There’s been much debate about President Obama’s decision to feature the First Dog, Bo, cozying up by the fireplace as the illustration in this year’s White House holiday card. Sarah Palin, enraged as usual, had this to say about it to Fox News:

Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin told Fox News & Commentary that she found the card to be a bit unusual.

“It’s odd,” she said, wondering why the president’s Christmas card highlights his dog instead of traditions like “family, faith and freedom.”

[...]

Palin said the majority of Americans can appreciate the more traditional, “American foundational values illustrated and displayed on Christmas cards and on a Christmas tree.”

As for the Obama card, she replied, “It’s just a different way of thinking coming out of the White House.”

This is a restrained response, at best. I’d like to refer ex-Governor Palin to this article from the Washington Post published in December 2005 that focuses on the criticism that President Bush received when he depicted “two dogs and a cat — frolicking on a snowy White House lawn” in his annual “holiday” card:

“This clearly demonstrates that the Bush administration has suffered a loss of will and that they have capitulated to the worst elements in our culture,” said William A. Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights.

[...]

One of the generals on the pro-Christmas side is Tim Wildmon, president of the American Family Association in Tupelo, Miss. “Sometimes it’s hard to tell whether this is sinister — it’s the purging of Christ from Christmas — or whether it’s just political correctness run amok,” he said. “I think in the case of the White House, it’s just political correctness.”

[...]

“It bothers me that the White House card leaves off any reference to Jesus, while we’ve got Ramadan celebrations in the White House,” Wildmon said. “What’s going on there?“

That’s how you fight the War on Christmas. Step up your game Palin.

Greg Sargent at the Washington Post wrote a great summary today on the House Republicans frivolous insistence that the most important and pressing issue congress must vote on is reaffirming that “In God We Trust” be our national motto:

Here’s how this works, whether it’s in the case of today’s vote or in the case of the GOP invention of the “War on Christmas.” Republicans flat-out invent a grave threat to something that isn’t in any danger — the national motto, or God, or Christmas, take your pick — and hope they can bait someone into opposing the crusade. Even if they can’t, the rubes — and that’s what Motto Republicans are treating their constituents as, rubes — will fall for it and reward you for “saving” whatever it is that’s supposed to be under threat.

I think a vote on reaffirming that bills passed by congress and signed into law ought to be acknowledged the first time around might be a better move. Or wait, is that still also redundant too?

Take for instance Kansas, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Wisconsin. These five states have passed strict Voter ID laws in 2011 that make it necessary for registered voters to bring a government issued photo ID with them to vote. This unquestionably disenfranchises many poor minority voters who lack any form of government ID, mainly because they don’t own an automobile and have no need for a state-issued driver’s license. These laws also make it increasingly tricky for young college students to vote. For example, “the new voter ID law in Wisconsin require the ID to show an address that matches their voting precinct when many students will have an ID that comes from their hometown.”

The headlines these days have been going to the Electoral College alterations that GOP-controlled Pennsylvania and Nebraska are set to implement ahead of the 2012 Presidential election. In Nebraska, the state Republican Party is threatening to disown any state senator “who fails to support legislation returning Nebraska to a winner-take-all presidential electoral vote system.” In Pennsylvania, the State GOP wants to do the exact opposite by breaking up the “winner-take-all” system so that Obama will not get all 20 Pennsylvania Electoral College votes if he wins the state.

It’s easy to see that the libertarian-fueled “Tea Party” sweep of local, state, and federal governments during the 2010 mid-term elections has produced large, centralized, and imposing Republican machinery that’s intent on changing the election structure for 2012 so that it disfavors Democratic voters and candidates. Somehow, I don’t think that this strong-armed and calculated march for one party rule is going to save us from Big Government.

Note: This post was edited at 1:22pm.

On 100 key House votes, Republican freshmen rarely stand out, bucking the party line at almost the same rate as all other House Republicans — 12.5 percent of the time for freshmen and 12.34 percent for veterans. On 77 out of 100 votes studied, there was no more than a 5 percentage point difference between the freshman vote split and the nonfreshman split — hardly the portrait of a bunch of rabble-rousers.

And the number of times that most of the freshman class broke away as a bloc and voted against the GOP majority? Only two out of 100 key votes, neither of which were game-changing roll calls.

The numbers show that the compelling narrative of a bunch of wild-eyed freshmen playing ransom politics with the nation’s future is missing one essential element: evidence.

It seems like the Don’t-Tread-On-Me’s have been playing follow the leader more than they’ve been stirring up the status quo. Not only does this confirm the suspicion that the Tea Party is not as different from the GOP Establishment as they  would have you believe, but it also points to the fact that the Republican leadership are the ones to be blamed for “ransom politics”. Either way, it shows the lack of discrepant and individual viewpoints that the Republicans of the House bring to congress.

Blitzer: Let me ask you this hypothetical question. A healthy, 30-year-old man has a good job, makes a good living, but decides, “You know what, I’m not going to spend $200 or $300 a month for health insurance because I’m healthy, I don’t need it.” Something terrible happens, all of a sudden he needs it. Who’s going to pay if he goes into a coma, for example?

Paul: In a society that you accept welfare-ism and socialism, he expects the government to take care of it.

Blitzer: Well, what do you want?

Paul: He should do whatever he wants to do, and assume responsibility for himself. My advice to him would be have a major medical policy. But not forced—

Blitzer: But he doesn’t have that. And he needs intensive care for six months. Who pays?

Paul: That’s what freedom is all about. Taking your own risks. This whole idea that you have to prepare to take care of everybody.

Blitzer: But congressman, are you saying that society should just let him die?

Crowd: [Yeah! Yeah! Laughs. Let him die!]

(1) It’s idiotic because most of America disagrees with that stance

– Social Security is probably the most effective and popular government program of all time. A recent CNN/ORC International poll found that even with misinformation being spread about the looming decline of social security, “Nearly two-thirds say no to major changes to Social Security and Medicare.” If Republicans learned anything from the Healthcare debate of 2009, it should have been that scaring old people about the end of Social Security and Medicare is a winning strategy for gaining public support.

(2) Social Security is not a Ponzi Scheme

– According to data from the Social Security Administration, Social Security will begin taking in less taxes while paying out more benefits around 2016, but then money from a 2.4 trillion dollar trust fund will be used to offset the difference. Then,

After the trust fund is exhausted — which, according to projections, would happen in 2037 — Social Security would be able to pay out only about three-quarters of its promised benefits through 2083.

Therefore, any hype about there being an imminent crisis that demands a dramatic change to the structure of Social Security has more to do with a politicians ideological daydreaming than reality. For there to be any real immediate crisis about paying out Social Security benefits, the government would have to do something incredibly stupid, such as defaulting on our debt. (cough)

It is undoubtedly true that in its present form, Social Security will not last forever; but the Republican’s scaremongering rhetoric does little to help tackle this real problem. It’s surprising that when the economy is failing to rebound after a recession, the Republican front-runner would be the one who wants to do away with a program that makes life bearable for millions of older Americans.

This is poor taste to say the least. To even comprehend that the local Republican Party of Giffords’ congressional district is raising money that might be used to unseat her by raffling off a similar handgun that was used in her assassination attempt is beyond crazy. This makes Sarah Palin’s crosshairs seem like a joke.

“We have to defend our brand against poseurs,” said Steinhauser.

[…]

“If we can’t make any distinction between any of the candidates, if we’re just going to provide cover for the establishment candidates, then what is the point of having the tea party?” Steinhauser said. “We’ve got to have a brand, and we can’t water down our brand.”

He’s got a good point: any association between the Tea Party and Mitt Romney could bring down the entire grassroots façade. I just can’t believe that an establishment manufactured anti-establishment movement would even dare bring up the words “brand” and “poseur” in their defense. That’s bad brand management.

“I don’t know how much God has to do to get the attention of the politicians. We’ve had an earthquake; we’ve had a hurricane. He said, ‘Are you going to start listening to me here?’ Listen to the American people because the American people are roaring right now. They know government is on a morbid obesity diet and we’ve got to rein in the spending.”

The lunacy of such a statement goes without saying — even the Bachmann Campaign later announced that “she was saying it in jest” after facing heavy criticism. But comments like this one expose the simplicity in exploiting religion to gain political influence. All Michele Bachmann had to do was grab God, an earthquake, and a hurricane, then mix them around in her head for a moment, and voilà – a pious explanation for justifying her stance on cutting government spending, or just about anything else she wants to grab from her ass.

In a 2010 Pew survey, only about one in six Republicans said they believed human activity was changing the climate. In a Gallup survey this March that phrased the question differently, 36 percent of Republicans said they believed pollution from human activities had contributed to “increases in the Earth’s temperature over the last century,” while 62 percent of Republicans attributed those changes to natural changes in the environment. Rejection of the scientific consensus on climate change has become an article of faith for virtually all elements of the GOP coalition. Even in a secular, well-educated state such as New Hampshire, for instance, University of New Hampshire surveys since April 2010 have found that only about one-fourth of Republicans believe human activity is changing the climate. National figures provided to National Journal by Gallup combining surveys from 2011 and 2010 show that college-educated Republicans are even more likely than their non-college counterparts to reject the notion that human activity is changing the climate.

Yes, being a college-educated Republican makes you less likely to believe that humans have contributed to climate change than if you were non-college educated.

[hits self over the head with a book]

Furthermore, this latest Gallup poll shows that Jon Huntsman has fallen to 1% while anti-science Rick Perry has surged to the lead of the primary race with 29%. I think this should put the subject of a ‘moderate’ Republican’s viability to rest for a while. Goodbye Jon Huntsman.