are very pleased with your vacation.
Isn’t interesting that 69% of federal aid in the form of welfare, food aid and diability goes to states that vote overwhelmingly republican.
Just how ignorant are those racists that would cut off their aid by voting for a party that promises to do just that simply because it will remove the black man from office?
I hate it when I hear dumb blond jokes. Especially because it implies that dumb as a box of rocks white boys have always been way dumber than anything attributed to blondes.
Women, whatever color their hair may be are far superior to a bunch of hicks and or tiny dick white boys.
Ruth,SM
September 18th, 2012 at 1:49 am
Black people in inner cities have the highest unemployment rate and worst schools. Who runs those cities – democrats. keep them dumb, poor and on welfare.
September 18th, 2012 at 1:54 am
Alan, you believe that blacks and hispanics are “economic leeches who mooch off the common weal?”
Nice to see so many conservatives owning up to their real racist atitudes.
September 18th, 2012 at 1:54 am
I am a Hispanic American Citizen who is voting for Romney. He is not anti Latino as some would say.
Romney also didn’t say anything that the majority of us don’t already know.
He spoke the truth.
September 18th, 2012 at 1:55 am
Against their interests? What you should say is that they actually are taking the high road and interested in supporting themselves instead of looking for a handout like the Democrat voters.
Trust me, I’m the only conservative in my family — and the rest of them are Democrats and ALL are about hand outs and what they can get for free from other tax payers.
September 18th, 2012 at 1:58 am
One of the biggest “handouts” is the Mortgage Interest Deduction. Homeowners get to deduct housing costs from their “fair share” of taxes, whereas renters don’t.
Some of those 47% who don’t pay federal income taxes don’t pay any because of the use of those sorts of deductions. Should we end those too?
In fact, Romney’s tax plan math only works if you get rid of it for those making over $100k according to Martin Feldstein, one of Romney’s own economic advisers.
Of course, when most people hear about “moochers” they don’t think of tax-paying homeowners despite the fact that homeowners who utilize the MID are one of the single most gov’t subsidized groups in the country.
September 18th, 2012 at 1:59 am
Eric, it sounds to me like you just come from a really terrible family. But, just because YOUR family is made of terrible people doesn’t mean that 47 % of Americans should be lumped into the same category as your terrible family.
But if you seriously hate 47% of Americans, then maybe America isn’t the country for you.
September 18th, 2012 at 2:00 am
You read this entire article & didn’t get it? You must be either brainwashed or just flat out racist? It’s a racist lie that all Democrats are looking for hand-outs–that’s the whole problem here son, it is patently untrue.
Hence, the problem the majority have with Romney & why he is failing badly in this election. He also believes the Middle-Class earns $250k per year when the average is $50k/yr.
He’s a billionaire who has lived his life of privilege out of touch with reality & smugly & wrongly feeling superior to & demonizing all “lesser” Americans.
September 18th, 2012 at 2:01 am
I don’t think that most people who are Democrats are looking for a handout nor do I think that most poor people don’t pay taxes.
Many may not earn enough to pay federal taxes but they pay a larger share of their income in local fees, sales and other taxes.
Most Democrats want a job at a fare wage. So do most Republicans. They want to take care of their homes and families. This should not be an election of we against them it should be an election about how we can work to make our nation better for all of us.
What is wrong with fixing the nation’s infrastructure to benefit all of us? Would we better off without the national Highway system, or The Hoover Dam?
National parks, Public Schools… Imagine if only the rich could send their kids to school? To college? In years gone by Tax dollars were spent then that could not be spent today because of the party of NO.
What a silly idea that is: We have “One Nation, under God, with liberty and Justice for All.”The idea is that we, as a people are all in this together.Who’s dumb idea was that?
September 18th, 2012 at 2:02 am
Eric, You’re so full of crap. You’re making the same idiotic generalization as Mitt, just dripping with contempt for your fellow citizens… or in your case, your own family. It’s a zero sum game with you bastards.
September 18th, 2012 at 2:11 am
Sorry Eric – you put the killer to trusting you in your own words, “I’m the only conservative in my family.”
What you say is bull. The Red States are also the biggest users of welfare in this country.
In my working life I’ve been rich and I’ve been poor, but I’ve always supported myself (sometimes it took three jobs to do so) and I’ve always voted Democrat.
And unlike your beloved Rmoney, I’ve paid my taxes and been happy to do so. In fact, because I lost money on my business for two years, I was audited and it turned out the IRS OWED ME money.
Get over yourself. Just because you don’t get along with your family doesn’t make it okay for you to talk about how other people think and about things you are clearly ignorant of.
September 18th, 2012 at 2:13 am
Eric:
Anecdotal evidence is worth 0 points…. but here is some of mine to show how irrelevant yours is. I am in a family of conservatives – they warned me not to start my own business but I did… and now I employ 70% of that family – they were wrong.
I will vote for Obama because I am a true conservative that realizes that the Republicans are no longer a conservative party…
just authoritarian liars and Obama is a center-right president that has helped my business grow over 400% in the last four years.
That same family thinks Obama won’t win in November… but they will be wrong again.
September 18th, 2012 at 2:16 am
Eric, that is so mind-blowingly selfish and insulting of you to say. I personally don’t need a “handout” but I recognize that this society is INCREDIBLY unequal and puts many people at a disadvantage–
and you people call yourselves Christians? I don’t recall Jesus denigrating the poor as “lazy” and “demanding handouts.”
Christ said to help the poor–full stop. You people are the selfish ones who say “I got mine, so fuck you.” It’s disgusting to witness.
September 18th, 2012 at 2:17 am
I completely believe you’re a Republican, because nobody else would be such a complete asshole regarding his own family over something as stupid as politics.
September 18th, 2012 at 2:20 am
Eric, I have 5 of them living off me, who used to think Obama was a parasite, they all love him now.
Since they got their stimulus “money for nothing” and the welfare checks are free, yet not one of them will pitch in and help pay for their own bills, won’t look for work, can’t support their kids, they let me do it, and Im handicap with MS.
Yeah, they can sit and have their nails done, and their hair, smoke their drugs, and drink beers, because Obama made it easy for them. Now they think he is a God. they drank the koolaide.
And if you think my story is isolated, I beg to differ, I know hundreds of family’s stuck in the same rut.. and Im sure there are more, because I work for several agencies who are helping those who can’t because of lack of jobs, or won’t because of the free ride. Its a sickness I swear.
September 18th, 2012 at 2:21 am
Rural america is the GOP base and rural areas overwhelmingly recieve more government subsidies per capita than both urban and suburb areas. That has been shown for a long time but the GOP narrative doesn’t change.
The major metros that almost all vote democratic are the economic engines in this country and support the rural areas that vote heavily Republican.
Also the more educated a person, the more likely they are a Democrat. Once again Mitt and the GOP are turning reality on its head.
September 18th, 2012 at 2:27 am
The American people were waiting for a response from someone in leadership besides an apologising president. Romney at least gave off a stronger front than Obama and anyone critizing Romney knows it.
The White House is suppose to giving Romney National Security updates at this stage of the election process and Obama isn’t even attending those briefings.
If he wants to be president he needs to work as a president not in constant campaign mode. It was assuring to the people when Romney spoke out that morning and stepped out with strength.