To answer eburger’s perhaps rhetorical question, yes Republicans in the Legislature tend to be wildly inconsistent. Their constituents want and need things that cost money (roads, schools, cops, etc.) but the GOP is so wedded to outdated anti-tax rhetoric that hypocrisy is the only possible outcome. Those proud, independent real Americans on the east side of the mountains need highways after all! Frankly I kind of wonder why the Republican Party still exists, other than tradition. It serves very little purpose.
When I consider things calmly and rationally every year or two, I realize that a sincere and dedicated opposition party would be very beneficial in running something as big and bureaucratic as a state government. There are always things to improve and it would be naive to think there is not corruption in places, if not illegality then certainly shady practices, back-scratching and nods and winks. You know, like the Bush administration, if we’re looking for textbook examples. But these things are endemic to bureaucracies the world over, public and private, and nobody has a monopoly.
But the GOP never seems to start from a place other than loud, angry, destroy-the-government rhetoric. I guess that’s their purpose, to just be angry. Fun for us as it’s great sport to return the favor. Elections have consequences, you know.
OMG! ANOTHER post by John about Republicans! Is it impossible for him to write even one post about Democrats, pro or con, without mentioning Republicans? The boy’s obsessed!
1 If you can’t take the heat, pal, get out of the kitchen.
I can take the heat, but John’s a chef who only knows how to cook one dish. I’m just pointing that out.
I’m calling bullshit on John’s post. I think it’s a diversionary post. I think he is trying to take people’s attention away from this:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.c.....on12m.html
Use your brains, sheep.
@4: Wow. So a wing of the majority party exhibits signs of opposition to the governor’s budget. What a suprise….not. Of course, the GOP is irrelevant, as they should be.
This is good.
Troll is constantly trying to divert attention from the fact that a majority of Americans bent over his pals in the GOP and REJECTED the crap that he and other right wingers spew. But it’s good that Troll and his friends haven’t learned anything. We’ll make these fools even MORE irrelevant in 2010. I can’t wait until we have a veto proof majority in the US Congress. Then we can send an email to the GOP.
“Dear traitors, cowards, fools and idiots in the GOP. We bent you over and rejected your lies. Your only hope is in America’s failure. You will be denied AGAIN. We know you’re program now. It no longer works. Being the party of NO is not your option anymore. Now sit the FUCK down and shut the FUCK up until we tell you otherwise. We don’t need you for ANYFUCKINGTHING!
Thanks Troll for helping to make the right LESS relevant – as if that were even possible.
@1: When one party contains such a large group of whiners, blamers and people who refuse to accept any responsibility (such as the republican party), then endless blogs can be written on the bankrupt ideals and ideas of said party.
Especially when the republicans themselves are too dense or too stupid to realize why they are continually whupped at the polls. People don’t like whining do-nothing parties that ruin the economy and create unnecessary wars.
Troll: go to un(Sound) politics to see the naive and pathetic republican knee jerk responses to any issues. First, they blame demcorats then they repeat the same tired slogans (less government and less taxes). As if the lack of regulation that led to the banking crisis can be solved by….even less regulation. What idiots!
@3 Hey numbnuts, this is a liberal blog written by liberal propagandists! If you want rightwing drivel try Stefan’s pathetic little also-ran blog.
Eastern Washington political orthodoxy holds there is no need to pay taxes because Seattle subsidizes their roads and schools, and they don’t have to work either because they can live off crop subsidies financed by taxes on city slickers and, when market conditions are opportune, they can pay for new pickup trucks and RVs and horse trailers by gouging city slickers for milk and the wheat that goes into making bread, and by God if them thar city slickers don’t like it let ’em starve!
In these respects, eastern Washington Republicans somewhat resemble their Alaskan counterparts, whose state mails checks instead of collecting taxes by charging motorists in the Lower 48 OPEC prices for oil owned by the federal government.
Republicans started from the premise that “The government that governs least, is the government that governs best”- attributed to both Thomas Jefferson and Tom Paine.
Democrats started from the premise that “Big Brother knows what is best for you.”
No wonder Jon wants to abolish Republicans. Then he’d have no opposition to his petty totalitarianism.
John425 @ 11: Nope, that’s one of the longest-running “straw men” constructed by the Republican party to portray their party in it’s best light, and to denigrate the opposition. It’s not correct on both counts. The Republican Party has a history of government intervention which goes back virtually to it’s founding. In it’s current form, the Republicans have brought us closer to the “Big Brother” of George Orwell’s “1984” than anyone thought possible.
Seriously, until this decade did anyone think that a President and a compliant Congress would be able to get away with saying that he didn’t need a court order to listen in on the telephone conversations of Americans, read their e-mails, open their mail, etc., because we should trust that the government would only do that to “terrorists”, which only the administration would define?
And those hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayer money given to favored financial companies so they could acquire the non-favored ones – an idea formed and pushed entirely by a Republican administration under the guise of an “economic emergency” and sold to the Democratic Congress only because they were told that if they didn’t act within a handfull of days, if not hours, their delay would make them responsible for the next Great Depression?
The old canards about Republican minimalist government have been proven to be so much bunk. They believe in minimalistic government only when it’s a program they don’t like, such as one which protects the middle-class, the working class, and the poor. But they are all in favor of huge expansions of the federal government when it results in billions of dollars in the pockets of their supporters, or it gives them power to use in abtaining yet more power.
rhp6033: That is your ass talking because your mouth surely knows better. Who the hell EVER dislikes programs that protect the poor? That is slick propaganda that says that if I am against your “War on Poverty” legislation then I am FOR Poverty. Gimme a break!
Go look up thinks like quantity, quality, intent and bureaucracy and quit being an idiot.
@11: Your minimalist republican government:
Created the largest deficit in history
Invaded a country that was no threat and wasted close to a trillion dollars
Wiretapped American citizens without a warrant
Tortured prisoners in the name of the USA
Held prisoners without a trial
Had the worst economic performance since Hoover
Failed to regulate the banks – leading directly to the banking crisis and the economic meltdown.
Injected unprecedented amounts of politics into the Justice department
Failed to adequately respond to the Katrina disaster
Failed to listen to the governments own scientists in the FDA, The EPA, Agriculture (the forest service) and other agencies.
@14
Tortured prisoners in the name of the
USA
so, since we give israel 5 billion a year in aid, should we demand that the mossad stop torturing and assasinating?
by the way, i’m glad they came dwon hard on prince harry for using a racial slur, we want to make sure when we send people to war to maim and kill, at least they’ll be civilized enough to not call people names…good show, chap
@15: I don’t live in Israel, I live in the USA. I don’t want my country to torture. I don’t want the US armed forces tortured because we do it. I don’t want the shame and disrespect that goes with torture. I thought WE were better than that. WE did not torture during much tougher times in WW2. If we could stand up to Hitler and Japan in WW2 without torture, why do we need to torture to fight a bunch of cave dwelling zealots in the Middle East?
Guess you agree with the rest of my comments on minimalist republicans?
@16,
correcttoright, you may not live in israel, but we usually demand that countries who receive our aid conform to human rights.
lol, as for agreeing with the rest of your comments on republicans, do you want a tedious answer? i used to be a republican, still vote straight gop, but now realize the two party system is really a sham. dont believe me? did you see the ap article today on oabama backing off on his pledge to close gitmo? you have to be naive to think he will. but the bigger question is, do you really believe that obama ever intended to close gitmo? do you think he had no clue about what is happening there? he knew all along. so, bush and obama will now have the same gitmo policy.
in a previous post i said there was no accounting for the tarp, i was contradicted. elizabeth warren, chair of the bailout oversight is on lou dobbs this very minute, and she says nobody knows how the money is being spent and paulson wont answer the committe’s questions. so………….is she lying?
@17: Really? Nicaragua, Egypt, Pakistan and all those other countries that get our aid adhere to human rights?
And we can make the claim that other countries respect human rights because Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and waterboarding never happened and our hands are clean?
And if you voted republican (straight GOP) then you are reponsible for this mess. If you voted for Bush, you are responsible for the economic mess and the political mess.
Oh, and Obama is NOT backing off on closing Gitmo – the only question is HOW to close it responsibly.
Do I think Obama had no clue about Gitmo?
No, he has consistently opposed it. Maybe you should actually READ what he has said.
Gee, if we really insisted that other nations receiving our aid adhered to our human rights policies, then that would make rendition – obsolete? The mere fact that “extraordinary rendition” existed (exists?) proves that the only time we push human rights is when we are talking to people over whom we have little control (Russia, China, Burma, etc.).
Carter was the last President to try to impose human rights requirements across the board. The subsequent revolutions in Iran and Nicaraugua, although inevitable regardless of any U.S. attempts to shore up those regines, pretty much killed off that initiative. Reagan and Goerge W. Bush quickly abandoned the human rights initiatives, and instead embraced any strong-man who was willing to temporarily advance U.S. interests – including Saddam Hussein.
The UN Council on Human Rights has such freedom loving luminaries as: Bahrain, China, Egypt, Malaysia, Pakistan, Russia, Cuba, Qatar and Nigeria.
But it’s all Bush’s fault, right?
@19
ok correcttoright, even if you are totally right, you still never answered the question. is it ok for mossad to torture and commit political assasinations?
Sounds to me like most people here are blaming one administration.
Jeeze give me a break.
No matter it’s not true!
Would they take the time to study the real facts, I don’t think so.
Because they won’t, they will be surprised when the things they expect from poor Obama
don’t fly.
When big brother is all they have to lean on.
When they can’t understand why he the holy one is not coming to thier rescue.
Only big government!! Whom they think holds all the answers.
Then,only will the whimpering really start.
There will be no one there to whimper and cry to, because thier holy one will be busy out walking on water.
Please, Every one that comments here, keep blaming it all on Bush he has big shoulders and I think he can take it.