¡Hola! Fellow Republicans

By Bill Maher

Only when the borders are secure, only then can those who are in the US illegally, "come out of the shadows, get biometrically identified, start paying taxes, pay a fine for the law they broke. They can't stay unless they learn our language, and they have to get in the back of line before they become citizens. They can't cut in front of the line regarding people who are doing it right and it can take over a decade to get their green card."

                                                - Lindsay Graham, on "Face the Nation"

He didn't mean it, really. It sounds harsh, but what Lindsay Graham was saying (as predictably as heartburn after a burrito) is that we're going to be having a great big Latino-loving legislative fiesta before Cinco de Mayo.

The language has to be harsh. The Republicans have to strongly condemn the idea of amnesty and the idea of forgiveness, and make it clear that such things will not be tolerated. And they will strictly enforce the letter of their law by making illegal immigrants suffer the deep, painful, merciless punishment of...paperwork!

That's right -- go back to Mexico, because there's no way, Jose. At least not unless you sign here. And here. And here. And give us a DNA sample. Okay, and wait a couple of years, just like you've been waiting, feel free to keep cleaning those toilets while you do. And then...Hey, welcome to America, citizen! Have fun, and please consider voting Republican!

The language that Republicans are going to be spouting for the next few months will continue to sound harsh, as they struggle to convince their base that they are Solving the Problems caused by shiftless Mexicans. And talk is all that's needed, because several of the key problems are imaginary, which are the easiest sort of problems to resolve.

So we'll "close" the border by beefing up security...and then be able to brag about the fact that we've attained a net cross-border migration of zero. Which, of course, we've already got. And we'll force those Mexicans to learn English, which, obviously, most of them want to do. We won't let them steal the jobs we want, which they’re not doing. And we'll make them wait patiently for their papers, which isn't a huge hardship for people who've been waiting anyway.

Obviously, this will be a huge victory for Democrats and something the Republicans are doing only because they feel they have to if they want to remain politically relevant. But let's not fool ourselves -- it's a victory for Democratic ideas, but politically it could work out to be a way better thing for Republicans. If they can convince their base that they've "solved" the illegal immigrant problem and take the nasty Joe Arpaio-type talk off the table, there's not a lot of reason why they couldn't find themselves grabbing much, much larger percentages of the Latino vote right away, and we'll be saying a fond "¡Adios!" to the new "permanent" Democratic advantage.

Then again, you can never underestimate the Republicans' ability to come across as racist douchebags.

Whack-a-Mole Accounting

By Bill Maher

No one seems to be talking about how “putting our financial house in order” and “slashing the federal budget,” while sounding good on the surface, simply transfers responsibility to provide critical entitlements to the states.

Go ahead, cut education, federal funding for municipal projects, Medicaid, food stamps and unemployment benefits. That may make you feel like you’re striking a blow for “ending the culture of dependency,” but kids still have to learn, aging classrooms still need to be renovated, books still need to be bought, teachers still need to be paid, bridges and roads still need to be built and repaired, and poor and out-of-work people will still get sick and hungry and need diapers. Having the feds stop paying to solve these problems doesn’t make the problems go away; it just transfers the onus of solving these problems to the states. The good news: Paul Ryan has reduced your federal income tax responsibility to 10%. The bad news: your state government now needs 55%.

Or do they? Maybe the federal government can stop paying for these things and states run by Republican governors and legislatures can finally start governing based on the cherished conservative principle of “Fuck you, every man for himself.”

Writing for the AP, Carla K. Johnson and Kelli Kennedy point out that many Republican-run states are refusing to abide by the part of Obamacare that shifts Medicaid responsibility to the states. Out of one side of their mouths, they demand federal cuts and out of the other they refuse to pick up the slack.

The national health law calls for individuals to be covered at an income under $15,400 and a family of four at an income under $30,650 – but that’s too generous for a few southern states. According to the AP, “In South Carolina, a yearly income of $16,900 is too much for Medicaid for a family of three. In Florida, $11,000 a year is too much. In Mississippi, $8,200 a year is too much. In Louisiana and Texas, earning more than just $5,000 a year makes you ineligible for Medicaid.”

More from the AP story: “Medicaid now covers an estimated 70 million Americans and would cover an estimated 7 million more in 2014 under the Obama health law's expansion. In contrast, Ryan's plan could mean 14 million to 27 million Americans would ultimately lose coverage, even beyond the effect of a repeal of the health law, according to an analysis by the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation of Ryan's 2011 budget plan.”

And it’s hardly premium coverage. Medicaid sucks and most doctors refuse to even treat patients on it. It’s so shitty you’d be better off with an actual safety net. Should poor people just go fuck themselves?

GOP Goes the Weasel

by Bill Maher

The California Republican Party has shit-canned Assemblyman Brian Nestande as their caucus chair due to an embarrassing lapse in judgment. Nestande didn’t get whacked out on scotch and Ambien and beat his wife in a casino parking garage and he didn’t get caught sucking off a teen boy in a Jamba Juice restroom – those are the kinds of scandals you could ride out. No, Nestande did something far, far more unforgivable.  He voted with Democrats on a bill.

AB 1500 closes a loophole that allows out-of-state businesses, unlike in-state California businesses, to pay taxes on their property or their sales rather than on their income. If adopted, it will level the playing field and raise over $1 billion for a state currently strapped with a $16 billion deficit. And all of that $1 billion would go towards college scholarships, a real investment in California’s future.

But in Republican World, asking for a revenue increase of any kind for any reason is “raising taxes” and they have a strict, black-and-white policy of  “No taxes, no matter what, ever, for anything, or you’re in big, big trouble, buster.” So, for breaking the Republican commandment of “Thou shalt never agree with a Democrat, nor ever raise a tax, nor ever get anything done,” Brian Nestande is out and shouldn’t hold his breath waiting for an invite to Grover Norquist’s Labor Day picnic.

Here’s Nestande’s parting statement: “Today I am stepping down as Republican Caucus Chair. I cast a vote yesterday as the only Republican to level the playing field for California businesses, so we have the same corporate tax policy as Texas, Wisconsin, South Carolina, Mississippi, Michigan, Indiana, Utah, and 10 other states. I specifically named those states because they have Republican Governors that are considered leaders in our party today… I put forward my vote in good faith that, in its final form, this bill will be part of a comprehensive regulatory reform package to put Californians back to work. With my vote yesterday I decided to take the side of my constituents and California businesses.”

Putting the people before your party? What a dangerous, disloyal scumbag.  Doesn’t he know that the idea of shrinking government and taking an intransigent stand is much, much more important than his “constituents” or fairness or fiscal pragmatism or solving problems? I’ve gotta ask, has the Republican Party bastardized government beyond repair?

A Truce Proposal for the Republican Party

By Bill Maher


No matter who you talk to on the right about the frothing insanity and Congressional belligerence directed at President Obama, inevitably they’ll all raise the same point: You did it to Bush when he was in office. Which wasn’t equivalent, or even close, but this seems to be something we can never get beyond – this tit for tat. Now, I don’t remember Democrats deciding, as an electoral strategy, to oppose everything the president proposed or did, even when they agreed with it, and to use the filibuster in ways never seen before in order to deny him legislative victories so that the public would not see the change they were promised and vote against the president’s party in the midterms – all of which has happened to Obama. No, I don’t remember the Democrats doing that. Quite the opposite. I remember the Democrats saying, “Oh, you want a pre-emptive war? Aye-aye, Captain!” 

But let’s not get into that. I come in peace. 

And I’ll even go first, and make a gesture of goodwill: I apologize for blaming Bush for the conditions at Walter Reed. When that Dana Priest/Anne Hull story came out and we found that Walter Reed was in rough shape and had mold and exposed wires and rats and nothing was being done to fix it, we all added that to the growing list of Bush administration scandals, along with Iraq, and Abu Ghraib, torture, the response to Katrina, outing a CIA agent, etc. But it really didn’t deserve to be there. Because Bush wasn’t in charge of the wiring at Walter Reed, or even aware of it. So, yes, that was unfair and I take it back. Bush wasn’t directly to blame for the conditions at Walter Reed. There. That was overly-partisan. 

Your turn. …I’ll wait. It’ll be like the Dayton Peace Accords. We could even hold it in Dayton. I’m sure they’d appreciate the business. 

And here’s my proposal: if we agree not to go crazy on Mitt Romney should he be elected, and I don’t take to the airwaves days after his inauguration and say that I hope he fails and pledge to oppose everything he does like Rush Limbaugh did after Obama was elected, then Republicans have to agree to chill the fuck out should Obama be re-elected, and to let him run the country, and staff positions without needlessly filibustering, and let bills pass in the Senate with a simple majority, and to finally shut the hell up about the socialism and the Kenya and the America-hating.
…Deal?

The Right Shift

By Bill Maher

Good news: last month, for the first time in weeks, Congress passed a bill! And wait until you hear what you get: by a vote of 78 to 20, the Senate voted to extend the life of the U.S. Export-Import Bank. …People, please! Control yourselves!

Yes, the Import-Export Bank. It’s been around for 80 years. They re-upped it for another three. Now, what do you 80% of Americans who disapprove of the job Congress is doing have to say about that?? Hit the links, Speaker Boehner! You’ve earned it.

Now, if I were a Washington pundit, I’d launch into some boring speech about how both sides are equally to blame, and then I’d call it a day and we’d all meet at Katherine Graham’s house for cocktails. Which is weird because Katherine Graham is dead. But this is why you never see us booking George Will and Peggy Noonan on my show (besides the fact that they wouldn’t do it): Because the same old Washington pundits haven’t said anything interesting since disco. Also because the idea that the blame for our government’s dysfunction is equally shared by the parties just is a giant, steaming mound of horseshit and anyone who has paid attention to politics over the last 20 years knows it. Or as I like to call it, “The Rise of the Party of the Apes.”

In fact, recently Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein, two old wonks who have been in Washington as long as the Potomac, wrote a book called “It's Even Worse Than It Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided With the New Politics of Extremism” in which they basically say, flat out, what I say every week: it’s the Republicans who are crazy. And they wrote an op-ed in The Washington Post to go along with the book called, “Let’s Just Say It: The Republicans Are the Problem.”

They write: “We have been studying Washington politics and Congress for more than 40 years, and never have we seen them this dysfunctional. In our past writings, we have criticized both parties when we believed it was warranted. Today, however, we have no choice but to acknowledge that the core of the problem lies with the Republican Party.” And they’re not saying Democrats are blameless and perfect. We all know there’s only been one perfect man in human history. And that’s David Beckham.

But it reminded me of something Barney Frank recently said: “…people have said to me, well, why can't you work things out with the Republicans, and my answer to my friends has been: Exactly on what issues do you think Michele Bachmann and I can compromise?” Basically Barney is saying, look, how do you expect me to work on the 2+2=4 bill when their side believes math is a liberal plot to turn your kid queer?

Take Dick Lugar. Who was always a staunch conservative, just not the modern-day insane variety. He was just throttled in the Republican Senate primary in Indiana by a Tea Party guy named Richard Mourdock. And after Mourdock won he said this about working with the other side: “I certainly think bipartisanship ought to consist of Democrats coming to the Republican point of view.” Which is sort of like saying to your girlfriend, “I think both our sexual needs will best be fulfilled by you blowing me.”

Or take Allen West. Seriously, take him to the padded cell and give him 20 CCs of the high test. Ornstein and Mann start off their Post op-ed by noting that recently Rep. Allen West said that there are “78 to 81” Democrats in Congress who are members of the Communist Party. And not one Republican said, “Allen, come on. You’re making us look dumb.” Not one of the Republican candidates for president said anything. Because in today’s Republican Party, that’s not even edgy anymore. They probably saw him later on and were like, “Word, Allen. Word.” Because that’s how they think black people talk.

Country First

Whenever we do an editorial chastising America for not living up to its potential, there are complaints. Complaints that I blame America first. Which is silly - I'm not "blaming" America in any particular order. I'm simply of the belief that nothing gets better until you see the problem for what it really is. Republicans have become the party of red, white and blue rose colored glasses. By drowning out criticism with USA! USA!, they prevent this country from healing itself where it needs healing, and that is the opposite of Country First. For those who disapproved of Friday's editorial about Europe and America, here are two others of similar ilk to choke on :)