SoonerBlue

Mostly politics, a few current events, a squirt of seltzer down yer pants .. a little blog for my rambles and rants.

2009/11/21

Bookstore crowd goes rogue, boos Sarah Palin

 

Wow -- since wingnuts, teabaggers and birthers have learned to protest about everything these days, they have no problem going after their heroine, Sarah Palin. In Noblesville, Indiana, several dozen of the 1000 lucky wristband holders got pissed when they didn't get their books signed. After all, they waited outside the bookstore for hours in the rain and cold.

When Palin tried to take the money and run, in 4-inch heels and Baby Trig on her hip, the crowd outside started booing, hissing and chanting "Quitter!" "She's a Quitter!"

Here's the video.

Read more here.

Too bad I don't do facebook - there seems to have been an awful lot of facebook bitching from devastated Palin fans.

But not to worry, Sarah will win them back after she blames the bookstore, her staff, the event organizers and the bus schedule.

Goodness knows, Fox News is doing everything they can to help her and promote her. They had to come out with another apology for using fake video footage - this time it was old Palin campaign footage, pretending it was film of the crowds who showed up to buy her book.

(Last time it was about the fake footage they used for a teabagger rally - splicing two events to make it look like the crowds were bigger.)

Don't get me wrong, I am rooting for Palin. I don't want to see her discredited because she does more harm than good to the GOP brand while she's out on the trail.

I want her to succeed, on the theory that she can never pull in more than a fraction of the GOP base - but one big enough to split the party and play hell with getting a rightie elected.

 

2009/11/16

Well...DUH!

Newt Gingrich thinks the teabaggers are ruining the chances of a GOP comeback.

Naw...what was his first clue?

That three-ring circus full of clowns with teabags hanging from their hats and stapled all over their clothes? Running around carrying signs showing everything from Holocaust death camp corpses, to President Obama as Hitler...signs that said, "Next time we'll come armed."?

Just when moderate GOP voters were looking for a serious thinker to run the country, they didn't know whether to cringe, laugh, or go jump into the Boston Harbor.

Hey Newt, Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachmann ain't listening...and just when you finally started making sense too...

From politico.com: "Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich predicted disaster for his party if the conservative wing of the GOP continues to field independent candidates to the right of the party’s nominee.

"If we get into a cycle where there are tea parties and there are conservative third-party candidates, we will make [Nancy] Pelosi speaker for life," Gingrich told POLITICO in an interview Thursday, calling the practice "totally destructive." [..]"

I keep trying to tell everyone that this teabagger movement is just a fringe element...it will never be taken seriously.

If they claim they are not associated with any political party, they will fizzle and die in no time flat.

IF they declare as a national political party (they registered as a state party other day in Florida), they will be dismissed as a third party that will never accomplish much. That's always been the fate of third parties...look at Perot, look at Nader.

If they keep crowing that they'll soon take back the GOP...well, that's not going to fly with moderate conservative voters. That's the GOP's biggest problem right now -- they're seen as extremists who will not allow moderate voices to speak to the mainstream of citizens and voters.

Democrats, don't be tardy to the Tea Party party...cheer them on, they will surely siphon off votes from Republican candidates. Remember...that's how Ralph Nader helped elect GWBush president.

Right now, a majority of the voting public has little faith in the Republican party or its future. Its mostly seen as the party of NO, the party of Neander-cons...and that's not gaining them much traction.

Maybe the tipping point began in 2005, when GWBush decided to hitch up his "political capital" to destroying Social Security. Yeah, he wanted to ditch Social Security and replace it with plans that would put worker's savings in the stock market.

Now just imagine the pickle this country would be in if the GOP had won that fight. Worried voters squirmed, contacted their political reps and hooted it down.

It's been downhill for the GOP ever since.

 

2009/11/2

The rightwing crazies' coup d'etat in upstate New York

 

Yes, yes, I know -- the Democrats will probably lose gubernatorial races in New Jersey and Virginia tomorrow, and 'they' think the results will serve as clues to how everyone will vote in 2010 and 2012. This Democrat is not thrilled, but not all that worried...a lot can happen in even six months...not to mention two years. 

The special congressional election in New York is the one that really fascinates most political junkies. Frank Rich of the NYTimes says:

"BARACK OBAMA’S most devilish political move since the 2008 campaign was to appoint a Republican congressman from upstate New York as secretary of the Army. This week’s election to fill that vacant seat has set off nothing less than a riotous and bloody national G.O.P. civil war. No matter what the results in that race on Tuesday, the Republicans are the sure losers. This could be a gift that keeps on giving to the Democrats through 2010, and perhaps beyond.[...]"

The teabaggers already ran off the moderate Republican, Dede Scozzafava. She withdrew from "NY 23" this weekend (and then endorsed the Democrat) The teabaggers also raised enough money and noise to push their Conservative Party nominee Doug Hoffman to the brink of victory in a district he doesn’t even live in.

If the teabagger candidate wins in NY tomorrow, look for radical righties to be emboldened to go hunting for 'moderate' GOP scalps in other districts. Their angry, energized base will take on more party establishment-approved candidates who don't toe their ideological line.

This surely won't go over well with the majority of Republicans...or with the rest of the country either. Thank goodness the teabaggers and birthers are a small minority of our 300 million citizens.

And, you know something is seriously wrong within the GOP when the wingnuts turn on Newt Gingrich - long thought to have great conservative ideas. Seems the teabaggers think Newt is too moderate...they don't like how he's trying to pull the Republican Party from the radical right to the more mainstream center.

A week ago Newt appeared on several Sunday talk shows flirting with the idea of running for president in 2012. Radical rightie pundits quickly shot ol' Newt down.

Yeah, the guy who led the GOP to a 1994 revival is now being dissed as a RINO -- Republican In Name Only -- just like they did the very conservative, Sen. Lindsey Graham.

The teabaggers were also pissed because Newt endorsed moderate Dede Scozzafava, and urged Republicans not to support the more conservative third-party candidate Doug Hoffman. And they probably still remember when Newt eased out Sarah Palin as speaker at a big GOP do...he didn't want her there out-shining everybody.

Like I said, we Democrats are not all that worried. The Republican Party has lost several recent elections, and has seen its 'brand' sink to 17 percent of Americans who identify themselves as Republicans, so it doesn't bode well for the GOP if they continue to divide the party and toss centrists out of the tent. The party needs to run moderate contenders if it wants to survive and maybe win a  national election or two.

Looks like they'll have to let this little Surge of the Teabaggers play out...and learn the hard way. There's just not enough of them.

Or. maybe we'll split into a 3 party system -- Democrats, the crazed wingnut teabaggers Conservative Party, and moderate to semi-crazed Republicans. Blue Dog Democrats should switch to the moderate/semi-crazed Republican party...it's where they belong, and I hope they don't forget to take Lieberman and Specter.

Anyway...more popcorn and on with the show!

2009/10/24

Bill Maher's New-Rules recap 10/24/09

 

New Rule: People from Southern California have to learn how to drive in the rain. You can go faster than five miles an hour, people. It's water, not K-Y jelly.

New Rule: If Republicans want to get back into power, they have to stop naming their lobbying groups after maxi-pads. [slide of logos for "FreedomWorks," "Keep America Safe!" and "Freedom First"]

New Rule, and it's our last of the season: Let's admit that despite all the media hype, there is one thing that George Bush did not destroy when he left office: comedy. If anything, Republicans out of power are even funnier than Republicans in power.

Now, I'm taking a hiatus for a few months...But, before I go, I'd like to go back to the beginning of the year and remind everyone that when Barack Obama, an actual college professor, replaced George Bush, an actual chimp--commentators announced that comedians would be out of a job.

Well, they were wrong. Everyone is out of a job.

So, yes, Bush was a sweet target. But, it turns out there were plenty of ridiculous Republicans behind him that we just couldn't see. His stupid "star doth shone too brightly."

To wit, the year began with Obama's State of the Union speech, rebutted by teenage governor Bobby Jindal. Who was the great hope of the party. But, when Americans saw him that fateful night, their thought wasn't "A new leader for a new time," it was "Good God, Mad magazine has outsourced Alfred E. Newman."

Now, after Jindal flamed out, the Republicans still needed a fresh new face. So they got Dick Cheney. Who, for a while, popped up on TV more often than the GEICO lizard to demand he be given proper credit for torture. Not that I'm comparing Cheney to the GEICO lizard. One's a cold-blooded reptile and the other is the GEICO lizard.

Now, after Cheney came that exciting new group of Obama critics known as "the birthers." Or as they used to be called, "the Klan."

And after them came Governor Mark Sanford. All over Argentina. Yes, this is truly a bizarre year for Republicans. Their sex scandals were with women.

Well, soon it was tax time, and the "teabaggers" filled the streets, purple with rage that their taxes under Obama had STAYED EXACTLY THE SAME OR GONE DOWN!!!

Yes, the "teabaggers," who started a movement and in the process sullied the name of a perfectly good gay sex act--that's right, when the year started, "teabagging" was a phrase that referred to dangling one's testicles in someone else's face. And they managed to turn it into something gross and ridiculous.

This is also the year that conservatives taught us that there's only one kind of racism left in America, and that's reverse racism. It was inspiring to see white men finally stand up to the oppressive, rigged system that has forced them to live in a hopeless cycle of wealth and opportunity.

And, speaking of opportunity, have you heard this broad? [slide of Michele Bachmann] The floor of a cave called. It wants its bat shit back.

And, speaking of bat shit, to reiterate my theme, if Obama hadn't been elected, would we have ever seen Glenn Beck cry on TV? On a park bench while masturbating, sure, but not on TV. And was there any better TV than watching this weepy, wonderful special-needs cousin of Rush Limbaugh? Angry one moment, then frightened, scolding, sobbing. We loved him because we've all known someone just like him. Usually an ex-girlfriend.

[From HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher]

 

2009/10/23

Enemies List my Aunt Fannie!

 

Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) recently took to the Senate floor and compared President Obama's pushback against Fox News to Richard Nixon's paranoid "enemies list."

How crazy is that? While Lamar's speech has given Fox pundits hours of happy speculation and entertainment... that doesn't make it any less silly.

Obama’s team only made a few very mild attacks...all justified. Remember that Fox fired the first shot. Nixon took revenge on his enemies by directing federal prosecutors to investigate journalists, spy on them, dig through their tax returns and break into their psychiatrists' offices to steal medical records, etc.

While Nixon used the power of his office to try and destroy his adversaries, all Obama has done is point out a little bias...then said the WH would start treating Fox News more like an opponent and less like a news channel.

Look, Republicans have been complaining about "liberal media bias" since Nixon's time...even when there was little evidence of it.

Now it's Obama's turn...his administration is simply pointing out the obvious fact that Fox News is conservatively biased. That's hardly a "war"...even though one of the benefits of this strategy is putting the shrinking, weakened and more radical Republican party in the same corner with the guys who are slandering him.

The same Republican party who started out calling him the anti-Christ...then he was a secret Muslim supporter of Osama bin Laden...then they called him Hitler and Stalin in the same breath, then they said he wasn't an American...and Fox gave them all the air time they needed.

They must be running low on insults...they've gone from Hitler to Stalin to Nixon...

Murdoch's Fox News isn't broadcast journalism anymore than the National Inquirer is print journalism. Any thinking reasonable person can see that Fox has, at the very very least, a strong leaning toward Republicans.

A news channel helping to organize and promote political protests, where teabaggers and birthers yell about socialism and say the President is Hitler? Puh-lease! Murrow and Cronkite are spinning in their graves.

One thing for sure, Obama makes it very uncomfortable for true journalists -- because they either have to acknowledge Fox News' blatant bias, or deny it and sacrifice their own credibility. It's been interesting watching them.