death in texas

* wolcott: "Yes, Karl Rove has brains behind that fetusy forehead of his. But Santorum, Frist, Norm Coleman--these men are as stupid as the neanderthals you see in fifties footage of Joe McCarthy and his henchmen, and HUAC committeemen.
That doesn't mean they're not dangerous. The damage McCarthy caused to people's lives was immeasurable. But it means that most of them aren't evil geniuses, or even evil shrewd, they're evil dumb." LINK
ive blogged about this before, in a couple of contexts. firstly, its fucking disheartening to be losing to people who show no discernible intelligence. there's very rarely an occasion where a repug says something and you think 'gee - that person is intelligent - or clever (even in a mean way)'.
secondly, either the repugs are run by some evil genius in the background and they have a masterplan where they know how the nuclear option and the wars (current & future) and all the rest of it is gonna play out, or they are making decisions on the fly and just pretending they know what they're doing. if its the former, then we're all in real trouble, and if its the latter, then the whole repug machine cant be far away from imploding, and man-oh-man, thats gonna be a spectacular implosion

perhaps this quote sums it up perfectly "They are driving one car length ahead" - the only damn problem is that they appear to have been one car-length ahead for so long, that its difficult to believe that momentum could be so damn friendly.

having unworthy opponents is tedious, getting trounced by apparently unworthy opponents is soul-destroying.

ftr, heres the Texas Republican Party Platform for 2000 - apparently it is us that are the unworthy opponents.
go read it. go read it, i said!

i know you probably wont, dammit. here are the 'hi'lights:

The United States should return to the gold standard and abolish the Federal Reserve.

The Supreme Court should not be allowed to decide the constitutionality of laws regarding abortion, religion, or anything else related to the Bill of Rights. In these areas, Congress should be allowed to pass any laws it wishes.

We should completely do away with separation of church and state.

Gay sex should be a criminal offense.

Gays should be treated like child molesters and should not be allowed to visit children unsupervised.

All abortion of all kinds should be permanently outlawed by constitutional amendment.

The Biblical story of creation should be taught in science classes.

Social Security should be abolished.

The federal income tax should be abolished.

The federal minimum wage should be abolished.

The Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Education, and several other federal agencies should be eliminated. (Since these departments supervise all federal welfare programs for the poor and sick, they are presumably advocating the complete abolishment of the federal welfare state.)

Get the United States out of the UN.

Take back the Panama Canal. This plank remains in the 2002 platform. Since Panama presumably would object to this, they appear to be endorsing military action to retake the canal zone.

and it ends thusly:
"Party Unity: Any person filing as a Republican candidate for a public or Party office shall be provided a current copy of the Party platform at the time of filing. The candidate shall be asked to read and initial each page of the platform and sign a statement affirming he/she has read the entire platform."
(Short Translation: We are dead serious about all this.)

as Christina Applegate said in Married With Children: "there are only two certainties in life: death in texas"