Rightwing Activists: Filibuster Sotomayor

Bring it on.

The White Party says filibuster the first Hispanic Supreme Court nominee. [In Wisconsin, the White Party says: Do not gather racial profiling data.]

The GOP did well in the deep south and Appalachia in the last election. But I think even the religious right might be getting tired of these guys.

From the Politico, Manu Raju reports:

Conservatives are demanding that Senate Republicans take a harder line on Sonia Sotomayor, with new signs of tension between the Hill GOP and elements of the Republican base over the direction the opposition should move in the Supreme Court fight.

In a letter to be delivered to Senate Republicans Tuesday, more than 145 conservatives – including Grover Norquist, Richard Viguerie and Gary Bauer — call for a filibuster of Sotomayor’s nomination if that’s what it takes to force a 'great debate' over judicial philosophy.

But as is clear, the the White Party hates a debate.

Nearly nine in ten (89 percent) Republicans are white with the vast majority of those people describing themselves as 'conservative' (63 percent). Just seven percent of Republicans are either Hispanic (five percent) or black (two percent).

The more the GOP listens to its base, the more it isolates itself.

No "Reagan Day," Say Some Guvs

Great piece in the Capital Times (Madison, WI) on the refusal of Gov. Jim Doyle (D-WI) and others to proclaim Feb. 6 (last Friday) as "Ronald Reagan Day."

Reagan was a fool whose utter lack of comprehension of the polices enacted were on display each time Reagan held a press conference.

Compare that with what we will see tonight as Pres. Obama holds his first prime-time news conference expected to be dominated by questions on the economy as today's news reveals that the "International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn said the world's advanced economies -- the U.S., Western Europe and Japan -- are 'already in depression.'"

The best that can be said of Reagan is that he was not George W. Bush, but he tried.

Some highlights from the lightweight's two terms as president:

- Huge expansion of the deficit and debt
- Declaring the country of Nicaragua such a threat to the United States' national security that Reagan proclaimed a state of "national emergency"
- Iran-Contra Gate

One can go on.

Reagan commissar Grover Norquist is quoted in the piece. Norquist is the intense Reagan cheerleader who wants more statutes, buildings, holidays and pictures of Reagan installed throughout the U.S. than Stalin ever had in the Soviet Union.

From the Capital Times' feel-good piece on Doyle's refusal to budge on Reagan:

Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle was one of only a handful of governors to deny recognition of the late president, according to the Ronald Reagan Legacy Project based in Washington, D.C.

'By refusing to honor President Reagan, Gov. Jim Doyle has put pusillanimous petty partisanship above patriotism,' said Grover Norquist, chairman of the group, in a press release. 'Ronald Reagan was a man loved by the American people and citizens abroad. Ignoring his legacy of leadership ignores the strength and value of freedom and democracy. Gov. Jim Doyle should be ashamed.'

Fifteen governors (14 Democrats and one Republican) refused to issue a proclamation. Five did not respond to the Ronald Reagan Legacy Project's request.

Thank you Gov. Doyle! Always said that you were a good man.

Political Psychopaths

Cannot recommend too strongly THE WRECKING CREW (sub. needed) How a Gang of Right-Wing Con Men Destroyed Washington and Made a Killing by Thomas Frank.

Of the Jack Abramhoff, Grover Norquist, Bush-Cheney regime, Frank Writes:

They have made a cult of outsourcing and privatizing, they have wrecked established federal operations because they disagree with them, and they have deliberately piled up an Everest of debt in order to force the government into crisis. The ruination they have wrought has been thorough; it has been a professional job. Repairing it will require years of political action.