Texas GOP Releases Platform- Are You a Republican?

At long last, the 2010 platform for the Texas Republican Party is available for the lay person to read.

As you'd expect, it's equal parts feudalism, fascism, and theocracy.

To give you a notion of how things came about this way: the Texas Republican Party has actually managed to be to the right of the Constitution Party (an openly theocratic smash-the-state third party) since 2006, if not earlier. In 2010 a strong minority faction of libertarian Republicans, led in spirit by Ron Paul and failed gubernatorial candidate Debra Medina, threatened to overthrow the ruling Rick Perry-controlled party leadership. To help prevent this, the 2010 platform was rammed through the state convention as a unit, with absolutely no amendments or votes on specific issues allowed.

In short: if you're hoping for reform within the Republican Party, forget it. Not going to happen.

Still, I've been waiting for an actual copy of the 2010 platform for a couple weeks now, ever since several left-wing blogs (especially Huffington Post) mentioned a lot of what's in the platform. ("I am shocked, SHOCKED, to discover anti-homosexual bigotry and Christian supremacy in this political party!")

In the past year, I've bumped into several friends and acquaintances here in Texas who, despite being anti-torture, anti-war, pro-choice, pro-pot, pro-sexual-equality, pro-gay-marriage, etc. identify as Republicans- and loyal Republicans at that. With them in mind, I've assembled a quiz, using ONLY the Texas Republican Party platform for source material, to demonstrate to them that perhaps they're not the sort of person the Republican Party currently represents.

And, after way too much time working on it, here it is- go try it out now, lest OKCupid take it down for being too politically biased:

http://www.helloquizzy.com/tests/are-you-a-true-texas-republican-the-quiz

(If the poll gets taken down, I've saved the questions and can post them here later.)

So- how'd you do?

The Lies of Barack Obama

... that is, the ones not made up out of thin air by the Republicans.

Barack Obama said he'd stop torture and hold those responsible accountable. Instead, he's fighting in the courts to continue indefinite imprisonment and protect Bush's military commissions,* while torture continues under his watch at Bagram in Afghanistan. He's also blocked any possible investigation, never mind trial, of those who committed torture or who authorized it, even while our allies are moving forward with their own trials in the face of American hostility.

Barack Obama said he'd pull us out of Iraq by 2010. In fact, even by the end of 2011 there is supposed to be a permanent 50,000 troop presence for purposes of "training."

Barack Obama said he'd put a stop to funding wars through off-budget supplemental bills. He lied about that one, too.

And, most recently, he promised a moratorium on the issuing of new permits to drill deep-ocean oil wells... and then kept right on issuing those permits, with not even so much as a slow-down.

Guantanamo is still open.

The PATRIOT Act and the Military Commissions Act are still law, and there is no bill even filed, much less likely to pass Congress, to repeal them.

And the Obama White House worked hard to water down both health care reform (making it into little more than a taxpayer hand-out to insurance corporations) and financial reform (so that no company Too Big to Fail would suffer).

I honestly cannot see any reason to support- or even TRUST- this man anymore.

* Take note: he nominated the lawyer who argued in favor of permanent imprisonment without due process of law to the Supreme Court.

Cull Day, because I have no words...

First and foremost: we're apparently STILL running a torture hole in Afghanistan.

The International Committee for the Red Cross says since August 2009 U.S. authorities have been providing the names of prisoners in a separate facility at Bagram Air Base, the BBC reports.

Nine former prisoners have told the BBC they were held in a separate building and subjected to abuse.

Now, aside from mentioning sleep deprivation, this short article doesn't mention specific abuses at Bagram. Nor does it say clearly that these abuses are ongoing, or ended with Obama's January 2009 order.

But the implication here is that Barack Obama has actively continued the Bush administration policy of torture, his own rhetoric notwithstanding. We do know that he explicitly blocked Bagram prisoners from seeking legal recourse such as writ of habeas corpus. We also know that Obama has actively and aggressively blocked any and all attempts to hold torturers and those who ordered torture accountable for their actions. This article does not quite come out and say that Obama has deliberately continued torture... but it does NOT look good for the President.

The fact that Obama has nominated a second Supreme Court justice who believes the President should be all-powerful and unrestricted makes it look even less good, quite frankly. I still say Obama is in all essentials a Republican president.

On this point the Kagan choice probably reflects the perspective of the man who made it, Barack Obama: not the Obama of the 2008 presidential campaign but rather the Obama who has governed since January 20, 2009—broadly continuing the strong executive posture of the Bush team in national security matters.

(BTW, Kagan supports late-term abortion bans- just so you know.)

More on Kagan from Andrew Sullivan:

Her life, so far as one can tell, is her career, and her career has been built by avoiding any tough or difficult political or moral positions, eschewing any rigorous intellectual debate in which she takes a clear stand one way or the other, pleasing every single authority figure she has encountered, and reveling in the approval of the First Class Car Acela Corridor elite. The NYT profile - which is superb apart from its editorial decision to excise any account of any non-trivial private life (she smokes cigars!) since high school - is chilling in its assessment of a human soul in steady, determined pursuit of approval and power.

. . .

Kagan strikes me as the Democratic elite's elitist: free of any conviction that is not caged in a web of Clintonian caution, punctiliously diligent in every aspect of her career, motivated by a desire never to offend those with power, and rewarded in turn by the protection and praise of these elites.

So, yeah. But enough of our Republican President Obama...

The pro-choice candidate for Bart Stupak's Congressional seat has been forced out of the race by the Democratic Party machine.

Democrat Connie Saltonstall, the abortion-rights advocate who challenged retiring Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) after he resisted a health-care overhaul because of his antiabortion stance, ended her campaign Monday after the party establishment closed ranks around another candidate.

. . .

"I am forced to do this because it has become apparent to my campaign that the leadership of the Michigan Democratic Party has preemptively anointed Gary McDowell as their Democratic candidate," Saltonstall said. "They are replacing Bart Stupak with another Upper Peninsula, anti-choice, anti-women's health-care rights candidate."

Want to know the difference between Democrats and Republicans? Republicans take a firm and unyielding stance defending things that are absolutely EVIL; Democrats refuse to take any stance to defend anything GOOD, preferring instead to pursue power for its own sake. The Democratic Party stands for NOTHING- especially not democracy, since they want to deny Yoopers of a choice of Democratic options in the primary.

And finally, evidence that Republican anti-drug and anti-gay positions are based solely on hate: a medical marijuana dispensary in Montana was firebombed, and a Republican state legislator in Iowa wants to deny "family" status to same-sex families using state camping parks.

I probably could- and should- make a long essay on each of these links... but, collectively, they're so depressing that I just don't have the words to do it.

God, but we need something besides the two corrupt parties (and multitude of incompetent third parties) we have now.

Oh, it is ON now.

He opposes prosecutions for torture, and has gone out of his way to make sure those who committed, ordered, or enabled torture never face justice.

He opposes restrictions on executive power, defending warrantless wiretaps and other searches and maintaining the imprisonment of accused terrorists without legal recourse. Apparently forever.

He opposes equal rights for gays and lesbians. I mean, really, REALLY opposes equal rights.

He killed the public option and instituted the same individual mandate he promised during the campaign would never be a part of his health care reform.

He opposes immigration reform.

He punishes people who tried to stop the federal government from breaking the law.

He opposes separation of church and state.

He supports the continuation of the failed and counterproductive war on drugs.

In addition to all that, he effectively killed American manned spaceflight for the foreseeable future once the Shuttle shuts down; he pulled the plug on hydrogen energy research in favor of more ethanol, nuclear, and above all offshore oil drilling; and, as a matter of routine, he surrenders to Republicans on drafting legislation, on nominations to office, and on procedure.

And now the man Obama picked to run the FCC is going to cave in on net neutrality- basically allowing the big telecoms, the same ones Obama let off the hook for helping Bush break the law and spy on you and me, to control what you see on the Internet.

The author of the above article has even more to say elsewhere, according to ZDNet:

We simply cannot believe that Julius Genachowski would consider going down this path. Failing to reclassify broadband means the FCC is abandoning the signature communications and technology issues of the Obama administration. Such a decision would destroy Net Neutrality. It would deeply undermine the FCC’s ability to ensure universal Internet access for rural, low-income and disabled Americans. It will undermine the FCC’s ability to protect consumers from price-gouging and invasions of privacy.

If Chairman Genachowski fails to re-establish the FCC authority to protect Internet users, he will be allowing companies like Comcast, AT&T and Verizon to slow down, block or censor content at will. They can block any website, any blog post, any tweet, any outreach by a political campaign — and the FCC would be powerless to stop them. Without reclassification, nearly every broadband-related decision the agency makes from here forward will be aggressively challenged in court, and the FCC will likely lose. The phone and cable companies know this, which is why they’re going all out to keep the FCC from doing so.

Genachowski should not buckle to phone and cable industry pressure, but it will take courage to stand up to one of the biggest lobbying juggernauts in Washington. It’s not too late — and the public is watching. This decision facing the FCC chairman is about more than one single issue, or even a broken promise to the American people. If the FCC fails to stand with the public, it will be the end of the Internet as we know it.

But he will cave- under, no doubt, direct orders from his boss.

If I had wanted Republican policies, I would have voted for John McCain.

But no- I voted for Barack Obama...

... a mistake I will never, ever make again.

Three more links to make you think...

First: Republicans lie shamelessly and get away with it by portraying all dissenting voices as "socialist liberals".

Just watch. Virtually every TV report on the financial-regulation bill you see will feature a sound bite from McConnell, who'll continue to shill for Citibank and Goldman Sachs while pretending to defend the little guy. Bailout, bailout, bailout. The fact that he's engaging in pure doublespeak is highly unlikely to be mentioned. Instead, you'll likely see a snippet from a Democrat making the opposite claim. For an awful lot of viewers, that's like flipping a coin.

For Fox News viewers and Limbaugh listeners, it's actually easier than that. Conditioned by decades of propaganda about liberal media bias, many react with overt hostility to any and all information from other sources. I must get 50 angry e-mails a week calling me a liar for citing some easily verifiable fact at odds with right-wing doctrine.

Second: a Miami Herald columnist explains that illegal aliens are here illegally because it's literally impossible for them to come legally:

Legal immigration quotas were set more than 20 years ago, when the U.S. demand for unskilled and highly skilled workers was much smaller than today's.

The U.S. labor market demands up to 500,000 low-skilled workers a year, while the current U.S. immigration system allows for only 5,000 permanent visas for that category, according to the National Immigration Forum, a pro-immigration reform advocacy group.

``There is no real line for unskilled workers,'' says Maurice Belanger, the Forum's public information director. ``If you are a Mexican wanting to get a legal visa to work as a waiter in the United States, you would be dead before you get your visa.''

And finally: a Daily KOS writer explains that the "libertarian" 1800s were no golden age, as Libertarians would have you believe, but for most a hellish time when life was nasty, brutish, and short.

No quote from that one: you really need to read the whole thing. I mean it. It sums up most, if not everything, that I had misgivings about when I was part of the Libertarian movement. And his summation- that conservatives currently calling themselves "libertarians" like, for example, Glenn Beck, are nothing but rich people who don't want to pay taxes... that's right on target.

Go, read, and think.

Meanwhile, the Imperial Presidency rolls on....

So, where are President Obama's priorities, now that health care is behind him and financial reform is apparently rolling along?

Immigration reform? Apparently not if he can help it.

Ending Don't Ask, Don't Tell? No, not so much.

Nominating judges who will push hard against pro-corporate conservative justices on the Supreme Court and roll back unconstitutional government powers? Doesn't look that way.

Attacking and prosecuting Bush-era whistleblowers to ensure that the American people will never know the next time a President breaks the law?

Oh, yeah. He's all over THAT action.

The evidence of Republican evil accumulates...

If you doubted Republicans were racists, note Arizona voting to ban classes teaching about non-white ethnic histories and to fire teachers who speak with a non-Anglo accent, and a Texas GOP US Rep comparing illegal aliens to grasshoppers- locusts, that is- instead of human beings.

If you doubted Republicans cared more about ideology than people, note a new Oklahoma law, passed over the governor's veto, requiring women who seek an abortion to get a vaginal probe ultrasound scan- including those who have just been raped.

If you doubted Republicans are more interested in partisan rule and total control of government than actually making government work well, read Ezra Klein's uncommonly observant article about how one of Utah's Senators is being run out of office for daring to negotiate with a Democrat on an alternative health care proposal.

The Republicans: the Party of Evil. Never believe otherwise.