I was shocked to find this claim by Republican John Kasich in a recent article at CNN:
“I think I was in the Tea Party before there was a Tea Party.”
Yes. You read that right. John Kasich invented the Tea Party. Not just the recent tea party phenomenon. You know, the mouth breathing, knuckle dragging wingnut sychophant party that descended upon us this summer. No. John Kasich invented THE “Tea Party™”. The original one.
I was very doubtful until I found this archival footage of the actual Boston Tea Party:
It is tough to tell at first, so we had our crime lab digitally enhance it. I think this show pretty clearly that John Kasich did indeed invent the Tea Party™:
In 2000, when he dropped out of the Presidential race, GOP Gubernatorial candidate John Kasich called W. Bush his “soul brother.”
In a June 26, 2009 CNN story on the Bush years (featured on Kasich’s campaign website), Kasich said:
“The Republican Party is my vehicle, not my master,” he said. “I mean I am here to try to bring prosperity back to this state, to make sure families are better off. I’m not here to carry anyone’s banner.”
…
“They [The Bush Administration] stopped solving problems,” said Kasich, who after his House tenure worked on Wall Street and as a cable TV political commentator and host. “Whenever you don’t have any ideas and are afraid to put things forward, you are going to lose energy. That’s what happened to the GOP and frankly I’m as mad as anybody in this country about what they did in the last 10 years, or since 2001.”
Today, in the Dispatch:“Jeb Bush in Ohio for Kasich”
Here’s a clue. Your latest attempts to build on the failed narrative from the last campaign that Obama is soft on terrorism is fraught with danger. I know it is tempting and nearly a tourette’s like tic with you guys, but you must know that you are entering a world of pain with this one. A world of pain.
Let’s imagine for a minute that you even have ground to stand on. We’ll act as if your current criticism for delays in White House comment on the Detroit crotch bomber aren’t met by a 6 day delay by Bush commenting on Richard Reid. Reid’s failed shoe bombing happened on December 21, 2001 – just 3 short months after 9/11. Bush commented on the incident on December 28. A full week later. He thanked the stewardess and said it proved we were all on high alert. Then Attorney General John Ashcroft commented that intelligence agencies were sharing information with the American people in order to “enlist our assistance”. I’m sure this instilled a great amount of confidence and a warm secure feeling among the American People.
Let’s also pretend your Obama bashing for taking a vacation doesn’t immediately remind people that George W. Bush was on vacation for the entire month of August in 2001 as dire warnings were coming in that al-Qaida was “determined to strike in the U.S.” and Zacarias Moussaoui was learning how to fly a jumbo jet.
Again, Bush took a solid month off tying Richard Nixon for the longest Presidential vacation. Yet some wingnuts want to holler about too much golf and such nonsense. We’ll just act like this month long vacation while dire warnings of an imminent attack came in never happened. Guess what Bush was doing the day after the PDB entitled “Bin Laden Determined To Strike in US” was published?
Golfing.
Tip: If you are reading the “right-leaning” blogs in Ohio, stop. You won’t get any meaningful narratives that will stick. You’ll get a zinger or two here or there, but they are usually destroyed at will by us on the left. We’ve done it so much and with so much effectiveness we’ve begun to bore with it. Hell, we’ve even stopped reading them for the most part. It’s too easy.
Let’s also dismiss the entire notion of fixing the problem with intelligence agencies sharing data so that they might thwart future attacks. In a speech in February of 2003, then President Bush pledged to make information sharing an important tool in the “war on terror”. It wasn’t until 2007 that the Bush Administration published The National Strategy for Information Sharing. So much for a sense of urgency.
It all begs the question, really. How will you create a narrative about being soft on terrorism when your record shows you’ve been as ineffective over the course of two Presidential terms as you might claim this President has been in a quarter of one? Despite, mind you, the lack of a major attack on the country which you so proudly proclaim is your record of success.
Whose fault might it be that agencies don’t share data well enough to prevent a crotch bomber from getting on a plane bound for Detroit? Didn’t you have this fixed in the time between 2001 and 2008? It was obvious Republicans were working on this for years…or were they? I’ll stipulate they may have been a bit distracted by a war being waged on trumped up evidence in a country not related whatever to the current threat. A war which was spinning out of control and leading to unprecedented electoral defeat for the GOP. We’ll mark this down as duly noted.
So go for it. Bring on the soft on terrorism charges. They’ll be like political boomerangs on fire. They’ll revisit you and torch your narrative like a rich banker’s son’s nuts.
Go right ahead. Enter a world of pain if you must. Go down the road of reminding the American people how it is that the party in power during the most catastrophic attack on American soil is somehow able to now point the finger at the other party’s President and proclaim “soft on terror”.
Live by the sword, you die by it I guess. The next time you hear a conservative blowhard talk about supporting the troops, remind them that at midnight last night the GOP delayed a vote on “funding the troops” in order to delay health care reform. Only 3 (count ‘em 3) Republicans voted with Democrats to end debate and vote on the measure. 33 actually voted against the troops. You’ll note the silence on this among the wingnut blogosphere.
What was in it?
- More than $100 billion operations and maintenance, and military personnel requirements for ongoing military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, and to support preparations to continue withdrawal from Iraq.
- More than $23 billion for equipment used by our service members in Iraq and Afghanistan – including critical funds to accelerate the deployment of new mine-resistant vehicles
- More than $150 billion to increase readiness and training of our troops.
- Nearly $30 billion for health care for service members and their families.
- A 3.4% pay increase for our brave service men and women.
Holding the troops hostage because they don’t want health care reform and wish to harm this President and Congress in any way possible to win back some measure of power in 2010. Pathetic. Absolutely, positively pathetic!
Just a fantastic 6 minutes and 5 seconds of Rachel Maddow (not Maddox) goodness. You will, if you are like me, enjoy every second of it. If you are not like me and you are a trolling wingnut, then you will cringe in horror. Yes, I’m talking to you you #tcot bandit you!
Why is Jon Husted waging War on Christmas? First he gets busted using the corporate jets of lobbyists to jet off family and friends on fishing trips and bowl games. Then he can’t remember where the hell it is he actually lives. Now he’s waging War on Christmas?
Happy Holidays??? warmth and joy of the HOLIDAY season???
WTF Jon. You a commie? Peace and love???
Are you serious Jon? Jesus. Hah. Yes. JESUS. You don’t mention Jesus at all and only a passing reference to his father. Pagan trees and wrapped gifts. No mention of CHRISTMAS. No mention of Jesus, Mary, OR Joseph.
Really Jon Husted. Why are you waging War on Christmas? Paid for the the Ohio Republican Party. Have they all gone commie librul on us?
Nothing since JUNE? Did the official Ohio GOP blogger get fired? There’s a 3 month blogging rule. If you are dormant for 3 months you have to quit. Of course, they weren’t very relevant even when they were blogging. Anonymously I might add. Just shut it down guys. It was once a month or so anyway even when you did have something to say. It’s clear they don’t care much about it. They don’t even link it from their main site. Makes this page look silly too.
ODP is a bit livelier, but going on a month with nothing new. At least they are not nameless and faceless. Seth and Sarah (and sometimes Todd) at least own their posts.
Maybe they should outsource to one of many sycophants out there who would be more than willing to ghost write. Or are they already at their own blogs? Heh.
Look, I’ve been really hard on the Ohio Senate Democratic Caucus, its leaders, and particularly Ohio Senate Minority Leader Capri Cafaro.
It’s hard when you are so outnumbered by the Senate Republicans to be politically relevant, or to convince Democratic donors to donate to your caucus in your campaign to chip away and eventually take over a legislative body most of us have always known to be controlled by the Republicans.
But I think Senate Minority Leader Cafaro has listened to that criticism and is responding, and therefore, she should be applauded.
It’s pretty clear that the Senate GOP is trying to reach for the 17 instead of the 5. Why else would they jettison the House’s provision calling for a 5% cut in legislative salaries unless they were planning to vote down the House bill, but want to do so without the political baggage of voting on the record against a legislative pay cut to help balance the budget?
The problem then is that if the Senate goes a different route, it’s not likely going to have much of a shelf life because the House is not likely to concur to the Senate’s changes thus throwing the entire thing into a conference committee to work out.
Harris has to either get 17 out of 21 of his members to unite around a plan that will then be subject to further negotiations with the House majority leadership or they can give the Democrats 5 votes and move on.
And none of their alternatives is really any politically more palatable than what Strickland proposed, either.
Forget the GOP Senate primary. If you’re looking for evidence of Tea Bagger rebellion in the GOP in Ohio, look at the potentially GOP primaries for the Secretary of State’s race (Former House Speaker/Man of Many Residences Jon Husted v. County Treasurer/Social Conservative gladfly Sandy O’Brien) and the Attorney General’s race (Former U.S. Sen. Mike DeWine v. Delaware County Prosecutor David Yost.)
Last night, the Yost campaign announced it was endorsed over DeWine by the Butler County Republican Party. If you’re not familiar with Ohio GOP geopolitics, let me explain it to you this way. Think about your last county party dinner and who your county party got as its featured speaker. Maybe you got the Governor or a statewide.
Well, the Butler County GOP has regularly gotten people like the late Tony Snow or Karl Rove. This is Boehner-land, after all. The Ohio GOP held its state party dinner in nearby Warren County this year.
In order to get any endorsement, you had to get a supermajority, at least 60% of the county’s central committeepersons. Yost got 68%…. over a former U.S. Senator.
DeWine has run, a, well, unusual campaign for someone with his political resume. His campaign website hasn’t been updated at all since his announcement speech. He was not a featured speaker at the Ohio GOP’s state dinner. He’s seemed to be virtually nonexistent on the campaign trail ( I can find little evidence through local media of him actually campaigning.)
You have to wonder if DeWine is either extremely confident to the point of being complacent (Yost’s press release actually touted a poll showing DeWine still polling at 58% among registered Republican voters in a primary matchup with Yost) or simply disinterested.
Regardless, the Butler County GOP endorsement means than DeWine is facing a credible rebellion on his right flank smack dab in the middle of the Ohio GOP’s geopolitical base.
[UPDATE:] In what can only be described as a dumb political move, the DeWine campaign later this afternoon actually gave credence to Yost’s spin that this endorse is significant by issuing a statement that was picked up by the Hamilton Pulse Journal:
“We are confident that Republican voters in Ohio will nominate Mike DeWine to be their Attorney General candidate. In poll after poll, Mike DeWine is the only candidate who can beat Richard Cordray. DeWine is known across the state by an overwhelming 93% of voters. As a former county prosecutor, he has the vision and experience to clean up corruption, fix the state crime lab, and make sure our state does everything possible to promote economic growth and job creation.”
I don’t think this response helps DeWine’s cause at all when all they say is that he can defeat Richard Corday because 93% of voters have heard of him.
One of the great thing about being more engaged in the blogosphere again is finding good stuff others are doing. Back in the day that was probably the most fun for me. OK, a close second to banging on wingnuts. Hehe.
Some weeks ago I argued that the vituperative criticism of Obama from the right was not, as some suggested, driven by racism but was the result of the right wing being nuts. Not nuts in the sense that they disagree with me, but nuts in that they increasingly subscribe to paranoid fantasies untethered to the real world as anyone else perceives it.
The entire post is worth the read and Pho even sites scientific evidence of the descent into la-la land. His conclusion is something that many of us have been pointing out for quite some time. Namely, when it comes to the GOP and rightwing whackos, “all their base are belong to them”:
The hardcore right described in the report comprise the grassroots foot soldiers of the Republican party. They are the ones who do things like run party moderate out of elections — and the party. As such, the crazies in the Republican party have real influence on one of the only two real parties in our democracy.
Scott references a previous post in which he posits that it’s not racism but severe partisan politics that is driving the right further from reality and affecting the Republican Party in negative ways. I happen to think they are not mutually exclusive. They are both racist and crazy. In fact, you could possibly even argue that deep seated racism – the kind that manifests itself in sock puppets and dead monkey cartoons – is the very thing that is causing them to lose touch with reality.
The Hillreports that Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele was on a radio show and asked about the GOP could reach out to African-American voters. And here’s what transpired:
MARTIN: But your candidates got to talk to them. One of the criticisms I’ve always had is Republicans — white Republicans — have been scared of black folks.
STEELE: You’re absolutely right. I mean I’ve been in the room and they’ve been scared of me. I’m like, “I’m on your side” and so I can imagine going out there and talking to someone like you, you know, [say] “I’ll listen.” And they’re like “Well.” Let me tell you. You saw in Christie and you saw in McDonnell a door open because they went in and engaged. McDonnell was very deliberate about spending…
Stunning.
Nothing helps your African-American outreach like admitting that your party has trouble accepting any African-American as a legitimate leader.
Although Steele has never been asked to produce his birth certificate.
A Florida conservative has registered an official “Tea Party” with the office of the Secretary of State, and is promising to run candidates against Republicans and Democrats in state and national races.
Whoops. GOPers will be in a frantic pile on top of Palin…er…um…Pandora’s box trying to get that pupply closed! Here the best part:
O’Neal compared his party’s role to that of the Conservative Party in New York’s 23rd District.
Once you thoroughly unfasten yourself from reality, truly all things are possible.
He’s talking about an IBD editorial where the claim is made:
People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn’t have a chance in the U.K., where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless.
But…um…Hawking is from the UK. Been there his whole life. ROFL
I wanted to do a quick snap poll of Ohio’s “thoughtful center-right bloggers”. How many of you are birthers and how many of you are conservatives? Or both?
Just wondering. Please feel free to comment (even those of you previously banned). This is a very serious inquiry into the current psyche of the Ohio wingnut blogger base.
Thank you,
Plunderbund
PS – If you answer birther, or think there is any hint of a doubt in your mind about possibly being a birther, Bill Pascoe wants you to stop!
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