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You are here: Home / Politics / Republican Stupidity / GOP Congress: We Luv Babies, But Not As Much As We Love Our Treason Flag

GOP Congress: We Luv Babies, But Not As Much As We Love Our Treason Flag

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Not The Onion/Andy Borowitz:

House Republican lawmakers sought to reverse previously passed legislation restricting the display of the Confederate flag in federal cemeteries by slipping a provision stripping the legislation into a larger appropriations bill that included Zika funding. The House bill passed last week on largely partisan lines, but was blocked in the Senate Tuesday by a Democratic filibuster.

The Confederate flag language was just one of a number controversial provisions included in the bill, which also included an amendment cutting Planned Parenthood funding and other swipes at the Obama administration’s public health initiatives.

Republican lawmakers are warning that the American public will now blame Democrats if Zika becomes a full-blown health crisis. But Democratic leaders suggested that filibustering Tuesday’s bill was an easy call — pointing to provisions like the Confederate flag reversal…

Mr. Pierce, “Did Republicans Really Just Bring the Confederate Flag into the Zika Debate?”:

… The Democratic opposition to the bill in the Senate primarily dealt with the whack the bill took at Planned Parenthood, and the president was likely to veto this bill anyway, not least because it contains half of what he asked for to fight the disease, and because it does so by draining money from other urgent priorities. But, honestly now, babies are being born with severe birth defects, and this is seen as an opportunity to get back a fight you’ve already lost?

That’s not governing. That’s a talk show.

As of mid-June, per the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, at least “Three women in the U.S. mainland infected with the Zika virus have delivered infants with birth defects and three others have lost or terminated pregnancies because their fetuses suffered brain damage from the virus”.

States have been scrambling to find funds for Zika prevention efforts, resorting to stealing it from other programs. At least one Republican, Rep. Ted Poe (Texas) complained that his district wasn’t getting enough Zika funding from the CDC — even as he personally voted to cut the agency’s funding.

And the women most likely to be affected are, of course, those least likely to be able to protect themselves.

Not for the first time, I find myself wishing that the GOP Talibangelicals and their enablers would actually be judged under the religious standards they profess, because it wouldn’t be the biblical Heaven to which the Jesus described in their holy book sent them.

Reader Interactions

83Comments

  1. 1.

    japa21

    It is getting to the point where there are no words to describe the disgust in which the GOP should be held.

  3. 3.

    singfoom

    Ah, the old “Let’s make government not work so then we can get (re)elected by pointing out that government doesn’t work.” scam. Pierce’s quote from above is quite correct. This isn’t governing. That’s the whole plan, governing by not governing.

    Then running the grift. Sad that so many of our fellow citizens seem to fall for it.

  6. 6.

    NotMax

    If the title weren’t already taken by a fine book, they’d be the Confederacy of Dunces.

  7. 7.

    aimai

    The mind boggles–I wish Hillary Clinton could run a quick ad campaign: Why We Fight!

    Millions of unborn children at risk
    While the Republican Party tries to raise the confederate flag
    over their bodies…
    Vote for the Sane People Party in November…

  9. 9.

    JMG

    Obama should spend the money and challenge the Congress to impeach him for trying to save the country from a plague affecting the unborn. Let ’em try. He won’t, he’s not that kind of person. But he should.

  10. 10.

    Enhanced Voting Techinques

    @aimai: “While the Republican Party tries to raise the confederate flag over their bodies”

    Truely, the irony is breathtaking. The party that was defind by Northern civil war vets.

  11. 11.

    hedgehog mobile

    There is an ad for Liz Fucking Cheney on my phone. Apparently she didn’t learn the first time.

  12. 12.

    JPL

    @Chris: Me, too..

    Anne, Today at the North America Leaders conference in Canada, the President closed his comment with a description of populism and nativism. link Maybe you can use it sometime.

  14. 14.

    Bruuuuce

    Just once, I’d like to see a punch bowl into which the Republicans don’t crap. Repeatedly.

  15. 15.

    Suffragete City elftx

    For anyone interested in the the Oregon standoff, Brian Cavalier aka Booda Bear has taken a plea deal. Admitting he was an armed body guard for Ammon, did prevent employees through intimidation from doing their jobs; and conspired with another individual to carry out those actions.

  18. 18.

    NotMax

    @Enhanced Voting Techinques

    Really is quite amazing.

    The party of Lincoln supports the Confederacy, while the Southern Baptist (created as a pro-slavery church in a schism during Lincoln’s time) leadership overwhelmingly votes to eschew the Confederate flag and advises membership that its use is unreservedly unacceptable.

  19. 19.

    Comrade Scrutinizer

    @japa21:

    It is getting to the point where there are no words to describe the disgust in which the GOP should be held.

    “Getting to the point”? We passed that point about 15 years ago, when the ReThugs genned up their little adventure in the Big Suck.

  21. 21.

    Kay

    @JPL:

    That’s very good. Thank you. It’s nice to see Obama’s not willing to let Trump define “populist” because of course Trump isn’t a populist.

    You get the sense he’s dying to get to it versus Trump. The part at the end where he says he can go on “rants” at the end of his term is true, too. Obama + Clinton v Trump will be fun to watch. It’s like full circle from ’08 where Obama and Clinton were opponents.

  25. 25.

    dogwood

    @JPL:
    I second the motion. The president was spectacular today at the Canadian Parliament. Loved the chanting of “4 More Years”.

  26. 26.

    Kay

    @NotMax:

    Hah! North Carolina. Republicans will hate that. It’s not supposed to be a swing state. They’d much prefer if they were in Pittsburgh or Scranton.

  27. 27.

    jl

    Gosh, I can see why the GOP is so worried about that awful Mr. Trump. If only he weren’t mucking things up, the GOP outreach program to racial and ethnic minorities would be going just fine, huh?

  29. 29.

    Splitting Image

    @JPL:

    @Kay: This is a special moment from the summit link

    I’m reliably informed that Obama has ruined America’s image in the rest of the world and everyone hates him. That video is obviously a false flag operation. [/rwnj]

    (Seriously, watch it if you haven’t. It’s pretty sweet.)

  30. 30.

    Kay

    @jl:

    When Rebuilding America Now launched in early June, founder and California hedge fund investor Tom Barrack said he had $32 million in commitments. Nearly a month later, the group has spent just $1.5 million on two different television ads compared to the $110 million reserved by the pro-Clinton Priorities USA.
    Ken McKay, former campaign manager to New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s presidential effort who is running the super PAC, said the $32 million has not materialized.
    “All we can do is ask. And we are asking,” McKay said of donors. “Any fundraising effort can be difficult and challenging but you can’t make people write checks.”
    McKay said challenges running against Priorities, a well-funded machine. Internal obstacles, however, include donors’ concerns that Trump can’t win in November. He also said potential donors say that Trump doesn’t need their help because he has repeatedly said he can fund his own campaign.

    When Trumpster goes down Chris Christie goes with him, so that’s just an extra incentive. Christie was always over-rated. Always.

  31. 31.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Heh, just watching the Maddow show with the Canadian parliament give PBO a standing O and chanting “Four More Years”.

    Some ‘winger wanna tell me again how the rest of the world doesn’t respect us, mostly because we haven’t started any new land wars in Asia

  32. 32.

    hovercraft

    @efgoldman:
    It will provide us a nice preview of the contrast we are in for at the conventions. Ours will be Obama, Warren, Clinton, Biden, and a Cranky Old Coot, and Drumps will be the likes of Howie Carr, Jeff Sessions, Chris Christie, and possibly a bunch of sports ‘stars’, and an assorted pack of howling monkeys flinging poo.
    As much as the media is anxious to rehabilitate Drump and praise him every time he fails to step on his own dick, I think the convention will be such a public display of crazy the nation will be gobsmacked.
    Oh and Chris Matthews is totally rooting for Drump, he is so impressed by his business acumen and feels that his message is so resonant when he is not spouting “that ethnic crap”. Your liberal media.

  35. 35.

    Patricia Kayden

    Growing up in Canada, I always thought Republicans were strange. Now that I live in the U.S., I’ve come to realize how petty and evil they are. It astounds me that anyone would vote for these bastards.

    Who the hell fools around with virus prevention to score political points? Democrats need to be shouting about this loudly every chance they get.

  37. 37.

    dogwood

    @Kay:
    Christie is a douche, but I always thought he had some political savvy. When they were begging him to run in ’12, he pretty much said that beating Barack Obama was probably wishful thinking. Always struck me as enough of a realist to ignore the skewed polls nonsense. So attaching himself to Trump as a gofer is a mystery to me.

  39. 39.

    Patricia Kayden

    @Chris: Me too. I’m going to keep myself healthy just to live long enough to see Republicans become obsolete like the Whigs. #Goals.

  40. 40.

    hovercraft

    @Splitting Image:
    The world hates us and they simply want 4 more years so they can continue to walk all over us. They have enjoyed the apology tour and are requesting an encore. By keeping us weak Obama has created a brand new terrorist network remember there were no terrorist attacks anywhere in the world after 9/11. Except for London, and Madrid, and oh never mind, but those were not as bad as the ones caused by Obama.

  43. 43.

    Immanentize

    @Enhanced Voting Techinques: here is my favorite comment of yours for all times:

    Actually now I think about it…

    Bobbyklins, can I call you that Immantized? Just because I am older, white and male doesn’t mean I am not allowed to have an opinion, and apparently we white old men control the world. So let’s consider what you just did; I said something you didn’t like, you are trying to shut me up by shaming me. Now here’s my question Bobbykins; do you think that will change my opinion, or get me just to ignore you and me just keep on doing what you think isvwrong, and since I am a older white male, THE OPPRESSION(tm) continues?

    So nice.

  48. 48.

    Tripod

    Yes! The Southern Cross gambit. Did they sing Dixie in the House as well?

    Talk about throwing shit at the wall and hoping.

  50. 50.

    Barb2

    Leave it to the GOP to turn life and death issues into stupidity and science denial.

    I seeing maps showing zika risk areas – the red states. The f$ckers are still playing games with people’s lives. The GOP dogma aims at harming their own.

    Tea party guy I know claims GOP experts are telling the party faithful that the impact will be minimal – same guy who was screaming EOLA – we are all going to die. That’s what the GOP is betting on – zika is much ado about nothing. A few dozen poor folk at most. Zero empathy.

    FOX news I’d doing one hell of a job of brain washing it’s viewers. Most have Fox news on all the time. Walk through a RV retirement park and most rigs have Fox news on big screen tvs. I’m a cord cutter – but I do read the news on line. Oh I am very well educated – in a country that is largely hostile to folk like me.

    I feel like a Cultural Anthropologist in an alien culture. Or watching another Jim Jones cult growing into a mob.

    This GOP cr&p using a crisis to defund Obama care at the beginning of a major crisis is mind blowing. Where is the empathy? Trump has zero empathy – figures this is who the Fox mob has chosen.

    We can see the train-wreck coming.

  51. 51.

    Bruuuuce

    @dogwood: Christie knows he’s a goner at the next election, if not before (Bridgegate is still a thing, and the trials that might put his own involvement in the public spotlight haven’t happened yet). He sees an opportunity to grift at least a year’s worth of the good life, and maybe more, by sucking at the Trump teat. Unless, of course, #DeadbeatDonald stiffs him like all the other little people who work for him.

  54. 54.

    Anne Laurie

    @dogwood:

    So attaching himself to Trump as a gofer is a mystery to me.

    I think Christie started publicly cheering for Trump in the first place to try & distract attention from that whole #Bridgegate issue — it was pretty clearly a risky bet, like the guy who doubles down on his roulette number after losing the rent money by putting his car in hock. And now, he’s stuck with Deadbeat Donald; sure, he’s almost surely gonna lose, but at least it’s free ‘supporter’ trips until the HindenTrump explodes, and who knows? Maybe Chris can give another much-talked-about, game-changing speech at this year’s RNC convention! (Okay, he was mostly mocked for his long-winded Romney ‘endorsement’ — ‘yeah, Mitt for Prez, whatevs, now lemme tell ya about ME’ — but it was still attention!) At the very least, he’ll get some nice video clips for his scrapbook, once he’s been demoted to the Wingnut Wurlitzer Welfare circuit…

    ETA: Bruuuuce beat me to it! Darn you, slow typing fingers!

  56. 56.

    redshirt

    @Patricia Kayden:

    Growing up in Canada, I always thought Republicans were strange. Now that I live in the U.S., I’ve come to realize how petty and evil they are. It astounds me that anyone would vote for these bastards.

    You want a peek into the mind of a Republican voter? Consider the gun store owner who a couple of days after the Orlando shooting changes his always informative sign to tell folks they sell, service, and even build AR-15’s.

    Think about that for a moment. And also consider this man probably thinks he’s a decent Christian.

  58. 58.

    Roger Moore

    @Kay:
    It seems to me that Trump is providing an excellent object lesson in why honesty is the best policy. All of the lies he told earlier in the campaign are coming home to roost.

  59. 59.

    RaflW

    Republicans of course always think Democrats are stupid, but really. If they think “the American public will now blame Democrats if Zika becomes a full-blown health crisis” they are sniffing some whack glue. Messaging this will not be hard for Dems:
    The GOP blocked funding for Zika because they love them some Confederate flags. Yes, that’s right ladies and gentlemen, your babies are being endangered for a symbolic fight over a flag, a fight settled last year but that the GOP decided was so important that they’d refight a done deal, and block Zika research and prevention as the tool. But you know who the tools are. Yep, the GOP.

  61. 61.

    The Thin Black Duke

    @RaflW:

    Republicans of course always think Democrats are stupid, but really.

    I must respectfully disagree, unfortunately.

    Republicans don’t think Democrats are stupid.

    Republicans think that people who vote for Republicans are stupid.

    And they’re right.

  62. 62.

    Roger Moore

    @Barb2:

    That’s what the GOP is betting on – zika is much ado about nothing. A few dozen poor folk at most. Zero empathy.

    I think what they’re actually betting on is that it will blow up around election time, and they can blame Obama for failing to stop it. It’s bog standard GOP SOP: make government an ineffective waste of money and then run on destroying it.

  63. 63.

    redshirt

    @Roger Moore: Big news in Maine today: There might be a python in the river in Westbrook, and a police officer observed it eating a beaver.

    “Wessie” has yet to be apprehended.

  64. 64.

    Major Major Major Major

    I mean, I’ve lived all over the Bay Area for over a decade but I’m still shocked how cold San Francisco is in the summer. It was a balmy 80 on the peninsula and now I’m back downtown and it’s gotta be 50, and dropping.

  68. 68.

    RobertDSC-Quad Intel Mac

    I have a friend who is pregnant and is down in Cancun with her family right now. I worry every day about her contracting Zika. She returns to the States this weekend.

  69. 69.

    redshirt

    @Miss Bianca: I love saying that phrase – “in a world…” in serious voiceover guy’s voice in my head and then inserting a new topic – “where meetings last for hours….”

  74. 74.

    Barb2

    @Roger Moore

    My Tea Party informants were claiming in May that my concern about a looming zika public health was no big deal. Their Fox experts had told them that the Zika carrying mosquitos were rare in America. “They had lots of maps and stuff – these guys were experts.” The Obama request for funds was a made up, false emergency, they told me.

    Could be the GOP is going to play this both ways. The sexual transmission of the zika virus is beyond the tea party’s comprehension. I can only talk to these guys for a short time – their lack of critical thinking ability is amazing. It is as if the FOX Viewers have lost the ability for self awareness.

    Makes me want to be a hermit. But I feel someone needs to monitor the effects of Fox brain washing.

  81. 81.

    JustRuss

    The Obama request for funds was a made up, false emergency, they told me.

    Because Obama just loves to light our tax dollars on fire? What the hell do they think is motivation for faking the Zika issue?

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