Tag Archives: Republicans

The Social Security Administration Shoots to Kill

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A right-wing website recently reported that the Social Security Administration is purchasing 174,000 hollow point bullets, an indication of troubled times ahead:

“It’s not outlandish to suggest that the Social Security Administration is purchasing the bullets as part of preparations for civil unrest. Social security welfare is estimated to keep around 40 per cent of senior citizens out of poverty. Should the tap run dry in the aftermath of an economic collapse, which the Federal Reserve has already told top banks to prepare for, domestic disorder could ensue if people are refused their benefits.”

http://www.infowars.com/social-security-administration-to-purchase-174-thousand-rounds-of-hollow-point-bullets/ (Visit this site at your own risk.)

Actually, it is outlandish. Would the clerks, accountants and actuaries who work for the SSA be expected to strap on firearms and man the barricades? Are the Social Security trust funds likely to evaporate? Probably not.

In response to the uproar that developed on the internet, the SSA explained that it employs 295 law enforcement officers (who knew?), most of whom investigate attempts to defraud the government:

“Our office has criminal investigators, or special agents, who are responsible for investigating violations of the laws that govern SSA’s programs. Currently, about 295 special agents and supervisory special agents work in 66 offices across the United States.  These investigators have full law enforcement authority, including executing search warrants and making arrests. Our investigators are similar to your State or local police officers. They use traditional investigative techniques, and they are armed when on official duty.”

http://oig.ssa.gov/newsroom/blog/2012/08/social-securitys-oig-responds-concerns-over-ammunition-procurement

Hollow point bullets are standard issue for law enforcement officers, because they tend to disable someone who is shot, without injuring innocent bystanders. 

But why are so many people on the right so terribly afraid? Why are many of our fellow citizens suffering from political paranoia? I think it’s a mass case of psychological projection:

“Projection is a form of defense in which unwanted feelings are displaced onto another person, where they then appear as a threat from the external world. A common form of projection occurs when an individual, threatened by his own angry feelings, accuses another of harbouring hostile thoughts.”

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/478472/projection

Elections Matter

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Kurt Eichenwald has written a rather long piece regarding the upcoming election. He says that he has voted for Republicans as often as Democrats in the past, but he forcefully argues that the Republicans must be defeated in 2012:

“In the last four years, the GOP has transmogrified into something ugly and vicious and, more important, something wedded to the politics of fantasy and ignorance. It has rushed so far from its moorings that I cannot conceive of voting for members of this party until, hopefully, they pull themselves back from the precipice of self-destruction, paranoia and delusion.”

Eichenwald cites five reasons why the Republicans deserve to suffer a crippling defeat, although the reasons boil down to four: they are liars; they are demagogues; they are economic arsonists; and they are threatening American democracy (e.g. through attempts at vote suppression).

The country might eventually recover from a Republican victory in November, but it’s more likely that President Romney and Vice President Ryan would do lasting damage.

http://kurteichenwald.com/2012/09/the-five-reasons-why-romneyryan-must-be-defeated-in-2012-and-why-conservatives-should-hope-they-are/

Some Things Are Too Important To Lie About

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Republican Vice Presidential candidate Paul Ryan has been widely criticized for not just bending the truth during his recent acceptance speech, but for stomping all over the truth, leaving it for dead. It’s possible that he might have gotten away with lying about Medicare, the auto bailout and the national debt, but there was no way he’d get away with lying about running marathons. People like the editors at Runner’s World take running very seriously.

In a recent radio interview, Ryan implied that he had run more than one marathon and that his best time was under three hours:

PR: Yeah, I hurt a disc in my back, so I don’t run marathons anymore. I just run ten miles or less.
HH: But you did run marathons at some point?
PR: Yeah, but I can’t do it anymore, because my back is just not that great.
HH: I’ve just gotta ask, what’s your personal best?
PR: Under three, high twos. I had a two hour and fifty-something.
HH: Holy smokes. All right, now you go down to Miami University…
PR: I was fast when I was younger, yeah.

http://www.hughhewitt.com/blog/g/3229320e-2c55-4122-93f1-2ebe4fbc8663

Running a marathon in less than three hours is quite an achievement. Unfortunately for Ryan, Runner’s World did some research, which they presented to the Ryan campaign, which resulted in the following:

A spokesman confirmed late Friday that the Republican vice presidential candidate has run one marathon. That was the 1990 Grandma’s Marathon in Duluth, Minnesota, where Ryan, then 20, is listed as having finished in 4 hours, 1 minute, and 25 seconds.

http://news.runnersworld.com/2012/08/31/paul-ryan-says-hes-run-sub-300-marathon/

It was 20 years ago, but runners remember their best times. Running a marathon in 4 hours is a lot less impressive than running it in 2 hours, 50 minutes. Running 1 marathon is less impressive than running 2 or more.

So the evidence multiplies. Paul Ryan is a serial liar, someone who regularly lies to advance his agenda or make himself look good. Many politicians do that. They shouldn’t be Vice President.

Same As It Ever Was

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Romney’s plan to fix the economy is the same plan offered by his predecessors (and his goal of 12 million new jobs is the number forecast by economists as normal job growth).

Mike Konczal of the Roosevelt Institute:

The same exact playbook is there in 2006, as it was in 2004 and 2008, and as it is in 2012. Domestic oil production, school choice, trade agreements, cut spending and reduce taxes and regulations — it’s been the conservative answer to times of deep economic stress, times of economic recovery, times of economic worries, and times of economic panic. Which is another way of saying that the Republicans have no plan for how to actually deal with this specific crisis we face.

http://www.nextnewdeal.net/rortybomb/romney-will-solve-crisis-exact-same-gop-plan-2008-2006-2004

Paul Krugman (today’s best political columnist by far) concurs and offers a chart showing the pathetic history of job growth during the two terms of our last Republican president:

We should ask how the identical policies worked out in Bush’s two terms. And the answer is: zero job growth in term one (and a fall in private sector employment), one million in term two. Oh, and private sector employment lower when Bush left office than when he arrived.

083112krugman1-blog480

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/31/the-definition-of-insanity/

Creepy

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Various news sources are reporting that someone was ejected from the Republican convention after throwing nuts at a black CNN camerawoman and saying “this is how we feed animals”. 

It’s not clear whether this occurred because of someone’s feelings toward blacks, women, CNN, or some combination thereof. This could have happened anywhere, of course, but what are the odds?

http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/29/republican-officials-remove-2-attendees-for-deplorable-behavior-toward-cnn-staffer/