The Iron Gauntlet

quickhits:

Since When do Republicans Get to Complain About Lying?

It’s ugly. It’s dishonest. It’s quintessentially Republican. So why do conservatives hate it? Because they’re on the receiving end of their own brand of politics for a change.

Las Vegas Review-Journal:

Sen. Harry Reid caused a stir this week when he told an interviewer that Mitt Romney hasn’t released more of his tax returns because “he didn’t pay taxes for 10 years.” On Wednesday, Reid doubled down on the charge.

In an interview published Tuesday, Reid said an investor in Bain Capital, the former private equity firm of the Republican presidential candidate, told him in a phone call that Romney had paid zero taxes.

“Now, do I know that that’s true? Well, I’m not certain,” Reid told the Huffington Post, declining to identify his source. “But obviously he can’t release those tax returns. How would it look?”

Whether this is true or not is a matter for debate and the pedigree of the claim (“this one guy told me this one thing this one time”) strongly suggests it’s not all that true. This all has the strong scent of horsecrap (and not Olympic horse dancer Rafalca’s horsecrap, which I’m assured smells like roses) — which means it also smells a lot like a Republican talking point.

Mitt Romney is, after all, the candidate whose entire campaign consists of a list of lies much, much longer than your arm. One of Mitt’s most recent lies was also one of his most shameful; that the Aurora theater shooter broke the law to get his weapons. He didn’t. Romney was covering for the gun industry by lying about a mass murder — and in doing so, arguably increasing the likelihood of future massacres. This is a conscienceless man.

Nevertheless, National Review’s Jim Geraghty asks — nay, demands! — that independent fact-checkers look into Reid’s claim, but there’s the question of how. No one at Annenberg or PolitiFact has access to Mitt Romney’s tax records, so they’re pretty much helpless here. The only way to prove Reid wrong is to take a look at those tax records Mitt Romney refuses to release.

What gets me about this is that Republican media feels they have the right to complain about it. I know, this is the party with several decks of victim cards forever at the ready, but still… You’d think there was some limit to the amount of hypocrisy they’d allow themselves. And after the birtherism, the accusations of Marxism and Nazism, the “secret Muslim terrorist sleeper agent” conspiracy theorizing — in short, the entire rightwing anti-Obama messaging industry — you’d think they’d be a little more prepared to defend themselves from the same post-truth politics they’ve unleashed on the nation. Were they foolish enough to introduce their poison into the American political system without first developing an antidote?

That would seem to be the case.

None of this is to say that Reid is justified in doing this — although I have to admit to enjoying the “just desserts” aspect of the whole thing. But I am saying that Republicans have no right to complain about it. None at all. When you’ve decided the truth is irrelevant to winning, you don’t get to complain that your opponent is being dishonest. In other words, don’t dish it out if you can’t take it.

And quit whining about being hoist by your own petard.

-Wisco

[image source] 

(via randomactsofchaos)

alphabetspine:

No justice, no peace.

The very idea that someone can see these things happen and then still deny that there is indeed a war on women, means that they are one of two things:

• Utterly stupid; either because they simply are stupid or they refuse to acknowledge the truth of what goes on in this country, or
• Sadistically wicked; if you can see all of these things and be completely okay with them, then you are not a moral person. You are scum and I think the world would be better off without you. 

(via questionall)

quickhits:

No, both sides are not equally to blame — GOP most partisan in a century.

National Public Radio:

Keith Poole of the University of Georgia, with his collaborator Howard Rosenthal of New York University, has spent decades charting the ideological shifts and polarization of the political parties in Congress from the 18th century until now to get the view of how the political landscape has changed from 30,000 feet up. What they have found is that the Republican Party is the most conservative it has been a century.

This graph shows the ideological movement for both parties in the House. Note the steady shift towards conservatism among Republicans.

In a recent conversation Poole, who’s viewed by other political scientists as the go-to expert on this issue, explained that the data are very clear:

“This is an entirely objective statistical procedure. The graphs just reflect what comes out of the computer. Howard Rosenthal and I, we’ve been working on something called Nominate. This does all the Congresses simultaneously, which allows you to study change over time.

“The short version would be since the late 1970s starting with the 1976 election in the House the Republican caucus has steadily moved to the right ever since. It’s been a little more uneven in the Senate. The Senate caucuses have also moved to the right. Republicans are now furtherest to the right that they’ve been in 100 years.

I’d disagree with the use of the word “conservative” — the word means “cautious” and the current House GOP are reckless and reactionary. “Radical” is the word I’d go with.

In any case, what you always suspected is true; the media’s false equivalency of “both sides are just as bad” is complete bullshit. Once again, reality has a liberal bias.

I hate when people say “both sides are to blame.”

After everything that’s happened in the last 10 (roughly) years, how can anyone blame both sides? To name just a few little gems of the right wing:

• The Bush tax cuts
• Fox News simply existing
• Being able to openly hate and ridicule homosexuals
• The Defense of Marriage Act
• The disregard for separation of church and state
• The lies about Planned Parenthood
• Michael Savage… need I say more?
• The constant attacks on women’s rights
• The existence of “Private Prisons”
• The complete and utter disrespect for the president
• Rick Santorum, Rick Perry, Michele Bachmann, Sarah Palin, Herman Cain, Tim Pawlenty, all actually being contenders for the Presidency… 
• The rise and popularity of Paul Ryan’s economic “plan”
• Glen Beck… just no.
• The slow dismantling and utter disregard for education in general
• The shooting of Gabby Giffords
• The attacks on college education
• Rush Limbaugh’s attack on Sandra Fluke (and anyone who has sex ever)
• The entire anti-intellectual movement
• The right wing’s defense of George Zimmerman

This is why I truly cannot have conservative friends anymore; they have this idea that my ideas and views are just as cruel and out-of-touch as their own, and that’s simply not true. The only conservative friend I have left in my life recently expressed his unhappiness to a mutual friend about the fact that I refuse to talk about politics with him. He doesn’t understand that it has nothing to do with me not wanting to discuss things with him, it’s the simple fact that I will grow to HATE him if I hear his ignorant, racist, conservative, misogynistic opinions. I simply cannot allow those kinds of people to be in my life anymore. 

(via fuckyeahliberalatheists)

cartoonpolitics:

“Once you leave the womb, conservatives don’t care about you until you reach military age. Then you’re just what they’re looking for. Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers.” ~ George Carlin

(via sanityscraps)

destroythegop:

FOXaganda®

LOL, Oh! Mr. O’Reilly, you’re so funny!!

(via truth-has-a-liberal-bias)

quickhits:

Limbaugh’s slut-shaming could cripple right wing talk radio.

John Avlon, The Daily Beast:

Rush Limbaugh made the right-wing talk-radio industry, and he just might break it.

Because now the fallout from the “slut” slurs against Sandra Fluke is extending to the entire political shock-jock genre.

Premiere Networks, which distributes Limbaugh as well as a host of other right-wing talkers, sent an email out to its affiliates early Friday listing 98 large corporations that have requested their ads appear only on “programs free of content that you know are deemed to be offensive or controversial (for example, Mark Levin, Rush Limbaugh, Tom Leykis, Michael Savage, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity).”

This is big. According to the radio-industry website Radio-Info.com, which first posted excerpts of the Premiere memo, among the 98 companies that have decided to no longer sponsor these programs are “carmakers (Ford, GM, Toyota), insurance companies (Allstate, Geico, Prudential, State Farm), and restaurants (McDonald’s, Subway).” Together, these talk-radio advertising staples represent millions of dollars in revenue.

“I have talked with several reps who report that they’re having conversations with their clients, who are asking not to be associated with specifically polarizing controversial hosts, particularly if those hosts are ‘mean-spirited,’” says author and industry expert Valerie Geller. “While most products and services offered on these shows have strong competitors, and enjoy purchasing the exposure that many of these shows and hosts can offer, they do not wish to be ‘tarred’ with the brush of anger, or endure customer anger, or, worse, product boycotts.”

Limbaugh’s a child. When he started to get pushback over his initial rant, he went on a three-day bender to prove that no one could push him around. In his hubris, he may have damaged his entire industry.

Dunno how I feel about this…

On one hand, I fucking hate Limbaugh, Michael Savage, Glenn Beck, and all of these other scumbags. “Conservative talk radio” is probably one of the most vile fucking ways that misinformation and blind hatred are spewed…

BUT, I do believe in freedom of speech. And no matter how vile these assholes are, I do believe they have to right to say what they want… but then again, you can’t blame sponsors for backing out. Business is business, afterall.

And I won’t lie, part of me is smiling at the fact that conservative talk radio is taking a hit. I hate them all so much. lol

(via randomactsofchaos)

I have an issue taking a person seriously once they reveal that they’re a conservative/republican. It’s kind of like finding out that a person practices alchemy even though they know about and fully understand chemistry.

(via stfuconservatives)