Republican Stupidity

I am afraid that the outrage over this is going to be misdirected:

The director of Ohio’s workers’ compensation bureau resigned under pressure Friday over the disappearance of at least $10 million worth of rare coins that the agency had bought as an investment.

Gov. Bob Taft announced the departure of James Conrad, once hailed as state government’s ”Mr. Fixit” for his ability to overhaul troubled agencies.

”I am outraged, I am angered, I am saddened, and I am sickened,” Taft said of the scandal.

The announcement came a day after it was learned that $10 million to $12 million of the state’s $55 million rare coin investment was believed to be missing — dramatically more than the previous estimate of $400,000.

State officials said they plan to sue the man hired to manage the coin investments, coin dealer Tom Noe, and seek criminal charges. Noe has resigned, and a judge has ordered possession of the remaining coins transferred to the state.

While it is perfectly acceptable to be angry about the state losing $10 million from the coffers due to fraud and incompetence, that would be misdirected. What you should really be pissed off about is the fact that a state government, under Republican leadership, not only considered getting involved in the race coin/collectibles, but went ahead and did, to the tune of $55 million.

Maybe that is why Voinovich was crying in the well of the Senate the other day- this started under him.

Misplaced OutragePost + Comments (5)

Rick Moran has a long piece up taking me to task for, well, a number of things. I will reply later after work.

Right Wing NuthousePost + Comments (19)

*** Warning- Rant Follows ***

I am up to my armpits with the idiots in my party, and if nothing else, the loyalty test I discussed below and the idiotic brinksmanship over the filibuster have pushed me to a near tipping point.

First off, let me state again the media is supposed to be fucking neutral. They are supposed to have a skeptical, neutral stance when they can’t confirm things. That is what they are paid to do. Yet people want them to go out and act as a public relations firm, for the nation. Not their fucking job, idiots. Karen Hughes gets the paycheck for that. If you want to piss the media off, stop thbe bullshit in our prisons and STOP GIVING THEM EXCUSES TO REPORT SHIT. Like, for example the Tillman cover-up. I can’t wait to hear the enlightened comments about this ‘anti-military’ story.

As for the filibuster bullshit, we slit our own damned throats with that. I would like an up or down vote on nominees, but I just don’t have it in me to lie about the situation.

We changed the rules of the game, and then acted all shocked when the Democrats (who are in no way without sin) got pissed. We stopped the blue slips and other options once we became the majority. The Constitutional issue is nothing more than nonsense to sell the naked power grab, and that is what it was. Bush never expected for all of his judges to get confirmed- no reasonable President would.

We were going to break the Senate rules THAT WE AGREED TO AND OPERATED UNDER WITH FEW PROBLEMS in order to make the rule change. And worse, we were going to set the stage so the minority party has no options, unwilling to recognize the fact that we will be in the minority again (sooner than these morons recognize, the rate we are going now- seen Bush’s approval ratings?), and that the filibuster would be dead for everything if successfully killed for judges. Only an idiot would argue otherwise, which, of course is why so many members of my party are doing just that. They are idiots.

And this isn’t a position shift for me. I even stated on Jeff Goldstein and Bill Ardolino’s radio show that I wouldn’t bash the GOP if they used the nuclear option. I am not.

I am bashing them for making the option necessary by refusing to play by the rules we lived with for years, and I am outraged that the idiots, upon hearing a reasonable compromise has been achieved, still want to pursue the nuclear option. They don’t have to go nuclear, BUT THEY STILL FUCKING WANT TO.

Worse than that, they want the heads of the seven Senators who dared to go against the will of the wingnuts. Because, in the world of idiots, those seats are guaranteed seats for Republicans. Lincoln Chaffee- why, he owes Tony Perkins and the Family Research Council his job.

It is all or nothing for these assholes. You are with us or against us. There can be no middle-ground. We must have complete power, complete control, or we just blow up the fucking system and remake it our way, because, after all, we won an election by 2% of the vote.

And why?

For the bankruptcy bill? To please Dobson and keep the lunatics happy? To ban stem cell research and keep harassing the fags? To give the Democrats a defeat, however bad it is for the country? To strong-arm enbough votes to pass the budget busting Prescription Drug Pill? For deficits as far as the eye can see? To allow more censorship of entertainment and make obscenity criminal? To pass more mandatory minimus while cutting rehabilitation?

So, wingnuts, you have set the stage. I understand I am either with you or against you, and you are unwilling to advance any legislation I think is sensible, and you are unwilling to to think twice about things I dislike. I get it- you want my vote and you want me to shut the fuck up. I get it- with you or against you.

But let me warn you- the Democrats just don’t seem that damned scary anymore. You people have me to the point that if it were 2004 all over again, and I knew what I know now, I don’t know if I necessarily would have pulled the lever for that two-faced weasel Kerry, but I would have found it EXCEPTIONALLY difficult to vote for Bush.

[/rant]

*** Update ***

The Physics Geek writes:

See, here’s where I think that John might not be seeing the big picture. Does he really think that the next time the Democrats hold the power in the Senate that they won’t change the Senate rules to suit their purposes? After all, Robert Byrd did it in the not so distant past, reducing the number of votes for cloture from 67 down to 60.

Let’s go all out in this example. Hillary becomes president in 2008 and the Dem’s sweep to power in the Senate riding on her coattails. Now imagine that she nominates some left-wing ideologue who believes that it’s okey-dokey to legislate from the bench. Now the Republicans decide to filisbuster this unreasonable candidate. Does John actually believe that the Democrats will spend more than a few minutes trying to find some sort of compromise to get an up-or-down vote in the Senate? I don’t think so. After some public appearances decrying the Republicans’ stonewalling, the Senate Democrats will change the filibuster rule so that cloture can be invoked with only 51 votes for judges. Once the judicial filibuster is broken, those same 51 Democrats will then vote en masse for whomever Hillary nominated. Count on it.

A.) We’ll fight that battle if an when it comes, and we would be in the right then.

B.) The logic escapes me- They might do it in the future, so we go aheads and blow it up now? Quick, everyone stick a red hot poker up your ass- because someone might do it to you in the future, so you might as well do it now.

Last Comment on the Filibuster CompromisePost + Comments (57)

And the inevitable right-wing temper tantrum has begun in earnest, and believe me, this is a temper tantrum. Like children who were denied an extra serving of ice cream or who were not allowed to stay up past their bedtime, they will scream and yell and threaten and work themselves into a red-faced lather, and I, for one, am not content to sit by and let them be.

I intend to poke fun at them and make their childish tantrums worse.

What will be the most amusing thing to watch will be the necessary villification of John Warner, who must be immediately recast as a traitor, an evil moderate, as unprincipled and as a back-stabbing obstructionist. They are, of course, talking about this John Warner:

– Rated 21% by NARAL, indicating a pro-life voting record.

– Rated 20% by the ACLU, indicating an anti-civil rights voting record.

– Rated 100% by the US COC, indicating a pro-business voting record.

– Rated 13% by CURE, indicating anti-rehabilitation crime votes.

– Rated 27% by the NEA, indicating anti-public education votes.

– Rated 11% by the LCV, indicating anti-environment votes.

– Rated 83% by the Christian Coalition: a pro-family voting record.

– Rated 64% by CATO, indicating a mixed record on trade issues.

– Rated D by the NRA, indicating a pro-gun control voting record.

– Rated 0% by APHA, indicating a anti-public health voting record.

– Rated 0% by SANE, indicating a pro-military voting record.

– Rated 0% by the AFL-CIO, indicating an anti-labor voting record.

– Rated 74% by NTU, indicating a “Taxpayer’s Friend” on tax votes.

[sarcasm] Clearly, John Warner is a flaming moderate. [/sarcasm]

When this man is publicly enemy number one, and considered not conservative enough or a bad Republican, the word ‘conservative’ is either meaningless, or means something wholly different from what I thought it meant. Say it again to yourself- to the lunatics, a man with a LIFETIME rating of 81 by the American Conservative Union is not ‘conservative enough.’

These people have lost their damned minds. I am tired of trying to walk these wingnuts back from the edge of the cliff. I am close to the point where I start pushing.

I think he is, too.

The Inevitable Temper TantrumPost + Comments (16)

It seems that Professor Bainbridge and I have pretty similar takes on the issue:

Will somebody please get these folks some cheese to go with their whine? I find these reactions not only short-sighted but also surprisingly unconservative. They reflect a willingness to put possible short-term partisan gain (and I emphasize the word possible) over both principle and long-term advantage…

They aren’t conservative. They aren’t even the same reactionary extremists that used to be the fringe of the Republican party ( I like reactionaries- they aren’t running around proposing bullshit, they are trying to stop it). The extrem right in Congress is a group of radicals with a big government, and decidedly unconservative, agenda.

The filibuster is a profoundly conservative tool. It slows change by allowing a resolute minority to delay – to stand athwart history shouting stop. It ensures that change is driven not “merely by temporary advantage or popularity” but by a substantial majority. Is it any wonder that it has usually been liberals who want to change or abolish the filibuster rule?

Proponents of the “nuclear option” claim to believe that abolishing the filibuster could be limited to judicial nominations. It’s a coin flip as to whether this is naive or disingenuous. It’s a slippery slope to abolishing the filibuster as to Presidential nominations or even legislation. Would the GOP be tempted to abolish the filibuster if necessary to put John Bolton at the UN? Or to ram through social security reform? Even if the GOP resisted that temptation, what happens the next time the Democrats control the Senate? A GOP-established legislative and institutional precedent for abolishing the filibuster as to judicial nominations would make it all that much easier for the Democrats to do the same as to nominations or legislation.

They don’t care, and they are being disingenuous. No need to flip a coin. At any rate, read the whole thing.

*** Update ***

One more time for the slow. I find the notion that Republicans are pursuing the ‘nuclear option’ out of deference to the Constitution to be completely laughable. Period.

This group of phonies on both sides of the aisle have shown time and time again that they are willing to not only shit all over the Constitution, but to wipe with it when they are done. The idea that they are now pursuing this option for the sanctity of the Constitution is utter nonsene. They are doing it because they want their judges confirmed.

If Republicans were so damned concerned with the Constitution, they may have been able to make a persuasive argument when they were in the minority all those years. Instead, they were quite content to use the rules in place to blue-slip and kill legions of Clinton appointees, all without a whit of concern for the Constitution or any mention of a President having a right to have his nominees voted on.

That they have managed to convince some in the wingnut base to adopt this language and attitude may be one thing, so when you see them huffing and puffing in the blogosphere about the Constitution, you know why. But it doesn’t make them right, and it doesn’t mean the Senators pushing this really give two hoots in hell about the Constitution, either.

This was about power, pure and simple. Not, as some would have you believe, the Constitution.

More on Filibusters and the SenatePost + Comments (12)

I was going to write a big long post on Bush’s threat to veto stem cell legislation and how although I had once defended Bush for choosing a middle ground, right now nothing I can say will drive the point home any better than this:

All the other lousy bills they’ve passed, and this is the first one he’ll veto?

Pretty much.

Stem CellsPost + Comments (13)

Santorum apologized, sort of, using a variation of the “I am sorry people misunderstood what I meant” apology that is so popular in Washington:

Sen. Rick Santorum says he “meant no offense” by referring to Adolf Hitler while defending the GOP’s right to ban judicial filibusters as Senate leaders prepared to start a countdown Friday to a vote over whether to stop minority senators from blocking President Bush’s judicial nominees.

“Referencing Hitler was meant to dramatize the principle of an argument, not to characterize my Democratic colleagues,” Santorum, the No. 3 Republican in the GOP leadership in the Senate, said of his remarks Thursday.

I am sorry I’m stupid, in other words.

Santorum Backed DownPost + Comments (8)