Election Day Foretold: Backward-Looking Jeff Flake and His Right-Wing Buddies Will Attempt a Repeal of the Twentieth and Twenty-first Centuries

There's no doubt Jeff Flake will overwhelmingly win re-election against his opponents. Everyone knows that. His right-wing Republican buddies will surely take control over the House, possibly by a large margin, and they'll very likely take control of the Senate, too. Voters are angry and not very smart about whom to blame for the terrible economy. And they're fed all the crappy misinformation by Fox News and other fear-mongering, paranoid sources funded by billionaires and special interests.

Timothy Egan, in his New York Times blog on American life and politics from a Western perspective, last week wrote a post, "Election Day Foretold," which pretty much states what's going to happen.

You won! What a nice run of the House, with a big enough Republican cushion to free the more pumped-up partisans to hold investigations of Obama’s birth certificate. Let them throw steak scraps at the base, while the rest of you restore Wall Street, the insurance industry and Karl Rove to their rightful places in power.

Speaker-elect Boehner, take a bow. When health care passed, you warned of Armageddon. Now, bring it on. So many promises to keep.

But first, an apology to BP, this time without the retraction. As Congressman Joe Barton tried to say, he’s really sorry that BP is being forced to pay for the human and environmental costs of the biggest oil spill in American history. Your man Barton, a good Texan who’s received more money from the oil, coal and natural gas industry than just about any serving member of the House, is in line to become the next chairman of the committee that oversees energy. Mind you, he’s term-limited in that leadership role — in theory. Just get Boehner to bend the rules, and then gavel in the groveling, baby.

Next up, repeal the health care law. Tell those 20-something deadbeats living at home that they can no longer stay on their parents’ coverage. And give the all-clear signal to insurance companies. Whew. That was close.

With health care repeal, insurers can go back to dropping people when they get sick. Even better, they won’t have to cover those costly whiners with pre-existing conditions, as the new law mandates.

And of course, 30 million Americans who stood to get health care from the market exchanges that were to be phased in can always use the hospital emergency room, as before.

Climate change. Such a myth. A giant conspiracy. The biggest scientific hoax of our time, as Senator James Inhofe has tried to explain. Now, seize the day. You can do something about it — not the hothouse we find ourselves trapped in, but the people who are studying global warming, those elitist scientists.

Sure, it was 113 degrees in Los Angeles the other day, forests in Russia were aflame all summer, and the first eight months of this year set a pace to tie 1998 as the warmest year on record. Time for an investigation: and Congressman James Sensenbrenner, the ranking Republican on the global warming committee, has one ginned up and ready to go. He wants to look at the “science,” wink, wink. So many questions; it’ll be just like when he guided the House through the impeachment of President Clinton.

Speaking of investigations, Rep. Darrell Issa, Republican of California, wants to make good on his promise to double the investigative staff of the government oversight committee and start trolling through the White House for minor scandals. Give that man a fistful of subpoenas and unleash him.

Issa’s committee would be a good place to park a rookie congressman who needs to shake his callow youth reputation — Ben Quayle, Republican of Arizona. The former vice president’s kid had some trouble with the fake family he used on his ads, and wrote for something called “Dirty Scottsdale.” Maybe it takes dirty to know dirty. After calling Obama “the worst president in history,” young Mr. Quayle said, “Somebody has to go to Washington and knock the hell out of the place.”

Along the way, don’t forget to make a run at the federal minimum wage, food and drug regulations, unemployment benefits, even Social Security. All of them are unconstitutional, as many of your candidates said on the trail.

Then, it’s on to the big enchilada, the reason to get back into power: more tax cuts. Some people think this election was a big sporting event, like Game Day on ESPN. They thought it was about rankings and scores, upsets and game-changers. Hah!

The federal deficit is approaching $1.5 trillion. But you promised to make sure that millionaire households get their extension of the Bush tax cuts, though it is likely to add another $700 billion to the deficit over the next decade. It’s in the Pledge to America. A promise is a promise.

Will bigger deficits breathe life into a still-gasping economy? Will giving another couple hundred bucks to households earning more than $250,000 allow the 20 million or so facing foreclosure to stay in their homes? Will investigating earth scientists or Obama’s political appointments make the lives of average Americans easier?

Next question. You trounced the Democrats because of the wretched economy. Voters’ financial lives are fragile, the prospects bleak. Hope turned to empty calories. Reforming Wall Street and health care did nothing to budge the unemployment numbers, a shattering reset for a bruised middle class.

If you make all those companies sitting on piles of cash start hiring people, you’ll be returned to power, perhaps rewarded in an even bigger way in two years. If not, you’ll be remembered for the sideshow: air-guitar legislative attempts to roll back the modern age.

Re-Electing Family-Hating Professional Politician Jeff Flake Means Bigger Budget Deficits and Fewer Jobs for American Workers

At Newsweek's blog The Gaggle, Andrew Romano points out why re-electing family-hating professional politician Jeff Flake and his GOP cronies will just make things a lot worse in the country that crumbs like Flake seemed to determined to destroy:

Nothing is more important to Republican politicians these days than jobs and the deficit—at least according to Republican politicians. As House Minority Leader John Boehner put it in a "major economic address" on Tuesday, President Obama is "doing everything possible to prevent jobs from being created" while refusing to do anything at all "about bringing down the deficits that threaten our economy." Elect Republicans in November, Boehner assured his audience, and we will put an end to this insanity.

There's only one problem with Boehner's message: so far, the things that Republicans have said they want to do won't actually boost employment or reduce deficits. In fact, much the opposite. By combing through a variety of studies and projections from nonpartisan economic sources, we here at Gaggle headquarters have found that if Republicans were in charge from January 2009 onward—and if they were now given carte blanche to enact the proposals they want to—the projected 2010–2020 deficits would be larger than they are under Obama, and fewer people would probably be employed.

The math is pretty straightforward. Let's start with the deficit. According to the Congressional Budget Office, Obama's stimulus plan is projected to increase budget deficits over the next decade by $814 billion. That's a big number. But Republicans opposed the legislation refused to provide an alternative, and now insist that it's been a total failure. So let's be generous and subtract it from their side of the equation. The Obama deficit: $814 billion. The GOP deficit: $0.

Next up is health-care reform. Obama passed it; Republicans want to repeal it "lock, stock, and barrel." The reason, as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell explained in July, is that "we all know that it's going to increase the deficit." Unfortunately for the GOP, though, nonpartisan experts tend to disagree. Just this Tuesday, for example, the CBO released a letter saying that Obama's health-care-reform legislation would "reduce the projected budget deficit by $30 billion over the next 10 years,” while repealing the law would generate "an increase in deficits ... of $455 billion ... over that [same] period." Factor those figures into the equation and the Obama deficit falls to $784 billion. The GOP deficit, meanwhile, rises to $455 billion. Getting warmer.

The final piece of the puzzle is the Bush tax cuts. Obama wants to extend them for the 95 percent of taxpayers making less than $250,000 a year; Republicans want to extend them for everybody. How will these extensions affect the deficit? Glad you asked. According to data compiled by The Washington Post, "the Democratic proposal would add about $3 trillion to the deficit during the next decade, while the GOP plan would cost $3.7 trillion." That brings the total Obama deficit to $3.784 trillion over 10 years, and its GOP counterpart to—drumroll, please—$4.155 trillion.

That's right. Even if we assume that the Republicans would've spent $0 to stimulate the economy in the wake of the largest economic collapse since the Great Depression—an unlikely scenario, given the very real risks of inaction—their proposed policies would still produce a deficit $371 billion larger than President Obama's.

(Or $335 billion; Boehner also says he'd like to freeze nondefense discretionary spending at 2008 levels, which would save a grand total of $36 billion.)

On jobs, it's a similar story. So far, Republicans have only said they'd do—or that they would've done—two large-scale things the Democrats haven't: (1) scrap the stimulus, and (2) extend the Bush tax cuts for Americans earning more than $250,000 so as not to (in Boehner's words) "impose job-killing tax hikes on families and small businesses."

How would these measures affect employment? Regarding the stimulus, the answer is pretty clear. In a report out this week, the CBO estimates that between 1.4 million and 3.3 million fewer people would be employed right now if the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act had never made it through Congress. Split the difference, and the pro-stimulus Obama moves ahead of the anti-stimulus GOP by about 2.35 million jobs. (A more dramatic estimate by the economists Alan Blinder and Mark Zandi [a McCain 2008 adviser] puts the number at 2.7 million, but we'll stick with the CBO stats for now.)

The effect of tax cuts on job creation is a little trickier to tally. Extending all of them, according to the CBO, would lower unemployment by 0.3 to 0.8 percent over the next year or so; extending them solely for people making less than $250,000 would produce a somewhat smaller effect, for a difference of roughly 200,000 to 500,000 people. The problem, as economist William G. Gale of the Brookings Institution has noted, is that "of 11 potential stimulus policies the CBO recently examined, an extension of all of the Bush tax cuts ties for lowest bang for the buck." In fact, he continues, "letting the high-income tax cuts expire and using the money for aid to the states, extensions of unemployment insurance benefits, [or] tax credits favoring job creation ... would have about three times the impact ... as continuing the Bush tax cuts."

In addition, it's unlikely that extending the cuts for the richest Americans would have much of an effect on small-business hiring, which is a claim that Republicans make with some regularity. Why? Because of the taxpayers that report running small businesses on their taxes, only 2 percent fall into the top two income brackets.* The other 98 percent of small-business owners make less than $250,000 a year and wouldn't pay higher taxes under Obama's plan.

History isn't on the GOP's side, either. If keeping the top marginal tax rate at 35 percent—the rate under Bush, and the rate that Republicans are fighting to preserve—spurs so much hiring, why didn't America experience any job growth at all during Bush's time in office? And if a top marginal tax rate of 39.6 percent—the rate under Bill Clinton, and the rate that Democrats are fighting to restore—is such a job killer, why did payrolls grow by 20 percent during the 1990s?

The implication here isn't that higher tax rates equal more jobs. Far from it. But there's simply no evidence, either in the history books or the latest projections, to suggest that extending all of the Bush tax cuts would provide an employment boost large enough to offset the number of jobs that would've been lost if the GOP had succeeded in blocking the stimulus—let alone lasting enough to justify adding another $700 billion to the deficit.

The bottom line, then, is that recent GOP proposals would produce fewer jobs and far larger deficits than the plans Obama has already passed or currently wants to pass.

Tea Party Voters: You're Using the Wrong Utensil!

Instead of using a teaspoon, you should all go fork yourselves.

How Conservative Republicans Played the Inept, Bumbling Arizona Green Party

The Arizona Green Party today issued this press release:
Arizona Green Party (AZGP) announces endorsed candidates for 2010 elections

The following Green Party candidates have been endorsed by AZGP. We encourage registered voters in Arizona to vote for, support, volunteer, and donate to their campaigns:

1.Jerry Joslyn: U.S. Senate; http://joslynforsenate.com
2.William Crum: U.S. Congress (CD 2); write-in candidate for General Election; http://www.newmenu.org/williamcrum
3.Leonard Clark: U.S. Congress (CD 3); write-in candidate; http://www.newmenu.org/leonardclark
4.Rebecca DeWitt: U.S. Congress (CD 4); http://www.dewitt4congress.com
5.Deborah O'Dowd: State Representative (LD 6); write-in candidate; http://www.newmenu.org/deborahodowd
6.Justin Dahl: State Representative (LD 12); http://www.newmenu.org/justindahl
7.Luisa Valdez: State Representative (LD 15); http://www.luisavaldez.com
8.Angel Torres: State Representative (LD 16); http://www.newmenu.org/angel_torres
9.Gregor Knauer: State Representative (LD 17); http://www.gregorknauer.com
10.Linda Macias: State Representative (LD 21); http://www.newmenu.org/lindamacias
11.Kent Solberg: State Representative (LD 27); http://www.kent4house.org

The following Green Party candidate has been vetted, but remains non-endorsed by AZGP. If he is successful in the Primary Election, we may reconsider endorsing him for the General Election.


1.Richard Grayson: U.S. Congress (CD 6); write-in candidate; http://grayson-green.blogspot.com

# # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # #

There are several Green Party candidates that are actively opposed. We strongly advise all registered Arizona voters to not waste their votes on these individuals during the August 24th Primary Election or the November 2nd General Election (assuming they advance). The offices include: Governor, Secretary of State (write-in), Treasurer (write-in), Corporation Commission (2 write-in candidates), U.S. Congress (CD 5, write-in), State Senate (LD 10, 2 write-in candidates), State Representative (LD 17, write-in), State Senate (LD 17, write-in), State Representative (LD 20, write-in), State Representative (LD 22, write-in), and State Senate (LD 23, write-in).

If you don't understand why a political party would actively oppose so many of its own candidates, including its candidate for Governor, upon whose vote totals the party is dependent for maintaining continued ballot presence in Arizona, perhaps this memo to Green Party candidates from a week ago will explain what happened:

Date: Mon, 16 Aug 2010

Green Party candidates:

At yesterday's skype meeting I gave a report about the current status of the carpetbagger candidate situation. I just sent you the first of two parts of that report, and this is the second. The part below contains information from the perspective of the Arizona Green Party, and some of it is confidential, so please do not share it except talking among AzGP SC members or endorsed candidates.

But we particularly need input from candidates about where to go next, so please respond. Time is short before we have to either act, or not act, so think it through, but give your input in the next day or two.

claudia

As you know, a number of candidates who have signed-up to be write-ins in our August 24 AzGP primary are strangers to us. But there are three things about them that we DO know:

1. None of them has anything Google can uncover about them [no paper trail],
2. They were all Rs the day before, and
3. Derek Lee, who gathered signatures, through his professional company, for Larry Gist [the pirate who is on the ballot as our candidate for governor], is now the campaign manager for Gist, AND for at least some, and possibly all, of the others. It is unclear whether Derek organized all this at his own behest, in the hopes of raking in Clean Elections monies for advising their various campaigns, or by somebody who is paying him to do this mischief, or -- well, whatever else would explain it.

Regarding Gist, we had hoped to field a write-in against him, and defeat him in the primary, replacing him with someone who would use that megaphone to really run a Green campaign, and provide some coat tail for our other candidates, or at least not embarrass the party in the way that we are fearful Mr Gist will. It didn't happen. We approached a number of possibles, and they all had good personal reasons why it could not be.

But the problem with Mr Gist has been eclipsed by the staggering number of similar unknowns who are now pirating our ballot line, by filing on July 15, at the last minute, so that we would have no chance to oppose them. If Arizona law were even-handed [read that as "constitutional"], we could still remove them, by the simple expedient of contacting Geen Party registrants, and telling them NOT to write these guys in. The Democrats had the same idea, and even contacted us offering to pay for such a mailing, since these pirates will be spoiling races which their candidates might otherwise win.

However, ARS § 16-645 D would make such a letter, by itself, merely symbolic, because this statute allows, in our Party and only in our Party, for a person to become a Green the day before, submit write-in documents on the last possible day and minute, and then, unopposed, elect himself to the November 2 ballot. All by the expedient of having a single vote-- his own-- cast in the form of a write-in, on the August 24th ballot.

We have been silent about this statute, which is tucked away in a section of the statute book about 200 pages from the sections dealing with write-ins, candidates, signatures, etc. It is in the section that has bureaucratic formulas for the process that county election officials follow in canvassing the vote, and reporting the results to the SoS, who then puts them on the November ballot.

Some of you have asked why we didn't tell you all about this provision, to save you having to get signatures. The answer is three-fold. One is that we did not want the information publicized, because we did not want the very problem we now confront-- pirates.

Second is that it would have made it impossible for the candidates who are going to be Clean Elections qualified to do so in time. Third is that we don't think it is constitutional, and if we had used it, all acting at the last minute, all of our candidates could have been challenged in court, and bumped off the ballot, making all our ballot access signature gathering worthless.

So we've been looking for an attorney with federal court election experience, to see if we can make the challenge ourselves, and bump the pirates. NOTE: If we talk about this, the pirates will know that they have to get more votes than just their own, and will set about to do so-- a quick mailing to all the registered Greens in the state. Derek Lee is easily set up to pull that off. So DO NOT TALK ABOUT IT, except among ourselves.

Ten talks have been:
1. To the law firm that represented us Arizona Green Party v Bennett. They agreed about the law, but they only have 4 lawyers, and only one is an election lawyer, and they are already committed to a case elsewhere, that is going to take all his time for the next two months.
2. To a contact in the Arizona Libertarian Party. They pursued a successful lawsuit a few years back, to overturn the law about open primaries, as it regarded to them. They won. The bad news is that they had to pay the lawyers up front.
3. To contacts within the Arizona Democratic Party, including their lawyer, pointing out that they cannot achieve their stated desire -- to protect their candidates from a spoiler effect by persons who are not even serious candidates, unless we join them in a lawsuit, funded by them, to overturn this statute. Waiting for a response.

We are not adverse to spoiling races in order to run our candidates, as that is what makes democracy work, unless a run-off or instant/same ballot run-off is used to tally votes. But the Arizona Green party does not spoil races for the sport of it. So we offered, instead, to be plaintiffs in a federal suit to toss this law out.

So here are the choices:
1. If we get a lawyer, we go forward. We may or may not win [I'd call our odds 60-40]. The downside is that we might lose our own, endorsed write-ins, if they don't get enough Greens to write them in under the rule that applies to all other political parties. The upside is that we won't have to deal with these carpetbaggers again, and any pirates trying to board the Green ship in the future will know that we can stop them.

2. If we don't get a lawyer, we call a press conference as soon as these turkeys become official, and we denounce them, denounce those who sent them our way, denounce those who wrote the law, denounce derk lee, denounce the Ds for not caring enough about their own candidates to fight this. We'll feel better, and it will at least not be the press ferreting it out with their own spin on it. But the downside is that we will be in the position, in November, of asking the average voter to remember which Green Party candidates are the endorsed candidates, and which the pirates. We end up hurting our own, endorsed candidates. It's kind of like when a weed grows to closely to the crop that you can't pull the one without getting the other. So you wait til the harvest, when you can better deal with it.

3. We do as little as possible now on the negative side, and just work doubly hard for our endorsed candidates. And we challenge the law later, when we have the time.

Candidates, what are your comments?

claudia ellquist
AzGP

=======
ARS § 16-645 D "Except as provided in subsection C of this section
[about precinct committeemen --ce], a certificate of nomination shall not
be issued to a write in candidate of a party which has not qualified for
continued representation on the official ballot pursuant to ARS 16-804
[this would be us --ce] unless he receives a plurality of the votes of
the party for the office for which he is a candidate."

Why Arizona Republicans Want to Destroy the Constitution

In today's Washington Post, Harold Meyerson's column explains why crazy un-American Republicans - to his credit, so far Rep. Jeff Flake has resisted this - want to destroy their party's most valuable contribution to the U.S. Constitution, the document that the creepy Tea Partiers claim to revere despite their inability to read or follow it. And it's not because they're all neo-Nazi sympathizers like the moronic thug Russell Pearce:

The Republican war on the 14th Amendment's citizenship clause is indeed directed at a mortal threat -- but not to the American nation. It is the threat that Latino voting poses to the Republican Party.

By proposing to revoke the citizenship of the estimated 4 million U.S.-born children of undocumented immigrants -- and, presumably, the children's children and so on down the line -- Republicans are calling for more than the creation of a permanent noncitizen caste. They are endeavoring to solve what is probably their most crippling long-term political dilemma: the racial diversification of the electorate. Not to put too fine a point on it, they are trying to preserve their political prospects as a white folks' party in an increasingly multicolored land.

Absent a constitutional change -- to a lesser degree, even with it -- those prospects look mighty bleak. The demographic base of the Republican Party, as Ruy Teixeira demonstrates in a paper released by the Center for American Progress this summer, is shrinking as a share of the nation and the electorate. As the nation grows more racially and religiously diverse, Teixeira shows, its percentage of white Christians will decline to just 35 percent of the population by 2040.

The group that's growing fastest, of course, is Latinos. "Their numbers will triple to 133 million by 2050 from 47 million today," Teixeira writes, "while the number of non-Hispanic whites will remain essentially flat." Moreover, Latinos increasingly trend Democratic -- in a Gallup poll this year, 53 percent self-identified as Democrats; just 21 percent called themselves Republican. [This is even more true in Arizona, where the state GOP has declared war on Latinos.]

To be sure, the wretched state of the economy could drive some otherwise Democratic-inclined Latino voters to the GOP this November. But Republicans are doing their damnedest to keep this from happening. Their embrace of Arizona's Suspicious-Looking-Latinos law and their enthusiasm for stripping Latino children of their citizenship will only hasten Latinos' flight.

Sentient Republican strategists such as Karl Rove have long understood that unless their party could win more Latino votes, it would eventually go the way of the Whigs. That's the main reason George W. Bush tried to persuade congressional Republicans to support immigration reform. But most lawmakers, reflecting the nativism of the Republican base, would have none of it.

By pushing for repeal of the 14th Amendment's citizenship clause, the GOP appears to have concluded: If you can't win them over -- indeed, if you're doing everything in your power to make their lives miserable -- revoke their citizenship.

How the Republican Party of Jeff Flake Destroyed the American Economy: Lies and Damn Lies About the Federal Deficit Exposed by David Stockman

Free-market laissez-faire fanatics like Jeff Flake worship the free market. No taxes are always better than any taxes, no regulation is always better than any regulation, and so what if the rich keep getting much, much richer and the rest of us are losing ground? Republicans more hateful than Flake blame the immigrants and ethnic minorities for taking the jobs of Tea Party conservatives who would otherwise be getting hired as cleaning women and janitors, gardeners and laborers, bus boys and restaurant takeout delivery girls. (In Arizona, most white Republicans don't have college educations as most people we know do.)

For the few people in the East Valley with a modicum of intelligence, we're reprinting some of today's important New York Times op-ed on Republicans and the national debt written by David Stockman, Ronald Reagan's first budget director and a former Michigan congressman who always a little too intelligent to be a party to what his party has wrought:

IF there were such a thing as Chapter 11 for politicians, the Republican push to extend the unaffordable Bush tax cuts would amount to a bankruptcy filing. The nation’s public debt — if honestly reckoned to include municipal bonds and the $7 trillion of new deficits baked into the cake through 2015 — will soon reach $18 trillion. That’s a Greece-scale 120 percent of gross domestic product, and fairly screams out for austerity and sacrifice. It is therefore unseemly for the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, to insist that the nation’s wealthiest taxpayers be spared even a three-percentage-point rate increase.

More fundamentally, Mr. McConnell’s stand puts the lie to the Republican pretense that its new monetarist and supply-side doctrines are rooted in its traditional financial philosophy. Republicans used to believe that prosperity depended upon the regular balancing of accounts — in government, in international trade, on the ledgers of central banks and in the financial affairs of private households and businesses, too. But the new catechism, as practiced by Republican policymakers for decades now, has amounted to little more than money printing and deficit finance — vulgar Keynesianism robed in the ideological vestments of the prosperous classes.

This approach has not simply made a mockery of traditional party ideals. It has also led to the serial financial bubbles and Wall Street depredations that have crippled our economy. More specifically, the new policy doctrines have caused four great deformations of the national economy, and modern Republicans have turned a blind eye to each one.

The first of these started when the Nixon administration defaulted on American obligations under the 1944 Bretton Woods agreement to balance our accounts with the world. Now, since we have lived beyond our means as a nation for nearly 40 years, our cumulative current-account deficit — the combined shortfall on our trade in goods, services and income — has reached nearly $8 trillion. That’s borrowed prosperity on an epic scale.

It is also an outcome that Milton Friedman said could never happen when, in 1971, he persuaded President Nixon to unleash on the world paper dollars no longer redeemable in gold or other fixed monetary reserves. Just let the free market set currency exchange rates, he said, and trade deficits will self-correct.

It may be true that governments, because they intervene in foreign exchange markets, have never completely allowed their currencies to float freely. But that does not absolve Friedman’s $8 trillion error. Once relieved of the discipline of defending a fixed value for their currencies, politicians the world over were free to cheapen their money and disregard their neighbors.

In fact, since chronic current-account deficits result from a nation spending more than it earns, stringent domestic belt-tightening is the only cure. When the dollar was tied to fixed exchange rates, politicians were willing to administer the needed castor oil, because the alternative was to make up for the trade shortfall by paying out reserves, and this would cause immediate economic pain — from high interest rates, for example. But now there is no discipline, only global monetary chaos as foreign central banks run their own printing presses at ever faster speeds to sop up the tidal wave of dollars coming from the Federal Reserve.

The second unhappy change in the American economy has been the extraordinary growth of our public debt. In 1970 it was just 40 percent of gross domestic product, or about $425 billion. When it reaches $18 trillion, it will be 40 times greater than in 1970. This debt explosion has resulted not from big spending by the Democrats, but instead the Republican Party’s embrace, about three decades ago, of the insidious doctrine that deficits don’t matter if they result from tax cuts.

In 1981, traditional Republicans supported tax cuts, matched by spending cuts, to offset the way inflation was pushing many taxpayers into higher brackets and to spur investment. The Reagan administration’s hastily prepared fiscal blueprint, however, was no match for the primordial forces — the welfare state and the warfare state — that drive the federal spending machine.

Soon, the neocons were pushing the military budget skyward. And the Republicans on Capitol Hill who were supposed to cut spending exempted from the knife most of the domestic budget — entitlements, farm subsidies, education, water projects. But in the end it was a new cadre of ideological tax-cutters who killed the Republicans’ fiscal religion.

Through the 1984 election, the old guard earnestly tried to control the deficit, rolling back about 40 percent of the original Reagan tax cuts. But when, in the following years, the Federal Reserve chairman, Paul Volcker, finally crushed inflation, enabling a solid economic rebound, the new tax-cutters not only claimed victory for their supply-side strategy but hooked Republicans for good on the delusion that the economy will outgrow the deficit if plied with enough tax cuts.

By fiscal year 2009, the tax-cutters had reduced federal revenues to 15 percent of gross domestic product, lower than they had been since the 1940s. Then, after rarely vetoing a budget bill and engaging in two unfinanced foreign military adventures, George W. Bush surrendered on domestic spending cuts, too — signing into law $420 billion in non-defense appropriations, a 65 percent gain from the $260 billion he had inherited eight years earlier. Republicans thus joined the Democrats in a shameless embrace of a free-lunch fiscal policy.

The third ominous change in the American economy has been the vast, unproductive expansion of our financial sector. Here, Republicans have been oblivious to the grave danger of flooding financial markets with freely printed money and, at the same time, removing traditional restrictions on leverage and speculation. As a result, the combined assets of conventional banks and the so-called shadow banking system (including investment banks and finance companies) grew from a mere $500 billion in 1970 to $30 trillion by September 2008.

But the trillion-dollar conglomerates that inhabit this new financial world are not free enterprises. They are rather wards of the state, extracting billions from the economy with a lot of pointless speculation in stocks, bonds, commodities and derivatives. They could never have survived, much less thrived, if their deposits had not been government-guaranteed and if they hadn’t been able to obtain virtually free money from the Fed’s discount window to cover their bad bets.

The fourth destructive change has been the hollowing out of the larger American economy. Having lived beyond our means for decades by borrowing heavily from abroad, we have steadily sent jobs and production offshore. In the past decade, the number of high-value jobs in goods production and in service categories like trade, transportation, information technology and the professions has shrunk by 12 percent, to 68 million from 77 million. The only reason we have not experienced a severe reduction in nonfarm payrolls since 2000 is that there has been a gain in low-paying, often part-time positions in places like bars, hotels and nursing homes.

It is not surprising, then, that during the last bubble (from 2002 to 2006) the top 1 percent of Americans — paid mainly from the Wall Street casino — received two-thirds of the gain in national income, while the bottom 90 percent — mainly dependent on Main Street’s shrinking economy — got only 12 percent. This growing wealth gap is not the market’s fault. It’s the decaying fruit of bad economic policy.

The day of national reckoning has arrived. We will not have a conventional business recovery now, but rather a long hangover of debt liquidation and downsizing — as suggested by last week’s news that the national economy grew at an anemic annual rate of 2.4 percent in the second quarter. Under these circumstances, it’s a pity that the modern Republican Party offers the American people an irrelevant platform of recycled Keynesianism when the old approach — balanced budgets, sound money and financial discipline — is needed more than ever.

We'd love to hear a Jeff Flake response to any of this. But his is a mind that isn't open to new ideas that conflict with the ideology he worships as a God. He knows his constituents are too stupid to understand how he's fucked them over. And he's right.

* * *

Our friend from our 2004 race for Congress in North Florida, Rep. Corrine Brown (D-Jacksonville) said this week on the floor of Congress in relation to legislation supported by our creep of a congressman, "If it's Flake, it's bad." (Hat tip to the hardworking Pennsylvania Federation, Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes Division, International Brotherhood of Teamsters.)

Why Arizona Sucks, Part II: Neo-Nazi Racist and Anti-Semitic Scum Run Rampant with Republican Acquiescence

Rep. Jeff Flake has done nothing to condemn the anti-Semitic, racist neo-Nazis who are running wild in the failed state of Arizona. His fellow extremist East Valley Republican officeholder is shown above embracing the racist Ready described in this article from Associated Press:

Man with neo-Nazi ties leading patrols in AZ

Jul 17, 6:08 PM EDT
By MICHELLE PRICE
Associated Press Writer
PHOENIX (AP) -- Minutemen groups, a surge in Border Patrol agents, and a tough new immigration law aren't enough for a reputed neo-Nazi who's now leading a militia in the Arizona desert.

Jason "J.T." Ready is taking matters into his own hands, declaring war on "narco-terrorists" and keeping an eye out for illegal immigrants. So far, he says his patrols have only found a few border crossers who were given water and handed over to the Border Patrol. Once, they also found a decaying body in a wash, and alerted authorities.

But local law enforcement are nervous given that Ready's group is heavily armed and identifies with the National Socialist Movement, an organization that believes only non-Jewish, white heterosexuals should be American citizens and that everyone who isn't white should leave the country "peacefully or by force."

"We're not going to sit around and wait for the government anymore," Ready said. "This is what our founding fathers did."

An escalation of civilian border watches have taken root in Arizona in recent years, including the Minutemen movement. Various groups patrol the desert on foot, horseback and in airplanes and report suspicious activity to the Border Patrol, and generally, they have not caused problems for law enforcement.

But Ready, a 37-year-old ex-Marine, is different. He and his friends are outfitted with military fatigues, body armor and gas masks, and carry assault rifles. Ready takes offense at the term "neo-Nazi," but admits he identifies with the National Socialist Movement.

"These are explicit Nazis," said Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center's Intelligence Project. "These are people who wear swastikas on their sleeves."

Ready is a reflection of the anger over illegal immigration in Arizona. Gov. Jan Brewer signed a controversial new immigration law in April, which requires police, while enforcing other laws, to question a person's immigration status if officers have a reasonable suspicion that the person is in the country illegally.

But Brewer hasn't done enough, Ready said, and he's not satisfied with President Barack Obama's decision to beef up security at the border.

Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu said there haven't been any incidents with the group as they patrol his jurisdiction, which includes several busy immigrant smuggling corridors. But Babeu is concerned because an untrained group acting without the authority of the law could cause "extreme problems," and put themselves and others in danger.

"I'm not inviting them. And in fact, I'd rather they not come," Babeu said. "Especially those who espouse hatred or bigotry such as his."

Law enforcement officials said patrols like Ready's could undercut the work of the thousands of officers on duty every day across the border, especially if they try to enforce the law themselves in carrying out vigilante justice.

Ready said his group has been patrolling in the desert about 50 miles south of Phoenix, in an area where a Pinal County Sheriff's deputy reported he was shot by drug smugglers in April.

Bureau of Land Management rangers met Ready's group during one patrol, and they weren't violating any laws or looking for a confrontation, said spokesman Dennis Godfrey.

The patrols have been occurring on public land, and militia members have no real restrictions on their weaponry because of Arizona's loose gun laws.

The militia is an outgrowth of border watch groups that have been part of the immigration debate in Arizona. Patrols in the Arizona desert by Minutemen organizations brought national attention to illegal immigration in 2004 and 2005.

Such groups continue to operate in Arizona, and law enforcement officials generally don't take issue with them as long as they don't take matters into their own hands.

Border Patrol spokesman Omar Candelaria said the agency appreciates the extra eyes and ears but they would prefer actual law enforcement be left to professionals.

Former Minutemen leader Al Garza recently created the Patriot's Coalition, which uses scouts and search-and-rescue teams to alert the Border Patrol and provide first aid to illegal immigrants.

Depending on the availability of volunteers and the scouts' evidence of border crossers, patrols can vary from several times a week to once a month, Garza said. The operation is about 500 people, and includes a neighborhood watch program, legislative advisers and a horseback patrol, he said.

Technology, rather than manpower, is the focus of Glenn Spencer's American Border Patrol. The group is based at his ranch near the border. The five-man operation flies three small airplanes to ensure that the Border Patrol is present and visible along the international line.

Spencer also uses Internet-controlled cameras and works with a group called Border Invasion Pics, which posts photos of people they suspect are crossing illegally.

"Sitting out there with a bunch of volunteers looking for people is generally a tremendous waste of people and time," Spencer said. "And it's also dangerous."

Ready said he's planning patrols throughout the summer.

Jeff Flake has never said one word against the neo-Nazis running rampant with Republicans in his district. Does Jeff Flake support their racist, anti-Semitic, homophobic, xenophobic views?

Why Arizona Sucks

AZ-06 Republican Congressional Primary: Jeff Flake vs. Jeff Smith = Vampire Edward vs. Werewolf Jacob

The choice facing voters in Arizona's Sixth Congressional District in the August 24 Republican primary between Jeff Flake and Jeff Smith is like the choice between Jacob and Edward in Twilight.

Like that vampire-vs.-werewolf rivalry, the AZ-06 primary is a choice for morons created by a moron.

For Arizona's working families, it means: Do they want the blood sucked out of them by a congressman with the work ethic and compassion of a corpse or to be violently attacked by a dopey werewolfish corporate lackey?

It's twilight for America, no matter who wins.

The real question, of course, is what a member of Congress can do for average people who want the competence both Taylor Lautner and Robert Pattinson sadly lack as actors.

We can summarize the contest for the AZ-06 Republican primary by substituting the names of the clueless candidates for the wooden actors in a leading movie critic's review:

Jeff Smith seems to have recently escaped from a high school cheerleading squad somewhere while Jeff Flake’s right-wing pouts convey the peevishness of a guy who just lost a Greta Garbo lookalike contest — for the third time in a row! — to his own girlfriend.

Crazy Arizona Congressman Jeff Flake Uses Anti-Gay Slur on HImself

On August 24, Republican primary voters in Arizona's Sixth Congressional District can decide between two Jeffs: Jeff Smith and crazy incumbent Jeff Flake. Jeff Flake will probably win the primary and then the election. Some people, including many Republicans, say Jeff Flake's worst enemy is Jeff Flake. Read this from Wonkette and you'll know why:

ANTIQUATED SLURS
Rep. Jeff Flake Would Like To Redact That Thing About Referring To Himself As A ‘Pansy’

Republican Arizona congressperson Jeff Flake spent the week on a desert island, literally, and someone asked him how this made him feel. Well, truth is, Jeff Flake hasn’t felt like a man since leavin’ the ranch. Nope, it’s impossible to feel like much of a man at all, with this fancy humans-only society-livin’. “I’ve felt like a pansy, I guess, and this made it feel like I was actually doing something again.” Like, he didn’t feel like such a queer again, on account of all the nature and shit. “Congressman Flake didn’t realize that that word can have a negative connotation. He simply meant ‘wimpy.’ He apologizes if anyone took offense to it,” said his spokesperson. Does this look like the face of a pansy to you?? [Ben Smith]

10:30 AM on Thu October 15 2009
By Juli Weiner
2389 Views

Tagged:

* apologies,
* congress,
* jeff flake,
* pansies,
* antiquated slurs

1.
SayItWithWookies says at 10:33 am, October 15th, 2009
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Looks more like a leg-humper to me.
2.
whiskey tango foxtrot says at 10:35 am, October 15th, 2009
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Did someone redact the linking verb in that there headline?
3.
Lascauxcaveman says at 10:36 am, October 15th, 2009
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As a pure-blodded wimp, I find your apology extremely offensive, sir.
4.
Lascauxcaveman says at 10:37 am, October 15th, 2009
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Heh. “Pure-blooded.”

Wimps can’t spell for shit. And they’re funny looking.
5.
Pop Socket says at 10:37 am, October 15th, 2009
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The question is rhetorical, right?
6.
freakishlystrong says at 10:38 am, October 15th, 2009
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No, that face cold screams “I’m a bottom”…
7.
ph7 says at 10:38 am, October 15th, 2009
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Seeing how he spent his week on the island repeatedly posing for shirtless photos, I think we went in pansy,and came out one, too.
8.
DangerousLiberal says at 10:42 am, October 15th, 2009
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When those kids in 7th grade called me a pansy ’cause I couldn’t play sports for shit, they knew that they really wanted to say “fag.” Which I wasn’t, but still…. So this guy doesn’t know what the word means? Asshat.
9.
queeraselvis v 2.0 says at 10:42 am, October 15th, 2009
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Answer, Jeopardy-style: What is “Hell Yes?”
10.
hobospacejunkie says at 10:44 am, October 15th, 2009
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gay face
11.
Doglessliberal says at 10:44 am, October 15th, 2009
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He didn’t realize the word can have a negative connotation? First: He was using it for its negative connotation. Second: what adult American male doesn’t know what that word connotes? I think it was a requirement for years that coaches of boys’ sports had to scream the word at players. So, if you are going to try to cover your ass after the fact, Flakeboy, do it credibly.

Oh, and Jeff, if you don’t want to be a pansy, have the balls to apologize yourself, OK?
12.
Norbert says at 10:45 am, October 15th, 2009
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Hiking the Appalachian trail = boning an Argentinian lady
Spending a week alone on a desert island = 7 days of nothing but wanking
13.
Doglessliberal says at 10:45 am, October 15th, 2009
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ph7: and he said he was on the island ALONE, with only minimal provisions. So who took the photos, and with what? He MacGyvered up a cocoanut camera on a palm tree tripod?
14.
hobospacejunkie says at 10:45 am, October 15th, 2009
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DangerousLiberal: They couldn’t call you a fag in 7th grade? What a bunch of pansies.
15.
S.Luggo says at 10:46 am, October 15th, 2009
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Jeffy was born in Snowflake, Arizona. End of discussion.
16.
ManchuCandidate says at 10:48 am, October 15th, 2009
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I dunno. He seems rather Flakey to me.
17.
Clancy_Pants says at 10:49 am, October 15th, 2009
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Pitcher or catcher?
18.
PinkyTuscadero says at 10:51 am, October 15th, 2009
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You felt like like something you can buy for 2.99 in the outdoor garden center at the Homos’ Depot? How can that possibly be, given that you hail from that dry-ass clump we call the state of arid zona? At the Depot the miraculous hidden misters administer water from time to time, and that, sir, is how pansies are grown. But in the arid zona, there are no misters. Just missuses. Oh, now I get how you’re a pansy.
19.
Kingbee says at 10:51 am, October 15th, 2009
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The problem is that when at home, he wears his pansy suit — footie pajamas with a big, gorgeous, artificial pansy sewn to the breast. When he was on the island, he was gloriously naked! Flake.
20.
Mustang says at 10:51 am, October 15th, 2009
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He looks like the closeted guy at the party who goes out of his way to look like he’s trying to pick up girls.
21.
WadISay says at 10:51 am, October 15th, 2009
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If you really want to get your manhood back, go to an island where you can hunt “the most dangerous game.”
22.
bfstevie says at 10:52 am, October 15th, 2009
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He probably should’ve said “Nancy boy”. Or, in young people speak, nancy boi.
23.
Marlowe says at 10:52 am, October 15th, 2009
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Does this look like the face of a pansy to you??

Yes.
24.
Woodwards Friend says at 10:52 am, October 15th, 2009
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This is Glenn Beck’s Republican Party. They’re all pansies now. Also they’re all Rush Limbaugh. Whereas.
25.
iolanthe says at 10:52 am, October 15th, 2009
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That is a serious case of gayface.
26.
binarian says at 10:55 am, October 15th, 2009
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“Jeff Flake”? Really? Wow.
27.
WarAndG says at 10:55 am, October 15th, 2009
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Coincidentally Rep. Pansy is trying redact his comment about him being a flake.
28.
Doglessliberal says at 10:56 am, October 15th, 2009
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iolanthe: look at his whole-body shots. Maybe Playgirl will let him do a pictorial with Levi?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/11/AR2009101101760.html
29.
binarian says at 10:56 am, October 15th, 2009
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Oh, and alt text for this pic? “Yeah, kids used to beat me up and take my lunch money in school.”
30.
queeraselvis v 2.0 says at 10:56 am, October 15th, 2009
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Doglessliberal: According to the CNN article, “minimal provisions” included sunscreen (a suggestion made by… wait for it… John McCain), a satellite phone (to call his wife), a desalinator so he could have fresh water, and a snorkeling kit complete with spear and net (to catch him some Chicken of the Sea, presumably). No word on whether or not he brought a soccer ball that he could decorate with a face so he could have someone to talk to.
31.
charlesdegoal says at 10:58 am, October 15th, 2009
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Flake, pansy, what’s the difference?
32.
Mahousu says at 10:59 am, October 15th, 2009
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I wouldn’t call him a pansy. More of a petunia.
33.
ttommyunger says at 11:00 am, October 15th, 2009
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No, he’s not TOO gay! Got to be rough being a little “light” in your cowboy boots when your’re from the “Skidmark State.” You’ll do all kinds of dumb shit to deny it, like spending a week on an island playing wak-a-mole with your wang 24/7. Jeesh!
34.
hobospacejunkie says at 11:01 am, October 15th, 2009
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Jeff Flake has destroyed thousands of lives with his pansy comment. Waiting for news that he hasn’t voted in the past 25 years. Because voting is for pansies.
35.
t_rax says at 11:01 am, October 15th, 2009
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Rep. Matthew McConaughey (R-AZ)
36.
Doglessliberal says at 11:03 am, October 15th, 2009
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queeraselvis v 2.0: what a pansy.
37.
joeybrill says at 11:04 am, October 15th, 2009
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The gray tufted varicose-vein testicle set is HUGE in his area. The have survived circuit parties on less than two bumps and a Snapple. Poor Jeff is dead meat.
38.
teebob2000 says at 11:04 am, October 15th, 2009
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Well, he shouldn’t have spent all that time when he came back in the Tucson Greyhound terminal trolling the men’s room stalls. I know when I do that, I definitely feel like a queer!
39.
progressiveinga says at 11:05 am, October 15th, 2009
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Highlighted hair? Check
Bleached teeth? Check
Plucked eyebrows? Check
Conclusion: Pansy is as pansy does.
40.
Pop Socket says at 11:05 am, October 15th, 2009
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Clancy_Pants: Pinch hitter.
41.
nbawriter says at 11:06 am, October 15th, 2009
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Pansy? I kind of feel a little sorry for the guy if he had to apologize for that.

Do they sell sympathy pairs of Mormon underwear that you can gift for a guy?
42.
nbawriter says at 11:08 am, October 15th, 2009
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queeraselvis v 2.0: (Joe) Wilson!!!! YOU LIE!
43.
qaf says at 11:09 am, October 15th, 2009
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S.Luggo: Shouldn’t he have ten or so slightly-related siblings?
44.
ShiningMathPath says at 11:10 am, October 15th, 2009
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hobospacejunkie: he meant to say “panzy” –like he’d been spending too much time immersed in styrofoam
45.
Aflac Shrugged says at 11:12 am, October 15th, 2009
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It’s not the living amidst the heights of modern convenience that makes you a pansy, Jeff. It’s the intern frosting all over your face.

Just use a wide stance and let your freak flag fly high. It’s only a matter of time before the Republicans elect so many closet cases that they have to back you guys up in public.
46.
qaf says at 11:14 am, October 15th, 2009
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Doglessliberal: To be fair, he was sharing the island with Sally Lightfoot crabs, which seems appropriate somehow.
47.
magic titty says at 11:16 am, October 15th, 2009
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He looks like he masturbates to magazines.
48.
nbawriter says at 11:18 am, October 15th, 2009
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magic titty: So he’s bipartisan?
49.
Doris Ziffel says at 11:18 am, October 15th, 2009
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progressiveinga:Doglessliberal: Not to mention that he apparently works out a lot and wears those skin-tight workout shirts when he’s wearing a shirt at all.
50.
finallyhappy says at 11:18 am, October 15th, 2009
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I guess his constituents are stupid- since the rest of us know he knows what pansy means.
51.
Doglessliberal says at 11:19 am, October 15th, 2009
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Doris Ziffel: not that there’s anything wrong with that
52.
S.Luggo says at 11:21 am, October 15th, 2009
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qaf: Yeah, and they all look like this: http://pbskids.org/teletubbies/noflash/coloring/tinkywinky.gif
53.
Let Me Wet My Beak says at 11:35 am, October 15th, 2009
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The irony is, the pansy is an incredibly hardy flower that blooms amid the snow.
54.
Gopherit says at 11:37 am, October 15th, 2009
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Jake Flake is a delicate flower.
55.
S.Luggo says at 11:39 am, October 15th, 2009
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BTW: Alan Grayson has major hatred for Representative Flake.
http://grayson-for-congress.blogspot.com/2008/04/us-senate-unanimous-against-genetic.html
56.
GayInMaine says at 11:41 am, October 15th, 2009
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Is this the beginning of a sex scandal? Because its been a pretty boring start to Cocktober so far. Just saying.
57.
Come here a minute says at 11:45 am, October 15th, 2009
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I’m offended by ‘wimpy’. Now I’ll never vote for that pansy.
58.
Holden Caulfield says at 11:52 am, October 15th, 2009
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Does this look like the face of a pansy to you??

Not so much the face as the hair. That’s definitely pansy hair.
59.
Barrelhse says at 11:59 am, October 15th, 2009
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Tres Ghey, I’d say.
60.
thefrontpage says at 12:07 pm, October 15th, 2009
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Yes, we guess that working as a federal Congressman isn’t really “doing anything.” Yes, that’s correct, that’s accurate. So please resign from office today, since you’re not really doing anything. And let someone take the office who feels like they are really doing something. Maybe you can write a book about spending a week on an island and eating fish, crab and coconuts. Maybe it’ll even be turned into a movie, starring, maybe, Tom Hanks. But, it should be noted, Tom Hanks is not a pansy.
61.
Humpback says at 12:08 pm, October 15th, 2009
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Ya know, I can see his point. He’s been called a flake all his life and he probably never realized it was an insult.
62.
Monsieur Grumpe says at 12:13 pm, October 15th, 2009
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When I see his photo I envision a Craiglist posting that says:

Will clean your toilet with my tongue for insults and spankings.
63.
house of the blue lights says at 12:27 pm, October 15th, 2009
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Well, he can’t say he felt like “flake” clearly, so what else was left?
64.
Carrie_Okie says at 12:42 pm, October 15th, 2009
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Poofter
65.
chascates says at 12:45 pm, October 15th, 2009
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Hook him up with Meghan.
66.
PuffAdder says at 12:53 pm, October 15th, 2009
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WarAndG: Ahh! Hot miso soup everwhere!! You bastard.

/yeah, he’s a pansy
67.
AnnieGetYourFun says at 1:01 pm, October 15th, 2009
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Hm. I would have said “hockey player on vacation in Hawaii” if you hadn’t gone and ruined it by telling me he’s a politician.
68.
RoscoePColtraine says at 1:17 pm, October 15th, 2009
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Just say “candy-ass” because everyone likes candy.
69.
lawrenceofthedesert says at 1:40 pm, October 15th, 2009
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This entire posting is rampant botanism. Why do animals insist on disseminating devastating caricatures of plants? Is a pansy any less in God’s eyes than a moose? (okay, it’s slightly less funny…) Until plants have equal rights, all of our rights are diminished. Tokenism is no longer enough — electing vegetables like Jeff Flake or Michele Bachmann to Congress won’t suffice. And while we’re at it, let’s change his name to Jeffrey Avalanche for using the p-word.
70.
PsycGirl says at 1:52 pm, October 15th, 2009
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In related news, Congressman Pansy dealt with being a flake.
71.
JSDC007 says at 1:57 pm, October 15th, 2009
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Jack Tripper meets early 90s gay porn set to music by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, i.e., a pussy bottom.
72.
S. Cullen Bonz says at 2:03 pm, October 15th, 2009
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Is that his publicity shot from his tour with “Up With People”?
73.
Vulpes82 says at 2:23 pm, October 15th, 2009
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I wasn’t quite sure based on the portrait, but this picture (http://www.theawl.com/2009/10/congressman-insincerely-apologizes-to-flowers) convinced me: THIS pansy wouldn’t mind being on a desert island with THAT pansy!
74.
Min says at 2:27 pm, October 15th, 2009
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What a flake.
75.
PoignancySelz says at 2:52 pm, October 15th, 2009
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This post was just equal opportunity to all our gay friends, re: Meg’s tatas.
He also looks more excited than a fag in a locker room.
76.
cybervoyeur says at 3:00 pm, October 15th, 2009
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Any pansy or flake that has a worked-out body like that has got to be gay.
77.
Uncle Glenny says at 3:19 pm, October 15th, 2009
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Fuck. As I was skimming my Wonkette I saw that pic before I even read the headling and thought “pansy.”

I mean, how did that guy make it out of high school?
78.
Neoyorquino says at 4:27 pm, October 15th, 2009
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I’m sure he doesn’t feel like a pansy. But I’ll bet you feels pretty. Oh, so pretty. He feels pretty, and witty and . . . well, this is a much easier set-up than a “got a rocket in your pocket” reference. And yes, I enjoy the occasional show tune. What of it?
79.
Violenza says at 8:18 pm, October 15th, 2009
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Closeted weirdo in a wind tunnel!!
80.
Robert Zimmerframe says at 11:02 pm, October 15th, 2009
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“uh, what I really said was chimpanzee, you know, I was climbing the trees and, uh, eating bananas and stuff”.
81.
NYNYNY says at 12:19 am, October 16th, 2009
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Mormon political dynasty scion heiress.
82.
LowerdPeninsula says at 1:41 am, October 16th, 2009
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I’m a bit embarrassed to say that I didn’t know the connotation of the word until I was probably a teen, and played “Smeer the Queer” at recess (a kind of primative football/rugby hybrid for those that don’t know) during my elementary school days thinking of the name of the game as practically one word, and/or having no idea what a ‘queer’ was.

At this guy’s age, however, he’s just bold-facedly lying.


Read more at Wonkette

Richard Grayson Green Party for Congress AZ-06 Campaign "Vigorously Opposed" by Conservative Republican Local Blogger Telemoonfa

The well-known local East Valley conservative Republican blogger Telemoonfa today has posted a letter to his (or her) readers viciously attacking the congressional candidacy of the Green Party's Richard Grayson in Arizona's Sixth Congressional District, calling him "psychopathic." Here is the opening and the end, but you should read the whole post to understand this commentator's reasons for opposing us:

Dear Readers,

So there’s a psychopathic Green Party guy masquerading as a legitimate politician named Richard Grayson. I wish I could tell you that Richard lives in Hollyweird, or in Communist Cuba, but the truth is, he’s very very close to us...

Oh, that Richard Grayson...I vigorously oppose him!

Sincerely,
Telemoonfa

P.S. Let me ask you a serious question, Richard Grayson. Why are you running for office? I think you’re crazy, and I think your party’s crazy, and I think you have no chance of winning, so I don’t know why you’re running. Why don’t you just become a Democrat and try to make the Democratic Party Greener? That’s the sensible thing to do. (Oh wait, actually the really sensible thing to do would be to become a conservative Republican.)

P.P.S. There's no way I can endorse you, Richard Grayson! You're running against Jeff Smith, and I endorse Jeff Smith!

Apparently Jeff Smith is running against Congressman Jeff Flake in the August 24 Republican primary.

We tried to get a photo of Telemoonfa to illustrate this post, but if you type "Telemoonfa" in the Google image search engine, it shows results for Telemundo. We would rather be opposed by Telemoonfa than Telemundo.