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Republican Congressman Blasts GOP: Party Caters To ‘Extremes,’ Is ‘Incapable Of Governing’

Congressman Richard Hanna (R-NY) is fed up with the GOP.

Hanna singled out Michele Bachmann’s “suggestion that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin be investigated to see if she has ties to Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood” as an example of a party that has gone off the rails.

The Syaracuse Post-Standard has the story:

“I have to say that I’m frustrated by how much we — I mean the Republican Party — are willing to give deferential treatment to our extremes in this moment in history,” he told The Post-Standard editorial board.

…“We render ourselves incapable of governing when all we do is take severe sides…” he said. “If all people do is go down there and join a team, and the team is invested in winning and you have something that looks very similar to the shirts and the skins, there’s not a lot of value there.”

…“I would say that the friends I have in the Democratic Party I find … much more congenial — a little less anger,” he said.

BuzzFeed reports that Hanna is not alone and “moderate members of the House GOP conference feel that Boehner, who has struggled with an often raucous and openly defiant right wing, has forced them to go along with conservative demands but has provided them little in return.”

This isn’t the first time that Hanna, who was first elected to Congress in 2010, has been critical of the Republican party. At at women’s rights rally in March he advised the crowd to “contribute your money to people who speak out on your behalf, because the other side — my side — has a lot of it.”

source

It’s great to see one of their own who is actually still holding office to speak out, usually it’s “former GOP bla bla bla” that does it.

Nothing is going to change in the party until they stop catering to extremist voters and start shouting down those in their party who do in much larger numbers.

Thanks, Rick Santorum! No, really - Your backward views are alerting American voters about GOP extremism on issues of health and privacy

Salon.com - The man who calls contraception “a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be” went from being a failed Pennsylvania senator, Mr. “Man on Dog,” to GOP presidential frontrunner over the last month. Now he’s crusading against prenatal testing because he claims it encourages abortion (when in fact most prenatal testing helps women help babies who develop in utero health issues) and claiming President Obama’s policies will ultimately send Christians to the guillotine. (By the way, I apologize for harping on the way Protestants have persecuted Catholics in the U.S., because Santorum reminded me of some of the reason why, with his charge that mainline Protestant churches are a Satan-sponsored “shambles” that are “gone from the world of Christianity as I see it.”) He and Mitt Romney, who’s trying to match him outrage for outrage, having been chasing women voters away from the GOP in droves over the last couple of months.

read more

The Republican plan to nullify the courts and establish Christian theocracy.

By William Saletan | Slate

Right-wing terrorist plot thwarted by the FBI. The group planned to disperse chemical agents in populated city centers and set off explosives outside govt buildings “like Timothy McVeigh”.

(AP)  GAINESVILLE, Ga. — Four men in Georgia intended to use an online novel as a script for a real-life wave of terror and assassination using explosives and the lethal toxin ricin, according to court documents.

Federal agents raided their north Georgia homes Tuesday and arrested them on charges of conspiring to plan the attacks.

Frederick Thomas, 73; Dan Roberts, 67; Ray Adams, 65; and Samuel Crump, 68, appeared in court Wednesday but indicated they needed more time to prepare for a bail hearing, which was scheduled for next week.

[SOURCE]

And before anyone says these guys weren’t right wing, Mike Vanderboegh, the guy who wrote the online novel this plot was conceived from is a blogger for Fox News, and Fox News even promoted the online novel in the past.

Kind of funny how every time nutters turn out to be christian or right wing, suddenly everyone wants to downplay it.

There are people in this country who belong to fundamentalist Christian religious groups and who believe that they have the right (and perhaps the duty) to run your life.

Special Delivery: Fourteen Writers Remind Jim Wallis That The Religious Right Is A Real Problem

By Rob Boston

Some folks would like to pretend that these people don’t exist, or that they are a fringe group that can be easily dismissed. Some evangelicals are embarrassed by the antics of politically active, extreme fundamentalists, but instead of standing up to them, they’ve decided instead to criticize those of us who write about the Religious Right.

[FULL STORY]

Has American-Style Conservatism Become a Religion?

Fundamentalist religion plays a big role in today’s Republican party—but has it gone even further, spreading dangerous beliefs as articles of faith?

By Joshua Holland alternet.org

As the American right lurches from traditional conservatism – a go-slow approach to governing that stresses the importance of continuity and social stability – to a far more reactionary brand typified by acolytes of Ayn Rand and Tea Party extremists waving misspelled signs decrying Democrats’ “socialism,” the time has come to ask whether modern “backlash” conservatism has become a religious faith rather than a pedestrian political ideology.

Ideology is grounded in the real world. It offers us a philosophical lens through which we can efficiently process what’s happening in the world around us. Religion is different. It’s a fixed belief system, based on faith, and it is immune to – or at least highly resistant to – challenges mounted by objective reality. Which better describes the belief system of a typical Rush Limbaugh fan or Tea Party activist?

Like religious faiths, the hard-right reveres an original text – the Constitution – and, like all religious fundamentalists, conservatives claim to adhere to a literalist interpretation of it while actually picking and choosing from among its tenets. Just as the vast majority of Christian fundamentalists don’t actually stone their daughters to death when they’re obnoxious to their fathers, the Tea Partiers conveniently ignore more or less the entirety of Article 3. Also like other fundamentalist sects, most conservatives actually have a poor understanding of what the text they revere actually means.

[FULL STORY]

Please, please, read this story. If you read nothing else today, read this.

It’s exactly what I’ve been talking about for months now, how the right seems to have evolved from a political movement to something akin to a religious movement.

This is why this new style of conservatism is so dangerous. Not only do they act like a religion, people follow it the same way they follow a religion, with the same dedication.

Let’s not forget how the Nazis came into power, it was very similar in how devoted these people are, and the climate in the US right now is very similar to pre-world-war II Germany…

What the fuck is wrong with Louisiana?

Are Louisiana politicians trying as hard as they can to make their state the most draconian, politically fucked up state in the union?

Do they want their state to be a theocracy?

Lets look at a few Louisiana news stories over the past month or so:

Louisiana moves to outlaw abortion entirely

Teaching creationism: Louisiana law that skirts US ban survives challenge

Damon Fowler ostracized and threatened for challenging prayer at graduation

These are just three examples, you want to know what an America run by extremists would look like, you’re seeing it right here.

This is why it’s so important to get off your ass and vote, when only those with the most extreme political views vote, then only the politicians with the most extreme political views get into office and start restricting people’s rights with their political agendas.

This type of thing is seriously frightening to me.