Randi Rhodes: Super Fail

It looks like the so-called “Super Committee” is going to fail to reach a deficit reduction agreement. Democrats and Republicans can’t agree. You know what that means—Republicans won’t agree. Well, it’s not so much that Republicans don’t want an agreement. They would be fine with an agreement… as long as they agreed with everything in it.

The failure to reach a deal triggers big automatic spending cuts to defense spending. And Republicans immediately began trying to disarm the trigger. This is the only situation in which you will ever see Republicans in favor of a trigger lock. Republicans may be trying to avoid the automatic budget cut consequences of the failure to reach an agreement, but they can’t avoid the political consequences. Of course, for Republicans, the only consequences that matter are political consequences. Now the Bush tax cuts will be at the forefront of the 2012 election campaign. Pundits say this will make it easy to portray Republicans as the party of the rich. You know what else makes that easy? The fact that Republicans ARE the party of the rich.

Newt Gingrich has told the Occupy Wall Street protestors “go get a job after you take a bath.” Funny, every time I hear Newt Gingrich open his mouth, I want to take a hot shower. Ironically, the things that make Newt Gingrich dirty aren’t the kinds of things that wash off. If you sleep outside for several weeks, you can clean up with a bath. If you sleep with lobbying clients like Freddie Mac, the stain stays with you.

Newt also spoke out against child labor laws. Really. Most people look at little children, and they see the future. Newt Gingrich looks at little children and sees an untapped labor pool. “Hey! Why is that little kid just sitting behind a desk and pushing a pencil, when he could be pushing a broom?” Here’s Newt’s plan for schools: “Schools ought to get rid of the unionized janitors, have one master janitor and pay local students to take care of the school.” Kids don’t talk back. And they sure as hell don’t unionize. The beautiful part of Newt’s plan is that, with all the students spending all their time mopping floors, you can get rid of all those unionized teachers too! Really, I think Newt just came up with a way to turn our schools into workhouses.

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Everything old is new again - Charlie Chaplin in 'The Great Dictator' (1940)...

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