Senate Republicans Now On The Record

I really didn't think these dipshits would be this stupid:

The GOP continued its bloody walk into the Medicare buzzsaw Wednesday, when 40 out of 47 Senate Republicans voted in support of the House GOP budget, and its plan to phase out and privatize the popular entitlement program.

The test vote failed by a vote of 57-40. But the roll call illustrates that Medicare privatization -- along with deep cuts to Medicaid and other social services -- remains the consensus position of the GOP despite the growing political backlash against them.

They've seen the town halls, they've read the polls, they even knew that the Ryan Path to Fucking Over Everybody But Rich People and Corporations Prosperity was political taboo and had no chance of ever becoming law well in advance of the House vote. But they still overwhelmingly voted in favor of it. Sens. Scott Brown, Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, and Rand Paul were the only Republicans with enough of a brain (or conscience? Nah...) to oppose the measure. Paul hardly counts, since apparently his opposition was rooted in the principle that the Ryan plan does not go far enough in fucking over future generations, and expect Brown and Snowe to see lunatic mouth-breathing teabagger primary opponents next year for their egregious lack of fealty to the GOP dogma.

I still fail to see the GOP strategy or end game behind this one. Maybe it plays well with their low-information Fox News addled base. Again, if the Democrats don't fuck this up - and that's a big, huge, enormous if given their recent political track record - this will be an electoral cudgel of massive proportions in 2012. The Republicans do not seem to understand that elections are just as much about capturing independents as they are about turning out your base. The Ryan plan is overwhelmingly unpopular with the electorate, and it doesn't matter how they try to spin or sell it. Between the Ryan plan and the gross overreach of all the batshit wingnut governors as they dismantle their states and workers rights (while cutting taxes, of course), the GOP is singlehandedly riling up the opposition and giving independents plenty of reasons to flee to the Democrats in 2012.