Recently in Conservatives Category

Who says Republicans don't have any new ideas? Former House Majority Leader and current chairman of the Astroturf grassroots organization known as FreedomWorks, Dick Armey, has one. He wants to--hold on to your teabag covered hats--privatize Social Security. Yes, Mr. Armey thinks it's a good idea to put your retirement money in the hands of the Wall Street mafia that creates financial instruments pre-planned for failure so they profit on both ends and you end...

Sharron Angle, the gift that keeps on giving. The well of stupid that never runs dry. From an interview with Action News in Las Vegas on the subject of "Obamacare": "I think we get confused a little bit. Our healthcare system is the best in the world. There's nothing wrong with our healthcare system. Our doctors are the best," says Angle."But how many people get access to the best healthcare in the world," asks Action...

Not that Republicans are serious about this balanced budget amendment nonsense, but let's take a look at what it might look like if it had been in effect in 2009. If, as the amendment would require, federal spending could not exceed federal revenue. Federal revenues for 2009 totaled $2.105 trillion:Mandatory, as in required by law, spending plus interest on the national debt totaled $2.148 trillion: That means nothing for Defense, nothing for Homeland Security, nothing...

Take this paragraph from Andy McCarthy's essay on fear, paranoia, and religious bigotry at National Review Online, substitute the word "communists" for "Islamists" and it sounds like something from another McCarthy at another ugly time in our history:"Most of the American people are in a much different place. They see Islamists advancing, they are beginning to grasp that Islamists (not just terrorists but the whole Islamist movement) mean to change us in very fundamental ways,...

The focus of the hate-stirrers and Obama Derangement Syndrome sufferers on the right for the better part of this week has been on Michelle Obama's vacation trip to Spain. It started with this hit-piece by Andrea Tantaros in the New York Daily News in which the First Lady is referred to as "Material girl Michelle Obama" and compared to "Marie Antoinette." Tantaros whined about the "millionaires playground" at which the First Lady and her daughter...

Steve Benen at Washington Monthly quoting Heidi Shierholz of the Economic Policy Institute, after today's jobs report which showed a gain of 71,000 jobs in the private sector but a loss of 202,000 (143,000 of those census workers) in the public sector: "The economic case for more government action to create jobs is about as clear as they come." It's crystal clear. What is needed is government spending to create jobs, the much-maligned (by the...

Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, the ranking Republican on the House Budget Committee, is supposedly a rising star in the GOP largely due to his "Roadmap for America's Future." Ryan's Roadmap is billed as "an elaborate...plan that aims to erase the federal debt by 2063, simplify the tax code and significantly alter...Medicare and Social Security" and "an answer to those who have accused Republicans of saying no, while having no ideas of their own."Fred Barnes...

Attention teachers, police officers, and firefighters: Remember this when you go to the polls in November. John Boehner, the man who would be Speaker if Republicans take control of the House, considers you to be "liberal special interests" and funds to save your jobs a "special interest bailout." He also seems to think that his time would be much better spent on the golf course than in Washington voting on a bill to save your...

If you can't win a case based on the merits of the law, then the next logical step is to publicly discredit those we trust to uphold it, right?  That seems to be the Rovian strategy coming from Fox News - who preemptively published a bash piece by Gerard Bradley about U.S. District Court Judge Vaughn Walker - alleging that his ruling was possibly biased because he is openly gay. I'm sure that most people would question...

Not that we needed any further proof of Republican hypocrisy when it comes to jobs and deficits, but there it was again yesterday in the cloture vote on a bill to provide $26 billion in aid to states and school districts.Here is a bill that keeps 140,000 teachers in the classroom instead of standing in line at the unemployment office (which is where Republicans actually want them to be, along with everyone else), doesn't add...