On Wisconsin.

Wisconsin is embroiled in some of the most shameful politically-driven attacks on the working class of America that this country has ever seen. Republicans, through their public and private statements, have shown that they only care about one thing: ensuring that the middle class is destroyed through the redistribution of wealth to benefit the rich. The Democrats, hardly the historic champions of honesty and virtue, have shown that if they're given enough public support they can indeed grow a spine. And Republicans have the gall to call these protests shameful.

There is only one thing that is shameful in this whole mess, and that's the revocation of workers' rights... workers' rights that were born in this state and for which people fought and died in this state at the beginning of the 20th century... not so very long ago. This is what it looks like when Democrats grow a spine, and it's about time someone fought vigorously for someone who didn't donate a million dollars to this politician or that. After what happened in the "debates" over health care reform, are we to take seriously these faux concerns from Republicans about civil discourse? Really? They don't get to complain about that ever again.

The senators who are in Illinois right now are doing exactly the right thing, and should be commended for protecting the rights of people who can't afford to open lobbying offices in Madison (as the Koch brothers did today). Having a simple majority does not mean that that majority should be able to strip rights away from the minority. Isn't that what we talk about all the time with respect to GLBT issues? Why wouldn't we feel the same way when it comes to the rights of workers to bargain collectively for benefits and working conditions?

I am not a union member, but I also know that unions exist for very good reasons... before they existed, employers (including the government) exploited their workers shamefully. Without public employee unions, what's to stop this or future governors from stripping employees of their pensions? Or cutting off all health benefits? Or legislating a 75% wage cut? Seriously, what's left to stop them, if not the political and financial muscle of the unions? This is quite clearly the direction that the right wing in this country is heading... elimination of dissent by cutting off the funding sources. (Thanks to the Citizens United case, Republican funding has never been more vigorous.)

I said it before and I'll say it again...

Ignore Wisconsin at your peril.

Separated at Birth?

Here we have Kristen Wiig as the "special" fourth singing sister on SNL's parody of the Lawrence Welk Show.






And here we have Meg Whitman, Republican gubernatorial hopeful in California, who called a press conference and then proceeded to refuse to answer questions, block cameras, and escort the press out of the room.




Coincidence? I think not.

Victoria Jackson is a deranged twat.

The former SNL cast member Victoria Jackson is seen here spouting off about Obama. She isn't funny, was never funny, and has clearly lost her mind. And she's gotten fat.

I love that she called Obama a communist? Because Karl Marx wrote the Communist Manifesto? And she's read 1984 by George Orwell twice? And the liberals control the media? Except for Fox News? And she's one of those people who phrase every statement like a question? You know? Because it makes you sound so smart and all?

If anything illustrates the intellectual poverty of American political discourse, this is it.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T.

Pathetic. Utterly pathetic.

Republicans have been so terribly devoid of any substantive and relevant ideas for so long that they are now lashing out through childish, boorish, destructive behavior. What happened to the educated, serious, respectable conservatives? There is a place for these voices in government. Where are they? Why have they allowed their party to devolve into a vomitous mass of lying, histrionic, paranoid mouthbreathers who wouldn't be able to distinguish a college classroom from a Steak N Shake? Lincoln would be horrified.

Even during the height of the war crime-laden administration of Bush fils, Democratic officials never shouted him down during a speech to Congress, and never sat there texting or tweeting on their Crackberries during a televised national speech. Bush's policies certainly deserved more condemnation than they got, but there was always a level of respect for the office. It says something that's quite damning about the character of the current officeholders in the Republican party that they can't seem to pull it together any better than this.

I will re-post a prayer written by "Another Steve", a commenter on Joe.My.God:

A prayer commissioned for Representative Wilson, from The Book of Daggers.

***

O Heavenly Substitute for Personal Responsibility, why did you send us a black man as President? Why must we be subjected to the proper conjugation of verbs by a Head of State? O Imaginary One, send us a tittie queen to lead us back to the random placement of words in sentences. Make her lips large and firm so that, as it was prophesized in days of old, "Thy homeschoolers will tug on their crotches and go to the polls, that thy minions shall once again reign throughout the land."

***

We ask this in the name of The Flying Drano Monster, who makes all things tax-exempt. Amen.

On what planet do you spend most of your time?

Three cheers for Barney Frank. Finally someone speaks truth to the lunacy that has gripped approximately 20% of Americans. I'm usually one who thinks that divergent opinions should be given due consideration, but some people are so clearly deranged and deluded that they really can't legitimately make the claim that their statements should be given equal merit.

Baa-baa brownshirts, have you any shame?

The term "brownshirts" refers to members of the Sturmabteilung ("assault division") who were very useful in Germany during the early rise of the Nazi party. These men were recruited from the tougher corners of German society and were prominent participants in organized marches and rallies. Their whole purpose was to use violence and intimidation against political opponents and Jews. Their leader in the early 1930s, Ernst Röhm, saw the Brownshirts as having the potential for equal influence with the German army and the Party.

No, I don't think that conservatives or Republicans (if one can distinguish between the two anymore) are equivalent to Nazis. However, when watching the clip above, as well as similar clips from other places in the country, one can't help but make the comparison. These disruptions have been shown to be intentional actions directed by right wing political groups rather than organic populist uprisings. The participants, almost all of whom appear to be aging white people, have been identified as Republican operatives in a number of cases.

Isn't this how the Brownshirts worked? Stifling reasoned political discourse with the threat or violence and/or revenge?

We need to be very careful, and watch these people and organizations like a hawk. Don't ever underestimate the gullibility and fearmongering capacity of certain elements of the American public.

Birther spokescunt Orly Taitz implodes again

Dr. Orly Taitz, dentist and quasi-attorney, is the spokescunt for the birthers. The birthers are the right wing freaks who claim that Barack Obama is illegitimate because he was born in Kenya and not the United States. These people believe this preposterous lie despite having been provided with Obama's birth certificate from Hawaii. They have even gone so far as to fabricate Kenyan birth certificates... not realizing of course that the Republic of Kenya didn't exist until December 1964... ten months after Obama's birthday. Oops. But then again, no one ever accused the birthers of being a bunch of Rhodes scholars. It should be mentioned that Taint... er... Taitz... is Russian. Interesting, no? It has also been mentioned that she was admitted to the California bar after completing an online training program through William Howart Taft University, an unaccredited distance learning school. She is not a member of the American Bar Association, and the "degree" she received through Taft allows her, at best, to practice only in the state of California.

The clip above shows the sheer lunacy of what the Republican party has become. It's sad, really, that the party of Lincoln has aligned itself so closely with people who are clearly unbalanced.

Finally, I think the pictures above show that even Crazy Britney© looked better in that nasty Eva Gabor wig than Ms. Taint. Taitz. Whatever.

I can just imagine the beginnings of the birther movement. Picture it, November 2008, the Taint living room:

"Oh my God. We did NOT just elect a Schwartzer to the White House. That just can't be true! No! I'm going to put my head in the oven right now! But wait... waitaminute... maybe he's not really an American... that's right, that's the ticket... ohmygod... it has to be true... he was born in deepest darkest Africa and not in Hawaii... ohmygodohmygodohmygod..."

Ladies and gentlemen, Republican activist Mrs. Shirley Nagel.

The video below shows a former student of Nagel's describing what it was like to be in her 9th grade english class. These incidents allegedly occurred before she was fired, of course.

Check out Nagel at 4:17 on the video below, drunk off her ass at the Republican National Convention.

I bet the Republicans wish they could claim that people were "digging up" all kinds of obscure embarrassing supporters like Mrs. Nagel. Tragically, they know as well as I do that these people are not that exceptional. They are absolutely characteristic of right-wing Republicans. Does the Republican party really want people like this as their "base"? If I were Republican, I'd campaign hard over the next 4 years to ensure that the "base" next time around is made up of reasonable, fiscally conservative, socially progressive people rather than the backwoods, mean-spirited, racist, xenophobic, homophobic, jingoistic, cognitively impaired, politically myopic bottom-dwellers that have been the hallmark of Republican politics since Ronald Reagan and the religious conservatives hijacked the party back in 1980. Fair-minded Republicans out there: Take back your party!

Nice.

Yes, it's real. And yes, it's the very dangerous outcome of right-wing political activism. The Republican party must extricate itself from the longstanding stranglehold by the batshit crazy religious zealots, or face a long, increasingly swift slide into irrelevance. We need conservative voices in our government sometimes. We just need them to be sane.

How I long for conservatives with whom I disagree but whom I can still respect. I miss them. Are they still out there?

B is for batshit crazy. That's good enough for me.

My first clue that this was a hoax was the fact that the letter "B" was carved into her face backwards (as though it were done in a mirror), and that the cuts were not deep enough to cause permanent scarring. Of course, the "scary black man" aspect of the report was enough to make me throw up.

Go to Joe.My.God. and check out the horrible Freeper comments... they'll do or say anything to link this to some horrible Obama conspiracy rather than admit that this was just a plain old hoax from a very troubled young woman. Or maybe it was because she was in Pittsburgh. As Auntie Mame famously said, "When you're from Pittsburgh, you have to do something." (To be fair, Todd is originally from College Station, Texas.)

From the Pittsburgh paper:

Police: Campaign Volunteer Lied, Injured Self

Ashley Todd told investigators today she "just wanted to tell the truth" -- and was neither robbed, nor attacked. Todd, 20, is now facing charges for filing a false report to police.

Police say a campaign volunteer confessed to making up a story that a mugger attacked her and cut the letter B in her face after seeing her McCain bumper sticker; now she's facing charges.

At a news conference this afternoon, officials said they believe that Ashley Todd's injuries were self-inflicted. Todd, 20, of Texas, is now facing charges for filing a false report to police. Todd initially told police that she was robbed at an ATM in Bloomfield and that the suspect began beating her after seeing her GOP sticker on her car. Police investigating the alleged attack, however, began to notice some inconsistencies in her story and administered a polygraph test.

Investigators asked Todd to return to the police station today for more questioning and to help them release a composite sketch of the suspect. When she did, police say she admitted that she made the whole thing up and that it snowballed out of control. Todd told investigators today that she "just wanted to tell the truth" – adding that she was neither robbed, nor attacked. "She indicated that she has prior mental problems and that she does not remember how the backward letter B got on her face," Pittsburgh Police Spokeswoman Diane Richard told reporters today.

Todd told police that while she did not remember how the backward "B" got on her face, she may have done it herself since she was the only one in the car. According to police, Todd said she thought of Barack Obama when she saw the "B" in her rearview mirror.

Officials say they do not believe any other people were involved; and Todd's friends believed the story about the attack – encouraging her to call police.

Helter Skelter, Amen.

Republican sex shenanigans. Again.

From Joe.My.God. comes this latest bit of news from the Republicans. Seems those "God Guns and Gays" boys just can't keep their own houses in order.

Anti-Gay Pol Busted For Kiddie Porn

Former New York state Assembyman Chris Ortloff, the one-time Assembly assistant minority leader and head of the Clinton County GOP, has been busted for soliciting a minor and possession of child pornography.

A former assemblyman and current parole-board member was busted last night on child-pornography and soliciting charges, officials said.

Chris Ortloff, 61, was arrested in a Plattsburgh-area motel room in a State Police sting at about 5 p.m.Ortloff, who allegedly had arranged a date on the Internet with an underage victim he thought would provide sex, had child porn and what was described as "sex paraphernalia" in his possession, according to the officials.

They said Ortloff, a Republican who represented Plattsburgh, would likely face felony sex charges under state law, and could also be charged with violating federal anti-child pornography statutes. Ortloff, married with two sons, could not be reached for comment. "He was always the tough-on-crime guy in the Assembly who wanted to increase the criminal penalties for all kinds of sex crimes," said a former associate.

According to a 1999 story on the Log Cabin Republicans site, Ortloff had a record of voting against LGBT rights while an Assemblyman.

Republicans remove their masks yet again.

You'd think I would need to scour the internet for clips showing this kind of bigoted, know-nothing ignorance. I wish I could say that I had to dig around for a few isolated video clips showing the true core of the Republican party. In actuality, I've had to pick and choose from many video clips, all of which make me sick to my stomach.

With the rotten elements of America's conservative party so often laid bare, I say again... to which group do you want to belong?

Grotesque.

This election is showcasing the lowest common denominator among Americans, more so than previous presidential contests. The fact that so many Americans recognize the need for a change of course in governmental policies and priorities has resulted in McCain/Palin rallies populated almost exclusively by the most dogmatic Republican base. The people who make up this base are shown in the clip above. It couldn't be a more stark contrast this year, and the contrast is becoming more and more vivid as we careen toward November.

All Americans should be compelled to watch this video. It's disgusting to be sure, but this kind of squalid racism and hatred has for too long been brushed under the rug by the Republican party. It's time to bring it out into the sunlight and let those "undecided voters" choose which team they'd most like to join.

Oh no she didn't...

Many of us have apparently been duped... again. Thanks to Towleroad for breaking this story.



The CEO of the wildly popular gay hookup site, Manhunt (link intentionally omitted), is Jonathan Crutchley of Boston, MA. He is the man pictured below, seated at a desk at the Manhunt headquarters. (Note the inexcusable curtains.)




Mr. Crutchley's business relies solely on the libidos of gay men, including myself. He makes 30 million dollars yearly off of us, not including advertising revenues. He was described in a recent Out article as "a liberal Republican with a tight white beard", but his response to a recent addition to the comments page associated with his interview on Online Personals Watch shows that the "liberal" moniker is a misnomer if ever there was one. His snarky, right-wing response is shown below:

Mr. Crutchley gave $2300, the maximum allowable personal donation, to the John McCain presidential campaign. (The donation was accepted.) He is also one of those irritating gay men who is so myopic and selfish that he thinks that McCain's party, the platform for which traditionally contains language that is directly opposed to the very existence of GLBT Americans, would be better for GLBT Americans than any other party... Democratic or otherwise.

Mr. Crutchley is right, Obama is not in support of marriage equality. But any reasonable examination of the data reveals that Obama will nominate judges that are more amenable to our civil equality, will ensure that our country will cease its breakneck race to the bottom of the ethical barrel, and will end the lies-based debacle in Iraq that should never have happened in the first place. And his nasty comment about the word "liberal" being an insult is in itself insulting to the vast majority of gay men in the United States.

Crutchley is free to espouse any political opinion he likes, and is free to give his homo dollars to any politician he wishes. I, in turn, am free to take my business elsewhere.

I, for one, am thoroughly pissed off, and will be cancelling my Manhunt subscription. I encourage everyone to do the same.