Needlenose

Repug pols can be honest – when the microphones are off! Republican Senate Candidate Ken Buck calls Tea Bagger Birthers dumb-asses:

“Will you tell those dumbasses at the Tea Party to stop asking questions about birth certificates while I’m on the camera,” Buck said to the staffer. “God, what am I supposed to do?”

Now if he’d only speak the truth when he knows he is on camera, America can make some progress going forward!

Tip of the ‘Nose to Film Critic Buddy

They're coming to get you, Rand!

There he goes again, shooting his mouth off!  “Ayn” Rand Paul vows to stop illegal immigration by building a vast underground electric fence on our southern border.  Underground?  Who is he planning to stop, the Mole People?

Or as the Mole People themselves put in (courtesy of the Residents in Mark of the Mole):

“We have left our lives, we have left our land,
We have left behind all we understand,
Now we must cry out, yes we must demand –
Let my children live in a land that’s low,
Where the holes are deeper than light can go;
Let them have not pride but instead a soul
That can see the shame of the hands that glow.!”

Louisiana Republican

The gushing goo destroying the livelihoods of the folks who live on Louisiana’s coast hasn’t damped the ardor of Louisiana Repug leaders to drill, baby drill.  You know, I feel bad for the poor Louisianans, but riddle me this – why do they continue to vote for abusive politicians?  Let Jindal go clean up the fucking mess his philosophy has created.

*Update 9:50P PT* Forrest Gump in 2010: bad news, BP oil spill destroyed his livelihood, his entire shrimping fleet had to be shut down.  Good news – he bought Apple stock, and held on to it!  Only question is, will he vote for David “double down on offshore drilling & liability cap” Vitter again this year, or will he realize that his shrimping business would be better off with a vote for Melancon?  Remember, stupid is as stupid does…

Who woulda guessed that a party of ‘haters’ can’t get along with each other?  We really should help these knuckleheads out with putting a real party with candidates together.  Remember how Ross Perot and his Independent Party’s 5% helped push Bush Sr. into the abyss (and how they dissolved into a puddle shortly after)?

Seriously, I think we progressives should flood this ‘movement’ as faux reactionaries and push hard to create an extremist platform with wingnut candidates.  At this point that is the only thing which can save the Democratic Party’s ass in the upcoming Congressional elections.

The Dems have rebranded themselves as the Spineless Whimp Party, or Whimps for short.

*Update 12/14/09* Senator Tom Harkin grows a spine – will he be expelled from the Whimps?

A year ago, polls in California showed a close race if Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger chose to challenge Barbara Boxer for her U.S. Senate seat.

A new Field Poll (PDF file) today, though, shows how much damage has been done to the erstwhile Terminator’s hopes by our state’s ongoing deficit crisis — which Arnold had been dancing around for years, until the current recession caused it to blow up in his face.

Leading 44-43 in an October 2007 snapshot, Schwarzenegger now trails Boxer 54-30 percent in a head-to-head matchup (with 16 percent undecided). Similarly, Boxer wallops ex-Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina in a two-way race, 55-25 percent (with 20 percent undecided).

For reasons that are probably not unrelated, neither Fiorina nor Schwarzenegger has strong backing from California Republicans — in a prospective primary contest, Arnold leads 31-24 percent, with 36 percent undecided. (With the governor out of the race, Fiorina’s support only rises to 31 percent, with 50 percent undecided). In CA as in the rest of the country, the GOP is a party out of ideas and overloaded with personalities whose schtick no longer sells.

As a Californian who was sickened by Schwarzenegger’s ability to leverage his movie stardom into the governor’s mansion (the same way a lesser celebrity might trade on their fame to get a reality TV show), I couldn’t be happier.

(Cross-posted at Firedoglake.)