Assistant Quote of the Day

"Cantor has demonstrated a remarkable ability to combine complete ignorance of practically every major issue with the unctuous personality of a third-string maitre d’ at a fourth-string steakhouse."

-- Charles Pierce in a hilariously brilliant must-read post for Esquire

For his part, Taibbi is going to town on the fact that the usual far-right blowhards like Rush Limbaugh are losing their shit over both how troublesome the Occupy Wall Street movement has been to contain and destroy -- and how it's now forcing even the Eric Cantors of the world to kiss its collective ass. Limbaugh and his ilk are doing everything in their power to demonize this movement -- and the reality is that it's not working one bit.

Rolling Stone: Taibblog: Why Rush Limbaugh Is Freaking Out About Occupy Wall Street/10.18.11

Assistant To the Quote of the Day

"Our people are suffering now, and they need support now. And they (Congress) can all go down there and get back to work and figure out budget cuts later."

-- New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, basically telling Eric Cantor and those like him in Congress, who have demanded that federal aid for hurricane victims be offset by budget cuts, to go fuck themselves

Keep in mind, Christie is a Republican darling right now -- and between his recent castigation of the "crazies" who rallied against his appointment of a Muslim judge to the bench and now this, when the story is finally written about the death spiral of the Tea Party in America, his outrage is going to be shown to have played a big role in it.

Will and Disgrace

These days, particularly with the political divide in Washington as substantial and insurmountable as it is, there's very little that's more offensive than a politician arrogantly invoking the supposed will of "the American people." Think about how often you've heard that phrase in just the past few weeks, from dozens of different leaders from both sides of the aisle. It's generally the worst kind of cliché: a pompous politician claiming to speak for the entire republic and to be doing its collective bidding. But recently it's become flat-out insulting, given that it's impossible for any representative from either party to bridge the gap between the highly polarized political extremes and only the most lunatic among the electorate actually want to see government gridlocked to the point of threatening the world.

Still, if you needed confirmation of that which you very likely already knew, a new poll proves unequivocally that when guys like John Boehner, Eric Cantor, Mitch McConnell and Jim DeMint claim that their intransigence is nothing more than a case of succumbing to the will of the people, they're basically full of shit. The Tea Party and the ever-widening extremist wing of the Republican party may be loud, but they're not very big. According to a CNN/Opinion Research survey, just 33% of the American public currently hold a favorable view of the Republican party, compared to 59% who have an unfavorable view. If you're looking for context, yes, those numbers are as dismal as they sound. The Democrats, meanwhile, are holding relatively steady -- and even -- at 47% favorable and 47% unfavorable.

Both sides have played a role in creating a profound nationwide distrust of and distaste for our current government, but make no mistake -- the Republicans are rightfully getting most of the blame. What's most noteworthy about this, though, is that as of this morning the usual suspects within the GOP are continuing to tout their absurd stance on slashing entitlement and social programs while waiting in line to slavishly get on their knees and blow Grover Norquist as a simple case of doing the people's work. And you can be damn sure this will continue unabated.

The people have spoken loud and clear, saying that they overwhelmingly want to see corporate tax breaks ended, loopholes closed, and the wealthy forced to pay their fair share -- but if you think for a moment that something like verifiable reality will stand in the way of the Republicans' agenda and a lot of propagandistic nonsense about how it's all being done under the direction of the masses, you're crazier than one of those old people sitting in a lawn chair cheering the U.S. credit downgrade.

That's because they don't work for the average American. They don't work for you, and they never have -- not lately anyway.

Salon: Could the Tea Party Actually Be Obama's Salvation in 2012?/8.11.11

Quote of the Day, Jr.

"I guess that's what business does."

-- Eric Cantor on why, during the current FAA shutdown, the nation's airlines are pocketing the billions in tax money they'd normally be paying instead of passing the savings along to consumers

Never has so much been summed up so perfectly in so few words. You know what happens when you give very rich people and very big corporations a tax break these days? Why, they put it back into the economy or use it in a way that will otherwise benefit average Americans, right? Wrong. They hoard it to further increase their comfy bottom line. And how do today's Republicans feel about that kind of thing? Sorry, America -- suck it. That's the way the yacht sails. But by all means keep nodding your heads in agreement when we tell you that naked sociopathy and unrestrained greed are what our forefathers would have wanted for this nation.

Assistant To the Assistant To the Quote of the Day

"Oh no! Was the president mean to you, Eric? Did he hurt your feelings? Maybe you should blow up the economy to make yourself feel better."

-- Andrew Leonard in a Salon piece appropriately called "Eric Cantor: The Most Dangerous Whiner in America"

Quote of the Day

"One day after Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) stirred controversy by withholding funds for tornado relief, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) took the extraordinary step of declaring Rep. Cantor a disaster area. Within hours of the declaration, FEMA officials were dispatched to assess the damage to Mr. Cantor’s status as a human being capable of empathy."

-- Andy Borowitz, in the Borowitz Report

Man, I hate to steal Cesca's ongoing refrain, but seriously -- keep it up guys, you're doing great. The supposedly mainstream Republicans have allowed themselves to be completely hijacked by the loud but relatively small contingent of tea bagging nutjobs at the fringe of their party -- and they're going to pay a huge price for it with the voting public. Need proof? Last night a nobody Democratic candidate named Kathy Hochul won a stunning victory in a special election in New York's 26th district; that's a district that votes Democrat about as often as Burlington, Vermont votes Republican. Hochul won by hammering home the point I made just a couple of hours ago: whatever this hyper-libertarian brand of politics is that the Republicans are now engaging in in an effort to appease the Tea Party dolts, it's metastasized into something that doesn't care one bit about the average American. From Paul Ryan's Medicare-decimating budget to unconscionable dog-shit like Cantor's willingness to hold federal funds for tornado victims hostage, the message is clear -- and if it keeps up it's going to spell destruction for the GOP, at least in the short term.

But now that I'm bringing it up, there's something else I've wanted to touch on for a while. Yes, it's true that stupidity, like shit, rolls downhill, and dumb parents will inevitably pass on their dumb traits to their kids, creating an entirely new generation to populate the Idiocracy. But the demographic make-up of the country is changing rapidly: it's becoming "browner," more multi-cultural, more of a true melting pot than it's ever been before. And if you don't think that the Tea Party, above all else, is a response to that terrifying scenario for white, Christian America, you need to have your head examined (provided it's still covered by your insurance carrier). I've said for a long time now that the Tea Party "revolt" is based not exactly in racism, per se, as much as profound xenophobia -- the knowledge by those who have traditionally been in power that "their country" is being systematically taken away from them. It's inevitable that eventually America will be not simply home to but in control of people from many different backgrounds (and nothing proves that more than the election of President Obama, hence the visceral hatred of him by some). What does this mean for the Republican party as it now exists and for what it now believes in? One word: doom. The Tea Party outrage is basically the death throes of the current GOP political model. What the Republicans have stood for, campaigned on, pandered to and enabled over the last several decades is, to put it bluntly, unsustainable. This isn't opinion -- it's fact.