Pray Hard Ohio

Well, good for the good people of Ohio.  They’re sticking to their guns.  I guess they’re motto is, “If it ain’t working, don’t fix it.”

Bush’s tax policy has been unmitigated distaster—record setting deficits in every year since he passed his stupid tax cuts.  Bush has taken out a mortgage in your name and mine and the guy who hold’s the note is the People’s Republic of China.  And, just today, in another sign of just how well Bush’s tax cuts are working, the Treasury has started selling 30 year notes, again.

To finance some more debt.

And what did this Schmidt woman say about this?  Well, she not only fully supports the tax cuts, but she thinks they haven’t gone far enough.  As an example of how well they’re working, she points out the 80 billion dollar increase in revenue the treasury experienced this year.

Course, she left out the little fact that the reason the treasury experienced an 80 billion dollar increase in revenue is that some of Bush’s tax cuts expired this year.

In addition, while a lot of the increase in tax revenue flows from the improving economy and higher incomes, part of the jump stemmed from a special factor: the expiration of a temporary tax break that allowed companies to write off their investment in new equipment much more rapidly than normal.

That tax break reduced revenue by about $61 billion in 2004, but it merely postponed taxes that companies would have to pay once their equipment was fully depreciated.

That’s right.  Schmidt says she supports Bush’s tax cuts because they work.  And, by work, she says she means the tax cuts have increased government revenue.  But, in fact, getting rid of Bush’s tax cuts has increased government revenue for the first time in years!

Not only that, but in spite of the elimination of some of Bush’s tax cuts, the economy continued to grow.  Which Republicans told us would not happen if Bush’s tax cuts were repealed.

So that pretty much puts to rest every reason for enacting these stupid, stupid, useless tax cuts in the first place.

Bush’s tax cuts are not stimulating the economy.  They are not growing revenue.  And they are not decreasing your tax burden.

Since, as we all know, rather than decreasing our tax debt, since Bush has been in office, taxpayer debt has grown by over a trillion dollars.  This year, alone, our tax debt will increase by another 300 billion dollars.

Which you, the taxpayer, will have to pay.  With taxes.

To the Chinese.

With interest.

What else did Schmidt say?

Well, on the eve of the election, she told voters that Hackett was misleading voters.  She actually posted on her own website that Hackett was dishonestly claiming to be the first Iraqi War veteran to run for Congress when, in fact, Kirk was actually the first.

Of course, Kirk, according to him, is not an Iraqi War veteran.

So Schmidt was misleading voters by accusing Hackett of misleading voters.

And, of course, after the election, she's conveniently deleted those statements.

What else?

Fucking watch this.

Hackett, who is a major in the United States Marine Corps, who worked in Fallujah training Iraqis to fight the insurgency, said that, in his opinion, the current Bush policy of training Iraqi troops was a failure.  And that’s  something that Senator Joe Biden and Republican Representative and Vice Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee Weldon agree with.

And that's something the Pentagon agrees with:

Pentagon officials said on Thursday that only three of the 107 Iraqi army battalions are capable of operating on their own, without U.S. support. About two-thirds of the battalions are rated as "partially capable" of battling the insurgency, but only with U.S. support, the report said.

Hackett said he advocated a buddy system, teaming Iraqi troops with American troops—living together, training together, fighting together.

It’s not an original idea.  Actually, the United States used the same idea in Korea in the 1950’s with very good results.

And how did Schmidt, who’s incredible insight into combat training and fighting in Iraq comes from spending her time as a state representative in Ohio, respond to Hackett’s statement?  She said she disagreed.  Not only did she disagree, but she said what Hackett was saying was nothing more than the same things we’ve heard from liberals like Ted Kennedy in Washington.

If you can actually believe this incredibly stupid woman actually said that.

She doesn’t actually have to agree with Hackett--or the Pentagon or the House Armed Services Committee, for that matter.  She could just say that, while she respects Hackett’s unique insight into the problems the United States is facing in Iraq, she happens to agree with the experts and military advisors in the Bush administration--even though they don't agree with her--who advocate a different approach to the training of Iraqi troops.

But she is such an idiot, such a thoroughly dishonest person, and such a mindless repeater of Gee Oh Pee talking points, that, sitting in the same room with Hackett, she actually accused him of having his opinions formed by politicians in Washington.

What Hackett was saying was just the same thing we’ve heard from liberals in Washington!

As if--Marines in Fallujah weren’t actually using their eyes, their ears, and their every day experiences to form their own opinions of how to best do their jobs.

No, according to this stupid, stupid woman, Marines in Fallujah, who are clueless as to what’s going on in Iraq, are reading the Boston Globe religiously to find out what Ted Kennedy says Marines need to do in Iraq.

Then, those Marines are rushing home to repeat Ted Kennedy’s talking points in Ohio.

What an idiot this woman is.  What an insult to America this moronic, shameless liar is.

I don’t know this Hackett guy.  I’ll probably never meet him.  But he’s probably the greatest American alive.  Why do I say that? 

Because, as a peaceful, educated, intelligent person, I can not, for the life of me, figure out how Hackett restrained himself from beating the living bejesus out of this stupid idiot Schmidt while they were sitting in the same room and she was vomiting out this kind of gross, offensive ignorance.

I really don’t know how he stopped himself from killing her on live TV.

I'm impressed.

What else?  What else did this horrid woman do to recommend herself to the good people of Ohio? 

She claimed she would not just be a rubber stamp for Bush in Washington.  Then, without any sense of irony, said she supported each and every position that the Bush administration had on every issue.

She even claimed her victory was due to her constituents’ belief in Bush’s policies, and their faith that she would support those policies with every vote.

But that was somehow different than being a rubber stamp.

This whole thing is really sad and disturbing.  But no more sad and disturbing than most national politics since the Bush thugs seized office.  Billmon has an excellent post wondering if Schmidt's victory was a victory at all.  The numbers are creepy and weird. 

But whether it was or it wasn’t a real victory, it’s still pathetic and, frankly, un-American for a Congressperson to head off to Washington with the promise that they will support the President, faithfully, in any way possible.

The very point of having a Congress in the first place is to have a check on the power of the executive branch.  The point of having a House of Representatives is that your representatives voice your local opinions in Washington. 

If those opinions happen to agree with the President, so be it.  Great.  That happens.  But to have a representative, before she even arrives in Washington, saying she faithfully and fully represents the President’s agenda is a perversion of our democracy and a betrayal of our system of government.

She is not going to Washington to represent the executive branch.  We do not have a House of Party Representatives.

Well, we do.  Now.  But we’re not supposed to.

The House of Representatives is, in fact, supposed to be the People’s House.  Facing re-election every two years, the House of Representatives is supposed to be the most responsive house of Congress to the people and the least influenced by national politics.

The representatives in the House are supposed to be constantly accountable to local issues and to their local constituents. 

But your modern Gee Oh Pee has seen how to squash that Constitutional check.

They can pour 300 thousand dollars of national Gee Oh Pee money into a local campaign at the last minute.  Saturate the airwaves with ads.  To "bury" a local candidate.

That really alleviates the pressure of a representative to build local support, doesn’t it?

That really pulls the rug out of the people supporting their representatives in the People’s House, doesn’t it?

But, whatever.  It was a good choice, by the good people of Ohio.  She seems to be on the ball about the training program of Iraqi troops.

Just yesterday, for instance, six highly trained Marine snipers were killed in an ambush, which could only be orchestrated by Iraqi troops who had knowledge of Marine operations.

Today, another fourteen Marines were killed.

So, the Bush administration plan--if there even is one--for training Iraqi troops is going quite well.

So well, in fact, the Bush administration is planning on withdrawing tens of thousands of American troops just before the 2006 midterm elections.

No coincidence.

That’s just the way these things happen.

And Hackett, who was slimed by his Republican opponents, who was called by the very voice of Modern Conservatism, the voice that has often been a little out of control due to ingesting too much heroin, the voice that avoided military service due to a rather painful pimple on his ample ass, a “staff puke”.  Well, Hackett's probably going to go back to Iraq.  To do what he can.

No matter what assholes in the Republican party said about him.  He still wants to do what he can for his country.

Hackett's going back to Iraq while scumbags like  Limbaugh, the Cuban cigar smoking, French wine swilling, Paris vacationing, 4-F pimple butted, heroin junkie actually called a United States Marine who volunteered for service in Fallujah, a “staff puke”.

Yes, that’s the same Limbaugh who rants for three hours a day about personal responsibility, but needed his stomach stapled to control his over eating, who gobbled so much hill billy heroin that he went deaf, that so loves traditional moral values, like marriage, that he's now on his third one.

He can't get enough of that sanctity of marriage!  He needs three of them to fill his big moral belly!

That guy, that lowlife, cheesedick, bullshitter who totally speaks for the modern Republican party.

That guy, who whines and bitches about the welfare state and greedy lawyers, but had no problem charging tens of thousands of dollars to his insurance company, which we all pay for, to repair his hearing after he gobbled up obscene amounts of Oxy-Contin and ruined his own ears.

That's right--he stupidly made himself deaf.  And we all paid to fix his junky ears.

More Republican values.

That guy, who assailed Bill Clinton for eight years about having a lousy marriage, but who is now in his third marriage and…hmmm…weirdly enough, has not produced one child in any of them…

That guy, who spends three hours a day ginning up the rubes about the A.C.L.U. and who is, now, relying on the A.C.L.U. to keep whatever highly incriminating and embarrassing details of his medical file out of the public’s knowledge.

Yeah, that prick.  He called Hackett a “staff puke”.

I don’t know how Hackett restrains himself from going to New York and beating the living bejesus out of that fat, stupid bastard, either.

He’s obviously a good man.  Far too good for most diehard Republicans to vote for.

How corrupt is your modern Gee Oh Pee?  How thoughtless?  How offensive—a “staff puke”???  A Marine Major in Fallujah?

A staff puke?

From a turd of a human being like Limbaugh?

How obscene are these people?  Doesn't anything embarrass them at all? 

For all this stuff about the Ten Commandments and Creationism, and Intelligent Design, don't these people really believe in an afterlife?

Because if they really do, do they really think God's an idiot?  Do they really think God can't tell horseshit when He hears it?

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[dog 2]

The good people of Ohio are begining to realize that the costs of supporting their president and his lies, are too precious and too high. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/05/national/05marines.html