Posts filed under ‘WingNutO’Sphere’
Letter Carriers Refuse to Deliver Mail Based on “Moral Convictions”
Think about this:
In response to the Obama Administrations’ rules that insurance companies cover birth control of female employees who work with religiously affiliated organizations, Republicans are pushing legislation that would allow any employer to deny health services to employees on “moral convictions.” Among the Republicans pushing the legislation is Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.
On Sunday, during an appearance on Face The Nation, McConnell claimed that requiring employers to cover crucial health services for women is a violation of freedom of religion and admitted to Bob Scheiffer that he supports Roy Blunt’s legislation that would allow any employer in the nation to deny health services to employees if such services conflict with their “moral convictions.”
Are you serious Mitch? Fine. The thing is, you’re proposing going down a two-way street buddy.
Let’s say the Postal Service decides, ahem, based on “moral convictions” of course, it won’t deliver flyers from Republican candidates. Or let’s say a left-leaning telephone company decides it won’t — based on “moral convictions” — route campaign calls from a Koch-brother-funded organization to its customers. Or lets say a liberal-leaning bank won’t — based on “moral convictions” — cash checks deposited by people who belong to the Republican party.
Do we really want to go down that road? Really? REALLY?
Imagine having the wisdom to think things through and to bust out of your hermetically sealed Fox-encased brain and to think about the reality of what you’re proposing.
Geezus.
The Tea Party Demo
Last week the New York Times published an article titled: Activists Fight Green Projects, Seeing U.N. Plot:
Across the country, activists with ties to the Tea Party are railing against all sorts of local and state efforts to control sprawl and conserve energy. They brand government action for things like expanding public transportation routes and preserving open space as part of a United Nations-led conspiracy to deny property rights and herd citizens toward cities.
They are showing up at planning meetings to denounce bike lanes on public streets and smart meters on home appliances — efforts they equate to a big-government blueprint against individual rights.
What struck me about the article wasn’t the UN conspiracy theory angle; that’s been around for a long time. What I noticed was the accompanying photo:
At a Roanoke County, Va., meeting, dozens opposed the county's paying $1,200 to a nonprofit. Photo: Jared Soares for The New York Times
Check out the age demographic.
“ppl” Having Babies?
This would be my Tweet of the Day:
First of all Mr. King, “ppl” don’t have babies. Women. Have. Babies.
And about that supposed “dying civilization” due to “ppl” not having kids? Really? Tomorrow I’ll post some stats about how the planet is dying from overpopulation, not underpopulation. (I know, you and your crowd want to drown science in the bathtub and you think dumb is good. Hey, you’re a winner on both of those fronts!)
As for insurers? Don’t get me started.
Geezus.
New Logo for the Susan G. Komen Foundation
And here’s a heads up regarding a kickass post by a Kivi’s Nonprofit Communications Blog (Kivi is a PR consultant) about how the Komen Foundation essentially rebranded itself overnight on Tuesday. It went from what people thought of as an organization dedicated to women’s health, to what people now perceive as a right-wing political tool.
Sarah: Have You Ever Heard of a Pot Calling a Kettle Black?
Sarah, you’re kidding right?
Palin’s self-awareness is just stunning, isn’t it?
Seems like just yesterday that Palin was the “grifter” who hadn’t “been properly vetted.”
Geezus.
Sh*t Homophobic People Say
I never thought I’d put up three posts in two days with the word sh*t in the title but here I go again.
Anyway, this is a must see. Two minutes that captures the hate coming from the right.
I dedicate this post to my gay brother Marc. He came out to me in 1977. My immediate thought — I’ll never forget our conversation — was that he was going to have a rough life purely because of who he was on the day he was born.
Sadly, 35 years later, here I am, posting this:
(Via.)
Limbaugh Will Defend a Republican on Things He’d Massacre a Democrat For
Imagine for a second if President Obama’s or another prominent Democrat’s ex-wife came out and said the reason they divorced was because he wanted to have an “open marriage” and she couldn’t agree to that. Imagine the reaction from the right, especially ol’ Rush Limbaugh (who’s on his fourth marriage). They would chew on it in unison for months.
Now take a look at what Limbaugh said about Newt today:
I got a great note from a friend of mine. “So Newt wanted an open marriage. BFD. At least he asked his wife for permission instead of cheating on her. That’s a mark of character, in my book. Newt’s a victim. We all are. Ours is the horniest generation.” [...] That’s from a good friend of mine, “Newt’s slogan ought to, ‘Hell, yes, I wanted it.’” (laughing) I’m sharing with you how some people are reacting to this.
Amazing. And it’s astonishing his listeners don’t seem to notice his blatant hypocrisy and double standards. Lemmings.
An Invitation to Assassination
This is chilling:
Operation Rescue has launched a new website that contains a database of abortion providers all over the country.
Troy Newman, president of the anti-abortion rights group Operation Rescue, announced last June that his group would be conducting a “massive research project to identify every abortionist in the country.” Newman told his supporters that he needs fellow anti-abortion advocates to contribute any information they can about abortion providers where they live.
The resulting website, AbortionDocs.org, “is a searchable database that endeavors to list every surgical abortion clinic, every ‘abortion pill-only’ clinic, and every abortionist in the United States,” a Tuesday press release says.
1) Abortion is legal in the United States of America.
2) If you oppose abortion, ask your representative(s) to change the law. Wonder why they haven’t and why they didn’t do so during the Bush II administration when they ruled the world? They didn’t because they want to hang that over your head as something they’ll supposedly do if you elect them next time and next time and next time. It’s the old God, guns, gays and abortion carrot they dangle in front of you every two years.
3) Doctors who perform abortions are just that — doctors. They aren’t “abortionists.” Again, abortion is legal in the United States of America.
4) There is a prominent abortion clinic in my town. It is operated by Warren Hern, M.D. Dr. Hern was a friend of Dr. George Tiller, the Kansas physician whose brains were blown out in 2009 for, again, practicing legal medicine in the United States of America. The AbortionDocs.org website features a picture of the building Dr. Hern practices in; it gives the phone number and address; it features a video of Dr. Hern (so he’s easily identifiable) and a map to the clinic which is in a busy area on a narrow street, across from Boulder’s main hospital. If a bomb went off in that area, as has happened at other clinics in the United States, many people could be injured or killed.
If you ask me, that’s exactly what AbortionDocs.org hopes will happen.
This. Is. Terrorism.
Todd Palin Endorses Newt
I would think Todd would be more of a Santorum fan:
UPDATE:
Rachel Maddow just reminded me that Todd was supposed to be the First Dude. So the former First Dude, who has been banished to Siberia Alaska, endorsed Gingrich, the wannabe dude who was banished by the House.
Gawd. Are we living in crazyland or what?
What Should Colorado Springs’ New Logo Be?
Regulars to this blog know that I have posted quite a bit about about the goings on in Colorado Springs (here, here and here). It’s a fascinating place to watch because shrink-government, Tea Party-types run the place and yep, they’re shrinking government alright, all the way down to firing cops and asking cab drivers to be on the alert for criminal activity.
Now we have this:
According to the Colorado Springs paper, tomorrow is the deadline for that city’s open-to-the-public contest for a new logo. Designed around the city’s awesome and totally original new slogan, “Live it up!”
We’ve followed the ongoing budget problems in arch-conservative El Paso County off and on again for some years now with car-accident gawker fascination, since it’s a useful example of what happens when ideologues who run for office on a platform of “shrinking government” get the fullest extent of their wish–the real consequences of “drowning government in the bathtub.”
The result? A conservative masochist’s paradise: in 2008, El Paso County was forced to cut its suicide prevention program–even though Colorado Springs had the second highest suicide rate in the nation. El Paso County has experienced chronic jail staff shortages, and has had to ration sheriff patrols. The county has cut child protective services, and has even considered selling off its parks. The city of Colorado Springs was forced to temporarily shut off about one-third of the city’s streetlights to balance last year’s budget. The county health department was noncompliant for restaurant inspections, though we’re told this has recently improved somewhat. Eat it up!
With all of this in mind, we came up with some entries of our own for the “Live it up!” logo contest.
And this would be my favorite:
See more logo suggestions here.
Hee hee.
Stay Classy Conservatives!
Gosh, it must be an election year:
A baldly racist depiction of First Lady Michelle Obama that appeared Tuesday on a right-wing website is based on a 1775 portrait of Marie Antoinette by Jean-Baptiste André Gautier-Dagoty (1740-1786). The full-length painting hangs outside Paris in the Palace of Versailles.
The Internet image grafts Obama’s face onto Gautier-Dagoty’s lavish depiction of the French queen, dressed in full regalia. It also replaces the draped left arm of the young monarch, then barely 20, with a muscular black arm and shifts the position of the right hand to place it in front of a world globe.
The caricature of Obama as a profligate queen relies on the racist stereotype of an “uppity Negro,” which emerged among slave masters in an earlier American era. Obama, born into a working-class Chicago family whose roots are traced to the pre-Civil War South, graduated from Princeton University and Harvard Law School, prior to holding several high-level positions in the academic and private sectors.
I can’t imagine spending my time concocting things like this. And you know, I’m willing to bet that the people who do think of themselves as patriots and Christians.
Ugh. It’s going to be a long, hate-filled year.
Oh, and while we’re at it, there’s this (again, stay classy Republicans!):
Pat Robertson Reads Notes From His Conversation With God
God contacted Pat Robertson the other day and talked to him about (1) who the next president will be and, (2) the state of the nation in 2012. Robertson took notes (I guess he had pen and paper handy at the time of the call) so he could tell us what God said about the state of the nation (see below) but the part about who the next president will be is a super doper secret so he couldn’t talk about that. (Send in your $25.00 check and maybe he’ll tell you, and you alone!)
Iowans Applaud Rick Santorum for Saying He’ll Cut Social Security
I just watched (@ 7:52 p.m. ET) a live clip of Rick Santorum speaking to senior citizens in Iowa, telling them, when president, he will cut the deficit by $5 trillion, “including entitlements,” which means Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid.
Like idiots being lead to slaughter, THEY APPLAUDED.
Ahhh!
P.S. Let’s start referring to “entitlements” as earned benefits. The money we get back for those things came out of our paychecks, dammit.
Weasel Scott Walker Takes Credit For Health Care Provision He Opposed
Gawd, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker (R) is just repulsive. I mean foul and detestably, nauseatingly repulsive:
Gov. Scott Walker announced a plan Wednesday [December 28] to lift the enrollment cap on a state long-term care program – a move he made two weeks after federal authorities told his administration it had to take that step.
Walker touted the $80 million plan with advocates for the elderly and disabled at a Capitol news conference, but he made no mention of a recent order from the federal Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services, or CMS, directing his administration to lift the cap in the Family Care program.
[...]
“The only reason the Walker administration backed down is because they had a gun to their heads,” said Rep. Jon Richards (D-Milwaukee). “He’s taking credit for something he was forced to do.”
Ugh. See what I mean?
Birthers Gearing Up for 2012
Please wingnuts, say it ain’t so already. Do we really, really have to go through this again?
A small group of New Hampshire lawmakers and others want the attorney general to investigate whether President Barack Obama deserves to be on the presidential primary ballot.
State Rep. Laurence Rappaport, a Colebook Republican, said they asked the attorney general Tuesday morning to investigate, but have gotten no response. Rappaport said the issue is whether Obama is a natural-born citizen whose parents both were American citizens. He said Obama’s father was Kenyan and not a citizen, so Obama is not and should not be on the ballot.
The state Ballot Law Commission rejected an effort in November to take Obama’s name off the ballot because of questions about his citizenship.
Graphic via WashingtonMonthly.com
These guys don’t have the faintest idea what to do about the issues facing this country so they distract their constituents with this crap.
Judge Orders Sheriff Joe Arpaio to Follow the Constitution
Back in the day when I monitored Fox for Outfoxed and the Newshounds, Arizona’s Sheriff Joe Arpaio was a frequent guest on Your World w/Neil Cavuto (what he had to do with “business news” is something I never figured out), and he was touted one tough, God-and-country kind of dude. Yes siree, he was a flag wavin’ Amerrrican:
The rule of law and how Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio runs his office are often mutually exclusive.
Arpaio, whose jurisdiction includes the sprawling Phoenix metropolitan area, has been labeled by supporters as “America’s toughest sheriff.” Unfortunately, he achieved that moniker by routinely violating the human rights of jail inmates and ignoring the constitutional protections of those he swore to protect.
[...]
Now, enough may finally be enough. Last Friday, the U.S. District Court in Phoenix issued an injunction to stop Arpaio’s office from detaining or arresting people based only on suspicion of being in the U.S. illegally without any evidence of criminal activity. The court also certified the four-year-old civil rights lawsuit, for which the ACLU is co-counsel, as a class action. This allows any Latino who has been stopped or detained by the sheriff’s office since 2007 (or anyone who might be in the future) to enforce the court order.
The suit seeks to change how Arpaio enforces immigration laws and does not ask for monetary damages.
“The district court ruled that the sheriff’s policy of detaining people merely based on a suspicion that they are in the U.S. unlawfully violates Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable search and seizure,” said Cecillia Wang, director of the ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project.
If you stop someone because you think they might be in the U.S. unlawfully, you’re a hero on Fox. The Constitution? That’s for sissies.
Lesbian Couple Confronts Troy, Michigan Mayor Over Hateful, Anti-Gay Remark
In early December, folks on the Internet found a hateful post, dated June 25, 2010, on the Facebook page belonging to the new, Tea Party affiliated mayor of Troy, Michigan, Janice Daniels. It read:
“I think I am going to throw away my I Love New York carrying bag now that queers can get married there.”
On December 5, a married lesbian couple attended a Troy City Council meeting with their two young daughters and they addressed Ms. Daniels:
(Via.)
What a powerful, powerful message. And I love how the audience erupts in cheers at the end.
Conservative Wingnut Michael Savage Offers Newt Gingrich $1 Million to Quit Race
Oh my God, watching the Republican presidential primary is so much fun. Now we have uber wingnut Michael Savage
offering Newt Gingrich $1 million to get out of the race.
Check out his website here. My favorite line of all in Savage’s list of why Gingrich should get out? This one:
IN A PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE AGAINST OBAMA, REGARDLESS OF HOW WELL HE DOES, ON TELEVISION, HE WILL COME OFF BADLY COMPARED TO OBAMA AND LOOK LIKE NOTHING MORE THAN WHAT HE IS: A FAT, OLD, WHITE MAN.
I think that’s the least of Gingrich’s problems but ah, yeah, he would (and does) look like a fat, old white man; a prominent member of the club of fat, old white men who drove this country off a cliff.
Sarah Palin Hawking New Reality Series
Sarah Palin thinks the public is so interested in her family life it’s willing to spend an evening or 20 sitting around watching hubby Todd ride around on a snowmobile, all to the tune of $1 million per episode.
The woman obviously has a massive ego:
Sarah Palin announced in October that she would not run for president, leaving her free to focus on her media career. But the GOP kingmaker and Fox News contributor is having some trouble selling a follow up to the Mark Burnett-produced Sarah Palin’s Alaska, her TLC show that bowed in November 2010 to a record-breaking 5 million viewers.
The Hollywood Reporter has learned that Palin and Burnett are pitching another reality series, this one more focused on Palin’s husband Todd and his career as a championship snowmobile racer.But for now, TLC owner Discovery Communications has passed, say sources. And A&E Networks, which entered into a bidding war with Discovery for Sarah Palin’s Alaska, also is not interested.
So far, networks have balked at the steep asking price – Palin’s Alaska went for north of $1 million an episode and sources say Burnett and Palin are asking for a similar payday for the follow-up.
Oy. Sad.
Newt is back so anything is possible but something tells me Sarah should move on.
Is Mac ‘n Cheese a Black Thing?
If Pat Robertson really thinks macaroni and cheese is “a black thing” he is a through and through racist. He’s also been living under a rock for way too long.
(Via.)
Who doesn’t love and eat macaroni and cheese, no matter their skin color? Pat Robertson I guess.
(BTW, I make the world’s best mac ‘n cheese if I do say so myself.)
Core Republican Beliefs in One Sentence
This would be our Tweet of the Day:
(Don’t know about Sharia turkeys? Go here.)
Personhood Crazies to Put Issue on Colorado Ballot, Again
Well, it looks like the folks who think this
is person, are going to put the “personhood” amendment back on the ballot in Colorado next year for the (get this) third time.
Coloradoans voted the amendment down in 2008 and again in 2010. In 2010, the margin against was 2-1.
Heck, just a few weeks ago Mississippi — Mississippi! — rejected a personhood amendment by a margin of 59%.
I guess their goal is to wear us down.
Oy.
Congress Pushes Us Another Step Back — Toward the Dark Ages
This is unbelievable, and I don’t use that word lightly:
Can Congress say no to an innocuous, zero-cost request for a government agency to reorganize itself so that it contains a National Climate Service? The answer — in our anti-science, post-truth, batshit crazy America — is yes.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration wanted to create what it calls a “one stop shop” for climate information, which is more in demand than ever.
Farmers are wondering when to plant. Urban planners want to know whether groundwater will stop flowing under subdivisions. Insurance companies need climate data to help them set rates.
[...]
Meanwhile, everyone from large scientific groups like the American Geophysical Union (which represents 60,000 scientists) to the Reinsurance Association of America (which represents the groups that have to evaluate systemic climate risks for insurers) is in favor of the new organization. If only we lived in a democracy.
And I reiterate — this is a “zero-cost request,” and they still turned it down.
USA! USA! USA!
NASCAR Fans: If Michelle Obama Started Another War Would You Love Her?
NASCAR fans will never love Michelle Obama because she doesn’t do stuff like this:
Geezus.
Michelle Obama is “Communist Scum”
This is indicative of how Republicans are reacting to Michelle Obama being booed at a NASCAR race today:
Ignorant, mindless hate.
Christmas Tree Farmers Complain About Obama, the Wimp
I can relate to this like there’s no tomorrow because I am pissed off out of my head about Obama caving and caving and caving:
image Via: ChristmasTreeGeek.com
Bending to a flash-in-the-pan controversy over a misunderstood 15-cent fee on Christmas tree sales that would allow farmers to run ads promoting natural trees, the Obama administration formally delayed a proposal for a so-called “Christmas tree tax.”
The proposal was stayed indefinitely in a notice published in the Federal Register on Thursday.
[...]
Christmas tree farmers are pretty upset that the administration caved so quickly, according to a release from the National Christmas Tree Association.
“It’s just so disappointing to have something like this happen because of an internet rumor,” Oregon tree farmer Betty Malone, who was involved in submitting the proposal to the USDA, said in a statement.
It seems to me that the Obama administration is just plain scared of its own shadow.
The wingers spread an “internet rumor” because they know they can make hay out of it and the White House runs backward with its tail between its legs. Why they don’t get that this is an orchestrated thing that will never go away, I don’t know. And why they aren’t more adept and savvy about dealing with this kind of thing — hello, after three years! — is what drives me out of my mind.
