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GOP Senator Confirms It: Obama is right about politicized GOP opposition “just because the president wanted to do it.”

(Washington Post) - President Obama is getting widely mocked by commentators and Republicans for using the phrase “permission structure” at his presser yesterday in the course of claiming that Republican officials are constrained from cooperating with him because their base would see it as a “betrayal.”

So it’s good to have a Republican Senator on record confirming that Obama is right about this.

I’m talking about Pat Toomey. The Senator from Pennsylvania didn’t directly address Obama’s remarks, but something he said in another context perfectly confirms the President’s diagnosis of the GOP.

Via Amanda Terkel, Toomey admitted in an interview that expanded background checks went down to defeat because Republicans opposed the bill out of a desire to deny the president a victory. Here’s what Toomey said, according to a write-up in the Times Herald:

“In the end it didn’t pass because we’re so politicized. There were some on my side who did not want to be seen helping the president do something he wanted to get done, just because the president wanted to do it,” Toomey said.

That’s pretty significant. But Toomey’s subsequent effort to walk this back is in some ways even more so:

In subsequent comments, he tried to walk that remark part-way back by noting he meant to say Republicans across the nation in general, not just those in the Senate. “The toughest thing to do in politics is to do the right thing when your supporters think the right thing is something else,” Toomey said.

According to Toomey, what doomed Manchin-Toomey is that Repulicans across the country opposed it only because the president supported it.

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This is pretty obvious to anyone paying attention, but it’s nice to have a republican on record saying so.

It’s also nice to know that these people evidently don’t give a fuck about American citizens and would rather play games more suited to middle school students.

New Hampshire Lawmaker Warns Of Revolution Over Immigration Reform

WARREN, NH (Think Progress) — At Sen. Kelly Ayotte’s (R-NH) Warren Town Hall Tuesday, a Republican state legislator questioned the senator about whether she shared his concern that America was headed for an armed internal revolution due to President Obama’s immigration reform proposals and his pro-immigrant appointees. And, in an exclusive followup interview outside the forum, the lawmaker, New Hampshire State Rep. Edmond Gionet (R), explained to ThinkProgress that he believes “something is bound to happen” and “people are revolting because they’re looking to have a government in place that’s more user-friendly” to people like them.

As New Hampshire residents pressed Ayotte to respond to questions about her vote against enhanced background checks for gun purchasers, her hand-picked moderator instead called on Gionet. Ayotte had earlier recognized him among the honored guests present. Gionet praised Ayotte’s vote against background checks and then asked her about whether she shared his fear that fellow conservatives might need to overthrough the government.

GIONET: One of the things that concerns my constituents — the majority of my constituents –- is the appointments that are now being made in Washington by our President and the way he is handling the illegal immigrants, nationalizing them and giving them the opportunity to vote, and wanting to keep track of our guns. They are worried that they are going to have to use these guns because of our own government. Now is there anything in Washington that says — any telltale signs that maybe we might be headed for an internal revolution given the fact that these kinds of things are going on? This is what’s said in the groups that I sit in.

AYOTTE: Obviously, I hope not.

Watch the exchange at the source

Well, combine this with that story I posted earlier about how 44% of republicans who responded to a survey said that an armed revolution may be needed soon and this type of talk becomes all the more worrisome.

Rise of the conservative revolutionaries. Almost half of Republicans think an armed revolution may be needed soon.

(Salon) - There’s plenty of proof of an authoritarian streak and animus toward democratic ideals in today’s conservative movement. There was the movement’s use of its judicial power to halt a vote recount and instead install a president who had lost the popular vote. There is the ongoing GOP effort to make it more difficult for people to cast a vote in an election. There is the GOP’s record use of the Senate filibuster to kill legislation that the vast majority of the country supports. There is a GOP leader’s declaration that what the American people want from their government simply “doesn’t matter.”

Up until today, you might have been able to write all that anti-democratic pathology off as a pathology infecting only the Republican Party’s politicians and institutional leadership, but not its rank-and-file voters. But then this poll from Fairleigh-Dickinson University was released showing that authoritarianism runs throughout the the entire party.

Take a look at the cross-tabs on page 3 of the national survey – that’s right, you are reading it correctly: almost half (44 percent) of all self-described Republican voters say they believe “an armed revolution might be necessary to protect our liberties.” Just as bad, more Republicans believe an armed revolution might be necessary than believe one isn’t necessary.

This poll raises two obvious questions, each of them more disturbing than the next.

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According to the Farleigh Dickinson poll, 44 percent of rank-and-file Republicans seem to believe that because they aren’t getting their way through the ballot box, bloodshed may be justified to impose their will on everyone else. Think of it as sore loser-ism juiced by violence.

Kansas GOP to legalize quarantine of HIV patients

(America blog) - The Kansas legislature is about to empower the state to quarantine people with HIV and AIDS. The local Fox affiliate says the legislation is expected to become law in the next few weeks.

Republicans in the Kansas state legislature promise that the quarantine power will never be exercised against people with AIDS, but they then shot down a Democratic-led effort, by Senator Marci Francisco, to exempt people with HIV and AIDS from the quarantine provision.

Funny how they don’t ever plan on using it against people with AIDS, but then refuse to exempt people with AIDS from the quarantine they promise they’ll never use.

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Slick, Paranoid Tea Party Video Aims for Violent Insurrection

(AlterNet) - Attendees at last week’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) were reportedly thrilled by a short sci-fi video depicting a dictatorial near-future government and the underground “Movement on Fire” that springs up to resist it. The video, a thinly veiled advertisement for violent insurrection from the “Tea Party Patriots” group, boasts professional acting and Hollywood production values. But underneath its bright, professional sheen lurk dark overtones of End Times paranoia that will resonate with millions of American fundamentalists. Its apocalyptic imagery is as ancient as Revelations, its glossy look as modern as a Revlon ad, and its near-subliminal barrage of rapid-cut imagery rings with the terror-fueled sermons of 1,000 preachers.

Read more and watch the video

This was shown at CPAC. CPAC. THE conservative conference. 

This isn’t just the fringe element of the right, it IS the right. This kind of thing is becoming more and more mainstream with them and it’s quite frankly horrifying. 

Michele Bachmann: It’s my Christian ‘duty’ to repeal Obamacare before it ‘literally kills’ kids

(The Raw Story) - Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) on Thursday insisted that it was her “duty as a believer in Christ” repeal President Barack Obama’s healthcare reform law before “it literally kills women, kills children, kills senior citizens.”

In a speech on the House floor, the Minnesota Republican thanked Rep. Michael Burgess (R-TX) for continuing the fight to undo Obamacare.

“The American people, especially vulnerable women, vulnerable children, vulnerable senior citizens, now get to pay more and get less,” Bachmann opined. “That’s why we’re here because we’re saying let’s repeal this failure before it literally kills women, kills children, kills senior citizens!”

“Let’s not do that!” she exclaimed. “Let’s love people, let’s care about people. Let’s repeal it now while we can.”

Bachmann explained that she was fighting Obamacare because she was a “born again believer in Jesus Christ.”

“And I believe, as part of my duty as a believer in Christ and what he has done for me, that we should do for the least of those who are in our midst,” she said. “That’s my personal belief and my personal conviction. And that’s why I want our government to create the space so that we can help people, because I’ll guarantee you one thing, Mr. Speaker, this doesn’t help people.”

read more and watch the video

So, basically, she believes it is her duty as a Christian to repeal something that would actually expand access to healthcare for millions of the poor, working poor, children and the elderly.

This is religious  grandstanding and it’s disgusting. She should have been laughed off of the floor, but instead her cohorts congratulate her ‘saying things in a way that none of the rest of us are capable of’.

I my honest opinion, this is sick.

CPAC Participant Defends Slavery at Minority Outreach Panel: It Gave ‘Food and Shelter’ to Black People

NATIONAL HARBOR, Maryland (Think Progress) — A panel at the Conservative Political Action Committee on Republican minority outreach exploded into controversy on Friday afternoon, after an audience member defended slavery as good for African-Americans.

The exchange occurred after an audience member from North Carolina, 30-year-old Scott Terry, asked whether Republicans could endorse races remaining separate but equal. After the presenter, K. Carl Smith of Frederick Douglass Republicans, answered by referencing a letter by Frederick Douglass forgiving his former master, the audience member said “For what? For feeding him and housing him?” Several people in the audience cheered and applauded Terry’s outburst.

After the exchange, Terry muttered under his breath, “why can’t we just have segregation?” noting the Constitution’s protections for freedom of association.

ThinkProgress spoke with Terry, who sported a Rick Santorum sticker and attended CPAC with a friend who wore a Confederate Flag-emblazoned t-shirt, about his views after the panel. Terry maintained that white people have been “systematically disenfranchised” by federal legislation.

When asked by ThinkProgress if he’d accept a society where African-Americans were permanently subservient to whites, he said “I’d be fine with that.” He also claimed that African-Americans “should be allowed to vote in Africa,” and that “all the Tea Parties” were concerned with the same racial problems that he was.

At one point, a woman challenged him on the Republican Party’s roots, to which Terry responded, “I didn’t know the legacy of the Republican Party included women correcting men in public.”

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So, there you have it. This guy thinks that slavery was a good thing, and didn’t know the legacy of the republican party included women correcting men in public.

A comment on this story I saw elsewhere says it perfectly:

The next time conservatives try to pretend the screaming bigots are a minority, remind them that every Republican presidential candidate makes an appearance at CPAC. Wallowing in the mud with the lowest racist scum has become a requirement for any serious conservative politician.

This isn’t a few fringe radio hosts, this is every major candidate from one of our two parties.

Glenn Beck’s TheBlaze Reports CPAC Racism: Commenters Go Full-on Neo-Nazi

by Charles Johnson | Little Green Footballs

(littlegreenfootballs.com) - When the news broke yesterday about the white supremacists who crashed a CPAC panel on minority outreach and defended slavery, I wrote:

What this guy says is no different than the rhetoric you can find in the comment sections of almost any right wing blog or news site.

And today, they’re proving me right. A lot of right wing websites seem to be afraid of the story and are trying to ignore it, but at every site that does cover it, commenters are spewing shocking torrents of outright white supremacism, racism, and antisemitism.

At Glenn Beck’s TheBlaze.com: Member of All-White Student Union Makes Stunningly Outrageous Comment About Slavery During CPAC Session — and We Talked to Him.

The article is a fairly straightforward account of what happened, but the comments are jaw-dropping.

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The comments themselves are after the link.

It should be becoming increasingly clear who the core republican voters are when shit like this happens.

John Boehner Refuses to Allow the House to Vote on Sequester Replacement Bill

On the same day that John Boehner told the Senate to get off its ass, he refused to allow the House to vote on a sequester replacement bill.

According to Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), “Tonight marks the third time this year that House Republicans have refused to take up a Democratic substitute to the sequester while failing to put forth their own sequester alternative. With 750,000 jobs at stake – not to mention the furlough of hundreds of thousands of federal employees – this is a total abdication of leadership from Speaker Boehner and his caucus.”

Speaker Boehner’s stock line is that the House has already acted, but this is a lie. The House acted in the last Congress. The two bills that were passed in the 112 Congress died as soon as the 113th Congress was sworn in. The House has to pass a sequester replacement bill, but Republicans are refusing to allow Van Hollen’s bill to come to the floor for a vote.

His bill has adopted Obama’s balanced approach. It contains the Buffett Rule, and it cuts subsidies for agribusiness and Big Oil. The bill also contains a 2/3 cuts to 1/3 revenue ratio. Republicans refuse to allow the bill to come to the floor for a vote for one simple reason. They are afraid that it will pass. There are likely enough Republicans that will cross party lines and join with universal Democratic support to pass the bill. The Senate version of Van Hollen’s bill will be passed easily, and Obama would sign it in about a half a second.

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More party before country bullshit.