Cathie Adams, head of the far-right Texas Eagle Forum, is the new chair of the Republican Party of Texas. The State Republican Executive Committee announced Ms. Adams’s election to that post today. (The previous chair took a position in Gov. Rick Perry’s re-election campaign.) So now we get to see how even more extreme the Texas GOP will get. And how extreme is Ms. Adams? Let us count the ways:
– Ms. Adams has compared President Obama to Adolf Hitler, suggesting that his speech to American students was “eerily like Hitler’s youth movement.”
– In an e-mail to far-right activists in 2008, Ms. Adams viciously attacked the faith of then-candidate Obama (page 40):
“While many question Barak Hussein Obama’s ‘religion’…, the more important question is whether he has a ‘relationship’ with Jesus Christ because that is the only HOPE that any of us have to obtain eternal life. I personally see NO evidence that Obama has that kind of ‘saving faith.’”
– Two years ago Ms. Adams opposed a ballot measure providing $300 million annually over 10 years for cancer research. Voters approved the measure, which had the support of Gov. Perry and then-President George Bush. But Adams didn’t, falsely claiming that the money would be used in embryonic stem cell research and suggesting that medical researchers are amoral monsters:
“Scientists are on the verge of cloning humans, injecting them with diseases and studying them, then killing them.”
– Defending the dominance of failed abstinence-only programs in Texas schools recently, Ms. Adams blamed the state’s sky-high rates of teen births and sexually transmitted diseases on the supposedly inferior morals of Mexican immigrants:
“If mom had a baby at age 15, are her morals going to be setting different standards than someone who has grown up in the American culture where that is not typical? As a matter of fact, we would look at someone impregnating a 15-year-old as child abuse.”
– She opposes the Children’s Health Insurance Program, which gives children of the working poor access to health care:
“Now illegal aliens will be able to purchase cheap insurance for their children. This is an incentive for them to come here.”
– In May she attacked legislation by fellow Republicans (and signed into law by Gov. Perry) to aid the study of how mental health services might be used in treating patients with other health conditions. Such a thing, she said,
“is now more dangerous than ever with the federal government taking up nationalized/rationed health care. Texans must not surrender our mental and physical health to a socialist State that President Obama is striving toward.”
Clearly, Ms. Adams’ election as chair represents the complete surrender of the Republican Party of Texas to ideological extremists.
I’d laugh if I didn’t know just how many of my friends and neighbors gobble up her cow patties of rhetoric like they were hot-fudge sundaes. Pretty scary…..
I deplore the fact of it, but it may be a blessing in disguise. Those whom the gods would destroy they first make them go to the deep end and jump off.
That is the personal evaluation I took away from the News Hour on PBS yesterday. Both the liberal and conservative discussants deplored the Republican Party’s swing to extremists like Ms. Adams, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, and Glen Beck. They agreed that they would be the death of the party (in the eyes of the independent voters needed to win elections) and they noted that outyear demographics are stacked against them as well. Personally,I would like to see the Republican Party swing back towards moderate Republicans like Ike Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jay Rock., Ms. Collins, and Ms. Snowe. If that were to ever happen, the Pubs and Dems might actually do something bipartisan and help this country address some of its real problems rather than have these ideologically driven food fights while our country goes to Hades in a…
So we now see the end of the swing to the Right of the Texas Republican Party. It can’t move any further to the Right.
Such irrational extremism and nonsense only appeals to a small minority and offends the vast majority, and marks the beginning of the end of the Republican party in Texas, though it may take a while.
The Texas Republican Party will lose its power and be forced to move to the middle or crumble.
In a strange way, I am happy to see this sad event take place. Now it can slowly begin the process of collapse.
They have certianly run me completely out of the Republican party with their behavior. Borrowing from the famous quote by Ronald Reagan, I didn’t leave the Republican Party, the Republican Party left me.
Did none of you notice the vote on the Defense of Marriage constitutional amendment in Texas? How about the size of the Tea Parties all over Texas?
Cathy is about as far right as you can get in Texas, and she’s representative of many of us who voted for the traditional definition of marriage and family and who are opposed to taking from producers to “spread the wealth around.”
Tea Parties and disruptive town hall meetings are not are not spontanious grass roots phenomina. But rather they are organized and financed by the far Right. These are planned demonstreations by the Republicans to incite incivility and stir otherwise reasonable people up.
And if you don’t know it, a gay couple can get essentially all the rights of marriage today by a somewhat burdensome process of civil agreements and contracts. It’s just not called marriage. And most corporations extend benefits to a same sex domestic partner. So what is the difference? Not much, except the complex process by which to get it done.
As far as “spread the wealth around” goes, do you realize that phrase does not refer to you or me. It refers to increasing taxes on the very wealthy who have benefited from unreasonably low tax rates while the bulk of the tax burden is borne by the middle class. Waren Buffet (worth $37 Billion) has been advocating for a overhaul of our unfair tax system for years. He surveyed his employees and found that they were mostly in the 33% tax bracket and Buffett was in the 17% bracket. Buffett deemed this very unfair since he could certianly afford to pay more and his employees were strapped.
A person that invests and makes $100K in one year will still do so no matter if the tax rate is 17% or 35%. Because either way, they have still made a significant profit.
Would you invest $100K to make $100K if the tax rate was 0%? Sure you would.
Would you invest if the tax rate was 17% and you only took home $83K? Sure you would.
Would you invest if the tax rate was 35% and you only took home $65K. Sure you would, because that is likely what you are doing now.
So do you think Warren Buffet should pay a lower Tax rate that yourself? I don’t, and neither does he. That is what the phrase “spread the wealth” is all about. Right now most of the wealth is concentrated with the very rich.
There is something wery wrong when the top 1% have more wealth than the bottom 99%. The very wealthy can afford to pay more in taxes, and they should.
I so could have predicted B. Nuckols’ posting. Just as I was reading through the above postings about the end of the GOP as we know it today and was going to post something to the effect that the news of GOP’s death is greatly exaggerated, B. Nuckols shows up to prove me correct.
You can’t make this stuff up!
So, yeah, the news of the death of the GOP as we know it today is greatly exaggerated. I think the majority of the GOP LOVES its fringe. In fact, sorry to burst you all’s bubble, but the GOP fringe is not considered the fringe by the majority GOP at all. The fringe is considered prophets, messengers of the truth, etc.
A letter to the editor in today’s San Antonio Express News repeated the allegations that Pres. Obama is not a U.S. citizen and insisted that the allegation is true despite the mainstream media reports. This is not the stuff of the fringe; it is the stuff of the majority GOP.
Speaking of President Eisenhower, he predicted the takeover of the GOP by the Religious Right as far back as the 1950’s. Nobody will believe me; you’ll have to read yourself in the book REPUBLICAN GOMORRAH by Max Blumenthal.
Fascinating that so many are so brainwashed as to vote against their own interests. Unless, of course, B. Nuckols is in the top 1% wealthiest Americans.
Cytocop, I see your point. The whole Republican party may now be “fringe”. But most people are not that extreme. My contention is that an extremist party is a shrinking party. Back in the late 70’s and early 80’s the Democrats became more less extremist then the political pendulum swung to the Right.
The swing to the Right is over nationally, now it will slowly swing back to the Left…even in Texas, it will just take a while.
People that are loyal because they have always been Republicans will begin to catch on and leave. And, as you say, the “news of GOP’s death is greatly exaggerated”.
We will have to put up with them as a force for a while longer but their days of majority power are numbered.
PHarvey, can you tell me how to get reimbursed for my participation? I didn’t even get paid when I was an invited speaker.
No, we’re not dead – and we aren’t the Party that supports the choice of killing ourselves at either end of life – that’s a “progressive” thing.
Perhaps those of us who hope our children and our fellow Texans’ children will not only live past birth but will have better lives care more about the burden we’re endowing to them. In about the time it would take to gestate a future taxpayer, the Democrats in Washington have passed laws to spend more than the Nation has spent since 1775.
The top earners pay more than the middle class in taxes, but perhaps 25% (plus the alternative minimum tax – some number I haven’t memorized) of $70K ($18K plus ?) hurts no more than 35% (plus the alternative minimum tax) of $500K ($175K+ over a $100K) (If I understand these charts: http://taxes.about.com/od/2009taxes/qt/2009_tax_rates.htm)
That information at the above link says that the 0% capital gains tax for the lowest tax brackets will go away at the end of 2010.
Let’s see, you are the party that’s against abortion, but also against teaching sex education and contraception. Did it ever occur to you that if you put your energy toward preventing unwanted pregancies then there would not be any abortions or abortion clinics?
Your is the party against abortion but you try to rationalize capital punishment. Its killing either way. To support both is irrational.
Yours is the party that denies healthcare to small children after you have saved them from abortion.
Yours is the party that saves children from abortion and then doesn’t contribute one cent to rasing the unwanted child.
Yours is the party that denies healthcare to anyone who can’t afford it (as the prices keep rising) as if they deserve to die young.
Yours is the party that will eliminate the social safety nets of social security, medicare, welfare, and medicaid and allow the poor and elderly to strave and die earlyu of disease.
Yours is the party that kicked off the trend of deficit spending (Reagan) and allowed it to get out of control and is primarily responsible for running up a $11T. debt.
Yours is the party that deregulated the banking industry and paved the way for the financial meltdown and near depression of 2008.
Yours is the party that would not have injected capital into the banking system and would have allowed the system to collapse into another Great Depression.
Yours is the party that would eliminate the stimulus today even though that spending is the ONLY thing that is keeping us out of a depression now.
Yours is the party of a wreckless tax system that undertaxes and contributes to the large deficit and burdens the m iddle class while the rich get richer as they don’t pay their fair share.
I could go on, but this is tiring…
I applaud the move of the Texas Republican Party even farther to the extreme right. It will only hurt them. We have seen national push-back against the extremist faction of the GOP. Only 20 percent of voters nationally identify themselves as Republicans now — a 30-year low. The party will fracture into two impotent factions soon as the moderates realize that the hard right is not supported by enough voters to ever regain power.
The more extreme the GOP, the better for progressives. We may be in the early years of 40-year Democratic dominance thanks to extremists such as nutcase Cathie Adams.
Look, this exchange is a form of democracy, so by all means keep it up. But understand that right-wingers are ‘believers’ and not ‘thinkers’. Once they get their conceptual orders from whatever sources they have been told are ‘right’ by their equally limited church and trogloditic social leaders, no amount of reason or science or just plain contradictory evidence from any intelligently credible faction can reach them. They are told the opposite, and so believe that they are actually thinking with no idea at all what real free thought is, and have no capacity at all for analyzing new information against their pre-formed programing. This was at least entertaining until fear and ignorance was elevated by mass-media characters pandering to the lowest qualities of humanity chased so many weak, uncertain and desperate people into extreme groups. From these, power, and therefore great power-supporting wealth, could be won through the backing of such world-class media puppeteers as Rupert Murdoch, a man whose only moral guide has always been greed. Feel free to continue to vent though, because you encourage those who are in fact are able to think independently, and who appreciate knowing they have allies in reason.
Charles, your list of Republicans from days-gone-by would never make it in today’s GOP: Ike Eisenhower, Gerald Ford, or Barry Goldwater (though he wasn’t on your list). These men would be dismissed as RINOS or downright Democrats by today’s Republicans.
I don’t know if we can include Richard Nixon on the list either. In some ways, today’s GOP would love him. In other ways, they would hate him. He started the EPA (didn’t he? My memory is foggy). He also wanted universal healthcare which today’s Republicans abhor. Today’s Republicans would much prefer uninsured people and denied-coverage people die rather than be helped by gov’ment insurance. (Unless, of course, they were eligible for Medicare!) I’m sure they give out a cheer for every one of those 45,000 deaths and 700,000 bankruptcies. They’d say the dead people probably deserved to die because they didn’t diet or exercise enough. (Never mind that even the slimmest and fittest can succumb to cancer, heart disease, ALS, and a host of fatal diseases; to get hung up on facts would just be so boring).
B. Nuckols’ party is also the party that would eliminate contraception which prevents unwanted pregnancies.
And what’s this about choice at the end of life? Everytime a patient enters a hospital, they are to set down instructions as to what they want done should a complication arise. This is just plain common sense; only a GOP wingnut would call this a “death panel.” How would they prefer things to be? That the hospital should have to guess? That the hospital staff should be required to put the patient on life support for eternity? And at whose expense? They are, after all, SOOOOO worried about spending.
And if and when I am ever on Medicare, the Republicans don’t think my physician should be paid to discuss end of life issues with me. Apparently, the Republicans don’t want me to have any choice about these things. I am no longer an individual in charge of my own life anymore; I am at the mercy of the gov’ment and whatever the gov’ment wants for me. The GOP would have Gov. Perry force me to be hooked up indefinitely on life support. Since the Republicans are so darned worried about expenditures, how, pray tell, do they expect me to pay for my indefinite care? Where do they think the money for all this fancy state-of-the-art care and equipment is going to come from? If they think I have an endless supply of savings sitting in the bank, I’m afraid they are going to be sadly mistaken. And BY GOD, the money had better not come from taxes!! To raise taxes to keep ole Cytocop breathing would be the end of the world as the GOP knows it. So where does the money come from? These GOP wingnuts are like children: they think money grows on trees.
As for the tea parties, they consist of easily-scared people who fall prey to insurance company propaganda.
As for the DOMA, I really don’t give a crap if two same-sex adults want to marry. What has that got to do with me? How does it interfere with my rights and privileges as a citizen? I have yet to get a satisfactory answer to these questions. There are many issues that keep me awake at night. Many issues. The thought that gay people might be getting married isn’t one of them. Stupid stuff like what if I lose my job? What if I get sick or injured? What if I get sick or injured and UnitedHealth refuses to cover me? You know, stupid stuff like that….
B Nuckols: Here is a vision of what is going to happen to all of you gray-suited boys on the far right. The statistics and demographics now indicate this. Better get used to it. It’s a comin’ for you.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYecfV3ubP8
Y’all do understand that 1984 was a warning against the left, don’t you?
BTW, Charles, while HPD displays some pretty bad misinformation about Republicans, your sexist chauvinism is showing – I’m a *woman.*
Rather than having a narrow source of information, I read “Texas Freedom Network.”
Correction: 1984 is a warning against totalitarianism which can come from either the FAR Left or the FAR Right.
And y’all do understand there are warnings against the Far Right too, don’t you?
I stand by Cytocop and Apple Computers. Ms. Nuckols. You do remember that facism is often seen as a largely right wing movement. Everyone here on TFN is a red-blooded American. This is our country too—not just yours. My ancestors were citizens of this country for nearly 100 years before it ever became the United States of America. I am sure many of our Hispanic visitors can trace their American ancestry back another 200 years. While you are here, I had better not hear any of this “communist” or “socialist” labeling crap that you people have been spouting of late. Too many millions of people around the world have died under those failed and cruel banners, and I feel sure that none of those terms applies to anyone you will meet here. From where I sit, if anyone redistributes a portion of your paycheck or mine, it is being done because Jesus said to “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” I know you folks would like to rewrite the Bible to edit out statements like that, but you will have to do it over my dead body.
Amen, brother Charles. I too am a red-blooded American, a descendant of English colonists whose ancestors fought in the American Revolution. (Er, never mind that one of them fought on the English side…..)
How fascinating the GOP is the party of Ayn Rand laissez-faire “government-is-not-the-solution-government-is-the-problem” capitalism that has largely brought us the economic mess we’re in today yet claims to be the party of fiscal responsibility.
Republicans also advance a me-first-screw-you/every man(woman)-for-him/herself mentality, yet claim to be model Christians (GOP meaning (G)od’s (O)wn (P)arty).
And let’s remember: over the past 30 years the assets of the wealthiest Americans have surged ahead (thanks to Corporateamerican control of the government under both D and R administrations but mostly R) while the wages of we the middle class have not only stagnated but fallen behind. I suppose I’m supposed to thank “the producers” for my falling standard of living.
Thanks for setting down the rules and making religious pronouncements.
Government is not a good steward for my duty to Jesus to love my neighbor. Coercion and force (taxes, fees, guns or jails) can’t compel, much less express, love.
B Nuckols,
You zealots sure have funny ways of showing your love.
Your “duty to Jesus” is used to justify a lot of despicable behavior. Keep your mythology out of my life.
Oh, so I take it it’s better that uninsured people are abandoned to suffer and die. Yeah, that’ll sure show ’em Jesus’ love!
“Compassionate conservative” is an oxymoron.
So, B Nuckols, I take it you don’t like taxes, fees, guns, or jails.
So how do you propose we finance these wars our government wants to fight? How do we maintain our military forces without taxes? By donations only? Yeah, that’ll work.
When was the last time you drove across a bridge? Do you realize bridges are maintained by taxes? Would you prefer the bridge you drive across every day not be maintained? Or is it just the bridges you DON’T use that you’d like to see unrepaired?
Do you realize police and fire departments are maintained by taxes? Would you prefer police and fire departments not exist and we all be left to our own devices? I guess you’d prefer a personal bodyguard as your army rather than a national military force. And I suppose the nearest fire hydrant would be your fire department. Good luck.
Do you realize public schools and public libraries are maintained by taxes? Would you prefer a society where schools are privatized so that only the wealthiest can afford to educate their children? Sounds like the feudal system to me. (And we ALL know how “Christian” feudal societies are, don’t we?) For the wealthiest, yes, I can understand where that kind of society would be appealing. They get everything, and the rest get nothing.
Taxes maintain our national parks and national forests. Would you rather see them all cut down, destroyed, and turned into resorts and theme parks and shopping malls? It’s true wealth and jobs would be created in doing that. But is our country so small that such businesses can’t be created anywhere else? What is wrong with setting aside God’s bounty for ALL to enjoy and in its natural state? When I was growing up, my parents took us on road trips every summer to camp in and enjoy the national parks. They instilled in us a love for nature and the wilderness and how richly we Americans have been blessed to have a country with such beauty and how lucky we are that people with foresight set this area aside to be preserved forever.
I agree there are hidden fees and surcharges in every transaction we do that are maddening and cost each of us hundreds – maybe thousands – of dollars per year. But you can’t blame that on Democrats. Both parties have been party to the implementation of that infrastructure, probably because they have benefitted from them. To blame one party for that is just plain dishonest and not factual.
And you don’t like guns? That’s a new one to me coming from a Republican! Democrats didn’t invent guns, and neither did Republicans. Guns were around long before those two parties were ever started. Before there were even American colonies. I’m flabbergasted that even a Republican wouldn’t know this.
And you don’t like jails? What do you propose we do with criminals to keep them separated from us? Do you propose we hang all of them? Burn them? Or maybe stoning is your preference? Yes, maybe you’re invoking the Biblical law to stone one’s unruly child. Well, my dear, fortunately, we have evolved beyond that time just as we no longer have slavery in our country in the way it was an integral part of Biblical society.
It’s not even clear how many unruly kids were actually stoned since the law also required both parents or guardians be unanimous in the decision to stone their child, and the child had to be stoned in the presence of the entire community. The stoning could not take place in secret. So we don’t know of many cases where the stoning actually occurred.