The GOP’s Problem with Facts

Okay, fresh off the great Rick Perry “Oops” debacle, we have Herman Cain with his own ridiculous political blunder. For those of you who don’t know what happened here yet, during an interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel editorial board, Herman Cain was asked a very simple question: Was he in favor of the actions taken by President Barack Obama in Libya? Cain then proceeds to breathe heavily, look around vacantly and muss about with his water bottle as he desperately searches for an answer in his own head. Take a quick look for yourselves.

I’ll be honest, this flub is not quite as bad as the Rick Perry debate, but his inability to give a straight answer does give the impression of one of two things. First, he actually does not know the issues at hand well enough to form a coherent opinion. Second possibility is that he does know and simply is trying to figure out which answer is the one that Republican voters want to hear.

The Hypocrisy of the Values Voter Summit

Anyone else find it mildly patronizing that a summit called the “Values Voter Summit” even exists? I’d just like to point out that its name alone implies a certain level of priggish self-righteousness often exhibited exclusively by “Dungeons & Dragons” paladins.

Jim DeMint: Paladin of the Values Conclave

For those of you who don’t know about the Values Voter Summit, it’s a gathering which espouses the virtues of limiting government, reducing spending, championing traditional values and protecting America. Sound familiar? I’ll give you a few seconds to figure it out. Funny how the only ones invited to the “Values” summit are suspiciously all from the Republican Party. Am I, therefore, to assume that they are the only ones with a sense of values?

Is It Still Class Warfare When the Rich Are Asking for a Tax Increase?

These are the guys the Tea party supports!

The GOP insists up and down that any attempt to raise taxes on the upper class constitutes class warfare. This isn’t my assessment, by the way. They said it themselves. In a time when there is an utter insistence on balancing the U.S. budget, the GOP track records have insisted on extensions of the Bush administration’s tax cuts, which added $1.7 trillion dollars to the national deficit.

They also displayed an outright refusal to allow any form of revenue gathering in the form of tax increases when it came time to raise the debt ceiling, and are now resisting any attempt to tax those making over $1 million annually, denouncing it as inciting Class Warfare.

Now, never mind the fact their stated goals and actions are completely and utterly contradictory. The tax situation has now gotten so out of hand that some millionaires have even gone public asking to be taxed higher. The now famous Warren Buffet NYT editorial seems to paint the picture pretty clearly: Those making money have tax loopholes they can take advantage of.

What a Grand Ol’ Party.

For my first post here concerning politics, I guess it would be pertinent to give you a little bit of a story about my family’s political background, which is best summed up in one brilliant misadventure I endured that truly embodies everything the Grand Old Party is about. I was on a family trip once with my aunt, uncle, cousin, grandmother and my uncle’s brother and his family.

As you might imagine, this wasn’t one of those ‘drink yourself into a coma’ vacations, mostly thanks to my fake ID getting taken away. Thanks, Mom. But I digress. You remember way back–now this is a stretch–think back to when we believed in change and believed so strongly in that ‘Yes we can!’ motto. Back when Sarah Palin was a laughing stock and not a role model for reality TV parenting. Yeah, that time.

Remember it? There, hold it. This was back then. Bush was still president, Obama had yet to prove his legitimate birth and be labeled the next Karl Marx. Anyway, I picked up one of the magazines at their townhouse, opened past the slew of Goldline and AARP adds to find an article praising the ‘liberation’ of Iraq.