Please excuse Scott from the prolonged distress of being in close proximity to the Soshulist President of the United States of Union Thuggery during the tour of the revitalized Master Lock factory, during which he would be within hailing, or worse, distance of over 400 unionized workers in a factory cited by the President as returning to operating at full capacity. Edited to add: And also please excuse him from meeting his second deadline to challenge all those recall petitions. What with not having gone through even a quarter of the million signatures the Dems provided, he’s a touch run down.
Scott is feeling a bit fluish. UPDATE: He will rouse himself has roused himself from his sickbed long enough to greet the President on the tarmac, though, in typically gracious Republican fashion~~with a gift of goodwill.
This is Daisy, who is, as you can see, blessed with great physical beauty. She’s even got matching beauty moles. She is somewhat vain in consequence. I tell both my dogs that they’re smart girls, good girls, beautiful girls. But with Daisy, it is definitely the latter that resonates. She takes in the sun like a glamorous 50s-era movie star in San Tropez, even though she is only a dog in Florida.
The sun is one thing we’ve still got going for us in Florida. Otherwise, things are pretty shitty. We’ve got double-digit unemployment. Nearly half of our houses are underwater in the mortgage sense and will be among the first literally underwater if nothing is done about climate change. And nothing will be done because Republicans and Fox News have successfully demagogued that issue to their mouth-breathing audience, some of whom will eventually require snorkels to continue their mouth-breathing.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops is upping the tantrum level over the requirement to include birth control coverage in health insurance plans for Catholic hospitals and other institutions to truly epic proportions. And, like any toddler lying on its back and screaming, they are now changing the rules of engagement. They don’t want the requirement removed just for organizations run by religious institutions - they don’t want any employers to be required to cover contraceptive services in their plans.
Sez his royal poobah, General Counsel Anthony Picarello “If I quit this job and opened a Taco Bell, I’d be covered by the mandate”. Um. Yes. You would. You would indeed. Because you, as an employer of people who may not share your particular religious superstitions, would not be allowed to dictate their health care choices to them. Because, well, why should you be, anyway? Perhaps unknown to you, the times of feudal control over one’s serfs appear to be behind us now.
Even more annoying than the irksome background noise level of heel thumping and high pitched wailing is the insistence by certain pundits that Obama owes it to Catholics to allow them to force their restrictive beliefs regarding accessibility to fundamental health care on the backs of their relatively powerless employees. (See: This Person and Dionne, E.J.) After all Catholics helped Obama to get health care reform passed in the first place and here he is underbussening them! No doubt as they always knew he would. Because, of course, health care reform had no other redeeming features that could conceivably make their lives better and make it worthwhile to get it passed.
No, in fact, the whole point of the thing was, apparently, to provide a path to allow Obama to begin routinely decapitating the faithful. OK, OK, that’s Santorum speaking and we all know he’s a fruitcake’s fruitcake when it comes to issues of icky contraception and, you know, sex between married couples, but still!
Obama has apparently said he’s not backing down on this one and I sincerely hope the recent shitstorm over the Komen Foundation’s ill considered decision to decide they were cutting funding from Planned Parenthood will reinforce this idea on his part and the part of his administration. (We were the winners!! It feels good to be the winner!!)
In the meantime I very much hope this silly saber rattling will die down fairly soon. But with the economy improving, Obama’s poll results rising, Osama bin Laden still dead and a clown posse of presidential candidates still roaming the lands, the Rethugs haven’t got much else right now. Boo hoo.
Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer has issues, of that there is no doubt. The fact that they go beyond the political will come as no surprise. Let’s compare the billet doux she presented to President Obama during that infamous Tantrum on the Tarmac last week (the text of Brewer’s letter is in bold below), in the light of the appeal now published on her PAC’s website (in italics), and no doubt landing with a needy squelch in inboxes around AZ.
Welcome to Arizona!
When I met President Obama this week, I really wasn’t pointing at him. I was telling him, “You have ONE more year!” The President needs to be reminded that he is the President of the FEDERAL REPUBLIC and not a KING lording over state governors.
You’ve arrived in a state at the forefront of America’s recovery—and her future. We were at the brink. We were at the bottom of the list in job creation. Today, we have a balanced budget and we’re in the top 10 for job creation.
I’m proud of that hard-won recovery—the result of many tough decisions, courage and perseverance.
While I wanted to talk to him about jobs, our economy and visiting our border, President Obama criticized my book, Scorpions for Breakfast, and then walked away from me.
My hope is while you are here you will have a chance to see our tremendous results first hand.
We both love this great country, but we fundamentally disagree on how to best make America grow & prosper once again. I’d love an opportunity to share with you how we’ve been able to turn Arizona around with hard choices that turned out to be the right ones.
We deserve results over rhetoric, ...
And, of course, my offer to visit the border—and buy lunch—still stands!
... but this is a President who had the audacity to sue me and Arizona in my efforts to protect our country from illegal immigration!
With respect,
Donate today to Jan PAC and help me stop President Obama in 2012 and others like him who are taking our country down the wrong path.
Now no fingerpointing! It’s not as if the Governor is the first Arizona Tealoon to turn a tidy profit on her untidy relationship with the truth. So the Governor has managed to massage her encounter with the President into sales: “Scorpions for Breakfast,” her hilarious political fabulation-a-clef, has zoomed on Amazon from 343,222 to 7. (Thanks TPM) Shall we deny an author the fruits of the sweat of her tongue?
But now to the news I know Roastafarians have been on tenterhooks waiting for: the winner of the Kaption This Kaptious Kook Contest and the valuable, one-of-a-kind Jan Brewer Souvenir Hospitality Bottle Cap:
U.S. Rep. Allen West of Florida rivals even Rep. Joe Walsh, R-Deadbeat Dad, in personal and political assholery. Having been booted out of the Army for a harsh interrogation incident in Iraq, West went on to win a House seat during the 2010 election.
Since then, he has consistently hit every wingnut pleasure center, comparing Democrats to Joseph Goebbels, styling himself a modern-day Harriet Tubman sent to lead African Americans off the liberal plantation and accusing President Obama of playing the race card while speculating that a prospective Democratic opponent “likes running against black guys.” Here’s Rep. West, R-Plantation (honest to god!), last night telling President Obama, Nancy Smash, et al, to “get the hell out of the United States of America.”
The teahadists eat that sort of thing up with a spoon, naturally. But the Florida GOP, which has a supermajority in the state legislature and is headed up by GOP Governor Rick “Voldemort” Scott, has undertaken a project to redraw the state’s districts—after being compelled to do so by votes on a ballot initiative in 2010. And it looks like Mr. West might be headed south.
Who would rob the nation of such a fiery demagogue? Wingnuts can’t pin this one on the Dems, who are pretty much powerless in Florida. But Colonel Mustard has a clue:
One of the rising stars of the Tea Party is about to be sacrificed by the Republican establishment in Florida, led by someone spinning for Mitt Romney.
Don’t say you weren’t warned.
It was Will Weatherford in the Conservatory with a wrench! Well, the truth is, West was in some trouble with voters anyway. I don’t live in his district, but from what I understand, voting in a certified loon like West was something of an aberration for that area, and it’s possible they find West’s constant grandstanding a bit embarrassing.
Also, the state GOP had to be prepared to shed a few seats while still stacking the deck in their own favor. So, tough luck, West. The extent to which this develops into a Tea Party-Establishment flap is just warm, rich, savory gravy.
Sarah Palin took to Facebook last night to express shock that fellow Republicans are using dirty tricks on one another in the campaign:
We have witnessed something very disturbing this week. The Republican establishment which fought Ronald Reagan in the 1970s and which continues to fight the grassroots Tea Party movement today has adopted the tactics of the left in using the media and the politics of personal destruction to attack an opponent.
We will look back on this week and realize that something changed… I am in favor of contested primaries and healthy, pointed debate. They help focus candidates and the electorate. I have fought in tough and heated contested primaries myself. But what we have seen in Florida this week is beyond the pale. It was unprecedented in GOP primaries. I’ve seen it before – heck, I lived it before – but not in a GOP primary race.
Well, she might want to ask her former running mate about that. But of course she knows about it—McCain hired the same damn people to train Palin to serve as his lip-sticked pit bull in 2008. She goes on:
I question whether the GOP establishment would ever employ the same harsh tactics they used on Newt against Obama. I didn’t see it in 2008. Many of these same characters sat on their thumbs in ‘08 and let Obama escape unvetted.
Hahaha! Yeah, no one encouraged hordes of deluded, racist nitwits to claim Barack Obama was the Kenyan-born, communist, granny-unplugging love child of Bernadette Dorn and Malcolm X, Mrs. Death Panels Lady. Jeebus, these people are beyond shameless.
Threatened. She says she felt threatened. Well! Having one of them gently touch her elbow while she was wagging her finger in his face would naturally elicit a visceral reaction like that. She was surrounded by them, after all. And of course they all defend each other; what do you expect?
Oh! Surrounded by politicians. What did you think she meant?
Caption Contest Update: I’ll keep it open until Sunday morning. That gives you two weekend nights to drunk-compete for that Jan Brewer Souvenir Hospitality Bottlecap, lovingly, or hastily and lovingly, crafted by me. Bueno suerte!
President Obama got pretty high marks on his SOTU speech from what I’ve read. My dog thought it was a snooze-fest, however:
Or maybe she was dreaming about cavorting on the White House lawn with Bo. (Yes, it IS creepy how her eyes are half open when she sleeps. What is she, Gandalf?)
Now who would ever believe Jan Brewer could treat the President uncordially? The Governor wanted a meeting with the President. He told her that her fabulous description (“fabulous” as in “confabulated”) of the last one they had, as portrayed in her searing expose of why Jan Brewer is as awesome as Jan Brewer, Scorpions For Breakfast: My Fight Against Special Interests, Liberal Media, and Cynical Politicos to Secure America’s Border, was, well, not very cordial, and then this thing up here happened. Afterwards, she added to her luster as a wordsmith by calling the President “thin-skinned,” and explained wagging her finger in the President’s face thusly: “I will say that a picture is what it is.” Thankee, Governor!
The RightOSphere is naturally outraged that the President apparently walked away from the Governor while she was in mid-sentence. I say she’s lucky she can still reach the middle letters on her laptop. Any old hoo, it’s a caption contest waiting to happen. Winner gets a souvenir Jan Brewer Hospitality Bottle Cap.
The Corner’s Andrew Cline is predictably displeased with the President’s SOTU: Teamwork? “We can do this?” Who’s this “We” he’s talking about? Not the Founders’ idea of “We!” No, says Andrew, heading off trouble by seizing hold of the National Motto and throttling it:” . E pluribus unum is not Latin for, “Hey, bro, let’s invest in some infrastructure together.” It’s that Collectivism rearing its ugly head, bro!
Where’s the Liberty, that individualistic type Liberty, which, you know, only applies to We The People one by one. You know the President hates Liberty, because in his speech, he only mentioned it once, while “By contrast, Ronald Reagan in his 1982 SOTU said the word four times.”
That’s 400% more Liberty than Obama! And also, soaring rhetoricwise, “We’ve got each other’s backs” does not come up to Andrew’s standards. Reagan’s speech had a Sacred Flame, 400% more Liberty, and cribbed off Abraham Lincoln. And nobody had anybody’s backs, bro.
President Obama will address income inequality (ouch, Mitt!), outsourcing (ouch, Mitt) and Congressional obstructionism, and outline an economic blueprint to which Mitch Daniels will then respond using his new, GOP-issued oligarch-friendly talking points.
Streaming.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address). Drinking games are just not as much fun since excerpts of both the speech and response are in pre-release, but here’s one anyway.
May be semi-live-blogged by yr. semi-live Mrs. Polly, but feel free to take the reins from my bloodless fingers.
The Romney PACs bought up scads of TV time here in Florida during the playoff games yesterday to let GOP primary voters know what a scuzzbucket Gingrich is. They had an interesting spin: that the president is behind the Gingrich surge and that Newt is pals with Nancy Pelosi, Al Gore and Freddie Mac.
Will it work? I have no idea. A year ago, I would have said Gingrich had a lock on it since it’s a closed primary and the state’s GOP voters were dumb and crazy enough to nominate and elect obvious crook Rick Scott on a “reform” ticket. But with Scott’s approval ratings now in chlamydia territory, maybe they’ve learned their lesson? Hahahaha, of course not! Anyway, here’s an electoral map:
I’m thinking Gingrich will take the “MIGHT AS WELL BE ALABAMA” territory. It looks big, but much of it is sparsely populated. Romney will likely take “WINTER HOME OF THE 1%” territory, because the folks there identify with the paltry $375K speaking fees and believe a 15% tax rate on hardworking investments is just.
The “PURPLE RAIN” territory is up for grabs. It comprises Midwestern and Northeastern retirees (Villages of the Darned) who seem susceptible to Romney’s comforting Daddy Warbucks mien, but that is balanced by hardcore Teahadists who might break for Gingrich and working folks who think all the choices suck. I’m giving a slight edge to Romney here.
As for the “FUCK FIDEL” territory, if I were an advisor to Gingrich or Romney, I’d tell them to focus their efforts in Miami Dade, making the rounds of Cuban exile-oriented talk radio shows to blast the frail, retired octogenarian Fidel Castro and suck up to Marco Rubio. My feeling is that’s their best bet to move the needle here.
Charles Krauthammer is mad enough to stomp bunnies, a man consumed with the type of bitterness that can only come from being thwarted by putative allies when a cherished goal is in sight. Things were going so well. With an assist from elderly social conservatives in patriot drag,* the GOP had successfully rebranded the economic free fall and debt juggernaut Bush bequeathed to the American people as the consequence of Obama’s “reckless spending, new entitlements and oppressive regulation with higher taxes.”
The GOP’s electoral victories in 2010 put conservative fantasies about tossing old ladies and elderly gents into the maw of the private insurance industry and slashing social programs that serve the poor like Freddy Krueger on a meth binge tantalizingly within reach. And then Gingrich and Perry had to go and fuck everything up.
