Tag Archives: Rick Santorum

Karen Santorum: no longer a mystery

I’ve been curious about Karen Santorum as an entity in the 2012 Republican Party presidential nomination process.

Most potential First Ladies are first and foremost political non-entities. They generally strive to present a pleasantly female harmony to their husbands’ melody.

Not Karen Garver Santorum.

First of all, she looks like hell. She makes appearances with her hair looking like it hasn’t been washed in weeks. She dresses very drably, and makes statements that exactly parallel those of her spouse Frothy Mix Santorum. (She has asked the Holy Spirit to speak through her husband.)

She and Frothy claim to be devout Catholics, and as such they condemn abortion (for any reason) and sex outside marital procreation.

However, in the 1980s Karen Garver lived with her boyfriend for six years.

The man she lived with was a doctor who ran a medical practice that included abortion procedures.

But wait! The creepiest part of this little exercise in hypocrisy? Dr. Tom Allen, Garver’s paramour, was the obstetrician that attended her mother when Karen Garver was born.

But wait! Now we have the full picture here. Media clown Glenn Beck recently interviewed the Santorums, and here’s where it gets truly despicable:

K. Santorum: What did it for me, though, was Obamacare; Because we have, as you know, a little precious, a little angel, little Bella, a special needs little girl, and when Obamacare passed, that was it, that put the fire in my belly.

Beck: How much of a danger are the most vulnerable in our society if Obamacare actually kicks in and the whole bell curve…

R. Santorum: It’s all about utilization, right? It’s all about how do we best allocate resources where they are most effectively used?…Government allocating resources best on how to get the best bang for your dollars and it’s all about utility. It’s all about the usefulness of the person to society, instead of the dignity of every human life and the opportunity for people who love and care for people to give them the best possibility to have the best possible life.

The Santorums break not a single blush at the attempt to use their daughter Bella (born with Trisomy 18) in an effort to vilify universal health care. They do this in the face of the undeniable fact that if the Santorums had been a couple struggling financially with no job-related health benefits, or if either had been a single parent faced with an insurance company that refused to cover “pre-existing conditions” like Trisomy 18, that little Bella would likely not have survived birth.

Yet here they are deriding the Affordable Health Care Act from their teeny tiny pedestals of privilege. And using a sick child (hear this, Sarah Palin?) to parade their anti-woman, anti-life beliefs in public is loathsome.

You still want to vote for Rick “Frothy Mix” Santorum?

About these ads

“It’s all about the money”

The Family Leader, known for its infamous Marriage Vow (signed by several Republican presidential candidates), has been caught red-handed. Again.

Bob Vander Plaats -- not exactly your political mastermind

Bob Vander Plaats, the FL’s leader, apparently asked Frothy Mix’s campaign for upwards of $1 million in return for an official endorsement for Rick Santorum. Campaign staffers claim that Vander Plaats wants the money for additional advertising.

Right. I bet he’d love a cabinet post while they’re at it.

It no longer seems a coincidence that Vander Plaats suggested earlier this month to Crazy Eyes Bachmann that she drop out of the race. It sounds now as if Bachmann’s campaign wouldn’t (or couldn’t) afford the FL’s price tag.

And now it’s been revealed that Vander Plaats pulled the same trick with the Romney campaign in 2008. Romney refused, and the FL’s endorsement went to Mike Huckabee.

If you can’t win the race, buy it, I always say.

Mr. Clueless, part 1

From a speech from Frothy Mix Santorum on 5 August:

“I had a woman the other day who came up and complained to me that she has to pay $200 a month for her prescriptions…I said, in other words, this $200 a month keeps you alive, she goes yes. I said, and you’re complaining that you’re paying $200 a month and it keeps you alive? What’s your cable bill? I mean, what’s your cell phone bill? Because she had a cell phone. And how can you say that you complain that you have $200 to keep you alive and that’s a problem? No, that’s a blessing!”

Thanks for your idea, Dick. I’ll just get rid of my cell phone messaging service so I can pay for Mom’s chemotherapy.

Pretentious prick.

Today in political religiosity

Today’s pastiche of political and religious wingnuttery:

  • Rick “Good Hair” Perry’s “The Response” slime prayer gathering in Houston is coordinated by among others Alice Patterson, who wrote a book claiming that the Democratic Party is controlled by demons. Really.

(Speaking of “The Response”, look to have Good Hair announce his candidacy for presidency at the climax of the event. Big whoopy-do news.)

  • The Unholy Trinity (Crazy Eyes Bachmann, Frothy Mix Santorum, and Romney) have signed NOM’s version of the Iowa Marriage Vow that supports a call for a presidential committee to investigate those who allegedly “harass traditional marriage supporters”, and for a consitutional amendment defining marriage as one man/one woman.
  • Mitt Romney hired Robert Bork as a legal adviser.
  • Frothy Mix claims that early education programs such as Headstart “indoctrinate children as to how they want them to be“. The “they” he refers to remains strangely anonymous.

Is he joking? Dick Santorum better not find out the hard way.

Funny or Die has a new exclusive video starring…

Well, see for yourself:

Is Dan S. kidding? Probably.

But does 2012 GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum really want to find out?

“We can make any fact fit our conclusions if we just shove it in hard enough”

There has been a burning question on the minds of many Republicans this year:

What is more important? Solving the financial crises facing the nation (and thus getting back to a healthy economy)? or making Barack Obama “a one-term president”? or inflicting a fascist theocratic system upon the American people?

Let’s check in with Michele “Crazy Eyes” Bachmann:

Soooo…high unemployment would help her win. Sounds a concerned, caring candidate. Not.

How about Rick “Good Hair” Perry?

No, sorry. He was so busy pushing “emergency” legislation through the Texas legislature to heap psychological torture onto women who are seeking a legal abortion, he couldn’t find time to deal with his state’s $27 billion budget deficit.

Tim “Dull as Dishwater” Pawlenty?

(See? The man’s so dull that a threat to sunset all federal regulations is the worse thing I find. I won’t even mention the stupifyingly ignorant comments he made about homosexuality the other day.)

Herman “I am a real black man” Cain?

Gotta keep them dirty Muslims outta our guvimen and oah courts. Nevah min’ what the law says! It’s what ah feel.

I expect that this pack of mental derby losers will self-destruct, and that Mitt Romney will take the nomination.

Mitt “I’m so rich I gave myself $42 million to run last time!” Romney:

Then again, maybe not. Unemployed, Mitt? With only $250 million in the bank?

Dumbasses all.

The latest moral outrage, part 2

(see part 1 to find out what the hell kind of outrage I’m outraged about this time) :o

The Marriage Vow then goes on to a 14-point pledge that The Family Leader is asking presidential candidates to sign.

~~~

The points!

  • Personal fidelity to my spouse (That leaves serial adulterer Newt Gingrich out in the cold. And if everyone consents to an arrangement, who the hell’s business is it of anyone else??)
  • Official fidelity to the U.S. Constitution, supporting the elevation of none but faithful constitutionalists as judges or justices. (Yeah, let’s get rid of Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and any other form of socialized services. Be careful what you wish for, dimbulbs–you might get it.)
  • Vigorous opposition to any redefinition of the Institution of Marriage – faithful monogamy between one man and one woman – through statutory-, bureaucratic-, or court-imposed recognition of intimate unions which are bigamous, polygamous, polyandrous, same-sex, etc. (Which Institution, bunky? 20th century? 16th century arranged marriage? 5th century BCE Sparta? Please note how the idea of same-sex marriage has been lumped in with forms of marriage no one is asking for? Switch-and-bait, baby, switch-and-bait.)
  • Earnest, bona fide legal advocacy for the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) at the federal and state levels. (Wait. You just said you wanted strict constitutionalists on the bench, right? Section 3 of DOMA has been declared unconstitutional. You can’t have it both ways.)
  • Steadfast embrace of a federal Marriage Amendment to the U.S. Constitution which protects the definition of marriage as between one man and one woman in all of the United States. (Whoa! The Constitution calls for due process in all legal matters. Excluding gays denies them the right to marriage without invoking due process. Again, you can’t have it both ways, dumbass.)
  • Commitment to downsizing government and the enormous burden upon American families of the US’s $14.3 trillion public debt, its $77 trillion in unfunded liabilities, its $1.5 trillion federal deficit, and its $3.5 trillion federal budget. (Not sure what any of that has to do with marriage, but how about the marriage of major corporations to those juicy, hot tax loopholes which allow major corporation to not only pay NO taxes, but to actually get a tax credit with the federal government? Hmmm?)

Note that many of these points are footnoted (oh, how scholarly!) with citations that supposedly support the points brought up. However, take a look at some of the sources cited–the Bible, the Institute for American Values (cited several times), the Heritage Foundation, and the dissenting opinion of a U.S. Supreme Court justice. This rogue’s gallery offers fine examples of what happens when you begin with your conclusion and manufacture “facts” to fit that conclusion.

Bob Vander Plaats, the "genius" behind The Marriage Vow. Bad combover, dude.

By the way, The Family Leader is now backing off the call for banning all pornography, as described here:

Humane protection of women and the innocent fruit of conjugal intimacy — our next generation of American children — from human trafficking, sexual slavery, seduction into promiscuity, and all forms of pornography and prostitution, infanticide, abortion and other types of coercion or stolen innocence. (emphasis mine)

Also, please note the anti-choice screed here. Women are not supposed to coerced into doing things they don’t want to do, but they are to be denied the (constitutional) right to rid themselves of a pregnancy they don’t want?

It looks to me like this document considers women to be children (“stolen innocence”?) who don’t know what they want or need, and depend upon big, strong men to tell them what to do.

Boy, are they confused.

~~~

My favorite part

Just above the portion of the Vow that politicos are supposed to sign is the escape clause:

Each signatory signs only in his or her individual capacity as an American citizen and current or potential leader; affiliations herein are for identification purposes only and do not necessarily imply formal embrace of this vow or the sentiments herein by any institution or organization.

Escape clause! “Did I sign that??! I didn’t mean to sign that! My political party doesn’t necessary endorse all of these points! I’m not sure I endorse all of these points! In fact I’m pretty sure I hear my mother calling me, so I have to go now!” You can already hear the scuttling sound of rats abandoning this ship when it sinks.

Rick Santorum and Michele Bachmann, in pitiful attempts to suck up to these right-wing morons, have both signed The Marriage Vow. Well, at least we will know who the real wackadoodles are.

~~~

What a moral shambles. Confused and contradictory, this document is a straw house constructed from religious dogma, with patriarchal bullshit and predetermined conclusions filling in the holes and unsteadily trying to hold the entire thing together.

If anyone would like to state their opinions (firmly but nicely, please), contact the fundie wackaloons themselves.

Bob Vander Plaats

c/o The FAMiLY LEADER
1100 N. Hickory Blvd., Suite 107, Pleasant Hill, IA 50327
TheFamilyLeader.com · 877-866-4372

Your evening smorsgasbord of wackaloon politics

Herman Cain is channeling Joe McCarthy.

Rick “Frothy Mix” Santorum wants all women whose pregnancies threaten their health to shut up.

Frothy Mix also wants to invalidate legal marriages.

Herman Cain won’t sign anything he can’t read (which means “more than three pages”).

Rand Paul thinks Iran needs more American professors to use as human shields.

Michele Bachmann is…well, you name it, she’s believed in it/fought it/prayed over it.

 

The irony-o-meter just pegged and melted

Rick “Frothy Mix” Santorum is now using a campaign motto that goes, “Fighting to make America America again“.

Any of you 20th-century American literature nerds recognize the turn of phrase? (I didn’t until I was reminded of it.) The piece in question starts (emphasis mine):

O, let America be America again–
The land that never has been yet–

For those that responded, “Hey! That’s Langston Hughes‘ ‘Let America be America again‘!”, you’d be right.

The irony is that Hughes was a staunch supporter of labor unions and gay rights; Santorum is neither.

I wonder how the former senator is going to reconcile inspiration derived from an ardent supporter of gay rights (read Hughes’ “Cafe: 3am”, “Waterfront Streets”, and “Joy”) when Santorum has previously compared homosexual acts with bestiality.

(Thanks to Think Progress for the tip.)

Long on self-righteous sanctimony–short on logic and rationality

Former Pennsylvania senator and 2012 presidential whoremonger wannabe Rick “Frothy Mix” Santorum has a problem with logic.

Note the following fallacious syllogism, Santorum-style:

“The Social Security system, in my opinion, is a flawed design, period. But having said that, the design would work a lot better if we had stable demographic trends…we don’t have enough workers to support the retirees. Well, a third of all the young people in America are not in America today because of abortion.

“The second aspect, which is even more important, is the abortion culture in this country…these demographic trends are causing Social Security and Medicare to be underfunded.”

I’m not sure what he means by “stable demographic trends” (and I doubt he does either).

However, The birth rate in America is currently 13.83 per 1000 population; that’s down from a high of over 25% in the early 1950s (baby boomer time). That’s a 50% decline. Decline. As in “dropping in rate”, or “becoming smaller.”

As is usual in Big Government Land, no one wants to pay attention to facts: when you take in less than you’re spending, you’re going to go broke. Social Security coffer levels are being eroded away by inflation, increased benefit payouts, and fewer people working to put money into Social Security. Also, the surge of boomers who have been working since the ’60s are retiring.

More out, less in. Simple math.

The only relevance to abortion is solely contained within the scheming, grasping, covetous mind of Richard “don’t ever piss off Dan Savage again” Santorum.

(As a side note of curiosity, Mr. Santorum, how does it feel to be David Koch’s meat puppet? The personal lubricant tab alone must be substantial.)

“Burn her! Burn her! She’s a witch!”

How can you tell the difference between Sharia law and the scenario illustrated by former Congresscritter Rick Santorum:

“Jesus said ‘render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and unto God what is God’s’ and that huge piece of wisdom has really set the course for western civilization where you have civil laws and have civil penalties – we exact justice in a civil fashion – and then we have higher laws, we have God’s law. Now our civil laws are supposed to comport with God’s laws but sometimes they don’t, and so it is always the obligation of those, for example, the issue of abortion – the civil law does not comport with God’s law, in my opinion and I think the opinion of many people in this country and it is our obligation to continue to try and change that law. We have to live under the civil law, we have to obey that law because it is the civil law but we need to continue to try to change it to make sure that these laws, the laws our country, comport.” [emphasis mine]

Oh, and Mr. Santorum? Which people, you “think”? And which of God’s laws shall we follow? Old Testament Levitican rules, such as stoning adulterers and masturbators? New Testament law?

And why should we use religious guidelines to frame secular law at all? Morally proper law must follow the secular tenets of justice and equality, not the religious regulations that favor believers (and the scriptural absurdities that result from translations of translations) over non-believers.

Separation of church and state was put into the U.S. Constitution for excellent reasons.