Republicans Eating Their Own "Fascists"

From Steven D at the BooTrib:

It's directed at Republicans. And it's not who you might suspect:

A day after the Democratic sweep of the midterm elections, Woodbury County Republican Chairman Steve Salem had harsh words for his own party, lambasting the influence of the conservative Christian right wing.

Salem said he coined a new phase: "You've heard of IslamaFascists -- I think we now have Christian fascists. What is the definition of a fascist? Not only do they want to beat you, but they want to destroy you in the process."

Salem said "if things keep going the way things are going locally and statewide, it is going to be more and more difficult for Republicans to recruit candidates. We have elements of the party who are moral absolutists, who take the approach that if you don't take my position every step of the way, not only will I not support you, but I will destroy you."

Now before we all get our schadenfreude on about Republicans eating their own, let's consider something far more important: Mr. Salem is right. They are fascists ...

(cont.)

Sorry Steven D... I can't help the schadenfreudean title up there... lol Not only is that Republican a little late in pointing out the obvious, he is also wrong in claiming to coin a new phrase since various forms of "Christofascism" have been out on the net ever since they helped make the GOP as radical as they are now.

I have no problem with other peoples' personal choices of religion, or their right to talk about it and practice it in the ways that they want to... I do have a problem with other people thinking I have to practice their religion their way.

This country wasn't built on religion. It was, however, built partially on religious freedom. That freedom applies to the religious people of ANY faith and the non-religious alike.

MSNBC POLL: Impeach Bush?

MSNBC did a live poll:

Do you believe President Bush's actions justify impeachment? * 332234 responses
	Yes, between the secret spying, the deceptions leading to war and more, there is plenty to justify putting him on trial. 87%
	No, like any president, he has made a few missteps, but nothing approaching "high crimes and misdemeanors." 4.4%
	No, the man has done absolutely nothing wrong. Impeachment would just be a political lynching. 7%
	I don't know. 1.8%
Not a scientific survey. Click to learn more. Results may not total 100% due to rounding.

Americans really want a change.

TPM MUCKRAKER's Early Dem Picks

The TPM MUCKRAKER has already made its early picks as ones to watch on the Dem side of the aisle for possible muck:

Thankfully, less-than-squeaky pasts don't appear to be a factor in the Dems' reasoning as they divvy up leadership posts and committee chairs. Here are our favorite Democrats poised to take key positions:

Like everyone else in the USA, I want to see an end to corruption in Washington. And it doesn't matter which side of the political spectrum it comes from.

Grassroots politics is all about accountability and getting the corporate lobbyists' greedy hands out of the government till.

Still Waiting on CT-02

WFSB3 has Courtney still holding on and only losing one vote in the recount so far:

Republican U.S. Rep. Rob Simmons picked up a single vote after the first town in the 2nd Congressional District recounted its election results on Thursday.

But the three-term congressman still trails Democrat Joe Courtney by 166 votes.

Joe's New Mantra on Iraq

"Git er done!"

No more "Stay the course!" for Joe Lieberman.

Joe Lieberman, who rebelled against his own Democratic Party to win back his U.S. Senate seat as an independent, pledged Wednesday to build bridges across party lines "to get things done."

"Git er done!"

"If we don't stop hating the people across the political aisle, how are we going to strengthen this country and get anything done?" Lieberman said to reporters.

"Git er done!"

Gary Rose, a professor of politics at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, said he would be surprised if Lieberman took away any lessons from the election.

"I think he knows why he lost the Democratic primary, but I don't think it will condition how he acts," Rose said. "He was on the wrong side of the fence on the war but he went ahead and won the general election so I don't think he feels compelled to change that position." Nevertheless, when Congress returns for a lame duck session next week, Lieberman said he would focus on building a bipartisan coalition around the Iraq war. "Not to retreat from Iraq but urgently change what we are doing to get things done," he said.

UMMM??? Sounds more like:

"Stay the course!"

We warned Nutmeggers that a vote for Joe was a vote for the same incompetence that got us in this mess in the first place.


A new mantra for you Joe:

"REDEPLOY!"

It is what Americans voted for.

More Trouble in Florida Voting

In FL-13 some glitches may have cost the Dem the race.

As The Corporate Owned Media Spins

As the corporate media grasps at straws to try and defend the "conservatism" that owns them they completely disregard the facts. Media Matters puts the MSM's "disassembling" of the GOP talking point that the newly elected Dems are "conservatives" to rest:

Following are the findings of a Media Matters examination of the positions staked out by the 27 Democratic challengers on their campaign websites, in news reports, and in candidate questionnaires:

• All 27 candidates support raising the minimum wage.

• All 27 candidates advocate changing course in Iraq.

• All 27 candidates oppose efforts to privatize Social Security.

• Only two of the 27 candidates do not support embryonic stem cell research.

• Only five of the 27 candidates describe themselves as "pro-life."

Does anyone in this group sound like any of the typical conservatives we have voted out of power?

America voted Liberal, or Progressive if that is what you prefer? And there is is no amount of lying by the GOP, or the DLC, or the corporate owned MSM that can change this fact. Americans knew what they were doing when they voted in this new bunch of Dems. They were voting for the left.

Bayer Closing In West Haven

It is a bitter pill to swallow, but Connecticut continues to hemmorage high paying jobs on the heels of Jodi Rell's re-election.

Bayer To Close West Haven Facility
Bayer HealthCare said today it plans to close its research facility in West Haven, which employs an estimated 1,000 people.

...snip...

Layoffs at the West Haven facility will start next year, but the company would not disclose how many. Personnel in the cancer research division will be the first to go, a company spokeswoman said. Some employees will be transferred to company sites in New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania, the spokeswoman said. The shutdown of the West Haven facility is expected to take about a year and a half, the company said.

You will have to ask Rell how many jobs at McDonalds and Walmart will be needed to replace the local economic cash flow generated by those 1000 Bayer jobs since almost all of her job creation has been low paying service jobs with few benefits.

Picturing Connecticut littered from end to end with fast food joints and big box retailers... And nobody will be able to afford an asparin for this massive headache because they won't have healthcare.

Thanks again Jodi!

A Conservative Casualty Of the Radical-Wing-Nut GOP

One of the few members of the GOP that wasn't completely wing-nutty goes down honorably:

Sen. Lincoln Chafee, R-R.I., who was defeated by Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse on Tuesday, told reporters in Rhode Island on Thursday that he would continue opposing Bolton. That would deny Republicans the votes they would need to move Bolton's nomination from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to the full Senate.

Dems would have killed Bolton's nomination on the floor anyways, but this saves a collosal waste of time on the floor during the lame-duck session. So much for Bush reaching out across the aisle...

Chafee is about as close to being a moderate, and maybe even a conservative, that the GOP had to offer. He was one of the very few to take a stand in the lying Bush administrations' rush to war with cherry-picked intel.

There are very few differences between Chafee and the Dem that will replace him. Chafee's biggest sin? Being a Republican in the North-East, which obviously made him a dead-man-walking in this political climate.

Even the Kids Know Bill O'Reilly is an Idiot

An 8 year old kid unloads on the FICTION FACTOR FOOL:




I envision this kid eventually working at Media Matters or Factcheck.org... lol

Joe tells it like it is:

If there was ever any doubt that Joe is only in it for Joe:

Now that he's won re-election as a petitioning candidate, Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman is pledging to remain a Democrat, if for no other reason than to keep his 18 years' seniority in the Senate.

"I'll sign up with the caucus to protect my seniority," Lieberman said Wednesday. "My seniority is important to my ability to deliver for the state of Connecticut."

Ability to deliver exactly what Joe? Much needed cover for the lying Bush administration whenever every other Dem was exposing Bush fallacies? Get over yourself Joe.

Lieberman briefly joked about how the Republicans might coax him into joining the GOP, a switch that could keep the closely divided Senate under Republican control.

"There is a little playfulness in me that wants me to make a joke about that, but it's too serious. The answer is no," he said. "When I give my word I stick with it, and I am definitely going to organize with the Senate Democrats."

I wish that we had a Senator in which we could take his word at face value BUT the fact remains that Joe Lieberman said that he would only run for 3 terms in the Senate and here we are with him in his 4th term breaking that promise.

What a lying sack of Joe...

"Mission Accomplished" on White House Propaganda

Remember the infamous "Mission Accomplished" speech delivered by bush? The White House doesn't want you to:





And they pay people to produce this ignorant stuff?

Don't worry Bush! We will make sure the original video is well documented for historians' use... We wouldn't want future generations of American kids to get the wrong idea concerning the type of incompetent preznit you are.

(UPDATE)Infidel points out in the comments that this may be a hoax:

The video is fake: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkRHki5P6fc

What an irony that the guy does what he accuses others of.

Irony indeed.

But it still does not change the fact that the Bush administration has used propaganda over and over, whether it is paying TV personalities (Williams, etc.) to push their talking points, or pushing GOP talking points through the MSM, or phonecalls to supress voters, or more recent plans to put lipstick on the Iraq pig AGAIN by the Pentagon.

Pentagon memo reveals launch of new PR war
WASHINGTON - The Pentagon is buttressing its public relations staff and starting an operation akin to a political campaign war room as Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld faces intensifying criticism over the Iraq war.

In a memo obtained by the Associated Press, Dorrance Smith, assistant secretary of defense for public affairs, said new teams of people will "develop messages" for the 24-hour news cycle and "correct the record."

...Another branch would coordinate "surrogates." In political campaigns, surrogates are usually high-level politicians or key interest groups who speak or travel on behalf of a candidate or an issue.

The plan would focus more resources on so-called new media, such as the Internet and Weblogs. It would also include new workers to book civilian and military guests on television and radio shows.

Rumsfeld Resigns

Meet the new boss:

Robert Gates is a member of the Iraq Study Group, the bipartisan panel co-chaired by James Baker III and Lee Hamilton to develop a new strategy for Iraq. In Feb. 2005, Gates turned down an offer to serve as the Director of National Intelligence, the position now held by John Negroponte.

Same as the old boss:

The Associated Press reports that President Bush has accepted Donald Rumsfeld’s resignation.

We won't get fooled again by the likes of Bush cheerleaders like William "Billy-Bong" Kristol:

And the truth is, to win this war — and I have been a critic of Rumsfeld for a while, so some people can discount this — to win this war, it will be helpful to have a new secretaryy — no one man is indispensable, you know, and it will be helpful to have a new Secretary of Defense to give a new face to the war, to make the case to the American people, to work with Congress.

The DoD does not need a new face... It needs a new strategy that includes redeployment. Anythiong less than CHANGING THE COURSE, as Dems promised they would in the campaign, is just same BULLSHIT the Neocons sold unsuspecting Americans the first time around.

Dems have a "MANDATE"
and lots of "POLITICAL CAPITAL".

I am certain they will find some great ways to use it to stop the radical Bush agenda in it's tracks.

FBI Investigates GOP Voter Intimidation in Virginia

The FBI is reportedly investigating voter intimidation and voter suppression efforts by the GOP candidate George Allen in Virginia's Senate race...





Is there anything lower than GOP political campaign? It appears that in this anti-GOP corruption climate they felt that smears, lies and distrasction would not be enough to stop the Democratic wave from sinking the GOPs sickly political plans.

CT-04 The NRCC's Illegal Calls?

For the sake of getting this out fast this is just a cut'n'paste from Josh Marshall at TPM:

More of the scam calls from the NRCC, from TPM Reader PS ...

I was canvassing in Stamford, CT for Lamont and Farrel yesterday... some of the canvassers were talking about a nasty robocall hit on Farrell, which they said people at the doors had talked about. I didn't hear that at the door personally, but I wasn't focusing on the congressional race - i was talking about Lamont primarily.

Apparently the call starts with something along the lines of "Diane Farrell has some information for you," then pauses, waiting for annoyed people to hang up, and then delivers a negative message about Farrell. The canvassers say the call has hit some people as much as 6 times, and at 5 - 6am as well. Presumably, the intent is to annoy people and stick Farrell with the negative name ID as somebody who keeps robo-calling them.

We won't be able to get to the bottom of this operation until after Tuesday, which is the point. They'll happily pay the fines for breaking the federal regs on misidentifying calls.

-- Josh Marshall