Todays number: 112

That is the number of Rethug and Democrap Senators and House Reps that have so far tried to take credit for the Recovery Act advances in their districts, yet voted against it in DC. From Bloomberg:

Alabama Republicans Jo Bonner and Robert Aderholt took to the U.S. House floor in July, denouncing the Obama administration’s stimulus plan for failing to boost employment. “Where are the jobs?” each of them asked.

Over the next three months, Bonner and Aderholt tried at least five times to steer stimulus-funded transportation grants to Alabama on grounds that the projects would help create thousands of jobs.

They joined more than 100 congressional Republicans and several Democrats who, after voting against the stimulus bill, wrote Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood seeking money from $1.5 billion the plan set aside for local road, bridge, rail and transit grants. The $862 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act passed last year with no Republican votes in the House and three in the Senate.

Bonner said opposing the stimulus doesn’t mean he shouldn’t help Alabama projects compete for grants. “It is my role to ensure that their request is considered by the federal agency,” he said in an e-mail.

Alan Simpson, a former Republican senator from Wyoming named by President Barack Obama as co-chairman of a new deficit- reduction commission, said about-faces on government funding aren’t surprising. “It’s the original sin of Washington — it’s hypocrisy,” Simpson said. “You can’t do that then say you go out and cut the other stuff.” (emphasis mine)

Ain’t that some shit? Alan Simpson is calling it what it is…HYPOCRISY. Now, check out the ThinkProgress article on  this same issue. From the ThinkProgress writeup:

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) Said Stimulus Funds Would Create “Much Needed Jobs.” Minority Leader Boehner: “The stated intent of the so-called stimulus package was to create jobs, and certainly a $57 million slush-fund studying projects did nothing to achieve that goal. With Ohio’s unemployment rate the highest it’s been in 25 years, I’m pleased that federal officials stepped in to order Ohio to use all of its construction dollars for shovel-ready projects that will create much-needed jobs.” [Boehner Statement, 6/15/09]

-Congressman Boehner Voted Against The Recovery Package Twice [Roll Call Vote #46; Roll Call Vote #70]
-Congressman Boehner Regularly Blasts The Stimulus And Instructed His Caucus To Oppose It. [Huffington Post, 1/27/09]

Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA) Held A Job Fair Where Nearly Half The 30 Organizations Received Stimulus Funds; Cantor Also Supported Using Stimulus Funds To Build A Washington To Richmond Rail. Washington Post: “For months, Democrats have dubbed U.S. Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia a hypocrite for strongly opposing the federal stimulus package only to promote aspects of it later. Here’s the latest example: Nearly half of the 30 organizations participating in a job fair Cantor is holding Monday in Culpeper were recipients of the stimulus…In the summer, Cantor came under fire after he talked about his support of using stimulus money to build a rail project from Washington to Richmond.” [Washington Post Virginia Blog, 11/18/09]

– Congressman Eric Cantor Voted Against The Recovery Package Twice [Roll Call Vote #46; Roll Call Vote #70]

Simply wonderful right?  I do love how the Rethugs and the DINO’s think bashing, then touting at home, the Recovery Act will get them reelected. Personally, I really hope the voters in all those districts have the ability to see through the fuckery. I also hope that left-of-center candidates can unseat the bastards…..both the Rethugs and the DINO’s.

Crossposted at Sirens Chronicles. 

New ad goes after Repub old guard

The new DNC ad goes after all the old farts that made the rounds of the Sunday morning shows. Is it 1996 or 2009? Hard to tell with the same ole white guys shooting off their pieholes.

Matt Taibbi is a god.

Ok, perhaps not a god, but he is a manly man among men. His recent Alternet article on Sarah Palin is a wonderful thing to behold..his adjectives, nouns and verbs bitchslapping her and her ‘base’ like no tomorrow. Just the opening two paragraphs for your enjoyment:

I’m standing outside the XCEL ENERGY CENTER in St. Paul Minnesota Sarah Palin has just finished her speech to the Republican National Convention, accepting the party’s nomination for vice president. If I hadn’t quit my two-packs-a-day habit earlier this year, I’d be chain-smoking now. So the only thing left is to stand mute against the fit-for-a-cheap-dog-kennel crowd-control fencing you see everywhere at these idiotic conventions and gnaw on weird new feelings of shock and anarchist rage as one would a rawhide chew toy.

All around me, a million cops in their absurd post-9/11 space-combat get-ups stand guard as assholes in papier-mache puppet heads scramble around for one last moment of network face time before the coverage goes dark. Four-chinned delegates from places like Arkansas and Georgia are pouring joyously out the gates in search of bars where they can load up on Zombies and Scorpion Bowls and other “wild” drinks and extramaritally grope their turkey-necked female companions in bathroom stalls as part of the “unbelievable time” they will inevitably report to their pals back home. Only 21st-century Americans can pass through a metal detector six times in an hour and still think they’re at a party.

Taibbi is an avowed hater of all things political, but it’s his beat. That makes him a great choice as a reporter for this silly season. He goes after the Dems with just as much zeal as he does the Rethugs. He skewers them all with his biting prose. His paragraph on the American Dream and it’s inhabitants is spot-fucking-on:

I stared at her open-mouthed. In that moment, the rank cynicism of the whole sorry deal was laid bare. Here’s the thing about Americans. You can send their kids off by the thousands to get their balls blown off in foreign lands for no reason at all, saddle them with billions in debt year after congressional year while they spend their winters cheerfully watching game shows and football, pull the rug out from under their mortgages, and leave them living off their credit cards and their Wal-Mart salaries while you move their jobs to China and Bangalore.

Speak it Brotha! Go read it now, its long but its friggin worth it people. 😉 H/T to Betmo for emailing me the linkage to Taibbi’s article. Thanks sweetie!

Now, the neoconservative base is turning on Caribou Barbie, with Kathleen Parker ripping her a new one in her recent column. I howled with delight whilst reading it. Some money quotes:

Palin didn’t make a mess cracking the glass ceiling. She simply glided through it.

It was fun while it lasted.

Palin’s recent interviews with Charles Gibson, Sean Hannity, and now Katie Couric have all revealed an attractive, earnest, confident candidate. Who Is Clearly Out Of Her League.

No one hates saying that more than I do. Like so many women, I’ve been pulling for Palin, wishing her the best, hoping she will perform brilliantly. I’ve also noticed that I watch her interviews with the held breath of an anxious parent, my finger poised over the mute button in case it gets too painful. Unfortunately, it often does. My cringe reflex is exhausted.

Palin filibusters. She repeats words, filling space with deadwood. Cut the verbiage and there’s not much content there. Here’s but one example of many from her interview with Hannity: “Well, there is a danger in allowing some obsessive partisanship to get into the issue that we’re talking about today. And that’s something that John McCain, too, his track record, proving that he can work both sides of the aisle, he can surpass the partisanship that must be surpassed to deal with an issue like this.”

Woot! Don’t cha just love it when they eat their own?

Tags: Matt Taibbi, Sarah Palin, Kathleen Parker

This is a simply delicious writeup in the WSJ..

Jet, who also writes at Bring It On! sent around a link to this WSJ article today. It’s a fabulous bit of snark about the Republicans and their downward spiral into the bowels of Hell. I highly suggest you read it if you are in need of a laugh, or just want to point a finger at the Rethugs and cackle like an insane person. Some choice quotes from the article which is penned by Peggy Noonan:

“This was a real wakeup call for us,” someone named Robert M. Duncan, who is chairman of the Republican National Committee, told the New York Times. This was after Mississippi. “We can’t let the Democrats take our issues.” And those issues would be? “We can’t let them pretend to be conservatives,” he continued. Why not? Republicans pretend to be conservative every day.

*Snip*

The party, Mr. Davis told me, is “an airplane flying right into a mountain.” Analyses of its predicament reflect an “investment in the Bush presidency,” but “the public has just moved so far past that.” “Our leaders go up to the second floor of the White House and they get a case of White House-itis.” Mr. Bush has left the party at a disadvantage in terms of communications: “He can’t articulate. The only asset we have now is the big microphone, and he swallowed it.” The party, said Mr. Davis, must admit its predicament, act independently of the White House, and force Democrats to define themselves. “They should have some ownership for what’s going on. They control the budget. They pay no price. . . . Obama has all happy talk, but it’s from 30,000 feet. Energy, immigration, what is he gonna do?”

*Final-Snip*

Mr. Bush has squandered the hard-built paternity of 40 years. But so has the party, and so have its leaders. If they had pushed away for serious reasons, they could have separated the party’s fortunes from the president’s. This would have left a painfully broken party, but they wouldn’t be left with a ruined “brand,” as they all say, speaking the language of marketing. And they speak that language because they are marketers, not thinkers. Not serious about policy. Not serious about ideas. And not serious about leadership, only followership.

He swallowed the microphone..laughing my ever-lovin ass off! It was my snark for the day and Peggy delivered it quite nicely.

Weathervane McCain sews up Repub nod..

And..he will hurry on over to the White House tomorrow to get King George’s kiss of death..er, I mean blessing.

We, the universal we, can only hope that Bush endorsing and waxing poetic (snark alert) about the wonders of McCain will have the opposite effect on the masses. I fully expect the 20% still drinking the KoolAid to get giddy..but the rest of the registered Repubs will just sigh and vote for anyone else but Weathervane.

Huck is giving his goodbye speech..lol..and he’s using a baseball analogy. God save us from this dispshit.

Artwork by the wonderfully delicious political artist known as Dark Black