Hong Kong Hooey

From Politicususa (9-23-2009):

Palin did actually show up for her CLSA Hong Kong speaking engagement! Let’s take a moment to congratulate her for this fine accomplishment. Showing up is half the battle, especially with her track record.

Palin gave a speech written for her by Randy Scheunemann, McCain’s fired campaign foreign policy advisor — and reportedly the only person who sympathized with her on the campaign trail. Well, Randy had help writing it from two other people (an expert on China and a DC lawyer), because you know it takes a village to regurgitate conservative ideas and attack the President on foreign soil. Apparently.

Randy is also with her in Hong Kong, which is nice, since Randy gave up his career as a serious campaign aide when he turned on John McCain publicly in order to support the nicknamed “Little Shop of Horrors”, aka: Sarah Palin.

(Read the rest at the link)

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All Wet Dreams

From the San Francisco Chronicle:

California Republicans begin the 2010 campaign season with something many considered unthinkable just a few months ago – hope that they can win a major statewide race.

They realize the odds are still steep. Only 31 percent of California voters are registered Republicans and no Congressional or legislative district has a majority of GOP voters. And demographically, former state Republican leader and current political analyst Allan Hoffenblum said the GOP has become an “old white guy” party in a state that is rapidly diversifying.

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(left to right: Dennis Hollingsworth, Carly Fiorina [with Captain Underpants by her arm on the surfboard], Darrell Issa, Meg Whitman, Steve Poizner)

David Vitter Pampers the Formaldehyde Industry

From TALKING POINTS MEMO:

Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) is blocking an EPA nomination because he wants the agency to delay establishing safety procedures for formaldehyde. Meanwhile, major emitters of the dangerous chemical have been generous contributors to the senator’s reelection campaign.

Vitter met yesterday with EPA administrator Lisa Jackson, who sought, unsuccessfully, to convince him to remove the hold he had placed on Paul Anastas, who has been nominated to be the EPA’s assistant administrator in charge of its Office of Research and Development, reports the New Orleans Times-Picayune.

No one has a problem with Anastas, who served in environmental posts in the Clinton and Bush 43 administrations. Rather, according to the Times-Picayune, Vitter wants the EPA to let the National Academy of Sciences review EPA’s assessment of the risks posed by the chemical formaldehyde.

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Let ’em eat cake? Hell, let ’em hope the rich people left some crumbs!

From Brent Budowsly at THE HILL:

House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) wins the award for why Republican favorable numbers on healthcare are barely above 20 percent. Mr. Cantor was recently asked what a woman with stomach cancer should do if she did not have the insurance to pay huge medical costs.

Here is the Cantor plan for middle-income Americans who may have lost their health insurance after being laid off by a company whose CEO might be making a million dollars a year. First, she should sell all of her lifetime possessions to desperately pay humongous medical costs, with the side benefit that this would make her poor, and therefore qualify for health programs for the poor that many Republicans don’t support. If this fails, Mr. Cantor advises the woman to do this: beg.

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‘Roid Rage

Hey kids! Remember the Singing Senators? They broke up after Trent Lott pulled a Sarah Palin resigned, and Larry Craig tapped his Buster Browns in the wrong men’s room. Well, according to me my anonymous sources, a few of the musical Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee have formed a new group! They’re called Pink ‘Roids. No, not these kinds of roids, the kind you need this stuff for. I’m guessing they picked that name, because they’re always so red and irritated and angry. Anyway, they have a new video out! They really rock!

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(back row, left to right: John Cornyn (R-Easter Island [see below]), John Romeo Ensign, Orrin Down The Hatch, Chuck Your Ass Is Grassley. front row: Jim ZZZZZ Bunning)

To the tune of Another Brick in the Wall (Pink Floyd)”:

We don’t need no legislation
Break Obama: that’s our goal
We love each campaign donation
Listen as we bitch and moan
Hey! Congress! Leave Cigna alone!
All in all, we’re gonna just continue to stall.
Overall it’s just another game of beanball.
♪ ♫ ♪ ♫ ♪ ♫

Hearts Might Not Be Afire, But His Pants Sure Are!

From Mike Nellis at THE HUFFINGTON POST:

It’s been a barrel of laughs this summer for Kansas Republicans.

However, instead of Rep. Lynn Jenkins laughing at uninsured constituents, we find voters actually laughing at another Kansas Republican — Rep. Todd Tiahrt. Earlier this summer, Tiahrt held a town hall meeting on health care reform and made the false claim that H.R. 3200 will set a cap on doctors wages. That claim has been debunked across the board and the attendees knew it.

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They even help insurance execs across the street!

From Ryan Grim at THE HUFFINGTON POST:

Republicans took to the floor of Congress, the Internet and the Wall Street Journal op-ed page Tuesday in a rush to defend a health insurance company that used taxpayer-subsidized communication to terrify seniors with the prospect that health care reform will cut their Medicare benefits.

Republican leaders in both houses of Congress ripped Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) for urging the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to put a stop to the insurer’s efforts, decrying what they called a “gag order” and reading the First Amendment on the floor of the Senate.

And I always thought the Second Amendment was their favorite!

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Oh, the Horror!

From THE GAGGLE at Newsweek:

The last time we saw Tom DeLay, he was a scandal-ridden leper slinking back to Texas with nothing left but that giant, threatening smile that made even people who liked him kind of hate him. He had lost it all─his post as house majority leader, his congressional seat, his standing reservation at Signatures, Jack Abramoff’s expense-account lunchery for Republicans headed for ignominy, or prison, or both. Perhaps worst of all, DeLay had lost his mojo as “The Hammer,” the one guy you didn’t dare cross on Capitol Hill and expect to survive. Until the end, he cast himself as a victim of power-hungry Democrats, even though it was Republicans who ultimately threw him overboard. He knew how it worked—after all, he’d done the same thing to Newt Gingrich. And so DeLay went, but he didn’t like it, and like a character straight out of a Sergio Leone spaghetti Western, he promised to get justice and clear his name. “I’ll be back,” DeLay vowed.

Turns out he was right. Last night Tom DeLay made his comeback, and truly, it was a low moment in our nation’s long and stormy history, by which we mean it was totally and completely awesome in every imaginable way.

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