Politics Plus

Here is the fifty-second article in our Republicans on Parade series, featuring individuals who personify what the Republican Party has become. Today’s honoree is Wyoming Republican gubernatorial candidate Taylor Haynes. He is so honored for breaking the world record for stupidity.

There is perhaps no national park more sacrosanct to America than Yellowstone. Anyone who has marveled at its Old Faithful Geyser or looked out at its large herds of roaming bison or stood in awe at its cascading waterfalls has, whether they knew it or not, been the beneficiary of a massively successful government program: conservation of public lands.

But Yellowstone National Park’s days as a pristine ecological retreat could be numbered if Wyoming gubernatorial candidate Taylor Haynes (R) gets his way.

Haynes, a physician and former trustee at the University of Wyoming, wants all national parks and federal lands in Wyoming to be turned over to the state. According to the Casper Star Tribune, Haynes wants to allow all lands in Wyoming, including Yellowstone, to be leased for drilling, mining, and grazing. “We will manage every square inch of Wyoming,” the gubernatorial hopeful said…

Inserted from <Think Progress>

This idiot actually wants to frack the Yellowstone caldera, which may well be the most geologically dangerous piece of real estate in the world.  I was in Portland when Mount St. Helens went up, that was tiny by comparison.  We’re talking ELE here! Here’s some recent video on the caldera.

Anyone who wants to frack in this area is so stupid that there is only one word sufficiently insulting for them: Republican.

Here is the fifty-first article in our Republicans on Parade series, featuring individuals who personify what the Republican Party has become. Today’s honoree is GOP State Representative and US House candidate Adam Kwasman. He is so honored for demonstrating his Republican hatred, racism and stupidity.

…As you might expect, there’s been a major boneheaded failure already in these nascent attempts at pretending to have “compassion” for the migrant children and pretending that the desire to send them back is borne out of this “compassion”. Adam Kwasman is one of those frothing-at-the-mouth anti-immigrant state legislators in Arizona—naturally, he’s also running for Congress—and he was trying to strike the “I just care so much about these kids!” pose by describing what he said was a bus full of migrant children that he believed were afraid.

In pure politician bullshit mode, Kwasman said, “I was actually able to see some of the children in the buses. The fear on their faces…. This is not compassion.” He went on to imply that the Obama administration is somehow failing at “border security” and that being stricter about it in some abstract way would prevent the “sad” kids, presumably by allowing them to die quietly in the desert instead of make it across the border. Compassion!

The problem is that the bus he saw was not actually a bus full of migrant children. It was a school bus full of kids on their way to a YMCA camp…

Inserted from <Raw Story>

The video in the article could not be embedded, but I was able to find one with similar content.  This fool thought he had succeeded in intimidating a busload of refugee children.  Watch him squirm, as he realizes he has TEAbuggered himself.

Regardless of whether or not the children were foreign, or whether or not they actually were afraid, Kwasman considered striking fear into the hearts of refugee children something to brag about. It’s hard to get more Republican than that!

When you consider the determination and courage it took for such refugees to make it here, let me suggest that, given the chance, they would become far more productive citizens than the Republicans who are blocking the roads, waving their guns and venting their hatred.

There is now sufficient evidence that shows that mostly black Democratic voters, who voted in Mississippi’s Republican primary allowed Thad “Farmyard Fun” Cochran (R-MS) to defeat Chris “Bagger” McDaniel.  The InsaniTEA and Theocon wings of the party are screaming bloody murder, saying that only Republican votes should have counted.

Newly released data of the Mississippi runoff for U.S. Senate between Sen. Thad Cochran (R-MS) and state Sen. Chris McDaniel (R) reinforce the claim that Cochran won through a surge of votes from African-Americans and Democrats.

Since the runoff McDaniel and his supporters have complained that McDaniel actually won the Republican vote in the runoff and Cochran was only the winner through getting African Americans and Democrats to vote for him.

As The New York Times’ Upshot blog notes, Cochran won 92 percent of the votes in the precincts that are Democratic strongholds. President Barack Obama won 99 percent of the vote in those precincts in 2012. Cochran won those precincts by 3,889 votes, or more than half of his margin of victory in the runoff over all. With those votes, Democratic votes in other parts of the state could have cleanly brought Cochran over the finish line in the runoff, even with Republican voters in those precincts going for McDaniel.

An important data point to keep in mind also is that in historically Democratic-dominant places like Hinds County, one of the most densely populated counties in Mississippi, turnout wasn’t especially large (7.4 percent of the 2012 general election numbers) — but with runoff voters going 92 to 8 for Cochran, it would be enough to move the race in Cochran’s favor…

Inserted from <TPM>

McDaniel’s complaint appears to have  some merit.  It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to have an open primary, until you understand it’s true purpose.  Historically, before Republicans sowed the wind by embracing hate-filled TEAbuggery, Republican primaries have featured an uncontested or barely contested candidate, while Democratic primaries have often been more hotly contested.  In states with open primaries, Republican voters have crossed the line for years to ensure that the least worthy candidate becomes the Democratic nominee.  In some states the Democratic nominee is nothing more than a Republican plant, such as Alvin Green in SC in 2010.  Republicans have been trying for years to get Oregon to adopt an open primary without success. 

So what we have here is nothing more that an old Republican dirty trick at work.  That it is causing Republicans grief could not be more appropriate.

Anyway, now we know how to keep Thad Cochran off the Senate floor.  Just put a   in the Senate cloak room.