The GOP & the Christian Right

[Cynnie]

My lifestyle choice? I didn't choose heterosexuality, The FSM (may you be touched by His Noodly Appendage) made me this way.  Just like He made you a dimwit.

I love you:)

Dat was funny

[Quick Karl]

It was a "dig", a spoonful of some participant's own medicine, for the fun of it.

I do not believe in a God that has a personal relationship with people, but I would never belittle people that do. But when someone goes out of their way to belittle someone based on their belief, you can be sure that I will belittle them in kind. It's very entertaining to see how much they dislike the taste of their own bile.

I agree, certain topics have no place in political debates. Maybe you should remind a few other folks too? Or is it "OK" for them?

And Michelle Malkin is incredibly hott - and I do agree with most of her politics (now we wait for some hate filled person to dig up something Michelle said that they disagree with, connect it to me without having the slightest clue as to my position on the topic, and get mad at me when I point out the stupidity of their tactic).

Hey, QuickKarl...  gotta say, you lost me, too, with the homosexual remark.  To be honest, political debate is very difficult.  As I've noted dozens of times on this forum, Joe has his facts and statistics, and Bob has his.  Joe's sources are always indisputable.  Bob's sources are junk.  Joe's behavior and beliefs always stem from honesty, courage, hard work... we all know, however, that Bob's a lazy, dishonest ne'er-do-well.

Political debate is still more difficult when you throw in the amount of intellectual effort it really takes to try to present one's point of view... sooner or later, it is all to easy to resort to the politics of the personal, to bring up someone's religion (or lack thereof), race, sexuality, etc.  I see it on both sides.  On the Limbaugh thread under talk radio, I do see people who'd probably identify themselves as good and true progressives commenting on Rush's weight, which, really, is neither here nor there.  I see people who'd describe themselves as tolerant and open-minded comment on someone's gayness or physical appearance.  Look, I think that Ann Coulter is not an attractive woman.  I think Michelle Malkin is, physically, a knockout.  I disagree almost entirely with both women's politics.  But if I start basing my disagreement with them on aspects of their physical being they can't really change (race, facial appearance, body weight, sexuality, etc.), I'm really getting derailed, don't you think?

We need to see each other with better eyes.

[West of the Rockies]

It was a "dig", a spoonful of some participant's own medicine, for the fun of it.

I do not believe in a God that has a personal relationship with people, but I would never belittle people that do. But when someone goes out of their way to belittle someone based on their belief, you can be sure that I will belittle them in kind. It's very entertaining to see how much they dislike the taste of their own bile.

I agree, certain topics have no place in political debates. Maybe you should remind a few other folks too? Or is it "OK" for them?

And Michelle Malkin is incredibly hott - and I do agree with most of her politics (now we wait for some hate filled person to dig up something Michelle said that they disagree with, connect it to me without having the slightest clue as to my position on the topic, and get mad at me when I point out the stupidity of their tactic).

I don't belittle people for their spiritual beliefs.  I grew up attending a private religious school (Catholic) but never got confirmed.  I've taken religious studies courses at the university, done much exploring on my own.  My late best friend was a Lutheran minister with a degree from Concordia in St. Louis.  I run pretty agnostic these days.  I don't feel a need to identify myself as one thing or another -- I can live with doubt and mystery.  Faith can be a powerful, powerful force in some people's lives.  It can be horribly abused as well (as in the fundamental Islam manner).  Fundamentalists come in all stripes; some seem more grounded than others.  The Westboro Baptist Church may not be assassinating teenaged girls, but they cause a lot of grief in their own unique way.  The two (fundamentalist Islam/WBC) are not roughly equivalent, of course.

And, NO, it would not be good and fair in my eyes for someone "on my side" to bring up certain topics, but then again, I'm no one's dad here.  People are gonna do what people are gonna do.  Just remember, we are judged by our words (as you well know).

I won't bring up any past Malkin nonsense.  I greatly admire all sorts of people (Carl Sagan, Abe Lincoln, Alfred Einstein, Richard Feynman among others).  I daresay they have all at some point in time been less than perfect, uttered something that made them sound a little foolish.  I DO think some people sound like knuckleheads much more often than other people though, too, such as Twitchy Woman (see how high she flies).

[RealCool Daddio]

It was a "dig", a spoonful of some participant's own medicine, for the fun of it.

I do not believe in a God that has a personal relationship with people, but I would never belittle people that do. But when someone goes out of their way to belittle someone based on their belief, you can be sure that I will belittle them in kind. It's very entertaining to see how much they dislike the taste of their own bile.

I agree, certain topics have no place in political debates. Maybe you should remind a few other folks too? Or is it "OK" for them?

And Michelle Malkin is incredibly hott - and I do agree with most of her politics (now we wait for some hate filled person to dig up something Michelle said that they disagree with, connect it to me without having the slightest clue as to my position on the topic, and get mad at me when I point out the stupidity of their tactic).

You mean your witty repertoire of schoolyard taunts ("like a little girl", "adolescent", "gay")?  I guess this kind of thing is pretty par for the course with the Teabaggers.  Eventually, without fail, they are reduced to silly name calling and base bigotry.  Because that's really all they are about, right?

[PB the Deplorable]

Repeal of Roe/Wade.  Support of DOMA and similar initiatives. Teaching of "intelligent" design.

You might want to wander over to TeaPart.org.  60+ time Noory guest Jerome Corsi, one of the new darlings of the movement, has a front page article up.

[/i]You will know them by the company they keep.

That's it, that's the scary extremism the Tea Party brings to the table?


Allow me to off a few examples of extremism that are actually dangerous and destructive - to our nation, to our economy, to our form of government, and which make the world a more dangerous place.


Ignoring the revolution in Libya until the jihadi Muslims hijacked it, then supplying them with weapons and assistance

Ignoring the revolution in Egypt until the Moslem Brotherhood stole it, then supporting them

Ignoring the revolution in Syria until al-Qaeda flooded into the country, then supporting them diplomatically, giving them weapons, and nearly providing air support and shelling targets provided by them

Ignoring the pleas for help at Benghazi, and going to bed during the attack there instead.  Then running out the clock with a pack of lies about it in the run up to the November election.

Cutting off military aid to Egypt after the removal of the Brotherhood before they could turn that country into e next Iran

Spying on the AP

Setting up saturation spying in the US on all citizens - photographing both sides of all mail, recoding and storing all phone conversations,  tracking everyone's internet use, keeping as much financial information as they can get.  Next up they want all our private health records as part of ObamaCare.  They are looking to see who our associates are on social networking sites.

Setting the IRS on their political opponents and denying new organizations status to keep them out of the game during the last election campaign.

The illegal use of Executive Privilege in order to obstruct Congressional oversight looking into running guns to the Mexican drug cartels in Fast and Furious

The illegal use of Executive Orders to create law that either Congress would not agree to, or to change laws he didn't agree with

Creation of the illegal czars as a way of appointing a bunch of Marxists and Leftists that would never have received the required Senate confirmation.

I would say not addressing the economy in any positive way, and throwing up hurdles when ever and where ever he gets the chance also qualifies as extremism.  Even though Carter utterly failed to get the economy on the right path, he was at least trying to do something positive - it's just that his worldview was wrong.




There's more, but you get the idea.  Actual real examples of extremism, not the old canards like abortion, cutting taxes and teaching creationism.

[RealCool Daddio]

I love you:)

Dat was funny

Back at ya!

[attachimg=1]

[RealCool Daddio]

That's it, that's the scary extremism the Tea Party brings to the table?


Allow me to off a few examples of extremism that are actually dangerous and destructive - to our nation, to our economy, to our form of government, and which make the world a more dangerous place.


Ignoring the revolution in Libya until the jihadi Muslims hijacked it, then supplying them with weapons and assistance

Ignoring the revolution in Egypt until the Moslem Brotherhood stole it, then supporting them

Ignoring the revolution in Syria until al-Qaeda flooded into the country, then supporting them diplomatically, giving them weapons, and nearly providing air support and shelling targets provided by them

Ignoring the pleas for help at Benghazi, and going to bed during the attack there instead.  Then running out the clock with a pack of lies about it in the run up to the November election.

Cutting off military aid to Egypt after the removal of the Brotherhood before they could turn that country into e next Iran

Spying on the AP

Setting up saturation spying in the US on all citizens - photographing both sides of all mail, recoding and storing all phone conversations,  tracking everyone's internet use, keeping as much financial information as they can get.  Next up they want all our private health records as part of ObamaCare.  They are looking to see who our associates are on social networking sites.

Setting the IRS on their political opponents and denying new organizations status to keep them out of the game during the last election campaign.

The illegal use of Executive Privilege in order to obstruct Congressional oversight looking into running guns to the Mexican drug cartels in Fast and Furious

The illegal use of Executive Orders to create law that either Congress would not agree to, or to change laws he didn't agree with

Creation of the illegal czars as a way of appointing a bunch of Marxists and Leftists that would never have received the required Senate confirmation.

I would say not addressing the economy in any positive way, and throwing up hurdles when ever and where ever he gets the chance also qualifies as extremism.  Even though Carter utterly failed to get the economy on the right path, he was at least trying to do something positive - it's just that his worldview was wrong.




There's more, but you get the idea.  Actual real examples of extremism, not the old canards like abortion, cutting taxes and teaching creationism.

Quite the list.  Yet at the Values Voters summit today, where Tea Party folks are busy laying out their agenda, the most pressing item on their quest to save America was, um, the evils of the pill.  Birth Control.  Yep, they sure got their priorities straight.

Look, some of the items you mention are legitimate concerns.  You do have a tendency to fall into the Fox News habit of overdramatizing the issues, with an undercurrent of Muslem fear, and toss around the term Marxist like Quick Karl calls people adolescents,  but whatever. Just don't look to the conservative American establishment for comfort.  They are far more interested in legislating morality than they are in solving the country's problems.

[jan78]

Support of DOMA and similar initiatives.

Might that be the DOMA approved in 1996 by the arch-extremist Bill Clinton?

[West of the Rockies]

Keep in mind that in '96, the majority of Americans still did not support same-sex marriage.  That has changed with a plurality (a small majority) of Americans now supporting it.  The number of supporters is, of course, higher in younger Americans.  Clinton, it could be said, was acting upon the wishes of the majority.

[Quick Karl]

“History does not repeat itself, but it does rhyme.”

Mark Twain’s insight comes to mind as one observes the panic of Beltway Republicans over the latest polls in the battle of Obamacare.

According to Gallup, approval of the Republican Party has sunk 10 points in two weeks to 28 percent, an all-time low. In the Wall Street Journal/NBC poll, approval of the GOP has fallen to 24 percent. (I wonder what percentage is Independants and Republicans that are SICK of McCain / Graham types? QK)

In the campaign to persuade America of their Big Lie â€" that the House Republicans shut down the government â€" the White House and its media chorus appear to have won this round.

Yet, the truth is the Republicans House has voted three times to keep open and to fund every agency, department and program of the U.S. government, except for Obamacare.

And they voted to kill that monstrosity but once.

Republicans should refuse to raise the white flag and insist on an honorable avenue of retreat.

And if Harry Reid’s Senate demands the GOP end the sequester on federal spending, or be blamed for a debt default, the party should, Samson-like, bring down the roof of the temple on everybody’s head.

This is an honorable battle lost, not a war.

Why, after all, did Republicans stand up? Because they believe Obamacare is an abomination, a new entitlement program this nation, lurching toward bankruptcy, cannot afford.

It is imposing increases in health care premiums on millions of Americans, disrupting doctor-patient relationships and forcing businesses to cut workers back to 29 hours a week. Even Democratic Sen. Max Baucus has predicted a coming “train wreck.”

Now if the Republican Party believes this, what choice did the House have except to fight to defund or postpone it, against all odds, and tune out the whining of the “We-can’t-win!” Republican establishment?

And if Republicans are paralyzed by polls produced by this three-week skirmish, they should reread the history of the party and the movement to which they profess to belong.

In the early 1960s, when the postwar right rose to challenge JFK with Mr. Conservative, events and actions conspired to put Barry Goldwater in the worst hole of a Republican nominee in history.

Kennedy was murdered in Dallas one year before the election. Goldwater had glibly hinted he would privatize Social Security, sell the Tennessee Valley Authority and “lob one into the men’s room at the Kremlin.”

After his defeat of Nelson Rockefeller in the California primary assured his nomination, Goldwater was 59 points behind LBJ â€" 77-18.

Rockefeller, George Romney and William Scranton â€" to the cheers of the Washington press, began to attack Goldwater for “extremism” and failing to vote for the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

At the Cow Palace convention, liberals demanded Goldwater rewrite the platform to equate The John Birch Society with the Communist Party USA and the Ku Klux Klan, which had murdered four black girls at a Birmingham church in 1963 and three civil rights workers in Neshoba County, Miss., that same summer.

Goldwater rejected this stinking outrage, declaring, “Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice.” And, so, the liberals all abandoned him.

One man stood by Goldwater. The two-time loser Richard Nixon, who had not won a race in his own right since 1950, campaigned for Goldwater and the party longer and harder than Barry himself.

And what became of them all?

Bill Scranton packed it in 1966. George Romney was trounced in 1968 by Nixon, with Goldwater’s legions at his side, in New Hampshire, and quit the race two weeks before the returns came in.

Rockefeller, who had spent a career calling Nixon a “loser,” lacked what it took to challenge Nixon in any of the contested primaries.

And, lest we forget, one other national Republican spoke up for Goldwater and conservatism in that 1964 humiliation, the retired Hollywood actor and impresario of GE Theater: Ronald Reagan.

Nixon and Reagan would go on to win four of the next five GOP nominations and presidential elections. In the one convention Reagan lost, 1976, the right, as the price of its support of Gerald R. Ford, demanded that Nelson Rockefeller be dumped as vice president.

Done. Rocky was last seen flipping a middle finger to the delegates happily marking “paid” on his account.

Prediction: The people who fought the battle of Obamacare will be proven right to have fought it, and America will come to see this.

And the people who said, “We can’t win!” will never win.

America is at a turning point.

If she does not stop squandering hundreds of billions on liberal agenda items like Obamacare and if she do not end these trade deficits sucking the jobs, factories and investment capital out of our country, we will find ourselves beside Greece, Spain, Illinois and Detroit.

Even if America disagrees, as in 1964 when it embraced LBJ’s Great Society plunge to social and economic disaster, Republicans need to stand up â€" current polls and corporate Republicans be damned.

If the right is right, time will prove it, as it did long ago.

- Patrick J. Buchanan

[Sardondi]

Back at ya!

[attachimg=1]

I call Bullshit. He's your team bubba, not mine. There's no way in hell that's a legit Tea Partier. For more than 4 years your guys have tried to pull provocations at virtually every Tea Party rally there is, by dressing up and acting out as some ridiculous never-was Tea Party false fantasy which fits every leftist's wet dream, waving rebel flags and spewing racial epithets. They've been caught doing it countless times, though that kind of slime can't be embarrassed. Just like this lying POS depicted in front of the WH. J'accuse.

[Quick Karl]

Sardondi, sir,

Every non-thinking person on the planet knows that liberals are far too intellectually honest to ever stoop to anything so blatantly dishonest.

I call Bullshit. He's your team bubba, not mine. There's no way in hell that's a legit Tea Partier. For more than 4 years your guys have tried to pull provocations at virtually every Tea Party rally there is, by dressing up and acting out as some ridiculous never-was Tea Party false fantasy which fits every leftist's wet dream, waving rebel flags and spewing racial epithets. They've been caught doing it countless times, though that kind of slime can't be embarrassed. Just like this lying POS depicted in front of the WH. J'accuse.

[NowhereInTime]

I call Bullshit. He's your team bubba, not mine. There's no way in hell that's a legit Tea Partier. For more than 4 years your guys have tried to pull provocations at virtually every Tea Party rally there is, by dressing up and acting out as some ridiculous never-was Tea Party false fantasy which fits every leftist's wet dream, waving rebel flags and spewing racial epithets. They've been caught doing it countless times, though that kind of slime can't be embarrassed. Just like this lying POS depicted in front of the WH. J'accuse.

Actually I'll give you the benefit here.  All too often Tea Party activists dressed in Revolutionary War era costumes when the movement started.  Lately, though, I've been seeing the Johnnie Reb queens out and about blaming President BlackMan for all of their ills.  I'm not so sure they're the same people who started the tea party outrage 3 years back, but they've latched on.

[Juan]

I've searched through many news articles on the guy with the Confederate flag.  Interesting to me is that I have not found one single quote from him.  I've covered Ku Klux Klan rallies and events staged by other white hate groups.  Those people are always inarticulate and insulting towards African-Americans.  In other words, they are exactly the kind of people who give sound bites that the media love. (I spent 25-years as a news producer, so I know.)  I find the lack of a quote or sound bite highly suspicious.

[NowhereInTime]

I've searched through many news articles on the guy with the Confederate flag.  Interesting to me is that I have not found one single quote from him.  I've covered Ku Klux Klan rallies and events staged by other white hate groups.  Those people are always inarticulate and insulting towards African-Americans.  In other words, they are exactly the kind of people who give sound bites that the media love. (I spent 25-years as a news producer, so I know.)  I find the lack of a quote or sound bite highly suspicious.

Could be totally clownshoes.

[PB the Deplorable]

I call Bullshit. He's your team bubba, not mine. There's no way in hell that's a legit Tea Partier. For more than 4 years your guys have tried to pull provocations at virtually every Tea Party rally there is, by dressing up and acting out as some ridiculous never-was Tea Party false fantasy which fits every leftist's wet dream, waving rebel flags and spewing racial epithets. They've been caught doing it countless times, though that kind of slime can't be embarrassed. Just like this lying POS depicted in front of the WH. J'accuse.

The Left's sleazy underhandedness is what makes them so endearing.  Unless you're more into their riots.

They know they can't win people over with reasoned discussion, yet they are zealots fully committed to the cause.  These are the results.

[Sardondi]

Actually I'll give you the benefit here.  All too often Tea Party activists dressed in Revolutionary War era costumes when the movement started.  Lately, though, I've been seeing the Johnnie Reb queens out and about blaming President BlackMan for all of their ills.  I'm not so sure they're the same people who started the tea party outrage 3 years back, but they've latched on.

Stop it. Just stop it. Reasonableness and concession even on essentially minor points is an unfair tactic, and I demand you oppose me - now!

[Falkie2013]

Stop it. Just stop it. Reasonableness and concession even on essentially minor points is an unfair tactic, and I demand you oppose me - now!

" Cream pies at the ready.
  Ready on the left.
  Ready on the right.
  Ready on the firing line.
  Fire in the hole !
   Fire !  "

[Falkie2013]

The Left's sleazy underhandedness is what makes them so endearing.  Unless you're more into their riots.

They know they can't win people over with reasoned discussion, yet they are zealots fully committed to the cause.  These are the results.

Endearing ?
That's like saying having gonorrhea is fun.

Columnists | Pat Buchanan
Is the Conflict Between Us Irreconcilable?
Pat Buchanan | Oct 08, 2013

One way or another, the battle of the budget and the debt ceiling will be over by All Hallows' Eve.
Yet, as one looks deeper, at the irreconcilable conflict behind the present clash, only a roaring optimist would imagine we shall ever know again the tranquility and unity of the Eisenhower-Kennedy years.

Consider the bile dumped upon Tea Party Republicans by Barack Obama, Harry Reid and their camp followers in the national press.

What did the Tea Party do to deserve this? Answer: These extremists shut down the U.S. government, they're holding America hostage, and they're inflicting terrible suffering on innocent people.

But is this true?

Three times in a fortnight, the House has voted to fund every department, agency, and program of the government -- except Obamacare. Who, then, is truly shutting down the government?

What we are witnessing here is the unfolding of the Big Lie -- the constant repetition of a transparent falsehood -- to persuade a pliable public not only to believe it, but to recite it, as in Orwell's "1984."

Obamacare, we are told, was enacted by Congress, signed by the president, upheld by the Supreme Court, confirmed by Obama's victory in 2012. To try to defund or reform it amounts to an attempted coup, an overturning of the election results of November.

But does not Congress have the power of the purse to fund or defund any program it chooses? Is that not in the Constitution?

And have not the last three years exposed glaring flaws in Obamacare? Have not severely adverse consequences turned up in widespread layoffs and a reversion to part-time help? Did not the Cleveland Clinic say it will have to let 3,000 people go?

Why then is the House's exercise of its constitutional authority to defund Obamacare, which polls show a majority of Americans favor, such a moral outrage?

This brings us to the underlying conflict.

The Obamacare battle is part of a larger struggle between a party of government and a conservative party that fears America is heading down a road traveled by Greece, Italy and Spain.

Now the party of government can surely claim credit for Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and Obamacare. Yet, that same party is also responsible for driving New York City to the brink of bankruptcy in the 1970s and for the disaster that is Detroit today.

That party is also responsible for an unsustainable welfare state where half the U.S. population pays zero income taxes but consumes hundreds of billions yearly in social welfare benefits.

And how are the people who preside over this annual redistribution of America's wealth faring? Just fine, thank you.

According to the latest data from the Census Bureau, the four counties in the United States with the highest median family income are all in the D.C. area: Arlington, Loudoun and Fairfax County, Va., and Howard County, Md. Maryland's Montgomery County, just north of D.C., ranks 7. Five of the top ten. Not bad, eh?

Though 120,000 D.C. residents are on food stamps, the city boasts a median family income higher than all but four states. And D.C. leads the nation in the number of bedroom counties, nine, where the median family income exceeds $100,000.

Big government and the Fat City are one in Barack Obama's America.

And how does the Tea Party imperil the country?

First, they risk taking America over the cliff into default. But that raises a question: Since the Tea Party folks are newcomers to town, who brought America to the edge of this cliff?

What radical added $6 trillion to our national debt in five years? Or did the Tea Party do that?

Almost all now agree that the entitlement programs -- Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid -- threaten to consume the budget.

Is the Tea Party responsible for this gathering disaster?

Was the Tea Party beating the drums for those trillion-dollar wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? Is the Tea Party responsible for our being committed to fighting other countries' wars and paying other countries' bills, in perpetuity, through foreign aid?

When the Tea Party says the Fed's QE3 amounts to printing money and inflating the currency, that it is creating stock market and real estate bubbles certain to burst, and that the dollar's future as the world's reserve currency is imperiled, do they not have a point?

These same views are today being echoed by economists and writers, few of whom are ever likely to show up wearing side arms at God and Country Rallies.

And just where did our community-organizer president learn his economics. From Saul Alinksy's "Rules for Radicals"? From his senate days in Springfield, capital of the state that is the odds-on favorite to be first in the nation to default on its debts?

The Tea Party is feared and detested in Washington because these folks threaten the ideology, the vested interests, and most critical of all, the rice bowls in this city that voted 15-1 for Obama.

[RealCool Daddio]

I call Bullshit. He's your team bubba, not mine. There's no way in hell that's a legit Tea Partier. For more than 4 years your guys have tried to pull provocations at virtually every Tea Party rally there is, by dressing up and acting out as some ridiculous never-was Tea Party false fantasy which fits every leftist's wet dream, waving rebel flags and spewing racial epithets. They've been caught doing it countless times, though that kind of slime can't be embarrassed. Just like this lying POS depicted in front of the WH. J'accuse.

Say what? My Team?  The chap photographed certainly doesn't like like anyone I have seen at any Conservative Party of Canada meetings, and that's my team. I must have missed the super double secret "Let's drive way the  fuck down to Washington and impersonate Confederates in front of the White House" meeting.  But, you know, us REAL conservatives are very busy, what with our jobs, and paying taxes, and our families and so on.  But, with what little free time I have left, I will continue to draw out the bigots and racists and religious extremists in the GOP and Tea Party, who, quite frankly, are a freaking embarrassment to EVERY OTHER CONSERVATIVE IN THE FREE WORLD. 

But sure, go ahead and deny the truth that is right under your noses.  Refuse to believe that the Tea Party is an attractive option for hate groups, that the GOP is almost entirely held in the sway of the Values Voter guys (just look at the number of Tea Party favorites who took time for, their busy day jobs not passing a budget to speak there : http://www.valuesvotersummit.org/schedule).  When the going gets tough, try making yourselves look even more sane and reasonable by accusing Obama of being a Marxist, and demanding to see his birth certificate, etc., etc. take absolutist positions on abortion, and gun ownership, and anything else your bible and/or constitution tells you to.

But know this - you are so far to the right, you are unrecognizable to Conservatives the world over. You have been trapped in a tiny echo chamber with Rush and the guys from Fox News, and the 20 million or so Americans of voting age in the Bible Belt - about all that remains of the GOP base.  This is not a movement - it is a fringe group.

[DanTSX]

You accuse Cynnie of behaving like a 14 year old girl when you behave like a 7 yr old boy. Take your ball and go home.
John McCain, a real life war hero, gets my support over Shirtless Vlad any day of the week.  End of story.

Didn't McCain nearly sink the forestall?

Anyways, his military status should be held independent of his political record.  He is the worst republican ever.

[DanTSX]

The "tea party" is a virtual boogeyman perpetuated by the media.  It doesn't functionally exist.  I have no idea why the left gets so bent out of shape with it.   I think they just like to blame it like the pilgrims would blame a bad harvest on some guys wife showing too much ankle or something.

How do you Libs fall for this?  I thought you guys were smart, albeit misguided and emotionally fragile.


This post paid for by the dastardly Koch Brothers muahhahhahahahahha

[FightTheFuture]

Didn't McCain nearly sink the forestall?

Anyways, his military status should be held independent of his political record.  He is the worst republican ever.

There is some controversy regarding that unfortunate incident. I have my own opinions on the matter, but I don`t care to share them HERE.

But, let no man ever question the iron in McCain`s fortitude. That man withstood  horrendous torture for many years, when all he had to do is agree to....come home. He stayed. Because he stayed, he was brutalized even more.

However, as a politician, McCain sucks. Period. And, yes; his military career should be left out of any political conversation.

[DanTSX]

There is some controversy regarding that unfortunate incident. I have my own opinions on the matter, but I don`t care to share them HERE.

But, let no man ever question the iron in McCain`s fortitude. That man withstood  horrendous torture for many years, when all he had to do is agree to....come home. He stayed. Because he stayed, he was brutalized even more.

However, as a politician, McCain sucks. Period. And, yes; his military career should be left out of any political conversation.

Well said

[RealCool Daddio]

Say what? My Team?  The chap photographed certainly doesn't like like anyone I have seen at any Conservative Party of Canada meetings, and that's my team. I must have missed the super double secret "Let's drive way the  fuck down to Washington and impersonate Confederates in front of the White House" meeting.  But, you know, us REAL conservatives are very busy, what with our jobs, and paying taxes, and our families and so on.  But, with what little free time I have left, I will continue to draw out the bigots and racists and religious extremists in the GOP and Tea Party, who, quite frankly, are a freaking embarrassment to EVERY OTHER CONSERVATIVE IN THE FREE WORLD. 

But sure, go ahead and deny the truth that is right under your noses.  Refuse to believe that the Tea Party is an attractive option for hate groups, that the GOP is almost entirely held in the sway of the Values Voter guys (just look at the number of Tea Party favorites who took time for, their busy day jobs not passing a budget to speak there : http://www.valuesvotersummit.org/schedule).  When the going gets tough, try making yourselves look even more sane and reasonable by accusing Obama of being a Marxist, and demanding to see his birth certificate, etc., etc. take absolutist positions on abortion, and gun ownership, and anything else your bible and/or constitution tells you to.

But know this - you are so far to the right, you are unrecognizable to Conservatives the world over. You have been trapped in a tiny echo chamber with Rush and the guys from Fox News, and the 20 million or so Americans of voting age in the Bible Belt - about all that remains of the GOP base.  This is not a movement - it is a fringe group.

This was over the top on my part, woke up on the wrong side of the bed, and missed the humour in your post.  Sorry, Sardondi.

[Quick Karl]

Sen. Ted Cruz, who has led the tea-party wing of Republicans in Congress to push for defunding of Obamacare, is an intelligent and principled debater, says his old Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz. 

Appearing Tuesday on CNN's "Piers Morgan Live," Dershowitz called the freshman Texas Republican "one of the sharpest students I had, in terms of analytic skills. I've had 10,000 students over my 50 years at Harvard. . . . He has to qualify among the brightest of the students."

http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/cruz-dershowitz-intelligent-principled/2013/10/16/id/531276#ixzz2huDiJxuY

Later, Dershowits said: “I think you can make a very strong argument that what Ted Cruz is doing is deeply unconstitutional. Whether a court would accept that or say it’s a political question is another issue (nice curve Alan), but Cruz is a principled man. He ought to look at the Constitution and look into his heart and ask himself, ‘What would Alexander Hamilton have done.'" (Remember, Dershowits defended OJ...)

[QK] I'm no Harvard Law Scholar but I have read the Federalist many times (a copy is right here on my desk) and I doubt that Hamilton or Madison would support Obamacare on Constitutional or any other grounds... I am SURE that neither believed that your neighbor should be held liable for YOUR well being.

The comments quickly found their way to the Internet and got an equally quick response from author and radio show host Mark Levin.

“Dershowitz is dead wrong. We don’t have to imagine anything,” he told the Newsbusters website. “Congress and only Congress can authorize borrowing under Article I. The president must first pay interest on the debt under the 14th Amendment. The federal government collects 10 times as much revenue each month as it needs to cover those payments. As long as the president complies with the Constitution there can be no default. This is basic stuff. Even a Harvard law professor like Dershowitz should comprehend it.” (I can listen to Levin for all of about 15-second before I want to shoot the radio with a 12-gage - that fucking whine...)

http://news.yahoo.com/dershowitz-throws-constitution-figuratively-ted-cruz-141406725--politics.html

OK, chose your side, and let the vitriol and spit fly!

[DanTSX]

I chose neither side.  The media tends to spit political issues like rival football teams until nobody even knows why they stand for an issue except that "their team" is or isn't for it.

I don't put much faith in adherents to Fox News much less than MSNBC.   Might as well be waving a football team flag with talking points instead of players.

I do lean more conservative, because I support the second amendment So that you can shoot your TV.

[Quick Karl]

It reminds me of football -- you would think that the "fans" actually believe they are players... I know lots of people enjoy football but when people's politics become the equivalent, that is plain stupid.

I chose neither side.  The media tends to spit political issues like rival football teams until nobody even knows why they stand for an issue except that "their team" is or isn't for it.

I don't put much faith in adherents to Fox News much less than MSNBC.   Might as well be waving a football team flag with talking points instead of players.

I do lean more conservative, because I support the second amendment So that you can shoot your TV.

[Sardondi]

This was over the top on my part, woke up on the wrong side of the bed, and missed the humour in your post.  Sorry, Sardondi.

Hey, you have nothing to apologize for. You may have noticed I can poke a stick in an eye myself. This is where grownups play, and sometimes some elbows get thrown and eyes get gouged, but no blood, no foul. Besides, criticizing an idea or even a group of people for ascribing to an idea, is not an "ad hominem" attack. I truly thought nothing of it. Some things we just become inured to, and I was in no way offended. It was very decent of you to apologize though

[West of the Rockies]

And if nothing else, the elbows thrown here in the political threads are at least more interesting than the steaming piles of horseshit that have been popping up (plopping down) in the General threads lately.  Oh, lookie, another video of a fucking laundromat.  Tales of time travel and heartache.