Being Conservative Means Never Having to Say You’re Thinking

Think Progress » The Future Is Chaos: GOP Threatens Retribution Against Cao For Health Care Vote 

In a statement, Cao explained that the needs of his constituents trumped partisan politicking:

I read the versions of the House [health reform] bill. I listened to the countless stories of Orleans and Jefferson Parish citizens whose health care costs are exploding — if they are able to obtain health care at all. Louisianans needs real options for primary care, for mental health care, and for expanded health care for seniors and children. […]

I have always said that I would put aside partisan wrangling to do the business of the people. My vote tonight was based on my priority of doing what is best for my constituents.

The reaction to Cao from the right wing has been swift and fierce, with some comparing the only non-Hispanic minority in the GOP caucus to Mao Tse Tung and calling him racial epithets. Rep. Don Young (R-AK) — who has defended Cao’s vote — had to stand beside him during Saturday’s roll call, “fending off his GOP colleagues who might have twisted Cao’s arms.” Last week, RNC Chairman Michael Steele made clear that moderates who don’t walk the Party line have no place in the GOP:

So candidates who live in moderate to slightly liberal districts have got to walk a little bit carefully here, because you do not want to put yourself in a position where you’re crossing that line on conservative principles, fiscal principles, because we’ll come after you.

Cao “chuckled” in response to Steele’s comments, pointing out that his vision would essentially lead the party toward a path of political suicide. “He has the right to come after those members who do not conform to party lines,” said Cao, “but I would hope that he would work with us in order to adjust to the needs of the district and to hold a seat that the Republican party would need.”

Think Progress » The Future Is Chaos: GOP Threatens Retribution Against Cao For Health Care Vote

Send Saruh Back to the North Pole

Is the nation really longing for a president who would make Duhbya look like a statesman?

Think Progress » Palin gives a lackluster speech in Wisconsin, frequently uses ‘bogus’ or ‘awesome’ to discuss weighty topics. 

Politico reports that Friday’s speech was less than inspiring:

Palin had remarks prepared but frequently wandered off-script to make a point, offering audience members a casual “awesome” or “bogus” in discussing otherwise weighty topics.

As in: “It is so bogus that society is sending a message right now and has been for probably the last 40 years that a woman isn’t strong enough or smart enough to be able to pursue an education, a career and her rights and still let her baby live.”

Other Palin touchstones included: praise for the military, jeers for the “the liberal media” and a general manner of speaking that often veered into rhetorical culs-de-sac.

While she drew applause during her remarks, Palin’s extemporaneous and frequently discursive style was such that she never truly roused a true-believing crowd as passionate about the issue at hand as she. Not once during her address did they rise to their feet.

Palin warned on her Facebook page last night that the “death panel” provision is in the health care bill that just passed the House.

Think Progress » Palin gives a lackluster speech in Wisconsin, frequently uses ‘bogus’ or ‘awesome’ to discuss weighty topics.

I Don’t Feel the Least Bit Safer – Quite the Opposite

A run on bullets | StarTribune.com 
By DAVID A. FAHRENTHOLD and FREDRICK KUNKLE , Washington Post

Gun owners have bought about 12 billion rounds of ammunition in the past year, industry officials estimate. That’s up from 7 billion to 10 billion in a recent years.

The explanation for the run on bullets lies partly in economics: Once rounds were scarce, people hoarded them, which made them scarcer.

But the rush for bullets, like this year’s increase in gun sales, also says something about how suspicious the two sides in the gun-control debate are of each other, even at a time when the issue is on Washington’s back burner.

A run on bullets | StarTribune.com

The Courage of Their Convictions? From the Party of Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt?

Think Progress » GOP Gone Wild: Unruly Republicans Silence Women Lawmakers With Screams, Shouts, And Delay Tactics

This morning, the House began consideration of the rule for debate of the House health care bill. As the Democratic Women’s Caucus took to the microphone on the House floor to offer their arguments for how the bill would benefit women, House Republicans — led by Rep. Tom Price (R-GA) — repeatedly talked over, screamed, and shouted objections. “I object, I object, I object, I object, I object,” Price interjected as Rep. Lois Capps (D-CA) tried to hold the floor.

In an effort to delay and derail the proceedings, the Republicans continually talked over the Democratic women for half an hour. They sought to prevent the debate by calling for unnecessary “parliamentary inquiries” and requests for “expanding the debate” by an hour.

Think Progress » GOP Gone Wild: Unruly Republicans Silence Women Lawmakers With Screams, Shouts, And Delay Tactics

Think Progress » Tom Tancredo storms off the set of MSNBC during debate with DailyKos’ Markos Moulitsas.

When the other guest on the program, DailyKos founder Markos Moulitsas, started laughing, Tancredo replied, “You’re laughing, but talk to the veterans. They talk to me, and that’s why they said.” Markos then informed Tancredo that he actually is a veteran, adding, “I did not get a deferment because I was too depressed to fight in a war that I supported in Vietnam. I’m a veteran, Tom.” Tancredo became incensed at Markos, calling his comment “stupid” and demanding that he apologize. When he didn’t, Tancredo stormed off the set.

As Markos noted, Tancredo was eligible to serve in Vietnam and was a supporter of the war, but received a deferment after “he went for his physical, telling doctors

he’d been treated for depression.” After Tancredo left, Markos went on to say that Republicans are “terrified of government programs that work” because it threatens the myths they have built up.

Think Progress » Tom Tancredo storms off the set of MSNBC during debate with DailyKos’ Markos Moulitsas.

Meanwhile, On Planet Krauthammer…

While calcified Cal Thomas represents the frightened (and, consequently, most dangerous) among conservatives, Chuck Krauthammer speaks for those simply living in denial. For Krauthammer, the recent elections aren’t a sign of hope that the pendulum is swinging back his way. No, the pendulum never swung away for Krauthammer. We remain a nation of conservatives. Not merely a 50-50 split, but a majority of conservatives. 2008 was merely aberrant, according to the sage.

Charles Krauthammer – Charles Krauthammer on the realignment myth of 2008 – washingtonpost.com

Just last month Gallup found that conservatives outnumber liberals by 2 to 1 (40 percent to 20 percent) and even outnumber moderates (at 36 percent). [mjh: Plus they’re better armed!] So on Tuesday, the "rump" rebelled. It’s the natural reaction of a center-right country to a governing party seeking to rush through a left-wing agenda using temporary majorities created by the one-shot election of 2008. The misreading of that election — and of the mandate it allegedly bestowed — is the fundamental cause of the Democratic debacle of 2009.

[mjh: Frankly, there still seems ample evidence of the following]

… the terminal decline of the Republican Party into a regional party of the Deep South or a rump party of marginalized angry white men.

Charles Krauthammer – Charles Krauthammer on the realignment myth of 2008 – washingtonpost.com

On Reagan, Obama and my favorite hysteric | Jay Bookman

So what does history tell us?

Well, Reagan was elected in November 1980 with 50.7 percent of the vote (Obama got 52.9). In December 1980, just a month later, the U.S. economy officially went into a deep recession. …

So, what happened in the off-year election of 1982?

Why, the Republicans under Reagan lost a net of seven governorships and 27 seats in the House. That result clearly demolished any claim that the GOP had a mandate and proved that the election of 1980 had been “one of the great flukes in American political history.”

Right, Mr. Krauthammer?

I mean, if losing two governorships while gaining one congressional seat proves that the American people have rejected Obama, surely the loss of seven governorships and 27 House seats ended Ronald Reagan as a political force.

Right?

Hello?

On Reagan, Obama and my favorite hysteric | Jay Bookman

While I have no advice for conservatives other than keep doing what you’re doing, Democrats would do well to remember that awful moment when Karl “The Architect of Victory” Rove declared after 2004 that a generation of Republican rule was beginning. Within two years, that ship was burning and two years after that the only people still clinging to the wreckage of the party were ready to kill each other. Things always change, which is a reality that ultimately repudiates Conservatism, if the actions of its worshippers don’t already. You’re up, you’re down, you’re never the same in the long run.

To those who voted in 2008 but not in 2009: You can’t just vote one time – you have to vote every goddamn time. Yeah, it’s tedious, but not nearly as much as Duhbya’s Reign of Error. Do you want to return to the good old days? No? VOTE!

This Week’s WTF?!

By the following logic, no one has ever had a mandate.

ABQJOURNAL OPINION/LETTERS: U.S. Needs To Return to Its Roots

Only 30 percent of eligible voters participated in that election. Of that number, barely 52 percent voted for Obama. That means only 15.6 percent of eligible voters in America chose Obama as their president. The other 84.4 percent either actively voted against him or chose not to participate…. That is hardly a mandate from the people! [mjh: But better than Raygun did.]
       Who is this man elected by a scant 15.6 percent of the voting public? Does he care about you and me? Clearly he does! He feels we are too stupid to intelligently manage our money, so he is going to have the government do it for us. We are too ignorant to manage our health care, so he is going to manage it for us. Do we sense a theme?… [mjh: er, yes, the theme is utter cluelessness over what’s really going on in DC.]
       What we need is to mobilize the 70 percent of the voting population that did not speak up in 2008, and in 2010 we need to radically change the population of Washington, D.C. We need people who are truly our representatives. The majority of Americans identify themselves as conservative. We need to get them out to vote and move America back to its roots. Hard work, quality of life, the nuclear family and a government that lets us run our own lives — that’s what we need.
       GENE and GRETCHEN LINCOLN
       Albuquerque

ABQJOURNAL OPINION/LETTERS: U.S. Needs To Return to Its Roots

Zing!

New Mexico Politics: New Mexico FBIHOP:: Random quote from Massachusetts

[Massachusetts Democrat Barney] Frank, a Massachusetts liberal, told an audience: "Some of the people (at the rally) that wanted to engage me in conversation appeared to have been the losers in the ‘Are you smarter than Michele Bachmann contest?’."

New Mexico Politics: New Mexico FBIHOP:: Random quote from Massachusetts

Which brings me back to this gem from August:

mjh’s blog — Huzzah to Barney Frank! 

Frank then excoriated a woman who asked a question while holding up a picture of President Obama defaced to look like Hitler:

QUESTION: Why do you continue to support a Nazi policy as Obama has expressly supported this policy? Why are you supporting it? […]

FRANK: On what planet do you spend most of your time? … You want me to answer the question? Yes. You stand there with a picture of the President defaced to look like Hitler and compare the effort to increase health care to the Nazis. My answer to you is, as I said before, it is a tribute to the First Amendment that this kind of vile, contemptible nonsense is so freely propagated.

Frank concluded: “Trying to have a conversation with you would be like arguing with a dining room table.”

mjh’s blog — Huzzah to Barney Frank!