Republicans Confirm Move to Parallel Universe

WASHINGTON (D:O) -- While their party leaders proudly unveiled the presentation folders for their details-to-follow "Road to Recovery" budget alternative, anonymous sources within the Republican Party quietly conceded today that the GOP soon will move "lock, stock and barrel of tax cuts" to a separate universe "where no one can ever again attack our plan as the 'Road to Ruin.'"

One source explained: "We're moving everybody and everything--within certain limits--to a much better world. It's a parallel universe where no one will ever have to pay taxes, and there are no pesky poor people, homeless veterans and unemployed middle-class families to gum up our strategies. It's a world open to those solid citizens who make $100,ooo and up, on a steady basis."

The name of the parallel universe, the source added, is still being debated within party circles.

"Some want to call it 'Rushmore,' and some want to call it 'Jindalville.'" A conference committee is attempting to come up with a compromise, another GOP source emphasized.

Not everyone likes the move, the second anonymous source conceded. "A number of Republicans who make less than $100,000 say they feel betrayed and may become Democrats. Or Libertarians. Or Communists. Their point is that they can't stay in the Republican Party if it insists on leaving them behind in this reality."

-- B.W. "Blanque" Page, Washington correspondent for Dateline:Oblivion.

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The Republican Ticket from Hell

According to CNN Political Ticker, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal is defending Republicans who want President Barack Obama to fail. He has joined conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh in wishing aloud that the President's efforts to rescue the American economy will flounder, so that millions upon millions of people will suffer and somehow, magically, sweep the G(NO!)P back into power.

So, there you have it: The G(NO!)P ticket in 2012 will be Jindal/Limbaugh or Limbaugh/Jindal.

Either way, it will be the political ticket from hell.

Gov. Jindal and radio-mouth Limbaugh keep talking past the point that if the President's efforts fail, the havoc set in motion by the Bush era (and the Bush errors) will leave the nation severely damaged, and much of the resulting destruction will be directly tied to, and properly blamed upon, Republicans' obstructionism and resistance in this time of crisis.

"NO!" is not an economic plan. But it will look great on campaign bumperstickers: "Bobby & Rush in 2012? Just Say NO!"


-- Si Dunn

It's the BushCheneyRoveLimbaugh Economy, Stupid

It's funny--yet not really funny at all--how the current economic crisis suddenly exploded into public view just a few short weeks before the end of the Bush-Cheney-Rove-Limbaugh Administration. And lawmakers were given something like one week to come up with massive amounts of bailout cash, or else the American and world economies would all swirl down the tube like a flushed toilet.

Conspiracy theorists might postulate that Republican insiders were frantically trying to keep the meltdown hidden until BushCheneyRoveLimbaugh made it out of office, so the economy then would implode just after President Barack Obama was inaugurated. And Democrats would get all of the blame for the collapse just as they tried to put forth their agenda of change and help for the downtrodden middle class and poor.

Anyway, it all blew up on the GOP's watch, and the elephant boys now are feeling the wrath from people all over America and the world while they frantically try to deflect the criticism toward President Obama--and make it "his" economy.


“Never underestimate the capacity of angry populism in times of economic stress,” Robert Reich, a professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and labor secretary under President Bill Clinton, recently told the New York Times. “A big challenge for President Obama will be to maintain a rational and tactical public discussion in the midst of this severe downturn. The desire for culprits at times like this is strong.”

The blame needs to stay squarely on the true culprits: the "free market" Republicans who pushed financial regulation almost completely out of the economy and let crooks, pirates and others driven by greed take over and rip us off while steering corporations, funds and worker benefits straight into the ground.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney recently has said "Don't blame us for this mess." He was just trying--very unsuccessfully--to steer the spotlight away from the economic sins of the past eight years, during which he helped advise and preside.

It's still not Barack Obama's economy--not yet. We're still trying to cope with the financial horrors of the BushCheneyRoveLimbaugh economy. And we will continue trying to cope with them for many months to come, until the Obama Administration's frantic flurry of emergency measures finally starts turning things around.

So, yes, do blame the free-market, anti-regulation Republicans for this current mess. Keep the spotlights squarely focused on BushCheneyRoveLimbaugh--and make them keep paying the electric bills for the illumination, as well.

For a long while, it seemed that the messes in Iraq and Afghanistan would be their main--and dubious--legacy. But those are small potatoes now, compared with the huge pile of burnt hash browns the GOP and their free-market cronies have made out of the American and global economies.

Once a recovery starts to take hold, remember who refused to help and cooperate in our nation's time of peril: the House Republicans and their incessant "No!" votes against the Obama Administration's proposals; and most (but not all) of the Senate Republicans, who keep clinging to the failed policies that nearly sent us into the Great Depression of 2009.

Oh, and especially the real head of the Republican Party: Rush "I Hope Obama Fails" Limbaugh.

--Si Dunn

Ridiculous Republicans Say: "Let Them Eat Tax Cuts!"

By Si Dunn

On a day when the national economy continued to swirl down a giant, gold-plated toilet, not a single House Republican voted in favor of President Barack Obama's economic stimulus package, despite his best efforts to win their support.

"Let them eat tax cuts!" That was the message, in so many words, emerging from the now-minority party in the U.S. House of Representatives. "Tax cuts" seems to be the upper limits of their intellectual and patriotic vocabulary in this time of unnerving crisis. They have one idea and one idea only: "Taxes? We don't need no stinkin' taxes." (Well, perhaps that translates into a second idea deep within their shallow brains: "Government? We don't need no stinkin' government." But, of course, if they could follow that thought out to its logical conclusion, it would mean that they would be unemployed, former Congresspersons.)

These Limbaugh Republicans apparently agree with their talk-radio godhead who recently proclaimed that he hopes President Obama "fails" in his efforts to restore stability and growth to an American economy that now is in deep, deep voodoo, thanks to GOP's own governance efforts--or lack thereof--over the past eight years.

People who have no jobs can't eat tax cuts. They can't pay for health care with tax cuts. They can't go to the supermarket and pay for meat and bread and apples with tax cuts.

Tax cuts also won't put people back to work for companies that no longer can afford to sell their products nor keep employees on the job. Sure, tax cuts may help those companies not have to slash their dividends to stockholders quite so deeply. But tax cuts won't save the job of Joe the Welder now working on the line and looking over his shoulder for the next layoff ax.

If President Obama fails, we all fail. And House Republicans forever will be known as the ones who gave up first in this perilous fight to save the United States of America from economic catastrophe.

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McCain Predicts GOP Will Fail in Fall Election

By Si Dunn

You only thought John McCain was warning Democrats when he accepted the Republican Party's nomination for President of the United States and declared:

"And let me offer an advance warning to the old, big-spending, do-nothing, me-first, country-second Washington crowd: Change is coming!"

Actually, McCain delivered the perfect summation of the GOP's record in power during the two terms of the current Bush Administration.

It was a stern alert that McCain is now ready to storm back into the City of Power and stamp his feet while the Governor of Alaska barks at passing cars bearing lobby-coddled conservatives and those dreaded, evil limousine liberals to and from the halls of Congress.

Poor "Maverick." He really wanted to be his own man, with Joe Lieberman at his side on the convention podium. But the Republican powers who pull the puppet strings--i.e., Karl Rove and others--said hell, no! and brought in "the Babe," to use Rush Limbaugh's lustful term of endearment. A pistol-packin', moose-shootin' mama who, if Putin invaded the Ukraine, could lead a savage countertattack on his abortion record.

Not unlike the infamous Blues Brothers, John McCain and Sarah Palin now are on "a mission from God" to offer four more years of failing to meet the basic needs of most of the American people.

Hey, good luck with that.

Change, indeed, is coming to the White House, the Senate and the House of Representatives this November. But the party of Lincoln and George W. Bush definitely is not going to like who and what will get changed.

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Indiana Limbaugh and the Temple of Gloom

By Si Dunn

The Washington Post has reported that conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh is claiming smashing success for his “Operation Chaos” in the Indiana Democratic primary.

In several recent primaries, Limbaugh has urged Republican listeners “to vote for Clinton to ‘bloody up Obama politically’ and prolong the Democratic fight.”

According the Post: “Limbaugh crowed about the success of his ploy all day Tuesday, featuring on-air testimonials from voters in Indiana and North Carolina who recounted their illicit pleasure in casting a vote for Clinton.” Limbaugh contends that “his” voters cast the votes that gave Hillary Clinton her narrow, 14,000-vote win.

Now, in his own “Mission Accomplished” moment, however, Limbaugh is telling his 20 million listeners that Barack Obama actually will prove to be the weaker of the two Democrats against John McCain. (Meaning: “I know I told you I wanted that Devil incarnate, Hillary, to win. But now that she can’t win and I’m beginning look stupid, I want Obama to win, so I’ll look smart again.”)

Meanwhile, supporters of Obama, Clinton and a possible Obama-Clinton ticket may be tempted to respond: "Hey, wake up and smell the change, Rushmore. Once the Democrats unite and line up their new waves of registered voters, it’s gonna be tsunami time for anything resembling neoconservative Republicanism. Your signal’s gonna take a big-time fade, bud."

I had a Rush Limbaugh-Indiana moment a few years ago while driving through some of that state’s rural areas. I turned on my car’s AM radio, hoping to get some sense of the local, small-town news or music. Instead, on every audible channel from 540 to 1610 kilohertz, it was all Rush Limbaugh all the time, amplitude-modulating his spleen.

It was hot outside in the Indiana sun, and almost no one was visible doing any work in the great fields of corn. There seemed to be no life, either, in the widely scattered farmhouses. Yet, Rush Limbaugh’s radio rants were flowing over and through thousands of acres of corn, from horizon to horizon. And the stalks seemed utterly unmoved by his vitriol.

For just a moment, it reminded me of a grim movie scene where emaciated prisoners stand huddled inside a barbed-wire compound while loudspeakers blare “Achtung! Achtung!” and warn against trying to escape.

American politics has long had its share of colorful scoundrels, thieves and fools. Rush Limbaugh’s “Operation Chaos,” however, is just one more sad example of how small-minded people can become once they convince themselves that they are completely right and anyone who doesn’t agree with them is completely wrong.

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