Craziest Republican of the Day: Mike Lee

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Think Progress:

In an interview on MSNBC's Hardball yesterday evening, tenther Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) admitted that he is using the threat of a catastrophic default to extort the nation into rewriting the Constitution to force a permanent era of conservative governance:

Chris Matthews: How many days do you think we have, on the outside, to get this debt ceiling through before we have a problem? How many days?

Lee: I don't know, maybe ten days.

Matthews: Okay, in ten days you want to change the United States Constitution by two-thirds vote in both houses? That's what you're demanding.

Lee: Yes. If possible we can't change the Constitution just in Congress but we can submit it to the states. Let the states fight it out.

Matthews: And you think you're being reasonable by saying you want a two-thirds vote in the House, which is Republican, and in the Senate which is Democrat. You want the Democratic Senate, by a two-thirds vote, to pass a constitutional amendment or you want the house to come down?

Lee: Yes. That's exactly what I'm saying and I've been saying this for six months.

This guy's crazy stupid and crazy ignorant, but another word for this is treason.

(photo)

Craziest Republican of the Day: Todd Rokita

By Michael J.W. Stickings

To put it nicely, Republicans -- wallowing in ignorance and delusion to the point they're prepared to destroy America -- have their heads so far up their asses on the debt ceiling they're spewing nothing but excrement every time they open their mouths.

Is that clear enough?

For some, it's not so much ignorance or delusion as it is pure politics. Sen. Mitch McConnell, for example, knows full well what's going on, but he's torn, as the party itself is, between the corporate financiers in the establishment and the anti-government Teabaggers on the far right. While trying to score political points, he and Speaker John Boehner are at least also trying to work out a deal with President Obama.

But, on Capitol Hill, they appear to be in the minority. Not only do McConnell and Boehner face the wrath of the Tea Party, which promises to launch primary challenges against any Republican who dares violate its orthodoxy, they also face the opposition of their own caucuses, particularly in the House, where Boehner himself has effectively been pushed to the side and where his main rival, Eric Cantor, has already made a move, if as yet informal and unofficial, to unseat him.

And, make no mistake, the extremists in the House, extremists who are really now the Republican mainstream, are crazy. For example:

Despite numerous warnings from three major credit agencies, economists, businesses, members of their own party, and general common sense, the Republican "Hell No" caucus remains ever vigilant in ignoring the economic disaster that will follow a failure to raise the debt ceiling by Aug. 2. While some Republicans have offered simply ludicrous reasons to paint the deadline as arbitrary, an increasing number are pushing the notion that there's no danger at all in defaulting on our debt.

[Yesterday] on ABC’s Top Line, Rep. Todd Rokita (R-IN) went one step further and threw away the word "default" altogether. While he views Aug. 2 as an "important date," he refuses to "take the premise that we're going to default on our obligations." Believing "default" isn't even the right word to use to describe the economic consequences, Rokita slammed those who would avoid default as "piggish" and "un-American" for worrying about "my own little program or my own little economy." Rokita then declared defiantly that he's willing to vote down a debt ceiling raise even if it means "the economy might get worse."

Fuck the economy, in other words, not to mention the millions upon millions of Americans who would suffer should the country go into default. This is pretty standard fare among Republicans, but the degree of abject ignorance on the economy, on what the debt ceiling issue is all about, on what would happen were America to go into default, is nonetheless astonishing -- even when you expect nothing else from them, even when you know these are your views, it's hard to believe that the people's representatives can be this stupid, this careless, this irresponsible.

Well, okay, no. Maybe it's not so hard to believe, not if you've spent any time thinking about the Republican Party, even just observing it from afar. And maybe that's part of the problem. We don't actually want to believe that the country is in the hands of stupid, careless, irresponsible, and downright fucking crazy blowhards who seem to have little to no regard for reality and who spew shit whenever they open their mouths. And so we pretend, or a lot of us do (not me, mind you), that it isn't that bad, that surely they know what they're talking about, that they're all in it for the common good, that it'll all somehow work out -- now pass the deep-fried pork fat, the extra-meat pizza, and the gargantuan Coke, and let us get back to watching American Idol.

Well, that's what you get when you elect a Republican, and it's only so much worse when you hand them the keys, say, to the House, where with a majority they can spew so much shit as to threaten to sink the whole country.

Which, apparently, they're more than happy to do. Even if they don't have a fucking clue.

Louie Gohmert is an idiot

By Michael J.W. Stickings

For many, many things.

And certainly, absolutely for suggesting that it's not a coincidence that the debt ceiling deadline (Aug. 2) coincides with President Obama's birthday (Aug. 4) -- or rather with a birthday party scheduled for the day in between:

And I can't help but be a little bit cynical here. Because we find out the president has a big birthday bash scheduled for August the 3rd, celebrities flying in from all over. And lo and behold, August 2nd is the deadline for getting something done so he can have this massive, the biggest fundraising dinner in history for a birthday celebration... Isn't that amazing? The timing of this?

Actually, he can't help but be incredibly stupid. The deadline has nothing to do with Obama at all. It was determined by the Treasury Department and has been recognized by, well, pretty much everyone, including Republican wunderkind Paul Ryan.

Besides, it won't be much of a happy birthday for the president if the country goes into default -- if, that is, the possibility of economic catastrophe is upon us.

(For more, see Steve Benen. It's not just Gohmert pushing this abject nonsense, it's the Heritage Foundation: "The intellectual bankruptcy of conservatives appears to be getting worse." As if that were even possible.)

Craziest Republican of the Day: Ron Paul

By Michael J.W. Stickings

He's not running for re-election, focusing instead on what will inevitably be his losing campaign for president.

But whatever his personal political priorities at this time, Ron Paul, hyper-libertarian extraordinaire, is still certifiably insane.

To wit:

The United States's top credit rating is "probably not" worth saving, Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) said Thursday, less than a day after a major rating agency indicated it was considering a downgrade as the country hurtles toward the August 2 deadline without a deal to raise the debt ceiling.

Yes, certainly, something (and something drastic) needs to be done to address America's massive debt. Tax increases to reasonable levels, particularly for the rich, and cuts to defence spending, I would argue, not the unravelling of essential entitlement programs that are part of the social fabric. While there needs to be shared sacrifice, the burden shouldn't, as it so often is, be imposed on the poor and others who are already struggling just to make ends meet, if they can even do that.

But it would be disastrous, if not apocalyptic, to let America go into default. Paul may not think it matters, but how about the tens upon tens of millions of Americans who need their Social Security cheques just to put food on the table? Interest rates would shoot up, effecting not just the federal government but everyone, including business.

Is American "bankrupt"? Well, not in the usual way, but obviously it can't continue like this. But what's clear is that failing to raise the debt ceiling wouldn't help at all -- and wouldn't just have a "short-term effect."

For Paul to suggest that it may all just be fear-inducing "political theater" shows just how little he actually knows about the economy, about anything. He is an extremist ideologue for whom, as is so often the case with such ideologues, the facts don't much matter.

And at a time like this, with the country teetering precariously on the brink of collapse, that sort of willful aversion to reality is not just irresponsible but dangerous. And it's not just Paul. This view, pushed by the Tea Party, is orthodoxy throughout the Republican Party, including notably in the House. Yes, the Republican Party, it would appear, is more than content to let the country fall into the abyss. Remember that the next time they talk about how patriotic they are. 

When it comes to Paul, the only good thing is that he's not in a position to do anything about it. He has a vote in the House, but that's it. What's far more worrying is that the GOP's view is more or less his view, at least in the House and for many Republican senators. And with that craziness infecting pretty much the entire party, America faces an enormous threat from within, a threat that could very well take the country down.

Craziest Republican of the Day: Lori Klein

By Michael J.W. Stickings

From The Arizona Guardian, reporting on an incident that happened just days after the Tucson shooting earlier this year:

A state lawmaker known for championing the rights of gun-owners pointed a loaded firearm at the chest of a reporter during a recent interview at the Capitol.

Republican Sen. Lori Klein was showing off her raspberry-pink handgun when she aimed it at a journalist who was interviewing her in the lounge just outside the Senate chambers.

According to the story that was published Sunday in the Arizona Republic, Klein's .380 Ruger was loaded and did not have a safety to keep the gun from going off.

But Klein told the reporter, Richard Ruelas, that he didn't need to worry because, "I just didn't have my hand on the trigger."

Um... sure. I'm sure that made everyone feel so much safer...

It's just this sort of gun-toting madness that we've come to expect from Republicans, especially in gun-crazy states like Arizona.

And we wonder why there is such prevalent gun violence, or how this culture helped create someone like Jared Lee Loughner?

Apparently we need look no further than the Arizona statehouse.

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Craziest Republican of the Day: Ryan Fattman

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Craziest Republican of the Day or Worst Human Being in the World. You decide.

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As Think Progress is reporting, this reprehensible Republican state senator from Massachusetts is so hateful of undocumented immigrants that he thinks they shouldn't come forward if they're ever raped and beaten.

Seriously:

[On Wednesday], the Worcester Telegram & Gazette reported on Fattman's incendiary comments, which he made while defending a controversial federal immigration program that many say will damage the relationship between law enforcement and immigrant communities. Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick (D) has refused to join the program out of concern that immigrants who are victims of violent crimes will be afraid to report them and seek help:

Mr. Fattman dismissed concerns of some law enforcement officials — cited by the governor — who said using local police to enforce immigration laws could discourage reporting of crime by victims who are illegal immigrants. 

Asked if he would be concerned that a woman without legal immigration status was raped and beaten as she walked down the street might be afraid to report the crime to police, Mr. Fattman said he was not worried about those implications.

"My thought is that if someone is here illegally, they should be afraid to come forward," Mr. Fattman said. "If you do it the right way, you don't have to be concerned about these things," he said referring to obtaining legal immigration status.

Instead of helping rape victims, the new federal program would have police turn them directly over to the federal government to be deported.

I wish I were kidding about this, but this is pretty much in line with mainstream Republican thinking these days.

Even if you take a hard line on undocumented immigrants, even if you think they should be deported, shouldn't you at least treat them like human beings?

Fuck you, Ryan Fattman. You disgusting piece of shit.

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Fattman looks like he's 12 but apparently he's 26. And, alas, he went to Tufts. I'm embarrassed. And I hope my alma mater is as well.

Most Obnoxious Republican of the Day: Jeff Landry

By Michael J.W. Stickings and Richard K. Barry

Ed. note: As it turns out, both Richard and I wrote about this at roughly the same time. (You know what they say about great minds.) Instead of having two pretty similar posts, I thought I'd just merge our two posts into one. -- MJWS

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MJWS

The Hill:

A freshman GOP lawmaker rejected an invitation to the White House on Wednesday, saying he didn't want to be "lectured" by President Obama.

"I have respectfully declined the president's invitation tothe White House today," Rep. Jeff Landry (La.) said in a statement. "I don'tintend to spend my morning being lectured to by a president whose failedpolicies have put our children and grandchildren in a huge burden of debt."

Respectfully, Rep. Landry, you're an idiot. And you're a speck of dust compared to President Obama. You think you'd be lectured, but really you'd just be exposed as an ideological extremist and partisan hack. Like the rest of your party.

Failed policies?

Like the auto bailout that saved tens of thousands of jobs and rescued the auto industry -- and a huge swathe of the U.S. economy connected to that industry, from the brink of destruction?

Like the Wall Street bailout that saved the economy, and global credit markets, from plunging into catastropic collapse?

Like agreeing to extend the Bush tax cuts, including for the wealthy? Isn't that something you liked?

Like TARP? Hey, even Paul Ryan voted for that.

And if you really think it's Obama who has "put our children and grandchildren in a huge burden of debt," you really are an ignorant fool. Do you have no historical memory at all? Do you remember anything that happened before 2008?

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RKB

We have an occasional feature here at The Reaction called the "Craziest Republican of the Day."

Just this one time I want to modify that slightly to make Republican Louisiana Congressman Jeff Landry the "Most Obnoxious Republican of the Day."

I do this because Landry rejected an invitation to meet with the president at the White House on Wednesday because he didn't want "to be lectured to" by President Obama. This was as part of a meeting that the president had scheduled with the entire GOP House caucus.

According to the The Hill, Landry said the following:

I have respectfully declined the president's invitation to the White House today. I don't intend to spend my morning being lectured to by the president whose failed policies have put our children and grandchildren in a huge burden of debt.

This is just pathetic. If our national leaders can't show each other the common courtesy of meeting to discuss the policies we need to move the country forward, we are in more trouble than any of us thought possible. I know Landry must be hoping this will play well back home, but our elected representatives have to be better than this.

The office of the presidency has to be respected no matter how little regard one may have for the individual holding the office. Conservatism used to be about respecting tradition and process. In so many ways this current crop of Republicans aren't conservatives at all. They're miserable little brats.

Hey Landry. I'll do you one better. Go fuck yourself.

Craziest Republican of the Day: Rand Paul

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Tea Party Republican Rand Paul is a libertarian, and on occasion admirably so (like when he opposes the Patriot Act), but it seems that his enthusiasm for liberty is disturbingly selective and comes with an unhealthy dose of typical Republican police-state authoritarianism. As he told Sean Hannity last Friday:

I'm not for profiling people on the color of their skin, or on their religion, but I would take into account where they've been traveling and perhaps, you might have to indirectly take into account whether or not they've been going to radical political speeches by religious leaders. It wouldn't be that they are Islamic. But if someone is attending speeches from someone who is promoting the violent overthrow of our government, that's really an offense that we should be going after — they should be deported or put in prison.

That's right, this libertarian, this oh-so-courageous defender of freedom, thinks that you should be put in jail if you attend a political event he doesn't approve of, an event at which "radical" things are said.

Now, despite his claim, he was probably thinking primarily of Islamic "radical political speeches," but whether Islamic or not, define radical.

Does it just mean "promoting the violent overthrow of our government"? But, then, where would the line be drawn? And who would draw it? And don't you think "radical" would come to mean so much more?

And what about the pesky little thing known as the First Amendment?

This would be the thin end of the wedge straight to a slippery slope.

But perhaps this should come as no surprise, As Think Progress notes, Paul actually isn't as much of an advocate of civil liberties as his reputation might suggest:

[A]side from his admirable stance on the Patriot Act, Paul's record shows he's hardly the paragon of civil liberties he claims to be, but rather is "indistinguishable from the rest of the GOP on national security issues," The American Prospect's Adam Serwer noted last year. He's said he will "always fight" to keep GITMO open; has said "[f]oreign terrorists do not deserve the protections of our Constitution"; and has never taken a strong public stance against torture, staying silent most recently after the killing of Osama bin Laden.

"I believe that America can successfully protect itself against potential terrorists without sacrificing civil liberties," his website says. Apparently speech is not a civil liberty.

I guess his libertarianism is a matter of partisan and ideological convenience to him. He is when he is and isn't when he isn't. And when he isn't, as here, he's downright un-American.

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The good thing is, if there is any good here, he might just put himself in jail.

Yes, he attended an event at which a radical right-wing militia advocated extreme and treasonous violence -- and yet claims he didn't hear a thing! How convenient.
 

Craziest Republican of the Day: Allen West

By Michael J.W. Stickings

He wasn't being crazy when he was criticizing Newt Gingrich for proposing the return of "poll tests," but he's generally one of the craziest and most extreme Republicans around, and he's been at the crazy again in recent days attacking President Obama over Israel:

In West's typical hyperbole, he said [Obama's] speech was the "beginning of the end" of Israel and mysteriously accused Obama of giving Islamists a "Pavlovian-style" reward. But in a statement quoted by the Broward County New Times [on Wednesday], West took things further than any Republican lawmaker yet, invoking Hitler and accusing Obama of "nefarious" intent toward Jews:

In reviewing history, I would say Sir Neville Chamberlain was naive in his negotiations with German Chancellor Adolph Hitler. However, when one examines the state of affairs in the Middle East, including the Fatah-Hamas reconciliation pact, increase of rocket/mortar attacks from Gaza, the definitive Hamas Charter statement vowing the destruction of Israel, and the Hamas condemnation of America for killing Osama bin Laden... I cannot attribute this incompetent statement to naivete, but rather to conscious, nefarious, and malicious intent.

Of course, this is "an ignorant or intentionally dishonest interpretation of Obama's speech and the facts of the Middle East situtation." (And, yes, he spells Hitler's name incorrectly.)

And it is simply ridiculous, if predictable from the likes of West, to suggest that Obama is anti-Israel, or that suggesting, as Obama did, that the pre-1967 borders be taking as a starting point for negotiations signals an opposition to Israel's very existence. As the New Times explains:

Obama never once said Israel ought to withdraw to its "pre-1967" borders. He said that the division of land between Israel and a future Palestinian state would take the 1967 borders as a template and would be modified by land swaps. The words "pre-1967" never passed his lips. (In his speech, Obama also roundly decried Fatah's association with Hamas. West doesn't mention this, presumably because it would tarnish Obama's new image as the Jew Killer In Chief.)

How Obama's cautious, conservative stance on Israel is "unconscionable" is anyone's guess. It's precisely the approach advocated by every American president for a generation. The only way Obama's prescription is "unconscionable" is if a two-party solution is itself "unconscionable" -- which West firmly believes. Yet, like Obama's statements of unyielding support for Israel's security and his condemnation of Hamas, this goes unmentioned in his remarks.

And so you see, West is anti-Obama but also anti-Palestinian, and so he's attacking Obama, and doing so by lying about what the president actually said and actually supports, for working towards a sustainable peace in the region that includes not just a secure Israel but a Palestinian state that is itself similarly secure in its territory -- and not just "peace" on Likudnik Israel's terms, a "peace" that would allow Israel to keep all the post-1967 land it occupies.

A genuine peace agreement will require concessions on both sides. Obama knows that. But West, like Netanyahu, and like many in the American pro-Israel lobby, refuses to compromise, or to concede anything at all, which he crazily likens to appeasing Hitler. And that means he opposes peace, or at least that he doesn't give a damn about the Palestinians. Given his history of scapegoating Muslims, it's hardly surprising that that's the case.

(photo - with more on West's craziness)

Craziest Republican of the Day: Rob Woodall

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Speaking at a town hall back home, Rep. Woodall (R-GA) basically told a constituent worried about possible cuts to Medicare to go fuck herself:

"The private corporation that I retired from does not give medical benefits to retirees," the woman told the congressman in video captured by a local Patch reporter in Dacula, Ga.

"Hear yourself, ma'am. Hear yourself," Woodall told the woman. "You want the government to take care of you, because your employer decided not to take care of you. My question is, 'When do I decide I'm going to take care of me?'"

Large portions of the crowd responded enthusiastically to the congressman's barb, with some giving him a standing ovation, underscoring the fierce divisions within the electorate.

This apparently is one place where slashing Medicare is popular -- or at least among Republicans.

Seriously, though how is this about someone like Woodall taking care of himself? As a Congressman, he has excellent health insurance. But what about this poor woman? According to Woodall, she shouldn't rely on the government, just herself.

Ohhhhhhh. So that's it!

I had no idea one's health was a matter of choice. I also had no idea that health insurance was not just available to everyone, regardless of pre-existing conditions or any other factors, but affordable even to a senior likely on limited income.

I'm not sure "crazy" is the right word here. Woodall, a good and loyal Republican, is obvously an ignorant, insensitive bastard.

(Karoli has more at C&L, as does Steve Benen at Political Animal.)

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Michele Bachmann compares taxes to the Holocaust

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Asked Bachmann: "The question comes down to this: what will you say to that next generation about what you did to make sure that wouldn't be their fate?"

Seriously. 

This woman is insane.