Alaska's lone congressman, Don Young, was forced to apologize for referring to Latino farm workers as 'wetbacks' during a recent interview. Photo by Dennis Zaki/AlaskaReport.com.

By Emily Theroux

“Stupid is as stupid does,” said Forrest Gump’s mother, who almost had it right. “Stupid is as stupid says” might be a more accurate watchword for the recent surge in wingnut imbecility.

Governor Bobby Jindal’s “Stupid Party” has been on a tear during the past few months, ever since losing the 2012 election caused widespread existential angst among the Freeperati. What should have been a time for sober introspection has devolved into a blabfest of ideological inanity, as Republicans try to one-up each other in some cosmic open-mic Battle of the Booboisie.

RNC Chairman Reince Priebus

You want stupid? I’ll give you stupid — “biologically stupid,” as RNC Chairman Reince Preibus* put it during an interview with Radio Iowa. “Listen, I don’t think our platform is the issue,” opined “R-r-r-r-r-r-reince” (as Rachel Maddow calls him, with an obligatory tongue roll). “I think a lot of times it’s some of these biologically stupid things that people say, you know, that I believe caused a lot of the problems.”

Yes, Freeper fans and foes, teabaggers like Todd “RapePublican” Akin say the dumbest things, to paraphrase the late Art Linkletter — and lose elections for it. I’m sure you have a few G(ullible) O(btuse) P(arty) favorites of your own.

Just humor me, and I’ll see your “asinine” and raise you two “moronics.” (“Mindlesses”? “Myopics”? “Whacko birds?” Never mind, as Emily Litella used to say. Andiamo!)

Texas Teddy’s ‘Cruzin’ for a bruisin’ ‘ by parroting the guv

Senator Ted Cruz of Texas

“Senator Ted Cruz isn’t going to let all the stupid in Texas belong to Gov. Rick Perry,” wrote Joan McCarter of Daily Kos, on the occasion of what she called “Dumb Pronouncements from Texas About Medicaid Day.” Good ol’ boy “N*****head Rick” got the ball rolling with the following April Fool’s Day bluster about expanding Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act:

“Texas will not be held hostage to the Obama administration’s attempt to force us into this fool’s errand.”

And how, exactly, will three years’ worth of free Medicaid funding hurt the state’s 2,036,000 uninsured adults — at 33 percent of the population, the highest rate of uninsured residents in the nation?

Allow Cruz the Crusader to explain:

“Our friends who are saying they want health care do not realize that expanding Medicaid will worsen health care options for the most vulnerable among us in Texas. … If you want state funds to provide for our prisons and law enforcement to incarcerate violent criminals and keep them off the streets, you should be glad we’re not signing up for this Medicaid expansion … because the pressure is going to crowd out just about every other priority in the budget.”

Oh, really, Senator Newbie? You forgot to mention that the very Medicaid expansion your team turned down would have significantly increased total spending in your state’s economy, as well as real gross product, personal income, and retail sales — and saved 2,938 lives in the bargain.

Gohmert leaps from guns to gay marriage to bestiality

Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert

Let’s hear it again for Texas, where Rep. Louie Gohmert had the huevos to compare limiting the number of rounds in a gun magazine to expanding the definition of marriage to include LGBT couples. “(W)hy would you draw the line at 10 (bullets — or one spouse)? And the problem is once you draw that limit, it’s kind of like marriage when you say, (if) it’s not a man and a woman any more, then why not have three men and one woman, or four women and one man, or why not somebody has a love for an animal?”

As the congressman noted when rejecting a hate crimes bill in 2009:

“If you’re oriented toward animals — bestiality — that’s not something that can be held against you … Which means you’d have to strike any laws against bestiality. If you’re oriented toward corpses, toward children — you know, there are all kinds of perversions — pedophiles or necrophiliacs or what most would say is perverse sexual orientations.”

Do tell. Sounds like a 14th-inning stretch, if you don’t mind mixing your bestiality metaphors with a little baseball.

Why not ‘marry gay’ to scam government benefits?

Sue Everhart (Photo by Marietta Daily Journal)

“You may be as straight as an arrow, and you may have a friend that is as straight as an arrow,” said Georgia GOP Chairwoman Sue Everhart.

“Say you had a great job with the government where you had this wonderful health plan. I mean, what would prohibit you from saying that you’re gay, and y’all get married and still live as separate, but you get all the benefits? I just see so much abuse in this it’s unreal. I believe a husband and a wife should be a man and a woman, the benefits should be for a man and a woman. There is no way that this is about equality. To me, it’s all about a free ride.”

Incredible! Why pretend you’re gay to “get all the benefits” of marriage? You can already score the same perks by getting hitched to someone of the opposite sex — you know, the time-honored “one man, one woman” route.

Religious rightie: ‘The gay’ behind N. Korean belligerence

Radio talker Rick Wiles

Right-wing radio haranguer Rick Wiles went all “Kim Jong-un” on marriage equality last week on his Trunews talk show.

“You know, at precisely the same time the Supreme Court is hearing these arguments on same-sex marriage, in Asia a crazy man in possession of nuclear weapons is openly saying: I have ordered our military to position our rockets on U.S. targets in Hawaii, Japan, Guam and the mainland of the United States. Could our slide into immorality be what is unleashing this madman over here in Asia to punish us? You got this happening over here and you got this happening over here: Could the two be connected?“

PFAW’s RightwingWatch.org has been all over this story, as well as the one about Wiles making his case to the fundies that the actor playing Satan on the History Channel’s The Bible series is a dead ringer for President Obama. “God guided the hand of the makeup artist and blinded the eyes of everybody on the movie set while it was being recorded” so no one would notice the resemblance — which just goes to show you, Wiles concludes, that “the man in the White House is a devil from hell.”

A month ago, Wiles sounded the tocsin to fellow Obamaphobes: “Let me remind the gay rights fanatics, North Korea plans to send a nuclear warhead our way. There’s a terrible price to pay for outright rebellion against the holy God of Israel, and your sins are going to get us all killed.”

As my friend Jim would say, “I’m sick and effin’ tired of being blamed for wars and natural disasters.”

‘And out of his mouth comes a-bubblin’ crude — Texas tea’

Texas Rep. Steve Stockman

They sure do make ’em witless in the Lone Star state! From freshman congressman Steve Stockman‘s Twitter feed gushed the following “Texas crude”:

“The best thing about the Earth is if you poke holes in it oil and gas come out.”

Later, Stockman topped off a string of snarky oil-themed tweets with this trenchant observation:

“Energy-rich oil propelled civilization into the 21st century. But liberals want to turn back the clock to inefficient Bronze Age wind power.”

These witticisms don’t seem so slick when you consider last weekend’s pipeline leak in suburban Mayflower, Arkansas. If enough of that “black gold” wells up out of the ground, from enough hidden pipelines, under enough subdivisions whose residents were never informed the pipelines were there, Stockman’s “civilization” is going to wind up blasted back to the Stone Age.

* * *

See more “fun Freeper facts” below:

• Ann Coulter links smoking and sodomy in bizarre rant to Geraldo

• Alaska congressman casually slings ethnic slur at migrant workers
  

• El Rushbo: Food stamps are taxpayer-scamming ‘buy-beer program’

• Fox: First Lady turns Easter Egg Roll into ‘fat camp’ to torture kids

* Reince Priebus, according to fallen Fox News pundit Dick Morris, will be featured in a new “outreach” ad targeting Latino voters. Priebus is expected to thank “those Latin Americans who’ve come to the United States to help us build our country, to help harvest our food, to help make our economy work (italics mine).” Forget “biological stupidity” — how about “ethnic stereotype stupidity”?

Ganado, Arizona

By Carrie Jacobson

I loved the West. I loved the huge sky, the open plains, the amazing rock formations. I loved the mountains, the sagebrush, the cacti, the amazing dawns and dusks. I loved the tiny little towns, the big exotic cities, the adobe houses and mammoth ranches.

I loved how sunny and warm it was, how wild, how unpredictable. One moment I would be driving up a hilly little road, and the next moment, I’d be at 9,000 feet, looking out at mountaintops and seeing snow trapped in the shady hollows of the woods.

I was born out there, in Arizona, very close to the landscape I’ve painted here. I loved seeing the place where I was born, even if I don’t remember it much.

This was a great trip, and I loved nearly every minute of it. The best part was also the most surprising part, painting with my dad, outdoors, twice. How fantastic and rich to find something new that we share, him at 84 and me at 56.

And now, I am home, and happy to be home. Happy to have seen the world and come back to the quiet and the calm of the Eastern Shore.

As beautiful as were all the places I saw during this trip, there was no place… well, no place like home.

To see more paintings from my trip, click here to check out my blog, The Accidental Artist.

By Michael Kaufman

Across the street from Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City, where my wife Eva-Lynne had surgery recently, a sign welcomes visitors to the George Washington Carver Houses, home to more than 2,800 residents, most of whom will never see the inside of Mount Sinai Hospital unless they work there. The same is true of the many other public housing projects that extend further north into East Harlem, also known as Spanish Harlem because the majority of residents in the neighborhood are Latino. This is not because the people who live in the projects are healthier than other people. They are just poorer.

When they get sick they go to Metropolitan Hospital, a public facility administered by the city’s Health and Hospital Corporation. The doctors, nurses and other members of the healthcare team at Metropolitan do their best — but it is often not nearly enough, as described by comments posted online by patients:

“I had the misfortune of having to go the ER and not know any better. Please don’t go to this hospital, even if it’s the closest one and your life is in danger. My boyfriend and I recently spent nearly 10 hours in the ER just WAITING to get my test results back. The room I was in had chipped tiles and paint peeling off of the walls. The bathroom I had to use was possibly the most unsanitary one I’ve seen. The bathrooms at Starbucks and McDonalds are more sanitary…. There wasn’t an emergency call button to push in case you needed a nurse. I was lucky enough to have my boyfriend with me to flag down a nurse when I needed oxygen, but even then, that took forever to get a response.”

“After a short time in the ER waiting room, I did have to wait a few hours on a bed behind a curtain to see an actual doctor…. A male nurse was exceptionally professional and drew my blood and hooked me up to an IV. A female intern was also professional and asked me what the problem was. The actual doctor who examined me was to the point, but also professional. There were horrific moans and cursing and occasional screaming from other patients in the emergency room (homeless, very poor, mentally ill), and I felt I was going nuts listening to all this. So I am in awe of the people who have to work there every day. I could not do it.”

“Not a bad place, when considering that this is one of the only major hospitals in the area after Mount Sinai. However, this hospital lacks so many basic amenities that other locations such as Bellevue have. It seemed to me last time I went that doctors were not aware of what is going on with patients and the nurses double as the receptionists.”

Across town at Mount Sinai the waiting room is crowded but comfortable and several receptionists are on hand to direct people to their destinations. A food court one flight downstairs sells sandwiches, salads, bakery items, juice, soft drinks and Starbucks coffee. While waiting to be admitted, patients may read a brochure for “Eleven West at Mount Sinai,” a section of the hospital reserved for the super rich, so exclusive that none of the hospital employees I asked could even tell me how much it cost to stay there. None of the nurses or aides who cared for Eva-Lynne during her stay had ever entered its hallowed halls. Reading the description made me wish I was a sick rich guy.

“A total of 19 rooms and suites makes up Eleven West, each with its own private bathroom.” A photo shows a huge room with fine furniture and two windows offering magnificent views. “Premium features” available to patients include “cuisine that matches top New York City dining.” (Eva-Lynne got some watery cream of wheat for breakfast. The night before when she asked for a second cup of yogurt they said they were all out.) If only she had stayed in Eleven West. There “each meal is memorable….thanks to a private kitchen that offers gourmet meals three times daily to patients and their guests.” Culinary-trained chef Juliet DaSilva-Inniss’ “signature selections” include Moroccan Spiced Rack of Lamb served with Jewel Couscous and Sauteed Seasonal Vegetables, and Wild Salmon Wrapped in Yukon Gold Potato Crust served with Oven Roated Asparagus and Mango Aioli.” Which do you think Donald Trump would order if he had to go in for, say, a hernia or maybe a hair-transplant procedure?

Eva-Lynne really would have liked a couple of the other premium features too, especially the ”reverse sateen, 300-thread count bed linens” and complimentary monogrammed white robe“ upon admission.” She got scratchy sheets and the same unflattering green hospital gown that Jack Nicholson memorably wore in As Good As it Gets.  (If you didn’t see the movie, let’s just say that buns of steel he didn’t have.) She would also have enjoyed the “daily afternoon tea in the sitting room.” I can just hear her asking if they have chamomile and would they mind bringing some honey to go with it.

Maybe she would even have liked having a “private television with cable service.” We tried to get the one in her room to work so we could watch the current Korean drama, Love, My Love, but we couldn’t figure out how to put the order in. You had to use both the telephone in the room and the remote control of the TV to make the $10 payment. When one of the nurses saw us struggling she tried to help but after about 10 minutes of futility she gave up. “They changed the system,” she said. “It used to be much easier.” We didn’t mind that much because we had the DVR set to record that night’s episode and we watched it after we got home. (Yunsik still didn’t want Seunghi to marry Dongyeong for reasons too complicated to go into here. But one thing is for sure: No way is she going to end up with Taebeom!)

We didn’t get any “complimentary Belgian chocolates upon discharge,” either. We got a parking ticket. And we are still a whole lot better off than the people who have to go to Metropolitan Hospital for treatment.

Michael can be reached at michael@zesoforange.com.

Is it beef, or what?

By Bob Gaydos

The horse-meat-in-ground-beef scandal that broke in Europe at the beginning of the year has spawned numerous investigations there as well as a booming business for food-testing companies. But it has thus far not crossed the pond to the United States.

Or has it?

Americans are famous, even notorious, for thinking that the oceans and our inflated sense of entitlement and superiority, protect us from many of the major ills that plague the rest of the world. We don’t eat horses, we say; we don’t slaughter horses, we say. Therefore, we say, there’s no danger that horse meat has been mixed into some of our hamburger meat.

It’s a comfortable way to look at things, if not an entirely realistic one. And this American, for one, had his comfort level shaken recently on reading a headline that asked, “Is the mob involved in horse meat scandal.”

Duh. Of course “the mob,” however one defines it, on whatever continent one chooses, is involved in the horse meat scandal. If there is money to be made by cheating, lying or stealing from others, “the mob,” in all its forms will be involved. And this crime has the advantage of being non-violent. All it takes is some people willing to go along, for a price or a threat, with the scheme. Plus, we’re talking about doctoring ground beef, for Pete’s sake. Everyone eats it and no one suspects it.

Until now.

And it’s not just the possible mob connection that has raised more suspicions that the scandal is going to get a lot bigger. Last week, in London, where the horse meat scandal is in full bloom, samples of curries and kebabs from six food outlets were tested by scientists hired by the BBC. The scientists found one burger contained no beef, save for blood and heart. One curry sample did contain meat but, a BBC spokesperson said, “that meat was not lamb, not pork, nor was it chicken or beef. Not horse. and not goat either.” The London Daily Mail wondered if it could be dog meat, noting that dog meat had been found in samples of pet food in Spain.

The horse meat scandal has spread from a meat-cutting plant in Wales to the entire British Isles, as horse meat from Poland has turned up in beef at Burger King and Tesco, as well as in major supermarkets and brand name processed foods, including Birds Eye. Brits have no delusions anymore about their food being what it says on the label. Nor do Swedes, since horse meat was found in the furniture giant’s Swedish meatballs.

There’s more. And far from London. In South Africa, a team of university scientists, curious because of the European scandal, found traces of human tissue in beef samples meant for human consumption in nine provinces across the nation. According to research.com, the scientists said there was “no threat” in eating the samples, which one scientist speculated could have been from a worker cutting himself or picking his nose at a meat-processing plant. Yumm. (Or, connecting some other dots, what a convenient way to get rid of a troublemaker.)

The South African scientists also reported that nearly half of the “game” samples they tested were, in fact, beef, and that ostrich sausages, a local treat, were found to contain pork and even kangaroo meat. The scientists were not concerned about the obvious intentional mislabeling.

Meanwhile, back in the good old USA, where we don’t slaughter horses, the governor of Oklahoma just signed a bill authorizing the slaughtering of horses. Similar efforts are being made in New Mexico, Washington and elsewhere. Oklahomans by a wide margin opposed the bill, but legislators paid them no mind. They justified the bill by noting that the horses slaughtered could not be sold for human consumption in the United States.

Really? There are no inspectors or food-processing executives willing to take bribes? Horses from this country have been sold to slaughterhouses in Canada and Mexico. Shipments from those countries cannot legally be sold to American firms, but they do pass through a port in Texas on the way elsewhere. Seems I’ve heard a rumor about “the mob” having some kind of influence on the docks.

Still not worried? What’s wrong with a little horse meat in my burger? you ask. Obviously the moral argument about Americans not eating animals who are pets, companions or sporting teammates doesn’t sway you. How about the possibility that the horse meat may be tainted with medications widely used on horses in the United States, including phenylbutazone (bute), a pain reliever which is a known carcinogen for humans.

These drugs cannot be administered to horses raised for food in the U.S. (which is none), but the horse slaughter lobbyists are angling to buy and slaughter the large supply of wild mustangs that have been rounded up as well as former race horses, rodeo horses and personal steeds without a home. Those horses have all likely been medicated and there is not likely to be anyone checking each horse for drugs at a slaughterhouse, where speed is a priority.

I’ll toss in the fact that it’s tough enough to know what’s in genuine ground beef, since it comes from many sources and I will resist the temptation to mention that some Americans suspect that, like in Spain, shelter dogs — and cats — may be winding up in pet food in this country. One step removed.

It is a fetid stew and very profitable for a select few. Perhaps Americans will someday get around to caring about their food labels being reliable and factual. Or maybe start shopping with an eye to wanting to know what they’re eating. But it sure would also be reassuring if someone in a position of authority started testing this system and putting checks in place to serve as a backup to that big ocean in which we place so much trust.

 bob@zestoforange.com

By Jeffrey Page

The Supreme Court, in its questioning during the challenge to California’s anti-gay marriage measure, hinted that now’s not the time. Not the time for equality? What are decent people, on the right and left, supposed to make of this?

It’s like telling a man in the emergency room that now’s not the time to work on what appears to be a heart attack. It’s like telling a woman with a hungry baby that now’s not the time to offer a bottle of formula.

And of course then comes that bothersome question – if not now, when?

Question 1: How often will America tolerate gutless politicians and judges who offer the old do-nothing response of “The time is not right,” or “Wait a while longer,” or “Put your feeble interpretation of ‘equal rights’ on hold?”

Question 2: Precisely how long are people supposed to wait for the rights and privileges afforded to everyone else?

Progress often is difficult, but because it is necessary to a free society, it must be pursued with courage and vigor. It can’t be placed on a back burner, and the people who seek such progress can’t be shunted aside as mere inconveniences.

Which is not to say that crusades are easily won, because generally speaking, the Americans most in need of change have not been straight white men – the class that runs things. They generally do not need redress on such matters as equal rights, and as a result often block the progress sought by others.

The time may be wrong for gay marriage?

When it comes to recognizing that all people must have identical rights or else the great experiment fails, America seems to move at molasses speed. For example, it took 131 years since the founding for our politicians to get around to an understanding that women are citizens, too, and therefore must be allowed to vote.

It took 176 years until we could pass a Voting Rights Act (and some people are trying now to un-do it), 76 years to outlaw slavery, 79 years to grant citizenship to all who were born here or naturalized here, 81 years to allow all citizens (but not women; their right would come 50 years later) to vote.

Clearly, what progress needs is some valorous people to stand up to the forces of darkness, valor such as displayed by one of my favorite heroes, Joseph Welch, a little known Boston attorney. In 1954, Welch looked Joe McCarthy in the eye and said, in a different context, “Senator, you’ve done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?”

And that was the beginning of the end of the McCarthy reign of terror. I believe Joseph Welch had more courage than the 531 members of Congress in total.

To end the sanctioned bigotry against gay people who insist on having the same rights as the rest of the population, it will take more judges and more politicians who refuse to duck out of a showdown with evil with the excuse “now’s not the time.”

In fact, to grant to all Americans the rights that most now enjoy, there has never been a better time than right now.