Send in the Clowns

Today’s House Judiciary Committee’s Rethuglican highlights:

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Unleashing the Gaetz of Hell

Did you see the Stormtroopers…I mean, the Rethuglicans, butt-hurt that the Dems (and other Rethugs) were holding a hearing in which a top Defense Department official was suppose to testify about Twitler’s dealings with Ukraine, storm the closed-door hearing?

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Branding Iron(y)

From THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR:

Eric Cantor, the often combative second-ranking Republican in the U.S. House of Representatives, sought on Tuesday to rebrand himself and his party, voicing hope that they can work with President Barack Obama for the sake of all Americans.

While not wavering from his conservative principles and desire to tame the record U.S. debt, Cantor expressed a new eagerness to help the needy in such areas as education, health care, immigration and moving up the economic ladder.

“Over the next two years, the House (Republican) majority will pursue an agenda based on a shared vision of creating the conditions for health, happiness and prosperity for more Americans and their families,” Cantor said in a speech to the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington think tank.

Because Widdle Ewic and his merry band of Ayn Randian teabaggers are all about health, happiness, and prosperity for everyone [insert eyeroll here].

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(From Left to right in back, top row: Paul Broun, Trent Franks, Joe Wilson. Bottom row: Louie Gohmert, Steve King)

Send Out the Clowns

From TALKING POINTS MEMO:

Now that Standard & Poors has confirmed that the chorus of default doubters in the GOP was part of what spooked them into downgrading the U.S. credit rating, Republicans will do all they can to pretend that they never questioned the risk of missing payment obligations, or allowing borrowing authority to lapse. But they sure did! Here’s a long, partial timeline of influential Republicans either vouchsafing default, or downplaying the consequences of passing the August 2 deadline without raising the debt limit.

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), May 17, 2011: “You want to make sure that the bondholder has confidence that the government’s going to be able to pay them…. That’s what I’m hearing from most people, which is if a bondholder misses a payment for a day or two or three or four what is more important that you’re putting the government in a materially better position to be able to pay their bonds later on.”

 

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Just because I’m the leader doesn’t mean I have to lead!

From THINK PROGRESS:

Three weeks ago, Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) — the second-highest ranking Republican in the House of Representatives — repeatedly refused to call theories that President Obama was not born in America “crazy.” He told Meet the Press’s David Gregory that “I don’t think it’s nice to call anyone crazy,” and refused to rebuke the wild conspiracy theories. Today on the same program, Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) also refused to repudiate such theories under a similar line of questioning from Gregory, who showed Boehner a Fox News clip in which several Iowa Republicans in a focus group said they believed Obama was a Muslim.

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Louie the Gohmert Shoots Off His Mouth

From THINK PROGRESS:

The tragic shooting in Tucson last weekend has sparked a host of proposed legislative responses, but none is as hare brained as Rep. Louie Gohmert’s (R-TX) idea to allow members of Congress to pack heat inside the Capitol Building, and even when on the House floor. Appearing on WorldNetDaily’s Radio America [Thursday], Gohmert explained the need for his bill by falsely claiming that Washington, DC has a “gun ban” (the Roberts Supreme Court did away with DC’s handgun ban in 2008). But later on in the interview, apparently oblivious to the irony, Gohmert noted that there was a era when lawmakers solved problems with armed duels and warned, “we’ve come a long way since those days and we just don’t need to be reverting backwards” […]

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A Few of My Favorite Zings

To the tune of My Favorite Things (music by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein):

Health care and midterms and all kinds of fighting,
Rallies and scandals, it was so exciting,
Tea party darlings were at it again,
All this shit happened in 2010.

Nothing but heartache for millions of Haitians,
While dumb old Pat Robertson hurled accusations,
John Roberts’ activist band of Supremes,
Were simply the court of a lobbyist’s dreams.

They’ve Already Infiltrated the Infantry!

From POLITICAL CORRECTION (June 25, 2010):

Speaking on the House floor last night, Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) continued his assault on common sense by making the generally nonsensical claim that terrorists were recruiting pregnant women in order for them to have U.S.-born children who would, several decades from now, attack the United States and “destroy our way of life.”  Gohmert made the comments while discussing border security and Arizona’s controversial new immigration law.

Gohmert: I talked to a retired FBI agent who said that one of the things they were looking at were terrorist cells overseas who had figured out how to game our system.  And it appeared they would have young women, who became pregnant, would get them into the United States to have a baby.  They wouldn’t even have to pay anything for the baby.  And then they would turn back where they could be raised and coddled as future terrorists.  And then one day, twenty…thirty years down the road, they can be sent in to help destroy our way of life.  ‘Cause they figured out how stupid we are being in this country to allow our enemies to game our system, hurt our economy, get setup in a position to destroy our way of life.

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Hmmm, that little guy in the middle looks suspiciously like Senator Al Franken.