Fun with Mental Health, Guns, and Quotes from the Right

Hearing the endless loop of whining from Republicans that their violent rhetoric had nothing to do with the shooting yesterday in Arizona has made me want to review some of the rhetoric for the record. Never mind Palin's gun sight map, which they argue wasn't really gunsights, just cross-hairs.

''I'm thinking about killing Michael Moore, and I'm wondering if I could kill him myself, or if I would need to hire somebody to do it. ... No, I think I could. I think he could be looking me in the eye, you know, and I could just be choking the life out.'' —Glenn Beck

"I hope that's not where we're going, but you know if this Congress keeps going the way it is, people are really looking toward those Second Amendment remedies and saying my goodness what can we do to turn this country around? I'll tell you the first thing we need to do is take Harry Reid out." —Sharon Angle

''Our nation was founded on violence. The option is on the table. I don't think that we should ever remove anything from the table as it relates to our liberties and our freedoms.''—Tea Party Texas GOP congressional candidate Stephen Broden

I want people in Minnesota armed and dangerous on this issue of the energy tax because we need to fight back. Thomas Jefferson told us 'having a revolution every now and then is a good thing,' and the people -- we the people -- are going to have to fight back hard if we're not going to lose our country." —Michele Backmann

"Don’t retreat. Instead — reload!" —Sarah Palin

Who knows how much these words had to do with the shooting, if any. But they're awfully close to yelling fire in a crowded theater. I don't care who the shooter was or what he thought, talk like this is dangerous and stupid. Anyone who wants to defend speech like that now is sick. It's indefensible.

Of course, combine Arizona's lax gun laws and cuts to mental health services and you get a real fun place to live:

Arizona has been considered a progressive state because it provides the vast majority of mental health services through cost-effective outpatient community programs. By slashing these programs, experts say the state will force more people to use emergency rooms or end up in the criminal justice system, which will cost the state more.

So, who knows what this particular shooter's mental state was. Who knows if he should have had a gun or not. Who knows if he watched Glen Beck. But you put all this together and it sounds pretty dangerous. Something is/was bound to go wrong.

The Trees Are Stealing Our Water!

I don't listen to Rush. He still thinks we [members of Congress] don't pay into Social Security... I don't listen to talk radio. I don't have the time. --Rep. Darrell Issa, via TPM

What does it take to get a Republican to denounce Rush Limbaugh? 80 million gallons of oil spewed into the gulf of Mexico and Limbaugh's continued defense of BP, apparently. The TPM story is the first I've seen noting an earthquake in the GOP that had been building for a while, due to the increased pressure between the two tectonic plates of the GOP: The Limbaugh crazies and the crazies who's job it is to get Republicans elected. This clash of landmasses is going to do even more magnitudes of damage to a party that, if it knew shit from shinola, should be taking back the House and Senate this year.

At the rate they're going, I'd be surprised if they could take back their toys at the end of the day.

Perhaps more telling than the rift between the Limbaugh Lemmings and the Issa Idiots is the story of Karl Rove's adventures in alternative fund raising for the GOP:

A new 527 group conceived by veteran GOP hands Karl Rove and Ed Gillespie and launched this year with predictions that it would raise $52 million to support Republican candidates has thus far failed to live up to the fundraising hype.

The group, American Crossroads, raised only $200 last month, according to a report it filed Monday with the Internal Revenue Service, bringing its total raised since launching in March to a little more than $1.25 million. It spent $76,000 in May, primarily on legal fees and salaries, bringing its total spending to $140,000.

All those tax cuts to the rich and Karl Rove can't raise money? Well, as Turd Blossom himself once said, "You may end up with a different math, but you're entitled to your math. I'm entitled to 'the' math."

The Math for Republicans is not good these days. The other main alternative fundraising apparatus, The Tea Baggers, aren't doing much better, although at $4.5 million, they make the Shit Flower look like he needs some water. Or more shit. Maybe the GOP donors, many of them pissed that they've been used to fund a neo-con agenda that didn't result in crucifying gays, forcing prayer in school, putting abortion doctors on death row, restarting prohibition, and planting a 40 ton set of stones with the ten commandments on the White House lawn, just don't want to pony up to Karl, or anyone else for that matter. But whadya bet it's just another con job on the right? They'll throw them some bones here and there, then work for their corporate overlords.

There's a perfect example of all kinds of Republican crazy on display in this month's Harper's Magazine article by Ken Silverstein, Tea party in the Sonora: For the future of G.O.P. governance, look to Arizona:

Then there was Sylvia Allen, a real estate broker from the town of Snowflake, who, in 2008, was appointed by the local Republican Party to finish the term of a respected conservative who had died in office. Allen, who retained her seat in an election that fall, has since gained minor notoriety after calling for more uranium mining, saying in a speech that “this earth has been here 6,000 years, long before anybody had environmental laws, and somehow it hasn’t been done away with.” She also has complained that trees are “stealing Arizona’s water supply” and sponsored a new law that allows carriers of concealed weapons to forego safety training and the indignity of background checks.

 Just imagine this kind of institutionalized crazy, which is really pretty typical of the GOP, combined with this kind of corporate arrogance:

“It’s my opinion that Mr. Barton and Mr. Price’s comments were more of a reaction to the arrogance in President Obama’s speech, where he said he was going to ‘inform’ BP that they would set aside this separate compensation fund to be controlled by a third party,” said Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.). “Under our laws and Constitution, the president does not possess the power or authority to make such an arrogant command to a private company.”

OK, then. Anyone who votes for these political Neanderthals deserves the kind of Arizonan dystopia they so deeply desire, where they pay private companies to do what their taxes used to do. If all Republicans would all just move to the land of cheap housing and $500 electric bills, the rest of us could get on with the kind of hard work that running a country requires.

Those Damn Trial Lawyers Republicans Hate So Much

Ironic.

Arizona Republican Gov. Jan Brewer is rolling out a fundraising campaign for a private legal defense fund to represent the state against legal challenges to its new immigration law.

Yes, please, more money to trial lawyers from Republicans. I love it.