Annual Insanity, Rabble Rousing, Hilarity: CPAC Conference 2014

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Ted Cruz says we 'no longer have a president,' apparently because Barack Obama is now our dictator

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/0...k?detail=email

but dead-heart head's "Unitary Executive" was Cons utional?

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Mike Huckabee God and Vladimir Putin

He wants to make sure you know that our nation was founded by God (see above), but that's just Hucka-boilerplate. The real message is that Russian President Vladimir Putin is such a man:

Huckabee said Obama's perceived weakness has emboldened Russian President Vladimir Putin."I know the only time that Vladimir Putin shivers is when he takes his shirt off in a cold Russian winter," Huckabee said to laughter and applause from the audience.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/0...n?detail=email

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CPAC BONUS SATURDAY -- THE PRINCESS IN EXCELSIS



By now, and by god, it should have settled permanently in the consciousness of the nation what a huge and untoward gamble with the country John McCain and his campaign took in 2008 when they elevated Sarah Palin from her rightful place on the tundra to the political celebrity she currently enjoys. McCain should pay a heavy price for unleashing this ignorant, two-wheeled bilewagon on the country's politics. If you think she's a legitimate political leader, you're an idiot and a sucker and I feel sorry for you.

Yesterday she gave a wildly received speech to ring down the curtain at CPAC. The applause, as far as I know, may still be going on. It was as singularly embarrassing a public address as any allegedly sentient primate ever has delivered. It was a disgrace to politics, to rhetoric, to the English language, and to seventh-grade slam books everywhere.

This ambulatiory bag of rank resentment pulled out all the tricks. The cheap shots; "Aw, John, why the long face?" to the Secretary of State.

The sneering, wheedling playground taunting -- "You can't make a phone call without Mic e Obama knowing, 'This is the third time this week you dialed Pizza Hut Delivery'" -- and a full panoply of funny voices that are the trademark of dip comics in every two-drink minimum club in America. We got "hope and channng-ey," and how "some members" of the GOP establishment are saying to us, "Hush, America. Go to sleep, little lambs." And, in what is being celebrated as thepiece de resistance , she turned Green Eggs And Ham into an extended taunt.

"I do not like this spyin' man, I do not like ‘Oh, yes we can,' I do not like this kind of hope, and we won't take it nope, nope, nope."

(Dr. Seuss, a noted progressive, was having dry heaves in the Void.)

If you laughed, you're an idiot and I feel sorry for you.

"There is no free birth control. There is no free phone. There is no free health care. There are no free Fritos. There is no free lunch."

Says a woman who's been on the grift full time for five years now, and who did, in fact, manage to work in a plug for her next inevitably cancelled television show, citing "the places where most of the people who do the working and tax-paying live...and that's where you'll find... AMAZING AMERICA!" The folks at the Very Big Fish Channel or whatever it is must be thrilled.

We even got the inevitable gloat. Back five years ago, somebody wrote down on a little card for her that allowing the Russians to invade Georgia -- as though there was anything we could have done about that -- would embolden Vladimir Putin to move on Ukraine. She dutifully read it in public and now, of course, she is the smartest geopolitical mind in the country.

"After all, who could have seen this one coming?"

In 2008, we should remember, she wasn't sure how many Koreas there were, thought Saddam Hussein was behind the 9/11 attacks, and was unclear whether or not Africa was a country.

So, in an act of Christian charity, I will grant that some anonymous staffer, who very likely has only now recovered from the serious heroin habit he developed while working with Palin on foreign policy in 2008, was slightly clairvoyant about the intentions of the Putin government. Well done, unsung hero. If you respect her knowledge of anything beyond where her next speaking fee is coming from, you're an idiot and I feel sorry for you.

A friend bailed on the speech, making the very plausible case that Palin is simply another political celebrity freakshow, like Donald Trump. I can see the point there but, with Palin, and watching the hysterical reception her puerile screed received, there is something more serious going on.

She is the living representation of the infantilization of American politics, a poisonous Grimm Sister telling toxic fairy tales to audiences drunk on fear, and hate and nonsense. She respects no standards but her own. She is in perpetual tantrum, railing against her betters, which is practically everyone, and volunteering for the job of avatar to the country's reckless vandal of a political Id. It was the address of a malignant child delivered to an audience of malignant children. If you applauded, you're an idiot and I feel sorry for you.

http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politic...ac-2014-030814

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Ann Coulter At CPAC: Democrats Want Immigration Reform For 'Warm Bodies, More Votes'

"You want the Democrats who want more immigrants, particularly illegal immigrants, because they need brand new voters, just warm bodies, more votes," she said. "Amnesty goes through, and the Democrats have 30 million new voters. I just don't think Republicans have an obligation to forgive law-breaking just because the Democrats need another 30 million voters."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/0...ef=mostpopular

as pitbull would say: "Ann, why the long face?"

Are you related to Rick Scott?

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Ann, here's what the Dems are up against:

The Koch Brothers Spent Twice as Much on the 2012 Election as the Top Ten Unions Combined

http://www.thenation.com/blog/178743/koch-brothers-spent-twice-much-2012-election-top-ten-unions-combined#

that's why the Repugs packed SCOTUS with extreme right-wing activist assholes: to make horrible law like Citizens-United.

[TSA]

Ann Coulter At CPAC: Democrats Want Immigration Reform For 'Warm Bodies, More Votes'

"You want the Democrats who want more immigrants, particularly illegal immigrants, because they need brand new voters, just warm bodies, more votes," she said. "Amnesty goes through, and the Democrats have 30 million new voters. I just don't think Republicans have an obligation to forgive law-breaking just because the Democrats need another 30 million voters."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/0...ef=mostpopular

as pitbull would say: "Ann, why the long face?"

Are you related to Rick Scott?

She's got a point, and if you fail to see it you're blinder than I thought.

[TSA]

And I'm now blind thanks to the pic you added.

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She's got a point, and if you fail to see it you're blinder than I thought.

I didn't say she didn't have a point. It's a very good point. The Repugs know.

Combined with Repug businessmen benefitting from exploiting undoc immigrants for decades, it's easy to see why the Repugs didn't, couldn't pass any immigration legislation 2001-2006.

Repugs are pro-business/anti-citizen because business pays them to be. That's THEIR point.

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Extreme As It Ever Was: Five Things To Know About This Year's CPAC

5) So Much For Diversity

Despite everything we hear about how the GOP is really making an effort this time to attract non-white voters, very few CPAC members bothered to show up for the summit’s panel on minority-outreach.

Ironically, the panelists repeatedly said that the first step to solving the GOP’s demographic problem would be for Republican candidates to show up in communities of color. But it seems conservative activists don’t even seem all that interested in attending a panel at the National Harbor hotel.

4) Shaming Poor People

Rep. Paul Ryan showed off the latest version of “compassionate conservatism” when he attacked liberals for providing people “a full stomach and an empty soul.” He also suggested that parents who take advantage of programs offering free meals to hungry schoolchildren don’t really care about their kids.

“Once I heard someone say what was important to him as a boy was that he didn’t want school lunch, he wanted a brown bag because the brown bag that he brought with his lunch in it meant that his mom cared about him,” Ryan recalled.

It turns out Ryan’s entire story was lifted from a book whose author actually backs the very programs Ryan was criticizing and who also opposed the congressman’s budget proposals.

3) Corporate Takeover

It is no surprise that the American Conservative Union advances a pro-corporate agenda, or that the group is being rewarded handsomely for it. Slate’s Eli Clifton reports that the ACU takes huge donations “from some of America’s biggest and least popular industries: guns, big oil, and cigarettes.”

Perhaps more importantly, the ACU promotes the tobacco industry when new regulatory measures are proposed.

The ACU publicly defended the interests of the tobacco industry when the FDA proposed imposing restrictions on menthol cigarettes. Responding to a July 2013 invitation for public input from the FDA, the ACU wrote to express its “strong opposition to the establishment of the Food and Drug Administration of a tobacco product standard for menthol in cigarettes.”

The ACU also used its influence to promote legislation benefiting the oil and gas industries. In addition to contributions from the Anschutz Foundation, funded by oil tycoon Philip Anschutz and the Koch brothers, Chevron contributed $20,000 to the ACU Foundation in 2010. The oil and drilling industry found no shortage of support from the ACU. In December 2011 the ACU wrote to Rep. Jim Jordan, then-chairman of the Republican Study Committee, urging Jordan and all members of the House to support the “Jobs Through Growth Act,” which would “reverse the absurd finding of EPA that carbon dioxide is a ‘pollutant.’ ” “The bill would also expedite the construction and operation of the Keystone XL Pipeline,” said the ACU letter. The bill gained 59 co-sponsors but died in committee.

Along with the many inevitable jokes about how climate change can’t exist because it is cold in the winter, CPAC also hosted industry-backed panels that labeled climate change science “modern witchcraft” and “human racism.”

2) Respectable Conservatism?

Is CPAC becoming more mainstream and less crazy?

While many of the Right Wing’s most fringe and conspiratorial activists appeared at the CPAC alternative “The Uninvited” — which viewed CPAC as too liberal and infiltrated by the Muslim Brotherhood — CPAC was nonetheless kicked off by Ted Cruz and featured key speeches from characters such as Donald Trump, Ann Coulter and Sarah Palin.

Discredited right-wing conspiracy theories about Benghazi and the IRS have become fully embraced by even “mainstream” GOP figures and were mentioned frequently throughout the convention. While there may be some extreme right-wing activists who are upset with CPAC, that in no way makes the event more “moderate.”

In fact, in what has become almost an annual tradition, while the event shut out groups representing gay and atheist conservatives, it welcomed the sponsorship of an anti-immigrant group led by a white supremacist.

1) Anti-Gay Activism Is Alive And Well

Despite reports that CPAC is becoming more welcoming to gay people and gay rights supporters, anti-gay politicians and rhetoric were still a major factor at the summit. CPAC barred the gay conservative group GOProud from sponsoring or having a booth at the event. The much-touted “compromise” merely allows GOProud members to attend as individuals, which the GOProud founder dubbed an “unconditional surrender.”

Staunchly anti-gay organizations such as CitizenLink (the political arm of Focus on the Family) and the Liberty Alliance, however, were top sponsors. Another sponsor, Tradition, Family, and Property, an ultraconservative Catholic youth group, distributed anti-gay fliers that depicted GOProud as a rainbow-colored beaver undermining the conservative movement.

Main stage speakers didn’t hold back either.

Oliver North urged the GOP to fight marriage equality with the same tenacity as the fight against slavery. He also suggested that by repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, the Obama administration is treating military service members like “laboratory rats in some radical social experiment.”

While conservative talk show host Michael Medved admitted that he supports the right of gay couples to adopt children, he said that conservatives must continue to oppose marriage equality and even denied that same-sex marriage has ever been banned. “There’s never been a state in this country that has ever banned gay marriage, that’s a liberal lie,” he said.

And Dr. Ben Carson, a potential 2016 presidential candidate, won raucous applause for his denunciation of gay “extra rights,” specifically the right to marry.

http://www.rightwingwatch.org/conten....Fp4pe5js.dpuf

right-wingers! ing assholes, every one of them.

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Ann Coulter At CPAC: Democrats Want Immigration Reform For 'Warm Bodies, More Votes'

"You want the Democrats who want more immigrants, particularly illegal immigrants, because they need brand new voters, just warm bodies, more votes," she said. "Amnesty goes through, and the Democrats have 30 million new voters. I just don't think Republicans have an obligation to forgive law-breaking just because the Democrats need another 30 million voters."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/0...ef=mostpopular

as pitbull would say: "Ann, why the long face?"

Are you related to Rick Scott?

Coulter attacked MSNBC for “celebrating the browning of America.” “But if you don’t celebrate it you’re a racist,” she added. “It’s going to be people who are not from America who are going to be in theory funding older, white people who are getting to their Social Security and Medicare age. I don’t think that can last, at some point they’re going to say, ‘Screw it.’”

“I used to think everything was about sex, now I realize everything is about immigration,” she added later. Coulter praised Mitt Romney for taking the “most aggressive” stance on immigration and called on the GOP to nominate another staunchly anti-immigrant candidate.

Coulter ended with this call to arms: “Amnesty is forever and you got to vote for the Republicans one more time and just make it clear; but if you pass amnesty, that’s it, it’s over and then we organize the death squads for the people who wrecked America.”

http://www.rightwingwatch.org/conten...recked-america