Why did teabagging, money-grubbing Rep. Kristi Noem, who went with her hand out to the freedom-destroying federal government last year, vote against Hurricane Sandy aid — and for a cut in food stamps, while collecting a half-million in subsidies for her family farm?

You know, I’m a pretty sympathetic person. But what kind of numbnut tea drinkers are these people, that it never occurred to them to appreciate what kind of aid they get from the government? Like, WTF?

Yet Washington’s shutdown has deprived people here of a traditional safety net: Congress hasn’t passed a new farm bill to subsidize agricultural producers, and the lockout means legislators won’t be voting on the topic any time soon.

These days, Reder passes a federal Farm Services Administration office whose doors are closed. Like most American ranchers, the 47-year-old is a resilient small businessman used to tending to his own problems, with help from neighbors whose families settled this land generations ago.

Still, he’s frustrated and feels that federal lawmakers have turned their backs on the nation’s heartland in a time of need.

“We’re just a bunch of ranchers from South Dakota — it’s hard for our voices to be heard,” he said, sitting at the kitchen table at dawn Friday, drinking coffee, fielding calls from fellow cattlemen. “You see crises across the country, the hurricanes and tornadoes, and officials are right on top of it. But something of this magnitude, that has just about leveled this part of the country, and there’s nothing.”

Many residents in this conservative region had supported the government shutdown as a way to make Washington more fiscally responsible. “But one appropriate role for these guys is to lend a hand after disasters like this,” Christen said, “and they’re not here.”

Remember when your beloved Congresswoman and former South Dakota Snow Queen Kristi Noem, your state’s own Caribou Barbie, voted against aid for Hurricane Sandy victims and for food stamp cuts?

YOU VOTED TO PUT MEAN, CRAZY PEOPLE IN CHARGE OF DESTROYING THE GOVERNMENT, AND NOW YOU WANT TO KNOW WHY THE GOVERNMENT ISN’T HELPING YOU? WTF WTF WTF?

Don’t you know you’re just “takers”?

Don’t you know you’re supposed to count on your church and community to help with GIANT NATURAL DISASTERS BEYOND IMAGINING? Because freedom? Because cowboys?

You voted for the people who shut down the government. How can you not connect those big honkin’ dots?

http://youtu.be/AxXwiRAqz3g

Once again, Rolling Stone has proved to me why they’re worth subscribing to. They have three excellent pieces on the Republican party this issue. In this piece, national correspondent Tim Dickinson points out the real power in the Republican caucus is… the radical Republican Study Committee, which of course includes many members of the teabagger caucus.

Members from these über-safe districts don’t fear the challenge posed by a mainstream Democrat in the general election. They dread a well-funded primary opponent running to their right. “You’ve got very small numbers of people who vote in GOP primaries,” says Bartlett, who served in the Reagan administration. “It doesn’t take very many of these Tea Party people to show up to find out you’re on your ass.”

To keep this threat fresh in members’ minds, the Club for Growth recently launched a campaign called “Primary My Congressman!” that seeks to oust centrist Republicans from safe seats – and replace them with the hardest of the hardcore. “The Club for Growth is a cancer on the Republican Party,” said Steve LaTourette, a recently retired moderate House Republican from Ohio. “The only thing that grows when the Club for Growth gets involved is the number of Democrats in office.”

Republicans were also ecstatic when the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision undermined the system of regulated campaign finance. But this boon to the wealthy donor class has become the bane of those trying to forge party unity. Now donors can microtarget the faction of Republicanism that suits them best. “There’s a difference between rich Republicans used to working through K Street and the guy who just sold his plumbing business and happens to be a total libertarian winger,” says the think-tank fellow. The rise of outside money has made a mockery of what used to be the leadership’s biggest stick: “If leadership says, ‘We’re not going to fund you if you don’t vote with us,’ the members laugh,” the strategist says. “‘Keep your $10,000. I’m going to take $200,000 from an outside group.’ Or better yet, ‘I’m going to start my own Super PAC and send out e-mails about how John Boehner is standing in the way of our shared values.'”
Continue reading “Inside the Republican suicide machine” →

But of course it’s contingent on whether Eric Cantor, teabagger and de facto House Speaker (did I mention the recent piece of legislation that gave the House majority leader the last word?) goes for it. God, I can’t stand that man.

These people are like the southerners during the Civil War: seditious, and traitorous. What the hell are we going to do about it?

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Continue reading “‘The sequester has been one of the good things’” →