Exceptional American Doucherism

Rethugs vote to throw the world’s disabled over the cliff

Is It Over For Grover?

In a front page story Tuesday titled For Tax Pledge and Its Author, a Test of Time, the NY Times meditates on the prospects of Grover “Poopy Head” Grover following the decisive defeat of the GOP in the 2012 presidential elections.

The article begins thusly:

Next to the oath of office, it has been perhaps the most important commitment that Republicans in Congress can make. It is called simply “the Pledge,” and its enforcer is such a fixture in the party that he is known simply by his first name, Grover.

But the pledge and its creator, Grover Norquist, a 56-year-old conservative lobbyist, have never before faced a test as they do now. The federal deficit stands at $1 trillion. The social safety net continues to grow — and, in the case of Medicare and Social Security, remains hugely popular. And unless the two parties can agree on a fiscal plan before Jan. 1, hundreds of billions of dollars of tax increases will go into effect automatically, meaning that Congress does not even need to act for taxes to rise.

The combination means that Mr. Norquist, whose long record of success is a rarity in Washington, finds himself in a tricky spot. Some top Republicans, including Speaker John A. Boehner, are saying they now agree with Democrats that the government must collect more tax revenue. Others have gone so far as to break with Mr. Norquist publicly.

By Mr. Norquist’s count, 219 House members — enough for a majority — and 39 senators have committed to the pledge. But some of those members who signed on, many of them years ago, have started to back away, apparently leaving him several votes shy of the majority he would need to block any tax increase.

The last broad-based tax increase the Rethugs supported was 22 years ago, signed into law by George H.W. Bush.  So it may be a bit early to write his political epitaph.

For instance, mid-term elections like the one coming up in 2014 historically favor the losers of the previous presidential election. And Citizens United will continue to pump ungodly amounts of money into GOP campaigns. Presumably, the 43 billionaires who supported Mitt Romney will know better than to naively dump all their money on political hucksters like Karl Rove and Dick Armey.

Nonetheless, exit polls from Nov. 6 show a growing majority of voters supporting tax increases on the rich to help bring the deficit under control and to preserve vital safety net programs for the poor and middle class. While I don’t believe I’ve ever before quoted John McCain clone Lindsey Graham favorably, he did state the obvious when he told the Washington Post:

The demographics race we’re losing badly. We’re not generating enough angry white guys to stay in business for the long term.”

Hear that, Poopy Head?

Blaming The Victims

  Thanks to a five hour delay in my flight yesterday (first plane was two hours late, and after finally boarding it and sitting in it for a half hour, we had to deplane for mechanical reasons, forced to wait again until the airline could find us another bird); and having run out of battery charge for my laptop, I …

Mitt Channels the Bushes

The embodiment of clueless detachment, W., stares  out his unopenable window as New Orleans drowns in Hurrican Katrina

Unfreaking believable. From the LA Times:

During a Saturday fundraiser in Beverly Hills, Calif., which took in $6 million, Mitt Romney expressed his concerns over Ann Romney’s emergency landing on Friday. The candidate cast doubt on the mechanical design of airplane windows, in a general sense.

“When you have a fire in an aircraft, there’s no place to go, exactly, there’s no — and you can’t find any oxygen from outside the aircraft to get in the aircraft, because the windows don’t open. I don’t know why they don’t do that. It’s a real problem. So it’s very dangerous….” he said.

Romney’s idea doesn’t work scientifically, as one blogger on Dailykos explains:

“It’d be like the mile-high club for Seamus, with the added benefit of asphyxiation induced by the low oxygen levels at cruising altitude — assuming that you manage to avoid having the plane rip apart due to the sudden loss of cabin pressure.”

Also, too: Terrarists, How they would love not having to stuff their shoes or underwear with C-4  Just take a window seat, and when the time comes, jimmy it open. Shortly thereafter, seventy virgins will appear.

Ya know, I’d always credited Mittens with an above average IQ, him having graduated from Harvard with a dual law/MBA degree and all. But this story has to make you wonder. Consider this his W.’s Katrina and Poppy Bush’s supermarket scanner moment, all rolled into one.

Rope & Change: The Birth Of A Nation

Tracing Racism from the 1915 film The Birth of a Nation to the 2012 GOP Presidential Campaign

Making My Super Bowl Day

Clint Eastwood tells it like it is Yesterday’s Super Bowl was the most viewed telvision event ever, with a world wide audience estimated at 111 million plus. Yeah, it was an exciting game, down to the last second failed Hail Mary pass in the dead end zone by the New England Patriots‘ Tom Brady. But it was the half time interregnum …