March 2011

The Republican Party in these United States is composed entirely of morons, assholes, and lunatics.

No other conclusion is possible. Of the 240 Republicans currently serving in the US House of Representative, 235 voted for H.R. 1, the appropriations bill for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2011. This bill makes drastic cuts in US funding of global health initiatives [PDF], with the following effects:

• Funding for AIDS treatment for 448,866 people would be eliminated, resulting in a halt to treatment expansion and deeper cuts in HIV prevention and other areas in an effort to avoid removing current patients from lifesaving treatment.
• 299,294 orphans and vulnerable children could lose their food, education, and livelihood assistance.
• 20,000 more infants could be infected with HIV each year due to reductions in services to combat mother-to-child HIV transmission.
• Nearly 3.9 million fewer people would be treated for malaria and 2 million fewer insecticide-treated mosquito nets would be available, with increased loss of life from malaria felt overwhelmingly among children under five.
• 51,822 fewer people with tuberculosis would receive lifesaving treatment, seriously endangering their lives as well as other people’s due to the contagious nature of this illness.

Call or write your Republican Congresscritter and ask them to explain themselves.

(hat tip: Mark Bittman via Digby)

UPDATE 04/01/11 8:11 AM EDT: Here’s a further illustration of the banality of the evil that Republicans do: At a budget hearing concerning the US Agency for International Development (USAID), the agency administrator presented testimony that the budget cutbacks would lead to the deaths of at least 70,000 children. The response of Rep. Charlie Dent, a Republican from Texas, was (and I quote): “Can I just quickly change subjects?”

Anyone who supports Republicans is a fool and an accomplice to their evil.

The Washington Post has published an excellent article by Robert Rapier, skewering the lies and misinformation surrounding fuel prices:

4. The Obama administration is driving up gas prices.

Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) says EPA regulations are a “back-door national energy tax” that pushes prices up. Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin says the White House drilling moratorium shows President Obama’s “culpability in the high gas prices hurting Americans.”

Blaming the president for rising gas prices is nothing new, and it’s a bipartisan tactic. In 2004, Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) blamed President George W. Bush for higher gas prices and for continuing to fill the Strategic Petroleum Reserve as oil prices climbed.

Just one problem: Even if domestic supplies were developed, American presidents couldn’t really control oil prices. The U.S. government has estimated that there are 18 billion barrels of oil in the outer continental shelf of the lower 48 states that are off limits to development. That may sound like a lot, but it is only about 2½ years of supply for the United States, and it would take several years to allocate leases and drill exploratory wells. Even if the estimated 10 billion barrels of oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge were available for development, today’s policy decisions would have no impact on gasoline supplies for as much as a decade. Obama can’t dictate what you’ll pay for premium tomorrow.

Angry Black Lady has posted an exhaustively researched evisceration of the argument that President Obama has broken the law by sending US forces to Libya:

…[I]t seems obvious to me that it’s an Article 42 thing. Article 42 [of the UN charter] says if sanctions don’t work, the UN can use force. Since the UN doesn’t have a standing army, it seems obvious the UN must rely on the force of its members. What am I missing?

Moreover, the United Nations Participation Act of December 20, 1945 says the President needs Congressional approval for Article 43 stuff, but not for Article 42 stuff:

“The President shall not be deemed to require the authorization of the Congress to make available to the Security Council on its call in order to take action under article 42 of said Charter and pursuant to such special agreement or agreements the armed forces, facilities, or assistance provided for therein.”

There’s some additional language in the UN Participation Act (you can read it by clicking the link above), which I interpret to mean that POTUS can’t bootstrap the use of armed forces under Article 42 (for specific peacekeeping missions) into committing our troops to some sort of standing UN army under Article 43.

…

One irksome complaint I’ve seen is that Obama is going back on his campaign talky-talk:

“The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.”

Yeah? So? THAT’S NOT WHAT THIS IS. This is an action by a member of the UN in concert with other members of the UN to stop a crazy madman from blowing up his own people. This is not the president unilaterally authorizing an attack. It’s a president abiding by the principles of and agreements with the United Nations as those principles dovetail with U.S. law (the UN Participation Act).

There is much, much more, all of it worth your time. Go read the whole thing.

(hat tip: Balloon Juice)

Corporate profit margins will hit an eighteen-year high this year, according to the Bloomberg market news service.

Of course, Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OrangeAsOrangeCanBe) would have us believe that “America’s employers are afraid to invest in an economy stalled by ‘stimulus’ spending and hamstrung by uncertainty”.

Jesus on a pogo stick. Our government is infested by charlatans, frauds, and complete and utter fuckwits.

Recently-elected Republican Governor John Kasich of Ohio has decided that corporate profits come before a clean environment. He is planning to allow drilling for oil and gas in state parks, and has expressed support for the controversial practice of “fracking”, or hydraulic fracturing, which has been proven to pollute water supplies with radioactive elements.

There can be no more damning proof that Republicans care nothing for the health of and safety of their fellow Americans. I am ashamed to live in a country that would elect a rapacious, morally repugnant bastard like John Kasich to any office.

(hat tip: ThinkProgress)

Another wingnut reveals itself for the morally bereft puddle of slime that it is. This one calls itself “Pauline Marshall”, aka @pauline_ma on Twitter. This morning, she tweeted:

The only way 2 impeach Obama would be to take him 2 Georgia, find a 6 ft peach and put him in it.

Click for full size image.

That’s right — Pauline Marshall advocates lynching the President of the United States. She wants to use murder to effect her political goals.

Tell me again how there is no racism or violent rhetoric on the right, please?

The “Tea Party Patriots” want Congress to pull federal funding from NPR because one fundraiser for the network was recorded on tape stating that some Tea Party members are “xenophobic… seriously racist people”. Apparently, this is a thought crime in Tea Party circles.

What expressions of opinion are not offensive to the “Tea Party Patriots”? Let’s see…

• The website of a Republican women’s group in Virginia published a racist joke about an ice cream flavor called “Barocky Road”: “a blend of half Vanilla, half Chocolate, and surrounded by Nuts and Flakes. The Vanilla portion of the mix is not openly advertised and usually denied as an ingredient”. The “Tea Party Patriots” were silent.
• A South Carolina Republican Party activist and former State Senate candidate described an escaped gorilla as an “ancestor” of First Lady Michelle Obama. The “Tea Party Patriots” were silent.
• The newsletter of a Republican women’s group in San Bernadino included an image of then-candidate Barack Obama depicted as a donkey, surrounded by a watermelon, ribs and a bucket of fried chicken. The “Tea Party Patriots” were silent.
• Racist signs are a common sight at Tea Party rallies. The silence from the “Tea Party Patriots” is positively deafening.