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Tag Archives: Republican Party
Even Old Birds Can Tweet
According to Daily Intel, as well as our very own Emily Ernst, beloved Senator/technological maverick John McCain has started his very own Twitter account. Apparently, the Senator himself is behind this effort, perhaps in an attempt to get a little bit more life blood pumping within is Blackberry fingers. This should be disheartening to Democrats everywhere – why is the supposed party of youth and… competency still lacking so far behind in the war for complete Twitter domination… tweetination? Tweet Congress notes that seven of the top ten most active Congressional twitterers (read 70% people!) are Republicans, and statistics show that John McCain is raking up followers at the same rate Palin rakes up moose meet for chili. (What?) Maybe the surplus of Republican twitter accounts can be explained by the fact that they are damn entertaining. Some of my favorite soundbytes (tweetbytes) from McCain include “YEs!! I am twittering on my blackberry but not without a little help!”, “I appreciate Senator Byrd speaking in favor of my Constitutional point of order” (so precious) as well as the fact that a) he seems to feel a that the governing rules of capitalization and punctuation only apply from time to time, and b) he has created himself a David Letterman (Tweeterman) type persona by listing what he calls the top ten “porkiest” projects everyday. At least now I know that if I ever feel un-text loved and uninformed about what’s happening to the hep-cats of the G.O.P. darling John is only a tweet away.
Posted in Blog, John McCain, Netroots, The Media
Tagged daily intel, GOP, John McCain, Republican Party, twitter
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Inside the Beltway
The District of Columbia’s nearly-600,000 residents pay federal taxes like all other Americans (except perhaps the few politicians who forget) and serve on federal juries and in the nation’s armed forces. Despite fulfilling these responsibilities of citizenship, however, citizens living in the so-called “capital of the free world” are denied voting representation in Congress.
Congress is currently considering the District of Columbia House Voting Rights Act (in the House as H.R. 157 and the Senate as S. 160), which would help remedy the situation by granting the District of Columbia voting representation in the House of Representatives. The bill is a political compromise that aims to attract Republican support to granting the heavily-Democratic District of Columbia a seat in the House. The bill would expand the House to 437 members, with one of the new seats going to the District of Columbia and the other going to heavily-Republican Utah, which is currently next in line to receive an additional House seat.
An effort to pass a similar bill failed in the 110th Congress. The bill passed the House, but fell three votes short of overcoming a Republican-led filibuster in the Senate. With expanded Democratic majorities in both houses in the 111th Congress, however, the bill is very likely to pass. It is likely to come to a floor vote in the House sometime this month. It passed the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs today by an 11-1 vote (Senator John McCain cast the single vote against the bill) and will likely come to a vote in the full Senate later this year.
Watch Colbert’s take on DC voting rights.
UPDATE: According to the AP, a preliminary Senate vote has been scheduled for February 24.
"It's like they take pride in being ignorant"
Paul Krugman, a Princeton economist and New York Times columnist, wrote a brilliant analysis of the strategy of the modern Republican party entitled “Know-Nothing Politics.”  Until 2000 or so the Republican party was a party of bold, if stupid, ideas.  The Contract with America, Reaganomics etc: these were bold ideas that challenged conventional wisdom and encouraged people to think.  They were almost universally bad ideas, but ideas they were none-the-less.  The Bush-McCain Republican party, Krugman writes, could use the slogan “Real men don’t think things through.† The entire article is a must read and can be found here.
Posted in Blog, George W. Bush, John McCain, Republican Party
Tagged Alec Baldwin Sucks, anti-intellectualism, ignorance, Republican Party, stupidity
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The self-destruction of the Republican Party
For the past forty years, the American political scene has moved precipitously to the right. It has become a cliche to point out that Barry Goldwater, once the epitome of conservatism, would be unwelcome in today’s Republican party, dominated by the Christian Right. Indeed, even Worst-President-Ever Ronald Reagan might be shunned as an amnesty supporting, social-security saving, government-expanding RINO. Over nearly a half-century the Republican Party moved from the center to the right, and the Democratic Party from the left to the center. In the past five years, the movement has stopped. That is the lesson of 2006, that would have been the lesson of 2002 and 2004 were it not for the despicable lying and fear-mongering that duped America into embracing George Bush.
In an astounding display of self-delusion Republicans have themselves convinced that the solution to their woes is not to move back toward American values, but even further rightward. The Republican base is slowly killing or marginalizing the only type of Republican that is viable in an America that is – at long last – moving back away from self-imposed exile far to the right of other industrialized democracies. The most recent example comes from Utah’s admittedly conservative 3rd district. Whenever there was an opinion to be taken, Chris Cannon would stake at a position on the extreme right. He was just defeated by a young primary challenger, Jason Chaffetz, who claimed he was – believe it or not – not conservative enough. If the GOP truly believes that the way to reclaim lost majorities is to support more inequality in wealth, more war, more hatred for people who are different, more money-based rationing of healthcare, more contempt for the Constitution and so forth, it could be a long and rosy run for us as Democrats.
Elephant Graveyard: The Decline of Conservatism
I came across this little gem in my morning troll of the interwebs. It’s a piece from the New Yorker about the decline of Conservatism and the Republican party.
Since I am at work I don’t have the time sit down and read the whole thing right now and write up a summary. Instead, why don’t we have a little ongoing discussion? Sorry I can’t bring anymore insight up front, but I’ve got a serious case of the Mondays.
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Posted in Blog, Progress, Republican Party
Tagged College Dems, conservatism, Marvin, politcal blog, Republican Party, Sam Marvin, SamMarvin
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Quote of the Day | Romney is Back
Romney: Mormon, American… Loser.
10. There weren’t as many Osmonds as I thought
9. I got tired of corkscrew landings under sniper fire.
8. As a lifelong hunter, I didn’t want to miss the start of the varmint season.
7. There wasn’t room for two Christian leaders.
6. I was upset that no one had bothered to search my passport files.
5. I needed an excuse to get fat, grow a beard and win the Nobel prize.
4. I took a bad fall at a campaign rally and broke my hair.
3. I wanted to finally take off that dark suit and tie, and kick back in a light-colored suit and tie.
2. Once my wife Ann realized I couldn’t win, my fundraising dried up.
1. There was a miscalculation in our theory: “As Utah goes, so goes the nation.”
~ Mitt Romney – at the Correspondents Dinner… On why he withdrew from the race. Oh Mitt… we hardly cared.