The Republican Unhinged Hatred for America and Its Senior Citizens Comes Out of the Closet
In an interview with ThinkProgress, Republican presidential aspirant Rick Santorum endorsed Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) plan to end Medicare and extend tax breaks for the wealthy. The former Pennsylvania senator praised “what he wants to do with Medicare [and] Medicaid,” but also called for Ryan’s budget to be implemented “sooner than what he’s suggesting”:Thank goodness for one of those very rare occasion where some Republicans clearly revealed their contempt for America, the middle-class, seniors, the disabled and many children who directly or indirectly depend on Medicare to survive. The media is not giving it much attention, but progressive and truly patriotic Progressive Democrats have a budget called The People Budget that will create jobs, protect Medicare and Social Security. They have a pdf voters can print out and take to the next town hall meeting with their Congressional representative.
KEYES: The Ryan budget plan. If you were president, would you sign that?
SANTORUM: Yeah, I support the Ryan budget plan. I think it’s the right direction on the major points. I can’t say I’ve read all of it, but on the major thrust of what he’s doing, I support what he wants to do with Medicare, Medicaid. The only thing I would do, frankly, as I’ve said publicly many times, I think we should implement a lot of these things sooner than what he’s suggesting.
Last month, House Republicans voted in near-lockstep for the Ryan budget. When Congress went on recess soon thereafter, the constituent backlash was immediate. Many Republican congressmen from across the country encountered constituents who were infuriated that their congressman voted to end Medicare, preserve tax breaks for the wealthy, and protect subsidies for oil companies.
As a result, some of the Republican presidential candidates have been hesitant to endorse Ryan’s unpopular budget plan, though a few tend to hedge their bets by calling the plan “courageous” and praising Ryan’s “leadership.”
Still, some candidates like Santorum, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), and former Godfather’s Pizza CEO Herman Cain have embraced the Republican plan to end Medicare. It remains to be seen whether this appeal to the fringe right will pay dividends; right now, polling shows 73 percent of Republicans oppose cuts to Medicare.
The Birth Of The Deathers
If you thought the wingnut right despised Barack Obama before Sunday night, the last 60 hours or so have given rise to the next iteration of Obama Derangement Syndrome: The Deathers. Nearly the entire right-wing blogosphere is involved in various bits of tinfoil lunacy that proclaims something is amiss with Sunday's mission to kill bin Laden.It must be truly humiliating for the Right when a Democrat succeeds, where trillions of dollars and thousands of lives wasted by Republicans failed.
It ranges from "The military took over when Obama wouldn't authorize the mission" to "Leon Panetta killed OBL behind the President's back" to "Obama took 16 hours to make up his mind" to of course the far more blatantly evil stuff about the entire mission being faked and the government having Osama's body on ice for years.
But all of these idiotic rumors have one thing in common: they attempt to justify and explain Obama Derangement Syndrome. Just like the Birther foolishness, the transformation to Deathers is nothing more than a different hand of cards dealt from the same deck of lies. It centers on the country succeeding despite the involvement of the man they are obsessed with hating.
