House minority whip Eric Cantor explains how he supports Rush Limbaugh as the Republican Party’s leading economist, with some really great “ideas.” Like cutting taxes for corporations and wealthy Americans, while slashing government spending on Medicare and Medicaid. Now, why didn’t Republicans think of this when they had complete control of the government over the last eight years? Oops… they did.

Meanwhile, Reuters reports in One in 10 Americans receiving food stamps that indeed, a record 32.2 million Americans are now receiving food assistance to the tune of just over $112 a month. This reflects the latest unemployment figures, 8.1% in February, the highest in a quarter century. Luckily, under President Obama’s stimulus plan, food stamp recipients will be getting a temporary 13% increase which still won’t actually feed a person for a whole month given rapid inflation of food prices, but will stretch the budget a little farther.

DKos diarist Dartagnan offers the Republican response to the situation of so many Americans finding themselves in need of assistance from the government to cover something so basic as food. It won’t surprise you any more than Limbaugh’s not-new “ideas” about how to keep the rich from having to pay their fair share toward the public good.

Seems Craig Blair, a state legislator in one of America’s poorest states – West Virginia – has introduced a bill that will require recipients of food stamps or any other form of government assistance to submit to random drug testing. He includes unemployment benefits in his plan, reflecting once again the tired old Republican worldview that insists that people down on their luck and in need of assistance are just lazy, drug-addicted bums that don’t deserve a handout (even if they’ve been paying for unemployment insurance for many years). That this testing would add an entire layer of bureaucracy and hoop-jumping doesn’t seem to bother him, nor does the additional millions of dollars it will cost the state to test those long lines of people at the unemployment office. Jerkwad.

But West Virginia wingnuts aren’t the only ones on the New Eugenics bandwagon. Lawmakers in 10 states are now considering the very same type of legislation. They tried this in both Michigan and Arizona, but those laws were either struck down in court or found to be so expensive they were unworkable. In Tennessee, state representative Susan Lynn introduced similar drug testing legislation, justifying it with the usual Repuglican sense of social justice…

“Taxpayers are concerned that they might be funding the monster of drug addiction, and they don’t want that,” Lynn said. “This is really no different than what people are used to.”

Wow. I didn’t know you could buy pot with food stamps! Did you? Can Rush Limbaugh use them to buy Oxycontin?

Amazing…

Alas, the now-marginalized Republican Party is desperately attempting to solidify the ‘base’ it lost in the past two general election cycles, even to the point of declaring wealthy radio hate-monger, opportunist, chickenhawk and drug addict Rush Limbaugh to be their new Dear Leader. Whoa. Can things get weirder than that?

Aparently so. We’ve got Bill O’Reilly and Bernie Goldberg talking about beating up editorialists with baseball bats on cable television. We’ve got Total Gym shill Chuck Norris and Glenn Beck talking about setting up sleeper cells, and some actual Senators and Congressmen talking secession! No, that wasn’t just a Sarah Palin deal for Alaskan Independence. They might be serious this time.

Neo-Nazis planning those “dirty bombs” Bush-II used to love so much as a scare tactic, total idiots stuffing the SCOTUS with challenges to Obama’s citizenship while telling troops they don’t have to obey the orders of the Commander In Chief, things are getting weirder by the day. Sedition. Advocacy of open rebellion, talk of terrorist acts and assassination.

These things were illegal – and considered real threats to National Security – back when it was liberals said to be doing the organizing. Why isn’t it illegal now? Was Timothy McVeigh a liberal nutjob or a militia wingnut? Our home grown terrorists and assassins aren’t generally from the ranks of the left, at least not since the Weathermen got shut down during Tricky Dick’s reign.

With Obama’s approval ratings hovering somewhere between 69 and 85% across the board, these people whose Neocon hero left office with less than 30% approval must surely be very frightened about their marginalization in last November’s election to “Southern Regional” that couldn’t even carry most of the south. They aren’t all that many, but they have powerful advocates in mass media and in the halls of Congress, and are being actively encouraged toward violence. The weak-minded among them will snap – that’s inevitable. Will we bring their puppeteers to face justice for yelling FIRE! in the theater?

These crazy people have always been with us, a reliable 20% of the population in the best of times but mostly lazy and/or inept. Perhaps Obama can manage to get some sort of universal health care concessions to cover psychiatric treatment most people can’t afford these days. In the meantime, I personally have been encouraged by some cross-linking of the Netroots DKos community and official FBI monitors of hate speech and crime, assassination threats, etc. That might seem like an odd pairing to you too, dear readers, but the pendulum has officially swung. America must be dragged – kicking and screaming if need be – into the 21st century.

I was born in the ’50s, but I sure don’t want to go back there at this late date. My memory is pretty good, and things weren’t really so great back then. I also remember ‘63 and ‘68. Things weren’t so great then either. In fact, I’m sick and tired of having all my hopes toward the future on the political and popular fronts dashed by assassin’s bullets and seditionist’s bombs. I’m not afraid of crazy Muslim Mullahs in caves halfway across the world, refuse to live my life in fear of them. There are people born and present right here in the U.S. of A. that are a heck of a lot bigger threat to my peace and prosperity quotient. I say we stop them this time before they kill hundreds or thousands of us.

The news from the Alaska State Legislature on their investigation of governor Sarah Palin’s abuse of power was not good. The Branchflower report [pdf] was released last week with some damning conclusions about the Palin’s personal vendetta against her ex-brother in law and Todd Palin’s immediate misuse of state resources and personnel to further their attempt to get Trooper Wooten fired from his job and denied worker’s compensation for an on the job injury. Beginning the very day after Sarah was elected governor.

Sarah Palin, now John McCain’s vice presidential candidate, spent the weekend expressing how happy she is that the investigation showed that she broke no laws, even though the actual report demonstrates clearly that she did violate ethics regulations – which is illegal. Especially in terms of allowing her husband, who was not elected to any office, to use state resources and personnel to pursue his family feud.

The situation is currently up in the air as to what the Alaskan legislature will do with the findings, state law seemingly requires that Palin be impeached for her violations. That of course cannot be accomplished before November 4th, but on November 5th Palin will be heading back to Wasilla, merely the governor again and not the VP of the United States. I predict she will be impeached by the time Barack Obama is sworn in on January 20, 2009. At which point she will be free to spend more quality time with the family she’s been so eager to exploit for her own personal gain.

Check out DKos front-pager Kagro X’s overview of the report and its findings in Todd Palin, Creepy “First Stalker”. These are not people we want in any position of real power over all of us, even if you happen to be John McCain. Who, despite his desperate desire to be President, was hoodwinked into allowing Dobson & Co. to pick his running mate sans vetting, and is finally coming to realize as their appearances become uglier and uglier that he’s been had big time. I think he’s purposefully throwing the race at this point. Possibly the most honorable thing he as a patriot has ever done for his country.

Now if he could just rein in his gangster-affiliated wife and HER thirst for power… This country absolutely doesn’t need a Cindy-Todd administration!

You can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig. An old adage of folk wisdom akin to not buying a pig in a poke, not happening until pigs fly, and teenager’s bedrooms likened to a pig-sty. It’s been a coon’s age to a gnat’s ass, he needs to buck up and take it like a man, you can’t make a silk purse from a sow’s ear.

Republican John McCain’s campaign flunkies are all over this observation about the situation in Iraq, claiming that Obama called VP hopeful Sarah Palin a “pig” because she likened herself to a “pit bull with lipstick” in her RNC acceptance speech. What a total load of hooey! Looks to me like John McCain’s campaign thinks of Sarah Palin as a pig wearing lipstick, and wants everyone to notice.

When Joe Biden talked about funding for stem cell research in hope of treatments and cures for genetic diseases, the McCain campaign insisted the subject of people with ’special needs’ is off the table because Palin has a baby with Downs Syndrome. Huh!??! That’s like saying the subject of health care is off the table because Sarah Palin flew 2,000 miles and drove an hour across the tundra after her water broke so she could have a baby with Downs Syndrome at her local stitch-em-up. Or…

The subject of sex education is off the table because Sarah Palin’s 17-year old daughter is pregnant. The subject of co-mingling church and state is off the table because Sarah Palin’s a dominionist holy-roller. The subject of reproductive rights is off the table because Sarah Palin can’t keep from getting pregnant. The state of the union is off the table because the Palins have secessionist ties. Science education is off the table because Sarah Palin believes Adam and Eve rode to church on a dinosaur. The subject of family law is off the table because Sarah Palin’s in the middle of a blood feud with her ex-in-laws…

Wow. Who’d have thought at the beginning of the summer that the Republicans would succeed in taking all issues of national concern and policy off the table just by picking a whiny, self-described pit bull wearing lipstick as Vice-Presidential running-mate? Thaaaaat’s some clever new 21st century Politics!

There is hope that the Tabloid Press can manage to reach the millions of low-information voters at the grocery checkout lines with lurid details of the Palin family’s dysfunctional soap operas in the not-so frozen northland. But then, those same low-information voters might vote for McCain/Palin just to keep themselves in cheap entertainment for the next four years. There is hope that Americans with 3-digit IQs will wake up and smell the frying bacon… er, mooseburgers, vote the nation’s best interests this fall instead of their own boredom.

You never know… we might be pleasantly surprised.

Well, I was going to report on the St. Paul RNC this week like I did the DNC in Denver last week, but it never quite caught my attention. Hardly anybody went (including the President and Vice-President of the United States, who are the party’s figureheads), Weather was lousy in Louisiana so the first day got put off altogether, and Fred Thompson makes me go to sleep.

But I’ve honestly gotta say, this whole Alaska Momma mooseburger beauty queen thing with Sarah Palin has me utterly and completely befoozled. Bamboozled. Conundrumated. WTF???

First thing out of the gate was that she’s been governator for less than two years, and before that was mayor of a town the same size as Wilburton, Oklahoma (where Granny lives). Then she violated military regulations and operations security by telling everybody her 18-year old son is deploying on September 11. Then she lied about her close relationship with indicted AK senator Ted Stevens and his “bridge to nowhere”, and ‘forgot’ to tell anyone that her own state Senate has her under current investigation for abuse of power. Oops.

Then she threw her pregnant 17-year old daughter under the bus to ‘prove’ the Downs Syndrome baby is really her son and not her grandson, even though just showing his birth certificate would have done the trick fine. Then she denied ever being a member of the Alaskan Independence Party, but only addressed their conventions occasionally as some sort of ‘courtesy’. Before it came out that her hubby indeed was a member of AIP – and its “plastic explosives deal gone bad” characters until 2002. Then… then…

It’s just a scandal a minute, I can’t keep up! Obviously, no one from McCain’s campaign – or the government – ever vetted Ms. Mooseburger. Well, there’s a reason for that too, now that the mainstream media’s awake and paying attention. Turns out she was vetted by James Dobson & Crew, who apparently got carte blanche from the McMansions campaign to pick the V.P. And I’m guessing the only vetting CNP did was to call her hometown preacher. Just… Wow.

So. Since I’m too fascinated by this soap opera to bother with the RNC, here’s the icing on the cake:

Via NRO, Enquirer reporting Palin Adultery

Another incredible allegation emerging from the family war is that Palin, a mother of five, had an affair with a former business associate of her fisherman husband, Todd.

“Todd discovered the affair and quickly dissolved his friendship and his business associations with the guy,” charges an enemy. “Many people in Alaska are talking about the rumor and say Todd swept it under the rug.”

Who knows if that one’s true? It *is* the Enquirer, which isn’t noted for its journalistic standards. But then again, they’re the ones who busted John Edwards, so it might be. I’m not taking any odds at this point, given how completely bizzaro this whole thing is so far.

And it’s been less than a week since we first heard of her. Just… Wow.

The Democratic National Convention wrapped up last night with the most inspiring, detail-filled, well-delivered acceptance speech ever, and I can remember all the way back to Ike’s. Obama looked, as usual, cool and collected as he ran down the list of what needs doing, while hitting hard on the past 7+ years of failed leadership, insane paranoia of the American people, legalized torture, and their bid for a third term with Lt. Commander McMansions.

Presuming that readers wouldn’t have missed it for anything, the speech needs no quoting here. I’d just like to remind everyone that on the 45th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s I Have A Dream speech, Barack Obama amply underlined his soaring rhetorical skills in front of 84,000 people in Mile High Stadium and millions worldwide. The Repuglicans are right to be afraid of him. The dream lives on, might even become a reality in November.

As if to attach yet another exclamation point to that piece of serious history, John McCain announced his Veep pick – it’s Alaska governor Sarah Palin. I know, I know. You’ve never heard of her, have you? She’s a real piece of work, probably chosen by McCain’s ‘handlers’ rather than he himself in a desperate bid for the PUMA plants, all dozen of ‘em having spent all week whining that the ‘Pug’s first opponent choice didn’t get the nomination. Who is this person, you ask? Well…

Palin is a 44-year old anti-choice Mom of five with a newborn son who has Downs Syndrome and another son soon being deployed to Iraq. That will probably work to blunt attacks on her wingnut positions, but she’s got another problem too. She is under current investigation by the Alaskan legislature’s Joint Legislative Council for abuse of power after she summarily fired Walt Monegan from his job as Public Safety Commissioner, apparently because he refused to fire Palin’s ex-brother in law Michael Wooten. Palin’s sister and Wooten had been through a “messy divorce,” and the Council is unanimous in its suspicion that the firing came as retribution.

Now that she’s the Veep nominee, though, we can all be reassured that the DOJ will probably move in to quash the investigation by late this afternoon. Here’s some juicy tidbits from a KTVA story dated Thursday [8-15] entitled Governor and staff’s latest explanations leave more questions. In the left hand sidebar are links to various documents pertinent to the investigation.

I suppose she’s lucky that John McCain has offered her another, better job just as this situation threatened to explode and end in her own summary firing by impeachment. Hahaha!!! Oh, my. Maybe there simply aren’t any honest Republicans to choose from. Sort of makes me feel a little sorry for McCain. This election is definitely not going to be close enough to steal.

Looks like we’ll be treated beginning on September 1 to the spectacle of what happens when the Party of Bush/Cheney meets in St. Paul, Minnesota for their quadrennial bash and the inside-the-beltway crowd of insiders decides to stay home, closer to their call-girls (and boys). I mean, Minnesota is so… so… midwestern.

Instead of an all-star lineup and four long days of never-ending party, the focus has been on the number of Republican senators and such who have decided to skip the formalities this year and spend their time trying to save their jobs from increasingly disgusted voters in their home states.

The Associated Press reports that at least six Republican senators are opting out – Ted Stevens of Alaska, who was indicted on felony graft charges last month, won’t be there. Gordon Smith of Oregon has been touting his close working relationship with Barack Obama and John Kerry to his constituents, hoping not to get tossed in the anti-Bush backlash against McSame. Liz Dole of North Carolina and Susan Collins of Maine are both facing challengers who are entirely likely to win. Wayne Allard of Colorado and “Wide Stance” Larry Craig of Idaho won’t be there either. They’re retiring.

George Bush and Dick Cheney will of course be there to speechify their increasingly dispirited troops. Looks like ‘independent’ Joe Lieberman will be attending, probably to accept the VP nomination from McSame that will do more to seal the doom of the modern Republican Party than anything Democrats could possibly think up.

Should be interesting to see who else decides to stay home this year. I’ll report on no-shows as they don’t show.

Links:

Wonkette: Even Republicans Don’t Want to Attend Convention
Six Republican senators to skip GOP convention