Because it has all become "The Onion." Really. We have people elected to Congress in this country whose intellectual powers don't compare favorably to those of the lower primates. I read about these things after they happen and they just stagger my ability to comprehend that so many of our elected officials are this...I can't even think of an adequate word. "Stupid" comes to mind but doesn't begin to cover it. People like Republican Sen. Tom Coburn are to "stupid" as...oh, I don't know...a Maserati is to a Chrysler K Car? Maseratis and K Cars are both, technically, cars, but the former is in an entirely different league. To put it mildly. There's stupid, and then there's Tom Coburn Stupid:
And in one comical if awkward exchange with Mr. Coburn, on whether Americans had a right to self-defense, Judge Sotomayor broke with her resistance to hypotheticals to invoke one, imagining an instance in which, threatened with imminent harm, she went home, got a gun and came back to shoot him.
“You’d have lots of ’splaining to do,” Mr. Coburn replied, borrowing Desi Arnaz’s frequent line in his portrayal of Ricky Ricardo, the Cuban-American bandleader on the old “I Love Lucy” television show.
Seriously. This actually happened on the floor of the U.S. Senate. Just shoot me.
I've always found it rather unsettling that the anonymity of the internet causes what would otherwise be normal discourse and debate into heated, hate-filled rhetoric that one would most likely never dare to say face to face for fear of physical assault.
With the ascent of our country's first African-American president after our sordid history of racism however, never has it struck me more that the progeny of the cowards who once wore hoods and robes are now trading them in for the 21st century version of their shameful furtiveness.
We've seen it bubbling up more and more. What may have started as a moron with a Curious George doll at a Palin campaign rally or the accusations of President Obama being a secret Muslim has escalated to deadlyviolence and frightening vitriol on conservative websites without the slightest hint of disgrace or remorse.
"A typical street whore." "A bunch of ghetto thugs." "Ghetto street trash." "Wonder when she will get her first abortion."
These are a small selection of some of the racially-charged comments posted to the conservative 'Free Republic' blog Thursday, aimed at U.S. President Barack Obama's 11-year-old daughter Malia after she was photographed wearing a t-shirt with a peace sign on the front.
The thread was accompanied by a photo of Michelle Obama speaking to Malia that featured the caption, "To entertain her daughter, Michelle Obama loves to make monkey sounds."
The cowardice to write such things while hiding behind a keyboard used as a hood and a username used as a robe is immeasurable. This isn't about disagreeing with the administration's policies. This isn't worrying about national security. This isn't about the threat of terrorism. This is hostility and disdain for an 11 year old girl purely based on the color of her skin. This is about the overt racism displayed at the President of the United States and his family.
And the bigotry doesn't stop at the faceless ones living under rocks. Now the ugly scars and boils filling in a Dorian Gray's portrait of the GOP are visible for all to see. Chip Saltsman, a candidate for chairman of the Republican National Committee, sent out CDs containing the song,"Barack the Magic Negro." South Carolina GOP activist Rusty DePass joked that an escaped gorilla from a local zoo was an "ancestor" of Michelle Obama.
Speaking of primates, let's not forget about the editorial cartoon depicting police officers shooting a monkey and lamenting that "they'll have to find someone else to write the stimulus bill." And most recently there's Audra Shay, a candidate to chair the Young Republicans National Federation, who "LOL"ed when a Facebook friend ranted that they had to "take this country back from all of these mad coons." Further review of her Facebook account and her poor attempts to scrub her page found more than a few racist and homophobic comments.
In October 2008, in the wake of news that an effigy of Sarah Palin was being hung outside an affluent Hollywood home as an offensive Halloween decoration, Shay replied, returning to the “LOL” style that she employed after the “coons” comment: “What no ‘Obama in a noose? Come on now, its just freedome [sic] of speech, no one in Atlanta would take that wrong! Lol.”
She picked up the thread again the next morning with a clarification and a new insight. “Apparently I could not spell last night. I am wondering if the guys with the Palin noose would care if we had a bunch of homosexuals in a noose.”
Apparently, this is the future of the Republican party, continuing to elect not only racists, but overt ones at that. While the anonymous "hooded" cowards of the Internet feel free to spew their intense hate of "the other" without fear of repercussion, their elected Grand Dragons and Imperial Wizards further marginalize the 21st Century Whigs.
Greenpeace activists scaled Mt. Rushmore today to issue a challenge to President Obama. "Our brave climbers rappelled down the face of Mt. Rushmore today to issue a challenge to President Obama: If he wants to get his face on this monument, he needs to be a true leader on global warming, not a politician," said one Greenpeace member.
As Major Garrett would say, "What took you so long?"
After nearly four hours of deliberation and multiple rounds of balloting, the South Carolina Republican Party voted Monday night tocensure Mark Sanford for secretly traveling overseas to visit his mistress — but stopped short of calling on the governor to resign.
We can't totally blame them. After all, if a schlub like Mark Sanford can get an Argentine hottie to play Evita & Juan then you gotta give him a little credit. So what if he called for the resignation of Bill Clinton when he was in the same situation? Obviously his mistake was that he didn't keep his shenanigans overseas.
So, a little slap on the wrist for a Governor who abandoned his state for almost a week with no information to his whereabouts in case of emergency. But hey, it's okay if you're aRepublican.
Los Angeles Police Chief William Bratton revealed this morning during a live radio interview that despite days of plans indicating otherwise, the coffin containing the body of the late King of Pop Michael Jackson will be taken from the earlier private funeral at Forest Lawn Hollywood Hills to the Staples Center, where it will be on stage during the memorial event.
Someone help me out here...they're going to have Jackson's coffin ON THE STAGE while the performers are, you know, performing? Singing and dancing around the body??
Minnesotans should be completely embarrassed having this moonbat represent their state. Michele "Armed and Dangerous" Bachmann's latest conspiracy theory involves the evil Barack Obama and the use of information in the upcoming 2010 Census.
Now the Census, for those that don't know, has been around since Thomas Jefferson in 1790. A Founding Father. But that doesn't matter to Bachmann. She's convinced these personal questions are an invasion of privacy and doesn't know what the evil government (the government she is a part of) would do with such vital information like her phone number. Because we all know it's impossible for the government to get that information unless provided by the customer. The telecom companies would never surrender than kind of vital info.
Well, Michele, the U. S. Constitution (Article I, Section II) requires that there be a census every ten years in order to apportion the seats in the House of Representatives among the states. That would be to assure idiots like Bachmann have a job. Census information is also used by federal, state and local governments to assess needs and allocate funding, by academics to study the changing population, by individuals to trace their genealogy, and for many other purposes.
Besides the fact that you are subject to prosecution if you refuse to answer census information and Bachmann insisting she will not comply with the census next year, the killer is this little nugget: she is upset that they ask for all this very personal information, but don't ask if you are an American citizen. Listen to the MENSA conversation between Bachmann and Sean Hannity.
Really? Is there no question in the US Census asking if you are an American citizen? Surely that has to be an oversight, and an egregious one at that. Could Bachmann be correct? ...Of course not.
Section 3: Page 18, Question 8
Of course, Bachmann also brings ACORN into the mix, just one of over 250 organizations used by the government in compiling information of over 300 million people. I always knew that some ultra-conservatives righties were nuts when they were in power, but now that they're out of power they are freaking out and coming out of the woodwork faster than the zombies in Night of the Living Dead.
Here's Stephen Colbert's take on the Census (Thanks to Annette for the video).
The unanimous 5-0 decision of the Minnesota Supreme Court declaring Franken the winner also contained language that politely stated the Republican Governor Tim Pawlenty should not hesitate to sign the certification of the election.
...Pawlentyhad indicated as late as Monday that he was willing to certify Mr. Franken as the winner once the state’s highest court decided the recount and Mr. Coleman’s battle. On CNN on Sunday, Mr. Pawlenty said: “I’m prepared to sign it as soon as they give the green light.”
A 5-0 unanimous decision sounds like a green light to me. Will Norm Coleman now do the right thing and not appeal to SCOTUS? I'm not so sure he's that smart.
UPDATE (4pm): Coleman concedes! Congratulates Al Franken as state's new Senator. Respects Minnesota Supreme Court's decision although does state he "also thought it was important to stand up for enfranchesing thousands of Minnesotans whose votes weren't counted like others' were."
I recently decided to make the best of the fact that it's been 60 degrees and raining here in Boston since, oh, April, by starting to read the "Twilight" saga. I figured that if the Northeast is slowly turning into the Pacific Northwest, climate-wise, I might as well find some appropriate reading material for the transformation. I didn't have high hopes for these books as far as the writing goes, and while they certainly ain't Jane Austen, they really do suck you in. As it were.
That's why I laughed so hard when I read this new Huff Post column by the always-awesome Vicki Iovine, author of the Girlfriends' Guide books on parenting. Iovine links her furtive middle-aged-mom addiction to the "Twilight" books with her annoyance over Mark Sanford, Eliot Spitzer, and their ilk, and it's pretty damn funny. Vampire or no, I'd take Edward Cullen over Mark Sanford any day.
