Santorum Says Stupid Shit

I'm having a really hard time holding back my anger at the words of Rick "he ought to be in a" Santorum. I mean, every single day he espouses these hideous beliefs that would have made him a perfect Republican presidential candidate ... in 1952. He's an equal opportunity offender. And, what really bothers me is that I suspect this clown's closet makes Fibber McGee & Molly's (Google it, kids) look neatly arranged by comparison.

I also don't like the free pass the media is giving him. As someone who wouldn't vote for a Republican if I was sleeping with her, I'm leaning toward believing that somehow the media is laying off of him in the belief that he will eventually self-destruct. But, only after Rooster has mortally wounded Willard to the point that Republican voters vote with their feet and stay home on election night. Here's a few reasons to question his sanity, his appropriateness to hold office, his status as a man, a Catholic. And whatever else turns up.

Growing up in Pennsylvania, he was given the nickname Rooster for both a cowlick and his stridency when defending political positions. After graduating from the Dickinson School of Law in 1986, one of his first clients was the World Wrestling Federation. He was successful in having professional wrestling exempted from federal anabolic steroid regulations because it's entertainment and not sport. So, he's for the use of steroids.

He was first elected to U.S. House of Representatives in 1990, at age 32. He upset a 7-term Democrat by the margin of 51%-49%. During the campaign he criticized his opponent for living outside the district most of the year. This would come back to haunt but not daunt him.

Santorum beat incumbent Democratic Senator Harris Wofford 49%-47% in 1994 and barely kept his seat in 2000, defeating Rep. Ron Klink 52%-46%. In 2006, Santorum was dealt the largest defeat in state senatorial history, losing to Bob Casey Jr. 59%-41%.

Santorum showed signs early of his strict conservative positions. As part of a Senate panel tasked with combating anti-Semitism in American colleges, Santorum drafted language on "ideological diversity" that was branded by "Race & Class" magazine as essentially espousing "policing thought."

From the start, he just says stupid shit. Mean shit. Unthinking, closed-minded shit. He was one of only two senators to vote against confirming Robert Gates as Secretary of Defense, because Gates believed we should talk with Iran and Syria. Speaking in favor of enhanced interrogation, he said last year that America's most famous victim of torture, Sen. John McCain, didn't understand how the process worked.

During his ill-fated re-election campaign of 2006, Santorum faced his own residential questions. He admitted to spending "maybe a month a year" at his Pennsylvania home, critics pointed out that state taxpayers were paying 80% of the tuition for 5 of Santorum's children to attend an on-line cyber school. This benefit was available only to Pennsylvania residents. After the school district billed him $73,000, he pulled his children from the school, suggesting they were being used as political pawns by his opponents.

Beyond doubt, the dumbest positions he espouses are in the area of women's rights. He essentially believes they don't have any. While in the Senate he blamed "radical feminism"  for making it "socially affirming to work outside the home." He also switched from supporting Willard to Grandpa John in 2008, saying his selection of Shecky Palin was a step in the right direction.

He doesn't believe a right to privacy is part of the Constitution, despite the 4th and 14th Amendments. He's opposed to homosexuality, same-sex marriage, birth control. He believes intelligent design is "a legitimate scientific theory that should be taught in science classes," and  "What we should be teaching are the problems and holes in the theory of evolution."

He's opposed to the National Weather Service providing weather information free to the public when private sector entities were in place to sell it, after getting a $10,500 donation from AccuWeather, the commercial weather company based in Pennsylvania. Among his arguments: that evacuation warnings for Hurricane Katrina were "insufficient." He also coined the phrase "Islamic fascism.

Lately, though, more and more Santorum is seemingly walking away from the female vote. He's said that contraception is a "license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be." Then complains that President Obama wants to "rule over you." In 2003, he juxtaposed same-sex marriage with pedophilia and bestiality during an AP interview:

"In every society, the definition of marriage has not ever to my knowledge included homosexuality. That's not to pick on homosexuality. It's not, you know, man on child, man on dog, or whatever the case may be. It is one thing. And when you destroy that you have a dramatic impact on the quality —" (At this point, interviewer Lara Jakes Jordan commented, "I'm sorry, I didn't think I was going to talk about 'man on dog' with a United States senator, it's sort of freaking me out."

Santorum went on, ""If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything. Whether it's polygamy, whether it's adultery, whether it's sodomy, all of those things, are antithetical to a healthy, stable, traditional family."

We all remember the Fox News/Google-sponsored debate in Orlando last September, when a gay soldier asked via satellite if the candidates would take measures to "circumvent" the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don' Tell." After hearing the solider booed by the crowd, and not defending him, Santorum called the repeal "social experimentation and tragic."

"I would say any type of sexual activity has absolutely no place in the military. And the fact that they're making a point to include it as a provision within the military that we are going to recognize a group of people and give them a special privilege to -- and removing 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell,' I think tries to inject social policy into the military. And the military's job is to do one thing, and that is to defend our country."

Just today came this lie: His views are not "anti-science" as Democrats claim, Santorum said. "When it comes to the management of the Earth, they are the anti-science ones. We are the ones who stand for science, and technology, and using the resources we have to be able to make sure that we have a quality of life in this country and (that we) maintain a good and stable environment."

And there was this: "The question is, and this is what Barack Obama didn't want to answer, is that human life a person under the Constitution? And Barack Obama says no. Well if that person, human life is not a person, then, I find it almost remarkable for a black man to say, 'we're going to decide who are people and who are not people.'"

Unemployment is down, hiring is up, the Dow-Jones is 5,000 higher than it was under Shrub, no one cares about Romney, Gingrich can't run away from his past and Ron Paul is an extreme nutcase. So, let's go after women. I'm surprised he doesn't support rescinding women's right to vote. Although, if he keeps it up, he'll accomplish taking the female vote away. From himself.

Dear Folks, Sorry I Haven't Written Lately

So, how the hell did this happen? Newt Gingrich as a viable candidate for the Republican presidential nomination? I thought Mitt Romney was supposed to be a dead-solid lock. Instead, Rick Santorum and Ron Paul are still alive.
Actually, it's a bit insane that this race has even begun by now. There were debates in 2011 for an election that was nearly a year away. True, that allowed the wackjobs - Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry and Herman Cain - to self-destruct. Rick Pawlenty gave up the ghost long ago and Mitch Daniels and Chris Christie realized they had zero national name-recognition. Donald Trump decided to stay where he belongs: on a "reality" show. Sister Sarah successfully slunk south to Arizona and out of the spotlight.
Paul appeals to the lunatic fringe - and to those who have no frame of reference with which to truly assess his stupid ideas about eliminating this department and that one. Romney appeals to ... beats me.
The level of discourse spewed by Sir I Do Of Newt (aka The Marrying Man) is as disgraceful as the way the man's lived his personal life. He can bitch and moan about being insulted by a question about the latest slimy revelations about his past, but that doesn't make them untrue. Character matters ... to the Republicans when they want to turn some obscure, borderline indecent piece of a Democrat's history into campaign commercial fodder.
Gingrich winning South Carolina is not exactly earth-shattering news. He's good at pushing the right buttons, especially in the cradle of treason. Calling Obama the "food stamp president" appeals directly to those who still refer to the Civil War (and they are legion) as the "War of Northern Aggression." I'm personally appalled at his behavior:

• His first wife was his high school geometry teacher. Some people would find that distasteful.
• After beginning an affair with the woman that would become his second wife, according to Cuckold #1, "He walked out in the spring of 1980 ... By September, I went into the hospital for my third surgery. The two girls came to see me, and said, 'Daddy is downstairs. Could he come up?' When he got there, he wanted to discuss the terms of the divorce while I was recovering from my surgery." It was also of her that he said, "She isn't young enough or pretty enough to be the President's wife. And besides, she has cancer." Some people would find that distasteful.
• Newt subsequently stopped paying alimony and child support. His wife's church raised money to keep the utilities on. Some people would find that distasteful.
• He was having an affair during his second marriage and when she confronted him about it, he asked for an open marriage. Oh, and she had just been diagnosed with MS. Some people would find that distasteful.
• While leading the impeachment process against President Clinton for his oral sexcapades with Monica Lewinsky, Newton Leroy was getting the same treatment from Congressional aide Callista Biske, 23 years his junior. Some people would find that distasteful.
• At least three women have had sex with Newt Gingrich. Most people would find that distasteful.
• He was among the most active participants in the House Banking scandal, bouncing 22 checks. Some people would find that distasteful.
• Gingrich was initially offered a $2.5 million advance and then $4.5 million by Harper Collins, a publishing house owned by the Pirate King himself, Rupert Pupkin. I mean Murdoch. When it was pointed out that Murdoch's publishing arms were giving big advances to conservative authors in countries where Murdoch was having regulatory trouble, Newt turned down the advance. Instead, he got a lucrative deal based on royalties. Some people would find that distasteful.
• In 1984, Gingrich established a limited partnership in Atlanta called COS Limited, funded by his leading campaign contributors. The administrator of Gingrich's congressional offices in Georgia, Dolores Adamson, eventually resigned. "The manuscript was put together in the district office using office equipment," she said. "He would just come in and say 'This is what I want to do.' I would say, 'This is not ethical,' but after a while he didn't listen." That office equipment, of course, was paid for by US taxpayers. Some people would find that distasteful.
• Gingrich resigned from the House and paid a $300,000 fine in the midst of an ethics investigation into his political action committee GOPAC. Some people would find that distasteful.
• He wants poor inner city children to be employed as janitors in their schools. Some people would find that distasteful.
• He referred to President Obama as the most radical president we've ever had. Some people would find distasteful and just plain stupid, just like all the items before this one.

I'll close by sharing something Bill Maher said on "Real Time" Friday night. He's accused President Obama of being a socialist, with no evidence. He's accused President Obama of not having a jobs bill, which he does. He's accused President Obama of making the economy worse, and he's made it better. Gingrich is running against someone that doesn't exist.

Seriously, what in the hell is wrong with the GOP?

Increasingly, I'm getting the feeling that there's something odd afoot. It only requires a scant amount of skepticism - at this point - to wonder just where the GOP is heading with this cast of thousands that are in the longest debate season in the history of the country.
Not a day goes by that multiple miscues, revelations and assertions come to the fore. Notice I didn't say "rumors." The truth is out there, and it's way out there. I'm wondering if there's some master plan to use all these candidates as the stalking horse for someone else who will miraculously arise from an as-yet unknown hidden location. Or, they really have no chance of winning the presidency and figure that the attention, which is stupid at the reality TV level, can somehow draw a big audience/electorate.
Just today, we got these gems:

• Sir I Do Of Newt (a.k.a. The Marrying Man) said that the 99% movement was "historically inaccurate" and suggested that President Obama should repudiate it. And the non-rich should vote Republican why now? He also said today that after he 1) married one of his high school teachers, 2) cheated on her and told her while she was being treated for cancer that he wanted a divorce, 3) cheated on the second wife with another woman, while prosecuting President Clinton for his infidelity and 4) married the mistress, he "had to go to God and ask for forgiveness." I think even God would have a hard time forgiving this clown but apparently long-term memory loss Republicans don't.

• Governor Good Hair, speaking to students at St. Anselm College in the pivotal state of New Hampshire, made this statement: "Those of you that will be 21 by November the 12th, I ask for your support and your vote." Gov. Perry has won so many elections, you'd think he'd know - as do I'd safely say 90% of the populace - that the voting eligibility age is 18. The presidential election will be held, as Perry should know if he wants to actually be in it, Nov. 4, 2012.

• The Pizza Dude (a.k.a. The Ladies Man) is "reassessing" his foolish campaign in the light of the appearance of his supposed mistress. "Reassessing" a return to obscurity, perhaps?

I can hardly wait for tomorrow.

Cain A Clown Of Another Circus

"Where do they teach you to talk like this? In some Panama City,  'sailor wanna hump-hump' bar, or is it getaway day and your last shot at his whiskey? Sell crazy someplace else, we're all stocked up here."

 Jack Nicholson as Melvin Udall in James L. Brooks's "As Good As It Gets"

Let me make one thing extremely clear: Herman Cain has no business running for president. As David Brooks said on NPR this afternoon, the office of the presidency of the United States is a serious job that needs a serious person doing it. The ex-pizza dude and newly self-declared Koch brother Cain is merely filling a void. If he wasn't there to say stupid shit, Sister Sarah would be. It even takes some of the spotlight away from Governor Good Hair's uh, something-induced comments earlier in the week.
For the uninitiated, the Koch Brothers are, in a word, ruining the entire American political process. Charles and David Koch are each worth about $25 billion; if they were just one person, that person would be the third wealthiest in the world. Koch Industries is the second largest privately-held company in the US, into oil refining, chemical, paper products and financial services company with revenues of a $100 billion a year. They spent $40 million yanking the House back so it could do absofreakin'lutely nothing. And, they've pledged to raise $200 million to defeat President Obama next year.
Now, these are the people Cain was referring to today when he said, ""Just so I can clarify this for the media, this may be a breaking news announcement for the media: I am the Koch brothers' brother from another mother. Yes. I'm their brother from another mother! And proud of it!" How incredibly stupid, to stand up in front of God and everybody, as they say in Indiana, and admit to a tie bordering on the familial. The Koch Brothers are kind of a reverse Tom Joad. Where Steinbeck's Dirt Bowl refugee said, "I'll be all around in the dark - I'll be everywhere. Wherever you can look - wherever there's a fight, so hungry people can eat, I'll be there. Wherever there's a cop beatin' up a guy, I'll be there." With Chuck & Davey, it's their money that's everywhere. It's their money, and the influence it buys, that causes "a fight, so hungry people can eat," aka Occupy Wall Street, Oakland, etc. And it's their money that leads to a cop - or a rent-a-cop in some cases - beatin' up a guy," or opting for pepper spray.
Ha-Ha Herman's remarks were made in front of a fawning Americans For Prosperity gathering. That group was founded by the Koch Brothers, as was the conservative "think tank" the Cato Institute. 

To pledge fealty to the Koch Brothers, who make the James Brothers look like nice people, should be enough alone to sink this "candidacy." If not, he's spit out a bunch of goofy shit the last few weeks. Such as:

• Telling Piers Morgan, in re: homosexuality, "although people don't agree with me, I happen to think that it is a choice."
• Telling Fox "News" on the morning of October 31, in re: his evident pattern of sexually harrassing women, "If there was a settlement, it was handled by some of the other officers at the restaurant association." Then, that evening he told PBS, he was aware that a settlement had been reached. By the next morning, he told HLN, "after 12 hours during the day, many events, many interviews, I was gradually able to recall more and more details about what happened."
• On the PBS Newshour, he told Judy Woodruff, he suspected China was “trying to develop nuclear capability,” despite having nuclear weapons since 1964.
• On November 1, he told Billo the Clown that putting more missiles near Iran would be a certain invitation for the nation to attack us. Cain appeared unfazed: “that’s alright.”
• Although it is officially illegal here in Backwardshoma, Cain said "here’s this creeping attempt … to gradually ease Sharia Law and the Muslim faith into our government.”
• Oh, and he's also said what he'll do when he's president. Man, that's so funny. Forget that other stuff. 

Best-case scenario: Willard wraps up the nomination and Ha-Ha Herman delivers a Pat Buchanon-esque scorched earth speech at Tampa next summer.

Pizza Dude Indeed

Not to be crude about it, but Herman Cain is full of shit. His 9-9-9 plan is idiotic, simplistic and, frankly, naive. Of course, those words could be used to describe his campaign, as well as those who support him. Whoever those 100 or so people are.
I am thrilled daily by watching this GOP group of contenders go up and down, in and out. It's kinda like "Groundhog Day." Every morning I wake up and Barrack Obama is the president. Each day, a GOP candidate does something different to become the "front-runner." Then, I wake up the next day and Barrack Obama is the president and a GOP candidate does something different to become the "front-runner" but everyone else is exactly the same.
Just this past week, Shecky Palin, Rudy "a noun, a verb and 9/11" Giuliani and Chris "Michelin Man" Christie all decided not to run. Now, if someone could tell Sir I Do of Newt, Mormon #2 Jon Huntsman, Michele "Batshit" Bachmann, crazy Senator Rand Paul's crazier Congressman father Ron Paul, Gary Johnson, Buddy Roemer  and Rick "you belong in a" Santorum how foolish a way they're spending their time.
That leaves Mormon #1 Mitt Romney and the Rev. Gov. Rick Perry. Oooh, I'm scared. Simply put, Romney has a "religious" problem and Perry has an obliviousness problem.
Again, "ooh, we're so scared."
The late, great Molly Ivins, the official patron saint of this blog, used to write at length about the weak powers held by the governor of Texas. Essentially, the governor of Texas is much like the Queen of England. For example, in Texas, the lieutenant governor puts forth the state budget.
Still, the Rev. Gov. Perry has been able to put his footprints all over the great nation of Texas. He's been governor since Shrub (thanks again, Molly) resigned to accept a Supreme Court appointment to the presidency. Under the Rev. Gov. Perry, Texas has the largest percentage of children uninsured, the state has created the largest amount of jobs in the country over the past 2 years, but most of those are either government jobs or jobs paying at or below the minimum wage.
"Governor Good-Hair," from Molly again, in many ways is George Bush, if he was Texan. Calling George W. Bush Texan is about like calling David Ortis a Yankee. Perry wants a Constitutional Amendment for social issues such as same-sex marriage and abortion. He has joked around with the concept of succession and calls Social Security a Ponzi scheme. Perry also disputes global warming. After Texas set a record in 2011 for the hottest summer anywhere, ever, in the lower 48 states, Perry said that comments by President Obama that linked the resulting wildfires to climate change were "outrageous."
As for Romney, he never met a side he couldn't support. He used money from the federal government that he would have to return if not used to create the model for the Barrack Obama healthcare reform. He's against it now. He's been pro-choice but now he's pro-life. He initially opposed same-sex marriage as governor of Massachusetts but later advocated for equal benefits.
And, there's the Mormon question. True, the Church of Jesus Christ does accept the Bible as one of their sacred texts. The other is of course The Book of Mormon. It presented itself in a language no one has ever heard of on gold plates that no one else has ever seen. Joseph Smith and then Brigham Young kept trying to find a Utopia. They wound up in Utah, in what is as close to a religious state as any in the country.
I want to know what Romney believes. I'm not one that generally gives a whit about the religiosity of the President. Unless he's a member of a cult and I haven't heard anything yet about the Mormon Church that makes me think it's not a cult.

GOP to non-rich: Drop Dead!

By invoking the 60-40 rule that only they seem to have the ability to do, the U.S. Senate Republicans essentially killed President Obama's jobs bill tonight. Democratic Senators Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Jon Tester of Montana, both facing difficult re-election campaigns next year, joined the GOP.

So, just in case you're not keeping count of all the things the GOP is officially against, as demonstrated by the candidates and responses given at the 300+ and counting GOP debates and by their rejection of the jobs bill, here's a reminder of some positions the Grand Old Party has:

• Let the uninsured die. After all, it is their own fault.
• Kill the guilty, or at least those found to be guilty, and don't give it a second thought.
• Don't support Planned Parenthood, despite the fact that contraception makes up for 35% of their services and abortions only 3%.
• It's okay to boo a member of the U.S. military.
• If you're unemployed and/or not rich, that's also your fault.
• If two Democrats play golf with two Republicans, they're the, uh, three? stooges.
• The Obama Administration, which has been hamstrung at every turn by a recalcitrant GOP that refuses, on some kind of bizarre principle, to vote in favor of anything he is in favor of, is a worse tragedy than the 9/11 attacks that killed 2,752 people.
• We need to take the country back, they say, from big business, except when it comes to accepting big checks from big bidness, then in that case not so much.
• Arab Spring protesters are fighting to overthrow oppressive dictators. Occupy Wall Street protesters are an angry mob, advocating anarchy and class warfare and are actually participating in "Obama demonstrations."
• Old, wealthy white people dressed like Benjamin Franklin and wearing teabags, holding misspelled signs and racist Photoshopped pictures of President Obama are patriots.
• Extraordinary rendition and enhanced interrogation techniques led to the capturing of Osama bin Laden. Except they didn't. It was FBI interrogators putting the pieces together. (The CIA in fact knew that the money man for the 9/11 attacks was in the country prior to the attack but didn't share that info with anybody.)
• AND, the occupy Wall Street protestors have no cause. In fact, those of us on the left understand completely what Bill'O the Clown and Rush "Me More Drugs" Limbaugh and their ick don't: the difference between the haves and the have nots in the this country has never been broader. 1% of the population controls a disproportionate amount of wealth, are taxed at an inordinately low rate and, perhaps most importantly, Wall Street firms and banks received billions in bailouts to survive after a series of actions, unfettered by regulation, almost broke the world economy. And then, as soon as they got our money, it was back to obscene bonuses and sitting on the money instead of making legitimate loans. My favorite quote from the idiocracy on the right: The pizza dude, admitting he didn't "have facts" to back up his accusation, nonetheless expressed his belief that Occupation Wall Street was “planned and orchestrated to distract from the failed policies of the Obama Administration."

Sometimes The Blogs Write You (With All Due Respect To Guy Clark)

In my Facebook posts, I like to occasionally point out the differences between us liberal Democrats and those guys. Last night, in Tampa, those guys flew off the rails, spewing some of the stupidest, most idiotic, wrong-headed comments that make this blog entry incredibly easy to write, that delineates the differences between us and them. THEY practically wrote it for me.
Exhibit A: Wackjob Congressman father of wackjob Senator Ron Paul showed us his true colors in an exchange with Wolf Blitzer addressing "socialized" medicine. When given the hypothetical case of a 30-year-old hard-working American who had chosen not to purchase health insurance who then becomes deathly ill, has his own self to blame and shouldn't expect the government to save him. The crowd yelled he should be allowed to die.
Exhibit B: Michele Bachmann, wife of a "therapist" who believes you can "pray away the gay," and accepts Medicaid while decrying the social safety net, told a lie about a fake conversation. She said a woman in Tampa told her that her daughter "developed mental retardation" after getting the HPV. According to the Centers for Disease Control, there has never been such a case.