You won’t be smiling for long, ruling class son of a peeg dog!

While Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell was tied up over at the Capitol Building, where Republicans blocked a $60 billion infrastructure bill today that would have created thousands of jobs, approximately thirty out-of-work protesters staged a sit-in at McConnell’s Senate office.

The protesters, who were organized by a group called OurDC, took every chair and much of the floor-space of the GOP leader’s Russell Building office as McConnell’s aides went about their work. The group claimed no affiliation with Occupy Wall Street.

As of 3 p.m EST, the protesters are still there and said they wouldn’t leave before they got a face-to-face meeting to discuss jobs with the turkey-necked obstructionist Republican Senator from Kentucky.

Nicely done. Keep the heat on these Republican motherfuckers. It’s fantastic to watch these guys squirm. Why make it easy on them?
 

 
A spokesman for House Majority Leader Eric Cantor has announced that on Friday the VA Congressman will lay out Republican plans to help business owners and “how we make sure the people at the top stay there.” Odd choice of words considering the national mood, don’t you think? One can be forgiven for wondering if the Republican leadership has progressed from merely being politically “tone deaf” to a more willful and sinister “la la la la la, I can’t hear you, I’ve got my fingers in my ears” withdrawal from consensus reality.

Esquire contributor Charles Pierce is the author of Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free. He’s a man after my own heart. In a blog post at Esquire.com, Pierce gives Republican Congressional leader Eric Cantor of Virginia all the respect he deserves—each and every tiny little bit—and more:

To call Rep. Eric Cantor a stooge at this point is to insult all three Howard brothers, and the late Mr. Fine, as well.

Ever since the spittle-drenched results of the 2010 midterms swept him into being the Majority Leader of the House of Representatives, Cantor has demonstrated a remarkable ability to combine complete ignorance of practically every major issue with the unctuous personality of a third-string maitre d’ at a fourth-string steakhouse. A couple of weeks ago, confronting the various Scribes and Sadducees that make up the “Values” wing of his party, Cantor was calling the Occupy Wall Street protesters a “mob,” and warning the timorous and pharisaical suckers that the tumbrels would be arriving on their streets any day now. Lo and behold, the country seems now to disagree with him, and, on Fox News Sunday, Cantor announced his earthshaking discovery that the United States has a problem with income inequality, and that his Republican party is poised to do something about that. Of course, every single proposal to emerge from his caucus would work to use the tax code to cement that inequality from now until Eric Cantor VIII is flunking economics somewhere.

True, Cantor’s argument is that the Republican plan would allow all the poor people in America to rise to become the owners of their own hedge funds, and is utterly insincere, where it is not complete bullshit. But the fact that the words “income disparity” were spoken by a member of the congressional Republican leadership, in public and without his tongue turning to fire, is proof that the elite pundits are right. The OWS crowd never will affect the country’s politics until it develops a “coherent public message.” Pity.

Nicely, nicely!

The other day at the Farmer’s Market here in Los Angeles, an acquaintance of mine, a British ex-pat best described as a “salty old sea dog-type” but who is, in fact, a financially well-off Hollywood screenwriter with bad dental-work and a penchant for his apéritifs to be served before, during and after his meals, told me of his violent fantasy of kidnapping Eric Cantor, tying him face down naked and then shoving a loaded double-barreled shotgun up his ass (This tirade was prompted by the sight of Cantor on one of the news channels). This would all be streamed live on the Internet as Cantor would be forced to atone for his sins and confess to being a traitor to his countrymen for selling them out to the 1%.

“Don’t get me wrong,’ I told him. “I loathe Eric Cantor myself, he’s a fucking idiot and I absolutely hate him, but when you add in the element of sexual humiliation, it makes me kinda wonder about you and your dark, Deliverance fantasies…”

“Oh no, maybe I didn’t explain: This isn’t my fantasy or anything, this is from a new screenplay I’m working on. It’s like the Saw movies, you know, torture porn, except that the bad guy is going around seeking revenge on politicians who sold out the country and fucked everyone over. I thought the ultimate anti-hero for right now would be a guy who’s been ruined, he’s lost his business or or house or marriage, whatever, and now he’s a vigilante. I saw Cantor on TV calling the Occupy Wall Street protesters a “mob” and it struck me how cathartic it would be for the audience to see someone like him to be humiliated in a movie. People would love to see that happen onscreen! I’m not fantasizing about this, I’m writing it!”

The demented genius of this notion is both laugh-out-loud funny and “Why didn’t I think of that first?” depwessing isn’t it?

The reason why my screenwriter friend here is so successful, while I am not, struck me like Thor’s mallet…

“What happens to the character based on Eric Cantor?” I asked, by now morbidly curious.

“The bad guy pulls the trigger. The bullet goes in the Cantor character’s anus and comes out through his mouth. Millions of people see this live on the Internet. I’m hoping that bit gets done in 3-D!”

I made a mental note to quickly finish my for spec script for The Human Centipede III (with characters based on Congressman Paul Ryan, WI Gov. Scott Walker and Fox News personality Eric Bolling) as I stood up to bid him farewell.

“Well, it sure seems like you’ll have an easy time selling that idea. It’s certainly ‘of its time,’ your script. Good luck with it.”

“Are you kidding me?” he laughed. “I sold this puppy the next day!”

 
The results of the recall elections of the WI state reps might have been mixed, but that was then and this is now. Just a few months later, the political headwinds have shifted suddenly. I don’t think things look too promising for the continuing political career of Scott Walker. It’s time to make it hot for this bastard.

Via AlterNet:

Organizers in Wisconsin will have 60 days to collect 540,208 signatures as they announce plans to kick off an effort to recall Governor Scott Walker, the man whose extreme levels of union-busting intransigence led to hundres of thousands of protesters descending on the capital, in a standoff that riveted the nation and led to a resurgence of pro-labor activism. One group, United Wisconsin already has over 200,000 promised recall signatures through its organizing efforts.

On the Ed Show last night, Wisconsin Democratic Party Chairman Mike Tate explained why, after deliberation, the party along with groups of activists forged during the protests had decided to go forward with this action, feeling that they couldn’t wait any longer to try to recall Walker. Video of their conversation is embedded below.

If the drive is successful, elections could potentially be held in Spring 2012. Find out official information here. (It’s a testament to the popularity behind the recall that there are quite a few unofficial recall Walker sites flooding the web already!)

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

 
Republican House Majority Leader Eric Cantor puked up the following ruling class talking points about Occupy Wall Street onstage at the 2011 Voter Values Summit in Washington, DC, this morning:

“If you read the newspapers today, I for one am increasingly concerned about the growing mobs occupying Wall Street and the other cities across the country.”

“Believe it or not, some in this town have actually condoned the pitting of Americans against Americans.”

He really ought to be concerned, if you ask me…

Some see the 99%, while others see only “mobs.”

It’s almost funny. Almost.

The clip isn’t online anywhere, yet, but even hearing his voice saying this shit in my mind as I read it is painful enough. I’m not sure I want to actually hear it. As TPM points out:

Seeding concern about the relatively undefined protest movement spreading across the county is a growing movement among the right. Tea Party types are turning the past criticisms of their movement on Occupy Wall Street. Meanwhile Republican presidential candidates are casting it as some kind of revolt by the poor.

For their part, Democrats are not sure what to do.

Republicans seem to have found their footing on Occupy Wall Street however, and Cantor exemplified it well today.

The “Clue Train” could smack these guys in a head-on collision and they wouldn’t feel a thing, would they?

Update: Here’s the video, it’s special:
 

 
Via reddit politics

 
Increasingly irrelevant Republican presidential candidate/human punchline Michele Bachmann just can’t get a break. Nor does she deserve one. A trip to California over the weekend saw the bigoted Christianist Congresswoman from Minnesota’s 6th congressional district the target of a flash mob who danced to Madonna’s “Like a Prayer” to protest her (more or less) “pro-bullying” stance (it’s what Jesus would want) and anti-LGBT words, deeds and activities as a private citizen, as a state legislator, and as a member of the US Congress since 2007.

Even Jay Leno piled on when she appeared on the Tonight Show and good for him. This woman and her kind need to be rebuked in no uncertain terms by right-thinking people in this country.

Even in normally ultra-conservative Orange County, Bachmann got the business. I guess the new OC is quite a bit different that the old OC. From The Minnesota Independent:

At a campaign rally in Costa Mesa, Bachmann was asked by a rally-attendee what she plans to do about bullying in her district. The Anoka-Hennepin School District is largely within the district represented by Bachmann and has seen many high-profile events surrounding the bullying of LGBT students. Six of those students are suing the district.

“That’s not a federal issue,” she said, dodging the question.

Nice try! It’s an AMERICAN and HUMAN ISSUE, Bachmann, and your public words and deeds are coming back to haunt you and will continue to haunt you every time you step out of your comfort zone. Few people in this nation, in your state or in your own DISTRICT have PERSONALLY done more to make the lives of LGBT teens worse than YOU have.

It’s your “accomplishment,” lady… Own it.

Two days earlier, Tammy Aaberg, a mother in the district who lost her son to suicide in 2010, presented Bachmann’s district office with a petition signed by more than 100,000 people asking her to take a stand on bullying in schools. Her office said Bachmann might eventually respond to the petition.

Might respond? Might? (And there were 145,000 signatures, btw, I think that many people deserve a response, don’t you?)

Michele Bachmann deserves no respect, she doesn’t even deserve politeness. She deserves ridicule. And worse.

Bachmann calls herself a Christian. If there is a God—I’ll up the ante here, make this a CHRISTIAN version of God—which of these two mothers would that God smile upon? Tammy Aaberg. the woman whose son killed himself—because of a climate of “Christian” intolerance in the local school district that was brewed up by the likes of Bachmann and her cronies like the Minnesota Family Council and dogshit dumb “preacher” of idiocy Bradlee Dean—who decided to STICK UP for other vulnerable children or one of the prime reasons for this climate of hate existing in the district, Congresswoman Michele Bachmann?

Why does Michele Bachmann believe that she and Jesus are playing on the same team? It boggles the mind…

Primer: Deep roots of Anoka-Hennepin’s discrimination controversy (Minnesota Independent)
 

 
I thought this was pretty powerful. If you agree, consider passing it on via Facebook, Google + and Twitter…
 

Via MoveOn

 
Buzzfeed cut the debate down to its essentials.
 

 
Last night on the GOP Tea party debate on CNN, the assembled crowd of mouth-breathing, knuckle-dragging Neanderthals fucking assholes dumb old white people cheered like braying assholes asses at the notion that someone uninsured should be left to die.

Alan Grayson was right about Republican’s ideas for healthcare reform…

Here’s just one idiotic comment left on YouTube by a moron using the handle “nicpag9”:

Whoever posted this video needs to off themselves. People like you are what is wrong with this country and the reason it’s in the shape it is in now. No doubt you’ll be voting for Obama again. Too bad we can’t divide the country up into the idiot section run by Communists such as your self and the rest that just want to be left the hell alone for everyone with a damn brain. I’m sure the founding fathers would have no problem with that whatsoever.

No, my fren’ this country is in the state it is because of people like you… too damned dumb to understand the world around them.
 

 
Another camera angle on the “action” at GOP Rep. Paul Ryan’s $15-a-head Rotary Club luncheon on Tuesday. Cringe in horror as Tom Nielsen, a 71-year-old retired plumber from Kenosha, Wisconsin gets thrown to the ground and handcuffed for “trespassing” (like everyone else there, Nielsen paid a $15 fee for the luncheon) because he objected to Ryan’s plans to destroy Social Security and Medicare. He was also detained for resisting arrest.

This video has something the other ones I’ve seen do not, when smug, rat-faced Republican class warrior Ryan has the poor taste to make a joke at Mr. Neilsen’s expense…
 

 
Via Joe.My.God

 
I’ve been harping on this point for some time here on this blog, but what’s been long predicted about the demographic shift that would ultimately doom the Republican Party as the percentage of Latino-American voters rises, is already pretty much a done deal here in California. The Republican challenger to Obama will hardly campaign here, mark my words, it’s simply a waste of time and money. Even with as weak of a Democratic ticket topper as Obama, the GOP nominee would be waging a Quixotic battle in the most populous state.

Republican meanies, this is your future. From the Sacramento Bee:

A new analysis by the Field Poll shows that even as California’s total voter registration grew by more than 2 million voters over the past 20 years, Republican registration declined by 285,944 voters, to 5.3 million.

The party’s share of statewide registration declined eight percentage points, to 31 percent.

Meanwhile, the proportion of registered voters who are Latino grew by about 2.3 million, from 10 percent of the state’s registered voters in 1992 to 22 percent today, according to the poll. In the 2008 presidential election, those Latinos provided Democrats an advantage of more than nine percentage points.

“No one’s talking about the sleeping giant anymore,” said Jaime Regalado, executive director of the Pat Brown Institute of Public Affairs at California State University, Los Angeles. “The giant is here now, and Republicans aren’t recruiting it.”

California gains two million new voters over the past two decades, but the Republican Party loses over 250,000 registered voters? How I love California!

Still more bad news for the GOP:

The proportion of Republicans who are 50 or older has increased from 40 percent in 1992 to 54 percent today, according to the Field Poll.

The proportion of Republicans younger than 40 has dropped to 25 percent from 41 percent in 1992.

That’s right, they are quite literally dying off…

Not trying to be morbid, but this fact cannot be denied or refuted. The demographic shift in the Golden State is a taste of things to come for the Republican Party: permanent minority party status. How can they possibly fight the demographic changes of the next two decades?

Answer: They can’t.

 
Attention (formerly) middle-class jobless people in Wisconsin, don’t you go gettin’ sassy with Republican corporate stooge enemy of the people Representative Paul Ryan because… he’ll have your ass arrested... Via Politics USA:

Paul Ryan held his PPV town hall event at Klemmer’s Banquet Hall in Milwaukee. When some protesters who had paid their $15 stood up and asked him questions about jobs and the Bush tax cuts, Ryan not only had them kicked out. He also had three of them arrested.

The protesters got involved when Rep. Ryan tried to claim that our job crisis is directly related to our debt crisis. One person stood up and asked, “Our debt is out of control because of the tax cuts you’re giving…Our unemployment in 2003 was 6.2% before the tax cuts went through. Now our unemployment rate is 9.1%. What are you doing to create jobs, Congressman?”

This lady was shown the door. She was soon followed by another gentleman. Another woman stood up while Ryan was speaking and said, “You won’t talk to us. How can we give our opinions when you refuse to talk to us?” I think you can probably guess what happened to her. When someone stood up in the back and asked, “Where are the jobs, Ryan?” He mentioned corporations, and was escorted out.

How very Republican of him, eh? What a vicious, arrogant fuck Paul Ryan is. Don’t forget these voters also paid $15 for the privilege.

As I have written here in the past about Paul Ryan: “For the record, I’m not a big fan of violence, but it does have its place, historically, in the class war that’s raged since human society began. Admittedly, the image of, say, Rep. Paul Ryan, being forced to fellate a Colt .45 in front of news cameras and having to beg for his life by a once-proud middle-class father reduced to moving his family into a car is something I’d really enjoy seeing. (I think whoever did that would go down in history as a folk hero and at least THEY FEED YOU IN JAIL)”

Ryan might have thought he was being “clever” with this exercise, but there is little doubt that this video will hurt him politically every single time someone watches it. It already has.

How is this asshole a “public servant”? This man is a vicious Republican Ayn Rand-loving shit. He should NOT be in a position of power after displaying such cold-blooded, repulsive, arrogance like this to his constituents. Like they’re “the little people.” You can only imagine what he’d really like to do to them. Yuck. What an ugly human being. Please FB share this and Tweet far and wide.

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
The GOP’s ‘useless eaters’ solution: No more food for you, poor people!
 

 
Michael Lofgren is a Republican staffer, who was, until recently, serving the Senate Finance Committee. Lofgren has worked on Capitol Hill for nearly three decades. He explains why he left his job in a recent column for TruthOut. The Republican “11th Commandment”—Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican—is repeatedly violated in this barn-burner.

Some choice excerpts here, but the whole thing is a must read. His main target is the Republican Party, of course, but the Democrats are not spared, either:

But both parties are not rotten in quite the same way. The Democrats have their share of machine politicians, careerists, corporate bagmen, egomaniacs and kooks. Nothing, however, quite matches the modern GOP.

To those millions of Americans who have finally begun paying attention to politics and watched with exasperation the tragicomedy of the debt ceiling extension, it may have come as a shock that the Republican Party is so full of lunatics. To be sure, the party, like any political party on earth, has always had its share of crackpots, like Robert K. Dornan or William E. Dannemeyer. But the crackpot outliers of two decades ago have become the vital center today: Steve King, Michele Bachmann (now a leading presidential candidate as well), Paul Broun, Patrick McHenry, Virginia Foxx, Louie Gohmert, Allen West. The Congressional directory now reads like a casebook of lunacy.

On burning his GOP bridges:

I left because I was appalled at the headlong rush of Republicans, like Gadarene swine, to embrace policies that are deeply damaging to this country’s future; and contemptuous of the feckless, craven incompetence of Democrats in their half-hearted attempts to stop them. And, in truth, I left as an act of rational self-interest. Having gutted private-sector pensions and health benefits as a result of their embrace of outsourcing, union busting and “shareholder value,” the GOP now thinks it is only fair that public-sector workers give up their pensions and benefits, too. Hence the intensification of the GOP’s decades-long campaign of scorn against government workers. Under the circumstances, it is simply safer to be a current retiree rather than a prospective one.

If you think Paul Ryan and his Ayn Rand-worshipping colleagues aren’t after your Social Security and Medicare, I am here to disabuse you of your naiveté. They will move heaven and earth to force through tax cuts that will so starve the government of revenue that they will be “forced” to make “hard choices” - and that doesn’t mean repealing those very same tax cuts, it means cutting the benefits for which you worked.

On the debt ceiling nonsense:

Everyone knows that in a hostage situation, the reckless and amoral actor has the negotiating upper hand over the cautious and responsible actor because the latter is actually concerned about the life of the hostage, while the former does not care. This fact, which ought to be obvious, has nevertheless caused confusion among the professional pundit class, which is mostly still stuck in the Bob Dole era in terms of its orientation. For instance, Ezra Klein wrote of his puzzlement over the fact that while House Republicans essentially won the debt ceiling fight, enough of them were sufficiently dissatisfied that they might still scuttle the deal. Of course they might - the attitude of many freshman Republicans to national default was “bring it on!”

It should have been evident to clear-eyed observers that the Republican Party is becoming less and less like a traditional political party in a representative democracy and becoming more like an apocalyptic cult, or one of the intensely ideological authoritarian parties of 20th century Europe. This trend has several implications, none of them pleasant.

On “Real Americans”:

You can probably guess who those people are. Above all, anyone not likely to vote Republican. As Sarah Palin would imply, the people who are not Real Americans. Racial minorities. Immigrants. Muslims. Gays. Intellectuals. Basically, anyone who doesn’t look, think, or talk like the GOP base. This must account, at least to some degree, for their extraordinarily vitriolic hatred of President Obama. I have joked in the past that the main administration policy that Republicans object to is Obama’s policy of being black. Among the GOP base, there is constant harping about somebody else, some “other,” who is deliberately, assiduously and with malice aforethought subverting the Good, the True and the Beautiful: Subversives. Commies. Socialists. Ragheads. Secular humanists. Blacks. Fags. Feminazis. The list may change with the political needs of the moment, but they always seem to need a scapegoat to hate and fear.

On the wimpy idiocy of the Democrats, their rhetorical incompetence and their amateurish PR:

How do they manage to do this? Because Democrats ceded the field. Above all, they do not understand language. Their initiatives are posed in impenetrable policy-speak: the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The what? - can anyone even remember it? No wonder the pejorative “Obamacare” won out. Contrast that with the Republicans’ Patriot Act. You’re a patriot, aren’t you? Does anyone at the GED level have a clue what a Stimulus Bill is supposed to be? Why didn’t the White House call it the Jobs Bill and keep pounding on that theme?

You know that Social Security and Medicare are in jeopardy when even Democrats refer to them as entitlements. “Entitlement” has a negative sound in colloquial English: somebody who is “entitled” selfishly claims something he doesn’t really deserve. Why not call them “earned benefits,” which is what they are because we all contribute payroll taxes to fund them? That would never occur to the Democrats. Republicans don’t make that mistake; they are relentlessly on message: it is never the “estate tax,” it is the “death tax.”

On this point, I could not agree more. I do not understand why Democrats can’t master simple messaging. It always has to be nuanced, complicated, and wonky. Things I might understand but would have to boil down into far simpler terms for the average voter. It boggles my mind that Democrats (and this includes the President) cannot get a simple, easy message out there and hammer it home. Republicans seem to have mastered that.

And then there is this amazing excerpt describing the far reichwing of the GOP taken from a letter President Dwight D. Eisenhower wrote to his brother Edgar in 1954. How times have changed.

“Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are H. L. Hunt (you possibly know his background), a few other Texas oil millionaires and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid.”

Their numbers are no longer negligible, but they’re certainly still stupid… At least one of their ranks wised up.

Read more:
Goodbye to All That: Reflections of a GOP Operative Who Left the Cult (TruthOut)
 

 

 
Pima County, AZ Republican Chairman Pro Tem,  Mike Shaw, is the asshole who made the tacky decision to raffle off a Glock handgun for a local GOP fundraiser. Of course, Jared Loughner used a Glock during the tragic shooting spree there in January that killed six people and injured 13 others, including Democratic Representative Gabrielle Giffords. Was there NOTHING ELSE they could have raffled off in Gifford’s own district? A TV? A microwave oven? A box set of Newt and Callista Gingrich DVDs? NOTHING???

Even with this unusually harsh level of invective for television(!), Olbermann’s pretty much right on the money, here. I especially like the part about how the morally repugnant Pima County GOP should secede from the rest of us. They really should! Via Raw Story:

Shaw had defended the raffle Thursday by insisting Jared Loughner was responsible for shooting Giffords and killing six others, not the Glock.

“I could tell Mr. Shaw and the Pima County Republicans that they have ceased to be humans, that the rest of us think it would be a really good idea if they seceded from the country,” Olbermann explained.

Instead, he read a comment from James Kelley.

“It doesn’t mean the Republican party doesn’t have an incredible record of supporting the Second Amendment, but at this point it’s ill-advised and I won’t stand with them on this,” Kelley told the Arizona Daily Star Thursday.

“Mr. Kelley, critical of this crass, heartless, neanderthal gesture from the Pima County Republican Party is the Arizona Legislative District 29 Republican chairman,” Olbermann explained. “Bravo to him and not to this human-shaped pile of feces, Mike Shaw, and his Pima County Republican Party.”

If you want a gander at Shaw trying to defend himself on CNN, click over to Raw Story for the video. What a fucking idiot.
 

 
In a Q and A in the Washington Post’s “On Faith” column, famed evolutionary biologist and outspoken smart person, Dr. Richard Dawkins ridiculed Texas governor and GOP theocrat Richard Perry in a manner both highbrow and low-ball simultaneously. I found it most satisfying:

There is nothing unusual about Governor Rick Perry. Uneducated fools can be found in every country and every period of history, and they are not unknown in high office. What is unusual about today’s Republican party (I disavow the ridiculous ‘GOP’ nickname, because the party of Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt has lately forfeited all claim to be considered ‘grand’) is this: In any other party and in any other country, an individual may occasionally rise to the top in spite of being an uneducated ignoramus. In today’s Republican Party ‘in spite of’ is not the phrase we need. Ignorance and lack of education are positive qualifications, bordering on obligatory. Intellect, knowledge and linguistic mastery are mistrusted by Republican voters, who, when choosing a president, would apparently prefer someone like themselves over someone actually qualified for the job.

***

A politician’s attitude to evolution is perhaps not directly important in itself. It can have unfortunate consequences on education and science policy but, compared to Perry’s and the Tea Party’s pronouncements on other topics such as economics, taxation, history and sexual politics, their ignorance of evolutionary science might be overlooked. Except that a politician’s attitude to evolution, however peripheral it might seem, is a surprisingly apposite litmus test of more general inadequacy. This is because unlike, say, string theory where scientific opinion is genuinely divided, there is about the fact of evolution no doubt at all. Evolution is a fact, as securely established as any in science, and he who denies it betrays woeful ignorance and lack of education, which likely extends to other fields as well. Evolution is not some recondite backwater of science, ignorance of which would be pardonable. It is the stunningly simple but elegant explanation of our very existence and the existence of every living creature on the planet. Thanks to Darwin, we now understand why we are here and why we are the way we are. You cannot be ignorant of evolution and be a cultivated and adequate citizen of today.

Nope, but you might become the Republican nominee for President of the United States. Funny how it works that way…