Monday, June 30, 2014

Why is this a thing?

So here is a new product that I can't imagine anyone really wanted:







Which is basically a flesh-colored bikini top (if you're Caucasian) with nipples painted on it.

No kidding.



Picture 

I don't know who the target market is for this. I mean, aren't most women  already annoyed by men (#NotAllMen) staring at their breastses anyway? Why give them extra reason to ogle?

And here's the really weird part. It's not being marketed by some sort of Frederick's of Hollywood sleaze merchant. The organization selling these tops apparently thinks they're doing Goddess's work.

Here's the motto from their website:

See everything. Do everything. Read everything.
 Find your own truth.

Sounds like good advice, but what does it have to do with wearing fake nipples? Hell if I know.


The TaTa Top is far more than nipples on a bikini top. As a brand we work to promote questioning the social norm and digging deeper when it comes to society's expectations. 
Apparently, it has to do with the #FreeTheNipple campaign, which is a thing that exisits on social media and may have been started by Bruce Willis's daughter?


Scout Willis sparks #FreeTheNipple movement in NYC

Scout Willis has started a movement in NYC after she famously strolled topless in public and tweeted a picture of her selfing using #FreeTheNipple.

 Although, if she is Bruce's daughter, I have to think there's a good chance she didn't realize she was topless until someone told her and she slurred "oh, yeah, I totally meant to do that! Free the Nipple, man!"


Now, I certainly have no problem with the ol' baby feeders. They're perfectly lovely and definitely not "dirty" or " lewd" or whatever, but is this really something that a lot of women feel strongly about? In this day and age, when women still earn something like 75cent to a man's dollar, when rape culture not only exists, but seems to get worse and worse each day, when reproductive choice is a pipe dream for women in many states, who thinks that what women really need to fight for is the right to walk around topless?

Do very many women even want to walk around topless?

I'm pretty sure that if you walked up to 100 women on the street and said "hey, did you hear? They changed the law, you can take your top off in public now," about 99 of those 100 women would say something along the lines of "in your dreams, lech!" while reaching for their pepper spray.




(pictured: The 100th woman)

But maybe if you are the wealthy daughter of Hollywood royalty, maybe this is the biggest complaint you have. No one is paying you less than they should because you don't ever have to have a real job. If you ever need to terminate a pregnancy, you can take the private jet to whichever state has the fewest Republicans running things and be in and out and back home for dinner. So maybe the biggest complaint you have is "no one ever gets to see my tits." Or maybe "not enough people are paying attention to them. I mean me. Paying attention to me."

Maybe it runs in the family.











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Friday, June 27, 2014

GOP Faith looks promising

So the Republican party has launched a new on-line thing to appeal to super-right-wing religious fanatics, because you know how hard it is for the GOP to attract those guys.

It is called "Gopfaith" Here are some excerpts:



This website is designed for faith voters like you. As the RNC’s Faith Engagement Director, Chad Connelly, describes GOPFaith.com is built to keep pro-faith voters up to date with how the Republican Party is fighting for religious freedom


Hysterical Laughing gif by Mamma4ever | Photobucket
 
Hahahaha!! "Religious freedom!"
 

Yes, that's right. They are fighting for religious freedom, as long as that freedom doesn't include, say building a mosque, or having a Wiccan give the invocation at your city council meeting or not having your tax dollars go to fund slut-shaming abstinence-only programs or creation museums. Basically, they will fight to the death to defend the religious freedom of the one group whose religious freedom needs no defending.

As the RNC’s Faith Engagement Director, Chad Connelly, describes GOPFaith.com is built to keep pro-faith voters up to date with how the Republican Party is fighting for religious freedom, learn how to register voters at your place of worship and mobilize them  on Election Day.


Maybe also learn how to construct a coherent English sentence? Then learn how to violate your church's tax-exempt status.

In an unprecedented show of support for the pro-life cause, Chairman Reince Priebus delayed the start of the Republican National Committee’s annual winter meeting so that he and other members could join hundreds of thousands of others and participate in the 40th annual “March for Life” on the Mall in Washington, DC.


Right. Unprecedented. Because up until last winter, Republican support for forced childbirth had been so tepid.

lucille bluth eyeroll gif | lauraelizabethm. 
 
 
 
Here's a little highlight of the press release celebrating this new endeavor.
 
“This shouldn’t be outreach, this should be who we are — it is who we are,” said Chad Connelly, director of faith engagement for the Republican National Committee and the force behind this new initiative, GOPfaith.com.

 
Well, at least you've realized that. At least you know that this sliver of hate-fueled religious fanatics, this paranoid fringe of Rapture-awaiting, tongue-speaking, snake-handling delusionists is who you are. This and only this is who you are.
 
Deal With It Animated GIF
 
 
Evangelicals, Connelly said, “are our biggest, most reliable voting bloc.”

The problem, however, is that even though evangelicals identify more closely than ever with the GOP, they have not been turning out at the polls in sufficient numbers to carry Republican candidates to victory.

 
 
Honest to God, Connelly it's not that. It honestly is not a turnout problem. The turnout rate for Evangelical nuts is higher than for any other demographic. There just aren't that many of you. And you're dying off. Not quickly enough, but your base is dying off. This is only going to get worse for you. And by worse for you, I mean better for America. 
 
The aim of the website is, as it says, “to build an army of conservative pro-faith activists” — sympathetic believers of all faiths, [oh, please]  but in particular conservative Christians. The plan is to identify 100,000 believers who will spread the word at the grass roots, especially in churches
Central to the effort are pastors, who Connelly said have been too reticent to preach about political issues. Under federal law, houses of worship could jeopardize their tax-exempt status if they endorse individual candidates.

“Let’s overcome that myth of the IRS saying you can’t talk about this from the pulpit,” he said. “Look, if there’s no freedom of speech in the pulpit, there’s no freedom of speech.”


 

 Um, except it's not a myth.  They actually do say that. They have said it explicitly. You may think you can challenge this rule and win (and with this Supreme Court, I wouldn't bet against you) but that is actually the rule.

“Let’s overcome that myth of the IRS saying you can’t talk about this from the pulpit,” he said. “Look, if there’s no freedom of speech in the pulpit, there’s no freedom of speech.”

“Now is the time of righteous indignation,” he said, a time to be the “turn-the-tables-over Jesus” and not the “meek, turn-the-other-cheek Jesus.”


Wow. You do know why Jesus turned over the tables, right? Because the people at those tables were bringing the outside, secular world into a house of worship. They were doing it for profit, but I'm fairly sure that if their tables had been littered with political tracts, he would have had the same reaction. In the analogy you're making here YOU are the money-changers. You're the ones that Jesus is throwing out of the Temple. How do you not get that?
Why is it that the people who talk the most about the Bible and the Constitution never seem to understand either one?
 Die-Laughing's 1st Class 2dr JK Build - Page 2 - RCCrawler


 

Wednesday, June 25, 2014

Asshole of the Day

It's Arizona's superintendent of Public Schools John Huppenthal!

Maybe?

"We all need to stomp out balkanization. No Spanish radio stations, no Spanish billboards, no Spanish TV stations, no Spanish newspapers. This is America, speak English."

Huppenthal followed up with another post on the same site that said, "I don't mind them selling Mexican food as long as the menus are mostly in English. And, I'm not being humorous or racist."



No, you certainly are not being humorous. You are, of course, being racist. If you're not sure how to tell, here's a helpful hint. The sentence you say just before saying "and I'm not being racist" is ALWAYS a racist statement.


Also, I don't think you understand what the term "Balkanization" means. It means that there are different religious and/or ethnic groups who all hate each other. It doesn't mean that different groups exist. That's just called "the world."

So, in conclusion, John Huppenthal, let me just take a moment to say:

Vete a la mierda

Foda-se

Vaffanculo

Vas te faire encule

Qij ju

And FUCK YOU!

Boehner stakes claim to title of National Joke




Boehner plans lawsuit against Obama over executive orders





No, really. He's serious.

Washington (CNN) – House Speaker John Boehner Wednesday told reporters that he plans to sue President Barack Obama over his use of executive action.
"I am," the Speaker said when asked if he was planning to initiate a lawsuit.

Can he even do that? Don't you have to be able to show that you have been in some way harmed by the other person's actions in order to have standing to sue? Well, maybe he has been harmed. Let's see what he has to say.

"You know the constitution makes it clear that the president’s job is to faithfully execute the laws and in my view the President has not faithfully executed the laws," Boehner added at a news conference on Capitol Hill.


That's it? That's all you got? Some vague dissatisfaction with the way the President has administered the law? That's a basis for a lawsuit? Because I'm pretty sure that every president in history has executed the laws of the land in a manner which a lot of people found unsatisfactory. So you vote for the other guy next time. You don't try to sue him.
You don't go whining to the courts like some pathetic little crybaby that the mean old President won't do what you want him to.

 
Oh, right. That is kind of your thing, isn't it?
 



Okay, if you're going to try to file suit against the President, you really have to have something concrete and specific on which to base your suit. It can't just be "I don't feel like he's executing things all that faithfully." You have to be able to say specifically what wrongdoings you are accusing him of.

In a memo to House members announcing next month's vote, Boehner indicated the legal action would cover a number of issues but did not cite specific cases of executive overreach.

 

Oh, I am shocked. Shocked! that you couldn't name any specific instances.


 Your entire legal theory is "POTUS is a big jerk?" I am shocked, because usually you're the sort of person whom I would totally take seriously. I'm shocked that this most recent tantrum lacks the gravitas you usually bring to the Speaker's role.


 
 
"On matters ranging from health care and energy to foreign policy and education, President Obama has repeatedly run an end-around on the American people and their elected legislators, straining the boundaries of the solemn oath he took on Inauguration Day,' the memo said.


Oh my God, how many times do we have to go over this?
Passing a law you don't like is not illegal.
When the democratically-elected majority of both houses passes a bill and the democratically-elected President signs that bill into law, that is not an "end-around" on the American people. It is not a hit and run on the American people. It is not an alley-oop on the American people, or any other tortured sports analogy you care to make. It is how laws happen in a Democracy. Geezus, go back and watch Schoolhouse Rock.



And as to foreign policy, isn't generally accepted that foreign policy is under the prevue of the executive branch? And hey, it's not like he embroiled us in two decade-long debacles based on a pack of shameless lies or anything, right? Because that would be something you might have wanted to get upset about.

Oh, and also, this:


So fuck you, Boehner, you pathetic, weepy drunken little joke.

Monday, June 23, 2014

Bad Ads - L'oreal


Is this seriously being marketed in 2014?






A new mascara that allows white girls to shout "hey, look at me, I'm Japanese!"

Cultural appropriation as a marketing tool.

Just awful. Offensive and insulting.

Pretty much straight-up racist.



Bad Ads - Disney



Fair warning, do not watch this video if you are easily appalled.





This is pretty much everything horrible about American culture in the late 20th Century. For some reason dragged into the 21st.

The Wayfarer shades pushed down the bridge of the nose, al Risky Business.

11168031_800.jpg

The popped collars.

The lame-o white-guy rapping.

The phrase "it rocks."

Iconic children's characters trying to act "cool" with sunglasses and a faux-ZZ-Top "Sharp Dressed Man" put-on.

Just horrible. If I didn't already hate Disney, this would've sealed it.

I just hope everyone involved in this debacle dies a slow, horrible death.





Saturday, June 21, 2014

On kids, moms, and dads


I saw a couple of articles about some horrible "March for Marriage, well marriage for us, not for them" rally they just had in DC, and I noticed a common theme that kept popping up:





https://sp3.yimg.com/ib/th?id=HN.608001725308011919&pid=15.1

it's the hat that does it


Yes, every child deserves/needs a mom and a dad.
Well, let's pretend for a minute that that's true. Let's pretend there aren't lots of kids raised by single parents that are doing quite well.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8d/President_Barack_Obama.jpg



Let's assume that the adorable daughter of my friends Mark and David is somehow being given a less-than-optimal childhood. Let's pretend that's all true. You know what causes a lot of kids to have to grow up without a daddy? War. Why aren't these pricks up in arms, so to speak, about the constant wars this country has to keep involving itself in? 5,000 American men and women and countless thousands of Iraqis have been killed in that 10-year hell-journey, do these people not realize that a lot of these late, lamented heroes had children? That's a lot of dead daddies and mommies just to pad the bank accounts of Halliburton and Blackwater , etc.

And what about those troops coming home with PTSD? I heard an interview with an Iraq War veteran who, shortly after returning home, left his wife and daughter because he was so afraid that he might hurt or kill the child. He had recurring nightmares about smashing the child against a wall and he couldn't trust himself to be around her. Now this little girl has no daddy because Dick Cheney just really really wanted a war. Not a peep out of the "kids need a mom and dad" crowd.

You know what else causes some children to grow up without a mom or a dad? Our steadfast refusal to do anything at all about our nation's gun problem.


Father found shot to death outside Clear Lake Home

Published On: Jun 20 2014 06:14:46 AM CDT

New father shot, killed during infant's homecoming

Officials in Panama City say a new father is dead after a neighbor accidently fired a gun into the family's home during a gathering to celebrate the infant's homecoming.

Family mourns dad shot and killed one day before Father's Day

Posted: Jun 16, 2014 8:04 AM EST
HORRY COUNTY, SC (WMBF) – The search for a suspect in a deadly shooting continued Sunday after a father died from multiple gunshot wounds Saturday. Now, the family of Antonio Dexter Smith is searching for answers, and his two young children are spending Father's Day without him.


 These are just from the last few days.
Why aren't these assholes out protesting about this?
 Every day in this country, kids lose a father or a mother to senseless gun violence, yo'u'd think these people who care so much about the welfare of children would be demanding stricter gun laws.

Unless. . . .

Maybe they're just using the kids as an excuse? Maybe they just want to keep gay people being treated as second-class citizens? Maybe it's not about the kids at all? 

Nah, it couldn't be that! No one's that cynical, except maybe. . .


huckahunk

Oh, yep. It's just about the homophobia. Not about the kids at all. Now I get it!

Friday, June 20, 2014

What the hell is it with these people?

Why is it that certain, shall we say conservative-leaning, white people spend so much time trying to find some loophole, some scenario in which it's okay for them to say the N-word?

Tea Party Hero Joe Walsh Kicked Off The Air For Using The N-Word

By Scarce June 20, 2014 4:23 am


 At least this idiot comes up with a new fake pathetic rationale. I just assumed he'd go with the Dr. Laura "hey, if the black people can say that word why can't I?' logic. No, America's most famous deadbeat dad has a whole new line of reasoning which is equally stupid. Well, let's just let him explain it in this series of tweets.


Yeah, ya do.  You know exactly why.


Hmm, I wonder what those "other words" might be?
You know, every radio and tv outlet has their own standards for which words they consider too offensive. Like you can say "fuck" on HBO, but not on Comedy Central. You can say "shit" on Comedy central, but not on the Hallmark Channel.
In fact, not to digress, but I remember seeing Patton Oswalt on tv talking about his Comedians of Comedy show, and he said that the network would allow hin to say the word "dick" if it referred to a person who is a jerk, but he could not use the same word if it referred to a man's organ. His conundrum was this: what if some guy's penis is a racist? What if his "dick" is a real "dick?" Then what? Well, it was funny the way he said it.

Anyway, my point is that there's really no mystery here. There's nothing strange about a radio station deciding that this particular racial slur is okay to say on the air, but another one isn't. No matter how much you pretend to be just completely flummoxed by this inconsistency.


You know, a decent person would ask "if 'Redskins' is just like the n-word, then why the hell are we allowed to say 'Redskins?'" But you, being more of a shitweasel than a decent human being, of course want to know why can't you say the N-word.


Well, hallelujah!


Oh, yes. Of course. That's what you were trying to do. Trying to have an honest discussion about racist language. Yes, obviously. What could be a more honest discussion of such a controvbersial topic than "hey, how come I can't say n***er?"


Yeah, there's really not much to explain. You used offensive language on the air, so the radio station fired you or suspended you or whatever, as is their right. And, under FCC regulations, may actually be their obligation, I'm not sure. But anyway,no explanation is required. It's like saying "well, I robbed a liquor store, so I'm being arrested. . . you know what, it's a long story, I'll explain it to you later."

And there it is.
You just couldn't resist, could you. You just had to find a way to say the N-word.

What the hell is it with you people? Of all the things you could be doing with your time, of all the "rights" you could be standing up for, you have to dedicate your efforts to somehow coming up with some way that it's okay for you to say the N-word. Why would you even want to say that word? It's a horrible word. And if you honestly think that "Cracker" or "Redneck Bible Thumper" are in any way its equivalent, then you are are even stupider than I thought.



Wednesday, June 18, 2014

it's hard to say which is worse

On the one hand, you have all the people who got Iraq so spectacularly, horribly wrong the first time, by whatever combination of incompetence and mendacity, being trotted out again and asked for their "insights" into how to rectify the entirely predictable disaster that they helped to cause.  Because there are no consequences for being this utterly wrong about something this important. No matter how many lives are lost due to your infantile wishful thinking and your insecure bloodthirsty faux-machismo, you will never be treated as anything less than a sage by the television networks and op-ed page editors.

I mean, the utter shamelessness of a piece like this:


Flush Times For Liquidators Historic Glut Unsold Goods Lands ...

The Collapsing Obama Doctrine

Rarely has a U.S. president been so wrong about so much at the expense of so many



 
 would have been unthinkable had not Oliver fucking North been trotted out last week to complain about the President's methods of freeing a US hostage.
 
 
 
In a sane world, it would be unimaginable that someone like Cheney would show his face in public, let alone be invited onto the pages of a major newspaper to try and deflect blame for the gruesome debacle he had a major part in causing. Former officials like Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice and Powell, and media figures like Bill Kristol, Thomas Friedman and Judith Miller should have had their homes burnt to the ground and been chased from town to town by jeering mobs, spitting and cursing at them.
 
But no, there are no consequences at all for being this wrong.
 
But what may be even worse is that the one thing for which one can be punished is having been right. With all the talk shows booking John McCain and the chorus of neo-cons pushing for yet more blood to be shed in Iraq,  has anyone booked Barbara Lee? How about  Janeane Garofalo? Michael Moore? Dennis Kucinich? Have we heard from anyone who opposed the illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq, now that the situation has devolved into exactly the sectarian bloodbath they predicted it would? 

Meet the Press had Mitt Romney, of all people, to discuss how if he was president everything would be better because we would never ever leave Iraq until they finally just admit how much they love us or something.  And then PAUL FUCKING WOLFOWITZ! Who STILL gets everything wrong!

PAUL WOLFOWITZ:
Look, you used the word sectarian, so did Richard Engel. This is more than just those obscure, Shia/Sunni conflict. This is Al Qaeda. And Al Qaeda is not on the road to defeat, Al Qaeda is on the march. Not just in Iraq, in Syria, and Libya.


NO, this is NOT Al Qaeda. These are the guys whom Al Qaeda found to be too extreme. They actually don't get along all that well with Al Qaeda.  But then again, neither did Saddam Hussein and you didn't let that fact interfere with a good narrative.

 
Face the Nation had Lindsey Graham who never saw a Muslim country he didn't want to invade to prove how butch he is. 

But no anti-war voices as far as I can tell.(I couldn't find the guest list for ABC's This Week, and I don't need to check anything on FOX)

So those who were wrong keep getting invited back on the air. Those who were right continue to be shunned. And it's hard to say which bodes worse for the future.

Monday, June 16, 2014

Sunday, June 15, 2014

How to Win an Election

Let's say you're a senator running for re-election in, oh. let's say Mississippi.


http://cdn.hark.com/images/000/098/433/98433/original.jpg  

That's fun to say!


And let's say you're facing a primary challenger who, let's say, isn't the smoothest campaigner, maybe does things like associate with neo-Confederates and white supremacists, you know the sort of thing that would be a liability in most places, but might garner some support in rural Mississippi.

What do you do?

Well, take the example of veteran campaigner  Thad Cochran.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f3/CochranThad(R-MS).jpg



 One can't miss strategy would be to go to those rural areas and tell the folks there that you're just like them. Just ordinary plain folks. Salt of the Earth types who do ordinary wholesome good ol' fashioned activities like oh, I don';t know, picking pecans. Or fucking farm animals, or . . . wait. WHAT?






The Jackson Clarion-Ledger reported that Cochran was addressing a group of donors and supporters at Forrest General Hospital in Hattiesburg.
The senator explained his connection to the area, saying that his grandparents lived their whole lives in the area.
“I grew up coming down here for Christmas,” he said. “My father’s family was here. My mother’s family was from rural Hinds County in Utica.”
“It was fun, it was an adventure to be out there in the country and to see what goes on,” he said of his boyhood visits to Hattiesburg. “Picking up pecans, from that to all kinds of indecent things with animals.”




Wait. surely you mean to accuse your opponent of doing indecent things with animals, right? You can't possibly be admitting to doing those things yourself, right?

Right?

You're accusing someone else, right?

“Picking up pecans, from that to all kinds of indecent things with animals.”
The audience chuckled.
“And I know some of you know what that is,” Cochran said.

Oh my GOD! Not only are you standing in front of a group of potential voters and saying "Hey, I'm a regular guy, you know, a horse-fucker!" but you're also adding on to that "And I know some of you are horse-fuckers, too. Vote for me!"





This is your plan to appeal to voters?
Like, you might lose the "people who only have sex with other people" vote, but you're gonna clean up with the horse-fucker demographic!


http://cdn.ph.upi.com/sv/b/upi/UPI-1271385565415/2013/1/77caa21c4ba45af2b31631fb524b10d9/Stacey-Pickering-will-run-for-Senate-if-Thad-Cochran-retires.jpg 
Sweet, sweet horse-fucking, am I right?
Don't leave me hangin' brah!


Now, I've never been to Mississippi, but I'm pretty sure that, despite whatever idiosyncracies that state has, whatever features make it unique, it probably shares at least this in common with the other 49 states in the Union: people there almost surely find the idea of horse-fucking repellant, abhorrent, and morally reprehensible. Not to mention just gross.



But, hey, what do I know? This is the Bible Belt after all, so maybe they're okay with horse-fucking as long as it's a female horse? I mean, I know in general these folks frown on anything-but-marital-reproductive sex between humans, but maybe there's an exception for inter-species boinking? Probably not.

But at any rate, it's definitely a bold strategy.
And the ads just write themselves.



http://media.washtimes.com/media/image/2010/07/04/20100704-194752-pic-11424172_s160x268.jpg?f73c704e57883f3a0f3c1e1d56bd07450e980f04  Hi, I'm Senator Thad Cochran, and you're goddamm right I've fucked a horse! And you probably have too. If you're one of those fancy-pants Washington elites that thinks he's too good to fuck a horse, maybe you should vote for my opponent. He's only ever had sex with women!
But if you're like me, and you've fucked a horse, and you're not ashamed of having fucked a horse, then vote for me, Thad Cochran, for Senate. Together we'll fuck all the horses! Who knows, maybe we'll even 69 a goat!

I'm not Thad Cochran and I do NOT approve this message.



Thursday, June 12, 2014

Meet the latest nut.

It's Virginia's David Brat!


http://i2.mail.com/326/2898326,h=425,pd=1,w=620/david-brat.jpg

 

After defeating ferret-faced bag of dicks Eric Cantor, the latest Ayn Rand Fanboi to pollute our national discourse took to the airwaves to be interviewed by creepy douchebearded flack Chuck Todd.

http://images.rcp.realclearpolitics.com/72597_5_.jpg 
I'm on TV!

Todd asked him about the minimum wage:

 "I don't have a well-crafted response on that one," he said.

Seriously? A well-crafted response? You're no supposed to have a well-crafted response, you're supposed to have an opinion! You're supposed to have a position! This was a n easy one. It's not like he asked you about some complex foreign policy issue. He asked you about the minimum wage. Walk down the street and just ask people about the minimum wage. Everyone has a position. Most people will tell you "It;s too low, let's raise it." And they won't have to take any time to craft that answer. And there are a few guys you might run into who will stop jerking off into a copy of The Fountainhead long enough to say "fuck that, there shouldn't be any minimum wage because free markets." And they'll be spectacularly stupid assholes, bu they'll have a ready, coherent answer to a simple fucking question.

http://mrwgifs.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/What-Are-You-Stupid-Robert-De-Niro-In-Goodfellas.gif



It's the minimum wage. You have a PhD in fucking economics. You TEACH ECONOMICS! How do you not have an answer? I took exactly one economics class in college and barely passed it and I could give you a good answer off the top of my head if someone asked me if I support a federal minimum wage.  "Yes". See how easy that was?

Then there was this:
"Hey Chuck, I thought we were just going to chat today about the celebratory aspect," Brat said, adding that there would be time in the future to talk about his positions. "I just wanted to talk about the victory we had, and I just wanted to thank everybody."



Because, of course, that's how right-wingers see the role of the media. They think all the media should be like Fox. They think all media outlets should function as part of their PR apparatus. They think the job of the media is to help them get their message out there. Which explains why, whenever any media outlet is less than fully cooperative in helping them frame their story, they think they are victims of some imaginary liberal bias.

Well, at least he can't be any worse than Cantor, and he may actually be gaffe-prone enough to blow the general election, like a Todd Akin or Christine O'Donnell.  Should be fun.

Wednesday, June 11, 2014

Washington Post will teach you ladies how to live!

Didn't the Washington Post used to be a legitimate paper? 

Like one of our nation's most prestigious bastions of journalism?

Because this is what they've been reduced to:

One way to end violence against women? Married dads.

The data show that #yesallwomen would be safer with fewer boyfriends around their kids.


Now that may sound awful, but compare it to the original headline
 (source: Wonkette)

http://img.wonkette.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/wapo1.jpg


Jeezus Christ! Taking lovers? To whom is this article targeted, Lady Chatterly?

The dramatic social media response to the UC-Santa Barbara shooting, captured by the hashtag #YesAllWomen, underlined an important and unpleasant truth: across the United States, millions of girls and women have been abused, assaulted, or raped by men, and even more females fear that they will be subject to such an attack

This social media outpouring makes it clear that some men pose a real threat to the physical and psychic welfare of women and girls. But obscured in the public conversation about the violence against women is the fact that some other men are more likely to protect women, directly and indirectly, from the threat of male violence: married biological fathers. 

 I don't know what's worse, the notion that women wouldn't be getting violenced if they would just quit catting around and marry that nice boy, or the stunning ignorance it takes to posit that women are never beaten up or killed by a man to whom they are married!

http://theident.gallery/investigation/2009/ID-2009-ID-GLASS-1-6.jpg 
All the research they would have needed to do.

 


Also, I'm a little curious, would being married have protected any of the victims of the Santa Barbara shooting spree you referenced above? Maybe wedding rings work like wonder woman's bracelets?

  http://socialtimes.com/files/2013/05/tumblr_mnhy6aV6xS1sorcdso1_400.gif  
Too bad, sucker. I'm married!



But marriage also seems to cause men to behave better. That’s because men tend to settle down after they marry, to be more attentive to the expectations of friends and kin, to be more faithful, and to be more committed to their partners—factors that minimize the risk of violence.

You haven't met a lot of married men, have you?

I mean, sure, some of them are me, but most married men are not me. (sorry, ladies) You think a wedding ceremony takes the jerk out of a jerk? I'm pretty sure that a lot of abusive men want to marry, because they feel that marriage gives them a claim of ownership on the woman they marry. 

At any rate, why are we always trying to teach women tricks for avoiding violent men instead of teaching men and boys not to be violent?

The best part about Cantor losing

is not that he's going to have to slink off into well-deserved obscurity, he won't. He'll become a six-figure K-Street lobbyist or fill some seat on the board of some awful think-tank. No, the best part of Eric Cantor's loss is that he thought he was going to win. Easily. It never occurred to him that he might lose.

http://media.tumblr.com/c7386d6d4903000f3178af1e957bcaa9/tumblr_ml3zjyGk2f1s2kzvmo1_500.gif



Because his own internal polling showed him leading by a pretty insurmountable, um, amount. 

Eric Cantor's Pollster Tries to Explain Why His Survey Showed Cantor Up 34 Points


http://images.bidnessetc.com/content/uploads/images/source3/tumblr_inline_n1uc2tsl2z1rguq4c-d494020ff8ec181ef98ed97ac3f25453.gifLess than a week before voters dumped the House majority leader, an internal poll for Cantor's campaign, trumpeted to the Washington Post, showed Cantor cruising to a 34-point victory in his primary. Instead, Cantor got crushed, losing by 10 percentage points.




This is what happens when you decide that you are entitled not only to your own opinions, but your own facts. Even when the actual facts are important to you personally, even when you might need to know the truth in order to plan your electoral strategy, the Republicans have fallen so out of love with reality, that they just can't stop lying, even to each other.

It's just like 2012, when all the polls showed Obama cruising to re-election, except the polls that FOX and the right were relying on, the "unskewed" polls that showed Romney somehow winning easily. And then they were soooo shocked and disappointed when it turned out that their made-up facts didn't reflect the actual facts.

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So that's what you get, Eric Cantor.
This is what happens when you decide that facts don't matter.



Tuesday, June 10, 2014

I guess it should come as no surprise

that the lunatic couple who murdered two Las Vegas cops and a brave civilian interloper at a Wal-Mart were part of the Bundy Ranch standoff several weeks ago.

Maybe that's where they got the idea that there were no consequences for pointing automatic weapons at law enforcement officials. Maybe the fact that neither Bundy nor any of his scumbag followers have yet been arrested might have reinforced the idea that killing representatives of the government was something with which one could get away. Maybe having Bundy and his two-bit thug minions lionized by the likes of Sean Hannity might have helped to foster the idea that using violence against the agents of law and order was somehow a legitimate, even laudable way to achieve your stupid scumbag goals. Maybe they somehow got the impression from that experience that brandishing weapons towards law enforcement officials makes you something other than a dangerous criminal and a half-assed little punk.

I don't know.

But I can think of no better symbol of the American right wing than that which these two left behind, a murdered police officer draped in a Gadsen flag.

Monday, June 9, 2014

We have a new leader

In the race for the coveted title "biggest right-wing asshole on the planet," wily veteran George Will has just surged into the lead!



George Will: Progressivism Made Rape Victim ‘Coveted Status’ with ‘Privileges


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I just . . . I don't even. . . I mean I can't  ---- I'm just trying to even figure out what the logic is supposed to be here.

So here's the opening thesis of his latest stupid, awful column:

Colleges and universities are being educated by Washington and are finding the experience excruciating. They are learning that when they say campus victimizations are ubiquitous (“micro-aggressions,” often not discernible to the untutored eye, are everywhere), and that when they make victimhood a coveted status that confers privileges, victims proliferate. 

Um, okay. . . I suppose maybe that could in theory be true. If "victimhood" was to somehow become a coveted status that would somehow confer some sort of privilege,  I guess maybe you would have people coming out of the woodwork to claim that status, but since that isn't actually a thing that has ever happened anywhere ever, I'm not sure it's a particularly relevant point.


And academia’s progressivism has rendered it intellectually defenseless now that progressivism’s achievement, the regulatory state, has decided it is academia’s turn to be broken to government’s saddle.


Okay, well first of all, for those of us who are not right-wing assholes, the term "regulatory state" doesn't really resonate as such a frightening boogeyman as it does for you.

http://static.comicvine.com/uploads/original/11113/111130700/3781089-9934394438-37565.jpg 
Aieeee! Regulations!

Those of us who are normal people realize that that "regulatory state" is what gives us a reasonable amount of confidence that our breakfast won't give us e-coli, or that the plane we're on won't plummet from the sky,  or that our new house won't collapse around our ears.

Also, the rest of that sentence also makes no sense. 

Consider the supposed campus epidemic of rape, a.k.a. “sexual assault.”

Okay, first of all, fuck you for putting quotes around the phrase sexual assault as if it were some sort of fictional thing to be dismissed out of hand. Second rape is not "a.k.a." sexual assault. Sexual assault can be anything from unwanted groping to  unwanted kissing to actual full-on rape. And where do you get off with the "supposed epidemic" shit?  Because every statistic I've seen indicates that this epidemic is all too real. Also, fuck you.

Herewith, a Philadelphia magazine report about Swarthmore College, where in 2013 a student “was in her room with a guy with whom she’d been hooking up for three months”: “They’d now decided — mutually, she thought — just to be friends. When he ended up falling asleep on her bed, she changed into pajamas and climbed in next to him. Soon, he was putting his arm around her and taking off her clothes. ‘I basically said, “No, I don’t want to have sex with you.” And then he said, “OK, that’s fine” and stopped. . . . And then he started again a few minutes later, taking off my panties, taking off his boxers. I just kind of laid there and didn’t do anything — I had already said no. I was just tired and wanted to go to bed. I let him finish. I pulled my panties back on and went to sleep.’”

Okay, that sounds like a pretty straight-forward description of a rape. certainly not the most horrific account, but still, she said no and he fucked her anyway. Kind of the dictionary definition of rape, isn't it?

 Six weeks later, the woman reported that she had been raped. Now the Obama administration is riding to the rescue of “sexual assault” victims. It vows to excavate equities from the ambiguities of the hookup culture, this cocktail of hormones, alcohol and the faux sophistication of today’s prolonged adolescence of especially privileged young adults.

Um, are you saying that because this woman reported her rape, that is why the Obama administration has decided to get involved? And how exactly is the administration proposing to "excavate equities from the ambiguities of the hookup culture?" Because there really don't seem to be a lot of ambiguities here. She either says yes or she says no. Only a right-wing asshole rape-apologist would try to read any ambiguity into a simple yes or no response.

 The administration’s crucial and contradictory statistics are validated the usual way, by official repetition; Joe Biden has been heard from. The statistics are: One in five women is sexually assaulted while in college, and only 12 percent of assaults are reported.  Simple arithmetic demonstrates that if the 12 percent reporting rate is correct, the 20 percent assault rate is preposterous.

How? how does arithmetic demonstrate that? The percentage of assaults reported has no bearing on the number of assaults that occur. 

 Mark Perry of the American Enterprise Institute notes, for example, that in the four years 2009 to 2012 there were 98 reported sexual assaults at Ohio State. That would be 12 percent of 817 total out of a female student population of approximately 28,000, for a sexual assault rate of approximately 2.9 percent — too high but nowhere near 20 percent.

Oh, well, the American Enterprise Institute, that bastion of honesty! Well then, I guess we can just go ahead and ignore the CDC's report that  "in a study of undergraduate women, 19% experienced attempted or completed sexual assault since entering college."  Because what the hell do they know, compared to the American Enterprise Institute, and their analysis of ONE entire college!





 Also, let's pretend for a minute that your guy at the American Institute of Right-Wing Assholery is right about the statistics being off. How much sexual assault is acceptable? If it's less than 20% should nothing be done? How many women being assaulted are you okay with, because for those of us outside the right-wing asshole bubble, it's generally zero.

 Combine this with capacious definitions of sexual assault that can include not only forcible sexual penetration but also nonconsensual touching. 

Right. Non-consensual touching. Why do you have a problem with that being included? It's like complaining that the non-sexual assault statutes include not only beating with clubs, but even non-consensual punching!

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Totally shouldn't even count! The guy's not even dead!


 

 Then add the doctrine that the consent of a female who has been drinking might not protect a male from being found guilty of rape. Then comes costly litigation against institutions that have denied due process to males they accuse of what society considers serious felonies.
 
 
Yes, "society." "Society" considers sexual assault to be a serious crime. George Will apparently doesn't, but "society" does. Hey, George, another term for "society" is "all decent human beings."

 Meanwhile, the newest campus idea for preventing victimizations — an idea certain to multiply claims of them — is “trigger warnings.” They would be placed on assigned readings or announced before lectures. Otherwise, traumas could be triggered in students whose tender sensibilities would be lacerated by unexpected encounters with racism, sexism, violence (dammit, Hamlet, put down that sword!) or any other facet of reality that might violate a student’s entitlement to serenity.


 And why would anyone have any objection to this? No one is saying you can't assign Hamlet or Huck Finn. No one says you can't discuss the rape of Nan King. Just that before you do, it's just kind of a decent thing to say "hey, before we start, just a little warning that  the subject matter may be offensive to some of you, Huck uses the N-word a lot." 

This entitlement has already bred campus speech codes that punish unpopular speech. Now the codes are begetting the soft censorship of trigger warnings to swaddle students in a “safe,” “supportive,” “unthreatening” environment, intellectual comfort for the intellectually dormant.

Soft censorship?



 How is that censorship? Censorship is a professor saying "I was going to discuss  the holocaust, but I'm not allowed to talk about it." Trigger warnings means the professor says "Fair warning, we're going to be discussing the holocaust today." It's not even similar.

 It is salutary that academia, with its adversarial stance toward limited government and cultural common sense, is making itself ludicrous

You don't find it just a teensy bit ironic that someone who uses words like "salutary" "adversarial" and "ludicrous" is down on academia? 
Well, maybe not so much ironic as intellectually dishonest, or mendacious. Even prevaricative. (see, I can use big words, too. Doesn't make me any more correct.)

 What government is inflicting on colleges and universities, and what they are inflicting on themselves, diminishes their autonomy, resources, prestige and comity. Which serves them right. They have asked for this by asking for progressivism. 

Yeah, serves them right! Now they're gonna have, um. . . less sexual assault? I guess?
 Um, that'll teach 'em?