Today's Cartoon and Reading: The Republican Grift Grows

(click to enlarge)

(Jen Sorensen, via gocomics.com;  www.jensorensen.com)

As we continue to pay the price for the Citizens United and Hobby Lobby decisions (among the most egregious), and as we watch the grifts of penny-ante con artists like Sarah "Word Salad Shooter" Palin, Charles P. Pierce musters two recent examples of Republican wingnut fraud and corruption on a somewhat larger scale.  First, there's a tea party-linked scheme con group named "Move Forward America" that runs its grift at the expense of American soldiers:

In a fundraising email sent earlier this year, the charity included a photograph of a smiling soldier holding up a care package, his uniform nametag smudged out. But Move America Forward had taken the picture, which originally featured four other soldiers alongside the one in the email, from the website of the Wisconsin Department of Military Affairs. The soldiers were in Iraq, and not, as Move America's email suggested, in Afghanistan. And the package the soldier held was not from Move America Forward. (our emphasis)

Then there's this fraud (reported by Politico and picked up by Mr. Pierce, Digby and others) perpetrated by a scheme con group called the Republican State Leadership  Committee:

Never disclosed until now, the document detailed an investigation into alleged misconduct by multiple RSLC officials during the crucial 2010 election cycle: It charged that national RSLC leaders conspired improperly with the leader of the Alabama Republican Party to use the RSLC as a pass-through for controversial Indian tribe donations, essentially laundering “toxic” money from the gaming industry by routing it out of state and then back into Alabama.  (our emphasis)

If you don't recognize in this the clear outlines of the Jack Abramoff/ Ralph Reed money laundering scandals from about a decade ago, you may have been born yesterday, or you're a die-hard Republican (same diff).

As Mr. Pierce points out, none of this should surprise us, because

(A) "... a substantial portion of the unofficial Republican party -- and of the movement conservatism that is its primary fuel -- exists primarily as a means for people to make comfortable careers out of fleecing the rubes, the country and their party be damned;" and

(B) "This is yet another example of what happens to democracy when Anthony Kennedy has a bad day on the bench. It opens up the whole system not only to the defrauding of the people through the corruption of their elections, but also opens it up to the kind of basic fraud customary to those who run telemarketing scams and real-estate schemes."  (our emphasis)

You Say You Want A Revolution

Rick Perlstein on a recent watershed moment when legitimate authority was challenged and chose to back down:

Here is a truth so fundamental that it should be self-evident: When legitimately constituted state authority stands down in the face of armed threats, the very foundation of the republic is in danger. And yet that is exactly what happened at Cliven Bundy’s Nevada ranch this spring: An alleged criminal defeated the cops, because the forces of lawlessness came at them with guns — then Bureau of Land Management officials further surrendered by removing the government markings from their vehicles to prevent violence against them. 

What should be judged a watershed in American history instead became a story about one man’s racist rants. Even as two more Nevada lunatics, inspired by their stint at Cliven Bundy’s ranch, allegedly ambushed and mowed down two police officers and killed a bystander after crying, “This is the start of a revolution.” And now, an antigovernment conspiracy theorist named Douglas Cole recently shot at two police officers in Nevada County, California (though you may not have heard about that, because the New York Times hasn’t found the news yet fit to print).

Perlstein goes on to discuss how the lack of a strong push-back by the Democratic Party since 2000 has allowed a vacuum to form, which far-right gun nuts and Campfire Commandos have easily filled.  It's a story of political cowardice and missed opportunities.

Speaking of nuts, here's Stupid Party poster boy Gov. Piyush "Bobby" Jindal speaking Saturday at convicted bag man Ralph Reed's (My) Faith and (My) Freedom annual conference:

"I can sense right now a rebellion brewing amongst these United States," Jindal said, "where people are ready for a hostile takeover of Washington, D.C., to preserve the American Dream for our children and grandchildren."

"Rebellion?"  "Hostile takeover?"  Those are more than loaded words.  That's walks right up to the border of sedition.  He's talking about a coup against the legitimately elected government of the United States!  We haven't heard any responsible elected officials of either party denounce Jindal's incitement to violence.  From past experience, we don't expect we will.

Sic transit gloria, America.

Best Political Science Classification Evah

Charles P. Pierce on former Christian Coalition leader/ Jack Abramoff bag man/ Faith & Freedom Coalition rube-grifter Ralph Reed:  "The man is human e.coli."

Ralph Reed, Humping for "Value Voters'" Bucks Again

On the heels of the Sanford Saga, former Christian Coalition choirboy and huckster Ralph Reed is talking about a comeback, presumably to vacuum out the pockets of Rethug base holy rollers, according to Washington Monthly. (Check out the cred Ralphie brings to the table in the form of his conversations with Jack Abramoff about cleaning up in the corporate world since the bucks from the Christian right were drying up.)

(Photo: Ralph Reed, laughing all the way to the bank?)