Tagged: hypocrits

Posted: February 24, 2011 at 7:19 am

Gossip for Your Weekend Cocktails

First, strong words from Wulfgar at A Chicken Is Not Pillage”

The next time some right wingnut tells you how the state is, you know that they’re lying or ignorant or both.

He makes the case for the statement well in this must read post.  And if your friends are wondering what the GOP is saying about all the national negative attention,the post provides some great fodder for conversation in the form of a summary of what Montana’s rightwing blogs are saying(so we don’t have to go there.)

Second, are you heading out with some outdoor loving friends this weekend?  Chat up your friends over beers on the deck at Great Divide with some of the latest and most intelligent discussion of Montana’s climate change denier (Note: He denies climate change is true, but if it is true, global warming is great stuff).

Finally, the item everyone will be talking about  and the one thing you don’t want to miss listening to is the prank call to WI Gov Scott Walker by a gonzo journalist pretending to be national TEA Party bankroller David Koch:

Posted: February 21, 2011 at 7:28 am

Public Outcry Over GOP Hypocrisy, Lack of Focus on Jobs, Increases

This weekend, letters to the editor appeared in Sunday dailies across Montana decrying the focus of Montana TEA Party Republicans in the legislature on frivolous, anti-worker, unnecessary and hypocritical bills instead of jobs.

In Billings, Republicans raise hypocrisy to art form:

The governor proposes a balanced budget; Republicans counter with $497 million in cuts, but then increase their own per diem expenses. They vehemently oppose health care reform, but then enhance their own personal health insurance benefits. They propose business tax reductions, but underfund education, thereby increasing college tuition and forcing us to raise taxes through local school mill levies.

In Helena, Actions, rhetoric don’t match

In its rhetoric, the Republican Party claims to be the party of small government. The reality — at least as reflected in bills proposed in the Montana Legislature this session — suggests something else. Among the Republican proposals are several bills that intrude on privacy rights and individual liberties, including ones to require unnecessary medical tests (ultrasounds before abortions) and mandatory counseling (for couples seeking divorce). Other Republican-sponsored bills seek to take local control away from municipalities (overturning Missoula’s nondiscrimination ordinance) and from school districts.

In Butte, Sales opinion Tea Party spin

Americans for Prosperity and its hyped populist Tea Party, was started by the oil industry billionaire Koch Brothers of Koch industries, along with Rupert Murdoch who owns FOX News, and other lesser multimillionaires according to www.SourceWatch.org. Using such secretive front groups as AFP, these extreme right wing elites are engaged in a well-planned strategy to destroy unions, the presidency and the environment.

Even the Great Falls Tribune editorial page got in on the action:

We’ll close today with a 10-point code that we think ought to be the dominant topic in the Capitol right now:

Jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs.

Posted: February 8, 2011 at 7:56 pm

The Hypocri-lypse Is Now – UDPATED

The hypocrisy exhibited by Republicans this session is so astounding it can hardly be described.  But what we’re seeing from those in the GOP seeking to court the TEA party wing goes even beyond hypocrisy and can only be called fraud.

Salon explicated the fraud brilliantly here:

GOP limited government rhetoric is simply never matched by that Party’s conduct, especially when they wield power.  The very idea that a political party dominated by neocons, warmongers, surveillance fetishists, and privacy-hating social conservatives will be a party of “limited government” is absurd on its face.  There literally is no myth more transparent than the Republican Party’s claim to believe in restrained government power. For that reason, it’s only a matter of time before the fundamental incompatibility of the “tea party movement” and the political party cynically exploiting it is exposed.

There are multitudinous examples of the fraud and hypocrisy exhibited by the GOP this session and other bloggers have written about them here and here.  Still, the hypocrisy is so outrageous that I can’t resist adding to the discussion.  As Wulfgar points out, House Bill 280, by Rep. Pat Ingraham, R-Thompson Falls, and SB 176 by Sen. Rowlie Hutton (R-Havre) both insert politicians right in the middle of what should be internal doctor-patient, and personal and/or family decisions only.

The GOP’s general philosophy seems to be “Protect the ‘unborn.’  After you’re born, f*ck off.”  The point hasn’t been lost on Rep. Carolyn Pease-Lopez, a strong advocate for children and families, when she expressed her intent to oppose yet another intrusion into womens’ medical privacy and personal family decisions.

As the Helena IR reports:

Rep. Carolyn Pease-Lopez, D-Billings, her voice cracking, chided Republicans for supporting the bill.

“I hope we have just as much compassion for the unborn as the children who are already born,” she said. “I cannot ask you to change your mind, but I can ask you to reconsider how you treat us after we’re born. I ask you to do this.”

She’s talking, of course about the $500 million that Republicans have cut from the Public Health and Human Services budget already this session.

Another couple of examples of the fraud come from Greg Hinkle (R, also of Thomson Falls).  Hinkle has two different bills (SB169 and SB 116) to do the same thing, overturn a court decision prohibiting politicians from interfering in private personal end-of-life decisions.

Matt Singer has a great take on the idiocy at Left In the West:

The tea party Republicans, having run and won on a platform of limited government and economic development, are largely dedicating themselves to invasions of personal freedom and the advancement of pre-Civil War legal theories. That’s when they’re not undertaking full-fledged assaults on the U.S. Constitution.

Whether you call it fraud or hypocrisy, their plans are likely to backfire, making our Republicans the laughingstocks of the nation.

UPDATE:  Apparently the Montana GOP’s policies are already garnering national attention for ridiculousness, as Lynn pointed out in the comments.   Guess which nutball bill is among the first to be highlighted?