Local talk radio radicals

Sometimes I am shocked by how radical the local wingnut radio talk show hosts are. This morning while driving in to work I was desperately flipping the dial trying to avoid the bi-annual NPR pledge drive and ended up on the Trey Ware morning show on KTSA. I’ve always assumed KTSA was the more moderate alternative to the Fox-affiliated WOAI, which broadcasts Limbaugh, Hannity and Beck, but after listening to Trey Ware talk about the U.S. tax system for 30 minutes I am no longer so sure. First, it is maddening to hear Ware, who has absolutely no formal education in economics or government, lecture his audience about the marvels of tax cuts. I wanted to throttle the guy and scream “What do you think Bush did for the past eight years!?! Tax cuts and more tax cuts and all we got was massive deficits and a weak economy that nosedived into a major recession.

Republican death spiral

Political Wire points to the latest cover story from Time Republicans in the Wilderness: Is the Party Over?

“As the party has shrunk to its base, it has catered even more to its base’s biases, insisting that the New Deal made the Depression worse, carbon emissions are fine for the environment and tax cuts actually boost revenues -- even though the vast majority of historians, scientists and economists disagree. The RNC is about to vote on a kindergartenish resolution to change the name of its opponent to the Democrat Socialist Party. This plays well with hard-core culture warriors and tea-party activists convinced that a dictator-President is plotting to seize their guns, choose their doctors and put ACORN in charge of the Census, but it ultimately produces even more shrinkage, which gives the base even more influence -- and the death spiral continues.”

Historians, scientists and economists...... Ha! All LIBERALS!!!!!
Or so says the Republican Party’s “base” today, the ones that party leaders are pandering to.

And this headline that has been on CNN for the past two days really struck me -- Colin Powell comment angers Limbaugh
Like, WHO cares what Rush Limbaugh thinks??? Here you have a former Secretary of State and former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who is one of the most admired men in America and CNN is running a headline like anyone should care that a rightwing radio blowhard didn’t like something he had to say???
But then one has to remember that Rush Limbaugh is now the defacto leader of the Republican Party and so his efforts to drum people like Powell and Olympia Snowe out of the party is newsworthy under the circumstances.
But if this goes on for too much longer, the Republican Party will be so small and insignificant that it won’t matter even then.

Gov. Perry betrays public education

The San Antonio Express-News had a good editorial this weekend criticizing Gov. Rick Perry’s boneheaded decision to reappoint Don McLeroy as chairman of the Texas State Board of Education. McLeroy is a certifiable nutcase who believes in a literal interpretation of the Bible — the Earth is thousands of years old and not millions, he says — and uses his position on the SBOE to tout creationist nonsense and to undercut the public education system in favor of homeschooling at every opportunity.
The fact that Perry appointed this rightwing nutjob to the chairmanship in the first place is bad enough, but now he wants to extend his term as chairman through 2011. Fortunately, there seems to be some resistance to this move in the Texas Legislature. But I would also remind the Express-News editorial writers that they are once again being hypocritical on this matter since they were the ones who endorsed Perry for governor everytime he has run for office. Perhaps they are setting themselves up to endorse Kay Bailey Hutchison in the Republican primary next year, but I’m not convinced that she would have been any better. Hutchison just cast a vote against Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius becoming Secretary of Health and Human Services simply to appease the Religious Right because they oppose anyone who doesn’t favor criminalizing abortion.
I am greatly offended that Perry thinks so poorly of our public education system that he would promote this fox in the henhouse as chairman of the SBOE, which oversees textbooks in our schools. I only wish that the vast majority of Texans who support public education would see this as the betrayal that it is and vote to cast Perry out of office next year.