Good news: Matt Lewis finally feels liberated and admits that Sarah Palin is an idiot - Bad news: Matt Lewis now promotes other right-wing idiots, and the Koch Brothers are in charge

By Patrick

Good news on Sunday: After writing his "mea culpa" article at the Daily Caller, the conservative journalist Matt Lewis also admitted on MSNBC that he finally feels free to say in public that Sarah Palin is an idiot, that he is not shackled any more, as Sarah Palin would say it:

"Mea culpa", another latin word, and it means: Man, the Republican party has really been taken for a ride.

So, we have good news on a Sunday, and now we can all hope that the world will be a better place again.

It took Matt Lewis 6 1/2 years to realize what most people realized immediately when they first encountered Sarah Palin, but better late than never.

The above interview is very interesting indeed. Matt Lewis admits that a conservative who criticized Sarah Palin in the past was "in trouble", was in danger to get "beaten up". I also find it sweet that he uses the phrase "Palin fatigue", a phrase which is only too familiar to all of us.

In his article and his interview on MSNBC, Matt Lewis pulls no punches. The love affair is over, and from his remarks, it is more than obvious that Matt has been "disenchanted" for a very long time, probably for years. He also mentions Palin's famous bus tour from 2011, when the media was "chasing her bus caravan around the country", and Matt concludes that Palin now is just interested in "attention" and "fame".

But what is the alternative to Sarah Palin? That's where the harsh reality kicks in. The Republican party is now being ruled by nutjobs, and the Koch Brothers are the paymasters in the background. They seem to be in full control of the GOP these days.

Matt Lewis, naturally, has connections to the Koch groups as well - from an article from 2010, in which he defended the Koch Brothers:

"Disclosure: Matt Lewis has previously spoken for Americans for Prosperity, 

an organization founded by David Koch."

Also, taking into account that the Koch Brothers are notorious for their secrecy, we can probably assume that the above "disclosure" is only scratching the surface, as far as the connections of Matt Lewis to the "Koch empire" is concerned...but please correct us if we are wrong, Matt.

Just today, Matt Lewis published a new article in defense of the Koch Brothers, in the UK Telegraph - and don't even search for a disclaimer:

So, who are the other contenders? Matt Lewis names them (from 1:45 in the clip): Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, Joni Ernst. At the end of the clip, from 4:00, he also mentions that people should "now focus on Scott Walker and Marco Rubio."

One really does not know whether to feel sorry, or whether to be angry. The new line-up of the Republican Party, these "fresh faces", as Matt Lewis calls them, is a joke. If any of these people that he mentioned became President, the happy days would be over.

People like Ted Cruz and Joni Ernst are simply dangerous extremists, who surely would in Europe be members of some right-wing fringe party, far removed from the "mainstream". But even worse: All of the people that Matt Lewis mentions in this interviews are just "puppets" of the Koch Brothers, they are all "Koch Suckers", short and simple.

This is not a  secret. As the San Francisco Chronicle wrote two days ago:

Now, any outside group — with unlimited donations from corporations, labor or wealthy individuals — can make a direct pitch to voters right up until election day. The only caveat with these “independent” expenditures is they cannot work in collaboration with a candidate’s campaign.

But make no mistake: The campaigns are well aware of the potency of this outside help. The Koch brothers’ annual winter retreat at Palm Springs attracted aspiring Republican presidential candidates Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin and Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida, Rand Paul of Kentucky and Ted Cruz of Texas.

So who are these Koch brothers, who stir so much fear and ire among Democrats, and what is their agenda?

Charles, 78, and David, 74, own the Wichita, Kan.-based Koch Industries, the nation’s second-largest privately held company. They are worth an estimated $41 billion each.

Their overriding philosophy is promotion of deregulation, tax cuts and smaller government. Among their specific targets are opposition to climate change — they are heavily invested in energy — and repeal of the Affordable Care Act.

The Los Angeles Daily News wrote also on January 30 regards the power of the Koch Brothers as a threat for both political parties:

The notion that two individuals with no qualification or popular mandate beyond a fat checkbook now are free to make an entire party apparatus essentially irrelevant ought to trouble both Republicans and Democrats. Since the widespread adoption of direct primaries for state and national offices, the parties have become much more democratic institutions, subject to major course corrections at the ballot box. If ultra-rich industrialists and financiers, like the Koch brothers, are now free to buy a pass that circumvents the modern parties, we’re back to the days of Mark Hanna and his ilk, when both parties essentially were run by secretive back-room arbiters subject to the influence of self-seeking special interests.

In short: We can stop worrying about an imbecile like Sarah Palin, although her legacy as the "folksy demagogue" of the Republicans will last for much longer.

But we really have to worry about the Koch Brothers and their band of puppets, aka "Republican presidential candidates."

The intentions of the Koch Brothers have been known for years. They want to buy themselves a president, and they are deadly serious about it.

Already in 2011, secret recordings from the super-secret Koch meetings were published, which revealed that the Koch's form a coalition of ultra-rich donors, in order to buy themselves a president. In 2012, they failed, but in 2016, their funds seem to have no limits.

Watch:

If the Koch Brothers achieve their goal, to buy themselves a president, then you can say good-bye for example to environmental regulations and effective health insurance. The progress of several decades will be reversed.

The Koch Brothers might be billionaires, but their greed seems to have no limits.

Just a few days ago, I watched on German TV an excellent documentary about the early US industrialists, the "Men who built America." I only found out just now that this documentary by the History Channel won two Emmys, well deserved in my opinion. You should all definitely watch it!

The documentary also tells the story about how the industrialist bought their own presidential candidate in 1896, who finally managed to win the election, through excessive donations and bribes to the media: William McKinley.

Luckily, this excerpt from the documentary is available as a free clip on the website of the History Channel:

Then of course it struck me immediately: The Koch Brothers try to replicate the success from 1896. This is more than obvious, and this should worry us all, A LOT.

It is a shame that intelligent people like Matt Lewis are caught in their conservative bubble and cannot see this danger. It took him 6 1/2 years to finally speak out openly against Sarah Palin. Taking his pace into account, it will probably take decades until he finally admits that the Koch Brothers posed a huge threat to Democracy, and to the welfare and well-being of the "common people" in the USA.

It's a tragedy, and we can only all hope that the Democrats learn from 2014 and get their act together in 2016.

Hopefully the "sub-standard" line-up of the GOP will help the Democrats (h/t ScoutandAbout):

Have a nice Sunday, everybody!

+++

UPDATE:

Excellent new article by Politico, very detailed, worth reading (h/t again ScoutandAbout):

The poll is by no means a definitive assessment of the feelings of the hundreds of wealthy business leaders who comprise the vaunted network created by billionaire industrialist brothers Charles and David Koch. But it does provide an early glimpse into the leanings of a pool of megadonors who are being hotly courted by the field of would-be candidates, and whose checkbooks could go a long way toward determining who emerges with the GOP nomination — regardless of whether the Koch network decides to formally back a candidate.

The network has thus far steered clear of endorsing specific candidates in primaries, but it is coming under internal and external pressures to do so. It hopes to raise $889 million from wealthy backers like those who gathered in Rancho Mirage to push its agenda in 2015 and 2016, more than double what it spent in the 2012 election cycle.

In addition to Cruz, Paul and Rubio, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker paid a visit to the Ritz meeting, though he was not present for the forum. The three-day conference was organized by Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce, a nonprofit outfit that oversees the vast political and policy network created by the Koch brothers.

Particularly interesting is this excerpt:

The meeting — part of an ongoing series of twice-a-year “seminars” as they’re called in the Kochs’ orbit — featured a mix of presentations on policy, politics and business. This winter’s session included a discussion moderated by conservative journalist Stephen F. Hayes on principled corporate citizenship and a luncheon discussion featuring MSNBC hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, according to an attendee.

Yes, the famous hosts on the supposedly "left" cable-channel MSNBC now turned into Koch-Suckers as well.

To their credit, Joe and Mika talked openly about this appearance on their show, and they clearly are impressed and actually seem to believe that the Koch Brothers are good people, believe it or not:

You really don't know what is more terrifying: Industrialists who try to buy a Democracy, or a mediocre line-up of candidates, or incredibly naive journalists who apparently lack any political education. In any case: The Koch Brothers need to be defeated, or Americans will be in real trouble.

+++

UPDATE 2:

There are two more clips which I would like to add to this post.

First: In a new segment with Howard Kurtz on Fox News, he and his three female guests now conclude that Sarah Palin was never relevant again after 2008!

The conservatives now basically try to "erase" the memory of the GOP politician Sarah Palin, who was highly regarded within the GOP as long as she was a useful idiot for relentlessly attacking President Obama.

Watch:

Second, Howard Stern did a brilliant new segment about the GOP, who in his opinion has been "hijacked by idiots like Sarah Palin":

Values Voter Summit 2014: Bombastic Hatefest on the Potomac

by Sunnyjane

Uh...here endeth the Gospel According to Nobody.  Amen.

Don'tcha just love it when two thousand bigots are gathered together in God's name to affirm  their hatred for all the real values America stands for?  You know, like those life...liberty...pursuit of happiness thingies?
 
According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, the Family Research Council -- which proudly sponsors this annual confab of far-right religionistas -- is a hate group that makes false claims about the LGBT community based on discredited research and junk science in order to fight same-sex marriage, hate crime legislation, etc; you get the drift.  A prime example of this homophobia is the guy who actually came in second in the VVS straw poll.  That would be Dr. Ben Carson, who not only has stated on different occasions that Obamacare is worse than slavery and worse than the 9/11 tragedy, but offered his opinion on same-sex marriage by stating that No group, be they gays, be they NAMBLA [North American Man-Boy Love Association], be they people who believe in bestiality ... they don't get to change the definition of marriage.  Yeah, that guy.
 
Since the Republican Tea Party has no cohesive agenda around which to unify, the only thing left is to urge their base to vote for their religious extremism so that we can finally have a Constitution based on God’s laws, not man’s laws.  Cause, you know,  our rights come from On High, not from mere mortals.  Thus, it seems that the Founding Fathers had no business writing that darn document in the first place!  No, it doesn’t make one iota of sense, but there you have it.

Well gee, it must be an election year, because they seemed to have been keeping their homophobia in the closet last weekend.  Even Michele Bachmann decided that talking about gay marriage is boring.  Maybe she's finally tired of hearing herself talk; I dunno.  One does wonder what Tony Perkins, Homophobe-in-Chief at the FRC, thought of that.  So absent the occasion to spew vitriol over Teh Gays, the speakers used up most of the oxygen in the room ranting about President Obama.  Nothing new there.

A Few Scraps from the Hate Heap

-- Ted Cruz played a rollicking good game of Deflection at the Hatefest by calling the Democrats an extreme, radical party that wants to take away the rights of Americans.  (Snort!)  In an effort to fling every arrow in his own fanatical quiver, the Canadian senator pontificated on every topic he could think of, including Obamacare, gun rights, and the persecution of Christians around the world.  He then went on to berate President Obama on Iran's nuclear proliferation negotiations, saying that the Iranians are sitting down swilling Chardonnay with the Americans... and that we needed a president who would take a tougher stand. This prompted Andrea Mitchell, in one of her more astute moments, to respond that perhaps we need a president who knows Iranians don't drink.  Cruz won the straw poll for president with twenty-five percent and the poll for vice president with twenty-two percent.

-- Sarah Palin let us know that there's no truth coming out of the venerable Willard Hotel situated at 1400 Pennsylvania Avenue; I'm certain the Willard appreciated that a lot.  Palin tried to press every tired old button in her already limited arsenal, including the fact that seeing military  veterans gives her goose bumps.  (Is that something we needed to know?)  But, of course, she's afraid that America isn't going to survive the dense, liberal elite and their Orwellian leaders who want to control other people's lives.  Surely it must have been an oversight that she didn’t explain how Republican’s advocating government regulations over women’s health decisions, people’s right to marry the person they love, and free and open voting doesn’t constitute controlling our lives.  Right?  Out of 901 votes in the straw poll, Palin garnered only nine.  It's interesting to note that Write-In Candidate beat her with thirteen votes.  Better pick up the pace, Sarah.

-- So bored with gay marriage is Michele Bachmann that now she is advocating taking our military back to the 1980s when, you know, we had Peace through Strength! with Ronald Reagan at the helm, and we didn't lose four Americans in Benghazi!  She's right; we actually  lost 250 servicemen at an embassy in Beirut.  Bachmann also wants the President to declare war with Islam.  So, at the direction of Secretary of State John Kerry, the Pentagon is reconfiguring its computer models to locate the elusive country of Islam about which Ms. Bachmann speaks; so far, there’s only a lot of earlobe-pulling and head-scratching going on in the War Room.  Dick Cheney, ever anxious to drop a bomb anywhere in the world, is doing his part by snarling at his computer monitor because Googlemaps.com has let him down again.   No word as to when he’ll appear on Fox to berate the President for not yet declaring war with Google.  Bachmann only managed to get eleven votes in the straw poll.   

-- Rand Paul is still trying to retrofit his image.  President Obama is an arrogant autocrat.  The President acts like a king.  There's a spiritual crisis in America.  We've got to rediscover our mojo.  We've arrived at the day of reckoning.  Yada, yada, yada.  Zzzzzzzzz... Rand Paul pulled in sixty-three votes.

-- Rick Santorum's shtick is so old and tired -- protecting marriage, the glue that holds the family together...  Oh, never mind.  You've heard it all before.  But he did manage to rake in (heh) eighty-seven votes to be the Republican candidate for President of the United States.

End Note

               
   

The Far Right Still Can't Work and Play Well with Others

 by Sunnyjane

I've been punked -- again.  I actually believed that we would have a couple days of Republican Tea Party sanity and I could write a post that didn't have to call out their idiocies.  Alas, such was not to be; there seems to be no end to it.  The Tea Party is still calling a lot of the shots -- they're like that adorable litter of puppies you brought home and didn't bother to discipline right from the beginning: for a while it's terribly amusing, and then they become snarling, snapping ankle-biters who destroy everything you hold dear. 

We might as well jump right in and see what they've been up to for the past week or so.

What in the Hell is Wrong with Kentucky Politicians?

Git yer muskets, boys, Obamacare and Same-Sex Marriage is a-comin' over the mountains!

At the risk of insulting otherwise normal Kentuckians, I must say you are bedeviled by the most peculiar politicians in the country -- and they're not all Republicans.  Mitch McConnell doesy-doed to the right to win the primary over Matt Bevin, and now he's doing the two-step back toward the middle -- well, as middle as McConnell can possibly go.  Obamacare has him confused, you see, because even though he has promised to rip out the country's first healthcare program root-and-branch, he understands that going on half a million Bluegrassers are feeling pretty A-OK about having affordable health insurance for the first time in their lives.  So, he's announced that while he's still going to do his garden surgery on the ACA, he'll be glad to leave Kynect -- the state's health exchange program -- alone because, after all, the two are not connected.  Now is Mitch stupid, or does he think the citizens of his state are stupid?  And then there's Rand Paul, who thinks the whole thing about keeping Kynect and repealing Obamacare is a technical question.  Democrat Alison Grimes, who wants to win McConnell's seat in the senate, keeps peeking around her hoop skirted petticoat to see which way the wind is blowing on the issue -- which is exactly what Mitchie and Randy want her to do.  Good Lord, Alison, don't bother to call them out on this idiocy by telling the voters that Paul and McConnell will take their healthcare away from them.   

But it doesn't end there.  Democratic Governor Steve Beshear is in court defending his state's decision to continue the ban on same-six marriage because -- wait for it -- same sex couples can't produce children and he's concerned that not having couples produce children will be detrimental to increasing the state's population.  What!  He governs one of the poorest states in the nation and he wants more of the same?      

Perhaps this, um, strangeness is due to the fact that Kentuckians live in a two-time-zone state; that might tend to make you sort of weird, I admit.

Here a Gun, There a Gun, Everywhere a Gun-Gun

But if you had Obamacare, your insurance might pay for a penis pump.

The narrow-minded -- and small-membered -- population in this country have gone off the freaking rails with their God-given right (huh?) to carry weapons of mass destruction in public.  They pay no attention to the adage of Just because you can, doesn't mean you should.  Folks trying to sip their lattes or scoff down their burritos have protested to the point that businesses in open-carry states have had to post signs on their doors saying Leave Your Penis Extender in Your Vehicle, Idiot.

After the latest shooting in California, Joni Ernst was asked if she would take down her gun-riddled campaign ads.  She responded to the effect that shooting six people was an unfortunate accident, but her ads proved that she's a Second Amendment advocate, so, NOPE, she would not take down those ads.

Joe Not-a-Joe-Not-a-Plumber puffed himself up and declared that his right to own a gun was more important that some dead kid.  He then doubled down on that and said guns were for hunting down politicians who would take away his freedoms; obviously another male idiot lacking muscle in the family-jewels department.

Some yahoo in Alabama decided he needed his handgun and two magazines of ammo to vote in a recent Republican (naturally) primary.  Since a church was acting as the polling place for said primary, there was a sign on the door that clearly stated that guns would not be allowed.  He protested.  To no avail.  A deputy was called.  Voter put his gun back in his truck.  He's going to complain.  So there!  Hmpf!

The NRA initially wrote on its blog page that carrying weapons around just for the attention it garnered its owners was weird.  In about two days they walked that back, blaming the confusion on a hapless staff member.   

There's a Pond in Texas That's Missing its Scum

Holmes and Cruz: Racist Comrades in Arms

If the mere sight of this individual doesn't make you want to hurl your cookies, you might want to seek professional counseling.  No, seriously. 

Because President Obama refused to negotiate on a House budget that would repeal the Affordable Care Act last year, Canadian Senator Senor Rafael Edward Cruz got himself in a snit and decided to shut down the United States government for seventeen days -- to the tune of about $24 BILLION.  He then refused to admit his prominent role in that fiasco, blaming Obama and Harry Reid.   Fast forward: Rafael Edward now is taking full credit for the shutdown, and believes that, because of his leadership, the shutdown is going to allow the Republicans to take over the Senate and increase their membership in the House.

Oh, he's also spewing the meme that because the Democrats are trying to get an amendment to override the Supreme Court's decision on campaign spending, that they're going to ban books and movies.  Yes, seriously!  

On the Lighter Side...

 A new study just released says that Americans learn more about the news from Stephen Colbert than they do from mainstream news channels.  What does that tell us?

Joni Ernst won the Republican primary election in Iowa.  Now she's one step closer to going  to Washington to shoot a hog and castrate Obamacare -- or something like that.  However, Steve Lonegan did not win in New Jersey, which couldn't have been a outcome time for him, given that he's a real loser.  Why, the last time he lost, he rudely pushed his wife's hand off his shoulder during his concession speech.  I guess that taught HER a lesson, by golly!

Don't touch me, bitch!

With their math teacher's help, sixth graders in Massachusetts have sent the Department of Education a bill for more than $1,600 as payment for being used as guinea pigs to test the Standard of Learning exams for a private company.  Now that's thinking, kids!

And speaking of guinea pigs, there's a home schooling expert who believes that sex education is a liberal plot to desensitize children to sex.  This leads to no bonding in marriage, which leads to unstable and broken marriages, and when that happens, they all vote Democratic.  Instead, she recommends letting kids see guinea pigs doing it, because you can't really see anything: You really couldn’t see anything because they’re big, furry little fuzzball things. I mean, that’s why there isn’t guinea pig porn movies.  (Pardon me, but you can't make this shit up.)

And speaking of sex, Pat Robertson believes that if your husband washes dishes, you owe him a roll in the hay.  No word on what you owe if he only puts the crockery in the dishwasher.

Good news!  If God tells him to, Herman Cain will run for president in 2016.  I guess Herb didn't get the text messages God sent him in 2012.

Some anti-gay Christian groups are refusing to accept mail with Harvey Milk postage stamps on it.  Well, that will certainly show those gays a thing or two!

Not-Ready-For-Prime-Time GOPer Terri Lynn Land, who's running for something or other in Michigan, became so flustered while being questioned by reporters that she exclaimed, I can't do this!   Ain't that a hoot?


End Note
  

The Annual Conservative Cattle Call: CPAC 2014

by Sunnyjane

What, you can't choose ONE amongst that large group of racist, homophobic, misogynistic, gun-worshiping, pro-life, far-right Christianistas who is suitable?

Like cattle they are, but All Things Bright and Beautiful they are not.  Eleven thousand politicos and their wanna-rub-elbows-with followers gathered together a week or so ago to play Let's Bash Obama! and see if they could increase their popularity with a bunch of mindless supporters by so doing.  (Note to the Republican Tea Party: You don't have to try so hard to make Barack Obama a two-term president;  he's decided not to run for a third term in 2016.)

Absent an actual unified message of their own, the speakers trotted out every old and ineffectual catchphrase in their far-right arsenal of grief with the current administration.  It was, for all intents and purposes, a typical GOP get-together -- only more obnoxious.

While most of the regular podium-pounders were in attendance, who was not there may be as significant.  Not one of the GOP's current women in the House or Senate was invited to speak, including State-of-the-Union responder Cathy McMorris Rodgers.  Of course, considering the horrific reaction to her little homily, that may be for the best.  OK, there was Michele Bachmann (see below), but she was not invited by CPAC itself; she was the special guest speaker of Jenny Beth Martin, founder and president of the Tea Party Patriots.

Also missing from the speakers' dais was Reince Priebus; they relegated him to a panel titled On Wisconsin!  Turning Blue States Red.  This is particularly interesting in light of the fact that  Governor Scott Walker decided to skip the whole CPAC thingy this year.

And semi-professional liver-abuser John Boehner wasn't asked to speak.  I guess his calling out the Tea Partiers for their craziness last December didn't go over very well.         

International Women's Day 2014: The Call for Gender Equality 

Only CPAC would have the two dumbest women in politics speak on IWD 2014.

On being married to a President of the United States, Barbara Bush once said, Somewhere out in this audience may even be someone who will one day follow in my footsteps, and preside over the White House as the President's spouse. I wish him well! 

Michele Bachmann, otherwise known to Minnesota's Native American tribes as Bug-Eyed Loon Hooting at Empty Space, probably made one of the stupidest, most dishonest statements at CPAC 2014: that at its core, she said, the Tea Party is an intellectual movement.  That core must be rotten, because while I'm sure you and I could come up with a number of appropriate adjectives to describe the Tea Party, I doubt that intellectual would be one of them.  Correct me if I'm mistaken.

Of course she also said -- again -- that the United States would some day elect a female president, but it would be the right one. Now she may have been using a double entendre -- right meaning best and right meaning conservative -- but I sincerely doubt that Bachmann is that smart.  In all her brilliance, the almost-ex Representative proudly and smugly declared that the GOP was the only party that has put a woman on the ticket in this century -- Sarah Palin.  Woo hoo!  Might I remind her that this century is only fourteen years old; there are still eighty-six years to go.  Sigh...

Of Green Eggs and Ham and a Wig that Goes Limp in the Night

OH M'GOD!  They just announced that Sarah Palin will speak next. 

Ted Cruz's official jock-strap sniffer, Sarah Palin, continued to make an ass of herself, much to the delight of the frenzied group of C-Packers.  It was rumored that many of the men were disappointed in her choice of attire because they lost a golden opportunity to do a little cell-phone upskirting.  Such is life, guys, but I doubt you missed much.

I have to say, Sarah has the mind of a computer: garbage in, garbage out is all you're going to get.  Not that anyone at CPAC cared, of course, because she put as many check marks next to her self-prescribed dose of hate and rage as possible: Obama is weak, Obama is a liar, Obamacare is bad, bad guy with a nuke, good guy with a nuke, yammer, yammer, yammer.  She even spoke right to the ladies at one point, telling them not to vote for Democrats because Republican women were fighters and were tough and powerful like her -- or something similar.  She read someone else's bastardization of the aforementioned Dr. Seuss book, giving a casual Hat Tip to the Internet because she stole it from a specific right-wing blog.  I guess she doesn't understand that The Internet is merely a repository, not an entity that writes its own stuff.  Palin failed to tell her fans that she's never actually read Green Eggs and Ham; she quit halfway through because it was too hard.

Charles Pierce at Esquire wrote an excellent synopsis of Palin's CPAC speech, and summed her up nicely with She respects no standards but her own.  To this I would respectfully add, She's only willing to change her standards if it boosts her ego or her bank account.

And a special message for you, Sarah, from your very own tough conservative idol, Margaret Thatcher:  Being powerful is like being a lady.  If you have to tell people you are -- you aren't.    

Rand Paul Manages to Wear Out the Word Liberty 

Meet me at the intersection of Moran Avenue and Refudiate Boulevard.  I'm driving a white car.

I'm not going to get into a pissing contest with Rand Paul over the meaning of his favorite subject, Civil Liberties.  However, just to put any confusion to rest, the term civil liberties in the United States of America is interpreted by the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution as those rights, privileges and immunities held by all people.  And even if Rush Limbaugh gave the incident a pass by calling her a professional agitator who provoked the incident, it does not mean your campaign volunteers have the right to give a concussion-causing head stomp to a MoveOn.org member protesting at one of your rallies.  See, little things like that are not a civil liberty.  Just sayin'.  (I have a rather fertile imagination, but for the life of me, I cannot conceive of Rush Limbaugh having such a thoroughly dismissive attitude if one of Barack Obama's supporters had head-stomped a Tea Party protester.)

So at CPAC, Senator Libertarian forgot about that rights, privileges and immunities thingy and launched into his usual diatribe over President Obama's timid defense of liberty and his shredding of the Constitution.  The nine thousand (OK, a possible exaggeration on my part) Libs he had bussed in screeched and applauded and generally appeared to have imbibed a six-pack each of Red Bull.  Whoa!      

Perhaps Paul's finest opinion on how to be an effective president came in an op-ed he wrote for Time in which he pretty much laid out his concept of how a president should conduct himself in these icky international situations like the one currently on everyone's radar, Ukraine.  While declaring in no uncertain terms that President Obama should start demonstrating tough leadership, he added that the President should do absolutely nothing.  (No, seriously.)  Well, he did say that we should withhold military or financial aid to Ukraine, the country we support against Russia.  And to further show his toughness against Russia, we should boycott the G-8 Summit in Sochi this summer.  (Spoiler:  The U.S. and six other G-8 members have already done that.)  Oh, and we should start shipping natural gas to western Europe; that will show those godless Russkies a thing or two!

Doing nothing about an international crisis might work out really swell in isolationist Rand Paul's fevered nocturnal emissions dreams, but it's high time for him to wake up to the real world and learn how to govern in a democracy.  World Leader countries do not remain world leaders very long; doing nothing may mean your grandchildren will be learning to speak Russian in the not-so-far distant future.

Because a Brown-Bag Lunch Means Love, Y'all

And there are no finer examples of hypocrites than Paul Ryan and Ayn Rand

In her book The Virtues of Selfishness, Ayn Rand wrote that accepting any government controls is delivering oneself into gradual enslavement.  And yet, when she needed them, she grabbed both Social Security and Medicare; she was ill and needed those controls.  Her acolyte, Paul Ryan, so worshiped Rand that he himself gladly accepted Social Security benefits after his father died, and subsequently went to college on the money.

In a trip to Once-Upon-a-Time Land, Paul Ryan (R-Wingnutville) heard about a little (insert black here) child who told a campaign staffer that he didn't want a free government school lunch, he wanted a brown-bag lunch because it showed that someone cared about him.  Naturally, budget-wonk Ryan had to repeat the story at CPAC.  And just as naturally, it became urban-legend material to be told throughout Tea Partyland.  Only problem is, Ryan's version ain't true.  It's from a freaking book written about the relationship between a woman and a homeless boy.  The author and the young boy appeared on Mike Huckabee's Fraud News program in 2013 and talked about their support for the Share Our Strength No Kid Hungry campaign.  So, there's that bit of awkwardness.

Let's review some history here to get a bead on Mr. Ryan and his, um, little problem.  After the 2012 election, he stated that the Republican ticket lost because too many (insert black here) urban voters turned out for President Obama.  (No explanation on why he lost his own hometown, which is 88.6% white and 2.8% black; nor did he explain why he couldn't carry the state of Wisconsin for the Republicans, with 88.2% whites and only 6.5% blacks.)

Oh, it wouldn't have anything to do with the fact that Mitt Romney went to the NAACP convention and told the (insert black here) folks there that if they wanted Obamacare and free stuff, vote for the other guy.  Nah.

Shortly after CPAC, Mr. Ryan bewailed the fact that inner-city (insert black here) men have a culture of not working.  Mind you, this was during an interview with Bill Bennett, who once said that crime in the U.S. would go down if all black babies were aborted.  Makes you wonder how Paul Ryan squares that with his anti-abortion stand, doesn't it?  Can you say hypocrite?

In the same interview, the Congressman referenced a study by white supremacist Charles Murray, who believes that social inequality is caused by the genetic inferiority of the black and Latino communities, women, and the poor.  And he's got the racist pseudoscience and misleading statistics to prove it!  (Just in case you're not getting the message, Mr. Murray believes that the only worthy people on the planet are white... men.)

Bottom line here, if there's any culture of not working, it's in the U.S. House of Representatives, where each of these so-called lawmakers is making more than $1,500 an hour for doing absolutely nothing to help Americans.  (Insert Asshole! here.)

Mitch McConnell Goes Hunting for Tea Party Votes

See this?  This is a gun.  I'm holding a gun.  I've never held a gun in my life.

Mitch promised the Tea Party crowd that if they'd return him to the Senate as Leader, he'd lead with integrity, fight tooth and nail (how original) for conservative reforms, wouldn't let them down, blah, blah, blah.  You know the routine.  Yawn.

No one has the remotest idea why McConnell thought he needed a prop to speak to Tea Partiers, much less a gun prop.  He looked about as comfortable with a gun as Sarah Palin would holding a dictionary.  In fact, he doesn't own a gun and it's doubtful he has ever hunted.

The hilarious thing about Mitch begging for Tea Party votes is the interview he did that appeared in the New York Times on the Saturday that CPAC ended its big gig.  In it he was asked if Republican incumbents were concerned about being challenged by Tea Partiers and he indicated they were not worried because I think we are going to crush them everywhere.  I don't think they are going to have a single nominee anywhere in the country.  Talk about awkward!   But Mitch is probably safe; it's doubtful that Tea Party folks have ever heard of the that particular publication, much less actually read it.

Cruzin' for a Bruisin'

Why yes, yes it is.  Please inform the Canadians, Big Guy; they'll be thrilled to hear it.

It's extremely difficult for normal people to figure out what Ted Cruz's game is.  It's obvious to anyone with a pulse that Teddy intends to be the Republican nominee for president in 2016, and yet he goes out of his way to piss off the very people he needs to get there, namely, the GOP itself.  Most of his fellow senators cannot stand him.  At a party luncheon a week after the President's State of the Union Address, John McCain -- referring to weirdo Steve Stockman -- complained that some crazy guy from Texas had stormed out in the middle of the speech.  Cruz quickly replied, Hey, I didn’t walk out of the State of the Union!

It's been reported that Cruz is trying to curb his wacko-birdiness this year.  Well, it seems he's fallen off the wagon on that venture because in his speech at CPAC he disdainfully reminded the Tea Partiers in attendance that they wouldn't remember a President Dole...a President McCain...a President Romney.  That infuriated John McCain, who demanded that Cruz publicly apologize to Dole.

And, of course, Cruz swore that he would continue his fight to repeal every word of Obamacare.  That received the expected wild explosion of cheers and applause from the Tea Partiers.  Unfortunately for Sen. Cruz, a minor problem has arisen:   House Republicans are moving to improve the law, not repeal it.  Bwahahaha! 

There will be more on this senator in the near future.

End Note

If you are ever fortunate enough to receive a call from a Republican campaign asking for a donation, be sure to tell them, I'd really like to help, but I'm afraid you'd become dependent on it so I'll try to make you more self-reliant.  That ought to do it.