And the Nominee for STUPID is. . . .The GOP

bobbyjOh my head hurts. I mean seriously people, the list of nominees for MOST STUPID is the most widely contested race of all.

Shall we poll the Internet denizens?

Here are some of the nominees. Feel free to add any you can think of. The winner will receive a dead fish wrapped in the NYTimes, delivered by a pony express rider wearing a Dior gown of sparkling crystals.

1. Proving that he can’t read, Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin says he will sign a new bill requiring an ultrasound of any pregnant woman seeking an abortion. Having learned nothing from what happened in Virginia when Governor McDonnell also planned to sign the same sort of thing, Walker announces that “I don’t have any problem with ultrasound”. No I guess HE doesn’t. But perhaps if it were required that all men who decide to treat women like children and tell them what to do with their own bodies, should undergo a lobotomy, he might, just might, change his tune. But then again, maybe not.

2. Arizona House Representative, Trent Franks resurrected the old “rape victims block the pregnancy” argument of Todd Akin, stating the “incidence of pregnancy following rape is very low.”  This was in support of a bill introduced by Franks making abortion illegal after 20 weeks. Democrats had introduced an amendment making an exception for rape and incest. It appears that Republican man are raised to believe that they are doctors by osmosis. It’s a male thing.

sarah-palin-stupid-republican-quotes-dumb-republicans-best-republican-quotes 3. So utterly against any immigration bill are some Republicans that they don’t even want to debate the issue. The reasons are obvious. The final bill may well pass the Senate, and then it’s on the House where Boehner will wring his hands and insist that he’s only there to help the House speak it’s will. The likes of Steve King and Louis Gohmert and Steve Stockton, will provide the show there. For now this group joins in a team effort to win the golden smelly carp award: Sens. John Barrasso (Wyo.), John Boozman (Ark.), Mike Crapo (Idaho), Ted Cruz (Tex.), Mike Enzi (Wyo.), Charles E. Grassley (Iowa), James Inhofe (Okla.), Mark Kirk (Ill.), Mike Lee (Utah), James Risch (Idaho), Pat Roberts (Kan.), Tim Scott (S.C.), Jeff Sessions (Ala.), Richard Shelby (Ala.) and David Vitter (La.). A finer band of brothers in stupid cannot be found.

4. Virginia Lieutenant Governor nominee, E. W. Jackson wrote a book, and published it. It is called The Ten Commandments to an Extraordinary Life. Trouble is, he misspelled Commandments to Comandments in the title. Then he said that yoga would lead to satanic possession.

5. Jim Bridenstine (R-OK) is somebody you probably never heard of. I suspect you can continue to not hear of him. He took to the floor last week in the House and ranted on about how the President was “a vengeful liar who lacks the moral compass” to lead the nation. He likened himself to Patrick Henry. He thinks he did a good job. Trouble is, I guess he forgets that the polls suggests he may be the one without a moral compass. It’s improper to cast such vitriol on the House floor. But alas it’s nothing new for the crazy crew. And by the by, all his reasoning was based on factual untruths. ALL of them. So I guess he’s intellectually impaired on top of being a flagrant abuser of the mouth.

6. Darrell Issa claimed through selected editing of testimony, that the order to select “conservative” applications for tax-exempt status came “from Washington”. He promised that the full transcripts would be released shortly. Of course the full transcripts said just about the opposite. The person who has owned up to the screening methodology, describes himself as a Conservative Republican and says he doesn’t believe there was any political motivation in the process, but merely a method to extract those applications that would undoubtedly necessitate deeper analysis. Issa now claims that release of the full transcripts would be “dangerous and irresponsible.” He now claims it is Cummings who is the problem.

Santorum_dunce17. Now I admit, this is not a Republican. But well, we have loved Carl Levin for many years. But we are pretty darn happy he’s decided to retire. He voted to keep the decision-making on rape charges in the hands of command. It was wrong. He sided with the military men. It was wrong. This kind of thing makes no sense on any level. It doesn’t promote cohesion in the ranks. It promotes distrust. Shame on him. And on Clare McCaskill who also voted this way.

So that’s my line up for today.

As I said, please add your favorites.

It’s hard to miss a week without Gohmert being on the list I know.

But he’ll be back in the top ten. He won’t let us down.

don-young-wetback-comments-immigrationSo.

Vote.

Vote often.

oops

 

 

Franken-Women! Run For Your Lives!

elsa-and-boris-in-the-bride-of-frankensteinDuring the run up to the 2012 election, the GOP became rather famous for sticking their foot into their collective mouths, up to the knee. Nothing was more famous than their “war on women” an attack they assured us was both unfair and unwarranted.

After all, as countless state legislatures populated mostly by white men, continued to introduce bill after bill that limited the availability of reproductive health care for women, inserted medical instruments into their lady parts, and otherwise suggested that they didn’t really know what was best for themselves, how can that be considered unwomanly?

To say nothing of the strange and mind-shattering medical opinions from men like Todd Aiken on rape. On and on it went, yet, there was no war on women, but in the minds of Democrats who were just playing on the (shh) paternal concerns of husbands and fathers for political benefit. And on and on they went. On election night, 55% of women in America decided that Democrats best served their interests.

That still leaves an amazing 44% of women who voted for the other side, the side doing all the woman-basing.  What can we say about these women? I think we are learning that in the months since the election. In fact, we have always known it, but we grant some leeway that in the heat of battle, some women may in fact grip their thighs and support that which rankles for the “greater good.” So a fairer assessment can be given now.

And it suggests, that what we have is a hybrid creature I have dubbed the Franken-woman. She is in appearance a woman,  but resembles her sisters in very little else. I’m afraid if you look under the skirt, you may well find balls instead of a vagina.

stepford Recently there was some polling by Pew which I believe backs up studies on the subject, that women are increasingly the breadwinners in their families. This of course caused quite a stir. There has been a four-fold increase in the numbers since the 1960′s.

How is this received by the media you ask?

Well Fox News contributor, Erick Erickson cried foul. This is bad stuff he claimed. Everywhere in the animal kingdom (watch out your creationists), males dominate (actually they don’t but he’s from Fox, what can you expect). Why this flood of women breadwinners is destroying marriage and the children! Stop it now!

Of course women are used to this sort of thing.

Soon the topic turned to education and why we are falling farther and farther behind when compared to a whole list of other countries. Once the greatest school system in the world, the US educational system is by many estimations, dismal at best. Mississippi Governor, Phil Bryant (need I add the R?), gave us his assessment of the cause:

I think both parents started working. And the mom is in the work place.

Women are so used to this sort of thing. I hardly matters the topic, somehow it’s the fault of women.

I can attest to this personally.

A while back on Facebook I became engaged in rather heated debate on climate change with a man who was regularly condescending and arrogant in his assertions that there was no such thing as human-made climate change. While both of us threw some nasty ad hominens, he often retorted to my facts with  claims that I had a big mouth, and was a whack job. When I replied that apparently he had no facts, just personal assaults, I was greeted with this gem:

You provoke me!

Indeed, and women who dress in trashy clothes provoke otherwise decent men to rape them! Yes, we’ve heard that excuse.

Well my dismay was not at his remark, which was expected, but rather from the Franken-woman who came to his defense, saying that X was such a nice person, and I was always attacking, and basically, I was up against a brilliant man and was clearly no match.

Now said Franken-woman had already told me that:

  1. If you count all the “crab nebula” historically, it amounts to just the number one would expect if the earth was some 6,000 plus years old and,
  2. If evolution were true then why are monkeys still having monkey babies?

So you see I’m already dealing with a “woman” who if chosen randomly by an alien visitation would have answered the question, “is there intelligent life here?” with a resounding NO. What hurt however was that a supposedly a fellow woman was unable to see the misogyny in such a statement and agreed that women “cause” men to do bad things.

But as I listened to what moves through the Internet vapor, I discovered that there were indeed plenty of these Franken-women.

That gadfly Phyllis Schafley, attorney, book writer, and speaker, you know, the one who tells OTHER women to stay home and make hubby happy with good cookin’ and good sex? THAT “woman?” Well she weighed in on women in combat, telling us that women in combat would unfairly “entice” men, and the poor men would be blamed for the ensuing rape and harassments that would be inevitable! I kid you not.

Marsha Blackburn, perennial talking points maven for the GOP, had the audacity to tell Meet the Press, roundtable participants that “women don’t want equal pay laws.”  Seriously? We don’t?

“I think that more important than that is making certain that women are recognized by those companies. You know, I’ve always said that I didn’t want to be given a job because I was a female, I wanted it because I was the most well-qualified person for the job. And making certain that companies are going to move forward in that vein, that is what women want. They don’t want the decisions made in Washington. They want to be able to have the power and the control and the ability to make those decisions for themselves.”

Um, dear, how exactly are we to make that happen? By baking them some cookies? Or perhaps, forcing them to address their inequality by MAKING THEM PAY WOMEN THE SAME WAGES? And dear, don’t you EVER presume to speak for me, okay?

Not to be outdone, Ms. Schafley weighed in on this as well:

The Obama feminists recite the tiresome mantra that women are paid only 77 cents for every dollar paid to men. That’s completely false because it doesn’t take into account that men take many high-risk and unpleasant jobs, suffering 90 percent of occupational fatalities, so they should earn more.

Does that even make sense? She then claims (without a source) that men work longer hours and so deserve more. In the end, only employers can really know who does the “most” work.

She ends by taking a swipe at Hispanics. Stop courting them, she advises. After all, “they don’t share American values“.

I say congratulations to the GOP who has apparently successfully transplanted a Republican male brain into a woman. These aren’t women. These are freaks of nature, created to pat the poor man on the head and continue to tell him he is the center of their universe.

Save me from such women.

The Chronically Stupid Aways Find an Obtuse Angle

JohnWayneSo much stupid, so little time to expose it all.

First there is the Daily Caller. The Daily Caller is a piece of stupid run by Tucker Carlson, from Fox Noise. The Daily Collection of Stupid leaves no stone unturned in its attempt to be irrelevant, stupidly funny, and masterful in its invention of new ways to be stupid every day.

You no doubt have always known that the Reactionary Right, of which the Daily Curd attempts to be the voice for, is a huge supporter of gay rights? You’re not aware of that? Well, slap yourself silly dumb person and listen up.

pink gunYou see, it’s a crying shame, that compromise bill worked out by Senators Manchin and Toomey. Those darn Democrats, always seeking to betray and abuse their gay brothers and sisters.

The bill, Daily Crap points out, will discriminate against gay gun owners. See if you can figure out why?

Figured it out yet?

Well, you see, in states that don’t recognize gay marriage, said gay gun owner will be forced to submit his or her partner to a background check before selling them or giving them a gun for Christmas. That’s because the “family exception” to the proposed new law would not be recognized in non-same-sex marriage recognizing states.

Yes, indeed. I kid you not as they say.

I guess they forgot the provision about neighbor-to-neighbor transfers. I mean what can be more neighborly than actually living in the same house? Seems about as friendly as neighbors can get doncha think?

I gave you the link, lest you think I was pulling your leg, or attempting a frontal lobotomy with a rusty butter knife.

Next on our hit parade of stupid is the ever growing legend of another of those Texas wonders, Steve Stockman.

babybumperYou remember Steve right? The Texan Representative who decided it was a great idea to invite Ted Nugent, aging rocker with like two old hits over 30 years old, who loves guns more than he loves his kids, and all around crazy conspiracy-laden anti-Obama screamer, to the State of the Union speech? THAT Steve Stockman?

Well this is his new way of attracting the marvelous people who contribute to his campaign to continue being a public nuisance.

This is his newly designed bumper sticker which you can attach to the bumper of your car, horse, or forehead, proclaiming you too are stupid as hell.

Is there anything left to say here? Stockman is offensive on just about all of Dante’s levels of hell.

But my favorite this week? Oh that was easy. You probably heard about the kerfuffle about Melissa Harris Perry’s promo for her show on MSNBC? Where she talks about the education of our children and suggests that children just don’t belong to their parents, but in fact belong to the entire community?

The Really Really Ridiculous Right started fainting and running for smelling salts on that one. One heard the immediate refrain, “COMMUNISM” expounded by the likes of Rush, the Drudge, Daily Caller, and Newsbusters.

Newsbusters said this: “. . .the notion of collective responsibility for children was a philosophy that undergirded the Cultural Revolution in Communist China under Chairman Mao. I bring that up because, as you may recall, another Harris-Perry “Lean Forward” spot contains a reference to a “great leap forward,” which calls to mind the disastrous agricultural reform plan which starved millions of Chinese to death in the 1950s.”

Sarah, “HEY, remember me?” Palin tweeted: Apparently MSNBC doesn’t think your children belong to you. Unflippingbelievable.

Rush ME MORE DRUGS Limbaugh said: So how does this manifest itself? So you need your yard mowed, what do you do?” he continued. “You go knock on the door down the street — your kid that you don’t own. I do today. For the next hour, your kid is going to mow my yard. And then after that, my trash needs taking out and after that I need somebody to go to the grocery store for me and my kid’s tied up, so I’m claiming your kid. How does this work?”

From the Lonely Conservative (who decries a new promo declaring that people have basic human rights to education, food, housing and so forth): Maybe in her next promo she can just come out and quote directly from the Communist Manifesto.

Okay folks, settle down. Let’s recall a few things. There is a rather famous saying, “it takes a village to raise a child.” That is in fact the title of one of Hillary Clinton’s books. Let’s not forget that we all pay property taxes wherever we live, and part of that money goes directly to support local school systems. Guess what? Those who are not parents pay them as well, on the theory that EVERYONE  has a stake in children being educated.

Has everyone on the Right forgotten the “good old days”? You remember when extended families lived together and everyone thought that all children were so much better off having more people busy raising them? Remember the Waltons? Remember when we were children and the teacher as “loco parentis” was considered “always right” if we were disciplined? Remember when any neighbor had a perfect right to correct your behavior if not physically, at least verbally?

Do we not all have a stake in the future of our next generation of teachers, lawyers, doctors, soldiers, and seamstresses? These are the folks who will govern the country when we are using our walkers in the hallways of senior facilities.

I mean how stupid can you be to see something sinister in what Ms Harris-Perry said? How much must you twist and distort it to make it look dangerous and “otherly”?

Do you not see that it is exactly this utterly over-the-top reaction to something so innocent and benign and TRUE, that makes even the fairly non-interested middle of America think the far Right has more than a few screws loose? The GOP and it’s cadre of stupid are swirling into the sinkhole of oblivion and pretty much nobody cares.

Next: RED Jello is a Commie plot with nanobots invading your body and indoctrination in each red sugary gelatin grain.

monkey play

 

North Dakota Votes Fred Flintstone as Women’s Rights Spokesperson

fredflintstoneDino named Secretary of Education.

This is one state to steer way way clear of. If you even see the letters, DAK, start backing away.

The folks there have returned to living in caves. The signs say brake for Brontosaurus.

Seriously.

In what can only be the happiest marriage between fundamentalism and unscience, the legislature (really four old white dudes sitting around a campfire), have determined that women shall bear all children put upon them by any many who gets a hankering to “get a little.” And the governor, one Dalrymple, really the owner of the local stone quarry, has signed the dang thing into law, or laws as the case may be, because there are several.

Now of course there will be lawsuits since this is just about the opposite of the law of the land. And the good Dalrymple has decided in his rubbing of two brain cells together, that the fair cave citizens of said cave state should pay for that. After all, it’s for their own good.

They have managed to reduce the clinics in the realm to one, and they are determined to put that one out of business by loading it down with so many odious regulations that nobody but God himself could comply.

Now these cave men purport to be Republicans, who last time I checked, were for small government and getting off the backs of business operators. Except of course when they aren’t for that because they are more interested in controlling the lives of women in their cave realm.

Wouldn’t it just be easier to conk them over the head like usual?

As I said, avoid at all costs. Ken Ham is said to be scoping out the area for another of his fun times with science “museums”.

HINT: you know guys, one day women will get a majority in these legislative bodies. You might think about that before you keep screwing with us.

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California, by and large, is a crazy state, but at least half the time, it’s good crazy. That’s a pretty good track record if you throw totally insane places like Alabama into the mix.

Yet, following the Peyton rule that each state is required by law to maintain at least two certifiable simpletons in its band of state or federal legislative arenas, California no doubt counts Rep. Jack Kimble as one of their (hide him in the closet when company comes) boneheads.

Seems that Mr. Kimble is pretty worried about what might happen should the SCOTUS decided that California must allow marriage between people who love each other, without checking under skirts and peeking inside trousers to determine the gender of said love birds.

Kimble in a last gasp of intellectual showmanship, tweeted this:

kimbleJack? Are you worried, or just a wee bit excited by that prospect?

Ä

Fearful that the gay will be just popping up everywhere, Tony Perkins, that nice hateful man who runs the Family Research Council and knows God better than most people know their own toes, suggests that if the SCOTUS makes that fateful decision legalizing all that “nasty stuff”, why people might just rise up and start a revolution.

Yeah, I figure that people are aching to destroy their families, neighborhood, businesses, and such just to make sure that some stranger is not doing the nasty with someone who shares plumbing equipment with them.

But no doubt, it will be a good enough excuse for the survivalists to go out and purchase another half-dozen big guns.

La PeePee Lapierre certainly hopes so anyway.

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There is a group called Concerned Women for America. As best as I can tell, they are women who are concerned about a certain kind of America, one that they control and which they feel comfortable in. They are really mad at Starbucks.

Starbucks, as you may already know, is in favor of marriage equality. So it stands to reason that somebody would make the leaping logical conclusion, that that means that Starbucks will probably soon start discriminating against straight people. Or at least discriminate against straight people who want to (just cuz) discriminate against gay people. I mean, old habits are hard to break.

Oh I do love a dose of stupid with my coffee.

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We understand that Wisconsin Governor, Scott Walker is writing a book.

I know.

You can’t wait to go stand in line to get it autographed  can you?

Reports are that it will be written in crayon and Walker promised it would be in his own words, at least the ones he can spell.

Everyone is delighted that there will be plenty of pictures to color throughout.

There is still a debate as to what category it will fall under for you librarians wanting to dust off a special shelf. Suggestions range from Sci-fi fantasy to Abnormal psychology.

I am putting in my Amazon pre-order.

Yeah, I believe in unicorns too.

 

 

I’m Going As Fast as I Can!

SONY DSCReally I am. Actually, I’m traveling at lightening speed.

For example:

Yesterday I got up, cleaned house until 6:50 a.m., walked Diego two miles, finished cleaning the house, went to the grocery store, returned home, put away groceries, searched through all the papers in the file cabinet, finding 90% of what was necessary for the accountant tomorrow and the taxes, drove the Contrarian to the Eyemart with his new prescription, picked out frames, and stopped for *gasp* fast food for lunch, and arrived home, all before 1 p.m. At 3:00 p.m, I returned to Eyemart and picked up his glasses. The(Two more weeks and I can have chocolate again!)

Today, I cleaned house until 6:50 a.m, (finished by the way!), walked Diego two miles, and returned to make the basic parts of a Shepherd’s Boy casserole, which is now waiting to go in the oven. And *gasp* it’s only 9 a.m. and I have 50 minutes of leisure before we head off to get the taxes done.

Tomorrow, I get to go to the pool, and get my hair cut. We are determined to get all our “stuff” done this month. We have to hit the Veterans Affairs office to turn in our property tax exemptions yet, and something else that needs filling out, which I no longer remember.

I keep waiting for that blessed week when there are no “things” to attend to. I never used to be this busy. I really never used to be. The more retired I get, the busier I get. I know there is something important I should be ingesting from that realization, but I’m either not aware of what it is, or I’m scared to discover what it is.

I once upon a time said that virtually everything I dreamed about moving down here came true, but for a couple. The Catholic churches basically suck here (which I never would have imagined), and there is no pool within two blocks of where I live. Well guess what? One just got a good deal closer.

It turns out that one of the parks and rec outdoor pools is only about four miles from me. A darn sight closer than the approximately thirteen mile one that I go to now. It doesn’t open until Memorial day, but I have been told that almost nobody goes there, so I can enjoy myself in solitary bliss probably. Why they wait so long I have no clue–it’s in the mid-seventies every day now, and often in the low to mid-80′s.  Go figure.

It’s been ten years since the ill-conceived invasion of Iraq. Where are all the celebrations? Were we not greeted as “liberators”?  Yeah, I guess not. It’s really hard to make an argument that awful as he was, the Iraqi people are not really any better off than they were before we “saved” them. I suspect they are much worse. And nobody worth a damn went to jail for that crime.

The GOP screams like a stuck pig that they have “no war on women”. Well, yeah they do. But it’s only a huge segment of a much bigger picture in which a lot more people (mostly men, but not all) are implicated. Cases in point.

  • Remember the dude at the CPAC who wanted to know why Frederick Douglass sent a letter forgiving his slave master? After all, the North Carolinian “white demographic” pointed out, he got “food and shelter” after all. He pointed out it would be a damn sight better if we still had segregation, and that Black folk could do all the voting they wanted in Africa. Well it turns out that as that meeting broke up, a woman approached and proceeded to give him a thing or two about his overt racism. Said White Male, retorted, as I am told, “so is this the new rebranded version of the GOP where women confront and tell off men in public?” or words to that effect.
  • You all no doubt heard or read about the Steubenville case where at least two young men of high school age took advantage of an inebriated fellow teen girl, and raped her. The coverage has been, to say the least, extremely sexist in its presentation. The reporters and their networks cannot get over how sad it’s been for the boys, who had “promising football careers” and were so altogether nice in every way. They never missed a chance to remind us that the girl was so drunk she passed out. Oh and they ALL “inadvertently” dropped her name in their video reports even though she is a minor.

Forgive me if I still bluster about the need of women to continue the fight for full and complete rights in this still patriarchal world we live in. We put on the trappings of equality, and people do the “politically correct thing” and underneath it all, well, men will be men and boys will be boys, and women? Well women just keep taking it.

Read the link. It’s an important commentary on how we still operate in this country.

And well, it’s time to be off to the tax accountant. Sigh…you know I just love this!

dvd_commandingheightsThe jobs numbers came out this morning. Everything is on the uptick. The upturn in the economy continues unabated. This in spite of the naysayers who of course claim that things would be even better if we would do things their way (the business way). They offer no proof of this, but they assure you that if you would just lower corporate taxes to zero and remove all regulations, boards of directors across the country would be voting to “hire as many as will fit in the building” and things will be rosy in no time.

This engenders the usual arguments between Keynesians and Hayekians. If you are not so sure you know who these men are, or what they stand for, well, I have a good place to start.

I am not sure when this came out on PBS, but it is based on the book of the same name written by Daniel Yergin and Joseph Stanislaw. That came out in around 2003 I believe.

It is not for the faint of heart. It’s a six-hour committment. But on the upside, it’s well done and satisfies all the usual desires of one watching a documentary. You can get the DVD or you can watch the entire thing online, and I’ll provide the links at the bottom.

Let me caution you that I don’t at all agree with much of what they say, or at least the inferences they, I think deliberately, urge you to draw. They have a very definite point of view and they avoid a few facts that might cut against their opinion. (Pay especial attention to who is promoting the show at the beginning). That said, it provides a pretty good explanation of what Hayek believed and what Keynes believed. It provides a good foundation to understanding the basics that you will need should you choose to really try to get a handle on what the Krugman’s of the world believe is best for the economy versus the now deceased Milton Friedman.

We’ve only watched the first part, so I’m leaving off any further comments lest I influence your viewing. I’ll post a piece on my views in a couple of weeks or so. So if you are interested, put your feet up and grab a beer or cuppa joe and begin watching. It is entertaining and informative, just not accurate in all respects in my view. Links at the bottom of the page.

Ø

Republicans continue to waste taxpayer money on crap that has nothing to do with economic recovery. Over the Governor’s veto, Arkansas just passed a law making it illegal to abort a fetus after twelve weeks. That’s of course unconstitutional on its face and seems destined to offer the SCOTUS an opportunity to either overturn Roe or restrict it. Idaho’s twenty week law was just struck down by a federal district court.

Meanwhile, in Mississippi, another bastion of free thought, the senate has just passed a bill that would allow school prayer again, most especially before classes start (during morning announcements) and before athletic events. Students would also be allowed to freely discuss religious faith issues during class time. This is also unconstitutional on its face.

What is ironic here, is that the very people who support this crap are the same folks who are hellbent to tell you that Democrats and the present administration have no faith let allow adherence to the Constitution and are violating it every day. Of course, they are not. They are just redressing their grievances that the damn document doesn’t say what they want, and making sure that it’s altered to accomplish that.

It all depends, is their answer to “do you believe we should follow the Constitution as interpreted by the Supreme Court?”

Ø

The water pressure dropped severely yesterday in Washington D.C. as John McCain and Lindsey Graham both spend a long time washing off the icky after finding themselves supporting the black guy in the White House against the strange man from Kentucky, Ru Paul, I mean Randy Paul on the drones issue. Two finer hawks were never born than McCain the man who continually drove planes into the ground, and the Lindsey, a man who one can’t begin to imagine in a uniform except as part of a sexual liaison in the bedroom.

Ø

The best response to anyone who tries to tell you that homosexuality is a “choice” is to ask them what was the date when they “chose” to be heterosexual. What them sputter and try to get out of that dilemma.

Ø

I think Romney’s the right choice for speechifying at CPAC. After watching his interview with Wallace the other night, it appears he’s still living in the delusions that caused his defeat. That should be right up the alley of the teabibbers doncha think?

Ø

This just tickled me. John McCain was quoted as saying this:

“It’s always the wacko birds on right and left that get the media megaphone.”

I mean I hear the Oxford Dictionary calling to get that photo of John to place next to the word: IRONY.

Ø

From Don of Massachusetts:

Our life is shaped by our mind; we become what we think. Suffering follows an evil thought as the wheels of a cart follow the oxen that draws it. Our life is shaped by our mind; we become what we think. Joy follows a pure thought like a shadow that never leaves.

- The Buddha

This seems a good place to say, HAVE A GOOD DAY!

Commanding Heights Pt 1

Commanding Heights Pt 2

Commanding Heights Pt 3

 

Putting “Bob” in a Search Engine

Robert Melendez 1You know, everybody says they “don’t believe everything” they hear. Everybody likes to think of themselves as discerning individuals who eyes can’t be covered with wool. But the truth is, most people aren’t educated, or have not taken the time to really work at what can only be termed a skill set.

Being a critical reader doesn’t come naturally. A Facebook friend of mine is busy trying to educate a few people about how to tell the questionable from the reliable. He makes a good point. You might want to ignore a source that gives you salacious or wild headlines without a corresponding story. In other words, if the headlines don’t turn out to match the actual verifiable facts in the story, well, you might want to look elsewhere.

A case in point was a recent Rachel Maddow show wherein Ms. Maddow referred to the town hall meeting that John McCain had. A woman referred to her son as having been the victim of gun violence. She wanted to know about what laws Congress might pass. McCain first expressed his condolences for the loss of the woman’s son, and then remarked that “Congress was not going to ban assault weapons.”

Now Rachel indicated that the tape of this had been edited by a local news operation, and that “it might unfairly portray Senator McCain as lacking in compassion. (the tape omitted the sentence regarding McCain’s sympathies). The tape was offered for the news that McCain was saying that the GOP was not going for any ban on assault weapons and this was before there had even been any hearings on Feinstein’s bill.

Yet, the headline from a right-wing shrill machine was something like “Rachel Maddow gleefully admits she edited tape to make GOP look bad.”

I assume you get the point.

The Daily Caller has been pushing the Melendez story. You have obviously heard about it. Melendez is accused of cavorting with paid prostitutes at a friend’s home in the Dominican Republic. The story was apparently “leaked” by GOP operatives and offered to ABC news. They declined.

The right-wingers would say, “see, the MSM is in the pocket of the Democrats. They don’t report on misconduct of one of their own.” Is that what happened? No. Not at all.

The fact is that ABC interviewed one of the “prostitutes”. When asked how she knew that the man she had only known as “Bob” was a US senator, she replied that “I put his name in a search engine and Melendez’ picture came up.”

Why, I invite you to try that and see what you get.

ABC news declined the offer as “unreliable”, which of course The Daily Caller jumped all over it. Which one do you want to use as a source of information? (And I’m not pushing ABC news since I don’t find them all that good either.)

Which brings me full circle, since yesterday I unfairly maligned a nurse quite possibly, for failing to render CPR assistance to an elderly assisted-living woman. Apparently the woman had signed a DNR and I can presume that the nurse was aware of it. Or I would expect that was possible. In any case, I admittedly relied on only what I heard on news broadcasts from MSM and failed to delve any deeper into better sources. Mea Culpa. Live and learn. Hoisted on my own petard. (please insert any another euphemism that seems appropriate)

I’m inclined at this point to urge the government to just put a big ole fence around the state of Texas. Now granted, they are a big state, and they have a big population, but for Jimminy Cricket’s sake, they can’t have THAT many idiots can they?

Louis the Loon Gohmert is wasting your tax dollars once again with his amendment rider to a budget bill that would prevent any “federal funds” being used to transport the President to any golf outing until “White House tours are resumed”. Louis woke up from a drug-induced dream and thought he was in Lilliputian land again. The White House suspended tours to save money ala the sequester. Louis takes up space on the planet. I vote to suspend him from a hot air balloon, attached to the capital dome.

Another dim bulb in the state Senate wants to suspend operations like Planned Parenthood from submitted sex education materials to schools that teach sex education. Although all such materials are already subject to public availability and parental veto, Ken Paxton thinks (I know, a crazy word to apply to many in Texas), that present law doesn’t go far enough.

Places like PPH should not be allowed to offer health care information because of course they have a “conflict” of interests. Being that they provide abortions, they most surely would be promoting sex by unmarried teens as a way to, you know, keep business up.  While no example of any information that does that was offered as proof, insiders believe that if you put the brochures in water with a teaspoon of sugar, the words “HAVE SEX NOW!” will appear across the top of each page.

Okay, I added that last part.

And people talk about the misuse of taxes.

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