Elections 2014: The Bad and the Just God-Awful Republican Governors

by Sunnyjane

Don't Re-elect -- Instead, Reject!

Of the twenty-nine Republican governors currently in office, thirteen are either embroiled in scandals, being investigate for corruption, or have recently been indicted.  Of these thirteen, three have presidential aspirations: Chris Christie, Rick Perry, and Scott Walker, who is currently up for re-election.  And some of these governors are simply in deep doo-doo for being lousy executives of their states, but expect their constituents to re-elect them anyhow so they can complete the job of totally ruining their respective states.  Is this a great country or WHAT?

--  Kansas, possibly the reddest of the red states, seems to be in an unstoppable swirl down the political toilet.  Sam Brownback's hyper-conservative tax-cutting policies have brought down the state's credit rating from both Moody's and Standard & Poor's, and risks running a deficit through 2019.  In an effort to stem that particular tide, he then cut the tax rate on the top tax bracket even more, which reduced revenue by forty-five percent -- or $93 million in 2013.  Hail, austerity!  But that's not all, folks: Brownback's former chief of staff and current campaign adviser is being investigated by the FBI for influence peddling operations in Kansas government and privatization of the state's Medicaid program.  (The FBI's a bit touchy about things like corrupt government.  Think McDonnell, Bob.)  Latest poll numbers suggest that Brownback's Democratic opponent, Paul Davis, could win with fifty-seven percent of the vote.  (Heh)

-- Pennsylvania governor Tom Corbett is currently having a close encounter of the porn kind.  It seems that eight former employees of Corbett's while he was Attorney General had sent and received hundreds of pornographic images or videos in emails that his office received during the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse case.  Two of these guys who had gone to work for Corbett when he was elected governor in 2010 during the Tea Party wave resigned last week.

In touting his new jobs plan during recent debates, Gov. Corbett urged Pennsylvania to check out the new website and see the 250,000 jobs that were waiting breathlessly to be filled.  However, a check of this shiny new jobs website revealed that some of these dandy job opportunities were hardly what one might call viable career prospects.  Two examples:

• VIP Hostess – I have two visiting VIP gentlemen coming to town. Need a couple of female hostesses to join them for cocktailing, dinner and clubbing. Send me a couple of pictures of yourself – under 30 please, if you are highly attractive and in need of $$...
• Casting Couch – Looking for M.I.L.F.S…hot mom & daughter combos!!! Young busty females between 18-45. Please attach pic. Thank you ladies!!!

Pennsylvanians have been suffering voters' remorse for four years.  The Corbett that looked like a moderately conservative candidate turned into a Tea Partier and the voters have had it with that particular deal; a late-August poll showed his Democratic opponent, Tom Wolf, leading by twenty-five points.

 -- Maine's governor, Paul LePage, is a skank of the first order, and God only knows what possessed the people of that good state to elect him -- temporary insanity, perhaps.  Not only has LePage met several times with a group of conspiracy theorists (a polite term for them) calling themselves Sovereign Citizens -- the FBI considers them domestic terrorists -- but it was recently revealed by one member of the group that in those meetings they discussed hanging the members of the Democratic legislature.  LePage, of course, denies that.

LePage will say anything and doesn't care that it may anger or appall people.  Last year he ranted to two reporters how irritated he was with a Democratic state senator, saying, Sen. Jackson claims to be for the people, but he's the first one to give it to the people without providing Vaseline.   Such class!

Hardly had he gotten into office that he told the NAACP it could kiss my butt because he refused to attend an event honoring Martin Luther King, Jr.  His reasoning went something like this:  the NAACP is a special interest group and he doesn't do special interest groups.  (Yeah, like the Tea Party isn't a special interest group.)  And taking a cue from Mitt Romney, LePage announced that 47% of able-bodied Maine residents don't work.  That went over particularly well, as you can imagine, particularly when Politifact gave the remark a Pants on Fire award. 

If the current polls hold, there's a very good chance that Mike Michaud, his Democratic opponent, may very well become the first openly gay governor in the U.S.

If you're not super-weary of these three, check out the ten most vulnerable governors in this election.

And Speaking of Governors...

It would be a very good idea if Romney would just bite his tongue.

During the 2012 general election, Mitt Romney told Fox Noxious that he absolutely believes that President Obama is responsible for high gas prices at the pump because  he has not pursued policies that convince the world that America is going to become energy secure, energy independent.  (That's sounds very much like a Sarah Palin statement, doesn't it?) The price of gas at the time was $3.80 a gallon on average; today the price is $3.33 on average, and shows signs of dropping below $3.00 in the near future.  Romney's response today on gas prices?  Echos of the sound of silence.

Perhaps Mr. Romney is just too busy to find out the price of gas because he's been out campaigning for a bunch of losers.  You can tell they're losers because they're desperate enough to reach out to Mitt Romney.  Perhaps the will-never-be-anything-but-a-former-governor is doing this to take the opportunity to spew his unhappiness that he lost in 2012.  In a recent event for Terri Lynn Land, a U.S. Senate hopeful in Michigan, he said that it’s time for the president to apologize to Americans for so many failures.  Uh huh.  Well, Mitt, do you mean like ten million Americans now having affordable health care?  Or, the unemployment rate dropping below six percent?  Or, growing jobs in America -- versus jobs in China -- continuously for the past fifty-four months?  Please explain.  We'll be anxiously awaiting your response.   Any time you're ready.

Romney's really getting tiresome.  

End Note 

You're welcome, Patriots!

(Next post we will talk about the House and Senate races.  Hoo boy!)

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.