Republican Big Lie Machine Helping Scott Walker

People whose IQs are higher than their shoe size are probably aware of this already: Scott Walker did not — EVER — mention anything about collective bargaining or destroying unions when he was running for governor of Wisconsin.

Unfortunately the Rightwing Echo Chamber is trying to rewrite history. They’re spewing out the Big Lie that Scott Walker is simply fulfilling his campaign pledge to “eliminate collective bargaining for state employees.” “He promised to squelch the unions and that’s why the people of Wisconsin elected him.” Etc.

And of course every time a rightwing “newscaster” repeats this Big Lie, millions of bone-stupid drones sit there going “Uh. Uh huh. Huh. Ugh!!!”

Last Monday Scott Walker said:

“I campaigned on (the proposals in the budget repair bill for Wisconsin) all throughout the election. Anybody who says they are shocked on this has been asleep for the past two years.”

Yesterday, Chris “the voice of the inbreds” Wallace said:

“… The question is, he ran on this issue, he was elected, you got a Republican majority. I mean, you know, with Barack Obama you kept saying elections have consequences, why is it bullying to say, ‘I was elected, I want to enact my agenda‘?”

During the election campaign, Walker did talk about making state employees pay more for their pensions and health care benefits. On those issues, state employees and Democratic legislators are willing to negotiate.

The issues that both sides say are non-negotiable — eliminating collective bargaining rights, stipulating that unions will be eliminated completely unless their members vote every year to keep the union in existence — these issues were never EVER mentioned by Walker during the election campaign.

December 7th, 2010 was the first time Scott Walker said anything publicly about eliminating bargaining rights for unions. The election was a month earlier. Do the math.

“Take the Unions Out at the Knees”

Here it is, straight from the Koch Whore’s mouth.

To anyone who still thinks Operation: Destroy Unions has anything whatsoever to do with budget deficits — the Tooth Fairy called.

Check out this speech by Scott Hagerstrom, Michigan’s Useful Idiot for Americans For Prosperity. He was preaching to the choir at the Conservative Political Action Committee’s annual circle jerk.

(Hat Tip to TomCat at Politics Plus, where I first saw this story.)

Scott Hagerstrom probably didn’t think this speech would get out beyond his small plutocrats-and-their-inbred-worshipers audience:

“It’s easy to go out there and fight taxes and increased regulation, you know we send out an action alert on taxes to AFP and we get thousands of people to respond. You send out one on a more complicated issue and it just doesn’t quite resonate…We fight these battles on taxes and regulation but really what we would like to see is to take the unions out at the knees so they don’t have the resources to fight these battles.”

There it is in black and white. Plain as the nose on your face.

Any questions?

Georgia Rep. Paul Broun: “My Folks Give Inbreeding a Bad Name”

“Haw haw haw, assassinating the president. Now son, you hadn’t oughta be talkin’ lahk that now. That there librul media maht could report it and give folks the wrong idea.”

Rep. Paul Broun (R—Bone Stupid) held a town hall meeting earlier this week in Oglethorpe County, GA. One of his constituents asked “Who’s going to shoot Obama?”

Regardless of what Broun thinks of Obama (and it’s not pretty), he should have at least pretended to be shocked and outraged at his inbred questioner. Broun’s response was:

“The thing is, I know there’s a lot of frustration with this president. We’re going to have an election next year. Hopefully, we’ll elect somebody that’s going to be a conservative, limited-government president that will take a smaller, who will sign a bill to repeal and replace Obamacare.”

It’s no accident that Broun’s public events attract a lot of hate-spewing dumber-than-dirt rednecks. Like attracts like. When it comes to hateful rightwing rhetoric, Broun is right there at the top (or bottom). Comparing Obama to Hitler; saying Obama is going to “kill the elderly” with Obamacare and the stimulus package; accusing Democrats of planning to “take over all of society” — Paul Broun has been there, done that.

Way to go, voters.

Apathy? Who Cares?

This is great news for rightwing demagogues; bad news for everyone else. Only 52% of Americans are even aware that Obama’s health care reform law is still in effect. 22% thought the law had already been repealed or overturned, and 26% basically didn’t know.

This is pretty discouraging when you combine it with other recent news stories. Most Americans can’t name a single Supreme Court justice. A sizeable minority wasn’t aware that the United States was once a British colony.

About two years ago, there was a startling (to me anyway) report about the millions of Americans who don’t health insurance. Most of them not only didn’t vote — they weren’t even registered to vote.

What are they putting in our water?

David Koch to Scott Walker: “Boy, Fetch Me a Left-Handed Monkey Wrench and a Skyhook”

Scott Walker just got a fantastic deal on some oceanfront property in Nebraska.

I usually try not to post on the same thing that ten jillion other people have already posted on. But when America’s Favorite Asswipe gets punked, what’s a boy to do?

You probably know about this already: A telephone prankster, Ian Murphy, called up Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, pretending to be David Koch — aka Scott Walker’s owner/pimp/puppetmaster.

Here’s a YouTube link. It’s only ten minutes of the 20-minute conversation.

The most telling thing about the conversation is Scott Walker’s tone; his manner. S.W. Anderson nailed it perfectly in the comment section of my previous post: Walker “sounds exactly like a junior executive on the phone with his CEO.”

If there was ever any doubt, it’s been removed: Scott Walker is completely owned and operated, lock stock and barrel, by the Koch Brothers. If he was literally a prostitute — instead of figuratively — he’d have “Property of Koch Industries” tattooed on his butt.

On, Wisconsin!

When these pro-middle class demonstrations started in Madison WI last week, who would’ve guessed they’d have even more momentum a week later? For a country with such a microscopic attention span, this is phenomenal.

Try as they might, the Kochtopus and its useful idiots haven’t been able to brainwash the public. At least not yet. According to the newest Gallup/USA Today poll, 61% of Americans oppose the idea of wiping out the collective bargaining rights of state employees.

Wisconsin’s Governor Mubarak Walker hasn’t budged, but two other Republican governors have backed off from their own plans to squelch unions: Florida Governor Rick Scott and Governor Mitch Daniels of Indiana.

These protests have made Madison look like it’s the 1960s and the Vietnam War is still raging. And to help bring together the ‘60s and the present, members of Rage Against The Machine and the MC5 performed a free concert. Country Joe, where are you?

And now, equal time for the Oligarchy:

Koch Industries / Tim Phillips / Americans For Prosperity have unleashed a new commercial to get the inbreds all fired up. The video is no longer available at the linked article. Darn it.

And you’ll love the latest shitspew from Rick Santorum:

“They are acting like their drug is being taken away from them…What these folks are in Washington is no better than a drug dealer. They give you a subtle narcotic to make you feel better as you do worse.”

Gee, I wonder why he got defeated four years ago.

BP Oil Spill Victims Receiving Too Much Money

No, this isn’t from The Onion or Saturday Night Live. You can’t make this shit up.

BP executives are complaining that the administrator of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill fund, Kenneth R. Feinburg, is being “too generous” with compensation payments to oil spill victims.

Nope, that wasn’t a typo. What will these BP geniuses come up with next? Maybe political prisoners in North Korea are coddled and pampered too much. Wall Street CEOs should have bigger salaries and bonuses.

I can’t think of any expletives at the moment. Any possible insult somebody could come up with would be an understatement.

Governor Scott Walker: The Douchebag Who Brought Us Together

Talk about unintended consequences. Wisconsin’s teabagging governor had no idea what he was walking into. This was just supposed to be Step #513 in the Rightwing Master Plan to dismantle labor unions and shrink the middle class down to the size of a bathtub. It should have gone just as smoothly as the first 512 steps.

Wha’ Happened?

Kwai Chang Caine used to talk about a sapling that would bend and bend and bend, and finally snap back like a whip. After decades of helplessness, passivity, bending over and bending over again even further, again and again, the middle class has snapped back. Lash those motherfuckers!

As of this writing, there are about 70,000 protesters in Madison, WI. You’d think the Vietnam War was still raging. People are pissed, and they’re finally doing something about it. They’re mad as Hell and they’re not gonna take it any more.

Not all 70,000 of the protesters are pro-union, pro-middle class. As expected, the Koch Brothers have shipped in a few busloads of inbreds — complete with George Washington costumes and mis-spelled signs — to stage a “counter-demonstration.” But the teatards are vastly, hugely outnumbered by middle class workers who have finally gotten the message: Stand up and fight back — NOW!!! — or spend the rest of your life with your hands around your ankles.

Similar protests are taking place in Ohio, where the new rightwad governor is also trying to dismantle labor unions and eliminate the middle class.

The White House and the AFL-CIO are also getting involved. Karen Ackerman of the AFL-CIO said:

“I think it's a clear message. If you take on middle-class people and try to solve the budget crises on their backs, there's a price to pay. Many thousands of people will be energized to fight back.”

The AFL-CIO and the Teamsters are united for the first time since 2005. A former congressman from Michigan, David Bonior, said:

“There's nothing like the possibility of extinction to focus people's attention. They've got everything to lose here and they're either going to do something or they're not.”

As the Right’s favorite swashbuckling hero used to say: “If not now, when? If not us, who?”

Israel’s Bitch Bends Over Again

Fourteen members of the U.N. Security Council voted to condemn Israeli settlements as “illegal” and urged a halt to all new settlements.

Fortunately for the Israeli government, their Bitch (that would be the United States) vetoed the resolution. The Israelis can continue paving East Jerusalem and the West Bank with new settlements, as long as the United States continues to perform as instructed.

Throughout the Middle East and North Africa, dictatorships will probably keep collapsing like houses of cards. Since the U.S. is Israel’s biggest enabler (or is puppet a better word), these newly liberated populations will be more anti-Israeli and anti-American than ever.

And then the U.S. will spend even more billions of tax dollars to keep Israel propped up, which will generate even more fury from the Arab world, which will mean Israel needs even more help from the U.S.

And the vicious circle continues…

Crime in the Red States

The red states already have higher rates of drug addiction, alcoholism, teenage pregnancy, divorce, spousal abuse and all the other social ills that “Christians” like to preach against. So it figures the red states would have higher crime rates too.

Here’s an article about the eleven most dangerous cities in America. Most of these cities are in red states.

Coincidence?

Orlando — tied with Birmingham for 3rd place — was rated the “angriest city in America” a few years ago (road rage, general rudeness, stress-related illnesses, etc.) Maybe it’s a backlash against seeing Pluto and Mickey Mouse smiling at you everywhere you go.

These numbers are sure to get worse and worse as Republicans keep gutting the infrastructure. Or as Weepin’ John Boehner would say — so be it.

First Tunisia, Then Egypt. Is Wisconsin Next?

Wisconsin’s knuckle-dragging governor, Scott Walker, wants to take Wisconsin back to the glory days of the early 1900s, before those commie labor unions ruined America. Working people don't have any “rights.” Those lowly peasants should be grateful they have a job.

Governor Teabag wants to balance the state’s budget on the backs of people who work for a living. He wants to eliminate state workers’ rights to bargain collectively. And he’s threatened to call in the National Guard if there’s a walkout.

Yesterday, thirteen thousand protesters descended on the state capitol to show their disagreement. The union-busting governor is downplaying the number of demonstrators as just a small percentage of Wisconsin’s population. Funny, they never spin it that way when forty teajobs gather on a street corner with their mis-spelled signs.

Even while the teabagging governor tries to shrug off the demonstrations, other Republicans are backtracking and making “adjustments” to the proposed law.

As one commenter says at the end of the linked article:

“The tea tard is limiting government with government intervention!”

Republicans: “Backward, March!”

I stole that line from a column by Paul Krugman. His column ends with:

“We’ve always known that the modern G.O.P. wants to take America back to the way it was before the New Deal; but now it’s clear that the party wants to build a bridge to the 19th century, and maybe even to the antebellum era. Backward, march!”

He points out that Republicans no longer refer to themselves as “the party of Lincoln.” Nope, that ship sailed a long time ago. The party whose governors keep threatening to secede, naming itself after the president who PREVENTED the southern states from seceding — LOL. That one flunked the smell test a long time ago.

The GOP’s “Backward, March!” order was loud and clear at last week’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) gathering. If nothing else, they set a new Guinness World Record for “number of inbreds per square inch.”

There’s nothing more pathetic — it’s also sort of funny in that sick sort of way — than a bunch of Far Right extremists all trying to out-wingtard each other. “I want to bring America back to the 1800s and ban ALL abortion.” “I want to take us back to the 1700s and put all rape victims in jail. They were asking for it!”

Ann Coulter, Andrew Breitbart, Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum, all at the same gathering — no wonder there was an emergency pollution alert. Somebody should have called in a waste removal truck.

Egypt: History Being Made

Whatever ultimately happens in Egypt, today’s overthrow of Mubarak is historical. Monumental. Maybe it’s actually a military coup that’s disguised as a popular uprising, as this article says. Maybe Egypt will end up being ruled by the Muslim Brotherhood or some other badass America-hating terrorist organization.

Whatever.

Eighty million Egyptians have overthrown their 30-year dictator. The same thing has already happened in Tunisia. It might happen soon in Jordan, Yemen, Syria and other Arabic countries. And there’s a new country — South Sudan.

“The times they are a-changin’.”

“Something’s happening here and you don’t know what it is, do you, Mr. Jones.”

I don’t claim to know. It’s not for us to know, or worry about, or start pointing fingers and screaming about “Who lost Egypt?!?” The toothpaste is out of the tube. The world has changed.

“Don’t try to hold back the hands of the clock; they’ll pull your arms off.”

Songbird “John” McCain says these falling dominoes are a “virus” spreading throughout the Middle East. Other rightwing jackwagons are saying Obama “let this happen.” “This wouldn’t have happened” if we had a Republican in the White House.

Millions of other Americans are seeing this Middle Eastern firestorm only in terms of “what does this mean for America?” “How does this affect me?”

And each and every one of them can go perform an unnatural act on their parental units.

Republicans: SOFT on CRIME!!!

The GOP has gotten a little carried away with their proposed budget cuts. It’s no surprise they want to delete funding for Public Broadcasting, aid to pregnant women with children (they’ve already been born, who cares about them now?), those godless Family Planning programs and that commie Environmental Protection Agency.

But taking 4,500 police officers off the streets?!?!?

Ever since the 1960s, “crime in our streets” and “law and order!” have been shouted and spewed by politicians of both parties (but mostly Republicans). Countless thousands of conservatives have gotten elected using fearmongering TV ads and mailers screaming “My opponent is soft on ___________________ (crime, drugs, pornography, prostitution, communism, you name it).”

And now House Republicans want to pay for their corporate donors’ tax cuts by taking police officers off the streets. Republicans are also planning to eliminate a lot of general funding for state and municipal programs, so there’ll probably be a lot more than 4,500 police jobs that get eliminated. This will probably also eliminate some fire protection services and other “non-essential” programs.

In case any Democrats are interested in connecting with the public, or even — gasp! — winning an election or two, this is one of those issues where the ads write themselves.

Sixteen House Republicans Get Brief Glimpse into Real World

First of all, congratulations to the sixteen freshman House Republicans who volunteered to forfeit their own taxpayer-financed medical coverage. Even if it’s just a cheap publicity stunt, they’re learning something. Whatever their underlying motives, they’re stepping momentarily out of their cozy little bubble where every whim is catered to by taxpayers and corporate donors. They’re getting a brief glimpse of how the other ninety-eight percent lives.

The linked article names two of the sixteen House Republicans.

Richard Nugent (R—Florida) said:

“I have a niece who has pre-existing conditions, and I worry about her if she was ever to lose her job.”

Joe Walsh (R—Illinois) said his wife has a pre-existing condition and will be needing a medical procedure soon. He’s currently contributing to a medical savings account. He said:

“I can simply, honestly say that this is going to impact my wife and I to a fairly serious degree, like it would any average American out there…It’s a cost we will feel, a cost I will have to pick up. I won’t turn down benefits because I have something to fall back on or because I’m independently wealthy.”

Well, it’s a start. Hopefully a few more “Self Reliance!” Republicans will start practicing what they’ve been preaching.

Darrell Issa: “The American Lobbyists Have Spoken”

Darrell Issa (R—Sleazebag) has been publicly soliciting advice from business owners on which government regulations are the most cumbersome and job-killing. He has a website where anyone can give the name of their business and which regulations they’d like eliminated.

He’s been blathering all over the news about the responses he’s gotten from the nation’s “job creators,” “the backbone of this great nation” — The American People™. And now it turns out most of these responses were from lobbyists.

He hasn’t gotten a single response from any of the country’s ten largest publicly owned companies, nor from any of the thirty largest job creators.

In other Republican tinfoil hattery (or is that a redundancy?), Eric Cantor (R—Lopsided Sneer) said America’s top priority in Egypt is to “stop the spread of radical Islam.”

If the United States is supposed to stop radical Islam from spreading in Egypt, then using that same “logic,” it’s up to Egypt to clamp down on Pat Robertson and James Dobson and other radical “Christian” snakehandlers in this country.

Then again, maybe this is exactly why radical Islam has such a huge appeal in the Middle East. After decades of being ruled by hand-picked American dictators and being generally treated like pawns on a chessboard, people might be more likely to get swept up in the throes of religion.

Loudmouth American ignoramuses are making radical Islam more likely to spread when they tell desperate Egyptians what kind of government or religion they can have. But try explaining that kind of simple cause-and-effect sequence to a Republican.

With Eric Cantor’s grasp of cause and effect, he probably thinks rain is caused by wet sidewalks.

Ronald Reagan: Bleeding Heart, Atheist, Communist

Why, why are my fellow teabaggers and Biblehumpers all swooning over Ronald Reagan? He was a Hollywood Elitist who got divorced and re-married, and he did NOT attend church regularly.

And that's not all. Did you know: When Reagan was governor of California, he signed a law liberalizing the state's abortion laws. As a result, more than a million unborn children were yanked, kicking and screaming, out of the womb. Your hero was a Baby-Killer!

As president, Reagan signed a bill that gave amnesty to over three million swarthy foreigners, most of whom were from Mexico. [Eww]

Reagan also greatly expanded the size of government when he was governor and later president. "Limited government" was just a slogan. He didn't mean it. He played y'all for a fool.

And most sickening of all, Ronald Reagan wrote in his memoirs: "My dream...became a world free of nuclear weapons." NOOO!!! And just what did that fuckin' pansy have against nuclear weapons??!?!?

Fellow Biblewipes, please stop trying to turn this godless Hollywood liberal into a teabagger icon just because he's dead.

And as if all this Reagan-worship wasn't enough, now his young whippersnapper son is saying mean things about Sarah Palin. Ronald Reagan, Jr. said:

"Sarah Palin is a soap opera, basically. She's doing mostly what she does to make money and keep her name in the news."

Now you listen here, you little snotnosed punk. Millions of us over-the-hill teajobs have absolutely nothing better to do than dress up like George Washington, wave mis-spelled signs and drool over Sarah Palin. And you ain't takin' that away from us.

I can't remember off hand anything she said, but she sure is purdy when she teabags.

The American People Do Not Want a Sleazy Two-Timing Speaker of the House

Not just one, but two affairs for Mr. Family Values. John Boehner received a 91% rating from the now-defunct Christian Coalition for his votes on “moral“ issues. He preaches the Gospel; he just doesn’t practice it.

Whatever respect you have or don't have for the National Enquirer and similar tabloids, their celebrity gossip tends to be pretty accurate. With so many prying “reporters” and in-your-face photographers, how could they not be?

Newt Gingrich, Bob Livingston, John Boehner — there seems to be a pattern here. Preach fire and brimstone, then get caught being one of those wicked sinners you were pretending not to hate.

Newt Gingrich resigned his position. Bob Livingston, his would-be replacement, stepped aside after Larry Flynt revealed that Livingston had had numerous affairs. What would Jesus do? What will Weepy the Orange do?

How are the teabaggers and Biblehumpers going to rationalize this?

Who Cares About Those Swarthy Icky Egyptians?? What Does This Uprising Mean for AMERICA???

Sick jokes aside, that’s exactly the “thinking” (using the term loosely) of millions of tiny-minded, self-absorbed bigoted Americans. “How does this affect ME?” “What about America’s future influence in the Middle East?” “Who lost Egypt?!?!?”

According to Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity and the dumbfucks who listen to them, Egypt is setting itself on fire just to piss off Americans. Damn it, our economy is just starting to improve, and now those lowly peasants over there have to start carrying on about something. What the fuck is their problem anyway??? OUR way of life is in jeopardy!

Nicholas Burns, one of Dumbya’s former henchmen, said:

“The consequences of instability in Egypt to the United States are really important. The strategic interests of the United States are on the line.”

Damn right. First things first. Who cares about millions of pissed off desperate people living on top of a powder keg? What about US???

It’s ironic that the same rightwing teabagfucks who are always shouting about “Freedom!” are now scared shitless that some of that freedom might actually be achieved by millions of lowly Third World peasants. “Are those people ready for democracy?” “Mubarak has been our staunch ally. We need him.” “What if their government becomes a Muslim police state?” “The Muslim Brotherhood!”

Part of the Right’s justification for invading Iraq — not that they actually meant any of it — was that we were sowing the seeds of democracy. The Iraqi war would be a cakewalk, and after that, little democracies would spring up all over the Middle East like flowers blooming on a dewy meadow.

And now, some of those democracies actually are blooming (not because we invaded and occupied Iraq). Only instead of delicate flowers, it’s millions of people marching and shouting and throwing rocks and Molotov cocktails at each other. WTF???

Democracy is supposed to be all neat and tidy and come wrapped in a pretty little ribbon. And most important of all, it has to meet Wall Street’s approval.

Red Light Cameras Save Lives

This belongs in the “DUUUHHH!!!” file, next to “birds fly” and “bears shit in the woods.” The obvious has been confirmed in a study by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

In fourteen cities with red light cameras, traffic fatalities were reduced by 24%. This includes a reduction in ALL categories of fatal crashes at intersections with a traffic signal; not just crashes caused by red light running. The Institute president said:

“We think that they are just paying more attention to intersections as they come up on them because they are more certain that if they violate the red light that they will get a ticket.”

However, some people think saving lives is a much lower priority than protecting a motorist’s God-given Constitutional right to crash into people without paying any consequences. Take the National Motorists Association (please!). The ACLU also has reservations about red light cameras. Oh well, they can’t get it right on every issue.

One argument is that these cameras are a privacy violation. I disagree. I think you give up a certain expectation of privacy when you get behind the wheel or get on a plane. They’re also condemned as being more of a “revenue generator” than a safety measure. That’s probably true. So if you don’t want to contribute extra revenue to your local government, stop at red lights.

Washington State’s favorite cut-services-to-the-marrow teabagger — Tim Eyman — has set his crosshairs on red light cameras. He probably figures he’s already closed enough schools and libraries and derailed enough mass transit projects, and red light cameras could prolong his fifteen minutes of fame just a little longer.

Koch Brothers: “Thank God for Obama’s Stimulus Package”

No, of course they didn’t really say that. Rightwing shitwads are notorious for condemning something and benefiting from it at the same time, without admitting or even grasping the irony.

There have already been jillions of news stories about politicians and VIPs blasting the stimulus bill as nothing but “socialism” and “government meddling,” and then taking part in the groundbreaking ceremony for a project that was made possible by that commie stimulus. These stories have already been done to death, and people whose IQs are higher than their shoe sizes are probably tired of hearing the 800th variation on the same story.

On the other hand, the “failed stimulus” inbreds could be told the same fact eight million times and still never comprehend it. So anyway, Choir — today’s sermon is:

The Koch Brothers held one of their numerous fundraising gatherings over the weekend. (Do they ever do anything else?)

About 1,500 protesters, organized by Common Cause, gathered outside the meeting. Law enforcement officers were called to maintain order and protect the VIPs inside. Some of these officers were Riverside County sheriffs, whose jobs had been SAVED by that dreaded stimulus package.

Thanks to the police protection made possible by all that excessive government spending, the Kochtopus and its tentacles could safely rant and rail against that Socialist in the White House and those tax-and-spend Democrats.