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I am so tired of turning on the morning news and seeing nothing but a bunch of Republicans whining about the passage of the health care reform bill.  I just don’t get why they get so much air time to bash Obama and a bill the Democrats passed after about fifteen months of prolonged debate.  I was hoping that maybe today the media would focus on what was actually in the bill and, I don’t know, maybe have a Democrat explain it and why it’s a good thing.  But no such luck, the Today Show had clips of Limbaugh, Boehner, McConnell, and a gaggle of other rich old white guys.  NPR had a five-minute interview with Judd Gregg (R-NH) who babbled on and on about how the Republicans have been treated so badly by the Democrats.  Hmmm… I wonder if he was sympathetic to the Democratic minority from 2000 – 2006?  I can’t say for sure, but my guess is NOT.  Which reminds me… Jon Stewart said it best shortly after Obama was elected president and the Democrats took over both houses of congress:  “You guys lost!  It’s supposed to taste like a shit sandwich.”   They can serve it up, but they can’t eat it.

Okay so I continue to be frustrated by the mainstream media, and not just because they seem to devote so much time to the losers, but also because the losing party is home to so many mean, xenophobic, racist bigots.  I cannot tell you how pleased I would be if I turned on a major network newscast and saw that they were doing an in-depth report about the hateful bigots that proudly align themselves with Republicans and Tea Partiers. 

I found some solace in Bob Herbert’s column this morning:

…it is time for every American of good will to hold the Republican Party accountable for its role in tolerating, shielding and encouraging foul, mean-spirited and bigoted behavior in its ranks and among its strongest supporters.

For decades the G.O.P. has been the party of fear, ignorance and divisiveness.  All you have to do is look around to see what it has done to the country.  The greatest economic inequality since the Gilded Age was followed by a near-total collapse of the overall economy.  As a country, we have a monumental mess on our hands and still the Republicans have nothing to offer in the way of a remedy except more tax cuts for the rich.

This is the party of trickle down and weapons of mass destruction, the party of birthers and death-panel lunatics.  This is the party that genuflects at the altar of right-wing talk radio, with its insane, nauseating, nonstop commitment to hatred and bigotry.

Glenn Beck of Fox News has called President Obama a “racist” and asserted that he “has exposed himself as a guy, over and over and over again, who has a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture.”

Mike Huckabee, a former Republican presidential candidate, has said of Mr. Obama’s economic policies:  “Lenin and Stalin would love this stuff.”

The G.O.P. poisons the political atmosphere and then has the gall to complain about an absence of bipartisanship.

There’s much more detail about Tea Partiers taunting a poor man with Parkinson’s disease, and the spitting, cursing, and name calling done on Saturday by protestors as the Democrats walked into the halls of congress.  Read it all here.

I’ve been watching Republican congressmen on TV talking about how they can’t vote for the Democrats’ stimulus plan because there’s too much spending and not enough tax cuts.  I stare at my TV with incredulity and wonder if they are certifiably insane. 

Republicans are now the minority party, and in a big way:  59-41 in the Senate and 251 – 173 in the House.

Why did they lose so badly?  BECAUSE THEIR ECONOMIC POLICIES DON’T WORK!

I was going to write a lengthy post about their failed polices that give billions of dollars in tax cuts to the richest one percent, and do nothing to raise the incomes and improve the standard of living for the middle and lower classes.  Then I read Bob Herbert today, and found he already wrote pretty much all I was going to say.  So read Bob Herbert.

What’s up with the Republicans? Have they no sense that their policies have sent the country hurtling down the road to ruin? Are they so divorced from reality that in their delusionary state they honestly believe we need more of their tax cuts for the rich and their other forms of plutocratic irresponsibility, the very things that got us to this deplorable state?

The G.O.P.’s latest campaign is aimed at undermining President Obama’s effort to cope with the national economic emergency by attacking the spending in his stimulus package and repeating ad nauseam the Republican mantra for ever more tax cuts.

“Right now, given the concerns that we have over the size of this package and all the spending in this package, we don’t think it’s going to work,” said Representative John Boehner, an Ohio Republican who is House minority leader. Speaking on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Mr. Boehner said of the plan: “Put me down in the ‘no’ column.”

If anything, the stimulus package is not large enough. Less than 24 hours after Mr. Boehner’s televised exercise in obstructionism, the heavy-equipment company Caterpillar announced that it was cutting 20,000 jobs, Sprint Nextel said it was eliminating 8,000, and Home Depot 7,000.

Maybe the Republicans don’t think there is an emergency. After all, it was Phil Gramm, John McCain’s economic guru, who told us last summer that the pain was all in our heads, that this was a “mental recession.”

The truth, of course, is that the country is hemorrhaging jobs and Americans are heading to the poorhouse by the millions. The stock markets and the value of the family home have collapsed, and there is virtual across-the-board agreement that the country is caught up in the worst economic disaster since at least World War II.

The Republican answer to this turmoil?

Tax cuts.

They need to go into rehab.

Read the rest of the column here.

George H.W. Bush warned us about “voodoo economics” in 1980, but the ideologues clamped a gag on him and put him on the Gipper’s ticket. For much of the time since then, the madmen of the right have carried the day. They were freed of their remaining few restraints with the ascendance of George W. Bush in 2000.

These were the reckless clowns who led us into the foolish multitrillion-dollar debacle in Iraq and who crafted tax policies that enormously benefited millionaires and billionaires while at the same time ran up staggering amounts of government debt. This is the crowd that contributed mightily to the greatest disparities in wealth in the U.S. since the gilded age.

This was the crowd that cut the cords of corporate and financial regulations and in myriad other ways gleefully hacked away at the best interests of the United States.

Now we’re looking into the abyss.

The rest is here.

From the Wall Street Journal:

Fashion companies have discovered a lucrative new marketing vehicle: Sarah Palin.

Since John McCain chose her last month as his running mate, Gov. Palin’s personal style has sparked a buying frenzy. Many women are snapping up her choices of shoes and eyeglasses and blogging about which brand of lipstick she wears. Hairstylists and wig sellers report sudden demand for her trademark up-dos. Indeed, the brands behind Gov. Palin’s fashion taste have gone into overdrive seeking to cash in on the association.

If you hop over to The New York Times, in Bob Herbert’s column, you’ll find evidence that this celebrity may be intelligent enough, but she doesn’t have what it takes to lead our nation.  Herbert says she may have traits that would suit her well in the American Idol contest, but she’s a reckless choice for Vice President.