Orange John Does the GOP a Favor

Opinion | thepilot.com

You know, I’ve been hard in the past on John Boehner, the weepy, carrot-colored soon-to-be-former speaker of the House. I’ve mocked him as perhaps the most ineffectual politician ever to hold that high office.

I was making fun of him as far back as his tenure as minority leader, when he whined that he couldn’t get Republican votes for Dubbya’s $700 billion bailout of the financial industry because Nancy Pelosi said something mean about his caucus. I jeered at him when he couldn’t even get the House GOP to vote “yes” on their own bill to keep the Department of Homeland Security open. And so on.

But now, as he prepares to step down from his position, I’ve got to hand it to Orange John: For once, he’s managed to keep his party from shooting itself in the foot, something that they were apparently just aching to do.

At issue was yet another wrangle over the twin issues of averting a government shutdown and raising the debt ceiling, that arguably unconstitutional imaginary cap the Congress puts on our ability to actually pay for things for which they’ve already authorized spending. Failure to raise the ceiling when needed would lead the United States, the greatest country in the world, to default on its debt like some Third World banana republic. Shutting down the government would result in an interruption of vital services.

Nevertheless, the fiscal terrorists of the far right have repeatedly threatened to bring these disasters down on our heads if their demands were not met. This time, they started pressuring Boehner to threaten a shutdown if Planned Parenthood wasn’t defunded. That, however, was apparently dropped in favor of convening a House Select Committee to investigate the already debunked accusation that Planned Parenthood clinics are illegally selling baby parts. After all, they need a new multi-million-dollar bogus witch hunt to get the rubes all worked up about after Hillary Clinton handed them their behinds over Benghazi. Again.

Enter the so-called “Freedom Caucus,” a group of Republican congresscritters so bold and forthright that they will neither confirm nor deny who’s actually a member. This shadowy cabal scotched the bid of California Rep. Kevin McCarthy to take over Boehner’s seat and made a list of demands to any other candidate wanting their support. Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell prepared his own ransom note. Both demanded, among other things, serious cuts to Social Security and Medicare as a condition of keeping the government open and avoiding default.

Then Boehner, much to everyone’s surprise, committed an act of actual governance. He and other Republican leaders negotiated a deal with the White House that raises the debt ceiling far enough that it doesn’t have to be addressed again until 2017 — after the next election. It also averts the possibility of a government shutdown until at least the end of the Obama presidency. And it did both without draconian cuts to Social Security and Medicare.

The Teahadists, of course, had a conniption. The deal was a sellout, they claimed, and shows just why Boehner has to go. “I think the process stinks,” fumed Paul Ryan, who’s in negotiations with the Freedom Caucus that might just allow him to take Boehner’s place as speaker without the daily fear of getting their knives in his back. Yet most political analysts think there’s not enough time for the deal’s opponents to stop it.

Inwardly, however, Ryan and the few sane Republicans must be breathing a sigh of relief. Because here’s the thing: Every time there’s a shutdown or a threat of default, their party’s image takes a walloping in the polls.

For example, in 2013, after even a partial shutdown, a Washington Post/ABC News poll showed that 8 out of 10 Americans said they disapproved of it, 63 percent had an unfavorable view of the Republicans in Congress, and “4 in 10 had a strongly unfavorable view of the GOP.” That’s not the kind of damage a party who wants to hold the Senate and take the White House can absorb in an election year. Ryan at least is bright enough to know that.

For all the kvetching and calls of “betrayal” directed against soon-to-be-former-speaker Boehner, he’s handed his party — and the country — a gift on his way out. Most of them are probably too delusional to realize it, but Paul Ryan ought to send Orange John a case of his favorite Scotch for Christmas.

Orange Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye (With the Usual Idiotic Poo Flinging by the Right Wing Monkeys)

The Pilot Newspaper: Opinion

On Friday, Sept. 25, Speaker of the House John Boehner stunned everyone (including, it seems, members of his own staff) when he announced that he was resigning not only his speakership, but also his seat in Congress, effective at the end of October.

Perhaps the most revealing thing about Boehner’s resignation was the way he approached the podium to announce it. The man best known for bursting into tears at the slightest provocation strode jauntily to the podium, nearly skipping, smiling as he literally sang, “Zip-a-dee-doo-dah.”

“I used to sing that on my way to work every morning,” he added.

From the way he said it, it’s clear he hadn’t done so in a long time. And who can blame him? I’ve frequently slammed Boehner for being the most ineffective speaker of the House in that body’s long history. But I’m not sure that there is any way to actually lead a caucus that’s contained such egregious looney tunes as Michele Bachmann and that still plays host to paranoid whack jobs like Louie Gohmert and Steve King. Not, at least, without a tranquilizer dart gun and a 55-gallon oil drumfull of antipsychotic medication, both of which I’m pretty sure are against the House rules.

I mean, how do you realistically lead people who sincerely tell themselves and each other that “even though it’s never worked before, if we shut the government down this time, the Senate will go along, Obama will cave in and allow Planned Parenthood to be defunded, and everyone will love us. And after that, we’ll hold yet another vote to repeal Obamacare”? If insanity is defined as doing the exact same thing over and over and expecting a different result, then this Congress is indeed the country’s best-dressed lunatic asylum.

Then again, maybe I’ve been exactly as hard on Orange John as he deserves. Compare his leadership, for example, with that of former Speaker Nancy Pelosi. She has had some wild-eyed, die-hard fanatics in her caucus. Dennis Kucinich and Bart Stupak come immediately to mind. And yet, when the crucial vote for the Affordable Care Act came up, Pelosi could get her people lined up and deliver the votes for a bill some of them had previously said they hated and wouldn’t vote for.

Whether you like Pelosi or loathe her, that’s what an effective speaker does. In fact, I strongly believe her effectiveness is exactly why the right-wing howler monkeys start screeching and flinging poo at the mere mention of her name. Boehner, in contrast, can’t get his people to stop grandstanding and posturing long enough to vote for things as simple as keeping the government open and paying the debts the country has already incurred.

So what happens now? Well, as the old song goes, “freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose.” Since Mr. Boehner will soon shake the dust of the place off his feet and put the crazies in his rearview mirror, it looks like he’s going to dare to work with both Democrats and the few sane Republicans in the meantime to pass a “clean” funding bill that keeps the government running for a little while longer. You know, do some actual governing.

After that, however, things might just get ugly. There don’t seem to be any candidates for the speakership, at least as of this writing, who have the gumption to sit their people down and go, “Look, we’re not going to do another show vote to repeal Obamacare, we’re not going to shut down the government again because that just makes us look stupid, and let’s face it, if the longest special committee investigation in congressional history hasn’t hung the Benghazi murders around Hillary Clinton’s neck by now, it’s not going to happen. So can we actually try to get some stuff done, even if it means trying to get some Democratic votes?”

No, I fear that the Republican-“led” House of Representatives is going to sink further into delusion and anarchy. There’ll most likely be another threat of a government shutdown and maybe even default when the next funding bill runs out, just in time for Christmas. They may actually figure out a way to drive Congress’s approval rating into negative numbers.Yeah, that’ll show that rascal Obama.

THE HOWLER MONKEYS SHRIEK AND PROVE MY POINT: The idiot who calls himself "Lenny Bo" once again weighs in to tell an uncaring world how much he hates the column he faithfully reads every week:

Dusty,
I am one of millions that loathes the mindless Nancy Pelosi. If she is your model of a good leader, then we are all in trouble.

As usual, the howler monkeys prove my point with every comment.

Obamacare was cited as an example where she got all the dems in line for a vote. How exactly did she do that? Well, she herself said that the bill had to be passed before they read it! Some leadership skills - keep the sheep in the dark and feed them BS.

And get ready Dusty - when the committee busts the lid off of 'ol Hellery's antics, I expect you to write a similar column on her leadership skills.

You know, the wingnuts have predicted Hillary Clinton's downfall since 1992. She's been investigated and investigated and investigated again, over "Travelgate," Vince Foster, Whitewater, Benghazi etc, etc, and...nothing. But with the conviction of the truly obsessed, they tell us THIS one, by God, will get her.  As I said above, they're "doing the exact same thing over and over and expecting a different result." And that's why I call them wingnuts. 

Frequent fuckwit "fugitiveguy" weighs in: 

DR doesn't seem inclined to write about Hillary. If I remember correctly he supported her over BHO in the early going in 2007.

What utter bullshit. I supported Obama from the beginning, and I've written a lot about Hillary, not a lot of it complimentary. Once again, it seems that "conservatism" is a form of brain damage wherein they lose the ability to remember anything. 

'Net Neutrality' is The Right Thing, Even if Obama's For It

The Pilot Newspaper: Opinion

There’s been a lot of talk since the election on where the first big showdown is going to occur between President Obama and Congress over the use of “executive actions.” Surprisingly, it may turn out that the first battleground won’t be immigration or the environment, but the issue of net neutrality.

So, what is net neutrality? Put simply, it’s the principle that all data going across the Internet should be treated equally. Imagine the Internet in the term once commonly used to describe it: as an “information superhighway.”

You’d want everyone on a highway to have equal access to it, right? But imagine if some people got special access to higher speed lanes and on ramps if they paid more. Imagine if, say, J.B. Hunt Transportation could pay to use faster lanes and quicker access ramps than Bob’s Friendly Trucking.

Pretty soon, poor Bob’s going to be out of business, and J.B. Hunt has one less competitor. That’s not good for capitalism. Further, J.B. Hunt’s going to pass that premium down to its users, who’ll have fewer and fewer options to go elsewhere. That’s not good for consumers.

To apply this to the Internet, say you and a few of your entrepreneurial friends have an idea for a new search engine, one that runs faster and provides better sorting of search results than Google or Yahoo. But when you try to get it up and running, you find out that you can’t complete because Google has flexed its financial muscle and paid Comcast and Time Warner off so that they’ll always have better access and run faster than you.

After the customary months of internal debate and re-debate on the subject, President Obama stepped forth and stated: “I believe the FCC should reclassify consumer broadband service under Title II of the Telecommunications Act — while at the same time forbearing from rate regulation and other provisions less relevant to broadband services.”

What that means in plain English is that he wants the FCC to treat Internet service providers (ISPs) as utilities or “common carriers,” meaning that they’d have more power to make them treat all their customers equally.

Some right-wing Washington types immediately leaped forward to defend the only real principle the wingnuts have left, to wit: “If’n Obama’s fer it, we’s agin it.” Orange John Boehner, alleged speaker of the House, claimed the president’s proposal would “destroy innovation and entrepreneurship” (as we’ve seen, precisely the opposite is true).

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz put down his copy of “Green Eggs and Ham” long enough to take to Twitter and Facebook to call the proposed rule change “Obamacare for the Internet.”

Cruz indicated his utter failure to understand the Affordable Care Act, net neutrality, and the English language by going on to claim that the proposed redefinition “puts the government in charge of determining Internet pricing, terms of service, and what types of products and services can be delivered, leading to fewer choices, fewer opportunities, and higher prices for consumers.”

This, despite the clear language about “forbearing from rate regulation.” On second thought, perhaps this is like Obamacare, if by that you mean “something right-wingers justify opposition to by lying through their teeth about it.”

It should surprise no one that Sen. Cruz is the recipient of over $47,000 in campaign contributions from the biggest Internet service providers, such as Comcast, TWC, et. al. What may have surprised the senator, however, is the number of self-described conservatives who joined their more liberal brothers in geekdom to tell him he’s totally full of it on this subject.

“As a Republican who also works in IT,” one wrote, “you have no clue what you are talking about.” Another wrote, “As a tech and fiscal conservative in Texas who generally votes Republican, I am incredibly disappointed by your completely inaccurate statement.”

That shouldn’t be a shock to anyone, however, because this is by no means a strictly liberal issue. According to a recent story on Time.com, a survey by the Internet Freedom Business Alliance (IFBA), a group led by former GOP Rep. Chip Pickering of Mississippi, found that “83 percent of self-identified conservatives thought that Congress should take action to ensure that cable companies do not ‘monopolize the Internet’ or ‘reduce the inherent equality of the Internet’ by charging some content companies for speedier access.”

Net neutrality is good for the Internet, and since so much of our business these days gets done there, it’s good for the country. This is an issue with support all along the political spectrum, even if it’s opposed by Comcast, TWC, and other corporate behemoths, and by their bought and paid-for shills in Congress.

Let’s not let knee-jerk opposition to all things Obama, as well as congressional harlotry, be the end of an open and level playing field for all online.

Boehner: PAY NO ATTENTION TO THOSE WINGNUTS BEHIND THE CURTAIN!

The Pilot Newspaper: Opinion

Will the Republicans in the House actually impeach President Obama? I don’t know, but the recent furor over the question has provided us with the hilarious spectacle of one-half of the party trying desperately to keep people from noticing what the other half is doing.

Some Republicans, of course, have been muttering the “I” word since Mr. Obama’s election. The carping got louder when they found, to their shock, that they couldn’t beat him in 2012. Recently, the issue burst back onto the national conversation as the Queen of Wingnuttia herself, failed vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, wrote an inflammatory op-ed for the current flagship for right-wing lunacy, the website Breitbart.com.

“It’s time to impeach,” the Quitta From Wasilla said flatly. “Enough is enough of the years of abuse from this president. His unsecured border crisis is the last straw that makes the battered wife say, ‘No mas.’”

Well, I guess comparing not getting your political way to being an abused spouse is more classy than their usual complaint of being just like chattel slaves or Holocaust victims, but not by much.

Conservative pundit Smilin’ Bill Kristol, usually a Palin cheerleader, was unequivocal in his rejection of the whole idea of impeachment. He directly responded to Palin’s call on ABC’s “This Week” by flatly declaring, “No responsible elected official has called for impeachment.”

That one had to sting, because Kristol has always pushed Palin’s seriousness as a political voice. Of course, this means that impeachment is inevitable, because, as we all know, Bill Kristol is always, always wrong.

Orange John Boehner was even firmer in his denial, claiming that the “whole talk about impeachment” was a “scam” started by Democratic fundraisers to try to drum up contributions for the upcoming election. It’s all “coming from the president’s own staff and Democrats on Capitol Hill.”

This should come as a surprise to:

— Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), who told Breitbart News Saturday, “From my standpoint, if the president [enacts more executive actions], we need to bring impeachment hearings immediately before the House of Representatives. That’s my position, and that’s my prediction.”

— Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.), who told a radio interviewer: “Not a day goes by when people don’t talk to us about impeachment. I don’t know what rises to that level yet, but I know that there’s a mounting frustration that a lot of people are getting to, and I think Congress is going to start looking at it very seriously.”

— Rep. Ted Yoho (R-Fla.), who, according to another story on Breitbart.com, “told colleagues that the House should pass legislation with new steps to secure the border, and tell Obama if he didn’t implement it, they would impeach him.”

— Rep. Marilinda Garcia (R-N.H.), who said she’d vote for impeachment because, according to her, the president “has many, many impeachable offenses, it seems to me, in terms of his disregard for our Constitution alone.”

And of course, no parade of wingnuts would be complete without its grand marshal, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Bedlam), who stopped short of calling for immediate impeachment, then immediately claimed it’s “what the people want.”

“There isn’t a weekend that hasn’t gone by,” she said, “that someone says to me, ‘Michele, what in the world are you all waiting for in Congress? Why aren’t you impeaching the president?”

While it is highly likely that the “someone” she refers to is one of the voices buzzing in her head, she and her pals in the Teahadist Caucus seem awfully fixated on something that their alleged leader says is a Democratic idea.

Did all of these people (and a half-dozen other House Republicans who have either outright called for impeachment or who can’t stop talking about unspecified “impeachable offenses”) join the White House staff or cross the aisle to the Dem side when we weren’t looking?

John Boehner knows the lessons of history. He knows that the doomed impeachment effort against President Bill Clinton caused Clinton’s popularity ratings to skyrocket. He also knows that while impeachment is a big seller among Republicans, less than a third of the general electorate favors it, and 63 percent of independents flat out oppose it.

So, in a weak imitation of the Great and Powerful Oz, Orange John is bellowing for us to “pay no attention to those Republicans behind the curtain!” while pushing his own substitute: a lawsuit against President Obama’s delay in enacting a law the House has tried to repeal so many times I’ve lost count.

Sadly, Boehner is neither great nor powerful. His caucus is out of control and pushing not solutions to problems, but bogus lawsuits and political grandstanding. That’s what the Democrats are raising money to fight. They’re right to do so.

Debt Ceiling Crisis? What Debt Ceiling Crisis?

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You know, it would be very easy to make fun of Orange John Boehner and the House Republicans over their capitulation this past Wednesday on the debt ceiling.

You may have missed the story, because the media were more obsessed in the past week with a much more important issue- namely, "Who knew that Beyonce lip-synced the national anthem, and when did they know it?"

So in case you've forgotten what the debt ceiling fuss was about, let's review.

First, just as they did during the fake "fiscal cliff" crisis, the so-called "deficit hawks" of the GOP blustered and puffed up their chests and insisted that yes, by golly, they were perfectly willing to destroy the country's credit rating and plunge us back into recession if they didn't get massive spending cuts in exchange for agreeing to pay the bills we already have.

Then, when the president said he wasn't going to knuckle under or negotiate again in the face of that kind of terrorism, they went completely hysterical, howled, "OMG! OBAMA IS WORSE THAN HITLER!" and vowed a fight to the death. So, as you can no doubt see, it'd be easy to mock them when they meekly cave in and pass a three-month extension of the debt ceiling without a single spending cut.

But I'm not going to do that.

I'm not going to do that because I think that on the rare occasion that the Republicans act like grownups, they ought to be commended for it. Besides, the one condition they did come up with actually contains the seed of a good idea.

The bill contains a provision that any house of Congress that doesn't pass a budget by April 15 doesn't get its pay. Unfortunately, the 27th Amendment says that "No law varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives shall take effect until an election of Representatives shall have intervened," so the best they could probably do would be to temporarily withhold their salaries - not, say, donate them to Planned Parenthood or the NRA or something like that.

But hey, it's a start. And at long last, we'll finally get the Republicans to do two things: (1) admit that while the president can propose a budget (and has), budgets are made by the legislative branch, and that talking about "Obama's spending" is disingenuous at best; and (2) finally come clean on exactly what it is they want to cut.

Up until now, the GOP line has been, "You Democrats have to give us spending cut proposals, so they look like your idea." They do this because they know if people saw what they really want to cut, they'd be even less popular than they are now. But now they're stuck, which is a good thing.

The only problem I have with the "no budget, no pay" idea is that under the current proposal, if one of the houses comes up with a budget, any budget, its members get paid. There's no real incentive for the Republican-controlled House to come up with a budget they know has a chance of passing the Democratic-controlled Senate, and vice versa.

Indeed, both the House's Paul Ryan and the Senate's Patty Murray have vowed to quickly come up with proposed budgets, each of which is pretty much guaranteed to give the other house's majority party the hives.

So here's my idea: If a budget isn't passed by both houses and signed by the president by April 15, nobody gets paid. Not the senators, not the representatives, not the president. No Democrats, no Republicans, no independents. If they don't come up with something everyone can live with by May 1, then the sergeants-at-arms of both houses will be ordered to remove all the chairs from the House and Senate chambers and all legislative offices. Let 'em work standing up. (I confess, I stole this last part from a legendary tale of a crusty old judge trying to motivate a hung jury to make a decision.)

If that doesn't work, by May 15, we chain the chamber doors shut with all of them inside. No budget by June 1? Cut off the air conditioning. If you've ever been in D.C. in the summer, you know what that means. We'll either get a budget arrived at by fair negotiation and compromise, or we'll need to elect a new Congress.

Frankly, I could go for either one.

We're Not Going Platinum

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With the recent crisis over the nonexistent “fiscal cliff” averted, the president and Congress seem inevitably headed toward another confrontation over the debt ceiling.

The Republicans, who inexplicably continue to be “led” by Cryin’ John Boehner, insist that they won’t allow the United States to borrow more money, even to pay its current outstanding bills, without an agreement to massive spending cuts.

The Obama administration, no doubt remembering that the last “deal” on the debt ceiling resulted in the very debacle we just went through, is saying, “No way. No deals. Do your job, raise the debt ceiling without conditions, the way you did without a negative word when there was a Republican president in office. Then we talk.”

If the debt ceiling doesn’t get raised, the mightiest nation in the world does what even a Third World banana republic should be ashamed to do: It goes into default. The government shuts down. So, with this disastrous showdown looming, some people have begun talking about an allegedly clever plan to save us, in the form of the Trillion Dollar Platinum Coin (or, as I call it, the TDPC).

Here’s how it would supposedly work: A federal law, 31 USC § 5112, allows the Treasury secretary to order the creation of platinum coins in any denomination. The law was originally meant to authorize commemorative coins, but it’s not specifically limited to those.

So, TDPC advocates say, the president should just order the secretary to mint a single platinum coin, declare it worth a trillion dollars, and deposit it in the Federal Reserve. Hey, presto! We’re solvent again, and we move on.

Sounds completely absurd, you may say, and you’d be right. But as a number of people, including Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman, have pointed out, what would be even more absurd would be to let the United States become the world’s largest deadbeat nation, able to pay its current outstanding bills but unwilling to do so.

Because, make no mistake, this isn’t about new spending; this is about Congress refusing to pay for spending it’s already authorized. As several writers have noted, it’s like a father declaring that the family’s run up too high a balance on the credit card, so he’s just not going to make the payments on the debt they have.

All that said, the TDPC raises some practical considerations that would need to be worked out. For one thing, how does one “deposit” a trillion dollar coin? Does the Treasury secretary just stick it in his front pocket and walk it down to the Federal Reserve? Does the Fed have tellers? Does he have to fill out a deposit slip? And hey, wouldn’t this be an open invitation to some supervillain to try to steal the coin?

Also, whose face goes on the TDPC? A number of folks have made suggestions: John Boehner; The President Who Must Not Be Named; and for some reason, swimmer Michael Phelps.

As for me, my choice would be late night TV host Stephen Colbert. No one, in my opinion, does a better job of saying ridiculous things with a straight face to make a point. And that is exactly what advocating the TDPC is: a ridiculous answer to a ridiculous impasse.

Some — not all — liberal commentators have urged the adoption of the TDPC, not least because of the possibility it would make John Boehner’s pumpkin-colored head explode. For its part, the Obama administration has shown no signs of actively considering this plan. Nor should it. It also shouldn’t bargain with the shrinking Teahadist caucus that wants once again to hold the U.S. economy hostage.

There’s a time and a place for discussions about spending, but it’s not at gunpoint. Congress needs to do its job and not send the country into actual bankruptcy today in the name of keeping it from going bankrupt tomorrow.

The last vote on the Senate’s fiscal cliff deal, arrived at after the House punted so disgracefully, showed that while there is still a crazy faction of the Republican Party willing to blow things up if they don’t get their way, it’s smaller than we originally thought. Some of them, thank goodness, will still vote not to wreck the country.

And if not — well, the wingnuts finally get what they want. A government that doesn’t spend money and does absolutely nothing for its citizens, one that’s so shrunken, in the words of wingnut icon Grover Norquist, that you could “drown it in a bathtub.”

Let’s see how much the people love them then, and how long before they realize they’ve overplayed their hand and they cave.

Call the bluff, Mr. President.

Letters From Santa's Mailbag

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Once again, we bring you another beloved holiday tradition: selections from Santa's mailbag.

Dear Santa: OK, so I went on Fox News predicting a 325-electoral-vote Romney landslide. And yeah, I did it over and over, with complete confidence. As you probably heard, that didn't exactly pan out. But is it fair that the TV network that's more of a home to me than my own living room says that they're going to stop having me on? I mean, Bill Kristol's wrong all the time too, and he gets his phone calls returned.

I  need work, Santa, and fast. The hookers say they're going to start charging me double if I'm not on TV.

- Dick Morris, somewhere in hiding

(Note to staff: Send Dick a copy of "Polling For Dummies.")

Dear Santa: I have to say, I've had a pretty good year. I won the election by a comfortable margin. We kept the Senate and made gains in the House. The Republicans are in disarray and starting to turn on each other.

I've got the upper hand in these budget negotiations, since all I have to do is wait for all the tax cuts to expire, then ask the House to introduce a cut that only includes the middle class and dare the Republicans to vote against it. The economy continues to get better. I guess what I'm saying is, I'm good for this year, and I don't really need anything for myself. Well, maybe some socks.

- Barack Obama, Washington, D.C.

(Note to staff: Get the guy some socks. It's the least we can do.)

Dear Santa, you socialist piece of [censored]: The soulless fools who voted for economic and spiritual suicide this past November may want stuff from you, like support for their obesity booze cellphones birth control abortions. But let me tell you something, you commie pinko [censored]!

I'm a free American, and I don't want any [censored] handouts from anyone, especially some [censored] who dresses up in red and sneaks into people's houses at night. So stay the [censored] away from my house, you got that, fatso? I mean it. I've got guns. Lots of them.

- Ted Nugent, Michigan

(Note to staff: Goodness. This is one angry fellow. Can we maybe bring him some nice warm milk or some meds or something to calm him down?)

(Note to Santa: No can do, boss. The reindeer refuse to go near his place after Dasher nearly took a crossbow bolt in the haunch.)

Dearest Father Christmas: Warm regards from her Royal Highness, the Duchess of Cambridge. I trust you have been made aware of the recent good news regarding Her Royal Highness' delicate condition.

Her only wishes for this Christmas season are that the people of the British Isles enjoy greater peace and prosperity, and that, if possible, you could provide something to ensure she is not, as I believe the Americans put it, blowing chunks every 10 minutes. With best wishes for the holidays and for the New Year, I am, very truly yours,

- Percy Uppington-Smythe, Personal Assistant.

(Note to staff: Poor kid. Hard enough being pregnant and sick, but I can't imagine having to deal with those ghastly in-laws of hers. Send her a keg of ginger ale to settle her stomach.)

Dear Santa: Who is this guy in the White House? We'd gotten used to a president who started his negotiating from the center-right and just kept giving us what we wanted so we could demand more.

This guy, this so-called "second-term" Obama, acts like he's actually got a backbone. He's demanding that we agree to the things he ran on and that people voted for! You'd think he'd won the election or something! We want the old, pliable, easily bullied Barack Obama back! If we don't get it, I might start crying again. I'm warning you.

-John Boehner, Washington, D.C.

(Note to staff: Sorry, looks like that model's been discontinued.)

Dear Santa: Please bring me a new iPad. And an Xbox360. And a Play Station3. And a Wii. And a bunch of movies, books and games, all rated "G" or "PG". And hurry. Mitt Romney, La Jolla, Calif.

(Note to staff: Looks like someone suddenly has a lot of time on his hands.)

(Note from staff: Good thing he doesn't drink, huh?)

(Note to staff: I don't even want to think about it.)

Hope you all get what you want under your tree.

Insanity Is The Most GENEROUS Explanation

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Thirty-three times in 18 months.

 That’s how many times the Republican-controlled House has voted to repeal all or part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (which they call “Obama-care”), even though they know that such a measure is doomed to fail in the Senate.

Even if such a bill through some miracle managed to somehow survive the Senate, it would certainly be vetoed by President Barack Obama. The most recent vote came this past Wednesday.

I’ve often said that a key quirk in the wingnut psyche is the absolutely unshakeable conviction that if something fails repeatedly, it’s because they just didn’t ram their heads against the wall hard enough. “The economy crashed despite big tax cuts? That just means we need more tax cuts to grow the economy!” And so on.

There’s a fine line between perseverance and insanity, and Cryin’ John Boehner and his merry band of fools crossed that line so long ago that they can’t even see it in the rearview mirror anymore.

Of course, it’s entirely possible that this wasn’t some form of mental illness on the part of the Prince of Orange and his crew. There are some cynics who say that the Republican leadership knew the measure, like the 32 before it, was doomed to fail. There are some who even say that the whole thing was a political stunt.

They say the whole thing’s a ploy to get House members staked out on their positions on the health care reform bill so that those votes could be used against them in the upcoming election, when those impressive voiceover announcers who only seem to surface at election time will be intoning “Congressman Schmendrick voted with Obama” with the type of voice-of-doom gravitas that suggests that they equate that voting record with unqualified support for child molestation.

But that’s hard to believe, don’t you think? I mean, that would make the Republican leadership seem like a bunch of completely politicized hacks who would take one of the 42 remaining days they’ve allotted themselves until the end of the year to address the people’s business and use it for the sole purpose of creating sound bites.

That would be a crassly cynical act by a party that’s decided to abandon the idea of addressing any real progress on jobs, immigration, national security, energy independence or any substantive issue at all, a party whose one and only priority is not governing, but winning.

That can’t really be it, can it? I mean, I know that’s what Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said was his party’s “No. 1 priority” a while back, but he was joking, right? Because that would make them seem pretty useless to the average American.

No, I’ve got to go with insanity here. Another indicator that the Republicans are suffering from some sort of mental breakdown is the things they say about the ACA that are completely divorced from the reality of the actual bill.

Quotes like Mitt Romney’s assertion that “Obamacare puts the government between you and your doctor.” Or his claim that “Obamacare means 20 million American will lose the health insurance they have and want to keep.”

Or the oft-repeated claim, most recently seen in an ad from one of those shadowy anonymous SuperPACs attacking Florida Sen. Ben Nelson, that the health care law’s cost will be $2 trillion, “double what we were promised.” Or the claim from Florida Gov. Rick Scott that a company with 20 employees “could go out of business” because of the law’s requirement to buy insurance (even though companies with fewer than 50 employees are exempt from that requirement).

All of these assertions have been rated “false” by the nonpartisan fact-checking site Politifact. The “business with 20 employees” canard from Scott was given the lowest rating for truthfulness: “Pants on Fire.” And yet Republicans keep repeating these and other proven falsehoods over and over and over again.

Now, some people would insist that that means they’re all a pack of liars who have such complete contempt for the American voter that they think you’ll believe anything.

To believe they’re not seriously delusional would mean that they believe, as Adolf Hitler stated in “Mein Kampf,” that “in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility … for the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact which is known to all expert liars in this world.”

And that can’t be right. They can’t really think that way. Can they?

John Boehner Says I'm Right

Remember a couple weeks ago, I said that some Republicans wanted the U.S. economy to crash for their own political gain?

John Boehner has confirmed it: 

Speaking on conservative radio host Laura Ingraham’s show this morning, Boehner agreed that failing to raise the limit before the deadline would be devastating, and said the “chaos” plan won’t work when asked by Ingraham what’s motivating the recalcitrant Republicans:

BOEHNER: Well, first they want more. And my goodness, I want more too. And secondly, a lot of them believe that if we get past August the second and we have enough chaos, we could force the Senate and the White House to accept a balanced budget amendment. I’m not sure that that — I don’t think that that strategy works. Because I think the closer we get to August the second, frankly, the less leverage we have vis a vis our colleagues in the Senate and the White House.

You know, you can say what you want about Nancy Pelosi, but when the time came, she could deliver the votes. She even got Dennis Kucinich on board to pass a health care bill he said he hated. 

Boehner's an empty suit who can't control the terrorists in his own caucus who want to suicide-bomb the economy. You want to know how nutty these people are? The Tea Party Jihad wants to primary Allen West 

(you know, the guy who abused a  helpless prisoner who he later admitted was probably be the wrong guy then became a Big Damn Teabagger hero for challenging a woman to a fight)  for not being conservative enough.

Meanwhile, David Frum, who I've praised here from time to time as one of the few sane conservatives, is upset because the White House released a picture of Michelle Obama barefoot--in her own house. 

"The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of a passionate intensity"-Yeats. 

We are truly fucked. -Dusty Rhoades

Matt Taibbi Is My New Hero

Matt Taibbi's latest offering at Rolling Stone is absolutely savage. Entitled "The Crying Shame of John Boehner" it contains some of the most scorched-earth political writing I've seen since the glory days of Hunter S. Thompson. It's a long piece, but absolutely worth the time it takes to read. Some of the tastier bits:

John Boehner is the ultimate Beltway hack, a man whose unmatched and self-serving skill at political survival has made him, after two decades in Washington, the hairy blue mold on the American congressional sandwich.

And that's just the first sentence! It gets better...

The Democrats have plenty of creatures like Boehner. But in the new Speaker of the House, the Republicans own the perfect archetype — the quintessential example of the kind of glad-handing, double-talking, K Street toady who has dominated the politics of both parties for decades. In sports, we talk about athletes who are the "total package," and that term comes close to describing Boehner's talent for perpetuating our corrupt and debt-addled status quo: He's a five-tool insider who can lie, cheat, steal, play golf, change his mind on command and do anything else his lobbyist buddies and campaign contributors require of him to get the job done....

After all, the modus operandi for Bush Republicans like Boehner has always been to talk a good game on spending cuts, so long as the cuts were coming out of the food-stamp program or aid to Katrina victims — but they would never go so far, or be so radical, as to cut overall spending, which would require scaling back the industry handouts they have spent so much time putting together on the golf courses of America...

This was always going to be the model of how Republican Party hacks would deal with the Tea Party: Bash the living hell out of hated blue-state Gorgons like Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama, jack off the mob by incorporating the Tea Party's Constitution-and-liberty rhetoric, hand the Tea Party those reforms that the GOP's big campaign contributors want anyway (most notably, tax breaks for the rich and deregulation of big business), and then cough up a note from the doctor or some other lame excuse when the time comes to actually cut spending.

Really. Read the whole thing. I think I need to buy this guy's books....

Christmas Specials That Weren't

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It's that time of year, the Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa season, and the airwaves are filled with cheer and cheesy TV specials. We all have our favorites. I'm rather partial to "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" myself, which should surprise no one.

But, as in every creative field, for every holiday special that takes its place in our hearts and on our DVRs, there are a dozen or more that failed to make the cut. It is to those unsung and unaired works of television art that this week's column is dedicated.

This year's almost-rans:

"A WikiLeaks Christmas Card": Santa's made his list and checked it twice, and now WikiLeaks frontman Julian Assange has gotten hold of it and is prepared to spam the information about who's naughty and nice across the Internet. Unfortunately, no network could be found to host the show, and all of the major newspapers refused to run ads for it.

"Basically," explained New York Times editor Bill Keller, "All of us in the media business are outraged at the behavior of Assange and WikiLeaks. Everyone knows that if you're going to leak something, you need to leak it directly to an actual reporter, not just post it on the Internet like some...blogger or something. It's simply not done."

"Sarah Palin's Caribou-Killin' Christmas": The former governor of Alaska was all set to host a warm and tender holiday special to be simultaneously broadcast on The Outdoor Channel and the Food Network.

During the special, Palin was supposed to shoot various native creatures (wolf, caribou, snowshoe rabbit and field mouse) from an aircraft with a high-powered rifle, then take them back to her home in Wassilla and cook them up for Christmas dinner.

Unfortunately, one of Palin's handlers forgot and left a television on in her trailer. When she saw a rerun of the comedy series "The Office" in which a major character uses the word "retarded, " Palin became enraged. Claiming that this was a direct insult by "Hollywood liberals" to her special-needs child and "all of God's special snowflakes everywhere," she stormed off of the set to sulk, then demanded that the entire rest of the show be presented, unedited, via her Facebook page and Twitter feed.

"Who do they think we are?" an executive from the Food Network was reported to have said, "Fox News?"

"John McCain's Christmas in Arizona": Santa Claus and his elves were to make a personal appearance as the climax of this special, held at the palatial home of the senior senator and failed presidential candidate.

The production collapsed when Santa and his entourage, including elves, got lost because they'd been given directions to the wrong one of McCain's houses, then were arrested and jailed because the elves couldn't produce proper citizenship documentation at a traffic stop.

This column has not been able to confirm reports that Arizona plans to balance its state budget by selling the coal they expect to find in all of its citizens' Christmas stockings to China.

"Man vs. Mall": British adventurer Bear Grylls has faced a number of hazardous situations in his TV career: grizzly bears in the Rockies, dehydration in the burning desert, sheer cliffs and poisonous snakes. But when confronted with the prospect of being caught in the rush of shoppers at a Black Friday 5 a.m. "doorbusters" sale in the Jersey Gardens outlet mall in Elizabeth, N.J., Grylls backed out.

"Keep the money," Grylls told the show's producers, "I'm not bloody stupid." A last-minute plan to replace him with "Jersey Shore" star "The Situation" was abandoned when, as one of the producers put it, "we realized he's just a really awful person."

"Barack Obama's Bipartisan Christmas": The president had hoped to get congressional Republicans to appear in a holiday celebration of peace and reconciliation.

However, incoming Majority Leader John Boehner demanded as a condition of his party's participation that the Democrats repeal the estate tax, agree to a Constitutional Amendment making "Don't Ask Don't Tell" the law of the land, abolish the Department of Education, sell the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge outright to BP and Halliburton, and apologize for Obama winning the election.

When the White House agreed, Boehner sent word back that the Republicans couldn't make it to the show because they were "washing their hair that night".

Guess we'll just have to make do with the shows we've got. Happy viewing, and Happy Holidays! All of them.

John Boehner's Family Is Suffering In This Economy, Too. He Thinks. Maybe.

WaPo:

"I've got real empathy for those who are unemployed," the Ohio Republican said. "As most of you know, I've got 11 brothers and sisters. I know that three of my brothers lost their jobs. I'm not sure whether they've found jobs, yet, so I've got a lot of empathy for those caught in this economic downturn."

Yeah, real empathetic there, John.

Do you at least know how many houses you own?

This has been your daily message from the non-elitist, in-touch-with-the-people party of family values.

It's Not the America I Grew Up In Either. So What?

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Recently, House Minority Leader John Boehner gave an interview to The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review in which he - surprise! - criticized Congressional Democrats and the President.

It was a wide-ranging interview covering subjects like the financial reform bill, which Boehner compared to "killing an ant with a nuclear weapon." (I'm sure people adversely affected by the financial meltdown will be glad to know that the crisis was only an "ant" as far as the Republican leadership is concerned.)

As usual, Boehner trotted out one of the catchphrases of the American right: a professed yearning for, as he put it, "the America he grew up in," which he claims is being "snuffed out" by those awful Democrats.

Well, according to Brother John's Wikipedia page, he was born in 1949. So the "America he grew up in" saw the Red Scares, the polio epidemics, the Korean War, McCarthyism, the Berlin Wall and the hydrogen bomb. It also was the era in which the Vietnam War began, although no one really paid much attention at the time. Oh, and let's not forget the overarching and ever-present dread of a nuclear war that would wipe out civilization (fallout shelters, anyone?)

It should also be noted that America wasn't exactly congenial if you were black, brown, gay or disabled, and was pretty doggone restrictive if you were female. If you were an abused child, your plight was more likely than not to be ignored or hushed up.

I joined up with America in 1962. The America I grew up in saw the aforementioned Vietnam War in full bloody flower, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Bobby Kennedy and Malcolm X, race riots, anti-war riots, the 1968 Chicago "police riot," hippies, Yippies, an exploding drug culture, Nixon, Watergate, Charles Manson, an OPEC embargo which led to a gas crisis, an economic crisis, a hostage crisis, "malaise," a major city going broke, Chrysler going broke (and having to be bailed out), polyester leisure suits, disco, and a limited selection of weak, lousy beer that we only drank because we didn't know that there was anything better. Oh, and there was still that fear that we were going to start swapping nukes with the Russians and wipe out all life on the planet.

Consider this, though: The America Brother John and I grew up in also gave us the vaccine that eradicated polio, the GI Bill, the Marshall Plan, the Interstate highway system, Elvis, Chuck Berry, the Civil Rights Act, the Clean Air Act, the Ford Mustang, the Fender Stratocaster, moon landings, communications satellites, weather satellites, the transistor, the microchip, the MRI ... the list of advancements, societal and scientific, goes on and on.

And now? There are still environmental dangers like the Gulf oil spill, but on average, the country's air and water are measurably cleaner than they used to be. We are able, if we have the will, to give everyone in the country instant access to more information than our ancestors ever dreamed of.

We still have our differences with the Russians, but we don't live in fear that we're going to blow each other off the face of the Earth. We still fear attack, but it's not a world-ending one. Things are not perfect, but they're certainly better, for children, women, minorities, gays and the disabled. And the beer selection is excellent.

The America I grew up in is like the one John Boehner grew up in, the one my children grew up in, and the one that every American child born while you read this column is going to grow up in. It's a place of fear, violence, chaos and injustice. It's a place of hope, kindness, creativity and progress. It's always, as Dickens put it, the best of times and the worst of times.

What America is always doing, though, is moving forward. That progress may be slow, or it moves in fits and starts. That can be frustrating. But there's no going back, Mr. Boehner. The America we grew up in is gone, and it's not coming back. A new one is being made every day on its foundations, just like every day since the country was founded. You can slow that down, but you can't stop it.