Like any good Republican, Rand Paul blames lack of fathers and morals for the violence in Baltimore

By Michael J.W. Stickings

You might think a supposed libertarian like Rand Paul would look at the situation in Baltimore and see something similar to what most of us living in reality are seeing, namely, yet another despicable incident of police brutality (in this case leading to murder), a long history (not just in that city but all across the U.S.) of racial and other injustice directed mostly at a hopelessly impoverished underclass that is largely black, a city deeply divided along lines of race and class, and an economic system that fuels injustice and inequality by turning large swaths of the inner-city into quagmires of despair and oppression -- and a response that, while unfortunately violent on the part of some, is nonetheless an understandable one.

Well, okay, maybe not. American libertarians are mostly just right-wing ideologues with views that fit nicely within the Republican Party, and Rand Paul, who of course is trying to lead that party on a presidential level, is no exception. Indeed his awful response to the situation in Baltimore on Laura Ingraham's radio show today was very much in line with the racist moralizing that is very much the mainstream conservative, and Republican, approach to minority issues generally, especially where blacks are concerned, and even with respect to police brutality this supposed libertarian sided with the police against those they are brutalizing:

Railing against what he repeatedly called "thuggery and thievery" in the streets of Baltimore, Paul told Ingraham that talking about "root causes" was not appropriate in the middle of a riot.

"The police have to do what they have to do, and I am very sympathetic to the plight of the police in this," he said.

As for root causes, Paul listed some ideas of his own.

"There are so many things we can talk about," the senator said, "the breakdown of the family structure, the lack of fathers, the lack of a moral code in our society."

He added that "this isn't just a racial thing."

Not that Paul really has any credibility as a libertarian, but this exposes him as a fraud -- and, of course, as nothing but yet another Republican who doesn't give a shit about the plight of black and other racial-minority Americans, the long suffering and hopeless prospects of the urban underclass, and brutality of law enforcement that is meant to keep everyone under the yoke of an authoritarian plutocracy.

Becuase it couldn't be the fact that a black man died brutally at the hands of the police, right? Or that that murder was just the latest act of grotesque violence in a long history of brutality and oppression? Or that the reaction of the protesters -- all the pent-up rage and frustration -- reflects the hopelessness and despair of their situation, and of their community, that there is actually oppression against which they are acting out?

Nah, it's because they don't have fathers, and morals, which is what Republicans always say, to their everlasting head-up-the-ass idiocy.

Welcome to Rand Paul's -- i.e., the Republicans' -- America.

Memory hole

By Mustang Bobby

You've heard about the right wing's long-time battle with remembering things to get outraged about, haven't you?

The December 5 edition of conservative pundit Laura Ingraham's newsletter attacked President Obama for recently meeting with MSNBC personalities, claiming that "if Fox News hosts and conservative personalities had stopped by the Bush White House to discuss policy" the press "would have been rightly outraged." But President Bush did meet with a group of Fox News and conservative personalities at the White House — including Laura Ingraham...

The New York Times reported in October 2006 that Bush hosted a group of conservative personalities including Fox News contributor and frequent guest host Ingraham...

Ms. Ingraham seems to forget that people remember these things.

H/T to Steve M.

(Cross-posted at Bark Bark Woof Woof.)

Ed Schultz calls Laura Ingraham a "right-wing slut," conservatives freak out

By Michael J.W. Stickings

This one's pretty simple.

While I can't stand right-wing talk-radio extremist Laura Ingraham, it was clearly wrong for MSNBC's Ed Schultz, also on talk radio, to call her a "right-wing slut."

There are many things Ingraham could justifiably be called, but this was, to say the least, highly inappropriate.

I wouldn't go so far as to say it amounts to misogyny, but there's no excuse for it. It's obviously far worse than calling Republicans "bastards," as he did earlier this year. Such ad hominem slurs have no place in our society, including in our political discourse. Schultz should have known better, and spoken better.

And it was clearly right for MSNBC to suspend Schultz, if only for a week, which seems like an appropriate amount of time for such an offence.

But.

It is ridiculous that some on the right are trying to score partisan political points by using Schultz's remark to attack their opponents more broadly. Ingraham herself called it misogyny, as did Michelle Malkin.

When did these two ever care about misogyny? Or about insensitive speech generally?

How typical that conservatives go all politically correct when it suits them, that is, when someone on the left says something inappropriate, even just a stupid and fleeting remark, while excusing all manner of inappropriate (sexist, racist, homophobic, etc.) speech uttered by the likes of, say, Rush Limbaugh, or countless others on the right, where trafficking in bigotry is widespread?

Please.

Schultz deserves his punishment and should be ashamed of himself. But the right shouldn't be allowed to turn this into a weapon to attack the left and cover up its own proclivities. If you really want to hear bigotry, after all, you know where to turn.

Symbols over substance

By Creature

TPM reader DE:

Republicans ALWAYS run on symbolic issues. Their substantive positions are not popular. People don't like tax cuts for the rich, they don't like endless military commitments, they don't like corporatism, they don't like lax regulations, etc. So Republicans always pick some symbolic, unimportant issue and make it sound like it's the most important thing in the world. This is nothing more than the flag factory, the swift boats, and Reverend Wright all over again. [...]

What ticks me off about this is they do this every election cycle. They never want to talk about substance, and they get their way-- every election cycle we talk about whatever they want to talk about. Our political system fiddles while America burns, and it's because the Republican message machine dictates the conversation

It's been this way since forever, the Muslim community center is just the latest twist.

I'd cut the right some slack if they actually believed the crap they spew, but they don't. It's all a cynical ploy to stoke fear and gain votes. A perfect example of this is Laura Ingraham. As Salon’s Justin Elliott discovered, when Ingraham first talked about the community center, with one of its founders no less, she was all for it, then, after the noise machine began whirling, with a finger to the wind, she now thinks the terrorists have won. Amazing.

Stay classy, John McCain

By Michael J.W. Stickings

John McCain has a long history of being a jerk. Two recent cases in point:

1) When asked by George Stephanopoulos today, via Twitter, what he thought of his daughter Meghan's "feud" with right-wing radio host Laura Ingraham (about which we've posted here and here) and right-wing sexpot Ann Coulter (about which we've posted here) -- McCain said only this: "I'm proud of my daughter and she has a right to her opinions."

When asked whether he agreed with Meghan's opinions, he only said this: "[L]ike any family we agree on some things and disagree on others."

Translation: McCain does not agree with his daughter.

But what "opinions" are we talking about? Meghan criticized Ann Coulter for being "offensive, radical, insulting, and confusing all at the same time" and said that "there's an extreme on both parties and I hate extreme."

That's all.

As McCain apparently does not agree with his daughter, he must believe that there is not in fact extremism in both parties. He surely believes that there is extremism in the Democratic Party, though, so what he must mean is that there is no extremism in the Republican Party, which is to say, that the likes of Coulter and Ingraham, not to mention Dear Leader Rush, as well as their views, are not extreme. Similarly, he must believe that Coulter is neither offensive nor radical nor insulting. This from a man who throughout his long career has fashioned himself an independent, a maverick, above the partisan political fray.

Now, it may be that McCain does agree with his daughter but doesn't want to admit that he does, perhaps for partisan political reasons of his own. You know, because the Republican Party, his party, has been taken over by extremists to whom he must now pander, or to whom he thinks he must now pander, if he is to have a future in the party, a future of any significance and influence.

Again, so much for the self-made, media-enabled mythology on which he's been coasting. McCain is a coward or a hypocrite, or both, as well as a shameless opportunist. The mythology has always been a facade covering a partisan and self-aggrandizing core, but at least, at the very least, he used to speak out against the radicals in his party, including the theocrats. He may not always have been an admirable man, but from time to time he did and said admirable things. He sold his soul for the Republican presidential nomination and played to the far right with Palin and his pandering campaign, and now, having lost, the pandering continues.

Whatever he really thinks of his party's extremists and extremism, he's playing right along.

But that's not the worst part.

As a father, should he not have been critical of Ingraham's personal attacks on his daughter? Ingraham basically called her a "plus-sized" dimwit, after all. Could he not have spoken in her defence? Could he not have said that such attacks are simply not acceptable?

What a classy guy. What a great father. What a jerk.

2) And how about this?

As Stephanopoulos writes: "McCain said it is 'too early' to tell if President Obama has put the nation at risk of a terror attack, refusing to agree or reject Cheney's recent comments" (about which we've posted here and here).

Too early to tell?

No, McCain didn't go as far as Cheney did, but it was reckless and irresponsible fearmongering nonetheless, not least coming from a supposed national security expert, and, while presented as a neutral observation coming from a non-partisan authority, it was just as partisan a smear, in its own way, as anything Cheney said -- in fact, it was worse, given that McCain has more credibility than Cheney outside the conservative insanitarium.

But how exactly is it "too early" to tell. Does McCain now believe that banning torture, closing Gitmo, and putting an end to Bush-Cheney abuses of power could make America less safe? What else has Obama done to warrant McCain's skepticism? I can understand how Cheney is opposed to Obama's policies, but McCain?

Could it be that McCain has always been much more like Cheney than he's ever cared to admit? Could it be that, like Rush, he wants Obama to fail?

At the very least, McCain has once again exposed the partisan core that has always been his driving force.

McCain to Ingraham: "Kiss my fat ass!"

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Grab some popcorn, and maybe a beer, sit back, relax, and enjoy the side-splitting hilarity of the Republican Party and its right-wing enablers.

You may remember that:

1) Meghan McCain said that she finds Ann Coulter "offensive, radical, insulting, and confusing all at the same time."

2) McCain said that "there’s an extreme on both parties and I hate extreme."

3) Laura Ingraham called McCain "just another Valley Girl gone awry" and put her down as "plus-sized."

4) On The View yesterday, McCain responded to Ingraham: "That's what I feel right now. I'm like, 'Kiss my fat ass!'" (h/t: John Amato, who reminds us of John McCain's tasteless "joke" about Chelsea Clinton)

5) In response, Ingraham said she was just "teasing."

Methinks we haven't heard the last of this.

In the meantime, let's get a round of applause for Ms. McCain. (Go ahead. Put your hands together. Show her some love.)

She isn't just a pretty face and a pretty body -- she isn't plus-sized, but so what if she were? She's speaking the truth to the conservative powers of the Republican Party, and, predictably, they're fighting back with nasty personal attacks.

**********

Here's the clip of McCain on The View:

Laura Ingraham, asshole extraordinaire

By Michael J.W. Stickings

A couple of days ago, Meghan McCain, daughter of John, dared to criticize wingnut sexpot Ann Coulter -- well, she's a sexpot to them, if not to me. Appearing on Rachel Maddow's show last night, she repeated her criticism, arguing as well that there is "there’s an extreme on both parties and I hate extreme."

In response, Laura Ingraham, who is hardly known for her moderation, called McCain "just another Valley Girl gone awry," essentially dismissing her as an airhead. As well, just to drive home the ad hominem nature of her attack, she called McCain "plus-sized."

Now, whether or not McCain is "plus-sized" is beside the point. (Although she certainly isn't.) But why even go there? I expect an extremist like Ingraham, a sort of Limbaugh lite, to stand up for wingnut orthodoxy, like Rush, and to lash out at opponents, including Republican opponents, with venomous glee. And perhaps I expect her to get personal in her attacks. But to make fun of McCain's appearance -- although, again, there isn't exactly much to make fun of, and so what if she were plus-sized? -- and to suggest that she's a moron? Well, sure, I guess we should expect such nastiness from the likes of Ingraham, too. These are ugly, nasty people, after all, and Coulter and Ingraham are two of the far right's worst offenders.

This time, it was the daughter of the Republican nominee for president who was the target of their viciousness. It will be someone else next time. Indeed, it doesn't really matter who it is. Whether it's Ann or Laura, Michelle or Rush, Sean or [fill in the blank], this is what they do, this is how they try to take down anyone and everyone who challenges them. In this sense, Laura was just being Laura, an asshole extraordinaire.