Why I am sick of the right, and why I probably will not be voting this year

Why? Because I am sick of the right and all the noise and bluster coming out of the right this year. It is not that I agree at all with President Obama’s policies, but I am so sick of the now that I see no reason I should bother to support — or even give the illusion of support — by voting for a Republican.

Why am I sick of the right? Well, consider the following:

The three antis

The following three items have essentially come to make up 95% of the noise coming out of the right this year, with all the noise being demagogic and disgusting:

Anti-immigration

Illustrated perfectly by the recent law enacted by the state of Arizona and the lies propagated by its supporters:

Governor Jan Brewer of Arizona has stated their police have found many decapitated bodies in the Arizona desert, with the implication that it is a result of illegal immigrants.
Fact: Multiple medical examiners in Arizona have stated there have been no reports of immigration-related decapitated bodies.

Crime is at record levels on the U.S. side of the United States-Mexican border.
Fact: Crime in most places on the border is at a four-year low.

Citizens on the border don’t feel safe.
Fact: According to a recent poll, 87% of border residents said that they felt safe.

And then add in stuff like claims that  so-called “anchor babies” are part of some massive Islamic terrorist plot, politicians calling for illegal immigrant interment camps, and a proposal by a Florida GOP gubernatorial hopeful that any non-citizen carry papers or be thrown in jail.

It’s nice to see that the party that calls Obama a “communist”, a “socialist”, and a “Marxist”, is trying to turn the United States into the Soviet Union or Nazi Germany.

Anti-Muslim bigotry

While the so-called “Ground Zero mosque” has been in the news a lot, there is a much larger problem.

On the “Ground Zero mosque”, which is two blocks away from Ground Zero, Republicans have yet again shown themselves to be this country’s biggest enemy of private-property rights (something that I have known to be true locally for years). Republicans railed against the Kelo decision, but now you have a GOP gubernatorial candidate in New York promising to use eminent domain to seize the property that the proposed mosque is to be built on.

But anti-Muslim protests have expanded into Connecticut, Tennessee, California, and Wisconsin. And now we have the head of the American Family Association saying that no mosques should be allowed to be built anywhere in the country and the GOP Lieutenant Governor of Tennessee referring to Islam as a “cult”.

The Republican Party, including its leaders like Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin, want to shred the Constitution, along with its protections of freedom of religion and private property.

Anti-gay bigotry

If you have followed the response to the Prop. 8, you know what I’m talking about: Prop. 8 proponents talking about how gay marriage is going to destroy the country (people have seriously said that).

So, let me get this straight: This country has survived for over 200 years, through its revolutionary war, a civil war, two World Wars, a 40+ year Cold War, miscellaneous wars, conflicts, and interventions, and letting a couple thousand gay couples marry is going to the destroy the country? Uh, yeah, right. Anyone else not buying that?

In addition, you have the proponents of Prop. 8, and opponents of the federal court ruling, that are intentionally misrepresenting the case. They keep claiming that the court ruling will compel churches to do ceremonies for gay couples. And I, for one, do not believe that these people are so stupid they cannot understand the difference between a court ruling saying a state government cannot discriminate against someone versus the a ruling saying a church cannot. They are categorically misrepresenting the decision by Judge Walker in California to fearmonger and demagogue. Or, you can draw the conclusion that they think the church is the state and vice versa. Pick your poison.

And these are the same people that want to recriminalize sodomy, think that “Hitler used gay soldiers because they ‘basically had no limits and the savagery and brutality they were willing to inflict on whomever Hitler sent them after'”, and God only knows what else.

But these folks actually believe it. How scary is that? And Republicans constantly claim to be the party of limited government (ad nauseam), but they think they should have the power to throw gays — or any other group that has the slightest difference in their ‘moral’ outlook — in jail. You are either for limited government or not, you cannot call yourself an advocate for limited government on the fiscal side, and then propose using the government to persecute people who do not follow your exact opinion on ‘social’ issues, but have committed no crime.

The rhetoric

In part, this is an extension of some of the stuff mentioned before. You cannot go five minutes without someone calling Obama a “Marxist”, “socialist”, “Nazi”, etc. Throw in the rhetoric about immigrants, Muslims, and gays, and you have a trifecta of demagoguery that makes me want to vomit when I hear it. And why should I support people who engage in and use this rhetoric and act as though they are speaking for me?

The anti-intellectualism

How else do I describe people who believe anything that gets posted on the internet or forwarded to them an e-mail? These people believe that the federal court ruling on Arizona’s immigration law was unconstitutional because some idiot on the internet doesn’t know the difference between a court having original jurisdiction and exclusive jurisdiction.

And then there’s the tea-party websites that are believe anything e-mail to them and too lazy to do a Google Search to see if something is true or could be easily refuted with five minutes of looking.

The crazies

And then there’s the crazies out there that have become one with the Republican Party. This past Tuesday illustrated this perfectly: Nathan Deal, a Birther who has made comments about “ghetto grandmothers”, was nominated as the Republican gubernatorial nominee in Georgia. In Colorado, Dan Maes, who thinks that bicycling is a United Nations plot to take over local governments in the United States, was nominated as the Republican gubernatorial nominee.

And then there is Sharron Angle (Republican nominee for Senate in Nevada), who by all indications, may be a Christian Fundamentalist.

And you can throw in the other hard-right social-cons into this group too. And I’m talking about the people who literally believe that the United Nations is coming to take their kids, who will give them to gay couples that will molest them. And that’s not an exaggeration, there are people in the Republican Party that believe that.

Locally

And then we turn to the local candidate for me, Congressman Rob Wittman. I supported Wittman during the primary, in part because he was running against that nut Catherine Crabill.

But, now, I see no reason to bother to vote for him this November. Wittman talked constantly during the primary season about how he was all for cutting the size of government and reducing government inefficiency.

But, like every other “fiscal” conservative or Republican out there, while they talk about reducing the size of government, when it comes to cutting something that is inside their district, or may affect their district, all their talk goes out the window. I’m speaking of Wittman’s various and repeated comments about SecDef Robert Gates’s plans to disband the Joint Forces Command in Norfolk, Virginia.

Supposedly, Wittman’s a huge fan of reducing the size, scope, and extraneous redundancy in government, right? But, like every other politician out there, he doesn’t have the fortitude to actually follow through and do it.

Time to execute some POSes.

FOX News:

The Supreme Court upheld the most common method of lethal injections executions Wednesday, clearing the way for states to resume executions that have been on hold for nearly 7 months.

The justices, by a 7-2 vote, turned back a constitutional challenge to the procedures in place in Kentucky, which uses three drugs to sedate, paralyze and kill inmates. Similar methods are used by roughly three dozen states.

The governor of Virginia lifted his state’s moratorium on executions two hours after the high court issued its ruling.

I say we start with John Allen Muhammad and Paul Warner Powell. (Yes, I know they both have pending appeals.)

We can’t deport the criminals, but we can deport thousands back to a country controlled by a communist regime.

AP:

Washington has started deportation proceedings against thousands of Vietnamese living illegally in the United States under a pact between the two countries, a top U.S. immigration official said Tuesday.

Julie Myers, director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, eased the fears of some Vietnamese groups about the plan, saying those who have lived in the U.S. for more than 13 years would not be deported.

The repatriation pact applies to Vietnamese who entered the U.S. illegally after the former foes normalized relations in 1995. Some critics had expressed concern the agreement could include others who entered the U.S. in the 70s and 80s.

[…]

More than 1.5 million Vietnamese – the largest population outside Vietnam – live in the U.S. Many fled their native country in boats after the Vietnam War ended in 1975 and northern communist forces took control of the former South Vietnam, which the U.S. had backed.

Classy, ICE, Classy.

Wait a second, how can ICE say they’re going to be deporting people from a certain ethnic group without it being considered racial profiling?

Scientists are idiots, and here’s the proof:

From The Guardian: Scientists link diabetes drugs to heart failure:

Two of the most commonly used drugs for diabetes, which were taken by hundreds of thousands of mostly overweight people in the UK last year, are causing widespread heart failure, scientists warn today.

Use of the drugs, prescribed by doctors for type II diabetes, has doubled in the past three years as a consequence of a growing obesity problem. Last year 1.8m prescriptions were written across the UK, which scientists say equates to several hundred thousand patients taking the drugs which are recommended for use across the NHS by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice).

But researchers today call on Nice to think again, revealing that as many as one in every 50 patients taking the drugs Avandia (rosiglitazone) and Actos (pioglitazone) over a period of 26 months will have to be hospitalised for heart failure.

The class of drugs, they say in the journal Diabetes Care, doubles the risk of heart failure, and even those with no history of heart problems are affected.

[…]

He and his American colleagues pooled data from 78,000 patients who have taken the drugs, some of them during the manufacturers’ trials. They also looked closely at the cases of 200 people who suffered heart failure and found they were not people who were obviously at risk.

“Most patients in the studies did not have heart failure prior to starting on treatment with these drugs,” said Dr Loke. “There doesn’t seem to be a group of patients who are safe from these side-effects.”

[…]

Alastair Benbow, European medical director for GlaxoSmithKline, said of the study: “It is well recognised that the class of drug can cause fluid retention. It is wholly different from the issue raised previously about heart attacks and cardiovascular deaths.”

He said fluid retention could be resolved if the patient was well monitored and prescribed diuretics. Even heart failure could be treated in hospital. “What is missing here is the benefit these drugs provide.” The drugs kept blood sugar levels low, preventing serious effects of the disease such as blindness and amputations, he said.

And why is this proof that scientists are idiots? Well, according to the American Diabetes Association (ADA) [emphasis wholly mine]:

[…] 2 out of 3 people with diabetes die from heart disease and stroke.

And if you are diagnosed with diabetes even without taking any drugs, especially type 2 diabetes (since you are already overweight), you are already at risk for heart disease you morons.

Hat tip: Matt “threat to democracy” Drudge

Dissecting an article, line by line…

From the AP via My Way: Plame Lawsuit Dismissed in CIA Leak Case:

Plame, the wife of former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, had accused Vice President Dick Cheney and others of conspiring to disclose her identity in 2003. Plame said that violated her privacy rights and was illegal retribution for her husband’s criticism of the administration.

Poor babies, you attack someone (by lying) and you’re supposed to be a protected class. Grow up.

U.S. District Judge John D. Bates dismissed the case on jurisdictional grounds and said he would not express an opinion on the constitutional arguments.

Bates dismissed the case against all defendants: Cheney, White House political adviser Karl Rove, former White House aide I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby and former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage.

Why is it the real leaker, a gossiper, is the last one named?

[…]

Plame’s identity was revealed in a syndicated newspaper column in 2003, shortly after Wilson began criticizing the administration’s march to war in Iraq.

Criticizing the administration by lying, The Honorable Joe “I didn’t even file a written report” Wilson.

[…]

“This case is not just about what top government officials did to Valerie and me.” Wilson said in a statement. “We brought this suit because we strongly believe that politicizing intelligence ultimately serves only to undermine the security of our nation.”

Politicizing intelligence like you did?

Bates also sided with administration officials who said they were acting within their job duties. Plame had argued that what they did was illegal and outside the scope of their government jobs.

If it was illegal, why isn’t Armitage in prison right now? Apparently, rebutting criticism is against the law if done against The Honorable Joe Wilson.

[…]

Bates, a former Whitewater prosecutor, was appointed to the bench in 2001 by Bush.

He better hide from the media and the “nut roots“.

If I had the money these people have…

From the St. Petersburg Times: Cigarmakers in a panic:

It’s no mathematical error: The federal government has proposed raising taxes on premium cigars, the kind Newman’s family has been rolling for decades in Ybor City, by as much as 20,000 percent.

As part of an increase in tobacco taxes designed to pay for children’s health insurance, the nickel-per-cigar tax that has ruled the industry could rise to as much as $10 per cigar.

“I’m not sure in the history of man, since our forefathers founded the country in 1776, that there’s ever been a tax increase of 20,000 percent,” said Newman, who runs the Tampa business founded by grandfather Julius Caesar Newman. “They had the Boston Tea Party for less than this.”

[…]

Here’s the source of the controversy: The Democrat controlled Congress has sought an extra $35-billion to $50-billion for the state children’s health insurance program. The program distributes payments to the states to help buy coverage for kids not poor enough for Medicaid.

[…]

A U.S. Senate version of the bill under consideration today in the Finance Committee sets the maximum tax per cigar at $10.

[…]

The Bush administration may inadvertently come to the industry’s aid. The president has vowed to veto the bill, not over the cigar provision but over objections to expanding federally financed health care for the non-indigent.

Apparently, $2,662,000,000,000 isn’t enough money for the federal government.

Looks like a duck, swims like a duck and quacks like a duck…

It must not be a duck, from Los Angeles’ CBS 2: Rape Trial Order Angers L.A. Victim’s Family:

The father of a San Fernando Valley college student said his daughter is being railroaded by a Nebraska judge who has ordered her not to use the word “rape” on the witness stand at the trial for a man accused of having sex with her against her will.

[…]

Last week in Lincoln, Neb., Tory Bowen was ordered by a judge to sign a written order that would compel her not to use the word rape at the retrial of the man accused of having intercourse with her when she was intoxicated.

[…]

A jury at his first trial could not return a verdict, and at a pretrial hearing for the retrial, Lancaster County District Court Judge Jeffre Cheuvront ordered all witnesses to avoid the words victim, assailant and rape, and to not use the terms sexual assault kit or sexual assault nurse, at the second trial.

George Orwell would be proud.

Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ