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Rep. Alan Grayson continues to come out with some of the best lines to describe the complete dysfunction in the House of Representatives.

via Eric Dolan at Raw Story

Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) on Monday mocked the 67 House Republicans who voted against disaster relief funds for the victims of Hurricane Sanday.

“It’s the same 67 over and over again,” he noted on The Stephanie Miller Show. “It’s the bath salts caucus, the people that would rather eat your face than cut taxes on the rich.”

The bill provided $9.7 billion for those whose homes were damaged or destroyed by Hurricane Sandy last year. The 67 Republicans who voted against the bill objected to it because the funds were not paid for with cuts to over government programs.

Grayson said that Republican obstruction in Congress had become worse since his previous term in the House of Representatives.

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Controversial Rep. Paul Broun of Georgia who ran unopposed in his deep red district was going to get re-elected but that didn't stop a lot of voters from expressing their displeasure with being represented by this type of person.

ATHENS, GA (CBS ATLANTA) - The elections may be over but the controversy continues for U.S. Rep. Paul Broun from district 10 in Athens. The Republican gained notoriety for comments he made on a YouTube video that said evolution and the Big Bang theory come "straight from the pit of hell."

Broun easily won re-election on Tuesday, but thousands of voters showed their displeasure with him by writing in their own candidates.

The election supervisor in Clarke County had never seen a write-in report as lengthy as the one she saw this year.

"I did not feel that I could in good faith vote for Mr. Broun," said voter Leslie Swann. "I wrote in a candidate of my choice."

"Who's that?" asked CBS Atlanta reporter Steve Kiggins.

"That would be the devil because I would vote for the devil himself before I would vote for that man," replied Swann.

Swann wasn't alone - nearly 4,000 people wrote in votes for the Origin of Species author, Charles Darwin.

But Darwin wasn't the only write-in candidate found on the ballots; Sesame Street's Big Bird made it a few times, and so did Comedy Central host Stephen Colbert. Also making the list was Eve Olution - plus one vote for Star Trek's Captain Sulu, George Takei.

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Wonkette pretty well spelled this one out for us without mincing any words -- Sarah Palin Wishes Barack Obama Had A Bigger Penis:

There seems to have been a small amount of tsuris in the Middle East yesterday, as a large lot of Libyans decided to kill some Americans. This makes most people show proper somberness and gravity. But not Sarah Palin! She is busy being very ladylike, by talking about the president’s penis. Let us go to her Facebook page, where all the world’s greatest statesmen gather to orate their profundities, and marvel at her good sense and wisdom!

Blah blah blah, Palin Palin Palin:

It’s about time our president stood up for America and condemned these Islamic extremists. I realize there must be a lot on his mind these days – what with our economy’s abysmal jobless numbers and Moody’s new warning about yet another downgrade to our nation’s credit rating due to the current administration’s failure to come up with a credible deficit reduction plan. And, of course, he has a busy schedule – with all those rounds of golf, softball interviews with the “Pimp with the Limp,” and fundraising dinners with his corporate cronies. But our nation’s security should be of utmost importance to our Commander-in-chief. America can’t afford any more “leading from behind” in such a dangerous world. We already know that President Obama likes to “speak softly” to our enemies. If he doesn’t have a “big stick” to carry, maybe it’s time for him to grow one.

She kept things just about as classy when she appeared on Fox on 9-11, so she could tell Bill O'Reilly how Republicans can smear President Obama more than they are already and literally told a lie a minute during her interview Tuesday night.

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Newt Gingrich is continuing his campaign but increasingly sounds like likes he's already thrown in the towel, which begs the question of why he's even bothering anymore. Today on Fox he admitted his campaign is "slightly less" than $4.5 million in the red, but said that was not a big deal as all campaigns can overspend at times, citing Hillary Clinton's 2008 campaign when she went $25 million in debt. The actual number was slightly over $20 million but let's compare the two.

According to her FEC report, Hillary Clinton raised $224 million including $13.2 million of her own money, which she later wrote off. By contrast (to the end of Feb 2012), Newt Gingrich had raised only $20.7 million which didn't include even 5¢ from him. Hillary Clinton finished narrowly behind Barack Obama in delegates. Newt Gingrich has won only two states and last Tuesday finished fourth in Wisconsin behind Ron Paul.

Ann Coulter was right about one thing: the GOP does have a problem with "con men and charlatans", people who use the conservative movement to bilk money from their gullible followers. Coulter was referring to the Wasilla Grifter herself, Sarah Palin, but she could just as easily have been talking about Newt Gingrich.

via Fox News:

Newt Gingrich acknowledged Sunday that his campaign is "operating on a shoestring," as he signaled he is preparing to transition from candidate to surrogate in anticipation of Mitt Romney winning the nomination.

While not throwing in the towel just yet, the former House speaker spoke frequently in past tense about his presidential bid in an interview on "Fox News Sunday."
...
Gingrich spoke openly about his campaign's money troubles. He said the campaign has had to dip into personal funds -- "a little bit, but not dramatically" -- and that the campaign is "slightly less" than $4.5 million in debt.

"We owe much more than we wanted to," Gingrich said. He explained that the Florida primary in late January "got to be a real brawl" and that his campaign "tried to match Romney."

Gingrich said his campaign won't "go broke" and that he'll raise money after the election in order to pay off his debt.

Continue reading »

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Republicans just can't seem to help themselves with this brain-dead analogy because this is how they really think, from Rush Limbaugh right on down. Here Minnesota State Rep Mary Franson uses the same offensive analogy of dependence that is currently so fashionable among republicans. This being an election year though the video was quickly pulled from YouTube but not before some enterprising souls captured it for posterity.

Eric at MN Progressive Project notices that Franson now joins the not so illustrious ranks of Nebraska AG and GOP US Senate candidate Jon Bruning who compared poor people to raccoons eating cockroaches, and South Carolina Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer who compared them to stray animals that breed too much when fed by children.

Mary Franson this is your moment to shine on the national stage. You can send your love at the link or at twitter.

Last week, we worked on some welfare reform bills.

And here, it's kind of ironic, I'll read you this little funny clipped that we got from a friend. It says, 'Is't it ironic that the food stamp program, part of the Department of Agriculture, is pleased to be distributing the greatest amount of food stamps ever.

Meanwhile, the Park Service, also part of the Department of Agriculture, asks us to please not feed the animals, because the animals may grow dependent and not learn to take care of themselves.

Our reform bills are meant to bring people up out of the clutches of poverty. We want to provide a safety net, no longer a safety hammock. In one of the bills Representative Kurt Daudt authored would reduce the amount of time that you could stay on welfare from five years to three years.

In three years I believe that we can get Minnesota's poorest of the poor back up on their feet and moving more toward a prosperous future.

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Give him his due for saying it out loud what we all knew anyway. Questions about Romney's skills as a politician though will continue to be asked after this unforced error. And of course few people will also believe his tongue wasn't firmly in his cheek when he said he's not concerned about the very rich. Why else would he try to become President?

The thing that caught my attention though is that Mitt Romney seems to believe the middle class are the 90-95% of Americans. It'd probably come as news to him that 16%, or 49 million Americans, are now living in poverty, according to the latest census.

via Rachel Werner at the Washington Post:

In an interview with CNN Wednesday morning that should have been a Florida victory lap, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney made a fumble that could give rivals an attack ad sound bite.

Asked about his economic plan, Romney said repeatedly that he was not concerned with very poor Americans, but was focused instead on helping the middle class.

Romney explained that he was confident that food stamps, housing vouchers, Medicaid and other assistance would keep the poor afloat — he pledged to fix holes in that safety net “if it needs repair.” He repeated past statements that his main focus is the middle class because those people, in his opinion, have been hardest hit by the recession (President Obama also has focused many of his efforts on the middle class).

But Romney’s awkward phrasing could give fuel to critics who argue that he does not empathize with the poorest Americans.

“I’m not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there,” Romney told CNN. “If it needs repair, I’ll fix it. I’m not concerned about the very rich, they’re doing just fine. I’m concerned about the very heart of the America, the 90 percent, 95 percent of Americans who right now are struggling.”

Doubtless we'll hear the similar empty platitudes from the other side, albeit more deftly. The poor really are of marginal interest to both parties. One side takes them for granted while the other side doesn't even acknowledge their existence.

A republican girl gets Ron Paul's recent book Liberty Defined as a Christmas gift. As soon as she reads his views on Israel she bursts into tears.

Whether one regards Paul's views on Israel (referring to it as an "apartheid state") as anti-Semitic, the fact remains that for Republicans and many other Americans his views on the subject are a disqualifier for the presidency. Even one longtime Ron Paul aide now refers to his foreign policy views in general, and his views on Israel specifically, as toxic:

He is however, most certainly Anti-Israel, and Anti-Israeli in general. He wishes the Israeli state did not exist at all. He expressed this to me numerous times in our private conversations. His view is that Israel is more trouble than it is worth, specifically to the America taxpayer. He sides with the Palestinians, and supports their calls for the abolishment of the Jewish state, and the return of Israel, all of it, to the Arabs.

(Edit: The original YouTube video isn't available anymore, perhaps to spare embarrassment. Some have also speculated the video was faked to discredit Ron Paul, as if his already published views don't do that anyway. Whatever the case, you can judge for yourself.)

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Earlier this year, and famously in one nationally televised debate this summer, Herman Cain quoted these pearls of wisdom from the theme song to Pokémon: The Movie 2000.. Today, as he ended suspended his campaign, he fittingly closed with yet another rendition, this time acknowledging the source.

Here is the video I made after the Republican debate in Ames, Iowa back in August.

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Herman Cain continues to get dogged by pesky reporters asking about his flubbed answer on Libya to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel earlier this week. At a news conference today in Orlando Cain suggested that the Taliban could be part of the post-Gaddafi government in Libya.

HERMAN CAIN: “Do I agree with siding with the opposition? Do I agree with saying that Gaddafi should go? Do I agree that they now have a country where you've got Taliban and Al Qaeda that's going to be part of the government?”

“Do I agree with not knowing the government was going to — which part was he asking me about? I was trying to get him to be specific and he wouldn't be specific.”

When reporters scoffed at his answer, one bluntly asked Cain if his ridiculous campaign was already over due to his frequent gaffes on foreign policy (as well as his past personal issues), an indignant Herman Cain replied:

HERMAN CAIN:: What? Over? Did you say "over"? Nothing is over until we decide it is! Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no!

REPORTER 1 Germans?

REPORTER 2: Forget it, he's rolling.

HERMAN CAIN: And it ain't over now. 'Cause when the goin' gets tough...

[Long pause.]

HERMAN CAIN:: The tough get goin'! Who's with me? Let's go!

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Via WaPo:

At his weekly news conference Thursday morning, Boehner (R-Ohio) was asked whether he believes the Americans for Tax Reform president and architect of the anti-tax pledge signed by an overwhelming majority of congressional Republicans is “a positive influence” on the House GOP conference.

The speaker shrugged his shoulders and paused at the podium for a full five seconds before responding.

“Listen, our focus here is on jobs,” Boehner said at last. “We’re doing everything we can to get our economy moving again and to get people back to work. It’s not often I’m asked about some random person in America.”

Asked whether he genuinely believed Norquist was a “random person” to members of his conference, Boehner replied, “Listen, our focus is on creating jobs, not talking about somebody’s personality.”

“Our conference is opposed to tax hikes because we believe that tax hikes will hurt our economy and put Americans out of work,” he added when asked about the impact of Norquist’s anti-tax pledge.

An odd expression which drew laughter from the assembled reporters but in a way Boehner wasn't joking. The idea behind the pledge has become so central to Republican thought, so fixed in their way of thinking that for someone like Boehner the question itself makes no sense, does not compute. That this "random person" just happens to be the originator of something which has been wholly incoporated into the Republican® brand is incidental.

This orthodoxy is now woven so deeply into the party’s identity that all but 13 of 288 GOP lawmakers in Congress have signed a formal pledge not to raise taxes. The strategist who invented the pledge, Grover G. Norquist, compares it to a brand, like Coca-Cola, built on “quality control” so that Republican voters know they will get “the same thing every time.”

Conformity is comforting to Republicans.