Garry Trudeau is (IMO) the finest political cartoonist of the 20th and 21st centuries. Here is today another fine example:
(The title line made me laugh out loud the first time I read it.)
The brain trust that is the Santorum campaign
Here is yet one more reason that anyone smarter than an overripe turnip should avoid voting for Rick Santorum.
No, I couldn’t find the Gospel of John in the Torah either.
What. A. Moron.
A savage look at Newtonian hypocrisy
I really shouldn’t quote Savage Love letters in their entireties, but this one‘s just too delicious to pass up.
Congrats, Dan. It looks like you’ve got your first high-profile “monogamish” public figure: Newt Gingrich. You must be so proud.
Dan Savage
For anyone who spent last week under a rock: Newt Gingrich, brave defender of traditional marriage, was still married to his second wife—and still fucking the consecrated host out of his “devout Catholic” mistress—when he asked his second wife to agree to an open marriage. Newt had been fucking Callista, his devoutly Catholic mistress, for six years when he made the big ask. Newt’s second wife wouldn’t agree to an open marriage, according to Newt’s second wife, which is how she became Newt’s second ex-wife and Newt’s mistress—the devoutly Catholic Callista—became Newt’s third wife.
That’s not monogamish, SCUM. That’s CPOSish. And lumping honest nonmonogamists—people who don’t lie or cheat—in with the likes of the Gingriches and Schwarzeneggers of the world, which whiny and insecure monogamists (who are not to be confused with reasonable and secure monogamists) are always doing, is simply unfair. Newt, like Arnold before him, didn’t succeed at nonmonogamy, he failed at monogamy.
Newton Gingrich
Zooming out for a moment: The Gingrich campaign has presented the holesome story of Newt and Callista’s courtship as a redemption narrative: Newt is a better man today thanks to Callista, he’s better suited to be president thanks to Callista, and he’s better prepared to defend traditional marriage thanks to Callista. She’s been described as a “devout Catholic” in every profile written about her—so devout that her love brought Newt to the one, holy, Catholic, apostolic, and ever-more-rabidly anti-gay church. So it seems to me that it’s fair to ask if Callista knew in advance that Newt was proposing an open marriage to his then-wife and approved of the arrangement. (It might be more accurate to say that Newt informed his second wife that she was already in an open marriage and asked if she wanted to remain in it.) Did Callista know about Newt’s open marriage proposal? Did Newt bounce the idea off his devoutly Catholic mistress first? Maybe right after he finished bouncing himself off his devoutly Catholic mistress?
Would the devout Catholic still be Newt’s mistress today if the second Mrs. Gingrich had agreed to remain in the marriage that Newt had already opened?
Callista Gingrich
This news alters the redemption narrative that the Gingrich camp set before the voters. So questioning Callista about the open marriage proposal—what did the mistress know and when did she know it?—seems like an entirely legit line of inquiry to me.
Callista Gingrich, like her vile husband, doesn’t believe that gays and lesbians should be equal under the law because, as a good Catholic, she believes that homosexuality is a sin and that homosexuals should remain celibate. Well, the Catholic Church considers adultery, divorce, and birth control sinful, too. Someone in the liberal media really ought to ask Callista to explain why her faith should place limits on my sexual expression but not her own. (emphasis mine)
And let’s not forget that Newton did the same damned thing to wife #1, except that he kinda left out the “can I cheat on you with your blessing?” part.
Out of this world
The family is watching Planet Earth DVDs for homeschooling purposes, and the beautifully panoramic photography reminded me of one of my old posts:
“You develop an instant global consciousness, a people orientation, an instant dissatisfaction with the state of the world, and a compulsion to do something about it. From out there on the moon, international politics seem so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck, drag him a quarter million miles out, and say, ‘Look at that, you son of a bitch!’”
–Edgar Mitchell, Apollo 14 astronaut
“You don’t have to outrun the lion. All you have to do is outrun your opponent.”
Click to enbiggen. Thank to Daily Kos for the tip.
Until progressives (particularly of the Occupy species) realize this, they might as well get up on big hamster wheels, and run and run and run without getting anywhere.
Get out the vote, folks. Examine the candidates, and if you don’t like what you see, run yourself.
“America has too many…Republican candidates!”
Garry Trudeau, who is looking at a half-century of political commentary straight in the face, still gets it right:
How the stupid burns!
Oklahoma state representative Ralph Shortey (a Republican, natch) wants to staunch his state’s rampant problems with cannibalism.
After performing some “research”, he has decided to introduce state senate bill 1418 to the Oklahoma state legislature in order to prevent anyone in the state from using aborted fetuses as a food ingredient.
This is not a story from the Onion. Really.
It has been suggested by NPR that Shortey got a little confused about Senomyx’s use of embryonic kidney cells in the 1970s, and how PepsiCo was involved in this process.
Or perhaps Shortey is just a dumbass.
What does that say?
Dick Santorum mentions gay sex (not gay marriage or gay “lifestyle”) in 43% of his public speeches. He repeatedly compares gay sex to bestiality and pedophilia, and tells rape victims to “make the best of a bad situation”. What does that say about him?
Willard Romney has greatly resisted any sort of transparency about his income tax records. At first he announces that he would not release any of them. Then he claims he’ll release 2011 tax returns in April. Now he says he’ll disclose 2009 and 2010 returns on Tuesday. What does that say about him?
Newton Gingrich remains an inconsistent force in the primaries. Last year he said (simultaneously) that America was in danger of being both an Islamic theocracy and an atheist nation. He cheated on two wives (and married his mistresses) while claiming that he was “driven” to adultery due to his passionate patriotism. What does that say about him?
Ron Paul maintains friendly relationships with and refuses to disavow support from white supremacist groups such as Stormfront. Likewise, Paul refuses to disavow the writings of Lew Rockwell that appear in Ron Paul’s newsletters (edited by Rockwell) that are filled with racism (“the coming race wars“), homophobia (“First, these men [gays] don’t really see a reason to live past their fifties“), and wild-eyed conspiracy theories (“Evidence indicated the Anti-Defamation League monitored such groups as the Davidians in Waco, and may have helped instigate the attack“). What does that say about him?
Does the Republican Party really think it can field a winning candidate in 2012?
What does that say about them?
“Be true to yourself, and you cannot be a traitor to any good cause on earth.”
Harriett got tired of standing by passively and watching the U.S. government give away peoples’ rights in pursuit of the illusion of safety. She watched the Patriot Act become law. She watched as habeas corpus was suspended indefinitely. She watched as the NDAA was passed, allowing possible incarceration of American citizens without benefit of counsel and to be held incommunicado for as long as the government wishes.
As a result, she helped some friends break into government computer networks in an attempt to find damning evidence that could be made public.
Soon afterward a SWAT team breaks into her apartment at 0300, takes her into custody, hoodwinks her, and transports her to an undisclosed location. There she is informed that, under the provisions of the NDAA, she is being held as “an enemy combatant”, and she will not be able to call upon the rights and privileges of a U.S. citizen. That is because, by Justice Department dictate, she is no longer a U.S. citizen.
Click to enbiggen, and see Representative Charles Dent's comments below
Couldn’t happen, you say? Not possible? Harriett performed no act heinous enough to invoke USC §1481, the provision that allows the government to strip her of her citizenship. Right?
Think again.
The Enemy Expatriation Act (H.R. 3166 and S. 1698) is a bill currently before Congress that makes one small change in USC §1481. 1481 defines what offenses could cause U.S. citizens to have their citizenship revoked. Those conditions include conviction for treason, joining the armed forces of a foreign country, or becoming a naturalized citizen of another country.
The change invoked by H.R. 3166 and S. 1698 involves one small addition to USC §1481 to those existing conditions. The addition, per the proposed bills, is simply:
(8) engaging in, or purposefully and materially supporting, hostilities against the United States
There is also an addition that defines”hostilities” as:
(c) For purposes of this section, the term ‘hostilities’ means any conflict subject to the laws of war
The “official” reason for this modification of existing U.S. legal code is cover the military’s ass in the case where an American citizen openly foments war against the United States; in such cases, U.S. citizenship can be revoked and the military can treat the subjects of that revocation as if they were enemy combatants — i.e., they can killed without the legal ramifications of ensuring the human rights guaranteed to U.S. citizens by the Constitution.
However, there is a darker side to this. Define “engaging in, or purposely and materially supporting, hostilities against the United States”. Is it firing a Stinger missile at a Army chopper? Is it exhorting militants to engage in jihad against the U.S.? Is it shutting down the Department of Justice computers, as was (allegedly) done recently by members of Anonymous?
Might it be tearing down the NYPD barracades blocking off Zuccotti Park?
Before you exclaim that Occupy activities could never be construed as “hostilities” against the United States, take a good look at the history of the Espionage Act of 1917 and ask the ghosts of E. E. Cummings, Eugene Debs, and the other 200 detainees about it.
See what Anonymous, a probable target of the EEA, has to say.
Here are the comments of Representative Charles Dent, H.R. 3166′s sponsor:
“It’s like we’re all amnesiacs.”
Chunks of the ABC interview with Newton Gingrich’s second wife Marianne are starting to ooze out into the public eye, including:
Marianne Gingrich, a self-described conservative Republican, said she is coming forward now so voters can know what she knows about Gingrich. In her most provocative comments, the ex-Mrs. Gingrich said Newt sought an “open marriage” arrangement so he could have a mistress and a wife. She said when Gingrich admitted to a six-year affair with a Congressional aide, he asked her if she would share him with the other woman, Callista, who is now married to Gingrich…. “He wanted an open marriage and I refused.”
She [Marianne] said Newt moved for the divorce just months after she had been diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis, with her then-husband present. “He also was advised by the doctor when I was sitting there that I was not to be under stress. He knew.”
Gingrich divorced his first wife, Jackie, as she was being treated for cancer. His relationship with Marianne began while he was still married to Jackie but in divorce proceedings, Marianne said.”
(Gingrich divorced his first wife while she was battling cancer.)
Dan Savage added a potent comment about Newton’s actions:
Technically you’re not asking your wife for an open marriage if you’ve already been fucking another woman for six years. You’re presenting your wife with an ultimatum. That doesn’t make you a proponent of open marriage, Newt, it makes you a CPOS.
Uh, folks?
If any of you were paying attention to the second Mrs. Gingrich in 2010 when she was interviewed by Esquire, you’d know all this already:
Early in May, she went out to Ohio for her mother’s birthday. A day and a half went by and Newt didn’t return her calls, which was strange. They always talked every day, often ten times a day, so she was frantic by the time he called to say he needed to talk to her.
“About what?”
He wanted to talk in person, he said.
“I said, ‘No, we need to talk now.’ ” He went quiet. “There’s somebody else, isn’t there?”
She kind of guessed it, of course. Women usually do. But did she know the woman was in her apartment, eating off her plates, sleeping in her bed?
She called a minister they both trusted. He came over to the house the next day and worked with them the whole weekend, but Gingrich just kept saying she was a Jaguar and all he wanted was a Chevrolet. ” ‘I can’t handle a Jaguar right now.’ He said that many times. ‘All I want is a Chevrolet.’ “
He asked her to just tolerate the affair, an offer she refused.
He’d just returned from Erie, Pennsylvania, where he’d given a speech full of high sentiments about compassion and family values.
How could anyone support a man who espouses one set of values and then shits on them in his private life? How could anyone support a man who is so erratic and secretive, and (ultimately) personally and politically unstable?
How?
“What do the simple folk do?”
“Smaller government and less spending!”
These words of Ron Paul echo through the airwaves and across the intertubz. However, it’s obvious that these words haven’t quite reached his travel agency.
Ron Paul has spent more than $52,000 on airline tickets (31 round trips and 12 one-ways) over the last two years, all of them in first-class seating. Traveling in coach would have cut that bill in half.
When asked about this, Paul staffers claim the Congressman must have flexible, changeable fares. However, most of those tickets were bought at least two weeks in advance and didn’t require schedule changes.
As Horseman #4 (one of my sons) commented, “Well, he certainly can’t be seen in coach with the poor people, can he?”
“We all live in the social web. Get used to it.”
From the excellent blog What Would Jack Do? — the top 101 things that conservatives who hate taxes should do:
- Do not use Medicare.
- Do not use Social Security
- Do not become a member of the US military, who are paid with tax dollars.
- Do not ask the National Guard to help you after a disaster.
- Do not call 911 when you get hurt.
- Do not call the police to stop intruders in your home.
- Do not summon the fire department to save your burning home.
- Do not drive on any paved road, highway, and interstate or drive on any bridge.
- Do not use public restrooms.
- Do not send your kids to public schools.
Go to the page to read the rest.
I’m very confused, but he’s not.
Kentucky Senator Rand Paul fashions himself as the libertarian standard bearer who will carry on his father’s political legacies after Ron Paul goes to that great Objectivist Utopia in the sky.
However, it seems that the libertarian rules of “less government, more personal freedom” have gone out the window. He’s now flip-flopping for government intervention at the womb level:
Senator Paul is now pushing for popular support for legislation that calls for a definition of “personhood” that goes all the way back to the moment of conception. This would satisfy both the anti-choice religious airheads who demand that the womb belongs to God and the anti-choice political airheads who demand that womb belongs to the State. It would mean hundreds of thousands of unwanted pregnancies, and hundreds of thousands of illegal abortions.
The law would thus prevent any sort of contraception that doesn’t prevent sperm from penetrating ova. That would outlaw everything except condoms and diaphragms/cervical caps — two contraceptive methods that are known for their relatively high levels of failure.
Of course Prince Paul the Younger has let the cat of the political bag early. He showing his true colors here; he no more wants less government and more personal freedom than his old man. They’re just another couple of right-wing Rethuglican morons who use the youth vote to grasp power.
Could someone *please* teach Dick Santorum how to speak English?
Dick Santorum recently made a curious statement:
At a campaign stop in Sioux City, Iowa on Sunday, Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum singled out blacks as being recipients of assistance through federal benefit programs, telling a mostly-white audience he doesn’t want to “make black people’s lives better by giving them somebody else’s money.”
Called out by the public for his singling of blacks and portrayal of them as welfare parasites, he claimed that he said “blah”, not “black”.
Now today he claimed that he stumbled over “people’s lives” and actually said “plives”, not black.
You came in fourth in New Hampshire, and you’ve done virtually no campaigning in South Carolina, the next primary state. How about you just fold up that sideshow tent of yours, Dick, and shuffle home?
Oh, and how about that curious story about how your wife (before she was your wife) shacked up with a doctor that performed abortions? Doesn’t that just put a kink in your tail?
Welcome, This Ruthless World
I’ve run across one of the most astute essays on American politics I’ve ever had the pleasure to read.
Amused’s This Ruthless World recently wrote an essay called 12 Things I Want Every Politically Opinionated Person To Take To Heart. If I may, I will quote a bit of it:
And the most penetrative, perceptive phrase:
Go enjoy her blog. It’s going on my blogroll.
- Good news for a change
- Politics
on 24 January 2012 at 10:41 Comments (4)Tags: Amused, political commentary, This Ruthless World