GOP Chair Jim Roddey Calls Obama Supporters "Mentally Retarded."

Pictured above is Pennsylvania’s Allegheny County GOP Chair, Jim Roddey.  It should come as no surprise to you that he is old or white, nor should you be shocked when I tell you that at an election party last night, he called Obama supporters "mentally retarded."  Old, white and ignorant: the base of the Republican Party.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports that Roddey was telling a joke in front of about 200 people, saying:

"There was a disappointment tonight. I was very embarrassed. I was in this parking lot and there was a man looking for a space to park, and I found a space for him. And I felt badly -- he looked like he was sort of in distress. And I said, 'Sir, here's a place.' And he said, 'That's a handicapped space.' I said, 'Oh I'm so sorry, I saw that Obama sticker and I thought you were mentally retarded."

And, in case you were wondering, yes, the crowd did indeed applaud and laugh at the joke.

I'm pissed at Roddey for a number of reasons, the biggest being that he just made light of the mentally handicapped.  I do, of course, have an Obama sticker on my car, so I'll just get this out of the way right now:

Fuck you, asshole.

Also, Right-Wing blogs and news outlets will now be talking about how us liberals are overreacting to a joke, and how Roddey meant nothing by it.  This is garbage, and I'll come back to it in a second.  He did apologize today, according to a separate article on the same news site:

In email today, Mr. Roddey called his remarks "regrettable," and added, "I have a long record of supporting people with disabilities and should have remembered that before I spoke. My remarks were inappropriate and I apologize."

I appreciate the apology, but obviously it's not up to me to accept it or decline it.  I am curious, however, as to why Sarah Palin didn't nose her way into this (here's the garbage I mentioned like four sentences ago).  A liberal says something about the handicapped (which I don't condone either) and she jumps all over it, but a conservative makes a distasteful joke and she's silent.  What the fuck, Palin?  Don't pick and choose your battles based on party lines.  That's a pretty strong indication that you don't actually have any moral fortitude on the subject.

Image found at The TexasFred Blog.  

I'm only mentioning that to cite the source.  Don't actually go there.

He's surprisingly quite conservative despite the picture.

Also, he sucks.

Expanded Birth Control Access Equal To Tragedies Of 9/11 And Pearl Harbor.

This is a story that should piss off everyone, no matter what side of the political spectrum you fall on.  In a speech on the House floor last Wednesday (8/1/12), Representative Mike Kelly (R-PA) had this to say about the expansion of birth control access for women:

“I know in your mind you can think of the times America was attacked.  One is December 7 — that is Pearl Harbor Day. Another was September 11 — that was the day of the terrorist attack.  I want you to remember August 1, 2012 — the attack on our religious freedom. That is a date that will live in infamy, along with those other dates.”

August 1st was the day that marked the beginning of implementation for the Affordable Care Act's birth control mandate.  It was also, apparently, the day that 5,379* Americans died in the on-going War For Religious Freedom.

Why did the news not cover this horrifying tragedy?  Because Kelly is full of shit.  I want to be very clear on something, here.  A United States Representative in the Legislative Branch compared women getting birth control to the tragedy of 9/11, and the horrific assault on Pearl Harbor. 

Instead of backing down on his comments, Kelly said that the birth control mandate is “an undeniable and unprecedented attack on Americans’ First Amendment rights.”

Actually, sir, telling women that they can't receive birth control due to the religious feelings of others is the real attack on our First Amendment rights.  If you don't want it, don't take it.  And what does Mike Kelly have to worry about, anyway?  Is someone force feeding him the birth control pill?

Shut the fuck up, Kelly.  You are insulting our intelligence and you're insulting the victims of those tragedies (and their families) by making such a shitty comparison.  Nobody wants to hear it. 

I liked you better when I was unaware of your existence. 


*Total death count for 9/11 and Pearl Harbor combined.

Pennslyvanian Teachers Suffer From Lack Of Funding.

Great teachers definitely do inspire, and it's fitting that my 100th (!!!) post be about my future career.  The news I bring is both fantastic as well as awful.  Let's start from the ground and work our way up, shall we?

Pictured above is the Republican Governor of Pennsylvania, Tom Corbett.  Don't let his soft, blue eyes fool you - Tom Corbett is a motherfucker.  When faced with drawing up the state budget, Corbett had a bit of a dilemma on his hands when it came to funding education.  "As ThinkProgress’s Travis Waldron pointed out, Corbett could relieve school districts if he let special interest groups like tobacco and the oil and gas industry go without their tax breaks." 

Then he remembered his party's platform: Fuck Poor People.  So Corbett cut $900 million from the state's education funding.  "But Shaun," you're probably thinking, "Teachers are overpaid anyway!  $900 million is blahpoopfartblaggublaggu!"

If that were the case, then the Chester Upland School District would be able to pay their teachers.  As of Wednesday, January 11, 2012, the educators will not be receiving a salary.  This is, by the way, after laying off 40% of its professional staff. 

So the teachers begged the governor for more funding to education.  And so did the school boards.  And so did the unions.  But Corbett said, "Nay!"  Worse, even the State Secretary of Education turned them down, saying that they "had failed to properly manage [their] finances and would not get any additional funds."

Now a lot of children are minus an education because those greedy fucking teachers are - 

Oh, shit, I'm forgetting the amazing part!

From ThinkProgress.org:

The teachers decided to work for free. As one teacher put it, students “need to be educated, so we intend to be on the job"...

At a union meeting at Chester High School on Tuesday night, the employees passed a resolution saying they would stay on “as long as we are individually able.”
Columbus Elementary School math and literacy teacher Sara Ferguson, who has taught in Chester Upland for 21 years, said after the meeting, “It’s alarming. It’s disturbing. But we are adults; we will make a way. The students don’t have any contingency plan. They need to be educated, so we intend to be on the job.”

I cannot express how fantastic this is.  The teachers are unwilling to let students go without an education, despite the possibility that they won't be able to support themselves and pay their bills.  This makes Governor Corbett look... well, like a motherfucker.  I can only hope that, for the sake of the teachers in the Chester Upland School District, this pay freeze is temporary.

Personally, I think Governor Corbett should give up his salary.  He does far less than teachers do, and makes twice as much.  How's that for fair?   

That about wraps it up for my 100th post!  No need to thank me, please, hold your applause.  Stick around for my 150th, and maybe even my 200th.  My 7,000 view mark is also right around the corner... Because you, all of you, my readers, are fucking awesome.