This isn’t a case of republican desperation during an election. This is just your everyday, run-of-the-mill republican asshole.

Sexual orientation surfaces in 1st District race

MYRTLE BEACH, SC (AP) - A Republican South Carolina lawmaker is taking aim at the sexual orientation of a Democratic congressional candidate, saying voters should know about the openly gay woman’s activism.

Myrtle Beach Rep. Thad Viers‘ comments this week are the first negative public statements to be made about candidate Linda Ketner’s sexuality. Neither she nor incumbent Rep. Henry Brown have made it an issue in the race for the coastal 1st District.

Ketner has been a financial supporter and organizer of gay rights campaigns.

Viers says voters need to know Ketner campaigned against a gay marriage ban. He says he did not contact Brown’s campaign before holding a news conference.

Viers was fined last year after being accused of threatening a man dating his estranged wife. (emphasis mine)

With all his own apparent shortcomings, he still feels the need to point a finger. Let’s see, who else does that sound like? Oh, yes… anyone with an ‘R’ behind their name.

Remember this? Is from a Knoxville, TN paper I scanned November 2, 2006.

Even more relevant today.

Christopher Buckley gets it.

And why shouldn’t he? The writing has been on the wall for years now. And it’s clearly legible. The conservative movement has lost it’s way. Conservative ethics… what ethics? Conservatively small government… yeah, right! “Compassionate conservatism”… don’t make me laugh!

The conservative movement has been hijacked by some wealthy boobs, and they’ve ran it into the ground. If you dearly love being a republican and don’t want your party going the way of the dinosaur, you really should rid yourselves of these neocon albatrosses.

Buckley leaves National Review after Obama endorsement

(CNN) — Christopher Buckley, the son of conservative icon William F. Buckley, said Tuesday he’s resigned from the conservative National Review days after endorsing Barack Obama’s White House bid, among the most powerful symbols yet of the conservative discontent expressed this election cycle.

In an online column, Buckley said he had decided to offer his resignation from the magazine his father founded after hundreds of readers and some National Review colleagues expressed outrage he was backing the Illinois senator.

“While I regret this development, I am not in mourning, for I no longer have any clear idea what, exactly, the modern conservative movement stands for,” Buckley wrote.

“Eight years of ‘conservative’ government has brought us a doubled national debt, ruinous expansion of entitlement programs, bridges to nowhere, poster boy Jack Abramoff and an ill-premised, ill-waged war conducted by politicians of breathtaking arrogance. As a sideshow, it brought us a truly obscene attempt at federal intervention in the Terry Schiavo case,” he also wrote.

Let’s face it, republicans are better at this. They know their base. And even more importantly, they know yours too. They know what sells. And this year, it’s that shiny new model, called the Palin, parked center of the showroom floor.

I know it’s hard for thinking, aware people to fathom but, there are voters out there that can actually forget the negative republican policies of the last eight-plus years simply by being bombarded with the face of the new girl in town… Palin.

Palin, all the time. Palin, every minute of the day. Palin. Palin. Palin!

Palin’s bubble: Will it bulge or bust?

Stock brokers will know exactly what I mean when they see the word “bubble” attached to the name Sarah Palin.

The Republican Party is riding quite the high.

In fact, if I were a pollster wanting to deliver good news to a Republican client, this would be the week I’d want to put the poll in the field.

Here’s a good rule of thumb for the next few days: If a Republican candidate isn’t in the lead in a survey conducted right now, he or she can’t win in November.

The combination of an excited Republican base and a depressed Democratic one has created for the first time in nearly four years the appearance of an environment where the GOP can win.

John McCain stated “We’re gonna suspend most of our activites except those that are absolutely necessary”
Yah, looks like they are real concerned about the Gulf Coast being hit again….. or what McCain says.

Per a TPM article:

I’m a realist. I see the current dem leadership as not being much more than republicans in cheap clothing. That is to say, no matter how many seats we may pick up later this year, I serious doubt a huge exodus towards a more progressive America.

Heller: Republicans need to clean house

WASHINGTON — The Republican Party lost its majority in the House of Representatives in 2006, and is likely to lose more seats in November, but Nevada Republican Dean Heller says he doesn’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing.

“I’m of the position that we really need to clean house in this Republican Party, and I think the next couple of election cycles are going to do that,” Heller said.

Republicans who should be swept out, in Heller’s view, include some from the historic class of 1994, which gave the GOP a majority in the House for the first time in 40 years.

“It’s an old mantra: they came to change Washington, and Washington changed them,” Heller said several weeks ago. “I think we got to the point where the majority of Republicans were trying to change America and tell (Americans) what they wanted instead of listening to … what they need.”

Question: What do you get when you put Republicans in charge?

Answer:

Stock drop on Fannie, Freddie; Dow below 11,000

NEW YORK - Stocks are falling further as investors grow more concerned about mortgage companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The Dow Jones industrials are down more than 220 points and have dropped below the 11,000 mark for the first time in two years.

A statement from Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said the government’s focus is ensuring that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac remain as presently constituted. But the market appears unimpressed by Paulson’s words.

The rising price of oil is also taking a toll on trading, creating even more worries about the effect of inflation on the economy.

WaPo columnist, Dana Milbank, on assistant Treasury secretary for economic policy, Phillip Swagel’s monthly economic briefing yesterday:

Yesterday’s report that 62,000 jobs were lost brought the total for the first half of the year to 438,000 jobs. Meanwhile, the Institute for Supply Management reported that its measure of the service sector had declined in June. Stock markets, flirting with a bear market, finished another losing week. Oil pushed to a record high. Inflation and foreclosures are up, consumer confidence is down, and administration forecasts for a “strong pace of growth” in the second half of 2008 are look increasingly absurd.

Will this particularly shitty 4th help convince you that Republicans should be swept from control this November… or do you have a death wish for our once-great nation? It’s your choice.

Why? Why would Charlie Black have any regrets over this? People of the right-wing scourge have been making similar outrageous statements for quite some time now, with no apparent repercussions. Remember when Bill O’Reilly offered San Francisco to Al Qaeda? Did he catch any grief for it? Did a wingnut lose an election over it? Get serious.

McCain Aide Regrets Terror Comment

Charlie Black, a top adviser to Republican presidential hopeful John McCain, says another terrorist attack would be a big help to the GOP campaign, a comment that McCain and Democratic rival Barack Obama quickly denounce. Black, who has already drawn scrutiny for his work as a lobbyist, says he regrets the remark.

I guess these idiot politicians didn’t realize that when they were busy raising the price of gasoline and cigarettes, they were cutting off their source of income from the NASCAR crowd.

House GOP falls short on campaign cash

WASHINGTON (AP) — House rank and file Republicans are tens of millions of dollars short of meeting fundraising targets set by their own campaign committee in advance of this fall’s elections, according to figures circulating among the leadership, heightening concerns inside the party about major losses in November.

Most recent figures show that GOP lawmakers have brought $27 million into the coffers of the National Republican Congressional Committee in the past 17 months, far short of the target of about $58 million. Compounding the challenge, they will soon be asked to raise another $20 million or more to help candidates in selected battleground districts.

“Call Roger Stone.”

With those three words, a political juggernaut was set in motion that helped quash a vote recount, and ultimately, change American history.

The directive came from former Secretary of State James Baker, campaign strategist for George W. Bush, and it’s captured in the new HBO movie Recount.

Who better to screen the movie with than the man on the other end of the phone, the Republican operative who got his start in politics with the most famous dirty trickster of them all, Richard Nixon?

”Now listen, people,” Baker tells Bush campaign aides in the movie, after summoning Stone. “This is a street fight for the presidency of the United States.”

Full article and a picture of this moron that you must see at the Miami Herald

Republicans are getting a little worried with the way things are stacking up against them. So bad, the House Republican Conference is splitting apart in an “everybody for himself” mode. Worthless assholes.

In a piece published in Human Events, the Republicans- onetime captain, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, warned his old colleagues that they face “real disaster” on Election Day unless they move immediately to “chart a bold course of real reform” for the country. [...]

Republicans are suffering a crisis of confidence after the two special election losses. There’s talk that House Minority Leader John A. Boehner and other GOP leaders could be ousted if the party suffers double-digit losses in November. [...]

“The Republican loss in the special election for Louisiana’s 6th Congressional District last Saturday should be a sharp wake-up call for Republicans,” Gingrich wrote. “Either congressional Republicans are going to chart a bold course of real change or they are going to suffer decisive losses this November.”

You gotta love the threat thrown at Boehner! Gives me a warm feeling all over.

All those years of GOP control… and NOW they’re talking about charting a “bold course of real reform.”

No worries. Millions of Americans are stupid enough to fall for this sh*t and give them yet another chance.

Republican stupidity will never cease to amaze me!

Communists in the Schools: Controversy in California

The California legislature is considering a bill to repeal the law, passed in the heyday of McCarthyism, that permits the firing of Communist Party members who teach in public schools and community colleges. The mainstream media hasn’t noticed, but Fox News, conservative think tanks and the right-wing New York Sun have complained loudly that the repeal “will promote communism in the public schools” (from the Fox News report).

The bill, proposed by a Democratic state Senator from Long Beach, Alan Lowenthal, would also eliminate the state’s loyalty oath. Currently public employees are required to swear that they do not belong to any organization “advocating the forceful or violent overthrow of the government of the US” or of the state of California.

With support from both of California’s big teachers’ unions, the California Federation of Teachers and the California Teachers Association, the bill passed its first committee vote, 5-3, on April 2. The Democrats control the both houses of the state legislature, so the chances for passage seem good.

There is an upswing though. If this story gets enough bite to it, it will keep the warmongering republicans so busy, they’ll soon forget all about Iraq, Afghanistan, flag-burning during the war on Christmas, pregnant fags trying to obtain that much sought-after dual abortion/marriage license,.. etc.

The Mark Foley scandal reached out and touched so many.

Reynolds Out Yet another retirement by a House Republican is imminent. GOP sources confirm that Rep. Tom Reynolds, a Western NY Congressman since 1999 and ex-NRCC chairman, will announce around noon tomorrow in Buffalo that he will not seek re-election this fall. Reynolds spokesman LD Platt did not return an e-mail seeking comment. Reynolds, who is also a former Assembly minority leader, has been pushing back against retirement rumors for some time now. But the recent NRCC fraud scandal - some of which took place on his watch - has made his re-election effort that much more difficult in an already tough year (increasingly Democratic state, presidential election etc).

Tom Reynolds

Is it just me or do these republican crooks all look the same?

And all it took was 7+ years to piss off a shitty republican electorate.

Republicans See Storm Clouds Gathering

While all eyes were on the presidential campaign and the demise of New York Gov. Eliot L. Spitzer (D) last week, Republicans on Capitol Hill were suffering a run of bad news that could hold dire implications for the campaign season.

It started with the loss last weekend of the seat held for two decades by former House speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.). It got worse when Republicans lost potentially strong challengers to Democratic senators in South Dakota and New Jersey, and failed to field anyone to oppose the reelection bid of Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.).

The latest blow came with the revelation that the former treasurer of the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) had allegedly diverted hundreds of thousands of dollars — and possibly as much as $1 million — from the organization’s depleted coffers to his own bank accounts. [...]

“It’s no mystery,” said Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.). “You have a very unhappy electorate, which is no surprise, with oil at $108 a barrel, stocks down a few thousand points, a war in Iraq with no end in sight and a president who is still very, very unpopular. He’s just killed the Republican brand.”