I have no business watching a GOP debate so I only know what I’ve read. So, yeah, some of the message may be jaded.

That said, none of those folks seriously have a chance of earning my vote. A corporate raider, a lobbyist in all but name, the ick that is Santorum, Traitor Rick, and Ron the Racist. Um, no thanks.

After 8 years of Bush the Lesser and the GOP *still* has two Texans in the running? Including Bush’s understudy? Wow.

Anyway, the highlights I gathered this much are that Gingrich is (still) advocating for child labor. Yes, Newt, it IS good to earn a buck and to learn the lessons of money management, savings, and responsibility. However, you do not coach it that way. You want to fire a (often union) janitorial staff, tell kids not to worry about studying or extracurricular activities, and do what is, frankly, some pretty hard work.

Oh, and probably get mocked relentlessly by your peers if not handled properly.

The lesson here really is, bust a union or two, tell kids not to worry about their dreams and get ready for a low wage job.

Oh, and got a standing ovation for telling a black moderator to basically remember his place. Nice job, Juan Williams. Are you finally figuring out that you sided with the wrong people?

Rick Perry still wants to fight the federal government. This time he wants the feds to stop trying to stop him from disenfranchising elderly voters, college age kids, and minorities. So he’s either FOR mass-vaccinating little girls (which, frankly, isn’t that what we already do for polio and a host of other ills?) or he is actively trying to stop people who disagree with him from voting at all.

How a secessionist is trying to win control over the whole United States and isn’t laughed off the stage still amuses and befuddles me.

And people consider the Republican party a viable option in this country.

“I hope the House considers my resolution as soon as we return to Washington so we can send a message to President Obama.” – Rep. Diane Black. Republican. Tennessee. Moron.

The GOP apparently really is as stupid as you sometimes imagine.

While complaining about the President’s recess appointments, the House is pretending to do business. Basically, Junior Rep from Nowheresville, Teabaggia sits alone in the House chamber and they call the House open. It is a lie.

Hell, it is a lie supported by Rep. Black demanding action on a bill condemning the President. You know, once they all make it back to D.C.

She even mentions in her statement that they’ve been in recess since December 17th.

In short, they are stopping the government from operating, at least the parts of it they don’t like. And don’t get me wrong, this is egregious behavior by ANY party and I would like to hope that Harry Reid would have been shamed for these games when he did it during the Bush years. You either recognize that people win office and earn their right to do good or ill or you abuse the Constitution in such a way that YOU are the problem. Do your job, even if the consequences suck.

You really cannot make this stuff up.

For the record, I agree with Jay Bookman, hitting Romney overe the “I like being able to fire people” quote is patently unfair. I also agree that since he has no problem misquoting people for his own gain, he’s welcome to all this misdirection.

Karma is a bitch Willard.

I also like this Democratic response:

UPDATE: And then there’s this:

In short, everything you already suspected about the most rabid members of the GOP, but with some trendy that shows you you far from reality those particular goons are.

Following up on my earlier post on Georgia, it turns out that not only have all the produce pickers been chased off of the farms down that way, so have a lot of the service industry folks. Good job, racists!

Here’s the story. A “sovereign citizen”, aka traitor, goes for a cop’s taser and gets shot dead.

Once again: someone who doesn’t believe in the United States government and wants to make up his own rules tries to take a weapon away from a badged officer who is tasked and entrusted to uphold the same laws this guy refuses to accept protects and restrains him.

Cop shoots traitor.

So take your time, read the story, and then plunge into the babble of the comments. There’s a Zogby poll I take whenever they send them. In the political leaning list I usually pick liberal. Granted, like everyone, I pick and choose philosophies. Like, I don’t mind every home having a firearm – probably a shotgun – for safety. IF they want one. But I think handguns are dangerous and folks who have them and don’t train on them are idiots out to hurt themselves. Statistics prove this.

That’s just one example.

Point is, I never pick the “progressive” option. Want to know why? Folks who call themselves progressive are the only in the comments on this story concerned about three things. One, is the poor dead traitor mentally unbalanced? I don’t know, but I kind of imagine he might have been to have rejected the reality of his existence so soundly.

Two, were there other eyewitness accounts that contradicted the cop? Turns out, there might have been, but my immediate reaction was not to think the officer was lying. I don’t even like law enforcement that much. I had some individual officers pull some dirty crap on me and my friends when younger. But I don’t hate and distrust cops immediately. I treat them like snakes. They’ve got a job to do. If you stay out of their way, hopefully they won’t randomly bite you.;

Three, aside from feeling sorry for the guy GRABBING FOR AN OFFICER’S GEAR BELT and blaming the cop for that happening, I also don’t want to condemn anyone who think it is a good thing that these sovereign traitors get a look at what happens when they pull their “I’m my own nation” crap and try to steal a weapon our taxes paid for.

So yeah, I’m not into backstabbing and knee-jerk distrusting law enforcement. In fact, isn’t that EXACTLY what the sovereigns would do?

Here’s the problem with conservatives. Well, there are many, many problems, but here’s a bad marketing decision.

In their hatred of having a black President, they’ve taken to calling him a socialist (or whatever) because they can’t openly call him the N word.

It sells well with the “we hate education” crowd. However, it is falling flat dead with young voters.

Why?

Well, one, a lot of them are in college and can actually learn what words like socialism, communism, and fascism mean. They can see communist China using capitalism to kick our ass economically. They see semi-socialist parts of Europe recovering from the Great Recession and having 32 hour work weeks, a paid year off or two for maternity leave, five weeks of vacation, and health care and great infrastructure.

Then they see the US with crumbling this or not and a bank/government/corporate scandal or theft every few days. And aside from the President and his party all they see are Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck and company making common cause with racist anti-government militias a la McVeigh.

What the hell kind of conclusion do you expect them to make other than conservatives are lunatics more in line with the Taliban than with them?

Some folks still wish we had elected that Panamanian guy and his secessionist running mate to office.

I, for one, am continually glad we did not. Here’s another example of his poor judgment:

Yep, coddling dictators. Apparently that’s called “leadership” in the GOP.

Once again, the combination of Republican hatred of education and the Texas Governor collides in yet another bout of stupidity.

Traitor Rick, gubner of the sovereign quasi-independent state of Texas, is concerned about all the Mexicans getting killed in Juarez in the drug wars. This is a highly commendable stance. People should not be shot just for where they live.

However, his concern seems to lie not in the abstract belief that life in sacred. No, he is concerned that Juarez lies in Texas and that he might be held accountable for those deaths.

Idiot.

To their credit, Texas is trying to tackle illegal immigration by going after those who employ them. Which, considering the usual Republican plan, which is to criminilize brown folks in general, is pretty enlightened.

That said, there is a catch. The only employers who won’t get punished are those who hire undocumented maids, lawn guys and houseworkers in general. In short, rich people are immune from the law.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I get the logistics of it. Busting a lot of households in Texas gated communities is gonna take a lot of work. But come on! Make it a two tiered punishment system. If a big employer gets two years in jail and a $10k fine, make the guy with three maids, a gardener, and a pool guy from Guatemala do 100 hours of community service and a $2k fine. Or something. Anything.

Once again, we let the rich go. I’m sure businesses will keep employing illegals. Hell, my dad once worked at a shop in Texas that was half full of undocumented machinists owned by a Republican state legislator who was supposedly anti-immigrant. You know, except for the ones who worked for him.