Brad “Herman” Goehring: “Opening Day for Liberals”

Just when you think you have heard the vilest hate-speech against card-carrying Democrats, hate-speech like Sarah Palin’s “Reload” comment, someone comes out with a topper.

Appropriately surnamed Brad Goehring (the extra “h” appears to be the only thing that separates this man from the commandant of the Luftwaffe), who is actually running for Congress in CA-11, wrote to his Facebook page today the following inflammatory statement:

“If I could issue hunting permits, I would officially declare today opening day for liberals. The season would extend through November 2 and have no limits on how many taken as we desperately need to 'thin' the herd.”

Nice, huh?

All you really need is one fruitcake rightwing fanatic to take this guy seriously, along with what Sarah Palin has spewed, added to what others of their ilk have opined, and we have a national disgrace on our hands, if not outright internecine war.

What it suggests is that these people don’t think that they can win an election fair and square anymore. They have to eliminate their opponents by greasing them.

Then they can win elections again.

In short, what these guys have come up with is a “Final Solution” in their quest to regain political power in this country.

Texas Conservative Coalition Stopping Health Care Reform at the Border

So with the passage of HR 3490, the Health Care for All Act, all Americans will eventually gain health care insurance. All Americans will never have to fear coming down with such a bad ailment that their insurance companies will rescind their coverage. All Americans will never again have to stay in a job that they hate because moving to another job means moving your health care coverage, and your present conditions become pre-existing conditions.

All of that and much, much more.

But according to what I am reading here, the Texas Conservative Coalition is promising to stop health care reform right at the Texas border.

With a bold cry of “Nevah!” and “Come and take it,” the TCC promises that health care reform is something that Texans will never have because . . . well . . . because they are going to vote against it.

In Texas.

No I’m not kidding. They really think that they can do that:

“Following the passage of H.R. 3590, "The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act", by the U.S. House of Representatives, members of the Texas Conservative Coalition (TCC) announced plans to file legislation to reject the overreaching bill due to its impact and costs to the state and to Texans. “

“State Representative Wayne Christian (R-Center), President of the Texas Conservative Coalition, announced his plan to file legislation to prohibit the implementation of the overarching federal healthcare overhaul in Texas: ‘When the Legislature convenes in January of 2011, the members of the Texas Conservative Coalition will stand together to reject the federal takeover of health care.’”

Apparently these clowns never heard about the Supremacy Clause. Here it is, I’ll quote from the US Constitution Article VI Clause 2:

“This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.”

See? State government can’t simply veto the supreme law of the land, Tenth Amendment notwithstanding.

What a bunch of losers. Bitter, sour grapes losers.

Were it the case that the Texas legislature could just cherry pick which federal law they want to follow, and which one they will leave out, history would surely be different.

For example, if Texas simply decided not to follow the rules set forth in the Voting Rights Act, people would still be paying poll taxes and Texas would be a Democratic state because conservatives would have had no reason to leave the Democratic Party to become members of the party of the Great Emancipator, Abe Lincoln.

For example, if Texas simply decided not to follow the rules set forth in the Sixteenth Amendment, no one in Texas would have to pay their federal income taxes because it could be viewed as an “overreaching bill” with unholy “impact and costs to the state and to Texans.”

Notice that they say “overreaching bill” and not “overreaching law?”

They dismiss the law of the land just as they dismiss the fact that Barack Obama, a native citizen of the United States, is President of the United States.

Now it is one thing to claim that the bill is unconstitutional. This isn’t very likely because the Constitution gives congress broad powers over interstate commerce, and health insurance, last time I looked, came under the heading of commerce. But that is the only possible action the TCC can make. They can join in AG Abbott’s ill-advised and laughable effort to get the law declared unconstitutional.

But what you can’t do is you can’t Just Say No. If the law of the land is unconstitutional, that’s one thing. But constitutional or no, it is the supreme law of the land.

All of it.

Fort Bend Teabaggers Are Organizing

What do you do when your Teabagger Movement in Fort Bend County starts to languish on the vine? What do you do when attending TEA Parties was all the rage in April, but can barely scrape together enough Libertarians and Republican Sore Loser outsiders to cast a shadow of any significance on an otherwise bright and sunny Sugar Land Town Square?

Obviously the crowds are gone. Pete Olson is gone. All that are left behind are the true believers and their wives and husbands.

So it’s time to organize. It’s time to take over the Republican Party.

And this is exactly what was planned at the local La Madeleine restaurant in Sugar Land last week. As reported in the Chron’s UltimateFortBend website:

“…the night featured an experienced guest speaker from Harris County giving a presentation on becoming a precinct chair, ultimately everyone in attendance received information on a wide variety of local rules and political topics.”

Get that? Teabaggers are educating themselves about taking on the system from the ground up by running for precinct chair.

At least they weren’t packing heat and talking about how a revolution every now and then is a good thing.

But I wonder whether these people know what they are up against. This is after all the party of the religious evangelicals that drove moderates and right of center Republicans out of office. These are the people who are experts in anti-democracy. These are the people who have deliberately kept the number of precinct chair positions vacant for very good reason – for the very reason the teabaggers want to occupy them: to get and maintain control.

As it stands right now, 42 GOP precinct chairs remain vacant. 42 out of 144. That could be a pretty substantial voting bloc if they could find people living in each of those precincts to run.

If they can actually get on the ballot, that is.

I wish them well. I want these teabaggers to take on a greater voice in the local Republican Party. I think it would be just great to see round two of local GOP infighting.

Round One was so much fun.

The Obama Bow: How Low Can You Go?

Dick Cheney, marginalizing himself even further if that is even possible, has criticized his president, Barack Obama, for performing perfect protocol in producing a well-executed traditional bow at the waist to the hereditary potentate of the Empire of Japan – a nonexistent political entity.

Here is the offending photograph.

Notice how the Emperor is completely displeased at how this stupid American president can’t even perform something that a Japanese child can do?

Said Cheney, of this behavior:

“There is no reason for an American president to bow to anyone. Our friends and allies don’t expect it, and our enemies see it as a sign of weakness.”

A weakness, as in, say, starting a war against a bunch of horseback-riding AK-47-wielding primitive Afghan tribesmen and not being able to beat them in 7 years, let alone locating the whereabouts of a 6 foot 4 Saudi diabetic?

A weakness like that?

Oh, but we forget, don’t we at how his former boss, Bush-43 pranced about the White House grounds playing holdy-hands with the a Saudi king?

Or perhaps the same former boss paying obeisance to a foreign Pope? A papist Pope?

Or what about President Nixon’s execution of a bow to a ChiCom?

But then, there we have Barack Obama. He just can’t help it, can he? He even bows to kids from the neighborhood.

But you know who really takes the cake? Woodrow Wilson. Imagine the embarrassment of the American people when they saw their president bowing to an inanimate object?

A golf ball!

Or is this bit of obeisance something that is typically witnessed thousands of times in Texas on any given weekend?

We Americans. We do like to bow from time to time.

Obamopoly

Take a look at what got forwarded to my email address.

Obamopoly.

Just in time for Christmas.

You have to hand it to the Republican Sore Losers Club, they know how to use their time well in the photoshop while they continue to be out of power and out of luck.

I wonder if this is just an old thing that has just now come across my path after the Angst of August or if they purposely left off a something about his birth certificate and death panels (birthers and deathers).

Anyway, have I forwarded this on to Parker Brothers (Hasbro), who holds the trademark rights.
People, rightwing lunatics or not, cannot trample on the private property rights of capitalists.

Not now, not ever.

An Adjective is Not a Noun

Is it just me or is there anyone else who is getting sick and tired of the media, and those that they quote, getting their grammar all wrong? Like twisting and turning the words of Nancy Pelosi by completely altering the meaning of her words.

By turning an adjective into a noun.

English grammar is a precise science. A simple act like switching tense or using a noun as a verb, or turning an adjective into a noun has the unfortunate effect of transmitting misinformation.

As the press is doing today.

But maybe they are not the ones to blame. They are, after all, merely quoting neoconservative talking heads and politicians.

By changing an adjective into a noun.

Yesterday, in an op-ed piece Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer made the perfectly valid point that “Drowning out opposing views is simply un-American.”

Isn’t that true? Isn’t it true that America was founded on democratic principles that depend on public discourse and the free exchange of ideas (discourse that is at times heated, yes, but an actual exchange)? Isn’t it true that a person who deliberately attempts to disrupt a democratic process like a town hall is nothing more than a mindless thug whose aim is to deny others of the right of free speech that they themselves claim as theirs and theirs alone? Is that an American trait?

No, Hoyer and Pelosi are perfectly correct in identifying this behavior as “Un-American.”

A person can have un-American behavior, but that doesn’t make them, themselves, Un-American. But that is precisely what is being touted in the media, that Pelosi and Hoyer are saying that these people are un-American.

From CBS:

“Calling someone "un-American" is political argument's equivalent of heavy artillery, if not a battlefield nuke: it's designed to put your opponents on the defensive, forcing them to rebut the nearly-unrebuttable, and verges on questioning their patriotism.”

Let’s be clear, labeling someone’s behavior as “un-American” is not calling someone “un-American.”

You can be committing the act without being the act.

That’s just stupid.

It’s as stupid as seeing someone doctoring a wound, and calling them a doctor.

The Republican Goal is No Healthcare Reform

We Democrats do have our moles, and I am not referring to our darkened skin tissue. We had a mole, in the form of an AFL-CIO organizer, who got himself in on a conference call between the “American Liberty Alliance,” “TEA Party Patriots,” and RecessRally.com. An unholy trio that are part of the plan to disrupt any public discourse on health care during the August congressional recess.

The goal is not to promote their own version of healthcare reform, something you see on TV ads every hour of the day. That’s right, Harry and Louise are at it again lying to you. The goal is to block any healthcare reform at all.

The goal is to maintain the status quo.

We know this now because of our mole who participated in the conference call. Our mole who took notes.

From “The Plum Line:”

“The moderator on the call, whose name could not immediately be determined, told listeners that bipartisan compromise on the Senate Finance Committee, where senators are holding talks, must be stopped at all costs, AFL-CIO’s notes say. The moderator called on members to pressure GOP Senators seeking compromise with Dems, like Chuck Grassley, Mike Enzi, and Olympia Snowe, to stop the negotiating.”

“‘The goal is not compromise, and ANY bill coming out this year would be a failure for us,’ the moderator said, according to AFL-CIO’s notes. The moderator added that ‘the Democrats will turn even a weak bill from the Senate Finance Committee into Canadian-style single-payer through underhanded implementation.’”

This is despite the fact that the average healthcare premiums that a family pays per year is going up and up, and that as a result more and more families are opting out of health care coverage because they can’t afford it. This is despite the fact that people without health care coverage can still be treated, for free, in emergency rooms, and insurance companies pay for it, charging back to families that still have health insurance.Driving the price of their premiums up.

The whole thing is spiraling out of control, one thing feeds the other, But these people, these obstructionists, are sticking their heads in the sand (or perhaps in some part of their anatomy) ignoring an ever-worsening situation, and attempting to block any reform at all.

Insanity.

The house is afire and these people are looking for a pail of gasoline to put it out.

And now it's all out in the open.

Noisemakers

This is what passes for democracy in America today. Disgusting, isn’t it?

Democratic National Committee Launches Anti-Mob Rule Campaign

How do you fight against an unruly mob that is dead set on disrupting the democratic process at every turn? How do you answer these people who complain that they don’t like the direction that their country is going?

Don’t like it that Barack Obama is a black man?

One way to do it is to bring these people out of the shadows and into the light of day. Show them acting like unruly children right here on the internet.

With this web ad:

The media is also helping with this one:

But that was MSNBC, not the most impartial news organization. What about this from CNN?

But wait, there’s more. Here is the Republican Party of Texas You Tube reply to the DNC ad.

Actually yeah, they acted like a mob. They even brought their children to witness their childish behavior. And yes they vote. Just not enough of them to decide an election though.

The Politics of Hooliganism

The rightwing of the country, also known as the Republican Party base, has a new tactic. It is called, by some, hooliganism.

Hooliganism is commonly associated, these days, with sporting events. As in the hooligans that willfully and wantonly disrupt events with their rowdy behavior. Republicans and other teabaggers have adopted this tactic to disrupt what would otherwise be events that are part and parcel with the democratic process of information exchange.

Witness Saturday’s town hall meeting with Congressman Lloyd Doggett (D – TX 25) and his constituents. The meeting was disrupted by hooligans. Hooligans who wouldn’t let the meeting occur. They disrupted the meeting by shouting Nancy Reagan’s often quoted aphorism on the US war on drugs during the 80’s: “Just Say No.”

But in this case, I guess, they aren’t concerned with drug abuse. They are concerned with all of the things that the Democrats have accomplished this year in Washington, and all of the things that they want to accomplish later on this year.

And now they want to “just say no” to health care.

Fine.

Hooligans of America: Turn in your Social Security cards.

Hooligans of America: “Just say no” to Medicare and Medicaid.

Hooligans of America: You have 2010 and 2012 to make your childish point. A point that I am sure the majority of Americans find revolting.

So really, hooligans of America, keep up the good work.

Minnesota Supreme Court: Franken “Is Entitled”

Just out this afternoon is the Minnesota State Supreme Court’s decision that former SNL writer, performer, and darling of the left wing, Al Franken, has won the election to the US Senate. Here is the text found at the end of the Court’s opinion:

“For all of the foregoing reasons, we affirm the decision of the trial court that Al Franken received the highest number of votes legally cast and is entitled under Minn. Stat. § 204C.40 (2008) to receive the certificate of election as United States Senator from the State of Minnesota.22. Affirmed.”

So is it time to break out the champagne and party poppers?

I personally don’t think so, but that is my nature – to doubt. Always to expect the worst. Because when it comes to being spiteful and underhanded losers, expecting the worst from Republicans is not such a bad bet.

Think about it. The Senate is in recess for the 4^th of July and won’t reconvene until Monday, July 6^th. That’s the earliest date that Al Franken can be sworn in and officially take his seat. That’s almost a whole week to cook up an appeal to a more sympathetic US Supreme Court. A court that has a reputation for overturning elections.

Think about it. While the Secretary of State of Minnesota is a Democrat and would have no qualms signing Franken’s certification, Governor Tim Pawlenty is a Republican and would put himself under a severe lens from the right wing of his party if he also signs the certification that would give Democrats a filibuster-proof Senate. It would all but kill his chances at the Republican nomination for President in 2012, nomination from a field whose numbers are slowly dwindling.

But wait, you say, Tim Pawlenty has gone on record as saying that as Minnesota’s governor, he would be bound by his state’s Supreme Court’s decision and would have to sign the certification if he is ordered to do so by the Court.

And that is the reason you have to read the decision, especially their last statement that I reproduced above.

Because they didn’t order Pawlenty to sign the certification.

They merely said that Al Franken was “entitled” to it.

Who knows what will eventually happen. Coleman could just throw up his hands and take the third strike in his career (1. losing to a professional wrestler, 2. winning against a corpse, 3. losing to a comedian) and fade back into the woodwork. Pawlenty could just give in and say “I’ll sign that sucker, nobody’s going to beat Obama in 2012 anyway, where’s a pen?”

Yeah, all of that could just happen.

But I’d be really surprised if it did.

UPDATE: Now we hear that Coleman has opted for strike three and has conceded. I guess this takes Pawlenty off the hook as well.

The fat lady is clearing her throat.

UPDATE 2: ... and will apparently belt out her tune later on tonight. Pawlenty says he is going to sign the certification later on tonight. Apparently Al Franken IS good enough.

More From the Sugar Land TEA Party

I wish I had a nickel for every hit that this blog’s website has gotten over the past day.

A dime for every comment left.

And a quarter for every comment I had to delete because of foul language.

I told you. It’s kray-ZEE here. Here where we have a governor who repeatedly mentions the fact that Texas is the only state in the country that entered the union under a treaty – so is entitled to secede, we have hard core conservatives who object to the fact that one can have another partisan viewpoint than their own.

Both opinions are out to lunch. One of these ideas was settled in 1865 after the deaths of six hundred thousand. The other one, apparently, has yet to be settled.

So with that as prologue, here are more photos of the TEA party that took place yesterday in front of the Sugar Land, Texas city hall.

First, here is a shot of the crowd. There were lots of people there. Look closely. Do you see anyone, ANYone who isn’t a white person? These people agree with each other so well that they also agree about which race should attend this political rally.

This, by the way, was the second political rally I attended in front of the Sugar Land city hall. The other one you can see here. Yes, the contrast in sheer numbers in attendance is staggering, isn’t it?

OK, I exaggerated a little. There was one black guy there. There he is third one from the right. This is a shot of all of the people who were going to speak. Or so I assumed because each one of those that I listened to are in this photo.

Here is one of the many handmade signs. A lot cleaner and less offensive than the one I showed yesterday, huh? Yeah, you would think. The other side of this sign has exactly the same message.

This is the guy who gave the invocation. I have video of some of it.

Now they had a cowboy band playing before the speeches got underway, and I thought that this trunk was open for donations. But upon closer inspection we see that the trunk has a bunch of tea bags in it. They’re for Pete Olson to take back to DC next week. Hope the drug dogs are on their break when he checks it in at the airport. Who knows what kind of tea these people might have put in it?

And last but not least, as I was making an exit I came across Carlos Cain’s campaign truck. Not a bad idea to try and attract some voters to his cause at this venue.

Now on the speakers, I could only take so much, so I did leave before hearing all of them.

But I did get to hear the black guy. As it turns out he was a Libertarian, and as such, was really the only one speaking that wasn’t hijacking the event. I have video of part of what this guy said, mainly because if I told you what he said you wouldn’t believe me.

The black guy used the “C” word on this crowd. Choice. “Without choice,” he said, “we have tyranny.” I don’t know if it was just me or not, but I swear I heard a collective sucking in of air when he said that. And I have to tell you, this is the only speaker that I found myself smiling and nodding my head to.

The pastor who gave the invocation was really in his element. I’ve never heard politics and religion so tightly interwoven in one prayer. It apparently didn’t faze the crowd though, who appeared to be quite used to this.

The master of ceremony who got to introduce each act . . . er . . . speaker I’ve never heard of before. He’s a small business owner. He owns the “La Madeleine” restaurant in Sugar Land. Really, just a stone’s throw from where we all stood. No, I’m not kidding. The rally’s emcee owns a French restaurant. The crowd didn’t hold that against him but I had to wonder whether I was the only one in the crowd who grasped the irony of all of that.

And thankfully, Pete Olson was one of the first speakers. This, I reasoned, was probably because the TV cameras were there and these guys have to have this in for the 10 o’clock news program.

Olson only spoke for 7 minutes or so. The best parts were where he lamented the higher taxes that they were all going to have to pay, and for a dozen or so people who were listening, this was actually probably true. He had some fighting words, too. “Today is the day,” he said, “we start to take our country back.” And finally, he brought his daughter to the podium so she could show the sign that they took from a girl at a TEA rally the day before. I assumed that they asked for it.

OK, OK, here’s the video as promised. Nothing fancy. Just a few clips that I spliced together.

Out Among 'Em: The Sugar Land Sore Losers’ Tea Party

I need a shower.

I just spent the evening out among my central adversaries, the right wing radical fringe of the Republican Party as it exists in Fort Bend County, Texas. I was among shaven heads, handlebar moustaches and blue hair. I was surrounded by gun nuts and church ladies.

It was good to get out and see what the people are doing on that other planet.

Because I am here to tell you that I live here in the heart of red neck heaven. I felt as welcome as a wart on the end of Miss Austin Rodeo’s nose – who was in attendance.

As was my congressman, Pete Olson, and that former weatherman on KHOU Dr. Neil Frank.

And some others too numerous or negligible to mention.

This is worth a couple of days’ postings at my rate – I do have another life. So let me just give you these two teasers that I took with my camera.

More photos - and video are coming.

(Oh, and sorry about the profane sign. I could have edited it but then you would have missed some of the flavor - or shall I say odium - that existed at their tea rally).

I need a shower.

Tax Day Tea Parties Across the Nation

Just what you want to see. The Sore Losers Club out in the sunshine on April 15th. Here is a sampler of what is occurring today across the nation.

Yep. This is what I call a unified silent majority shaking their fists at both parties over their moral outrage at the corporate bailouts.

The Grand Old Tea Party

April 15^th is not my favorite day of the year. It’s usually a day that I find myself in line at the post office making sure that my mail has an April 15^th postmark.

And usually I have lots of company. People who, for one reason or another, wait to file their federal returns at the last minute. But this year, who knows, maybe it’ll be different. Because if you are to believe what you hear over the airwaves and what you read in the news, everyone will be at a tea party.

Or should I say TEA party.

The TEA party in question is being organized by a group of people who call themselves Taxed Enough Already or TEA.

A group that I like to call The Sore Losers Club.

Because nearly everywhere this event is being promoted as a mass gripe session for people who don’t like Barack Obama and his tax and spend Democratic ways.

There is some disagreement whether this is a tea party or a TEA party. If you look here you see it spelled out all lower case and the organizers claim that it’s not a Republican event. Or an anti-Obama gripe session.

Really.

The organizers of the Fort Bend County tea party claim that their event is a bipartisan one. They’re mad at both parties for the bailouts and the stimuli. She says it this way:

“People think this is about President Obama, but it’s not. It is about making a change in government. They’re making bad decisions. These stimulus bills are out of control. I’ve worked hard all my life and no one has given me a handout.”

But when you look here, at the national official TEA party site, you see that TEA is an acronym.

And at that website you see a litany of complaints, none of them directed at the administration that arranged a $750 billion bailout for their friends last fall. A bailout that was paid out apparently with no one watching the door.

Or the windows.

Or the cash register.

Not to mention the fact that it was a Republican congress and a Republican administration that made the whole financial crisis possible.

No if you are to believe the vitriol at that site, all of this is Obama’s fault. And the Democrats.

That and, by the way, we are Taxed Enough Already.

The acronym, you know, makes this event the most poorly timed event of the new millennium.

And why do I say this? Because tomorrow my bi-monthly check arrives from my employer. A check whose net to me will be $13 LARGER because the Obama Administration and the Democratic congress passed a law, a law that the TEA party website apparently resents, that decreased American employees’ federal withholding.

And better yet, the budget, when passed, will contain a sizeable tax cut for me because I, like 95% of all Americans, don’t pull down at least a quarter million a year.

Beautiful. A tax protest on a day when there is uniform enrichment of Americans.

From taxes.

But getting back to the Fort Bend tea party, this is a gathering that has all of the hallmarks of being one for the books. Republicans in Fort Bend County are fanatical by reputation and are given to say and do some really awful things. So despite the soft-peddling of the event being done by its organizers, this event will be as polarized as it can be: an anti-Obama, anti-Democratic Party (aka “The Winners”) rally.

“No taxation without representation.”

Hoo, boy.