Is Michael Steele Hatin' On The GOP Now That He's An MSNBC Analyst?

I used to made it a habit to poke fun at Michael Steele whom I affectionately called "Captian Coontastic" for his many well publicized gaffes as RNC Chairman. But you know what? Now that he no longer fills this role, Steele looks amazingly smarter than perceived now that he's cashing MSNBC checks. Of course I always thought he'd be a mainstay at Fox being the perfect lapdog as he was. But then I remembered that Fox doesn't like Black people. That is, unless they're Republican, and not an embarrassment to the party. So here is Michael Steele working on MSNBC, and taking shots at the GOP establishment... In the above clip that's what it sounded like to me.

But maybe I'm just trippin'.

Hypocrisy Watch: The GOP Opposed To Tax Cuts?

I'm telling you, the GOP is only concerned with destroying president Obama. They don't care about anything else. So much so that if it came down to stopping another terrorist attack on U.S. soil? The GOP will be the welcome wagon. They'll be like, "Oh gee, come on in mister terrorist... yep, g'head and blow op as much shit as you like." They'll knowingly and willingly do this, and for political expediency, they'll blame Barack Obama. They'll blame the president and somehow spin it to suggest that he knew all along what those terrorist bastards were up to. After all, Barack is Muslim, right?

What these assholes are doing right now should piss you off if you're paying attention, if you haven't already. Thank God for these freedom loving American patriots otherwise known as the GOP. Without them, where exactly would we be, right? Well, according to Bloomberg today, not raising the Debt Ceiling would have dire consequences for an already struggling economy that is in slow recovery. Now why would the GOP wanna go and do that, huh?

The U.S. government wouldn’t be able to fund about 50 percent of its obligations and would have to furlough about 800,000 federal workers if Congress fails to approve an increase in the $14.3 trillion debt ceiling, a coalition of former budget officials says.

Sometime in the first half of August, no funding would be available for the Departments of Veterans Affairs, Education and Housing and Urban Development as well as unemployment insurance and Internal Revenue Service refunds, according to a report by the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington.

The study by Jay Powell, a former Treasury undersecretary under President George H.W. Bush, represents a challenge to Senator Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota and other Republicans who dismiss the risks of a government default. Republican presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty said today Republicans should hold out for deep spending cuts before raising the debt ceiling.

[...] There would be just enough to cover payments for Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid and military personnel, assuming Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner gives those programs priority, according to the study.

Turn Right USA Pushes The Most Racist & Sexist GOP Campaign Attack Ad Ever

Clearly when it comes to the GOP and their offspring old habits die hard. I gotta give it to them, they've practically cornered the market on the polarization of America with their race-baiting over the years. And they've done this year in and year out. Wanna convince voters to pull the lever for a Republican candidate? Well, getting that done is simple; you find a Black or Brown face and you exploit it. Yep, nothing like a good this guy might rape or kill you narrative when the face is Black or Brown. Gee, thanks a lot Willie Horton.

Yep, pretty much like the organization Turn Right USA did earlier this week with a campaign attack ad which targets Democratic candidate, Janice Hahn, out in Los Angles. The campaign ad was released as a web only feature, and thankfully so. It's being dubbed as the most racist and sexist GOP ad by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) who have since asked that the ad be condemned by the GOP. No word on any condemnation, however, it's a good thing this ad isn't aired on television.

Check it out:


This would be funny if it were a Chappelle Show skit, but in real life not so much. And even as twisted as my sense of humor happens to be, I was totally shocked and appalled by this ad. But this ad reinforces what we already know about the GOP. That is, they are masters at appealing to the racial sensitivities of their reactionary base, which includes the enablers or minorities within.

Unfortunately, this type of thing actually works. I'm pretty sure that somewhere right now someone who just saw this video is pulling out a check book to donate to th4 GOP cause of winning that seat. After all, we can't have politicians who are in the habit of giving away tax payer dollars to gang-bangers, right? Yep, gang-banger reform and rehabilitation is just as much a bad idea as is gov't funded abortions. Oh, and it's especially bad when it's a white woman endorsing it. White women are more virtuous than that.

As inaccurate as the the theme of the ad - paying gang-bangers to rape and kill - you better believe someone right now is believing this, and is on board with stopping Janice Hahn. Which is a damn shame because I didn't think there were gangs in Los Angele anymore. I'm just saying, you don't hear about them in the media nationally like we used to back in the 90s, but I guess they're back.

How Dems Allowed the Tea Party to Rebrand the GOP

If everything holds true as pretty much every single poll suggests. Democrats are going to take significant losses in the House this midterm elections. I suspect that once it's all said and done and there will be much finger pointing on the left, while folks on the right will see this as some moral victory willed by God.

So, quite naturally, there'll be a lot of blame to go around, that is, if it hasn't started already. But the truth is, the Obama administration, and the Democratic Party, aside from the idiocy that is the right, bears some responsibility, if not all for their demise. However, it would be interesting to see just how this plays out.

With the imaginable quest for bi-partisanship that was as elusive as the unicorn. The White House lead Democrats all but failed to hold up their end of the bargain, and made compromise after compromise.

This from regular reader shadygrady on my last post:

Ladies and Gents....

The POTUS made a strategic mistake in not seizing the moment for bold action to break with what had gone previously. He had the entire free-market right wing orthodoxy on the ropes and not only did he not move in for the kill, he also inexplicably went out of his way to help his opponent off the ropes even while he was being spat upon and kidney punched. In short, the POTUS doesn't seem to have the heart for combat.

Tough talk about "punishing your enemies" or "having to know whose a$$ to kick" doesn't change the fact that 9 times out of 10 when faced with determined and insanely vitriolic opposition from the Right, the POTUS has either tried to find middle ground or folded. And whether or not it's true, insulting the intelligence or concerns of the larger American electorate is not a winning political strategy. Neither was being 100% concerned on health care while unemployment rate was consistently over 9% too smart politically.

So whatever happens tomorrow, I hope that the POTUS can learn and readjust. If not, well the next two years will be that much more interesting.

I couldn't agree more; but I suppose folks would say he's wrong.

The following commentary comes from The Real News Network's senior editor, Paul Jay. In it he sums up the frustration of many progressives and members of the "professional" and "unprofessional" left such as myself.

Take the time to view it, and do share your thoughts, will you? Do tell me, in your opinion, where exactly did things go wrong, and just how did we get here with only 2yrs removed 2008's presidential mandate?

The Republican Party "Repudiates" Nazi Re-enactor; Quiet on Happy Slave Pics

by JuJuBe (Joanna)

First of all, I want to make it abundantly clear that I do not think it is cute , or appropriate to run around wearing Nazi memorabilia and re-enact the horrendous activities perpetrated by that regime. But, I do need to pose the question: Why is it that the GOP's Eric Cantor felt it necessary to make a public statement repudiating a candidate who participated in such activities while his party virtually IGNORED (and attempted to DEFEND) the pictures that came out a few weeks ago featuring South Carolina senate president Glen McConnell posing as a Confederate General surrounded by smiling, happy "slaves"??

Rich Iott, the candidate who was seen posing in pictures dressed as a Nazi was participating in World War II re-enactments, ostensibly as a "history buff". Personally, I cannot understand anyone who OPPOSES certain ideology wanting to participate in any activity that can be seen as EMULATING people who held to those principles. To me, if you dress as a Nazi and pretend to be a Nazi, you most like sympathize with the cause of Nazis. However, the same standard should apply to Civil War re-enactments. If you dress as a Confederate general, you are displaying support for the message behind the Confederate cause. Both actions to me are equally heinous. Yet apparently, to the GOP, appearing to support the ideals of the Confederacy are more acceptable than appearing to support Nazi ideology. Could it be because of the identity of the VICTIMS of such oppressive regimes? Are the victims of the Jewish Holocaust more important, more deserving of respect than the victims of the Black Holocaust?

What makes the story even more interesting to me is that in the case of South Carolina senator McConnell, he was dressed that way NOT for an historically accurate portrayal of the Civil War, but rather for a SOCIAL GATHERING, which, in my opinion, makes HIS actions even MORE deplorable. At least Iott had the EXCUSE that he was simply interested in World War II history, and was PLAYING A PART in an organized program regarding historical events. Whether one chooses to BELIEVE his excuse is not even at issue, but at least he could provide some REASON behind his actions. McConnell simply seemed to think it was a fun way to cut loose!

This is Life in America After the Projected GOP Midterm Takeover (Be Afraid, Be very Afraid!)

I really haven't been in the mood to talk politics for a little while now; and I'm not sure if you've noticed that. But I hear that, with six weeks out, the president is fired up and asking for help; and, I got an email today with an invitation to sit down with House Majority Whip Jim Cyburn next Thursday.

It would appear that the good Congressman from South Carolina is performing an outreach to black bloggers. Which is a great thing considering just how active we were during the primaries, and presidential campaign in 2008. I'm not attending the event in person. However, I do intend to participate via a conference call..

So anyway, even though I'm not really feeling politics right now, I can't ignore the one story that truly made my day. I'm not sure if I was gonna have a bad day or not. But thanks to John Boehner, I had a great laugh for my first read earlier this morning, and I'm pretty sure that it set the tone for the rest of my day.

See, my man John Boehner was hanging out on everybody's favorite network with Chris Wallace on 'Fox News Sunday'. And in the discussion, he had the nerve to suggest that now wasn't the time to focus on solutions to the vast problems that plagues the nation.

No seriously; that's what he said. Yep, we got problems, but, err, umm, now isn't the time to talk about solutions? Yeah I know, not hardly the line to run before an election, but hey, it's the GOP. Those guys have been bankrupt on ideas for quite some time.

That is, excluding the American Jobs Creation Act of 2004, of course; an act that provided huge tax breaks to corporate entities, who in return took jobs overseas. Uh-huh, they created jobs alright...

Random Thoughts of a Radical Progressive Puerto Rican

-=[ Ramblin’ Man]=-

I don’t mean to poke fun at such a serious topic, and I should add that I once seriously considered the same route, but I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that a NYC man yesterday jumped off his high rise building, plunged 40 stories, landed in the backseat area of a Dodge Charger after crashing through the windshield... and survived. Broken legs, critical condition.

When I made the commitment to jump, a strong wind from an early November Nor’easter knocked me on my skinny, seriously malnourished, drug addicted ass as I attempted to scale the Brooklyn Bridge’s pedestrian walkway (yes, a drama queen to the end, no regular rooftop for yours truly. I was going out in style, muthafuckas!). Some would say that the wind was a blessing or a gift from some God (who apparently had nothing better to do that day), but my state of mind was such that I considered the event the worst of insults: I was such a loser; I couldn’t even commit suicide successfully. I became convinced that with my luck, my suicide attempts would only manage to leave me crippled, so I stopped all thoughts of taking the short cut. I did try to get other people to do it for me, but that’s another story.

So today, as I reflect on this man's actions as well as my own, I wonder about his thoughts, his state of mind, and I have to wonder if he's regretting having survived his actions... I wish him some measure of serenity and clarity.

Oh yeah, President Obama... the speech last night is now being eviscerated for not being celebratory enough by the same chickenhawk pundits and politicians who cooked the evidence in creating that Mess in Mesopotamia in the first place. I’ll be honest and admit that I didn’t watch the speech, but I getting some chuckles from people like Chuckles the Clown (Charles Krauthammer), and that Wolfowitz twit (the latter stating that we should stay in Iraq, like, forever).

Well, people? How the fuck do we celebrate the cluster fuck now known as the Iraq War? It was a mistake from the get-go; incompetent men who had never fought a war bungled it from the beginning. Moreover, let’s not forget that we shouldn’t have been there to begin with. And you know what? This ain’t over yet, you bloodthirsty imbeciles. Rachel Maddow does a great job of listing the lies that took us there:

So I'm thinking about becoming a Republican, and...

I'm gonna need somebody to talk me out of it.

I'm at my end of my rope and at the "if you can't beat 'em join 'em," stage.

I mean damn, a brotha can only chase racism for so long, ya know?

So take your best shot; state your case for or against the idea...

I'm listening....

Tea Party Express: "Get On The Bus, Pay Your Fare, And Tell The Driver That You're Going To A Double Dutch Affair"

Detective Lester Freamon of the hit series The Wire prophetically once said: "You follow drugs, you get drug addicts and drug dealers. But you start to follow the money, and you don't know where the fuck it's gonna take you." No truer words have ever been said especially when it comes to power and politics. case in point, the not so grassroots political activists who've dubbed themselves as The Tea Party Express. Or as I'd now like to call them, the white new millennium Freedom Riders with Jon Voight as the driver.

Journalist Kenneth P. Vogel, lays out an excellent piece over at POLITICO that exposes the Tea Party Express for the money grubbing Republican "activists" that they are. The piece is titled: GOP operatives crash the tea party; and it's a piece well worth the read. However, I suspect that it's being touted as more of the same "liberal media bias" by our concerned citizens within the Tea Party Movement. Especially by those in the movement who are blind to the symbiotic relationship between the Tea Party and the GOP, or at least pretend to be.

BREAKING NEWS: GOP claims Kunta Kinte as a Republican hero

Can one of you tell the GOP that the days of slavery are long gone? No seriously, somebody tell them that it's not cool for White folks to run around claiming ownership of Black people anymore. I'm not sure if America having its first Black president has anything to do with it entirely, but I'm willing to bet a smidgen of it does.

Today the Republican National Committee (RNC) unveiled its new website. Ironically and just in time for the major league baseball post season, added to their site as one of two dozen “GOP Hero” is Jackie Robinson. Jackie Robinson as you know, is credited for breaking the color barrier that was professional baseball. Just great, not only do us Negroes have to contend with the argument that Martin Luther King Jr. was a Republican, now we have to add Jackie Robinson to the mix.

According to the site Jackie Robinson was a “Great Republican” who campaigned for Richard Nixon's presidential campaign in 1960. Oh, and let’s not forget that in 1964, he also supported New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller's campaign. He did both, but according to his autobiography “Jackie Robinson: A Biography,” by Arnold Rampersad, Jackie Robinson identified himself politically as a “registered independent”.

The book acknowledges Robinson's support of Republicans, but quoted Robinson, speaking in 1959, this way:

“I guess you’d call me an independent since I’ve never identified myself with one party or another in politics.” He was, in fact, a registered independent. But already Robinson had shown a clear disposition to support Republicans, and in particular Nixon.

Jackie Robinson also had to say this about the Republican Party after Barry Goldwater won the nomination over Rockefeller, when speaking about the GOP 1964 National Convention:

That convention was one of the most unforgettable and frightening experiences of my life. The hatred I saw was unique to me because it was hatred directed against a white man. It embodied a revulsion for all he stood for, including his enlightened attitude towards black people.

A new breed of Republicans had taken over the GOP. As I watched this steamroller operation in San Francisco, I had a better understanding of how it must have felt to be a Jew in Hitler’s Germany.

If Jackie Robinson was a Republican he damn sure didn't sound like it, did he? But hey, that's revisionist history for you. If Jackie Robinson was a “Great Republican Hero”, can you imagine what they'll be saying about George W. Bush in about another 50yrs from now? The irony of Robinson’s description of the party is that there isn't that much difference strategically by the GOP of today. They are as divisive now as they were back then, and they play on the further polarization of the nation for political expediency.

But I guess if you visit the site like I did, and you think like I think, you couldn't help but to laugh at how they painstakingly took care to be sure that they had a few minorities splashed on their hero page other than Michael Steele [Click here to check it out]. My spider sense is tingling and telling me that had John McCain won the presidency instead of Obama, they would give two shits about Jackie Robinson – or any other minority for that matter. One has to wonder how come they have yet to lay claims to Kunta Kinte.

Who said George Bush don't like Black people!

You know I get sick of you people crying about racism as it applies to Barack Obama. Bill Clinton was the first Black president, but did y'all cry about racism then? No you didn't; and even he (Bill Clinton) came out recently and said that all these protests were not racist. Yeah, Jimmy Carter is just an old man from the south stuck in the time period of his youth as are all Black people who are still stuck on slavery. But anyway, while you people dwell on the trivial and insignificant elements of our culture. Allow me to take a moment to praise our former president George W. Bush. The last thing I'd like to see happen is for you people to have him go down in history as a racist man as y'all have erroneously done to the great Abraham Lincoln.

There's a new book on shelves, Speechless: Tales of a White House Survivor, written by Matt Latimer, a former Bush administration employee. In it he describes a 2008 California GOP fundraiser he attended while he worked at the White House. The president gave a speech to his donors which described his fight with alcoholism as only he has lived it. Check out the following excerpt from page 177 of the book as it describes just how Bush reached out to give hope to a few bad apples as he visited a prison ministry program. It must be noted that Mr. Bush is really big on those faith based initiatives, hence him taking time out of his busy schedule to do God's work such as invading Iraq, but that's another post:

He talked about his own failings with alcoholism as the reason he supported his faith-based initiative. “My philosophy is, find somebody who hurts and do something about it,” he said. “Don’t wait for government to tell you what to do.” He bluntly talked about his own situation. “I was beginning to love alcohol over my wife and kids. It got to a point when Billy Graham came into my life. But I was hardheaded and didn’t want to listen for a while. And then I stopped drinking overnight. I am a one-man faith-based initiative. Alcohol was competing for my affections. And it would have ruined me.”

He said things that could ruffle feathers, such as how he’d recently gone to a faith-based program run by “former drunks.” He said he went to see a prison ministry program, noting that ‘everyone was black, of course.” All eyes turned in search of the sole African American in the audience of donors. They wanted to see if he was offended.

Of course the author, Matt Latimer went on to add that the African-American man didn't “appear to be” offended at all. As a matter of fact, he went on to defend Mr. Bush's statement by saying “[He] didn’t mean it in a derogatory way. He just liked making blunt observations to shock his audience.” Now see, if only we could get you people to all start thinking like this Black man (who's probably a devout Republican Christian) things would be right with America.

It's obvious that you people are unappreciative of George Bush’s pedigree. Uh huh, I've heard that some of you people are still upset because of what Barbara Bush said about those poor evacuees’ refugees after Hurricane Katrina “who were underprivileged anyway.” Sure some of you may think that a turd doesn't fall too far from the ass crack, but, I think you people who think that are just being racist as always. If George Bush didn't like God or Black people, would he have taken the time to visit all those irresponsible Black drunken addicts in prison?

Aww man, what's that word again?

How are you gonna be the Executive Director of the SPCA of Richmond Virginia, protest against Mike Vick returning to the NFL, but you're being investigated for forgetting your pet dog locked in the car in the heat leading to its death?

Is that sorta like being pro-life, pro-abstinence only education, and then your 17yr old daughter is pregnant while you run to be Vice President of the United States?

Is it sorta like a preacher who is vehemently against homosexuality, but yet you get busted doing Meth and having sex with men?

Is that sorta like championing family values, but leaving the country to have sex with another woman, missing Father's Day with your sons while being Governor, and future presidential hopeful?

Is that sorta like being a prominent married politician and family man, and having your parents pay off your side action "jump off" quiet about an extra marital affair?

Is that sorta like being a political player in a certain political party who supported end of life counseling in the 2003 Medicare prescription drug bill, but now you're scaring old people (and fools) to death into thinking that the current administration is going to kill them?

Lets see, there's a word for this isn't it? Oh wait, don't they call them Republicans Hypocrites?


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