Palooka – A prize fighter who accepts a cash bribe in exchange for throwing a fight, a bum, or a loser.
This weeks hands down winner of the Palooka of the week competition, ongoing within the Republican Party, is none other than Pat Toomey, for this little gem here. Honestly, when I wrote my original screed, The Palooka Party, I meant it as something to be taken at least half way as tongue in cheek. While I was, as I suspect like a lot of folks, frustrated with the frequency with which Republicans seemed intent on pulling defeat from the jaws of victory, I had no idea that I would be supplied continuously with examples of such moronic behavior. So, I salute Pat Toomey, this month’s living embodiment of the Republican Palooka.
From the Red State Post:
Sources inside the Senate tell me that the Republican Conference is scared to death of the tactics of Senators Lee, Cruz and Paul – that it is supposedly putting them in a tough spot.
Several of the Republicans are using the Manchin-Toomey compromise plan as an excuse to cave on the gun filibuster. They claim that Senators Lee, Cruz, and Paul are running ahead of the conference in their insistence on a filibuster.
What they fail to see is that the cloture vote is the vote to stop the gun legislation from passage.
Several Republican Senators intend to vote against the filibuster, but then vote against the overall bill. This is too clever by half. The GOP does not control the Senate as the GOP is want to say every time they don’t want to fight.
Their only power to block a gun control bill is to unite and filibuster.
Voting for cloture is voting for the gun control bill because, again, as the GOP reminds us, they are not in the majority. The only way to stop it is to filibuster.
For those of you from West Virginia, please note that Toomey is throwing this fight, which the President himself had largely given up on by the way, to Joe Manchin, your Senator who ran a campaign ad that featured him firing a high powered assault rifle, using a copy of the Cap and Trade Bill as a target. So much for his promised defense of the Second Amendment. The political left is laughing at your gullibility. Keep Joe Manchin in your thoughts for the next time he faces reelection. I’m certain he’ll try the same, “conservative Democrat,” shtick.
Another thing worth noting here is the supposed Toomey Conservative Bona Fides. He ran as the true Reagan Conservative, who was chosen by those of us on the right to oust a previously despised Palooka who went by the name of Arlen Specter. The Conservatives hand picked Toomey precisely to put an end to this type of chicanery. I think that my frustration level has hit an all time high.
So, without further ado, I am now announcing a Palooka of the month ongoing contest, which will highlight the greatest Republican dive of the previous month. March’s winner was hands down Steve LaTourette. April’s winner is Pat Toomey, and we’ll see for May. Please feel free to hit the contact page in order to nominate who you feel worthy of such a coveted Republican only recognition.
Of course we’ll name one of these bums as Palooka of the year!
Just for reference, here’s last months’s winner of the Republican Palooka of the month, Steve LaTourette.
Cross Posted from Musings of a Mad Conservative.
Tags: Pat Toomey
