What’s the Matter With Mississippi?

This short film by Alexandra Pelosi asks some regular folks in Mississippi why the poorest state in America is also the most conservative:

Pesky Facts: Mississippi has highest rate of child poverty (31.9 percent), highest rate of infant mortality (10.3 percent), highest rate of obesity (35.3 percent of total population), lowest median household income ($35,078), highest teen birth rate (71.9 per 1,000 women aged 15 to 19) and highest overall rate of STDs.

Liberals Hate Women!

Sheesh! Who knew?

Extrapolating on Rush Limbaugh’s demeaning 3-day long tirade last week against the female law student who had the audacity to testify recently before Congress about the role of contraceptives in women’s healthcare; on his nationally syndicated radio program, fellow right-wing blowhard Bryan Fischer ludicrously claims that misogyny is an almost exclusive trait of “the Left” (whatever that may be).

More amazingly, he then goes on to equate the attitude of “liberals” and “leftists” with respect to “conservative women” as that of “hardcore Islamists” vis-à-vis ALL women; that is to say, regarding them as sub-human. “Ladies and gentlemen, how they think of women, how they treat women… it’s absolutely disgraceful!”

Even more astounding is that Fischer would adopt without question Limbaugh’s admittedly “absurd” fabrications (you know, that were intended as some sort of Swiftian “joke” for his hyper-sophisticated audience of dittoheads) at face value and reformulate them into an indignant, completely fact-free attack on President Obama:

And to think you have leftist like the President of the United States saying that the parents of the woman who goes on national TV and admits she’s sleeping with so many guys she can’t keep track, doin’ it three times a day, runnin’ out of money, drivin’ me to the poorhouse… He’s saying the parents ought to be proud of that!

There is not a shred of moral decency or the least bit of intellectual honesty in this despicable shithead, but I guess that’s to be expected from someone representing an outfit called the American Family Association. Hey, just stick “Family” into the name of your tax-exempt 501(c)(3) organization and it’s an open license to spew all manner of bigotry, misinformation, and hateful propaganda to the public — in this case, on almost 200 radio stations across America — under the guise of promoting “traditional values”… Sadly, this is sort of toxic bilge that passes for “conservatism” in the heartland of America these days.

Is That All There Is?

Comedian Rush Limbaugh – who is, it seems these days, the virtual leader of the increasingly deranged Republican Party – did the Democrats a huge favour the other day with his offensive remarks directed at “college co-ed” (i.e., third-year law student) Susan Fluke.

Whether deliberate or not, Limbaugh’s deeply misogynistic tirade analogizing the issue as being akin to prostitution, calling Ms. Fluke a “slut” and then derisively suggesting that taxpayers be recompensed with pornographic videos of her sexual activities, effectively steered the surreal “debate” about state-mandated provision of contraceptive medications by private employers directly off a cliff.

It’s supposed the Republicans had initially wanted the discussion (if one can call it that) to be about “religious freedom” – an arguably legitimate issue of perpetual controversy near and dear to the heart of the party’s social conservative base – but then a number of truly bizarre proposals by various Republican-controlled state legislatures (demanding the insertion of invasive trans-vaginal ultrasound probes prior to abortion, for example), together with perplexing comments on the subject made by various sex-obsessed, theocratic right-wingnuts quickly revealed the true nature of their objection to the rulemaking healthcare proposals of the Obama administration…

Some liberal pundits and politicians have deemed the Republicans’ efforts in this regard as a “War on Women” – an expression that is certainly overstated, but perhaps not by much. If one looks at the legislative priorities of the Republicans since their resurgence in 2010, when not blindly demanding that taxes and regulations be cut as a magic elixir for economic growth, their primary focus appears to be almost madly fixated on controlling, limiting, and repealing the hard-fought reproductive rights of women. Why is that?

As an outside observer on the American political scene, it’s truly amazing that these kind of irrelevant (some might even say, completely bogus) distractions are the stuff and substance of current political debate given there are so many other imperative things that need to be addressed which are all vastly more meaningful and significant to the lives of ordinary people.

Right-Wing Cat Killers

Jacob Burris, campaign manager for Arkansas Democratic congressional candidate Ken Aden, came home Sunday night to find his family cat dead on the front porch with the word “LIBERAL” written on the carcass.

For some bizarre reason, CNN won’t allow your presumably delicate sensibilities to be offended by the pic (better they suppose you should just vividly imagine it), so here it is:

Far be it for me to draw any connection whatsoever between this incident and the incessant stream of vile, hateful rhetoric that’s been directed towards “liberals” day in and day out for the past 30 years via right-wing media, let alone suggest that the seminal paper Language: A Key Mechanism of Control, penned by none other than Newt Gringrich, may have anything at all to do with it.

In complete fairness, we don’t actually know who committed this crime. Conceivably, it may be a (typically depraved) “liberal” seeking to tarnish the esteemed reputation of right-wing political activists… you know, just like the ones that are immediately determined to be “plants” of the nefarious Left whenever some especially crazed right-wing lunatic goes haywire at a rally or says/does anything utterly reprehensible.

Profile in Gutless Pandering

At a rally in Florida the other day, a disgruntled bigot drew enthusiastic applause from a crowd of likeminded Republican tools when she claimed that Obama is “an avowed Muslim… who has no legal right to be calling himself president.” Standing silently at the podium, Rick Santorum tacitly condoned her slanderous bullshit before responding with asinine remarks of his own that simply affirmed her more paranoid assertions.

Whatever else his faults, when confronted with a similar situation back in 2008, John McCain at least had the essential decency to school some of his more fearful, addlebrained supporters.

Faux Wingnut Outrage: Xmas Edition

Former half-term Alaska Governor, wannabe celebrity, and brain-addled Fox News “analyst” Sarah Palin thinks the Obama White House’s official greeting card is “odd” because it fails to adequately highlight traditions like “family, faith and freedom.”

Evidently, Palin speaks for many rabid right-wing Obama haters out there… at least insofar as being shamelessly petty, hypocritical, and completely fucking ignorant.

WPITW: Fox & Fiends

The late great Daniel Patrick Moynihan famously said, “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.” Unfortunately that concept is totally alien to Fox “News” that gets busted in this instance for blatantly misrepresenting unemployment figures on graphs to fit its own counterfactual narrative:

As for the actual “winner” being the crowds attending the GOP “debates” that seem prone to enthusiastically cheering for the death penalty, allowing the uninsured to die without treatment, fatally electrocuting illegal immigrants, and putting poor black kids to work cleaning school latrines… Pretty standard fare for the average Republican primary voter, apparently. There really is no proposition too outlandishly crazy, mean-spirited, or downright inhumane for these feverishly angry crackpots not to support with tremendous gusto.

Right-Wingers Aren’t Funny: Part XLVII

Here’s another utterly dismal attempt at comedy by right-wing partisans, this time from the ultra-conservative folks at Pajamasmedia with a fake newscast presumably intended to resemble The Onion. Minus anything amusing, witty, or delightful.

Why can’t these right-wing clods simply accept the demonstrably obvious fact that their sense of humour is severely impaired for whatever reason, thereby preventing them from being in the least bit funny? Don’t believe me? Well, here’s a little flashback featuring two of the right-wing’s foremost “comedians” on the short-lived Fox News version of The Daily Show a few years back:

If you were able to endure that without viscerally cringing then you too may be suffering from the same crippling humour-impairment affliction that seems endemic amongst right-wing tools and should perhaps seek professional help.

“Conservative” Beer Review

A retarded Bloggin’ Tory maroon turns his acute sensibilities and keen perceptions of world events to the more demanding task of reviewing various kinds of beer…

For some bizarre reason the unfortunately named Kretin feels the need to preface everything with “Holy shit” and interlace all of his observations with profuse amounts of reflexive profanity (e.g., “Christ, save the bottle… you know, put some flowers in the fuckin’ thing and give to the wife – she’d be right happy I gave her somethin’ fuckin’ nice.”). Our putative “reviewer” also seems intent on informing viewers of how quickly he could down the subject beverage: “Holy shit, I could drink this in two minutes,” he exclaims after taking his first swig of the surprisingly pleasant communist brew.

Sadly, this dim, foul-mouthed idiot’s views on world events are every bit as hapless and inept as are his witless reviews of beer.

Islamofascist Butterballs!

The latest hysterical anti-Muslim insanity from the unhinged mind of right-wing darling Pam Geller: Butterball® turkeys are a threat to freedom!!!

I guess by Geller’s “logic” then, Hebrew National hotdogs are a sign of Zionist Domination on the march, yet again!