The Astounding Hypocrisy that is The Tea Party

Rep. Jim McDermott pointed this out in a recent Congressional IRS-bashing hearing. As he says, “None of your organizations were kept from organizing or silenced. We are talking about whether or not the American taxpayers would subsidize your work. We are talking about a tax break.”

Wow. That puts the whole IRS/Tea Party scandal in a whole new perspective.

These anti-government activists were looking for government financing of their activities.

These anti-tax organizations were asking for tax money (that is what a tax break does).

These groups who hate government re-distribution of wealth were asking the government to re-distribute wealth to themselves.

Look in your dictionary under “hypocrite” and you’ll see a picture of the Tea Party if there is any justice in this universe.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

Maybe the IRS WASN’T Wrong About the Tea Party Groups

Mr. Blunt and Cranky, like almost everyone else, gleefully piled onto the Internal Revenue Service recently. The targeting of political groups certainly seemed abusive, after all. And everybody hates the Taxman.

After subsequent revelations and upon further reflection, this writer has come to the conclusion that we all got played by a bunch of political scumbuckets. You see, it turns out that there were excellent reasons to suspect these groups of using the tax code for nefarious purposes. After all, Social Welfare Organizations are not allowed to be primarily political organizations.

Here’s a quick summary of why one might be suspicious: (This from the excellent Rob Rogers. Follow his blog: http://blogs.post-gazette.com/opinion/rob-rogers-cartoons )

Also, as The Rude Pundit pointed out, having the word “party” in your name is a wee bit of an indicator of political activity.

Note to self: next time the media scrum is kicking the crap out of a football that one does not happen to like, don’t kick until you know it deserves to be kicked.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

Screw the IRS (and Congress) With a Rusty Chainsaw.

It says something about our nation that nothing can simultaneously unite and divide us like the IRS. As you know, some idiots at that agency did some idiot s***, and their idiot bosses didn’t smack them down soon enough. So of course, everybody hates the IRS even more than they usually do. And the wingnuts already hate Obama so much, they can’t hate him any more without their heads exploding (the sensible people just shake our heads at the poor schmuck).

Using political criteria as the IRS did is despicable and anyone who did it should get de-jobbed as soon as they have been proven guilty. Targeting certain groups of people for “special treatment” is the sort of thing that was done by the Romans, Spartans and the Spanish Inquisition, to name a few examples. “Chilling effect” doesn’t even begin to cover it.

Speaking of targeting people for harassment, Congressional “Republicans” have seized upon this as Yet Another Chance To Beat On The Black President instead of doing useful work. We need a budget, laws, all sorts of tasks accomplished that only Congress can do: and they are doing none of it. Because they are spending what little time they actually spend at “work” trying to de-job Obama.

Screw anyone who is screwing We The People: especially the IRS and Congress. With the aforementioned chainsaw. And not gently.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

Congress Has Some Truly Sick Priorities

First the good news: various and sundry politicos are finally thinking about creating a coherent national policy around immigration. Yay.

Now for the bad news: the reason progress is occurring because the “Republicans” got their crotches kicked in during the last election, and they want to curry favor with the Latino vote.

If it were being done to enhance our national security; boost our economy; live up to the founding principles of our republic; or for some other worthy purpose, it would reflect well on Congress. But, of course, there is no concern about the country; only the desire to keep their cushy jobs and the bribes that come with them.

America’s priorities used to be noble things, based on principles and aspirations. Really. Read our founding documents. Now it seems the only priorities for our “representatives” are based on how deeply their snouts can be inserted into the hog trough of power, bribery, and fame.

Mr. B & C

Ignorant Traitor Trying to Get the President Assassinated

This is a news story about a stupid, bigoted,ignorant, traitorous right-wing scumball who wants the President dead. His pickup truck has a spray-painted sign on the side that reads: “Lee Harvey Oswald where are you when we need U”.

Pretty clear: he is advocating the murder of a sitting President. Of course, when asked about it, “Chuck” tried to weasel out, but like most of his ilk was not convincing.

This kind of un-American crap has got to stop. This writer sincerely hopes that the horse’s ass who wrote that sign gets enough negative feedback that he learns to be a true patriot who supports our Constitutional government and lives by its laws.

Because right now, he is an advocate of terrorism. And if we learned nothing else from Timothy McVeigh and Osama Bin Laden, we should at least have learned to have a zero-tolerance policy towards those who want to destroy our way of life, and the government that makes it possible.

Mr. B & C

The NRA and “Republicans”, Talking Out Their A**es Again

At yesterday’s hearings on Gun Control, the ever-unhinged NRA mouthpiece Wayne LaPierre repeated one of the standard “Republican” lines: that we do not need new laws until President Obama enforces the existing ones. Sounds reasonable until you remember that:

Number A: the biggest impediment to the enforcement of existing laws is the Teapublicans’ persistent defunding of the government agencies who are charged with said enforcement. These Right-Wing fools expect our public safety resources to do more and more, while simultaneously refusing to pay them for so doing. Repubs must think money magically appears when needed, perhaps delivered by perky little fairies riding unicorns.

Letter 2: it is not Obama’s job to enforce each and every law on the books. No one person can do that. It takes thousands of people at all levels of government to do so. And they, too, have had their authority undermined, staffs reduced and budgets slashed by the “conservative” “Republicans”, to the point that they can barely do anything to enforce any laws at all.

Tell you what, Waynie old buddy old pal: give the cops the money and resources they need to enforce existing laws before you trot out that line of B.S. again.

Mr. B & C

Purity and Perfection: Two Stupid Political Pursuits

A quick reminder of why Barack Obama won re-election (and a fair few other Dems got elected too) in 2012: it was in large part because the Teabaggers and other right-wing extremist loons revealed themselves to be, well, extremist loons. They rejected compromise, refused to consider anything but their “pure and principled” philosophical positions. And the voters kicked out (or didn’t elect in the first place) some of the most radical of these “purists”. The pursuit of ideological perfection turned out to be a really, REALLY bad idea.

So what did the RepubliBaggers do when they got to Washington D.C. this week? Why, they immediately started right back in playing the “purer-than-thou” card as if it were a smart card to play. Never mind that the voters clearly said “knock that crap off and act like grown-ups”, no, the Raging Righties in their Tightie Whities are doubling down on what has been proven to be a losing hand. In the immortal words of that great philosopher Bugs Bunny: Maroons. Imbessiles. Tar-rar-rah-goon-dee-yays.

And to prove that the Right has no monopoly on idiocy, lots of people on the Left are doing the exact same thing, just with a different set of principles to judge the insufficient purity and perfection of their politicos in the Democratic Party. Yes, these zeebs are saying “ya know, being uncompromising zealots totally got our opponents’ wedding tackle kicked in. We should do the same thing they did.” Even Bugs Bunny hasn’t got words to describe THAT level of stupid.

Our nation is not of one mind, and no single set of purist, extremist principles will ever convince us all. Hasn’t happened. Not gonna happen. Extremists are a minority, and however perfect and right their ideas may be, the vast majority of Americans will not buy into those ideas completely. So insisting that, say, the Prexy institute a Socialist Paradise is just as doomed to failure as expecting the Speaker to create a Libertarian Utopia.

This nation is just too diverse, too vast, and full of too many contumacious jerks to ever reach a consensus on anything pertaining to ideology, religion, philosophy, or one of such. We are a nation built on compromise – in fact, our very system of government is a compromise. There is no chance of either the Far Left or the Extreme Right convincing 100% of Americans to follow their path.

That being the case, and having seen the recent failure of extremists who hewed the Right-Wing Tea Party line, one has to wonder why anyone with half a brain who choose to emulate the Tea Party’s 2012 strategy. This writer has concluded that some on the Left possess stupidity in truly epic quantities.

Mr. B & C

The House Cannot Compromise. It is Our Fault.

We all saw the Charlie-Foxtrot in the U.S. House last week, as the Wingnuts in the “Republican” caucus shot down a bill that was insufficiently extreme. This has been happening a lot over the past few years.

And the reason it has been happening? Quite simply, voters have been nominating and electing extremists. Then, when they get into Dizzy City, they, well, act like extremists: refuse to compromise, say and do crazy stuff-in short, they do what they said they’d do.

People need to think before they vote. Because if they simply cast a ballot based on a party label or base their choice on rage, we all pay the price.

Let’s all vote for some sensible grownups from here on out, OK?

Mr. B &C

Note to the Radical Right: Wake the F***ing F*** up

During this week’s election, the electorate’s centrist majority whupped a lot of ass upon the Radical Right. Mr. Blunt and Cranky was quite pleased to see how many of these teabagging nimrods received their walking papers: he was not pleased (though also not surprised) that the “Republican” leadership is determined to live in denial. Thus, the ever-so-gentle title of today’s post.

Listening to Speaker Boehner and Minority Leader McConnell’s comments (let’s not even think of the rantings of others like lil’ Donnie Trump) over the past day or so, it is plain that they still think that the Radical Right has the blessing of the majority of Americans: never mind that many of the Tea Party’s poster children went down like the Hindenburg yesterday. Never mind that the billions of dollars’ worth of dark money they spent to buy elections made not bit of difference. Never mind that their frantic efforts to suppress the vote had all the effect of a snail’s fart in a tornado.

No, regardless of the facts on the ground and what they signify, there are entirely too many of these zeebs who still think that today is the first Wednesday of November 2010. News flash: it is 2012, and the Right today must acknowledge that fact. But the Radical Right is unwilling to see the will of the people for what it is: a repudiation of partisan zealotry and excess.

The candidates that lost were, in the main, those that were perceived as having ties to the Tea Party, Social Darwinism, the 1%, pick the term you like. For the “Republicans” to deny this is to seal their doom. They need to climb out of their comfy little bubble and look at this basic fact: the more extreme they get, the more often they get kicked in the wedding tackle.

The Dems, on the other hand, have moved to the middle and scored some big wins.  The Teabag-slurping Repubs must wake up, search their souls, learn from the ass-whupping they endured this year and likewise move towards the center; not continue to move farther towards the fringe. If they can do that, they can win elections and gain the power they lust for. If not, well, pleasant dreams to them as they sleep their way past the end of their brief period of relevance.

Mr. B & C

Centrism, Vindicated

As a Radical Centrist, Mr. Blunt and Cranky is over the moon about yesterday’s election results. In quite a few cases, the American people kicked the wingnut loons to the curb while electing more moderate politicos to office.

In the race for President, Mitt’s Tea Party-esque statements hurt him badly. In a fair few Senate races, ditto. In a good number of House races, issues, local and state offices, likewise. The American electorate, in the main, picked center-right, centrist, and center-left candidates and incumbents over fire-breathing zealots.

Of course, not everyone has gotten the message. Boehner and McConnell in particular seem to think that they still have a mandate to rape, pillage and plunder the 99%, for example.

This means that we can’t relax now that we’re done voting. The Centrist Majority needs to stay engaged and in the faces of our “representatives” if we are to see any results from the divided (but more moderate) government we elected.

Mr. B & C