Aaaand we're back with a new King Wingnut

 Who would have ever thought that Scalia could be dethroned? Indeed not I--who lost big on Trump's election in 2016. And yet, here we are, reviving this dead blog so it won't get deleted by the anti-historians at Google...

Here's the new King Wingnut, who, of course, just keeps talking.

"I’m the one that got rid of Roe V Wade."

King Wingnut is Dead. Long live the King.

Supreme Court Justice Scalia expressing
his concern for our civic culture.

The long overdue death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has finally arrived, and there's a party at our house, starting with indulging in anything the old rat bastard hated.

1. Most talk shows

Now I really can't wait to watch last night's Colbert.

2. The State of the Union address. "It is a childish spectacle."

Not when Obama does it!

3. Societal change. "One of the things that upsets me about modern society is the coarseness of manners ... It’s very sad."

Fuck you, horse scrotum neck.

4. The Internet. "I’m nervous about our civic culture."

Says one of the citizens who put GW Bush in office.

5. Social networking, and friending.

Facebook makes you gay!

6. Swearing. "You can’t go to a movie—or watch a television show for that matter—without hearing the constant use of the F-word—including, you know, ladies using it." [Italics his]

"Go fuck yourself."--Dick Cheney, Scalia's hunting buddy

This is Just a Passing Phase

"I feel cold as a razor blade,
Tight as a tourniquet,
Dry as a funeral drum."--Pink Floyd

Keep Talking Wingnuts has been busy trying not to upset the enemy as they destroy themselves with a Trumpzilla of their own creation. I always thought the dying screams of the Republican party would be more David-Brooksian-whine than Wilhelm, but, hey, rump parties are hard to predict, and there are a lot of blood-thirsty xenophobes outside the rarefied chambers of New York City.

And yet New York City is the birthplace of Trumpzilla style Nationalistic Populism. Almost as if proximity to Brooksian Bullshit breeds a less squishy version that just comes right out and says what polite company only thinks.

That being said, I'm still shorting Trump at Predict It.

I Need A Peak Wingnut Prediction Market

I would always short peak wingnut markets, for there is no such thing as peak wingnut.

“With his Iran deal, Barack Obama is for the 300 million souls of the United States what Andreas Lubitz was for the 150 souls on the German Wings flight — a deranged pilot flying his entire nation into the rocks.”— Former Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) 

US Representative Don Young of Alaska Blames Friends of Suicide Victim for the Suicide

Rep Don Young (R, AK), not a suicide expert.

The last time we heard from Representative Don "We Used to Have 50-60 Wetbacks" Young, he was displaying his ignorance of economics. This time our Wingnut Hero is blaming friends of a suicide victim for the suicide, comparing gay marriage to bull sex, and bossing students around for how they hold their hands while daring to confront the great and powerful Republican congressman.

I shit you not.

But then, witnesses say, Young said suicide shows a lack of support from friends and family. 

That comment stunned students and staff still mourning the loss of a student who died Thursday, staffers say. 

"When I heard 'a lack of support from family' and I heard 'a lack of support from friends,' I felt the oxygen go out of the room, but I gasped as well," Spargo said. "It just isn't true in these situations. It's just such a hurtful thing to say."  

Both Spargo and Swick say a friend of the victim, moved by emotion, shouted at Young, “He had friends. He had support.” 

“The kid said, ‘It’s depression -- you know, a mental illness,' ” Spargo recalled. As she remembers, Young replied, “ ‘Well, what, do you just go to the doctor and get diagnosed with suicide?’ ” 

At some point during the exchange, several school staffers say, the congressman also used either the words "---hole” or “smartass.”

My only regret about this story is that in a room full of high school students, apparently no one used their cell phone to record the event. Maybe they didn't expect the fireworks from a US Congressman.

The real hero of this story is Wasilla junior Zachary Grier, who, had heard that the Congressman had threatened to hurt his opponent, Democrat Forrest Dunbar, because Dunbar had touched Young's arm. Young Zach apparently has a sense for wingnut pressure building up, as he decided to ask a couple of questions that just might keep the congressman angry and talking.

Grier got up and asked Young about Ballot Measure 2 that would legalize recreational marijuana -- “he was completely against it” -- and followed up with questions about the Kodiak debate. Young twice told him to get his hands out of his pockets. Grier complied politely, several witnesses said. 

He got in one more question, this one about same-sex marriage.
“I asked why is it so bad in your eyes?” Grier said. 

As Spargo described it, Young answered, “You can’t have marriage with two men. What do you get with two bulls?” 

Witnesses say Young then said something about a lot of "bullshazzle" or some word resembling the more familiar obscenity.

Colorful language for a high school, but more telling is the tendency of these older scumbags to jump right to the animal sex when asked about homosexuals. Kind of makes one wonder what happened to the congressman during his formative years... Of course, Young didn't care much for a smart ass (and I use the word with respect and admiration) kid, so he ran and tattled to the school principal:

Spargo talked briefly with Young on his way out. He asked her about the student who shouted at him. The principal said he was a friend of the boy who died. “ ‘I’ll take care of it,’ ” she told Young. 

“He told me, ‘That boy needs to learn some respect,’ ” Spargo recalled.

Blame a kid for his friend's suicide, and then say that kid needs to learn respect. This is the GOP political philosophy in a nut shell.

We Don't Even Know What All Diseases They Have

Where the white women at? Via.

“Our schools cannot handle this influx, we don’t even know what all diseases they have. Our health care systems can’t withstand this influx.”-Louie Gohmert

It's Louie Gohmert week (month/year/decade/century) here at Keep Talking, Wingnuts, so I'm just going to have to amplify, again, Gohmert's disgustingly wrong and old "diseased immigrants" meme.

Via LOLGOP, we have more evidence that today's' wingnuts are just recycling old bullshit. Maybe they're lazy. Or maybe they like to stick with what they think are tried and true strategies for fueling xenophobia. Whatever their pitiful excuse is, their current fact-less tirades are so insulting to the kids fleeing violence in countries the US has funded right wing death squads in that I really do hope they keep talking.

Consider:

Dr. Elizabeth Lee Vliet, a Fox News commentator and former director of the ultra-conservative political group Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, writes in the McAllen Monitor that measles is among the “diseases the United States had controlled or virtually eradicated” that are “carried across the border by this tsunami of illegals.”

Fact check: UNICEF reports that 93 percent of kids in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador are vaccinated against measles. That’s better than American kids (92 percent).

Furthermore, it’s absurd to claim that the U.S. has eradicated measles while Central America has not. In fact, measles outbreaks have resurged in some American cities. By contrast, according to the World Health Organization, neither Guatemala nor Honduras has had a reported case of measles since 1990.

From the 1896 Edition of the Rams Horn. 

And from Fox News contributor Marc Siegel (author of "False Alarm: Profiting from the Epidemic of Fear"--I shit you not):

...unaccompanied minors “are a likely source” of the mosquito-borne dengue fever spreading to Texas. Siegel ignores two key public health points: First, legal immigrants and travelers are a much larger group than undocumented folks, and just as likely to carry dengue. (I don’t know about y’all, but I’ve never been screened for dengue fever at the Texas-Mexico border.)  Second, mosquitoes can fly.

America is a lot more brown than it was when Eisenhower authorized Operation Wetback, so picking on brown people (or worse) isn't going to be as effective for getting people to vote for you as it used to be. But I'd have to review of a few of my history books to find a time when the xenophobes in America openly denigrated children. This kind of behavior probably won't stop many Jeb Bush Republicans from voting for a Louie Gohmert when given the chance. The question is, how many Democrats will get off their asses in a mid term and vote against one?

Louie Gohmert Just Won't Shut Up and That's a Very Good Thing

Congressman (!) Louie Gohmert

As I've said before, if I were a rich man I'd send Louie Gohmert, Sarah Palin, Steve Stockman, and Michelle Bachman on a speaking tour of swing states and congressional districts, especially along the US border with Mexico. You can keep up with a lot more of the crazy shit they say by watching #KeepTalkingWingnuts on Twitter. I can't post every crazy thing they say... Too busy trying to start another small business.

Today's bonus round of Keep Talking, Wingnuts is brought to you by Congressman (!) Gohmert (it's so odd that I shudder every time I write congressman before his name). It's one thing when a bunch of xenophobic voters show up to yell at a busload of kids trying to escape the violence in countries right wing US governments have been funding right wing death squads in for years. It's quite another when a US congressman suggests we stop the influx of these children by killing them when they cross the border.

Think I'm kidding?

“That’s why I’m hoping that my governor will utilize Article 1, Section 10, that allows a state that is being invaded — in our case more than twice as many just in recent months, more than twice as many than invaded France on D-Day with a doubling of that coming en route, on their way here now under Article 1, Section 10, the state of Texas would appear to have the right, not only to use whatever means, whether it’s troops, even using ships of war, even exacting a tax on interstate commerce that wouldn't normally be allowed to have or utilize, they’d be entitled in order to pay to stop the invasion.”

Yep. You read it right. Louie Gohmert wants to treat the influx of children (running from violence in countries that Louie Gohmert's wingnut buddies in the White House fucked with for decades by funding right wing death squads) like an invading army. He wants to use "whatever means" to stop this "invasion." Including troops. And since Congressman (!) Gohmert served in the US Army, he most certainly knows what troops do to invading forces. But maybe he didn't see combat while he was in the Judge Advocate General's Corps after Vietnam.

The congressman also said, "We don’t know what diseases they’re bringing in." I doubt any diseases they do have could be any worse than the outbreak of measles near Rep. Gohmert's district in North Texas that's a result of anti-vaccine wingnuts fueled by rhetoric from, you guessed it, Louie Gohmert, who agreed with noted I-lost-an-election-to-Barack-Obama-Republican Alan Keyes that it's a scary thought that liberals are using vaccines to kill off enough of the population so that they could control the rest.

Somebody please get this mental midget a bigger soapbox.

Minnesota House Candidate Wants to Tell Us about the AIDS

Bob Frey, Friend of Michelle Bachman, photo via Queerty

Please tell us more about the science behind AIDS, Bob Frey, candidate for Minnesota House district 47A in Carver County, Minnesota:

But when questioned about his position on social issues, Frey added that it “does certainly need to be addressed for what it is. It’s not about the gay agenda but about the science and the financial impact of that agenda. It’s more about sodomy than about pigeonholing a lifestyle.”   

Pigeonholio!

Frey then explained his view: “When you have egg and sperm that meet in conception, there’s an enzyme in the front that burns through the egg. The enzyme burns through so the DNA can enter the egg. If the sperm is deposited anally, it's the enzyme that causes the immune system to fail. That’s why the term is AIDS – acquired immunodeficiency syndrome.”

 The Minn Post story helpfully lets us know that this view, which Bob shares with his son Mike (scientific consensus!), has no scientific validity. Not that that matters one bit to the wingnuts who'll be voting for him.

These Gish Gallopers always make me think of On Bullshit, by Harry Frankfurt:

"...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."

Update: House district and county corrected. H/t to Ole Olson.

No Coal Mines on Mars

KT state Senator Brandon Smith, The Thinker

Via Hunter, I hear that the Kentucky State  Senate Majority Whip, Sen. Brandon Smith, is so worried about the just over 0.6 percent of total employment in the state that is coal mining jobs that he's taken to the halls of academia for proof of how silly this whole global warming thing is.

“As you (Energy & Environment Cabinet official) sit there in your chair with your data, we sit up here in ours with our data and our constituents and stuff behind us. I don’t want to get into the debate about climate change, but I will simply point out that I think in academia we all agree that the temperature on Mars is exactly as it is here. Nobody will dispute that. Yet there are no coal mines on Mars. There are no factories on Mars that I’m aware of.”

Click on through for the fun scientific stuff, like the vast difference in average temperatures. But for the sake of an academic exercise, if we did find coal deposits on Mars, it would be proof of life on another planet, and it would be a handy way, assuming there's enough of it, for us to terraform Mars. You know, if you believe the physicists in academia who tell us that adding CO2 to a planet's atmosphere makes the planet hotter. Like what happened on Venus. Without any coal mines or factories. That I'm aware of.

I'm Sorry You Misunderstood My Comparison of Obamacare to the Holocaust

TN State Senator Campfield, via ThinkProgress

Via TPM, Tennessean is Tennebelivin:

"Democrats bragging about the number of mandatory sign ups for Obamacare is like Germans bragging about the number of manditory [sic] sign ups for "train rides" for Jews in the 40s."--TN state Sen. Stacey Campfield (R, Of Course)

The fun part is the non-apology apology...

"I regret that some people miss the point of my post."

You regret that "some people" missed the point, but not that you made it?

"It was not to offend."

But it did.

"In no way was my post meant to diminish or detract from the pain, suffering and loss of human life that occurred during this dark time in human history."

But it did.

"At no point in our history have we ever faced a federal government and administration with a lower regard for human life"

Do you have any idea how many native Americans Andrew Jackson killed? Or do you not consider Native Americans "human."

Do you have any idea how many Presidents supported slavery?

"I will continue to stand up against the government takeover of the nations [sic] healthcare."

Good for you. Now apologize for your disgusting statement, because this IS NOT an apology.

Oh, and yes, you can get AIDs from heterosexual sex, Senator.

Campfield defended his outrageous comments, saying he was simply speaking “on the fly,” and that while he’s not an AIDS historian, “I’ve read and seen what other people have read and seen and those facts are out there.”

They're not facts, Senator. But please, keep talking.

Maine Representative Lawrence Lockman is Sorry He's Such a Dick

Via Raw Story

This wingnut's been talking for years. Now he says he's sorry. Sure thing, Bobble Head.

Lockman falsely suggested HIV and AIDS could be spread by bed sheets and mosquitos, and he also said the progressive movement helped spread the virus by claiming “the practice of sodomy is a legitimate alternative lifestyle, rather than a perverted and depraved crime against humanity.”

That's just what he does to warm up. "Blame the Liberals" is Wingnutville's Central Park. This guy was a bit more creative than most of the craizified factor.

“If a woman has (the right to an abortion), why shouldn't a man be free to use his superior strength to force himself on a woman?” Lockman said. “At least the rapist’s pursuit of sexual freedom doesn’t (in most cases) result in anyone’s death.”

Keep talking!

In the past few months, Republicans have called Wendy Davis, a Democratic candidate for Texas governor, “Abortion Barbie,” likened Alison Lundergan Grimes, a Senate candidate from Kentucky, to an “empty dress,” criticized Hillary Rodham Clinton’s thighs, and referred to a pregnant woman as a “host.” 

Democrats do not just get mad when they hear those words. They cash in.

The best part is, they don't need anyone to remind them to open their mouths. They can't even shut up when their best political minds tell them to.

I doubt we've heard the last of Lawrence Lockman...

It's Not Just the Wingnut Politicians Who Should Keep Talking

A recent Pew Research poll spells out what we all know about wingnuts. And as you all know, I love it when they say, out loud, exactly what they believe. In fact, if I were a rich man, I'd pay Louis Gohmert, Steve Stockman, Michelle Bachman, and even some more "mainstream" Republicans to take a swing state soapbox talking tour.

But those are just politicians. Surely, they don't speak for most Republicans. Our Republican neighbors and family members couldn't possibly be the same cruel assholes as those people.

Yeah. They wish.




Shorter Republican voters: Screw the poor and immigrants. Let poison and global warming run free through the environment. Let our infrastructure crumble. What energy problem, we've got fracking! Spend more on the Pentagon.

The poll shows even more problems for the GOP.




The poll also shows us the conclusions people have drawn after listening to the soon-to-be-rump party's spokespeople. The GOP won't compromise, isn't concerned with my needs, is more extreme, is more influenced by lobbyists, is less honest and ethical in governing.

The bit of cognitive dissonance on the last question is precious.

Please, keep talking, wingnuts. We're listening.

When Phil Robertson Speaks, People Should Listen to Ta-Nehisi Coates

Seems Commander Phil  Robertson hasn't heard of this blog; now he's offering marriage advice that encourages statutory rape.

...these boys are waiting until they get to be about 20 years old before they marry 'em. Look, you wait ‘til they get to be twenty years-old and the only picking that’s going to take place is your pocket. You got to marry these girls when they’re about fifteen or sixteen and they’ll pick your ducks. 

I don't think Phil's heard of Ta-Nehisi Coates either.

In many parts of America, this is an argument for statutory rape. More specifically, it is an argument for men seeking to elide the power of grown women, by seeking their sexual partners among teenage girls. This is style of svengalism is generally seen as repugnant to our morality. Phil Robertson believes that society should  withhold of civil rights from consenting gay men, while allowing men like him to push the age of consent to its breaking point. The contradiction here is as predictable as it is ridiculous. The loudest of doomsayers, so often, carry the weightiest of sin. 

They also spew the most bullshit to deny the horror of history. So much bullshit that even the roots of the blues are denied, and raping children is considered a preferred path to marriage.

Why It's Getting Easier For Democrats to Retake the House

You lose a whole lot of voters when you move that far right.

Nate Cohn makes me wish we had a new Intrade; prediction markets are a great way to help people get a handle on who's bullshitting and who's not. Not that I think Nate's bullshitting. He makes very good points, and he cares about the facts. He makes such a good argument, in fact, that if we had a prediction market with real money, he'd be convincing enough to the "smart" money to keep the prices down on shares of Democrats to win control of the US House in 2014.

If there’s anything I could get people to understand about the next election, it’s this: Even a 2006 or 2010-esque tsunami might not give Democrats control of the House.

Democrats don't need a tsunami to take control of the US House.

When the Great Gerrymander of 2010 gave the GOP a wave of US House districts that John Boehner surfed into the speakers office, they had a lot of help beyond simple Gerrymandering. The natural tendency of midterms to go against the President's party, a lot of anger whipped up by the Tea Party, and a whole lot of money.

But Gerrymandering has hidden costs.

Sam Wang's analysis of recent PPP polls.

It is a common fallacy to believe that seats gained by partisan gerrymandering are safe seats. In fact, the converse is the case. Gerrymandering achieves a net gain of seats by packing the opposition party into as few districts as possible. 

[...]

Representatives who benefited from the great partisan gerrymander of 2010 were given enough of an advantage to get into office narrowly. In a district designed to give Republicans a narrow advantage, Republican loyalists are likely to be spread thinly, with the balance of the needed votes being drawn from independents. Some of these independents might be more prone to anger about the current situation. These polls suggest that Republicans in those states might be particularly ripe targets for pressure.

Apparently Cohn has complained about the accuracy of PPP generic Dem polls (which Sam Wang is using in his latest calculations) vs the eventual reality. I haven't seen those numbers, and would gladly take a look. But there are enough things happening right now to make me a buyer for Dems to win the House at about $2.00/share (meaning I'd win $8 on the bet).

• Gerrymandering's hidden weakness of needing independents to elect Republicans in narrowly won districts.
• Angry independents. Do I even have to find the polls on that? You know how to find them, it's not pretty.
• Thanks at least in part to the Great Gerrymandering, the GOP has moved way to the right.
• The tendency of these far right wingnuts to keep talking (which proves that John Roger's crazification factor is one of the greatest jokes of all time) will mean even more angry independents.
• The worse the GOP looks in the polls, the better candidates Democrats will recruit.
• The worse the GOP looks in the polls, the better Democrats do at fundraising.

For those of you who aren't following the links, this is from the last one:

Not only have the Democratic campaign committees that back House and Senate candidates outraised their GOP counterparts, but unrestricted super PACs that support Democrats have pulled in close to three times what GOP super PACs have so far.

Three times as much as the GOP in super PAC money? Maybe I'd be a buyer up to $2.50 a share, even higher if the wingnuts keep talking.

Listen to Me!

Noted medicinal marijuana convert Sanjay Gupta gets at the heart of wingnuttery in an interview with Dick Cheney, whose Manichean Paranoia keeps him from seeing the degrees of difference between doing your job, and doing it well.

Sanjay Gupta: Did you worry about your physical health impacting your judgment and your cognition?
Dick Cheney: No.
Sanjay Gupta: Not at all?
Dick Cheney: No.
Sanjay Gupta: Were you the best you could be?
Dick Cheney: You know, I was as good as I could be, you know, given the fact I was 60-some years old at that point and a heart patient.

So, yeah, I had limitations, but I'm still 10 times the neocon warmonger all the other possible VP nominees were.

Sanjay Gupta: This idea that you have this respected heart surgeon from Texas [Denton Cooley] who didn't see you, didn't examine you, and then writes something saying that you have normal cardiac function. That just wasn't true, Mr. Vice President.
Dick Cheney: Go ask Denton Cooley about that.

So, "Go fuck yourself. You can call me a liar, Denton Cooley might call me a liar. But you won't get me to call myself one."

Sanjay Gupta: But sir, you saw it.
Dick Cheney: Listen to me, I think the bottom line is: was I up to the task of being vice president? And there’s no question. I think based upon the fact that I did it for eight years that they were right.

"Listen to me..."

As Professor Harry Frankfurt tells us in On Bullshit, a bullshitter changes the rules governing their end of the conversation so claims about truth or falsity are irrelevant. It doesn't matter that Dick lied about the severity of his heart condition before becoming Vice President of the United States, what matters is his circular logic that he did the job, so he must've been fine.

The most important part here, for the purposes of Keep Talking, Wingnuts, is the "Listen to me." This is Dick threatening you. He is saying, listen to me, or I'll shock and awe you into the stone age. This is the right wing infatuation with violence personified and deferred to.

This is a now powerless Dick Cheney saying, because he can't send Navy Seals or a drone to kill you, "I'll be damned if I'm going to sit here while you try to say that the disaster that was the Bush administration is my fault because I ignored the connection between heart disease and memory loss, depression, impaired cognition, and impaired decision making abilities."

That list of the side effects of Cheney's heart condition perfectly describe the 8 disastrous years he uses as evidence that he was fit to do the job. Couldn't have said it better myself. Keep talking, Dick.

Please Proceed, Governor

Seriously. Keep talking.

For what it's worth, Gallup sucked in the Presidential...

Wherein a Wingnut Starts to Figure Out How Mad People Are But Still Can't Understand Why

This is what passes for humor in wingnut world.

I'd have never had the chance to make $250 (2021 dollars) for the Climate Science Defense Fund if I hadn't read about how often Pat Michaels is wrong. What a mark! 

Dr. Roy Spencer's post about my global warming bet with Patrick Michaels stirred up the usual BS (the real fun is always in the comments) from the fake skeptics brigade of often wrong wingnuts. Here's my reply to one of the inevitable, "you're so rude" comments wherein some other wingnut decides that the subject at hand isn't as important as pointing out how much he doesn't care for my attitude.

"Scott, I’ll take that Bet, Micheal Mann admits to charging $10,000 per speaking event. Roy what is your fee?" 

So, as "proof" that the average denier makes more than the average scientist, you want to use Mann and Spencer's fees per speech? Wow. You are a Republican. Even I'm better at math and statistics than that. 

"We are shaped by our understanding of situations and ideology." 

Right. I understand that Republicans lied us into a $6 trillion dollar war that maimed, killed, and displaced millions. I understand that Republican trickle-down, supply-side, freshwater economics led to the Little Bush Depression, the largest recession since the great depression. I understand that Republicans just voted to take food out of the mouths of hungry children. They keep voting to deny health insurance to 20 million.
And I understand that Republicans really suck at science. From evolution to geology to climate, they really want to, for the most part, suggest that humans aren't God, and therefore cannot affect the climate, or can't evolve, or whatever.  

Some of you may be atheists and just bad a science. But for the most part, you're a backwards, hateful, gay bashing, discriminatory, warmongering bunch of liars who BS about anything and everything. 

"perhaps you are the one that is at fault in your ideological beliefs." 

Yeah, you're going to have to rephrase that, because you lost me. My reasoning is as I stated above. You guys are so wrong so often that the only explanation for why anyone would still listen to you is if they're brainwashed. By religion, by an abusive parent, by a crazy uncle... I don't know, and I don't care. All I know is we REALLY need to stop listening to you guys. 

"you attempt to belittle someone else’s beliefs and show a bigoted bias that really stifles true conversation." 

Now you're catching on. This argument's been going on for decades. You guys don't listen. You don't care. You're so full of it, and yourselves, that when you see someone come back and act the same way, if maybe a little more forcefully, it's shocking to you. It's like, you giggle about Rush Limbaugh, but when someone from my side of the aisle even employs just a few of his style points, you get all pissy. Well, boo-hoo. 

But here's the thing. I don't want conversation. I'm sick of listening to you guys make the same old arguments over and over again. I want you people to put up or shut up. Of course, you probably won't do either, but, hey, a guy can dream... 

"But having you belittle the position rather than address the actual reasons for my dissent from the conclusion is counter productive and to be honest persecution closer to religious fervor than thoughtful discourse." 

I am addressing the reasons for your dissent. I just did. I have before. And I'm sick of doing it. It's not like we're disagreeing about is what color we should pick for our walls. This is what the Pentagon--an institution I assume you respect--said is one of the biggest threats to the future of America out there. I'm not a calm person. But I'm certainly not religious. I get pissed when people like you vote for people like GW Bush or Mitt Romney, because I'm deeply aware of what's at stake. I've seen your track records. I've watched your neocon oilmen wreak havoc on the world. And I'm sick of it.  

Now, do you want to bet on your silly pseudo-scientific BS, or not? 

Why don't you pray to your God about it. Maybe he'll have an answer.

You can all go see if he replies. I really hope so, because while I'm sick of hearing the same old shit, my ultimate philosophy is Keep Talking, Wingnuts.

New Mexico State Senator Bullshits about the History of Gay Marriage

Proof you don't have to know history
to get elected. Source: The Advocate

Via TPM, I see New Mexico State Sen. William Sharer is bullshitting about the history of gay marriage.

He says, for instance that Alexander the Great ordered his men to stop whoring around and marry women in the places they conquered.

Alexander the Great (356-323 BC) married a Bactrian woman – modern day Afghanistan.  Alexander may have engaged in homosexual activity, but he married a woman. 

He directed his officers to stop “whoring” around and find a local woman to marry.

Bill's not much of a sharer, or he'd provide a link for his source on this. Alexander wanted his men to marry local women in order to better control the conquered people.  And I can find no reference that Alexander, who famously had a gay lover himself, ordered his men to stop "whoring" around. I'd bet Senator Sharer just made that up.

The Greeks, along with many other ancient people, had forms of gay marriage. The Bible, which I'd bet the Senator thinks is a history book, also had some interesting forms of marriage that didn't include what he'd call a "family." But who knows? Maybe his definition of family includes multiple wives, including forcing raped women to marry their rapists, war widows to marry their conquerors, and other fun stuff that often gets left out by Christians when they speak of Biblical marriage.

The Senator did manage to get something right:

Marriage was a well established system long before any Bible totin’ Christian ever walked on this continent.

But wait! The wingnut keeps talking!

Nowhere in Native American tradition has marriage been anything but the joining of men and women. – Although some tribes did allow some leaders to have multiple wives.

From the PBS film Two Spirits.

Native Americans indeed had a system of marriage well before any white people got here. Unfortunately for this bigot, that system included Two-Spirit people. They were gay. They married people of the same sex. They held special status in their societies.

These facts are easy to find for someone who cares about such things.

This bigoted wingnut goes on to mention a whole slew of completely unrelated things, including the 10th amendment (they never mention the 9th) to justify his bullshit.

Marriage is important because it is the foundation of the family...

Got that old folks, infertile folks, folks who don't want babies? No marriage for you, says the marriage Nazi.

Sex between a man and a woman produces babies – society needs babies – babies need both moms and dads.

Just forget all the evidence that gay couples raise children who are often better adjusted than those raised by straight couples, and there is no evidence that mixed sex couples raise children any better. And just forget the fact that soon women won't even need men to get pregnant.

Not that facts matter to this guy.

Representative Steve King Proves that Immigrants Have Won the Debate

Rep Steve King using visual aids to show illegal
immigrant calf size. Credit.

I am seriously considering raising money to send Iowa Representative Steve King on a speaking tour of the Southwest and Florida. I figure if I can raise $50,000 from pro-immigration Democrats, or even a few sane Republicans, if such things exists, I could entice him into an all-expenses-paid tour of the major swing states with large, rapidly growing, and young Latino populations.

I would also set up a voting registration booth at every event, and encourage the people who just heard representative King speak to register to vote, especially in mid-term elections when we progressives seem to be too busy or lazy to get off our asses and vote.

My only rule for Representative King would be that he absolutely must keep saying shit like this:

There are kids that were brought into this country by their parents unknowing that they were breaking the law. And [immigration reform supporters] will say to me and others that we have to do something about the 11 million, and some of them were valedictorians. [...] It's true in some cases, but they aren't all valedictorians, they weren't all brought in by their parents. For every one that's a valedictorian, there's another 100 out there that they weigh 130 pounds and they've got calves the size of cantaloupes because they're hauling 75 pounds of marijuana across the desert.

Jed Lewison wonders about the cantaloupe image, but I figure it's because he's afraid some large-legged immigrant would kick him in the balls, given the chance.

Since this is Steve King who keeps talking, we know that 99% of what he says is pure crap, and the other 1% he gets right is just dumb luck. For example, it seems like the math just doesn't add up. If 100 out of every 101 undocumented immigrants had a big load of weed on his or her back, we'd see that most drug arrests at the border were of immigrants with dope on their back. The truth, of course, is something Steve King can't be bothered with: 80% of all drug arrests at the border involve a US citizen.

The center looked at an extensive set of records -- 81,261 drug seizures between 2005 and 2011 -- but the numbers don't tell the whole story. In about half of those cases, Border Patrol agents didn't catch anyone and the drugs were abandoned, according to the report, so we don't know the identity of those smugglers. But arrests were made in more than 40,000 drug seizures over that time period, and a U.S. citizen was involved 80 percent of the time.

But the best part about this is that even though he's drawn rebukes from damn near everyone, including Speaker Boehner, he's sticking up for himself. In order to stick up for himself, of course, he has to keep talking, and now he has demonstrated why I love it when wingnuts keep talking (link to Taegan Goddard, because I refuse to link to Breitbart's Ghost):

You know when people attack you--in this business, when you're in this business, you know that when people attack you, and they call you names, they're diverting from the topic matter. You know they've lost the debate when they do that. We've talked about it for years. Tom Tancredo and I joked about it that that's the pattern. When people start calling you names, that's what confirms you've won the debate.

Catch that? Yep, I tweeted at him to ask him if, since he's calling over 99% of undocumented immigrants drug mules, that means they've won the debate? No answer yet.

In Texas, a Free Lady-Parts Cleaning Out with Every Rape Kit!

Professional forced birther Jodie Laubenberg.

Professional politician and Texas state Representative Jodie Laubenberg, R-Parker (she has no other professional experience that we can find), reminded rape victims in Texas yesterday that they don't need an exception from the draconian new forced-birth law the wingnuts are set to pass down there in the former Republic. This is because in Texas every rape victim gets a free womb cleaning as part of their rape kit. This is so much more progressive than Sarah Palin's plan to force rape victims in Alaska to pay for their rape kit. You Texas ladies who probably asked to be raped anyway should feel honored that a woman who has no idea what you're going through has the compassion to provide a free cleaning with your rape kit!

The bill’s sponsor stopped answering questions about her bill after the first two hours after she got into trouble denying Democratic amendments. When Rep. Senfronia Thompson, D-Houston, called for an exemption for women who were victims of rape and incest, Rep. Jody [sic] Laubenberg, R-Parker, explained why she felt it was unnecessary. 

“In the emergency room they have what’s called rape kits where a woman can get cleaned out,” she said, comparing the procedure to an abortion. “The woman had five months to make that decision, at this point we are looking at a baby that is very far along in its development.” 

The remark about rape kits, which is not accurate, sparked widespread ridicule on social media sites. Laubenberg, who has difficulty debating bills, then simply rejected all proposed changes to her bill without speaking until the end of the debate.

The GOP Guide to Rape

Forget all the other facts about women who've been raped being in denial about being pregnant as a result of the rape. Forget about the women who don't report the rape for many reasons, who might decide they don't want to have the rapist's baby. Forget all the psychological trauma that a rape victim must deal with after being the victim of a violent crime. None of that matters to Jodie Laudenberg, because she's got God on her side, and she's here to tell you lazy rape victims who didn't get your free uterus cleaning with your rape kit that you ain't gunna be gettin no abortion in her state.

This is, of course, because Jodie Laubenberg is a Bullshitter (further evidenced by the fact that she is the Texas State Chair of ALEC). She doesn't care about facts. She only wants to convey a certain impression to the voters who sent her to represent them in the mob of wingnuts they call a government down there. And that impression is that she is tough on women who, like workers, like poor people, like hungry children, like innocent people in prison or death row, all need to buck up, pull yourself up by your bootstraps, and do what she says is best for the other people of Texas. If that means strapping you down and forcing you to give birth to your rapist's baby, so be it. If it means a few innocent people have to die on Texas's death row, ah, well, such is the price of justice in the Lone Star state.

Jodie wants to seem tough, in the name of God, to save the babies that she's not going to give a shit about once they're born. After all, if you rape victims don't give birth, they'll be a lot less kids in Texas for her to force to go hungry. Without the contribution of forced birth rape babies to the state, they'll be less people to deny health care to, to take all the minimum wage jobs they have trouble filling down there, and won't someone think of the prisons who need a steady supply of residents to keep all those law abiding, non-abortion having citizens working at keeping you abortion seeking sluts and other assorted Dirty Fucking Hippies in prison. And since executing people is the state pastime in TX, Jodie Laubenberg (contact information here) is just doing God's will to make sure there will be a large supply of unwanted children who will grow up and commit crimes, providing a steady stream of work for the forced birth industry, as well as the Texas legal system and execution machinery.

Bobby Jindal Can't Argue With the Actual Left, So He Makes Shit Up

Governor Bobby "Derpity Derp" Jindal

When you back a wild animal into a corner, it will sometimes snarl and flail pitifully. Fear overcomes it, and decision making gets compromised by the fight or flight instinct. Some animals, much better at running than fighting, wind up fighting in silly and stupid ways.

Such has been the case of late with the Republican Party. It's not the brightest animal to begin with, and it doesn't fight well (they tend to lie and cheat while committing a whole host of logical fallacies). Arguing with straw men is one of their favorites, but hey, at least it keeps them from talking stupidly about rape babies.

Now that Keep Talking, Wingnuts! has finished with High School Baseball, with the last of our liberal commie horde about to graduate high school, we figured it's time to jump back into the fight by going for one of the "leaders" of the cornered, slobbering, confused, tired, and dying animals that comprise the modern GOP: Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal.

Because the left wants: The government to explode; to pay everyone; to hire everyone; they believe that money grows on trees; the earth is flat; the industrial age, factory-style government is a cool new thing; debts don’t have to be repaid; people of faith are ignorant and uneducated; unborn babies don’t matter; pornography is fine; traditional marriage is discriminatory; 32 oz. sodas are evil; red meat should be rationed; rich people are evil unless they are from Hollywood or are liberal Democrats; the Israelis are unreasonable; trans-fat must be stopped; kids trapped in failing schools should be patient; wild weather is a new thing; moral standards are passé; government run health care is high quality; the IRS should violate our constitutional rights; reporters should be spied on; Benghazi was handled well; the Second Amendment is outdated; and the First one has some problems too.

The source of America's long-term debt.

That's quite a gish-galloping straw man for an old Progressive to handle, especially coming from the Governor who wants the GOP to stop being the stupid party, but let me give it a go... I love efficient government that stays out of wars, wants to prevent Wall Street from crashing the world economy again, and wants to stop big government handouts to corporations like Big Oil, Big Pharma, and the military/security/government complex. This grass-fed red meat lover (who understands that the earth is round and warming, because I believe scientists), can't stand factory farms or factory government, and realizes that our debts should and could easily be repaid if we weren't getting bilked by the medical industrial complex that charges us twice as much per person for health care as the rest of the civilized world pays. I also realize that borrowing cheap right now to invest in infrastructure would more than pay for itself, put people to work, make us more competitive and productive, and raise revenues and reduce debt through growth--something Republicans used to understand before they got infected with Obama Derangement Syndrome.

This old leftie knows many intelligent people of faith who believe in global warming, evolution, and vote for Democrats. I know that a glob of cells in a womb is not a baby (and, no Rep. Michael Burgess, the fetus is not masturbating, but please keep talking). I know that forcing women to give birth to rape babies is violent, immoral, and would be the epitome of big, intrusive government. I support straight and gay marriage and don't think either is discriminatory. I think it's interesting that apparently Jindal thinks pornography is not fine, but then thinks it's the left that has a problem with the first amendment (way to stop being stupid, Governor). I think banning large sodas is stupid, we should just tax them so taxpayers aren't left with soda companies cost shifting the negative externalities onto the rest of us (same goes for carbon). I think there are rich people everywhere who greedily look out for themselves at great cost to the rest of us, and there are rich people everywhere who are kind and generous who would have no trouble paying a slightly higher tax rate.

Weather is getting wilder.

I think the right wing of Israeli politics is unreasonable, and I hope the left there does better in the future. I do think trans-fats are bad, again, because I believe what the scientists tell me about it. I think kids in failing schools should be helped, mostly by paying teachers more (like cops, firefighters, nurses, soldiers, et al, I don't like the fact that we call them heroes, but pay them like chumps--you get what you pay for). I think wild weather has always been around, but again, I believe the scientists who are telling me that global warming is like steroids to the weather, making it even more wild more often than it would have been if we didn't allow oil and coal companies to cost shift the negative externalities of carbon onto the rest of us.

I think moral standards are extremely important. That's why I was physically assaulted multiple times by members of Jindal's Morality Party for opposing the Iraq war. It's why I wish we'd have put some bankers in jail for their fraud that fed the housing bubble. It's why I think the death penalty should be abolished, military spending should be cut, and quality health care should be a right, delivered efficiently and less expensively, via Medicare-for-all (there is not profit in health, only in treating sickness).

The Founder of the Unitary Executive Branch

I think the IRS should look into groups that want to be tax exempt. All of them. And any group that is mostly taking sides in the political world should have to pay taxes, and making them pay taxes is not unconstitutional. I think when reporters leak national security security secrets, the government has a right to, and should, investigate them. I also think the executive branch needs a huge power check, something Republicans didn't give a damn about when GW Bush was expanding the executive, and Dick "Deficits Don't Matter" Cheney was calling it "unitary."

Benghazi was a tragedy, just like the many attacks on our embassies during the Bush administration (and others), and that the only thing about Benghazi that wasn't handled well was the Republican response to it (or, more accurately, lies about it--but please continue, Governor).

I think the second amendment is fine, provided you read and follow the whole thing, especially the "well regulated militia" part.

But the best part of Jindal's little bed-wetting tirade is this:

Their philosophy does not work and it got our nation into the mess it’s in.

Trickle-up Economics. Big verison.

This little fucker has some mighty big balls, I'll give him that. The philosophy that got us into this mess is the same one that has been robbing the working man of his productivity gains ever since Ronnie Reagan and The Trickle Down-o-nauts had their number one hit back in 1981: "We'll be stealing your productivity now."

This philosophy of deregulation, putting foxes in charge of hen houses, spending trillions more than we need on the Pentagon, lying us into a $6 trillion war that maimed and killed millions, rigging markets to redistribute wealth and income upward, not raising the minimum wage, subsidizing big oil, big pharma, big coal, big agriculture, causing huge deficits through tax cuts to the rich that don't create jobs, not investing in infrastructure, relying on Reagan's EMTALA law that requires ERs to treat those who can't pay for health care (ironically, the most expensive socialized medicine possible) and generally screwing the working people of this country for 3 decades is what got us into the mess we're in. It's Bobby Jindal's I-got-mine-fuck-you philosophy that's gotten us into this mess, and the only reason we're not getting out of it faster is because this moderate president hasn't been progressive enough, or willing enough to, as Jindal suggests Republicans should do, "...go kick the other guys around."

Kicking wingnuts around is my favorite hobby. So, Governor Jindal, I'm sure your staff can find me. Come on up and we'll sit out in the garden and drink a beer (my treat, even though I'm worth a fraction of what you are) while I kick your sorry ass all up and down the political spectrum, especially when I get to the part that I can have better "conservative" outcomes through my Progressive philosophy than your heroes who lied us into war, stagnated middle class wages, and crashed the world economy could ever have.

When You Start Talking About Armed Rebellion You Need to Explain Who You're Going to Kill

Ignatius Piazza, via Playboy
 

An old friend, who worries that the armed and dangerous wingnuts are getting restless, forwarded this email with no comment. I can only take that to mean that he wanted me to post it here.

Former chiropractor Dr. Ignatius "Naish" Piazza, whose love for guns runs so deep one wonders if he's ever had sex with one, is perhaps most famous for his ongoing attempt to build a "Sun City for gun owners," called the Village of Front Site, named after his firearms training institute currently operating on the site near Pahrump, NV (shoot a submachine gun, then play some slots!).

Ignatius, who has apparently dabbled enough in Scientology to get "clear," has nonetheless sued at least two people who connected him to the cult. While he claims to be a Catholic, he admits to having attended Scientology "services" and that he has ""attended business management courses using the business management tools of L. Ron Hubbard."

I'm sure the new Pope would be fine with business courses run by a cult, as long as those courses teach you that being associated with a cult might be bad for business.

"Village" of Front Site, NV, via Handvapen Guiden

In the email my friend forwarded, Dr. Piazza noted that yesterday was the 238th anniversary of the American Revolution, and it seems he's itching for a new one. You can guess who the British are in this scenario.

Over the last 283 years, as the government we created “For the People and By the People” has grown into a massive, self-serving, liberty-stealing machine. I wonder what the government will do to trigger the NEXT shot heard round the world. 

Think it can't happen again? 

It will happen again.

Odd that I can't find any record of Dr. Ignatius being angry when GW Bush and Dick Cheney ignored warnings about 9-11 (which Dr. Ignatius did get upset about) and then used that tragedy to lie us into a $6 trillion war while torturing, assassinating, renditioning, indefinitely detaining, warrantlessly spying, and all the other "liberty stealing" things the Bush Junta got away with. Seems Dr. Piazza was just fine with those things, because apparently the only part of the constitution he cares about is the well regulated militias.

Ignatius, his arms wide, via another of his sites.

No, this wingnut is pissed about NY State's law that tries to keep guns out of the hands of people with psychological problems that professionals think might lead them to harm themselves or others (judging by Mr. Piazza's history of tightrope walking on the edge of reality, I can understand his worry). He embeds a Fox News video of the story of one man in NY about whom the government might have made a mistake.

One case of government in NY overreaching in their attempt to keep guns out of the hands of the mentally ill constitutes a federal government that "has grown into a massive, self-serving, liberty-stealing machine"? Really?

Apparently, this one case has such far reaching implications for Piazza that he's willing to start a war over it.

When 10% of the American population (31 million armed and trained Americans) collectively think that they have had enough and are willing to unite to remind our government officials that THEY SERVE US, not the other way around, we will once again enjoy the freedom our forefathers bled and died to win for us.

Unless you're black, of course, because the "forefathers" (except for John Jay) didn't give a damn about your freedom. In fact, his threat to the 90% of us who think keeping guns out of the hands of psychos is a good idea seems reminiscent of another armed rebellion against the duly elected Federal Government, where his armed compound amidst Pahrump's sand and tumbleweed is the new Fort Sumter.


White population of the US south in 1860: 5,447,220. Total US population 1860: 31,443,321.

White southerners were 17.32% of the US population, and they managed to start a Civil War. If these fuckers think they can do it with 10%, I say bring it. Watch how fast we kick your traitorous asses this time.

What Happens When Wingnuts Keep Talking

This 23 percenter is on the House Intelligence Committee!

Just wanted to quickly note that the more the wingnuts talk, the more people hear them, and the more people hear them, the less people think they're "in touch." In fact, it's gotten so bad that I'm worried people might stop listening to them, which is why I started this blog.

The really great thing about this self-reinforcing cycle of wingnut demise is that it has distilled the crazy down to the number that keeps popping up: 23%:

Q: Do you think the Republican Party is in touch with the concerns of most people in the United States today, or is it out of touch?

In touch: 23%   Out of touch: 70%

George W Bush's final approval rating when he left office was 22%. 23% of Americans are functionally illiterate. A 1999 Gallup poll reported that 23% of Americans heard a voice or seen a vision in response to prayer. In 2009, 23% of Americans thought Barack Obama was born outside the US. And, perhaps most miraculously, 23% of Americans (40% of white southerners) would side with the confederacy if the Civil War broke out today.

Given how often it shows up, it seems fair to say that 23% of Americans are batshit crazy. and yet they seem to control a much larger percentage of the leaders in our "democracy." Since I don't see much chance of changing the gerrymandered congressional districts, or the hypo-democratic US Senate, I guess we're just going to have to keep the wingnuts talking in order to convince a few more of the crazies to give up on the GOP.

George W Bush Is Worried about His Hamstrings

Reuters Image via The Telegraph

There is no wingnut on the face of the earth that we want to keep talking more than GW Bush, who's George W. Bush Presidential Center, Steve Benen notes, opens on May 1st, 10 years to the day after the "Mission Accomplished" moment. May the first is also May Day, which has pagan roots, but in this context is best remembered as International Workers Day, this year in honor of the millions of workers who lost their jobs in the Little Bush Depression. Irony abounds.

In 1958, Eisenhower, worried about the communist influence of May Day, decided to make May 1st "Law Day, U.S.A." It's the day we contemplate the importance of law in our society. You know, laws like anti-fraud statutes that the Bush administration ignored while letting Wall Street stamp crap paper AAA so they could sell it to their unsuspecting customers (your retirement fund) while they shorted it. Like laws against torture, war crimes, lying to congress, and other fun conventions that Ike thought were important.

"Laws are silent in times of war."--Cicero

All those pesky laws were "just a spring clean for the May queen" George Bush, who, to be fair, was simply following the if-the-President-does-it-it's-not-illegal Nixonian logic that's been screwing us for decades. In Bush's case, it led to justifications for hypothetical child testicle crushing. Talk about compassionate conservatism.

Reuters image via the WSJ

But we're here to let Bush do the talking, which he did in length to the Dallas Morning News.

"People ask me, ‘What about the economy?'" Bush said. "My answer is, 'Why don’t you go hire an economist? Or hire five economists and get 15 different opinions?'"

W with the defensive misdirect!

Bush's monthly job creation average in non-recession months was 68,000. When Obama's monthly total dropped to 80 some-odd thousand, the right wing went nuts.

That was the commie Ezra Klein being nice to the former President. Let's see what the nice folks at the conservative Wall Street Journal had to say about the George W Bush Memorial Crater Economy:

The current President Bush, once taking account how long he’s been in office, shows the worst track record for job creation since the government began keeping records.

Seems liberals and conservatives agree. We could ask 13 more economists about the Bush economy, which ended in the biggest recession since the Great Depression (bigger than the previous four recessions combined) and we'd get the same answer. Bush's final GDP, in 4Q2008, was negative 9%. We were shedding jobs at about 800,000 per month when Obama took over. No economist worth his weight in bullshit would try to make that disaster look good.

"My only point," Bush said, "is that when there’s an objective analysis of our fiscal record, people will say, 'Well, that’s different than I thought.'"

AP image via Maddow Blog

I hope that's not his only point, but even wingnut economists tend to frown on negative 9% GDP.

The great thing about the quote "Or hire five economists and get 15 different opinions?" is that it tells us that GW Bush is either bullshtiting, or he thinks economists all give three answers to every question. If that's the kind of economists he was listening to (Glenn Hubbard, et al) then that certainly explains the Little Bush Depression.

The quote is classic Bush, blaming the fact that Bushonomics didn't work on his economists, who apparently could never give him a good marketing strategy for explaining their systematic looting of trillions of dollars.

Wearing a light blue, open-collar shirt, Bush, 66, said repeatedly that he’s "comfortable" with both life and legacy. Among his most pressing concerns was whether his hamstrings were ready for a mountain bike ride later that day.

Bush "repeatedly" saying that he's comfortable is a tell that he's not comfortable, but he wants us to think he is. He wants us to think that his contemplative self portrait from the shower isn't guilty self reflection. He wants us to think that painting his feet in the bathtub isn't some kind of sign that he feels guilty for all the Iraq war veterans who lost their feet. His eagerness to assure us of his comfort is oddly reminiscent of how the God of the Bible seems really concerned that we might not believe in him.

I like to think that any human who lied his country into a $6 trillion dollar war that maimed and killed millions would have more pressing concerns than hamstrings. Either GW is bullshtiting us, or he really does worry about the persistent violence in Iraq. Maybe he does feel guilty about the millions of people whose lives were ruined by the war.

Or maybe he's just a sociopath.

"Much of my presidency was defined by things that you didn't necessarily want to have happen," he said.

I think I actually missed the guy.

He didn't necessarily want 9-11 to happen, but he didn't do much to stop it. In fact, he didn't listen to the people who were trying to warn him it would happen, having famously said to the CIA operative who gave him the daily briefing, on Aug 6, that Bin Laden was determined to strike inside the US: "You've covered your ass, now." He didn't necessarily want 9-11 to happen, but since the PNAC was saying we'd need a "new Pearl Harbor" to get involved in the middle east the way the neo-cons really wanted to, well, it was convenient.

GW Bush being greeted as a liberator, image via The Telegraph

And he didn't necessarily want a housing bubble that would ruin the world economy, but it's not like he did anything to stop it. He didn't necessarily want to ignore Afghanistan for most of a decade, or let Bin Laden get away from Tora Bora, or waste trillions rebuilding Iraq and making his war contractor friends rich, but, you know, he's comfortable with it.

He likewise reiterated his support for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, saying that he’s "confident the decisions were made the right way."

That's Bushian code for "we did exactly what we wanted to do and you guys can all suck it if you don''t like it."

"I’m comfortable with what I did," he said. "I’m comfortable with who I am."

I'm comfortable with letting him talk. After all, there's no better advertisement for voting for Democrats than this war mongering, veteran ignoring, economy destroying, upward redistributing hamstrung wingnut who, thank goodness, will probably keep talking until the day he dies, which, with any luck, will be a long time from now.

That's right, you just heard me wish GW Bush a long life. After all, if he died young, he wouldn't get to worry about his hamstrings, which must be torture.

Hate Group President Tony Perkins Wants Republicans to Stop Giving to the GOP and Give to Him Because He Really Hates The Gays

Hate Group Leader Tony Perkins, photo from CNN.

Family Research Council President Tony Perkins, whose past ties to white supremacists he still claims he knew nothing about, is not so evasively ashamed of his very public position that gay people are subhuman. In fact, he's so pissed the GOP isn't openly hating on the people who decided the 2012 Presidential election that he wants his fellow gay hating wingnuts to stop giving money to the GOP, and give it to him instead, so he can do their money justice by hating on people enough to get rated a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

From The Hill:

Tony Perkins, in an email sent to his supporters, criticized the Republican National Committee over a report released last month that suggested the party should reconsider its messaging on same-sex marriage to appeal to younger voters.

"Until the RNC and the other national Republican organizations grow a backbone and start defending core principles, don’t send them a dime of your hard-earned money," Perkins said in the email, a copy of which was obtained by CNN.

"If you want to invest in the political process, and I encourage you to do so, give directly to candidates who reflect your values and organizations you trust — like FRC Action."

I'm tempted to send Perkins money just to encourage him to keep talking. Even the suggestion by Reince Priebus that maybe the GOP should keep on hating, but just not be so vocal and mean about it, is enough to set Perkins off into an intraparty equivalent of firing on Fort Sumter.

The uneasy alliance between Wall Street Whores and the Racist Christian Right, which has powered the GOP for decades, has never been more strained. The Wall Streeters have managed to rip off neo-confederate working class voters for decades without any populist retribution (they even managed to corporatize the supposedly populist tea party). But when the GOP, in its zeal to keep winning elections, realizes gay voters actually won the election for Obama, and that maybe they're going to have to be a little more accepting (eg, telling gay people they don't hate them, just their filthy lifestyles), that's a gay version of the Edmund Pettus Bridge too far.

Luckily, Tony's little hissy fit goes well beyond money. Yes, when Tony fires on Fort Sumter, he uses all his barrels, and he enlists his friends to fire too!

Thirteen social conservatives, representing various influential groups, wrote Priebus ahead of the RNC's quarterly meeting this week in Los Angeles to sternly rebuke the conclusions of a post-election report that advised Republican elected officials to adopt a softer tone toward social issues. 

"We respectfully warn GOP Leadership that an abandonment of its principles will necessarily result in the abandonment of our constituents to their support," concludes the letter, which was obtained by and independently verified by NBC News in advance of the meeting this week.

Tony Perkins appears before the Council of Conservative Citizens
Photo via Box Turtle Bulletin.

The election conscious members of the GOP still want to support their core principles of hating on people, they just want to be quiet and nicer about it. This, of course, isn't good enough for Tony. Unless you're out in front of the hate group with Tony, equating gay people with pedophiles, you're not supporting the GOP principles.

Since the GOP cannot afford to lose their hate group base, they're stuck with the very real possibility of a Huckabee or Santorum surge in the 2016 primaries [KTW will be betting on Huck if we get a new incarnation of Intrade in time] that will chase the Wall Street Whores out of the party* possibly for good, because even the most powerful Wall Streeters might not be able to control the kind of hate that these people could bring to the White House. And if there's one thing Wall Street hates, it's lack of control.


* Don't worry, money grubbers, there are plenty of Democrats willing to work The Street with you, which is why KTW supports the Daily Kos Motto "More and Better Democrats."