McConnell's Supreme Court Gamble and Ted Cruz's Scare Tactics Spell Disaster for the GOP

by Nomad

Candidates are apt to get a bit carried away while they are on the campaign trail. However, when it comes to Ted Cruz's stoking the fears about the Supreme Court, there's been a whole new level of manipulation, misrepresentation and just plain old nonsense.

One Justice Away

Late last year, Ted Cruz hit upon the phrase "we are just one liberal justice away from...."  He has used the heck out of it, building upon that opening statement well beyond reason and into a strange hysteria.

He told the Des Moines Register in October that we are all just one liberal Supreme Court Justice away from utter disaster. Calamity and catastrophe will follow unless he becomes president and prevents liberals from causing mayhem. Why, it's going to be so bad that we won't even recognize the nation. 

Are you frightened yet?  

"One more liberal justice and our right to keep and bear arms is taken away from us by an activist court. One more liberal justice and they begin sandblasting and bulldozing veterans memorials throughout this country. One more liberal justice and we lose our sovereignty to the United Nations and the World Court."

In January he warned his supporters what could happen to the high court if a Democrat became the next president. This time he upped the imagery. (That's always a clear sign of manipulation.)

"We're just steps away from the chisels at Arlington coming out to remove crosses and stars of David from tombstones."

In Cruz's world, teams of determined liberal masons with chisels sandpaper and hammers will soon be scouring the cemeteries, mandated to remove all traces of the religious symbols on the tombs of dead war heroes. 

It's the kind of thing that post-midnight radio call-in shows used to discuss. Today these ideas are being spread by the candidate the Republican Party offers as the sane alternative to Donald Trump.

History and Texas Anti-Abortion Laws Show How Futile and Dangerous Conservative Efforts Are

by Nomad

A new study in Texas about self-induced abortions underscores that truth that conservatives have long denied. Making something illegal won't make it go away and could have unintended consequences.

Republican leaders in Texas are jubilant about their attempts to close down Planned Parenthood clinics  in their state. When deciding to cut off Medicaid funding for the organization, Governor Greg Abbott led the charge even to the point of breaking federal law. The rush is on now to close down to remaining abortion clinics in operation. 

Planned Parenthood, as most people know, is not solely an abortion provider. It also provides valuable reproductive health care services for women. Inevitably, there will sooner or later be consequences for half-baked policy.

But then this is Texas where, when it comes to conservative bombast, there are no holds barred.Conservative crazy comes at a two-for-one price there. Republican president candidate Canadian-cum-Texan Ted Cruz called Planned Parenthood "an ongoing criminal enterprise."

JEB! couldn't understand why it was necessary to spend half a billion dollars for women's health issues at all. Apparently nobody has explained to JEB (the "smart" Bush) that women make up 50.8% of the population and 43.5 million of those women have children. These mothers gave birth to 95.8 million children. Somebody forgot to inform JEB that the health of women naturally has an impact of the children they have.)

Rep. Steve Stockman not long ago contributed his excuse for cleverness with a bumper sticker campaign which linked two seemingly unrelated issues close to the hearts of Texas right-wingers: Guns and fetuses.

The stickers read: 

If babies had guns, they wouldn't be aborted. 

This was matched with pro-choice signs that read: 

If my vagina could fire bullets, you wouldn't regulate it.

Who could possibly argue with logic like that?

Huckabee: Connecting End-of-Life Issues with Abortion Reveals Republican Weakness

by Nomad

Mike Huckabee in an attempt to garner attention, has managed to connect the abortion debate and end-of-life matters. Although Huckabee appears unaware of it, that connection actually highlights the problem with the Republican stand on abortion. On top of that, both subjects are toxic to winning the 2016 election.

The other day, while making a speech at the Susan B. Anthony List, a 501 (c)4 anti-abortion organization, former governor of Arkansas Mike Huckabee attempted to play the "Scare the oldies" card. (It's been Fox News' bread and butter since its inception.)

As reported by Politico,

The former Arkansas governor and one-time presidential candidate said women typically cite hardship or inconvenience as their reason for getting an abortion — the same reasons that he said could be used to justify ending the lives of the elderly.

The same technique of scaring the senior voters was used by Sarah Palin in her death panel nonsense. Huckabee told the audience:

“If we teach the generation coming after us that it’s okay to terminate a human life because it represents a financial hardship or social disruption, what are we telling them?”

Huckabee is the kind of politician that doesn't fear to tread the paths where other GOP angels tend to slither away from.    

In this speech, Huckabee chided his compatriots for shying away from the subject of abortion which he sees as a sure-fire election-winning issue. (Somebody should have told him that according to a 2013 poll, seven in ten Americans oppose overturning Roe v. Wade)

Huckabee ironically is attempting to connect a pair of unpopular positions and is expecting some kind of political gain.

Beyond Flip-Flopping: Is Romney Just a Liar?

By Nomad

Here we are with only 193 days before the election night and Mitt Romney appears to have the Republican nomination wrapped up. This hellishly long vetting process, with endless, needless debates and primaries run amok, has been an inglorious examination of a variety of political failures. 

From Newt Gingrich's impossible pomposity and Rick Santorum's often unnerving tendency to sound as tolerant as your average Iranian mullah, to Rick Perry's bout with unexpected amnesia in mid-sentence. 

With all that maneuvering, jostling and elbowing, what has emerged out of the muck is a candidate who will, quite literally say anything to get elected. Although this tendency has long been a handicap of Romney, the history of modern American politics has perhaps not seen anything quite like this character. 

Whether the candidate of yore was liked or not, a voter could feel reasonably certain what his core values were. (There were exceptions, of course. Nixon for example.) 

With Romney, it has been a question of wind direction.