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.

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 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

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?

“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

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’

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”?

 

By Jean Webster

It’s official. Same-sex marriage is legal in the state of Maine, but may face a challenge.

Just four weeks after a majority of Mainers – 54 percent, in fact – voted in favor of same-sex marriage, the referendum has been certified by Governor Paul LePage. Gay couples in Maine can set their wedding dates, though they must wait until the end of the month, when the law goes into effect.

Maine joins eight other states – Connecticut, Iowa, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Vermont, Washington and the District of Columbia – in agreeing that gay people have the right to marry. But Maine went one better. It is the first state to approve gay marriage by popular vote. Gay rights activists call it an important step forward.

Prospective couples are rejoicing over the vote and the governor’s swift signing it into law. However, there is still a strong movement in Maine – and throughout the country – to overturn these rights by giving opponents of gay marriage another chance at the ballot box.

For years, many Mainers have supported the rights of gays and lesbians, including their right to marry. In fact, in May of 2009, Governor John Baldacci signed a bill in favor of gay marriage that came through legislative approval. At the same time, the opposition rallied enough signatures to put a referendum on the 2009 ballot, and gay marriage was rejected by voters in a “people’s veto.” If not for that referendum, Maine would have been the first state to legalize same sex marriage through legislative process and a governor’s signature.

That referendum was brought about, and eventually succeeded, through the work of the National Organization for Marriage, the leading opposition group to gay marriage in the United States, along with various religious and family watch groups. Funds in the millions of dollars came into the state from near and far to support the veto resolution.

And, NOM is already rallying its troops to overturn this year’s vote, just as it did in 2009.

According to Justin Alfond, Portland’s State Senator, there is nothing to stop these groups from doing it again. The law does not restrict what can be put to a vote. But Alfond admits it would be more difficult for NOM this time.

“Taking away rights is a much bigger chore than maintaining the status quo,” he said. Also, if the anti-gay marriage groups hope to get on the next ballot, they’d have to collect more than 57,000 names by Jan. 24, 2013.

There is no doubt in my mind that the foes of same-sex marriage are already gathering funds and signatures to get this new law annulled. The cry through much of the country is that marriage should be between a man and a woman, as it states in the Bible. Opponents of gay marriage have come to call heterosexual marriage “a building block of society.”

These opponents say they aren’t attacking the gay lifestyle. They just want to preserve traditional marriage. (If the divorce rate teaches us anything, it is that traditional marriage is pretty shaky.)

Others believe that the marriage of two men or two women endangers the marriages of the rest of us. (I haven’t figured that one out yet.)

Throughout the campaign the hue and cry in television ads claimed that gay teachers would teach their students about the gay and lesbian lifestyle.

In spite of the slim possibility that the new law could be rejected, gay couples are already seeking wedding locations so they can plan their weddings as soon as the new law takes effect, on Dec. 29. Because that’s a Saturday, some towns are considering whether to keep their municipal buildings open to accommodate gay couples.

Portland Mayor Michael Brennan would like his city to hold the first same-sex ceremony, but he says that whenever it happens “I want to be there.”

By Emily Theroux

Everyone’s carping about it on cable, retweeting it on Twitter, and regurgitating it on talk radio’s endless propaganda loop.

Is the Republican Party really undergoing a post-election “makeover”?

Will Southern-state “secession” incite spiritual intercession? Is “Grover over”? Will Mitch pull the switch on the filibuster? Can Cantor cease his banter over tax cuts? Will Jan call a ban on Arizona’s “papers capers”?

And will John McCain ever shut his cantankerous piehole about Susan Rice — and admit that the Vietnam War has been over for almost 38 years, the 2008 presidential campaign’s in the history books, and it’s way past time for him to retire from politics and join his fellow “ancient mariners” at the local VFW post, where he can park himself in a porch rocker and swaddle his voluminous bitterness, antipathy, and rancor in well-deserved oblivion.

Immediately after the election, Republicans seemed genuinely chastened by the expressed will of the people — at least the ones who would own up to it. But their policy prescriptions weren’t a lot more generous than I would have expected, incorrigible cynic that I am.

“Republicans must start over again,” declared George Will — with “a more likable candidate.” Charles Krauthammer ventured that “a single policy change” should fix what ails the Republican Party: Extending an olive branch to Latinos on immigration policy. “Border fence plus amnesty. Yes, amnesty. Use the word. Shock and awe — full legal normalization (just short of citizenship) in return for full border enforcement.”

Along came Louisiana Gov. Bobby”Jindal, shilling at warp speed. “Kenneth the Page,” who’s got his eye clearly affixed on his 2016 chances, told Politico the GOP “should stop being the stupid party.” Extremists within the ranks had made far too many “offensive, bizarre comments,” said Jindal. “We’ve also had enough of this dumbed-down conservatism,” he added. “We need to stop being simplistic, we need to trust the intelligence of the American people, and we need to stop insulting the intelligence of the voters.”

Then former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour had to go and dump the party poohbahs back into the deep end of the latrine, declaring before the Republican Governors Association that the GOP’s “political organizational activity” needed “a very serious proctology exam.” (You’d think Watergate would have taught these good old boys never to excuse “organizational” flaws by blaming them on the plumbing.)

Even Rush Limbaugh was initially contrite (before lurching immediately afterward into a racist diatribe about “getting stuff,” redistribution of wealth, and what he called the lack of “a work ethic” among Obama voters). “This should have been a slam dunk,” Rush said, the day after Mitt Romney’s loss stunned a party that had convinced itself that Romney would win in a landslide. “But it wasn’t. There are reasons why. We’re gonna have to dig deep to find them, and we’re gonna have to be honest with ourselves when we find the answers to this.”

 

Rachel isn’t buying the ‘course correction’ crapola, either

If El Rushbo snorkeled back up from the depths of the sewer with answers of any kind, he hasn’t been letting on lately. For that matter, neither have many voices that aren’t quite as far right as he is on the wacko spectrum. And if you think about it, why didn’t Jindal, Barbour, Rupert Murdoch, Sean Hannity, or Erick Erickson experience their “epiphanies” on inclusiveness before Mitt Romney ran for the presidency and lost the brass ring for them?

Rachel Maddow says only the Beltway bobbleheads think the Republican Party has “learned its lesson” and is now genuinely following the pathway to reform.

“You know, it’s funny. If you listen to the Beltway talk about what’s going on in American politics right now, the major narrative … is about the sort of ‘course correction’ happening in the Republican Party, right? The Republican Party has ‘learned its lesson.’

“If only in the interest of self-preservation, Republicans are right
now giving up on these policy stances that cost them so much in the last election, that made their party seem essentially pre-modern — all of this stuff that alienated women and young people, and non-white people and gay people. I mean, if you listen to the Beltway media, the Republican course correction on this problem — post-election, a course correction is totally under way.”

But what are Indiana state legislators focusing on, now that they’ve “taken the proverbial post-election cold shower” that Maddow says a political party usually endures after it gets “shellacked” the way the GOP did on Nov. 6? Only three weeks after a stinging electoral rebuke of its culturally extreme Senate candidate, Richard Mourdock, the Hoosier State GOP resolved that “what they really need to do is doubly, triply, extra ban gay marriage,” she observed.

Never mind that same-sex marriage is already illegal in Indiana. The party has proposed a constitutional ban on gay marriage and civil unions — an amendment that may affect more than 600 existing provisions of the Indiana code, which currently grant numerous connubial rights and conflict-of-interest protections to unmarried, opposite-gender couples.

 

Will GOP mutineers really ditch Norquist’s sacred pledge?

“Mutiny! Dissension in the ranks! A break in vows to the almighty Norquist!” wrote Jena McGregor earlier this week in The Washington Post.

Four GOP stalwarts — Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Rep. Peter King of New York, Sen. Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, and Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee — stepped up over the weekend to declare that they aren’t afraid of Big Bad Grover and his hallowed Taxpayer Protection Pledge, a document he has brandished over the heads of elected Republicans since founding Americans for Tax Reform in 1986. The apostates say they’re willing to consider scuttling the pledge (whose signatories vow never to raise taxes, eliminate tax cuts, or even increase revenues) in order to reach a deal that would reform “entitlements” (at this point, defined as Medicare and Medicaid) and forestall the much-ballyhooed “fiscal cliff.”

Grover, who “dabbles in stand-up comedy,” isn’t laughing now, however, as more and more defectors swell the ranks of tax-policy renegades — even though he felt it necessary to point out that nobody has violated the pledge by actually voting for a tax increase. (Norquist studiously avoided uttering the word yet.) “We’ve got some people discussing impure thoughts on national television,” Norquist sniffed dismissively on CNN.

Will these trash-talking, inveterate obstructionists really deliver on their braggadocio about abandoning “self-deportation,” ditching the permanent 1 percent tax cut, and stooping to compromise with “the Democrat Party”?

I’m afraid I’ll believe that the day Mitch McConnell cashes in his chips and shuffles off to his old Kentucky home, and he doesn’t show signs of capitulating any time soon. Likewise with John Boehner — although I think he actually intends to follow through on his post-election concessions at the moments when he issues them. Things get prickly, though, when he returns to Congress to face those Tea Party dead-enders, who I’m almost certain give him ultimatums instead of the other way around.

This pack of “old, angry white guys” realizes that the GOP can’t win without the support of America’s fastest-growing demographic — but anyone who wants to give the Republicans  a second chance on immigration should beware their duplicity. (Please note that none of them is extending this sudden pro-Latino magnanimity to African-Americans.)

Right-wingers like Krauthammer and Hannity, who view amnesty for undocumented immigrants as both a palatable half-measure and “a Latino-winning electoral silver bullet,” in the words of conservative New York Times columnist Ross Douthat, think they can sweep the 2016 election by “embrac(ing) amnesty and nominat(ing) Marco Rubio.”

Here’s the new, “reformed” GOP program thus far, in a nutshell: “Repeal and replace” the racially divisive talking points — and try to be a little more subtle about  ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, class inequality, and religious tolerance. (Don’t be so strident on issues like food stamps, “unwed” mothers, welfare cheats, speaking English, lesbian TV hosts, lapel flags, rap music, and birth certificates.)

Strive whenever possible to sound more engaged, charitable, affirming, and humane. Speak the language of empathy. Persuade Latinos and women how much you truly care about and champion their concerns; pretend that you, like Romney said of Obama, want to lavish them with “gifts.” Make your words as syrupy and ingratiating as you can stomach, and you just might find that Dubya’s old “compassionate conservative” ploy will work for you, too.

If the GOP actually learned anything from the defeat of Willard Romney, it wasn’t how to “listen better” to the hopes and dreams of ordinary people. It was how to tell an ever-more-convincing lie.

 By Bob Gaydos

I venture with trepidation into the middle of a looming showdown of potentially historic magnitude. The trepidation is because the confrontation is of a religious nature and Americans have proven themselves incapable of conducting civil debate in this area. But my concern is not so much about the religious outcome of the showdown as it is with its more basic, universal, nature, if you will.

As I see it, the nuns of America versus the bishops of the Roman Catholic Church is a classic example of a group of women, given an opportunity to do and be more than silent, obedient servants within their institution, taking advantage of that opportunity and then being chastised and warned by the men who run the institution to, in effect, pipe down and remember their place.

Next week, American nuns will meet in St. Louis to discuss how to respond to a heavy-handed Vatican report that questioned the nuns’ loyalty to the church — a very male thing to do. The Vatican has appointed three bishops to oversee the restructuring of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, an organization that represents 80 percent of Catholic women’s religious orders in the United States. The Vatican has made it clear that this will not be an all-voices-heard, collegial makeover, but rather “an invitation to obedience.”

The LCWR has drawn the ire of the entirely male hierarchy of the church by taking to heart an invitation issued with Vatican II to study the founding of their orders, review and discuss their missions and renew them. Vatican II, issued almost a half century ago and intended to bring the church into the modern world, also gave nuns unprecedented opportunities for higher education and advancement in the Catholic hierarchy in many areas, except for the priesthood, of course. The nuns seized the opportunity and over time became influential in many areas as heads of colleges and high schools, hospital administrators, lawyers and social workers, outspoken advocates for immigrants and the poor and activists for racial equality and protecting the environment.

This is, of course, the stuff of the modern world. So are same sex marriage, birth control and women’s rights. The nuns have discussed — but taken no official stand — on ordination for women as priests, abortion, artificial contraception and gay marriage. But to the bishops, the mere discussion of these issues — all  opposed by the Church —  is described as disloyalty to the teachings of the Church. That traditionally means case closed. Even though 95 percent of catholic women say they have used artificial contraception at some time and a majority of Catholics support same-sex marriage and any honest man or women you talk to readily agrees that if women were priests –and monsignors and bishops — there would have been no worldwide scandal of Catholic priests sexually molesting young boys.

The nuns have been given an ultimatum from the holy fathers who claim provenance over the teachings of the church. It is not clear what the Vatican will do if the nuns refuse to simply bow and return to silently serving their self-proclaimed masters. Is there such a thing as “replacement nuns”?

There are marches and vigils planned in support of the nuns. The Leadership Conference is considering a range of responses to the Vatican. Sister Pat Farrell, the president of the conference, told the New York Times that while the nuns see their questioning as faithfulness, it is seen by the Vatican as defiance. “We have a differing perspective on obedience,” she said. “Our understanding is that we need to continue to respond to the signs of the times, and the new questions and issues that arise in the complexities of modern life are not something we see as a threat.”

But clearly the bishops do. The Church has been run the way they have decreed for centuries. Now, some women (radical feminists?) want to change everything and, dare we say, maybe take some of the power? The bishops deny this. Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, the papal nuncio to the United States, told American bishops at a meeting in Atlanta, “We all know that the fundamental tactic of the enemy is to show a church divided.” I’m not sure to what “enemy” the archbishop was referring (another typical male tactic), but the voices of questioning here are coming from within the Church.

If I may venture ever so slightly into religion here, I believe a central teaching of most religions is to exhibit a degree of humility in one’s life. Let’s just say the nuns have done this for centuries. Let us also point out that in this fast-moving modern world there are far fewer nuns than there used to be and they are getting older.

History says the bishops will not blink. But history is written every day and often by intelligent, dedicated, passionate women. Who says they can’t be nuns?

 bob@zestoforange.com