Sunday Roast: The ghost of teabaggery past

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This video is from earlier this year, when Allen West made his stunningly idiotic remark, “I believe there’s about 78 to 81 members of the Democrat Party who are members of the Communist Party. It’s called the Congressional Progressive Caucus.”

Aside from the hair-raising bad grammar, having publicly made such a statement is rather incredible — and just goes to show how out of hand our public discourse has become.  The new normal?  West’s remarks were generally reported in the media as just another crazy remark made by a crazy guy — if they were reported at all, outside the liberal blogosphere.

While Allen West’s grotesque remarks reminded Bill Moyers of the horrible Joe McCarthy, when his ghost “slithered into the room,” this video made me think of the more recent, and equally contemptible, behavior of Darrell Issa and his completely bogus witch hunt against Attorney General Eric Holder.

Who is today’s Joseph N. Welch?  Is there anyone on Capital Hill with the courage and integrity to say words to the effect of…

You’ve done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?

I know we’ve been screaming it all along, but we’re just bloggers, you know.  The media doesn’t like to admit or acknowledge that bloggers now do their jobs, while they rake in the big bucks to say, “We’ll just have to leave it there.”

Bill Moyers ends his comments with this:

So beware, Congressman West, beware: In the flammable pool of toxic paranoia that passes these days as patriotism in America, a single careless match can light an inferno. You would serve your country well to withdraw your remarks and apologize for them. But if not, perhaps there are members of your own party, as possessed of conscience and as courageous as that handful of Republicans who took on Joseph McCarthy, who will now abandon fear and throw cold water on your incendiary remarks.

No, I don’t think there are any members of the Republican party who will stop the likes of Allen West, Steve King, Michele Bachmann, Sarah Palin, etc.  As terrible as those times were in the McCarthy era, I believe they are worse now.  The Republicans have shown time after time that they are perfectly happy with the birtherism, tentherism, and racism of its more vocal extremists.  They will not shut the extremists down, nor will they ever disavow them in any convincing manner.  John Boehner and Mitch McConnell can barely conceal their glee and their “wink and a nod” toward the teabagger crowd.

And today’s media?  The band played on…

This is our daily open thread — Speak up!

100 thoughts on “Sunday Roast: The ghost of teabaggery past”

    • Happy Canada Day.
      http://www.pch.gc.ca/eng/1292265752243/1292265752246

      Isn’t Canada a socialist country that provides health care for everyone? Is it the US “commie to the north”? I’m just being sarcastic.

      How dare Allen West challenge our patriotism. How dare he challenge the patriotism of our President and Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. Allen West is a no body and because he has so much self-hatred, he feels the need to lash out and blame others just like all bullies do.

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      • Thanks Cats. We rented bikes this morning. Haven’t rode a bike for 10 years or more. Hopefully we won’t be testing our health care system!!!!

        Riding a bike is hard. LOL

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      • Thanks Jane.

        Got up at 4:45 am to go to a local park and watch the sunrise and listen to the birds. Started out as a beautiful Canada Day but we now have a thunderstorm bearing down on us. We are waiting it out before we give those bikes another go.

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  3. I must get busy. There is an “Open House” scheduled at my place today so I must bake some goodies so that the house smells of good food. I’ll try to catch up with folks laters. It’s a beautiful morning here in southeast Pennsylvania.

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    • That’s really cool. Thank you for the good wishes. I’m just killing time until the realtor shows up and they we will be out of here for a few hours. We will be lucky is anyone shows up for the Open House. Our house is a one of kind in a rural area. It’s a great location for someone that loves to garden and enjoys birds and nature. This limits the number of people that would be interested in our house.

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  5. Right now I’m watching a groundhog grazing in the back yard. He’s aiming in the direction of the back deck, where at least two of our cats are sleeping in the shade. Occasionally a bird will land on or under the birdfeeders, less than 10 feet from our Missy, but she’s apparently too hot to bother with them.

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    • The ground hogs have destroyed my husband’s grape vines. It’s his own fault. He should have caged the young plants. I love the man dearly but he just isn’t cut out to be a farmer.

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    • Speaking of such silliness, Debbie tells about when she was teaching in Tennessee and one of the other female teachers — a hyper-Christer who “taught” Sex “Education” to middle school girls — warned them that when they started having their monthly periods they should NOT use tampons; NEVER! Doing such would, of course, end their virginity, a very very bad bad thing. True, the girls weren’t at any elevated murder risk as a consequence, but still it goes to show you that there ain’t any one god-based religion that’s any less nutty than the next one.

      If god so hated sex, why the hell did he ‘create’ it in the first place? Did god have a dirty mind or something? A tee-tiny woodie, perhaps? We could ask the virgin Mary if we knew where to find her.

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      • I hope that the Democrats use that “Not the issue” in their ad campaigns.

        Here’s the word on the street in my Congressional District. In a recent poll, the Democrat, Manan Trivedi, is tied with the incumbent Republican placeholder, Jim Gerlach. I’m hoping that the voters are getting the message that Gerlach voted to dismantle Medicare and voted to take away their health care options. I would love to see Gerlach kicked out of Congress. He is useless to his constituents and is only a Republican vote for their war on women.

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    • Ok, so now we have replace Obama Care with allowing insurance companies to sell health insurance across state lines, and “tort reform”.

      Health insurance companies already sell across state lines. But I recall in the debate regarding that proposal, the way the Republicans wanted it to operate was not good – something about catering to the lowest common denominator. Perhaps someone else has a better recollection, or more time to look it up.

      But tort reform? People generally don’t realize that it means when a doctoer commits medical malpractice, they won’t be able to recover for the harm done. It does nothing to reduce medical costs, but does increase the profits of the insurance industry. We have “tort reform” in California. It caps damages so low, and medical malpractice is so expensive to litigate (expert testimony can run 10 grand a day) that it is impossible to pursue in all but the most eggregious cases. And, here’s the kicker, in the most eggregious cases, the cap on damages kicks in (250k for pain and suffering in California) meaning the more your doctor hurt you, the less, percentage-wise, you’ll recover. A multi-million dollar case is capped at $250k for pain and suffering, same as a $100k case.

      Fair? I think not. But it was passed by the people, who were sold a bill of goods. And millions of people keep buying the same line, so Republicans are going to keep selling it.

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      • it was passed by the people, who were sold a bill of goods. And millions of people keep buying the same line, so Republicans are going to keep selling it.

        And therein lies the rub. When ‘the people’ are too blinded by rhetoric, or shortage of intellect, or poor education, or anything else, then it’s all over but the screaming and the crying. The bad guys have won.

        Curiously enough, “God” Itself perfectly described the fate of those of us who are not Republican-inspired (i.e Republicanishly-disabled, to coin a descriptor) when “He” “wrote”:

        And where is now my hope?
        As for my hope, who shall see it?
        They shall go down to the bars of the pit,
        When our rest together is in the dust.
        ~Job 17:15-16

        Still, as Mitch McConnell would undoubtedly point out, “That is not the issue.” The issue, of course, is the upward distribution of everything, along with the destruction of the nation and the biosphere in the process. It’s the Republicanisher dream. Old as dirt, but always ‘new’ to the intellectually disabled, i.e. “We the people” for the most part.

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      • People buy into the whole “tort reform” thing, until something horrible happens to them or their loved ones, and then comes the lightbulb moment. Blame liberals!!!

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  9. I see that ESPN is having a kickball contest in a little while. 😀

    I might just watch that, in case there’s a few minutes of excitement two hours after it starts, like the Italy-England contest the other day!

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  11. Hotter-n-Hell?

    Hell is cooler than heaven, if you believe in such things, according to a mathematical proof:

    “Isaiah 30:26 reads, Moreover the light of the Moon shall be as the light of the Sun and the light of the Sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days. Thus Heaven receives from the Moon as much radiation as the Earth does from the Sun and in addition seven times seven (forty-nine) times as much as the Earth does from the Sun, or fifty times in all. … The exact temperature of Hell cannot be computed but it must be less than 444.6°C, the temperature at which brimstone or sulfur changes from a liquid to a gas. Revelations 21:8: But the fearful and unbelieving … shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone. A lake of molten brimstone means that its temperature must be below the boiling point, which is 444.6°C. (Above that point it would be a vapor, not a lake.)

    We have then, temperature of Heaven, 525°C. Temperature of Hell, less than 445°C. Therefore, Heaven is hotter than Hell.”

    The Grate Beyond

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  13. I realize that it’s not likely that we will ever get a “librul media” but I sure would like to see a functional one. If we had a functional media then every newscast, from now to the election, would include a “what question did Mittens blow off today” segment. A little debunking of the Reichwhiners would be nice too instead of “we’ll have to leave it there”.

    BTW, Zooey. I’m glad to hear that I’m not the only one disgusted by that little gambit. It’s the ultimate cop-out when a guest is telling obvious and easily debunked lies. Sigh… Modern “news” refuses to take the chance of being called “librul” (though that doesn’t stop the Reichwhiners) or losing access (which isn’t a problem with Mittens because he already refuses to address the legitimate press/media.).

    http://thinkprogress.org/election/2012/07/01/509328/romney-advisors-reveal-strategy-ignore-journalists-pander-to-right-wing-conspriacy-websites/

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      • Even if Mittens agrees to a debate hosted by reputable people I don’t know if I’ll be able to stand them. Between the “librul media” playing the false equivalency card and Mittens simply refusing to answer the questions posed I might be forced to do something desperate. although, it will be interesting to count the contradictions from Mittens.

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    • Who the hell are they to state what is or isn’t?

      …engage in biologically aberrant sexual behavior.

      The fundies disgust me to no end! So obsessed with others sexual behavior – they should get out of the damn missionary business altogether…
      practice something else. It might be enjoyable!!

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    • Yeah, one of the Italians was injured and had to leave the game, in the second period, and for reasons that escape my understanding of the rules, Italy had to play one player short from that point to the end. After that, Spain toyed with them until they were worn out and scored the two second half goals with relative ease.

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  22. Today, I drove past a house that had a Ron Paul for President sign on the lawn. The front porch also had American flag banners draped across the top. The house was boarded up because there was a fire in the house. I wonder if the owner hired a private fire extinguishing company or if they relied on the taxpayer/volunteer neighborhood fire company to put out the fire.

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    • I would bet given the continuing partisanship of Justice Scalia, that it was Tony that leaked to the conservative media, especially in light of his opinion recently to the press about Obama.

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  27. They say that misery loves company. While we are not predicted to get quite as miserable as back east we are not supposed to get much below 80 tonight. Humidity is rising and heat indexes are predicted to be over 105 for the next few days. Since the pool building isn’t air conditioned I think I might join the waterfowl and submerge myself in the swamp for a couple days or find someone running a sprinkler. Did I mention that my air conditioner crapped out? They say they’ll have a new one for me Tuesday. At least my newly thinned out frame should be able to deal with the heat a little better than last summer.

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    • There’s no such thing as global warming///

      (we don’t learn do we?…five years later and the mega wildfires continue)

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    • What makes it even ‘better’ is Gov. Skeletor amassed the fortune necessary to buy the governorship with the $70+ million that had fallen into his sofa cushions after his company defrauded Medicare to the tune of $1.7 BILLION.

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      • How he was never implicated remains a mystery.
        Scratch that – he’s of the Repugnant Party, therefore blameless.

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