Trending Topic #Liberaltips2avoidrape Completely Misses The Mark.

Image found at Mother Jones*

 

In the last 24 hours, a new hashtag has started to trend on Twitter known as "#Liberaltips2avoidrape."  When I first heard about it, I was greatly offended not just for women, but really for the entire human race.  I still am, in fact, especially since I spent a good two hours pouring through these awful tweets.

The trend started as a way to mock Democratic State Representative Joe Salazar of Colorado, who had introduced a bill making it illegal to carry weapons onto college campuses even if the holder has a conceal and carry permit.  Opponents to the bill say that passing such a law would make it more difficult for students to protect themselves against mass shooters and rapists (apparently ignoring the fact that no mass shooting in the last 30 years has been stopped by an armed civilian, and that "in 2010, nearly 6 times more women were shot by husbands, boyfriends, and ex-partners than murdered by male strangers" (Mother Jones)).

Here's more from Mother Jones:

Salazar came down on the side of those who believe that more loaded guns on college campuses is a terrible idea. (This isn't such a radical opinion if you look at the data.) He delivered the following rebuttal on the state House floor:

It's why we have call boxes, it's why we have safe zones, that's why we have the whistles. Because you just don't know who you're gonna be shooting at. And you don't know if you feel like you're gonna be raped, or if you feel like someone's been following you around, or if you feel like you're in trouble and when you may actually not be, that you pop out that gun and you pop... pop a round at somebody.

There's footage of the speech here.

It's pretty clear what Salazar was trying to say: Frightened college kids carrying handguns might result in unintended casualties. You could argue that it was clumsily phrased, but there isn't anything nefarious. The statement was so blah that the Colorado House Republican minority didn't bother to issue a press release about Salazar's statement. At least not until after conservative bloggers, seeking to brand somebody the Democratic Todd "Legitimate Rape" Akin, commenced their social-media freak-out during the long President's Day weekend.

Salazar was labeled the new poster boy for the "real war on women," and painted as someone who denies women the right to protect themselves against sexual assault. He was portrayed as an out-of-touch, gun-stealing lefty who promoted blowing a whistle over actually fighting off an attack. Many also latched onto Salazar's "you don't know if you feel like you're gonna be raped," upgraded the meaning to something around the lines of, "women can't ever tell when they're about to get raped/getting raped," and voilà! New Todd Akin.


Oh, now I get it!  The trend is supposed to be funny!  Okay.  I mean, really, check out some of these hilarious gems just annihilating Salazar and his crazy liberalness!

 Divadoll123 is right!  It isn't about gun control at all.  It was only started in response to a Democratic representative arguing to keep campuses safer by arguing for gun control.  Wait, what?  Gun control was exactly why this topic was started, you mouth-breather. 

This isn't about empowering women to protect themselves at all.  It's about stopping people from harming innocents.  Please explain why mace or a taser won't work.  Why do you need a gun?  Do you need to have something that will take someone's life away?
 

 It's funny because of how much he missed the point!  Raising your son to respect women is teaching someone not to rape.  Instead of telling women that they shouldn't wear certain clothes because it makes them seem more "rape-able," why don't we focus more on creating a culture where men don't treat women as objects? 

You see, what Bill "Hyperbole" Zeiser is trying to do is make it seem like liberals want to take women's guns away and just "teach men not to rape" which, judging by his sarcasm, he doesn't think will work (probably because he's oversimplifying things).  If he could have typed a little more, I guarantee his next sentence would have been obvious: "Liberals are trying to increase the odds of rape for a woman." 

Ahahahahaha!  Too funny, Beer_Wolf!  Gang rape is incredibly funny!

Now, now, let's not be silly.  He can't be every where at once, now can He?    

Hahaha, way to stick it to Salazar!  Oh, wait... you're not.  In fact, a pretty high percentage aren't.

Better to be a kind, caring individual then a closeted psychopath that's one finger twitch away from being a murderer.

See, here are the problems with this trend:

1) It's suppose to be poking fun at liberals for our beliefs, yet really all it's doing is insulting rape victims by attacking beliefs that conservatives think liberals have.

2) It was started as a way to call attention to Salazar's comments, but his comments were taken out of context.  Many people using this hashtag are wondering why liberals and women's rights groups aren't just as upset with Salazar as we were with Akin.  Perhaps it's because what Akin said was stupid, misogynistic, and went against all of biology and common sense combined, whereas what Salazar said was just kind of bumbled.  Yes, it could have been phrased better, but all he was saying is that it's easy to discharge a loaded weapon in a panic and hurt someone innocent.  Akin said that legitimate rape does not result in pregnancies, inferring that if you were raped and became pregnant, then you must have been consenting to it and it was never rape after all.  That's sick. 

3)

This one comes up a lot too, and I think it has to do with that Letterman thing awhile back.  I don't know of many people that actually thought what Letterman said was funny (or, really, that he's a funny person at all).  He apologized for what he said, but the fact remains: rape isn't a joke.

This trending hashtag is disgusting and vile, and everyone who contributes to it has no idea why it was started, or what Salazar's original comment was in its entirety.  The only thing it is good for is determining who on Twitter is a complete fucking idiot. 

So here, read this article - the same one cited above - and educate yourself.  Or go here, to the Twitter Search Feed, and subject yourself to tweet upon unsavory tweet until your mouth tastes of ash and you hate humanity.  

Author's Note: I was originally going to approach this post sarcastically and praise the conservatives for such a fantastic argument (see what I did there?), but I couldn't.  It hurt my soul to try.  Rape isn't funny.  Period.  If you think that Salazar's comments are even in the same ballpark as Akin's, then you have obviously missed the point of the Akin outrage.  Grow up, educate yourself, and then join the rest of the world as we progress into the rest of the 21st century.    

*As far as this very top image goes, I am floored.  The creator of this image, a conservative tweeter, attached this to his hashtag, apparently arguing that a good way to not get raped is to be old, bitter, and ugly.  I'm glad he censored the "ass," though.  Otherwise this image would have been very insulting.

It's Official! President Obama To Seek Third Term As POTUS.

Readers, you all know by now that I worship President Obama.  I have an entire room in my apartment dedicated to his existence, complete with hair follicles, pictures, and a piece of gum he spit out on his last trip to Maine.  It's obvious, I think, by now that he has never done anything wrong in his life, nor will he ever, and will go down in history as the greatest president to ever hold the office of Commander-in-Chief, future presidents included.  He is the reason I get up every morning (I have to recite the Obama Loyalty Oath during the rise of the sun), and the reason I go to bed every night (he frequently visits me in my dreams for a little homo-erotic subconscious sinning).

I, like all leftist, atheist, liberal socialists, was afraid last year.  I was afraid that our Dear Leader would only have four years to accomplish the take-over of this country.  Luckily for us, Romney was soundly defeated thanks to our tampering with the vote count in Florida, Virginia, and Ohio, bringing about four more years of radical change.

The innocent Republicans are scared and on the run, but all they have to do is hang on until 2016.  Will that be enough time for us to finish our mission, my brothers and sisters?  No, it won't.  Thankfully, President Obama's loyal and devout followers have realized this.  Representative Jose Serrano of New York has begun taking the necessary steps to repeal the 22nd Amendment with HJ Resolution 15.

Does HJ Resolution have any chance of passing?  No... in fact, it has zero chance of making it out of committee.  It always has.

Oh, did I say "always"?  Well, President Obama actually began taking the steps to secure his third term back during the Bush Administration in the year 2001.  Clever, huh?  Unfortunately, Serrano's resolution won't be the president's solution to his third term.  In fact, changing amendments won't do it at all.

According to page 45 of the Ninth Essentials Edition of "We The People" by Ginsberg, Lowi, Weir, Tolbert, and Spitzer:

"The Constitution established procedures for its own revision in Article V.  Its provisions are so difficult that the document has been successfully amended only 17 times since 1791, when the first 10 amendments were adopted.  Thousands of other amendments have been proposed in Congress, but fewer than 40 of them have even come close to fulfilling the Constitution's requirement of a two-thirds vote in Congress, and only a fraction have gotten anywhere near adoption by three-fourths of the states."

Shit.  Only 17 times, huh?  Looks like Representative Serrano missed the mark, here.  So what, then, is our Dear Leader going to do to get reelected in 2016?  Simple!

The recent spike in gun violence in this country has given our side an advantage.  We can now use the threat of future violence to lure centrists to our side and get the numbers we need to do what must be done to finish our radical liberal take-over of America:

Take their guns.

Without their guns, the right-wing will be completely defenseless, allowing President Obama to move U.S. troops into every state to usurp the rights of conservatives and Republicans alike.  It'll be quick, almost overnight.  We can't give them any warning.  It's why Obama has yet to take a single right away from anyone since he took office in January of 2009.  They can't see it coming, and they can't be able to defend themselves.  A strong right-wing defense just means more left-wing casualties.

Soon we'll be able to stop pretending that we're the ideology of peace and rational thought, of equality and love.  Soon we can cast aside that mantle and show our true colors!

Of course, Obama will need millions of loyal agents willing to go into the homes of their fellow Americans to actually take these guns.  We'd need to get law enforcement involved and ready to go along with the plan, too.  Courts would also need to look the other way... logistics might be an issue... and conservatives would probably defend themselves from the seizure...

You know what?  Let's not think about the crazy details just yet.  We've got four years to work the kinks out.  And a third term?  Totally doable.






























Anyone who believes that President Obama is running for a third term is a fucking idiot.  And to think that his supporters are "sheep" enough to go along with something so ridiculous is ignorant and disrespectful.  He's a good president, sure, but goddamn, he has no intention of running for a third term in any way, shape, or form.  Why the hell would he?

For more on why this story is a conspiracy theory and nothing more, check out this Addicting Info article.

Or this quote from David Adler, director of the Andrus Center for Public Policy at Boise State University:

“There is nothing in his tenure as president, nothing that we know of him, that indicates that Barack Obama is going to seek a third term. Short of a military coup, the 22nd Amendment stands as an insurmountable obstacle to a third-term president today, and there is no evidence to suggest Obama or his supporters are planning on staging a coup. It’s a right-wing fantasy cooked up to try to frighten Americans.”

Fascism And The GOP (Part One).

I was perusing the internet today (something I haven't had time to do in a long while) and I stumbled upon this handy little guide that defined Fascism in fourteen simple characteristics.  So instead of writing something about killing tools (guns) or general ignorance, I decided to draw up a comparison of what a Fascist state is like and what the modern Republican party is like.

Now before I go on, I want to get one thing clear: this is a liberal comedy/information blog written by an independent.  So while I could compare this same list to the Democrats (who do line up with a few of the numbers, but not the majority of them like the GOP does), I won't.  Do that yourself, you lazy fuck.

Another note: I am fully aware that this has probably been done before as the internet is a very large place.  Hell, I found one that compared the fourteen points to President Obama, albeit in a not-very-serious manner.

Here's the quick foreword from the website I got these from: "Dr. Lawrence Britt has examined the fascist regimes of Hitler (Germany), Mussolini (Italy), Franco (Spain), Suharto (Indonesia) and several Latin American regimes. Britt found 14 defining characteristics common to each."

Working People Vote Republican? Sure.

I saw this ignorant piece of shit bumper sticker on the back of what I can only assume was an ignorant piece of shit person's truck (where else?) earlier this afternoon.  Had he looked into his rear view mirror, the driver would have seen me flailing about behind my steering wheel, flipping him the bird and screaming not-so-pleasant language at my windshield.

That's the point of his bumper sticker, after all.  It's not to proclaim something he's proud of  (else it would just say, "I vote Republican") - it is to purely insult people who don't lean to the right or vote Republican.

Essentially, this man has stated that the work I do doesn't count as work, as I am a lazy, good for nothing, liberal.  His work, however, is true American work.  Never mind the fact that I am going to college for a degree in human rights law, no.  He contributes more to society because he votes Republican, and Republicans contribute more to society because fuck you, that's why.

I don't buy this.  While my current job requires me to work part-time in a grocery store deli, I still believe that the work I do is actual work.  I get paid for it, and I pay a higher percentage of taxes than most high-income Republicans do.  I guess, by that logic, I'm contributing more to society than most Republicans. 

Most of the people in this country do, in fact, work.  Only a very small percentage are unemployed by choice.  So if all working people voted Republican, methinks that the elections last year would have gone a lot differently.  We should change this bumper sticker, huh?

Let's see... what would be more appropriate?

Well, I know that, on average, people that lean politically to the left have a higher IQ than those that lead to the right.  So it could say, "Dumb People Vote Republican."

IQ is also directly tied to religious affiliation.  Those without religion are generally more intelligent than those who follow one.  So it could say, "Religious zealots vote Republican."

And I guess if we're taking a small percentage of the population (those that don't work) and applying that to a larger whole (liberals), then it's only fair that I get to do it too.  For example, not all Republicans are racist, but most racists are Republicans.  I could say, "White supremacists vote Republican."

One last one.  Most people that watch Fox News lean to the right.  Fox News is known for its right-wing bias (so much so that it's not only common knowledge, but a huge joke as well), as well as its ability to dumb down information, twist it, and basically lie. 

From Daily Kos: "The allegation that Fox News exploits their audience's tendency to voraciously consume absurdly spun tales driven by fear has been documented by researchers at the University College London Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience (and yes, that's real). Conservatives regularly demonstrate their proclivity for barking at the outrageous falsehoods proffered by Fox and other conservative fabulists. Among the university's findings were that the brains of conservatives are more likely to have an enlarged amygdala which is associated with greater inflexibility, emotion, and fear response."

So another bumper sticker could read, "People with enlarged amygdala vote Republican."

The bumper stickers I came up with were just as insulting - if not more so - than the first one pictured above.  "But Shaun," you might say, "You're a liberal.  Aren't you supposed to stand for peace?" Of course.  I'll be posting something about this later, but there comes a point when you just have to tell people to shut the fuck up and stop being so goddamn ignorant, liberal or not.

I'm gonna wrap this up by changing gears.  Were I the man driving this truck, I'd be ripping that sticker off out of plain embarrassment.  Under our current GOP governor, Paul LePage (who was elected with only 39% of the vote), Maine has become the least attractive state in the union for business with a dying economy.

So congratulations, Republicans.  It's hard to do work in a state where there is none.  Who are you going to vote for now? 

Who am I kidding?  You're going to keep voting Republican, even if Democrats are better with money.





For IQ stats cited above, click here. 

If you're a Republican that takes issue with this article, click here.    

The Right Wing Does Not Understand What Racism Is and What It Isn't.

The host of HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher" has come under fire from the right again after a short post he made to the show's blog page on Monday.  In it, Maher criticized the Republican party for becoming more extreme with each passing day, and blamed them for our current dysfunctional government.

Well, uh, agreed.  You'll see no arguments from me there (or really anywhere in regards to his post).  I will say this, though: Right-Wingers are incredibly talented when it comes jumping gaps in logic.  Here's a great example.  At the beginning of the post, Maher writes:

"The idea that the blame for our government’s dysfunction is equally shared by the parties just is a giant, steaming mound of horseshit and anyone who has paid attention to politics over the last 20 years knows it. Or as I like to call it, 'The Rise of the Party of the Apes.' "

Smoking Out Fraudulent Voters In Florida.

Pictured above is Rick Scott, the Republican Governor of Florida.  While he looks as though he has just been plucked and boiled, I assure you that he's just naturally unnatural.

His brain, however, I can't vouch for.  As many of you have heard, Scott has been moving forward with a plan to purge people from the voting rolls - people that, he believes, do not have the right to vote.  The list of names is astronomically flawed, as you can imagine.  It's no coincidence that most of the list consists of Hispanic Americans and people that frequently vote Democrat.

In a not-so-subtle way, Scott is trying to give Florida to Mitt Romney before the November election.

Congress Speaks Like Tenth Graders.

According to the Sunlight Foundation, our representatives in Congress speak at a tenth grade level.  Here's what they have to say:

Congress now speaks at almost a full grade level lower than it did just seven years ago, with the most conservative members of Congress speaking on average at the lowest grade level, according to a new Sunlight Foundation analysis of the Congressional Record using Capitol Words.

Of course, what some might interpret as a dumbing down of Congress, others will see as more effective communications. And lawmakers of both parties still speak above the heads of the average American, who reads at between an 8^th and 9^th grade level.

Today’s Congress speaks at about a 10.6 grade level, down from 11.5 in 2005. By comparison, the U.S. Constitution is written at a 17.8 grade level, the Federalist Papers at a 17.1 grade level, and the Declaration of Independence at a 15.1 grade level. The Gettysburg Address comes in at an 11.2 grade level and Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech is at a 9.4 grade level. Most major newspapers are written at between an 11^th and 14^th grade level. (You can find more comparisons here)

Normally I'd poke fun at such a statistic, but I really can't.  See, as much as I would like for my representatives to be intelligent (and therefore speak with an air of intelligence and reason), that's far too much to ask for from a country that averages as 8th-9th grade readers. 

Maybe there IS something in our drinking water after all...

One more thing to put this whole statistic into perspective.  THESE are sophomores (10th graders) in high school:

Young, right?  Now how do you feel about our congressmen and women speaking like tenth graders?

Conservative Talking Points Debunked.

Now that Romney is the Republican candidate, all of the Conservative talking points are (once again) being flung at President Obama - that he's a Muslim, that he wasn't born in the United States, yaddah yaddah yaddah.  Wait, sorry.  I say that like people ever shut the fuck up for a second to let the president do his job.  I should rephrase.  After the harrowing Republican primaries and debates, during which we watched a bunch of white people verbally abuse the living shit out of each other, the Right has rearmed and re-aimed its nonsense machine at the president. 

Well, folks, you've seen the man's birth certificate from Hawaii.  He says he's not a Muslim (as if his religion really matters), and he's yet to impose any Satanic/Islamic laws on us good Christians.  So I'm going to go ahead and say it: Stop.  Just stop.  

Dumb people already bought into that shit, and those of us intelligent Americans with not-so-short attention spans remember 2008.  We've heard it all before.  We didn't believe it then, and we won't believe it now.  No facts, no case.  You don't need to repeat yourself for the mouth-breathers of America.  They've been repeating that nonsense like it's gospel since McCain lost.

This is why President Obama is laughing in the picture above.  He is going to win reelection in 2012, as long as he can get his base motivated enough to get out and vote.  What is Romney going to dig up on him that people haven't heard already?  Nothing.  All he can do is regurgitate talking points for the next six months.  Here are just a few spun as the right-wing would.

1.) President Obama took credit for killing Osama Bin Laden - the credit belongs to the troops.  Well, yes and no.  President Obama often makes it known that OBL wouldn't have been taken out had it not been for the brave actions of our men and women in uniform.  Here's a fun fact: Bush had the opportunity to get Osama and he didn't take it.  President Obama made the decision to infiltrate Bin Laden's compound, and he did it despite everyone in his cabinet telling him not to.  In the end, Bin Laden was shot in the face, and everyone made it out alive.  Had Obama not made that call, the mastermind of 9/11 would still be loose, and the Navy Seals of Seal Team Six never would have entered Pakistan.   

2.) President Obama wants to take away our 2nd Amendment Rights.  This is false.  He has strengthened it, if anything, and only wants to take automatic weapons off the table.  It's a fair trade, I think.  Would you be comfortable seeing anybody walk down the street with an AK-47?  I doubt it.  Of course, the leader of the N.R.A., Wayne LaPierre, wants everyone to believe it's all a conspiracy, that the president will put his full plan into action in his second term.  Wayne LaPierre is also a fucking idiot.

3.) President Obama has increased taxes on the middle class, and has not pulled us out of the recession.  This is also false.  President Obama has not increased taxes on the middle class, and the jobless numbers are slowly dwindling.  If the Republicans would have compromised more with the Democrats over the last four years, things would be a lot better now. 

 4.) Obama is a Socialist.  Dead.  Fucking.  Wrong.  While bailing out the auto industry was a socialist move, look at the result.  The auto industry paid back all the money with interest before his first term was over!  President Obama is not a socialist - he's a progressive.  It doesn't matter, really.  Socialism is actually a great thing.  Americans, particularly conservatives, have it in their heads that it's a bad thing after the Red Scare.  Please understand that Socialism and Communism are two very different things.

The Attack On Woman's Rights.

With each day that passes, there's a new headline announcing how yet another state has pushed to repeal some form of a woman's rights.  It's too bad, then, that our disgustingly lazy media would rather report on how large Kim Kardashian's ass has gotten, or the ongoing feud between Hillary Rosen and Ann Romney (which is a pointless argument - both are kind of wrong).

Let's start from the top.  Democrats and liberals, noticing that Republicans and conservatives have become more and more focused on passing legislation that involves only women, began to claim that the GOP was trying to start a war on women.  Republicans and their media arm, Fox News, shot back with the ever-so-adult, "Nah-uh!  You are!"  

Now, to say that this is a "war" is both ridiculous and sensationalist.  It isn't a war.  That's insulting for two reasons: 1) It trivializes actual war (like the one in Afganistan) and 2) It makes it sound like legislators are reaching for their weapons and firing at women.  The proper term, I think, is "attack."  Politicians are attacking the same rights that women have been working towards for the last one-hundred plus years.

Santorum Is On Everyone's Lips These Days.

Oh, boy, does Santorum know how to get a crowd of the Righteous Right going or what?  All it takes is one good glance at any major news network's home page to know that my buddy Rick Santorum is going places.  What places, you ask?  White House places.

Sure, most of the stories about him are usually ones questioning his "outrageous" statements and accusations against the left.  But where the Liberals see crazy, I see smear.  How dare the Left smear Santorum when every word out his mouth is divine truth.  In 2008, for example, he said that the Democratic Party has "become the party of Woodstock" in the sense that Democratic lawmakers "prey upon our most basic primal lusts...sex."  What kind of sex?  Homosexual sex of course.

To that I say, "Duh," but the media wants to pull the reigns on the horse and slow this Santorum buggy down.  Fuck that.  Santorum stops for no one except the Lord.  So suck it, Anderson Cooper.

Mob Boss LePage.

I've never tried to keep it a secret - I think Maine's Governor, Paul LePage, is a goddamn lunatic.  He is better suited to running a branch of the mob than he is to running a state.  And my hatred of him really has nothing to do the fact that he is a Republican either.  Hell, our last governor was a Democrat, and he didn't do anything (go figure).

But I digress.  LePage has been the face of Maine for more than a year now, and it seems like every time I see my state on the national news, it's because of something idiotic he has said.  Sometimes, I admit, I avoid writing about it simply because it can usually be summed up in my earlier (and quite popular) LePage post.  But if anything gets me, it's the subject of education, and LePage decided to hold it hostage recently over a budget quandary.

I found this lovely little snippet over at AddictingInfo:


Maine Governor Paul LePage has threatened to close down schools statewide unless he is allowed to throw 65,000 people off of MaineCare, Maine’s version of MedicAid.

“Right now, in order to continue the way we are, I will close schools May 1 and use that money, because that’s where we are,” LePage said in an appearance in Lewiston on Thursday evening. “It’s a matter of not having money. It’s not a matter of policy. It’s a matter of when you have one hundred dollars in your checkbook and you’re spending two hundred, you’ve got a problem.”

Yeah, sure, why cut the tax breaks you've given to corporations here in Maine when you can just as easily cut schools?  I mean, kids don't need to be educated these days.  And those jobs?  You know, the teachers and faculty that run the school?  They don't need those either.

Ironically, the school faculty would probably end up on MaineCare if their jobs were cut. 

Here's my favorite part of the article, though:

The state’s Democratic Party seems somewhat confused by this ultimatum as the Governor does not actually possess the legal authority to carry out his threat.

The Maine Constitution is very clear that the authority to fund public education lies with the Legislature, said Rep. Margaret Rotundo of Lewiston, the ranking Democrat on the Appropriations Committee.
“My understanding is that the Legislature would have to pass legislation not to fund the schools, and that’s not going to happen. It’s just not going to happen. So people don’t have to worry about the schools closing,” Rotundo said Friday.

This is very true.  Governor LePage doesn't have the power to just shut down schools.  If that were the case, most Republican-run states wouldn't have them.  Still, I find this to be quite telling of our governor.  Rather than cut the tax breaks he's given to Maine's corporations, LePage would cut the future's of Maine's children.

So yes, while education is safe from the mob boss (for now), rest assured that he will find something to cut - something that will affect the lower and middle classes far more than the upper.     






Both the quotes and the image above can be found at AddictingInfo.

Outlaw Contraception?

I'm not a huge fan of any of the Republican Presidential candidates, and I pretty much laugh at the idea that the party will "take back America" in November.  When I think of the people that these out-of-touch individuals represent, a few things come to mind: the constituents are either: 1) Rich, 2) old, 3) extremely religious, or 4) extremely ignorant.  Oh, and I suppose one last thing.  I tend to think of most republicans to be male.  Why? 

Well, the answer to that is a long one.  Suffice it to say that the republican party rarely puts forth legislation that helps women.  The big issue is one everyone is familiar with - abortion.  I personally don't believe that men should pass legislation on things that do not affect them.  I tried to think of a good metaphor for this, starting with, "That would be like female legislators trying to pass a law that...", but no dice.  The truth is, whatever the flip-side of that is, it would probably cause permanent physical damage that would result in no less than two bodily functions from...functioning. 

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I do not understand why any woman would vote republican.  Men?  Sure.  We're dumb enough to do shit like that.  But not you ladies.  

House GOP Admits 2012 Candidates Are Pathetic - Hands Election Over.

 "This will only hurt for four years."

Let me start by saying this: I truly wish that I could rail on the Democrats more than I do.  It's just that the things that Republicans say and do always dwarf the actions of their political counterpart.  Example: Why write about John Kerry being a boring liar when I could write about Dick Cheney shooting some guy in the face? What would you rather read about?

I am not part of either party.  I consider myself to be an intelligent, open-minded person (and that alone excludes me from politics as a whole), that agrees with both sides on certain issues and neither side on others.  That being said, I have spent the last several days laughing my ass off at the mess that the House Republicans have put their entire party into.

Allow me to explain.  The Senate passed a brief extension to the payroll tax cut that would give the Federal government more time to work out a solid plan (i.e. give them a carefree end-of-the-year break).  The extension affects three things: unemployment, Medicare, and an increase on worker's taxes by about 2%. 

Fox News And Their Narrative.

 

One thing that absolutely slays me about Fox News are the horrendously misinformed insults that the various pundits and news anchors throw at liberal-minded Americans.  Worse, it comes at you twenty four hours a day, seven days a week.  It really hurts your self-esteem.  What really amazes me is that the network continues to call itself fair and balanced, despite the fact that no other news network carelessly hurls insults at Republicans and conservatives.  

Oh, but the pundits would tell you that it's what the other outlets aren't saying that shows their bias (or, I suppose, how they are saying it).  This is nonsense.  For one thing, it is impossible to remove bias from any situation.  Human beings aren't robots - we are thinking, feeling creatures.  There is a huge difference between hinting at a view point, and coming right out with, "Liberals love America like O.J. [Simpson] loved Nicole" (Ann Coulter).  Yes.  She actually said that.  On television.

On February 3rd, 2011, an "article" was posted to Fox Nation that both completely unnecessary and ridiculous.  The following was posted under the title Liberals Hate Women and the Media Lets Them Get Away With It:

Just this week, notorious camera hog Sen. Chuck Schumer said perhaps the dumbest thing I have ever heard a politician say. In attempting to make a point about how the organs of power on Capitol Hill need to work together to prevent a government shutdown, Schumer reconfigured the three branches of government. "You know," he said, "we have three branches of government. We have a House. We have a Senate. We have a President." It should be noted that this isn't the model described in most civics textbooks, which list the three branches as legislative, executive and judiciary.

Now imagine if a Republican had said that. Better yet, a Republican woman.

I kid you not, that is the full article.  There's a link at the bottom that asks you to click on it to read the full article, but it took me nowhere.  First of all, this makes no sense.  It takes an idiotic quote made by a Democrat and then twists it not into an accusation, but into an insinuation.  The last two sentences really hammer that point home.  Watch how easy this is to do.  

The other day in Ms. Hamilton's second grade class, seven year old Jenny kissed fellow seven year old Douglas and gave him a terrible case of "The Cooties."  Now imagine if Douglas had given Jenny cooties.  Better yet, a twenty-four year old Douglas. 

See?  I didn't actually say anything about pedophilia, but I certainly implied it.  What if I had titled the "article" Girls Love Boys and Cooties Let Them Get Away With It?  Not only is this shitty journalism- it's manipulation.  Or, at least, an attempt at it.  A sad, transparent attempt.

Only on Fox News will you hear things like, "The Liberal assault machine" or "The radical Liberal agenda."  If any of the pundits took a moment to look up the definition of "liberal," they'd immediately see how stupid that sounds.  According to Merriam Webster, liberal means, "Marked by generosity; broad-minded; not bound by authoritarianism."  Liberal movements are also responsible for women gaining the right to vote, civil rights, a minimum wage, child labor laws, housing loans for veterans, medicare, the Peace Corps, and Social Security.  

So, sure Fox News.  I suppose if I'm going to be assaulted by any radical machine, I'd definitely want it to be a liberal one.  I'd literally be getting attacked with kindness.  Or kittens.  

 

"The horror!...The horror!"

 

Shocking News! Palin Criticizes President Obama!

You smug little troll, you.

In a rather interesting (albeit unsurprising) turn of events, Palin took to the internet on Monday the 8th to prove once again that she is the ultimate troller.  I attempted to visit her Facebook page for more concrete information but, to be perfectly honest, my mind couldn't bear all of the ignorant, racist word-crap that it was taking in.  Within seconds, I felt as though I had just gazed upon the Ark of the Covenant's disgusting, unholy twin.  

Luckily, I was able to find the filter button that showed only Palin's posts before my face melted.  In a "note" that she titled "Conquering the Storm", Sarah Palin bragged about how she saw the downgrade in the U.S.'s credit rating coming, and that the whole Obama-Reid-Pelosi spending binge got us to this point.  She then went on to talk about how we need to get off foreign oil and create more jobs here.  With alternative energy perhaps?  Nope!  She wants to drill here in America (forgetting all about the BP gulf disaster), and like a Natural Gas executive talking point, she listed all the reasons why natural gas is good and clean and blah blah blah.

LePage Rage.

Note: Every picture of Governor LePage is followed by an actual, word for word quote.  Link is at the bottom.

"I would say intelligence, uh, the more education you have

the more knowledge you have the better person you are and I 

believe yes and yes." -When asked if he believed Creationism

should be taught in Maine schools, May 2010.

It should be of no surprise to anyone paying attention to American politics that the incumbent governor of Maine, Paul LePage, is a twit.  He won with 38.3% of the vote in 2010 because the election had numerous runners, including three independents and a democrat.  Had the latter dropped out, independent candidate Eliot Cutler would have received more than 50% of the vote.  To give you a sense of how much better of a person Cutler is than LePage, he didn't run a single negative campaign ad during the election season.  Not one.    

But we got stuck with the man that literally looks like how all big-business republicans are portrayed.  Some say the appeal of LePage is that he is blunt and straightforward - characteristics that most politicians unfortunately lack.  Those that do not support the governor, myself included, argue that his bluntness is an understatement.  He behaves more like a mob boss than a state leader.  He is supposed to represent the state of Maine and, as such, the people of Maine.  Instead, he is an embarrassment to us, and really to all of New England.  Like an unedited, walking conservative-republican talking points memo, LePage does everything in his power to tear down unions, education, labor laws, human rights, the environment, the president, and liberals.  Don't believe me?  Fuck it, let's take a good look at some examples, all of which will be rated according to the "Dick Scale."  The Dick Scale is a measure of how much of a dick an individual is, or how "dickish" his/her's actions are.  My scale is simple, ranging from 1-5, 1 being that the person/action isn't dickish, and 5 being a person/action that is clearly such a dick, words can barely describe it.

Solving The Debt Crisis.

My question is, why does that skeleton have a mullet (a.k.a "the 

official haircut for idiots")?

Good news out of Washington tonight as the House passes a bill that will cut spending and raise the debt ceiling, while simultaneously leaving Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security alone.  Had the bill not been passed through the House tonight, and if it were to fail in the Senate, the U.S. will pass the debt ceiling limit tomorrow, bringing on the Apocalypse.  

That's right, the Apocalypse.  According to pretty much every economist, news anchor, politician, and pundit in America, our country defaulting would be what finally causes Satan to get his fat ass off the couch, break out the trident, and gather up his four horsemen to bring about the end of the world.  We are, in the hundreds of thousands of years of human evolution, the most important society that has ever or will ever exist.  Listen guys, I highly doubt that the United States defaulting would be of any concern to Satan.  He's far too busy giving the guys over at MTV new ideas for television shows.  

Did That Really Just Happen?

From left to right: Eric Cantor, John Boeh - wait, you know what?

Who gives a shit?  Let's just call them the guys that fucked us.

Around 8:15 P.M. eastern time last night, I watched as the House of Representatives passed the "Cut, Cap, and Balance Act."  Whoops, sorry!  Did I say House of Representatives?  I mean the Republicans in the House of Representatives.  In an almost pure-party line vote, the Republicans used their majority to pass their economic recovery "plan" which, if you look into it, is not so much as a recovery plan as it is a masterfully crafted shit-storm of blame.  It's almost as though the Republicans leaders consulted with Lord Voldemort, Darth Vader, Sauron, Lex Luthor, Satan, and (perhaps) Rupert Murdoch over the weekend and devised this brilliant piece of legislature.

Demopocalypse - Part IV...and V... and VI...and VII.

So... I made an "oopsie" when I said that I'd be doing seven posts in a row about the Democratic party, in that I hadn't actually planned out what each day would be devoted to.  I am very happy with the three posts I have so far and will, in fact, treat you all to one more good'un before this is all said and done.  Honestly, there are too many delicious news items to feast on.  Here I am digging up dirt on Democrats I don't particularly care for, while Michele Bachmann's husband is accused of running a clinic that "turns" gay men straight, and a British tabloid run by the owner of Fox News is obliterated overnight due to a hacking scandal.

Regardless, I promised two sentences ago that I'd deliver one more for you, and I decided to deliver it in the form of a curve ball.  Heads up!

Demopocalypse - Part III.

On day one of Demopocalypse, I focused on Anthony Weiner's career-crushing life choices.  On day two, I turned my gaze towards the entire democratic party and condemned them for their spinelessness.  What, I wonder, shall I talk about today?

Oh!  I know!  How about another man that makes poor decisions involving his penis?  No, not Bill Clinton...

"This November, vote for John Edwards.  White guy.  White name."

Yes, John Edwards.  I first heard about him in 2004 when then-presidential candidate John Kerry picked him for his VP slot.  Your humble, naive young writer clearly remembers watching the press conference and wondering, "Who the fuck is John Edwards?"  Unbeknownst to me, I would find out more about him than I cared to know in the coming years, culminating in a shocking revelation not too long ago - that the National Enquirer got something kind of right.