Saving America – ‘The GOP’s anti-tax wall begins to crack’

The power and strangle hold that Grover Norquist, someone Speaker Boehner called ‘just some random guy’, may finally be broken.

If it is, then maybe we as a Nation can get back to doing what’s best for ALL of us not just the wealthy protecting their prower.

‘The most quoted speech at CPAC this year was Mitt Romney’s, but my vote for the most significant goes to Grover Norquist’s. In his charmingly blunt way, Norquist articulated out loud a case for Mitt Romney that you hear only whispered by other major conservative leaders’.

“All we have to do is replace Obama. … We are not auditioning for fearless leader. We don’t need a president to tell us in what direction to go. We know what direction to go. We want the Ryan budget. … We just need a president to sign this stuff. We don’t need someone to think it up or design it. The leadership now for the modern conservative movement for the next 20 years will be coming out of the House and the Senate”.
From : http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/02/13/grover-norquist-speech-cpac.html
‘The Hill reports that — compared with the 112th Congress —fewer incoming members of the House and Senate have signed Grover Norquist’s pledge against tax increases’.

“About a dozen newly elected House Republicans refused to sign the anti-tax pledge during their campaigns,” notes The Hill, “and another handful of returning Republicans have disavowed their allegiance to the written commitment.”

‘Remember, the most important thing about the fiscal cliff is that President Obama holds all of the leverage’.

‘If Congress does nothing, the government automatically imposes policies that Republicans fear — higher tax rates and sharp cuts to military spending’.

‘In turn, this gives Obama the opportunity to propose his own set of middle-class tax cuts, and dare Republicans to block it — or stand as obstructionists’.
From : http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/the-gops-anti-tax-wall-begins-to-crack/2012/11/13/adf3c124-2d9e-11e2-b631-2aad9d9c73ac_blog.html

What is wrong with the Republican Party – ‘Paul Ryan: I Didn’t Lose Because Of The Issues, I Lost Because Of The ‘Urban’ Vote’

To Rep. Paul Ryan, he and Romney didn’t lose because of the ‘issues’, they lost because more ‘urban vote’ voted for Obama then Romney.

The ‘urban vote’ weren’t voting on the issues. They only voted for Obama.

Memo to Paul Ryan.

Until you figure out that more people voted for Obama BECAUSE of his messaging on the issues, you and your party will continue to decline.

And how sad and frustrating it will be to see you and other members of the far right think you will ‘solve’ your problem with Latinos simply be passing some form of immigration reform.

To you, Latinos couldn’t possibly care about jobs, health care, education, the environment, safe food, international policy.

No just immigration reform.

‘In his first interview since losing the election, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) wouldn’t admit that voters rejected his economic vision and instead chalked up President Obama’s victory to a large turnout of the “urban vote.”

“I don’t think we lost it on those budget issues, especially on Medicare, we clearly didn’t lose it on those issues,” Ryan to local station WISC-TV.

“I think the surprise was some of the turnout, some of the turnout especially in urban areas, which gave President Obama the big margin to win this race.”
From : http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2012/11/13/1178921/paul-ryan-i-didnt-lose-because-of-the-issues-i-lost-because-of-the-urban-vote/?mobile=nc

 

Two Blogs A Running – ‘Land of the “Free Stuff,” Home of the Brave’

Two great reads. One by Michael Tomasky over at The Daily Beast and the other by Paul Waldman at The American Prospect.

Mr Waldman :

‘If you want to explain why your party lost a presidential election, there are a number of places to look’.

‘You can blame your candidate and his campaign (which usually means, “If only they had listened to me!”)’.

‘You can blame your party, and ask if it should examine its ideology or its rhetoric’.

‘You can blame the media’.

‘Or you can blame the voters. As the old political saw says, “The people have spoken—the bastards.”

‘They got what they wanted, conservatives are saying’.

‘They wanted free stuff. Because that’s just how those people are’.

‘This was perhaps articulated most vividly by Bill O’Reilly, who on election night lamented the fact that “the white establishment is no longer the majority” and said, “It’s not a traditional America anymore, and there are 50 percent of the voting public who want stuff. They want things. And who is going to give them things? President Obama.”

“You either get free stuff or you get freedom. You cannot have both,” said Sarah Palin back in September’.

“Offering Americans a check is a more fruitful political strategy than offering them the opportunity to take control of and responsibility for their own lives,” wrote National Review’s Kevin Williamson after the election’.

“You have two generations now who believe that the government owes them something,” said conservative columnist Cal Thomas’.

“If you’re looking for free stuff you don’t have to pay for, vote for the other guy,” said Mitt Romney during the campaign. And of course, his infamous 47 percent video was all about those people who think they are “entitled” to government benefits’.

‘The truth, of course, is that every single person in America gets benefits from the U.S. government’.

‘We get defended from invasion, we get roads to drive on, we get reasonably clean air to breathe, we get parks and schools and so much else’.

‘But that’s not the “free stuff” conservatives are talking about’.

‘They’re talking about the government giving you something directly as an individual, like money’.

‘But there’s a problem here too: Lots and lots of Americans, including most of those whom Republicans deem morally worthy, get plenty of stuff from the government’.

‘So what is it that, in conservatives’ minds, distinguishes the “makers” from the “takers,” particularly when, as political scientists Suzanne Mettler and John Sides report, “97 percent of Republicans and 98 percent of Democrats report that they have used at least one government social policy”?

‘Think hard, and it’ll come to you’.
From : http://prospect.org/article/land-free-stuff-home-brave

Mr Tomasky :

‘How out of it can millions of Americans be’?

‘Do they really have no idea that they’re talking about the people who, generally speaking, are the hardest-working people in the country’?

‘What exact “stuff” do they think comes “free” to people who pick lettuce, bus tables, clean their offices after they’ve left for the day, mulch their perennial beds’?

‘They are completely out of their minds’.

‘The statistics tell us that a lot of these workers—I mean people who earn less than the median wage of $48,000—don’t get much free stuff at all’.

‘Many aren’t offered employer-sponsored insurance’.

‘Virtually all pay a higher share of their income in taxes than most millionaires, because even though some of them don’t pay income tax, the payroll tax socks them pretty good’.

‘And yes, maybe they can get their kids free care at a clinic, but thank God for that, unless we want to start blaming children for their parents’ socioeconomic status (which of course some do)’.

‘Or maybe the Romney people would say, “No, no, we don’t mean people who work hard, they’re OK. We just mean the moochers.”

‘But what exactly do they mean by that’?

‘People on welfare’?

‘That’s 4.6 million people’.

‘I’m sure you can do this math yourself, but that’s not exactly 47 percent of the country’.

‘It’s 1.5 percent’.

‘Are they really so divorced from reality that the difference between 1.5 percent and 47 percent is just a rounding error?
From : http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/11/11/michael-tomasky-on-how-the-right-is-still-racist.html

Blog Running – ‘Emanuel on Fox News: ‘Shut the F*ck Up. You Lost’

I have done almost no ‘rub your face in it’ but this is some great stuff by the peoploe over at THe Daily Currant and yes this is satire maybe at it’s political best :

‘Chicago mayor and former White House Chief-of-Staff Rham Emanuel tore into Fox News host Sean Hannity tonight on live television’.

‘Emanuel was on the conservative network to offer his opinion on the night’s election results, which saw his former boss Barack Obama reelected to the presidency for another four years’.

‘A devastated Hannity, however, was intent on using the occasion to vent his rage at the nights events and incessantly provoked Emanuel’s ire’:

“Is Barack Obama going to move to the center? Or is he going to continue his radical Socialist policies that are destroying America?” Hannity asked, beginning a rapid-fire sequence of badgering questions’:

“Is he going to start paying attention to ordinary Americans? Or his he going to continue his goverment of, by, and for the welfare queens”?

“Is he going to ask the keep apologizing to our enemies? Or is he going to show some backbone and invade somebody?”

“Is he ever going to release his real birth certificate? Or is he gonna contiuing lying to the American people about his Kenyan heritage?”

“Sean…sean…,” Emanuel interrupted, “Sean…sean…sean…sean…sean… … shut the fuck up. You Lost. Get over it and move on. Barack Obama is president for the next four years.”

“No amount of childish whining will change that fact. Why don’t you start working on improving yourself as a person, rather than finding fault in others.”

“At the moment you’re a terrible, cynical human being who gets rich off of other people’s ignorance. Your entire existence is defined by intellectual stupor and purposelessness. There’s not a single cell of your body that has any redeeming value whatsoever – not even the intestinal cells which host your parasites.”

“I feel deeply sorry for your children and your children’s children, who will have to bear the stain of their relationship to you for their entire lives.”

“I am a dumber, coarser, less centered individual for even haven spoken to you, and I promise I will never repeat that mistake again.”

‘Emanuel then removed his microphone and quietly walked off the set’.
From : http://dailycurrant.com/2012/11/07/rahm-emanuel-we-fucking-won/

 

Blog Running – ‘Veterans Day: Jon Stewart on the obligation to our veterans and Republican senators

From the Great people over at Under The Mountain Bunker (Come for the Apocalypse – stay for the coffee!)

 

 

 

 

“40 Republicans senators thought it would be wrong to spend $1 billion on a bill to reintegrate veterans into the domestic workforce, partly because of the amount of money we had already gladly spent on wars that made them veterans in the first place.”

From : http://underthemountainbunker.com/2012/11/12/veterans-day-jon-stewart-on-the-obligation-to-our-veterans-and-republican-senators/