The Far Right Turns Against Rove-- With A Vengeance

The Republican lunatic fringe is on the warpath... again. This time they're warning about Karl Rove's new billionaire-funded SuperPAC. First thing yesterday GOP nut case Bryan Fischer was tweeting: "Are 3 parties in U.S. today: Democrats, Karl Rove Republicans, and Ronald Reagan Republicans. Rove is at war with Reagan,: a signal that he has a theme for today's Hate Talk Radio broadcast." Fischer and the rest of the fringe right make the point that had Rove not forced Establishment shills on the GOP on Montana (Rehberg), New Mexico (Wilson), Wisconsin (Thompson), North Dakota (Berg), Michigan (Hoekstra), and Virginia (Allen), the could have won those states with extremist candidates that have won for them in Kentucky (Paul), Texas (Cruz), Wisconsin (Johnson), Arizona (Flake), Utah (Lee) and Florida (Rubio) in recent years.

Yesterday, one of the icons of the deranged right, John Birch Society standard bearer Paul Broun, announced he would be running for the empty Georgia Senate seat the far right forced Saxby Chambliss to abandon. This could be a problem-- yes, even in Georgia-- for the GOP, although it's not that likely Broun-- widely looked at as dangerously and embarrassingly insane-- could win a statewide primary.

[U]nder the right circumstances, Democrats would have a fighting chance.

And nominating Broun could provide them with that chance. As the past two cycles have shown, nominating flawed candidates-- Todd Akin, Sharron Angle, Richard Mourdock, Ken Buck, Christine O’Donnell-- can cost the GOP seats, even on GOP-friendly terrain.

The good news for Republicans who don’t want to see Broun nominated is that there are some tall hurdles he will have to jump though to get there. For starters, a candidate must win a majority of the vote to claim the nomination in Georgia. So Broun won’t be able to slip though a crowded field with plurality support on the first ballot.

A second obstacle is money. Broun had only about $156,000 in the bank at the end of last year, and will have to prove he can raise the money necessary to compete in the state’s pricey Atlanta media market.

It’s not like Broun is the only conservative option for this race-- which is where the “test” part comes in. A new national GOP effort was recently launched to promote electable Senate candidates and protect them in primaries from the unelectable ones. In Georgia, there’s a handful of choices from which the new group, and perhaps, Senate Republicans’ campaign arm, could find a candidate to rally behind who would be strong in the general election, and would also satisfy conservatives.

GOP Reps. Tom Price and Tom Graves, and former secretary of state Karen Handel would fit that bill. Rep. Phil Gingrey, a deeply conservative Republican who recently got into some hot water defending Akin’s controversial remarks might still fare better in the general election than Broun. Another option is Rep. Jack Kingston, though he scores lower than Graves, Price and Gingrey, on the anti-tax Club For Growth’s scorecard.

So far, the Club and the Senate Conservatives Fund-- two groups with proven financial muscle that have openly bucked the establishment in Senate races-- haven’t chosen sides in Georgia. That’s a good thing for Republicans hoping to identify electable candidates, because it means they are not necessarily at odds with the influential organizations. At least, not yet.

Georgia is a red state, but it contains some Democratic strongholds and moderate voters who might opt to go with a conservative Democrat over a controversial Republican. With the right Democratic nominee and the wrong GOP one, Democrats may stand a chance of surprising a lot of people. That’s why Republicans must approach the nominating process there with the utmost attention.

If it looks like Broun is making any headway, he's likely to be the first Republican wingnut Rove's new anti-teabagger PAC goes after. This is driving an always close to the edge Michelle Malkin and other GOP outright celebrators of fascism, over the cliff. Her blog declared war on Rove yesterday. Actually, she points out that Rove has been waging a war against the right-wing grassroots for years-- and she's not going to take it anymore. "Who needs Obama and his Team Chicago to destroy the Tea Party," she asks, "when you’ve got Rove and his big government band of elites?" She points out-- and not without merit-- that Rove wasted over a billion dollars from right-wing suckers who contributed to his operation last year, losing with Romney and 10 Senate candidates he backed.

There’s a bigger picture. As I noted when one of Rove’s water boys attacked me personally in 2010 and sneered at Tea Party activists for their inexperience and lack of proper credentials, these GOP barons demand that we all sit quietly with our hands folded at our desks while they regale us with stories of Master Rove’s achievements and policy victories.

Nope. Still not going to genuflect before the architect behind the disastrous Medicare prescription drug entitlement expansion that created an unfunded liability of $9.4 trillion over the next 75 years, No Child Left Behind federal education expansion, steel tariffs, ag subsidies, the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law and the Bush-Kennedy-McCain illegal alien amnesty attempt.

Rove and his boss abused their power and sacrificed core conservative principles at the altar of “compassionate conservatism.”

No, I will not shut up about it.

Yes, I will continue to use my little soapbox to try and support candidates who reject Rovian open borders, big spending, and federal encroachment.

As Rove, Inc. begins to target grass-roots conservatives like stalwart Rep. Steve King in Iowa for his views on immigration and supposed lack of discipline/intellectual preparedness, let’s remember who Rove wanted to sit on the Supreme Court. Flashback:

As for the supposedly “adolescent” attitude that “inexperience is itself seen as a kind of qualification,” some of us have not forgotten Rove’s furious behind-the-scenes maneuvering to secure the Supreme Court nomination of his old, dreadfully unqualified Texas crony Harriet Miers-- whom Rove and his friends supported on the grounds that her lack of judicial experience was, um, some kind of qualification.

But, hey, I’m just a petulant, teenage mutant website operator and you Tea Party people are just non-achieving ingrates who have failed to show proper deference to The Architect of two presidential victories for the Republican who crowned off his eight years by pre-socializing the economy for Barack Obama.

Now, kneel before Zod!

She claims Rove's incumbency protection racket is the problem, not the Tea Party. She's partially right and partially wrong. The Tea Party brand is now a liability to GOP candidates-- just like an endorsement from the NRA. Rasmussen found 30% of voters have a favorable view of the Tea Party and 49% have a negative view.



UPDATE: STEVE KING STRIKES BACK AGAINST THE EMPIRE

King won't say whether or not he's going to run for the open Iowa Senate seat, but this morning he blasted Rove "and his army" for undercutting him. He sent this letter to his supporters:

Friend,I’m under attack and I urgently need your help to fight back.

Since U.S. Senator Tom Harkin announced he will not seek re-election in 2014, rumors have swirled about whether I will run for his seat. I have not made a decision on this matter, but already Karl Rove and his army have launched a crusade against me.

According to the president of American Crossroads (Rove’s Super PAC), they’re concerned about my discipline as a candidate and how I would fare in the general election: “All of the things he’s said are going to be hung around his neck.” (New York Times, 2/2/13)

Please follow this link to donate $25, $50, $100 or more to my campaign right away and show Karl Rove that he cannot decide my political future. [Link disabled, of course.]

I’m no stranger to outlandish attacks like this. They said I couldn’t win in 2012-- the entire political machine was against me-- but I soundly defeated my opponent by 8 percentage points. So let me be clear. Nobody can bully me out of running for the U.S. Senate, not even Karl Rove and his hefty war chest.

At the end of the day, my decision will be based on what I believe is best for our state and our country, and whether or not I can count on your continued support. Your donation of $25, $50, $100 or more today will not only help me ward off Karl Rove’s baseless attacks, it will tell me you will continue to stand with me.

Thank you in advance for your continued support.

Sincerely,

Steve King

Member of Congress, Iowa

P.S. I haven’t made a decision on whether I’ll seek Iowa’s open U.S. Senate seat in 2014, but Karl Rove is already launching attacks against me.

Immigration-- Only The Dregs Of GOP Bigotry Still Opposing Reform

Most House Republicans have the luxury of running in crazy little red districts drawn to exclude likely Democratic voters. They can say or do whatever they want regardless of what most voters prefer-- just as long as they're pleasing the lunatic fringe that watches Fox and listens to Hate Talk Radio hosts. Republican senators, particularly those outside the old Confederacy and the Mormon Empire, don't have it quite so good. They do have to take all their constituents' views into consideration if they hope to get reelected. That's the reason there were catastrophic GOP losses last November in Senate races in Indiana, Missouri, Massachusetts, Florida, Wisconsin, Montana, North Dakota, Virginia, Ohio, West Virginia. Michigan, Pennsylvania. Congressman Todd Akin could always talk all he wanted about "legitimate rapes" and whatever other freaky right-wing nonsense he wanted to babble about in his old congressional district, especially in backward Lincoln County-- which he won in November 48-45%... while losing the whole state 55-39%.

Take Lamar Smith, a 14-term crackpot whose neatly gerrymandered Texas district carefully zigs and zags around Hispanic and working class neighborhoods of Austin and San Antonio. President Obama only won 37.9% in Smith's all white golf club congressional district, while in adjoining TX-20, Obama won 58.9% and also won next door in TX-35. A die-hard member of Michele Bachmann's rapidly shrinking Tea Party Caucus, he's the new chairman of the House Science Committee and presides over a pack of right-wing anti-Science maniacs like Paul Broun (R-Pit of Hell), David Schweikert (R-AZ), Steven Palazzo (R-MS), domestic terrorist Steve Stockman (R-TX), Mo Brooks (R-AL), and Thomas Massie (R-KY). This week ole Lamar is attacking the Senate's bipartisan plan to reform the immigration system. All he sees is "amnesty" rewarding "illegals." Smith is making it more difficult for Republican senators like Jeff Flake (AZ), Lindsey Graham (SC), Marco Rubio (FL) and John McCain (AZ), who would like to drag their party into alignment with the majority of Americans, if not with the majority of Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity listeners.

Smith, the former chairman of the House Judiciary Committee who now sits on the panel's Immigration subcommittee, did not spare his Republican colleagues in attacking the Senate blueprint.

“No one should be surprised that individuals who have supported amnesty in the past still support amnesty," he said.

The new Judiciary Committee chairman is Virginia Boehner patsy Bob Goodlatte and he's taking a wait and see stance, saying the path to citizenship component raises a lot of questions. "When we look at proposals that deal with the legal status of 11 million illegal immigrants currently living in the U.S., we have a lot to discuss. The American people and members of Congress have a lot of questions about how this would work, what it would cost and how it will prevent illegal immigration in the future.”

The decision of Rubio, a rising conservative star, to join the effort could be crucial in attracting conservative support, and a spokesman for Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) specifically cited his involvement in a short response to the release of the blueprint.

“The Speaker welcomes the work of leaders like Sen. Rubio on this issue, and is looking forward to learning more about the proposal in the coming days,” Boehner spokesman Michael Steel said.

The House has long been seen as the more challenging chamber for immigration reform because of the opposition of conservative Republicans to any proposal that smacks of “amnesty” for undocumented immigrants.

Given that history, the muted response from conservatives in the House is notable. In a question-and-answer session with the Ripon Society last week, Boehner said that a bipartisan group in the House “basically [has] an agreement” on immigration reform. That group, he said, included both “hard heads” in his own party and Democrats who have long pushed for comprehensive reform.

Another right-wing crackpot, Michelle Malkin, was screaming her empty head off yesterday about the proposed deal, huffing and puffing at Republicans for going along with Democrats in fixing the immigration system. A self-loathing and demented extremist, she has particular animus for right-wingers Rubio and Flake in heavily Hispanic states, Florida and Arizona.

[D]on’t believe the hype from Rubio supporters that this warmed-over shamnesty proposal-- another recipe for more illegal immigration, a bigger welfare state, and undermined sovereignty-- is somehow new, improved and more enlightened.

John McCain said it himself on Sunday (via Allahpundit):

“I’m very pleased with the progress,” McCain said. “It’s not that much different from what we tried to do in 2007.”

Since repetition is key in the age of the low-information voter and the bonehead GOP, let me repeat at length what I said after Election Day:

GOP “moderates” and strategists assume that waving the magic amnesty wand and opening up the welfare/entitlement state to generations of illegal immigrants will translate into electoral gains for the party. They’re deluded. They pretend amnesty will come at no cost to legal immigrants and native-born Americans. They pretend they can “secure the border first” by making the same empty, token gestures that have left our borders a bloody joke for decades.

The promise of “securing the border first” is a Kabuki compromise.

These GOP amnesty-peddlers are as deluded now as they were in 2007 when Bush/McCain/Kennedy spearheaded a failed amnesty campaign. They’ve learned nothing.

How about clearing naturalization application backlogs instead of expanding illegal alien benefits?

How about tracking and deporting violent illegal alien criminals instead of handing out driver’s licenses to illegal aliens? How about streamlining the employee citizenship verification process for businesses (E-verify) and fixing outdated visa tracking databases instead of indiscriminately expanding temporary visa and guest worker programs?

Let’s drop the semantic games. Whether Shamnesty Twins Graham and McCain call it a “pathway to citizenship,” “regularization,” or “comprehensive immigration reform,” they are talking about permanently rewarding and incentivizing more mass illegal immigration above all else.

The proposal will probably have little problem getting through the Senate-- although die-hard extremists like Ted Cruz (R-TX), Jeff Sessions (R-AL) and Ron Johnson (R-WI) will oppose it-- and it looks like Boehner will trash the Hastert Rule again and let it pass with overwhelming Democratic support and maybe a quarter to a third of House Republicans. One of the Democrats pushing the hardest for the bill, Luis Guitierrez (D-IL) seemed very optimistic yesterday. “We are on track to pass a bipartisan bill this year that legalizes millions of immigrants, keeps families together, strengthens our country, and eventually allows immigrants to apply for citizenship. All of the pieces are falling into place... We have not signed on the dotted line, and some important details are yet to be resolved, but what we have now is momentum. Momentum, plus encouragement from the American people, the president, and immigrant and Latino communities, will get an immigration bill across the finish line this year.”

Steve King (R-IA), one of the most virulent hatemongers in Congress, is considering a Senate run, so he has to tone down the bigotry a little. But just a little. Here's his statement on the Senate proposal:

"Eight Senators have now agreed to four basic legislative pillars or immigration policy principles," said King. "They have 52 more Senators and 218 House Members to convince after they put their plan on paper in the form of a bill. I agree with most of the language in the very broad guidelines.

I would ask the Senators, do you agree with me that the United States should have an enforced immigration policy designed to enhance the economic, social, and cultural well being of the United States of America? Do you believe the Rule of Law and national sovereignty are essential components of a successful nation? Do you believe employers should be allowed to deduct wages and benefits paid to illegal aliens as a business expense? I'm guessing the 'Gang of Eight' would be inclined to agree with me on my principles. But, I predict that they will oppose my every effort to get them into law.

The president has demonstrated he will only enforce the laws that he likes. Promises of future law enforcement made under the 1986 Amnesty Act were not adequately kept by President Reagan. Why, then, would Americans accept the promise of this president?

I will continue to promote positive, common sense reforms that address our problems with illegal immigration, including reintroducing the New IDEA (Illegal Deduction Elimination Act) in the 113th Congress and I will continue to support enforcement of our existing laws."

What Will These Fan Favorites Be in Their Next Lives?

Leading off our procession is our new House speaker. Has that skin tone ever existed anywhere in nature?

by Noah

I’ve always been interested in the Hindu concept of karma. Having been brought up by severely Christian parents with their quaint notion that God punishes, the idea of karmic payback has a special place in what passes for my soul. So this morning, for some reason that shrinks get paid to uncover for a hefty fee but I can uncover for zippo, I started to muse on what might be the fate of certain cretins who walk among us and inhabit our TVs. Not that I’m judgmental or anything, but herewith I give you my version of what marma might provide for the future lives of some of the creatures who soil our existence on this planet.

1. Incoming House Speaker John Bo(eh)ner. He will be an orange-patent-leather ladies' handbag and matching shoes. He will live in a city that lacks one of those anti-dog-poop-on-the-sidewalk laws.

2. Rush Limbaugh. A highly over-inflated, bulging rear tire on a 1962 “Unsafe at Any Speed” Corvair speeding down the highway on a very hot summer day.

3. Michelle Malkin. The driver of the Corvair in (2).

4. Incoming Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul. A starving, impoverished black man in the rural south of the 1930s, being chased through a Mississippi swamp by Trent Lott’s relatives and a pack of hounds.

5. Rahm Emanuel. He’ll get his wish to be Mayor of Chicago, but the year of his election will be 1922 and the city will be a living hell run by Al Capone, and there will be no Eliot Ness. Be careful what you wish for Rahm. Welcome to Chicago politics, Roaring 20’s style, Rahm.

6. Former Vice President Dick Cheney. He will be Darth Vader, with a twist. His voice will be high and squeaky and his ability to use the force will leave him at the darndest times. The sound he hears more than any other will be laughter. Much of the laughter will be directed at him, but, much of the laughter will also be stark evidence of the happiness of the general population. Both things will make him completely mad and utterly miserable.

7. Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer. A piñata at a remote desert Mexican birthday party.

8. Ann “Coultergeist” Coulter. She will be a particularly tough piece of stale beef jerky in the mouth of a tobacco-spitting cowboy in Wyoming. The cowboy will get nowhere with his attempts to gnaw on the jerky and will toss it to the ground in frustration. That night, two rabid foaming at the mouth raccoons will come along and indulge in an epic tug of war.

9. Cyclist Lance Armstrong. A bicycle seat in the Tour de France.

10. Montana Sen. Max Baucus. A beat-up attaché case used to carry germ and drug encrusted cash in drug deals by people who will end up as K Street lobbyists.

11. Sean Hannity. A nationally known white supremacist suddenly dropped into the middle of the 1968 Detroit riots.

12. Politico. Toilet paper in bin Laden’s cave.

13. Incoming Florida Sen. Marco Rubio. Rush Limbaugh’s cigar.

14. Incoming House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa. A ten-year-old boy’s plastic Nazi soldier on the sidewalk about to meet the magnifying-glass death ray.

15. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. A Fire hydrant in a future city where 8 million humans have disappeared into thin air, only to be replaced by 8 million dogs.

16. Bristol Palin. A dime-a-dance girl in an Alaskan dance hall during the 19th Century Alaskan Gold Rush. Don’t worry Bristol, those sloppy-drunk, reeking prospectors can’t dance either but that’s not what they’re really interested in anyway.

17. Incoming Washington State Rep. Hans Zeiger. A Girl Scout-in-training.

18. Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani. A little girl’s favorite dolly, complete with a doll-size set of a hundred dresses, bikinis, lingerie, spike heels, and evening wear. Oh wait, he’d like that!

19. The entire U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Pregnant women chained to a work bench making 15 cents per day making cheap sneakers and day-glo shower slippers in a Southeast Asian factory. Same goes for everyone at Goldman-Sachs.

20. Osama bin Laden. Lab rat for a scientist who's looking for a cancer cure.

21. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. Luau pig.

22. Glenn Beck. One of those big fat bright yellow very dented bumper guards at a very busy toll plaza on America’s number one drunk driver highway.

23. Goldman Sachs Chairman-CEO Lloyd Blankfein. A Dumpster-diving homeless man who learns the value of humility and integrity but gets the crap kicked out of him by a pack of drunken, coked-out Wharton Business School grads on a near-daily basis.

24. South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint. A slave owned by a very sadistic plantation owner in a place that is remarkably like South Carolina in 1820. They will break him, badly.

25. Sarah Palin. one of those jack-in-the-box heads on a Slinky thingie. Lots of chips in the paint.

26. George Dubya Bush. An abandoned three-year-old boy in Crawford, TX, whose daddy was last seen disappearing over a hill with the family’s prized ewe, never to be seen again. Little Georgie will now have to fend for himself if he’s to ever amount to anything.

27. Former BP CEO Tony Hayward. A brown pelican.

28. Brett Favre. A model for airport porno-scanners.

29. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. Mitch McConnell.

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Looks Like Arnold Schwarzenegger Isn't Being Invited To CPAC, The Extreme Right's Big Annual Powwow

Michael Steele, Mike Huckabee and John Boehner???

Next week hard core extremists and obstructionists from around the Beltway will descend on Washington's Omni Shoreham Hotel again for their annual ritualistic embrace of a kind of uniquely American fascism. Today's Washington Post features a dizzy, if not delusional, preview by GOP media shill S.E. Cupp. She fights back against the conventional wisdom that this year's get together will be a bust because of the lack of star power, many respectable conservatives distancing themselves from the fanatics, Know Nothings and radicals-- the Ann Coulter wing of the Republican Party-- who dominate the conclave. But Cupp, who will be signing her childish book, Why You're Wrong About the Right next Saturday, disagrees completely: "See, in my world," she writes, "stars don't come any bigger than Newt Gingrich, Karl Rove, Mitt Romney and Mike Pence (if there were a congressional version of Teen Beat, the Indiana congressman would be on its cover every month). Michael Steele, Mike Huckabee and John Boehner are the Jonas Brothers of conservative celebrity."

Am I the only one who gets excited at the thought of a two-hour discussion on "Protecting the Secret Ballot" or "Taking Action Through Citizen-Led Reform" in the Regency Ballroom? When I see such clever lecture titles as "Will Congress Take Your Guns?" and "Are We All Socialists Now?" I start salivating. Will it? Are we? I can't wait to find out.

Just announced-- Mario Lopez is speaking! Okay, it's Mario Lopez of the Hispanic Leadership Fund, and not the hunky headliner of Saved By the Bell and Dancing With the Stars, but still-- he's going to be great, I just know it.

And doesn't everyone want to have "Breakfast With Phyllis Schlafly"? Just me?

...I'm also looking forward to drinking boxed wine with such friends and colleagues as Tucker Carlson, Stephen Baldwin and Andrew Breitbart during the forced socialization of conference happy hours. You'd be surprised how many big deals are done over pigs-in-a-blanket and cubed cheese. And yes, I just totally name-dropped.

Even Sarah Palin, "the Angela Jolie of the GOP," is staying away-- although she will address her adoring fans with a video especially for them. Instead of Rudy Giuliani, Dick Cheney, John McCain, George Bush, Bobby Jindal, Charlie Crist-- or even Arnold or chief House obstructionist Eric Cantor, the nuts and loons will have to make do with some sorry scrapings from the bottom of the barrel: Rush Limbaugh, Coulter, Rick Santorum, the 2 bizarre Micheles-- Bachmann and Malkin-- John Shadegg, Jim DeMint... and, fingers crossed, internationally acclaimed neo-Nazi, racist and right-wing posterboy Geert Wilders. And, in a nod towards Obama's sense of post-partisanship, there will be an award ceremony honoring doddering former progressive George McGovern for his anti-union rantings. (He isn't doddering enough to bother to show up in person though. Perhaps anti-labor lobbyist and Republican stalwart Rick Berman will accept the honor on his behalf.)

Rick Moran knows exactly what he is-- which is why he named the demented Republican Party blog he runs Rightwing Nuthouse. His essay on next week's CPAC convention appeared in another virtual nuthouse, though, The Next Right. "The theme of this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC)," he begins, "should be 'Cocooning our way to Irrelevancy' or perhaps 'How to lose the next 5 elections in 10 easy steps.'”

From my point of view, it really is that bad. With the exception of some effort to bring conservatism into the 21st century communications-wise, the program appears to be an excellent panacea for what ailed conservatism in about 1980. It’s as if the debacles of 2006 and 2008 never happened. Does it matter that the very same people who helped get us clobbered the last two election cycles are running seminars and roundtables at the conference? Not if you’re a movement still in denial that it will take more than “message tweaking” and better utilization of the internet to bring conservatism back and make it relevant to a large portion of Americans again.

...My idea of “reform” is probably a helluva lot different than most conservatives. But maybe we could start with the recognition that in elections, the way you win is by getting one more vote than the other side. And no matter how you want to add up the numbers, the 30% of so of the nation that identifies itself as “conservative” will always fall short of 50% + 1. I hate to break this news to my fellow conservatives; you can use any kind of mathematical hocus pocus you wish but there just aren’t enough of us to only allow “true conservatives” a place at the table. The absence of conservatives like David Frum, Peggy Noonan, David Brooks, and others who probably agree with 90% of conservative positions on the issues but have been driven from the movement for their apostasy-- real or imagined-- is as incomprehensible as it is depressing.

This is the way back? It’s not a question of being “moderate” or “true-blue” but rather how long does conservatism want to wander in the wilderness? Ideas on how to reform conservatism-- and I speak of real reform, not the cosmetic solutions that appear will be offered at CPAC-- must come from as many sources as possible. Some conservatives might not like the smell inside the “Big Tent” but turning up your nose at people who disagree with you on one or two issues is just plain nuts. “Litmus tests” and the like are all well and good unless you are a minority, getting smaller and less relevant, and don’t wish to find a way back in order to compete in the marketplace of ideas.

Our dire situation doesn’t seem to have sunk in yet. This is evident by how many sessions are scheduled that appear to have been lifted from the agenda of a decade or more ago.

He goes on to bemoan speakers from the fringes of American politics like North Carolina neo-fascist Virginia Foxx, Illinois' two most extreme congressional wingnuts, Aaron Schock and Peter Roskam, Phyllis Schafly, and Ralph Reed and warns his fellow rightists that "fleeing the mindset that re-enforces the notion that there isn’t much really wrong with conservatism that a dab of message clarification here and a spot of renewed enthusiasm there won’t cure" isn't going to help them reach outside of their delusional drooling base. "Accepting the fact that there are fundamental problems is the first step toward recovery. Unfortunately, CPAC fails miserably in that regard."

Perhaps instead of a forward-looking strategy they can just cheer themselves up a little in preparation for the disaster that awaits them in 2010 when voters let them know what they think of obstructionism. They could probably start with a hissing session for-- in absentia, of course-- California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, the elected GOP politician with the most constituents anywhere in America. And do they hate him-- especially now that he's calling on Republicans to put partisanship aside and be team players with Obama! Friday he signed a state budget that includes $12.5 billion in tax hikes.

"Their last gasp has been taken from them," said Larry N. Gerston, a political scientist at San Jose State, citing the unpopularity among most California voters of the party's conservative stands on abortion, illegal immigration and other touchstone issues. "It puts them in a very precarious position."

By repudiating the thrust of his candidacy in the 2003 recall-- "I will not raise taxes," Schwarzenegger stated flatly the day after he won-- the governor has also enraged the conservatives who dominate the party.

For Republicans convening at a state party convention this weekend in Sacramento, it is a wrenching moment. Schwarzenegger is skipping the event to attend a governors' conference in Washington. But his turnaround on taxes has darkened the mood of the hundreds of party loyalists venting their frustration in a hotel where the governor often stays in a penthouse suite.

To be sure, none of the GOP lawmakers who demanded that the state close its $42-billion shortfall without raising taxes detailed the doomsday cuts that approach would entail, nor did the activists who lobbied against the tax increases. If the state had laid off its entire workforce of 238,000-- every prison guard, firefighter and clerk-- it still would have fallen billions shy of a balanced budget.

Still, in a nod to the GOP's internal realities, two of the party's top contenders for Schwarzenegger's job in the June 2010 primary have split with the governor over the tax hikes.

One, former EBay Chief Executive Meg Whitman, said they will "kill jobs, hurt families and make future deficits even worse." The other, state Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner, called the budget a "fiasco." The heavier tax burden, he warned, will increase unemployment.

...Like the governor, the six Republican lawmakers who joined Democrats in approving the tax increases are also facing vitriol within the party. Chief targets include Sens. Dave Cogdill of Modesto, whose support of the budget led to his overthrow as Senate Republican leader, and Abel Maldonado of Santa Maria, who cast the deciding vote.

Conservative blogger Matthew Cunningham has started a Facebook group, "Never Elect Abel Maldonado to Anything, Ever Again." More threatening, Ernie Konnyu, a former Bay Area congressman, has launched a campaign to recall Maldonado.

Efforts to recall other GOP lawmakers for their break with the party on taxes have sprouted. Conservative purists are pushing the state party to censure them Sunday.

The party's turmoil over taxes comes as Republicans nationwide are still reeling from their 2008 defeat. Their White House nominee, John McCain, lost California by more than 3 million votes in the party's worst presidential rout in the state since the 1930s.

S.E. Cupp has a bizarre imagination

And for Republicans in California-- and across most of the nation-- 1930's-era abhorrence is exactly what they can look forward to. Republican governors are in DC arguing amongst themselves whether or not to reject the Stimulus money that would help people who have lost their jobs, the "not" position being championed by right-wing maniacs like Bobby Jindal (LA), Haley Barbour (MS) and Mark Sanford (SC). The kind of last gasp obstructionism being put in place by these crazies plus your Jim DeMints, John Cornyns, Jim Bunnings, Richard Burrs, Johnny Isaksons, Tom Corburns, Eric Cantors and John Boehners-- and being cheered on and even demanded by the lunatic fringe CPAC core-- is exactly what led to the GOP with 16 members of the Senate in 1936 and jut 88 members of the House.


KEN ADDS --

Could I just underline the point made above by self-identified rightwing nut Rick Moran? The conservative movement has apparently become so loony that it has no room for people as loony as David Frum, Peggy Noonan, and David Brooks.

Okay, those may not be Rick's exact words. Still, that's some kind of loony!

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Will Repugs who see their world ending ever be able to overcome their deep-rooted racism?

Music lover and would-be RNC chairman Chip Saltsman

by Noah

If ever there was a doubt about just how deep racism runs in Republican veins, the Repug reaction to both Barack Obama's campaign and his election present us with a reeking pile of proof. In his post about Coultergeist's latest fetid verbiage, an attack on Kwanzaa, Ken almost rhetorically asked yesterday, "But what would lead an individual, no matter how inappropriately self-important and flat-out deluded, to invest herself in something as harmless as Kwanzaa?" I agree with his hypothesis that she is becoming increasingly more desperate for attention. I also suspect that it goes back to various high school experiences or perhaps something even earlier in her childhood, a childhood that seems to be still in progress.

But I'm not here to psychoanalyze Annie's inner screaming child. It's irrelevant to the bottom line. That bottom line is that Repugs across the country are in shock about Obama's victory over them. They can't stand it. They are incredulous, even if they don't know what the word means. For them, the world is over, under, sideways, down, and they are lashing out -- in Coulter's case, by attacking a harmless holiday because, in her twisted mind it's a symbol for something she doesn't like.

They can't accept that "someone who looks like he does" is about to enter the White House and live there with his family and, worst of all, be president of the country. They bizarrely blame the media, yes, but they are also expressing themselves in some very sad ways, ways that reflect just what it is to be a repug, what's at the very core of being a Republican. Some examples from the list:

* Michelle Malkin's "baby mama" aspersion. Well, to Malkin it was an aspersion, a description of our about-to-be First Lady meant to convey severe negativity. Note to MM: Millions of us who live in the 21st century see nothing wrong with the Obamas and their heritage.

* Alaska state government e-mails have been recently discovered which make racist jokes about how yet another black family will be living "in Washington on government subsidized housing."

* The nonstop use of code words for "he's B-L-A-C-K," words like Muslim and terrorist, and pointing extra attention to his "unusual" name. If any of you listen to righty radio, you know this hasn't stopped one bit with the election.

* Continued attempts to make it more difficult for African-Americans to even vote during the election, by making fewer machines available in certain parts of town or even by sending threatening mail to households in those certain parts of town, mail that threatened arrest if proper ID wasn't shown (may we see your papers, please!) or maybe if you had some outstanding minor traffic-ticket problem.

* The chairman of the South Carolina Republican Party, Katon Dawson, felt he was perfectly qualified to be national chairman of his party, and certainly there was nothing in his resume that would preclude his getting the job. Not only that, many in the party agreed. Until some little irritating so-what of a technicality became public, that technicality being that he belonged to a whites-only club. Let me point out that this wasn't in the distant past, but this year! Repugs apparently see nothing wrong with that and rushed to his defense. Sadly for him, some of us see something wrong in it. Of course, to them it was just one more thing to blame the media for, rather than their own "shortcomings."

* And, now, we've come to the "Barack the Magic Negro" song (sung to the tune of "Puff the Magic Dragon," a former Top 40 hit that is a classroom staple with young children). It's "welfare queens" and Willie Horton all over again. The term "Magic Negro" was coined by an L.A. Times op-ed writer who defined a magic Negro candidate as one who enough white folks would feel comfortable with to vote into office. A certain resentful open racist and Oxycontin freak has been playing "Barack the Magic Negro" on his radio show.

This little slice of bigotry was recently sent out as part of a holiday CD by Chip Saltsman, who "served" as Mike Huckabee's campaign manager and is an RNC official in Tennessee. Saltsman feels like Katon Dawson -- that he too is a perfect fit for the national RNC-chairman slot. The irony is, of course, that being a bigot DOES boost your credentials for the RNC Chair job. Also, think about the fact that this CD was sent out as a holiday greeting, peace and goodwill towards men and all that. Peace and goodwill haven't been Repug attributes in almost 100 years, so maybe this guy is very qualified.

Man, you just can't make this stuff up. If you did, no one would believe it possible -- unless they know some Republicans, that is. I can even see them thinking that this song could be a way to capture minds at an early age. To them it's probably more of that "catapult the propaganda" stuff. It's worthwhile to note that Saltsman's candidacy has been endorsed not only by Huckabee but by former Senate Majority Leader Bill "Let's Play Doctor" Frist, while former House Speaker Newt Gingrich takes a rare reasonable position, saying, "This is so inappropriate that it should disqualify any Republican National Committee candidate who would use it." No wonder Gingrich is on the outs with his party.

Current RNC Chairbozo Mike Duncan says he's "shocked and appalled." Reminds me of the famous moment in the movie Casablanca when Claude Raines says he is "shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on" at Rick's, when he's bribed to allow it. Imagine that! The head of the RNC is "shocked and appalled" to find racism in the Repug Party! Who knew?

The assclown who sent out the CD to 40 of his dearest fellow Repugs just can't understand why we don't appreciate the "humor" and the "satire." Well, guess what, bozo. We get the humor and the satire. Too bad you don't get that it's still racist. The source of humor in your sick, puny mind is someone's skin color.

Saltsman even tries to explain his actions by bringing up the Repug-talking-point explanation, spewed nonstop on righty radio, that Obama only got elected because of "white guilt," that the senator was considered "safe enough" to enough whites, blah-blah-blah. To Republicans, Obama couldn't possibly have gotten elected on his own qualifications and merits. I guess sometimes it takes a racist to not see that something is racist.

Today some Repugs are saying that the reaction against this incident is overblown and that some people are just being oversensitive. There they go again, blaming the victim. But what should we expect from a party that runs a guy for President who tells jokes about a woman enjoying being raped on the sidewalk by a gorilla?

What does Peter Yarrow (of Peter, Paul and Mary), one of the writers of "Puff the Magic Dragon," think about all of this?

"I and my co-writer of 'Puff,' Lenny Lipton, have been eagerly awaiting an end to the mean-spiritedness, outright disrespect and bigotry that was commonplace prior to this last presidential election. What might have been wearily accepted as 'the way it was' in the campaign is now unacceptable. Obama is not a candidate. He is president-elect, and this song insults the office of the presidency, the people who voted for him, as well as those who did not -- and taking a children's song and twisting it in such a vulgar, mean-spirited way is a slur to our entire country and our common agreement to move beyond racism."

Well said, Peter. Too bad, though, that Republicans obviously do not agree about that moving-beyond-racism stuff. This sort of thing has a proud history in the party of Trent Lott, a man who still wishes Strom Thurmond and his segregationist party had won the Presidency back in 1948 when things were more like they should be and everyone knew their place. The Republicans welcomed racist "Dixiecrats" to their ranks after LBJ signed various civil rights bills into law back in the 1960s and racist Democrats fled to a place where they could be more comfortable.

Current Louisiana Repug and KKK Grand Whizz David Duke has boasted that Senator Obama's election is boosting enrollment in the KKK as we get ready for the January 20th inauguration. Then there's the infamous anti-Harold Ford "call me" ad that actually helped elect Bob Corker to the U.S. Senate in Tennessee. This sort of thing goes on and on and on. Repugs even do it to each other, as evidenced by the Bush "McCain fathered a black child" phone calls during the 2000 South Carolina primary.

I'd like to point out at this point that while there are no Republican African-Americans in Congress, there are actually two Republican African-American candidates for the party chairman position. One is Ken Blackwell of Ohio 2004 fame. The other is former Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael Steele. Watch the Repugs trip all over themselves to choose one of the two and get all smug and tell us, "See, nasty racism all gone -- it's a brand new day."

So, my questions to Coultergeist and all these others who are bashing at various things African-American start with: What are you afraid of?

Is this fear of a black planet? Fear of the unknown? Just plain fear? Well, look around you. Why do you fume about Kwanzaa? Why do you still fume about Martin Luther King Day? Does it hurt so much that your presidential candidate, who voted against MLK Day, not only lost but lost to "one of them" (aka "that one")?

Why not join the great American experiment where all are created equal? You were the party of Lincoln once. Wake up! It's not a Dobie Gillis world anymore. In fact, Zelda Gilroy might have another surprise for you that you can't handle. You are acting just like your forebears did when Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in major league baseball back in 1947, when things were more like you would apparently like them to be now. Many major leaguers threatened to refuse to play on the same field with Jackie. Some, even among his own Brooklyn Dodger teammates, would not even shake his hand.

It was damn ugly then, and it's damn ugly now. How'd that all work out for you? You can slow social progress down, but you haven't been able to stop it. You'll keep trying, though. But you just might chose to look at this "magic negro" thing the way I'm about to suggest. Warning: This might cause you to convulse at the horror of the truth.

Yes, racism is still very much a problem in our society, but Senator Obama's election is a sign of progress to many of us. Some, apparently, even overcame lingering misgivings about voting for a, er, a "you know." Maybe you should look at it this way. (Remember, I warned you.) Maybe you think your feelings are the norm. Sadly, that may be true, at least for too many people in our country, but -- are you sitting down? -- maybe your guy Bush was so bad that America did the unthinkable (to you) and voted for a black man.

If you do think, in your warped little minds, that it was unthinkable, then enjoy your own personal hell that you set up for yourself.

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Far Right's Knives Come Out-- Threating Boehner, Slashing McCain

DeMint favors selling South Carolina out to Mormon cult

A few days ago GOP poet laureate Ted Nugent declared war on "moderates" (i.e.- mainstream conservatives) within his own shattered and bleeding party. He especially attacked the man he had been campaigning for 2 weeks ago, John McCain and decreed that McCain should have no role in determining the future of the GOP. Instead he'd like to see silly right-wing gossip columnist Michelle Malkin play a dominant role. And the following day, the very same Malkin, as if on cue, was calling the presidential candidate she had been urging her brain dead supporters to vote for McLame.

OK, granted, no serious people anywhere take either of these clowns seriously. Or do they? It wasn't that long ago that America's most reactionary senator, South Carolina lunatic fringe loudmouth Jim DeMint was planting stories in right-wing blogs that McCain was considering him as a running mate. No one ever invited him to any of the McCain picnics at any of the 13 or 14 homes. But DeMint, good little zombie and unprincipled partisan hack that he is, was stumping for McCain anyway. The it turns out that DeMint was less than truthful when he was urging his constituents to vote for McCain-- either than or he's had a sudden change of heart. Yesterday DeMint, telling a GOP planning session that the party needs to advocate more of a theocratic form of government, blamed McCain for dragging the party into ruin by betraying conservative values. According to CNN, "DeMint offered a long list of complaints about McCain's record in the Senate and on the campaign trail."

"McCain, who is proponent of campaign finance reform that weakened party organizations and basically put George Soros in the driver's seat. His proposal for amnesty for illegals. His support of global warming, cap-and-trade programs that will put another burden on our economy. And of course, his embrace of the bailout right before the election was probably the nail in our coffin this last election. And he has been an opponent of drilling in ANWR, at a time when energy is so important. It really didn't fit the label, but he was our package."

And McCain isn't the only conservative leader coming under attack by the clueless and power-hungry fascists in the Republican Party. One of California's most extreme right-wing members of Congress, Dan Lungren, despite nearly being defeated by a largely unknown and unfinanced progressive Democrat, has declared that he's going to hold John Boehner accountable by challenging him for the very diminished House Minority Leader position. Keep in mind that Boehner's two top lieutenants, Blunt and Putnam, have already fallen on their swords as the scapegoats for the catastrophe of 2006/2008.

The much disliked Lungren only managed to scrape by his own re-election bid with 50% of the vote, seriously under-polling McCain, and is likely to face a far more serious challenge in 2010. He blames Boehner's inept leadership for the problems he sees the Republican House caucus mired in.

“If we don’t admit our difficulties and address them aggressively, we not only run the risk of becoming a permanent congressional minority but we will do a disservice to our nation,” Lungren wrote. “If we choose by inaction to ignore the real challenges we face, then paraphrasing President Reagan, we deserve to be regulated to the trash heap of history.”

An extremist even by Republican standards, Lungren isn't likely to get more than a dozen votes if he pursues his challenge, which isn't likely now that he's managed to get his name in the newspaper for something other than being the California Republican incumbent with the smallest percentage of votes.

Is Rupert Murdoch trying to make us feel better about newspapers' steady slide into extinction?

by Ken

I guess working for Rupert Murdoch means never having to say you're sorry -- unless maybe you do something that causes the boss to lose a chunk o' cash.

Now trust me, I fret over this Yankee season. I wish it were harder to count the number of times I've gotten home late and tuned into a game in progress, only to find the Yanks down by, say, six runs, at a time when even a one-run deficit is generally hard for them to make up.

I can even see how, under normal circumstances, the "RIP" gravestone could have been a clever way to put a punctuation mark on this disappointing season. But if there's one day when, unfortunately, you can't do it, it's when your other major story is about a lunatic walking into Arkansas Democratic Party headquarters and shooting the state party chairman.

I notice that, according to the Washington Post website, that paper's story on the Arkansas shooting was tucked away on page A4. Of course, the New York Post's front-page placement may have had something to do with its deck for the story: "Clinton friend killed." Are we to guess that if the late Bill Gwatney hadn't been "a close friend of Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton," as he's described in the story lead, his murder wouldn't have been front-page material?

With regard to the assassin's motive, we still have no more than a clue -- that he had just been fired from his job at a Target store (and not, as was being speculated yesterday in the wake of the shooting, at one of the car dealerships owned by the victim), for writing graffiti on a store wall. Naturally the fact that the guy sought out the chairman of his state Democratic Party, coming two and a half weeks after the Knoxville, Tennessee, Unitarian church shoot-up by a certified right-wing loonie apparently expressly set on murdering liberals, has a lot of us wondering if there isn't something more important about Bill Gwatney's identity than that he was "a close friend of Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton."

Are we in fact witnessing the opening rounds of a reign of violence by the brain-challenged subjects/objects/victims of the Right-Wing Noise Machine? Of course we don't know much yet about the Arkansas loony. And since he was shot dead by police returning his fire after what seems to have been a pretty wild car chase, we're not going to find out any more from him.

But the right-wing loons don't seem to have had any trouble connecting the dots. Yesterday the wingnuttiest of the blogging wingnuts were in full preemptive damage-control screech over the way we liberals were bound to exploit this latest episode. Incredibly, there were even "aren't we victims?" references to the Oklahoma City bombing, despite the facts that:

* the immediate, no-facts-based assumption by both the Right-Wing Noise Machine and its fraternal affiliate, the American Infotainment Media, was that the bombing was the work of Arabs;

* the crime was in fact perpetrated by certified American far-right-wing loonies;

* and those same media halfwits managed to fail to impress upon the country the essential connection that the bombing was in fact the work of authentic home-grown right-wing domestic terrorists.

Michelle Malkin, that useless pile of puke who seems not to have a sane or decent cell in her diseased brain, and whose only reason for drawing breath appears to be to spew lies and delusions sufficiently vast, vicious, and hate-fomenting to produce a climate of murderous rage, responded in classic Malkin-esque form yesterday, as reported by our pal Gavin M at Sadly, No:

Somebody sent me an email blaming my so-called 'hate' for this horrible act of violence against a Democrat Party liberal. Here is that person's full name and unredacted email address.

(Gavin presented this as "Shorter Michelle Malkin: I shot the Arkansas Democrat Party chairman.")

I think back to when the American Orthodox rabbis of the extreme right produced a months-long drumbeat of incitement to the assassination of Israeli Prime Minster Yitzhak Rabin, including providing biblical and talmudic justifications, even mandates, for Rabin's murder, and then threw up their hands in innocent amazement that anyone should point at them when the prime minister was assassinated by one of their faithfully ultra-Orthdox crazies. (Seen here: the Mount Herzl graves of Leah and Yitzhak Rabin.)

To return to the NYP, I can see that the sports guys who dreamed up their "RIP" for the Yankee season, complete with artwork, were so pleased with their cleverness that they just couldn't let it go. I'm sorry for them that its intended publication happened to coincide with the story of a real-life assassination. But, as they say, them's the breaks. I'm not sure how much it would have helped to move the Yankee story to the tabloid paper's back cover, which is always devoted to sports anyway -- the two covers, after all, are not only physically on the same sheet of newsprint but in effect a "set."

To be sure, there are a lot of fans who live and die with the ups and downs of the Yankees' season. Nevertheless, it's just a game. A jobless crazy man taking out his craziness on a political leader -- that's something else.

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