Solution Avoidance Excuses during Pandemic piling up.

The avalanche of excuses flowing out of Trump-like Republican blame shifters is now at such a shocking level that you would think media outlets would have notice?

Pandemic Exposed Lazy No Solutions Whiners: As I've written before, no one seemed to noticed how Gov. Scott Walker never solved any of Wisconsin's growing list of problems, which continues today with our safe gerrymandered Republicans legislature. Each one of the juvenile "can't do" whining's below avoids a problem or discounts a proven solution rolled out in other states.

It's so much easier to deny there really is a pandemic, than have to work hard solving the problem. GOP leaders are happy to jump on board the clown car parade, forget testing and downward trajectories. Hey, are these people from out of state?:

Even as the statewide stay-home order is working to stop the spread of COVID-19 and the virus curve is flattening, a right-wing conspiracy “news” site is promoting a mass gathering next week at the State Capitol in Madison to try to get Gov. Tony Evers to “open up Wisconsin.”

As of Thursday morning — the day after conservatives equipped with firearms, MAGA hats, and Confederate flags clogged the streets in Lansing, Michigan, for a similar protest — more than 750 people on Facebook have marked themselves as “going” to the Wisconsin event and more than 3,500 are interested. Members of a group called Wisconsinites Against Excessive Quarantine say forcing people to remain at home is hurting the economy and is no longer necessary to protect people’s health.

Just a thought, but shouldn't child services make a point of visiting this woman? Not only is she not protecting her kids with vaccinations, she had them carry signs to "reopen the playgrounds" without protective face masks:

 And yes, GOP idiocy follows a distinct pattern:

1. Mail-In Voting Statewide: 5 states have already converted to mail-in voting. If there is any problem getting a ballot, "Colorado allows people to cast a ballot at an in-person voting center during the early voting period or on Election Day ... (and) States also provide plenty of drop-off boxes." Still, despite the successful roll out of cost saving mail-in ballots, Republicans have imagined a whole list of phony excuses:

All mail-in headline

WSJ: Assembly Majority Leader Jim Steineke, R-Kaukauna, opposes the Democratic proposal (on mail-in voting) because of the cost, potential for fraud (voter fraud per capita is no higher, and often lower, in vote-by-mail states). For Steineke, such an overhaul isn’t worth it. “This idea that the system is broken and there’s no way to fix it is crazy.”

Oh, and about solving the problem of lost and returned ballots...you know, protecting a persons right to have their vote counted?:

They also balk at the mailing issues voters experienced with absentee ballots in April, and fear a primarily mail election could leave people with no recourse if they never received their ballot, because polling places would be reduced.(Again, Colorado solved that problem)

Voting Suppression Voter Purges...a thing of the past:

Steineke said he is concerned about 200,000 voters on the rolls may have moved. Ballot envelopes have bar codes that are unique for each individual voter, and only one ballot, the first one in, is accepted … States with all-mail elections are constantly updating their voter rolls, another benefit of all-mail elections.

2. Defy Stay-at-Home Democratic Gov. Evers Order: Death Party denialists are ignoring Trump's phase 1 plan for reopening some businesses that are still not in place in Wisconsin, and Republicans aren't willing to "spend money on" costly mass testing. NO Solution:

States must first meet a "gating" criterion that includes a "downward trajectory of documented cases within a 14-day period" or a "downward trajectory of positive tests as a percent of total tests within a 14-day period (flat or increasing volume of tests)," as well as hospital preparedness.

Anyone trust this owner of 3 pubs after hearing his whiny reasons to open? Again, Trump's 14 day downward trajectory and positive tests requirement have not been met:

Dangerous Dan

Dan Zierath, the owner of Jackson's Blue Ribbon Pub in Wauwatosa said he will open the dining room to the public on May 1, in defiance of the governor's safer-at-home order that bans dining in at least until May 26 … questioning customers at the door if they've been exposed to COVID-19 or if they have fevers (no quick read thermometer?), but he was determined to proceed. "I feel like our constitutional rights are being taken from us. And I’m just not willing anymore. What’s going to happen is going to happen...I just see no harm in that whatsoever." 

It's all about him and anecdotal support. Capitalist question; how will business insurers feel about picking up the costs and liability? 

Asked if he had consulted an attorney in the matter, he said he had and was advised against opening the restaurant. "I have a ton of support on social media if we open," he said.

3. Passed Referendum prompts Pandemic Recount and Large Gathering: The Racine school districts referendum passed 5 votes, but that's not good enough, so up to 125 people will have to gather at Festival Hall during a pandemic. Why not? Recount reasons by anti-education parents were mindboggling and labored:

The Racine Unified School District received four petitions from voters concerned the vote totals were incorrect. 

a. One petitioner said he did not believe all absentee or in-person ballots were counted.

b. Another said he believed ballots were changed to “falsely represent” the voter’s intended choice

c. and that poll workers persuaded certain voters to support the referendum. 

d. another said he believed ballots that were improperly filled out or postmarked were counted when they should not have been.

Republicans hoping Trump Drops Out!!! Lotsa luck.

Nope, the radical tea party right wing shift of the Republican Party hasn't created any problems whatsoever. The funny but tragic thing is; conservative voters haven't really noticed that problem. In fact, they have embraced Trump as their leader. They're all looking for a handout from government leader Trump, who has promised to take care of them and make the US great again.

The scary thing about all of this is that Trump could win, and many Republicans are now panicking over the thought that their actual candidate could be the biggest mistake in American history. No one deserves it more than the growing anti-government "real American" freeloaders:

It's time to deep six the mind numbing GOP excuse, the "angry electorate."

I am so tired of hearing about the “angry electorate.” 

Excuses, excuses. Who the hell is making the electorate angry?

Republicans of course! 

For example, Wisconsinites are "angry" about the road conditions and delayed projects statewide due the Republicans ridiculous pledge to never raise taxes, ever. The "anger" will only increase, as things get even worse, while Republicans defer maintenance by denying reality:

A two-year-old report showing Wisconsin roads to be in the third-worst shape in the U.S. was refuted by the Department of Transportation on Tuesday, with officials saying the "roughness" indicator used in the report was not widely accepted as a true gauge of road worthiness.

So let's argue about that for the next 10 years, while doing nothing. That should really piss everybody off. As one readers comment makes perfectly clear...

"State DOT officials say the International Roughness metric is outmoded, the fact remains that the same metric was used to measure every other state."

Paul Ryan blames an "angry electorate" for the embarrassing failure of his budget, now blocked by member of his own party. Remember when Republicans made it seem like a Democratic problem? 

For years, the GOP attacked Senate Democrats for the same failure.

Hey, it's the "angry electorate," the sole creation of the Republican Party.  

Rural conservative voter are angry over large corporate farms, a GOP favorite that pollutes their wells and squeezes out family farms.

Rural conservatives are angry over closing community schools that end up destroying towns. They're angry over cuts to school funding (for vouchers) that force teacher and school busing cuts. They're angry over fewer local health care clinics. 

Republicans are angry over the existence of that other political party. The so called "left," "liberals," and "Democrat" Party have been vilified to the point that they no longer have relevance. Right wing media has replaced everything else, which is a bizarre turn of events no one could have predicted. Blame the kid glove treatment by the press over obvious BS, fiction, lies and irresponsible behavior by Republicans that lead us to this point. My conservative friend in Milwaukee wrote...

One radio talk host claims the truth can be found somewhere in the middle of the battling "right" and "left." Since when is the truth in the middle?

But then conservatives who hate government the most can't wait to get on the public dole themselves. In fact, in the Ohio race to replace John Boehner, 15 candidates ran in the primary there. So many that voters either didn't bother to vote, or couldn't remember who they voted for:

The Republicans offer up alarming Dystopian vision of the "American Dream!"

I don't know why I was stunned by the dystopian-like agenda pursued by House Republicans, led by Paul Ryan. Just search this blog with the term "role call," or the name "ryan" and "ribble," you'll see breathe taking bills Republicans have been passing for years.

We're now "the land opportunism." Mad Max, Hunger Games and Fountainhead were works of fiction, not an actual blueprint for government policy.

If I use my conservative friend in Milwaukee's absolute hatred of government as a template, assuming he's your typical Republican voter, then it's clear nothing else matters; not laws; not human safety; not education; not health care; not internet freedom; not clean water; not pollution; not job training; not Pell grants; not saving billions on health care; not protecting retirement savings...etc.

House Republicans are trying to unravel two centuries worth of progress, the stuff that built the American dream.

It would be easier to call this a political suicide note, but oddly it isn't. In the name of small government, Republicans want to...

1. Prohibit any federal money from being spent on the Affordable Care Act.

2. Drastically reduce funds for the enforcement of new labor rules.
3. Reverse efforts to impose strict rules on for-profit universities .

4. Reverse new rules requiring retirement investment advisers to prove they have no financial conflicts of interest.

5. Another bill would stop regulation of hydraulic fracturing; prohibit implementation of carbon emission standards for electric power plants; block new clean-water rules; and stop the government’s marine and coastal planning efforts to respond to climate change.

6. A bill would block the Food and Drug Administration from reviewing e-cigarette marketing.

7. Keep the FCC from carrying out “net neutrality” regulation of the Internet.

8. Push a “conscience” rider that would let employers in the District of Columbia refuse health insurance coverage for any service on moral grounds, and hire and fire based on women’s use of health services.

9. Either reduce full-day, full-year service for 570,000 young children in Head Start or cut 140,000 children from the program altogether.

10. Funding for job training would be almost $500 million less than the White House requested.

11. Cuts to the National Park Service would delay about 70 percent of its construction projects and more than a third of its repair and rehabilitation efforts

12. A bill would also cut $370 million from the Pell Grant higher education program.

13. The main federal family planning program, Title X, would be eliminated … a major strike against women’s health care Title X, the only federal grant program dedicated solely to providing individuals with comprehensive family planning and related reproductive health services, including contraception. 90% of the people Title X serves have incomes below 200 percent of the federal poverty level, and 63 percent are uninsured. 6 in 10 women who access health care services from a Title X-funded health center consider this their main source of health care … saves taxpayers money: For every public dollar invested in family planning, the American taxpayer saves approximately $7 in Medicaid-related costs. Nearly half of all births in the U.S. are paid for by Medicaid; the average national cost for one Medicaid-covered birth is $12,770. This is a stark contrast to the $239 per-client cost of publicly funded contraceptive care through Title X family planning. It is estimated that Title X saves taxpayers nearly $7 billion a year.

Still want a Republican President?

His governorship was an accident....

"Liberty Score" keep Republicans Freedom and Liberty in Line with Party Principles.

Republicans are dead set on draining the words "liberty" and "freedom" of all their relevant meaning.

What does either word have to do with solving problems? In an odd and almost perverse strategy, Republicans have used freedom and liberty as a way to push a more straight jacketed version of the constitution.

Take health care for instance. I think never having to worry or even think about it again is real freedom and liberty to me. And universal coverage creates certainty.

Republicans see shopping for insurance, keeping your insurance, paying high deductibles, trying not to lose insurance, and skin in the game penalties, the rugged kind of freedom and liberty we love most.

Latest GOP Adjustments: Republicans are now fine tuning what is meant by freedom and liberty, like what is allowed (1 point) and what is traitorously not tolerated (0). Freedom to believe in something different? A big fat zero.

Here's the latest slide into right wing authoritarian rule, as explain by Breitbart's (CR) Conservative Review:

Understanding the The Liberty Score™ grades members of Congress on the top 50 votes over the past six years. Scores are determined by points earned divided by potential points. 

Voting with the conservative position earns 1 point, voting against the conservative position earns 0 points. Missed votes are not included in a member of Congress' score. A letter grade is assigned to each member to help you quickly determine if a lawmaker is supporting conservative principles.

We would hate to lose our freedom and liberty by thinking differently.

And like every right wing site I've been too, the information isn't "free." Not only do right wing sites blast you with annoying pop-up sales ads, they won't tell you a thing until you provide an email or subscribe for a fee. So I was unable to figure out why Rep. Paul Ryan didn't believe in freedom and liberty as much as he should. Hope he doesn't lose points getting featured on liberal blogs like this?

   

GOP hatred for “Left” only reason for opposition to Renewable Energy!

The title is my takeaway from the comments below by a staunch Republican who’s mystified by his party’s opposition to green energy.

It all seems to boil down to the irrational hatred of “liberalism,” climate change and anything perceived as “left.” I don’t know about you, but opposing an idea that creates jobs and a burgeoning new energy market due to liberal, progressive and Democratic support it is nothing short of self-destructive. MidwestEnergyNews:

Larry Ward, executive director of the Michigan Conservative Energy Forum, says he’s always been fascinated by the idea that “somehow Republicans can’t be in line” with renewable energy. As a consultant and former political director for the state’s Republican party, says, energy policy affects everyone who pays an electric bill. “I’m just always mystified that we as a political party have let it get that bad,” he said.

Believe it or not, Larry Ward had to create a conservative renewable energy support group. Don’t laugh, if it helps I’m all for it. I especially like how he’s thought about “framing” the issues to make renewable energy exciting, an concept that alludes Democrats:

In late 2013, Ward launched the MCEF as a way to give Republicans a voice on clean-energy issues — an opportunity for those in the party to speak up on the merits of the issue without being lumped in with (and cast away as) liberals, he said. Ward is careful to frame the issue with three pillars: jobs and the economy; energy independence; and leaving a positive legacy for future generations. The group is careful to avoid potentially divisive debates about climate change. (If) a Republican would step out and try something on energy — especially from a renewable or clean side — they felt like they were kind of catering to the left. 

Larry Ward is especially confused over solar bashing, where supposed small government Republicans set in place onerous rules and regulations to prevent its spread. It’s when government bureaucracy ain't so bad:

There are a bunch of rules and laws in place that prohibit just the normal expansion of a product like solar. Wind is great for large-scale energy production, but solar has capability, too. If we just get some of the rules and restrictions out of the way, that market would take off on its own. You’re starting to see that across states, if you look at net-metering laws.

3 GOP contenders stop by Koch's Retreat, happen to be in the Neighborhood, say it's not about the money but "the struggle for freedom!"

Since money is now speech, and Citizens United made this simple outrageous headline a total yawner, Republicans have embraced their own political job creators:

Three potential Republican presidential candidates appeared before a gathering of wealthy donors organized by the conservative billionaire Koch brothers in California on Sunday night. Charles Koch said "the struggle for freedom never ends."

That got me thinking; since it wasn't the Koch brothers money that got the 3 GOP presidential contenders to stop by for a visit, maybe they wouldn't mind stopping by the Democurmudgeon's own living room retreat for a little middle class conversation. I know I have better beer. Don't be surprised if next weeks Newsweek headline offered this glimmer of hope:

Regulatory overreach killing Businesses? Sure, why not says new Republican Majority.

Consumer confidence is up and the economy is doing well. So how do you spin that if you're the new Republican majority? Like before, they are creatng their own, more downbeat pessimistic reality right before our eyes.

Politico: In their view, Obama is indifferent to the economic impact of all of his regulations. “The president doesn’t seem to care about the impact of these regulations on families,” said John Barrasso of Wyoming, the chairman of the Senate Republican Policy Committee, adding that the administration is showing “a complete neglect of the economic impact” of the load of new rules.

Did you notice the more personalized, supposed man on the street reference to the impact regulations have on..."families." What does that mean? I guess low wages are due to highly profitable businesses being regulated. Without Obama regulations, corporations would be free to cut profits and hand out big fat raises to Joe shmo employees, right? And there is a Santa Claus too.

Well, let's see how bad things are, under the oppressive regulatory thumb of the Obama administrations socialist agenda. Thankfully, we've put the Republicans in charge of the economy now:

The Rotting Soul of the Republican Party!

There's no doubt torture is a crime, and definitely not Constitutional.

So it was under that premise I asked a conservative how they now felt about silently allowing torture under the Bush/Cheney administration, and if they felt any guilt about not speaking out against it.

That prompted the grotesque picture emailed to me below (I've altered it out of respect to the victim and his family). I have personally steered clear of seeing this and other pictures...ever. But there it was, in my email.

The message to me was clear; the bar had been set so low now, that torture is...okay, see? Yet, the "Like us Facebook/Stop Hillary in 2016" banner is the most jaw dropping ghoulish thing I've seen in years.

Oh, and I was reminded that my blog posts were just as violent, and that I have an ideology that's destroying America. Sure it is.

Not to be out done, the outspoken cancer stick of radio, Vicki McKenna, posted a similar picture:

Americans believe Democrats are on their side, but are sold on Republican Snake Oil cures.

The recent Pew Research Center poll is definitive proof; the unrelenting Republican lock-step messaging machine can win over the American public's support, even though we instinctively trust the Democrats a whole lot more.

This is a marketing success story like no other. What else could explain the contrasts displayed in the two graphs below. On one hand, American overwhelmingly believe the Democrats are on their side and trust them. On the other hand, the public will still go with the more confident and trident Republican agenda because...I don't know why actually.

Check out the trust level below....

...now check out how none of that matters. Despite adding to the instability of Middle Eastern countries, the free market failure's Great Recession, W. leaving Obama (CBO's projection) a $1 trillion yearly deficit...

The GOP’s favorable ratings are underwater: 55% have an unfavorable impression, 39% of registered voters view the party favorably. For the Democratic Party, 48% of voters view the party unfavorably, 47% favorably.

Finally, who's bought and sold by special interests and holds extreme positions but still gets voter support?

GOP Bullies Pout, Stamp their Feet and Go Home after Frivolous Ballot Lawsuit Tossed.

This is all the time I want to spend on this GOP lunacy:

6 Degrees of Truth Ending 6 GOP Lies.

In a Rolling Stone article titled “Six Studies That Show Everything Republicans Believe is Wrong: It's time for the right wing to stop lying about the minimum wage, taxes, global warming and more,” we’re finally getting around to telling right wingers what we should have been saying all along-the truth. But instead, the media decided some time ago to treat the truth and BS the same, out of respect to the clueless and to appear neutral to the point of silliness.

My simple truth is: If you treat snake oil salesmen like doctors, you get a lot of snake oil doctors:

1. The Minimum Wage Doesn't Kill Jobs: In the early Nineties, David Card and Alan Krueger found "no evidence that the rise in New Jersey's minimum wage reduced employment at fast-food restaurants in the state." The most comprehensive meta-study of the minimum wage examined 64 studies and found "little or no evidence" that a higher minimum wage reduces employment.

2. The Stimulus Created Millions of Jobs: The Republican belief that markets are always good and government is always bad led them to argue that diverting resources to the public sector this way would have disastrous results. They were wrong: The stimulus worked, with the most reliable studies finding that it created millions of jobs. 

3. Taxing The Rich Doesn't Hurt Economic Growth: Republicans believe that the wealthy are the vehicles of economic growth … investment is driven by demand, not supply; if there are viable investments to be made, they will be made regardless of tax rates … Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez, two of the eminent economists of inequality, find no correlation between marginal tax rates and economic growth. Inequality reduces the incomes of the middle class, and therefore demand, which in turn stunts growth. 

4. Global Warming is caused by Humans: James Powell finds that over a one year period, 2,258 articles on global warming were published by 9,136 authors. Of those, only one, from the Herald of the Russian Academy of Sciences, rejected man-made global warming. That one article was likely motivated by the Russian government's interest in exploiting arctic shale. Another, even more comprehensive study, examining 11,944 studies over a 10-year period, finds that 97 percent of scientists accepted the scientific consensus that man-made global warming is occurring.

5. The Affordable Care Act is Working: President Obama's centrist healthcare bill was informed by federalism (delegating power to the states) … Republicans, undeterred, decried it as Soviet-style communism based on "death panels" – never mind the fact that the old system, which rationed care based on income, is the one that left tens of thousands of uninsured people to die. From the beginning, Republicans have predicted disastrous consequences or Obamacare, none of which came true. It's worth noting that every time the CBO estimates how much Obamacare will cost, the number gets lower. Odd how we've never heard Republicans say that.

6. Rich people are no better than the rest of us: Politicians on the right like to pretend that having money is a sign of hard work and morality – and that not having money is a sign of laziness. This story is contradicted by human experience and many religious traditions … But it's also contradicted by the facts – more and more rich people are getting their money through inheritances, and science shows that they are no more benevolent than others.

GOP sue again, hates new elections ballot!!! They love the courts.

Republicans can’t seem to do anything these days without going to court first. For a party that hates litigation, jackpot justice and frivolous lawsuits, they're now the biggest offenders, seeing nothing wrong with contradicting their own set of phony principles. WisPolitics:

Republicans filed suit this morning in Waukesha County court challenging a redesigned ballot to be used for the November election, arguing it unfairly favors Dems.

The old ballots had a shaded area listing the office and a bold black line under it, with the candidates listed below. Knowing that many of their low information voters aren't too smart, they say the lack of shading and the line separating the office from the first candidate will result in a vote for Democrats:

click to enlarge

The lawsuit, filed by the campaigns of Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, argues the new design will also cause confusion among voters and lead to undervotes. Under the new design, the office is not shaded and there is no line between the office up for election and the first candidate listed. Lines separate each candidate. Dem candidates are listed first this year because President Obama won the state in 2012.

Frivolous? The GOP is redefining the word.

GAB Director Kevin Kennedy said any suggestion GAB staff had a partisan motivation in the redesign was "absurd."

Pretty much describes the party now. Absurd.

But more revealing is how easily Sen. Scott Fitzgerald is confused.Rep. Robin Vos insinuated a Google search would expose the ballots designer as "partisan leaning." There was no information found. I guess having any kind of opinion, or a life, or an occupation, or a favorite color that is not approved by our Republican micro managers Vos and Fitzgerald smacks of partisanship. Small government my ass. Maybe we should run everything through the Wisconsin Club for Growth, like Scott Walker does. From WKOW's Greg Neumann:

National Republican Congressional Committee launched Fake News websites. They really did.

How low will Republicans go to win it all? Dana Milbank explains:

Republicans are learning to embrace their phoniness: The Republican Party finally has admitted what has been fairly obvious for much of the past six years: It produces fake news … it's an important step for the party to embrace the phoniness.

"NRCC launches fake news sites to attack Democratic candidates" was a headline in the National Journal on Tuesday. As Shane Goldmacher reported, "The National Republican Congressional Committee, which came under fire earlier this year for a deceptive series of fake Democratic candidate websites that it later changed after public outcry, has launched a new set of deceptive websites, this time designed to look like local news sources."

These two dozen sites, with names such as "North County Update" and "Central Valley Update" look like political fact-checking sites.
 An NRCC official told me the sites are legal because, if you scroll all the way to the bottom, you'll find, "Paid for by the National Republican Congressional Committee" in small print. "They're not fake websites," the official said. "These are real attack websites." Real attacks, but fake news: This is a fairly accurate summary of what the GOP's scandalmongers have been purveying during the Obama years.

Fast and Furious? No evidence was found. Money for Solyndra to pay the president's political cronies. Didn't happen that way. Obamacare would bring about the collapse of the American health-care system and replace it with socialized medicine and death panels. No such thing has occurred. The IRS scandal? Nope. And now, we have the Benghazi exoneration.

The actual truth of the allegations doesn't matter. Each one sullied President Obama's name. That's why fake news works: Falsehoods can drive a president's approval rating into the cellar while the truth still is getting out of bed. 

GOP Mistake? Blatantly gets Moneyed Lobbyists to go Door-to-Door asking for votes.

It took me about a day to digest this story. Was there ever a question about who owns, controls and makes our GOP corporate puppets dance to their tune?

If you thought campaign money bought influence and favorable Republicans legislation, imagine what these politicians would owe if lobbyists went door-to-door helping them get elected:

It's almost impossible to imagine this wildly public admission by our Republican legislators whose actually running our state government.

Be amazed:

jsonline: Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) has stepped up efforts to get lobbyists to personally give to candidates. Leggiepalooza adds to that effort by having lobbyists and others drop off campaign literature and urge people to vote for Republicans.

Some lobbyists have expressed reservations about being asked to directly give to legislators. Similarly, some told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel they were uncomfortable with being asked to help with door knocking because they feared they could have a harder time passing bills if they didn't participate.

Texas Democratic gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis victim of Abbott's Supporters Abortion Barbie Poster.

I’m beginning to think we no longer have an actual opposition political party. Instead of the Republican Party, we have a politically active gang of immature bullies playing a game of chicken with the country.  These aren't really adults, are they?

The following is too bizarre to be taken lightly. This can’t be the next step in campaigning, or the way one party expects to run a country:

Karli Wallace, Campaign Organizer, Democracy for America: We're not talking about a relatively tame little sketch here. We're talking life-sized pictures of a mostly naked Barbie doll with Wendy's face plastered on it -- complete with a pair of scissors and a plastic baby stuck in its belly. I can't remember a political attack as vulgar and sexist as this one. There are no words for how disgusting this is: Last week, allies of Greg Abbott's increasingly desperate campaign covered bus stops and phone booths with posters depicting Wendy Davis as "Abortion Barbie."

This is the Republican Party today....

Is Gary Kiehne, a hotel owner and Arizona candidate for congress, just another outlier? Hardly:

Rep. Hulsey to Pass out KKK Party “Hats” to GOP Secessionist Convention Goers.

The master of the overstatement and party wacko Rep. Brett Hulsey must think that if the hat fits, wear it:

Hulsey, a Democratic gubernatorial candidate … called the hoods, which are generally regarded as a racist symbol akin to a Nazi swastika, "Republican Party hats."

“Generally regarded?” Well that’s a ridiculous media neutral description. Hulsey listed a few odd coincidences that hinted at his only logical conclusion:

wsj: Asked whether handing out the hoods would be viewed as offensive, Hulsey said, "What I find offensive is Gov. Walker and the Republicans' racist record. They’re the ones considering the resolution to leave the United States" … he takes issue with Republicans discontinuing record-keeping on racial profiling by police agencies, scaling back the income eligibility limits for Medicaid and making changes to voting policies that critics say could suppress minority turnout … A vote on a resolution affirming the state's right to secede from the union, an issue that sparked the American Civil War … he plans to hold a rally outside a Walker speech Friday with participants dressed as Confederate soldiers.

The GOP record is pretty clear isn't it? Repugnant to be sure. The party in denial's official statement?

State GOP executive director Joe Fadness said: "If true, Brett Hulsey's actions amount to nothing more than a reprehensible, vile stunt and everyone should be outraged."

In fact, if you were to look real hard, you might find racism in the GOP leader class, but not in the rank-and-file:

Republican World Vision!!! If they took the Senate....

The Daily Beast depressed me with this:

Here’s What Happens When the GOP Takes Over the Senate: Passing a federal law banning almost all abortions after 20 weeks; Defunding parts of Obamacare; Weakening the Environmental Protection Agency; Kneecapping the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Elizabeth Warren’s baby, the new agency within the Fed to police consumer fraud; And—maybe, just maybe—letting a Supreme Court seat sit vacant until after the next presidential election.

Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown: “Their whole effort is grounded in their contempt for government … they’ve gone after voters’ rights, workers’ rights, women’s rights. They’d bring that to Washington.”

Republicans would pass bills reducing Pell grants, food stamps, money for renewable energy. How would Mitch McConnell, if he’s majority leader, change the filibuster rules? Would he try to make it apply to fewer situations, so he could pass bills with 51 Republicans and just a few Democrats for cover?

It's a partial list. The GOP also wants to get rid of the minimum wage. Surprisingly, voters are still okay with giving these people control of their government.