Good Morning!
Every day I wake up to another horrifying thing said about women, minorities, GLBT, nonchristian religions, and well, just about any one that doesn’t full under the asshattery the Republican Party fronts for these days. It seems none of them have any shame or brains for that matter. So, be sure to watch what you’re drinking and eating before reading these things. Many of them are doozies!
The League of the South is celebrating the assassination of Abraham Lincoln who they believe was a “tyrant” for being against “state’s rights”. There are so many code words and dog whistles here that I’m surprised Temple isn’t barking as I enter this. This is from Right Wing Watch.
As we reported earlier today, Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore has close personal and financial ties with Michael Peroutka, the neo-Confederate activist and theocrat who has helped develop the view, espoused by Moore in recent interviews and statements, that states must defy federal court rulings in favor of marriage equality since they are in violation of divine law.
Peroutka is a “true Confederate” activist and a former leader of the League of the South , although he quit the neo-Confederate group last year during his successful campaign to win a seat as a Republican on Anne Arundel County, Maryland, county council.
Warren Throckmorton notes, just today announced that on April 14 it will host a celebration of the anniversary of the “execution of the tyrant Abraham Lincoln.”
League of the South President Michael Hill writes in a blog post titled “Honoring John Wilkes Booth” that the organization “thanks Mr. Booth for his service to the South and to humanity”:
The League of the South looks to the present and future. However, from time to time we do look back at our past.
This 14th of April will mark the 150th anniversary of John Wilkes Booth’s execution of the tyrant Abraham Lincoln. The League will, in some form or fashion, celebrate this event. We remember Booth’s diary entry: “Our country owed all her troubles to him, and God simply made me the instrument of his punishment.” A century and a half after the fact, The League of the South thanks Mr. Booth for his service to the South and to humanity.
Stay tuned . . .
Michael Hill
It might be a good time to harken back to the League of the South’s 2012 convention, when Peroutka asked participants to stand for the “national anthem”… and then started singing “Dixie”:
Yes, he’s not just whistling Dixie folks!
Neither is Rush Limbaugh who stepped right back into the Rape Culture shit today with this one. Both Rush and Scott Walker basically flunked out of university. Here’s how Rush tells Walker to defend his 
failure.
“Just ram it right down their throats,” Limbaugh said. “They’re trying to create this rape culture on the campus – well, (he should say,) ‘I quit because I don’t want to be accused of rape down the road.’”
Walker has claimed for years that he left just short of graduation, after losing a bid for student body president, to pursue a job opportunity.
Limbaugh, who claims he dropped out of second year at the University of Southeast Missouri to avoid taking a ballroom dancing class taught by a “lesbian drill sergeant,” said Walker should try to make a sarcastic point about feminism and rape.
“It seems like any man that goes to college could randomly be accused of committing rape,” Limbaugh said.
He suggested reporters don’t care whether rape claims are true or not before publishing articles.
“’Well, we may not have gotten it right, but we know it happens,’” Limbaugh imagined reporters saying. “So (Walker should say,) ‘I wanted to remove myself from this culture that might have turned me into this very mean guy,’ and just see what they say. Cram what they believe right down their throats.”
No. No. This isn’t it. It get’s worse. There’s more. The sole woman Senator in the South Carolina Senate evidently is the target of perpetual harassment by an asshole that thinks women belong barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen and isn’t afraid to say it over and over and over.
A discussion over a pending criminal domestic violence (CDV) bill took a bizarre turn this week when S.C. Senator Thomas Corbin – a “Republican” from Travelers Rest, S.C. – offered some bizarrely sexist commentary on the role of women in the political process.
Corbin’s comments – made at a legislative dinner held in downtown Columbia, S.C. – were reportedly directed at S.C. Senator Katrina Shealy, the only female member of the 46-person State Senate.
According to multiple witnesses who attended the dinner – held at Cowboy Brazilian Steakhouse on Main Street (a few blocks from the S.C. State House) -Senate judiciary committee members were discussing the CDV issue, which has been a source of several previous headaches for the GOP.
That’s when Corbin – no stranger to making bizarre statements – is said to have begun needling his lone female colleague regarding her gender.
“I see it only took me two years to get you wearing shoes,” Corbin told Shealy, who was elected in 2012 as a petition candidate.
Wait … what?
By way of explanation, lawmakers and legislative staffers have previously told FITS about statements made by Corbin – statements reflecting his belief that women do not belong in the S.C. General Assembly and should instead be “at home baking cookies” or “barefoot and pregnant.”
“He makes comments like that all the time to everybody – including Senator Shealy,” one Senate staffer told FITS.
Corbin’s latest comments took his sexism to a whole new level, though.
At one point in the conversation – which quickly escalated into a confrontation – Shealy is said to have angrily asked Corbin where he “got off” attacking women.
His response – overheard by numerous lobbyists and fellow lawmakers – was one for the ages.
“Well, you know God created man first,” Corbin said, reportedly smirking at Shealy. “Then he took the rib out of man to make woman. And you know, a rib is a lesser cut of meat.”
Then, there’s “Redneck News” that’s out there searching for evidence that Gay Marriage is ruining Alabama. Wait, didn’t that just happen last week?
Jeremy Todd Addaway, a self-styled reporter for “Redneck News,” tried and failed to find evidence that the legalization of same-sex marriage in Alabama had caused any damage to the state, Talking Points Memo reports.
“I read on the news today some information, that homosexuals will be getting married in Alabama today, so I wanted to give you a live report from Blount County,” he began.
Addaway then scoured his backyard for evidence of “homosexuals doin’ homosexual things” in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to allow state employees to officiate same-sex unions.
“This pile of brush is still here, and there are no homosexuals layin’ on top of it, doin’ homosexual things,” Addaway said.
“None in the shed either, but we need to check into this further,” he continued, delving ever deeper into his backyard.
“We’re back here by a pile of junk — and it’s still here — and there’s no homosexuals doin’ homosexual things here either, so it looks like we’re pretty safe here in Blount County, don’t think we’re gonna be subject to plagues of homosexuals fallin’ from the sky.”
“That’s the report here from Blount County,” he concluded. “Everything is pretty much still the same.”
Actually, just head to Right Wing Watch for a plethora of unbelievable right wing thoughts of the day. Headlines include Beck saying that anti-vaxxers are being prosecuted like Galileo. Then there’s John Haggee who argues that God’s going to destroy American because of the way the President is treating Netanyahu with an emphasis on yahoo! But, the prize for embarrasing the country abroad this week was taken from Bobby Jindal and given to Scott Walker. Two Koch Sucking Republican Governors who are afraid to say anything to piss over their whacky christianist base. He dodged a question on evolution which really really confused the Brits.
The latest to emerge scathed from a trip across the Atlantic Ocean is Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who capped an appearance at the prestigious Chatham House think tank on Wednesday by avoiding a question about whether he believes in the theory of evolution.
“I’m going to punt on that one, as well,” Walker said at the end of a Q&A during which he also declined to answer questions about foreign policy. “That’s a question a politician shouldn’t be involved in one way or the other. So I’m going to leave that up to you.”
Huhn? Why is a perfectly accepted and acceptable Scientific theory so controversial that it’s off limits to questions. I’m sure he’d gladly discuss how he wants to limit anything having to do with women’s private parts.
Supporters and other conservatives rallied to Walker’s defense, suggesting that the question itself was out of bounds — or at least another example of the mainstream media ganging up on Republican candidates.
But there’s a reason reporters are curious to learn what Walker thinks about evolution. Some 90 years after the Scopes Trial, the theory of evolution and its place in the schools remain matters of public debate. Two states, Louisiana and Tennessee, now allow public schools to teach “alternatives” to evolution. Several others allow public funding to support such teaching through charter schools or vouchers. At least for the sake of politics, the issue isn’t really whether “faith & science are compatible,” as Scott put it; Pope Francishas said he believes in evolution, for example. Rather, the issue is whether discussions of divine intervention belong in the classroom. That raises fundamental questions about the boundaries between religion and science that Walker, as a president appointing federal judges, would have to consider.
Basic respect for, and appreciation of, science is another issue. Put a bunch of evolutionary biologists in a room and you’ll get a lively debate over the precise origins of some species, such as the bat, and the extent to which “random processes,” rather than the familiar power of natural selection, shaped populations over time. What you won’t get is denial or skepticism of the insights we now associate with Darwin — the idea that the species on Earth emerged over a very long time, through a process of hereditary, generation-to-generation change. The science on this is just not up for reasonable debate. “You have to be blinkered or ignorant not to know that,” says Jerry Coyne, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Chicago and author of the bookWhy Evolution Is True.
Interrogating Democrats about whether they accept the expert consensus on evolution, or any other scientific issue, is absolutely fair game. But Republicans have given the press, and the public, more reason to ask questions. Walker’s silence turns out to be typical of the GOP presidential field, as Salon’s Luke Brinker noted this week. And Republicans have shown similar disregard for science on other issues — most critically, climate change. As with evolution, you can get a spirited, meaningful debate among the experts over precisely how quickly global warming will take place or exactly what consequences it will have. What you won’t find is a significant number of scientists questioning that the planet is warming because of human activity. And yetRepublicans routinely deny this, citing supposed uncertainty over the details as reason not to take action on reducing emissions or pursuing alternative energy more aggressively.
Republicans say the darndest things!
So, before I leave you with the impression that I can only find extremely stupid things from Republican men, let me reintroduce you to their latest Sarah Palin/Michelle Bachmann clone. Joni Ernst has all kinds of whack things to say. How about vaccines manipulate people’s brains to make them more liberal? Huhn?
Freshman United States Senator Joni Ernst (R-IA) came to the defense of Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) on Tuesday, saying vaccines should be investigated and possibly prohibited by law, because she believes they adversely affect the human brain and cause a person to lean toward progressivism and liberalism.
Ernst, who became the first woman to represent Iowa on the Federal level after narrowly winning in the 2014 midterms, gave an interview Tuesday morning to Mike Shell, a conservative radio pundit in Des Moines, in which she defended Senator Rand Paul, who recently made headlines after saying he believes vaccinations can cause mental disorders.
Shell, citing Ernst’s bachelor’s degree in psychology, asked his guest if she believed Rand Paul’s assessment of vaccinations were accurate. “I’m not a scientist. I’m not a practicing doctor. But I haven’t seen any evidence that shows vaccines make us healthier, and I haven’t seen proof that they don’t make us less healthier, less healthy, either,” Ernst replied. “All I can base my opinion on is my own observations, and in my view, Senator Paul is correct. Vaccines are dangerous. They manipulate brains. And I think Congress should investigate vaccines and outlaw them, because they definitely, you know, they make people vote a certain way, and that’s voter intimidation.”
Shell asked Ernst to clarify her statement, to which the Senator offered a lengthy reply. “When I was a kid, I didn’t have vaccinations. My parents couldn’t afford them. But one of my neighbors, his parents got him vaccinated. Now, we grew up in the same town, went to the same schools, attended the same church, we even served in the military together. We’re practically the same, right? But he’s a liberal democrat. He voted for Obama both times and he has a Hillary Clinton sticker on his pickup truck. He supports welfare and the gays. I’m not saying the vaccinations made him more liberal, but the vaccinations made him more liberal, do you get what I’m saying?”
The only thing that’s more whacked than that is there are obviously people that vote for them.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?