Don "Bridge to Nowhere" Young Ruminates on Other Ways to Cross a River

Leila Kheiry of Ketchikan Community Radio (KRBD) interviewed Don "Bridge to Nowhere" Young and she did a pretty good job of keeping him talking.

Young said that if the United States were forming today, no individual state would agree to be part of the government; they all would prefer independence.

Well, he's off to a good start, but I would suggest that the states that take more from the federal government than they put in, like Alaska, would probably want in because, you know, free money for parasites! For Don Young, states that suck from the Federal Teat don't count, but you individual 47%-ers need to get some skin in the game!

“I really think that everybody should consider my 10 percent solution,” he said. 

“Everybody put 10 percent of their salaries, including those on government welfare, so everyone has something in the game – a little skin in the game – including all the agencies and the whole bit; you’d balance the budget.” 

Young admits that his 10-percent idea is unlikely to find support in Congress. But, he said former presidential candidate Mitt Romney was correct when he said that 47 percent of Americans don’t contribute, and that is a large part of the current problem. 

Image via The Economist

So, the 47% of Americans, many of whom (because Ronald Reagan wanted to encourage them to work instead of being on welfare) get to use the Earned Income Tax Credit, are a "large part of the current problem" but Alaska and the other states that take more than they pay in aren't?

OK, then.

Young keeps talking, because that's what wingnuts do, and displays his ignorance of basic economics by calling for more industry, and less reliance on imports, to bring jobs back to this country. Before he got into politics (a long time ago) Young worked in construction, fishing, trapping, gold mining, tug boating and teaching fifth grade. He apparently never took economics (or didn't pay attention when he did), or he'd know that his support for a high dollar policy is the exact opposite of what you'd want to do to lower our trade deficit and create manufacturing jobs in the US. But then, consistency isn't really a wingnut trait. Bullshitting is.

Operation Wetback, image via Immigration of the 1950s.

Young is, however, capable of noting the effects of productivity on labor intensive industries like agriculture.

Young also believes that Americans need to bring industry back to this country rather than relying on imports. Doing so would increase jobs, although he understands that automation has reduced the number of labor positions available.

“My father had a ranch; we used to have 50-60 wetbacks to pick tomatoes,” he said. “It takes two people to pick the same tomatoes now. It’s all done by machine.”

I'm guessing the GOP is going to keep Don Young away from their new Latino outreach efforts. Of course, he kept talking today in an attempt to limit the damage from his racist slur.

"I used a term that was commonly used during my days growing up on a farm in Central California," the Republican congressman said in a statement issued to a local television station in Anchorage. "I know that this term is not used in the same way nowadays and I meant no disrespect."

Young was born in 1933 and raised in Sutter County, California. He got an associate's degree in education from Yuba College in 1952, served in the army from 55-57, got a bachelor's degree from Chico State College in 1958 and moved to Alaska in 1959. According to the CNN story:

The word was used by the U.S. government in the 1950s for "Operation Wetback," a massive crackdown on illegal immigration along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Operation Wetback, image via US Slave.

Merriam Webster, Wikipedia, and even the Urban Dictionary all agree that the word is, and always has been, a racial slur. If the congressman has proof of the word being used in a way that's not a slur, he's not offering that proof with his non-apology apology. Use of the word is disrespectful  and there is no other way to use it. But then, we already knew that Young is a bullshitter.

He keeps talking in the KRBD interview, about taking advantage of the shipping routes through the arctic he helped create by distorting free markets in favor of his oil company executive friends, and the ethics investigations into his possible past crimes, which he defends by claiming there's a statute of limitations.

But once you swim across Talking Wingnut River, there's really no turning back.

We've Been Discriminating Against You for Two Millennia So You'll Have to Wait a Few More

Samuel Alito in '72. Was he one of the 70%
against interracial marriage then?

"Traditional marriage has been around for thousands of years. Same-sex marriage is very new."—Supreme Court Justice Sam Alito

You've been discriminated against, lynched, murdered, beaten, vandalized, assaulted, forced to live in a closet, think you were a sinner, and going to hell for 2000 years while the Bible was telling people they could marry the virgin they raped or the widow of the man they killed in battle, so, yeah, you're just too "new" to give rights to.

And, of course, this wingnut bigot kept talking. Clarence Thomas is at least smart enough to keep his fool mouth shut.

But you want us to step in and render a decision based on an assessment of the effects of this institution, which is newer than cell phones or the Internet? I mean we—we are not—we do not have the ability to see the future. On a question like that, of such fundamental importance, why should it not be left for the people, either acting through initiatives and referendums or through their elected public officials?

I can see the early argument against interracial marriage .. "You want us to render a decision based on an assessment of the effects of this institution, which is newer than the wheel..." I'm sure Alito would have been one of the great many who had a problem with the marriage of Frederick Douglass and Helen Pitts.

John Rogers pointed out, in 2005:

...when the Supreme Court struck down the bans against interracial marriage in 1968 through Virginia vs. Loving, SEVENTY-TWO PERCENT of Americans were against interracial marriage. As a matter of fact, approval of interracial marriage in the US didn't cross the positive threshold until -- sweet God -- 1991

Our modern Supreme Court, ladies and gentlemen, so far behind the times that they use the argument that they're behind the times to suggest we should all stay that way.

Former GOP Chair on Twitter Tirade Against Iraq Vet

Here's a late night bonus KTW because this wingnut is on a tear! If you're up, go watch it live! He's Former South Carolina GOP executive director Todd Kincannon, and he's a troll, but tonight he's in rare form and has been at it for hours now.

And if you're wondering, yes, you've heard of this guy before. He's the Super Bowl Treyvon tweeter! His now deleted tweet:

"This Super Bowl sucks more dick than adult Trayvon Martin would have."

Just be sure you keep making it clear you're a Republican while you keep talking, ya hear?

Tonight, this guy is the new champion of Keep Talking, Wingnuts.

#KeepTalkingWingnuts RT @toddkincannon "@mikeprysner You are an Iraq veteran? Shame you didn't come home in a body bag." #GOPFail
— Scott Supak (@ssupak) March 26, 2013

And now, hours later, he's still at it!

Holy, shit! #KeepTalkingWingnuts new champion @toddkincannon will not shut up! Now compares his death threats to putting ass on line in war.
— Scott Supak (@ssupak) March 26, 2013

Put Ted Cruz's Plaque Next to McCarthy's in the Bullshitter Hall of Fame

Senator Ted Cruz, Republic of Texas (Harry Cabluck/AP)

Jed catches the money quote in Todd J. Gillman's interview of Wingnut Senator Ted Cruz:

GILLMAN: Is McCarthy someone you admire? 

CRUZ: I’m not going to engage in the back and forth and the attacks.

So that's a yes, then, Senator?

Keep in mind that this is the Senator who engaged the warp drive in "the back and forth and the attacks" on Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel. Cruz's bogus attacks on Hagel included, among other things, the slander that Hagel had received speaking fees from north Korea.

This is the Senator who famously said of Harvard:

“There were fewer declared Republicans in the faculty when we were there than Communists! There was one Republican. But there were twelve who would say they were Marxists who believed in the Communists overthrowing the United States government.”

This, of course, is more pig shit than bullshit, since pig shit isn't fit to be used as fertilizer. But the point is not the voracity of what he says, which doesn't matter to Bullshitters, but rather the willingness with which he engages "in the back and forth and the attacks."

The Higgs Boson of the matter is a bit further up in the Gillman interview, where his disregard for facts, context, and basic logic fall apart as anything does once it crosses the event horizon of the wingnut black hole.

I applied to John Kerry what I call the `John Kerry standard.’ When he was a senator he voted against confirming Condoleezza Rice to be Secretary of State. He voted against confirming Alberto Gonzalez to be attorney general. He voted against confirming Michael Mukasey to be Attorney General. Applying the same standard,  in my judgment, his record was not appropriate to serve as Secretary of State and in particular, his willingness to countenance undermining US sovereignty was troubling.

Condoleeza "Mushroom Cloud" Rice was head of National Security when 9-11 happened. She thought "Bin Laden Determined to Attack inside the US" was a historical document (or, if she didn't actually think that, she said she thought that, which would make her a liar). She was one of the chief sales people of the Iraq War. I wonder what Senator Cruz would have had to say if President Gore was trying to appoint his head of the NSA that failed to protect us from the largest attack on US soil in decades to be Secretary of State after lying us into a $6 trillion dollar war that maimed and killed millions?

John Kerry didn't lie us into war, he just believed the liars. And he apologized.

Alberto Gonzoles may have been the most unqualified AG ever, unless you count Michael Mukasey, who's far right wingnuttery is so wingnuterific that even CPAC wouldn't officially sanction it.

GW Bush, undermining US sovereignty

The fun part is the "same standard" BS, where his hemming and hawing ("...in my judgement...") before he goes all McCarthy on Kerry ("...his willingness to countenance undermining US sovereignty...") is his tell. If you're a feisty reporter, go all in! I would suggest: "Senator, are you suggesting that John Kerry wants to allow other countries sovereignty over the US? Could you explain this?"

Gillman's next question? "But you didn’t break a sweat to oppose him."

Really.

Of course, "willingness to countenance undermining US sovereignty" is a particularly loud and juicy dog whistle dripping with the spit of thousands of wingnuts. I'm sure the Senator from the Great State of the Former Republic of Texas would be happy to list several examples of what he means, if pressed on the matter, maybe something about black helicopters and UN bureaucrats taking our guns, but down in Texas they all know damn well it means the USA's ability to lie ourselves into invading any damn country we want, facts and international law be damned.

Rand Paul Gets It Partly Right, Jeb Bush Adds a Footnote

Sen. Rand Paul and Bong, image from Salon.com 

Senator Rand Paul (just saying that gives me the giggles) told keep-the-wingnuts-talking champion Chris Wallace that the last two Presidents could have gone to jail for drugs (odd that he didn't mention his own past drug use). While I appreciate the Wingnut Party Senator for his correct conclusion that the drug war is a bad thing, I would like to point out that he should keep talking about this because it's an important subject, and because he apparently has no freaking clue about why people get arrested for drugs.

When George W Bush¹ was snorting coke, drinking whiskey, breaking SEC regulations, and God-knows-what-all, his Daddy was head of the CIA, Vice President of the United States, and, eventually, President, although W had supposedly become a cold-turkey dry drunk by the time he was a President's son. The odds of George W Bush being arrested for anything are so small that not even a penny bet to win $9.99 at Intrade would even get close to approximating them. Obama, on the other hand was approximately 12 times more likely to go to jail for drugs than a white man.

...although Whites and African Americans use and sell drugs at about the same rates, Black men in 2003 were almost 12 times as likely to go to prison as White men. Although Black people are 12 percent of the population and 14 percent of drug users, according to Mauer and Cole, they comprise 34 percent of those arrested for drug offenses and 45 percent of those incarcerated in state prisons for such offenses.

1. Jeb Bush provided some context on GW's state of mind Friday, talking to Jake Tapper on CNN.

JEB BUSH: He is like the most focused, disciplined guy to imagine being a former president and not having an opinion on anything over the last four years, really? I mean, to have that discipline, to be respectful of the president that hasn't been as respectful of him as he should have been? Man. I could have never done that.

Either GW's smarter then Jeb and realizes he should keep his fool mouth shut after lying us into a $6 trillion dollar unpaid-for war and crashing the world economy with a recession bigger than the last 4 combined, or he's on some serious meds, the abuse of which is fast becoming the biggest addiction problem in America (20% of all Americans have used a prescription drug for non-medical reasons), and prescription drug abuse is predominantly a white suburban problem. Since we don't police the white suburbs like we do the black inner cities, we don't see as many arrests of prescription drug crimes as we do for other illicit drugs more popular in those inner cities. And, since rich white suburbs in the Dallas area probably have very little police presence (of the kind looking for drug abusers, at least), then GW Bush could be tripping on Oxycontin all day and never get busted for it. Come to think of it, that might help explain why W is painting puppies and scenes of his guilty mind reflected in a shower mirror, instead of talking to the press every time he gets a buzz on, like Jeb apparently does.

The WIngnuts Think They Should Keep Saying the Same Mean Things in a Nicer Way: Huckabee Edition!

Mike Huckabee and Ted Nugent on Fox, natch.

One of my favorite inevitable wingnut debate moments is when they say mean, bigoted, horrific stuff about people, but they try to say it in a nice way. Common variations of this theme include "I'm not calling anyone names" or "I'm not knocking anyone for their lifestyle choices" or "I still love sinners." They pile up the dead bodies that result from the implementation of their policy, but they put a nice bouquet of roses on top to cover the smell of rotting flesh and make it look like they really care for the people who perished due to lack of health care, persistent poverty, gun violence, ectopic pregnancy, or wars we were lied into. But, hey, if they could just find the right guy to put a good spin on the destruction, it will make them look like the steel-spined authority figures who do the hard things we must.

Today's installment focuses on Reince Preibus (take out the vowels and you get RNC PR BS), who perpetuates the GOP myth that bigotry toward gays is a great policy position, as long as you put a big, fat, smiley face on it, because, you know, "tone."

Republican National Committee chairperson Reince Priebus said on Friday that former Arkansas governor and far-right culture warrior Mike Huckabee (R) should be the example by which all Republicans should abide with regards to LGBT rights and marriage equality.

The Raw Story mentions several examples of Huckabee's happy-happy-joy-joy version of loving the sinner but hating the sin. He's got a million of them. Here he is being nice to gay people:

"I feel homosexuality is an aberrant, unnatural, and sinful lifestyle, and we now know it can pose a dangerous public health risk."

See what he does there? It's not you nice, kind, gay people who are aberrant, unnatural, and sinful. It's your lifestyle! Here's another example, where he was asked if homosexuality is sinful:

Well I believe it would be -- just like lying is sinful and stealing is sinful. There are a lot of things that are sinful. It doesn't mean that a person is a horrible person. It means that they engage in behavior that is outside the norms of those boundaries of our traditional view of what's right and what's wrong. So, I think that anybody who has, maybe a traditional worldview of sexuality would classify that as an unusual behavior that is not traditional and that would be outside those bounds.

You're not a horrible person! You're just out of bounds! And don't get him started on abortion, because you're not really evil, you're just making a deadly choice for that little globular-cell-person your rapist blessed you with because it's convenient:

[Civilization cannot survive if] "one group of people have life and death control over another for no particular reason other than their own conveniences and, in that case, prejudices."

Mikey no likey, on Fox, natch, via Slacktivist.

He was saying abortion was like slavery, because it gives someone ownership of someone else, as if wanting to rid the growth of cells in one's uterus is like owning the slave you beat to death. But the way he cross dresses his desire to force rape victims to have their rapists' babies in the language of the abolitionists makes him a much better choice to be the person who will have to explain this to the rape victim as she is being forced to give birth. This seems to be the suggestion from the RNC PR BS ideology generator, anyway.

His capacity to forgive (as long as there's a better target to blame) seems almost limitless. After the Newtown school massacre committed by a disturbed kid with his mother's weapons that had no trigger locks, Huckabee found it in his enormous heart to not blame the shooter, or the mother, or the lack of a trigger lock law. No, Mike has bigger fish to fry: he blames all us heathens who don't want our kids to have to stand in the hall while the teacher leads a Christian prayer:

We ask why there is violence in our schools, but we have systematically removed God from our schools... Should we be so surprised that schools would become a place of carnage?

Of course, I always wonder what these guys would say when the Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, and Buddhist children want to pray in school. More diverse schools would have to add an hour to the school day just to get through them all. Or, we could just replace biology class with prayer.

My real fascination with the man (who, if Intrade was still around, I would put a little on to win the GOP nomination in 2016) is with his faulty logic that leads him to beliefs so heinous that smiling while he says them, or phrasing them in kind terms, just makes it seem that much more horrific.

I don't think the issue's about being against gay marriage. It's about being for traditional marriage and articulating the reason that's important. You have to have a basic family structure. There's never been a civilization that has rewritten what marriage and family means and survived. So there is a sense in which, you know, it's one thing to say if people want to live a different way, that's their business. But when you want to redefine what family means or what marriage means, then that's an issue that should require some serious and significant debate in the public square.

Notice how politely he re-frames the gay marriage issue into a fight for the very survival of our civilization? See how he's just fine with you sodomites going about your unnatural, sinful, unhealthy business, so long as you don't drag our whole society to ruin by asking for the same rights as, say, interracial couples did before Loving v. Virginia?

Another problem here isn't with Huckabee per se, it's with the reporters who don't keep him talking about the really interesting points, like, well, there's never been a civilization that survived, period. They all collapse, and the fallacy (argumentum ad ignorantiam!) of blaming the redefinition of marriage, which has, thank goodness, been done many times since Biblical times, is fascinating to me. And yet I can find no instance of a reporter having drilled down on that point. Does Huckabee really think that passing laws that say rapists can't force their victims to marry them, or soldiers can't force the woman they just widowed to marry them, are the reasons those societies collapsed? Does he have examples of civilizations that survived because they allowed polygamy and all the other kinds of Biblical marriage to continue?

From the Washington Post 

Somebody please keep this wingnut talking about these things. Potential GOP voters have the right to know!

Maybe if you put on a happy face while you discriminate against gay people (note that gays decided the election for Obama), lie us into war, support the killing of innocent people with the death penalty (his answer on whether Jesus would be for the death penalty is quite telling), and force rape baby births, people will like you more! After all, when you're down this low, there's nowhere to go but up, right?

The Occasional Exception Came Much Sooner than Expected

Rep Peter King, leak hating leaker

I anticipated an exception to the keep-talking-wingnuts rule, and leave it to Peter King to kick off the tag #STFUWingnut:

Rep. Peter King's (R-N.Y.) public thanks to Jordan this month for helping capture Osama bin Laden's son-in-law has upset a delicate U.S. government agreement to keep Jordan's role in the operation secret, U.S. officials told The Huffington Post. 

King, a member of the House Intelligence Committee and until recently the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, was the first U.S. official to confirm the arrest of Sulaiman Abu Ghaith. In a March 7 statement several hours before the indictment against Ghaith was unsealed, King thanked "our allies in Jordan" for help capturing Abu Ghaith, who served as a spokesman for al-Qaeda.

Via Hunter, who points out what a freaking cry baby King has been about government leaks.

This guy and Michelle Bachman (I'll be getting to her soon enough) are on the House Intelligence Committee. Thanks, Republicans! Could you guys go back to talking about rape, commies, or brown people? Something besides national security?

The War Between the States is Why We Have Gay Marriage

From the 16th Arkansas Infantry site.

Via Right Wing Watch, I see that former Constitution Party Presidential Candidate and Bible-Jackhammerer Michael Peroutka was on Steve Deace's radio show propaganda catapult again, this time to tell us that Lincoln freed the gays!

Part the first: God!

But what we really need is a dose of reality, what we need to do is wave reality over this situation and go back to what God called marriage, not what the state has perverted the definition to be but what God called marriage. That’s what we need to return to. There is no way we are ever going to validate homo or sodomite-marriage because God defined marriage as between a man and a woman once and forever.

Apparently, Peroutka doesn't read KTW, or he'd know that he might not care for the Biblical definition of marriage. Or maybe he would; the whole slaves-have-to-marry-their-masters thing might just work for him, since the Human Rights Campaign called Per­outka an “active white supremacist and secessionist sympathizer.”

Part the second: More Power!

"...there have been a number of watershed events in American history that have taken us away from this view that I’m describing, this American view. One of them was ‘The War Between the States.’ Ever since then there’s been this huge black hole of centralized power that’s formed in Washington D.C. People sometimes talk about ‘The War Between the States’ as being about the issue of slavery, I believe that history is written by the winners, it wasn’t about that at all. What it was about was consolidating power into the hands of a few people."

Like most wingnuts, the "hands of a few people" he's blabbing about are the 435 voting members of the House of Representatives, the 100 US Senators (where, in theory, 11.3% of the 50-state population could stop any bill from becoming law), the nine Supreme Court members, and the President. So, Peroutka's "hands of a few people" that the civil war gave so much power to is really 545 people.

But we already knew wingnuts have trouble with math. Physics, too, seems to be a problem, since a "black hole of centralized power" would be where centralized power gets sucked out of existence. But then, this guy probably thinks the earth is 6000 years old, so...

Civil War Monumnet, Cherry Valley, NY, photo by Robin Supak

Like most confederate apologists, Peroutka is trying to spread misinformation about the Civil War. I've even seen this kind of bullshitting rewrite of history up here in "Upper Appalachia" where wingnuts in trucks with Confederate flag stickers flip off the monument to the Union dead as they drive by. I love to keep wingnuts talking, of course, but we must be sure to always challenge this particularly vile lie.

The best way I've ever seen to debunk this I learned from Ta-Nehisi Coates, who has famously said that the Civil War isn't tragic. It's something to celebrate, because it was a successful battle in the centuries long war on black people.  If you find it necessary to explain this obvious point, point the bullshitters to the Cornerstone Speech by Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens, and maybe it'll get through their thick skulls:

The new Constitution has put at rest forever all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institutions—African slavery as it exists among us—the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution. Jefferson, in his forecast, had anticipated this, as the "rock upon which the old Union would split." He was right. What was conjecture with him, is now a realized fact. But whether he fully comprehended the great truth upon which that rock stood and stands, may be doubted. The prevailing ideas entertained by him and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old Constitution were, that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with; but the general opinion of the men of that day was, that, somehow or other, in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass away... Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the idea of a Government built upon it—when the "storm came and the wind blew, it fell." 

Our new Government is founded upon exactly the opposite ideas; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and moral condition.

I hope Michael Peroutka keeps talking, so we can all hear how the Civil War is why we can't return to Biblical Marriage, where raped virgins have to marry their rapists, soldiers can marry the widows of the man they just killed, men can have multiple wives, masters can marry slaves, etc. Maybe more people will start to realize that the Civil War wasn't tragic.

A Wingnut Who Will Die and Quit Talking Soon, Unfortunately

Hussein greets Rumsfeld, Baghdad, December 20, 1983.

Here are a few select quotes from back when Rumsfeld couldn't shut his bloody mouth:

• I'm not into this detail stuff. I'm more concepty.
• I can't tell you if the use of force in Iraq today would last five days, or five weeks, or five months, but it certainly isn't going to last any longer than that.
• And it is not knowable if force will be used, but if it is to be used, it is not knowable how long that conflict would last. It could last, you know, six days, six weeks. I doubt six months.
• But no terrorist state poses a greater or more immediate threat to the security of our people and the stability of the world than the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq.
• You and a few other critics are the only people I've heard use the phrase immediate threat. I didn't, the president didn't. And it's become kind of folklore that that's what's happened.
• We know where they [Iraq's WMD] are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south, and north somewhat.
• As you know, you go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time.

Of all the wingnuts who lied us into the Iraq War, only Donald Rumsfeld comes close to the contempt I feel for Dick Cheney. If only Rummy would peruse the list of replies to his tweet on the anniversary of the $6 trillion blood bath they lied us into, he'd have found this gem from Rob Delaney:

.@rumsfeldoffice Except you & your bosses, you blood-gargling psychopath.
— rob delaney (@robdelaney) March 19, 2013

What a shame this blood thirsty fucker is going to die soon. His twitter feed is a wondrous helping of wingnut talking that'll go down in history as the power crazed rantings of a "blood-gargling psychopath."

The Great Gazzoo of Threat Inflation Jumps the Shark on Islamist World Domination

Michael Mukasey

Via Political Wire, I see that a former Bush Attorney General [Guess which! Hint: currently a walking ad for Breitbart's Ghost] has something to warn us about... Islamists!

“You may not be interested in Islamism, but Islamism is interested in you,” warned former Attorney General Michael Mukasey at a Saturday CPAC panel of activists so fringy that they were not technically invited to the conference.

The Great Gazoo of threat inflation is hovering over Mukasey's shoulder, proudly stating how dulce et decorum it is to get other people killed in "defense" of one's country, because: Muslim hordes want global domination!

Keeping company with the likes of Pam Geller and Robert Spencer is easy when you have the facts!

“The vast majority of the world’s 1.4 billion Muslims adhere to a view of their religion that agrees on the need to impose Sharia, or Islamic law, on the world,” he said.

CPAC, which was looking for reasons why the GOP lost, wouldn't officially acknowledge this panel of "activists." If they really wanted to understand why the GOP is free-falling to rump party status, they'd look closely into the big brass bolas Mukasey's swinging around over his head and calling "facts."

I couldn't find a poll that shows that a "vast majority" of the world's Muslims want to impose Sharia Law on the whole world. I couldn't find a poll that shows a simple majority wants to. (Similarly, I couldn't find any poll that shows how many American Christian Fundamentalists want to impose their biblical law on the world, but there sure are plenty helping other countries pass anti-gay laws.) Lacking any obvious hard evidence on Mukasey's claims, I realized that he is, of course, bullshitting. But it's still fun to prove how full of shit he is!

The Religion of Piece is a website run by some of the looniest loons of them all when it comes to hating on Muslims. Everything they publish is designed to make Islam look as blood thirsty as possible (project much?). For a little background on TROP, check out this article from Loon Watch.

"...anti-Islam hate site, The Religion of Peace (TROP), associated with Islamophobe Daniel Greenfield, aka “SultanKnish,” who you will recall earns a pretty penny from the David Horowitz Freedom Center."

TROP is about as far right as you can get on this stuff. Or so you would think... Mainstream Republicans would certainly move toward the center to get away from this kind of hate speech, since even CPAC didn't want to have anything to do with them, officially. One would expect that no prominent member of an administration that told us our glorious war in Iraq was certainly not a "Crusade" would support such nonsense! No matter how Freudian Bush's dyslexicon might have gotten, the sensible people in charge truly believed what Bush said when he called Islam "a religion of peace."

Watch out for the right hook!

TROP has this little page of polls from the Muslim world. A whole section on Sharia Law links to polls that show majorities (or a plurality in the case of the Indonesia, the world's largest concentration) of Muslims want Sharia Law imposed on all Islamic countries. Not the whole world, just their corner of it. According to the site dedicated to making Islam look as bad as possible. 

TROP doesn't have one poll to back up Mukasey's claim that the "vast majority" of Muslims want to impose Sharia on the whole world. The polls they do have show that in the most populous Muslim country, Indonesia, the idea of imposing Sharia on all Muslim countries doesn't even get a majority. 

So, either Mukasey is bullshitting, or he's got some information the rest of us haven't seen yet. Maybe he'll do us the favor of sharing it with us, because, based on this and other fun things he's said ("...not every wrong, or even every violation of the law, is a crime..."), I'd really appreciate it if he'd keep talking. 

If the Antebellum Shoe Fits

Jeb's the serious one.

"All too often we're associated with being anti-everything: anti-immigration, anti-women, anti-gay."-- Jeb Bush

So, right off the bat we know Jeb Bush is a bullshitter, and no, not because he's a Bush. Because we all know that there are plenty of things Republicans are for: war, the drug war, guns, calling globs of cells people, forcing people to live as vegetables, dying in pain, living in pain, and executions, to name just a few. But Bush's point is well taken by a core of GOP moderates who might be willing to compromise on such issues in order to move America slightly further to the right.

So, yeah, Jeb, you're often associated with being anti-a-lot-of-things, but we all know about those fun things you're for, and the majority of Americans are sick of them. And while many Republicans are starting to leave the reservation/plantation/re-education center on issues like gay marriage (now I know why I lost money on Portman as Willard's VP pick), the core of the party--the people who show up and vote in Republican primaries--are just fine with being for a bunch of sick shit most Americans hate, and against things most Americans like.

Poll after poll shows that in blind taste tests, when Americans are shown the issues separated from their political baggage, they're liberals. On wealth equality, for example, Americans would much prefer a much more equitable distribution. On taxes, Americans agree with the Congressional Progressive Caucus. On abortion, Americans are pro-choice. On marijuana, Americans are for medicinal and more and more for outright legalization. Even a large chunk of the right says they're sick of war (whether I believe their bullshit is another question). And gay marriage is quickly becoming all the rage. Seems hippie punching is finally losing it's appeal. Maybe the southern strategy will be next to go?

Jed's bullshit aside, the GOP seems to be anti-a-lot-of-things Americans like, and they seem to be for a bunch of things Americans can't stand. Gerrymandering and bullshitting still manage to get a lot of Republicans elected, but they can only get them so far when they've painted themselves into congressional districts that resemble Mississippi circa 1963, or when you're national candidates have to shake an etch-a-sketch to try to make people forget all the wingnuttery you espoused to get through the frat boy hazing line/road kill cook-off known as the GOP primaries.

Frederick Douglass Republicans: Further Proof That Republicans Have Trouble with US History

LBJ hands MLK one of the 75 pens used to sign the Civil Rights Act

After LBJ signed the Civil Rights Act in 1964, he was initially ecstatic. Later that evening he was troubled, and told Bill Moyers: "I think we just delivered the South to the Republican party for a long time to come."

Almost a half a century later, and the Republican party's Southern Strategy is still their only shot at national office. Ronald Reagan kicked off his campaign for President in Philadelphia, Mississippi. If can't hear that particular dog whistle, follow the link.

Bob Herbert interviewed Lee Atwater, who sums up the southern strategy as only a master of the strategy could, in 1981, right after Reagan rode to office on the back of mythical parasitic welfare queens:

[Bob Herbert]: But the fact is, isn't it, that Reagan does get to the Wallace voter and to the racist side of the Wallace voter by doing away with legal services, by cutting down on food stamps? 

Atwater: You start out in 1954 by saying, "Nigger, nigger, nigger." By 1968 you can't say "nigger" — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me — because obviously sitting around saying, "We want to cut this," is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than "Nigger, nigger."

Since I understand this half-century-old political extension of the centuries long war on black people (as Ta-Nehisi Coates calls it), I don't fall pray to the easy mental traps that Republicans and Tea Partiers seem to tumble into on a regular basis. Today's example of bad lip reading history comes from a whole room full of screaming wingnuts at CPAC.

The session — titled “Trump The Race Card: Are You Sick And Tired Of Being Called A Racist When You Know You’re Not One?” — was led by K. Carl Smith, a black conservative who mostly urged attendees to deflect racism charges by calling themselves “Frederick Douglass Republicans.”

Disruptions began when he began accusing Democrats of still being the party of the Confederacy — a common talking point on the right. 

“I don’t care how much the KKK improved,” he said. “I’m not going to join the KKK. The Democratic Party founded the KKK.” 

Lines like that drew shouts of praise from some attendees and murmurs of disapproval from one non-conservative black attendee, Kim Brown, a radio host and producer with Voice of Russia, a broadcasting service of the Russian government. 

But then questions and answers began. And things went off the rails.

Go read the whole thing for the glorious cacophony of ignorant shouting and various tangents tangling at once. It's awesome. Includes slavery, pledges to "take it outside," and various other fun wingy-nuggets. TPM's reporter Benjy Sarlin even tries to pin one wingnut down on the whole GOP is racist thing, and finds that bullshitters are really tough to pin down. It's stupefyingly fun.

But it's hard to top this wingnut talking point that because the Democrats were the racists before 1964, they must still be, because, you know, they're Democrats.

Lee Atwater would be proud.

Rosa Parks Was So Sick of that Federal Government that Was Trying to Give Her Civil Rights

Pete Souza/The White House 

The number three Republican in the Idaho House, Rep. Brent Crane, has a bachelor's in political science from Boise State University. I'm guessing that either he was a lousy student who managed to graduate anyway (wingnut welfare), or Boise State is teaching a very odd version of American History, because Crane managed to completely mangle the facts about Rosa Parks in a recent debate on his state's health insurance exchange bill.

"One little lady got tired of the federal government telling her what to do," Assistant Majority Leader Brent Crane of Nampa said during Wednesday's debate on Gov. Butch Otter's bill establishing a state-run health insurance exchange. "I've reached that point, Mr. Speaker, that I'm tired of giving in to the federal government."

The way I figure it, he knows the truth. In fact, later in the article he admits that he was "...sure we went over that in history class in high school and possibly in history in college, possibly." Yeah, you probably did, probably. You probably know all about Jim Crow, and the Civil Rights Era, and Rosa Parks' civil disobedience against a local law that said she had to sit on the back of the bus. But for the purposes of making some kind of oratorical flare during your debate, you just threw the facts out the window. And you know what that makes you, Brent Crane?

That's right. You're a Bullshitter.

Untangling the Untaglable: an Exercise in Twisted Logic, Gay Hatin' Edition

As a stagehand, I would often wind up on "outs" where all the cable was in a tangled heap that we spaghetti monsters would spend hours unwinding. Cables would have "assholes" or odd kinky backwards twists, which were called the various names of former union Business Agents. So, I got used to untangling hopelessly entwined messes that no logic could explain.

And yet, I cannot for the life of me follow the logic from this wingnut:

They’re trying to redefine marriage. It’s a completely disordered relationship and when you have a disordered relationship, you don’t ever get order out of that. So I’m more than happy to take a ‘no’ vote on the issue of homosexual marriage. 

[...] 

I’m more than happy to stand up and take a courageous vote here on this issue because it’s the right thing to do. Essentially what they’re trying to do is not just redefine marriage, they’re trying to redefine society. They’re trying to weasel their way into acceptability so that they can then start to push their agenda down into the schools, because this gives them some sort of legitimacy. And we can’t allow that to happen. The rights to marriage… it’s really a natural right… 

It’s the natural right of the child to be with both parents, either in an adoptive nature or in a biological nature. To not have a mother and a father is really a disordered state for a child to grow up in and it really makes that child an object of desire rather than the result of a matrimony.

First find a straggling end of something coherent from State Rep. Jeanne Ives (R-Wheaton, Ill.) and pull. "Redefine marriage." That looks good. Let's give it a tug and see where it leads.

Click for the big version.

Yeah, it looks like we've been redefining marriage a lot since biblical days. Maybe we should keep up the good work, eh? So, that's a dead end. Next we find "redifine society." Rep. Jeanne Ives is from Illinois, where Lincoln was from. She's even in the same political party as Lincoln. I'd think she'd know a little about the redefinition of society that took place under that President. Perhaps Rep. Ives is familiar with Grace Wilbur Trout, a suffragette from Illinois who had a little to do with some societal redefinition. So, yeah, it seems society needs a good redefining from time to time. Or perhaps Ms. Trout disagrees with the 13th and 19th Amendments to the US Constitution? Either way, dead end.

So, the next frayed logical end to tug on (and I'm skipping "They’re trying to weasel their way into acceptability" because it just looks too ass-holier-than-thou) looks like this doozy:

"To not have a mother and a father is really a disordered state for a child to grow up in and it really makes that child an object of desire rather than the result of a matrimony."

Um, yeah, here's where I get lost. Right before this, she notes that adopting is cool. This somehow doesn't apply to a gay parent who might want to adopt the child they love. But if she really believes that not having a father and mother is disordered, and therefore makes the child an object of desire, then I'm guessing either she's a bullshitter who doesn't care what the truth is and is just talking out her ass, or she's actually not aware that many children grow up with only one parent for many reasons. Sometimes a parent dies. Does this mean the surviving parent "desires" that kid and doesn't actually love her? I'm honestly lost here. Maybe best to just walk away and leave that tangled mess there to collect dust along with the rest of the history she seems to love so much, because my best guess is that she's just a bullshitting bigot.

Crawford Ain't Just A Town In Texas Where They Built A Set to Take Pictures of George Bush

Official Photo

I always hate it when wingnuts mess up words that should sound deliciously reminiscent of freshwater crustaceans (no, not Austerian Economists, they're not delicious). Crawford should be a shallow place where you can cross the creek and catch crayfish. Instead, it's GW's brush clearin', Reaganesque poser pad smack in the middle of the biggest drought in generations, and it's this wingnut South Carolina House member Kris Crawford:

"It is good politics to oppose the black guy in the White House right now, especially for the Republican Party."

If that grade of wingnut was on Wall St. in 2005, they'd have stamped AAA all over his ass and sold him to your pension fund.

He was saying, in the quote, that he would have been brave and totally not racist if he did something which was admittedly bad politics for him, so he didn't. He voted on party lines to shoot down the bill expanding Medicaid in his state to a half a million people.

But, wait. It gets better. Kris Crawford is an ER doctor. I suppose it's possible that an ER doctor might be unaware of the fact that we already have the most expensive socialized medicine in the world, and it's called the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act, signed in 1986 by that Medicare-loving, commie bastard Reagan.

Assuming the good Doctor is aware of the EMTALA, that would mean he voted to spend more money later by voting for less money now. Now, that's conservative!

Never Gonna Stop

Last fall, when Paul Ryan was spewing his bullshit about what was on his iPod, he said he had everything from AC [lightening bolt] DC to Zeppelin. I forget who (a commenter at Intrade?) noted that one, Led Zeppelin would be under L, and two, those are not American bands. If he really wanted to spew some Triple-A American bullshit, he should have said Aerosmith to ZZ Top.

This got me to thinking that Ryan sometimes succumbs to what Mark Crispin Miller calls the Bush Dyslexicon. His book of that name chronicles the many times Bush said what people thought were just stupid gaffes, but they're really slips that give you insight into how he really thinks. Like when he said the Crusade of the Iraq War was going to take a while.

Well, Paul Ryan, who apparently dislikes American Rock and Roll so much that he won't name the obvious bands in the relevant alphabetic sequence, has dyslexiconographied again. And this time it's a doozy.

"This to us is something that we're not going to give up on, because we're not going to give up on destroying the health care system for the American people."

Oh, please, tell us more, wingnut. (h/t Jed, Daily Kos)

If Jeb Bush Keeps Talking about His Brother, We'll Keep Listening

Jeb Bush must've heard us asking wingnuts to keep talking, because he just won't shut up. He pulled a Full Ginsburg Sunday promoting his book on immigration, changing positions so often that he looked like Alex in the fast motion sex scene from A Clockwork Orange. In the midst of all his steamy bullshit, he managed to squirt out another little gem of wingnut speak that deserves a pin spot from this booth:

"So my guess is that history will be kind to my brother, the further out you get from this and the more people compare his tenure to what's going on now."

Actually, he makes a good point, if he's talking about the 8th grade history books being used in Louisiana voucher schools, which  Steven Hsieh discovered have this little tie-died bit:

Many young people turned to drugs and immoral lifestyles; these youth became known as hippies. They went without bathing, wore dirty, ragged, unconventional clothing, and deliberately broke all codes of politeness or manners. Rock music played an important part in the hippie movement and had great influence over the hippies. Many of the rock musicians they followed belonged to Eastern religious cults or practiced Satan worship.

Hippie punching never gets old with wingnuts. So, yeah, that history might be kind to W, but in the real world, we work with facts like this: despite inheriting the Little Bush Depression, with 750,000 jobs being lost PER MONTH when Obama took over, and despite massive layoffs in public sector workers never seen in any other recession, Obama has seen more jobs created during his first 4 years than Bush did in 8.

In the real world, we work with facts like this: "That leaves Bush with the dubious distinction of becoming the only president in recent history to preside over an income decline through two presidential terms." And this: "Under Bush, the number of people in poverty increased by over 8.2 million, or 26.1 per cent. Over two-thirds of that increase occurred before the economic collapse of 2008."

The most agonizing thing about the slow motion disaster that was the Bush years, however, has to be the Iraq war and his massive tax cuts to the rich. The facts non-wingnut historians will be noting about these boondoggles for centuries are horrifying:

By themselves, in fact, the Bush tax cuts and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will account for almost half of the $20 trillion in debt that, under current policies, the nation will owe by 2019. 

Any serious history of the Bush administration would have to include this: somewhere between 100,000 and 1 million people died as a result of the Bush adventure in Mesopotamia.

Any historian that treats Jeb's brother kindly should go hunting with a drunk Dick Cheney when he's loaded for bear.

Maybe The Bush Baggage Was Lost by "East, West, South and North Somewhat" Airlines?

Crooks and Liars notes that Jeb Bush doesn't think there's any "Bush baggage."

Fox News host Chris Wallace pointed out to Bush on Sunday that his brother, George W. Bush, had been "somewhat unpopular" when he left office in 2009. 

"Do you think there is any Bush baggage?" Wallace wondered. "Do you think that would be a problem?" 

"No," the former Florida governor replied. "I don't think there's any Bush baggage at all. I love my brother, I'm proud of his accomplishments, I love my dad, I am proud to be a Bush." 

First, I'd really love to see a list of what Jeb thinks his brother's accomplishments are, but expecting Chris Wallace to ask him to name a few is like expecting a pilot fish to ask its shark to add little variety to its diet.

And second, I can see the bad-lip reading of this now... "I'm proud to be a Douche."

They're Too Lazy to Get a New Dog Whistle

The usually savvy Steve Benen wants the GOP to drop the whole "Obama is lazy thing."

Steve, you're the best, but I want to keep these guys talking. If these guys didn't talk, no one would ever know about the slobbery lips blowing a spit-filled, centuries old dog-whistle. The latest fat white guy to give the rusty/slimy/drippy old thing a wheezing blow bothered to leave Sinecure Inc's lushest country clubs because he was upset that someone would dare suggest that Ann Romney used her money to make her life easier.

Obama's the one who never worked a day in his life. He never earned a penny that wasn't public money. How many fund-raisers does he attend every week? How often does he play basketball and golf? I wish I had that kind of time. He's lazy, but the media won't report that. 

First things first. Fox "News" CEO Roger "I Won the Election for my cousin George W Bush" Ailes is a Bullshitter in the Philosophical sense of the word.

...bullshitters seek to convey a certain impression of themselves without being concerned about whether anything at all is true. They quietly change the rules governing their end of the conversation so that claims about truth and falsity are irrelevant. Frankfurt concludes that although bullshit can take many innocent forms, excessive indulgence in it can eventually undermine the practitioner's capacity to tell the truth in a way that lying does not. Liars at least acknowledge that it matters what is true. By virtue of this, Frankfurt writes, bullshit is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are.

Aisles should ask his cousin W, who thought all kinds of things qualified as hard work, about how hard fundraising is. Ask any politician about their schedule, and the amount of time they have to spend raising money. Roger and his buddies made sure that politicians would have to obsess over the one thing that destroys democracy faster than anything else. As Willard Romney himself liked to misquote: politics ain't bean bags. Of course, you could always forgo the fundraising and finance your own campaign, which is really putting your money where your mouth is, but I digress.

Steve goes on to cover the rest of the obvious points nicely. No, Roger, The President actually did work in the private sector. And who are you to suggest that public sector workers don't work? Go tell the families of all the public sector workers who died doing their jobs how lazy their loved ones were, you fat puke. Actually, Steve was nicer than that, bless his heart.

But please, Roggie Baby, don't let the fact that I'm mean to you shut you up. You've got a whole media empire at your disposal, so please, keep talking, wingnut.

Rand Paul is Not Casting Aspersions on Murderer President Who is Gay and Believes in Slavery

Rand Paul, who said the President was acting like a King during his filibuster today:

I’m not casting any aspersions on the President. I’m not saying he is a bad person at all...

Later in the hour:

The President’s response to the killing of al-Awlaki’s son, he [the President’s spokesman] said he should have chosen more responsible father.

No, Gibbs didn't say that. He said:

I would suggest that you should have a far more responsible father if they are truly concerned about the well being of their children. I don't think becoming an al Qaeda jihadist terrorist is the best way to go about doing your business.

See, Rand, that's a bit different, isn't it? It's about the father being more responsible, not who the kid "chose" as his father.

Rand Paul last May:

“Call me cynical, but I wasn’t sure his views on marriage could get any gayer,” Paul said. “It did kind of bother me though that he used the justification for in a Biblical reference. He said, ‘A Biblical goal caused him to be for gay marriage.’ And I’m like, what version of the Bible is he reading?”

Rand Paul in May of 2011:

With regard to the idea of whether you have a right to health care, you have realize what that implies. It’s not an abstraction. I’m a physician. That means you have a right to come to my house and conscript me. It means you believe in slavery. 

The President wants to cover more people with health insurance instead of, cough, enslaving ER Doctors who cannot say no to a patient (see the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act, signed by Ronald Reagain in 1986), and Rand Paul calls that slavery. But he's not casting any aspersions on the President. He's not saying he's a bad person. Just a murdering tyrant who says kids should pick better parents if they don't want to be murdered by a President who just might be gay and isn't reading from the same Bible as he is.

OK, then. Please proceed, wingnut.

Rand Paul Takes the KTW Challenge!

From Chasing Glenn Beck, a conservative's site!

When I started this little blog last week, I had no idea that the King Wingnut himself would take my advice and keep talking, and talking...

The point isn't that anyone in this country is Hitler...

Good that he got the Godwin's Law thing out of the way right off the bat. Also, remember, this is from a man who would force rape victims to give birth to their rapists' babies, because small government! Or Liberty! Or something.

Preppers beware! The black helicopters drones are coming for you!

If you're going to kill people in America, you need to have rules and we need to know what those rules are. ... I don't want to find out that having seven days worth of food in your house is on the list.

We have over a month's worth of food in our house. Should we be worried?

Anyone have any links to Rand Paul bitching about constitutional rights trampled by King GW Bush, or did his concern over these matters suddenly start in 2009?

I would be here if there was a Republican president doing this.

Paul says he would have voted against the Iraq war. Unfortunately, I can't find any quotes from him standing up against the war at the time, so excuse me if I don't believe him.

Luckily, the guy has a long history of saying ignorant shit, so the odds are good that he'll be keeping me busy here.

Just because a couple people on the Supreme Court declare something to be ‘constitutional’ does not make it so. The whole thing remains unconstitutional. While the court may have erroneously come to the conclusion that the law is allowable, it certainly does nothing to make this mandate or government takeover of our health care right.

Of course, Senator Franklin nails the wingnut, who apparently doesn't have a clue what it means to save more money later by spending some money now.

 SEN. RAND PAUL: Um, I appreciate the great and very, um, I think collegial discussion, And we do have different opinions, you know, some of us believe more in the ability of government to cure problems, and some of us believe more in the ability of private charity to cure these problems. I guess what I still find curious is though that if we are saving money with the 2 billion dollars we spend, perhaps we should give you 20 billion. Is there a limit? Where would we get to? How much money should we give you in order to save money so if we spend federal money to save money, where is the limit? I think we could reach a point of absurdity. Thank you. 

SEN. AL FRANKEN: I think you just did...

Really, Wingnuts, Keep Talking About Each Other!

Hot wingnut on wingnut action in the right wing mud pit! These guys are like walking, talking ads for more and better Democrats! Keep pointing, wingnuts (and just look at all those fingers pointing back at themselves)!

Look Who's Feuding Now: A Map of Conservative Fingerpointing, From the Atlantic Wire

Go to the Atlantic Wire story for all the juicy details and quotes, like:

New York Rep. Peter King vs CPAC: Asked about Christie's snub at CPAC, King took on most conservatives south of the Mason-Dixon line. "[Republicans] are more and more taking on this anti-Northeast attitude... We say fine, if you want to be anti-Northeast, then the Northeast is going to be anti-them."

No Fault Divorce Makes Teenagers More Promiscuous?

A bill introduced by seven wingnuts (who I hope will keep talking) in the Iowa House would end no-fault divorce in the state because it encourages teenagers to be more promiscuous. Seriously. The charge is led by Representative Tedd Gassman. Yes, Gassman.

Representative Gassman said the issue is “near and dear” to his heart because his daughter and son-in-law recently divorced, putting his granddaughter at risk. 

“There’s a 16-year-old girl in this whole mix now. Guess what? What are the possibilities of her being more promiscuous?” Gassman said. “What are the possibilities of all these other things surrounding her life that a 16-year-old girl, with hormones raging, can get herself into?”

GOP to Hire Smarter Teaspoons to Bail Ocean Out of Sinking Lifeboat

The National Republican Senatorial Committee has a plan to cut off the flow of material for Keep Talking Winnguts.

The goal? To avoid what’s become known in GOP circles as "Todd Akin moments." 

"The campaigns that jumped off message not only infected themselves, they infected all the rest of the campaigns," said Rob Collins, the new NRSC executive director, in his first extensive interview on the job. "So in this age of fractured but continuous, three-dimensional communication, we have to constantly plan for that and train for that and build for that."

Let's review the Republican Party Platform:

"Faithful to the 'self-evident' truths enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, we assert the sanctity of human life and affirm that the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed," the draft platform declares. "We support a human life amendment to the Constitution and endorse legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment's protections apply to unborn children."

Keep writing platforms, wingnuts.

The campaigns that tried to defend the official GOP platform were actually on message--forcing rape victims to give birth to their rapists' babies. They might have shown their ignorance of biology or stretched the bounds of decency with their comments, but that is the result of trying to defend an official party position that is quite hard to defend without resorting to ignorant nonsense that voters find repulsive. It is not the result of jumping "off message."

These new hired guns for the NRSC are actually there to try to get the wingnuts to lie or shut up about the official party platform. I'm skeptical that anyone will succeed at corking these bottles of expanding gas, or lessening the amount of material available to keep talking wingnuts talking.

The Big Fib Newton Chews the Fat

Leroy lets it rip!

...I think conservatives in general got in the habit of talking to themselves. I think that they in a sense got isolated into their own little world. So our pollsters, many of whom were wrong about turnout. No Republican pollster thought you could get 87 percent turnout in Milwaukee. You just sort of have to say that to some extent the degree to which we believed that the other side was kidding themselves, it turned out in fact in the real world – this is a part of what makes politics so fascinating – it turned out in the real world we were kidding ourselves.

Keep talking among yourselves, wingnuts.

Maybe He Shook His Etcha-Sketch Too Much

Willard was on Fox News yesterday (sorry, no links for the wicked) and said this, which is destined to take the place of the mud shark in GOP mythology:

"What I said is not what I believe." —Willard Mitt Romney

Great Googly Moogly! You'd think having the yellow snow of a major electoral college defeat rubbed in his eyes would be enough to shut this wingnut up, but he's back, and he'll be whipping on all our favorite baby seals soon enough, hopefully, because I just can't get enough of wingnuts who keep talking. Or painting.

That quote is awesome and all, but in terms of pure wingnutery, he's going to have to step up his game to get to where he was in May of last year:

"I'm not familiar precisely with what I said, but I'll stand by what I said, whatever it was." —Willard Mitt Romney

Oh, yeah, that's the stuff...

Neo-con Dome: Cheney rips Condoleezza Rice

Dick "The Liberator" Cheney is one wingnut who should definitely keep talking:

"I thought [destroying the reactor] would reassert the kind of authority and influence we had back in '03 when we took down Saddam Hussein and eliminated Iraq as a potential source of WMD," Cheney says in the film, The World According to Dick Cheney. "Condi was on the wrong side of all those issues so we had significant issues."

Taegan Goddard's 10 Dumbest Things Republicans Said Last Month

I gave Taegan a little friendly ribbing for selling coffee on his blog last week, something I do all the time, since my friends run an organic Kona coffee farm, so I owe him a link. And he deserves it. My favorite from his 10 Dumbest Things Republicans Said Last Month is, hands-down:

"I was very proud of the fact that I didn't get anything wrong that I said during the course of the debates. I didn't get anything wrong, and that's a huge arena."--Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), commenting on her performance in the 2012 GOP presidential debates.

A bonus quote from Taegan just came over the Political Wire:

"You would be giving off more CO2 if you are riding a bike than driving in a car."-- Washington state Rep. Ed Orcutt (R)

Please keep talking, wingnuts.

Pat Robertson Recommends

Why do I get the feeling that "Pat Robertson Recommends" will be a regular feature here at Keep Talking, Wingnuts? In today's installment, Pat recommends rebuking demons from used clothing.

After a viewer, Carrie, asked whether to follow her mom’s recommendation to pray away demonic spirits over her secondhand sweaters, Robertson recounted a story about “a witch who had prayed over a particular ring and asked for a spirit to come into it, and this Philippine girl was so attached to this ring, she had to buy it and all hell broke loose because she finally recognized what it was.” 

“Can demonic spirits attach themselves to inanimate objects, the answer is yes,” Robertson said. 

[...] “Hey, it ain’t going to hurt anything to rebuke any spirits that happened to have attached themselves to those clothes.”

Right on Cue

RT @johnjharwood Viewer after #sequester positions explained: "Hope your grandchildren die paupers in socialist state" #keeptalkingwingnuts
— Scott Supak (@ssupak) March 2, 2013

Keep Talking, Wingnuts Inaugural Post Subject is a Wingnut Favorite

For the most part, I plan to let the wingnuts talk for themselves on this blog. I have no need to take extra time from my day to mock the idiotic statements from Republicans, Libertarians, and various other shades of wingnut Galtian Overlords. I have other media from which to do that. The things I post here will be actual quotes from actual wingnuts that don't need any dissection or additional commentary. They will be sparkling gems from Winglandia that shine brilliantly with even the slightest touch of soft fill light.

I've been toying with this idea for a while now, adding #KeepTalkingWingnuts to various tweets and posts, but  the horrific red tide of stupid kept coming in so hot and heavy that I figured I really needed a place to collect and share the vast steaming pile of offal that comes pouring out of their mouths on a regular basis.

So, without further ado, here's Celeste Greig, the head of the largest GOP volunteer organization in California, on the GOP's favorite topic:

Greig was in the midst of criticizing former Missouri U.S. Senate candidate Todd Akin for saying that victims of "legitimate rape" rarely get pregnant because "the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down." It was a remark that many believe led not only to his defeat in November but also helped tarnish the Republican brand around the country. 

"That was an insensitive remark," Greig said. "I'm sure he regretted it. He should have come back and apologized." 

Greig, however, went on to say [emphasis mine, because: Keep Talking, Wingnut!]: "Granted, the percentage of pregnancies due to rape is small because it's an act of violence, because the body is traumatized. I don't know what percentage of pregnancies are due to the violence of rape. Because of the trauma the body goes through, I don't know what percentage of pregnancy results from the act."