The company they keep

Republican media darling du jour (because the bar has become so low that any Republican who isn't batshit crazy or a Mormon can be a media darling) Tim Pawlenty has some 'splainin' to do about the people he hires:

ANKENY, Iowa -- A 15-year-old girl found a campaign worker from Alabama banging on her Ankeny family's back door early Wednesday morning.

Chloe Steward told KCCI she heard her dog barking around 3 a.m. and went to investigate. She said she found a man trying to get into the back door...

"His arm was in my back door, trying to get in and I screamed and went upstairs to my parents room and I continued screaming," said Chloe Steward. “He shoved his arm in here and kept touching the wall, looking for something. I don’t know what he was looking for."

Dad grabbed his gun from a safe and went downstairs.

“The guy was still trying to come in when my husband had a gun on him. My husband must have realized that something is not right – he’s drunk of something,” said Stacey Steward, Chloe’s mother.

Stacey called 911.

“My husband has a gun on him,” Stacey told the dispatcher.

“Your husband has a gun on him?” asked the dispatcher.

“Yeah, my husband’s in our house because he freaked out our daughter. My daughter came upstairs streaming because the guy’s at the back door trying to get into my house,” Stacey told the dispatcher.

Stacey’s husband held Foster at gunpoint until police arrived.

“He kept telling my husband, ‘I’m trying to find Johnson, Johnson.’ He kept saying Johnson. Well, I find out he’s trying to get to Johnston (the town,” said Stacey. “He was so drunk, he thought he was at his friend’s house – is what he told officers.”

Foster isn't just an over-the-transom volunteer, he's a paid staffer. The article doesn't say if Foster is an evangelical Christian. If he is, then it's all good. After all, that would mean that Jesus went through unspeakable torture so that Ben Foster (not the amazing actor Ben Foster, but a chump with the same name) could get so shitfaced that he doesn't know where he is.

But even if he isn't, he doesn't have to worry. Because Foster is only 24, which means that when he runs for Congress himself in five years on a platform of moral restraint, he can call his youthful indiscretion a youthful indiscretion and not sound utterly ridiculous doing it.

(via)

Kneel Before Zod!

Cheer up, teachers of New Jersey...it could be worse. Your governor could be John Kasich:

Kasich also had a direct message for the teacher's union, who blasted him during the campaign for his stance on the merit pay and holding teachers accountable.

"I am waiting for the teachers union to take out full page ads in all of the newspapers apologizing for what they had to say about me during this campaign," said Kasich.

And if they do, he'll bitch that they're squandering money.

Oh, and by the way, he's also declared that "creating jobs, halting the statewide passenger rail project and reining in labor unions are his top priorities."

I guess the jobs he wants to create are maid, cook, gardener, and pool boy for himself. Because the statewide passenger rail project he just killed would have generated up to 8000 jobs. He must have a different definition of "jobs" than the rest of us do.

Now just WHO is it that's aiding and abetting terrorists?

Why our good old friends in the GOP -- people like Newt Gingrich, Pam Geller, and the others trying to score cheap political points off the community center planned for lower Manhattan. THEY are the American terrorist sympathizers:

Taliban officials know it’s sacrilegious to hope a mosque will not be built, but that’s exactly what they’re wishing for: the success of the fiery campaign to block the proposed Islamic cultural center and prayer room near the site of the Twin Towers in lower Manhattan. “By preventing this mosque from being built, America is doing us a big favor,” Taliban operative Zabihullah tells NEWSWEEK. (Like many Afghans, he uses a single name.) “It’s providing us with more recruits, donations, and popular support.”

America’s enemies in Afghanistan are delighted by the vehement public opposition to the proposed “Ground Zero mosque.” The backlash against the project has drawn the heaviest e-mail response ever on jihadi Web sites, Zabihullah claims—far bigger even than France’s ban on burqas earlier this year. (That was big, he recalls: “We received many e-mails asking for advice on how Muslims should react to the hijab ban, and how they can punish France.”) This time the target is America itself. “We are getting even more messages of support and solidarity on the mosque issue and questions about how to fight back against this outrage.”

Zabihullah also claims that the issue is such a propaganda windfall—so tailor-made to show how “anti-Islamic” America is—that it now heads the list of talking points in Taliban meetings with fighters, villagers, and potential recruits. “We talk about how America tortures with waterboarding, about the cruel confinement of Muslims in wire cages in Guantánamo, about the killing of innocent women and children in air attacks—and now America gives us another gift with its street protests to prevent a mosque from being built in New York,” Zabihullah says. “Showing reality always makes the best propaganda.”

Mission accomplished, assholes.

Nation, meet cliff.

Now she's the Chicken and Soft-Core Porn lady

Sue Lowden, the woman who romanticizes a past not even her grandmother remembers when people would trade chickens for medical treatment (which often as not at that time probably involved leeches and poultices), is now the face behind this soft-coreish ad that's obsessed with coddling prisoners:

The mind of a Republican is a very scary place

Tuesday Big Blue Smurf Blogging: What They Said

Today's honoree: Roger Shuler, a.k.a. The Legal Schnauzer, on how Obama still doesn't fully "get it" about Republicans.

Money quote:

For roughly 30 years, since Ronald Reagan opened his 1980 campaign in Philadelphia, Mississippi, with a speech about states' rights, conservative Republicans have been marked by four traits:

* A willingness to twist the truth for political gain;

* A willingness to act corruptly in order to gain and consolidate political power;

* A willingness to make expert use of the race-based fear card in order to attract middle-class white voters; and

* A tendency to govern in such an incompetent fashion that voters turn to Democrats to clean up Republican messes.

Obama clearly wants to break this dysfunctional cycle. But we fear he's going about it the wrong way.

The president tried to reason with Republicans last Friday--politely, but bluntly, calling them on their false statements. For good measure, Obama seemingly tried to shame them into realizing that they needed to work with Democrats in a bipartisan, constructive fashion.

But here, we suspect, is the ugly truth about the modern GOP: You can't reason with them, and you can't shame them into doing the right thing.

That's because the modern Republican political brand, shaped by Reagan with several dollops of Nixonian skulduggery, remains intact. It never has been discredited the way it should have been long ago.

You may not agree with the tinfoil with which he closes the post (I actually do), but it is apot on the money.

Yes, Pat Buchanan is a racist. So is most of the Republican leadership.

Digby:

Pat Buchanan said on Hardball today that Barack Obama is Ashley Wilkes. Cynthia Tucker was sitting next to him. I would say that was the most hamhanded statement of the day if it weren't for the fact that the Republican response to the state of the union address is being held in the hall where Jefferson Davis was inaugurated.

Republicans: They'll just never be happy until they can restore the Confederacy. You think that giving a response to the first Black president from Jefferson Davis' inaugural site was purely coincidental? Remember, these people are expert at dogwhistling their frothing minions.

In case Scott Brown's moderate rhetoric over the past few days gave you any hope....

Fugeddaboudit:

Yesterday, a Republican candidate for the U.S. House announced that he had been endorsed by Sen.-elect Scott Brown (R-MA) just a day after Brown was named the winner of the Massachusetts special election.

But this morning, Dan Kennedy pointed out that the candidate, Massachusetts attorney Bill Hudak, appears to be a birther who believes President Obama was born in Kenya and who had once put signs in his yard comparing Obama to Osama bin Laden.

Now, Brown's spokesman says he never OK'd the press release announcing the endorsement -- but doesn't specifically deny the endorsement itself.

"Neither Scott Brown or anyone connected with his campaign approved that press release before its release or the quote that was attributed to Scott," the spokesman, Felix Browne, told The Hill.

Hudak, who campaigned for Brown, shot back.

"Scott Brown gave his endorsement to Bill Hudak and it's unfortunate that the people Scott Brown surrounds himself with are backing down from a commitment that their boss already made," said Tyler Harber, a spokesman for Hudak.

In the week before the 2008 presidential election, Hudak made his hometown paper after he put a six-by-four-foot sign in his front yard showing Barack Obama as Osama bin Laden and surrounded by words like "socialist," "Marxist" and "lazy."

He took the sign and others down in order, he said, to save the Boxford, Mass., police department from the numerous complaints they received about the signs.

After taking down the signs -- he said he wanted to "wake people up" -- he told the Tri-Town Transcript that he believes Obama was born in Kenya and that he has ties to Islam through an extremist cousin.

And Barack Obama still thinks that if he JUST MAKES NICE ENOUGH, and gives Republicans EVERYTHING THEY WANT, he can still turn thse people around. Doesn't he realize that the only thing that will satisfy today's Republicans is his head on a pike?

Meet today's Republican Party.

...keepin' it classy:

State Sen. Scott Brown (R) brought his surging campaign to this western MA town this a.m., rallying a crowd of GOPers more energized than many in attendance could remember.

Standing on a platform in front of the truck he has often touted in his stump speech and campaign ads, Brown was in high spirits as he addressed a crowd of more than 100 supporters. The crowd responded enthusiastically as Brown made his case against AG Martha Coakley (D) -- even interrupting frequently to make Brown's case for him.

"I'll tell you what," Brown said, using a megaphone to address the crowd. "There's negative campaigning, and then there's malicious campaigning."

"She's malicious!" a man in the crowd cried out. "She's a phony!" shouted another. "Shove a curling iron up her butt!" a third man interjected a few moments later.

Because nothing says "Patriotic American" like advocating sexual assault of the opposing candidate, in today's Republican Party.

Another reason to go on living

Another passenger is considering boarding the Republican clown car for 2012:

Former Sen. Rick Santorum has some more political travel on tap this week, with a trip scheduled for South Carolina to follow recent visits to Iowa and Michigan -- fueling speculation about 2012 that he isn't shying away from.

Asked whether he's considering a run for president, Santorum, R-Pa., said on ABCNews.com's "Top Line" today: "Absolutely -- absolutely taking a look."

"But look -- I'm doing it in the context that right now, there's, you know, there's very important matters and I want to weigh into those matters as to what the Republican Party stands for in 2010," Santorum continued.

"I think I've been very clear that you know, we need to stand foursquare on the traditional values. When I say traditional values people think, ‘Oh that means, you know, social conservatism and the family. It also means the free enterprise system and that government shouldn't be large and controlling things -- I mean, those are all core Republican principle."

And oh yeah, covet. Heavy on the covet, Father.

Can you imagine? This bozo and Sarah Palin squaring off in a primary debate? It would be hilarious if it weren't so utterly pathetic. Do these people have any idea what they're talking about? Are there any actual ideas behind what they say, or is it just a bunch of buzzwords strung together?

I guess this is why Mike Huckabee is leaning against running for president

Yesterday I was surprised to see that Mike Huckabee, who would appear to be the front-runner at this point for the 2012 presidential nod for those for whom Sarah Palin is just too batshit crazy, was leaning AGAINST a presidential run. At first I thought it was because it's far more fun to be a talk show host than to actually DO anything (something Mrs. Palin should consider as well). After all, no one cared during the 2008 campaign that Huckabee had pardoned a rapist after urging by lunatic wingnuts because the victim was a distant cousin of Bill Clinton, and that said rapist went on to rape and kill another woman. We already know what the right wing thinks about women and rape.

But now it turns out that the suspect in yesterday's shooting ambush of four police officers in Seattle was also pardoned by Mike Huckabee:

A man with an extensive criminal past -- whose 95-year prison sentence was commuted in Arkansas nearly a decade ago by then Gov. Mike Huckabee-- was being sought Sunday as a "person of interest" in a deadly ambush on four police officers who were gunned down inside a coffee shop.

Pierce County sheriff's spokesman Ed Troyer told reporters that Maurice Clemmons, 37, was one of several people investigators want to talk to and that he could not be called a suspect at this point.

In a news release, the sheriff's office said Clemmons has an extensive violent criminal history from Arkansas, including aggravated robbery and theft. Clemmons was also recently was arrested and charged in Pierce County, Washington state for third-degree assault on a police officer, and second-degree rape of a child.

According to The Seattle Times, Clemmons was released from the Peirce County Jail last week, despite facing eight felony charges. Clemmons posted $15,000 with a bail bondsman, who paid the remainder of the man's $150,000 bail.

In 1989, Clemmons, then 17, was convicted in Little Rock for aggravated robbery. He was paroled in 2000 after then-Gov. Mike Huckabee commuted Clemmons' 95-year prison sentence. Huckabee, who was criticized during his run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008 for the number of clemencies and commutations he granted, cited Clemmons' age at the time of the sentence.

After his release from prison, Clemmons violated his parole and was returned to prison in July 2001. He was released March 18, 2004, according to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette newspaper

Republicans haven't camppaigned on "law and order" for a long time. It's hard to do that when you are the party of Jack Abramoff and trumped-up wars. But I can see where, if one is safely ensconced in wingnut talk television, that it might be preferable to having to explain to those people who in 1988 responded to the Willie Horton ads just why TWO people you released from prison went on to commit more heinous crimes.

Giving a whole new meaning to the term "Purity Balls"

We haven't heard about purity balls in a while, those formal dances for evangelical daddies and their little girls, in which those little girls who don't even understand what sex is yet pledge their virginity to Daddy until married off to some freak considered religious enough by Daddy. They haven't gone anywhere, they just don't get the press they used to.

I wonder if the GOP is going to hold formal dances for its candidates, now that they are considering a "purity resolution" for prospective Republican candidates:

Republican leaders are circulating a resolution listing 10 positions Republican candidates should support to demonstrate that they “espouse conservative principles and public policies” that are in opposition to “Obama’s socialist agenda.” According to the resolution, any Republican candidate who broke with the party on three or more of these issues– in votes cast, public statements made or answering a questionnaire – would be penalized by being denied party funds or the party endorsement.

The proposed resolution was signed by 10 Republican national committee members and was distributed on Monday morning. They are asking for the resolution to be debated when Republicans gather for their winter meeting.

The resolution invokes Ronald Reagan, and noted that Mr. Reagan had said the Republican Party should be devoted to conservative principles but also be open to diverse views. President Reagan believed, the resolution notes, “that someone who agreed with him 8 out of 10 times was his friend, not his opponent.”

Hence the provision calling for cutting off Republicans who agree with the party on seven of 10 items.

Because eight of ten puts you in line with St. Ronnie. Seven of ten makes you an apostate.

The Woman Who Would Be Senator

Meet Carly Fiorina, who's running against Barbara Boxer in California:

A consummate self-promoter, Fiorina was busy pontificating on the lecture circuit and posing for magazine covers while her company floundered. She paid herself handsome bonuses and perks while laying off thousands of employees to cut costs. The merger Fiorina orchestrated with Compaq in 2002 was widely seen as a failure. She was ousted in 2005.

THE STAT: HP stock lost half its value during Fiorina’s tenure.

Yup. That's just what California needs -- a Senator who nearly ran a thriving company into the ground.

OMG these Republicans are sick and twisted people

What kind of sick fuck dresses up his daughter as Jon-Benet Ramsey for Halloween?

Republicans who oppose health care reform betray their "family values"

That Republicans hate women is no secret. Between "scarlet letter" abortion laws like the one in Oklahoma, thankfully stopped by the courts, the New Jersey Republican gubernatorial candidate calling young women with breast cancer "exceptions", and current health insurance company policies that regard rape as a pre-exisitng condition, you'd be hard-pressed to justify why the continuation of the current system is a good thing. And yet, Republicans do. Whether it's simply a matter of wanting to destroy Barack Obama for cheap political gain, or a function of their deep-seated fear and loathing of women remains to be seen. But there comes a point where their loathing of health care reform and their loathing of women hits the wall of their simultaneous Babies über Alles doctrine.

And here it is:

So at the same time as Republicans oppose the idea that women should be able to decide not to reproduce if they don't want to, it's perfectly OK for insurance companies to withhold coverage unless women are sterilized.

And this makes sense to anyone?

Sort of the way Tipper Gore ruined the Grateful Dead

Many readers probably don't remember when Tipper Gore became strange bedfellows with the self-rightous right to take on explicit music lyrics, and how the late and sorely lamented Frank Zappa took on all of them.

Here's a clip of Zappa making mincemeat of the late Bob Novak and some closet case from the Moonie Times on the original Crossfire:

Zappa is responsible for one of the filthiest albums ever made, the infamous Live at the Fillmore album, after which no one who heard it was able to listen to the Turtles' recording of Happy Together with a straight face ever again.

Funny how Zappa's own kids weren't damaged by their exposure to his or anyone else's music. Dweezil Zappa is an acclaimed musician in his own right. Moon Zappa is an author and actress. Ahmet Zappa has worked as a musician and actor, and is author of the children's book The Monstrous Memoirs of a Mighty McFearless. Not too shabby for three kids whose father performed stuff like this (not work-safe!):

...and this:

It was a strange time for Deadheads a few years later when Al Gore became Vice President and we found out that both Al and Tipper were Grateful Dead fans. In 2008, Tipper Gore, the Scourge of Rock 'n' Roll, was seen sitting at the drums with Mickey Hart, and here's the photographic proof. Can you be a fan of a band when another fan stands for something you despise, in this case, censorship?

Perhaps Bruce Springsteen fans in New Jersey will feel the same today when they read in the New York Times how soulless ghoul Chris Christie, the Republican candidate for governor, is a hard-core Springsteen fan:

Sitting in first class waiting for his flight to take off from Minneapolis, Christopher J. Christie froze in his seat: Bruce Springsteen had settled into the very next row. Mr. Christie tried to play it cool, but made a furtive cellphone call to a friend and whispered excitedly, “He’s sitting right behind me!”

Mr. Christie introduced himself and said he was a big fan. Mr. Springsteen was polite.

“I was hoping he’d say, ‘Let me slide over and I’ll sit with you,’ ” Mr. Christie said of the 1999 encounter. “But it didn’t happen.”

Maybe because you stand against everything he's been singing about for the last thirty years, asshole.

And this fuckwad is likely to be the next Governor of New Jersey

Yes, let's not cover mammograms for young women with a family history of early-onset breast cancer, because it's "an exception":

And let's not cover testicular cancer either, because it's "an exception."

Look, I know that Jon Corzine has been ineffectual and unable or unwilling or not interested in reining in the rampant corruption that is endemic to the state Democratic Party. But I don't see how nominating a heartless ghoul like the pantload that is Chris Christie is going to solve anything.

(UPDATE: Marcy Wheeler talks about her own experience as "an exception" in the current health care system.)

This is your country as envisioned by Republicans

Any questions?

Friends say the Miami University graduate who died this week after reportedly suffering from swine flu delayed getting medical treatment because she did not have health insurance.

News of Kimberly Young’s death Wednesday, Sept. 23, came as a shock to those who knew the vibrant 22-year-old who was working at least two jobs in Oxford after graduating with a double major in December 2008.

Young became ill about two weeks ago, but didn’t seek care initially because she didn’t have health insurance and was worried about the cost, according to Brent Mowery, her friend and former roommate.

Mowery said Young eventually went to an urgent care facility in Hamilton where she was given pain medication and then sent home.

On Tuesday, Sept. 22, Young’s condition suddenly worsened and her roommate drove her to McCullough Hyde Memorial Hospital in Oxford, where she was flown in critical condition to University Hospital in Cincinnati.

“That’s the most tragic part about it. If she had insurance, she would have gone to the doctor,” Mowery said.

I guess she should have "gotten an option like charity."

(via)

MoDo at last realizes what's going on here

Maureen Dowd perhaps owes Barack Obama an apology for referring to him as "Obambi" during the election season last year. I get what she was trying to point out, and God knows the man has elevated turning the other cheek to an art form. But I have to wonder just what she thought she was doing buying into the right-wing meme that only the tough talk of a pencil-dick like George W. Bush constitutes real manhood, let alone dubbing Obama with a nickname that not only conjures up the epitome of lack of toughness, but sounds even more African than his actual name.

The connection between right-wing hysteria over Obama and race is there, whether anyone wants to admit it or not. We all know how this manifests, and those of us who blog are regularly plagued with wingnuts who, unwilling to admit their own primal racial terror, come into the comments and say "The only people talking about race are liberals like you." Perhaps they hate that we draw the curtain aside from what they really mean. Perhaps they themselves don't even understand what it is they're feeling. How else to describe the tearful woman-in-the-street on CNN the other day (parodied brilliantly here), crying with utter pee-in-your-pants terror about what the Negro-in-chief (sic) was going to say to her poor, innocent, peaches-and-cream children. Is there any more primal fear among white America than having the fruit of their wombs stolen by Evil Criminal Black Men? In a way it's a shame that it became unacceptable for people to express their racism in so many words. Now they have to swaddle it in code and dogwhistles, thus leaving the door open for wingnut blog trolls to turn it around and say that WE're the ones who are racist for merely pointing it out.

Today MoDo attempts to perhaps atone for her own role in creating this metastasizing monster that is the lunatic right and call out Joe Wilson for what he is -- a racist:

Surrounded by middle-aged white guys — a sepia snapshot of the days when such pols ran Washington like their own men’s club — Joe Wilson yelled “You lie!” at a president who didn’t.

But, fair or not, what I heard was an unspoken word in the air: You lie, boy!

The outburst was unexpected from a milquetoast Republican backbencher from South Carolina who had attracted little media attention. Now it has made him an overnight right-wing hero, inspiring “You lie!” bumper stickers and T-shirts.

The congressman, we learned, belonged to the Sons of Confederate Veterans, led a 2000 campaign to keep the Confederate flag waving above South Carolina’s state Capitol and denounced as a “smear” the true claim of a black woman that she was the daughter of Strom Thurmond, the ’48 segregationist candidate for president. Wilson clearly did not like being lectured and even rebuked by the brainy black president presiding over the majestic chamber.

I’ve been loath to admit that the shrieking lunacy of the summer — the frantic efforts to paint our first black president as the Other, a foreigner, socialist, fascist, Marxist, racist, Commie, Nazi; a cad who would snuff old people; a snake who would indoctrinate kids — had much to do with race.

I tended to agree with some Obama advisers that Democratic presidents typically have provoked a frothing response from paranoids — from Father Coughlin against F.D.R. to Joe McCarthy against Truman to the John Birchers against J.F.K. and the vast right-wing conspiracy against Bill Clinton.

But Wilson’s shocking disrespect for the office of the president — no Democrat ever shouted “liar” at W. when he was hawking a fake case for war in Iraq — convinced me: Some people just can’t believe a black man is president and will never accept it.

And there it is.

It's not about health care, or fears of socialism from this appallingly corporatist Democratic president. Anyone who hasn't gone completely around the bend would realize that what we got in Barack Obama was exactly what we got -- a very cautious, centrist, don't-rock-the-boat black man who has spent his life walking on eggshells in front of people like Joe Wilson. And if he scares you that much for things he's not doing (as opposed to the things he IS doing, like planting a big wet kiss on the cheek of UnitedHealth), perhaps you need to take a look at why.

Before one of our trolls steps in and calls MoDo on saying that no Democrat ever shouted "Liar" at W, yes, it's true that many Democrats like me actually DID call W a liar -- because he was a liar, and his lies have now been demonstrated and proven. But I am not a public servant, I am not a Congresswoman, and I never shouted liar at him on the floor of Congress while offering no case that he even IS lying. It's one thing to be a private citizen (like the OTHER Joe Wilson, who was in the news a few years ago for telling the truth about yellowcake in Niger) and point out that what the president is saying is not true, and then offering evidence to demonstrate your point, and quite another to be a Confederate sympathizer screaming "YOU LIE!" at a black President on the floor of the House of Representatives in the Capitol. And anyone who can't see that is beyond the scope of reason.

Richard Blair has more.

Did Saxby Chambliss obliquely call Barack Obama an "uppity n----?"

I report, you decide:

Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) said today that, because of angry town hallers and the like, President Obama should show "humility" when he speaks to Congress Wednesday night.

"What you're seeing is folks on my side anxious to see what the president has to say tomorrow night," Chambliss said. "I think he's gonna have to express some humility based on what we've seen around the country this August and that's not his inclination."

Zombie Reagan rises from the grave

So, Average Joe, now that you've lost your job, you can't find another one, your unemployment is about to run out, you're using your 401(k) which is worth half of what it used to be to put food on the table, and you're going to be kicked out of your house next month, do you still obsess about the undeserving, those who don't deserve a helping hand because they've squandered what little they had? Do you still think that the Rich Man™ is going to let you into his club if you Just Work Hard Enough? How hard do you think that is? Hmmmmm????

Are you realizing yet that YOU have become what you always hated?

Hardly:

After many months of conservative claims that Barack Obama and the Democratic Party are determined to engineer a "government takeover" of the private sector in order to "redistribute" income, Steele is upping the ante to suggest that Obama wants to redistribute healthcare – and perhaps even the opportunity to take another breath – as well.

This should be familiar to any political observer over the age of 30 as a new version of the old "welfare wedge": the emotionally powerful conservative argument that Democrats want to use Big Government to take away the good things of life from people who have earned them and give them to people who haven't.

The "welfare wedge" largely disappeared from national political life in the wake of the 1996 welfare reform initiative that eliminated any federal entitlement to cash assistance for families, imposed a work requirement for temporary assistance, and generated, for a while at least, a massive reduction in "welfare" caseloads.

It returned during the latter stages of the 2008 presidential campaign, when conservative gabbers and ultimately the McCain-Palin campaign attacked Barack Obama's tax proposals as a "redistributive" effort to offer "welfare" by boosting the refundable Earned Income Tax Credit – by definition eligible only to families with earned income and stiff payroll tax liability. This was interesting not only because the EITC had long been a staple of conservative social policy, but because previous efforts to call refundable EITC payments "welfare" had been denounced by George W. Bush and John McCain.

After the election, the "welfare" treatment of Obama's tax policies was echoed by similar conservative rhetoric about proposals to help homebuyers getting hammered by the mortgage and real estate collapse. Most famously, CNBC financial reporter Rick Santelli became a right-wing folk hero for a rant about the injustice of being asked to help the "losers" who took out mortgages they should have known they couldn't pay. This was at about the same time as Republican members of Congress began handing out copies of Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged," with its prophecy of a dystopic society in which socialist "looters" and Christian "altruists" had brought the United States to its knees, and some conservative agitators began urging "productive" Americans to emulate Rand's plutocratic heroes by "going Galt" and refusing to contribute to the welfare state. The "tea party" movement that ramped up in opposition to Obama's economic stimulus proposals was heavily freighted with this sort of revolt-of-the-producers attitude.

Fucking idiots. These people remind me of the black-eyed yahoos of fictional Bon Temps, Louisiana -- the town on True Blood whose denizens have been driven so mad (and stupid) by an evil Maenad that they're duped into believing that one of the few still-sane townspeople is "the God that comes" with the help of a few flares, a gas mask, and some tree branches (watch it before YouTube takes it down):

This is what Republicans are so good at doing -- lifting your wallet out of your back pocket while pointing down the economic ladder and saying "Look! Down there! THERE'S the reason you're losing ground!" And the Charlie Browns who are captive to their racism, their fear of anyone who isn't white, and yes, their fear and recognition that they themselves are sliding down that ladder, fall for it every damn time.

Meanwhile, down in Texas, the Lone Star breed of yahoo is calling for secession again:

Rick Perry's talk of secession appears to have buoyed efforts by Texas secessionists who want the governor to follow through. At a rally Saturday on the Capitol steps, members of the of the Texas Nationalist Movement called on the governor and the Legislature to put a referendum on the state ballot on whether Texas should leave the union. At an anti-tax "tea party" protest in April, Perry touted states rights and raised the possibility of secession.

On Saturday, secessionist speakers denounced the federal government in general - and the Obama administration in particular. One speaker said, "We are aware that stepping off into secession may be a bloody war. We understand!" Another self-styled patriot invoked George Washington as an ally of secession (History lesson: Washington presided over creation of the union) and Sam Houston - "You go ask Sam Houston what he thought about secession. He did it anyway." (History lesson: Houston opposed secession. He ran for governor as an independent Unionist in 1859. Despite his efforts, the people of Texas voted to secede, and he was forced out of office in March 1861. )

I say let them secede. And I say let all these teabaggers voluntarily give up everything paid for by tax dollars. Let them give up the Federal money that they get which we in the blue states pay for. Let them give up maintenance of their interstate highways. And above all, let them give up their Social Security checks and their Medicare. Because once they become the Gun-Totin' Republic of Texas, they are no longer eligible.