Tea Party Debris: How Michele Bachmann has Made the GOP America's Spoof Party

by Nomad

If the Republicans have lost credibility among voters, they have only themselves to blame. Republicans should start asking why the Tea Party leaders like Michele Bachmann were allowed to make such a joke of their party? Where was the leadership?

We have all seen them and some of us have been fooled by them. Nowadays spoof news sites are everywhere on the Net, parodying the news. And these joke pieces can often sound quite convincing. I have seen endless rolls of roaring comments on FaceBook pages about news stories that were in fact completely imaginary.

As a blog writer who attempts to verify sources, it can be dangerous. I have very nearly used spoofed news as a source in the past before asking myself. "Does that even sound plausible?" Frankly, given the present state of politics in America at the moment, it's hard to know sometimes.

The Spoof that Wasn't

That's why when I saw this news story about Michelle Bachmann the other day, I hesitated and double-checked the source.  The title read:

Michele Bachmann Claims President Obama Wants To Use Unaccompanied Children For Medical Experiments

Reading and re-reading that headline, I was a little confused. After all, Right Wing Watch is most certainly not a news spoof site. The introduction seemed straight faced.

Rep. Michele Bachmann has a new theory about the unaccompanied minors fleeing violence in Central America who have come in large numbers to the southern U.S. border: they are future victims of a liberal plot to use unwilling children for medical experiments..

Finally I decided- against my better judgment- that this was not a joke. Bachmann had actually said this. 

(For the sake of my readership, I've decided not to reproduce her claims. Why? Simply because I am not qualified to explore the minds of lunatics. If you are interested in an analysis of her delusions and how she came up with this particular fixation, then go to the link above.)

  

From Laughing-Stock...

Fortunately, the number of people who take Bachmann totally seriously has probably always been small. However, like The Incredible Shrinking Man, Bachmann's audience may be microscopic but it never quite vanishes entirely. 

In the past, Michele Bachmann has shown that no allegation against Obama is too foul or insulting or outrageous to pass up. Her refusal to just say "No" to the addiction of nuttiness has made her a regular guest on the Fox News Network. Because of that, throughout the Obama administration, Bachmann has unintentionally made a laughing stock of the Republican party. 

Has GOP Vitriol Against President Obama Undermined Diplomacy and Emboldened Putin?

by Nomad

If Putin doesn't seem very worried about President Obama's warnings against Russian new expansionist policies, it shouldn't come as a shock. 

With the Republicans launching attack after attack on the President, attempting to undermine his authority, it's only natural that Putin wouldn't take the American president seriously.

Kent Schäfer, Outreach Program Director for Progressive Centralists, asks a important question in the op-ed piece below. By constantly painting the president as a weak leader, Schafer asks, have Obama's right wing critics and Putin admirers simply emboldened the Russian leader?

First, I believe that Sarah Palin's praise of Russian President Vladimir Putin, in concert with other harshly worded conservative statements, crafted to paint Barack Obama as weak  -- have played a significant role in the Russian proxy-invasion of the Crimean Peninsula, eastern Ukraine, and in the death of those killed in the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight-17. 

Do my thoughts come easily? Am I just lambasting my opponents with empty rhetoric? No. 

It hurts my patriotic soul to think that Americans, in an unabashed quest for fame and voter support, would undermine our country and our president and risk much to further their self serving "free speech" condemnation of our foreign policy. We (the U.S.) represent a chief obstacle to Putin's unlawful expansion by force throughout Europe —and not for a second should any American believe that Russian leaders and their Oligarchy would not continue to invade (by proxy) countries at will if unopposed; 

—the Kremlin is just waiting with 'baited breath' for the opportunity to protract their crescive regional power and exploit the natural and human resources of each fallen state as they go.

Pitchforks and Fundraising Pitches: How the Threat of Impeachment has Backfired on the GOP

by Nomad

After so much loose talk about impeaching President Obama, the GOP appears to be scoring own goals for Democratic campaign fundraising efforts.

In yet another example of a Republican self-inflicted wound, the Washington Post yesterday reported that, due to the threat of impeachment from top conservatives, the Democrats are cashing in big time.

Only Themselves to Blame
The Post article explained that the the Democrats' congressional campaign arm managed to rake in $2.1 million over the weekend, thanks, analysts say, largely because of the casual (and largely groundless) talk from House Republicans of impeaching President Obama.

Democrats have consistently used impeachment -- a prospect that has been floated by several prominent conservatives but has not been embraced by most of the Republican establishment -- to fill their campaign coffers and their polling has shown that fear of an impeachment attempt as well as the House GOP's current attempts to sue President Obama have the potential to drive midterm turnout on the left.

As the House Rules committee marched forward with a legal action against the president and his use of executive action, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has collected more than 114,000 donations since last Thursday.

If, fundraisers warn, the Democratic party loses control of both chambers of Congress, the next step will be impeachment.
Fear-mongering or a likely scenario? 

That depends on which side of the aisle you sit. Using the dread of a long and tiresome (and expensive) impeachment process- which could drag out for the remainder of Obama's presidency- appears to be a effective fundraising pitch for the Democrats.  

And the most humiliating part is that the successful pitch was laid in their laps by the Republican Tea Party rogues.