Insane Repugs We Have Known, UPDATE: The more things change, the more they are exactly the f*cking same

Here in no particular order, are some of our all-time favorite Insane Repugs, depicted in our favorite way:

Welcome To The United States

Zappa Immigrant Welcome To The United StatesDo you have a communicable disease?  Physical or mental disorder? Are you a drug abuser or addict?  Have you ever been arrested or convicted for an offense or crime involving moral turpitude, or a violation related to a controlled substance, or ever been arrested or convicted for two or more offenses for which the aggregate sentence to confinement was five years or more?  Have you ever been a controlled substance trafficker? Are you seeking entry to engage in criminal or immoral activities?  Have you ever been or are you now involved in espionage or sabotage? Or terrorist activities? Or genocide?  Or between 1933 and 1945 were you involved, in any way, in persecutions associated with Nazi Germany or its allies?

Rainer Römer: Ladies and gentlemen, here he goes, Peter Rundel, he seems to be disgusted. Whatever. Ridero ridera! Heute fängt die Fastnacht aa’ Ha ha ha! LAUGH NOW! (HA HA HA HA HA!) Be quiet! Von seiner Werkbank zu uns heute Abend hergekommen ist unser Hermann Kretzschmar wolle mer’n reinlasse? Laugh now! (HA HA HA HA HA!)

Welcome to the United States!

This form must be completed by every nonimmigrant visitor not in possession of a visitor’s visa.

Type or print legibly in pen in ALL CAPITAL LETTERS. USE ENGLISH.

Item 7—If you are entering the United States by land, enter LAND in this space. (LAND!) If you are entering the United States by ship, enter, unh-unh, SEA in this space.

Do any of the following apply to you? (Answer Yes or No)

(No! No! Yes! No! Yes! No!)

A. Do you have a communicable disease; (COUGH NOW! Coughs . . . ) physical or mental disorder; or are you a drug abuser or addict?

Tell me, Bill, Yes or No. (No) Louder. (No!)

B. Have you ever been arrested or convicted for an offense or crime involving moral turpitude or a violation related to a controlled substance; or ever been arrested or convicted for two or more offenses for which the aggregate sentence to confinement was five years or more?

Answer Yes or No. (Yes! Yes, sir! Yes! No! No! No!)

Or been a controlled substance trafficker; or are you seeking entry to engage in criminal or immoral activities?

Answer Yes or No. (Yes or No) Thank you!

C. Have you ever been or are you now involved in espionage or sabotage; or terrorist activities; or genocide; or between 1933 and 1945 were you involved, in any way, in persecutions associated with Nazi Germany or its allies?

Answer Yes or No. (Yes)

Thank you very much! And welcome to the United States!

 

Original photograph from Chaplin’s 1917 film, The Immigrant:

Charlie The Immigrant

 

 

FAILURE “R” US

The Republican party, some with paper bags over their heads in silent protest, seemed genuinely unaware that the banner they placed behind themselves was a scathing indictment of their failure to face the reality.

Tales From The Benghazi Crypt Keeper (Update)

Crypt Keeper John McCain says: “Hello, Boils and Ghouls. Welcome to my nightmare.”

Is it just US (Urantian Sojourn), or is John McCain becoming a decrepit parody of himself?

Just as he has never gotten over being tortured by the North Vietnamese, manifest in his ‘bomb the hell out of ’em’ knee-jerk response to nearly every foreign policy crisis,  he will never get over losing to The Black Man in The White House.

Early in President Obama’s first term, McCain beat the war drums on Iran. During the Arab Spring, he demanded that our default response be to arm every opposition group in sight, despite the fact that many of them are Islamic fundamentalists with Al Qaeda sympathies.  The strategy of “leading from behind” that operated so effectively in overthrowing Libya’s Mohamar Qadaffi, costing not a single American life, makes McCain’s wrinkled and liver spotted skin crawl right off his malformed skeleton. (That skeletal malformation was the result of a crash landing he endured after being shot down over heavily populated Hanoi by the Vietnamese during one of his 23 bombing sorties.) This is a guy who really, really enjoys the smell of napalm in the morning.

Not surprising then that he would immediately jump all over the Benghazi tragedy. Instead of waiting for a thorough investigation of how and why four brave Americans lost their lives (former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen (ret.), is conducting one such investigation for the State Department), McCain accused the Administration of a political cover-up, supposedly to preserve President Obama’s national security cred in the run-up to the election. Killing Usama bin Laden had effectively neutered what had been a major GOP political advantage, national defense. Given that they had thoroughly tanked the economy under George W. Bush, they had little left to hang their hats on.

A few weeks later, Obama won the election in an electoral landslide and the popular vote by nearly four percentage points. At that point, you would have thought that all the election year cover-up hype would have died a natural death. Not so, when the ever-vengeful McCain catches the scent of blood and feces in the air.

(Perhaps his shattered dreams of being appointed Secretary of Defense in a Mitt Romney administration added fuel to his always simmering anger. How would someone with McCain’s psychological profile confront the loss of an opportunity to do more than just sing “Bomb, bomb, bomb…Iran”? Hadn’t Romney’s biggest donor, Sheldon Adelson, who contributed a record $70 million after saying he would spend whatever it took to defeat Obama, made the price of his support a war against Iran? Thus did another fevered McCain ambition turn to ashes in his hands.)

Instead of confronting Obama directly over the Benghazi snafu, McCain focused his fire on UN Ambassador Susan Rice, the hapless messenger sent out by the White House to explain the ever developing understanding of the events of 9/11/12.  (Funny how the Obama proxies subjected to the most vicious Rethug attacks have all been Black, namely Rice, Eric Holder and Van Jones). In his continuing pogrom against all things Obama, McCain was joined by two fellow Rethug senators,  his BFF,  Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Kelly Ayotte (R-Maine).  Together, The New Three Amigos reacted to every subsequent intelligence community disclosure with suspicion, if not downright hostility. (See our earlier reports here and here.)

For instance, when former CIA Director and Republican rock star, David Petraeus, confirmed the White House account of how Rice was dutifully relaying talking points provided to her by the intelligence community, they were left sputtering and reaching for a new line of attack. They soon seized upon the difference between the classified and unclassified versions of the talking points. The unclassified version given by Rice omitted mention of Al Qaeda,  and instead tenuously identified the proximate cause as “extremists” reacting to an anti-Muslim YouTube video that had spurred riots around the Muslim world, a theory later deemed untrue, despite testimony eyewitness accounts to the contrary.

The McCain reputation assassin team geared up and leaped into action, once again accusing the White House of altering the talking points for political purposes. And once again, they were shot down by the intel community who said that they had approved the unclassified version in order to protect sources and methods, and for legal reasons “to prevent compromising an ongoing criminal investigation.”

Undeterred, The Benghazi Crypt Keeper nursed his conspiratorial golem back to life from his own withered man boob, claiming that were still “fifty questions”  he wanted answered. Hoping to finally put the issue to rest, Rice traveled to The Russell Senate Building Tuesday, accompanied by the interim CIA Director, Michael J. Morell, to personally answer whatever questions the Amigos might still have.

When the interviews were over, the Amigos immediately flocked to the Klieg lights and tv cameras,where they proceeded to double down on their shoot the messenger campaign. McCain said that he would be “very hard pressed” to support her expected nomination to succeed Hilary Clinton as Secretary of State. And Dear Lindsey had the line of the day when he confessed “Bottom line, I’m more disturbed than I was before.” (Ahem, Lindsey. Your lacey Freudian slip is showing.) Former Amigo Joe Lieberman (I-CON) was also paid a visit but he took a different tack, saying that Rice “told the truth, and nothing but the truth.”

Rice and Morell continued their visits to The Hill Wednesday, stopping by to see Susan Collins (R-Maine), ranking minority chair of the; and Bob Corker (R-TN), a member of the Foreign Relations Committee. Corker picked up the baton and dutifully continued the party line criticism of Rice. Collins unexpectedly opened up a new line of attack, implying that Rice might have also been responsible for the bombings of the Kenya and Tanzania embassies in the mid 1990s when she was assistant secretary of state for African Affairs  in the Clinton administration. One is entitled to ask: If Collins really considers that such a burning issue, why didn’t she bring it up during the January 2009 floor debate that preceded Rice’s unanimous Senate approval as Ambassador to the UN? Prolly because Rice ‘s old job involved policy, not security.

“Questions, questions– vee still have questions!” An endless series of questions, most or all of which have already been answered, as Rachel Maddow pointed out on her show Wednesday evening. All of which leads us to our own question: Just what the hell is all this sturm and drang really about?MORE. . .“Tales From The Benghazi Crypt Keeper (Update)”

Ricks v. Fux News (Update)

While I’ve never been a fan of Pulitzer Prize winner Tom Ricks, whom I’ve always considered a deferential Pentagon Village groupie, he deserves mega props for sticking it to Fux News today.

Fux tries to sell itself as a serious news program during the midday hours when it isn’t featuring Rethug propagandists like O’Reilly, Hannity, Van Sustern, and the Fux Force Five. One of its supposed objective news anchors, Jon Scott, was gobsmacked today when Ricks spoke truth to power and called out Fux for being the propaganda arm of the GOP. (Actually, I think it’s the other way around, but we’ll let that go for now.)

HuffPo quotes Ricks:

“I think Benghazi was generally hyped by this network especially,” Ricks said. He added that he thought McCain seemed to be “backing off” from criticizing Rice since “the campaign [was] over.

When you have four people dead for the first time in more than 30 years, how do you call that hype?” Scott said, pushing back against Rice’s [sic] characterization of the network’s coverage.

Ricks compared the situation to security contractors who were killed in Iraq. He described the attack in Benghazi as a “small fire-fight” and added, “I think the emphasis on Benghazi has been extremely political, partly because Fox is operating as the wing of the Republican Party.

Obviously, Scott’s talking points didn’t anticipate Ricks’ bald faced truth, and he terminated the interview after only 90 seconds.

Heh.

UPDATE: 11/28/12   Ricks denies Fux News’ claim that he later apologized for his remarks. Huffpo reports:

On Tuesday, Ricks and Fox News were still feuding. Fox News’ executive VP of news editorial Michael Clemente told the Hollywood Reporter that Ricks “apologized in our offices afterward but doesn’t have the strength of character to do that publicly.”

Ricks denied an apology ever took place. In an email to the Hollywood Reporter, Ricks wrote, “Please ask Mr. Clemente what the words of my supposed apology were. I’d be interested to know. Frankly, I don’t remember any such apology.”

UPDATE: 11:30 a.m. — TVNewser spoke with Clemente, who told the site that he would “refresh [Ricks’] memory” on the apology. After the segment, Clemente said that Ricks told Fox News staffers, “Sorry … I’m tired from a non-stop book tour.” Clemente added, “Perhaps now he can finally get some rest.”

UPDATE: 6:20 p.m. — Ricks emailed Clemente on Tuesday afternoon to clarify that he did not apologize after his interview with Fox News. See a copy of his email below:

Mr. Clemente,

To clarify my comments for you: I did not apologize.

As it happened, I ran into Bret Baier as I emerged from the interview. We know each other from working at the Pentagon. He asked if I was serious in saying that Fox had hyped Bengahzi, and I said I was. We discussed that. It was cordial exchange. (I wouldn’t mention this private conversation except that you apparently are quoting my hallway conversations as part of your attack.)

Later, as I was leaving, the booker or producer (I am not sure what her title was) said she thought I had been rude. I said I might have been a bit snappish because I am tired of book tour. This was in no way an apology but rather an explanation of why I jumped a bit when the anchor began the segment with the assertion that pressure on the White House was building—which it most clearly was not.

Note to Fux News: By all means, keep ignoring the First Rule of Holes.

Obama’s Rape Camps


Fux News continues to provide a platform for Teh Crazy

Less than three days following the GOP’s thrashing at the polls, Obama Derangement Syndrome is reaching new heights, signaling a psychotic break among reality denying Wingnuts.  Of all the lame excuses for their loss, this one takes the prize— thus far.

Buzzfeed reports:

Michael Graham, a radio host appearing on Fox News today said the Obama campaign wanted to convince voters if you were a female and vote for Romney you would be put in “rape camps.”

The only thing crazier than that would be for Karl Rove to claim the reason Romney lost was because Obama suppressed the vote.

Oh, wait

Karl Rove explained his view of why President Obama won, on Fox News, via Dylan Byers:

Rove argued that Obama won with a smaller popular vote and a smaller margin of victory than in the 2008 election against Sen. John McCain. Instead of expanding voters, Rove argued, Obama “suppressed the voteby demonizing former Gov. Mitt Romney and encouraging people not to vote.

“President Obama has become the first president in history to win a second term with a smaller percentage of the vote than he did in the first term,” Rove said.

“But he won Karl, he won!” Fox News host Megyn Kelly interjected…

Sorry, Megyn, Karl is irretrievably trapped in his own personal Phantom Zone of self-delusion. He’s so used to demonizing his opponents and stealing elections that the shock of suddenly being thrust into the reality based community he scorned has left him with nothing but soulless projection.

Big FAIL.

But life will become a burden of existence unless you learn how to fail gracefully. There is an art in defeat which noble souls always acquire; you must know how to lose cheerfully; you must be less of disappointment. Never hesitate to admit failure. Make no attempt to hide failure under deceptive smiles and beaming optimism. It sounds well always to claim success, but the end results are appalling. Such a technique leads directly to the creation of a world of unreality and to the inevitable crash of ultimate disillusionment

—The Urantia Book