Dog Bites Man

…water is wet, kittens are adorable, ice cream is delicious, repressed, gay-hating, fundamentalist fire-’n'-brimstone preachers get arrested for spanking the monkey across from a kids park.

Nothing new to see here, folks. Move along. ;o)

Why I Don’t Respect The Wingnuts

Because they may speak before cameras and microphones about public union benefit plans, and sometimes even I think “hey, you know, that’s at least rational-sounding.”

But this is what they sound like when the cameras aren’t rolling; this is what really animates them.

That way lies bat-boy and 300lb. talking hedgehogs. And I’m sorry, but anyone who talks this way and means it needs to be handled very carefully, like a vial of explosively volatile liquid, but on no account given a place around the table where people entertain serious solutions to real problems. A person like this might spend his life calmly interrogating his cat…or he might go all Jared Loughner on us. There’s no good way to tell for sure, often. But one thing they’re quite unlikely to do is begin seriously discussing issues – even if it may almost sound sometimes as if they had done so.

Have You No Sense Of Decency, Ma’am?

As you’ve probably heard by now, CBS News Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent Lara Logan was sexually assaulted – unconfirmed speculation is that CBS is using this slightly more palatable term to avoid having to spell out that Logan was in fact repeatedly and brutally raped – last Friday in Tahrir Square as she was covering the revolution in progress there.

While any rape is shocking and intolerable in it’s violence, it isn’t, sadly, an uncommon event. That shouldn’t inure us to its horror, but it can’t help but make it seem…if not commonplace, at least not startling in its rarity. That lack of rarity may be why in this case, I think I’m as shocked and appalled at the reaction of a number of Lara’s fellow media professionals as I am at the acts of her attackers themselves:

In a stunningly offensive blog post titled “Lara Logan, CBS Reporter and Warzone ‘It Girl,’ Raped Repeatedly Amid Egypt Celebration” for LA Weekly, writer Simone Wilson managed to mention Logan’s “shocking good looks and ballsy knack for pushing her way to the heart of the action” before getting to the assault itself.

As the Salon article notes, though, the absolute most-reprehensible response to Logan’s assault (and the one that earned my comparison in the title of this post to the famous line from the McCarthy hearings) was from right-wing pundit Debbie Schlussel on her own blog:

As I’ve noted before, it bothers me not a lick when mainstream media reporters who keep telling us Muslims and Islam are peaceful get a taste of just how “peaceful” Muslims and Islam really are. In fact, it kinda warms my heart.

And:

So sad, too bad, Lara. No one told her to go there. She knew the risks. And she should have known what Islam is all about. Now she knows. Or so we’d hope…How fitting that Lara Logan was “liberated” by Muslims in Liberation Square while she was gushing over the other part of the “liberation.”

Hope you’re enjoying the revolution, Lara! Alhamdilllullah [praise allah].

As a man who’s rarely without words, I have to confess, I really can’t summon up what it would take to do justice to Ms. Schlussel’s words about Lara Logan. So I’ll leave it to

Oh, Yeah, They Mean It

From a t-shirt still for sale at the online store cafepress:

Gabrielle Giffords defeated her Tea Party opponent on November 2, 2010 by just barely 2% of the total vote:

Because, remember, they always said if they didn’t get 100% of what they wanted at the ballot box, they’d consider “second amendment remedies.”

Wonder how the GOTea party will spin this?

Time For The War On…Thanksgiving?

Yep, if you thought the right-wing’s recently-founded tradition of wailing about how the 78% of Americans who consider themselves Christian are oppressed and under attack, especially at Christmastime, was nutso, you’re going to just looove the even-newer “War On Thanksgiving™.”

You heard me right. Courtesy of this weekend’s New York Times, Happy Thanksgiving, you lazy, turkey-scarfing socialist bastards:

Forget what you learned about the first Thanksgiving being a celebration of a bountiful harvest, or an expression of gratitude to the Indians who helped the Pilgrims through those harsh first months in an unfamiliar land. In the Tea Party view of the holiday, the first settlers were actually early socialists. They realized the error of their collectivist ways and embraced capitalism, producing a bumper year, upon which they decided that it was only right to celebrate the glory of the free market and private property.

La-La Land

Cripes. The right-wing echo chamber truly has become a self-contained system of fact-verification (by asking each other), fantasy and reality-denial. Just in the last few hours, another story has broken from (where else) the master manufacturer of nontroversies over at Big Government, Andrew Breitbart. I won’t link, because he doesn’t deserve the traffic*.

Earlier today, on MSNBC host Dylan Ratigan’s show, one of the guests was notorious cartoonist Ted Rall. Rall’s been a favorite target over the years of outraged conservatives because frankly, he does go over the top in some of the things he accuses major Republican politicians of having done/said/wished for. Although the following isn’t a license to get away with saying or depicting whatever one wishes, however despicable or irresponsible, it’s worth pointing out that the job of a cartoonist is to, well, make things cartoonish. That’s often accomplished by exaggerating them until what can often be hidden in the more-mundane course of everyday events is brought to light by someone highlighting it with their attention and wit. It’s the same thing comedians use, as well as – for that matter – nearly anyone who tells stories of any kind.

So, in this segment (which you can watch here in its entirety), titled “Time for Revolution?” (note question mark), Ratigan plugs Rall’s new book (which is really the purpose of the segment: to fill time by dovetailing something topical with a guest’s desire to sell a few books).

Clueless AND Shameless Is A Bad Combo

***UPDATED*** (see end of post)

Good GRIEF. First Cheney, then Ginni Thomas, and now, Jim Tim Proffitt.

Jim Tim Proffitt? Who the heck is Jim Tim Proffitt? He’s the Rand Paul supporter who stomped on the neck of a woman protesting Paul.

And now, in the great tradition of prior prominent wingnut examples, Mr. Proffitt would like his victim to apologize to him.

Oy. In their story, TPMDC notes that the very sensitive Mr. Proffitt is not merely a Rand Paul supporter who just couldn’t take any more from those awful people who don’t agree with him, he’s actually the Bourbon County coordinator for the Rand Paul Campaign. Or at least he was, until that news got out, at which point, the Paul campaign promptly canned his jackbooted ass. Because, ya know, Paul wouldn’t want too come off too Joe Miller-y. Heaven forbid, etc.

Although it quite obviously takes both balls of steel and a head of stone to be able to demand (or even expect) an apology from someone you shot/stomped/married the sexual harrasser of, there’s no denying such demands are becoming a trend among GOTeaParty types. That type of obliviousness-cum-chutzpah is a recipe for disaster. And it would be more than a little scary in any group.

But when you find it in the angriest, loudest, most energized segment of the electorate right before an election, at a critical juncture in our country’s history, it’s not far from outright terrifying. How far, after all, is this:

From this?

Sara Robinson says: not far. In a follow up to her year-old, pause-giving piece on fascist movements (and how to recognize them), she digs up a quote from a member of academé in Germany during the 1940s:

In the university community, in your own community, you speak privately to your colleagues, some of whom certainly feel as you do; but what do they say? They say, ‘It’s not so bad’ or ‘You’re seeing things’ or ‘You’re an alarmist.’

And you are an alarmist. You are saying that this must lead to this, and you can’t prove it. These are the beginnings, yes; but how do you know for sure when you don’t know the end, and how do you know, or even surmise, the end? On the one hand, your enemies, the law, the regime, the Party, intimidate you. On the other, your colleagues pooh-pooh you as pessimistic or even neurotic. You are left with your close friends, who are, naturally, people who have always thought as you have.

…And one day, too late, your principles, if you were ever sensible of them, all rush in upon you. The burden of self-deception has grown too heavy, and some minor incident, in my case my little boy, hardly more than a baby, saying ‘Jewish swine,’ collapses it all at once, and you see that everything, everything, has changed and changed completely under your nose. The world you live in—your nation, your people—is not the world you were born in at all. The forms are all there, all untouched, all reassuring, the houses, the shops, the jobs, the mealtimes, the visits, the concerts, the cinema, the holidays. But the spirit, which you never noticed because you made the lifelong mistake of identifying it with the forms, is changed. Now you live in a world of hate and fear, and the people who hate and fear do not even know it themselves;

…Suddenly it all comes down, all at once. You see what you are, what you have done, or, more accurately, what you haven’t done (for that was all that was required of most of us: that we do nothing). You remember those early meetings of your department in the university when, if one had stood, others would have stood, perhaps, but no one stood. A small matter, a matter of hiring this man or that, and you hired this one rather than that. You remember everything now, and your heart breaks. Too late. You are compromised beyond repair.

Compromised. I hope we are not yet. But stories like this one don’t give me a ton of hope.

What We’re Up Against

Think Progress somehow obtained a copy of a memo from Charles Koch – one half of the Koch brothers duo behind not just Koch Industries, but also many of the “grassroots” and “tea party” organizations currently roiling the political landscape. It’s an expansive agenda/road map from the semi-annual meeting of Koch’s “network of business and philanthropic leaders, who are dedicated to defending our free society,” as Koch’s cover letter itself referred to the group. Whom do they mean? Well, judge for yourself:

The memo, along with an attendee list of about 210 people, shows the titans of industry — from health insurance companies, oil executives, Wall Street investors, and real estate tycoons — working together with conservative journalists and Republican operatives to plan the 2010 election, as well as ongoing conservative efforts through 2012. According to the memo, David Chavern, the number two at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Fox News hate-talker Glenn Beck also met with these representatives of the corporate elite. In an election season with the most undisclosed secret corporate giving since the Watergate-era, the memo sheds light on the symbiotic relationship between extremely profitable, multi-billion dollar corporations and much of the conservative infrastructure.

But whatever you do, read the memo. All of it. It’s a few pages, but it’s well worth your time to learn – in their own words – what the above crew is up to, and what they’re after. I’ve had my share of exasperation with the milquetoast, apologist, clueless Democrats for the last two years (heck, the last four, right from the moment we learned that “impeachment is off the table” from Nancy Pelosi after the Democrats ascended to power in 2007). But if I’ve not made it sufficiently clear, there truly is no comparison between even the feckless, hapless, clueless Democrats of the last few years who had – and mostly, blew – such a golden opportunity to set the terms of not just the debate, but the direction of the entire country for years if not decades to come, and the genuinely insane GOTea Party authoritarian cultists who are dangerously close to power – leading in some races, neck-and-neck in others, and trailing by only a few points in still others (where they should be getting trounced by dozens of points). If you do nothing else this cycle, make sure you vote. Make sure you tell those closest to you to remember to vote – especially if you know you have friends or family who sometimes skip elections if they’re not genuinely fired up.

Read the memo, straight from the minds and pens of the Koch brothers and a veritable who’s who of ultra-conservatives, and then ask yourselves if you really want these people in power.

Congratulations to the FOURTH Mrs. Rush Limbaugh!

Yes, readers – though I suspect many of you probably follow Rush Limbaugh’s doings (not to mention his words) about as closely as a toddler follows the minutes of the UK Astrophysics Society – yesterday was the day that talk-radio hatemonger Rush Limbaugh entered into his fourth “traditional marriage.” You know, the kind he and other wingers always refer to as having all that “sanctity” (as opposed to all those ooky gay ones which lack it)?

Let us take a moment, on this happy day, to remember that, while the New Testament has exactly zero instances of Jesus explicitly condemning homosexual marriage or in fact homosexuality, period, it does have a few other things to say on related topics (h/t Glenn Greenwald)

So, just to recap, according to Rush:
= bad, but

= just Pee-Chee.

Despite the comments of that Jesus guy. Got it.

Uppity Negro Should Mind His Manners

At least that’s what the wingnut coalition seems to be thinking nowadays. Wonkette catches the teabaggers in the act of overt – if unthinking – racism:

This is a few days old now, and many outlets have featured it, including Countdown and others, but it’s been hanging around in the back of my mind persistently, which doesn’t usually happen with items like this which are – at first glance, anyway – so seemingly trivial and disposable…so I decided to dig into it a little bit.