Tea Party Platform, A Laughable List

This is helpful.
Climate Change Deniers
Debt Default Deniers
Tax Relief for Billionaires

According to a NY Times/CBS poll add the following to the Tea Party platform:
42% believe we should reduce legal immigration from present levels (scared white people, anyone?)
81% support something *other* than gay marriage
53% believe Roe v. Wade was a *bad thing*

Racist anyone?
Tea Party leader Mark Williams says Muslims worship a 'monkey god', blasts Ground Zero mosque 

Herman Cain says that he won't appoint Muslims to his administration and would require special loyalty oaths for Muslims (and not other religious groups) because Muslims " have an objective to convert all infidels or kill them"


Head in the Sand Anyone?
84% of Tea Partiers believe their views reflect the views of most Americans.  Only 25% of "most Americans" believe this.
52% of Tea Partiers believe that too much has been made in recent years of issues facing black people.
93% of Tea Partiers disapprove of health care legislation.
Despite continuing the Bush era tax cuts, 56% of Tea Partiers believe that Obama's policies favor the poor.
Only 7% have a favorable opinion of Obama.  That's 36% lower than the average American.  84% have an unfavorable opinion of Obama.  That's a whopping 51% difference from the average American.
77% of Tea Partiers believe Obama is "very liberal".  As a *moderate* liberal, I find that laughable.  We Progressives can't seem to get ANY of our policy passed or even discussed.

Tea Party respondants were:
59% male
85% white
46% middle aged
56% make more than $50,000/year
78% rate their household's financial condition as fairly or very good.  30% claim the recession has had no impact on their household.  Wow.  They are doing well in this economy and want smaller government and fewer services for those who's lives have been decimated?

Let's revisit one of those items.  84% of Tea Partiers believe that their views generally reflect those of most Americans.  84% think they are mainstream.  84% think the rest of the nation is a bunch of white-loving, homophobic, Islamaphobic, Mormonphobic, poor-hating, jackasses who think, despite paying among the lowest taxes in the free world, that they are overburdened by a repressive government.  Except for Social Security.  And Medicare.  Because those are, you know, *good* things.

These people are just selfish, self-centered a$$holes.

There is NOTHING more irritating than a reformed smoker

Poking around Huffington Post, I found this little gem written by Frank Schaeffer. Schaeffer is the son of an (apparently) famous evangelical minister who woke up, dropped out, and lived to tell the tale. Director and author now, he had a few words about the GOP I found interesting given my most recent political post. That is to say that he ponders the post-McCain Republican Party.

Schaeffer doesn't go in for all that flowery talk.

The Republican Party has lost the hearts and minds of reasonable Americans of all faiths and ideologies. Independent voters, young people, black people, Hispanics... the list goes on, and now includes even most white men (like me), most white women, in fact most everybody has left the Republicans. Who stayed? The sorts of people who believe that the Earth is 6000 years old, that dinosaurs roamed the Earth with men, that Senator Obama is "a Arab," that President Bush was correct in thinking that it was "God's will" that we go to war with Iraq, that torture of prisoners is OK, that Senator Obama is a Muslim, that the problem with the American economy is what little remains of government regulation of our banking and financial institutions, that freedom equals being allowed to go to gun shows where an eight-year-old is allowed to fire an Uzi submachine gun and shoot himself in the head...

I can't decide if I just like this article because the writing is so powerful or because his thoughts mirror my own. But when I encountered that last sentence, I actually read it twice just so I could enjoy it again. Well, I enjoyed everything but the kid shooting himself in the head. But you know what I mean.

But the Party is in tatters and a period of reflection and rebuilding is in order. Schaeffer has some suggestions.

The choice for the Republicans, in the face of their impending overwhelming defeat, is clear: is the Republican Party going to become the permanent refuge for stupid people or will it change and stop catering to the village idiots?

In becoming a party of rubes, the party of eternal war (and therefore eternal debt!), the party that despises the big cities, hates the universities, says that one part of America is more patriotic than other parts, in fact hates (and fears) anyone not like them or worse yet, is suspicious of anyone smarter or more educated than they are, the Republicans have doomed themselves to be the party of stupid, fearful and close-minded bigots.

I enjoyed the hell out of this article, but I don't know whether I should be honored or afraid for having an insider from the religious fundamentalist movement agree with me.

Hmmmmmmmm.

Some more interesting tidbits from Schaeffer. He talks about his father's treasonous statements from the pulpit that make Jeremiah Wright look not so bad after all. And I don't know how I missed this, but he wrote an open letter to McCain and Palin about inciting their rally participants to violence.

But I'm a Socialist, Damnit!

Stupid quiz of the day. What are your political leanings. I suspect this quiz is not statistically accurate. Why? Check out the results, I garnered. LOL

You are a Social Liberal (73% permissive) and an... Economic Liberal (11% permissive) You are best described as a: Socialist Link: The Politics Test on Ok Cupid Also : The OkCupid Dating Persona Test

Why I Read Blogs

I read blogs because I get links to unbelievable information that would otherwise elude my detection. To wit:

Were you aware that Halliburton, one of the United States' largest defense contractors announced that is was moving it's headquarters to DUBAI? Yes Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates. Yes, Halliburton, the same one run by Dick Cheney. Something stinks in Denmark. http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Politics/story?id=2943017

Here's some food for thought for all those die-hard Hillary fans who staunchly refuse to consider voting for Barack. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1821662,00.html

And for those who think it is cute and smart to elect dumb leaders, consider that McCain graduated 5th from the bottom (of 899 students) in his class at the Naval Academy. If you have the stomach, you can hear his flippant remarks about his stellar academic career here....http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsiADdmoh3E

Given this level of academic achievement, we can hardly be surprised that McCain thinks that Pakistan and Iraq share a border, or when he repeatedly refers to Czechoslovakia, a country that hasn't existed since 1993. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/07/21/mccain-owns-first-foreign_n_114013.html If nothing else, the fact that Bush was a C student as a HISTORY major should tell us something about the wisdom of electing intellectually stunted leaders.

I can't make this crap up. Enjoy the campaign.