John McCain FlipFlops ... Thank God We Dodged That Bullet

Thank goodness for Mama Grizzly Bore™, right? I mean, think about it: had John McCain not picked this un-vetted, unappealing, uneducated — at least about politics because she’s a whiz with Moose chili recipes — uninspiring moron to be his Vice Presidential we might have a different outcome in 2008.

So, yeah, thanks Mama Grizzly Bore™. But since then, Gramps McCain has not been able to let go of his disdain for Barack Obama, opposing him at nearly every turn. Obama says the sun rises in the east, McCain begs to differ. I cannot decide , though, which is more fun: watching John McCain argue with the President or watching John McCain 2014 argue with John McCain 1999.

Last week the 2014 edition of McCain issued a joint press release with his BFF, South Carolina’s own Senator, Miss Lindsey Graham, in which they blasted the President over his decision to ease the embargo with Cuba:

“We agree with President Obama that he is writing new chapters in American foreign policy. Unfortunately, today’s chapter, like the others before it, is one of America and the values we stand for in retreat and decline. It is about the appeasement of autocratic dictators, thugs, and adversaries, diminishing America’s influence in the world. Is it any wonder that under President Obama’s watch our enemies are emboldened and our friends demoralized?”

In reality, this is just a retread of every single anti-Obama statement John McCain had made since Obama whipped his ass in 2008, but what’s more interesting of all is that back in the day John McCain used to support the very changes that Obama is now speaking about.

Gramps McCain’s stance on Cuba seems to have evolved, or, as I see it, devolved, since the 2000 presidential primaries — when he was running against soon-to-be War Criminal W. At that time, George W. Bush was courting the Cuban-American exile community and John McCain was playing the role of the moderate—how high-larious is that?—talking about how he normalized relations between the US and Vietnam, and saying the US could lay out a similar road map with Castro in Cuba.

Yes, folks, in 1999 McCain was the only Republican presidential candidate who believed “there could be room for negotiation on the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba” and actually said:

“I’m not in favor of sticking my finger in the eye of Fidel Castro. In fact, I would favor a road map towards normalization of relations such as we presented to the Vietnamese and led to a normalization of relations between our two countries.”

 In short, John McCain once believed the very thing he has now denounced the president for, and if you think it’s because he’s devolved ion the issue, think again. It’s because Barack Obama says it now, and not John McCain, who is still licking his wounds over losing … big time … in 2008.

And again, we have the MGB™ to thank for that. Perhaps she should get a free pair of the McCain Flip Flops from the gift shop?

via Rachel Maddow

Well, Isn't That Convenient?

For over two years we’ve listened to the GOP squawk about Benghazi like a gaggle of parrots demanding a cracker, and now this? For two years the GOP has used Benghazi as a wedge to divide this country, to run their campaigns on, to denigrate the President and the Secretary of State, and now this? For two years, every time something good happened in this country — like better jobs numbers, lower unemployment, a rising stock market, a healthy economy — the GOP began shrieking Benghazi! Benghazi! Benghazi! and now this?

The Republicans have spent untold amounts of money investigating Benghazi, and then investigating the investigation into Benghazi, and then denying the outcome of each and every investigation when it didn’t jibe with their viewpoint that it’s all some conspiracy being manipulated by the illegal immigrant in the White House, and now this?

Now that the Midterm Elections are over, the House Intelligence Committee — and I won’t make a joke about that — has wrapped up its Benghazi investigation and released their shocking report just moments before the GOP scurried home for their Thanksgiving Day break. And what does it show?

Did it show that the White House sat on intelligence that could have prevented the attack, something the GOP has muttered all along? No, it did not. Did it show that Hillary Clinton's State Department bungled the response to the initial protests in Cairo, which resulted in the attack and the deaths? No, it did not. Did it show, as the GOP has been saying it would for over twenty-four months, that the CIA bungled the military response to the attacks? No, it did not.

It shows the White House and the State Department and the CIA did absolutely nothing wrong, something we have known all along. But the GOP kept on until the midterm elections were safely past and until after Obama’s immigration speech so it would be basically ignored. And now, suddenly, after two years of everyone in the GOP calling the President and the Secretary of State and the CIA a bunch of liars, we’ve learned that the GOP was … wait for it … wrong. Again.

It's not that the committee found nothing to criticize because they did; the State Department facility in Benghazi had inadequate security, and some of the early intelligence after the attacks was inaccurate, and maybe the CIA should have given more weight to eyewitnesses on the ground. But those criticisms were fully acknowledged by the first investigations.

The GOP was wrong, and they basically knew it after the first investigation but they kept at it like a dog with a bone.  There is no scandal — except for the one every Thursday night at (PM, EST — and there never was, but one Republican, who I tend to see of as more like a rabid closeted homosexual dog with a bone, will not accept the findings of his own party, or of any investigation into Benghazi because he says he knows better.

South Carolina’s own Good Old Boy, Lindsey “I am not a Homosexual” Graham has refused … refused I say, refused … to accept that the new House Benghazi report that has cleared both Obama and Hillary Clinton of any wrongdoing in its response to the Benghazi attack.

"I think the report is full of crap."

Graham foot-stomped and head-snapped all over TV this past weekend, insisting that members of the Obama administration altered the Benghazi talking points after the attack.

"I'm saying that anybody who has followed Benghazi at all knows that the CIA deputy director did not come forward to tell Congress what role he played in changing the talking points and the only way we knew he was involved is when he told a representative at the White House, I'm going to do a hard review of this, a hard rewrite."

When CNN host Gloria Borger told Graham, again, that the House report concludes that the administration received bad information at first and did not lie, he hissed:

"That's a bunch of garbage. That's a complete bunch of garbage."

Hell hath no fury like Miss Lindsey scorned, especially when she was hoping to use Benghazi as a weapon if she decides to run against Hillary Clinton for the presidency in 2016.

Someone get the smelling salts.

ForwardProgressives

MotherJones
TalkingPointsMemo

UPDATE: South Carolina Marriage ... Where We Stand Today

Where do we stand … let’s see:

Last week, in an historic advance for marriage equality, and LGBT Rights, in South Carolina, U.S. District Judge Richard Gergel ruled that the state's same-sex marriage ban is unconstitutional. Still, he also held up his ruling until noon this Thursday to give Alan Wilson, South Carolina's Asshat Attorney General who is defending the state's ban, time to appeal.

After Gergel’s ruling, Wilson filed notice that he plans to appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit and then asked the appellate justices to issue an emergency stay to halt same-sex marriages in South Carolina while the appeal is pending. Wilson believes that allowing same-sex marriages would cause "irreparable harm" to the state because we won’t have that right if the appellate court overturns Gergel's decision.

See, it would hurt South Carolina if The Gays could get married because the Fourth Circuit Court could overturn Gergel’s ruling making same-sex marriage still illegal even though the Fourth Circuit Court has already ruled that marriage bans are unconstitutional.

How does Alan Wilson not see that his circular argument has absolutely no merit?

He doesn’t, but the attorneys for Charleston County Councilwoman Colleen Condon and her fiancée Nichols Bleckley, do see it, and have asked the Fourth circuit Court to reject Wilson's request and allow the weddings to begin on November 20th:

"Currently 34 states permit same-sex couples to marry, or recognize marriages legally celebrated by same-sex couples in other states. If history is any indicator, the State's claim of potential harm here is overstated, if not completely contrived."

Oh, it’s completely contrived, as is Wilson’s claim that South Carolina’s Constitutional ban on same-sex marriage is like no other ban in any other state anywhere — including states where the bans have been overturned — and therefore should be allowed to let stand.

Seriously.

Malissa Burnette, lead attorney for Condon, feels very optimistic that the Fourth Circuit will uphold Gergel's ruling since it’s the same court that struck down Virginia's ban last month. And, as for Wilson’s argument that the State’s ban differs from all other bans, Burnette is quick to point out that it is nearly identical to the ban struck down in Virginia.

South Carolina is the only state covered by the 4th circuit still contesting same-sex marriages because, well, Alan Wilson. He is the only thing standing in the way of equality for gay and lesbian South Carolinians.

So, barring a higher court's intervention, the day after tomorrow gay couples across South Carolina will be able to march down to their local courthouses to apply for marriage licenses. It could be a great day, and a great sign that South Carolina is pulling its head out of the Dark Ages and joining the rest of the world in the 21st Century.

Funny Sidenote: the judge who ruled that South Carolina’s ban is unconstitutional, Richard Gergel, has previously received support from one Lindsey Graham, one of South Carolina’s biggest Same-Sex Marriage opponents. Graham, who has previously expressed support for a national constitutional amendment to define marriage as a union between one man and one woman, has yet to comment on Gergel’s ruling.

Still, it’s funny that our own ambiguously gay Senator, who says he isn’t gay and says marriage is one man and one woman, is a great supporter of the judge who ruled differently.

I imagine Miss Lindsey is clutching her pearls about now.

Gay marriages shouldstart Thursday without court intervention, attorneys argue

Gay Marriage Could Happen By Thursday In SC

File Under: "Yeah, Like That's Gonna Happen!"

In what surely must be the most delusional thing to ever come out of his mouth — including his assertion of heterosexuality, which is laughable, at best, and pathetic, at worst — this week South Carolina’s own Lindsey Graham has said he is thinking of running for president.

Of the United States, y’all.

Graham, who votes every chance he gets to send Americans off to war, and then also votes every chance he gets to deny them benefits when they return home, is suggesting that she, er, he just might be the one to fix all the problems in this country by taking the White House in 2016.

Oh, but wait, there’s a caveat …

“If I get through my general election, if nobody steps up in the presidential mix, if nobody’s out there talking​ —​ me and McCain have been talking ​— ​I may just jump in to get to make these arguments.”

Yes, if he wins reelection he’ll think of running because when he loses his bid for the presidency, and make no mistake, while many of the loons in South Carolina think he’s just peachy, most of the people in America know he’s a twisted fruitcake and will never vote for him, he’ll still have his cushy job as a Senator to fall back on.

But if he loses his chance at reelection, then he won’t run because, well, he’s just a loser, with John McCain—remember The Mama Grizzly Bore™--his chief supporter:

“I’ve strongly encouraged him to give it a look. I think Lindsey has vast and deep experience on these issues that very few others have.”

Huh! That sounds awful close to what he said about that moron he chose for his running mate back in ’08.

Lindsey? Bitch, please. You haven’t got a snowball’s chance in hell of getting elected to the presidency, so take a seat, pour yourself a Cosmo and unwind with a Real Housewives marathon.

And shut up.

I Didn't Say It ...

Lindsey Graham, South Carolina senator, clutching his pearls and fear-mongering about ISIS:

"The first thing I want to tell American people, from my point of view, it is our fight, it is not just their fight. I will not let this president suggest to the American people we can outsource or security and this is not about our safety. There is no way in hell you can form an army on the ground to go into Syria, to destroy ISIL, without a substantial American component. To destroy ISIL, you have to kill or capture their leaders, take the territory they hold back, cut off the financing, and destroy the capability to regenerate. This is a war we’re fighting, not a counter-terrorism operation. This is not Somalia, this is not Yemen. This is a turning point in the war on terror. Our strategy will fail yet again. This president needs to rise to the occasion before we all get killed back here at home."

Someone needs to tell her to calm the eff down. 

Oh, and to remind her that she was saying the exact opposite thing just a couple of months ago. 

Lindsey in flip-flopping in sequined footwear.

Jon Stewart, host of The Daily Show, responding to Graham’s pronouncement:

“The poor man lives his entire life trapped in ‘The Blair Witch Project.’ For God’s sakes, I’ve seen Chihuahuas in handbags who are less fretful and shaking.”

Snap.

Bryan Fischer, of the American Family Association, offering proof that we are a Christian nation:

"You want one single item of proof that America is a Christian nation and not a Jewish nation and not an Islamic nation? One single bit of proof is all you need: we freely allow restaurants and grocery stores to sell and to serve bacon. That can only happen in a Christian country. So the sheer fact that we freely allow the sale and consumption of bacon is absolute proof that we are, in fact, a Christian nation."

Hmmm, or it could mean we’re an atheist or agnostic nation, but Fischer won’t ever say that.

But seriously folks, this man has said some of the most ridiculous, inane, moronic, stupid, asshatted things on his little Hate Show, but this one … mother%king bacon … is the most loony tunes thing ever!

Jon Hamm, on social media: 

“This constant recording of your life and updating of your ‘status’ . . . I don’t do that. No event ‘happened’ unless you took a picture of it. Going to a concert or a ballgame, are actual things. But you’re not watching because you’re busy trying to record it so you can tell your friends about it and put it on YouTube. It’s totally meaningless.”

How much fun can you be having when you’re taking a selfie just to show you were “there?”

Howsabout being present? Howsabout acknowledging those around you? Howsabout a few less pictures of what you ate? Where you sat? Or your giant forehead in a selfie?

Dan Savage, on that Tennessee billboard:

"When we bring up God's holy ban on eating shellfish or His loving command to kill your daughter if she isn't a virgin on her wedding night—passages in the Bible that Christians ignore—we're told that those passages are in the Old Testament, silly, so they neither apply nor matter to Christians because Jesus. Leviticus 18:22 goes on to say that men who lie with men as with women should be put to death. (Can't you just feel the love for people, people?) But if someone else were to put up a billboard in Portland proclaiming that all women who aren't virgins on their wedding nights should be stoned to death (Deuteronomy 22:20-21)—or that adulterers like Mark Sanford and David Vitter must be put to death (Leviticus 10:10) or that women should be forced to marry their rapists (Deuteronomy 22:28-29). Basically: It's fair game for them to use the Old Testament to beat up queers, but it's not fair for queers to use that same Old Testament to highlight their hypocrisy.”

As usual, I have nothing to add. Dan’s said it all and really quite nicely.

Sean Hannity, Fox New host, making an incredible leap by saying that arresting NFL star Adrian Peterson for brutally whipping his four year-old son is a slippery slope to banning parents from telling children they shouldn't be gay:

"You guys want to tell parents what they can and cannot do. For example, is it gonna become illegal if a parent teaches kids the politically incorrect view that being gay is not normal? Or that the parent says — whatever the parent wants to teach the kid that you would disagree with? I think we’ve gotten to the point where, if we don’t politically correct our kids, we might as well hand our kids over to the government the day that they’re born and let them raise them."

Let me make this queer for you, Hannity.

For some people, myself included, being gay is perfectly normal, hence being gay is normal, for gay people. Being straight, for me, is not normal; now that doesn’t make being straight abnormal, it just makes it not normal for me, or any number of other gay folks out there.

And when parents talk to their children about what it means to be gay it could be as simple, as normal as this: Some men love women, some men love men. It’s all love, so it’s all normal.

The more difficult explanation would be talking to your kids about why Fox News calls itself a news organization

Now, take a seat.

Psst? Lindsey Graham Is In A Bit Of Trouble .... Pass It On

I am not much for poles, except for the stripper pole though those days, for me at least are over … but I digress.

We got a hint of good news this morning down here in South Carolina where it’s not the heat, it’s the stupidity, when I learned that Lindsey Graham, Tea Party goose-stepping, war mongering asshat, is falling way down in his approval ratings with his constituents; in fact, he’s as far down as President Obama, whom he loves to chastise and castigate at every opportunity.

Halle-loo!

In fact, head-to-head matchups against his three opponents Lindsey Graham can’t even muster 50% of the votes, and in most polls he’s hovering around 45%--still enough to win, I guess, but not a wide enough margin to keep Lindsey from twisting in his granny panties.

And Lindsey doesn’t have a lot of room to improve upon those numbers because there are two other conservatives running against him. Sure, one of them is Bravo reality star Thomas Ravenel, who was found guilty of cocaine possession and forced to resign as South Carolina State Treasurer; but he’s going up in the polls, ever so slightly, while Lindsey dips. Also not helping is Libertarian Victor Kocher, another conservative causing Lindsey Graham tsouris as more voters question whether Lindsey’s right for South Carolina.

He’s not.

Now, the Democrat running against Graham is Brad Hutto, a 19 year veteran of the state senate, and if he can get the Democrats out to vote — and, seriously, Dems, why aren’t you voting because not voting is a vote for Lindsey — and the all important black vote, he could end up in the mid 40’s making him the leading vote getter.

And here in The SC all you gotta do is win by one vote. One vote; I'd love to think it was mine!

Still, Hutto isn’t well known with most voters and, right now, is polling in the mid-30s range. But since most of the undecided voters are either Democrats or Independents, he could, with some help, and some cash, unseat Lindsey Graham and sent him back to the bogs from whence he came.

It’s not a sure thing, y’all, but it’s a thing, so, pass it on, and let’s lose Lindsey. 

via Blue Nation Review