Republicans - All That Remains is Hate.

Joe Klein has written his thoughts about the state of the Republican party in The GOP Has Become a Party of Nihilists

How very sad that a once great party, instead of regrouping and recreating itself as the Grand Old Party of the People, instead continues to stick its head further and further into the sand. To misquote somebody, I can't recall who, "It is not enough that I fail. I must pull the rest of the world down with me."

Instead of disagreeing honorably and fighting for what they believe is right they have become the part of NO. Lies, distortion and deception are their new standards. Is there no honor left in this party? Is Rush Limbaugh the best they can come up with? Sad. Ronald Reagan must be turning over in his grave. This is a charade, he would never have stooped to. Ronald Reagan would have spoken out for what he believed in, not what he knew to be a lie. Sad.

To paraphrase the Republican lawyer Joseph Welch to Joseph McCarthy, "Have you no sense of decency, sirs, at long last?"

Senate Republicans push Cash for Clunkers off the Cliff

By Doug Hardin

The CARS, better known as Cash for Clunkers, program that was supposed to provide up to $4,500 to each person who trades in an old gas hog for a newer fuel efficient car may be headed for a crash because the Republicans have now decided to block refunding.

The original program was provided with a fund of $1 Billion that was supposed to carry it until about November. However, the program has been so successful that the funds have apparently been exhausted after only one long weekend. The administration has asked for at least $2 Billion more to keep the program active. Republicans are taking advantage of the summer recess to block additional funding using the recess as a tool to stymie voting.

Are they crazy? Their largest complaint by the Republicans about the recovery efforts initiated under George Bush and passed on to Barack Obama has been that, in addition to being too expensive, it was taking too long to get the money into action, the normal citizen is not sharing in any of the action and the program makes no sense.

So, along comes a program that gets over 1$ Billion out in a week, puts the money directly into citizens garages, creates jobs (somebody is going to have to build the approximately 250,000 cars sold last weekend), gets some CO2 belching gas guzzling iron heaps off the streets, makes everybody feel just a little bit better about the economy and has the premium benefit of getting a lotta folks a nice new set of greener wheels. I didn't think economic recovery could get any better, or faster, than that.

Apparently, the problem is that the Republicans didn't think of it first so if they can't take credit for it. I'm not exactly saying the Republicans are 100% the bad guys here because I'm fairly sure that, if the shoes were reversed, it would be the Democrats playing the part of the spoilers.

I'm really starting to have fonder memories of Tom Laughlin, the creator of the hero Billy Jack movies. Remember when he went to the leader of the motorcycle gang and said "Who's in charge here?" When the leader said, "I am." Billy Jack shot him and said again. "Who's in charge here?" The next bad guy steps up and says " You are."

Well, maybe we should send Billy Jack to DC. Be interesting to see what he might come up with

Liberal Suicide March - David Brooks

By DAVID BROOKS

Published: July 20, 2009

It was interesting to watch the Republican Party lose touch with America. You had a party led by conservative Southerners who neither understood nor sympathized with moderates or representatives from swing districts.

They brought in pollsters to their party conferences to persuade their members that the country was fervently behind them. They were supported by their interest groups and cheered on by their activists and the partisan press. They spent federal money in an effort to buy support but ended up disgusting the country instead.

It’s not that interesting to watch the Democrats lose touch with America. That’s because the plotline is exactly the same. The party is led by insular liberals from big cities and the coasts, who neither understand nor sympathize with moderates. They have their own cherry-picking pollsters, their own media and activist cocoon, their own plans to lavishly spend borrowed money to buy votes.

The rest of this commentary can be viewed here

Hypocracy on the Potomac! Really?

Yesterday Maureen Dowd wrote one of her call-to-a-Cat-fight pieces on Washington hypocracy. Absolutely!


Pharisees On the Potomac

By: Maureen Dowd

Like cats that have lost their whiskers, the Republicans seem off balance now that they have lost their talent for hypocrisy.

They are still practicing the ancient political art of Tartuffery, of course, just without their former aplomb.

Who can forget the glory years, when the Gipper invoked God but never went to church? When Arlen Specter accused Anita Hill of perjury to distract from Clarence Thomas’s false witness? When Newt Gingrich and other conservatives indulged in affairs with young Washington peaches as they pushed to impeach Bill Clinton?

To Read the Rest of this column Click Here

Rush Limbaugh is a Democratic Mole

How embarrassing it is to be me.

The more Rush Limbaugh says, the less seriously Republicans are taken. His constant rants serve only to keep the already converted happy. Meanwhile reasonable Republicans, who truly believe in small government, smaller spending and fair play, not the politics of hatred and exclusion grow frustratingly embarrassed to be seen as sitting at the same table with Rush Limbaugh.

When I lived in Bangkok we had a local obnoxious character who talked and even looked like Limbaugh. Bully; loud and greedy. He soon picked up the name Boss Hog. Eventually a
T-shirt appeared featuring a pig in a puddle of mud, "Arguing with me is like wrestling a Pig in the Mud. After a while you begin to realize the pig loves it."

One night after several months of trying to get a few impoverished food vendors off the public sidewalk in front of his newly purchased business (One of the highlights of Bangkok is the sidewalks packed with the odor of delicious inexpensive food) a couple of the vendors poured a bucket of pig poo over Boss Hog's bald head. Wonder whatever happened to Boss Hog? Nothing good, surely.

Well back to Boss Rush. Following is an excerpt from Rush's latest rant.

"The standard of living has increased in places where there are basic free markets," Limbaugh said. "Where there aren't, of course the standard of living has declined, such as Zimbabwe... now run by Robert Ogabe. Ah -- it's Mugabe. I was confusing him with a well-known Kenyan named Barack Ogabe. This is Robert Mugabe."

Read more and see the video on Huffington Post here.