Mitt Romney Claims To Be “Severely Conservative”
It’s like watching a robot self-destruct … David Frum opines on CNN:
Mitt Romney ended a very bad week with a pretty good weekend.
Tuesday, Romney lost two caucuses and a nonbinding primary to Rick Santorum. Saturday, Romney won the also nonbinding Maine caucuses and the straw poll at the Conservative Political Action Conference.
Four weeks from now, no one will remember the Maine caucuses. I’m guessing though that people will remember a phrase from Romney’s speech to CPAC on Friday, in which he described himself as a “severely conservative” governor of Massachusetts.
Rick Santorum Opposes Liberal Indoctrination … At College
That’s right, Rick Santorum thinks that if fewer people went to college and, instead, studied “Judeo-Christian ideology,” the U.S. would be a better place. From RawStory via Current:
Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum on Wednesday suggested that President Barack Obama wanted to every kid to go to college so they could be brainwashed into being a liberal.
Speaking to a crowd of Floridians at the First Baptist Church of Naples, Santorum said that churches and families were under “assault” by the president and liberals.
Low Intelligence & Conservative Beliefs Linked To Prejudice & Racism
It took a team of crack scientists to reach this shocking conclusion, reported at Live Science via Yahoo News:
There’s no gentle way to put it: People who give in to racism and prejudice may simply be dumb, according to a new study that is bound to stir public controversy.
The research finds that children with low intelligence are more likely to hold prejudiced attitudes as adults. These findings point to a vicious cycle, according to lead researcher Gordon Hodson, a psychologist at Brock University in Ontario.
Low-intelligence adults tend to gravitate toward socially conservative ideologies, the study found. Those ideologies, in turn, stress hierarchy and resistance to change, attitudes that can contribute to prejudice, Hodson wrote in an email to LiveScience.
“Prejudice is extremely complex and multifaceted, making it critical that any factors contributing to bias are uncovered and understood,” he said.
Controversy ahead
The findings combine three hot-button topics.“They’ve pulled off the trifecta of controversial…
Let’s Be Clear, Ron Paul Fucking Sucks. Here Are 20 Reasons Why
Before admirers of Representative Paul go crazy, I didn’t write this post (or the headline) and I don’t endorse it (neither does disinformation), but I am interested in your well argued debate as to whether or not the little red umbrella author is right about any (or all?) of his points:
Every single one of the candidates currently running for the Republican nomination is a walking disaster. But one of them, Texas congressman Ron Paul, seems to be getting a disturbing amount of support from liberals. Mostly that’s because his nut-job libertarian views happen to not sound so nutty on a handful of issues. He wants to end the War on Drugs. He is against the death penalty. He would not support a constitutional ban on gay marriage. He was opposed to the War in Iraq and wants to end all American military intervention abroad. All of that sounds pretty good to…
Arkansas Democrat’s Cat Gets Murdered Because He Is ‘LIBERAL’
From RawStory:
An Arkansas Democrat has a message for whomever killed his kids’ cat: “I’ve got a gun and I know how to use it.”
According to the Blue Arkansas blog, the campaign manager to Ken Aden, who’s running for the state’s third congressional district, came home last night to discover the family pet had been murdered and left on their front porch, as if the attacker wanted it to be discovered.
The feline’s skull was bashed in, and an ominous message was carved into its side: “LIBERAL.”
“If I have to protect my kids, I’ll do it without hesitation,” Aden campaign manager Jake Burris told Blue Arkansas.
The killing comes after a weekend of positive press for Aden, a former soldier running for Congress as a Democrat in one of the most conservative areas of Arkansas…
[continues at RawStory]
The Saga of Newt “Skywalker” Gingrich
I’m still waiting for Republican primary voters to get wind of all of Newt’s “big government” sci-fi ideas. Here’s a good history of them from Sharon Weinberger in Foreign Policy:
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, the surging candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, has been simultaneously lauded for his devotion to technological innovation, and ridiculed for his warnings about futuristic weapons.
Gingrich, who has dabbled in science fiction and cited both futurist Alvin Toffler and the concept of “psychohistory” in Isaac Asimov’s Foundation novels as intellectual inspirations, has long been dubbed “Newt Skywalker” thanks to his vision of future warfare that blends fact and fantasy. This streak of futurism is, by his own admission, rooted in a political and philosophical belief about technology and power. ”I would rather rely on engineers than diplomats for security,” Gingrich told Aviation Week & Space Technology magazine in 1994, in reference to his support for missile defense.
Not all his…
Rick Perry: A ‘Brokeback Mountain’ Fan? (Video)
We’ve all seen Rick Perry’s anti-gay campaign ad. Well, here’s the follow up:
And Now For Something Completely Different …
This is the latest political ad for the leading Republican candidate (according to polls) for the presidency of the United States of America:
Turn the Shame Around
From the Weekly Sift:
For the longest time I didn’t get Occupy Wall Street, but then Herman Cain helped me out: He said something so monumentally wrong that my reaction against it pointed me in the right direction.
Here’s Herman: Don’t blame Wall Street, don’t blame the big banks, if you don’t have a job and you’re not rich, blame yourself! … It is not someone’s fault if they succeeded, it is someone’s fault if they failed.
That’s when I got it. An unjust system’s first line of defense is shame. As long as we’re ashamed to admit that we’re victims, as long as we’re ashamed to identify with the other losers, we’re helpless.
It would be great to have a 10-point plan that solves everything. It would be great to have a party that endorses that plan and a get-out-the-vote movement to put that party into office. But none of that is…
Conservative Agent Provocateur Infiltrates Occupy Wall Street and Gets Pepper-Sprayed
Via The Week:
The Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., was shut down Saturday after a crowd of protesters showed up to voice their opposition to U.S. drone strikes. The march was organized by an antiwar group called October 11, but was quickly joined by some members of the Occupy Wall Street offshoot Occupy D.C. Ten or so protesters tried to force their way past security and were pepper-sprayed in return. One was Patrick Howley, an editor at the conservative magazine The American Spectator, who shoved his way into the museum even after being pepper-sprayed. “As far as anyone knew I was part of this cause — a cause that I had infiltrated the day before in order to mock and undermine [it] in the pages of The American Spectator,” Howley says in his (since-modified) article. Did he step beyond the bounds of journalism?
The Heartbreaking Right-Wing Version of ‘We Are the 99 Percent’
One would expect mocking of We Are The 53%, but in fact the site is “heartbreaking”, writes Gawker:
Did you know that if you are uninsured or jobless, you should just suck it up? That if you’re overworked or underemployed, you should be thankful? Learn all that—and more!—at “We Are the 53%,” the right wing’s incredibly depressing response to Occupy Wall Street!
We Are the 53%” was created thought up by CNN’s chief goat-fucking correspondent Erick Erickson as a response to “We Are the 99 Percent,” an Occupy Wall Street-affiliated blog that collects the stories of the underemployed, overworked, debt-ridden and uninsured victims of the recession. The blog, run by conservative filmmaker Mike Wilson, gets its name from the popular (and wildly simplistic!) Republican talking point that only 53 percent of households pay federal income taxes.
What makes “We Are the 53%” so heartbreaking isn’t that its contributors are enormous jerks—it’s that so…
Glenn Beck: Occupy Protesters ‘Will Come For You and Drag You Into the Streets and Kill You’
Monday:
God Helps Run The Economy?
Cathy Lynn Grossman reports in USA TODAY:
The way you see God tells a lot about how you see the U.S. economy, a new national survey finds. About one in five Americans combine a view of God as actively engaged in daily workings of the world with an economic conservative view that opposes government regulation and champions the free market as a matter of faith.
“They say the invisible hand of the free market is really God at work,” says sociologist Paul Froese, co-author of the Baylor Religion Survey, released today by Baylor University in Waco, Texas.
“They think the economy works because God wants it to work. It’s a new religious economic idealism,” with politicians “invoking God while chanting ‘less government,’” he says.
“When Rick Perry or Michele Bachmann say ‘God blesses us, God watches us, God helps us,’ religious conservatives get the shorthand. They see ‘government’ as a profane object — a…
Noam Chomsky: 2012 GOP Candidates Views are “Off the International Spectrum of Sane Behavior”
I think Professor Chomsky says it best…
Watch the full interview on Democracy Now!
Mama Grizzly Sarah Palin Mauled In New Tell-All Book
Larry McShane reports in the NY Daily News:
Sarah Palin bedding a budding NBA star, snorting coke and cheating on the First Dude? You betcha — or so claims a new deep-dish book on the former Alaska gov.
The scandalous details are revealed in the highly-anticipated tell-all The Rogue: Searching for The Real Sarah Palin,” written by best-selling author Joe McGinniss.
Palin bedded future pro hoops player Glen Rice while he was playing at the University of Michigan, the National Enquirer reports about the McGinniss book.
The sharp-shooting Rice — who spent one season with the Knicks — was playing in the annual “Great Alaska Shootout” while Palin was a sports reporter with Anchorage television station KTUU, the Enquirer said.
Their one-night stand over Thanksgiving weekend 1987 reportedly occurred in the dorm room of Palin’s kid sister at the University of Alaska Anchorage. Palin was described by a friend as the aggressor, with the pal reporting…
Homophobic Politician Gay Sex Scandal Tracker
Gay Homophobe provides the service of tracking the most recent gay sex scandal involving a prominent anti-gay politician — and the sometimes fascinating explanations offered. For the Christian Right, the site is kind of equivalent to those “days since our last tornado” signs which all old Wild West towns had. (Or which I imagine they had?) In conclusion: who knows when the latest tornado in someone’s pants will arrive.
Texas Governor Rick Perry Joins Presidential Race
Texas governor Rick “I-Have-A-Terrific-Haircut” Perry joins the race for the Republican nomination. Another conservative Christian candidate? What’s the difference between him and Michele Bachmann, aside from genitalia and Bachmann’s crazy-eyes? Arlette Saenz reports on ABC News:
After months of speculation and prodding by Republicans, Texas Governor Rick Perry has officially entered the 2012 race. His spokesman, Mark Miner confirmed that Perry is running for president.
Perry will deliver a speech at the RedState.com Gathering in Charleston, S.C. Saturday. The speech was originally billed as an address that would make clear his intentions regarding a run for the presidency, but now it has turned official.
The Texas Governor will swing through three key early states – South Carolina, New Hampshire and Iowa – this weekend. Following his speech in Charleston, he will meet with S.C. Republican officials before heading to a house party in Greenland, New Hampshire where he will meet with Granite State…
Mike Huckabee’s 9/11 Cartoon Movie
Curious how the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history will be taught to future generations? Here’s a clue via presidential candidate Huckabee, who’s hawking an educational 9/11 cartoon at $9.95 a pop. No mention of the two wars we entered into in the aftermath or even Osama bin Laden’s stated reason for the attacks (the presence of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia). Refinery29 writes:
There’s now a 9/11 cartoon movie courtesy of Mike Huckabee, co-founder of Learn Our History, a for-profit company whose mission is to get kids excited and educated about history. The first initiative, an animated DVD series, has flicks on subjects like the American Revolution, and, perhaps more tellingly, “The Reagan Revolution.” The September 11th cartoon really explains, according to the literature, “How the ongoing War on Terror protects Americans at home and American ideals abroad.”
