Who Had Louie Gohmert?

 

Every time there's a highly-publicized bout of gun violence like there was last night, I hold an imaginary pool with the various people who live inside my skull a' la Herman's Head as to which scumbag will be the first to say that the real problem was not enough guns. Today's winner: whoever put their money on idiot douchenozzle Louie Gohmert.

Gohmert also said the tragedy could have been lessened if someone else in the movie theater had been carrying a gun and took down the lone shooter.
"It does make me wonder, with all those people in the theater, was there nobody that was carrying a gun that could have stopped this guy more quickly?" he asked.

Yes, this seems like the perfect time to argue for more guns being carried into more places. Stay classy, Louie!

Of course, it wasn't only the lack of guns to blame, it was also the lack of Jesus apparently.

During a radio interview on The Heritage Foundation's "Istook Live!" show, Gohmert was asked why he believes such senseless acts of violence take place. Gohmert responded by talking about the weakening of Christian values in the country.
"You know what really gets me, as a Christian, is to see the ongoing attacks on Judeo-Christian beliefs, and then some senseless crazy act of terror like this takes place," Gohmert said.

 Yes, the ongoing attacks, which are taking place only in the fevered dreams and paranoid fantasies of the Heritage Foundation types, are obviously the real culprit here.

"People say ... where was God in all of this?" Gohmert said. "We've threatened high school graduation participations, if they use God's name, they're going to be jailed ... I mean that kind of stuff. Where was God? What have we done with God? We don't want him around. I kind of like his protective hand being present."

So if I'm understanding you correctly, God let this happen because we hurt his feelings? We said he couldn't come to our high-school graduation so he was off pouting instead of stretching out his protective hand over Colorado? Is that what you're saying? Really? And this is the Almighty, right? The creator and ruler of the universe?  Acting like petulant child. Is this what  you really think God is like? And this version of God is the one you worship, huh? Wow.

Mitt's Tax Returns are a "Bleep."

One of my favorite scenes from the late, lamented Arrested Development, is this one, in which Buster rants about his mother, saying things so offensive that he has to be bleeped for about 10-15 seconds, while his siblings stand slack-jawed in horror:




Of course, he didn't really say anything that vile, but the producers of A.D. knew that a bleep is always funnier/more shocking than any four-letter word can ever be. What word, or combination of words, could someone say that you haven't already heard a million times?  "Bleep you" always sounds funny because you just think the person must have said something shockingly vulgar. But if you remove the bleep, oh yeah, it's just "fuck." You hear that a million times a day, it has no power to shock.


Mitt's tax returns are like a four-letter word. And his refusal to release them is like bleeping that word. Now the whole political world is wondering what could possibly be so shockingly horrible in those tax returns that he won't let anyone see them? But if he did release them, what could they possibly contain that would actually shock anybody?

He uses offshore accounts to dodge his tax obligations? We already know that.

He was running BAIN when he claims to have not been running BAIN?  Duh!

Big donations to hateful groups like N.O.M.? That's to be expected. If anything, it might help him with the malevolent base of his party, while anyone concerned with equality and human decency was already not going to vote for him.

His tax rate is lower than yours? A lot lower? Doesn't everyone already know that? Even without exploiting all kinds of loopholes, Mitt's income is all "carried interest" and capital gains and whatnot and everyone knows that un-earned income is taxed at a much lower rate than the money you earn by the sweat of your brow.

If he ever does release his tax returns, everyone's going to be mighty disappointed. There can't possibly be anything in there as damning as what people are imagining.

Oh, and this ain't helping:

Ann Romney: We've Given 'All You People Need To Know' About Family Finances

AP/The Huffington Post  |  Posted: 07/19/2012 8:54 am Updated: 07/19/2012 3:07 pm

Steve King is proud of his contribution to animal cruelty.

Steve King (R-IA) is a teabagging right-wing nut. So of course, he loooooves states' rights! According to Think Progress, he loves them so much that he apparently thinks that states maybe have the right to disregard Supreme Court decisions?

KING: Why should I care about the conclusions that have been brought forward by the Supreme Court if we can race from 1965, Connecticut having a Tenth Amendment right to establish a policy, a Supreme Court that creates a right to privacy that’s the foundation for mandated abortion, and here were are discussing whether we’re going to mandate everybody in America fund and provide that contraceptives. … Why should I care?

At least I think that's what he's trying to say. Either that or he thinks that Griswold v. Connecticu says the opposite of what it actually says. Anyway, he's a big old tenther.

Which made this news story pretty surprising:

(LA TIMES)

WASHINGTON — Taking aim at California's pioneering efforts to bolster animal safety, the House Agriculture Committee has moved to block states from imposing their own standards for agriculture products on producers from other states.

Rep. Steve King, an Iowa Republican who represents the country's leading egg-producing state, said he introduced the amendment because the California law and others like it "scrambles and creates a patchwork quilt of state regulations."
"If California wants to regulate eggs that come into the state, fine," King said. "But don't be telling the states that are producing a product that's already approved by the USDA or the FDA how to produce that product."
He said that the California requirement violates the commerce clause of the Constitution, which gives the federal government jurisdiction over interstate commerce issues.

Because if there's one thing right-wing Republicans love even more than states' rights, it's the commerce clause!  King's amendment is even called the “Protect Interstate Commerce Act”

 So this amendment must be all about protecting Interstate Commerce, right?

King released a statement Thursday night promising that his amendment “will ensure that radical organizations like the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) and PETA are prohibited from establishing a patchwork of restrictive state laws aimed at slowly suffocating production agriculture out of existence."

Ooooh, that makes more sense. Of course, it's a bill to defend against an imaginary threat from relatively weak organizations like PETA against the super-powerful agricultural industry. Now that's the Steve King we've come to know and despise.

If you have the stomach for it, you can read all about King gloating about how his bill will stop animals from getting halfway-decent treatment in the loathsome "Daily Caller" here.

Oh, that's shockingly offensive, pass the salsa, please!

The Pollo Tropical chain recently opened up a restaurant near my place of work in the Atlanta area.

So, I've been there a couple of times, food is pretty good. Prices pretty decent. Reasonably healthy.

Overall, I like the place.

Then today, I see this sign.

IMG_20120718_142439.jpg, a photo by spudboy67 on Flickr.

Are you kidding me?

Is there some way in which that is not offensive?

Who wrote this, some 19th Century British colonialist?

Oh, there's nothing those Caribbean folks like more than serving non-Caribbean people! They're happy that way.

Fortunately, I don't think that any of the employees there were Caribbean, but I'm pretty sure the chain is based out of Florida, where there is a large Caribbean population. Can you imagine how a Caribbean person would feel, having to see that racist shit on the wall at work every day?

Funny Woman of the Day -- Catherine O'Hara