Your Poll of the Day - Shutting Down Government Over Obamacare Edition

 Not the most popular thing out there:

A new poll done for Republican members of Congress has found huge public opposition, and solid opposition among Republicans, to the idea of shutting down the government over the issue of funding Obamacare.

In a national survey of 1,000 registered voters done July 31 and August 1, the question, from pollster David Winston, said, “Some members of Congress have proposed shutting down the government as a way to defund the president’s health care law” and asked respondents whether they favored or opposed that plan.

Overall, 71 percent of those surveyed opposed a shutdown, while 23 percent favored a shutdown. Among Republicans, 53 percent opposed, versus 37 percent who favored. (our emphasis)

Unfortunately, we suspect the 37 percent of Republicans that favored a shutdown over Obamacare are overwhelmingly the ones most likely to vote in a primary and who, therefore, must be obeyed!

Fortunately, former crackpot Rethuglican Sen. Jim "Demented" DeMint, who now is polluting politics over at the Heritage Foundation, has an alternative to Obamacare!

How's That Republican Rebranding Coming Along? (Cont.)

Let's take a look at what's going on in Washington, DC, as the Rethugs try to "rebrand" their New Confederate/ Stupid party:

Utah Rethuglican Sen. Mike Lee has proposed an amendment to the immigration reform legislation currently being marked up.  His helpful proposal

... would allow undocumented immigrants to be lawfully employed -- but only only as domestic workers.

Lee's amendment would exempt undocumented immigrants working as "cooks, waiters, butlers, housekeepers, governessess, maids, valets, baby sitters, janitors, laundresses, furnacemen, care-takers, handymen, gardeners, footmen, grooms, and chauffeurs of automobiles for family use" from prohibitions against "unlawful employment" for undocumented immigrants. [our emphasis]

You've o.k. if you cut my lawn or wash the dishes!  Es muy blanco de ustedes!

Of course, that's only one of the egregious, insulting anti-immigrant amendments offered by Senate Rethuglicans;  check 'em all out!

But they aren't the only Rethuglicans out a-courtin' the Hispanic voters, no siree!  They've got the assembled brainpower of the right-wing Heritage Foundation to help them (and it's new president, former Senator and continuing crackpot Jim "Demented" DeMint).  Heritage recently put out a pile of shit report claiming immigration reform would be unacceptably costly.  Come to find one of the report's authors has some racist highly dubious ideas about intelligence:

The Heritage Foundation’s analysis of the economic consequences of immigration reform uses absurd methodology to come to conclusions entirely at odds with the organization’s own findings in 2006. Perhaps one explanation for this incoherence is that one of the paper’s coauthors, a new hire, opposes Hispanic immigration because he thinks Latinos are stupid.

Jason Richwine joined Heritage in 2010, after finishing his PhD in Public Policy in 2009. The Washington Post’s Dylan Matthews dug up Richwine’s dissertation, which was titled “IQ And Immigration.” In it, Richwine argues that Hispanics have and will always have lower IQs than whites. Matthews summarizes:

Richwine’s dissertation asserts that there are deep-set differentials in intelligence between races. While it’s clear he thinks it is partly due to genetics — ‘the totality of the evidence suggests a genetic component to group differences in IQ’ — he argues the most important thing is that the differences in group IQs are persistent, for whatever reason. He writes, ‘No one knows whether Hispanics will ever reach IQ parity with whites, but the prediction that new Hispanic immigrants will have low-IQ children and grandchildren is difficult to argue against.‘

Oh, Pancho!  Oh, Cisco!  Tambien es muy blanca!

Of course, Heritage and some other right-wingers are back-pedaling from Mr. Richwine.  But, as the bill is marked up in the Senate, it's hard to ignore the inherent racism and inhumanity of the Rethuglican proposals.  They seem to be in accord with Mr. Richwine's "thesis" in more than just a casual way.

UPDATE:  Mr. Richwine is now updating up his resume.

Sunday Cartoon and Read

Frequent blind squirrel Dana Milbank has a piece on retiring teatard hero Sen. Jim "Demented" DeMint (New Confederate Party- Secessionland) and his move to the Heritage Foundation. After ticking off some of DeMint's more deranged views, Milbank offers this:

"But it’s difficult to see how these views, and DeMint’s crude expression of them, fit with Heritage’s mission as 'a research and educational institution' dedicated to finding 'solutions to contemporary problems from the ideas, principles and traditions that make America great.'

"Such as: keeping gay men and unmarried women from being teachers; throwing around words such as "tyranny' and 'socialism'; attempting to 'break' an American president and accusing the other party of a Nazi-style 'power grab.'

"If DeMint is the right man to be running this prestigious policy shop, perhaps the resident scholars at Heritage should be researching this question: Is thought dead?"

Then there's this more direct commentary (click to enlarge):

(Cartoon: Jim Morin, via GoComics.com)

The Rethug "Vision": Gridlock

One increasingly influential Rethuglican radical, South Carolina's Sen. Jim "Demented" DeMint, can at least be given credit for not hiding his extremism, as other Rethugs do. Going against his own party's campaign committee, Demented supported Tea Farty candidates Joe "Bounty Man" Miller in Alaska and Christine "No Dildos" O'Donnell in Delaware. Now, Demented has revealed what's in store if the Rethugs take over control of Congress: gridlock. Saying that "businesses" have been telling (ordering?) him that the Rethugs should basically shut down the legislative branch if given control, Demented told Bloomberg News, "At least gridlock is predictable."

You'll remember that Demented became infamous for declaring, “If we’re able to stop Obama on this [health reform], it will be his Waterloo. It will break him.” No concern about the uninsured, no concern about rising health care costs or people dropped from coverage due to preexisting conditions. Just a political hack's calculation about what it would take to win politically. This guy is the great hope of the Rethuglican / New Confederate Party: gridlock, give the power back to the corporate giants, continue policies that create huge gaps between the middle class and the economic elites.

(photo: Demented's not clowning around)

Liars and Their Lying Lies

Conventional wisdom is that politicians generally spin the truth to their liking, but in the case of South Carolina Rethuglican Sen. Jim "Demented" DeMint, the truth never met Demented's acquaintance. And he lies even after hearing his own recorded statements.

Demented was caught in a blatant lie on ABC's This Week today when he denied -- even after hearing an audio tape of himself -- that he said health insurance reform should be the President's "Waterloo." Demented was later called out by New Jersey's Dem Sen. Robert Menendez, who said the Rethug's "whole political strategy is for this President and this Congress to fail." The Rethug approach is to use lies -- "death panels," "Government takeover of health care," "pulling the plug on granny" -- to obstruct reform on behalf of the insurance corporations, and assume that the broken mainstream media won't challenge the lies. Today was a rare instance where they assumed wrong.

Senate Comedies

Daily Kos has a few items today on the rump that is the Rethug Party these days:

-- Outgoing Sen. George Voinovich (R-OH) has a few choice words for fellow Rethugs of the southern-fried variety, like "there are too many of them" (specifically, Jim "DeMented" DeMint and Tom "Got Some 'Splainin' To Do" Coburn).

-- Sen. Diaper Dave Vitter (Rethug-Bordello) foolishly used the word "luvfest" in an ad blasting Democrats. The Democrats then proceeded to spank Diaper Dave jes the way he like it.

Keep It Up, President Obama

It's a relief to see the President hitting back hard against the cynical Rethug establishment pols on health care reform. The President quoted South Carolina secessionist Rethug Sen. Jim "Demented" DeMint saying that health care would be Obama's Waterloo, responding:

"Think about that. This isn't about me. This isn't about politics. It is about a health care system that is breaking American families, breaking America's businesses and breaking America's economy."

We need this kind of strong pushback from the President and others on the Rethugs who are doing the multi-billion dollar health insurance industry's bidding, at the expense of the public good. Goodness knows the mainstream media can't be bothered with the details, or with calling out jackasses like Sen. Demented on their cynical disregard for the public.

Why Do They Want America To Fail?

"If we're able to stop Obama on this [health care reform], it will be his Waterloo. It will break him." -- Sen. Jim "DeMented" DeMint (Rethug Secessionist-SC) July 17 during a conference call with "conservative activists" (eg., see ACU below), as reported in today's WaPo. File under: "Bipartisanship, my ass."

(Photo: DeMented with fellow Rethug nut Sen. Tom "Preacher/Fed Ex Courier" Coburn)