The Republicans Have Quit on America; It’s Time for Americans to Quit on Them
Republicans have quit on America. They’re putting forth no effort, and most importantly at all, they haven’t even bothered to show up for the past two years.
Republicans have quit on America. They’re putting forth no effort, and most importantly at all, they haven’t even bothered to show up for the past two years.
Will Republicans use the redistricting advantages they achieved after their 2010 sweep to change the way electoral votes are apportioned?
Recent polls show Obama’s popularity on the rise, even among Independents and Republicans, while enthusiasm among the GOP base is falling.
Miller lost his federal case – the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals threw out his lawsuit on Tuesday, just a week after the Alaska Supreme Court did the same.
Joe Miller will not try to perform a citizens arrest on Lisa Murkowski but he will take her to federal court for having the audacity to defeat him in 2010.
Republicans have tried every possible delaying tactic: an amendment by John McCain, failed Saturday on a 59-37 vote; on Sunday, a second by Jim Risch, 32-60.
They blame healthcare reform but if any physicians drop their patients, it won’t be because of “Obamacare.” It will be because of the 1997 Balanced Budget Act.
You can search and search; you can look high and low, but you won’t find much. Right now, the closest thing the Republicans seem to have to a real policy is orchestrating a win for Bristol on DWTS.
Republicans claim we need an anti-missile defense system [cue to them rubbing their hands greedily together in anticipation]. But isn’t the best way to get rid of a missile threat to get rid of the missiles themselves? Oh wait, a missile defense system is another way to spend money and ratchet up the U.S. deficit. Getting rid of missiles gives Republicans less to spend money on.
Sure, 113 GOP women challenged incumbents compared to 80 Democrats but the Democrats had a 46 percent success rate compared to only 28 for the Republicans. And Democrat women still far outnumber Republican women in Congress.
For Bush, war became THE political instrument. No longer does war pick up where politics leave off; war becomes a substitution for politics.
In the wake of the 2010 midterm elections it is important to know who John Boehner is and what it will mean to have him as Speaker of the House. Obviously,there are some concerns with Boehner’s very old-fashioned, shall we say…conservative…positions. One might say ULTRA conservative.
Emboldened by their midterm victories, Republicans are already back to warmongering. Having invaded and conquered Iraq (where 50,000 U.S. troops remain to buttress the new government) and mired down in an endless war in Afghanistan, Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) now wants to attack Iran.
These ideologically-motivated refusals are perhaps not such a bright idea when you stop to think about it. The problem being of course, that not many people stopped to do any thinking leading up to these midterms and Republicans seem to be doing less thinking than most. It all became about rage and ideology. Nobody was thinking in practical terms. So they all decided to have a group foot shoot instead.
MSNBC announced today that Countdown host Keith Olbermann has been indefinitely suspended by the network for making political donations to three Democratic congressional candidates. Olbermann said that he didn’t encourage other to donate, but the network suspended him for violating their policy against political donations. This once again proves that MSNBC is not Fox News where the money flows freely to the GOP.
The loss of the House of Representatives by Democrats this election will be analyzed to death, and there is certainly enough blame to go around regardless which group is critiqued. A great portion of the blame can be attributed to corporate infusion of cash to Republican and Tea Party candidates. However, Democrats and President Obama must accept that they too, own their fair share of blame for overestimating the intelligence of the American voter.
Many Americans are asking, “What happened?” In a wonderfully titled article, “What the #!%*?: The U.S. mid-term elections?†the National Post’s Peter Goodspeed asks and answers some very important questions about the midterms.
It was surprising to read the despair and shock from the left this morning. But what hurts more than all of this, my liberal friends, is how the liberal base stabbed themselves in the back while complaining about how the Democrats never handle power well.
During his press conference this afternoon, President Obama took responsibility for the Democrats losing control of the House of Representatives. He said, “So there is not only sadness about seeing them go but there is also a lot of questioning on my part in terms of could I have done something differently or done something more, so that those folks could still be here. It’s hard, and I take responsibility for it in a lot of ways.”
The finger pointing has already begun in the Republican Party due to their failure to win the US Senate last night. Republicans had a golden opportunity to take control of Congress, but they failed, and the blame for this failure should fall on the shoulders of one person. Sarah Palin’s meddling in the races in Nevada, Delaware, and Alaska likely cost the GOP the United States Senate.
A recently published study of male and female voters done by the Department of Psychology at Northwestern University revealed that while both men and women are likely to vote for the most competent candidate, men are more likely to vote for attractive female candidates, and women are likely to support the more approachable candidate.
Americans go to the polls today in spite of main stream media reports that Republicans and Tea Party candidates swept every race. Usually it is only Fox News that tells their audience what the results of elections will be in advance of an election, but in this election cycle, real journalists are jumping on the Republican bandwagon in a big way.
Today is the day we go to vote in the 2010 midterm elections. The results of this election will reverberate far beyond our localities; they will affect the entire country and indeed, the entire world.
As we head to the polls tomorrow, ignorant, confused citizens are intending to vote against their own self-interests. Knowing Republicans have done nothing, and campaign on doing nothing for the next two years; why are people willing to vote for them? Republicans promise to help corporations by getting rid of regulations, but that only helps the wealthy.
Conservative Christians fear for this country and its future (that should be read as their privileged position in this country). They seem uncertain as to what the answer is. Do they vote? Do they pray? Do they just scream a lot and stomp their little feet?
Phillips wants Keith Ellison (D) U.S. Representative for Minnesota’s 5th congressional district, out of office because he is a Muslim.
Apparently, pride is an issue with Meek and he must think he is making a statement. He is making a statement; he’s saying it’s acceptable to give Rubio a six year stint in the Senate just to say, “I didn’t give up.â€
Words and actions have consequences, sometimes to the person who speaks, sometimes to the people spoken of. In an environment of hate and xenophobia, the consequences can be deadly and widespread.
In developing countries and dictatorships it’s not unusual or unexpected for the judicial system to be corrupt and biased. In America, it used to be a source of pride that our judicial system was fair and followed the letter of the law. Apparently, those days are gone and we are seeing the result of biased court decisions in this election cycle with unprecedented corporate donations to Republican candidates.
The American Revolution ended British rule; the Constitution created the United States of America, and that creation did not all happen at once. It was a process; the United States is the result of political compromise and evolution, not violent overthrow.
You might not know it, but there’s a quiet war going on this election season. It’s being waged in state law and through Tea Party candidates and Republicans. It’s a war against American women.
There is an attack on liberty in America from the corporate world, but there is a not-so-covert attack on women that is quietly steering America toward a theocracy. For example, a State Constitutional amendment on the Colorado ballot intends on extending personhood to a fetus and a fertilized ovary.
MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow was in Alaska tonight covering the state’s three way US Senate race and unlike his fellow Tea Partier Christine O’Donnell; Joe Miller actually talked to her. Even better for Maddow, Miller’s security not only didn’t handcuff her, she didn’t get arrested. That’s probably the best thing that can be said about the strange and uncomfortable interaction between Maddow and Miller.
The Indiana midterms offer little for liberal and progressive voters. Evan Bayh’s retirement opens up an opportunity for an extremist Republican to replace him.
As we approach Election Day 2010, a new Pew Research Center/National Journal poll finds that Republican gains in 2010 will have little bearing on the fate of Barack Obama’s reelection campaign in 2012. The poll found that voters are more enthusiastic about reelecting Obama than they were at the same point in Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton’s presidencies.
In Georgia, Real Women – more than 20,000 of them – are Real Mad about Nathan Deal’s history of failing to vote to protect women. In politics, the tide can turn quickly, and you never know what might cause the change. Given the state’s red hue, the Governor’s race is Georgia should have been easy pickings for Republicans. Instead, it’s proving to be a tough slog as an ethically-challenged former congressman, Nathan Deal (R), takes on a well-funded former governor, Roy Barnes.
God doesn’t get a vote in the United States. The people vote. You remember us, the people you are supposed to be wanting to represent, the people who VOTE according to the Constitution. Surely you remember us. I mean, you said you ARE us, didn’t you?
An advanced look at a survey of California done by Public Policy Polling revealed that while Prop 19 is not the top reason why people are voting this year, it is inspiring young people to vote. 34% of those who described themselves as enthusiastic about voting for 19 are under age 30, and 64% are under age 45. These younger voters also favor Democrats Barbara Boxer and Jerry Brown by 34 and 36 points each.
The Republicans and the Tea Party are treating our government like a corporation folks, and they are preparing for a corporate takeover. And don’t think for a minute while they’re taking away your pensions and your social security that they won’t have golden parachutes of their own.
MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow was on Meet The Press today, where she explained how the media got the 2010 election narrative about Democrats staying home all wrong. Maddow said, I think that the initial diagnosis that Democrats don’t care… that they weren’t going to be able to get off their hands and actually get out to the polls this year has turned out to be a little bit of, a little bit wrong.”
The Republicans talk a lot about prayer, a natural off-shoot of their tendency to talk about God. If there was any lingering doubt about the Grand Old Party having become God’s Own Party, the 2008 elections should have dispelled it, and the lead-up to the 2010 midterms have only cemented the new Republican focus. Sharron…
A new Newsweek poll released today provided more evidence that Democrats are not going lie down and let Republicans take control of Congress without a fight. The much discussed enthusiasm gap has been virtually closed. In fact, both registered and likely voters expressed a preference that Democrats keep control of Congress.
There is a trend here, and it is unmistakable: free speech is a tool, or more accurately, a weapon, to the Republicans. It is not a freedom at all, because they don’t think anyone else should share in it.
Regardless the teabag rhetoric, at the core is a hatred of gays, immigrants, Jews, people of color, and non-Christians, which is exactly the same philosophy of the KKK.
Witchcraft is all the craze again, and we can’t blame Bill Maher for it, or even Christine O’Donnell. After all, it was Sarah Palin back in 2008 who found a video of her receiving blessings against witchcraft being administered flying around the internet.
The Republicans intend to take us to a place from which there is no return. You see, their fantasy America, the mythic America that was founded as a Christian nation in their re-written text books, is about to come to fruition. They are that close.
This is a blatant and misleading attempt by the GOP to steal the election. Trick the voters not to vote. Yes, trick. The conservatives have tried to co-opt the Latino vote by getting their token Latino to urge his fellow voters to stand on the sidelines.
As the nation steams ahead towards Election Day 2010, we are starting to find out the true meaning of the term common sense conservative. Apparently this term means that the conservative substitutes common sense for actual knowledge of the Constitution, or in the case of Christine O’Donnell absolute ignorance of the Constitution.
The Republican Party must sign its own death warrant in the general elections. The Grand Old Party, by selling out first to the Religious Right and then trying to co-opt the Tea Party, has found itself between a rock and a hard place.
Ideological purity may sound great on the drawing board, but it’s not so good when you need votes – lots of votes. Obviously, the ideas then are mutually incompatible. You can’t have the one because you won’t allow the other.
When questioned, Republican candidates adopt the role of victims, pretending that a liberal media elite is engaging in a witch hunt. They are creating a narrative in which the asking of questions is demonized. Even asking a question of them is wrong, an attack.
In an attempt to defend her campaign commercial demonizing illegal immigrants, Republican Senate candidate Sharron Angle recently told a group of Hispanic High School students that the people in commercials were not Hispanics, but Canadians, “What we know is that our northern border is where the terrorists came through. That’s the most porous border that we have.”
Republican candidate Christine O’Donnell has taken another page from Sarah Palin’s playbook by going rogue and blaming the GOP for her expected defeat. On ABC’s This Week O’Donnell said, “We’re hoping that the National Republican Senatorial Committee will help us, but it’s two and half weeks left, and they’re not.”
Unregulated capitalism gave us the evils of the Gilded Age. Unregulated capitalism gave us the crash of 2008 that has left not just America, but much of the world, reeling.
During the US Senate debate tonight between Sharron Angle and Harry Reid, it became clear that Angle has no idea what she is talking about on Social Security when she said, “Harry Reid has voted to give Social Security to illegal aliens, not only before they were citizens but after they were citizens.” Oh my God, Harry Reid gave benefits to US citizens!!! Wait, that’s legal.
If any Democratic candidate needs more evidence of the power of the minimum wage issue, I present to you the case of Linda McMahon the Republican US Senate candidate in Connecticut who didn’t know what the minimum wage was and has seen a 3 point deficit grow to an 11 point deficit in two weeks.
“These two elections, 2010 and 2012, go hand-in-hand. The theme of 2010 has got to be rebuke their errors, reject, repeal; and then the theme of 2012, it’s renew, revive and restore.”
Carl Paladino, New York’s GOP candidate for governor, did something surprising for a Republican politician Sunday; he went after gays.
Someday, future Americans will look back on the end of the 21st century’s first decade and feel shame, and perhaps a sense of wonder that such an advanced nation, one of the most free to have ever existed, could be home to such petty prejudice and superstition.
You can see him there with his SS pals, smiling for the camera, just like all those photos of SS guys and their pals from the 30s and 40s, smiling for the camera. It was guys in those uniforms, you see, who upheld another, earlier form of purity standard, killing millions of Jews, gypsies, and homosexuals and other “deviants†as designated by their ultra-conservative leadership.
How did American politics come to be about taking rights away from people when the founding of our country was centered on the giving of rights? And how is it that the group that rants the most about lost rights turns out to be the one most in favor of denying them to anyone else?
No, it’s not just you. Almost immediately after Christine O’Donnell upset Mike Castle for Delaware US Senate nomination, the Republican Party set out remake O’Donnell into the spitting image of Sarah Palin, for the most part they have been successful in every area but one. Christine O’Donnell’s Extreme Makeover Sarah Palin Edition has been a resounding failure with voters.
As Republican candidates around the country openly discuss repealing the minimum wage on her MSNBC show, Rachel Maddow made an interesting argument that the single issue that could power the Democrats to victory is the minimum wage. Maddow said, “When minimum wage is an issue, not only does it win, Democrats win alongside issue, too.”
It is past time, as the Midterm Elections approach, that American voters look at exactly what sort of country the Tea Partiers, conservative Republicans and the Religious Right, want to give us. If you think it is in any great respect different from a country governed by Sharia law, you are wrong.
Republican U.S. Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell came out of hiding long enough to do an interview on CNN’s The Situation Room, and things got interesting when O’Donnell was asked whether she thought Sarah Palin was qualified to be president, and answered, “Is she running for president?… Well, again, a hypothetical. I don’t know if she…”
Sharron Angle proved herself another FOX News-ready Constitutional expert when she said, “Government isn’t what our founding fathers put into the Constitution. This is different,” Angle said.
Republicans have been talking for months as if at least a partial takeover of Congress is a virtual certainty, but a new survey and analysis released by Democracy Corps today, not only shows the election tightening, but also a growing possibility that Republicans may yet snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
According to new Pew Research survey released today, there are a ton of negatives for any candidate running for election in 2010, but there is no bigger negative, except for supporting the bank bailouts, for a candidate than an endorsement from Sarah Palin. 42% of those surveyed said that a Palin endorsement would make them not vote for a candidate.
While claiming to be an agent of change, an outsider determined to make changes, Angle is at once claiming the Republican Party has not supported her and at the same time claiming she has “juice†in Washington.
It’s not Democrats, after all, who marginalize and disenfranchise black or other minority voters. It’s not Democrats who are accusing America’s first black president of being a watermelon-picking white-hating racist and a Muslim. It’s not Democrats who go to Tea Party rallies and wave Confederate flags all over the place. That would be the Republicans.
On her program tonight, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow urged Democrats to get their act together and stop campaigning in fear. Maddow argued that Democrats can win based on their accomplishments, “Imagine what it would look like if they started to campaign on the actual accomplishments they accomplished.” In short, Democrats need to grow a pair.
As the crispness of Fall begins to fill the air, Republican poll leads are shrinking around the country as Democratic voters have begun to come back to their ideological home. Republicans may lead in the meaningless generic ballot poll question, but after the DNC raised a record $16 million in September, it is clear that Democrats are alive and well.
What we have here is, in a way, the ultimate candidate for the Republican Party: a fake candidate to represent a fake nation, a woman touting a past that doesn’t exist wishing to represent a United States that doesn’t exist.
Oklahoma is hosting a referendum on Islam – State Question 755 the “Save Our State†amendment, which will ban Sharia Law in the state.
Why do we have a two-party system? It is not enshrined in the Constitution. In reality, the Founding Fathers viewed the creation of political parties with horror. Is changing the system un-American? What are the possible benefits?
Cognitive dissonance seems to run through the Republican narrative. Since it is impossible that 9/11 could have happened on the Republican watch, it must have happened under a Democrat. In layman’s terms, the Republican narrative is divorced from reality.
Culture warrior Dan Coats is running for U.S. Senate against incumbent Democrat Brad Ellsworth, 8th District, Indiana. Coats claim is that he is for Hoosier values and this seems to be his clarion call. However, upon examination Coats’ values appeal more to the pro-business, Christian conservative, anti-LGBT and anti-choice crowd than they do to average Joes.
President Obama was on NBC’s Today show this morning and although he was there to discuss education he took the GOP to task for their Pledge to America, “What I’m seeing out of the Republican leadership over the last several years has been a set of policies that are just irresponsible.”
Mitch McConnell was on ABC’s This Week today where he showed us exactly the kind of leadership Republicans will be giving the country if they win control of Congress. When asked how he would lower the deficit, McConnell said, “You get the economy going.” Yep, the big plan is to get the economy going.
New polls released in Kentucky, Nevada, and California show that Democrats are making a big comeback in each state, and the tide may be turning against the GOP. In Kentucky Rand Paul has blown a 15 point lead in less than a month. In Nevada, Harry Reid is up by 5 points on Sharron Angle, and in California the Democrats in both the gubernatorial and the Senate races now lead.
This time they will be competent, faithful, and have integrity. This time it will be different. He said so. And after all, look at the picture! There they are standing in front of a small business as they make their pledge to us, so they must care, even though they voted against small businesses. Lie to me, I promise, I’ll believe.
A new Public Policy Polling survey of undecided voters released today shows that Sarah Palin’s “leadership” may cause GOP candidates around the country to crash and burn in both 2010 and 2012. The survey revealed that 65% of undecided voters disapprove of Palin, while only 17% approve of her. To put this into context, BP has a 16% approval rating.
The latest piece of evidence that being labeled with the Sarah Palin brand is more of a curse than a blessing comes to us from Republican Massachusetts US House candidate Jeffery Perry who when asked about Palin said, “I don’t want her to come down. She’s an entertainer.”
Beck is attacking Harvard graduate and former Vice President of the American Law Institute Elizabeth Warren, using his usual lamestream media accusations and lies. Beck is upset because the President appointed Warren to oversee the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Warren “is one of our country’s fiercest advocates” for the middle class, Obama said Friday when introducing her. Right there, you see what the problem is.
Palin went all Tea Party gangsta on Karl Rove for Rove’s accurate analysis of the threat O’Donnell poses the GOP’s big dreams of taking the senate back this fall. Tonight on the The O’Reilly Factor, Palin called Karl out, issuing a few body blows to the Great White Thug in round one of the battle for the helm of the GOP.
With the money, the polling and the endorsements breaking her way, it is no surprise that Christine O’Donnell was able to beat Rep. Mike Castle in the Delaware U.S. Senate primary, but polling and modeling shows that Sarah Palin and the Tea Party have taken a likely November victory away from the GOP and quite possibly handed control of the Senate to the Democrats.
Recently on her show, Rachel Maddow took on what might be the most childish Republican attempt at gay baiting ever, as Republican Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell has been trying to spread the rumor that her primary opponent Rep. Mike Castle is gay in the clumsiest way possible. It would be funny if it was not so sad.
Like bugs to light, Republicans are attracted to 9/11 fear mongering, and with the flap over the proposed mosque and community center two blocks from Ground Zero, the man in charge of the GOP’s efforts to retake the Senate, Sen. John Cornyn suggested that the GOP is ready to make 9/11 an issue again this November, but by playing the politics of fear, the GOP could ensure failure in November.
Ben Quayle wants voters in Arizona’s 3rd Congressional District to send him to Congress. The primary is August 24 and early voters are already casting their ballots. This isn’t good timing for Ben, who is a lawyer, but who apparently skipped Ethics 101 while he was in school. He’s been caught out as a liar – repeatedly – in the space of just a few days. He apparently wants to see how far he can shove his foot into his own mouth.
Yet another Palin loss in Georgia…… The media dubbed “GOP kingmaker”, huh? More like a Mama Grizzly slinking away with her tail between her legs. Karen Handel, the Palin endorsed and pushed GOP Georgia Governor candidate, conceded today after losing to primary opponent Nathan Deal, who was endorsed by Mitt Romney.
MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow was on Meet The Press today where she pointed out that the Republican Party is asking voters to make a fatally flawed choice in November, if they insist on portraying themselves as the fiscally responsible party. Maddow said, “If Republicans want to run as this fiscally responsible party, it’s neat, but it’s novel. It’s not how they’ve actually governed.”
There simply aren’t enough anti-intellectual, conservative religious, racist and bigoted voters to pass the lunatic agenda of the Tea Party. They can believe their own spin if they wish, but even if you ignore facts they will still be there to bite you in the ass at the end of the day. This is the bleak future that the Tea Party faces in November.
Just as some blame the rape victim for the rape, Republicans have taken to blaming the moral character of the unemployed for their joblessness. To the GOP, unemployment was not caused by the financial collapse, or years of Republican tax cut and spend policies. To the GOP, the unemployed are individuals of poor character who must be campaigned against in 2010.
The latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll revealed that the more the American people see Sarah Palin, the less they like her. Palin’s approval rating has now crashed to 29%, which is down from 37% in March. Palin is also dragging down the GOP’s 2010 candidates, as her endorsement was viewed as a negative by 52% of those surveyed.
Since 2009 when Sarah Palin boycotted all, non conservative political media, her behavior has been picked up on by Republican Tea Party candidates like Sharron Angle and Rand Paul with the result being that voters are now expected to make a decision on these candidates without much information, which can only lead to disastrous consequences for our democracy.
In typical teabagging style, the Palin endorsed candidate (you can just fill in Clown Show Tea Bagger or Pretend Conservative, whichever you feel fits best but in this case, it’s a toss up) Clint Didier (Republican running for US Senate in Washington) was for farm subsidies before he was against them. And by for, I mean he took the money for himself, before he decided government money was evil and harmful to others and makes them dependent on the federal government.
White House Senior Adviser David Axelrod was on Meet The Press today, and when asked for his thoughts about the 2010 midterm elections, he pull no punches, “In 1994 the Republican Party was nearly at 60 percent in favorability. Today, they’re at an all-time low… They’ve sat on the sidelines, they’ve rooted for failure, and they’ve contributed nothing.”
Sarah Palin took to her Facebook page to defend yet another persecuted Christian (aka, Tea Party favorite) in South Carolina, Nikki Haley. Haley is the front-runner in the Republican primary for Governor of South Carolina and she has been accused of having an affair with a staffer by said staffer who recently announced the affair on his blog. In reality, this isn’t persecution, this is politics.
By any standard Republican Kentucky Senate nominee Rand Paul has had a terrible week. He followed up winning the GOP nomination on Tuesday with a disastrous appearance on the Rachel Maddow Show, which he followed up with an even worse appearance on ABC’s Good Morning America where he defended BP and the oil spill. Most telling is the way that his Tea Party backers, including Sarah Palin have remained silent on his comments.