John Boehner: Will Work For Booze

House Speaker John Boehner (R—Jack Daniel's) has been echoing the Republican mantra that unemployed people don't really want to work; they just want to sit around all day and get free stuff from the government.

In a speech to the American Enterprise Institute, Boehner said:

“This idea that has been born, maybe out of the economy over the last couple years, that you know, I really don’t have to work. I don’t really want to do this. I think I’d rather just sit around. This is a very sick idea for our country.  If you wanted something you worked for it.  Trust me, I did it all.”

He continued:

“I worked for this, and I'm gonna drink it.  And I'm gonna drink another one, and then another one, and another one...”

Republican Image Makeover, Part XVIII

No matter how much lipstick the GOP keeps putting on its pug-ugly face, it’s still too hideous for public viewing.  What’s the answer?  Why, more lipstick of course.  If Humpty Dumpty had another great fall, Republicans would yell “More Horses!  More Men!”

Behind the scenes, Republican legislators are more determined than ever to ban abortion, eliminate the safety net, break the backs of those commie labor unions and block everything President Obama tries to do.  But you’re not supposed to be looking at that.  Look over there at that big neon billboard, where Republican strategists are publicly asking “How can we reach out to more people?”  “Why do voters think we only care about rich people?” “How can we modernize our image?”

Nice try.  This newest installment of the Republican Image Makeover is brought to us by a spokesman for the American Enterprise Institute.  He says:

“Today, the top marginal tax rate is 40 percent, and inflation is 2 percent. Health-care spending and the debt have both risen by nearly 80 percent as a share of output. The average American is 37 years old.  Economics and demography require a reworking of the conservative policy portfolio. But center-right politicians in Washington keep offering same-old, same-old stale solutions.”

An article in the National Review said:

“They slavishly adhere to the economic program that Reagan developed to meet the challenges of the late 1970s and early 1980s, ignoring the fact that he largely overcame those challenges, and now we have new ones.”

These are all good points.  Try selling them to the teabaggers and corporate prostitutes who want to take “their” country back to 1850.

An editorial in Commentary Magazine proposed a five-step recovery program for the GOP:

“Focus on the economic concerns of working-and middle-class Americans;”
“Welcome rising immigrant groups;”
“Express and demonstrate a commitment to the common good;”
“Engage vital social issues forthrightly but in a manner that is aspirational rather than alienating;” and
“Harness their policy views to the findings of science.”

ROTFLMAO!!!  If they actually gave a flying fuck about the middle class, the common good, and science, they wouldn’t be Republicans.

Mitch McConnell Receives Millions of Dollars from Drug Cartels and Sex Trafficking Rings

The above sentence was not intended to be a factual statement.  But rumors like this are going to keep flying, and keep multiplying, as long as Mitch McConnell keeps fighting every attempt to provide campaign finance disclosure.

What are McConnell and his fellow sleazebags hiding?  The “reasoning” behind the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision was that unlimited “campaign contributions” (formerly known as bribery) were all fine and good, since voters could follow the money and see which politicians are owned by which special interest groups.  But we can’t very well “follow the money” when these bribes are anonymous now, can we.

Most voters are opposed to the Citizens United ruling that allows unlimited campaign contributions.  Among the people who are in favor of that ruling, most of them want full disclosure of who is bought and paid for and by whom.

Last Friday Mitch McConnell gave a speech at the American Enterprise Institute.  He lashed out at Republicans who are starting to “cave in” on campaign finance disclosure:

“I know that as November draws near, some of those running for office will feel the need to choose their battles.  There will be a very strong temptation, particularly among conservatives, to take this particular issue off the table, to make concessions. My advice is to resist the temptation. Because, as I’ve said, everything we’re fighting for is contingent on our ability to speak our minds.”

WTF???  “Our ability to speak our minds” is threatened if the public finds out who these secret donors are?  Who the fuck ARE these secret billionaires and organizations that nobody is supposed to know about?

Senator Chuck Schumer responded to McConnell’s speech with:

“…As Justice Brandeis said, sunlight is the greatest disinfectant. Senator McConnell is apparently now afraid of sunlight because the hundreds of millions of dollars being spent for his candidates and against the President, if disclosed, would create an enormous backlash.”

This is exactly why campaign finance disclosure is so important.  Corporations are allowed to spend unlimited amounts of money to purchase politicians, but they’re in danger of losing customers if the public finds out which candidates they’re funding.  Fortunately (for the plutocrats), corporations can make their political donations through the country’s largest money-laundering syndicate:  the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.  Politicians are bought, and the lowly public doesn’t know who bought them.

So let the rumors fly.  The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has received billions of dollars from North Korea and al Qaeda.  Mitch McConnell’s senate campaigns have been financed by the world’s largest child pornography ring.

Of course nobody can prove these accusations..  But slippery politicians can DISPROVE these rumors by DISCLOSING who owns them.

“Are Republicans to Blame for Washington’s Problems?” YES.

YES, according to Norman Ornstein, co-author of  “It’s Even Worse Than it Looks:  How the American Constitutional System Collided with the New Politics of Extremism.”

Ornstein says “I wouldn't say it's all Republicans.  It's 80-20 at this point.”

He also says:

“When you look at the data, including voting records ... the Democrats have moved left, to probably their own 25 yard line. President Obama's probably around the 40.  The Republicans have moved behind their own goal post.”

And before you dismiss Norman Ornstein as just another disgruntled liberal:  he’s affiliated with the conservative American Enterprise Institute.

“The Pentagon’s Worst Nightmare”

That’s the title of this article.

Yesterday’s signing of the debt ceiling deal raises the possibility of budget cuts to the Pentagon. You can only squeeze so much blood out of those whiny Social Security recipients and those lazy parasites (9.2% of the population!) who refuse to work.

Fewer tax dollars for the Pentagon’s multi-trillion-dollar budget? As they said at the Heritage Foundation, “It’s chaos!”

A spokesman for the Center for a New American Security said:

“This is the Pentagon’s worst nightmare.”

It’s gonna be scary all right. No more $800,000 toilet seats or $70,000 hammers? But we’ll still be able to invade any tinpot third world cesspool any time we want, for any reason.

Won’t We??!?!?!?

What will happen to American Exceptionalism??? We can never ever allow the sun to set on the American Empire. There are American military bases in dozens of countries all over the world. Those people NEED us.

If you’re scared shitless of a weakened America being invaded by hordes of brown savages, you’re not alone. Thomas Donnelly of the American Enterprise Institute feels your pain. He says cutting the defense budget is a terrible idea:

“…unless you can promise that there will be nothing but peace, love, and tie-dye for the next 12 years…Do you want to share the world with the Chinese or with nuclear-armed Iran? The only thing worse than Americans running the world is someone else running the world.”

Three Cheers for Congress — YAAAYY!!!

When you think of this current session of Congress, you probably imagine a group of passive Democrats sitting there helpless — paralyzed with terror — while a small group of corporate prostitutes (formerly known as Republicans) blocks their every move.

Would you believe, this 111th Congress has been the most productive congress since the mid-1960s.

Congress passed Medicare and some major civil rights legislation in the mid-’60s. Just like today, there was a huge backlash against “Socialism!” In the ensuing midterm elections (1966), Republicans gained 48 seats in the House and four in the Senate.

If Republicans gain 48 seats this coming November they’ll capture the House. In 1966 the Democrats had a larger majority before the election so they kept control of the House.

This 1966 parallel doesn’t bode well for this year, does it. We’ll have to hope that the trouncing in two weeks will be just a temporary setback and not a permanent shift to the Right, like the teawads are predicting.

Also in the mid-’60s, America was getting more and more quagmired in Vietnam. Democrats caught most of the backlash, being the party in power, even though the Vietnam War had been inherited from previous administrations. Hmmm, does that have some sort of eerie parallel with…oh, nevermind…

According to Norman Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute, the 111th Congress is:

“At least on a par with the 89th Congress” of 1965-1966. “A world dominated by bickering and epithet-throwing and bomb tossing in Washington obscures accomplishments.”

This article mentions three landmark bills passed by Congress: the $814 billion stimulus package, which prevented us from repeating the Great Depression of the 1930s; health care reform; and legislation to rein in Wall Street.

Other “smaller” accomplishments include: Cash for Clunkers, federal hate crimes legislation, more consumer protections for credit card users, curbing some of the worst interest rates for college loans, and tax credits for first time homeowners.

Just imagine how much more could have been accomplished if Congressional Republicans cared as much about people as they do about banks and insurance companies.

Chickenhawks Drooling Over War With Iran

Here is another sheltered keyboard potato who's willing to fight Iran to the last drop of somebody else’s blood. Where do these pitiful douchebags keep coming from and why do they keep multiplying?

Joshua Muravchik is a member of the American Enterprise Institute and has been affiliated with the Project For a New American Century (PNAC). He has also “been associated with a string of hawkish pressure groups supporting George W. Bush’s interventionist policies in the Middle East” according to this article.

In other words, here is somebody who's led a gritty hardscrabble life and would have a deep empathy with the hardships suffered by our soldiers and veterans. And you can tell he's very sensitive to the grief and despair suffered by the Iranian victims of our bombing. Asshole.

He says “I’m just a pathetic sissy but I love to watch men fight. Oooooh, it’s such a turn-on Our choice is stark. Accept Iran with an atom bomb or cripple its nuclear program by force.”

He also boasts that airstrikes against Iran “would not require a ‘declaration of war,’ an antiquated concept that has not been employed since World War II.” Ah yes, another one of those antiquated concepts, along with the Constitution and the Geneva Convention.

Contact your recruiter, Dickhead.


cross-posted at Bring It On!