All posts tagged Newt Gingrich

This Is How Trump Stays Viable

On his MSNBC show this morning, Joe Scarborough was, as is his wont and as is the wont of nearly every cable television pundit outside of Hayes, Maddow, and O’Donnell, giving Donald Trump advice. Usually Scarborough’s advice to Trump relates to how the 70-year-old fool and likely GOP presidential nominee ought to behave, how he should “pivot”—mainstream media’s favorite word designed to shkreli.jpgcommunicate to Trump that he needs to stop being so childish, stupid, and nasty—from the primary to the general election.  Today, though, Scarborough was giving advice on whom Trump should pick as his running mate, which, as we all can see, is pretty slim pickings. When Newt Gingrich is one of the options, that means Martin Shkreli said he doesn’t want any part of it.

In any case, about right-wing zealot Mike Pence, who to me is the obvious choice for those people who give a shit who Trump picks, Scarborough said the following:

My concern about Mike Pence is you never know how somebody’s gonna act on the national stage…On the national stage it’s easy to get out there and say some pretty dumb things even if you’re a pretty smart guy. Same thing with the General [Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn]. I would warn everybody away from the General…[because] you want somebody who has been on the big stage, who excels on the big stage. And, really, you’ve got Newt Gingrich who’s all over the place. But then you’ve got the guy who was one of the best campaigners in the fall and the guy who finished Marco Rubio’s campaign single-handedly, and that’s Chris Christie….I will tell you Chris Christie’s a guy you know you can put out there, he’s not going to embarrass you and chances are pretty good he’s going to embarrass the other side.

So, there you have it. If Donald was listening—and we know he was because he is obsessed with those people on cable television who are obsessed with him—he now knows who Joe Scarborough thinks he should pick. He should pick a guy who got his ass thoroughly kicked in the primary and who doesn’t embarrass Trump [!!!] by saying dumb things! Of course!

It is quality analysis like that, coming from one of the most popular political insiders on television, that keeps the Pumpkin Punchinello’s hopes alive that he will one day sit in the White’s House and restore the country to its former greatness as an isolated, xenophobic nation that will embrace the coat hanger as a national symbol for women’s reproductive rights, burn fossil fuels faster than ever, and make white supremacists feel like, finally, they’ve got their country back.

Keep it up, Joe and other pundits on television, you may get your wish.

by R. Duane Graham on July 11, 2016  •  Permalink
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Posted by R. Duane Graham on July 11, 2016

https://duanegraham.wordpress.com/2016/07/11/this-is-how-trump-stays-viable/

Racism Is Wrong, Except When It Helps

CNN this morning featured some segments on Drumpf’s racist attack on the now famous “Mexican” federal district judge, Gonzalo Curiel. Judge Curiel, of course, was born in East Chicago, Indiana. But as everyone knows, Indiana has been invaded by Mexicans. And those Mexicans who aren’t out raping and killing people are out to get Drumpf in a federal courtroom. Yes. Everyone knows that.

But CNN’s attempts this morning to highlight Drumpf’s attacks on the judge were a little incomplete. Sure, it’s necessary to call attention to such racism. And, yes, it is appropriate cnn and mexican commentsto question whether the racist attacks will hurt the Republican Party, both now and in the future, with Latinos. But CNN seemed to think that such offensive behavior by Drumpf was only about politics and offended only Latinos. In one segment, CNN had a panel of four “ordinary” citizens on to discuss the remarks. All four were billed as “Hispanic voters.” Fine. But what about the rest of us? And shouldn’t this be about more than politics?

You don’t have to be Latino or Hispanic to be shocked by how casually and how frequently the Republican nominee for president makes his racist and racially-charged remarks. Neither do you have to be African-American to be upset about Drumpf’s attempt to strip the “American” out of African-American, when it comes to President Obama. And you don’t have to be a fan of Allah to find repulsive Drumpf’s ban on Muslims entering the country—or find repulsive his latest suggestion that a Muslim judge might not treat him “fairly” because of his advocacy of such a ridiculously un-American ban.

All Americans, of all colors and persuasions, should be offended and outraged over what Drumpf has done and continues to do. And it shouldn’t just be because of the politics of the racism we are seeing.

Last Thursday CNN’s Jake Tapper asked Mitch McConnell if he worries that Drumpf “may do to Latino voters what Barry Goldwater did to African-American voters?” To which McConnell replied: “I do.” He then went on to say what a mistake it was for Drumpf to attack Susana Martinez, the Republican governor of New Mexico. Well, okay. But isn’t it just plain wrong to say Mexicans who have migrated here are mostly criminals? And isn’t it just plain wrong that a sitting federal judge, an American born and raised, gets tarred as a “Mexican,” as if being a Mexican was a bad thing to be? Aren’t those things wrong in themselves, regardless of the politics involved?

Obviously they should be seen as wrong. Regardless. But too often they are not. Too often they are seen through a partisan lens. McConnell told NBC’s Chuck Todd,

America is changing. When Ronald Reagan was elected, 84% of the electorate was white. This November, 70% will be. It’s a big mistake for our party to write off Latino Americans. And they’re an important part of the country and soon to be the largest minority group in the country. And I am concerned about that.

Good for Mitch. He’s concerned about the politics of it all. “It’s a big mistake,” he said. A big political mistake. But if the politics were in his favor, would he be so concerned? Would he still call out Drumpf?

gingrich on drumpfWhen the faux billionaire was bouncing around television and loudly questioning Obama’s birthplace and loyalty to the country, I didn’t see Mitch McConnell denouncing him on CNN or anywhere else. Or Paul Ryan. Or Newt Gingrich, who was on Fox “News” yesterday calling Drumpf’s attacks on the judge “inexcusable,” but who just said in March of this year that President Obama was “the first anti-American president.” The same Gingrich who said Obama was “the food stamp president.” The same Gingrich who said of Obama,

What if he is so outside our comprehension, that only if you understand Kenyan, anti-colonial behavior, can you begin to piece together in the best and most accurate, predictive model for his behavior [sic].

Did Mitch McConnell or any prominent Republican take a time out and tell Gingrich, and others on the right, to knock it off? Nah. Why? Because Republicans have pretty much written off African-Americans, as McConnell seemed to concede last week. So, thinly and not-so-thinly disguised racial attacks on our first black president are acceptable because they play so well with the anxious and angry white base of the Republican Party. Those racial attacks were seen as good politics.

Now, though, it appears that Drumpf’s racist attack on a real living American with Hispanic heritage—as opposed to his vicious but mostly abstract racist attacks on nameless “illegals”—are unacceptable and “inexcusable” because Republicans can’t afford to write off yet another minority group, one that may contribute to a shellacking of the party in November. Now the racial attacks are seen as bad politics.

Just once, just bleeping once, I’d like to see a Republican honcho go on television and look into the camera and say the following:

Forget the politics of this, my fellow Americans. What Donald Drumpf said about an American judge is abhorrent. It’s wrong. It shouldn’t be tolerated by me or by you or by any American. The same with Drumpf’s past remarks about Mexicans and Muslims and, yes, his attacks on the legitimacy of our first African-American president. It’s wrong. Drumpf’s wrong. And Drumpf’s wrong for America.

The day that, or something like that, happens will be the first day of a long journey back to moral and political sanity for the national Republican Party. That day may come on November 9th. Let’s hope it does.

by R. Duane Graham on June 6, 2016  •  Permalink
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Posted by R. Duane Graham on June 6, 2016

https://duanegraham.wordpress.com/2016/06/06/racism-is-wrong-except-when-it-helps/

The Devil On Drumpf

Every now and then, the Devil comes by the spacious offices of The Erstwhile Conservative for a short interview. He only had a few minutes, since this is his busy season, but I managed to get in some important questions. Here is the lightly edited interview:

TEC: Thanks for stopping by. I want to quickly ask you what I think is a fairly obvious question, but one I’ll ask anyway: What part have you played in the rise of Drumpf? I can see your fingerprints all over this.

TShutterstockHE DEVIL: Yeah, I know. It is kind of obvious, isn’t it? But that couldn’t be prevented, given what we were working with. Look, I don’t want to give away too much right now because there is still so much to be done, but I can’t help but brag a little bit. This is one of the most brilliant campaigns we have ever run—

TEC: One of the most?

THE DEVIL: Okay, dammit. You got me. It is the most brilliant campaign we have ever run. Okay? And I’m so damned proud of it I can’t barely hide it. 

TEC: How did you get this all started anyway?

THE DEVIL: Oh, this thing has been in the making for years now. It started out with that whole birther thing. Do you know how hard it was to get someone to take that bait? It was damned hard, let me tell you. But we found him! And when I first started getting reports from the field, from our demons assigned to the task, that Drumpf was biting on it, I couldn’t believe it. But I gave orders to keep after it and keep after him and see if there was something more there we could build on. And it turns out there was a lot there we could build on.

TEC: So, what was the next step, after he took the birther bait?

THE DEVIL: This is where it gets good. And this may surprise you. But it came to me one night in hell, as I was thinking—seething, really—about how miserably we have failed to get a majority of Americans to give into their cultural anxieties and put a real hate-generating reactionary in the Oval Office. We’ve been successful in Congress, but we need it all to do our devilish damage.

TEC: And, so, what came to you?

THE DEVIL: Political correctness! We simply had to do away with it. We had to get people to resent it, to will it away. 

TEC: Why?

THE DEVIL: Because by getting rid of political correctness that would allow people to act out their racism and sexism and other forms of anxiety and hatred without fear of retribution.

TEC: Without fear that someone would call them on it.

THE DEVIL: Exactly. If we could get rid of the idea that there are some things Americans shouldn’t say about each other, we could get our foot in the door. So, one of our most promising demons came up with the idea of planting in Drumpf’s head the notion that political correctness had to go. And like the birther stuff, he bit. He went for it. And from there, it was easy to get him to run for president, and the next thing you know, he’s starting out his campaign by talking about Mexican rapists. Brilliant!

TEC: But it didn’t stop there.

THE DEVIL: Of course not. Once the political correctness door got knocked down, no one was immune. Blacks, Muslims, women. Drumpf would say anything. We could literally get him to say anything. He puts up almost no resistance! Heck, just for fun one day, one of our demons told him to say that he could shoot someone on the street and he wouldn’t lose any voters. And he went out and said it! 

TEC: Yeah, I remember that.

THE DEVIL: But we’ve done other things just for the hell of it, just for laughs.

TEC: Like what?

THE DEVIL: We got the Drumpf campaign to put a white nationalist on the delegate ballot in California!

TEC: I heard that.

THE DEVIL: Who could have believed that a year ago? Or who could believe that we could get David Duke to whisper to his racist followers that Drumpf is really one of them? I get chills just thinking about how successful we’ve been with this thing. It’s massive. 

TEC: You mean yoooge.

THE DEVIL: Let’s be serious.

TEC: Okay, okay. What is it you like most about what has happened so far?

THE DEVIL: Without a doubt my favorite part of this effort has been taking those devil-hating evangelicals and turning them into Drumpfkins! They are always talking about how much they love God, the Enemy, and now they’re running to the polls voting for my guy! How sweet is that? Now, I don’t want to brag, but I’ve heard that even God himself is impressed by that feat! And, listen, take it from me, God’s not easy to impress.

TEC: I bet he isn’t. But I want to ask you about Bernie Sanders and how he fits into all this.

THE DEVIL: Well, I hesitate to talk about that too much right now because it’s a subtle operation and it is still ongoing. But just look at what we did last night in West Virginia. Our ground operation there was so good—our dsanders voters not voting for clintonemonic forces in that region are some of the best—that we got Bernie a victory—

TEC: But Bernie has won a lot of states—

THE DEVIL: Sure he has, but what happesanders voters voting for trumpned last night was remarkable. We got him a majority of voters, most of them saying they would never vote for Hillary! And, get this, we got a lot of those who voted for Bernie last night to say they wouldn’t vote for Bernie in November! Now, dammit, that’s a hell of an accomplishment, isn’t it?

TEC: Yeah, I suppose that’s pretty impressive. 

THE DEVIL: You’re damn right it is! But, hey, I have to go. There’s still a lot to do. We’ve got to stop all that damnable talk of a third party out there.

TEC: Okay, but before you head out, where do we go from here? What’s next with the Drumpf campaign?

THE DEVIL: Look, you know I can’t tell you what’s coming next, as much as I want to. Suffice it to say it will be the general election from hell. We intend to see one of our own sitting in the White’s House next January. That’s all I’m going to say about it right now because, dammit, we want this campaign of ours to remain unpredictable!

TEC: Oh, my. Well, thanks for stopping by. 

THE DEVIL: No problem…heck, okay, I can’t help myself. I’ll tell you something we’re working on right now with Drumpf. We’re trying to get Newt Gingrich on the ticket!

TEC: Wow. Are you serious? Newt bleeping Gingrich?

THE DEVIL: I have probably said too much. I gotta go.

[dark image: shutterstock; Drumpf evangelicals: Getty Images]
by R. Duane Graham on May 11, 2016  •  Permalink
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Posted by R. Duane Graham on May 11, 2016

https://duanegraham.wordpress.com/2016/05/11/the-devil-on-drumpf/

The Embarassing Things That Hating Obama Will Make You Do

Three Tweets from Newt Gingrich this morning, after President Obama confirmed the first strikes on ISIL in Syria, demonstrate not only what is wrong with Newt Gingrich’s mind, but what can go wrong in the age of instant communication when an Obama-hater says something critical of the Commander-in-Chief before the Obama-hater took the trouble to find out if his Obama-hate got the best of him:

gingrich tweets

 

by R. Duane Graham on September 23, 2014  •  Permalink
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Posted by R. Duane Graham on September 23, 2014

https://duanegraham.wordpress.com/2014/09/23/the-embarassing-things-that-hating-obama-will-make-you-do/

Remarks And Asides, Republican “Reform” Edition

“It’s not morally right to starve children,” says Tim Straus, a Springfield, Mo., businessman who is critical of Ozark Billy Long’s vote to cut $20 billion out of the food stamp program.

Now, If you have to tell Republican legislators that they shouldn’t be starving children, I submit the GOP, in its tenth month of reform agony, is irreparable.

______________________________

Speaking of trying to repair the Republican Party, Newt Gingrich, who is responsible for much of the brokenness of the party that needs fixing, has offered some more advice—will the advice ever end on how to rehabilitate Republicans?—on just what it is that the party should do: come up with something to replace the Affordable Care Act:

I would bet for most of you, you go home in the next two weeks while your members of Congress are home and you look at them in the eye and you say, ‘What is your positive replacement for ObamaCare?’ and they will have zero answer…

Oh, but they do have an answer, Newt. It is found in Billy Long’s vote to cut food stamps and in the newest Republican effort in the House to cut food stamps even more. If you starve the children, then they won’t grow up to need health care at all! Voilà!

______________________________

Someone should tell the Tea Party in Tennessee that Republicans need to do more than, as Newt put it, be “negative” and “vicious” and “tear down” their opponents.

Tea Party zealots have asked Senator Lamar Alexander to retire “with dignity” before they expose him to Tennessee voters as the champion of “compromise and bipartisanship.” Yep, a man who has a 72% rating from the reactionary American Conservative Union and a 90% rating from the equally reactionary Americans for Tax Reform is not fit to be a Republican anymore because of all that compromisin’!

I don’t think these fanatics are listening to you, Newt!

_______________________________

And speaking of fanatics, no party that has as its head a man like Reince Priebus is either capable of reforming itself or worth reforming. I remind you that when Republicans were going through all this “reform” talk in January of this year, I wrote a piece appropriately titled, “To Hell With The Republican Party.”  In that piece I said my piece about Reince Priebus, which because I find him so appalling, I want to say it again:

Someone explain to me why a political party that supposedly wants to reform itself would put one of its most disgusting leaders of all time back on top. Oh, let me remind you of what this slimy bastard said while the tragedy in Benghazi was still warm:

reince priebus

If there were a God who gave a damn about this world, Reince Priebus would be putting out fires in hell about now. But instead, the creep has been put back in charge of the Republican Party, which may amount to the same job.

There, now I feel better.

_________________________________

And again speaking of Republican fanatics, yet another congressman is calling for a shutdown of the government in order to defund ObamaCare. This comes as a conservative polling outfit—a brother of The Heritage Foundation—defund obamacareis urging Republicans to shut ‘er down because the public would not necessarily put all the blame on the GOP:

This poll demonstrates that the Left cannot win the argument on either the policy front or the political front.  Americans – including 57 percent of independents in ten critical congressional districts – favor defunding Obamacare.  House Republicans should be much more concerned with the fallout of failing to defund Obamacare than with the imaginary fallout of doing so.

The country is waiting to see whether the extremist Tea Party clowns are running the GOP rodeo, or whether the GOP rodeo has become nothing but clown acts.

____________________________

Finally, speaking of clown acts:

GOP lawmaker invites rodeo clown who mocked Obama to Texas

Rep. Steve Stockman (R-Texas) invited the rodeo clown who sparked controversy by donning a mask of President Obama at the Missouri State Fair to preform in Texas, his office said Wednesday.

Stockman, one of the most clownish members of Congress himself, said,

I’m sure any rodeo in Texas would be proud to have [the] performers.

That just about says it all about Congressman Stockman, Texas, and the unreformable Republican Party.

by R. Duane Graham on August 15, 2013  •  Permalink
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Posted by R. Duane Graham on August 15, 2013

https://duanegraham.wordpress.com/2013/08/15/remarks-and-asides-republican-reform-edition/

“The Hounds Of Racism” Are Howling

As right-wingers begin to think the unthinkable, that Barack Hussein Obama just might serve another four years, we can expect the nastiness to escalate.

From The Washington Post:

RICHMOND — Virginia Republican Party officials on Tuesday ordered their Mecklenburg County affiliate to remove photos portraying President Obama as a witch doctor, a caveman and a thug from its Facebook page.

No racism there, right? The local GOP chairman initially refused to take down the photos, but I noticed today the Facebook page is dead. Defiant racists aren’t what they used to be, I suppose.

We’ve all seen the witch doctor photo, and here are the other two mentioned:

Classy stuff. But that’s just some rednecks in rural Virgina, so Republicans don’t want us to worry about it. It doesn’t reflect the party’s views about Mr. Obama, they say.

Okay. But maybe this does, from the lips of Romney surrogate Newt Gingrich:

He happens to be a partial, part-time president. He really is a lot like the substitute referees in the sense that he’s not a real president. I mean, he doesn’t do any of the things president do; he doesn’t worry about any of the things president’s do…he’s a false president…

Hmm. Not only is that disrespectful, but it sort of sounds like the old Georgian is calling our first African-American president a loafer. But that was on Tuesday. On Wednesday John Sununu, another Romney surrogate, clarified it for us, which I present from Fox “News”:

There. That’s better. The scary socialist Negro is lazy to boot!

As I always do in these cases, I will highlight with a box Romney’s response to such less-than-subtle racially-charged remarks uttered by his surrogates:

Oh, I forgot Romney fashions himself as a “No Apology” kind of guy.

In any case, I offer you an excellent observation by Geoffrey Dunn about how a lot of this dark stuff started with Sarah Palin:

when Palin accused then-candidate Obama of “palling around with terrorists” and of not being “a man who sees America as you see America,” she unleashed the hounds of racism in this country and in the Republican Party. She became the first serious candidate for national office since George Wallace to give both body and voice to the vulgarities of American right-wing talk radio and the pernicious racism that fuels it.

The “hounds of racism” are running quite free these days, and apparently Mitt Romney, who has had problems with dogs in the past, either can’t or doesn’t want to put them back in the kennel of shame where they belong.

In fact, Romney has often sounded like a hound himself, talking about “free stuff,” as in if you want free stuff “vote for the other guy.” And along those lines, I noticed today that Rush Limbaugh was playing a tape over and over—and over—of some hysterically sounding black woman yelling something about a phone. Immediately, I knew where to turn, since Matt Drudge is the source for a lot of Limbaugh’s material. Sure enough:

As I followed the link, I found a YouTube video recorded at a “Romney Event” near Cleveland, which had only 317 views when I watched:

Now, Limbaugh, who is one of those white-angst howling hounds unleashed by Sarah Palin, started talking about “Obama phones” and a website dedicated to telling folks like the woman above how to get their “free phones.”  Of course this plays into all the themes advanced by Republicans against our pigmented president: socialist, giver-of-free-stuff, all-around champion of the “permanent under class,” in Limbaugh’s phrase.

And that permanent under class, in the minds of a lot of Republican voters, looks like the woman above. That’s the point of those photos on that Virginia GOP website; that’s the point of Gingrich’s and Sununu’s comments; that’s the point of Drudge and Limbaugh promoting heavily that weird video.

In order to win, Romney has to get as many nervous whites to vote for him as he can, since he has lost any hope of getting much support from folks of color. That’s why he doesn’t say anything to shut down the obvious appeals to white angst by his official and unofficial surrogates.

That woman and her free “Obama phone” is just one more example for worried whites to consider in November, as conservatives see it. It turns out, though, that Obama had nothing to do with the free phones provided to low-income folks. The earliest version of the program was signed into law by, uh, Ronald Reagan!

But that fact won’t stop folks like Limbaugh, who said today that the phenomenon of people voting for Obama “is not about hard work.”

“Go talk to the cell phone lady,” he said.

by R. Duane Graham on September 27, 2012  •  Permalink
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Posted by R. Duane Graham on September 27, 2012

https://duanegraham.wordpress.com/2012/09/27/the-hounds-of-racism-are-howling/

Tough Love Is For The Other Guy

Paul Ryan said Saturday morning to a gathering of pale-faced Republican geezers in Florida,

Our solution to preserve, protect, and save Medicare will not affect your benefits.

Yesterday I posted a piece on how Republicans, in order to sell their plan to radically revamp Medicare, are appealing to the selfishness of current seniors, hoping those seniors won’t begin to wonder how long young folks will keep paying for benefits those young people will never get.

A retired local conservative commenter, who is living on a military pension, responded to my piece with this:

…cutting military retirement benefits is coming, like it or not by anyone. But you would not do it I hope for those that have planned their lives and are living on such benefits today.

Same with Medicare. People have planned their lives for that program and need it to live as planned.

The idea here is that “I’ve got mine” and it is too bad if folks in the future have to take less, but they should keep paying for “mine.” Nothing could better illustrate what I was trying to say in the piece I wrote than that conservative’s comment.

Another commenter on the piece characterized the conservative’s thoughts this way:

Being a silver-haired geezer myself, I can see that they want to do the same thing to Medicare and Social Security that has been done to the educational system. Hey, WE got our valuable college degrees for peanuts and earned the big bucks during our peak years, but now we realize it wasn’t fair, and so YOU are going to have to suck it up, kid. And don’t come begging at grandpa’s door, because I now believe in tough love!

Amen. Tough love, if you will notice, is almost always directed at someone else.  When Paul Ryan, for instance, had the chance to practice some tough love during the Bush administration and demand that the expanded drug benefit or the two wars be paid for, he made the decision to defer the tough love until later, which happened to be when a Democrat was in the White’s House.

And Ryan’s tough love was in full force when he opposed Obama’s stimulus plan to help start the economic recovery, even though he later sent letters requesting some of the money so his constituents wouldn’t have to suffer from his tough love. (And then, taking lessons from Romney, he lied about doing so.)

But our local conservative commenter, again a man who lives on an inflation-protected military pension that he earned from his years of service, wasn’t finished with his own tough love campaign. He wrote:

The GOP has said economic processes MUST CHANGE today because our national wants far exceed our national resources.

Here is my response to that comment:

What you call our national wants are actually national needs, unless you think we don’t need the social stability that Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid provide, or unless you believe we can stop funding the Defense Department.

But even if you consider those things “wants,” you are still wrong in claiming that those wants exceed our national resources. In fact they don’t. We have plenty of national resources, as we are very wealthy.

What we have is a political party, which you almost always support, that has designated most of our national economic resources as untouchable, except when it comes to the military.

And they have decided that the uneven distribution of income in America is not to be feared but to be embraced, as it will somehow inspire the have-nots to work harder so they too can someday send their excess dough to the Cayman Islands for some much needed rest.

The truth is that conservatives controlling the GOP today do not value the stability that comes from social programs, programs they routinely disparage openly and without apology.

For instance, Mr. Obama has been falsely called “the food stamp president” by Newt Gingrich, as if providing food stamps to folks who need them in bad times is worthy of condemnation. It turns out that George W. Bush was actually the food stamp president and God bless him for it. It was the least he could do for helping screw up the economy, which made food stamps such a necessity for many folks.

And you know what your conservative intellectual hero-columnist Charles Krauthammer recently wrote about Bush? He denigrated him for his,

philosophically undisciplined, idiosyncratically free-spending “compassionate conservatism.”

You see, for ideologues like Krauthammer, compassion has no place in conservatism, a point I am happy to make every day.

People like Gingrich and Krauthammer and Rush Limbaugh and a horde of Republican politicians often refer to an “entitlement society,” as if people—they want you to think it is mostly black people—who receive government help aspire to do nothing more than lie around the house and get fat on food purchased with money stolen from taxing “job creators.” That is what the Romney ads falsely claiming that Obama waived the work requirement for welfare benefits is all about.

You see, these folks have always hated the social safety net because most of them have never needed it or have arrived at a place where they know they never will. In one way or another, they’ve got theirs and to hell with everyone else.

And it is that sentiment that serves as the subtext of the Ryan-Romney campaign and that will be what voters affirm or reject in November.

by R. Duane Graham on August 18, 2012  •  Permalink
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Posted by R. Duane Graham on August 18, 2012

https://duanegraham.wordpress.com/2012/08/18/tough-love-is-for-the-other-guy/

Newt Versus Newt Versus Romney

First, this headline from Newsmax:

 Now, the new Obama ad:

by R. Duane Graham on May 2, 2012  •  Permalink
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Posted by R. Duane Graham on May 2, 2012

https://duanegraham.wordpress.com/2012/05/02/newt-versus-newt-versus-romney/

Doublethink

“He who controls the present controls the past, he who controls the past controls the future.”

—George Orwell, 1984

h, the aftermath.

After succumbing to the Mittens Money Machine, Rick Santorum is beginning to get his mind right:

The Santorum campaign’s website has been wiped clean of all content directly critical of the now de-facto Republican nominee.

No more “Obamneycare.” No more, “Here is a guy who is the ultimate flip-flopper.” No more he-was-for-the-mandate-before-he-was-against-it. No more “Taxachusetts.” No more “Etch-A-Sketch candidate.” No more, “Do you really believe this country wants to elect a Wall Street financier as the president of the United States.”

In good Orwellian fashion, if you search Santorum’s site for the skinny on Mittens, now you get this:

But that’s not as strange—or funny depending on your perspective—as this:

Newt Gingrich rents donor list to raise cash

Desperate times in the Newt Gingrich camp have called for desperate measures.

Scrambling to dig himself out of a $4.5 million hole, the former House speaker has resorted to renting his presidential campaign’s most valuable asset – its donor list – for as much as $26,000-a-pop.

Let me see: Newt is still an active candidate, but he is pimping out his donors for dough? Is nothing sacred with this guy? If I were Callista, I’d sleep with one eye open.

But even that’s not as strange—or, again, funny depending on your perspective—as this

Gingrich Unloads on FOX News in Private Meeting

During a meeting with 18 Delaware Tea Party leaders here on Wednesday, Newt Gingrich lambasted FOX News Channel, accusing the cable network of having been in the tank for Mitt Romney from the beginning of the Republican presidential fight. An employee himself of the news outlet as recently as last year, he also cited former colleagues for attacking him out of what he characterized as personal jealousy.

“I think FOX has been for Romney all the way through,” Gingrich said during the private meeting — to which RealClearPolitics was granted access — at Wesley College. “In our experience, Callista and I both believe CNN is less biased than FOX this year. We are more likely to get neutral coverage out of CNN than we are of FOX, and we’re more likely to get distortion out of FOX. That’s just a fact.”

Now, first of all, what does all that say about CNN?  If Newt Gingrich finds the network a comfortable place to bed down and do the nasty, then everything I think about CNN slowly becoming Fox-lite appears to be true.

But secondly, Newt has had no problem with Fox being in the tank for Republicans generally; it is just when the network embraces particular non-Newt Republicans that it loses its credibility with him.

The story continues:

Gingrich did not pull his punches in accusing Rupert Murdoch — the chairman and CEO of News Corp., FOX News’ parent company — of pushing for Romney behind the scenes.

“I assume it’s because Murdoch at some point [who] said, ‘I want Romney,’ and so ‘fair and balanced’ became ‘Romney,’ ” Gingrich said. “And there’s no question that Fox had a lot to do with stopping my campaign because such a high percentage of our base watches FOX.”

You see? Fox “News” can bash Obama and the Democrats most of the broadcast day and it is “fair and balanced.” But when the network (allegedly) started playing grab-ass with Mittens, Newt felt compelled to sanitize the history books.

But Media Matters was watching Fox (that’s its job) during June 1 of last year and January 22 of this. Guess what? Ding! Ding! Ding! In terms of airtime, Newt was the winner:

As The Atlantic’s John Hudson pointed out in January, the Fox “News” prime-time lineup was on more than friendly terms with Gingrich, particularly Sean Hannity, who several times made goo-goo eyes at Newt on TV and gave him reach-arounds on the radio.

In any case, my favorite part of Newt’s rant was this:

The Republican Party is a managerial party that doesn’t like to fight, doesn’t like to read books. This is why the Tea Party was so horrifying. Tea Partiers were actually learning about the Declaration of Independence. They wanted to talk about the Federalist Papers. It was weird. They could be golfing.

The GOP doesn’t like to read books but the Tea Party does? Hmm.

Here’s a good definition of “doublethink“:

The power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.

by R. Duane Graham on April 13, 2012  •  Permalink
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Posted by R. Duane Graham on April 13, 2012

https://duanegraham.wordpress.com/2012/04/13/doublethink/

How Obama Will Sell Out The Country

I suggested yesterday (Obama’s Planning On Selling Out the Country…) that someone on Fox’s evening lineup would question the “intelligence and patriotism” of Obama and that someone might wonder “what else is Barack Obama not telling us he’ll do after he’s elected.”

Sean Hannity did not disappoint last night. He played Obama’s “private” conversation with Dmitry Medvedev:

OBAMA: This is my last election, and after my election I’ll have more flexibility.

MEDVEDEV: I understand. I will transmit this information to Vladimir [Putin].

Now, everyone knows that the term “more flexibility” means “more flexibility to screw the American people who just elected me,” right? And if you didn’t know that, then you did after Sean’s guest, Newt Gingrich, explained it all:

Well, it raises two questions. The first is, what other countries has he had this conversation with and who else has he said—to the Iranians to the North Koreans, to a variety of places—you know, give me a little time, give me some space, let me get reelected and then I’ll sell out.

And the second is, my interpretation of an American president telling a Russian president about our missile defense clearly indicates he’s going to sell out our defense system as soon as he gets reelected, which would fit his whole policy of weakness and appeasement…

He’s a hard-line left-winger…none of this is a surprise. The question is does the United States want to reelect a president with the worst economic record since the Great Depression, the highest deficits in American history, the rising cost of gasoline, a weak foreign policy, and he really wants to destroy the American defense system. That’s essentially what Obama-ism is.

Those aren’t the words of some obscure know-nothing in the bowels of movement conservatism. Those are the words of a former Speaker of the House of Representatives, who once was considered by many to be a viable contender in the GOP presidential primary.

And if that wasn’t enough entertainment for one night, the opening act for Gingrich was the toesucker himself, Dick Morris.

Hannity had played a Santorum ad the theme of which was: If we reelect Obama, the world will grow dark and the birds and Mitt Romney will stop singing. Asked to comment on the ad, the toesucker said it “understated” how bad things will be, should voters put Obama back in the White’s House.

He then outlined Obama’s second term for the lucky viewers, which I will quote at length because one has to plumb the depths of this Mariana Trench delusion to fully appreciate it:

First of all, I believe he’ll proceed to a single-payer system on health care.  I think Obamacare was just an intermediate step in his mind.  And if he’s reelected, particularly if he has a Democratic Congress, he will eliminate the private health insurance industry and all insurance will be from the government and it will all be according to one plan.

Secondly, I think that he will completely reverse the initiatives of the Bush 43 administration in opening vast new forms of oil drilling in the U.S., and will eliminate this incredible opportunity we have to dominate the global oil markets and put the terrorists out of business.

But thirdly, I think that his big focus will be to make the United States a vassal state to a globalist entity. I think that the G20 and the IMF will acquire sovereignty over our economy. I think that he will sign the international criminal treaty—Criminal Court treaty—that would oblige the United States to get U.N. approval, which is to say Russian and Chinese approval, before going to war.

I think he’ll sign—I write about all this in my book coming up in two months called “Screwed”—I think he’ll sign the Rights of the Child treaty, which would create a legal basis for suing to increase foreign aid to poor countries.

I think that he’ll sign the Gun Control treaty…I think that he’ll sign the global ban on small arms—back door arms control in the United States. I think he’ll sign away our royalties for offshore oil drilling by going along with the law of the sea treaty. I think that he’ll ban U.S. weapons in outer space, which will eliminate an anti-missile capability fiasco…

But the most important thing I didn’t get to: He’s gonna transform America into two countries. A small number of people who pay taxes and a large number of people don’t work and are dependent upon the government to create a permanent leftist, socialist base in the United States.

As you can see, Mr. Obama will have his hands full in his second term, as selling out America is no easy task.

And by the way, don’t forget to pick up a copy of Dick Morris’ book in a couple of months.

by R. Duane Graham on March 27, 2012  •  Permalink
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Posted by R. Duane Graham on March 27, 2012

https://duanegraham.wordpress.com/2012/03/27/how-obama-will-sell-out-the-country/

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