The Restroom Debacle: A Summary

The restroom debate continues, most recently with the response to the Departments of Justice and Education releasing guidelines instructing schools to treat transgender students according to their gender identity. The battlefield is not so much a warzone as it is wells of ignorance residing in the comments sections of conservative copypasta sites, a circle-jerk of OMGz.

Since some of the newer talking points erupting from conservative megaphones is "Libs are creating this as a smokescreen" and "Why can't we just let people decide this city by city?" [Hannity for the latter], I thought it might be instructive to take a step back and see how this actually went down.


Charlotte, NC



On February 22nd, 2016, Charlotte's city council passed an ordinance (7-4) which expanded protections to the LGBT community, effectively treating sexual orientation and identity as a protected class within Charlotte. Yes, the transgender bathroom accommodation was a part of that, but only a small part. Much of the ordinance dealt with business practices and not being able to discriminate based on sexual orientation when it came to serving customers and in hiring practices.

There was some news coverage of the ordinance, but it was generally quiet and passed under the radar. It was Charlotte's business.


NC State Legislature

On March 23rd, 2016, just days before Charlotte's ordinance went into effect, the North Carolina General Assembly called both houses back in for an emergency session. They opened the circus tents, piled in front of cameras, and explained why this needed to be done. It's for the children!

NC conservatives took one piece of the Charlotte ordinance - allowing trans people to use the bathroom of the gender with which they identify - and confounded it with perversion, pedophilia, and molestation to proudly build their straw man. They said and repeated something to the effect of: "This will allow any man to 'identify' as a woman and walk into a women's restroom for a peepshow whenever they like - and think of the children!"

Of course, that's not anywhere near reality, either of what the Charlotte ordinance would have done or why the state had to stop it.

They passed a law shutting down Charlotte's non-discrimination policies and forbidding any other municipalities from attempting to do so in the future, claiming it was a state issue.



Deptartment of Education

On May 13th, 2016, The Departments of Justice and Education released guidelines stating transgender students could not be discriminated against, as it violates Title IX's provision prohibiting discrimination based on sex.

This is still in it's beginning stages, but the Administration has said that schools blatantly violating the guidelines could see their federal funding dollars disappear.


Realities

Pervs are going to perv. Period. They'll get caught sneaking a peak or hiding a camera, and the law will deal with them. Anyone thinking treating the trans community equally is going to suddenly make perverts realize this one new trick is naive and foolish - they're already dressing like women and getting caught in the act.

Realistically, dozens of schools and municipalities have been doing this for years. Increase in perversions or problems? None. Actually, since Target's policy on restrooms emerged and DoE came out with their guidelines, there has been one large increase in behavior: creepy conservative men, sometimes in wigs, have loudly protested and wildly barged into women's restrooms to prove it could be done. As if there was previously a police officer or gender force field keeping them from being an asshole for their YouTube Channel.

This issue, for me, has really shown a blatant hypocrisy in yet another facet of the conservative facade. They're presenting a completely unrelated story - say, girl gets choked by pedo dude in bathroom - and then uses that as a reason for more laws and more restrictions. It's kind of like what conservatives say liberals do when it comes to gun control. In this case, zero legislation would have stopped this predator from following a little girl into a restroom to choke her. That's already illegal. Making up new laws that will harm the rights of others in order to make a show for morality and old-timey values doesn't help anyone.

But the final reality of this issue and how it's playing out takes us back to where we started: Charlotte. Charlotte's ordinance was NOT just about bathrooms. Conservatives seized upon that because it could be exploited and blown large with misinformation and fear. The bigger picture is that conservatives are afraid of actual LGBT equality. Marriage was a big hurdle, and they see the avalanche. A federally-protected class is on its way, and when that happens, they will no longer be able to use the go-to excuse of religion to trump the rights of the LGBT community and justify discrimination.

And when that day comes, it will be a good one indeed.

Limbaugh Math

Rush Limbaugh today said that Hillary won in Iowa because she won 6 coin tosses, and the odds of that is 7.5%

Sean Hannity is polling his employees on the odds and screaming she stole it.

(The odds of flipping either all heads or all tales in 6 consecutive tosses is 1.5625%.)

Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity are morons.

That is all.

Trump and the End of the Current Right Wing

I've never seen it before. Or heard it, I should say. I listen to local guy Brian Thomas, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and many others on a daily basis, and for the last few years, it's a very direct, right-wing talking point script: Obama bad, Hillary bad, America in ruins, Christian persecution, etc. I could hit Brian Thomas in the early morning and if I happened upon Limbaugh or Hannity at some time during the rest of the day, the talking points and formula was the same; they were literally getting all their material and opinions from the same websites like Drudge or National Review.

It was incessant, predictable, and obvious. But then Trump joined the race, and I truly enjoy the madness that has followed. The script has changed. Every local show is looking for the angle and not quite sure where to go based on the differing views of the bigger names. And the RNC is going through the same mess. The convention is going to be a circus - and it's right here in Ohio.

Here's a quick overview on the strange split in the AM talk show hosts' opinions.

Brian Thomas

Brian leans a little nutty and grabs onto outlier talking points at times, but he's not hard to listen to. Brian is all conservative, and he is not in for Trump. An interaction on his show from yesterday tells it all:

BT: You're on, go ahead

Call: You're all backwards, man. You're just mad Trump's going to build a wall and send the bill to Mexico and fix America.

BT: Well, that's you're opinion.

Call: Yeah, you're all backwards.

BT: I never addressed Trump on immigration except to ask about the logistics of it: how is he going to build a wall and get Mexico to foot the bill? I'm just looking for a substantial answer.


Glenn Beck

Glenn's insufferable, sanctimonious, and awful at times, but can be entertaining, especially when he's dumping on Trump.

Glenn, by his own report, has never endorsed a person for POTUS. He has now endorsed Ted Cruz because he not only doesn't like Trump, but he thinks Trump is outright dangerous for our country. He is now daily bringing out every awfulness about Trump, things I haven't even heard from liberal voices, and if he becomes the nominee, the Democratic Party has only to look at his archives for every dirty bit to attack him with.

Today, he threw out a Hitler bone on unqualified but strong and feeding a need from the people.

I have to say I kind of agree with Glenn Beck on this one.


Rush Limbaugh

Dude's old, weak, and it scrambles my brains to listen. He spends just a little more time swearing he's not in the bag for Trump than he spends explaining how Trump is winning and he respects the guy. He also respects Cruz, and Rubio, and ...

Limbaugh is on the fence so hard he has ass splinters. He doesn't want to offend anyone, will not commit, and wants to play nice and objective, but he's got a bit of a Trump bug if you listen for more than 20 minutes.


Sean Hannity

I honestly do not know how he speaks through 3 hours of radio and 1 hour of television every day with Trump's cock that far down his throat.

Hannity is a goddamned Trump Worshiper. Church of Trump. If you could register Trump in the primaries, he'd jump on it. He's riding the Trump Train, the Trump Pony, and the Trump Wave all at once. He probably has Trump sheets and curtains and a Trump throw on his couch.

I don't like Hannity. I don't even respect what he does in any way. I am embarrassed for him and his family. I don't know if Trump is paying him under the table, but the fawning and pawing and exaltation makes it a serious question, and his claims that he hasn't made up his mind between Trump and Cruz false on its face.

Hannity is somehow an even sadder man than I thought possible.


So that's the roundup. If you've heard any others mention Trump, feel free to comment. The man is a monster and he's made it this far.

I'll be posting all next week on different aspects of this run and the terror of Trump. Next up? Trump the Bully

Sean Hannity and the KY Debacle

Sean Hannity says Kim Davis is being persecuted because she's a Christian. Sean Hannity says Kim Davis is just practicing her freedom of religion. Sean Hannity says Kim Davis could just do something else and be fine.

Sean Hannity is an assclown. Sean Hannity is WRONG on every count. Sean Hannity needs to stop making his listeners more ignorant.

Kim Davis has a job. Kim Davis didn't do her job. Kim Davis stopped those under her from doing their jobs. All because of "religious freedom."

Which is bullshit. "But she had a change in her job description!" Bullshit. Kim Davis has one job description: do your job as it pertains to the law. The law changed. Her job changed. If she doesn't like it, she can quit.

Sean Hannity is catering to the lowest of the most ignorant of AM radio listeners. He regularly lets callers speak stupid to his audience and has more than once purposefully spread misinformation long after it was debunked.

Sean Hannity is a cause for concern. Listen often. You'll hear the heartbeat of the crazy.

SCOTUS Legalizes Gay Marriage Nationwide - Hannity!

I would like to congratulate all of my friends and their friends and everyone else in this nation who has struggled so long against an antiquated system of discrimination. Also: I'm available to solemnize weddings if you're nearby!

Even Sean Hannity inadvertently got in on the celebration via iHeartRadio. LOL.

Indiana is for Bigots. And Handouts. But NOT Gay Wedding Pizza Catering.

Anyone who has been paying any attention is aware of Indiana's new Religious Freedom law and all the hullabaloo it has created. The governor is under fire, legislature is frantically trying to rewrite the law, and businesses and organizations and even whole states are boycotting the Hoosier state.

(If anyone is not aware, Indiana's law is NOT the same as the federal or other state laws conservatives are comparing it to. It was written with the aid of anti-LGBT lobbyists who have been very clear of the intent of the law and can be seen standing behind the governor during the signing of the law.)

But aside from all the fallout taking place around the state, the story of Memories Pizza in the small town of Walkerton (pop. 2,247) in Northern Indiana caught my attention.

There's not a whole lot of people in Walkerton, so Memories Pizza isn't a huge business. But somehow they thought it a good idea to speak out to the media and publicly state that they would never cater a gay wedding with their pizza. Nevermind that no gay couple would ever cater a wedding with pizza or that Memories had never been part of such a request: they wanted to make it clear that because Jesus they would never be a part of this wildly hypothetical homosexual situation.

Cue the Justisplosion!

We start with the fuse being lit by this little story. People were just aching to see if anything would come of the law the way it was being framed and there it was in one happy little sound bite. It went viral.

To the Yelp! Yelp was the first to fall. I think they had 2 reviews before the story. Now they have hundreds of 1-stars. Likewise they were lambasted in comments on their Facebook page.

And because they hadn't secured their domain name, someone else bought it and populated it with a message not to discriminate.

And then things reportedly got a little out of hand. Apparently they were receiving so many critical phone calls and even some threats, the owner decided to temporarily close.

And at that point, I'm a little sad for them.

There's no excusing ignorance or bigotry, but the owner did clarify he welcomed anyone into the restaurant, just didn't want to take part in a gay wedding. I'll give him a bit of a pass on that. It was stupid to make a spectacle out of himself, but it's also stupid that there were so many phone calls and threats by people going too far that he had to shut down.

However, a funny thing happened on the way to shutting down. They started a GoFundMe page. And that's where the backlash to the backlash is living right now. As of this morning, they'd pulled in about $30,000. But then Glenn Beck plugged the hell out of the page on his radio show. As of this writing, they have pulled in over $190,000 in less than 24 hours. And since they keep bumping up their goal, it appears they're quite comfortable with the insane handout.

More than anything, this is an interesting societal proxy war on norms in the age of a 24-hour news cycle and unlimited interconnectedness. Bigotry will not be tolerated by much of our society, so when that one gopher head pops up in a hightened atmosphere of sensitivity, all of Yelp and Facebook and phones come down upon it. A way to counter the counter comes along. Some jump in to support. Some call that support "anti-bullying" but most are anti-liberal, anti-gay, anti-tech, right wing media brainwashed about the details, or all of the above.

Indiana rewriting the law is not going to solve the problem, and it's going to get worse before it gets better. Eventually LGBT will become a federally protected class, and then the real discussion of where one person's right to discriminate bumps into another person's right to be treated equally. Or at least we would if real discussions were possible in this environment of highly-polarized, highly-politicized, feigned persecution and bigotry wrapped in religion.


UPDATE: As of 11am EST 4/3: Yesterday's plug by Glenn Beck was followed by Rush Limbaugh then Sean Hannity. Hannity had the owner on his Fox show last night. The fund is at about $540,000.

Sadness & Conspiracy & The Bar: A Health Care Retrospective

The outlook wasn't brilliant for the SCOTUS nine that day:
The score stood five to four, with some at yes and some at nay.
And then when Kennedy went right, and Roberts left, for shame,
A sickly silence fell upon us as the judgement came.

---

There is too much too much to talk about, so I'll start with the bar.



My local haunt just up the road from home was my first stop after a full day of "work." (Of course I say "work" because like Republican Congressman Mike Pence, I too likened the Supreme Court ruling on the Affordable Care Act to 9/11: I was ineffective and nothing but a media consumption machine.) I needed to stop in because another regular to my spot is an outspoken Limbaugh/Hannity parrot (let's call him Dolton) and I was hoping he was angry and loud so I could just soak it up.

I broke with my swear-off of right wing radio just for one day and I was not disappointed on the ride over. Hannity was moderating a discussion and who-knows was shouting about how it was going to destroy America and everyone was audibly upset, like they'd just lost Reagan again but this time he killed himself after Obama whooped his ass with a tire iron. It was a jumbled cacophony of angry and fear and consolation and denial and atta-buddy and "We'll get 'em next time!" because Roberts is a brilliant Constitutional lawyer - he just got it wrong.

The way it unfolded couldn't have helped. Fox and CNN got it wrong and it was such a major issue, such a grand event that knowing how disappointed I was and how much higher I got when the big reveal came, I can only imagine the emotional depths to which the anti-Obamacare folks fell.

Here's my representative, Ohio's Jean Schmidt, freaking the hell out in a joyous explosion in public:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

If only that video had run for 20 minutes to catch the aftermath.

The pain and sorrow was palpable everywhere and the denial was painful to watch. This is what Drudge and Savage have been doing since yesterday:



And if it wasn't that, it was because he was coerced because he was blackmailed because he is rainbow-farting GAY!

(But there was one interesting nugget provided by Gawker about how Roberts totally did this intentionally because he has a wider game stance and is plotting something really big.)



The freakouts from popular pundits and pols alike? Flippin' epic.

And some comeuppance is due as well. O'Reilly had said he'd apologize for being an idiot if the ACA was upheld by the Supremes:



Limbaugh said in 2010 that if this all went through, he'd move to Costa Rica. Unfortunately for him, Costa Rica has universal health care. D'oh. Speaking of idiots, Buzzfeed did a lovely collection of tweets from those railing against socialized medicine and who had had enough - so they were moving to Canada. Where there is socialized medicine.

Palin was in on the action, Rubio needed no cue to jump in front of a camera, and the overwhelming talking point is "OMG - it's a TAX on America's working class!" Unless you're Rep. Phillip Gingrey who simply said "I don't want to have a beer with Justice Roberts today."

Which brings me back to Dolton.

I walked into the bar, sat in my usual spot - far from him. I was expecting him and his cronies to be long drunk by 5pm and hootin' and a-hollerin' about how this was the end of America. Dolton looked drunker than usual, but he was alone, slumped somewhat over the bar, and staring at the non-stop coverage on the big-screen. On MSNBC.

He briefly glanced at me as I sat and ordered a vodka grapefruit and a shot of Rumple Minze, his mouth slightly open as though he might say something but could find no words. He went back to the TV, his Miller Lite, and his doubles of Jägermeister. Dolton was a broken man yesterday, as though part of his soul was leaking out in place of the tears he wouldn't let come in public. I really almost felt bad for him.

Almost.

---

Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright;
The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light,
And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout;
Yes, "America" we call it - don't let the Repubs find that out.

Hannitizing Geography

From Hannity's radio show Monday:

Look, I don't want Wisconsin to become Detroit.

This has been your daily Hannity outpouring of concern over the apparent potentiality of a US state to collapse into a US city.

In Short: Hannity Didn't Watch SOTU

I know, I know. Every time I begin a post with "Yesterday on Hannity's radio show..." a little part of your soul dies and a dribble of vomit leaks inexplicably from your left ear. Me too. So weird.

However, yesterday on Hannity's radio show, after listening for a few minutes on the way to Kroger, it became apparently clear that Sean Hannity was relying on what other people had to say about the SOTU Tuesday evening:

• He mocked Obama for saying "the state of the union is strong," but Obama notably did not say that. He said "The state of our Union is getting stronger."
• He said that Obama's recognition of the Military as an example was a call to work together, but Obama's statement was using the US Military as an example to focus on a mission and get the job done.
• Working together obviously brought out the "If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun" quote from Obama, but it was directly implied that Obama had said that to the military (when it was a one-off to the press pool about a debate in Philly with McCain in '08).

I know Hannity artfully and gleefully spins facts and pulls emotionally charged rhetoric - however disproved or irrelevant - to be another powerful voice in painting Obama as "the other," but this seemed particularly ignorant, like he was spinning an intern's notes.

Or maybe he's purposefully deconstructing every argument against Obama into a single, timeless, reference-less amalgam of foul vitriol, an abstract, artistic work in progress that will culminate Election night 2012 in a single, forced, guttural syllable followed immediately by his very essence being expelled in a protoplasmic blob as his human shell collapses like an ancient paper wasp nest whacked with a snow shovel.

Or he's just being a dick.

Hannity's Conservative Tomfoolery

Sean Hannity is choosing ideology over Democracy. Is that the right message?

If anyone submits themselves to the torture of listening to Sean Hannity's radio show as I do on a regular basis, you might be aware of his insistent retort any time someone "mistakenly" refers to him as a Republican. It goes a little something like this:

I'm not a Republican. I am a registered Conservative.

Aww, isn't that so ...maverick of him?

One of the other things Mr. Hannity insists on is that - right now - he's still not backing a single horse in the race; he's holding out to see where it goes. This is, as one might recognize, a total cop-out to make sure he's both not looking stupid and following the Fox playbook.

What no one seems to mention, though, is that it doesn't matter which Republican he decides to back, he cannot vote for them.

Sean Hannity, if he tells the truth, is registered with the Conservative Party USA dedicated to "true" conservative values, ending corruption, and a bunch of other things no politician will ever go for. And it's great for upping some Tea Party cred. But there are NO candidates running in the Conservative Party.

So Sean Hannity, registered in the Conservative Party, will, like someone who is a registered Independent, be unable to vote in the Republican or Democratic primaries; he will be unable to back his "support" with an actual vote.

What kind of message does that send?


(crossposted at All Things Democrat)

The Language of the Right: New English

Sure, it's been going on forever - language gets twisted and changed in ways that strike a nerve ("hot dogs") or are just laughable ("freedom fries"). I'll use Mario Piperni's delicious graphic as a reference:



It's funny, but allow me to enlighten the language some for those who don't listen to right wing radio. It's not called "crony capitalism" when republicans do it, obviously (last week I hear an "I've never heard" outcry from Hannity about Congressional insider trading with specifically Democratic references), but there's a new language from the Ay-Am band radio hosts making its terribly un-funny debut: Crony Socialism.

The Solyndra issue might be pushed through the crony mold, but it has nothing to do with socialism. At all.

Take note, now and forever: the language they use has effects - and sometimes it even sticks.

Hannity Hypocrisy Cain Sources AAAHHHH!

Today I got a few minutes in the car with my good friend on the AM band, Sean Hannity. And as I've learned in the past few months, with the level of batshit crazy floating out there, a few minutes is enough. To make my head explode.

Can We Discuss the Ladies!?

Just late last week, Sean Hannity was decrying the claims of sexual harassment against Herman Cain, saying that it was categorically false and using it as a Standing Ovation to Conservative Values. Why? Did you see how Liberals attacked those ladies in the Clinton scandal? What OUTRAGE! Liberals are the anti-feminists, of course!

Today? (and I paraphrase) "And so now we've got these women and it looks like this latest one has a troubled history, looks like she's been often switching jobs. I'm not saying that this means anything, I'm just putting these women up to the level of scrutiny that liberals put the Clinton women up to. So what does it really mean she's switching jobs?"

*facepalm*

Out-Sourcing?

So just before I was listening to this drivel from Sean, I was catching up on Gawker posts and saw this one with a lovely clip from The Daily Show exemplifying the foolishness that occurs when the robo-dolls at Fox & Friends attempt to think. Click for the clip, but they decry the validity of the original complaints against Cain because of the anonymous source - followed immediately by an anonymous source backing Cain.

So then I hear Sean saying (and I paraphrase) "So CNN is now saying that the anonymous source is being backed by an anonymous source, her friend. This is reporting nowadays. Anonymous sources? What kind of schleppy news organization calls this journalism?"

Yours, Sean. Yours.


And then my head popped. But then it came back together when I got to vote down Issue 2 this evening. w00t! Suck it Kasich!

The Racism Race & Herman Cain

For the last 3 years, the conservative/Republican/Tea Party right has been working diligently to frame Barack Obama as non-Christian (Muslim), non-American (African), not-too-American (Exotic Hawaiian), nuanced (gay?), Capitalism-killing (Communist) America-hater (terrorist). The brush is broad and thick with the paint of the entity that is "the other," a well known psychological and linguistic methodology to indirectly (and incessantly) show that a person or group is "not like you." And with only an occasional slip-up, they haven't driven directly into the "he's black" otherness. But that doesn't mean it's not there. C'mon. I guess solidly half of all criticism of President Obama is an indirect attack that we have an uppity negro in the White House.

But along with all the innuendo and linguistic manipulation, the right has been vehement in one relatively-united message: it's not about race; it's about policy or past or ...not race. Stop saying it's about race. Why would it be about race? God, so NOT race already. Okay. Done. GTFO.

This is three years of constant attacks from all sides for the president orchestrated by hundreds of politicians and pundits and parroted by a plethora of hunt-n-peck bloggers (mmm...alliteration). All the while even the racist-tinged verbal diarrhea gets the notsoracist wash.


Then, two days ago, one single report from the Politico raised the fact that Herman Cain was accused of harassment at one point in his past.

(Subsequently, it was revealed there were two issues of settlements and now a third woman has come forward.)

And ALL HELL breaks loose! Why? Because a strong black man who can represent conservative values and family values can't exist because of the hypocritical left and liberal bias and they will tear him down as an Uncle Tom. Why? RACISM! (Note implied significance: Obama is "other" in that he is not strong and stands for NO American values. Also probably not black enough.)

It's not about his complete lack of political experience, his inability to navigate DC, his being a shitty CEO of Godfather's, his intenable 999 plan, his lack of campaign credibility with lack of infrastructure, his ignorance of foreign policy, the drunk smoker guy, the weird Yellow Flowers cowboy ad, his shady ties, or the man's creepy smile. It has nothing to do with a viable "hey, this has been a problem with a recent president" research into the past of a supposed sexual harassment complaint. It's racism!

Even Sean Hannity on his radio show wants to have a serious conversation about race now and all the negative things people are saying about black Republicans (read: Herman Cain and one other dude) and I caught Sean today in that serious, focused discussion yelling at an African-American caller who said he didn't necessarily think all the quotes he heard were offensive. Hannity replied (paraphrase) "You don't find that offensive? You think it's okay to say "bad apple?" That's not offensive? Oreo?"

So the reference to "bad apple" was Harry Bellefonte calling Herman Cain that. Racist? Meh. And the "Oreo" comment? Well, that was a couple people from the Congressional Black Caucus referring to Cain and Allen West as such (black on the outside, white to the core).

Wait, though, I seem to remember another direct reference to skin color and a cookie that might fit in here:

Well, it — what it’s going to be here, it’s actually a biracial cookie. You’ve got three of the chocolate wafers, and then you’ve got the white vanilla cream — the cream — and then there’s a chocolate cream. So you’ve got, you’ve got three — the stuff, the thing that says Oreo on it, the wafer.

In the midst of all this talk of obesity. And, I mean, every time Michelle Obama goes out there and talks about healthful eating, the food industry responds with, "Oh, yeah? Take this." And Kraft comes up with the Or-Bam-eo, the triple double-dipper.

- Rush Limbaugh

Now, I know, I know, that's not admissible because it was a conservative - a figurative colleague of Sean's of all things - who said that.

Ooh, I know. Wasn't there that whole "Barack the Magic Negro" song controversy? Oh, sorry. Rush was running that one too.

What about "Our blacks are better than their blacks?" Damn. Ann Coulter.


So, Sean, I guess the message is that if you want to actually have a serious discussion about race and politics, cherry-picking the few somewhat-ambiguous things tossed at Herman Cain and Allen West isn't going to cut it. Ignoring the sheer volumes of overt racist antics that have been hurled at our president would be hurdle #1.

You see, we, the liberals - the other - have a pretty good nose for bullshit, and when you stop making diarrhea come out of our speakers we might actually listen.


UPDATE: Holy Snooki, Cain's smoking campaign manager is calling out the Perry campaign for the leaks which makes this even weirder.

In Short: Conservative Conspiracies

In case you missed it:

College!
Barack Obama is now a dictator doing whatever he wants whenever he wants because he's upping the timetable for the aid to college kids - which is just a left wing ploy to socialize education, favor the elitist schools like Harvard, indoctrinate everyone into a humanities or social work degree and leave taxpayers with the bill. This will, of course, cause every college in the country to charge $50,000 per year. (Brian Thomas, WKRC, this morning)

Islam
We're going in and taking out leaders of Muslim nations like Hussein and Gaddafi and you know what the people are doing? Replacing them with Muslim people and instituting laws in line with their Muslim beliefs! Lybia's now in the throes of anarchy and Sharia and they're terrorists and there are 30,000 missing missiles and nuclear weapons up for grab. Islam IS terrorism; Muslims ARE terrorists. (David Horowitz, Sean Hannity Radio Show, yesterday)


Poking fun at Perry, chiding Fox news? That's peanuts. Above is the kind of serious right wing batshit crazy ignorance that's going out there every single day and being fully absorbed by the mindless myrmidons before the parroting ensues. I saw that Thomas drivel about college posted by someone I know on Facebook not two hours after it was spouted. And it had likes.

I listen so you don't have to. Happy Thursday.

Right Wing Logic: Nuh-uuuuuuh!

I heard some conservative asshat on Hannity yesterday arguing that we killed bin Laden and now we have to hunt down every single person in the world who threatens the USA and do the same to them. The liberal (rational) counter argument was that killing one spawns another and another and another kill order to an absurd degree. She was labeled crazy by both the conservative woman and Hannity.

Reminded me of a conversation I had while riding in the car with my parents as a child, though the exact context escapes me. It went something like this:

ME: Well, what if I want the cookie?
MOM: You can't have it.
ME: Maybe I'll just take it.
MOM: Maybe we'll call the police.
ME: Then I'll beat up the police.
MOM: They'll send more police.
ME: I'll beat them up too.
MOM: Then they'll send police from other states.
ME: Beat 'em up.
MOM: Then they'll send the army.
ME: And I'll beat 'em up. I'll beat up the whole world.
MOM: Then they'll call God and you'll go to hell.
ME: Okay. Nevermind.

At a VERY remedial level, how does a self-proclaimed Christian who readily demonizes an entire religion based on a couple radicals justify their own Christianity while calling for the normalized assassination of all enemies of America? Um, if she was in any other country she'd be on our terrorist watch list.

In Short: Hannity is a Rube

And I don't mean Rube Goldberg.

Today on Hannity's Radio Debacle, he interviewed Vox Day, author of The Return of the Great Depression, and through the process of the softball sales pitch for Vox's book Sean gets more and more "troubled." "Well, I don't know; it's a little apocalyptic," he said.

Sean: Vox Day is the "brilliant economist" that is the basis of the ads on your show with the website address TheEndOfAmerica.com. What the fuck did you think he was going to talk about?

I swear every day is more surreal than the last.

The Madness of the Right: Iraq, Libya, & Puppies

I swear that The Onion is going to go out of business. And it's all the fault of those damn Republicans.

Nine years ago when we invaded Iraq (again), all of us on the left were pretty damn vocal with a very clear WTF? Our question with two wars running? "How can you measure success?"

Today, I heard Sean Hannity wagging idiot-stiffies with Buchanan over how bad Libya was, how much of a debacle it is, a "quagmire (he will be creating a quagmire commercial for tomorrow, FYI)," and Sean was pontificating about what this "invasion" meant. "What is the measure of success?" He wondered what the extension of this would be - would it mean we'd just go willy-nilly into Russia, into China? "What's next? Saudi Arabia?" At which point the world turned upside-down, I was driving on the left side of the road, the guy in the car next to me was getting head from his sister, I wasn't drinking a Mike's Hard, and I vomited out my ass.

Bush drove a fear-of-self-preservation (& freedom) bill through congress and invaded Afghanistan cause we thought a guy who might've planned 9/11 was hangin' out somewhere there - almost 10 years later we don't really know where he might be. We invaded Iraq because of warmongering lies. We DIDN'T attack Saudi Arabia where almost all the terrorists came from. Bush's vague, unicorn-fart version of "finality" was somewhat along the lines of "when we get the terr'ists." And that was an AWESOME answer for everyone on the right and Fox News and Sean and Glenn and Rush and they threw down palm fronds and attacked any rational people by calling them cowards.

But since our president is "the other," since he might be a sekret terrrst, he can't use that. Actually, he can't do anything right. He can't be tough enough or compromise enough. He can't promote war and he can't promote peace. He can't act in concert with an international theater and he can't act unilaterally. But most importantly, he's either too black or not black enough.

As Ezra Klein tweeted, " If the president proposed the ‘More Puppies Act,’ the minority would discover it holds fervently pro-cat beliefs."

(Sidenote: check out Buchanan's website. It sucks my nads. In 1998.)

In Short: Hannity's Arguments Trumped

Sean Hannity, king of the Awww Shucks I Don't Know About All That Elitist Learnin Republicans, was on the radios yesterday talking to the King of the Combover, Mr. Trump, who is apparently running for POTUS in 2012.

The thing I found strange (strange like if I suddenly shit jar of pickled haddock) was what was coming out of Trump's mouth, completely unimpeded by standard, right wing talking points.

Among these, Trump stated:

• America cannot compete with China
• China is taking all our jobs
• The USA is not producing much
• China's buyout of America IS happening in a vacuum

Had any of these things been spouted by a liberal, Sean would've gone into Robo-Republican mode: "No, you're wrong", [insert false talking point], "if it's free market, how can it be wrong?", *hang up*, "You know, it's just like those liberal elite..."

But not the Trumpster.

Hannity biases. You decide.

In Short: Hannity & Child Porn

How many times do we have to listen to Sean Hannity and the rest of the goons on the right disregard well-founded opinions and ideas because the poor caller might not be able to come up with a quote on the spot of something that happened 12 years ago? What about berating callers for not reading thousand-page bills when they had their interns do the markup of the good parts?

"No, give me an example; you obviously don't know what you're talking about. Heh heh."

Today I had the frustrating joy of hearing Hannity address the MTV show "Skins," a fictional new show on MTV that portrays very young, very horny kids. The OMG TMZ WTF flap going on now is that the entertainment media is tossing around terms like "child porn."

Rut-roh, our hero Seannity to the rescue! Only Sean did nothing more than trip over his cape. He apparently had gone through the extent of skimming an article about outrage over a show before offering platitudes about the bigger themes like: the viability of potential lawsuits, how far artistic expression needs to go to get a point across, and lamenting the loss of innocence of children.

But he never saw the show. He had no knowledge that it was an American remake of a British show. He kept calling it a movie.

Note to Sean: offering uninformed opinions is just that no matter what the setting. You want to rail against the show? Buck up and watch the damn thing. Then you can sanctimoniously lead the charge to save the souls of the youth of America.

But right now? "No, give me an example; you obviously don't know what you're talking about. Heh heh."

Assclown.

Hannity's Childlike Rage: Bachmann Overdrive

Sean Hannity was all over the place today, overstating the significance of the Republican win, fostering his own leg tingle while frustratingly attacking Chris Matthews because of one small event of the evening:


"Crazy Eyes" Bachmann

Last night, Chris Matthews had a chance to interview Michele Bachmann live. He asked her about a well-known quote of hers:

What I would say is that the news media should do a penetrating expose and take a look. I wish they would. I wish the American media would take a great look at the views of the people in Congress and find out, are they pro-America or anti-America? I think the American people would love to see an expose like that.

[On Obama]Absolutely, I’m very concerned that he may have anti-American views.

Yes, that's crazy. And Chris asked her about it, if she was going to push it. And she said NOTHING about it but answered as if something else entirely was asked. And so he asked her again and she talked about what the Republicans were going to focus on. And he asked her again and when she once more not just sidestepped the question but completely ignored it, the chuckles of the panel were audible and Chris's next question was "Are you hypnotized? Has someone put you under a trance?"

So Sean today was pissed because his lady Bachmann was slightly ridiculed and he blurted out mocking Matthews about being hypnotized. He sounded like an angry child shouting "Yeah, you're stupid, Stupid!"

Cause, you know, when you make a serious policy statement and serious allegation like "Un-American," if someone brings that up again, it's a "gotcha" question.

I will enjoy watching Sean psychologically collapse in 2 years when the Repugs can't close the deal. Yums.

And, if you haven't seen it yet: Top 10 Crazy Michele Bachmann Quotes.