Randi Rhodes: Job Killing & Dog Whistling

Well, the debt ceiling crisis is behind us. It’s time to go from grand Republican actions to destroy everything to petty Republican actions to annoy everyone. Yes, the Republicans failed to shut down the entire economy of the United States of America, but while we were busy fighting them on that, they did take the opportunity to partially shut down the FAA. Republicans have shut down part of the Federal Aviation Administration as part of a bid on their part to make it harder for aviation and other transportation workers to unionize. To accomplish that, they’re willing to make the entire country into a “no-fly” zone. Thanks to this partial shutdown, thousands of employees have be furloughed and the government has been unable to collect taxes on airline tickets—a loss of about $200 million in the first week of the shutdown alone. Great—yet another Republican stand on spending that ends up costing us money.

Oh That Pat! Yesterday on Al Sharpton’s show, Pat Buchanan described President Obama to Sharpton as “your boy, Barack Obama.” Al Sharpton was clearly shocked. He must have forgotten he was talking to Pat Buchanan. The pathetic thing is that, given Congressman Doug Lamborn’s “tar baby” comments, Pat’s epithet wasn’t even the worst one of this week. People are calling for Pat Buchanan to be fired or suspended from his job at MSNBC. I don’t think they realize that saying things like that is Pat Buchanan’s job at MSNBC.

Meanwhile, Congressman Steve King of Iowa says that birth control will destroy America. At least there was no racial epithet in this latest burst of Republican stupidity. King said that a requirement that new health insurance plans pay for birth control will make America “a dying civilization.” Really? I can’t pinpoint exactly why Rome fell, but I don’t think it was the availability of condoms. King literally said “If we let our birth rate get down below replacement rate we’re a dying civilization.” OK. America faces a lot of problems. Depopulation is not one of them. Besides, Congressman King, even if Americans completely stop having babies, we could make up the difference easily with new immigrants. Oh, I forgot, immigrants aren’t part of what you consider “civilization.” And “the replacement rate”? This country would be a lot better off if certain people were not replaced, and Congressman Steve King is one of them.

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Leave it Fox to give airtime to a freak that makes even Rep. Steve King seem sane - the fun starts around the 1:20 mark and just keeps going...