Lindsey Graham Plays the Race Card... The Jewish Race

What in the hell is going on with the ever disintegrating Republican Party? On CNN's State of the Union with Candy Crowley this Sunday, South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham bristled at the thought of another possible Cabinet appointment by President Obama to have former Senator Chuck Hagel be the next Defense Secretary.




So, former Republican Senator Chuck Hagel from Nebraska, a decorated Vietnam War veteran, who in 1982 resigned as deputy administrator of the Veterans Administration amid his superior's inclination to cut VA benefits and his calling VA groups "greedy," isn't the right choice for Lindsey Graham as a possible nominee as the next Secretary of Defense. Why? Because according to Graham, Chuck Hagel is not a supporter of Israel.

"Chuck Hagel, if confirmed to be the secretary of defense, would be the most antagonistic secretary of defense toward the state of Israel in our nation’s history... 

...he said you should directly negotiate with Iran, sanctions won’t work, that Israel should directly negotiate with the Hamas organization, a terrorist group that lobs thousands of rockets into Israel... 

...This is an in-your-face nomination by the president," Graham said. "And it looks like the second term of Barack Obama is going to be an in-your-face term."

Seriously? Lindsey Graham played the Jew card?! You know, because our foreign policy must solely rely on Israel and make sure that whatever we do, we have to get Israel's approval first. And enough with challenging EVERY possible Obama nominee. It's unbecoming of the Republicans in the Senate to play The Boy Who Cried Wolf every time the White House suggests a cabinet appointment. Do your fucking job and have your say in a Senate Nominating Committee and vote the way you want to vote. Otherwise, fuck off.

And please remind me how former President Bush ran his possible Cabinet nominees by every Democratic member of Congress to make sure it was okay with them, because I don't recall that. Please remind me how the party that just got trounced in November should have more say about who the winner should choose to be part of his staff.

Guess what, douchebag: elections have consequences, and President Obama won re-election pretty handily over that sorry excuse for a candidate your side put up. So now it's time to shut your goddamn cakehole and since you're a fucking SENATOR, have the wherewithal to understand that your opinion matters just as much as 99 other Senators, be a little more deferential and diplomatic, and try to come to the realization that the United States does not and should not revolve around Israel.

An "in-your-face" term? Fuck, yeah.

Reid to McCain: Cut the Crap

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid had some words for John McCain about his ongoing sour grapes. And he put them in a letter addressed to the Maverick, and CC'ed Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham and Kelly Ayotte because they are now being insufferable assholes on this Benghazi thing.

"I refuse to allow the Senate to be used as a venue for baseless partisan attacks... 

...You already have the opportunity to engage more fully in the fulsome and ongoing investigation in the events in Benghazi... [but] failed to attend a classified briefing held by the Senate Homeland Security Committee on this very issue."

In other words, you're making a fool of yourself. Knock it off, you idiot.

View the full letter here.

McCain Needs to Go Away

How much hate can one man hold against another? How bitter must a person be to look for any misguided excuse to fingerpoint and shake his fist in outrage despite making himself look like a complete loon in the process?

Arizona Senator and former 2008 losing Republican presidential candidate John McCain is still in stage two of the five stages of loss and grief: Anger. And since he doesn't have the balls to challenge the president directly, he'll hypocritically go after UN Ambassador Susan Rice for expressing CIA intelligence at the time almost verbatim in regards to the Benghazi embassy attack.

But no matter. McCain can keep tilting at windmills along with his personal Sancho Panza, Sen. Lindsey Graham, about the Benghazi attack and claim a coverup or incompetence in this instance, but defend then National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice in her "mushroom cloud" assessment because that's what the intelligence assessment said at the time. Why is that explanation good enough for Condoleezza Rice when it then had a direct result of taking the country into war on false pretenses, but not good enough for Susan Rice who had no direct involvement with the State Department and whose statements were consistent with CIA intelligence at the time? Oh right, it's okay if you're a Republican.

John McCain needs to go away. His mind is muddled with anger and revenge, never getting over 2008's loss. If he were so interested in the actual information about what happened in the Libyan embassy attack and the intelligence leading up to Benghazi on September 11th, he should have attended the classified briefing for members of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, of which he is a member, instead of holding a photo op press conference demanding information that was being disseminated in said meeting simultaneously, and calling for another investigation, also known as another witch hunt.

 Reporters would do well to skip McCain's pressers from now on, else they'll risk missing actual news.

Fightin' Harry Reid Not Backing Down

Last week, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid stated he spoke with someone who claimed Mitt Romney hadn't paid taxes in 10 years.

Reid suggested that Romney’s decision to withhold tax information would bar him from ever earning Senate confirmation to a Cabinet post. Then, Reid recalled a phone call his office received about a month ago from “a person who had invested with Bain Capital,” according to The Huffington Post. 

Reid said the person told him: “Harry, he didn’t pay any taxes for 10 years.” 

“He didn’t pay taxes for 10 years! Now, do I know that that’s true? Well, I’m not certain,” Reid told HuffPo. “But obviously he can’t release those tax returns. How would it look?”

Good question, Harry. It would look pretty shitty, especially considering Romney's tax plan would give even more tax cuts to the have mores, and cut social and medical programs to pay for it. The burden of proof is on Romney. He can shut down all of those claiming he's got something to hide by releasing his returns. It's really that simple.

Reid's comments have caused an apoplectic fit among the right, with RNC Chairman calling Reid a "dirty liar" on the Sunday talk shows. I would take their protests seriously if they hadn't been so completely silent on the Birther issue looking the other way when anyone in their party asked for proof of President Obama's citizenship.

Well Reid and his office aren't backing down just because poor, little Reince Priebus and Lindsey Graham get their panties in a knot calling Reid a liar. In fact, it's only gotten harsher.

“They’re a bunch of cowards, and they’re avoiding the issue,” said David Krone, Reid’s chief of staff, in an interview with POLITICO on Sunday night. “Lindsey Graham, Reince Priebus — they’re a bunch of henchmen for Romney, and they’re all reading off the same talking points. They couldn’t hold a candle to Harry Reid.” 

Krone added: “What Harry Reid said is the fact of what he was told. To turn it around, all their childish rants this weekend about calling Reid a ‘liar’ and all that, it just shows you how scared they are that Harry Reid was telling the truth.”  

As far as I'm concerned, it's political gamesmanship. This time though, the GOP is crying foul because they're on the short end. So if the GOP has been unwilling to publicly put the Birther issue to rest once and for all, if they continue to embrace the Tea Party when Tea Party leaders insist that President Obama release his medical records to prove he's not a gay crack addict, if they're willing to call Harry Reid a liar but keep mum on Mitt Romney's blatant lie that the Obama administration is trying to suppress the military vote in Ohio, then game on, motherfuckers.


(Cross-posted at ABLC)

He Can Do No Right

Look, I know that if you're a Republican, to agree with anything that President Obama has to offer is a political risk. I know that everyone in the GOP has pretty much taken the Mitch McConnell tact of making President Obama a one-term president as its main and major goal, even at the risk of US economic collapse. I know that the Republican Party likes to tout itself as the party of national security. But these latest comments from Republican Senator John McCain and his personal Renfield, Senator Lindsey Graham are absolutely laughable.

"Americans can be proud of the role our country has played in helping to defeat Qaddafi," their statement reads, "but we regret that this success was so long in coming due to the failure of the United States to employ the full weight of our airpower."

This statement comes from the same two Senators that were part of a delegation that considered selling nonlethal defense equipment to Gaddafi's Libya (with a little McCain bow to boot in his meeting with Gaddafi).

McCain wanted the US's "full weight" of the military airpower, and yet his own members of Congress were losing their shit just a few weeks ago, stomping their feet with a House vote to admonish the President for continuing America's role in the NATO operation and claiming a violation of the War Powers Act, and threatened to cut off funding for the operation. Does that mean that McCain and Graham would have been fine with a unilateral US strike against Libya with the "full weight" of our airpower had it only taken 89 days?

The bottom line is that the Republican Party has lost their "strong on defense" moniker and they don't like it.

The Obama administration was successful in taking out the Somali pirates that captured Captain Richard Phillips and held him hostage, but immediately afterward came the email smear campaign that the President was hesitant in authorizing lethal force.

President Obama made capturing or killing Osama Bin Laden a top priority as soon as he was sworn into  office and said so during the campaign. This was something George W. "Wanted Dead Or Alive" Bush couldn't bother with just six months after 9/11. Yet again, right wingers went to the Internet and created another smear email to claim something about which they knew nothing.

And now, with a war in Afghanistan and in the process of a methodical withdrawal from Iraq, and the President deciding to honor the US's obligation to NATO and the UN in the Libya conflict, and here are the Republicans making sure to criticize the widest range possible just to confirm they cover everything, from acting without Congressional authority, or berating Obama for letting France and England take the lead in the action, to now McCain and Graham whining about not acting quickly enough and that it took six months to ouster a dictator who held power for 42 years. Even the Wall Street Journal editorial page is praising the efforts while criticizing the the naysaying GOP.

The fighting continues in Tripoli, and Moammar Gadhafi still hasn't been captured, but the triumph of the U.S.-backed Libyan rebels seems to be only a matter of time. Though you wouldn't know it from the reaction at the Council on Foreign Relations or among some GOP Presidential candidates, this is a victory for freedom and U.S. national interests.

A dictator with American blood on his hands is about to be overthrown by a popular revolt invoking democratic principles. Not a single American has died in the effort, and the victory would not have been possible without U.S. air power, intelligence and targeting as part of NATO. A long-oppressed people now has a chance to chart a freer future, a fact that is clear from the rejoicing in Benghazi.

What would we prefer: That Gadhafi stay in power?

...Yet some of the same people who said we shouldn't help the rebels now want the U.N. to send "boots on the ground," including U.S. troops. It's not clear that the Libyans want or even need such help, especially from Americans, which could complicate their own nascent attempts at self-government.

...President Obama was right yesterday to urge the rebels to pursue "reconciliation." But America's foreign policy elites have also so far misjudged the rebels, who have shown impressive persistence and coordination in maintaining a six-month military campaign.

...One disappointment is the reluctance among Republicans to praise the rebel success, perhaps for fear it will somehow help Mr. Obama.

...U.S. intervention has succeeded in preventing a bloodbath in Benghazi and soon in deposing a long-time U.S. enemy who could have re-emerged as a terrorist sponsor.

Michele Bachmann, who played the al Qaeda tune, now looks partisan to a fault.

...The U.S. military is stretched at the current moment and we can't take sides in every civil war. But the Libyan intervention shows that when the cause is just and the means are available, the U.S. can make a moral and strategic difference.

U.S. support for the rebels won't be lost on a Middle East still undergoing its own upheavals, not least on the people and governments of Syria and Iran. NATO showed it will finish a military task it started, and soon Gadhafi will take his place with Saddam in the ranks of Arab despots who will terrorize their people no more.

I believe everyone has forgotten (including Michael Steele and the Morning Joe pundits this morning) that the initial intervention is Libya was a humanitarian one, with NATO acting on the information that Gaddafi was about to unleash hell on his own people in Benghazi.

And yet, President Obama can do no right. He doesn't even read the right books on vacation. I suppose he would have gotten a reprieve on the reading list criticism if he'd included Ayn Rand's ATLAS SHRUGGED and Rick Perry's FED UP!, both also works of fiction, by the way.

Dumbass Quote of the Day

"I stand here very disappointed in the fact that our lead negotiator on the Republican side ... basically is going to have his work product ignored and the treaty jammed through in the lame duck. How as Republicans we justify that I do not know. To Senator Kyl, I want to apologize to you for the way you've been treated by your colleagues."

~Senator Lindsey Graham on the hubris of the Democratic leaders in the Senate for... doing their job and legislating.

Quote of the Day

"After years of being a lonely voice of Republican sanity on immigration, [Sen. Lindsey] Graham has decided to embrace the supreme symbol of nativism -- changing the Fourteenth Amendment to restrict American citizenship. He has either taken leave of his senses or of his principles. Neither is unknown in Washington. Politicians sometimes come here to drop their deepest convictions. It’s called self-serving cynicism.

...Graham and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) were once examples of conscience on the issue of immigration. McCain, in a tough Senate primary, has backed off his convictions. Graham has now abandoned them." 

~ Michael Gerson

Lindsey Graham Is A Dick - UPDATED

The highlight of my day while watching the Sotomayor hearings was Senator Lindsey Graham (R-Doucheland) being Mr. Tough Guy and after about 6 hours of answering questions, incredulously asked Judge Sotomayor to repeat her "wise latina" quote because he couldn't find it in his notes to beat her about the head with it. Seriously.

You've had all day, Lindsey. If you want to drag Sotomayor through the mud, that's your prerogative. But don't ask her to help you do it because you're unorganized and misplaced your right wing talking points fax. Dick.

UPDATE (10:35pm): Via Third Branch:

Via Atrios, Craig Crawford describes the political disaster that the GOP has decided to perpetrate upon itself:

Watching Lindsey Graham's gotcha grin as he needled Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor with disingenuous and rhetorical questions you had to wonder what was so funny. Does the Republican senator think it is amusing that he and his party's condescending tone toward the Hispanic woman was costing them ethnic votes with each passing hour of Tuesday's Judiciary Committee hearing?

. . . Even if they vote for her, the fallout for Republicans could reach well beyond Hispanic voters. They are coming across as a bunch of snarky and bitter old white men who cannot bear the thought of their kind losing power.

The only thing that can make it worse for the GOP will be, as I noted earlier, if no Republicans vote for Sotomayor's confirmation. Here's hoping.

Political Suicide

It's amazing to me that some of these insane Republican Governors would even fathom the idea of refusing federal aid for their states to make political hay. South Carolina's Mark Sanford has been the most vocal when it comes to the recovery bill.

“We’re moving precipitously close to what I would call a savior-based economy,” Sanford also said Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union.
...“That is quite different than a market-based economy where some rise and some fall but there’s a consequence to making a stupid decision,” Sanford said after pointing to the powers granted to the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve to help deal with the current economic crisis.

I wonder if Sanford will make the "stupid decision" of letting his state starve instead? Hell, he waited until the last possible second before asking for money to shore up unemployment benefits in the state with the third highest unemployment rate at 9.5%, so I wouldn't put it past him.

But we all know that in general, Republicans are hypocrites.

Sanford: "Being against it doesn't preclude taking the money."

Lindsey Graham on CNN after being asked if South Carolina should take the money: “I think that, yes, from my point of view, I — you don’t want to be crazy here."

Is it just me or is this like force feeding a baby to eat his beets? We know it's good for them, but they turn their heads and make a stink and cry and moan and wail because they don't like the taste of what's best for them.

I say, let them drink the political hemlock. If they seriously think that threatening to refuse money based on some set of misguided principles, or touting the funds they got in the bill through amendments they then voted against are going to help them in their upcoming campaigns, go right ahead and jump off that cliff. I'll be the one playing the pipe as they leap off the egde.

Obama The Figurehead - The New GOP Talking Point

There's nothing like politicians from opposite sides working together for the good of the country to avoid economic disaster. And this is nothing like it.

Yesterday, we heard pissant Lindsey Graham accuse President Obama of being "AWOL" on this recovery bill. Yes, the same President Obama who invited leaders of both the Democratic and Republican parties to the White House to talk about the stimulus bill; the same President Obama who personally met with House Republicans and Senate Republicans a week ago; the same President Obama who hosted a White House cocktail party and invited leaders of both parties to attend to discuss the recovery bill; the same President Obama that had a Super Bowl party (that McCain refused to attend) to discuss the stimulus; the same President Obama who called individual Senators to speak about the stimulus. That President Obama is now being called AWOL in the eyes of obstructionist Lindsey Graham.

It now seems that this was the opening salvo in the GOP propaganda powder room. Newt "Contract On America" Gingrich was on the Today Show this morning and said, "Why isn't he calling bipartisan leadership meetings in the White House to work out the details instead of making partisan speeches in front of a partisan audience attacking the people whose votes he's gonna need?" Yeah, Gingrich said that. I suppose Newt Gingrich was either AWOL or in a coma these past two weeks. And the irony of the "partisan speech in front of a partisan audience" line really made me laugh out loud.

Steve Thomma fell for it hook, line and sinker. Being interviewed by Nora O'Donnell this morning, the McClatchy reporter's response to Gingrich's statement was, "He's met with them, had lunch with them...we don't know if he's negotiated." Does Thomma think that Obama would have lunch with these idiots for the pleasure of it?

Thomma goes on to say that he doesn't know if Obama is "hands on" or if he's a "big picture -chairman of the board type" like Reagan was. Where did he get this opinion? At a luncheon with... Newt Gingrich. He continued with the GOP talking points about Obama needing to compromise and take spending out of the bill in favor of more balance between spending and tax cuts to gain Republican support. I guess Thomma was on vacation for the last two weeks as well.... or maybe sitting at another GOP luncheon.

So look for the new Republican talking point. Obama is just a figurehead who is AWOL when it comes to negotiating the specifics in the recovery bill. Because we all know it's more important to invent talking points and obstruct than it is to actually help the hundreds of thousand of Americans losing their jobs every month.

American Stories, American Solutions

Here's Barack Obama's thirty minute infomercial that ran last night in case you were not one of the 29 million viewers who watched it.



I'll be posting reaction to this video from the punditocracy and the wingnut right as I come across it with frequent updates. I already hear Rush Limbaugh is making fun of the families in the video... because they were fat. Try and figure that one out.

UPDATE (9:20pm):

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC): "Anybody see the infomercial last night? Thank god for cable! If we had played that at a prison camp it’d have violated the Geneva Convention."
Graham joking about torture when the candidate he is backing voted against a ban on waterboarding. Classy.

Hypocritical Presumptuous Pretend President

I know I'm late to the party on this subject (not much blogging time lately, and also not feeling too motivated) but I couldn't let this go by without comment.

John McCain is an ass. The McCain campaign was all atwitter in its judgment of Barack Obama's presumed lack of experience when arguing he didn't know what was going on in Iraq because he hadn't been there; as if actually having feet on the ground gives you a better understanding of the clusterfuck in Iraq. They actually goaded Obama into travelling to the Middle East, and when it backfired on them as throngs of people greeted him with open arms, they and the McCainstream Media accused him of being presumptuous and acting presidential before actually being president.

Fast forward just a couple of weeks later to the Russia-Georgia conflict of these past few days and witness the audacity of McThuselah as he not only sabre rattles with harsh language toward Russia (with sabres we don't have, by the way), but then sends his pretend cabinet members Lindsey Graham and Holy Joe Lieberman to Georgia. What the fuck?!

Hey asshole, we've already got a president. Sure he's completely incompetent, but it's his job to send the real Secretary of State to the region, not you, you twit. Now, while Barack Obama was on vacation in that far off exotic locale of Hawaii (perhaps McCain doesn't remember that it's been a state since he was 23 years old) and making a "more measured" statement, McCain tried to take advantage of the situation but overstepped his bounds in trying to act presidential.

Making a statement is one thing. Sending lackeys to the region is something completely different.

Senate Passes New GI Bill

Final vote 75-22, which means it has a veto proof majority.

Here are the 22 Republican shitheads who voted "Nay" to which I ask, "Why do you hate the troops?"

Alexander (R-TN)
Allard (R-CO)
Barrasso (R-WY)
Bennett (R-UT)
Brownback (R-KS)
Bunning (R-KY)
Burr (R-NC)
Cochran (R-MS)
Corker (R-TN)
Cornyn (R-TX)
DeMint (R-SC)
Ensign (R-NV)
Enzi (R-WY)
Graham (R-SC)
Grassley (R-IA)
Gregg (R-NH)
Hatch (R-UT)
Kyl (R-AZ)
Lugar (R-IN)
McConnell (R-KY)
Sessions (R-AL)
Voinovich (R-OH)

Oh, and our Vietnam War hero, Maverick McCain? He didn't vote. He was too busy campaigning in California to make it back to Washington. I guess it wasn't that important to him. It doesn't matter anyway. If he had the balls to actually cast a vote, the list of "Nays" would have been 23 Republican shitheads.

The Arizona senator has never said that he does not support the bill because it is “too generous.” He has stated concerns that offering education benefits as early as the Webb bill allows would discourage people from re-enlisting.
...And despite McCain’s opposition to the Webb legislation, retiring Republican Sen. John Warner of Virginia told FOX News: “This GI bill, one way or another, will be the law of the land.”

From the LA Times:

McCain, a former prisoner of war, said he supported an alternative that would not encourage troops to leave the service "after they have completed one enlistment."

But his position pits him against some of the Senate's other veterans, including Sens. Jim Webb (D-Va.) and John W. Warner (R-Va.), both former Navy secretaries.

After the vote, Warner said, "I don't know of any day that I'll cherish or remember more than this one" in his 30 years in the Senate.

Clinton also spoke out for the GI benefits. "We often hear wonderful rhetoric in this chamber in support of our troops and our veterans. But the real test isn't the speeches we deliver, but whether or not we deliver on the speeches."

Asked about the GOP support, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who opposed the domestic spending portions, said, "I would say that's why we're not a majority anymore."

I mean, fuck, even Joe "The McCain Shadow" LIEberman voted Yea.