Live State Of The Union 2014 Address To Congress And The Nation By President Barack Obama

By Kathleen

President Barack Obama will address a joint session of Congress and the nation this evening at 9 p.m. EST in the televised annual State of the Union address. 

Income inequality across America definitely seems to be on the President's mind and the White House has promised that his speech will include promises of measures to help the unemployed, action to raise the minimum wage for new federal contracts, a renewal of Obama's call last year to Congress to raise the minimum wage for every American worker and job training programmes to help the long term unemployed.

The official GOP response will be given by Cathy McMorris Rodgers. Rand Paul and Mike Lee will also offer State of the Union rebuttal speeches. Rand Paul has already recorded his rebuttal which will be available online soon after the SOTU speech ends and Mike Lee will be speaking on behalf of the Tea Party. 

Please feel free to comment. 

Republicans Behaving Badly -- and OTHER Good News

by Sunnyjane

The Tea Party-infused GOP -- and all those who worship with them -- cannot help itself: it has to act Stupid, Stupider, Stupidest; there must be some sort of contest on that side of the political spectrum.

We may as well jump right in and see what they've been up to during the first four weeks of this Year of the Horse.  (And please note that I did not say horse's ass, although come to think of it...)

Pox News Sets the Standard for Obama Derangement Syndrome
 

But if we were going to discuss the derriere of the Equus ferus caballus, the place to start would definitely be Fox News.  I gleefully admit that there hasn't been much good news for conservatives to talk about lately -- the Ailes book, Christ Christie, Bob McDonnell, Scott Walker praising a registered sex offender who has, among other issues, convictions for forgery, battery, and drunk driving -- so in a pinch they turn to racism and/or President Obama. 

Eric Bolling just had to make the pronouncement that there is no racism in America because we have a Black president and there are all those, you know, Black entertainment channels.  I guess he didn't get the news that a GOP official in Michigan said that the way to fix Detroit's problems is to round up all the Indians (a quaint euphemism for the blahs), put a fence around the city, and throw in some watermelons corn and blankets.

Greg Gutfeld was proud as punch that he could shoehorn Obama into the [Justin] Bieber story.  I guess that's sort of like Obama playing the Bieber-card to take the spotlight off  Obamacare.  Or Benghazi.  Or all those other Obama thingies; take your pick.  In a related story, MSNBC news host Andrea Mitchell was having a discussion about the NSA when she interrupted her guest for a special news-breaking story on the arrest of, you guessed it, Justin Bieber.        

A Bit of Come-Back-and-Bite-You-in-the-Ass Karma 

Well, that WAS my job until I got caught in a hotel room with a woman not my wife.

Holy Hypocrisy, Hogwarts!  What is the world coming to?  The conservatives have legislated the crap out of the non-existent Democratic voter fraud issue long and loud, but have always denied that there is anything remotely true about Republican election fraud.  Oh yeah?

How about that little thingy in Michigan in 2012?  U.S. Representative Thaddeus McCotter decided to run for president that year.  His campaign lasted all of two months, so he decided to run for his House seat again.  Unfortunately for old Thad, he failed to qualify for the  Republican primary in his congressional district after massive fraud by his staff resulted in the rejection of approximately 85% of his petition signatures as invalid.   Four of his aides were subsequently indicted on federal election charges for what the Republican Attorney General called a blatant and disgraceful attempt to qualify the Congressman for this year's ballot.

So, entering Stage Right comes Dinesh D'Souza, the far-right pulpit pounding writer, speaker, and film producer of all things anti-liberal, especially President Barack Obama.  D'Souza's fantasy film that was loved and worshiped by conservatives nationwide warned that Barack Obama’s attitude toward America derives from his father's anti-colonialism and from a psychological desire to fulfill his father's dream of diminishing the power of Western imperial states.  Well, that must have happened through osmosis, since the senior Obama went back to Kenya when Barack was two years old, spent one month with him and his mother when Barack was ten; he never saw -- or heard from -- his father again.  But never let facts get in the way of a good Obama- bashing.  (Readers might remember that Newt Gingrich, who is obviously a devoted fan of D'Souza's fairy tales, took up the mantra in his failed campaign to become the GOP presidential nominee in 2012, by saying of the President, ...only if you understand his Kenyan, anti-colonial behavior can you piece together his actions.  Well no wonder Newt is upset.  He did plan to colonize the moon when he became president.)

But last week, karma came a-knocking on Dinesh's door in the form of federal indictments charging him with one count of making illegal campaign contributions and one count of causing false statements to be made to the FEC.  His lawyer makes these illegal actions sound like they were committed by a didn't-know-any-better child, saying that helping a friend with an election campaign was at most, an act of misguided friendship and that his client did not act with any corrupt or criminal intent whatsoever.  Uh huh; try that defense strategy on the judge.

Of course, Alex Jones and his ilk have gone absolutely ballistic.

Shhh, You Can't Say That Out Loud!

Sorry, that growth is inoperable.  You brought it on yourself.  Live with it.

The Republican National Committee has taken a break from doing nothing useful to holding  a meeting of all the state members in Washington for three days to further accomplish nothing terribly constructive.  They defended Chris Christie for his leadership, but refused to bless him as their standard bearer for 2016.  Then they worked up a better primary schedule.  Then they figured out positive ways for the GOP to improve its image and be more inclusive to the various demographic groups that they pissed off in 2012.  And 2008.  And so on.  Actually, I lied about that last one.  And things got worse while they were meeting.

Ten months after anointing Mike Huckabee as the model for the Republican Party, Reince Priebus was treated to the sight and sound of his party's model calling American women stupid and slutty because they wanted their healthcare insurance to include contraception.  OK, that was bad.  But then comes the news that as governor of Arkansas, Huckabee himself demanded that contraception be included in healthcare issues.  Please proceed, Governor.

The attendees also tried to defrock a Michigan RNC member who was not in attendance at the DC confab for running around his district saying really nasty things about Muslims and the LGBT community.  Now don't go thinking the GOP has gotten all mushy or that it has a threshold on homophobia and bigotry.  They don't care what he thinks, it's what he says that they object to; they've known about this guy for a long time.  Oh, he refused to resign.  Your move, Reince. 

In Illinois, GOP candidate Susanne Anus Atanus is trying to unseat Democratic Rep. Jan Schakowsky, is campaigning on the theory that autism and dementia -- and maybe ingrown toenail; I dunno --are God's punishment for abortions and gay marriage. 

Down in Rick Scott's purge the voter roles territory, a Republican candidate for Florida's House of Representatives must think that even bad publicity is a good thing for an unknown.  He made the mistake of declaring publicly that President Obama should be hanged, which earned him a meeting with the Secret Service.  That group is rather sensitive to what is said about the individual they are sworn to protect.

A Hodgepodge of This, That and the Other

In his typical shoot-first-and-aim-later fashion, Mitt Romney jumped right in and defended Chris Christie, saying that he handled the bridge scandal in a very effective way.  That was on January 18; no word from Mittens since the rest of shit pile has it the fan in New Jersey.  Perhaps he should have gone to Sochi and criticized the Russians for how they're running the Olympics.

Joe Arpiao is thinking of running for governor of Arizona.  Good God.

The Associate Press wants George Zimmerman to stop trying to sell his newest painting, saying it is based on one of their photos. 

Right after refusing to extend unemployment benefits for out-of-work Americans, Eric Cantor spent $105 tax-payer dollars on breakfast for two at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland.  No, seriously!

Steve Stockman goes missing.  Does anyone care?  Will his photo start appearing on milk cartons soon?

NASA's Mars rover kicked up a rock with a message from God on it.  Written in every language known to man, the message read: GET OFF MY LAWN!  (God can get a bit touchy at times, can't She? )

There's no truth to the rumor that Sarah Palin is in hiding because she believes that the barracuda cloud control thing that she sees on every web page is really the NSA following her around in an attempt to control her thoughts.  No, the NSA has determined that Palin's thoughts are useless.

End Note

The Republican Tea Party Election Strategy: Suppress the Vote

by Sunnyjane

The media and all the political pundits -- both conservative and liberal -- have relished yammering on about what a lousy year 2013 was for President Obama.

Well, there hasn't been much high-fiving by the GOP, either.  They came out of the 2012 election bruised and bleeding, but determined to change their whole strategy around the meme that GOP policies GOOD, GOP messaging BAD.  That's right, they just don't GET IT.  So after another year of bad messaging, combined with their inability to pin a scandal on the current administration -- think: IRS, Benghazi, pressing the flesh with Raul Castro -- they resorted to slamming the woebegone ACA website roll-out:  It's Obama's Katrina!  No...It's Obama's Iraq!  No...It's Obama's Bay of Pigs!  (OK, I made that last one up, but still...)

The GOP's list of, um, saviors seem to be shrinking dramatically through self-inflicted wounds, Big Boy in New Jersey being just the latest.  The former governor of Vagina Virginia, Bob McDonnell, left the Virginia governorship in the middle of a big scandal and is now facing fourteen counts for federal corruption -- and voters elected a clean slate of Democrats.  Ted Cruz shut down the entire government to the tune of at least a $25 Billion loss, a disastrous move that pissed off  further irritated his own party; Marco Rubio cooked his goose by flip-flopping on immigration; Rand Paul, among all his other absurdities, now says that President Obama's winning the majority vote in the last election is similar to how we got Jim Crow laws and the internment of Japanese citizens at the beginning of World War Two -- or something like that; Jeb Bush's mommie won't let him come out and play; and a nun in Italy had a baby boy recently.  (Hey, with the GOP's mental-midget thinking, they could easily try to pin it on that Muslim in the White House.)

The Road to 270 Electoral Votes...

Results of the 2012 Presidential Election: 332 - 206  (Heh)

Each state (and the District of Columbia) is apportioned a certain number of the Electoral College's 538 votes, according to population.  Naturally, this means that states with the higher numbers are coveted by the candidates, such as Texas (38) and California (55).  Texas is considered a safe Red State (Republican) and California is considered a safe Blue State (Democratic); thus, each party concentrates on swing or battleground states -- those that historically are not locked into either party, such as Virginia, North Carolina, Florida, and Ohio.  A candidate must get at least 270 votes to win.

Plotting a path to a win is an exercise conducted by each campaign via continuous polling of  swing states, which determines where they spend advertising money and where they send their candidate to campaign.  You'll remember that in 2008, Sarah Palin went ape-shit over the fact that the Republican campaign was not showing enough ads in Alaska, and Todd whined that he wasn't seeing many yard signs promoting the Geezer/Dingbat Palin/McCain McCain/Palin ticket around Wasilla and Anchorage.  Even Steve Schmidt's patient explanation that Alaska was solidly in the Republican camp (the state hasn't voted Democratic since 1964) and it has only three Electoral votes at stake, did nothing to mollify the Stupid and <<<<I'm With Stupid duo.

...May be a Long One for the GOP in 2016
   

Background checks for gun buyers is too intrusive!  Making minorities jump through hoops to vote is absolutely necessary!

I guess when Chief Justice John Roberts gutted the Voting Rights Act of 1965, he was making up to the GOP for his ruling that the Affordable Care Act was constitutional.   Not only that, but Roberts has a long-held hostility toward the VRA's Section 5 because he believes it supports racial preferences, and this was his opportunity get rid of it.   Section 5 of the VRA, requiring certain states that have historically restricted minorities from voting to obtain per-clearance from the Department of Justice before changing any of their voting laws, insured that no new laws would be discriminatory.   

Republican governors nationwide whooped with delight over the Supreme's decision, of course, because it allowed their far-right legislators to enact stifling requirements that affected primarily minority voters.  All kinds of restrictive laws were passed within weeks of the decision, including requiring radical ID changes, purging of voter rolls, limiting absentee voting, etc.  In North Carolina, the extremist governor cut out seven days of early voting, justifying it by saying, We didn't shorten early voting, we compacted the calendar.  No, seriously!

These Republican voter suppression laws have no purpose but to make it harder for minorities to vote.  The country is changing, and conservatives -- having nothing in the way of inclusive policies to offer the precise demographics they need to win an election -- must find a legally effective way to get them NOT to vote.  Paul Weyrich, the co-founder of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), said way-back-when, They want everybody to vote. I don't want everybody to vote. ...As a matter of fact our leverage in the elections, quite candidly, goes up as the voting populace goes down.  So ALEC, the anti-American legislation group that offers up far-right model legislation like a fast-food restaurant menu -- You want some voter suppression bills to go with that? -- is supplying GOP governors and legislators with whatever tools will inhibit minorities' access to the voting booth.

In truth, there is virtually NO voter fraud in the United States. 

But the Good News is, It Ain't Working Out Too Well

   
Last week, Commonwealth Court Judge Bernard McGinley struck down Pennsylvania's controversial voter ID law, saying, Inescapably, the Voter ID Law infringes upon qualified electors' right to vote.  Disenfranchising voters through no fault of the voter himself is plainly unconstitutional.

The U.S. Election Assistance Commission dealt Kansas, Georgia, and Arizona a blow by denying their requests to modify their respective states' resident registration forms because heightened proof-of-citizenship requirements would likely hinder eligible citizens from voting in federal elections.

In South Carolina, a federal courts is reviewing the legality of the state's voter ID laws because state officials have shown no examples of actual in-person voter impersonation fraud and have conceded that requiring a photo identification to vote would not actually prevent a determined voter impersonator from voting as someone else.

In Florida, Wisconsin, Texas, and Ohio, courts are striking down voter suppression laws such as those regarding strict voter identification laws, provisional voting restrictions, limits on voter registration drives, and reduced availability for early voting.

Let's hope there are more of these decisions to come.

End Note

We Shall Overcome!

 

GOP Still Obsessing Over Growing Success of the Healthcare Act

by Sunnyjane

GOP:  Curses!  This was supposed to be Obama's Katrina!

Oh yes, dear readers, the FUBAR surrounding the October 1, 2013, debut of the President's signature legislation website was gleefully panned by GOPers as the end of that dastardly Affordable Care Act.  Well, by December 1, fifty thousand uninsured Americans an hour were able to access the site, and the Republican Tea Party echo chamber became just the dark-hole vacuum from which it had originally emerged. 

Whaddaya Mean, It's Constitutional?

 
President Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act on March 23, 2010; the Supreme Court of the United States found on June 28, 2012, that, except for mandatory expansion of Medicaid in all states, the law was constitutional.  And the Republicans still haven't gotten over it.

Mitt Romney said right after the SCOTUS decision that, if elected in November, he would repeal the law on Day One.  Now either Romney is totally ignorant of the job he wanted so badly concerning the Constraints of Presidential Powers, or he thought his idiot followers were stupid enough to believe him.  Either is a legitimate possibility.  But a president cannot simply sign some sort of repeal paper to get rid of a law he doesn't like.  It's called Separation of Powers, a little thingy the Founders stuck in the Constitution for a damn good reason: to prevent such an act without a consenting majority vote in both the House and Senate.

And the Hits Just Keep on Coming, But Miss Their Target

Lots of people hate Obamacare -- or so they think.  In Kentucky, where one in every five adults has been without healthcare insurance, a public health worker helped a man sign up for the Affordable Care Act.  The man was very pleased that he would qualify for either tax credits under KYTECT -- the Kentucky healthcare exchange chosen by their Democratic governor -- or would be eligible to join a Medicaid pool.  He said, This is better than Obamacare, I hope.   (Can you say Fox News zombie?) 

There's a lot of that going around, and Republicans are fueling it:

**It's been popular for the GOPers to warn young people against signing up for healthcare under the new act because they'd be unfairly charged more than older citizens.  DUH!  That's what any health insurance is based on.  However, that hasn't worked out very well for these, um, lawmakers.
 

**Ted Cruz tried to pull another stunt by tying defunding of the AHA to the $1.1 trillion spending bill.  That didn't work.

**California Republicans tried a dirty trick (shades of Karl Rove) by directing people looking for the AHA to go to a fake website that aimed to scare people from signing up.  Just as an example, the website told senior citizens that there probably wouldn't be enough doctors.  I don't know who they're calling senior citizens; anyone sixty-two or older usually has Medicare.  (And just as an aside, why does Medicare spend $29 million a year to pay for penis pumps?  No, seriously!)

**Marco Rubio is passing around the lie that the AHA is an insurance company bailout.

**Rand Paul says that his twenty-year-old son was forced to sign up for Medicaid.  That, my friends, is bullshit.  The Washington Post's Glenn Kessler is doing an on-going investigation on the issue, writing recently: The available evidence suggests this happened because of an error on the part of either Paul or his son, but there are enough uncertainties that a definitive conclusion cannot be reached. Paul earns the [two] Pinocchios because the process he described on television does not match up with the Kynect screen shots. 

**John Boehner -- you know him, he's supposed to be the Speaker of the House -- stated this past week that at the up-coming Republican retreat, healthcare will be on their agenda.  I think you'll see Republicans come forward with a plan to replace 'Obamacare,' a plan that will actually reduce costs for the American people and make health insurance more accessible.  Very timely, John, so very timely.

**The House passed a bill that would require Health and Human Services to provide them with weekly number on ACA instead of monthly numbers.  Ain't going to happen.

End Note:  President Obama's Up Yours to the Moralists 

 

Amen!

Chris Christie's Traffic Jam Scam: "I Has a Sad Now" Update: Bruce Springsteen joins Jimmy Fallon Parody Born to Run Mocking Chris Christie.

by Sunnyjane

I'm so sad that I haven't even had the desire to yell at a teacher lately.

Screeeeecccchhhh!  No, that's not the sound of a vehicle coming to a sudden halt on the George Washington Bridge.  That's the sound of a political career trying its damnedest to keep from going off the bridge.

Tip O'Neill, former Democratic Speaker of the House, coined the phrase All Politics is Local, and that's usually true.  But when a scandal's transgressor is a well known governor who aspires to the lofty position of President of the United States, said scandal becomes national news and garners the media coverage it deserves.  After all,  Americans love a political scandal.

Hail Mary, Full of Grace, Let Me Win This Freaking Race

The first motive for the grand plan to shut down two access lanes from Fort Lee to the George Washington Bridge came shortly after copies of emails were made available on Wednesday, January 8. 

Motive #1:  The lane closings were retribution against the Democratic mayor of Fort Lee, Mark Sokolich, for refusing to endorse Gov. Christie's candidacy for a second term.  However, that falls short as good reasoning because Christie says he never asked the mayor for his support, as he had done with many other Democratic mayors in New Jersey.  Mayor Sokolich has pretty much confirmed that he was never approached by anyone in the Christie campaign for his endorsement, telling Chris Hayes:  I’ve never viewed myself as being that important. The governor himself said that I’m not on his radar.  But the mayor did add, David Wildstein deserves an ass-kicking. Sorry, there, I said it. 

Motive #2:  Rachel Maddow put forth another theory, that the closings were payback for what he knew would be the state Senate's refusal to confirm his reappointment of a Republican judge to the New Jersey Supreme Court.  In one of his epic rants on the evening of August 12, Christie raged in public that the members of the Senate -- led by Democratic Senator Loretta Weinberg, who happens to live in Fort Lee -- were all animals and suggested that reporters should take a bat to the seventy-eight year old grandmother.  It was the very next morning, at 7:34, that Bridget Kelly sent the infamous eight-word email to David Wildstein: Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee.  And Wildstein replied: Got it.

Motive #3:  The latest conjecture comes from MSNBC's Steve Kornacki, who speculates that the Christie administration may have been trying to derail a billion dollar development project of Mayor Sokolich's.  Of course, such traffic jams -- if allowed to continue -- would have meant the end of that project.

Motive #4:  An admittedly small thinker -- and I hesitate to try to out-speculate some of the most respected minds in the media -- I believe the motive for this jam-scam is much simpler.  The lane shutdowns began less than two months before the gubernatorial election in November.  Christie knew he was going to win reelection, and yet he admitted in his press conference on Thursday, January 9, that he was trying to run up the score.  He wanted his opponent's voters.  And who was his opponent?  Barbara Buono of Bergen County, in which Fort Lee was the targeted town.

In an email exchange with David Wildstein, a name-redacted individual wrote: I feel badly [sic] for the kids.  I guess. 

To which Wildstein replied, They are the children of Buono voters.

Gov. Christie won Fort Lee with 55%, Bergen County with 60.2%, and the entire state with 60.4%.  So, his strategy may well have worked.

The truth may be one, some, all, or none of the above.  But with several investigations taking shape, I'm sure we'll find out.

The Governor Doth Protest Too Much, Me Thinks

   

So after trying to block the investigation, I took swift action four months later!

One thing that Chris Christie hasn't learned yet is that most times, saying less is much better than spewing a whole lot of shit on national television for almost two hours.  He used every self-castigating adjective he could think of to display how awful he felt.  The only thing he didn't say was something along the lines of I'm upset because I always assume that the suck-up idiots who work for me are trustworthy.

For the Governor to say he knew nothing about the issue until the morning of Tuesday, January 7, is an outright lie; the cover-up started much earlier.  In the middle of the closures, Pat Foye, Bill Baroni's counterpart on the New York side of the Port Authority, asked in an email to Baroni how he was supposed to explain the lane closings to the public.  Baroni replied, I am on my way to office to discuss. There can be no public discourse.  To which Foye responded, Bill that’s precisely the problem: there has been no public discourse on this.  

In early December 2013, he personally phoned New York Governor Andrew Cuomo to ask him to stop Pat Foye from pressing so hard on the investigation into Bill Baroni's part in the September shutdown.  Obviously, Cuomo refused.  

Me thinks that NO ONE is going to come out of this smelling like a rose.

Conservative Reactions and Reactionaries

Brit Hume, Fox News: It's this feminized atmosphere that makes Chris Christie a bully.* 

On the day of the released emails, both CNN and MSNBC ran with the story on a full-time basis, while Fox News gave it about fifteen minutes.  After all, it was Roger Ailes who tried to convince Chris Christie to run for president in 2012, and would surely expect him to run in 2016.  And the Governor claims Ailes a confidential adviser and any interactions between the two will be protected under the New Jersey's executive privilege rules.

Known to be sound-bite grabbers searching for a camera if a scandal appears to be taking shape around President Obama, GOP members of congress have been notably silent on the Chris Christie Bridgegate brouhaha.  When asked if Christie was still a viable candidate for 2016, John Boehner said, I think so.  Rand Paul, a wannabe primary challenger of the Governor's was rather frosty when asked, saying that it was a local problem.  However, he could not resist adding, I have been in traffic before, though, and I know how angry I am when I’m in traffic, and I’m always wondering, ‘who did this to me?’  (Did you feel that filet knife that was just plunged into your kidneys, Governor?)

Rudy Giuliani called the closures a stupid political prank that got out of hand.   A prank? 

*If you thought you'd seen Fox News reach its nadir, you might be in for a surprise.  On Sunday, the station's Media Buzz program produced this little gem from Brit Hume, who referred to Chris Christie as masculine and muscular.   Expounding, Hume said, I have to say that in this sort of feminized atmosphere in which we exist today, guys who are masculine and muscular like that in their private conduct and are kind of old-fashioned tough guys run some risks.  (Hume may have to walk that back a bit; see the End Note.

For more of what the GOP pundits and other talking heads had to say yesterday, read on.

End Note

Say I'm a bully one more time and I'll punch your nose in!

Actual quote:


Using direct and blunt language is something that I've done my whole life. It was the way my mother raised me. I am who I am. And I'm not going to change. 

Thanks for the warning.  The American voters appreciate your clarifying that, and we'll be sure to remember it in 2016.  Please proceed, Governor.

UPDATE by Kathleen. 

I'd like to add this parody of Bruce Springsteen's "Born To Run" mocking Governor Chris Christie performed by Jimmy Fallon and Bruce Springsteen to Sunnyjane's excellent post. 

If the GOP is Getting Crazier, This Must be an Election Year

by Sunnyjane

GOP aide:  What we did in 2013 didn't work, but we don't know what to do in 2014.

Clean out your freezers, folks, because it's time to start adding new and exciting names of the Republicans who should be left out in the cold on November  4.

Last November, Majority Leader Eric Cantor called House Republican members into his office and handed them a copy of his 2014 agenda -- a blank piece of paper.  No, seriously.

The Republican aide semi-quoted above added:  Cantor wants to take us in a new direction, which is good. The problem is we don’t know where we are headed, and we don’t know what we can sell to our members.  That's a plan?  Hmpf!  Who knew?

Actually, they did come up with an awesome 2014 agenda in which they intend to tackle  the real economic issues facing middle-class Americans and painting a more positive image of the party.  Fresh and innovative, isn't it?  WOW!  I guess that's going to happen right after they all attend the March for Life rally -- which is an annual far-right protest against the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade 1973 decision -- on January 22.

Of course, as Alan Grayson points out, the House may as well do nothing, considering some of the bills members introduced in 2013, such as: allowing states to nullify any federal law; a bill that would require every high school student to read Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged; one to prohibit lap dancing and Jello wrestling; a bill that would establish a state religion; and a bill that would allow restaurants, hotels, hair salons and other businesses to deny service to gay customers.  Yep, that's how they intend to paint a more positive image of the GOP.  Hell, that ain't even a good white-wash!

But they truly are working hard to improve their image.  After all, they've held seminars on how to talk to women, and have just sent a memo to members on how to act all sympathetic and stuff toward unemployed Americans for whom they have just cut off unemployment benefits.

What a bunch of morans.

The Wyoming Whiz Who Was, Wimped

And then I'll let you know when I'm quitting!

Darth Vader's darling daughter, Liz Cheney, decided that her run against a popular establishment Republican probably wasn't going to go her way, so she quit the race.  The irony of that entire issue is that Sen. Mike Enzi was leaning toward giving up on politics this year.  However, when Liz carpetbagged into the Cowboy State and informed him that she'd be mounting a primary challenge against him, he got a little testy and seemed to have adopted a Bring it on! attitude.

It was not at all a smart move, especially in light of the fact that she'd never held elected office.  Frankly, I'm betting my auntie's old pink panties that Karl Rove got to her.  After all, he's going to have his hands full as it is.  For example...

Does Texas Have a Lock on Crazy?

And if Texas voters had brains larger than a grasshopper's, you wouldn't be in Washington

Now I'm no mental health expert, but I feel comfortable saying that Steve Stockman is, well, certifiably nuts.

The first thing Stockman did after being sworn in last January was vote against John Boehner to retain his Speakership.   Politically, that probably wasn't the smartest move to make.  The second thing he did was invite Ted Nugent to the State of the Union address.  Yes, the same Ted Nugent who said in 2007 that then-candidate Barack Obama could suck on my machine gun!  In April 2012, Nugent earned himself a little meeting with the Secret Service after he proclaimed that if the president were reelected, I'll either be dead or in jail.  So from a use of good judgment standpoint, this wasn't one of Stockman's, er, shinier moments.  (You have to wonder what Sarah Palin thought of Ted Nugent's being invited to the State of the Union address and she wasn't; bet the old fridge took a beating THAT night.)

Stockman's against everything remotely liberal and for everything extremely conservative.  He's a birther, calling the President's long-form birth certificate fraudulent;  he's against everything LGBT; and he loves guns, hates abortion.  Back in 1995, he decided that the 1993 raid on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, had been a conspiracy between then-President Clinton and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms as an excuse to ban all assault weapons.  Before becoming an elected official, he was stopped and searched by law enforcement officials, who discovered cellophane-wrapped Valium in his under drawers.  He somehow convinced the authorities that his girlfriend had put them there, and the charges were reduced from a felony to a misdemeanor.  (I don't even want to think about that!)

According to the Houston Chronicle, the Congressman has had legal, ethical, and financial disclosure issues: Both as a candidate and as a congressman, Rep. Steve Stockman of Clear Lake has failed to make federally required disclosures about business affiliations that stretch from Texas to the British Virgin Islands, and has provided no details about the business he claims as his sole source of income.

He's also on an impeach-the-President crusade, and has walked the halls of congress passing out copies of a recently published book titled, Impeachable Offenses, Removing Barack Obama from Office.  Two guesses who published this little tome -- it was World Net Daily, of course.  Who else?

Stockman is also a filthy pig -- no insult to bacon-on-the-hoof intended.  A just published report on his recently condemned campaign headquarters in Texas shows that his staff there worked in what can only be called total squalor.  Slums are probably cleaner and have more class.
 

A picture is worth a thousand words.

As the deadline loomed last November, Stockman made what just might the stupidest move in political history: he filed papers to challenge John Cornyn for his senate seat.  Just one reason that it's a stupid move is because the two-term Cornyn has $7 million for his campaign, where Stockman has only $37,000, and the primary is March 4.

The Congressman wasted no time, however, in updating his campaign web site.  However, on it he claimed endorsements he did not have, such as touting the NRA's support for him.  It wasn't long before he got just a little push-back on that issue, as reported by the Huffington Post:  the NRA has actually endorsed Stockman's opponent, incumbent Sen. John Cornyn. NRA is not endorsing Rep. Stockman, or supporting him," NRA spokesman Andrew Arulanandam told HuffPost in December. "Any claims to the contrary by him are totally false."

Seems to me that unless John Cornyn is discovered making midnight whoopie with a wombat, he'll be back in the senate in 2015.

End Note

Yep, it's definitely an election year!  Stay tuned; there will be more.