The Top 10 Conservative Idiots, No. 385October 25, 2010
Miller Shite EditionThis week Joe Miller (1,2) gives us a peek at what the Teabaggers have planned for America should they be elected this fall. Elsewhere, Christine O'Donnell (4) shows off her knowledge of the Constitution, and Sharron Angle (7) drops a clanger. Don't forget the
key!
Joe Miller Attached to the base of the Statue of Liberty is a plaque upon which you can find inscribed Emma Lazarus's famous poem,
http://www.libertystatepark.com/emma.htm">The New Colossus:
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
I mention this only because Joe Miller, Republican Senate candidate for Alaska, is a man who frequently portrays himself as someone who would like to wrap his balls in the flag and make sweet love to the Constitution all night long -- which makes his recent statements on immigration reform all the more bizarre.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20020018-503544.html">According to CBS News:
The United States should borrow ideas from Communist East Germany to keep its borders secure, Alaska's Republican Senate candidate Joe Miller suggested at a town hall Sunday night.
"The first thing that has to be done is secure the border," Miller said when asked about illegal immigration into the United States, Alaskan blogger Steve Aufrecht first reported.
Miller continued, "East Germany was very, very able to reduce the flow. Now, obviously, other things were involved. We have the capacity to, as a great nation, secure the border. If East Germany could, we could."
Er, yeah -- about those "other things that were involved." As the
Alaska Daily News http://www.adn.com/2010/10/18/1507198/miller-cites-communist-east-germany.html">points out, "East German troops during the Cold War had official 'licence to fire' on citizens trying to flee across the heavily fortified 860-mile border into West Germany or across the Berlin Wall into West Berlin. Hundreds of people died in the attempt."
Which means we may now have to amend the final few lines of The New Colossus to:
"Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
And as long as they can get past the barbed wire, guard dogs, and machine gun nests, they should be just fine."
Joe Miller Joe Miller made his "East Germany" remarks during a public forum at Central Middle School in Anchorage, but apparently after the event ended he decided that he hadn't done a good enough job really pressing those remarks home. How else to explain
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/18/reporter-detained-by-joe-_n_766565.html">this?
On Sunday, Miller's private security guards handcuffed and detained (Alaska journalist Tony) Hopfinger after he tried to ask the candidate about his time at the Fairbanks Northstar Borough. Miller was accused of using borough equipment in the unsuccessful 2008 attempt to oust state Republican Party Chairman Randy Ruedrich.
Hopfinger said that he followed Miller through the school hallway, hoping to get an on-the-record explanation about the issue. At some point, he said, he found himself alone among reporters and "surrounded by a bunch of security guard types and Miller supporters." Miller never told him to stop asking questions, he said. But his backers did.
"I figure I'm at a public school and they are telling me I'm trespassing," he said. "And it was just a matter of seconds, I'm challenging this trespass issue and the next thing you know they got me detained and I'm in handcuffs and they put me in another corridor of the building. So for 25 minutes no one even knew where the hell I was... They said we were going to call the police and I said, 'Fine, call the police.'"
And call the police they did, the bizarre result of which you can see in
http://community.adn.com/adn/node/153751">this video.
So, who are these mysterious private security guards and why are they kidnapping journalists who ask Joe Miller tough questions? Aside from Miller's obvious penchant for East German policing tactics, good question.
http://www.adn.com/2010/10/18/1507982/questions-surround-use-of-security.html">According to the
Anchorage Daily News:
Was Joe Miller required to bring a security detail to his town hall meeting Sunday at Central Middle School?
That's what Miller, the Republican Senate candidate, told two national cable news networks Monday in the wake of the arrest by his security squad of an online journalist at his public event.
Oh. Well I suppose that clears that up then. Wait, what's this?
But the school district said there was no such requirement made of Miller -- he only had to provide a hall and parking lot monitor, and advise participants of school district courtesy and food rules.
And then it gets weird...
Meanwhile, the Army says that two of the guards who assisted in the arrest of the journalist and who tried to prevent two other reporters from filming the detention were active-duty soldiers moonlighting for Miller's security contractor, the Drop Zone, a Spenard surplus store and protection service.
The soldiers, Spc. Tyler Ellingboe, 22, and Sgt. Alexander Valdez, 31, are assigned to the 3rd Maneuver Enhancement Brigade at Fort Richardson. Maj. Bill Coppernoll, the public affairs officer for the Army in Alaska, said the two soldiers did not have permission from their current chain of command to work for the Drop Zone, but the Army was still researching whether previous company or brigade commanders authorized their employment.
So, to recap: Joe Miller thinks that the USA should be more like East Germany, and to demonstrate, he has an gang of active-duty soldiers going around handcuffing and detaining journalists at his campaign events. Oh, but he loves the Constitution. Vote Joe Miller!
The Tea Party Express More trouble in Teabagsville: just a few short weeks ago, Bush's Former Brain Karl Rove was shocked --
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0910/42205.html">shocked I tell ya -- to learn that Christine O'Donnell had beaten Mike Castle to become the Republican candidate for Senate in Delaware. He quickly recovered though. But last week Rove let his contempt for the Tea Party shine through yet again in remarks to
Der Spiegel newspaper. Jeez Karl, trashing your own base in the foreign press? Tsk, tsk.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/10/karl-rove-tea-party-not-sophisticated">According to Raw Story, Karl described Teabaggers as lacking "the coherency and intelligence of prior right-wing uprisings in the United States," specifically calling them, "not sophisticated." Not sophisticated, Karl? How dare you! If they weren't sophisticated, how do you explain
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1010/43866.html">this?
When the Tea Party Express helped Joe Miller win a shocking upset in Alaska's GOP Senate primary, it cruised to victory in more ways than one.
For seven weeks this summer, staff members of the political action committee coordinated their efforts on behalf of Miller from staterooms aboard Holland America's M.S. Amsterdam, a cruise ship that plied the waters from Seattle to various ports of call from Canada to Alaska.
(snip)
The Tea Party Express, paid Holland America Line a total of $103,000 to send six of its staffers on four consecutive cruises on the Amsterdam. The payments to the cruise line, which appeared on a campaign finance report filed Friday with the Federal Election Commission, have started drawing attention from critics of the Tea Party Express, who have alleged that the committee is a front for Republican consultants seeking to use the populist movement to make a buck and live the high life.
(snip)
During stops in Canada, the Express team would disembark for a local café that had better Internet access than on the boat. Though they partook in the ship's all-you-can-eat gourmet dining options and befriended many of the ship's 615 crew members, (former Tea Party Express political director Bryan) Shroyer said he tired of life on the floating Tea Party Express.
So come on Karl, why would the Tea Party Express need "staterooms" and "gourmet dining options" if they weren't sophisticated? Think man, think!
Christine O'Donnell She may not be a witch, but she's
definitely not a Constitutional scholar. During a debate last week, Christine O'Donnell "questioned whether the U.S. Constitution calls for a separation of church and state, appearing to disagree or not know that the First Amendment bars the government from establishing religion,"
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/news/2010/10/odonnell_questions_separation_of_church_state.php">according to the Associated Press.
The exchange came in a debate before an audience of legal scholars and law students at Widener University Law School, as O'Donnell criticized Democratic nominee Chris Coons' position that teaching creationism in public school would violate the First Amendment by promoting religious doctrine.
Coons said private and parochial schools are free to teach creationism but that "religious doctrine doesn't belong in our public schools."
"Where in the Constitution is the separation of church and state?" O'Donnell asked him.
When Coons responded that the First Amendment bars Congress from making laws respecting the establishment of religion, O'Donnell asked: "You're telling me that's in the First Amendment?"
Later in the week O'Donnell debated Coons again (I mean, if you can call these things "debates" as opposed to "events where sensible guy sits there being sensible while village idiot smears feces on herself") where,
http://thinkprogress.org/2010/10/20/o%E2%80%99donnell-dem-senator/">according to Think Progress,"Christine O'Donnell seemed unable to name a single sitting Democratic senator."
The exchange went like this:
MODERATOR: Give me a name, Christine, of someone in the U.S. Senate, across the aisle that you're comfortable working with.
O'DONNELL: (Pause) Well, she's not a senator any more, but I would definitely have to say Hillary Clinton.
Yeah, she's not a senator any more is she. Come on Christine, there are 57 Democratic senators. Surely you can name one...
COONS: One of the real risks as we go forward, is that if we elect someone who literally cannot name a single currently serving senator in my party with whom she would work -
O'DONNELL: Senator Lieberman!
Uh, no.
David Bartholomew Virginia Beach Republican Party chair David Bartholomew resigned last week after it was
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/10/racist-email-flap-blows-up-virgina-beach-gop.php">revealed that he sent the following email to his mailing list last March:
MY DOG
I went down this morning to sign up my Dog for welfare.
At first the lady said, "Dogs are not eligible to draw welfare".
So I explained to her that my Dog is black, unemployed, lazy, can't speak
English and has no frigging clue who his Daddy is.
So she looked in her policy book to see what it takes to qualify...
My Dog gets his first check Friday.
Is this is a great country or what?
But whatever you do, don't call him a racist! You see, according to Second District GOP chair Gary Byler, David Bartholomew has a really good excuse:
The e-mail was dated March 15 and sent from the address that Bartholomew uses as party chairman. Bartholomew forwarded it without reading the contents when "he was first getting familiar with the Internet," Byler said.
Oh, well, in that case no harm no foul! I mean, didn't we all accidentally forward racist emails to people without reading them when we were first getting familiar with the Internet? You remember the days... an email would show up in your inbox and rather than reading it you'd select it and accidentally click "Forward," then, unsure of what to do next, you'd enter your entire mailing list into the "To" field and click "Send." It's such an easy mistake to make, surely anyone could have done it!
Next week: David Bartholomew explains how, as a young man, he inadvertently Xeroxed a racist joke without looking at it, placed the copies into dozens of envelopes and mailed them to his friends all over the country when he was "first getting familiar with the U.S. postal system."
Virginia Thomas If you thought the run-up to the mid-term elections couldn't get any more bizarre, think again. Last week it was reported that Virginia Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence, had made an early morning phone call to Anita Hill. Hill was a former colleague of Thomas, who during his Senate confirmation hearings in 1991 testified under oath that he had sexually harrassed her.
http://www.rr.com/news/topic/article/rr/9009/24501313/Thomas_wife_seeks_apology_from_accuser_Anita_Hill">According to the Associated Press:
In a transcript of the message provided by ABC News, which said it listened to the recording, Thomas identified herself and then said, "I just wanted to reach across the airwaves and the years and ask you to consider something. I would love you to consider an apology sometime and some full explanation of why you did what you did with my husband. So give it some thought and certainly pray about this and come to understand why you did what you did. OK, have a good day," Thomas said.
Ms. Thomas later admitted to making the call and clarified her comments in a statement:
I did place a call to Ms. Hill at her office extending an olive branch to her after all these years, in hopes that we could ultimately get passed (sic) what happened so long ago. That offer still stands, I would be very happy to meet and talk with her if she would be willing to do the same.
Well that's certainly an interesting definition of an olive branch. "Hey, what's up. So yeah, it would be really great if you could apologize for telling all those lies about my husband. Okay, bye!"
So what say you, Anita Hill? Now that Ms. Thomas has reached out to you in such a charming fashion, can we expect to see an apology from you any time soon for your awful crime of happening to be in the vicinity of Clarence Thomas while he repeatedly tried to regale you with stories about his porno collection?
"I have no intention of apologizing because I testified truthfully about my experience and I stand by that testimony," Hill, now a Brandeis University professor, said in a statement released Tuesday night.
Sorry Ms. Thomas -- better luck next time.
Sharron Angle Meanwhile, back on the campaign trail, Sharron Angle (R-Teabag) is really pulling out all the stops to defeat Harry Reid in Nevada. So much so, in fact, that she's even plucked up the nerve to talk to some of those brown people that she always seems to be accusing of nefarious deeds in her TV ads.
Yes, Angle appeared at an after-school assembly with Rancho High School's Hispanic Student Union last week, where she, well, basically just completely lost her mind.
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2010/10/19/angle-in-hot-water-for-asian-comment/">According to CNN:
A spokesman for Senate nominee Sharron Angle is downplaying the Nevada Republican's remarks to a group of Hispanic school children Monday...
(snip)
The comments, video of which was posted by the Las Vegas Sun, came in response to a student's question asking the GOP Senate candidate why her television ads appear to portray all illegal immigrants as Latino.
"I think that you're misinterpreting those commercials. I'm not sure that those are Latinos in that commercial. What it is, is a fence and there are people coming across that fence. What we know is that our northern border is where the terrorists came through," said Angle in response.
Bzzt! Sorry, Ms. Angle -- actually that's
http://www.canada.com/news/terrorists+come+from+Canada+ambassador+tells+Republican/3690183/story.html">completely false.
In a letter sent to Angle on Monday, (Canadian ambassador Gary) Doer asks that Angle "set the record straight" on the 9/11 terrorists.
"There have been no terrorist attacks on the United States coming from Canada," Doer writes. "None of the 9/11 hijackers entered the United States from or through Canada. Extensive investigations by U.S. law enforcement authorities have established that all the hijackers entered the United States directly from third countries - not Canada - with visas issued by American diplomatic missions overseas."
But that's not important right now, because Angle went on to blow those comments out of the water with a nuclear gaffe so impressive it broke windows twenty miles away.
The Tea Party-backed candidate, who is dead even in the polls with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, continued, "I don't know that all of you are Latino. Some of you look a little more Asian to me."
Er, yeah. She actually said that.
http://www.mynews4.com/story.php?id=29979&n=122">According to KSNV News 3, one of the students was asked if Angle would be invited back. She said yes, "for an apology because a lot of students were really offended."
George W. Bush Last week I
http://journals.democraticunderground.com/top10/384">noted that George W. Bush has been spotted out and about plugging his upcoming book
Decision Points, a stirring tale of how one man took the reins of the greatest country in the world and then rode it directly over a cliff, breaking its legs and forcing him to euthanize it with a shotgun. Or something like that.
Anyway, it seems that Our Former Great Leader is really doing the rounds because he was plugging the book in Chicago last week with more of the same witty banter that's made him such a laugh riot over the years. And then of course there was
http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2010/10/united-states-president-george-bush-chicago-decision-points.html">this:
Of his legacy, he said he knows he won't be remembered as Shakespeare, but he hopes he's remembered for his beliefs.
"I would like to be remembered as a guy who had a set of priorities, and was willing to live by those priorities" he said. "In terms of accomplishments, my biggest accomplishment is that I kept the country safe amidst a real danger."
Er, George, about that "keeping the country safe" thing... were you not paying attention when this happened?
What am I saying. Of course he wasn't paying attention.
Stephen Broden The GOP's slate of candidates this year really has been something to see -- they've got
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/28/opinion/28herbert.html?_r=2">racists,
http://wonkette.com/426750/joe-miller-arrests-reporter-for-asking-illegal-questions">thugs,
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/10/why-is-this-gop-house-candidate-dressed-as-a-nazi/64319/">Nazis,
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20016907-503544.html">ex-witches,
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/plum-line/2010/08/rand_pauls_accuser_clarifies_k.html">Aqua-Buddhists -- you name it, and it's probably running for Congress as a Republican.
And now meet Stephen Broden, a man for whom "democracy" is just a minor inconvenience.
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/102210dnmetbroden.1b2338185.html">According to the
Dallas Morning News:
Republican congressional candidate Stephen Broden stunned his party Thursday, saying he would not rule out violent overthrow of the government if elections did not produce a change in leadership.
In a rambling exchange during a TV interview, Broden, a South Dallas pastor, said a violent uprising "is not the first option," but it is "on the table."
(snip)
In the interview, Brad Watson, political reporter for WFAA-TV (Channel 8), asked Broden about a tea party event last year in Fort Worth in which he described the nation's government as tyrannical.
(snip)
Watson asked if violence would be in option in 2010, under the current government.
"The option is on the table. I don't think that we should remove anything from the table as it relates to our liberties and our freedoms," Broden said, without elaborating. "However, it is not the first option."
Well of course it's not the first option. The first option is electing Stephen Broden to Congress. And if that doesn't work -- violent revolution!
I'm still not sure that "vote for me or I'll shoot you" is a very viable election strategy, but let's not blow this out of proportion. After all, I'm sure if these Tea Party nuts manage to get elected, they'll be
much more sane and sensible when they're actually serving in Congress.
Right?
Meg Whitman And finally, last week Meg Whitman learned that no matter how much you spend on an election (and she's now up to
http://www.sacbee.com/2010/10/06/3082867/whitman-spends-record-140-million.html">$140 million) you're not guaranteed an error-free campaign. Her campaign spokesperson sent out the following tweet recently:
Now, I personally don't speak Twitterish, so I have no idea what that all means. I do know, however know that the video Whitman's campaign linked to (
http://bit.ly/bNCAV">http:/bit.ly/bNCAV) is probably not the video that they meant to link to...
Unless they're trying to say that Jerry Brown likes transvestite bass players? Seems a bit off-message to me...
See you next week!
-- EarlG