Limbaugh the Hutt on Judge Sotomayor

h/t to Crooks & Liars

??? Who's Afraid of the Big Swine Flu ???

tip of the Hat to ArtMaggot for this image

Newt Wants to Leave Rush's Party

Our Friends at Crooks & Liars put together this post about the Sir Newt of Gingrich:

"If the Republicans can't break out of being the right wing party of big government, then I think you would see a third party movement in 2012," Newt Gingrich said during a Wednesday speech in Missouri.

Speaking on Fox News Sunday, the former Speaker of the House expanded on why conservatives might turn away from the Republican Party. "Republicans need to understand that there's a country which did not like the big spending of the last administration, didn't like the interventionist policies of the last administration and the country at large would like to see a genuine alternative to the Obama strategy of basically trying to run the entire economy from the white house and basically trying to increase government, I think, by 36% this year, which is the largest single increase outside of war in American history," said Gingrich.

Gingrich indicated that he wouldn't participate in a third party movement. "No, look, I lived through watching Ross Perot run in 1992 and split the conservative movement in two," he said.

John Amato:

Yea, Newt wants nothing to do with a "third party," he's just making the case for one. Nice going Newt. Gingrich started a new party in 1994 with his Contract with America, that began to kick out all moderate Republicans using the Southern Strategy and now the entire Republican party is made up of conservatives just like him. Of course he was booted out of his own party very quickly. Since his ideals have failed so miserably now---he's saying they may need another party for conservatives to express themselves and be heard.

I love the the sweet smell of revisionism in the morning.

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The Right’s Twisted Blame Game

By Joe Conason writing in New York Observer

As Barack Obama’s economic advisers confront choices that vary from bad to worse in their mission to revive the financial sector and the broader economy, it is worth remembering that those choices were in essence inherited by the president, who is still new to his office.

Listening to his critics, especially on the right, it would be easy to believe that the president is personally responsible for ballooning deficits, gigantic bailouts, ridiculous bonuses, nationalized institutions and careening markets. It would be easy to believe but it’s entirely false—and merely the latest episode in an old political con game that is all too typical of Washington. Ever since Election Day 2008, the usual suspects have been hard at work, deflecting responsibility from the Bush administration (and the Republicans in Congress) for the catastrophic effects of conservative policy enacted during the past eight years.

Within days after Obama’s victory, as stock prices fell, radio host and ideological commissar Rush Limbaugh exclaimed that we were already in the “Obama recession.” In fact, the economy had been shrinking for nearly a year by then, and the market was responding to bad economic news rather than the election result. But facts are inconvenient for propaganda—especially when politicians and pundits are seeking to escape blame for policies that have failed. Among the boldest perpetrators of this con game over the past few decades is Limbaugh, who shares with his fellow Republicans a peculiar method of timing the blame for economic woe. When he was flacking for the first President Bush back in 1992, he wrote: “The worst economic period in the last 50 years was under Jimmy Carter, which led to the 1981-82 recession, a recession more punishing than the current one.”

But of course the president during the 1982 recession was not named Carter; that president was the sainted Ronald Reagan. In January 1981, Reagan took the oath, and within his first three months had rammed through a budget that contained his historic “supply-side” tax cuts. Reagan budget director David Stockman had created computer simulations supposedly showing that those tax cuts would result in 5 percent growth in gross domestic product during the following year. Years later, when simulation failed to materialize as reality, Stockman referred cynically to that prediction as the “rosy scenario”—and admitted that it was essentially a fraud. Contrary to the rosy scenario, 1982 was the worst year since the Great Depression, with negative growth of 2.2 percent.

According to conservative theory, the mere announcement of massive tax cuts for the rich by a Republican president ought to have stimulated euphoria in the markets and rapid growth. And according to that same theory, as explicated by Limbaugh, the prospect of a Democratic president with a progressive agenda was what drove the markets down last autumn. But there is a double standard at work here.

When a Democrat is elected president, he is responsible for economic contraction even if he will not be inaugurated for three months. When a Republican is actually president, he need not be held responsible, even well after he takes office. If that strikes you as inconsistent, then you are beginning to notice how blatant deception passes for conservative ideology. But the deception is even worse than it appears at first glance. The same Republicans in Congress and on the radio who lionize the late Reagan now complain bitterly about the tax increases on the wealthy in President Obama’s budget. What they never mention is that their conservative idol, faced with the recession that they blamed on his predecessor, likewise raised taxes during an economic slump. Terrified by the looming deficits that resulted from the supply-side tax cuts, the Reagan administration rolled back many of the cuts just a year after they had passed—instituting what then amounted to the largest tax increase in American history. Those tax hikes took back about a third of the cuts legislated in 1981.

But that historic tax increase is never mentioned when Republican legislators invoke Reagan—and they still love to blame Carter for their hero’s recession. So even as critics roast President Obama and his treasury secretary, honesty requires that they acknowledge that the problems faced by Obama and Timothy Geithner are not of their making. Obama has held office only since Jan. 20—and if held to the Reagan standard, he deserves at least a year to begin correcting the Bush recession.

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From Actor Alec Baldwin; Another Entertainer's Take on Rush Limbaugh

Last week on Huffington Post:

I am an actor and someone employed in the entertainment business. I have my own opinions about how this government should be run and how disgracefully it has been run by both parties. I want to give it as hard as I can to those who willingly seek political roles and disgrace their office and, conversely, commend those who, in my opinion, behave commendably. I express those opinions un-self-consciously while never believing for one minute that they will influence anyone or anything. I do it as an American. For me, it's an American thing.

I am not the head of my Party.

Image H/T Wizard of Whimsy----+

Rush Limbaugh is an uneducated, marginally talented, overbearing, recovering drug addict who was, at least according to Wikipedia, ineligible for the draft because he had cysts on his ass.

I have dear friends of mine who represent real Republicans. Goldwater Republicans. Strong on defense. Tough on immigration. Fiscal conservatives. Not the bullshit Reagan wing of the party which, along with Clinton killing Glass-Steagall, brought us to where we are today.

My friends who are these real Republicans (not hypocritical evangelicals who are too lazy to raise their own children properly so, therefore, insist that all public institutions and policies bend to their will to make that job easier) do not listen to Limbaugh. They don't care what he says. They think he is an amusing entertainer. Like most progressives I know are well aware how hit-and-miss Michael Moore can be and, ultimately view him as an entertainer and don't give a damn what he says.

Until Limbaugh gets real, weans himself off the big salary and runs for office, he will always be nothing more than a poorly educated, marginally talented buffoon who has developed a real talent for manipulating the G-spot of the neocon consciousness and massaging the hate gland of so many economically displaced white voters in America.

I hope to God the GOP gets its act together soon and finds a real leader for their Party. Rush Limbaugh as the spokesperson for the GOP? 2010, I can't wait.

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A Black Man's take on Rush this Week

From the Crapauds' favorite "tell it" blogger, Field Negro:

You Negroes can be so ungrateful.

" I guess sometimes even 'strange bedfellows' can break up. Poor Michael (M-Diddy) Steele, the new "hip" RNC leader. M-Diddy is trying to reach out to a hipper audience and attract more black folks to his cause, so he found himself on the D.L. Hughley Show Saturday night. (What better way is there to spend a Saturday night than with a "hip" black man?)

But what poor M-Diddy didn't realize was that his republican peeps were watching, and the big Kahuna himself was not too pleased that M-Diddy tried t0 throw the new leader of the party under the bus. (Wait, there is no way Rush would fit under a bus. Ahem, throw him under the train...no, that wouldn't work either. Throw him under large earth moving vehicle maybe?) Michael, you just can't play both ends anymore, not in this media age. Big brother is always watching you jig.

"My parents taught me when I was growing up that you always stood behind people who defended you, you never abandoned people who stood up for you and who defended you against assault. Michael Steele was a candidate for the Senate in Maryland. Michael Steele was on this program, he got airtime on this program to attempt to refute the lies being told about him by Michael J. Fox in those famous ads way back when that were also run against Jim Talent in Missouri. I personally took time to defend Michael Steele and to rip the substance of those ads, had him on the show..."

See what you did M-Diddy? You done pissed off your benefactor. He helped you raise money, had you on his show, and defended you when you needed defending. You are such an ungrateful Negro. Instead of thanking massa Rush you are out disparaging him on one of dem colored shows.

HUGHLEY: Rush Limbaugh, who is the de facto leader of the Republican Party --STEELE: No, he's not.HUGHLEY: Well, I'll tell you what, I've never --STEELE: I'm the de facto leader of the Republican Party.HUGHLEY: Then you know what? Then I can appreciate that, but no -- no one will -- will actually pry down some of the things he says, like when he comes out and says that he wants the president to fail, I understand he wants liberalism to fail.STEELE: How is that any different than what was said about George Bush during his presidency? Let's put it into context here. Rush Limbaugh is an entertainer. Rush Limbaugh, the whole thing is entertainment. Yes, it's incendiary, yes, it's ugly --

Tell em M-Diddy, you are the HNIC, not Rush. Why is it so hard for A-merry-ca to understand that? Well, I will give you a hint M-Diddy; it's because house Negroes don't all of a sudden wake up one day and own the house. And when massa plucks them from the fields cleans them up, and gives them all the comforts of living in the house they are not supposed to forget that, or give him their butts to kiss. That's a job for us field Negroes. See we can tell Rush to kiss our black asses, because he never did shit for us. You, on the other hand, owe him so much. And guess what M-Diddy, he will never let you forget it."

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Who' the Leader of the Band, who plays for You and Me

M- I C, K-E-Y----M-O-U-S-E !!

Who's the leader of the club
That's made for you and me
M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E
Hey! there, Hi! there, Ho! there
You're as welcome as can be
M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E

Mickey Mouse!

Mickey Mouse!

Forever let us hold our banner
High! High! High! High!

Come along and sing a song
And join the jamboree!
M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E

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Fairly Un- Balanced Leadership

H/T to Wizard of Whimsy

WITHOUT QUESTION

THE NEW LEADERS
OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY

MASQUERADING AS UNBIASED

LEADERS OF THE NEW RIGHT

UPDATE:

And now Gov. Bobby Jindal is defending Limbaugh.

On Larry King Live last night, Jindal was asked what he thought of Steele’s apology to Limbaugh. “I’m glad [Steele] apologized,” said Jindal. “I think Rush [Limbaugh] is a leader for many conservatives and says things that people are concerned about.”

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