Republicans in Their Own Words -- Quotations of a Party on Crack, 2010 Version: Part 1, The Unemployed

Rachel Maddow on Newt Gingrich: "Just because he doesn't have a real job does not mean that Newt Gingrich isn't making a lot of money in politics." (See No. 3.)

by Noah

It’s hard to understand the Republican mind. If you try too hard, you may end up catching a case of their insanity, or at least being plagued by nightmares, or your psyche might end up so wounded by the assault that you need to go for counseling or maybe just a prescription for some valium. My suggestion: Just let their own words do most of the talking. It is what it is. They reveal the inner workings of their twisted minds just fine. The only cure for Republicanism is complete derision and dismissal. Herewith some classic examples of Republican Mental Illness, or RMI as we call it at the Down With Tyranny Medical Center.

1. The first is a true dialog between former House Repug leader Tom DeLay and CNN’s Candy Crowley. On-air, DeLay said to Crowley:

There is an argument to be made that these extensions, the unemployment benefits, keep people from going and finding [a] job. In fact there are some studies that have been done that show people stay on unemployment compensation and they don’t look for a job until two or three weeks before they know the benefits are going to run out.

Naturally, DeLay didn’t happen to have any of those studies he mentioned available for reference. Crowley then asked, “People are unemployed because they want to be?” DeLay’s answer: “Well, it is the truth. And people in the real world know it.”

This was a Republican talking point for much of the year, with similar utterances from the likes of Sen. John Kyl and senator-wannabe Sharron Angle.

2. And speaking of Sharron Angle:

We have put in so much entitlement into our government that we have spoiled our citizenry and said, "You don’t want the jobs that are available.”

Next thing ya know, “our citizenry” will want at least a minimum wage! And a less than 80-hour work week! And health benefits! And no whippings! Damn spoiled middle class! For more on the wisdom of Angle, just click on this.

3. “I’m opposed to giving people money for doing nothing,” said former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, explaining why he, like virtually all his Republican brethren, is against the concept of paying unemployment benefits. Keep in mind that this was said by a guy who, as Rachel Maddow points out in the clip above, has been “earning” his money for 12 years or so as a scam artist. Newt, if you wanna do some honest work, maybe you should just do a deal with Jenny Craig. Sooner or later, though, Newt will be sending out his own version of those infamous direct-mail scam “letters from Nigeria.”

4. “Is the government now creating hobos?”

-- Nevada Congresscretin Dean Heller

Hey, Heller, why not just call them winos!

5. “If anything, continuing to pay people unemployment is a disincentive for them to seek new work."

-- Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl

Yeah, Kyl, people just enjoy being out of work. One would think that by now if the people of Arizona had any brains at all, they would ship Kyl to China along with the jobs he voted to send there.

6. “The jobs are there. But if we keep extending unemployment , people are just going to sit there."

-- Pennsylvania candidate for governor Tom Corbett

The sad punch line is that Corbett won, despite the fact that Pennsylvania is a state that is rife with extreme rust-belt poverty. The state is also well above the national average of having six applicants for every job. Now there’s a guy who really knows his constituents. “The jobs are there.” I guess that just depends on what the meaning of "there" is.

7. “We should not be giving cash to people who are basically just going to blow it on drugs.”

-- Utah Sen. Orin Hatch

This puss-for-brains loon should have been put out to pasture when he held up a copy of The Exorcist at the Clarence Thomas Supreme Court confirmation hearings in 1991.

8. “Have you heard of the 99-ers? Some of these people, I bet you’d be ashamed to call them Americans.”

-- Glenn Beck, discussing the 1.4 million (and growing in number) Americans who have been unemployed for more than 99 weeks in a country whose jobs have been shipped to China and India

9. “The people who have been laid off and cannot find work are generally people with poor work habits and poor personalities. I say ‘generally’ because there are exceptions. But in general as I survey the ranks of those who are unemployed, I see people who have overbearing and unpleasant personalities and/or do not know how to do a days work."

-- former Nixon speechwriter and game-show host Ben Stein

Stein unwittingly went a long way in describing himself. He also works as an advertising pitchman of sorts. Personally, I make a point of not buying anything he’s selling. Not only that, but when I see it on the shelves, I push it to the back behind competing products. It makes me feel good. Everyone has to do their bit in some way, you know.

10. “Let them eat cake.”

-- French queen Marie Antoinette, proposing an alternative for peasants who couldn't afford bread

Now we know that Marie Antoinette was expressing the modern-day Republican philosophy centuries in advance. And what happened to her?

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