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GOP Strategist: Time to Talk Back to Rush
by Howard Kurtz Nov 19, 2012 8:40 PM EST
John Feehery says Republicans are a "flawed party"
John Feehery, a veteran Republican strategist, has a blunt message for his party: It’s time to stand up to “the Rush Limbaughs of the world.”
Taking aim at conservative talk show hosts, Feehery tells me in a video interview, “we cannot be cowed by them. When they say things that are culturally insensitive and stupid, we need to go after them.”
Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, among others, have a strong following on the right. But Feehery, a former House GOP official, says there is too much “inflammatory” rhetoric: “We can have honest, open discussions about the future of the country without unnecessarily jabbing our fingers in the eyes of Hispanic voters, African-American voters, Asian voters.”
What do voters think, Feehery asks, “when they hear right-wing luminaries say things that are completely outrageous and offensive, and you don’t stand up?” He also says some conservatives should knock off the “racial undertones” in criticizing President Obama.
Feehery believed Mitt Romney was going to win, but now says “he made so many mistakes during the campaign that were self-inflicted errors,” including the infamous 47 percent comment. “We had a flawed candidate; we have a flawed party,” says Feehery.
more:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/11/19/gop-strategist-time-to-talk-back-to-rush.html
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Turbineguy
(37,337 posts)It's the Limbaugh's and Hannity's of the world that help them lose elections. Well, that and just a few other things.
NewJeffCT
(56,828 posts)sad to say.
Mike Daniels
(5,842 posts)As a strategist he doesn't depend on the voters/public at large for his employment so he probably won't be cowed to retract his statements.
I've seen him on Hardball on MSNBC from time to time. He has a tendency to be a blow-hard but he tends to shoot pretty straight when someone from the Repubs does something stupid.
GeorgeGist
(25,321 posts)
xtraxritical
(3,576 posts)
ProudProgressiveNow
(6,129 posts)
lunatica
(53,410 posts)I'm an optimist. I think sooner or later they'll be forced to go back under the rocks they emerged from.
Sunlei
(22,651 posts)
tanyev
(42,559 posts)
Jackpine Radical
(45,274 posts)I suspect that any Republican politician who goes after Rush, Hannity, Beck, O'Loofah or anyone if that ilk will sorely piss off at least half of his potential voters without making any significant inroads into voters on the other side.
You just don't hang onto lunatic racists by deriding lunatic racism.
struggle4progress
(118,290 posts)
barnabas63
(1,214 posts)FAIL!
1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)What the modern gop has is a flawed political philosophy.
heaven05
(18,124 posts)and hopefully headed toward extinction.
Berlum
(7,044 posts)so patriotic Americans can finally follow through on the solutions -- blocked so stupidly and greedily and for so long by Republicans -- to America's real problems and challenges.
If chicken hawk Republicans will STFU and get out of the way, America will prosper. As usual.
aandegoons
(473 posts)Rush is his own self fulfilling prophecy. He is your only hope.
calimary
(81,298 posts)Glad you're here! There's nothing I'd like better than to see rush flushed! Only problem is, nature abhors a vacuum so there would certainly be many takers hoping to move in. That-guy-whose-name-rhymes-with-Vanity would be crowing about how he is now king. glenn beck would be, too. That ass michael savage now has the number-one hate-radio show in the country as limbaugh's bright light slowly dims. He's costing his syndicators a huge amount of money because that advertiser boycott after he lit into Sandra Fluke actually did draw blood. And it continues.
But then again, might be good to hope for the status quo with this bunch. A majority of them remain in denial and are convinced they just didn't message well enough. What they still don't get (and hopefully it'll finally be the end of them) is:
It's not HOW they messaged. It's WHAT they messaged. It's their ideas that suck. It's their policies that suck. It's their vision for a turn-time-back America to a fantasy moment that really never existed outside an "Ozzie and Harriet" soundstage. They're going to have to change their policies and their ideas and their agenda, and I doubt many of them are willing to do that, or even entertain the idea of it. After all, they're "right," and God is "on their side"! The rest of us know better.
Kber
(5,043 posts)and it can be summed up with the phrase "Hispanic voters, African-American voters, Asian voters", emphasis on "voters".
Or try this one: "American Consumers" or "American Job Creators".
Know what word is missing? "Citizens". Try the phrase again, but take out "voters" and insert "citizens". By emphasizing "voters", "consumers", "job creators" or even "workers", you emphasize what THEY can do for YOU as a politician.
If you put the emphasis on "citizens" you admit that the US leaders owe something to THEM, regardless of whether they vote for you, buy products from your donors, hire your friends or even work in your factories.
Citizens have rights. "Voters" need to trade favors for votes.
AllyCat
(16,188 posts)Otherwise, they don't give a rats' arse.
AlbertCat
(17,505 posts)Don't they tell Rush what to say in the 1st place?
From what I've heard, 95.5% of Rush's show is about Rush and how great he is. The rest are the talking points the GOP have given him. I mean, he didn't make that stuff up with his Oxy saturated brain.
GatorLarry
(55 posts)It's no coincidence that Pills Limbagh, Hannity, O'Reilly and Faux Noise all seem to speak about the exact same things in the exact same phrases at the exact same time. Like it's coordinated . . . which it is.
It's called the Right Wing Echo Chamber.
ProudProgressiveNow
(6,129 posts)where the talking points are coordinated from....
calimary
(81,298 posts)Yes. This is one giant machine. Very well-researched, very well-funded. And they do coordinate.
The bad guys - koch brothers and US Chamber and the shel adelsons and the like write the checks. They fund "think tanks" and "foundations" that were set up to develop and disseminate wrong-wing propaganda, design this wonderful alternate-reality world of theirs, and then talent-hunt, develop, and groom mouthpieces to go out and sell it in the media, whether it's Pox Noise, or CNN or ABC News or NBC or CBS, The "700 Club," or whatever. These are the Heritage Foundation, the Cato Institute, the Eagle Forum, the Family Research Council, the American Enterprise Institute - there are HUNDREDS of them by now. These are the foundational building blocks - the viper pits where the eggs are laid and the reptile-brain babies are hatched, fed, nurtured, and taught how to crawl and walk and fly.
That funding also supports "authors" like ann coulter, and of course, limbaugh and that-guy-whose-name-rhymes-with-Vanity and glenn beck and all these other assholes, providing them entree into their own publishing houses like Regnery Publishing and offshoots of Random House and other established imprints. Those authors crank out crank books full of nothing but shit, and then the same major funding sources buy truckloads of them, and those bulk buys then qualify them as best-selling authors. I remember when limbaugh had a TV show and his whole set was filled with stacks of his books. There was literally a WALL of books that stretched across his entire set. Well, your foundations or sponsors or wealthy sugar daddies buy those up and suddenly you've got thousands of sales and the New York Times puts you on its bestseller list. It's often noted as a "bulk buy," but it's still a buy.
Then those authors are encouraged to fan out over the talk show landscape, especially all those friendly talk and hate-radio shows - and get exposure, with their "credibility" as best-selling authors. They then start disseminating the shit they wrote to mass markets, while at the same time, they're writing columns for many friendly newspapers - mostly owned by the same handful of CONservative corporations, and of course they're frequent guests on "Meet the Press" and "Face the Nation" and other prestigious shows. They say things that friendly media pick up to do follow-up stories on, the following morning, and the talking points are allowed to spread.
These people are VERY media-savvy. Public-opinion mavens like frank luntz and other word-crunchers do focus-group testing on buzz phrases and campaign slogans and special word combinations and talking points, and then those are blast-faxed and emailed and texted and otherwise transmitted to all their operatives all over the media. Notice how at certain times, ALL the talking heads and talk show guests and guest commentators - ALL say the same things, same wording, same phraseology? Watch for it. I remember when all the "recruits" were saying the same "well, they counted, and then they counted again, and then they counted a third time..." during Selection 2000 when they were trying to stop the vote count so bush2 would win. Notice how every "good" entity is a "job-creating fill-in-the-blank-here"? And every bad entity is a "job-killing fill-in-the-blank-here"? Notice how you've started hearing people parrotting "makers and takers"? All those phrases and slogans and quick-hit catchy-as-hell bumper-sticker fodder start popping up on the radio, on cable and conventional TV, in print, online, at about the same time. And now, of course, they've got a whole frickin' cable NETWORK parrotting this same crap 24/7 to the angry old resentful white crank demographic.
Notice how all the same wording is being used by multiple different people from the Senate to the talk shows, criticizing Susan Rice? Notice how so many of them had the same pull-the-string-and-Chatty-Cathy-speaks stuff in criticizing President Obama, defending paul ryan, defending their policies, defending all kinds of crap, attacking on Benghazi, etc etc etc. Notice the same sentences coming out of their mouths all the time? Notice how when they're asked a point-blank question that's meant to rattle their conventional wisdom, they ALWAYS detour off to the talking points? I used to marvel at the way, whenever somebody brought up the divisions over a woman's right to choose - whoever wanted to take that right away would always start blabbing away about how "well, this is a VERY SERIOUS PROBLEM, and blah-blah-blah..." with a bunch of smoke and mirrors and fast talk that says NOTHING. But they'd never actually answer the question. Notice how their precious little token Latino, marco rubio, couldn't give a straight answer to the simple, fact-based question - "how old is the Earth?" He rattled on for several minutes in this convoluted verbal mess about how he's no scientist and well there's this idea and that idea and blah-blah-blah until the untrained ear starts drowning in that morass of words and you sort of get lost and forget and ... "now my next question is..." THIS IS ALL DESIGNED. THIS IS ALL DELIBERATE. It's TESTED, HOMOGENIZED, PROCESSED, AND PLANTED.
You've seen in this past election cycle how they even went so far as to set up their own polling people. "Unskewed Polls" is actually some asshole on the internet in his mom's basement artificially inflating GOP voter numbers so they "reflect more accurately" the pool of voters. HAS NO BASIS IN FACT!!!!! And for many, his miscreant "polling company" was covered as news and included in the same lists with PPP, Rasmussen, Gallup, Quinnipiac, and Nate Silver. And it was all PRETEND. MADE UP. BASED ON NOTHING!!!! Nothing but pure fantasy, with NO bearing on the real world, or facts, or even the most basic truths. They've sold us "trickle-down" this way for years. When objections are made and evidence or credible studies or other information is presented that disproves the point they're trying to drive home, they challenge and question and criticize the sources of that information and say they're bogus or biased or - "well OUR information says the opposite." There was this line in the movie "Network" where Robert Duvall says "you get your psychiatrists, I'll get mine." In the dispute over global warming, they dig up their own cockamamie "scientists" who'll say what they want said, and write papers and dissertations and presentations and op-ed pieces that say what they want said, and then point to that as evidence that THEIR take on global warming is the correct one.
They've spent about 40 years and probably a few trillion dollars by now, building this infrastructure. And it's so solid by now that they swallowed whole and declared as cold-hard-FACT the landslide victory that myth wrongney was going to enjoy, and it was nothing but a fictitious invention. And so many low-information voters are SO damned conditioned by now, that they bought that whole bill o' goods and now they're shell-shocked because they believed their own crap-filled nonsense, since they all live in this imaginary world that says liberals = BAD and CONs = good.
The machinery is really quite awesome and impressive, but it's a house built upon shifting sands rather than firm, solid rock - to use a metaphor they might actually understand. It's really quite sad, and pathetic. And horrifying - when you think how close they've come to taking over. wrongney never should have gotten within 10 points of President Obama. Shows you how many people are still fooled and totally taken in by this long-term snow job. It's a superstorm of the political kind, and it's going to take longer to clean up after - than Hurricane Sandy and Hurricane Katrina combined.
SnohoDem
(1,036 posts)That was one righteous, and unfortunately all too accurate rant! 
calimary
(81,298 posts)The frustrating thing is - there's SO MUCH MORE!!!
I didn't even get into how that side (led, I believe, by kkkarl rove) deliberately and resolutely went about destroying the credibility of the press. They had a multi-pronged approach, and it was, sadly, rather impressive, pretty damned effective.
1) They installed their own stooge, jeff gannon from the whack-job dude-at-his-computer-in-his-mom's-basement "Talon News" (excuse me, WTF is fucking "Talon News"???? I'm a retired journalist and I worked with a few of the people in the White House Press Corps, and this was blatant CRAP) IN the White House Press Corps who'd feed scott mcclellan and I think ari fleischer before him extreme softball questions, sometimes they were just statements he was venting. And he was thus able to help mcclellan or fleischer steer the line of questioning and manipulate or otherwise influence what other reporters might ask - and they'd hit paydirt every time somebody might take the bait and ask a follow-up. He was a phonied-up rogue, with NO credibility, background, or credentials, but somehow he got White House Press Credentials, AND rather liberal access to visit people in the White House, seemingly every time he wanted them. Secret Service logs often couldn't account for how long he was there, when he actually signed out (sometimes he didn't), where he went or whom he saw. But they sure had soundbites to sink their teeth into - that everybody else in regular and cable TV and radio dutifully took the bait and ran with in all subsequent news cycles.
2) judith miller. What a machine THAT was! New York Times reporter who'd built some prominence already, and she was let in on the stovepiping directly from unvetted intel to the Vice President's office because cheney and libby and his other little friends were routinely going over to the CIA, harrassing them and intimidating them for not coming up with enough credible intelligence to support their wish to go to war with Iraq. They developed the Office of Special Plans, and other entities to stovepipe any and all miscellaneous crap that came in (much of it, I'm sure, already rejected by well-trained career intelligence analysts as bogus or not reliable or from worthless or flaky sources) and bypass the hurdles that info ordinarily had to pass through. Then cheney or libby or somebody would call up judith miller and give her the latest "scoop." They'd time it with an eye toward the weekend. Then she would write it up, citing unnamed high-level White House sources, and there it'd be, on the front page of the SUNDAY New York Times, two-column, above the fold. So then you have this loud, sensational headline in the SUNDAY MORNING New York Times that all the bookers with "Meet the Press" and "This Week" and the other Sunday chat shows would want to jump on. And soon enough you'd have dick himself or contradicta or wolfowitz or rumsfeld or some other White House asshole booked on the shows, and they'd of course be on there to comment/react to the big lead story in the New York Times. And they'd say exactly that. "Well, it's reported in the New York Times and..." So then it would become, if you will, a defacto fact. Instant manufactured alleged "facts." And then the news cycle for the rest of Sunday and into Monday would be all about that manufactured, phonied-up story that they planted with their friendly reporter, the collaborator judith miller, who then got bragging rights for another scoop and another front page byline, so her stock automatically went up in the pecking order around the Washington press corps. Corpse is more like it. And they had lots of friends of lesser stature in the press corps.
3) Astroturfing. Fortunately a few people got wise to this one. Anybody seriously keeping track during that era could not help but start noticing how all these "random" letters to the editor were turning up, written allegedly by concerned taxpayers or citizens, that all said the same thing about whatever issue it was. It'd always be signed by a different name in each paper. But the wording, phrasing, whole paragraphs even, were cut 'n' pasted from one original. BUT IT LOOKED LIKE there were all these citizens, unrelated to each other, who were "concerned" about the same thing - in all kinds of small and medium-sized papers across the country, that editorial boards would see and conclude - "hey, this is a big issue," and "wow, look how many people oppose/support it..." and THAT THEN would be used as "proof" that large swaths of America really DID support the war, or really DID believe women didn't have the right to choose, or some such. It was only thanks to sharp eyes on the internet who started noticing how many Xeroxes these actually were, and how bogus they were.
4) As I referenced above, the "you get your psychiatrists, I'll get mine" ethic. Got lots of scientific data coming out about this global warming thing? Hmmm... the oil companies don't like it much. Well, there's two things we can do: one - opposition research to single out and discredit those in the scientific community, thus costing them legitimacy and credibility; and two - get our OWN "scientists" to come up with rebutting information. And conveniently enough, some of these were already on the payroll at the Heritage Foundation or the American Enterprise Institute, or could be bought, or had graduated from some cockamamie "university" like Liberty "University" or Regent "University" where they teach subjects like science and law through a Bible filter. And their own cook-the-books scientists come out and are offered to talk shows for bookings, and do get booked, they get their crank messages out and that becomes part of conventional wisdom to the angry old white crank crowd and the ostrich crowd (Proudly Keeping Their Heads Buried In The Sand Since 1978!) who are gullible and have come to rely on these bogus information streams as truth.
5) Pox Noise. Need I say more? Awfully easy to manufacture and sell your own version of "news" when you've got a whole 24/7 cable network to play with! That ground was laid starting at the end of the reagan era in 1987, when the restrictions on corporate ownership of media properties in any one market were lifted. Used to be, while I was still working, an individual or corporate owner could own no more than three properties per market - usually it wound up being an AM radio station and an FM station and a TV channel. They removed the restrictions before reagan's time went out, and that allowed all Hell to break out. Same thing that allowed limbaugh and others to flower. These owners could then own as much as they could afford to snap up, which is how we started getting mega-monopolies like ClearChannel...
It goes on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on...
And we've GOT TO STAY VIGILANT!!! A lot of America still doesn't realize, or accept, that they're being manipulated and lied to. More do by now. Many more in our country are slowly starting, to wise up. But back then, it was utterly HORRIBLE. Almost literally an information brokerage ICE AGE. EPIC snow job. Real true facts consigned to the deep freeze. We're only beginning to thaw.
coalition_unwilling
(14,180 posts)calimary
(81,298 posts)A special honor coming from you, coalition_unwilling!
But shit - it just freakin' burns me up! I take this probably a little too personally, but I just absolutely, positively, utterly, and unquestionably HATE what's happened to the industry in which I was so proud to work. I got in on the fired-up-by-Woodward-&-Bernstein wave during Watergate, and I marveled at what a powerful and awesome tool the news world was. I was so proud to be part of it. And look what these bastards have done to it! NO WONDER so many polls show so few Americans trusting the media anymore. These assholes deliberately shit all over it and left it out in the fresh air to dry out and cake on permanently. We used to expose this shit, rather than give it top billing on "Meet the Press" every Sunday - while genuflecting.
coalition_unwilling
(14,180 posts)prepared to repeat Vietnam, now transported from southeast Asia to central Asia. The blinders came off entirely in the run up to Operation Shocking and Awful (as I refer to OIL-Operation Iraqi Liberation) when 30 minutes of dedicated online research was all it took for me to ascertain two salient points: 1) There were no ties -- repeat ZERO ties -- between al Quaida and Iraq and 2) Iraq had no- repeat ZERO - weapons of mass destruction. I knew this as early as June of 2002 and waited in vain for the media to catch on and catch up. With the exception of a couple intrepid reporters for the McClatchy chain, no one in the mainstream reporting class ever did.
I've often fantasized about starting my own I.F. Stone's Weekly, but have reluctantly concluded that the day of the great print vehicles has since passed and that internet vehicles like TruthOut and DU have supplanted it and obviated any need for it. I suppose it is only fitting that American print journalism should die in the sands of the Middle East, the same sands where so many innocents perished. But I cannot help but regret the passing of a formerly great institution of American civic life.
jamtoday
(110 posts) calimary
(81,298 posts)Glad you're here - just generally speaking!
That's one thing I really seriously, maybe even severely appreciate about DU. It's helped me think and reason and analyze and connect the dots. When you look at how many wrongs there are - and how easily many of them are connected - it can just shake your world! And DU has been there for many of us when we've had crises in our lives. Sometimes when you just have to vent, or rant, or try to figure something out, there are people here ANY time of day or night. And if nothing else, they're here to remind you that you're not alone! And you can ask MANY of us who suffered through the anguish of Selection 2000 when the media turned into total lapdogs and wouldn't cover the truth. You had to come to the internet, and to places like this, in order to feel even a big normal. There was no - "am I crazy to think this?" It's like a veritable think tank here! Even more agonizing, though, is how many of us were mired in various levels of "am I crazy to think this?" And some years later it finally comes out that we were NOT ONE BIT crazy to think that - we were spot on.
It usually takes the mainstream media awhile to catch up with us here, whether it's reporting on other than sensationalist quick-hit cheap-shit news OR the serious, thoughtful, and meticulous analysis of events and people's motivations here. Glaring example: anything they're now saying in the mainstream media, pointing out and pondering the reality of the alternative universe built by the republi-CONS and neoCONS and all the rest of the CON-JOB perpetrators on Pox Noise and elsewhere? WE were talking about it in depth and detail HERE in DU - YEARS AGO.
jamtoday
(110 posts)I once had a passing discussion over whether the media complaining and deriding people for considering whether there were dots to join was a good thing or a bad thing. I generally came down on the side of the first, as Oscar Wilde wrote "there's only one thing worse than being talked about and that's not being talked about", so whilst questioning anything about policy one can be immediately labeled a 'conspiracy nut' those questioning and joining the dots at least receive what Thatcher, the doyenne of our Right Wing, called the oxygen of publicity.
They have to respond, and taking your theme of toxicity, they have to respond to an audience made cynical both by their politics and the manipulation and deadening of emotions. They've created the cynics, myself included, that cynicism now bites then in the ass. Perhaps the best part of the new interactivity of the social media and the forums is that it can bring out interaction not manufactured by vested interests and restore a smidgen of hope in humanity. That is the battle they have lost as, notwithstanding trolls, any agendas tend to be up front and not hidden once one sorts the aforementioned chaff from the wheat. Picking up your point it's especially valuable if you are surrounded by people who cannot or chose not to have any constructs over why things are going wrong, just have hysterias created and played on by being instructed things are wrong. Total passive aggressive behaviour patterns, with this they can substitute any surrogate for the true reasons and I feel that America is more aware than most of the violence and hatred such patterns can engender. Of course here one inserts the cliche, those that don't learn from.......
One thing I would contest is the idea that it takes a while for them to catch up when in reality many in the media hold on to information or are an even more insidious part of the problem, here you will know better than I the sort of figures I have in mind, so it's more a case of 'we can't repress it any longer' rather than them coming down with a sudden bout of integrity.
justabob
(3,069 posts)Excellent post regarding the right wing 'creating their own realities'. I don't remember now who said it (years ago), but they *do* create their own 'reality'.
loudsue
(14,087 posts)Racist, misogynist, ignorant, hateful religious hypocrites don't make a pretty bunch.
But do you really think these people are going to change? They have been stirred into a hateful lynch-mob by the likes of faux nooz, and NOW you want to try to get the toothpaste back into the tube?
edited because spell check and I really don't get along.
AllyCat
(16,188 posts)violence-inciting blowhards? The Republican Party is completely devoid of any sense of morality.
Loki
(3,825 posts)that part of the Republicon party will now commence to bury you. They don't want to change and they won't. You can't win without them, so you will succumb to the beast that you created.
DippyDem
(659 posts)Marr
(20,317 posts)marginalize or possibly even destroy hate radio and I would say, Fox News. These outlets have empowered the loony wing of their party, and made the Birch Society nuts into the face of the GOP.
If they're fine being a regional, obstructionist party and nothing more, fine. But if they ever want to play on the national level again, the fact is they're going to have to fundamentally change their tone and walk their policies back several paces to the left.
barbtries
(28,798 posts)it just doesn't matter if the country goes to hell. all that matters is are the republicans winning. i despise them. deeply.
Surya Gayatri
(15,445 posts)I despise them, but I fear their amoral money more.
Such obscene, unprecedented wealth in the hands of a relative few madmen is a danger to the survival of humanity.
barbtries
(28,798 posts)that sounds like hyperbole but it really is.
DallasNE
(7,403 posts)White males angry without the "racial undertones". If they are not angry they might end up voting their pocketbook, after all.
And how easy to blame "a flawed candidate" when few of his flaws were ever pointed out. We did see some of the "flawed party" when they voted out Sen. Lugar (R-IN) and lost that Senate seat but that hardly brought Romney down since he won Indiana. What they had was a severely flawed message of constant lies like the Jeep is moving all production to China and a set of flawed proposals that surrogates like Bill Clinton were so easily able to shoot down. In the end, no Republican could have won when saddled down with all of the baggage that Romney was saddled down with. Romney was, after all, more well spoken than either John McCain or George W. Bush before him so they actually need to cut Romney a little slack here.
is to take Chrysler and GM and use those two industries as an example to blow a hole into the Republicans argument on tax cuts. Chrysler and GM are now acting responsibly.
The same philosophy that Republicans attached to teachers, should be attached to businesses instead of teachers. President Obama was going in the right direction by attaching tax credits to businesses performance on creating jobs in the United States instead of abroad. The problem with American Businesses, is they show no responsibility to American workers or the American economy by holding on to enormous profits or taking jobs out of this country for cheaper labor. Tax laws should punish them and give more incentive to those creating jobs here. Not giving them tax credits to create jobs over seas will in fact gain more revenues if they choose to do so. Whatever incentive a Foreign Government give them can be recooped by the U.S. Government. That would give companies less incentive to create jobs off shore. Instead, they will resort to taking advantage of the incentives here. President Obama should stick to that plan and that should be their compromise.
AgingAmerican
(12,958 posts)...begging Rush for forgiveness?
NOLALady
(4,003 posts)if he would feel the same way if the Repubs had successfully stolen the election. Would he still think
It’s time to stand up to “the Rush Limbaughs of the world.”
If the Repubs had won, I think they would have doubled down on the "Southern Strategy".
oswaldactedalone
(3,491 posts)the white guys left who feel the finger jabbed in the eye by these un-American dickheads.
SouthernDonkey
(256 posts)They act like there are no white male Democrats who aren't offended by their bullshit, skewed ideology!
I'm a middle aged white male from Mississippi. They act like we don't exist. HA! Think again assholes!
riverbendviewgal
(4,253 posts)For these pundits stop saying things that are False, that are outright lies. They never want to admit they say lies.
fightthegoodfightnow
(7,042 posts)Joining the chorus after the fact does not make him courageous or even inciteful. That call was already made by the voters.
Great to hear him say now, but his currency is cheap. Thanks for posting though.
SemperEadem
(8,053 posts)Unforced Errors a while back... and that is an apt name for them.
they suffer from the mentality of this country throughout the last 200 or so years--being afraid of the most powerful person in their community. Their masses were afraid of standing up to them out of fear of ostracizing and having their house burned down around them while they slept by the minions of said powerful person.
Look at them: anytime in the last year when something outrageous was said by Limpfuck, et al, what did their leadership do? Ran for cover. None of them stood up and said "Basta!" Not a one. McCain refused to rein in spalin when she went on her racist rants at HIS rallies (http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/04/palin-obama-is-palling-around-with-terrorists/) and further to allude that there is such a place as a "real America" (http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/17/campaign.wrap/).
When the audience at the thug primary debate boo'd a military veteran (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/22/republican-debate-dadt-repeal-rick-santorum_n_977105.html), not a one of them, who was plumping for the "Commander in Chief" job stood up and defended that soldier as a Commander should have done. They all displayed breathtaking cowardice. When they cheered someone dying because he had no health insurance to cover his costs, Ron Paul basically giggled--and he had someone very high up on his staff die due to lack of having insurance so he could be treated for something for which medicine is available to treat him ( http://gawker.com/5840024/ron-pauls-campaign-manager-died-of-pneumonia-penniless-and-uninsured).
That is a broken moral compass--therefore, they are not fit to lead.
The thug leadership has allowed these idiots to divide their party and then to sit back and let them take over their party... so they let them in and now, they've ruined everything. And they actually have the nerve to wonder "how did this happen?" while the pink elephant in the room is shitting all over their heads. Even with an election done and settled, they still won't give up on divisive policies==in WI, they're talking about further eroding voting rights for minorities (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/11/20/1163508/-Scott-Walker-Resumes-the-Republican-War-on-Voting-Rights).
They just don't know when to stop.
The sleeping giant is awake now. It's seen what these people have tried to do over the course of the last 3 years in this country and the boldness with which they attempted to carry it out 3 weeks ago. It's not going back to sleep now. I think that the midterms are going to be a further thumping if the thugs do not change their policies from regressive to more progressive, especially socially. No one is hearing that mess about stripping women of more of their rights; no one is hearing that mess about minorities having to jump through more hurdles in order to vote.
Get on the train, sit down and get out your tickets... or get off and get rolled over if you choose to sit in the way of progress. We are moving forward, never backwards. Go home and never venture out if you want time to stand still.
ProudProgressiveNow
(6,129 posts)
NRaleighLiberal
(60,014 posts)
BlueStreak
(8,377 posts)If they go after him, he just goes more teabaggy:
So there you have it friends. The 'establishment' Republicans -- you know, the same guys that were right there with Obama running up trillions of dollars in debt that you good white people will have to pay, and the same people who rolled over to allow Obama care to come in and ruin the best health care system the world has ever known, and the same ones who agree with Obama you you good white people should have to pay for birth control for all the sluts out there -- they are coming after me. And WHY are they coming after me? Because they know I speak the truth to you every day, and they don't want you to know the truth ... (blah, blah. blah)
If they really want to move on, they will have to do something about Faux.
MaynardGeeKrebs
(31 posts)How big of Feehery to propose challenging (or at least giving the appearance of challenging) the racially "inflammatory" rhetoric being spewed forth from conservative talk show hosts.
That it is even necessary for him to say, “We can have honest, open discussions about the future of the country without unnecessarily jabbing our fingers in the eyes of Hispanic voters, African-American voters, Asian voters.” demonstrates how bad things are within the Republican Party. But it doesn't go far enough.
I have a suggestion for Feehery. How about challenging them when they spew utter lies and wild-ass conspiracy theories. You know, it's even possible to have honest, open discussions about the future of the country without unnecessarily jabbing your fingers in the eyes of people with functioning brains.
bbgrunt
(5,281 posts)who have been disrespected.
In the video, the interviewer puts forward 'women and Latinos' as particularly marginalised.
maddiemom
(5,106 posts)That gawdawful critical thinking is creeping in! Could we all be doomed?
Andy Stanton
(264 posts)Right wing racists are the heart and soul of the Republican party. If the party stopped catering to racists they would simply form their own party and thus split the conservative vote, making the Democrats more dominant.
LiberalFighter
(50,942 posts)You can't have an honest, open discussions about the future of the country when you all lie and have a hidden agenda that harms everyone else.
RBInMaine
(13,570 posts)CHANGE YOUR POLICIES. It can not just be empty lip service and tokenism. You need to sincerely COMPROMISE or you can continue to say GOODBYE to your party.
Doctor_J
(36,392 posts)Translation: We need to be more politically correct.
libdem4life
(13,877 posts)Their useful life is very short.
ThoughtCriminal
(14,047 posts)because it's the only way they know how to defend outrageous policies.
yellowcanine
(35,699 posts)My money is on Hannity for whine intensity and on Limbaugh for the longest whine interrupted by the most commercials.
Doctor_J
(36,392 posts)These steaming turds have lived by the hatred for 25 years. Now all of a sudden they've taken the pledge. Psst...here's a clue. The worst candidate for president in a century almost won because of Limpballs and the rest of the hate brigade. The only reason anyone voted for Rmoney was hatred for Obama. They'll dial it UP, not down.
Filthy hypocrites.
AlinPA
(15,071 posts)
RandySF
(58,884 posts)Every time a Republican member of Congress talks back to Rush they wind up apologizing.
PoliticalBiker
(328 posts)Ain't that the truth!
Reason enough to hold it in contempt of truth, honesty and transparency... and have them disbanded.
forestpath
(3,102 posts)davidpdx
(22,000 posts)Flawed candidate..flawed party...waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh!
I hope they don't shut Lush Limpballs up. I want them to continue to shoot themselves in the foot.
Besides it's so much fun to watch.
DFW
(54,397 posts)“We can have honest, open discussions about the future of the country without unnecessarily jabbing our fingers in the eyes of Hispanic voters, African-American voters, Asian voters.”
No, you can't. You demonstrated that clearly enough in the 2012 Republican primaries around the country.
Like the bad guy in the Dirty Harry movie said, "Who's 'WE,' sucker?"
Limbaugh and Hannity ARE your party. Voices of reason are now considered the lunatic fringe. Ryan, Mourdock and Akin are the Republican mainstream. Huntsman is not. Lugar is not. Feehery is not, either. When Fox goes off the air due to lack of viewer interest, THEN I'll believe that Republicans have detected a flaw in their party. Until then, their mainstream considers guys like Feehery the flaw.
