How much ignorance?

OK. The other day, I completely lost my shit over some ball-bashingly ignorant comments made by the soon-to-be former Congressman, Todd Akin (R-MO.) (Or should that be: MO-R-on?)  Now, in the course of my (well deserved) rant, I made a few general statements about Conservatives and Republicans regarding OTHER comments that have been made over the years (equating pedophilia and homosexuality, claiming that Autism isn't a real condition, belittling the poor, etc...) Well, far be it for this Liberal to not be evidence-based, even in his rants.  So here are just a quick smattering of the Right-Wing's greatest hits, to show the kind of thing that I'm talking about.  And before anyone tries to look intelligent by pointing out (as I often do) that anectdoltal evidence isn't evidence, please allow me to retort: These comments cover a wide smattering of issues, come from a diverse source of speakers, over many years, are very much aligned with the official Republican platform and policies, and, most importatntly, only took me about five minutes (on Google, Wiki and MMFA) to find. This last point is important, becuase had I been up all might assembling the list, one might be able to infer that this type of ignorance is rare and therefore anomalous. Rest assured: This only scratches the surface. HAD I been up all night? I would have been able to write book.

So here they are, and feel free to add more in the comments section if you have some good ones, the Right Wing's Greatest Hits:


What does it say about the college co-ed Susan Fluke [sic], who goes before a congressional committee and essentially says that she must be paid to have sex, what does that make her? It makes her a slut, right?

~Rush Limbaugh, February 29, 2012



“Sandusky does not represent all of homosexuality, just like the priests in the Catholic Church don't represent all of homosexuality, just like the aberrant criminals in heterosexual society don't represent all heterosexuals. But because the gay lobby is very powerful, people don't go there. People don't address it, they don't talk about it, and as such, an element of the problem never gets dealt with.”

~Rush Limbaugh, November 18, 2011



A small item but the point is Nixon came in, shut it down, there was the shooting at Kent State, and gosh, I know liberals don't like it and when you look on Nexis and oh, the whole country was embarrassed. Well, I'm not embarrassed. That's what you do with a mob. They were monstrous at Kent State. It was being led by Bill Ayers.

~Ann Coulter, June 6, 2011



The Ryan White Care Act provides money for community-based counseling centers. While that may sound noble and compassionate, we know from experience that "AIDS education" becomes a platform for the homosexual community to recruit adolescents and lure teens into a self-destructive sexual lifestyle.

~Christine O’Donnell, October 20, 2010



“Not all Muslims are terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslims.”

Brian Kilmeade, October 15, 2010



They were under the heel of the French, you know Napoleon the third and whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said 'We will serve you if you will get us free from the prince.' True story. And so the devil said, 'Ok it’s a deal.' And they kicked the French out. The Haitians revolted and got themselves free. But ever since they have been cursed by one thing after another."

~Pat Robertson, January 13, 2010 (discussing the earthquake in Haiti)



“This president, I think, has exposed himself as a guy, over and over and over again, who has a deep-seated hatred for white people, or the white culture, I don't know what it is.

~Glenn Beck, July 28, 2009



You know, people are poor in America, Steve, not because they lack money; they're poor because they lack values, morals, and ethics.

~Bill Cunningham, October 89, 2008



Now, the illness du jour is autism. You know what autism is? I'll tell you what autism is. In 99 percent of the cases, it's a brat who hasn't been told to cut the act out. That's what autism is. What do you mean they scream and they're silent? They don't have a father around to tell them, "Don't act like a moron. You'll get nowhere in life. Stop acting like a putz. Straighten up. Act like a man. Don't sit there crying and screaming, idiot."

~Mike Savage, July 16, 2008



“These self-obsessed women seemed genuinely unaware that 9/11 was an attack on our nation and acted as if the terrorist attacks happened only to them. The whole nation was wounded, all our lives reduced. But they believed the entire country was required to marinate in their exquisite personal agony. Apparently denouncing Bush was an important part of their closure process. These broads are millionaires, lionized on TV and in articles about them, reveling in their status as celebrities and stalked by grief-arazzis. I’ve never seen people enjoying their husbands’ deaths so much.”

Ann Coulter, June 8, 2006 (regarding widows of 9/11 victims.)



“If gays are granted rights, next we'll have to give rights to prostitutes and to people who sleep with St. Bernards and to nailbiters.”

Anita Bryant, February 2, 2006



“Cindy Sheehan is a tragedy slut.”

~Glenn Beck, August 15, 2005



“It probably would be a lot cheaper to just exterminate male homosexuals.”

Paul Cameron, November, 1985

Christine O'Donnell's on Crack...

...ed.

Just a few posts ago I was singing the praises of my Silver Start Winner, Cracked.com.

Well they've just done a little write-up on everybody's favorite political side-show, and it is brilliant:

http://www.cracked.com/funny-6527-christine-odonnell/

(Make sure to read the article, not just the chart!)

What did I say about the best commedy having only the truth in it?  About the only thing Christine O'Donnell has in comon with the truth is that both are much, much stranger than fiction!

We're Fascists Now.

Or at least we stand to elect a whole lot of extremely un-American "leaders" come November.  And to answer some of ClassicLiberal's retort from the Losing Heart post: I don't care that they haven't cast their votes yet.  And I don't really care that some of the more *ahem* colorful ones, like that [sorry, can't say it] Christine O'Donnell, don't stand a snowball's chance in Phlegethos of winning.  I can't abide the very existence of these people, and the fact that, while they have been largely propped up by the media, they have been met with anything but utter contepmt by the public at large.  See... there was a fundamental misunderstanding that came through in that "Losing Heart" post.  No one's fault but my own, but I'd like to clear something up.  When I cast my Vote for Obama?  I was voting for what I perceived as a common-sense moderate.  Everything the guy said just made sense to me.  Not because it was liberal, but because it was right. (That's "right" now, not "Right!")  And yes, granted I find myself increasingly scratching my head more and more lately: appealing the overturning of DADT?  In the words of Gorobei Katayama, "Are you kidding me?" But, even now, I have now doubt that my disappointment in Obama is less that that felt by many Liberals.

Because my faith wasn't really in "Obama."  It wasn't really about Obama. 

And it wasn't entirely about the Democrats either.  Yeah, OK, 59-60 seats and yet all they could do was quibble amongst themselves and make huge concessions to the right.  They're about as useless as that option in PowerPoint to print your presentation without scaling the slides to fit the paper.  (Which for some reason is the default setting!  What's that all about?  Given it's utter uselessness, that had to be the work of a future Blue Dog!) 

What I was really put my hope in, what I really started to to believe in, as I watched them finally dump the Republicans, finally see the light on Bush, finally seriously support both a female candidate and a black one... what my faith was truly mistakenly misplaced in? 

Was the American People.

That's what Losing Heart was really all about.  The fact that for a... well, not even for a brief shining moment... for two whole years (!) I watched as larger and larger portions of America finally came to realize that which had been so painfully obvious to all of us: That Bush was stupid, Cheney was evil and the Republicans really, really suck.

And what really frustrates me to no end is that the things these people (the Tea Baggers) complain about? (Deficits, the Economy, Civil Liberties?)  Are the things that, if anything? The Republicans were far worse on than the Democrats are or ever were, and yet they've positioned themselves, to the Right of them! For two whole years I watched as my country grew wise by the day.  And for the last two it's been like watching them sink into the thralls of dementia.

Now... I've mentioned Erin Lindsey before: in Losing Heart, in fact.  She writes a really fantastic webcomic called Venus Envy, or least she DID... she stuck a knife in the back of main character back in March and, so far, hasn't continued with the story.  Which... kinds of sucks, actually. LOL.  But one of the features of her comic that I really like are the times that the she uses her craft to make a personal statement on some critical political point.  One of these that I've been hanging on to, bookmarked, now for a couple weeks, was this one, from 2006:

Now... at this point I'd be insulted if I still had to actually say that I agree, wholeheartedly with the sentiment being expressed, and that didso at the time.  Shoot, it really all started with the Patriot Act, years before. So by 2006, it wasn't like I needed any convincing!  That being said... Nazi's?  I'll admit that even at the time, as a firm believer in Godwin's Law, I'd probably agree with the sentiment, but say that if you want to be taken seriously, you really have to avoid those Nazi comparisons.  I mean... even Glenn Beck knows that! [/sarcasm]

But I've always been a bit  more Chaotic than Lawful, and there are rather a lot of [non-felony] laws that I'm happy to bend so...

You know we're fascists when a serious Candidate, from a major party, has his hired goons handcuff a reporter to a chair and still have people take him seriously!  One black guy with a "night stick "stands outside a polling place, saying nothing to no one and these people want to make a Federal Case out of it, even after the Bush DoJ decided not to.  (But... he was Black, so of course it's Obama's fault now.)  (Not that they're racists or anything.)  But a reporter, heck even a private citizen for that matter, gets unlawfully imprisoned by the hired goons of a major party candidate and people still support him?!  Applaud him even?!

And how about Fox's strong stance in support of Net Neutrality, huh?  Now, you might think that I'd be A-OK with anything that means fewer people will be visiting Fox-owned websites.  But if I can defend Fred Phelps at a military funeral, standing up for people's right to see Fox in this case is a no-brainer.  Because this shows exactly what kind of power a company can have when we don't have strong Net Neutrality regulations and draconian penalties for companies breaking them.  Apparently Fox thinks keeping some portion of the population for seeing some section of the Internet, due to a spiteful business dispute with their ISP is somehow appropriate.  It's not.  It's downright chilling.

Why does that make us fascists?  Because I still hear people arguing that this is somehow just Fox exercising their free speech, while Net Neutrality is somehow some form of censorship!  But hey, why not just censor huge swaths of the Internet? 

It sure would make life easier for Sharron Angle, a woman I've already crucified, the parchment nailed above her head reading "IMHO," who apparently believes that the media should only ask questions that the candidates want to answer.  Um... that's not how it works, babe. You see... It's the media's job to ask the questions we want answered and it's your job to answer them. And if you can't do that without either sounding like a blithering idiot, or alienating half of the country, guess what?

You don't get the job!

And yet people still support her, despite the fact that she's running a close second behind Joe Miller in the "who's the worst supporter of the free press" contest.  Maybe they'd think that *Glenn Beck had a point when he called the *NEA, "adovcating though art" which is "propaganda" and that "you should look up the name, *Goebbels."  But the thing is?  Sharon Angle basically wants to be Goebells!  She's not Goebbels. Goebbels wasn't as stupid as she is.  But she seems to think that the only purpose the press serves is to carry the message she wants it to!  So... she wants to be Goebbels!

I'm completely convinced that very few of these people have ever even read the Constitution, least of all, my favorite head case, Christine O'Donnell, who apparently thinks it's profound that the word "separation" doesn't appear in the First Amendment.

Firstly, I'd like to repeat what I said in my Religion Tab, because, in the words of Thomas Jefferson, I hold this truth to be self-evident:

The Constitution of the United States, the cornerstone in the foundation of the most prosperous and powerful civilisation the world has ever known, says it best:


Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.

Can you be any more clear that that? "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion." IOW: We are not a "Christian Nation," you Right-Wing, un-American, Funny-Mentalist Morons! And... when taken together with, "or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," it is painfully obvious, beyond any shadow of doubt or debate, that this intends for there to be a clear, iron-clad separation of Church and State. Period. No sane person can read that statement and draw any other possible interpretation form it. (But when was the last time you met a sane Funny-Mentalist?)

Well... not Christine O'Donnell anyway.  But I knew right away she'd fly to the top of my list anyway, once I'd read that she's strongly against Abortion, Contraception and Masturbation.  Now, putting aside that she apparently has no problem with over population, I've said it before: No reasonable person can possibly be opposed to more than two of those things!

Secondly, I wonder if this stupid, stupid girl has any clue about some other words that don't appear anywhere in the entire Constitution?  Words like...

Christian,
Jesus,
God,
Creator, [that was the Declaration of Independence, in case you forgot!]
Theocracy,
Heaven,
Hell,
or
Soul.

They're not there, Chrissie!  Not one of them is, in a document of over eight thousand words!

Now I know she won't win.  I know that. Delaware is a strong, Blue state.  But... she won her primary. So someone was apparently taking that nut-bag seriously!

Erin, I know what you were saying, and I'm totally down with the message.  But we weren't Nazi's in 2006.  On the other hand, come November, we'll be electing several bonafide, jack-boot Fascists to the Congress. Not all of them, granted.  But some of them.   And the State-Run Media (as Rush Limbaugh refers to the Non-Limbaugh-based media, but which I more accurately will soon be calling Fox News) is primed and ready to carry their message.  The first amendment is dead.  And Fascism is coming because so many Americans would rather embrace it than comes to terms with the fact that we have a Black President, who's cleaning up the mess they made the last time they were in power.

Sieg Feil, America.

--------------------------------------
***BTW, the Glenn Beck / NEA / Goebbels reference is in that same video I linked to, just after Erin's Lindsy's awesome polemic.  And, yes, that is my YouTube Channel.  At one point I had a personal video there as well; my response to a Tea Party Video.  But... IDK...  Once I'd made it and posted it, my heart just wasn't really in it anymore.  The anticipation of doing it felt better than the result did, so I took it down. If anyone's interested in hearing it anyway, let me know and maybe I'll put it back up.

Friday Fun: Dumbest Article EVER

Saw this yesterday on MSN.com.  It was originally from the NYT.  It's completely non-political, and I'd like to nomintatie for the DUMBEST ARTICLE I'VE EVER READ.

I don't think I could say it here any better than the comment I left on the site, so to save you the trouble of finding it, here it is:

I'm sorry, but as much as I hate New York, hate the Yankees and hate Yankee fans, this is just stupid. It's NEW YORK for cripes sake! What do you expect them to be wearing? Mariners Caps? Padres Jerseys?


What you have discovered is that some sub-section of the population of New York dresses a lot like the REST OF THE POPUPLATION OF NEW YORK. OMFG - Yankee fans? In NEW YORK?! Stop the freakin' presses!

Nonsense stories like this is exemplary of everything that's wrong with the news media today.

(Go Red Sox!)

In other news...

Is it just me, or does Christine O’Donnell look like Sarah Palin’s slightly uglier kid-sister?  Sort of like the Ashlee Simpson of the Tea Party movement?

I'm not trying to pass that off as serious political analysis or anything. It's just that it's pretty hard to take someone seriously who's against Abortion, Contraception AND Masturbation.  Seems to me that a person who's being ebven slightly reasonable couldn't possibly be opposed to more than two of them.

More Tea?

“Tea. Earl Grey. Hot.”

~Jean Luc Picard

It's old news already, but I want to congratulate Tea Party candidate Christine O'Donnell on her victory in the Republican primary in Delaware. I couldn’t be happier. Likewise, I’d like to congratulate Democrat Chris Coons on his pending victory in the General Election as Delaware's next junior Senator. I couldn’t be happier.

Now I wrote about this awhile ago, but I think the Blogging Ceaser, over at the Conservative Election Project said it best in his post lamenting the then pending loss of 'RINO' Candidate Mike Castle. Ceasar gets it. I get it. Christine O'Donnell and the Tea Party? They don’t have a clue. When otherwise easy seats in Delaware and other places that end up staying Democratic and end up costing the Republicans House and Senate majorities that they would have otherwise won back one of two things is going to happen:

1) The Republicans will finally oust the Tea Baggers and come back to more moderate, Center-Right positions and rhetoric. (And the Tea Baggers will be relegated to the 1%’er, third-party, also-ran status that so many other completely insignificant parties “enjoy.”)

2)The Right will double down, the Tea Baggers will take over the Right completely and the moderates in the GOP will continue to flock to the Democrats. This may pull the Dem’s farther to the Right, but the destruction (or relegation to permanent minority status) of the Republican party finally creates a real opportunity for the Liberal Wing to become more prominent or for Liberals to have a little Tea Party of our own.

Either way? It will good for the COUNTRY. And I couldn’t be happier.