The last time I drank a Coke (or Pepsi) I was barely 20; it was in 1970. There was no social media then (aside from postcards) and international telephone calls were way too expensive for someone like me. So, while I was making my way by land across the world I depended on letters from home for news.
The closest Blue America ever came to actually endorsing a Republican was in 2012 when thoughtful Libertarian Justin Amash was the GOP candidate against rot-gut conservative hack, Steve Pestka, an anti-Choice crackpot and vicious homophobe. Michigan's local anti-Choice organization endorsed Pestka over Amash.
Justin and Ted-- good bipartisanshipIn DC, there's good bipartisan and there's bad bipartisan. Bad bipartisan, which is far, far more prevalent, usually revolves around corruption like, for example, when Wall Street whores from both sides of the aisle-- lets' say Republican Sean Duffy (WI) and New Dem Patrick Murphy (FL)-- get together to try to hobble the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Pete'n'Fred-- Trumpf enablersAs funny as it sounds to Democrats that Mitch McConnell is encouraging vulnerable Republican senators to make ads to save their own necks by running ads against Trumpf during the general election, Democratic candidates for Republican-held House seats are already reminding voters that the incumbents are, at the minimum, implicitly backing Trumpf by refusing to distance themselves from him and his hateful, divisive, ant
Fox News Sunday was unable to book anyone credible this past weekend so they got stuck with failed GOP presidential candidate Mike Huckabee and Long Island neocon Peter King. King, as usual, was all about drumming up fear and panic in the hopes that his party will frighten enough people so that Republicans on Long Island can buck history and win races next November. King, as always, is eager to authorize domestic spying, particularly of mosques.
Several of the GOP's Deep Bench were on the network gasbag shows yesterday advocating doing away with whatever small amount of constitutional authority to prevent domestic spying on American citizens is still left. After all, they argued passionately, we're in mortal danger from evil Eurasia, I mean evil Eastasia... oops... no, no... ISIL or ISIS.
Alas, not enough restrictions to make it worth voting forYesterday, the House voted overwhelmingly to give NSA the right to unconstitutionally spy on American citizens. The Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2016 (H.R. 4127) passed 364-58, majorities in both parties voting to sell us down the river. Only 36 Democrats and 22 Republicans stood firm for the American people toward.
The 40 or so far right-extremists and libertarians who topped Boehner and denied McCarthy the speakership and are now deciding Paul Ryan's fate, are easy targets because they are generally misogynistic, homophobic racists. Some are neo-Nazis and even more are Confederates. But does that mean they're always wrong about everything? And, more to the point, what does that say about the bottom-up congressional rebellion they're leading against the House leadership rules now?
The Tea Party Caucus seems to have disappeared with Michele Bachmann and has been largely replaced by the more serious and policy-centric House Freedom Caucus. But the House Freedom Caucus has been very careful to not publish its membership list. What's left of the Tea Party Caucus is chaired by Kansas crackpot Tim Huelskamp. Huelskamp is also a self-admitted member of the Freedom Caucus (of which Jim Jordan of Ohio is chairman).
