Republican Jackass of the Week

So many from which to choose. So why choose? Here are five:

Republican Jackass of the Week #1 -- Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-Ohio).

This is the guy who can't stop talking about suing the President of the United States for the vague charge of "lawlessness," and for signing "too many executive orders."

As I've shown in this graph on the June 27th post, President Obama has signed fewer executive orders than any president in 50 years. Boehner was allegedly upset about the President delaying the employer madate portion of the Affordable Care Act -- after begging the President to do just that.

Now, after Boehner's House failed to solve the humanitarian crisis at our southern border, and after passing absolutely nothing and going off on a 6 week recess, Boehner actually said, "There are numerous steps the President can and should be taking right now without the need for congressional action."

Did you follow that logic? Congress asks the President to delay a portion of ObamaCare; President Obama delays that portion of ObamaCare on his own; Congress threatens to sue the President for overstepping his authority.

And now right after failing to pass funding for the immigration crisis, Congress asks the President to take action on his own.

John Boehner:  the weakest Speaker of the US House, presiding over the least productive Congresses in a row, and is once again our Republican Jackass of the Week.

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Republican Jackass of the Week #2 -- Fox Noise.

After Fox's continuous hyping of an alleged Benghazi coverup/conspiracy for two years non-stop, guess what happened this week?

The House Intelligence Committee, led by Republicans, concluded that there was no deliberate wrongdoing by the Obama Administration during the 2012 attack on the US consulate in Benghazi. The report states that no one was deliberately misled, no military assets were withheld and no stand-down order was given to military forces.

That's the exact opposite of what Fox viewers have had drummed into their heads for two years.

No. Only Fox ignores the facts.

This Benghazi hoax has been the lead story on Fox Noise for all this time. Day after day, night after night, there have been lots of shrill, wild accusations made -- including 225 segments on the subject in the last two weeks alone according to Media Matters. But on the day this breaking news was released, guess how many times it was broadcast on Fox Noise?

Not once.

The Committee's report was finally grudgingly mentioned once on their air the next day. Yet another investigation will be launched in September by Republicans who just can't stop fishing for a non-existent scandal.

Fox Noise, foreign owned and Saudi financed, Republican Jackass of the Week.

(Can a broadcast company be a Jackass? You betcha! "Corporations are people too my friend.")

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Republican Jackass #3 -- Representative Tom Marino (R-Pennsylvania).

During a grandstanding speech on the House floor, this Jackass claimed that when the Democrats ran the House, they never had the courage to do anything about immigration reform.

Nancy Pelosi, the former Democratic Speaker of the House, wouldn't hear of it. She actually walked across the floor, waved a finger at him and admonished him! (Of course some sources claimed she "chased him around the House floor" and "became unhinged." Watch the short video below. See for yourself if she became unhinged, or just slowly walked over to admonish him.)

She reminded him that "House Democrats had the courage to pass the Dream Act, and have the courage to stand up for what the American people want now: bipartisan, comprehensive immigration reform."

As it turns out, Tom Marino's party once again failed to pass any immigration law and deserted Washington for a 6 week vacation.

Tom Marino, liar and Republican Jackass of the Week.


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Republican Jackass #4 -- Representative Mo Brooks (R-Alabama)

Old southern white guy Mo Brooks thinks it's the Democratic Party that's racist!

How about that. The party that generally gets 95% of the black vote every election cycle, as well as an increasing majority of Hispanic votes, is racist.

Ron Fournier of the National Journal stated that "the fastest growing bloc in this country thinks the Republican party hates them," referring to Hispanics and Blacks in America. "Your party cannot be the party of the future beyond November if you're seen as the party of white people."

Polls have shown this clearly. And even the Republican party itself acknowledged its problem with women, gays, Hispanics and Blacks after its second big White House loss in November of 2012. They even held brainstorming meetings to figure out how to attract more diverse voters. The results have been published in their "Republican Autopsy Report" that came out right after President Obama's second electoral college landslide.

Having heard Fournier's statement, Mister Mo Brooks of Alabama claimed that "there's a war on whites being launched by the Democratic Party... claiming that whites hate everybody else."

(Hey, isn't there an unwritten rule stating that Republicans are always to incorrectly refer to it as "the Democrat Party"?)

See? The Democratic party, which has many millions of white, black and Hispanic voters is actually the racist party, not the Republicans, who are almost exclusively older white people.

Go back and read your own party's Autopsy Report. Learn something, Mo.

And enjoy being this week's Republican Jackass of the Week.

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Republican Jackass #4 -- Steven Palazzo (R-Missouri).

Here's his quote from this week: "I find the best advice comes through meditating
on god's word. Please find a copy of the holy bible to help guide you in your decision-making."

He then had his staff deliver a bible to each of the 535 members of the House and Senate.

Hey Steve, breaking news:  the USA is a secular nation. Go ask the first high school student you can find. We don't write laws based on your bible any more than we base them on the Quran or any other cult's book. Do I really need to list the reasons this is so completely wrong?

Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said this action was inappropriate and exclusionary. "When it comes to religion, our nation is pluralistic and diverse. Rather than look to the bible or any other religious book to craft our nation's public policy, we would do well to examine another source instead, one that was actually created to guide governance. It's called the Constitution."

Steve Palazzo, Republican Jackass of the Week.

Republican Jackass of the Week

Meet Representative Tim Murphy (R) of Pennsylvania.

He and several other Regressive Republicans in congress were awfully understanding and unusually apologetic as they begged for patience regarding the myriad of problems that occurred for four months when Medicare Part D enrollment began back in 2006. Back then the rollout was a disaster, with sign-up problems and a website that didn't work properly for over four months.

So are they singing the same tune now that the ObamaCare website is having problems? Of course not. Just listen to the jaw-dropping hypocrisy from Regressive Timmy in the short clip below.  Lawrence O'Donnell from msnbc humorously pretends they're playing the wrong clip.

Did Obama Lie About ObamaCare?

The short answer is no.

Basic facts:

ObamaCare became law in March 2010.

Anyone who already had an insurance policy they were already satisfied with before that date was allowed to keep it. Period.

Policies as of March 2010 must adhere to new standards.

That being said, many insurance companies have CHANGED THEIR COVERAGE on those policies from before March 2010, and diminished their coverage, making them essentially new policies that, in many cases, do not adhere to minimal standards. These must, therefore, be upgraded.

Unfortunately, many people who claim to love their crappy old policies have never had to use them. Get a disease, need an operation, get cancer or have a horrific accident and suddenly you'll discover you're not covered. The reason you're being dropped in most cases is because your coverage is so poor it's worthless in these cases.

Current requirements include not kicking you to the curb if you have pre-existing conditions, no lifetime caps, free preventive screenings, etc. Old policies that have CHANGED and no longer adhere to current requirements are therefore not really the "old policies" that you had, but rather, new, changed policies. So they must be upgraded. In other words, you can keep your old policy but not if the insurance company decides to change coverage and screw you over. Unfortunately, insurance companies have a habit of changing coverage every year. Your credit card agreement changes every year, too. That's why you receive a long, multi-page, tiny print agreement every year.

If your insurance company has changed your coverage and made it into a crappy policy that doesn't meet standards any longer, of course you cannot keep it because it is no longer the original policy that you were satisfied with. Thank your insurance company for that.

The good news is there are a lot of companies now vying for your business, and many more policies available with better coverage, lower co-pays and sometimes even lower premiums.

Keep in mind some insurance companies are discontinuing certain policies of their own choice and blaming ObamaCare. As you all well know, these for-profit companies have been increasing your premiums, sometimes up to 20%, every year for decades. 

The idea of the individual mandate and more comprehensive coverage is to address the fact that many people have been gouged for years with insufficient policies, and because 30,000,000 uninsured people will now be covered.

We don't want 30 million people using the ER for regular doctor visits that TAXPAYERS have to pay for. People need to take responsibility for themselves.

Boehner's Latest Government Shutdown

A few facts:

About 900,000 people's jobs and paychecks are affected by this latest partial government shutdown.

There are 435 US House members. About 40 of them are the far rightwing fringe Teabaggers.

The Affordable Care Act, known as ObamaCare, was passed in 2010. It was approved by the US House, the US Senate, signed by the President of the US and deemed Constitutional by the US Supreme Court.

Sad, drunken clown

John Boehner, the least effective Speaker of the House in American history, knows he has more than enough Democratic and Republican House votes to pass the Senate's "clean" bill (one that doesn't contain add-ons to defund or repeal ObamaCare) and keep the US government funded.

Despite all this, the cowardly Speaker of the House has refused to allow the Senate bill to come to a vote in the House, where it would easily pass. Why? Because he's scared to death of the Teabaggers, who would revolt. He'd probably lose his job as ineffective Speaker and go back to just being another ineffective Congressman.

So he's putting 900,000 jobs and paychecks on the line to save his own. This guy is an embarrassment.

President Obama is right. Allowing this bunch of radicals to defund or delay ObamaCare for a year would mean that any rogue member of congress in the future would be able to pick any established law, and simply because he doesn't like it, hold the US hostage until his demands to defund, delay or repeal it are met.

Funny thing is, despite all the Regressive Republicans' worst efforts, and despite the partial government shutdown, today is the day ObamaCare opens to the public nonetheless. Today's the day you can go to healthcare.gov and begin sorting through all the affordable options available to you.

Republican Jackass of the Week

I'll give you three guesses who gets the honor this week.

This blog post has essentially written itself.

Fooling no one but the Teabaggers.

Meet Canada's Rafael "Ted" Cruz, Regressive Republican from Texas.

"I intend to speak in support of defunding ObamaCare until I am no longer able to stand," is what he said before he began his fake filibuster.

Fake, you see, because to be an actual filibuster you talk endlessly to stop a law from coming to a vote or stop some kind of legislative action.

Canada's Cruz did neither. Matter of fact, he actually asked Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid for permission for his talkathon days ahead, and since nothing was scheduled for the senate that night, Senator Reid obliged his freshman Teabagger colleague, saying, in essence, "knock yourself out." Rafael thanked him and agreed to end his theatrical publicity stunt well before the vote, which was already scheduled for Wednesday afternoon.

So he didn't -- and couldn't -- stop the vote, and didn't stop the law from going into effect, since ObamaCare has already been the law since 2010.

It was a self-indulgent waste of time that accomplished nothing.

As msnbc's Lawrence O'Donnell astutely put it, this was Rafael Cruz's 21-hour surrender. He had vowed to fight ObamaCare to the very end, and he made good on his word. And then, when he ended this performance -- at exactly the time he promised Senator Reid he would -- he voted in favor of the bill he pretended to fight against.

During his bizarre 21-hour stunt, he did a Darth Vader impression, spoke of how he loved White Castle burgers and read Dr. Seuss's classic story, Green Eggs and Ham. Of course, neither he nor his Teabagger supporters got the irony in his telling of the story. The moral of that story is "don't knock it until you try it: you just might like it." Kinda like ObamaCare. See?

Hey "Ted," guess what? ObamaCare is the law of the land, upheld by the US Supreme Court, and President Obama was elected on it twice. It's not going anywhere.

In years to come, instead of the "Big Three," we'll refer to the "Big Four" which no politician will ever dare to go against: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and ObamaCare.

Republican Jackass of the Week

The Boner blinked.

"There should be no conversation on shutting government down," Regressive Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner said. "That's not the goal. There's no interest on our part on shutting the government down."

No wonder this man drinks so much.

That was then.

Now, after a closed-door meeting with his caucus, John Boehner has caved to the crazy, extreme, far rightwing fringe of his party, the Teabaggers, and agreed to hold a House vote on a measure that would keep the government funded, but only if Obamacare, the Affordable Care Act, is defunded.

"We are going to pass a resolution that will defund Obamacare."

As I've written before, Obamacare isn't going anywhere. The Teabaggers have led John around by his orange nose before, voting 41 times in a row to defund or repeal Obamacare. But that's not going to happen.

The Affordable Care Act passed the House and the Senate in 2010, was signed into law by the President of the United States, and has even gotten the rightwing Supreme Court's endorsement of its legality.

It's the law of the land and it's not going to be repealed. Funding Obamacare is mandatory.

But that won't stop these fanatical ideologues from holding a virtual gun to the head of America to get their way.

Never before in history has any congress attempted to extort an American president into succumbing to their political demands by holding the USA hostage, threatening to shut down the government -- which will stop payments to US troops, retirees, and close many government services -- as well as damage the full faith and credit of the US government by failing to pay our bills. These bills represent the money that congress itself has already spent.

It would be like you going on a wild spending spree with your own credit card and then refusing to pay when the bill arrives unless some totally unrelated demand is met.

Some have described the Republicans' demands as a Kamikaze mission, destroying themselves in the process, since everyone knows that if there's a government shutdown, they will be to blame. This is what happened in the '90s. Back then a similar Republican-led government shutdown resulted in one Newt Gingrich losing his speakership and the Republicans losing their congressional majority.

Will they go off the deep end again and destroy themselves? Or will they tell the Teabaggers enough is enough, sit down and shut up, and let the adults take over?

We'll find out by the end of the month.

Regressive Republican and Speaker of the House (for now), John Boehner. This week's Republican Jackass of the Week.

Bonus Republican Jackass of the Week

John Boehner and the Republican-run House of Representatives.

With only two weeks left before the government shuts down, taking with it a whole host of services as well as paychecks to retirees and American troops, what do you think Boehner and his gang did yesterday?

(A) Resumed negotiations that would keep the government running and increase the debt limit so the Treasury Department can borrow enough money to pay for the bills that Congress already racked up.

-- or --

(B) Wasted everybody's time and money, voting for the 41st time, to repeal Obamacare.

I don't even need to tell you what these idiots did.

Republican Jackass of the Week

Former South Carolina Senator and current president of the far rightwing Heritage Foundation, Jim DeMint.

In Tampa yesterday, he continued his crusade to convince other Regressive republicans to eliminate the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, claiming "the law is not about getting better health care. You can get better health care just by going to the emergency room."

Pure genius. See? That's going to be the official healthcare program of the USA if Regressives have their way: just run to the emergency room and let somebody else pay for your treatment if you can't afford it. And who might that be? Taxpayers? The hospital? Everyone who pays insurance premiums?

All of the above.

Funny that the current president of the Heritage Foundation would be so against Obamacare, since Obamacare was almost entirely written by... wait for it... the Heritage Foundation back in 1989!

Yes, the Heritage Foundation was lobbying heavily to mandate coverage through regulated healthcare marketplaces, which is the essence of Obamacare. It was what Romneycare in Massachusetts was based on. Back then rightwingers claimed the individual mandate would "force people to take personal responsibility" for their healthcare and prevent people from just showing up at emergency rooms for all their medical needs.

But now, since President Obama is for it, their own plan is suddenly "socialized medicine," "government controlled health care," and whatever else they claim. Hey, just go to the emergency room!

Luckily, the Regressives are not going to have their way. Obamacare isn't going anywhere. It was legally passed in the House and Senate, it was signed by the President, it was endorsed by the current rightwing Supreme Court, and even Orange John, the Speaker of the House, put down the bourbon long enough to proclaim, "it's the law of the land."

Jim DeMint, our Republican Jackass of the Week.

Republican Jackass of the Week

This time it's the entire Republican-controlled House of Representatives, allegedly run by Speaker John Boehner.

Today's their last workday, if you can call it that, before their 5-week summer vacation. Usually at this time of year, they tend to scramble to get things done before running out the door.

But not Bourbon Boehner's Bunch.

Today, they'll waste more time and taxpayer money voting, for the FORTIETH TIME, to defund the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, despite the fact that even the rightwing Supreme Court admitted it was Constitutional, and Boehner himself referred to it as "the law of the land."

Since the Democratically-controlled Senate is not in a million years going to agree to kill off Obamacare, and the President is certainly not apt to sign a bill destroying his own signature health care plan, this is just another circus act to placate the far rightwing radicals in the Regressive republican party. Now they'll be able to go home to their gerrymandered districts and beam with delight in bragging about their vote that accomplished, yet again, absolutely nothing.

They're calling this 40th attempt to defund Obamacare the "Keep the IRS Off Your Health Care Act." Cute.

Another waste of time bill passed this week is called the "Stop the IRS Act," which would mandate the firing of any IRS agent who "takes official action for political purposes." Of course, not a single IRS agent has been found guilty of such a thing, despite months of interrogations from car-thief and insurance-fraudster Darrell Issa. Even the Bush-appointee who was in charge of the IRS during this fake scandal said there was no political motivation and the Obama White House had nothing to do with scrutiny of some rightwing groups.

Were any jobs bills passed? Any infrastructure bills passed? Budget plans? A way out of the sequester? Transportation bill? Housing bill? Immigration reform? Efforts to reduce gun violence? Background checks?

No.

They haven't accomplished a single priority demanded by Americans according to most polls.

John Boehner remains the weakest, least-accomplished Speaker of the House we've seen in decades, a so-called leader who can't control the fringe element of his own party. And his Congress remains the least productive in American history.

But hey, enough about that.
It's vacation time, right John?

Michele Bachmann Calls it Quits

The world of political comedy suffered a deadly blow this morning.

Crazy-Eyes Bachmann

Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann announced, at 3am, that she will not run again for her seat in the House of Representatives.

Why now? Could it be because the polls show her Democratic opponent, Jim Graves, even with, or a little ahead of her? Or might it be because she's being investigated by the Federal Elections Commission for ethics violations in her 2012 presidential campaign, and just this week the FBI launched a criminal investigation?

She also recently suffered a setback when, after fighting to block same-sex marriage, it was signed into law in Minnesota just days ago.

We've enjoyed so many laughs over the last eight years. I remember like it was just yesterday (stroke your chin, look up, and hear the harp strumming in your head):

• In 2008, she accused her fellow House members of being anti-American when she said, "the news media should do a penetrating expose and take a look at the views of the people in Congress -- are they pro-America or anti-America?"
• Then there was the time she confused John Wayne, the movie actor, with a serial killer. While campaigning in Waterloo, Iowa, she claimed she was "campaigning in the spirit of John Wayne, who was from Waterloo." Unfortunately, the actor was not from Waterloo.  But serial killer John Wayne Gacy was.
• At another campaign stop, she made the audience sing Happy Birthday to Elvis. Sadly, it wasn't his birthday -- it was the anniversary of his death.
• While campaigning in New Hampshire, she mistakenly claimed the Revolutionary War began there. "You're in the state where the shot was heard 'round the world in Lexington and Concord." Apparently she confused Concord, New Hampshire with Concord, Massachusetts.
• Then there was the time she claimed our Founding Fathers were against slavery. "Slavery was evil and a scourge and a blot and a stain upon our history. But we also know that the very founders that wrote these documents worked tirelessly until slavery was no more in the United States." Uh, no, Michele. Many of the Founding Fathers, including George Washington, owned slaves. It took almost 100 years before the Emancipation Proclamation was signed.
• She claimed that Obamacare meant that "someone's 13 year old daughter could walk into a 'sex clinic,' have an abortion, and be back home" via the

  

  We'll miss the corn dogs while campaigning in Iowa.

  school bus that very night.
• Pretending climate change doesn't exist, she asserted, "carbon dioxide is portrayed as harmful. But there isn't even one study that shows that carbon dioxide is a harmful gas."

Let's hope, for comedy's sake, that Rupert Murdock realizes that Michele's vacuous stare, tenuous grasp of politics and history, and tendency to blurt out the most bizarre statements makes her the perfect candidate to be the next Fox Channel contributor.

Republican Jackass of the Week

Based on "The Parting Shot" on the Bill Press Show:

It's the US House of Representatives, in Republican control, run by Speaker of the House, John Boehner.

The 1948 Congress was famously referred to as the "do nothing congress." But that was nothing compared to the 112th Congress over the last two years, which was the least productive congress in American history. And it looks like the current 113th Congress will accomplish even less, setting the bar even deeper into record territory.

Four weeks ago they sat around for a whole week and passed one bill: to renew the production of helium. Then they went home for ten days.

This week they worked all of three days and passed one bill, allowing business owners to replace overtime with "comp time." This bill is dead on arrival in the Senate. It's going nowhere.

And next week they will vote on only one issue -- to pretend to repeal Obamacare for the 39th time.

That's it. No action on climate change, immigration, common sense gun control, tax reform, education, or anything else.

These people are getting paid $174,000 a year and they accomplish absolutely nothing.

The US House of Representatives and John Boehner: this week's Republican Jackass of the Week.

Michele Bachmann at her Craziest

Did you know affordable health care -- Obamacare -- will "literally kill women, kill children, kill senior citizens?"

LOL. She's a riot.