No, Fox News, Bernie Sanders Did Not Honeymoon In The Soviet Union

Posted by Mark NC on July 8, 2015 at 3:37 am. 56 Comments :

When Hillary Clinton was running away with the Democratic nomination, it was not unusual to hear Fox News pundits pumping up Bernie Sanders. It wasn’t because they admired his progressive policies or his grassroots appeal. It was because they reflexively jumped at any opportunity to knock Clinton down a peg.

Now that the Sanders campaign is actually looking competitive, the same Foxies are getting nervous and looking for ways to discredit him. The primary line of attack has been to feverishly repeat that Sanders is a (gasp) Socialist. Under ordinary circumstances that would be sufficient to rattle the fear centers of their perpetually anxious viewers.

However, these are not ordinary times. Consequently, more creative measures were required by the Fox punditocracy. So they brought in Jamie Weinstein, senior editor of Tucker Carlson’s ultra-rightist Daily Caller, to slip a brazen lie into the discussion at the very end when there was no time left for it to be rebutted. The segment sought to concern-troll Clinton’s less commanding, but still substantial, lead over Sanders, while simultaneously dismissing the surging challenger as a far-left crank.

Where the broadcast went off the rails was at the end when Weinstein concluded his final diatribe by making an assertion that was utterly false and intended to defame Sanders. He offered as evidence of Sanders supposed extremism that he had spent his honeymoon in the Soviet Union. That allegation is almost laughable, but it will assuredly be swallowed whole by Fox’s dimwitted viewers. Following Weinstein’s false comment, Fox News anchor Gregg Jarrett smiled and noted that you learn something new every day. The problem is that, with Fox News, what you learn each day just makes you more stupid than you were the day before.

The origin of the this made-for-Fox fallacy was a 2007 interview of Sanders’ wife, Jane, by Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility. In the interview she was describing how she and Bernie met and some of their early engagements which were almost entirely related to their shared interest in community affairs. They were so involved in these sort of activities that she joked…

The context was obviously humorous. Who could possibly read that and come away thinking that she seriously meant that they honeymooned with ten other people who were implementing a sister city project? Well, apparently Weinstein and others of his ilk came away believing just that. Weinstein likely picked up the lie from uber-conservative John Fund who wrote an article for the National Review containing the same misrepresentation of Sanders’ diplomatic trip.

We are going to have to get used to wingnuts hyperventilating over the political labels attached to Sanders. Today there was an extended discussion on Fox’s The Five about “Sanders’ Socialist Agenda.” At no time during the broadcast did anyone on the show identify any policy advocated by Sanders that they could actually call Socialist (if they really have any idea what the word means). The policies they did mention were his support for higher taxes on the rich, for expanding access to education, and for single-payer healthcare. Those are pretty mainstream policies that millions of Americans support. And the right has been absurdly calling Obama a Socialist for so long that the word has lost all meaning.

There was also much feigned hand-wringing about whether Sanders was going to pull Clinton farther to the left and damage her electability in the general election. The consensus on the program was that she was already a far-left candidate without Sanders’ influence. But these cretins think that just being a Democrat means being far-left. What they don’t realize is that Sanders’ platform leans to the mainstream of the American people who elected President Obama twice. Any effect he has on Clinton moving in that direction will only enhance her electability. So bring it on, and don’t complain if the people once again reject the regressive and repressive policies of the Republican Party in November of 2016.

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Going Rogue/Going Dark: Sarah Palin Quits Her Internet Video Channel

Posted by Mark NC on July 7, 2015 at 10:36 am. 16 Comments :

To nobody’s surprise, the wheels are continuing to fly off the bus that has been carrying Sarah Palin around the country to the posh hotels paid for by oil companies inviting her to deliver her famous word-salad soliloquies.

The latest bad news from Sarahville is that her much vaunted Internet video channel is shutting down. Palin made the announcement in a video (posted below) that beginning August first, all her content will be free and available on her Facebook page and her SarahPAC website. This must be a big disappointment to her devoted fans that paid a hundred bucks for an annual subscription, especially considering that the service barely lasted a year. Her bizarrely cheerful swan song said in part…

If she actually had any support she wouldn’t be ending the project. The writing was on the wall long before Palin posted her farewell. As documented here at News Corpse, she had already been neglecting the venture in terms of providing content. Palin had been AWOL for twenty days in the first two months of this year. Again in June she posted only six videos the whole month for less than nine minutes of her inspirational presence. That kinda leaves you wondering exactly what she means when she says that from now on all of her content will be free. What content? [FYI: As of this writing her channel is still available for people to sign up for subscriptions even though it isn’t continuing beyond this month]

So why did Palin decide to be so generous as to give away the paltry collection of video selfies for which she has been making people pay for the last year? One likely reason is that it wasn’t making any money, so it is no sacrifice to forego the subscription fees. But even more likely is that Palin desperately needs exposure now that she and Fox News have parted ways. It is no coincidence that this move comes less than two weeks after the announcement that Fox would not renew her contract. The first time that Palin was fired by Fox, in 2013, it was quickly discovered that the loss of a national TV platform was costly for her. As documented at the time…

Palin is in danger of disappearing from public view entirely. Without Fox she has only Facebook, Twitter, and a low-rated travelogue on the Sportsman Channel to promote herself, her ghostwritten books, and her personal, non-profit slush funds. There is no comparable replacement for Fox News for someone like Palin who is painfully shallow, ill-informed, and inarticulate. She simply is not qualified for a job with the news divisions of ABC or CNN, or even more entertainment oriented vehicles like The View. She could write op-eds for WorldNetDaily or Breitbart (which she has already done), but they don’t have nearly the audience that Fox has.

While things look bad now for the Mama Grizzly, all is not necessarily lost. There is still a market out there for her inane babbling. She could team up with Ted Nugent for a moose hunt/barbecue vacation adventure. She could license her name to the Koch brothers for a line of Palin Oils (suntan, cooking, snake, etc.). Then again, she could always star in a new reality show like “The Desperate Housewives of Wasilla.” So stay positive, Sarah. As they say, “There’s a sucker born every minute.” You just need enough minutes to cover your lavish expense account.

So F**king What? Fox News Obsessed With Hillary Clinton’s Media Rope Line

Posted by Mark NC on July 6, 2015 at 8:29 pm. 1 Comments :

You can always tell when the right-wing media is getting desperate for mud to fling at liberals, Democrats, and especially Hillary Clinton. The lunacy level of their attacks increases geometrically in both content and frequency. Today was one of those days when the wingnut press simply ran out of BS to spew.

During a fourth of July parade in New Hampshire this weekend, Hillary Clinton marched and celebrated with the local residents pretty much like every candidate does on such an occasion. The difference this time is that Fox News needed a hook to slander Clinton and there wasn’t one that was readily available. Consequently, they invented a controversy having to do with the the manner in which Clinton separated herself from the media mob that constantly surrounds her.

Clinton used the common practice of placing a rope between the candidate and the media (aka a rope line). However, since this event was a moving parade, her staff got creative and had the rope move along with the press pack down the path of the marchers. There was nothing remotely scandalous about this. But Fox News turned it into a metaphor for their preconceived and derogatory portrayal of Clinton as being hostile to the media. Then they ran it over and over again all day long.

This may be one of the most stupendously trivial attempts to manufacture a political controversy. Does anyone really care that some reporters were directed to walk a few feet away from a candidate who was trying to connect with voters? Would anyone really care if Clinton had packed them into bus and sent it to an Appleby’s in the next county? Most Americans don’t have much regard for the press to begin with. A Pew Research poll in 2013 found that only 28% felt that “journalists contribute ‘a lot’ to society’s well-being.” And that was a ten point drop from 2009.

But what really makes this more than a piddling waste of time is the fact that Fox News is turning somersaults to suddenly pretend that they have some empathy for the media. No news organization is more hostile to the non-Fox press than Fox. They constantly complain that journalists are biased and ill-informed and arrogant and elitist. And particularly with regard to Democrats, Fox is convinced that the media is working for them to advance their socialist plot to destroy America.

So you have to wonder why Fox is making such a big stink about these reporters being “corralled” like “cattle,” as if walking behind a rope was some sort of torture. If it were abusive, and a Republican did it, Fox News would be cheering the candidate for giving the media what it deserves. Every time that Ted Cruz, or Marco Rubio, or Jeb Bush, lash out at the press, Fox News gives them a figurative high-five. Chris Christie’s verbal abuse of reporters has made him a hero to Fox News and their audience. But if Clinton asks them to stay behind a rope line so that they don’t stumble all over each other and interrupt her conversations with voters it is viewed by Fox as “bad optics” that “reinforces the images of the regal queen in a coronation into the White House.”

This is part of Fox’s well-worn tactic of whining that Clinton doesn’t spend more time talking to reporters. But if Fox really believes that the press are Clinton’s lackeys, why are they so interested in her spending more time with them? Wouldn’t they just ask her softball questions and promote her candidacy? Clearly Fox’s complaints are either completely disingenuous or they make no sense at all.

They are simply complaining because it’s what they do. If Clinton starts giving more interviews to the media, Fox will immediately switch sides and complain that she is desperate for attention, or hogging the limelight, or ignoring the voters. And besides the reporters are all her pals who won’t challenge her on anything anyway. Fox pundits will demand that she stop preening before the press and do some old-fashioned campaigning – exactly like she is doing now.

Hopefully Clinton will do something Fox considers newsworthy soon, like slipping on a banana peel. Otherwise we will have to endure their made-up scandals for the foreseeable future. In which case, you better get ready for the bombshell disclosure that Clinton’s socks don’t match or that she uses the wrong kind of mustard on her pastrami sandwich.

Trump Bump: Just In Case You Forgot How Psycho Republican Voters Are

Posted by Mark NC on July 5, 2015 at 10:08 pm. 8 Comments :

This year’s Celebrity Pretentious Republican candidate is, without a doubt, the gold-plated ego wrapped in an orange comb-over, Donald Trump. Ever since he announced his joke of a campaign a couple of weeks ago, he has been been getting dumped by former business partners and associates who are embarrassed to be seen with him in public. To no one but Trump’s surprise, his repugnant racism directed at immigrants has insulted the fasted growing electoral demographic in the country.

Many (but not all) of Trump’s fellow Republican’s have repudiated his characterization of immigrants as criminals and rapists. And the all but the most ultra-conservative media outlets have recognized the idiocy of his comments and written him off as an un-serious candidate. Even corporations that are generally aligned with any Republican candidate are washing their hands of Trump.

What’s troubling, however, is that the Republican constituencies to whom he is addressing his hate speech are, for the time being, eating it up. In recent polls Trump has spiked up to second place behind Mr. Establishment, Jeb Bush. That exposes the GOP voters as being just as bigoted as Trump and willing to lap up his spittle-inflected rants.

That said, anyone who worries that Trump is now a plausible contender for the GOP nomination can rest easy. The Republican electorate is as fickle as they are ignorant. Trump’s polling at this stage of the campaign is less than meaningless. For some evidence of why that’s so, take a look at some of the polls during the GOP primaries in the 2012 race. It seems every crackpot got their turn at the top for brief moment in time. The GOP leaders included Trump himself, as well as Sarah Palin and Herman Cain.

In addition to this parade of losers, there was Michelle Bachmann, Ron Paul, and Rudy Giuliani, all taking turns leading the polls, despite none ever having the remotest chance of becoming president, or even their party’s nominee. That’s how crazy these freaks are.

Thankfully, they all lost just as Trump is going to. Well, that’s if he ever even becomes a legitimate candidate. He still has not filed the required financial disclosures, and he has just ten days left to do so (unless he requests an extension, which he promised not to do). Even if he stays in the race he will certainly fall in the polls as voters inevitably drift toward the more mainstream candidates (i.e. Bush, Walker, etc.) as they always do in both parties.

So everybody calm down. Trump aint goin’ nowhere. If you want to get excited about something, perhaps it should be how addle-brained your average Republican voter is. While none of the nut cases actually managed to make it into the winner’s circle, the GOP voters did flirt with them before marrying their designated loser. That’s a pretty scary statement of where they stand and what sort of leader is acceptable to them. And if you don’t get just a little nauseous knowing that the same people who thrust Palin, Cain and now Ben Carson, and Trump, to the top of the polls, are still allowed to vote in the general election, then you’ve got a stronger stomach than I do.

Fox News Scumbag Of The Week: Howard Kurtz, Trump Fluffer

Posted by Mark NC on July 4, 2015 at 7:47 pm. 19 Comments :

In a week that’s seen various Fox News personnel take inane and/or offensive positions on everything from the Supreme Court’s decision on marriage equality (being the cause of floods in the capital) to the Charleston church massacre (being an attack on Christianity), a late entry to the contest sneaked in Friday just before the deadline to win the Fox News Scumbag Of The Week Award:

On Friday’s broadcast of Special Report (video below), Howard Kurtz was introduced for a segment on how the press treats poor Donald Trump. Rather than report on the ever-expanding backlash to Trump’s racist assault on immigrants, Kurtz took the opportunity to slam the media for doing their job. He simultaneously attempted to run interference for the Republican Party to cleanse it of any stray excrement emanating from The Donald.

What a bunch of unadulterated hogwash. The Republican Party doesn’t need any help from the media to turn Trump’s boorish vulgarity into their own problem. They invited him into their party with open arms. In 2008 Mitt Romney solicited and received Trump’s endorsement. Fox News, the GOP’s PR division, made him a weekly feature on Fox & Friends, as well a frequent guest on other programs. And every time he lashed out at President Obama with his signature classlessness, Republicans cheered and praised him.

The reason other Republicans are expected to respond to Trump’s assholiness is because Trump represents a broad swath of the establishment Republican ideology. He is anti-immigrant, anti-tax, anti-ObamaCare, anti-gay, anti-environment, and pro-war. Where does Kurtz get the idea that Trump isn’t in line with the GOP regulars? As evidence of his harmony with conservative voters, they have boosted him to the top tier in Republican primary polls after he made his repulsive remarks about immigrants. Only now, since Trump’s misfire has ricocheted back at them, are some trying to put some distance between themselves and his hate mongering.

But what really clinched the Scumbag prize for Kurtz is a wildly off-base comparison between how the media has treated Trump and how they treated a Democrat from the past with regard to whether Trump is hurting Republicans.

WTF? It must have taken a Herculean effort for Kurtz to come up with the most reprehensibly inappropriate stab at false equivalency imaginable. First of all, unlike today’s Republicans, Democrats universally repudiated Edwards for his vile infidelity. The reason the Republican brand is hurting is because Trump’s comments are so closely aligned to the party’s platform. That simply wasn’t true with regard to Edwards. In fact, Edwards misbehavior was entirely personal, so it could not have reflected on the reputation of a political party. Trump’s transgressions, on the other hand, are purely political. And even now he is being defended by folks like Ann Coulter and Ted Cruz.

Even from an opportunistic journalistic perspective, the two scenarios are not remotely similar. Trump’s comments came during the heat of a presidential primary battle when candidates are expected to participate in open debate. However, the first reports of Edwards infidelity were published in October of 2007 by the National Enquirer, a tabloid rag with a reputation for sensationalist garbage that usually proved to be untrue. The story was justifiably dismissed considering the source.

It wasn’t until July of 2008 that Edwards was caught visiting his mistress at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. However, by that time Edwards was not a candidate. He had dropped out of the race six months earlier. In fact, there was no race because Hillary Clinton had also conceded in June of 2008 and endorsed Obama. Consequently, there was no reason for the media cover Edwards as anything but a salacious human interest story. His troubles had absolutely nothing to do with the election or the Democratic Party.

Let’s face it – Kurtz only brought this up because A) He had no other example of a Democrat who is as repugnant as Trump and as adept at harming the interests of his party, and B) He desperately wanted to stigmatize Democrats with an ancient and unrelated memory to counteract the well-deserved bad publicity that Republicans are suffering. And for that purposefully manufactured slander, Kurtz easily walks away with the Scumbag Of The Week Award. Congratulations.

p.s. Kurtz is interviewing Trump tomorrow on his Fox News program, MediaBuzz. Tune in if you have the stomach for it. As they say, “The circle jerk will be televised.”

Open Scary: Here’s The “Gun” That Fox News Thinks Should Be Banned

Posted by Mark NC on July 3, 2015 at 4:07 pm. 9 Comments :

The public debate over gun safety has been raging for decades. It picked up steam during the Obama administration because NRA-theists and wingnut pundits set about deliberating trying to frighten the already chicken-hearted ammosexuals into believing that Obama was coming for their weaponized dildos. Never mind that in seven years the nightmare scenarios of these heat packers didn’t produce the widespread confiscations they prophesied. Or any reduction in gun rights whatsoever.

The foremost media advocate for this mouthy militia has been Fox News, who regularly feature firearms evangelicals like the NRA’s Wayne LaPierre and disgraced pistol polisher John Lott. The gun lobby gospel espoused by Fox is unqualified support for every kind of access to every kind of gun. They oppose universal background checks, gun show regulations, and any restrictions on assault weapons, cop-killer bullets, and open and/or concealed carry privileges. They have even argued for the Second Amendment rights of the mentally ill, the blind, and the dead (Seriously, those are not jokes).

Well, now these gun fetishists have found something that they are perfectly willing to ban from distribution. A new cell phone case was introduced that looks like a gun. Just slap in your iPhone and tuck it into your back pocket and you can answer those distress calls by putting the pistol-shaped piece up to your head. Charming, isn’t it?

Fox News broadcast a segment on their Fox & Friends program this morning that harshly criticized this blockheaded idea. And they were right to do so. Host Ainsley Earhardt said that “This could be the most dangerous cell phone case on the market.” While technically correct, it’s hard to imagine what other “dangerous” cell phone cases she was comparing it to. (Is there an electric drill iPhone attachment I haven’t seen yet?) Then her guest, John Rafferty, a retired NYPD officer, chimed in…

Considering that too many cops have recently been shooting people (mostly African-Americans) who are not armed at all, it’s hard to argue with that statement. Rafferty went on to highlight the risks of someone who might appear to pose a threat to an officer being tragically, but justifiably, shot as they go to answer their phone during a traffic stop. He and Earhardt both agreed that the product should not be sold and that responsibility for any harm should be shared by the user, the retailer, and the manufacturer. [Side Note: Rafferty has appeared on Fox News before to argue that citizens should be arrested for taking video of police officers]

However, this unusual departure into rational commentary on Fox News comes with a heaping dose of hypocrisy. The same network that fervently advocates for the proliferation of real guns in the hands of every patriotic citizen, is now pitching the notion that we should ban a fake product because it resembles a gun. They are arguing that its appearance creates an untenable risk of harm to both citizens and police. But real guns that shoot actual bullets don’t?

That’s the absurdity of the gun nut’s position. A cell phone case that looks like a gun makes the carrier a viable target for law enforcement and ought not to be available to the general public. On the other hand, someone marching around Wal-Mart with a semi-automatic rifle strapped to his/her back is perfectly acceptable, and any perceived risk should be dismissed in favor of permitting people to drape themselves with lethal firearms in public. In what dimension does this make any sense?

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To Kill A Meme: No Ted Cruz, Hillary Clinton Did Not Start The Birther BS

Posted by Mark NC on July 2, 2015 at 7:46 pm. 3 Comments :

There must be something in the DNA of right-wingers that prevents them from grasping simple truths and retaining them for periods longer than a Vine video. Case in point: Conservatives who for years have been suckling on the moronic accusations that President Obama is not legally qualified to serve because, they say, he was born in Kenya, have also disseminated a related bit of idiocy that Hillary Clinton was the first Birther. Despite the easily obtainable facts that prove that Clinton was not in any way involved in birthing Birtherism, wingnuts cling fiercely to the lie in an attempt to divert attention from the fact that they have been fully immersed in this nonsense from the beginning. And it isn’t just some fringe characters who have this trouble differentiating fantasy from reality.

In an interview with Katie Couric on Yahoo News, Sen. Ted Cruz, a candidate for the Republican nomination for president, was asked about critics who raise his Canadian birth as an obstacle to his candidacy. Rather than simply repudiating them as idiots who don’t understand the Constitution, he veered from Couric’s question to this wholly unrelated and irrelevant drivel:

If you think that a sitting U.S. senator and aspiring president should know better than to spew demonstrably false information like that, then you don’t know Ted Cruz (or most of the GOP). This charge against the Clinton campaign has been around for seven years now. And some proponents of the lie attribute the meme to Clinton herself (see the headline from Fox Nation above). However, a little research shows that the roots of Birtherism lie with an extremist group of hard-core Clinton supporters who were not affiliated with the campaign. As revealed by Daily Beast editor John Avlon:

The theme was then taken up by Philip Berg, a 9/11 Truther who filed the first Birther lawsuit. He also had no connection to Clinton or her campaign. Thereafter, it spiraled out of control online and in emails. And all the while it was Republicans furthering the fallacy. Many of of them were prominent figures in the party, notably another current candidate for the GOP nomination, Donald Trump. [Fun Fact: Cruz is, so far, the only Republican candidate who is defending Trump’s repulsive and bigoted comments about immigrants for which Cruz doesn’t think Trump has any need to apologize]

It is significant that Cruz employed this dodge to answer a question that had nothing to do with Hillary Clinton. He wants to duck allegations by the lunatics questioning his own national origin without calling them lunatics and alienating an important GOP constituency who still believe that Obama is a foreigner unlawfully squatting in the White House. This is how Republicans embrace ignorance and pass it along to their followers. And no one is a better representative of that mission than Ted Cruz.

Donald Trump Too Busy Filing Lawsuits To Run For President (with Classic Letterman Clip)

Posted by Mark NC on July 1, 2015 at 11:46 am. 12 Comments :

On the day that phony real estate magnate Donald Trump announced that he is running for president of the United States he made the first of what will surely be many boneheaded and offensive remarks. And ever since he maligned Mexican immigrants as rapists and criminals he has faced the wrath of decent Americans who find such bigotry unacceptable.

In less than two weeks Trump has seen his Miss USA/Universe beauty pageant bumped from broadcasts on both NBC and Univision. Other media enterprises including Telemundo and Televisa have also cut ties with Trump. The latest of his business relationships to collapse is his clothing line at Macy’s who, like the others, say that Trump’s values do not represent those of their company (or their species).

And in a hysterical display of delusion, Trump says that he broke off the relationship with Macy’s. He even criticized the fact that his products were largely manufactured in China, a fact which he defended a couple of weeks ago on CNN’s State of the Union by blaming China for his decision to do business there, rather than in the U.S. It’s an excuse he has been making for years, as evidenced by this hilarious two year old clip from The Late Show with David Letterman:

In response to his critics, Trump is demonstrating the sort of immaturity that disqualifies him for public office by throwing a temper tantrum as he refuses to apologize for his repulsive comments. In fact, he has spent the last couple of days reaffirming his rank prejudices. And now he claims to have filed a $500 million lawsuit against Univision. But is he also going to sue NBC and Telmundo and Televisa and Ricky Martin’s charity foundation (which has moved its golf tournament out of Trump’s course in Puerto Rico) and all of the celebrity participants who have quit his pageants and Macy’s too? You have to wonder when he will have time to run for president.

This is just the beginning. Fair-minded people and responsible businesses will continue to distance themselves from Trump. The next big player ought to be the PGA which is currently scheduled to host its PGA Grand Slam of Golf (October 2015), the 2022 PGA Championship, and the 2017 Senior PGA Championship (presented by KitchenAid) at Trump golf courses. There are plenty of other world-class facilities to hold these events. The Golf Channel (which is owned by NBC) should also reconsider whether to broadcast any event that originates from a Trump property. [See update below]

Of course, as the list of those who “Dump Trump” grows, so will the list of potential litigants for Trump to file against. The GOP already has three candidates who are the subjects of ongoing criminal investigations (Scott Walker, Rick Perry, and Chris Christie). Trump himself has been charged with criminal violations of defrauding students of his fake Trump University. It would be particularly unseemly for him to become embroiled in more litigious controversies of his own making. Yet that is exactly what Trump is doing, and it only took him two weeks into his campaign to achieve this distinction. I can’t wait to see what the next two weeks bring.

[Update: (This was fast)] Donald Trump was interviewed on the Golf Channel today and told them that “I’ve had tremendous support from the golf world, because they all know I’m right.” Well, not exactly. Shortly thereafter the four major golf organizations issued a joint statement contradicting Trump’s arrogant assertion of support:

The statement does not make clear whether these organizations will cancel tournaments scheduled for Trump courses, but the pressure is on. The National Hispanic Media Coalition says it will call for a boycott of PGA events if they do not end their business relationship with Trump.

[Update: 7/7/2015] The PGA has severed ties with Trump on their Grand Slam of Golf which was scheduled to be held at Trump’s Los Angeles course in July. Also, ESPN is moving their Celebrity tournament from Trump’s L.A. course to another one nearby. And Trump continues to refuse to reconsider his bigoted comments, or to apologize.

Chris Christie: Telling It Like It Is – If “IT” is Vulgar, Tactless, And Rude

Posted by Mark NC on June 30, 2015 at 10:27 am. 7 Comments :

The Republican Party has its fourteenth official candidate to be their nominee for President of the United States. This morning Chris Christie made his announcement from his hometown in New Jersey. Christie joins a parade of hopefuls, none of whom have succeeded in igniting much enthusiasm on the part of GOP voters. Christie enters the race at 2% (according to a Fox News poll) in a field whose leader, Jeb Bush, has a pitiful 15%. And he has some weighty baggage.

Most of Christie’s speech was focused on his family history and the struggles faced by his two single-parent grandmothers who raised his parents. Other than that, he spoke of his mythical reputation as a frank-speaking truth-teller. He didn’t offer a single specific regarding the platform for a Christie administration. And he left out the fact that his state has had a record nine credit rating downgrades during his tenure.

Christie’s campaign theme of “Telling it like it is,” is ironically one of the most dishonest presentations in modern politics. There is very little to substantiate the claim of straight-talk attributed to Christie. What the media seems to be mistaking for candor is actually Christie’s tendency to be crude, vulgar, and insensitive to common civil behavior. But insulting constituents, berating reporters, and in general being verbally abusive in public is not the same thing as telling it like it is.

The arrogant brutishness evident in Christie’s so-called personality makes it easy to believe that he would order a major bridge closure to retaliate against a mayor who was not sufficiently obsequious. Why would someone like Christie care about who was harmed? And while he still denies any role in that unlawful and potentially dangerous act of revenge, the fact that so many close members of his staff were involved can only mean that he is either lying or incompetent.

Currently Christie does not meet the requirements established by Fox News to participate in the upcoming GOP debate. That leaves him out of a group that includes Donald Trump, Carly Fiorina, and Ben Carson. It’s hard to see a path to victory for Christie if some his party’s biggest jokes are pushing him out of contention. And he has his work cut out for him anyway since the Tea Party fruitcakes still haven’t forgiven him for embracing President Obama following the hurricane that devastated much of his state. That is what likely has resulted in his polling second only to Trump on the question of “Who would you never vote for?”

That’s a far fall from grace for candidate who once topped the polls and was personally solicited to run by Fox News CEO Roger Ailes. Setting aside that gross ethical breach by an alleged “news” operation, Christie will still enjoy Fox’s favor when he visits Sean Hannity tonight for his first post-announcement interview, just as Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, and Marco Rubio did before him. So welcome to the Clown Car, Gov. Christie. And as they, buckle up, it’s gonna be a bumpy ride.

Stupid Congressional Tricks: ScotusCare Act To Force Supreme Court Justices Into ObamaCare

Posted by Mark NC on June 29, 2015 at 6:32 pm. 3 Comments :

Maybe it’s not fair, but candidates for president often suck up most of the air during the campaign season. This often results in embarrassing displays of ignorance or incompetence or just plain lunatic notions that are part and parcel of the wingnut agenda. A few weeks ago Jeb Bush provided an example by being unable to answer a question on whether or not he would have invaded Iraq knowing what we know today. And Donald Trump served up an example with his bitterly derogatory remarks about immigrants. Other examples abound from folks like Rick Santorum, Ted Cruz, Ben Carson, Rick Perry, etc.

This state of affairs must be making members of Congress uncontrollably jealous. After all, most of the time they have a free reign of the idiotic terrain. Now one congressman has been driven to do something about it and has taken a bold step to restore the reputation for dumbfuckery that the Republican-run Congress has always treasured. GOP Rep. Brian Babin of Texas (where else?) introduced what he calls the ScotusCare Act of 2015. It’s purpose is to force the Justices of the Supreme Court and their staff to acquire health insurance policies available on an ObamaCare exchange.

Babin’s obvious intention is to inflict what he regards as punishment on the Court for doing their job, which in this case was to rule in favor of the availability of ObamaCare subsidies nationwide. Babin thinks that by making the Court live under ObamaCare it will teach them a lesson, and thus influence their behavior in the future. There are a couple of reasons this qualifies as being hysterically stupid.

First of all, it is a violation of the Constitution for Congress to use its law-making authority to retaliate against, coerce, or threaten another branch of government or its personnel.

Secondly, Babin’s intention to “force” people unto ObamaCare reveals his ignorance about what the Affordable Care Act actually does. The objective of the legislation is to make health insurance available to all Americans. That means that if you are not covered by your employer, or as part of a family policy, or by Medicare, or some other means, you can sign up for a policy on an exchange. However, the Supreme Court justices and their staff do have an employer who provides health insurance: the Federal government. So what Babin is proposing is to amend ObamaCare so that these specific Americans are treated differently and are denied the insurance that other federal employees get. Thus making the ObamaCare exchange their only option. That is brazenly punitive.

The absurdity of this is evident when considering what would prevent a similar bill from prohibiting people in some other profession, lawyers or plumbers, from getting insurance from their employers. It is an arbitrary burden that serves no purpose. The ObamaCare exchange is the solution for people who have no other access to health insurance. For them it is a valuable benefit that gives them the opportunity get insurance as part of pool that lowers their costs and assures effective, comprehensive coverage. But for people who have employers who provide insurance the exchange isn’t necessary.

The ScotusCare Act, therefore, is a poorly thought out, vindictive prank that is intended to hurt a perceived political adversary. And it isn’t the first time that Congress has sunk this low. In an even stupider display of irrational vengeance, Congress did the very same thing to themselves. And now members of Congress and their poor, innocent staff, are denied access to the health insurance that other federal employees get. All because some idiots wanted to lash out at something, oblivious to the harm it would cause or to whom.

What this tells us above all is that Republicans are completely incapable of governing. They are proving once again that their hostility to government is an impenetrable obstacle to acting responsibly, or even maturely. And furthermore, their professed aversion to big government is a facade, otherwise they wouldn’t use the tools of government to arbitrarily punish people. These are the same people who voted more than fifty times to repeal ObamaCare. And even with those failures, and two decisions from the Supreme Court, they continue to insist that they will fight to make sure that millions of American lose their health insurance. What a brilliant campaign platform.

These Republican cretins seem to get a perverse pleasure from putting people’s lives, health, and financial well being in jeopardy. And yet, they still manage to con some dimwitted, tea-sotted people into voting for them. And that’s really stupid.

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