Republican Children Walkout From Congress

If you missed this on Valentines day, the childish Republicans walked away from doing the job they were elected to do. Why? Because the GOP is full of members that are childish and stupid, of course!



Via Paul Kiel at TPM Muckraker:

Surprise!

When the Dems finally made a move to get a vote on the contempt resolutions against White House officials for ignoring subpoenas in the U.S. attorney investigations, the Republicans had a walkout all planned out. As Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) gave a speech haranguing the Dems for "political grandstanding" at a time of dire threats to national security (because work on the surveillance bill has still not been completed). They then filed out onto the steps, where a podium was waiting to complete the photo op.

No political grandstanding, indeed.

I guess these republican children have a problem with the more criminal elements of the GOP machine actually being held responsible for their actions?

The Republicans refused to deal with two of their own being slapped with contempt charges:

The House of Representatives voted Thursday to cite Joshua B. Bolten, the White House chief of staff, and Harriet E. Miers, a former White House counsel, for contempt for refusing to testify about their participation in the firing of federal prosecutors.

The measure calls for House officials to seek enforcement of the contempt citation by the courts if, as expected, the Justice Department declines to act on the resolution.

The vote was a lopsided 223 to 32 in favor of the contempt citation, after most Republican members walked out to protest what their leaders called a political move.

Call the whambulance.

This is no different than the supremely stupid and childish walkout of the New Milford Republican BOE members last September:

This last couple of weeks a huge pile of steaming Republican childishness has played out and many in the town have been talking about it:

The five Republican members who walked out of a Board of Education meeting last week say they are disturbed that the action has been misconstrued and politicized when it was a legitimate protest of what they considered to be an improper, imprudent and even disrespectful action.

Like walking out on a vote is not improper, imprudent and even disrespectful action, never mind that it is as childish as taking their ball and going home in the middle of a game because they are losing.

Flying in the face of their own reasoning, they can't seem to even decide whether they walked out because of too much debate, or not enough:

"We simply, quietly, left the meeting at the end when there was nothing further to discuss. We had already discussed it three times, and our input was ignored. There was no reason to stay," said member Julie Turk of the minority Republicans' decision to leave before a second vote on hiring a director of human resources to replace the former director of operations.

snip

But some of the board's GOP members -- the school board has seven Republicans and five Democrats -- were disturbed that so little time had been given to such a key position, which will command a salary in the $90,000 to $100,000 range.

Make up your minds little GOP children... Did you decide to walk out on your job because:

1. Republicans think there is nothing left to discuss.
2. Republicans think there needs to be more time to discuss this.
3. Republicans think there needs to be more time to discuss that there is nothing left to discuss.

And never mind all of the other reasons that they threw at the fan. Several more inconsistencies fly back in their face in that one article. The supposed and incoherent apologies lead one to realize your mea maxima culpas. Simply being wrong, both in thoughts and actions. Get a load of another childish GOP response:

"They changed the rules so they could put something through that had already failed," McLachlan claimed.

What rules did the Board change? Something was brought up in a vote that was a 5-5 tie without all of the board members present in August. A sub-committee, including republicans, originally recommended returning to the issue. Does McLachlan have a problem with putting a vote to the full board just because of the inevitable 7-5 result?

What rules were changed? Don't just pull out "The republican victim card" and leave it out there without any backup. And just because someone too childish or incompetent to do their job and vote on this issue calls it bullying does not make it so, regardless of how the village idiot celebrates the idea:

"Kudos to Joe Failla, Julie Turk, Robin Ruggiero, Bill McLachlan and Joey Vita for having the gumption to stand up for what they believe in, against the odds and the "bullying" as one Member calls it."

Whom, exactly, is guilty of bullying? As a commenter over at your own Blog (Jay Lewin - Juice Box Republicans) notes:

"Interesting that the Operations sub committee "unanimously" OK'd bringing the issue back to the board. That sub committee includes Mr. Failla & Mrs. Turk. Why did they OK this on 9/4, and then reverse course to fight it on 9/11? Hmmmmmmm..."

Kudos for what. Jay? For recommending returning to this issue and then walking out on the vote when it does come up? (The GOP must be guilty of bullying themselves , either that or bullshitting themselves, 'cause we aren't buying it.) And for ignoring the reality of what most of the town's people recognized this childish tactic to be? Is there any doubt why one of New Milford's Board of Education members jumped the Republican ship of fools?

For the coming election, Traisci-Marandola said, she was rejected by the party's leaders for a re-election bid because she did what she promised, although it meant spending money.

Even with that rejection, Traisci-Marandola said she intended to retain her party affiliation.

Yet what she called this past "week of nonsense" has changed her mind. She said she intends to become a Democrat and support that party's slate for the November election.

snip

Traisci-Marandola said she was "appalled" that five of her fellow Republicans -- including appointed member Joseph Failla, endorsed for a four-year seat, and William McLachlan, endorsed for a Town Council seat -- orchestrated a walkout at last Tuesday's school board meeting.

This walk out was a pitiful example of Republican kids behaving badly and the nonsensical apologies and their apologists passing out the Koolaide are as sad as the the original actions. They are just playing little childish games and, in a typically GOP fashion, wasting the tax payers time occupying a job they are unwilling or unable to do in a manner respectful of Democracy.

The Twisted Republican Perspective

Nearly 4,000 dead American soldiers and over 29,000 wounded

U.S. Casualties By Calendar Year

Year	US Deaths	US Wounded
2003	486	2,416
2004	849	8,002
2005	846	5,947
2006	822	6,400
2007	901	6,084
2008	56	231
Total	3960	29080

And the senile old fart, Republican John McCain, thinks debating his age will distract us?

McCain campaign manager Rick Davis today sent an unmistakable message to Barack Obama over the Illinois Democrat's effort to stoke the obvious age contrast between himself and the 71-year-old McCain: Bring it on.

Hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis...

We maintain a daily count based on news reports. It is not intended to be complete. There is no agency that keeps track of accurate numbers of Iraqis killed. JustForeignPolicy maintains a running estimate based on the Lancet study with the rate of increase derived from the Iraq Body Count.

And Republican Senator Arlen Specter is intent on hunting down football tapes?

"There was confirmation that there has been taping since 2000, when Coach Belichick took over," Specter said.

Specter said Goodell gave him that information during the 1-hour, 40-minute meeting, which was requested by Specter so the commissioner could explain his reasons for destroying the Spygate tapes and notes.

On the home front, the country is getting flushed down the toilet by failed conservative policies run amok:

The U.S. economy is faltering. Family debt is on the rise, benefits are disappearing, the deficit is skyrocketing, and the mortgage crisis has worsened. Conservatives have attempted to deflect attention from the crisis, by blaming the media’s negative coverage and insisting the United States is not headed toward a recession, despite what economists are predicting.

And Republican Rep. Chris Shays is in a steroid induced stupor:

Once again, Chris Shays embarrasses the state of Connecticut with one of the most embarrassing tirades to date. Our congressman from the fourth district took grandstanding to a whole new level with his browbeating of Roger Clemens trainer Brian McNamee during today's House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing on steroids in baseball.

After hearing Shays refer to McNamee as a "drug dealer" and spewing out what can only be described as complete nonsense, WFAN's sports radio personality (and former Shays supporter) Chris "Mad Dog" Russo saw the light.

Living up to his famous nickname, Russo took Shays to the woodshed and became Jim Himes' biggest supporter...all in the classic Mad Dog fashion that's made Russo famous.

It is obvious that the only campaign platform these spineless GOP candidates have to run on this election cycle is to avoid and deflect from every issue that is really important to this nation. These Republican children need to grow up and take responsibility for the failures they have created. There is no doubt about this fact:

The GOP has lost all perspective of reality.

And anyone would have to be a fool to vote for any of them...

[update] Changed video to add extended version of ctblogger's uploaded video. Original video is here... And normally I wouldn't ask this BUT... Help Connecticut Bob shut up:

"Shays struck out swinging with his ridiculous tirade. His wild pitch embarrassed everyone in the 4th District. Help Jim Himes hit a grand slam by contributing to Jim's ActBlue fund.

If you do, I promise I'll stop with the stupid baseball references."

JK Bob :)

A public service announcement

I have been a little neglectful of my poor Bloggie in the last couple of weeks due to some family thingies going on (Family ALWAYS comes first!) but I promise to get back into the swing of things over the next week. For the moment, enjoy a public service announcement from Blip.TV (H/t C&L and via QueerVisalia) on the SCLM:



Just remember the many lies and outrageous propaganda the corporate owned media has shoveled out in the last decade, in a manner that could only be characterized as incompetent in its reckless endangerment towards our nation's security, as they start to laud John McCain as some kind of "Maverick," or even a sane and competent candidate on the GOP side.

He is nothing more than another Neocon with a freakishly old far right wingnut face put on it... And he hasn't a clue about how disastrous bush, Joe Neocon Lieberman and St. McCain the warmongerer's illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq has been to America's security.

Via Kevin Drum at The Washington Monthly:

BOOT ON McCAIN....I have to give Max Boot credit: he doesn't beat around the bush. He thinks Iran, Syria, and North Korea are thumbing their noses at us and that John McCain is the right guy to make them stop:

Clearly, these rogue regimes do not fear the consequences of waging a proxy war on America and our allies. They think they can get away with killing and maiming American soldiers — and so far they have been right.

....It is hard to see how Bush could reverse this decline in America's "fear factor" during the remaining year of his presidency. That will be the job of the next president. And who would be the most up to the task?

To answer that question, ask yourself which presidential candidate an Ahmadinejad, Assad or Kim would fear the most. I submit it is not Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama or Mike Huckabee. In my (admittedly biased) opinion, the leading candidate to scare the snot out of our enemies is a certain former aviator who has been noted for his pugnacity and his unwavering support of the American war effort in Iraq.

There you have it. If you think the most important apect of a president is the ability to "scare the snot out of our enemies," then McCain's your guy.

Now, you might think that after seven years of trying exactly this, with only the current collapse in our fortunes to show for it, the neocon establishment might at least pause for a moment to wonder if there's more to foreign policy than scaring the snot out of our enemies. But no. The real problem, apparently, is simply that the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld administration wasn't good enough at it. Not bellicose enough. Not unilateral enough. Not warlike enough. What America needs is someone even more bloodthirsty than the crew that got us into this mess. Time to double down, folks.

And that, my friends, pretty much sums up where this country will be buried under another 4 years of bush failure. Which is what you can expect from any GOP candidate, Johnny St. McCain included.

This is supposed to be some kind of Maverick and credible candidates campaign platform? Joe Scarborough and Pat Buchanan sum up the John McCain campaign platform pretty effectively:

BUCHANAN: Here’s a guy, basically, what does he say? The jobs are never coming back, the illegals are never going home, but we’re gonna have a lot more wars.

SCARBOROUGH: We’re gonna start a lot of wars! He has promised, for the record Keith, John McCain’s platform — and it certainly looks inviting for the fall — he has promised less jobs and more wars. Now that’s something we can all rally behind.

According to Think Progress:

While campaigning in Michigan earlier this month, McCain said some Michigan industries cannot be resurrected. “I’ve got to give you some straight talk: Some of the jobs that have left the state of Michigan are not coming back,” he said.

And just this weekend, McCain told a crowd of supporters, “There’s going to be other wars. … I’m sorry to tell you, there’s going to be other wars. We will never surrender but there will be other wars.”

And the McCain Silly Walk Express stumbles its way into the lead through the shear incompetence of the other GOP presidential candidates. His likely campaign motto?

John McCain in 2008!
The best of the worst the GOP has to offer!