Getting More Lunatic, Day By Day!!

[SpiritMan]

In case you haven't guessed, this is a thread to chronicle the Republican Party's decent into absolute lunacy.

[SpiritMan]

Jason Linkins

Anti-Czar Bill Gets 100 Cosponsors In House

Yesterday, I posted on how a group of senators sent the White House a letter expressing concern over a multitude of presidential appointments -- which they label "czars" -- and how they "raise serious issues of accountability, transparency, and oversight." At length, I pointed out how those senators themselves need to do a better job accounting for the actual roles of those so-called czars, which are transparently obvious and easy to oversee.

Now it's the House's turn to get deeply mired in confusion over this non-issue! The Washington Independent's Dave Weigel reports today that Georgia Republican Jack Kingston has rounded up 100 co-sponsors for the Czar Accountability and Reform Act of 2009, also known as the "CZAR act" despite lacking a "Z" for the acronym. Might I recommend "zany?"

The bill would prevent taxpayer money from funding the salaries of "any task force, council, or similar office which is established by or at the direction of the President and headed by an individual who has been inappropriately appointed to such position (on other than an interim basis), without the advice and consent of the Senate." As I pointed out yesterday, many of the "czars" that are being fretted about have already been confirmed by the Senate, hold positions that were created by the Congress, or are just people who have been arbitrarily named a "czar" despite the fact that they are actually State Department envoys or Deputy Secretaries of the Interior, like "California Water Czar" David Hayes.

I also pointed out yesterday that "czars" have been a fact of life in American politics since the Nixon administration, and, to the best of my recollection, no Republican ever complained about the multitude of "czars" in the Bush White House.

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/16/ant-czar-bill-gets-100-co_n_288859.html

[SpiritMan]

Some fear GOP is being carried to the extreme

The Republican establishment hopes cooler heads will prevail over strongly anti-Obama parts of the conservative base.

Reporting from Washington -  Amid a rebirth of conservative activism that could help Republicans win elections next year, some party insiders now fear that extreme rhetoric and conspiracy theories coming from the angry reaches of the conservative base are undermining the GOP's broader credibility and casting it as the party of the paranoid.

Such insiders point to theories running rampant on the Internet, such as the idea that Barack Obama was born in Kenya and is thus ineligible to be president, or that he is a communist, or that his allies want to set up Nazi-like detention camps for political opponents. Those theories, the insiders say, have stoked the GOP base and have created a "purist" climate in which a figure such as Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) is lionized for his "You lie!" outburst last week when Obama addressed Congress.

story

[SpiritMan]

Where are the moderate Republican voices. The silence is deafening!!

[pesoto74]

I wonder about the lack of moderate republican voices.  In Illinois we have moderate republicans like former governor Edgar and I haven't heard him say anything about these nuts. 

[Guardian Angel]

Anybody watching the speech the President made to the joint house last week can only guess what has happened to those moderate Republicans by watching as the cameras scanned the room.  You can see them wanting to clap and agree but they look around at their fellow Republicans and change their minds.  They are intimidated by the unruly nut jobs. 

[SpiritMan]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/ns/msnbc_tv-rachel_maddow_show#32905279

[Guardian Angel]

Facebook poll calling for Obama assassination taken down while Secret Service investigates

September 28, 2009

Somehow with the Obama presidency it became acceptable in the minds of some people to call for Presidential assassination.  In the past those who even thought about killing the President kept their thoughts private but now some have no fear in making such ideas public.  Earlier this year a pastor in Arizona gave a sermon in which he expressed a desire for President Obama to die.  One of the pastor's church members then attended an Obama event with an assualt rifle and later refused to rule out the possibility of taking matters into his own hands.

Now the most recent evidence of this "assassination" phenomenon comes in a Facebook poll which actually asked if President Obama should be assassinated.  The options included were "yes, maybe, if he cuts my health care, and no."

Thankfully sensible people reported the poll and it has since been taken down.  You can still see a screenshot of the poll here.

While more people seem to believe it is acceptable to suggest the killing of a President the Secret Service does not seem to share their acceptance of this new found philosophy.  The Secret Service questioned the Arizona pastor and they have already announced an investigation of the Facebook poll.

Source with links: http://www.examiner.com/x-5738-Political-Buzz-Examiner~y2009m9d28-Facebook-poll-calling-for-Obama-assassination-taken-down-while-Secret-Service-investigates

[pesoto74]

It does seem like some people with not too many marbles to begin with have lost them once Obama was elected.  I do think that a lot of it is racism, although most of them won't come out and say it, so they talk about socialism and crazy stuff like he isn't really a citizen.  I notice in the screenshot of the poll that 750 people had taken the poll.  I wonder what the results were before it was removed? It will be interesting to see if the Secret Service finds who posted this.  I wouldn't be surprised if whoever did thought that talking about killing Obama was an acceptable form of political debate.  Anyway I hope whoever did this ends up setting in a jail cell.  Stuff like this makes me even more inclined to think that one day we could end up with a bunch of fundamentalist right-wing terrorists here.

[Butterfly]

To be honest.............I think there are already a bunch of fundamentalist right-wing terriorists here............

[Guardian Angel]

I'll second that.................

[pesoto74]

I suppost I mean the kind that start on a big scale with bombing and shooting people.  We have had a little of that so far, however I could see it getting a lot worse.  Hopefully most of these people are more talk than action.

[Guardian Angel]

Secret Service knows who put up poll on FaceBook

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2009/09/29/nr.obama.facebook.poll.cnn

[pesoto74]

Thanks for posting that.  I wonder if they will arrest the guy?  I kinda feel sorry for the guy who made the polling application.  I doubt that he intended for it to be used for something so crazy.

[Guardian Angel]

That occured to me too.  Perhaps he had heard that minister that called for Obama's death and just wanted to know if people supported him.  Sometimes people take what is posted entirely wrong.  I guess he will know now....