Vote Rick Santorum Because America Can Never Get Enough Conservative Corruption

Vote Rick Santorum Because America Can Never Get Enough Conservative Corruption

Rick Santorum has received, and courted, plenty of comparisons with Mike Huckabee since his near-victory in the Iowa Caucuses, but not all of them have been earned. Yes, like Huckabee in 2008, Santorum has been heavily dependent on grassroots campaigning, with direct appeals to evangelical voters, and a veneer of folksy, blue-collar economic populism. But the comparison ought to stop there. What Santorum cannot match is Huckabee’s status as a genuine Washington outsider, someone untainted by the corrupt dealings inside the beltway. Indeed, Santorum’s record shows him to be deeply connected to the ethically unsavory and legally dubious world of DC influence-peddling.

Since losing his Pennsylvania Senate seat in 2006, Santorum has used his connections to land a series of highly-paid jobs. Consol Energy, a natural gas company specializing in “hydrofracking” and the fifth-largest donor to his 2006 campaign, paid him $142,000 for consulting work. He also earned $395,000 sitting on the board of United Health Services (UHS), a for-profit hospital chain whose CEO made contributions to his Senate campaigns and which stood to benefit from a big hike in Medicare payments Santorum proposed in 2003. (Incidentally, the Department of Justice sued UHS for Medicare and Medicaid fraud during Santorum’s four-year tenure on its board.) Santorum also earned paychecks from a religious advocacy group, a lobbying firm, and a think tank. For pushing legislation benefitting UHS and several other companies, one ethics group named Santorum to its “most corrupt Senators” list.

Santorum has made his post-Senate career doing the sort of quasi-lobbying that helped sink Newt Gingrich’s campaign in Iowa. But in fact, while still in office, he was a central actor in an even more sordid venture: The K Street Project. Started in 1989 by GOP strategist Grover Norquist and brought to prominence by former House majority leader Tom DeLay in 1995, the K Street Project was a highly organized effort to funnel Republican Congressional staffers into jobs at lobbying firms, trade organizations, and corporations, while attempting to block Democrats from those same posts. From 2001 until 2006, Santorum was the Project’s point man for the Senate, while House Majority Whip Roy Blunt manned the House side.

In 2006, the K Street Project was effectively forced to shut down amid public outcry; the following year, an ethics reform law made such outfits illegal. But in its heyday, it helped create an unprecedented revolving door between the White House, Congress and K Street, blurring distinctions between Republican policy and corporate welfare. As Elizabeth Drew put it in a 2005 New York Review of Books piece, “Democratic lobbyists have been pushed out of their jobs as a result; business associations who hire Democrats for prominent positions have been subject to retribution. They are told that they won’t be able to see the people on Capitol Hill they want to see.” Nicholas Confessore, in a groundbreaking 2003 Washington Monthly expose of the Project, detailed the goal bluntly: “First, move the party to K Street. Then move the government there, too.”

At the center of all this was Santorum. According to Confessore, Santorum conducted weekly breakfasts with lobbyists, and occasionally Congressmen and White House staff, during which he attempted to match Republican Hill staffers with K Street job openings. As Confessore put it, “Every week, the lobbyists present pass around a list of the jobs available and discuss whom to support. Santorum's responsibility is to make sure each one is filled by a loyal Republican—a Senator's chief of staff, for instance, or a top White House aide, or another lobbyist whose reliability has been demonstrated.” The group refused to meet with Democrats, and threatened sanctions against lobbies that did.

Revolving door tactics, until then de facto lobbying policy, were formalized and transformed into a “pay to play” system by the K Street Project. In 2003, after the top post at The Motion Picture Association of America went to a Democrat instead of a Republican, House Republicans reneged on an impending tax break, hitting the movie industry with a $1.5 billion bill. After the Democrat was chosen, Roll Call reported that “Santorum has begun discussing what the consequences are for the movie industry.” (Santorum, though he often denies his involvement in the K Street Project, more or less confirmed his involvement in the MPAA flap.) Later that year, the Washington Post revealed that the House Financial Services Committee pressured a consortium of mutual funds to oust a top lobbyist who was a Democrat in exchange for relaxing a pending investigation. After the smoke cleared, she was replaced by a Republican.

Whether the K Street Project was truly successful is up for debate. Confessore and Drew’s reports portray intimidated and marginalized Democratic lobbyists. According to a 2003 Washington Post story, a Republican National Committee official boasted that 33 of 36 top lobbying jobs had recently gone to Republicans. Former lobbyist Patrick Griffin, now an adjunct professorial lecturer at American University, told me that the project embodied the brazen crudeness of “DeLayism,” but also suggested that most lobbying firms and corporations were not “stupid” enough to purge Democratic staff and risk alienating much of the Hill.

What is clear is how much Santorum’s legacy is entangled with the two most corrupt political figures of the last decade: DeLay, and Jack Abramoff, who was said to have been involved in the Project. (Abramoff reportedly attended Santorum’s very first meeting, though Abramoff denied involvement and Santorum said in 2001 he couldn’t remember if he had.) Abramoff’s recent assertion that he “owned” politicians by dangling the promise of highly-paid lobbying gigs in front of powerful Hill staffers, though hyperbolic, is a fairly apt description of the K Street Project’s goals.

Gosh another conservative presidency run like organized crime. It will be like the good old days of the Bush administration or the Reagan administration. Conservatives have absolutely excelled at convincing much of the public that their anti-democracy, anti-constitution, anti-freedom, anti-American values policies are patriotic. Until those Americans wake up and smell the truth we can count on criminals in brooks Brothers suits like Rick Santorum to keep coming back from the dead like the anti-American zombies they are. 

Meet America Hating Spend and Borrow Conservative Rick Santorum

Meet America Hating Spend and Borrow Conservative Rick Santorum

Conventional wisdom holds that former Senator Rick Santorum, co-winner of the Iowa caucus, is indisputably conservative enough for the Republican base. “Santorum fits the mold of a tried-and-true conservative who has rarely compromised,” writes Aaron Blake of the Washington Post.

In fact, Santorum is a throwback to the Bush era: a big-spending, big-government conservative. He has had the good fortune to have lost re-election in 2006 and not been around to vote in favor of TARP, but time and again he voted for costly schemes that expanded the national debt. Many of the attacks that damaged Newt Gingrich could have been made against Santorum if he had been polling well enough to invite them.

Santorum voted for Medicare Part D, No Child Left Behind and the Iraq War. This is no way to shrink the government or balance the budget, especially when you simultaneously propose to cut taxes and increase defense spending.

Santorum’s own nephew put it best in his endorsement of Ron Paul. “If you want another big-government politician who supports the status quo to run our country, you should vote for my uncle, Rick Santorum.... My uncle’s interventionist policies, both domestic and foreign, stem from his irrational fear of freedom not working,” wrote John Garver, a college student. “When Republicans were spending so much money under President Bush, my uncle was right there along with them as a senator. The reason we have so much debt is not only because of Democrats, but also because of big-spending Republicans like my Uncle Rick.”

So if conservatives and Republicans were really moved to protest big government during the Bush years, then Santorum might have a problem. Luckily for Santorum, most conservatives only oppose deficit spending when it’s done by Democrats. As David Weigel reports for Slate from Iowa, “Tea Partiers did not demand much economic libertarianism from their GOP. Sixty-four percent of caucus-goers called themselves ‘Tea Party supporters,’ and 30 percent of them backed Rick Santorum—a social conservative who proudly defended his earmarks.”

Indeed, when Santorum started to rise in the polls last week Rick Perry hit him with an ad attacking his penchant for pork-barrel spending. It didn’t pierce Santorum’s bubble. Nor did Rand Paul’s dubbing Santorum a big government conservative on the campaign trail in Iowa.

Actual Tea Party activists and conservative opinion writers are aware of these contradictions. Jane Aitken, the founder of the New Hampshire Tea Party, endorsed Ron Paul on Tuesday. Aitken tells The Nation that Santorum’s big spending tendencies and his belligerent foreign policy concern her. “I don't like Santorum's record that much.... He's way too hawkish. We need to be vigilant over countries like Iran, but we must not appear to be the aggressors ever.”

James Poulos of the conservative Daily Caller writes, “The Bush years proved beyond question how difficult it is to cabin off ‘good’ interventions in the minute details of our moral lives from ‘bad’ interventions in our finances, our health care, our education, and other similarly sweeping areas.” David Boaz of the libertarian Cato Institute complains that in 2006 Santorum campaigned on earmarks he delivered for Pennsylvania and articulated a big government ideology. “[Santorum] declared himself against individualism, against libertarianism, against ‘this whole idea of personal autonomy…this idea that people should be left alone.’?”

But will critiques of Santorum from the well-informed activists and opinion-makers infiltrate the mass of Republican voters? Their reassessment of Jon Huntsman never caught on with rank-and-file conservatives. When it comes to average voters, the GOP may still be the unprincipled party of George W. Bush.

It must be one of te most mentally taxing occupations in the world being a rabid conservative. They have to juggle all those contradictions, lies, and not lehast of all the fact that allowed to run rampant conservatism would end the United States of America and our democratic republican form of government.

Why is Newt Gingrich Winning Over Republicans? Because He is The Kind of Nasty, Corrupt, Idiotic Anti-American That Conservatives Feel Most Comfortable

Why is Newt Gingrich Winning Over Republicans? Because He is The Kind of  Nasty, Corrupt, Idiotic Anti-American That Conservatives Feel Most Comfortable 

It figured that a Republican presidential primary race defined by nothing so much as a taste for cruel and unusual politics would eventually see Newt Gingrich emerge as the cruelest and most unusual contender. Sure, Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry and Herman Cain might strive for the lowest common denominator. But Gingrich would outdo them in that department, despite heroic feats of insanity, stupidity and sex scandals by the other three. And so he has, emerging as the default choice of a new breed of Republican so extreme it would scare the bejeezus out of Barry Goldwater or Ronald Reagan.

In the same week that saw the former Speaker of the House become the most serious challenger to Mitt Romney, the Republican very few Republicans seem to like, Gingrich showed his true colors. As part of the ongoing GOP rant against organized labor, he stepped up with a proposal to fire school janitors and replace them with child laborers. Blaming “the core policies of protecting unionization and bureaucratization” for “crippling” children, Gingrich told a Harvard audience, “It is tragic what we do in the poorest neighborhoods, entrapping children in, first of all, in child laws, which are truly stupid.” Gingrich did not misspeak. He was serious in suggesting that “most of these schools ought to get rid of the unionized janitors, have one master janitor and pay local students to take care of the school.”

Even in a party where shamelessness is now considered a virtue, it’s unsettling that a man who collected $30,000 a month for an hour of counsel to Freddie Mac administrators would attack school janitors, who according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics earn a mean wage of $13.74 an hour, or $28,570 a year. In response to Gingrich, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees said, “The people you want to fire and replace with kids? A lot of them are parents. That job puts a roof over kids’ heads, food on the table, and provides them with healthcare and the chance to get an education. That job is the only thing between a kid and poverty.” But Gingrich has never been bothered by the human costs of right-wing social experimentation. So why start, now that the Grand Old Party seems to be longing for a return to the Gilded Age? Gingrich is betting there’s no such thing as going too far to the right in this race. He may be right; just days after he championed child labor, he secured the endorsement of New Hampshire’s Union Leader, a rigid-right newspaper determined to stop Romney.

Every conservative running for president in the 2012 cycle is an amazing example of the conservative inability to learn from their mistakes. Everyone of them, especially Newt is the rebirth of the George W. Bush administration, only meaner and dumber - if that were possible. These and their ideological comrades across the country came darn close to destroying the economy, now they're saying they should be in charge so they can create jobs. If they were comedians who specialized in satire that would be funny.

Sleaze Bag Conservative Hypocrite of the Week - Ohio Gov. John Kasich

Sleaze Bag Conservative Hypocrite of the Week - Ohio Gov. John Kasich - Ohio Gov. John Kasich Is ‘Very Pleased’ That The Auto Rescue He Originally Opposed Saved The Auto Industry

In 2009, the Obama administration fought the tide of Republican disapproval and decided to rescue General Motors and Chrysler. Millions in paid back loans and thousands of additional jobs later, GM and Chrysler are on track to sell 14 million cars, the “fastest pace in more than two years.”

The American auto recovery is simultaneously spurring an about-face among GOP naysayers. Once calling on America to “let Detroit go bankrupt,” GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney recently claimed that the rescue was his idea first. Now, another Republican is following suit: Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R).

When first asked about financial aid for the auto industry in 2008, Kasich dismissed the idea, saying, “If they’re not going to be viable, we shouldn’t throw good money after bad.” Asked for his feelings now that the rescue is showing success, Kasich said he is “very pleased” that the Americans have the jobs he originally opposed saving:

    Rick Snyder, Kasich’s fellow Republican governor in Michigan, has said that government invention helped save Chrysler and General Motors – and he warned GOP presidential candidates against criticizing the bailout.

    Kasich would not go that far.

    “What’s done is done,” he said. “We have a strengthening auto industry in Ohio. And I am very pleased about it. I am pleased for the families of workers who have jobs.”

The auto funds have been vital to saving and creating jobs in Ohio. One Chrysler plant in Toledo, Ohio was able to add 1,100 new jobs this fall. More than merely pleased, Kasich attempted to take credit for the added jobs — a fact that did not escape Ohio workers.

When asked about Romney’s similar position on the auto rescue, Kasich offered, “I think there isn’t a single person that I know that didn’t want to have a strong auto industry in America…Its just a matter of how you get there.” When asked whether he agreed with Romney’s way of “getting there” via bankruptcy, he simply said, “I just don’t have any interest in even commenting on that.”

How is it that anti-American half-wits such as Republican Gov. John Kasich get elected to public office. Public office is supposed to be about looking out for the interests and common good of the American people, not a few of his sleazy pals in cigar smoke filled back rooms. Maybe its the smoke that causes conservatives to filter everything through their deep hatred of America's working families and contempt for anyone who makes less than $200k a year.

The National Rifle Association Has a History of Supporting Dictators, Yet Has The Gall to Falsely Accuse Obama of Being One

The National Rifle Association and USAAmmo Has a History of Supporting Dictators, Yet Has The Gall to Falsely Accuse Obama of Being One

Apparently there are those who find National Rifle Association executive vice president Wayne LaPierre's exhortation that there is a "massive Obama conspiracy" in which President Obama is planning to follow up his re-election by somehow eliminating the Second Amendment just a touch too subtle.

In an ad emailed out to the list of WorldNetDaily this afternoon, the good people at USAAmmo explain that President Obama is "secretly conspiring to strip American Citizens of the right to bear arms"... just like Hitler. The sane response to this dastardly conspiracy is, of course, to stock up on military-grade assault weapons and ammunition, which the patriots at USAAmmo have helpful put on sale, presumably in honor of Cyber Monday or the impending dictatorship.

While warning that gun control is "One Election Away!" USAAmmo manages to compare Obama to any number of dictators (see update):

GUN CONTROL IMMINENT

Clicking on the ad redirects readers to a web video posted by the company. The first half features haunting music and images of the various dictators who allegedly "established gun control" and the victims who, "unable to defend themselves, were imprisoned, enslaved, and annihilated." In case, you missed the point, the music swiftly shifts to heavy metal as on-screen text warns viewers that "Governments render their citizens defenseless with GUN CONTROL!" because "The defensless [sic] are subject to enslavement, imprisonment and annihilation."

Declaring that "An unarmed American is a subject... an armed American is a citizen," the website urges viewers to "Get armed at USAAmmo.com," then shows images of the AR- and AK- variants and ammo on sale at the website. The video closes with the cheery/chilling statement, "Get them something they'll love! BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE!!"

It's not unusual for gun manufacturers, sellers, or advocates to promote firearms sales by fearmongering about impending gun control measures. But this is a little blunt even for them.

UPDATE: USAAmmo appears to have compared President Obama to Chinese dictator and mass murderer Mao Zedong, Soviet dictator and mass murderer Josef Stalin, German dictator and mass murderer Adolf Hitler, Cambodian dictator and mass murderer Pol Pot... and Academy Award-winning actor Forest Whitaker.


UPDATE: USAAmmo also neglects to mention the many ties between murderous dictators and rebel leaders and members of the NRA's own board. Josh Horwitz, executive director of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, lays out the ties between board member Grover Norquist and Nicaraguan Contras as well as murderous African rebel leaders backed by South Africa's apartheid regime; board member Oliver North's connections to the Contras and to Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega; and board member Roy Innis' support for the actual Idi Amin, who reportedly awarded Innis Ugandan citizenship in 1973.

As we've documented, board member and Soldier of Fortune publisher Robert Brown reportedly fought alongside El Salvadoran dictator Roberto d'Aubuisson's death squads and provided supplies to Nicaragua's Contra rebels in the early 1980's.

For more on the ties between the NRA's board and repressive regimes, visit MeetTheNRA.org.

Not to in any way advocate violence, maybe it is a good idea for moderate Americans to buy a gun. With Right-wing conservatives nuts running around who cannot tell the difference between reality and their own paranoid hallucinations, you may have to defend yourself.

Herman Cain Affair No Biggie, Says Dick Morris and Fox News.

Murdoch's Anti-American Fox News Pushes Propaganda On Wisconsin Anti-union law

Murdoch's Anti-American Fox News Pushes Propaganda On Wisconsin Anti-union law

Fox & Friends hosted Wisconsin Lieutenant Governor Rebecca Kleefisch to discuss a recent court ruling finding that GOP lawmakers may have violated Wisconsin's open meetings law when they pushed through a bill ending most public union collective bargaining rights. During the segment, the co-hosts repeatedly failed to challenge Kleefish's claims about the legality of the proceedings surrounding the bill.

WI Judge Blocks GOP's Collective Bargaining Law

WI Judge Issues Restraining Order On Collective Bargaining Law. On March 18, Judge Maryann Sumi of Dane County Circuit Court in Wisconsin issued a temporary restraining order to prevent the law that would end most collective bargaining rights for public unions from taking effect. According to The New York Times, the ruling delays publication of the law "until at least later in the month, when she plans to hold a full hearing on a lawsuit that accuses Republican lawmakers of violating the Wisconsin open meeting requirements to push through the bill." [The New York Times, 3/18/11]

Fox & Friends Hosts Kleefisch To Claim "The Law Is On Our Side"

Camerota: "Is This Just Another Way For Democrats To Overturn [The Law]?" On March 21, the co-hosts of Fox News' Fox & Friends hosted GOP Wisconsin Lieutenant Governor Rebecca Kleefisch to discuss Judge Sumi's ruling. The co-hosts did not challenge her repeated claims that "the law is on our side here" and that the judge is "block[ing] publication of a law because she doesn't like what's inside of it." From the broadcast:

    ALISYN CAMEROTA (guest host): A Wisconsin judge is blocking Scott walker's law reducing union's collective bargaining rights. Judge Maryann Sumi says the law may violate the state's open meeting laws. So is this just another way for Democrats to overturn it?

    BRIAN KILMEADE (co-host): Joining us now on the phone in Wisconsin is Lieutenant Governor Rebecca Kleefisch. Lieutenant Governor, thanks for joining us...Can you tell us right now how concerned you are that this law you worked so hard to pass will go through?

    KLEEFISCH: I'm not concerned, because the law is on our side here. What we have is a legal case that is going to talk about how a specific meeting was convened and not at all the content of the law that was signed by Governor Walker after it was passed by the legislature. So I'm not worried.

    CAMEROTA: But since there's this technicality, about how the meeting was convened, is the easiest thing just to reconvene and take another vote?

    KLEEFISCH: Well, that is an option, I guess, down the road, but we think that in this case, justice is going to be swift because the law is on our side. We know that in special session of the legislature which the legislature was in when this meeting was convened, both the Senate and the Assembly rules trumped the open meetings law in the state of Wisconsin, and our attorney general, J.B. Van Hollen, has said that Supreme Court decisions have made it very clear that judges can't force the Secretary of State from publishing a law. The secretary of state can't just refuse to publish a law because of procedural or constitutional concerns. And, you know, that speaks to the fact that a judge cannot simply block the publication of a law because she doesn't like what's inside of it. [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 3/21/11, emphasis added]

But Legal Status Of The Proceedings Remains Unclear

Judge's Ruling Delays Implementation Of Law Until "Full Hearing" On Whether Open Meetings Law Was Violated. According to reports, Judge Sumi has ruled that it is not legally clear whether or not Republican lawmakers violated Wisconsin's open meetings law by holding a vote on the collective bargaining bill with less than 24 hours' notice. From The New York Times:

    Efforts to shrink collective bargaining rights for public workers in Wisconsin were slowed on Friday when a judge issued a temporary restraining order blocking a much-debated law from taking effect.

    The decision, issued by Judge Maryann Sumi of the Dane County Circuit Court in Madison, temporarily bars the Wisconsin secretary of state from publishing the law, which limits bargaining to matters of wages. The fight over the law has drawn tens of thousands of demonstrators to the State Capitol, and the issue has become a focus of debate in numerous statehouses.

    Publication of the law -- a procedural requirement needed before it can take effect -- had been expected next week. But Judge Sumi's ruling could delay that until at least later in the month, when she plans to hold a full hearing on a lawsuit that accuses Republican lawmakers of violating the Wisconsin open meeting requirements to push through the bill. State officials said they were pursuing an appeal of the restraining order.

    [...]

    The lawsuit says that Republican legislative leaders not only failed to provide 24 hours' notice for the conference committee meeting, they even failed to give two hours' notice -- which is permissible under state law if more notice is "impossible or impractical."

    Republican leaders contended that because they were dealing with a bill tied to a special session, they were required only to post a notice of the meeting on a legislative bulletin board. The posts, they said, appeared on boards near the Senate and Assembly chambers two hours before the meeting began. [The New York Times, 3/18/11]

WSJ: Judge Found The Lawsuit "Had Enough Merit For Her To Issue A Temporary Restraining Order To Prevent" Publication Of The Bill. From The Wall Street Journal:

    A Wisconsin circuit court judge put on hold Friday a new law that would curtail collective-bargaining rights for public unions, delaying for now the implementation of bitterly contested legislation that drew thousands of protesters and shut down the legislature.

    [...]

    Judge Maryann Sumi said a lawsuit filed by the Dane County district attorney had enough merit for her to issue a temporary restraining order to prevent Secretary of State Doug La Follette from publishing the bill while she reviews the case.

    In his complaint, District Attorney Ismael Ozanne argued that the state's open-meeting laws were violated when Republican leaders whisked the bill through committee last week without giving a 24-hour public notice. In emergencies, meetings may be called with just two hours' notice. Mr. Ozanne argued that even that minimal standard hadn't been upheld.

    [...]

    Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen, a Republican, said the Wisconsin Department of Justice planned to appeal the judge's restraining order. [The Wall Street Journal, 3/19/11]

Contrary To Fox & Friends' Claims, There Is No Evidence That Judge Was Ideologically Motivated

Judge Sumi Was Appointed By Republican Governor Tommy Thompson. Contrary to Camerota's suggestion that the legal proceedings could be "just another way for Democrats to overturn" the law,as well as Kleefisch's assertion that the judge "cannot simply block the publication of a law because she doesn't like what's inside of it," Judge Sumi was appointed in 1998 by Governor Tommy Thompson -- a Republican. [The New York Times, 3/18/11]

WI State Journal: "Sumi Said She Was Making No Judgment On The Merits Of The Bill." An article in the Wisconsin State Journal stated that Judge Sumi said she was not passing a judgment on the merits of the bill and also noted that she acknowledged she has no power to stop the Legislature from reconvening and passing the bill again. From the article:

    Sumi set a hearing on a longer-term order blocking the bill for March 28. That is expected to take much longer, with a number of witnesses expected to testify. But in response to a question from Lazar, Sumi said she can't stop the Legislature from re-convening a properly-noticed meeting and passing the bill again.

    [...]

    In her decision, Sumi said she was making no judgment on the merits of the bill and was deciding only the open meetings issue. [The Wisconsin State Journal, 3/18/11]

Why does Fox hates honesty, integrity and traditional American values. I'm not sure.  They do make millions feeding America's knuckle dragging community lots of propaganda. So maybe its all the money that blinds them to the kind of values we should have from a true American broadcaster.

Lying Sleaze Bags of the Week - Conservative Nuts At American Crossroads

Karl Rove spending millions lying about everyone - Crossroad GPS launches misleading ads against Elizabeth Warren, Jon Tester and Tim Kaine

An ad by Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS attacking Montana Sen. Jon Tester was pulled from the air by a cable service because it contains nothing but very blatant and indefensible lies, unlike the usual defensible lies and distortions most political ads make.

Cablevision’s Optimum cable pulled the ad, which claimed that Tester voted against banning the EPA from regulating farm dust. The supposed EPA rule was completely imaginary and the vote was about Chinese currency manipulation.

I bet Crossroads is super embarrassed about this awful mistake, right? Of course they are:

    Nate Hodson of Crossroads said in defense of the pulled ad, “It was a very small cable system. The four largest broadcast stations in Montana reviewed the facts supporting the ad and will continue airing it.”

    He said later, “We are communicating with the cable system and expect that the ad will be back up and running on cable soon.”

At least the ad pitting Bill Clinton against Obama while falsely claiming that Obama wants to raise everyone’s taxes right now is based on deceptively edited quotes! This is just based on fantasy.

The dishonest Crossroads ad attacking Virginia Senate candidate Tim Kaine has a similarly weird blatant lie, claiming Virginia under Kaine ran a “big deficit,” which is not the case. (Virginia slashed spending after the recession made revenues plummet, a move Republicans and deficit hawks everywhere support.)

But because Elizabeth Warren, running for Senate in Massachusetts, represents the greatest threat both to a sitting Republican senator and to the conservative economic message in general, Rove and Crossroads are sparing no expense smearing her. Warren took credit for inspiring the national conversation about economic injustice that led to the Occupy Wall Street protests. Or, in Crossroads’ words, she “sides with extreme left-wing protests” while … ignoring “jobs.” Elizabeth Warren supported protesters doing drugs, even though millions of Americans are out of work! For shame.

Warren, unfazed, launched her campaign with an ad attacking Wall Street, because Americans seriously don’t like Wall Street, but Crossroads spent $560,000 on the “radical redistribution of wealth” ad and plans to spend $150 million altogether defeating Warren.

Rove has, it seems, realized that you don’t even need to base your attack ad on something that actually happened.

Very predictable. The cult of anti-American conservatism cannot win based on facts and the truth. never have been able to. Conservative has become a magnet for wusses who hate the very idea of living in a modern enlightened democracy.