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.

Please Proceed, Governor

Seriously. Keep talking.

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

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.

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."

Same Old Rusty Dog Whistles Dripping with Centuries Old Spit

GOP Rep Lou Barletta, via That's My Congress

Just days after GOP Rep. Don Young of the great white north kicked off the latest incarnation of Operation Wetback, Rep Lou Barletta, a GOP congressman from the Pennsylvania section of Upper Appalachia, might have accidentally stumbled into saying something stupid about immigration:

“Let’s not take on any more water on this sinking ship,” he said. “Let’s patch the holes. Then we’ll decide what do we do with all this water that’s here.”

I don't have any evidence that he accidentally said this, though. He might be getting his soggy talking points from the Great GOP Fax of the Universe, in which case this is the same old dog whistle they've been blowing for decades. It's the same dog whistle that got the first marijuana laws passed. It's the same dog whistle Eisenhower used to round 'em up and send 'em home. The odds may be good that this wingnut (with a distinctly immigrant sounding name) might have some kind of history of being anti-immigrant. Who knows? Probably best not to mention it.

Maybe the New York Times doesn't have access to Google. That would explain why the reporter of this latest story on the GOP's obsession with dampness couldn't find basic facts like Rep. Barletta's lack of basic facts.

When the law passed, Barletta told the Washington Post, "I will get rid of the illegal people. It's this simple: They must leave." On the day the city passed the measure, Barletta wore a bulletproof vest to illustrate his concern over crimes he said were being committed by undocumented immigrants. Statistics, however, showed that undocumented immigrants were hardly responsible for a crime wave in Hazelton: the city's data showed that of 8,575 felonies committed in the city between 2000 and 2007, 20 had been linked to undocumented immigrants. Later, forced to admit that he had no proof of an illegal immigrant-caused crime wave, or proof that illegal immigrants were crowding Hazleton's schools and hospitals, or even any idea how many illegal immigrants were in Hazelton, Barletta responded, "The people in my city don't need numbers."

Apparently the people in his congressional district don't need numbers, either, since they decided to send this Bullshitting Wingnut to congress. Or, maybe he's just a nice guy with something important to add to the conversation on immigration and race. I can't really decide which, so I guess I should be nice, and just say it's "a gaffe." Too bad some New York Times reporter doesn't go keep him talking; we might find out what he really thinks.

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.

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?

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."

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.

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)

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."

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.

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...

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."